Poems of Nature
POEMS OF NATURE POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT RELIGIOUS POEMS BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER CONTENTS POEMS OF NATURE: THE FROST SPIRIT THE MERRIMAC HAMPTON BEACH A DREAM OF SUMMER THE LAKESIDE AUTUMN THOUGHTS ON RECEIVING AN EAGLE'S QUILL FROM LAKE SUPERIOR APRIL
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 Massasanga 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 1873 removed from the
graves at Santa Barbara, California, 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
skeletons uncovered at Santa Barbara the one mentioned presented the
POEMS OF NATURE POEMS SUBJECTIVE AND REMINISCENT RELIGIOUS POEMS BY JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER CONTENTS POEMS OF NATURE: THE FROST SPIRIT THE MERRIMAC HAMPTON BEACH A DREAM OF SUMMER THE LAKESIDE AUTUMN THOUGHTS ON RECEIVING AN EAGLE'S QUILL FROM LAKE SUPERIOR APRIL