A Botanical and Economic Study. 107 



Mississippi. It is doubtful if the creature existed for any 

 distance east of the Rocky Mountains."' The Indians burnt 

 the prairies to make pasturage for wild herds, and the fires 

 communicated to the forests in the east, killed the growth 



9 O 



and extended the distribution of the herds to the east of the 

 Mississippi. Buffalo bones have been found in the mounds 

 at Madisonville, Ohio, and it is probable, therefore, that the 

 mounds at that place were raised after the year 1000 A.D. 

 The conclusion is that some of the Ohio earthworks were 

 erected in comparatively recent times by Indians identical in 

 many respects with the Indians occupying the Southern 

 States.' 



The Huron-Iroquois 3 are evidently a comparatively old 

 race, and date back to a period before the arrival of the 

 Algonquins in the same region. Traditions seem to locate 

 the original home of this people in the country between 

 Hudson's Bay and the St. Lawrence River, a region where 

 maize does not grow. As they moved south, they probably 

 derived the use of the cereal from the mound-builders with 

 whom they came in contact. The Huron-Iroquois about this 

 time met the Algonquins, who were likewise spreading their 

 territory to the eastward and southward. The two nations 

 fought in a deadly feud, but eventually united their forces 

 against a common enemy, the mound-builders. History and 

 the traditions of both nations seem to point to this alliance 

 for offensive purposes. 4 It is probable that the Algonquins 

 borrowed a part of their culture at the time they came in 

 contact with the Iroquois and the mound-builders. 



The Algonquian family occupied an area extending from 

 Labrador to the Rocky Mountains, and from Churchill 

 River, Hudson's Bay, as far south as Pamlico Sound in 

 North Carolina,"' and was the most extensive stock in North 

 America. 



The Muskogean family claims our attention next They 



1 Shaler, Nature and Man in America, 183. 



2 See pages 96/97 and 98. 



Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, 1SS5-S6, 78; Brinton, American Race, Si. 

 * Hale, Iroquois Book of Rites, n. 

 5 Bureau of Ethnology Rep., 1SS5-86, 47. 



8 



