The only skeletons exposed in the Evans Mound,—a large mound, near Newark, Ohio, at the opening of which I was present, were in a similar condition of extreme decay. Among the contents of the Taylor Mound, in the same locality, the curious fact was communicated to me, that the fractured quarter of a nearly spherical mass of hematite was found, which at the time attracted less notice than a well-finished wedge and hatchet of the same material. But on subsequently opening the Elliot and Wilson Mounds, situated about five miles apart, in the same valley, each of them was found to include among its contents a corresponding fragment of hematite, which on being placed in juxtaposition, proved to be portions of the same broken sphere, or nodule of hematite, valued in all probability for some wonder-working power. Meteoric stones and pieces of hematite have been repeatedly found in the Mounds; and were evidently objects of special regard. The Elliot Mound furnished another object of interest, in a pipe 7½ inches long, neatly carved in grey limestone, with the bowl finished in the form of a bear’s head. As shown in Fig. 72, it is of an unusual style of design.
Fig. 72.—Stone Pipe, Elliot Mound, Ohio.
The establishment of the village of Lockport, on the outskirts of Newark, and the more recent erection of extensive ironworks there, have swept away a curious group of mounds in that neighbourhood, including a truncated pyramid, the contents of which appear to have been of unusual interest. I examined in the collection of Mr. Wm. L. Merrin, a solid copper armlet, a pair of remarkable objects like double cymbals, a sheath subdivided into three tubes, supposed to be a quiver, a polished axe, and several perforated plates, all of copper; a perforated lead amulet, a polished chisel of diorite, numerous large shell beads, and large plates of mica cut into a horse-shoe shape: all of which were found at the base of the Lockport Mound, along with a number of skeletons. Subsequently other objects of interest, including a large, well-finished stone maul, of oval shape, with a deep groove round its centre, and a mass of pure lead weighing upwards of four pounds, have been found on its site, in opening up a road. But it is obvious that in this, as in so many other cases, we have to regret the destruction of a valuable memorial of the past, without any adequate record of its disclosures being preserved. Happily a more intelligent interest has now been awakened in the subject; the rarer objects of antiquity in stone and in metal are highly prized, and are therefore likely to be preserved as marketable articles even by those who can see in them no other value; and as each mound or earthwork discloses some novel feature, further research may be expected to add materially to our knowledge.
The remoter hill-mounds may reveal similar analogies in structure or contents to those of the plains; and so furnish evidence that the population which crowded the great centres, was diffused in smaller numbers, far inland from the river’s banks, in outlying valleys and among the secluded recesses of the hills. There, perhaps, as among the higher valleys of the Andes under the rule of the Incas, a pastoral people supplemented the agricultural industry of the central provinces, and shared with them the common rites and superstitions of the national religion.
In some cases the lofty site of the hill-mound may have determined its selection from the same motive which occasionally guides the modern Indian in his choice of a spot for his grave. Of this a striking illustration is furnished in the history of one modern tumulus on the Missouri. Upwards of half a century has elapsed since Black Bird, a famous chief of the Omahaws, visited the city of Washington, and when returning was seized with small-pox, of which he died on the way. When the chief found himself dying, he called his warriors around him, and, like Jacob of old, gave commands concerning his burial, which were as literally fulfilled. Dressed in his most sumptuous robes, and fully equipped with his scalps and war-eagle’s plumes, he was borne about sixty miles below the Omahaw village, to one of the loftiest bluffs on the Missouri, which commands a magnificent extent of river and landscape. His favourite war-horse, a beautiful white steed, was led to the summit; and there, in presence of the whole nation, the dead chief was placed on its back, looking towards the river, where, as he had said, he could see the canoes of the white men as they traversed the broad waters of the Missouri. His bow was placed in his hand, his shield and quiver, with his pipe and medicine-bag, were hung by his side. A store of pemmican and a well-filled tobacco-pouch were supplied, to sustain him on the long journey to the hunting-grounds of the good Manitou, where the spirits of his fathers awaited his coming. The medicine-men of the tribe performed their most mystic charms to secure a happy passage to the land of the great departed; and all else being completed, each warrior of the chiefs own band covered the palm of his right hand with vermilion, and stamped its impress on the white sides of the devoted war-steed. This done, the Indians gathered turfs and soil, and placed them around its feet and legs. Gradually the pile rose with the combined labour of many willing hands, until the living steed and its dead rider were buried together under the memorial mound; and high over the crest of the lofty tumulus which covered the warrior’s eagle-plumes, a cedar post was reared to mark more clearly to the voyagers on the Missouri, the last resting-place of Black Bird, the great chief of the Omahaws.
One of the most striking evidences of the extent of occupation of the country, and the denseness of its ancient population, is furnished by a map in the Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, showing a section of twelve miles of the Scioto Valley. Square, circular, and polygonal enclosures, single and in groups, parallels, ditches, and mounds, occupy every available terrace along the banks of the Scioto River, and its tributary Paint Creek. A group of mounds in Ross county, Ohio, occupies the third terrace on the east side of the Scioto Valley, nearly a hundred feet above the river, and about equidistant from two remarkable sacred enclosures. The principal mound is twenty-two feet high; and on penetrating to its centre the traces of a rude sarcophagus of unhewn logs were indicated by the cast which still remained in the compacted earth. The bottom had been laid with matting or wood, the only remains of which were a whitish stratum of decomposed vegetable matter; and the timbers of the sarcophagus had in like manner decayed, and allowed the superincumbent earth to fall on the skeleton. Alongside of it were several hundred beads, made of the columellæ of marine shells and the tusks of some animal, several of them bearing marks which seemed to indicate that they were turned, instead of being carved, or ground into shape by the hand. They retained their position, forming a triple row, as originally strung round the neck of the dead; and, with the exception of a few laminæ of mica, were the only objects discovered in the grave. A layer of charcoal, about ten feet square, lay directly above the sarcophagus; and seemed, from the condition of the carbonised wood, to have been suddenly quenched by heaping the earth over it while still blazing.
Similar layers of charcoal constitute a noticeable feature in mounds of this class, and seem to indicate either that sacrifices were performed over the bier, or that funeral rites of some kind were celebrated, in which fire played an important part. On these funeral pyres probably many perishable articles were consumed; as the beds of charcoal are intermingled occasionally with fragments of bone, stone implements, and other evidences of sacrifices and tribute to the deceased. It is also apparent that the fire was kindled and allowed to blaze only for a limited time, when its flames were quenched by heaping the earth over the glowing embers; so that while charcoal occurs beneath as well as above the skeleton, the bones are unaffected by fire. The rite was practised where cremation was not followed; and may have been symbolical of the lamp of life quenched for ever in the grave. Implements, both of stone and metal, have been found in these grave-mounds, but for the most part their contents indicate a different condition of society and mode of thought from what Indian sepulture implies. Weapons are of rare and exceptional occurrence. The more common articles are personal ornaments, such as bracelets, perforated plates of copper, beads of bone, shell, or metal, and similar decorations worn on the body at the time of its interment. Among the objects which appear to have been purposely disposed around the dead, plates of mica occur most frequently. In some cases the skeleton has been found entirely covered with this material; and in others the laminæ have been cut into regular figures: disks, ovals, and symmetrical curves. As a general rule, however, it would appear that reverence for the dead was manifested in other ways than by depositing costly gifts in the grave; nor do the relics found indicate any belief akin to that which induces the modern Indian to lay beside his buried chief the arms and weapons of the chase, for use by him in the future hunting-grounds or on the war-path. In a few cases the simple sarcophagus has been constructed of stone instead of wood; in others the body appears to have been merely wrapped in bark or matting. In some of the Southern States both cremation and urn-burial seem to have been practised; but throughout the valleys of the Ohio and its tributaries a nearly uniform system of sepulchral rites has been traced. These no doubt bore some important relation to the solemn religious observances indicated by other works of the same people; and as it is not in the sepulchral mounds, but in those which cover the “altars” on which the sacrificial fires of the ancient worshippers appear to have often blazed, that the greater number of their works of art, and even their implements and weapons have been found: it may be that there, rather than at the grave-mounds, they propitiated the manes of the dead, and sought by sacrifices of love and reverence to reach beyond this world to one unseen. Other indications, however, present analogies to the arrangements of cists and cinerary urns in ancient British tumuli, which suggest no less clearly the probability of human sacrifices, and a suttee self-immolation at the grave of the great chief, so congenial to the ideas of barbaric rank. Such cruel rites we know were practised among the Mexicans and Peruvians on the largest scale; wives, concubines, and attendants being immolated by the latter on the tomb of their deceased Inca, in some cases even to the number of thousands.
The Grave Creek Mound, at the junction of Grave Creek with the Ohio river, in the State of Virginia, commands, on various accounts, a prominent distinction among the sepulchral monuments of America. It occupies a site on an extensive plain in connection with works now much obliterated; but its own gigantic proportions bid effectual defiance to the operations which are rapidly erasing less salient records of the ancient occupants of the soil. In the year 1838, when various circumstances combined to direct an unusual degree of attention to American antiquities, Mr. Tomlinson, the proprietor of the land, had it explored at considerable cost. A shaft sunk from the top, and a tunnel carried to the centre, disclosed two sepulchral chambers, one at the base, and another thirty feet above. They had been constructed, as in other cases, of logs, which had decayed, and permitted the superincumbent earth, with stones placed immediately over them, to fall upon the skeletons. In the upper chamber a single skeleton was found in an advanced state of decay, whilst the lower one contained two skeletons, one of which was believed to be that of a female. Beside these lay between three and four thousand shell beads, a number of ornaments of mica, several bracelets of copper, and sundry relics of stone carving, referred to, along with works of art from other ancient mounds, in a future chapter. But among them was included an inscribed stone disc, which constitutes one of the marvels of American antiquities. On reaching the lower vault, after removing its contents, it was determined to enlarge it into a convenient chamber for visitors, and in doing so ten more skeletons were discovered, all in a sitting posture, but in too fragile a state to admit of preservation. The position of these immediately around the sepulchral chamber, in the very centre of the mound, precludes all idea of subsequent interment, and scarcely admits of any other mode of accounting for their presence than that which the human sacrifices both of ancient and modern American obsequies suggest.
A tumulus of the gigantic proportions of the Grave Creek Mound serves emphatically to impress the mind with the conviction that such structures, even when of smaller dimensions, were no accompaniments of common sepulture, but the special memorials of distinguished chiefs; or, it may be, at times, of venerated priests. Of the busy population that once thronged the valleys of the West we have no other memorials than those which commemorate the toil of many to give a deathless name to one now as nameless as themselves. The investigators of their works, after describing in detail the monumental mounds, remark: “The graves of the great mass of the ancient people who thronged our valleys, and the silent monuments of whose toil are seen on every hand, were not thus signalised. We scarcely know where to find them. Every day the plough uncovers crumbling remains, but they elicit no remark; are passed by, and forgotten. The wasting banks of our rivers occasionally display extensive cemeteries; but sufficient attention has never been bestowed upon them to enable us to speak with any degree of certainty of their date, or to distinguish whether they belonged to the Mound-Builders or a subsequent race. These cemeteries are often of such extent as to give a name to the locality in which they occur. Thus we hear, on the Wabash, of the ‘Big Bone Bank’ and the ‘Little Bone Bank,’ from which, it is represented, the river annually washes many human skeletons, accompanied by numerous and singular remains of art, among which are more particularly mentioned vases and other vessels of pottery, of remarkable and often fantastic form.”[[87]] I have been fortunate enough to obtain an interesting example of the latter class of pottery, from Big Bone Bank, figured on a subsequent page, which is specially valuable from the striking analogy it suggests to familiar forms of Peruvian pottery.