Tonti, the historian of La Salle’s expedition, in the eighteenth century, states that La Salle actually saw mound-dwellers among southern tribes of Indians, living very much as the Ohio mound-builders must have done, and quite untouched as yet by any contact with the whites. Tonti describes the dwellings, made of sun-dried mud and with dome-shaped roofs of cane; two of them were larger and better constructed than the rest, one the chief’s house and the other a temple, both about forty feet square. The latter held the bones of deceased chieftains, and was surmounted by three rude, wooden eagles. In the center was apparently “a kind of altar,” where was maintained a perpetual fire of logs, watched by two aged men. A recess, to which strangers were not admitted, contained the treasures of the tribe, especially pearls from the Gulf, as he was told. The chief returned the visit of La Salle, coming in great state, with attendants, one of whom bore a disk of copper, supposed to represent the sun, the chief’s great ancestor.[[559]] The wooden eagles recall the large copper bird taken from mound No. 25 at Hopewell; and the copper disk carried before the chief suggests a similar use for some of the large objects of the same metal. The whole account is extremely interesting in its resemblance to the Ohio remains.
The most complete study of these ancient structures is that of the Harness mound, not far distant from the Hopewell, conducted under the direction of the Ohio State Archæological and Historical Society, in 1905, by their curator and librarian, Prof. William C. Mills.[[560]]
The Harness group contains within and about it fourteen mounds; the works as a whole were described by Squier and Davis, on page 56 of their great report (“Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley,” 1848), and have been frequently mentioned and pictured for their striking form,—a large and perfect circle, opening at one side into a smaller circle and also into an exact square. They are located, like the Hopewell, in Ross County, and stand on a terrace of the Scioto River, nearly a mile from its eastern bank, and about eight miles south of Chillicothe.
The square inclosure measures 1080 feet on each side, and the diameters of the two circles are about 1600 feet for the larger and 650 feet for the smaller. In general character, this group closely resembles the Hopewell: there is the same low wall or embankment, some four feet high, though without any ditch as at Hopewell, and the same problem as to its object. A number of small mounds are placed here and there, and one large and important one recalls the Effigy, though it is somewhat less in size and much more regular in form. In 1846, when Squier and Davis examined it, unfortunately most of the ground was covered with woods; but these are gone, and the works have since been much reduced by tillage and partly obliterated by railroad and other constructions.
The one large mound is named for the recent owner of the property, Mr. Edwin Harness; the present owner, his son, Mr. John M. Harness, aided and facilitated the explorations in every way. This fact, as also in the case of Mr. Hopewell, stands in pleasing and honorable contrast to the narrow policy of some land-owners, who refuse permission for any such work, even when the structures are upon unused and valueless ground.
The large mound is an almost perfect oval in form, 160 feet long and some 80 feet across at its widest point, which is about one third of the way from the northern end; in height it is nearly 20 feet, or was before its recent removal. It was partly explored by Squier and Davis in 1846, and quite extensively by Professor Putnam in 1885, and, unlike the Effigy mound, had been repeatedly opened and examined in a small way by both official and unofficial explorers. In 1896, Mr. W. K. Moorehead took up the work where Professor Putnam had stopped, and carried it considerably further, under the auspices of the Ohio Archæological and Historical Society; and the same body, in 1905, commissioned Mr. Mills to resume and complete the examination, removing the entire structure down to its base.
The Harness mound, unlike the Effigy, was for burial purposes only. There must have been nearly two hundred. Squier and Davis found one of these, and possibly another which they mistook for an “altar”; and they state their belief that the mound probably contained other burials which their two pits had not revealed. Professor Putnam encountered 12 burials, Mr. Moorehead 27, and the final exploration 133, making a total of 174. Besides these, an unknown number have been disturbed and removed by occasional explorers. Of the 174 recorded, only ten had been buried without being burned; the rest were all cremated, some where they were laid, but most of them elsewhere, and the ashes brought and placed in the grave. This was in all cases carefully prepared, within a small inclosure of logs, the decayed and charred remains of which are clearly traceable. The entire mound itself had been outlined with posts set in the ground. the holes and impressions remaining as evidence of the fact.
Mr. Mills outlines the history of this mound, in a way that recalls Mr. Moorehead’s views as to the gradual growth of the Effigy. It began as a place for the holding of funeral rites and the deposit of the dead, marked out by lines of posts, which show that it was from time to time enlarged. Finally, when the place was substantially filled, earth and gravel were deposited over the whole, and slabs of stone (particularly noted by Squier and Davis) were laid around it, upon the lower part of the slope.
Much description is given of the separate graves or burial chambers, which are of several types, and of the various details of the cremated and uncremated interments. The mound is rich in relics, although none of the profuse sacrificial accumulations of the “altars” were encountered, this being a mound of burial only. The relics are of the same kind, in general, as those found in the Hopewell group, and to specify them in detail would be only repetition. From the 133 graves opened in Mr. Mills’s final investigation, no less than 1200 specimens were obtained for the museum of the Archæological Society at Columbus. Among these were artefacts of Lake Superior copper (and some pieces of native silver), large shells from the Gulf, galena, obsidian, and much mica, both in “blocks” and cut into ornaments, all showing the same range of aboriginal commerce as already described at Hopewell. In reference to pearls, the following are the principal observations:
Beads made from Unio pearls were very abundant everywhere in the Harness mound, as also beads of shell. They are found in such position as to show that they were strung and worn around the neck or wrists. One burial (No. 100) had some 2100 pearl beads, all rather small, and some of them perfectly round. Several hundred were obtained, however, that ranged from one quarter to one half an inch in diameter. A number of these are shown of natural size. The larger pearls, instead of being bored through for beads, are frequently somewhat flattened by grinding, and then pierced with two holes so as to attach them to a fabric. Very large ones were sometimes set in copper,—a style of work never observed before. Mr. Mills says of this: “Large and select pearls were flattened upon one side by grinding, and then placed upon a circular disk of copper a little larger than the pearl. The edges were then turned (up) around the pearl, holding it in place. Not only were pearls set in this way, but various pieces of shell cut in a circular form.” Fine examples of this unique style of jewelry, of natural size, and another copper setting of like character, from which the pearl has been lost, are shown in plates facing pages 499 and 510.