ABORIGINAL MONUMENTS 



OF THE 



STATE OF NE¥ YOEK. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 



The Indian tribes found in possession of tlie country now embraced within the 

 limits of New England and the Middle States have left few monuments to attest 

 their former presence. The fragile structures which they erected for protection 

 and defence have long ago crumbled to the earth ; and the sites of their ancient 

 towns and villages are indicated only by the ashes of their long-extinguished fires, 

 and by the tew rude relics which the plough of the invader exposes to his curious 

 gaze. Their cemeteries, marked in very rare instances by enduring monuments, 

 are now undistinguishable, except where the hand of modern improvement en- 

 croaches upon the sanctity of the grave. The forest-trees, upon the smooth bark 

 of which the Indian hunter commemorated his exploits in war, or success in the 

 chase — the first rude efforts towards a written language — have withered in the 

 lapse of time, or fallen beneath the inexorable axe. The rock upon which the 

 same primitive historian laboriously wrought out his rude, but to him significant 

 picture, alone resists the corrosion of years. Perhaps no people equally numerous 

 have passed away without leaving more decided memorials of their former exist- 

 ence. Excepting the significant names of their sonorous language, which still 

 attach to our mountains, lakes, and streams, little remains to recall the memory of 

 the departed race. 



But notwithstanding the almost entire absence of monuments of art clearly refer- 

 able to the Indian tribes discovered in the actual possession of the region above 

 indicated, it has long been known that many evidences of ancient labor and skill 

 are to be found in the western parts of New York and Pennsylvania, upon the 

 upper tributaries of the Ohio, and along the shores of Lakes Erie and Ontario. 

 Here we find a series of ancient earth-works, entrenched hills, and occasional 

 mounds, or tumuh, concerning which history is mute, and the origin of which has 

 been regarded as involved in impenetrable mystery. These remains became a 

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