Tribes didn't have cemeteries

Indian Burial Customs Vary WidelyAn Alaska Native group will continue its traditional winter burials this year despite a conflict with a local cemetery that made headlines in October.

Bodies are normally kept above ground in a crypt until the ground thaws, according to the Fairbanks Native Association, but the group has struck an agreement with the cemetery that allows its members to come through and bury the deceased immediately.And:He said that in Navajo tradition, three or four members of the deceased's in-laws—no blood relations—will wrap the body in a new blanket, load it onto a brand-new horse and lead it north of the homestead. When they feel they've gone far enough they'll bury the body and kill the horse.

"After they're buried, they say there is a journey into the afterworld—that young, brand-new horse will carry her into that afterworld," he said. "The closest translation for that place was from my grandpa, who called it ‘Indian happy hunting grounds.' " And:"In the old time, Navajos weren't buried in the ground—they were buried in a tree," he said. "Back then they'd let spirits go by having nature take its course ... I had a relative buried in a tree, but that tree was always off limits."

For the Florida Seminoles, the nature of their swamplands made above-ground burials a practical choice, according to Neal Bowers, a cultural adviser with the tribe's Historic Preservation Office in Clewiston, Fla.And:Bowers stressed that traditions varied from family to family, and there's no one thing all Seminoles did when someone passed.

But he did say that one old tradition from before assimilation was for the family to lay the deceased out in his chickee—an open-sided, thatched-roof housed made out of cypress poles and palm fronds—and then abandon that camp.And:Watkins, the University of Oklahoma professor, said migratory Kiowa and Comanche tribes in southwest Oklahoma would sometimes bind the deceased really tightly into the smallest space possible and put them into the rock and crevices in the Wichita Mountains. This was to protect them from animals.

He added that another Choctaw tradition was to put the body on a platform and allow it to decompose naturally. They would then save the skull and other long bones. Those bones would be present at a feast two or three years later in honor of the deceased.Comment:  These tidbits of information hint at the wide variety of Native burial practices. They also suggest that the infamous Indian burial ground--where many Indians are buried as in a cemetery--is something of a myth. I believe most Indians buried their dead individually, not in groups where relatives could visit them. I don't know if many tribes even buried their dead in the ground, as opposed to the practices outlined here.