620 MOUND EXPLORATIONS. 



esteemed to be six thous.ind hanegs [fanegas]."' "As soon as 

 they came to Cale the governor commanded tliein to gather all the 

 maize that was ripe in the field, which was sufficient for three months, "^ 

 When we remember that this was sufficient for (iOO men, 200 horses, 

 and a hundred or more hogs, and that it was taken from the field of a 

 single Indian town, we can more readily appreciate the fact that these 

 natives were agriculturists, notwithstanding the statements of modern 

 archeologists to the contrary. 



It is stated in Barnard de la Harpe's " JoiirnaP" .that M. le Sueur 

 " sent two Canadians to invite the Avavois and -the Octotatas to settle 

 near the fort because they were good farmers and he wished to employ 

 them in cultivating the land and working the mines." 



M. Thaumerde la Source,* speaking of the Tounicas, says they live 

 "entirely on Indian corn; they do not hunt like other Indians." 



It is unnecessary to add further testimony, as Mr. (Jarr's summary 

 of evidence which applies to the entire mound area, unless it be the 

 Dakotau region, leaves no ground on which the doubter (^an find a 

 foothold. 



Such is the testimony of the older authorities and of those who have 

 studied the history of the discoveries of our continent and the early 

 European intercourse with its aborigines. 



Marquis de Nadaillac, reviewing Mr. Carr's work, admits that- " at 

 numerous points inNorth America the Indians were much more advanced 

 than their numerous descendants,"* but he contends that the evidence 

 dates from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and 

 hence leaves a break unclosed and the chain incomplete. Such an 

 objection is, to say the least, out of i)lace in the writings of so able an 

 author. ■ The evidence reaches back to the first contact of Europeans 

 with the natives of the different sections, and shows their habits and 

 customs before being affected by European civilization, and, as the 

 reader will observe, it applies generally and almost without exception 

 to the tribes living east of the Mississippi. 



In the American edition of his " Prehistxiric America," edited by Dr. 

 Dall, the position taken by the authoron the question now under con- 

 sideration appears to be abandoned, but this is probably due to the 

 editor of this edition. 



The evidence adduced seems conclusive that, excepting a few unim- 

 portant cases, the tribes from the Atlantic to the i)rairies of the west 

 and from the lakes to the gulf were cultivators of the soil, which is 

 sufficient ])roof, if other evidence were wanting, which is not the case, 

 that they must have been sedentary, or at least had fixed villages and 

 determinate localities. 



That from time to time, as was the case with the more civilized 



' Gentleman of Elvaa, Hist. Coll. La., vol, ir, p. 203. 



2 Ibid., p. 130. 



' Hist. Coll. La., vol. in, p. 2C. 



*Sbea's Early Voyuj^es up -and down the Mississippi, p. 81. 



*Iievue d'Authropologie, Jan. 15, 1885, 



