GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE TEERITOEIES. 657 



They bad not the slightest objection, were full of curiosity, and said tliey knew nothing 

 of who vras buried there. Had these been their ancestors, tradition would have pre- 

 served the fact. They take any meddlin_4 with their dead in high dudgeon, as was 

 instanced lately. A surgeon at a neighboriug post took the body of a little papoose oii a 

 scaftbld where' it lay. The tiibe pursued him, represented themselves as outraged, 

 and the post commander wisely ordered it given up. If, then, mounds had been the 

 burial-places of the ancestors of the present Indians, they would have known it and cer- 

 tainly objected to tie desecration. Two half-breeds also rode up, watched me some 

 time with the greatest curiosity, said they knew nothing of these mounds, and finally 

 rode away on their little Indian ponies, their long lariats of untanned buffalo-hide 

 trailing behind them on the ground, and examined with unfeigned curiosity other 

 ueighb'oring mounds. They had evidently received a new revelation as to them. 



Again, the Dakotas or Sioux are supposed, on good authority, to be a branch of the 

 Iroquois. This tribe and their habits have been known ever since the eastern coast of 

 North America was discovered and settled, and we hear of no such custom among 

 them. 



3. The mounds and their contents are apparently of great antiquity. They are, in 

 every case, on the very highest point in their immediate neighborhood, and perfectly 

 drained. The climate is excessively dry; so dry that the James River is entirely dry 

 at a point about .500 feet above the contemplated railroad-bridge across the river. Not- 

 withstanding this, many of the bones crumbled into white dust on being brought to 

 the air, like those found in Herculaneura and Pompeii, and it was absolutely impossi- 

 ble to get out a single one in anything like perfection. Around and over these bodies 

 stones and svicks were placed, doubtless to preserve the remains from the coyote and 

 the fox. The wood could be rubbed into fine yellow-brown dust between the thumb 

 and forefinger. Any trace of excavation around the mound for dirt to heap it with 

 had been entirely obliterated. The upright position of the skulls also indicated that 

 the bodies were buried in a sitting posture. The leg-bones, however, lay lower and 

 horizontal. » 



4. The number of mounds indicates a denser population than ever has been known 

 here, or than the natural resources of this region can now support by the chase. At 



. the same time thevnumber of dry lakes scattered all over would indicate that at some 

 remote period the country may have been a better one than now, and supported a 

 larger population. 



5. Tlie crowning argument, however, comes with the skull. It is unlike that of any 

 human being to-day alive on this continent ; the frontal bone being low, receding, 

 growing narrow and pinched from the brows up ; the top of the head depressed in the 

 center. The cavity of the cranium is full seven inches long, and a scant four and a 

 half inches wide. The orbital ridges or eyebrows are excessively developed, like 

 those of the great Gibbon monkey. In fact the whole skull resembles that of the great 

 Gibbon monkey. The malar or cheek bones run down very low and deep toward the 

 lower jaw, are set very far to the front, and are not wide at top, but widen, very much 

 toward the bottom. The nose, and here is the anomaly, is much more aquiline than 

 that of the Indian. The superior maxillary is one-third deeper and much more promi- 

 nent than the Indian's. The inferior maxillary is of uncommon prominence, depth, and 

 power far exceeding that of the Indian. The mouth is narrow and long, more dog- 

 shaped than the Indian's. The foramen magnum or aperture at base of skull, where the 

 spinal cord enters the head, is peculiarly small. The condyloid j}/ ocesses are full, oblong, 

 flat on the working surfaces, and at such an angle as to set the head upward and back 

 more than anyTaee we know to-day on this continent. Set one of these skulls, with- 

 out the lower jaw, on the table, and a line drawn from the upper jaw perpendicularly 

 upward would be a good inch and a half in front of the forehead. Set on the lower 

 jaw and it would be two inches. Mr. R. D. Gnttgisal, formerly an engineer on the 

 Mexican Central Railroad, in connection with some friends, opened a mound at Chi- 

 huahua, on the line of that railroad. The skulls resembled those I have described (so 

 he informs me) in every particular. He especially remembers the somewhat bird- 

 shaped head, and the excessively sxnaA foramen magnum. The bodies were not interred 

 horizontally there, but leaning backward as if in a rocking-chair. Professor H. H. 

 •Smith, University of Pennsylvania, has one of the skulls. 



On the east bank of the James, three miles from the mound described, is one four 

 or five times as large. A heavy embankment, some 12 or 1.5 feet wide by 3 high, 

 runs nearly southwest 150 feet, connecting it with another mound. There is also 

 another embankment at right angles, running southeast about 400 feet, growing flatter 

 until lost in the prairie. 



Accompanied by Professor Cyrus Thomas, of the United States geological survey, 

 under Dr. F. V. Hayden, I opened one of these mounds, at the end of August, 1872, 

 and found the same kind of skulls, similarly disposed in all respects. The whitish 

 color of the superincumbent earth astonished the professor, who is inclined to the 

 ox>inion that funeral rites were celebrated here. He was unable to account for the 

 I»eculiar character of this rich earth and the ash-colored layer on any other hyj)othe8i8. 



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