ANIMAL CARVINGS FROM MOUNDS OF THE 

 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 



By H. W. Henshaw. 



INTRODUCTORY. 



The considerable degree of decorative and artistic skill attained by 

 the so-called Mound-Builders, as evidenced by many of the relics that 

 have been exhumed from the mounds, has not failed to arrest the at- 

 tention of archffiologists. Among them, indeed, are found not a few who 

 assert for the people conveniently designated as above a degree of 

 artistic skill very far superior to that attained by the present race of 

 Indians as they have been known to history. In fact, this very skill in 

 artistic design asserted for the Mound-Builders, as indicated by the 

 sculptures they have left, forms an important link in the chain of ar- 

 gument upon which is based the theory of their difference from and su- 

 periority to the North American Indian. 



Eminent as is much of the authority which thus contends for an ar- 

 tistic ability on the part of the Mound-Builders far in advance of the 

 attainments of the present Indian in the same line, the question is one 

 admitting of argument ; and if some of the best products of artistic 

 handicraft of the present Indians be compared with objects of a similar 

 nature taken from the mounds, it is more than doubtful if the artistic 

 inferiority of the latter-day Indian can be substantiated. Deferring, 

 however, for the present, any comparison between the artistic ability 

 of the Mound-Builder and the modern Indian, attention may be turned 

 to a class of objects from the mounds, notable, indeed, for the skill with 

 which they are wrought, but to be considered first in another way and 

 for another purpose than mere artistic comparison. 



As the term Mound-Builders will recur many times throughout this 

 paper, and as the phrase has been objected to by some archreologists 

 on account of its indefiniteness, it may be well to state that it is em- 

 ployed here with its commonly accepted signification, viz : as api)lied to 

 the i)eople who formerly lived throughout the Mississippi Valley and 

 raised the mounds of that region. It should also be clearly understood 

 that by its use the wi-iter is not to be considered as committing himself 

 in any way to the theory that the Mound-Builders were of a dift'erent 



race from the North American Indian. 



l'J3 



