[77] Congrès International des Américanistes. Luxembourg. 1877, tom. i, pp. 51–2.
[78] Essai Politique (Paris, 1825–27), vol. iii, p. 114. Dr. Charles Rau has courteously furnished me the following references on ancient mining in Mexico: Clavigaro’s History of Mexico, Phil., 1817, vol. i., p. 20. Prescott’s Mexico, vol. i, p. 138; Despatches of Hernando Cortés addressed to the Emperor Charles V (trans. by Folsom, New York, 1842), p. 412. Memoirs of Bernal Diaz (trans. of Lockhart, London, 1844), vol. i, p. 36. Dr. Rau remarks: “We are forcibly led to the conclusion that the Mexicans obtained copper by the mining process.”—Letter to the Author, Aug. 24, 1878.
[79] Colonel Whittlesey in the Report of the State Archæological Society to the Centennial Commission of Ohio, Chap. IV, pl. 10, has figured several symmetrical tubes of stone from Ohio Mounds. The most perfect of these he thinks may have served “as telescopic helps for distant views.” The most general use to which most of them were applied, it is believed, was the making of signals, or possibly rude music. One of the tubes taken from the Tippet Mound near Newark, Ohio, and figured in the report, has its upper end flattened like a whistle or flute, and has a hole penetrating it just below the mouthpiece, which indicates that it may have been a musical instrument. The Huron slates were most frequently employed in the manufacture of tubes, as they were in the production of the class of objects known as ceremonial relics.
[80] Baldwin’s Ancient America, p. 42, and Dupaix, quoted on pp. 122–3.
[81] Dr. Rau has shown that division of labor and its advantages was recognized among the aborigines; that certain individuals who were qualified to manufacture particular implements devoted themselves exclusively to that work. He bases his conjecture “on the occurrence of manufactured articles of a homogeneous character in mounds or in deposits below the surface of the soil. There is little doubt, for instance, that there were persons who devoted their time chiefly to the manufacture of stone arrow-heads and of other articles produced by chipping, among which may be mentioned those remarkable large digging tools described by me several years ago, and the oval or leaf-shaped implements made of the peculiar hornstone of ‘Flint Ridge’ in Ohio.” See Stock-in-trade of an Aboriginal Lapidary, by Charles Rau, Smithsonian Report for 1877.
[82] Dr. S. S. Schoville, in the Cincinnati Quarterly Journal of Science, April, 1875, p. 164, describes the discovery of numerous mica plates in a mound on the east bank of the Little Miami River, about twenty-five miles east of Cincinnati. He states, that at the base of the mound, on a level with the surrounding country, the remains of several skeletons were found, placed with their heads together and lying in a horizontal position. “Lying upon or immediately over the cranial debris, were found plates of mica, some a foot in diameter. These plates were disposed in such a way as to cover an area somewhat larger than that occupied by the crania beneath. However, it could not definitely be determined whether the design had been to make a continuous or common roof over the faces as a group, or whether each face had a covering of its own.” The writer ventures the rather fanciful conjecture that the mica in this and many other cases served the purpose of exhibiting temporarily the features of the dead in the manner that glass is now used on caskets.
[83] See a most interesting and extensive memoir on Aboriginal Trade in North America, by Charles Rau, first published in vol. iv of the Archiv für Anthropologie (Braunschweig, 1872), and translated in Smithsonian Report for 1872, pp. 249–394.
[84] Mr. A. J. Conant in the Commonwealth of Missouri, pp. 77–8 (St. Louis, 1877), refers to ancient canals fifty feet wide and twelve feet deep observed by Dr. G. C. Swallow. He quotes a pretty full account from Geo. W. Carleton, Esq. Mr. Conant considers some of the southern bayous of artificial origin.
[85] For further material on the Mound-builders, see the documents cited throughout the chapter. No less important is Dr. Foster’s admirable work so often quoted, and which we must add has been of great service in the preparation of this chapter. A very good paper on the Mound-builders is that by Robert S. Robertson of Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the Congrès International des Américanistes Compte-Rendu de la Sec. Ses. Luxembourg, 1877, tom. i, pp. 39–50, though we do not fully agree with the author’s views as to the colonization of the Mississippi valley from the south. The classification of Mound-works by Rev. Stephen D. Peet in the same document, p. 103, is very satisfactory, and corresponds to that adopted in this chapter. The learned article by Judge Force of Cincinnati in the same document, vol. i, pp. 121–156, is full of interest. For recent mound explorations, see Appendix.
[86] Pre-Historic Times, p. 425. Also cited by Foster. In this connection I refer the reader to the argument of Mr. John H. Becker of Berlin, in the Congrès International des Américanistes, Luxembourg, 1877, tom. i, pp. 345–6: “These northern nations * * * have not quite forgotten the former existence and the exodus of these Nahua Mound-builders in and from the western prairie country. Cusick’s remarkable history of the Iroquois (Schoolcraft, vol. v) states again and again that ‘their hunters were opposed by big snakes,’ that the ‘great horned snake appeared on Lake Ontario,’ that the ‘lake serpent traversed the country, and they were compelled to build fortifications in order to save themselves from the devouring monsters,’ that ‘a snake with a human head prevented the intercourse of their several villages, as it had settled near the principal path of communication,’ also ‘that it retreats,’ etc., etc. Now, in order to understand the force of these passages, it is necessary to remind the reader that the Nahua race were perhaps even more properly and generally designated as the ‘Culhua’ the ‘Snake’ race, and one branch, remotely connected with them in blood and language, though wofully degenerated, the Snakes or Shoshones of Oregon, etc., carry the name to this very day. * * * ‘An expedition was sent towards the Mississippi River; they crossed it, reached an extensive meadow; they discovered a curious animal, a winged fish; it flew about the tree, it moved like a humming bird’ * * * the humming bird was the totem of the last tribe of Nahuas, arriving in Anahuac from Aztlan. The Cherokee tradition, told by Timberlake, is equally significant: ‘The prince of rattlesnakes lives in the glens of the mountains. His palace is guarded by obedient subjects. * * * And in the myth of the Algonquins, the god-hero Michabo is in conflict with the shining prince of serpents who lives in the lake; he destroys the reptile with a dart; clothes himself with the skin of his foe, and drives the rest of the serpents to the south.’”