652 MOUND EXPLORATIONS. 



adventurers began to appear upon the scene one liundred and tliirty 

 years afterwards, in the latter part of tlie seventeenth century. The 

 numerous narratives and accounts of their voyages which have been 

 left furnish comparatively few notices of these mounds and earthworks, 

 so few, as has been supposed, that modern investigators have expressed 

 astonishment at the fact, as it is evident that iu many instances they 

 were upon the spots where these works are now found ; as, for example, 

 the Cahokia group; those near the mouth of the Arkansas, those in 

 the Chickasaw country and in northern Mississii)pi, and elsewhere. 

 But a more careful examination of the records brings to light a inimber 

 of corroborative items. 



Joutel, iu his account of the return journey of his jiarty after the 

 death of La Salle, speaking of their halt among the Arkansas Indians 

 at the mouth of the Arkansas river, says: 



The house we were then in was built of pieces of cedar laid one upon another and 

 rounded away at the corners. It is seated on a small eminence half a musket shot 

 from the village in a country abounding iu all things.' 



The French as given by jMargry ^ is as follows: " Celuy (village^ dans 

 lequel nous estions, estoit sur uue petite hauteur ofi la dite riviere ue 

 desborde point. La maison est postee, a une demi port^e de pistolet 

 du village, sur un lieu itn pen eleve." It is true that this may have been 

 a natural elevation, anil there is nothing in the statement to warrant 

 the positive conclusion that it was not, bxit the generally level area of 

 the locality in -which it was situated, the manner in which it is alluded 

 to, and the fact that nioirnds are found there, lead to the belief that it 

 was au artificial mound. 



Father Gravier, in the account of his voyage down the Mississippi, 

 notes the following fact, which probably refers to the earthworks that 

 mark the sites of abandoned towns. Speaking of the Akansea he says : 

 "We went out and cabined a league lower down, half a league from the 

 old village of the Akansea, where they formerly received the late Father 

 Marquette and which is discernible now only by the old outworks, there 

 being no cabins left."^ As there were no cabins left what were the 

 " old outworks" to wliich he alludes ? Speaking of the " Tounikas" he 

 says: "They have only one small temple, raised on a mound of earth."* 



M. Thaitmer de la Source, in -a letter included by St. Cosine in the 

 account of his voyage, alluding to the manners and customs of the same 

 people (the Tounicas) says that " their houses are made of palisades 

 and earth and are very large: they make tire in them only twice a day 

 and do their cookery outside in earthen pots," and that they " have a 

 temple on a little hill."-^ 



M. de la Hai'pe, speaking of the Indians located along the Yazoo 



1 Journal in Hist. Coll. La.. 1. p. 176. 



2 Decouvertea. Vol. 3, p. 442. 



^She.'i's Trans, in Early Frfn<-h Vi»ya;it's on I lie Mi..^sissiiij)i, p. 12G. 



' Ibid, p. 136. 



^Sbea'sEarly Freuiii Vnya;;(-s ini tin- Mis.sissipiti. pj). HO-81. 



