Mississippi Temple-Mounds.
The group of temple-mounds shown in the cut is in Washington County, Mississippi. Others similar in many respects to these are found at Madison, Louisiana.
Temple-mounds are homogeneous and never stratified in their construction, and contain no relics; that is, the object in their erection was simply to afford a raised platform, with convenient means of ascent.
Animal-mounds, the second class, are those that assume in their ground plan various irregular forms, sometimes those of living creatures, including quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, fishes, and in a few cases men. Mounds of this class are very numerous in the north-west, particularly in Wisconsin, and rarely occur further south, although there are a few excellent specimens in Ohio. They are most abundant in fertile valleys and rarely occur on the lake shore. Nine tenths of them are simple straight, curved, or crooked embankments of irregular form, slightly raised above the surface, bearing no likeness to any natural object. In many, fancied to be like certain animals, the resemblance is imaginary. Those shaped like a tapering club, with two knobs on one side near the larger end—a very common figure—are called 'lizard-mounds;' add two other protuberances on the opposite side and we have the 'turtle-mounds.' Yet a few bear a clear resemblance to quadrupeds, birds, and serpents, and all evidently belong to the same class and were connected with the religious ideas of the builders. They are not burial mounds, contain no relics, are but a few feet at the most above the ground, and are always composed of whitish clay, or the subsoil of the country. Their dimensions on the ground are considerable; rude effigies of human form are in some cases over one hundred feet long; quadrupeds have bodies and tails each from fifty to two hundred feet long; birds have wings of a hundred feet; 'lizard-mounds' are two and even four hundred feet in length; straight and curved lines of embankment reach over a thousand feet; and serpents are equally extensive. They are grouped without any apparent order together with conical mounds, occasional embankments, and few enclosures. They often form a line extending over a large tract. In some cases the animal form is an excavation instead of a mound, the earth being thrown up on the banks. An embankment in Adams County, Ohio, on the summit of a hill much like those often occupied by fortifications, is thought to resemble a monster serpent with curved body and coiled tail, five feet high, thirty feet wide in the middle, and over one thousand feet long if uncoiled. The jaws are wide open and apparently in the act of swallowing an oval mound measuring one hundred and sixty by eighty feet. On a hill overlooking Granville, Ohio, is a mound six feet high and a hundred and fifty feet long, thought to resemble the form of an alligator. Stones are rarely used with the earth in the construction of animal-mounds, and only in a few cases has the presence of ashes or other traces of fire been reported.
The third class of tumuli includes the conical mounds, mere heaps of earth and stones, so far as outward appearance is concerned, generally round, often oval, sometimes square with rounded corners, or even hexagonal and triangular, in their base-forms, and varying in height from a few inches to seventy feet, in diameter from three or four to three hundred feet. A height of from six to thirty feet and a diameter of forty to one hundred feet would probably include a larger part of them. Of course the height has been reduced and the base increased by the action of rains more or less in different localities according to the material employed. Mounds of this class never have summit platforms or any means of ascent. They are here as elsewhere in America much more numerous than other mounds. Although so like one to another in form, they differ widely in location and contents. They are found on hill-tops and in the level plain. In the former case they are either isolated, grouped round fortifications, or extend in long lines at irregular intervals for many miles, suggesting boundary lines or fire signals. In the valleys they stand alone, in groups, or in connection with sacred enclosures. The groups are sometimes symmetrical, as when a number of mounds are regularly arranged about a larger central one, or are so placed as to form squares, circles, and other regular figures; but often no systematic plan is observable. Also in connection with the enclosures part of them are symmetrically located with respect to entrances, angles, or temple-mounds; while others are scattered apparently without fixed order. There are few enclosures that do not have a mound opposite each entrance on the inside. A complete survey and restoration would probably show many mounds to belong to some regular system, that now appear isolated.
The material of the mounds requires no remark in addition to what has been said of other works. A large majority are simply heaps of the earth nearest at hand. Stone mounds, or those of mixed materials, are rare, and are chiefly confined to the hill-top structures. Most of the earth mounds are homogeneous in structure, but some are regularly and doubtless intentionally stratified. Some of them in the gulf states are composed of shells, in addition to the shell-mounds proper formed by the gradual deposit of refuse shells, the contents of which served as food.
CONTENTS OF THE MOUNDS.
The contents of the mounds should be divided into two great classes; those deposited by the Mound-builders, and those of modern Indian or European origin. The distinction is important, but difficult; and in this difficulty is to be found the origin of many of the extraordinary reports and theories. The Indians have always felt a kind of veneration for the mounds as for something of mysterious origin and purpose, and have used them as burial places. The Indian habit of burying with their dead such articles as were prized by them when living, is well known; as is also the value attached by them to trinkets obtained by purchase or theft from Europeans. Consequently articles of European manufacture, such as must have been obtained long before the country was to any great extent occupied by the whites, are often dug from the mounds and found elsewhere. The discovery of silver crosses, gun-barrels, and French dials, does not, however, as Mr Squier remarks, justify the conclusion that the Mound-builders "were Catholics, used fire-arms, or spoke French." The mounds are usually opened by injudicious explorers or by treasure-seekers, who have paid little attention to the location of the relics found or the condition of the surrounding soil. Museums and private collections are full of spurious relics thus obtained. It is certain in some cases, and probable in many more, that the mounds have been 'salted' with specimens with a view to their early investigation. Yet many mounds have been opened by scientific men, who have brought to light curious relics, surely the work of the Mound-builders. Such relics are found in the centre of the mounds, on or near the original surface of the ground, with the surrounding material undisturbed. In the stratified mounds any disturbance in the soil is easily detected, but with difficulty in the others. Reports of unusual relics should be regarded as not authentic unless accompanied by most positive proof.
Neither the embankments of sacred enclosures, the temple-mounds, nor the animal-mounds, have been proved to contain any relics that may be attributed to the original builders. Many of the conical mounds do contain such relics, and by their contents or the lack of them, are divided into altar-mounds, burial mounds, and anomalous mounds.
Altar-mounds are always found within or near enclosures, and each one is found to contain something like an altar, made of burned clay or stone. The altars are generally of fine clay brought from some distance, burned hard sometimes to a depth of twenty inches. They were not burned before being put in place, but by the action of fires built upon or round them. Such as were very slightly burned had no relics. The stone altars are very rare, and are formed of rough slabs, and not hewn from a single block. They are square, rectangular, round, and oval; vary in size from two feet in diameter to fifteen by fifty feet, but are generally from five to eight feet; are rarely over twenty inches high; rest on or near the surface of the ground, in the centre of the mound; and have a basin-shaped concavity on the top. The basin is almost always filled with ashes, in which are the relics deposited by the Mound-builders. Relics are much more numerous in the altar than in the burial mounds, but as they are of the same class, both may best be spoken of together. These altars are probably the structures spoken of by early explorers and writers as hearths; there are reports that some of them were made of burnt bricks.