Chapter XIII: Works of the Mound-Builders (2)

Specimens of aboriginal pottery are very abundant, although much less so within the mounds than elsewhere near the surface. Mr Squier says, "various though not abundant specimens of their skill have been recorded, which in elegance of model, delicacy, and finish, as also in fineness of material, come fully up to the best Peruvian specimens, to which they bear, in many respects, a close resemblance. They far exceed anything of which the existing tribes of Indians are known to have been capable." The specimens in the mound-deposits are, with very few exceptions, broken. The material is usually a pure clay, sometimes with a slight admixture of pulverized quartz or colored flakes of mica, but such admixtures are much rarer than in modern specimens. Notwithstanding their great regularity of form and beauty of finish, none bear signs that the potter's wheel was used in their construction, and no vessels are glazed by vitrification. They are decorated with various graceful figures, including those of living animals, cut in with sharp instruments. A few crucibles, capable of withstanding intense heat, have been found, also terra-cotta images of animals and men, and ornaments or coins in small quantities. Pottery-kilns are found in the south, but that they were the work of the Mound-builders has not been satisfactorily proven. Specimens of the finer class of vases are shown in the cut. The first is of pure clay with a slight silicious mixture. It is five and a half inches high and six and a half in diameter, not over one sixth of an inch in uniform thickness, pierced with four holes in the line round the rim, dark brown or umber in color, and highly polished. The decorative lines are cut in with a sharp instrument which left no ragged edges. The second vase is of somewhat smaller size and coarser material; but more elaborately ornamented and only one eighth of an inch in thickness.

[Sidenote: STONE IMPLEMENTS.]

Stone implements are more abundant than those of any other material in the altar-mounds and elsewhere. They include arrow and spear heads, knives, axes, hatchets, chisels, and other variously formed cutting instruments, with hammers and pestles. These are made of quartz and other hard varieties of stone, all belonging to the mound region except the obsidian. There is no doubt that obsidian implements were used by the Mound-builders, and as this material is said not to be found nearer than Mexico and California, it is perhaps as likely that the implements were obtained by trade as that they were manufactured in the country. Neither the obsidian knives, nor other stone weapons, show any marked differences from those found in Mexico, Central America, and most other parts of the world. Lance and arrow heads, finished and in the rough, entire or more frequently broken by the action of fire, are taken by hundreds and thousands from the altar-mounds; several bushels of lance-heads of milky quartz were found in one mound. It is a remarkable fact, however, that no weapons whatever are found in burial mounds. Beads, rings, and other ornaments of stone are often found, with a variety of anomalous articles whose use is more or less imperfectly understood. Besides weapons and knives, pipes are the articles most abundant, and on which the Mound-builders expended most lavishly their skill, carving the bowls into a great variety of beautiful forms, at what must have been an immense outlay of labor. A remarkable peculiarity of their pipe-carvings is that accurate representations are given of different natural objects instead of the rude caricatures and monstrosities in which savage art usually delights. Nearly every beast, bird, and reptile indigenous to the country is truthfully represented, together with some creatures now only found in tropical climates, such as the lamantin and toucan. The pipes generally consist of a bowl rising from the centre of the convex side of a curved base, one end of which serves as a handle and the other is pierced for a stem. They are always cut from a single piece, the material being generally a hard porphyry, oftenest red, and strongly resembling in some cases the red pipe-stone of the Coteau des Prairies. The locality where this pipe material was obtained is unknown. Many of the sculptured figures show skillful workmanship and a high polish; I think that many of them are not inferior to the products of Nahua and Maya skill. Some rude stone images of unknown use have been found at various points, but I am not aware that any relics have been authentically reported from the altar-mounds which indicate that the ancient people were worshipers of idols. Mica is the mineral most common in both altar and burial mounds, where it occurs in plates cut into a great variety of forms. Some of them have been conjectured to have served as mirrors. Bushels are sometimes deposited in a single mound. Pieces of coal artificially formed are included by Dickeson among his aboriginal coins.

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Bones of indigenous animals are found worked into daggers, awls, and similar implements; or as ornaments in the form of beads. Similar use was made of the teeth and talons of beasts and birds. Teeth of the bear, wolf, panther, alligator, and shark, have been found, some of the latter being fossils, together with large quantities of teeth resembling those of the whale, but not fully identified.

Five varieties of marine shells, all from the gulf shores, have been examined, with pearls whose size and numbers prove that they are not of fresh-water origin. Both are used for ornaments, chiefly in the form of beads. Pearls are also found in a few instances serving as eyes for animal and bird sculptures. Some articles of bone and shell have been mistaken for ivory and accredited with an Asiatic origin, through ignorance that their material is found on the shores of the gulf. Many articles found in the mounds, and not perhaps included in the preceding general description, are interesting, but could only be described in a detailed account, for which I have no space; but most relics not thus included are of doubtful authenticity, and a doubtful monument of antiquity should always be attributed to modern times.

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[Sidenote: ANCIENT MINES.]

The ancient miners have left numerous traces of their work in the region of Lake Superior. At one place a piece of pure copper weighing over five tons was found fifteen feet below the surface, under trees at least four hundred years old. It had been raised on skids, bore marks of fire, and some stone implements were scattered about. There is no evidence that the tribes found in possession of the country by the first French missionaries ever worked these mines, or had any tradition of a people that had worked them, although both they and their ancestors had copper knives hammered from lumps of the metal, which are very commonly found on the surface. All the traditions and Indian stories of 'mines' may most consistently be referred to these natural superficial deposits. The ancient mines were for the most part in the same localities where the best modern mines are worked. Most of them have left as traces only slight depressions in the surface, the finding of which is regarded by prospectors as a tolerably sure indication of a rich vein of copper. The cut represents a section of one of the veins of copper-bearing rock worked by the ancient miners. The mass of copper at _a_ weighed about six tons. At the top a portion of the stone had been left across the vein as a support. Copper implements, including wedges used in mining as 'gads,' are found in and about the old mines; with hammers of stone, mostly grooved for withe handles. Some weigh from thirty to forty pounds and have two grooves; others again are not grooved at all. In one case remains of a handle of twisted cedar-roots were found, and much-worn wooden shovels often occur. There are no enclosures, mounds, or other traces of a permanent settlement of the Mound-builders in the mining region. It is probable that the miners came each summer from the south; in fact, it would have been impossible to work the mines in winter by their methods.

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[Sidenote: ROCK-INSCRIPTIONS.]

Nearly all the coins, medals, stone tablets, etc., that have been discovered within the region occupied by the Mound-builders, bearing inscriptions in regular apparently alphabetic characters, may be proved to be of European origin; and the few specimens that do not admit of such proof should of course be attributed to such an origin in the absence of conclusive evidence to the contrary. Rude delineations of men, animals, and other recognizable objects, together with many arbitrary, perhaps conventional, characters, are of frequent occurrence on the walls of caves, on perpendicular river-cliffs, and on detached stones. They are sometimes incised, but usually painted. Most bear a strong resemblance to the artistic efforts of modern tribes; and those which seem to bear marks of a greater antiquity, have by no means been identified as the work of the Mound-builders. These eastern rock-inscriptions do not call for additional remarks, after what has been said of similar carvings in other regions. Many of the figures have a meaning to those who make them, but that meaning, as in all writings of this class, perishes with the artist and his immediate times. Attempts by zealous antiquaries to penetrate the signification of particular inscriptions--as that on Dighton Rock, Massachusetts, and other well-known examples--have failed to convince any but the determined advocate of such theories as seem to derive support from the so-called translation. My father saw a stone tablet taken from a stone mound near Newark, covered with carved characters, which the clergyman of the town pronounced to be the ten commandments in ancient Hebrew. I have no doubt that the figures did closely resemble the ancient Hebrew in one respect at least--that is, in being equally unfamiliar to the clergyman.

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[Sidenote: CONCLUSIONS.]

Without taking up here the various theories respecting the origin, history, and disappearance of the Mound-builders, it may be well to express in a few brief conclusions what may be learned of this people by an examination of the monuments which they have left.

They were a numerous people, as is sufficiently proved by the magnitude and geographical extent of their works. They were probably _one_ people, that is, composed of tribes living under similar laws, religion, and other institutions. Such variations as are observed in the monuments are only those that would naturally occur between central and frontier regions, although the animals-mounds of the north-west present some difficulties. The Mound-builders were an agricultural people. Tribes that live by hunting never build extensive public works, neither would the chase support a sufficiently large population for the erection of such works. Moreover, the location of the monuments in the most fertile sections goes far to confirm this conclusion. Some of the larger enclosures have been supposed,--only by reason of their size, however,--to have been cultivated fields; and evident traces of an ancient cultivation are found, although not clearly referable to the Mound-builders.

There is nothing to show an advanced civilization in the modern sense of the word, but they were civilized in comparison with the roving hunter-tribes of later times. They knew nothing of the use of metals beyond the mere hammering of native masses of copper and silver; they built no stone structures; they had seemingly made no approach to the higher grades of hieroglyphic writing. Their civilization as recorded by its material relics consisted of a knowledge of agriculture; considerable skill in the art of fortification; much greater skill than that of the Indians in the manufacture of pottery and the carving of stone pipes; the mathematical knowledge displayed in the laying-out of perfect circles and accurate angles, and in the correspondence in size between different works. Their earth-works show more perseverance than skill; no one of them necessarily implies the use of mechanical aids to labor; there is none that a large number of men might not construct by carrying earth in simple baskets.

All traces of their architecture have disappeared. It has been suggested that were the temples yet standing on their pyramidal foundations, they might compare favorably with those of Central America and Mexico. But the construction of wooden edifices with any pretensions to grandeur and symmetry, by means of stone and soft copper tools, seems absolutely impossible; at least such structures would require infinitely greater skill than that displayed by the Nahuas and Mayas, and it is more reasonable to suppose that the temples of the Mound-builders were rude wooden buildings.

The monuments imply a wide-spread religious system under a powerful priesthood; private devotion manifests itself on a scale less magnificent, and one involving less hard work. Of their rites we know nothing. The altar-mounds suggest sacrifice; burned human bones, human sacrifice. Gateways on the east, and the east and west direction of embankments and skeletons may connect worship with the sun; but all is conjecture. No idols, known to be such, have been found; the cemeteries, if any of them belong to the Mound-builders, show no uniform usage in burial. The ancient people lived under a system of government considerably advanced, more than likely in the hands of the priesthood, but of its details we know nothing. A social condition involving some form of slavery would be most favorable for the construction of such works.

The monuments described are not the work of the Indian tribes found in the country, nor of any tribes resembling them in institutions. Those tribes had no definite tradition even of past contact with a superior people, and it is only in the south among the little-known Natchez, that slight traces of a descent from, or imitation of, the Mound-builders appear. Most and the best authorities deem it impossible that the Mound-builders were even the remote ancestors of the Indian tribes; and while inclined to be less positive than most who have written on the subject respecting the possible changes that may have been effected by a long course of centuries, I think that the evidence of a race locally extinct is much stronger here than in any other part of the continent.

The monuments are not sufficient in themselves to absolutely prove or disprove the truth of any one of the following theories: 1st. An indigenous culture springing up among the Mississippi tribes, founded on agriculture, fostered by climate and other unknown circumstances, constantly growing through long ages, driving back the surrounding walls of savagism, but afterwards weakened by unknown causes, yielding gradually to savage hordes, and finally annihilated or driven in remnants from their homes southward. 2d. A colony from the southern peoples already started in the path of civilization, growing as before in power, but at last forced to yield their homes into the possession of savages. 3d. A migrating colony from the north, dwelling long in the land, gradually increasing in power and culture, constantly extending their dominion southward, and finally abandoning voluntarily or against their will, the north for the more favored south, where they modified or originated the southern civilization.

The last theory, long a very popular one, is in itself less consistent and receives less support from the relics than the others. The second, which has some points in common with the first, is most reasonable and best supported by monumental and traditional evidence. The temple-mounds strongly resemble in their principal features the southern pyramids; at least they imply a likeness of religious ideas in the builders. The use of obsidian implements shows a connection, either through origin, war, or commerce, with the Mexican nations, or at least with nations who came in contact with the Nahuas. There are, moreover, several Nahua traditions respecting the arrival on their coasts from the north-east, of civilized strangers. There is very little evidence that the Mound-builders introduced in the south the Nahua civilization, and none whatever that the Aztec migration started from the Mississippi Valley, but I am inclined to believe that there was actually a connection between the two peoples; that the Mound-builders, or those that introduced their culture, were originally a Nahua colony, and that these people may be referred to in some of the traditions mentioned. Without claiming to be able to determine exactly the relation between the Mound-builders and Nahuas, I shall have something further to say on this subject in another volume.

[Sidenote: ANTIQUITY OF THE MONUMENTS.]

The works were not built by a migrating people, but by a race that lived long in the land. It seems unlikely that the results attained could have been accomplished in less than four or five centuries. Nothing indicates that the time did not extend to thousands of years, but it is only respecting the minimum time that there can be any grounds for reasonable conjecture. If we suppose the civilization indigenous, of course a much longer period must be assigned to its development than if it was introduced by a migration--or rather a colonization, for civilized and semi-civilized peoples do not migrate en masse. Moreover a northern origin would imply a longer duration of time than one from the south, where a degree of civilization is known to have existed.

How long a time has elapsed since the Mound-builders abandoned their works? Here again a minimum estimate only can be sought. No work is more enduring than an embankment of earth. There is no positive internal proof that they were not standing one, five, or ten thousand years ago. The evidences of an ancient abandonment of the works, or serious decline of the builders' power, are as follows:--1st, the fact that none of them stand on the last-formed terrace of the rivers, most on the oldest terrace, and that those on the second bear in some cases marks of having been invaded by water. The rate of terrace-forming varies on different streams, and there are no sufficient data for estimating in years the time required for the formation of any one of the terraces, at least scientific men are careful not to give a definite opinion in the matter; but it is evident that each required a very long period, and the last one a much longer time than any of the others, on account of the gradual longitudinal leveling of the river-beds. 2d. The complete disappearance of all wooden structures, which must have been of great solidity. 3d. The advanced state of decomposition of human bones in a soil well calculated for their preservation. Skeletons are found in Europe well preserved at a known age of eighteen hundred years. 4th. The absence of the Mound-builders from the traditions of modern tribes. Nothing would seem more likely to be preserved in mythic or historic traditions than contact with a superior people, and the mounds would serve to keep the traditions alive. 5th. The fact that the monuments were covered in the seventeenth century with primitive forests, uniform with those which covered the other parts of the country. In this latitude the age of a forest tree may be much more accurately determined than in tropical climates; and trees from four to five hundred years old have been examined in many well-authenticated cases over mounds and embankments. Equally large trees in all stages of decomposition were found at their feet on and under the ground, so that the abandonment of the works must be dated back at least twice the actual age of the standing trees. It is a fact well known to woodsmen that when cultivated land is abandoned the first growth is very unlike the original forest, both in the species and size of the trees, and that several generations would be required to restore the primitive timber. Consequently a thousand years must have passed since some of the works were abandoned. The monuments of the Mississippi present stronger internal evidence of great antiquity than any others in America, although it by no means follows that they are older than Palenque and Copan. The height of the Mound-builders' power should not, without very positive external evidence, be placed at a later date than the fifth or sixth century of our era.

FOOTNOTE:

[XIII-1] The chief authorities consulted for this chapter on the remains of the Mississippi Valley, are the following:

_Squier and Davis_, _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi
Valley_. Washington, 1848. _Squier's Antiquities of the
State of New York_. _Id._, _Observations on Aboriginal
Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_. New York, 1847.
_Id._, _Serpent Symbol_.

_Atwater's Antiquities of Ohio_, and other accounts in the
_Amer. Antiq. Soc., Transactions_.

_Schoolcraft's Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge._

_Warden_, _Recherches sur les Antiquités de l'Amérique du
Nord_.

_Jones' Antiquities of the Southern Indians._

_Pidgeon's Traditions of Decoodah._

_Lapham's Antiquities of Wisconsin._ Washington, 1853.

_Whittlesey's Ancient Mining on the Shores of Lake
Superior._

_Bradford's American Antiquities._

_Foster's Pre-Historic Races._

_Id._, _Mississippi Valley_.

_Smithsonian Institution, Reports._

_Tylor's Researches._

_American Ethnological Soc., Transactions._

_Dickeson's Amer. Numismatic Manual._

_Bancroft, A. A._, _Antiquities of Licking County, Ohio_.
MS. The writer of this manuscript, my father, was for
fifty years a resident of Licking County, where he has
examined more or less carefully about forty enclosures and
two hundred mounds.