586 THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 
less to insist, as the evidence is quite sufficient to Show that the Natchez 
did build both mounds and earth-works. Du Pratz states the faet posi- 
tively,* and although it can not be proved that they threw up the em- 
bankment and other works on the Wachita, yet there is unquestion- 
able authority for the statement that a short time after the destruction 
of their stronghold here by the French under Perier, a band of them, 
which had managed to escape the general ruin, made an attack upon 
the post of Natchitoches, during the course of which they were driven 
back, and obliged to “dig a kind of entrenchment on the plain.” 
Among the Creeks and their allies, even as late as 177375, we are 
told that almost every town had a “chunk yard,” surrounded by one or 
two low embankments or terraces, in the center of which, on a low cir- 
cular mound or eminence, stood a four-square pole or pillar, 30 or 40 
feet high, to the top of which was fastened some object that served as 
a mark to shoot at, with arrows or the rifle, at certain appointed times. 
At one end of this yard, which was usually from 600 to 900 feet in 
length and of proportionate breadth, was a square terrace or eminence 
9 or 10 feet high, “upon which stood the public square,” and at the 
other extremity was a circular mound of about the same height, which 
served as a site for their rotunda or winter council house.t The Chero- 
kees too, as we have seen, utilized this class of mounds in much the same 
manner, the council house in their town of Cowe, according to the same 
author, occupying the summit of one that was said to have been 20 feet 
high. If now we compare the method of laying out these towns, and 
building the temples and council houses of these later Indians with that 
described by La Vega, as having been followed by their ancestors a cen- 
tury and a half earlier, it will be seen that the resemblance is very great; 
and although we are sometimes assured that the modern Creeks and 
Cherokees could give no account of the origin or purpose of these earthen 
Territory we have 94,000 inhabitants; one-fifth of these, or more, are competent to 
labour. This gives 18,800 labourers; if each of these would, in the course of twelve 
months, bestow only as much labour on the erection of mounds as would amount 
to one day, 81 mounds would be built in one year.” Washington and New York, 1840. 
* Besides the statements quoted in the text, he says: ‘‘ Le pied des pieux est appuyé 
en dedans par une banquette de trois pieds de laarge, and autant de haut, laquelle 
est elle-méme appuyée de piquets frettés de brancages verds, pour retenir la terre 
qui est dans cette banquette:” Histoire de la Louisiane, vol. 11, p. 435: Paris, 1758. 
+Dumont, Mémoires Historiques de la Louisiane, tome i, p. 200, says ‘‘Creuserent 
dans la plaine une espece de retranchement ot ils se fortifierent.” Charlevoix 
(Nouvelle France, vol. tv, p. 293) uses the word ‘retranchés.” 
{ Bartram, MSS. published in Anc. Mon. Miss. Valley, p. 121. Adair, l. ¢., p. 421, 
tells us that ‘every town has a large edifice, which, with propriety, may be called 
the mountain house. - - - It is usually built on the top of a hill; and in that 
separate and imperial statehouse the old beloved men and head warriors meet on 
material business, or to divert themselves, and feast and dance with the rest of the 
people.” 
