Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/183

 SECT. V.] GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 147 converted into an agricultural people ; and that, like the Ger* man nations in Europe, they may ultimately have conquered their less warlike southern neighbours. The next and more immediate subject of inquiry is, how we shall account for those ancient tumuli, fortifications, and other remnants, both east and west of the Mississippi, the origin of which is entirely unknown to the Indians, who in the seventeenth century w T ere the sole inhabitants, and still continue to occupy a part of that country. On this, as on many other subjects relative to our Indian^ we are still in want of facts. We are not yet sufficiently acquainted with the extent of the country over which those monuments are spread, or how far they differ in character, extent, or number, in the different sections of the country* They only appear to have been more numerous and of greater importance in the vicinity of the Mississippi and in the valley of the Ohio. There is nothing in their construction, or in the remnants which they contain, indicative of a much more ad- vanced state of civilization than that of the present inhabitants. But it may be inferred from their number and size, that they were the work of a more populous nation than any now existing ; and if the inference is correct, it would necessarily imply a state of society, in which greater progress had been made in agriculture. For wherever satisfactory evidence of a greater population is found, this could not have existed without ade- quate means of subsistence, greater than can be supplied by the chase alone. Those monuments seem in two respects to differ from any erections that can be ascribed to the Indians, such as they were found by the first French or English settlers. Some are of a char- acter apparently different from those purely intended for defence. It may be doubted whether those extensive mounts, so regularly shaped and with a rectangular basis, such as that near the Mis- sissippi, on which the refugee monks of La Trappe had built their convent, one hundred feet in height, facing the four cardi- nal points, and with those platforms designated by the name of Apron, are entirely the work of man, or whether they may not have been natural hills, artificially shaped by his hands. But if they have been correctly described, they have a strong family likeness to the Mexican pyramids, as they are called, and were probably connected with the worship of the nation. Of these, for there appear to be at least two more, and of