t, and
which we have crossed to-day, Mr. George W. Bean, my guide over this
route last fall, says derives its name from the number of skulls
which have been found in it, and which have arisen from the custom
of the Goshute Indians burying their dead in springs, which they
sank with stones or keep down with sticks. He says he has actually
seen the Indians bury their dead in this way near the town of Provo,
where he resides.

As corroborative of this statement, Captain Simpson mentions in another
part of the volume that, arriving at a spring one evening, they were
obliged to dig out the skeleton of an Indian from the mud at the bottom
before using the water.

This peculiar mode of burial is entirely unique, so far as known, and
but from the well-known probity of the relator might well be questioned,
especially when it is remembered that in the country spoken of water is
quite scarce and Indians are careful not to pollute the streams or
springs near which they live. Conjecture seems useless to establish a
reason for this disposition of the dead, unless we are inclined to
attribute it to the natural indolence of the savage, or a desire to
poison the springs for white persons.

[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Mourning Cradle.]

The second example is by George Catlin,[84] and relates to the Chinook:

* * * This little cradle has a strap which passes over the woman's
forehead whilst the cradle rides on her back, and if the child dies
during its subjection to this rigid mode, its cradle becomes its
coffin, forming a little canoe, in which it lies floating on the
water in some sacred pool, where they are often in the habit of
fastening their canoes containing the dead bodies of the old and
young, or, which in often the case, elevated into the branches of
trees, where their bodies are left to decay and their bones to dry
whilst they are bandaged in many skins and curiously packed in their
canoes, with paddles to propel and ladles to bale them out, and
provisions to last and pipes to smoke as they are performing their
"long journey after death to their contemplated hunting grounds,"
which these people think is to be performed in their canoes.

Figure 30, after Catlin, is a representation of a mourning-cradle.
Figure 31 represents the sorrowing mother committing the body of her
dead child to the mercy of the elements.

LIVING SEPULCHERS.

This is a term quaintly used by the lea