Indian mound

“ He made no roads for he needed none, save a path into the valley. But the moose and deer and buffalo required new feeding-grounds, fresh salt licks and change of climate, and the great roads they broke open across the watersheds declare nothing if not a need.
The ancient Indian confederacies which tilled the soil of this continent and built great mounds for defense and worship—so great, indeed, that the people have even been known as “mound-builders”—undoubtedly first traveled the highest highways of America. ”

“ If mounds were the only works remaining of these ancient people, we would not take so great an interest in them, and, as it is, we are not to suppose that all the mounds are the works of those people we call the Mound Builders. Recent investigation and historical evidence unite in showing that some comparatively recent Indian tribes formed and used mound structures. Early explorers have left abundant testimony to show that in many cases the Indians resorted to mound-burial. ”

“ This fact, taken with a sentiment that has exalted the builders of the mounds to a stage of civilization far in advance of that evinced by the commonalty of the savage races of North America as they exist in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has erected a barrier between the Indian and the mound-builder, which, though wholly imaginary when subjected to close analysis, is so great that they have been regarded either as misinformed, or rash, who have ventured to question its validity. ”

“ Deferring, however, for the present, any comparison between the artistic ability of the Mound-Builder and the modern Indian, attention may be turned to a class of objects from the mounds, notable, indeed, for the skill with which they are wrought, but to be considered first in another way and for another purpose than mere artistic comparison. ”

“ Thus any work which gives evidence of having been in existence five hundred years may belong to the mound-building era. And throughout all these five hundred years there is hardly a time when there is not evidence of Indian occupation. So the line between the mound-building Indians and the later Historichighways01hulbuoft 0082ts crop.png
Early Highways on the Watersheds of Ohio
Indians, among whom the building of mounds was a lost art, is exceedingly hard to draw. ”

“ The great number of these heaps of earth scattered over the country indicate a considerable Indian population extending over no small period of time.
Indian mounds or tumuli are of various forms and, with few exceptions, may be classed as round or conical, elongate or wall-like pyramidal, and effigy or emblematic mounds. The conical mounds in the United States vary in height from scarcely a perceptible swell to elevation of 80 and sometimes 100 feet. Ours are smaller the highest not over 25 feet. Those in the Baraboo region seldom exceed in height of 2, 3, or 4 feet. ”

“ Since this is a contested point, both as to the presence of the works of the Mound-builders in the North-west and as to their great antiquity, I subjoin a portion of a report on these mounds made by Gen. H. W. Thomas, U. S. A., to Dr. Thomas of the Surveying Expedition, in the Sixth Annual Report of the U. S. Geological Survey under Dr. Hayden in 1872, pp. 656–7:
“‘Lewis and Clarke reported seeing Indian mounds 1000 miles above the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri, but this report is not verified.’ So says Mr. ”

“ If this view, which is steadily gaining ground, be correct, our imaginary race of "Mound-Builders" is broken up and vanishes, and henceforth we may content ourselves with speaking of the authors of the ancient earthworks as "Indians." There were times in the career of sundry Indian tribes when circumstances induced them to erect mounds as sites for communal houses or council houses, medicine-lodges or burial-places ”

“ Another 103argument for the construction of the mounds at a remote period, and which is certainly of little more value than Indian tradition, is that which supposes the Mound-builders to have erected works on the lowest of the river terraces existing at the time of their occupancy of the country. Much stress has been laid on the fact that no works have been found on the lowest-formed of the river terraces which mark the subsidence of the western rivers. ”

“ They exhibited all other characteristics common to mankind in an uncivilized state. The denial of their resort to mound-building, for the same purposes as other tribes in similar circumstances, carries with it the necessity to account for such an anomalous exception.
It is often stated that the Indian, when interrogated concerning the mounds and earthworks of the country, shakes his head in ignorance, affirming that he knows not their origin. This fact is carried further than it should be when it is invoked to prove the non-Indian origin of these mounds. ”

“ Eminent as is much of the authority which thus contends for an artistic ability on the part of the Mound-Builders far in advance of the attainments of the present Indian in the same line, the question is one admitting of argument; and if some of the best products of artistic handicraft of the present Indians be compared with objects of a similar nature taken from the mounds, it is more than doubtful if the artistic inferiority of the latter-day Indian can be substantiated. ”

“ With regard to the mounds so widely scattered between the two oceans, it may also be said that mound-building tribes were known in the early history of discovery of this continent, and that the vestiges of art discovered do not excel in any respect the arts of the Indian tribes known to history. There is, therefore, no reason for us to search for an extra-limital origin through lost tribes for the arts discovered in the mounds of North America. ”

“ The Appendix is a partial review of the accounts of the American mounds and an attempt to show a similarity between the mound-builders and the Tuatha dè Danaans in Ireland; but such theories have been too often raised and fallen to accept this. Our Indian is the type of primitive man ”

“ Indian mounds—Their origin and object—Tumuli near Natchez—Skulls and other remains—Visit to the fortifications or mounds at Seltzertown—Appearance and description of the mounds—Their age—Reflections—History of the Natchez.
The Indian mounds, those gigantic mausolea of unhistoried nations, will ever present a subject of absorbing interest to the reflecting mind. ”

“ They are more numerous, more concentrated, and in some particulars on a larger scale of labor, than the works which approach them on their several borders, and with whose various characters they are blended. Their great numbers may be the result of frequent changes of residence by a comparatively limited population, in accordance with a superstitious trait of the Indian nature, leading to the abandonment of places where any great calamity has been suffered. The contents of the Indian mounds are very various and interesting. ”

“ A low barrow is also observed on that side of the valley, which some persons believe to be artificial; it has very much the character of the Indian mounds in other parts of the country, very regular in its outline, and not larger than many which are known to be the work of the red man ”

“ The smaller streams amid their hills did not rise so high, and when they did rise safe camping spots could be found on high ground not far removed.
What was true of these Indians was probably true of any antecedent race.
Assuming, then, that the mound-building people lived (in these states more particularly noticed) on the lesser “inland” [Pg 60] streams where the later Indians were found, there is no question but that they moved about the country more or less as the Indians themselves did. ”

“ It is for future scholarship to point out to us the origin, movements, and destiny of this earliest race after a careful comparative study of the remains which contain all we know of them. But may we not believe that the great watersheds were to them what they have been for every other race which has occupied this land? We submit: the greater watersheds should be carefully considered in connection with the study and classification of the various kinds of prehistoric remains with a view to solving the question of the movements of the mound-building Indians in America. ”

“ MOUNDS AND CLIFF DWELLINGS.—Who the Indians were originally, where they came from, how they reached our continent, nobody knows. Long before the Europeans came, the country was inhabited by a people, probably the same as the Indians, known as mound builders. Their mounds, of many sizes and shapes and intended for many purposes, are scattered over the Ohio and Mississippi valleys in great numbers. Some are in the shape of animals, as the famous serpent mound in Ohio. Some were for defense, some were village sites, and others were for burial purposes. ”

“ Then this type of structure comes to be regarded as the normal for house-building everywhere. "Through this natural series of changes in type there is a tendency to the development of mounds as sites for habitations and for the council-house of the clan or tribe, the sites being either separate mounds or single large mounds, according to circumstances. Thus the study of the living Seminole Indians and of the shell-mounds in the same [Pg 382] vicinity ... suggests a possible origin for a custom of mound-building at one time so prevalent among the North American Indians [858] ." ”

“ The traces of natives were found every where, but they did not show themselves. In one of our excursions a tree was observed that had been cut down by some sharp instrument, and we had afterwards reason to believe that the natives were possessed of iron tools, which they might have obtained from the Malays. A curious mound, constructed entirely of shells, rudely heaped together, measuring thirty feet in diameter, and fourteen feet in height, was also noticed near the beach, and was supposed to be a burying-place of the Indians. ”

“ It is only now by persistent and unwearied efforts that we can hope to conquer the Indians by the arts of peace, and by inducing him to take the hoe in place of the tomahawk, to meet nature's obstacles. Who can fail to heave a sigh for our northern mound builders, and to lament the destruction of so vast and civilized a race as the peaceful Toltecans of Mexico, of the Mississippi, and of the Ohio, to which our Takawgamis belonged? After all, their life must in the main, ever remain a mystery.
THE LOST RACE
"One of our visits to the mound was at night." ”

“ The speculations of the supposititious Indian sage, though quite as sound as those of many a "Mosaic Geology," which sells exceedingly well, have no great value if we consider them by the light of modern science. The waters are supposed to have originally covered the whole globe; to have deposited the rocky masses which compose its mountains by processes comparable to those which are now forming mud, sand, and shingle; and then to have gradually lowered their level, leaving the spoils of their animal and vegetable inhabitants embedded in the strata. ”

“ Undoubtedly they were skilled in agriculture, from the remains of ancient garden-beds, which were cultivated in a methodical manner. The modern Indians give no such evidence of labor. For wherever they are found they love to roam in undisputed possession of the forest, and lead an indolent life. Of course I do not assign this as a valid reason for their not being identified with the Mound-builders. An ancient race may have a degenerate offspring. ”

“ Learned opinion is divided as to whether the mounds represent an indigenous or exotic civilization; whether they were built by the ancestors of the near or remote Indian tribes of North America, or by a race now extinct, or by some mysterious process or other, "vanished." Also they differ as to the antiquity of the mounds, some ascribing to them quite a recent origin, and others ascribing to them an antiquity of thousands of years. ”

“ Only skilled mountaineers are able to detect the marks that serve to guide the Indians, such as slight abrasions of the looser rocks, the displacement of stones here and there, and bent bushes and weeds. A general knowledge of the topography is, then, the main guide, enabling one to determine where the trail ought to go—must go. One of these Indian trails crosses the range by a nameless pass between the head waters of the south and middle forks of the San Joaquin, the other between the north and middle forks of the same river, just to the south of “The Minarets” ”

“ The great seat of empire was in the drainage area of the Mississippi river; on this river and its tributaries were the heaviest mound-building populations. Few mounds are found east of the Alleghany mountains.
In the Catalogue of Prehistoric Works East of the Rocky Mountains, issued by the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution, [5] the geographical extent and density of the mounds in central North America is brought out state by state with striking suggestiveness. ”

“ The importance and bearing of this evidence does not stop with what has been stated, for it is so interlocked with other facts relating to the works of the "veritable mound-builders" as to leave no hiatus into which the theory of a lost race or a "Toltec occupation" can possibly be thrust. It forms an unbroken chain connecting the mound-builders and historical Indians which no sophistry or reasoning can break. ”