Fig. 64. Washington, Mason county, Kentucky. Its height is ten feet.[119]
No sooner do we arrive in the Southern States, than we find these Teocalli-shaped structures constituting the most numerous and important portion of the ancient remains. They preserve very nearly the same form with those already described, but are generally of greater size, and enter into many new combinations. Examples of a considerable number have already been given in the chapter on the “Monuments of the Southern States.” Here they often occur entirely separate from enclosures of any sort, and are frequently placed with a great deal of regularity in respect to each other. It sometimes happens that a large truncated mound is surrounded by a series of smaller ones, so as to form an ellipse, circle, square, or parallelogram.[120] In some instances the various mounds of a group are connected with each other by raised ways or terraces.
Many of the temple mounds of the South are circular; most have graded ascents, and a few have a low wall enclosing the level area at their tops. In Macon and Cherokee counties, North Carolina, quite a number, answering to this description,
Fig. 65. are said to exist. A very remarkable one occurs near the town of Franklin, on the Tennessee river, and another not far from the town of Murphy, on Valley p177 river. They are from twelve to fifteen feet high and of proportionate base. Their form is best illustrated by the accompanying engraving, Fig. 65. There are no enclosures in the vicinity of these works. It is said the Indians formerly built their council houses upon them.
Some of these circular mounds, as we have seen in a previous chapter, were ascended by spiral pathways, winding round them, as round a shaft, from base to summit. Indeed, it would be impossible to describe all the various forms which these structures assume; their general character is however sufficiently illustrated by the preceding examples.
It often happens that the temple mounds of the South have other mounds upon their summits. This is especially the case with the large pyramidal structures. An example is furnished in the great Seltzertown mound, which is covered with a number of smaller ones.
Fig. 66.—Group of sepulchral mounds.
- FOOTNOTES TO CHAPTER VIII.
- [114] Notes on the Antiquities of the Mississippi Valley, by H. H. Breckenridge, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 1813; Views of Louisiana, p. 172, Latrobe, vol. ii, p. 250; Featherstonhaugh’s Travels in North America, p. 66.
- [115] There is an elevation of earth not far from Chicago, in the northern part of Illinois, which was supposed, for many years, to be of artificial origin. It is well known as Mount Joliet. It appears, however, from all direct information that can be gathered concerning it, that it is simply a natural eminence of regular outline. So far as we are informed, there are no traces of a great ancient population in that vicinity, such as we almost invariably find accompanying the more imposing aboriginal monuments.
- [116] On the authority of Charles Sullivan, Esq., Marietta, Ohio.
- [117] The description of this mound is from the RAFINESQUE MSS. The section purports to have been made by a Mr. Ewing.
- [118] RAFINESQUE MSS. The survey of this singular monument purports to have been made in 1820. The then proprietor was a Mr. Ship, the position of whose residence is shown in the plan.
- [119] RAFINESQUE MSS., 1818.
- [120] Mounds placed in this manner are of occasional occurrence in the more northern States. Examples have been remarked in Illinois and Missouri. Twelve miles south-west of the town of Glasgow, Barren county, Kentucky, a group is found. The mounds are small, oval, and placed at intervals of about fifty yards, so as to constitute a circle of perhaps fifteen hundred feet in circumference. In the centre of the circular area is a large mound between twenty and thirty feet in height. These mounds appear to have sustained structures of some kind.—Collins’s Kentucky, p. 176.