Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology

d a national name, but nobody can tell certainly what it was. No record or tradition has preserved it, unless discovery of it can be made in a national designation found, with

urbourg, who has translated one of the old books and given much attention to others, supposes the Toltecs and the Mound-Builders to be the same people, or did

o Valley much earlier than the Algonquin branch of the wild Indian race. It is permissible, at least, to conjecture, if one feels inclined to do so, that it was the Iroquois migration from the northwest, or that of the great family to which the Iroquois family belonged, which expelled the Mound-Builders from their border settlements, cut them off from the copper mines, an

RS OF THE W

recollections of their ancestors, or some traces of the lost civilization, perceptible in their customs and their legendary lore. The barbarism of the wild Indians of North America had nothing of this kind. It was original barbarism. There was nothing to indicate that either the Indians inhabiting our part of the continent, or their ancestors near or remote, had ever been civ

The Iroquois dwelt chiefly in New York, and around Lake Erie, from Niagara to Detroit, although separate communities of the group to which they immediately belonged were found in other places, such as the Dacotahs and Winnebagoes at the West, and the isolated Tuscaroras of the Carolinas. Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, wh

ch they were found two hundred years ago. When Europeans began to explore North America, this family had become divided into several branches, and each of these branches had a modified form of the common language, which, in turn, had developed several dialects. A long period was required to effect so great a change; but, whatever estimate of the time may be accepted, it seems to be a fact that the Algonquins came to the Mississippi Valley long

ound-Builders. They had nothing in common with it. In Africa, Asia, and elsewhere among the more uncultivated families of the human race, there is not as much really original barbarism as some anthropologists are inclined to ass

. But their intelligence, skill, and civilized ways are shown not only by their constructions and manufactures, but also by their mining works. Who can imagine the Iroquois or the Algonquins working the copper mines with such intelligence and skill, and such a combination of systematic and persistent industry! They had no tradition of such a condition of life, no trace of it. It is absur

TON'S

vertheless, some of them have tried very strangely to give it aid by one or two quotations from early voyagers to America. T

d us, one of them appareled with a waistcoat and breeches of black serge, made after our sea fashion, hos

the discovery. These Indians had evidently become well acquainted with the Basques, and, therefore, did not fear to approach Gosnold's ship. Probably some of them had been employed on board B

nted together, each piece of the bigness of one of our reeds, a finger in length, ten or twelve of them together on a string, which they wear about their necks: their collars they wear about their bodies like bandeliers a handful broad, all hollow pieces like the other,

ornaments by trading with the Basques or with other French voyagers. If only one or two Indians had been represented as wearing ornaments made of copper, this explanation could be readily accepted. But he avers that they had "grea

. Therefore he gave this wonderfully colored account of mines, flax-growing, copper chains and collars, and "other rich commodities" among the wild Indians of Massachusetts. Settlements on that coast, it was believed, would bring profit to those in whose interest he wrote. Gosnold actua

terward, when the actual barbarism of the Indian tribes in New England and other parts of the country had become generally known, no one could describe any of these Indians as successful miners and flax-growers, and assert gravely that they had such stores of copper that "none of them" lacked great abundance of copper "chains, earrings, collars," and the like, without being laughed at. Brereton's story must be regarded as an invention designed to serve a special purpose, but not warranted by any thing

AN ETH

ike branches. The wild Indians of North America were profoundly different from the ancient people of Central America and Peru. The Pueblo or Village Indians of New Mexico have scarcely any thing in common with the Apaches, Comanches, and Sioux. Even the uncivilized Indians of South America are different from those in the United States. Our wild Indians have more resemblance to the nomadi

been shown. He says: "The Indian nations, from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains, and from the Arctic Sea to the Gulf of Mexico, with the exception of the Esquimaux, have the same system. It is elaborate and complicated in its general form and details; and, while deviations from uniformity occur in the systems of different stocks, the

the whole continent, remains unproved. The supposed traces of it among the Pueblos are by no means clear. A more complete and accurate research is required to show that identically the same system ever has existed any where between the United Sta

at respect; but it can not yet be claimed with reason that they have been able to settle this question beyond the reach of doubt, even in their own minds. Therefore, to speak mod

t well warranted by facts. Such "Semi-Village Indians" as are supposed, really standing half way between the savages and the Pueblos, and being actually savages half developed into Pueblos, have never had a clearly defined and unquestionable existence here since the continent became known to Europeans. In the border region between the northern wild Indians and the old Mexican race there are exceptional communities formed by association or mixture, but we can not reasonably give them the significance claimed for the supposed "

ace. They point to the well known fact that the fauna of the American continent below the northern frontier of Mexico is remarkably different from that between this line and the Arctic Sea. At the north, America abounds in species sim

a found in this part of North America was introduced after the glacial period by immigration from Asia and Europe over connecting lands or islands at the northwest and the northeast,

given; but the discovery of human remains associated with extinct animals in the caves of Brazil, by Lund, lends some color to the supposition. Assuming this supposition to be correct, we should have to look in the human population of America, as in the fauna generally, for an indigenous or Austro-Columbian element, and an immigrant or 'Arctogeal' element." He then suggests that

THE MOUND

ains many facts connected with their remains. In the Great Valley their most populous settlements were at the south. Coming from Mexico and Central America, they would begin their settlements on the Gulf coast, and afterward advance

of hewn stone, and can still be examined in their ruins. The Mound-Builders, like some of the ancient people of Mexico and Yucatan, used wood, sun-dried brick, or some other material that could not resist decay. There is evidence that they used timber for building purposes. In one of the mounds opened in the Ohio Valley two chambers were found with remains of the timber of which the walls were made, and with arched ceilings precisely like

ely like theirs in form and appearance, occupy a chief place among the remaining works of the Mound-Builders. The use made of these foundations at Palenque, Uxmal, and Chichen-Itza, shows the purpose for which they were constructed in the Mississippi Valley. The resemblance is not due to cha

ly alike. In both cases they are pyramidal in shape, and have level summits of considerable extent, which were reached by means of stairways on the outside. The great mound at Chichen-Itza is 75 feet high, and has on its summit a ruined stone edifice; that at Uxmal is 60 feet high, and has a similar ruin on its summit; that at Mayapan is 60 feet high; the edifice plac

, standing on the upper terraces of all the low and extended "mounds," and smaller structures on the high mounds, such as those above named. There would seem to be an extension of ancient Mexico and Central America throug

connection with the people of Mexico, and goes far to explain their origin. We have other evidence of intercourse between the two peoples;

Mound-Builders themselves, no traces of the former existence of such a people have been discovered in any part of North America save Mexico, and Central America, and districts immediately connected with them. At the same time, it is not unreasonable to s

-Builders shows that a very long period, far more than two thousand years, it may be, must have elapsed since they left the Valley of the Ohio. Perhaps they

is conjecture has been used to explain certain exceptional peculiarities noticed in some of the wild Indian tribes. For instance, it has been suggested that the Mandan Indians were a separated and lost fragment of the mound-building people, they being noticeably unlike other Indians in many respects, lighter in color, and peculiar in manners and customs. What is conjectured may be true, but we have no means of proving its truth. That the Mandans

and traditions of Central America. I will only say here that, according to dates given in the Central American books, the Toltecs came from "Huehue-Tlapalan," a distant country in the northeast