•uioMA?.] TRIBAL DIVISIONS. 709 



there are some two or three types, yet the gradation from one to the 

 other is so complete as to leave no line of distinction, and Dr. Lapluun 

 is fallyjnstified in the assertion that the evidence connects the " monnd- 

 builders " with the modern tribes. The stratified mounds in which the 

 hard clay or mortar-like covering over the remains is found, which is 

 also common in Illinois and Iowa mounds, may be the work of different 

 tribes from those which constructed the small, unstratitted tumuli of 

 Wisconsin, but the distinctions between the two classes are not such 

 as to justify the belief that they are to be attributed to a different race, 

 or a people occupying a higher or widely different culture-status. The 

 differences are, in fact, iu)t more marked than has occasionally been 

 found in a single group. 



Having reat^hed this conclusion, it is impossible to pause here. We 

 are compelled to take one step further in the same direction and ascribe 

 the singular structures known as "effigy mounds" to the same people. 

 The two classes are too intinuitely connected to admit of the supposition 

 that the effigy mounds were built by one race or people and the conical 

 tumuli by another. It would be as reasonable to assume that the 

 iiiclosures of Ohio were the work of one people, but the mounds accom 

 panying them of another. That the works of different tribes or nations 

 may frequently be found intermingled on areas over which successive 

 waves of population have passed, must be admitted, but that one part 

 of what is clearly a system is to l)e attributed to one peoph? and the 

 other part to another is absurd and unworthy of serious consideration. 

 The only possible explanations of the origin, object, or mean lug of these 

 singular structures' are based, whether confessedly so or not, on the 

 theory that they are of Indian origin ; for their illustrations and expla- 

 nations are drawn from Indian customs, arts and beliefs. Eemove the 

 Indian factor from the problem and we are left without the shadow of 

 a hypothesis. 



The fact that the effigy mounds were uot generally used as places of 

 seitulture and that no cemeteries, save the burial mounds, are found in 

 connection with them, is almost conclusive proof that the two, as a 

 rule, must be attributed to the same people, that they belong to the 

 same system. 



To what particular tribes the ancient works of this northwestern 

 section are to be attributed is of course a question which nuist be 

 answered chiefly by conjecture. Nevertheless, there are some good 

 reasons for believing that the effigy mounds and those works belong- 

 ing to the same system are attributable to one or more tribes of the 

 Siouan stock. As has been shown in the preceding part of the vol- 

 ume, the custom of placing the small tumuli in lines connected and 

 disconnected to form the long wall like mounds seems to have been 

 peculiar to the builders of the effigies. Following up this hint and trac- 

 ing the transitions in form from what appears to be the more ancient to 

 the more recent tyjjes, we are led to the comparatively modern surface 



