The Man Mound.
The journey now leads a fraction of a mile farther up the north range of the Baraboo Bluffs, then a mile to the east to Man Mound Park, the central object of which is the famous man mound.
The length of the mound is 214 feet and width at the shoulder 48 feet. In order to assemble this large amount of earth the Indians, having neither shovels nor iron tools of any kind, used bark or other baskets, scrapers of wood or stone, and their hands. The observer will realize with what labor and under what difficulties the workers accomplished their task. When the Indians were gathered here, in camp they, with their activity and fantastic dress, must have presented an unusual picture in the boundless wilderness.
The man mound was located and platted by W. H. Canfield, local surveyor, historian, and archeologist, July 23, 1859. The original survey is now in the possession of the Sauk County Historical Society. The name of the discoverer of this earthwork has been lost in the dimness of time. When the highway was graded a number of years ago the lower part of the legs were destroyed and subsequently the feet, for years beneath a board fence on the north side of the road, were leveled. Why the mound was built is explained near the close of this article.
On August 7, 1908, the Man Mound Park was formally dedicated at a joint state assembly of the Wisconsin Archeological Society and Sauk County Historical Society, the bronze tablet, a gift by J. Van Orden of Baraboo, being unveiled at that time. Previously the land had been purchased by the two societies and the Landmarks Committee of the Wisconsin Federation of Women's Clubs.
Region Rich in Indian Mounds.
In primeval times the Baraboo region was rich in Indian mounds and, although the plow has been active since the 40's and 50's of the last century, many of the aboriginal earthworks still remain. They were erected by the savages on hillside and on plain, by lake, stream, and on the upland, in the deep forest and on the open prairie. They are the relics of a people now disappearing and are of ever increasing interest to the investigating archeologist.
The theory was at one time advanced that a pre-Indian race, the Mound Builders, constructed the earthworks, but modern archeologists have disproved the idea of the existence of any such a pre-historic people, holding the builders of the mounds were none other than the Indians. It is believed the Winnebago are the authors of the majority of the earthworks found in Wisconsin. The great number of these heaps of earth scattered over the country indicate a considerable Indian population extending over no small period of time.
Indian mounds or tumuli are of various forms and, with few exceptions, may be classed as round or conical, elongate or wall-like pyramidal, and effigy or emblematic mounds. The conical mounds in the United States vary in height from scarcely a perceptible swell to elevation of 80 and sometimes 100 feet. Ours are smaller the highest not over 25 feet. Those in the Baraboo region seldom exceed in height of 2, 3, or 4 feet. In the conical mounds the Indians often buried their dead and sometimes one, two, or three layers of charcoal are found above the remains, indicating that fires, probably of a ceremonial nature, had burned over the dead.