124 ■ BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 71 



To return to the valley of the Kivanna, on the map made by Capt. 

 Smith, as already mentioned, Rassawck is indicated, and beyond it 

 toward the north is another town, M onoHSuha/pmiough^ not far from 

 a stream evidently intended to represent the Rivanna. The valley 

 may have been comparatively thickly peopled during precolonial 

 times, as it was well adapted to the wants and requirements of the 

 native inhabitants, but before the close of the seventeenth century 

 the number had become greatly reduced, and about the year 1730, 

 when white settlers entered the region, only a few Indians lived in or 

 frequented the present county of Albemarle. In 1735 a grant of 600 

 acres of land was made to one Thomas Moorman ; the land laid on the 

 right, or south, bank of the Rivanna, and included the " Indian Grave 

 low grounds." This is a rich area of many acres, but subject to over- 

 flow. It is directly north of the University of Virginia. " Indian 

 Grave " referred to a burial mound which stood on the lowland just 

 south of the Rivanna. In this connection it is interesting to know 

 that the term " Indian grave," often heard in the South, referred to 

 a mound, a communal grave or burial, and not to a single grave 

 containing the remains of one person. The mound near the bank of 

 the Rivanna was examined and described by Jefferson a few years be- 

 fore the Revolution. Monticello, the home of Jefferson, was only a 

 few miles away to the southeast. Regarding this most interesting 

 work Jefferson wrote: 



" It was situated on the low grounds of the Rivanna, about two 

 miles above its principal fork, and opposite to some hills, on which 

 had been an Indian town. It was of a spheroidical fonn, of about 

 forty feet diameter at the base, and had been of about twelve feet 

 altitude, though now reduced by the plough to seven and a half, 

 having been under cultivation about a dozen years. Before this it 

 was covered with trees of twelve inches diameter, and round the base 

 was an excavation of five feet depth and width, from whence the 

 earth had been taken of which the hillock was formed. I first dug 

 superficially in several parts of it, and came to collections of human 

 bones, at different depths, from six inches to three feet below the 

 surface. These were lying in the utmost confusion, some vertical, 

 some oblique, some horizontal, and directed to every point of tlie 

 compass, entangled, and held together in clusters by the earth. Bones 

 of the most distant parts were found together; as, for instance, the 

 small bones of the foot in the hollow of a scull, many sculls would 

 sometimes be in contact, lying on the face, on the side, on the back, 

 top or bottom, so as, on the whole, to give the idea of bones emptied 

 promiscuously from a bag or basket, and covered over with earth, 

 without any attention to their order. The bones of Avhich the great- 

 est numbers remained, were sculls, jaw-bones, teeth, the bones of the 

 arms, thighs, lee?!, feet, and liands. A few ribs remained, some verte- 



