St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-10-24
Recalled by a Splendid Jewel
at a Lovely Woman's
Throat.
Treasures That Peruvian
Tcmbs Yield to the Hands
Of Vandals.
The Mummy Of a Dead Ppin-
cess Found in a Sitting
Posture.
Some Buried Alive in the
Attitude Of Doing Their
Hair.

whose home is in Washington. wears
about her throat very beautiful gold
necklace, the odd pattern of which has
attracted much attention and excited
much comment. A great many of her
timid friends would be Mortified, doubt
less, if they knew that for perhaps
century thai necklace had adorned the
the mummy of a Peruvian princess.
Some years ago while vessel belong
ing to the United States navy was cruis-
ing off the coast of Peru, her officers
organized an expedition to dig for
mummies.
'Inca-hunting" has been for many
wears a favOrite pastlme in the Amerl-
can navy. Hardly vessel has gone to
the South Atlantic station whose Off
GERS have not organized a similar eXpe-
dltion. and many of the graves of the
dead rulers of Peru have been opened
and despoiled. The expedition which
resulted in the discovery of the neck
lack was most fruitful. Not one, but a
dozen graves were found. In the cen
ter was the grave of one who had evil
IDENTIFY been 4 princess, and buried
about her in a circle were the remains
of those who had been her attendants.
The mummy of the princess was in
sitting posture. All the others were
doubled up in the same way. but while
the attitude of the central figure wore
calm aspect of death, the others eX
pressed the most hopeless despair.
They had evidently been buried alive,
and some were in the attitude of tear
ing their hair or rending their garments.
Only the central figure was adorned
with ornaments. and chief among these
was a necklace of gold beads. One of
the officers in the party coveted the
necklace, and under an arrangement
with the other members of the eXpedi-
ton he became proprietor of it, and
brought it home to his wife. Another
officer brought home mummled arm,
and there are many other CHASTITY relics
of that voyage now decorating the walls
OF sinoklmg rooms and libraries i'll Wash
ingtOn.
One of the officers who saw the Pc
ruVian princess unearlhed showed me
few days ago journal of his early yoy-
ages. in which lie had recorded, among
other things. some Odd forms Of burial
he had noted in out-of-theway places.
The most interesting was description
of the Towers of Silence. at Bombay.
They are on hill overlooking the city.
"They are in number" says the Jour
nal. 'and are from 50 to 100 feet in di-
am+ter ant, 20 to 80 feet high without a
roof The interior is somewhat similar
TO an ancient amphitheater, smoothly
paved inside and having three cOncen
trio rings or circles. There are passage
ways between the circles to allow the
passing to and fro of the corpse-bearerS.
The outer circle is for male corpSeS, the
! l., e., ln and hl ar
one for children'S cUrpSes. In the cen
ter OF the tower is deep pit. There
are drains leading from this pit, which
are filled with charcoal. Here the Par
sees bring their dead.
They place the corpse in one of the
rings and retire, closing and boiling the
iron door which gives entrance to the
tower. Almost Immediately hundreds
of large vultures that have been sitting
idle on the walls of the towers and on
neighbOring trees set to work and pick
the flesh entirely from the corpse with
in an hour. leaving the bones clean.
After three days the cleaned bones are
thrown into the central pit, where they
bAcome dust. The water from the pit,
draining through the charcoal, leaves
the earth pure. carrying out the native
doctrine that the ''mother earth can
not be defiled." The surroundings of
the towers are neat and clean, and per-
feet silence reigns over the whole place.
Interrupted only by the occasional croak
of vulture.
The Hindoos cremate their dead.
When one dies the body is placed on a
pile of wood six feet long and four feet
high, and wood is also placed over the
corpse, The corpse burns for three
hours. When 1t is consumed the ashes
are thrown into the sea. Before the oc-
cupation of India by the British the
HindOo wife was always burned with
the husband No one is admitted to the
cremating ground of the Hindoos, but
as it is separated from the Mohamme-
dan purying ground by a stone wall six
feet high and as no one raised an OBJ
lection to the officers of the American
ship mounting this wall, my naval
friend witnessed the entire ceremony
without hinderance. Twenty bodies
had been burned the day that he was
there, and six were still burning when
he took his station on top of wall.
One man stood by the burning pile.
which he occasionally stirred with a
long pole, at times throwing on the
burning mass dust or powder which
was probably lime. A number of Hin
docs sat about the funeral pyre singing,
talking, smoking. and some of them
weeping and crying aloud. There were
no women present.
I'm China they cremate their dead"
said my naval friend. "a chaplain in
the United States navy was cremated in
Hong Kong in the winter of 'S6'S7. He
belonged to the Brooklyn. which was
assigned to tbs Asiatic station. He
knew that he was going TO die, and
during his sickness he asked that his re-
mains be cremated. His ashes were
brought back on the Brooklyn and sent
to his friends in the United States. The
japanese have much less primitive
way OF buryiug than the Hindoos. They
use retortS in cremating. They do not
cremate all their dead. Some they bury
like the ancient Peruvians, always ar
ranging the corpse in sitting posture.
The whole OF China is a vast grave
yard. The collins of the dead are all
along the wayside, and they lie in the
fields, some of them merely covered
with mating. Mounds of earth are
placed over some of them, and Others
are bricked up. There are no regula.
tions for burying the dead. 1t is i'm
possible TO make a grave deep OH &C
count of the marshy soil. They have
the same trouble in New Orleans,
where the dead are buried above
ground-if l may use the phrase. There
is a European graveyard at Shanghai
and one at Hong Kong, where number
of American seamen and officers, who
died Oh the ASiatic station, are buried.
1.-The Indians OF Alaska cremate their
dead much after the Hindoo fashion.
The body is laid out in state where it is
viewed by the friends of the dead. If
it is the body of chief it is dressed in
his best clothing. The funeral pile OF
logs is laid on hill just back of the
town of Sitka. The body is borne tc
this spot and laid on logs which are then
fired. l did not stay to see the conclu
sion of the cremation exercises at Sitka
The stencil was too horrible. At the
Hindoo cremation there was no stencil
at all, fact probably due to the use Of
lime or some other disiDfectant. Alaska
Indians bury some of their dead as dC
the Japanese, but most of them are
cremated."