"Mound 72 at Cahokia sounds innocuous enough, but its contents reveal much about social hierarchy and religious beliefs at Cahokia. The mound is long and ridge-like and oriented to the rising sun at the winter solstice. Snip...
Associated with the caped male in Mound 72 were, young female human sacrifices, including a mass burial of 50 young women lined up on wooden litters. The victims were likely killed nearby and carried on the litters to a pit in the mound. These females do not show evidence of violent treatment. Looking at the carbon and nitrogen isotopes in these women’s skeletons compared to the high-status burials, it became clear that the women ate more maize and less meat than the central male figures. Corn is missing vital amino acids found in meat, and these women may have suffered from poor nutrition. Dental studies suggest they may not have even been from Cahokia proper. Historic accounts of the Natchez Indians, who also built earthen mounds, indicate that female relatives were sometimes strangled upon the death of a high-status male. In one account a French reported:
“The death of a chieftain touched off a sacrificial orgy when several aides and two of the man’s wives and three children were strangled so they could escort him into the next world.” (Indian Tribes of the Lower Mississippi Valley)
It is, therefore, possible that these women in Mound 72 might have been strangled wives or female kin of the deceased, which would have left no physical evidence of violent treatment on the skeleton."
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And the British ended the Hindu practice of suttee (immolating a widow on the husband’s funeral pyre) among the Indians of Asia.
One of the British governors, Charles Napier, had this to say when the Indians pushed back on laws ending this sacred custom.
“Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs!”