712 PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



anfl Egyptians, tlie primitive men of Denmark and Great Britain were, 

 and that modern savage races still are, characterized by this peculiar 

 form of the front teeth, and from these facts in advance we might have 

 foretold the form of those of the monud-builders. 



Having fully described these mounds and their contents, so far as ex- 

 plored, it only remains to offer some general conclusions as to the char- 

 acter and habits of the people who built them. There is no evidence 

 that the mounds numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 were built by the same peo- 

 ple who erected Nos. 6 and 7 ; for, except the linding of bone awls simi- 

 lar in form, made from the metatarsal of the elk, there was nothing 

 common to the two groups. It is true that Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 4 of the first 

 group. No. 6, and probably 7, of the second, were all burial mounds, 

 yet the funeral ceremonies, as indicated by Nos. 3 and 6, were wholly 

 different. It is clear that one distinguished man of the tribe was buried 

 in mound No. 3, and that the other persons, twelve or thirteen in num- 

 bei', were sacrificed to go with him to the laud of souls. In a circle 

 around his feet were placed the most valuable of his possessions, under 

 the belief they would be of use to him ; beside him was placed his wife^ 

 near him in a sitting posture his sister or some other near female rela- 

 tive, and at his head half a score of his most trusty attendants. Even 

 the laborers assisting in the exploration seemed to understand that this 

 man was the one important jiersonage over whom this monument was 

 erected. There were no broken or split animal bones, no charcoal, and 

 nothing else to indicate a funeral feast. With the exception of the single 

 bone awl, no object was found near any of the skeletons, except at the 

 feet of the one named ; and the skeleton of this one, and that of her al- 

 luded to as his wife, were deposited on a little hillock of sand, while those 

 at their heads were apparently laid on and against its sloping sides. The 

 bones and skull indicated a man of great age. which is confirmed by the 

 character of the teeth, several of them being badly decayed, and in one 

 place the alveolar processes completely absorbed. Again, the burial of 

 the remarkable stone disk with the human hand inscribed upon it, an 

 object requiring long and patient labor in its manufactui-e, also points 

 to the importance of this personage. 



As before remarked, the funeral rites practiced by the people who 

 built mounds Nos. 3 and 6 seem to have been wholly different. In the 

 latter case there is evidence of a great funeral feast upon the flesh of 

 the deer, the elk, the wild-turkey, the skunk.* 



In the use of fire and the careful deposit of the ashes in little pockets 

 scooped out of the sand, there is no evidence that any of these Naples 

 mound-builders were "an agricultural people." The weapons deposited 

 with their dead are those used in war and the chase, and are very 



*Lawson {Deao'iption of N. Carolina, p. 197) says of the skunk : "The Indians love 

 to eat their flesh, which has no manner of ill smell when the bladder is out." Mr. 

 Comfort (Smithsonian Beport 1871, p. 394) suggests relative to the skull of a skunk found 

 in a mound by him, that it probably was attached to a medicine bag. 



