Notes respecting certain Indian Mounds and Earthworks, in the form of Animal Effigies, chiefly in the Wisconsin Territory, U.S.

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Indian Mounds and Earthworks. 99
Winnebagos, are retiring before the power and the intelligence of the white man of the old world, as the Sauks and Fox Indians had previously retreated from the Winnebagos, and at a still earlier period, the Illinois Indians were nearly exterminated by the Sauks and Foxes.* But who were they who have left almost imperisha.ble memorials on the soil, attesting the superiority of their race ? Nation and tribe and family succeed each other, and for a while occupy the land. They vanish in succession, and leave few or no traces. Yet of this unknown people, thousands and tens of thousands of monuments remain, which will scarcely be obliterated so long as the earth retains its present form.
The result of a recent examination, by a friend of the writer, of the interior of many of the Fox river mounds, shews satisfac¬ torily that the animal shaped earthAVorks contain human bones equally with the round tumuli. These bones were found in a very brittle and decomposed state, having roots and fibres grow¬ ing through them, and were distributed, commonly, through every part of the mounds. These researches also threw some light on the mode adopted in the construction of these monu¬ ments ; for it became evident that the bones or bodies of the de¬ ceased were originally laid upon the surface of the ground, and the earth was then heaped upon them. No appearances occur of graves being dug beneath the surface, in the first instance.f Upon the summits of many of the original tumuli it is evident that the remains of other deceased persons have been subse¬ quently placed; and a new heaping up of soil thereon contri¬ buted to augment its former height. Finally, the wandering Menominee or Winnebago, the last Indian occupant of the prairie, excavates a grave upon the summit, places the body therein, in a sitting or reclining position, and strongly defends it with pickets.
That the more ancient form of burial upon the surface, and of accumulating the soil over the remains of the dead, was not uni¬ versal among the Indian tribes of North America, appears from the examination of M. Rhea| of some antiquities in Tennessee,
* McKenney's History of the Indian Tribes.
t One of the animal monuments lately opened by Col. Petitval near the Red Bank, in the vicinity of Fox river, was one hundred and fifty feet long. The exca¬ vation was carried along the entire length, that is, from one extremity to the other, and bones were found abundantly. The number of individuals buried in some of these earthworks must have been very great. Perhaps they each formed the cemetery of a family in those cases.
t Made 2>ublic by Prof. Rafinesque in 1832. ,        .   ,,   _,.:.