Read Ebook: Paths of the Mound-Building Indians and Great Game Animals by Hulbert Archer Butler

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true proportion of the ancient works in the different sections," still some conclusions have already been reached which future exploitation will never weaken.

It is not expected that future investigation will change the verdict that the heaviest mound-building population found its seat near the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. "There is little doubt," writes Dr. Thomas, "that when Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia have been thoroughly explored many localities will be added to those indicated ... but it is not likely that the number will be found to equal those in the area drained by the Ohio and its affluents or in the immediate valley of the Mississippi."

This fact, that the heaviest populations of the mound-building Indians seem to have been near the Mississippi and Ohio is, of course, shown by the archaeological maps. In a rough way, subject to the limitations previously mentioned, it can be found that the following fourteen states contain evidences of having held the heaviest ancient populations:

Ohio, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Illinois, Florida, New York, Kentucky, Indiana, Michigan, Georgia and Arkansas, Missouri and North Carolina, Minnesota, Iowa, Pennsylvania.

Now, by our last census the states which contain the largest population today are:

New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Missouri, Massachusetts, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, Georgia, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Tennessee.

Thus of the fourteen most thickly populated states today perhaps twelve give fair evidence of having been most thickly populated in prehistoric times. As a general rule the heaviest population has always been found in the best agricultural regions; the states having the largest number of fertile acres have had, as a rule, the largest populations--or did have until the cities grew as they have in the past generation.

This argument, though necessarily loose, still is of interest and of some importance in the present study. The earliest Indians found, without any question, the best parts of the country they once inhabited if we can take the verdict of the present race which occupies the land.

Coming down to a smaller scope of territory, can it be shown that in the case of any one state the early Indians occupied the portions most heavily populated today? It has been said that, in Ohio, four counties contain evidence of having been the scenes of special activity on the part of the earliest inhabitants: Butler, Licking, Ross, and Franklin. These are interior counties and, of the remaining sixty-three interior counties in the state, only seven exceeded these four in population in 1880--when the cities had not so largely robbed the country districts of their population as now. Thus the aborigines seem to have been busiest where we have been busiest in the last half of the nineteenth century.

In Wisconsin the mound-building Indians labored most in the southern part of the state, where the bulk of that state's population is today--seventy-five per cent being found in the southern half of the state.

In Michigan, a line drawn from the northern coast of Green Bay to the southwestern corner of the state includes a very great proportion of the archaeological remains in the state. That line today embraces on the southeast thirty-three per cent of the counties of the state, yet sixty-three per cent of the population.

Thus it can be said that in a remarkable measure the mound-building peoples found with interesting exactness the portions of this country which have been the choice spots with the race which now occupies it.

Here, in the valleys, and between them, toiled their prehistoric people. Their low grade of civilization is attested by the rude implements and weapons and domiciles with which they seem to have been content. Divided, as it is practically sure they were, into numerous tribes, there must have been some commerce and there was, undoubtedly, much conflict. Above their poorly cultivated fields, or in the midst of them, they erected great earthen and stone fortresses, and, flung far and wide over valley and hill, stand the mounds in which they buried their dead.

EARLY TRAVEL IN THE INTERIOR

It has been noted that a considerable portion of archaeological remains in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin are inland--or away from the largest river valleys. The lands on the lesser streams were occupied in some instances for the entire distance to the springs. For instance, in Ohio and Kentucky we find only a fraction of the ancient works on the shores of the Ohio river--either mounds or forts. In Ohio the largest collections are found in the interior counties mentioned, as is the case in Kentucky, at a distance varying from fifty to one hundred and fifty miles from the great water highway which flows by these states on the north or on the south.

As with these states, so with the counties within them--the mound-building people seem to have been scattered widely. An archaeological map of Butler county, Ohio, shows that the remains are found everywhere quite without reference to the largest streams. In this county there are more works in Oxford township in the far corner of the county than in Hanover township, which lies between Oxford and the Miami river. Today there are six hundred more inhabitants in Oxford township than in Hanover township. There are more remains in Reily township, which is separated from the Miami by Ross township, than in Madison township, which is bounded by the Miami and is drained by a larger stream than any in Reily. St. Clair township contains several works in the western portion, on the branches of the Miami river, and almost none at all in the eastern portion which is bounded by that river itself.

Crawford county, Wisconsin, has also been mapped. Though bounded on the south and west by the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, fifty per cent of the ancient works are at a distance from those streams.

The large proportion of remains in Kentucky are in the western portion of the state situated along the watershed between the Ohio and Tennessee valleys. In Indiana the great majority of works are in the eastern tier of counties where there are no streams of importance.

This makes up a sum of testimony that enables one to say that in some instances at least the mound-building peoples were largely a rural people; in some noticeable instances their works are found more profusely on the smaller streams than on larger ones. In this they differed in no wise from the red-men who were found living in these regions mentioned when the whites first came to visit them, and we might have held to our original line of reasoning to reach this same conclusion. It might have been shown that the red-men in Ohio and some of the neighboring states lived more on the smaller streams than on the larger ones, and then made the deduction that the mound-building people did the same.

For this was true. The three centers of Indian population in Ohio were on the smaller streams. The Delawares made their headquarters on the upper Muskingum; the Wyandots had their villages on the Sandusky river and bay; the Shawanese were on the Scioto, and the Miamis on the rivers that have borne their name. The well-known Indian settlements on the Ohio and on Lake Erie can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand, while the towns at Coshocton, Chillicothe, Piqua, Fremont, and Dresden were of national importance during the era of conquest. Referring to the location of the Indians of Ohio an early pioneer casually writes: "Their habitations were at the heads of the principal streams." There was almost no exception to the rule.

Under such circumstances as these it is not surprising that the Indians preferred the little rivers to the larger ones. The smaller streams amid their hills did not rise so high, and when they did rise safe camping spots could be found on high ground not far removed.

What was true of these Indians was probably true of any antecedent race.

Assuming, then, that the mound-building people lived on the lesser "inland" streams where the later Indians were found, there is no question but that they moved about the country more or less as the Indians themselves did. Although the former people were more nearly a stationary people, yet we know that they hunted, and it is not reasonable to believe that they did not have commercial intercourse. In fact, from the contents of their mounds, we know they did. We also know that the various tribes made war upon one another, or at least were made war upon by some enemy.

All this necessitated highways of travel. Any one who has studied the West during Indian occupancy does not need to be asked to remember that travel in the earliest days in the interior was by land as well as by water. Those making long journeys at propitious seasons, such as the Iroquois who went southward in war parties, the Moravians being transferred to Ohio from Pennsylvania, pioneers en route down the Ohio river to Kentucky, the Wyandots on their memorable hegira to the Detroit river, used the waterways. But the main mode of travel for explorers, war parties, pioneer armies and missionaries seems to have been by the paths which threaded the forests.

Of the hundreds of Indian forays into Virginia and Kentucky there is perhaps not one, even those moving down the Scioto and up the Licking, that used water transportation. In their hunting trips the canoe was useless except for transporting game and peltry to the nearest posts, and this was done often on the little Indian ponies.

For long months the lesser streams were ice-bound in the winter; in the summer, for equally long periods, they must have been nearly dry, as in the present era of slack-water navigation the larger of them are frequently very low. Even travel on the Ohio in low-water months was exasperatingly slow. One pilgrim to Ohio spent ninety days en route from Killingly, Connecticut, to Marietta, Ohio--thirty-one of them being spent in getting from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, down the Monongahela and Ohio to Marietta! The journey from Connecticut in a cart drawn by oxen to the Monongahela took but twice the time needed to come down the rivers to Marietta on a "Kentucky" flatboat! With high-water, and going down stream, a hundred miles a day could be covered.

That the first pioneers into the interior of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana preferred land routes to water is plain to the most casual reader of the history of the pioneer period. Such great entrepots as Wellsburg, Ohio, Limestone, Kentucky, and Madison, Indiana , attest the fact that the travel to the interior was by land routes and not by the smaller rivers.

And so, throughout historic times, one rule has held true in the region now under survey: that the lesser streams have never been used to any large degree as routes of travel by the white race, or by the red race before them. It is thus reasonable to believe that the earliest people, who so largely inhabited the interior valleys, found land travel more sure and expeditious than water travel on the little streams. A great many mound-building people lived by these smaller streams where so many of their works now stand. That they had ways of getting about the country goes without saying. In some instances the earth and stone with which they worked was brought from a distance. This could not have been accomplished by any means by water. We know they fought great battles; it is exceedingly doubtful and all against the lesson taught in times that are historic, that these armies traveled water routes. True, there were watch "towers" along the river banks, and the rivers of real size were undoubtedly the routes of armies--but it has been the opinion of some archaeologists that their enemies came from the north. There are no rivers flowing from the interior of Ohio, for instance, to Lake Erie that are even now when dammed of a size sufficient to warrant us the belief that great armies passed over them. We cannot imagine a hostile army of power great enough to have necessitated the building of such a work as Fort Ancient ever coming to it on the little river on which it stands.

Speaking of the mound-building Indians, MacLean remarks: "In order to warn the settlements , where such a band should approach, it was found necessary to have ... signal stations. Judging by the primitive methods employed, these wars must have continued for ages. If the settlements along the two Miamis and Scioto were overrun at the same time before they had become weakened, it would have required such an army as only a civilized or semi-civilized nation could send into the field. It is plausible to assume that a predatory warfare was carried on at first, and on account of this the many fortifications were gradually built. During a warfare such as this, the regular parties of miners would go to the mines, for the roads could be kept open, even should an enemy cross the well-beaten paths." Here a scholar of reputation gives the strongest kind of evidence in a belief that overland routes of travel were in existence and were employed in prehistoric times--by incidentally referring to them while discussing another question. It is difficult to think of any possible alternative. The verdict of history is all against another.

Assuming, then, that overland routes of travel were used by this earliest of American races of which we have any real knowledge, it is to the purpose of our study to consider where such routes were laid.

The one law which has governed land travel throughout history is the law of least resistance, or least elevation. "An easy trail to high ground" is a colloquial expression common in the Far West, but there has been a time when it was as common to Pennsylvania and Ohio as it is common today along the great stretches of the Platte. The watersheds have been the highways and highestways of the world's travel. The farther back we go in our history, the more conclusive does the evidence become that the first ways were the highestways. Our first roads were ridge roads and their day is not altogether past in many parts of the land. These first roads were "run," or built, along the general alignment of the first pioneer roads, which, in turn, were nothing more than "blazed" paths of the Indian and buffalo. A single glance at one of the maps of the Central West of Revolutionary times, for instance, will show how closely the first routes clung to the heights of the watersheds. And for good reason: here the ground suffered least from erosion; here the forests were thinnest; here a pathway would be swept clear of snow in winter and of leaves in summer by the swift, clean brooms of the winds. For the Indians, too, the high lands were points of vantage both in hunting and in times of war.

In every state there were strategic heights of land, generally running westward; in Ohio, for example, the strategic watershed was that between the heads of the lake rivers and the heads of those flowing southward into the Ohio. Across this divide ran the Great Trail toward Detroit and the lake country. In western Virginia a strategic watershed was that formed between the heads of streams flowing northward into the Ohio and southward into the Kanawha. And in a remarkable degree the strategic points of a century and a half ago are the strategic points today, a fact attested by the courses of the more important trunk railway lines. The steady rise and importance of such a city as Akron, Ohio, is due to a strategic situation at the junction of both an important portage path and of a great watershed highway.

With all these facts in mind it is not presumptuous then to inquire whether the mound-building Indians did not find the high lands and mark out on them these first highways of America.

HIGHLAND LOCATION OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL REMAINS

Examining Crawford county, Wisconsin, we find the mound-builders' works "on the main road from Prairie du Chien to Eastman," which "follows chiefly the old trail along the crest of the divide between the drainage of the Kickapoo and Mississippi rivers.... The group is, in fact, a series or chain of low, small, circular tumuli extending in a nearly straight line northwest and southeast, connected together by embankments.... They are on the top of the ridge."

"About 2 miles from Eastman, ... just east of the Black River Road, ... are three effigy mounds and one long mound.... They are situated in a little strip of woods near the crest, but on the western slope of the watershed and near the head of a coulee or ravine."

"In the same section ... are the remains of two bird-shaped mounds, both on top of the watershed."

"The next group surveyed ... are on the crest of the ridge heretofore mentioned and on both sides of the Black River Road."

"Mound No. 23 ... is also in the form of a bird with outstretched wings. It lies ... on top of the ridge, with the head lying crosswise of the highest point."

"Mound No. 24 is close to the right or east, on the high part of the ridge, extending in the same direction as 23."

"Northward of this group some 400 yards, there is a mound in the form of a quadruped, probably a fox, ... partly in the woods and partly in the field on the west side of the road. It is built on the crest of the ridge with the head to the south."

"About a mile southward of Hazen Corners ... is a group.... They are all situated on the northern slope of the ridge not far from the top."

"... A small group ... situated west of the Black River Road, ... on the top of the ridge in the woods. The ridge slopes from them to the east and west."

"Some 10 or 12 miles southwest of the battle-field of Belmont is one of the peculiar sand ridges of this swampy region, called Pin Hook ridge. This extends 5 or 6 miles north and south, and is less than a mile in width.... There is abundant evidence here that the entire ridge was long inhabited by a somewhat agricultural people, with stationary houses, who constructed numerous and high mounds, which are now the only place of refuge for the present inhabitants and their stock from the frequent overflows of the Mississippi."

"These ... are situated on the county road from Cairo, Illinois.... They are the highest ground in that immediate section" .

Crowley's Ridge, running through Green, Craighead, Poinsett, and St. Francis counties forms the divide between the waters of White and St. Francis rivers, and terminates in Phillips county just below the city of Helena. Most of the bottom lands are overflowed during high water. There are some evidences of archaeological remains throughout the length of this ridge.

"The works ... one mile northeast of Dublin ... are on a nearly level area of the higher lands of the section."

"The group shown ... is on a high hill near the Arnheim pike, Brown county ."

"On nearly every prominent hill in the neighborhood of Ripley are stone graves."

"Just east of Col. Metham's residence, on a high point overlooking the valley ... was a mound."

"... A group ... located 2 miles southwest of the village of Brownsville and half a mile south of the National Road, on a high hill, from which the surrounding country is in view for several miles."

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