THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. Sad 
case, the tribes south of the Ohio, called by Schoolcraft the Appalach- 
ians (though they do not all belong to the same stock or family), will be 
first considered. This change is deemed advisable for the reason that 
the religious rites and observances of these tribes are better known than 
are those of any other nation in the Mississippi Valley, and because, 
further, it is only by the light of this knowlegde that it is possible to 
interpret customs once prevalent elsewhere, but which have either 
wholly died out or lost much of their significance. As an instance of 
this, take the institution for keeping up a perpetual fire,* which seems, 
at one time, to have been very general among the tribes north of the 
Ohio, but which disappeared soon after the arrival of the whites, though 
we are told that its rites and duties were still fresh in the recollection 
of the Indians. Of itself, the fact that this institution had once pre- 
railed extensively among tribes both of the Huron and Algonquin fam- 
ilies might not be considered as settling definitely their form of religion; 
but if it be taken in connection with the very prominent part this rite 
held in the religious observances of the sun-worshiping tribes of the 
Gulf States, it will be seen that it forms an important link in the chain 
of evidence that points to the existence of one and the same form of 
worship among these different nations. Other instances of a similar 
character will doubtless occur in the course of this investigation; and 
my object in calling attention, at this time, to the sudden disappearance, 
over such a wide area, of what must have been an important religious 
rite, is not so much to mark the identity that once existed in the ritual 
of these widely separated nations, as it is to indicate the method that 
it is proposed to adopt in the treatment of this and similar cases. This 
mode of reasoning is believed to be perfectly fair and legitimate, though 
of course its efficacy will depend upon the establishment of the truth 
of the proposition that the southern Indians were sun-worshipers. 
Fortunately this is a matter about which there can not be much doubt. 
* General Lewis Cass in Notes to Sanillac, a poem by Henry Whitney: Boston, 1831. 
Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 150: New York, 1876. Schooleratt, Address be- 
fore N. Y. Historical Society, 1846, quoted in Serpent Symbol in America, p. 129. 
“The general council of the Five Nations was held at Onondaga, where there has, 
from the beginning, been kept a fire continually burning, made of two great logs, 
whose flames were never extinguished:” Colden, Five Nations, vol. 1, p. 167: Lon- 
don, 1747. This language may be metaphorical, and the “ fire” spoken of may mean 
a “council fire,” and I am perfectly willing to admit that it does, though Lafitau, 
vol. 1, pp. 340 and 341, speaking of the Iriquois, tells us that ‘‘Les Sauvages ont 
encore plus perdu de leurs coutimes depuis ce temps-la; ils le reconnoissent eax- 
mémes, et y ont regret; car dans les malheurs qui leur arrivent, ils disent qu’ ils ne 
doivent pas s’en plaindre, et que c’est une punition pour avoir abandonné Vusage de 
leurs retraites, et de leurs jetines.”’ 
