First, then, in our examination, the question arises, did the Indians of the Mississippi Valley, when first met by the whites, possess the art of manufacturing woven stuff of the kind mentioned? In answer we have the express words of the Inca,[344] “These mantles the Indians of Florida make of a certain herb-like mallows, (malvas,) which has fibres like flax, (que tiene hebra, como lino,) and from the same they make thread, to which they give colors which remain most firmly.” The next explorer was La Salle; in Tonty’s account of his expedition,[345] he remarks that he saw in a council lodge of the Taencas, “sixty old men clothed in large white cloaks, which are made by the women from the bark of the mulberry tree.” Still more to our purpose are the words of later writers, who mention the interweaving of feathers. Not only, says Dumont,[346] do the Indian women make garters and ribbons of the wool of the buffalo, (du laine du beuf,) but also a sort of mat of threads obtained from the bark of the linden, (tilleul,) “qu’elles couvrent de plumes de cigne des plus fines, attachèes une à une sur cet toil.” Dupratz[347] mentions similar cloaks of mulberry bark covered “with the feathers of swans, turkeys, and India ducks,” the fibres of the bark being twisted “about the thickness of packthread,” and woven “with a wrought border around the edges.” Of the Indians of North Carolina, Lawson says,[348] “Their feather match-coats are very pretty, especially some of them which are made extraordinary charming, containing several pretty figures, wrought in feathers, making them seem like a fine flower Silk-Shag.” Other examples might be given, but these are sufficient.
The cane mat was an article of daily use among the tribes wherever the cane grew, and was bartered to those where it did not. The Arkanzas, Taencas, Cenis, Natchez, and Gulf tribes, used it to cover their huts;[349] hence a piece even sixty yards long was no uncommon matter; while in one instance at least,[350] we know that the eastern tribes rolled their dead in them, tying them fast at both ends. All the minor articles of ornament and dress, the bone and horn needles, the vegetable beads, &c., can be shown with equal facility to have been in general use among the natives.[351]
It has usually been supposed that these bodies were preserved by the chemical action of the nitriferous soil around them; but this does not account for their perfection and extreme desiccation, inclosed as they were in such voluminous envelopes. Yet it is quite certain that the viscera were never absent, nor has any balm or gum been found upon them.[352] Hence, if artificially prepared, it must have been by protracted drying by fire, in a manner common among the ancient inhabitants of the Caroline islands, the Tahitians, the Guanches of Teneriffe, and still retained in some convents in the Levant. It is well known that in America the Popayans, the Nicaraguans, and the Caribs of the West Indies had this custom;[353] but I believe that attention has not been called to the fact, that this very mode of preserving the dead was used more or less by the Indians of the Mississippi Valley. The southern tribes of Mississippi and Alabama dried the corpse of their chief over a slow fire, placed it in the temple as an object of adoration till the death of his successor, and then transferred it to the bottom or cellar (fond) of the building.[354] Analogous usages, modifications of this and probably derived from it, prevailed among the tribes of North Carolina, Virginia, and the Pacific coast,[355] while we have seen that Bristock asserts the same of the Apalachites. That a cave should be substituted for a temple, or that the bodies should be ultimately inhumed, cannot excite our surprise when we recall how subject the Indians were to sudden attacks, how solicitous that their dead should not be disturbed,[356] and how caves were ever regarded by them as natural temples for their gods and most fit resting places for their dead.[357]
The rarity of the mummies may be easily accounted for as only the bodies of the chiefs were thus preserved. Yet it is a significant fact that a body is rarely, if ever, found alone. Moreover, in every case of which we have special description, these are of different sexes, and one, the female, and the youngest, sometimes apparently not more than twelve or fourteen years of age, evidently died by violence. How readily these seemingly unconnected facts take place and order, and how intelligible they become, when we learn that at the death of a ruler the Indians sacrificed and buried with him one or two of his wives, and in some tribes the youngest was always the chosen victim of this cruel superstition.[358]
The light color of the hair is doubtless caused by the nitriferous soil with which it had been so long surrounded; a supposition certified by one instance, where, in consequence of the unusually voluminous wrappings, and perhaps a later interment, it retained the black color of that of the true Indian.[359]
Though most of these references relate to nations not dwelling immediately in the area of country where the mummies are found, it is quite unnecessary for me to refer in this connection to those numerous and valid arguments, derived both from tradition and archæology, that prove beyond doubt that this tract, and indeed the whole Ohio valley, had changed masters shortly before the whites explored it, and that its former possessors when not destroyed by the invaders, had been driven south.
Hence we may reasonably infer, that as no article found upon the mummies indicates a higher degree of art than was possessed by the southern Indians, as the physical changes are owing to casual post mortem circumstances, as we have positive authority that certain tribes were accustomed to preserve the corpses of their chiefs; and lastly, as we have many evidences to show that such tribes, or those closely associated with them, once dwelt further north than they were first found, consequently the deposition of the mummies must be ascribed to a race who dwelt near the region where they occur, at the time of its exploration by Europeans.