254 ANCIENT MONUMENTS. 



Humboldt mentions a branch of the Apures river, itself a tributary of the 

 Orinoco, " called the Cano del Manati, from the great number of manatees caught 

 there." He states that their flesh is savory, resembling pork, and was in great 

 request among the Indians during Lent, being classed by the monks among fishes. 

 The fat was used in the lamps of the churches, and the hide cut into slips to supply 

 the place of cordage.* 



The flesh of this animal furnished formerly a large part of the subsistence of 

 the inhabitants of St. Christophers, Guadaloupe, and Martinique. The fat was 

 used at a late day for many of the purposes to which lard is applied, sometimes 

 supplying the place of butter.f 



The sculptures of this animal are in the same style and of like material with 

 the others found in the mounds. One of them is of a red porphyry, tilled with small 

 white and light blue granules ; the remainder are of sandstone, limestone, etc. 

 Most of the mound sculptures are from these materials. 



These singular relics have been thus minutely noticed, inasmuch as they have 

 a direct bearing upon some of the questions connected with the origin of the 

 mounds. That we find marine shells or articles composed ^rom them, in the 

 mounds, is not so much a matter of surprise, when we reflect that a sort of exchange 

 was carried on even by the unsympathizing American tribes, and that articles from 

 the mouth of the Columbia are known to have found their way, by a system of 

 transfer, to the banks of the Mississippi ; their occurrence does not necessarily 

 establish anything more, than that an intercourse of some kind was kept up between 

 the builders of the mounds on the banks of the Ohio, and the sea.:}: There is, 

 however, something more involved in the discovery of these relics. They are 

 undistinguishable, so far as material and workmanship are concerned, from an 

 entire class of remains found in the mounds; and are evidently the work of the 

 same hands with the other effigies of beasts and birds. And yet they faithfully 

 represent animals found, (and only in small numbers,) a thousand miles distant, 

 upon the shores of Florida. Either the same race, possessing throughout a like 

 style of workmanship, and deriving their materials from a common source, existed 

 contemporaneously over the whole range of intervening territory, and maintained 

 a constant intercommunication ; or else there was at some period a migration from 

 the south, bringing with it characteristic remains of the land from which it ema- 

 nated. The sculptures of the manitus are too exact to have been the production 

 of those who were not well acquainted with the animal and its habits. 



* Humboldt's Travels and Researches in South America. 



f Godman's Natural History, vol. ii. p. 1.55. 



J Mr. Schoolcraft mentions, in illustration of the extent of Indian exchanges in shells and ornaments, 

 that he saw at the foot of Lake Superior, Indian articles ornamented with the shining white Deiitalium 

 Elephiiuliciim from the mouth of the Columbia. 



