Part 2

Burial mounds are of various sizes, I presume, according to the dignity of the individual entombed. Sometimes one large mound is found to possess a skeleton, and some interesting relics, which indicate the position of the departed, while a group of smaller mounds is situated around it. The large one perhaps contained the skeleton of a leader, surrounded by a few of his intimate followers. Or perhaps it was that of a patriarch, surrounded by his numerous progeny, much as, in our own day, burial plots are set apart for families.

Grave Creek burial mound, which stands at the junction of Grave Creek, Virginia, with the Ohio, is one of the largest and most important burial mounds in America. It is 70 feet in height and at its base it is 1,000 feet in circumference. When this mound was opened, two vaults were found, one at the base contained two skeletons, one of them a female. The logs of which this vault was composed were all decayed, and the earth and stones lay upon the skeletons. In the upper vault there was a single skeleton very much decayed. Within these vaults and beside the illustrous dead, were found more than 3,000 shell-beads, ornaments of mica, copper bracelets, and other stone carvings. Around the lower vault were found ten much decayed skeletons, all in a sitting posture.

The skeletons in the vaults, doubtless, were the remains of royalty, or some distinguished chiefs, whose memory these devoted people desired to perpetuate, while the ten skeletons, which surrounded the vault, were perhaps some of their loyal subjects who were sacrificed according to the custom of some of the heathen nations both ancient and modern. Foster, desiring to draw a comparison or rather identify this mode of burial with those of the Greeks and other nations, directs our attention to Herodotus, Book IV, Chaps. 71 and 190. And for identifying the ceremonial with the funeral of Achilles, our attention is called to the Odyssey, Book XXIV, with the burial of Hector in the Iliad, Book XXIV.

Dr. Wilson identifies the burial of the living with the dead by giving an account of the burial of Black Bird, the great chief of the Omahas more than 60 years ago. He caught the smallpox at Washington, and dying on his way home, he gave instructions to his braves around him how he was to be buried. "His body was clothed with the gayest Indian robes, decorated with scalps and war eagle plumes, and he was carried to one of the loftiest bluffs on the Missouri. He was placed upon his favorite war horse, a beautiful white steed. His bow was placed in his hand. His shield, quiver, pipe, medicine-bag and tobacco-pouch hung by his side, for his comfort on his journey to the happy hunting grounds of the great Manitou. After a significant ceremonial, the Indians placed turf and sod about the legs of the horse; gradually the pile rose, until living horse and dead rider were buried together in this memorial mound, which may be seen from the banks of the Missouri."

But to come back to the mound, I now describe a sandstone disk, 1-1/2 inch in diameter and 3/4 inch thick, taken up from near the skeleton in the lower part of Grave Creek mound. According to Schoolcraft's analysis, communicated to the American Ethnological Society, "Of the 22 alphabetic characters, 4 correspond with the ancient Greek, 4 with the Etruscan, 5 with the old Northern runes, 6 with the ancient Gaelic, 7 with the old Erse, 10 with the Phoenician, 14 with the old British," and he also adds that equivalents may be found in the old Hebrew. It is, as some writers have described it, an exceedingly accommodating inscription. The following readings have been given:--

By M. Levy Bing: "What thou sayest, thou dost impose it, thou shinest in thy impetuous clan, and rapid chamois." By M. Maurice Schwab (1857): "The chief of emigration who reached these places, has fixed these statutes forever." By M. Oppert: "The grave of one who was assassinated here. May God, to revenge him, strike his murderer, cutting off the hand of his existence." We can only say of these readings what a Hebrew Rabbi said to an indolent student, who in reading a verse in the Psalms in the original, gave the translation of the next verse, "Gentlemen, that is a very free translation." Besides this, other readings have been given, all of which have the advantage that few can contradict them.

In the Scioto valley, where there are many very interesting remains of the Mound-builders, there are many burial mounds which have lately been opened. In many of these, the casts of unhewn logs are still visible, showing that the dead were placed in a rude vault, which was afterwards covered by soil. One skeleton was found to have round the neck several hundred beads, made mostly of marine shells, others made of the tusks of animals and a few laminae of mica. In the same mound from which this skeleton was taken, the vault gave strong evidence of its having been set on fire during the burial ceremony,--the large quantity of charcoal proving that it was suddenly quenched by the fresh soil heaped upon it.

If these Mound-builders were Sun-worshippers, as may safely be concluded from tablets and from rock markings, as well as from the fact of their sacred enclosures mostly looking towards the east, where the early rays would fall upon the altar, we may easily account for the fire having a share In the burial ceremony. Some have concluded that the blazing fire signified "life," and that the sudden quenching signified "death."

Let it not be thought, however, that there are no burying places but these few mounds. I believe the mounds of a burial character were only for persons of distinction, while in reality there are thousands of ancient cemeteries of vast extent, where multitudes have received common burial. The spring freshets yearly uncover many of these, exposing not only their bones, but many ornaments and implements that were used by this wonderful people, and which were deposited beside them when consigned to the silent tomb.

Symbolic Mounds.--There can be no mistake in affirming that the strange mounds, so prevalent in Wisconsin, and frequently found in other States, were the result of intention rather than accident. These are sometimes called "Effigy Mounds." In Wisconsin, even implements, as well as animals, are symbolized. The beaver, the tortoise, the elephant, the serpent, the alligator seem to be their favorite animals, whose images they have endeavored to perpetuate in mounds, of course on a large scale. In Adams county, Ohio, on a steep bluff, 150 feet above the level of Brush Creek, may be seen a huge serpent.

It is called the "Serpent Mound." The head of the serpent lies towards the point of the spur, and then like the serpent, its body winds gracefully back for 700 feet, the tail curved into a triple coil. From this and other evidences lately collected, we may assume that the serpent was among the sacred animals. Between the jaws of this serpent there is a stone mound, bearing marks of long use as an altar. The body, which is a mere winding wall, is, on an average, five feet in height, and thirty-feet broad at the base near the centre. Doubtless this wall was much higher when first made, and owing to the rains of centuries it has become lower and broader.

Another mound, the shape and proportion of an alligator, may be seen in Licking county, Ohio, about one mile from Granville. This is also on a spur of land near the Licking River. Its length is 250 feet and height about four feet. Its whole outline is strictly conformable to the alligator with which animal they must have been familiar along the Mississippi, where they could easily journey by boat. Rather than transport the animal from the south, they doubtless erected this representation of what they must have held sacred.

In the State of Wisconsin there is one symbolic mound more worthy of notice than any other. It is called "the Elephant Mound," from the fact that it bears the proportion and conformability of the Mastodon. This people must have known something of this animal which in early times roamed over this continent. I think we should not be going too far if we supposed that the Mound-builders lived contemporaneously with the last of these monsters of the Prehistoric forests.

Signal Mounds.--It seems quite in keeping with what we have already seen of the sagacity of this wonderful race, that they should erect stations of observation in various suitable regions, so that signals could be given to the multitudes who dwelt in the plain, when they were threatened by an approaching enemy. If a fire were lit on a much burnt mound at the ancient fort near Bournville, it could be seen over a large portion of the valleys, where numerous works are found. No doubt, this was a signal mound, where the appointed watchman, like the watchman of Scripture, could give the alarm of the coming foe, enabling the industrious people to reach the fortress in safety.

On a hill 600 feet high, near Chillicothe, Ohio, there is a mound, which in the days of the Mound-builders must have been a signal mound. A light on this can be seen for twenty miles either up or down the valley.

The great mound at Miamisburg, Ohio, which is 68 feet high and 852 feet in circumference at its base, served, no doubt, this important department of warfare, as a fire kindled on it could flash light into Butler county, near Elk Creek, where it would again be taken up by the watchman there, and light flashed in the direction of Xenia, and from one signal mound to another until it would reach the great works at Newark. Thus in the course of an hour the whole southern portion of the State of Ohio could be warned of danger and prepare for combat or shelter.

Such a system has been used by all nations, both civilized and savage. We need not wonder that the Mound-builders with such sagacity and forethought, should establish such a system of alarm by which the inhabitants could be apprised of invasion.

Indefinite Mounds.--Of this class there are many. Thousands of such indefinite mounds and squares and circles are to be seen scattered over the various States of the Union. Their structure, composition and contents, give us no clue by which they may be assigned a place. It is believed that many of the strange works that abound in Butler county, Ohio, and which cannot be classified, are among the incomplete works, that is, works left unfinished by the builders.

IMPLEMENTS.--The people of Ohio have appropriated the implements of the Mound-builders to a large extent. Almost every homestead in Ohio is ornamented with some of those ancient implements and relics, yet tons have been taken away to grace private and public museums in all parts of this country, and even the museums of Europe and Asia. Among the implements are to be found spear heads, arrow heads; rimmers, knives, axes, hatchets, hammers, chisels, pestles, mortars, pottery, pipes, sculpture, gorgets, tubes, and articles of bone and clothing. Fragments of coarse, but uniformly spun and woven cloth have been found, of course not in preservation, but charred and in folds. One piece, near Middletown, Ohio, was found connected with tassels or ornaments, and may be seen at the Smithsonian Institute at Washington. In Anderson township, Ohio, native gold has been found for the first time. Several small ornaments of copper have been found covered with thin sheets of gold. Earrings also, made of meteoric iron, have been found, and a serpent cut out of mica. Some terra-cotta figures also, which give us an idea of the way the hair was dressed in the days of the Mound-builders. I cannot here name all the implements and ornaments that have been discovered. Though most of them are of hard stone, yet many have been found made of copper.

MINING, ETC.--That these people were miners, is evident from the prevalence of various mineral fragments and implements. At Mound City, near Chillicothe, has been found galena, none of which can be found in Ohio. Obsidian also is found in the shape of instruments, which they must have transported from the Rocky Mountains. Ancient mining shafts are found in Minnesota, where the solid rock had been excavated to the depth of 60 feet. On Isle Royal there are pits 60 feet deep, worked through nine feet of solid rock, at the bottom of which is a rich vein of copper, and in the two miles of excavations in the same straight line have been found the mining implements in great numbers. Such advancement in mining, sagacity in warfare, industrial pursuits, and geometric skill, as their works display, prove their great superiority of race over the modern Indian. Their implements, some of them most elaborately made, their brick-making and various other ingenious works, enable us to place them high as an industrial people, while their sacred enclosures, and altars, and tablets, together with the numerous evidences of their being an agricultural nation, enable us to place them far above the modern Indian in the scale of civilization.

The people of the United States, though much to be commended because of their prudence and forethought in laying out their modern towns and cities along the various water courses, which serve as the different highways of commerce, have by no means shown a superior sagacity in that respect to the Mound-builders, whose great centres of population are now mostly occupied, or are encroached upon by the modern cities.

We may with safety assert that the population about Newark, and Xenia, and Mound City, was far above what it is now. The country about Dayton, Miamisburg, Oxford, Hamilton and Marietta was, undoubtedly, in the days of the Mound-builders moving with a greater mass of human beings than it can boast of to-day.

And if those peaceable and industrious inhabitants were as numerous as their remains indicate, what must have been the strength of those invading hordes who caused their downfall and perhaps wiped out forever every living representative of that ancient race, who could leave no more lasting memorial of their existence and struggles than those mysterious mounds which have given them their name.

ANTIQUITY OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS.--Upon this point there are many theories, some regarding them as the earliest of the Indian tribes. Others give them a very great age and claim them to belong to preadamite man. By far the greater number of archaeologists, however, place their existence at about 2,000 years ago.

In favor of the latter view we may call as evidence the present forest trees, which, though of great age, still flourish on some of the ancient remains. On one of the mounds at Marietta, Ohio, there stood a gigantic tree, which, when cut down, displayed 800 rings of annual growth. In many other places, trees of the age of 750 years have been cut, and underneath them evidences of previous forests found. One tree 750 years old was found to have underneath it, on the walls of one of the forts in Ohio, the cast of another tree of equal size, which would carry us back at least 1,500 years since those trees began to grow on those deserted walls of that ancient fortification.

We have some data in the vegetable accumulations in the ancient mining shafts near Lake Superior, as well as in the vegetable and other matter deposited in the numerous pits and trenches found among the works. Though these evidences cannot give the exact time of their accumulation, yet they give it approximately, by comparison with similar recent deposits.

There is another still stronger argument in favor of their antiquity, viz., the decayed condition of the skeletons. The skeletons of the oldest Indian tribes are comparatively sound while those of the Mound-builders are much decayed. If they are sound when brought out, they at once begin to disintegrate in the atmosphere, which is a sure sign of their antiquity. We know that some skeletons in Europe have lately been exhumed, which, though buried more than 1,000 years, are comparatively firm and well-preserved. We are, I think, bound to ascribe a greater antiquity to the Mound-builders' skeletons than to those found in the ancient barrows of Europe. Other considerations, such as stream encroachment, and river-terrace formation, might also be brought in as presumptive arguments in favor of their great antiquity.

ORIGIN OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS.--This is a question not easily answered. It brings me into no discredit before the educated world to acknowledge ignorance on this mysterious point. The study of Craniology and Philology, in connection with Ethnology, shall alone throw light on this subject. Dr. Wilson says, in his "Prehistoric Man" (p. 123), "The ethnical classification of this strange race is still an unsettled question," and he declares without fear of contradiction, "that especially concerning the Scioto Mound skull, the elevation and breadth of the frontal bone, differs essentially from the Indian, and that the cerebral development was more in accordance with the character of that singular people, who without architecture have perpetuated, in mere structures of earth, the evidences of geometric skill, a definite means of determining angles, a fixed standard of measurement, and the capacity as well as the practice of repeating geometrically constructed works of large and uniform dimensions."