THE WESTERN COUNTRY. 137 



expressions of love and friendship; and that this untutored race 

 urged by the feelings of nature, consign to the bosom of the 

 earth, along with the remains of their deceased relatives and 

 friends, food, weapons of war, and often those articles which 

 they possessed and most highly valued, when alive. This cu- 

 stom has reared beyond doubt, those numerous mounds. Thus 

 instead of having any relation to military arrangements, or in- 

 volving the absurdity before mentioned, they furnish, on the 

 contrary, strong evidence, that the enclosures themselves were 

 not destined for defensive works ; because, reared as these mounds 

 have been by small, but successive annual increments, they 

 plainly evince that the enclosures, which are so near to them, 

 have been, not the temporary stations of a retiring or weaken- 

 ed army, but the fixed habitation of a family, and along line 

 of descendants. 



That these mounds, or repositories of the dead, sometimes 

 also, called barrows, were formed by deposition of bones and 

 earth, at different periods, is now rendered certain by the per- 

 fect examination to which one of them, situated on the Rivanna, 

 was subjected by the author of the Notes on Virginia. His pe- 

 netrating genius seldom touches a subject without throwing 

 upon it new light; upon this he has shown all that can be de- 

 sired. The manner in which the barrow was opened, afford- 

 ed an opportunity of viewing its interior with accuracy. " Ap- 

 pearances, says he, certainly indicate that it has derived both 

 origin and growth from the accustomary collection of bones, 

 and deposition of them together; that the first collection had 

 been deposited on the common surface of the earth, a lew 

 stones put over it and then a covering of earth; that the second 

 had been laid on this, had covered more or less of it in propor- 

 tion to the number of bones, and was then also covered with 

 earth, and so on. The following arc the particular circumstances 

 which give it this aspect. 1. The number of bones. 2. Their 

 confused position. 3. Their being in different strata. 4. The 

 strata in one part having no correspondence with those in another. 

 5. The different states of decay in these strata, which seem to in- 

 dicate a difference in the time of inhumation. 6. The existence 

 of infant bones among them." p. 178. First Paris Ed. The 



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