104 Indian Mounds and Earthworks. 



quoted, notices that the Wmnebagos, hke the Algonquin, and 

 other tribes, are divided into bands, each designated by some ani- 

 mal, as the bear, or by the devil, or some bad spirit.* Among the 

 clans or bands of the Mohawks, were those of the Bear, the Wolf, 

 and the Turtle. The Hurons also had a Bear clan. The Natches, 

 who lived on the borders of the Mississippi, had four clans, or 

 classes ; the Sioux proper were subdivided into seven bands, 

 and the southern Sioux into eight tribes, each being separately 

 classed by some characteristic name.f Whether the southern 

 Indians were similarly subdivided and distinguished does not ap- 

 pear. From the different structure and form of their monuments, 

 it is not improbable that there always existed a variety of races 

 upon this continent. And if in remote times those races were 

 classified and designated in the mode which we have seen still 

 exists, and long has existed, — that is to say, under the denomina- 

 tion of particular animals, — it is not altogether incompatible with 

 probability, that the earthworks in which their dead were depos- 

 ited, and which resemble certain animal figures, were in fact de- 

 signed as representations of those national or family badges, and 

 consequently pointed out the burial place of the members of 

 those particular tribes. 



I confess that I am aware of no positive evidence to show, that 

 any existing tribes or branches, thus distinguished by a species of 

 arm£>rial bearings, actually did erect monuments of earth in the 

 shape of the animals whose names they bear. In the absence of 

 a more plausible conjecture, the idea suggested itself, perhaps on 

 very insufficient grounds, that there might be some connection 

 traced between the animal shaped configurations abounding in 

 the west, and some of the tribes who assumed animals for their 

 badges, and classed themselves under their names. 



If, as is perhaps the case, the foregoing views are inadequate to 

 establish the heraldic character of some of the monuments of 

 the aborigines, they show at least that to the same common cause 

 may be traced, at every period in the recorded history of man, in 

 all countries, and in every stage of civilization, the adoption of 

 symbols and devices, derived from the simplest objects, yet char- 

 acterizing nations, orders and classes, and even the individual 

 members of communities. 



Philadelphia, Feb. 12th, 1838. 



" McKenney's History of the Indian Tribes. \ Archasologia Americana. 



