. . . Were the Jaredites the mound
builders? Again we answer, We think not. The remains found in the mounds that
have been opened betoken a race of builders far inferior in civilization to
what Ether represents the Jaredites to have been. True, it is possible, as some
have suggested, that an inferior race of later ages, may have opened these
mounds and made them sepulchres for the dead, and placed therein, with the
dead, the flint and quartzite arrowheads, the beads, pipes, shells, and
inferior pottery and ornaments that have been there found. It is also quite supposable
that the mounds scattered far and wide about the northern continent, were not
all built by the same race. It is affirmed with some show of evidence that some
of these mounds are known to have been built by the Shawnees and Cherokees,
while others are ascribed to the Chickasaws and Winnebagos. It is also
suggested that the Mandans and Minnitarees were at one time mound-building
people.
Major J. W. Powell, director of
the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, in the Forum, says: “No fragment of
evidence remains to support the figment of theory that there was an ancient race
of mound builders superior in culture to the North American Indians.”
A lady writer (Mary Morrison)
writing on this question in "Hearth and Hall," (Reprinted in the “Woman’s
Exponent,” July 15th; August 1st, and August 15th, 1892) sums up the opinions
of a number of intelligent investigators in the following statement:
"The mound-builders were
formerly regarded as a race so remote from the present Indian tribes that there
could be nothing between them, yet all recent theories deny this. Many Indian
tribes have built burial mounds for their dead.
"Some of the mounds in Ohio
have yielded from their deepest recesses articles of European manufacture,
showing an origin not farther back than the historic period. Spanish swords and
blue grass beads have been found in the mounds of Georgia and Florida . . .
"The annals of the Columbian
epoch have been carefully studied, and it is found that some of the mounds have
been constructed in historical times, while early explorers and settlers found
many actually used by tribes of North American Indians; so we know that many of
the Indians were builders of mounds. The contents of these mounds have been
compared with the works of art of the Indian tribes before they were influenced
by Europeans and both were substantially identical." (George Reynolds and
Janne M. Sjodahl, Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 7 vols. [Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1977], 6:231-32)
