11 



It is remarkable that many writers on the early history 

 of the American continent have referred to the early expedi- 

 tion of Prince Madoc, of North Wales, with ten ships to the 

 new world, in the twelfth century. Powell, a writer, dating 

 back to 1620, gives an account of this. Hakluyt and others 

 have continued the story, although Woodward, in his "History 

 of Wales," regards it as purely mythical. Whoever may be 

 right, it is well to know what has been said. The Magdawys, 

 or followers of Madoc, have been identified as to name with 

 the Madans ; the canoes peculiar to the Mandans among the 

 Indian nations, which were made of the skins of buffaloes 

 stretched over frames of willows and round in shape like a 

 tub, are said to be exactly the Welsh coracle. Many Man- 

 dan words are given resembling the Welsh, among the most 

 remarkable being that for the Deity, in Mandan, Maho peneta; 

 in Welsh, Mawr penaethir. 



We are sceptical as to this Welsh-Mandan alliance. We 

 see, then, that a theory, somewhat as follows, meets fairly 

 well the facts of the case. That the original mound builders 

 were the people of another continent, carrying with them the 

 custom of mound building, perhaps from some northern Eu- 

 ropean country : that they extended along the Red River val- 

 ley and that of the Missouri, as well as up the Ohio : that 

 they used their mounds for burial after the manner of the 

 European nations : that the superficial burials in the mounds 

 are those of a race extending to our own time, who may be 

 descendants of the earlier mound-building race absorbed by an 

 Indian nation, but retaining mental and physical traces of a 

 foreign ancestry : that this race is the tribe of Mandans, who 

 have become almost extinct during the present century from 

 small-pox. 



This theory, it will be observed, gives a fair explanation 

 of the oft-repeated claim of a considerable European emigra- 

 tion to America centuries before Columbus ; it accounts for the 

 possession of higher features of civilization by savage nations 

 in the very interior of America; it agrees with the various 

 facts revealed by the opened burial-mound, and explains the 

 main points of the legend given by the Saulteaux half-breeds 

 of the Red river. We leave it with out readers. We do not 

 pin our faith to it. To any one who questions it, it is fair 

 to say, advance a theory better explaining the facts, and we 

 shall gladly withdraw the one offered. 



NOTE. — In the second paper, written two years later, and after investigation 

 of several other mounds, the writer, it will be seen, inclines to the invasion of the 

 Toltecs from the south as supplying the race of Mound Builders, i. e., the Asiatic 

 rather than the European origin. 



