History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 6

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202

USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I > Part 6

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The size of the mounds varies extremely, generally increasing as we go south. The great Cahokia mound on the Mississippi, at the mouth of Cahokia Creek, in Illinois, is in the form of a parallelogram, covering a surface of eight acres. It is 500 feet wide and 700 long at the base, and is ninety feet high. On one side of it is a broad terrace which is reached by a graded ascent, and was once cultivated by the monks of La Trappe as a garden. The entire summit area measures about five acres, and the interior contents of the whole structure about twenty million cubic feet.

Earth predominates in the composition of the mounds, and sometimes the material is clay exclusively although it is not found near by, and must have been transported for a long distance. It may have been preferred because of its superior tenacity and power to resist the elements. Stone is frequently used, sometimes exclusively and sometimes as a component part.

The Ohio mounds oceur sometimes in groups but oftener singly, and mostly within or near the ancient embankments. A remarkable group of twentysix ou the Scioto River three miles above Chillicothe has acquired the name of Mound City. The single specimens are numerously seen crowning the valley-bordering billtops and promontories in the neighborhood of the circular and angular earth- works, but it is no unusual thing to find them among the hills and in secluded places remote from the principal watercourses.

Popularly, these shapely works have been supposed to be the monuments and sepulchres of distinguished persons, or to mark the sites, and enshrine the slain of great battles. But all this is mere conjecture. In accordance with their form and indicated purpose the mounds are classified by Squier and Davis as sacrificial, sepulchral, templar and nondescript or anomalous. Exclusive of the temple mounds, which are least numerous, those of the Seioto Valley are distributed among the other three classes in nearly equal proportions.

The sacrificial mounds have three distinguishing characteristics : 1, they occur only within or near the sacred enclosures; 2, they are stratified; 3, they contain altars and altar deposits which have been subjected to the action of fire. The stratification is composed of separate layers which conform to the convexity of the outer surface, and cease at the natural level. In one of the Mound City (Ross County) specimens into which a shaft was sunk, these layers were pene- trated in the following order: 1, gravel and pebbles to the depth of a foot; 2, earth, slightly mottled, to the depth of two feet; 3, a lamination of fine sand one inch thick; 4, earth, eighteen inches; 5, another lamination of sand still thinner than the first; 6, an earth deposit a foot thick; 7, sand; 8, a few inches of earth; 9, a round altar of burned clay, concave on the top and nine feet in diameter at the base. The basin of the altar was evenly filled with fine dry ashes mixed with fragments of pottery the exterior of which exhibited excellent finish with tasteful carvings. Over the ashes covering the entire basin sheets of silvery mica were laid, and on these was heaped the partially burned fragments of a human skeleton. A few convex dises of copperlike harness ornaments were also found. The altar was solidified throughout by fire, its basin being so vitrified as to resist the blows of a hatchet. During the excavation a human skeleton was

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

found about two fect below the surface, with its head to the east. No relics accompanied it. Probably it was an example of the Indian interments for which the upper portions of the mounds were used long after their original construction. The red men are known to have held the mounds in great veneration and to have frequently buried their dead in them, usually from eighteen inches to three feet below the surface. Most of the bodies lie horizontally, but some are found in a sitting posture. Among the relics found with them are rude implements of bone and stone, coarse pottery, silver crosses, gunbarrels and French dial plates, all of which, of course, are of Indian or modern origin. "As a general rule, to which there are few exceptions, the only authentic and undoubted remains of the mound- builders are found directly beneath the apex of the mound.134

The altars found in the sacrificial mounds, and from which they take their name, vary both in form and size. Some are parallelograms, others round, ellipti- cal, or square. There are diminutive ones only two feet in diameter, and others fifty feet long and twelve or fifteen wide. Their height rarely exceeds twenty inches. They are all moulded of fine clay burned hard, and rest on the original surface of the ground which has in some instances been first sprinkled with sand. They have occasionally been found without superstructure or covering, and have in such cases been referred to by carly annalists as " brick hearths."

Bencath another tumulus of the Mound City group an altar in the form of a parallelogram was found, with ashes in its basin with which fragments of pottery were mingled. A beautiful vase was restored from these fragments. Three feet below the apex two well-preserved skeletons were found, accompanied by numer- ous implements of stone, bone, horn and copper. In the altar-ashes of a third mound of the same group were found discs, tubes and silver-mounted ornaments of copper, and about two hundred stone pipes skillfully carved with figures of quadrupeds, birds and reptiles. Among the images shown in these carvings are those of the otter and the herou, each holding a fish in its mouth ; the hawk grasp- ing in its talons a small bird which it is tearing with its beak; the turtle, frog, toad and rattlesnake; and the crow, swallow, buzzard, paroquet, and toucan.

In a fourth mound of this group was reached, at the depth of four and a half feet, a floor of water-worn stones on which a human skeleton lay with its head, which was singularly large and massive, pointing to the northwest. The bones retained much of their animal matter although a fire, of which the traces were plain, had been built over the body after its deposit. After the burial the hole had been filled and another fire kindled, burning the earth to a reddish color. Around the skull lay fragments of syenite such as the Indians were accustomed to use for the manufacture of implements before they learned the use of iron.

In a fifth mound of the same group were found several instruments of obsidian, scrolls skillfully cut from thin sheets of mica and perforated, traces of cloth made apparently from some fine vegetable fiber, pearl beads, and articles carved from stone, bone and copper.

In a sixth mound an altar was found composed of successive layers placed one on top of another at different periods. The basin was paved with round stones about the size of a hen's egg and contained a thin layer of carbonaceous matter mingled with burned human bones. Ten well wrought copper bracelets encircling some calcined bones were found in two heaps of five each. These and other cir-

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THE PREHISTORIC RACES,

cumstances strongly indicated that buman sacrifices had been offered on this altar.

Monnds of the character just described are almost invariably embraced within enclosures which bear evidence of having been intended for religious purposes. Their location, their method of construction and their contents alike justify the inference that they were primarily designed and used for sacrifice, and not for interment. Fragments of the altars are found mixed with the calcined bones as if scaled off by the heat at the time the burning took place. The relies found deposited in and about the altars are so arranged and protected as to indicate that they were placed there as votive offerings AAmong the articles of this class were found in one case fragments of ivory, fossil teeth, pieces of pottery, and stone carvings of coiled serpents carefully enveloped in sheet mica and copper. In lieu of an altar there were found, in another instance, two layers of hornstone dises, some thousands in number, round in shape or formed like spearbeads. The relig- ious zeal which prompted such painstaking offerings must have been of an extraor- dinary type.

The mounds classed as sepulchral are destitute of altars, vary in height from six to eighty feet, and generally take the form of a simple cone. "These mounds invariably cover a skeleton, (in very rare instances more than one, as in the case of the Grave Creek mound), which at the time of its interment was enveloped in bark or coarse matting, or enclosed in a rude sarcophagus of timber,- the traces, in some instances the very casts, of which remain. Occasionally the chamber of the dead is built of stone, rudely laid up, withont cement of any kind. Burial by fire seems to have been frequently practiced by the mound builders. Urn burial appears to have prevailed to a considerable extent in the Southern States." Various remains of art are found accompanying the skeletons.35

Burial in this form must have been a deliberate and solemn ceremonial. En- veloped in its coverings of bark, słabs or matting, and sometimes overspread with plates of mica and framed in by horizontal timbers, the skeleton lies prone on the smoothed original level of the ground, directly beneath the apex of the tumulus, which seems to have been piously and skillfully heaped over the remains. The bones have been so borne upon by its weight as to have sometimes indented the hard ground on which they lay. Usually a stratum of charcoal lying within a few feet of the summit betokens the use of sacrificial fire, which was covered with earth before it had burned long enough to produce ashes or bake the earth be- neath it. Fragments of bones and a few stone implements have sometimes been found mingled with the charred embers. The skeletons have been reduced by the lapse of time to a few handfuls of dust, but have often left a good cast of their out- lines in the superincumbent earth. Their positions indicate ceremonious deposit, but are not uniform as to direction. None occupy the sitting posture in whieb Indian remains are often found. The sepulchral mounds are sometimes seen in groups, as in Butler, Pike and Ross Counties, but no general cemeteries of the race of their builders have yet been discovered. Presumably the remains covered and commemorated by the mounds are those of distinguished persons. Their less con- spienous contemporaries have vanished utterly.

The Grave Creek mound exceptionally contains two sepulchral chambers, one at the base and one about thirty feet above it. Two human skeletons were found in the lower chamber, one male, the other female. The upper chamber contained

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

one skeleton only. Some thousands of shell beads, some mica ornaments, several copper bracelets and various stone carvings were found with the human remains.

Mounds of this, as well as of the first class, were often disturbed by the later Indians. Their remains are frequently found, in some cases in large quantities, as if the mound had been used for a long period as a general burial place. Such was the case with a large mound situated six miles above the town of Chillicothe, in which a great number of burials had been made, at various depths, from eighteen inches to four feet. The skeletons were, in places, two or three deep, and placed without arrangement with respect to each other. Some were evidently of a more ancient date than others, showing, from their condition as well as posi- tion, that they had been deposited at different periods. One or two were observed in which the skull had been fractured by blows from a hatchet or other instrument, establishing that the individual had met a violent death. . . . Beneath all of these, at the depth of fourteen feet, and near the base of the mound, were found traces of the original deposit of the mound- builders.36

The socalled temple mounds are not numerous in Ohio. The only well-de- fined specimens known in the State are found at Portsmouth, Marietta, Chillicothe and Newark. They may be round, oval, oblong, square or octangular in form, but invariably have level tops. Sometimes the upper surface embraces several acres, in which case they are called " platforms." Usually they are embraced within embankment enclosures, and are mounted by terraces or graded paths. Their name has been given them because of their apparent suitableness as sites of tem- ples, or for the performance of spectacular religious ceremonies. Their likeness to the Mexican teocallis of the Aztecs is suggestive. No relics or human remains are found in them.

Another form of ancient memorials occasionally found in the West is that of stone-heaps, or cairns. One of the most notable of these in Ohio is situated near the old Indian trail, about ten miles south west of Chillicothe. It is a rectangle in form, sixty feet wide, one hundred and six feet long, and between three and four feet high. It is composed of stones of all sizes laid up originally in symmetrical outline. A similar heap, not so large, is seen on top of a high hill near Tarleton, Pickaway County. The plow has turned up many rude relics in the neighbor- hood. Small and irregular stoneheaps are often seen in hilly districts. Almost invariably each covers a skeleton.

Pictured and inscribed rocks, bearing the images of birds, beasts and other objects are seen in various parts of the West. A few specimens have been found in Ohio. They are probably of Indian origin.

Most singular and striking of all the works of the moundbuilding race are those which assume, fancifully, the shape of men, birds, quadrupeds, and reptiles. In the Northwest, notably in Wisconsin, these effigies are seen upon the undulat- ing prairies, accompanied by earth cones and embankments. Along the great Indian trail from the shores of Lake Michigan, near Milwaukee, to the Mississippi above Prairie du Chien they are especially common. One of the human forms measures 279 feet between the extremities of the outstretched arms, and 111 feet from the top of the head to the thighs. Another effigy of a gigantic man with two heads measures twentyfive feet across the breast.

Some of the most curious of the effigy works extant are found in Ohio. Lick- ing County, which seems to have been " the centre of population of the old mound builders of the State,"37 contains some remarkable specimens. One of these forms

THE PREHISTORIC RACES.

a striking feature of one of the wonderful complex of mounds, circles, parallels and angular enclosures spread over the plain at the forks of the Licking, one mile west of Newark. This group covers a space of over one thousand acres. "The most prominent features of these works consist of an octagonal enclosure embracing fifty acres, a circle of thirty acres, and a smaller circle of twenty acres. A number of covert ways extend from these enclosures, and various mounds, circles and cres- centic embankments are connected with them."38 The walls of the largest of the eireles are about twelve feet high by fifty feet wide at the base, and are skirted by an interior ditch thirtyfive feet wide and seven feet deep. At the gateway the walls are sixteen feet high and the ditch thirteen feet deep, making an aggregate height from the bottom of the ditch to the upper plane of the embankment of about thirty feet. The entrance faces to the east. On either side of it the walls extend outward, in a parallel direction, for a hundred feet, leaving between them and their adjunctive ditches a majestic avenue eighty feet wide. "Here, covered with the gigantic trees of a primitive forest, the work presents a truly grand and im- pressive appearance; and in entering the ancient avenue for the first time, the visitor does not fail to experience a sensation of awe, such as he might feel in pass- ing the portals of an Egyptian temple, or in gazing upon the silent ruins of Petra of the desert."39

Precisely at the center of this great circle rises a group of four mounds con- nected with one another in such a way as to suggest the outlines of a bird with its wings outspread and its head pointed toward the gateway. Mr. Smucker, the historian of Licking County, believes it is intended to represent an eagle. Assun- ing it to be such, the length of its body is one hundred and fiftyfive feet and of each wing one hundred and ten feet. The distance in a right line from tip to tip of the wings is two hundred feet. Investigation of one of the mounds composing the effigy disclosed an altar, which has been taken as evidence of superstitious design. A crescent-shaped embankment, concave toward the effigy, rose at the distance of a hundred feet behind it.

Equally if not more interesting is the earthwork bas-relief commonly known as the Alligator, which spreads its lizard-like form upon the brow of one of the headlands of Raccoon Creek about a mile below the town of Granville. The paws of the effigy are outspread, its tail curved. Its total length from the snout to the tip of the tail is 250 feet. The length of each of the legs is thirtysix feet. The average height of the earthwork is not over four feet. A circular space near it, covered with stones which show the effects of fire, has been called an altar. The image is approached from below by a graderl way ten feet wide. The circle and bird effigy near Newark could be seen from the position of the Alligator but for the intervening forests. In the opinion of Squier and Davis this unique animal representation " had its origin in the superstitions of the makers. It was perhaps the high place where sacrifices were made on stated or extraordinary occasions, and where the ancient people gathered to celebrate the rites of their unknown worship. Its position, and all the circumstances attending it, certainly favor such a conclusion. The valley which it overlooks abounds in traces of the remote people, and seems to have been one of the centres of ancient population."40

A similar interpretation has been placed upon the great serpent mound in Adams County, Ohio, which is the largest and most remarkable of the ancient

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

Indian Gr

J N

THE SERPENT MOUND, ADAMS COUNTY.

earthwork effigies. " It is situated upon a high, crescent-form hill or spur of land rising one hundred and fifty feet above the level of Brush Creek, which washes its base. The side of the hill next the stream presents a perpendicular wall of rock, while the other slopes rapidly, though it is not so steep as to preclude cultivation." The top of the hill is not level but slightly convex, and presents a very even sur- face one hundred and fifty feet wide by one thousand long, measuring from its ex- tremity to the point where it connects with the table land. Conforming to the curve of the hill, and occupying its very summit, is the serpent, its head resting near the point, and its body winding back for seven hundred feet in graceful undu- lations, terminating in a triple coil at the tail. ... The neck of the serpent is stretched ont and slightly curved, and its mouth is opened wide as if in the act of swallowing or ejecting an oval figure, which rests partially within the distended jaws. The oval is formed by an embankment of earth, without any perceptible opening, four feet in height, and is perfectly regular in outline."41

Such was the appearance of the work as it was seen and described by Squier and Davis in 1846. It was then covered with stately forest which was swept down by a tornado fourteen years later. The work of the husbandman followed that of the storm in clearing the surface, which was abandoned after a few years to a pro- miscuous growth of red-bud, sumac and briers. Fortunately the spot was visited in 1883 by Professor F. W. Putnam, now of Harvard University, who became so much interested in the preservation of the work in the interest of science, that be arranged for its protection and also for its purchase. His efforts were nobly

THE PREHISTORIC RACES.

seconded by Miss Alice C. Fletcher and other Boston ladies of rare intelligence, by whose zeal subscriptions to the amount of six thousand dollars were obtained, and sixty acres of land, including the Serpent Cliff, were purchased and conveyed in perpetual trust to the Peabody Museum of Harvard University.42 Additional land has since been purchased and the whole has been laid out as the Serpent Monnd Park, which, at the suggestion of Professor M. C. Read, of the State Geological Survey, the General Assembly of Ohio has, by special enactment, placed under police protection, and exempted from taxation.

The measurements of the serpent are phenomenal. The oval figure at the ex- tremities of its distended jaws is sixty feet across at its point of greatest width and one hundred and twenty feet long. The point of the promontory on which it rests, eighty fect from the precipice, " seems to have been artificially cut to conform to its outline, leaving a smooth platform ten feet wide and somewhat inclining inwards all around it."43, Near its center once existed a small elevation of stones showing the marks of fire. This probable altar has been demolished by ignorant visitors in the search for treasure.

Partly enclosing the oval, nine feet from its eastern extremity, is a crescent- shaped bank seventeen feet in width. The serpent's jaws begin from the extremi- ties of this crescent, which are seventyfive feet apart. The head at the point of union of the jaws is thirty feet wide and five feet high. The total length of the body, from the extremity of the upper jaw to the tip of the tail is, 1,254 feet. Its average width of twenty feet, and its average height of about five, respectively taper down, to one foot, and two.

The graceful eurves throughout the whole length of this singular etligy give it a strange, life-like appearance; as if a huge serpent, slowly uncoiling itself and creeping silently and stealthily along the erest of the hill, was about to seize the oval within its extended jaws. Late in the afternoon, when the lights and shades are brought ont in strong relief, the effect is indeed strange and weird; and this effect is heightened still more when the full moon lights up the scene, and the stillness is broken only by the "whoo-hoo, hoo-hoo" of the unseen bird of night.44

The purpose which prompted the construction of this curious work is believed to have been a religious one. Such are the conclusions of Squier and Davis, who say in their comments: " The serpent, separate, or in combination with the circle, egg, or globe, has been a predominant symbol among many primitive nations. It prevailed in Egypt, Greece, and Assyria, and entered widely into the superstitions of the Celts, the Hindoos and the Chinese. It even penetrated into America, and was conspicuous in the mythology of the ancient Mexicans, among whom its sig. nificance does not seem to have differed materially from that which it possessed in the old world."45

Professor Putnam, who has carefully examined this work, and explored its ancient grave and mound adjunets, is of like opinion. He says: " Here, near this sacred shrine, ceremonies of great import have taken place ; individuals of import- ance have been buried in connection with ceremonies of fire, and in two instances, at least, accompanied by the burning of human bodies - possibly human sacrifice, that constant accessory of many ancient faiths. In later times the shrine was still a place of resort, possibly as one held sacred in myths and legends ; and finally a few of the scattered bands of the last century made their habitation on the spot,

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF COLUMBUS.

probably without any legendary knowledge or thought of the earlier worshipers at the shrine, overgrown and half hidden by a forest which seventy years ago was of the same character as that on all the hills about."46

While these lines are being written it is announeed from Chillicothe that the form of some feline animal in gigantic outline has been traeed for the first time among the ancient works of Ross County. Evidently the mystery of the mounds may yet be prohed more deeply than it has heretofore been.

How shall we measure the antiquity of these works? How far back in the unwritten and unexplored history of man lies the secret of their origin ? "The growth of trees upon the works," says General Force, " gives one indication. Squier and Davis mention a tree six hundred years old upon the great fort on Paint Creek. Barrandt speaks of a tree six hundred years old on one of the works in the country of the Upper Missouri. It is said that Doctor Hildreth heard of a tree eight hundred years old on one of the mounds at Marietta: Many trees three hun- dred and four hundred years old have been observed. Some of the works must therefore have been abandoned six or eight hundred years ago. It is quite possi- ble they were abandoned earlier, for these surviving trees may not have been the first to spring up on the abandonment of the works. ... It may, therefore, be fairly held with some confidence that the disappearance of the mouldbuilders did not begin further back than a thousand years ago, and that their extinction was not accomplished till centuries later."47

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume I, Part 6

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1202

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1202