Teocalli, or "Houses of God," or Houses of the Sun,- for the word "Teotl," the appellation of the Supreme Being, was also used to denote that luminary, were regular terraced pyramids, supporting chapels which contained the images of their idolatry. Indeed, the two great pyramids of Teotihuacan were dedicated, respectively, to the Sun and Moon, and those which surrounded them to the Stars.

In the United States, we have some specimens of the terraced pyramid, preserved to this day, though immense mounds of earth, without stages, most usually supplied its place. Occasionally we perceive that the terraces have almost disappeared, but in other instances they are plainly visible. "The great mound at Cahokia," observes Mr. Brackenridge, “ is evidently constructed with as much regularity, as any of the Teocalli of New Spain; and was doubtless cased with brick, or stone, and crowned with buildings." In common with the Peruvians and Mexicans, and other nations in New Spain and South America, the Natchez, and other tribes in the United States, also worshipped the Sun; and from the contents of our mounds, from the form and position of some, unquestionably devoted to religious purposes, from the coincidence between them and the temples of Peru and Mexico, in ranging accurately with the cardinal points; and from the care with which an eastern view and access were preserved, it may be concluded, that the worship of that body was a prominent feature in the religion of their authors. This opinion is confirmed, moreover, by the medals of the Sun and Moon, which have been disinterred from the mounds.* The Mexicans and Peruvians were skilled in astronomy; among all ancient and primitive nations,

* Arch. Am., vol. i. p. 243.

the worship of the heavenly bodies was connected with a knowledge of that science; and the benefit of this inference may be justly claimed for the Mound-builders. Among those tribes in the United States, which appear to have preserved some relics of this ancient faith, we might anticipate the existence of some traditional proof of the name and uses of the great mounds. Accordingly the tradition of the Choctaws, in relation to the mound on the Black river, maintained that "in its midst is a great cave, which is the 'House of the Great Spirit;"" and Adair expressly assures us, that the same tribe called these old mounds "Nanne-Yah," "The Hills or Mounts of God," a name almost identical with that of the Mexican pyramids.*

It may be observed also, that both the Mounds and the Teocalli are frequently approached by converging roads or causeways, in such a manner as to favor the idea, that at certain great festivals they were visited by processions of large bodies of people ;† that the Teocalli, the Temples of the Sun, and some of the Mounds, were alike surrounded by walls, or trenches; and that the regular disposition of small mounds around the Teocalli resembles the symmetrical arrangement of the tumuli around many of the Mounds.

It must be confessed, that in the progress of this comparison, we find no vestiges in the United States of such edifices as crowned the Mexican and Peruvian terraces. But upon the great alluvial plains of the west, the materials for such struc

* Tr. Am. Phil. Soc., vol. iii. p. 216. Adair, p. 378.

This is a clearly authenticated historical fact, in relation to the Teocalli.

*

tures are rare. "All the monuments I have seen," says Mr.

Flint, "were in regular forms, generally cones, or parallelograms. If it be remarked, that the rude monuments of this kind, those of the Mexican Indians even, are structures of stone, and that these are all of earth, I can only say, that these memorials of former toil and existence are, as far as my observation has extended, all in regions destitute of stones."+ Perhaps, however, upon this point, it must be conceded, that the people of the North had deteriorated and fallen away, in some degree, from the more advanced civilization of their progenitors at the South; and particularly had experienced that decline in architectural art, which might naturally occur to a migrating tribe. That the authors of the Mounds were not wholly ignorant of the art of working in stone, appears from many of the ruins. The fortresses surrounded by walls of stone; the sculptured remains discovered in the mounds; the stone buildings, in Missouri, constructed with great symmetry and with regular apartments; and the ruins of an ancient town, in the same State, where the lines of streets and squares, and the foundations of stone dwellings may still be seen, all tend in some measure to support this position.‡

The methods of fortification at the North and the South

* In Assyria, a country occupied at a very early period, by nations skilled in the arts, the absence of any structures to be compared with those of Egypt, has been explained, upon the same reasoning.— Landseer's Sabæan Res., p. 88.

† Flint's Recollections, p. 164.

Ulloa speaks of the resemblance between certain old buildings in Louisiana and the Peruvian edifices.

present some analogies. Palisadoes, earthen entrenchments, and long walls with bastions were common; and each people appears to have exercised great prudence and judgment, in the selection of commanding military positions.* In Peru and Mexico there are many vestiges of fortifications, similar to the mural remains of the United States. Ulloa speaks of numerous walls and ruins, in Peru, both in the plains, and on the sides and summits of hills, some of them composed of adobes or rough stone, without any arrangement, the more irregular of which were attributed to the Indians, before they were reduced by the Incas. The earthen causeway, on the plains of Varinas, resembles many in the United States, and ancient earthen entrenchments have been observed, even in Chile.

Water was a sacred element in Mexico; the lakes of Titicaca and Guativita, in South America, were objects of veneration, and one of them was certainly visited for the purpose of religious ablution;‡ and from the position of many of the most remarkable mounds in the United States, upon the immediate margins of streams, it may be inferred that the same element was worshipped there.

In South America, the dead were sometimes buried in ordinary graves, in a sitting posture,-at others, interred in the huacas, some of which were hollow,-again, they were deposited in caves, or burned, or embalmed. In Mexico all these methods prevailed; the most usual course was interment in

* Clavig., vol. ii. p. 389.

† Ulloa, vol. i. p. 503. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 113.

The Peruvians were accustomed to bathe in rivers, by which means they supposed they were cleansed of their sins.-Vega, vol. i.

P. 16.

common graves, and in a sitting posture; the bodies of chiefs, kings and illustrious persons were either embalmed, or burnt, the ashes and bones being often deposited in the mounds and Teocalli, many of which were hollow: caves were also sometimes employed as cemeteries.* In our own country are ancient graves, with bodies buried in a sitting posture; mounds erected over the ashes of the dead, or with chambers containing skeletons; and caves in which numerous bodies have been discovered, wrapped in cloths, interred in the same peculiar flexed position, and betraying strong indications of the custom of embalming. The practice of burying with the deceased articles emblematic of his character or intended for his use in another life, and also a portion of his riches, was common to all these nations, as has been demonstrated by the contents of their sepulchres.

The masks dug from the mounds, have a parallel in the masks represented upon the Mexican monuments, and employed in their religious ceremonies, and also in the masks used by the Muyscas, in South America. Articles composed of copper have been found in the mounds; and the Mexicans and Peruvians possessed the knowledge of the art of hardening that metal, by an alloy of tin, in which manner, probably, the tools employed in the execution of their sculptures were fabricated. A copper cross has been discovered, lying upon the breast of a skeleton, in one of our mounds; a cross decorated the pinnacle of the

* In some caves, near Durango, in Mexico, it is said, a vast number of mummies has been discovered. They were buried in a sitting posture, and wrapped in bands of cloth. With them were found deposited a great variety of ornaments, beads, knives of flint, finely worked cloths and marine shells.