Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1860-10-27
Indian Mounds.

Go to the grave and issue from the womb
wit, even MS the leaves
Has scattered on the forest soil "--SuEGDY.
The monumental mounds of a nation survive
after the origin and history of that nation are
buried in oblivion. Architecture, too, is fire.
quently the only living witness of the hstori-
ans page; and from their ruins in holy grand
eur we contemplate the change of ages, and
draw from their silent tombs the manners and
customs of the people who reared them, which,
especially among savage nations, must have
been soon oblteratcd or forgotten.
The remark carries with it more regret and
disappointment when applied to the North
American Indian tribes-the untutored, the
unenlightencd children of nature, whose
strange and mysterious destiny forms mem
orablc epoch in the historic annals of the New
World. OF architecture, it must be confessed
they knew little or nothing, and consequently
all information to be derived from that source
is lost These wandering tribes living in rude
huts, altogether of an ephemeral nature, they
looked only upon the present, and, unguidcd
by the light of science, seldom let their pro-
phetlc thoughts launch upon the unknown
ocean OF the future. 1t is quite evident that
war and pastime seem to have been the chict
ann OF their existence, or, at least, their am
btion. But to these there is an exception {;
we mean the Mexicans or Peruvians The
Mcocdfis of the former are probably the great
est ancient wonder and curiosity on the Wes-
tern Continent
The McocaHiS of the Mcxicans and Pcruvi-
ans were very numerous; many of them, in
deed, very humble in construction others,
again. reared in magnificent grandeur, re-
scmbIlng, in miniature, the famed Pyramid
of Egypt These ." houses of God" as they
were called, were formed of baked bricks and
cement, and of pyramidal form. In these re-
spccts, they rcscmblcd the mounds and cir
cumvcIlations in other parts of North Amcri-
ca. They also rescmbled them in another
important featurc-thc burial place of an ex-
tlnct race, whose relics have been frequently
excavotcd from their sleep of ages The only
marked or material difference appears to be
that, in Mexico and Peru, whero stone was
abundant, this was used to give strength and
durability to the mounds, whereas those con
structed on the borders of the Mississippi
River, South, are built almost entirely of
earth, intcrmiXcd with sea shells, there being
little or mono of the former material in thcir
immediate vicinity
In the nciShboring parish, Tcrrcbonnc,
there are at least fifteen or twenty of these
mounds, if not more-on Little Cailou, Grand
Caillou, the Terrcbonc, Bayou Black, and
elsewhere supposed to have been built by the
Houmas tribe of Indians The most rcmarka-
bic Of these mounds are at Tigervillc, on the
line of the New Orleans Opclousas, and Great
Western Railroad, on the Bayou Black, four
teen miles from Berwick's Bay
From these mounds, which are undoubtedly
the work of man, numerous skulls and bones
of the human frame have been picked, whence
it is generally inferred that they are or have
been repository of the dead, as were the eel
ebrated pyramids of Egypt, and the mauso-
lcums and temples of antiquity But this
may be doubted 1t is fact well known
that the Natchy and other tribes of North
America were firc-worshippers. The Choctaw
Indians, who still exist among us, call these
mounds the 20 ills of Cod" or the " Houses
of the Great spirit" AS the Pyramids of
Egypt and the Theocallis of Mexico and Peru
were dedicated to their gods-the most mag.
niiiccnt to the sun, which in all nations is re-
garded as the type of Dcty--so, on an hum
bic scale, these mounds were doub ossly con
structed for worship, each tribe according to
its own peculiar superstition
In further proof of this assertion or belief
there are many Of these tumui, or " Houses
of the SUM-" tcrraccd and their tops orna-
mentcd with chapels, in which the idols were
worshipped. Besides, on exploring them,
many relics and utensils bearing a near re-
somblancc to those used in Mexico or Peru
have been found. There are some who attri-
butte the design of these mysterious hills or
mounds to security against the annual over
flow of the Mississippi; but this, in our hum
bic opinion, is most absurd. AS on Berwick s
Bay i'll Our own parish, for instance, where
stands the most remarkable one in the State,
it is pitched upon the highest land which
even with the greatest flood or overflow ever
known since the discovery of Louisiana, has
never been covered with water. We also find
them on high and elevated plains, on hills,
and other places, which would not have been
the case as the motives were not the same
These mounds are also quite numerous in all
the Southern parishes, Lafourche, Assumtion,
Ascension, st. James, st. John, st. Charles,
Jefferson, st. Bernard, Plaquemins, and in
the Attakapas and Opelousas country also,
in lberviIle and West Baton Rouge In fact,
they arc to be found in nearly every parish
from the Arkansas line on the North to the
Gulf of Mexico on the South, and, from Pearl
River on the East to the Sabine on the West,
as mile posts in the wilderness of conjecture.
But, we would ask, where is the race that
constructed these memorials of their exis-
tcnce? Ages have glided away and no other
record--nay, not even tradition has come down
through the night of time to tell us of their
existence All is mystery of mysteries Iii
the semi-civilized tribes of Mexico have failed
to trace their decent, or'common origin, what