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north, most frequent and dangerous in the Mexican Gulf, where there are no ports to run for. Many of our passengers had anticipated with dread this wind called by distinction here una norteza. We were near the shore, a low one unfortunately, and what the sailors call "iron bound" id est rocky. We were soon unable to carry sail, and as we had no place to run for, the vessel was left to the mercy of the waters and the wind. The sea next morning was most awful; the waves literally mountains high. The wind came like a wild wind; the sky veiled in thickest darkness, with occasional red gleams, extending over part of the horizon, sure indications of the continuance of the gale. All our party were dead sick but Eden and myself. . . . In this melancholly state we remained 32 hours. The morning after the wind abated we discovered land, which by observation proved to be Campeachy, far to the south of our course. The Captain and all hands agreed that if the wind had continued only a few hours longer we must have been wrecked. . . .

Our provisions also began to grow short: indeed we had left New Orleans ill provided with everything, although our party was so large. The remainder of the voyage was a constant struggle against wind and current with scarcely anything to eat. As an instance we had one morning the flesh of a Porpoise for breakfast, caught the day before; which in spite of my good appetite I was unable to swallow. We were reduced to flour and water made into flat cakes, and scarcely warmed through, with molasses thrown over them.

I will not however continue the detail of our miseries and privations. . . . Our cabin was not larger than a good sized table. Suffice it to say that on the 31st, we reached the roadsted of Vera Cruz about 2 o'clock in the day. The Pilot who came aboard was the first harbinger of bad news, giving us an account of the massacre at Mexico, and the total anarchy in the republic. The civil authorities came on board soon after we anchored, and inquired minutely for our names, professions, country, etc., also passports. After the ceremony we were promised a permit to land that evening, which did not however arrive for Eden and myself— having no friends ashore. Many of the other passengers were more fortunate and to our infinite annoyance we were unnecessarily condemned to another night on board the vessel.

THE MOUND-BUILDERS WERE INDIANS

The following suggestions are presented as supplementary to Gen. Thruston's article in the May number of the Magazine of American History, entitled "Ancient Society in Tennessee; The Mound Builders were Indians." The general view advanced by the writer is certainly warranted by the facts, and is in accordance with the results of the more recent explorations and the more careful reading of the old authorities.

The explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology have not only aided in lifting the veil of mystery which has so long enshrouded the mounds and other ancient works of our country, but have furnished indices to the particular tribes and peoples by whom many of these works were constructed. The idea entertained by many that the mound-builders of Ohio and Tennessee retreated southward, and were absorbed into the tribes of the Gulf States, seems to be negatived by the testimony of the mounds. On the contrary, the facts justify us in concluding that the stone graves of Tennessee, and the mound groups with which they are connected, are the work of the Shawnees, and that the typical works of Ohio are attributable to the ancestors of the Cherokees. It would be impossible to present, in a single short article, the testimony necessary to complete the chain of evidence leading to this conclusion; nothing more, therefore, will be attempted here than to state very briefly the character of this evidence.

Ist. It being admitted that some of the Gulf tribes, especially those of the Muskoki family, were mound-builders, there is no necessity of looking beyond the Indians for the authors of these ancient monuments.

2d. We are informed by history that the Delaware Indians formerly, and at the time when a portion of the Shawnees lived with them, were accustomed to bury their dead in box-shaped stone graves, precisely of the pattern of those found in middle Tennessee. Graves of this pattern are found at all points yet examined, where bodies of Shawnees formerly dwelt for any length of time; even those found in the region of the "Overhill towns of the Cherokees in east Tennessee are attributable to a portion of this tribe, which history tells us left their home in Kentucky and went to the Cherokee country. The Illinois tribes, as well as the Delawares, buried in graves of this kind. These tribes are all closely related to each otherbelonging, in fact, to one linguistic sub-family. In some of the graves of this type in southern Illinois, both in and out of mounds, have been found

VOL. XX.-No. 1.-5

stamped copper plates of a peculiar pattern. Similar plates have also been found in the stone graves of middle Tennessee and northern Georgia. Plates of this character have, so far, been obtained only in graves of this type--chiefly in mounds, but in a few instances in those known to be of Indian origin. Numerous other facts, which cannot be presented here, confirm the impression given by those mentioned, and leave little if any doubt on the mind that the Shawnees were the authors of the stone graves of Tennessee and the other ancient works connected with them.

3d. In these graves are found certain engraved shells, which are also found in the mounds of east Tennessee and western North Carolina, attributable, as shown in the Magazine of American History for May, 1884, to the Cherokees. Since the article alluded to was written, the explorations by the Bureau of Ethnology have furnished much additional evidence that the Cherokees were mound-builders. We have only space to note the following items of this evidence at present.

When they first became known to the whites, a large portion of the Cherokee tribe was located on the west side of the mountain (dividing North Carolina from Tennessee), along the banks of the Little Tennessee River, in what were then called the "Overhill towns. In order to keep these Indians under control, Fort Loudon was erected close by them, about the middle of the eighteenth century. The location of this fort is still marked by its remains. From the base of the mountains to where the Tennessee joins the Holston, which includes the entire valley occupied, the distance is not more than twenty-five or thirty miles, yet it is here we are to find all of these "Overhill towns," except one or two small ones, which were situated on Tellico Plains, in the south part of Blount County. These facts are mentioned in order to show the limited locality over which we have to search for these villages. The order in which they come along the river is known, also the side of the river on which they were situated, though the precise spot where each one stood appears to have been forgotten. Governor Ramsey, in his Annals of Tennessee, gives a map, marking the locality of each as nearly as possible from the information he obtained. He gives them in the following order, moving up the river eastward from its junction with the Holston-Tellico, Chota, Citico, Chilhoe, Tallahassee.

This region we have carefully explored, and have found at the only points where these villages could have been situated, groups of mounds, a group for each of the five villages mentioned, and a few others where isolated hamlets may have been situated. This coincidence of the location of the mounds and villages is, to say the least, very significant.

But

there is another fact mentioned by Ramsey very important in this connection. Near the close of the eighteenth century, when the pioneers from North Carolina, following in the wake of Daniel Boone, were pouring over the mountains into the valley of the Holston, they were attacked by the Cherokees and a Mrs. Bean taken prisoner. She was carried to their sacred town of Chota, which is the second of the series in the order given above. Here she was condemned to death, and, as we are informed by Ramsey, was taken by them to the top of the mound to be burned, but her life was saved by the female who at that time held the office known among them as the Pretty Woman."

During the explorations carried on by the Bureau of Ethnology, a large mound of the group supposed to correspond with Chota, being excavated, was found to contain basin-shaped beds of burnt clay. In the centre of several of these were the remains of a stake which, standing in the centre of the bed, had burned down to the surface. About these were ashes and fragments of burned human bones. This seems to be confirmatory of Ramsey's statement, or, at least, agrees in a remarkable manner with the Cherokee custom which his statement implies. In this mound were found over ninety skeletons, and with one, that of a child, and not an intrusive burial, four little copper bells -hawk's bells-a kind of toy very freely distributed by the early Spanish explorers.

These basin-shaped clay hearths, which are so frequent in this section of Tennessee, are probably an outgrowth of the so-called clay "altars" of the Ohio mounds, and, if so, give us a reasonable explanation of the use of these things which have so long puzzled antiquarians, viz., that they were places for torturing and burning prisoners of war, the principal sacrifices Indians were accustomed to make.

Now it is quite certain that if the Cherokees were the builders of the mounds of Ohio, when driven southward they fled up the valley of the Great Kanawha. Moreover, this corresponds precisely with their tradi tions. It so happens that in this valley, near Charleston, is an extensive group of mounds, circles, squares, etc. These have been carefully explored by the agents of the Bureau of Ethnology, and in them were found the things which form the intermediate step between those of the Ohio mounds and mounds of east Tennessee and western North Carolina. Here under a large mound were discovered little bee-hive vaults similar to those found in the North Carolina mounds;* here were also discovered both the clay altars, like those in the Ohio mounds and the basin-shaped clay hearths of the Tennessee mounds, the latter apparently taking the place

*Am. Naturalist, vol. 18 (1884), pp. 232-240.

of the former. Here was also found the transition form of the stone-pipe, between the typical monitor pipe of Ohio and the comparatively modern Cherokee pipe.

This will suffice to indicate the character of the testimony referred to, but the full force of it cannot be seen or thoroughly understood until it has been examined in detail. It is only then that one can appreciate the numerous interlacing lines and threads which can only be explained and traced upon the conclusion here advanced, to wit, that the Tallegwi of tradition, the builders of the typical ancient works of Ohio, and the Chellakees (Cherokees) are one people.

Although the evidence leads to the conclusion that the typical works of Ohio, the great circles and squares, the lines of parallels and the "altar mounds," are to be attributed to the Cherokees, it also indicates that some three or four or more different mound-building tribes have inhabited the state in the past. The walls and other remains of Cuyahoga County, and other northern sections of the state, are so like those of New York, that we must suppose them to be the work of some tribe of the Huron-Iroquois family; the stone graves of the eastern and central portion of the state are beyond question the work of the Delaware Indians; some of the mounds and graves of southern Ohio are attributable to the Shawnees, but there are other graves which are probably the burial places of a tribe which formerly had its home chiefly in Kentucky, but which has, through the fortunes of war, become extinct.

There is no evidence whatever that the builders of the Ohio works fled to the Gulf States and became incorporated into the tribes of that section. The remarkable differences between the pipes of the two sections are sufficient to negative this supposition. There is, in fact, no marked similarity between the earthworks of these two sections, although this has been asserted over and over.

Cyrus Thomas

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