THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 505 
which he styles religious or “sacred inclosures.” The former of these, 
he thinks, were erected by the recent Indians, and he supports this 
view by a chain of reasoning that is believed to be unanswerable. In 
it he institutes a comparison between the “relics of art and traces of 
occupancy” found within them, and those which mark the sites of 
towns and forts that are known to have been occupied by the Indians, 
and pronounces them to be identical. To this powerful argument, 
drawn from what may, not inaptly, be termed the facts of the mound, 
he adds very copious notes as to the origin and use of such structures 
among the people of all ages and countries, though, of course, with 
special reference to those that are known to have been erected by the 
American Indians. In this historical retrospect he permits the facts 
to speak for themselves with most commendable impartiality, even 
though, as he frankly admits, they led to the conclusion, little antici- 
pated when he started on the trip of exploration, “ that the earth-works 
of western New York were erected by the Iroquois or their western 
neighbors, and do not possess an antiquity going far back of the dis- 
covery.” * 
To this conclusion, so far as it goes, I certainly do not object. Un- 
fortunately, however, it stops short of the mark; and this is the more 
to be regretted, inasmuch as it is believed that the line of argument 
by which Mr. Squier convinced himself that the defensive works of 
western New York were erected by the modern Indians would, if it had 
been applied to the earth-works of the Mississippi Valley of every kind 
whatsoever—to the so-called sacred inclosures not less than to the 
hill forts—have led him to precisely the same conclusion. The two 
propositions rest upon essentially the same foundation, and, as we 
Shall see later on, must stand or fall together. 
Before beginning this task, however, it may be well to premise that 
it is not intended, in the course of this investigation, to assert that the 
mounds were built by any particular tribe or tribes of Indians, or at 
any particular time; neither is it claimed that each and every tribe 
living within the Mississippi Valley erected such structures. So far 
as my present purpose is concerned, they may have been built by any 
tribe that can be shown to have occupied the regions where they are 
ound, and at any time during the period of such occupancy. All that 
I intend to assert is, that, admitting everything that can be reasonably 
claimed by the most enthusiastic advocate of the superior civilization 
of the Mound-builders, there is no reason why the red Indians of the 
Mississippi Valley, judging from what we know, historically, of their 
development, could not have thrown up these works. This proposition 
is not as complete as could be desired, and yet it probably embodies 
all that can ever be proven on this subject. Ability and performance 
* “Aboriginal Monuments of the State of New York,” in Smithsonian Contributions 
to Knowledge, vol. 11, p.83: Washington, 1851. 
