CHAPTER XV.

SCULPTURES FROM THE MOUNDS. Many of the carvings in stone, already noticed, display no inconsiderable degree of taste and skill. There is, however, a large class of remains, comprising sculptural tablets, and heads and figures of animals, which belongs to a higher grade of art. Many of these exhibit a close observance of nature and a minute attention to details, such as we could only expect to find among a people considerably advanced in the minor arts, and to which the elaborate and laborious, but usually clumsy and ungraceful, not to say unmeaning, productions of the savage can claim but a slight approach. Savage taste in sculpture is generally exhibited in monstrosities,—caricatures of things rather than faithful copies. The dawn of art is marked by a purer taste; the result of an appreciation of the beauties of nature which only follows their close observance. The aim of the neophyte is to imitate, rather than distort, the objects which he sees before him. It is in this view that the sculptures taken from the mounds seem most remarkable; they exhibit not only the general form and features of the objects sought to be represented, but frequently, and to a surprising degree, their characteristic attitudes and expression. It will, of course, be understood that nothing of the imposing character of many of the sculptured relics of Central America is found in the mounds. Aside from the stupendous earth structures, which deserve to be classed with the most wonderful remains of ancient power and greatness, there is nothing imposing in the monuments of the Mississippi valley. We have no sculptured façades of temples and palaces, invested with a symbolic meaning or commemorative of the exploits of chiefs and conquerors, nor have we ponderous statues of divinities and heroes,—nothing beyond the simplest form of stone structures. We must therefore estimate the minor sculptures which we discover here by other standards than those of Mexico and Peru, with which, from certain resemblances in other monuments, a comparison would be most likely to be suggested. They are simple in form as in design, and, as works of art, beyond a faithful observance of nature and great delicacy of execution, little can be claimed for them. In these respects they are certainly remarkable, and will be the more admired, the more closely they are inspected. Some of these sculptures have a value, so far as ethnological research is concerned, much higher than they can claim as mere works of art. This value is derived from the fact that they faithfully represent animals and birds peculiar to other latitudes, thus establishing a migration, a very extensive intercommunication, or a contemporaneous existence of the same race over a vast extent of country. [p243] The interesting inquiry here involved will be more appropriately made in another place, after an examination of the relics themselves. It is a singular fact that no relics which were obviously designed as «idols» or objects of worship have been obtained from the mounds. Such are occasionally discovered on the surface, but none, so far as known, within the enclosures deemed sacred or defensive. Those which have been found are all of exceedingly rude workmanship, quite unlike any of the authenticated mound remains. They are more abundant in the region towards the Gulf than upon the Ohio, though not of frequent occurrence there. It is perhaps not to be wondered at that we discover none of these in the mounds, if our estimate of the purposes to which those structures were appropriated is a correct one. In presenting the following illustrations of this branch of our subject, it will not be out of place to repeat the observation already once made, that, in the construction and ornament of their pipes, the mound-builders seem to have expended their utmost skill in sculpture. Accordingly most of the objects represented will be found to have subserved the purposes of pipes; but as the peculiarities of these implements have been sufficiently explained under the appropriate head, their bases and unessential parts have sometimes been omitted in the engravings. In many instances, the remains were so much broken up by the action of the fire, that it has been found impossible fully to restore them, although the utmost care was expended in collecting the fragments. This will account for the imperfect character of some of the illustrations. It would have been an easy matter to have restored many of these relics with the pencil, but it has been preferred to present an actual fragment rather than a fanciful whole. All the remains which follow, unless otherwise specially noted, were taken from the mounds by the authors in person, and are at present deposited in their collection. They comprise, however, but a limited selection from the whole number; no more being presented than are deemed sufficient to give the reader a clear conception of their general character and great variety. The scale upon which they are drawn is, generally, full size; when this is not the case, the dimensions are specially given. SCULPTURES OF THE HUMAN HEAD.—Few sculptures of the human head have been found in the mounds, though several have been discovered under such circumstances as to leave little doubt that they belong to the mound era. Four specimens were taken from the remarkable altar mound, No. 8, “Mound City,” three of which constitute the bowls of pipes. Front and profile views of each of these are herewith presented, of the size of the originals. Fig. 142 is composed of a hard, compact, black stone, and is distinguished from the others by the hardness and severity of its outline. It has a singular head-dress, falling in a broad fold over the back of the head, as far down as the middle of the neck. Upon each side of the top of the head this head-dress, which may represent some particular style of platting the hair, rises into protuberances or knots. [p244] Encircling the forehead, and coming down as low as the ears, is a row of small round holes, fifteen in number, placed as closely as possible together, which, when the head was found, were filled in part with pearls, completely calcined and only recognisable from their concentric lamination. The holes were doubtless all originally filled in the same manner. The ornamental lines upon the face are rather deeply cut; their form is accurately indicated in the engravings. Those radiating from around the mouth might readily be supposed to represent a curling moustache and beard. The mouth of this miniature head is somewhat compressed, and the brow seems contracted, giving it an aspect of severity, which is not fully conveyed by the engraving. The eyes are prominent and open. [Illustration: Fig. 142.] [Illustration: Fig. 143.] Fig. 143 resembles the one last described only in respect to the peculiar markings on the face, already noticed. Its features are bolder, and the outline of the face quite different. The nose is large and prominent, the eyes sunken and apparently closed, and the forehead high and narrow. The head-dress is very remarkable. A portion of the hair seems gathered in festoons upon either side of the head above the ears, the remainder centering in a kind of knot upon the back of the head. The top of the head is covered with a sort of lappet or fold, which seems detached from the other portions of the head-dress, simply resting upon the crown. The ears were each perforated; and from the strongly attached oxide of copper at those points, were probably ornamented with rings of that [p245] metal. This head, unlike the others, does not constitute a pipe bowl, but seems, from the fracture, to have been attached, at the lower and back part, to a rod carved from the same stone. The base, shown in the engraving, is simply an addition of plaster to sustain the head in a vertical position. The material, in this instance, is a compact yellowish stone, too much altered by the fire to be satisfactorily made out. [Illustration: Fig. 144.] Fig. 144 is composed of the same material with that last described. Its features are more regular than those of either of the preceding examples. The nose turns up slightly at the point, and the lips are prominent. The eyes seem closed, and the whole expression of the face is a repose like that of death. The head-dress is simple; and the ears, which are large, are each perforated with four small holes around their upper edges. At the lower and posterior portion of the head are drilled, in convergent directions, two holes, each one fifth of an inch in diameter and half an inch deep. Were they continued one fourth of an inch further in the same direction, they would intersect each other. This head is destitute of markings upon the face. It has been suggested, from the greater delicacy of the features, that this was designed to represent a female. [Illustration: Fig. 145.] Fig. 145. This is the most beautiful head of the series, and is evidently that of a female. It is carved from a compact stone, which is much altered, and in some places the color entirely changed by the action of the fire. The muscles of the face are [p246] well exhibited, and the forehead finely moulded. The eyes are prominent and open, and the lips full and rounded. Whether the head is encased in a sort of hood, or whether the hair is platted across the forehead and down the sides of the face, it is not easy to say. The knots observable at the top of the forehead, and just back of the ears, may be designed to represent the manner in which the hair was gathered or wound. The workmanship of this head is unsurpassed by any specimen of ancient American art which has fallen under the notice of the authors, not excepting the best productions of Mexico and Peru. The whole is smooth and well polished. These heads are valuable as being the only ones taken from the mounds, the ancient date of which is clearly established. In the same mounds in which they were found, it has already been observed, were also found upwards of a hundred miniature sculptures of animals, most of which are indigenous. The fidelity to nature observed in the latter fully warrant us in believing that the sculptures of the human heads discovered with them are also faithful copies from nature, and truly display not only the characteristic features of the ancient race, but also their method of wearing the hair, the style of their head-dresses, and the character and mode of adjustment of a portion of their ornaments. This conclusion will appear the more reasonable, when we come to observe the exactness displayed in the effigies of animals. It is impossible to overlook the coincidence between the fillet of «real» pearls displayed upon the forehead of the head first described, and the similar range of sculptured pearls upon the brow of the small statue described by Humboldt, and denominated by him the “statue of an Aztec priestess.”[159] The manner of its adjustment is in both instances substantially the same, and indicates a common mode of wearing those ornaments among both the mound-builders and the Mexicans. The markings upon the faces of two of these sculptures may be taken as representing paint lines or some description of tattooing. We know that, among the North American tribes, the custom of painting the face with every variety of color, and ornamenting it with fantastic figures, was wide-spread and common. The singular head-dresses observed in these figures bear little resemblance to those of the Indians, so far as we know anything of them. The North Americans usually allowed but a single tuft of hair to grow, which depended from the centre of the scalp; the hair of the women was allowed to fall loosely upon the shoulders, or was simply clubbed behind. Plumes of feathers, or the dried skins of the heads of certain animals, constituted about their only style of head-dress. That the practice of wearing rings and pendants in the ears existed among the race of the mounds may be inferred no less from these relics than from the character of some of the ornaments which have been occasionally discovered. The practice was almost universal among the hunter tribes and the Central American nations. In respect to the physiological characteristics exhibited by these relics, it need only be observed that they do not differ essentially from those of the great [p247] American family, the type of which seems to have been radically the same through the extent of the continent, excluding, perhaps, a few of the tribes at the extremes. [Illustration: Fig. 146.] Fig. 146 is carved from a light-colored sandstone, and represents a human figure resting upon its knees and elbows, the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands being placed together. It is also adapted as a pipe. It has a singular, painful expression of countenance. A double set of converging lines start from the eye upon the right side of the face and extend diagonally across it. Upon the left side is a single set terminating in a point near the ear. This figure is boldly but not delicately carved, and was found while digging a mill race, three feet below the surface, on the west bank of the Miami river, near the village of Tippecanoe, Miami county, Ohio.[160] It measures six inches in length by about the same height. [Illustration: Fig. 147.] Fig. 147 is a fine specimen of ancient sculpture. It was found within an ancient enclosure twelve miles below the city of Chillicothe, and, from the material and style of workmanship, may be regarded as a relic of the mound-builders. The [p248] material is a fine porphyry of a greenish brown or lead-colored ground, interspersed with black and white granules of a hard