BUSHNELL] NATIVE CEMETERIES AND FORMS OF BURIAL 91 



tributed to the Cherokee, but all may not have covered the remains 

 of the dead. " Leaving Chilliowee Valley and crossing the Alleghany 

 range toward North Carolina, in a southeast course, having Little 

 Tennessee Eiver on my right, and occasionally in sight from the cliffs, 

 my attention was called along the road, to stone heaps. . . . After an 

 examination of the objects and a talk with Indians and the oldest in- 

 habitants, I came to the conclusion that there were two kinds of these 

 remains in this part of Tennessee, which are sometimes confounded, 

 viz, landmarks, or stone piles, thrown together by the Indians at cer- 

 tain points in their journeys, and those which marked a place of 

 burial. At a pass called Indian Grave Gap, I noticed the pile which 

 has given its name to the mountain gorge. The monument is com- 

 posed simply of round stones raised three feet above the soil, and is 

 six feet long and three wide. As the grave had been disturbed I could 

 make no satisfactory examination of its contents. On the opposite 

 side of the Gap, a stone heap of another description was observed, 

 which had been thrown together in accordance with Cherokee super- 

 stition, that assigns some good fortune to the accumulation of those 

 piles. They had the custom, in their journeys and war-like expedi- 

 tions, at certain known points, before marked out, of casting down a 

 stone and upon their return another. . . . Four miles from Indian 

 Grave Gap, on the west side of my path, on a ridge destitute of vege- 

 tation, I observed twenty-five of these stone heaps which covered 

 human remains. I examined a number of them, which were four or 

 five feet high and eight in diameter, and shaped like a hay-cock. . . . 

 In one I found pieces of rotten wood that had been deposited there, 

 fragments of bones, and animal mold. The deposit had been made on 

 the surface of the earth, covered with wood and bark, and crowned 

 with a cone of round stones. From the center of one heap three small 

 bells were extracted, having the letters J R engraved on them. They 

 much resemble sleigh bells. . . . The Cherokee custom of burying the 

 dead under heaps of stone, it is well known, was practiced as late as 

 1730." (Dunning, (1), pp. 376-380.) 



This should probably be accepted as the characteristic custom 

 of the early Cherokee before coming under the influence of the 

 whites. 



As already mentioned, the western towns of the Cherokee were in 

 eastern Tennessee, and of these many were in the valley of the Little 

 Tennessee. Here stood " Chote the Metropolis,'''' the scene of many 

 important gatherings during the eighteenth century. The great 

 town house stood on the summit of an artificial mound, undoubtedly 

 one of those described by Thomas, and may have been the large 

 mound on the south side of the river, in Monroe County, designated 

 the " McGee mound, No. 2." The diameters of the mound were 70 



