object. The one attached to the High Bank Pueblo contains twenty acres of land, and doubtless subserved some useful purpose in their plan of life. The first suggestion which presents itself is, that as a substitute for a fence it surrounded the garden of the village in which they cultivated their maize, beans, squashes, and tobacco. At the Minnitaree village a similar inclosure may now be seen by the side of the village surrounding their cultivated land, consisting partly of hedge and partly of stakes, the open prairie stretching out beyond. We cannot know all the necessities that attended their mode of life; although houses, gardens, food, and raiment were among those which must have existed.
There is another class of circular embankments, about two hundred and fifty feet in diameter, connected with each other in some cases by long and low parallel embankments, as may be seen in Fig. 46. Undoubtedly they were for some useful purpose, which may or may not be divined correctly, but a knowledge of which is not necessary to our hypothesis respecting the principal embankments. It may be suggested as probable that the Mound-Builders were organized in gentes, phratries, and tribes. If this were the case, the phratries would need separate places for holding their councils and for performing their religious observances. These ring embankments suggest the circular estufas found in connection with the New Mexican pueblos, two, four, and sometimes five at one pueblo. The circles were adapted to open-air councils, after the fashion of the American Indian tribes. As there are two of these connected with each other, and two not connected, it is not improbable that the Mound-Builders at this village were organized in two and perhaps four phratries, and that they performed their religious ceremonies and public business in these open estufas.[1]
Practice of Cremation.—Among other works are the conical mounds, which are numerous, found in or near circular embankments. They vary in height from five to ten and twenty feet; with one, the Grave Creek Mound, seventy feet high. They are classified by Squier and Davis, who
- ↑ The solid rectangular platforms found at Marietta, Ohio, and at several places in the Gulf region, are analogous to those in Yucatan. They are an advance upon the ring inclosures, and were probably designed for religious uses. That the Mound-Builders were at one time accustomed to adobe brick is proven by their presence at Seltzertown, in the State of Mississippi, forming a part of the wall of a mound. (See Foster's Pre-Historic Races of the U. S., p. 112.)
