EARTHWORKS ON THE BIG HARPETH RIVER. 71 



The Indian doctors of physic also appear to have favored this idea with a view to 

 magnify their skill and to excite confidence in their knowledge of the indigenous 

 remedies of North America. Lawson's account of the ''■ epidenucaV character of 

 the disease, and of its origin from drinking rum, and from exposure to cold and 

 wet, and from eating such gross food as pork, is fanciful, and invalidates his testi- 

 mony with reference to its existence among the Carolina Indians before their 

 contact with Europeans. In fact, Lawson" asserts at the same time that the Indians 

 often get this disease from the English traders ; and notwithstanding that he has 

 given a long account of tlie skill of the " Indian doctor who had the misfortune to 

 lose his nose by the pock," and alludes to a companion of the doctor who was in 

 the same unfortunate condition, affirms in another portion of his work thathe had 

 never seen " an Indian have an ulcer or foul wound; neither is there any such 

 thing to be found amongst them.'"' There is no question as to the accuracy of his 

 assertion that " the pock is frequent in some of their nations," for he gives unmis- 

 takable examples of the disease and recounts the method of cure employed by the 

 Indians. Neither can it be denied that the disease was frequently communicated 

 to tlie Indians by the English traders ; but the testimony of Lawson as to the 

 antiquity of the disease amongst the North American Indians, as well as to its 

 mode of production and epidemical character, is valueless. 



John D. Hunter,^ who was a captive amongst the Western Indians for nineteen 

 years, from 1796 to 1816, and who, durhig his hunting excursions, and in the 

 wars in which he was engaged with numerous tribes, enjoyed ample opportunities 

 for extended observation of the habits and diseases of these people, affirms that 

 " syphilis, as the Indians say, was entirely unknown among them until they con- 

 tracted it from the whites. It prevails among several of the tribes with which I am 

 acquainted, and proves one of their most troublesome and fatal disorders. Those 

 who go among the populous white settlements on the Missouri and Mississippi, 

 where the disease prevails in its most inveterate forms among the traders and the 

 boatmen who navigate the river to New Orleans, frequently return to their families 

 and tribes infected with it. It often assumes a most distressing train of symptoms 

 before the emaciated sufferer is aware of his situation." 



We are not justified, therefore, in holding that the marks of syphilis in the 

 organic remains of the stone grave race and mound builders of Tennessee indicate 

 that this once populous nation which dwelt in towns defended by earth-works held 

 intercourse with Europeans after the discovery of America by Columbus. 



We have historical evidence to show that the most recent of these stone graves 

 cannot be less than two hundred years old. How much older the organic remains 

 in these stone coffins or cists may be Ave know not, as no records exist. 



Chemical examination shows that the bones from the same aboriginal burying- 

 ground present marks of having been deposited at different periods. Without 

 entering into tedious details I will simply state the general results of my examina- 

 tions, viz. : the proportion of organic matter varies within wid(^ limits in the bones 



' Memoirs of a Captivity among the Indians of North America from Childhood to the Age of 

 Nineteen, etc., by John D. Huuter. Loudon, 1823, p. 142. 



