The Problem of the Ohio Mounds

by Cyrus Thomas

If they stopped for a time on New River and the head of the Holston, as Haywood conjectures, [Footnote: Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 223.—See Thomas, "Cherokees probably mound-builders," Magazine Am. Hist., May. 1884, p. 398.] their line of retreat was in all likelihood up the valley of the Great Kanawha. This supposition agrees also with the fact that no traces of them are found in the ancient works of Kentucky or middle Tennessee. In truth, the works along the Ohio River from Portsmouth to Cincinnati and throughout northern Kentucky pertain to entirely different types from those of Ohio, most of them to a type found in no other section.

On the contrary, it happens precisely in accordance with the theory advanced and the Cherokeee traditions, that we find in the Kanawha Valley, near the city of Charleston, a very extensive group of ancient works stretching along the banks of the stream for more than two miles, consisting of quite large as well as small mounds, of circular and rectangular inclosures, etc. A careful survey of this group has been made and a number of the tumuli, including the larger ones, have been explored by the representatives of the Bureau.

The result of these explorations has been to bring to light some very important data bearing upon the question now under consideration. In fact we find here what seems to be beyond all reasonable doubt the connecting link between the typical works of Ohio and those of East Tennessee and North Carolina ascribed to the Cherokees.

The little stone vaults in the shape of bee-hives noticed and figured in the articles in Science and the American Naturalist, before referred to, discovered by the Bureau assistants in Caldwell County, N. C., and Sullivan County, Tenn., are so unusual as to justify the belief that they are the work of a particular tribe, or at least pertain to an ethnic type. Yet under one of the large mounds at Charleston, on the bottom of a pit dug in the original soil, a number of vaults of precisely the same form were found, placed, like those of the Sullivan County mound, in a circle. But, though covering human remains moldered back to dust, they were of hardened clay instead of stone. Nevertheless, the similarity in form, size, use, and conditions under which they were found is remarkable, and, as they have been found only at the points mentioned, the probability is suggested that the builders in the two sections were related.

There is another link equally strong. In a number of the larger mounds on the sites of the "over-hill towns," in Blount and Loudon Counties, Tenn., saucer-shaped beds of burnt clay, one above another, alternating with layers of coals and ashes, were found. Similar beds were also found in the mounds at Charleston. These are also unusual, and, so far as I am aware, have been found only in these two localities. Possibly they are outgrowths of the clay altars of the Ohio mounds, and, if so, reveal to us the probable use of these strange structures. They were places where captives were tortured and burned, the most common sacrifices the Indians were accustomed to make. Be this supposition worthy of consideration or not, it is a fact worthy of notice in this connection that in one of the large mounds in this Kanawha group one of the so-called "clay altars" was found at the bottom of precisely the same pattern as those found by Squier and Davis in the mounds of Ohio.

In these mounds were also found wooden vaults, constructed In exactly the same manner as that in the lower part of the Grave Creek mound; also others of the pattern of those found in the Ohio mounds, in which bark wrappings were used to enshroud the dead. Hammered copper bracelets, hematite celts and hemispheres, and mica plates, so characteristic of the Ohio tumuli, were also discovered here; and, as in East Tennessee and Ohio, we find at the bottom of mounds in this locality the post-holes or little pits which have recently excited considerable attention. We see another connecting link in the circular and rectangular inclosures, not combined as in Ohio, but analogous, and, considering the restricted area of the narrow valley, bearing as strong resemblance as might be expected if the builders of the two localities were one people.

It would be unreasonable to assume that all these similarities in customs, most of which are abnormal, are but accidental coincidences due to necessity and environment. On the contrary it will probably be conceded that the testimony adduced and the reasons presented justify the conclusion that the ancestors of the Cherokees were the builders of some at least of the typical works of Ohio; or, at any rate, that they entitle this conclusion to favorable consideration. Few, if any, will longer doubt that the Cherokees were mound builders in their historic seats in North Carolina and Tennessee. Starting with this basis, and taking the mound testimony, of which not even a tithe has been presented, the tradition of the Cherokees, the statement of Haywood, the Delaware tradition as given by Heckewelder, the Bark Record as published by Brinton and interpreted by Hale, and the close resemblance between the names Tallegwi and Chellakee, it would seem that there can remain little doubt that the two peoples were identical.

It is at least apparent that the ancient works of the Kanawha Valley and other parts of West Virginia are more nearly related to those of Ohio than to those of any other region, and hence they may justly be attributed to the same or cognate tribes. The general movement, therefore, must have been southward as indicated, and the exit of the Ohio mound-builders was, in all probability, up the Kanawha Valley on the same line that the Cherokees appear to have followed in reaching their historical locality. It is a singular fact and worthy of being mentioned here, that among the Cherokee names signed to the treaty made between the United States and this tribe at Tellico, in 1798, are the following: [Footnote: Treaties between the United States of America and the several Indian tribes (1837), p. 182.] Tallotuskee, Chellokee, Yonaheguah, Keenakunnah, and Teekakatoheeunah, which strongly suggest relationship to names found in the Allegheny region, although the latter come to us through the Delaware tongue.

If the hypothesis here advanced be correct, it is apparent that the Cherokees entered the immediate valley of the Mississippi from the northwest, striking it in the region of Iowa. This supposition is strengthened not only by the similarity in the forms of the pipes found in the two sections, but also in the structure and contents of many of the mounds found along the Mississippi in the region of western Illinois. So striking is this that it has been remarked by explorers whose opinions could not have been biased by this theory.

Mr. William McAdams, in an address to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, remarks: "Mounds, such as are here described, in the American Bottom and low-lands of Illinois are seldom, if ever, found on the bluffs. On the rich bottom lands of the Illinois River, within 50 miles of its mouth, I have seen great numbers of them and examined several. The people who built them are probably connected with the Ohio mound-builders, although in this vicinity they seem not to have made many earthen embankments, or walls inclosing areas of land, as is common in Ohio. Their manner of burial was similar to the Ohio mound- builders, however, and in this particular they had customs similar to the mound-builders of Europe." [Footnote: Proc. Am. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 29th (Boston) meeting, 1880 (1881), p. 715.] One which he opened in Calhoun County, presented the regular form of the Ohio "altar."