Foot-prints of vanished races in the Mississippi valley : being an account of some of the monuments and relics of pre-historic races scattered over its surface, with suggestions as to their origin and uses

Front matter

THE UNIVERSITY

OF ILLINOIS

LIBRARY tV* ? * • ! •• From the collection of

Preface

The first organized effort for the study and preservation of the antiquities of this continent was the formation of The American Antiquarian Society, which was incorporated by Act of the Legislature of Massachusetts in October, 1812. A goodly number of distinguished scholars of that State were immediately enrolled as members, as well as many other learned men residing in other States, who were made corresponding members. In 1821 this Society published its first volume of " Transactions."

Although nearly all the accounts of the expeditions of the earlier explorers of the continent of North America contained notes of striking memorials, which were met with in their journeys, such as mounds, embankments, fortifications and the like, still, all such notices were too meagre and superficial to give them any special scientific value.

Through the labors of the American Antiquarian Society, the attention of the scientific world was first called to the countless, and often imposing memorials of pre-historic America, and their proper study began.

More than three-score years have now passed since the date of the organization referred to, during which time volume after volume has appeared upon the subject. Accounts of special surveys, by private individuals and State geologists, have multiplied every year. Scientific associations all over the land, as well as numerous Archaeological Societies formed for this specific purpose, have given the subject unremitting and serious attention. The Smithsonian Institute has also expended large sums of money in

409077 iv PREFACE.

exploration and in publishing the accounts of the multiplied discoveries of observers employed by that noble institution. Nor has the interest in the subject been confined to America. Some of the wisest archaeologists of Europe have written learnedly upon the works and migrations of the ancient inhabitants of both continents of America.

Notwithstanding all this labor and study, the great questions continually repeated, which were suggested when our antiquities were first noticed, still remain unanswered ; namely : Who were the authors of these works ? What was their origin, and what were the causes of their disappearance ? Were they the red men found in possession of the continent at the time of its discovery ? I am not aware that the opinion that the red men were the authors of the most extensive works, though maintained by some scholars of high repute, is held by any who have given them personal and thorough examination. The earlier travellers who stumbled upon them in the wilderness, or on the prairie, express their astonishment at their magnitude and the skill displayed in their erection. Captain Carver, in the account of his travels in the years 1766-'7-'8, describes what he was convinced was a military work, which he accidentally discovered upon the bank of Lake Pepin. This was long before it was known that America had any antiquities. Concerning it he says that " its form was somewhat circular, and its flanks reached the river. Though much defaced by time, every angle was distinguishable, and appeared as regular and fashioned with as much military skill as if planned by Vauban himself." Again: "I was able to draw certain conclusions of its great antiquity." " How a work of this kind could exist in a country that has hitherto (according to generally-received opinion) been the seat of war to untutored Indians alone, whose whole stock of military knowledge has only, till within two centuries, amounted to drawing the bow, and

PREFACE.

whose only breastwork, even at present, is the thicket, I know not."

His testimony is selected from that of a multitude of early writers, because he could not have been prejudiced by the preconceived opinions or notions of others, and also because he was a man of military training, being a captain in the British army, whose conclusions would not be mere guess-work. The judgment of Brackenridge, Atwater, William Wirt and many other distinguished men, is in perfect agreement upon this point, namely: that they could not have been built by the Indians, as we know them, nor any people in like condition.

The first important question to be decided — if, indeed, it can "be — is the origin of the North American Indians. Was their original home in Asia? and did they, as many believe, make their way to this continent across Behring's Straits, or the Aleutian Islands? In the solution of this question, the student of Archaeology bespeaks the aid of the Philologist.

Archa3ology, Geology and Paleontology have been called three sister sciences. Philology must be added to the sisterhood, at least as far as American pre-historic times are concerned, as it may be that the lamp of this younger sister may light the footsteps of the elder to the final results of ethnological investigation. Should there be discovered some radical affinity between a few of the forty stock languages of the red men of North America and their physically-related brethren of Northwestern Asia, the question, it would seem, would be settled.

No one who has not previously examined the antiquities of the vanished races who once dwelt upon this continent, can have any adequate idea of their magnitude and extent ; and he who has seen them as they lie thickly scattered throughout the fertile valleys of the Western States, is surprised at the evidence they

VI PREFACE.

present of a prodigious population which once swarmed in this wide domain.

The Cahokia group of mounds in the American Bottom, six miles from St. Louis, may aid in illustrating the statement. There are in this group, beside smaller ones, at least a dozen in close propinquity ; any one of which, if standing alone, would be a striking feature of the landscape. Just west of Monk's Mound, the largest of the group, is one which is perhaps fifteen to twenty feet in height, On the flat surface of the top stands a good-sized farm-house, with necessary out-buildings and conveniences, and plenty of room for a variety of fruit trees, and an ample vegetable garden. This is not the only one so occupied, and there are near this one several others much larger and more conspicuous ; while all of them look diminutive, and may be compared to anthills beside that King of Mounds which stands near the northern center of the group. Directly north of this great work are satisfactory evidences of a large artificial lake, the dirt taken from which was presumably used in building the mounds. The form and size of the lake can best be made out just after the Cahokia creek, which flows through it, has been swollen by heavy rains.

Having his home in the center of the great valley where these works abound, and looking upon some of them almost every day of his life, the writer has been impelled to note the facts which came under his own observation, and to venture, concerning them, a few conclusions. The conclusions may be valueless ; but if he who causes two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before, is a benefactor, truly, he who contributes a new fact to the sum of human knowledge, should be considered in the same li<-ht: for the after times alone can reveal the value of the contribution, and that which is least in all earthly kingdoms sometimes becomes the greatest. In the desire to do what he could to advance the study of a science so deeply interesting to himself,

PREFACE. vii the writer commits these chapters to the public, making no claim to originality beyond the accounts of his own explorations of the mounds and caves therein contained .*

It should be noticed that this memoir has already appeared in the voluminous work, entitled, "The Commonwealth of Missouri," and as there has been, ever since the appearance of that work, much inquiry from various quarters, particularly outside of Missouri, for the Archaeological portion, and by those who had no special interest in the local history of our State, and therefore did not care to incur the expense of purchasing so costly a work as the Commonwealth, it has seemed best, without further delay, to reprint the work from the original plates, as it first appeared in the history referred to. This statement will explain the frequent allusions which will be noticed, to that work.

A. J. C

* It may not be amiss to state, also, that an additional interest may attach to the subject-matter of this work, because it is the result of explorations in an entirely new field, concerning which nothing has before been published. The account of every new "find " in the Archaeological field always elicits the attention of scientists all over the world. This is illustrated by the fact that a short, paper upon the mounds in Southeast Missouri, read by the author of this book at a meeting of the St. Louis Academy of Science, and published in its transactions, has been translated and republished in France, Germany, Austria and Denmark.

Chapter I

Traces of Vanished Peoples. — Their World-wide Diffusion . — Russian Earthworks.— Egj'ptian Monuments Ancient at the Date of Oldest Records. — A Troy Still Older than the Ancient Troy of Homer

Chapter II

Methods of the Archaeologist. — The Shell-heaps of the Baltic. — The Buried Forests of Denmark. — The Sisterhood of Science. — The Five Geological Periods. — The Agres of Stone and Bronze. — Iron in Common Use Three Thousand

Page.

Years Ago .

Chapter III

No "Age of Bronze " in America. — Traditions Regarding the Mounds. — Tuscarora Chronology. — The Animal Mounds of the Upper Mississippi Region. — Ancient Fish Traps. — Burial, Sacrificial and Historical Mounds 12

Chapter IV

The Archaeological Monuments of Missouri. — Their Rapid Destruction. — Sites of Towns and Cities. — The Labors of H. M. Brackenridge. — The Big Mound at St. Louis. — Col. O'Fallon's Residence Erected on an Ancient Mound. — The Mounds in Forest Park. — Evidences of a Vast Population. — New Madrid its Center. — Description of Various Works 25

Chapter V

One People the Builders of these Mounds. — Cremation and Burial Mounds. — The Big Mound at St. Louis. — Mistaken Views. — Minute Description of the Work. — Stone Mounds. — Stone Sepulchres in St. Louis and Perry Counties 3S

Chapter VI

"The Cave-Dwellers. *' — Tales of Discoveries in Kentucky, etc. — The Caves of the Ozark Mountains. — Proofs of Long Occupancy.— Skeletons and Other Relics Found. — The Cave-Dwellers a Different Race From the Mound- Builders 47 x TABLE OF CONTENTS.

Chapter VII

Temple Mounds.— Growth of Ancient Religious Systems.— Characteristics of this Class of Monuments. — The Greal Mound at Cahokia its best Representative in ITorth America.— Brackenridge's Description of it in 1811. — How it came to be called " Monk's Mound."'— The Ceremonies of the Sun-Worshippers.— Other Temple Mounds. — The Indians not Descended From the Mound- Builders 53

Chapter VIII

Garden Mounds.— The Food of the Pre-Historie Races.— Fish Probably one of their Main Resources. — The use of the Ditches within their City Walls. — Domestic Animals. — Agriculture. — Religious Systems. — Dissimilarity between Northern and Southern Tribes of Indiana— Traces of Aztec Culture Among the Latter. — Vast Numbers of the Garden Mounds. — Proofs of their Purpose. — The Utah Mounds. — Interesting Discoveries. — A new Variety of "Wheat Grown from Kernels found Therein.— An Opening for Further Researches. . . G2

Chapter IX

Miscellaneous Works.— Historical or National Festival Mounds.— Stone Structures.—Ruins on the Gasconade River.— Group near Louisiana, Mo.— Some Indiana Relics.— Cremation Chambers.— Proofs of Agricultural Knowledge. —Great Canals Ante-dating the Erie. —Ancient Counterparts of Modern Achievements.— Our Southern " Bayous " of Artificial Origin 70

Chapter X

Pottery.— Superiority of Pre-Historic America Wares over those of Europe. — Imitations of Living Objects.— The Materials Used.— Reliquaries.— Skulls Enclosed in Earthen Vessels.— Bowls with Ornamental Heads.— Probabilities of Higher Art Among the Ancients 79

Chapter XI

Crania.— Differences Between the Skulls of the Mound-Builders and the Indians.

Difficulties of the Subject. — Two Varieties of Crania in the same Mounds. —

Principles of Classification.— Influence of Local Customs.— Peruvian Skulls.— Characteristics of Missouri Specimens, etc.— The Tools of Ancient Americans. —Proofs of a Knowledge of Iron 97

Chapter XII

Concluding Observations.— The Origin of the Pre-Historic Races of America.— Theory of Spontaneous Generation —The Law Governing their Migrations.— Successive Movements of the Nahua Race.— The Aztecs the Last Colony of that People.— Opinions of Baron Humboldt.— Our own Country Probably the Original Home of the Aztec Civilization.— The Indian Races of Asiatic Origin. —Facilities of Immigration via. Behring'S Straits.— A Personal Word.— Dry Bones Clothed 113

Man in the A?e of the Mammoth and Great Bear.

Chapter I

Traces of Vanished Peoples. — Their World-Wide Diffusion. — Russian Earthworks.— Egyptian Monuments Ancient at the Date of Oldest Records.— A Troy Still Older than ihe Ancient Troy of Homer.

IN all lands, whenever in the ages past the climate has been such as to render it possible for man to subsist, the earth is found thickly planted with the graves of vanished peoples. Countless generations have come and gone, and left no record of their lives and work, save what is to be found in the few surviving monuments they have erected, or the rude implements and fragmentary remains of their industry, which descended with them to the tomb. The great ocean of humanity, with the energy of its ceaseless flow, has oft-times, no doubt, obliterated the traces of former generations, save here and there a foot-print in the solid rock, or an empty shell which has been left upon the shores of time. We of to-day build, sow and reap, buy and sell, and thus repeat, over smd over again, the great drama of life, above the sepulchers of departed millions, long since forgotten. How often the long eons have finished their cycles and the new began — who can compute, or from whence shall the data be drawn upon which such computation may be based? The sacred records furnish no system of the chronology of the race, nor standing- ground upon which a trustworthy one can be constructed. The wisest who have essayed the task, from such sources, differ in their estimates more than five thousand years. The devout believer in Revelation, therefore, need feel no apprehensions for the foundations of his faith if it shall be proven even that man has been an inhabitant of the earth for a hundred thousand years or more.

All that can be gained from history, sacred and profane, supplemented with the hieroglyphic annals of Egypt and the inscribed bricks and cylinders of Assyria, carries us back only about forty-four centuries. Suddenly we come then to the border-land of legendary myths and extravagant traditions. The thick darkness which enshrouds all beyond, no one, a hundred years ago, thought possible to penetrate or dispel. But within the last fifty years a new science has been added to the varied departments of human knowledge and research — the science of Archeology, pure and proper, — and thousands to-day, including many of the best minds in the most enlightened lands, are devoting to it their serious and earnest labors.

The field of exploration is the wide world, whose continents are all equally rich in the monuments of the forgotten past. From the widelyseparated quarters of this great field, the laborers gather from time to time, bringing the results of their work. All these combined are throwing their focal light upon the great questions of the origin and antiquity of the various races of mankind — their peculiar customs and mode of life — investing them with an interest never before awakened, which increases more and more, as the promise brightens of their satisfactory elucidation. The number of the monuments of which we speak, upon our own continent, is legion upon legion. From Nova Scotia to the southern coast of Florida — from Behring's Strait to Mexico and Peru — from the Atlantic to the Pacific — are to be found the sites of ancient cities, or the former seats of a dense population. Europe, as every one knows, is full of them. Not only on the surface of the soil, but far down in the gravels of the drift, are found the remains of man in companionship with the bones of huge mammals, who were buried there, it would seem, long before the "British Channel was scooped out." In Russia, from its western border to the Pacific, from its southernmost limit far north into the inhospitable regions of Siberia, earthworks are found giving evidences of long occupancy, and doubtless a forced migration to the North. There, in the sepulchers of the dead, they deposited the gold and silver ornaments and other treasures of the departed, in which relics the more recent inhabitants have driven a thriving trade. The great steppes of Asia abound with sepulchral

TKACES OF VANISHED PEOPLES. &

mounds. Nor are the deserts of Africa without their witness to the existence of former generations. Hei remorseless sands are the tomb of many an ancient city.

Egypt, the oldest nation which has preserved a written history, has also her pre-historic remains. Before the name of Athens was pronounced, or Greece was born — when Italy was peopled with savage tribes as wild and barbarous as the red men of America, — Egypt wras far advanced in the higher branches of knowledge, the sciences and the nobler arts. Her priests even then dwelt in the palaces of the kings, and issued their mandates, with his, from the throne. Those palaces were colleges of learning, while the priests were the professors, who not only ministered in matters of religion and worship, but devoted themselves to the higher education of the young as well.

To-day, as the explorer removes the stones from her ancient structures, he finds here and there one, whose inner surface is carved with curious devices and inscriptions, showing that it once had a place in older and* demolished edifices. She had then her libraries also, in which the knowledge of her sages was preserved. Tombs of the librarians have been discovered, dating back at least five hundred years before Homer sang in the cities of Greece, and inscribed "To the chief of books."

Lono* since, the line of the Pharaohs became extinct, and no prince or king — So the prophet said — shall ever sit on her throne again or sway the scepter over the land of the Nile. How old she seems ! And yet old Egypt was of yesterday, compared with the men of the drift, the reindeer period, or the pre-glacial times of Scandinavia, Scotland, France, England and the Pyrenees.

These everywhere ancient monuments of which we speak, men have been wont to regard with unquestioning curiosity, or at most to pass by with a conjecture only, as Homer did, who speaks of the ancient mounds, concerning which, in his day even, there was no history or tradition, and who imagined they might be the tombs of ancient heroes. Job makes more than one allusion to the monuments and "solitary mansions of the dead," which awakened the curiosity of the caravans and travelers of Teman, as they passed along the great thoroughfares of commerce. The wild songs of the most ancient bards are no longer poetic myths, the creations of a fervid imagination ; but their inspiration was drawn from events which actually transpired. "With truth their souls were fired." The poets were the nations' historians as well. Troy, with her strange story, is no longer a doubtful city. Dr. Schlieman has found her ancient

6 AJRCILEOLOGY.

site and discovered enough, among her long-entombed memorials, to> authenticate her history ; and we may write once more "Ilium est" for " Ilium fuit."

And what is most surprising of all, far down beneath the level of the ground once trod by the heroes whose names Homer has given to immortality, the explorer has found the ruins of another city — and he thinks still another below it — concerning which the poet seems to have heard no tradition. Among those deposits of an age so remote, were articles of stone and bronze and precious metals, skillfully wrought, giving evidence of the existence of a people whose knowledge, attainments, and social condition were far in advance of those of the more ancient periods of stone and bronze — a civilization which could only have been realized by the slow growth of centuries.

But not alone upon that glorious land, made immortal by the fiery energy of Homer's matchless sougs, has a resurrection morning dawned, .nor Egypt and Assyria with their hieroglyphic annals, hoary with age ; but other lands, unknown in classic story, and the islands of the sea, are divine up their long-forgotten dead. The explorers of to-day are breakino- down the hitherto impassable barriers of the remoter ages of antiquity ; here and tjiere we catch glimpses of the life and customs, and hold converse with the tribes and peoples of pre-historic times. The fast-accumulating records which have been gathered during the last twenty-five years are continually enriching the libraries of every civilized nation, and he who would master them all will soon find life too short to do more than acquaint himself with the grand results of the multiplied discoveries. The chief difficulty then, it will be perceived, in the way of the present task, is one of condensation, or in other words, how to select from such vast material only those facts and observations which are necessary for the proper treatment of the subject we are about to consider.

On account of the limits prescribed for the archaeological chapters of this work compelling all possible economy of space, and also for the sake of continuity, instead of burdening them with frequent references to the authors consulted, I desire in the outset to make all due acknowledgment of my indebtedness to those valued records of the labors of the noble army of abler men who have preceded me in like investigations in this department of knowledge. Chief among those which have been freely consulted, are the writings of Garcillasso de la Vega, Prof. Refinesque, Daniel Willson, LL.D., Alexander W. Bradford,

TJEtACES OF VANISHED PEOPLES. 7

J. W. Foster, Edward L. Clark, Wm. Pidgeon, Prof. G. C. Swallow, Sir John Lubbock, M. L. Figuier, M. Marlot, John Evans, Lewis C. Beck, H. M. Brackenridge, James Adair, and others. Also, au article upon the Archseology of Missouri, contributed by myself to the last volume of Transactions of the St. Louis Academy of Science.

Chapter II. •

Methods of the Archaeologist. — The Shell-heaps of the Baltic. — The Buried Forests of Denmark.— The Sisterhood of Science.— The Five Geological Periods.— The Ages of Stone and Bronze.— Iron in common use three thousand years ago.

As before remarked, in almost every land upon the surface of the globe, are to be found countless monuments and memorials of vanished races; sometimes structures of imposing magnitude, but oftener implements of war and the chase, of domestic use and personal adornment. From such remains, more or less rude and defaced, it has been found possible to reconstruct a pre-historic history of man's life in the most remote ages of his existence ; and by their careful study we are able to scrutinize his manner of life ; to look in upon his domestic scenes ; to witness his ceaseless struggles for existence — his mode of burial ; and to learn something of his notions of another life. Only one important thing is forever lost — his language. For "we can never hear him speak." Yet the history we may recover is as true and touching as any which the poets sing. Nor need all this be thought incredible, for these results are obtained by the simple processes of reasoning and induction which we apply to the affairs of every-day life. When the traveler upon our western plains stumbles by chance upon the ashes and debris of a former habitation, if he finds there the fragments of a hoe and sickle, he at once infers that the former occupant was a tiller of the soil ; should his eye light upon a cast-off shoe of infantile proportions, he naturally concludes that once it was the home of childhood. In addition to this, should he discover charred bits of bread and other articles of food, carbonized grain and fruits, along with culinary articles, showing the action of fire, these facts would show what crops were grown, the kind of food upon which the family subsisted, and also that the dwelling was destroyed by fire. The presence of the fragments of a crucifix would point to the religious belief of the former occupant.

Such is the method of the archaeologist. When he examines the huge heaps of shells along the shores of the numerous arms of the Baltic sea, composed of individuals of large size, select and full-grown, of several species, commingled with rude implements of stone and bone, with also the bones of the codfish, and compares them with the diminutive specimens he is able to procure from the same waters now, it is an inference most reasonable, that when these heaps were piled up around the miserable huts of the ancient fishermen, the waters of the Baltic were not so fresh as how. The presence of the bones of the codfish gives some evidence of skill in navigation, for they must be caught in the open sea. When the peat-bogs of this same country are examined, they present a record reaching far back of the historic period. These depressions in the natural surface of the earth — sometimes to the depth of thirty feet, disclose three distinct periods of arborescent vegetation. At the bottom are the stately trunks of the pine tree ; above these the oak, which once grew upon the sides of the pits, and when their full maturity was reached, fell inward. The oak was succeeded by the beech airl birch which now flourish — and have flourished during all the period of history — throughout the land. The pine and oak have never been known during the historic period in the native forests of Denmark. In these bogs, beneath the layers of pine, are found the rude implements of the ancient inhabitants. Man lived, then, when the pine forests were in their glory, and at that time also piled up the shell heaps along the shore ; for in these are found in great abundance the bones of a bird whose food is derived from the pine.

Again : when the student of Archaeology discovers — as is frequently the case — the bones of extinct mammals, in situ, each bone lying by its fellow in its relative position as when in life, he knows there can have been no disturbance of the remains since the death of the animal. If he finds also, in companionship with them, the relics of man's industry, he believes that these mammals and man were contemporaneous. Should he find, further, huge bones split longitudinally, and showing marks and scratches of flint knives, which could only have been made while the bones were soft, he naturally concludes that man hunted these animals for food and split the bones to obtain the marrow. But the generalizations of the archaeologist are not based upon the study of such relics alone. Geology,

TRACES OF VANISHED PEOPLES.

Paleontology and Archaeology go hand in hand, and have well been called "three sister sciences." Each of these three related departments of human knowledge is throwing its focal light with increasing luster upon the great question of man's first appearance upon the earth. By the light of their combined disclosures, the steps of our groping feet are illumined as we travel slowly along the pathway which leads us irresistibly to the night of the unknown ages, "and the mind recoils dismayed when it undertakes the computation of the thousands of }7ears which have elapsed since the creation of man."

The five geological periods into which the crust of the earth has been divided, are commonly named in the relative order of their age :

the primitive rocks, the transition rocks, the secondary rocks, the tertiary rocks, and quaternary rocks. All of these are anterior to the present geological period. The long succession of animals and plants peculiar to each, is found generally to have died out during the time of its continuance. Judging from the present order of things, each period must A Solitary Cave Dweller>

have been of long duration ; for the animals and plants with which we are familiar show scarcely any alteration since their first appearance, though they have existed for thousands of years. Now it is considered certain by the best informed, that man existed iu Europe at the commencement of the quaternary period.

We are not left in doubt as to the climatic conditions of that country in those remote times, which must have been similar to the polar regions of the North to-day. There was no Iceland, Scotland, or Scandinavia then. The whole continent was shrouded in a winding sheet of snow. Her now beautiful valleys were the bottom of the sea. Enormous ice-fields stretched away from mountain to mountain, and only the highest elevations of the Pyrenees and Apennines were visible above the vast expanse of eternal snow and ice. Yet there, during that awful winter, for

ARCHEOLOGY.

which there was no promise of a coming spring, man and cotemporaneous animals contrived to exist. But what a lite ! To us, it would seem utterly hopeless and dreary ; but for its maintenance he found abundant employment for all his activities, in providing means for his daily sustenance, and in his contests with the wild beasts around him for the possession of the shelters of the caves and overhanging rocks. How long this period continued we cannot know ; but the centuries rolled on, and slowly the glacial period comes to an end — the ice-fields melt away, the glaciers retreat to the north, and the submerged continent arises from the ocean. The sunshine and the genial air of a new spring morning dissipate the tears from the face of Nature, and she hastens to put on her robes of green. With this dawn of another life a new