THE PEOBLEM OF THE OHIO MOUNDS. 29 



inhabited tliis region timing- tlie early part of the present centnry ([)rob- 

 ably Kickapoos) buried tbeir dead in stone coffins."^ 



Dr. Shoemaker, who resided on a farm near Columbia, in 18G1, showed 

 Dr. Ran, in one of his fields, the empty stone grave of an Indian who 

 had been kUled by one of his own tribe and interred there within the 

 memory of some of the farmers of Monroe Count}". An old lady in 

 Jackson County informed one of the Bureau assistants that she had 

 seen an Indian buried in a grave of this kind. 



It is doubtful whether Dr. Ran is correct in ascribing these graves to 

 the Kickapoos, as their most southern locality appears to have been in 

 the region of Sangamon County.-^ It is more probable they were made 

 by the Kaskaskias, Tamaroas, and Cahokias. Be this as it may, it is 

 evident that thej' are due to some of the tribes of this section known 

 as Illinois Indians, pertaining to the same branch of the Algonquin 

 family as the Shawnees and Delawares. 



That the stone graves of southern Illinois were made by the same 

 people who built those of the Cumberland Valley, or closely allied 

 tribes, is indicated not onl}' by the character of the graves but by other 

 very close and even remarkable resemblances in the construction and 

 contents as well as in the form and size of the mounds; the presence 

 of hut-rings in both localities, and the arrangement of the groups. 



Taking all the corroborating facts together there are reasonable 

 grounds for concluding that graves of the type now under consideration, 

 although found in widely-separated localities, are attributable to the 

 Shawnee Indians and their congeners, the Delawares and Illinois, and 

 that those south of the Ohio are due entirely to the first named tribe* 

 That they are the works of Indians must be admitted by all who are 

 willing to be convinced by evidence. 



The fact that in most cases (except when due to the Delawares, who 

 are not known to have been mound-builders) the graves are connected 

 with mounds, and in many instances are in mounds, sometimes in two, 

 three, and even four tiers deep, proves beyond a doubt that the authors 

 of these graves were mound-builders. 



The importance and bearing of this evidence does not stop with what 

 has been stated, for it is so interlocked with other facts relating to the 

 works of the "veritable mound builders" as to leave no hiatus into 

 which the theory of a lost race or a " Toltec occupation" can possibly 

 be thrust. It forms an unbroken chain connecting the mound-builders 

 and historical Indians which no sophistry or reasoning can break. Xot 

 only are these graves found in mounds of considerable size, but they 

 are also connected with one of the most noted groups in the United 

 States, namely, the one on Colonel Tumlin's place, near Cartersville, Gn., 

 known as the Etowah mounds, of which a full description will be found 

 in the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. 



In the smallest of the three large mounds of this group were found 

 1 A.atitiulties So. Iiidians, p. 220. '^ Koyuolds's Hist. Illiuois, p. 20. 



