The Lesser Details, The
Waving Grain, The Blossoming Sumac, The Small Brooklet, Which
Attract The Immediate Passerby, Are Lost In The Distance, But
The Range Of Forest Clad Hills, The Wide Expanse Of Fertile
Plain, Or The Purpling Hills In The Distance, Determine The
Landscape And Claim Our Attention.
So in the light of the
present century let us note what we can of these ancient and
forgotten people.
"Distance lends enchantment to the view," and
this is true of distance in time, or culture as well as in
space.
In memory we live over again those scenes, when a strange race
met in this very spot to worship. In fancy we see again vast
multitudes of people who assembled at the head of a victorious
warrior-king who returned from the field of battle, to offer
sacrifice upon the altar in the center of the oval. The casting
off of the old skin of the serpent may have been to these
primitive people typical of immortality. "Then a kite, by
producing death, would be to them the working of some powerful
spirit through that serpent. Its power to destroy life no doubt
caused it to be held in great veneration by many primitive
tribes. Likewise any striking object in Nature, such as a river,
lake, precipitous cliff, with singular shaped stone such as we
have here on the crescent shaped plateau rising from Brush
Creek, would have been regarded as the abode of some spirit and
would be worshipped accordingly. That such objects are
worshipped the world over we have abundant testimony, and it
will be found in all such cases that there is some peculiarity
about the contour of the land on which are placed these objects,
that would be sure to catch the eye of a superstitious race."
There has been another serpent mound discovered in Warren
County, but space forbids a description of it. Not far from the
city of Toronto, Canada, we also find another.
"The Great Serpent Mound" in Adams County has a counterpart in
the Old World. In Scotland there is a very remarkable and
distinct serpent, constructed of stone. This work has so much in
common with the Ohio serpent that we reproduce the description
as given by Miss Gordon Cummin in Good Words for March, 1872.
"The mound is situated upon a grassy plain. The tail of the
serpent rests near the shore of Loch Nell, and the mound
gradually rises seventeen to twenty feet in height and is
continued for three hundred feet, forming a double curve like
the letter S, and wonderfully perfect in anatomical outline.
This we perceive the more perfect on reaching the head, which
lies at the western end... The head forms a circular cairn, on
which, at the time of a visit there in 1871, there still
remained some trace of an altar, which has since wholly
disappeared. On excavating the circular cairn, or circle of
stones forming the head, a chamber containing burnt bones,
charcoal and burnt hazelnuts, and an implement of flint were
found.
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