Burial tree  A burial tree or burial scaffold is a tree or simple structure used for supporting corpses or coffins. They were once common among the Balinese, the Naga people, certain Aboriginal Australians, and some North American First Nations. A number of Native Americans used a burial tree as the last resting place for a dead relative, either as the general rule (along with a scaffold) or as an alternative to a grave. The corpse was wrapped up carefully in a robe or blankets and either placed in a fork of the tree or tied to a heavy branch. Both grown persons and small children were laid to rest in this way. A burial tree could carry more than one dead. Maximilian zu Wied saw burial trees with red painted trunk and branches among the Assiniboine Indians. It seems any tree was proper. Cottonwood is mentioned by travelers on the great plains, as well as pine and cedar. The dead could be placed from around six feet up in the tree to close to the top. Some of the belongings of the deceased were often placed near the corpse. A burial scaffold was usually made of four upright poles or branches, forked at the top. This foundation carried a sort of bier, where the dead body was laid to rest out of reach of wolves. The preferred location was on a hill. Relatives would often place some of the belongings of the dead on the platform or around the scaffold. The poles reached "a mans height above ground" (six to eight feet). An extraordinary high scaffold carried the corpse of a Sisseton Sioux an estimated 18 feet above the ground. One scaffold described had poles painted black and red in horizontal stripes. An 1849 Nebraska traveler saw a scaffold made of lodge poles rested against each other at the top and with two biers halfway down. An Ojibwe man would get his arms and other personal effects with him on the scaffold along with food, eating utensils and tobacco. This practice may have been used only as a temporarily solution when death occurred far from the common burial ground with graves and markers. Birch bark served as an option to a body wrapping of skin among the Ojibwe. In the 18th century, the Choctaw placed the dead on a scaffold as a first step in a burial process. Months later, bone pickers stripped the flesh from the bones. The skeleton was then cleaned and piece by piece put in a sort of small coffin and lastly placed in the Indian city's special bone house.