158 ANTIQUITIES IN TENNESSEE. 



remarkable disease ; and tends to sustain the views of those writers who have 

 maintained its American origin 



XIII. The mode of burial in stone coffins or cists, practised so extensively by 

 the aborigines of Tennessee, is remarkable, as differing from the methods employed 

 by all the other Indian tribes of North America, of whom authentic records have 

 been preserved. 



XIV. The stone-grave race of Tennessee appear to have been idolaters. They 

 carved idols in stone, and fashioned them from a mixture of clay and shells. They 

 appear to have erected altars and offered sacrifice. They painted the emblems of 

 the sun and moon upon high and inaccessible rocks, and carved them on shell 

 ornaments, which were worn suspended on the breast. 



XV. The physiognomy of many of their idols is different from that of the 

 nomadic hunting tribes of North America, and resembled more nearly the idols of 

 the Toltccs and their descendants. The head-dresses, as well as the physiognomy 

 of some of these idols, are suggestive of an eastern or Chinese origin. 



These relics indicated that this race possessed a considerable talent for sculpture, 

 which might, under favorable circumstances, have led to a high degree of perfec- 

 tion in the art. 



The artistic skill of this extinct race was also displayed in the perfection and 

 beauty of their culinary and sacred vessels, fashioned iu the form of men and 

 animals, and in their warlike implements, constructed with the most perfect sym- 

 metry from the hardest material. 



XVI. The presence of large sea-shells of various species, in great numbers, in 

 the stone graves, indicates that this race either had commercial relations extending 

 to the shores of the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Pacific ; or that these 

 shells had been preserved in their migrations from remote regions. This conclusion 

 is sustained also, by the representation of certain Mexican and Central American 

 birds and animals on their pipes and culinary vessels, and by the use of obsidian, 

 fluor-spar, and serpentine in the construction of their idols and warlike implements. 



