When the earliest Spanish expedition passed through that part of the country, it was observed that the Indians frequently placed their houses upon artificial earthworks raised sufficiently high to be above the inundations. At Natchez the tribe, which, from their peculiar customs, have been called the sun worshippers, raised mounds primarily for the residence of their chiefs, who differed from other Indians of that rank, in being invested with special attributes in connection with ceremonies performed before the rising sun. But there were customs with respect to them which require to be noticed. It was stated by Father le Petit, who was for many years a missionary amongst the Natchez, that when their principal chief died his hut was demolished and a new mound was raised, upon which was built the wooden cabin of his successor in that dignity. It can be understood that where a large tribe having this custom dwelt for a long time in one place, it might happen that a series of connected platform mounds, forming an inclosure, would probably have a rectangular shape.
Higher up the Mississippi, above the junction of the Ohio, are the Cahokia earthworks. There were also several mounds placed on high ground near the east bank of the river, not far from the borders of Illinois and Wisconsin. One of these, which was about forty feet high, was opened ten years before I went to St. Paul’s. A vault was discovered beneath the level of the ground, which contained several skeletons sitting in a circle. The earth of which it was composed was a kind of loam, not occurring in the vicinity, and it was supposed that it must have been brought from a considerable distance by Indians who wished to show their respect for the burial place of their chiefs, by bringing tributes of earth taken from the ground near their encampments. The high mounds placed around the edge of the promontory, now called Dayton’s Bluff, and which are the most northern group in the valley of the Mississippi, have been described in a preceding chapter.
When I was in Chiapas, the Presbitero Macal told me that he was present when two mounds were examined in 1860, near San Cristobal. They were each ten feet high and covered vaults made of large flat slabs of stone. Within these tombs were two skulls, but nothing else was found. There were no weapons or fragments of pottery. In the vault under the mound in Illinois there were several large pieces of pottery, and on the surface, immediately above the tomb, were ashes and other evidences of fire.
But before proceeding farther with this subject, it is necessary to bring under consideration the progress of archæological knowledge in North America, since the date of my visit to the ancient mounds and earthworks in Ohio. Great advances have been made in the classification of the discoveries that have taken place in the burial mounds that exist throughout the United States. Deductions can consequently be established with regard to the civilisation of the Indians, and it has become possible to establish, upon a scientific basis, their position as a race. A long series of investigations have been completed, and a summary of the results published, under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, by Professor Cyrus Thomas.[97]
“It seems desirable at the present time,” he observes, “to make a statement explaining the plans and describing the work of the mound exploring division of the Bureau of Ethnology.”... “The questions relating to prehistoric America are to be determined not alone by the study of its ancient monuments, but by the study also of the languages, customs, art, beliefs, and folk-lore of the aborigines. Only by such a comprehensive study can the exact relations of the ancient archæological remains to the historic Indian tribes be made apparent. Major J. W. Powell, the Director of the Bureau, taking this comprehensive and scientific view of the subject, saw at the outset the necessity of deciding as soon as possible the question ‘Were the mound builders Indians?’”
The work was carried on for several years, and Professor Thomas states that “Over two thousand mounds have been explored, including almost every known type as to form.... Nothing trustworthy has been discovered to justify the theory that the mound builders belonged to a highly civilised race, or that they were a people who had attained a higher culture status than the Indians. It is true that works and papers on American archæology are full of statements to the contrary, which are generally based on the theory that the mound builders belonged to a race of much higher culture than the Indians. Yet when the facts on which this opinion is based are examined with sober, scientific care, the splendid fabric which has been built upon them by that great workman, imagination, fades from sight.” Professor Thomas also observes—“That the links discovered directly connecting the Indians and mound builders are so numerous and well established that there should be no longer any hesitancy in accepting the theory that the two are one and the same people.”
The origin and nature of the American mounds, and the customs of the Indians who raised them, have also been investigated by Professor Lucien Carr. He claims “that the mounds and inclosures of Ohio, like those in New York and the Gulf States, were the work of the red Indians of historic times, or of their immediate ancestors.”[98]
With reference to this much debated question of the formation of these inclosures, a re-survey of several of them was made. The measurements of Professor Thomas and his assistants appear to have established the fact of the geometrical accuracy of the octagonal, square and circular works near Newark.[99] In the introduction to the memoir upon the Ohio mounds, Professor Thomas observes that “The constantly recurring question ‘Who constructed these works?’ has brought before the public a number of widely different theories, though the one which has been most generally accepted is that they originated with a people long since extinct or driven from the country, who had attained a culture status much in advance of that reached by the aborigines inhabiting the country at the time of its discovery by Europeans. The opinions advanced in this paper, in support of which evidence will be presented, is that the ancient works of the State are due to Indians of several different tribes, and that some at least of the typical works, were built by the ancestors of the modern Cherokees.”[100]
As a consequence of the examination of the Indian mounds throughout the United States, the majority of the modern American archæologists consider that the aboriginal inhabitants were never in a higher state of civilisation than they were when they first became known to Europeans. It is not however the questions of the burial mounds, and the importance of what has been found in them which have chiefly to be considered here. Attention should be principally directed to the difficult problem respecting the great fortified ramparts of Fort Ancient.
The traditions of the Delawares,[101] which affirmed that the defensive earthworks of Ohio were built by the Tallegwi, have generally been accepted as being well founded. They were stated to have been a powerful tribe who built fortifications and entrenchments. Finally they abandoned their lands and went southwards, down the valley of the Mississippi and never returned. It may be conjectured, after observing the similar works and methods of selecting their defensive positions in Guatemala, that the Tallegwi were the same race who were afterwards known as Toltecs. The probability of this assumption being reasonable, becomes more evident when the group of platform and circular mounds on the plains near Mixco are observed to be similar to those raised on the plains of Cahokia near the banks of the Mississippi.