Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/121

Rh the handle of a dirk or short sword, at the place made for the hand to grasp it is nearly three-fourths of an inch thick and nearly three inches wide, the butt end of the handle being somewhat rounded and on each of the flat sides thereof is carved a design that resembles to some extent a face of Alaskan art. The above articles have been preserved throughout untold centuries, perhaps for a thousand years, by virtue of the burnt clay soil and charcoal overlaying this skeleton. The canoe paddle may have been a personal treasure of the deceased prized as a token in memory of the days when he and his men crossed in their canoes the peaceful Pacific from their homes in Japan and Siberia, via Alaska, to the game-laden paradise of the valley of the Calipooia.

The remains of twelve other skeletons were found in this one mound, but none of them had any ornament or covering of any kind or any semblance of authority, thereby indicating that they may have been the remains of sacrificial victims. They were evidently buried promiscuously in the mound but not close to the chief skeleton. In and on some mounds are found bowls, pestles, paint cups, war clubs, hammers, and ceremonial emblems and other relics, all of stone, while knives, awls, punches, and scrapers, of flint, are found. No coins, or bronze or iron articles of any kind are found in these prehistoric burial mounds, and only such relics as are made of stone, bone, and copper are found, which is proof that the builders were of the stone or Neolithic age of mankind. In the judgment of the writer, the prehistoric mounds of Oregon were built by immigrants from the island of Yezo or from the coast of Siberia. The skulls found in these mounds are of the dolicho-cephalic type, and not of the Mongolian type, but are the probable remains of the old Asiatic race which ancient writers aver were driven by the Mongolians into the northeastern part of Asia next to Bering strait. Their small stature, only about