MOUNDS OF RECENT ORIGIN. 107 



to bottom, with the teet outward and the heads a Uttle elevated, and are generally 

 accompanied by rude vessels of pottery. In one of the mounds, on the St. John's 

 River, a skeleton of large size was found, in a horizontal position, surrounded by 

 others in a sitting posture. It has been conjectured that these belong to a later 

 era than the grand system of earth-works of the Mississippi valley. 



Mounds designed as general cemeteries, if indeed there be any in the Western 

 States, are certainly few in number and of modern date. One, containing many skele- 

 tons disposed in layers, formerly existed in Belmont county, Ohio. Whether it was 

 secondarily appropriated by the Indians or built by them, it is not presumed to say ; 

 the remains found in it were indubitably of the recent tribes and of late deposit. 



The tumulus examined by Mr. Jefferson on the low grounds of the Ravenna 

 Rivei', and described in his " Notes on Virginia," is attributed by him to the recent 

 tribes of Indians, by whom it was probably built. The stream on which it occurs 

 is one of the lower branches of James River, which empties into the Atlantic. 

 We have no satisfactory evidence that the race of the mounds passed over the 

 AUeghanies ; the existence, therefore, of a few tumuli to the east of these moun- 

 tains, unless in connection with other and extensive works, such as seem to have 

 marked every step of the progress of that race, is of little importance, and not at 

 all conclusive upon this point; especially as it will hardly be denied that the exist- 

 ing races of Indians did and still do occasionally construct mounds of small size. 

 This mound was estimated by Mr. Jefferson to contain the skeletons of a thousand 

 individuals, a portion of which, particularly toward the surface, were placed without 

 order, while the remainder seemed to have been deposited with a certain degree of 

 regularity. This is certainly a very large estimate of the contents of a barrow but 

 forty feet base by seven feet in height. It will not be out of place to remark here, 

 that by the unpractised observer, the bones of a hundred skeletons placed together 

 would probably be mistaken for those of several hundred or a thousand. 



We have, it is true, but very few accounts of the construction of mounds by 

 the existing tribes of Indians. Lewis and Clarke noticed, in their travels west of 

 the Mississippi River, a spot " where one of the great chiefs of the Mahas or 

 Omahas had been interred. He was buried on a hill, and a mound twelve feet in 

 diameter and six feet in height erected over him."* Beck mentions a large mound 

 on the Osage River, which had been erected within the last thirty or forty years, 

 by the Osages, in honor of one of their dead chiefs.f Mention is made in the 



* Exp., vol. I., p. 43. "Blackbird (Wasli-ing-gah-saliba), chief of the Omahaws, or Mahas, died in 

 1800, and was interred in a sitting posture on the back of his favorite horse, upon the summit of a high 

 bluff of the Missouri, ' that he might see the white people ascend the river to trade with his nation.' A 

 mound was raised over him, on which food was regularly placed for many yeai's after ; but this has been 

 discontinued, and the flag-staff which crowned it has been removed." — James's Exp., Vol. I., p. 204. 



f Gaz. of Mo., p. 308 ; James Exp., Vol. II., p. 34. — This is probably the same mound referred to by 

 Mr. Sibley, who derived his information from a chief of the Osages. " He stated that the mound was 

 built, when he was a boy, over the body of a chief, called Jean Defoe by the French, who unexpectedly 

 died while his warriors were absent on a hunting expediiion. Upon their return, they heaped a mound 

 over his remains, enlarging it at intervals for a long period, until it reached its present height." — Feather - 

 stonhaugh's Trav., p. 70. 



