272 ANTIQUITIES OF TENNESSEE. 



a curve about 8 feet across. Charred wood was intermixed with the 

 ashes, showing that the earth had been piled on it while yet burning. 

 Xo fragments of bone were found, as they would surely have been 

 if there had been any burning of animal oiferings. These layers of 

 burnt soil and ashes recurred every 5 feet, until we reached the last, 

 which was on a level with the earth, but for 4 feet below the surface 

 the whole seemed baked and interspersed with ashes and charcoal. In 

 this charred mass of earth we came upon the only relics contained in 

 the mound ; both are of copper, and were made of uusmelted ore. No. 

 1 is a face or mask, and is composed of four pieces. The main pieces 

 are beaten together in the center by some instrument of stone, the mark 

 of the blows being distinctly visible. One piece is riveted on each side 

 to represent ears, and the rivets are exceedingly well put in and firmly 

 united. It is oval in shajje, G inches long and 4 wide, being about as 

 large as the average face of a man. By aid of a sharp tool small dots 

 were made to trace the location of the eyes, eyebrows, uose, and mouth, 

 and a horizontal line beneath the uose shows the place of the nose- 

 stick, which has a pendant on either end, with a bead or other ornament 

 resting on the cheek. At its lower edge, below the chin, are three rivet- 

 holes, by which it was possibly fastened to a wooden or stone body, and 

 then raised upon tbe altar, with its burnished surface glittering in the 

 sun, an object of pride and admiration to the assembled nation. One 

 side of this mask is eroded, and the whole is heavily coated with the oxide 

 of copper. By its side lay another; it consists of two concave disks, which 

 are connected together by a stem, the whole being shaped like an hour- 

 glass, hollow through its entire length. It was also hammered out of 

 copper ore, and so deftly done that no joints are visible either in the 

 ends or in the stem. The stem is not riveted, but seems continuous, as 

 if it had been cast in one piece ; yet the blows of the tool with which it 

 was made are plainly visible. At first I supposed it to have been a 

 spool upon which the Indians wound their thread of sinews ; nor could 

 I have guessed its proper use had I not discovered one of a similar 

 kind in an adjacent mound. It would have been a costly spool, for, no 

 doubt, with their mechanical appliances, it was a labor of long dura- 

 tion to fashion one such, and I afterward became convinced that it was an 

 emblem of authority, and was worn around the neck of their priest. 

 Where did they procure the copper? There is none in this country 

 nearer than the mountains of Unaka, 300 miles distant, and the still 

 more remote shores of Lake Superior. The existence of copper imple- 

 ments is so rare in this State, that they must have been indeed precious 

 to the tribe owning them, and may have been buried for safe-keeping. 

 The two smaller mounds were now examined, but, in the one nearest 

 the large one I found nothing, it having been iireviously opened and ex- 

 amined by Dr. Joseph Jones, of New Orleans. In the farther one, how- 

 ever, I found an oval piece of galena, weighing three pounds— this lay 

 about 4 inches to one side of the other objects— and a piece of a lower 



