Fig. 70.—Newark Earthworks, Ohio.
Fig. 70.—Newark Earthworks, Ohio.
Several striking coincidences between the details of these works and others of the same class are worthy of notice. The diameter of the circle, the perfect form of which has been noted, is nearly identical with two others forming parts of remarkable groups in the Scioto valley, one of them seventy miles distant. The square has also the same area as a rectangular enclosure belonging to the “Hopeton Works,†where it is attached to a circle 1050 feet in diameter, and to an avenue constructed between two parallel embankments 2400 feet long, leading to the edge of a bank immediately over the river-flat of the Scioto. A like coincidence in the precise extent of the area enclosed has been noticed in the octagon of a group, called the High Bank Works, on the same river-terrace; and in another, at the junction of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers. The authors of the elaborate surveys embodied in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, remark generally that the figures of the Scioto valley earthworks are not only accurate squares and perfect circles, but are in most cases of corresponding dimensions; each square being 1080 feet a side, and the diameter of each of the larger and smaller circles a fraction over 1700 and 800 feet. This they observe is “a coincidence which could not possibly be accidental, and which must possess some significance. It certainly establishes the existence of some standard of measurement among the ancient people, if not the possession of some means of determining angles.â€[84]It is no less important to note that it establishes the use of instruments. A standard of measurement could not otherwise exist, still less be applied, on so large a scale in geometrical construction; and the very simplest instruments that we can conceive of, constitute no less certain evidence of a condition of intellectual development attained by this ancient people very different from anything achieved by the most advanced Indian tribes. Varied, moreover, as the combinations of their singular groups of earthworks are, traces are clearly discernible that certain well-defined plans of construction, and a proportionate scale of parts, guided their builders. Justly estimating the importance of such coincidences, and the still greater value of the evidence of the construction of geometric figures on so large a scale, the authors of the surveys have detailed their method of procedure, in order “to put at once all scepticism at rest, which might otherwise arise as to the regularity of these works.†This important point rests accordingly on the most satisfactory evidence;[85]nor are even the imperfections observed in the construction of some of the rectangular figures without their significance, as a test of the extent to which geometry had been mastered by the ancient builders.
That this remarkable class of earthworks originated in some totally different purpose from the strongholds already described, is obvious. Their site is invariably on a level plateau, and their avenues are connected with the neighbouring flats by laboriously constructed approaches, as if to facilitate the solemn march of processions. The embankments are frequently slight; where a ditch occurs it is generally in the interior; and their whole construction is in striking contrast to the defensive enclosures in their vicinity. At Newark they extend over the level terrace, and, with outlying structures, embrace an area of several miles in extent; while on each side of the Valley, formed by the Racoon Creek, military works occupy prominent elevations presenting special natural advantages for defence. One of those, obviously of a defensive character, encloses the summit of a high hill; but it also contains a small circle with tumuli, covering “altars†corresponding to those hereafter described, which give their peculiar character to the sacred mounds. There is no room, therefore, for doubt that the various works referred to illustrate what may be styled the civil, military, and ecclesiastical structures of the same people, including in the latter public games, such as among many ancient nations constituted one special feature of their religious festivals.
One important inference deducible from the peculiar features of the works here referred to, is the state of knowledge of their constructors. The most skilful engineer of our own day would find it difficult, without the aid of instruments, to lay down an accurate square on the scale of some of those described, enclosing an area four-fifths of a mile in circumference. Circles of moderate dimensions might indeed be constructed, so long as it was possible to describe them by a radius; but with such works measuring five thousand four hundred feet, or upwards of a mile in circumference, the ancient geometrician must have had instruments, and means of measuring arcs: for it seems impossible to conceive of the accurate construction of figures on such a scale, otherwise than by finding the angle by its arc, from station to station, through the whole course of their delineation. It is no less obvious from the correspondence in area and relative proportions of so many of the regular enclosures, that the Mound-Builders possessed a recognised standard of measurement; and that some peculiar significance, possibly of astronomical origin, was attached to figures of certain forms and dimensions.
Fig. 71.—Cincinnati Tablet.
Fig. 71.—Cincinnati Tablet.
The city of Cincinnati occupies a remarkable site, within a fine basin of hills, on the Ohio river, which had for its older occupants the remarkable people now referred to. But the growth of the modern city has swept away every vestige of their old earthworks; and no definite record of their details has been preserved. One memorial, however, survives, which was discovered in 1841, when excavating a large mound within the limits of the city. It has been the subject of ingenious speculations; and may have some bearing on our present investigations. In the centre of the mound, slightly below the level of the natural surface, a skeleton was found greatly decayed, alongside of which lay two pointed bones, about seven inches long, formed from the tibia of the elk, and the engraved tablet shown in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 71). It is made of fine-grained sandstone, and measures five inches in length, by two and six-tenths across the middle, and three inches at the ends. Upon its smooth surface an elaborate figure is represented, by sinking the interspaces within a rectangular border, so as to produce what has been regarded by some as a hieroglyphic inscription. But the most remarkable feature of its graven device is the series of lines by which the plain surface at each end is divided. The ends of the stone, it will be observed, form arcs of circles of different dimensions. The greater arc is divided by a series of lines, twenty-seven in number, into equal spaces, and within this is another series of seven oblique lines. The lesser arc at the opposite end is divided in like manner by two series of twenty-five and eight lines, similarly arranged. This tablet has not failed to receive due attention. It has been noted that it bears a “singular resemblance to the Egyptian cartouche.†Its series of lines were discovered to yield, in the sum of the products of the longer and shorter ones, a near approximation to the number of days of the year. An astronomical origin was accordingly assigned to it; and it has been surmised to be an ancient calendar, recording the approximation of the Mound-Builders to the true length of the solar year. Mr. Squier perhaps runs to an opposite extreme in suggesting that it is nothing more than a stamp, of which specimens have been found made of clay, both in Mexico and in the Mississippi mounds; and which were probably used in impressing ornamental patterns on cloth or prepared skins. Such clay stamps always betray their purpose by the handle attached to them, as in the corresponding bronze stamps common on Roman sites; whereas the Cincinnati tablet is about half an inch in thickness, with no means of holding or using it as a stamp, and bears on its unfinished reverse grooves apparently made in sharpening the tools by which it was engraved. But whatever theory be adopted as to its original object or destination, the series of lines on its two ends have justly attracted attention: for they constitute no part of the device; and can scarcely be regarded as an ornamental border. Possibly in them we have a record of certain scales of measurement in use by the Mound-Builders; and if so, the discovery is calculated to add fresh interest to our study of the geometrical structures, which, far more than their great mounds, are the true characteristics of that mysterious people.[86]
The precise objects aimed at in the construction of the remarkable series of American earthworks here referred to must obviously be difficult to determine with certainty. Analogies to these structures have been traced in the works of Indian tribes formerly in occupation of Carolina and Georgia. They were accustomed to erect a circular terrace or platform on which their council-house stood. In front of this, a quadrangular area was enclosed with earthen embankments, within which public games were played and captives tortured. To this was sometimes added a square or quadrangular terrace at the opposite end of the enclosure. Upon the circular platform it is also affirmed that the sacred fire was maintained by the Creek Indians, as part of their most cherished rites as worshippers of the sun. But even the evidence, thus far, is vague and unsatisfactory; and any recognisable analogies point, at best, only to the possibility of some of the Indian tribes having perpetuated on a greatly inferior scale some maimed rites borrowed from their civilised precursors. The scale upon which the Southern Indian earthworks were constructed may compare with those of the Iroquois in the State of New York, but in no degree approximates to the erections of the Mound-Builders. What, for example, shall we make of the graded ways, such as that of Piketon, Ohio, where an approach has been laboriously formed from one terrace to another, one thousand and eighty feet long by two hundred and fifteen feet in greatest width? The excavated earth has been employed, in part, to construct lofty embankments on each side of the ascent, which are now covered with trees of large size. Beyond this approach, mounds and half-obliterated earthworks indicate that it was only part of an extensive series of structures. But, viewed alone, it is one of the most remarkable monuments of prehistoric times to be found on the whole continent, and certainly bears not the slightest resemblance, either in its character or the great scale on which it is executed, to any known work of the Red Indians.
[83]Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, pp. 26-29, plate x.
[83]
Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, pp. 26-29, plate x.
[84]Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 48.
[84]
Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 48.
[85]Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 57.
[85]
Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 57.
[86]The woodcut is engraved from a rubbing taken from the original. Mr. Whittlesey has included this tablet among his “Archæological Fraudsâ€; but the result of inquiries made by me during a recent visit to Cincinnati has removed from my mind any doubt of its genuineness.
[86]
The woodcut is engraved from a rubbing taken from the original. Mr. Whittlesey has included this tablet among his “Archæological Fraudsâ€; but the result of inquiries made by me during a recent visit to Cincinnati has removed from my mind any doubt of its genuineness.
CHAPTER XI.SEPULCHRAL MOUNDS.
SOURCES OF INFORMATION—HILL MOUNDS—THE SCIOTO MOUND—THE TAYLOR MOUND—THE ISSAQUINA MOUND—THE ELLIOT MOUND—THE LOCKPORT MOUND—BLACK BIRD’S GRAVE—SCIOTO VALLEY MOUNDS—SYMBOLICAL RITES—HUMAN SACRIFICES—THE GRAVE CREEK MOUND—COMMON SEPULCHRES—CREMATION—SCIOTO MOUND CRANIUM—SACRED FESTIVALS.
When the significance of the military and sacred enclosures of the Mound-Builders has been fully estimated as memorials of a remarkable people belonging altogether to prehistoric ages of the New World, their sepulchral mounds acquire a new value. In the former we see unmistakable indications of a settled condition of society greatly in advance of anything attained by the Red Indian, and of populous communities devoted to agriculture and other industrial arts. From the latter we may hope to recover some traits of ethnical character; to find in the gifts to the dead illustrations of their arts and customs; and to catch by means of their sepulchral rites some glimpses of the nature of that belief which stimulated the Mound-Builders to the laborious construction of so many sacred earthworks. Their great mounds are for us not merely the sepulchres of an ancient race; they are the cemetery of an early though partial civilisation, from whence we may derive illustrations of the life, manners, and ideas of a people over whose graves the forest had so long resumed its sway, that it seemed to the Red Indians’ supplanters to have been the first occupant of the soil.
Barrows, dunes, moat-hills, cairns, and earth or stone mounds of various kinds, abound in many parts of the Old as well as of the New World, and are nowhere more abundant than in some districts of the British Isles. But although corresponding primitive structures are met with from the Gulf of the St. Lawrence to the Isthmus of Panama, and beyond it, far into the southern continent: nevertheless the works of the Mound-Builders have a character of their own altogether peculiar; and though numbered by thousands, they are limited to well-defined areas, leaving a large portion of the continent, including the whole of the Atlantic sea-board, without any traces of their presence. The Mound-Builders were not a maritime people. Their whole traffic was confined to the great rivers, along the banks of which their ancient traces abound, and to communication by long-obliterated overland routes of travel. Notwithstanding the careful observations which have been put on record relative to the mounds and earthworks of “The West,†much yet remains to be disclosed; for, happily, the excavation of such earth-pyramids is a work greatly too laborious and costly to tempt those who are influenced by mere idle curiosity; while their contents, however valuable to the archæologist, offer no such stimulus to cupidity as, in Mexico and Peru, has led to the destruction of thousands of the memorials of extinct arts and customs.
As a general rule, the earth and stone works appear to have been alike constructed of materials derived from the immediate neighbourhood; so that such differences do not, in the majority of instances, supply any indication of diversity in the enclosed deposits. A special character, however, appears to pertain to one class, designated “Hill Mounds,†from the sites they occupy. Of these Mr. Squier remarks: “The most elevated and commanding positions are frequently crowned with them, suggesting at once the purposes to which some of the mounds or cairns of the ancient Celts were applied: that of signal or alarm posts. It is not unusual to find detached mounds among the hills back from the valleys, and in secluded places, with no other monuments near. The hunter often encounters them in the depths of the forests when least expected: perhaps overlooking some waterfall, or placed in some narrow valley where the foot of man seldom enters.†Similar structures crown many western heights; but some at least are of Indian origin; and our knowledge of the characteristics and contents of those of an earlier race must be greatly extended, before we can assign the true and probably varied objects aimed at in their erection.
But it is to the exploration of one of the smaller hill-mounds that we owe the recovery of the most characteristic illustration of the physical type of the ancient Mound-Builders. The “Scioto Mound Cranium,†described in a later chapter, was obtained from a mound erected on the summit of a commanding height overlooking the valley of the Scioto, with its numerous earthworks. A conical knoll, crowning the hill, rises with such regularity as almost to induce the belief that it is artificial; and on its apex stands the tumulus overshadowed by the trees of the primitive forest. Here under a covering of tough yellow clay, impervious to moisture, a plate of mica rested on an inner cairn, composed chiefly of large rough stones; and within this, a compacted bed of carbonaceous matter contained the skull, with a few bones, and some shells of fresh-water molluscs, disposed irregularly round it. This, therefore, it will be seen, confirms the idea that cremation played an important part in the ancient sepulchral rites.
More recently Professor O. C. Marsh explored the Taylor Mound, another of the hill-mounds, about two and a half miles south of Newark. Apparently a cemetery had been excavated on the summit of the ridge, within which lay the remains of at least eight skeletons, chiefly of women and children, all huddled together, and some of them showing evidence of long exposure. Along with those were found nine lance or arrow-heads of flint, six small axes, one of them made of hematite, and the remainder of diorite or compact greenstone, a small wedge or hatchet of hematite, a flint chisel, a scraper, numerous implements of bone and horn, including needles, a spatula or modeller’s tool, and a whistle made from the tooth of a black bear. Above this ossuary a number of dead had been disposed: some of them evidently interred with care, others as if slaughtered and flung upon the heap of dead; while a mass of incinerated human remains left no doubt on the minds of the explorers that cremation had taken place directly over the dead, and before the regular interment was completed. Hence they were led to the conclusion that the funeral rites had probably included a suttee sacrifice.
Directly under the apex of the mound upwards of one hundred beads of native copper, intermingled with a few shell beads, lay in contact with portions of the cervical vertebræ of a young child, showing that they had been worn as a necklace. The shell beads are about half an inch long, and have been carefully polished. The copper beads are only half this length, and wrought with the hammer out of the native copper; but with so much skill, that in most of them it is difficult to detect the joining. Only two of the skulls were sufficiently preserved to indicate their true form. Both were small, and showed the vertical occiput and large parietal diameter, supposed to pertain to the Mound-Builders, but which are characteristic of many American crania.
The contents of the two hill-mounds are thus seen to differ widely; and so far furnish no clew to any special mode of burial or funeral ceremonies. But the interment of a detached skull, as shown in the Scioto Mound, is no solitary case. I was shown by Mr. L. M. Hosea, of Cincinnati, a large bowl-shaped vessel of steatite, capable of holding about two gallons, discovered by the blowing down of a tree which stood on the summit of a mound on the borders of Lincoln and Casey Counties, Kentucky. It had been inverted over a human skull, beside which lay a number of shell beads, and a quantity of mica. In the same mound was a large conch-shell, hollowed out, and filled with bone implements, including two large, well-finished whistles, several deers’ horn hammers, and about thirty bone pins and awls. A perforated copper plate, and some well-finished stone and flint implements, completed the contents of the mound. Unfortunately the skull was too much decayed to admit of preservation.
I am indebted to Mr. W. Marshall Anderson for some curious disclosures of the contents of another mound recently opened by him at Issaquina, Mississippi. The first remarkable discovery was the exposure of three skeletons disposed vertically, as if they had been buried with their heads above ground. On reaching the natural level, a heap of ashes, with numerous fragments of bone, showed where cremation had taken place. Over this were three skeletons disposed at length, side by side, with a drinking vessel and a wide-mouthed bowl of native pottery close to the head of each. Numerous implements, including tools of copper, well-finished celts of jasper and lignite, and a grotesque clay-pipe representing a human head with dog’s ears, and a frog’s mouth, lay alongside of them. But most noticeable of all was the discovery of two inverted bowls in the centre of the mound, underneath each of which lay a human skull. One of them is described by Mr. Anderson as “a beautiful skull, worthy of a Greek.†But on being exposed to the sun, as they dried, they crumbled to ashes, “literally,†as he says, “disintegrating before my eyes, whilst I was busy gathering up copper and stone implements which would have waited for ever unharmed.â€
The only skeletons exposed in the Evans Mound,—a large mound, near Newark, Ohio, at the opening of which I was present, were in a similar condition of extreme decay. Among the contents of the Taylor Mound, in the same locality, the curious fact was communicated to me, that the fractured quarter of a nearly spherical mass of hematite was found, which at the time attracted less notice than a well-finished wedge and hatchet of the same material. But on subsequently opening the Elliot and Wilson Mounds, situated about five miles apart, in the same valley, each of them was found to include among its contents a corresponding fragment of hematite, which on being placed in juxtaposition, proved to be portions of the same broken sphere, or nodule of hematite, valued in all probability for some wonder-working power. Meteoric stones and pieces of hematite have been repeatedly found in the Mounds; and were evidently objects of special regard. The Elliot Mound furnished another object of interest, in a pipe 7½ inches long, neatly carved in grey limestone, with the bowl finished in the form of a bear’s head. As shown in Fig. 72, it is of an unusual style of design.
Fig. 72.—Stone Pipe, Elliot Mound, Ohio.
Fig. 72.—Stone Pipe, Elliot Mound, Ohio.
The establishment of the village of Lockport, on the outskirts of Newark, and the more recent erection of extensive ironworks there, have swept away a curious group of mounds in that neighbourhood, including a truncated pyramid, the contents of which appear to have been of unusual interest. I examined in the collection of Mr. Wm. L. Merrin, a solid copper armlet, a pair of remarkable objects like double cymbals, a sheath subdivided into three tubes, supposed to be a quiver, a polished axe, and several perforated plates, all of copper; a perforated lead amulet, a polished chisel of diorite, numerous large shell beads, and large plates of mica cut into a horse-shoe shape: all of which were found at the base of the Lockport Mound, along with a number of skeletons. Subsequently other objects of interest, including a large, well-finished stone maul, of oval shape, with a deep groove round its centre, and a mass of pure lead weighing upwards of four pounds, have been found on its site, in opening up a road. But it is obvious that in this, as in so many other cases, we have to regret the destruction of a valuable memorial of the past, without any adequate record of its disclosures being preserved. Happily a more intelligent interest has now been awakened in the subject; the rarer objects of antiquity in stone and in metal are highly prized, and are therefore likely to be preserved as marketable articles even by those who can see in them no other value; and as each mound or earthwork discloses some novel feature, further research may be expected to add materially to our knowledge.
The remoter hill-mounds may reveal similar analogies in structure or contents to those of the plains; and so furnish evidence that the population which crowded the great centres, was diffused in smaller numbers, far inland from the river’s banks, in outlying valleys and among the secluded recesses of the hills. There, perhaps, as among the higher valleys of the Andes under the rule of the Incas, a pastoral people supplemented the agricultural industry of the central provinces, and shared with them the common rites and superstitions of the national religion.
In some cases the lofty site of the hill-mound may have determined its selection from the same motive which occasionally guides the modern Indian in his choice of a spot for his grave. Of this a striking illustration is furnished in the history of one modern tumulus on the Missouri. Upwards of half a century has elapsed since Black Bird, a famous chief of the Omahaws, visited the city of Washington, and when returning was seized with small-pox, of which he died on the way. When the chief found himself dying, he called his warriors around him, and, like Jacob of old, gave commands concerning his burial, which were as literally fulfilled. Dressed in his most sumptuous robes, and fully equipped with his scalps and war-eagle’s plumes, he was borne about sixty miles below the Omahaw village, to one of the loftiest bluffs on the Missouri, which commands a magnificent extent of river and landscape. His favourite war-horse, a beautiful white steed, was led to the summit; and there, in presence of the whole nation, the dead chief was placed on its back, looking towards the river, where, as he had said, he could see the canoes of the white men as they traversed the broad waters of the Missouri. His bow was placed in his hand, his shield and quiver, with his pipe and medicine-bag, were hung by his side. A store of pemmican and a well-filled tobacco-pouch were supplied, to sustain him on the long journey to the hunting-grounds of the good Manitou, where the spirits of his fathers awaited his coming. The medicine-men of the tribe performed their most mystic charms to secure a happy passage to the land of the great departed; and all else being completed, each warrior of the chiefs own band covered the palm of his right hand with vermilion, and stamped its impress on the white sides of the devoted war-steed. This done, the Indians gathered turfs and soil, and placed them around its feet and legs. Gradually the pile rose with the combined labour of many willing hands, until the living steed and its dead rider were buried together under the memorial mound; and high over the crest of the lofty tumulus which covered the warrior’s eagle-plumes, a cedar post was reared to mark more clearly to the voyagers on the Missouri, the last resting-place of Black Bird, the great chief of the Omahaws.
One of the most striking evidences of the extent of occupation of the country, and the denseness of its ancient population, is furnished by a map in theAncient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, showing a section of twelve miles of the Scioto Valley. Square, circular, and polygonal enclosures, single and in groups, parallels, ditches, and mounds, occupy every available terrace along the banks of the Scioto River, and its tributary Paint Creek. A group of mounds in Ross county, Ohio, occupies the third terrace on the east side of the Scioto Valley, nearly a hundred feet above the river, and about equidistant from two remarkable sacred enclosures. The principal mound is twenty-two feet high; and on penetrating to its centre the traces of a rude sarcophagus of unhewn logs were indicated by the cast which still remained in the compacted earth. The bottom had been laid with matting or wood, the only remains of which were a whitish stratum of decomposed vegetable matter; and the timbers of the sarcophagus had in like manner decayed, and allowed the superincumbent earth to fall on the skeleton. Alongside of it were several hundred beads, made of the columellæ of marine shells and the tusks of some animal, several of them bearing marks which seemed to indicate that they were turned, instead of being carved, or ground into shape by the hand. They retained their position, forming a triple row, as originally strung round the neck of the dead; and, with the exception of a few laminæ of mica, were the only objects discovered in the grave. A layer of charcoal, about ten feet square, lay directly above the sarcophagus; and seemed, from the condition of the carbonised wood, to have been suddenly quenched by heaping the earth over it while still blazing.
Similar layers of charcoal constitute a noticeable feature in mounds of this class, and seem to indicate either that sacrifices were performed over the bier, or that funeral rites of some kind were celebrated, in which fire played an important part. On these funeral pyres probably many perishable articles were consumed; as the beds of charcoal are intermingled occasionally with fragments of bone, stone implements, and other evidences of sacrifices and tribute to the deceased. It is also apparent that the fire was kindled and allowed to blaze only for a limited time, when its flames were quenched by heaping the earth over the glowing embers; so that while charcoal occurs beneath as well as above the skeleton, the bones are unaffected by fire. The rite was practised where cremation was not followed; and may have been symbolical of the lamp of life quenched for ever in the grave. Implements, both of stone and metal, have been found in these grave-mounds, but for the most part their contents indicate a different condition of society and mode of thought from what Indian sepulture implies. Weapons are of rare and exceptional occurrence. The more common articles are personal ornaments, such as bracelets, perforated plates of copper, beads of bone, shell, or metal, and similar decorations worn on the body at the time of its interment. Among the objects which appear to have been purposely disposed around the dead, plates of mica occur most frequently. In some cases the skeleton has been found entirely covered with this material; and in others the laminæ have been cut into regular figures: disks, ovals, and symmetrical curves. As a general rule, however, it would appear that reverence for the dead was manifested in other ways than by depositing costly gifts in the grave; nor do the relics found indicate any belief akin to that which induces the modern Indian to lay beside his buried chief the arms and weapons of the chase, for use by him in the future hunting-grounds or on the war-path. In a few cases the simple sarcophagus has been constructed of stone instead of wood; in others the body appears to have been merely wrapped in bark or matting. In some of the Southern States both cremation and urn-burial seem to have been practised; but throughout the valleys of the Ohio and its tributaries a nearly uniform system of sepulchral rites has been traced. These no doubt bore some important relation to the solemn religious observances indicated by other works of the same people; and as it is not in the sepulchral mounds, but in those which cover the “altars†on which the sacrificial fires of the ancient worshippers appear to have often blazed, that the greater number of their works of art, and even their implements and weapons have been found: it may be that there, rather than at the grave-mounds, they propitiated the manes of the dead, and sought by sacrifices of love and reverence to reach beyond this world to one unseen. Other indications, however, present analogies to the arrangements of cists and cinerary urns in ancient British tumuli, which suggest no less clearly the probability of human sacrifices, and a suttee self-immolation at the grave of the great chief, so congenial to the ideas of barbaric rank. Such cruel rites we know were practised among the Mexicans and Peruvians on the largest scale; wives, concubines, and attendants being immolated by the latter on the tomb of their deceased Inca, in some cases even to the number of thousands.
The Grave Creek Mound, at the junction of Grave Creek with the Ohio river, in the State of Virginia, commands, on various accounts, a prominent distinction among the sepulchral monuments of America. It occupies a site on an extensive plain in connection with works now much obliterated; but its own gigantic proportions bid effectual defiance to the operations which are rapidly erasing less salient records of the ancient occupants of the soil. In the year 1838, when various circumstances combined to direct an unusual degree of attention to American antiquities, Mr. Tomlinson, the proprietor of the land, had it explored at considerable cost. A shaft sunk from the top, and a tunnel carried to the centre, disclosed two sepulchral chambers, one at the base, and another thirty feet above. They had been constructed, as in other cases, of logs, which had decayed, and permitted the superincumbent earth, with stones placed immediately over them, to fall upon the skeletons. In the upper chamber a single skeleton was found in an advanced state of decay, whilst the lower one contained two skeletons, one of which was believed to be that of a female. Beside these lay between three and four thousand shell beads, a number of ornaments of mica, several bracelets of copper, and sundry relics of stone carving, referred to, along with works of art from other ancient mounds, in a future chapter. But among them was included an inscribed stone disc, which constitutes one of the marvels of American antiquities. On reaching the lower vault, after removing its contents, it was determined to enlarge it into a convenient chamber for visitors, and in doing so ten more skeletons were discovered, all in a sitting posture, but in too fragile a state to admit of preservation. The position of these immediately around the sepulchral chamber, in the very centre of the mound, precludes all idea of subsequent interment, and scarcely admits of any other mode of accounting for their presence than that which the human sacrifices both of ancient and modern American obsequies suggest.
A tumulus of the gigantic proportions of the Grave Creek Mound serves emphatically to impress the mind with the conviction that such structures, even when of smaller dimensions, were no accompaniments of common sepulture, but the special memorials of distinguished chiefs; or, it may be, at times, of venerated priests. Of the busy population that once thronged the valleys of the West we have no other memorials than those which commemorate the toil of many to give a deathless name to one now as nameless as themselves. The investigators of their works, after describing in detail the monumental mounds, remark: “The graves of the great mass of the ancient people who thronged our valleys, and the silent monuments of whose toil are seen on every hand, were not thus signalised. We scarcely know where to find them. Every day the plough uncovers crumbling remains, but they elicit no remark; are passed by, and forgotten. The wasting banks of our rivers occasionally display extensive cemeteries; but sufficient attention has never been bestowed upon them to enable us to speak with any degree of certainty of their date, or to distinguish whether they belonged to the Mound-Builders or a subsequent race. These cemeteries are often of such extent as to give a name to the locality in which they occur. Thus we hear, on the Wabash, of the ‘Big Bone Bank’ and the ‘Little Bone Bank,’ from which, it is represented, the river annually washes many human skeletons, accompanied by numerous and singular remains of art, among which are more particularly mentioned vases and other vessels of pottery, of remarkable and often fantastic form.â€[87]I have been fortunate enough to obtain an interesting example of the latter class of pottery, from Big Bone Bank, figured on a subsequent page, which is specially valuable from the striking analogy it suggests to familiar forms of Peruvian pottery.
The Ohio and Erie canal traverses the river-terrace of the Scioto Valley in the vicinity of Chillicothe, where the ancient works of the Mound-Builders are more abundant than in any other area of equal limits hitherto explored. In some cases the canal has been cut through them, and it can scarcely admit of doubt that many interesting traces of the arts and habits of the remarkable people who once filled the long-deserted scene, must have been disclosed to heedless eyes. Here and there, doubtless, a stray relic was picked up, wondered at, and forgotten; but no note was taken of the circumstances under which it was found, and no record made of the discovery. And so must it ever be. The pioneers of civilisation in the uncleared wilds of the West are too entirely preoccupied with the present, to spare a thought for long forgotten centuries. Happily, however, this state of things is passing away, and every year shows increasing evidence of intelligent zeal in the recovery and preservation of whatever is calculated to throw light on the prehistoric ages of America.
The contents of the Scioto Valley Mound, as well as of others described above, prove that the human remains were deposited in them long after the body had gone to decay; and while numerous indications serve to show that cremation was extensively practised by the Mound-Builders, it is not improbable that a custom may have prevailed analogous to the modern Indians’ scaffolding and subsequent sepulture of the bones of their dead. The remains thus periodically gathered were sometimes deposited in a common ossuary, as in that of the Taylor Mound; and in other cases were burnt, with fitting rites, and their ashes heaped together, forming mounds, such as one opened on the bank of Walnut Creek, in the Scioto Valley. The principal portion of this consisted seemingly of long-exposed and highly-compacted ashes, intermingled with specks of charcoal, and small bits of burned bones. Beneath this was a small mound of very pure white clay, resting on the original soil, without any traces of the action of fire, over which the incinerated remains had been piled into a mound, nine feet in height by forty in base. The customs of the North American Indians, however, were very diverse; and among the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians inhumation, cremation, urn-burial, and mummification, accompanied with deposition in artificial vaults and in caves, were all practised. It need not therefore surprise us to find exceptions among the ancient Mound-Builders to any practice recognised as most prevalent among them. Considering the decayed state of most of the bones recovered from the great sepulchral mounds, where they were equally protected from external air and moisture: if the common dead were inhumed under the ordinary little grave-mound, their bones must, for the most part, have long since returned to dust. Nor must it be overlooked that the extremely comminuted state to which most of the skeletons in the larger mounds have been reduced, when brought to light by modern explorers, is due, in part at least, to the falling in of a superincumbent mass of earth and stones upon them, when the timber ceiling of their sarcophagus had sustained the weight long enough only to render them the less able to resist its crushing force. The perfect preservation of the “Scioto Mound cranium†was due to its being imbedded in charcoal, over which a superstructure of large stones enveloped with tough yellow clay had been piled, without any treacherous timber vaults. It lay in the centre of the carbonaceous deposit, resting on its face. The lower jaw was wanting, and only the clavicle, a few cervical vertebræ, and some of the bones of the feet were huddled around it. Unaccompanied though it was by any relics of art, it is, in itself, one of the most valuable objects hitherto recovered from the American mounds.
Such are some of the traces we are able to recover of the sepulchral rites of this people. In discussing the conclusions suggested alike by their disclosures, and by those which the sacrificial mounds, the sacred circumvallations, and the buried works of art reveal, we are dealing with characteristics of a race pertaining to periods long preceding any written history. For us these are their sole chronicles; and yet, even from such data, we are able to deduce some traits of moral and intellectual character. Perhaps the most important fact for our present purpose is the rarity of weapons of war among the sepulchral deposits. It accords with other indications of the condition of the Mound-Builders. They had passed beyond that rude stage of savage life in which war and the chase are the only honourable occupations of man. Their weapons of war, like their fortresses, were means for the defence of acquisitions they had learned to prize more highly. They had conquered the forests, and displaced the spoils of the hunter with the wealth of autumn’s harvestings; and with the habits of a settled agricultural people, many new ideas had taken the place of the wild imaginings and superstitions of the savage. As among all agricultural nations, the vernal and autumnal seasons doubtless had their appropriate festivals; and we can still, in imagination, reanimate their sacred enclosures and avenues with the joyous procession bearing its thank-offering of first-fruits, or laden with the last golden treasures of the harvest-home.
[87]Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 171.
[87]
Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 171.
CHAPTER XII.SACRIFICIAL MOUNDS.
MOUND ALTARS—ALTAR DEPOSITS—QUENCHING THE ALTAR FIRES—MOUND HEARTHS—MOUND CITY—MILITARY ALTAR MOUNDS—THEIR STRUCTURE AND CONTENTS—SIGNIFICANCE OF THEIR DEPOSITS—ANALOGOUS INDIAN RITES—TRANSITIONAL CIVILISATION.
The name of sacrificial mounds has been conferred on a class of monuments peculiar to the New World, and highly illustrative of the rites and customs of the ancient race of the mounds. From their contents also we derive many of the most interesting examples of the arts of that singular people. The most noticeable characteristics of the sacrificial mounds are: their almost invariable occurrence within enclosures; their regular construction in uniform layers of gravel, earth, and sand, disposed alternately in strata conformable to the shape of the mound; and their covering a symmetrical hearth or altar of burnt clay or stone, on which are deposited numerous relics, in all instances exhibiting traces, more or less abundant, of their having been exposed to the action of fire.
A sufficient number of sacrificial mounds has been opened to justify the adoption of certain general conclusions relative to their construction and the purposes for which they were designed. On the natural surface of the ground, in most cases, a basin of fine clay appears to have been modelled with care, in a perfectly symmetrical form, but varying in shape, and still more in dimensions. They have been found square, round, elliptical, and in the form of parallelograms; and, in size, range from a diameter of two feet, to fifty or sixty feet long, and twelve or fifteen feet wide. The most common dimensions, however, are from five to eight feet in diameter. The clay basin, or “altar,†as it has been designated, invariably exhibits traces of having been subjected to the action of fire, and frequently of intense and long-continued or oft-repeated heat. It is, moreover, evident that in some cases it had not only been often used; but, after being destroyed by repeated exposures to intense heat, it had been several times remodelled before it was finally covered over by the superincumbent mound.
Within the focus or basin of the altars are found numerous relics: elaborate carvings in stone, ornaments cut in mica, copper implements, disks, and tubes, pearl, shell, and silver beads, and various other objects, hereafter referred to, but all more or less injured by fire. In some cases the carved pipes and other works in stone have been split and calcined by the heat, and the copper relics have been melted, so that the metal lies fused in shapeless masses in the centre of the basin. Traces of cloth completely carbonised, but still retaining the structure of the doubled and twisted thread; ivory or bone needles, and other objects destructible by fire, have also been observed; and the whole are invariably found intermixed with a quantity of ashes. Large accumulations of calcined bones, including fragments of human bones, also lay above some of the deposits, or mingled with them; and in other cases a mass of calcined shells, or of fine carbonaceous dust, like that formed by the burning of vegetable matter, filled up the entire hollow. But while it is obvious from a few traces, that the deposits on the altars had included offerings of objects which yielded at once to the destructive element to which they were there exposed, as well as others capable in some degree of withstanding the intensity of the flame: there are only faint traces of all but the least destructible relics of stone or metal. In one mound portions of the contents were cemented together by a tufa-like substance of a grey colour, resembling the scoriæ of a furnace, and of great hardness. But subsequent analyses demonstrated that it was made up in part of phosphates; and a single fragment of partially calcined bone found on the altar was the patella of a human skeleton. The long-continued, and probably oft-repeated application of intense heat had reduced the cemented mass to this condition. A quantity of pottery, many implements of copper, and a large number of spear-heads chipped out of quartz and manganese garnet, were also deposited on the hearth; but they were intermixed with much coal and ashes, and were all more or less melted or broken up with the intense action of the fire. Out of a bushel or two of fragments of the spear-heads, and of from fifty to a hundred quartz arrow-heads, only four specimens were recovered entire. Scattered over the deposits of earth filling one of the compartments, were traces of a number of pieces of timber, four or five feet long, supposed by the explorers to have supported a funeral or sacrificial pile. They had been somewhat burned, and the carbonised surface preserved their casts in the hard earth, although the wood had entirely decayed. They had been heaped over while glowing, for the earth around them was slightly baked; and thus, after repeated, and perhaps long-protracted sacrificial rites, some grand final service had consummated the religious mysteries; and the blazing altar was quenched by means of the tumulus that was to preserve it for the instruction of future ages.
The evidence that some of the altars remained in use for a considerable period, and were repeatedly renewed ere they were finally covered over, has suggested the idea that they are no more than the hearths of the ancient Mound-Builders’ dwellings. But in some cases a single altar-hearth has been found within extensive circumvallations. When in groups their enclosures are slight demarcations, as of places sacred to religious observances, and not defensive embankments with outer ditch. Their contents cannot be regarded as mere miscellaneous deposits, either like the waste heap of an Indian hut, or the contents of the modern Indian’s ossuary; and it is obvious that those hearths have been systematically overlaid with mounds constructed with great care, even where they were devoid of other traces than the ashes of their final fires. In one large mound, for example, one hundred and forty feet in length, by sixty feet in greatest breadth,—already referred to as that in which so many quartz spear and arrow-heads, with copper and other relics, were found;—a new and smaller hearth was observed to have been constructed within the oblong basin of the original altar. In this all the relics deposited in the mound were placed, and the outer compartments of the large basin had been filled up with earth to a uniform level, the surface of which showed traces of fire. A more minute examination led to the discovery that three successive altars had been constructed, one above another, in addition to the smaller hearth or focus which had received the final offerings, ere it was buried under its enclosing mound. In other examples the altars have been observed to be very slightly burned; but wherever such was the case, they have also been destitute of remains.
Along with the evidences of a uniformity of system and purpose in those structures, there is also considerable variety in some of their details; and one group may be selected, as on several accounts possessing peculiar features of interest. On the western bank of the Scioto, an ancient enclosure occupies a level terrace immediately above the river. In outline it is nearly square with rounded angles, and consists of a simple embankment, between three and four feet high, unaccompanied by a ditch, or any other feature suggestive of its having been a place of defence. It encloses an area of thirteen acres, within which are twenty-four mounds, including the large oblong one already referred to. The whole of these have been excavated, and found to contain altars and other remains, suggestive of places of sacrifice, and not of sepulture. Here, therefore, it may be assumed, was one of the sacred enclosures of the Mound-Builders. The name of “Mound City†has been given to it; and the results of its exploration prove it to have been one of the most remarkable scenes of ancient ceremonial in the Scioto Valley. It would almost seem as if here an altar had been reared to each god in the American pantheon; for not the least remarkable feature observed in reference to this class of mounds is, that they do not disclose a miscellaneous assemblage of relics, like the Indian’s ossuary or grave-mound. On the contrary, the sacrificial deposits are generally nearly homogeneous. On one altar sculptured pipes are chiefly found, to the number of hundreds; on another pottery, copper ornaments, stone implements, or galena; on others, only an accumulation of calcined shells, carbonaceous ashes, or burnt bones. One mound of this enclosure covered a hearth in the form of a parallelogram of the utmost regularity, measuring ten feet in length, by eight in width, and containing a deposit of fine ashes, with fragments of pottery, from which the pieces of one beautiful vase were recovered and restored. With these also lay a few shell and pearl beads. In another oblong mound, the altar was an equally perfect square, but with a circular basin, remarkable for its depth, and filled with a mass of calcined shells. Another, though of small dimensions, contained nearly two hundred pipes, carved with ingenious skill, of a red porphyritic stone, into figures of animals, birds, reptiles, and human heads. In addition to these were also disks, tubes, and ornaments of copper, pearl and shell beads, etc., but all more or less injured by the heat, which had been sufficiently intense to melt some of the copper relics. The number of the objects found in this mound exceed any other single deposit. Some of them supply illustrations of great importance relative to the arts, habits, and probable origin of their makers; and that they were objects of value purposely exposed to the destructive element can scarcely admit of doubt. A like diversity marks the contents of other mounds, both within the enclosure referred to, and in others where careful explorations have been effected. From one, for example, upwards of six hundred disks of hornstone were taken, and it was estimated that the entire deposit numbered little short of four thousand.
It thus appears that sacrifices by fire were practised as an important and oft-repeated part of the sacred rites of the Mound-Builders; and also that certain specific and varying purposes were aimed at in the offerings. The altar-mounds are chiefly found within what appear to have been enclosures devoted primarily, if not exclusively, to religious purposes; but they also occur, generally as single works, within the military strongholds: where it may be assumed they sufficed for sacrifices designed to propitiate the objects of national worship, and to win the favour of their deities, when the garrisons were precluded from access to the sacred enclosures where national religious rites were chiefly celebrated.
Within a quarter of a mile of “Mound City†a work of somewhat similar outline, but of larger dimensions, suggests the idea of a fortified site: not designed as a military stronghold, but as a walled town, wherein those who officiated at the sacrifices of the adjacent temple may have resided. Unlike the slight enclosure of the latter, its walls are guarded by an outer fosse; and if surmounted by a palisade, or other military work, they were well suited for defence. The area thus enclosed measures twenty-eight acres; and nearly, if not exactly, in the centre is a sacred mound, which covered an altar of singular construction, and with remarkable traces of sacrificial rites. It had undergone repeated changes before its final inhumation. Upon the altar was found an accumulation of burnt remains, carefully covered with a layer of sand, above which was heaped the superstructure of the mound. “The deposit consisted of a thin layer of carbonaceous matter, intermingled with which were some burnt human bones, but so much calcined as to render recognition extremely difficult. Ten well-wrought copper bracelets were also found, placed in two heaps, five in each, and encircling some calcined bones,—probably those of the arms upon which they were worn. Besides these were found a couple of thick plates of mica, placed upon the western slope of the altar.â€[88]
All investigations coincide in proving that the altars of the Mound-Builders were used for considerable periods, and that their final incovering was effected with systematic care. In this respect they present a striking contrast to the sepulchral mounds of the Indians, the largest and most imposing of which are no more than huge grave-mounds, or earth-pyramids, sometimes elliptical or pear-shaped, but exhibiting in their internal structure no trace of any further design than to heap over the sarcophagus of the honoured chief such a tumulus as should preserve his name and fame to after times.
The investigation of this class of ancient works suggests many curious questions to which it is difficult to furnish any satisfactory answer. It seems probable that not only each successive stage in the use and reconstruction of the altar, but in the building of the superincumbent mound, had its own significance and accompanying rites. In one of the “Mound City†structures, after penetrating through four successive sand-strata, interposed at intervals of little more than a foot between layers of earth; and excavating altogether to a depth of nineteen feet: a smooth level floor of slightly burned clay was found, covered with a thin layer of sand, and on this a series of round plates of mica, ten inches or a foot in diameter, were regularly disposed, overlapping each other like the scales of a fish. The whole deposit was not uncovered, but sufficient was exposed to lead the observers to the conclusion that the entire layer of mica was arranged in the form of a crescent, the full dimensions of which must measure twenty feet from horn to horn, and five feet at its greatest breadth. In some mounds the accumulated carbonaceous matter, like that formed by the ashes of leaves or grass, might suggest the graceful offerings of the first-fruits of the earth. In others, the accumulation of hundreds of elaborately carved stone pipes on a single altar, is suggestive of some ancient peace- or war-pipe ceremonial, in which the peculiar American custom of tobacco-smoking had its special significance, and even perhaps its origin. In others again, we should perhaps trace in the deposition under the sacred mound of hundreds of spear and arrow-heads, copper axes, and other weapons of war, a ceremonial perpetuated in the rude Indian symbolism of burying the tomahawk or war-hatchet. But looking to the evidence which so clearly separates the sepulchral from the sacred mounds, it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion that on some of the altars of the Mound-Builders human sacrifices were made; and that within their sacred enclosures were practised rites not less hideous than those which characterised the worship which the ferocious Aztecs are affirmed to have regarded as most acceptable to their sanguinary gods. Among the Mexicans, if we are to believe the narratives of their Spanish conquerors, human sacrifices constituted the crowning rite of almost every festival. That great exaggeration is traceable in the narratives of the chronicles is admitted in part even by the enthusiastic historian of the conquest of Mexico; and the charming historical romance woven by Prescott, is perhaps even more open to question in its reproduction of the gross charges of cannibalism and wholesale butchery in the superstitious rites of the Mexicans: than in its gorgeous picturings of their architectural magnificence, their temples and palaces, sculptured fountains, floating gardens, and all the strange blending of Moorish luxury, with the refinements of European life, and its unreserved freedom of women.
Nothing corresponding to the geometrical enclosures or altar-mounds of the Mississippi Valley appears among the works of any Indian nation known to Europeans. Nevertheless in searching for evidence of their ethnical affinities, we are naturally led to inquire if no traces of their peculiar rites and customs can be detected in the ruder practices of savage nations found in occupation of their deserted sites; and some of those in use by different Indian tribes undoubtedly suggest ideas such as may have animated the ancient people of the valley in the construction and use of their mounds of sacrifice. One class of mound relics, for example, is thus illustrated in Hariot’s narrative of the discovery of Virginia in 1584. He describes the use of tobacco, called by the nativesuppówoc, and greatly enlarges on its medicinal virtues. He then adds: “Thisuppówocis of so precious estimation amongst them that they think their gods are marvellously delighted therewith, whereupon sometime they make hallowed fires, and cast some of the powder therein for a sacrifice.†The discovery of unmistakable evidence that one of the sacred altars of “Mound City†was specially devoted to nicotian rites and offerings, renders such allusions peculiarly significant. In the belief of the ancient worshippers, the Great Spirit smelled a sweet savour in the smoke of the sacred plant; and the homely implement of modern luxury became in their hands a sacred censer, from which the vapour rose with as fitting propitiatory odours as that which perfumes the awful precincts of the cathedral altar, amid the mysteries of the Church’s high and holy days.
It is indeed a vague and partial glimpse that we recover of the old worshipper, with his strange rites, his buried arts, and the traces of his propitiatory sacrifices. But slight as it is, it reveals a condition of things diverse in many respects from all else that we know of the former history of the New World; and on that account, therefore, its most imperfect disclosures have an interest for us greater than any discoveries relating to the modern Indian can possess. Still more is that interest confirmed by every indication which seems to present the ancient Mound-Builders as in some respects a link between the rude tribes of the American forests and prairies, and those nations whom the first Europeans found established in cities, under a well-ordered government, and surrounded by many appliances of civilisation akin to those with which they had been long familiar among ancient nations of southern Asia. To the great centres of native progress still manifest in the ruined memorials of extinct arts in Central America, and illustrated by so many evidences of national development attained under Aztec and Inca rule, attention must be directed with a view to comprehend whatever was essentially native to the New World. But before turning southward to those seats of a well-ascertained native civilisation, there still remains for consideration one other class of earthworks of a very peculiar character. The mineral regions from whence the Mound-Builders derived their stores of copper have been described; but between them and the populous valleys of the Ohio, an extensive region intervenes, abounding in monuments no less remarkable than some of those already referred to; and valuable as a possible link in the detached fragments of such ancient chroniclings. Lying as they do in geographical, and perhaps also in other relations, immediately between the old regions of the Mound-Builders and the Miners of ante-Columbian centuries, they cannot be overlooked in any archæological researches into the history of the New World.