PROBABLE FUNERAL RITES OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 123 



sepulture of the Omahaw chief, Blackbird, also influenced the ancient people in 

 the disposal of their dead. He was buried sitting on his favorite horse, on the 

 summit of a high hill overlooking the Mississippi, " that he might see the strangers 

 coming to trade with his people."* So, too, the chiefs of the mound-builders may 

 have desired, at their death, to be placed where, with the eyes of a spirit, they 

 might watch over their people thronging the fertile valleys beneath their tombs. 

 Thus an early Greek poet speaks of the tomb of Themistocles overlooking the 

 Piraeus : 



" Then shall thy mound, conspicuous on the shore, 

 Salute the mariners who pass the sea, 

 Keep watch on all who enter or depart. 

 And be the umpire in the naval strife." 



Plato comicus, ap. PLut. vit. Themist. 



A somewhat similar sentiment occurs in the Iliad, where Hector, speaking of 

 one he is to slay in single combat, says : 



" The long-haired Greeks 

 To him, upon the shores of Hellespont, 

 A mound shall heap ; that those in after-times 

 "Who sail along the darksome sea shall say, 

 ' This is the monument of one long since 

 Borne to his grave, by mighty Hector slain.' " 



The ancient Anglo-Saxon was not without a similar ambition. The dying Beo- 

 wulf enjoins : 



" Command the famous in war 

 to make a mound, 

 bright after the funeral fire, 

 upon the nose of the promontory. 

 Which shall for a memorial 

 to my people 

 rise high aloft 



on Hronesness ; 



that the sea-sailors 



may afterwards call it 



Beowulf's barrow, 



when the Brentings 



over the darkness of the floods 



shall sail afar." — Beowulf, v. 5599. 



The size of the aboriginal mounds of the West was no doubt regulated in a 

 degree by the dignity of the individuals over whose remains they were erected, or 

 by the regard in which they were held by their people. In the number or value of 

 their enclosed relics, the various mounds, great and small, exhibit little difference. 

 We have, however, seen, according to Ulloa, that the character of the deposites 



* Kemble, in a note to Beowulf, quotes an Icelandic Saga describing the ceremonies attending the burial 

 of a hero, as the death-feast, the raising of the mound, the casting of treasures therein, the slaughter of 

 his horse, and the placing of the hero in his chariot. 



