A PEOBLEM IN AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGY. 488 



has this very year come up anew in the proposition to provide "a 

 name which shall be brief and expressive" and at the same time shall 

 fasten upon us the theory of unity— notwithstanding the facts show 

 diversity — of race. 



Let us now return to the builders of the older earthworks, and con- 

 sider the possibility of their having been an offshoot of the ancient 

 Mexicans. Of the crania from the most ancient earthworks we as yet 

 know so little that we can only say that their affinities are with the 

 Toltecan type; but of the character of the art, and particularly the 

 symbolism expressing the religious thought of the people, we can find 

 the meaning only by turning to ancient Mexico. What Northern or 

 Eastern Indian ever made or can understand the meaning of such sculp- 

 tures or such incised designs as have been found in several of the an- 

 cient ceremonial mounds" connected with the great earthworks ^ What 

 Indian tribe has ever made similar carved designs on human and other 

 bones, or such singular figures, cut out of copper and mica, as were 

 found in the Turner and Hopewell groups ? Or such symbolic animal 

 forms elaborately carved in stone, and such perfect terra-cotta figures 

 of men and women as were found on the sacrificial altars of the Turner 

 group? What meaning can be given to the Cincinnati Tablet, or to 

 the designs on copper plates and shell disks from some of the southern 

 and western burial and ceremonial mounds? I think we shall search 

 in vain for the meaning of these many objects in the North or East, or 

 for much that resembles them in the burial places of those regions. 

 On the other hand, most of these become intelligible when we com- 

 pare the designs and symbols with those of the ancient Mexican and 

 Central American peoples. The Cincinnati Tablet, which has been 

 under discussion for over half a century, can be interpreted and its 

 dual serpent characters understood by comparing it with the great 

 double image known in Mexico as the Goddess of Death and the God 

 of War. The elaborately complicated designs on copper plates, on 

 shell disks, on human bones and on the wing bones of the eagle can in 

 many instances he interpreted by comparison with Mexican carvings 

 and with Mexican modes of symbolic expression of sacred objects and 

 religious ideas. The symbolic animals carved on bone or in stone 

 and the perfection of the terra-cotta figures point to the same source 

 for the origin of the art. 



In connection with the art of the builders lot us consider the earth 

 structures themselves. The great mound at Cahokia, with its several 

 platforms, is only a reduction of its prototype at Cholula. The forti- 

 fied hills have their counterparts in Mexico. The serpent efiigy is the 

 symbolic serpent of Mexico and Central America. The practice of 

 cremation and the existence of altars for ceremonial sacrifices strongly 

 suggest ancient Mexican rites. We must also recall that we ha\-c a 

 connecting link in the ancient pueblos of our own Southwest, and that 



