74 Some Considerations on the Mound Builders. 



They would not be abandoned until the nations that 

 held them were broken. 



When these were abandoned, there was no retreat, ex- 

 cept across the Ohio. South of the Ohio, in Kentucky 

 and Tennessee, there are many works of defense, but 

 none possessing the massive character of permanent 

 works like the Ohio system. They are, comparatively, 

 temporary works, thrown up for an exigency — are more- 

 over isolated, not forming, as in Ohio, a connected sys- 

 tem. They are such works as a people capable of put- 

 ting up the Ohio forts might erect, while being gradually 

 pushed south, and fighting an invader from the north 

 or northwest. 



South of the Tennessee river the indications are dif- 

 ferent. We miss there the forts that speak of prolonged 

 and obstinate conflict. And we find among the tribes, 

 as they were when first discovered, lingering traces of 

 what we have called characteristic traits of the Mound 

 Builders. The Indian tribes there, as a rule, had more 

 substantial dwellings than those of the North ; their 

 towns were more permanent and better constructed; it 

 was common in De Soto's time, and in some tribes even 

 two hundred years later, for families to have separate 

 farms ; the chiefs were treated with a deference which 

 was never seen among Northern Indians. Among the 

 Natchez so late as 1730 the Great Sun was absolute de- 

 spot ; and in the accounts of De Soto's expedition, not 

 only the romantic narrative of Garcilaso de la Vega, but 

 jn the more sober account of the Portuguese cavalier 

 and the business like report of Biedma, we read of 

 chiefs being carried in canopied litters by their subjects; 

 and of the haughty chief Tuscalusa, sitting on a pile of 



