386 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



white man, though it is probable that the peoples who built the Ohio 

 mounds and others of similar character had ceased this activity long 

 before the era of white exploration because of the intrusions of war- 

 like tribes. The erection of great mounds was necessarily a slow 

 process and could be done only during times of prolonged peace. 

 The mound-building tribes were probably branches of various stocks, 

 among them the Muskhogean, the Iroquoian including the Cherokee, 

 the Siouan and the Algonkian. Not every tribe in these stocks 

 built mounds by any means. There were many cruder outer tribes. 



Warfare. Every evidence of archeology shows that the pre- 

 colonial Indians were more peaceful than warlike. The great pre- 

 ponderance of the implements found are those of industry and of 

 hunting, and not of war. Such warfare as did exist was mostly in 

 the nature of small raids only of local importance. There were, 

 however, some great wars that affected large areas, but these were 

 the exception. Indian methods of fighting their enemies were those 

 of hunters stalking their prey. 



Nomadism. One of the common fallacies of our school histories 

 is that Indians were nomads, " always wandering from place to 

 place." So far as environment permitted, to state the truth, Indians 

 were not nomads, but sedentary. Each tribe had its known territory 

 and its own fixed towns and villages. This is especially true of the 

 Indians east of the Mississippi. It was only where the land was not 

 suitable to agriculture that there was wandering. The city dweller 

 today is a nomad for the same reason that the Indians of the plains 

 and of the cold north were. The modern city dweller for the purpose 

 of obtaining meat and vegetable food goes to the market sources of 

 these foods, " wandering from place to place " to hunt what he 

 desires. The Indian of the north and of the plains went out after 

 buffalo meat and searched out the regions that produce edible seeds 

 and roots, and was only a wanderer because the source of food 

 supply was distant from his domicile. The plains Indians after the 

 introduction of the horse wandered over the plains in search of the 

 buffalo herds, but generally had fixed winter rendezvous. Some 

 wandering and much warfare were caused after the European inva- 

 sion by the shrinking of the hunting grounds and the loss of tribal 

 territory. The coming of civilization and of Europeans paralyzed 

 the development and progress of native culture and actually acceler- 

 ated savagery for a long period of years. Sedentary tribes became 

 wanderers because they were encroached upon. They became hunt- 



