18 ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 



similar returns, published under the title of "Lettres edifi antes et curieuses," con- 

 tain much of the same kind of information. But, from all the explorations of these 

 educated men, apparently observing as well as learned, very little is to be derived 

 illustrative of the antiquities of the country, or even referring to their existence. 

 It is remarkable how completely monuments, now viewed with surprise, were 

 unobserved or disregarded by French and Spanish adventurers and travellers. Not 

 only the pictorial mounds of Wisconsin, whose slight elevation and large dimensions 

 might in uncleai'ed lands conceal their forms, but the massive and regular parapets 

 and lofty tumuli of the middle and southern portions of the west, seem to have been 

 unheeded, at least as antiquities, or not esteemed worthy of special examination. 



La Hontan, in one of his letters, dated May 16, 1689, gives a drawing and descrip- 

 tion of a medal that he professes to have found among the savages west of the Mis- 

 sissippi, and which he calls a modern antique (antique moderne). It is represented 

 as of copper, with figures of animals on one side, and characters on the other. But 

 the whole story of his expedition in that quarter is held to be apocryphal. 



It may be that minds preoccupied with the grandeur of Mexican structures would 

 be likely to consider the inferior elevation and extent of earthworks north of the 

 gulf as rendering these undeserving of notice ; and, in Florida and Louisiana, they 

 may have been so far used, and even formed, by existing tribes, as to create no 

 impression of an ancient or other than contemporaneous origin. 



In the letters of Charlevoix and Father le Petit, and in the " History of Louis- 

 iana," by Du Pratz, we have very minute accounts of the Natchez Indians, who, 

 with the Arkansas, were the most civilized of the North American aborigines. We 

 learn that they worshipped the sun, had temples in which was kept the " eternal fire," 

 and a despotic government ; that their chiefs were the high priests, and were called 

 suns, or children of the sun ; and that the temples and the dwellings of the chiefs 

 were raised upon mounds, and for every new chief a new mound and dwelling were 

 constructed. 1 Thus, a civil and religious system, with customs and ceremonials per- 

 taining to it, is described, which explains the use of some of the artificial elevations, 

 and may indicate the purpose of others. But parapets and tumuli, and other 

 structures of earth, are found in that region, which seem to imply the existence of 

 more cultivated or more populous nations, and a larger scale of ceremonial ob- 

 servances, than these writers have represented. A mere diminution of numbers, 

 and consequently of power, without any material difference of customs or capacities, 

 may perhaps be sufficient to explain the diminution of grandeur in the ceremonies 

 and structures of the later inhabitants. The decay of energy and enterprise, rather 

 than of arts — the result, probably, of a decrease of population — which, in other parts 

 of the country, led to a discontinuance of the construction of works consecrated to 

 religious rites, or intended for permanent defence — may have been less advanced 

 in its influence at the south. Hence the contrast between the monuments of the 

 past and the productions of the living inhabitants would be less striking. Still, the 

 absence of archaeological discoveries and speculations, on the part of the intelligent 



1 See also Garcilazo de la Vega's Account of Soto's Expedition, I, 218. 



