The Progress of Ethnology

NORTH AMERICA

I have the pleasure of laying before the New York Historical Society a brief account of the progress which has been made during the past year towards extending our knowledge of the globe, particularly with reference to its geography, and to those nations whose history is imperfectly known. The subject is one that more properly belongs to ethnology, but the historical results which are deduced from these enquiries come within the scope of the objects, the elucidation of which belongs to this Society.

A new impulse has lately been given to the study of American Antiquities. A brief account of recent investigations carried on in a portion of the West and South will show that we possess much that is interesting, and which will throw light on a neglected branch of aboriginal history and ethnology.

Every enquirer into the origin and purposes of the monuments and ancient remains of the Mississippi valley has regretted the limited number and poorly attested character of the facts, of which the public are in possession, respecting them. The practical investigations made from time to time by various individuals, have not been sufficiently thorough and extensive, nor have they developed sufficient data to warrant or sustain any definite or satisfactory conclusions. They have served rather to provoke enquiries which they could in no degree satisfy, than to afford information on the subject with which they were connected.

It was under a strong sense of the deficiencies in our stock of information in this branch of knowledge, that two gentlemen of Chillicothe, Ohio, Dr. Davis and Mr. E.G. Squier, undertook the exploration of the ancient remains which abound in the state of Ohio, and particularly of those in the valley of the Scioto river.

It is known that there exists in this region vast numbers of mounds, of various dimensions, and extensive embankments of earth, enclosing in some instances many acres of ground. Beside these there are ditches, walls, causeways and other works of a greater or less extent. The examination of these, by opening the mounds, and making accurate surveys of the other works constitute the labors of these gentlemen, some of the results of which may be stated in anticipation of a full account which will shortly appear.

Though their labors at first promised to end in increased doubt and uncertainty, they were abundantly rewarded as their enquiries progressed. Out of confusion, system began to develope itself, and what seemed accidents, were found to be characteristics. What was regarded as anomalous, was recognized as a type and feature of a class, and apparent coincidences became proofs of design.

For instance, it was remarked among the numerous tumuli opened, that certain ones were stratified, while others were homogeneous in their composition. Further observation showed that stratified tumuli occupy a certain fixed position with regard to other works, which the unstratified tumuli do not. Still further examinations demonstrated that the contents of those respective tumuli are radically and invariably different. Here then was established: 1st. That the mounds are not, as is generally supposed, identical in character and purpose. 2d. That one class occupies a fixed position with regard to works of a different character, the design of which is to be determined, to some degree, by the peculiarities and the contents of this description of mounds, etc.

It will be seen, at once, that a close observation of facts of this kind is absolutely essential, to arrive at any reasonable conclusions, regarding the purposes of these ancient structures, their origin, or the character or customs of the people by whom they were built. The investigations of Dr. Davis and Mr. Squier, were therefore conducted so as to permit the escape of no fact which might tend to elucidate the mystery in which our antiquities are shrouded. The excavations were made under their personal direction, and the results may be briefly stated, without detailing the facts in support of each conclusion, as follows.

The number of enclosures or earthworks which have been surveyed by them, and of which they have taken careful admeasurements, exceeds ninety. The number of tumuli which have been excavated and their characteristics noted, amounts to one hundred and fifteen.

Of the first class of works, it has been sufficiently demonstrated, that a small proportion were intended for works of defence; that another portion were sacred places, or in some way connected with religious or superstitious rites, while a third and much the larger number are entirely inexplicable in our present state of information.

The tumuli are divided into three grand classes, which are broadly marked in the aggregate, though there are individual instances of an anomalous character. These are:

1st. Tumuli of sepulture, each containing a single skeleton enclosed in a rude, wooden coffin, or an envelope of bark or matting, and occurring in isolated or detached groups.

2d. Tumuli of sacrifice, containing symmetrical altars of stone or burnt clay, occurring within or in the immediate vicinity of enclosures, and always stratified.

3d. Places of observation, or mounds raised upon elevated or commanding positions.

Within these monuments have been found implements and ornaments of silver, copper, lead, stone, ivory and pottery, fashioned into a thousand forms, and evincing a skill in art, to which the existing race of Indians, at the time of their discovery, could not approach. Marine shells, mica from the primitive regions, native copper from the shores of lake Superior, galena from the upper Mississippi, cetacean teeth, pearls and instruments of obsidian, show the extent of communication and intercourse had by the authors of these ancient works. Sculptures of animals, birds and reptiles have been found in great numbers and variety, exhibiting a skill which few could now surpass. Also, sculptures of the human head, disclosing most probably the character of the physiognomy, as well as the manner of adjusting the hair, the head dress and ornaments of the mound-builders. Careful admeasurements of the earth works which abound in the Ohio valley, have been made by the gentlemen alluded to, in which the interesting fact has been developed, that many of them are perfect circles and squares, and hence that the people by whom they were constructed had some means of determining angles and of constructing circles. In some of those earth-heaps, sufficient remains to show that when in a perfect state, they resembled the teocallis or terraced edifices of Mexico and Yucatan, though they were composed wholly of wood and earth.

The number of works manifestly connected in some way with their religion, guide us to some estimate of the prominence which their superstitions occupied, and that a religious system existed among them, in some degree resembling that of the ancient Mexicans. The immense tumuli heaped over the remains of the dead, show the regard which they attached to their chiefs, and the veneration in which they held their memory. The number and extent of their remains of all kinds, which occupy the fertile valleys, and which are confined almost entirely to them, indicate that an immense population once existed there, that it was stationary and therefore agricultural;[1] and if agricultural and stationary, that a different organization of society, different manners and customs, different impulses and feelings existed among them, than are to be found among the hunter and nomadic tribes, discovered by Europeans in possession of the country.

Another class of antiquities has been discovered by these gentlemen, of which we only have the particulars in a letter. These consist of rocks sculptured with figures of men, of birds and animals. They are cut in outline, the lines being from one half to three quarters of an inch deep by about the same width. Only those on the sides of the rocks are visible. Those on the upper or horizontal faces are nearly obliterated. One represents an elk and is said to be very spirited.

What may result from the future researches of Dr. Davis and Mr. Squier, remains to be seen; but sufficient has been developed to show that a people, radically different from the existing race of Indians, once occupied the valley of the Mississippi, and built the singular monuments in which it abounds. These also show that they were to a certain extent advanced in the arts and civilization. In short that they closely resembled in the character of their structures, ornaments and implements of war and husbandry, the races of Central America; if they were not indeed their progenitors or an offshoot from them. Many facts strongly point to such a conclusion and farther observations carefully conducted, will probably enable us to settle the question beyond a doubt.

A detailed account of the researches of the gentlemen alluded to, accompanied by numerous engravings representing the implements, ornaments and sculptures, &c., discovered in their excavations; – surveys of the various earth works, forts and enclosures in the Scioto valley, will be given in the second volume of the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, now preparing for publication. They are still actively engaged in their labors, and intend, should the facilities be extended them to carry on their operations, to examine every ancient relic to be found in Ohio and the adjacent parts, where these remains exist.

Among the explorations which have been carried on in the United States, none possess a greater interest than those of Dr. M.W. Dickeson, in the south western states, chiefly in Mississippi, though in some instances extending to Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas. Dr. Dickeson has laid open or examined one hundred and fifty mounds and tumuli, of various dimensions and collected a vast number of interesting relics, which illustrate the customs and arts of the ancient people who built them. The mounds vary from three to ninety feet in height, and from twelve to three hundred feet in diameter at the base. The Seltzer Town mound contains a superficies of eight acres on its summit. On digging into it vast quantities of human skeletons were found, chiefly with their heads flattened, and measuring generally six feet in length. Numerous specimens of pottery, including finely finished vases filled with pigments, ashes, ornaments, and beads, were also found.

The north side of this mound is supported with a wall two feet thick, of sun dried bricks, filled with grass, rushes and leaves. In order to ascertain whether this immense tumulus was artificial or not, Dr. Benbrook, sank a shaft forty two feet, and found it artificial or made ground to that depth. Immense quantities of bones, both of men and animals, among the latter the head of a huge bear, were thrown out. Other excavations were made in this tumulus with the same result, thus showing it to have been a vast mausoleum or cemetery of the ancient race.

The mounds are generally in systems varying from seven to ten, which Dr. Dickeson has divided into six classes as follows: out post, ramparts or walls, telegraphs or look outs, temples, cemeteries, and tent mounds. The first is seldom more than thirty feet at the base by ten feet high. Their shape varies, presenting sometimes a pyramid, at others a cone, or rhomboid. Walls surround the second class, which are from ten to fifteen feet in heighth, the same across the top, and from forty to fifty feet at the base.

The "Look out" mounds are seldom under sixty feet high. Of this class, Dr. Dickeson has examined upwards of ninety. They are generally on the summit of a hill, overlooking the bottom lands. Here they stand some three hundred feet above the bottom lands, commanding an extensive prospect, and in some instances one may see the peaks of several systems of mounds in the distance.

The "Temple mounds" are seldom more than twenty feet high, and stratified with ashes, loam, gravel, &c. They all have an earthen floor. Dr. Dickeson has, but in a single instant, found a skeleton in these mounds, and in this, he thinks the subject a Choctaw Indian recently placed there. It lay in a horizontal position, differing from the usual mode of burial, which is the sitting posture.

The "Cemeteries" are oval, and from six to ten feet high, filled with bones, lying east and west, and when incased in sarcophagi, the rows run in the same direction. In some instances Dr. Dickeson found the bones lying in heaps, promiscuously. These he believes to have been the canaille.

The "Tent or Structure mounds" are small, and a short distance below their surface, fragments of brick and cement are found in great quantities; sometimes skeletons and pottery. Never more than six skeletons are found together, and more care is shown in the burial of these than in the "cemetery mounds." In one instance an angular tumulus was seen by the Doctor, with the corners quite perfect, formed of large bricks, bearing the impression of an extended hand.2

Many mounds and tumuli are advantageously situated on the tops of ridges, surrounded with walls. Some of the latter have crumbled away, while others remain strong and perpendicular. In many instances, the walls that surround these groups of mounds, form perfect squares and circles. Dr. Dickeson adds that, "if from the centre of one of these groups a circle were traced, it would strike the centre of each mound, both large and small." They contain numerous fragments of walls, images, pottery, ornaments, etc. etc.

The "Temples" are generally situated among the hills and ravines, with perpendicular escarpments, improved by artificial fortifications. The enclosures often embrace upwards of thirty acres. The great enclosure at "the Trinity" contains upwards of one hundred and fifty acres, and is partially faced with sundried brick. Upon the plantation of Mr. Chamberlain in Mississippi, the temple is flanked with several bastions, besides squares, parallels, half moons, and ravines with perpendicular escarpments for its defence. The ditches and small lakes are frequently chained for miles and filled with water, intended, the Doctor thinks, for outworks. In these, bricks are found both at the bottom and on the sides. Among the rubbish and vegetable deposits taken from them to put on the land, ornaments, and other relics are found.

Wells and reservoirs, completely walled with burnt clay, are found in Louisiana; near which are "systems," or groups of mounds so regular and strongly fortified, that they became the retreat of pirates and robbers who infested the rivers, greatly disturbing the early settlers, after the massacre of the Natchez Indians by the French. The Natchez built large dikes or ditches, and upon the counterscarp piled up huge ramparts, which they made almost impregnable, by having one side flanked by the slope of a hill, surrounded by precipices. They are sometimes situated on the level "bottoms."3 In these cases one side invariably faces a creek or bayou, or is in its bend, making the creek serve as a formidable ditch, offering a serious impediment to an enemy's approach. The other two sides are protected by parallel walls or half moons, with gateways leading to the citadel. These walls have indications of having been faced with dry masonry. The east and west corners are generally flanked with a small oval mound.

In these tumuli and mounds numerous ornaments and pottery were found by Dr. Dickeson, buried with the occupants, such as idols, clay stamps, mica mirrors, stone axes, and arrow heads, silver and copper ornaments, rings, beads of jasper, chalcedony, agate, &c., similar to those found in Peru and Mexico. Several pearls of great beauty and lustre, an inch in diameter, have been found. By an examination of the skulls, Dr. D. discovered that dentistry had been extensively practised by this ancient people, as plugging the teeth, and inserting artificial ones, was common. In one instance, five artificial teeth were found inserted in one subject. Ovens were found containing pottery partially baked, three feet below the surface, with large trees covering them, exhibiting an age of upwards of five hundred years. Magazines of arrow points, in one instance a "wagon body full," (about twenty bushels), lying within the space of a few feet. In a small mound in Adams county, Dr. D. found three large jars holding upwards of ten gallons of arrow points elaborately finished; and three similar in dimensions and finish, have lately been received by Dr. Morton, of Philadelphia, from South Carolina. Carvings representing the English bull dog, the camel and lama, have been found by Dr. Dickeson, from forty to sixty feet below the surface of the mound. The bricks, to which allusion has been made, are of various colors; some of a bright red, others dark brown, various shades of purple and yellow. Forty stamps of baked clay, containing a variety of figures used for stamping their skins. Pieces of coin, two of which found near Natches, had the figure of a bird on one side, and on the reverse an animal.

The pottery found is quite extensive, some mounds have been opened in which were upwards of sixty vases, some quite plain, and others elaborately ornamented. Of the pottery, Dr. Dickeson has succeeded in getting upwards of a hundred fine specimens to Philadelphia, which are deposited with his other Indian relics and fossils, in the Museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences.

Dr. Dickeson has kindly furnished me a catalogue of his collection of relics, from which I have selected the following to give an idea of the extent and variety of the objects found:

6000 Arrow points of jasper, chalcedony, obsidian, quartz, &c., &c.

150 Arrow points, finely polished, under one inch in length.

25 Arrow points, finely polished, under half an inch in length.

1600 Unfinished Arrow and Spear points.

250 small stone Axes.

40 Quoits, Weights, &c.

20 Paint mullers.

1 °Corn grinders.

3 large stone Mortars.

14 small earthen Heads of men, women and boys.

6 stone Statues, erect and sitting.

A great variety of personal ornaments of jasper, chalcedony, pottery, beads, pearls, war clubs, war axes, mica mirrors, carved ornaments, arm bracelets, bone carvings, earthen plates, handled saucers, earthen lamps, a variety of vessels for culinary purposes, stone chisels, two copper medals, the tusk of a Mastodon, six feet long, elaborately carved with a serpent and human figures; cylindrical tubes of jasper perforated, ornaments in pumice, (lava), seals, bricks, jars, cups and vases in every variety.

In addition to these, Dr. Dickeson has made a collection of upwards of sixty crania of the ancient mound builders, out of many thousand skeletons discovered by him in his several explorations. These possess much interest in an Ethnographic point of view, for the rigid test to which all his results have been subjected, have satisfied him that these skulls belong to the ancient race. Like the gentlemen in Ohio, whose labors have been noticed, the Doctor can at once detect the mounds and remains of the ancient, from those of the modern race. Some mounds he has found to be the work of three periods. At the top were the remains of the present race of Indians; digging lower he found these remains accompanied by ancient Spanish relics, of the period of the earliest Spanish visit to these parts; and below these, he discovered the remains and relics of the ancient race.

The inscribed tablet discovered in the grave-creek mound, Virginia, and which was noticed by Mr. Schoolcraft in the first volume of the Transactions of the American Ethnological Society, continues to excite much interest. Mr. Jomard of the French Institute, read a second paper on that subject last year, before the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres at Paris, a copy of which he has transmitted to the Society.4 He distinctly shows, that the letters of this curious inscription are identically the same as those of the Libyan on the monument of Thugga,5 and of the Tuarycks used at this day. It is worthy of remark, that Mr. Hodgson in his "Notes on Africa,"6 arrived at the same conclusion, without the knowledge that Mr. Jomard, some years previously, had asserted the Libyan character of this inscription, in a first note on the subject.7 Such a coincidence gives force to the views adopted by both these gentlemen. The results to which the French savant has arrived, in his enquiry into this engraved stone or tablet, possess much interest, as it is the only relic yet discovered in North America, of an inscription bearing alphabetic characters,8 which have been satisfactorily identified as such. This Numidian inscription, which title we may now apply to the engraved tablet in question, will be again alluded to, when we come to speak of the philological discoveries in Northern Africa, and of the Libyan alphabet.

In conclusion Mr. Jomard observes, that at a remote period the Libyan language was spoken by various tribes in Northern Africa, and that it was a language written with characters, such as we now find on the Thugga edifice and other monuments; that it is still written with the same characters, particularly in the vicinity of Fezzan and in the deserts traversed by the Tuarycks, although this method of writing has been to so great an extent supplanted by Arabic letters that we must consider the Berber language, the language of Syouah, Sokna, Audjelah, and Gherma, as representing the remains of the ancient Libyan language in use in the most remote period; and finally, that in the interior of America, on a monument of which the age is unknown, but anterior to the settlement by Europeans, we find an engraved stone, bearing signs perfectly resembling the characters traced by the modern Tuarycks and by their ancestors, upon the rocks of Libya. Mr. Jomard's pamphlet contains an engraved table, in which are given, in parallel columns, the characters on the American tablet, the Tuaryck alphabet, the Thugga characters, and their value in Hebrew and Arabic.

In connexion with this subject it may be added, that M. Berthelot, a learned traveller, states that there exists a striking affinity between the names of places and of men in the ancient language of the Canaries and certain Carib words.9 The contiguity of the Canaries to the African continent is such, that we can readily suppose their ancient inhabitants to have had communication with it, whereby the Libyan language became known to them. A new field of enquiry is thus opened to philologists, and we may here seek for the means to unravel one of the most difficult questions connected with the origin of the American race, and the means by which they reached this continent, for we never have been among those who believed that America derived the mass of her population, her men and animals, from Asia, by the way of Behring's Straits.

The author of a late work on California, New Mexico, &c., brings to our notice a tribe of Indians known as the Munchies (Mawkeys) or white Indians.10 "This remarkable nation occupies a valley among the Sierra de los Mimbros chain of mountains, upon one of the affluents of the river Gila, in the extreme northwestern part of the province of Sonora. They number about eight hundred persons. Their country is surrounded by lofty mountains at nearly every point, is well watered and very fertile. Their dwellings are excavated in the hill-sides, and frequently cut in the solid rock. They subsist by agriculture, and raise great numbers of horses, cattle and sheep. Among them are many of the arts and comforts of civilized life. They spin and weave, and make butter and cheese, with many of the luxuries known to more enlightened nations. Their government is after the patriarchal order, and is purely republican in its character. In morals they are represented as honest and virtuous. In religion they differ but little from other Indians. Their features correspond with those of Europeans, with a fair complexion and a form equally if not more graceful. In regard to their origin, they have lost all knowledge or even tradition; neither do their characters, manners, customs, arts or government savor of modern Europe."