The Myths of the North American IndiansSpence, Lewis
History
The Myths of the North American Indians
Spence, Lewis
Indian mythology -- North America; Indians of North America -- Folklore
According to the classification of Squier, these structures were
employed for burial, sacrifice, and observation, and as temple-sites.
Other structures often found in connexion with them are obviously
enclosures, and were probably used for defence. The conical mounds are
usually built of earth and stones, and are for the most part places of
sepulture. The flat-topped structures were probably employed as sites
for buildings, such as temples, council-houses, and chiefs' dwellings.
Burials were rarely made in the wall-like enclosures or effigy mounds.
Many of the enclosures are of true geometrical figure, circular,
square, or octagonal, and with few exceptions these are found in Ohio
and the adjoining portions of Kentucky, Indiana, and West Virginia.
They enclose an expanse varying from one to a hundred acres.
What the Mounds Contain
In the sepulchral mounds a large number of objects have been found
which throw some light on the habits of the folk who built them.
Copper plates with stamped designs are frequent, and these are
difficult to account for. In one mound were found no less than six
hundred stone hatchet-blades, averaging seven inches long by four wide.
Under another were exhumed two hundred calcined tobacco-pipes, and
copper ornaments with a thin plating of silver; while from others were
taken fragments of pottery, obsidian implements, ivory {19} and bone
needles, and scroll-work cut out of very thin plates of mica. In
several it was observed that cremation had been practised, but in
others the bodies were found extended horizontally or else doubled up.
In some instances the ashes of the dead had been placed carefully in
skulls, perhaps those of the individuals whose bodies had been given to
the flames. Implements, too, are numerous, and axes, awls, and other
tools of copper have frequently been discovered.
The Tomb of the Black Tortoise
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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