earth"

As a somewhat curious, if not exceptional, interment, the following
account, relating to the Indians of New York is furnished, by Mr.
Franklin B. Hough, who has extracted it from an unpublished journal of
the agents of a French company kept in 1794:

"Saw Indian graves on the plateau of Independence Rock. The Indians
plant a stake on the right side of the head of the deceased and bury
them in a bark canoe. Their children come every year to bring
provisions to the place where their fathers are buried. One of the
graves had fallen in and we observed in the soil some sticks for
stretching skins, the remains of a canoe, &c., and the two straps for
carrying it, and near the place where the head lay were the traces of
a fire which they had kindled for the soul of the deceased to come and
warm itself by and to partake of the food deposited near it.

"These were probably the Massasauga Indians, then inhabiting the north
shore of Lake Ontario, but who were rather intruders here, the country
being claimed by the Oneidas."

It is not to be denied that the use of canoes for coffins has
occasionally been remarked, for the writer in 1875 removed from the
graves at Santa Barbara an entire skeleton which was discovered in a
redwood canoe, but it is thought that the individual may have been a
noted fisherman, particularly as the implements of his vocation--nets,
fish-spears, &c.--were near him, and this burial was only an
exemplification of the well-rooted belief common to all Indians, that
the spirit in the next world makes use of the same articles as were
employed in this one. It should be added that of the many hundreds of