was along this line. The lookout mound commands a view of the entire group and of another group situated five miles distant on the opposite side of the river. The explanation of this group is that here on the summit of the hill there was an important tribal burial or other religious ceremony of the tribe, and the various clans assembled here and left the effigies as clan totems upon the surface. We will say Fig. 16.--Heyoka, Dakota Divinity. further that there are many localities where effigies are clustered around some central ring, and these groups are generally located near some village site, conveying the idea that the members of the different clans were accustoined to assemble in the council houses and on the dance grounds and make a common feast together. Another specimen of a sacred dance circle or mystery lodge is the one which has been discovered at Green Lake. Here there is a ring or circle on the hill-top not far from the village site, and around the ring a number of effigies in various attitudes, among which were recognized the squirrel, fox, eagle and pigeon, all of which were the totems of clans near by. It is possible that these M indicate the presence of clans at a dance or feast, and yet the ring suggests a medicine lodge, and reminds us of Catlin's picture of the medicine lodge of the Mandans. Another group is situated at Lake Koshkonong. Here there is a platform mound which has about the same proportions as the sacred lodge of the Dakotas, which was elliptical in shape-twenty feet across and forty feet long. Fig. 17.-Medicine Lodge in a Shelter Cave. Another specimen is one found on the north side of Lake Mendota. This is a group which extends along the edge of the lake for a mile and a half or two miles. There is, at one end of it, a cluster of effigies, in the midst of which was a high conical mound. The effigies are situated on lower ground, but all of them near the water. Among them were recognized the clan totems of all the adjoining clans-the panther, weasel, buffalo, fox, pigeon, bear, eagle, squirrel, and turtle. There are four or five man mounds in the group; two near the altar mound, two in the midst of the panthers and pigeons.* The best specimen of all is the one which was described by Mr. W. H. Canfield as situated at Baraboo, in the midst of which he found a circle which was occupied by the later tribes as a site of a council house. Here there are four effigies of wolves, four bear, four mink and one raccoon and one elk surrounding a circle, all of them the emblems of the surrounding clans.† There is a shelter cave in West Virginia on the sides of which are serpents, quadrupeds and birds, also a death's head or skull and other symbols. This has been pronounced by W. H. Holmes "as a place where some medicine man practiced his mysteries." We may say, however, with as much reason, that the circle among the effigies was also a medicine lodge. See Figs. 17 and 18. Fig. 18.-Medicine Lodge and Cornfield at Green Lake. III. This brings us to another point-the comparison of the record contained in the effigies and those which are given by the traditions of the later tribes, especially the Dakotas and Winnebagoes. We have seen that there is much information furnished by the effigies in reference to (1) the migrations of the tribe and the route which they took; (2) in reference to the territory which they reached and its area and boundaries; (3) in reterence to the division into clans, and the locations of the clans and clan villages; (4) in reference to the religious customs and The mission school of the Winnebagoes in 1832 was on Yellow River, in Allamakee County, Iowa, the very county wher the pictographs in the caves are found. The school had been at Prairie du Chien. El Roy, on the Lemonweir R ver, was also a prom nent center of population about the same time. See Wisconsin Winnebagoes, by Mose, Paquette, Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XII. †There were a council house and garden beds at Beloit. The garden beds were situated on the bank of the Rock River, near where the Northwestern depot formerly stood. The first settlers raised their first vegetables on the spot where the garden beds had been. There were corn fields on the bo ton. of Turtle Creek, near where the athletic grounds are at resent. A council house built of bark, forty feet square, with poles in the center supportg the roof, sto d near Turtle Creek, where the road to Shop ere crosses the creek, with w.ywams standing around it. There were trails which led to Rockton and to jane ville, on each side of the r ver, and another leading across the prairie toward Delavan Lake. One of these crosses the college campus through the group of mounds. |