Ancient Giant Skeletons Unearthed in Arkansas Burial Mound
Idaho
Daily Statesman, June 12, 1899
Food
For the Credulous
Remains of a Race of
Giants Found in Arkansas-Human Skeletons Unearthed Eight and Ten Feet
in Height-Strange and Unknown Pottery-Relics of a Former Age.
(From the Memphis Appeal)
The statements which we
make below, and the facts detailed are so strange and almost
incredible and so like the many… illegible…and canards that have
appeared from time to time appeared in the press of Europe and
America, that we premise them with the declaration that they are
strictly true, and that we have not exaggerated what we have seen one
iota. With this much as a preface we will proceed to our story: -
Chickasawba, two miles
west of Battlefield Point, in Arkansas, on the east bank of the
lovely stream called Pemiscott Bayou, a tributary of the St. Francis
St. Francis River, stands an Indian mound, some twenty-five feet high and about
an acre in area at the top. This mound is called Chickasawba, and
from it the high and beautiful country surrounding it, some twelve
square miles in area, derives its name Chickasawba. The mound
derives its name from Chickasawba, a chief of the Shawnee tribe, who
lived, died and was buried there. The chief was one of the last race
of hunters who lived in that beautiful region, and who once peopled
it quite thickly-for Indians we mean. From 1820 to 1831 he and his
hunters assembled annually at… illegible…Point, then, as now, the
principle shipping place of the surrounding country, and bartered off
their furs, peltries, buffalo robes and honey to the white settlers
and the trading boats on the river, receiving in return powder, shot,
lead blankets…illegible. Aunt Kitty Williams, who now resides
there, relates that Chickasawba would frequently bring in for sale at
one time as much as twenty gallons of pure honey in deerskin bags
slung to his back. He was always a firm friend of the whites, a man
of gigantic stature and Herculean strength. In his nineteenth year
he took a young wife, and by her had two children. In 1831 she died,
and the old chief did not long survive her, dying in the same year,
age ninety-three or four years. Mr. W. Fitzgerald, who moved to that
country in 1822, says that up to the time of his death Chickasawba
supplied him with game. He was buried at the foot of the mound on
which he had lived, by his tribe, most of whom departed for the
Nation immediately after performing his funeral rites. A few,
however lingered there up to a late date, the last of them, we
believe, being John East, who in 1860, at the breaking out of the
war, joined Captain Chaily Bowen’s company of the late “so-called,”
and fought the war through, as gallant a ‘reb,’ as any of them,
coming back home in 1865 to return to the arts of peace. Chickasawba
was perfectly honest, and best informed chief of his tribe. His
contemporary chiefs were Long Knife, Sunshine, Corn Meal, Moonshine
(Mike Brennan), &c. Mike Brennan and Quill buried him. He had a
son, named John Pennscott. A number of years ago in making an
excavation into or near Chickawba’s mound a portion of a Gigantic
Human Skeleton was found.
The men who digging,
becoming interested, unearthed the entire skeleton, and from
measurements given us by reliable parties the frame of the man to who
it belongs could not have been less than eight or nine feet in
height. Under the skull, which easily slipped over the head of our
informant (who, we will here state is one of our best citizens),
resembling nothing in the way of Indian pottery which had before been
seen by them. It was exactly the shape of the round-bodied, long
necked carafes, or water decanters, a specimen of which may be seen
on Gaston’s dining table. The material of which this vase was made
was a peculiar kind of clay, and the workmanship was very fine. The
belly or body of it was ornamented with figures or hieroglyphics,
consisting of a correct delineation of human hands, parallel to each
other, open, palms outward, and running up and down the vase, the
wrist to the base, and the fingers towards the neck. On either side
of these hands were tibiae or thigh bones, also correctly delineated,
running around the vase. There were other things found with the
skeleton, but this is all our informant remembers. Since that time
wherever an excavation has been made in Chickasaba Country in the
neighborhood of the mound.
Similar skeletons have
been found, under the skull of everyone were found similar funeral
vases, almost exactly like the described. There are now in this city
several of the vases and portions of the huge skeletons. One of the
editors of the Appeal yesterday measured a thigh bone, which is fully
three feet long. The thigh and shin bones, together with the bones
of foot, stood up in proper position, in a physician’s office in
this city, measured five feet in height, and show the body to which
the leg belonged to have been from nine to ten feet in height. At
Beaufort’s landing, near Barfield, in digging a deep ditch, a
skeleton was dug up, the leg of which measured between five and six
feet in length, and other bones in proportion. In a very few days we
hope to be able to lay before our readers accurate measurement and
descriptions of the portions of the skeletons now in the city and of
the articles found in the graves.
