Whatever may be our conclusion in reference to these questions, I think it will be conceded that the builders of these Etowah mounds belonged to different tribes from those who erected the East Tennessee and North Carolina works, and hence, if we are right in regard to the latter, the Etowah mounds were not built by the Cherokees. The important bearing which this conclusion has upon the question under discussion, as the reader will see, is that the mounds immediately outside of the territory occupied by the Cherokees were built by a different people from those who erected the works in that territory. Thus we see that, judging by the mounds alone, immediately upon passing outside the Cherokee country we encounter a different type of works. This fact, therefore, when taken in connection with the other evidence adduced, becomes strongly corroborative of the view that the Cherokees were the authors of the works in their territory.
CONCLUDING REMARKS.
The results of our examination of the burial mounds of the northern districts may be briefly summed up as follows:
First. That different sections were occupied by different mound-building tribes, which, though belonging to much the same stage in the scale of civilization, differed in most instances in habits and customs to a sufficient extent to mark, by their modes of burial, construction of their mounds, and their works of art, the boundaries of the respective areas occupied.
Second. That each tribe adopted several different modes of burial depending, in all probability, to some extent upon the social condition, position, and occupation of the deceased.
Third. That the custom of removing the flesh before the final burial prevailed very extensively among the mound-builders of the northern sections. The bones of the common people being often gathered together and cast in promiscuous heaps, over which mounds were built.
Fourth. That usually some kind of religious or superstitious ceremony was performed at the burial, in which fire played a prominent part. That, notwithstanding the very common belief to the contrary, there is no evidence whatever that human sacrifice was practiced.
Fifth. That there is nothing found in the mode of constructing these mounds, nor in the vestiges of art they contain, to indicate that their builders had reached a higher culture-status than that attained by some of the Indian tribes found occupying the country at the time of the first arrival of Europeans.