Across the Mississippi in Minnesota and Iowa, the predominant type of circular tumuli prevail, extending throughout the latter State to the Missouri. There are evidences that the Upper Missouri region was connected with that of the Upper Mississippi by settlements occupying the intervening country. Mounds are found even in the valley of the Red River of the North.[25]
Eastern Iowa, especially in the neighborhood of Davenport, has furnished some of the most interesting mounds that have yet been examined. Several gentlemen—especially Rev. Mr. Gass—of the Davenport Academy of Sciences have within a couple of years recovered a number of fine specimens of copper axes, nearly all wrapped in Mound-builder’s cloth. This cloth had been “preserved by the antiseptic action of the salts of copper, in all probability of the carbonates. In all specimens one thread of the warp is double or twisted, and there are about four to the one-fourth of an inch.”[26] Stone pipes of excellent workmanship carved to represent various animals were found. Pottery, copper beads in considerable numbers, mica and sea-shells (Pyrula and Cassis), one which had an internal capacity of 152 cubic inches, or five and one-half pints, were among the relics recovered. Most of the human remains were much decayed; although some, among them a skull, were preserved. The character of the Altar mound in this group is rather unusual. Within the mound hewn rectangular stones were laid upon one another with perfect regularity, so as to break joints, forming something resembling the exterior appearance of a chimney. We are not aware of any similarly shaped altar ever having been discovered in the mounds. The most remarkable discovery of all, however, was made January 10, 1877, by Rev. Mr. Gass and his assistants in one of the mounds which previously had been examined in part. Two tablets of coal slate covered with a variety of figures and hieroglyphics were found.[27] One of these, the larger, is of a most interesting character. On one side, as will be seen in the accompanying cut, a number of persons with hands joined have formed a semicircle around a mound, upon which a fire has been kindled, probably for the purpose of sacrifice, or for converting into a hardened and water-proof covering the layer of clay which may have been spread over the remains of some distinguished personage beneath. The presence of a layer of baked clay above human remains in so many Ohio mounds leads to this conjecture. The three prostrate human figures may be those of wives or servants of the deceased, to be sacrificed upon his grave, as has been the custom from the remotest times in India and among many savage tribes. The conspicuousness of the sun, moon, and stars, suggest even a sadder thought, that perhaps it may be purely a religious ceremony in which human victims are being offered to the heavenly bodies. Sabine worship, which spread throughout the entire length of the continent, is known to have been accompanied with the most horrid rites. Above the arch of the firmament are hieroglyphics which if deciphered no doubt would tell of the nature of this and other similar scenes. On the reverse side of the tablet is a rude representation of a hunting scene in which various animals, such as the buffalo cow, deer, bear, etc., etc., are figured. It has been conjectured that a large animal in the upper left-hand corner may be a mammoth, but there is little ground for the supposition. The scene is probably a representation of the exploits of the person buried in the mound. The smaller tablet is evidently a calendar stone with signs of the zodiac regularly marked upon it; of this calendar we shall speak in a future chapter. The above conjectures as to the significance of the representations on these tablets are based upon the supposition that they are genuine and not the work of an impostor, of which we cannot refrain from expressing a slight suspicion. That Rev. Mr. Gass has given a true account of his discovery there cannot be the slightest doubt—that he and his co-laborers in the work of excavation believe them to be genuine is equally certain.
The Davenport Tablet.
Descending to the interior, we find the heart of the Mound-builder country in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. It is uncertain whether its vital centre was in Southern Illinois or in Ohio—probably the former because of its geographical situation with reference to the mouths of the Missouri and Ohio Rivers. To enter upon a detailed description of the antiquities of this remarkable region would alone more than occupy the entire limits which we have prescribed for this work. This undertaking has already been well performed by Atwater, Squier and Davis, Foster, Baldwin, and many others. We shall therefore confine our remarks to notices of the most conspicuous remains and the general peculiarities of Mound-builder architecture. This people possessed a due appreciation of the physical advantages of certain localities for their cities. The site of St. Louis was formerly covered with mounds, one of which was thirty-five feet high, while in the American bottom on the Illinois side of the river their number approximates two hundred. In a group of sixty or more, lying between Alton and East St. Louis, stands the most magnificent of all the Mound-builders’ works, the great Mound of Cahokia, which rises to a height of ninety-seven feet and extends its huge mass in the form of a parallelogram, with sides measuring 700 and 500 feet respectively. On the south-west there was a terrace 160 by 300 feet, reached by means of a graded way. The summit of the pyramid is truncated, affording a platform of 200 by 450 feet. Upon this platform stands a conical mound ten feet high. Dr. Foster remarks: “It is probable that upon this platform was reared a capacious temple, within whose walls the high-priests gathered from different quarters at stated seasons, celebrating their mystic rites, whilst the swarming multitude below looked up with mute adoration.”[28] When we consider the analogy between the general features of this pyramid and that on which the temple of Mexico was situated, it is not unnatural to reflect that Cahokia may have served as the prototype of the more magnificent structure which was so often deluged with the blood of its thousands of human victims. The temple of Mexico and many others of its type may have been the embodiment of the same principles of architecture employed at Cahokia, but carried to greater perfection under the more favorable conditions afforded in the valley of Anahuac, or precisely the reverse may be true. Such speculations are, however, more easily set forth than sustained. Dr. Foster, through a mistake, states that the monster mound has been removed. This, we are happy to say, is not the case.[29]
Drilled Ceremonial Weapons. (Nat. Mus.)
Numerous interesting explorations have been conducted recently in Illinois with rich results. Among the most notable of these are the discoveries of Mr. Henry R. Howland, reported in a paper read before the Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, March, 1877 (Bulletin of the Buffalo Soc. of Nat. Sc., vol. iii., p. 204 et seq.). In January, 1876, Mr. Howland witnessed the removal of a mound near Mitchell Station in the American Bottom. In a stratum four or five feet from the base, composed chiefly of human bones, a large quantity of matting and a number of copper relics were disclosed to view. The matting was a coarse vegetable cane-like fibre simply woven, without twisting. Among the articles wrapped in the matting were several miniature tortoise shells formed of copper. They were of beaten copper of one sixty-fourth of an inch in thickness, the largest being but two and one-eighth inches in length. “A narrow flange or rim, about five thirty-secondths of an inch in width, is neatly turned at the base, and over the entire outer surface the curious markings peculiar to the tortoise shell are carefully produced by indentation—the entire workmanship evincing a delicate skill of which we have never before found traces in any discovered remains of the arts of the Mound-builders.” These shells were covered with several wrappings, the first and nearest to the shell proving to be of vegetable fibre, the second of a dark-brown color; when placed under the microscope and examined by Dr. G. J. Engleman and Sir Joseph Hooker, proved to be a very fine cloth woven from animal hair—of the rabbit and possibly of the deer. The third envelope was made from the intestine of some animal. The lower jaws of deer were discovered in which the forward part containing the teeth were encased in thin copper and wrapped in the fine hair-cloth just described. From holes bored in the back of each jaw, it is inferred that the articles were suspended from the neck as totems or badges of authority. Three wooden spool-like objects were found in the same place, partially plated with thin copper. Copper rods or needles from fourteen to eighteen inches in length, a beautiful shell necklace, and a spear head of chert a foot long, were also discovered. Among the rest were several sea-shells (Busycon Perversum), evidently brought from the Gulf a thousand miles distant. In the summer of 1874, Mr. H. R. Enoch, of Rockford, Ill., discovered a tablet in a mound situated on the bank of Rock River, five miles south of Rockford. The “Rockford Tablet” created quite a sensation at first because it was thought to bear upon its face several symbols found upon the Mexican Calendar stone. However, a thorough investigation of its claims prove it to be a fraud, no doubt placed in the mound where discovered for the purpose of deception. Mr. J. Moody of Mendota, Ill., in referring to the twelve symbols of the tablet said to be Mexican, remarks: “Six are nearly exact counterparts of that number of Lybian characters which I find represented in Priest’s American Antiquities. * * * From a comparison of the Rockford Tablet with the plates in the work referred to above, the inference is almost irresistible that the engraver had a copy of Priest’s American Antiquities before him while doing his work.” (See Congrès International des Américanistes, Luxembourg, 1877. Tome ii, p. 160.)
The same sagacity which chose the neighborhood of St. Louis for these works, covered the site of Cincinnati with an extensive system of circumvallations and mounds. Almost the entire space now occupied by the city was utilized by the mysterious builders in the construction of embankments and tumuli built upon the most accurate geometrical principles, and evincing keen military foresight.[30] Dr. Daniel Drake described these works in 1815, and many others subsequently.[31] The most important discovery made among these remains was that of the “Cincinnati Tablet” in 1841. This singular relic was taken from a large mound formerly thirty-five feet high, removed at the above date from the extension of Mound Street across Fifth Street. When found, it was lying on a level with the original surface under the skull of a much decayed skeleton, with two polished, pointed bones about seven inches long, and a bed of charcoal and ashes. This stone in all probability served the double purpose of a record of the calendar and a scale for measurement.[32] Mr. E. Gest, the courteous owner of the tablet, provided the accompanying cuts expressly for this work, regarding them as the first correct representations of the stone.
