ETHNOLOGY. 4,;.- 



tbis reason the large mounds were built. From their tops the arrows 

 would carry farther, and by having piles of stones on top tbey could 

 shower them on the besieger. Furthermore, no dashing charge could 

 be made, and the defenders would have the advantage in using their 

 lances against assailants clambering up. He further said that lie does 

 not believe the long earthworks, the remains of which are now two and 

 three feet high, were ever intended for defense. lie said (and Bridger 

 has told me this also) that when they first got to trapping iu the Rocky 

 Mountains, fifty years ago, they frequently came across inclosures in 

 the valleys, sometimes covering as much as 100 acres, for capturing 

 game. These generally had an opening of several hundred yards wide 

 and the entrance narrowed down to a pen of three to live acres. These 

 were used by the Shoshones, Utes, and other Indians for driving game 

 into to kill, their short-range arrows being a poor dependence on which 

 to obtain the deer and antelope. Boone says that during the Black 

 Hawk War they found (iu Illinois) numbers of the lines like breast- 

 work, and it was the opinion of all the old Indian men and the frontiers- 

 men that these works were built for the purpose of obtaining game. 

 Unlike the Shoshone and Ute inclosures, these earthworks, had numer- 

 ous openings or spaces where no breastwork was built. This was for 

 the game to pass through to be killed by parties outside. Take, for 

 instance, a herd of buffalo grazing in the neighborhood of one of these 

 embankments, set as they generally are near the brow of a bluff. Each 

 of the openings is at the head of a hollow leading down to the river 

 bottom, (as is nearly always the case.) Men are stationed on each side 

 of the openings with bows, and arrows, and lances. A party then gets 

 in rear of the buffalo herd and starts it toward the work. The buffalo 

 rush forward until checked by the embankment ahead, when they rush 

 toward the openings and are shot and lanced as they pass out. " This," 

 says Boone, "is the only conclusion we ever came to regarding them. 

 They were always situated too far from the river to be considered as 

 being constructed to defend its passage, and then Indians could climb 

 the bluff at any other^ point just as well, and attack the work from the 

 rear. Had they been intended for defense, they would have been con- 

 structed iu such a shape as to be defensible on all sides." 



I have never found any pottery in the section formerly inhabited by 

 the tribes who follow the buffalo, and doubt very much whether they 

 manufactured any. All the corn-raising Indians made and used pottery, 

 but the nomads, living almost exclusively on flesh, used it but little, if at 

 all. Even now, with pots and kettles within reach, meat is but rarely 

 boiled. Broiling is their favorite way of cooking their meat, and the 

 dried meat requires no cooking, 

 s 30 



