Page:The Government of Iowa 1911.djvu/25

Rh Eskimoid in type. "It is supposed," says Dr. Duren J. H. Ward, "that this little Eskimoid man was followed by the famous Mound Builder, who finally spread his art and civilization up and down the Mississippi Valley and east and west for great distances. His characteristic works are found in Ohio and in Iowa, in Louisiana and in Wisconsin. He has left a vast amount of evidence as to his physical characteristics and the material stage of his civilization; but he is withal a great mystery. His mounds, so numerous, constitute together the most baffling problem in Archæology. What are they, what were they for? Some of them are doubtless the remains of his dwelling places, but many are not. Some have religious significance; some may have been for defence. Doubtless in many of them is buried the owner of the lodge which once existed thereon or thereby. Probably with his bones are to be found his implements of peace and war, and oft-times, too, the bones of his slaves and his wives, who were sacrificed to accompany his spirit on the long voyage to the land of the Great Spirit."

What became of the Mound Builder is a great mystery. He had disappeared, no one knows how long, before the first white man discovered the Mississippi Valley. That he lived in Iowa in great numbers is evidenced by the mounds which may be found on the banks of nearly every stream of any consequence in the State.

The Indians. — The Mound Builder was displaced, or at all events followed, by the North American Indians — a people who to-day are rapidly approaching extermination.