MOUNDS OF THE UNITED STATES BUSHNELL. 681 



standing in their territories, but, as will be shown later, all were not 

 erected for the same jDurpose. The manners and ways of life of the 

 people of the several fjroups of tribes differed, and this caused a 

 difference in the use and origin of the mounds, many of which mark 

 the sites of villages of centuries ago. 



The Choctaw, ever friends of the French colonists, claimed a large 

 part of the present State of Mississippi and of western Alabama. 

 They had numerous villages, cultivated the soil, and were rather 

 sedentary in their habits. They had a strange method of disposing 

 of their dead, and the final act, a year or more after death, was to 

 place the bones, from which all particles of flesh had been removed, 

 in a basket or pack, and on an appointed day all would assemble 

 with their dead, the baskets and packs would be placed one upon 

 another on the ground, and all would be covered with a mass of 

 earth. Later other remains would be placed on the same tomb, 

 more earth would be added, and in time a mound of considerable 

 size would result. Many of the small mounds now standing within 

 the limits of the ancient Choctaw territory owe their origin to this 

 curious tribal custom. Years have now passed since the burials were 

 made, all material of a perishable nature has disappeared, the bas- 

 kets and mats which contained the remains have decayed and fallen 

 away, and the bones have all but vanished. The earth has settled 

 and formed a compact mass, making it difficult to discover the 

 nature of the mound and to recognize it as having been the last 

 resting place of many dead. 



A large mound standing in Winston County, Miss., is known to 

 all the Choctaw as Nanih-Waiya. (PI. 11.) It rises some 20 feet 

 above the original surface, having a length from northwest to south- 

 east of more than 200 feet, less in width, and has a rather level 

 summit plateau. Several smaller mounds stood in the vicinity, and 

 all appear to have been surrounded partly by an embankment and 

 partly by a small stream. It is the belief of the Choctaw that a 

 passageway leads downward from the summit of the large mound 

 and, according to one of their traditions, their ancestors many gen- 

 erations ago emerged through this opening from the depths of the 

 earth. And although this happened so long ago and they later 

 scattered in all directions, they have ever remembered the hill from 

 the summit of which they first beheld the light of the sun. The site 

 appears to be very ancient, and the large mound was probably erected 

 before the coming of the Choctaw. 



Large groujDs of similar mounds are encountered along the courses 

 of the Black Warrior and Tombigbee Rivers, Avell within the limits 

 of the old Choctaw country. Several such groups, one including 

 40 small mounds, occupy a rather restricted area in Morengo County, 

 Ala., and all were probably erected by the Choctaw. Not far north- 



