Introductory

       Table of Contents

      All the works of the mound-builders of our country are exceedingly interesting to the antiquarian and are valuable as illustrating the habits, customs, and condition of the people by whom they were formed, but the sepulchral tumuli surpass all others in importance in this respect. Although usually simple in form and conveying thereby no indications of the characteristics of the people by whom they were erected, yet when explored they reveal to us, by their internal structure and contents, more in regard to the habits, beliefs, and art of their authors than can be learned from all their other works combined. From them we are enabled to learn some traits of ethnical character. The gifts to, or property of, their dead deposited in these sepulchers illustrate their arts and customs and cast some rays of light into their homes and daily life, and the regard for their dead indicated by the remaining evidences of their modes of burial and sepulchral rites affords some glimpses of their religious beliefs and superstitions. The larger and more imposing works, as the pyramidal mounds, the enclosures, canals, etc., furnish indications of their character, condition, strength, and culture-status as a people or tribe, but the burial mounds and their contents, besides the evidences they furnish in regard to the religious belief and art of the builders, tell us something of individual traits, something of their social life, their tastes, their personal regard for each other, and even something of the diseases to which they were subject. What is still more important, the modes of burial and vestiges of art found with the dead furnish us undoubted evidences of tribal distinctions among the authors of these works, and, together with the differences in external form, enable us to determine in a general way the respective areas occupied by the different tribes or peoples during the mound-building age.

      Judging by all the data so far obtained relating to the form, internal structure, and contents of these works, much of which has not yet been published, we are perhaps warranted in concluding that the following districts or areas were occupied by different peoples or tribes. As a matter of course we can only designate these areas in general terms.

      (1) The Wisconsin district, or area of the emblematic or effigy mounds. This embraces the southern half of Wisconsin, a small portion of the northern part of Illinois, and the extreme northeast corner of Iowa. The effigy or animal mounds form the distinguishing feature of the works of this district, but aside from these there are other features sufficient to separate the works of this section from those further south.

      (2) The Illinois or Upper Mississippi district, embracing eastern Iowa, northeastern Missouri, and northern and central Illinois, as far south as the mouth of the Illinois River.

      In this region the works are mostly simple conical tumuli of small or moderate size, found on the uplands, ridges, and bluffs as well as on the bottoms, and were evidently intended chiefly as depositories of the dead. They are further characterized by internal rude stone and wooden vaults or layers; by the scarcity of pottery vessels, the frequent occurrence of pipes, the presence of copper axes, and often a hard, mortar-like layer over the primary or original burial. The skeletons found are usually extended, though frequently in a sitting or squatting posture.

      Walls and enclosures are of rare occurrence in this region.

      (3) The Ohio district, including the State of Ohio, the western part of West Virginia, and the eastern portion of Indiana. Although the works of this region present some features which are common to those of the Gulf section, there are several peculiar characteristics which warrant us in designating it as a distinct district. Among other of these peculiar features we notice the great circles and squares of the enclosures, the long parallel lines of earthen walls, the so-called "altar mounds," or mounds containing structures chiefly of clay to which the name "altar" has been applied; the numerous carved stone pipes; the character of the pottery and the methods of burial.

      (4) The New York district, confined chiefly to the northern and western parts of the State of New York, but including also the lake region of the central portion.

      As the antiquities of this district have been shown by Squier to be chiefly due to the Indian tribes occupying that section at the time of its discovery by the Europeans, it is unnecessary to note the distinguishing characteristics. The works are chiefly enclosing walls, remains of palisades, and burial mounds.

      (5) The Appalachian district, including western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, and part of southeastern Kentucky.

      The characteristics which appear to warrant us in concluding that the works of this region pertain to a different people from those in the other districts, at the same time seem to show some relation to those of the Ohio district. Such are the numerous stone pipes, the altar-like structures found in some of the mounds, and the presence of mica plates with the skeletons. But the peculiar features are the mode of burial, the absence of pottery, and the numerous polished celts and engraved shells found in the mounds.

      Although it is probable that there are at least three districts in the southern portion of the United States, they appear to pass from one into the other by such slight changes in the character of the works as to render it exceedingly difficult to fix the boundaries between them. I therefore mention the following, provisionally, as being those indicated by the data so far obtained.

      (6) The Middle Mississippi area or Tennessee district, including southeast Missouri, northern Arkansas, middle and western Tennessee, southern and western Kentucky, and southern Illinois. The works of the Wabash valley possibly belong also to this district, but the data obtained in regard to them are not sufficient to decide this point satisfactorily. This district, like the others of the south, is distinguished from the northern section by its larger mounds, many of which are pyramidal and truncated and often terraced, and which were, beyond question, used as domiciliary mounds. Here we also meet with repeated examples of enclosures though essentially different from those of Ohio; also ditches and canals. From the Lower Mississippi and Gulf districts, with which, as we have said, it is closely allied,