100 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences^ Arts and Letters. 



in summer that they could continue the money making dur- 

 ing the winter. They managed to bore a hole in these shells 

 with a flint, before the whites furnished them with awls 

 and drills. (Drake's Indians, page 239 ; Pickering's Chrono- 

 logical History, page 955.) 



The various species of large univalve shells, '^'conchs," so 

 often found in mounds and Indian graves, are yet preserved 

 in the Omaha wigwams as sacred. The sound heard when 

 one of these shells is placed to the ear is supposed to be the 

 voice of departed spirits. (Paper read by Miss Fletcher at 

 Montreal meeting of A. A. A. S.) 



Then the mode of burial is still the same, mostly in a sit- 

 ting posture, surrounded by their worldly wealth and sup- 

 plied with a sufficiency of food to feed the hungry soul 

 while on the long road to the happy hunting ground. I 

 should like to see that anatomist who can distinguish the 

 crania taken from mounds from those procured from Indian 

 graves. The skulls from mounds differ just as much and 

 just as little as do those of the present tribes of Indians. I 

 obtained a skull of a Pottawatomie chief (it is now in the U. 

 S. A. medical museum at Washington), which is one of the 

 largest known. It is very symmetrical also, the capacity 

 being 1785 cubic centimeters; maximum length, 188.9; max- 

 imum breadth, 163.5. circumference, 555.6; facial angle, 75; 

 measured and photographed by order of the surgeon general. 

 I had a second Pottawatomie cranium that is as unlike the 

 above as possible, the capacity being 40 cubic inches less, 

 facial angle 70. In view of the foregoing evidence, the legit- 

 imate conclusion must follow that the " mound builders " 

 were Indians and nothing but Indians, the immediate ances- 

 tors of the present tribes as well as many other Indians 

 that formerly were scattered over this country. Differ- 

 ing in habits of life and language just as the Indians 

 of the several tribes did before the white man changed 

 them, they continued to build mounds after they had com- 

 munication with Europeans, since which time mound build- 

 ing, together with many of the arts of the red man, such as 

 making wampum, flint, stone and copper implements, pot- 

 tery, etc.3 have declined and flnally nearly or quite ceased. 



