Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1919 — One Good Word for Him. [ARTICLE]

One Good Word for Him.

The Long Island aborigines made it a practice not to bury one of their number until someone had spoken—a good word concerning the deceased. One time a a very bad old redskin went the way of all flesh and the members of the tribe gathered to lay him away. It was a silent assemblage—not a work was spoken to the credit of the dead man. Lower and lower sank the sun, and. darkness was almost ready to descend, when one old buck walked up to where the body lay and succinctly remarked: “He was a devil of a hand at skinning eels”—or its equivalent in the Long Island Indian language. That was considered sufficient to permit the hurlal to proceed, ijnd the bad olcT’lndlan was laid away not wholly “unwept, unhonored and unsung.”