By far the most important of the animal mounds, from the nature of the
deductions it has given rise to, is the so-called "Elephant Mound," of
Wisconsin.
By its discovery and description the interesting question was raised as
to the contemporaneousness of the Mound-Builder and the mastodon, an
interest which is likely to be further enhanced by the more recent
bringing to light in Iowa of two pipes carved in the semblance of the
same animal, as well as a tablet showing two figures asserted by some
archæologists to have been intended for the same animal.
Although both the mound and pipes have been referred in turn to the
peccary, the tapir, and the armadillo, it is safe to exclude these
animals from consideration. It is indeed perhaps more likely that the
ancient inhabitants of the Upper Mississippi Valley were autoptically
acquainted with the mastodon than with either of the above-named
animals, owing to their southern habitat.
Referring to the possibility that the mastodon was known to the
Mound-Builders, it is impossible to fix with any degree of precision the
time of its disappearance from among living animals. Mastodon bones have
been exhumed from peat beds in this country at a depth which, so far as
is proved by the rate of deposition, implies that the animal may have
been alive within five hundred years. The extinction of the mastodon,
geologically speaking, was certainly a very recent event, and, as an
antiquity of upwards of a thousand or more years has been assigned to
some of the mounds, it is entirely within the possibilities that this
animal was living at the time these were thrown up, granting even that
the time of their erection has been overestimated. It must be admitted,
therefore, that there are no inherent absurdities in the belief that the
Mound-Builders were acquainted with the mastodon. Granting that they may
have been acquainted with the animal, the question arises, what proof is
there that they actually were? The answer to this question made by
certain archæologists is--the Elephant Mound, of Wisconsin.
[Illustration: Fig. 27.--The Elephant Mound, Grant County,
Wisconsin.]
Recalling the fact that among the animal mounds many nondescript shapes
occur which cannot be identified at all, and as many others which have
been called after the animals they appear to most nearly resemble, carry
out their peculiarities only in the most vague and general way, it is a
little difficult to understand the confidence with which this effigy has
been asserted to represent the mastodon; for the mound (a copy of which
as figured in the Smithsonian Annual Report for 1872 is here given) can
by no means be said to closely represent the shape, proportions, and
peculiarities of the animal whose name it bears. In fact, it is true of
this, as of so many other of the effigies, the identity of which must be
guessed, that the resemblance is of the most vague and general kind, the
figure simulating the elephant no more closely than any one of a score
or more mounds in Wisconsin, except in one important particular, viz,
the head has a prolongation or snout-like appendage, which is its chief,
in fact its only real, elephantine character. If this appendage is too
long for the snout of any other known animal, it is certainly too short
for the trunk of a mastodon. Still, so far as this one character goes,
it is doubtless true that it is more suggestive of the mastodon than of
any other animal. No hint is afforded of tusks, ears, or tail, and were
it not for the snout the animal effigy might readily be called a bear,
it nearly resembling in its general make-up many of the so-called bear
mounds figured by Squier and Davis from this same county in Wisconsin.
The latter, too, are of the same gigantic size and proportions.
If it can safely be assumed that an animal effigy without tusks, without
ears, and without a tail was really intended to represent a mastodon, it
would be stretching imagination but a step farther to call all the
large-bodied, heavy-limbed animal effigies hitherto named bears,
mastodons, attributing the lack of trunks, as well as ears, tusks, and
tails, to inattention to slight details on the part of the mound artist.
It is true that one bit of good, positive proof is worth many of a
negative character. But here the one positive resemblance, the trunk of
the supposed elephant, falls far short of an exact imitation, and, as
the other features necessary to a good likeness of a mastodon are wholly
wanting, is not this an instance where the negative proof should be held
sufficient to largely outweigh the positive?
In connection with this question the fact should not be overlooked that,
among the great number of animal effigies in Wisconsin and elsewhere,
this is the only one which even thus remotely suggests the mastodon. As
the Mound Builders were in the habit of repeating the same animal form
again and again, not only in the same but in widely distant localities,
why, if this was really intended for a mastodon, are there no others
like it? It cannot be doubted that the size and extraordinary features
of this monster among mammals would have prevented it being overlooked
by the Mound-Builders when so many animals of inferior interest engaged
their attention. The fact that the mound is a nondescript, with no
others resembling it, certainly lessens the probability that it was an
intentional representation of the mastodon, and increases the likelihood
that its slight resemblance was accidental; a slide of earth from the
head, for instance, might readily be interpreted by the modern artist
as a trunk, and thus the head be made to assume a shape in his sketch
not intended by the original maker. As is well known, no task is more
difficult for the artist than to transfer to paper an exact copy of such
a subject. Especially hard is it for the artist to avoid unconsciously
magnifying or toning down peculiarities according to his own conceptions
of what was originally intended, when, as is often the case, time and
the elements have combined to render shape and outlines obscure.
Archæologic treatises are full of warning lessons of this kind, and the
interpretations given to ancient works of art by the erring pencil of
the modern artist are responsible for many an ingenious theory which the
original would never have suggested. It may well be that future
investigations will show that the one peculiarity which distinguishes
the so-called Elephant Mound from its fellows is really susceptible of a
much more commonplace explanation than has hitherto been given it.
Even if such explanation be not forthcoming, the "Elephant Mound" of
Wisconsin should be supplemented by a very considerable amount of
corroborative testimony before being accepted as proof positive of the
acquaintance of the Mound-Builders with the mastodon.
As regards likeness to the mastodon, the pipes before alluded to, copies
of which as given in Barber's articles on Mound Pipes in American
Naturalist for April, 1882, Figs. 17 and 18, are here presented, while
not entirely above criticism, are much nearer what they have been
supposed to be than the mound just mentioned.
[Illustration: Fig. 28.--Elephant Pipe, Iowa]
[Illustration: Fig. 29.--Elephant Pipe, Iowa.]
Of the two, figure 29 is certainly the most natural in appearance, but,
if the pipes are intentional imitations of any animal, neither can be
regarded as having been intended for any other than the mastodon. Yet,
as pointed out by Barber and others, it is certainly surprising that if
intended for mastodons no attempt was made to indicate the tusks, which
with the trunk constitute the most marked external peculiarities of all
the elephant kind. The tusks, too, as affording that most important
product in primitive industries, ivory, would naturally be the one
peculiarity of all others which the ancient artist would have relied
upon to fix the identity of the animal. It is also remarkable that in
neither of these pipes is the tail indicated, although a glance at the
other sculptures will show that in the full-length figures this member
is invariably shown. In respect to these omissions, the pipes from Iowa
are strikingly suggestive of the Elephant Mound of Wisconsin, with the
peculiarities of which the sculptor, whether ancient or modern, might
almost be supposed to have been acquainted. It certainly must be looked
upon as a curious coincidence that carvings found at a point so remote
from the Elephant Mound, and presumably the work of other hands, should
so closely copy the imperfections of that mound.
In considering the evidence afforded by these pipes of a knowledge of
the mastodon on the part of the Mound-Builders, it should be borne in
mind that their authenticity as specimens of the Mound-Builders' art has
been called seriously in question. Possibly the fact that the same
person was instrumental in bringing to light both the pipes has had
largely to do with the suspicion, especially when it was remembered that
although explorers have been remarkably active in the same region, it
has fallen to the good fortune of no one else to find anything conveying
the most distant suggestion of the mastodon. As the manner of discovery
of such relics always forms an important part of their history, the
following account of the pipes as communicated to Mr. Barber by Mr.
W. H. Pratt, president of the Davenport Academy (American Naturalist for
April, 1882, pp. 275, 276), is here subjoined:
The first elephant pipe, which we obtained (Fig. 17) a little more
than a year ago, was found some six years before by an illiterate
German farmer named Peter Mare, while planting corn on a farm in
the mound region, Louisa County, Iowa. He did not care whether it
was elephant or kangaroo; to him it was a curious 'Indian stone,'
and nothing more, and he kept it and smoked it. In 1878 he removed
to Kansas, and when he left he gave the pipe to his brother-in-law,
a farm laborer, who also smoked it. Mr. Gass happened to hear of
it, as he is always inquiring about such things, hunted up the man
and borrowed the pipe to take photographs and casts from it. He
could not buy it. The man said his brother-in-law gave it to him
and as it was a curious thing--he wanted to keep it. We were,
however, unfortunate, or fortunate, enough to break it; that
spoiled it for him and that was his chance to make some money out
of it. He could have claimed any amount, and we would, as in duty
bound, have raised it for him, but he was satisfied with three or
four dollars. During the first week in April, this month, Rev. Ad.
Blumer, another German Lutheran minister, now of Genesee, Illinois,
having formerly resided in Louisa County, went down there in
company with Mr. Gass to open a few mounds, Mr. Blumer being well
acquainted there. They carefully explored ten of them, and found
nothing but ashes and decayed bones in any, except one. In that one
was a layer of red, hard-burned clay, about five feet across and
thirteen inches in thickness at the center, which rested upon a bed
of ashes one foot in depth in the middle, the ashes resting upon
the natural undisturbed clay. In the ashes, near the bottom of the
layer, they found a part of a broken carved stone pipe,
representing some bird; a very small beautifully formed copper
'axe,' and this last elephant pipe (Fig. 18). This pipe was first
discovered by Mr. Blumer, and by him, at our earnest solicitation,
turned over to the Academy.
It will be seen from the above that the same gentleman was instrumental
in bringing to light the two specimens constituting the present supply
of elephant pipes.
The remarkable archæologic instinct which has guided the finder of these
pipes has led him to even more important discoveries. By the aid of his
divining rod he has succeeded in unearthing some of the most remarkable
inscribed tablets which have thus far rewarded the diligent search of
the mound explorer. It is not necessary to speak in detail of these
here, or of the various theories to which they have given rise and
support, including that of phonetic writing, further than to call
attention to the fact that by a curious coincidence one of the tablets
contains, among a number of familiar animals, figures which suggest in a
rude way the mastodon again, which animal indeed some archæologists have
confidently asserted them to be. The resemblance they bear to that
animal is, however, by no means as close as exhibited by the pipe
carvings; they are therefore not reproduced here. Both figures differ
from the pipes in having tails; both lack trunks, and also tusks.
Archæologists must certainly deem it unfortunate that outside of the
Wisconsin mound the only evidence of the co-existence of the
Mound-Builder and the mastodon should reach the scientific world through
the agency of one individual. So derived, each succeeding carving of the
mastodon, be it more or less accurate, instead of being accepted by
archæologists as cumulative evidence tending to establish the
genuineness of the sculptured testimony showing that the Mound-Builder
and mastodon were coeval, will be viewed with ever increasing suspicion.
This part of the subject should not be concluded without allusion to a
certain class of evidence, which, although of a negative sort, must be
accorded very great weight in considering this much vexed question. It
may be asked why if the Mound-Builders and the mastodon were
contemporaneous, have no traces of the ivory tusks ever been exhumed
from the mounds? No material is so perfectly adapted for the purposes of
carving, an art to which we have seen the Mound-Builders were much
addicted, as ivory, both from its beauty and the ease with which it is
worked, to say nothing of the other manifold uses to which it is put,
both by primitive and civilized man. The mastodon affords an abundant
supply of this highly prized substance, not a particle of which has ever
been exhumed from the mounds either in the shape of implements or
carving. Yet the exceedingly close texture of ivory enables it to
successfully resist the destroying influences of time for very long
periods--very long indeed as compared with certain articles which
commonly reward the search of the mound explorer.
Among the articles of a perishable nature that have been exhumed from
the mounds are large numbers of shell ornaments, which are by no means
very durable, as well as the perforated teeth of various animals;
sections of deers' horns have also been found, as well as ornaments made
of the claws of animals, a still more perishable material. The list also
includes the bones of the muskrat and turtle, as of other animals, not
only in their natural shape, but carved into the form of implements of
small size, as awls, etc. Human bones, too, in abundance, have been
exhumed in a sufficiently well preserved state to afford a basis for
various theories and speculations.
But of the mastodon, with which these dead Mound-Builders are supposed
to have been acquainted, not a palpable trace remains. The tale of its
existence is told by a single mound in Wisconsin, which the most ardent
supporter of the mastodon theory must acknowledge to be far from a
facsimile, and two carvings and an inscribed tablet, the three latter
the finds of a single explorer.
Bearing in mind the many attempts at archæological frauds that recent
years have brought to light, archæologists have a right to demand that
objects which afford a basis for such important deductions as the coeval
life of the Mound-Builder and the mastodon, should be above the
slightest suspicion not only in respect to their resemblances, but as
regards the circumstances of discovery. If they are not above suspicion,
the science of archæology can better afford to wait for further and more
certain evidence than to commit itself to theories which may prove
stumbling-blocks to truth until that indefinite time when future
investigations shall show their illusory nature.