INTRODUCTION.
All over Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and other Western States—but chiefly over these—are the monumental remains of an ancient race, long anterior to the present race of Indians, concerning whom we have no other record than that which is afforded by their mounds, earthworks, fortifications, temples, and dwelling places. Even these cannot at first be distinguished and identified the one from the other; and it takes a person skilled in such lore to determine the character and uses of the various mounds and groups of mounds, which he meets with at all points, and in all directions, as he traverses the wilderness.
I have lived a long time in the woods and prairies, following the occupation of a hunter, but with ulterior antiquarian and natural-history objects and purposes. From the time when I first heard of the mounds, which was in the year 1836, when I entertained, in my chambers in New York, an old frontiersman from Chicago—a fine, brave fellow, whose whole life was a romance of the highest and noblest kind—I resolved that as soon as fortune should favor me with leisure and opportunity, I would make a first-hand investigation of these curious antiquities, and try if I could render an intelligent exposition of their meaning. Twenty years passed away, and I was no nearer to the accomplishment of my purpose than I was in that notable year 1836, when the apocalypse of the West and its mystic mound seals were first revealed to me. At last, about four years ago, all things being favorable, I struck my tents in the big city—the wonderful Arabian Nights city of New York!-and, taking a sorrowful leave of my friends and literary associates, I set off for the region round about the Black River in Wisconsin. Here, among the bluffs and forests, within hailing distance of a prairie of some hundred thousand acres, I bought a well-cultivated farm of two hundred and eighty acres, bounded on the south by a deep, romantic ravine, at the bottom of which ran a delightful stream of water, full of trout, always cool and delicious to drink, and never known to be dry even in the fiercest summer droughts. A large log cabin, with a chimney opening in the kitchen, capable of conveying the smoke and flames of half a cord of wood burning at once on the hearthstones, and having other commodious conveniences, was my headquarters, and I intended it to be my permanent home. But thereby hangs a tale—which, though interesting enough, and full of romantic and startling episodes, I will not here and now relate, as being somewhat extraneous to the subject matter before us.
I had no sooner made all the dispositions necessary to the good husbanding of the farm, than I hired a half breed, well known in those parts, and subsequently a Winnebago Indian, to whose wigwam the half breed introduced me at my request. And with these two, the one a veritable savage, and the other very nearly related to him, I set off with a wagon, a yoke of oxen, a large tent, and abundance of provisions, on a journey of mound discoveries.
I have only space here to say that we traversed the whole of the north and west of the State of Wisconsin, and through the chief parts of Minnesota and Iowa; and that subsequently, about, eighteen months afterward, we visited the region of the Four Lakes, of which Madison is the centre, where there are hundreds of mounds, arranged in nearly every form and of nearly every animal device, which we had found in our previous travels.
I made drawings of all the remarkable groups which I met with; and, without going into particulars, I may give you some idea of their likelihood in the following summary: Mounds arranged in circles of three circles, with a large earthwork in the inner one; the outer circle containing sixty mounds, the second thirty, the first fifteen. I examined the earthwork, and found in it, about four feet below the surface, remains of charcoal and charred bones, burnt earth, and considerable quantities of mica. It had evidently been an altar or sacrificial mound—and I afterward, upon examination, found many such—but they were always enclosed by other mounds; and these (the outer mounds) contained nothing but earth, although there was this remarkable peculiarity about them, that the earth of which they were composed was altogether of a different nature from the surrounding earth, and must have been brought to that spot, as the old Druids brought the enormous blocks of stone which composed their temples and altars at Stonehenge, from an unknown distance.
Other mounds were arranged in squares, triangles, and parallelograms. Others, in a series of successive squares, about three feet apart, having an opening to the east and west, and terminating in a square of about fourteen feet in the centre, where a truncated mound is sure to be erected.
Others, formed a good deal like a Minié rifle ball, but with a more pointed apex, running on both sides of the earth effigy of a monstrous bear for upward of forty rods.
Others, shaped like an eagle with outstretched wings, having walls of earthwork two feet high, of oblong shape, and enclosed on all sides except at the east and west, where there are entrances of about four feet in width.
Others, composed of hundreds of tons of earth, shaped like a tortoise, with truncated mounds all around it.
Others, fashioned like men, and Titans at that, some lying prone upon the prairie, others in the act of walking. The limbs clearly defined, the body vast and well moulded, like a huge colossus. One near Baraboo, Sauk County, Wisconsin, discovered by Mr. William H. Canfield, and reported to the Philosophical Society by Mr. Lapham, of Milwaukee, was visited also by us. It is two hundred and fourteen feet in length; the head thirty feet long, the body one hundred feet, and the legs eighty-four. The head lies toward the south, and the motion (for he is represented in the act of walking) is westward. All the lines of this most singular effigy are curved gracefully, much care having very clearly been bestowed upon its construction. The head is ornamented with two projections or horns, giving a comical expression to the whole figure.
Near the old military road, about seven miles east of the Blue Mounds, in Dare County, Wisconsin, we found another man effigy. It lies in an east and west direction, the head toward the west, and the arms and legs extended. It is one hundred and twenty-five feet long, one hundred and forty feet from the extremity of one arm to that of the other. The body is thirty feet in breadth, and is most carefully moulded and rounded; the head twenty-five feet; the elevation above the surface of the prairie nearly six feet.
On the north side of the Wisconsin River, about four miles west of the village of Muscoda, we heard of and found another human effigy. Its peculiarity was that it had two heads, and they reclined with a certain grace over the shoulders. The arms were not in proportion, nor fully represented. Length of body fifty feet, legs forty feet, arms one hundred and thirty feet; lying north and south, the head southward.
Others, a kind of hybrids, half man half beast or bird.
Others, representing birds with outstretched wings, like the forked-tail hawk or swallow.
Others, eagles without heads.
Others, coiled snakes, or outstretched snakes.
Others, elk or deer.
Clusters of mounds star shaped, seven in number, with the sun-shaped mound in the centre.
Others, representing mathematical symbols.
On the banks of the Black River, near the Ox Bow, are the remains of an elevated road, about three feet high and seven feet wide, extending for miles, intersected near the river by the great Indian war path. The settlers call it the Railroad, and it has all the appearance of a work of this nature, and is strongly and carefully built—a fine remain of the old mound builders' time.
Long lines of mounds, extending for scores and probably hundreds of miles, nearly all of the same shape, varying in their distance from each other from one to four miles.
Circular mounds of a base of two hundred feet, and a height of twenty feet.
Others, two hundred yards long, from ten to twenty feet wide, and from two to three feet high—these last, also, having an open space through them, as if intended for an entrance gate.
Others, in the form of rabbits, badgers, bears, and birds; others, of unknown monstrous animals.
We examined in all thirty-nine mounds; and in one, at the very base, on the floor of the natural earth upon which the mound was built (the soil of the mound being, as I said, always of a different character to the surrounding soil) we discovered and carried away with us the perfect skeleton of a man, with a few arrow heads made of flint, and a tobacco pipe, made also of stone, with a very small and narrow bowl, having a device on it like some of the hieroglyphic monsters of Egypt or old India.
In twelve we found skeletons, male and female, of the present race of Indians, with their bows and arrows, or, as was the case in four instances, their rifles and knives and tobacco pipes; some of these last elaborately carved in red stone. In Iowa we dug into a large mound, and discovered fragments of an ancient pottery, with the colors burned into the material, and various bones and skulls, arrow heads, and a flint knife, and saw.
We saw the painted rocks, also, on the Mississippi shores, near Prairie du Chien—said to be of an immemorial age—and the questions, Who was this old mound builder—whence did he come—when did he vanish from this continent? have haunted me ever since. That he was the primitive man of this planet, I think there is good reason to believe. Go where we will, to what portion soever of the earth, we shall find these mound evidences of his existence. In Asia, Europe, Africa, and all along the backbone of the American continent, he has established his record. Yet no one knows anything about him: all tradition even of him and of his works is lost. When Watkinson started from the middle of Asia to visit the newly acquired country of Russia—the beautiful, fruitful, invaluable country of the Amoor—he was confronted at the very outset by a cluster of seven of these very mounds, and his book, from that time forth, extending over thousands of miles, is full of descriptions of these unknown earthworks. I have no doubt they mark the progressive geographical movements of a race of men who came from Asia. From Behring's Strait to the Gulf they can easily be traced.
But I have said enough, and will stop here.