Otis Tufton Mason

“ All we can gather from historical documents leads to the belief that the stone implements, the pottery, the fortifications, the skeletons found, and the large mound (if it be one) were the work of a people existing anterior to the historic period and more advanced than the Knoshioni, or Powhatanic stocks. One argument grows out of the fact that all the relics have been dug or plowed up. Stone axes, flint or chert arrow and spear heads have often been found on the surface or just below the surface of the land, while the pottery, gouge, amulet, &c., have been found at various depths. ”

“ I may further urge that, had the object of the workman been solely to deceive, he would have scarcely selected a stone whereon to carve of a granite character, and especially a piece of granulite, one of the hardest of rocks to work, being not only hard in quality but of crystalline structure, and ill-adapted for receiving a polish, at least under rough tools. Granting, however, that for the reason stated we are justified in assigning the origin of the carving to the Indian period, there still remain many difficulties in the way of determining its object or meaning. ”

“ To every thoughtful person there is a peculiar interest in the remains of nations that have fulfilled their destiny, and passed away; and this interest grows to fascination when studying the works of art, however rude, of people who have disappeared, and left no other legible records of their history and characteristics. ”

“ Occasionally with the bones of the dead are noticed small cubes of galena; and in our collection is a ball of this ore, taken from a mound, weighing a pound and two ounces, which probably did service, enveloped in raw hide, as some form of weapon. No lead, however, has here ever been discovered with any of the aboriginal remains. It is passing strange that the Illinois Indians, so well acquainted with lead ore as we know them to have been, should have never gained the knowledge of its fusibility and ready reduction to metal. ”

“ There are localities in this State, one of which in New Britain, I have particularly examined, where trap-rock, broken from the face of a cliff by the atmospheric vicissitudes of centuries, has accumulated in a sloping pile at the foot of the cliff. This débris consists of elongated and angular fragments, some of which, untouched as they are by art, would, if found in our fields to-day, be mistaken for genuine Indian relics. Kettles excavated from lumps of soapstone are sometimes found. ”

“ The chips of flint, shells, bones of animals, and the scattered human bones were on the surface when the burial took place, and after the body had been placed in position the dirt on the surface that could be the most easily obtained was gathered up together with whatever was scattered over the surface. Of this the mound was built, and, from what we know of the habits of the Indians of the present, it takes but little imagination to form a picture of the squaws gathering up this material in their baskets and carrying it to the place where it was wanted. ”

“ Interspersed throughout the mass of ashes filling the basin were many small pieces of bone and teeth converted into animal charcoal, and bits of flint, perhaps weapons, shivered and broken by the fierce heat of the pyre. I also observed many minute scales of burnt mica and shell, but found no part of any pipe or other object carved in stone, or of pottery. ”

“ The next class of mounds in this county are so numerous and were obviously constructed with so little care and labor that we must regaid them as the depositories or cemeteries of the common and untitled dead. They are seen on every knob and ridge of the bluffs and on the hills bordering all of our smaller streams. ”

“ Human remains were found, and one broken piece of pottery, too small to tell its shape, and one flint arrow-point. The pottery was different from any I have ever seen, of bright-red clay and small pebbles. There are probably a great many mounds about 12 or 15 miles from here, in the woods, all of which are built on what is called Fleming's Ridge, mentioned above. Probably the Mound Builders settled on the same ground for this reason: the best ford on the river was just south of the mounds, in fact it is the only place I know of where it can be forded at all for miles. ”

“ Seldom rising in elevation more than a foot or two above the general surface, they frequently cover a space of 10 or 15 yards in diameter, and we sometimes find eight or ten of them in a row, along the crest of a ridge, separated from each other by intervals of 10 or 15 yards; each containing the bones of a greater or less number of individuals in different states of preservation. Their repose is often rudely disturbed by the plow, and their human remains scattered over the fields with broker pottery and occasionally flint implements, stone axes, bone awls, and other relics. ”

“ This pile of stone across the neck of the bluff shows evidence of having been a wall. To see if there were any signs of regularity in its structure, and upon what base it had been constructed, we took out a cross-section of the stone in one place where they seemed to have been thrown down, and partial sections in several other places. First, the materials are sandstone, the same as that of the bluffs. Many of them are flat, all irregular, just as would occur in breaking up that kind of stone. In size they vary from some smaller than a man's head to those as large as one man can lift. ”

“ And in studying the life, habits, and burial customs indicated by these relics, I can see no necessity for ascribing them to the agency of a distinct or superior race, when they express so unmistakably the known status of Indian intellect. ”

“ Although it has been in cultivation for many years, traces of camp-fires are yet seen all over it, and its surface and the adjoining fields are yet littered with potsherds, flint chips, and decayed bones and teeth of wild animals. One of the very few entire pieces of pottery ever recovered in this county was plowed up with some human bones on this mound in the early history of its cultivation. It was a globular earthen vessel, 10 or 12 inches in diameter, marked externally as usual with the impression of the fabric in which it was moulded or sustained while drying. ”

“ I can find no satisfactory proof of the occupancy of this territory by any tribe of Indians, unless it may have been the residence of the Kah Kwahs, a tribe said to have been driven out by the Iroquois, and which has wholly disappeared. It is claimed by some that there was once a tribe called Alleghans occupying lands in or near this county.
It appears to me that the Iroquois, admitted to be the most intelligent and powerful of all the tribes or confederacies, were never far enough advanced to construct the fortifications or to make the polished stone implements found in our county ”

“ A comparison of the pottery immediately above and below this stratum of soil representing a period of two hundred years ought to give us some idea of the rate of progression made in the arts. And a critical comparison of the different styles of pottery with each other in different portions of the heap should give us a rude idea of the age of the shell-heaps. ”

“ The growth of timber is universally the same on the mounds and in the surrounding forests.
Occasionally a single one is found, but they are almost invariably in groups, numbering from 3 to 10, and sometimes more. Commonly they follow the crest of the ridge, but when they occur in the bottoms or on a level bluff they are found in direct lines or in gentle curves, extending generally east and west. They exist in large numbers in almost every bottom and on nearly every bluff, on both sides of the river, throughout the entire county, as well as on its branches near the main stream. ”

“ The largest earthen mound, which I call the grand mound because all the graves are facing it, is about ninety feet in diameter, and at this time about 4 feet high; but when first discovered by whites it was 5 or 6 feet high. This mound has not yet been examined, but others in the valley, not so high but larger in diameter, have been looked into and were found to contain graves, pottery ware, pipes and arrow-heads made of dirt or cut out of rock. These are found in the graves in the mound and in those around it. ”

“ Most of the material of the mounds is the rich black mold of the bottom land, with occasional lumps of red clay. The soil on their sides and summits produces corn, cotton, grass, vines, and bushes in full luxuriance. The perimeter of the base of the great mound is 534 paces. As the ground had been recently plowed and was soaked with a deluge of rain, a pace will represent little more than 2 feet. I give the circumference provisionally at 370 yards. The area on the top is like the base, oblong north and south, but its figure is more regular. ”

“ In the autumn of 1863 or winter of 1864, a remarkable sculptured stone, representing a human face and head in profile, was discovered in the neighborhood of St. George, a village in Charlotte County, in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. This curiosity was found by a man who was searching for stone for building purposes, and was lying about 100 feet from the shore of Lake Utopia, under a bluff of the same formation as the material on which the head is sculptured, which abounds in the neighborhood. ”

“ The southern Hue of this country in its entire length coincides very nearly with a small stream, called Indian Creek, which drains the prairies of a portion of Sangamon County, and, running almost directly west, joins the Illinois ten miles below Beardstown. This creek, too, was the resort of the hunter tribes, and along its banks are still traces of many of their camps and relics of their home life; and on the hills overlooking its valley are the low mound graves of their dead. ”

“ I think that a careful or even superficial examination of the carving must impress the observer with the idea that it is intended to represent the face of an Indian, and the head, although viewed only laterally, certainly presents many of the peculiarities of the North American type. ”

“ No shell heaps have been noticed except at A, where the common mussel of Salt River seems to have been used for some purpose other than pottery manufacture, perhaps as food.
Nothing is known as to our caves or cliff shelters having been used for dwellings. A cave east of Danville, on the farm of Samuel Stone, contained some human skeletons; but as the remains had been thrown down into a sink-hole without other opening, and as there were no implements, I suppose that the persons were Indians, or perhaps murdered whites of a comparatively recent date, and not mound-builders. ”

“ On the west side of the valley, on a point of the bluff highest above the valley, I find an earthwork commanding the surrounding country, and facing toward the east and south. The bluffs are divided from those south by the Indian Creek, which enters the Fox about one- quarter of a mile distant, coming from the west, and has cut out a valley from that direction. The general shape of the fortification may be seen by an examination of Fig. 1. The large mound at the corner is highest, rising some 5 feet above the natural surface of the ground. ”

“ The country here is very hilly and rocky, Makanda being situated in a gorge, through which the Drury Creek runs. North of Makanda, where the road turns east, is a side gorge, through which runs a small tributary stream of the Drury, more or less lined with rocky bluffs on both sides. The surface beyond the bluffs in some places slopes upward; at others the bluffs are nearly as high as the general elevation of the surrounding country. On the west of a bluff known as the Stone Fort another smaller stream comes down between the bluffs. ”

“ About the center of the inclosure was a large pile of stone bowlders, most of which have been removed to the level of the ground. There is, however, a visible outline of the stone-work, which consisted of a paved circular space. No excavation has been made in either the stone or clay work beyond 1 or 2 feet in depth; consequently the character of the mound is unknown. A forest, containing oak trees over 30 inches in diameter and other large trees, covers most of the work, but a portion extends into a field and has been almost razed by the plow. ”

“ As a rule, the objects carved in stone by the stone-age denizens of this region, exhibit such flagrant deficiency of taste or talent in design, and such low order of skill in execution, that we must conclude the few elaborate and finely-finished specimens now and then discovered here are importations from a distance, secured either by barter or reprisals in war, and were made by a people of higher intelligence and advancements in the arts. ”

“ At Igleside, in 1861, human bones were disinterred at two localities more than a hundred yards apart, from a depth of 8 feet; and recently, in October, 1877, others were discovered in a sand hill, or "dune," near what is locally known as the "False Live Oak," in Refugio County. About a month after the discovery I went to the spot and found that a large quantity of human bones, including several skulls, had been exposed by the caving of the "dune;" but being much decayed, had broken to pieces in falling, and quickly dissolved in the Gulf tide at the base of the "dune." ”