ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 377 



two poiuts, wliicli was always direct, without regard to obstacles. 

 Lately I had an opportiuiity of observing this peculiarity. While wind- 

 ing my way around the base of a mountain in North Carolina, I saw 

 some Cherokees going to the same point as myself, right over the crest 

 of the mountain, by a more direct but more difiicult route. 



Ghilhowee derives its name from two words, which mean lire and deer. 

 The Indians were accustomed to hunt by fire. At night they carried 

 before them torches — blazing pine-knots — in the face of their game, 

 which, becoming frightened by the glare, were easily brought to a stand 

 and killed by the hunter, who, resting his gun across the left arm, held 

 the torch in his right hand until the deer was enough terrified to be 

 shot down. The old trail over Ghilhowee is used now by the " mail-boy"' 

 once a week, and by foot-travelers like myself, who are warned not to 

 take horses beyond the mountain for fear of their being stolen. 



In Ghilhowee Valley, after crossing its northern boundary by the i3ass, 

 I examined two mounds on the left bank of Little Tennessee and sev- 

 eral rock graves, or tombs, near them. These tombs are unlike any 

 depositories of the ancient dead that I liave observed. They were, un- 

 doubtedly, constructed by the " mound-builders," as similar ones were 

 discovered in the mounds containing similar relics. The great freshet 

 of 1867 uncovered a large number of these graves on the "river-bot- 

 tom" or alluvial terrace, which had been plowed over for seventy years. 

 They are built of slabs of slate, nicely fitted together, about three inches 

 thick, four feet long, and two feet broad, inclosing receptacles, not of 

 uniform space — generally five feet long, four feet high, and two feet 

 broad — covered with flat pieces resting upon the upright slabs, and con- 

 forming to the rounded corners of the tomb. The material had been 

 brought from the other side of the river, as no slate was found in the 

 vicinity of the constructions. They were found to contain, for the most 

 part, fragments of human bones, too much decomposed to l)e removed 

 iu considerable portions, implements of stone, and broken vessels of 

 clay. From the head of one I extracted a vase of black pottery, nearly 

 whole, shaped like a. gourd; it had been filled with vegetable matter, 

 which, perhaps, was intended to sustain the spirit on its journey 

 to the other world, some flint arrow-heads, and a stone pipe. Gharcoal, 

 ashes and burned clay indicated that fire had been used in" the burial, 

 by which bones and many other relics were consumed. 



Judging from the form and size of these graves, the dead must have 

 been inclosed in a sitting or crouched position, often bent nearly double. 

 The bones were those of adults, and their juxtaposition, in some in- 

 stances, showed that they could not have been deposited indiscrimi- 

 nately, after the decomi)osition or removal of the flesh, according to the 

 custom of some modern Indians. Fragments of the skull-bone, with 

 teeth and jaws, were found at the head of a grave Avhich pointed toward 

 the west, and the bones of the foot at the other end. In connection 

 with the first were vertebrae and other portions of the trunk and cor- 



