covered by a mound raised in honor over the ashes of a deceased chief, for assuredly such a mound would not have been raised over the ashes of a victim. Indians never exchanged prisoners-of war. Adoption or burning at the stake was the alternative of capture; but no mound was ever raised over the burned remains. Human sacrifices seem to have originated in an attempt to utilize the predetermined death of prisoners of war in the service of the gods, until slavery finally offered a profitable substitute, in the Upper Status of barbarism.
Another use suggests itself for this artificial basin more in accordance with Indian usages and customs, namely, that cremation of the body of a deceased chief was performed upon it, after which the mound in question was raised over his ashes in accordance with Indian custom.
Cremation was practiced by the Village Indians only among the American aborigines. It was not general even among them, burial in the ground being the common usage; but it was more or less general in the case of chiefs. The mode of cremation varied in different areas, but the full particulars are not given in any instance. In Nicarauga the body of a deceased chief of the highest grade was wrapped in clothes and suspended by ropes before a fire until the body was baked to dryness; then, after keeping it a year, it was taken to the market-place, where they burned it, believing that the smoke went "to the place where the dead man's soul was."[1] From this or some similar conceit the practice of cremation probably originated.
THE PROBABLE NUMBERS OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS.
There are no reasons for supposing, from the number of their villages, that the Mound-Builders were a numerous people. My friend, Prof Charles Whittlesey, in a discussion of the rate of increase of the human race, estimates them at 500,000.[2] With thanks for the moderateness of the estimate, one-third of that number would have been more satisfactory. Dense populations, an expression sometimes applied to the Mound-Builders, have never
