LI B RAR.Y 
 
 OF THL 
 
 UN IVLRSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 oop-2> 
 
 ILZTNV IH MimOHlVAL H T IB TBY
 
 FRANK C. lAKER.
 
 LIBRARY 
 UT^iVtRSITY OF lUINQIS 
 
 urbana"
 
 THE GREAT CAHOKIA MOUND. MADISON CO., ILLS. 
 
 lOO Feet High, and Covering i6 Acres of Ground. 
 
 NOTE— The above, although giving the appearance of the Great Mound from the point at -which the vint) tva': taken, is so mueh/oreshorttnedin 
 
 the dra-Ming that it gives no correet idea of the size of the monument. For seetional view and measurements, see pages 101-103.
 
 FR^NK C. 6^KtK. 
 
 RECORDS 
 
 C^OF— 
 
 ANCIENT RACES 
 
 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 
 
 JBEING AN ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THE PICTOGKAPHS, SCULPTURED 
 HIEROGLYPHS, SYMBOLIC DEVICES, EMBLEMS AND TRADI- 
 TIONS OF THE PREHISTORIC RACES OF AMERICA, WITH 
 SOME SUGGESTIONS AS TO THEIR ORIGIN. 
 
 With cuts and views illustrating over three hundred objects 
 and symbolio devices. 
 
 By WM. McADAMS, 
 
 Author of '-The Ancient Mounds of Illinois."' '■'Antiquities of 
 
 Caholda." Etc. ; Fellow of the American Association for 
 
 the Advancement of Science; Member of St. Louis 
 
 Academy of Science:, President of Illinois 
 
 State Natural History Society. 
 
 ST. LOUIS: 
 C. K BARNS PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 1887.
 
 Entered according- to Act of Congress, in the year 1887. 
 
 Bt WILLIAM McADAMS, 
 
 In the oflBce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washln^^n.
 
 
 DEDICATION. 
 
 I 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY 
 
 DEDICATE THIS VOLUME 
 
 TO TWO LADS, MY SONS, WHO 
 
 STILL ABIDE WITH ME, AND TO 
 
 WHOSE PLEASANT COMPANY I AM 
 
 INDEBTED FOR MANY HAPPY DAYS OF 
 
 EXPLORATION IN THE FIELDS AND FORESTS 
 
 ON THE BANKS OF OUR LOVED MISSISSIPPI RIVBB. 
 
 WM. McADAMS.
 
 The Authok 
 
 His 
 
 Mark.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 A portion of the facts and suggestions embodied in this work 
 were included in a paper read, under the title of "Ancient Pic- 
 too-raphs on the Banks of the Mississippi, " before the American 
 Association for the Advancement of Science, at the Ann Arbor 
 meeting two years ago. The illustrations of the pictographs, 
 beino" shown on canvas, attracted so much interest that we at once 
 saw that the value of the work when printed would largely depend 
 on the illustrations. In having these cuts made, and arranging 
 them in the text, the subject seemed to demand a larger and more 
 complete discussion ; showing, not only the pictographs and carv- 
 ino-s on the rocks, but similar devices on the mound pottery and 
 other objects, among which are the curious gorgets of shell bear- 
 ing engraved representations of spiders with the symbol of the 
 cross on their backs. With the exception of a few of the fine en- 
 o-ravings used by permission from Mr. Gonant's work, and a 
 few cuts of emblematic mounds, by permission of the editor of the 
 '^ American Antiquarian^ the most of these illustrations are new, 
 and made from objects either in my own collection or the col- 
 lections of friends. 
 
 We believe these pictographs have an important bearing on 
 ^-. the s^udy of our archaeology, and may aid in throwing some 
 ^ liffht on the origin of the races that have been inhabitants of this 
 ^ continent. Quite probably our Mound-Builders left no written 
 ^ history ; but that fragments exist here and there that exhibit 
 ^^ rude attempts to record something, we believe we will show to the 
 T^ reader of this little book. Our object is not to explain these 
 
 I 1 60 1 23
 
 vi. PREFACE. 
 
 devices, because we cannot ; but, if possible, to put them in the 
 way of some person who may be able to trace their meaning. At 
 the very least, they will be preserved and be available for the 
 student in years to come. 
 
 As to the story of the Piasa, we have endeavored to exhaust 
 the local history of that remarkable pictograph, not so much for 
 scientific purposes as to try and enlist the interest of the general 
 public. In fact we have attempted to write this book for the 
 public, knowing that many are interested in archaeological mat- 
 ters who have no time for investigations and little time to read. 
 To these we trust our attempt at succinctness will be welcome. 
 In condensing the matter we not only evade a long and prosy 
 story, but place the price of the book within the reach of all. 
 
 The chapters upon the cruciform symbols from our ancient 
 mounds will contain some things new to our archaeologists, 
 whom we have left at liberty to draw their own conclusions 
 therefrom. 
 
 On the whole, although the subject-matter has cost us many 
 years of labor and study, if we have interested the reader and 
 filled ever so small a space that was empty, we are satisfied.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I . 
 
 The Probability that the Mound-Builders did leave some Kecords. — Figures Carved and 
 Painted on the Rocks.— Pictures of Manitous and Monsters as seen by Marquette 
 and the early French Voyagers.— The Piasa, or Man-Eating Bird. — The Tradition of 
 the Piasa among the Illinois Indians. — The Death of the Piasa. — The Bone Cavern 
 where the Piasa devoured its victims. — Graphic Description of the Cave 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Little Value of Indian Tradition in the Study of Ethnology. — European Mother 
 Goose Stories. — The Origin of our Mound Builders and Indians Unlinown. — The 
 description, by the Early Freneli Voyagers, of the Piasa. — Mention made of it by 
 Douay and Joutel, and by St. Cosnie in 1699. — Description by Jones in 1838. — A 
 Picture of the Piasa in 1825. — A Picture of it in 1839, from a German Work. — Its 
 disappearance in 1846 5 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Marquette's Drawing of the Piasa. — The confounding, by early writers, of the Piasa 
 with other Pictographs.— Local Sketches Of the Piasa. — Pictures and Traditions of 
 Dragons over the World. — Traditions of Monsters among the Indians. — The Da- 
 cotahs' "Thunder Bird." — The Medicine- Animal of the Winnebagoes.— Curious 
 Pictograph on the Bluff on the Illinois River. — Dragon Heads on Mound Pottery.— 
 The English story of St. George and the Dragon. — Dragons in Mexico and Central 
 America 10 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Was there ever a Creature like the Piasa? — The Geological Age of Reptiles. — The Ptero- 
 dactyl, a Flying Saurian. — The Oldest Animal with Feathers. — ITie Pictures in the 
 Temple of Belus in Babylon. — Compound Animals. — The Dragons of the Bible. — 
 A Dragon's Skull from the Rocks of Dakota. — The Probable Origin of Mythological 
 Dragons 17 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Other Pictographs on the Bluff above Alton. — Their Appearance and Description. — A 
 Human Form depicted in Adoration of the Sun. — Were the Mound-Builders worship- 
 pers of the Sun? — Two huge Birds in Combat. — Figures of the Sun, Moon and other 
 Planets. — The Age of the Pictographs. — Mounds on the Bluff above them. — The 
 Contents of the Mounds. — The beautiful Breast-Plate and Gor£:et of Shell 21
 
 Viii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Sculptured Pictographs in a Cave in Ste. Genevieve Co., Mo. — Description of the Cave. 
 Tiie Appearance of tiie Carvings. — Human Footprints. — Figtiting Birds, Cross- 
 Circles and Strange Devices. — Evidence of Long Occupancy of the Vicinity. — 
 Mounds. — Stone Graves. — Salt Springs. — Remains of Salt Evaporating- Pans. — 
 Peculiar Burial, with huge Salt-Pans for a Coffin 24 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 Sculptured Pictographs in a Cave in Greene County, Ills. — Description of the Cave. — 
 Illustration of the Rock -whh. the Carvings upon it. — The Human Footprint with 
 Six Toes. — Account of other Six-Toed works in Tennessee. — Other Devices. — The 
 Stone Seat. — The Size of the Mound- Builders. — The Cave a Natural Amphitheatre. 
 Mounds on the Bluff. — Objects found in them.— Accumulation of Ashes in a Cave. 
 — Caves places of Habitation and places of Resoit. — Cave Men. — Wi-re they 
 Cannibals ? ; 27 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Human Footprints in the Rocks at Alton. — Footprints of Men and Anamals in Rocks in 
 Tennessee. — Footprints in the Rock at St. Louis. — Description and Illustration. — 
 The Early Settlers superstitious in regard to them. — Ancient Footprints in Ohio. — 
 Footprints in Ireland. — Footprints of the Saviour at Jerusalem. — Sacred Footprints 
 on Mt. Adam in Ceylon. — The various Beliefs in regard to them. — The Relation of 
 Peculiar Customs in various parts of the Globe 30 
 
 CHAPTER IX . 
 
 The Bone-Cavern where the Piasa devoured its Victims. — Description of the Bone- 
 Cavern at Grafton. — The ancient Bones taken from it. — Singular fact that no Bones 
 of the Buffalo are found either in Caves or in Mounds. — Did the Mound-Builders 
 Know the Buffalo? — The Buffalo probably a Comparatively Recent Animal in the 
 Mississippi Valley. — Illustration of the Bone-Cavern at Grafton. — The singular 
 Pictogniph on the Rocks above the Entrance. — Indications of Cannibalism among 
 the Cave Dwellers. — Cave Ornaments of Stalactite. — Caves the first Natural Habi- 
 tations of Man. — Indications in the Caves of the Age of their Occupation — The 
 Age of the Rock in which the Caves occur. — Relics made from Fossils. — Mound on 
 the Bluff over the Cave. — Description of the Pictograph over the Entrance to the 
 Cave. — Visits of the Indians to the Locality. — What they said of the Cave 34 
 
 CHAPTE R X. 
 
 Another Pictured Cavern below Grafton. — Aboriginal Remains found about it. — Singu- 
 lar Pipe of Stone from Mound on the Bluff. — Description and Illustration. — The 
 singular Mound Pipes. — Other Caves in thi Vicinity. — Pictographs in a Cave near 
 the Mouth of the Ohio River. — Description of the Cave. — The curious Figures 
 Engraved upon the Walls. ^—IlUistration of the Pictographs. — To be Regretted that 
 the Early Writers did not Illustrate instead of Describing what thej' saw. — No
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. IX 
 
 Illustrations in early works on Ethnology. — The Little Value of Opinions.— New 
 Collectors quite apt to have Many Theories. — A.nuising Theory as to why the Mustu- 
 don was Created 41 
 
 CHAPTER X I . 
 
 Pictographs and Emblematio Designs on the Ancient Pottery from the Mounds. — 
 Curious Customs in Burying the Dead. — Objects placed in the Grave. — Implenients 
 of Stone and Copper. — How they were Made. — Crowns and Head-Ornaments of 
 Copper. — The Crescent of Copper. — Head -Dress of Copper with Pearl Ornaments 
 in a Mound in St. Clair Co., Ills.— The curious Frog Shaped Idol Pipe. — The Frog 
 with a Sceptre in its Right Hand.— Sphinx-like Images resembling those of Egypt. 
 — Description of a Sphinx from a Mound on the Piasa Creek.^Its Head- Dress. — 
 Emblematic Images of Stone from Mounds. — Comparison of these with like 
 objects in the Old World 46 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Mound-Builders* cnstom of placing Food in the Graves.— The Vessels prepared for 
 the Burial Service. — Their Peculiar Shape. — Their Capacity and Manner of Manu- 
 facture. — Illustrations. — Peculiar Composition of the Burial Vases. — Xo Glazing or 
 Potter's Wheel. — Some of the finest of the Cinerary Urns in the Graves of Children. 
 — The DiflFerent Types * of Burial Vases. — Those Peculiarly Decorated with 
 Representations of Heads, Animals and Persons on the Rim. — The Shapes 
 of the Human Countenance. — No Beard Depicted. — A Stone Pipe with a Board 
 Depicted -17 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Buii:il Vases for holding Water. — Their forms like those of Egypt. — Illustration of the 
 Long-Necked form. — Owl-headed Vases like those from Troy. — Skill of the Mound- 
 Builders in making Pottery. — Lack of Ornamented Pottery in European Mounds. — 
 The superiority of American Relics and Mound Pottery. — The Polished Stone Age 
 of the Mississippi Valley. — The Human Form on Burial Vases. — Women Repre- 
 sented. — Heads of Human Figures showing Head Dress. — Ear-rings and Head Orna- 
 ments. — No Iron but Meteoric. — Meteoric Iron held sacred by the Mound-Builders, 
 like the Greeks. — Stone Crystals often mistaken for Glass. — Shape and Peculiarity of 
 the Hands seen on the Pottery. — The Manner of ornamenting the Burial Vases. — 
 A Burial Vase from Oakokia containing the Colors and Tools for Ornamenting... 53 
 
 CHAPTER XI y, 
 
 Pictographs and Hieroglyphic Inscriptions on the Pottery.— A Burial Vase from Monnd 
 on the IHinois River. — The Shell Spoon. — Remains of the Food in the Ve.';sel>. — 
 Whole Ears of Charred Corn. — The Gre.it Number of these Vases and their Curi- 
 ous Evidence. — The Mound -Builders' Religion and Belief in After Life. — Similar 
 Customs in Europe. — The Figure of the Cross on the Vessels. — The Cross of the 
 EoT^ptians. — The Cross of the Chinese. — Its Recurrence common in America 58
 
 X TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Mound Vessels with Painted Symbols. — Otiier Peculiar Figures of the Cross. — Symbolic 
 Figures of the Sun. — Similar Figures on Vases from Egypt and from Ancient Troy. 
 Illustration of a Vase from a Missouri Mound and a Vase from Thebes, Egypt. — The 
 Customs of the Mound-Builders influenced by Previous History. — The Points of Par- 
 allelism not Accidental. — The peculiar Cross with the Bent Arms.— Schliemann on 
 the Emblematic Crosses found in Ancient Troy. — The Ancient Character of this 
 Cross. — Its Origin. — An Instrument used for making Fire. — Origin of the word 
 Cross. — How the Ancients first generated Fire. — The Manner in which the Cross 
 became a Sacred Emblem " 62 
 
 CHAPTER XVl. 
 
 Another Mound Vase with singular Symbolic Figures. — Illustrations of the Devices. — 
 The singular sign of T or " tau, " used by the Egyptians, — Resemblance to 
 Chinese Characters. — Placing of Amulets on the Breasts of Mummies by the 
 Egyptians. — The Sacred Beetle. — The Symbol on the Beetle's Back. — Similar 
 Custom among the Mound-Builders. — The curious Gorgets of Shell. — The Cross on 
 the Spider's Back.— The ancient symbol of " Good Luck. " — No Phallic Worship 
 in America. — The Origin of the T or " tau," — The Enemies of the Egyptians wore a 
 Gorget with Cross like the Mound-Builders. — Curious and Suggestive Comparisons. 
 — The Maltese Cross on Mound Pottery. — Copper Crosses 69 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Sculptured Crosses from Mexico. — Symbolic Significance of the Cross. — The Jaina 
 Cross. — The Resemblance of some Mound Symbols to Masonic Devices. — Ancient 
 Earthworks in the form of Masonic Symbols. — The Circle, Square and Triangle 
 common forms with the Mound-Builders. — Masonry had its origin in Sun Worship. 
 — Belzoni's Tomb in Egypt. — Masonry an Ancient Religion. — The Indians thought 
 to be Masons. — The Hidden History of Mankind 75 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Mississippi Valley once the Home of a Vast Population. — Their Tov*ns, Agri- 
 culture, Government, Esthetic Tastes. — The Ancient Sites of Towns occupied now. 
 The Mound-Builders' Habits and Customs the result of a Former Influence. — St. 
 Louis the Site of an Ancient Town. — Illustration of a Group of Mounds in the 
 City. — The Truncated Pyramids. — The singular Triangular Earthwork. — Emble- 
 matic and Symbolic Mounds of Wisconsin. — The Sacred Circles. — The Sanctuary of 
 the Sun-Worshiper. — Human Sacrifice by the Mexicans and Greeks. — The Sacred 
 Pentagon a Place of Sacrifice. — A Sun Circle in Calhoun Co., Ills. — Earthworks in 
 Ohio 77 
 
 CHAPTE R X IX. 
 
 Were the Earthworks for Defensive Purposes ? — The Tradition that an Eclipse of the 
 Sun caused a Change in the Ceremonies of the Mound-Builders. — Historic Mounds.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. XI. 
 
 — Illustration of a group of Hieroglj'phic or Record Mounds. — Their description, — 
 Contemporaries of the Mound-Builders. — The great number of Emblematic 
 Mounds in Wisconsin. — The Advance made by Some of tlie Mound-Builders toward 
 Civilization. — The Emblematic Mounds of Wisconsin tlie Last of the Race. — Did 
 the Effigj'-Makers know tlie Buffalo? — Effigy Mound, representing a Man. — 
 Combination Mound. — An Amalgamation Group of Mounds, reciting History. — 
 Pidgeon, the author of "The Traditions of Dacoodah, " who lie was and where 
 he lived and died 81 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The Emblematic Mounds of Wisconsin not so Old. — Small mounds numerous in the 
 North-West. — The most modern mounds in Dakota. — Mounds connected bj/ Curious 
 Paths made of Buffalo Bones. — Exploration of some of these in the Dakota Valley. 
 — The Age of the Mounds. — The Age of the Bone-Paths. — Relics from these 
 Mounds.— The Shape of the Skulls.— The many Different-Shaped Skulls.— Long 
 Skulls. — Small Size of the Skulls. — A singular Human Skull from a Cahokia Mound. 
 —Compressed Skulls. — The Neanderthal Skull as compared with some of our 
 Mound-Builders". — A singular Skull from a Mound in Missouri. — Skulls from the 
 Pottery Mounds.— Broad. Thick Skulls. — Unequal Size of the Lobes. — Egyptian 
 Skulls.— Curious Stoiy by Herodotus.— Illustration of the Dakota Skulls.— The Red 
 Iinlian".< Skull. — The Character of the Indian 92 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 Similarity of the Mounds of America and other Countries.— Superiority of the Mound- 
 Builders over the Indians. — The Heroes of Troy. — America's Dead Nation v.ithout 
 allistoiy. — The Extensive Acquaintance of the Mound-Builders. — Mounds common 
 over the World. — An Egyptian Land.-cape Compared with an American one. — Pyra- 
 mids in the United States. — Mounds on the Cahokia Bottom. — The great Pyramid 
 of Cahokia. — Its Description. — The American Bottom and its Ancient Ruins. — A 
 Description of the Mounds in 1811.— The Group of Mounds surrounding the Pyra- 
 mid. — The origin and use of the great Cahokia Mounds. — The Temple of the Sun 
 in Mexico and the Mounds surrounding it. — The Sacrifices by the Mexicans. — The 
 Artificial Ponds about Cahokia. — The size of Cahokia compared with the Pyramids 
 of Egypt.— Puzzling Points of Analogy.— The Sacred Shells from Cahokia.— The 
 Reversed Shells of Buddha found in our Mounds. — Our Pyramids straight with the 
 Points of the Compass. — Did the Indians know the Direction from Stars? 99 
 
 CH APTER XXII. 
 
 The Origin, Migration and Fate of the Mound-Builders. — Was there an Indigerous 
 People ? — The Origin of the Red Indians. — Their Contact with the Mound-Builders- 
 — The Origin of the Symbols, Emblems, etc. — What Became of the Mound- 
 Builders? — Did some Epidemic or Plague attack them? — Were some Driven into 
 Mexico ?— Did the Indians have a Religion. — The Pueblos and Aztecs have not 
 Forgotten their R-iligion though Controlled by Priests for Two Hundred Years.— 
 The Aztecs and Pueblos ready to Go Back to Sun-Worship.— Humboldt's opinion 
 of the origin of the Aztecs and Mound-Builders.— The Aztecs' Tradition of their
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. , Xll. 
 
 Migrations. — Were they once in the Mississippi Valley ? — The Aztecs' Dates and 
 Calendar. — More than one Influx of Immigrants to America. — The Geological 
 History of the Continent would indicate Indigenous Races. — The Traditions of 
 various Nations as to Their Origin.— The Origin of the Egyptians Enveloped in 
 Obscurity. — Most People Point to the North for their Origin. — The Region of th<> 
 North Pole Still Unknown to Us. — Summing up of the Evidence. — Migrations not 
 all by Land. — The Uselessness of Attempting to Trace National Affinities by 
 Language. — The Origin of most of the prominent Old Languages Unknown. — 
 Wonderful Clianges in European Languages. — Language in other Countries. — 
 Each Indian Tribe with a Different Language. — The Pictographs, Symbols and 
 Emblematic Devices the Only Clew we Have 110
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Thk Probability that the Mound-Buildeks did i.eave some Records — Figirks 
 Carved axd Painted on the Kocks. — Pictures of Manitou s and Monsters 
 AS seen by Marquette and the Early French Voyagers. — The Piasa, or 
 Man-Eating Bird.— The Tradition of the Piasa among the Illinois 
 Indians. — The Death of the Piasa. — The Bone Cavern where the Piasa 
 devours its victims. — Graphic description of the Cave. 
 
 ^T IS quite probable that the ancient Mound-Builders and early 
 ^ inhabitants of this country did make attempts to record some of 
 the more important events of their history. Figures, either carved 
 or j)ainted on the rocks, in some cave shelter, or beneath some over- 
 hanging cliff, are not uncommon along the banks of the rivers of 
 the Mississi23pi Valley; but more especially do they abound along 
 the great river where its banks form the boundary between the 
 States of Illinois and Missouri. 
 
 Some of these ])ictograplis were seen and noted by the first white 
 explorers, the Jesuits ; so that we know that they out-date tlie 
 advent of the European, and were doubtless made long before the 
 discover}' of tliis continent by Columbus, and may quite possibly 
 be ri'fcrred to tha^ mysterious race known as the Mound-Builders. 
 At any rate we attempt to place before archasologists these picture- 
 writings, symbolic devices, and emblems, with as much of fact as 
 we ai'o able to gather, mixed Avith little theory; hoping they may 
 'be useful in tracing the, so far, utterly unknown origin of the 
 aboriginal inhabitants of America. 
 
 The best known of these old pictographs is that of the Piasa, a 
 remarkable painting that once adorned, or rather was exhibited on, 
 tlie smooth rocky face of the bluff where is now the city of Alton. 
 This curious old pictograph was first brought to the general notice of 
 the public by John Russel, a whilom professor of Greek and Latin 
 in Shurtleff College, iu Upper Alton. He wrote for an eastern mag- 
 azine the " Tradition of the Piasa," which he claimed was obtained 
 from the Illinois Indians. We give his article in full as written : 
 
 " No part of the United States, not even the highlands of the Hud- 
 son, can vie, in wild and romantic scenerj-, with the bluffs of Illinois 
 on the Mississippi, between the mouths of the Missouri and Illinois 
 rivers. On one side of the river, often at the water's edge, a perpen-
 
 2 KECORDS OF ANCIEJNT KA0E9 
 
 dicnlar wall of rock rises to the height of some hundred feet. Gen- 
 erally on the opposite shore is a level bottom or prairie of several 
 miles in extent, extending to a similar bluff that runs parallel with 
 the river. One of these ranges commences at Alton and extends for 
 many miles along the left bank of the Mississippi. In descending 
 the river to Alton, the traveler will observe, between that town and 
 the mouth of the Illinois, a narrow ravine through which a small 
 stream discharges its waters into the Mississippi. Tjiis stream is 
 the Piasa. ^ Its name is Indian, and signifies, in the Illini, ' The 
 bird which devours men.'' Near the mouth of this stream, on the 
 smooth and perpendicular face of the bluff, at an elevation which 
 no human art can reach, is cut the figure of an enormous bird, with 
 its wings extended. The animal which the figure represents was 
 called by the Indians the Piasa. From this is derived the name of 
 the stream. 
 
 " The tradition of the Piasa is still current among the tribes of 
 the Ux)per Mississippi, and those who have inhabited the valley of , 
 the Illinois, and is briefly this : 
 
 "Many thousand moons before the arrival of the pale faces, v/hen 
 the great Magalonyx and Mastodon, whose bones are now dug up^ 
 were still living -in the land of green prairies, there existed a bird 
 of such dimensions that he could easily carry off in his talons a 
 full-grown deer. Having obtained a taste for human fiesli, from 
 that time he would prey on nothing else. He was artful as he was 
 powerful, and w^ould dart suddenly and unexpectedly upon an In- 
 dian, bear him off into one of the caves of the bluff, and devour him. 
 Hundreds of warriors attemj-)ted for years to destroy him, but Avith- 
 out success. Whole villages were nearly depopulated, and con- 
 sternation spread through all the tribes of the Illini. 
 
 "Such was the state of affairs when Ouatogo^ the great chief of 
 the Illini, whose fame extended bej^ond the great lakes, Peparating 
 himself from the rest of his tribe, fasted in solitude for the space of 
 a whole moon, and prayed to the Great Spirit, the Master of Lifer 
 that he would protect his children from the Piasa. 
 
 " On the last night of the fast the Great Spirit appeared to Ouato- 
 go in a dream, and directed him to select twenty of his bravest 
 warriors, each armed with a bow and poisoned arrows, and conceal 
 them in a designated spot. Near the place of concealment another 
 
 1 Pronounced Pi-a-saw. 2 Pronounced Wa-to-go.
 
 IX THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 6 
 
 Avanior was to stand in open view, as a victim for the Piasa, wliich. 
 tliey must shoot the instant he pounced upon his prey. 
 
 " When tlie chief awoke in the morning, he thanked the Great 
 Spirit, and returning to his tribe told them his vision. The warriors 
 were quicldy selected and placed in ambush as directed. Ouatogo 
 offered himself as the victim. He Avas willing to die for his people. 
 Placing himself in open view on the bluffs, he soon 3iiw the Piasa 
 p)erched on the cliff eying liis prey. The chief drew up his manly 
 form to his utmost height, and, planting his feet firmly upon the 
 earth, he began to chant the death-song of an Indian warrior. The 
 moment after, the Piasa arose into the air, and swift as the thunder- 
 b)olt darted down on his victim. Scarcely had the horrid creature 
 leached his prey before every bow was sprung and every arrow 
 was sent quivering to the feather into his body. The Piasa uttered 
 a fearful scream, that sounded far over the opposite side of the 
 river, and expired. Ouatago was unharmed. Not an arrow, not 
 even the talons of the bird, had touched him. The Master of Life, 
 in admiration of Ouatogo's deed, had held over him an invisible 
 shield. 
 
 '•There was the wildest rejoicing among the Illini, and the brave 
 chief was carried in triumph to the council house, where it was 
 solemnly agreed that, in memory of the great event in their nation's 
 history, the image of the Piasa should be engraved on the bluff. 
 
 " Sach is the Indian tradition. Of course I cannot vouch for its 
 truth. This much, however, is certain, that the figure of a huge 
 bird, cut in the solid rock, is still there, and at a height that is per- 
 fectly inaccessible. How and for what purpose it v/as made I leave 
 it for others to determine. Even at this day an Indian never 
 passes the spot in his canoe Avithout firing his gun at the figure of 
 the Piasa. The marks of the balls on t!ie rock are almost innu- 
 merable. 
 
 '' Near the close of March of the present year (183G) I was induced 
 to visit the bluffs below the mouth of Illinois river, above th:it of 
 the Piasa. My curiosity was principally directed to the examina- 
 tion of a cave, connected with the above tradition as one of those 
 to wliich the bird had carri-d his human victims. 
 
 " Preceded by an intelligent guide, who carried a spade, I set out on 
 my excursion. The cave was extremely difficult of access, and at 
 one point in our progress I stood at an elevation of one hundred 
 iind fifty feet on the perpendicular face of the bluff, with barely
 
 4 RECORDS OF Al^CIENT RACES 
 
 room to sustain one foot. Tlie unbroken wall towered above me,, 
 while below was the river. 
 
 ''After a long and perilous climb we reached the cave, which was 
 about fifty feet above the surface of the river. By the aid of a 
 long pole placed on a projecting rock, and the upper end touching 
 the mouth of the cave, we succeed in entering it. Nothing could be 
 more impressive than the view from the entrance to the cavern. 
 The Mississippi was rolling in silent grandeur beneath us. High 
 over our heads a single cedar tree hung its branches over the cliflT, 
 and on one of the dead dry limbs was seated a bald eagle. No 
 other sign of life was near us, a Sabbath stillness rested on the 
 scene. Not a cloud was visible on the heavens ; not a breath of air 
 was stirring. The broad Mississippi was before us, calm and 
 smooth as a lake. The landscape presented the same wild aspect it 
 did before it had met th9 eye of the white man. The roof of the 
 cavern was vaulted, and the top was hardly less than twenty feet- 
 high. The shape of the cavern was irregular ; but so far as I could 
 judge the bottom would average twenty by thirty feet. The floor of 
 the cavern throughout its whole extent was one mass of human 
 bones. Skulls and other bones were mingled in the utmost confusion. 
 To what depth they extended! was unable to decide ; but we dug to 
 the depth of 3 or 4 feet in every part of the cavern, and still we 
 found only bones. The remains of thousands must have beeu 
 deposited here. How and by whom, and for what purpose, it is. 
 impossible to conjecture. "
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Little Value of Indian Tradition in the Study of Ethnology. — 
 European Mother Goose STOKiES. — The Origin of our Mound Builders 
 and Indians Unknown.— The Description, by the Early French Voyag- 
 ers, of the Piasa. — Mention made of it by Douay and Joutel, and by i?T. 
 CosME IN 1699. — Description by Jones in 1S3S.— A Picture of the Pia^a in 
 1S25. — A Picture op it in 1839, from a German Work.— Its Disafpearnce 
 in 1S4G. 
 
 «^^1^-E have given the popular tradition of the Piasa, and a descrip- 
 ^ll^jil.^ tion of the bone cavern that was supposed to contain the 
 bones of the monster's victims. The strange story in some form or 
 other has liad a most extensive circulation. A few years after the 
 publication of the tradition of the Piasa, we wrote a letter to Russel 
 at Bluffdale. He answered that there was a somewhat similar tra- 
 dition among the Indians, but he admitted, to use his own words, that 
 the story was '''somewhat illustrated.'' As a mere tradition, the story 
 of the Piasa has little, if any, ethnological significance. Cinderella's 
 slipper and Mother Goose's stories tell no more of the unwritten his- 
 tory of Europeans, than the myths of the Onondagas or Tuscaroras 
 do of the origin of the red man. But it is interesting to know tliat 
 what we now call the Piasa was in fact not only an old pictograph, 
 bat one of a series of ancient pictographs or hieroglyphic records, 
 that were seen, and some of them described, by the first white men 
 'that saw our great rivers and looked for the first time upon the 
 beautiful scenery along tlieir shores. That these old records may 
 be preserved, and perhaps be at some future time translated, is the 
 object of this volume, in accomplishing which we shall find 
 recompense in part for many weary but not unpleasant days among 
 the mounds, caves, and relics of the Mound Builders and abori- 
 gines. 
 
 The first notice we have of the pictograph now known as the Piasa 
 is from that courageous and devoted Jesuit priest, Marquette, made 
 popular by the" historian Parkman, in his "Discoveries of the Great 
 West."' Joliet and Marquette, in the French missionary stations on 
 the upper lakes, had heard frequently from the Indians, of the Great 
 River or '"Father of Waters," which, although discovered by De Soto 
 nearly 200 years before, was still unknown to white men jis far north 
 as the Missouri and Illinois. In 1673 these two intrepid vovap-ers
 
 6 RECORDS OF AXCIENT RACES 
 
 wiMi a small party, started ont from Green Bay to liiid the "Great 
 Water." The Indians of the lakes endeavored to deter them from 
 going. The country, they said, was filled with savages and frightful 
 creatures, and in the Great River in a certain part there was a great 
 monster, whose roar could be heard at a great distance, and these 
 terrible creatures swallowed every person who came near them. 
 Traveling on their way, and crossing overland to the Wisconsin, 
 Marquette and his companions descended that stream to its mouth, 
 and entered the Mississippi. Descending it, stopj^ing a while at the 
 mouth of the Illinois, and ascending the bluff just abov^e where is 
 now the town of Grafton, they had their first view of the Missouri. 
 Wh(>re these rivers went they did not know, nor what manner of 
 life they contained, nor what inhabitants there were on the banks. 
 One can easily imagine that their eyes and ears were -wide open ; nor 
 were the frightful stories of monsters forgotten, wiien these intre]pid 
 men again pushed olf their frail caiioes, keeping close to shore, into 
 that mighty, rushing, unknown river. Parkman- tells it from 
 Marquette's diary. ^ 
 
 Again they were on their way, drifting down the great river. 
 Leaving the mouth of the Illinois River behind, they glided beneath 
 that line of blutfs on the northern side, cut into fantastic forms by 
 the elements. The great bastions and enormous pillars gave them 
 the idea that they were approaching some giant ruins, and for a 
 long time after, the bluffs about where is now Elsali were marked 
 on the old French maps as ''Ruined Castles." Gazing with open 
 eyes as they sped along, Marc^uette's attention is attracted to a* 
 number of singular pictures that are outlined on the bluffs — 
 heathen manitous to this valiant priest. 
 
 Presently they beheld a siglit which reminded them that the Devil 
 was still paramount in the wilderness. On, the Hat face of a high 
 rock were painted, in red, black and green, a pair of monsters, each 
 as large as a calf, with horns like a roebuck, red eyes, a beard like 
 a tiger, and a friglitful expression of countenance. The face was 
 something like that of a man, the body covered with scales, and the 
 tail so long that it passed entirely around the body-, over the head 
 and between the legs, ending like a fish. 
 
 He confesses that at first they were frightened; and his imagina- 
 tion, and that of his credulous, companions, was so wrought upon by 
 
 I '■ Discoveries of tlie Grent WePt,"" vol. 8, p. 52.
 
 ly Till'] MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 '(^ 
 
 THE PIASA, 
 
 tliesi' uuliallowed efforts of Indian art that tliej continued for a long 
 time to t;-/.kof t'leni as they plied their paddles. 
 
 A iiiiiubcr oi explorers who followed a few j^ears later speak of 
 the pictures described by. Marquette, as well as of others seen on 
 the l)luff. Douay and Joutel make mention of them. The former, 
 bitterly hostile to his ,^_^ 
 
 Jesuit contemporaries, '^^^^^5^,, // A 
 
 charges Marquette with ^-->./^ - - ,^ . . ., 
 
 exaorereration in his \7 
 account of them. Jou- "'" 
 
 tel could see nothing 
 terrifying in their ap- 
 pearance, but says his 
 Indians made sacrifices 
 to them as he passed. 
 St. Cosme, who saw the 
 pictures in 1699, says 
 that they were even then badly effaced, not so much, apparently, 
 from the elements as from the almost general custom among the 
 Indians of discharging their weapons at tlie pictures as they passed. 
 
 We have a little book with the tit\e,' 'lUinois and the West,''\>j 
 A. D. Jones, Boston, 1838. The book contains the tradition of the 
 Piasa (he spells it Piasau) in a somewhat different form from that 
 of Russel, but the same in substance. He says, ''After the distribu- 
 tion of lire-arms among the Indians, ballets were substituted for 
 arrows, and even to tliis day no savage presumes 10 pass the spot 
 without discharging his riile and raising his shout of triumph. I 
 visited the spot in June (1838) and examined the image, and the ten 
 thousand bullet marks on the cliff seemed to corroborate the tradi- 
 tion related to me in the neighborhood. 
 
 "So lately as the passage of the Sac and Fox delegations down 
 the river on their way to Washington, there was a general discharge 
 of their rifles at the Piasau Bird. On arriving at Alton the}'- went 
 ashore in a body and proceeded to the bluffs, where they held a 
 solemn war council, concluding the whole with a splendid war 
 dance, under the cliff on which was the image, manifesting all the 
 while the most exuberant joy." ^ 
 
 Another author says that the picture of the Piasa Avas visible on 
 
 1 Jones' '• Illinois and the "West," Chap. 5.
 
 8 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 the rocks during 1844 and '45. A few j^ears after this, the face of 
 the bluif was gradually quarried away for the purpose of making 
 lime, and about the time our civil war commenced all traces of the 
 ancient picture had disappeared. 
 
 We have in our possession a spirited pen-and-ink sketch, 12 by 15 
 inches in size, and purporting to represent the ancient painting des- 
 cribed by Marquette. On the picture is inscribed the following in 
 ink. "Made by Wm. Dennis, April 3d, 1825." The date is in both 
 letters and figures. On the top of the picture, in large letters, are 
 the two words, "Flying Dragon." This picture, which has been 
 kept in the old Gilham family, of Madison County, bears the evi- 
 dence of its age, and Avas sketched some years before Russel's story 
 of the Piasa was written. "Dragon" or "Flying Dragon" was the 
 common name for it before Russel's story of the Piasa caine out. 
 
 The name Piasa or Piasau was certainly in use among the Indians. 
 1 Col. Paterson, in his History of Black Hawk, says that Black. 
 Hawk's father was named Piasau, but does not give the meaning 
 of the word. It is said that Piasau was killed in a battle with the 
 Osages on the Meremac river, in Missouri. Black Hawk, then a 
 young man, fought by his father's side, and it is said carried the 
 dead body of his parent on horseback from the battle ground to 
 their home on the Rock River in Illinois. Black Hawk was a very 
 intellisrent Indian, and we have conversed with a number of white 
 people who knew him — one especially, a surgeon in the Black Hawk 
 war. He on more than one occasion approached the chief on the 
 subject of the mounds and the picture of the Piasa, but Black 
 Hawk seemed to have no information on the subject. 
 
 It is a little singular that Marquette, in his description of the 
 picture, should always speak of two, as though there were two of 
 the figures, when many later authorities should mention only one. 
 It is singular, too, that all modern writers on the subject, as well as 
 those living who remember to have seen the picture (for there are a 
 number of old citizens who claim to have been familiar with 
 tlie figure,) should always refer to the creature's wings. Marquette, 
 although he describes it in detail, makes no mention of wings. 
 
 One of the most satisfactory pictures of the Piasa we have ever 
 seen is in an old German publication, entitled "The Valley of the 
 Mississippi Illustrated. Eighty illustrations from nature, by H. 
 
 1 Patterson's "Black Hawk.'
 
 IN" THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 9 
 
 Lewis, from the falls of St. Anthony to the Gulf of Mexico." Pub- 
 lished about the year 1839, by Arenz & Co., Dusseldorf, Germany. 
 One of the large full-page plates in this work gives a fine view of 
 the bluff at Alton, with the figure of the Piasa on the face of the 
 rock. It is represented to have been taken on the S];)ot by artists 
 from Germany. We reproduce that part of the bluff (the whole 
 picture being to large for this work) which shows the pictographs. 
 This picture was 
 
 /;>^^?«"?" 
 
 
 
 ^^'^^ 
 
 taken some three 
 or four years after 
 Russel wrote his 
 story of the Tradi- 
 tion of the Piasa. 
 The account in the 
 German work tells 
 of the tradition, and 
 says the pictograph 
 was growing dim 
 and showed evi- 
 dence of great age. 
 We are inclined 
 to believe these 
 German artists 
 faithfully made a 
 sketch of what they 
 saw dimly outlined, being what remained in 1839 of Alarquette's 
 famous monsters. In the German picture there is shown, just 
 behind the rather dim outlines of the second face, a ragged crevice. 
 as though of a fracture. Part of the bluff's face might have fallen, 
 and thus nearly destroyed one of the monsters; for in later years 
 writers speak of but one figure. The whole face of the bluff was 
 (puirried away in 1846 and '47.
 
 CHAPTER III. • 
 
 Marquette's Drawing of the Piasa. — The Confounding, by early writers, of 
 
 THE PfASA with OTHER PiCTOGRAPHS. — LOCAL SKETCHES OF THE PlASA. — 
 
 Pictures and Traditions of Dragons over the World — Traditions of 
 Monsters among the Indians. — The Dacotahs' "Thundeii Btud/' — The 
 Medicine Animal of the Winner agoes. — Curious Pictograph on the Bluff 
 ON the Illinois River.— Dragon Heads on Mound Potteky.— The Englisti 
 sroKY of St. George and the Dragon. — Dragons in Mexico and Central 
 America. 
 
 ^^ARKMAN says Marquette made a drawing of the monsters, 
 'AuL'^^ Ibiit it was lost. "I have, however," continues he, "a facsimile 
 of a map made a few years hater by the order of the Intendant 
 Duchesneau, which is decorated with the portrait of one of tliem, 
 answering to Marquette's description and probably copied from his 
 drav.'ing." 
 
 AVe liave received, through the kindness of Mr. Parkman, a copy 
 of the portrait of wliich he speaks ; but we cannot agree with tlie 
 historian in believing that it answers to Marquette's description, or 
 refers to the well-known ligure that once adorned the bluff at 
 Alton. 
 
 It is a fact, though ]iot generally known, that there were several of 
 these old ^dictographs in tlie vicinity of Alton ; and this may account 
 for some of the early differences in descri])ti()n. Three or four 
 miles above Alton, below the moutli of the stream called Piasa 
 Creek, is a series of these old pictographs, the most prominent of 
 which are the outlines of two huge birds without wings. That 
 these were noted by the early voyagers there is no doubt. We 
 present a sketch of them on another page. 
 
 Several years ago we succeeded in getting together a number of 
 the old citizens of Alton, for the purpose of hearing tlieni discuss 
 the location and appearance of the Piasa. Among those present were 
 the Hon. Samuel Blackmaster and Henry G. McPike, the present 
 inayor of the city. The two gentlemen named were especially 
 familiar with the old jnctograph, and kindly spent some time in 
 making for me a sketch of tlie Piasa, which I liave now in my 
 possession. 
 
 Prom these various sources we have had our engraving made of 
 the Piasa. It may be objected to by some on the ground that it is
 
 IIECOKDS OF ANCIENT RACES 11 
 
 too elaborate for the work of an Indian artist. We also think so. 
 But Marquette, after describing the picture as representing a hide- 
 ous dragon, combining birds, animals, reptiles, fishes, with the face 
 of a man, goes on to remark: ''These monsters were so well 
 painted that the Indians could hardly have designed them. Good 
 painters in France would hardly have done as well." ^ 
 
 When it is remembered that Marquette was a priest, with educa- 
 tion and no small degree of cultivated intelligence, our interest is 
 increased as we wonder who could have been the author of this 
 remarkable pictograph. It is also a matter of interest to the 
 ethnologist to know that, in common with the nations of the old 
 world, most of the Indian tribes of this country had traditions of 
 dragons and other monsters. • 
 
 Schoolcraft, who traveled at an early day among the Indians, 
 and saw their primitive customs and heard their traditions, gives us 
 much information of their history and antiquities in his splendid 
 works. 2 He mentions a number of these traditions. He says : 
 
 "The Dacotahs believe that thunder is a monstrous bird flying 
 through the air, and the noise we hear is the fluttering of the old 
 and young ones. These birds were large enough to carry off" 
 human beings, which the young ones were sometimes foolish 
 enough to do. The Dacotahs also have a tradition that one of these 
 thunder birds was killed, back of Little Crow's village on the 
 Mississippi. It had a face like a man, with a nose like an eagle's 
 bill. Its body was long and slender. Its wine:s had four joints to 
 each, and were painted with ziz-zag lines to represent lightning. 
 The back of the bird's head was red and r jugh like a turkey." 
 
 We could not fail to observe the resemblance between the 
 description of the Thunder Bird of the Dacotahs and that of the 
 Piasa of the Illinois. Again he speaks of a great "medicine- 
 animar* to which the medicine-men of some tribes were accus 
 tomed to apply ; seeking to propitiate its powers to assist them in 
 their healing arts. Curious to know their idea of the appearance 
 of this monster, Schoolcraft finally persaaded Little Hill, a chief 
 of the Winnebagoes, and himself a medicine-man. to make him a 
 drawing of the animal, which we reproduce here. This animal, he 
 was told, was seldom seen, and then only by medicine-men. This 
 
 1 " Discovery und Exploration of the Mississippi. "" John G. Shea. 
 
 ~ Scliooli-raft's "Indian Tribes of Ann-rica."
 
 1 ^. 
 
 KECOKDS OF ANCIENT IIACES 
 
 cliiof had in liis medicine-bag a piece of bone wliicli lie claimed 
 ^\VlS part of the remains of one of these animals. Some small 
 portion filed off from this bone was a potent cure for ailments. ^ 
 
 Tne same author gives other illustrations of these Indian mani 
 ious, with serrated backs, representing the scaly bodies of these 
 dragon like-creatures. 
 
 Some twenty-five or thirty miles above the mouth of the Illinois 
 river, on the west bank of that stream, high up on the smooth face 
 of an overhanging cliff, is another interesting pictograph, sculp- 
 tured deeply in the hard rock. It remains to-day probably in 
 
 The Winnebago Medicine Animal. 
 
 nearly the same condition it was when the French voyagers first 
 descended the river and got their first view of the Mississippi. 
 The animal like body, with the human head, is carved in the rock in 
 outline. The huge eyes are depressions like saucers, an inch or 
 more in depth, and the outline of the body has been scooped out 
 in the same way ; also the mouth. 
 
 The figure of tlie archer, with the drawn bow, however, is 
 painted, or rather stained with a reddish browji pigment, over the 
 sculptured outline of the monster's face. Although difficult of 
 
 i St'lKwlcnifl's "Indian Tribes of Anu-iica." vol. 2. page 225.
 
 IX Tiiii: Mississn'i'i vai.li:y. 
 
 13 
 
 access, we have approaclied near enougli t) this pictograph ro 
 examine it. It has the appearance of great age, althougli protected 
 by its position from the elements, I somehow received tln^ 
 impression that tlie j^ainted figure of the human form witli the bow 
 and arrows might have been made later than the sculpture. The 
 lapse of centuries, however, has had is its effect on the jiainted 
 portion of the form of the archer, and one has now to seek a favor- 
 able lia'ht on the blulF to get a good view of the outline. 
 
 Pictograph on Illinois River. 
 
 There was a tradition among the early white settlers, which thej^ 
 seemed to have obtained from the Indians, that the arrow shown in 
 the figure, and which points obliquely toward the foot of the bluff 
 some distance beyond, indicated some buried treasure in that 
 direction. A number of deep excavations in the debrjs at the foot 
 of the cliff still attest the work of credulous treasure-seekers. 
 
 Ill our collection of pottery from the ancient mounds we have 
 several pieces ornamented with dragon-like devices. We give an 
 illustration of two of these; burial vases, with a most pronounced 
 dragon-head standing up from the rim of the vessel. There is the 
 great mouth with the teeth revealed, and jjrotruding tongue, with 
 tierce eyes, and the general aspect, not only of the Piasa, but of 
 those mythological representations of the dragon so frequently 
 found in Asia. We present a sketch of another. It is all the more 
 interesting since we found with it a magnificent collection of pottery, 
 of more than a hundred pieces, at the base of the great Cahokia 
 mound, in the American Bottom, in Madison County, Ills. This is 
 t!ie largest artificial mound in the United States, and perhaps in the
 
 14 
 
 RECORDS OF A:N'CIEXT RACES 
 
 world, being one-hundred feet in height, and covering with its base 
 sixteen acres of ground. It is the centre of a group of seventy-two 
 others, which surround it, and of which a description will be given 
 farther on in this worli. They are situated on a level plain, miles 
 from an}'- natural elevation. For a complete descrijDtion and survey 
 of them, see "The Antiquities of Cahokia, or Monk's Mound."' ^ 
 
 Upon taking these curious old 
 burial vases from the place where 
 they had rested for ages, it was like 
 exhuming a museum of natural his- 
 tory in ceramics ; for these were the 
 shapes of animals, birds, reptiles, 
 fishes, and almost all animated 
 nature, together with the shapes of 
 From Cahokia Mound. tlie liumau form. Amonu' them 
 
 were several vases adorned with the dragon heads. 
 
 The tradition of the Piasa has its analogy in the well-known 
 tradition of St. George, the patron saint of England, who was noted 
 for liis piety and knightly valor. Traveling in Asia, he came to a 
 city that was besieged by a horrible dragon, that had taken up its 
 abode in a swamp on the outskirts of the city. 
 Each day it appeared to claim for its daily 
 repast an inhabitant, until the number of its 
 victims began to tell fearfulh' in the depletion 
 of their population. All efforts to destroy the ' 
 monster had been in vain. Each day the 
 people drew, lots to see who should be the 
 next victim. Upon the day of St. George's 
 arrival, the afflicted city was in the utmost 
 consternation, because in casting lots for 
 the next day the king's daughter had drawn 
 the unlucky number. Of course she was 
 beautiful, and when St. George got a glimpse 
 of her it was a bad day for the dragon, for he went to sharpening his 
 sword and spear, as any true-blooded Englishman would, notwith- 
 standing the Encyclopedia Britannica says he was born in Asia 
 Minor. The next morning the valiant-hearted knight, mounted on 
 his war-horse, in company with the maiden, who walked, went out, 
 
 Frcm Mound in Missouri. 
 
 1 "The Antiquities of Cahokia, or Monk's Mound," by Wm. McAdams.
 
 I2T THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 15 
 
 in the presence of the whole city, toward the swamp. The dragon 
 met them, and there was a terrible conflict, which ended with the 
 death of the monster by a thrust into its vitals from the spear of 
 St. George. Some historians, in depicting the scene, have intimated 
 that during the conflict the girl ran away, and this is the reason 
 Avliy St. George didn't marry her ; but this, of course, is not generally 
 believed. Of course there was great rejoicing in that city ; and the}^ 
 carried St. George, as the Illini did Ouatogo, in triumph, and had a 
 great Knight Templar banc^uet. 
 
 The pretty and romantic story of St. George has its counterpart 
 among nations in all parts of the world, although some writers go 
 back for its oiigin to the mythology of the Aryans ^ and give it a 
 solar significance. 
 
 In the Buddhists' caves ^ in India are carved and painted great 
 dragons without number, that would fit Marquette's desciiption of the 
 "Piasa," or the Dacotahs' ''Thunder Bird." And sometimes, to hid- 
 eous images of monsters like these, it has been the custom of the 
 nations of the world ^ to offer up even human sacrifice. 
 
 That primitive people should have worshiped the sun seems nat- 
 ural enough, and might be accounted for from the fact that this great 
 luminary seemed, on each recurring season, to give by its warming 
 ra3"S new life to the earth, and furnish them with sustenance and 
 warmth, their greatest necessities. The sun seemed to them, and is 
 really, a sort of creative power, that brought within their reach the 
 means of existence. To the savage this was God. 
 
 But a puzzling fact to ethnologists is that primitive people so 
 widely separated, even by oceans, whose distant continents and 
 parts of the earth seem to have such wide intervals of connection 
 (especially since their condition gave them such meagre means of 
 knowing one another that isolation would seem complete), should 
 have so many customs in common, observances that were alike, 
 and traditions that were similar. 
 
 Central America, in the sculptured walls of the ruins of Yucatan 
 and elsewhere, according to Stevens and other writers, ]3resents 
 many figures of dragons and monsters of that descrii^tion. 
 
 The last jhnerican Antiquarian gives a fine cut of a veritable 
 
 1 --Myths of the Arj'iins." 
 
 ~ "Il-.ices of Men," Pickering. 
 
 ;5 '-The Childhootl of Religions."
 
 1(5 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 dragon-liead, sculptured on the facade of tlie old pyramid of 
 Xoliicale in Mexico. 
 
 Since it is admitted that the primitive inhabitants of this conti- 
 nent are still without an adequate theory regarding their origin, any 
 point germain to the subject is of interest.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Was thkue ever a Creature like the Piasa?— The Geological Age of Rep- 
 tiles. — The Pterodactyl, a Flying Saurian.— 'J'he Oldest Aximal with 
 Feathers.— The Pictures in the Temple of Belus in Babylon.— Compound 
 Animals.— The Dragons of the Bible.— A Dragon's Skull from the Rocks 
 .OF Dakota. — The Probable Origin of Mythiological Dragons. 
 
 ^E have been asked many times : "^yas there ever a creature 
 i^ resembling the Piasa, or the Dragon that St. Geoi-p-e is 
 accused of killing f 
 
 This is a question to be decided by the paleontologist, and we 
 answer without hesitation in the affirmative. It is well knoAvn to 
 all scientists, who have any knowledge of the fossils in the rocks, 
 that there was a time when the principal inhabitants of tiie earth 
 were reptiles, some of which were not very uidike some of the 
 dragons of mythology and of the traditions of the New World. It 
 was the a^re of reptiles, who lived mostly in the sea or about the 
 shores. And some of these ancient creatures would make the 
 dragons of our traditions small in comparison. AVhile traditions 
 may be matters of doubt, paleontological specimens are simply mat- 
 ters of fact ; for we have the actual bones of the skeleton of the ani- 
 mal. In the paleontological collections at Harvard and Yale col- 
 leges, and at the Smithsonian in Washington, one can see the act- 
 ual skeletons of reptilian monsters of wonderful size and shape. 
 Some of these reptiles we know, from the structure of their 
 skeletons, had the power of flight ; and we actually know almost as 
 much of these creatures now as if we had seen them ; although in 
 that age there was no mammal in existence, let alone a man to view 
 them. We give a representation of one of these flj^ng reptiles, 
 restored from an almost perfect skeleton now in the British 
 Museum. 
 
 These great flying saurians seem to have been quite common here 
 during the Jurassic age ; and many sjiecimens of their remains are 
 found in Western Nebraska and about the base of the Rocky 
 Mountains. Some of these creatures of flight had membraneous 
 wings, not very unlike those of the bat. They were among the 
 hrst of flying creatures ; no real birds having as yet come into ex- 
 istence. But few of the reptiles, however, had the power of flight.
 
 18 
 
 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 and the very great majority of them were huge monsters that lived 
 in the sea and about its shores. All over the world, where the 
 Triassic, Jurassic and cretaceous rocks are seen, their remains are 
 found petrified. In the United States these rocks are seen from 
 'New Jersey through the Southern States, and all along the base of 
 ihe Rocky Mountains. None of the remains are found in Illinois, 
 but they are especially abundant in Nebraska, Colorado, Wyom- 
 ing and Dakota. Many whole skeletons of these great dragons 
 have been found, thirty, forty, fifty and even a hundred feet in 
 length, and of monstrous proportions; their limbs being of ini 
 mense power. Fine collections of these strange animals, together 
 with the remains of the uncouth mammals who aj^peard after the 
 Reptilian age, in the Tertiary, are taken from the rocks along the 
 base of the Rockv Mountains. 
 
 Pterodactyl restored ; by Marsh. 
 
 The oldest animal provided with feathers ^ has been found by 
 geologists in the lithographic slate of Germany. It is a Jurassic rock, 
 and belongs to the age of reptiles. This first feathered creature 
 was a flying reptile, and seemed to foreshadow the coming of birds, 
 which appeared at a later date. A quite perfect specimen of one of 
 these feathered saurians is preserved in the Berlin Museum. We 
 give an illustration of it. Fourteen long quill feathers diverge from 
 each side of the metacarpal and phalangial bones, and the wings 
 have a general resemblance to those of gallinaceous birds. Its tail 
 is composed of twenty vertebra, each of which supports a pair of 
 long quills. Tlie skeleton is intact on a slab of slate, and the 
 feathers are well preserved. ^ There is also in the British Museum 
 an almost perfect skeleton of the same animal, with the feathers 
 attached. 
 
 1 Geology 
 
 •Owens"
 
 IN tup: MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 
 
 19 
 
 1*>, 
 
 1^^ 
 
 We ]iave that very line English work by Thos. Hawkins, illus- 
 trating and describing the life of the Reptilian age. That which 
 interested us as much as anything the ponderous volume contains 
 was a quotation on the title-page, from an old writer who lived in 
 Bab3'lon when it was the most magnificent city in the world. It is a 
 most complete description of the many uncouth creatures that peo- 
 pled the world before the advent of man. Here is the quotation : 
 
 ''Berosus the Chaldean saith, y, 
 
 a time was when the universe ^ - -""'^ 
 
 was darkness and waters, , ^ \ "- , 
 
 wherein certain animals of 
 frightful compound forms were 
 generated. There were ser- 
 pents and other creatures with 
 the mixed forms of one another, 
 which pictures are kept in the temple 
 of Belus in Babylon." ^ 
 
 It is known to geologists that the 
 rocks of a portion of Egypt and about 
 the region of Babylon and the hills of 
 Jerusalem, are the same as those of 
 which we have spoken in Nebraska, 
 Wyoming, Dakota and about the base 
 of the Rocky Mountains ; and belong- 
 to the age of reptiles and the early 
 mammals. It may even be possible 
 that a collection of these remains was 
 brought into Babylon, as intimated 
 by Berosus. 
 
 The Bible speaks of dragons ; and 
 St. John, in the revelation of his vision, 
 saw a great I)east with ten horns come 
 up out of the sea. We have seen taken from a bank in tlie "Bad 
 Lands " of Dakota the huge petrified skull of tlie Uintatherium 
 that rivalled in the number of its horns the beast of the Jewish 
 revelator, and doubtless would have been quite as satisfactory in 
 regard to size and hideousness. At the Smithsonian at Washington, 
 as well as in the collections at Yale and Harvard and other places, 
 
 ? 
 
 rh 
 
 The first Feathered Animal. 
 
 2 "Book of Great Sea Draorons/' Hawkins.
 
 20 
 
 RECORDS OF AINX'lENT RACES 
 
 the student can at any time examine hundreds of these creatures. 
 
 Some paleontologists have exj^ressed belief that it miglit have 
 been possible that some of these creatures, especially those with 
 power of flight, might have survived until after the advent of man ; 
 but it is more probable that it is from the petrified remains that 
 mankind received the idea of the Dragon, which has pervaded the 
 literature, not only of Asia, but of tlie whole world, and is even 
 found among the pictographs of the Mound- Builders of America. 
 
 Having done with the natural history of dragons, we go back to 
 our pictographs. 
 
 Skull of tne Uintathetium.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OthkuPictogkaphs ON THE Bluff ABOVE Alton. — Their Appearance and Des- 
 cription. — A Human Form dkpicted in Adoration of the Sun. — Were the 
 Mound-Builders worshippers of the Sun. — Two huge Birds in Combat. — 
 Figures of the Sun, ]\Ioon and other Tlanets. — The Age of the Picto- 
 GRAPiis. — Mounds on the Bluff above them. — The Contents of the Mounds. 
 The beautiful Breast-Plate and Gorget of Shell. 
 
 '^i^jjFE liave intimated, in a discussion of the Piasa, that there 
 gJ^M[s were other pictographs in the vicinity that had possibly 
 been confused with the great picture of the monsters on the bluff at 
 Alton. Some three or four miles above the city, high up beneath 
 the overhanging cliff, which forms a sort of cave shelter, on the 
 smooths face of a thick ledge of rock, is a series of paintings, twelve 
 in number. They are painted or rather stained in the rock, with a 
 reddish-brown pigment that seems to defy the tooth of time. It 
 may be said, however, that their position is so sheltered that they 
 remain almost perfectly dry. "We made sketches of them some 
 thirty years ago ; and on a recent visit could see that they had 
 chan,:^ed but little, although their appearance denotes great age. 
 Th(>v doubtless have been there for centuries. 
 
 These pictographs are situated on tlie cliif more than a hundred 
 feet above the river. A protruding ledge, which is easily reached 
 from a, hollow in the bluff, leads to the cavernous place in the rock; 
 and while one is safe from rain or storms, he has a splendid view, 
 not only of the Mississippi, vv^hich flows, a mile in width, in majesty 
 below, but of the cultivated bottom lands on the opposite shore, 
 and bej^ond, the turbid wat^'rs of the Missouri, — one of the most 
 magnificent scenes of this romantic locality. 
 
 On the next page we give an illustration of the pictographs. 
 
 Half the figures of the group are circles of various kinds, prob- 
 ably each having a different meaning. On the left are two large 
 birds, apparently having a combat, in which tlie larger bird seems 
 about to be victorious. To the right of the birds is a larii-e circle 
 enclosing a globe, and before which is the representation of the 
 human form, with bowed head and inclined body, as if in the act 
 of offering to the great circle something triangular in shajDe, not 
 very unlike a basket with a handle, which is held in the hand.
 
 22 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 Among all the ancient pictograplis we have seen, this is the only 
 one where the human form is dex^icted as if in adoration, perhaps 
 to the sun. For there is little doubt that the Mound-Builders were 
 worshippers of the sun, or of fire, which seemed to them to repre- 
 sent the great luminary. Counting from the left, the eighth ligure 
 in the group seems to be intended to represent some carnivorous 
 animal with a long tail, wiiich is turned over its back. This fiaure, 
 when we lirst saw tlie pictograplis, some thirty years ago, was 
 missing from the series; a large piece of the face of the ledge 
 having been detached, perha]3S during some earthquake years ago, 
 and now lying, face downward, in the debris below. Curious to 
 know what the illustration might be, if any, on the fallen portion of 
 the ledge, we made an excavation for the purpose of seeing the 
 under side, and were rewarded by finding the above figure, a little 
 clearer and brighter than the others. A considerable tree grew 
 upon it, to indicate some lapse of time since the piece left its place 
 in the ledge. It can be seen to-day, just as we left it. 
 
 Pictographs on the Bluff above Alton. 
 
 The ruext figure in the series is a large bird, with extended -wings, 
 which seem to come from the base of the neck. This curious 
 winged creature seems to be having a combat with a circle or 
 planet with two horns. This is an interesting figure, because it is 
 repeated in other groups, as we shall show ; and is quite evidently 
 intended to represent a contest of flying animals over the posses- 
 sion or destruction of a circle or pkiuet. 
 
 At some little distance then follows in the series the representa- 
 tion of an owl ; the whole ending with a smaller red circle. 
 
 This most interesting group of pictographs has the appearance 
 of great age ; but, if one will take the trouble to approach near to 
 them, they are clearly discernable, and doubtless will remain so for 
 many years to come. 
 
 On the top of the bluff above these j)ictographs are a number 
 of ancient mounds, not very large ones. Upon excavating in them 
 we found them to contain human remains, in a tolerable state of 
 preservation. The material of wliich the mound was composed, being
 
 IX THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 23 
 
 loess, together with the dry and elevated position, was favorable to 
 resist decay. In burial, the bodies had been laid prone on the 
 ground, with limbs extended. Some ornaments from sea-shells, 
 with a few rude bone and slone implements, were all of this nature 
 to be found. Nothing was to be seen that mio;ht indicate any 
 connection with the pictographs on the face of the rock below. 
 
 We were very careful to preserve the skulls from the mounds. 
 With a single exception they were so smooth and symmetrical, so 
 devoid of prominences, that we judged they might be the crania of 
 women. One, however, was exceedingly strong in delineation of 
 character, with great ridges that formed battlements for his per- 
 ceptive faculties. One of his arms and tliree of his ribs had at one 
 time been broken, and healed without the aid of a very efficient 
 surgeon ; there was also a scar from an old wound on one of the 
 leg bones. On his breast remains was a pretty gorget, as large 
 as one's outstretched hand, made from a large sea-shell, probably 
 a Busycon. This pretty ornamental badge was neatly made to 
 represent a turtle, but bore no inscription or device of any kind. 
 We have, however, a number of these gorgets, in both shell and 
 copper, that bear devices, and were, perhaps, a sort of symbol 
 in themselves, beside the inscriptions cut upon them.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SCULPTUKKD PlCTOGRAPHS IN A CaVE IN STE. GeNEVIEVE CO.. MO.— DESCRIPTION 
 
 OF THE Cave.— The Appeakance of the Cakvino.^.— Human Footpkints.— 
 Fighting Birds, Cross-Cikci.es AND strange Device?.— Evidence of Long 
 Occupancy of the Vicinity.— Mounds. — Stone Graves. — Salit Springs — 
 Remains of Salt Evaporating-Pans.— Peculiar Burial, vtith huge Salt- 
 Pans for a Coffin. 
 
 yiY-here is anotliev very interesting group of pictographs to be seen 
 ^IS in a small cavern on the hank, of the Saline River, near where it 
 empties into the Mississippi, in St. Genevieve Co., Mo. i The 
 figures are eighteen in number, and are carved or cut in the smooth 
 face of the hard limestone walls, which gradually slope toward the 
 floor, in the centre of wliich is a deep gutter, through which runs 
 quite a stream of clear spiing water, coming from the recesses of 
 the cave beneath the hill and emptying into the Saline. 
 
 Being in the vicinit}^ our attention was called to the curious 
 marks on the walls of this cavern ; and we spent several days in 
 their examination. At first we saw only those near the mouth of 
 the opening ; but having procured a light and an old broom from a 
 settler in the vicinity, by dint of scrubbing and washing away the 
 dirt and accumulation of ages from the sloping walls, we laid bare 
 tliis most interesting series of carvings, v/hich we present in the 
 following illustrations. 
 
 There are two lines of the series, one on each wall of the cave. 
 Those on the left of the illustration are nearest the opening or 
 mouth, and the upper line of figures are on the left wall as one 
 enters the opening ; which a person can quite easily do in an erect 
 position, after having once reached the cave through the water that 
 issues forth, forming quite a stream. 
 
 The relative position of the figures on the wall is as shown in the 
 cut. In the upper line, below the two bird tracks, there is a figure 
 wanting; it being so obscure that we were unable to make it out 
 correctly. In the lower line there are also some figures w^anting 
 between the circle and the birds. The size of the figures may be 
 inferred from the larger representation of the human foot in the 
 
 1 See "Footprints of Vanishetl Rac(.'S,* Coiuint.
 
 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 25 
 
 upper line. This measures fourteen inches from tlie extremity of 
 the great toe to the heel. Across the ball of the foot, just back of 
 the toes, it measures seven inches. The figures are wholly 
 engraved in the rock, the cutting varying from half an incli to 
 an inch and a half in depth. In the case of the human feet, they 
 lepresent almost precisely the track a person's foot would make in 
 a plastic substance like softened clay or mud. There are the 
 raised interstices between the toes, and the deeper places of the 
 ball of the foot and the heel. The birds and the circles are made 
 in the same way, by cutiiug them bodily out of the rock. 
 
 The interesting figure of the apparent combat of birds over a 
 circle is repeated, as the same figure is sliowu o:\ both sides of the 
 
 ^^^ O -^sC^'-V'^ 
 
 j$w> 
 
 Pictographs in Cave at Ste. Genevieve. 
 
 cav-e. It will be remembered that somewhat similar figures of 
 combatting birds are shown in the preceding illustration of the 
 pictographs on the bluff's above Alton. Some of the same hiero- 
 glyphic circles are also shown. These circular figures ar<,^ not 
 uncommon among the pictographs of the Mississippi, and are of 
 great interest, more especially the two shown in the preceding 
 illustration, having the cross enclosed. The illustrations of the 
 human footprints, with those of birds and other creatures, are also 
 found in many places ; but we shall discuss these farther along in 
 our paper. The representation of the birds, however, as if in combat 
 over a circle or plane h, is more rare, and we are not aware that it 
 has been found excepting along the banks of the Mississippi, where 
 it occurs a number of times.
 
 26 
 
 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 About the region of the Saline, where the cave containing the 
 pictographs described is situated, there is evidence of long occu- 
 pancy by the Mound-Builders or some of the later tribes of Indians. 
 There are many mounds, and some of them of large size. There 
 are also many of the shallow stone graves, made much more 
 recently. But the greatest attraction of this spot, probably, to all 
 races, since man first roamed over the wilds of the continent, was 
 the singular salt springs. Near the mouth of the Saline there 
 are three springs, nearly a mile apart, from which there wells up a 
 strong saline water, and all about the region are the remains of 
 earthen vessels in which the salt was evaporated. In one of the 
 mounds we were so fortunate as to find two of these curious vessels 
 almost entire. They had been used for the" coffin of a child ; some 
 loving mother having carefully placed the little body in one vessel 
 and used the other for a cover. They are over three feet across the 
 rim, and perhaps the only perfect ones in the country to-day. 
 
 Sphynx Pipe, found by tho writer in a Mound on bluff eaot of Cahoi<,a, ,. ,-See page 46.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Sculptured Pictographs in a Cave in Greene County, Ills. — Description 
 OF the Cave. — Illustration op the Hock with the Carvings upon it.— 
 The Human Footprint with Six Toes. — Account of other Six-Toed 
 WORKS IN Tennessee. — Other Devices. — The Stone Seat. — The Size of 
 THE Mound-Builders. — The Cave a Natural Amphitheatre. — Mounds on 
 the Bluff.— Objects found in them. — Accumulation op Ashes in a 
 Cave. — Caves places of Habitation and places of Resort. — Cave Men. 
 — Were they Cannibals? 
 
 ^LOJSTG the Illinois river, some twenty-five or thirty miles from 
 its mouth, is another cave, situated in the limestone cliff, iu 
 Avhicli is another series of carvings, on the face of a large triangular 
 rock, that has fallen from a ledge within the cavern and lies on the 
 floor. The carvings are nearly of the same size as those shown in 
 the preceding illustration. Some of the figures are cut a little 
 deeper in the rock, and are perhaps better preserved, and do not 
 present the appearance of such great age. On the next page is an 
 illustracion of the rock with the carvings upon it. The figures are 
 nineteen in number. 
 
 The larger representation of the human foot is singular, from the 
 fact that it has six toes instead of five. Morse's Universal Geography, 
 according to Priest ^ gives an account of a number of tracks, or foot- 
 impressions, found in the rocks in the mountains of Tennessee. 
 Among these were a number of tracks representing human feet, 
 and they uniformly had six toes on each foot. Since it is known 
 that it is not natural for man, or an animal for that matter, to have 
 six toes, this representation is indeed singular. It is the only foot- 
 mark among many we have seen that has six toes. The other 
 human foot represented on the stone in the illustration has the 
 usual number of toes. The circles and bird-tracks also represented 
 are very similar to those in the preceding illustration. 
 
 Although all the figures on this rock are cut into the stone, we 
 observed, on making a careful examination of the cave and vicinitj^, 
 that there was in the mouth of the cave one of the painted circles ; 
 and in a cave shelter near, two more of the same kind. 
 
 AVe observed in the cavern that the ledge from which the stone 
 
 1 Priest's "American Antiquities.'''
 
 28 
 
 RECORDS OF AN"CIENT RACES 
 
 Gontaiuiug the pictograplis liad fallen was a few feet above tlie 
 floor, and, extending around its sides in a circular manner, made a 
 very convenient seat, as in a small amphitlieatre with a circular 
 bench. This stone seat is Avorn almost as smooth as glass ; and 
 the seat being too high for the sitters to touch the floor, there is a 
 mark all around where their heels rubbed the ledge below. This 
 mark is smooth and polished like the seat above. With our com- 
 panions we sat on this seat; and, our heels coming on the smooth 
 line below, we judged that these aborigines had been men of large 
 size. The stone with the pictograplis did not bear this mark of 
 smoothness, and probably lay where it was found before the 
 carving was done. 
 
 Carved Rock in Cave in Greene County, Illinois. 
 
 With the dim light of a miner's lamp held high above our heads, 
 to aid the feeble rays of sunlight from the entrance behind us, we 
 gazed around on this old subterranean council-chamber, and would 
 fain imagine we saw the seat filled with the forms of a strange 
 people, deliberating on the questions of their time, of which we 
 
 know so little. 
 
 Following a little-used pathway that wound about the point of 
 the bluff, we finally found ourselves on top of the cliff, that 
 extended out as a ridge into the level plateau beyond. Here we 
 found a number of ancient mounds, which we explored; but our
 
 IN" THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 29 
 
 reward was but little of any liistorical value, except a few more 
 remains of the Mound-Builders' crania, more ornaments of sea- 
 sliells, a rude stone pipe, and a few implements of stone ; — nothing 
 to reveal whether they had belonged to the occu])ants of the 
 strange cavern below. 
 
 In a small cave near, we exhumed from the floor a number of im- 
 plements, which we have described in a previous work. ^ The 
 whole floor of the cavern was covered with an accumulation of 
 ashes, in some places to tlie depth of several feet, going to show 
 that the place had been the abode of some people for long periods. 
 In the ashes were accumulations of the kitchen refuse, such as 
 pieces of broken crockery, bones of animals, birds, flshes, many 
 clam-shells, and the bones of turtles ; and mingled with the refuse 
 were stone and bone implements, ornaments and other belongings of 
 a rude descri^Dtion. I received the impression, from a study of these 
 old cavernous places of habitation and resort, that quite doubtless 
 the locality had been inhabited sucessivelj^ in sequence of time, by 
 tribes with dilferent customs, and greater or less degrees of cultiva- 
 tion in their rude arts. For some certainly were the veriest savages ; 
 else they practiced the lowest customs through dire extremity. 
 This I judged from the fact that among the numerous bones of ani- 
 mals taken from the accumulations in this cavern were also a few 
 human bones ; and these, like all of those of the animals, had been 
 broken lengthwise, for the purpose, I judged, of obtaining the mar- 
 row, of which substance all savages seem to be very fond. But that 
 they should break human bones for the purpose of eating the mar- 
 row would show that some of our ancient people were open to the 
 charge of cannibalism. They probably preceded the makers of 
 the pictographs now under discussion. 
 
 1 "Ancient Mounds of Illinois," McAdams.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Hlman Footprints IN THE KocKS AT Alton. — Footprints of Men and Animals 
 IN Rocks in Tennessee. — Footprints in the Kock at St. Lolis. — Desckip- 
 tion and Illustration.— The Early Settlers superstitious in regard to 
 THEM.— Ancient Footprints in Ohio. — Footprints in Ireland.— Footprints 
 of THE Savior at Jerusalem. — Sacred Footprints on Mt. Adam in Ceylon. 
 — The various Beliefs in regard to them.— The Kelation of Peculiar 
 Customs in various parts of the Globe. 
 
 ^7P^S before remarked, the representations of human foot- tracks, 
 ^ifj^ described as being carved on the rocks, are not uncommon in 
 the Mississippi Valley and some other parts of the Union, At 
 Alton, a short distance from the spot where the Piasa once adorned 
 the bluff, and on the smooth surface of an elevated strata of rock 
 that extended out into the Mississippi, there was to be seen, for 
 many years, a perfect pair of human foot-jDrints in the solid stone. 
 Just below the city, in early daj^s, was a second pair of these maiks 
 of feet in the rock ; just as though some man of very large size had 
 stood upon the rock, when it was in a plastic state, and sunk a 
 little distance in the yielding deposit. Although we know these 
 foot-marks are carvings, and belong to the pictographs, it was the 
 almost universal belief among the early white settlers that these 
 works were impressions made when the rocks were soft and not yet 
 petrified. Morse, ^ in his '• Universal Geography," speaks of tracks 
 like these found in Tennessee. He says : " In the State of Teimessee, 
 on a certain mountain, called the Enchanted Mountain, situated a 
 few miles south of Braystown, which is at the headwaters of the 
 Tennessee river, are found impressed on the surface of the solid 
 rock a great number of tracks, as turkeys, bears, horses and human 
 beings, as perfect as they could be made in snow or sand. The 
 human tracks are remarkable for having uniformly six toes each, 
 one only excepted, which appears to be the print of a Xegro's foot. 
 One among these tracks is distinguished from the rest by its mon- 
 strousness, being of no less dimensions than sixteen inches in 
 length; across the toes, thirteen inches ; behind the toes where the 
 foot narrows toward the instep, seven inches, and the heel-ball live 
 inches.'' 
 
 1 Priest's " Antiquities."
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 81 
 
 Schoolcraft, in liis ''Travels along the Mississippi" informs ns that 
 on the limestone strata of rock, which forms the shores of the 
 Mississippi in the immediate neighborhood of St. Louis, were found 
 the tracks of the human foot, deeply and perfectly impressed in 
 the solid stone. 
 
 " The impressions in the the stone are to all appearances tliosc^ of 
 a man standing in an erect posture, with the left foot a little ad- 
 vanced and the heels drawn in. The distance between the heels, by 
 accurate measurement, is six inches and a quarter, and between the 
 extremities of the toes, thirteen and a half. The length of these 
 tracks is ten and a quarter inches ; across the toes, four and a half, 
 and but two and a half at the heel." We reproduce Schoolcraft's 
 illustration. 
 
 Carved Pictographs on the Rocks, near St, Louis. • 
 
 Schoolcraft continues: "Directly before the prints of these feet, 
 within a few inches, is a well-impressed and deep mark, having 
 some resemblance to a scroll or roll of parchment, two feet long by 
 one foot in width." 
 
 " To account for these appearances " says the same writer, " two 
 theories are advanced ; one is that they were sculptured there by 
 the ancient nations ; the other, that they were impressed there at a 
 time when the rock was in a plastic state. Both theories have their 
 difhculties, butwe.are inclined to the latter, because the impressions 
 are strikingly natural, exhibiting even the muscular marks of the
 
 32 EECOKDS OF ANCIENT KACES 
 
 foot, with great precision and faithfulness to nature." This weak- 
 ens, he thinks, the theory of their "being sculptured. 
 
 But what hothered Schoolcraft wa?, that there were no other 
 tracks going or coming. "It is unaccountable," he says, "unless one 
 may suppose the rest of the rock at that time was buried by earth, 
 brush, grass or some kind of covering." 
 
 Had Schoolcraft seen the carvings in the cavern of St. Genevieve 
 Co., he would hardly have thought the birds and the circles, that are 
 associated with the footprints there, were impressions. 
 
 The representations of human feet, described as being seen at an 
 early day in the vicinity of Alton, were, as well at those at St. 
 Louis, cut out and taken east; and they are now said to be in a 
 museum in Philadelphia. 
 
 There is, however, a very fine specimen of these old carvings in 
 the collection of Washington University at St. Louis. This 
 was found in the vicinity. We hav3 two of these tracks in our 
 own collection, from Missouri. There are numerous others in 
 collections in the different States. We saw some of them in Ihe 
 fine collection of Dr. Jones, in New Orleans. 
 
 We have seen one specimen of these carvings, and heard of 
 others, in which, instead of the naked foot being represented, it 
 was the moccasin, or cov(M-iiig. 
 
 Engravings of many of these foot-representations, both of naked 
 feet and those on which were moccasins or coverings, are given in 
 the Ohio Centennial Report. Tlie representations of foot-coverings. 
 of which there are so many on the rocks in Ohio, simply show the 
 common primitive foot-gear of the Indian. There is no raised heel. 
 
 Keeping prominent before us the ethnological fact that the origin 
 of the Mound-Builders and aborigines of this continent is still un- 
 known to us, we always look with interest on any ethnical relation 
 of customs, habits, traditions, and especially on any hieroglyph oi- 
 primitive record that may have a bearing on this subject. Emi- 
 nently germain to this point is the fact that in Europe, and else- 
 where in the old world, are precisely such representations of feet 
 carved in the rock. 
 
 Various authors tell us that these foot-marks are not uncommon 
 in Ireland ; and the " Origin of Religions " speaks of them as still 
 held in great veneration there, as of supernatural origin. The pretty 
 story is told that the peasants of that country believe these marks 
 to be the footprints of saints, whose souls, being released from 
 the trials of earth, sprang towards heaven with such joy and avidity
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 33 
 
 as to leave on earth, even on the rock, the impression of their 
 last contact with the scene of all their troubles. 
 
 As is well known, there is at Jerusalem a shrine erected over sim- 
 ilar foot-marks, that are held in great veneration, and believed by 
 some to have been made by Christ when he walked over some rocks 
 in carrying the heavy cross up the hill of Calvary. Mark Twain 
 speaks of these footprints, in " Innocents Abroad, " and says the 
 tracks were of large size. 
 
 Several writers who have visited the island of Ceylon, — among 
 them Sir Samuel Baker, 1 who spent eight years in that interesting 
 country, — speak of a sacred mountain called Adam's Peak, of 
 w^hicli we have read this most interesting account, taken from a 
 St. Louis paper. -^ 
 
 " Out of the green depths of the primeval forests of Ce^don rises 
 a mountain seven thousand five hundred feet high. A path up the 
 mountain's side winds to the top ; a perilous road up which a great 
 multitude of pilgrims go, assisted in some places on the way by 
 the aid of chains fastened to rings in the rock. 
 
 "^'ow there is a shrine, with silver bells, over the foot-marks. 
 Up this path the pilgrims ascend day and night. At night, for 
 miles away, afar off over the country, can be seen the lights of the 
 weary devotees, as they slowly wind their way toward the shrine on 
 the mountain's top. 
 
 *' Buddhists believe these two foot-prints to be those of Gautama. 
 
 "The Mohammedans believe that Eden was near, and that when 
 Adam was expelled from Paradise he wandered to the top of this 
 mountain, and left in the rock the prints of his bare feet, during a 
 moment of agony in imploring God to replace him in the Garden. 
 Thus it is called Adam's Peak. 
 
 ^ Brahmins believe the foot-marks to be those of their god Siva. 
 
 " Portuguese and other Christians believe them to be the foot- 
 prints of St. Thomas. But all make pilgrimages to the sacred spot." 
 
 What we are to learn from these strange rock-inscriptions 
 remains to be seen. But the persistency of type, as seen in the 
 most distant parts of the world, is at the very least suggestive of 
 some sort of relation among the customs of the primitive inhabi- 
 tants of the globe. 
 
 1 " Ei2ht Years in Ceylou."' i " St. Louis Eepublican."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE Bone-Cavern WHERE THE Pi ASA devoured its Victims. — Description of the 
 Bone-Cavern at Grafton. — The ancient Bones taken from it. — Singular 
 
 FACT THAT NO BONES OF THE BUFFALO ARE FOUND EITHER IN CaVES OR IN 
 
 Mounds. — Did the Mound-Builders Know the Buffalo? — The Buffalo 
 
 PROBABLY A COMPARATIVELY EeCENT AnIMAL IN THE MISSISSIPPI VaLLEY. — 
 
 Illustration of the Bone-Cavern at Grafton. — The singular Pictograph 
 ON THE Rocks above the Entrance.— Indications of Cannibalism among the 
 Cave-Dwellers. — Cave Ornaments of Stalactite. -Caves the first Xatural 
 Habitations of Man. — Indications in the Caves of the Age of their Occu- 
 pation. — The Age of the Eock in which the Caves occur. — Relics made 
 from Fossils. — Mound on the Bluff over the Cave. — Description of the 
 Pictograph over the Entrance to the Cave. — Visits of the Indians to the 
 Locality. — What they said of the Cave. 
 
 fN reciting the tradition of the Piasa, in the first chapter of this 
 volume, Mr. Russell makes mention of a cavern in the bluff 
 below the mouth of the Illinois River, and referred to as one of the 
 fastnesses to whi(5li the monster took his victims to be devoured at 
 leisure. In his visit to this cavern he describes it as containing a 
 great quantity of human bones. There is a cavern just below the 
 town of Grafton, known for many years as tlie "Bone Cave.'' The 
 outer part of the cavern was simply a huge crevice, open at both 
 ends and extending for some little distance parallel, with the river. 
 This part of the cave was twenty to thirty feet in Avidth and 
 perhaps a hundred feet long. The sides of the crevice came 
 together above and formed a roof fifteen or twenty feet in height. 
 The cave, being perfectly sheltered from rain and storms, w^as very 
 dry ; and the floor was covered to the depth of several feet with 
 dust and various debris, consisting of pieces of stone, bones of 
 animals, ashes, charred sticks, pieces of pottery, with some human 
 remains. 
 
 In the days of the early white settlers, this cavernous place, 
 which was partially lighted from each open end, was the resort, in 
 inclement or cold weather, for the domestic animals of the neigh- 
 borhood. On our first visit to the place, some thirty years ago, we 
 had first to dislodge a drove of cows, sheep and hogs which invari- 
 ably passed the night here during the winter time. At one time a 
 party of coopers used tlie cavern for a shop, and manufactured 
 barrels for a distillery and mill in the village near by. Later on.
 
 i:r THE Mississippi valley. 35 
 
 some iKJiuadic families, following the river, made it tlieir residence 
 during a severe winter. Before these later occupations, however, 
 we had opportunities to make excavations in the debris on the floor 
 of the place ; and it could be very plainly seen that it had l)een 
 occupied by the aborigines for ages before. There was quite an 
 accumulation of ashes, in which were river shells, the bones of 
 a limals, fishes, turtles and birds, mingled with broken pottery, 
 with some ornaments and stone implements. The bones of the 
 animals, which they had doubtless* eaten, were generall}' those of 
 deer. There were, however, some remains of nearly all the animals 
 native to the region, except the bufi'alo. 
 
 "VVe consider it very singular that in all our explorations, during 
 a period of more than thirty years — during which we have not only 
 examined many caves of the Mississippi Valley, and made especial 
 investigation of those that gave indication of having been inhabited 
 by the ancient cave-dwellers, but also dug in the ancient mounds 
 and especially in the kitchen-middens, or refuse of their repasts, so 
 common in connection with the groups of large mounds, — although 
 carefully observing every piece of bone, to study the habits and 
 customs of these ancient people, we have been able as yet to iind 
 only in one instance any remains of the buffalo in connection Avith 
 the remains of the ancient people of this country. 
 
 One would naturally suppose that in the manufacture of their 
 various tools they would certainly have utilized the strong limb 
 bones of the buffalo, as they did those of tlie elk, deer and other 
 animals. In the caves, as well as in the mounds and about the 
 dwelling-places of these mysterious people, we find great numbers 
 of implements of bone, but never yet a single one made from the 
 bone of the buffalo. In a very large mound, square in shape, three 
 hundred feet on each side and thirty feet high, through which the 
 railroads pass in the American Bottom at Mitchel, in Madison Co., 
 Ills., there was found, in contact with a number of copper imple- 
 ments and ornaments, a number of the teeth of the buffalo. These 
 we have in our possession. They are stained with the oxide of cop- 
 per, and perfectly j)reserved. They had most ^jrobably been worn 
 as ornaments, by some old Mound-Builder of great distinction, 
 whose dress must have been nearly covered with beautiful orna- 
 ments of copper, and Miiose magnificent weapons of flint Avould 
 have compared with those of any ago ; for from his axe and spear, as 
 well as his arrows, the marks of the chipping had been entirely ef-
 
 36 
 
 KECOEDS OF ANCIENT EACES 
 
 faced by grinding or rubbing, and tliey were as smoothly polished as 
 any ivory worked in these modern days. 
 
 Why the Monnd-Builders did not utilize the bones or horns of 
 the buffalo is 3'et to be explained. Some ethnologists have argued 
 
 til at during the time of the 
 Mound-Builders there were 
 no buiialoes in the Missis- 
 sipiji Valley. It is now 
 iliought b}" some zoologists 
 that the rarge of the buffalo 
 was not near so extensive 
 at the time of the discovery 
 of this countr}" by Colum- 
 bus, as it became in 3'ears 
 after. There is reason to 
 believe that at the lime of 
 the explorations of the J(,'- 
 suits, beginning about 1673, 
 the buffalo had not long 
 been an inhabitant of the 
 continent so far east as 
 Illinois ; and the farthest 
 eastern extension of their 
 range, about the Alleghany 
 mountains, occurred after 
 this time. The buffalo quite 
 probably never was to be 
 seen on the east Atlantic 
 coast. 
 
 At the lower end of the 
 great cave- shelter we have 
 described, at Grafton, was 
 the entrance to a lateral 
 opening that went at right 
 angles directly into the bluff. 
 Tliis is connected with the 
 bone-cave. We give an illustration of the entrance, showing the 
 situation of the mouth, with one of the circular hieroglyphs, orpicto- 
 o-raphs, on a ledge of rock above the opening. On the top of the 
 bluTis P(^en or.o of the ancient mounds so common in this regior:. 
 
 
 k
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 37 
 
 Below the entrance to the cave is shown some of the debris of loose 
 rocks; and still further down, the shore of the Mississippi, which in 
 very high water ap])roaches near but has never been known to rise 
 so high, by several feet, as to enter the cavern. The triangular- 
 shaped opening to this part of the cavern gave a somewhat difficult 
 access to an inner diamber, not so large as the outer part we have 
 described. The floor of this second chamber is also covered with 
 dust, and an accumulation of bones, pottery, ornaments and stone 
 implements, like the outer cave. The first white settlers say that in 
 their early occupation of the region many human bones could be 
 seen in the inner cavern. In our excavations we found a great 
 number of bones, some of which had been those of human beings. 
 Most of these, like the bones of the animals, had been broken ;■ 
 giving one an impression of cannibalism. Some of the human 
 bones, however, were whole, and we obtained one nearly perfect 
 skull. 
 
 Amons: the ornaments we found several beads of a cylindrical 
 shape. These were perforated, and nearly as large around as one's 
 little finger, and an inch long. They were made, quite apparently, 
 of the stalagmitic secretions of the cavern. ThelaminjB of secretion 
 gave the light and dark lines, and they were smooth and pretty 
 ornaments. There were some other ornaments of stalactite ; and it 
 occurred to us that it was quite natural that this pretty product of 
 caverns should have suggested itself to the cave-men and women 
 as capable of furnishing adornments for their persons. The num- 
 ber of caverns and cave-shelters beneath projecting ledges and 
 overhanging cliff's is very greiit, and but little known except to 
 those who search for them. The evidence seems to be that, in 
 America as well as Europe, there were primitive cave-dwellers, who, 
 having no habitations of their own construction, sought those pro- 
 vided by natuie. These were without doubt, the first habitations 
 known to mankind. It is also quite plainly shown by the evidence 
 that the localities once inhabited by primitive peoj)le have been 
 successively occupied by others more advanced, who have come so 
 far out from the j^ale of savage life as to feel the need of govern- 
 ment and laws and religion,and to possess something of the primitive 
 arts. Such a people were the builders of the great Caliokia 
 mounds, and the earthworks of Ohio ; and such, probably, were the 
 makers of the pictographs we are so carefully endeavoring to pre- 
 serve as the only records left. 0:ir patient working may sometime 
 be rewarded with a clew.
 
 38 RECORDS OF ANCIEXT RACES 
 
 We never approached this cavern at Grafton — and we visited it 
 otten, for we lived for j^ears not far away, — but that the great crim- 
 son circle on the rock above the entrance seemed to look down on us 
 like the blazing eye of a manitou — a veritable guardian of the secrets 
 of ages. 
 
 "We have sought in vain in the caverns for some indication of the 
 age of the remains. Beyond two or three, or perhaps four hundred 
 years, as shown by living trees and the remains of others, there are 
 no actual data say beyond five hundred years. Many of the 
 caverns exhibit about the floor, as well as on the sides and about 
 the roof, secretions of stalagmite and stalactite. But these secre- 
 tions seem to have been mostly made during the early history of 
 the caverns, and go on but very slowly at present. In many in- 
 stances they have entirely ceased. Nearly all the caves that have 
 been inhabited are dry, and the floor has been for ages covered with 
 dust, perhaps even before man entered them at all. 
 
 The rocks in which the cave at Grafton is found are of the Upper 
 Silurian age, known as Niagara, and are filled with trilobites, those 
 curious multichambered orthoseras, and many corals. These fos- 
 sils can be seen in the ledges in and about the cavern, and Avithout 
 doubt attracted the attention of the cave-dwellers as well as the later 
 Mound-Builders ; for on more than one occasion we have found orn- 
 aments made from them, about the caves as well as in the mounds. 
 One of the most beautiful Mound-Builder ornaments we have seen 
 is one of those taken from a mound on the bluff* just below the 
 bone-cavern. It is what is known as a badge or ceremonial stone, 
 shaped somewhat like a double-edged axe, with a perforation as if 
 for a handle. The edges are not sharp,* and are wider than the })er- 
 forated middle. It had T)een wrought out with great care, was 
 highly polished, and made from a fossil zoophite coral. The white 
 cells of the coral, like those of the bee's honey-comb, were filled 
 with a very dark stony matter, which in the polished ornament 
 showed very prettily ; and no doubt the handsome totem was 
 highly prized by its aboriginal owner. 
 
 Some of the ancient mounds on the bluff* over the cave at Grafton, 
 one being twelve or fifteen feet in height, have liad excavations nuide 
 into them, and have yielded a number of interesting relics. Some 
 have not been explored at all, and nearly all of them remain as they 
 originally were when first seen by the white settlers. 
 
 The mound shown in the engraving as being immediately over the
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 39 
 
 caverii has been excavated away, with a part of the bluff, in the 
 operations of a stone-quarry ; and that part of the cliff which a few 
 years ago was adorned with the great red hieroglyphic eye, and the 
 cavern's mouth below, was taken away to build the Lindell and 
 Southern hotels, those prided caravansaries of the City of St. Louis. 
 It is said that the very stone that has this Indian manitou, as the 
 early Jesuits called it, was built into the walls of the Lindell. For 
 this, of course, we cannot vouch. 
 
 One of the oldest inhabitants of the town of Grafton is the Hon. 
 Wm. H. Allen, who tells us that, in the early history of the settle- 
 ment, parties of Lidians, in ascending or descending the Mississippi, 
 would camp at the spring near by, and would sometimes ascend 
 the bluff to utter a sort of mournful chant. The tops of the 
 bluffs in this region seemed to have been common burial places for 
 the later Indians ; and tliey sometimes brought their dead from a 
 distance in canoes to inter them on the bluffs. Not in the mounds, 
 which they were not known to disturb in any way, but simply cov- 
 ering up the dead bodies in shallow graves scooped out along the 
 top of the ridge. These Indians seemed to have some sort of rever- 
 ence for the mounds, but the most diligent inquiry could elicit no 
 information from them as to their history or uses. From the 
 same excellent authority we have it that having enticed parties of 
 Indians, members of several different tribes, to the bone-cavern, and 
 pointed out to them the hieroglyphic painting, they seemed to look at 
 it with an expression of curiosity and reverence ; but no information 
 of any kind could be obtained from them on the subject, except that 
 such things were common, to be seen throughout the country. The 
 Indians could not be prevailed upon to enter the cavern ; and it seems 
 to be an established fact, gathered from the whites who were 
 brouo-ht directly in contact with various tribes of the country, that 
 there was among them a general antipathy against entering caves or 
 subterranean places. 
 
 Mr. Allen has taken intelligent interest in these matters. One day 
 when, in his company, we had been excavating in the cavern and 
 stood on the outside, looking at the pictograph on the wall, he 
 explained to us that on certain days when the atmosphere was full 
 of moisture, or after a very wet period, the figure on the rock could 
 be seen much plainer; and he assured me that the same was the 
 case with the picture, with which he was familiar, of the Piasa on 
 the bluff at Alton. We afterwards observed that this was true of
 
 40 
 
 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 the series of pictographs which we figure on page 22, and Which 
 are on the Mnff between Alton and Grafton. Some days these 
 could be seen as one passed along the river, when no leaves were on 
 the trees ; at other times they were hardly discernable at that dis- 
 tance. From what we have learned of the great pictograph at 
 Alton, we are satisfied that this atmospheric eflfect has been the 
 cause, in part, of the diflferences in the descriptions of various 
 observers, from the time of Marquette. An old citizen, born and 
 reared almost under the shadow of the blutf on which the picture of 
 the Piasa was, tells me that "sometimes 3^ou could see its wings and 
 sometimes you couldn't."' And it is firmly believed by these 
 pioneers that the wings, dimly seen at first, were the first parts of 
 the picture to disappear from age. 
 
 Sphynx Pipe of Rod Catlinite, found in a Mound on Piasa Creek, Macoupin Co., lib., size 8x8 inches. — See page 46.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Another Pictured Cavern below Gkapton.— Aboriginal Remains found 
 ABOUT IT.— Singular Pipe op Stone from Mound on the Bluff.— De- 
 scription AND Illustration.— The singular Manna Pipes.— Other Caves 
 in the Vicinity. -riCTOGiiAPHS in a Cave near the Mouth op the Ohio 
 River.— Description op the Cave.— The curious Figures Engraved upon 
 the Walls.— Illustration oe the Pictographs.— To be Regretted that 
 THE Early Writers did not Illustrate instead op Describing what they 
 SAW.— Xo Illustrations in early works on Ethnology.— The Lttle Value 
 OP Opinions— New Collectors quite apt to have Many Theories.— 
 Amusing Theory as to why the Mastodon was Created. 
 
 short distance below Grafton, and at the mouth of a hollow 
 
 just above the Piasa Assembly Grounds, is another small 
 
 cavern, in which is dimly seen a small pictured circle,- somewhat like 
 that over the bone-cavern at Grafton. From this little cavern a 
 number of stone implements have been recovered ; and the little held 
 in the mouth of the holloAV is literally filled with the refuse of 
 aboriginal dwelling-places. Every rain washes out their stone 
 implements. "We have in onr collection a most beautiful stone pipe 
 that was taken from a mound standing on the heights overlook- 
 ing the Piasa Assembly grounds. This pipe is one of those wkh a 
 curved base. Stretched out on the base is the repivsontation of the 
 body of a lizard, or some saurian, with its long tail bent around by 
 the side of its body. The bowl of the pipe is in the back of the 
 reptile, and the stem for insertion in the mouth of the smoker is a 
 part of the base on which the reptile sits. The whole is most ex- 
 q.uLsitely carved from a single piece of red stone. 
 
 These pipes never show marks of teeth, as from constant usage, 
 and were perhaps not used for the narcotic influence of tobacco, but, 
 we think simply to make a smoke as an offering to their Sun-God. 
 They are noc uncommon in the mounds, and are very unlike any- 
 thing the modern Indian has been known to make. They are 
 artistic, and it is said that almost every known animal and bird 
 in the country has been fonnd represented on these beautiful pipes. 
 There are other small caves in this vicinity that show evidence of 
 having been occupied in early times ; and there are places on the 
 rocky bluff that still show some remains of solitary specimens of 
 ancient painted or carved symbols such as we have described.
 
 42 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 Priest, in liis " American Antiquities," speaks of a cavern on the 
 Ohio river that contains a number of hieroglyphic carvings. Sev- 
 eral later writers refer to the same cave. Priest, in his description of 
 this cavern i says : '• On the Ohio, twenty miles below the mouth of 
 the "Wabash, is a cavern, in which are found many hieroglyphics 
 and representations of such delineations as would induce the belief 
 that their authors were indeed comparatively civilized and refined. 
 
 •'It is a cave in the rock, which presents itself to view a little 
 above the water of the river when in flood, and is situated close to 
 the bank. This cavern measures about twelve rods in length and 
 five in width. Its entrance presents a width of eighty feet at its base, 
 and twenty -five feet high. The interior walls are smooth rock. The 
 floor is very remarkable, being level throughout the whole length of 
 the centre, the sides rising in stony grades, in the manner of seats 
 in the pit of a theatre. On a diligent scrutiny of the walls, it is 
 plainly discernable that the ancient inhabitants, at a very remote 
 period, had made use of the place as a house of deliberation and 
 council. The walls bear many hieroglyphics, well executed ; and 
 some of them represent animals which hav^ no resemblance to any 
 now known to natural history. There are found engraved, 1st, the 
 san in different stages of declension ; the moon under various 
 phases ; a snake biting its tail represents an orb or circle ; a viper ; 
 a vulture ; lizards tearing out the heart of a prostrate man ; a pan- 
 ther held by the ears by a child ; a crocodile ; several trees and 
 shrubs; a fox ; a curious kind of hydra serpent ; two doves ; several 
 bears , two scorpions ; an eagle ; an owl ; some quails ; eight repre- 
 sentations of animals which are now unknown. Three out cf the 
 eight are like the elephant, except the tusks and tail; two more 
 resemble the tiger ; one a wild boar ; another a sloth ; and the last 
 appears a creature of fancy, being a quadrumane instead of a quad- 
 ruped, the claws being alike before and behind, and in the act of 
 conveying something to its mouth, which lay in the centre of the 
 monster. Beside these there were representations of men and 
 women ; not naked, but clothed in somewhat like the costumes of 
 G-reece or Rome. " 
 
 What this author, somewhat given to exaggeration, did see depicted 
 on the walls of this cavern, it is difficult to tell, as he gives no illus- 
 trations of the figures, but devotes a great deal of time and space to 
 
 1 "American Aiaiquities," p. 138.
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 43 
 
 explaining what tlie ligures all mean. Several writers, however, 
 reler to them ; and Pidgeon, in his " Traditions of Dacoodah," after 
 describing the same locality, gives a cnt, which he says shows all of 
 the figures which could be clearly made out. We reproduce this 
 illustration. 
 
 Sculptures in Cave on the Ohio River. 
 
 After describing the cavern, his description differing little from 
 that of Priest, he says : "A large portion of the side walls being 
 smooth and even, are covered with singular paintings and figures 
 cut in the rock. These are grouped in clusters and sections, the 
 arrangement of which exhibits evident marks of design. These 
 paintings are much defaced, and some almost obliterated. But 
 those which yet remain cannot fail to be regarded as highly interest- 
 ing and important relics of antiquity." The figures of the sun are 
 cut in the rock, while that of the moon is painted. The serpent in 
 the form of an orb, the viper attacking a scorpion, a tongueless 
 crocodile, the double-headed serpent, and the seven stars, are on one 
 side. On the opposite wall is the figure of a huge monster, similar 
 to some of the tumular effigies in Wisconsin. There are many other 
 iigures on the wall, less clearly defined, some of which are persons 
 clad in ancient dress.
 
 44 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 It is to be regretted that many of the early writers on archaeology, 
 v.-'io had opportunities to see so many objects of interest, should 
 have thought it necessary only to explain and interpret the things 
 they saw, rather than describe them. An illustration (jf the picto- 
 «:i:raphs in this cavern, with a description of them in detail, would 
 have been one fact gained, when all the theories in regard to their 
 m.eaning might amount to nothing, but have a tendency to start the 
 real investigator out in the wrong path. Had the early writers on 
 our archaeology but deemed it to have been their duty to describe 
 and illustrate the many things they saw, this collection of facts 
 would have been invaluable to us. As it is, the ponderous mass of 
 theory has so covered up the real, that the whole subject some- 
 times seems to belong to the domain of myth. 
 
 There is yet to be written, in all America, a single work like 
 Evans' '•^ Stone Implements of Great Britain,''' that simply illustrates 
 the collections of Europe and describes them, with notes of the 
 surroundings, and connecting circumstances that seem to be more 
 germain to matters of fact than long-winded theories of the author. 
 One of our first efforts as a writer on archaeological subjects was to 
 give the i)ublic our theory in regard to the uses of those singular 
 relics called pendants, or plummets, so commonly found in the 
 West. We called them paint-stones, because all we had seen were 
 made of hematite, and upon rubbing them with a little water a i-i^d 
 paint could be made; and these pendants were carried by the* 
 braves in case they wanted to put on their war-paint or adorn their 
 persons. This was thirty years ago, when we had seen but few of 
 these relics. Since then we have collected hundreds of them, made 
 from almost all kinds of rock ; not only of hematite, but of lime- 
 stone, granite, sandstone and even of jasper, agate and the clearest 
 of quartz. Of course we now know they were not paint-stones; 
 neither do we know to-day why they were made. Our experience 
 is that new collectors are quite apt to be full of theories. 
 
 We went on one occasion to see a farmer who had found a v'^yj 
 large tooth of a mastodon ; and he very kindly gave us the start- 
 ling information that he had found why these huge animals had 
 been created ; namely, to tramp down the rough surface of the new 
 earth and make level places like our prairies. Ilowevei- honest his 
 belief may have been, his imagination, perhaps, was a trille strong 
 to have made a successful naturalist.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 pictographs and emblematic designs on the ancient pottery from the 
 Mounds. — Curious Customs in Burying the Dead.— Objects placed in the 
 Grave.— Imalements of Stone and Copper.— How they were Made.— 
 Crowns and Head-Ornaments of Copper.— The Crescent of Copper.— 
 Head-Dress of Copper with Pearl Ornaments in a Mound in St. Claiu 
 Co., Ills.— The curious Frog-Shaped Idol Pipe.— The Frog with a Scep- 
 tre IN ITS Right Hand. — Sphinx-like Images resembling those op Egypt. 
 — Description of a Sphinx from a Mound ox the Piasa Cuekk.— Its 
 Head-Dress. — Emblematic Images of Stone from Mounds. — Comparison 
 of them with like objects in the Old World. 
 
 paving given a number of illustrations of figures, either carved 
 or painted on the rocks by some people in the past, each quice 
 probably the result of an effort of the Mound-Builders or other early 
 inhabitants of this country to record some event or epoch in their 
 liistor}', we now propose to show a number of somewhat similar 
 figures found on the ancient pottery and other objects taken from 
 the mounds. It seems to have been a custom among some of the 
 later Mound-Builders, in the interment of their dead, especially 
 when burying a person of note, to place in the grave the ornaments 
 of the departed, together with his badge-stone, or emblem of office, 
 if he had one, and his pipe, which was a sort of personal altar. It 
 is seldom that the Mound-Builder's weapons are found in the grave, 
 except, perhaps, when he possessed a copper axe, or an unusually 
 nice one of stone, upon which a very great amount of labor had 
 been expended, and whicli was perhaps more for ornament than 
 actual iise. 
 
 Some of these copper ornaments are made with considerable 
 skill ; and some — the large plates worn on the breast — were doubtless 
 very bright and imposing. In three different mounds, at the mouth 
 of the Illinois river, we found head-ornaments of copper, which 
 were crescent-shaped, the ends coming around behind the ears 
 while the centre of Hie crescent, three or four inches wide, was over 
 the brows. In a mound on the bluff opposite East St. Louis we 
 found another of these Mound-Builder's crown- like head-dresses of 
 copper, that had been ornamented with pearls and pretty fio-ures 
 from pearl shell. This last old Mound-Builder had in the orave 
 with him his altar-pipe, or smoke-maker, made from a beautiful 
 red stone, and representing a huge bullfrog, which held in its rioiit
 
 46 EECORDS OF AiSTCIElSTT RACES 
 
 fore-foot or hand a curious sort of mace, or sceptre-like liandle, 
 surmounted at its upper end with a ball or globe. The base on 
 which the figure sits is a parallelogram — and the whole has a sj^hinx- 
 like appearance. It is a fine piece of stone carving, and weighs in 
 the neighborhood of ten pounds. In the back of the image is a 
 funnel-shaped opening, the smaller end of which connects with a 
 similar aperture, like the bowl of a pipe, from behind. ^ 
 
 We have another of these sphinx-like images (of which we have 
 found quite a number), in which there is represented, on the heavy 
 
 base, the kneeling or 
 rather the crouched hu- 
 man form. While the 
 head is erect, the upper 
 part of the body is bent 
 forward, with the fore- 
 Pipe i,on. Mound at G,aftcn._See page 4.. ^^^^ ^^ ^^10 kueeS ; aud 
 
 the feet protrude from beneath the buttocks on the base. The right 
 hand of this figure also holds one of the sceptres, or mace like 
 handles, surmounted by a ball or globe. 
 
 The face of this figure is a fine, expressive one, and the head is 
 surmounted with a covering, as though of some fabric, not very 
 unlike some of the head-dresses shown in the sculptures exhumed 
 by Layard from the ruins of Assyria. It is a sort of cap of folds, 
 the end of the fold forming a crest or knob at the top. This pretty 
 image, which we have figured in a former work, - is considerably 
 larger than the frog- image described above; is of the same red 
 stone, and was taken from a mound on the Piasa creek, a few 
 miles from Alton. Like nearly all these mound images, it has the 
 funnel-shaped opening in the back connecting with a simiLir one 
 fj'om behind. Like the preceding image, it is higlily polished, and 
 as a work of art has certainly no small degree of merit. '^ 
 
 That these images of stone were emblematic in character, as con- 
 nected with some ceremonial rites of the makers, there can be but 
 little doubt. All the mounds from which the relics spoken of were 
 taken contained pottery. The graven image of the sphinx-like 
 human form, and also that of the frog, as they sat in the burial 
 place, were flanked on either side with earthen burial vases as 
 elaborate, we will say more elaborate and artistic, than any taken 
 by Schliemann from the tombs of Mycenae or Troy. 
 
 J See page 26. ~ Antiquities of Cahokia. 3 gee page 46.
 
 C PI A P T E R X T I. 
 
 Till-: MoUND-BuiIDKItS CUSTOM OF PLACING FoOD IN THE GRAVES. — The VESSELS 
 PREPARED FOR THE BUUIAL SERVICE.— ThEIB PECULIAR SlIAPE. — TlIEIR CA- 
 PACITY AND Manner op Manufacture.— Illustrations.— Peculiar Compo- 
 sition OF THE Burial Vases.— No Glazing or Potter's Wheel.— Sojie of 
 THE Finest of the Cinerary Urns in the Graves of Children. — The 
 Different Types of Burial Vases.— Those Peculiarly Decorated with 
 Representations of IIeds, Animals and Persons on the Rim— The 
 Shapes of the Human Countenance. — No Beard Depicted. — A Stone Pipe 
 with a Beard Depicted. 
 
 eNE of the most interesting customs of the Mound-Builders, 
 and quite probably of other early inhabitants of the southern 
 and middle portions of the Mississippi Valley, was the placing of 
 earthen vessels, containing food and water, in the graves of their 
 dead. The vessels for the reception of the food were of various 
 shapes. Some were simple shallow dishes ; others like deeper 
 pans ; but the great majority were shaped with taste and skill, not 
 only in the form of ornamental cups and bowls, but also to repre- 
 sent birds, beasts, fishes, and almost all animated nature in their 
 vicinity, together with the human forms. 
 
 The greater number of these burial vases are shaped like large 
 cups or bowls, as shown on the following pages. Some of them are 
 of a capacity to hold a gallon, and are dark or light brown in color • 
 some being baked or burned hard, while others show but little sign 
 of the fire, and a few appear to be simply baked or dried in the 
 sun. The material of which they are all composed is very peculiar, 
 being a composition of clay, pounded shells, and perhaps some 
 other substances, which form a kind of cement ; for even those which 
 seem not to have been brought in contact with fire, have a tenacity 
 that prevents them from crumbling in water. Some of them are so 
 well made and burned that they are not easily broken, and we have 
 utilized some of the larger bowls for washing purposes, in our 
 camp in Southeast Missouri, for weeks at a time, without injury to 
 them. There is no attempt at glazing ; neither have we found any 
 evidence that would indicate a knowledge of the potter's wheel. 
 
 On nearly all the vessels there is some attempt at ornamentation ; 
 and many have attached to their rims ears or lugs, as if for the pur- 
 pose of suspension, as shown on page 50.
 
 Small vessels of Pottery, Stone Pipe, Stone Implements and discoidai Stone from N-w Madrid. Mo.
 
 IN TiiK Mississirrr vallkv 
 
 49 
 
 Very few, if tiny, of these vessels show signs of use, as if they liad 
 once been culinary vessels ; and, among thousands which we have 
 examined, the great majority of them seem to have been new when 
 placed in the graves, and were probably made for the purpose. In 
 fact, the great care taken in shaping and ornamenting these vessels 
 reveals that under the impulse of affection, love and grief for the de- 
 parted, among his surviving friends, no labor was too great, and the 
 highest skill of the aboriginal artist was drawn upon, for the occa- 
 sion. Some of the very finest of these cinerary urns are in the graves 
 of children, showing how the affectionate mother, Avith the tender- 
 est care, amid her tears, shaped and carved the delicate vases for 
 the graves of her darling. 
 
 Ti Mounds in lillno'; 
 
 Another type of these food vessels fur the grave is ornamented 
 on the rim with the head and neck of some bird or animal. On 
 the opposite side of the vessel is an extended portion of the rim, 
 to represent the tail. Many of these are very pretty, and show 
 no mean order of talent in the manipulation of the potter's clay.
 
 50 
 
 KECOKDS UF ANCIENT KACES 
 
 It is said that in a collection of mound vessels of this type neaiij^ 
 every species of duck, common to the Mississippi Valley, could be 
 recognized by the peculiar representation of the duck's head on the 
 rim of some burial vase. 
 
 Burial Vases with Ornamental Ears. 
 
 Quite a number of this type of wide-mouthed bowls are decorat- 
 ed with representations of human heads. Many of these human 
 faces are roughly made, and have a grotesque appearance ; but there 
 is an occasional one showing much expression of countenance. In 
 the illustration on page 52 the large upper vessel shows a good strong 
 face, as though the artist had attemj)ted to pattern in the clay some 
 living face before him. But, of course, we have no means of know 
 ing the fact. We have seen a few of these vases in which the whole
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 ri 
 
 human head and face was given in tlie shape of the vessel, the 
 head beiuo- full size. 
 
 Bowls with Ornamental Heads, 
 
 No beard is ever depicted ; so it is quite probable these people 
 were like our red Indians, or like the Chinese and other nations, 
 either having no beard, or not having the custom of w^earing it ; for 
 it is well known that among our Indians, as well as some other peo-
 
 52 
 
 KPX'OKDS OF ANCIENT liACES 
 
 pies, if any hair appeared upon the face, it was plucked out. We 
 have ourselves seen our North American Indians plucking strag- 
 gling hairs from their faces ; and all Indians are not quite beardless. 
 We have a stone pipe, from a mound in Missouri, that has the 
 representation of a human face upon it, and upcm the sides of the 
 cheeks, below the ears, is what many have thought to be a beard 
 depicted. We have seen the beard so depicted in the illustrations 
 of Layard's "Ancient jSTiueve]]." 
 
 '■^ 
 
 Bowlj with Hu:-nan Heads.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Burial Vases for Holding Watek.— Their forms like those of Egypt.— Il- 
 lustration of Long-ISeckkd FORMS.— Owl- Headp:d Vases like those from 
 Trot.— Skills of the Mounu-Builders in making Pottery.— Lack of Orn- 
 amented Pottery in European Mounds.— The superiority of American 
 Relics.— Mound Pottery.— The Polished Stone Age of the Mississippi 
 Valley.— The Human Form on Burial Vases.— Women Represented. — 
 Heads of Human Figures showing He ad-Dress.— Ear-rings and Head Okn- 
 aments.— No Ikon but Meteoric- :Meteoric Iron held sacked by the 
 Mound- Builders, like the Greeks.- Stone Crystals oftp:n mistaken for 
 Glass —Shape and Peculiarity of the Hands seen on the Pottery.— 
 The Manner of Ornamenting the Burial Vases.— A Burial Vase from 
 Cahokia containing the Colors and Tools for Ornamenting. 
 
 •TJTHE water-vessels, always accompanying tlie food vessels, in the 
 taS mounds, are very peculiar, and some of the types have a strong 
 resenvblance to the water-vessels of Egypt. The following is a 
 common form ; and hundreds of this shape are to be seen among the 
 collections of mound potter}^ from 
 the valley of the Mississippi. These 
 are of a capacity to hold from a pint 
 to four or five quarts of liquid. 
 
 It is thought that our Mound- 
 Builders perhap*S used unglazed 
 vessels of this form, like the Egypt- 
 ians, to hang, filled with water, in 
 the wind, that it might cool by 
 evaporation, but we only know that 
 these vessels are found here in the 
 graves, and were undoubtedly x)hiced 
 there with liquid, in accordance with* 
 some religious idea, to benefit the 
 departed in some journey beyond -• 
 
 the grave. 
 
 In our explorations we have found a number of these vessels of a 
 more complicated form, like the following. 
 
 It is quite easy to see that from making useful vessels it would 
 be natural to advance to the oruamencal ; 3-et it is a little singular 
 that the ornamentation in almost every particular, of the American
 
 54 
 
 KECORDS OF AXCIEXT RACER 
 
 mound pottery, should be so exactl}- like that of Egypt and the East. 
 The owl-headed vase in the illustration on the following page is 
 almost exactly like one figured by Schliemann, from Troy. 
 
 In reference to the superiority of tlie skill displayed by the 
 Mound-Builders, in the ceramic arts, to the corresponding efforts of 
 
 ancient Europe, we cannot do better than 
 quote the words of Dr. Foster : ^ 
 
 "In the plastic arts, the* Mound-Build- 
 ers attained a perfection far in advance 
 of any samples which have been found 
 characteristic of the Stone or even the 
 Bronze Age of Europe. We can readily 
 conceive that in the absence of any 
 metallic vessels, pottery would be em 
 ployed as a substitute, and the potter's 
 art would be held in the highest esteem." 
 From useful forms they advanced to 
 ornamental. Sir John Lubbock remarks 
 that "few of the British sepulchral urns, 
 :. belonging to ante-Roman times, have any 
 
 curved lines. Representations of animals and plants are almost 
 entirely wanting. They are even absent from all the articles be- 
 longing to the Bronze Age in Switzerland, and I might say in 
 Western Europe generally." But they were common in Greece and 
 Egypt, and the East, as also in the Mississippi Vall?y. 
 
 We believe it would hardly be possible, in all Europe, to get 
 together as line a collection of implements of the Stone Age as we 
 have made in the Mississippi Valley. Nor do we believe there is 
 a collection of pottery, of the Stone Age of Europe, that can vie with 
 ours of the Mississippi Valley, of the same age. 
 
 This valley had even a superior Polished Stone Age, not only in 
 objects made of granite and other primary rocks, but of polished 
 Hint or chert ; and some of the most beautiful objects of the Stone 
 Age in the Mississippi Valley are those of white chert or flint, in 
 which the marks of the chipping are completely ground off and the 
 surface is smooth and polished. Axes and celts of this kind, in our 
 collection, are far superior to any shown in Evans' " Stone Imple- 
 ments of Great Britain." And if our stone imx)lements are superior, 
 
 "Prehistoric Races of the United States," p. 236.
 
 Varieties of Drinking Vessels from Southeast Missour: a a 
 
 nd b Front and Back View o* same Vessel ' SmaM Bottle and StopDer,
 
 50 
 
 KECOKDS OF ANCIENT KACES 
 
 oiiv mound pottery, in artistic design, is certainly al)ove that 
 of Europe during tlie same age. 
 
 But wlnle there are some good faces shown on some of the human 
 heads adorning the mound potter}^, the correct representation of the 
 human body, except in a few instances, is not attempted ; the human 
 form not being of a shape to conveniently adapt it for the base of the 
 vessels. We have found specimens, however, in which a person 
 Avas represented as lying jDrone on his back, with the neck of the 
 vessel extending up from the stomach. The common manner of rep- 
 resenting the body of a man or woman is shown in the two lower 
 figures in the cut on this page. 
 
 Sometimes the base of the vessel stood 
 on three hollow legs, as seen in the upper 
 right-hand figure. Those vessels sur- 
 mounted with the head of an owl, whirh 
 are common, are generally of the shape 
 shown in the left-hand upper figure. 
 
 In all the vessels surmounted by a 
 head, the opening for the introduction 
 and pouring out of liquid is on the side 
 and not directly on top. 
 
 A woman is sometimes represented as 
 carrying a child slung on her back, and 
 men and women in various attitudes ; b;ir 
 it is rare to find an obscene representation 
 Many of the heads of the human 
 figures show the representation of a 
 head-dress, and the manner of wearing the hair; and some 
 show the ear-rings in the ears. These ear-rings were peculiar, being 
 something like a spool, or more like a very large sleeve-button, and 
 were made to button in a slit in the lobe of the ear. We have found 
 them, of the most elaborate workmanship, in the mounds. Some 
 were of copper, but more commonly of bone covered with cop])er, 
 and they were sometimes of wood, neatly covered with a thin sht^et 
 of copper. 
 
 Beautiful ornaments are sometimes found, made of meteoric iron ; 
 and they, like the ancient Greeks, held this substance in great I'ev- 
 erence. The fact that they had this meteoric iron has led many of 
 the early investigators of our mounds into the most grievous eiToi-s. 
 and induced many to believe that the remains of swords and other 
 articles of European manufacture of iron had been found. We fell 
 
 Fig. 5.
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLKY. 57 
 
 into this error once ourselves, upon finding among the treasures by 
 the side of the remains of a chieftain in a large nioimd ii small piece 
 of iron ; soft, malleable iron ! The foundation of a theory built 
 upon the iron melted quite away when it was shown that it was 
 meteoric. Had the Mound-Builders won '^ a prize from heaven, " 
 like Homer's Grecian hero, who won the lump of iron in the games at 
 the funeral of Patroclus ? At another time, in one of the prettiest of 
 ornamented vases from a mound in St. Charles, Mo., we found 
 some glass beads, and we speculated for many days : How did they 
 come by glass, who did not even know how to melt lead. One of 
 these glass beads fell one day and was broken, and we at once dis- 
 covered that it was "fluor spar" and not glass at all. At another 
 time we received a beautifal gorget of glass ; glass, everyone said 
 to whom it was shown; yet upon ourselves prosecuting further 
 search in the same mound, we found other similar objects, together 
 with several of the large quartz crystals of which they were made. 
 
 As the human heads on some of the pretty mound vases reveal 
 something of their mode of dressing the hair, and of the head 
 coverings, so also do we see the size, shape and peculiarities of the 
 hands, even to the finger-nails, on the surface of some of the unfinished 
 specimens of the mound pottery. Their customs are shown, and as 
 will be seen, quite possibly some of the symbolic devices referring to 
 their religion. 
 
 In excavating near the base of the great temple mound of Cahokia, 
 whose towering height of over one hundred feet gave a grateful 
 shade for our labors, we found in a crumbling tomb of earth and 
 stone a great number of burial vases, over one hundred of which 
 were quite perfect. It was a most singular collection, as if the Mound- 
 Builder, with patient and skillful hand, united with artistic taste 
 in shaping the vessels, had endeavored to make a representation 
 of the natural history of the country in ceramics. Some of these 
 were painted, and there were also the paint-pots and dishes holding 
 the colors, together with the little bone paddle for mixing, and 
 other implements of the aboriginal artist. Some of these are figured 
 in our " Antiquities of Cahokia."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 PiCTOGRAPHS AND HIEROGLYPHIC INSCRIPTIONS ON THE POTTEUT.— A BURIAL 
 
 Vask prom a Mound on the Illinois Kiver.— The Shell ISpoon.— Remains 
 OF THE Food in the Vessels. — Whole Ears of Charred Corn. — The 
 Great Number op these Vases, and their Curious Evidence.— The 
 Mound-Builder's Religion and Belief in After Life. — Similar Customs 
 in Europe. — The Figure of the Cross on the Vessels. — The Cross of 
 the Egyptians. — The Cross of the Chinese. — Its Recurrence common 
 in America. 
 
 'E have found a number of pieces of tliis mound pottery, on 
 which are delineated, either by incision or by painting, a 
 variety of pictographs or hieroglyphic inscriptions, some of which are 
 similar to those we have described as being carved or painted on 
 the rocky bluffs and cavernous places.- If we connect the makers of 
 the pictographs on the rocks with the makers of the pottery and the 
 builders of our great mounds, then there is an important beginning 
 made toward a collection of facts, that, if followed up, may be the 
 means of furnishing some data for the unravelling of the tangled web 
 of our aboriginal history 
 
 Below we give an illustration of one of these burial vases, taken 
 from a mound upon the bluff of the Illinois River, twenty -five 
 miles from its mouth. The vessel has a capacity 
 of little more than a pint. Like much of the 
 ancient pottery in Europe, Asia and America, it 
 has no fiat base, being rounded on the bottom. 
 It has lugs or ears on the outer side of the rim, 
 as if for suspension. The majority of vessels of 
 this shape, however, have four of these ears, and 
 some have six. Tliey are probably more for 
 ornament than use, for we have broken a number 
 of them off in simply handling them after they 
 Were taken from the mound. The figures on the vase were made 
 with some pointed implement before the vessel had been burned. 
 The ornamental lines about the rim were also incisions. After 
 taking this pretty vase from the mound where it lay, with the 
 remains of a human skeleton, in a rude sort of vault covered with 
 a large flat stone, we seated ourselves under the shade of a tree 
 near by and be<;an carefully to take from it the earth and mold 
 
 From Mound on the Illinois.
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLKY. 51> 
 
 witli which it was filled. At the bottom of the vessel we found 
 a pretty implement, not very unlike a spoon without a handle, and 
 made from the pearly inside of the valve of a large river shell, 
 doubtless a unio. This pretty spoon was some four inches long 
 and a little more than half as wide. After having been cut into 
 shape, with rounded edges, it had been made very smooth and 
 then polished. 
 
 It is very common to find these spoons of shell in the burial 
 vases; and sometimes we have found in the mold, and with the 
 shell in the bottom of the vase, a piece of bone of animal, or bird, 
 or the limb of a turtle ; and in several instances charred grains of 
 corn. In one large vase were a number of charred corn-cobs, so 
 tliat we could easily tell the length of the ear of corn and the num- 
 bc'r of rows of kernels upon it. These ears had been seven to eight 
 inches or more in length, with eight rows of kernels, the rows being 
 in pairs, or each two rows of the kernels being close together, leav- 
 ing four wider interstices between the rows on the cob. In another 
 instance we found a whole ear of corn, charred, with the grains 
 ui)on it. During our thirty years labor in the field as an archaeol- 
 ogist we have taken more than a thousand of these burial vases 
 from their resting places in the earth, and we fail to remember a 
 single instance when we did not enjoy that peculiar pleasure of 
 expectation as we carefully explored the contents of each old vessel. 
 What history would we find ? What record ? No matter if we 
 have labored all day in the burning sunlight, under many incon- 
 veniences, there is reward in our anticipations. The contents of the 
 v^essel are before us ; they are very little, yet they tell a story of 
 the Mound-Builder's customs. He had a religion — some sort of a 
 belief concerning an after life ; and the corn and the meat and other 
 food had been placed in this pretty burial vase, made for the pur- 
 pose, that the spirit of the departed might have nourishment while 
 on its travels from the grave to a better land. We have wondered if 
 they had another and opposite place for '• bad" Mound-Builders. 
 
 Here is an established custom, — not a new one, however. Our 
 fore-fathers, after they became elevated above mere savages, per- 
 haps even after the Romans had pounded some civilization into 
 them at the point of the spear and the sword, buried their dead in 
 the same way. It is common throughout Europe, and we might say 
 all over the rest of the world, that when a very ancient grave is 
 opened, there are the earthen vessels that contained the food and
 
 60 RECORDS OF AXOIKNT KACP:S 
 
 drink for the spirit of the departed. One singular fact is that tliese 
 American burial vases are even more elaborately and artistically 
 made than those of Europe, as \vill be seen from our illustrations. 
 
 With these thoughts occurring to us, having finished the examina- 
 tion of the contents of the vase in question, and carefully cleaned the 
 soil from about it, we then examined the clean and neatly cut en- 
 gravings and ornaments on the outer side. Are they simply orna- 
 mental, or do they have a greater meaning ? There, repeated several 
 times, is the cross enclosed in the circle. In Europe, where it is 
 ancient and common, perhaps it would be called a Greek cross. But 
 the same figure is seen on the pyramids, and was a hieroglyph in 
 Egypt some thousands of years ago. In fact, according to Wilkin- 
 son, a figure almost exactly like the enclosed cross on this burial 
 vase from a mound on the Illinois river, makes a part of the hiero- 
 oglyphic name of Egypt, in which it is repeated four times. ^ And 
 the same reliable author, in speaking of the sacred cakes of the 
 ancient Egyptians, with which the sacred bulls, consecrated to the 
 service of their god Isis, were fed, and upon which there was made 
 the same sign of the cross, says : " The cross-cake was their hiero- 
 glyph for civilized land. " 
 
 This same figure of a divided circle, however, occurs in the alpha- 
 bet, or figurative writing, of the Chinese, and has a similar siguili- 
 cance, being their emblem for land or country. /[TN The explanation 
 was given to me, by a most intelligent and\J^ educated China- 
 man, that the cross in the circle had the simple meaning, among his 
 people, of partition, signifying that their land was divided into lirlds, 
 — in other words, not a wild, but a civilized country. 
 
 This figure of an enclosed cross occurs many times in the valley of 
 the Mississippi ; and we have seen it on the pottery, not only out- 
 lined by incision, but painted thereon in the peculiar mineral colors 
 used by the Mound-Builders. It is also seen in the carvings on the 
 blufls and in the caverns, as well as among the painted pictograplis. 
 It occurs also inscribed on the ornaments of shell and other material 
 used by this ancient people : and in a few instances we have seen 
 the same symbol on their implements of stone. 
 
 We may remark, here, that this hieroglyphic figure or emblem, 
 common among the Mound-Builders and the more ancient of our 
 aboriginal records, seems not to be common among the later rude 
 
 1 Sir Giinlner Wilkinson, " Ancient Egyptians," vol. 1,'p. 244.
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 m 
 
 painted inscriptions of the more modern Indians of the Upper Mis- 
 sissippi and northern parts of the United States. 
 
 For the sake of comparison, we give an illustration of a picto- 
 graph made hy some of the later Indians, of a kind not uncommon 
 in the Northwest. 
 
 -^'f^ 
 
 Pictographs ca Rocks, by Indians of the Northwest.
 
 CHAPTER XY. 
 
 Mound Vessels witu Painted Symbols. — Other Peculiar Figures of the 
 Cross.— Symbolic Figures of the Sun.— Similar Figures on Vasi.s in 
 Egypt and Ancient Troy.— Illustration of a Vase from a 31issouri 
 
 ]!iIOUND AND A VaSE FROM ThEBES, EgYPT. — ThE CUSTOMS OF THE MOUND- 
 
 Builders influenced by Previous History.— Thk Points of Parallelism 
 NOT Accidental. — The peculiar Cross with the Bent Arms. — Schlie- 
 mann on the Emblematic Crosses found in Ancient Troy. — The Ancient 
 Character of this Cross.— Its Origin.— An Instrument used for making 
 Fire. — Origin of the word Cross — How the Ancients first generated 
 Fire. — The Manner in which the Cross became a Sacred Emblem. 
 
 OME of the water vases, like the more open ones for containing 
 food, are elaborately painted with pigments or colored clays, 
 and bear inscriptions that we believe, as before remarked, to have a 
 
 greater meaning than mere 
 ornament. One of these, 
 of the more common form, 
 the globular base of which 
 is surmounted by a tall, 
 slim neck, is seen in the 
 engraving herewith. This 
 fine specimen of ancient 
 American art was taken 
 from a mound on the bank 
 of the great river, in Mis- 
 sissippi county, Missouri. 
 It is eight inches and a 
 half high, and six inches 
 in diameter at its widest 
 part. It is made of a pe- 
 culiar composition of sed- 
 imentary clay, mixed with 
 linely-powdered shells and 
 some other substances not 
 clearly determined ; a mix- 
 ture which forms the ma- 
 terial of nearly all the 
 mound pottery of the Mis- 
 sissippi valley. It is very 
 symmetrical in form, with 
 
 Earthen Vessel with Inscriptions in Colored Clay, «. bottOm JUSU SUfficientlv
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 63 
 
 flattened in the very lowest part to make it stand on a level surface 
 without falling over. 
 
 It is, however, the beautiful and artistic decoration of this inter- 
 esting vessel that gives it its special value to the student of archae- 
 ology. On the bottom, and extending one and a half inches upward- 
 the color is a deep red ; above that line it was originally painted a 
 very light color, as a back-giound for decoration. A portion of the 
 light color, which was nearly white in some places, has become 
 stained a yellowish cast. 
 
 Figures on Vase. 
 
 The inscriptions are of a brilliant red color, that, in spite of the 
 antiquity of the relics, still retains its hue in a remarkable manner. 
 
 The two upper figures are each repeated twice, and the lower 
 figures each four times. As will be seen from the cut, the figures on 
 this vessel very much resemble some of those among the carvings 
 and paintings on the rocks. They are in fact common pictographic 
 figures, found all through the valley of the Mississippi, not only on 
 the rocks, but on the burial vases from the mounds, as well as on 
 other objects made by this ancient people. 
 
 The figure of the circle with serrated edge, as seen in the upper 
 left hand corner of the foregoing group, is not an uncommon one
 
 64 
 
 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 among the pictographs. The peculiar cross with the curved arms, 
 in the center of this figure, is a very common one on the pottery from 
 the mounds of Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas ; and some of the 
 most beautiful of the burial vases are decorated with it in some 
 form. The figure in the lower left hand corner of the cut is similar 
 to the one just spoken of, except that the serratures or rays on the 
 outer circle are wanting. 
 
 It is very interesting for us to learn that almost exactly such 
 figures as these are among the oldest of symbolic forms known. 
 They were sacred symbols when the first of all religions began, the 
 woi'ship of the sun. They were used as symbols by our forefathers. 
 
 Vase from Mound fn Missouri. 
 
 Vase from a Tomb at Thebes, Egypt. 
 
 the ancient Aryans, in these or similar forms, to represent the great 
 luminary. In fact, all the figures on this funeral vase from an old 
 mound in Missouri are common symbolical representations, used by 
 the primitive peoples of the old world. Schliemann dug up from 
 the site of Ilium, on the Trojan plain, innumerable relics, bearing 
 just such symbols; and Sir Gardner Wilkinson found them every- 
 where in an(;ient Egypt. A recent writer has said : " We can not be 
 too cautious in drawing impressions from analogies ; yet compar- 
 ison will not necessarily propagate errors, but will serve to elucidate 
 obscure questions." 
 
 In the illustration above we show another one of those beautiful 
 burial vases, taken from a mound in New Madrid county, Missouri. 
 This illustration is reproduced from that splendid work on 
 Archaeology issued by the St. Louis Academy of Science. The
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 65 
 
 figure on the riglit is taken from Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," 
 and was recovered from a tomb amid the ruins of ancient Thebes, 
 in Egypt. Tliat we have taken scores of burial vases from rho 
 ancient mounds of Illinois and Missouri, almost exactly duplicatino- 
 the most peculiar shapes of many from Egypt, would in itself be 
 remarkable, but that many of these should be ornamented in the 
 same peculiar way, and bear the same symbolic inscriptions, is at 
 least suggestive. For the age of the vase from the mound in Missouri 
 we have as yet, perhaps, no data ; but for the Theban vase we go back 
 in the history of the past, among the temples, tombs and pyramids, 
 full three thousand years ; perhaps more ; for it was nearly that long- 
 ago, doubtless, when Homer wrote his Iliad, where he makes 
 Achilles exclaim, " Not though you were to offer me the wealth of 
 Egyptian Thebes, with its hundred gates ?" Yet according to Schlie- 
 mann, Homer's knowledge of heroic Troy was only traditional. Our 
 mound vase may not be as old as the Egyptian one; nor is it necessary 
 that the makers should be cotenipoiary in point of time. The object 
 of this cliai^ter is simply. to call attention to some remarkable facts 
 in American archaeology, and to compare them with similar facts in 
 the ancient history of other parts of the world. 
 
 It is a favorite theory with some of our best known archaeologists 
 that primitive men, however widely separated, have under like 
 conditions reached like results, through natural requirements and 
 surroundings alone. We used to hold to this idea ; but during our 
 work in the field so much counter evidence has been placed before us 
 that we have abandoned the theory, having been forced to see that 
 some previous influence, some remembrance it may be, in connection 
 with his origin on this continent, has been instrumental, in some 
 degree, in shaping the life of the Mound-Builder of this country. 
 Some points of parallelism may be accidental, possibly, but we do 
 not think our readers will so accept the analogies we here present. 
 
 The circle with the globe or ball in the centre, as seen on both the 
 Mound-Builder and Egyptian vases we have just figured, is a very 
 common symbol, not only on the pottery and in the pictographs of 
 the caverns, but also in the Mound-Builders' earthworks. Of these 
 we shall speak later on. We wish to call attention to the cross-like 
 figure on the mound vases in the last illustration. This form of 
 cross, together with that of the cross in the preceding illustration, 
 where the arms of the cross are bent or crooked (very common on 
 our mound pottery), is also very similar to crosses found by Dr.
 
 QQ RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 ScMiemann on earthen vessels and other objects while excavating on 
 the site of ancient Troy. He says : " Many of these Trojan articles, 
 and especially those in the form of volcanoes, have crosses of the 
 most various description, as may be seen in the drawings. The form 
 A occurs especially often ; upon a great many we lind the sign,^ 
 of which there are often whole rows in a circle round a central point. 
 In my earlier reports I never spoke of these crosses, because their 
 meaning was utterly unknown to me. I now perceive that these 
 crosses on the Trojan terra-cottas are of the highest importance to 
 archaeology. 
 
 "I consider it necessary to enter more fully into the subject, all 
 
 the more so as I am now able to prove that both the ^p and the |— j-* 
 which I lind in Emile Burnouf's Sanscrit lexicon, under the 
 name of ''suastika" and with the meaning or sign of good wishes, 
 were already regarded, thousands of years before Christ, as religious 
 symbols of the very greatest importance among the early progeni- 
 tors of the Aryan races in Bactria, and in the villages of the Oxus, 
 at a time when Germans, Indians, Pelasgians, Celts, Persians, Sla- 
 vonians and Iranians still formed one nation and spoke one language. 
 For I recognize at the first glance the 'suastika' upon one of the three 
 pot bottoms discovered on the bank of the Oder, and wliicli gave 
 rise to very many learned discussions, while no one recognized the 
 mark as that exceedingly significant religious symbol of our 
 remote ancestors. 
 
 "I find a whole row of these peculiar crosses all around the 
 famous pulpit of St. Ambrose, in Milan. I find it occurring a 
 thousand times in the catacombs of Rome. I find it in three rows, 
 and thus repeated sixty times, upon an ancient Celtic funeral urn 
 discovered in Shropham, in the county of Norfolk, and now in the 
 British Museum. I find it also upon several Corinthian vases in my 
 own collection, as well as on two very ancient Attic vases in the 
 possession of Prof. Kusopolus, at Athens, which are assigned to a 
 date as early at least as a thousand years before Christ. It i,s to be 
 seen innumerable times on the most ancient of Hindoo temples. I 
 find in the Ramayana that the ships of King Rama— in which he 
 carried his troops across the Ganges on his expedition of conquest 
 to India and Ceylon— bore the jljlj on their prow. And it is said 
 that the Phnceician ships bore the same old sign from the 
 
 Aryans— ZLI good wishes, — in their voyages to Ophir during 
 the reign ^^ of King Solomon.
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 07 
 
 " It is to be seen on the sacred footprints of Buddha, carved on 
 the Amraverti Tope, near the river Kistna, ^ where it is repeated 
 again and again on the toes, heels and other parts of the footprints. 
 
 "Emile Burnonf, in his excllent La Science des Religions, just 
 published, says: The HJ represents the two pieces of wood 
 which were laid cross-wise upon one another before tlie sacri- 
 ficial altars in order to produce the holy fire, and wliose ends were 
 bent around and fastened by means of four nails, Zb so that this 
 wooden scaffolding might not be moved. At the ' point where 
 the two pieces of wood were joined, there was a small hole, in which 
 a third piece of wood in the form of a lance was rotated by means 
 of a cord made of cow's hair and hemp, till the fire was g(.Mierated 
 by friction. This was the manner of making fire before the use of 
 
 flint and steel. 
 
 " Upon my writing to M. E. Burnonf to inquire about the other 
 symbol, the cross in the form ^ which occurs hundreds of times 
 upon the Trojan terra-cottas,^^ he replied, that he knows with 
 certainty from the ancient scholiasts on the Rig- Veda, from com- 
 parative philology, and from monumental figures, that ' suastikas.' 
 in this form also, were employed in the very remotest times for 
 producing the holv fire. He adds that the Greeks for a long time 
 generated fire by"' friction, and that the two lower pieces of wood 
 that lay at right angles across one another were called 'otavpos; 
 which word is either derived from the root ' stri,' which signifies 
 lying upon the earth and is then identical with the Latin 'sternere,' 
 or it is derived from the Sanscrit word 'stavara,' which means firm, 
 solid, immovable. Since the Greeks had later other means ()f pro- 
 ducing fire, the word ^ otavpoa' passed into use simply in the 
 sense of ' cross.' 
 
 '^ Other passages might be quoted from Indian scholars to prove 
 that from the very remotest times the "IJ and the ^ were the most 
 sacred symbols of our Aryan fore-''-fathers." 
 
 Thus the enthusiastic Schliemann, fresh from the deep excava- 
 tions he was making amid the ruins of Troy, sits himself down in 
 the library at Athens, with the old Greek books before him, 
 
 1 This is another of those curious ancient foot-prints spoken of in a preceding chap- 
 ter, so commonly seen on the rocks along the Mississippi. Dr. Schliemann gives an 
 Illustration of it, and it is interesting to note that on this old carving, made in India niuny 
 centuries ago, the toes, heels and other parts of the feet have devices cut upon them 
 almost exactly like some on our mound pottery.
 
 RECOEDS OF ANCIENT RACES. G8 
 
 endeavoring to learn the meaning of the strange things h(^ was 
 dragging from the historic earth at Ilium. 
 
 Primitive men had learned to generate fire by friction. Improv- 
 ing a little, they made a simple instrument for this purpose, of two 
 pieces of wood crossed. They were Sun-Worshippers, and in making 
 the fire for their sacrifices, this little implement of two crossed 
 sticks was, the better to use it, and that it might be more stable, 
 fastened to the altar by a nail through each of the four projecting 
 arms. When they wished to generate fire, a stick was placed in 
 the hole in the centre of the cross, and having attached a cord or 
 bowstring, the stick was rapidly rotated until the friction gen- 
 erated combustion, and Toehold there was fire. Is it any wonder 
 that these primitive people considered fire a supernatural element, 
 when even in this day of scientific learning fire is still a sort of 
 mystery to our savans, and any explanation of the phemomena 
 seems to be lacking in clearness ? 
 
 It is also very natural that the implement with whicli the 
 mysterious fire was brought to them, connected as it was with the 
 sacred rites, should itself become a sacred symbol. 
 
 This is a most interesting history of the sign of the cross among 
 our Aryan forefathers. The sign, simple enough in the beginning, 
 took on, in the after ages, many embellishments and additions, but 
 has never lost, and retains to day in its base, the primitive form of 
 the ancient fire-sticks. 

 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Another Mound Vase with singular Symbolic Signs.— Illustrations of thk 
 Devices.— The singular sign of T or "tau." by the Egyptians.— Resem- 
 blance TO Chinese Characters.— Placing of Amulets on the Breasts of 
 Mummies by the Egyptians.— The Sacred Beetle.— The Symbol on the Bee- 
 tle's Back.— Similar Custom among the Mound-Builders.— The curious 
 Gorgets of Shell.— The Cross on the Spider's Back.— The ancient Sym- 
 bol OF "Good Luck."— No Phallic Worship in America.— The origin of 
 THE T OR "tau."— The Enemies of the Egyptians wore a Gorget with a 
 Cross like the Mound-Builders.— Curious and suggestive Comparisons. 
 —The Maltese Cross on Mound Pottery.— Copper Crosses. 
 
 ^^|pE have another pretty burial vase, or water-vessel, from a 
 ^jiM& mound on the line "between S. E. Missouri and Arkansas. It 
 is a little larger than a somewhat similar shaped vessel figured on a 
 preceding page. The tall neck is of the same shape, but the base is 
 quite "different— flat on the bottom, around which are arched aper- 
 tures. This base is hollow, and has the appearance of having been 
 added after the body of the vase had been completed. 
 
 It stands staight on its base, has been burned, and appears to be 
 strong and serviceable. It shows but little sign of age, and the 
 ornamental lines and symbolic characters, still clear and plain, are 
 made with a bright red pigment, which, it may be worthy of remark, 
 is the same color, according to Wilkinson, i used by the ancient 
 Egyptians in similar decorations. It is exceedingly neat and sym- 
 metrical in shape, and perhaps it would not be too mucli to say that 
 it would require an artist of no mean pretensions to excel it on the 
 potter's wheel of to-day. 
 
 But that to which we would more especially call the attention of 
 our readers is the row of symbolic designs about tlie base of the 
 
 neck of the vessel. They are six in number, following consecutively 
 as above. The last figure T, however, is repeated several times on 
 the vessel. This T, or tau as the Egyptians called it. was a sign of 
 
 1 Vol. ii, p. 292, --Ancient Eg3'ptians."
 
 70 
 
 EECORDS OF AXCIEXT RACES 
 
 life on all their ancient monuments. Several of these figures are 
 common on the great obelisk from Egypt recently set up in New- 
 York. They have a great resemblance, also, to Chinese characters. 
 It is well known to Chinese scholars, that many characters which 
 
 Ornamental Water-Vase from Mound in Arkansas. 
 
 originally were of circular form, were latterly made square, the better 
 to manipulate them on the introduction of type. And the Chinese 
 now, in writing the old style, make some figures round which in the 
 type are square. 
 
 It was a custom of the ancient Eyptians to place on the breasts of 
 their mummies a sort of amulet or sacred object. One of the moat
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 71 
 
 common of these, according to Wilkinson, was a scarabseus, or 
 sacred beetle. This was carved from a great variety of hard stones, 
 such as agate, amethyst and even the most precious of gems. 
 Every one of tliese beetles bore on its back the sacred tau or T, the 
 Egyptian symbol of life. The lines of separation of the wing 
 covers of the beetle naturally form this sign on its back, but in 
 many of the beautiful scarabsei we have seen the tau or cross is 
 dominant eitlit^r by incised lines or by being raised in relief. 
 
 These scarabsei are so common about the mummy-pits of Egypt 
 that hundreds are sometimes collected, made of great varieties of 
 stone, each insect bearing on his back the sacred cross. 
 
 It is very singular that the Mound-Builders of the Missisippi 
 Valley should have had a custom quite similar. It is common in 
 the mounds, especially those in the American Bottom, as well as in 
 Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee, to find on the breast of the skel- 
 eton a circular disk or gorget of sea-shell. This shell disk generally 
 has carved upon it some symbolic sign ; and we have found a num- 
 ber of them on which was carved an insect, generally a spider. 
 But what is mo>t singular is that the back of the insect invariably 
 bears the symbol of the cross. We give above an illustration of 
 three of these engraved shell gorgets, taken from three different 
 mounds. We have selected these three because each figure of the 
 cross is a little different. It will be seen that they are exactly like 
 the symbols figured and described by Schliemann, so common on the 
 whorls and other objects dug up at Troy. 
 
 The cross on the gorget in the centre is precisely like that of the 
 ancient Trojans and Greeks, and which Schliemann thinks had its 
 origin in the cross-sticks on the altars of the ancient Sun-Worship-
 
 72 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 pers, the ancient symbol of ^ood luck. That the symbol of the 
 cross is an ancient one there cannot be the least doubt, whether it 
 originated from the ancient fire-sticks among the Sun-Worsliippers, 
 as advanced by some, or in phallic worship, as advanced by others. 
 We are inclined to the former. But our object is not so much to 
 find the origin of the cross, as to find, if possible, from what source 
 our Mound-Builders derived the symbol. 
 
 There is some reason to believe that the peculiar Egyptian tau 
 may have been a different symbol from that of the cross. 
 Wilkinson, whom we consider good authority, says. " The origin 
 of the tau I cannot precisely determine, but this curious fact is 
 connected with it in later times — that the early Christians of Europe 
 adopted it in lieu of the cross, which was afterwards substituted for 
 it, prefixing it to inscriptions in the same manner as the cross in 
 later times ; and numerous incriptions headed by the tau are pre- 
 served to the present day in early Christian sepulchres at the Great 
 Oasis." 
 
 In the illustrations given by Wilkinson of the "enemies of the 
 Egyptians, " ^ taken from the sculptures at Thebes, there are shown 
 two groups of people who wear on their breasts, apparently sus- 
 pended by a cord around the neck, circular amulets, almost pre 
 cisely like the shell disks from our American Mounds, with the 
 same shaped crosses in the centre. ^ He says : "Enemies of Egypt, 
 wliose name is lost, were distingushed by their peculiar custom 
 * *. Round their neck, and falling upon their breasts, was a large 
 round amulet, very similar to those of the Dervishes of the East ; 
 in which they resembled the Assyrian captives of Tirhakah, repre- 
 sented on the walls of Medeenet Haboo." 
 
 In another place, describing the sculptures representing the 
 enemies of Egypt, he says ; ^ " The girdle was sometimes liiglily 
 ornamented ; men as well as women wearing ear-rings ; and they fre- 
 quently had a small cross suspended to a necklace, or to the collar 
 of the dress. The adoption of this last was not peculiar to them ; 
 it was also appended to, or figured on the robes of the Kot-n-n, and 
 traces of it may be seen in the ornaments of the Rebo, showing 
 that this very simple device was already in use as early as the 
 fifteenth century before the Christian era. " 
 
 1 Wilkinson's " Ancient Egyptians," p. ;391, vol. 1. 
 
 2 "Ancient Egj-ptians," p. 393, vol. 1. 
 
 3 "Ancient Egyptians," p. 396, vol. 1.
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 73 
 
 It must be remembered here that Sir Gardner Wilkinson is des- 
 cribing the sculpture of the ancient Egyptians as he saw it at 
 Thebes and other places ; and tbat we, in this work, are endeavoring 
 to compare relics discovered by ourselves in our ancient mounds, 
 not theories. A person who has worked for years may be permitted 
 to make comparisons, or show the analogy of his work to that of 
 some other, but a man without an original discovery is pretty bold 
 to go before the world with simply a theory. We do not know who 
 the Mound-Builders were, any more than we know who some of the 
 enemies of the Egyptians were, as sculptured on the rocks at 
 Thebes ; but we believe it to be worthy of notice, that another peo- 
 ple, in Asia, are known to have once worn some of the same peculiar 
 symbols that we find in the graves of the Mound- Builders of the 
 Mississippi Valley. These peculiar symbols were, by both the 
 Mound-Builders and by the race of people shown in the sculptures of 
 Thebes, carved on disks of shell, and worn suspended by a cord 
 from the neck. By examining the cuts of the three mound 
 disks, which were accurately engraved from photographs, one 
 will see at the top of each gorget the two holes by which they 
 were suspended; and to see how these were worn, turn to page 
 391, vol. 1, Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," and on one of these 
 " enemies " will be seen, suspended from his neck, a disk on which 
 is the figure of a peculiar double cross, just like the one on the left 
 of our engraving of the three mound disks. 
 
 We think it remarkable that the Egyptians, or in fact any people 
 of Asia, should have the same peculiar symbol of the cross as the 
 Mound-Builders ; but that both should have engraved this peculiar 
 symbol on the back of an insect, as a sacred emblem, is still more 
 suggestive, to say the least. Almost every form of the cross, revered 
 in the Old World in the ages past, is found common in the mounds 
 and ancient ruins of America. The cruel Spaniards, with the wicked 
 Catholic priests, who pillaged Mexico and mercilessly tortured 
 Montezuma, saw the Aztecs adoring the symbol of the cross. The 
 same may be said of the Toltecs and Peruvians ; in fact, so univer- 
 sally was it revered hy the ancient people of America, that Gomora, 
 the Spanish historian, says : " This veneration of the cross made 
 them more ready to adopt the Christian symbol." We do not care 
 to discuss here the relation of the more advanced races of Mexico, 
 Peru and other parts of the continent with the Mound-Builders 
 of the Mississippi Valley ; but merely remark that they seem to
 
 74 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 have inherited the same peculiar customs, and had a solar worship. 
 Common as were most of the forms of the cross in America, it is 
 not generally known that some of the more intricate forms were 
 frequent. What is known as tlie Maltese cross was common. Mr. 
 Edwin Barber, in the American Antiquarian for July, 1878, in an 
 article calling attention to the remarkable similarity, not only of the 
 shape, but of the very peculiar decorations of Pueblo pottery, to 
 the Greek and ancient Egyptian, says : " The Maltese cross, or a 
 device analogous to it, is very common to the Pueblo pottery of the 
 west, and is usually found decorating the centre of shallow bowls. 
 Figure 13 is a Greek design on the Pueblo pottery. It might also 
 be considered a modification of the East Indian or Buddhic ' suasti- 
 ka,' or what the Chinese call ' wautse.' " We reproduce his figure 
 from the Pueblo pottery. Also a somewhat similar device from a 
 
 .\ - i^/ 
 
 * V 
 
 Device from Pueblo Pottery. Device on Mound Pottery from Missouri. 
 
 beautiful piece of pottery from a mound in Missouri, Both of 
 these figures have the eight points of the Maltese cross. The one 
 on the right, from the mound pottery, has enclosed in its centre 
 another cross, common among mound objects, especially pottery, 
 and, as we have seen, on the shell gorgets. We have another vessel 
 in which this latter neat cross is reproduced, with the centre one 
 having still a third, like the one in the shell gorget, page 71. 
 
 Prof. F. W. Putnam, the enterprising and idefatigabU^ collector 
 who has made the Peabody Archaeological Museum of Hartford 
 College famous, gives in the fifteenth report of the Museum of which 
 he is curator, a number of illustrations of cruciform objects made of 
 copper, taken from ancient mounds in both North and South 
 America. These were worn on the breast suspended from the neck, 
 as amulets or symbolic adornments, in precisely the manner of the 
 '' enemies of the Egyptians, " as shown in the sculptures of ancient 
 Thebes.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Sculptured-Crosses from Mexico. —Symbolic Significance of the Cross.— Thk 
 Jaina Cross.— The Resemblance of some Mound Symbols.— Masonic Devices. 
 Ancient Earthworks in the form op Masonic Symbols.— The Circle, 
 Square and Triangle common forms with the Mound-Builders. —Masonry 
 
 HAD ITS ORIGIN IN SUN-WORSHIP.— BELZ0NI"S ToMB IN EGYPT.— MASONRY AN 
 
 Ancient Religion.— The Indians thought to be Masons.— The Hidden 
 History of Mankind. 
 
 l^ORD Kingsborough, in his " Antiquities of Mexico " gives 
 ^ illustrations of numbers of crosses found sculptured there, 
 aniono; which are the following: . 
 
 Ancient Crosses from Ruins in Mexico. 
 
 Of these Dr. Weisse, in his " The Obelisk and Freemasonry, '' 
 makes the following remarks : 'All crosses have more or less sym- 
 bolic significance. The third of these Mexican ones looks like a 
 cross of high importance in Masonry, because it is but a moditica- 
 tion of the cross used by the widely diffused order of Ishmael. It 
 has been found on Assyrian, Egyptian, Hindu, Trojan, Roman, 
 Mexican and Peruvian ruins. It has been called the Jaina cross, 
 because it is so highly cherished by the Hindu caste, named Jains. 
 It i.s even found on Gothic cathedrals and fortifications of Central 
 Europe ; so that its esoteric meaning must have been known to the 
 ancient dwellers of the Western Continent. " 
 
 Being a Knight Templar himself, the writer's attention has been 
 many times called to the resemblance of these cruciform devices to 
 Masonic emblems ; and it is indeed strange that there are few 
 Masonic emblems which can not be reproduced from the symbolic 
 devices of the Mound-Builders of the Mississippi Valley. Not only 
 are these symbolic devices, resembling those of Masonry, figured in 
 their hieroglyphics, on their burial vases, on their amulets and other 
 objects, but in the shape of vast earthworks, that are numerous 
 throughout our " Great Valley. " . Forms like those on page 76 
 are common in Ohio and elsewhere, in embankments of earth, %yhich 
 in some instances enclose many acres of ground. The circle, the
 
 76 RECORDS OB^ ANOIEJS^T RACES 
 
 square and the triangle were well known symbolic forms among 
 these ancient people. 
 
 A 
 
 Beside these symbols, we have seen quite enough, during our 
 explorations in the mounds, to warrant us in believing that many 
 of the religious observances of the Mound-Builders were analogous 
 to Masonic ceremonies. Were the Mound Builders Masons ? No ; 
 but they were Sun- Worshippers, and this worship was probably 
 the beginning of all religions, and the beginning of all society. 
 Masonic archaeologists have reason to believe that Masonry is 
 older than the Pyramids of Egypt, existing, peihaps, before there 
 were any structures of a public character, " when they met upon the 
 highest hills and in the lowest valle^^s, and worshipped the sun, the 
 all-seeing eye. " To-day, as an arch£eologist, we look at these 
 things just as we do on other antiquities. The ancient history of 
 Egypt carries with it the history of Masonry. Whoever has read 
 Mariette Bey's " Monuments of Upper Egypt " and the description of 
 Belzoni's tomb, will have an idea that when the Phoenicians laid the 
 foundations of Solomon's temple Masonry was a relic of antiquity, 
 and had been a religion for centuries before. 
 
 Nearly all the nations of the old world began their advancement 
 as Sun- Worshippers ; and it is a singular fact that some of these 
 ceremonies and superstitions still cling to us, even in our Christian 
 religion. 
 
 There is a tradition which we have seen in accounts of Eastern 
 history, that the Temple of Solomon was built by Phoenician work- 
 men after a copy of their own Temple of the Sun in Tyre, with the 
 difference that in the east the great burnished emerald which repre- 
 sented the sun was replaced in the Jewish temple by the " all-see- 
 ing eye. " 
 
 It is said that some of the early travelers among our Indian tribes 
 brought back the astonishing reports that some of the Indians, 
 from their ceremonies and symbols, must have some knowledge of 
 the Masonic fraternity. It is much more probable that Masonry 
 was derived from their old religion. 
 
 Ah! If we only knew from whom they learned to make the 
 sign of the cross, and the sj^mbols on their breast-gorgets, then 
 might we begin to unravel the hidden history of mankind.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 The Mississippi Valley once the Home of a Vast Population. — Their Towns, 
 Agkicdlture, Government, ^Esthetic Tastes. — The Ancient Sites of Towns 
 OCCUPIED NOW. — The Mound-Builders' Habits and Customs the result of 
 A Former Influence.— St. Louis the Site of an Ancient Town.— Illustra- 
 tion of a Group of Mounds in the City.— The Truncated Pyramids.— The 
 SINGULAR Triangular Earthwork.— Emblematic and Symbolic Mounds 
 OF Wisconsin. -The Sacred Circle. -The Sanctuary of the Sun-Worshippek. 
 — Human Sacrifices by the Mexicans and Grkeks. — The Sacred Pf;ntagon 
 a place of sacrifice.— a Sun Circle in Calhoun Co., Ills— Earth -Works 
 IN Ohio. 
 
 I^STITHAT the Mississippi Valley was once the home of a vast 
 %^^A.^ population, composed of tribes who had fixed habitations, 
 dwelt in large towns, practiced agriculture with a good degree of 
 method and skill ; who had a well-organized system of religious 
 rites and worship, and whose aesthetic tastes were far in advance of 
 the savage who roamed over her prairies and hill-ranges when her 
 great rivers were first navigated by white men, is, we are confident, 
 no difiicult matter to prove. " ^ 
 
 Mr. Brackenridge, who was an extensive traveller, and a man 
 of excellent judgment, in speaking of the ancient works in the Mis- 
 sissippi Valle}^ says : " It is worthy of observation that all these 
 vestiges invariably occupy the most eligible situations for towns or 
 settlements ; and on the Ohio and Mississippi they are most numer- 
 ous and considerable. There is hardly a rising town, or a farm of 
 an eligible situation, in whose vicinity some of these remains may 
 not be found. I have heard a surveyor of public lands observe that 
 wherever any of these remains were met with he was sure to find 
 an extensive body of fertile land." ^ 
 
 Brackenridge wrote of these things seventy-five years ago, but 
 the same holds good to day. Wherever there is a considerable 
 town on the bank of the Mississipi^i, it will be found to be built 
 upon the ruins of an older one, of the builders of which we know 
 not even the color, let alone the name, origin or condition. Perhaps 
 the last word ought not to have been written ; for we do know tlicir 
 •'condition;'' and whoever reads these pages will know something 
 
 I C<>n;int. 
 
 3 '• View.- (if Loui.-iuna. '"
 
 78 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 of tlieir manners and customs, even their religion, and will certainly 
 be impressed Avith the seeming fact that the Mound-Builder eitli«'r 
 was at one time an immigrant from other shores, or had his life- 
 destinies warped by those who were immigrants. 
 
 Even the city of St. Louis used to be, in early days, called " The 
 Mound City," from the number of ancient mounds on her site ; and 
 we can well remember of seeing these mounds in her streets when 
 a boy. We have relics that we dug out at the old Mound Market 
 thirty years ago. Brackenridge has described these nKumds, and 
 Beck, in his Gazeteer^ has a diagram, which Conant, in his " Foot- 
 prints," has improved upon. One group was arranged as follows : 
 
 Group of Mounds once Occupying the Site of St. Louis 
 
 There are seen here two of the large platform mounds so common 
 in the American Bottom and this region, — truncated pyramids,— 
 no doubt symbolic in their shape, and having an analogy with East- 
 ern pyramids. 
 
 But we wish to call attention to another earth-work which is sx)oken 
 of by the early writers, and is remembered by some old citizens as 
 once occupying a part of the site of the city. It is spoken of by 
 Conant. It is a triangular work, formed by three embankments 
 enclosing a circle, precisely like that we have figured from the rock 
 sculptures and paintings, the burial-vases, breast-gorgets and ob- 
 jects worn as talismans. There is the same all-seeing eye ; but here 
 the sacred circle is enclosed in a trianerle : 
 
 The work figured here is located in Iowa, on Root River, about 
 twenty miles west of the Mississippi. The central mound, in the 
 circle, is represented as being thirty-six feet in diameter and twelve 
 feet in height. The long embankments which form the sides of the 
 triangle were each one hundred and forty-four feet in length, and 
 were respectively three, four and five feet in height and twelve feet
 
 IX THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 79 
 
 in diameter. The work like this once existing on the site of St. 
 Louis was said to have been destroyed somewhere between 1835 
 and 1840. 
 
 All through Iowa, Wis- 
 consin, Minnesota and 
 the Northwest are seen 
 almost innumerable em- 
 blematic and symbolic 
 mounds, as if some off- 
 shoot, or outlying section 
 of the great nation of 
 Mound - Builders h a d 
 carried to a remarkable 
 degree the custom, not 
 only of mound-making, 
 but, very singularly, of 
 making their mounds 
 nearly all symbolic or emblematic in shape. 
 
 Pidgeon, in his interesting though somewhat vague " Traditions 
 of Dacoodah, " first brought them to the public notice ; followed by 
 Lapham's " Survey, " which has given us much information on the 
 
 subject. Still later, the Rev. 
 Steven D. Peet, of the 
 American Antiquarian, has 
 done a gieat deal more by 
 his illustrations of the Em- 
 blematic Mounds of Wis- 
 consin. 
 
 Pidgeon gives a cut of 
 an interesting one of these 
 works on the Kickapoo Riv- 
 er, Wisconsin. The central 
 work, with radiating points, 
 is sixty feet in diameter and 
 three feet in height. This is 
 enclosed by five crescent- 
 shaped works having an ele- 
 vation of two feet, and all presenting a level surface at the top. 
 Pidgeon supposes this work to have been occupied during sacrificial 
 festivities consequent upon the offering of human sacrifices to the sun,
 
 80 
 
 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 which the central mound, with its rays, represented. He explored this 
 mound; and after removing the soil from the top, the central portion, 
 for the space of twelve feet in diameter, was found thickly studded 
 with plates of mica set in white sand and blue clay. The observer 
 adds that, " had this soil been removed with care, and th 3 stratum 
 beneath washed by a few heavy showers of rain, under the sun's 
 rays it would have presented no unapt symbolical representation 
 of that luminary. " 
 
 It is very natural to suppose that the ancient Sun-Worshippers 
 •would sometimes shape their sanctuaries in the form of the great 
 luminary. Mexicans and other peoples of this religion have been 
 seen to offer human sacrifices in a blaze of fire upon their altars. 
 Some of the Spaniards were compelled to witness this in the great 
 Temple of the Sun in Mexico. 
 
 Homer says that at the celebration of the burial of Patroclus. 
 Achilles sacrificed twelve Tro- 
 jans by burning them to ashes. 
 And a mound was raised over 
 the remains of Achilles' friend 
 in precisely the way mounds 
 were made in the Mississippi 
 Valley. 
 
 In the vicinity of this sun- 
 mound in Wisconsin, the same 
 author describes and figures 
 another one, which he calls 
 "The Sacred Pentagon." The 
 outer circle in this work is 
 twelve hundred feet in diam- 
 eter. 
 
 Excepting the five angles forming the pentagon, there is a work 
 almost exactly such as this in the lowlands on the point in Calhoun 
 Co., Ills., where the Illinois river enters the Mississii^pi. The outer 
 circle in this work is nearly a mile in circumference. The central 
 mound, and the mound guarding the outer opening or gateway, are 
 still intact. 
 
 Extensive earth-works, in the form of circles, squares, triangles, 
 and other forms, are common in Ohio. We were reared, as were our 
 parents before us, almost in sight of that great work on the Little 
 Miami river, known as "Fort Ancient." 
 
 The Sacred Pentagon.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Were the Earthworks for Defensive Purposes? — The Tradition that an 
 Eclipse of the Sun caused a Change in the Ceremonies of the Mound- 
 Builders. — Historic Mounds. — Illu.stration of a group of Hieroglyphic 
 or Record Mounds. — Their description. — Contemporaries of Mound- 
 Makers. — The great number of Emblematic Mounds in Wisconsin. — The 
 Advance made by Some of the Mound-Builders toward Civilization.— The 
 Emblematic Mounds op Wisconsin the Last of the Race. — Did the Effigy 
 Builders know the Buffalo? — Effigy Mound, representing a Man. — Com- 
 bination Mound. — An Am algamation Group of Mounds ; reciting History. — 
 PiDGEoN, The author of " The Traditions of Dacoodah," who he was and 
 
 WHERE he lived AND DIED. 
 
 
 T used to be thought that these earth-works were erected for 
 defensive purposes, and some of the larger ones in Ohio may 
 possibly have been utilized for such purposes. Some of those in 
 Ohio, like Fort Ancient, occupy commanding positions ; and were 
 the embankments surmounted with well-planted pickets, with strong 
 gates at the en trance- ways, they would have made strong positions 
 against an enemy. But some of these works we have seen are con- 
 tiguous to high bluffs, from which a warrior could have landed his 
 arrows inside the intrenchments. From a military point of view 
 some of the positions of these works are poor. Those we have 
 figured were quite probably for religious or other ceremonial 
 purposes. 
 
 Pidgeon gives a tradition, which he says he had from an old 
 Indian prophet, which is very interesting, notwithstanding this sort 
 of traditional lore is not very reliable. The Indian asserted that 
 there was a change in their mode of burial in obedience to the com- 
 mand of the prophets, for the reason that, while the people were 
 burning the body of a great and good chief, suddenly the sun, their 
 chief deity, refused to shine, although there was not a cloud in the 
 sky. This was taken as a sign of disapprobation of the custom, 
 which gradually ceased thereafter. 
 
 It is very easy to believe that incidents like this might make such 
 an impression on a people as to change even a national custom. 
 Especially would it impress a people who had met together to burn 
 the dead body of a great and good ruler, offering his remains to the 
 sun, if the sun should disappear, or be eclipsed, in a cloudless sky.
 
 82 
 
 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 Even in this advanced age, our people have not entirely rid them- 
 selves of superstition, quite possibly inherited ; and if an eclipse 
 was to occur to-day, unheralded and unannounced, consternation 
 would seize upon the larger part of us. 
 
 The same author gives a description and illustration of an inter- 
 esting group of mounds situated on the north side of the St. Peter's 
 river, about sixty miles above its junction with the Mississippi, in 
 what was then the Territory of Minnesota. He describes it thus : 
 
 b 
 
 @ ^ 9 
 
 The central embankment, in the form of a tortoise, is forty feet in 
 length, twenty- seven in breath, and twelve i*n perpendicular height. 
 It is composed in part of yellow clay, brought from some distant 
 place. The two pointed mounds north and south of this are formed 
 of pure red earth, covered with alluvial soil. Each is twenty-seven 
 feet in length and six in height at the largest end, gradually nar- 
 rowing and sinking at the top until they terminate in a point. 
 The four corner mounds were each twelve feet iiigh and twenty-five 
 feet in diameter at the base. The two long mounds on the east and 
 west sides of the group were sixty feet in length, twelve feet in 
 diameter, and eight feet high. Tlie two mounds on the immediate 
 right and left of the central Q^gy were twelve feet long, six feet 
 wide and four feet in height. They were composed of sand mixed
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 83 
 
 with small bits of mica to the dejDth of two feet, and covered with 
 white clay, with a layer of surface soil on the top. The large 
 mound in the centre, south of the efiigy, was twelve feet high and 
 twenty-five feet in diameter, conii)osed of a stratum of sand two 
 feet in depth, covered with a mixture of sandy soil and blue clay. 
 The similar work on the north of the tortoise was of like formation, 
 four feet high and twenty-two feet in diameter. 
 
 We agree with Mr. Conant i when he says that "this cluster of 
 mounds, twenty-six in number, presenting such variety of forms 
 and peculiar arrangement, and which must have required so much 
 time and labor for their construction, must convince the observer 
 that they were intended to perpetuate some history, and that each 
 of the hieroglyphic symbols of which the group is composed had 
 its special significance, which was well understood by the builders 
 and [maybe] their cotemporaries. " 
 
 And since it may occur to many of our readers to ask why we 
 speak of cotemporaries, wo will simply say that it is now a com- 
 mon belief among archseologists that America has been inhabited 
 by people coming from more than one source ; yet during the age 
 in which the Mound-Builders were paramount, there were, as we 
 have before remarked, outer branches or colonies, lacking very 
 much the advancement of the mother and central stock, that carried 
 symbolism to the extreme, as seen in the earth-works of Wisconsin 
 and the Northwest. 
 
 The emblematic mounds of Wisconsin are very puzzling, and 
 have awakened more curiosity and elicited more unsatisfactory 
 speculations than any class of earthworks. There is hardly a 
 desirable alluvial bottom, or a piece of arable upland in this re- 
 gion, but that it has been occupied before. So with the sites of the 
 cities and towns along the Mississippi, in Illinois, Missouri, 
 Arkansas and Tennessee, once preoccupied by the Mound-Builders, 
 — a people so much advanced as to live by agriculture mainly, and 
 reside in large communities, leaving special evidence of elevation 
 in their really artistic ceramics, showing an advance toward re- 
 finement, as well as in their great earth -works at Cahokia and 
 elsewhere, showing an advance in the concentration of govern- 
 mental powers and national control, even though it may have been 
 through a blind religious bigotry. Any religion, in the early stages 
 
 1 " Footprints of Vanished Races," p. 19.
 
 84 
 
 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 of the history of mankind, has "been for advancement, simply 
 because it furnished a means of control, a law. So the earth-works 
 of the Northwest show the beginning of an advancement in this 
 line, commencing later, and being very much weaker. This colony, 
 priest-led and given up almost wholly to the work of emblematic 
 representation, flourished a while, probably by consent or acqui- 
 escense of the invader, until the end came, and the savage red Indian 
 occupied the whole land ; which was divided between bands hostile 
 to one another. 
 
 Emblematic Mound in Wisconsin, 
 
 Somehow we have received the impression that the builders of the 
 emblematic mounds of Minnesota were the last of their rac(^ and 
 kind. We have, during the last thirty years, explored mounds from 
 Lake Winnepeg to Florida, and the imj)ression grows with us that 
 the most recent mounds are in the Northwest. It maybe yet shown 
 that some of these people were endeavoring to retreat in the direc- 
 tion from whence they came. 
 
 Although the emblematic mounds of Wisconsin, like the mound 
 pipes of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, together with the mound pot- 
 tery of Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee, give an almost 
 complete representation of the animals and birds of the region, 
 we have as yet been unable to recognize any of those ])re- 
 glacial, or glacial creatures, such as the mastodon and elephant, 
 whose remains are so common in the glacial clays. Emblematic 
 mounds representing these proboscidians probably exist only in
 
 j#ii*Mi 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ V I 
 
 Emblematic Mounds in Wisconsin. — Scale, loo feet to an inch.
 
 86 
 
 KECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 the imagination. Elephant pijjes, like those of DavenjDort, are 
 quite probably frauds by which new and credulous investigators 
 have been led astray. We have had an opportunit}^ to examine these 
 pipes carefully. We make it a point, as a naturalist as well as an 
 archaeologist, that in the emblematic mounds of Wisconsin we have 
 the only evidence — and this, even, is not beyond question, since the 
 forms are certainly vague, — that our Mound-Builders knew the 
 buffalo, an animal of such value and importance to the later Indian. 
 
 Effigies on College Campus at Waukesha, Wi: 
 
 The college at Waukesha, in Wisconsin, is built upon the site of 
 an ancient Mound-Builder's town, and all about it are the curious 
 earthen effigies. We give an illustration.
 
 IX THE MISSISSIPPI yallp:y. 
 
 87 
 
 In this group tlie effigy mounds, as seen, are ke])t carefully in-e- 
 served and protected from any injur}^, as mementoes of one of the 
 ancient races that once inhabited the region. 
 
 At Lake Monona is another interesting group, showing the effigies 
 of birds and animals, together with an example of the parallel em- 
 
 Effigy Movjnd at Lake Monona, Wis. 
 
 bankments of which we have spoken in a preceding chapter. 
 We are indebted, for permission to use these fine plates of some of 
 the effigy mounds of Wisconsin, to our friend, the Rev. Steven D. 
 Peet, Editor of the American Antiquarian^ and well known, not only 
 in America but in Europe, as an antiquarian and ethnologist. 
 
 One of a G:ojp of Mounds near the Wisconsin River. 
 
 On the following page we give another illustration of the emblem- 
 atic mounds at Crawfordsville, on the Fox River, in Wisconsin. 
 In this cut can be seen the forms of birds and animals and other
 
 uo 
 
 RECORDS OF AjSTCIENT RACES 
 
 Bird and Beast. 
 
 These human effigies are sometimes a hundred feet or more in length, 
 and show the body in various positions or in connection with some 
 other effigy. 
 
 Here is another, seeming to be a combination of forms, it may be 
 of bird and beast. This was one hundred and eighty feet in 
 length and forty-four in its greatest breadth. The 
 whole was comjDosed of a reddish clay, covered over 
 with black alluvium to the depth of a foot, most prob- 
 ably the result of the decay of vegetation on the eurface 
 during the lapse of a considerable number of years, 
 certainly some centuries. 
 
 Birds are a common feature of these effigies, and 
 various attitudes of the different birds are depicted — 
 eagles and other birds of prey, as shown by their 
 hooked beaks; water-fowl ; snipes with their long bills, 
 some in full flight and others with wings closed or 
 partly extended. Animals of almost all descriptions 
 native to the locality are shown in all sorts of postures, 
 some singly, and others in droves or processions. Some of these are 
 combined with the human form, as is shown in the cut below. 
 
 This curious group is one of the most complicated and enigmatical 
 found. The part of the figure representing the beast is one hundred 
 
 and eighty feet in 
 length. The human 
 efS.gy perpendicular 
 to it is one hundred 
 and sixty feet long. 
 On either side of the 
 upper and horizontal 
 figure, is a truncated 
 mound eighteen feet 
 in diameter and six 
 feet in height. The 
 summits of both are 
 flat. The representa- 
 tions of horns, which are very distinct, are of different dimensions. 
 The main stem of the front horn is eighteen feet in length ; the 
 one which inclines backward is twelve. Tlie longest antlers are 
 six feet long, and the shortest, three. At the foot of the human 
 ef^gy is attached an embankment, running parallel with the hori- 
 
 Amalgamation Group,
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
 
 91 
 
 zontal figure, eighty feet in length, twenty-seven in diameter, and 
 six in height. On a line with this is a series of conical mounds, 
 the largest of which is also twenty-seven feet in diameter and six 
 in height. From this the others diminish on either side, and termi- 
 nate in mounds eighteen feet in diameter and three in height. 
 
 This is one of the best of the curious 
 effigy mounds of Wisconsin ; the meaning 
 of which, as given by Pidgeon, is so plain, 
 and withal so very natural, that we give it. 
 He calls it an amalgamation group, and 
 says it was designed as a public record 
 and seal of the amalgamation of two na- 
 tions or tribes, the Elk and the Buft'alo ; 
 which is expressed in the union of the 
 heads and the joining of the foot of one 
 with the foot or hand of the other. 
 
 Mr. Pidgeon, the author of the '' Tradi- 
 tions of Dacoodah," from which work we 
 have taken the last and two preceding 
 illustrations, was an old gentleman of very 
 unobtrusive and retiring disposition, who 
 resided for a number of years, in the later 
 part of life, in Calhoun Co., Illinois, where 
 he died. We made his accquaintance but 
 a short time before his death. He seemed, 
 from what we saw, to be modest and truth- 
 ful, though somewhat imaginative ; and we 
 may say we never had reason to doubt his sincerity 
 
 was quite religiously inclined, 
 the Indians, but seemed not 
 among his white neighbors. 
 
 Human Effigy (See p. S^}. 
 
 In fact he 
 He spent years of his life among 
 to care for intimate acquaintance 
 and not to have been personally 
 known among archseological writers and* investigators of the day. 
 We make this statement because we have received numerous letters 
 of inquiry as to our acquaintance with the author of that most in- 
 teresting work, '' The Traditions of Dacoodah. " It seems that the 
 obscurity of the author impaired the value of the work. Neither 
 can we say that we could vouch for its reliability. Nor do we 
 agree with him in his theories. Yet we believe his work has both 
 truth and merit in it.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 The Emblematic Mounds of Wisconsin not so Old. — Small Mounds numerous 
 IN THE Northwest. — The most Modern Mounds in Dakota. — Mounds con- 
 nected BY Curious Paths made of Buffalo Bones.— Exploration of some of 
 these in the Dakota Valley. — The Age op the Mounds. — The Age of the 
 Bone Paths. — Relics from these Mounds. — The Shape of the Skulls. — The 
 Many Different-Shaped Skulls. — Long Skulls. — Small Size of the Skulls. 
 — A singular Human Skull from a Cahokia Mound. — Compressed Skulls. — 
 The Neanderthal Skull as compared with some of our Mound-Builders'. 
 — A singular Skull from a Mound in Missouri. — Skulls from the Pottery 
 Mounds. — Broad, Thick Skulls.— Unequal Size of the Lobes. — Egyptian 
 Skulls.— Curious Story by Herodotus. 
 
 'E have remarked that we have reason to believe the emblem- 
 atic mounds of Wisconsin to be of more recent date than 
 the earth-works of Ohio and those of which we have written, in Illi- 
 nois and the Mississippi Valley below. The collections we have seen, 
 from Wisconsin and the region about, are not rich in remains. One 
 single mound in the American Bottom would possibly reveal more 
 indications of extensive acquaintance, in which barter, trade and 
 really a sort of aboriginal commerce is plainly perceptible ; many 
 indications of this character, together with the massive proportions 
 of the earth-works, evidencing a strength in the people that was 
 lacking in Wisconsin. 
 
 Small mounds are numerous in the Northwest ; and in our ex- 
 cavations in them we somehow received the impression that they 
 were made by a people who had survived some greater condition in 
 the past. In fact the most modern mounds we have noted are in the 
 Northwest, in Dakota. Along the streams in the valley of the 
 Dakota or James river, mounds are common, and what is most 
 singular, we have seen groups of them paved over with bones of the 
 buffalo. A few years ago, our attention was called to these mounds 
 by some surveyors we met in St. Paul, who were laying out the 
 township lines in the valley of the James river, then a complete 
 wilderness of prairies. Returning with the surveyors, we spent 
 many days exploring the mounds. The mounds differed but little 
 from those of Illinois and Missouri in shape and appearance. They 
 were from six to twelve feet in height and oval in shape. But what 
 was most singular was the paths of bone connecting one mound
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 98 
 
 with another. These paths were made of the leg-bones of the buf- 
 falo, which are very heavy and strong. The bones were laid side by 
 side, touching each other, and imbedded in the ground so that only 
 the upper surface was exposed ; and on the gentle slopes of the prai- 
 rie, for miles away, we could plainly discern the slim white lines 
 from one mound to another. The bones had been placed neatly and 
 with some precision, and were firmly imbedded in the hard earth, 
 which was a sort of cement of gravel and soil. One of these paths 
 was nearly a mile in length, imbedded in the hard gravel, and as we 
 walked over it there was a metallic ring to our footsteps and not a 
 
 vuaur. 
 
 NORTH . v^iiUilujii^- ^--''' 
 
 ^^^^,«.x ',m,m^ •n,„^^^^^^ 
 
 f^W^'' ■ euwuS^ 
 
 ^y„v»:x; 
 
 Paths of Buffalo Bones in Dakota. 
 
 single bone was displaced. Improbable as it may seem, v/e were 
 impressed with the seeming fact that these paths had been made 
 many years ago ; how long, of course, we could not tell, but certain- 
 ly not beyond the age of a man. Our explorations in the mounds, 
 which were difficult of excavation on account of the dry, cemented 
 nature of the gravelly soil, revealed the remains of the persons 
 buried in the mounds. Tlie skulls, of which we brought away a 
 number, were very much like those of tlie present Indians. There 
 was an axe of diorite, and another of green-stone, both quite small 
 and rude ; several rude flint arrow-points, quite similar to those 
 found in Illinois ; but not a single thing to awaken any suspicion of 
 connection with the whites. 
 
 Only the singular and pretty paths of the buffalo-bones indicated 
 a modern origin. These might have been placed there — and pro- 
 bably were — long years after the mounds were built. But they 
 showed to me one fact conclusively : that some one in recent times 
 had an interest in tbem and perhaps a knowledge of their history, 
 and could have, possibly, given some information in regard to the 
 buildeis.
 
 94 RECORDS OF ANOIEjS^T RACES 
 
 We have the skulls referred to ; and they seem to hav^ a sort 
 of modern Indian look; but we have foisnd so many skulls in 
 mounds, of such a variety of types, and skulls in individuals pre- 
 sent such a difference of outline, size, etc., that we hopelessly gave 
 up the attempt to classify them some time ago. 
 
 In our collection of more than two hundred of human crania 
 from the mounds, we have all the different tj^pes, and have been 
 unable to select any special one that we could with confidence 
 denominate as peculiar to these ancient people. We have found in 
 the same mound, high skulls and low ones, long, narrow ones, and 
 short, broad ones, to use the more common and in some respects 
 more sensible terms. 
 
 From some of the larger and older mounds near the mouth of the 
 Illinois Hiver we have taken a number of long, narrow skulls, not 
 numerous enough to make a ruling type ; but they were in large 
 works, and from the surroundings must have belonged to persons 
 of importance, perhaps rulers among their people. 
 
 We have never taken a skull from a mound, neither have we seen 
 one known to be the remains of a Mound-Builder, any larger than 
 an average European skull of the present day. Ou'V experience is 
 that our mound skulls have a smaller average in size as compared 
 with the European. 
 
 One of the largest skulls we have seen, from a mound, was in the 
 Cahokia group of mounds. It is figured in our " Antiquities of 
 Cahokia. " With it were found some splendid burial vases, 
 ornaments and other objects, that induced us to believe its owner 
 must have been a chief or ruler ; at least a person of note. He had 
 been a large man, perhaps six feet in height. His skull, which I 
 preserved, by drying with care and soaking in a solution of gela- 
 tine, was of good size, unusually thick and strong. It was chiefly 
 remarkable, however, for its shape. Tlie whole upper part of the 
 skull was flattened, and it bulged out in lobes behind on either side. 
 The forehead was almost annihilated, being nearly level with the back 
 part, like the skull of a beast. The ridges over the eyes were 
 enormous, like great battlements over the deep cavities of the eyes, 
 which must have been large. In this respect it most resembled the 
 celebrated Neanderthal skull. We say it was flat on top. We 
 perhaps could better describe it by saying horizontal or level ; for it 
 was not in the full sense flat, as though it had been formed in that 
 way by having a piece of board bound on top of the head, after the
 
 IN THE 3IISSTSSIPPI VALLEY. 95 
 
 fashion of the modern Flat-Head Indians. It was gently rounded, 
 and I was nnable to decide that the form of this singular skull had 
 been produced artificially. The under jaw was large; the teeth 
 were strong, large and deeply imbedded in their sockets, although 
 not all sound ; the Mound-Builders, as a rule, seeming not to have 
 had sound, perfect teeth. Nor did they always articulate, as is the 
 case with most of the later Indians. 
 
 This old Mound-Builder,— for the teeth show he lived to mature 
 age,— must have presented a singular appearance wlien living, with 
 his great head, and brain of more than average size among his fel- 
 lows, a fitting fellow for him of Neanderthal. And how they could 
 have glared at each other ! How savage he was of course we do not 
 know ; perhaps not like a savage at all ; for he lived, as his sur- 
 roundings would indicate, like those from the tombs of Egypt, 
 amid government, religion and some degree of art, if we consider 
 the pottery to show the latter. We can not believe he was an idiot, 
 notwithstanding the shape of his head. 
 
 We have found a numb<T of skulls of this shape, not so large nor 
 so pronounced. We figure one from a mound in Missouri. The 
 skull was so much decayed as not to be preserved in perfect condi- 
 tion, yet still the upper 
 part is sufficiently shown 
 to give one an idea of the 
 shape. This skull also 
 gives indications of having 
 once held a large brain. 
 Although not so heavy 
 and strong as the one pre- ., „. „ . ^^ ^ 
 
 ^ -^ Skull from Missouri Mound. 
 
 viously described, in its 
 
 shape it is remarkably like the old European cave-dweller's cranium 
 
 from the cave of Neanderthal. 
 
 While we have found a number of crania of this form, and have 
 seen others like them in the cabinets of collectors, we are not quite 
 prepared to consider these long skulls as a distinctive type that 
 might be used to show a national affinity. There is, however, 
 another class of skulls very much more numerous, that may be a 
 type, if their numbers may be used to indicate such. They are 
 common in what we call the pottery mounds, — for all mounds do 
 not contain jjottery, — but more especially in this class if found in 
 the central and southern Mississippi Valley. These are short, broad
 
 98 
 
 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 Indians, in fact, do seem to have a pecnliar type of skull, and their 
 skulls are found almost everywhere along the streams in the valley 
 of the Mississippi; this people having a custom of burying their 
 dead in shallow graves on the bluffs and ridges of the highlands 
 adjacent to the rivers. These skulls are well described by Dr. 
 Foster. ^ " The brain case is box-like, with the corners rounded off; 
 
 the occiput extends up vertically; the frontal ridge is prominent; 
 the cerebral vault is pyramidal ; the interparietal diameter is great ; 
 the supercilliary ridges and zymatic arches sweep out beyond the 
 general line of the skull ; the orbits are quadrangular ; the forehead 
 is low ; the cheek bones high ; and the jaws prognathous. 
 
 "His character, since first known to the white man, has been 
 signalized by treachery and cruelty. He was never known to volun- 
 tarily engage in an enterprise requiring methodical labor ; he dwells 
 in temporary and movable habitations ; he follows the game in their 
 migrations ; he imposes the drudgery of life upon his squaw ; he 
 takes no heed for the future. To suppose that such a race threw up 
 the earth-works and symmetrical mounds on our river terraces, is as 
 preposterous, almost, as to suppose they built the Pyramids of 
 Egypt. " 
 
 1 " Prehistoric Races of America.
 
 CHArTER XXI. 
 
 Similarity of the Mounds of America and other Countries.— iSuPERiORiTY of 
 THE Mound-Builders over the Indiajsis.— The Heroes of Troy.— America's 
 Dead Nation without a History.— Extensive Acquaintance and Trade 
 OF the Mound-Builders.— Mounds Common over the World —An Egyptian 
 and an American Landscape Compared— Pyramids in the United States.— 
 Mounds on the Caiiokia Bottom.— The Great Pyramid of Caiiokia.— Its 
 Description.— The American Bottom and its Ancient Ruins— A Descrip- 
 tion of the Mounds in 1811.— The Group op Mounds Surrounding- the 
 Pyramid.— Origin and Use of the Great Cahokia JSIounds— The Temple 
 • OF the Sun in Mexico, and the Mounds Surrounding it. -The Sacrifices 
 BY the Mexicans.— Artificial Ponds about Cahokia.— The Size of Caiiokia 
 Compared with the Pyramids op Egypt.— Puzzling Points of Analogy.— 
 The Sacred Shells from Cahokia.— The Reversed Shells of Buddha 
 Found in Our Mounds.— Our Pyramids Straight with the Points of the 
 CoMPASS.-rDiD the Indians Know the Direction from Stars ? 
 
 ^^OWEVER satisfactory tlte history of symbolism in Europe 
 ^t^ and Asia may be, yet to the student of Archaeology it may 
 fail to account for the presence of these symbols on this continent. 
 We are constantly puzzled by these analogies, although they serve 
 to make us more observing in our researches. 
 
 Like Schliemann, we commence digging again; and it is to be 
 noted how strangely similar are the results of one of these days of 
 labor, notwithstanding the distance that intervenes. Scliliemann 
 is digging in a mound in full view of the Hellespont and the ^gean 
 Sea, under the official eye of a Turk. We are digging in a mound 
 on the banks of the Mississippi, on another continent, until a com- 
 paratively recent date unknown. When discovered by Columbus it 
 was inhabited by a race of people without any history ; in the 
 Valley of the Mississippi these people were living on the ruins of 
 still another people, of whom they had no knowledge whatever. 
 For it is an established fact that our American Indians have no 
 knowledge of their own origin, nor of the fate of the Mound-Builders 
 who preceded them. We know that a strong effort has been made, 
 worthy a better cause, to establish the fact that our American 
 Indians are descendants of the Mound Builders. But even if this 
 were proven, which we are loth to believe, we do not see how it 
 affects our American archaeology. We still have the same question, 
 Who were the Mound-Builders ?
 
 100 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 The later Indians, when discovered by Columbus, were called 
 savages, because they had none of the arts and were almost if not 
 quite without an established government or religion. That the 
 Mound-Builders were a superior people we think is clearly proven. 
 in the remains of their extensive earth- works, which quite clearly 
 indicate an established government and a religion. Also, from 
 evidences before us, we believe they had some knowledge of tlieir 
 own origin and history. It is indeed singular that the Indians of 
 this country should have no knowlege whatever of the fate of the 
 Mound-Builders, especially so if the latter were their forefathers. 
 
 Schliemann, in his trenches on the mound of Hissarlik, is searching 
 for the tombs of the heroes of Troy. Their story has been told by a 
 historian whose soul was inspired with the harmony of the poet*; 
 and who, almost as proud of his powers of description as he was of 
 his heroes and heroines, passed them in procession back and forth 
 before us, as though he would have us know each one personally. 
 No heroes, perhaps, in all the world are better known than Priam 
 and his valiant sons, and those with whom they fought on the Trojan 
 plain three thousand years ago. ' 
 
 In our trenches in the mounds on the bank of our great river, w(^ 
 are simply searching for a bit of history. Our heroes have no name. 
 The Mound-Builder kings, if such there were, have gone down into 
 the tomb enveloped in the silence of oblivion. A dead nation with- 
 out a history. No, not wholly without a history, because here are 
 his weapons and implements of stone ; his agricultural implements 
 and a great number of tools, all of stone ; these tell us he lived in 
 the stone age. There are pieces of iron ore, and some of lead, but 
 he did not know even how to melt the lead ore, bub used it as a 
 stone. The only metal he knows is the soft native copper, which he 
 pounds into shape for a weapon or an ornament. There are beautiful 
 sea-shells, mica from the far eastern mountains, obsidian from the 
 distant regions in the West; so that we know he had quite a:i 
 extensive acquaintance; probably travelled far up and down thj 
 river, and had a sort of commerce. Is that all ? 
 
 No! There are some pretty sculptured stone objects that we are 
 satisfied are sacred and devoted to his religion ; and, last but not 
 least, there are the beautiful burial vas(^s of tempered clay, that 
 bear the most vivid and artistic devices ; which have such a familiar 
 look, that, without r^i-fiecting, in our ecstacy we exclaim, "Why, we 
 know him ! " Before we knew his family we had nearly claimed hira
 
 ir^ THIO MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 101 
 
 kinsman, because our forefather, we know, in the distant past, was 
 girt with skins, and carried a stone axe for a weapon, though lie 
 afterward wore a helmet and strode over the field before Ilium, and 
 may be had a tilt with some of Priam's sons, in the gloaming, thirty 
 centuries ago. 
 
 All over the world primitive men have made earthen mounds over 
 their dead ; and Homer, describing the burning of the body of Hector 
 and the building of a great mound over the ashes, describes just 
 what was practiced by our American Mound-Builders. Many of the 
 customs of the Mound-Builders were similar to those of the Greeks, 
 and which are traced through them back to the Egyptians. One 
 usually recognizes an Egyptian landscape by seeing in the back- 
 giound a pyramid ; and Egypt and the pyramid seem to be insep- 
 arable. Yet America has many pyramids. They are common in 
 Mexico, 1 and some of them rival in size those of Egypt. They are 
 also found in Central and South America, and some of these are 
 faced with stone and have all the peculiarities of the Egyptian 
 structures, even to the singular openings to chambers within. 
 
 There are many pyramids in the United States, regular, perfect 
 pyramids of earth, and not faced with stone. One of the largest of 
 these is situated on the level plain of that rich piece of low land 
 bordering the Mississippi opposite the city of St. Louis, and known 
 as the American Bottom. In the midst of this plain, where its 
 width is ten to twelve miles, there are still t(j be seen the remains of 
 a Mound-Builders' city, that in the majesty and extent of its ruins 
 will vie with any in the world. In the centre of a great mass of 
 mounds and earth-works there stands a mighty pyramid, whose 
 base covers nearly sixteen acres of ground. It is not exactl}" 
 square, being a parallelogram, a little longer north and south than 
 east and west. Some thirty feet above the base, on the south side, 
 is an apron or terrace, on which now grows an orchard of consider- 
 able size. This terrace is approached from the plain by a graded 
 roadway. Thirty feet above this terrace, and on the west side, is 
 another, much smaller, and on which are now growing some forest 
 trees. The top, which contains an acre and a half, is divided into 
 two nearly equal parts, the northern ^art being four or five feet the 
 highest. The height of this structure is about one hundred feet, 
 from actual measurement. On the north, east and south the stru^- 
 
 1 Foster's •• Prehistoric Races, '" p. 18(5.
 
 104 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 struck with a degree of astonishment not unlike that which is ex- 
 perienced in contemplating the Egyptian pyramids. What a stn- 
 pendous pile of earth ! To heap up such a mass must have required 
 years, and the labor of thousands. It stands immediately on the 
 bank of the Cahokia, and on the side next it is covered with lofty 
 trees. Were it not for the regularity and design it manifests, the 
 circumstance of it being on alluvial ground, and the other mounds 
 scattered around it, we would scarcely believe it to be the work of 
 human j^ands. 
 
 " The shape is that of a parallelogram, standing north and south. 
 On the south side there is a broad apron or step, and from this 
 another projection into the plain, about fifteen feet wide, which was 
 probably intended as an ascent to the mound. This step or terrace 
 has been used for a kitchen-garden by some monks of La Trappe, 
 settled near this, and the top of the structure is sown in wheat. 
 Nearly west was another of smaller size, and forty others were scat- 
 tered about on the plain. Two were seen on the bluff at a distance of 
 three miles. Some of the mounds are almost conical ; as the sward 
 had been burned, the earth was perfectly naked and I could trace 
 with ease any unevenness of the surface, so as to discover whether it 
 was artificial or accidental. 
 
 "I everywhere observed a great number of small elevations of 
 earth, to the height of a few feet, at regular distances from each 
 other, and which appeared to observe some order ; near them I also 
 observed pieces of flint and fragments of earthen vessels. I con- 
 cluded that a populous city had once existed here, similar to those of 
 Mexico, described by the first conquerors. The mounds were sites 
 of temples or monuments to great men." 
 
 The largest of the Cahokia group, thus described by Brackenridge, 
 was occupied for a time by a colony of monks of the order of La 
 Trappe, who devoted themselves to silence, seclusion and a strictly 
 vegetable diet. They soon succumbed to the malarial influences of 
 the climate. Some died, and the remaining ones returned whence 
 they came. The great mound, among the early settlers at this time, 
 was known as the Monks' Mound. Subsequently, one of the white 
 settlers bought the land, and, thinking to be above the malaria, 
 built a larger residence on top of the structure, and made the well 
 spoken of on the second terrace.- The mounds now generally are 
 known as the Cahokia Mounds, from the name of the crt?ek on
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 105 
 
 wliich they are situated, as well as the name of a tribe of Indians 
 found living on its banks on the advent of the whites. 
 
 As before remarked, we have surveyed this group, and find that 
 the great pyramid is surrounded by seventy-two others of consid- 
 erable size, within a distance of less than two miles from the great 
 structure in the centre. The group, however, continues down the 
 Cahokia to the bank of the Mississippi, and was probably connected 
 with those across the river, now the site of St. Louis. Besides the 
 larger ones of which we speak, and of which there are considerably 
 more than a hundred, there was, as Brackenridge remarks, a great 
 number of smaller ones, some of which are now almost obliterated in 
 the cultivated fields. Immediately about the great structure the 
 mounds are of large size, and are nearer together. The majority of 
 these are square, and still retain their proportions ; their sides, in 
 some instances, being too steep to admit of ploughing. These are 
 from twenty to fifty feet in height, and are utilized by the owners of 
 the land as building-sites. Their size may be inferred from the fact 
 that in several instances the farmer's residence, barns and all the 
 out-buildings, together with the kitchen-garden, find ample room on 
 the summits of some of these huge platforms and truncated pyra- 
 mids. A few of the mounds in this group are oval ; but we have 
 observed only one that is conical. 
 
 Earthen mounds are common in Egypt; and there is hardly a 
 doubt that their great stone-faced pyramids, like those of Mexico, 
 were erected for religious purposes, and used as tombs for the great 
 on rare occasions. The Egyptians, like most of the nations of the 
 old world, began with solar worhip. So were the Mexicans, Peruvi- 
 ans, and our own Mound-Builders, worshippers of the sun. After 
 many days' explorations and study amoung the Cahokia mounds, 
 we believe that the evidence tends to prove this group of the great- 
 est mounds on this continent, and perhaps in the world, had its 
 origin in religious purposes, and quite possibly this was the Mecca, 
 or grand central shrine of the Mound-Builders' empire. Upon the 
 fiat summit of the pj'ramid, one hundred feet above the plain, were 
 their sanctuaries, probably two buildings like those of Mexico, glit- 
 tf^ring with barbaric splendor, and where could be seen from afar 
 the smoke and fiam^s of the eternal fire, their emblem of the sun. 
 At the city of Mexico the Spaniards found the Aztecs holding their 
 religious ceremonies on almost precisely such a structure, one hun- 
 dred and twenty feet in height, witli five terraces. On the flat sum-
 
 10 ; RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES. 
 
 mir. of this pyramidal structure, which, like that of Cahokia, was 
 divided into two X)arts, were two sanctuaries or shrines, in one of 
 which the sacred fire burned. This great Mexican temple-mound 
 was not, however, more than half the size of the Cahokia pyramid, 
 being only three hundred feet square at the base. The square 
 mounds about the base of the principal structure at Cahokia, 
 some of which are larger than the base of the Mexican temple, 
 were doubtless used for sacred purposes ; and the adjoining 
 mounds may have been for residences of the priests ; for just such 
 places surrounded the Aztec temple. 
 
 " Surrounding the great pyramid," says Clavigero, speaking of 
 the Aztec temple, " were forty similar structures of smaller size, 
 consecrated to separate divinities ; one was called the House of 
 Mirrors, and was covered with brilliant material, and was sacred to 
 the god of light, the soul of the world, the spiritual sun ; another 
 to the god of water ; another to the god of air ; " and Gomera says 
 that, " because the winds go round the heavens, they piade this 
 one circular. " 
 
 Beside these were tlie dwellings of the priests, amounting to 5,000 
 according to Zarata, and of the attendants in the temple ; also 
 places for the instruction of the youth ; and, if some are to be 
 credited, places for the reception of strangers who came to visit the 
 temple and see the glories of the court of Montezuma. " There were 
 ponds and fountains, groves and gardens, in which flowers and 
 sweet-smelling herbs were cultivated for use in the sacred rites and 
 for the decoration of the temple," 
 
 This is what the cruel, merciless Spaniard's saw; and it were 
 pardonal)le if their accounts were in glowing colors. Yet there is a 
 general concurrence in the accounts of these early writers, among 
 Avhom were Cortez, BernalDiaz and others who saw what they de- 
 scribe. These accounts, which are in the main true, give us, not only 
 some idea of the predominance of religious superstitions in Mexi- 
 co, but also a good clew to the customs of our own Mound Builders, 
 and the origin and the uses of the great structures on the Cahokia 
 creek. 
 
 Adjoining the Cahokia p3'ramid on the southwest is a large 
 pasture-held, of a hundred acres or more, that the white settlers 
 have never plowed or put in cultivation, from the fact of its being 
 so covered with mounds and ponds. It can be very plainly seen 
 that these ponds are artificial. One is circular, with a j:)retty circu-
 
 IX THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEV. 107 
 
 lar island in its centre; and as we look down upon it from a mound, 
 we see again that ever present eye of the manitou, that has glared 
 at us from the bluffs, from the caverns, and which is so common on 
 our ancient pottery, — the oldest sjnnbol in the world. Another 2:)ond 
 is perfectly square, and the banks still so steep that the cattle reach 
 the water only by indirect paths worn in the sides of the bank. 
 In the driest seasons the water in the pond is several feet in dej^th. 
 and contains a great many fishes. Curious to know if there was 
 anything peculiar about them, we caught a number to add to our 
 dinner. They were the little sunlishes so common in the Cahokia 
 and the lakes of this region. What further interested us was a 
 nuujber of square earthen platforms arranged about the pond. 
 These platforms were perhaps a hundred feet long and two or three 
 feet in height. Although covered in places by a thick growth of 
 bushes, their form could be easily seen. Brackenridge speaks of 
 these in 1811, when, the grass of the prairie having been burned, 
 he could see them plainl}^ and thought there was design in their 
 arrangement. AYe think they may be the remains of gardens about 
 the fish ponds, similar to those which the Spaniards saw about the 
 great Aztec temple of Mexico. 
 
 The longest axis of the great Cakokia pyramid is nine hundred and 
 ninety-eight feet ; the shortest, seven hundred and twenty-one feet; 
 and it covers sixteen acres, two roods and three perches of ground. 
 The great pyramid of Cheops, in Egypt, is seven hundred and foity- 
 six feet square. The Aztec temple-mound, of Mexico, was six hun- 
 dred and eighty feet square. While the Cahokia pyramid is of 
 much the same shape as the great temple-mound, and as those of 
 Egypt, it is very much larger, and the surrounding mounds much 
 larger and greater in number. We are led to believe that here on 
 the bank of the Cahokia, in the centre of our Union, was the great- 
 est congregation of religious structures ever known, not merely on 
 this continent but in the w^orld. 
 
 What a city! What a population there must have been at that 
 time on this favored spot! This view is also strongly evidenced b}- 
 the fact that this rich plain, more than seventy-five miles long, and 
 live to twelve miles wide, is, as Brackenridge remarked three quarters 
 of a century ago, "a veritible cemetery of the past, and full of the 
 proofs of long occupation." Relics of the iftone age protrude fi-om 
 the banks of every creek and ravine. In the rich fields o2)posite St. 
 Louis, and for miles up the Cahokia creek, we have seen the market
 
 108 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 gardener literally plow through human bones. The little labor with 
 which enormous crops are grown here would excite the envy of tlie 
 plodding planter on the banks of the Nile, patiently waiting for the 
 sometimes tardy flood. 
 
 Some eminently travelled writer, after admiting that Nature stands 
 revealed on a grand scale in America, complains that this new world 
 is wanting in antiquities like those so full of interest in the old. 
 This writer ought to come to Cahokia, and, standing on our Cheops, 
 whose base covers more ground than any in Egypt, look down on 
 the monuments of pre-historic America. When he asks who built 
 them, the echoes of his inquiring voice may go reverberating among 
 the temples below, but the answer will not return ; for no one 
 knows. The dead past has indeed buried its dead. 
 
 There is hardly an antiquity in any country that is not repre- 
 sented here, and it is the remarkable similarity of some of the more 
 peculiar that puzzles us. We have been in the habit of attributing 
 these evidences of similarity of thought to the instinctive impulses 
 of savage and untutored minds. We might as well say here, how- 
 ever, that we now believe this will hold good only to a very limited 
 extent. We say we are sometimes puzzled, because we may not 
 always be sufficiently acquainted with the points of our analogies 
 to know if the parallelism is true. This is illustrated in the fact 
 that having taken from one of these Cahokia mounds a number of 
 large sea-shells, found in such position and under such circum- 
 stances as to leave hardly a doubt in our mind that they were held 
 sacred by the Mound-Builders, and used in their religious ceremon- 
 ies, we were told by an intelligt-^"^ "ud educated gentleman, who 
 had spent several years in India in i. employ of the British 
 government, that these were held sacred by the Buddhists, because 
 they were sinistral or reversed. In India the tradition is that Bud- 
 dha was born from an ocean shell, with the opening on the left, and 
 the whorls reversed. We are told that statues of Buddha are often 
 seen in which the toes of his feet are represented by reversed shells, 
 and that, from time immemorial, these shells, turning the wrong 
 way, have been revered in Asia and wherever the Buddhist religion 
 is known. It is at least singular that we have taken from our 
 mounds so many sea-shells, not only pjTula, but large cassis and 
 others, with the peculiarity of their whorls reversed. 
 
 It is also a singular fact — at least we have read it as such — that 
 the great pyramids of Cahokia, like those of Egypt and Mexico,
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 109 
 
 should Stand straight with the main i)oints of the compass. We 
 know that those of Cahokia stand thus. If this is true of the others^ 
 here is one of the many strong points that would seem to prove that 
 our later Indians are not descended from the Mound-Builders. No 
 matter what else the Indians may have forgotten, or what of 
 history may have passed from th<?m, they certainly would have re- 
 tained, if once they had known, the points of the compass. Had 
 their ancestors known the North Star, they would know it to-day. 
 We have no information tending to show that our Indians had any 
 knowledge of this kind. In the day-time they could travel by the 
 sun, but at night the sky was a blank to them, and they had no 
 knowledge of the stars. A sure guide in the heavens at night 
 would have been such an invaluable acquisition to the Indian in 
 the wilderness, that it would be indeed strange if, having once pos- 
 sessed it, it should have passed entirely from his remembrance.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Origin, Migration and Fate of the Mound-Builders.— Were They an 
 Indigenous People. — The Origin of^the Red Indians. — Their Contact with 
 THE Mound- Builders. — The Origin of the Symbolic Emblems, Etc.— What 
 Became of the Mound-Builders? — Did some Epidemic or Plague Attack 
 them? — Were some driven into Mexico? — Did the Indians have a Religion? 
 — The Pueblos and Aztecs have not Forgotten their Religion though 
 CoNTROLED BY Priests FOR Two Hundred Years.— The Aztecs and Pueblos 
 
 ready TO GO BACK TO SUN-WoRSHIP. — HuMBOLDT'S OPINION OF THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 THE Aztecs and Mound-Builders. — The Azticcs' Traditions of their Mi- 
 grations. — Were they once in the Mississippi Valley? — The Aztecs' Dates 
 AND Calendar.— More than one Influx of Immigrants to America. — The 
 Geological History of the Continent \yould indicate Indigenous Races. 
 — The Traditions of various Races as to their Origin.— The Origin of 
 the Egyptians Enveloped in Obscurity.— Most People Point to the North 
 for their Origin. — The Region of the North Pole still Unknown to Us. — 
 Summing up of the Evidince. — Migrations not all by Land. — The Useless- 
 NESS OF Attempting to Trace National Affinities by Language.— The 
 Origin of most of the Prominent Old Languages Unknown. — Wonderful 
 Changes in European Languages. — Language in other Countries.— Each 
 Indian Tribe with a Different Language. — ThePictographs, Symbols and 
 Emblematic Devices the only Clew we Have. 
 
 
 T is proper, perhaps, that we end our in' otigationsof the subject 
 by giving some suggestions relating to the origin, migrations 
 and the ultimate fate of the race, or races, whose relics and monu- 
 ments we have been considering in the preceding pages. 
 
 Some have argued that the people found by Columbus, on the 
 discovery of this continent, were indigenous, or native to the coun- 
 try, like the animals, the trees and plants. And it does seem 
 natural to suppose that this great continent, so richly endowed with 
 a fauna and flora peculiarly its own, should have had from its own 
 sources its races of men, and not been dependent uppn another and 
 widely separated portion of the world for its people. 
 
 Some have argued that the continents were not always so separ- 
 ated. 
 
 One nation after another, European and Asiatic, has been put for- 
 ward as entitled to the honor of having been the flrst in the held 
 with its peopling or civilizing colonies, prior to whose coming, it was 
 assumed, this continent must have been a desolate waste, without 
 inhabitants.
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. Ill 
 
 Our own opinion is, based upon our investigations in the field 
 among the mounds, tliat this continent was originally inhabited by 
 savage tribes, of whom our red Indians are the descendants, changed 
 very materially however, hy coming in contact with other peoples 
 who came from the old world. These " other peoples, " from their 
 manners and customs, and especially as shown in preceding pages 
 of this work, in their symbolic devices, seem to have either come 
 from Asia, or been connected with some of the Asiatic races known 
 to us. In our opinion it is simply unreasonable to suppose that the 
 many peculiar customs and symbolic devices which we have shown 
 to be so very like those of some nations in Asia, Africa and Europe, 
 are simply the result of accident. Whatever the origin of our later 
 Indians may have been, it is pretty well established that the builders 
 of the great mounds and earth-works of the Mississippi Valley were 
 not native to this country. They were immigrants from other 
 shores, bringing their peculiar customs along with them. In the 
 course of time, in the Mississippi Valley, they flourished and became 
 a numerous and well established people, whose public works, from 
 
 Agricultural Implement, 17 inches long. 
 
 the grandeur and extent of their ruins, are as much a wonder to-day 
 as the pyramids and ruins along the Nile. They had governments, 
 and a religious establishment, and depended upon agriculture for 
 their subsistence. But something happened ; some grand holocaust ; 
 perhaps a plague or epidemic; and, in a weakened and helpless 
 condition, they fell a prey to neighboring barbarians, who absorbed 
 a part and drove the remainder away to be finally absorbed among 
 other, perhaps southern, wild tribes, until the identity of the nation 
 was wholly lost. Beside the ruins of the places where they dwelt, 
 in the valley of our great river, nothing remains of them but faint 
 traces of some of their customs, seen here and there among the 
 savages, like relics protruding faintly from a wave-washed shore, 
 only a reminder of the people to whom they once belonged.
 
 112 ' RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 It is quite probable that a small part of the Mound-Builders were 
 driven into Mexico, and becoming amalgamated with another 
 people, there began anew the struggle for existence, and in course 
 of time lived over again some of their better days in the Missis- 
 sippi Valley. We say they were driven into Mexico, for this is indi- 
 cated in several ways. Besides, it is to be inferred that no people, 
 having once gained a footing and established themselves in this 
 rich valley, would ever voluntarily leave the rich fields in which 
 were their great monuments, erected by long years of toil. They 
 were driven out, and their homes became the sites of forests, — with 
 here and there the huge earthen temples, silent and half hidden 
 beneath tangled vines, — where the savage red man lurked, seeking 
 for a wily foe as savage as he. What cared the red man for 
 mounds, if he knew them not, neither made them ? No tradition 
 ever told of such a place as the burial-place of his forefathers ; nor 
 did these great embankments ever encircle a home of his ; nor did 
 he ever have a home, but the one he could fold, like the Arab, and 
 "steal away." 
 
 It is a well-known fact among our archaeologists and ethnologists 
 that a greater part of the Indian tribes of the Mississippi Valley, — 
 in fact most of those known in the United States, — actually kad no 
 system of religion. Some of the southern Indians practiced the 
 worship of the sun, according to Adair and a few other early travel- 
 lers who saw them before they were destroyed; and the] Pueblo 
 Indians of the far west had a religion somewhat like that of the 
 Aztecs. But the Indians found by the whites occupying the ancient 
 Mound-Builders' domain, if they ever had a religion, had not only 
 ceased to practice it, but had forgotten it. It did not even remain in 
 their traditions. This is very singular, since these customs are 
 held with such tenacity by nations known to have inherited a religious 
 belief. The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and the West have been 
 under the control and direction of Catholic priests for over two 
 hundred years, who have been zealous to use every means to eradi- 
 cate all pagan rites and beliefs, yet it is said that to-day their old 
 belief in, and love of, their ancient religion is so strong, that, with 
 opportunity, it is liable to break out any day ; in fact their ancient 
 rites are known to be still practiced in secret among the Zunis and 
 others of the Pueblo Indians. 
 
 A recent writer from Mexico says the same thing of the Aztecs. 
 In spite of the Catholic priests, they have secret places where the
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 11;5 
 
 sacred lire is kc^pt burning; wliile they are waiting and lioping for 
 some savior Montezuma to come and once more establish the Aztec 
 kingdom. 
 
 Humboldt, whose opinions have commanded universal respect, and 
 who, in his extended travels in* this country at an early day, w hen 
 the antiquities were in good preservation, had rare opportunities to 
 study the traces of ancient races in America, says, ^ "Did the 
 .nations of the Mexican race, in their migrations to the south, 
 isend colonies toward the east, or do the monuments of the United 
 States pertain to the indigenous nations ? Perhaps we must admit 
 in North America, as in the ancient world, the similtaneous exist- 
 ence of several centres of civilization, of which mutual relations are 
 not known in history. In further speaking of these races, he says : 
 " The very civilized nations of New Spain, the Toltecs, the Chichi- 
 mecs, and the Aztecs, pretended to have issued successively, from 
 the sixth to the twelfth century, from three neighboring countries to 
 the north. These nations spoke the same language, they had the 
 same cosmogonic fables, the same propensity for sacerdotal con- 
 gregations, the same hieroglyphic paintings, the same divisions of 
 time, the same taste for noting and registering everything. The 
 names given by them to the towns built in Mexico were said to be 
 the names of the towns they had abandoned in their ancient 
 country. The civilization on the Mexican table-land was regarded 
 by the inhabitants themselves as the copy of something which had 
 existed elsewhere, as the reflection of the primitive civilization of 
 Aztlan. Where, it may be asked, must be placed that parent-land 
 of the colonies of Anahuac, which during five centuries sends 
 nations toward the south, who understand each other without diffi- 
 culty and recognize each other as relations ? Asia, where it is near- 
 est to America, is a barbarous country; and in supposing they 
 came from Southern Asia the migration would have been so long, 
 and so easily intercepted on the way, that it would indeed 
 have been wonderful had they retained a remembrance of the in- 
 stitutions of the mother-country with such force and clearness. 
 Yet the national characteristics of the Mexicans point by analogy 
 to Oriental Asia, while the lively remembrances of which we have 
 spoken, and the peculiar physiognomy which Mexican civilization 
 presents in so many other respects, seem to indicate the existence of 
 
 1 "Personal Narrative" vol. vi., p. 322.
 
 114 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 an empire in the North of America, between the thirty-sixth and 
 forty-second degrees of latitude. We cannot reflect on the mili- 
 tary monuments of the United States without recollecting the first 
 country of the civilized nations of Mexico. " 
 
 These are some of the results of the impressions received by 
 Humboldt after viewing the antiquities of America. The manners, 
 customs and religion of the aborigines, more especially of the more 
 civilized nations of Mexico, seemed to point to their Asiatic origin. 
 The Mexican traditions all point to the north as the source from 
 whence they came ; and Humboldt thought their line of migration, 
 of which they seem to have a history, was through the Mississippi 
 Valley. Those who have read our description of the Cahokia 
 mounds, with the great pyramid in the centre of the group, and 
 noted the great resemblance to the Mexican temple-mounds, will see 
 at once that there is reason to suppose that just such a people dwelt 
 for a long time in the valley of the Mississippi. But that which 
 has been a very great obstacle in the path of all these investiga- 
 tions is the fact that there are many difi'erent kinds of mounds, of 
 different ages, and made by people diff'ering widely in their customs 
 and cultivation. There are hundreds of mounds much older than 
 those on the Cahokia, and there are many much more recent. So 
 much of history mixed up in the various mounds, and apparently 
 referring to different peoples, bothered Humboldt ; and every stu- 
 dent of archaelogy since has had the same difficulty to contend with. 
 
 The Aztecs kept a sort of history, and dated their occupation of 
 Mexico no farther back than about 700 years. When they arrived 
 in Mexico, however, the Toltecs and Chichimecs, to whom they were 
 apparently related, had occupied the country a considerable time 
 before. According to Clavigero, and some Spanish writers, the 
 Toltecs had been in Mexico perhaps a hundred years before the 
 Aztecs arrived. And Mexico liad many mounds and other ruins 
 when they found it. 
 
 The people who built the great Cahokia mounds, and left so many 
 monuments, symbolic devices, and other evidences of Eastern origin, 
 without doubt found the valley of the Mississippi already occupied 
 by more than one nation ; and some of these were themselves immi- 
 grants from foreign shores, who had built mounds upon which great 
 forest trees were growing. This is quite evident to one who has 
 made this question a life-study. Immigrants have followed immi- 
 grants ; and it is indeed quite probable that the first strangers to
 
 IX THE MISSISSIPPI vall]:y. 
 
 115 
 
 arrive in the Mississippi Valley saw it peopled with indigenous 
 inhabitants, who began life on the continent in the same way as did 
 the trees, plants and animals. No naturalist would venture to ask 
 how this continent's peculiar flora or fauna came. They came with 
 the continent ; a part of creation. And amidst this grand disj)lay of 
 animated life ; amid the vegetation and the animals — for tlie ani- 
 mals came last — there was, quite without a doubt, man. It was a 
 finished continent, which necessarily includes vegetation and animal 
 life ; and the animal life of a continent, however exuberant, would be 
 incomplete without the higher animal, man. The geological history 
 of the life of the continent shows that America was not in any par- 
 ticular behind other continents in the formation of its animal life. 
 We doubt if there is an animal in the world, fossil or living, but 
 that we have its representation in the fossils from the rocks of the 
 United States. We have even more, for some of the common domes- 
 tic animals of the Old World are so rarely shown as fossils, that it 
 
 Elephas Primige^neus. 
 
 has sometimes been doubted if it was their orignal home. Thus, in 
 the United States, there have been found about forty species of 
 horse fossil, the earliest no larger than a rabbit ; fifteen species of 
 camel, and all the animals of tropical countries. We have in our 
 own collection, obtained from the loess on the banks of the Missis- 
 sippi, the perfect teeth of no less than three species of elephant beside 
 the mastodon. And although we have found no fossil man, the
 
 116 RECOKDS OF ANCIENT RACES 
 
 fauna of the continent was on such a grand and niagnilicent scale 
 that to believe it was still finished and complete, in the absence of 
 Man, is almost sacrilegeous. 
 
 There is no doubt man appeared as soon as the continent was 
 fitted for him to live upon it, many ages ago. But there are certainly- 
 few men so foolish as to even suppose that the primitive men of this 
 or any other continent commenced with the intellect and reasoning 
 powers of a Baron Von Hum bolt. The primitive men of America 
 were without doubt, like our own forefathers, in the beginning 
 savages. 
 
 The question before us, however, is not exactly as to how this con- 
 tinent became originally peopled, but more as to how civilization 
 commenced and was disseminated. If we knew this we would have 
 the history of our Mound-Builders. It is a singular fact that most 
 nations have traditions of migrations ; even the Egyptians, who have 
 a record of their own civilization longer than that of any other peo- 
 ple, perhaps ; because they have monuments four thousand years 
 old that show an advanced civilization. Even the Egyptians, accord- 
 ing to the early writers, had traditions of migrations ; and, singular 
 as it may seem, these traditions would seem to point to some other 
 people from whom they had learned. According to the story of 
 Solon, sfs given by Plato, the Egyptian priests had preserved these 
 traditions of their migrations from another country. Wilkinson, ^ 
 who has studied this subject thoroughly, says : '' The origin of the 
 Egyptians is enveloped in the same obscurity as most people ; but 
 they were undoubtedly from Asia, as is proved by the form of 
 their skulls. " But even on the Nile there was an aboriginal i)()pula- 
 tion to be dispossessed by the Egyptians ; and, according to Wilk- 
 inson and others, beneath the foundations of the ruins on the Nile 
 are still to be found the rude stone implements of the people who 
 lived there before the Egyptians came. 
 
 It is a little singular that the traditions of most people point to the 
 North as the direction of their origin ; and this is still more strange 
 since it is held by people in the far North. When that intrepid 
 voyager, who made the Northwest passage through the Arctic sen, 
 passed the fearful winter in the frozen region far above Nova Zem- 
 bla, his winter quarters were near a village of Arctic natives, called 
 Innuits. Among these people, in this inhospitable land, Norden- 
 
 1 '• Ancient Egyptians,'" vol. 1. p. 802.
 
 IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 117 
 
 feldt and his ship's crew spent the long winter. Among other 
 things, he was surprised to learn that the traditions of the natives 
 all pointed to their origin in the still farther North, indicating that 
 they had emigrated from the North and dispossessed some other 
 people, whom they drove south. They even pointed out the ruins of 
 the abodes of the people whom they found in possession of this in- 
 hospitable region. 
 
 The region of the North Pole is still unknown to us ; but it is a 
 well-known fact that, as far north as our most intrepid explorers 
 have gone into those frozen regions, there are inhabitants who eke 
 out an existence there, as is shown by the narratives of Dr. Kane 
 and others. It is indeed remarkable that the inhabitants of this 
 frigid zone seem to be coming from the north, instead of receding 
 before some foe from the south. Much of the interest in these 
 apparently useless explorations into the Arctic Circle is due to the 
 possible explanation of some of the most singular facts in the ques- 
 tion of the origin of races. 
 
 To sum up the main part of the evidence, it would seem to be 
 proven that this continent, being originally inhabited by savages, 
 lias been invaded from time to time, for ages, by inhabitants from 
 the Old World. Some, it may be, came by land ; others by the sea, 
 involuntarily it may have been, by being thrown out of reckoning by 
 storms, and drifting on to the shore of an unknown continent. From 
 the days of the Phoenicians, or even before, this might have hap- 
 pened. A few people it may have been ; but these, by superior 
 intelligence, having once obtained a foot-hold among the native 
 inhabftants, finally left the impress of their presence in the mounds 
 and other structures, where we find tokens of the customs and 
 religion of the country from whence they came. 
 
 The long migration by land, coming from Asia by the way of 
 Behring's Strait, is a difficult one to realize ; but assuming this as 
 possible even now, it is quite evident that the very last of these 
 movements, according to the Mexican history (which is the only one 
 seeming to have any sort of authenticity in the way of dates), must 
 have been a thousand years ago. Although the time of this migra- 
 tion, as given by the Mexicans, is tolerably well established, the 
 direction and route by which they travelled into Mexico (except per- 
 haps some evidence in the Mississippi Valley, especially on the 
 Cahokia,) is not yet made clear. 
 It is quite probable that some, if not all, of these foreigners
 
 120 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES. 
 
 century before, retaining a dialect which at home had became 
 obsolete. 
 
 Any one who has heard the Irish and Scotch, and the Welsh, 
 speak English in America, so as to be scarcely understood at all by 
 an Englishman, can Imagine how a dialect might, if isolated, soon 
 become a language totally unlike the original. In fact, at this day, 
 in Scotland, Ireland and even England, an American can hardly 
 understand the native dialects, and his experience there is very 
 similar to that undergone in any other foreign country with an 
 unknown language. 
 
 It is easy to understand why each Indian tribe had a different 
 dialect, and, if separated for some years, would have a different 
 language. We have ourselves seen white men in the Rocky Moun- 
 tains, who, although their parents were Americans, and they had 
 first learned the English language, having spent the main part of 
 their lives among the Indians and French traders, spoke a patois of 
 their own that was almost wholly unintelligible to us. They had 
 a language of their own. Old trappers on the frontier soon acquire 
 a dialect of their own, intermingled with signs and Indian words. 
 Our own knowledge of the Indians has convinced us that no tribe 
 would long sustain a language without interpolations and changes ; 
 and we are not at all surprised that each tribe had a different one. 
 They have no literature, no books. Some leading orator, however 
 uncouth in words and manners, would be followed for a while, until 
 another was heard. There is absolutely no guide. The one with 
 the most impressive manner would convey the meaning quickest. 
 
 So we have concluded nothing can be learned, bearing on the 
 origin of the Indian, from his language. We may say the same of 
 his myths and legends. But from the ancient pictographs, symbolic 
 devices, emblems and rudesignsof the Mound-Builders we have one 
 feeble clue by which at this late date to trace something of then- 
 origin. In our opinion it is an important question ; for it has an 
 important bearing on the history of all mankind. To aid in eluci- 
 dating it we have worked long and diligently, much of the time 
 without the advantages of a guide ; and in these pages we have en- 
 deavored to give the reader the results of our investigations ; which 
 we think will include some things not generally known on the 
 subject. If we have succeeded in awakening his interest we are 
 not without our reward.
 
 wmm
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
 913.77M11R C003 
 
 RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACES IN THE MISSISSI 
 
 3 0112 025332443