24 ABORIGINAL MONUMENTS
itself was also deemed sacred, and thus set apart as “ta- booed” or consecrated ground—especially where it is obvi- ous, at first glance, that it possesses none of the requisites of a military work. But it is not to be concluded that those enclosures alone, which contain mounds of the de- scription here named, were designed for sacred purposes. We have reason to believe that the religious system of the mound-builders, like that of the Mexicans, exercised among them a great, if not acontrolling influence. Their government may have been, for aught we know, a government of the priesthood; one in which the priestly and civil functions were jointly exercised, and one sufficiently powerful to have secured in the Mississippi valley, as it did in Mexico, the erection of many of those vast monuments, which for ages will continue to challenge the wonder of men. There may have been certain superstitious ceremonies, having no connection with the purposes of the mounds, carried on in enclosures specially dedicated to them. There are several minor enclosures within the great defensive work already re- ferred to, on the banks of the North Fork of Paint Creek, the purposes of which would scarcely admit of doubt, even though the sacred mounds which they embrace were want- ing. It isa conclusion which every day’s investigation and observation has tended to confirm, that most, perhaps all the earth-works, not manifestly defensive in their character, were in some way connected with the superstitious rites of the builders, though in what manner, it is, and perhaps ever will be, impossible satisfactorily to determine.
What dim light analogy sheds upon this point goes to sustain this conclusion. The British Islands only afford works with which any comparison can safely be instituted. The “ring forts” of the ancient Celts are nearly identical in form and structure with a large class of remains in our own country; and these are regarded by all well-informed British antiquaries as strictly religious in their origin, or connected with the rites of the ancient Druidical system.
