CHAPTER XIX. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.
With the facts presented in the foregoing chapters before him, the reader will be able to deduce his own conclusions, as to the probable character and condition of the ancient population of the Mississippi valley. That it was numerous and widely spread, is evident from the number and magnitude of the ancient monuments, and the extensive range of their occurrence. That it was essentially homogeneous, in customs, habits, religion, and government, seems very well sustained by the great uniformity which the ancient remains display, not only as regards position and form, but in respect also to those minor particulars, which, not less than more obvious and imposing features, assist us in arriving at correct conclusions. This opinion can be in no way affected, whether we assume that the ancient race was at one time diffused over the entire valley, or that it migrated slowly from one portion of it to the other, under the pressure of hostile neighbors or the attractions of a more genial climate. The differences which have already been pointed out between the monuments of the several portions of the valley, of the northern, central, and southern divisions, are not sufficiently marked to authorize the belief that they were the works of separate nations. The features common to all are elementary, and identify them as appertaining to a single grand system, owing its origin to a family of men, moving in the same general direction, acting under common impulses, and influenced by similar causes.
Without undertaking to point out the affinities, or to indicate the probable origin of the builders of the western monuments, and the cause of their final disappearance,—inquiries of deep interest and vast importance in an archæological and ethnological point of view, and in which it is believed the foregoing chapters may greatly assist,—we may venture to suggest that the facts thus far collected point to a connection more or less intimate between the race of the mounds and the semi-civilized nations which formerly had their seats among the sierras of Mexico, upon the plains of Central America and Peru, and who erected the imposing structures which from their number, vastness, and mysterious significance, invest the central portions of the continent with an interest not less absorbing than that which attaches to the valley of the Nile. These nations alone, of all those found in possession of the continent by the European discoverers, were essentially stationary and agricultural in their habits,—conditions indispensable to large population, to fixedness of institutions, and to any considerable advance in the economical or ennobling arts. That the mound-builders, although perhaps in a less degree, were also stationary and agricultural, clearly appears from a variety of facts and p302 circumstances, most of which will no doubt recur to the mind of the reader, but which will bear recapitulation here.
It may safely be claimed, and will be admitted without dispute, that a large local population can only exist under an agricultural system. Dense commercial and manufacturing communities, the apparent exceptions to the remark, are themselves the offspring of a large agricultural population, with which nearly or remotely they are connected, and upon which they are dependent. Now it is evident that works of art, so numerous and vast as we have seen those of the Mississippi valley to be, could only have been erected by a numerous people,—and especially must we regard as numerous the population capable of constructing them, when we reflect how imperfect at the best must have been the artificial aids at their command, as compared with those of the present age. Implements of wood, stone, and copper, could hardly have proved very efficient auxiliaries to the builders, who must have depended mainly upon their own bare hands and weak powers of transportation, for excavating and collecting together the twenty millions of cubic feet of material which make up the solid contents of the great mound at Cahokia alone.
But the conclusion that the ancient population was exceedingly dense, follows not less from the capability which they possessed to erect, than from the circumstance that they required, works of the magnitude we have seen, to protect them in danger, or to indicate in a sufficiently imposing form their superstitious zeal, and their respect for the dead. As observed by an eminent archæologist, whose opinions upon this and collateral subjects are entitled to a weight second to those of no other author, “it is impossible that the population, for whose protection such extensive works were necessary, and which was able to defend them, should not have been eminently agricultural.” The same author elsewhere observes, of the great mound at Grave creek, that “it indicates not only a dense agricultural population, but also a state of society essentially different from that of the modern race of Indians north of the tropic. There is not, and there was not in the sixteenth century, a single tribe of Indians (north of the semi-civilized nations) between the Atlantic and the Pacific, which had means of subsistence sufficient to enable them to apply, for such purposes, the unproductive labor necessary for the work; nor was there any in such a social state as to compel the labor of the people to be thus applied.”[189] p303
Another evidence of the probable agricultural character of the mound-builders, is furnished in the fact already several times remarked, that these remains are almost entirely confined to the fertile valleys of streams, or to productive alluvions bordering on the lakes or on the Gulf of Mexico,—precisely the positions best adapted for agricultural purposes, and capable of sustaining the densest population, as also affording, in fish and game, the most efficient secondary aids of support.
If the mound-builders were a numerous, stationary, and an agricultural people, it follows of necessity that their customs, laws, and religion, had assumed a fixed and well defined form,—a result inseparable from that condition. The construction therefore of permanent fortifications for protection against hostile neighbors, and of vast and regular religious structures, under this hypothesis, fell clearly within their capabilities.
The modes of warfare which they practised, so far as they can be made out, and the probable state of the civil relations between them and their neighbors, and among themselves, have been noticed in the remarks on the Works of Defence, in a previous chapter. Little can, at present, be added upon these points. p304
If we are not mistaken in assigning a religious origin to that large portion of ancient monuments, which are clearly not defensive, nor designed to perpetuate the memory of the dead, then the superstitions of the ancient people must have exercised a controlling influence upon their character. If, again, as from reason and analogy we are warranted in supposing, many of these sacred structures are symbolical in their forms and combinations, they indicate the prevalence among their builders of religious beliefs and conceptions, corresponding with those which prevailed among the early nations of the other continent, and which in their elements seem to have been common to all nations, far back in the traditional period, before the dawn of written history. Their consideration under this aspect involves a preliminary analysis of the religious belief of the various aboriginal American families, an examination of their mythologies and superstitious rites, and a comparison between them and those of the primitive nations of the old world. It involves, also, an attention to the sacred monuments of the eastern continent, to the principles upon which they were constructed, and to the extent to which a symbolical design is apparent in their combinations and ornaments. But it is alike beyond the scope and design of this work to go into these inquiries, which in themselves, from their attractiveness and importance, deserve a full and separate consideration. We may, however, be permitted to express the belief, that researches in this department, philosophically conducted, must lead to results of the highest value, and greatly aid in the solution of the interesting problems connected with our aboriginal history. For, in the words of a writer of distinction, “of all researches that most effectually aid us to discover the origin of a nation or people, whose history is unknown or deeply involved in the obscurity of ancient times, none perhaps are attended with such important results, as the analysis of their theological dogmas, and their religious practices. In such matters mankind adhere with greatest tenacity, and though both modified and corrupted in the revolutions of ages, they still preserve features of their original construction, when language, arts, sciences, and political establishments no longer retain distinct lineaments of their ancient constitutions.”[190]
The antiquity of the ancient monuments of the Mississippi valley has been made the subject of incidental remark in the foregoing chapters. It will not be out of place here to allude once more to some of the facts bearing upon this point. Of course no attempt to fix their date accurately can, from the circumstances of the case, be successful. The most that can be done is to arrive at approximate results. The fact that none of the ancient monuments occur upon the latest-formed terraces of the river valleys of Ohio, is one of much importance in its bearings upon this question. If, as we are amply warranted in believing, these terraces mark the degrees of subsidence of the streams, one of the four which may be traced has been formed since those streams have followed their present courses. There is no good reason for supposing that the mound-builders would have avoided building upon that terrace, while they erected their works promiscuously upon all the others. p305 And if they had built upon it, some slight traces of their works would yet be visible, however much influence we may assign to disturbing causes,—overflows, and shifting channels. Assuming, then, that the lowest terrace, on the Scioto river for example, has been formed since the era of the mounds, we must next consider that the excavating power of the Western rivers diminishes yearly, in proportion as they approximate towards a general level. On the lower Mississippi,—where alone the ancient monuments are sometimes invaded by the water,—the bed of the stream is rising, from the deposition of the materials brought down from the upper tributaries, where the excavating process is going on. This excavating power, it is calculated, is in an inverse ratio to the square of the depth, that is to say, diminishes as the square of the depth increases. Taken to be approximately correct, this rule establishes that the formation of the latest terrace, by the operation of the same causes, must have occupied much more time than the formation of any of the preceding three. Upon these premises, the time, since the streams have flowed in their present courses, may be divided into four periods, of different lengths,—of which the latest, supposed to have elapsed since the race of the mounds flourished, is much the longest.