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Burials and Cemeteries
Overview
Burial practices changed over time, every tribe had its own burial customs, and each burial had its own attributes. Remnants of a 5’ 4” male of Mongolian ancestry, around age 45 with arthritis, bone infection, and extensive dental wear dating to around 5,000 years ago is one of the earliest known burials in Kansas. It’s thought the skeleton laid on its side had an iron oxide power such as ochre applied to the body before burial under a ledge in a rock outcrop overlooking a valley in what is now Douglas County Fishing Lake and topped with a limestone slab. at what is now Douglas County Fishing Lake. [Hoard, R. J., Banks, W. E., Mandel, R. D., Finnegan, M., & Epperson, J. E. (2004). A Middle Archaic burial from East Central Kansas. American Antiquity, 69(4), 717-739.]
Waldo Wedel wrote "Probably much of northeastern Kansas will remain for all time a 'terra incognita' to the student of human physical types, since neither climatic conditions nor native burial methods were conducive to the preservation of human bones. In the majority of known burial sites scattered along the lower Kansas river and on the adjacent Missouri, the practice seems to have involved deposition of the corpse on a scaffold with the exposed and weather-softened bones later gathered up and placed in a mound. Today only tiny fragments of bone have survived, these often being partially destroyed by fire, and the original conformations and measurements can never be recovered. Elsewhere, and particularly in some of the later sites, the case is not so hopeless." [Wedel, Waldo. (1938, May). Kansas prehistory. Kansas Historical Quarterlies, 7(2), 114-132.] Burial mounds usually have been found in the eastern part of Kansas and ossuaries, burials containing the often burnt remains of multiple individuals, found further west, according to Wedel.
According to Jakob Hanschu’s study of burial mounds in north-central Kansas, people in north central Kansas from 500 BC to 1000 AD, interred the dead in stone and earth circular or oval mounds overlooking stream valleys. Excavations of these mounds mostly took place in the late 19th century and early 20th century with reported individuals found of all age groups and both sexes with beads, pottery, and chipped stone tools.
George Remsburg wrote in Gray's 1905 Doniphan County History that the Doniphan area had numerous limestone slabs and rock piles marking the last resting place of Kansa. He quoted Rev. Issac McCoy, a missionary, about the Kansa: "They frequently deposited the dead on or near the surface and raised over the corpse a heap of stones." George P. Morehouse, a former Kansas State Historical Society director, concurred about the graves topped with limestone slabs often on high ground.
Remsburg wrote A Head Ahead, a poem, about his discoveries:
The relic hunter goes forth
To excavate an Indian mound,
In eagerness can hardly wait
To stick his spade into the ground.
With antiquarian zeal he digs
Into the mouldy, ancient bed,
And as he resurrects a skull,
He says: ‘Here’s where I get a head.’
Remsburg, Potter, and Mark Zimmerman, White Cloud, found a dozen skeletons by Atchison on a river bluff and additional burials 10 miles southeast of Atchison by Oak Mills. Patrick Leopoldo also reported graves on the Atchison bluffs in Gray's Doniphan County History. The Potter Kansan (May 26, 1904) reported on several finds within a 10-mile radius of Potter, including one with a tomahawk and beads, another with bells and tinkling ornaments (similar to one by Kickapoo), and one with a basket of flint implements. One media-publicized find during that time took place in 1902 when a skeleton known as Lansing Man was exhumed 20 feet below the surface along the Missouri River banks by Lansing. Carbon-14 analysis showed the skeleton to date to 3579 B.C., Early Middle Archaic period.
“On the Republican river burial mounds are found on the bluffs near Broughton [now part of Milford Lake], and a number have been located on the bluffs south of that town,” wrote Frank Blackmar in 1912 “Several have been discovered on Madison creek, 2 miles above Milford, and on the Kansas river near Ogden over 100 burial mounds have been located. Those opened were found to contain ornaments, charred bones and occasionally spear heads. The largest mounds nearly always contain spear points, scrapers, stone and shell beads.”
Other ancient burial sites besides these include the James Younkin mound site containing a complete skeleton and cranial and long bone fragments about 5.8 miles northwest of Junction City; Calovich Mound (A.D. 1027–1285) in Wyandotte County with remains of 79 individuals excavated; Woodruff Ossuary, a prehistoric communal burial site of 54 individuals in Phillips County just south of the Nebraska line; and Koerner Mound in Ness County overlooking the Pawnee River with seven secondary internments.
One of the largest burial finds happened in 1936 between Salina and New Cambria with the discovery of low mounds indicating house with 140 skeletons laid four layers deep. Buried with their heads to the south and facing east, the skeletons became the focus of a tourist site known as the Salina Burial Pit from 1936 to 1989. In 1989, the state of Kansas bought the site, negotiated a burial agreement with the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, and covered up the burials in 1990 now known as the Whiteford (Price) Archeological Site. Read The Whiteford Family of Salina
Body Disposition
Chippewa. "After the deceased's face is painted with red or yellow powders, the dressed body is wrapped in a blanket and taken out through a window by non-family members. If a body is taken through a door, death will come to the house soon. The body is placed in a sitting position within a grave with food and cups to eat on their way to the other world and covered. People dance around the grave and beat drums." Haskell Institute. (1914). Indian legends. Lawrence, KS: Haskell Printing.
Iowa. In Doniphan County around 1850, Tohe, an Iowa leader, was buried "in a sitting posture on the surface of the ground upon the top of a high hill, with his face to the setting sun and bows and arrows, a war club and a pipe near him, to cheer and protect him on the Long Journey. His pony was shot and buried beside him. They were covered over with a mound of earth, a white flag raised and charms placed around the mound. Doniphan county is filled with such mounds and is a veritable mine for Indian collectors." Tennal, Ralph. (1916). History of Nemaha County, Kansas. Lawrence, KS: Standard Publishing.
Kansa. The Kansa buried extended or semi-reclining bodies in individual graves dug on hills near a village. Few if any objects were placed in the graves commonly covered with a rock slab. Wedel, Waldo. (1946). The Kansa Indians. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science, 49(1), 1-35.
In 1859, Lewis Henry Morgan interviewed people about the burial practices of the Kansa. "The Kaws still bury in a sitting posture facing the west, arms crossed and knees flexed. A bow and arrow on the left side, a little brass or earth kettle between the legs or feet, containing corn or beans or dried buffalo meat, and their tobacco pouch and pipe. The hole in the ground is about one foot deep, the body is set up erect, and covered with bark, this is then covered with dirt lightly, after which stones are piled up around the body loose so as [to] cover the body fully about one or two feet over their head. This is to secure the body against wolves, etc. In the case of a distinguished man the Kaws saddle a horse, lead him up to the grave and shoot him at the grave, and leave him there unburied. Sometimes the saddle is buried in the grave." White, Leslie, ed. (1959). The Indian journals, 1859-62, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Kansa. The deceased woman’s horse was killed and put on top of the grave. Its tail was cut off and mounted on a stake by the grave. Nyquist, Edna. (1932). McPherson County, Kansas. McPherson, KS: Democrat-Opinion Press.
Osage. The Osage placed corpses in a sitting position and piled stones around the body. Nelson Case in his 1893 History of Labette County, Kansas wrote that there were several burial areas in Labette County such as in Neosho Township, on the county line, around Oswego, and further west. Watson Stewart wrote: "The Osages, on the death of one of their number, make a great outcry; wailing in a most hideous manner, for hours, and beating their tomtoms--a sort of drum made by stretching a skin over a hollowed-out log. The dead are usually buried on a high point of land, in a rough rock vault, mostly above the surface of the ground, with a covering of flat stones; the body is wrapped round with a blanket, and many trinkets are buried with the blanket. In the winter time when the ground is frozen, or covered with snow, they sometimes use a hollow tree, into which--at some distance from the ground--the body is placed. I found one such case, in the timber about a mile from our place, where, at about twenty feet from the ground, a hollow limb had been broken off, and in this a body had been shoved, head first. I could see some parts of the blanket, with the feet, (apparently) sticking out.”
Pawnee. Decorated with red paint and designs, the deceased were wrapped in a blanket or buffalo rope tied with a rope and placed in a grave on a hilltop with their heads oriented to the east in deference to the Morning Star. Echo-Hawk, Roger C. (1992). Pawnee Mortuary Traditions. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 16(2), 77-99.
Potawatomie.
In Nellie Snyder Yost’s Medicine Lodge: The Story of a Kansas Frontier Town, Yost included Lenora Day’s Journal that began in St. Louis, Mo. March 13, 1849.March 30 [1849]. "Since my last entry in my diary the weather has been so rough that we have made little progress on our journey. We are camped near a village of Pottawatomie Indians and they are holding some kind of a gathering. Old Drab says one of them has died and they are fixing to plant him. These are the first Indians I have seen and I am not favourably impressed with them. They have low brows and coarse black hair in two braids down their backs. They are all dressed alike. Each pant leg is a separate garment, tied with a string around the waist. A piece of cloth hangs down from the waist and a blanket finishes the costume. They have been singing and dancing around the lodge of the dead one, but now they cease and four of them go in and come out, carrying the copper colored corpse in a kind of chair, sitting up, his features rigid and his eyes open and staring. A blanket is thrown over his head, so his spirit will not see the direction it is borne. As soon as the pall-bearers are out of sight, half a dozen squaws tear the lodge down. The trapper tells us this is so the spirit cannot come home but will keep on to the “Happy Hunting Ground.” The grave is a shallow hole on a knoll where others of the tribe have been buried. They put the body in the hole, still sitting up, and all his earthly effects are thrown in after him. He is covered with another blanket, then with earth, and then his pony is led up to the grave. As its front feet touch the grave its throat is cut from ear to ear and it sings with a groan onto the fresh earth. The trapper says this is so the brave will have a pony to ride to the happy hunting ground. The dead brave’s squaws then bring food, supposed to be enough for the spirit’s journey, and put it on the grave, after which each Indian returned to the camp from a different direction. Back at our own fire, the old trapper tells us about the Indians’ happy hunting ground, a place where game of all kinds abounds, where the grass is forever green, the leaves never fall from the trees, and springs of pure, clear water flow forever."
The funeral of Kack-kack was probably the most elaborate in arrangement and ceremony ever held on the reservation of the Prairie band. The account of it which follows is taken from the Topeka Daily Capital of February 24, 1907: "Probably never again will the tribe of Pottawatomies living on the tribal reservation in the south part of Jackson county have such a funeral as they gave old Kack-kack, the aged chief of the tribe who died and whose body was laid away according to the ancient tribal rites. The burial service used in his funeral is the oldest known among the Pottawatomies, and has not been employed for years. "Kack-kack died at the age of eighty-eight years, and was at the time of his death the oldest and most noted member of his tribe. His funeral was a fitting one and in proportion to his fame. It was planned by Kack-kack before his death, and was carried out according to his wishes. It began Sunday evening, and it was Monday afternoon before the 300 or 400 attendants at the funeral left the grave. From the time of his death until his body was placed in a spring wagon to be taken to its grave, Kack-kack's body lay in state in one corner of a room of his home on the reservation. As soon as the breath left his body it was placed in a sitting position in a corner of the room to stiffen while the proper kind of a box was being constructed in which to bury it. The box which served the purpose of a coffin was of new lumber and made about square and with the top side open. The best rug in the house was placed in the bottom of this box and Kack-kack's body set down on it. The body was dressed in Kack-kack's best clothes; unbeaded moccasins on his feet, leather leggins from his feet to his hips, then a gorgeous Indian beadwork belt about the lower part of his body. The rest of his body, to the top of his head, was naked except for multi-colored and bright-hued paints on body and face and strands of Indian beads wrapped about his throat. On his head was a dark fur turban. Two long quills, each with three red bows of ribbon, projected from the top of the turban. Below the feathers was a pompon of red feathers. In the box with the body were placed Kack-kack's cane, with his name carved on it, and his bow and arrows. The edge of the rough board box came up to Kack-kack's chin, and in order that the head might not drop down, a piece of 'two-by-four' scantling was laid across the top of the box and Kack-kack's chin placed on this. In this manner his face was kept looking straight ahead. As Kack-kack was never noted for his beauty of feature, the appearance of his head projecting from the top of the box, with the chin resting on the two-by-four and adorned with bright paints, was rather disconcerting to the few white persons who attended the funeral, although the Indians did not appear to be affected by the sight. All day Sunday, the day after Kack-kack's death, and while his body lay in state in this peculiar fashion in the house, members of the tribe were busy outside butchering and preparing for the big feast which was a part of the funeral ceremonies. . . ."When the tables were set and the food placed on them the Indians were summoned to partake of the feast. The table in the room in which Kack-kack's body rested was for the braves, and the other table for the squaws. On account of the number which attended the funeral, not all could eat at once, and it was necessary to feed them in relays. Before a bite was taken an old Pottawatomie at the men's table arose, removed his hat, crossed his hands over his breast, and then with bowed head spoke in the language of the tribe. He delivered a prayer to the Great Spirit, which action corresponded with the Christian custom of rendering thanks before eating. According to some of the educated Indians who translated the old man's prayer for the benefit of the white people present, he addressed Kack-kack, telling the dead chief that they were gathered in his house to eat his bread for the last time. Then he eulogized the dead chief and exhorted the other Indians to be braves and model their actions after the honorable deeds of the great chief. During this prayer the peace pipe was passed around the table and every brave solemnly took three whiffs from it. The old Indian who was praying did not cease until the peace pipe had made the complete circuit of the table. The ceremony was repeated each time the table was filled and before the Indians began eating. They ate in silence, not a word being spoken at the tables after the old Indian who acted as master of ceremonies had finished his prayer, while old Kack-kack stared solemnly down on the assemblage from his box. While the guests were eating, Mrs. Kack-kack, herself well along in years, moved among her guests and was as solicitous for their welfare as the most hospitable American woman could have been. During the usual Indian funeral the drums are beaten from the time the feasting begins until the body is laid away. But according to Kack-kack's wishes, and the details of the funeral service used for him, not a drum was beaten. Monday morning the kettles were placed over the fires again, and another big feast prepared from what was left over from the day before. This feast was eaten in the same manner as the one the night before. At the conclusion of Monday's feast a spring wagon was backed up to the door of the Kack-kack home and four braves carried out the box containing all that was mortal of the old chief. The box was still uncovered, and was placed in the wagon with the upper part of Kack- kack's body bare and the chin resting on the piece of two-by-four. A peaked roof to fit the box was placed in the wagon beside the box, but not on it, and the procession to the grave, which was in Kack-kack's front yard and about half a block distant from the house, was begun. Following the wagon was Mrs. Kack-kack, the members of the family, down to great- grandchildren and friends of the family. All of Kack-kack's personal belongings were carried in the procession in big packs and bundles which were borne on the backs of members of the family and friends. The grave consisted of a depression only about a foot deep, in which the base of Kack- kack's box coffin was placed. The hole was merely for the purpose of steadying the box, and not to bury the body in. The box was set into the shallow depression, with the old chief's face still looking steadily ahead and his chin resting on the beam across the top of the box. Before the cover was placed on the box the widow placed a bright red shawl and a silk handkerchief in the box to keep the old chief warm on his long journey. Then the peaked lid was placed over the box and nailed fast. Two or three holes were then bored in the ends of the box so that Kack-kack could get plenty of air, as though he had not had all the air he wanted while on his way to the grave. A stick was driven into the ground near the box, Indian hieroglyphics were painted on the stick, and its top smeared with red paint. Then the funeral orations were begun. The old Indian who acted as master of ceremonies was the principal speaker, and grew eloquent, in the Pottawatomie tongue, in singing the praises of his dead friend, with whom he had stood in battles years ago. The old Indian pointed with a stick to where Kack-kack stood in certain battles; also where the speaker himself stood, and also where other famous men of the tribe, living and dead, had fought. Others of the few surviving old braves of the tribe followed the first speaker, using the same stick to emphasize their remarks. When the speeches were finished the bundles of Kack-kack's belongings were opened and everything he possessed was given away. The aged Indian orator addressed Kack-kack before the distribution was commenced and told the dead chief what they were about to do. But he told the dead man not to feel badly about it, as all his things would be given to his friends. Mrs. Kack-kack personally superintended the distribution of the gifts. Kack-kack's pony was given to the old Indian who had acted as master of ceremonies and delivered the principal eulogy to the dead man. The same Indian also received the dead brave's scalps which he had taken in battle, his beads, and a big bundle of the choicest gifts. The grave diggers who had dug the shallow hole in which the box was set, with most of it projecting from the ground, received the bedclothes that Kack-kack had died on. The Indian who nailed the lid on the box received all of Kack-kack's tobacco. "When the speeches were completed and the gifts distributed two of the big iron kettles were brought from the house to the grave, where another feast was partaken of, after which all dispersed. The service at the grave continued just two hours. From the beginning of the funeral service on Sunday until its conclusion Monday afternoon no whisky was drunk by the Indians, many of whom are confirmed drunkards. All were reverent and respectful. . . ."
Sac and Fox. Travelers reported deceased on platforms in trees along Mosquito Creek north of Troy on the Iowa, Sac and Fox reservation, according to Morris Werner in his Mosquito Creek settlement, Doniphan County, listings. Louise Barry also recorded the 1861 platform burial of French-Potawatomi Peter Bourbonnais in the Indian cemetery on Bourbonnais Creek two miles east of St. Marys Mission.
Sac and Fox. At the 1878 funeral of Mokohoko, the blanket-wrapped body was brought in a wagon drawn by two horses to the grave in a funeral procession. With the head to the east, the body was placed in the grave. Men marched around the grave three times. Each deposited something in the grave and placed stones on the grave when filled. Mokohoko’s property was divided into two piles of equal value for each of the two woman who had helped with arrangements. Green, Charles Ransley . (1914). Sac and Fox Indians in Kansas: Mokohoko's stubbornness. Some history of the band of Indians who staid behind their tribe 16 Yrs. as Given by Pioneers. Olathe, KS: n.p.
Shawnee. According to Charles BlueJacket in Journey of the Soul, “When a member of the tribe died and was buried, it was the ancient custom to keep a fire burning for three nights at the head of the grave of one just dead. A small opening was made from the mouth of the dead to the surface by inserting a long rod through the newly filled grave, then withdrawing it. Provisions were also kept at the head of the grave for three nights. They explained this custom by saying that it took three days and nights for the spirit to reach the spirit land. In Feasting the Dead,” BlueJacket said, “It was a custom to feast the dead to keep off sickness. It was believed that if the dead were neglected, they would become angry and return to earth and afflict their friends with various forms of disease in revenge for the neglect. So strong was the belief in this superstition, that even Christian Indians would sometimes practise it secretly, of course, in times of much sickness. The writer learned that in one instance an official member of his church, because of much sickness in his family, placed food for the dead under a bed in his home, to placate his angry dead relations, whom, according to their ancient belief, he had neglected.” Spencer, Joab. (1909). Shawnee folk-lore. The Journal of American Folklore, 22(85), 322.
Unknown. Sheffield Ingalls’ History of Atchison County, Kansas states: "The most interesting mound ever excavated in the county, however, was what is known as the Ingalls Mound, on land belonging to the estate of the late United States Senator John J. Ingalls, (in a bluff of the Missouri river, at the mouth of Walnut creek, about five miles below Atchison. This mound was discovered by Senator Ingalls at an early day, and opened by the writer in 1907. It was fifteen feet in diameter, and was composed of alternate layers of stone and earth one on top of the other, the remains of several Indians being embedded in the earth between the layers of stone. These remains were in a bad state of decay, most of the bones crumbling while being removed. The bones of each person had been placed in the mound in compact bundles, which seems to indicate that they had been removed from some temporary place of interment, perhaps from dilapidated scaffold burials, and deposited here in final sepulture. In some of the layers not only the bones but the rocks and earth were considerably burned, indicating incinerary funeral rites, while in others there were not the least marks of fire. The undermost layer, about three feet from the top, was a veritable cinder pit, being a burned mass or conglomerate of charcoal and charred and calcined human remains, showing no regularity or outline of skeletons, but all in utter confusion. A solitary pearl bead was the only object that withstood the terrible heat to which the lower tier of remains had been subjected. In one of the upper tiers were the bones of two infants. With one of them was a necklace of small shells of a species not native here. With another bundle of bones were two small, neatly chipped flint knives, a flint scraper, a bone whistle or 'call,' several deer horn implements, and a large flint implement of doubtful usage, known to archeologists as a 'turtle-back,' because of its shape. With another bundle of bones, and which they seemed to be clasping, were several mussel shells, badly decomposed. One small ornament of an animal or bird claw, several flint arrowheads, and some fragments of pottery, were also found. In one of the skulls was embedded the flint blade of a war-club. Thirty-one yards northwest of this mound was found another of less prominence. It contained a burned mass of human remains, covered with a layer of about six inches of clay, baked almost to the consistency of brick."
Wichita. George A. Dorsey, The Mythology of the Wichita, wrote burial was on a nearby hill in four-feet deep graves. Friends of the family bathed and dressed the body. Then, they painted symbols representing the person on the face. The body was displayed in the home for two to three days for mourners who could not display any joy until the burial and forgo personal grooming, then taken to the grave with the head to the east so that the spirit could easier travel to Spirit-Land. Once covered, forks with a crossbar were put on the grave and uprights placed on that to encircle the grave. A horse might be buried with the person or given to those who helped in the burial. “Death in battle was held preferable to any other form of death among the Wichita. At least they preferred to die in full health and in some open place. Thus, a man injured in fighting would be told not to go into the timber to die, but to go out on the prairie, where the wolves would eat him.”
Karl Schmitt in his 1951 Wichita death customs account in the Chronicles of Oklahoma, wrote: "Soon after the relatives had shown their respect, the actual interment occurred. Non-relatives dug the grave and were rewarded with presents of blankets or robes. The family would ask some old person, usually a woman, to dig the grave and she in turn would ask someone else to help her. Graves were in a cemetery area adjacent to the village and preferably on a hillside, although occasionally there were burials in bottom land. The cemetery of the last consolidated village of the Wichitas occupied during the 1870's was on a hillside to the north and slightly east of the village. In shape the grave was an approximate rectangle and oriented east and west. The body was washed in warm water and dressed in the deceased's best clothes, and the face was painted. If a man had been a warrior, his 'warrior's outfit' consisting of bow and arrows, raw hide shield, warbonnet, and medicine bundle might be placed in the grave also. However, the deceased might have expressed a desire that a nephew or a son have his paraphernalia and then it would not be included in the grave. CW said it seemed that men gave such material to a nephew rather than to a son. Even if the uncle had not specifically made a verbal will, the nephew could take such paraphernalia for his own. Similarly a man's friend, who was also a special war partner, could claim the man's possessions. Deceased persons who had been doctors might be accompanied by their medicine objects, and CW mentioned in particular a type of whistle made from a "deer-shank'' or metapodial bone which was part of the paraphernalia of 'deer doctors.' Women might have implements placed in the grave. The body was wrapped in blankets and rawhides. After 1880-90, canvas and cotton sheets were used. First rawhides were placed in the grave, and the encased body was laid on them. Then more rawhides were placed over the body. The rawhide wrappings were often perforated and laced. The body was extended on the back with the head to the east. This position seems to symbolize a separation of the living and dead; present-day Wichitas remember how disturbed grandparents and other relatives got when they as children started to sleep with their heads to the east instead of in the ap proved position of having the head to the west. Dirt would be thrown into the grave by the non-relatives who had done the digging."
Grieving
Kansa. When a relative died, Kansa families customarily performed several rituals, three of which dramatically worsened the impact of fall epidemics in the late 1830s: (1) the sacrificing of horses and food, (2) fasting, and (3) raiding. A horse, for example, was sacrificed when its male owner died. If the dead Kansa owned several horses, then only his best horse was killed. The horse usually was strangled and either left lying over the grave of its dead owner or its tail was cut off and set sticking up from the grave. When Lorenzo Waugh visited American Chief’s village in October 1839, he observed that “a number of ponies’ tails [had been] fastened on poles and stuck up by certain graves . . . in the burying place of the Kaws.” The practice was done to ensure that the Indian’s spirit could ride the spirit of his horse to the “great hunting grounds on the other side of the moon." Also, food was placed at the head of his grave for three nights so his spirit could feed along the journey to its eternal home. Fasting was another custom Waugh observed in 1839. He noted that amid the death and illness many Kansa refused to take any food. When a Kansa died, his or her immediate family mourned by fasting from sunrise till sunset every day for a month and often longer. Family members were allowed to eat come nightfall (Dorsey 1885: 680), but they did not eat well because they intended to keep their bodies in a state of suffering. Many also slashed their arms, legs, and faces with knives. Relatives conducted such ritual scarification in the hope that the Great Spirit would recognize their sacrifice and help them in their time of loss. Raiding was done to avenge the death of a Kansa member. Several male relatives of the deceased would form a war party and set out to kill a member of an enemy tribe. Dixon, Benjamin. (2007). Furthering their own demise: How Kansa Indian death customs accelerated their depopulation. Ethnohistory, 54(3).
Kansa women mourned for a year after the death of their husband. They rubbed themselves with clay and did not take care with their appearance. At the end of the year, the eldest brother of the deceased husband took the widow as his wife. If there weren’t any brothers, she could marry anyone. Westmoreland Recorder, June 21, 1906 (History of the Kaw Fool Chief).
Pawnee. Those close to the deceased typically self-mutilated themselves by slashing a body part with knives or cutting their hair. The deceased horse might be slain and left on top of the burial. Echo-Hawk, Roger C. (1992). Pawnee Mortuary Traditions. American Indian Culture and Research Journal, 16(2), 77-99.
Wichita. "After death occurred there was no set period of time before burial took place; instead it was considered desirable to have the interment as soon as possible. However, all the relatives had to gather first. At this time a hair cutting ceremony took place:. . .Everybody had to cut off part of their hair "to show respect." CW's aunt cut her own hair with the knife and then CW's. All hair was placed on the pile near the fire. A grandmother or an aunt sat at the feet of the deceased and "had charge of hair cutting business." Women cut their hair straight around while men cut theirs on one side only. Afterwards some of the women took the hair and scattered it into the water of a nearby creek." Schmitt, Karl (1951). Wichita death customs. Chronicles of Oklahoma.
After Life
Kansa. James O. Dorsey stated that the Kansa believed that when a person died, that person’s ghost returned to the last village occupied by the tribe before the tribe’s present village site. Thus, the Kansa had a trail of spirit villages. Dorsey, James. (1894). A study of Siouan cults. In Eleventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Wichita. Wrote Karl Schmitt about the Wichita: "After death the spirit left the body and was thought to go to one of a number of villages up in the sky. There it and other spirits lived a life like that lived on earth. It was said that the dead in the villages above knew what was happening in the villages of living people below. Sometimes people would say after a death, 'His people must be glad to see him.' Not all spirits went to the after world; those of murderers, suicides, and inveterate gamblers could not be with the rest. It was not reported specifically what happened to those of murderers and suicides: however, since Wichitas did and do believe strongly in ghosts that remain around burial areas and even old haunts of the living, it would appear that they remained on earth. Spirits of individuals who had gambled to excess lined the road or pathway which went to the afterworld. Young people who were inclined to gamble were told, 'When you die, you don't want to be a castaway!'" The spirits of gamblers are lined 'on the pathway-they just sit there gambling.'" Schmitt, Karl. (1951). Wichita death customs. Chronicles of Oklahoma.
124 burial mounds identified in 5 counties by Jakob Hanschu (2018)
Burial Grounds
Image above: Hanschu, Jakob. (2018). Quantifying the qualitative: Locating burial mounds in north-central Kansas. Transactions of the Kansas Academy of Science (1903-), 121 (3/4), 261-278.
Besides burial mounds, individuals often were buried next to their home; nearby at a desirable location, e.g., White Cloud (buried 1852) was interred near a large tree overlooking the Missouri River south of Iowa Point; and in public cemeteries, e.g., Joseph Laframboise (French and Potawatomi) and Therese Laframboise, both were buried in Silver Lake Cemetery.
They also could be buried in areas on their allotted tribal land in early Kansas. e.g., Maquakononga (Negro Legs), buried in 1835 at the Wea settlement on the Marais des Cygnes in Miami County; Nah-ko-min (buried 1848) on the Delaware Reserve in Wyandotte County and Non-on-do-quo-mon (buried 1842) on the Delaware Reserve in Leavenworth County; or Ottowukee (buried 1839) at the Ottawa settlement in Franklin County.
Chippewa Burial Ground. Laid out in 1837, by 1903 it had 20 graves and “their burial ground was reserved for the so-called ‘heathen’ dead because the Chippewa did not follow Christianity," according to the Aug. 27, 1903 Independent-Journal. Graves include that of Chief Estonquit (Francis McCoonse), who brought 20 Chippewa to Kansas after an 1836 treaty. Seven miles west of Ottawa.
Delaware Cemetery. Delaware burials took place between 1867 and 1975. Of the 45 individuals buried in the cemetery, 23 are Delaware and related to Betsy Zeigler, a full-blooded Delaware Indian. 10388 222nd Street, Linwood.
White Church Cemetery, also known as Delaware Indian Cemetery. Ketchum family members are buried here. 2200 North 85th Street, Kansas City, Kansas.
Grinter Chapel Cemetery. Members of the Delaware Grinter family buried here. 78th and Swartz Road, Kansas City, Kansas.
Munsee Indian Cemetery. Also known as Muncie Cemetery. 1599 Kingman Road, Ottawa.
[Munsee] Leavenworth National Cemetery. During construction of a medical center, the remains of 12 American Indians thought to be Munsee, a tribe who had briefly lived nearby, were uncovered. The bodies were reinterred to Section 34, Row 21, Grave 8.
Ottawa Indian Cemetery. The first burial was in 1846. Ottawa graves, many unmarked, are on the western section as it later became a public cemetery. 3375 Osborne Terrace, Ottawa.
Pawnee burial site. During the early 1900s, skulls and projectile points appeared on a Pawnee burial ground along the Great Nemaha River on the Iowa Reservation. Tennal, Ralph. (1916). History of Nemaha County, Kansas. Lawrence, KS: Standard Publishing.
[Potawatomi] Vieux Cemetery. Several members of the French-Potawatomi Vieux family were buried here. 20135 Oregon Trail Road, Wamego.
Sac and Fox burial site. Franklin and Osage County. Wrote Charles Green in 1913: ". . . the burial ground I never have seen, it is away from any railroad town perhaps three miles south of a little station called Richter across the Marais Des Cygnes on the south side in Greenwood township, Franklin County. Mr. Luce farther said that coffins were seldom used even for the 11 Chief's that they were buried as erect as possible so that at least part of their skulls showed above ground in the years to come as the dirt washed away, I have seen Indians mound graves upheld by stone and logs piled around them that showed very well 50 years after. There were some Fox Indian graves where smallpox carried a lot one winter in a camp on Salt Creek, now known as the old Samuel Holyoke place two miles east of Lyndon, the house that was built in 1861 for the Fox Chief is standing there yet all sided over." Green, Charles. (1913). Early days in Kansas in Keokuck’s time on the Kansas Reservation. Topeka, KS: Kansas State Historical Society.
Sac and Fox burial site. William G. Cutler's 1883 History of the State of Kansas stated: "The Sac and Fox Indians, whose reservation was north of the county, had a burial ground near the site of the city of Burlington." Louise Barry in The Beginning of the West (p. 753) placed it at the SE1/4 of NW1/4 S16 T17S R18E and noted the burial of Hard Fish (circa 1800-July 1851).
Shawnee Indian Cemetery. The half-acre cemetery has more graves than markers with the earliest marker for Nancy Parks, 6, daughter of Shawnee Joseph Parks and his Wyandot wife Catherine. Most burials took place here in the 1860s with the more recent in 1870 date for Julia Ann Daugherty Bluejacket, second wife of Charles Bluejacket. Burials American Indians and individuals that were involved with the nearby Quaker and Methodist Missions. 10905 59th Terrace. Shawnee. Learn more in National Register Nomination.
Shawnee and Kansas burial site. Cholera killed many who were buried by Sharp's Creek in McPherson County. Source: Cutler, William G. (1883). History of the state of Kansas. Chicago, IL: A. T. Andreas.
Wyandot National Burying Ground/Huron Indian Cemetery. When the Wyandots arrived in this area, more than 60 Wyandots died from disease and exposure. Their bodies were buried on this hill and an estimated 500 others although few graves are marked. South side of Minnesota Avenue between North 7th and 6th Streets Kansas City, Kansas. Learn more in National Register Nomination.
Haskell Indian Nations University Cemetery. More than a hundred students have headstones with their tribal affiliation here. Kiowa Avenue, Lawrence.
Individual graves
East of the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve at the Curry Site (#14GW301), the bones of an adult female, infants, and children were found with shell pendants and calcite, shell, and bone beads. Radiocarbon dated the adult to around 300 AD. Jones, Bruce. (1999). Archaeological overview and assessment for Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, Chase County, Kansas. Midwest Archeological Center. Report No. 61.
An estimated thousand-year old Indian was discovered in 1993 when digging the flagpole in memory of Sylvia Hartwich Galloway and still remains there. Hiway 99, near Westmoreland. Archeological Site 14-PO1311
Jacques Ash-kum [More and More]. Wabash Pottawatomi. Ash-kum, and early Indiana land negotiator and powerful orator forced to Kansas in 1838, died in 1840 and was buried in the Sugar Creek Settlement in Linn County.
Abraham Burnett. Potawatomi. "The slimy Shunganunga creeps snakelike around this half acre of low headland, strewn with the remains of ancient graves. Years ago the ground was turreted with mounds of earth, each of which covered the mortal remains of an Indian. The corpses were originally placed in a sitting posture on the surface of the ground, and covered with a heap of stones and earth. All of these mounds have been razed, demolished and sifted for relics by a Mexican miner named Deuse who purchased "the eighty" from the original owners. (Kansas Semi-Weekly Capital; April 23, 1897) Buried 1870 southwest of S.W. 29th and Wanamaker, Topeka.
Big Woman. Delaware. A. L. Edminster in a Leavenworth Times (March 11, 1910) article said Big Woman was buried on a high hill at the junction of Big Woman Creek and a smaller stream on the east side of Stranger Creek, a mile below Dafer. About 25 years earlier, he said there was a small house structure over the grave and three other graves were covered with rail pens. He also said Charles Journeycake was buried in Piper; however, Journeycake’s grave is in Oklahoma.
Compehau. Ottawa. Marker for this leader is a slab carved with a quiver, a drawn bow, and a tomahawk. Ottawa Indian Cemetery. 3375 Osborne Terrace, Ottawa.
Indian boy. Cheyenne. An injured boy was left behind after the Hundred Head Draw raid in 1878 and killed. In 1900, C.B.&Q. Railroad placed a grave monument where he was buried. Four miles east of Ludell.
Henry Jacquis. Wyandot. Reputably, on July 21, 1843, leader Henry Jacquis shouted; “Farewell Ohio and her brave. as the steamboat left Ohio for land in Kansas. Buried 1848 in Huron National Cemetery, Kansas City, Kansas.
John Tecumseh "Tauy" Jones. Chippewa. Ottawa Indian Cemetery. 3375 Osborne Terrace, Ottawa.
Kack-Kack. Prairie Band Potawatomi. Born near Chicago and warrior in three wars, he claimed to have scalped many and especially Pawnee but said he had never scalped a white man. Died in 1907 and buried 1/2 mile south of his home on Soldier Creek, west of Mayetta.
Keokuk. Sac and Fox. Buried in 1848 at Sac and Fox Agency before removal (including his skull that was used in white settlers' lodge ceremonies) in 1883 to Rand Park. River Road (County Road X28) in Keokuk, Iowa.
Little Bear. Osage. Body of this Little Osage stolen along with grave items. William Hill, Neodesha, said in 1873: "After dinner, the wind having gone down, we (Pierce and I) got a carriage, and drove up to Little Bear's Grave. As we ascended the hill, Pierce requested me to keep my eyes on the floor cloth on the bottom of the carriage until having reached the right point of observation, he should bid me look around. You know how I have stood up for Baraboo scenery in every letter. Well, the view from Little Bear's Grave surpasses that from the bluff at Dorward's Gorge, or that from the Ebenezer Hill, or that from the bluff looking down on Sauk Prairie, or any view that there is in Sauk County. It surpasses anything I ever saw! The belts of forest skirting Fall and Verdigris Rivers, Chetopa and Dry and Little Washington Creeks and other streams, the lines of hills, the valleys, pockets, prairies, Neodesha and Thayer, the one at hand, the other visible at a distance of sixteen miles, all give such diversity to the scenery as makes the whole vast extent on every side seem such as I might imagine the planner of Fairmount Park desiring to reproduce were you to give him a circuit of sixty miles. The monument itself is but a square built pile of thin layers of limestone, as roughly laid up (without mortar) as a stone fence. The scene at his burial could be worked up into an interesting magazine sketch. I can only hit it off to-night hurriedly. Delegations of Indians congregated from different tribes to do honor to his funeral ceremonies. The 'howlers' were out in force. These fellows, next to the medicine men in the standing accorded to them by the tribes, hold themselves in readiness to 'howl' on the occasion of the death of any member of the tribe-for a consideration! For a small pony they will 'howl' for twenty-four hours; for a steer four days! On the death of Little Bear their services were volunteered, and the hills and woods rang with their melancholy, piercing wailings for days during which no food passed their lips. The braves congregated in all the pomp of their most impressive paint and costume. The place of his burial was one of their favorite resorts, and Neodesha, like Baraboo, boasts of having been of the haunts of the tribes, from which they were last and loathest to depart. (November 1944). Kansas Historical Quarterly, 13(4), 243-249. Little Bear Mound north of the Neodesha Cemetery.
Tenskwatawa/Ten-Aqua-Ta-We (the Shawnee Prophet). The brother of Tecumseh, Tenskwatawa, a Shawnee spiritual leader, died in 1836 at his cabin near Whitefeather Spring and was buried nearby. 3818 Ruby Avenue, Kansas City, Kansas.
Opothle Yahola. Creek. Leader of the Creek exodus to Kansas, Opothleyahola was buried next to his daughter. Hill that overlooks old Fort Belmont, two miles west of Buffalo in Woodson County.
Anna “Indian Annie” Wilson (circa 1847-1885). Cherokee. Wilson was reputed to be the common-law wife of Wild Bill Hickock when he was in Ellsworth. Buried in Ellsworth County Poor Farm Cemetery, PQGQ+4W, Ellsworth.