Were Indians always buried in mounds?

Answer 1

No, it depends on the tribe, the area and the status of the person who died.

In most of the Plains tribes, a warrior or chief would be placed on a kind of rack or scaffold raised above the ground, covered with a buffalo hide and with his bow, shield and other weapons at his side; often his war horse would be killed alongside this rack.

Sometimes specially decorated burial clothes were made for the dead person to wear, such as fully-beaded moccasins that included beadwork on the entire soles as well as the uppers.

Some tribes buried their dead in simple graves just like any grave today; some were unmarked (deliberately) so that enemies could not find and disturb the burial - like the grave of the Lakota Crazy Horse.

In the eastern woodlands, graves were sometimes marked with a carved wooden board giving the name of the dead person in pictographs, or sometimes his clan symbol.

See links below for images: