The antiquities belonging to the Indian race are neither numerous or interesting, unless we except the remains of rude edifices and enclosures, the walls of which are almost invariably embankments of earth. They are rude axes and knives of stone, bottles and vessels of potter's ware, arrow and spear heads, rude ornaments, &c.
Roman, French, Italian, German and English coins and medals, with inscriptions, have been found,—most unquestionably brought by Europeans,—probably by the Jesuits and other orders, who were amongst the first explorers of the west, and who had their religious houses here more than a century past.
Copper and silver ornaments have been discovered in the mounds that have been opened. The calumet, or large stone pipe, is often found in Indian graves. Two facts deserve to be regarded by those who examine mounds and Indian cemeteries. First, that the Indians have been accustomed to bury their dead in these mounds. Secondly, that they were accustomed to place various ornaments, utensils, weapons, and other articles of value, the property of the deceased, in these graves, especially if a chieftain, or man of note. A third fact known to our frontier people, is the custom of several Indian tribes wrapping their dead in strips of bark, or encasing them with the halves of a hollow log, and placing them in the forks of trees. This was the case specially, when their deaths occurred while on hunting or war parties. At stated seasons these relics were collected, with much solemnity, brought to the common sepulchre of the tribe, and deposited with their ancestors. This accounts for the confused manner in which the bones are often found in mounds and Indian graveyards. Human skeletons, or rather mummies, have been discovered in the nitrous caves of Kentucky. The huge bones of the mammoth and other enormous animals, have been exhumed, at the Bigbone licks in Kentucky and in other places.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] See Pownal's Administration of the British Colonies,—Colden's History of the Five Nations,—New York Historical Collections, vol. II.,—Charlevoix Histoire de la Nouvelle France,—Hon. De Witt Clinton's Discourse before the N. Y. Historical Society, 1811,—Discovery of the Mississippi river, by Father Lewis Hennepin,—M. Tonti's Account of M. De La Salle's Expedition,—La Harpe's Journal, &c.