The chief thing to be noted with reference to South American monuments of ancient civilization is the fact that, if the theory of the first landing of the Nephite colony from Jerusalem was in South America, and within modern Chili—then they are located along the line of supposed Nephite movement from thirty degrees south latitude northward along the western plateau of South America, though it must be confessed that during their movements northward the Nephites were not sufficiently numerous nor did they stay sufficiently long in the southern part of the region now covered with ancient ruins to erect such permanent monuments of civilization as are now to be found there in ruins. In their alleged occupancy of the northern section of the region it is different. There, in the land of Nephi and the land of Anti-Lehi-Nephi—supposed to embrace say the northern part of Peru and Ecuador,—we have reason to believe they stayed a sufficient length of time and were also sufficiently numerous to leave enduring monuments of their sojourn in that country. For the existence of the more southern monuments we must suppose one of two things, or perhaps both of them united, viz.:
First: Lamanites who remained in the far south paid more attention to civilized pursuits than has usually been accredited to them, and the remarks of the Book of Mormon concerning the Lamanites being an idle people, living upon the fruits of the chase, and their marauding excursions into Nephite lands are to be more especially applied to those Lamanites more immediately in contact with the Nephites, while further southward they were pursuing the arts of peace. Or, second: that after the fall of the Nephites at Cumorah there were strong colonies of Lamanites that pushed their way through Central America down into Peru, subdued the inhabitants who had remained there and established themselves as the ruling class, constituting, in fact, the invasion of the Incas, under whom arose the monuments of civilization found in the land by the Spaniards when they invaded it. The difference between the monuments found in Peru and those found in Mexico and Central America arises, in my judgment, from the fact that there was not present in South America the monuments of the great Jaredite civilization to crop up through and become intermingled with the Nephite and Lamanite monuments of civilization.
The whole subject of Book of Mormon peoples being the authors of very ancient Peruvian civilization is full of difficulty.
IV.
The Mound Builders.
As I have noted South American antiquities, so also I think it necessary to note the more northern antiquities of North America—the works of the Mound Builders of the valleys of the Mississippi and its tributaries. It is matter of common knowledge that throughout the region of country just named there exists in great number artificial hillocks of earth, "nearly always constructed," says Nadaillac, "with a good deal of precision." "They are of various forms, round, oval, square, very rarely polygonal or triangular. Their height varies from a few inches to more than ninety feet, and their diameter varies from three to about a thousand feet."[[16]] Evidently the mounds were erected for a variety of purposes, and the author last quoted, following Mr. Squier[[17]] and Mr. Short,[[18]] makes the following classification: 1, defensive works; 2, sacred enclosures; 3, temples; 4, altar mounds; 5, sepulchral mounds, and 6, mounds representing animals. Short (North Americans, p. 81) gives slightly different classifications, as follows: I., Enclosures: for defense; for religious purposes; miscellaneous. II., Mounds of sacrifice: for temple sites; of sepulchre; of observation."[[19]]
On the subject of the mounds being erected for purposes of fortification, Nadaillac says:
The whole of the space separating the Alleghanies from the Rocky Mountains affords a succession of entrenched camps, fortifications generally made of earth. There were used ramparts, stockade, and trenches near many eminences, and nearly every junction of two large rivers. These works bear witness to the intelligence of the race, which has so long been looked upon as completely barbarous and wild, and an actual system of defences in connection with each other can in some cases be made out with observatories on adjacent heights, and concentric ridges of earth for the protection of the entrances. War was evidently an important subject of thought with the Mound Builders. All the defensive remains occur in the neighborhood of water courses, and the best proof of the skill shown in the choice of sites is shown by the number of flourishing cities, such as Cincinnati, St. Louis, Newark, Portsmouth, Frankfort, New Madrid, and many others, which have risen in the same situations in modern times.[[20]]
Concerning the matter of the Mound Builders in general we are again in the presence of a subject concerning which there is very great diversity of opinions on the part of authorities. 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. It must be obvious that I cannot enter into a consideration of all these questions, and hence content myself with a few quotations from those whose information and judgment I most esteem.[[21]]
Upon the subject of Mound Builders, as upon so many subjects in American antiquities, I find what Mr. Baldwin has said—except wherein his remarks are against migrations from other continents for very ancient American peoples—most acceptable:[[22]]