SEPULCHRAL MOUNDS. 157 



On the contrary, all the circumstances seem to indicate that burial was a solemn 

 and deliberate rite, regulated by fixed customs of, perhaps, religious or supersti- 

 tious origin. It is possible that in certain cases, a special practice was prescribed. 

 We may thus account for the presence or absence of the charcoal layers, and also 

 for the practice of incremation in some instances and simple inhumation in others.* 



In a very few of the sepulchral mounds, a rude enclosure of stone was placed 

 around the skeleton, corresponding to that of timber in others. No mounds 

 possessing this peculiarity fell under notice during the investigations here re- 

 corded: there can, however, be no doubt of the fact. A mound within the limits 

 of Chillicothe was removed a number of years since, in which a stone coffin, 

 corresponding very nearly with the kistvaen of the English antiquaries, was 

 discovered. The stones are said to have been laid up with great regularity.f 

 In some instances a pile of stones seems to have been heaped carelessly over the 

 skeleton ; in others it was heaped upon the timbers covering the sepulchral cham- 

 ber, as in the mound at Grave creek. 



Urn burial does not seem to have been practised in the valley of the Ohio. It 

 is nevertheless undoubted that in some of the Southern States, by either the ancient 

 races or the more modern Indians, burials of this character were frequent. This 

 is sufiiciently established by the discovery in the mounds and elsewhere, of 

 earthen vessels containing human remains, generally but not always burned. 

 In the mounds on the Wateree river, near Camden, South Carolina, ranges of 

 vases, filled with human remains, were discovered. A detailed account of these is 

 given by Dr. Blanding, in a preceding chapter. (See page 106.) When unburnt, the 

 skeletons seem to have been packed in the vase, after the flesh had decomposed. 

 Sometimes, when the mouth of the vase is small, the skull is placed, face down- 

 wards, in the opening, constituting a sort of cover. Entire cemeteries have been 

 found, in which urn burial alone seems to have been practised. Such a one was 

 accidentally discovered, not many years since, in St. Catharine's island, on the 

 coast of Georgia. The vases were coarse in material, of rude workmanship, from 

 eighteen to twenty inches in height, and filled with burned human bones. One 

 of the vases from this locality is now deposited in the museum of the Georgia 

 Historical Society.;}: 



* Among the ancient Mexicans the dead were burned, except in cases where death liad been caused by 

 leprosy or other incurable disease of that order. Boys under seventeen years of age were also denied that 

 sacred rite. The Hurons, on the other hand, burned the bodies of those who had been drowned or killed 

 by lightning. 



I This feature was remarked by Mr. Lesueur, in some of the mounds opened by him. in the vicinity of 

 New Harmony, Indiana. He found, at the base of several, a level space, upon which was a right-ancled, 

 oblong parallelogram, formed of flat stones, set edgewise and covered over with similar stones. Some 

 decayed bones were found in them. — Travels in North America by Pnnre Maciinilia/i, p. 80. 



I Rev. W.M. B. SiKVENs, Athens, Ga. 



