The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1872-07-18
THE MOUND BUILDERS.

Bernard de Sahagua, the most impor-
tant of the Spanish authorities of the
time of the conquest, whose work was
suppressed by the Council of the Indies,
as interfering with their policy of exter
mination, speaks of q universally received
tradition among the natives of New Spain,
of a foreign Atlantic colony arriving be
fore the Christian era on the shores of
Florida proceeding across the Gulf of
Mexico, landing on the Peninsula Of Yu-
catan, and founding great cities now in
ruins, the greatest Of which was destroyed
a thousand years before the arrival of the
Spaniards. COnfrmatory of this landing
of foreign Atlantic colony, is the state
ment of Montezuma to Cortez that the an
cestors of the Mexicans came as did the
Spaniards, from the place Of the rising
sun.
Passing down the Atlantic coast, and
following up the great valley of the Anna
zcn to the headquarters of its affiuents
near the Pacific, we come to the City of
Cuzco, and the vast remains Of the sun
worshippers of Peru, in the high valleys
Of the Andes. Upon the shores and is.
lands of the sacred lake of Titicaca we
find the remains of civilization anala-
gous TO that of Copan, but more purely
Egyptian and Assyrian, and holding a
relation of priority to the religion Of the
IDcas, like that of the ruias OF Copan 10
the Aztec line of the Montezumas The
highest type Of the crania of the ancient
races of Peru suggests strongly the head
of the mound builders before given. The
principal deity of these ancient sun wor-
shippers Of Peru ap pears to have been
Chon, answering in name and attributes
to the old Ph9nician Baal~chon, Or Sat.
urn.
Passing nerthward, and leaving be,
hind those colossal monuments which cx-
cited the wonder and admiration Of
HumbOlt, we follow the high valleys Of
the Cordilleras through Central America,
and coming out in the valley of Mexico,
with its temples and teecalli, we arrive
at the great pyramid of Cholula, the cul.
minating point of the entire mound build
ing system of the two continents. From
this point northward, following the Gulf
of Mexico and the Mississippi, we arrive
at the pyramid groups of Cahokia, oppo-
site what is now St. Louis, the site of the
ancient capital of the mound builders of
the present United States The mounds
Of the United States must be locked at as
the northern terminus of system which
had southern center and tendency.
Working northward, being pressed by
the nomads of the Northwest to cover
and protect its agricultural civilization,
it was forced into the building of earth
works. serving the double purpose Of teo.
CALI and Notifications. Such state Of
affairs would leave the northern mound-
builders little leisure or inclination to
build on the vast scale Of their southern
brethren, even could they have command
ed the material and the laborerS. The
eastern Asiatics of Central America APP
pear 20 have arrived there with suf1ci-
emily pronounced civilization Of their own
to be able to modify the monuments Of .
more cultured race by the interfu8ion Of
their own ideas and symbols, uniting
with them to build those colossal bizarre
, specimens of architecture so perpleXing
when viewed as the product of one peo-
pie.
The mound-bpilders of the United
, States had no such plastic material in the
wild nomadic tribes Of the North, by
" whom they were always liable to be over
borne and driven southwark. In these
circumstances they appear to have taken
possession of a central point near the
Junction of the Mississippi and Missouri
Rivers, which they held with great
strength, throwing out their lines of for
tiications along the afluents Of these
rivers. At the headquarters of the Ohio
their lines Of defence met kindred sys-
tenn Of Notifications, which held the aff1u-
ents of the chesapeake and the region
south of Lake Ontario, from it's military
center at Onoudaga, thus covering and
protecting the important agricultural
civilization of Central and Western New
York. Within these lines of defence, be-
tween the Mississippi and Atlantic, was
embraced region in which traces of a
truly vast agricultural civilization arc
found, and which must have reckoned its
inhabitants by millions GALAXY.
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