SO-CALLED SACRIFICIAL MOUNDS. 271 



ment is not the less true as regards other mounds. In con- 

 junction with them may be mentioned the " bone pits," many 

 of which are described by Mr. Squier.* " One of these pits, 

 discovered some years ago in the town of Cambria, Niagara 

 County, was estimated to contain the bones of several thousand 

 individuals. Another which I visited in the town of Clarence, 

 Erie County, contained not less than four hundred skeletons." 

 A tumulus described by Mr. Jefferson in his "Notes on Virginia," 

 was estimated to contain the skeletons of a thousand indivi- 

 duals, but in this case the number was perhaps exaggerated. 



The description given by various old writers of the solemn 

 "Festival of the Dead" satisfactorily explains these large 

 collections of bones. It seems that every eight or ten years 

 the Indians used to meet at some place previously chosen, 

 that they dug up their dead, collected the bones together, 

 and laid them in one common burial-place, depositing with 

 them fine skins and other valuable articles. Several of these 

 ossuaries are described by Schoolcraft.-f- 



The so-called "Sacrificial Mounds" are, says Dr. Wilson, 

 " a class of ancient monuments altogether peculiar to the 

 New World, and highly illustrative of the rites and customs 

 of the ancient races of the mounds. This remarkable class 

 of mound has been very carefully explored, and their most 

 noticeable characteristics are, their almost invariable occur- 

 rence within enclosures ; their regular construction in uniform 

 layers of gravel, earth, and sand, disposed alternately in strata 

 conformable to the shape of the mound ; and their covering, 

 a symmetrical altar of burnt clay or stone, on which are 

 deposited numerous relics, in all instances exhibiting traces, 

 more or less abundant, of their having been exposed to the 

 action of fire." The so-called "altar" is a basin, or table of 

 burnt clay, carefully moulded into a symmetrical form, but 



* 1. c. pp. 25, 56, 57, 68, 71, 73, 106, 107. Squier and Davis, 1. c. 

 p. 118, etc. t I.e. p. 



