s directly to it, without any instructions or
inquiry; and having staid about it some time, with expressions which
were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high road,
which they had left about a half dozen miles to pay this visit, and
pursued their journey."<37>

Coming down to our own times, the Indians had lost a great many of
their ancient customs, yet, at times, this old instinct of mound burial
asserts itself. About the first of the century Blackbird, a celebrated
chief of the Omahas, returning to his native home after a visit to
Washington, died of the small-pox. It was his dying request that his
body be placed on horseback, and the horse buried alive with him.
Accordingly, in the presence of all his nation, his body was placed on
the back of his favorite white horse, fully equipped as if for a
long journey, with all that was necessary for an Indian's happiness,
including the scalps of his enemies. Turfs were brought and placed
around the feet and legs, and up the sides of the unsuspecting animal,
and so gradually the horse and its rider were buried from sight, thus
forming a good-sized burial mound.<38> Another instance came under Mr.
Catlin's observation at the pipe stone quarry in Dakota. He visited
there about 1832 and saw a conical mound, ten feet high, that had been
erected over the body of a young man accidentally killed there two years
before.

Enough references have now been given to show that the Indian tribes
certainly did erect mounds, and that there is every reason to suppose
they were the authors of the temple mounds of the South, or of some of
them, at any rate. We have now shown that, according to early writers,
the Indians did live in permanent villages, often stockaded, and knew
very well how to raise embankments and mounds. It would seem as if this
removed all necessity for supposing the existence of an extinct race
to explain the numerous remains, collectively known as Mound Builders'
works. Yet, as this is surely an important point, it may be well to
carry the investigations a little further.

Taking in account the great amount of labor necessary to raise such
structures as the mounds at Cahokia and Grave Creek, and the complicated
works at Newark, some writers have asserted that the government of the
Mound Builders was one in which the central authority must have had
absolute power over the persons of the subjects, that they were in
effect slaves;<39> and as this was alto