Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1890-06-12
INDIAN MODES OF BURIAL.
Aboriginal Mortuary Remains Found
I'm Maryland and Virginia.

DIR. Elmer r. Reynolds lectured Mt the Cath
Ole University yesterday afternoon on 9TH
Aboriginal Mortuary Remains of Maryland and
Virginia" He began by saying that the
methods of burial in the region in question, as
well as in other parts of she country, were
quite diversified, but a careful study of the
subject leads to the conclusion that inhuma-
ton was the general practice all over the con-
tinent, and wherever we find a departure from
this rule it was due to special and local circum-
stances, such as extreme urgency, extraordi-
nary natural facilities for SOM easier DISPOSE
ton of the dead. or the total absence of all
ordinary means of sculpture. In these excep-
tional case a body might be inclosed between
two canoes high among the branches of a true,
laid away in q natural cavern, or placed upon
high scaffolds beyound the reach of ~prowling
wolves.
He said that burial in caves is probably the
Oldest form of human burial, and described
a burial cave in the M~assanutton mountain
which he had personally explored. Under a
trayertine floor two or three inches thick, sup
porting in some places stalagmites nearly a
foot high, he found a layer about three feet
thick of human mixed with animal bones,
crania in the most perfect state of preservation
and ashes of ancien: fires.
He gave an account of the comparatively re-
cent burial place on the Piscataway and also
sporadic cases of single graves. especially in
the shell mounds at Newburgh, Roadley Manor,
Bolingbroke creek and Chancellor's Point,
Maryland.
He then described the peculiar mode of in
terment known as the cyst grave, which is in
terestlng, not only on account of its rarity in
the region under special consideration. but also
because of its common occurrence among the
prehistoric Indians of Tennessee. as shown by
the valuable researches of Prof. T. W. Putnam of
Harvard. Only two instances of this mode of
burial have been observed in Virginia and one
in Maryland. 1t consists in the excavation of
a cavity in the solid rock large enough to con-
tain the body, the top of the cavity being COW
cred by a large slab of the rock, upon which
is heaped a little mound of earth a foot or two
in height.
very remarkable Indian mausoleum is a
vaulted burial mound on the eastern spur of
the Massanutton mountain. 1t is a mound 70
feet long. II feet Wild and 4 TO 7 feet high and
contains II vault made of large boulders and
opening to the east. 1t was evidently the
grave of some great chief, possibly of King
Massanutton himself. the father of Shenan-
dOah, whose radiant beauty earned for her
this name, which signifies the Daughter of the
Stars.
Another form of primary burial is the stone
grave or earn. many of which are found in
the South Valley, Va.
DIR. Reynolds also described the Trinity
mounds. a group OF three mounds arranged in
a triangular shape near the eastern extremity
of the Massanutton Pass, which connects the
two valleys of the Shenandoah, and other
mounds and mortuaries, including a remark
able tribal ossuary at Sandy Hill. on the east
ern shore of Maryland. DR.. Reynolds closed
with a touching allusion to the pathos OF that
accident by which the prehistoric aborigines
had been led TO shelter their dead under the
cross, a symbol of the great spiritual truths of
which they. in their child-like innocence,
knew nothing.