THOMAS.) TiilBAL DIVISIONS. 707 



.similar kind.' He doe.s not state whetlier the.sc br(»astw<irks were those 

 left 1)y the Cherokees or were of an older da*e, and, althougli Sqiiier 

 and Davi.s^ and Jones appear to take for granted that it was this 

 lower mound the Cherokees occupied and that these "In-eastworks" 

 were the remains of their defenses, I think it doubtful, as they would 

 most probably have chosen the larger mound as more easily defended 

 and more secure than the lower one, so near the large one overlooking 

 it. Possibly they occupied both. 



It is also well known that in the northern sections it was a very com- 

 mon cirstom among the Indians, at a comparatively recent date, to use 

 the mounds as depositories for their dead. 



One very marked examjHe of subsequent occupanyfor a long jieriod, 

 sliown by the works themselves, is tliat of the group in Allamakee 

 county, Iowa, examined by (Jol. P. ^V. Xorris in 1882, of which an ac- 

 count has been given. 



Another point worthy of notice in this connection is that we have 

 here one evidence, at least, that the mound-builders consisted of ditt'er- 

 eut tribes, as many, if not most, of the burial mounds of the grou]) are 

 evidently the work of tlie last occupants. Moreover, there are some 

 reasons for believing that these last occupants belonged to oi- were 

 closely related to the effigy mound-building tribes of Wisconsin. 



Dr. Lapham, who made a long and careful study of the ancient works 

 of Wisconsin, and left behind a monument of his industry in this di- 

 rection in his well known "Antiquities of Wisconsin," i)ublislied in 

 the " Contributions of the Smithsonian Institution," gave it as his 

 deliberate conclusion that the custom of erecting circidar or conical 

 tumuli over the dead was followed by the Indians of that region down 

 to a comparatively modern date. 



The explorations made by the agents of the P>ureau of Ethnology 

 heretofore described, have giveu results coinciding exactly with those 

 obtained by Drs. Lapham and Hoy and tending to the same conclusions. 

 As a general rule the conical tumuli, which, as we have seen, are usually 

 of comparatively small size, weie all found to be burial mounds, mostly 

 uustratified and of the same character as those opened by Dr. Lapham 

 and others.^ 



One fact observed by these agents to which attention has not hereto- 

 fore been called, but which must have had its influence on Dr. Lap- 

 ham's mind, is. that there appears to be no marked distinction between 

 the intrusive burials by modern Indians in a large portion of these 

 mounds and the original burials for which the tumuli were constructed. 

 In both there are from one to many skeletons in a place; in both they 

 are found stretched out Inuizontally and also folded; in both there are 



• These had all disappeared by the tiftie of our next notice, about 1880, and wlien I exainined the 

 works in 188:^ uo sign of tht-se fortitirations could be seen, unless the remains of four jutsts. found 

 a few fet-t below the surface, formed a part of them. 



'■'Aucient Monuments, p. 109. 



^Laphaiu's Antiiiuities of Wis<'iMisin, p. 0. 



