8

TREASURES OF GIANT BURIAL GROUNDS

The majority of sites that reveal burials of giants also yield evidence of a very sophisticated material culture. The following story gives a reconstruction of the amazing finds made at the extensive complex of mounds in the vicinity of Charleston, West Virginia. These mounds were first breached and studied in 1838 by the state’s geological survey team and later by the Smithsonian in 1883. This report is from a front page feature in the state’s largest and most respected newspaper at the time, and because it is so precise and detailed and, in many cases, straight from the Smithsonian’s own report, I will be quoting from it at length.

THE GIANTS WERE FINE ARTISANS

CHARLESTON DAILY MAIL, SEPTEMBER 23, 1923

Among the most interesting artifacts unearthed were three worked and shaped pieces of cannel coal, a special finely-textured variety of bituminous, which may have come from one of the outcroppings along our local streams.

One was in pendant form, one a disc, and the third of no particular form, probably unfinished. Fragments of seven stone and five clay pipes were found. There were two splendid bone fish hooks and many bone awls and pins. Clay balls about the size of marbles may have been used in children’s games. Miniature “toy” pottery vessels were discovered. Objects of worked antler included a chisel, projectile points, and flakers. There were 341 triangular flint projectile points and 90 flint projectile points of other types. Stone celts, adzes, balls, and a perforated stone disc were brought to light. Other discs of perforated mussel shell were found. A study of the animal and bird bones indicated that the white-tailed deer was very common, also wild turkey, elk and black bear to a lesser extent. Evidence of animals no longer here included elk (28 fragments), bobcat (five fragments), wolf (one) and beaver (eleven).

FOUR HUNDRED SKELETONS UNEARTHED AT ALABAMA MOUND

BY JEROME SCHWEITZER

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, FEBRUARY 27, 1930

EXCAVATIONS OF MUSEUM AT MOUNDVILLE PRODUCE 400 INDIAN SKELETONS—7'6" GIANT AMONG THEM

Some 400 skeletons, the sizes of which vary from unborn infants to male adults and whose ages were estimated at 1,000 to 5,000 years, have been uncovered at the Indian mounds at Moundville by the Alabama Museum of Natural History. From his offices at the University of Alabama, Walter B. Jones, director of the museum, announced that one skeleton measured seven feet six inches in height.

The museum party, headed by Director Jones and Curator William L. Halton and consisting of David de Jarnette, assistant curator, and Carl T. Jones, topographer, is completing its first period of excavations. The party is digging in an area recently purchased by the Museum and which has been designated as Moundville. In addition to the remains of 400 Indians, the excavation party has taken from the mounds hundreds of valuable artifacts.

AVERAGE HEIGHT OVER SIX FEET

All skeletons unearthed whose bones were strong enough to be preserved have been brought to the Museum. “Most of the large skeletons brought out were found in the vicinity of Mound ‘G,’” Dr. Jones said, “the majority averaging over six feet or more in height. All of the graves from which the skeletons were taken were earthen except one, which was a very fine type of stone box burial, which is so prevalent in Tennessee and Kentucky. As a whole the teeth were in very remarkable condition.”

Fig. 8.1. Archaeologists have said this stone duck bowl found at Moundville is arguably the most significant prehistoric artifact ever found in the United States (courtesy of Jeffrey Reed).

A MYSTERIOUS STONE DISC UNDER ONE SKULL

One of the most remarkable burials encountered was that of a very prominent member of the tribe, possibly the chief of a tribe that resided around Mound “E.” This burial carried a stone disc under the skull, two square pots, and three miscellaneous pots; this pottery is superb ware and beautiful in design.

In addition, the skeleton wore many shell beads at the neck, the wrists and there were seven beads on the right ankle and eleven on the left.

COPPER IS THE ONLY METAL FOUND

The only metal encountered during the excavations was copper, which appeared to be a great favorite with the mound builders.

Red, yellow, and other pigments were met with everywhere, and all discs showed the presence of white to pearl-gray paint, possibly made of lead carbonate, showing that these people carried on elaborate rituals and procedures.

HUNDREDS OF ANCIENT ARTIFACTS FOUND

Director Jones announced that among the group of artifacts, 150 pots of various kinds, four pipes, ten stone discs, one copper pendant, six copper ear plugs, about seventy-five bone awls or piercing instruments, 100 discoidal stones, some made from igneous rocks brought in from other localities, thousands of shell beads ranging from one and one half inches in length to very minute objects. Many of the beads were spool shaped, some discoidal, others irregular.

FOODS WERE PLENTIFUL—REFUSE CAREFULLY BURIED

Their foods consisted of the meats of various animals, fowls, and fresh-water mussel shells. The latter type of food was duplicated in one very fine vessel of earthenware. Numerous bones of deer, bear, turkey, and fish were found with burials in pots and in dumps bordering the burial ground. Incidentally, the dumps, or refuse heaps, appeared to have been buried the same as the human bodies.

Fig. 8.2. Engraved stone palette from Moundville, illustrating a horned rattlesnake, perhaps from the great serpent of the southeastern ceremonial complex (courtesy of Jeffrey Reed)

REMARKABLE SQUARE POT RECOVERED

The most remarkable object met with by the party was a square pot, ornamented by brilliant red and pearl-gray circles. Each circle was fringed by a pearl-gray ring. This is perhaps the finest vessel ever to be taken from Moundville. Several other colored pots were encountered, several of which were very remarkable. In 1904–05, Dr. Clarence Moore, connected with the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, found only three colored pots, and these were rather rude.

VARIOUS ANIMAL EFFIGIES AT MOUNDVILLE FIND

The art of the mound builders is characterized by various effigies including human heads and sometimes bodies, heads of ducks, owls, alligators, frogs, fish, eagles, serpents, rattle snakes, etc. The rattle snake is often portrayed as having horns and wings, making up what is termed the “flying circle.”

The party secured three excellent frog bowls. Although the Indians sometimes exaggerated certain features, there is no question about the great accuracy of their artistic endeavors.

CLAY BRICK FOUND IN MOUND

On Mound “B,” 57 feet in height and one of the most remarkable Indian mounds in the world, were found several pots probably placed there during some ceremonial rites, for no human bones were found with them and the pits in which they had been placed were carefully covered with a very nice type of clay brick.

The party was able to spot 33 distinct mounds within the area. Of the 33, the hollow square consists of 16 prominent mounds on the circumference with the largest and finest within the square. It is assumed that the Chief lived on the high mound overlooking the entire area and that tribal ceremonies were carried on upon the great mound just to the south of the Chief’s abode. It is further assumed that lesser Chiefs occupied the lesser mounds, while the villagers lived in the areas adjoining the mounds. The northern rim of the hollow square overlooks the Black Warrior River. The entire plain is well above high water level.

In 1871, a Canadian newspaper article reported on a find from Cayuga, New York, in which two hundred skeletons were removed from a collapsed mound. . . . These skeletons were said to be in a perfect state of preservation and that “the men were of gigantic stature, some of them measuring nine feet, very few of them being less than seven feet.”

NIAGARA’S ANCIENT CEMETERY OF GIANTS

DAILY TELEGRAPH, TORONTO, ONTARIO, AUGUST 23, 1871

A REMARKABLE SIGHT: TWO HUNDRED SKELETONS IN CAYUGA TOWNSHIP

A SINGULAR DISCOVERY BY A TORONTONIAN AND OTHERS—A VAST GOLGOTHA OPENED TO VIEW—SOME REMAINS OF THE "GIANTS THAT WERE IN THOSE DAYS” FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENTS.

Cayuga, New York: On Wednesday last, Rev. Nathaniel Wardell, Messers Orin Wardell (of Toronto), and Daniel Fredenburg were digging on the farm of the latter gentleman, which is on the banks of the Grand River, in the township of Cayuga.

When they got to five or six feet below the surface, a strange sight met them. Piled in layers, one upon top of the other, were some two hundred skeletons of human beings nearly perfect: around the neck of each one being a string of beads.

There were also deposited in this pit a number of axes and skimmers made of stone. In the jaws of several of the skeletons were large stone pipes, one of which Mr. O. Wardell took with him to Toronto a day or two after this Golgotha was unearthed.

These skeletons are those of men of gigantic stature, some of them measuring nine feet, very few of them being less than seven feet. Some of the thigh bones were found to be at least a foot longer than those at present known, and one of the skulls being examined completely covered the head of an ordinary person.

These skeletons are supposed to belong to those of a race of people anterior to the Indians.

Some three years ago, the bones of a mastodon were found embedded in the earth about six miles from this spot. The pit and its ghastly occupants are now open to the view of any who may wish to make a visit there.

EARLY EASTERN OUTPOST FOR THE MOUND BUILDERS

The primacy of river routes in relationship to the placement of mound builder sites can be seen everywhere in the United States. In this case the Allegheny River is singled out as a major ingress route into western Pennsylvania and New York State.

RICH BURIALS AT SUGAR RUN ATTRACT SMITHSONIAN

On October 20, 1941, we have this report on the Smithsonian’s involvement in excavations at the Sugar Run Indian Mounds in Warren, Pennsylvania, by Dr. Wesley Bliss and Edmund Carpenter, in association with the state historical commission and representatives from the Smithsonian, including Dr. William N. Fenton.

The central or most important find, was of two rock cists each containing an uncremated skeleton in good preservation. Deposited with one of these, beneath the skull, were fifty-three cache blades; near its feet, quantities of red and yellow ochre, a gorget and a sheet of mica. Near the center of the same burial was a lump of galena (crystal lead). Mica, and cache blades were found, too, with the second skeleton.

The earlier Sugar Run people appear to represent an eastern outpost for the “mound builders” of the Mississippi drainage basin. The Allegheny River suggests itself as the corridor through which these people penetrated into Western Pennsylvania and New York. These people probably flourished until at least 1000 CE.

No intimate connection can be traced between the mound builders of Sugar Run and the “Cornplanter” band or the other Senecas living just across the line in New York State. The former appear to have lived along and disappeared from the upper Allegheny many years before the ancestors of the present Senecas first appeared hereabouts.

MATERIAL TO BE CATALOGUED AND PLACED IN SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM

As we have seen time and time again in this book, major caches of archaeological material are handed over to the Smithsonian, only later to disappear down the memory hole of traditional research. The article by Fenton continues . . .

“Material recovered from this site will be studied by experts over several months,” said Dr. C. E. Schaeffer of the state historical commission in a speech also attended by Dr. William N. Fenton of the Smithsonian, who was there to consult as a Seneca specialist.

When the returns are all in formal reports of the investigations will be published and distributed in professional quarters to make the information available to archaeologists in other areas. Leaflets, illustrated talks, exhibits, and the like, will be prepared for the non-professional.

Finally, the artifacts will be placed in permanent storage or on exhibition at some central repository for the benefit of the serious or casual student of archaeology.

1880 HISTORY OF INDIANA COUNTY REVEALS INDIAN LORE

A great deal of local Indian lore is recorded in the old 1880 History of Indiana County. A few colorful Indian names have continued until the present, reminding us of earlier times. The name “Kiskiminetas” is of Indian origin, but there is some difference of opinion as to its meaning. Based on stem words from the Indian language, one meaning is “plenty of walnuts.” Rev. John Heckewelder, a Moravian missionary from the time of the Revolutionary War, said it meant “make daylight.” John McCullough, captured in Franklin County by Indians in 1756, wrote of being taken to an old-town at “Keesk-kshee-man-nit-teos,” meaning “cut spirit” and located at the junction of the Loyalhanna and the Conemaugh. Conemaugh is also a name of Indian origin and means “long fishing place” or “otter creek.”

SEVENTEEN BURIALS UNCOVERED

As we begin to catalogue the mound builder burial practices, one of the major burial styles is “flexed” burial, where the knees are drawn up to the chest.

Seventeen burials were uncovered in the excavated portions of the tract; ten children and infants, four adult males, two adult females, and one unidentified adult. “Most had been buried in a flexed position, with knees dawn up to the chest.”

THE MISSING GIANTS IN NORTH CAROLINA

In North Carolina, significant finds were made in the Yadkin Valley of Caldwell County in 1883 that included one group of four skeletons in seated positions and a pair lying on their backs. One of the recumbent skeletons was of a man who was reported to be seven feet tall. At another site in the North Carolina foothills, twenty-six skeletons were found in unusual burial positions associated with other mound builder sites. In yet another location, sixteen skeletons were found in seated, squatting, and prone positions in the center of which was a skeleton standing upright in a large stone cist, which is a burial chamber made of stone or a hollow tree.

The following section is from an October 18, 1962, Associated Press article that includes extensive quotes from a report written for the Smithsonian. It was published in the North Carolina–based Lenoir News and the Virginia Bee and was also syndicated nationally. This article is of great interest as it documents the Smithsonian’s involvement in the dig, as well as the institution’s confiscation of the evidence for further study.

SIXTEEN NORTH CAROLINA SKELETONS SHIPPED TO THE SMITHSONIAN

BY NANCY ALEXANDER

ASSOCIATED PRESS, OCTOBER 18, 1962

In 1883 the foothill section of North Carolina became the site of intense excavations for Indian relics. Dr. James Mason Spainhour, a Lenoir dentist and Indian authority, discovered several large mounds in the area. Relics, which he and others unearthed, so aroused the interest of officials of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington that a representative, J. P. Rogan, was sent to the area to assist with the excavations.

Rogan wrote a comprehensive report of Caldwell County findings using sketches to illustrate each of five notable mounds discovered. All were located in the Yadkin Valley area now known as Happy Valley. After skeletons were carefully removed and labeled, they were sent to the Smithsonian. Later one of the mounds was carefully reproduced in miniature for public viewing.

It was on the T. F. Nelson farm about a mile and a half southeast of Patterson, that two important discoveries were made. “The first mound was only about 18 inches in height from first appearances,” writes Rogan. “Of circular shape it was about 38 feet in diameter. A pit had been dug about three feet deep, with the center area being about six feet in depth.

“Sixteen skeletons were found in various positions, some squatting, some reclining, while others were in small stone sepultures of water-worn rocks,” continues Rogan in the official Smithsonian report. “In the center was a skeleton standing upright in a large stone cist. Also found were stones shaped like disks and pitted. There were celts, crude bones and soapstone pipes, black paint made from molded nuts and charcoal.”

TWENTY-SIX-MORE NORTH CAROLINA SKELETONS FOUND

“On the W. D. Jones property two miles east of Patterson, a fourth excavation was made,” reports Rogan to the Smithsonian.

In a low circular mound about 32 feet in diameter and three feet in depth, 26 skeletons were discovered. Relics included celts, disks, shell beads, food cups, crescent shaped pieces of copper, pipes, red and black paint, broken pottery, and charcoal.

As a result of the excavations excitement spread throughout the region. People began exploring hillocks and mounds in all vicinities. Other discoveries, which went unrecorded, were made. John P. Perry and John M. Houck, exploring an old Indian camp site near the present Brown Mountain Beach, found many relics.

THE MANY MOUNDS OF TENNESSEE

I have already included excerpts detailing some of the amazing accounts in Dr. John Haywood’s wonderful book from 1823, The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee. Perhaps the most amazing finds described in the book were the tiny mounds that contained caskets of the three-foot-tall “moon-eyed children,” who were pygmies that were said to accompany the giants. The three-foot-tall pygmies were originally said to have come from North Carolina, and legends say they were mischievous and only liked to come out at night. Comparisons with leprechauns immediately come to mind reading this. Cherokee lore recounts that they waged war against these moon-eyed people and drove them from their home in Hiwassee, a village in what is now Murphy, North Carolina, pushing them west into Tennessee.

In addition to numerous giants and pygmies, Haywood discovered grave goods, including bloody axes, a stone trumpet hunting horn, carved mastodon bones, and soapstone statues and pipes. In a cave on the south side of the Cumberland River, a secret room was discovered that was twenty-five feet square and showed signs of engineering, as it contained a large rock-cut well and the skeleton of a blond-haired giant.

Outside of Sparta, a standing stone was discovered that marked the burial of more oversized skeletons. In another burial at the top of a nearby hill, carved ivory beads were found of the “finest and best quality,” while in a dig at Ohio Falls, Roman coins depicting Claudius II and Maximinus II were uncovered. It was reported that in 1794, an ancient furnace was discovered and in association with it a bar of iron was found, as well as annealed and hardened copper implements.

The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, 1823

BY DR. JOHN HAYWOOD

It would be an endless labor to give a particular description of all the mounds in Tennessee. They are numerous upon the rivers, which empty into the Mississippi, running from the dividing ridge between that river and Tennessee. They are found upon Duck river, the Cumberland, upon the Little Tennessee and its waters, and upon the Big Tennessee, upon Frenchbroad and upon Elk river.

Fig. 8.3. An illustration of the Tennessee dig led by Dr. John Haywood, 1823

The trees are of more recent growth which are upon the mounds that are found in the last settlements of the Natchez; for instance, near the town of Natchez, and on the waters of the Mississippi within the present limits of Tennessee than those are which grow upon the mounds in other parts of the country: a circumstance, which furnishes the presumption, that the ancient builders of the latter were expelled from the other parts of Tennessee, at a period corresponding with the ages of the trees which the whites found growing upon them.

A careful description of a few of these mounds in West and East Tennessee will put us in possession of the properties belonging to them generally. In the county of Sumner, at Bledsoe’s lick, eight miles northeast from Gallatin, about 200 yards from the lick, in a circular enclosure, between Bledsoe’s lick creek and Bledsoe’s spring branch, upon level ground, is a wall 15 or 18 inches in height, with projecting angular elevations of the same height as the wall and within it, are about 16 acres of land.

Fig. 8.4. Engraved shell from a Tennessee mound, from The Problem of the Ohio Mounds by Cyrus Thomas, Smithsonian Institute, 1889

In the interior is a raised platform, from 13 to 15 feet above the common surface, about 200 yards from the wall to the south, and about 50 from the northern part of it. This platform is 60 yards length and breadth, and is level on the top. And is to the east of a mound to which it joins, of 7 or 8 feet higher elevation, or 8 feet from the common surface to the summit, about 20 feet square. On the eastern side of the latter mound, is a small cavity, indicating that steps were once there for the purpose of ascending from the platform to the top of the mound.

In the year 1785, there grew on the top of the mound a black oak three feet through. There is no water within the circular enclosure or court. Upon the top of the mound was ploughed up some years ago, an image made of sandstone. On one cheek was a mark resembling a wrinkle, passing perpendicularly up and down the cheek. On the other cheek were two similar marks. The breast was that of a female, and prominent. The face was turned obliquely up, towards the heavens. The palms of the hands were turned upwards before the face and at some distance from it, in the same direction that the face was. The knees were drawn near together, and the feet, with the toes towards the ground, were separated wide enough to admit of the body being seated between them.

The attitude seemed to be that of adoration. The head and upper part of the forehead were covered with a cap or mitre or bonnet from the lower part of which came horizontally a brim, from the extremities of which the cap extended upwards conically. The color of the image was that of a dark infusion of coffee. If the front of the image was placed to the east, the countenance obliquely elevated, and the uplifted hands in the same direction would be toward the meridian sun.

About ten miles from Sparta, in White county, a conical mound was lately opened, and in the center of it was found a skeleton eight feet in length. With it was found a stone of the flint kind, very hard, with two flat sides, having in the center circular hollows exactly accommodated to the balls of the thumb and forefinger. This stone was an inch and a half in diameter, the form exactly circular. It was about one third of an inch thick, and made smooth and flat, for rolling, like a grindstone, to the form of which, indeed, the whole stone was assimilated. When placed upon the floor, it would roll for a considerable time without falling.

The whole surface was smooth and well-polished, and must have been cut and made smooth by some hard metallic instrument. No doubt it was buried with the deceased, because for some reason he had set a great value on it in his lifetime, and had excelled in some accomplishment to which it referred.

The color of the stone was a dingy white, inclining to a darkish yellow. At the side of this skeleton were also found two flat stones, about six inches long, two and a half wide at the lower part, and about one and a half at the upper end, widening in the shape of an ax or hatchet from the upper to the lower end. The thickness of the stone was about one tenth of an inch. An inch below the upper end exactly equidistant from the lateral edges, a small hole is neatly bored through each stone, so that by a string run through, the stone might be suspended off the side or from the neck as an ornament.

One of these stones is the common limestone. The other is semitransparent, so as to be darkened by the hand placed behind it and resembles in texture those stalactical formations, like white stone, which are made in the bottoms of caves by the dripping of water. When broken, there appears a grain running from one flat side to the other, like the shootings of ice or saltpeter, of a whitish color inclining to yellow. The latter stones are too thin and slender, for any operation upon other substances, and must have been purely ornamental.

The first described stone must have been intended for rolling.

For why take so much pains to make it circular, if to be used in flinging? Or why, if for the latter purpose, so much pain taken to make excavations adapted to the thumb and finger. The conjecture seems to be a probable one that it was used in some game played upon the same principles as that called ninepins; and the little round balls, like marbles, but of a larger size, were so disposed as that the rolling stone should pass through them.

Such globular stone, it is already stated, was found in a mound in Maury County. With this large skeleton were also found eight beads and a human tooth. The beads were circular and of a bulbous form. The largest about one fourth of an inch in diameter, the others smaller. The greater part of them tumescent from the edge to the center, at which a hole was perforated for a string to pass through and to connect them. The inner sides were hard and white, like lime indurated by some chemical process. The outside was a thin coal of black crust.

OKLAHOMA PICTURE WRITING

BY RAY E. COLTON

MIAMI, OKLAHOMA, DECEMBER 10, 1939

Yes! The tombs of a long-vanished race of mound builders have been found near Langley, in Mayes County, site of the Grand River dam, and much is expected to be learned from these finds after investigating archaeologists and anthropologists complete their studies of the finds which have been made.

The pottery, consisting of drinking vessels, water bowls, and so forth has been found in the excavated mounds near Langley, and also recently in mounds unearthed near Grove in Delaware County, even to designs such as the Thunder Bird. Arrow heads, which have been found at Langley and also in the Grove “diggings,” are of many designs and sizes.

In the slender fishing or hunting point type, made of some material resembling glass, the symmetry and design are perfect, thus reflecting a remarkable degree of ability on the part of the manufacturers. Battle or war points, ranging in size from eight to ten inches, and about two inches in width at their widest point near the center, are of two types of material, namely obsidian “black” and flint “gray.” A study in the area of the vicinity of these finds by geologists fails to show any material corresponding to these types of rocks, and on the basis of these finds, it is assumed that the material to make these points was brought from some distant point in either southern Kansas or central Missouri, where some of this material exists. The balance of the war points is perfect and when held in the palm of the hand, remains in a perfect balanced position.

Picture writings which have been found near Grove show in crude design a hunter chasing a buffalo with a spear of this type.

MUCH LARGER THAN PRESENT-DAY HUMANS

Some of the burials, which have been unearthed at the dam site, appear with head to the north, while others appear with head to the south. The meaning of this has not been determined. Some evidences of the practice of masonry are noted in some of the finds, and it is believed that the mound builders had knowledge of this craft. Certain skeleton remains have considerable arrow heads, beaded work, and other artifacts around them. It is theorized that the person possessed some rank of standing within the tribal councils and was thus designated by the artifacts buried with him.

Fig. 8.5. Examples of copper and stone work: pre-Columbian copper artifacts from Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois (courtesy of Herb Roe)

Most of the skeleton remains are much larger than present day humans and the race must have presented a strange sight owing to the extreme heights of its members.

A GIANT RACE

MEMPHIS DAILY APPEAL, AUGUST 15, 1870

THE INDIAN MOUND CHICKASAWBA—HUMAN SKELETONS EIGHT AND TEN FEET IN HEIGHT—RELICS OF A FORMER AGE

Two miles west of Barfield Point, in Arkansas County, Ark., on the east bank of the lovely stream called Pemiscott River, stands an Indian mound, some 25 feet high and about an acre in area at the top.

This mound is called Chickasawba, and from it the high and beautiful country surrounding it, some twelve square miles in area derives its name: Chickasaw. The mound derives its name from Chickasawba, a chief of the Shawnee tribe, who lived, died, and was buried there.

STILL ACTIVE AS TRADING MOUND IN 1820

From 1820 to 1831, Chickasawba and his hunters assembled annually at Barfield Point, then, as now, the principal shipping place of the surrounding country, and bartered off their furs, peltries, buffalo robes, and honey to the white settlers and the trading boats on the river, and receiving in turn powder, shot, lead, blankets, money, etc.

A GIANT EIGHT TO NINE FEET TALL IS FOUND

A number of years ago in making an excursion into or near the foot of Chickasawba’s mound, a portion of a gigantic human skeleton was found. The men who were digging, becoming interested, unearthed the entire skeleton, and from measurements given to us by reliable parties the frame of the man to whom it belonged could not have been less than eight or nine feet in height.

Under the skull, which easily slipped over the head of our informant (who, we will here state, is one of our best citizens) was found a peculiarly shaped earthen jar, resembling nothing in the way of Indian pottery, which had before been seen by them.

It was exactly the shape of the round-bodied, long-necked carafes or water-decanters, a specimen of which may be seen on Gaston’s table.

EXQUISITE HIEROGLYPHS FOUND ON FINELY-CARVED VASE

The material of which the vase was made was of a peculiar kind of clay, and the workmanship was very fine. The belly or body of it was ornamented with FIGURES OR HIEROGLYPHICS consisting of a correct delineation of human hands, parallel to each other, open, palms outward, and running up and down the vase, the wrists to the base, the fingers towards the neck. On either side of the hands, were tibia or thigh bones, also correctly delineated, running around the base.

MORE SKULL, MORE VASES UNDER THEIR HEADS

Since that time, whenever an excavation has been made in Chickasawba country in the neighborhood of the mound SIMILAR SKELETONS have been found and under the skull of every one were found similar funeral vases, almost exactly like the one described. There are now in the city several of the vases and portions of the huge skeletons. One of the editors of The Appeal yesterday measured a thighbone, which is fully three feet long.

The thigh and shin bones, together with the bones of the foot, stood up in proper position in a physician’s office in this city, measure five feet in height, and show the body to which the leg belonged to have been from nine to ten feet in height. At Beaufort’s Landing, near Barfield, in digging a deep ditch, a skeleton was dug up, the leg of which measured from five to six feet in length and other bones in proportion.