64 A Brief Chapter on Sacrifcial Mowids. 



four in diameter, was drilled. Among the dirt taken out of this 

 basin hewn in the stone, was a large, fossil tooth, and a piece of a 

 small, broken, stone column, and several bits of pottery Avare." 



Brief and unsatisfactory as it is, the student of American archaeology 

 will not fail to recognize in this description a type of the Teocalli, 

 whose bloody rites filled the conquerors of Mexico with horror and 

 amazement. 



The conventional form of the Aztec Teocalli was a four-sided-trun- 

 cated pyramid of several stages, on whose summit were the sacrificial 

 altai's whereon victims were immolated, and temples containing the 

 shrines and images of the gods. The Aztecs took as then- model for 

 these structures, the great pyramid of Cholula, reared by the Toltecs 

 at a much earlier period, in imitation of the elevated pyramids of 

 Teotiliuacan, which are said to be the most ancient of all, and are ascribed 

 by dim tradition to an extremely ancient race, called Olmecs. In the 

 venerable monuments last mentioned we have the oldest known type 

 of pyramidal structures on the North American continent. The two 

 largest were four-sided, and faced the quarters of the heavens. Three 

 stages of each are yet visible. Flights of steps, constructed of hewn 

 stones, led up to flat summits, upon which were discovered fragments 

 of altars. The larger structure, or "House of the Sun," as called in 

 the language of the Aztecs, wa.s six hundred and eighty-two feet 

 square at the base, and two hundred and twenty-two feet in height. 

 The smaller, or "House of the Moon," was of about half these 

 dimensions. Surrounding them, covermg a vast plain, were other 

 tumuli of earth and stones, disposed with regularity in groups, 

 forming straight lines or squares with avenues between. Ancient as 

 are these hoary monuments, their existence reaching back into a 

 period of which history aftbrds no account, and even tradition is well 

 nigh silent, they nevertheless mark an advanced period of art, pre- 

 ceded — as Bayard Taylor says of the earliest Egyptian antiquities — by 

 a lt»ng stage of unrecorded development. 



Tlie pyramid, regarded as a highly developed type of the simple 

 tumulus, affords, by its peculiarities of structure, and use a legitimate 

 means of tracing the ethnic relations of the builders. Hardly a 

 variation from the common form of the Teocalli of tropical America, 

 is unrepresented in the earth mounds of the United States. The 

 Missouri 'mound under examination, corresponds in the feature of 

 a stairway leading directly to the summit, with the pyramids of Teoti- 

 huacan— the earliest type of which we have any account ; while the 

 flat summit and altar indicate an identity of use. Structures built 

 upon this plan are not uncommon throughout Central America and 



