An Introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians

Produced by Scott Pfenninger, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. This file was produced from images generously made available by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions.
Washington D. C. July 8, 1880
This little volume is the third of a series designed to promote anthropologic researches among the North American Indians. The first was prepared by myself and entitled Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages, the second by Col. Garrick Mallery entitled Introduction to the Study of Sign Language among the North American Indians.
The following are in course of preparation and will soon appear.
Introduction to the Study of Medicine Practices among the North American Indians
Introduction to the Study of Mythology among the North American Indians
Introduction to the Study of Sociology among the North American Indians
The mortuary customs of savage or barbaric people have a deep significance from the fact that in them are revealed much of the philosophy of the people by whom they are practiced. Early beliefs concerning the nature of human existence in life and after death and the relations of the living to the dead are recorded in these customs. The mystery concerning the future love for the departed who were loved while here, reverence for the wise and good who may after death be wiser and better, hatred and fear of those who were enemies here and may have added powers of enmity in the hereafter—all these and like considerations have led in every tribe to a body of customs of exceeding interest as revealing the opinions, the philosophy of the people themselves.
In these customs, also are recorded evidences of the social condition of the people, the affection in which friends and kindred are held, the very beginnings of altruism in primitive life.
In like manner these customs constitute a record of the moral condition of the people, as in many ways they exhibit the ethic standards by which conduct in human life is judged. For such reasons the study of mortuary customs is of profound interest to the anthropologist.