WERE THE OSAGES MOUND BUILDERS? 593 



of the Osage River, from its junction with the Missouri to the extreme 

 heads of the Little Osage and of the Marais des Cygnes, and was 

 familiar with its entire southern water-shed west of the Niangua. And, 

 though always a persistent relic hunter, 1 never found, or saw, or heard 

 of having been found by others, in that time, or since, in all that region, 

 exceeding a dozen Hint an^ow-points, and not one stone ax, or celt, or 

 other implement in stone, or ornament of bone or shell, or any frag- 

 ments of Indian pottery. The only burials presumably Indian I met 

 with were on the east bank of Sac River, near the village of Orleans, 

 in Polk County, Missouri. The perpendicular rocky cliff rises from the 

 river bottom at that place 75 or 80 feet, and is capped with shelly siib- 

 carboiiiferous limestone, overgrown with briars and stunted bushes. 

 On the verge of this precipice I found, in 1853, five small cairns a few 

 feet from each other, constructed of rough stones rudely laid up, in di- 

 mensions 3i feet high and 3 or 4 feet in diameter. On opening them 

 each was found to contain the fragments of a single human skeleton, 

 much decayed, and broken in small pieces by the falling in of the loose 

 stone covering. From the relative position of the bones, I inferred that 

 the body had been placed upon the bare rock, in a squatting position, 

 with the face to the west overlooking the river, and that the broken 

 rocks of the surface had been piled up around it to protect it from 

 destruction by wolves and vultures. The only work of art I discovered 

 in or about the five stone heaps was a well-worn gun-tlint with one of 

 the skeletons. I saw no artificial earthen mounds there of any descri])- 

 tion. 



In treating specially of the history of Blue Mound Township, Mr. 

 Holcombe says on page 539 of his " History of Vernon County : " "In 

 many other graves in the mound [Blue Mound | there have been found 

 mingled with human bones tomahawks, knives, arrow-points, sbell 

 implements and ornaments, bone ear rings, beads of various materials, 

 sizes, and shapes, and other curious articles. Some of these relics are 

 apparently of such antiquity as to lead almost to the thought that the 

 graves containing them may be those of the Mound Builders, or of 

 some other prehistoric race; but this is not at all probable. The 

 graves are undoubtedly those of Osages, who, as is well known, were 

 in this country as early at least as the year 1700." 



I have not learned Mr. Holcombe's authority for the statement he 

 makes in regard to the discovery of ''arrow-points, shell implements, 

 and ornaments, bone ear-rings," etc., found in the graves on Blue 

 jVIound. My investigations have failed to verify it. By persons who 

 ha\e resided in that immediate vicinity at an early day I am informed 

 that in years past, quite a number of graves were distinctly seen on 

 the slopes of the Blue Mound; but as in dimensions, construction, ami 

 relative position they exhibited the usual characteristics of an ordinary 

 cemetery, and as none of them were opened to determine the question, 

 ri. Mis. 142 38 



