BURIAL CAYES. 3 



together ; their thread beuig the sinews of the deer divided very small. When 

 they were finished, they appeared very beautiful. 



Haywood describes a cave, the aperture into which was very small, near the 

 confines of Smith and Wilson Counties, on the south side of Cumberland River, 

 about twenty-two miles above Cairo, on the waters of Smith's Fork. The work- 

 men digging in the apartment next the entrance, after removing the dirt, came to 

 another small aperture upon the same level, which they also entered, and found a 

 room twenty-five feet square. This room seemed to have been carefully preserved 

 for the reception and burial of the dead. In it, near the centre, were found three 

 human bodies sitting in baskets made of cane, the flesh being entire, but a little 

 shrivelled and hard. The bodies were those of a man, a woman, and a small 

 child. The color of tlie skin was said to be fair and white, without any admixture 

 of a copper color ; their hair auburn and of a fine texture. The teeth were very 

 white ; in stature they were about the same as tlic whites of the present day. 

 The man was wrapped in fourteen dressed deer skins, and over these were wound 

 what those present called blankets. They were made of bark, like those found in 

 the cave in White County. In form the baskets were pyramidal, being larger at 

 the bottom and tapering towards the top. The heads of the skeletons were out- 

 side of the blankets.^ 



At the plantation of INIr. William Sheppard, in the County of Giles, seven and 

 a half miles north of Pulaski, on tlic east side of the creek, is a cave with several 

 rooms. The first is fifteen feet wide, twenty-seven feet long, and four feet deep ; 

 the upper part is of solid rock. Leading into this cave was a passage which had 

 been so artfully covered that it escaped detection till lately. A flat stone, three 

 feet wide and four feet long, rested upon the ground, and, inclining against the 

 bank, closed part of the mouth. Into the part of the mouth left open, had been 

 rolled another stone which closed the whole opening. When these stones were 

 removed and the cave was first entered, the jaw-bone of a child, the arm-bone, the 

 skull, and thigh-bones of a man were found. The whole bottom of the cave was 

 paved with flat stones of a bluish color closely joined together, but of difl'erent 

 shapes and sizes. They formed a smooth floor upon which the bones were laid.^ 



Twelve miles below Carthage, and about a mile from the Cumberland River, is 

 a cave in which occurred human bones of all sizes. There is a burying-ground 

 near to the fortification, in Avliicli, fifteen years ago, were discovered many skele- 

 tons, and with them were deposited pipes and water-vessels of earthenware. Near 

 to this cemetery is a deep creek running into the river, and forming an acute angle 

 with the latter. At some distance from the junction is a ditch running from the 

 creek to the river, and the remains of a parapet. Opposite to the entrance-way, 

 and about six feet from it, is the appearance of a wall on tlie inside, so formed as 

 to turn those entering to the right or left. In the interior were several mounds.^ 



Captain Daniel Williams, a man of undoubted veracity, is said to have affirmed 

 that, several years ago, in a cave five or six miles above Carthage, on the Cumber- 



' Natural and Aboriginal Historj- of Tennessee, p. 191. 



2 Haywood, Nat. and Ab. Hist. p. 195. ^ Haywood, p. 169. 



