Mound-Builders | Page 5

with the ancient Gaelic, 7 with the old Erse, 10 with the Phoenician, 14 with the old British," and he also adds that equivalents may be found in the old Hebrew. It is, as some writers have described it, an exceedingly accommodating inscription. The following readings have been given:--
By M. Levy Bing: "What thou sayest, thou dost impose it, thou shinest in thy impetuous clan, and rapid chamois." By M. Maurice Schwab (1857): "The chief of emigration who reached these places, has fixed these statutes forever." By M. Oppert: "The grave of one who was assassinated here. May God, to revenge him, strike his murderer, cutting off the hand of his existence." We can only say of these readings what a Hebrew Rabbi said to an indolent student, who in reading a verse in the Psalms in the original, gave the translation of the next verse, "Gentlemen, that is a very free translation." Besides this, other readings have been given, all of which have the advantage that few can contradict them.
In the Scioto valley, where there are many very interesting remains of the Mound-builders, there are many burial mounds which have lately been opened. In many of these, the casts of unhewn logs are still visible, showing that the dead were placed in a rude vault, which was afterwards covered by soil. One skeleton was found to have round the neck several hundred beads, made mostly of marine shells, others made of the tusks of animals and a few lamin? of mica. In the same mound from which this skeleton was taken, the vault gave strong evidence of its having been set on fire during the burial ceremony,--the large quantity of charcoal proving that it was suddenly quenched by the fresh soil heaped upon it.
If these Mound-builders were Sun-worshippers, as may safely be concluded from tablets and from rock markings, as well as from the fact of their sacred enclosures mostly looking towards the east, where the early rays would fall upon the altar, we may easily account for the fire having a share In the burial ceremony. Some have concluded that the blazing fire signified "life," and that the sudden quenching signified "death."
Let it not be thought, however, that there are no burying places but these few mounds. I believe the mounds of a burial character were only for persons of distinction, while in reality there are thousands of ancient cemeteries of vast extent, where multitudes have received common burial. The spring freshets yearly uncover many of these, exposing not only their bones, but many ornaments and implements that were used by this wonderful people, and which were deposited beside them when consigned to the silent tomb.
Symbolic Mounds.--There can be no mistake in affirming that the strange mounds, so prevalent in Wisconsin, and frequently found in other States, were the result of intention rather than accident. These are sometimes called "Effigy Mounds." In Wisconsin, even implements, as well as animals, are symbolized. The beaver, the tortoise, the elephant, the serpent, the alligator seem to be their favorite animals, whose images they have endeavored to perpetuate in mounds, of course on a large scale. In Adams county, Ohio, on a steep bluff, 150 feet above the level of Brush Creek, may be seen a huge serpent.
It is called the "Serpent Mound." The head of the serpent lies towards the point of the spur, and then like the serpent, its body winds gracefully back for 700 feet, the tail curved into a triple coil. From this and other evidences lately collected, we may assume that the serpent was among the sacred animals. Between the jaws of this serpent there is a stone mound, bearing marks of long use as an altar. The body, which is a mere winding wall, is, on an average, five feet in height, and thirty-feet broad at the base near the centre. Doubtless this wall was much higher when first made, and owing to the rains of centuries it has become lower and broader.
Another mound, the shape and proportion of an alligator, may be seen in Licking county, Ohio, about one mile from Granville. This is also on a spur of land near the Licking River. Its length is 250 feet and height about four feet. Its whole outline is strictly conformable to the alligator with which animal they must have been familiar along the Mississippi, where they could easily journey by boat. Rather than transport the animal from the south, they doubtless erected this representation of what they must have held sacred.
In the State of Wisconsin there is one symbolic mound more worthy of notice than any other. It is called "the Elephant Mound," from the fact that it bears the proportion and conformability of the Mastodon. This people must have known something of this animal