WHO WERE THE MOUND BUILDERS? 663 



ship of those remains to a distinct and now extinct people, when we know that 

 those Indians were in possession of all of the arts, practices and superstitions 

 claimed for that imaginary race. The builders of the mounds knew nothing of 

 astronomy, mathematics or architecture. They had no knowledge of metals, 

 having never even discovered the reduction of galena, the most readily fused of 

 all ores. They lived in temporary huts of frail, perishable materials, and had not 

 advanced to the art of constructing stationary abodes of clay or stone. Their 

 wants had developed mechanical skill of no mean order, as is manifested by their 

 coarse fabrics, woven of hemp and bark, their pottery, stone weapons, domestic 

 implements, ornaments, etc. They had progressed in the arts of food production 

 beyond reliance upon roots, moUusks and fruits to a rudimentary cultivation of 

 the earth and the storing of provisions for future use. They made toys for the 

 amusement of their children, and devices for playing games ; but the chief pas- 

 time of the males, judging from the quantity and quality of the weapons and de- 

 fences they left, was war and the chase. They believed in a future state of exist- 

 ence; buried their dead with tender care, and burned their captives without 

 mercy. There is not the slighest foundation for the belief so frequently expressed, 

 that they lived in an organized "Empire," or under any other form of political 

 government ; or that they possessed any description of written language or sys- 

 tem of hieroglyphics ; or had any formulated mode of worship; or entertained 

 religious sentiments more elevated than the grossest superstitions. 



This summary sketch accurately depicts the status of the mound-builders 

 and is a correct representation of the condition of the southern Indians when first 

 discovered. 



Comparative craniology has been invoked, by eminent ethnologists, to sup- 

 ])ort the the theory of a pre-existent race superior to the Indians, with results by 

 no means satisfactory. The mean cranial capacity of one people may be less or 

 greater than that of another ; but, so far no appreciable difference in mean in- 

 ternal capacity has been discovered between the crania of some of the Indians 

 who built mounds and some who did not ; and attempts to establish racial dis- 

 tinctions upon the shape cff the skull by classing the one Brachycephalic (round 

 skulls), and the other, Dolicocei>halic (long skulls), is unscientific, arbitrary and 

 not sustained by observed facts. Dr. Richard Owen remarked : " From an old 

 and well-filled European grave yard may be selected specimens of Klimocephalic, 

 Conocephalic, Braehycephalk, Dolicophalic, Platycephalic, Leptocephalic and other 

 forms of crania equally worthy of penta or hexa-syllabic Greek epithets." This is 

 true also of any large collection of crania of any race; and in a given number of 

 skulls of ancient (mound-builder) and modern Indians, excepting such as have 

 been artificially deformed, all the above types will probably be found. For it 

 cannot be seriously contended that the heads of any people have all been for 

 centuries cast in the same mould. 



In the statement that mound-building had been practiced by some of the 

 tribes down to a comparatively recent date it may be necessary to explain that 

 the primal contact of the whites with the Indians of this continent; or, in other 



