Part 2

I shall close this communication by a notice of certain _discoidal stones_ occasionally found in the mounds of the United States. Of these relics I possess sixteen, of which all but two were found by my friend Dr. Wm. Blanding, during his long residence in Camden, South Carolina. These disks were accompanied, as usual, by earthern[TN-3] vessels, pipes of baked clay, arrow-heads and other articles, respecting which Dr. Blanding has given me the following locality:--"All the Indian relics, save three or four, which I have sent you, were collected on or near the banks of the Wateree river, Kershaw district, South Carolina; the greater part from the mounds or near the foot of them. All the mounds that I have observed in this state, excepting these, do not amount to as many as are found on the Wateree within the distance of twenty four miles up and down the river, between Lancaster and Sumpter districts. The lowest down is called Nixon's mound, the highest up, Harrison's."

"The discoidal stones," adds Dr. Blanding, "were found at the foot of the different mounds, not in them. They seemed to be left, where they were no doubt used, on the play grounds."

The disks are from an inch and a half to six inches in diameter, and present some varieties in other respects.

Fig. 1 represents a profile of the simplest form and at the same time the smallest size of these stones, being in diameter about an inch and three quarters. The upper and under surfaces are nearly plane, with angular edges and oblique margin, but without concavity or perforation.

Fig. 2. A similar form, slightly concave on each surface.

Fig. 3. A large disk of white quartz, measuring five inches in diameter and an inch and three fourths in thickness. The margin is rounded, and both surfaces are deeply concave though imperforate.

Fig. 4 is another specimen four inches in diameter, deeply concave from the margin to the center, with a central perforation. The margin itself is slightly convex. The concave surface is marked by two sets of superficial grooved lines, which meet something in the form of a bird-track. This disk is made of a light-brown ferruginous quartz.

Fig. 5 is a profile view of a solid lenticular stone, much more convex on the one side than the other, formed of hard syenitic rock.

Besides these there are other slight modifications of form which it is unnecessary to particularize.

These disks are made of the hardest stones, and wrought with admirable symmetry and polish, surpassing any thing we could readily conceive of in the humbler arts of the present Indian tribes; and the question arises, whether they are not the works of their seemingly extinct progenitors?--of that people of the same race, (but more directly allied to the Toltecans of Mexico,) who appear in former times to have constituted populous and cultivated communities throughout the valley of the Mississippi, and in the southern and western regions towards the gulf of Mexico, and whose last direct and lineal representatives were the ill-fated Natchez?

I have made much inquiry as to the localities of these and analogous remains, but hitherto with little success. I am assured that they have been found in Missouri, perhaps near St. Louis; and in very rare instances in the northern part of Delaware. Dr. Ruggles has sent me the plaster model of a small, perforated, but irregularly formed stone of this kind, taken from an ancient Indian grave at Fall River in Rhode Island; but Dr. Edwin H. Davis, of Chilicothe, in a letter recently received from him, informs me that he had obtained, during his excavations in that vicinity, no less than "two hundred flint disks in a single mound, measuring from three and a half to five inches in diameter, and from half an inch to an inch in thickness, of three different forms, round, oval and triangular." These appear, however, to be of a different construction and designed for some other use than those I have described; and Dr. Davis himself offers the probable suggestion, that "they were rude darts blocked out at the quarries for easy transportation to the Indian towns." The same gentleman speaks of having found other disks formed of a micaceous slate, of a dark color and highly polished. These last appear to correspond more nearly to those we have indicated in the above diagrams.

Besides these disks, I have met with a few spheroidal stones, about three inches in diameter. One of these accompanies the disks from South Carolina, and is marked with a groove to receive the thumb in throwing it. A similar but ruder ball is contained among the articles found by Mr. Atwater in the mound near Huron, Ohio.

What was the use of the disks in question? Those who have examined the series in my possession have offered various explanations; but the only one that seems in any degree plausible, is that of my friend Dr. Blanding, who supposes them to have been used in a game analogous to that of the quoits of the Europeans. It is a curious fact that discoidal stones much resembling these have been found in Scandinavia;[17-*] whence I was at first led to suppose it possible, especially in consideration of their apparently circumscribed occurrence in this country, that they might have been introduced here by the Northmen; a conjecture that seems to lose all foundation since these relics have been found as far west as the Mississippi.

* * * * *

_Note._--Since the preceding remarks were written, I have received from my friend, Mr. William A. Foster, of Lima, ten skulls and two entire mummied bodies from the Peruvian cemetery at Arica. "This cemetery," observes Mr. Foster, "lies on the face of a sandhill sloping towards the sea. The external surface occupied by these tombs, as far as we explored, I should say was five or six acres. In many of the tombs three or four bodies were found clustered together, always _in the sitting posture_, and wrapped in three or four thicknesses of cloth, with a mat thrown over all."

These crania possess an unusual interest, inasmuch as, with two exceptions, they present the horizontally elongated form, in every degree from its incipient stage to its perfect development.

By what contrivance has the rounded head of the Indian been moulded into this fantastic shape? I have elsewhere[17-+] offered some explanations of this subject; but the present series of skulls throws yet more light on it, and enables me to indicate the precise manner in which this singular object has been attained.

It is evident that the forehead was pressed downwards and backwards by two compresses, (probably a folded cloth,) one on each side of the frontal suture, which was left free; a fact that explains the cause of the ridge, which, in every instance, replaces that suture by extending from the root of the nose to the coronal suture. To keep these compresses in place, a bandage was carried over them from the base of the occiput obliquely forwards; and then, in order to confine the lateral portions of the skull, the same bandage was continued by another turn over the top of the head, immediately behind the coronal suture, and probably with an intervening compress; and the bandaging was repeated over these parts until they were immovably confined in the desired position.

Every one who is acquainted with the pliable condition of the cranial bones at birth, will readily conceive how effectually this apparatus would mould the head in the elongated or cylindrical form; for, while it prevents the forehead from rising, and the sides of the head from expanding, it allows the occipital region an entire freedom of growth; and thus without sensibly diminishing the volume of the brain, merely forces it into a new though unnatural direction, while it preserves, at the same time, a remarkable symmetry of the whole structure. The following outline of one of these skulls, will further illustrate my meaning; merely premising that the course of the bandages is in every instance distinctly marked by a corresponding cavity of the bony structure, excepting on the forehead, where the action of a firm compress has left a plane surface.

This conformation, as we have already observed, was prevalent among the old Aymara tribes which inhabited the shores and islands of the Lake of Titicaca, and whose civilization seems evidently to antedate that of the Inca Peruvians. I was in fact at one time led to consider this form of head as peculiar to, and characteristic of, the former people; but Mr. Foster's extensive observations conclusively prove that it was as common among some tribes of the sea coast, as among those of the mountainous region of Bolivia; that it belonged to no particular nation or tribe; and that it was, in every instance, the result of mechanical compression.

In my Crania Americana I have given abundant instances of a remarkable vertical flattening of the occiput, and irregularity of its sides, among the Inca Peruvians who were buried in the royal cemetery of Pachacamac, near Lima. These heads present no other deviation from the natural form; and even this irregularity I have thought might be accounted for by a careless mode of binding the infant to the simple board, which, among many Indian tribes of both North and South America, is a customary substitute for a cradle. It is probable, however, that even this configuration was intentional, and may have formed a distinctive badge of some particular _caste_ of these singular people, among whom a perfectly natural cranium was of extremely rare occurrence.

We are now acquainted with _four_ forms of the head among the old Peruvians which were produced by artificial means, viz:

1. The horizontally elongated, or cylindrical form, above described.

2. The conical or sugar-loaf form, represented in the preceding diagrams.

3. The simple flattening or depression of the forehead, causing the rest of the head to expand, both posteriorly and laterally; a practice yet prevalent among the Chenooks and other tribes at the north of the Columbia river, in Oregon.

4. A simple vertical elevation of the occiput, giving the head in most instances a squared and inequilateral form.

A curious decree of the ecclesiastical court of Lima, dated A. D. 1585, and quoted by the late Prof. Blumenbach, alludes to at least four artificial conformations of the head, even then common among the Peruvians, and forbids the practice of them under certain specified penalities.[TN-4] These forms were called in the language of the natives, "Caito, Oma, Opalla, &c.;" and the continuance of them at that period, affords another instance of the tenacity with which the Peruvians clung to the usages of their forefathers.

FOOTNOTES:

[4-*] See more particularly the communications of Mr. R. C. Taylor, in vol. xxxiv, of Mr. S. Taylor, in vol. xxxiv, and of Prof. Forshey in vol. xlix.

[5-*] We take this occasion to observe, that skulls taken from the mounds, should at once be saturated with a solution of glue or gum, or with any kind of varnish, by which precaution further decomposition is effectually prevented.

[6-*] Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, I, p. 281.

[6-+] Rambles in Yucatan, p. 217.

[6-++] L'Homme Americain, Tome I, p. 306. I corrected my error before I had the pleasure of seeing M. D'Orbigny's very interesting work. Amer. Jour. of Science, vol. xxxviii, No. 2. Jour. Acad. Nat. Sciences of Philadelphia, vol. viii; and again in my Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America, p. 6.

[6-§] See Proceedings of the Acad. of Nat. Sciences of Philadelphia for Dec. 1844.

[7-*] Amer. Jour. of Science, xxxii, p. 364.

[7-+] See Proceedings of the Acad. of Nat. Sciences of Phila., vol. ii, p. 274. If I mistake not, I was the first to bring forward this _mode of interment_ practiced by our aboriginal nations, as a strong evidence of the unity of the American race. "Thus it is that notwithstanding the diversity of language, customs and intellectual character, we trace this usage throughout both Americas, affording, as we have already stated, collateral evidence of the affiliation of all the American tribes."--Crania Americana, p. 246, and pl. 69. Mr. Bradford in his valuable work, _American Antiquities_, has added some examples of the same kind; and the Chevalier D'Eichthal has also adduced this custom, in connexion with some traces of it in Polynesia, to prove an exotic origin for a part at least of the American race. See _Mémoires de la Société Ethnologique de Paris_, Tome II, p. 236. Whence arose this conventional position of the body in death? This question has been often asked and variously answered. It is obviously an imitation of the attitude which the living Indian habitually assumes when sitting at perfect ease, and which has been naturally transferred to his lifeless remains as a fit emblem of repose.

[8-*] Crania Americana, p. 116.

[8-+] I have been looking to Dr. Dickerson, of Natchez, for more complete details derived from the tumuli of that ancient tribe which formed a link between the Mexican nations on the one hand, and the savage hordes on the other. Dr. Dickerson is amply provided with interesting and important materials for this inquiry, which we trust he will soon make public.

[8-++] The skull brought me from Ticul by Mr. Stephens, is that of a young female. It presents the natural rounded form; which accords with the observation of M. D'Orbigny, (L'Homme Americain,) that the artificial moulding of the head among some tribes of Peruvians was chiefly confined to the men.

[8-§] Travels in Central America, vol. ii, p. 311.

[9-*] Crania Americana, p. 146.

[10-*] Rambles in Yucatan, p. 216.

[10-+] Rambles by Land and Water, p. 145.

[11-*] Rambles by Land and Water, p. 203.

[12-*] Commerce of the Prairies, I, p. 165.

[12-+] Ibid. I, [TN-5] 270.

[12-++] I am aware that the walls of the ancient Mexican and Peruvian edifices are often vertical; but where this is the case the pyramidal form is attained by piling, one on the other, successive tiers of masonry, each receding from the other and leaving a parapet or platform at its base.

[13-*] Commerce of the Prairies, I, p. 277.

[14-*] See my Inquiry into the Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America, 2d edit., Philad. 1844.

[17-*] See Journal of the Antiquarian Society of Denmark, published in Copenhagen in the Danish language, vol. i, tab. 2, figs. 52, 53.

[17-+] Jour. Acad. Nat. Sciences of Philad., vol. viii.

Transcriber's Note

The following misspellings and typographical errors were maintained.

Page Error TN-1 6 prevading should read pervading TN-2 12 abandonded should read abandoned TN-3 14 earthern should read earthen TN-4 19 penalities should read penalties TN-5 fn. 12-+ Ibid. I, 270. should read Ibid. I, p. 270.