42 THE PROBLEM OF THE OHIO MOUNDS. 



reau of Etlinolo.i>y, aiul their study serves to confirm the above con- 

 clusion tliat tlie Oherokees are an offshoot of Iro(iuoian stock. 



On the other hand, the testimony of the mounds all taken together 

 or considered generally (if the conclusion that the Cherokees were the 

 authors of the j^STorth Carolina and East Tennessee mounds be accepted) 

 seems to isolate them from all other mound-building people of that 

 portion of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. Neverthe- 

 less there are certain remains of art which indicate an intimate relation 

 with the authors of tlie stone graves, as the engraved shells, while there 

 are others which lead to tlie opinion that there was a more intimate 

 relation v/ith the mound-builders of Ohio, especially of the Scioto Val- 

 ley. One of these is furnished by the stone pipes so common in the 

 Ohio mounds, the manufacture of which appears also to have been a 

 favorite pursuit of the Cherokees in both ancient and modern times. 



In order to make the force of this argument clear it is necessary to 

 enter somewhat further into details. In the first place, nearly all of 

 the pipes of this type so far discovered have been found in a belt com- 

 mencing with eastern Iowa, thence running eastward through northern 

 Illinois, through Indiana, and embracing the southern half of Ohio; 

 thence, bending southward, including the valley of the Great Kanawha, 

 eastern Tennessee, and western North Carolina, to the northern bound- 

 ary of Georgia. It is not known that this type in any of its modifica- 

 tions iirevailed or was even in use at any point south of this belt. 

 Pipes In the form of birds and other animals are not uncommon, as may 

 be seen by reference to PI. XXIII of Jones's Antiquities of the Southern 

 Indians, but the platform is a ieature wholly unknown there, as are 

 also the derivatives from it. This is so literally true as to render it 

 strange, even on the supposition here advanced ; only a single one (near 

 Nashville, Tenn.), so far as known, having been found in the entire 

 South outside of the Cherokee country. 



This fact, as is readily" seen, stands in direct opposition to the idea 

 advanced by some that the mound-builders of Ohio when driven from 

 their homes moved southward, and became incorporated with the tribes 

 of the Gulf States, as it is scarcely possible such sturdy smokers as 

 they must have been would all at once have abandoned their favorite 

 pipe. 



Some specimens have been found north and east of this belt, chietly 

 in New York and Massachusetts, but they are too few to induce the 

 belief that the tribes occupying the sections where they were found 

 were in the habit of manufacturing them or accustomed to their use ; 

 possibly the region of Essex, Mass., may prove to be an isolated and 

 singular exception. 



How can we account for the fact that they were confined to this belt 

 except upon the theory that they were made and used by a single tribe, 

 or at most by two or three cognate tribes f If this be admitted it gives 

 as a result the line of migration of the tjibe, or tribes, by whom they 



