CHAPTER III. 



EARTHWORKS — SACRED ENCLOSURES. 



The structure not less than the form and position of a large number of the 

 Earthworks of the West, and especially of the Scioto valley, render it clear that 

 they were erected for other than defensive purposes. The small dimensions of 

 most of the circles, the occurrence of the ditch interior to the embankments, and 

 the fact that many of them are completely commanded by adjacent heights, are 

 some of the circumstances which may be mentioned as sustaining this conclusion.* 

 We must seek, therefore, in the connection in which these works are found, and 

 in the character of the mounds, if such there be within their walls, for the secret 

 of their origin. And it may be observed, that it is here we discover evidences still 

 more satisfactory and conclusive than are furnished by their small dimensions and 

 the other circumstances above mentioned, that they were not intended for defence. 

 Thus, when we find an enclosure containing a number of mounds, all of which it 

 is capable of demonstration were religions in their purposes, or in some way con- 

 nected with the superstitions of the people who built them, the conclusion is irre- 

 sistible, that the enclosure itself was also deemed sacred, and thus set apart as 

 " tabooed'''' or consecrated ground, — especially where it is obvious, at the first glance, 

 that it possesses none of the requisites of a military work. But it is not to be 

 concluded that those enclosures alone, which contain mounds of the description 

 here named, were designed for sacred purposes. We have reason to believe that 

 the religious system of the nnound-builders, like that of the Aztecs, exercised 

 among them a great, if not a controlling influence. Their government may have 

 been, for aught we know, a government of the priesthood; one in which the 

 priestly and civil functions were jointly exercised, and one sufficiently powerful to 

 have secured in the Mississippi valley, as it did in Mexico, the erection of many 

 of those vast monuments, which for ages will continue to challenge the wonder of 

 men. There may have been certain superstitious ceremonies, having no connec- 

 tion with the purposes of the mounds, carried on in enclosures specially dedicated 

 to them. The purposes of the minor enclosures within and connected with 

 the great defensive work already described on the banks of the North fork of Paint 

 creek, (Plate X,) would scarcely admit of a doubt, even though the sacred 

 mounds which they embrace were wanting. It is a conclusion which every day's 



* " I have reason to agree witli Stukel)', that the circumstance of the ditch being wilhin the vallum is 

 a distinguishing mark between religious and military works." — Sir B. C. Hnare on the Monuments of 

 England. 



