Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/353

 In their other superstitions, manners, and customs, they differ too little from the rest of the aborigines to tolerate the repetition. Their peculiar usages are in some degree still kept up by those confederated tribes which we call the Creeks or Muskogolgees, to whom they appear to have been more intimately related, than any other of the remaining aborigines. Among these people fire is still venerated, and the appearance of the new moon announced with festivity and gladness. According to the relation of my venerable friend, Wm. Bartram, there existed also among them a language of distinction and of honour, and an aristocratic acknowledgment of superior and inferior order in their society.

The occasion of that signal depopulation which the Natchez had experienced, when first discovered by the French, must ever remain in unaccountable uncertainty. The prevalence of fatal and contagious diseases at one period more than another, is scarcely admissible in a country which had ever exhibited the same aspect, and amongst a people who had never inhabited crowded towns or cities. From the migratory and unsettled character of the more northern natives, and their acknowledged superiority in arms, particularly the Iroquois, with whom they warred,[274] may be with more probability deduced the real cause of this destruction. The valley of the Ohio, and the interior of Kentucky and Tennessee, still exhibit unequivocal and numerous remains of a vast {278} population, who had begun to make some imperfect advances towards power and civilization. Works were constructed for public benefit, which required the united