A Collection of Essays and Fugitiv Writings

No. XVI

[Note. I had embraced the idea, that the remarkable fortifications on the Muskingum, might be justly ascribed to the Spaniards, under Ferdinand de Soto, who penetrated into Florida, about the year 1540; which opinion I endeavored to maintain as probably well founded, and wrote three or four letters on the subject, to Dr. Stiles, which were published in 1789. It is now very clear that my opinion was not well founded; but that Chicaca, which I had supposed to be Muskingum, ought to have been written Chicaça, with a cedilla, as it is in the original Spanish; and pronounced Chikesaw. This determins the place of Soto's winter quarters, the second year after landing, to be in the territories of the present Chikesaws. Those letters, therefore, are not worth republishing; but the following extract, on a different subject, may be considered as worthy of preservation.]

But how shall we account for the mounts, caves, graves, &c. and for the contents, which evince the existence of the custom of burning the dead or their bones; can these be ascribed to the Spaniards? I presume, Sir, you will be of opinion they cannot. Capt. Heart says,50 these graves are small mounts of earth, from some of which human bones have been taken; in one were found bones in the natural position of a man, buried nearly east and west, and a quantity of ising glass on his breast; in the other graves, the bones were irregular, some calcined by fire, others burnt only to a certain degree, so as to render them more durable; in others the mouldered bones retain their shape, without any substance; others are partly rotten and partly the remains of decayed bones; in most of the graves were found stones evidently burnt, pieces of charcoal, Indian arrows and pieces of earthen ware, which appeared to be a composition of shells and cement.

That these mounts and graves are the works of the nativ Indians, is very evident, for such small mounts are scattered over every part of North America. "It was customary with the Indians of the West Jersey," says Mr. Smith, page 137, "when they buried the dead, to put family utensils, bows and arrows, and sometimes wampum into the grave, as tokens of their affection. When a person of note died far from the place of his own residence, they would carry his bones to be buried there. They washed and perfumed the dead, painted the face, and followed singly; left the dead in a fitting posture, and covered the grave pyramidically. They were very curious in preserving and repairing the graves of their dead, and pensivly visited them."

It is said by the English, who are best acquainted with the manners of the nativs, that they had a custom of collecting, at certain stated periods, all the bones of their deceased friends, and burying them in some common grave. Over these cemetaries or general repositories of the dead, were erected those vast heaps of earth or mounts, similar to those which are called in England barrows, and which are discovered in every part of the United States.

The Indians seem to have had two methods of burying the dead; one was, to deposit one body (or at most but a small number of bodies) in a place, and cover it with stones, thrown together in a careless manner. The pile thus formed would naturally be nearly circular, but those piles that are discovered are something oval. In the neighborhood of my father's house, about seven miles from Hartford, on the public road to Farmington, there is one of those Carrnedds or heaps of stone. I often passed by it in the early part of my youth, but never measured its circumference or examined its contents. My present opinion is, that its circumference is about twenty five feet. The inhabitants in the neighborhood report, as a tradition received from the nativs, that an Indian was buried there, and that it is the custom for every Indian that passes by to cast a stone upon the heap. This custom I have never seen practised, but have no doubt of its existence; as it is confirmed by the general testimony of the first American settlers.51

The other mode of burying the dead, was to deposit a vast number of bodies, or the bones which were taken from the single scattered graves, in a common cemetary, and over them raise vast tumuli or barrows, such as the mount at Muskingum, which is 390 feet in circumference, and 50 feet high. The best account of these cemetaries may be found in Mr. Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, which will appear the most satisfactory to the reader in his own words.

"I know of no such thing existing as an Indian monument, for I would not honor with that name, arrow points, stone hatchets, stone pipes, and half shapen images. Of labor on the large scale, I think there are no remains as respectable as would be a common ditch for the draining of lands, unless it be the barrows, of which many are to be found all over this country. These are of different sizes, some of them constructed of earth, and some of loose stones. That they were repositories of the dead has been obvious to all; but on what particular occasion constructed, was matter of doubt. Some have thought they covered the bones of those who have fallen in battles, fought on the spot of interment. Some ascribe them to the custom, said to prevail among the Indians, of collecting at certain periods the bones of all their dead, wherever deposited at the time of death. Others again supposed them the general sepulchre for towns, conjectured to have been on or near these grounds, and this opinion was supported by the quality of the lands in which they are found, (those constructed of earth being generally in the softest and most fertile meadow grounds on river sides) and by a tradition said to be handed down from the aboriginal Indians, that when they settled in a town, the first person who died was placed erect, and earth put about him so as to cover and support him; that when another died, a narrow passage was dug to the first, the second reclined against him, and the cover of earth replaced, and so on. There being one of these in my neighborhood, I wished to satisfy myself whether any, and which of these opinions were just; for this purpose I determined to open and examin it thoroughly. It was situated on the low grounds of the Rivanna, about two miles above its principal fork, and opposit to some hills on which had been an Indian town. It was of a spheroidical form, of about forty feet diameter at the base, and had been of about twelve feet altitude, tho now reduced by the plow to seven and a half; having been under cultivation about a dozen years.

"Before this, it was covered with trees of twelve inches diameter, and round the base was an excavation of five feet depth and width, from whence the earth had been taken, of which the hillock was formed. I first dug superficially in several parts of it, and came to collections of human bones at different depths, from six inches to three feet, below the surface. These were lying in the utmost confusion; some vertical, some oblique, some horizontal, and directed to every point of the compass, entangled and held together in clusters by the earth. Bones of the most distant parts were found together; as for instance, the small bones of the foot in the hollow of a scull; many sculls were sometimes in contact, lying on the face, on the side, on the back, top or bottom, so as on the whole, to giv the idea of bones emptied promiscuously from a bag or basket, and covered over with earth, without any attention to their order. The bones, of which the greatest numbers remained, were sculls, jaw bones, teeth, the bones of the arms, thighs, legs, feet and hands. A few ribs remained, some vertibræ of the neck and spine, without their processes, and one instance only of the bone which serves as the base to the vertebral column (the os sacrum)."

After making some remarks on the state of putrefaction in which the bones appeared, and on the discovery of the bones of infants, Mr. Jefferson goes on, "I proceeded then to make a perpendicular cut thro the body of the barrow, that I might examin its internal structure. This passed about three feet from its center, was opened to the former surface of earth, and was wide enough for a man to walk thro and examin its sides.

"At the bottom, that is on the level of the circumjacent plain, I found bones; above these a few stones brought from a cliff, a quarter of a mile off, and from the river one eighth of a mile off. Then a large interval of earth, then a stratum of bones, and so on. At one end of the section, were four strata of bones plainly distinguishable; at the other, three; the strata in one part not ranging with those in another. The bones nearest the surface were least decayed. No holes were discovered in any of them, as if made with bullets, arrows or other weapons. I conjectured that in this barrow might have been a thousand skeletons. Every one will readily seize the circumstances above related, which militate against the opinion, that it covered the bones only of persons fallen in battle; and against the tradition also which would make it the common sepulchre of a town, in which the bodies were placed upright, and touching each other. Appearances certainly indicate, that it has derived both origin and growth from the accustomary collection of bones and deposition of them together; that the first collection had been deposited on the common surface of the earth, that a few stones were put over it, and then a covering of earth, that the second had been laid on this, had covered more or less of it in proportion to the number of bones, and was then also covered with earth, and so on. The following are the particular circumstances, which giv it this aspect. 1 The number of bones. 2 The strata in one part having no correspondence with those in another. 3 The different states of decay in these strata, which seem to indicate a difference in the time of inhumation. 4 The existence of infant bones among them.

"But on whatever occasion they may have been made, they are of considerable notoriety among the Indians; for a party passing about thirty years ago, thro the part of the country where this barrow is, went thro the woods directly to it, without any instructions or inquiry, and having staid about it some time, with expressions which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high road which they had left about half a dozen miles, to pay this visit, and pursued their journey. There is another barrow, much resembling this, in the low grounds of the south branch of the Shenandoah, where it is crossed by the road leading from the Rockfish Gap to Staunton. Both of these have within these dozen years, been cleared of their trees and put under cultivation, are much reduced in their height, and spread in width, by the plow, and will probably disappear in time. There is another on a hill in the blue ridge of mountains, a few miles north of Wood's Gap, which is made up of small stones thrown together. This has been opened, and found to contain human bones, as the others do. There are also others in other parts of the country."

From this account of Mr. Jefferson, to whose industry and talents the sciences and his country will ever be indebted, we may fairly conclude that the mounts at Muskingum are the work of the nativ Indians. It is however necessary to notice two or three particulars, in the appearance of those at Muskingum, which are not discovered (or not mentioned by Mr. Jefferson) in the structure of that which he examined. These are the ising glass, the earthen ware, the charcoal, and the calcination of the bones by fire. As to the first it is well known that the ising glass is found only in particular parts of America, and the savages in other parts could not obtain it. Mr. Jefferson mentions no discovery of earthen ware, but it was used by the Indians in every part of America. The piece you once shewed me, sir, is a specimen of what is found wherever there has been an Indian town. Pieces of it are dug up frequently in the meadows on Connecticut river. It appears to be formed of pure clay, or of shells and cement, hardened by fire, and as we might naturally suppose, without glazing. By sections of vessels which remain, it is evident they were wrought with great ingenuity, and into beautiful and convenient forms.

The charcoal and calcination of some bones are a proof that there has existed, among the savages of America, a custom of burning the dead, or their bones, after the dissolution of the flesh. It does not appear that this custom was general, but it is not at all surprising to find that such a practice has existed in this country; since it has been frequent among the uncivilized nations on the eastern continent.

I am sensible, sir, that you have entertained an opinion that the story of Madoc, the Welch Prince, may be true, and that it is possible the fortifications at Muskingum may be the work of his colony. Of the truth of this conclusion there is perhaps no direct evidence, and yet collateral evidence may be obtained, that it is not chimerical. There is such a surprising affinity between the Indian mounts and the barrows or cemetaries which are remaining in England, but particularly in Wales and Anglesey, the last retreat of the original Britons, that we can hardly resolve it into a common principle of analogy that subsists between nations in the same stage of society; but incredulity itself will acknowlege the probability, that the primitiv inhabitants of Britain and America had a common stock from which they were derived, long since the age of the first parent: Not that I believe North America to be peopled so late as the twelfth century, the period of Madoc's migration, but supposing America to have been settled two or three thousand years before that period, a subsequent colony might pass the Atlantic and bring the Roman improvements in fortification.