See America First

O >> Orville O. Hiestand >> See America First

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--Chas. A. Jones.

It is a well known fact that these ancient people chose the most
fertile spots along river bottoms for their settlements. The
Cahokia Mound is such a stupendous example of the work of the
Mound Builders that it well deserves mention here. It is located
in one of the most fertile sections in Illinois. It is well
watered, and not often overflowed by the Mississippi. It is such
a fertile and valuable tract that it has received the name of
the "Great American Bottom."

"Dr. Patrick has stated that the area of the base is over
fifteen acres. This base is larger than that of the Great
Pyramid, which was counted as one of the seven wonders of the
world, and we must not lose sight of the fact that the earth for
its construction was scraped up and brought thither without the
aid of metallic tools or beasts of burden, and yet the earth was
obtained somewhere and piled up over an area of fifteen acres,
in one place to a height of one hundred feet, and even the
lowest platform is fifty feet above the plain. Some have
suggested that it might be partly a natural elevation. There
seems to be, however, no good reasons for such suggestions.

"Near the site of Hughes High School in Cincinnati stood this
prehistoric earthwork. It was originally more than thirty-five
feet high, but was entirely levelled in 1841." (footnote Chas.
A. Jones.)

The first platform is reached at the height of about fifty feet.
This platform has an area of not far from two and four-fifths
acres-large enough for quite a number of houses, if such was the
purpose for which this mound was erected. The second platform is
reached at about the height of seventy-five feet, and contains
about one and three-fourths acres. The third platform is
elevated ninety-six or ninety-seven feet, while the last one is
not far from one hundred feet above the plain. We require to
dwell on these facts a moment before we realize what a
stupendous piece of work this is.

Why need we go to Egypt to see the Great Pyramid when we know
who built it and for what it was used; while we have this great
work in our own country by a vanished race whose purpose in
erecting it is still unknown? Some writers think that this huge
piece of work was performed so that their tribe would have an
elevation upon which to place their village, as an elevated site
has always been an important factor in defenses. Other writers
consider it a temple mound, and it resembles those that the
ancient Mexicans raised for both religions purposes and town
sites. Others believe that it may have been used to elevate
their homes above the level valley in case of floods.

At Miamisburg we have a great mound, rising to a height of sixty-
eight feet, which is regarded as one of a chain by which signals
were transmitted along the valley. In the Scioto valley, from
Columbus to Chillicothe, a distance of about forty miles, twenty
mounds may be selected, so placed in respect to each other that
it is believed if the country was cleared of forests, signals of
fire might be transmitted in a few minutes along the whole line.
They may have been used as signal stations by the red man
centuries after the disappearance of their original builders.

Several examples of effigy mounds are found in Ohio. The most
notable is that known as "Great Serpent Mound," in Adams County.
It is the largest and most distinct of this class of mounds in
the United States if not in the whole world. Other important
Ohio points are the Eagle Mound at Newark and the Alligator or
Opossum Mound at Granville.

The morning of our arrival at this remarkable effigy--how shall
we describe it? The time was June, and as Lowell phrased it,
"What is so rare as a day in June?" We wound among picturesque
scenes that were softened by the hazy clouds and reveled in the
unsurprising riches of the charming landscape. The road led
through thick forests of oaks, linden and maple, through smiling
vales and to the crests of hills overlooking long open valleys
with wooded heights beyond. Everything seemed to break forth
into singing. Even the rippling streams chimed merrily in with
the glad exultant songs of red wing black birds and fluting
cardinals.

As we entered the park we were greeted by the cheery piping of
the Baltimore oriole-a warm, rich welcome from this brilliantly
colored bird as he fluttered about the elm like a dash of
southern sunshine. Try as we would we found our thoughts
straying from the dim days of the dead past to the ever living
present, for bees and birds were busy everywhere, telling their
joy in melodious and ecstatic notes.

European travelers say that our woods are nearly devoid of
birds, and that the songs of such as we have are not to be
compared with those about which their poets have written so
charmingly. They never were out among our blossoming wilderness
while the sun poured his first rays through delicate green
leaves and mounds of flowers or they never would have written
that way.

When from a rising eminence of land we let our eyes rove over
the vast undulating country around us, only the more prominent
features impress themselves on our view. The lesser details, the
waving grain, the blossoming sumac, the small brooklet, which
attract the immediate passerby, are lost in the distance, but
the range of forest clad hills, the wide expanse of fertile
plain, or the purpling hills in the distance, determine the
landscape and claim our attention. So in the light of the
present century let us note what we can of these ancient and
forgotten people. "Distance lends enchantment to the view," and
this is true of distance in time, or culture as well as in
space.

In memory we live over again those scenes, when a strange race
met in this very spot to worship. In fancy we see again vast
multitudes of people who assembled at the head of a victorious
warrior-king who returned from the field of battle, to offer
sacrifice upon the altar in the center of the oval. The casting
off of the old skin of the serpent may have been to these
primitive people typical of immortality. "Then a kite, by
producing death, would be to them the working of some powerful
spirit through that serpent. Its power to destroy life no doubt
caused it to be held in great veneration by many primitive
tribes. Likewise any striking object in Nature, such as a river,
lake, precipitous cliff, with singular shaped stone such as we
have here on the crescent shaped plateau rising from Brush
Creek, would have been regarded as the abode of some spirit and
would be worshipped accordingly. That such objects are
worshipped the world over we have abundant testimony, and it
will be found in all such cases that there is some peculiarity
about the contour of the land on which are placed these objects,
that would be sure to catch the eye of a superstitious race."

There has been another serpent mound discovered in Warren
County, but space forbids a description of it. Not far from the
city of Toronto, Canada, we also find another.

"The Great Serpent Mound" in Adams County has a counterpart in
the Old World. In Scotland there is a very remarkable and
distinct serpent, constructed of stone. This work has so much in
common with the Ohio serpent that we reproduce the description
as given by Miss Gordon Cummin in Good Words for March, 1872.

"The mound is situated upon a grassy plain. The tail of the
serpent rests near the shore of Loch Nell, and the mound
gradually rises seventeen to twenty feet in height and is
continued for three hundred feet, forming a double curve like
the letter S, and wonderfully perfect in anatomical outline.
This we perceive the more perfect on reaching the head, which
lies at the western end... The head forms a circular cairn, on
which, at the time of a visit there in 1871, there still
remained some trace of an altar, which has since wholly
disappeared. On excavating the circular cairn, or circle of
stones forming the head, a chamber containing burnt bones,
charcoal and burnt hazelnuts, and an implement of flint were
found. The removal of peat, moss and heather from the back of
the reptile showed that the whole length of the spine was
carefully constructed, with regularly and symmetrically placed
stones at such angles as to throw off rain... The spine is, in
fact, a long narrow causeway made of large stones, set like the
vertebrae of some huge animal. They form a ridge, sloping off at
each side, which is continued downward with an arrangement of
smaller stones suggestive of ribs. The mound has been formed in
such a position that the worshippers standing at the altar would
naturally look eastward, directly along the whole length of the
great reptile and across the dark lake to the triple peaks of
Ben Cruachan. This position must have been carefully selected,
as from no other point are the three peaks visible. General
Forlong, in commenting on this, says

"'Here, then, we have an earth-formed snake, emerging in the
usual manner from the dark blue water, at the base, as it were,
of a triple cone--Scotland's Mount Hermon--just as we so
frequently meet snakes and their shrines in the East.'

"Is there not something more than mere coincidence in the
resemblance between Loch Nell and the Ohio Serpent, to say
nothing of the topography of their respective situations? Each
has the head pointing west, and each terminates with a circular
enclosure, containing an altar, from which, looking along the
most prominent portion of the serpent, the rising sun may be
seen. If the serpent of Scotland is the symbol of an ancient
faith surely that of Ohio is the same."

Rev. MacLean of Greenville, Ohio, is a well known writer on
these topics. During the summer of 1881, while in the employ of
the Bureau of Ethnology, visited the place, taking with him a
thoroughly competent surveyor, and made a very careful plan of
the work for the bureau. All other figures published represent
the oval as the end of the works. Prof. Putnam who visited the
works in 1883, noticed, between the oval figure and the edge of
the ledge a slightly raised, circular ridge of earth, from
either side of which a curved ridge extended towards the side of
the oval figure. Rev. MacLean's researches and measurements have
shown that the ridges last spoken of are but part of what is
either a distinct figure or a very important portion of the
original. As determined, it certainly bears a very close
resemblance to a frog, and such Mr. MacLean concludes it to be.

"The oval mound in front of the Great Serpent effigy would
indicate that this was a locality which tradition had fixed upon
as a place where some divinity had dwelt. We suggest also in
reference to this serpent mound, that possibly the very trend of
the hill and the valleys, and the streams on either side of it,
may have been given to tradition. The isolation of the spot is
remarkable. Two streams which here separate the tongue of land
from the adjoining country unite just below the cliff, and form
an extensive open valley, which lays the country open for many
miles, so that the cliff on which the effigy is found can be
seen a great distance. The location of this effigy is peculiar.
It is in the midst of a rough, wild region, which was formerly
very difficult to approach, and according to all accounts was
noted for its inaccessibility.

"The shape of the cliff would easily suggest the idea of a
massive serpent, and with this inaccessibility to the spot would
produce a peculiar feeling of awe, as if it were a great Manitou
which resided there, and so a sentiment of wonder and worship
would gather around the locality. This would naturally give rise
to a tradition or would lead the people to revive some familiar
tradition and localize it. This having been done, the next step
would be to erect an effigy on the summit which would both
satisfy the superstition and represent the tradition. It would
then become a place where the form of the serpent divinity was
plainly seen, and where the worship of the serpent, if it could
be called worship, would be practiced. Along with this serpent
worship, however, there was probably the formality instituted
here, and the spot made sacred to them. It was generally
'sacrificing in a high place,' the fires which were lighted
would be seen for a great distance down the valley and would
cast a glare over the whole region, producing a feeling of awe
in the people who dwelt in the vicinity. The shadows of the
cliff would be thrown over the valley, but the massive form of
the serpent would be brought out in bold relief; the tradition
would be remembered and superstition would be aroused, and the
whole scene would be full of strange and awful associations."

The various authors who have treated of this serpent mound have
maintained that the tradition which found its embodiment here
was the old Brahmanic tradition of the serpent and the egg. Even
the Indians had their traditions in regard to the meaning of
various symbols.

In Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha we have this legend from the
Indians:

Thus said Hiawatha, walking
In the solitary forest,
Pondering, musing in the forest,
On the welfare of his people.
From his pouch he took his colors,
Took his paints of different colors.
On the smooth bark of a birch tree
Painted many shapes and figures,
Wonderful and mystic figures,
And each figure had a meaning,
Each some word or thought suggested.

Gitche Manito, the Mighty,
He, the Master of Life, was painted
As an egg, with points projecting
To the four winds of the heavens.
Everywhere is the Great Spirit,
Was the meaning of the symbol.

Mitche Manito, the Mighty,
He the dreaded Spirit of Evil,
As a serpent was depicted,
As Kenabeek the great serpent.
Very crafty, very cunning,
Is the creeping Spirit of Evil,
Was the meaning of this symbol.

(footnote From "The Egg and Serpent.")

Here while gazing in wonder at this ancient shrine we recalled
how in the stillness and fading light of evening we visited the
famous cathedral of Antwerp. The last rays of the descending sun
fell through the stained glass and darkened the vast aisles. The
grandeur and solemn beauty of this noble pile at this time of
day touched the imagination most deeply. Then listening to the
mellow music falling as it were from the clouds through the
tranquil air of evening, we were enchanted. How those light
silvery notes filled our imagination with romantic dreams of old
Flanders.

Again we recalled our visit to the Great Cathedral of Cologne,
the most complete piece of Gothic architecture anywhere to be
found. We mounted the steps of one of the gigantic towers which
lift their sublime heads to a height of five hundred two feet,
the exact length of the cathedral. Here we gazed out over the
level plain that stretched away to the marvelous scenic region
of the Seven Mountains. The foundation of this beautiful
structure was laid two hundred fifty years before the discovery
of America and fifty years before the founding of the Turkish
Empire. But the last stone was not laid on the south tower until
1880.

As we listened to the deep-toned bells, how we were thrilled
with visions of the past! Here lived Colonia Agrippina, the
daughter of Germanicus and the mother of Nero. It was from
Cologne that Hadrian received his summons to Rome as emperor.
Here, too, Vitellius and Silvanus were both proclaimed emperor
in this remote northern camp on the left bank of the Rhine.

But you do not dwell long on the past, for here stands this
colossal, magnificent cathedral with its incomparable towers to
call your attention to the glorious achievements of man. Men
were not the only ones to use this noble edifice as a sanctuary,
for out and in among its superb towers numerous birds darted to
and fro, where they dwelt safely as in a citadel. Pretty falcons
circled gracefully about them as though they were crags of some
wild mountain; rooks cawed from their lofty stations below the
bells; chimney swifts glued their log cabins to rough stone
ledges, and in various niches above the doorway pigeons placed
their nests and uttered their messages of peace to all who
entered. English sparrows, too, had taken possession here and
there just as their countrymen had taken possession of the city.

As we entered the cathedral a mingled feeling of awe and
devotion came over us. But it was not the blazing shrine of the
eleven thousand Virgins, the magnificent windows through which
the morning sunbeams filtered, nor yet the choir, perhaps the
most wonderful in the world, that produced this feeling of
reverence. "We remembered that this glorious structure had been
erected to the 'God of Peace' in the midst of strife and
bitterness, and by men estranged by the first principle of the
Gospel." But here we beheld French officers, Scotch Highlanders,
English and American soldiers, scattered among the Germans,
reverently kneeling, devout and hushed at the Consecration. Then
we thought how "notwithstanding the passions of men and
wickedness of rulers, the building up of the Church of God and
of the Christian faith, goes steadily on, unrecorded but
continuous."

But here among these lovely Ohio hills, where the Master
Architect erected and is still building these wonderful temples
that never decay, we were more impressed by their solemn
grandeur than any work of man could inspire. Here long before
the cathedrals of Europe were thought of, a primitive people
erected their altars and offered up their sacrifice to their
gods. Here as the rays of the sun filtered through the leafy
windows of the trees falling upon the richly wrought mosaic of
ferns and flowers, where the gorgeous cardinal blossoms flamed
from a hundred altars and the bell-like song of the wood thrush
rang through all the dim aisles, these ancient people felt the
presence of a higher power, and not yet knowing that their god
required the sacrifice of noble lives and loving hearts, brought
to the altar the best gifts they knew.

Standing alone in this fair solitude, as much alone as if we had
been on some fairy isle of a distant sea, we felt that we were
surrounded by a strange, mysterious presence, and thoughts and
fancies, like weird articulate voices of those ancient people,
filled the solemn place. The aged trees sighed in the evening
wind, telling over and over their mournful legends, lest they
forget. The storm-swept maples repeated their "rhythmical runes
of these unremembered ages." We allowed ourselves to sink
soothingly beneath deep waves of primitive emotions until we
seemed to perceive the sagas that the maples told the elms of a
more remote history than that of the Pharaohs or storied Greece.

Darkness began to settle over this lonely spot. Along the silent
and gloomy road we seemed to see shadowlike forms that flitted
here and there through the blackness of darkest night, a
blackness only relieved by a few stars that peered like silent
spectators from the dark draperies of clouds. Now a band of
people was seen moving not swiftly to the accompaniment of
martial music, but slowly and silently to the sighing night
wind. As we watched a lurid flame burst from the center of the
oval while a strange figure bent over it as he performed his
weird mystical rites. Now the light from the red and yellow
flames fell upon a vast group of dark figures and a thousand
gleaming eyes peered out of the velvety canopy around us. The
mournful distressing notes of the ghost bird broke the
stillness. The scream of some passing night bird replied as if
in answer to their weird calls. A great horned owl made us
shiver with his "hoo, hoo, hoo," as the flame shot upward in
scarlet circles. The night wind stirred the branches, which
sighed audibly, and died away leaving the place lonelier than
before. Then the sharp bark of a fox rang out from a neighboring
hill. The breeze started up again and a limb of a tree that
rubbed against its neighbor produced a wailing sound as of some
one in distress. We could see fantastic shapes out among the
gnarled tree trunks and ghostly forms appeared in the velvety
shadows and vanished again among the trees. The moon rose out
over the rim of the eastern hills and seemed almost to pause as
if some Oriental Magic was being wrought. A mist arose from the
river and hovered over the valley below us; the complaining
water of Brush creek mingled with the wailing of the screech owl
as the ghostly footfalls sounded more remote. The bullfrog's
harsh troonk "ushered in the night" and, imagining one of them
as the very one that escaped the serpent and leaped into the
creek centuries ago, we left the place to the spirits of that
unknown age and the moonlight.

But why this concern over a vanished race? Why all this worry
over the Coliseum or Parthenon? Why so eager to learn of these
crumbling mounds and broken down embankments in our own land?
Then as if we heard a voice from the shadowy past, rising from
these silent ruins, we begin to gain their secret at last. The
Parthenon and Coliseum call up the sad story with its yet sadder
truth that true weal can only come to that nation that plans for
the future. Yet each adds something to the onward march of
civilization.

In the ancient gardens of France and Italy the nightingale still
warbles her divine hymn, all unmindful of Caesar's conquests.
The whippoorwill calls in her plaintive notes through the
silvery spring nights over the graves of this vanished race of
America. Let us concern ourselves about the past only as that
past shall contribute to a more glorious future. It is not
mounds, pyramids, or bronze tablets we should be building for
later generations of archaeologists to puzzle their brains over.

A large and beautiful mound standing in the precincts of the
original plat of Columbus, Ohio, was demolished, the clay taken
therefrom and used as the material for the bricks with which the
first State House was built. Here where a thousand years came
and went and the Indian warrior reverently spared the last
resting place of these unrecorded dead, another people reared
their legislative halls out of their mouldering sepulchres and
crumbling bones. O, American Nation, with your wonderful
civilization of today, it is well to pause here amid the "steam
shriek" career of your harried life with all its getting and
spending, to contemplate the ruin of even this once consecrated
piece of ground.

Here as you watch, the swift winged swallows dart from their
homes in the steep bank of the stream; the kingfisher sounds his
discordant rattle and hangs poised in mid air as he gazes into
the waters below; the woodbine like a staunch friend still
clings round the oak or hangs out its crimson banner in autumn;
the meadowlark walks sedately on the vast coils of the serpent
calling, "Spring o' the year," or as we fancied, "they are not
here," as he did on that first morning. Man, yes, nations pass
away and are forgotten, yet the spirit of life is ever
perpetuated in a thousand new and lovely forms. At times we are
touched by the fluttering of the maple leaves as if we read a
mournful prophecy. Even now the petals of the wood rose are
lying around us and we see signs where earlier blossoms have
faded. Yet will they never bloom again ? Men may return to dust
from whence they sprung, but out of the mould will rise new
blossoms to make glad the earth, and while some other nation
shall wander over the ruins and tread with solemn step over the
resting place of those who now wander here, they too shall
listen to the liquid notes of the wood thrush through the hushed
aisle of some shadowy forest and also learn that nothing dies.

Here crowning the summits of these ancient mounds of an older
race of tillers of the soil dwell the peaceful American farmers
in their comfortable rural homes all unmindful of that other
race who toiled here. How well the secrets of the past are
guarded! "Try as we might we could not roll hack the flight of
time, even by the aid of ancient history, by whose feeble light
we were able to see but dimly the outlines of the centuries that
lie back of us; beyond is gloom soon lost in night. It is hidden
by a present veil that only thickens as the years roll on."

The encroaching days of the Red men and the ravages of time, as
the centuries came and went, have affected but not obliterated
these ancient mounds. The vandal hand of conquering man has
destroyed or hid from sight many of the monumental works of this
primitive people. But there yet remain many mournful ruins here
in Ohio which cannot fail to impress us with a sense of a
vanished past.

"To think of our own high state of civilization is to imagine
for this nation an immortality. We are so great and strong that
surely no power can remove us. Let us learn humility from the
past; and when, here and there, we come upon some reminder of a
vanished people, trace the proofs of a teeming population in
ancient times, and recover somewhat of a history as true and
touching as any that poets sing, let us recognize the fact that
nations as well as individuals pass away and are forgotten."

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