A 1927 monograph by the Smithsonian Institute's Bureau of American Ethnology describes the variations of tree burial practiced on and near the Great Plains. The Cheyenne would sew up the deceased in a buckskin, along with a number of his personal belongings, like his tobacco pipe or his ax. The bundled body would be slung on a high scaffold. The dead man's best horse might be shot directly under the body as well. Curiously, the Cheyenne were wary of ghosts and would avoid the grave.
Another Smithsonian document describes Chippewa tree burial at length. Warriors buried this way would be carefully dressed and coiffed, with a feather tied into their hair for each scalp the dead man had taken in battle. After a two-day vigil, the body would be closed in a chest, and the chest hoisted onto a wooden scaffold, where the bereaved family would visit and bring food for a year. The same source notes that in Michigan, an animal pelt often stood in for the chest.
Tree burial on the Great Plains began dying out in the late 1800s. As the Plains Indians adopted Christianity, they began burying their dead in the Western-style.
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