Such are some of the traces we are able to recover of the sepulchral rites of this people. In discussing the conclusions suggested alike by their disclosures, and by those which the sacrificial mounds, the sacred circumvallations, and the buried works of art reveal, we are dealing with characteristics of a race pertaining to periods long preceding any written history. For us these are their sole chronicles; and yet, even from such data, we are able to deduce some traits of moral and intellectual character. Perhaps the most important fact for our present purpose is the rarity of weapons of war among the sepulchral deposits. It accords with other indications of the condition of the Mound-Builders. They had passed beyond that rude stage of savage life in which war and the chase are the only honourable occupations of man. Their weapons of war, like their fortresses, were means for the defence of acquisitions they had learned to prize more highly. They had conquered the forests, and displaced the spoils of the hunter with the wealth of autumn’s harvestings; and with the habits of a settled agricultural people, many new ideas had taken the place of the wild imaginings and superstitions of the savage. As among all agricultural nations, the vernal and autumnal seasons doubtless had their appropriate festivals; and we can still, in imagination, reanimate their sacred enclosures and avenues with the joyous procession bearing its thank-offering of first-fruits, or laden with the last golden treasures of the harvest-home. ----- [87] _Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, p. 171. CHAPTER XII. SACRIFICIAL MOUNDS. MOUND ALTARS—ALTAR DEPOSITS—QUENCHING THE ALTAR FIRES—MOUND HEARTHS—MOUND CITY—MILITARY ALTAR MOUNDS—THEIR STRUCTURE AND CONTENTS—SIGNIFICANCE OF THEIR DEPOSITS—ANALOGOUS INDIAN RITES —TRANSITIONAL CIVILISATION. The name of sacrificial mounds has been conferred on a class of monuments peculiar to the New World, and highly illustrative of the rites and customs of the ancient race of the mounds. From their contents also we derive many of the most interesting examples of the arts of that singular people. The most noticeable characteristics of the sacrificial mounds are: their almost invariable occurrence within enclosures; their regular construction in uniform layers of gravel, earth, and sand, disposed alternately in strata conformable to the shape of the mound; and their covering a symmetrical hearth or altar of burnt clay or stone, on which are deposited numerous relics, in all instances exhibiting traces, more or less abundant, of their having been exposed to the action of fire.