USA > Indiana > Indiana and Indianans : a history of aboriginal and territorial Indiana and the century of statehood > Part 3
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Cremation also furnishes the reasonable explanation of what are called "altar mounds", which have at the base a raised structure of clay, usually with a sort of basin at the top. As the name indicates, these have been considered places where human beings were sacrificed, and this idea is still widespread, although its absurdity has often been pointed out. As Morgan puts it :
"Wherever human sacrifices are known to have occurred among the American aborigines, the place was an elevated mound platform and the raised altar or sacrificial stone stood before the idol in whose wor- ship the rites were performed. There is here neither a temple nor an idol; but a hollow bed of clay covered by a mound raised in honor over the ashes of a deceased chief, for assuredly such a mound would not have been raised over the ashes of a victim. Indians never exchanged prisoners of war. Adoption or burning at the stake was the alternative of capture; but no mound was ever raised over the burned remains. Another use suggests itself for this artificial basin more in accordance with Indian usages and customs, namely, that cremation of the body
21 Jesuit Relations, Vol. 67, pp. 153, 157.
22 P. 180.
23 Archaeological History of Ohio, p. 320.
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of a deceased chief was performed upon it, after which the mound was raised over his ashes." 24
One of the most interesting features of the Mound Builder problem, from the historical point of view, is this sacrificial theory. Among the early settlers of the Ohio Valley there were dozens of men who were well read and intelligent, as learning went at that time; and most of the speculations as to the Mound Builders came from them. It was natural that they should adopt the sacrificial idea, because they commonly believed that the Mound Builders were the ancestors of the Aztecs, and they were familiar with the Spanish chronicles of the conquest of Mexico through English translations. Thus, Gen. Harrison, who had given the subject much attention, in his discourse on the Aborigines of the Ohio Valley, indorses the view of Bishop Madison, of Virginia, that the Aztecs and the Mound Builders "are one and the same people", and avers that, "There were a numerous priesthood, and altars often smoking with hecatombs of victims". Harrison, like many others, was familiar with the classics and knew that the Greeks and Romans offered portions of their ordinary food to the gods, before eating. They were in general better acquainted with the Bible than the present residents of the Ohio Valley, and knew about the reservation of parts of the Jewish sacrifices as food for the priests and their families; and they were familiar with the Apostolic troubles over eating "meats offered to idols". But they did not catch the fact, as they might have done from the Spanish chronicles, that the Aztecs were cannibals, and that only the hearts of the victims went to the gods, while the bodies were eaten by the worshippers; and they did not know that when the Europeans came in contact with them, all of the American Indians were cannibals. Anyone who harbors the idea that a tribe of cannibals would waste, by burning them up, enough perfectly good captives to make a layer of ashes two feet thick, or even two inches thick, is sadly deficient in knowledge of human nature; especially when the high cost of cannibal living is considered.
After the publication of Prescott's Conquest of Mexico, which was widely read, and accepted as conclusive, the belief in the sacrificial theory was even more firmly established; and it is not surprising that a man like Prof. Collett, educated in that period, should have held the views above quoted as to the mound at Vincennes. The probable expla- nation of Sugar Loaf Mound is that it is the result of three general cremations, one superimposed on another. It may be suggested also,
24 Lewis H. Morgan, Houses of the Mound Builders; in Contributions to North American Ethnology, Vol. 4, p. 217.
WHITE RIVER
P
BLUFF 75 FT HIGH
RAVINIE
K
I
A
H
E
a
N
MIDDLE OF SEC 16
C
D
N 70° E
SOUTH LINE OF SEC 16 1 9.R 8
C
PUBLIC ROAD
/ IN = 250 FT
EARTH MOUNDS NEAR ANDERSON (Plate E.)
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as to cases of unusually large ash deposits, that the exigencies of war may at times have called for the cremation of numbers of corpses, with- out waiting for the flesh to decay, and in that case there would have been a large increase in the amount of fuel required for consumption of the remains.
There is another class of mounds sometimes called "sacred enclo- sures", and to this class some have referred the remarkable mounds near Anderson, which are the best preserved of the large works in Indiana. "The principal work in a group of eight, shown on plate E, is a circular embankment with a deep ditch on the inside. The central area is one hundred and thirty-eight feet in diameter, and contains a mound in the center four feet high and thirty feet in diameter. There is a slight depression between the mound and the ditch. The gateway is thirty feet wide. Carriages may enter at the gateway and drive around the mound, as the ditch terminates on each side of the gateway. The ditch is sixty feet wide and ten and a half feet deep; the embank- ment is sixty-three feet wide at the base and nine feet high, and the entire diameter of the circle is three hundred and eighty-four feet." 25
The work marked H is 181 feet long, and its wall was originally six feet high. The walls of the other works were two to three feet high. These mounds were covered with trees not distinguishable from those of the surrounding forest, some trees on the walls being four feet in diameter. These works are located on the south side of White river, on a bluff seventy-five feet above the water. At the foot of the bluff are several fine springs. The purpose of such mounds presents a wide field for conjecture; and without any material danger of being proven wrong-or right.
The extent of these structures in the Ohio Valley has usually been taken as a demonstration of a large population. This has been disputed in recent years, but the estimates of those who argue for a small popula- tion seem to prove the opposite. For example, Mr. Fowke gets this con- clusion from an elaborate estimate: "On the estimate of 30,000,000 cubic yards for the prehistoric works of the State, one thousand men, each working three hundred days in a year, and carrying one wagon load of earth or stone in a day, could construct all the works in Ohio within a century." What a bagatelle! Perhaps it would seem more impressive in the equivalent terms of one hundred thousand men for one year, or ten thousand men for ten years. And who was providing food for these laborers ? The Indians often went hungry even when all hands were giving their time to procuring food. Such an estimate
25 Ind. Geol. Report, 1878, pp. 129-32.
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implies a population far in excess of any Indian population known in the Ohio Valley in historic times.
But more impressive than these earth-works, both as to the amount of population and as to the antiquity of the Mound Builders, are the artifacts that are found scattered over the soil everywhere. When the white men first knew this region, Ohio and the southern two-thirds of Indiana were covered by dense forests. When the forests were removed, and cultivation began, the plows began turning up arrow-heads, spear- heads, stone hoes, mortars, pestles, discoidal stones, and other remains of prehistoric man's occupancy. The Indians could not have left them, for there were not enough of them, and they did not live in the forested country. The forest feature of the problem is usually discussed on the basis of a removal of the forest by prehistoric man, and a subsequent reforestation ; but this is impossible. No savage nation could have cleared all of Ohio and Indiana, and these artifacts are found every- where. The only possible explanation is that they were scattered before the forest existed.
Caleb Atwater thought that these remains were to be credited to the Indians, and not to the Mound Builders. He says: "They consist of rude stone axes and knives, of pestles used in preparing maize for food, of arrowheads, and a few other articles so exactly similar to those found in all the Atlantic States, that a description of them is deemed quite useless." And after giving his reasons for believing that the Indian population was much greater on the sea coast than in the interior, he proceeds : "Hence the numerous other traces of Indian settlements, such as the immense piles of the shells of oysters, clams, &c. all along the sea shore, the great number of arrowheads and other articles belong- ing to them, in the eastern states, and their paucity here." 26
This seems a strange statement now, but when it was written the forests had not been removed sufficiently to permit knowledge of the quantity of such remains. Moreover it was not then known that the Mound Builders used stone implements not materially different from those of the Indians, though they used some that the Indians did not. A curious case of this is one of a stone ax, found on the site of a Miami village on the Wabash, the head of which was an unfinished Mound Builder ceremonial stone, which some Indian had found, and fitted with a hickory handle.27 There is no question that the Indians gladly used Mound Builder arrow and spear heads, axes, and other implements whenever they found them. An interesting illustration of this is given by Father Le Mercier, in the Relation for 1667-8, as follows :
26 Arch. Amer., Vol. 1, pp. 111, 113.
27 Moorehead. The Stone Age in North America, Vol. 1, p. 394.
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"Arriving (over Lake Champlain) within three quarters of a league of the Falls by which Lake St. Sacrement (Lake George) empties, we all halted at this spot, without knowing why, until we saw our savages at the water-side gathering up flints, which were almost all cut into shape. We did not at the time reflect upon this, but have since then learned
MIAMI AX, WITH MOUND BUILDER STONE HEAD Found in Indiana
the meaning of the mystery; for our Iroquois told us that they never fail to halt at this place, to pay homage to a race of invisible men who dwell there at the bottom of the lake. These beings occupy themselves in preparing flints, nearly all cut, for the passers-by, provided the latter pay their respects to them by giving them tobacco. If they give these beings much of it, the latter give them a liberal supply of these stones.
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The occasion of this ridiculous story is that the Lake is, in reality, often agitated by very frightful tempests, which cause fearful waves, especially in the basin where Sieur Corlart, of whom we have just spoken, met his death; and when the wind comes from the direction of the Lake, it drives on this beach a quantity of stones which are hard, and capable of striking fire." 28 This story may have another value. The locality can probably be identified; and a flint workshop in the soil under the waters of Lake Champlain may furnish some geologist data for estimating the antiquity of man in America.
Another evidence of large prehistoric population that has come to light since Mr. Atwater wrote is extensive shell heaps, of which he knew nothing because they were covered with earth, some of them ten feet deep.29 There are also stone fire places, often in connection with shell heaps. Some of these occur in river terraces, which makes their antiquity questionable; but others are far above high water mark as in the case of the celebrated "Bone Bank", on the Wabash, which has been described by LeSueur, Prince Maximilian, Sir Charles Lyell, and others. These shell heaps show that fresh water mussels and snails were very largely used for food by prehistoric man; but the Indians did not eat them. I have been assured by old Indians that their people never ate snails or mussels, and I have never found a statement by any person who had been with the Indians that they did eat them.
That these people were largely agricultural is obvious. The numerous stone hoes could have been used only for cultivation, and the numerous mortars and pestles could have been used only for grinding grain. Permanent mortars have been found in connection with what are called "rock houses", i. e. projecting rock strata which form cavernous shelters.30 But how came these various stone weapons and implements to be scattered so widely over the face of the country? Such implements are made much more easily than is commonly supposed, by workmen who are skilled,31 but still the labor is considerable, and the materials often had to be procured at long distances. That they were much valued is shown by the fact that caches of them have been found where they were hidden away as treasure. It is certain that their owners would not throw them away, or lose them if they could avoid it. The hunter would recover the arrow he had shot, or the spear he had thrown, if he could do so. Presumably then these articles were
28 Jesuit Relations, Vol. 51, pp. 182-3.
29 Ind. Geol. Report, 1872, pp. 142, 408, 414; 1873, pp. 125, 185, 371; 1878, pp. 127, 128.
30 Ind. Geol. Report, 1872, pp. 82, 88.
31 Archaeological History of Ohio, pp. 524-6, 636-45.
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lost by the owners, and this necessarily implies a large number of people to lose them.
It is not known how the Mound Builders were housed. That some of them lived in caves in Kentucky, and Tennessee is clearly shown ; but most of the caves of Indiana would be uninhabitable on account of inundation, and the evidences of any temporary occupation would soon disappear for the same reason. Marengo cave would have been
MOCCASIN
From Salts Cave
MOCCASIN From Mammoth Cav.
RETICULE
From Salts Cave
MOUND BUILDER FABRICS FROM KENTUCKY CAVES
habitable, but there is no indication that it was known either to the Mound Builders or to the Indians. Wyandotte cave was occupied to some extent, but apparently only for the purpose of mining the stalag- mite formations. What was done with the material is not known, but it may have been used for making those stone ornaments which are ordinarily called "marble." It is not credible that there were not some sort of houses in connection with their extensive earth works, and the absence of any remains of habitations presumably means that the habita-
32
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tions were of very perishable material. Mr. Morgan advanced the ingenious theory that some of the inclosures were of villages, in which joint-tenement houses, similar to the long houses of the Iroquois were ranged along the inside of the walls. This is possible, but the lack of remains both of houses and of the naturally looked for contents of houses, in such locations, makes the theory improbable.
Remains of Mound Builders work, other than in metal and stone, are better preserved in the Kentucky caves than elsewhere, probably on account of the saltpeter deposits. Among them are cloth, moccasins, bags, cords, and other articles made of vegetable fiber; pieces of melon and squash rinds, corn-cobs, tobacco, seeds of watermelons, grapes, sun- flowers; numbers of gourd cups and bottles; and one entire gourd con- taining seeds, some of which grew, and furnished a present supply of Mound Builder gourds. The story of all this, and much more is told in a most interesting way in Col. Bennett H. Young's Prehistoric Men of Kentucky. Among other curious things he mentions a small bag or reticule, apparently intended for a child's plaything.
In this connection, it may be noted that the Mound Builder has probably been taken too seriously. All known savage tribes have their games and sports, and there is no reason why prehistoric man should not have indulged in amusements. It is now generally accepted that the discoidal stones, which so long puzzled antiquarians, were used in some game similar to the chungke game of the southern Indians; which was described by Adair, DuPratz, and other old writers. It was played on a carefully leveled plot of ground, something like a croquet ground but longer, by two players, who have specially prepared poles about eight feet long. One of them rolls a round, flat stone, three or four inches in diameter, and both follow and throw their poles. The one who lodges his pole closest to the stone wins; and winning was impor- tant, for it was a great gambling game. There was found on a ridge in the northeastern part of Vanderburgh County "an area, the surface level and apparently paved with plastic clay 500 by 200 feet", which is believed to be a prehistoric chungke yard; and on which six discoidal stones were found.32
Many of these stones are too small for this game as played by adults ; but there may have been other games. Father Gravier mentions one among the Houmas as follows: "In the middle of the Village is a fine and very level open space, where, from morning to night, young men exercise themselves. They run after a flat stone, which they throw in the air from one end of the square to the other, and try to Make it fall
32 Ind. Geol. Report, 1875, p. 299.
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On two Cylinders, which they roll wherever they think the stone will fall." 33 It is also possible that these smaller stones may have been toys for children. Indians are very indulgent to their children, and they' had home-made dolls and other toys, as well as playthings of their own construction. In the Relation of 1634, Father LeJeune says: "The little savages play at hide-and-seek as well as the little French children. They have a number of other childish sports that I have noticed in our Europe; among others I have seen the little Parisians throw a musket ball into the air and catch it with a little bat scooped out; the little montagnard savages do the same, using a little bunch of Pine sticks, which they receive or throw into the air on the end of a pointed stick." 34
THREE EFFIGY BOWLS From the Wabash Cemetery
Mound Builder children were like other children. In 1898 repre- sentatives of Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., made extensive investi- gation of a prehistoric cemetery in Indiana at the mouth of the Wabash river. In the report of it, Mr. W. K. Moorehead says: "There is a pathetic interest in the fact that many children skeletons were found during the course of the explorations. The mothers placed alongside the little bodies clay toys, such as rattles, miniature dishes, bowls and bottles. These served the same purpose in ancient times as do the toy dishes and playthings used by our children. There were also pendants, small shells, shell discs and other ornaments buried by the head or at the wrists of these infants and children. The toy dishes are crudely
33 Jesuit Relations, Vol. 65, p. 147.
34 Jesuit Relations, Vol. 7, p. 97.
34
INDIANA AND INDIANANS
made, some of them not even baked. Often small, waterworn pebbles had been placed within the toys." 35 It is quite possible that many of the problematic articles found in mounds are merely playthings of the children. And, so, probably were the pebbles found with these toys. The Ottawas had a tradition of four Indians who picked up some pieces of copper on the shore Lake Superior, and were rebuked by a manito who cried, "Who are those robbers carrying off from me my children's playthings ?" Father Dablon explains: "Those little pieces of Copper that they were carrying off are the toys and playthings of the Savage children, who play together with little stones." 36
The southern Indians furnish the explanation for some of the figure pottery of the Mound Builders. In speaking of the Natchez temple, Father LePetit says: "Another separate shelf supports many flat baskets, very gorgeously painted, in which they preserve their idols. These are figures of men and women made of stone or baked clay, the heads and the tails of extraordinary serpents, some stuffed owls, some pieces of crystal, and some jaw-bones of large fish. In the year 1699 they had there a bottle and the foot of a glass, which they guarded as very precious." 37 These little clay images are quite common among Mound Builder relics, and so are crystals of various sorts. Such idols indicate the temperament of the worshipers. There is something somber in the character of people that can worship an idol like the Aztec war god Huitzilopochtli, with his insatiate craving for the life of men, that does not exist in a people with a comfortable lot of small idols which can be laid on the shelf between periods of worship.
Moreover, the religion of the southern Indians furnishes the explana- tion of another Mound Builder characteristic. In spite of all attempts to ridicule the idea, the extensive prehistoric works, and especially large mounds erected over only one or two bodies, do indicate a centralized authority of which there is no record among the northern Indians. In the southern tribes the caciques had despotic authority, as is witnessed by all chroniclers, from those with De Soto to the French missionaries. The masses not only fought the Spaniards to the death at the cacique's command, but also at his command went into slavery to the same Spaniards. At the death of a cacique, numbers of his subjects volun- tarily offered themselves for death, in order to accompany and serve him. They were sun-worshipers, and the cacique, as the "Brother of the Sun" combined divine attributes with temporal power. Their
35 Bulletin 3, Phillips Academy, p. 65.
36 Jesuit Relations, Vol. 54, p. 155.
37 Jesuit Relations, Vol. 68, p. 125.
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governments were theocracies, in which the ruler was not merely "God's anointed", but also was himself divine.
The questions of the origin and the fate of the Mound Builders have been discussed for more than a century without decision. Some conclusions have been fairly established, but more of a negative than of a positive character. The questions involve to some extent the ques- tion of the antiquity of man in America, and this has always colored the discussion. In the earlier part of the last century, most writers felt themselves bound by Bible chronology, and the dispersion of man- kind from a common source after the deluge. In the last half century there has been an equally slavish subserviency to the Darwinian Theory. Mr. Darwin decided that man must have originated in the old world, because he was descended from the catarhine apes, and there were only platyrhine monkeys in America; and in consequence everything show- ing antiquity of man in America has been assailed and belittled in every possible way. But after all this assault, what may be taken as the latest unprejudiced summary of the matter concedes man's exist- ence here in the Glacial period.38 1360931
But even on that basis, immigration is the only possible solution for the evolutionists. As Mr. Fowke puts it: "If the existence of a 'glacial' or 'paleolithic' man in this country can be proven, or if it can be shown, as Powell contends, that America was inhabited while man was still but little beyond the stage of a wild beast, his presence can be accounted for in only three ways :- He gradually developed here from a lower stage into a human being; there was a land connection between the eastern and western hemispheres which no longer exists; or there were islands, or possibly continents, now destroyed, so distributed that he could be accidentally carried from one to another." 39 The literature of the subject has grown to appalling proportions, and Mr. Fowke's book is one of the most satisfactory compendiums of it that has been made; but his bias causes him to attack statements of fact by observers as well as statements of opinion. He assails the description of the stone fort in Clark County, quoted above from Prof. Cox, with almost pre- historic ferocity.40 Nothing could be more uncalled for. Edward Travers Cox was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, and when four years old was brought to Indiana by his father, who joined the New Harmony colony. He grew up in that most intellectual atmosphere in America; studied chemistry and geology under David Dale Owen,
38 Henry W. Haynes, in Winsor's Narr. and Crit. Hist. of Am., Vol. 1, Chap. 6. 39 Archaeological History of Ohio, p. 43.
40 Ib. pp. 65-6.
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whose assistant he became through all the years while New Harmony was the headquarters of the United States Geological Survey of the Mississippi Valley, until Dr. Owen's death in 1859. He was then engaged in mining investigations for private parties, for the national govern- ment and for the state of Illinois, until 1868, when he was made State Geologist of Indiana. He held that position until 1880, and was of
PROF. EDWARD TRAVERS COX
immense benefit through his work on the coal fields, and other economic geological research. Later he was an authoritative mining expert on the Pacific slope, in New York City, and in Florida, where he was in charge of large phosphate interests, until his death, on Jan. 7, 1907. It is equally absurd to question his ability, his veracity, or his conserva- tism. If the statements of Prof. Cox as to matters of fact cannot be accepted, we may as well burn up all past records and provide by statute that hereafter no person shall examine a mound unless accom-
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