WJio Built the Mounds? 8& 



taws and Creeks were certainly a well-to-do people in an 

 agricultural sense, at that early day, 350 years since, before 

 the introduction of whiskey, which has well-nigh paralyzed 

 their energies. 



It is not uncommon for authors to assert confidently that 

 the mounds were erected by a different race of people from 

 the modern Indians, for the latter have no tradition of the 

 mounds, by whom and for what purpose they were built. 

 Let us consider the subject of Indian Tradition. Bartram, 

 the zoologist and botanist, traveled in Georgia, Tennessee, 

 Florida and South Carolina a little over one hundred years 

 ago. He says: "At the Cherokee town of Cowe, on the Ten- 

 nessee river, which contains one hundred houses, he noticed 

 that the council house, a large rotunda, capable of accom- 

 modating several" hundred people, stood on the top of an 

 ancient artificial mound of earth, of about twenty feet in- 

 perpendicular elevation. The Cherokees themselves could 

 give no account when or by whom the mound was built." 

 At another important Cherokee town, Bartram saw a most 

 remarkable column. It stood adjacent to the town, in the 

 center of an oblique square, and was about forty feet high, 

 and only from two to three feet thick at the base, and. 

 tapered gradually to a point at the top. What is remarkable 

 about this 'pillar is, that notwithstanding it is formed of a 

 single piece of pine timber, the Indians or white traders 

 could give no account for what purpose or at what time it 

 was erected. All the Indians that Bartram asked gave the 

 same answer, which was that the ancient Indians found it 

 there, and that their fathers knew nothing about it. This 

 fact, says Bartram, is not singular, when reference is had to 

 the mound of earth, but when the same answer is given 

 concerning a perishable material, there is at least some 

 slight ground for suspicion. 



Another singular circumstance is that no pine trees grew 

 nearer than twelve miles from this point. (Drake's In- 

 dians of North America, p. 03.) 



None of the Indians at the present time have traditions 

 running back as far as Allouez and Marquette, or even ta 

 the more recent time of John Carver. Is it not strange that 



