HEPULCHRAL MOUNDS IN MEXICO, CENTRAL AMERICA, PERU, AND CHILI. 



Mounds are found in Oregon ; but little is known concerning them, except that 

 they occur in the open prairies, are of small size (seldom more than six or seven 

 feet in height), and are many thousands in number. Some of them were opened 

 by Com. Wilkes, but found to contain nothing beyond a pavement of round stones. 

 Their origin is involved in obscurity. Although professing to know nothing con- 

 cerning them, the Indians nevertheless regard them with some degree of venera- 

 tion. Their priests, or " medicine men," gather the wild herbs which grow upon 

 them, for use in their incantations and superstitious rites. It seems unlikely that 

 they were built by a people so rude as those found in present occupation of the 

 country. — (^Exploring Exjieditioii, Vol. IV., p. 313.) 



It is not known that any mounds occur in Upper or indeed in Lower California. 

 A few are found in New Mexico, and in the valley of the Gila ; but we are ignorant 

 of their character and contents. The aboriginal Mexicans often buried in the 

 pyramidal structures constituting their temples ; and it is presumed, although we 

 have no direct evidence of the fact, that they sometimes erected tumuli over their 

 dead. The plain surrounding the great pyramids of Teotihuacan is covered with 

 mounds, chiefly of stone, and disposed with a great deal of regularity ; it is called 

 Micoatl, or Path of the Dead.* These pyramids are, however, ascribed to the 

 Toltecs, who preceded the Aztecs in the possession of the valley of Anahuac ; and 

 it is reasonable to believe that the numerous tumuli which surround them, whatever 

 their purposes, were built by the same hands. 



If the practice of erecting mounds over the dead prevailed at all among the 

 Mexicans, it must have been to a very limited extent. This is inferred from the 

 silence of all the ancient authorities, who, although giving us very minute accounts 

 of their burial customs, say nothing concerning such structures. It was usual to 

 burn the dead, and the rite was performed with many ceremonies. In cases where 

 simple inhumation was practised, the body was placed in a sitting posture, in 

 chambers of stone or brick, accompanied by their ornaments and the implements of 

 their profession. Bernal Diaz mentions the explorations of Figuero, an officer 

 among the conquerors who, in the territory of the Zapoticas, employed himself 



* Mr. Thompson, in his "Recollections of Mexico" (pp. 138, 142), expresses the opinion that what 

 have been ver}' generally supposed to be sepulchral mounds around these pyramids, are not such in fact, 

 but simply the ruins of the houses composing an ancient town. His opinion, for reasons which the inquirer 

 will find explained at large in his book, is entitled to consideration, 



