Archives of aboriginal knowledge. Containing all the original paper laid before Congress respecting the history, antiquities, language, ethnology, pictography, rites, superstitions, and mythology, of (14782552202)

Identifier: archivesofaborig04scho (find matches)
Title: Archives of aboriginal knowledge. Containing all the original paper laid before Congress respecting the history, antiquities, language, ethnology, pictography, rites, superstitions, and mythology, of the Indian tribes of the United States
Year: 1860 (1860s)
Authors: Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, 1793-1864. dn United States. Bureau of Indian Affairs. cn
Subjects: Indians of North America United States
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & co.
Contributing Library: University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation



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rried away down to the surfaceof the graves. In these graves the skeletons were lying, in a state of tolerable preser-vation. The excavation to receive the body seems to have been about three feet long,by about two feet wide, in the form of a parallelogram; and the body to have beenflexed, the knees drawn up to the breast, the heels to the hams, the head bent forwardtill the chin touched the breast-bone, and the hands crossed over the legs. Theyseemed then to have been laid on the left side, and the head of the graves to havepointed promiscuously to either point of the compass. The skull-bones in this locaUtywere so fragile that none of them could be brought away whole, though often bones,such as the vertebrae of the spine (see right hand corner of Fig. A), the bones of thethigh, arm, and leg, could be obtained in any quantity. A cranium from the adjoining Col. William Spencer Brown, Chief Engineer of the Greenville Railroad, met bis death in this flood, whileengaged in official duty.
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ANTIQUITIES. 161 plantation of Colonel Hampton, wliich also abounds in Indian relics, -will be exhibitedin Plate IG, Fig. D. At a short distance from these graves, and indeed interspersedamong them, were found many earthen jars or vases, similar to those exhibited in Fig.A. Some were buried less deep, and were washed up and broken in pieces, by theviolence of the waters. Indeed, the whole plantation along the river banks wasstrewed with fragments of broken pottery, bones, and teeth, from the washed-up skele-tons, in good jareservation. The large jar lying on its side, in Plate 3, and which isfrom the museum of Dr. Fair, was found uncovered, in an erect position, its moutheven with the surface of the uncovered graves, and filled with earth, with some whitishfragments, as of lime, or decayed bones, interspersed. It had a small hole broken in itat the bottom, as seen in the Plate, which was stopped on the inside by a smooth flatpebble, to be seen lying on the outer edge of the table supp