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Burial Customs in the Delmarva Peninsula3 and the Question of Their Chronology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

D. S. Davidson
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Extract

As is well known, one of the most serious handicaps to archaeology along the Atlantic Seaboard is the scarcity of deep stratified sites. Shallow sites are numerous, but if these ever contained superimposed cultures, the evidence in most cases seems to have been destroyed by the plow. Furthermore, as the result of an intense population, the most likely Indian sites are now covered by cities, towns and farms. These factors coupled with a humid climate, so destructive to all but non-perishable artifacts, have combined to present us with most difficult problems.

It must not be supposed that the case is hopeless, but it is obvious that unless some unforeseen good fortune should bring to light exceptional sites, progress toward the eventual understanding of the chronological aspects of the archaeology of the region will be made only through a most laborious process.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , October 1935 , pp. 84 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1935

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Footnotes

3

The state of Delaware and the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia.

References

4 We have the accounts of such early writers as Hariot (1585), Smith (1608), Strachey (1612), Beverly (1702), and Lawson (1709). This material has been summarized by a number of writers so that it is unnecessary to repeat the detailed references here. See Willoughby, C. C, The Virginia Indians of the Seventeenth Century, American Anthropologist, Vol. 9, 1907, p. 62; Speck, F. G., The Ethnic Position of the Southeastern Algonkian, ibid., Vol. 26, 1924, p. 191; MacLeod, W. C, Priests, Temples and the Practice of Mummification in Southeastern North America, International Congress of Americanists, 22nd Session, Rome, 1926 (1928), pp. 207-230; Bushnell, D. S., Jr., Native Cemeteries and Forms of Burial East of the Mississippi, Bulletin 71, Bureau of American Ethnology, 1920.

5 Speck, F. G., The Indians of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore Society of Baltimore City, Baltimore, 1922, p. 13, speaks of professional priest bonescrapers for the Nanticoke but has informed me that the statement was based upon the analogy between the general customs of the Nanticoke and Powhatan groups. MacLeod, op. cit., p. 209, is of the opinion that this trait was lacking among the Nanticokes.

6 We infer that members of royalty were treated in this manner. For instance, in 1686 the Nanticokes at Assateague protested to the authorities that settlers had vandalized the “;tombs” of some of their former kings and had stolen quantities of “roanoke and skins.”In Dorsetshire, Maryland, the “body” of the last local chieftain, who died between 1712 and 1717, was preserved in a temple until 1780. (Cited by MacLeod, p. 209.)

7 Mercer, H. C., Exploration of an Indian Ossuary on the Choptank River, Dorchester County, Maryland, in Researches upon the Antiquity of Man, Publications of the University of Pennsylvania in Philology, Literature and Archaeology, vol. VI, 1897. The site is a late historic one occupied by the Nanticoke until 1722, at which time the district was sold by the Indians to Europeans. The ossuaries, according to Mercer, were apparently filled before the site was occupied as a village and for that reason he was inclined to consider them as of late 17th century. The cephalic indices of 32 skulls varied between 71.9 and 78.5 for males and between 72.1 and 77.7 for females. (Cope, E.D., in Mercer, op. cit.)

8 As has been stated, the skeletons of the “chiefs” in the latter area were not only left articulated, as the result of not cutting the ligatures when the flesh was scraped off, but the skin was replaced and packed with sand which would tend to maintain the normal position of the bones. Lastly the “mummy” was wrapped in skins and mats. In spite of the possibility that there might be some disarticulations as the result of carrying the “mummy” to the temple and subsequently in transporting it to the ossuary, it would seem that the bones of each skeleton should lie close to one another in the ossuary unless the wrappings had been removed and the bones tossed singly into the pit.

9 When the tribe finally capitulated to the Whites and started to move slowly north through the Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania toward their eventual domicile with the Iroquois, they are reported not only to have carried the fleshless and malodorous bones of their relatives with them, but also to have returned to their old homeland to fetch the skeletal remains of others. Heckewelder, so often quoted, seems to have been much impressed by the “disagreeable stench” which trailed the groups who carried these remains through the town of Bethlehem between 1750 and 1760. Reburial was made in many ossuaries at the various temporary Nanticoke towns along the Susquehanna.

10 Further evidence of bone cleaning without mummification was secured recently by Speck, F. G., Delaware Ceremonies, Feasts and Dances. Manuscript, in text material from Delawares with whom some Nanticokes were domiciled in the Kaw River region of Kansas prior to 1875. According to the statements, the Nanticokes placed a body upon a platform about as high as a person where it was left until the flesh decayed and fell from the bones. The putrid flesh was gathered and buried in front of the platform, but the bones were not removed until the Ghost Dance was held. At that time, the bones of apparently all who had died since the previous Ghost Dance were prepared for the ceremony.

A post for each of the dead was erected and to it was tied a crosspiece. Each skull was placed upon its post, and the post and crossarm dressed appropriate to the sex of the deceased. The remaining bones were then laid opposite each post.

During the dance which followed, the participants circled the posts in a counterclockwise direction. We are not informed of the eventual disposal of the skulls and the other bones. Most likely they were buried. It is important to note that members of both sexes were treated similarly and presumably that the bodies of children were also included in these ceremonies.

11 It is interesting to note that the Six Nations refer to the Nanticokes as the “Wolf Clan.” Speck, F. G., Nanticoke and Conoy, p. 22.

12 Lindstrom, Geographicae Americanae, 1654 (translated by Amandas Johnson, 1926); see MacLeod, p. 208.

13 The meaning of “each one” is questionable, but is interpreted by MacLeod as an indication that the Lenape apparently like the Nanticokes did not have professional fleshstrippers as did the Virginian tribes.

14 Adams, R. C., 1890, Notes on Delaware Indians, In the report on Indians Taxed and Not Taxed, United States Census, p. 299; cited by Harrington, M. R., 1921, Religion and Ceremonies of the Lenape Indian, Notes and Monographs, Museum of the American Indian (Heye Foundation), pp. 183-184.

15 Bushnell, op. cit., p. 19, citing Van Der Donck.

16 MacLeod, op. cit., p. 208, citing Reynolds.

17 On behalf of the Faculty Research Committee of the University of Pennsylvania.

18 Excavated by the writer, Mr. Loren C. Eiseley and Mr. Richard Faust, graduate students in anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.

19 I am indebted to Mr. John Noon for his detailed study of the skeletal material.

20 The excavations on this date were made by a party which included Dr. J. A. Mason of the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania; Mr. A. Crozier and Mr. G. Omwake of the Archaeological Society of Delaware; Officers and men of Co. 1226, CCC, Camp 2, Milford, Delaware; and the writer.