Another mummified individual, later given the name “Fawn Hoof” by the people who displayed her, was found around 1813 in another part of the cave system.

Her remains were displayed in the cave for several years before being acquired by an Ohio man named Nahum Ward, who transported her by wagon to Lexington and then to Washington, D.C., where she was examined by the American Antiquarian Society before eventually being donated to the Smithsonian Institution.

Her story, and the stories of other mummified individuals from the Mammoth Cave area, reflect the nineteenth century’s treatment of Indigenous remains as curiosities to be displayed and examined rather than as the ancestors of living peoples deserving of respect.

The intentional burials — the woman in Short Cave, Fawn Hoof, and others — suggest that the cave held sacred or at least deeply meaningful significance beyond its practical value as a mineral source.