SACRIFICIAL MOUNDS. 217 



the Indians used to meet at some place previously chosen, 

 that they dug up their dead, collected the bones together, 

 and laid them in one common burial place, depositing with 

 them fine skins and other valuable articles. Several of these 

 ossuaries are described by Schoolcraft.* 



Sacrificial Mounds. 



" The name of Sacrificial Mounds/' says Dr. Wilson, " has 

 been conferred on a class of ancient monuments, altogether 

 peculiar to the New World, and highly illustrative of the 

 rites and customs of the ancient races of the mounds. This 

 remarkable class of mounds has been very carefully explored, 

 and their most noticeable characteristics are, their almost 

 invariable occurrence within enclosures ; their regular con- 

 struction in uniform layers of gravel, earth, and sand, disposed 

 alternately in strata conformable to the shape of the mound ; 

 and their covering a symmetrical altar of burnt clay or stone, 

 on which are deposited numerous relics, in all instances ex- 

 hibiting traces, more or less abundant, of their having been 

 exposed to the action of fire." The so-called "altar" is a 

 basin, or table, of burnt clay, carefully formed into a sym- 

 metrical form, but varying much both in shape and size. 

 Some are round, some elliptical, and others squares or paral- 

 lelograms, while in size they vary from two feet to fifty feet 

 by twelve or fifteen. The usual dimensions, however, are 

 from five to eight feet. They are almost always found within 

 sacred enclosures ; of the whole number examined by Messrs. 

 Squier and Davis there were only four which were exterior 

 to the walls of enclosures, and these were but a few rods 

 distant from them. 



The " altar" is always on a level with the natural soil, 

 and bears traces of long continued heat ; in one instance, 



* i.e. p. 102. 



