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THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 535 
asserted that these works were as large or complicated as the famous 
system on the Scioto; nor is it essential to my argument that they 
should have been intended for the same purpose; but that the two were 
identical in kind is believed to be beyond dispute, as is also the addi- 
tional fact that among those known to have been erected by the mod- 
ern Indians there are those that are on such a seale of magnitude as 
to prove, beyond doubt, that when the motive was sufficient the Indian 
did not hesitate to perform, voluntarily and for an indefinite length of 
time, the same sort of manual labor as that which was necessary for 
the construction of the more complicated series of works. Upon this 
point the evidence is very clear; and as there was practically no limit 
to the time within which these works must have been finished, it fol- 
lows that their erection by a people living under the same conditions 
as the Indians must simply have resolved itself into a question of the 
power and permanence of the motive that impelled them to the under- 
taking. Clearly, if a regard for the dead, or the necessity for self- 
protection, could lead the people of a single village to erect, in one 
ease a burial mound and in the other a breastwork or fort, there can 
be no reason why a motive that affected a whole tribe and continued 
to influence successive generations might not have led to works as 
much greater than these as the one motive is more general and perma- 
nent than the other. Cologne cathedral is, to some extent, a case in 
point. That building was begun some five hundred years ago, at a 
time when the religious feeling of the people of that country was wont 
to manifest itself in such outward marks of devotion, and though the 
work has dragged as the ages rolled on and opinions changed, yet the 
very Same motive or motives that led to its commencement, acting 
upon succeeding generations, have resulted at last in the completion 
of that superb structure. This being admitted, and I do not see how 
it can well be denied, there only remains for me to prove the existence 
of some adequate motive among the Indians in order to justify the con- 
clusion that they could have built these works, even those of the largest 
size and most complicated pattern. 
Under ordinary circumstances this is a task that I should hardly 
venture to undertake. To attempt to point out the motive that led the 
people of a village or a tribe to execute a certain piece of work, requir- 
ing the united labor of a large number of persons for an indefinite time, 
especially when the purpose or end for which that work was intended 
is itself a matter of grave doubt, seems like a hopeless undertaking; 
and yet, with all due deference be it spoken, this is precisely what the 
advoeates of the mound-builder theory have done, and in so doing they 
have marked out the course that this investigation must follow. 
Reasoning from analogy—an uncertain guide, at best, in matters 
scientific—they not only tell us that a certain class of these works were 
designed for a religious purpose, but they assert that they were built 
