deceased. This, though at first revolting, we find was the
practice of our own forefathers, offering up as burnt
offerings the lamb or the ox; hence we cannot censure this
people, but, from a comparison of conditions, credit them
with a more strict observance of our Holy Book than pride
and seductive fashions permit of us.

From a careful review of the whole of their attendant
ceremonies a remarkable similarity can be marked. The
arrangement of the corpse preparatory to interment, the
funeral feast, the local service by the aged fathers, are
all observances that have been noted among whites, extending
into times that are in the memory of those still living.

The Pimas of Arizona, actuated by apparently the same motives that led
the more eastern tribes to endeavor to prevent contact of earth with the
corpse, adopted a plan which has been described by Capt. F.E.
Grossman,[5] and the account is corroborated by M. Alphonse Pinart[6]
and Bancroft.[7]

Captain Grossman's account follows:

The Pimas tie the bodies of their dead with ropes, passing
the latter around their neck and under the knees, and then
drawing them tight until the body is doubled up and forced
into a sitting position. They dig the graves from four to
five feet deep and perfectly round (about two feet in
diameter), and then hollow out to one side of the bottom of
this grave a sort of vault large enough to contain the body.
Here the body is deposited, the grave is filled up level