Report of Mr. W. E. Cormack's journey in search of the Red Indians in Newfoundland by W. E. (William Epps) Cormack
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page 9 of 17 (52%)
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utensils, neatly made, of birch-rind, and ornamented; and many other
things, of some of which we did not know the use or meaning. Another mode of sepulture which we saw here was, where the body of the deceased had been wrapped in birch rind, and with his property, placed on a sort of scaffold about four feet and a-half from the ground. The scaffold was formed of four posts, about seven feet high, fixed perpendicularly in the ground, to sustain a kind of crib, five feet and a-half in length by four in breadth, with a floor made of small squared beams, laid close together horizontally, and on which the body and property rested. A third mode was, when the body, bent together, and wrapped in birch-rind, was enclosed in a kind of box on the ground. The box was made of small squared posts, laid on each other horizontally, and notched at the corners, to make them meet close; it was about four feet by three, and two and a-half feet deep, and well lined with birch-rind, to exclude the weather from the inside. The body lay on its right side. A fourth, and the most common mode of burying among these people, has been, to wrap the body in birch-rind, and cover it over with a heap of stones, on the surface of the earth, in some retired spot; sometimes the body, thus wrapped up, is put a foot or two under the surface, and the spot covered with stones; in one place, where the ground was sandy and soft, they appeared to have been buried deeper, and no stones placed over the graves. These people appear to have always shewn great respect for their dead; and the most remarkable remains of them commonly observed by |
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