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Purchased, 1918. 

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ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SUB VET 



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VANISHED RACES 



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MISSISSIPPI VALLEY; 



BEING AN ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THE MONUMENTS AND RELICS OF 

PRE-HISTORIC RACES SCATTERED OVER ITS SURFACE, WITH 

SUGGESTIONS AS TO THEIR ORIGIN AND USES. 



By A. J. CONANT, A. M., 

Member of the St. Louis Academy of Science, and of the American Association 
for the Advancement of Science. 



ST. LOUIS: 
CHANCY R. BARNS. 

1879. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879, 

Br A. J. CONANT, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 






PREFACE. 



The first organized effort for the study and preservation of the 
antiquities of this continent was the formation of The American 
Antiquarian Society, which was incorporated by Act of the Leg- 
islature of Massachusetts in October, 1812. A goodly number of 
distinguished scholars of that State were immediately enrolled as 
members, as well as many other learned men residing in other 
States, who were made corresponding members. In 1821 this 
Society published its first volume of " Transactions." 

Although nearly all the accounts of the expeditions of the earlier 
explorers of the continent of North America contained notes of 
striking memorials, which were met with in their journeys, such 
as mounds, embankments, fortifications and the like, still, all 
such notices were too meagre and superficial to give them any 
special scientific value. 

Through the labors of the American Antiquarian Society, the 
attention of the scientific world was first called to the countless, 
and often imposing memorials of pre-historic America, and their 
proper study began. 

More than three-score years have now passed since the date 
of the organization referred to, during which time volume after 
volume has appeared upon the subject. Accounts of special sur- 
veys, by private individuals and State geologists, have multiplied 
every year. Scientific associations all over the land, as well as nu- 
merous Archaeological Societies formed for this specific purpose, 
have given the subject unremitting and serious attention. The 
Smithsonian Institute has also expended large sums of money in 

409077 



iv PREFACE. 

exploration and in publishing the accounts of the multiplied dis- 
coveries of observers employed by that noble institution. Nor 
has the interest in the subject been confined to America. Some 
of the wisest archaeologists of Europe have written learnedly 
upon the works and migrations of the ancient inhabitants of 
both continents of America. 

Notwithstanding all this labor and study, the great questions 
continually repeated, which were suggested when our antiquities 
were first noticed, still remain unanswered ; namely : Who were 
the authors of these works ? What was their origin, and what 
were the causes of their disappearance ? Were they the red men 
found in possession of the continent at the time of its discovery ? 
I am not aware that the opinion that the red men were the authors of 
the most extensive works, though maintained by some scholars 
of high repute, is held by any who have given them personal 
and thorough examination. The earlier travellers who stumbled 
upon them in the wilderness, or on the prairie, express their as- 
tonishment at their magnitude and the skill displayed in their 
erection. Captain Carver, in the account of his travels in the 
years 1766-'7-'8, describes what he was convinced was a mili- 
tary work, which he accidentally discovered upon the bank of 
Lake Pepin. This was long before it was known that America 
had any antiquities. Concerning it he says that " its form was 
somewhat circular, and its flanks reached the river. Though 
much defaced by time, every angle was distinguishable, and 
appeared as regular and fashioned with as much military skill 
as if planned by Vauban himself." Again: "I was able to 
draw certain conclusions of its great antiquity." " How a work 
of this kind could exist in a country that has hitherto (according 
to generally-received opinion) been the seat of war to untutored 
Indians alone, whose whole stock of military knowledge has only, 
till within two centuries, amounted to drawing the bow, and 



PREFACE. 



whose only breastwork, even at present, is the thicket, I know 
not." 

His testimony is selected from that of a multitude of early 
writers, because he could not have been prejudiced by the pre- 
conceived opinions or notions of others, and also because he was 
a man of military training, being a captain in the British army, 
whose conclusions would not be mere guess-work. The judgment 
of Brackenridge, Atwater, William Wirt and many other dis- 
tinguished men, is in perfect agreement upon this point, 
namely: that they could not have been built by the Indians, as 
we know them, nor any people in like condition. 

The first important question to be decided — if, indeed, it can 
"be — i s the origin of the North American Indians. Was their 
original home in Asia? and did they, as many believe, make their 
way to this continent across Behring's Straits, or the Aleutian 
Islands? In the solution of this question, the student of Arch- 
aeology bespeaks the aid of the Philologist. 

Archa3ology, Geology and Paleontology have been called 
three sister sciences. Philology must be added to the sister- 
hood, at least as far as American pre-historic times are con- 
cerned, as it may be that the lamp of this younger sister may 
light the footsteps of the elder to the final results of ethnological 
investigation. Should there be discovered some radical affinity 
between a few of the forty stock languages of the red men of 
North America and their physically-related brethren of North- 
western Asia, the question, it would seem, would be settled. 

No one who has not previously examined the antiquities of 
the vanished races who once dwelt upon this continent, can have 
any adequate idea of their magnitude and extent ; and he who has 
seen them as they lie thickly scattered throughout the fertile 
valleys of the Western States, is surprised at the evidence they 



VI PREFACE. 

present of a prodigious population which once swarmed in this 
wide domain. 

The Cahokia group of mounds in the American Bottom, six 
miles from St. Louis, may aid in illustrating the statement. 
There are in this group, beside smaller ones, at least a dozen in 
close propinquity ; any one of which, if standing alone, would be 
a striking feature of the landscape. Just west of Monk's Mound, 
the largest of the group, is one which is perhaps fifteen to twenty 
feet in height, On the flat surface of the top stands a good-sized 
farm-house, with necessary out-buildings and conveniences, and 
plenty of room for a variety of fruit trees, and an ample vegeta- 
ble garden. This is not the only one so occupied, and there are 
near this one several others much larger and more conspicuous ; 
while all of them look diminutive, and may be compared to ant- 
hills beside that King of Mounds which stands near the northern 
center of the group. Directly north of this great work are satis- 
factory evidences of a large artificial lake, the dirt taken from 
which was presumably used in building the mounds. The form 
and size of the lake can best be made out just after the Cahokia 
creek, which flows through it, has been swollen by heavy rains. 

Having his home in the center of the great valley where these 
works abound, and looking upon some of them almost every day 
of his life, the writer has been impelled to note the facts which 
came under his own observation, and to venture, concerning them, 
a few conclusions. The conclusions may be valueless ; but if he 
who causes two blades of grass to grow where but one grew 
before, is a benefactor, truly, he who contributes a new fact to 
the sum of human knowledge, should be considered in the same 
li<-ht: for the after times alone can reveal the value of the con- 
tribution, and that which is least in all earthly kingdoms some- 
times becomes the greatest. In the desire to do what he could 
to advance the study of a science so deeply interesting to himself, 



PREFACE. vii 



the writer commits these chapters to the public, making no claim 
to originality beyond the accounts of his own explorations of the 
mounds and caves therein contained .* 

It should be noticed that this memoir has already appeared in 
the voluminous work, entitled, "The Commonwealth of Mis- 
souri," and as there has been, ever since the appearance of that 
work, much inquiry from various quarters, particularly out- 
side of Missouri, for the Archaeological portion, and by those who 
had no special interest in the local history of our State, and there- 
fore did not care to incur the expense of purchasing so costly a 
work as the Commonwealth, it has seemed best, without further 
delay, to reprint the work from the original plates, as it first 
appeared in the history referred to. This statement will explain 
the frequent allusions which will be noticed, to that work. 

A. J. C 



* It may not be amiss to state, also, that an additional interest may attach to the sub- 
ject-matter of this work, because it is the result of explorations in an entirely new field, 
concerning which nothing has before been published. The account of every new "find " 
in the Archaeological field always elicits the attention of scientists all over the world. 
This is illustrated by the fact that a short, paper upon the mounds in Southeast Mis- 
souri, read by the author of this book at a meeting of the St. Louis Academy of Science, 
and published in its transactions, has been translated and republished in France, Ger- 
many, Austria and Denmark. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Traces of Vanished Peoples. — Their World-wide Diffusion . — Russian Earth- 
works. — Egj'ptian Monuments Ancient at the Date of Oldest Records. — A 
Troy Still Older than the Ancient Troy of Homer 

CHAPTER II. 

Methods of the Archaeologist. — The Shell-heaps of the Baltic. — The Buried For- 
ests of Denmark. — The Sisterhood of Science. — The Five Geological Periods. 
— The Agres of Stone and Bronze. — Iron in Common Use Three Thousand 



Page. 



Years Ago . 



CHAPTER III. 

No "Age of Bronze " in America. — Traditions Regarding the Mounds. — Tus- 
carora Chronology. — The Animal Mounds of the Upper Mississippi Region. — 
Ancient Fish Traps. — Burial, Sacrificial and Historical Mounds 12 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Archaeological Monuments of Missouri. — Their Rapid Destruction. — Sites of 
Towns and Cities. — The Labors of H. M. Brackenridge. — The Big Mound at 
St. Louis. — Col. O'Fallon's Residence Erected on an Ancient Mound. — The 
Mounds in Forest Park. — Evidences of a Vast Population. — New Madrid its 
Center. — Description of Various Works 25 

CHAPTER V. 

One People the Builders of these Mounds. — Cremation and Burial Mounds. — The 
Big Mound at St. Louis. — Mistaken Views. — Minute Description of the Work. 
— Stone Mounds. — Stone Sepulchres in St. Louis and Perry Counties 3S 

CHAPTER VI. 

"The Cave-Dwellers. *' — Tales of Discoveries in Kentucky, etc. — The Caves of 
the Ozark Mountains. — Proofs of Long Occupancy.— Skeletons and Other 
Relics Found. — The Cave-Dwellers a Different Race From the Mound- 
Builders 47 



x TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Temple Mounds.— Growth of Ancient Religious Systems.— Characteristics of this 
Class of Monuments. — The Greal Mound at Cahokia its best Representative 
in ITorth America.— Brackenridge's Description of it in 1811. — How it came to 
be called " Monk's Mound."'— The Ceremonies of the Sun-Worshippers.— 
Other Temple Mounds. — The Indians not Descended From the Mound- 
Builders 53 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Garden Mounds.— The Food of the Pre-Historie Races.— Fish Probably one of 
their Main Resources. — The use of the Ditches within their City Walls. — 
Domestic Animals. — Agriculture. — Religious Systems. — Dissimilarity between 
Northern and Southern Tribes of Indiana— Traces of Aztec Culture Among 
the Latter. — Vast Numbers of the Garden Mounds. — Proofs of their Purpose. 
— The Utah Mounds. — Interesting Discoveries. — A new Variety of "Wheat 
Grown from Kernels found Therein.— An Opening for Further Researches. . . G2 

CHAPTER IX. 

Miscellaneous Works.— Historical or National Festival Mounds.— Stone Struc- 
tures.— Ruins on the Gasconade River.— Group near Louisiana, Mo.— Some 
Indiana Relics.— Cremation Chambers.— Proofs of Agricultural Knowledge. 
—Great Canals Ante-dating the Erie. —Ancient Counterparts of Modern 
Achievements.— Our Southern " Bayous " of Artificial Origin 70 

CHAPTER X. 

Pottery.— Superiority of Pre-Historic America Wares over those of Europe. — 
Imitations of Living Objects.— The Materials Used.— Reliquaries.— Skulls 
Enclosed in Earthen Vessels.— Bowls with Ornamental Heads.— Probabilities 
of Higher Art Among the Ancients 79 

CHAPTER XI. 

Crania.— Differences Between the Skulls of the Mound-Builders and the Indians. 

Difficulties of the Subject. — Two Varieties of Crania in the same Mounds. — 

Principles of Classification.— Influence of Local Customs.— Peruvian Skulls.— 
Characteristics of Missouri Specimens, etc.— The Tools of Ancient Americans. 
—Proofs of a Knowledge of Iron 97 

CHAPTER XII. 

Concluding Observations.— The Origin of the Pre-Historic Races of America.— 
Theory of Spontaneous Generation —The Law Governing their Migrations.— 
Successive Movements of the Nahua Race.— The Aztecs the Last Colony of 
that People.— Opinions of Baron Humboldt.— Our own Country Probably the 
Original Home of the Aztec Civilization.— The Indian Races of Asiatic Origin. 
—Facilities of Immigration via. Behring'S Straits.— A Personal Word.— Dry 
Bones Clothed 113 




Man in the A?e of the Mammoth and Great Bear. 



CHAPTER I. 

Traces of Vanished Peoples. — Their World-Wide Diffusion. — Russian Earth- 
works.— Egyptian Monuments Ancient at the Date of Oldest Records.— A 
Troy Still Older than ihe Ancient Troy of Homer. 

IN all lands, whenever in the ages past the climate has been such as 
to render it possible for man to subsist, the earth is found thickly 
planted with the graves of vanished peoples. Countless generations 
have come and gone, and left no record of their lives and work, save 
what is to be found in the few surviving monuments they have erected, 
or the rude implements and fragmentary remains of their industry, 
which descended with them to the tomb. The great ocean of humanity, 
with the energy of its ceaseless flow, has oft-times, no doubt, obliterated 
the traces of former generations, save here and there a foot-print in the 
solid rock, or an empty shell which has been left upon the shores of time. 
We of to-day build, sow and reap, buy and sell, and thus repeat, over 
smd over again, the great drama of life, above the sepulchers of departed 
millions, long since forgotten. How often the long eons have finished 
their cycles and the new began — who can compute, or from whence 
shall the data be drawn upon which such computation may be based? 
The sacred records furnish no system of the chronology of the race, 
nor standing- ground upon which a trustworthy one can be constructed. 
The wisest who have essayed the task, from such sources, differ in 



4 ARCHEOLOGY. 

their estimates more than five thousand years. The devout believer 
in Revelation, therefore, need feel no apprehensions for the foundations 
of his faith if it shall be proven even that man has been an inhabitant 
of the earth for a hundred thousand years or more. 

All that can be gained from history, sacred and profane, supplemented 
with the hieroglyphic annals of Egypt and the inscribed bricks and 
cylinders of Assyria, carries us back only about forty-four centuries. 
Suddenly we come then to the border-land of legendary myths and 
extravagant traditions. The thick darkness which enshrouds all beyond, 
no one, a hundred years ago, thought possible to penetrate or dispel. 
But within the last fifty years a new science has been added to the 
varied departments of human knowledge and research — the science of 
Archeology, pure and proper, — and thousands to-day, including many 
of the best minds in the most enlightened lands, are devoting to it their 
serious and earnest labors. 

The field of exploration is the wide world, whose continents are all 
equally rich in the monuments of the forgotten past. From the widely- 
separated quarters of this great field, the laborers gather from time to 
time, bringing the results of their work. All these combined are 
throwing their focal light upon the great questions of the origin and 
antiquity of the various races of mankind — their peculiar customs and 
mode of life — investing them with an interest never before awakened, 
which increases more and more, as the promise brightens of their 
satisfactory elucidation. The number of the monuments of which we 
speak, upon our own continent, is legion upon legion. From Nova 
Scotia to the southern coast of Florida — from Behring's Strait to Mexico 
and Peru — from the Atlantic to the Pacific — are to be found the sites of 
ancient cities, or the former seats of a dense population. Europe, as 
every one knows, is full of them. Not only on the surface of the soil, 
but far down in the gravels of the drift, are found the remains of man 
in companionship with the bones of huge mammals, who were buried 
there, it would seem, long before the "British Channel was scooped 
out." In Russia, from its western border to the Pacific, from its 
southernmost limit far north into the inhospitable regions of Siberia, 
earthworks are found giving evidences of long occupancy, and doubtless 
a forced migration to the North. There, in the sepulchers of the dead, 
they deposited the gold and silver ornaments and other treasures of the 
departed, in which relics the more recent inhabitants have driven a 
thriving trade. The great steppes of Asia abound with sepulchral 



TKACES OF VANISHED PEOPLES. & 

mounds. Nor are the deserts of Africa without their witness to the 
existence of former generations. Hei remorseless sands are the tomb 
of many an ancient city. 

Egypt, the oldest nation which has preserved a written history, has 
also her pre-historic remains. Before the name of Athens was pro- 
nounced, or Greece was born — when Italy was peopled with savage tribes 
as wild and barbarous as the red men of America, — Egypt w r as far 
advanced in the higher branches of knowledge, the sciences and the 
nobler arts. Her priests even then dwelt in the palaces of the kings, 
and issued their mandates, with his, from the throne. Those palaces 
were colleges of learning, while the priests were the professors, who 
not only ministered in matters of religion and worship, but devoted 
themselves to the higher education of the young as well. 

To-day, as the explorer removes the stones from her ancient structures, 
he finds here and there one, whose inner surface is carved with curious 
devices and inscriptions, showing that it once had a place in older and* 
demolished edifices. She had then her libraries also, in which the 
knowledge of her sages was preserved. Tombs of the librarians have 
been discovered, dating back at least five hundred years before Homer 
sang in the cities of Greece, and inscribed "To the chief of books." 

Lono* since, the line of the Pharaohs became extinct, and no prince or 
king — S o the prophet said — shall ever sit on her throne again or sway 
the scepter over the land of the Nile. How old she seems ! And yet old 
Egypt was of yesterday, compared with the men of the drift, the 
reindeer period, or the pre-glacial times of Scandinavia, Scotland, 
France, England and the Pyrenees. 

These everywhere ancient monuments of which we speak, men have 
been wont to regard with unquestioning curiosity, or at most to pass by 
with a conjecture only, as Homer did, who speaks of the ancient mounds, 
concerning which, in his day even, there was no history or tradition, and 
who imagined they might be the tombs of ancient heroes. Job makes 
more than one allusion to the monuments and "solitary mansions of the 
dead," which awakened the curiosity of the caravans and travelers of 
Teman, as they passed along the great thoroughfares of commerce. 
The wild songs of the most ancient bards are no longer poetic myths, 
the creations of a fervid imagination ; but their inspiration was drawn 
from events which actually transpired. "With truth their souls were fired." 
The poets were the nations' historians as well. Troy, with her strange 
story, is no longer a doubtful city. Dr. Schlieman has found her ancient 



6 AJRCILEOLOGY. 

site and discovered enough, among her long-entombed memorials, to> 
authenticate her history ; and we may write once more "Ilium est" 
for " Ilium fuit." 

And what is most surprising of all, far down beneath the level of the 
ground once trod by the heroes whose names Homer has given to 
immortality, the explorer has found the ruins of another city — and he 
thinks still another below it — concerning which the poet seems to have 
heard no tradition. Among those deposits of an age so remote, were 
articles of stone and bronze and precious metals, skillfully wrought, giv- 
ing evidence of the existence of a people whose knowledge, attainments, 
and social condition were far in advance of those of the more ancient 
periods of stone and bronze — a civilization which could only have been 
realized by the slow growth of centuries. 

But not alone upon that glorious land, made immortal by the fiery 
energy of Homer's matchless sougs, has a resurrection morning dawned, 
.nor Egypt and Assyria with their hieroglyphic annals, hoary with age ; but 
other lands, unknown in classic story, and the islands of the sea, are 
divine up their long-forgotten dead. The explorers of to-day are 
breakino- down the hitherto impassable barriers of the remoter ages of 
antiquity ; here and tjiere we catch glimpses of the life and customs, and 
hold converse with the tribes and peoples of pre-historic times. The 
fast-accumulating records which have been gathered during the last 
twenty-five years are continually enriching the libraries of every civilized 
nation, and he who would master them all will soon find life too short to 
do more than acquaint himself with the grand results of the multiplied 
discoveries. The chief difficulty then, it will be perceived, in the 
way of the present task, is one of condensation, or in other words, 
how to select from such vast material only those facts and observations 
which are necessary for the proper treatment of the subject we are 
about to consider. 

On account of the limits prescribed for the archaeological chapters of 
this work compelling all possible economy of space, and also for the sake 
of continuity, instead of burdening them with frequent references to the 
authors consulted, I desire in the outset to make all due acknowledgment 
of my indebtedness to those valued records of the labors of the noble 
army of abler men who have preceded me in like investigations in this 
department of knowledge. Chief among those which have been freely 
consulted, are the writings of Garcillasso de la Vega, Prof. 
Refinesque, Daniel Willson, LL.D., Alexander W. Bradford, 



TJEtACES OF VANISHED PEOPLES. 7 

J. W. Foster, Edward L. Clark, Wm. Pidgeon, Prof. G. C. Swal- 
low, Sir John Lubbock, M. L. Figuier, M. Marlot, John Evans, 
Lewis C. Beck, H. M. Brackenridge, James Adair, and others. 
Also, au article upon the Archseology of Missouri, contributed by 
myself to the last volume of Transactions of the St. Louis Academy of 
Science. 



CHAPTER II. • 

Methods of the Archaeologist. — The Shell-heaps of the Baltic. — The Buried 
Forests of Denmark.— The Sisterhood of Science.— The Five Geological 
Periods.— The Ages of Stone and Bronze.— Iron in common use three thousand 
years ago. 

As before remarked, in almost every land upon the surface of the 
globe, are to be found countless monuments and memorials of vanished 
races; sometimes structures of imposing magnitude, but oftener imple- 
ments of war and the chase, of domestic use and personal adornment. 
From such remains, more or less rude and defaced, it has been found 
possible to reconstruct a pre-historic history of man's life in the most 
remote ages of his existence ; and by their careful study we are able to 
scrutinize his manner of life ; to look in upon his domestic scenes ; to 
witness his ceaseless struggles for existence — his mode of burial ; and 
to learn something of his notions of another life. Only one important 
thing is forever lost — his language. For "we can never hear him speak." 
Yet the history we may recover is as true and touching as any which 
the poets sing. Nor need all this be thought incredible, for these 
results are obtained by the simple processes of reasoning and induction 
which we apply to the affairs of every-day life. When the traveler 
upon our western plains stumbles by chance upon the ashes and debris 
of a former habitation, if he finds there the fragments of a hoe and 
sickle, he at once infers that the former occupant was a tiller of the 
soil ; should his eye light upon a cast-off shoe of infantile propor- 
tions, he naturally concludes that once it was the home of childhood. 
In addition to this, should he discover charred bits of bread and other 
articles of food, carbonized grain and fruits, along with culinary 
articles, showing the action of fire, these facts would show what crops 



8 ARCHEOLOGY. 

were grown, the kind of food upon which the family subsisted, and also 
that the dwelling was destroyed by fire. The presence of the fragments 
of a crucifix would point to the religious belief of the former occupant. 

Such is the method of the archaeologist. When he examines the huge 
heaps of shells along the shores of the numerous arms of the Baltic 
sea, composed of individuals of large size, select and full-grown, of 
several species, commingled with rude implements of stone and bone, 
with also the bones of the codfish, and compares them with the 
diminutive specimens he is able to procure from the same waters now, 
it is an inference most reasonable, that when these heaps were piled up 
around the miserable huts of the ancient fishermen, the waters of the 
Baltic were not so fresh as how. The presence of the bones of the 
codfish gives some evidence of skill in navigation, for they must be caught 
in the open sea. When the peat-bogs of this same country are examined, 
they present a record reaching far back of the historic period. These 
depressions in the natural surface of the earth — sometimes to the depth 
of thirty feet, disclose three distinct periods of arborescent vegetation. 
At the bottom are the stately trunks of the pine tree ; above these the 
oak, which once grew upon the sides of the pits, and when their full 
maturity was reached, fell inward. The oak was succeeded by the beech 
airl birch which now flourish — and have flourished during all the period 
of history — throughout the land. The pine and oak have never been 
known during the historic period in the native forests of Denmark. 
In these bogs, beneath the layers of pine, are found the rude implements 
of the ancient inhabitants. Man lived, then, when the pine forests were 
in their glory, and at that time also piled up the shell heaps along the 
shore ; for in these are found in great abundance the bones of a bird 
whose food is derived from the pine. 

Again : when the student of Archaeology discovers — as is frequently 
the case — the bones of extinct mammals, in situ, each bone lying by its 
fellow in its relative position as when in life, he knows there can have 
been no disturbance of the remains since the death of the animal. If he 
finds also, in companionship with them, the relics of man's industry, he 
believes that these mammals and man were contemporaneous. Should he 
find, further, huge bones split longitudinally, and showing marks and 
scratches of flint knives, which could only have been made while the bones 
were soft, he naturally concludes that man hunted these animals for food 
and split the bones to obtain the marrow. But the generalizations of the 
archaeologist are not based upon the study of such relics alone. Geology, 



TRACES OF VANISHED PEOPLES. 



Paleontology and Archaeology go hand in hand, and have well been 
called "three sister sciences." Each of these three related departments 
of human knowledge is throwing its focal light with increasing luster 
upon the great question of man's first appearance upon the earth. By 
the light of their combined disclosures, the steps of our groping feet 
are illumined as we travel slowly along the pathway which leads us 
irresistibly to the night of the unknown ages, "and the mind recoils 
dismayed when it undertakes the computation of the thousands of } 7 ears 
which have elapsed since the creation of man." 

The five geological periods 
into which the crust of the 
earth has been divided, are 
commonly named in the rel- 
ative order of their age : 



the primitive rocks, the tran- 
sition rocks, the secondary 
rocks, the tertiary rocks, and 
quaternary rocks. All of 
these are anterior to the pres- 
ent geological period. The 
long succession of animals 
and plants peculiar to each, 
is found generally to have 
died out during the time of 
its continuance. Judging 
from the present order of 
things, each period must A Solitary Cave Dweller> 

have been of long duration ; for the animals and plants with which we 
are familiar show scarcely any alteration since their first appearance, 
though they have existed for thousands of years. Now it is considered 
certain by the best informed, that man existed iu Europe at the 
commencement of the quaternary period. 

We are not left in doubt as to the climatic conditions of that country in 
those remote times, which must have been similar to the polar regions of 
the North to-day. There was no Iceland, Scotland, or Scandinavia then. 
The whole continent was shrouded in a winding sheet of snow. Her 
now beautiful valleys were the bottom of the sea. Enormous ice-fields 
stretched away from mountain to mountain, and only the highest 
elevations of the Pyrenees and Apennines were visible above the vast 
expanse of eternal snow and ice. Yet there, during that awful winter, for 




10 



ARCHEOLOGY. 



which there was no promise of a coming spring, man and cotemporaneous 
animals contrived to exist. But what a lite ! To us, it would seem 
utterly hopeless and dreary ; but for its maintenance he found abundant 
employment for all his activities, in providing means for his daily 
sustenance, and in his contests with the wild beasts around him for the 
possession of the shelters of the caves and overhanging rocks. How 
long this period continued we cannot know ; but the centuries rolled 
on, and slowly the glacial period comes to an end — the ice-fields melt 
away, the glaciers retreat to the north, and the submerged continent 
arises from the ocean. The sunshine and the genial air of a new spring 
morning dissipate the tears from the face of Nature, and she hastens to 
put on her robes of green. With this dawn of another life a new 




The Elephas Primogeneus. 

generation of animals now makes its appearance on the earth, and very 
different too, from those which perished during the glacial period. 
Among them the huge mammoth ( Elephas primigeneus) with his 
woolly covering and lion-like, shaggy mane; the Siberian Ehinoceros 
( RJdnoceros tichorinus, with curious horns ) and clothing of fur, so soft 
and warm ; several species of the Hippopotamus ; the Cave Bear, of 
prodigious size, ( Ursus spelceus) ; the Cave Lion (Felts spelea) ; various 
kinds of Hyenas, the Bison, the Urns, (Bos primigenus ), and the 
gigantic Irish Elk, with enormous w T ide-spreading antlers, and many 
others which need not now be mentioned. 



TKACES OF VANISHED PEOPLES. H 

These huge monsters rapidly multiply and roam in countless multi- 
tudes over the continent, as do the buffaloes of our western wilds 
to-day. Hundreds and thousands gather together in their favorite 
resorts and from some cause unknown they perish. How man could 
successfully contend with such formidable adversaries with the rude 
implements he was able to construct by his infantile skill, is surprising; 
but his necessities compelled him to be victorious. Nor was he then 
destitute of aesthetic taste ; for at his leisure he carved in stone or bone 
the outlines of the beasts he had slain in the chase. 

At length the long summer ends, and another fearful winter begins. 
Again the cold is intense ; the glaciers advance through the valleys 
toward the south. The floods increase, the caves are submerged, and 
man seeks a home again in the mountain ranges. The valleys are filled 
with alluvium for hundreds of feet up the mountain sides. The centu- 
ries roll on — how long, no one can tell, — and again another subsidence 
of the floods, or uprising of the continent, takes place, and the glaciers 
once more recede to the north. Slowly the mountain tops are lifted 
toward the sky, and the earth is clad again in green. 

Man now returns to the former abodes of his ancestors. But what 
a change has taken place ! Many of the mighty mammals his forefathers 
hunted on the plains are seen no more. A few solitary individuals 
linger on, but soon he witnesses "the extinction and disappearance from 
the face of the earth of an entire fauna of the larger animals." 

From this period the Reindeer epoch, — known also as the period of mi- 
grated animals — begins. A new civilization dawns. Polished implements 
of stone and bone take the place of rude chips and splinters of silex. 
Pottery is manufactured and ornamented with curious devices ; and all 
that man does displays the awakening exercise of his sense for beauty. 
From this time the race proceeds with slow but steady advancement. 
How long the Neolithic, or polished stone period lasted, we have no 
means of judging, nor when men learned to smelt the more yielding 
ores, and to make bronze by the alloy of copper with tin. But when 
that great discovery was made by which he supplied himself with a 
material so much better fitted by its superior hardness to copper for 
cutting implements and other uses, he entered that pathway, which ends 
only in all the glorious possibilities of the future. With this discovery, 
the age of Bronze was ushered in. Speedily its use spread over the 
greater part of Europe. With the age of bronze the arts and sciences 
may be said to have had their birth. Of the time of its continuance, 
which seems to have been long, we know but little more than we do of 



12 ARCHEOLOGY. 

the a"-e of stone. But at length it seems to have been brought to a 
sudden termination by that mightiest physical event in the history of 
the development of mankind — the discovery of Iron. As to the time 
■when this great transition took place, history is silent ; for it was long 
before history began. The poems of Homer and Hesiod prove that 
iron was known and in use at least three thousand years ago. 



CHAPTER III. 



No "Age of Bronze" in America —Traditions Regarding the Mounds.— Tuscarora 
Chronology.— The Animal Mounds of the Upper Mississippi Region— Ancient 
Fish Traps.— Burial, Sacrificial and Historical Mounds. 

The facts, and the conclusions they suggest, presented in the fore- 
going chapter, are gathered mostly from the continent of Europe. 
Each of the great geographical divisions of the globe seems to possess 
an archaeological record more or less peculiar to itself. Our own 
continent has had no age of bronze. At the time of its discovery, 
however, implements of copper, beaten out usually, but sometimes 
smelted and cast in a mold, from the native ore, were to some extent 
taking the place of those of stone and bone. And although the copper 
regions of Lake Superior, for the distance of more than one hundred and 
fifty miles along it southern shore, give evidence of long-continued 
mining operations upon a stupendous scale, still we must believe that this 
metal was too costly to be to any great extent the property of the masses : 
while, even in our own times the remnants of some savage tribes may be 
found who still point their spears and arrows with stone. The presence 
of the relics of such material therefore, it hardly need be said, is of no 
value in questions of antiquity, only so far as they are found in compan- 
ionship with the remains of extinct animals, or their age is demonstrated 
by geological or some other irrefragable proofs. 

But now, leaving all other facts and considerations bearing upon the 
general subject of archaeology, which might be interesting and appropriate 
in this connection, it is proper to proceed to the examination of the monu- 
ments of our own land, among which those found in Missouri are 
peculiarly instructive, not only as forming no inconspicuous part of the 
one great whole, and calculated to shed much light upon the question of 



TRADITIONS REGARDING THE MOUNDS. 13 

the homogeneity of the vast population which once swarmed upon this 
continent, but also — if not their origin — at least the direction of their 
disappearance. 

In view of the magnitude of the subject, the ethnological questions 
involved, and the evident relation of these remains to all which are 
found in both North and South America, it has seemed to me impossible 
to examine them in the most profitable manner, if our examination shall 
be circumscribed by the imaginary boundaries of the State. For the 
reason mentioned, I have also presented, as briefly as possible, the 
preceding statement of the results achieved by the labors of the 
archaeologists of Europe. I will now proceed to speak of some of the 
more important monuments of this country, with such description 
as suits my present purpose. 

The statement has been often repeated by writers upon this subject, 
that the Indians have no traditions concerning the authors or the 
design of these monuments. This is undoubtedly true as far as the 
degenerate remnants of the tribes of the present day are concerned. 
But when the country was first discovered, and long after, here and 
there a solitary individual was found who claimed to be a prophet, and 
to have descended from a long priestly line, and also from a race 
superior to the Indians by whom their forefathers had been conquered 
and enslaved. Concerning the traditions handed down from father to son, 
they were very reticent, except under peculiar circumstances and with 
those who gained their highest confidence and esteem. The sacred 
treasures of their history, of which they were the preservers and 
guardians, were not for the common masses of their own people ; much 
less would they communicate them to strangers and foes. And when, 
as it sometimes happened, their frigid reserve would be conquered, and a 
narration of their legendary history elicited, it was considered more 
wild and untrustworthy than the long lists of Manetho and Berosus, of 
Egyptian and Assyrian dynasties, and not worth preserving. From 
this cause many valuable facts have been irrecoverably lost. A few 
only have escaped oblivion, of which the briefest possible mention can 
now be made. 

The traditions of the Wyandot Indians, according to the account of 
Mr. Wm. Walker, for some time Indian Agent for the Government, 
published in 1823, are not devoid of interest. They were in substance 
as follows : 

Many centuries ago, the inhabitants of America, who were the authors 
of the great works in the Mississippi Valley, were driven to the south 



14 ARCHEOLOGY. 

by an army of savage warriors from the North. After many huudred 
years, a messenger returned from the exiled tribes, with the alarming 
news, that a terrible beast had landed on their shores, who was carrying 
desolation wherever he went, with thunder and fire. Nothing could stay 
his progess, and no doubt he would travel all over the land in his fury. 

It is conjectured that this beast of thunder and fire referred to the 
Spanish invasion of Mexico. The Tuscaroras, according to the account 
published by Mr. David Cusick in 1827 — quoted by Prof. Rafinesque — 
had a well-arranged system of chronology, dating back nearly three 
thousand years. Their traditions locate their original home north of 
the great lakes. In process of time, some of their people migrated to 
the river Kanawag ( the St. Lawrence ) . After many years, a foreign 
people came by the sea and settled south of the lakes. Then follow 
long accounts of wars, and fierce invasions by nations from the north, 
led by confederate kings and a renowned hero named Yatatan. Many 
years again elapse, and the king of the confederacy pays a visit to a mighty 
potentate whose seat of empire is called the Golden City, situated south 
of the lakes; and so on, down to the year 1143, when the traditions 
end. In these records appear accounts of wars with various tribes, 
given with great particularity ; migrations southward and west to the 
Mississippi, ( called Onauweoka ) ; the names of the ruling monarchs, 
and the order of their succession. There appear to have been several 
dynasties of longer or shorter duration. Thus, the name Tarenyawagou 
is borne by three successive monarchs, and Atotaro is continued to the 
ninth. 

Only a few items are here given, to indicate their character. No one 
can examine these traditions without being convinced that they have 
some great historic facts for their basis, however incredulous he may be 
as to the correctness of their dates, or their pretentions to so high 
antiquity. The limits prescribed for this essay admit of but one more 
notice of traditions in this connection. 

A class of works, frequently noticed by explorers, is found on the 
upper Mississippi, chiefly in Wisconsin, — a few in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois 
and Iowa — known as animal mounds, on account of their striking 
resemblance to the forms of various animals, such as the Buffalo, Bear, 
Elk, and the like, and some to the human form. These works have 
elicited much discussion and conjecture as to their origin and purpose, in 
which no two writers agree. Some of them are of gigantic proportions, 
and cannot be ascribed to the present race of Indians, for the same 
reason which precludes the idea that they were the authors of the 
stupendous works of the more southern States. 




THE ANIMAL MOUNDS. 15 

The traditions relating to these animal mounds are very minute, full 
and interesting, and were first published in 1853, by Mr. Win. Pido-eon, 
who spent several years in the examination of the various monuments in 
Virginia, the Valley of the Mississippi and South America as well. He 
tells us that he began these researches from motives of personal interest 
merely, and continued them for several years, without any design of 
publishing the results of his observations. 

During his travels in the regions 
of the Upper Mississippi, he met 
a stranger among the red men, of 
dignified and venerable appear- 
ance, who had no fixed abiding 
place, but wandered from tribe to 
tribe, always welcomed and ven- 
erated wherever he went ; who 
claimed to have descended from a Fig< '•- Mastodon Mound - 

long line of ancient prophets, he the last of the line and the last 
of his race. He was then nearly ninety years of age. The Indians 
called him "the Mocking Bird," because he could speak fluently 
five different languages. By kindness, his confidence and friendshipwere 
won, and his companionship secured during the journey of exploration. 
He seemed perfectly familiar with all the most important works, from the 
Ohio to the extreme north and the far west, — could draw their outlines 
from memory, and supply any defect in the drawings of others ; and 
could generally give a ready and lucid account of their authors and the 
purposes for which they were constructed. Unlike many who have 
written upon the pre-historic people of America, the author seems to have 
had no pet theory to maintain — as that they were the ten lost tribes of 
Israel, and the like, — but to have been a thoroughly conscientious and 
careful observer, faithfully noting what he saw and heard. 

From the seventy engravings — and accompanying descriptions — with 
which the work of Mr. Pidgeon is illustrated, I select two or three, and 
leave the reader to judge whether these traditions are reasonable and 
trustworthy or not. 

Many years ago, in the bed of Paint Creek, in Ross County, Ohio, 
several deep cavities or wells were discovered, which gave rise to much 
speculation as to their origin and purpose. I believe they have since 
been found in many other localities. Mr. Pidgeon states that he dis- 
covered four similar ones in the bed of a small tributary of the St. Peters 
river, varying in depth from eight to twelve feet, from five to six feet in 



16 AKCILEOLOGY. 

diameter at the bottom and from three to five feet at the top. These 
excavations were made in the soft slate rock which formed the bed of 
the stream. 

To the level top, or rim of the well, a thin flat rock was fitted, with a 
round or square hole in the center, about twelve inches in diameter. 
This opening could be closed at will, by a stone stopper perforated with 
small holes. A short distance below the wells he found one of these 
stoppers which fitted neatly the larger capstone of one of the wells. At 
the time of their discovery the depth of the stream which flowed over 
them was ten inches. Mocking-Bird informed him that these were fish 
traps, and that many such could be found in other streams, were they not 
so filled with mud and stones as to escape observation ; and also that 
they were constructed and used anciently for the purpose of securing a 
supply of fish for the winter. Large quantities of bait being deposited 
in them in the fall, the fish would gather there in great numbers, when 
the stopper would be placed over the mouth, which prevented their 
escape, and then they could be taken out with a small net as desired. 
While it is no doubt true that the mound-builders were an agricultural 
people, it is quite reasonable to suppose, from the fact that their most 
extensive works are found upon the shores of lakes and banks of rivers, 
that fish formed no inconsiderable item of their bill of fare. 1 

As before stated, the historian of these traditions, after the death of 
Mockinsf-Bird, proceeded to investigate by careful excavation those 
earthworks of which he had previously made only a superficial survey, 
especially those concerning which he had received traditions. The first 
group thus explored which I notice is represented in Fig. 2. It is 
described as being located at the junction of Straddle Creek and Plumb 
river, in Carroll County, Illinois. It is composed of conical mounds, 
rings and semi-circles, with diameters varying from twelve to twenty-five 
feet. The rin<rs are about two feet hi<rh, and seem to have been formed 
by throwing up the earth from within, leaving the interior in the form 
of a basin. 

The traditions concerning these works are in substance that they were 



1 Some writers have discredited the idea of the artificial origin of these wells or fish- 
traps, attributing their formation to the disintegration of the rocks in which they occur, 
owing to the unequal hardness of the strata of which they are composed, etc. But it 
would seem that vastly more credulity is required to believe that the ordinary operation 
of nature in various parts of the country would produce such cavities, from eight to 
twelve feet in depth, with nice fitting covers, preforated at the center, than that they 
are the workmanship of intelligent beings for some special purpose. 



BURIAL MOUNDS. 



17 



constructed by a people who were accustomed to burn their dead, and 
were only partially occupied. Each family formed a circle sacred to its 
own use. When a member died, the body was placed in the family circle 
and burned to ashes ; a thin covering of earth was then sprinkled over 
the whole. This process was repeated as often as a death occurred, until 
the inclosure was filled. The ring was then raised about two feet and 
again was ready for further use. As each additional elevation would of 
necessity be less in diameter than the preceding, in the end a conical 
mound would be the result. The darkest spots in the engraving 
represent those which are finished ; the rings, those in various stages 
of occupancy ; and the semi-circles those which were only begun. Similar 




Fig. 2. — Burial Mounds. 

works have been found in the Ohio Valley, in the more northern States, 
west of the Mississippi and in Michigan. Upon excavating the more 
finished mounds of the group described, they were found filled with 
ashes, mingled with charcoal : some of them to the depth of twenty 
inches below the surrounding surface of the soil. In this group were 
found two mounds much larger than the others, (one is represented 
in the engraving), shaped like the body of a tortoise, known as battle 
mounds, and said to contain the ashes of hundreds slain in battle. Both 
these mounds were found to be filled with ashes and charcoal like the 
others, thus confirming their traditional history. 

About two hundred and fifty yards south of these mounds, another 
group of finished works was found, where the bodies were deposited in 
the more usual manner without burning. 



18 



AUCILEOLOGY. 



These two modes of burial, so widely different and in the same locality, 
mark either a sudden change of custom or the presence of two distinct 
races at different periods of time. Tradition asserts that there was such 
a sudden change of mode of burial in obedience to the command of the 
prophets, for the reason that, while the people were burning the body of 
a °reat and good king, suddenly the sun (their chief deity) refused to 
shine, although there was not a cloud in the sky. This was taken as a 
sio-n of disapprobation of the custom, which gradually ceased thereafter. 

It has been generally supposed that those mounds, which showed the 
frequent or long-continued action of fire, were used for sacrificial 
purposes only. It seems however more likely that these cinerulent 
structures were simply the depositories of the bodies of the dead, and 
this the traditions affirm. 

b 








Fig. 3. — A Royal Cemetery. 

The second group noticed in this connection is more complicated 
(Fig. 3), and presents a greater variety of forms. It is found (or was 
in 1840) on the north side of St. Peter's river, about sixty miles above 
its junction with the Mississippi, in what was then the Territory of 
Minnesota. 

It is thus described : The central embankment, in the form of the 
body of a tortoise, is forty feet in length, twenty-seven in breadth, and 
twelve in perpendicular height. It is composed in part of yellow clay, 



BUKIAL MOUNDS. 19 

brought from some distant place. The two pointed mounds north and 
south of this are formed of pure red earth, covered with alluvial soil. 
Each is twenty-seven feet in length and six in height at the largest end, 
gradually narrowing and sinking at the top until they terminate in a 
point. The four corner mounds were each twelve feet high and twenty- 
live in diameter at the base. The two long mounds on the east and 
west sides of the group were sixty feet in length, twelve feet in diameter 
at the base, and eight feet in height. The two mounds on the immediate 
right and left of the central effigy, were twelve feet long, four feet 
high, and six in breadth. These were composed of sand, mixed with 
small bits of mica to the depth of two feet, covered with white clay, 
with a thin layer of surface soil on the top. The large mound in the 
center, south of the effigy, was twelve feet high, twenty-seven in 
diameter, and composed of a stratum of sand two feet in depth, covered 
with a mixture of sandy soil and blue clay. The similar work on the 
north of the tortoise was of like formation, four feet high and twenty- 
two feet in diameter. Thirteen small mounds whose dimensions are 
not given, complete the group. 

Only a glance at this cluster of mounds, twenty-six in number, present- 
ing such variety of forms and peculiar arrangement, and which must have 
required so much time and labor for their construction, is needed to con- 
vince the observer that they were intended to perpetuate some history, 
and that each of the hieroglyphic symbols of which the group is composed 
had its special significance, which was well understood by the builders 
and their cotemporaries. 

But what was that history, or what event is recorded here? The 
works themselves give no answer. Tradition asserts, that this was the 
royal cemetery of a ruler known as the Black Tortoise, and was designed 
to commemorate the title and dignity of a great king or potentate. The 
tortoise-shaped central mound (a) was his tomb. The four corner 
mounds were called Mourning Mounds. The two larger mounds (bb) 
directly north and south of the effigy were the burial places of chiefs. 
The number interred in each is recorded in the number of small mounds 
on each side of them — five in the northern and eight in the southern line. 
The two long embankments (cc) at the extreme right and left of the 
works, were known as points of honor, and are said never to occur 
except in connection with those works which symbolize royalty. The 
two pointed mounds (dd), and described as twenty-seven feet long, six 
feet in width at the larger end, tapering down from the top and sides to 
a vanishing point, are known as mounds of extinction, and tell us that he 



20 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



was the last of his line. These too are never found alone, but always in 
connection with larger works. The mounds (ee) on either side of the 
central effigy are the burial places of prophets. In these it will be 
remembered small bits of mica were found mingled with the ashes. The 
presence of this substance in a certain class of mounds, in localities so 
remote from each other, from Minnesota to the Scioto Valley — some- 
times in large circular plates, but oftener in countless smaller fragments, 
has called forth much speculation as to its use by the ancient inhabitants. 
It has been suggested that it may have been used for mirrors, or again 
for ornament, or, on account of its preciousness, as a medium of com- 
mercial transactions. But when it is remembered that it is never found 
indiscriminately with other deposits in many mounds of the same group, 
we may safely conclude that it was set apart for a special use. Tradition 
says that it was sacred to the prophets, and was deposited in their tombs 
alone ;— that they had the mysterious power of calling tire from heaven, 
which was distributed to the minor prophets by whom the sacred fires 
were kept perpetually burning; that the tire used at the annual feast 
in their most holy places was thus received from the sun upon the 
summit of the sacred altars. This bringing fire from heaven is found in 
classic stories and in the traditions of many lands, as every school-boy 

knows. So Zoroaster taught his 
disciples, that the sacred fire 
which he committed to their 
care had been brought direct 
from heaven. "It is possible 
that the prophets of the ancient 
Americans were able in some 
manner to construct lenses from 
plates of mica, of sufficient pow- 
er to ignite the fuel upon the 
sacrificial altars." l The Mexi- 
cans in ancient times called ob- 
sidian "the shining god," and 
held it in high estimation. 

Several works have been ob- 
served of the form shown in Figure 4. The one here represented 
is described as located on the lowlands of the Kickapoo River in 
Wisconsin. The central work, with radiating points, sixty feet in 




Fig. 4. 



1 Pidgeon. 



BURIAL MOUXDS. 



21 



diameter and three feet in height. This is inclosed by five crescent- 
shaped works, having an elevation of two feet, and all presenting 
a level surface at the top. It is traditionally represented to have been 
occupied only during sacrificial festivities consequent upon the offering 
of human sacrifices to the sun, which the central mound was said to 
represent. Upon excavating, after removing the soil from the top, the 
central portion, for a space twelve feet in diameter, is found thickly 
studded with plates of mica set in white sand and blue clay ; and, says 
the observer "had this surface soil been removed with care, and the 
stratum beneath washed by a few heavy showers of rain, under the sun's 
rays it would have presented no unapt symbolical representation of that 
luminary." The sacred Pentagon, Fig. 5, is found in close proximity. 1 

As before stated, no class of 
works has awaked more curiosity, 
or elicited more unsatisfactory spe- 
culations, than these animal effi- 
gies ; and among these the most 
singular and enigmatical are those 
representing the larger animals, 
and the human form on a gigantic 
scale, and generally with such ac- 
curacy of delineation as to leave 
no doubt as to what particular ani- 
mal was intended to be represented 
by the figure. Sometimes these 
huge representations of beasts, 
Fig. s.-sacred Pentagon. birds and men are grouped to- 

gether in such strange and grotesque combinations as to forbid all 
attempts to discover the design of the builders in their erection. A few 
of the most common forms are shown in the accompanying engravings. 

That the mastodon is intended by figure 1 is conceded by all — as 
far as known— who have described it. I am not aware that it has ever 
been found outside of Wisconsin. There it frequently occurs, either 




1 This is represented here because of its intimate relation to the one just described, 
which is found associated with it. The outer circle is twelve hundred feet in diameter, 
in the center is the sacrificial altar, upon which human sacrifices were said to have been 
offered twice a year. In the spring the oldest man of the nation, willingly— so great 
was the honor— presented himself as the victim. In the autumn a female was sacrificed. 
If the day was cloudy, the offering was left upon the altar of sacrifice until the sun 
looked down upon it, which was considered a sign that the sacrifice was accepted. The 
people then repaired to the festival circle with rejoicing, where the feast was celebrated 




22 ARCH OOLOGY. 

alone or in companionship with other mounds. As men in all ages, in 
their first attempts at pictorial art, have been accustomed to delineate 
only those objects which were most striking and with which they were 
most familiar, we may well believe that the ancient Americans were not 
unacquainted with this king of beasts, and that they lived in those days 
when those gigantic animals roamed over the plains in vast numbers, 
whose skeletons have been so often found in Missouri. 

The combined figures of bird and beast as repres- 
ented at Fig. 6 are also of frequent occurrence, parti- 
culary in Wisconsin. The one here delineated is one 
hundred and eighty feet in length, and forty-four in its 
greatest breadth. The whole is composed of reddish clay, 
but covered to the depth of twelve inches with a black 
alluvium. It was designed to record the change in 
title of a sovereign line of rulers. The head of the 
beast being merged in the body of the bird concedes 
to the conqueror the right of dominion. The two 
truncated mounds, one on each side of the beast, record 
the extent of his humiliation. They are altar mounds, on 
Bird arfd Beast, which were sacrificed his descendants both male and 

female. 

The effigy shown in Fig. 7 is unmistakably human. It memorializes a 
hereditary chief of royal line, but who, according to the record, could 
not yet have been a sovereign ruler, as no mound of honor indicating that 
condition is found in connection with it. He was thus memorialized 
because he fell in battle, and with him his son, whose memory is perpet- 
uated in the truncated mound between his feet. 

The amalgamation group (Fig. 8) is more complicated and enig- 
matical, and but for the traditions concerning it would doubtless always 
remain so. The beast is one hundred and eighty feet in length ; the 
human effigy perpendicular to it is one hundred and sixty. On either 
side of the horizontal figure is a truncated work eighteen feet in diameter 
and six feet in height. The summits of both are flat. The representations 
of horns, which are very distinct, are of different dimensions. The 
main stem of the front horn is eighteen feet in length. The one 
which inclines backward is twelve, the longest antlers are six, and 
the shortest three feet in length. At the foot of the human effigy 
is attached an embankment running parallel with the horizontal figure, 
eighty feet in length, twenty-seven in diameter and six in height. On a 
line with this is a series of conical mounds, the largest of which is also 



SACRIFICIAL AND HISTORICAL MOUNDS. 



23 



twenty-seven feet in diameter and six in 

height. From this the others diminish on 

either side and terminate in mounds eigh- 

teen feet in diameter and three in height. 

The group thus described is represented 

to have been erected to commemorate an 

important event in the history of two 

friendly nations, which were once great 

and powerful, but now reduced by long- 
continued wars against a common foe ; and 

being: now no longer able to maintain a 

separate national existence, they resolved 

to unite their forces under one title and 

sovereign. One was known as the Elk 

nation, the other was the Buffalo. This 

work was designed as a public record and 

seal of their amalgamation. This fact is 

plainly expressed by the union of the head 

of the Buffalo with that of the human 

effig\' representing the sovereign of the 

Elk nation, and also by the joining of the 

hand of the one with the foot of the other. 

Horns appended to effigies represent warriors ; their length and 

number the relative power of the two nations at the time of their union. 

The Buffalo was therefore manifestly recorded as the weaker of the 

two, as his antlers 
are seen to be 
smaller and in a de- 
clining position. The 
fact is also here re- 
corded that, when 
the union was fully 
consummated the na- 
tionality of the Buf- 
falo became extinct. 
This is shown by 
the presence of the 

Fig. 8. — Amalgamation Group. -i /- • 

mound of extinction 
— before described — in connection with the Buffalo and terminating 

The two truncated mounds on either side of the 




Fig. 7. — Human-Shaped Mound. 




at his hind feet. 



24 ARCHAEOLOGY. 

animal effigy are sacrificial altars upon which appropriate sacrifices 
were offered, not only at the time of the erection of the works, 
but annually thereafter ; the fires of which were kept burning 
until the smoke from both united in one column above the 
mound. This annual sacrifice symbolized the renewal of the covenant 
entered into when the compact was made. The seven truncated mounds 
in a line with the embankment upon which the human figure stands, 
(and known as a symbol of nationality) are matrimonial memorials, and 
record the international marriages of seven chiefs which occurred during 
the construction of the work, and which were also a further ratification 
of the national union here perpetuated. Upon excavating the altars, 
after the alluvial soil was removed, a stratum of burned earth mingled 
with ashes and charcoal was disclosed, to the depth of fourteen inches. 
This group was found upon the northern high land of the Wisconsin 
River, about fifty miles from its junction with the Mississippi. 

In that part of the work where the heads of the two efhgies unite, an 
oak was standing at the time of its first examination. Upon a second 
visit it was not there, but the stump showed by its concentric annual 
rino-s of growth that it was four hundred and twenty-four years old. 
Works of this description, which occur so frequently in Wisconsin, have 
also been observed in Northern Illinois. 




Lance Head.. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Archjeological Monuments of Missouri.— Their Rapid Destruction.— Sites op 
Towns and Cities.— The Laboks of H. M. Brackenridge.— The Big Mound at St. 
Louis.— Col. O'Fallon's Residence Erected on an Ancient Mound.— The Mounds 
in Forest Park.— Evidences of a Vast Population.— New Madrid its Center.— 
Description of Various Works. 

The preceding remarks upon the general subject of Archaeology, with 
the few notices of traditions concerning the ancient inhabitants of 
America, are all that the limits of this article will permit, as well as all 
which our present purpose demands. Nor has it seemed necessaiy to 
describe those extensive and imposing works, which are found scattered 
through the Central States, from the lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and 
especially in the Ohio Valley, consisting of walled towns, embankments 
enclosing large areas of land, in squares, circles, octagons and the like, 
associated with mounds of prodigious size ; for these have been so 
often described and delineated that whatever comparison of them with 
the monuments of Missouri may be thought desirable may be readily 
accomplished by reference to the works of those authors, who have 
published so many valuable descriptions of these antiquities, and which 
are to be found in almost every public library. 

That Missouri was once the home of a vast population composed of 
tribes who had fixed habitations, dwelt in large towns, practiced agricul- 
ture on an extended scale, with a good degree of method and skill ; who 
had also a well-organized system of religious rites and worship, and 
whose aesthetic tastes were far in advance of the savage tribes who 
ronmed over her prairies and hill ranges when her great rivers were first 
navigated by the white men, is, I am confident, no difficult matter to prove. 
Says Mr. H. M. Brackenridge, who was an extensive traveler, and a 
man of excellent judgment, in speaking of the ancient works in the 
Mississippi Valley : "It is worthy of observation, that all these vestiges 
invariably occupy the most eligible situations for towns or settlements ; 
and on the Ohio and Mississippi they are most numerous and consid- 
erable. There is not a rising town, or a farm of an eligible situation, in 
whose vicinity some of them may not be found. I have heard a 
surveyor of the public lands observe, that wherever any of these 
remains were met with, he was sure to find an extensive body of fertile 
land." 

Although, for more than three-quarters of a century since that time, 



26 ARCHEOLOGY. 

the waves of an advancing civilization and the hand of agriculture have 
passed over them and utterly destroyed vast numbers, including many 
of the most remarkable ones, which arrested the attention of every 
beholder, — still, any one at all familiar with those which now remain 
would write the same things to-day. The name of the city of St. Louis 
was once Mound City, called so on accouut of the number and size of 
those ancient works which once stood upon her present site. The larger 
of them are all demolished, while the few which yet remain are so small 
that they would hardly be noticed save by the eye of a practical observer. 
The same may be said of nearly all which once crowned the terraces of 
the Mississippi along her eastern border, and those of the Missouri and 
her tributaries. 

Notwithstanding all this widespread demolition and obliteration, there 
is doubtless now no richer field for archaeological research in the great 
basin of the Mississippi than is to be found in the State of Missouri. 
As has been already stated, the most important works are found 
located in the vicinity of extensive areas of fertile lands, and upon the 
most eligible sites for towns and cities. The same locations would 
naturally be the first to be occupied by the pioneer settlements of our 
own times, and these aboriginal remains would be the first to be oblite- 
rated. It is not surprising, therefore, that the earlier notices of the 
ancient monuments of this valley are so meagre and unsatisfactory, 
especially when we remember the peculiar vicissitudes of a frontier life, 
which necessitated unceasing toil and eternal vigilance : continually men- 
aced, as the early settlements generally were, by a wily, savage foe. 

It should also be remembered that until quite recently the prevailing 
opinion concerning mounds and embankments was that they were the 
work of the red men, and to this day they are known among the masses 
as Indian mounds. 

Notwithstanding the fact that multitudes have been destroyed, there 
still remain so many vestiges of an ancient race — not only upon the 
alluvial plains of our larger rivers, but also in the interior valleys, 
watered by smaller streams and rivulets, and also upon the sterile slopes 
and summits even of the Ozarks — that Missouri still presents a most 
inviting field for the labors of the archaeologist. A proper examina- 
tion and description of them all would involve no inconsiderable 
expenditure of time and money, and require a volume for their 
elucidation. It cannot therefore be expected that we can do more 
in this article than to describe the different classes of those remains — 
with their most prominent characteristics — which are best known and 



ARCHAEOLOGICAL MONUMENTS OF MISSOURI. 



27 



■which have been the most thoroughly explored. In carrying out this 
design, it will perhaps best serve our purpose in the way of method 
and convenience to consider them under the following general divisions : 
1st, Sites of towns or cities. 2d, Burial mounds, caves and artificial 
caverns. 3d, Sacrificial or temple mounds. 4th, Garden mounds. 
5th, Miscellaneous works. 6th, Pottery; and 7th, Crania. 

/. — Sites of Towns or Cities. — The early French explorers of the 
Mississippi and Missouri rivers, and the territories through which they 
flow, seem to have taken no notice of the ancient monuments along their 
course ; or if they did, they doubtless ascribed their origin to the red 
men, who were found occupying, in some instances works of similar 
construction. 

But when permanent settlements had been established along their 
banks, with the consequent increase of travel, these works ere long 
attracted the attention of the historian, and awakened an interest which 
resulted in their more careful examination. The early writers, as they 
became familiar with the habits and social condition of the Indians, and 
in view of the magnitude of the structures they so frequently met with, 
as well as the skill and herculean labors required for their erection, make 
frequent mention of their doubts as to the ability of the Indians to erect 
monuments of such prodigious proportions. And not until St. Louis 
became an incorporated town, and the capital of that vast extent of 
territory then known as Upper Louisiana, do we find any descriptive 
accounts of the ancient works which at that time occupied the terraces 
upoif which this great city now stands. 

Notwithstanding the meager and unsatisfactory character of the 
accounts which have been preserved, still, we are thankful for the crumbs 
of information the early observers have left us, and will endeavor to 
make the most of them. 

Mr. H. M. Brackenridge, x writing in the year 1811, says: "I have 



1 The work of this author ( " Views of Louisiana " ) seems to have been the perennial 
fountain from whence many subsequent writers upon American Archaeology, both in 
this country and in Europe, have drawn much of their inspiration and many of the 
facts and germinal suggestions which they have elaborated with extended speculations, 
and frequently without any mention of their obligation to this writer for the facts and 
suggestions which have been so freely made use of. Mr. Brackenridge, I believe, was 
the first American author who alludes to the statements of Plato concerning a 
people who had come from an island in the Atlantic, in great numbers, and overran 
Europe and Asia, and known as the Atlantides, which island was said to have been sunk 
by an earthquake 9000 years before his time. He notes, also, a similar tradition among 
the Romans, and thinks it possible America may have been referred to. 



28 ARCHEOLOGY. 

frequently examined the mounds at St. Louis. They are situated on the 
second bank, just above the town, and disposed in a singular manner ; 
there are nine in all, and form the three sides of a parallelogram, the 
open side towards the country being protected, however, by three 
smaller mounds, placed in a circular manner. The space inclosed is 
about three hundred yards in length and two hundred in breadth. 
About six hundred yards above these is a single mound, with a broad 
stage on the river side ; it is thirty feet in height, and one hundred and 
fifty in length ; the top is a mere ridge of five or six feet wide. Below the 
first mounds there is a curious work called the Falling Garden. Advant- 
age is taken of the second bank, nearly fifty feet in height at this place, 
and three regular stages or steps are formed by earth brought from a 
distance. This work is much admired — it suggests the idea of a place 
of assembty for the purpose of counselling on public occasions." 

Accompanying the foregoing description is a simple diagram which, 
as it does not seem to be the result of any actual survey, and therefore 
of no scientific value, need not be reproduced in this connection. 

Dr. Beck, who noticed them twelve years afterwards, presents in his 
work another diagram, which seems to have been the result of more 
careful observation, although in this, however, one of the nine, and the 
three smaller mounds described by Mr. Brackenridge as protecting the 
side of the parallelogram opening towards the country, are wanting. 
From all the information I can gather, I believe the following plan will 
present the true relation of the mounds here described : 





Diagram of St. Louis Mounds. 




THE BIG MOUND AT ST. LOUIS. 29 

One of the above group undoubtedly represents the old landmark 
known as the Big Mound, ( a representation of which as it appeared at the 
time of its removal, faces the first page of the present volume ), which 
once stood at the corner of Mound street and Broadway, but which was 
entirely demolished in 1869. This I suppose to have been the terraced 
mound, represented by Mr. Brackenridge to have been located six hun- 
dred yards north of the main group. The Big Mound is known to have 
been beautifully terraced, and nothing of the kind is mentioned in con- 
nection with those constituting the parallelogram. Nor is the Falling 
Garden spoken of as a mound, but only as a terraced bank. For these 
and other reasons which need not be dwelt upon, after much reflection, 
I am persuaded that the terraced mound, afterwards known as the Big 
Mound, was the last to disappear before the encroachments of the 
rapidly-growing city. Be this as it may, this most interesting work will 
be particularly described under the more appropriate head of Sepulchral 
Caverns, when I shall be able to speak with more confidence, as I shall 
give there the result of my own observations. There w r ere formerly 
many other mounds in the immediate vicinity of St. Louis, rivaling in 
magnitude and interest those described by the authors just quoted, but 
which escaped their notice In fact, the second terrace of the Mississippi, 
upon almost every available commanding point of elevation, was finished 
with them. Nineteen years ago, in a conversation with the late Col. John 
O'Fallon, he informed me that his family residence on the Bellefontaine 
road was erected upon one of those ancient mounds. It must have been 
very large, although I do not recall the dimensions. He stated, further, 
that as the summit was being leveled, preparatory to building, human 
bones by the cart-load were disclosed, along w r ith stone axes and arrow- 
heads and the like, without number. He then led me to the forest west 
of his dwelling, and called my attention to the small hillocks which 
abounded there in prodigious numbers, which he conjectured were the 
residence sites of former inhabitants, because of their regularity, and 
from the fact that upon excavating them they disclosed ashes and 
charcoal. 

Still farther north, upon the highest points of the second terrace, I 
have traced the remains of others which must have been quite imposing 
before they were subjected to the leveling influence of agriculture. 
In Forest Park, a few miles west of the city, there is a small group of 
mounds which the park commissioners, I am happy to know, have 
resolved to preserve. It is a pity that none of the larger ones have been 
spared, to stand hereafter as the memorials of a people whose origin is 



30 



AECILEOLOGY. 



hid in the night of oblivion. But let them remain, such as they are, and 
when future generations shall throng the green groves and shady walks 
of that beautiful garden of their great city, these shall recall the fainting 
echoes of another race, whose homes once clustered, in days long gone, 
upon the banks of that great river where a statelier — can we say happier 
— city stands to-day. 

The works thus briefly noticed are only a few of the great group of 
large circumference, of which that king of mounds, on the fertile plains 
across the river, known as Monk's Mound, was the radiating center. 
That high place was a temple mound — the holy mountain for this whole 
region, doubtless, — and the smoke which ascended from the perpetual 
fire of its sacred altar could be seen for many miles on every side. 

But while our business now is with the ancient people of Missouri, it 
should be borne in mind that the imaginary lines which divide us into 
States had no existence in those other times, when a mighty people 
dwelt upon either side of the Mississippi, outnumbering far, perhaps, 
the present occupants ; who were homogeneous in their commercial 
pursuits, arts and worship. They traded with the nations who dwelt by 
the sea, and brought from thence the shells and pearls of the ocean, and 
left them in their tombs, along with the precious wares of their own 
handicraft, for our admiration and instruction. 

But before we leave St. Louis, another work demands a notice, 
which the following (Fig. 9), will illustrate. 

This class of works 
appears frequently in Iowa, 
but was formerly found in 
greatest numbers in Mis- 
souri. The one figured 
here was located on Root 
River, about twenty miles 
west of the Mississippi. 
The central mound is repre- 
sented as being thirty-six 
feet in diameter, and 
twelve feet in height. The 
circle inclosing it was 
nearly obliterated. The 
long embankments which 
form the sides of the triangle were each one hundred and forty- 
four feet in length, and respectively three, four and five feet in 




Fig. 9. — Historical Mound. 



EVIDENCES OF A VAST POPULATION. 31 

height, and twelve feet in diameter ; and what is singular, the sum 
of the heights of the embankments equals the vertical height of the 
central mound, and these two amounts multiplied together, give the 
exact length of the embankments. Sometimes works of this description 
arc built in the form of a square, with four embankments ; but of 
whatever form, it is stated that the same relation of the sum of the 
heights of all the embankments to the height of the central mound 
is always presented, and the product of these gives the length of the 
embankments. 

A group precisely similar to the one just described, and of large 
dimensions, once stood near the village of St. Louis. Its precise 
location cannot be learned, as it was demolished somewhere between the 
3-ears 1835-40. This class of mounds will be further noticed under the 
head of Miscellaneous Works. 

The evidences of a dense pre-historic population in Missouri are no- 
where so abundant as in the southeastern counties of the State. These 
consist of mounds of various dimensions and forms, sometimes isolated, but 
oftener in groups of peculiar arrangement ; also embankments and walls of 
earth inclosing large and small areas, in which may be traced the lines 
of streets — if such they may be called — of a village or city, and 
numberless sites of former residences. One of the largest mounds in 
this region, is about four miles from New Madrid, and, as described in 
1811, is twelve hundred feet in circumference, forty feet high and 
surrounded by a ditch, live feet deep and ten feet in width. New 
Madrid was unquestionably once the great metropolis of a vast popula- 
tion, the remains of whose villages are everywhere met with, upon the 
banks of the numerous bayous which abound in the several counties in 
this portion of the State. For the reason before mentioned, one group 
only can be particularly described. 

The one selected is situated upon Bayou St. John, about eighteen 
miles from the town of New Madrid. The bayou at this point is one 
mile and a half in width ; its whole length may be stated in round numbers 
to be about seventy-five miles. While, in the notices of the earlier 
travelers, it is described as a lake with a clear, sandy bottom, it is now 
a sluggish swamp, filled to a great extent with cypress trees. 

Upon the western bank of the bayou the works to be described 
are located. They consist of inclosures, large and small conical and 
truncated mounds in great numbers, and countless residence sites of 
the ancient inhabitants. From the level of the bayou to the prairie 
land above, the ascent is by a gradual slope to a vertical height of 



32 AECH^EOLOGY. 

fifteen feet. Upon this belt of sloping ground, now covered with a 
heavy growth of timber, the works are most numerous ; while from its 
edge, westward, the level prairie ( that is, the alluvial plain of tho 
Mississippi) has been under cultivation for sixty or seventy years. 
Here, including forty acres of the cultivated field and ten of the sloping 
timber belt, is an area of about fifty acres, enclosed by earthen Avails 
which may be distinctly traced for several hundred feet, but gradually 
disappear on the western side, having been nearly obliterated by the 
long cultivation of the field. Where it is best preserved in the timbered 
land, its height was found to be from three to five feet, and fifteen feet 
wide at the base. 1 In the centre of the western side of the enclosure 
and close to the wall, is a mound of oblong shape, three hundred feet in 
length at the base, and at its northern end one hundred feet wide, and 
twenty feet high at the present time, as near as could be estimated by 
careful stepping. The top of it slopes gradually to the south, and 
although the plow has passed up and down its sides for sixty years, still 
on its eastern side may be distinctly seen the evidences of a graded way 
to its summit. Close to its northeastern side, where the mound is 
widest, is a deep depression in the field, about ten feet in diameter. 
Mr. Win. M. Murphy, a farmer who has long resided in the neighbor- 
hood, told me that when he first saw it he could not get in and out of it 
without a ladder, and that it had since been nearly filled up by the 
tillers of the soil with stumps, logs and earth. In the centre of the 
enclosure stands a circular mound seventy-five feet in diameter, and 
also twenty feet high, which upon examination disclosed nothing but 
broken pottery. It belongs to that class usually termed residence 
mounds. The view from its summit towards the west and south 
commands a prospect several miles in extent ; on the north the view is 
cut off by a heavy growth of timber, and on the east by the cj^press 
swamp. In a direct line with the two mounds thus described, partly 
upon the edge of the cultivated field and partly upon the declivity which 
descends toward the swamp, in the midst of a group of smaller works, 
stands a large burial mound, twelve to fifteen feet in height, and 
one hundred feet in diameter. Its original height could only be 
conjectured, as it has long been occupied as a residence site by the 
present inhabitants. The ruins of a log house are still standing upon 
its summit. It has been the sepulchre of many hundreds, perhaps a 



1 It will readily be perceived that absolute accuracy of measurement would be impossible, 
where the ground has been so much disturbed by cultivation. 



















Small vessels of Pottery, Stone Pipe, Stone Implements and discoidal Stone from New Madrid, Mo. 



34 AECH^OLOGY. 

« 

thousand individuals. The manner of interment, as far as my own 
observations extended, was to place the corpse upon the back, with the 
head towards the centre of the mound ; the vacant space between each 
deposit being generally two or three feet. When the inner circle was 
full, another would be formed outside of it. In two burial mounds in 
this region, which were only from three to five feet in height, and fifty 
or sixty feet in diameter, I found this process of burial continued far 
beyond the circumference of the mound ; in which cases the graves had 
been dug in the natural bed of the plain upon which the mound was 
erected, and were generally from three to four feet in depth. The kind 
of pottery found in these is precisely similar to that taken from the 
centre of the mound, and was always in the same relative position to the 
skeleton. Three vessels were usually found with each individual. Two 
were water jugs, and placed on each side of the head; the other, a 
receptacle for food, rested upon the side of the chest, and was kept 
in place by the angle of the arms, which were folded across the breast. 
These vessels will be more particularly described hereafter. 

Within the enclosure before described, beginning near the margin of 
the bayou, extending up the side of the declivity, around the burial 
mound, and continuing quite a distance into the inclosure, are great 
numbers of depressions, or shallow pits in the soil, from one to three 
feet in depth and from fifteen to thirty in diameter ; sometimes in par- 
allel rows, aud usually about thirty feet from centre to centre. In many 
of these, forest trees of large size are still growing, and others equally 
large are lying upon the ground in various stages of decay. Upon 
disro-ino: into them, almost every shovelful of earth disclosed pieces of 
broken pottery ; many of these fragments indicated vessels of large size 
which must have had a capacity of from ten to fifteen gallons. Upon 
joining the fragments together, the mouths or openings were found to 
vary from three to twelve inches in diameter. They were doubtless 
stationary receptacles of food or water, as they were so thin that it 
would hardly seem possible they could be moved, when filled, without 
breaking. In many of these depressions were observed large rough 
masses of burnt clay, of the color of common brick, full of irregular 
and transverse holes, which seem to indicate, that, before it was burned, 
the desired form of a chimney, or oven, had been rudely made out, by 
intertwining sticks, twigs and grass, and the whole plastered inside and 
out with moist clay, to the thickness of several inches, and theu burned 
until it became red and nearly as hard as the bricks now in use. At the 
depth of about two feet, at the bottom of all which were examined, what 



THE NEW MADBID MOUNDS. 35 

seemed to have been a fire-place was disclosed. The earth was also 
burned, so as to present the color and hardness of the fragments of brick, 
to the depth of several inches. Along with the broken pottery were 
found, quite often, fragments of sandstone of various sizes, the larger 
pieces with concave surfaces, and all showing that they had been used for 
polishing or sharpening purposes, especially the smaller ones, which are 
covered with small grooves one-eighth of an inch deep across the whole 
length and width, and at various angles with each other, as though they 
had lono- been used for sharpening some small metallic instrument or 
graver's tool. 




Water Jugs and Food Vessel. 

Another interesting and suggestive feature of these works is worthy of 
notice. Along the shore of the bayou, in front of the enclosure, small 
tongues of land have been carried out into the water, from fifteen to 
thirty feet in length by ten to fifteen in width, with open spaces between, 
which, small as they are, forcibly remind one of the wharves of a sea- 
port town. The cypress trees grow very thickly in all the little bays 
thus formed, and the irregular, yet methodical, outline of the forest, 
winding in and out, close to the shore of these tongues of land, is so 
marked as to remove all doubt as to their artificial origin. Although the 
channel of the Mississippi is now from fifteen to eighteen miles east of 
this point, there is no question that this long bayou was one of its ancient 
beds. It is well known that at New Madrid the river has receded at the 
rate of one mile in seventy years. With the supposition that its recession 
has been uniform, at this rate nearly a thousand years must have passed 
since the Mississippi deserted the banks upon which these works are 
located. But this, could it be proven, would give us no positive testi- 
mony concerning their age. When the river changed its course, a lake 



36 



AECH^OLOGY. 




took its place. The change therefore must have been somewhat sudden, 
for according to its prevailing habits, while it wears away the shore upon 
one side it leaves a corresponding deposit of alluvium upon the other. 

The numerous miniature wharves would suggest that the inhabitants 
were fishermen and had plenty of boats of some sort, which being so, 
these waters must have been navigable and not filled up as now with an 
almost impenetrable cypress forest. 

While it is true that the most im- 
portant w r orks are all situated upon the 
high ground, fifteen feet above the water 
level, some of the smaller ones are 
located upon the intermediate declivity, 
and near the shore of the bayou, as also 
some of the residence sites. 

If we assume their occupancy to have 
been contemporaneous with the presence 
of the river, they would be subject to 
overflow by the annual floods, and the 
Large water vessel. wharves would be swept away. It seem- 

probable therefore that the time when they were occupied was long 
subsequent to the change in the course of the river. The idea of the great 
antiquity of these works, entertained when I made the report of their 
examination, to the St. Louis Academy of Science, I confess has since been 
somewhat shaken, the reasons for which may appear as we proceed. I am 
reminded however that, for the work of which these are the initial 
chapters, a picturesque and, so to speak, a topographical description 
of the ancient monuments of Missouri is desired, rather than a dry 
detail of facts with extended generalizations. Considerations therefore 
which might otherwise be appropriate in this connection will be reserved 
for a more fitting opportunity. 

One mile south of the remains under consideration, 
and about three hundred feet from the margin of the 
bayou, is a peculiar work, in the form of an oval or 
egg-shaped excavation, one hundred and fifty feet long 
in its largest diameter and seventy-five feet wide and 
about six feet deep. It is surrounded by an embank- 



ment about eisrht feet in height around its northern 




Small Drinking Vessel, 
and Stopper. 



curve : on the southern end the wall is not over five 

feet, in which is a narrow opening, and extending from it is a curved, 

elevated way to the swamp, in which the earth taken from the excavation 



THE NEW MADRID MOUNDS. 37 

seems to have been deposited, until a circular mound or wharf was raised 
about twenty feet in diameter and five feet high in the centre. The same 
opening and elevated way is seen at the northern end, extending to the 
water. It is doubtless an unfinished work, but its purpose cannot be 
conjectured. 

About eight miles, in a southeasterly direction, from the works upon 
Bayou St. John, upon what is known as West Lake, is another exten- 
sive group almost identical with those described above, differing chiefly 
in this, that they are covered throughout with a heavy growth of timber; 
and the residence sites are found covering a much larger space, and in 
prodigious numbers ; while in the center of the group is an open space 
of several acres which seems to have been made perfectly level, contain- 
ing no elevations or depressions whatever save what may have been 
produced by the uprooting of timber. 

The aboriginal remains thus briefly described are only small groups of 
the multitudinous works with which this whole region abounds, and in 
many instances are still covered with the primeval forests. 

They seem to increase in number and size as we approach the town 
of New Madrid, where they appear in structures of much greater magni- 
tude, one of which has been already noticed. Their character at this 
place would seem to indicate that here was the seat of government and 
commercial metropolis of a dense population, which occupied a large extent 
of territory, embracing not only New Madrid county, but also the 
counties of Mississippi, Scott, Perry, Butler, Pemiscot, Scotland, 
Madison, Bollinger and Cape Girardeau, all of which contain the same 
class of works, and whose authors were the same people. Further 
explorations, I have no doubt, will disclose their presence in other 
counties adjoining. 



/ 



CHAPTER V. 

One People the Builders of these Mounds.— Cremation and Burial Mounds.— 
The Big Mound at St. Louis.— Mistaken Views.— Minute Description of the 
Work.— Stone Mounds.— Stone Sepulchers in St. Louis and Perry Counties. 

Notwithstanding the variety of form presented in the multitudinous 
structures throughout the continent of North America, the comparison 
of many of their most prominent characteristics makes it reasonably 
certain that one people were the authors of them all. While many of 
them in the order of their age belong to periods more or less remote, 
reaching back many hundreds and perhaps thousands of years, many 
others are comparatively recent. Taken as a whole, the thoughtful 
observer will see, in this diversity of configuration and grouping, that 
natural order of growth which might be looked for in the slow develop- 
ment of a national life, whether generated among the people themselves 
or helped forward by occasional and accidental impulses from without. 
It seems highly probable that there were two slowly-moving streams of 
migration from the north ; the most important one on the east of the 
Mississippi, the other through the territories lying west of the river. 
This southward movement of a vast people seems to have been arrested 
in the valley of the Ohio for a long period of time. Otherwise the fact 
can hardly be accounted for that here occur the most stupendous monu- 
ments of their industry and skill, and also the most striking evidences 
of the stability and repose of their national life. Here the mound- 
builders reached the highest stage of civilization they ever attained this 
side of Central America and Mexico. The movement upon the western 
side of the river, while it had its source in the one great fountain-head 
at the north, does not seem to have been so well defined in all its 
characteristics, notwithstanding the fact that the population in Mis- 
souri at one time was as great, and, we have reason to think, greater 
than in Ohio. The cause may have been that they never enjoyed a 
season of repose and exemption from war to such a degree as to render it 
possible for them to devote the time and concentrate their energies upon 
their internal affairs to the extent which resulted in the more advanced 
civilization of the eastern tribes. There seems to have been one prevail- 
ing svstein of religion among them all, which was based upon the 
worship of the heavenly bodies. This remark applies not only to 
people of North America, but to the ancient inhabitants of the southern 



CREMATION AXD BUKIAL MOUNDS. 



39 



continent as well. The temple mounds in both, though built of different 
materials, are the same in form and purpose. 

While the oneness of their forms of worship of itself proves nothing 
as to the unity of their origin, still, when taken in connection with the 
fact of their constant intercourse, and the identity of so many rites and 
customs among them all, it is believed no extended argument is needed, 
as before stated, to prove that, whatever may be the relative age of the 
groups of works found in different localities, they were all built by one 
people. In view of the foregoing it ought not to be surprising if, as we 
trace the history of their development as recorded in their remains, we 
find here and there traces of a radical change in some of their customs. 
The one we have now to consider is a most important and significant one, 
which relates to the disposition of their dead. This has already been 
noticed (see p. 17, fig. 2), as illustrated in the two cemeteries in Carroll 
Count}', Illinois, with traditional reasons for the substitution of mound 
burial for cremation. Many able writers upon American antiquities have 
given much attention to the numerous class of works which have usually 
been denominated sacrificial mounds. 

These are described as presenting upon excavation a basin-shaped 
cavity of varying dimensions : frequently paved with stones, and con- 
taining ashes and charcoal, which are sometimes mingled wdth various 
implements and ornaments, all showing the action of fire. To my own 
mind the evidences are almost conclusive that these should be denom- 
inated Cremation Mounds ; and that up to a certain period this was the 
u>ual, and perhaps, universal, method of disposing of the remains oi 
departed friends. The size of the mound would then indicate the rank 
of him whose body was thus consumed therein. Upon no other hypothe- 
sis can we account for the earth being heaped upon the so-called altars 
while the fires w T ere yet burning, leaving some portions of the wood 
yet unconsumed. At length this practice ceased and mound burial took 
its place. The latter custom seems to have been the one universally 
practiced by the mound-builders of Missouri. 

While cremation mounds occur in Iowa and Wisconsin, if any exist in 
Missouri they are yet to be discovered. But here even the mode oi 
burial was not uniform throughout the State, nor always in the same 
locality even. One class, in the bayou St. John group, has already been 
described. It is to be remembered that in these no implements what- 
ever were found with the interments — nothing save the earthen vessels 
for food and drink. Occasionally a flint spear and arrowhead would be 
disclosed, but in such relations that I have no doubt their presence was 



40 AUCHJEOLOGY. 

accidental. These mounds I believe to have been the ordinary burial 
places of the people. In others, as was the case with the one upon 
which the O'Fallon mansion stands, great numbers of stone axes, arrow- 
points, and the like abound. 

In the one case, only those domestic utensils were deposited which 
minister to the comfort of their domestic life ; in the other, those which 
served them in war and manly activities. Nor does this seem strange, 
when we remember the belief, so common among mankind in certain 
stages of civilization, that those pursuits to which the individual was 
devoted in this life are continued in the life be}-ond the grave ; conse- 
quently, if he had been a great hunter or mighty in war, it would be 
most natural to deposit with him, in the tomb, his arms. But if the 
nation were at peace, and unused to the arts of war, his friends would 
think only of a necessary supply of food and drink ; hence vessels of 
pottery would be the sole accompaniments of his journey. 

Should the idea here advanced be substantiated by future investigation, 
that cremation was once the prevailing custom and that at some period it 
was discontinued and mound-burial adopted in its place, then it would 
seem altogether probable that Southeast Missouri was peopled at some 
time subsequent to that event, and therefore the works so abundant there 
are more recent than those of the Ohio Valley. 

Another class of sepulchral mounds, whose occurrence is somewhat 
rare, has been observed more particularly in the Western Central States. 
Generally they are of large dimensions and contain a chamber or vault, 
which is sometimes rudely finished with stone. The floor is usually 
on a level w r ith the natural surface of the soil, upon wmich the dead were 
placed, in a reclining posture. The most conspicuous example of this 
class is the one known as the Big Mound, which once stood at the corner 
of Mound street and Broadway in St. Louis, but which, as before stated, 
was removed in 1869. A representation of it, as it appeared, is given 
in our frontispiece. 

Of all sepulchral mounds thus far examined, this was the king. If 
its magnitude, or rather the size of the vault within it has any signifi- 
cance, it would seem to have been the tomb of the most holy prophets 
or of the royal race. The statements concerning its dimensions are 
widely different. According to one observer, it was four hundred feet 
in length, two hundred feet wide at the base and over fifty feet high. 
According to Mr. Brackenridge, it was one hundred and fifty feet in 
length and thirty in height. The latter figures are probably not far from 
the truth. 



THE BIG MOUND AT ST. LOUIS. 41 

These discrepancies are not difficult of explanation when it is remem- 
bered that in its construction, advantage was taken of the highest point 
of the terrace, and when the streets were cut through it, on its northern 
and southern ends, the grade was nearly twenty feet lower than the top 
of the terrace upon which it was erected. A casual observer, therefore, 
would be likely to take the whole as artificial, whereas more than one- 
half, as it then appeared, was of fluviatile origin. The dividing line 
between the natural ground and the mound proper is shown in the 
engraving. It is about midway between the level of the street and the 
top of the mound. 

The demolition of this ancient landmark was an event which awakened 
much interest among the citizens, who gathered in crowds, from day 
to day during the many weeks occupied by its removal. Numerous 
and conflicting accounts were published at the time concerning it, with 
any amount of speculation and hasty conclusions. Some of them have 
been perpetuated in one recent work, at least, upon the pre-historic 
races of America ; on which account I think it proper to say that the 
statements which follow are based upon personal and careful examination 
of the work during the process of its removal, until its destruction 
was accomplished. 

This mound, as is well known, was used by the Indians as a burial 
place, and only about sixty years since, it was visited by a small band, 
who disinterred and carried away the bones of their chief who had been 
buried there. But their interments here, as was their unvarying 
custom, were near the surface. I have observed the same in other 
localities, sometimes not more than eighteen inches from the top of the 
mound, — as was the case with some I examined in Washington County, 
on the banks of the Missouri. On account of this it is not difficult to 
distinguish the Indian burials from those of the Mound-builders. Had 
this fact been better understood, we would have been spared many erro- 
neous statements, as well as hasty generalizations upon articles taken 
from the mounds, which were attributed to their builders, but which, 
in fact, were deposited by the Indians ; and many of them even, subse- 
quent to their first acquaintance with our own race. A striking example 
of this occurred during the removal of the "Big Mound." Near the 
northern end, and about three feet from the surface, two skeletons were 
discovered very near each other, one evidently that of a male, the other 
a female. With the larger of the two were found the spiral spines of 
two conch shells, much decayed, nine ivory beads of an average size, as 
near as I can recollect, one inch in length and nearly one-half in 



42 ARCHEOLOGY. 

diameter, an ivory spool with short shaft but very wide flanges, which 
were much broken around the edges, and two curious articles of copper, 
about three inches in length and about half as wide, resembling some- 
what in shape the common smoothing iron of the laundry. The under 
side, which was concave, showed the marks of the mould in which they 
were cast. The upper side, which was much corroded, showed traces 
of an elaborate finish in the way of engraving. From the center of the 
finished upper side an arm projected at a right angle, about five-eighths 
of an inch in continuous width and two-eighths in thickness at its junc- 
ture, which tapered to a thin edge. 

Embedded in the verdigris with which they were encrusted were plainly 
visible the marks of a twisted string just like ordinary wrapping twine, 
which had been clumsily tied about them, and upon which the beads had 
been strunsr. All the above articles were about the head and neck of the 
skeleton, and had evidently been interred with the possessor just as he 
wore them in life. 

I have been thus particular in the account of this "big Indian" and his 
treasures — for such he undoubtedly was — because these articles of copper, 
and the ivory spool, which must have been turned in a lathe, (and I 
must include also the pieces of cloth found with them, which however I 
did not see) have been taken as the exponents of the state of the arts 
among the Mound-builders, and have been made the subject of the most 
extravagant statements. Although I was not present when these articles 
were taken out, they were placed in my hands a short time afterward, 
by the person who unearthed them, who also kindly gave me portions of 
the skull, the larger bones of the legs, and a lock of hair! from the head 
of both the sachem and his squaw, which are still in my possession. 

But the most interesting feature of this truly great structure is the 
sepulchral chamber which it once contained. By what means the 
ponderous mass of earth which formed its roof was sustained, the mound 
itself furnished no clue, for it had long ago fallen in and crushed almost 
to atoms the already decayed bones of the skeletons lying upon the 
floor. The original length of the chamber could only be conjectured, as 
portions of the mound had been removed when the street was cut 
through upon the southern end, as seen in the engraving. It could be 
traced, however, for seventy-two feet. For this distance the sides were 
perfectly smooth and straight, and sloped outwardly a few degrees from 
the perpendicular, and the marks of the tool by which the walls were 
plastered could be plainly seen. One circumstance, which was very 
puzzling for a while, was the curious appearance of the surface of the 



THE BIG MOUND AT ST. LOUIS. 43 

walls. They were covered with a complete network of black lines, 
interlacing and crossing each other with all sorts of beautiful and fanciful 
complications, resembling more than anything else the delicate tracery of 
a frosted window pane. Upon careful examination, these proved to be 
the remains of rootlets from the trees which once grew upon the surface 
above ; which, rinding easy ingress along the face of the wall, had thus 
covered its surface, but were now completely carbonized. 

The manner of its construction seems to have been thus : The surface 
of the ground was first made perfectly level and hard ; then the walls 
were raised with an outward inclination, which were also made perfectly 
compact and solid, and plastered over with moist clay. Over these a 
roof was formed of heavy timbers, and above all the mound was raised 
of the desired dimensions. 1 The bodies had all been placed in a direct 
line, upon the floor of the vault, a few feet apart, and equidistant from 
each other, with their feet towards the west. These were disclosed, 
several at a time, as the laborers detached long, vertical sections of 
earth by the simultaneous use of crowbars inserted at the top. Mingled 
with the black deposit which enveloped the bones, were beads and shells 
in prodigious numbers, though in no instance were both deposited with 
the same individual. 

The beads, so called, are the same as are found in the mounds of Ohio, 
and evidently cut, as Dr. Foster thinks, from the Busy con, from the 
Gulf of Mexico. They are small discs perforated in the center by drill- 
ing. From the many specimens in my possession in various stages of 
their manufacture, the conclusion is warranted that the hole was first 
drilled and the edges rounded afterwards. Many of these seem to have 
been cut from the common mussel-shells which are abundant in this region. 
The small sea shells (MargineUa apicina), were only found with a few 
skeletons, possibly five or six at the southern end of the vault, and with each 
one from four to six quarts, all of which were pierced with small holes 
near the head, by which they were undoubtedly strung together. With 
the majority, however, only the perforated buttons were found, but in 
such numbers that the body from the thighs to the head must have been 
covered with them. 

Being very desirous of securing, if possible, a perfect skull, or at 
least the fragments from which one might be reconstructed, and as all 

1 Although not a vestige of wood was discovered when it was removed, in a work 
across the river, more recently destroyed, which contained a similar vault, were found 
sticks of red cedar, much decayed, but in such positions as showed that they had been 
the supports of the superincumbent earth. 



44 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



which were thrown out by the excavators were in small pieces which 
crumbled at the touch, I began a careful excavation with a common 
kitchen knife near the feet of a skeleton, following the spinal column to 
the head. My work was soon interrupted however by the crowd of 
eager boys from the neighboring schools, who scrambled for the beads 
which were thrown out with every handful of earth, with such energy 
that I was lifted from my feet and borne away. By the aid of a burly 
policeman, however, I was able to finish my excavation, but without 
beino- able to secure what was so much desired. The bones were so much 
decayed, when the roof fell in, that all the larger bones were crushed, 
and only small fragments of the skull could be obtained, and of course 
no cavity corresponding to its shape remained from which a plaster cast 
might have been taken. 

The last visit to the mound was most interesting of all. The 
night before, the workmen had made a vertical cut directly across 
the northern end of the small portion of the work which yet remained. 




Cross-Section of the Big Mound at St. Louis. 

What was there revealed is well represented in the engraving. The 
sloping walls were of compact yellow clay, the intermediate space filled 
with blue clay in a much looser condition, in perfect agreement with the 
idea of its having fallen in from above by the decay of its support. Here 
too, at the northern end, I conjectured, was the entrance to the sepul- 



STONE MOUNDS. 45 

cher, for the reason that here the walls were about eight feet in height, 
from six feet to eight feet apart, whereas the first measurements at the 
top, when the walls were discovered, showed a diameter of eighteen feet. 

Here, then, was an artificial sepulchral tomb, whose dimensions we 
may safely state to have been from eight to twelve feet wide, seventy- 
five feet long, and from eight to ten feet in height, in which from twenty 
to thirty burials had taken place. If any other deposit had been made 
with the dead, save the before-mentioned beads and shells, the tomb must 
have been desecrated by some savage who had no regard for its sacred 
character, for not a vestige of anything else was disclosed at the time of 
its demolition. 

Another evidence of a large aboriginal population is furnished by the 
stone mounds which are very numerous in certain localities, particularly in 
those counties through which flow the Osage and the Gasconade rivers. 
Not being so conspicuous as the others already noticed, they would not 
be likely to attract the attention of ordinary travelers, and may therefore 
be found covering a much larger area than is at present known. These 
are simple heaps of stones, of such size as could be conveniently carried 
from the ravines where they are found to the highest elevations — the spots 
usually chosen for their erection. I have seen them in groups on a con- 
tinuous line running back from the very brow of a precipitous escarpment 
two hundred and fifty feet above the Gasconade, which swept majestically 
below. In fact, those commanding elevations, no matter how difficult of 
access, from whence the view of the surrounding landscape was most 
extended and lovely, seem to have been the ones most preferred. The 
Ozark Hills, clothed with the primeval forests, are full of them. They 
are generally considered more recent than the earthen tumuli. In all 
that I have opened nothing was discovered which shed any light upon 
their history, save a few human teeth and the smallest bits of the larger 
bones, which proved them to be burial mounds. It is stated by Adair 
that some of the nomadic tribes of Indians thus disposed .of their dead, 
and as they passed and re-passed those graves, from year to year each man 
of the tribe was accustomed to add another stone to the heap which had 
been raised above them. In agroup of seven, I observed one which showed 
some skill in masonry; one of the walls was built up with a smooth face 
about three feet in height, in which the joints were beautifully broken, 
although there was no evidence of mortar having been used. 

In this connection should be noticed still another class ; the most note- 
worthy examples of which, were discovered about the year 1818, in the 
town of Fenton, about fifteen miles from St. Louis. These were stone 



46 ARCHAEOLOGY. 

graves or cists, each inclosing a single skeleton, or the dust of one — as all 
were in a crumbling condition there. Not one of the many examined 
exceeded fifty inches in length. They were built of six flat stones, single 
slabs forming the bottom, top, sides, and ends. 

According to Dr. Beck, of Gazetteer fame, much discussion was elicited 
at the lime and many communications appeared in the newspapers. The 
chief point upon which it all centered was the shortness of the graves. 
As was the case in Tennessee, a few years since, it was considered as 
proving the former existence of a race of pigmies. But the fact that in 
some of them the leg bones were observed lying parallel with and along- 
side of the bones of the thigh, accounted for the shortness of the graves ; 
and this, taken along with the well-known custom practiced by some 
tribes, of suspending their dead in the branches of trees until the bones 
were denuded of flesh and afterwards depositing them in their common 
burying place, was regarded as a sufficient answer to all the pigmy spec- 
ulations. 

About one hundred yards from the ancient burying ground at Fenton 
were once a number of mounds, and remains of an extensive fortification, 
which also attracted the attention of the curious in those early days. 
And if files of the old Missouri Gazette of sixty years ago could be 
found, no doubt many interesting facts would be recovered which are 
now forgotten. Similar stone graves are found in Perry County, seventy- 
five miles from St. Louis. 



CHAPTER VI. 

"The Cave-Dwellers/' — Tales of Discoveries in Kentucky, etc. — The Catos op 
the Ozark Mountains. — Proofs of Long Occupancy. — Skeletons and other 
Relics Found. — The Cave-Dwellers a Different Race from the Mound- 
Builders. 

To the general student of Ethnology and Archaeology, no one depart- 
ment of antiquarian research has yielded grander or more satisfactory 
results than those which have rewarded the explorers of the caves and 
rock-shelters of some of the mountain chains of the old world. Concern- 
in^ the relative a^e of the earthen structures of the vast alluvial plains 
of America there may be much difference of opinion. But in his 
occupancy of the caves of Europe, primeval man has so inscribed the 
records of his early life and presence, during those geologic changes 
which he witnessed, in the succession of the glacial and diluvial epochs, 
that they are sometimes as sharply delineated and legible as are those 
of the various orders of animal life in the stratified rocks By these 
faithful chronographs of the childhood of the race, we are carried back 
irresistibly to a period so remote, that the cave-dwellers from Mount 
Hor, who joined the confederate kings, and were so signally overthrown 
by Abram in the plains of Sodom, were but of yesterday. 

In America, this field is comparatively unexplored, or perhaps we had 
better say, is undiscovered. Indeed, it may be that we have nothing 
here which shall be found to correspond to or compare with the drift 
period and bone-caves of Europe. It is true we find, in the early tales 
of border life in Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, accounts which 
must contain some elements of truth, of caverns filled with human bones ; 
others whose walls are pictured and sculptured with strange devices, of 
animals, known and unknown ; and representations of the heavenly 
bodies ; and others still, containing mummied corpses, embalmed and 
wonderfully preserved, clad in robes of feather-work like those of Peru- 
vian fabric which so filled the Spanish conquerors with admiration. But 
alas ! these were long since destroyed. Then, they had little or no 
scientific value, consequently there was no motive for their serious 
examination, or preservation. 

Still, however, we may indulge the not unreasonable hope that others 
may yet be discovered, -whose disclosures shall be equally precious. In 
this hope we are the more encouraged by the fact that the few which 
have been noticed and described, furnish indubitable proof that they 



48 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



were once the favorite resorts, for burial purposes, of some pre-historic 
race. When the stones shall be rolled away from the doors of the sep- 
ulchral caverns in the limestone hills of Missouri, the lonsr-forfotten 
dead may again come forth re-vivified, rehabilitated, and the Ozark 
Mountains may yet disclose materials for a chapter in the life of her 
primitive people, which shall equal in interest the records of the mounds. 
The Ozarks, thanks to their sterile slopes, have preserved their sacred 




Among the Ozarks. 

treasures well. They are honeycombed with caves, some of unknown 
extent. Their openings may be seen in the precipitous bluffs along the 
Gasconade River, in great numbers, on either side, or the majestic arches 
of their openings span the divides where the smaller hill ranges meet. 
Do these numerous caves and channels evidence an ancient system of 
drainage, in operation long before the Gasconade had asserted its "right 
of way " and scooped for itself a course through the rocks by its cease- 
less flow? 1 

In these caves the ancient dead were buried and the funeral feasts 
were celebrated. The deep deposit of rich nitrogenous earth in the 



1 See Sir Charles Lyell's remarks upon the Valley of the Meuse, " Antiquity of Man," 
p. 73. 



THE CAVE DWELLERS. 49 

larger chambers, and the bones of various animal*, birds, and mussel 
shells — the refuse of the funeral feasts, — the alternate layers of ashes and 
charcoal mingled with earth}' matter, containing human bones in different 
degrees of preservation, tell of oft-repeated visits and recurrence of the 
funeral rites. 

What little we have learned from the few thus far explored makes us 
only the more eager to examine still further the records they contain. 
A description of one must serve our present purpose. The one selected 
is in Pulaski County, and is one of the many famous saltpetre caves so 
often mentioned in the early annals of the State, with which the country 
of the Gasconade abounds. The opening is in the face of a perpen- 
dicular limestone bluff which extends along the river for many miles. 
"While the scenery of this whole region is very beautiful, the view from 
the mouth of some of the caves is enchanting. Standing in the shadow 
of one of their lofty arches, the eye is charmed with the peculiar beauty 
of the landscape spread out before it. The Gasconade flowing far below, 
the stately trees which fringe its banks and mark the course of its long 
graceful curves, until it loses itself in the dim outlines of the Ozarks, 
which swell and roll away until their opalescent hues melt into the mel- 
low light of the autumn sk}-, — all conspire to awaken the liveliest 
feelings of respect and admiration for a people whose aesthetic taste was 
so refined and tender as to lead them to select a place so charming for 
the long repose of their loved ones. But poetry and science have but 
little in common : one must end where the other begins. So turning my 
back upon the beautiful scene, and repressing all compunctions for the 
sacrilege we are about to commit, the impatient workmen are directed 
to begin the labor of cutting a trench one hundred and seventy-five feet 
long, through the deposit at the bottom of the cave. At the end of this 
distance the perpetual gloom begins. Here the torches are brought into 
requisition, by whose dim light, as the laborers proceed with their work, 
the sectional notes and measurements are taken. 

The whole surface of the deposit seems to have been much disturbed, 
to the depth of from eighteen inches to two feet. It is composed of 
earth and ashes, mingled profusely with broken pottery, fragments 
of human bones and flint-chips. Below this, the deposit is hard and 
compact. Selecting a point about midway from either end of the trench, 
we proceed to make more critical examination. Continuing the excav- 
ation to the depth of six feet, the natural deposit at the bottom is 
reached, composed of a tough reddish clay, which contained nothing 
but decayed mussel shells. All above this showed the continual 



50 ARCHAEOLOGY. 

occupancy of the cave during its deposition. A vertical section at the 
point above named, disclosed the following strata: 



Alluvium, mingled with ashes, bits of pottery, etc 18 inches. 

Stratum of different colored ashes 2 " 

Clay and dark Alluvium 2% " 

Ashes Vz " 

Alluvium 3 " 

Mixture of Ashes and Clay 3 " 

Pure Ashes Yz " 

Alluvium 3^ " 

Pure Ashes, mingled with Charcoal 4 " 

Alluvium, " " " 7 " 

Ashes 3 " 

Alluvium, mingled with Charcoal 20 " 

At the depth of about two feet, the first skeleton was reached, lying 
upon its back, with head towards the east. All the small bones were 
thoroughly decayed. About six feet north of this, another skeleton was 
disclosed, evidently buried in a sitting posture. This was so much 
decomposed that only a few of the thicker portions of the skull could 
be secured. Near this was also found the skeleton of a very aged 
female, the skull in a better state of preservation. In companionship 
with these was a flint spear-head of the rudest pattern, as were all the 
implements of stone — which were not numerous — which the deposit 
contained. With the exception of the rude spear-head, their presence 
seemed to have been accidental, and this also may have been so. 
Among the most interesting relics, were articles of bone, such as awls, 
scrapers, and the like, and occasionally one made from the inner surface 
of a shell, with a sharp edge. 

What was most surprising was the prodigious number of mussel 
shells which were continuous through the whole deposit, decreasing in 
size and more decayed as we descended, until their whole substance w T as 
a chalky paste. These are still abundant in the river below. Inter- 
mingled with the alluvium and ashes, as far as the excavation extended, 
were skulls and bones of fishes, deer, bear, mud-turtle and wild 
turkey. The skulls were always broken, no doubt to obtain the brains, 
which have always been esteemed a great delicacy among the civilized 
and savage as well. While, for purposes of ethnological study, a more 
detailed description of the crania contained in this cave would be 
instructive, and other particulars here suggested might be properly 
enlarged upon, still, enough has been stated to indicate the desirable- 
ness of a more thorough exploration of this comparatively new class 



THE CAVE DWELLERS. 



51 



of antiquities. But keeping in mind that we have more to do in these 
chapters with the traces of the aboriginal inhabitants of Missouri than 
with lengthy generalizations upon the facts they disclose, we can only 
hint at one or two conclusions. 




Bone Implements. 



Here was the burial place of a people who were not insensible to 
those beauties with which nature around them was glorified, and who 
sought those places with the most lovely surroundings in which to deposit 
the remains of their friends. Here were laid to rest from time to time 
the old and young, the aged matron, and the child, the fragments of 
whose thin, paper-like skulls suggested many thoughts of maternal love 
and tears of sorrow. The vast numbers of shells, and bones of beasts 
and birds, bear witness to the oft-repeated funeral feasts beside the new- 
made graves of the departed, and point to a belief in a life continued in 
another world. Who they were, or when they lived, it is not our 
province now to try to answer. The Indians, it is well known, regarded 
these gloomy caverns with superstitious fear, for in them they believed 



52 



AKCH^EOLOGY. 



the great Manitou dwelt. In view of this fact, so well attested by early 
writers, the idea that they were the occupants becomes a matter of °rave 
doubt. The skulls thus far examined, are also wanting in those peculiar 
and generally very marked characteristics which are so evident in the 
crania of the mounds. With this allusion to a question so interesting 
we must leave its discussion to a future occasion, when we may reason- 
ably hope to be able to continue it in the light of more extended 
information. 



CHAPTER VII. 

Temple Mounds.— Growth of Ancient Religious Systems.— Characteristics of this 
Class of Monuments.— The Great Mound at Cahokia, its best representative 
in North America.— Brackenridge's Description of it in 1811.— How it came to 
be called •« monks' mound."— the ceremonies of the sun-worshippers.— other 
Temple Mounds.— The Indivns not descended from the Mound-Builders. 

Although the propriety of some of the mound-classifications of the 
earlier writers has sometimes been questioned, no doubts are entertained 
as to the purpose of those which have been denominated Temple Mounds. 
In treating of this class, we enter at once upon a field almost as vast as 
the two continents of America. For, whatever may have been the 
material used in their construction, whether stone, or earth alone, or 
both combined, they present such uniform characteristics, so identical in 
evident purpose and design, that they link together by one prevailing 
system of religious worship, of which they are the striking exponents, 
unnumbered tribes and peoples, scattered up and down the two continents 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Reason as we may, the more they are 
studied, and considered in their relation to other groups and classes with 
which they are found associated, we can hardly escape the conviction 
that they point to one common origin. 

Before yielding a hasty assent to a general conclusion, a proper caution 
would suggest the possibility of accounting for this uniformity of struc- 
ture by other and natural considerations. It is well known that barbaric 
tribes in all lands and rimes have manufactured their first implements of 
war and the chase from stone and bone, and have learned, by means of 
some hint which Nature, perhaps, afforded, to fashion rude vessels of clay 
for domestic use. It is also true that their petitions and adorations have 
been addressed to the same class of imaginary beings, or objects and 
active forces whose effects they were accustomed to behold around them ; 
among which the heavenly bodies appear to have occupied a conspicuous 
place, particularly during some stages of their progress from barbarism 
to a higher life. 

CD 

Possessed of the same faculties, appetites and passions, inheriting the 
same necessities, meeting always the same difficulties in their struggles 
for existence, it is not surprising that rude nations have ever followed the 
same paths in all the activities of their wild, infantile life. Indeed, it 
would be surprising if they had not. From these and similar considera- 
tions it may be thought that the identity of form, structure and relation, 



54 ARCHEOLOGY. 

and also apparent oneness of purpose which characterize the Temple 
Mounds, demonstrate only the operation of a universal law, in the 
progress of a people from a state of barbarism through the slow stages 
of its devclopement towards a higher civilization. The sun and moon 
have been worshiped in ages and countries widely separated, and by 
nations between which there could never have occurred any possible 
communication. 

Man never has attained by intuition or philosophy that knowledge of 
the unity and perfections of the Supreme Being which Revelation presents : 
and wanting that knowledge, he naturally worships those visible objects 
which are most conspicuous and which most inspire his reverence, 
especially those which, he conceives, exert the greatest influence upon 
his life and destiny. But when each nation starts out for itself in the 
path of a progressive civilization, the prevailing forms of worship, being 
subjected to the same influences which mould the national polity, must 
necessarily, under the new impulse, become also materially changed, or 
as has sometimes happened, displaced altogether, by a system entirely 
new. From this point, the forms of Nature-worship would cease to be 
identical, and each resultant SA'stem become thereafter more and more 
divergent ; and long periods of time must necessarily be required for the 
working out of a complicated and well arranged system of popular 
religion which should be able to enforce the ready obedience and subjec- 
tion of a vast people to its mandates, and enlist the energies of the 
nation in the erection of their most imposing structures, for no other 
purpose than the observance of their religious rites and ceremonies. Such 
structures, among the memorials of an ancient people, are very inter- 
esting and instructive, from the fact that religion has ever exerted such 
controlling influence in the establishment and perpetuity or decline of 
countless nations, whose history has been preserved. 

They are the records, therefore, of more than the religious faith and 
practice of a particular people ; but, because of the leavening influence 
of religious ideas when crystallized into systematic forms, they become the 
interpreters of many things which otherwise would never be understood. 

It will readily be seen, therefore, in the light of the foregoing, that 
the Temple Mounds of America are invested with an interest and 
importance outside of their purely religious character ; and which is 
greatly enhanced by the fact that wherever they arc found, along with 
them invariably occur the most striking evidences of the former presence 
of a numerous population, whose civil and social condition was separated 
by a wide gulf from that of the red race who occupied their ancient seats 



TEMPLE MOUNDS. 55 

when America was discovered ; and whose government was so well 
established and enduring, as to render it possible for vast numbers to 
be employed for a series of years in their erection. 

Temple Mounds, according to Squier and Davis, "are distinguished 
by their great regularity of form and general large dimensions. They 
consist chiefly of pyramidal structures, truncated, and generally have 
graded avenues to their tops. In some instances they are terraced or 
have successive stages. But whatever their form, whether round, oval, 
octangular, square or oblong, they have invariably flat or level tops." l 

" The summits of these structures were probably crowned with 
temples, but having been constructed of perishable materials, all traces 
of their existence have disappeared. The truncated pyramidal form, 
which often rises to no great height, was obviously the foundation for 
such structures. In the works at Aztalan, Wisconsin, we trace the out- 
lines of this form of mounds at the angles of the bastions, and this may 
be said to be their northern limit. They are not recognized on the 
southern slope of Lake Erie, and are seen at only three points in Southern 
Ohio, viz : Marietta, Newark and Chillicothe. 

"The stupendous mound at Cahokia in Illinois, with its graded way, 
its terrace and level summit, was the best representative of this class. 3 
In Kentucky they are not rare ; the great mound near Florence is of this 
character, and that near Claiborne — fifty feet in height — has a level 
summit with a gradual slope on the east, and a succession of ten terraces 
on the west. In this class, too, must be included the great mound at 
Seltzertown, Mississippi, and most of those in the Gulf States. 

1 Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 173. Smithsonian Contributions to 
Knowledge. 

* When he wrote this, Dr. Foster was under the impression that this great work was 
destroyed. "While he was mistaken, it is understood to be for sale, and may soon be 
reckoned among the things that were, provided some railway shall be constructed near 
enough to render its huge mass — containing several million cubic yards of earth — 
desirable to elevate its grade. What a graceful thing it would be for the State, or 
National Government to purchase it and decree its perpetual preservation! Men of 
science all over the world and in all future time would be so thankful for such an act. 
Thus the Government of Denmark has done with her antiquities. Whether either of 
our great political parties could be persuaded to assume such a tremendous responsibility 
is very doubtful. Our legislators are so conscientious and so intent upon " retrenchment 
and reform." that the expenditure of a few hundred dollars for the preservation of the 
stupendous work which must have occupied the ceaseless labor of thousands of men 
through a life-time to erect, would be a precedent too dangerous to think of — such an 
act might shake the foundations of the Republic. No partizan would dare favor such a 
proposition, lest it should be followed by his speedy consignment to a political grave 
from which there could be no resurrection. 



56 ARCHEOLOGY. 

" In Mexico and Central America, we see the culmination of this form 
in the Teocallis, which were faced with flights of steps and surmounted 
by temples of stone." 1 

The identification of some of the mounds in their enumeration as 
Temple Mounds, by the authors above named, I cannot but regard as 
lacking confirmation. Indeed the evidences derived from 1113' own obser- 
vations are conclusive that some of them belong to quite another class. 
Those of the " truncated pyramidal form which often rise to no great 
height," were doubtless crowned with the residences of the chiefs and 
rulers. These are often found in groups. I have counted seven or eight 
very near each other, a few feet in height, with flat or level tops : the 
central one generally larger than those around it, which tradition affirms 
was occupied by the dwelling of the chief. The others of the group were 
erected from time to time for residence sites for his sons, as thev came to 
man's estate and had families of their own. In all which I have excavated, 
nothing was disclosed but fragments of pottery. 

The only structures which can with certainty be identified as Temple 
Mounds are those whose perfect model is seen in the Teocallis of Mexico 
and South America. 

In whatever group they are found, they are the most imposing. 
Generally oblong, with one or more stages, and ascended by graded 
avenues. Such was one of the large mounds at St. Louis, and I am 
disposed to believe that the beautiful Falling Garden was an unfinished 
work of this class, whose three stages, about fifteen feet each in height, 
were finished, but the elevated work which was to crown the whole was 
wanting. 

The great Cahokia Mound is the best representative of this class to be 
found in North America. This was examined by Mr. Brackenridge in 
1811-12. His interesting description of it, along with the numerous 
works of smaller dimensions with which the American Bottom is filled, — 
or was in his day — may well be quoted entire in this connection : 

"To form a more correct idea of these, it will be necessary to s;ive the 
reader some view of the tract of country in which they are situated. 
The American Bottom is a tract of rich alluvial land, extending on the 
Mississippi, from Kaskaskia to the Cahokia Kiver, about eighty miles in 
length and i\ve in breadth ; several handsome streams meander through it ; 
the soil is of the richest kind, and but little subject to the effects of the 
Mississippi floods. A number of lakes are interspersed through it, with 

' Foster's Pre-Historic Races, etc., p. 1S6. 



THE GEE AT MOUNT) AT CAHOKIA. 57 

fine high banks ; these abound in fish, and in autumn are visited by 
millions of wild fowl. 

'There is perhaps no spot in the western country, capable of being 
more highly cultivated, or of giving support to a more numerous 
population, than this valley. If any vestige of ancient population were 
to be found, this would be the place to search for it ; accordingly this 
tract, as also the bank of the river on the western side, exhibits proofs 
of an immense population. If the city of Philadelphia and its environs 
were deserted, there would not be more numerous traces of human 
existence. 

"The great number of mounds, and the astonishing quantity of human 
bones everywhere dug up, or found on the surface of the ground with 
a thousand other appearances, announce that this valley was at one 
period tilled with habitations and villages. The whole face of the bluff, or 
hill which bounds it on the east, appears to have been a continued burying 
ground. But the most remarkable appearances are two groups of mounds 
or pyramids, the one about ten miles above Cahokia, and the other 
nearly the same distance below it, which in all exceed one hundred and fifty 
of various sizes. The western side also contains a considerable number. 

"A more minute description of those above Cahokia, which I visited in 
the fall of 1811, will give a tolerable idea of them all. I crossed the 
Mississippi at St. Louis, and after passing through the wood which 
borders the river, about a half a mile in width, entered on an extensive 
plain. 

"In fifteen minutes I found myself in the midst of a group of mounds, 
mostly of a circular shape and at a distance, resembling enormous haystacks 
scattered throusrh a meadow : one of the largest, which I ascended, was 
about two hundred paces in circumference at the bottom, the form nearly 
square, though it had evidently undergone considerable alteration from 
the washing of rains ; the top was level, with an area sufficient to contain 
several hundred men. The prospect from this mound was very beautiful ; 
looking towards the bluffs, which are dimly seen at the distance of six 
or eight miles, the bottom at this place being very wide, I had a level 
plain before me, bound by islets of wood, and a few solitary trees : to 
the right the prairie is bounded by the horizon ; to the left, the course 
of the Cahokia may be distinguished by the margin of wood upon its 
banks, and crossing the valley diagonally S. S. W. Around me, I 
counted forty-five mounds or pyramids, besides a great number of small 
artificial elevations : these mounds form something more than a semi- 
circle, about a mile in extent, the open space on the river. 



58 ARCHEOLOGY. 

"Pursuing my walk along the bank of the Cahokia, I passed eight 
others in the distance of three miles, before I arrived at the largest 
assemblage. When I reached the foot of the principal mound, I was 
struck with a degree of astonishment not unlike that which is experienced 
in contemplating the Egyptian Pyramids. What a stupendous pile of 
earth ! To heap up such a mass must have required years, and the labor 
of thousands. It stands immediately on the bank of the Cahokia, and 
on the side next it, is covered with lofty trees. Were it not for the 
regularity and design which it manifests, the circumstances of its being 
on alluvial ground, and the other mounds scattered around it, we would 
scarcely believe it the work of human hands. 

"The shape is that of a parallelogram standing from north to south ; on 
the south side there is a broad apron or step, about halfway down, and 
from this another projection into the plain, about fifteen feet wide, which 
was probably intended as an ascent to the mound. By stepping around 
the base I computed the circumference to be at least eight hundred 
yards, and the height of the mound about ninety feet. The step or 
apron has been used as a kitchen-garden by the monks of La Trappe, 
settled near this, and the top is sowed with wheat. Nearly west there 
is another of a smaller size, and forty others scattered through the 
plain. Two are also seen on the bluff at the distance of three miles. 
Several of these mounds are almost conical. As the sward had been 
burnt, the earth was perfectly naked, and I could trace with ease any 
unevenness of surface, so as to discover whether it was artificial or 
accidental. 

"I everywhere observed a great number of small elevations of earth to 
the height of a few feet, at regular distances from each other, and which 
appeared to observe some order ; near them I also observed pieces of 
flint and fragments of earthen vessels. I concluded that a populous 
town had once existed here, similar to those of Mexico described by the 
first conquerors. The mounds were sites of temples or monuments to 
great men. 

"It is evident this could never have been the work of thinly-scattered 
tribes. If the human species had at any time been permitted in this 
country to have increased freely, and there is every probability of the 
fact, it must, as in Mexico, have become astonishingly numerous. The 
same space of ground would have sufficed to maintain fifty times the 
number of the present inhabitants, with ease, their agriculture having no 
other object than mere sustenance. Among a numerous population, the 
power of the chief must necessarily be more absolute, and where there 



/ 



CEREMONIES OF THE SUN-WORSHIPPERS. 59 

are no laws, degenerates into despotism. This was the case in Mexico, 
and in the nations of South America. A great number of individuals 
were at the disposal of the chief, who treated them little better than 
slaves. The smaller the society, the greater the consequence of each 
individual. Hence, there would not be wanting a sufficient number of 
hands to erect mounds or pyramids." 

The largest mound of the Cahokia group, thus described by Bracken- 
rido-e, is now known as Monks' Mound, on account of its having been 
occupied in early days by a colony of monks of the order of La Trappe. 
This prodigious temple site, as before remarked, is the best represent- 
ative of its class in the United States, not only on account of its vast 
size, but also because it is the most finished model of all similar works 
which can with any degree of certainty be determined as temple mounds. 
The Teocallis of Mexico and the regions further south, though finished 
with stone, are of the same form, with graded ascents, or flights of steps, 
leading to the broad stage, or level top, at one end of which rose 
another elevation, upon which stood the most holy temple and sacred 
altars. 

Upon these burned the perpetual fire, to be extinguished only at the 
close of the year, and rekindled by the sun himself, as his rising beams 
were concentrated by the high priests, when the new year began. This 
event was always observed with the greatest solemnity. 

When the sacred flame expired upon the altars, with the dying year, 
the whole land was filled with gloom, and the fire upon every domestic 
hearth must be extinguished also. Then the people sat down in awful 
suspense to watch for the morning. Possibly their father, the sun, 
might be angry with his children, and veil his glory behind the clouds at 
the coming dawn. Then as they thought of their sins and bewailed 
their transgressions, their fears were expressed in loud lamentations. But 
as the expected dawn — the momentous time — approaches, all eyes are 
turned towards the holy mount where the now tireless altars stand. At 
length the eastern sky begins to glow with a golden light which tells 
them that their god is near, and, while they watch, he rolls in splendor 
from behind the eastern hills, and darts his fiery beams upon the sacred 
place where holy men are waiting to ignite anew the sacrificial fires. 
Nor do they wait in vain, for soon the curling smoke and the signal 
flames are seen by the breathless multitude which fill the plains below, 
and then one long, glad shout is heard, and songs of joy salute the 
bright new year. Swift-footed messengers receive the new-lit fire from 



60 ARCHAEOLOGY. 

the hands of the priests, quickly it is distributed to the waiting throng 
and carried exult ingly to their several homes, when all begin the joyful 
celebration of the feast of the Sun. 

The peaceful tribes who once dwelt in this region of the Mississippi 
Valley, upon either shore, found no quarries of stone of easy cleavage, 
or which could be wrought with their simple tools for the erection of 
their edifices. Doubtless wood was the only material at their command, 
or possibly sun-dried brick. The dust of their temples is gone with that 
of their builders ; their altars are crumbled — the sacred fire is extin- 
guished, which the sun shall nevermore rekindle. But the proud monu- 
ment of their national solemnities still rears aloft its majestic form in the 
midst of a vast alluvial plain of exhaustless fertility — a grand memorial 
of days more ancient than the last migration of the Aztec race to the 
plains of Anahuac, who found there the very same structures, which 
they appropriated and by which they perpetuated the worship of the 
land of their fathers as well as that of the people whom they subjugated. 
It is not unreasonable to suppose that when, from its elevated summit, 
the smoke of the yearly sacrifice ascended in one vast column heaven- 
ward, from the great work above described, that it was the signal for 
simultaneous sacrifices from lesser altars throughout the whole length of 
the great plain, in the centre of which it stands, and that the people 
ui)on the Missouri shore responded with answering fires from those 
hio-h places wdiich once stood upon the western bank of the river, but are 
now destroyed. 

Here, we may well believe was the holy city, to which the tribes made 
annual pilgrimages to celebrate the national feasts and sacrifices. But 
not here alone ; for this vast homogeneous race, one in arts and worship, 
had the same high and holy places, though of less imposing magnitude, 
in the valley of the Ohio, in Alabama, and Mississippi. 

In south-east Missouri, at New Madrid, is a similar work, surrounded 
by a ditch ten feet in width and five in depth. It is twelve hundred feet 
in circumference and forty feet in height. Among the ruins of almost 
every ancient town lying back from the river, upon bayous and smaller 
streams, may be found the oblong Temple-mound, which is always the 
highest work of the group, and commands a view of the whole. 

There are some who profess to believe that the Indians are the degen- 
erate sons of the authors of these extensive and complicated works. But 
when it is remembered that their languages, which are divided into many 
groups, present very few affinities which are common to all, and the 
dialects into which these groups are further divided are, many of them, 



THE HOUXD-BUILDEKS. 61 

so distantly related as to show that the various tribes must have been 
separated from the parent stock in times very remote ; and when we 
take into the account also, the wonderful unity of the race of the mounds, 
as displayed in their works and worship, and the vast extent of territory 
they occupied, it will be seen that such a supposition involves an antiquity 
of the red race, which its most ardent defenders will find difficult to 
harmonize with the recognized facts. 

To my own mind the evidence is clear that the two peoples were as 
distinct as the Greeks and Romans. That the exodus of the mound- 
builders occupied long periods of time, is altogether probable, and com- 
prised several distinct migrations, to the south and southwest, which were 
brought about by the continued encroachments of the more warlike and 
savage hordes from the north and northwest. Here and there, no doubt, 
small bands were enslaved or absorbed by their conquerors, who adopted 
some of the customs of the subjugated race, particularly those pertaining 
to their worship, the traces of which are often well defined, — the practice 
of which was continued by a few Indian tribes as late as the beginning of 
the present century. 

If the views here presented are correct, it will be apparent that the 
Temple-mounds are invested with an interest peculiar to themselves, in 
as much as they give us an insight to the social and political condition of 
the ancient inhabitants of the State of Missouri and the Mississippi 
Valley, which can be gained from no other class of works. It will also 
be perceived that we have barely entered upon a most interesting field of 
research, which will well repay a careful and thorough examination. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Garden Mounds.— The Food of the Pke-historic Races.— Fish Probably one of their 
Main Resources. — The Use of the Ditches within their City "Walls.— Domestic 
Animals.— Agriculture.— Religious Systems.— Dissimilarity between Northern 
and Southern Tribes of Indians.— Traces ok Aztec Culture among the Latter. — 
Vast Numbers of the Garden Mounds.— Proofs of their Purpose.— The Utah 
Mounds.— Interesting Discoveries.— A new Variety of Wheat grown from Ker- 
nels found Therein.— An Opening for Further Researches. 

The foregoing evidences of an ancient people swarming in prodigious 
numbers throughout the vast territory in which these works abound, and 
who had their permanent dwellings in towns and cities which were well 
arranged and constructed with no mean skill, suggest the most interest- 
ing question, How did they subsist? The importance of this question is 
realized when we remember that it lies at the foundation of their whole 
social fabric ; and in fact, once determined, the answer becomes one of 
the chief exponents of their physical condition, intellectual capacity and, 
in a good degree, of their moral status as well. Many of the staple arti- 
cles of food upon which all civilized nations depend for subsistence are 
only to be procured by intelligent labor, guided by a plan and forethought 
which are the result of a more or less extended observation of nature's 
laws. 

Here were large cities ; then here also must have been trade and com- 
merce of some sort. Merchandise may not have been bartered for gold 
and silver, but more likely — as was the case with the Peruvians — the 
products of the field, the fold, or the chase, were exchanged for those 
of the workshop and domestic handicraft. Again : their means of sup- 
port must have been so certain and reliable, and withal so abundant, that 
large numbers of the people could be empk^ed continuously upon those 
monuments of their industry which they have left behind for our admira- 
tion. The probability that fish formed no inconsiderable item of their 
food supply has already been suggested. The name of our great river, 
which it is thought has come down to us from their time— Nemesi-sipu, 
which means River of Fish — if it be true, bears witness to this. The 
prodigious shell heaps along the southern coast, from Florida to the 
mouth of the Mississippi, may also be noticed as evidence of the fact 
that they were not unskillful fishermen. These accumulations of 
the refuse of their kitchens have often proved peculiarly interesting 
and instructive, inasmuch as they abound in numerous relics which, 



TOWNS OF PRE-HISTOEIC AMERICANS. 63 

under other circumstances would have been destroyed. The shell heaps 
of the Baltic coast are complete zoological museums of the fauna 
of the period when they were formed, containing, as they do, the 
bones of many animals long since extinct in those regions, and pre- 
senting also the bones of the few domestic animals which were the com- 
panions of man in that remote period. 

The most important sites of the towns of the pre-historic Americans 
are found upon the shores of lakes or banks of rivers, and generally — 
though not always — contiguous to, or upon extensive areas ot fertile 
land. We are not compelled to suppose, however, that they were always 
influenced by agricultural considerations in the location of their permanent 
homes, for the ruins of some towns have been observed upon the sandy 
beaches of lakes, and where, too, there was no fertile land near, which 
was suitable for agricultural purposes. It is, therefore, natural to sup- 
pose that the inhabitants of towns so situated were fishermen. 

The wide, deep ditches on the inside walls of some of their enclosures 
have called forth much speculation as to their purpose. It has generally 
been assumed that the walls which enclosed their towns were erected 
for defensive purposes. But the puzzle has been about the location 
of the ditch alonsr the base of the wall within the enclosures. According 
to all our notions of warfare, the ditch — to serve any defensive purpose 
— should have been outside the walls. Moreover, many of the walled 
towns were so situated in valleys, which were overlooked by the near 
hills which surrounded them, as to be totally incapable of defense in any 
kind of known warfare. The theory, therefore, that this inside ditch 
was one of their means of defense, seems hardly satisfactory. I have 
somewhere met with the statement that there was a tradition to 
the effect that the ditches were receptacles for water, or rather, 
artificial channels for w T ater conducted from the natural streams near 
which the towns were located, thereby furnishing the inhabitants with a 
constant and flowing supply. Without stopping to discuss the question, 
it may be remarked that the idea seems altogether probable, and their 
construction for such a purpose a very natural thing to do, while the 
control of the stream, by gates and locks, would require no greater en- 
gineering skill than they have displayed in their more durable works. 
They would also have been specially adapted to the culture of fish, or 
they may have been the receptacles for their winter's supply. Speculative 
as the above may appear, it is certainly as rational as the notion that 
the inside ditch contributed in any way to their defense against the 
attacks of their foes. 



64 ARCHEOLOGY. 

What sort of domestic animals, if any, were reared by the ancient 
inhabitants of Missouri, we have no knowledge ; but there can be very 
little doubt that game was abundant and that they were successful in the 
chase. There is satisfactory evidence that the huge Mastodon was their 
cotemporary whose bones are so abundant in our alluvial plains ; and also 
that he was conquered and slain by their seemingly feeble weapons. I 
have myself exhumed from the ruins of one of those towns fragments of 
the vertebral column of the buffalo. 

However all this may have been, concerning their agricultural skill, 
we are not left to conjecture ; and w T e may confidently assert that their 
main dependence for subsistence was upon the labors of the husbandman. 
They worshipped the sun, and invoked his benign influence upon the 
occurrence of the great annual festival when their crops were sown in the 
spring; and when these were gathered, in the autumn they offered up 
the first fruits to him as lord of the harvest. 

That this was their custom we may with confidence assume ; nor is it, 
indeed, mere assumption. The largest of these structures — the Temple 
Mounds — are found to be precisely similar in form and character to those 
of Mexico ; and the Spanish historians have given the fullest accounts of 
the manner in which their religious exercises were performed upon their 
summits, or in the temples which crowned the Teocallis. And as the be- 
lief prevails that the builders of these were of the same race as the Mound- 
builders, and probably their descendants, it becomes almost certain that 
structures of the same form in both countries were erected for the same 
uses and ceremonies. If it be true, as we believe, that when the great 
majority of the race of the Mound-builders had been destroyed, or driven 
from their habitations in the Mississippi Valley, some of whom are 
known to have migrated to the southwest— some remnants of the tribes re- 
mained, and were absorbed by their conquering successors, then we might 
expect to find some of the customs of their fathers still practiced by those 
who were left behind ; and more particularly, those pertaining to their 
religious rites and manner of providing for their subsistence. The 
student of the history of the red men cannot fail to notice the fact that 
a few of the southern tribes possessed traits and customs peculiar to 
themselves, and in which they differed widely from those of the north 
and east. The former had a complicated and Avell-arranged system of 
religious worship, with the perpetual fire of the altars ; also a line of 
priests or prophets, who enjoined seasons of rigorous fasting, and con- 
ducted the exercises upon the occasions of their festivities. The former 
can scarcely be said to have had any religious system or belief. Mr. 



ANCIENT METHODS OF AGKICULTUHE. 65 

Adair has given a detailed account of the religious rites and ceremonies 
which were once practiced by a few southern tribes among whom he re- 
sided for many years ; and so impressed was he with their imposing and 
multifarious ceremonials that he believed they must have derived their 
svstem from the Jews. 

The dissimilarity between the tribes of the south and those of other lo- 
calities was equally striking in their manner of house-building, sports 
and Barnes. The former had fixed habitations, in towns with streets and 
public squares, and a love of home, w T ith various other characteristics 
which belong; to a higher civilization than the nomadic tribes of red men 
ever possessed. 

But perhaps in no one thing was the dissimilarity more strongly ex- 
pressed than in the methods of agriculture. The author quoted above 
speaks of having seen deserted cornfields seven miles in extent, and we 
know that they raised quite a variety of crops, and in abundance, chief 
among which was maize. Among the now numerous and roving tribes we 
discover only a methodless and scanty agriculture. 

The ancient garden beds supposed to belong to the Mound-builders, 
which in some instances are several hundred acres in extent, have fre- 
quently been noticed in several of the Western States. These are said 
to have been laid out in straight parallel rows or drills across the fields ; 
but as none have been found in Missouri, as far as I am informed, the)' 
need not be dwelt upon in this connection. 

There are evidences of tilling the soil, of quite a novel character, which 
still exist in prodigious numbers, not only in Missouri but also in other 
regions west of the Mississippi. I have heard of very few east of that 
river. These works consist of low circular elevations, generally two or 
three feet above the level of the natural surface of the soil, with diame- 
ters varying from ten to sixty feet; all are round, or nearly so, sloping 
off gently around the edges. All that I have seen among the Ozark hills 
are composed of black alluvial soil, and disclosed, when excavated, no 
implement or relic of any sort. Their presence may always be detected 
in cultivated fields when covered with growing crops, by the more luxuri- 
ant growth and deeper green of the vegetation. They abound in all the 
little valleys among the flinty hills of the Ozarks, from Pulaski County, 
Missouri, to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the Colorado in 
Texas, and as far north as Iowa. Their size in the hilly regions seems 
to have been determined by the amount of rich vegetable mold which 
could be scraped together in a given spot. Residence sites they could 
not have been, or they would have contained some relic of stone or bone, 
5 



66 AUCH^EOLOGY. 

or fragment of pottery, or at least the ashes of the family fire. To 
enable the reader to form some idea of their prodigious numbers, I can 
do no better than give the remarks of Prof. Forshey, as quoted by Dr. 
Foster, in his "Pre-historie Races of the United States," which I take it, 
refer to the same class. 

Says Prof. Forshey : "In my geological reconnoisance of Louisiana, 
in 1841-2, I made a pretty thorough report upon them. I afterwards 
gave a verbal description of their extent and character before the New 
Orleans Academy of Sciences. These mounds lack every evidence of 
artificial construction, based on other human vestiges. They are nearly 
all round, none angular, and have an elevation hemispheroidal, of one foot 
to five feet, and a diameter from thirty feet to one hundred and forty 
feet. They are numbered by millions. In many places in the pine forests, 
they are to be seen nearly tangent to each other as far as the eye can 
reach, thousands being visible from an elevation of a few feet. On the 
gulf marsh margin, from the Vermillion to the Colorado, they appear 
barely visible, often flowing into one another, and only elevated a few 
inches above the common level. A few miles interior they rise to two 
and even four feet in height. The largest I ever saw were perhaps 
one hundred, and forty feet in diameter and five feet high. These 
were in Western Louisiana ; some had abrupt sides, though they 
are nearly all of gentle slopes." He further states that he "encount- 
ered hundreds of these mounds between Galveston and Houston, and 
between the Eed river and Ouicita ; that they were so numerous as to 
forbid the supposition of their having been the foundations of human 
habitations ; that the burrowing animals common to the region piled 
up no such heaps ; and finally, that the winds, while capable of 
accumulating loose materials, never distribute them in the manner 
above mentioned." In conclusion he adds : " In utter desperation I cease 
to trouble myself about their origin and call them inexplicable mounds." 1 

Fom all that can be learned about them, I see no reason to doubt that 
they were erected for agricultural purposes, and have therefore pre- 
sumed to name them Garden Mounds. 

It would seem perfectly natural, in a sterile country, and where the in- 
habitants had few materials for artificial fertilization, to gather into 



1 The Professor adds, that " there is ample testimony that the pine trees of the present 
forests ante-date these mounds." What the testimony is he does not say. If they are the 
work of the Indians, then we must believe them to have been vastly more umerous than 
any other facts hitherto known would lead us to suppose. 



GARDEN MOUNDS. 67 

heaps the thiu vegetable mold upon the surface, thus increasing its 
richness and capacity for retaining moisture. But the question may be 
asked, why should the same practice be necessary in the prairies and 
bottom lands, the richness of which is proverbial and inexhaustible. 
For the answer, we are not left to conjecture. 

In the rich lowlands of the west, the chief difficulty is too much mois- 
ture, especially in seasons of unusual rain-fall. This, the corn-raisers in 
the American bottom know from repeated experience. Hence, acres of 
corn are often utterly ruined in such seasons, when planted upon low and 
level fields which have not ample artificial or natural drainage : when, 
had the earth been raised a few inches even in drills or mounds, such as 
have been described, a good crop would have been secured. An intelli- 
gent Iowa planter informed me that he had often seen this demonstrated 
in corn-fields which were filled with these mounds. The low ground be- 
tween them, if the season were unusually rainy, would yield no returns, 
while upon the mounds themselves the crop would be excellent. From 
these considerations, there can be but little doubt that the garden mounds 
were raised for the better cultivation of maize, which was doubtless the 
staple article of ancient husbandry. But we are not to suppose, however, 
that this was the onl} T kind of grain known to the pre-historic Americans ; 
for evidence is not wanting that, in some sections at least, they cultivated 
wheat, and deposited it, along with those articles w r hich were deemed 
most precious, in the tombs of their loved ones. Thus — thanks to their 
affectionate care in the disposition of the dead, — it has been preserved 
for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years ; and, like the few small 
grains in the hand of the Egyptian mummy, when brought forth to the 
sunlight and moisture, has germinated and ripened, and furnished 
us w r ith a variety unknown before. 

From an interesting account of certain mounds in Utah, communicated 
by Mr. Amasa Potter to the Eureka Sentinel, of Nevada, as copied by 
The Western Review of Science and Industry, I make the following 
extracts : 

w The mounds are situated on what is known as the Pa3 ? son Farm, 
and are six in number, covering about twenty acres of ground. They 
are from ten to eighteen feet in height, and from 500 to 1,000 feet 
in circumference." "The explorations divulged no hidden treasure so far, 
but have proved to us that there once undoubtedly existed here a more 
enlightened race of human beings than that of the Indian who inhabited 
this country, and whose records have been traced back hundreds of 
years." " While engaged in excavating one of the larger mounds, we 



68 ARCHEOLOGY 

discovered the feet of a large skeleton, and carefully removing the hard- 
ened earth in which it was embedded, we succeeded in unearthing a large 
skeleton without injury. The human framework measured six feet, six 
inches in length, and from appearances it was undoubtedly that of a male. 
In the right hand was a large iron or steel weapon, which had been buried 
with the body, but which crumbled to pieces on handling. Near the 
skeleton we also found pieces of cedar wood, cut in various fantastic 
shapes, and in a state of perfect preservation ; the carving showing that 
the people of this unknown race were acquainted with the use of edged 
tools. We also found a large stone pipe, the stem of which was inserted 
between the teeth of the skeleton. The bowl of the pipe weighs five 
ounces, and is made of sandstone ; and the aperture for tobacco had the 
appearance of having been drilled out." "We found another skeleton 
near that of the above mentioned, which was not quite as large, and must 
be that of a woman. There was a neatly carved tombstone near the 
head of this skeleton. Close by, the floor was covered with a hard 
cement, to all appearances a part of the solid rock, which, after patient 
labor and exhaustive work, we succeeded in penetrating, and found it 
was but the corner of a box, similarl}' constructed, in which we found 
about three pints of wheat kernels, most of which was dissolved when 
brought in contact with the air. A few of the kernels found in the 
center of the heap looked bright, and retained their freshness on being 
exposed. These were carefully preserved, and last spring planted and 
grew nicely. We raised four and a half pounds of heads from these 
grains. The wheat is unlike any other raised in this country; and pro- 
duces a large yield. It is the club variety ; the heads are very long and 
hold very large grains." " We find houses in all the mounds, the rooms 
of which are as perfect as the day they were built. All the apartments 
are nicely plastered, some in white, others in red color. Crockery ware, 
cooking utensils, vases — many of a pattern similar to the present age — 
are also found. Upon one large stone jug or vase can be traced a per- 
fect delineation of the mountains near here for a distance of twenty 
miles. We have found several millstones used for grinding corn, and 
plenty of charred corn-cobs, with kernels not unlike what we know as 
yellow dent corn. We judge from our observations that those ancient 
dwellers of our country followed agriculture for a livelihood, and had 
many of the arts and sciences known to us, as we found molds made of 
clay for casting different implements, needles made of deer-horns, and 
lasts made of stone, and which were in good shape. We also found 
many trinkets, such as white stone beads and marbles as good as made 



THE UTAH MOUNDS. 69 

now; also small squares of polished stones resembling dominoes, but for 
what use intended we cannot determine." 

The above account we see no reason to discredit, and can only wish 
that the examinations had been more thorough and the account more 
explicit as to dimensions of rooms and other details. From what is 
stated, however, we conclude that the authors of these works could not 
have belonged to the present Indian race, but were undoubtedly of the 
mound-building people of the Mississippi Valley. It is, at least, a most 
interesting discovery, and they may belong to a series of structures 
which shall yet reveal the history of their migrations. That there were 
two if not three, distiuct and widely separated southward movements, 
in point of time, of the pre-historic race, has already been suggested ; and 
the Utah mounds may belong to that class which upon further investiga- 
tion shall furnish the clue to one of the routes pursued, and lead to its 
demonstration. Should the conjecture as to their authorship be verified, 
a new chapter of unusual interest in the history of the Mound-builders 
will be opened for our perusal ; and we may reasonably hope for much 
valuable information concerning the character and extent of their agri- 
culture, their esthetic taste, and their knowledge of the industrial arts ; 
and we may find that, in most respects, their social condition was in no 
wise inferior to that of Mexico and Peru. The wood-carving, plastered 
and tinted walls, painted vases, and the presence of that most precious 
of all cereals, wheat, are new and striking evidences of a higher social 
state than we have hitherto thought possible, whose luxury and refine- 
ment were but the presage of a nobler civilization which found its 
realization and full development in Central and South America, or by 
some dire calamity was overwhelmed and destroyed. 



CHAPTER IX 

Miscellaneous Works.— Historical or National Festival Mounds.— Stone Struc- 
tures.— Ruins on the Gasconade River.— Group near Louisiana. Mo.— Some Indiana 
Relics.— Cremation Chambers.— Proofs op Architectural Knowledge.— Great 
Canals Ante-dating the Erie.— Ancient Counterparts of Modern Achievements. 
—Our Southern " Bayous " of Artificial Origin. 

The works to be described under the head of Historical, or National 
Festival Mounds have already been noticed. A representation of one 
of this class is given on page 30. (Fig. 9.) It consists of three 
embankments placed in a triangular form, enclosing a central mound 
which is also enclosed by a circle of small elevation. The, ends of 
the embankments do not meet, however, but narrow openings are 
left at the lines of intersection, and in these openings are found small 
truncated mounds. Sometimes, we are told, the group is composed 
of two parallel walls, but oftener of three, in triangular position 
as just described ; while some have been seen which had four embank- 
ments arranged in the form of a square ; all, however, containing the 
central mound with its enclosing circle. 

These groups have generally been thought to be defensive works. As 
far as known, none have been seen south of Missouri, but it is said they 
frequently occur in the States of Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, and some in 
Illinois. In the latter two States the usual form is square, while in Iowa 
and Missouri the triangular arrangement is most frequent. As the walls 
are generally of no great height, they are among the first to be leveled 
by the plough. But, of whatever form or size, there seems always to 
have been observed in their construction a fixed rule in the relative size 
of the several parts, whose uniformity invests them with an interest 
peculiar to themselves. The group figured on page 30, though found in 
Iowa, was selected for description because this form is said to have been 
of most frequent occurrence in Missouri. 

It will be remembered that the embankments which form the sides of 
the triangle were each one hundred and forty-four feet in length, and 
respectively three, four and five feet in height, and twelve feet in diame- 
ter. The sum of the heights of the embankments is twelve feet, which 
is the exact height of the central mound. These multiplied together 
equal the length of the embankments — one hundred and forty-four feet. 
In all which have been described, the same relation of the several parts 
is observed. The embankments are always of equal length, but never 



HISTORICAL OR NATIONAL FESTIVAL MOUNDS. 71 

of the same height, while the sum of the heights — whether the group is 
composed of three or four — always equals the height of the central 
mound, and the product of both gives the length of the embankments. 
The tradition concerning them is, that they were erected to perpetuate 
the union of two or more tribes ; the number forming the compact is 
recorded by the number of embankments, and their relative power by 
the height of each. The circle in the center of the enclosure was known 
as the festival circle, and the small mounds in the angles, or openings, 
were matrimonial mounds. To these works the confederated tribes 
made annual visits, to celebrate the event of their union with singing, 
dancing and feasting, and a great variety of festive games, which were 
performed within the enclosure. The national union thus celebrated was 
further cemented on these occasions by intermarriages among the mem- 
bers of the different tribes, which took place at the matrimonial mounds. 
The central mound was known as the union mound, and on festival occa- 
sions was occupied conjointly by the chiefs and prophets of each nation, 
who presided during the celebration. Concerning the relative age of 
this class of works nothing is known, and though the tradition above 
given may be regarded as having no weight or importance, it is quite 
clear that all conjecture concerning them is equally valueless. 

The early writers upon the antiquities of Missouri make frequent men- 
tion of the ruins of buildings which were constructed of unhewn stone, 
and whose walls were said to have been built up with creditable skill and 
strength, though without durable mortar, if indeed any were used. 

Of this kind of structure, the examples are very rare east of the Mis- 
sissippi. Whether any arc now to be found in any good degree of preser- 
vation is quite doubtful. I will present, therefore, such facts concerning 
them as can be gleaned from the most trustworthy accounts of early 
writers. The first to be noticed are thus described by Mr. Lewis C. 
Beck, who, after speaking of the pine timber which abounded fifty or 
sixty years ago along the Gasconade river, and the saw mills erected 
upon its banks by which the lumber was prepared for the St. Louis 
market, goes on to state that "near the saw mills, and at a short dis- 
tance from the road leading from them to St. Louis, are the ruins of an 
ancient town. It appears to have been regularly laid out, and the dimen- 
sions of the squares, streets, and some of the houses can yet be discov- 
ered. Stone walls are found in different parts of the area, which are 
frequently covered by large heaps of earth. Again, a stone work exists, 
as I am informed by Gen. Ashley, about ten miles below the mills. It 



72 ARCHEOLOGY. 

is on the west side of the Gasconade, and is about 25 or 30 feet square; 
and, although at present in a dilapidated condition, appears to have been 
built with an uncommon degree of regularity. It is situated on a high 
bald cliff, which commands a fine and extensive view of the country on 
all sides. From this stone work is a small foot-path running a devious 
course down the cliff to the entrance of a cave, in which was found a 
quantity of ashes. The mouth of the cave commands an easterly view. 

"It would be useless at this time to hazard an opinion with regard to 
the uses of this work, or the beings who erected it. In connection with 
those of a similar kind which exist on the Mississippi, it forms an inter- 
esting subject for speculation. They evidently form a distinct class of 
ancient works, of which I have, as j-et, seen no description." 

Another group, described by the same author, was located about two 
miles southwest of the town of Louisiana. " They are built of stone, with 
great regularity, and their site is high and commanding, from which I am 
led to infer that they were intended for places of defence. Works of a 
similar kind are found on Buffalo creek, and on the Osage river. They 
certainly form a class of antiquities entirely distinct from the walled 
towns, fortifications, barrows, or mounds. The regularity of their form 
and structure favors the conclusion that they were the work of a more 
civilized race than those who erected the former — a race familiar with 
the rules of architecture, and perhaps with a perfect system of warfare." 
The description of those works located near Louisiana is accompanied 
by a ground-plan or diagram made by the Rev. S. Giddings, a former 
clergyman of St. Louis, of which Fig. 1 is an exact copy. 

DESCRIPTION OF ACCOMPANYING DIAGRAM. 

a, 6, c, d. outer wall, 18 inches in thickness; length, 56 feet; breadth, 22 feet. The 
walls are built of rough, unhewn stone, and appear to have been constructed with 
remarkable regularity. 

2? is a chamber three feet in width, which was no doubt arched the whole way, as 
some part of the arch still remains. It is made in the manner represented at 3, and is 
seldom more than five feet above the surface of the ground : but as it is filled with 
rubbish it is impossible to say what was its original height. 

F is a chamber four feet wide, and in some places the remains of a similar arch still 
remain. 

G is a chamber 12 feet in width, at the extremity of which are the remains of a furnace. 

If is a large room with two entrances, I and K. It is covered with a thick growth of 
trees. The walls are at present from two to five feet in height. One of the trees in the 
work is two feet in diameter. 2 is a smaller work about 80 rods due east from the former. 

A and C are two chambers without any apparent communication with B. 

B is a room nearly circular, with an entrance. 

In the apartment G, human bones have been found. 



mm 






^P^'^W^w- Him 










Jss 








^§*l£b"- .3. ^"f 



Fig. I. Ancient Works near Louisiana, Mo. 



74 ARCHAEOLOGY. 

The stone edifices thus described seem to have been peculiar to Mis- 
souri alone, as I find no notices of existing similar works in any other 
locality, unless those described by Mr. Brown in his Western Gazetteer 
were such. Those were found near the town of Harrisonville, Franklin 
Co., in the State of Indiana. They were located on the neighboring 
hills, northeast of the town. The ruins of quite a number were observed, 
all of which, it is stated, were built of rough, unhewn stone. The walls 
were levelled nearly to the foundations, and covered with soil, brush and 
full-grown trees. Mr. Brown informs us that "after clearing away the 
earth, roots and rubbish from one of them, he found it to have been 
anciently occupied as a dwelling. It was about twelve feet square. At 
one end of the building was a regular hearth, on which were yet the 
ashes and coals of the last fire its owners had ever enjoyed, for around 
the hearth were the decayed skeletons of eight persons, of different ages, 
from a small child to the head of a family. Their feet were all pointing 
towards the hearth, which fact suggests the probability that they were 
murdered while asleep." The bottom lands in this region are said to 
have abounded in mounds similar to those described elsewhere, and con- 
taining human bones, implements of stone, and a superior article of glazed 
pottery. A skull taken from one of them was found pierced with a flint 
arrow which was still sticking in the wound, and was about six inches 
long. The stone dwellings described by Mr. Brown were evidently of 
inferior construction to those of Missouri. The authors of the latter 
showed no mean skill in architecture ; while the rough and ruder walls 
of the Indiana structures, their diminutive size, along with the fact of 
the whole family lying together on the floor, would indicate a social con- 
dition but little removed from barbarism. Whether their builders 
belonged to the race of the mounds in the valleys near, is not certain, 
and the menus of deciding the question are doubtless destroyed. 

Upon a recent visit to the site of the works near Lousiana, Mo., 
described by Mr. Beck, I found only a confused heap of stones, the walls 
thrown down and the stones scattered in every direction. The view from 
the summit of the hill where the building once stood was very extensive 
and lovely. Mr. Levi Pettibone, now ninety-seven years of age, and 
Mr. Edwin Draper, — both gentlemen having resided in the neigborhood 
of the work. for nearly half a century — confirmed the account given by 
Mr. Beck, in every important particular. 1 

1 Mr. Stillman, the obliging and gentlemanly proprietor of the Laclede Hotel at Lou- 
isiana, also gave me much valuable information. He stated that formerly there existed 



STONE STRUCTURES. 



75 



In the February number of the Western Review of the present year, 
appears quite a lengthy article, by Judge E. P. West, containing an 
account of the examination of several mounds near the Missouri river 
which contained " buried chambers, or vaults, built of stone, compactly 
and regularly laid." The stones, which are undressed on the inside, are 
laid horizontally, and apparently have been selected with great care, the 
walls presenting, when the earth is removed, a smooth inner face. The 
chambers were generally of uniform size, being about eight and one half 
feet square and four feet in height. Each had an opening, or doorway, 
towards the south, two and a half feet in width. The walls were about 
eighteen inches in width at the top, and live feet at the base. Some are 
described as containing " a large quantity of burnt human and animal 
bones, burnt clay, wood ashes and charred wood, all intermingled and 
extending entirely over the floor, at one point to the depth of eight 
inches." Judge West seems to favor the opinion that they were used for 
dwellings, before the dead were interred in them. This was possibly the 
case; but the commingled mass of burnt bones, charred wood, and 
burnt clay to the depth of several inches, would point to funeral rites by 
cremation. A house eight and a half feet square and four feet high 
would be a very confined habitation for a family of ordinary size. It 
seems more in consonance with the facts as stated to suppose them to 
have been furnaces for consuming the dead by burning. The Judge 
computes their age to be about two thousand years. Other and similar 
structures have been described to me, and the localities of their sites 
named, by respectable persons who claimed to have opened them, of 
much larger dimensions than any above described, and which are stated 
to have contained large quantities of human bones and implements of 
stone. One, I was told, contained a vault at least one hundred and fifty 
feet in length, fifty feet wide and above twelve feet in height. Another, 

upon his land, at a distance of about half a mile from the work described, a stone heap 
of quite large dimensions, similar in its appearance to those noticed in a previous chap- 
ter and conjectured to have been of Indian origin. Having occasion to use the stones 
for the walls of a cistern, he caused them to be removed. At the bottom of the pile he 
found a level floor, composed of flat stones of variousSizes. but joined together, as he 
expressed it, as closely and evenly as any mason could do it to-day. From these, and 
similar facts, I am led to believe that possibly many of those which appear outwardly to 
be simply piles of stones loosely thrown together, and which are to be counted by 
thousands upon the hills in various parts of the State, may be the remains of the un- 
cemented walls of ancient habitations. And this conviction receives additional strength 
from the fact that recent explorations of many earthen mounds have disclosed a vault, 
walled and arched with stone, — some of large dimensions, — with contents similar to 
those of Utah. 



76 AKCH^EOLOGY. 

much smaller, was beautifully arched with stone. At the time the nar- 
rator saw it, it was cleared of the decayed skeletons and was used as a 
dairy -ho use. The two just mentioned were in Missouri, and distant 
from each other one hundred and fifty miles. Again the question recurs 
Who built them ; and whence their architectural skill and knowledge? 

Says Dr. Foster: "A broad chasm is to be spanned before we can 
link the Mound Builders to the North American Indians." There are 
some who attempt to do this, but the difficulties which beset the task are 
insurmountable to those who have examined, with any degree of thorough- 
ness, the evidences of the vastly superior civilization of the people who 
erected the stone structures found in Missouri, to that of the North 
American Indians, during any known period of their history ; and to 
such, the belief that they were the authors of the multitudinous monu- 
ments of the Missouri and Mississippi valleys, becomes altogether 
improbable. But if all this is inconclusive of the proposition we main- 
tain, what shall be said of the ancient canals, some of which still remain, 
the indubitable evidences of an extended inland communication between 
lakes, rivers and bayous, and also of an industry, enterprise and skill 
which would be creditabe to the scientific engineers of our own times? 
In many of the great achievments of this age of ours we are only recov- 
ering the knowledge and wisdom of the lon^-forgotten past. 

When Gov. Clinton, of New York, first proposed the construction of 
the Erie Canal, the idea was greeted with scorn and derision ; and as the 
work progressed it w T as characterized as "Clinton's Ditch," the opposers 
of the scheme little dreaming that it was to become the great channel for 
the commerce of the nation ; connecting, as it does, the great chain of 
lakes in the far Northwest with the Atlantic Ocean. And not until a 
thousand freighted boats began to pour the rich treasures of the prairies 
into the lap of the East, was the far-seeing wisdom of its projector fully 
vindicated. Then men began to point to it with boasting congratulation, 
as an evidence of the rapid and surprising progress which we of the 
nineteenth century were achieving. But alas for human pride ! Ave are 
but slowly learning again what other nations, who lived in the morning 
of the historic period, knew, and the world had long ago forgotten. 

Again, when the French began the Suez Canal, "all the world won- 
dered " at the grandeur of the enterprise. But they soon found that 
they were only clearing out the sands of three or four thousand years' 
accumulation from the old pathway of the commerce of the Pharaohs, 
who had built the canal when Eg}'pt was the storehouse of the nations. 
These came through the canal to her door, in great ships laden with the 



SOUTHERN "BAYOUS" OF ARTIFICIAL ORIGEST. 77 

riches of the Orient, which they exchanged for corn, and then sailed 
hack from the Nile, and through the Red Sea to their homes again. 
But at length the scepter departed from the throne of the Pharaohs ; the 
temple colleges, to which the philosophers of Greece resorted for instruc- 
tion six hundred years before Christ, were closed, and crumbled in decay 
— the desert sands swept over their ruins ; the canal was filled and 
forgotten through all the long dark ages. At length commerce revives, 
and men begin to dig canals again, with vain-glorious pride. 

It is with nations as with individuals who are taken with some deadly 
disease, from which they barely escape with their lives. Though their 
strength returns, their memory is utterly oblivious to all they have ever 
learned from books, and so they must begin with the alphabet once more. 
Nations have their deadly maladies from which few recover, and for those 
which do, how long and unpromising is the tutilage of their second child- 
hood. History is repeated here. The pre-historic people of Missouri 
were not only great in populous towns, in their agriculture, in their huge 
piles of earth and embankments and buildings of stone, but they, too, 
were canal-builders. With surprising skill they developed a system of 
internal navigation, so connecting the lakes and bayous of the southern 
interior of the State, that the products of the soil found a ready outlet 
to the great river. The remains of these artificial water-courses have 
been frequently alluded to by travelers who have seen them, but never 
thoroughly explored. Dr. G. C. Swallow, while at the head of the 
Geological Survey, called attention to them, and described one which was 
"fifty feet wide and twelve feet deep." For the fullest description of 
this class of works, I am indebted to Geo. W. Carleton, Esq., of 
Gayoso ; who, in response to a note of enquiry, — in addition to many 
* interesting facts concerning a great number of ancient structures in 
Pemiscot County, — kindly furnished the following account, which I give 
in his own words : 

"Besides our Mounds, we can boast of ancient canals. Col. John H. 
Walker informed me that before the earthquakes, these canals — we call 
them bayous now — showed very plainly their artificial origin. Since the 
country has become settled, the land cleared up, the embankments along 
those water courses have been considerably leveled down. One of these 
canals is just east of the town of Gayoso. It now connects the flats of 
Bi°- Lake with the Mississippi river. Before the bank crumbled off, 
taking in Pemiscot bayou, it connected this bayou with the waters of Big 
Lake. Another stream, that Col. Walker contended was artificial, is 
what we now call Cypress Bend Bayou. He said that it wns cut so as to 



78 AKCELEOLOGY. 

connect the waters of Cushion Lake with a bayou running into Big Lake. 
Cushion Lake lies in the northern part of Pemiscot county. The canal 
was cut from the flats of the lake on the south side, about three miles 
into Big Lake bayou. By this chain of canals, lakes and bayous, these 
ancient mound-builders 'and canal-diggers could have an inland naviga- 

CO o 

tion from the Mississippi river at Gayoso, into and through Big Lake 
bayou and the canal into Cushion Lake, through Cushion Lake and a 
bayou into Collins Lake or the open bay, thence north through a lake 
and bayou some eight miles, where another canal tapped this water course 
and run east into the Mississippi river again, some five miles below the 
town of New Madrid. Col. Walker, in referring to these water-courses, 
spoke of them only as canals. They show even now a huge bank of 
earth, such as would be made by an excavation, on the side opposite to 
the river, so that in case of overflow the water from the river would not 
wash the excavated dirt back into the canal." x 

Although in the foregoing account the present depth and width are not 
given, from it and from the reports of others, there can be no doubt that 
the ancient inhabitants had constructed with a skill which would do no 
discredit to our own engineers, a system of connecting canals which 
must have been necessitated by an extended internal trade, and which 
required boats of respectable dimensions. The evidences of work of 
such magnitude as canals, widen the "broad chasm" which is to be 
spanned before we can link the Mound-builders to the North American 
Indians, until it becomes an impassable gulf. 

1 In reply to a subsequent note of inquiry as to the length of this water-course, in- 
cluding canal and bayou, Mr. Carlton estimates it to be about seventy miles. 



CHAPTER X. 



Pottery.— Superiority of Pre-Historic American Wares over Those of Europe.— 
Imitations of Living Objects— The Materials Used.— Reliquaries.— Skulls En- 
closed in Earthen Vessels.— Bowls with Ornamental Heads— Probabilities 
of Higher Art Among the Ancients. 

The number of vessels of pottery which have been taken from the 
mounds in Missouri is prodigious, and almost endless in variety. In an 
instance which fell under my own observation, nearly, if not quite, one 
thousand pieces were obtained from a single burial mound ; and these 
were of various sizes and great diversity of form and workmanship. 
Some of the most characteristic ex- 
amples will be presented as we pro- 
ceed. The skill displayed by the 
pre-historic Americans in everything 
they manufactured from common clay 
is vastly superior to that of the 
ancient civilizations of Europe, to 
which, in other respects many strik- 
ing similarities may be traced. 

From the fact that few articles 
which are the products of human 
ingenuity and skill are more enduring 
than earthen-ware, this class of anti- 
quities, to the archaeologist, is very 
interesting and instructive. The skill 
and taste displayed in its various im- 
itative forms, in outline and deco- 
ration, give us an insight into some 

phases of the domestic life, social condition and aesthetic taste of ancient 
peoples, which can be derived from no other source. Fragments of 
pottery, to the archaeologist, therefore, are the imperishable leaves of a 
book, inscribed by the truthful hand of humanity, in legible characters, 
with the precious records of those feelings and tender sentiments which 
are recorded nowhere else, and which need no translation. Their value 
is enhanced so much the more by the fact that we possess specimens of 
these records from every quarter of the globe, and coeval with the remotest 
civilizations. 




Fig. I. 



80 



ARCHEOLOGY. 




Fig, 2. 



The successful attempts of the ancient Americans to imitate the forms 

of beasts and birds, which they saw every day around them, evince a 

contemplation, observation and affectionate communion with nature which 

fills us with surprise. 

The drinking vessel molded into the 

form of an owl, a representation of 

which is given in Fig. 1, seems, by 

its frequent occurrence in the mounds, 

to have been a favorite model. The 

most common form is the universal 

gourd-shaped water jug ( Fig. 2 ). 

These are of various sizes, the largest 

being from eight to ten inches high, 

and the largest diameter not exceeding 

eight inches. Sometimes the body of 

the jug is more globular on the top 

than this figure shows. Fig. 3 presents 

a form of water jug which, as far as 

my own observation extends, is much 

more rare than the proceeding. The engraving w T as made some years 

a^o : I have since seen a sufficient number to prove that the reconstruction 

of the neck is correct. From the greater size of the neck I am led to 

believe that it was an ordinary drinking-vessel ; while the form repre- 
sented in Fig. 2 is more properly that of a 
water-cooler, which, when filled, was hung up 
until the water was reduced in temperature 
by its slow evaporation through the pores 
of the vessel, after the manner of the in- 
habitants of the American tropics at the 
present time. 

In reference to the superiority of the skill 
displayed by the Mound-builders in the ce- 
ramic arts, to the corresponding civilization 
of ancient Europe, I can not do better than 
quote the words of Dr. Foster. x 

" In the plastic arts, the Mound-builders 
attained a perfection far in advance of any 
samples which had been found characteristic 

of the Stone, and even the Bronze Age of Europe. We can readily 




Fig. 3. 



1 Pre-historic Races of the United States, p. 236. 



POTTERY. 81 

conceive that, in the absence of metallic vessels, pottery would be em- 
ployed as a substitute, and the potter's art would be held in the highest 
esteem. From making useful forms, it would be natural to advance to 
the ornamental. Sir John Lubbock remarks that ' few of the British 
sepulchral urns, belonging to the ante-Roman times, have upon them 
any curved lines. Representations of animals and plants are almost entirely 
wanting.' They are even absent from all the articles belonging to the 
Bronze Age in Switzerland, and I might almost say in Western Europe 
generally, while ornaments of curved and spiral lines are eminentl}* char- 
acteristic of this period. The ornamental ideas of the Stone Age, on 
the other hand, are confined, so far as we know, to compositions of 
straight lines, and the idea of a curve scarcely seems to have occurred to 
them. The most elegant ornaments on their vases are impressions 
made by the finger-nail, or by a cord wound round the soft clay." 

" The commonest forms of the Mound-builders' pottery represent kettles, 
cups, water-jugs, pipes, vases, etc. Not content with plain surfaces, they 
frequently ornamented their surfaces with curved lines and fret-work. 
They even went farther, and moulded images of birds, quadrupeds, 
and of the human form. The clay, except for their ordinary kettles, 
where coarse gravel is often intermixed, is finely-tempered, so that it 
did not warp or crack in baking, — the utensils, when completed, having a 
yellowish or grayish tint." 

In the group of vessels shown in Fig. 4, while the human faces and 
heads of birds are crudely expressed, we find much to admire in the 
tasteful forms of the birds themselves. The flow of their outline, so to 
speak, evinces a degree of refinement of feeling which could only result 
from a culture of the sense for beauty, which must have required a long 
time for its realization. It will be noticed that the mouths or openings 
were, on all, made at the back side of the head. This seems to have 
been the uniform practice, whether the head of the vessel was that of 
man, beast or bird. Sometimes the vessels with vertical openings, as 
of h and Z, are fitted with covers of the same material, with projecting 
knobs on the top for handling them. Sometimes, again, the smaller jno-s, 
or bottles as they should be called, have nicely-adjusted stoppers, as 
shown at i. These latter bottles are made of much finer material, and 
while they are generally quite thin, they are so well baked that they 
seem to be almost as tough and strong as our own ware. On pa^e 23 
of the Eighth Annual Report of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum, 
a representation of two of these stoppers is given ; one of which is the 
same as shown at i (Fig. 4). They are described as "two articles 
6 




Fig, 4 — Varieties of Drinking Vessels from Southeast Missouri, a and b Front and Back View of same Vessel, i Small Bottle and Stopper. 



POTTEKY. 



83 



carved from a hard clay slate and carefully smoothed. Their use is 
problematical, but they so closely resemble lip ornaments as to suggest 
that they were such." These are now in the " Swallow Collection *' of 
the museum. In its transportation from Missouri to Massachusetts, the 
report informs us, many of the articles were so broken as to make their 
reconstruction impossible. When I had the pleasure of examining this 
collection, some years since, these stoppers were then attached to the 
bottles with which they were found. The smaller bottle of the two, 
Professor Swallow informed me, when taken from the mound, contained 
a red liquid. 

Some, of the representations of the human figure are executed with a 
o-ood decree of fidelity to nature, through all the members ; showing 
that the artist had studied carefully his model, and had evidently labored 
to tell the truth as he saw it. Some of the human figures have an ex- 
pression so striking and individual that we can hardly believe that they 

are not portraits. This becomes more prob- 
able when we examine the animal represent- 
ations, or rather the heads of birds, with 
which the pottery is very often ornamented ; 
particularly those of the different varieties 
of ducks, in which we observe in the shape 
of the head, line of neck, etc., the nicest 
distinctions in particular varieties, which are 
expressed with remarkable skill. This will 
be apparent when we come to the consider- 
ation of Food Vessels. 

In the annexed group (Fig. 5) are four 
varieties. In one, the head of the horned owl 
is skillfully joined to the body of the vessel. 
Another form of jug, which is of less frequent 
occurrence than the gourd-shape, is, as 
shown in the cut, supported by four and sometimes three hollow bulbous 
leo-s. The two human figures are coarsely executed, except the heads. 
They usually represent a hump-backed female figure in a sitting position, 
and the legs, when they are suggested, bent under the body, with arms 
resting upon the knees. They are simple water-jugs, having the mouth 
always in the occipital region of the head. Occasionally one is met with 
which is grossly indelicate. The vessels representing the human figure 
vary much in size. Some are so small that their capacity is not greater 
than two fluid ounces. The larger are from four to ten inches in height 





Fig. 5. 



84 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



and hold from one to four pints. This is, however, a proximate esti- 
mate, but can not be far wrong. 

Some of the smaller images are, of all that I have seen, altogether the 
most artistic and expressive. They have been by some supposed to be 
idols, but there is no evidence whatever, that I have seen, which favors this 
supposition. They all have an orifice through which the cavities could 
be filled, which is constructed precisely like the commonest jugs ; while 
their relative position in the mounds, in companionship with other ves- 
sels, is conclusive to my own mind that they were used as receptacles of 
some precious articles of domestic use ; such as medicines, ointments, and 
the like. And again, there is very 
little in all we know concerning this 
poeple that would favor the idea 
that they had any idols, unless it 
may have been symbolic represent- 
ations of the heavenly bodies, 
which we know were the chief 
objects of their worship. In ad- 
dition to all this, they made images 
of beasts, as we shall see, which 
were unquestionably humorous car- 
icatures. 

The most elegant and artistic specimens of pottery which have been 
taken from the mounds in Missouri were quite recently discovered. 
Some vessels now in the museum of the St. Louis Academy of Science 
are very suggestive of the pottery of Ancient Egypt, and indeed, in their 
decorative forms, and coloring of black, red and white figures, are not 
greatly inferior to Etruscan art. 1 

The material of these articles is much finer than that of the common 
ware, which in the larger vessels, having a capacity of several gallons, is 
generally mixed with sand, and the medium sizes with pounded shells ; 
while the finest seems to be composed of a light-colored, very fine- 
grained, yellowish clay — perhaps mixed with gypsum. The different 
varieties of ware, the different materials of which they are composed, 
and the diversity of tastes displayed in their decoration, would " suggest 
a division of labor" among several classes of skilled artisans and artists. 




Fig. 6. Two Views. 



1 The St. Louis Academy of Science, under the supervision of the Archaeological 
Section, will soon publish a series of plates of these decorated jugs and vases, drawn 
on stone and printed in fac simile colors, with descriptive text by F. F. Hilder. 



POTTERY. 



85 



This was probably the case ; for, as is well known, however common the 
articles manufactured may be as to their uses, in everything which 
comes from the hand of the skillful there is a finish or refinement of 
treatment which is never seen in the work of the unpracticed hand. The 
annexed engraving (Fig. 7) represents a jug, about 
nine inches in height, of a light yellowish color, orna- 
mented around the neck with red and black lines, and 
around its greatest diameter with curved lines in red, 
white and black. It is very symmetrical in form, with 
a bottom sufficiently flat to cause it to stand firmly. 
I have exhumed one similar in shape and color, but 
differently ornamented. Around the largest circumfer- 
ence were six red circles ; close to these, and on the inside, 
are white circles. Within these again, is a red circle, and in each of the 
spaces thus enclosed by the circles, is a white cross with arms of equal 




Fig. 7. 




Fig. 8. 



length. The stripes are about three-tenths of an inch in width. This 
combination of color and form has a striking and not unpleasing effect. 
The knowledge and feeling evinced by the combination and contrast of 



86 ARCHEOLOGY. 

angles and circles, in colors, is certainly quite remarkable. The colors 
of the stripes were mixed with some sort of* article which preserved them, 
and gave them a lustrous or varnished appearance, which they still to 
some degree retain. 

In the next group (Fig. 8") are presented a few of the endless forms 
of the more common utensils. They are interesting as showing the 
constant and active presence of the inclination to beautify whatever 
vessel they manufactured. There are very few that are not ornamented 
in some manner. Some have the edges indented or dotted, as with the 
point of a stick or the finger-nail, while others have the rim slightly 
enlarged and marked with a spiral line, which gives the edge a beaded 
appearance. Some of these bowls and pans have a very familiar look as 
to their form. 

This class of pottery, as well as the ordi- 
nary jugs, are usually of dark gray and well 
baked, the clay, as before stated, having been 
tempered with pounded shells. 

In a previous chapter, describing the mode 
of burial in one of the mounds near West 
Lake, it was stated that with the skeletons 
were usually found two or three vessels, one 
or two jugs near the head, and a food-vessel 

in the bend of the arms, which were folded across the breast. The 
forms of food-vessels here presented are those most frequently found 
in that position. In some of them I have observed a very smal plot, 
not much larger than a hen's egg : in some instances containing a 
bone. In others carbonized fruit, resembling wild grapes, has been found ; 
in others, again, the soft remains of muscle shells, thoroughly decayed. 
The jugs and bowls which were interred with the corpse, no doubt, con- 
tained food and drink, fgr the purpose of sustaining the traveler during 
the long journey he was supposed to have entered upon. These pots 
suggest many interesting reflections concerning their faith and notions 
of a future life. 

The forms represented in the preceding group are the simplest of all 
but not more frequent than those which are much more ornamental. 
Vessels in the form of the muscle-shell, and holding fully one pint, are 
by no means unfrequent ; and again a fish or frog will be used as a 
model. The two presented in Fig. 9 are quite common. Sometimes 
the legs and feet of the frog are well defined, but folded along the sides 
of the body. Usually, when a fish is represented, it is done by simply 




POTTEKY. 



87 



moulding the head, tail and fins upon the side of the dish, but occasion- 
ally the exact form of the fish is represented, scales and all. In such 
cases, the orifice is in the side, and furnished with a tube which projects 
an inch or two, forconvenienee in use as a drinking-vessel. In one in- 
stance, which came under my notice, the body of a man lying upon the 
back was represented, with legs and arms rudely made out, and the tube 
projecting from the stomach. 

b 




Fig. 10. Cooking Vessels. 



Their imitative faculties, as illustrated in their pottery, were certainly 
remarkable, and to give an adequate idea of the variety of their work in 
the subjects which might be chosen for illustration would require more 
space than is allotted to this essay. We proceed, therefore, to consider 
their cooking utensils. Some of the more frequent forms are grouped 



together in Fig. 10. 



88 ARCHEOLOGY. 

While these vessels were doubtless for common, every-day use, some 
of them are really quite artistic and graceful. The three larger ones 
(a b, c) are particularly so. The forms and ornamentation of the others 
seem to be more experimental, and perhaps transitional, as though the 
maker varied a little from his usual manner just to see how they would 
look. The one at g, however, is a much bolder innovation, and is 
finished as there shown, with six hemispheroidal projections. It will 
be observed that all have two or more handles, by which they were 
probably suspended over the fire by passing through them green twigs, 

which they covered with moist clay to 
prevent them from burning. Examples 
might be multiplied, ad infinitum almost, 
of this class of vessels, but the above are 
sufficient to illustrate the inventive powers 
of their authors in this direction, as well 
as their constant striving to gratify their 
sesthetic feeling in the manufacture of those 
fragile articles which were designed for 
the commonest uses. 

Fig. 11 represents a pot very similar to 
a, of the preceding group, but entirely 
unique in this, that it contained the upper 
portion of a human skull and one vertebra. It was taken from a mound 
near New Madrid, by Prof. Swallow, who tells us that the vessel must 
have been moulded around the skull, as it could not be removed without 
breaking the pot. It is now in the Peabody Museum. The top of the 
skull is shown in the engraving. This is certainly a curiosity. Nothing 
like it has been found in any other burial mound here or anywhere else, 

as far as known. 

It may be remembered, however, in this connection, as before re- 
marked, that small pots have frequently been found in the larger pans, 
and which contained a decayed shell or fragment of bone. These were, 
very likely, valued relics or charms which were buried with their pos- 
sessor. 

In Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Sociology," 1 in the chapter upon 
Idol-Worship and Fetich-Worship, the following interesting statements 
occur, which seem quite pertinent in this connection : 

"Facts, already named, show how sacrifices to the man recently dead 

i Popular Science Monthly for December, 1875, p. 158. 




POTTERY. 89 

pass into sacrifices to his preserved body. We have seen that to the 
corpse of a Tahitian chief daily offerings were made on an altar by a 
priest ; and the ancient Central Americans performed kindred rites before 
bodies dried by artificial heat. That, along with a developed system of 
embalming, this grew into mummy- worship, Peruvians and Egyptians 
have furnished proof. 

" Here the thing to be observed is that, while believing the ghost of the 
dead man to have gone away, these peoples had confused notions, either 
that it was present in the mummy, or that the mummy was itself con- 
scious. Among the Egyptians, this was clearly implied by the practice 
of sometimes placing their embalmed dead at table. The Peruvians, 
who by a parallel custom betrayed a like belief, also betrayed it in other 
ways. By some of them the dried corpse of a parent was carried round 
the fields that he might see the state of the crops. 

" How the ancestor, thus recognized as present, was also recognized as 
exercising authority, we see in the story given by Santa Cruz. When 
his second sister refused to marry him, ' Huayna Capac went with pres- 
ents and offerings to the body of his father, praying him to give her for 
his wife, but the dead body gave no answer, while fearful signs appeared 
in the heavens.' 

M The primitive idea that any property characterizing an aggregate inheres 
in all parts of it, implies a corollary from this belief. The soul, present 
in the body of a dead man preserved entire, is also present in preserved 
parts of his body. Hence the faith in relics. Ellis tells us that, in the 
Sandwich Islands, bones of the legs, arms, and sometimes the skulls, of 
kings and principal chiefs, are carried about by their descendants, under 
the belief that the spirits exercise guardianship over them. The Crees 
carry bones and hair of dead persons about for three years. The Caribs, 
and several Guiana tribes, have their cleaned bones distributed among the 
relatives after death. The Tasmanians show ' anxiety to possess them- 
elves of a bone from the skull or the arms of their deceased relatives.' 
The Adamanese ' widows may be seen with the skulls of their deceased 
partners suspended from their necks.' This belief in the power of relics 
leads in some cases to direct worship of them. Erskine tells us that the 
natives of Lifu, Loyalty Islands, who 'invoked the spirits of their 
departed chiefs,' also 'preserve relics of their dead, such as a finger 
nail, a tooth, a tuft of hair, and pay divine homage to it.' Of the New 
Caledonians, Turner says: 'In cases of sickness, and other calamities, 
they present offerings of food to the skulls of the departed.' Moreover 
we have the evidence furnished by conversation with the relic. Lander 



90 



ARCHEOLOGY. 



savs : 



In the private fetich hut of the King Aololee at Badagry, the 
skull of that monarch's father is preserved in a clay vessel placed in the 
earth.' He 'gently rebukes it if his success does not happen to answer 
his expectations.' 




Fig. 12. Bowls With Ornamental Heads. 



" Similary, Catlin describes the Mandans as placing the skulls of their 
dead in a circle. Each wife knows the skill 1 of her former husband or 



POTTERY. 



91 



child, 'and there seldom passes a day that sue does not visit it, with a 
dish of the best cooked food. There is scarely an hour in a pleasant 
day, but more or less of these women may be seen sitting or lying by 
the skull of their child or husband, talking to it in the most pleasant and 
endearing language that they can use (as they were wont to do in former 
days) and seemingly getting an answer back.' 

"Thus propitiation of the man just dead leads to propitiation of his 
preserved body or a preserved part of it; and the ghost is supposed to 
be present in the part as in the whole." 

From the foregoing remarks and array of facts presented by Mr. 
Spencer, there can be but little doubt that the presence of the skull in 
the earthen vessel from the New Madrid mound is due to a belief in the 
presence of the soul in the relics of the departed, and which seems to 
have been a common belief among many savage and uncivilized nations. 
In the next group (Fig. 12) are presented a few of the most com- 
mon varieties of another and quite distinct class of bowls. They are 
peculiar in this : the bodies of the vessels are entirely devoid of orna- 
mentation. From the edge of the lip on one side projects a small handle : 
on the opposite side is moulded the head of some beast or bird, and quite 
often a human head is represented. 

The thing to be specially noticed is the diversity of form in the heads 
of the ducks. So faithfully are the distinctive features of the different 
varieties delineated, that those at all familiar with them must believe that 
the artist, according to the best of his skill, conscientiously copied 
nature. The beautiful curve of the neck, and its union with the outline 
of the vessel itself, could not possibly have been accidental. 

The best which these ancient workmen could do is so far inferior to the 
art of our own times, that it is not easy for us to appreciate the difficulties 
they must have overcome, their many failures, the long time necessary for 
the acquisition of those habits of observation, and the development of 
the skill of hand sufficient to enable them to express themselves as cred- 
itably as they have done in all their imitative work. In the class of ves- 
sels under consideration, examples decorated with the human head and 
features are by no means rare. If the credit given them for conscien- 
tious observation of nature, and skill in expression of what they saw, is 
not an over-estimate, then we may believe that, in their delineation of the 
human face, they also copied nature with a sufficient degree of accuracy 
to warrant us in the idea that in their work we have at least character- 
istic likenesses of themselves. In the examples presented in Fig. 13, 
there is wanting that refinement of feeling and realistic portraiture which 



92 



ARCHEOLOGY. 



nre displayed in the preceding representations of animal heads ; but still 
sufficient individuality to make them very interesting, and, as before re- 
marked, to impress us with the belief that they too were copied from 
life. 

In the examples thus far given of the pottery of the Missouri Mound- 
builders, the aim has been 
to show the leading varieties 
and mode of decoration. 
The subject is by no means 
exhausted ; in fact, almost 
every mound opened discloses 
some new variety, audi have 
seen many other specimens 
of their ware entirely dif- 
ferent in form — some of them 
are beautifully decorated — 
but which are now scattered 
among private collections, 
and therefore not available 
for illustration here. There 
is one other curious form of 
^ drinking vessel which should 
be noticed. It has elicited 
much speculation as to what 
it was intended to represent. 
Several of this variety have been found in the Missouri mounds, unmis- 
takably representing the same animal, but no two alike. The general 
figure of this "what is it " is shown in the engraving. It has four clumsy 
legs, a thick body, the usual drinking neck projecting 
from the back, and a swinish head. Sometimes they 
are made of very fine and finely-tempered yellowish 
clay, — the larsrer ones of the usual material of the dark 
gray ware, with a capacity of from one to two pints. 
The light-colored and finer ones are decorated with 
scroll-work made out with red and white lines. Some 
of the larger ones have human faces moulded upon the sides of the 
body, midway between the legs. In some instances the head proper 
has the eyes of a human face and the snout turned up to such au 
extent as to completely obstruct the front line of vision, which, with 
its half-human expression, make it very grotesque. If the hog were 




Fig. 13. Bowls With Human Heads. 




Fig. 14. 



POTTEET. 93 

indigenous to America, it would at once be pronounced a represen- 
tation of that animal. The nearest approach to it which is native here, 
is the peccary, or Mexican hog, but that has no tail, while on one 
example of this figure a tail was well represented ; and as it would have 
been too easily broken in the natural position it was curled up on the 
hip. Some have pronounced it the hippopotamus. To my own eye it 
is intensely hoggish. But whatever was intended to be represented by 
it, — hog or hippopotamus, — it introduces a disturbing factor into the 
question of chronology which may require some time to adjust ; unless 
we can credit La Vega's statement in his Royal Commentaries of Peru, 
that the ancient Peruvians who dwelt in the mountains had hogs similar 
to those which the Spaniards introduced. Again, if the model after 
which these were moulded was the common hog, which was introduced 
by the first white settlers in this region, why is it that they took no 
notice of any other animal or bird which the earliest settlers brought 
with them, or why do we not find in companionship in the mounds some 
other human vestigia of European origin? For the present we can only 
state the facts, with the questions which they suggest, and wait for further 
developments. 

Writers upon American archaeology have been able to find no evidence 
that the Mound-builders knew anything about the use of the potter's 
wheel ; but it is difficult to believe that some of the finest of their work 
could have been so gracefully and symmetrically moulded by ordinary 
manipulation, and without some mechanical appliances 
and adjustments, by which a uniformity of action and 
pressure would be brought to bear upon the whole 
mass. Without discussing the question, however, I 
desire simply to call attention to two discoveries, which 
at first sight may seem unimportant, but after all may 
have some value, should they stimulate further and 
more careful observation in this direction. The first 
is represented iu the engraving, Fig. 15, and was taken from a New 
Madrid mound by Prof. Swallow. "It is one-half of a rough ball of 
burnt clay, about 3.5 inches in diameter, and shows the impression of 
the skin and finger-marks of the hands that moulded it. This mass was 
perforated through the center, as shown in the figure giving a section of 
it." 1 It had perhaps been designed to be fashioned into a vessel of some 



i Eighth Annual Eeport of the Trustees of the Peabody Museum. 





94 ARCHEOLOGY. 

sort, but by some means burnt before the design "was carried out. The 
perforation would suggest that it had been attached to a stick or spindle 
for convenience in handling. The other article is much more suggestive. 
It belongs to that class of implements usually denominated spindle-whorls. 
They are found scattered over the whole country, at least wherever the 
principal works of the Mound-builders are to be seen. This was taken 
from a mound about eighteen miles from New Madrid. When I attempted 
to wash it, I discovered that it had not been hardened in the fire, but 

only sun-dried, as it fell into fragments under 
the action of the water. With great care, these 
were collected and glued together again. It is 

coo 

about 2.5. inches in diameter, and three-fourths 
of an inch in thickness at the periphery. Both 
sides are concave. The most interesting fact about 
it is this : It has around the outer edge a rudi- 
mentary groove, as represented in the engraving. 
Fig. 16. I can only wish the groove had been 
deeper. But as it was unburnt, I am led to be- 
lieve that the article was unfinished : and that 
had it been, it would have furnished some evidence that the maker was 
not unacquainted with the use of the pulley, or potter's wheel. 

The necessity for condensation demands that here our consideration of 
this part of our subject should eud. The variety and beauty of many of 
the objects of their fictile skill are very suggestive, and furnish much 
material for extended generalization. But a remark or two must suffice 
in this connection. To suppose that all this taste and feeling — this close 
observation of nature-and fidelity in delineation, displayed in the pottery 
of the Mound-builders, found no expression in any other direction, and 
was expended upon their domestic utensils alone, is simply incredible. 
Very different must have been the homes of a people furnished with 
such tasteful articles, from those miserable huts which the nomadic 
Indians constructed for their habitations ; and it is quite likely that in 
their dress as well as their dwellings they evinced the same ideas of taste 
and convenience which we perceive in their domestic utensils. In some 
of their human effigies we do find the manner of arranging the hair dis- 

o o o 

tinctly delineated, and we may yet discover those which shall furnish us 
with correct representations of their mode of dress. Indeed I have seen 
one vessel with figures of men rudely painted in outline upon its sides, 
who were clad in a flowing garment, gathered by a belt around the 
waist, and reaching to the knees. In this connection I may mention the 



ENGRAVED SHELLS. 



95 



engraved shells which have frequently been found with skeletons, both 
in Missouri and Illinois. One of the most interesting is represented 
in FisT. 17, 1 which jrives also the natural size. When taken from the 
mound, the shell was quite soft and brittle, and easily cut with the finger- 




Fig. 17. 



nail. The outer edge was much broken or worn away, as shown in the 
engraving. The design was enclosed by six circular lines, portions of 
which still remain. On one side were two perforations, designed doubtless 
for the string by which it was suspended from the neck. All similar 
shells that I have seen are so perforated. It seems quite evident from 
the picture that it memorializes the victory of the individual represented 
as standing over an enemy who lies on his face at his feet. The victor, 



1 For the photograph of which this is an accurate copy, I am indebted to the late 
Captain Whitley. 



96 ARCHEOLOGY. 

it will be observed, holds in his right hand a weapon or symbol of 
authority, with which he seems to be pressing the prostrate figure to the 
earth. Many of the accessories are unintelligible. While the whole 
work is very crude, and the figures out of all proportion, there is here 
and there an outline which shows earnest endeavor ; as the leg of the 
stand in" figure, for example, in which also the action is so well expressed 
as to suggest that, by an impetuous onset, he has just felled his antago- 
nist to the ground. The artist seems to have had most difficulty with the 
eye, or rather, has made no attempt at imitating that organ. 

There is now in the museum of the St. Louis Academy of Science a 
similar shell, upon which is portrayed, in a creditable manner, the figure 
of a spider. I have also been shown another by Dr. Kichardson, from 
a mound in Illinois, almost precisely like it, and differing only in a small 
symbolic device, which is carved upon the back of each. Engraved 
shells are generally found upon the breast of the skeleton, or in such 
a position as shows that they were originally placed there, and also 
where they were probably worn during life. According to Mr. Pidgeon, 
the spider emblem is perpetuated in the mounds far to the north. He 
describes one which he saw in Minnesota, about sixty miles above the 
junction of the St. Peters river with the Mississippi, which covered 
nearly an acre of ground. Upon ascending its highest elevation, he 
tells us, it was very evident that the spider was intended to be repre- 
sented by it. I bring these facts together for the benefit of future 
observers, without speculating as to their significance, further than to 
venture the remark that they point to a great diffusion of one people, or 
their migration from the north, southwardly along the Mississippi valley. 



CHAPTER XJ. 

Crani a.— Differences Between the Skulls of the Mound-Builders and the Indians. 
—Difficulties of the Subject.— Two Varieties of Crania in the same Mounds.— 
Principles of Classification. — Influence of Local Customs.— Peruvian Skulls.— 
Characteristics of Missouri Specimens, etc.— The Tools of Ancient Americans. 
—Proofs of a Knowledge of Iron. 

To the common observer, the unnumbered stars which shine nightly 
in the firmament above utter no voice, and give no sign concerning their 
physical condition, their individual motions, or relative distance from 
each other. All seemingly sweep on together with undeviating regular- 
ity — differing only in the intensity of their light. But when the appliances 
of modern science are brought to bear upon the facts within our grasp 
concerning them, and their dim rays are gathered up by the spectroscope, 
the faint star becomes a fiery orb and the theatre of the conflict of forces 
of prodigious power. The sun is seen to be a fiery, fluid mass, in whose 
atmosphere are ceaseless storms of flaming elements and tempestuous 
cyclones, which burst forth on every side with awful grandeur and incon- 
ceivable velocitv. 

Alike unintelligible to a common observer, in their ethnic relations, 
would be a collection of skulls brought together from different lands, as 
throwing any light upon the long history of the different races of man- 
kind. Some would appear shorter, rounder or more irregular than 
others, but the same general features which characterize them all — with 
the exceptions named — would be about all that w r ould be specially 
noticed. But when viewed in the resultant light of all the study which 
has been bestowed upon them, and the cautious inductions of the wisest 
ethnologists, they become vocal with revelations of transcendant interest. 
We are not to suppose, however, that there are no great and decided 
variations in the crania of a particular race, for these are as widely differ- 
ent as the varying expressions of the human face, and yet all the while 
presenting certain broad distinctions and characteristics b} r which the 
particular race to which they belong may generally be determined. 

Says Dr. Foster: " While the individual variations in the crania of a 
particular race are so great as to present intermediate gradations from one 
extreme to another, thus forming a connecting link between widely sepa- 
rated races, yet, in a large assemblage of skulls derived from a particular 
race, there is a general conformation, a predominant type ; which appears 
7 



98 ARCHEOLOGY. 

to have been constant as far back as human records extend ; to have 
been unaffected by food, climate, or personal pursuits; and which has 
been regarded among the surest guides in tracing national affinities. 
Hitherto, our knowledge of the mound-builders' crania has been exceed- 
ingly scant — restricted to less than a dozen specimens — which, if authen- 
tic, clearly indicate for the most part the Indian type. The results of 
my observations have led me to infer that the mound-builders' crania were 
characterized by a general conformation of parts, which clearly separated 
them from the existing races of man, and particularly from the Indians of 
North America." 

While the number of authentic skulls from the mounds has been 
greatly multiplied since the above was written, not much has yet been 
done in the way of classification, measurement and tabulation, so as to be 
available for serious study. But enough has been already determined to 
show how premature were the broad generalizations of Dr. Morton — and 
others who accepted his opinions — deduced from the few examples of the 
crania of the mounds which he was able to add to his large collection of 
other types from all parts of the world. While questioning some of his 
conclusions with which he sums up the results of his long-continued 
labors, no contrary deductions can detract in the slightest degree from the 
inestimable value of his labors and splendid contributions to ethnological 
science. While many, in view of more extended observations and discov- 
eries since his time, will withold their assent to the proposition, "that 
the American nations, excepting the polar tribes, are of one race and one 
species, but of two great families, which resemble each other in physical, 
but differ in intellectual character," all will heartily subscribe to the 
statement of Dr. Daniel Wilson that, "following in the footsteps of the 
distinguished Blumenbach, Dr. Morton has the rare merit of having 
labored with patient zeal and untiring energy, to accumulate and publish 
to the world the accurately observed data which constitute the only true 
basis of science. His Crania Americana is a noble monument of well- 
directed industry ; and the high estimation in which it is held, as an ac- 
curate embodiment of facts, has naturally tended to give additional 
weight to his deductions." 

Nor was this great naturalist less mistaken in his opinion as to the 
mode of burial practiced by the aborigines of the American continent. 
He tells us "that from Patagonia to Canada, and from ocean to ocean, 
and equally in the civilized and uncivilized tribes, a peculiar mode of 
placing the body in sepulture has been practiced from immemorial time. 
This peculiarity consists in the sitting posture." That this was not the 



CEANIA. 99 

universal, nor even the most common mode of burial, those who have 
read the foregoing accounts of explorations in burial mounds in various 
parts of the continent, have already seen. 

He found some difficulty at first in reconciling the peculiarities of the 
long and flattened Peruvian skulls with the round-headed type of the red 
Indian, but finally decided that these were only variations of the same 
type produced by artificial pressure in infancy. But the evidence is 
abundant and convincing that there was one race in Peru — probably older 
than the Incarace — with which this peculiarity was not artificial, but con- 
genital, and the skull of the adult retained through life the strangely 
elongated shape with which it entered the world. Dr. Wilson further 
remarks in this connection : " The comprehensive generalization of the 
American cranial type, thus set forth on such high authority, has exer- 
cised an important influence on subsequent investigations relative to the 
aborigines of the New World. It has, indeed, been accepted with such 
ready faith as a scientific postulate, that Agassiz, Nott, Meigs, and other 
physiologists and naturalists adopted it without question, and have rea- 
soned from it as one of the few well-determined data of ethnological sci- 
ence. It has no less effectually controlled the deductions of observant 
travellers." 

With such examples before us, a becoming modesty should character- 
ize the conclusions of those laborers in the same great field, who at best 
may only hope to contribute a page or two to the volume of truth which 
he has bequeathed to his followers. 

The caution with which we should proceed in every step of our inves- 
tigations becomes all the more imperative on account of the difficulties 
which meet the observer at the very threshold of his enquiries. One of 
the difficulties has been already suggested, which is the small number of 
skulls concerning which there can be no doubt whatever, that they be- 
longed to the race of men who erected the mounds. While it was the 
custom of the Indian tribes to bury their dead in the mounds which they 
found ready made, yet their interments may generally be easily distin- 
guished from those of the race of the mounds themselves by the shallow- 
ness of the graves, which are usually near the surface. Still, for the want 
of close observation among cranial collectors, and attention to this fact, 
much confusion has been the result. Another perplexity is caused by 
the fact that in the same burial mound are sometimes found — at least in 
Missouri — two entirely different classes of skulls, with distinctions al- 
most as strongly marked as those which pertain to the Caucasian and Ne- 
groid types, whose position in the mound and companionship in the 



1 00 ARCHEOLOGY. 

way of implements and utensils invest neither class with any distinct- 
ive claim over the other, as being the individuals for whom the memorial 
was erected. But, not to specify further, it may be remarked that so 
great are the perplexities caused by these disturbing elements, in the minds 
of some, that the}- have been led to question whether we are justified in 
assuming that we have a predominant cranial type of the Mound-building 
race, with characteristic conformations so constant as to distinguish them 
from all others, wherever found, so that they may be relied on as sure 
guides in our investigations. 

Assenting, as I do, to the conclusions of such distinguished naturalists 
as Wilson and Foster, to the effect that we are justified in assuming that 
the crania from localities so far asunder as Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio 
and Missouri, present a "similarity of type in those crania, apart from the 
similarity in weapons of warfare, pottery, personal ornaments and earth- 
works, which would indicate a homogeneous people distributed over a 
wide area," yet, to present representative specimens of the skulls which 
have been' collected from the mounds which are scattered over such an 
extended territory, along with the necessary descriptions, measurements 
and illustrations as would be requisite for scientific accuracy and induc- 
tion, would extend our investigations far beyond the limits of the pres- 
ent essay. We must content ourselves, therefore, with such illustrations 
and considerations as are more general in their character, but sufficiently 
specific and particular, it is hoped, to make them of some scientific value, 
at least in clearing the way somewhat for other observers. 

For convenience in the study of ethnic relationships, craniologists have 
recognized three distinct classes of skulls under which all are grouped. 
The principle upon which this classification is made, is based simply upon 
the relation of the breadth to the length of the skull. Taking the length 
of a skull to be one hundred, when the breadth is less than seventy- 
three to one hundred, it is called Dolicocephalic, or long head: those 
whose proportions are from seventy-four or seventy-nine to one hundred 
are termed Orthocephalic, or regularly formed ; those skulls whose pro- 
portions are from eighty to eighty-nine to one hundred are called Brachy- 
cephalic, or short heads. It may be remarked with reference to the 
classification of skulls, that some have been found in Europe presenting 
such phenomenal characteristics that another class has been proposed, 
called Seephocephalic. But, as it is quite likely that the peculiar elonga- 
tion of those classed under this head may have been produced by artificial 
means, they need not be dwelt upon here. Concerning the skull known 
as the "Scioto Mound Skull", which was taken by Squire and Davis from 



CRANIA. 101 

a mound in the Scioto valley, and figured and described in their great 
work, Dr. Morton says it is "perhaps the most admirably formed head 
of the American race hitherto discovered. It possesses the national 
characteristics in perfection, as seen in the elevated vertex, flattened 
occiput, great interparietal diameter, ponderous bony structure, salient 
nose, large jaws and broad face." This skull was regarded by the 
discoverers as the one of all others concerning which there could be no 
doubt that it belonged to the race of the mounds ; and other eminent 
writers have accepted the opinion of the finders. Dr. Foster, however, 
(because of its decided Brachycephalic form doubtless), says that "any 
comparative anatomist will instantly recognize it as of the Indian type." 1 

As far as my own observation goes, I am persuaded that those ethnol- 
ogists who have taken one specific form as the type, rejecting all others 
which do not closely resemble it, do not make sufficient account of the 
wide extent of territory in which they are found, the length of time 
which must have passed while the civilization of the race was being 
developed, nor the influence of local habits and customs in modifying the 
estoolo^ical conditions of the individual members of communities isolated 
as they must have been for a long series of years ; nor of the recognized 
fact that "individual variations in the crania of a particular race are so 
great as to present intermediate gradations all the way from one extreme 
to another, thus forming a connecting link between widely separated 
races." The burial mounds of Missouri present well-defined Brachy- 
cephalic specimens, often flattened in the occipital region, as well as the 
longer and more symmetrical Orthocephalic type ; and sometimes both 
are observed in one mound. The assumption, therefore, that the one or 
the other is the exclusive typal form, cannot be maintained ; nor on such 
a narrow basis can these seemingly wide divergencies in the shape of 
individual skulls be satisfactorily explained. AVe may safely conclude, 
therefore, that the idea that one uniform constant type prevailed during 
the centuries of the occupancy of the Mound-builders of the vast con- 
tinent of America, through all its fixed communities, is a sweeping 
assumption which finds no support from the history of other races of 
men, nor from the facts which the mounds disclose. 

The influence of local customs, as exhibited in the different manner of 
flattening the skull by related tribes of Indians, is a case in point. 

r 
i It should be remembered that very many other considerations enter into the account 
in determining the class to which certain skulls belong besides the proportion of 
breadth to length. This, however, is the first and most important, and the one which I 
shall chiefly consider 



102 



ARCHAEOLOGY. 



Included under the general name of Flatheads, are at least twenty 
different tribes. With some, the head of the child is strapped to the 
cradle-board until its transverse diameter is enormous, when seen in 
front or from behind, while the longitudinal diameter is only about half 
as great. In others the skull is shaped by winding a deer-skin cord 
around the head, beginning just above the ears and winding in such a 
manner that a uniform pressure is brought to bear upon the skull, forcing 
it upward until it assumes a tapering form, almost terminating in a point 
at the vertex. In others again, the pressure is so applied as to press 
back the frontal bone to such a degree that the forehead is almost entirely 
obliterated. Concerning the origin of these diverse customs among 
affiliated tribes we need not stop to enquire. They are sufficient to 

prove that peculiar practices, affecting 
the shape of the skull in contrary ways, 
do originate in communities dwelling 
near each other, and are persisted in, 
notwithstanding their constant famili- 
arity with the different customs of their 
neighbors. It is not surprising then, 
we repeat, that mounds a thousand 
miles from each other, or the same 
mounds even, should disclose cranial 
forms presenting distinct and contrast- 
ing characteristics. 

The skull represented in Fig. 1, it 
will be observed, is very globular in 
shape, with transverse diameter almost equalling the longitudinal, as 
will be apparent by comparing the front with the side view which is 
represented in the next engraving, Fig. 2. From the supercilliary 
ridges, which are prominent, the line of the forehead ascends almost 
vertically to a great height, and then sweeps in a well-rounded curve to 
the apex, from whence it suddenly slopes off in an almost straight line 
to the occipital protuberance. The squamosal suture is exceptionally 
straight. The chief point to be noticed in the shape of this skull, is the 
evidence of artificial flattening; seen in the almost straight line from the 
occipital protuberance to the top of the skull. With few exceptions, all 
the crania from the Missouri mounds which I have seen are more or less 
flattened in the occipital regions. Sometimes the pressure seems to have 
been applied to the right, or to the left of the occipital protuberance, 
and occasionally directly to the back of the head, and so low down that 




Fig. I. Front View of Skull from Bayou St. John Mound. 



CRAXIA. 



103 



the line of the skull from the foramen magnum to the apex of the lainb- 
doidal suture is almost vertical. And vet I cannot believe that this 
artificial conformation was designed. The absence of any sort of 
uniformity in the extent to which it was carried, as well as the indis- 
criminate application of the pressure to any part of the occipital regions, 
would snjrsrest that it resulted solely from the method of treating the 
infant during the first year or two of its existence. The custom of the 
North American Indian nomads, of strapping the infant to a board or 
basket, for convenience in carrying, and from which it was removed but 
seldom until it was at least one year old, need hardly be mentioned. 
There is evidence that certain semi-civilized nations so treated their 
children as to produce an abnormal shape of their skulls. One reference 
must suffice for illustration. Garcel- 
lasso de la Vega * in speaking of the 
manner in which the Peruvian in- 
fants were reared, tells us that all 
classes, rich and poor, "bred up their 
children with the least tenderness 
and delicacy that was possible ; for 
as soon as the infant was born they 
washed it in cold water. Their arms 
they kept swathed and bound down' 
for three months, upon supposition 
that to loose them sooner would 
weaken them ; they kept them always 
in their cradle, which was a pitiful 
kind of a frame, set on four legs, one of which was shorter than the rest, 
for convenience in rocking ; the bed was made of a sort of coarse knit- 
ting which was something more soft than the bare boards, and with a 
string of this knitting they bound up the child on one side and the other 
to keep it from falling out. When they gave them suck they never took 
them into their lap or arms, for if they had used them in that man- 
ner, they believed they would never leave crying, and would always 
expect to be in arms, and not lie quiet in their cradles ; and, therefore, 
the mother would lean over the child, and reach it the breast, which they 
did three times a day, that is, morning, noon and night, and unless it 
were at these times, they never gave it suck." He tells us in the previ- 
ous chapter that they were not weaned until they were two years of 




Fig. 2. Side View. 



Royal Commentaries of Pern, Cliap. 12. 



104 



MiCBJEOLOGY. 



age. Some of the Peruvian skulls present a flattened occiput so similar 
to those of the mounds that it is highly probable this formation was 
produced by the same means, that is by fastening the infant to the cradle 
either upon its back, or with the head turned more or less to the one side 
or the other, in which position it remained until the head became 
flattened in the region of its contact with the hard bed, thereby receiving 
a form which it ever afterwards retained. 

The skull represented in Fig. 3, when viewed from the front, shows 
much the same globular form of the brain-case as the preceding ones 
(Figs. 1 and 2). The vertical view, however, is very different. The 
flattened portion is more lateral, the pressure having been brought to 
bear upon the right side of the occiput. 





Fig. 3 

These decidedly Brachephalic skulls are very far from conforming to 
the Mound-builders' type for which Dr. Foster contends. Those rep- 
resented in his work, taken from mounds in Illinois and Indiana, and 
undoubtedly authentic, are Orthocephalic or regularly formed. Nor do 
they present this abnormal deformity of the occiput which characterizes 
the large majority of those from Missouri. I regret that circumstances 
forbid the reproduction here of the many cranial forms which are ne- 
cessary to properly illustrate this part of our subject. But as those 
figured above, according to the Doctor's views, should be regarded as 
belonging to the Indian type, I transcribe what he says concerning 
their peculiarities of form: "The Indian possesses a conformation of 
skull which clearly separates him from the pre-historic Mound-builder, 



CRANIA. 



105 



and such a conformation must give rise to different mental traits. His 
brain, as compared with the European, according to George Combe, 
differs widely in the proportions of the different parts. The anterior 
lobe is small, the middle lobe is large, and the central convolutions on 
the anterior lobe and upper surface are small. The brain-case is box- 
like, with the corners rounded off; the occiput extends up vertically ; 
the frontal ridge is prominent ; the cerebral vault is pyramidal ; the 
interparietal diameter is great; the snpercilliary ridges and zygomatic 
arches sweep out beyond the general line of the skull ; the orbits are 
quadrangular ; the forehead is low ; the cheek-bones high ; and the jaws 
prognathous. His character, since first known to the white man, has 
been signalized by treachery and cruelty." "He was never known volun- 
tarily to engage in an enterprise requiring methodical labor ; he dwells 
in temporary and movable habitations ; he follows the game in their 
migrations ; he imposes the drudgery of life upon his squaw ; he takes 
no heed for the future. To suppose that such a race threw up the strong 
lines of circumvallation and the symmetrical mounds which crown so 
many of our river-terraces, is as preposterous, almost, as to suppose that 
they built the pyramids of Egypt." 

In the examples I have given, many of the above traits of the Indian 
skull are wanting. The anterior lobe is not small ; the brain-case is not 
box-like, nor is the cerebral vault pyramidal ; the forehead cannot be said 
to be low, nor are the orbits quadrangular, or the jaws prognathous. 
Still, in some other particulars there is a striking conformity to the Indian 
portraiture. For example, the snpercilliary ridges and zygomatic arches 
in the second example "sweep out beyond the general line of the skull." 
They are decidedly of the short-head type, and were it not for the de- 
rangement of the general outline by artificial means in infancy I imagine 
they would correspond in a striking manner to the Scioto Mound skull, 
which Foster believes to belong to the red race. The occipit.-il and lat- 
eral depression shown in the vertical view, Fig. 3, is by no means 
confined to the skulls of the Missouri mounds, but is found in Peru. If 
the reader will consult Morton's Crania Americana, Plates B and C, he 
will find skulls with the identical characteristics of the one at Fig. 3. 
They occur in the mounds of the upper Mississippi region, and in Ten- 
nessee. In Harper's Magazine of December, 1876, is a valuable arch- 
aeological article by Dr. Jones, in which I find the engraving of a skull 
whose resemblance to Fig. 3 is so striking that I reproduce them both 
side by side. The thing to be noticed is the general outline in which the 
similar depression is shown. In the Tennessee skull— assuming that 



106 



ARCHEOLOGY. 



the same point of view is taken in both — the zygomatic arches are 
scarcely seen, while in that from Missouri they bulge out far beyond 
the general outline. 

While, as before remarked, the majority of the skulls found in the 
Missouri mounds possess the characteristics shown in the examples here 
riven : some which occur more rarely are so strikingly different that they 
can not by any reasonable theory be classed with them. While exploring 
a mound in southeast Missouri, before referred to as having been the 
burial-place of many hundreds, two skeletons were found lying beside 
each other, so decayed that the bones could scarcely be handled at all 
without crumbling to pieces. The skulls were entire when passed up to 
me from the excavation. They were so peculiar that I was filled with 





Skull from Mound in Tennessee. 



Fig. 4. 



Skull from Mound in Southeast Missouri. 



astonishment the moment I saw them. One crumbled to dust in a few 
moments after its exposure to the air, and fell from my hands, along with 
the earth with which it was filled, like all others, which are — as well as 
bowls and small-necked water-jugs — always densely packed with the loam 
which covers them. I proceeded to a more careful examination, as I 
suspected an intrusive burial. With much painstaking I was able to pre- 
serve the upper portion of the second skull, which was a duplicate of the 
one destroyed. The outline of this fragment is well represented in the 
engraving. Both skeletons were lying upon the back, with the head 
toward the center of the mound, with the usual drinking vessels close to 
the head, and a food-vessel in the angle of the folded arm upon the 
breast. It will be seen at a glance that the forehead is annihilated ; the 
frontal sinus is quite prominent, which, along with the almost horizontal 



CRANIA. 



107 




Fig. 5. 



line of the frontal bone, makes tin's part of the skull resemble that of a 
beast more than a human head ; and yet I am quite sure that its form 
was perfectly natural, for I could detect no indication of an artificial de- 
pression in any part of it. The frontal bone was curved backward, on each 
side of the occiput, and from the foramen magnum, or from the bottom of 
the brain-case to the apex, was one graceful curve. It might be suggested 
— as has been done in the case of the Neanderthal skull — that these were 
the skulls of idiots. But whoever they were, they were buried Avith 
tender care, and in the belief 
that they would enjoy an- 
other life beyond the grave 
in companionship with the 
manv hundreds of others 
who were provided with the 
necessary food and drink to 
sustain them during their 
long journey. As so large 
a portion of the skull is wanting, it is perhaps useless to generalize upon 
so small a fragment. 1 Still I can but record my own strong conviction 
that we have here no idiotic anomaly, but characteristic examples of a 
race of men entirely distinct from those who piled up the mounds in 
southeast Missouri. Much evidence is gathered from widely separated 
localities upon the American continent, which suggests more than the 
probability that it was once inhabited by a race of men whose origin 
must ever be hid in the night of oblivion, and the date of whose occu- 
pancy may not be far from that of the Paleolithic races of Europe. 

The same configuration has been found in the bone caves of Brazil, 
and in companionship with extinct animals. Dr. Lund thinks they were 
contemporaneous. In some which he describes, the peculiarities which 
characterize them are "in excessive degree, even to the entire disappearance 
of the forehead." The same form appears in the sculptures on the most 
ancient monuments of Mexico, as also in the bas-reliefs of Uxmal and 
Copan, in Central America. " Humboldt and Bonpland," says Foster, 
"were the first to draw attention to this remarkable configuration of 
skull. The former, as far back as 1808, thus stated : " This extraordinary 
flatness is found among nations to whom the means of producing arti- 
> ficial deformity are totally unknown, as is proved by the crania of Mex- 



1 For the distinguishing traits of idiotic skulls, consult Humphrey's Treatise on the 
Human Skeleton, p. 233. 



108 ARCHAEOLOGY. 

ican Indians, Peruvians, and Atures." Pentland, Cuvier, Gall and 
Tiedeman believed this strange cranial form to be congenital. Rogers 
and Tschudi both were convinced of the former existence of an Autoch- 
thonous race in Peru with this peculiarity of skull, and " state that it is 
seen in the foetus of Peruvian mummies." Dr. Lapham has observed 
what seems to be the same type, in Wisconsin. In a private note to Dr. 
Foster he says, concerning two skulls found at Wauwatasa : "The pe- 
culiar characteristics indicating a low grade of humanity, common to 
Doth, are a low forehead, prominent superciliary ridges, the zygomatic 
arches swelling out beyond the walls of the skull, and especially the 
prominence of the occipital ridge. The anterior portion of these skulls, 
besides being low, are much narrowed, giving the outline, as seen from 
above, of an ovate form. It seems quite probable that men with skulls 
of this low o-rude were the most ancient upon this continent, that they 
were the first to heap up those curiously-shaped mounds of earth which 
now so much puzzle the antiquary ; that they were gradually superceded 
and crowded out by a superior race, who, adopting many of their cus- 
toms, continued to build mounds and bury their dead in mounds already 
built. Hence we find Mound-builders' skulls with this ancient form, 
associated with others of more modern type. The discovery of these 
skulls, with characteristics so much like those of the most ancient of the 
pre-historic types of Europe, would seem to indicate that if America 
was peopled by emigration from the Old World, that event must have 
taken place at a very early time — far back of any of which we have any 
record." The occurrence of skulls with this unique and congenital con- 
fio-uration, in both continents of America, from Wisconsin to Peru, 
and many of them associated with those ancient structures whose authors 
are unknown to history or tradition, are facts not to be overlooked or 
lightlv considered in tracing the ethnic distinctions of the pre-historic 
inhabitants of the, so-called, New World. They are certainly very 
suggestive, and invite the serious study of future observers. 

There are certain facts which have been noted from time to time, 
which fit into none of the popular theories concerning the state of the 
arts of the Mound-builders. It has been stated, and often repeated, that 
they had no knowledge of smelting or casting metals, yet the recent 
discoveries in Wisconsin of implements of copper cast in molds— as well 
as the molds themselves, of various patterns, and wrought with much skill 

prove that the age of metallurgical arts had dawned in that region at 

least. 



CRANIA. 109 

And again : what shall be said concerning the traces of iron imple- 
ments which have been discovered from time to time in the mounds, but 
more frequently at great depths below the surface of the soil. Though 
accounts of such discoveries are generally from reliable sources, they 
have latterly received no attention, and always have been considered as 
so much perilous ware which no one cared to handle. The peculiar 
ovate form of skull with the retreating forehead, as has just been shown, 
points to the presence, in remote times, of a race of men entirely dif- 
ferent from that to which the authors of many of the earthworks of the 
Mississippi valley belonged. This form has been traced to Mexico and 
Peru. When the Spanish conquerors pillaged those countries and laid 
waste their beautiful cities, they observed vast structures and ancient 
temples built of hewn stone, with consummate skill. When they ques- 
tioned the Aztec and Inca races concerning their origin they could give 
no answer but this : they were here when our fathers came ; they belonged 
to a people of whose history we know nothing. The Incas copied these 
ancient models in the great structures which they erected. But with 
what tools did they perform such wonders — were they of copper only ? 
So we are told ; or copper alloyed with tin. It is said they had some 
secret method of making it hard as iron, but none of the copper tools 
which have been found confirm the statement. Mountains of stone were 
wrought into dwellings and temples of the gods ; huge walls were cut 
from the solid rocks ; the mountains themselves divided into galleries 
and fortifications rising one above the other, connected here and there 
by artificial breastworks, but generally cut out of the strata of the 
mountain and left standing, one solid mass of stone. Common dwell- 
ings built of enormous slabs of stone seven feet wide and twelve feet 
long are met with. Porphyry, basalt and marble yielded alike to their 
magic touch, like clay in the hands of the potter. Vitreous obsidian 
was utilized by the excellence of their tools and the delicacy of their 
manipulation. Plates and cylinders of exquisite thinness they made of 
this fragile substance for ornaments for their women. 

The dexterity of these ancient lapidaries in cutting the hardest stone 
is amazing. And it is difficult to conceive how, without cutting imple- 
ments equal, at least, to our own in hardness, such delicate and such stu- 
pendous works could have been executed. And to the question whether 
they possessed a knowledge of working iron, the wise man will hesitate 
Ions; before he answers in the negative. It should be remembered, too, 
how quickly — unless under most favoring conditions — iron corrodes to 
dust and leaves scarcely a trace behind. The piles of the Swiss lake- 



110 AECH^EOLOGY. 

dwellings, the cedar posts of the mounds, may endure for ages, while 
iron — so hard, and more precious than gold in the advancement of the 
world's civilization, — speedily melts away before the gentle dews and air 
of heaven. 

The idea that there once existed on this continent a race .anterior to, 
and entirely distinct from, that which immediately preceded the red men, 
is no new and fanciful conjecture, but one which was held by the earliest 
and most cautious observers of the antiquities of America ; and we may 
yet be forced to adopt their conclusions, not only upon this point, but 
also their opinions as to the state of the arts in those remote times. 

According to Morse, the geographer: "In digging a well in Cincin- 
nati, the stump of a tree was found in a sound state, ninety feet below 
the surface ; and in digging another well, at the same place, another 
stump was found at ninety-four feet below the surface, which had evident 
marks of the axe ; and on its top there appeared as if some iron tool 
had been consumed by rust." 

Says Priest : M We have examined the blade of a sword found in Phil- 
adelphia, now at Peale's Museum, in New York, which was taken out 
of the ground something more than sixty feet below the surface. The 
blade is about twenty inches in length, is sharp on one edge, with a 
thick back, a little turned up at the point, with a shank drawn out three 
or four inches long, which was doubtless inserted in the handle, and 
clinched at the end." 

"Twelve miles west of Chillicothe, on Paint Creek, are found the 
remains of a furnace, ten or twelve feet square, formed of rough stones, 
surrounded by cinders, among trees of full size. There are, at this 
place, seven wells situated within the compass of an acre of land, reg- 
ularly walled up with hewn stone, but are now nearly filled up with the 
accumulating earth of ages. Eight miles further up the creek, a small 
bar of gold was taken out of a mound, which sold in Chillicothe for 
twelve dollars. A piece of cast iron, we are further told, was taken 
from a circular embankment in Circleville." 

From the distinguished antiquary, Mr. Atwater, who was present 
when a large mound near Circleville was removed, we learn that in addi- 
tion to the skeletons it contained, along Avith stone implements, was 
found "the handle, either of a small sword or large knife, made of elk's 
horn; around the end, where the blade had been inserted, was a ferrule 
of silver, which, though black, was not much injured by time; though 
the handle showed the hole where the blade had been inserted, yet no 
iron was found, but an oxide, or rust, remained, of similar shape and 



CEAXIA. 1 11 

size." With another skeleton, in the same mound, was found a large 
plate of mica, three feet in length by one and one-half in width, and one 
inch and a half in thickness. On this was a plate of iron thoroughly 
oxydized, which crumbled to dust when disturbed by the spade, but 
resembled a plate of cast iron. This was doubtless a mirror. Both 
bodies had been burned, and mingled with the bones and implements 
were quantities of charcoal and ashes. The same author thinks that 
some of the supposed iron knives which have been discovered in the 
mounds may have been steel instead. The ''huge iron weapon " found 
in the hand of the skeleton in the Utah mound before described, which 
crumbled to dust on exposure to the air, will be remembered. But here 
I must desist from further consideration of the question — for the present 
at least — as to the extent of the knowledge and uses of iron among the 
ancient Americans, as I am not aware of airy relics of this metal having 
been found among the antiquities of Missouri, save those made of native 
ore. But, as similar notices of its occurrence in the mounds and on 
ancient levels, far below the present surface of the alluvial plains, are 
abundant in all the current antiquarian literature of the last half century, 
I felt that the subject was too important to be passed over in silence, 
especially as I had reason to suspect that those remote dwellers upon 
this continent, whose peculiar form of skull has been noticed by Hum- 
boldt, Foster, Lapham and many others, and lastly by myself in Missouri, 
were not unacquainted with the uses of iron and other metallurgical arts. 
That these were the opinions of that distinguished scholar and states- 
man, William Wirt, the following quotation from his writings will show. 
After speaking of the various relics of vanished races, among which he 
mentions "iron and copper, buried in a soil which must have been undis- 
turbed for ages," he proceeds to say : "The mighty remains of the past, 
to which we have alluded, indicate the existence of three distinct races 
of men, previous to the arrival of the existing white settlers. The 
monuments of the first or primitive race, are regular stone walls, wells 
stoned up, brick hearths found in digging the Louisville canal, nineteen 
feet below the surface, with the coals of the last domestic fire upon them, 
medals of copper and silver, swords and other implements of iron. Mr. 
Flint assures us that he has seen these strange ancient swords. He has 
also examined a small iron shoe, like a horse-shoe, encrusted with the rust 
of ages, and found far below the soil, and the copper axe, weighing about 
two pounds, singularly tempered and of peculiar construction." The 
second race, he thinks, were the authors of the mounds, who, in time, 
were succeeded by the Indians. 



1 1 2 ARCHEOLOGY 

A few weeks since I received, in a private letter from Prof. Tice, the 
distinguished meteorologist, an interesting account of the discovery, in 
one of the interior comities in Illinois, of the corroded remains of some 
sort of cutting implement of iron or steel. As I have not his communi- 
cation at hand at this moment, I cannot give the details ; but as I recall 
the statement, it was found several feet below the surface, in a gravelly 
river bank which had been washed away by the floods and thus exposed, 
and under such circumstances as to convince intelligent observers who 
saw it, and the bed from whence it was taken, that it was of great 
antiquity. What shall we say to these numberless and constantly 
recurring notices of the discovery of traces of iron? The journey of 
De Soto across the continent has been made to do good service in 
explaining the presence in the mounds of metal implements, as well as 
the immense defensive structures in some of the Southern States, which 
were thought to be beyond the skill of the ancient inhabitants. A topo- 
graphical representation of all of the supposed routes of his journeyings 
would resemble a western railway chart. Had De Soto lived till now, 
and traveled incessantly, like the Wandering Jew, he could not have 
accomplished all that has been placed to his credit. Again, the bold 
Norsemen, under Eric the Red, and other adventurers on the ocean, 
whose ships, by adverse winds or favoring gales, were driven to these 
far off shores, — colonies of Welsh, Malayans — and the lost ten tribes of 
Israel — all have been marshaled by different authors in the interest of 
their particular theories, and made to do duty in explaining the inexpli- 
cable problems of our antiquities. In regard to the question thus touched 
upon, as well as many others equally perplexing, is it not better to sift 
and garner the grains of truth we have, and with childlike receptivity 
wait for greater light? 



CHAPTER XII, 

Concluding Observation's.— The Origix of the Pre-Historic Races of America.— 
Theory of Spontaneous Generation.— The Law Governing their Migrations.— 
Successive Movements of the Nahua Race.— The Aztecs the last Colony of 
that People.— Opinions of Baron Humboldt. — Our own Country probably the 
Original Home of the Aztec Civilization.— The Indian Races of Asiatic Ori- 
gin.— Facilities of Immigration via. Behring's Straits.— A Personal Word.— Dry 
Bones Clothed. 

A proper completion of our investigations demands a brief notice ot 
the current opinions which relate to the origin, migrations and the ulti- 
mate fate of the race whose relics and monuments have been considered 
in the preceeding pages. By whatever theory we may be pleased to 
adopt as to the manner in which was first peopled, we are carried back 
irresistably to times so remote that we rise from our study of this sub- 
ject with the conviction that the origin of the first inhabitants of 
this continent must ever remain hidden in the darkness of oblivion. 

None of the many theories, some of which seemed quite probable at 
first view, have withstood the test of later investigations. One nation 
after another — European or Asiatic — has been put forward, as entitled to 
the honor of having been first in the field with its peopling or civilizing 
colonies; prior to whose coming, it was assumed, this continent must 
have been a desolate waste, without inhabitants, or, in the latter case, at 
best, the home of wild and barbarous tribes. Another theory, which is 
maintained by a few distinguished writters, is based upon the hypothises 
of spontaneous generation ; the natural sequence of which is that the abo- 
riginal inhabitants of America were Autochthons j 1 or in other words, that 
man — in common with the plants and lower orders of animals — made his 
appearance on the earth spontaneously, when, in the fullness of time, it 
had reached that condition which presented all those favoring and con- 
current circumstances which made his appearance a natural necessity. 

The spontaneous generation hypothesis is still so far from being verified, 
that the question of an autochthonous population need not be discussed ; 



1 Humboldt suggestively asks, " Did the nations of the Mexican race, in their migra- 
tions to the south, send colonies towards the east, or do the monuments of the United 
States pertain to the Autochthone nations? Perhaps we must admit in North America, 
as in the ancient world, the simultaneous existence of several centers of civilization, of 
which the mutual relations are not known in history." Personal Narrative, Vol. VI., p. 
322. 

S 



114 ARCHAEOLOGY. 

inasmuch, also, as what we have to consider farther, relates to the ancient 
people of Missouri ; who, whatever may have been their origin, were so 
far removed in time from the parent stock, and changed in their physical 
and social condition by their evident subsequent commingling with the 
Indian tribes, that they furnish us with few, if any, facts which can be re- 
lied on as sure guides in conducting us to the origin of their national life. 
We must take them, therefore, as we find them, and in the light of such 
facts as we have been able to gather, and, applying also the mysterious, 
vet well-established law which seems ever to have controlled the migra- 
torv movements of the various nations of both hemispheres, deduce such 
conclusions as we may be justified in doing concerning their own migra- 
tions and their ultimate fate. 

The student of ancient history will observe that the migrations of rude 
and semi-civilized nations have generally, if not always, been from north to 
south. The exceptions to this, which are exceedingly rare in proportion 
to the vast number of known movements of tribes and peoples in this 
direction, it is believed may readily be accounted for by some local and 
temporary cause — as stress of war, for example — which turned them for 
a time from their normal course. The constancy of the operation of this 
law — the causes of which are yet the subject of much learned specula- 
tion — I shall assume without stopping to illustrate it by quoting 
the numerous examples with which the pages of history abound, further 
than to give the opinion of one distinguished naturalist in its support. 
Says Von Hellwald, 1 "If we seek, however, to establish for historical 
events a basis in geographical relations — that is to say, if we carefully 
compare them together, analyzing the former and investigating their pos- 
sible causes, studying the latter and deducing as far as possible the 
resulting consequences — we shall find that certain generally valid laws, 
which resolve in the simplest manner many an unexplained riddle, are 
evolved from such a study through the remarkable correspondence of 
facts. Thus, in reference to the migrations of mankind, it seems to 
result from the geographical structure of the continent that, as by virtue of 
an historical law we are not to look for men of comprehensive and 
deeply penetrating intellect in Lapland or Malta, in Bosnia or Asturias ; 
so, conformably with a strict geographical law, the direction of the migra- 
tory stream icill be found always to lie in the axis of the greatest longitudi- 



1 The American Migration, by Frederic Von Hellwald— an admirable essay. Some of 
his facts and dates I have adopted. 
Smithsonian Report, 1SG6. 



ORIGIN OF THE PRE-IIISTORIC RACES. 115 

nal extension of the continent. In fact, no example from history informs 
us that the Tchapogires, Tunguses, Jakoots or people from the banks of 
the Amour, have ever descended into the Deccan or Malacca ; that the 
Ethiopians have ever migrated into Sennegambia, or the Finns into 
Greece. As a new proof how much nations and men depend on geo- 
graphical circumstances, and even when they believe themselves guided 
by their own will, merely obey a great natural law, the fact is of much 
significance that the American tribes form no exception to this general 
rule ; for here, also, the procession of the migratory races is in the longer 
axis of the continent, namely, from north to south. 

"That America, as well as Europe and Asia, was already inhabited 
before this great migration, and in many parts possessed of an ancient 
civilization, admits of no doubt. Occasional traditions of those early 
periods of culture have penetrated to us, and I cannot forbear soliciting 
the attention of the learned world to this legendary cycle of America, 
which is certainly worthy in many respects of a critical scrutiny ; for to 
judge from so much as is yet known, the inquiry cannot but yield inter- 
esting and valuable disclosures respecting the cosmogonic views of the 
American aborigines and the general tendencv of their ideas ; perhaps 
endow even the historian here and there with a fact of value. But to 
determine, from our present knowledge of the mystical traditions of 
these races, which of the tribes in America may have been the oldest, 
seems to me as impossible as superfluous. 

"Upon this soil multitudes of nations have moved and have sunk into 
the night of oblivion, without leaving a trace of their existence ; without 
a memorial, through which we mis'ht have at least learned their names. 
Those nations only, which b}' tradition, written records, monuments, 
or whatever other means, first guaranteed the remembrance of their own 
existence, belong to the domain of history ; and history which, to be true, 
accepts nothing but what is actually known, points to those as the primi- 
tive races which first transmitted a knowledge of themselves ; time 
begins for us when the chronolosry of such nations takes its rise. But 
all these so-called aboriginies might be only the remainder of previously- 
existing races, of whom, again, we know not whether they were indeed 
the first occupants of the land. In truth we meet in America, at more 
than one point, with traces of a rich civilization, proceeding demonstra- 
tively from much earlier epochs than the tribal migration itself; as, for 
example, in upper Peru, the gorgeous structures of the Aymaras, near 
Tiahuanco, on the beautiful shores of Lake Titicaca ; the mysterious 
monuments of Central America, between Chiapas and Yucatan, of which 



1 1 6 ARCHAEOLOGY. 

the buildings of Palenque constitute the most celebrated representative ; 
the earth and stone works of a people distinct from the above, on the 
banks of the Mississippi and the Ohio." 

In speaking of the migratory movements of the American tribes, it 
must be remembered that several distinct expeditions of the same people, 
at times more or less remote from each other, are often spoken of as one 
migration ; for example, the race which bore the name of Nahuatlacas, 
was composed of seven tribes ; namely, the Xochimilcos, Chalcas, Te- 
panicas, Tlahuicas, Colhuas, Tlaxcaltecas and Aztecs. All these tribes 
spoke the same language, and, issuing from the same region far to the 
north, appeared in Mexico at successive periods, following each other in 
the older named. The Aztecs, renowned in the history of the Conquest, 
were the last to arrive. Some time prior to the commencement of the 
Christian era — many think not less than a thousand years must be 
assumed — the mysterious Nahoas, or Nahuas, appear in Mexico. Con- 
cerning their origin little is known, and none have been able to penetrate 
the clouds of obscurity which envelop their history. This much, however, 
is established, namely, that all the Toltec and the later Aztec, or more 
properly Xahuatl tribes, were only branches of the great Nahua family, 
and all spoke dialects of this ancestral race. This is a most important 
and significant fact, as affinities of Language are considered among the 
most certain guides in ethnological investigations. But little more is 

© Co 

known concerning the original Nahuas than to suggest the probability 
that they were the authors of some of the stone structures in Northern 
Mexico, and the builders of a few, and those the most ancient, mounds 
of the Mississippi Valley. With the advent of the Toltec domination in 
the country previously occupied by their Nahuatl 1 ancestors, the thick 
darkness begins to be dissipated, and the dawn of ancient American 
history is ushered in. 

The learned and able interpreter of the monuments and hieroglyphic 
annals of ancient Mexico, the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, regards 955 
years before Christ as the earliest reliable date which can be established 
in the Xahuatl language. Although the Toltec tribes did not make their 
appearance on the scene simultaneously, but at different times, and pos- 
sibly by different routes, as was the case with the Aztecs who succeeded 
them, their active occupancy began in the seventh century of our era, or, 
to speak more accurately, in the year 648. Clavigero, however, who is 
alone in his opinion among early writers, fixes the date at 596. This 

1 Pronounced " Know-all"; and according to de Bourbourg, it has the same meaning. 



ORIGIN OF THE PEE -HISTORIC RACES. 117 

people, after the lapse of about four hundred years, having been almost 
destroyed by famine, pestilence and civil wars, were succeeded by a more 
barbarous, though neighboring tribe, known as Chiehimecs, who also 
have been supposed by some to have belonged to the same Nahua family, 
but whose peculiar language is now considered as convincing proof that 
they were from a separate and distinct stock, although they had been 
more or less influenced by association with their Toltec neighbors, and 
had adopted some of their arts and customs. Of course it should be 
remembered that the large territory of Mexico was occupied conjointly by 
many other pre-Toltee tribes besides the Nahuas, but whose languages 
were so radically different, so entirely wanting in linguistic affinities with 
the Nahuatl tongues, — among which may be mentioned the Almecs and 
the Otomi, whose speech was monosyllabic, — that they must be regarded 
as more ancient than the Nahuas even. But the reign of the Chiehimecs 
was short. A tribe of immigrants, known as the Acolhuas, took up their 
residence with the Chiehimecs, and the union resulted in the kingdom of 
Acolhuan. This kingdom was scarcely established when the great and 
last migrations we have to notice took place. The seven Nahuatla- 
eas tribes, as before noticed, arrived upon the scene, the Aztecs bringing 
up the rear, after a longer interval than the others. This celebrated 
people, who, in the year 1090, had left their home in the mysterious 
Aztlan, after various wanderings and delays in their southward journey, 
finally reached the table-lands of Mexico somewhere between the years 
1186 and 1194, and took possession of the cities which the Chiehimecs 
in turn abandoned, following in the path of the Toltecs, who had fled 
from these same seats less than two hundred years before. Adopting 
and improving upon the civilization of their predecessors, the Aztecs 
founded that kingdom whose magnificence and power filled the Conquer- 
ors with wonder. They displayed a bravery and heroic devotion in the 
defense of their rulers and their native land which awakens our liveliest 
sympathies, and the admiration of the civilized world; and their final 
and pitiless destruction has left a dark stain upon the character of their 
destroyers, which no excuses in the interests of religious zeal can 
diminish, nor the glory of their daring deeds efface ! 

In the preceding and incomplete outline sketch of the leading branches 
of the Nahua family, with some account of their migrations, I have called 
attention to those facts only which seemed necessary to a more explicit 
statement of what has been incidentally assumed throughout these 
investigations. 

From my point, of view then, no theory is admissible which does not 



118 ARCHEOLOGY. 

contemplate the migrations of the various tribes which appeared at dif- 
ferent times upon the table lands of Mexico, during a period of two 
thousand years or more, as the movements of the different branches of 
the one Nahua race, whose ancient seats must be sought for in the great 
alluvial plains of the Mississippi valley. Their precise location may 
never be discovered ; it is, however, quite probable that the unknown 
Aztlan, the Huehuetlapalan of the Aztecs (who, as has been shown, 
were the last to leave their primitive home), may yet be identified. At 
the commencement of my study of the antiquities of America, I accepted 
without question the views of distinguished early writers upon this 
subject, which I have since found no reason to reject during all my 
subsequent inquiries. And had I at any time been disposed to embrace 
opposite conclusions, I should have felt great diffidence in suggesting 
them, which to me would savor of presumption, thus to place myself in 
opposition to the mature convictions of the great men who have devoted 
years of patient labor in this direction, of whose names I need men- 
tion but one. Among the learned in all lands, the opinions of Humboldt, 
upon any subject which engaged the attention of his powerful intellect, 
command the most respectful consideration. The rare opportunities 
which he enjoyed, during his extended travels and prolonged stay on this 
continent, at a period, too, when many of the antiquities were in a better 
state of preservation and therefore much more intelligible and instructive 
than now, give great weight to his conclusions concerning the ancient 
races of America. In speaking of the races under consideration, he 
says: "The very civilized nations of New Spain, the Toltecs, the 
Chichimecs, and the Aztecs, pretended to have issued successively, from 
the sixth to the twelfth century, from three neighboring countries situa- 
ted toward the north, and called Huehuetlapalan or Tlepallan, Ama- 
quemacan, and Aztlan or Teo-Alcolhuacan. These, nations spoke the 
same language, they had the same cosmogonic fables, the same propensity 
for sacerdotal congregations, the same hieroglyphic paintings, the same 
divisions of time, the same taste for noting and registering everything. 
The names given by them to the towns built in the country of Anahuac 
were those of the towns they had abandoned in their ancient country. 
The civilization on the Mexican table-land was regarded by the inhabit- 
ants themselves as the copy of something which had existed elsewhere, 
as the reflection of the primitive civilization of Aztlan. Where, it may 
be asked, must be placed that parent land of the colonies of Anahuac, 
that officina gentium, which, during five centuries, sends nations toward 
the south, who understand each other without difficulty, and recognize 



ORIGIN OF THE PRE-HISTORIC RACES. 1 1 

each other for relations? Asia, north of Amour, where it is nearest 
America, is a barbarous country ; and, in supposing (which is geograph- 
ically possible) a migration of southern Asiatics by Japan, Tarakav 
(Tchoka), the Kurile and the Aleutian isles, from southwest toward 
the northeast (from 40 to 55 deg. of latitude), how can it be believed 
that in so long a migration, on a way so easily intercepted, the remem- 
brance of the institutions of the parent country could have been pre- 
served with so much force and clearness ! The cosmogonic fables, the 
pyramidal constructions, the system of the calendar, the animals of the 
tropics found in the catasterim of days, the convents and congregations of 
priests, the taste for statistic enumerations, the annals of the empire held 
in the most scrupulous order, lead us toward oriental Asia ; while the 
lively remembrances of which we have just spoken, and the peculiar 
physiognomy which Mexican civilization presents in so many other 
respects, seem to indicate the existence of an empire in the North of 
America, between the 36th and 42d degree of latitude. We cannot re- 
fleet on the military monuments of the United States without recollecting 
the first country of the civilized nations of Mexico." On a preceding 
page he also mentions the fact that " the country between the 33d and 
41st degrees of latitude, parallel to the mouth of the Arkansas and 
the Missouri, is considered by the Aztec historians as the ancient dwel- 
ling of the civilized nations of Anahuac." The views here expressed, 
and which all succeeding investigations have tended to verify, carry us 
back to very remote times, far beyond any authentic history or tradition, 
wdien America was peopled by rude tribes of a low grade of humanity, 
but which, nevertheless, possessing within themselves the germs of a 
civilization which slowly through the ages evolved a progressive 
national life, at length resulted in the establishment of the fixed com- 
munities in North America, whose skillful hubsandry, arts, commercial 
enterprise and original and complex system of religion we have already 
contemplated. All of those, however, were but the broad beginning — 
the prophecy of that higher development which found its fulfillment in 
the more sumptuous civilization in the rich valleys of Central and South 
America. The territory occupied by the Mound-builders is too large, 
the evidences of a dense population throughout its length and breadth 
too numerous, to permit us to suppose that its occupancy was of short 
duration. There is also too wide a difference in the respective ages of 
many of the mounds : some are manifestly hoary with age, while others 
are of recent date. 

While we believe, therefore, that a period of many centuries must 



120 AUCILEOLOGY 



have elapsed during the extension of a people so numerous over the vast 
area which they inhabited, and the erection of so many structures as are 
still to be seen, it is equally clear from my stand-point that we must also 
believe that all facts, when rightly considered, point to a gradual disap- 
pearance towards the south, and at different periods of time, which may 
be found to correspond to the known dates of the migrations of the Aztec 
tribes. As these occurred at times more or less remote from each other, 
it is altogether probable that, to different causes miiht the separate 
migrations be ascribed. Some tribes, as the ruins of their military forts 
and encampments show, retreated slowly before the encroachments of an 
invading force. Other sites seem to have been abandoned deliberately, 
without any attempt at defence ; or perhaps the impulse which set them 
in motion may have been the captivating accounts they had received 
of the glory and riches of the distant land to which their brethren had 
departed years before. While long lines of military defence may be traced 
here and there across the continent at the north, and along the eastern 
plains of the valleys of the Mississippi and Ohio, very few have been 
observed upon the western side of the Mississippi, at least in Missouri, 
and those are of small dimensions. I am led to infer that, however 
sudden may have been their abandonment, it was voluntary, and that the 
ancient Missourians were the last to leave the country. While it may be 
impossible to decide whether they were the Aztecs themselves, or a 
remnant of that tribe which was left behind, I cannot forbear to express 
my own inclination to the latter opinion ; in which case they may have 
proceeded no further than the regions about the Gulf, where they became 
amalgamated with the Indians, who may have intercepted them in the 
journey, and by whom, as a tribe, they were exterminated. That some 
such event did take place, as before stated, many facts would induce us 
to believe. Many of their customs survived them, in the practices of 
the more southern tribes, wheu the country was first occupied by the 
Europeans, which point strongly in this direction. Among these tribes the 
Natehez will be remembered, whose arts, worship, sacerdotal system and 
customs were very similar, and in many respects identical with those of 
Mexico. This identity of customs, worship, etc., I had intended to discuss 
more at length, and also present the factswhich bear upon the question, but, 
as I have already transcended my limits, I must desist. It seems to me 
to be established, that the ancestors of the Indian tribes came to America 
by way of Behring's Straits. These are frozen over every year as late as 
April, according to Professor Henry, who further states that " intercourse 
at present is constant, bv means of canoes, in summer between the Asiatic 



ORIGIN OF THE PRE-HISTORIC RACES. 121 

and American sides. As another fact relating to the same question, we 
may state that, while the Asiatic projection near Behring's Straits is 
almost a sterile, rock}' waste, the opposite coast presents a much more 
inviting appearance, abounding in trees and shrubs. Moreover, the 
climate, when we pass southward of the peninsula of Alaska, is of a genial 
character, the temperature continuing the same as far dbwn as Oregon. 
The mildness of the temperature, and the descent of the isothermal line, 
or that of equal temperature, along the coast, are due to a great current 
called the Gulf Stream of the Pacific, which carries the warm water of the 
equator along the eastern coast of Asia, thence across the opposite coast 
of America, and along the latter on its return to the equator. The 
action of this current, which does not appear to have been considered b\- 
the ethnologist, must have had much influence in inducing and deter- 
mining the course of the migration." He adds "that the present 
inhabitants of the countries contiguous to Behring's Straits on the two 
sides, in manners, customs, and physical appearance, are almost identical." 
It is believed that the hypothesis we maintain, which holds that the 
southern portions of this continent were peopled by tribes who had their 
origin in more northern regions, and who, in some cases at least, were 
driven from their ancient homes by mongrel hordes who made their 
appearance by way of Behring's Straits, is the only one which harmonizes 
the many otherwise inexplicable facts which continually confront the 
student of the antiquities of America. No other theory will satisfactorily 
explain the presence in the same mounds of skulls of such different and 
contrasting types, and which are so frequently met with in the tumuli 
of Missouri. 

In bringing our work to a close, I beg leave to say that, in the prepar- 
ation of the foregoing chapters, it has been nw aim to present the subjects 
treated of in a form as attractive and popular as I was capable of, and in 
a manner in keeping with the historical character of the work in which 
they appear. If, to the scientific reader, I may seem at times to have 
expressed my views with a warmth and enthusiasm not always appropri- 
ate to scientific inquiries, my desire to invest with all possible interest, to 
the general reader, a subject which might ordinarily be considered dry and 
unattractive, must be my apology. Having for fifteen years devoted all 
the time which could be spared from the labors of my profession to archae- 
ological studies, and especially the antiquities of my native land, the 
enthusiasm which I felt at the outset has been intensified rather than di- 
minished, at every step of the journey. Indeed, the results which have 
been attained already are of such absorbing interest as to arouse the 



122 AKCKLEOLOGY. 

enthusiasm of every student of these antique memorials ; and the zeal of 
the antiquary receives a fresh impulse from time to time, as he grapples 
with those questions which relate to the origin of the different races of 
men, their modes of development, the routes of their migrations and the 
like ; as also, while he labors to construct a pre-historic history from the 
ashes of forgotten cities, the debris of former habitations, and the 
mouldering relics which ancient tombs disclose. 

It is related in sacred story, of an old prophet, that he was set down 
in a valley of dry bones, and told to pass by them round about, and 
behold they were very many, and very dry. But, at the sound of his 
prophetic voice, there was a noise and shaking and coming together, bone 
to his bone, the flesh and skin covered them again, and there stood up 
an exceeding great army. So the scientist to-day passes up and down 
the valleys, and among the relics and bones of vanished peoples, and as 
he touches them with the magic wand of scientific induction, these ancient 
men stand up on their feet, revivified, rehabilitated, and proclaim with 
solemn voice the story of their nameless tribe or race, the cotemporan- 
eous animals, and the physical appearance of the earth during those 
pre-historic ages. 

The Christian scientist, pursuing his investigations regardless of all 
dogmatic theories concerning divine revelation, and bringing, at last, all 
right results of his work to the subjective light of that old record which 
thus far they have only served to glorify, discovers now and then the 
golden key by which the sublime and occult truths condensed in its sen- 
tentious statements may be unlocked, and the long seons understood, 
which are comprehended in the evening and the morning of the creative 
days. 






I