Fabrics from Cave Burials in Kentucky and Tennessee

Fabric from a cave burial in Kentucky

At an early date in the history of the country reports began to find their way into print relating to the discovery of mortuary fabrics in caverns and shelters. Extracts from some of these publications may be given.

From the writing of John Haywood historian of Tennessee, we have the following:

In the spring of the year 1811, was found in a copperas cave in Warren County, in West Tennessee, about 15 miles southwest from Sparta, and 20 from McMinnville, the bodies of two human beings, which had been covered by the dirt or ore from which copperas was made. One of these persons was a male, the other a female. They were interred in baskets, made of cane, curiously wrought, and evidencing great mechanic skill. They were both dislocated at the hip joint, and were placed erect in the baskets, with a covering made of cane to fit the baskets in which they were placed. The flesh of these persons was entire and undecayed, of a brown dryish colour, produced by time, the flesh having adhered closely to the bones and sinews. Around the female, next her body, was placed a well dressed deer skin. Next to this was placed a rug, very curiously wrought, of the bark of a tree and feathers. The bark seemed to have been formed of small strands well twisted. Around each of these strands, feathers were rolled, and the whole woven into a cloth of firm texture, after the manner of our common coarse fabrics. This rug was about three feet wide, and between six and seven feet in length. The whole of the ligaments thus framed of bark were completely covered with feathers, forming a body of about one eighth of an inch in thickness, the feathers extending about one quarter of an inch in length from the strand to which they were confined. The appearance was highly diversified by green, blue, yellow and black, presenting different shades of color when reflected upon by the light in different positions. The next covering was an undressed deer skin, around which was rolled, in good order, a plain shroud manufactured after the same order as the one ornamented with feathers. This article resembled very much in its texture the bags generally used for the purpose of holding 
coffee exported from Havanna to the United States. The female had in her hand a fan formed of the tail feathers of a turkey. The points of these feathers were curiously bound by a buckskin string, well dressed, and were thus closely bound for about one inch from the points. About three inches from the point they were again bound, by another deer skin string, in such a manner that the fan might be closed and expanded at pleasure. * * *

The cave in which they were found, abounded in nitre, copperas, alum, and salts. The whole of this covering, with the baskets, was perfectly sound, without any marks of decay.[

There was also a scoop net made of bark thread; a moccasin made of the like materials; a mat of the same materials, enveloping human bones, were found in saltpeter dirt, six feet below the surface. The net and other things mouldered on being exposed to the sun.[

In the year 1815 a remarkably interesting set of mortuary fabrics was recovered from a saltpeter cave near Glasgow, Kentucky. A letter from Samuel L. Mitchell, published by the American Antiquarian Society, contains the following description of the condition of the human remains and of the nature of its coverings:

The outer envelope of the body is a deer skin, probably dried in the usual way, and perhaps softened before its application, by rubbing. The next covering is a deer skin, whose hair had been cut away by a sharp instrument, resembling a hatter's knife. The remnant of the hair, and the gashes in the skin, nearly resemble the sheared pelt of beaver. The next wrapper of cloth is made of twine doubled and twisted. But the thread does not appear to have been formed by the wheel, nor the web by the loom. The warp and filling seemed to have been crossed and knotted by an operation like that of the fabricks of the northwest coast, and of the Sandwich islands. * * * The innermost tegument is a mantle of cloth like the preceding; but furnished with large brown feathers, arranged and fastened with great art, so as to be capable of guarding the living wearer from wet and cold. The plumage is distinct and entire, and the whole bears a near similitude to the feathery cloaks now worn by the nations of the northwestern coast of America.[

The Bureau of Ethnology had the good fortune to secure recently a number of representative pieces of burial fabrics of the classes mentioned in the preceding extracts, and somewhat detailed descriptions of these will sufficiently illustrate the art as practiced by the early inhabitants of the middle portions of the country.

The relics which have come into the possession of the Bureau were obtained in 1885 by Mr. A. J. McGill from a rock shelter on "Clifty" or Cliff Creek, Morgan county, Tennessee. Mr. J. W. Emmert, through whom they were procured, reports that they were found in a grave 3½ feet below the surface and in earth strongly charged with niter and perhaps other preservative salts. The more pliable cloths, together with skeins of vegetal fiber, a dog's skull, some bone tools, and portions of human bones and hair, were rolled up in a large split-cane mat. The grave was situated about as shown in the accompanying section (figure 4). A shelf some 20 feet in width, with depressed floor, occurs1about midway between the creek bed and the slightly overhanging ledge above, the whole height being estimated at 300 feet.

 Was the Newark Octagon Mound the Place for Ritual Sacrifice?

There are many similarities with the religion of the historic Natchez and the anient mound builders in the Ohio Valley. The Natchez performed ritual human sacrifice upon the death of a Sun. When a male Sun died, his wives were expected to accompany him by performing ritual sacrifice. Pictured above are 8 people who are being sacrificed at the death of the Natchez Sun King. The number reoccurs within the earthworks in the Ohio Valley.  Were these places of sacrifice of the Sun King?

Were subjects sacrificed at the 8 gateways of the Newark Ceremonial Center at the death of the Sun King?

Prehistoric America, Stephen Peet, 1903

First, let us consider the traditions of the Indian tribes as to their migrations.
1. The Cherokee were a tribe situated, at the opening of history, among the mountains of East Tennessee and perhaps as far east as North Carolina. There is a common tradition that the Cherokee were at one time in the Ohio Valley.
2.) The Dakotas; this tribe or stock was, at the opening of history located west of the Mississippi River, in the State that bears their name.  The Dakotas have a traditon they they were once on the Ohio River, and that they migrated from their to the west.
3.) The Natchez were a tribe formerly situated near the city of Natchez.  They were sun-worshippers.  It is supposed by some that the Natchez built the sun temples in Ohio, but they changed their methods and adopted the pyramid as their typical work afterwards.
4.0 The Tetons, a branch of the Dakotas, were probably once in the region, though their home was afterward in the northern part of Georgia.

 

The 8 Deities of the Hopewell Dakota Sioux Indians 

Wi -  The most powerful Sun god

Shkan - The sky god

Maka - The Earth Mother

Inyan - Rock and immovable things

Hanwi - Goddess of the Moon - wife of Wi

Tate -  god of the winds

Wohpe - The falling star or meteor

Wakinyan - Thunderbird

 

11 Foot Nephilim Giant with Tablet Removed from a Cassopolis, Michigan Mound

Tablets with the Sumerian cuneiform script have been found throughout Michigan, providing evidence of the Nephilim Amorite presence in the area.

Daily Public Ledger (Maysville, Kentucky) September 27, 1894
A Prehistoric Giant
     Elkhart, Indiana, Sept. 27 - A dispatch from Cassopolis, Michigan, says that on opening a mound near Diamond lake Wednesday, a giant of the prehistoric race was unearthed.  The bones of the skeletons are well preserved.  The lower jaw is immense.  An ordinary jawbone fits inside with ease.  By measurement the distance from the top of the skull to the upper end of the thighbone is five feet five inches.  A doctor, who was present, stated that the man must have been 11 feet high.  The mound was partially covered by a pine stump three feet six inches in diameter, and the ground showeed no signs of ever having been disturbed. An earthen tablet, upon which were various unintelligible characters, and other relics were found.

 

Megalithic Stone Circle Described in Ross County, Ohio

Centennial History of the County of Ross County, Ohio - 1902

To the south of this, about two hundred yards is a stone circle one hundred feet in diameter and five or six feet high. In the center of this is a large stone mound some ten feet high.

This work was located in Huntington township, on the east side of Black Run, 200 yards south of the old Minney farm.

Henges eventually replaced the stone circle as solar and celestial observatories. Before transitioning to the henge they were combined.

 Yellow Haired Mummies Found In Kentucky Cave

Chronicles Of Border Warfare In West Virginia, 1895

   Many of the antiquities discovered in other parts of the country, show
that the arts once flourished to an extent beyond what they have ever
been known to do among the Indians. The body found in the saltpetre
cave of Kentucky, was wrapped in blankets made of linen and interwoven
with feathers of the wild turkey, tastefully arranged. It was much
smaller than persons of equal age at the present day, and had
yellowish hair. In Tennessee many walls of faced stone, and even
walled wells have been found in so many places, at such depths and
under such circumstances, as to preclude the idea of their having been
made by the whites since the discovery by Columbus.

 

Neanderthal Skull 50,000 Years Old Discovered on a Kansas Farm

Skull pictured on the bottom is that found in Kansas that was described as thick walled with a protruding brow ridge.

Marion Daily Star, April 7, 1902

When the skull was found, it was not thought to have any scientific value. Several days ago M. C. Long curator of the Kansas City public museum, and Edwin Butts, the civil engineer for the Metropolitan Street Railway company, both enthusiastic archaeologist, went to the place of the discovery and secured the fragments of the skeleton and brought them to Kansas City. Both Mr. Long and Mr. Butts are enthusiastic over the discovery. From the appearance of the skull and its position in the earth they are convinced it is that of a glacial man. If this fact is established, it will be the first proof of the kind found on the North American continent. Were there Neanderthals in North America?

The find was made on the farm of Thomas and M. Cohncannon. They were digging

a tunnel into a great hill on their farm with the purpose of using the excavation as a 

storage place for apples and other fruits. They dug directly into the side of the hill. The 

skull was found about sixty-five feet in. Other bones of the skeleton were beside it. 

One of the farmers drove a pickax through the skull in loosening it from its stony bed, 

and later bones fell on it, so that it was broken into half a dozen pieces, but Mr. Long has

cemented it together. The skull is that of a man with hardly any forehead. Directly back from

the eyes recedes the frontal bone. The fragments found show he had a big jaw. The skull is very thick and strong, and its back part is broad and well developed. The phrenologist averts that this development at the back shows an abnormal nature. But there is no noble dome,no high and rounding forehead, that shows the development of intelligence.

The skull practically intact, a portion of the lower jaw, a part of a thigh bone, and several other fragments were found. The bones indicate the man to have been large. The head is small. The orbits for the eyes are close together and appear exceptionally large. Over the orbits are well-developed ridges that probably denote perceptive faculties. The bones were found huddled together. They lay partially imbedded in hardpan. A close and exhaustive investigation showed that the various strata of rocks and soils and the “watermarks” had never been disturbed vertically and neither had there been a unilateral disturbance of the hill. The skeleton evidently had been deposited there before the great mass of rock and soil above and about it. Had mound builders or Indians ever dug deep into the hill

they could not have avoided leaving traces of their excavation.

“When we first heard of the find, we deemed it the usual story of a ‘mound burial,’

said Mr. Long the other day. “our investigation shows beyond all doubt that is a skeleton of a

 man of the glacial period.. After a most exhaustive investigation, Mr. Butts and I reached the conclusion the skeleton was deposited there during the glacial period or drift. How long ago the ice period was is not definitely known; 50, 00 years, perhaps much longer.

 

The Iroquois Legend of the Stone Giants

The Iroquois believed that in early days there existed a malignant race of giants whose bodies were fashioned out of stone. It is difficult to say how the idea of such beings arose, but it is possible that the generally distributed conception of a gigantic race springing from Mother Earth was in this instance fused with another belief that stones and rocks composed the earth's bony framework. We find an example of this belief in the beautiful old Greek myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha, which much resembles that of Noah. When after the great flood which submerged Hellas the survivors' ship grounded upon Mount Parnassus they inquired of the oracle of Themis in what manner the human race might be restored. They were bidden by the oracle to veil themselves and to throw the bones of their mother behind them. These they interpreted to mean the stones of the earth. Picking up loose pieces of stone, they cast them over their shoulders, and from those thrown by Deucalion there sprang men, while those cast by Pyrrha became women.

These Stone Giants of the Iroquois, dwelling in the far west, took counsel with one another and resolved to invade the Indian territory and exterminate the race of men. A party of Indians just starting on the war-path were apprised of the invasion, and were bidden by the gods to challenge the giants to combat. This they did, and the opposing bands faced each other at a spot near a great gulf. But as the monsters advanced upon their human enemies the god of the west wind, who was 
lying in wait for them, swooped down upon the Titans, so that they were hurled over the edge of the gulf, far down into the dark abyss below, where they perished miserably.

Stone Circles, Early Nephilim Megalithic Remains in North America

State Centennial History of the County of Ross Ohio 1902

To the south of this, about two hundred yards, is a stone circle one hundred feet in diameter and five or six feet high. In the center of this is a large stone mound some ten feet high.

This work was located in Huntington township, on the east side of Black Run, 200 yards south of the old Minney farm.

Ft Wayne, Indiana News Sentinel Feb. 2, 1935

Rendezvous of Cave Men is Found Near Hamilton (Indiana)

A Natural amphitheatre several hundred feet across have been formed on the Kugler farm in what is apparently a dried up stream bed. The old course of the creek has left a level site hemmed in on three sides by hills and rocks which would have made an ideal protected meeting place for early tribesmen. As the land in the enclosure is very rocky, attempts to clean the old stream bed have been unsuccessful. Numerous stones and stone implements were apparently planted there.

Immediately inside the opening of the amphitheater is a circle of large stones Measuring about 12 feet in diameter, surrounded by a larger circle of stones about forty foot in diameter.

The land surrounding the opening was prior to the visitation of curiosity seekers, well laiden with arrowheads, grinding stones, stone axes and other implements.

The Aborigines of Minnesota by N.H. Winchell 1911

Boulder Circles, S.W. 1/4 sec. 20 T. 109-45. There are a few double bolder circles, one within the other.  There are a few others further north, bordering the lake.(Lake Benton) Medicine County.

American Academy of Science

Mentions stone circles in New York. No locations were given. 

Mysteries of Ancient America Volume II

 Mysteries of Ancient America Volume II

 9 Foot Nephilim Giant Uncovered in Noble County, Indiana

Burial Mound located in Noble County, Indiana.  From, "The Nephilim Chronicles: A Travel Guide to the Ancient Ruins of the Ohio Valley."  Large skeletons were described in several of the mounds that were excavated.  The giants of northern Indiana were an extension of the Maritime Archaic that originated in Northern Europe,. More Indiana giants here 
www.nephilimgiants.net : Indiana's Ancient Giant Race

MOUND BUILDERS' BONES
Skeleton of a Giant Unearthed in Indiana by Workmen
     Relics of a prehistoric age are being brought to light in Noble County.  The find is in York township, where workmen excavating for a public highway found the skeleton of an inhabitant of early days.
   The bones indicate that the person was fully 9 feet tall.  The bones are unusually large and the position of the skeleton when found indicated that the body had been interred in a sitting position. The belief is advanced that the remains are those of a mound builder.
  Other discoveries in the same neighborhood indicate that York township was inhabited years before the Red Man set foot on Hoosier soil.  Noble County is believed to have been the burial place of a large number of mound builders.

California Giant Skulls and Burial Rituals are Similar to the Adena of the Ohio Valley

 California Giant's Skulls and Burial Rituals are Similar to the Adena of the Ohio Valley

The same type of round-headed giants with "highbrows," are common in the Ohio Valley burial mounds

Spokane Daily Chronicle, June 14, 1922
LOS ANGELES HOME OF EARLY GIANTS
   They Were Seven Feet in Height According to Discoveries just Made. The original residents of Southern California were giants, seven feet in height, according to an anthropological discovery of the University of California near McFarland, in the heart of the oil fields. They were also "highbrows" with large, well-rounded heads. They lived in mounds and used implements of stone. The excavations are being made under the direction of Arling Steinberger, in a now dry lake where the soil is heavily impregnated with alkaline salts and seepage of petroleum. This chemical combination acted as an ideal preservative so that the skeletons were found in a fine state of preservation. The first mound uncovered evidence was a burying ground, as the skeletons were found lying or sitting facing the east, as was customary in the last rites of primitive peoples. The skeletons are believed to be those of the first dwellers in Southern California.

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Early Man in North America Kill a Mastodon. Were They Mound Builders?

 Early Man in North America Kill a Mastodon in Missouri

Several Native American historical accounts claim the mound builders in the Ohio Valley used the Mastodon as a beast of burden to construct the large earthworks in the Ohio Valley.

     Several accounts have appeared of discoveries tending to prove that primitive man in the United States was contemporaneous with the mastodon or mammoth. Three of these have attained a wide circulation. First in time as well as importance is that of Dr. Koch, of St. Louis. " In the year 1839, I discovered and disinterred in Gasconade County, Missouri, the bones of a Mastodon giganteus. The greater portion of the bones had been more or less burned by fire. The fire had extended, but a few feet beyond the space occupied by the animal and had been kindled by human agency with the design of killing the huge creature which had been found mired in the mud. The fore and hind legs of the animal were in perpendicular position in the clay with the toes attached to the feet. All the bones which had not been burned by the fire had kept their original position, standing upright, and apparently quite undisturbed in the clay, whereas those portions which had extended above the surface had been partially consumed. Mingled with the ashes and bones were many broken pieces of rock quarried from the river to be hurled at the animal. I found also among the ashes, bones, and rocks, several arrowheads, a stone spear-head, and some stone axes. The layer of ashes, etc., was covered by a stratum of alluvial deposits from eight to nine feet thick. [Koch afterward] found in Benton County several stone arrowheads, mingled with the bones of a nearly entire skeleton, mentioned above as the Missourian. Two arrowheads found with the bones were in a layer of vegetable mold, which was covered twenty feet in thickness with alternate layers of sand, clay and gravel. One of the arrowheads lay under the thigh bone of the skeleton, the bone actually resting in contact upon it. The layer of vegetable mold was some five or six feet thick, and the arrowhead and bones were found buried in it. Above this layer there were six undisturbed layers of clay, sand and gravel." 

Gigantic Human Skeletons Discovered in Dearborn County, Indiana Burial Mound

Adena Hopewell enclosure called the Oberting site in Dearborn County, Indiana.

History of Dearborn and Ohio Counties Indiana, 1885 

"There is a large mound in Mr. Allen's field about twenty feet high, sixty feet in diameter at the base, which contains a greater proportion of bones than anyone I ever before examined, as almost every shovel full of dirt would contain several fragments of a human skeleton. When on Whitewater, I obtained the assistance of several of the inhabitants for the purpose of making a thorough examination of the internal structure of these monuments of the ancient populousness of the country. We examined from fifteen to twenty. In some, whose height was from ten to fifteen feet, we could not find more than four or five skeletons. In one not the least appearance of a human bone was to be found. Others were so full of bones, as to warrant the belief that they originally contained at least 100 dead bodies of children of different ages and the full grown, appeared to have been piled together promiscuously. We found several skulls, leg and thigh bones, which plainly indicate their possessors were men of gigantic stature. The skull of one skeleton was one-fourth of an inch thick; and the teeth were remarkably even, sound and handsome, all firmly planted. The fore teeth were very deep and not so wide as those of the generality of the white people. Indeed, there seemed a great degree of regularity in the form of the teeth in all the mounds." 

 Ancient Auburn Haired, Caucasian Mummies Discovered in a Tennessee Cave

The Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee (1823)
 Haywood describes a cave, the aperture into which was very small, near the confines of Smith and Wilson Counties, on the south side of Cumberland River, about twenty-two miles above Cairo, on the waters of Smith’s Fork. The workmen digging in the apartment next to the entrance, after removing the dirt, came to another small aperture upon the same level, which they also entered, and found a room twenty-five feet square. This room seemed to have been carefully preserved for the reception and burial of the dead. In it, near the center, were found three human bodies sitting in baskets made of cane, the flesh being entire, but a little shrivelled and hard. The bodies were those of a man, a woman, and a small child. The color of the skin was said to be fair and white, without any admixture of a copper color; their hair auburn and of a fine texture. The teeth were very white; in stature they were about the same as the whites of the present day. The man was wrapped in fourteen dressed deer skins, and over these were wound what those present called blankets. They were made of bark, like those found in the cave in White County. In form the baskets were pyramidal, being larger at the bottom and tapering towards the top. The heads of the skeletons were out side of the blankets.

Ohio's Tarleton Cross was to Scare Evil Spirits Away From the Graves at the Site

Ohio's Tarleton Cross was to Scare Evil Spirits Away From the Burial Mounds at the Site

SUN AND FIRE SYMBOLISM.

There is a phase of sun and fire symbolism which seems hitherto to have received but little attention, viz., the presence of such symbols in crests or in the coats-of-arms of many of the oldest families and landed gentry of the British Isles. We find them in the greatest numbers in the armorial bearings of our Scottish families and those belonging to the most northern counties of England; probably for the same reason that they are most numerous on objects which have been found in the northern portions of Scandinavia. Some of the emblems of the sun and of the swastika as a fire symbol and the wheel are in use in some countries to this day as a preservative against fire. A type of fire symbol exists in some parts of England at our very doors. In Gloucestershire and Herefordshire — possibly also in some of the other southwestern counties of England — it is not an uncommon circumstance to see on the external walls of some of the older houses one or two pieces of iron in this form:  And sometimes thus : tershire man, and on being asked the reason of the + form of these irons, he replied that "they were made thus V_) in order to protect the house from fire, as well as from falling down." In the little village of Kingstone, in Herefordshire, it is still the custom of the people on the eve of May-day to I take two short pieces of wood and nail them in this form X over the door of a house or stable, removing the one of the previous year. On inquiry why this was done, the reply was, "To scare the witches or the evil spirits away." H. G. M. A.

 Osage Sioux Hopewell Indian Legends of the Woolly Mammoth

Osage Sioux -Hopewell Indian mound builders platform pipe from Iowa.

     A remarkable story, alleged in support of the coexistence of the Indian, and the mammoth's great contemporary the mastodon, regarded by most scientists with distrust, though defended by some, was that of Dr. Albert Koch, collector of curiosities, who in 1839 disinterred the skeleton of a mastodon in a clay bed near the Bourboise River, Gasconade County, Missouri. Associated with the bones Koch claimed to have discovered, in the presence of a number of witnesses, a layer of wood-ashes, numerous fragments of rock, "some arrowheads, a stone spearpoint, and several stone axes," evidencing he claimed, that the huge animal had met its untimely end at the hands of savages, who, armed with rude weapons of stone and boulders brought from the bed of the neighboring river, had attacked it, while helplessly mired in the soft clay, and finally effected its destruction by fire.
Koch also published with his statement and in connection with another skeleton, that of the Mastodon giganteus discovered by him in Benton County, Missouri, a tradition of the Osage Indians, in whose former territory the bones were found, and which he says led him to the discovery. It states, says Koch, "that there was a time when the Indians paddled their canoes over the now extensive prairies of Missouri and encamped or hunted on the bluffs. That at a certain period many large and monstrous animals came from the eastward along and up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, upon which the animals that had previously occupied the country became very angry, and at last so enraged and infuriated by reason of these intrusions, that the red man durst not venture out to hunt anymore, and was consequently reduced to great distress. At this time a large number of these huge monsters assembled here, when a terrible battle ensued, in which many on both sides were killed, and the remnant resumed their march toward the setting sun. Near the bluffs which are at present known by the name of the Rocky Ridge one of the greatest of these battles was fought. Immediately after the battle the Indians gathered together many of the slaughtered animals and offered them up on the spot as a burnt sacrifice to the Great Spirit. The remainder were buried by the Great Spirit himself, in the Pomme de Terre River, which from this time took the name of the Big Bone River, as well as the Osage, of which the Pomme de Terre is a branch. From this time the Indians brought their yearly sacrifice to this place, and offered it up to the Great Spirit, as a thank-offering for their great deliverance, and more latterly, they have offered their sacrifice on the table rock above-mentioned (a curious rock near the spot of the discovery), which was held in great veneration and considered holy ground."