Charles Augustus Shook (1876 – 1939) was raised in the LDS
church, and he was fascinated by the elaborate stories of America’s ancient
inhabitants, as depicted in the “Book of Mormon.”
Serpent Mound in Ohio
By the age of 24, his interest in archaeology and ethnology
had only grown. But Shook had a
problem: the stories in the Book of Mormon
did not square with what he was learning about America’s distant past:
As I entered deeper and deeper into the study… and as
discrepancy after discrepancy between the claims of the Book of Mormon and the
facts of science were discovered, I became more and more surprised that this
ground had not been more thoroughly worked by the anti-Mormon polemic before,
while I became more and more convinced that in the data acquired by
archæological and ethnological research the opponent of this system has a mass
of evidence which, if rightly used, will completely demolish the claim of the
historical credibility of the Book of Mormon.
For the last half century, at least, the Mormons have put
out works on American archæology, but most of these have been mere collations
of passages from scientific writers, taken here and there without a
consideration of the context and often so arranged as to give an entirely
different impression to the reader than their authors sought to convey. My plan
has been to state fairly the Book of Mormon, or the Mormon, position on a
certain point, and then to refute it by bringing to bear against it the latest
and best authority obtainable….
His investigation resulted in the 1910 book, Cumorah
Revisited: Or, "The Book of Mormon" and the Claims of the Mormons
Re-examined from the Viewpoint of American Archeology and Ethnology.
Shook begins with a review of the controversial authorship
of the Book of Mormon and summarizes the book’s account of America’s earliest
inhabitants. (Regarding “Cumorah” in the
title of Shook’s book, the name as used in the Book of Mormon refers to a hill
and surrounding area where the final battle between the Nephites and Lamanites
took place, resulting in the annihilation of the Nephite people. A common assumption among the faithful is that
the angel Moroni buried the plates of Mormon in the same hill where his father
had buried other plates, equating Cumorah Hill near Palmyra, New York with the
Book of Mormon Cumorah.)
Cumorah Hill in New York
Shook proceeds with what is a very readable and engaging synthesis
of the archeological evidence and interpretations of his day, which uniformly
contradicted the stories found in the Book of Mormon.
Of particular note is discussion of the Cherokees’ origins
and their possible involvement in mound construction in the Ohio Valley. While
the Southeast contained some reminders of mysterious long-ago times (most notably
the Etowah Mounds near Cartersville, GA) the Ohio Valley was generously
peppered with earthworks and burial sites that continue to raise more questions
than answers.
Shook describes a prevalent theory that the Tallegewi Indians
were predecessors to the Cherokees and engaged in building mounds and effigies
in the Ohio Valley until an invasion by the Lenape people (also known as Delawares). The Lenapes prevailed and sent the Tallegewi
southward to the region of North American where their descendants would
eventually be identified as “Cherokees.”
We come now to the State of Ohio, which bears evidence of
supporting a denser Mound Builder population than any other State, perhaps, in
the Union….
Professor Thomas is of the opinion that the earthworks of
that State were the joint work of the Cherokees, Shawnees and some few other
Indian tribes, and this seems to agree best with the facts as they have been
brought out by traditional, historical and archæological researches.
Then, as now, the shapes of skulls found among ancient human
remains provided clues to the migration of people from continent to continent:
It has been ascertained that the State was anciently
inhabited by two hostile, savage tribes, the dolicocephali of the Muskingum
Valley and the brachycephali of the valleys of the Miami and the Scioto. These
tribes were the Ohio Mound Builders. The attempt has been made to trace a
connection between them and historic tribes, and a few clues have been found
which seem to indicate that the long-heads were the Cherokees and the
shortheads the Lenapes and Hurons. The stock which formerly inhabited the
valleys of the Miami and the Scioto bore unmistakable osteological affinities
to the stonegrave people of Tennessee, and, as the Shawnees who inhabited that
State buried their dead in stone graves, it is inferred that they were one with
its ancient inhabitants and also of the same race with the ancient inhabitants
of the Miami and Scioto Valleys, as they, too, buried their dead in the same
kind of sepulchres. Therefore Professor Thomas concludes that both Fort Ancient
and Fort Hill were erected by this tribe. -“Cherokees in Pre-Columbian Times,” p. 79.
The evidence connecting the Cherokees with the other stock
is very strong. According to the Delaware tradition, obtained by Heckewelder,
the Delawares (who were originally one with the Shawnees and Mohicans) came
from the far western part of the continent. After a very long journey they
arrived at the river called the Naemaesi Sipu, where they met the Mengwe, or
Hurons, who had also left their old country for a new. The Lenape spies, who
had been sent ahead, returned from the land beyond the river and reported that
the country was inhabited by a very powerful and industrious people called by
themselves Talligeu, or Tallegwi, who had regular fortifications and
intrenchments. The Lenape, after hearing this report, sent a messenger to the
Tallegwi requesting permission to settle in their country. This was promptly
refused, but they were given permission to pass through and seek a home to the
eastward. After the messenger returned, the Lenape made preparations and began
to cross the river, when the Tallegwi treacherously fell upon them, slew a
great number and drove the rest back. Fired at this treachery, they called a
council of their chief men to decide upon what was best to be done, to retreat
as cowards or to fight it out as men. At this juncture the Mengwe, who had
heretofore taken no part in the matter, offered to join them, upon condition
that they would divide the country with them after it had been conquered. The
proposal was gladly accepted, and the
two joined forces against the original inhabitants. The war, which was long and
bloody, resulted favorably to the allies, and the Tallegwi were driven from the
land and were forced to flee toward the south, while the victors divided the
land between them, the Mengwe taking the northern part along the lakes and the
Lenape the southern part along the Ohio River.
That the Tallegwi were the Mound Builders there seems to be
no reasonable doubt, and some have seen in them, at their expulsion, the
migrating Toltecan hordes pouring down from the regions of the north into
Mexico. But later students have generally given up this theory, and many, for
several reasons, identify them with the Cherokees, who at the time of the early
settlement of the country were living in Tennessee, North Carolina and adjacent
territory.
One of the most weighty reasons for connecting the Tallegwi
with the Cherokees is their name. The former are variously called in the
traditions Allegewi, Tallegewi, Tallegwi, Tallegeu and Tallike. The Cherokees
were first called "Chelaques” and “Achelaques" by the historians of
De Soto's expedition. The French called them “Cheraqui.” And the name as we
have it was first used in 1708. The name that they give themselves is “Tsalagi”
in their Middle and Western dialects and “Tsaragi” in their Eastern. The reader
will observe that there is close agreement in sound between Tallike, the name
of the ancient Mound Builders of Ohio, and Tsalagi, the name that the Cherokees
give themselves. "Name, location and legends,” says Brinton, "combine
to identify the Cherokees or Tsalaki with the Tallike; and this is as much
evidence as we can expect to produce in such researches.”—Walam Olum, p. 231.
Another reason for identifying the Tallike with the
Cherokees is that their language points to the north for its derivation; it is
an offshoot of the language of the Huron-Iroquois stock. “Linguistically,” says
Mooney, "the Cherokee belong to the Iroquoian stock, the relationship
having been suspected by Barton over a century ago, and by Gallatin and Hale at
a later period, and definitely established by Hewitt in 1887. While there can
now be no question of the connection, the marked lexical and grammatical
differences indicate that the separation must have occurred at a very early
period.”— Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, p. 16.
We have already seen that the Cherokees were Mound Builders
and that they claimed to have built the mounds on Grave Creek, West Virginia,
which include one of the largest burial-mounds in the country, whose dimensions
are one thousand feet in circumference by seventy-five feet high. The
traditions of other tribes sustain this tradition. Mooney says of the Wyandots:
"The Wyandot confirm the Delaware story and fix the identification of the
expelled tribe. According to their tradition, as narrated in 1802, the ancient
fortifications in the Ohio Valley had been erected in the course of a long war
between themselves and the Cherokees, which resulted finally in the defeat of
the latter.”—Ibid, p. 19.
And Prof. John Fiske writes: “The Cherokees were formerly
classed in the Muskoki group, along with the Creeks and Choctaws, but a closer
study of their language seems to show that they were a somewhat remote offshoot
of the Huron-Iroquois stock. For a long time they occupied the country between
the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, and probably built the mounds that are
still to be seen there. Somewhere about the thirteenth or fourteenth century
they were gradually pushed southward into the Muskoki region by repeated
attacks from the Lenape and Hurons. The Cherokees were probably also the
builders of the mounds of castern Tennessee and western North Carolina. They
retained their moundbuilding habits sometime after the white man came upon the
scene.”—The Discovery of America, Vol. I., p. 145.
From the foregoing facts it seems highly probable that the
Cherokees were the Tallegwi, and that they, with the Lenapes and Hurons, were
the Mound Builders of Ohio.
Thomas attributes the mounds of the various sections of the
United States to the Indian tribes as follows: “The proof is apparently
conclusive that the Cherokee were mound builders, and that to them are to be
attributed most of the mounds of east Tennessee and western North Carolina; it
also renders' it probable that they were the authors of the ancient works of
the Kanawha Valley in West Virginia. There are also strong indications that the
Tallegwi of tradition were Cherokee and the authors of some of the principal
works of Ohio. The proof is equally conclusive that to the Shawnee are to be attributed
the box-shaped stone graves, and the mounds and other works directly connected
with them, in the region south of the Ohio, especially those of Kentucky,
Tennessee and northern Georgia, and possibly also some of the mounds and stone
graves in the vicinity of Cincinnati. The stone graves in the valley of the
Delaware and most of those in Ohio are attributable to the Delaware Indians.
There are sufficient reasons for believing that the ancient works in northern
Mississippi were built chiefly by the Chickasaw; those in the region of Flint
River, southern Georgia, by the Uchee; and that a large portion of those of the
Gulf States were built by the Muskokee tribes. The evidence obtained is
rendering it quite probable that the Winnebago were formerly mound builders and
the authors not only of burial tumuli, but also of some of those strange works
known as “effigy mounds,' so common in Wisconsin. That most of the ancient
works of New York must be attributed to the Iroquois tribes is now generally
conceded.”—Work in Mound Exploration, p. 13.
Now, to sum up: The Mound Builders were not the Jaredites
and Nephites, because they were one people, were divided into numerous
independent tribes, came from the north or northwest, began and ended their
work too late, were of an inferior culture, and are identified with existing
tribes by traditional, historical and archæological evidences. The theory of
the Book of Mormon, then, that the United States was the seat, in ancient
times, of a “wonderful civilization” which “had its base and origin in Central
America and Mexico," is wholly a creation of the fancy and unsupported by
the facts.
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