120 ANCIENT MONUMENTS. 



selves for a period, and finally disappeared, leaving perhaps only a few modified 

 remnants in the region bordering upon the Gulf. 



Subsequent to the preparation of the foregoing pages for the press, and at too 

 late a date to permit the introduction, in another connection, of the facts it 

 embodies relating to the aboriginal monuments of the South, a manuscript work 

 on the Southern Indians, by William Bartraivi, was placed in the hands of the 

 investigators, by Dr. Morton, of Philadelphia. The character and history of this 

 MS. have been sufficiently explained in the Preface, to which the reader is referred. 



As ah-eady observed, it relates principally to the manners, customs, government, 

 and religion of the Muscogulges and other southern Indian tribes ; but it also 

 embraces many interesting and important facts respecting the remains under 

 consideration. Taken in connection with those presented by the same author in 

 his " Travels in North America," they serve very much to explain the character 

 and illustrate the secondary if not the primary purposes to which the southern 

 monuments were applied. The accompanying illustrations are reduced fac-similcs 

 of Bartram's original pen sketches. In introducing them he observes, in language 

 somewhat quaint but forcible : 



" The following rough drawings of the ancient Indian monuments, consisting of 

 public buildings, areas, vestiges of towns, etc., will serve to illustrate what I have 

 elsewhere said respecting them. They are, to the best of my remembrance, as near 

 the truth as I could express. However, if I have in any respect erred, I hope my 

 mistakes may be corrected by the observations of future and more accurate and 

 industrious travellers. But as time changes the face of things, I wish they could 

 be seai'ched out and faithfully recorded, before the devastations of artificial refine- 

 ments, ambition, and avarice, totally deface these simple and most ancient remains 

 of the American aborigines." 



"Chunk Yards. — The 'Chunk Yards' of the Muscogulges or Creeks arc 

 rectangular areas, generally occupying the centre of the town. The Public 

 Square and Rotunda, or Great Winter Council House, stand at the two opposite 

 corners of them. They are generally very extensive, especially in the large, old 

 towns : some of them are from six hundred to nine hundred feet in length, and of 

 proportionate breadth. The area is exactly level and sunk two, sometimes three, 

 feet below the banks or terraces surrounding them, which are occasionally two in 

 number, one behind and above the other, and composed of the earth taken from 

 the area at the time of its formation. These banks or terraces serve the purpose 

 of seats for spectators. In the centre of this yard or area, there is a low, circular 

 mound or eminence, in the middle of which stands erect the ' Chunk Pole,' which 

 is a high obelisk or four-square pillar declining upwards to an obtuse point. This 

 is of wood, the hoiirt or inwiird resinous piirt of n sound |)inr tree, whicli is very 



