Almost Directly Under The Hill Near Our Halting-Place, We Saw A Tumulus,
Which Was Apparently Of Recent Construction (Within A Year At Most).
It
would seem that some person of consideration among the natives had been
buried in it, from the exterior marks of a form which had certainly been
observed in the construction of the tomb and surrounding seats.
The form
of the whole was semicircular. Three rows of seats occupied one half,
the grave and an outer row of seats the other; the seats formed segments
of circles of fifty, forty-five, and forty feet each, and were formed by
the soil being trenched up from between them. The centre part of the
grave was about five feet high, and about nine long, forming an oblong
pointed cone [Note: See the drawing].
I hope I shall not be considered as either wantonly disturbing the
remains of the dead, or needlessly violating the religious rites of an
harmless people, in having caused the tomb to be opened, that we might
examine its interior construction. The whole outward form and appearance
of the place was so totally different from that of any custom or
ceremony in use by the natives on the eastern coast, where the body is
merely covered with a piece of bark and buried in a grave about four
feet deep, that we were induced to think that the manner of interring
the body might also be different. On removing the soil from one end of
the tumulus, and about two feet beneath the solid surface of the ground,
we came to three or four layers of wood, lying across the grave, serving
as an arch to bear the weight of the earthy cone or tomb above.
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