OF THE, BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. XXXI 



subject, the catalogues of which are ponderous tomes, but few 

 pages are of actual value except to a trained scholar who can 

 discern the germ of truth even in a blundering statement, and 

 whose own knowledge is a touchstone for the detection of spu- 

 rious productions. 



The most active cause in the distortion and fabrication now 

 easily exposed by scientific methods of examination, but once 

 accepted as verity, was the general resolve to designate as 

 before and above all other points of interest the particular 

 body of men in the eastern hemisphere to which the Indians 

 belonged and from which they made their exodus. That they 

 did come from the "old" world, the one known to history, was 

 postulated, and as all the so-called "races of mankind" were 

 more confidently enumerated in past generations than by the 

 most recent authorities, it was deemed essential to fix the place 

 of the Americans in the then undoubted though now rejected 

 classification. As a secondary but closely connected obliga- 

 tion, their lines of migration within this continent were to be 

 defined. With the unscrupulous zeal common to polemics, 

 all observations were made through the medium adapted to a 

 preconceived theory, while the garbling and peiwersion of the 

 lower class of writers supplemented the phantasies of those 

 better intentioned. 



Upon the discovery and partial exploration of the numerous 

 mounds in the great basin of the Mississippi, a new field was 

 opened to enthusiastic theorists. Ignoring the fact that many 

 of the historic Indians have practised the building of mounds, 

 indeed that some are still building them, it was assumed that 

 thlfese works were the vestiges of a dense and extinct popula- 

 tion whose advance in civilization was much superior to that 

 of the known American Indians. From the size and forms of 

 the mounds, their location, and the objects contained in them, 

 writers have set forth the origin, migration, numbers, institu- 

 tions, art, and religions of their builders. This attempt was 

 not illegitimate nor impracticable of execution if made after 

 complete exploration and comparison in a scientific spirit, by 

 experts possessing the requisite special training. It will be the 

 duty of the Bureau of Ethnology to devote careful attention 



