Some Considerations on the Mound Builders. 71 



their public buildings. The council-house of the Autose, 

 or Snake tribe of the Creeks, was supported on columns 

 carved to represent serpents, and the walls decorated 

 with rude paintings. The town of the Uchees, the rem- 

 nant of a tribe which the Creeks found in Georgia, 

 when they arrived, and which they adopted into their 

 confederacy, is described by Bartram, in 1773, as " tne 

 largest, most compact, and best situated Indian town I 

 ever saw : the habitations are large and neatly built; the 

 walls of the houses are constructedof a wooden frame, then 

 lathed and plastered inside and out with a reddish, well- 

 tempered clay, or mortar, which gives them the appear- 

 ance of red brick walls, and these houses are neatly cov- 

 ered or footed with cypress bark, or the shingles of that 

 tree. 



Carver, exploring the Northwest, in 1766, described 

 the town of the Sankies (Sacs) as " the largest and best 

 built Indian town he ever saw. It contained about 

 ninety houses, each large enough for several families, 

 built up of hewn plank neatly jointed, and covered so 

 compactly with bark as to keep out the most penetrating 

 rains. Before the doors were placed comfortable sheds 

 in which the inhabitants sat, when the weather would 

 permit, and smoked their pipes. The streets were both 

 regular and spacious, appearing more like a civilized 

 town than the abode of savages." 



Though it was not common, except in the South, to 

 have their towns permanently fortified, it was common 

 to intrench themselves, in time of war, with stockade 

 defenses. 



In some respects the Mound Builders and the modern 

 Indians were alike. I have already said there is no rec- 



