UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 
 AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 
 ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/moundbuildersofiOOthro 
 
Mound Builders 
 of Illinois 
 
 THROOP 
 
|MHM 
 
 The Great Monks' Mound (also called the Cahokia MounW)°L5 I] M?4 FJ 
 feet high, occupies a base 1,080 feet long and 710 feet wide, and covers 
 approximately 17 acres of ground. The tumulus contains over 1,500,- 
 000 cubic yards of earth. 
 
 "Monks' Mound is the greatest aboriginal tumulus in the United 
 States and is more than treble the size of any other similar structure of 
 the same area. It is the most striking figure of the Cahokia Group, 
 which was originally the central feature of several hundred mounds 
 within a radius of six miles. Nothing like a systematic exploration, or 
 study, of this rich archaeological field has yet been made, and the 
 
 Aboriginal paintings and carvings on cliffs and in caves occur in 
 all countries of the earth. "Over there" they developed into heiro- 
 glyphics and finally the alphabet. "Over here" they never developed 
 beyond the symbolic stage. 
 
 Mr. Wm. McAdams in his "Records of Ancient Races," 1887, 
 page 21, says in speaking of the above illustrated paintings: "Some 
 three or four miles above the city (Alton), high up beneath the over- 
 hanging cliff, which forms a sort of cave shelter, on the smooth face 
 of a thick ledge of rock, is a series of paintings, twelve in number. 
 (They are now, in 1928, utterly destroyed.) 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 posi- 
 
jnd (also called the Cahokia Mound) W1YV4 
 e 1.080 feet long and 710 feet wide, and covers 
 of ground. The tumulus contains over 1,500,- 
 
 3fk0/j<i 
 
 head, under auspices of the Illinois Uni- 
 ustive explorations during the spring and 
 1 and l!l2r>, and his reports arc utv hi 
 
 - hamlicapp y Lick of funds to make 
 
 and thorough as he would liked to have 
 mil awaken to the importance of placing 
 till hands, and then many things of tre- 
 mce will no doubt he unfolded. 
 
 cliffs and in caves occur in 
 they developed into heim- 
 lere" they never developed 
 
 Aboriginal paintings and can 
 
 intries oi the earth. "Ovei 
 
 a I. \ phi. - and finally the alphabet, 
 beyond the symbolic stage. 
 
 Mr Wm. McAdams in his "Records of Ancient Races," 18X7 
 page 21, savs in speaking of the above illustrated paintings: "Bona 
 three or four miles above the city (Alton), high up beneath the over 
 hanging cliff, which forms a sort of cave shelter, on the smooth tact 
 of a thick ledge of rock, is a series of paintings, twelve in number 
 (They are now. in 1928, utterly destroyed.) They are painted oi 
 rather stained in the rock with a reddish-hn.u „ pigment that seems t, 
 defy the tooth of time. * * * It may be said, however, that their posi 
 
 | tion is so sheltered that they remain almost perfectly dry. We made 
 Sketches of them thirty years ago (1857) : and on a recent visit could 
 see that they had changed but little, although their appearance de- 
 notes great age. They doubtless have been there for centuries. 
 
 "These pictographs are situated on the cliff 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 rains or storms, he has a splendid view, not 
 only of the Mississippi, whiifh flows, a mile in width, in majesty below, 
 but of the cultivated bottom lands on the opposite shore, and beyond, 
 the turbid waters of the Missouri, — one of the most magnificent scenes 
 of this romantic locality." 
 
Mound Builders 
 of Illinois 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE OF CERTAIN MOUNDS AND VILLAGE 
 
 SITES IN THE AMERICAN BOTTOMS 
 
 AND ALONG THE KASKASKIA 
 
 AND ILLINOIS RIVERS 
 
 BY 
 
 ADDISON J. THROOP 
 
 CALL PRINTING COMPANY 
 
 EAST ST. LOUIS, ILLINOIS 
 1928 
 
Copyright 1928 
 ADDISON J. THROOP 
 

 PREFACE 
 
 THE most interesting study for mankind is man. So long 
 as life remains, to the student is unfolded new knowl- 
 edge, new interests. To delve, in imagination, into the long- 
 ago, into the crude beginnings, finding there, perhaps, evi- 
 dences of superior culture along other lines than our own, 
 certainly is fascinating mental exercise. 
 
 Go back as far as earth's gaseous beginnings with the 
 geologist ; go with the archaeologist back to mankind's rudest 
 beginnings ; contemplate reverently the tremendous complex- 
 ities and wonders of mankind to-day ; visualize with Christian 
 faith the future development of man, when civilization will 
 have embodied the divine Hope that lies within mankind's 
 very soul, and we are but brought to a faint realization of 
 the infinite love of an Infinite Father, whose Purposes, deeply 
 rooted in aeons gone by, are unfolding by laws that are im- 
 mutable. 
 
 At odd times, and by using spare moments, we have writ- 
 ten the matter, gathered the illustrative material, and set 
 the type for this little book. We dedicate it to a better 
 understanding of the Red People, on whose lands we now 
 live, and whose village and burial sites are now teeming with 
 the life of American farms, towns and cities. 
 
 We are grateful to many individuals for the encourage- 
 ment to proceed with this work, and especially to the Rev. 
 Albert Muntsch, S. J., of the St. Louis University, for his 
 kindly interest ; to Col. Sam. N. Hunter of the East St. Louis 
 Daily Journal ; Mr. P. B. Corr, of the Northwest Territory 
 Exposition. We are also grateful to Mr. H. M. Braun who 
 furnished so many of the illustrations used in this little work ; 
 and to Dr. Don F. Dickson, who has assisted us by sending in 
 photographs of his work at Lewiston. The photo engravers, 
 the printers, the pressmen of our shop, the Call Printing Co., 
 too, have all seemed to take special interest in working on 
 "The Mound Builders of Illinois." 
 
INDEX 
 
 $ 
 
 Mound Builders of Illinois .y.<. 13 
 
 Abundance of Flint Hoes in "Bottoms"....^. 15 
 
 Relics of Bone 15 
 
 Relics of Seashell 16 
 
 Pottery of the American Bottoms 17 
 
 Relics of Wood, Skin and Basketry Missing 22 
 
 Burial Customs 23 
 
 Can We Reconstruct Life by Study of Burials? 24 
 
 Stone Graves 25 
 
 Jackson County 28 
 
 Near Roots, Randolph County 31 
 
 Stone Burials Near Fults, Monroe County 34 
 
 St. Clair and Madison Counties 36 
 
 Rattlesnake Mound, St. Clair County 38 
 
 John B. Rolle Village Site, St. Clair County 40 
 
 Site at French Village, St. Clair County 42 
 
 "Dickson's Mound Builders," near Lewiston, Fulton County 47 
 
 The Original Americans 56 
 
 Virginia Indians, in 1584, Were Clean, Thrifty 56 
 
 Character Qualities of Known Red Men 58 
 
 Prof. Moorehead Pays Tribute to Red Race 59 
 
 Ohio-Illinois Indians Were Brave 60 
 
 Unscrupulous Traders Curse to Indians 61 
 
 Chiefs Logan, Cornstalk and Tecumseh Were Great Men 61 
 
 Too Much Emphasis Placed on Battle-Cruelty 63 
 
 Government Made Treaties; Upheld Trespassers 63 
 
 Many "Frontiersmen" Were Dissolute Fellows 64 
 
 Indians Lived Comfortably in Cabins 65 
 
 Destroyer Williamson Meets Real Indian Fighters 66 
 
 Logan, Great Orator; Tecumseh, Great War Chief 66 
 
 Prof. Moorehead Displays Ancient War Flag 67 
 
 Agriculture of the Red Men 68 
 
 Hariot, 1587, Describes Crops Cultivated 68 
 
 Beverly Gives Evidence of Long Cultivation of Maize 70 
 
 Marquette and Others Add Interesting Testimony 71 
 
 Modern Corn-Crib of Indian Origin 72 
 
 DeSoto's Chroniclers Tell of Abundant Indian Crops 73 
 
 America's Debt to the Red Men 74 
 
 Did Thousands Leave American Bottoms Suddenly? 76 
 
 Injun Stuff (a Poem) 78 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Cahokia Mound, from Photo Taken in 1904 Insert 
 
 Cliff Carvings from near Alton Insert 
 
 Peterson's and McAdams Map of the Cahokia Mounds Insert 
 
 Flint Tools in St. Clair County Cache..... 17 
 
 Notched Hoes Found in East St. Louis 18 
 
 Flint Spades Found near East St. Louis 19 
 
 Flared Spades from Three Neighboring Counties. 20 
 
 Flared Spades or Hoes from the American Bottoms 21 
 
 Various Types of Notched Hoes 22 
 
 Interesting Find near Centreville Station, St. Clair County 25 
 
 Cahokia Arrowheads. 26 
 
 Persimmon Mound 27 
 
 Pipe, Human Figure, from Jersey County 29 
 
 Bowl, Human Head, from Blythesville, Arkansas 30 
 
 Pipe, Frog Figure, from near Centreville, St. Clair County 33 
 
 Ceremonial Sceptre from Mound near Cahokia 37 
 
 Effigy Pottery of the American Bottoms 41 
 
 Dickson's Mound Builders, Horizontal View 49 
 
 Dickson's Mound Builders, "Bird's Eye" View 50 
 
 Pottery from Dickson's Mound - - - 51 
 
 Pipes, etc., from Dickson's Mound 52 
 
 Collection of Arrowheads, etc., from Dickson's Mound 54 
 
 Effigy Pot and Concretions Found in Mound and Grave 55 
 
 Vessels from Offermann's Mound, Monroe County 57 
 
 Dickson's Unfinished New Work 75 
 
 Our Relic Cabinet - - 79 
 
Mound Builders 
 of Illinois 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 ILLINOIS has, without doubt, the most abundant supply of 
 natural essentials for the development and support of 
 mankind of any area of its extent in the world. 
 
 Its fertile prairies, its verdant woodlands, its beautiful 
 lakes, its numerous streams and its sections of rock-bound 
 hills, made it a veritable paradise for the development and 
 support of the prehistoric people who thrived there. Mod- 
 ern man has cultivated its fertile prairies, harnessed its beau- 
 tiful streams, delved into its rock-bound hills, bound them all 
 together with magic bands of steel and concrete, for the swift 
 distribution of the abundant production of the essentials so 
 necessary for our comfort and wellbeing. 
 
 Prehistoric man found ample supply for his simple needs 
 and tribal organizations without delving into the refractory 
 depths, as does our luxury-loving man with his complicated 
 civilization, to-day. Food, shelter and protective raiment 
 were all of prehistoric man's personal needs. Tribal organiza- 
 tion was necessary for his continual battle against the inroads 
 of ravenous beasts and greedy human rivals. 
 
 The American Bottoms, the alluvial bottomlands border- 
 ing the Mississippi River, from Alton to Chester and below, 
 as well as the bordering hills on both sides of the Father of 
 Waters, show abundant proof that in this district was prehis- 
 toric man's greatest development north of the Rio Grande. 
 
 At East St. Louis the great Cahokia group of more than 
 eighty tremendous mounds, containing as they do millions of 
 cubic yards of dirt, clearly indicate that here was the center 
 of a numerous and age-old prehistoric human habitation. 
 
 These people, as evidenced by a wealth of relics, traded 
 far and wide, from the Eastern Alleghenies to the Rockies of 
 the West, from the frozen North to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
11 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 TO visualize the ancient life of a people by their relics of 
 stone, bone, shell and clay, may be impossible, but long 
 acquaintance and much study of their burial places and their 
 camp sites should enable one, to some extent, to arrive at 
 fairly accurate general conclusions. 
 
 It would be open to argument to try to establish the 
 origin of these peoples. It is generally maintained by writers 
 and scientists that the prehistoric Americans, from the Arctic 
 Circle to Cape Horn, were Red Men. Therein the New World 
 differs from the Old World in its ethnology, because over there 
 are found the Caucasian, the Malay, the Negro, the Yellow 
 races. • 
 
 The beginnings of races being too remote for the writer, 
 we will accept the hypothesis that the prehistoric residents of 
 Illinois were Red Men, pre-dating the advent of the horse, 
 which animal changed the habits especially of the Plains In- 
 dians from sedentary, industrious, agricultural people, to 
 roving, predatory creatures, such as our histories tell us about. 
 
 It is not only interesting, but we believe proper, to note 
 briefly the radical differences of the prehistoric peoples of the 
 two hemispheres. The Western peoples never learned, until 
 the advent of the white conquerors, to put tools on their 
 handles. They split withes, and bound with rawhide and fibre 
 the handles on their tools. Here they never invented a pot- 
 tery wheel, or other ordinary uses of the wheel. They did not 
 develop the metals or metallurgy. Nowhere has the prehis- 
 toric American evidenced the art of smelting metals. They 
 used the iron (hematite) and copper just as they were found, 
 chipping, pounding, grinding them into ornaments, tools, arms 
 and charms as were wanted. The use of galena, quantities of 
 which are found on campsites, caches and in burials, is en- 
 tirely problematical, with the evidence tending to show that 
 it was prepared for use as paint. Certain findings in the 
 mounds near East St. Louis would lead one to believe that they 
 had a method of heating or chemicalizing it for the making 
 of their white paint. 
 
 The prehistoric peoples never — in the American Bot- 
 toms — conceived the idea of expressing thoughts by inscribed 
 heiroglyphics or letters. Such fixing of thought was done by 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 15 
 
 imagery in artistic effigy pottery and stone. Occasionally 
 carvings on stone, in caves and sheltered cliffs, indicate the 
 rudiments of such ideas, but the meaning of the carvings is 
 clear only to the ancient individuals who so laboriously made 
 them. 
 
 The relics of flint, stone and bone are the only "reference 
 books" the student has from which to draw conclusions. 
 
 The Mound Builders, who have left their great earthen 
 monuments so numerously and magnificently in the American 
 Bottoms, were an industrious people, and their works, their 
 artifacts, their camp sites, together with the situations of the 
 mounds and sites, make an interesting study. 
 
 ABUNDANCE OF FLINT HOES IN BOTTOMS. 
 
 Flint was procured from exposed ledges of limestone, 
 locally; from quarries in the Ohio "Flint Ridge ;" in the nearby 
 Ozarks; from the Tennessee and Kentucky mountains, and 
 was their universal material for the making of knives, arrow 
 and spearheads, adzes, chisels, digging and scraping tools. 
 
 The flint hoes, finely chipped and of varying size, and 
 the great numbers that have been found in the American Bot- 
 toms, cause one to come to the conclusion that the Mound 
 Builders were a people given to agriculture. In fact the "gen- 
 tlemen" Spaniards who accompanied DeSoto found them so, 
 and have described their fields and crops. They were the 
 first white men to come in contact with the Mississippi River 
 Indians, and say that from one village, in what is now Arkan- 
 sas, they procured corn enough to last their 600 men and 200 
 horses for three months. They tell us that besides tobacco, 
 the natives raised popcorn, yellow, white and red corn, pump- 
 kins, melons, beans, potatoes, yams and many other vege- 
 tables and fruits now common and useful to us. 
 
 RELICS OF BONE. 
 
 Much use was made of bone, especially of the deer and 
 bear. Knives were made from the bones of deer which are 
 still very hard, ivory-like and durable. Long, slender, very 
 
16 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 sharp implements are found, as well as shorter, even tiny 
 needle-like implements. One is forced to the conclusion that 
 such were used as needles in the making of clothing, mocca- 
 sins and the like. Others were used, no doubt, as engravers' 
 tools, in the marking of pottery and possibly wood. 
 
 Some collectors believe the smaller needles were used 
 for tattooing, as so many primitive people mark their bodies 
 for ornamentation, identification or in following out some pe- 
 culiar "religious" purpose. 
 
 Bone relics are scarce, because when found at all they 
 are quite fragile and brittle, and the amateur collector crushes 
 them or passes them on, not realizing their ethnological value 
 in his collection. It is difficult to save them, but they should 
 be saved, for they add a whole chapter in the unwritten his- 
 torical value of one's collection. A solution of white gelatin, 
 procurable at almost any drug store, will preserve them, seem- 
 ing to feed the chalky bones until one can handle them with- 
 out danger of their crumbling. The bones should be dry when 
 dipped in the solution. 
 
 These old bone needles cause one to visualize the matron 
 or maid, carefully perforating for the insertion of the sinew 
 or fibre threads, the finely tanned doeskin she used for her 
 babe's dainty clothing, or for her wedding finery, or in mak- 
 ing for her Man a "brave" and beautiful garment which would 
 cause him to appear well in council or to protect him on the 
 hunt or warpath. 
 
 RELICS OF SEASHELL. 
 
 One is always interested to find in Illinois anything made 
 of seashell. Hundreds of long miles from seacoast as we are, 
 yet we find seashells in the burials and on the plowed camp 
 sites. River mussels were made use of as hand-hoes, by per- 
 forating a thumb-hole in the thickest part of the shell. Others 
 were evidently used as spoons. Also they valued them as or- 
 naments, and shells are found highly polished, with perfor- 
 ated borders and engraved with what appears to be highly 
 complicated artistic figures of human beings, birds, animals or 
 geometrical designs. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 POTTERY OF THE AMERICAN BOTTOMS. 
 
 17 
 
 Pottery offers the student the best means of visualizing 
 these departed peoples, and the American Bottoms furnish 
 
 FLINT TOOLS IN ST. CLAIR 
 COUNTY CACHE 
 
 Caches of flint tools and pro- 
 jectile points have been numerous 
 in St. Clair county, and are food 
 for thought. Without horses or 
 like methods of overland transpor- 
 tation, it became necessary, when 
 the need for moving arose, to hide 
 the heavy, bulky utensils of the 
 field and village. Mr. H. M. 
 Braun of East St. Louis came 
 into possession of such a cache 
 found in the spring of 1897 by 
 Michael Pflugmacher, three miles 
 southwest of Belleville, in Stookey 
 township, St. Clair County. Be- 
 sides the spade here illustrated, 
 which was 15% inches long, very 
 thin and finely chipped, were found 
 four fine flared flint hoes, three 
 polished flint chisels, a turtleback 
 blade, a six-inch blade, a celt and 
 a cupped stone. 
 
 Whether this cache represented 
 the labor of one man or more, does 
 not matter, but it is interesting to 
 note the two types of hoes in th3 
 same cache. 
 
18 
 
 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 the largest variety of any section of our great Middle West. 
 
 Remember, no wheel was used in the making of prehis- 
 toric Indian pottery. It was many times painted and pol- 
 ished, but not glazed after the modern or European manner. 
 Some pottery makers were very skillful and artistic. Some of 
 the ware is almost as hard as china, and yet we doubt that 
 
 NOTCHED HOES FOUND IN EAST ST. 
 LOUIS 
 
 In the spring of 1912, workmen who 
 were excavating a trench at Fifteenth 
 Street and Illinois Avenue, in East St. 
 Louis, unearthed the cache of notched 
 hoes shown herewith. Mr. H. M. Braun, 
 in whose collection they were, has grace 
 ously presented us with the cut. 
 
 Notched hoes are peculiarly the pro- 
 ducts of a race of people who inhabited 
 the American Bottoms, and we believe 
 their "home" was here at East St. Louis, 
 because of the great numbers formerly 
 found here. 
 
 At the National Stock Yards, over 
 twenty-five years ago, in taking away a 
 huge mound, were found great numbers, 
 and many caches have been found here. 
 
 The "spread" of these old implements 
 of agriculture, to our knowledge, extends 
 somewhat up the Ohio River, and into 
 Tennessee and Kentucky, as well as south- 
 eastern Missouri, and in Arkansas. Thou- 
 sands of notched hoes are preserved in 
 the collections of Dr. H. M. Whelpley, de- 
 ceased, of St. Louis, and of Mr. E. W 
 Payne of Springfield, this state. Other 
 thousands are in eastern collections ; many 
 have been sent to museums and collectors 
 abroad. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 19 
 
 it was burned as our own finished pottery. From the fact 
 that so much of it contains a large proportion of pounded 
 shell, it seems to us that it was made cold, similar to our 
 concrete or plaster mixtures, then sun-dried, after which it 
 may have been buried in hot wood ashes or coals to "cure" it. 
 Handles, in some instances at least, were placed on the 
 
 FLINT SPADES FOUND NEAR 
 EAST ST. LOUIS 
 
 Flint spades like the one here 
 illustrated have been found in 
 great numbers in the American 
 Bottoms, especially in the area 
 now occupied by East St. Louis 
 and its environs, as well as among 
 the mounds of the great Cahokia 
 Mounds State Park Group. This 
 specimen was found in this neigh- 
 borhood and was in the collection 
 of Mr. H. M. Braun. It is a very 
 fine specimen, fifteen inches in 
 length, of artistically chipped flint, 
 very thin; has a glassy polish at 
 the bit from being used in the dirt 
 as a garden or field tool. 
 
 It is supposed that handles were 
 bound onto such spades by using 
 an ell-shaped tree branch and raw- 
 hide. Experiments show that thus 
 hafted it becomes a serviceable 
 garden tool, with which corn, 
 beans, melons, tobacco, gourds or 
 other garden truck could be suc- 
 cessfully cultivated. 
 
20 
 
 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 vessels by boring holes in the sides of the partly cured vessel, 
 then placing on the handles, forcing them through the holes 
 and smoothing each side so that, unless one breaks a handle 
 from the pot, it seems to be molded in its place. 
 
 The pots are made melon or squash-shaped, in animal de- 
 signs, and ducks, owls, eagles, bears, deer, frogs, fish, human 
 faces and figures are depicted in pottery. Seashells were 
 imitated almost perfectly, just as they would cut a shell to 
 
 FLARED SPADES FROM 
 
 THREE NEIGHBORING 
 
 COUNTIES 
 
 The flared spades or hoes 
 are interesting, and seem to 
 cover a wide range of territory. 
 They are made of various kinds 
 and colors of flint. The four 
 specimens here illustrated, read- 
 ing from the top down are as 
 follows : found by Miss Tebow, 
 on the KeifTer farm, near Casey- 
 ville, just east of East St. 
 Louis; near Collinsville, Madi- 
 son county; near Posey, Clinton 
 county; near Edwardsville, in 
 Madison county. They were in 
 the collection of Mr. H. M. 
 Brann, to whom we are indebt- 
 ed for the cur. 
 
 If a certain tribe or nation 
 of Red Men made only flared 
 spades, they either migrated 
 over a great territory, or they 
 were a very numerous people 
 occupying it. They are found, 
 we believe, in parts of Ohio, 
 Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, 
 Arkansas, Missouri and South- 
 ern Illinois. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 21 
 
 make it a useful vessel. Bowls and saucers and occasionally 
 plates are found. 
 
 Colored pottery sherds, usually red, are found frequently 
 on plowed camp sites, where they lie exposed to rains, snows, 
 freezes and hot sunshine, still appearing fresh, and the col- 
 
 FLARED SPADES OR HOES 
 
 FROM THE AMERICAN 
 
 BOTTOMS 
 
 These five specimens from 
 Mr. H. M. Braun's collection, 
 were all found in the Ameri- 
 can Bottoms. Reading from the 
 top, as on page 16, they were 
 found as follows: Will Pow- 
 ell, between Canteen Creek and 
 the Collinsville Road, in Madi- 
 son county; on August Adele 
 farm near Cahokia; just west 
 of Caseyville, St. Clair county; 
 near Edwardsville ; a half mile 
 west of Imbs Station, St. Clair 
 County. This group of flared 
 spades show a great variance in 
 shape and material. 
 
 Inasmuch as each modern 
 tribe of Indians has some indi- 
 vidual characteristic in his man- 
 ufacture of arrows, bows, etc., 
 so, we believe, the ancient 
 tribes had certain individual or 
 tribal characteristics in the mak- 
 ing of their arrow and spear 
 points, axes, spades and hoes. 
 
22 
 
 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 oring matter so soft that it adheres to one's lingers. 
 
 In size the vessels vary from about a gill to several gal- 
 lons in capacity. In thickness they run from thick cardboard 
 to about half an inch. 
 
 RELICS OF WOOD, SKIN AND BASKETRY MISSING. 
 
 Of the utensils of gourd and wood, relics are very rare. 
 These, like the skin, basketry and feather work, have disin- 
 tegrated with the ravages of the years. In the mounds and 
 burials no appreciable relics of such material have been found. 
 A few bits of woven fabric were found during the summer of 
 1927 by Mr. Ben Woesthaus, in a burial on the bluffs east of 
 East St. Louis. The fabric was lying beneath the knee of the 
 burial, the bones of which, from the neck down showed pos- 
 itive evidences of quite thorough burning. Mr. Woesthaus 
 managed to save a piece possibly two square inches in dimen- 
 sion, carefully mounting it on a card, under glass. 
 
 In very dry caves, relics of gourd, wood, basketry, fibre 
 and cloth have been found and saved. 
 
 VARIOUS TYPES OF NOTCHED HOES 
 
 A collection such as Mr. Braim had furnishes many instances which 
 cause one to think. Beautiful notched hoes are found over a somewhat 
 restricted territory. True, they, like the flared spades, are found on the 
 Ohio River and its tributaries; but East St. Louis, we believe, was the 
 "home" of the notched hoe. The center piece above, a beautiful piece, 
 was found just south of Eads Bridge, near the river; the lefthand hoe was 
 found near Collinsville; the righthand hoe, near Lebanon. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OP ILLINOIS 23 
 
 BURIAL CUSTOMS 
 
 IT is difficult for us, accustomed as we are to the telephone, 
 newspaper, mail service, radio, steam, electric and gaso- 
 line transportation, to imagine conditions lacking all of these 
 things. 
 
 We hardly understand the Scottish Clans of many decades 
 ago, their enmities, their differing customs and dialects, oc- 
 curring in glens or valleys, separated by mountainous hills, 
 yet apart, "as the crow flies," but a few miles. This con- 
 dition existed, but, of course, at a time before modern means 
 of thought transference and rapid transit eradicated the ig- 
 norance of one people as regards another, and which give 
 us — or should give us — understanding and a feeling of kin- 
 ship to our fellow men. 
 
 One must visualize the ancient peoples of Illinois in much 
 the same manner as the ancient Scots. The tribes or villages 
 on the Illinois River, no doubt, differed materially in customs 
 from the tribes or villages on the Kaskaskia or other rivers. 
 Not having books and letters, knowledge necessarily was 
 transmitted by example and word of mouth. Therefore the 
 learned of a tribe must have been after the manner of the 
 Siouan or other modern Indian "Medicine Men." While 
 these men were taught by their predecessors, each one, with- 
 out doubt, interpolated into his ceremonies, his prayers, his 
 magic, personal idiosyncracies and "discoveries" of his 
 own, and his teachings would impress his tribe differently, and 
 cause a variance in tribal customs of living and of burial even 
 of those of the same "nation." 
 
 This individualism would explain the differences found in 
 similar shaped mounds. It is impossible to choose a pyra- 
 midal, sugar loaf, oblongated, oval, truncated pyramid, effigy, 
 high or low mound and say that "this shape contains certain 
 burials, this shape without burials," and that another shape is 
 strictly for "temple" purposes. 
 
 It seems that each tribe or nation built mounds with some 
 generally accepted kindred purpose. Practically all of the 
 
24 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 mounds contain unmistakable evidences of careful building, 
 sometimes apparently for religious uses. 
 
 It has been our privilege to witness much excavating of 
 mounds and ancient graves, and we have been moved to deep- 
 est reverence at the evidence of the painstaking labor in 
 their construction. 
 
 CAN WE RECONSTRUCT LIFE BY STUDY OF BURIALS? 
 
 If one were to attempt to describe America as it is to-day, 
 just how would we come at the subject? Especially would it 
 be difficult to describe it to one who was totally unacquainted 
 with modern America. 
 
 If all we had to picture America in 1928 were our burial 
 places, would it be possible to literally reconstruct the life 
 of to-day ? Verily, one would find these burials as diverse in 
 custom as are the lives of the members of our various denom- 
 inations. However, without the modern "conveniences" 
 which cause unnumbered complications of living and differing 
 conditions, life would of necessity be more simple. 
 
 Life in ancient times was filled, no doubt, with desires 
 for love, for power, for ease in living, for solution of the sun's 
 rising, for the answer to the shining of the moon, for the an- 
 swer to what seems the inherent belief or hope of all man- 
 kind — of Life itself — whether or not it continues after dissolu- 
 tion. 
 
 The philosophy of the ancient Indians is known to us only 
 as we find it expressed in their mounds, graves and the poor 
 relics found on camp or village sites. The work of their hands 
 that have resisted unknown ages of time, the manner of bur- 
 ial, food bowls, stone tools and projectile points and knives, 
 remain to tell us their mute story of the life of a primitive peo- 
 ple that developed and became great along the simplest pos- 
 sible lines. 
 
 It is impossible to delve into all the many thousands of 
 graves and mounds and to explore the innumerable ancient 
 camp sites. It would be impossible to tell a comprehensible 
 story of the total findings even were one able to do so. How- 
 ever, as we believe that if one could describe any one typical 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 25 
 
 American individual he would be telling a great deal of mod- 
 ern America, so we here describe a few typical Indian burials, 
 in the hope that our findings may shed a little light on the cus- 
 toms of the ancient pre-Columbian Red Men of Illinois. 
 
 INTERESTING MOUND FIND, NEAR CENTREVILLE STATION, 
 ST. CLAIR COUNTY 
 
 These relics were taken from a low mound at the foot of the bluffs 
 east-southeast of East St. Louis, near Centreville Station, and are now 
 in the collection of Mr. Wm. E. Herrington of this city. Numbers 1, 2, 3 
 and 4 are wonderful specimens of unfinished pipes, clearly showing that 
 the shaping of the objects from the rough stone thus far was accomplished 
 by a pecking process. Numbers 3 and 4 are partly drilled, and all are 
 of very hard, refractory, grainless stone. Number 5 is a spade, rather 
 thick, well chipped, with polished bit, made of pinkish flint, length nine 
 and three-fourths inches. Number 6 is a beautifully polished celt of 
 mottled granite. Numbers 7 and 8 are pottery sherds of thin ware, nicely 
 finished, unornamented. Number 9 is a "bone needle sharpener," of white 
 sharp sandstone. On the dark card, lower center, are some arrowheads, 
 a very fine spearhead, a good knife blade. Near the mound are to be 
 found abundant evidences of a large prehistoric settlement. Immediately 
 north is a bubbling creek of clear water, and to the west lay the southerly 
 end of old Pittsburg Lake, formerly a fine body of water, extending west- 
 erly five miles or more into East St. Louis corporate limits. 
 
26 
 
 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 At the Cahokia group have been found tens of thousands of arrowheads, 
 similar to the ahove, generally, in shape. Collectors as a rule name them 
 "Cahokia points." Invariably of beautiful craftsmanship, some are marvel- 
 ously chipped to knifelike fineness of edge. The materials used indicate some- 
 what the tremendous range covered by those Cahokia warriors. Obsidian, 
 calcedony and quart/, from the western Rockies, copper from the Lake Superior 
 region; clear crystal, dark, bluish veined hint from Ohio, Tennessee and Ken- 
 tucky; pure white flint from the Ozarks; red flints from lower down in the 
 Arkansas hills. Other jewel-like materials one would like to believe came 
 from old Mexico. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 STONE GRAVES 
 
 STONE GRAVES are found, to personal knowledge, from 
 above Alton to Gorham. We have read that they are 
 found quite generally throughout the South (especially in 
 Georgia) and up the Ohio River and its tributaries, They 
 have been found, to our knowledge, occasionally in Iowa on 
 the Skunk River. 
 
 These stone graves, like the mounds, while similar in 
 general, has each one its individuality. They are found on 
 the limestone bluffs, and in country miles away from ex- 
 posed limestone. As it would be, to our minds, impossible to 
 state even briefly the many differing ways of building stone 
 cists or graves which we have found, we will not attempt a 
 general description. It will be better to content ourselves 
 with a few observations than to be lost in the maze of min- 
 ute descriptions of the many which we have seen and 
 explored. 
 
 And so we will merely tell about a few of them, in dif- 
 ferent parts of the territory up and down the Mississippi River 
 from East St. Louis. 
 
 
 
 
 ^'\;.. 
 
 
 Persimmon Mound -aem^ MonK/9 Mound. 
 
 N 
 
28 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 JACKSON COUNTY 
 
 IN SEPTEMBER, 1924, on the invitation of Mr. J. Dan Will 
 of Roots, Randolph County, we accompanied him on an 
 exploration trip in Jackson County. 
 
 On the Mississippi River Bluffs, a few miles west of 
 Murphysboro, there is an extensive ancient Indian cemetery 
 of stone graves, situated on a high ridge between the bot- 
 toms and a fair-sized creek which comes through the bluffs 
 from the east at this point. 
 
 Much work had already been done by various persons in 
 times past. Many great slabs or "cap stones" were scattered 
 about, showing that a great many "resting places" had been 
 disturbed. The side walls of many explored graves could be 
 seen, evidently of graves which had been built very close to 
 the original surface. 
 
 After digging into several of these, we finally came upon 
 an undisturbed cap stone about two feet below the surface. 
 After carefully uncovering the entire box or vault, we lifted 
 the cap stone, finding the cist to be approximately seven feet 
 long by twenty inches wide. The side walls were made by 
 setting, edgewise, slabs of limestone about two to three inches 
 thick. These stones had been broken into about the same 
 sizes, but showed no evidences of having been trimmed with 
 tools. Trenching all about the walls, we carefully withdrew 
 one side and began taking away the sandy clay. 
 
 At the head of the burial we found a great chunk of red 
 "paint stone," which we judged to weigh about ten pounds. 
 Beneath this was a tent-like structure of very thin limestone 
 slabs, which had been built over the face and head of the 
 burial. On removing the dirt from the entire body, we dis- 
 covered that all the bones below the skull were charred from 
 burning, bits of charcoal being associated therewith. 
 
 The body was flexed, arms at side, lying on its back, the 
 general direction of the ridge. No artifacts or projectile 
 points were discovered, but the evident care of the burial, the 
 protecting stone "tepee" over the head, capped as it was by 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 29 
 
 an unusual quantity of "paint rock," led us to believe it an 
 "important" burial. The good contour of the skull, the rest- 
 ful attitude, the careful construction of the cist of heavy, well 
 chosen stones, which must have been carried several hundred 
 yards, together with the evidences of thorough burning, 
 caused queer thoughts to course through our minds. As if 
 we were eye-witnesses to the solemn ceremonies which must 
 have attended the burial of this ancient Red Man, the im- 
 
 Wm. McAdams found quite a number of these "sphinx-like images." 
 The frog pipe, on page 33, and the ab ove pipe in human form we reproduce 
 with his description, from his "Records of Ancient Races," 1887. He says: 
 "The face of this figure is a fine, expressive one, and the head is sur- 
 mounted 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 form- 
 ing a crest or knob at the top. * * * It is considerably larger than the 
 frog-image described above ; is of the same red stone, and was taken from 
 a mound on Piasa Creek, a few miles from Alton. * * * Like the preced- 
 ing image (the frog, page 33), it is highly polished, and as a work of art 
 has certainly no small degree of merit.'' 
 
10 
 
 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 pression came of the Reason which prompted them. The 
 Man himself had gone to the Spiritland. The fleshly remains, 
 carefully laid to rest in a solid, protecting stone grave, were 
 consumed by the fire and given to the god of the Air, while 
 the bones were given to the god of the Earth, being carefully 
 covered by the great stone, to lie throughout untold ages, until 
 the cavity of the cist became entirely filled by the filtering in 
 of the surrounding clay. Their sacred symbols of Life seemed 
 to us to be exemplified as fourfold — the Spirit to the Spiritual 
 realm ; the flesh to the Air; the blood to the Waters ; the bones 
 to the Earth. 
 
 Our observations made, this burial was carefully re- 
 placed, to lie undisturbed, perhaps, until the poor bones of 
 this Red Man are indeed absorbed into Mother Earth. 
 
 This is a remarkable life-sized effigy vase, found near Blythesville, 
 Mississippi County, Arkansas, from a burial site that was being washed 
 away by river. Mr. H. M. Braun, East St. Louis, had it in his collection 
 some years ago, and says that while not at all common, Mr. Clarence B. 
 Moore, Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, has described dozens of them in 
 his book on his Arkansas archaeological work. The perforations in the 
 ears were no doubt for the suspension of ornaments. Perforated fresh- 
 water pearls have been found associated with burials, in great quantities. 
 The protuberance at the forehead is also perforated, possibly for the fas- 
 tening of feathers, which held a religious significance to the Indians, or 
 some other form of distinguishing ornament. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 31 
 
 NEAR ROOTS, RANDOLPH COUNTY 
 
 MR. WILL is an ardent student of archaeology, and by 
 his continued interest and observations since early boy- 
 hood, he has amassed a wonderful collection of the relics 
 of prehistoric Indians, as well as a knowledge of the burial 
 places and village sites of the American Bottoms and bluff 
 lands, especially in the territory from the mouth of the Kas- 
 kaskia River, up that river to Evansville, and the country 
 toward the Mississippi. 
 
 On our return from Jackson County, we explored for a 
 day in a very interesting burial place near Mr. Will's home. 
 His father had done extensive work here in years gone by and 
 it was some little time ere we made any discoveries. 
 
 Finally, however, beneath a disturbed site, we discov- 
 ered two very interesting burials. The first one, about 
 four feet down, was a carefully-made cist, which, when the 
 great cap rock had been removed, we found to be about four 
 feet nine inches long by only about eleven inches wide. On 
 the outside of the cist, at fairly regular intervals, we found 
 peculiar naturally-shaped pieces of "lime-drip/' which forma- 
 tion occurs in the fine sand-like clay of the neighborhood. 
 The shapes resembled the pottery-effigy squatting fat woman, 
 which figure is found depicted in pottery vessels throughout 
 the American Bottoms and further south near the great river. 
 This resemblance was vague, somewhat after the fancied 
 image of the ''man in the moon" or faces in the clouds or 
 rocks, as children see them. (See page 55.) 
 
 The skeleton, apparently that of a youth, was lying on 
 its back, extended full length. The side walls fitted quite 
 snugly against the skull and the body was either crowded into 
 the cist after the flesh had been removed, or the pressure of 
 the settling earth pushed the sides in very evenly before the 
 cavity was finally filled by the sifting action of the fine clay 
 throughout the ages. No artifacts or stone relics were found. 
 
 The second burial was peculiar. Bent at the waist, it 
 lay on its back. At its head to the left, we found a crude 
 
32 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 bottle-shaped pot of about three pints capacity. The legs 
 bent straight down from the hips. At about the waist line, 
 on the right, we found a well-made pot of about a quart 
 capacity, with an animal head on the rim. Later when Mr. 
 Will carefully took out the dirt with which it was filled, he 
 discovered a polished mussel shell "spoon" very nicely in- 
 cised, and also a small handled pot of about a half pint 
 capacity. 
 
 It is peculiar how the apparently solid earth fills all 
 cavities of these carefully made stone cists, filling even the 
 skulls, whose only openings into the brain cavity are at the 
 entrance of the spinal cord or the tiny nerve channels of the 
 eye and ear sockets. 
 
 At this place Mr. Will, some years prior to our visit, re- 
 moved a very large cap stone, beneath which was an exceed- 
 ingly well-made cist about fourteen inches in length by about 
 six inches wide. The bones were disintegrated with the ex- 
 ception of particles of very thin skull, which were encased 
 in one-half of a broken pot, placed over the tiny head by 
 the loving hands which interred it so long ago. One small 
 handled pot, about one-fourth pint capacity, was found, and 
 it was found bottom up. Whether it was placed in this man- 
 ner at the time of interment is a question. One can imagine 
 that its being upside down was to indicate that the immature 
 life, in thus leaving its loving parents, had left unfilled the 
 hopes they held for it. Then again it may have been placed 
 on the top of a little thickly blanketed and be-feathered fig- 
 ure, and as the ages ate the fabrics and skins, and the earth 
 filtered through the interstices, its foundation crumbled and 
 the tiny pot rolled over and became covered over in its fallen 
 position. 
 
 This burial site, situated about half way up the steeply 
 sloping hill, on a shelf-like park, overlooks an ideal camp site 
 at the foot of the hill, where the hamlet of Roots now stands, 
 and on the bluff above it are ample evidences of village occu- 
 pancy. 
 
 A sugar-loaf mound about twenty feet in diameter by 
 ten or twelve feet high, "overlooks" the burial site. This 
 mound was explored some years ago by Mr. Will and his 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 33 
 
 father, who found at about the base line a great "wheel" 
 made of a conglomeration in which pounded shell seemed 
 to predominate, which was so hard it was very difficult to 
 _vbreak. Evidently, as the Indians knew nothing of wheels 
 <tenter, and was probably "big medicine" to guard the buria 
 Ijt was one of their sacred symbols, a circle with rays to the 
 places of their tribe's departed ones. 
 
 The above is "an Altar Pipe, or smoke-maker, made from a beautiful 
 red stone, and represents a huge bullfrog, which held in its right forefoot 
 or hand a curious sort of mace or sceptre-like handle, 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 sphinx-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." — 
 Records of Ancient Races, Wm. MacAdam, 1887, page 45-46. With this 
 burial Mr. MacAdam also found a "crown-like head-dress of copper, that 
 had been ornamented with pearls and pretty figures from pearl shell." 
 
3 I MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 STONE BURIALS NEAR FULTS, MONROE 
 
 COUNTY 
 
 JOHN OFFERMANN lives on a large farm in the Ameri- 
 can Bottoms, near Fults, Monroe County. The former 
 owner of the farm was a descendant of the early French 
 pioneers. The house and barn are situated on a large mound, 
 and the ground about seems to have been an old island, lake 
 or bayou bank. The low broad ridge extends northwardly, 
 and about three hundred yards northeast of the house lies 
 a very low mound. The plow would strike the capstones, 
 which the former owner did not disturb. However, Mr. 
 Offermann, being very practical and thrifty, one day, with his 
 sons, dug out the offending stones. As stone in this alluvial 
 soil is not natural so near the surface, they worked care- 
 fully. 
 
 It is not known exactly the number of burials they un- 
 covered, but it was an extremely interesting group. The 
 bodies were flexed, arms at side, lying on their backs. In one 
 cist, besides pottery, was found "two water bucketfuls" of 
 vermilion colored paint, a little of which was saved. 
 
 One individual had an embossed copper plate over 
 his face. Beaten very thin and smooth, it had been embossed 
 with what seemed to be artistically-made figures, nearly all 
 lost to us because the metal was badly disintegrated. The 
 skull was entirely green from the copper oxidization. 
 
 No particular direction of the burials was observed, they 
 merely being buried closely together, with the stone box or 
 cist and the heavy capstones, similar to other burials in the 
 locality. 
 
 Very fine specimens of pottery were recovered, together 
 with a very finely polished gouge of yellow and cream col- 
 ored flint, which material is said to be found in Union County, 
 a hundred miles to the southeast. The size of this beautiful 
 gouge, celt or hand axe is 9%x2% inches, has an exceedingly 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 35 
 
 high polish, beautifully shaped, and must have been highly 
 prized by its original owner. It is now in possession of Mr. 
 Edward W. Payne of Springfield, who has, without doubt, 
 the greatest collection of specimens of artifacts, arms, orna- 
 ments, projectile points, pottery and ceremonial pieces of the 
 prehistoric Americans ever gathered together. He has also 
 from this burial place a quartz gouge 5% inches long, taper- 
 ing to a half inch at the bit, finely polished except at base, 
 which while well shaped, retained the "bark" or weathered 
 surface of the quartz. 
 
 Quite a quantity of galena was found, some of which 
 was saved. A very beautiful plummet, of fine balance and 
 shape and polish, made of veined light and dark red hema- 
 tite, was also found. 
 
 The pottery was not only plentiful, but very interesting, 
 being of the same general forms and effigies common to the 
 Cahokia culture, thirty-five miles north. 
 
 The site at present is far from water that could be navi- 
 gated by canoes. However, the swayle to the west appeared 
 to us as though it may have, in ancient times, afforded plenty 
 of water for canoe travel. The bluffs are two miles east, 
 and at this point are very high and beautiful, being truly 
 mountainous limestone cliffs. As some of the capstones were 
 great slabs of rock requiring the entire strength and ingen- 
 uity of two strong men to lift, one is compelled to look for 
 other agencies than mere man-strength to learn how they 
 were transported to this place. The logical conclusion ap- 
 pears to be that they were carried on rafts or in great war 
 canoes. 
 
 The size of the mound where Mr. Offermann's house is 
 located, and the number of smaller mounds, situated as they 
 are, leads one to believe that here was the home of a quite 
 numerous and strong tribe for a very long period of time. 
 
36 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 ST. CLAIR AND MADISON COUNTIES 
 
 ST. CLAIR and Madison Counties must have been, in an- 
 cient times, the ideal locality for the growth and pros- 
 perity of prehistoric communities. Almost every foot of 
 these two counties has yielded relics of Indian habita- 
 tion, war or hunt. The great Cahokia Mound group, located 
 ; n both counties, contains some eighty-four well denned 
 mounds, king or queen of which is the great Cahokia Mound, 
 which towers one hundred feet above the surrounding plain, 
 is one thousand and ten feet long, six hundred and eighty feet 
 wide, a rectangular truncated pyramid, standing due north 
 and south. 
 
 Its "head" or "graded pathway" to the south, its beau- 
 tiful terrace or "apron" on the south, half the height of the 
 summit, its graded roadway, winding from the southwest cor- 
 ner up the western side to the summit, its regular terraces 
 dividing the top in half, making the north half some three 
 feet higher than the south half of the summit, make it an im- 
 posing sight to the most casual observers. The top contains 
 approximately two acres. This old mound, covering as it 
 does approximately seventeen acres, has been visited by sci- 
 entists and scholars from practically every civilized country 
 on earth. For more than sixty years the farm on which it 
 is situated has been the home of the Ramey family, who have 
 ever welcomed the intelligent interest of the thousands who 
 have visited it during their ownership. 
 
 Their desire that the State acquire the property, and 
 preserve these wonderful works for the study and enjoyment 
 of the present and future generations, has been realized. 
 This was not accomplished, however, without heavy sacrifice 
 on their part. 
 
 As this group and immediate territory has been the sub- 
 ject of so much writing and exploration, we will not here 
 attempt to even partly portray its greatness and wonders. 
 Suffice to say it is the greatest group of all, and it is inter- 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 37 
 
 esting to note the evident extended influence of the Cahokia 
 culture not only over this part of the state, but, we believe, 
 well into the states of Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana 
 and Ohio, along the rivers, the old channels of commerce. 
 
 This "ceremonial sceptre" of clear white flint, eleven inches in length, 
 bit polished and sharp, is truly a problematical form. Found in a low 
 mound near Cahokia, in which was also plowed out an interesting stone 
 idol, causes one to think of it as an emblem of authority. Its practical 
 use may have been as a hand axe, but primitive people are so prone to 
 show and ceremony that it seems proper to classify such a piece as a 
 "ceremonial." So many wonderful things have been found near East St. 
 Louis that we feel that truly this locality was the metropolis of aboriginal 
 America. Photo by courtesy of Mr. H. M. Braun. 
 
38 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 RATTLESNAKE MOUND— ST. CLAIR 
 COUNTY 
 
 ABOUT three-fourths of a mile south of old Cahokia 
 Mound, on ground bought for the enlargement of the 
 Baltimore & Ohio railroad yards, near East St. Louis, lies the 
 "Rattlesnake Mound," so named by early pioneers because ot 
 the great numbers of rattlesnakes found on it. 
 
 This mound, in course of the development of the rail- 
 road yards, being doomed, the Illinois University enlisted the 
 services of Prof. Warren K. Moorehead, of Phillips Academy, 
 Andover, Massachusetts, to explore the mound in the spring of 
 1927. The active work was in charge of Mr. Jay L. B. Tay- 
 lor, well known author of several books on civil engineering, 
 text books for U. S. Forest Rangers, etc., etc. While their 
 work yielded little in the line of stone or other museum relics, 
 the "negligible findings" were keenly interesting. 
 
 Rattlesnake Mound is approximately five hundred feet 
 long, two hundred feet wide, thirty feet in height. The top 
 is beautifully rounded, furnishing an ideal situation for the 
 four roomy tents of the explorers' party. The surrounding 
 ground is very low, .with, however, a well-defined graded way 
 running due north. Messrs. Jesse and James Ramey, who 
 called to view the work, stated that this graded pathway ex- 
 tended north through their land toward the mounds imme- 
 diately south of old Cahokia. 
 
 When Mr. Taylor surveyed the mound he was amazed at 
 the accuracy of contour maintained by the builders, and ex- 
 pressed himself as puzzled that so great a pile of earth could 
 be made to keep so nearly true its contour throughout the 
 ages. At points two hundred feet east of center and two 
 hundred feet west of center, less than one-tenth of a foot dif- 
 ference in elevation was found. A tangent at the center 
 point was but five degrees off from the true north at this time. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 39 
 
 It seems incredible, to a civil engineer, that such a work 
 could be constructed so accurately without the use of instru- 
 ments to "check" the work as it progressed. 
 
 A fifty foot trench was laid out through the middle 
 of the mound, and work was started at the southern base 
 line. Progressing through the admixture of heavy black 
 "gumbo" and clay soils a matter of some twenty feet, they 
 struck what appeared to be a trench burial containing about 
 one hundred and fifty individuals. There was no stone in the 
 mound, and the chemical action of the soils used had disinte- 
 grated the bones almost entirely. They saved a few skulls, 
 which were small, some of which were elongated, others short 
 and broad. Usually the only evidence that could be saved 
 of a body was the enamel of the teeth, which had resisted the 
 ravages of time and the chemical action of the soils. These 
 burials were so-called "bunch" burials; that is, the bones were 
 merely bundled together, as though wrapped in blankets and 
 buried so — legs, arms, skull, etc., in a small package. 
 
 No stone relics were discovered other than one very finely 
 made bicave stone, reddish in color. There was a paucity of 
 flint chips, pottery sherds and shell, throughout all the ardu- 
 ous careful work of the exploring party. 
 
 Soundings in other parts of the mound, by well augurs, 
 yielded evidences of other burials, bits of shell, etc. 
 
 Throughout the entire structure, it seemed, no two shov- 
 elsfull of earth were of the same composition. It was heavy, 
 gummy soil, mixed in places with what seemed to be iron 
 oxide or paint. A ball of this clay dries as hard as adobe, 
 and it could have been used in the making of pottery — so it 
 seemed to us. 
 
 The evident care, the intelligence, the accuracy dem- 
 onstrated in the making of Rattlesnake Mound command the 
 respect of those who know. The peculiar composition of soils 
 shows that unusual significance was attached by the builders 
 to this sacred mound. The "bunch" burials almost compel 
 us to think that the individuals were brought from afar to 
 their final resting place at or near their Mecca — or was it 
 merely that they were brought to their home-land, to be 
 "forever" among their own kind? 
 
40 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 JOHN B. ROLLE VILLAGE SITE- 
 ST. CLAIR COUNTY 
 
 VILLAGE SITES of the prehistoric Red Men are not 
 marked by crumbling walls, gaping well and cistern 
 holes, nor even indentions left by cellars. Well defined 
 village sites, however, do exist, and patient search reveals, 
 usually, much interesting material. 
 
 Village sites vary in surroundings and other character- 
 istics as do villages and towns of today. 
 
 The explorations in the Cahokia group indicate that be- 
 sides the great mounds, evidences of village sites are found 
 to run almost continuously from the immediate neighborhood 
 of the great Cahokia group, southwest, south, west, northwest 
 and north for a distance of six miles and more. Nearly all 
 the low ridges in this radius, even today, will yield evidences 
 of ancient occupancy. The low places indicate clearly the 
 old canoe paths that coursed the American Bottoms, furnish- 
 ing, no doubt, navigable exits to the Mississippi, from the 
 lakes that dotted the territory, as well as means of com- 
 munication between the various village groups. 
 
 There are several exceptionally beautiful sites that really 
 should be thoroughly explored and described, but in this 
 work description will not be attempted. 
 
 On the farm of Mr. John B. Rolle, five miles due east 
 of East St. Louis, in the Bottoms, is an ideal site. Due north, 
 about three miles, stands the Great Mound of Cahokia, over- 
 lording the entire district. Mr. Rolle, being of a studious 
 nature, is keenly interested in archaeology, and is a close 
 and careful observer. He has found much interesting mater- 
 ial on this site, which is characteristic of the Cahokia culture. 
 
 The site lies north of his house about two hundred yards, 
 on what was once the bank of a bayou or lake. Directly 
 northeast lie two very low mounds, now nearly plowed down, 
 which have been casually examined, and have yielded pot- 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 41 
 
 tery, several "notched hoes," finely chipped projectile points, 
 etc. The digging was done by the Guoy Bros, who own land 
 adjoining Mr. Rolle's place. They were not experienced in 
 such work and so were unable to save any of the pottery, but 
 the sherds found at this site, as well as the chipped flint 
 pieces, invariably are fine, indicating workmanship of super- 
 ior character. The situation is similar to that found at Mr. 
 Offermann's farm in Monroe County, but no stone was used 
 in the low mounds which the Guoy Bros, explored. 
 
 Mr. Rolle has dug "prospect holes" at various points in 
 the site, and of late years he has cultivated the land unusually 
 deep, which is necessary for the successful raising of horse- 
 radish, to which the soil hereabouts is peculiarly adapted. 
 The camp debris seems to be almost three feet deep quite 
 generally over the site. As this site is not subject to over- 
 flow, and as cultivation wears the land away into the lower 
 ancient lake or bayou bed, the thickness of the soil contain- 
 ing broken pottery, flint chips, grinding stones, hammer stones, 
 paint rock, hematite and galena, is evidence enough that it 
 was a town or village site for ages. 
 
 EFFIGY POTTERY OF THE AMERICAN BOTTOMS 
 
 The above effigy pottery from and near the Offermann farm is typical of 
 effigy pottery throughout the Bottoms. One finds it described and illustrated 
 in Smithsonian reports; also in Professor Moorehead's report on his work in 
 the Cahokia Mound group. The vessel at the right is an animal effigy, the. 
 blunt nose, protruding eyes, the elfish cars reminding one strongly of a fox 
 or an English fairy or elf. The bowl is of red material, hard surface, about 
 three inches tall and four and a half inches in diameter. It was found by Mr. 
 Antone Fanaia, living a few miles up the Bottom toward Valmeyer. The left 
 hand vessel represents a Gulf shell cut to make it into a useful vessel and 
 came from the Offermann mound. 
 
12 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 SITE AT FRENCH VILLAGE 
 ST. CLAIR COUNTY 
 
 THE AMERICAN BOTTOMS is now, and, without doubt, 
 was in very ancient times, wonderfully rich in food. 
 It was dotted with lakes, bayous and creeks with their 
 slow-moving current, which furnished an abundance of fish, 
 turtle, frogs, etc., and literally millions of wild waterfowl. 
 The broad, low ridges furnished ideal village and field sites, 
 as well as range for deer, bear, etc., and the smaller food ani- 
 mals. They were safe from the ordinary high waters of the 
 great river, but occasionally, in our own history, floods have 
 risen and covered all but the very highest ridges and those 
 places that were built up by the mound builders which would 
 furnish refuges for entire tribes at such times. 
 
 These prehistoric people had boats, it is believed, with 
 which their war and hunting parties made long journeys up 
 and down the Mississippi and its tributaries; also to hunt 
 and fish among the lakes and streams of the Bottoms. 
 
 The bluffs northeast, east and southeast of East St. Louis 
 are merely high hills, some one hundred and fifty feet above 
 the Bottoms. We'll say at every "pass" through the bluffs, 
 that is where a creek breaks through on its way to the river, 
 can be found evidences of prehistoric Indian occupancy. 
 
 At old French Village, six miles east of East St. Louis, 
 two miles southeast of Mr. Rolle's village site, five miles 
 south-southeast of old Cahokia, is a typical site. The Schoen- 
 berg Creek breaks through the bluffs at this point, and a 
 broad, rich bottom land extends several miles back into the 
 broken lands or rolling bluffs along this creek. At the mouth 
 of the creek is a beautiful pyramidal mound, which rises to 
 the height of a bench immediately south of it. 
 
 The lands of the Bottoms near the bluffs at this point are 
 well above any known high water, and are exceedingly pro- 
 ductive, and show abundant evidence of Indian occupancy. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 43 
 
 For probably a hundred years the major portion of this 
 beautiful site has been owned by the Boul family. Mr. Nich- 
 olas Boul, who lived on it until his death some years ago, 
 protected it from relic hunters, who have for fifty years ex- 
 plored the Bottoms and bluffs. His grandson, Mr. Ben 
 Woesthaus, a young man keenly interested in the study of 
 archaeology, has during the past year, carried on very inter- 
 esting work in pursuance of his desire to learn the who, what 
 and when of the ancient inhabitants. 
 
 In the great field west of his parents' home, he finds 
 plots literally filled with flint spawls, pottery sherds, hammer 
 stones, etc., and on the bench, above the house, and on the 
 crown of the bluffs are found ideal burial sites. 
 
 Here is found no limestone in connection with the burials. 
 No evidences of white man's manufacture has been unearthed. 
 The nature of the soil seems peculiarly adapted for the pre- 
 servation of the bones, shell and pottery of the Indians. 
 
 Mr. Woesthaus has unearthed many burials, one of 
 which yielded an unusually great wealth of interesting relics. 
 This burial contained so much of what seems to be typical of 
 this site, we will take Mr. Woesthaus' own notes, and con- 
 sider this description a fair one for the entire group. Believ- 
 ing that what he has written as an introduction to his records 
 is interesting, we will reprint that also : 
 
 "I cannot exactly tell why, but objects that are very old, 
 carrying their suggestions of ages, seem to possess an unusual 
 attraction for me. Due to the fact that we now live near 
 the Cahokia Mounds has probably made me most interested 
 in archaeology. Questing into the dim, forgotten past for 
 the history of a vanished people has so caught my interest 
 that most of my leisure time is spent in gathering various bits 
 of information and the relics dealing with the lives and cus- 
 toms of these people. 
 
 "What a wonderful culture and civilization this race 
 must have had to gain the knowledge of the ceramic arts and 
 stone working that they exhibited ; considering the fact that 
 they had no potter's wheel, no iron or steel for their working 
 tools. Then the erection of the vast and imposing mounds, 
 eternal monuments to a cultured race whose history is un- 
 
1 1 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 known to man, but which must have taken hundreds of years 
 to build. The famous Cahokia or Monks' Mound is 1098 by 
 725 feet at base and is 100 feet high, covering seventeen acres, 
 two roods and three perches of ground, and is larger than 
 the pyramid of Cheops, and also much larger than the pyra- 
 mids erected by the Mayas and Aztecs in Mexico. It must 
 have taken not only years of time but thousands of men to 
 heap up a pile of earth this size, with many other stupendous 
 mounds around it. The antiquity of these mounds and the 
 evidence that they are the work of man and not accidental 
 freaks of nature has been proven so often that it is not neces- 
 sary to go into detail. 
 
 "But as to the antiquity of man in America, there are 
 some conflicting theories. Prof. Warren K. Moorehead says 
 that in Delaware Valley there is or was evidence that it had 
 been inhabited as far back as three or four thousand years. 
 In the southern part of the United States, in Louisiana, there 
 was unearthed in 1866 a small piece of rush matting in a 
 salt bed fourteen feet below the surface and two feet below 
 the tusks and remains of a prehistoric elephant or mastodon. 
 This seems to show that man inhabited this region before or 
 at the time of the mastodon. 
 
 "In the west there are the Mesa Verde ruins and other 
 cliff dwellings whose origin or occupancy was unknown to 
 the Indians when the Spaniards invaded Mexico and took 
 Montezuma prisoner. In the Central West we have the 
 mighty Cahokia Mounds, and in Mexico, Yucatan, Chili and 
 other countries in South America we have the records of 
 Aztec, Toltec, Maya and Inca ruins, and inscriptions, some 
 accounting for more than two thousand years. And these 
 people found others living there when they invaded and occu- 
 pied their lands. So that we feel it safe to assume that this 
 country has prehistoric men that are as old or almost as old 
 as those in Europe. 
 
 "Many of the burials that I have unearthed are on a high 
 ridge on the south side of our home, which is situated on the 
 bluffs between Edgemont and French Village. This ridge had 
 been dug into some twenty years ago by a collector who lived 
 in French Village, and the first burials I unearthed were those 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 45 
 
 he had found. So no record has been kept of them. Many 
 were very interesting, but I submit No. 34 as being particu- 
 larly fine, containing as it did so many relics typical of the 
 relics found in the other burials, the only difference being in 
 the unusual quantity found. 
 
 "June 16, 1927 — This skeleton had two women buried 
 above him, who may or may not have been his wives. I 
 found his feet while digging on skeleton No. 31, and so shall 
 describe from feet to head. All along his legs, and in fact his 
 whole body up to his neck, was covered with small seashell 
 beads. They were near the bones and three inches or so 
 farther away, on the calves of his legs. There was a whole 
 pile of them in the pelvic bones, in between the ribs and the 
 spinal structure. His clothes must have been fairly covered 
 with them. I grew tired of hunting them out and picking 
 them up. There was easily over a thousand of them. I still 
 have about seven hundred and have given various numbers 
 away. This Indian was "good" from the neck up, no doubt 
 about it. Under the jawbone or chin was a long shell about 
 seven inches in length with three holes drilled through it. 
 Around the neck was a number of large perfect beads, the 
 finest I have seen to date. They are well preserved and are 
 about one-half to three-fourths of an inch thick and about 
 the circumference of a quarter. Directly under his jaw were 
 six of these lying close together, just the way they were when 
 he was buried, several hundred years ago. There were a 
 few beads near his right shoulder on the right side. But the 
 left side had most of the things. There were five bear tusks 
 with holes drilled through them, one hole had been broken 
 through and a groove was cut around the tooth to secure it. 
 On the left side of his head was an unusual white sandstone 
 tool, seven and a half inches in length, about half an inch in 
 thickness. There is a deep groove on one side near the top 
 and running all the way across. On top is a similar groove, 
 except that it is shallow in the center and deep at the ends. 
 On the other side is a large shallow depression about three 
 and a half by one and a half inches. It seems to have been 
 used to polish or smoothen the beads, as the material of the 
 tool acts as an abrasive. There was a string of beads around 
 this tool, beads about as large as a dime, three times as thick 
 and perforated in the center. 
 
 "Still further to the left were two large mussel shells, 
 under which was a large hollow tusk or some other bone or 
 
1<; MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 material that had been carved. It had already been broken 
 by pressure of the ground, some of the parts are missing. I 
 saved both ends and parts of the middle. It would seem, if 
 whole, to have been in the form of a crescent about three or 
 four inches in length and tapering to a point at each end. 
 Farther back and nearer the head were several more shells, 
 some sea shells and some fresh water mussels. Some were 
 cut and one was similar to the shell found under the jaw, 
 having the holes bored through it . 
 
 "In some of these shells were rows of beads similar to 
 the ones found around the stone tool. Some of them were in 
 rows just as they had been strung. Near some of the shells 
 was some red paint rock and under the head of the Indian 
 was a shell about three inches wide. Near the skull and un- 
 der a shell was a small piece of galena. 
 
 'The skeleton faced slightly south of west, and had two 
 burials on top of him, seemingly made at the same time, as 
 there was no appreciable layer of earth separating them. 
 Also there was a burial on the right side of No. 34, with which 
 was found a roughly-chipped white flint spud, a small pot 
 about three inches in diameter, part of a flint spade and sev- 
 eral good sized flint spawls. In the one grave which con- 
 tained the four skeletons, there were found the following 
 items : 
 
 Small seashell beads (Marginelli) 980 
 
 Bone and shell beads, size of dime 110 
 
 Large beads about neck 28 
 
 Drilled bear tusks 6 
 
 Chunk of galena 1 
 
 Chunk of red paint rock 1 
 
 Stone tool, white sandstone 1 
 
 Flint spud 1 
 
 Broken part of flint spade 1 
 
 Miscellaneous shells, three bored 12 
 
 A pot, three inches in diameter 1 
 
 "This, as far as can be ascertained, is one of the best finds 
 made around East St. Louis for some years, and I am more 
 than thankful that I happened to be the lucky one to find it." 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 47 
 
 "DICKSON'S MOUND BUILDERS/' NEAR 
 LEWISTON, FULTON COUNTY 
 
 DR. DON F. DICKSON, who lives with his father on their 
 farm about six miles southwest of Lewiston, Fulton 
 County, has performed a work that is without doubt of greater 
 value to students of American archaeology than any one bit 
 of work done, anywhere, so far. The idea is original with 
 him and will stand as a monument to his thoughtful, careful, 
 painstaking labor and intelligent interest. 
 
 His father's house is situated near the top of a high hill, 
 overlooking the bottomland at the conjunction of the Spoon 
 River with the Illinois River. About twenty-five yards away 
 from the house was situated a semi-lunar shaped Indian 
 mound of large proportions. The situation is a beautiful one, 
 overlooking several fine mounds in the near bottomland, which 
 is ideal for field and village sites. The proximity of the 
 mound to the dwelling made it possible for Dr. Dickson to 
 do what he has done. 
 
 To satisfy a yearning to know more ; to actually see and 
 study the relics, the postures, the burial methods of these mys- 
 terious, forgotten peoples; to meditate, to ponder the under- 
 lying reason prompting them, Dr. Dickson went to work. 
 
 Much of the upper portion of the mound had been graded 
 down by his father in previous years, who used the dirt in 
 leveling off and enlarging his house yard, thereby removing 
 literally hundreds of skeletons. 
 
 The young man had carefully uncovered, at the time of 
 the writer's visit, a plot approximately forty feet square, and 
 a depth of from three to seven feet. He has literally handled 
 carloads of dirt with a teaspoon — uncovering each skeleton 
 with a knife blade, his breath and a brush. Each bone was 
 left undisturbed, each pot, each relic was replaced in as near 
 its exact original position as possible. 
 
 He has thus exposed almost a panoramic view of the 
 burials of a numerous tribe, occurring no doubt during 
 
48 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 decades of time. They lie, invariably, on their backs, flexed, 
 following no direction of compass ; at varying depths. While 
 the clay soil has preserved wonderfully the bones and pot- 
 tery, no vestige or imprint of featherwork, leather, fabric or 
 basketry remains. The tribal instinct of being together in 
 life was followed by those who interred their departed — in a 
 compact group. 
 
 As Dr. Dickson has them exposed, they seem more than 
 merely the cast-off frames of human beings. They seem to 
 us to actually live in their expressive attitudes. Which was 
 chief in his time? Which an artificer? Which a great war- 
 rior? Which was the great medicine man? That is impos- 
 sible to say. But two loving couples are there. Startlingly 
 real is their love, even today, hundreds, yea, perhaps thou- 
 sands of years, after some tragedy overtook them. 
 
 These two family groups have been so carefully uncov- 
 ered that nothing has been moved, and to gaze on them causes 
 anyone to wonder and almost weep at their terribly graphic 
 attitudes of deathless desire to be together. Though forever 
 silent, they seem to speak of a faith, a hope, a love far be- 
 yond one's ordinary conception of the exalted status of mere 
 savages' love. They almost tell us that their faith in Life was 
 that it continued, somehow, somewhere, but sure. 
 
 One of these groups ("1," pp. 49, 50) is that of a stalwart 
 man, on the right. The woman is on the left, her face toward 
 Him ; and their Babe, which lies between them, at her breast. 
 On the Babe's breast, as though suspended from its little neck, 
 is a very small unio Gulf shell. Around the Woman's 
 wrists are strands of wampum-shaped beads, made of sea- 
 shell. The man's frame is without ornament. A generous- 
 sized food bowl lies at her side. The Three — the Family — 
 are together — forever. 
 
 At a level, about four feet lower than this, lies another 
 family group. A man on the left, with his right leg bent at 
 the knee. On his left lies the Woman, with her face towards 
 the Man ; and enclosed in her still loving, protecting mother's 
 arm, lies their child, possibly eight years old or so. At her 
 waist is their second child, lying on his or her right side, 
 with its legs drawn up as a child does when asleep. This 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 49 
 
 This /view of Dickson's Mound Builders Tomb shows clearly the fact 
 that the individuals buried here were buried at different times; no atten- 
 tion being paid to direction of compass; each at a different level, except 
 the family groups No. 1 and No. 2. No. 3 is the group — -four deep — lying 
 very closely together, seeming to indicate either a group burial or the in- 
 terments coming at such intervals that disintegration of flesh was com- 
 pleted in the lower burials at the time of the superimposed interments. 
 
50 
 
 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 A much better view of the "Tomb," showing No. 1, the family group 
 with the Woman on the left, with her food bowl at her side, and shell 
 beads on her wrist, the Man on the right, with their Babe and its pendant 
 Gulf unio shell, lying between them. No. 2 is clearly shown also, with the 
 Woman on the right, food bowls at her head and hips, her arm about a 
 young child, another older child lying on its side at her waist. The Man lies 
 on the left. No. 3 shows the "conglomerate" group, which can be seen 
 through the glass plates Dr. Dickson has placed under the upper burial. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 51 
 
 child is older, probably ten or twelve years of age. When 
 this devoted family, either through influence of some weird, 
 savage religious ecstasy or through ordinary calamity, started 
 on their great journey to the mysterious Beyond, they, by 
 their deathless postures tell us of their paramount desire to 
 be — together. Food bowls lie at the Woman's head on the 
 left, another at her waist. (See "2,7 pp. 49, 50.) 
 
 The camera is a wonderful instrument, but mechanical 
 contrivances can not bring out the tremendous realities of this 
 great work. At "3," pp. 49, 50, is an almost puzzling group 
 of individuals. Each one lies on its back, in attitudes of com- 
 plete rest. They lie very closely together, not side by side, 
 but one slightly above the other, as though interred at such 
 widely different times that complete disintegration of the 
 flesh had occurred in the lower burials, thus allowing the 
 
 Fine examples of the pottery found in Dickson's Mound. The large 
 vessel at the left has a squash or melon design. The one at the right is a 
 rare form of vessel found only in prehistoric burials of the Red Men. The 
 smaller vessels are perfect, unornamented and of thin walls. The center 
 forefront is called a potter's trowel by various collectors and authorities. 
 
52 
 
 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 placement of the superimposed individuals. The three lower 
 skeletons lie in one direction, the upper one lies across the 
 others. Dr. Dickson, in order to show this group, has placed 
 glass plates beneath the top burial, and to do this he was com- 
 pelled to move the body from elbows to knees. However, it 
 has been accurately reassembled, and one can see the four 
 "layers" distinctly. 
 
 Dr. Dickson has built a permanent vitrified clay tile 
 building over the exhibit, and is continuing his work of un- 
 folding to the view of students additional "inhabitants" of 
 this apparently great tribe. 
 
 One individual he terms the "Arrowmaker" because of 
 
 Top row — fine steatite Mound Builders' platform pipe; upper jaws 
 and teeth cut from skulls. Teeth are perfect and are highly suggestive of 
 "false teeth." Middle row — >two Mound Builders' platform pipes. Lower 
 front is a most unique relic — a tiny dagger and sheath, cut from the teeth 
 of a grizzly bear. How the scabbard was hollowed out to receive the beau- 
 tifully shaped dagger of the hard bear tooth, with primitive stone tools, is 
 indeed a puzzle. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 53 
 
 the unusual number of flint arrow points and bone chipping 
 tools found lying with it. 
 
 Another individual has been uncovered who was no 
 doubt laid away in the full vigor of warriorhood. No finely- 
 ornamented blanket, no gorgeous featherwork, none of the 
 choice tidbits of basketed food, nothing of the carefully en- 
 graved and painted ax-handle or bow, with its accompany- 
 ing quiver, were found. Father Time has claimed all of 
 those untold hundreds of years agone. But lying at his waist 
 line, embedded in its protecting sheath of clay, lies a very 
 beautiful polished green granite celt. This seems to us to 
 clearly show that the celts were ungrooved axes, and were 
 without doubt firmly bound to handles by rawhide, which 
 dries and shrinks to almost metallic firmness. 
 
 So much has been said, so much has been written, so 
 much more could and will be written about Dr. Dickson's 
 work by those better qualified to do so than the writer, that 
 it seems to us futile to attempt a fuller description here. 
 
 DICKSON'S Mound Builders seem to us to show distinct 
 relations to the Cahokia people. Their arrow points are 
 predominatingly triangular in form, well made, of material 
 from widely separated sources. They used no stone in their 
 burials, but the pottery, the attitudes of the bodies in their 
 extended, restful positions, are very similar to those of the 
 people who inhabited the American Bottoms, and who buiit 
 the great mounds there. 
 
 Indications of social diseases are not found in the bones 
 of Dickson's Mound Builders, nor are they found in the bones 
 of other ancient pre-Columbian peoples. 
 
 Here no man is surrounded by female skeletons. The 
 family groups are pure — one man, one woman and their off- 
 spring. 
 
 Diseased bones are occasionally found, but seem clearly 
 to be results of infections from wounds, or other malforma- 
 tions. 
 
54 
 
 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 These people were so intensely tribal in their lives that 
 they have shown their desire to remain so in death. 
 
 Their relics indicate various degrees of culture. In the 
 upper or later portion of Dickson's mound was found pottery 
 of very fine workmanship and texture, superior ornamenta- 
 tion and shapes. The lower or earlier levels contain un- 
 marked pottery, though of fine shape and finish. 
 
 The flint chippings show a fine degree of craftsmanship. 
 The material indicates a wide range, though the pure white 
 flint was generally used. 
 
 ♦fitful 
 
 ifr*n*t«ii«'W»» 
 
 r»*Tf*t*tirm»t»*» 
 
 tr»*tT'?m m ?r?r*iu 
 
 nil 
 
 ; ii 
 
 ?» <» 
 
 This picture shows a collection of arrowheads, implements, vessels and 
 r.nimal bones found in Dickson's Mound. The arrowheads are typical of 
 the Cahokia group culture, as indeed are the vessels. The bones are from 
 buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, wild-cat, wolf, etc. The shells are from the 
 sea and from the nearby rivers. Flint knife blades, bone awls, perforated 
 discoidal beads are shown. The large flints, lower right, are spades, not so 
 fine as are found at the Cahokia grop. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 55 
 
 Some implements were found, large and strong, made of 
 the radius of deer, also very fine, needle-like bone implements 
 were present which may have been used in the making of 
 clothing, etc., or possibly in tattooing. 
 
 The bones of the deer, grizzly and smaller bear, elk, ante- 
 lope, buffalo, turtle, fish, fowl, wild cat and wolf are found. 
 
 A sacrum with a perfect Cahokia Mound arrowhead, 
 deeply imbedded in it, was an interesting discovery. 
 
 These people procured shells from the seacoast, hundreds 
 of miles distant, to make their beads and which they also 
 used in their entirety as ornaments or sacred vessels. 
 
 One of the finest pieces of workmanship was found that 
 we have ever seen. It is made from the teeth of a grizzly 
 bear. One portion of the tooth is hollowed out, at a cost of 
 who knows how much painstaking labor, to receive a little 
 dagger which has been cut from a grizzly tooth of the same 
 size. This will puzzle the craftsmen of today with their 
 chilled steel drills and engravers' tools. How it was accom- 
 plished with the stone tools of those ancient people will re- 
 main a mystery. 
 
 The effigy pot came from Hickman County, Ky., and like effigies 
 have been found in the American Bottoms. The small concretions came 
 from the base line of a mound in the Cahokia group; the larger concre- 
 tions came from outside of stone cist near Roots. (See text, page 31.) 
 
56 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 THE ORIGINAL AMERICANS 
 
 T is not the endeavor of the writer to settle the status of 
 the Mound Builders. The writing of this little book, as 
 well as the printing of it, was done merely as the diversion 
 of one interested in the study of the ancient Indians who so 
 completely occupied our lands hereabouts that their relics are 
 evident on almost every farm, on every river or creek bank. 
 
 In answering our craving for knowledge, we are led 
 afield, into the outdoors, and as a healthful recreation it has 
 repaid all our efforts. 
 
 In reading the expressions of those who have made the 
 study of our Original Americans a life work, our respect for 
 the American Indian has been increased. We find that, as 
 a race, they have very much to command the high regard of 
 all thoughtful persons. 
 
 The white man, filled with the greed for possession nur- 
 tured by a culture so different from that of the American Red 
 man, came, conquered and almost exterminated the Red peo- 
 ple, and all their works, crowding them into our waste lands, 
 where they have lost even their ancient exalted traditions. 
 They have been starved and neglected and abused and 
 robbed. In more recent years, however, steps have been 
 taken, books have been written and educational work has 
 been done so that the remnants of the great Red Nations are 
 adjusting themselves somewhat to the ways of the "world." 
 
 VIRGINIA INDIANS, IN 1584, WERE CLEAN, THRIFTY 
 
 To overcome somewhat the prevailing opinions of the 
 helplessness and wretched shiftlessness of the Indians, we 
 herewith reproduce excerpts from some writers and workers, 
 some old and some modern. To our minds the "broad chasm" 
 linking the sedentary, industrious Mound Builders to the 
 North American Indians of our times, dates from the times of 
 the destructive, disturbing, crushing advent of the white con- 
 querors. It is interesting to read a statement from the ac- 
 count of "the first voyage of Raleigh (1584) to Virginia." 
 (Hakluyt's Voyages. London Ed., 1600, Vol. 3, p. 304) : 
 
 "After they had been divers times aboard our ships, my- 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 57 
 
 self with seven more went 20 miles into the river that runneth 
 toward the city of Skicoak, which river they call Ocam, and 
 the evening following we came to an island which they call 
 Roanoke, distant from the harbor which we entered seven 
 leagues; and at the north end thereof was a village of nine 
 houses built of cedar and fortified round about with sharp 
 trees to keep out their enemies, and the entrance into it made 
 like a turnpike very artificially. When we came toward it, 
 standing near to the water side, the wife of Granganimo, 
 the chief's brother, came running out to meet us very cheer- 
 fully and friendly. * * * When we came into the outer 
 room, having five rooms in her house, she caused us to sit 
 down by a great fire, and after took off our clothes and 
 washed them and dried them again; some of the women 
 plucked off our stockings, washed them, some washed our 
 feet in warm water, and she herself took great pains to see 
 all things ordered in the best manner she could, making great 
 haste to dress some meat for us to eat. * * * Their ves- 
 sels are earthen pots, very large, white and sweet ; their dishes 
 are wooden platters of sweet timber. 
 
 
 
 
 v, ■ \ 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 > 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' ; . ,A~ , ' 
 
 '" '\. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 ) 
 
 
 
 HI^H 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 VESSELS FROM OKFEHMAMV MOUND, MONROE COUNTY 
 
 The Mound Builders may have heen materialists, or they may have had a 
 realization of spiritual thing's heyonl what one would ordinarily suppose. The 
 fact that food bowls and "water bottles" are found with burials leads one to 
 the belief that material food and drink were consigned to the ground, with 
 the individual, with a knowledge that it would be absorbed into its original 
 elements. The effigy "bottle" here shown on the right, has a hole in the side 
 of it that was made there, it being the supposition of some observers that the 
 hole was for the purpose of "killing" the pot, or to more quickly release the 
 contents. The vessel on the left is a modified form of the "fox" vessel on page 
 37, the "tail" or handle reminding one of the beaver. 
 
58 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 CHARACTER QUALITIES OF KNOWN 
 
 RED MEN 
 
 IT gives us great pleasure to introduce in this work a 
 speech delivered by Prof. Warren K. Moorehead at 
 Circleville, Ohio, October 7, 1926, beneath "Logan Elm," on 
 the Shawano Indians and their great leaders. The occa- 
 sion was the meeting of the Ohio History Day Association, 
 and in spite of threatening weather, there were 3,500 people 
 in attendance. Prof. Moorehead's speech is instructive in 
 general, although local in application. Prof. Moorehead has 
 done much to teach us our duty toward the remnants of the 
 people who were once great and who had tamed the "wilder- 
 ness" of America hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before 
 the advent of the white man. 
 
 Nor do we here desire to argue the question, "Were the 
 Mound Builders the Forebears of the Indians Whom the 
 White Men Found on This Continent?" We feel it reasonable 
 to believe that the systems or development of culture of the 
 American Indians, like the systems of government or govern- 
 ments by different dynasties of the Old World, either built up 
 or tore down the development of the people at various periods 
 of time. 
 
 We reprint Prof. Moorehead's speech because, as an 
 eminent authority on the American Indian, his utterances, as 
 reported in the Circleville (Ohio) Watchman, are informative 
 of the real character of the Red Men so late as the beginning 
 of the last century. The Red Man, driven from the home he 
 and his forefathers occupied for unnumbered generations, his 
 well ordered system of habitation destroyed, no doubt quickly 
 descended to the status of homeless wanderers fighting always 
 for the right to live — for a home. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 I esteem it both an honor and a privilege to appear be- 
 fore you and speak briefly upon the lives of two great char- 
 acters, Logan and Tecumseh, and also tell you a little con- 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 59 
 
 cerning the Shawano Indians, commonly called the Shawnees, 
 whose villages were in this part of our State. 
 
 We are assembled on a very historic spot, historic not 
 merely because the cabin of the earliest settler, Mr. Boggs, 
 a man who has been fittingly honored by the first monument 
 here erected, but also because this was the center from which 
 radiated the activities of these same Shawano Indians. 
 
 I speak informally. Obviously such a setting demands 
 a flight of oratory. Yet the great oration, the one delivered 
 by Logan near this spot in the fall of 1774, renders any 
 studied effort that might be attempted today extremely fu- 
 tile and commonplace. Indeed, since it is quite obvious that 
 no public speaker called upon to address an assemblage gath- 
 ered together on the field of Gettysburg would do more than 
 refer in the highest terms to Lincoln's immortal Gettysburg 
 address, so today, ladies and gentlemen, it would be almost a 
 sacrilege to attempt any flight of eloquence. Moreover, I 
 am no orator, but on the contrary, merely a student of Indian 
 history. 
 
 PAYS TRIBUTE TO RED RACE 
 
 The purpose of our gathering today is to pay tribute to 
 these people of the Red race, men, women and children, and 
 distinguished chiefs, rather than to accord a full meed of 
 praise to our White pioneers. This is said in no disrespect. I 
 can speak frankly upon our Indians' wrongs, for the reason 
 that my > own ancestor, Captain John Mason, in the State of 
 Connecticut, in the Pequot war of 1687, was active in "pun- 
 ishing the heathen" as he called those who were merely fight- 
 ing to preserve their firesides and their homes. Our country 
 today, having possessed itself of all the lands owned by the 
 Indians, beginning with the mouth of the St. John River, in 
 New Brunswick, and extending to the Golden Gate of Cali- 
 fornia, can well afford to accord our original inhabitants their 
 proper place on the page of American history. 
 
 The Shawano Indians probably had their origin in the 
 South. There is abundant evidence of this. Yet I shall not 
 weary you with a technical dissertation today, and neither 
 shall I present a long succession of dates and circumstances. 
 To those who are inclined to serious study, I would commend 
 the excellent publications of the Ohio State Archaeological 
 and Historical Society, wherein you will find set forth in ac- 
 curate detail most of the occurrences which I may mention. 
 Particularly, would I recommend that you read the observa- 
 tions of those noble missionaries, Heckewelder and Zeisberger, 
 who present for your consideration a correct picture of the 
 
60 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 backwoods or frontier element responsible for most of the 
 trouble with our Indians. These two self-sacrificing and up- 
 right men lived with the Indians for many, many years, spoke 
 the languages, and they are competent witnesses to the scenes, 
 and trustworthy recorders of the events which led up to the 
 cruelties and outrages perpetrated by the frontier element 
 upon the Shawano Indians of the Scioto and Miami valleys. 
 
 The word for "town" in Shawano is Chillicothe (Cha-la- 
 ka-tha), and there were four or five Shawano towns, one 
 being on the site now occupied by Portsmouth, another at 
 Old Town, three miles north of Xenia, a third at Frankfort, 
 Ross County, and the others here in the Pickaway Plains. 
 These towns at no time possessed more than 400 to 500 fight- 
 ing men. 
 
 OHIO-ILLINOIS INDIANS WERE BRAVE 
 
 I have always maintained that, considering their infer- 
 iority in numbers, these Indians of Ohio were the bravest and 
 most successful warriors in the entire United States. Briefly 
 summarized, between the years about 1750 and 1813, they 
 took part in twenty-two actions. We depend on our own 
 records, the Indians having no written history. If memory 
 does not fail me — of these twenty-two actions, we ourselves 
 admit we were defeated eleven times ; in four the honors 
 were even, and seven engagements resulted in victories for the 
 Whites. Well may their few mixed-blood descendants now 
 living in Kansas or Oklahoma be proud of these Ohio Red 
 men. Had they possessed the numbers of the Iroquois, it 
 is certain that the White settlements north of the Ohio River 
 would have been delayed for a half century. 
 
 We haven't time to go into detail, but I will briefly men- 
 tion some of the actions in which the Shawano were present. 
 Braddock's defeat, and Grant's action, near Pittsburg, in 
 which nearly 1,000 English and Colonial troops were killed, 
 wounded, or captured, and the rest of the army driven back 
 to the frontier settlements. St. Clair's defeat in the western 
 part of our own State, 1791, where nearly 1100 of that army 
 were destroyed. They were in evidence against Harrison and 
 Wayne in all those campaigns leading up to and through the 
 war of 1812. 
 
 We should realize the great disadvantages of these peo- 
 ple when they contended with the superior civilization of the 
 Whites. Most of the guns sold them by the traders were 
 poor; they had no granaries, no cattle or farm produce on 
 which to draw. Their means of communication were ex- 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 61 
 
 ceedingly primitive, and they must of necessity have traveled 
 long distances from village to village, and gathered their war- 
 riors together to resist invasion. 
 
 UNSCRUPULOUS TRADERS CURSE TO INDIANS 
 
 Our early records are filled with stories of Indian attacks 
 on the settlements of Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia. 
 It is quite true that the Indians were cruel, and murdered 
 men, women and children. It is equally true that many 
 of our frontier element deliberately attacked Indians in times 
 of peace, regardless of tribal affiliation. This has extended 
 down to modern times, and in the last Indian fight — let us 
 hope there will never be another — at Wounded Knee, South 
 Dakota, December, 1890, one hundred and ninety-two Sioux, 
 mostly women and children, were shot down by our troops. 
 
 James Smith, who wrote our best narrative of captivity, 
 was with the Ohio Indians for a number of years prior to 
 1762. His description of unscrupulous traders is most inter- 
 esting. They loaded pack horses with powder and ball, 
 tomahawks, scalping knives, and whiskey, and did a lucrative 
 business with the Ohio Indians. 
 
 By common consent, the Ohio River was the boundary 
 between the White and Indian countries, yet men of the type 
 of Wetzel and Greathouse repeatedly crossed this river and 
 killed Indians. Rewards offered by our officials for scalps 
 resulted in many surprise attacks on the Indian encampments. 
 
 An educated, New England woman, Elizabeth Dwight, 
 went by stage and horseback into the heart of the Ohio coun- 
 try in 1819. I would commend her volume to those of you 
 who wish a portrait of conditions in the backwoods at that 
 time. It is published by the Yale press. Coming from Con- 
 necticut, where there was no frontier element, her minute 
 description of the kind of men she met in the cabins and prim- 
 itive inns does not tally with our pre-conceived notion of the 
 so-called noble frontiersman. 
 
 CHIEFS LOGAN, CORNSTALK AND TECUMSEH WERE 
 
 GREAT MEN 
 
 Let us consider for a few moments the lives of these three 
 men — Logan, Cornstalk and Tecumseh. 
 
 Logan's Indian name was Tah-gah-jute, meaning spying. 
 He was born at Shamokin, Pennsylvania, about 1725, was a 
 very peaceable man; removed to the Ohio country in 1770, 
 and was seen by Heckewelder in 1772. He lived a few miles 
 west of here on the Scioto, at the site we now call Westfall. 
 
G2 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 He was a Cayuga Chief, and thus belonged to the Iroquois 
 Confederacy. On the frontier the term, Mingo was employed 
 to designate Iroquois living away from' the Mohawk Valley. 
 Logan never became a warrior until his friends and relatives 
 were destroyed by the Whites. 
 
 Cornstalk, the celebrated Shawano Chief, born about 
 1720, probably near this spot. He was leader of the Indians 
 in that great fight at Point Pleasant, October 19, 1774. Three 
 years later he came to Point Pleasant to warn the settlers that 
 his tribe might be forced into war, and to beg them to dis- 
 continue raids into Ohio. He and his son were murdered 
 while upon this peaceful mission by the very people they 
 sought to aid. 
 
 Tecumseh, properly Tikamthi or Tecumtha, according to 
 the dialect of different bands. His name is variously inter- 
 preted. His mother is thought to have belonged to the Pan- 
 ther clan. "I stand in path" or "I oppose" might be a free 
 translation of the Shawano meaning. He was born about 
 1768, six miles southwest from Springfield on Mad River. 
 His father was killed in the battle of Point Pleasant. His 
 elder brother was killed at his side in Wayne's victory, 1794. 
 Tecumseh was one of three brothers born at the same time. 
 This in itself was considered by the Indians miraculous, since 
 Indian women seldom bore twins, and triplets were unknown. 
 His other brother became Tenskwa-tawa, the celebrated 
 Prophet, was painted by George Catlin in 1832, and died in 
 1837 in Kansas. He w T as a remarkable personality. 
 
 Tecumseh himself was killed at the battle of the Thames, 
 Canada, October 5, 1813. 
 
 One might devote this entire afternoon to a considera- 
 tion of the outstanding figure in Ohio Valley Indian history, 
 Tecumseh, but it is necessary to omit not only that, but also 
 interesting and dramatic episodes in the lives of all these men. 
 No complete life of Tecumseh — one worthy of the name — has 
 been written. It would require the pen of a Parkman to do 
 justice to this great personage. 
 
 Logan himself was not a Shawano, but he was associated 
 with what the early settlers called the hostile element, which 
 I prefer to term the patriotic element here in southern Ohio. 
 That is, judged by our standards of national life, all that 
 these people desired was to live in contentment here in the 
 beautiful Pickaway Plains. Suppose a superior race should 
 suddenly appear in this portion of our state — a race as far 
 above us as we were above the Indians. Suppose that they 
 should take our lands, inflict customs and manners of which 
 we were totally unfamiliar upon us. I am quite certain that, 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 63 
 
 notwithstanding our inferiority to the higher culture which 
 such newcomers thrust upon us, we would resist with every 
 resource at our command, the destruction of our homes and 
 the loss of our lands. In the final analysis that is all these 
 Indians did. 
 
 TOO MUCH EMPHASIS PLACED ON BATTLE-CRUELTY 
 
 Our early writers placed entirely too much emphasis on 
 the cruelties practiced by Indians on White people. They say 
 very little concerning the ruthless murder of Indian men, wo- 
 men and children by our own ancestors. 
 
 One of the greatest factors in bringing about the troubles 
 during the period 1740 and 1812 is set forth in great detail by 
 Helen Hunt Jackson in her famous "Century of Dishonor." 
 Perhaps we do not realize that after White people had se- 
 cured most of the land in Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Vir- 
 ginia, and began to encroach on the north side of the river, 
 that the Indians were summoned by our authorities to a great 
 Council at Detroit in 1786. They petitioned our President to 
 observe previous treaties and asked "prevent your surveyors 
 and other people from coming upon our side of the river." 
 
 GOVERNMENT MADE TREATIES; UPHELD 
 TRESPASSERS 
 
 The United States Government had assured the Indians 
 they could reside on their lands so long as they behaved them- 
 selves peacefully, and of trespassers (Whites) adds: "The 
 Indians may punish him as they please." 
 
 Notwithstanding sacred promises, the next year our Presi- 
 dent ordered the Governor of the Northwest Territory : "You 
 will not neglect any opportunity that may offer for extinguish- 
 ing of Indian rights as far westward as the Mississippi." 
 
 In 1792, the President of the United States utters these 
 significant words : "Remember that no additional lands will 
 be required of you," etc. 
 
 And again, General Putnam said at Vincennes: "The 
 United States does not mean to wrong you out of your lands." 
 This was followed by an offer to give the Indians a great deal 
 of money for additional lands. The Indian spokesman was 
 wise in his day and generation. He told the Commissioners 
 that money was of no value to the Indians; that the lands 
 were needed for the sustenance of women and children ; that 
 since the White settlers were poor, therefore the proposed 
 money should be divided among them ! To this should be 
 added the large sums of money which our Government must 
 
64 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 expend and pay in raising armies to fight the Indians ! All 
 of which was quite clever and to the point. 
 
 Whether these logical statements had any effect on our 
 Commissioners I do not know. 
 
 Finally the Indians declined to make further concessions, 
 reminded the officials of their repeated promises against fur- 
 ther invasions. General Anthony Wayne wrote the Secretary 
 of War advocating aggressive measures against the Indians. 
 
 We all know what happened. Their villages were 
 burned ; their cornfields destroyed, and the Indians defeated 
 in several actions. 
 
 In a final treaty of 1795, two-thirds of the present State 
 of Ohio was ceded to the United States, and we solemnly 
 guaranteed these Indians all other Indian lands northward of 
 the Ohio River, eastward of the Mississippi, and southward 
 of the Great Lakes. This would give the Indians that north- 
 western part of our State, most of Indiana and practically all 
 of Illinois. It was carefully specified that the Indians could 
 hunt and dwell within this territory as long as they pleased. 
 
 We can dismiss the remainder of the wretched history 
 with a statement that General Harrison was instructed by 
 the President (1809) to extinguish Indian titles, and in 1817, 
 what remained of this vast Indian domain was appropriated 
 by our people. 
 
 Now, ladies and gentlemen, please carefully note the fol- 
 lowing statement: With the sole exception of the Iroquois 
 treaty which still applies to Northern New York, our great 
 and good Government has never observed a single treaty 
 made between ourselves and an Indian tribe in any state of 
 our Union. Is this a record of which one hundred percent 
 Americans should be proud ? 
 
 MANY "FRONTIERSMEN" WERE DISSOLUTE FELLOWS 
 
 What manner of men were these first traders, frontiers- 
 men and Indian fighters? Johnson, in the New York Colonial 
 Documents, Volume 8, page 460, sheds light on their char- 
 acters. He knew them : 
 
 "Dissolute fellows, united with debtors, and persons of wandering 
 disposition, who have been removing from Pennsylvania, Virginia, etc., for 
 more than ten years past into Indian country, towards and on the Ohio, 
 and had made a considerable number of settlements as early as 1765, 
 when my deputy (Crogan) was sent to the Illinois, from whence he gave 
 me a particular account of the uneasiness it occasioned among the Indians. 
 Many of these emigrants are idle fellows that are too lazy to cultivate 
 lands, and invited by the plenty of game they found, have employed them- 
 selves in hunting, in which they interfere much more with the Indians 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 65 
 
 than if they pursued agriculture alone, and the Indian hunters already 
 begin to feel the scarcity this has occasioned, which greatly increases their 
 resentment." 
 
 The instinct of self-preservation is strong in all races. 
 These Ohio Indians were beset on all sides by enemies. Then 
 came our Peace Commissioners, from Philadelphia, then the 
 seat of our Government, and they spoke honeyed words, pre- 
 sented a paper, and again the chiefs affixed their totems to 
 that document. Our Shawano could have removed from 
 these beautiful Scioto fields to the Miami, thence to the Wa- 
 bash, and then to the Illinois. They would have gained but 
 a few short years, because the land grabbers would have fol- 
 lowed them clear across the Middle West. The tide of White 
 immigration could be stayed by armed force — by no other 
 means. Tecumseh, Logan, Cornstalk, Black Fish, and the 
 other chiefs, realized this. The war hatchet was thrown 
 down and they took it up. They resisted to the nth degree. 
 Those who tamely submit to imposition are not only held in 
 contempt by their adversaries, but they leave no mark on the 
 page of history. We respect them because they were real 
 men. 
 
 INDIANS LIVED COMFORTABLY IN CABINS 
 
 Were our Ohio Indians always fighting? By no means. 
 Their life here, and at other Indian settlements, was exceed- 
 ingly pleasant. There was an abundance of game ; they lived 
 in comfortable cabins, and raised crops. At the time Colonel 
 Boquet marched to the Muskingum over two hundred White 
 captives were surrendered by the Indians. Large numbers of 
 these had to be bound because they desired to remain with 
 the Indians. Numbers afterwards escaped and returned to 
 the Indian life. Does anyone suppose that if they had been 
 shamefully treated, Boquet's narrative would have made such 
 statements ? 
 
 On Muskingum River, Heckewelder and Zeisberger had 
 built up a very successful mission. For a long time it was the 
 only well built, well ordered, Christian town in the whole Ohio 
 region. It was the outpost of civilization. Yet one William- 
 son, accompanied by a large party of freebooters and fron- 
 tiersmen from Kentucky, without justification, murdered up- 
 wards of ninety Christian men, women and children. Not 
 one of them was armed, and most of them were killed within 
 the church. It was one of the most outrageous and cold- 
 blooded murders ever perpetrated in American history. I 
 challenge anyone to cite an incident where persons assembled 
 at Divine worship, in a sacred church, were deliberately mur- 
 dered by those against whom they had perpetrated no wrong. 
 
GG MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 DESTROYER WILLIAMSON MEETS REAL INDIAN 
 
 FIGHTERS 
 
 What was the result? Williamson, accompanied by 
 Colonel Crawford, Dr. Knight, and a large force, marched 
 north sometime later to attack the Indian towns near the San- 
 dusky Plains. They were surprised by real lighting Indians, 
 not harmless mission converts. The Indians desired above all 
 things to seize Williamson, and be revenged for the murder 
 of their kinsfolk. Heckewelder states the Indians ran about 
 crying, "Where is Williamson?" He, however, secured a fast 
 horse, and escaped from the action. Poor Colonel Crawford 
 fell into the hands of the exasperated savages and was tor- 
 tured to death, all of which was both cruel and wicked. I 
 am sorry that those who love to dwell on the tortures of Craw- 
 ford always gloss over what happened previous to the Craw- 
 ford affair. Please read Heckewelder's narrative, as to why 
 Crawford was killed. 
 
 LOGAN, GREAT ORATOR; TECUMSEH, GREAT WAR 
 
 CHIEF 
 
 Let us consider finally, Logan and Tecumseh, particularly 
 the latter. Logan's fame rests upon his great oration, and 
 before you leave this field I trust you will read it. It is in im- 
 perishable bronze over there, now standing in this park. 
 
 Joseph Brant (The-yen-da-na-ga), the great Iroquois 
 war-chief, visited the Ohio Valley. He knew Tecumseh. 
 
 Tecumseh and Joseph Brant have much in common. 
 Both were leaders, highly intelligent, brave and fighting men. 
 Each was a born orator, and each knew how to play on the 
 feelings of his followers. The martial spirit appealed to both 
 alike. It was Brant, when asked by the King of England, 
 "Are you fond of music?" who replied, "I like the harp, I 
 like the organ much better, but I love the fife and drum best 
 of all because they make my heart beat quick." It was Te- 
 cumseh who, when asked to sit upon the platform with the 
 officers at one of the treaties, and not wishing to place him- 
 self in the power of White men whom he had every reason 
 to distrust, uttered this significant epigram : "The sun is my 
 father, the earth is my mother, on her bosom I will repose," 
 and seated himself among his warriors. 
 
 It is now one hundred and thirty years since the Shawano 
 left this part of Ohio. It is more than one hundred years 
 since they have resided in any numbers within the borders of 
 our state. There are no full blood Shawanoes remaining in 
 either Kansas or Oklahoma. We have inherited this vast do- 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 67 
 
 main. The Indian life is all a memory, a dim tradition. 
 Those wars of long ago are forgotten! likewise the cruelties 
 which were practiced with equal fervor by both Reds and 
 Whites. It is well that we have erected monuments to our 
 military leaders and our first settlers, and it is exceedingly 
 fitting that the most imposing one of the four here is the 
 tribute to Logan himself. I say "four" because the great 
 Logan Elm was the first, the real monument. 
 
 Logan's speech, rather than Dunmore's treaty, renders 
 this spot immortal. And the greatest and noblest of them 
 all — Tecumseh — who fought men, and killed neither women 
 nor children — does he not deserve a shaft ? I would that we 
 knew the exact spot of his birth — where the Prophet, his 
 brother, and himself saw the light of day. 
 
 The Ohio country is our heritage — we can well afford 
 to be gracious. Let us not omit the name of Tecumseh from 
 our records in stone and bronze. 
 
 DISPLAYS INDIANS' ANCIENT WAR FLAG 
 
 In the northwestern part of our State, and also in that 
 last engagement on the Thames, fought side by side the 
 northern Algonquins, the Ojibwa, with our Ohio Algonquins, 
 the Shawano. Let me present to you the original Ojibwa war 
 flag. It is one hundred and twenty years old, and the Chiefs 
 Me-shusk-gee-shig and Mah-in-gonce gave it to me at White 
 Earth reservation in Minnesota in the year 1909, and it be- 
 longs to our Museum at Andover. It is of owl and not eagle 
 feathers, for the owl was sacred to the Ojibwa. Ne-gan-ne- 
 bin-ace, their fighting chief, carried it. It was captured by 
 the Sioux, enemies of the Ojibwa, held for many years, and 
 retaken by Ne-gan-ne-bin-ace and his brave warriors. Prob- 
 ably the only positively old and original Indian flag belong- 
 ing to Eastern Algonquins in existence today. The Indians 
 prized and revered it, even as we do "Old Glory," our own 
 sacred symbol. No emblem belonging to our own Ohio In- 
 dians remains — therefore I do not consider it inappropriate 
 to exhibit that one carried by their allies. (Here he exhibited 
 the feather flag.) 
 
 The villages of these simple, yet heroic, Shawanoes are 
 gone forever. Tecumseh lies in an unknown and forgotten 
 grave. All our treaties with his band were deliberately 
 broken by us. We cannot undo the evils of the past, but it 
 is not too late to honor the memory of him who stood fore- 
 most among American aborigines. Well may it be said of 
 him: "Greater love hath no man than that he die for his 
 country." Certainly his deeds and his character merit a dig- 
 nified and a fitting memorial. 
 
<i8 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 AGRICULTURE OF THE RED MEN 
 
 WHO built the mounds? is a question we are not attempt- 
 ing to answer. However, we do want to impress upon 
 the reader that the Red Men, as discovered by the White Men, 
 were a great people; that their towns were populous; that 
 their condition was comfortable; that their character, be- 
 fore they were aroused by foreign influences, was peaceful. 
 To become still better acquainted with the Red Men we 
 reprint herewith excerpts from the reports of just a few of 
 the early explorers that contain references to the agriculture 
 practiced by the then existing Red Men. (Twelfth Annual 
 Report, Bureau of Ethnology, 1891, pages 615-618.) 
 
 "When first visited by Europeans there was scarcely a 
 tribe from the Atlantic to the borders of the western plains 
 but that had its fixed seat, its local habitation, and subsisted 
 to a very large extent upon the products of agriculture. 
 
 "DeSoto found all the tribes he visited, from the Florida 
 peninsula to the western part of Arkansas, cultivating maize 
 and various vegetables. 
 
 "The early voyagers along the Atlantic shore found the 
 same thing true from Florida to Massachusetts. Capt. John 
 Smith and his colony, and in fact all the early colonies, de- 
 pended very largely for subsistence upon this fact. Jacques 
 Cartier found the inhabitants of old Hochelaga cultivating 
 maize. Champlain testifies the same thing's being true of 
 the Iroquois. LaSalle and his companions observed the In- 
 dians of Illinois, and from thence southward along the Mis- 
 sissippi, cultivating and to a large extent subsisting upon 
 maize. 
 
 HARIOT, 1587, DESCRIBES CROPS CULTIVATED 
 
 "Thomas Hariot, a very intelligent and reliable observer, 
 gives the following notes in regard to the cultivating of maize 
 and vegetables by the Indians of the Virginia coast : 
 
 Pagatowr, a kind of grain so called by the inhabitants; the same in 
 the West Indies is called M&yze, Englishman call it Guiny-wheat or Tur- 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 69 
 
 key-wheat, according to the names of the countries from whence the like 
 hath been brought. The grain is about the bigness of our ordinary Eng- 
 lish peas and not much different in form and shape; but of divers colors, 
 some white, some red, some yellow and some blue. All of these yield 
 a very white and sweet flour, being used according to his kind, it maketh 
 a very good bread. — * * * 
 
 Okindgier, called by us beans, because in greatness and partly in 
 shape they are like the beans in England, saving that they are flat- 
 ter. * * * 
 
 Wickonzowr, called by us pease, in respect of the beans for distinc- 
 tions sake, because they are much less although in form they little 
 differ. * * * 
 
 Macoqwer, according to their several forms, called by us Pompions, 
 Melons, and Gourds because they are of like forms as those kinds in 
 England. 
 
 All the aforesaid commodities for victual are set or sowed, some- 
 times in grounds apart and severally by themselves, but for the most part 
 together in one ground mixtly: the manner thereof with the dressing and 
 preparing of the ground, because I will note unto you the fertility of the 
 soil, I think good briefly to describe. 
 
 The ground they never fatten with muck, dung or anything, neither 
 plow nor dig it as we do in England, but only prepare it in sort as fol- 
 loweth: A few days before they sow or set, the men with wooden instru- 
 ments made almost in the form of mattocks or hoes with long handles, 
 the women with short peckers or parers, because they use them sitting, 
 of a foot long, and about five inches in breadth, do only break the 
 upper part of the ground to raise up the weeds, grass and old stubs of 
 cornstalks with their roots. The which after a day or two days drying 
 in the sun, being scraped up into many small heaps, to save them labor 
 for carrying them away, they burn to ashes. And whereas some may 
 think that they use the ashes for to better the ground, I say that then 
 they would either disperse the ashes abroad, which we observe they do 
 not, except the heaps be too great, or else would take special care to 
 set their corn where the ashes lie, which also we find they are careless 
 of. And this is all the husbanding of their ground that they use. 
 
 Then their setting or sowing is after this manner. First, for their 
 corn, beginning in one corner of the plot with a pecker they make a hole 
 wherein they put out four grains, with great care that they touch not one 
 another, (about an inch asunder) and cover them with the mould again; 
 and so throughout the whole plot, making such holes and using them after 
 such manner, but with this regard, that they may be made in ranks, every 
 rank differing from the other half a fathom or a yard, and the holes also 
 in every rank. By this means there is a yard of spare ground between 
 every hole ; where, according to discretion here and there they set as many 
 beans and pease; in divers places also among the seeds of Macocqwer, 
 Melden and Planta Solis. * * * There is an herb which is sowed 
 
70 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 apart by itself, and it is called by the inhabitants Uppowoc; in the West 
 Indies it has divers names according to the several places and countries 
 where it groweth and is used; the Spaniards call it tobacco, the leaves 
 thereof being dried and brought into powder they use to take the fume 
 or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of clay, into their 
 stomach and head, from whence it purgeth superfluous fleame and other 
 gross humors, and openeth all the pores and passages of the body; by 
 which means the use thereof not only preserves the body from obstruc- 
 tion, but also (if any be so that they have not been of too long continu- 
 ance) in short time breaketh them; whereby their bodies are notably pre- 
 served in health, and know not many grievous diseases, wherewithal we 
 in England are oftentimes afflicted. — Hariot (Thomas) — "A Brief & True 
 Report," etc., of Virginia, Reprint, N. Y., 1872, pages 13-16. 
 
 "This, we must bear in mind, was written in 1587, nearly 
 twenty years before the first permanent European settlement 
 in Virginia. Another point worthy of notice as indicative of 
 considerable experience in cultivation is that there were in 
 use in the section visited by Mr. Hariot four varieties of 
 maize. 
 
 BEVERLY GIVES EVIDENCE OF LONG CULTIVATION 
 
 OF MAIZE, ETC. 
 
 Beverly, in his History of Virginia (Second edition, Lon- 
 don, 1722, pages 125-128, says: 
 
 Besides all these, our natives had originally amongst them, Indian 
 corn, Peas, Beans, Potatoes (Sweet Potatoes) and Tobacco. 
 
 This Indian corn was the staff of food upon which the Indians did 
 ever depend; for when sickness, bad weather, war or any other accident 
 kept them from hunting, fishing and fowling, this, with the addition of 
 some Peas, Beans and such other fruits of the Earth, as were then in 
 season, was the family's dependence and support of their women and 
 children. 
 
 There are four sorts of Indian corn, two of which are early ripe, and 
 two late ripe, all growing in the same manner. Every single grain of 
 this when planted produces a tall up-right stalk which has several ears 
 hanging on the sides of it, from six to ten inches long. * * * The 
 late corn is diversify'ed by the shape of the grain only, without respect 
 to the accidental differences in colour, some being blue, some yellow, some 
 white and some streak'd. That therefore which makes the distinction is 
 the plumpness or shriveling of the grain; the one looks as smooth and as 
 full as the early ripe corn and this they call flint corn; the other has a 
 larger grain and looks shrivell'd with a dent in the back of the grain as 
 if it had never come into perfection, and this they call she-corn. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 71 
 
 All these sorts are planted alike in rows, three, four or five grains 
 
 i„ - hill the larger sort at four or five foot distance, the lesser sort 
 ,n a h.ll, the larger ^ ^ ^ weedlngs and make a 
 
 hT out it and T thetbor las done. They likewise plant a hean » 
 
 ,u ™„ Vil with the corn, upon whose stalk it sustains itself. 
 
 th<5 "he In ia" sow'd pe^s sometimes in the intervals of the rows of 
 
 and lomiimtf Z'ZY^l hig as hoth the leg and thigh of a young 
 
 w ,r raisfift* as-i r - «-* -y n0 w 
 
 depending chiefly upon the English for what they smoak. 
 
 This long extract from Beverly has been given, as it fur- 
 nishes additional evidence of the long cultivation of maize, the 
 varieties being the same now chiefly m use in the South. 
 
 MARQUETTE AND OTHERS ADD INTERESTING 
 TESTIMONY 
 
 Marquette, speaking of the Illinois Indians (Voyages and 
 Discoveries, English translation Historical CoHectaons erf Lou- 
 isiana, 1852, vol. iv, page 33. Original French, page 246) as 
 seen by him on his first visit, remarks : 
 
 They live by game, which is abundant in this country, and on Indian 
 Corn (bled d'inde), of which they always gather a good crop, so that they 
 hav" never suffered by famine. They also sow beans and melons, whicn 
 ^excellent, especially those with a red seed. Their squashes are not of 
 the best: they dry them in the sun to eat in the winter and spring. 
 
 In the Jesuit Relations for 1640 (Reprint 1858) volume I, 
 page 35, we find that twenty-nine tribes living south of the 
 fakes are mentioned as sedentary and cultivators of the sod. 
 LeClerq (Estab. of the Faith. Shea's translation, 1881, vol- 
 ume I Page HO) says that "The Algomqums, Iroquois 
 Hurons, Nipsiriniens, Neuters, and Five Nations were indeed 
 sedentary." 
 
 DuPratz (DuPratz Hist. La., volume II, page 239 (Lon- 
 don, 1763.) French ed., Paris, 1758, Volume III, page 8) 
 says: 
 
 -All the nations I have known, and who inhabit from the sea as 
 
72 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 far as the Illinois, and even farther, which is a space of about 1,500 miles, 
 carefully cultivate the maize corn, which they make their principal sub- 
 sistence." 
 
 According to Jacques Cartier, who visited Canada as 
 early as 1535, and was, so far as known, the first European 
 explorer who passed up the St. Lawrence, the Indians of 
 Hochelaga (now Montreal) "had good and large fields of 
 corn, * * * which they preserve in garets at the top 
 of their houses. ,, (Hakluyt's Voyages (London, 1810), vol- 
 ume III, page 272.) 
 
 Champlain (Voyages de Champlain, liv. iv, caps 8, Paris, 
 1632) speaking in A. D. 1610, of the Indians immediately 
 around Lakes Erie and Ontario, says that most of them cul- 
 tivated corn, which was their principal article of food, and 
 which they also exchanged for skins with the hunter tribes liv- 
 ing to the north. They stored it in the top of their houses, 
 and cultivated it in quantities so that they might have on 
 hand a supply large enough to last three or four years in 
 case of failure of the crop.. — (Voyages de Champlain, page 
 301. Sagard, Voyagess du pays des Hurons, Paris, 1632, page 
 134. Edn. 1865, part 1, page 92.) 
 
 The amount of corn of the Iroquois destroyed by Denon- 
 ville in 1687 is estimated at more than a million bushels. — 
 (Charlevoix, Hist. Nouv. France, Paris, 1744, volume II, page 
 355. Doc. Hist. N. Y. 1st series, 1849, page 238.) Accord- 
 ing to Tonty, who took part in the expedition, they were seven 
 days engaged in cutting up the corn of four villages. — (Hist. 
 Coll. La., Volume I, page 70.) 
 
 MODERN CORN-CRIB OF INDIAN ORIGIN 
 
 It is from the Southern Indians that the farmers of today 
 derive the method of constructing cribs on posts to secure their 
 corn against vermin as is evident from the following passage 
 in Lawson's History : 
 
 These Santee Indians * :: " * make themselves cribs after a 
 very curious manner, wherein they secure their corn from vermin, which 
 are more frequent in these warm climates than countries more distant 
 from the sun. These pretty fabrics are commonly supported with eight 
 feet or posts about 7 feet from the ground, well daubed within and with- 
 out upon laths with loam or clay, which makes them tight and fit to keep 
 out the smallest insect, there being a small door at the gable end, which 
 is made of the same composition. (Raleigh, ed. I860, page 35.) 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 73 
 
 In regard to the Gulf States east of the Mississippi and 
 also Arkansas, the evidence on the agricultural tendencies of 
 the natives is so abundant that we can not give space here 
 for more than a mere summary. Corn was grown every- 
 where in great abundance. DeSoto and his Spanish follow- 
 ers, amounting at the outset to more than 600 men, 200 horses, 
 and a drove of hogs, subsisted almost wholly upon the prod- 
 ucts of the natives' fields. The amount of game taken dur- 
 ing the four years they were traversing the country would 
 scarcely have sufficed them for a single month. 
 
 DE SOTO'S CHRONICLERS TELL OF ABUNDANT INDIAN 
 
 CROPS 
 
 Such expressions as the following are abundant in the 
 narratives of the chroniclers of this ill-starred expedition : 
 
 "In the barns and in the fields, great store of maize. 
 * * * Many sown fields which reached from one town to 
 the other." (Gentleman of Elvas. Hist. Coll. La., Volume II, 
 page 153.) 'The maize that was in the other towns was 
 brought hither; and in all, it was esteemed to be six thousand 
 hanegs (fanegas)." "As soon as they came to Cale the gov- 
 ernor commanded them to gather all the maize that was ripe 
 in the field, which was sufficient for three months." (Ibid., 
 page 130.) 
 
 When we remember that this was sufficient for 600 men, 
 200 horses and a hundred or more hogs, and that it was taken 
 from the field of a single Indian town, we can readily appre- 
 ciate the fact that these natives were agriculturists, notwith- 
 standing the statements of some modern archaeologists to the 
 contrary. 
 
 It is stated in Barnard de la Harpe's "Journal" that M. le 
 Sueur "sent two Canadians to invite Avavois and the Octo- 
 tatas to settle near the fort because they were good farmers 
 and he wished to employ them in cultivating the land and 
 working the mines." 
 
 Such is the testimony of only a few of the older author- 
 ities and of those who have studied the history of the discov- 
 eries of our continent and the early European intercourse with 
 its aborigines. 
 
74 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 AMERICA'S DEBT TO THE RED MEN 
 
 A FRIEND, who for years was editor of a newspaper, 
 asked : "Of what use is it to study American prehistoric 
 peoples? They have done nothing for the human race as it 
 is to-day." 
 
 Our friend did not analyze his question before he asked 
 it, for the very spirit of America comes from these little 
 known prehistoric Americans. 
 
 They left no nomenclature, no letters; made no discov- 
 eries in metalurgy. But they have left records of long con- 
 tinued occupation of great stretches of territory, and they 
 left us that which is worth more than all the gold of America ; 
 they left us — Food. 
 
 Civilizations thrive on food, and plenty of it. 
 
 Besides giving us tobacco, pre-Columbian Indians gave us 
 the yam, the sweet potato, the "Irish" potato, various varieties 
 of peas, beans, squashes, gourds, melons, etc., etc., and, be- 
 yond all price to American independence and agricultural 
 wealth — corn in its several varieties : popcorn, sugar corn, 
 sixty-day corn, one hundred and twenty day corn. 
 
 And corn, to our mind, is the one great contribution to 
 America. The cultivation of corn created American farmers 
 and keeps them the independent citizens they are. 
 
 In pioneer days, the value of corn was inestimable. Un- 
 like wheat, which must be harvested within two certain weeks 
 or the farmer must sustain great losses by its shelling out, 
 corn can remain on its stalk safely shielded by a thick husk 
 all during autumn and winter. 
 
 The storage of wheat is a difficult matter, necessitating 
 tight bins and shelters. The wheat grower must market his 
 wheat immediately, for lack of proper shelter, while the corn 
 grower can use his convenience, as the corn can be kept in 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 75 
 
 almost open cribs made of rough rails or logs, and will keep 
 until used or sold. 
 
 The European wheat growers remain peasants and serfs 
 because they sell their wheat, millet, rye, oats and barley 
 at harvest; while American growers can pile up their corn, 
 feed it to animals, hold it for fair prices, and are indepen- 
 dent, self-reliant farmers and land owners in consequence. 
 
 And to the prehistoric American Indian who first saved 
 and planted the seed of the wild "grass" from which later 
 generations developed "corn," America owes much. 
 
 We have many monuments for humanity's benefactors, 
 but no people benefitted America more than the Indians, who, 
 in a distant past age developed our American Corn. 
 
 DICKSON'S UNFINISHED NEW WORK 
 
 This shows the beginning of excavations in a hitherto unexplored 
 portion of Dickson's Mound. At the present time, June, 1928, no doubt 
 many other intensely interesting things have been uncovered. 
 
76 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 DID THOUSANDS LEAVE AMERICAN 
 BOTTOMS SUDDENLY? 
 
 IN the face of the evidences of almost a dense prehistoric 
 population throughout this portion of Illinois, the questions 
 arise : How did such vast numbers utterly disappear? Where 
 did they go ? Why did they leave this ideal situation which 
 they had occupied for so long a time ? 
 
 H. M. Brackinridge, writing in 1811, gives the following 
 word picture of the situation where East St. Louis is now 
 located : 
 
 "There is no spot in the western country capable of being 
 more highly cultivated, or of giving support to a numerous 
 population, than this valley. If any vestige of ancient popula- 
 tion were to be found, this would be the place to search for it ; 
 accordingly this tract, as also the tract on the western side 
 (where is now the city of St. Louis), exhibits proof of an im- 
 mense population. If the city of Philadelphia were deserted, 
 there would not be more numerous traces of human existence. 
 
 "The great number of mounds, and the astonishing quan- 
 tity of human bones dug up everywhere, or found on the sur- 
 face of the ground, with a thousand other appearances, an- 
 nounce that this valley was at one time filled with habitations 
 and villages. The whole face of the bluff or hill which 
 bounds it on the east appears to have been a continued bury- 
 ing ground." * * * * * 
 
 An answer to the causes of their extinction may be sur- 
 mised when we consider the facts : 
 
 The white conquerors, arriving in Mexico in 1498-1500. 
 brought with them, besides their peculiarly bloody, preda 
 tory ideas and actions, many diseases. There is no doubt in 
 our mind that smallpox and measles penetrated from tribe 
 to tribe to the far reaches of this broad land, wiping out 
 entire tribes and nations, in spots not visited by white man 
 until two hundred years later. We believe it to be reason- 
 ably well established that the Western Hemisphere was free 
 from those two diseases at the time of its occupancy by the 
 whites. 
 
MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 77 
 
 It is not a mere desire to hoard something that causes one to gather 
 relics of the forgotten peoples of the American Bottoms. Rather does each 
 piece give one a new thrill of expectation of a nearer approach to tho 
 wordless history of a people who lived, who thrived, who loved, in the 
 fair land where we now struggle for a satisfactory "living." 
 
 To my "relic cabinet" I owe many pleasant hours in the fields and 
 woodlands, on the streams, and in meeting and talking with fellow men 
 whom I never would otherwise have met. The hunt for these bits of 
 history leads one not only into sunny fields, but also into the dusty 
 old volumes in neglected nooks of libraries and old book shops. No matter 
 where the hunt leads, one is always finding something — something not only 
 of the Red Men but necessarily one learns things about the early history 
 of the discoverers and founders of our good old United States. 
 
78 MOUND BUILDERS OF ILLINOIS 
 
 INJUN STUFF 
 
 HE: 
 
 Weather's too hot to work to-day, 
 
 Might get all het up. 
 Chickens' layin' in the shade, 
 
 So's the yeller pup. 
 It's jest too wet to make that hay ; 
 So I'll slip down the old pathway 
 Into the bottom cornfield. 
 There I'll dig and hunt 'em with a vim 
 Which ain't no vice — it's jest a whim — 
 
 Huntin' arrowheads! 
 
 SHE: 
 
 Shelves' full and mantle full — 
 
 Still there's not enough 
 Axes, celts and banner stones, 
 
 And other Injun stuff. 
 But some men play the races — 
 
 Bet their last red penny, 
 Until there's nothing left at home — 
 
 Home — they ain't got any ! 
 And some men make a hobby 
 Of near-beer, gin and wine, 
 Until they look like big, fat bottles, 
 
 And let their noses shine. 
 So let my husband hunt his rocks, 
 
 Carved by craftsmen long since dead ; 
 Let him be happy 'cause he's found 
 
 One more arrowhead ! 
 
 —MRS. T. W. McMILLAN, Mt. Pleasant, Iowa.