May 30, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



325 



The proximity of this mound to the Triangle, the occur- 

 rence of the pit, and the similarity in the modes of burial, 

 are sufficient to justify us in attributing them to one and the 

 same people. Two hundred yards east of the Triangle was 

 another low mound, covering a circular pit similar to that 

 described. In this were twenty-five skeletons and one stone 

 heap. Some of the skeletons were in a sitting posture, cov- 

 ered with stone vaults, others unenclosed. Some were 

 stretched horizontally on the bottom of the pit, iinenclosed. 

 Four of the latter were lying together, with large stones 

 resting on their legs below the knees. 



In a different part of the same county, another similar 

 circular burial pit was explored, in which, besides the sepa- 

 rate sitting and horizoatal skeletons, there was a kind of 

 communal grave similar to that in the Triangle. As there 

 can he. no reasonable doubt that all these are the burial- 

 places of one tribe, and there are no indications of intrusive 

 burials, it is legitimate to consider them together, and to 

 draw inferences in regard to the customs of the authors from 

 what is found in either. ^ 



Referring to the account given in the "Fifth Annual Re- 

 port of the Bureau of Ethnology," it is seen that the following 

 articles were found buried with the skeletons of the last- 

 mentioned pit alone: one stone axe; forty-three polished 

 celts; nine vessels of clay, including four pots and two food- 

 cups, the handle of one representing an owl's head, and that 

 of the other an eagle's head; thirty-two arrow-heads; twenty 

 soapstone pipes, mostly uninjured; twelve discoidal stoaes; 

 ten rubbing-stones; one broken soapstone vessel; six en- 

 graved shells, some of the designs on them like that shown 

 in Fig. 4; four shell gorgets; one sea-shell [Busycon perver- 

 SM?») entire, and two or three broken ones; five very large 

 copperheads; a lot of shell fragments, some of them en- 

 graved: a few rude shell pins made from the columellce of 

 sea-univalves; shell beads and a few small copper beads. 



It is evident, from the mode of burial and the articles 

 found, that these works cannot be attributed to white men 

 of post-Columbian times. Can they be attributed to the 

 Indians found inhabiting this region at the time of the ad- 

 vent of the whites? If the evidence justifies this conclusion, 

 we may then attribute them without hesitancy 10 the Chero- 

 kees. 



Lawson. who travelled through North Carolina in 1700, 

 states that "the Indians oftentimes make of a certain large 

 sea-sliell a sort of gorge, which they wear about their neck 

 in a string, so it hangs on their collar, whereon is sometimes 

 engraven a cross or some odd sort of figure wliich comes next 

 in their fancy." Beverly, in his "History of Virginia," 

 evidently alluding to the same customs, says, "Of this shell 

 [the conch] they also make round tablets of about four inches 

 in diameter, which they polish as smooth as the other, and 

 sometimes they etch or grave thereon circles, stars, a half- 

 moon, or any other figure suitable to their fancy." Adair 

 states, in his "History of the American Indians," that the 

 priest wears a breastplate made of a white eonchshell, with 

 two holes bored in the middle of it, through which he puts 

 the ends of an otter-skin strap, and fastens a buck-horn white 

 button to the outside of each. 



Here, then, is evidence of a custom among the Indians 

 precisely similar to that which prevailed among the mound- 

 buifders of the region to which reference has been made. 



Nor does the comparison stop with the general resemblance 

 in customs; for among the shells found in the burial- 

 mounds mentioned was one with a cross engraved upon it, 

 and on others were engraved figures that might be readily 

 taken for stars and half-moons (Fig. 4). Moreover, while 

 some are "engraved," others are "smooth," without any de- 

 vices upon them; and all are pierced with holes for inserting 

 strings by which to hang them about the neck. They are 

 usually made from Busycon perversum, which is designated 

 in common parlance a "conch." 



That shells of this kind, bearing precisely similar engraved 

 designs, were in use among the ve."itable mound-builders, is 

 proven by the fact that they have been found in mounds 

 of some of the most important groups of Georgia, Ten- 

 nessee, and elsewhere. This fact is sufficient of itself to 

 show that the North Carolina burial-places alluded to belong 

 to the mound-building age. If these shell ornaments are the 

 work of Indians, as appears from the statements of the 

 above-named writers, they must have bean used by the 

 Cherokees, and buried with their dead. 



The author above quoted says that at the fall of the leaf 

 the Indians gather hickory-nuts, "which they pound with a 

 round stone, upon a stone, thick and hollowed for the pur- 

 pose." Quite a number of precisely such stones as here 

 mentioned, "thick and hollowed" at the ends, were found in 

 the mounds of Caldwell County, N.C. All who examined 

 them ascribed them without hesitancy to the use mentioned 

 by Adair. 



Another fact not mentioned in the preceding description 

 of these mounds and burial-places is that in one, — the circu- 

 lar pit, — mixed with those having heads of the ordinary 

 form, were some eight or ten skeletons with heads of elon- 

 gate form, due to ariiticial pressure. 



This furnishes strong evidence that the people who buried 

 here were Indians. It is true, it was not a custom of the 

 Cherokees to compress the head, but it was of their neigh- 

 bors and hereditary foes, the Catawbas As this is the only 

 instance of skulls of that form being found in the mounds 

 of this section, it is possible they were captives ftom that 

 tribe; but vvhy buried here, unless they had been adopted by 

 the Cherokees, is a question difficult to answer. 



In the mounds and burial-places mentioned were also found 

 a lai'ge number of nicely carved soapstone pipes, usually 



