2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 89 



The valley of the Rivanna and southward to the James is a 

 country of much natural beauty. It is traversed to the westward by 

 the Blue Ridge, which attains an elevation of more than 3,500 feet, 

 sloping to the foothills and rolling land to the east. Here are many 

 streams fed by innumerable springs of clear, cold water. A great 

 part of the surface remains heavily timbered. Game was plentiful 

 during the days of Indian occupancy, and deer, bear, and the smaller 

 animals were here in vast numbers. Buffalo are known to have 

 reached the valleys by coming through the gaps in the mountains, 

 but they may never have been very numerous. A region so 

 plentifully suppHed by nature attracted the Indian hunter, and the 

 many arrowheads found in all parts, on low ground and on moun- 

 tain sides, prove that game was sought here during a long period. 

 This must have served as a hunting ground for the people of the 

 three ancient Monacan towns, the last of the native tribes to occupy 

 this part of Virginia, as well as for others who had preceded them. 



Although Siouan tribes were occupying villages on the banks of 

 the James and Rivanna Rivers at the beginning of the seventeenth 

 century, they are believed not to have been there many years ; conse- 

 quently all the small camp sites and numerous objects of native 

 origin discovered in the region should not be attributed to the Mona- 

 can. Algonquian tribes may have preceded them as occupants of the 

 same territory. The latter had evidently been pushed eastward by 

 the Siouan people coming from the direction of the Ohio, and the 

 pressure was still being exerted in the year 1607, at which time Pow- 

 hatan related to Captain Newport " that the Monanacah was his 

 Enmye, and that he came Downe at the fall of the leafe and invaded 

 his Countrye." With these continued invasions the Algonquian vil- 

 lages near the falls would soon have been abandoned, thus enabling 

 the Monacan to have advanced still farther eastward. 



Conditions of the country immediately above and below the falls 

 were Very similar. Strachey wrote (p. 2"/) -.^ "Pokotawes, which the 

 West Indians (our neighbours) call maiz, their kind of wheat, is 

 here said to be in more plentye then below, and the low country 

 fruicts grow here. It is supposed that the low land hath more fish 

 and fowle, and the high land more number of beasts. The people 

 differ not much in nature, habit, or condicion, only they are more 

 daring uppon us; and before we erected our forts amongst them, 

 there was ever enmity, and open warrs, betweene the high and lowe 



2 Strachey, William, The historic of travaile into Virginia Britannia. 

 Hakluyt Society, London, 1849. 



