THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 597 
apparently been built. The earthen wall that inclosed this fort was 
about 4 feet high, and upon it cedar posts were still standing. Struck 
with the resemblance, ‘in every respect,” between these ruins and the 
“vestiges,” as he calls the earth-works on the Ohio and the Mississippi, 
he very justly concluded that these latter were but the sites of stockaded 
towns and villages;* and this inference is borne out by the fact that on 
some of them ‘the remains of pallisadoes were found by the first set- 
tlers.” t 
That this resemblance is not altogether fanciful will be admitted by 
those who have followed the course of this investigation, though it is 
possible that the comparison would be more just if it were limited to 
the hill-forts of the Ohio Valley. Defensive works of the character of 
these latter seem to have been the same everywhere, and whether built 
by Iroquois, Chickasaw, Mandan, or Mound-builder, admit of no dis- 
tinction in situation, form, or structure. Not so however with the 
class of works to which the term fortified village has been applied. 
These are groups rather than single works, and though primarily noth- 
ing but mounds, ditches, and embankments, and as such differing in 
nowise, except perhaps in size, from similar structures elsewhere, yet 
they are often arranged in such a complicated manner as to have but 
little in common with the inclosures, north of the Ohio, that are known 
to have been erected by the modern Indians. For their counterparts 
we must look to the Gulf States, Georgia and Arkansas, and it is pos- 
sible that, even here, they will be found to be neither so large nor so 
complicated. Upon this point however it is necessary to *‘make haste 
slowly,” as our knowledge of the earth-works in the Southern States is 
very Slight; and there can be no doubt that the statement of the Portu- 
guese Gentleman? as to the existence of ‘* great and walled towns, and 
many houses seattered all about the fields, to wit: a cross-bow shot or 
two, the one from the other,” taken in connection with what is known 
of the manner in which these tribes built their houses and fortified 
their villages, is suggestive of a condition of affairs strongly resembling 
the famous mound centers of the Ohio Valley.§ In all other respects, 
*Tbid., p.183. Compare Catlin, vol. 11, pp. 259 et. seq. 
tIbid., p. 21. 
tl. c., pp. 160, 169, 170, 144, and 172. The Indians everywhere throughout this 
region built their villages in groups, some of which were very large. Upon this 
point consult the other chroniclers of De Soto’s expedition and the narratives of 
Father Douay, p. 204, and Gravier, pp. 133, 138, and 148; also Adair, p. 352, and 
Charlevoix, Letters ii, p. 245 et seg.: London, 1761. 
§ A series of explorations, under the auspices of the Peabody Museum of American 
Archeology and Ethnology, has recently been conducted amid the mounds and vil- 
lage sites of the northeastern portion of Arkansas—the region that the Capahas are 
supposed to have inhabited in the time of De Soto, and where they were found by 
Fathers Douay and Charlevoix in 1687 and 1721—and it is curious to note how the 
statement of the old chronicler as to the existence of ‘‘ walled towns within a league 
or a league and a half of each other” is verified. See Fourteenth Annual Report of 
the Peabody Museum, p. 19, where we are told that ‘‘ these mounds are usually sur- 
