Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/144

 10S A SYNOPSIS OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. [lNTROD. their habits and social state had not, during that interval, undergone any material alteration. They were probably as ferocious, but less addicted to war than the northern Indians. Those of New England, the Iroquois tribes, the Sauks and Foxes, had perhaps made equal progress in agriculture ; but, generally speaking, the southern depended more on the culti- vation of the soil, and less on hunting than the Algonkin Lenape tribes. We find the Spaniards under De Soto feeding almost exclusively on maize, and complaining of the want of meat. Two hundred years later, Bernard Romans says, that near one half of the Choctaws have never killed a deer during their lives, and that, whilst in their country, he had but two or three opportunities of eating venison in as many months. Those southern tribes have also remained respectively united together as one nation. The Choctaws and Chicasas are the only exception of any importance ; and the Muskhogees, as has been seen, incorporated, instead of exterminating subordi- nate tribes. Several causes may be assigned for those differences. Sur- rounded on three sides by the Mississippi and the sea, they had less room to wander or to subdivide themselves. Their country, particularly that of the Choctaws, supplied them with less game ; whilst, in a more southern climate, a greater quantity of agricultural products may be procured with less labor. Yet, although the men may to some extent have assisted the women in the cultivation of the ground, the greater part of the labors of the field still fell upon the latter; and so long as this is the case, the means of subsistence will continue to be insufficient to promote any but a very limited increase of population. The Indians, as individuals, have preserved a much greater degree of independence than is compatible with a more ad- vanced state of civilization. They will hardly submit to any restraints ; and it is well known that the nominal title of chief confers but little power, either in war or peace, on their leaders, whose precarious authority depends almost entirely on their personal talents and energy. Yet we find that nominal dignity of Chief, Sachem, Mingo, or King, to have been, but with few exceptions, amongst all the Indians, not only for life but hereditary.* But another institution, belonging to all the
 * Generally, bat not universally, by the female line. The hereditary