James's Account of S. H. Long's Expedition, 1819-1820, part 1

by Edwin James; Stephen H. Long; Thomas Say

Indian graves are extremely numerous about St. Louis, though none are found in the immediate vicinity of the town: they are most frequent on the hills about the Merameg and on the north side of the Missouri. On the 12th June, Mr. Say and Mr. Peale, accompanied by one man, descended the Mississippi,{56} in a small boat to the mouth of the Merameg, and ascended the latter river about fifteen miles, to a place where great numbers of graves have been explored, and have been represented to contain the bones of a diminutive race of men. Most of these graves are found near the bank of the Merameg. They do not rise above the general surface, but their presence is ascertained by the vertical stones which enclose them, and project a little at either end of the grave. When the included earth, and the numerous horizontal flat stones are removed, we find the sides neatly constructed of long flat stones, vertically implanted and adapted to each other, edge to edge, so as to form a continuous wall. The graves are usually three or four feet, though sometimes six feet in length. The bones they contained appeared to have been deposited after having been separated from the flesh, and from each other, according to the custom of some tribes of Indians at the present day.

In the first grave opened by Mr. Say were found the fragments of an earthen pot, and the bones of an infantine skull; the second contained what appeared to be the remains of a middle aged man, of the ordinary stature, laid[pg117] at full length; the bones much confused and broken. An inhabitant residing here informed them, that many similar graves had been found along the summits of most of the neighbouring hills. In one of these he had found two pieces of earthenware, one having nearly the form of a porter-bottle; the other with a wide mouth; but this grave contained no bones. After spending a night at this place, they crossed the river to the town of Lilliput, (one of the projected towns here has received this name,) the place so often mentioned as the locality of the graves of a pigmy race. Appearances here are in general similar to those already described. One head that had been dug up was that of an old person, in whom the teeth had been lost, and the alveolæ {57} obliterated, leaving the sharp edge of the jaw-bone. From this the neighbouring settlers had inferred the existence of a race of men without teeth, having their jaws like those of the turtle. Having satisfied themselves that all the bones found here were those of men of the common size, Mr. Say and Mr. Peale "sold their skiff, shouldered their guns, bones, spade, &c. and bent their weary steps towards St. Louis, (distant sixteen miles,) where they arrived at eleven o'clock P. M., having had ample time, by the way, to indulge sundry reflections on that quality of the mind, either imbibed in the nursery or generated by evil communications, which incites to the love of the marvellous, and, by hyperbole, casts the veil of falsehood over the charming features of simple nature."

These graves evidently contain the relics of a more modern people than those who erected the mounds.

On the summit of one of the large hillocks, near St. Louis, (No. 27. described in note 83) are several of these graves: we opened five of them, but in one only were we[pg118] fortunate in finding any thing interesting, and all that this contained was a solitary tooth of a species of rat, together with the vertebræ and ribs of a serpent of moderate size, and in good preservation; but whether the animal had been buried by the natives, or had perished there, after having found admittance through some hole, we could not determine. If they were buried by the Indians, they are probably the bones of a species of crotalus, as it is known that many Indians of the present day have a sort of veneration for animals of that genus. The circumstance of the discovery of these bones renders it somewhat probable, that rattlesnakes were formerly worshipped by the natives of America, and their remains, like those of the Ibis of Egypt, religiously entombed after death.

Whilst we were at Cincinnati, Dr. Drake exhibited {58} to us, in his cabinet of natural history, two large marine shells, that had been dug out of ancient Indian tumuli in that vicinity. These shells were each cut longitudinally, and the larger half of each only remained. From this circumstance it seems probable that they had been used by the aborigines as drinking cups; or, consecrated to superstition, they may have been regarded as sacred utensils, and either used in connection with the rites of sacrifice, or in making libations to their deities; they may, however, like the cymbium of the Archipelago, have served a more useful and salutary purpose in bathing.

One of these specimens seems to be a Cassis cornutus, of authors, or great conch shell, though it is proper to observe, that of the three revolving bands of tubercles, characteristic of that species, the inferior one in this specimen is double. In length it is about nine inches and a quarter, and in breadth seven inches. [pg119]

The other specimen is a heterostrophe shell of the genus Fulgur of Montfort; and, as far as we can judge, in every respect the same with those which are, at the present day, found on the coast of Georgia and East Florida, known to naturalists under the name of F. perversus, though it is certainly much larger than any of the recent specimens we have seen; its length being nine inches, and breadth six and a half.

Several different countries have been mentioned by authors as the habitation of the cornutus; according to Rumphius, it inhabits Amboyna, the straits of Malacca, and the shores of the island of Boeton; Humphreys says it is brought from the East Indies and China; Linnæus believed it to inhabit the coasts of America; but Bruguiere, a more recent author, informs us that Linnæus was probably mistaken in the habitation of this shell, and states it to be a native of the Asiatic ocean.

The cornutus becomes of some importance in the question relative to the Asiatic origin of the American {59} Indians. All the authorities to which we have been able to refer, correspond in assigning the shores of Asia, or those of the islands which lie near that continent, as the native territory of this great species of conch, with the sole exception of Linnæus; but as no other author has discovered it on the coasts of this continent, we must believe with Bruguiere, that it is only to be found in the Asiatic ocean.

The circumstance then of this shell being discovered in one of the ancient Indian tumuli, affords, at least, an evidence that an intercourse formerly existed between the Indians of North America and those of Asia; and leads us to believe that even a limited commerce was carried on[pg120] between them, as it undoubtedly was with the Atlantic coast, from which the Fulgur was obtained.