Indian Funeral 1908
Waupaca Record
A MODERN INDIAN FUNERAL
Kit Crow is Embalmed, Painted and Dressed in Silk for Burial
The following account of a modern Indian funeral is taken from the Wausau Record:
The
body of Kit Crow, the Indian woman who died from Alcoholism and exposure near
Kelley Monday night, was at
The body was to be taken out to Buffalo Head’s farm Thursday, where in the evening a death dance will begin, which will continue thru the greater part of the night.
Buffalo Head returned to the undertaker’s Wednesday night and asked to be allowed to dress the body for burial. He painted the upper portion of the woman’s face with some black substance and the lower part with vermillion. On her body he placed a silk skirt, and a green silk waist, and then hung around her neck two strings of beads, one string being blue and white, and the other black and white, after which the whole body was carefully wrapped in a bright colored shawl, a handful of tobacco and a small medicine pouch being laid in the coffin beside her.
Having with the utmost tenderness performed these last kindly offices for his dead, Buffalo Head walked around the coffin uttering a dirge, which evidently combined both sorrow for the dead and supplication to the gods, after which he left the room evidently much relieved and said:
“Woman now go to God.”
Buffalo Head said that neither he nor his wife had ever attended any school and belonged to no church, and for this reason the funeral will be according to Indian rites. This is especially important because of the fact that the woman has a twin and were not the proper rites observed the spirits would pursue and destroy her brother, Bill Short Horn. A medicine man will be present at the dance to see that all necessary ceremonies are observed. A tent will be erected on the farm and during the night the body will remain in this, the entire top being left open so that the spirits can have free access to the dead. When the body is finally laid to rest it will be with the head to the east.
This is the first Indian funeral held in this city in a good many years, and the first known instance of any Indian body being embalmed here.