The Ancient Giants Discovered in the Chickasawba Mound in Arkansas
Giant Humans Found in Arkansas
Idaho Daily Statesman, June 12, 1899
Food For the Credulous
Remains of a Race of Giants Found in Arkansas-Giant 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 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 giant skeletons now in the city and of the article found in the graves.
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