CHAPTER XII.

THE CHARACTER OF THE MOUND BUILDERS AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS.

With the lapse of years, and by the increasing exactness and caution of investigation that has been noticed as a special feature of the last half-century, some indications of the mental condition of the Mound Builders have been fairly established. It required much study and care to distinguish between the skulls of the old Mound Builders and the modern Indians, who sometimes buried their dead in the mounds; but after a time these "intrusive burials," as they are called, were found to be so unlike the original ones as to be easily distinguished by a competent observer, and a very marked difference was noticed between the crania of the earlier and later race. By the persevering researches of able men many skulls, unquestionably those of the Builders of the Mounds, have been collected, and the information they convey made out.

They had a retreating forehead, and the mass of the brain was about as much less than that of the modern Indian as his is less than that of the modern European. The Mound Builders were not an intellectual race. It was long questioned whether this low forehead was not due to the fashion of applying external pressure to it in infancy, as has been practiced by the Flathead Indians and some other American tribes; but the conclusion has been reached that this was not the case. Sculpture in the ancient ruins of Central America reveals the same type of head, and various facts intimate that it was the natural form of the skull. On the other hand, the distribution of the brain, which has much to do with the tendencies and capabilities of character, were favorable. The arrange

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THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

ment of the brain in the European favors the intellectual faculties; in the Indian brain-force is more largely distributed to the animal faculties. The proportions of the skull in the Mound Builder indicate that his intelligence was not overborne by strong and fierce passions. In this respect the hints of the Mounds are fully sustained.

A mild and rather feeble character rendered him an easy prey to the influence of authority. The Indian had a strong personal will and a strength of passions that would not tolerate arbitrary control; while the race of the Mound submitted to it without resistence. This permitted a strong organization and the massing of activities and labor under the control of one will, which was indispensable to the commencement of civilization. The skull corroborates the testimony of the Mounds that they were not warlike. They were like the Peruvians, indisposed to contest but submissive to command, and when they did fight probably preferred to do so behind entrenchments.

A vigorous, progressive civilization requires vehement passions controlled by a strong intelligence. The primitive and partial culture we see here is the natural product of a quiet, inoffensive race, limited equally in their passions and intelligence, but easily held to the discipline that would result finally in considerable skill. This submissiveness and patient persistence, so contrary to the nature of the Indian, was fully competent to produce all the monuments and works of art whose remnants we find in the mounds.

For the most part they must have been of ordinary or medium size. It is not a point easy to verify, for they very often reduced the body to ashes, or nearly so, by fire during the funeral ceremony, and where this was not the case the bones were so much decayed as to crumble into dust when exposed to the air. There have, however, been few indications of variation from the usual standard of size sufficient to attract attention. In the demolition of a large mound at St. Louis bones were found indicating

PHYSICAL QUALITIES OF MOUND BUILDERS.

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that the persons in life had been rather above the ordinary stature. In Illinois, below that city, many years ago a series of graves under low mounds were found, in which the skeletons were small, and it was supposed that a race of pigmies had been found. As in many other cases, at different points in the Valley, these bodies were protected by flat stones which were so placed as to form a coffin or sarcophagus. As no similar cases of diminutive skeletons have been discovered, except where they were evidently relics of children, it is inferred that these were not adults. The crania which have been preserved indicate ordinary size. Their choice of the most fertile localities in the Valley and their ability to devote so much labor to purposes apart from the struggle for the means of subsistence indicate that they dwelt in the midst of plenty and were possessed of abundant physical vigor.

The Peruvian mummies, preserved in large numbers, show that people to have been of small stature; but they lived mostly in the rarified air of a mountain plateau. There is much to indicate that the Mound Builders were strong and healthy, that there were many leisured classes, and that parties from the Ohio and the Lower Mississippi visited the mines of Lake Superior, the shores of the Gulf, the mountains of North Carolina and of New Mexico. The general tone of revelation by the Mounds shows us a quiet, industrious people, developing, for the most part, in undisturbed peace and plenty, whose strongest passions were connected with the religious sentiment. They had much taste in the minor arts and a good deal of personal vanity as indicated by the profusion of well-wrought ornaments found in many of the sepulchral mounds.

The evidences of a settled government are very positive, although based only on inference. The untutored instincts of the primitive man are those of the animal. He knows no higher law than his own necessities and owns no control but that of his own willful caprice. Only outward pressure, which