Part 11

But as neither conclusion could have been correct, as no such terrace has been found in any part of this region, and a walk around the summit would have thwarted the very design they had in view in building the mound, what was it Garcilasso's informants saw? C. C. Jones says "a terrace," but it is scarcely possible that any terrace at the end or side of a southern mound, forming an apron-like extension (which is the only form found there), could have been so described as to convey the idea of a roadway, as the mode of estimating the width shows clearly was intended.

The broad way winding around and up the side of the Etowah mound (Fig. 39) appears to answer the description better than any other in Georgia. It is a large mound, high, and one that would doubtless attract the attention of the Spanish soldiers; its dimensions indicate that the tribe by which it was built was strong in numbers and might easily send forth five hundred warriors to greet the Spaniards. The locality is also within the limits of De Soto's route as given by the best authorities; and lastly, there is no other mound within the possible limits of his route which will in any respect answer the description. As Garcillasso must have learned of this mound from his informants, and has described it according to the impression conveyed to his mind, we are justified in accepting it as a statement of fact. I am, therefore, satisfied that the work alluded to is none other than the Etowah mound near Cartersville, Georgia, and that here we can point to the spot where the unfortunate Adelantado rested his weary limbs and where the embassadors of the noted cacique of Cutifachiqui delivered their final message.

Recently the smallest of the three large mounds of this group was opened and carefully explored by Mr. Rogan, one of the Bureau assistants. As the result will be of much interest to archæologists aside from the question now under discussion, although belonging to the southern type of burial mounds not discussed in this paper, I will venture to give a description of its construction and contents as a means of comparison and as also bearing somewhat on the immediate question under discussion. This mound is the one marked _c_ in Jones's plate;[72] also _c_ in Colonel Whittlesey's figure 2.[73] A vertical section of it is given in Fig. 40. The measurements, as ascertained by Mr. Rogan, are as follows: Average diameter at the base, 120 feet; diameter of the level top, 60 feet; height above the original surface of the ground, 16 feet. The form is more nearly that of a truncated cone than represented in the figures alluded to.

The construction was found, by very thorough excavation, to be as follows: the entire surrounding slope (No. 4, Fig. 40) was of hard, tough red clay, which could not have been obtained nearer than half a mile; the cylindrical core, 60 feet in diameter and extending down to the original surface of the ground, was composed of three horizontal layers; the bottom layer (No. 1) 10 feet thick, of rich, dark, and rather loose loam; the next (No. 2) 4 feet thick, of hard, beaten (or tramped) clay, so tough and hard that it was difficult to penetrate it even with a pick; and the uppermost (No. 3) of sand and surface soil between 1 and 2 feet thick. A trench was dug from opposite sides to the central core; and when the arrangement was ascertained, this central portion was carefully explored to the original surface of the ground.

Nothing was found in the layer of clay (No. 2) except a rude clay pipe, some small shell beads, a piece of mica, and a chunkee stone. The burials were all in the lower layer (No. 1), of dark rich loam, and chiefly in stone cists or coffins of the usual box-shape, formed of stone slabs, and distributed horizontally, as shown in Fig. 41, which is a plan of this lower bed.

According to Mr. Rogan's field-notes, the form and contents of these graves and the mode of burial in them were as follows:

Grave _a_, Fig. 41.--A stone sepulcher, 2-1/2 feet wide, 8 feet long, and 2 feet deep, formed by placing steatite slabs on edge at the sides and ends, and others across the top. The bottom consisted simply of earth hardened by fire. It contained the remains of a single skeleton, lying on its back, with the head east. The frame was heavy and about 7 feet long. The head was resting on a thin copper plate, ornamented with stamped figures; but the skull was crushed and the plate injured by fallen slabs. Under the copper were the remains of a skin of some kind; and under this, coarse matting, probably of split cane. The skin and matting were both so rotten that they could be secured only in fragments. At the left of the feet were two clay vessels, one a water-bottle, and the other a very small vase. On the right of the feet were some mussel and sea shells; and immediately under the feet two conch-shells (_Busycon perversum_), partially filled with small shell beads. Around each ankle was a strand of similar beads. The bones and most of the shells were so far decomposed that they could not be saved.

Grave _b_.--A stone sepulcher, 4-1/4 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 1-1/2 feet deep, differing from _a_ only in size and the fact that the bottom was covered with stone slabs. The skeleton was extended on the back, head east. On the forehead was a thin plate of copper, the only article found.

Grave _c_.--A stone sepulcher, 3-1/2 feet long, 1-1/2 feet wide, and 1-1/2 deep; the bottom being formed of burnt earth. Although extending east and west, as shown in the figure, the bones had probably been interred without regard to order and disconnected, the head being found in the northeast corner with face to the wall and the remaining portion of the skeleton in a promiscuous heap. Yet there was no indication of disturbance after burial as the coffin was intact. Between some of the bones was found a thin plate of copper that had been formed by uniting and riveting together smaller sections. Some of the bones found in this grave were saved.

Grave _d_.--A small sepulcher, 1-1/2 feet square by 1 foot deep, contained the remains of an infant, also a few small shell beads. The slabs forming the sides and bottom of this grave bore very distinct marks of fire.

Grave _e_.--Simply a headstone and footstone, with the skeleton of a very small child between them; head east. On the wrists were some very small shell beads. The earth on the north and south sides had been hardened in order to form the walls.

Grave _f_.--Stone sepulcher, 6 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 1-1/2 feet deep, with stone in the bottom; skeleton with the head north. There was a lot of copper about the head, which, together with the skeleton, was wrapped in a skin. The head rested on a large conch-shell (_Busycon perversum_), and this on the remains of a coarse mat. Shell beads were found around the neck, each wrist, and ankle. On the right was a small cup, and on the breast an engraved shell. The copper had preserved a portion of the hair, which was saved; portions of the skin and matting were also secured.

Immediately under _b_ was another stone grave or coffin, 3 feet long, 1-1/2 feet wide, and as deep, extending north and south. The head of the skeleton was toward the north, but the feet were doubled back under the frame in order to get it in the allotted space. The only things found with this skeleton were some beads around the neck.

At _g_ the remains of a child were found without any stones about them. Some shell beads were around the neck and wrists and an engraved shell on the breast.

Grave _h_.--A stone sepulcher, 1-1/2 feet square and 1 foot deep, stone slabs on the four sides and top; the bottom consisted simply of earth hardened by fire. This contained only a trace of bones and presented indications of at least partial cremation, as all around the slabs, outside and inside, was a solid mass of charcoal and the earth was burned to the depth of a foot.

Grave _i_.--A stone sepulcher, 4-1/2 feet long, 1-1/2 feet wide, and as deep, the bottom earth; contained the remains of a skeleton resting on the back, head north, and feet doubled back so as to come within the coffin. On the breast was a thin plate of copper, five inches square, with a hole through the center. Around the wrists were beads, and about the neck rather more than a quart of the same.

At _j_ were the remains of a small child, without stone surroundings; under the head was a piece of copper, and about the neck and wrists were shell beads.

These graves were not all on the same level; the top of some being but two feet below the clay bed (No. 2), while others were from two to three feet lower.

All the articles obtained in this mound were forwarded at once to the Bureau of Ethnology and are now in the National Museum. Examining them somewhat carefully since their reception, I find there are really more copper plates among them than Mr. Rogan supposed, the number and description being as follows:

1. A human figure with wings, represented in Fig. 42. This is 13 inches long and 9 inches wide. A portion of the lower part, as shown by the figure, is wanting, probably some 3 or 4 inches. There is a break across the middle, but not sufficient to interfere with tracing out the design. A crown piece to the head ornament is also wanting.

2. Also a human figure, shown in Fig. 43. Length, 16 inches; width, 7-1/2 inches.

3. Figure of a bird; this is imperfect, as part of the head and the outer margin of the wings are wanting. Length, 13-1/2 inches; width 7-1/2 inches. This plate shows indubitable evidence of having been formed of smaller pieces welded together, as the overlapping portions can be easily traced. It has also undergone repairs: a fracture commencing on the left margin and running irregularly half-way across the body has been mended by placing a strip of copper along it on the under side and riveting it to the main plate; a small piece has also been riveted to the head and the head to the body; several other pieces are attached in the same way. The rivets are small and the work is neatly done.

4. An ornament or badge of some kind, shown in Fig. 44. The two crescent-shaped pieces are entirely plain, except some slightly impressed lines on the portion connecting them with the central stem. This central stem, throughout its entire length and to the width of six-tenths of an inch, is raised, and cross strips are placed at various points along the under side for the purpose of inserting a slip of bone, a part of which yet remains in it, and is seen in the figure at the break immediately below the point where the oblique strips meet. This specimen presents, as I believe, indubitable evidence that the workmen who formed it made use of metallic tools, as the cutting in this case could not possibly have been done with anything except a metallic implement. A single glance at it is sufficient to satisfy any one of the truth of this assertion. Length of the stem, 9 inches; width across the crescents, 7-1/2 inches.

5. Part of an ornament similar to No. 4. These plates, especially No. 4, appear to be enlarged patterns of that seen behind the head of Fig. 43.

6. An ornament or badge, shown in Fig. 45, which Mr. Rogan, when he found it under the head of the skeleton in grave _a_, was inclined to consider a crown. It is imperfect, a narrow strip across the middle and a portion of the tip being missing. As shown in the figure, it measures around the outer border 19 inches and across the broad end 3-1/2 inches. The six holes at the larger end, in which the remains of strings can be detected, indicate that when in use it was attached to some portion of the dress or fastened on a staff.

7. A fragment from the larger end of a piece similar to the preceding. Attached to this is a piece of cloth.

In addition to the foregoing, there are a number of small fragments probably broken from these plates, but, so far, I have been unable to fit them to their proper places.

These plates and the ones mentioned below are very thin, and as even and smooth (except as interrupted by the figures) as tin plate. The figures are all stamped, the lines and indentations being very sharp and regular.

An examination of what Mr. Rogan calls a skin shows beyond question that it is animal matter. The matting he speaks of appears to be made of split canes.

The shell represented in Fig. 46 is the one obtained in grave _g_. The one shown in Fig. 47 is that found in grave _f_.

I shall at present simply call attention to one or two facts which appear to bear upon the age and distribution of these singular specimens of art.

First. We notice the fact alluded to by Mr. Holmes,[74] which is apparent to every one who inspects his accurately drawn figures, that in all their leading features the designs themselves are suggestive of Mexican or Central American work. Yet a close inspection brings to light one or two features which are anomalies in Mexican or Central American designs; as, for example, in Figs. 42 and 43, where the wings are represented as _rising from the back of the shoulders_, a fact alluded to by Mr. Holmes.[75] Although we can find numerous figures of winged individuals in Mexican designs (they are unknown in Central American), they always carry with them the idea that the individual is partly or completely clothed in the skin of the bird. This is partially carried out in our copper plate, as we see by the bird-bill over the head, the eye being that of the bird and not of the man. But when we come to the wings we at once see that the artist had in mind the _angel figure_, with wings arising from the _back of the shoulders_, an idea wholly foreign to Mexican art. It is further worthy of note in regard to these two plates that there is a combination of Central American and Mexican designs: the graceful limbs, and the ornaments of the arms, legs, waist, and top of the head are Central American, and the rest, with the exception possibly of what is carried in the right hand, are Mexican.

That these plates are not the work of the Indians found inhabiting the southern sections of the United States, or of their direct ancestors, I freely concede. That they were not made by an aboriginal artisan of Central America or Mexico of ante-Columbian times, I think is evident, if not from the designs themselves, certainly from the indisputable evidence that the work was done with hard metallic tools.

Second. Plates like those of this collection have only been found, so far as I can ascertain, in northern Georgia and northern and southern Illinois. The bird figure represented in Fig. 48 was obtained by Major Powell, the director of the United States Geological Survey, from a mound near Peoria, Illinois. Another was obtained in Jackson County, Illinois, by Mr. Thing, from an ordinary stone grave. From another similar grave, at the same place, he also obtained the plate represented in Fig. 49. Fragments of a similar plate were obtained by Mr. Earle from a stone grave in a mound in Alexander County, Illinois. All these specimens were received by the Bureau of Ethnology and deposited in the National Museum.

The box-form stone cists and the figures on the copper plates and engraved shells differ so widely from the stone vaults and vestiges of art found in the North Carolina and East Tennessee mounds as to forbid the belief that the works of the two regions were constructed by one and the same people. The stone cists and to some extent the construction of the mound appear to connect the authors with the mound-builders and authors of the stone graves of the Cumberland Valley and Southern Illinois, and several other facts, which we cannot now stop to present, seem to strengthen this suggestion.

The presence of these stone cists in this mound of northern Georgia, when coupled with the fact that similar stone graves are found in Habersham County, indicate a Shawnee or closely allied element where we should expect to find only Creeks or some branch of the Chahta-Muscogee family. This is a puzzle by no means easy of solution, but one which the scope of our paper does not require us to discuss. Still, we may add, that if our conclusions in regard to this group be correct, we must believe that the large mound was built before De Soto reached that region while the one explored was built afterwards. Some facts brought to light by the recent discovery of a cemetery within the area inclosed by the ditch, which I have for some years believed would be found, and for which I caused search to be made, appear to sustain these conclusions, and to indicate that two different peoples have occupied this site and have had a hand in constructing or adding to these works.

Whatever may be our conclusion in reference to these questions, I think it will be conceded that the builders of these Etowah mounds belonged to different tribes from those who erected the East Tennessee and North Carolina works, and hence, if we are right in regard to the latter, the Etowah mounds were not built by the Cherokees. The important bearing which this conclusion has upon the question under discussion, as the reader will see, is that the mounds immediately outside of the territory occupied by the Cherokees were built by a different people from those who erected the works in that territory. Thus we see that, judging by the mounds alone, immediately upon passing outside the Cherokee country we encounter a different type of works. This fact, therefore, when taken in connection with the other evidence adduced, becomes strongly corroborative of the view that the Cherokees were the authors of the works in their territory.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

The results of our examination of the burial mounds of the northern districts may be briefly summed up as follows:

First. That different sections were occupied by different mound-building tribes, which, though belonging to much the same stage in the scale of civilization, differed in most instances in habits and customs to a sufficient extent to mark, by their modes of burial, construction of their mounds, and their works of art, the boundaries of the respective areas occupied.

Second. That each tribe adopted several different modes of burial depending, in all probability, to some extent upon the social condition, position, and occupation of the deceased.

Third. That the custom of removing the flesh before the final burial prevailed very extensively among the mound-builders of the northern sections. The bones of the common people being often gathered together and cast in promiscuous heaps, over which mounds were built.

Fourth. That usually some kind of religious or superstitious ceremony was performed at the burial, in which fire played a prominent part. That, notwithstanding the very common belief to the contrary, there is no evidence whatever that human sacrifice was practiced.

Fifth. That there is nothing found in the mode of constructing these mounds, nor in the vestiges of art they contain, to indicate that their builders had reached a higher culture-status than that attained by some of the Indian tribes found occupying the country at the time of the first arrival of Europeans.

Sixth. That the custom of erecting mounds over the dead continued to be practiced in several localities in post-Columbian times.

Seventh. That the character and condition of the ancient monuments, and the relative uniformity in the culture status of the different tribes shown by the works and the remains of art found in them, indicate that the mound-building age could not have continued in this part of the continent longer than a thousand years, and hence that its commencement probably does not antedate the fifth or sixth century.

Nothing has been found connected with them to sustain or justify the opinion, so frequently advanced, of their great antiquity. The calculations based upon the supposed age of trees found growing on some of them is fast giving way before recent investigations made in regard to the growth of forests, as it has been ascertained that the rings of trees are not a sure indication of age.

Quatrefages may not be correct in fixing the date of the appearance of the "Red skins" in the "basin of the Missouri" in the eighth or ninth century,[76] but nothing has been found in connection with the ancient works of this country, supposing the Indians to have been their authors, to prove that he has greatly erred in his calculation. Other races or peoples may have preceded the mound-builders in this region, but better proof of this is required than that based on the differences between the supposed palæolithic and neolithic implements of New Jersey and other sections, as every type discovered can be duplicated a hundred times in the surface finds from different parts of the country.

Eighth. That all the mounds which have been examined and carefully studied are to be attributed to the indigenous tribes found inhabiting this region and their ancestors.

SUPPLEMENTAL NOTE.[77]

BURIAL CEREMONIES OF THE HURONS.[78]

Our savages are not savages as regards the duties which nature herself requires us to render to the dead. They do not yield in this respect to several nations much more civilized. You would say that all their labor and efforts were for scarcely anything but to amass means of honoring the dead. They have nothing too valuable for this purpose; they devote to this use the robes, the hatchets, and the shell beads in such quantities, that you would think to see them, on these occasions, that they were considered of no great value, and yet they are all the riches of the country; you may often see them in midwinter almost entirely naked, while they have good and fine robes in their chests, which they are keeping in reserve for the dead; this is, indeed, their point of honor. It is on this occasion especially that they wish to appear magnificent. But I speak here only of their peculiar funerals.