OHA PH ox: 
HOUSES OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 
The general view of the house-life and houses of the Indian tribes 
thus far presented will tend to strengthen the hypothesis about to be stated 
concerning the earth-works of the Mound-Builders. Apart from the expla- 
nation that the Jong-houses of the Northern Tribes and the joint-tenement 
house of the Sedentary Indians are capable of affording, they are wholly 
inexplicable. The Mound-Builders worked native copper, cultivated maize 
and plants, manufactured pottery and stone implements of higher grade 
than the tribes of the Lower Status of barbarism; and they raised earth- 
works of great magnitude, superior to any works of the former tribes. 
They fairly belong to the class of Sedentary Village Indians, though not 
in all respects of an equal grade of culture and development. Their 
embankments, which inclosed a rectangular space, were in all probability, 
the foundations upon which they erected their houses. It is proposed to 
consider these embankments under this hypothesis. 
Under the name of Mound-Builders certain unknown tribes of the 
American aborigines are recognized, who formerly inhabited as their chief 
area the valley of the Ohio and its tributary streams. Traces of their 
occupation have been found in other places, from the Gulf of Mexico to 
Lakes Erie and Superior, and from the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, and 
in some localities west of this river. 
Without entering upon a discussion of these works, this chapter will 
be confined to four principal questions : 
I. The house-life of the American aborigines, in the usages of which 
the Mound- Builders were necessarily involved. 
II. The probable center from which the Mound-Builders emigrated 
into these areas. 
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