CHAPTEE II. 



SIMILARITY OF THE ARTS AND CUSTOMS OF THE MOUND BUILDERS 

 TO THOSE OF INDIANS. 



Tlio historical evidcuce is, as we have seen, couchisive that some of 

 the tribes of Indians were mound-builders. 



The explorations by the Bureau of Ethnology in the South and West 

 have also brought to light so many corroborative focts that the question 

 may be considered settled. These will shortly be given to the public; 

 only a few can be noticed here, and that in a very brief and general way. 



As the country Avas inhabited only by Indians at the time of its dis- 

 covery, and as we have no evulence, unless derived from the mounds, 

 of its having ever been occupied by any other people, every fact indi- 

 cating a similarity between the arts, customs, and social life of the 

 mound-builders and those of the red Indians, is an evideuce of the 

 identity of the two peoples. The greater the number of these resem- 

 blances, the greater the probability of the correctness of the theory, so 

 long as we find nothing irreconcilable with it. 



Architecture. — One of the first circumstances which strike the mind 

 of the archieologist who carefully studies these works as being very 

 significant, is the entire absence of any evidence in theui of architect- 

 ural knowledge and skill approaching that exhibited by the ruins of 

 Mexico and Central America, or even equaling that exhibited by the 

 Pueblo Indians. 



It is true that truncated pyjaiuidal mounds of large size and some- 

 what regular proportions are found in certain sections, and that some 

 of these have ramps or roadways leading ui> to them. Yet when com- 

 pared with the pyramids or teoculli of Mexico and Yucatan the differ- 

 ences ill the manifestations of architectural skill are so great, and the 

 resemblances are so faint and few, as to fiiiiiish no grounds whatever 

 for attributing the two classes of works to the same people. The facts 

 that the works of the one i>eople consist chiefly of wrought and scul[)- 

 tured stone, aud that such materials are wholly unknown to the other^ 

 forbid the idea of any relationshi[) between the two. The dilfereni^e 

 between the two classes of monuments indicates a wide divergence — a 

 complete step — in the culture status. 



Mexico, Central America, and Peru are dotted with the iiiins of stone 

 edifices, but in all the mound-building area of the United States not 

 the slightest vestige of one attributabli; to the peoi)le wlio erepted the 

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