ANCIENT COPPER-MINES OF ISLE ROY ALE. 611 



of copper, and the use of copper implements. The Indian, it is said, 

 knows nothing of the mound that is, nothing of its origin. He also 

 avers, at the present time, that he knows nothing about the copper 

 kniveg, axes, and arrow-points that are shown him. This fact, taken 

 with a sentiment that has exalted the builders of the mounds to a 

 stage of civilization far in advance of that evinced by the common- 

 alty of the savage races of North America as they exist in the eigh- 

 teenth and nineteenth centuries, has erected a barrier between the 

 Indian and the mound-builder, which, though wholly imaginary when 

 subjected to close analysis, is so great that they have been regarded 

 either as misinformed, or rash, who have ventured to question its 

 validity. Messrs. Squier and Davis, who first systematically explored 

 and described the remarkable mounds of the Ohio Valley, were led to 

 regard the mound-builders as a race wholly distinct from the Indian 

 (" Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," vol. i, 1848), and this 

 view is also maintained by the beautiful and able work of Mr. John 

 T. Short (" The North Americans of Antiquity," 1880). Mr. Squier, 

 however, in his work on the "Aboriginal Monuments of the State 

 of New York" ("Smithsonian Contributions," vol. ii), in 1849, men- 

 tions many points of resemblance between the mound-builder and the 

 Indian, though he does not specifically state that the Ohio Valley earth- 

 works are probably of Indian origin, while he does conclude that the 

 mounds and earthworks of western New York, as well as their con- 

 tents, are the product of the Iroquois. Mr. Lapham, in vol. vii of 

 the " Smithsonian Contributions," unhesitatingly ascribes the mounds 

 and the copper-mining to the Indians, but his opinion has been gen- 

 erally ignored. Colonel J. AY. Foster, in " Prehistoric Races of the 

 United States," makes light of Mr. Lapham's views. 



Upon consi^lting a number of works in the library of the Minne- 

 sota Historical Society that bear on this subject, it is found that there 

 are a great many more references to the use of copper by the Indians, 

 and to their knowledge of its origin, than has generally been supposed. 

 They are too numerous and circumstantial, and are spread over too 

 wide a stretch of time, to be supposed to be exceptional. 



Following are a few quotations from early journals and histories 

 that seem to demonstrate not only that the Indians used and mined 

 native copper, but that they also erected mounds of earth, or of stones, 

 in commemoration of their honored dead, and for sepulture. The 

 Indian is a dull utilitarian. He is but little given to sentiment. As he 

 knows nothing of the future, so he remembers little of the past. Hope 

 and history are alike feeble in his mental garniture. His traditions 

 are worthless, and " his chronology of moons and cycles is an incohe- 

 rent and contradictory jumble." * If he says he knows nothing of 

 these relics, his testimony can apply only to himself personally, for his 

 ancestors, on the most undeniable evidence, did know all about them. 



* Short, " The Xorth Americans of Antiquity," p. 22. 



