Ohio History Journal

THE WISCONSIN      ARCHEOLOGICAL SOCIETY,

STATE FIELD ASSEMBLY,

July 29-30, 1910.

REPORT BY CHARLES E. BROWN, CURATOR.

Several years ago the Wisconsin Archaeological Society

adopted the plan of holding summer field meetings of its mem-

bers in various sections of Wisconsin which were known to be

rich in prehistoric Indian remains. The purpose of these annual

gatherings was doubly that of extending their acquaintance with

the features of the local archaeological field, and of arousing an

increased popular interest in the educational value and need of

the scientific exploration and the preservation of its antiquities.

The first of these state assemblies was held in the city of

Waukesha, in the year 1906, and was very successful. In the

following years, similar gatherings of persons interested in the

state's antiquities were held at Menasha, at Beloit and at Bara-

boo, each in a different section of the state, the attendance and

interest increasing from year to year. The effect of these meet-

ings has been to create an intelligent interest in Wisconsin's

Indian memorials in every quarter of the state. It has been the

means of enlisting the cooperation of the women's clubs, of

county historical societies and other local associations, and of

cities and villages in protecting and permanently preserving the

Indian evidences in their respective neighborhoods. Through a

union of effort of these with the society, local public museums

and collections have been established, and archaeological collec-

tions of great value saved to the state.

At the annual meeting of the society held in the city of

Milwaukee, in March, 1910, an invitation was presented to

it by its Madison members and by the State Historical Society,

to hold a two-days field assembly during the summer in that

charming Wisconsin city. It was urged, and rightfully, that no

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334       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

more attractive place for a gathering of persons interested in the

preservation of the state's archaeological history could be selected.

The picturesque shorelands of the three beautiful lakes, Men-

dota, Monona and Wingra, in the midst of which the capital

city of Wisconsin is located abound in sites of stone age and of

more recent Indian villages, camps and workshops, and in splen-

did examples of the remarkable emblematic and other aboriginal

earthworks for which the state is now so widely known among

American archaeologists. There were formerly about Lake Men-

dota 30 groups of mounds, about Lake Monona 12, and about

Lake Wingra 10. Lakes Waubesa and Kegonsa, which lie at

a short distance from the city also have about their shores numer-

ous earthen monuments. The total number of these conspicuous

records of the past existing about the five lakes of the Madison

chain has been estimated by local authorities at nearly one thou-

sand. Many of these are still in existence, and a considerable

number owe their preservation to the efforts of the local mem-

bers of the society. There are also still remaining about these

lakes several plots of Indian cornhills, remnants of trails and

the site of an early fur-trading post.

The courteous invitation thus extended was accepted by the

Wisconsin Archaeological Society and shortly thereafter a com-

mittee of Madison members and patrons was organized to as-.

sume charge of the necessary arrangements and program for

the meeting.

THE ASSEMBLY.

On Friday morning, July 29, the first day of the assembly,

members of the society and their guests arriving from many

Wisconsin cities gathered at the historical museum, in the State

Historical Library building, and were here received by members

of the Madison committee. Dr. Reuben Gold Thwaites, superin-

tendent of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, delivered

to the visitors a warm address of welcome. The remainder of

the morning was devoted to a tour of inspection, under the guid-

ance of members of the State Historical Society's staff, of the

library and museum, and of the map and manuscript, illustra-

tion, newspaper and other important departments of its labors.

The Wisconsin Archaeological Society.            337

PROFESSOR H. B. LATHROP'S ADDRESS.

The mound of earth at our feet is the work of hands long quiet,

a memorial the meaning of which by the time our race came to this

region had been forgotten by the very aborigines themselves whose

ancestors, it is believed, here built it. On some summer's day, how

many ages ago we know not, there labored here a band of dark-skinned

men and women, bearing with them in sacks and baskets the earth,

toilsomely scooped up with blade-bones, shells, and bits of wood, of

which this figure is composed. It is not difficult to imagine the scene

about them as it must have appeared on that day. The soft homelike

contours of the hills enclosing the lake below us cannot have greatly

changed; some then as now were darkly hooded with a close growth of

trees, but on most of them the oaks stood wide apart in the midst of

an undergrowth of brambles and other rough bushes, or cast their

shadows in park-like groves on grassy slopes. The brush was thick, no

doubt, and sheltered bears and deer. The flocks of water birds on the

lakes in spring and autumn were vast and noisy. There were no neatly

painted houses ranged in order along straight white streets, and hollow

trails led from one group to another of skin tepees near the lake shores,

with great solitudes between them.

In the level meadow below us, and a few hundred yards to the

southeast, on what was then the edge of the rushy lake, was one group

of such tents, the village of the builders of this mound. The oaks still

standing in the park sheltered the village in its later days. The ground

beneath is full of the signs of the life of the inhabitants: flint imple-

ments and flakes and potsherds, the homely and pitiful wealth of the

villagers. Between the two oaks at the end of the little grove on the

west may yet be found the remnants of ancient hearthstones, cracked by

fire. The lake near by provided the inhabitants with the fish and turtles

which formed so large a part of their food and were so important in

their agriculture. Their corn-field and their burial ground have not

been discovered, but must have been not distant. These people must

have led a tolerably settled life; the region about them was rich in

all the elements of savage prosperity, and vigorous enemies pressed at

no great distance upon their borders. Why should they roam far from

so fair a home? On this earth, then grew the holy sentiments possible

only where mankind have settled habitations. Here were homes and

love, affection for the lake, the trees, the hills, for the graves of

ancestors, devotion to the commonweal - sacred feelings, however crudely

or dimly manifested, however mingled with savage folly and savage

cruelty.

Dr. Samuel Johnson says, in words which as Matthew Arnold de-

clares, should be written in letters of gold over every schoolhouse

Vol. XIX. -22.

338        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

door, "Whatever causes the past, the distant, or the future to predominate

in our minds over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking

beings." Such words will not sound strange to the members of an

archaeological society. Its very existence is a call to its members to

escape at times from  the confusion and scattering of the spirit which

come from the welter of daily business, to turn back to the simple ele-

ments of human nature in this day of many calling voices, and to

become conscious for a moment of the long stream of life, unhasting,

unresting, in which our own passes on as a drop on its way to the

ocean. But it is not the mere outer life of the past which has an

interest for us. What is the meaning of this heap of earth? With what

thoughts was it built? Were the minds of those who made it alien to

ours, or is this mound a little signal out of the past to let us know

that the thoughts of the past are still in us? To these questions no

such easy and clear answers can be given as to those concerned with

the mere externals of the past, and yet they may be answered if not with

completeness with certainty and with sufficiency.

Those who peopled the village and built the mound were Indians

of the Winnebago tribe, members of the great Siouxan family, and in the

western migration of these peoples from Virginia a band of the Win-

nebago stopped here on their way near their brethren, found the land

good, unpeopled or dispeopled as it was, and here made their home.

Those who settled this village were members of the Bear Clan; they

had an ideal unity of descent from the Bear, had the bear spirit in

them, and were all conceived of as kindred. In course of time, after

their life had become rooted in this spot, some of them formed this

image of the protecting bear spirit. The bear was their ancestor, their

guardian, at once the bond of their community and the object of their

religious devotion.  Here this image, endowed with a mystic life, the

home of the spirits of many ancestors, not a dead thing or a mere

inanimate figure, watched over their village, removed from desecrating

companionship and the disturbances of the village life, but near enough

to exercise a watchful guardianship over it.  To the west lay many

kindred villages of the Bear Clan, often marked as this one by

effigies. Rude as the mounds are, the artists who traced them were

not without imagination and delight in the pictures they drew with so

broad a stroke. The bear effigy-the black bear no doubt-is nearly

always long-bodied and heavy-footed, but he is no mere conventional

figure. Sometimes his head is lifted and he snuffs the air, sometimes it

is thrust forward and at gaze. More often, as here, the great beast

is stolidly plodding his way through the underbrush. Each effigy testifies

to the fact that the artist was drawing sincerely and with delight what

he had seen and knew intimately.

This mound is not in time so ancient as the Pyramids, but it is in

spirit more primitive and more noble. It is more noble, since it is not

The Wisconsin Archaeological Society.             339

the work of drudging slaves, set to glorify the vanity and selfishness of a

despot, but of a community symbolizing its bond of communal life

and its religious devotion. It is more primitive, for it comes from

that childhood of the race when men believed that human souls

and magical intelligence dwelt in the beasts. It is more mys-

terious than the Pyramids: we know not the builders' names, or where

their dust has been laid, though of their purpose we have some inkling.

Is this symbol of the sacred past and of the community life alto-

gether strange to us? May we not find a chord in our hearts to

respond to the sentiment which raised it?

The tablet we dedicate is the gift to the Society of a generous

donor who desires his name to be kept private, and is accepted from

the Society by the City of Madison as a pledge that this memorial of

a far and dim antiquity will be preserved intact for the future. The

flag covering the tablet, which Miss Pauline Buell is now to strip off,

is a symbol of a bond of union higher, larger, and more ideal than

that of the Bear Clan, but no closer or more holy than that to its

members. Under that flag should live a union of spirit higher than a

merely political one. It should be hospitable to the sacred associations

of all the many peoples in our composite national life. We cannot

afford to lose a benediction from our soil; our life will be the richer

for realizing that this was consecrated ground ages before a white

foot was set upon it.

At the close of this impressive ceremony the pilgrimage

returned northward again to Lake Mendota, passing on its way

thither several small groups of prehistoric mounds on Univer-

sity Heights, and on the State University grounds, and pro-

ceeded for a distance of several miles over the winding pleas-

ure drive which here skirts the south shore of the lake until it

reaches the somewhat noted resort long known from its clear

springs, as Merrill Springs.     Here the party was taken in

charge by Mr. Ernest N. Warner, the owner of this fine tract

of land.

There are here several extensive groups of Indian earth-

works. The first to be inspected by the pilgrims was an inter-

esting group of three bear-shaped effigies located in a small

grassy enclosure on the lake side of the driveway. In a wooded

pasture on the opposite side of the road is an irregularly dis-

posed series of mounds consisting at this time of three long

tapering linear earthworks, three conical (burial) mounds of

small size, and two bird effigies. Most attractive of these earth-

The Wisconsin Archaeological Society.          341

about Madison, describing the locations of the camps, trail and

fur-trade stations, as described by early travelers. He was fol-

lowed by Mr. Emilius O. Randall, secretary of the Ohio State

Archaeological and Historical Society, who protested that he

was not a professional archaeologist, history being his bent, if

he had any bent at all, and regretted that his place on the pro-

gram was not filled by Prof. W. C. Mills, the successful and well-

known curator of the Ohio Society. Nevertheless Mr. Randall

succeeded in greatly interesting his audience with his scholarly

address, "The Preservation of Prehistoric Remains in Ohio,"' in

which he described the work of the Ohio Society in exploring

and preserving its archaeological wealth. He told of the preserva-

tion in state park reservations of the widely celebrated Great

Serpent Mound, and of Fort Ancient. He also gave an account

of the recent productive explorations of the Adena mound, the

Baum village site and of other noted remains and sites, under

state auspices. A state archaeological atlas is now in prepara-

tion. The archaeological collections in the society's museum at

Columbus are very extensive and valuable, and its publications

widely read.

Prof. William Ellery Leonard, Assistant Professor of Eng-

lish in the University of Wisconsin, followed with the reading

of a poem prepared especially for the Assembly. This is printed

here with his kind permission.

PROFESSOR LEONARD'S POEM.

The white man came and builded in these parts

His house for government, his hall for arts,

His market-place, his chimneys, and his roads,

And garden plots before his new abodes,

With fields of grain behind them planted new,

Then, turned topographer, a map he drew;

And, turned historian, a book did frame;

And gave his high achievement unto fame.

Saying: "To these four ancient lakes I came,

And saw, and conquered, and with me was born,

Amid these prairies, and these woods forlorn,

A corporate life, a commonweal, a place

By me first founded for the human race."

342        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

We con his map, his book; for they have worth

Not less than many a civic tale of earth

Of cities builded in the long ago

Where still forever other waters flow.

Yet, if we read the life of states aright,

Man never yet has built upon a site

Unknown to man before him: ancient Rome,

Long ere 'twas founded, was for man a home;

The Caesars, landing in the utmost isles

Of Briton, paved the long imperial miles

Between their military towns, among

An earlier folk whom time has left unsung.

And in still earlier days the Grecian stock,

(Their gods as yet uncarven in the rock,

Their lyres as yet dumb wood within the trees

Among the mountains o'er AEgean seas),

Settled to southward in a land even then

Alive with hardihood of sons of men

The rude Pelasgians, rearers of the stone-

In after eras to be overgrown

With weed and ivy-like at last the throne

Of marble Zeus himself. Again, they say

That fathoms deep in Egypt's oldest clay--

Fathoms beneath the sphinx and pyramid

Lie hid-or rather now no longer hid-

Proofs of man's home beside the reeds of Nile,

Ere ever those Dynasties whose numbered file

Of uncouth names we learn by rote had come,

With Isis and Osiris. Hold the thumb

Upon the map of Egypt, and then trace

With the forefinger how another race,

Making its way between the rivers twain -

Down the low Tigris and Euphrates plain-

Builds that Assyrian kingdom to the sea

Where the mysterious Sumerians be.

In short, wherever a mightier people go

To lands of promise, there's a Jericho

Before whose elder walls their trumpets first must blow.

So here: our sires who felled the forest trees

Received from dark-skinned aborigines

The lamp of life. And though we well may say,

"That lamp burns brighter in our hands today,"

We well may add, in reverence for the great

Primordial law that binds all life to fate,

"That lamp of life, though wild and wan its flame,

Still burned in other hands before we came."

The Wisconsin Archaeological Society.            343

Here was a desert only in the name-

And from the view-point of that narrow pride

Which names a strange thing chiefly to deride.

Here was no desert: every hill and vale,

Each lake and watercourse, each grove and trail,

Was know to thousands who, like me and you,

Watched the great cloud-drifts in the central blue

And sun and moon and stars; like you and me,

Laughed, wept and danced and planned the thing to be.

The whole wide landscape, rock, and spring, and plain,

Lay long since chartered in the human brain,

And had its names, its legendary lore,

Which countless children from their fathers bore

Down to their children's children.

So man's mind

Even then was more than nature, brute and blind,

By virtue of that element of thought

Through which our own devices have been wrought.

Here in the villages by wood and shore,

With infants toddling through the wigwam door,

Were arts and crafts, in simpler form, but still

The same we practice in the shop and mill--

Here bowl and pitcher, moccasin and belt,

Mattock and spade and club and pipe and celt,

Fashioned not only for the work to do,

But often with many a tracery and hue,

To please that sense of something in the eye

We now call beauty-though we know not why.

And here was seed-time in the self-same loam

We plow today; here too was harvest home.

Here were assemblies of the counsellors;

Here unsung heroes led the hosts to wars.

Here gathered at seasons family and clan

To serve the god from whence its line began,

Or bury its chieftains; for the Gods, the dead,

Were unto them, as us, yet more than bread,

Yet more than drink and raiment, as it seems,

And they, as we do, lived in part by dreams.

And the high places round these lakes attest

The age-old mysteries of the human breast.

Thus, if you'll fill the picture out I've drawn,

Touch it with color and atmosphere of dawn,

You'll see an immemorial world of man,

Perhaps but portion of a larger plan

344        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

Of which we too may but a portion be

In that sum-total solidarity

Of human beings spread across the earth

In generations, birth succeeding birth-

The living who raise the citadels we know,

The dead whose bones earth bosomed long ago.

And this good company that meets today

Proves the large truth of what I've sought to say;

For why should we, whose daily tasks alone

So press upon us that we scarcely own

The present hour, still take on us to gaze

Back on the parted, the forgotten days;

Why should we leave the quest for daily bread,

To quest for relics of the savage dead;

Why should we leave our figuring for gold

To figure out a vanished world of old?-

Except that thus in human nature lurks,

Except that thus in human nature works

Some sense of common comradry and kin

With human life, wherever it has been,

And in the use of such a sense we find

Enlargement for our human heart and mind.

Dr. Carl Russell Fish, professor of American history in the

University of Wisconsin, furnished the final number on the pro-

gram. His very instructive address entitled, "The Relation of

Archaeology to History, is here presented.

ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR FISH.

The derivation of the word archaeology gives little idea of its

present use. "The study of antiquity" is at once too broad in scope

and too limited in time, for the followers of a dozen other "ologies" are

studying antiquity, while the archaeologist does not confine himself to

that period. The definition of the word in the new English dictionary

corrects the first of these errors, but emphasizes the second, for it

describes it as: "The scientific study of remains and monuments of the

prehistoric period." This obviously will not bear examination, as the

bulk of archeological endeavor falls within the period which is considered

historical, and I cannot conceive any period prehistoric, about which

archeology, or any other science, can give us information. Actually, time

has nothing whatever to do with the limitations of archaeology, and to

think of it as leaving off where history begins, is to misconceive them

The Wisconsin Archaeological Society.              345

both. The only proper limitation upon archaeology lies in its subject

matter, and I conceive that it cannot be further defined than as: "The

scientific study of human remains and monuments."

In considering the relations of the science to history, I do not

wish to enter into any war of words as to claims of "sociology", and

"anthropology" and "history" to be the inclusive word, covering the

totality of man's past, but simply to use history as it is generally

understood at present and as its professors act upon it. Certainly we

are no longer at the stage where history could be defined as "Past

Politics," and it is equally certain that there are fields of human activity

which are not actually treated in any adequate way by the historian.

The relations of the two do not depend on the definition of history,

but the more broadly it is interpreted, the more intimate their relationship

becomes. The sources of history are three-fold, written, spoken, and

that which is neither written nor spoken.

To preserve and prepare the first, is the business of the philologist,

the archivist, the paleographer, the editor, and experts in a dozen sub-

sidiary sciences. The historian devotes so much the larger part of

his time to this class of material, that the period for which written

materials exists is sometimes spoken of as the historical period, and

the erroneous ideas of archaeology which I have quoted, become common.

Least important of the three, is the spoken or traditional, though if

we include all the material that was passed down for centuries by word

of mouth before being reduced to writing, such as the Homeric poems or

the Norse sagas, it includes some of the most interesting things we

know of the past. In American history, such material deals chiefly

with the Indian civilizations, and its collection is carried on chiefly

by the anthropologists. In addition, nearly every family preserves a mass

of oral traditions running back for about a hundred years; and there

is a small body of general information, bounded by about the same

limit, which has never yet been put into permanent form. The win-

nowing of this material to secure occasional kernels of historic truth

that it yields is as yet a neglected function.

The material that is neither written nor oral falls to the geologist and

the archaeologist. Between these two sciences there is striking simi-

larity, but their boundaries are clear; the geologist deals with natural

phenomena, the archaeologist with that which is human, and which may,

for convenience, be called monumental. The first duty of the archaeolo-

gist is to discover such material and to verify it, the next is to secure

its preservation, preferably its actual tangible preservation, but if that

is not possible, by description. Then comes the task of studying it,

classifying and arranging it, and making it ready for use. At this point

the function of the archaeologist ceases, and the duty of the historian

begins; to interpret it, and to bring it into harmony with the recognized

body of information regarding the past. It is not necessary that different

346        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

individuals in every case do these different things. We must not press

specialization too far. Nearly every historian should be something of an

archaeologist, and every archeologist should be something of an his-

torian. When the archaeologist ceases from    the preparation of his

material, and begins the reconstruction of the past, he commences to

act as an historian; he has to call up a new range of equipment, a new

set of qualifications.

The fields in which the services of archaeology are most appreciated

are those to which written and oral records do not reach. Its con-

tributions in pressing back the frontiers of knowledge are incalculable,

and are growing increasingly so with every passing year. To say nothing

of what it has told us of the civilizations of Egypt and Assyria, it has

given to history within the last few years the whole great empire of the

Hittites. We have learned more of Mycenaean civilization from archae-

ology than from Homer. Practically all we know of the Romanization

of Britain is from such sources, and that process, not long ago regarded

almost as a myth, is now a well articulated bit of history. In America,

within the last thirty-five years, by the joint work of the archaeologist and

the anthropologist, many of the points long disputed concerning the

Indians have been set at rest, more knowledge of them has been recovered

than was ever before supposed possible, and new questions have been

raised which invite renewed activity.

From all over the world, moreover, remains of the past, amount-

ing to many times those now known, call for investigation. It is safe to

say that within the next fifty years more sensational discoveries will

be made by following material, than written, records.

It is not, however, only in the periods void of written sources

that archaeology can perform its services. It is in the period of classical

antiquity that we find the combination happiest. There, indeed, it is

difficult to find an historian who does not lay archaeology under tribute,

or an archaeologist who is not lively to the historical bearing of his work.

When we come to the medieval period the situation is less ideal, the his-

torian tends to pay less attention to monuments, and the archaeologist to

become an antiquarian, intent upon minutia, and losing sight of his

ultimate duty. In the modern period, the historian, self-satisfied with the

richness of his written sources, ignores all others, and the archaeologist,

always with a little love for the unusual and for the rust of time,

considers himself absolved from further work.

As one working in this last period, I wish to call the attention

of American archaeologists to some possibilities that it offers. Abundant

as are our resources they do not tell the whole story of the last couple of

centuries even in America, and we have monuments which are worthy

of preservation and which can add to our knowledge of our American

ancestors, as well as of our Indian predecessors. Even in Wisconsin

something may be obtained from such sources.

The Wisconsin Archaeological Society.             347

The most interesting of our monumental remains are, of course,

the architectural. Everybody is familiar with the log cabin, though

something might yet be gathered as to the sites selected for them, and

minor differences in construction. Less familiar is the cropping out of

the porch in front, the spreading of the ell behind, and the two lean-to

wings, then the sheathing with clap-boards, the evolution of the porch

posts into Greek columns, and the clothing of the whole with white paint,

all representing stages in the prosperity of the occupants. In nearly every

older Wisconsin township may be found buildings representing every

one of these stages, the older ones indicating poor land or unthrifty

occupants and being generally remote from the township center, or

else serving as minor farm buildings behind more pretentious frame or

brick structures. In the same way the stump fence, the snake fence and

the wire fence, denote advance or the retardation of progress. Other

studies of economic value may be made from the use of different kinds

of building materials. The early use of local stone is one of the features

of Madison, its subsequent disuse was due not so much to the diffi-

culty of quarrying as to the decreased cost of transportation making other

materials cheaper, and was coincident with the arrival of the railroads.

Very interesting material could be obtained from the abandoned river

towns, still preserving the appearance of fifty years ago, and furnishing

us with genuine American ruins.

On the whole the primitive log cabins were necessarily much alike,

but when the log came to be superseded by more flexible material,

the settler's first idea was to reproduce the home or the ideal of his

childhood, and the house tends to reveal the nationality of its builder.

Just about Madison there are farm houses as unmistakably of New Eng-

land as if found in the "Old Colony," and others as distinctly of Penn-

sylvania or the South. I am told of a settlement of Cornishmen,

which they have made absolutely characteristic, and even the automobilist

can often distinguish the first Wisconsin home of the German, the

Englishman or the Dutchman. Where have our carpenters, our masons

and finishers come from, and what tricks of the trade have each

contributed ?

Such studies reveal something also of the soul of the people. Not

so much in America, to be sure, as in Europe, where national and

individual aspirations find as legitimate expression in architecture, as

in poetry; and less here in the West, which copied its fashions, than

in the East, which imported them. Still we have a few of the Greek

porticoed buildings which were in part a reflection of the influence of the

first French Republic and in part represented the admiration of the

Jeffersonian democracy for the republics of Greece; but that style

almost passed away before Wisconsin was settled. We have a number of

the composite porticoed and domed buildings which succeeded and

represented perhaps the kinship between the cruder democracy of Jackson

348        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

and that of Rome. We have many       buildings both public and private,

some extremely beautiful, which reflect the days in the middle of the

nineteenth century when the best minds in America drew inspiration

from the Italy of the Renaissance, when Story and Crawford, and

Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller lived and worked in Rome. The

succeeding period when the French mansard stands for the dominating

influence on things artistic, or rather inartistic, of the Second Empire,

is everywhere illustrated; while the revival of English influence, in

the Queen Anne; the beginning of general interest in American history,

in the colonial; the influence of the war with Spain; in the square

cement; and many other waves of thought and interest, can be pointed out

in almost any town. A careful study of its architecture will nearly

always reveal the approximate date of foundation, the periods of pros-

perity and depression, the origin of the inhabitants, and many other

facts of real importance.

I have spoken so far of the contribution of archaeology to the

science of history. Fully as great are its possibilities along the lines of

popularization and illustration. The work of neither archaeology nor

history can go on without popular support, and the local appeal is one of

the strongest that can be made. Not every town has an interesting

history, but almost every one, however ugly, can be made historically

interesting to its inhabitants, if its streets can be made to tell its history,

and by reflection something of the history of the country, which may

be done merely by opening their eyes to their chirography. It should be

part of the hope of the local archaeologist to make his neighbors and his

neighbor's children see history in everything about them, and if this is

accomplished we may hope gradually to arouse a deeper and more

scientific interest, and a willingness to encourage that research into the

whole past, in which historian and archaeologist are jointly interested.

On a recent visit to Lake Koshkonong I found my interest very

much stimulated by the admirable map and plates illustrating the Indian

life about its shores, and it has occurred to me that one extremely

valuable way of arousing general interest and of arranging our archae-

ological data, would be in a series of such minute maps. For instance the

first in the series would give purely the physical features, the next, on

the same scale, would add our Indian data-mounds, village sites, culti-

vated fields, arrow factories and battle-fields, trails and any other indi-

cations that might appear--then one on the entrance of the white men,

with trading posts, garrisons, first settlements and roads, the next

would begin with the school house and end with the railroad, and one

or two more would complete the set. Such studies of the material

changes of a locality, would not form an embellishment, but the basis

of its history.

Another work might be undertaken through the local high school.

The pupils might be encouraged to take photographs of houses, fences,

The Wisconsin Archaeological Society.             349

bridges and other objects, interesting for the reasons I have pointed out,

as well as all objects of aboriginal interest. These should always be dated

and the place where they were taken noted. In fact, a map should be

used, and by numbers or some such device the pictures localized. These

photographs properly classified and arranged would give such a picture

of the whole life of the community in terms of tangible remains as

could not fail to interest its inhabitants as well as serve the student.

In the newer portions of the state, particularly in the north it would be

possible to take pictures of the first clearing, and then file them away

and a few years later take another picture of the farmstead with its

improvements and so on until it reached a condition of stability. Thus

to project into the future the work of a science whose name suggests

antiquity, may seem fantastic, but even the future will ultimately become

antiquity. We have still in Wisconsin some remnants of a frontier stage

of civilization which is passing and cannot be reproduced, and to provide

materials to express it to the future cannot be held superfluous. If we

imagine the joy that it would give to us to find a photograph of the

site of Rome before that city was built, of one of the great Indian villages

of Wisconsin before the coming of the white man, we can form a con-

ception of the value of such an ordered and scientific collection as I have

suggested to the future student of the civilization of our own day.

At the conclusion of the program an informal reception was

tendered the guests by the Madison members of the Wisconsin

Archaeological Society, light refreshments being served by the

ladies of the historical library staff. The entire museum was

thrown open to the visitors, who spent the remainder of the

evening in inspecting its historical and anthropological collections.

The historical museum had its beginning in 1854, and has main-

tained a persistent and progressive growth since that date. It

occupies the entire upper floor of the State Historical Library

building, and has eight exhibition halls. Its chief aim is popular

education along the lines of Wisconsin history. It takes promin-

ent rank as an educational institution, and entertains from 60,000

to 80,000 visitors each year.

In addition to its regular collections the museum had pre-

pared for the occasion of the Assembly a series of special ex-

hibits. These included the original surveys and maps, and corre-

spondence relating to Wisconsin antiquities of Dr. Increase A.

Lapham, the state's distinguished pioneer antiquarian, and of his

352        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

EAGLE EFFIGY.

Largest Indian mound of its type in Wisconsin.

Body 131 feet. Wing spread 624 feet.

Marked by the Wisconsin Archaeological Society,

July 30, 1910.

ADDRESS OF REV. F. A. GILMORE.

Archaeology and theology have sometimes been grouped together,

since both are said to deal with subjects of no interest to modern men.

As a theologian I should be glad to refute this idea: but though I know

you are all eager to hear me discourse on theology, you must bear with

me if I disappoint you. Suffice it to say that theology or the attempt to

answer the ultimate questions which life puts to us, can never become

obsolete.

Archaeology is by no means a useless branch of learning. It is, to

be sure, the study of things that lie far behind us, "in the dark back-

ward and abysm of time"; but these things have to do with the life.

of humanity. These mounds are the records and symbols of human

thought. Hence we think that every cultivated man should know some-

thing about them. For what is culture? It is the knowledge of what

the race has thought and done. Much is claimed in these days for prac-

tical studies such as farming, engineering and the like. But these can

never replace such subjects as language, history, philosophy, art and

archaeology for it is these that give us insight into our vast human

inheritance. By them we enter the life of the race. Archaeological

studies may not butter anyone's bread (unless it be Secretary Brown's)

they do give us the key to the evolution of man.

Effigy mounds are found in several parts of the United States-by

far the greater number are in Wisconsin. Here was an epidemic of

mound building. In the early days they were thought to have been built

by the ten "Lost Tribes of Israel"; or by a prehistoric race far superior

to the Indians in civilization; or by the Aztecs before they migrated

to Mexico. The "consensus of the competent" now pronounces them

to have been the work of the Winnebago Indians, probably a few cen-

turies before the landing of Columbus.

It is a curious fact that the French missionaries and fur traders

who were in Wisconsin as early as 1634-only fourteen years after the

settlement of Plymouth, Massachusetts- make no mention of the mounds.

The Indians of that time did not make effigy mounds and seem to have

lost all knowledge of them. They did not reverence them for they built

their villages, planted their corn fields and buried their dead in them.

The Wisconsin Archaeological Society.            353

These mounds belong to a class of venerated objects called Totems.

Totem is a word of Wisconsin origin and comes from the Chippewa

language. It has now passed into general use in the terminology of sci-

ence. It means, "my protector" or "my familiar patron". Totemism is

found among primitive people as far apart as Australia and Africa,

India and aboriginal America. A Totem may be a vegetable or an animal,

a war club or other object, and even the elements like the rain or sun-

shine. These objects were tattooed or burned on the body, scratched on

the walls of caves, painted on the wigwam, the canoe or paddle, cut upon

poles and erected in front of the dwelling. With certain Indian tribes

the Totem was formed in effigy, notably by the Siouxan tribes. Some-

times they were formed of stones laid out in the outline of a gigantic

animal or bird. Among the Winnebagoes, a branch of the Siouxan stock,

it was the fashion to form them out of the earth.

There are individual Totems, sex Totems, and Clan Totems. These

mounds are of the latter class. A clan Totem was some bird, animal or

fish or weapon regarded as the dwelling place of a spirit or divinity.

This divinity was the ancestor of all the members of the clan. The clan

members were thus bound together in a common blood relationship.

They regarded each other as Brothers, and looked to the deity repre-

sented by the Totem, for protection and help. Marriage was generally

forbidden within the clan. Children in some tribes were of the father's

Totem; more often of the mother's. When a clan grew in numbers it

might divide, the new formed clan taking a Totem allied to the original

one. Thus the turtle clan among the Iroquois comprised the mud turtle

clan, the snapping turtle clan, the yellow turtle clan, etc. This group of

clans is sometimes called a phratry. A large Indian tribe would thus be

formed of several phratries and these of several clans.

The clan was the unit of the tribal life, on the march and in the

arrangement of the village. When the Omahas marched a certain clan

order was observed, and when they camped the twelve clans took pre-

scribed places in the circle like the figures on a clock dial. We might

think of the Totem as the Stem and the religious customs and the

social laws of the tribe, as the branches growing out of it. Or using

another figure we may call the Totem idea the tissue of the common

tie which made a unit of the clan or tribe. Religious customs connected

with the Totem.

The Totem figured in the ceremonies at the birth of children.

In the deer clan of the Omahas the infant was painted with spots to

imitate a fawn. Young lads had their hair cut out to imitate the horns of

a deer, the legs and tail of a turtle or other Totem. At puberity there

was an important ceremony initiating the youth into the clan membership.

Members of the clan dressed to imitate the Totem, danced and mimicked

the actions and voice of the animal. Sometimes the novice was clothed

Vol. XIX. -  23.

354        Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

in the animal's skin and laid in a grave; the name of the Totem was

then shouted aloud. At this name the youth arose from     the grave,

signifying his new life as a clan member, the passing from youth to the

higher estate of manhood; or perhaps that the Totem had power to

give him life beyond the grave. In some tribes there seems to have

been a certain formula of words and gestures as a part of this ceremony.

This may have been a secret sign by means of which a person could

pass from clan to clan and find entertainment and fellowship, even where

the language was different. In Australia, by means of this Totem

formula, a man might travel for a thousand miles and find friends of the

same Totem.

Death ceremonies. The buffalo clan of the Omahas wrapped the

dying man in a buffalo robe and said, "You are now going to your

ancestors the buffaloes. Be strong." We find the burial mounds placed

close to the Totem effigies as if for protection.

The custom of taboo spring out of veneration for the Totem.

The red maize clan of the Omahas will not eat of that grain. It would

give them sore mouths they say. Members of the deer clan in the same

tribe will not use the skin of a deer for robes or moccasins nor its oil

for the hair, but may eat the meat for food. The Totem animal was

sometimes kept in captivity and carefully fed. In Java the red dog clan

had a red dog in each family and no one might strike it with impunity.

A dead Totem was properly buried. In Samoa a man of the owl clan

finding a dead owl will mourn for it as for a human being. This does

not mean that the Totem is dead; he lives in all the other owls. This

is a characteristic of Totemism, to reverence the species; whereas

reverence for a single animal or object is a characteristic or Fetichism.

When the Totem was to be killed for food apologies were made to it.

Or flattery would be used, as when the fisherman before setting his lines

to catch the Totem fish would call to them, "Ho! you fish, you are

all chiefs." The Totem helped in hunting; also in sickness. The medi-

cine man imitated the motions and voice of the Totem to drive out

the sickness.

Omens came from the Totem. An eagle flying toward a war party

was a sign to go back; if it flew with them it was a sign to go on.

A curious ceremony took place among the Omahas. A turtle was deco-

rated with strips of red cloth tied to its head, legs and tail, tobacco was

placed on its back and it was headed toward the south. This ceremony

was intended to drive away the fog! The logical connection between

cause and effect would puzzle a Whately or Jevons to discover; but it was

doubtless there to the Indian mind.

When running foot races the Indians often carried an image of the

Totem on the breast or back. In signing treaties the Totem was affixed

as a signature,

The Wisconsin Archaeological Society.            355

Before drawing the conclusion from these facts I wish to say a

word about the art of these mounds and their date. The Indian builders

certainly had an artistic sense. We find that land animals such as the

bear, deer, panther, etc., are always formed with the legs on one side,

and with rare exceptions the legs are never separated. Amphibious

creatures, the turtle, lizard, etc., have the legs spread out, two on each

side. Birds have the wings wide spread or curving and the feet do

not appear. The attitudes of the animals is not the same for all. There

is artistic variety. Sometimes they are standing still, again they are

prowling. In several localities in this state two panthers are built

close together and their attitudes shows them in combat. In other

places they are guarding caches of food or the village enclosure.

We have no clear light as to the date of these works. They were

erected when the land features were about the same as now. About the

same distribution of forest and prairie, level of soil and depth of

streams and lakes. There were the same animals. Neither extinct nor

domestic animals are represented in the effigies. After the days of the

mastodon, and after the present topographical features were established,

with the same fauna and flora as found by the white men at the time

of their first contact with the Indians, but before the white men came

these mounds were built.

Sometimes we find several similar effigies in the same locality. This

may mark some favorite gathering place of the aborigines, as at Lake

Koshkonong where several clans having the same Totem gathered for

fishing. Again they are found in maple groves where the Indians came

for the sugar. Madison and the region of the four lakes, called

Tycoperah by the natives, was a favorite locality. Here are five eagle

mounds, several bears, panthers, squirrels, etc. We may imagine the

region to have been a sort of capitol in prehistoric days--giving laws

and knowledge to those who stayed at home as it does today.

The old Greek mathematician quite confounded his contemporaries

when he measured the distance from the shore to a ship in the offing

without leaving the land. In somewhat similar wise we can pretty closely

approximate the distance from us of the mound builders and get a fairly

correct idea of the folk themselves. By the help which we get from

archaeology and the study of Indian life since the advent of the whites,

and particularly the institution of Totemism, we can reconstruct that

vanished life.

This region was occupied by a homogeneous people, probably the

Winnebagoes, its various clans and clan groups spread from the Wis-

consin, river to the Illinois line, and from Lake Michigan to the Mis-

sissippi. They were not harried and driven by their enemies, but

lived in comparative peace. The clans moved about, in Spring settling

in some sugar grove, in Summer moving to a fishing place, in Winter

remaining at the regular villages. At all these places they made their

356       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

Totems in the soil. Certain spots, as at Aztalan and Lake Horicon

were the seats of large permanent settlements with earth walls and

raised earth platforms for the council house or medicine tent. They

had corn fields and garden beds but no domestic animals. Their mode

of life, clothing, houses, implements, their religious ideas were those

of the Indian at the time of Columbus. They belonged to the stone

age but had passed out of the lowest stage of barbarism to the some-

what settled life of communities with agriculture. Quite certainly the

mounds where we now stand marked the site of a community. Secretary

Brown with Mr. August Roden and myself dug into a refuse heap a few

rods west of this spot, where we found clam shells, bones and pieces of

pottery. These effigies, the buffalo, deer, squirrel and eagle were the

clan Totems of that viilage. Here were held the clan dances and cere-

monies; here the youth were initiated into clan membership, and given

the secret words which assured him a welcome in other clans with the

same Totem. Here the young "eagle" wooed the maiden of the deer

clan, for he might not marry one of his own Totem.

This eagle mound is a clan Totem of that village. A populous clan

it must have been to erect so huge a work. The eagle has always

been admired for its strength and courage. Wheeling far aloft or

resting on motionless wing it is an impressive sight. And when, seeing

the fish hawk rise with its prey it pursues it, and falling like a thunderbolt

snatches the dropped fish ere it touches the water, it suggests the

supernatural even to a modern mind.

The eagle has been widely used as an emblem. It was perched on

the Roman standards. It is the national emblem   of Russia, Prussia,

Austria and the United States. When in 1782 Congress chose the eagle

to be our national emblem it did not realize that it had been used in the

same way in this country centuries before. Wisconsin had a celebrated

eagle carried to the front in the civil war by one of its regiments,

and known to every school child as "Old Abe, the war eagle of Wis-

consin". May we not believe that "Old Abe, captured in the forests of

Wisconsin was a lineal descendant of that majestic, pristine bird whose

image is outstretched here at our feet?

There are five eagle mounds in the vicinity of Madison; others are

found in different places in the state. One at Mauston has a wing

spread of 325 feet; one in Sauk county spreads 400 feet; one at the

southeast end of Lake Monona reaches 450 feet. This one before us is the

mammoth of them all; its wings extend 624 feet from tip to tip and is the

largest in the state, as well, I believe, as in the world.

John Fiske has reminded us that in the American Indian as he

was at the coming of the Europeans, we have the man of the stone

age. That period of human development which preceded civilization

in Europe, and which is only known by its scattered vestiges in caves

and river beds-was greatly prolonged on this continent. Indian cul-

The Wisconsin Archaeological Society.            357

ture, Indian social life, religion, mythology, art, etc., reproduce and

preserve for us the features of that savage state which lies so far back

in Europe-beyond all written history. It was a culture like that of the

mound builders out of which arose the civilization of Greece and Rome.

This is the great value of archaeology and fully justifies the interest we

take in Indian remains and our efforts to preserve them. A large lizard

mound which once stood on the capital park has been destroyed. This

was an "unpardonable sin", and could only happen because of the gen-

eral ignorance. It proves how,

"Evil is wrought by want of thought

As well as want of heart."

It is told of a teacher from another state, that seeing the mounds

where we now stand he took them to be bunkers on a golf course!

Doubtless he imagined them to be some of the improvements to the

hospital made under the superintendency of Dr. Gorst.

We take great satisfaction in unveiling this tablet marking the

hugest mound of its type in existence. This tablet is presented by Mr.

James M. Pyott of Chicago, who has been a member of the Wisconsin

Archaeological Society for many years and has always taken a deep

interest in its work.

At noon a fine picnic dinner was served by a committee of

the Madison ladies upon tables placed beneath the trees upon

the lawn. After its conclusion, Mr. Stout conducted the visi-

tors to the various mounds upon the grounds and giving in-

formation as to their character and dimensions. At 1:30 P. M.,

the launches were again boarded and a trip of several miles

across the water made to Morris Park, a well-known beauty

spot upon the north shore of the lake. At this place ample time

was given to view under the guidance of the Messrs. A. B.

Stout and Prof. Albert S. Flint, a considerable number of

burial, linear and effigy mounds. The latter include a single

bird effigy and a number of large effigies of the panther type.

The conical mounds located here include some of the most

prominent and best preserved about the Madison Lakes,

A plot of Indian cornhills located at the southeast cor-

ner of the property greatly interested the pilgrims. Morris Park

has recently been laid out in summer resort lots by a Madison

real estate dealer. The Society is making a determined effort

to save the mounds.