Читать книгу The Mythology of Cherokee, Iroquois, Navajo, Siouan and Zuñi - James Mooney - Страница 28

In the sepulchral mounds a large number of objects have been found which throw some light on the habits of the folk who built them. Copper plates with stamped designs are frequent, and these are difficult to account for. In one mound were found no less than six hundred stone hatchet-blades, averaging seven inches long by four wide. Under another were exhumed two hundred calcined tobacco-pipes, and copper ornaments with a thin plating of silver; while from others were taken fragments of pottery, obsidian implements, ivory and bone needles, and scroll-work cut out of very thin plates of mica. In several it was observed that cremation had been practised, but in others the bodies were found extended horizontally or else doubled up. In some instances the ashes of the dead had been placed carefully in skulls, perhaps those of the individuals whose bodies had been given to the flames. Implements, too, are numerous, and axes, awls, and other tools of copper have frequently been discovered.