Ancient Villages Among Emblematic Mounds. 1G9 



stretched along parallel with one another, and form a group 

 resemblmg others which we have elsewhere identified as 

 game drives. An illustration of the group is here given It 

 will be noticed that the effigies are peculiarly situated and 

 shaped; they are unnaturally prolonged, and so placed in 

 reference to one another as to give the idea that they were 

 intended as screens for hunters, and as traps for wild game. 

 The arrangement of the ridges is not exactly in parallel lines, 

 bat at angles, each effigy serving to make a narrow place 

 through which the animals would need to pass, and the ob- 

 long mounds forming guards to each opening, so that an 

 additional opportunity for shooting the game might be 

 furnished . 



(7.) The most noticeable peculiarity of the region was the 

 discovery of a so-called altar mound. We mention this last 

 because it is the most suggestive and because it brings out 

 the point of analogy between the village life of the mound 

 builders and that of the Red Indians. There are no tradi- 

 tions connected with the locality but the religious significance 

 of this group of works is apparent. On the summit of the 

 hill overlooking the village itself is a small group of mounds, 

 consisting of three oblong mounds and one effigj. The oblong 

 mounds are situated on the brow of the bluff, and apparently 

 were designed to serve as guards to the effigy. The effigy is 

 what we have called an altar mound, as it has the same shape 

 and situation with other mounds which have proved to con- 

 tain altars, and is one which has been found in various par- 

 ticulars. The figures of it will illustrate the point. (See Fig. 5.) 

 It is a mound formed by a combination of five mounds in one 

 the whole group making an effigy of an animal resembling the 

 horned toad or trog. A ridge which connects two tumuli or 

 conical mounds, forms the spine; four conical mounds situated 

 at the corners formed the hips of the animals; the projections 

 which represent legs are blunt and without particular re- 

 semblance to the animal formed. The distinguishing pecul- 

 iarity of the effigy is that its form is an exact repetition of 

 the shape of the bluff. The projections in the mounds imi- 

 tate on a small scale the spurs on the side of the bluff itself, 

 the two making a double effigy. As an additional feature 



