YARROW.] MUMMIES—KENTUCKY. 133 
pitch-pine over the graves of the more distinguished, covering it with bark and then 
with earth, leaving the body thus in a subterranean vault until the flesh quits the 
bones. The bones are then taken up, cleaned, jointed, clad in white-dressed deer- 
skins, and laid away in the Quiogozon, which is the royal tomb or burial-place of their 
kings and war-captains, being a more magnificent cabin reared at the public expense. 
This Quiogozon is an object of veneration, in which the writer says he has known the 
king, old men, and conjurers to spend several days with their idols and dead kings, 
and into which he could never gain admittance. 
Another class of mummies are those which have been found in the 
saltpetre and other caves of Kentucky, and it is still a matter of doubt 
with archeologists whether any special pains were taken to preserve 
these bodies, many believing that the impregnation of the soil with cer- 
tain minerals would account for the condition in which the specimens 
were found. Charles Wilkins* thus describes one: 
* * * An exsiceated body ofafemale * * * was found at the depth of about 
10 fect from the surface of the cave bedded in clay strongly impregnated with nitre, 
placed in a sitting posture, incased in broad stones standing on their edges, with a 
flat stone covering the whole. It was enveloped in coarse clothes, * * * the 
whole wrapped in deer-skins, the hair of which was shaved off in the manner in which 
the Indians prepare them for market. Enclosed in the stone coffin were the working 
utensils, beads, feathers, and other ornaments of dress which belonged to her. 
The next description is by Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill.t 
AuG. 24TH, 1815. 
Dear Sir: I offer you some observations on a curious piece of American antiquity 
now in New York. It is a human body} found in one of the limestone caverns of Ken- 
tucky. It is a perfect exsiccation; all the fluids are dried up. The skin, bones, and 
other firm parts are in a state of entire preservation. I think it enough to have puz- 
zled Bryant and all the archeologists. 
This was found in exploring a calcareous cave in the neighborhood of Glasgow for 
saltpetre. 
These recesses, though under ground, are yet dry enough to attract and retain the 
nitrick acid. It combines with lime and potash; and probably the earthy matter of 
these excavations contains a good proportion of calcareous carbonate. Amidst these 
drying and antiseptick ingredients, it may be conceived that putrefaction would be 
stayed, and the solids preserved from decay. The outer envelope of the body is a 
deer-skin, probably dried in the usual way, and perhaps softened before its application 
by rubbing. The next covering is a deer’s skin, whose hair had been cut away by 
a sharp instrument resembling a hatter’s knife. The remnant of the hair and the 
gashes in the skin nearly resemble a sheared pelt of beaver. The next wrapper is of 
cloth made of twine doubled and twisted. But the thread does not appear to have 
been formed by the wheel, nor the web by the loom. The warp and filling seem to 
have been crossed and knotted by an operation like that of the fabricks of the north- 
west coast, and of the Sandwich Islands. Such a botanist as the lamented Muhlen- 
burgh could determine the plant which furnished the fibrous material. 
*Trans. Amer. Antiq. Soc., 1820, vol. 1, p. 360. 
tLetter to Samuel M. Burnside, in Trans. and Coll. Amer. Antiq. Soc., 1820, vol. 1, 
p. 318. 
tA mummy of this kind, of a person of mature age, discovered in Kentucky, is now 
in the cabinet of the American Antiquarian Society. It isafemale. Several human 
bodies were found enwrapped carefully in skins and cloths. They were inhumed be- 
low the floor of the cave; inhumed, and not lodged in catacombs. 
