Elephant Pipes and Inscribed Tablets. 



BY CHARLES E. PUTNAM. 



In the sharp controversy now being waged among archaeologists, as 

 to the origin of the Mound-builders, the Bureau of Ethnology con- 

 nected with the Smithsonian Institution has taken decided position as 

 the champion of the theory that this mysterious race can be traced 

 with comparative certainty to the ancestors of our American Indians. 

 In the first annual report of the Bureau, Major Powell, its accomplished 

 Director, thus emphatically states its position upon this question : 



"With regard to the mounds so widely scattered between the two oceans, it may 

 also be said that mound-building tribes were known in the early history of the dis- 

 covery of this continent, and that vestiges of art discovered do not excel in any 

 respect the arts of Indian tribes known to history. There is, therefore, no reason 

 for us to search for an extralimital origin, through lost tribes, for the arts discov- 

 ered in the mounds of North America. The tracing of the origin of these arts to 

 the ancestors of known tribes, or stocks of tribes, is more legitimate."* 



At a subsequent date. Major Powell, in giving his assent to the 

 theory "that the Mound-builders were no other than the Indian tribes 

 found in the country in post-Columbian times, and their ancestors," 

 makes use of this strong language : 



"There has never been presented one item of evidence that the Mound-builders 

 were a people of culture superior to that of the tribes that inhabited the valley of 

 the Mississippi a hundred years ago. The evidence is complete that these tribes 

 have built mounds within the historic period; and no mounds or earth-works have 

 been discovered superior in structure or contents to those known to have been built 

 in historic times. The theory ttat the country was inhabited by a people highly 

 organized as nations, and having arts of a higher grade than those belonging to 

 tribal society, is wild and baseless, and the fruit of that theory is nothing but 

 exaggeration and false statement." f 



The theory thus boldly announced is also vigorously maintained by 

 Prof. Cyrus Thomas, Director of the archaeological explorations of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology, who recently expressed these views : 



* First Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnolog-y, Washington, 1S79-S0, p. 74. . 



\ Science for April 3d, iSSq, p. 267. 



