4 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



land River, workmen were collecting earth for saltpetre, and that many human 

 skeletons were found, one of which was a female in a good state of preservation, 

 with yellow hair, and shrivelled flesh. Around the waist was a silver girdle, with 

 marks resembling letters. The body was replaced in the cave whence they had 



taken it.^ 



On the north bank of the Holston, five miles above the mouth of the French-Broad, 

 are six mounds, within half an acre of ground, placed without any apparent regu- 

 larity. They arc in form truncated pyramids. The bases are from ten to thirty 

 feet in diameter. The largest of them are ten feet in height. Their form is 

 remarkably regular. In one of them, which was cut into perpendicularly, a small 

 quantity of charcoal and ashes was discovered. These mounds are inclosed by 

 an old ditch, which can at this time be traced distinctly on the sides, and wliich 

 incloses several acres of land besides the mounds. At every angle of the ditch is 

 a bastion in tlie form of a semicircle. On the south bank, opposite the mound, is 

 a blufl" of limestone, in which is a cave. This blufl" is one hundred feet in height. 

 On it are faintly painted, in red colors, the sun and moon, a man, birds, fishes, etc. 

 These figures have in part faded within a few years. Tradition says they were 

 made by the Cherokees, who were accustomed in their journeys to rest at this 

 place. Whether such a tradition is entitled to credit is for the judicious reader 

 to determine. Wherever perpendicular clifi's or bluffs occur on the rivers of Ten- 

 nessee, and especially if caves are in them, mounds are often found near them, 

 inclosed in entrenchments, the sun and moon being painted on the rocks, and 

 charcoal and ashes being found in the smaller tumuli. These tokens seem to 

 afford evidence of a connection between the mounds, the charcoal and ashes, the 

 paintings, and the caves. The latter frequently contain the skulls of human 

 beings alleged to have been sacrificed by fire on the mounds. The paintings are 

 supposed to have represented the deities whom the people worship])ed; and the 

 ditches may possibly have pointed out the consecrated ground, which was not to 

 be polluted by the tread of unhallowed feet. The large mounds with levelled 

 tops, containing below the surface of the upper part an image of stone, which is 

 supposed formerly to have stood lipon the summit, or sometimes having the image 

 at the margin of its base covered with soil a few inches, as if it had tumbled from 

 the top, are supposed to have been the high places around which tlie people assem- 

 bled to offer up their adorations.'^ 



"A human body was found, in the year 1815, in one of the limestone caverns 

 of Kentucky. The skin, bones, and other firm parts were in a state of entire pre- 

 servation. The outer envelope of the body was a deer-skin dressed in the usual 

 way, and, perhaps, subsequently softened by rubbing before being used. The 

 next covering was a deer-skin, the hair of which had been cut away by a sharp 

 instrument. The remnant of the hair and the gashes in the skin nearly resembled 

 the sheared felt of beaver. The next wrapping was of clotli, made of tvine doubled 

 and twisted. The innermost wrapping was a mantle of cloth like tlie preceding, but 



Haywood, p. 100. » Haywood, pp. 148, 149. 



