Mortuary Programmes of the Early Ontario Iroquoians

6 ONTARIO ARCHAEOLOGY No. 58, 1994 MORTUARY PROGRAMMES OF THE EARLY ONTARIO IROQUOIANS Michael W. Spence Over the past few years, excavations and ring in small ossuaries located within the analyses of a number of sites and collections village. He contrasts this pattern with that of have increased our understanding of Early the Glen Meyer people, who are said to have Ontario Iroquoian burial practices. Although preferred burial practices which left no ar- this data base is still distressingly small and chaeological record, perhaps because they used uneven, it has become apparent that neither of scaffolds or had final burial well beyond the the generally recognized cultural constructs of village confines. This distinction, however, is the period (Glen Meyer and Pickering) can be flawed in two respects. In terms of raw data, characterized by a single, coherent mortuary Wright has not considered a number of Early programme. Rather, each small group of Ontario Iroquoian burials (Table 1), though to interacting communities apparently developed be fair, information on many of these was not its own distinctive set of burial practices, re- readily available when he wrote his article. sponsive to the particular social, environmen- Even now, much of the information exists only tal and ideological factors affecting it. The in unpublished manuscripts and in reports absence of any overarching mortuary pro- locked away in the files of various government gramme brings into question the integrity of agencies. the Glen Meyer and Pickering constructs, and On a more fundamental level, Wright has the ability of either to mount the sort of con- erred in approaching burial practices from a certed and sustained endeavour that is implied typological perspective. He characterizes by J.V. Wright's conquest hypothesis. burials in formal terms, viewing them as iso- lated features with a limited set of attributes (e.g., flexed versus bundle, single versus multi- INTRODUCTION ple), rather than as expressions of mortuary programmes which are complex and dynamic, J.V. Wright (1990, 1992) has recently reaf- responsive to a variety of social and economic firmed his belief in what has come to be known factors (Binford 1971:6; Brown 1981: 31). These as the "conquest theory, which he initially programmes, which include not only the pat- proposed in 1966 to explain the extensive terned behaviour that a society displays in its changes between the Early and Middle Ontario treatment of the dead but also the concepts, Iroquois stages (Wright 1966:40-41,53; Wright values and social judgements conditioning that and Anderson 1969:78-79). Put briefly, at about behaviour, underlie and constrain individual 1300 AD the Pickering peoples of south-central burials. If they are to be effective, then, inter- and eastern Ontario are said to have conquered cultural comparisons should be structured in their Glen Meyer contemporaries in terms of these mortuary programmes, rather southwestern Ontario, absorbing the survivors than the resulting burial forms. The reconstruc- to produce the following Uren horizon. Al- tion of mortuary programmes is not, however, a though Wright has presented a broad range of straightforward matter. It involves an additional evidence in support of his hypothesis, I shall level of inference, one beyond the relatively confine myself here to the data base with which concrete evidence of the burials them-selves. I am most familiar, the burial practices of the Comparisons based on these more hypothetical Early Ontario Iroquoian peoples (for other constructs will inevitably be more difficult. critiques see Jamieson [1991], Pearce One potential stumbling block is the difficulty [1984:391-395], and Williamson [1990a:311- in distinguishing between fundamental 312]). differences in mortuary programmes and mere Wright (1992:12) has characterized Pickering burials as generally secondary, often occur- SPENCE MORTUARY PROGRAMMES OF THE EARLY ONTARIO IROQUOIANS 7 shifts in the attendant circumstances (Spence of dismemberment) in true ossuaries, since 1986:88). For example, among the Historic much more time would have been allowed for period Huron a person who died violently was the decomposition of soft tissue in the primary left in the primary grave, rather than being burials. Jackes (1988:140) adds the further exhumed for the final ossuary burial (Ramsden stipulation that in ossuaries the remains of 1991:32; Trigger 1976:52). The Ball and individuals are mixed, rather than deposited in Warminster sites, located near each other in discrete bundles. Simcoe County and probably representing To further confuse matters, there might also successive occupations of the same Huron have been a transitional stage between annual community (Fitzgerald 1986), have both been reburial and ossuaries. Individual primary extensively excavated. A total of fourteen burials may have been exhumed for annual burials, six of them adults, have been found to joint reburial, and later (perhaps with village date in the Ball village (Knight and Melbye relocation) these annual reburial features may 1983; Dean Knight, personal communication have been exhumed for a joint final "ossuary" 1993). In contrast, the only burial recorded burial. This pattern would be very difficult to within the confines of the later Warminster identify without extensive excavation of the village is the joint interment of two infants in community. one of the longhouses (Kapches 1976:33). It is Deciphering these complex mortuary pro- not clear whether this discrepancy is due to a grammes and identifying the factors underlying reduction in the categories of people who were them will require a comprehensive data base. normally excluded from the ossuary, which To this end, brief outlines of the extant Early would constitute an actual change in the mor- Ontario Iroquoian and early Middle Ontario tuary programme, or whether it simply reflects Iroquoian burials are presented below (see also (at least in the case of some of the adults) a Table 1). Unfortunately, practical constraints decrease in the impact of warfare. preclude discussion of the numerous sites that The question of ossuary burial is another have not produced burials (e.g., Fox 1976; example of this potential for confusion. Most Timmins 1992), although these must eventually archaeologists have defined ossuaries on the be considered if mortuary pro-grammes are to basis of their formal properties (number of be properly situated in the economic and social included individuals and secondary nature of cycles of their communities. The fact that interments), rather than in terms of their role in burials are found in a variety of sites (e.g., the mortuary programme (e.g., Dodd et al. villages, fishing camps, and specialized burial 1990:353; Johnston 1979:95; Mullen and Hoppa sites) gives some hint of the complexity of the 1992:38 cf. Jackes 1988:140). While this is un- task. derstandable, given the difficulty of interpreting Reconstruction of these mortuary program- mortuary programmes, it can lead to some mes requires a wide variety of observations. uncertainty. For example, the appearance in a Some of these are gleaned from the literature local archaeological sequence of burial pits on the seventeenth-century Huron and Neutral containing a dozen or more disarticulated peoples, whose burial practices represent the individuals might represent nothing more than a culmination of long mortuary traditions that growth in size of the contributing community, began at least as early as the Early Ontario leading to the inclusion of more individuals in Iroquoian expressions described below. Under an annual reburial ceremony. On the other normal circumstances both Huron and Neutral hand, it could mark a fundamental change in practices involved some form of primary dis- the mortuary programme, perhaps a shift from a posal of the corpse near the time of death, pattern of annual exhumation and joint followed at some later point by the exhumation reburial of the community's dead to a less of part or all of the primary burial and its frequent final burial ceremony, triggered by transfer to a final secondary burial, which it events like village relocation, the death of a generally shared with the selected remains of leader, or a reformulation of inter-village alli- other exhumed primary burials (Ramsden ances. The term "ossuary" is best reserved for 1990, 1991; Trigger 1976:51-54). The exhuma- the archaeological manifestation of the latter tion and reburial were tied to the settlement practice. The two may be difficult to distin- cycle and social life of the community, as well guish, although one would expect more individ- as to a specific ideology. Within this very gen- uals and fewer articulations (or less evidence eral pattern there was, of course, a great deal 8 ONTARIOARCHAEOLOGY No. 58, 1994 of localized variation. For example, secondary often disarticulated and defleshed, when reburial features range from the large ossua- exhumed from the primary grave, to reduce ries of the Huron (some of which included them to bones and allow selection of elements several hundred individuals from a number of for the reburial [Ramsden 1991; Spence 1988]. In contributing villages and which were deliber- southern Ontario an exposed corpse can ately designed to obliterate any individual, decompose in a matter of months, while a lineage or clan distinctions [Kidd 1953; Rams- subsurface burial may retain a considerable den 1990:174]), to considerably smaller fea- amount of soft tissue for several years); tures at some Neutral sites which may have (6) data on pathology and perimortem trau- been restricted to families (Kenyon 1982; Jack- ma (the health or particular physical qualities es 1988:139-141). of individuals or their cause of death may In any case, we cannot simply project our affect their postmortem treatment [Ramsden understanding of Historic period practises back 1991:32-33; von Gernet 1994:44-46]); into the past. Although some elements of (7) season of interment (pollen or flotation Native ritual and ideology may indeed have analysis may allow determination of the sea-son considerable temporal depth (von Gernet of burial.

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