Cushiiig.] 4U-± |-Xoy. 6, 



narratives of the first explorers. Thus, especially throughout the 

 mound-building area — primarily in the lowlands of the Mississippi and 

 tributary rivers, then on higher land along these, and finally on the ter- 

 races, and even the plateaus of rivers in the still fai'ther north — we find 

 almost always these two kinds of mounds associated ; that is, so-called 

 "Temple" and "Domicilary" mounds, and the tumulae of the dead or 

 "Burial mounds ;" and I believe that wherever these two kinds of 

 mounds are found thus associated (as they were naturally and necessa- 

 rily associated in the keys, and as we have seen that they were associa- 

 ted historically in the Southern States) the evidence is that they were 

 the works of peoples who were either themselves derived from the 

 southern sea islands, or who derived thence their culture, and, if so, a 

 portion at least, of their ancestral population. 



• Observable facts in regard to mound building of this kind the world 

 over, support this theory of its origin in sea environments. Since the 

 subject is so important, I may enlarge upon it by calling attention to the 

 fact that everywhere, the principal builders of mounds, barrows and tum- 

 uliB, have ever been maritime peoples, or at least peoples living along 

 great rivers of the sea. Such were the heroic seafaring Greeks of 

 Homer's time, the roving Vikings of Scandinavia. In fact everywhere 

 — and this applies especially in countries famed for the size and extent 

 of their prehistoric shell heaps — the story is much the same ; that old 

 peoples of the sea seem ever to have sought to lift themselves or their 

 dead above the tide and flood ; to build, as it were, islands even on high 

 land, wheresoever, in the course of ages, they happen to have here and 

 there penetrated into the interior, or else to build foundations like to 

 the refuse heaps of their ancestry, for the priests and other revered per- 

 sonages among their living. 



As bearing intimately upon this question in its relation to such ancient 

 remains of our own land, and particularly to the earlier historic Indians 

 of the Southern States (who, as I have said before, were builders of 

 mounds for the support of their public structures), I may here refer to 

 the remarkable statements contained in some of the early writings, 

 regarding others of their characteristics. 



It has been seen again and again, that surrounding all the ancient 

 keys, were shell-bank enclosures approached by canals that had, pre- 

 sumably, been used as fish-pounds or -preserves. It goes far toward 

 establishing my theory of the derivation from the key dwellers, or from 

 peoples living practically their life, of some at least of these Southern 

 mound-building peoples, when we read in the narrative of the expedition 

 dition of Don Hernando de Soto amongst these same peoples (lo35(-lo41), 

 presented by the Knight of Elvas to the Spanish King and Council of tlie 

 Indies, that " On Wednesday, the nineteenth day of June, the Governor 

 entered Pacaha, and took quarters in the town where the Cacique was 

 accustomed to reside. It was enclosed and very large. In the towers 

 and the palisade were many loopholes. There was much dry maize, and 



