BY THE WAYSIDE 
19 
. 
BIRD MOUNDS 1 
By Charles E. Brown, Madison, Wisconsin 
Everv Wisconsin scliool-boy and girl 
should possess some knowledge of tin: 
very interesting earthem monuments 
which help to tell the story of the cus¬ 
toms and struggles of the ancient Indian 
inhabitants of our state. At the time of 
the coming to Wisconsin of the pioneer 
white settlers numbers of these Indian 
mounds were to be seen in favorable lo- 
t 
cations on the banks of nearly every 
lake, marsh and stream. Their original 
number is estimated by leading investi¬ 
gators to have been not less than 20,000. 
i Of this number nearly 500 formerly ex¬ 
isted on the shores of Lake Koshkonong 
alone. In eastern Sauk county nearly 
.750 were found and about the Madison 
lakes nearly 1,000. In the past fifty 
years hundreds of these aboriginal me- 
■v 
mortals have been destroyed by the culti¬ 
vation of the lands upon which they were 
situated, by the growth of cities and vil- 
dagos, the building of roads and rail¬ 
roads, and through other causes. Hun¬ 
dreds still remain hut as time goes on 
most of these are also certain to vanish 
before the rapid progress of settlement 
despite our best efforts to save them to 
future generations of Wisconsin people. 
Wisconsin Indian mounds are placed 
by scientists in three principal classes,— 
conical or round, linear or wall-sliaped 
and effigy or emblematic mounds. In¬ 
vestigation has shown that the conical 
mounds were constructed for burial pur¬ 
poses. In them are found human hones 
and occasionally ornaments, implements 
and utensils which were interred with 
the dead. These mounds vary in diame¬ 
ter from about fifteen to one hundred 
or more feet and arc from only several 
to as much as twenty or more feet in 
height. The so-called linear mounds are 
simple lines or embankments of earth. 
They vary in length from about thirty- 
five to nine hundred or more feet and in 
width from ten to twenty feet. . But few 
are over two or three feet high. These 
mounds were at one time considered to 
have been employed by the prehistoric 
Indians of Wisconsin as defensive works 
or as the sites of dwellings or other 
structures. The only satisfactory ex¬ 
planation of their purpose which has 
been offered is that which assigns them 
to the earthworks of the succeeding class. 
Their shape, location and relation to one 
another have caused the abandonment 
of the early theories of the manner of 
their use. It is clear that they were not 
erected for burial purposes. 
The effigv mounds of Wisconsin have 
long been considered by authorities to he 
the most singular ancient Indian struc¬ 
tures on the American continent. These 
remarkable earthworks are limited geo¬ 
graphically almost exclusively to our 
state, only a very small number having 
been found in adjoining sections of Min¬ 
nesota, Iowa and Illinois. Perhaps half 
a dozen occur in the state of Ohio. In 
Wisconsin these curious mounds are lim¬ 
ited in their distribution to the southern 
half of the state. But very few occur 
north of a line drawn across the state 
from Oconto on Green Bay westward to 
the banks of the Mississippi. They are 
found occurring singly or in connection 
with groups of burial and linear mounds. 
Nearly all are constructed to represent 
the animals with which their early Tn- 
Qontinued on page 22.) 
