PRE.HIS2'0RIC YANKEES. 659 
the flattened tibia. Their institutions, while they may have received many 
modifications and developments, during the transit from north to south, were 
practically homogeneous in all parts of their habitat. They were agriculturists, 
miners, artisans. They cultivated maize and tobacco ; and it is a curious fact 
that both of these plants are by some savants thought to have originated in Asia. 
There is no doubt but that the cultivation of the former passed at a very ancient 
period from the southern Asiatic islands, into China, where it has since been 
found, in remote districts, in a wild state. Tobacco has also been found grow- 
ing wild in China. The mound-builders cultivated other products of the soil; 
among them a fibrous plant allied to hemp or flax, from which their cloth was 
woven. They manifested a considerable advance in the art of war, especially 
in the defense of fortified places. Their skill in the manufacture of pottery and 
in stone- and bone-carving was not at all contemptible, and the mathematical 
knowledge displayed in the construction of earth works, geometrically perfect 
in form, shows that they had advanced far above the condition reached by any 
Indian race known to the white man within the boundaries of the United States. 
Of the extent of their commerce it may be said that side by side, in the same 
mound have been found objects in copper and silver from Michigan, mica from 
the AUeghanies, obsidian from Mexico, and shells from the Gulf of Mexico, 
Of their architecture we can have no exact knowledge. There is little 
doubt, however, that the temple-mounds were surmounted by sacred edifices, 
constructed of perishable materials, which, in order to conform to the magnitude 
of their sites, must have made some pretensions to architectural beauty and 
grandeur. The richly ornamented edifices of southern Mexico and Central 
America, especially those at Uxmal, are considered by competent authorities to 
have originated from wooden models. It is obvious that even a wooden 
structure, decorated and finished with the care and skill bestowed upon Central 
American temples and palaces would present no mean appearance. A power- 
ful priesthood and a wide-spread religious system are implied by the monuments. 
We are ignorant of their religious rites, though it is indubitable that the cult was 
a worship of the Sun, and that human sacrifices was an accompaniment of their 
ceremonies. It is quite probable that their government was a theocracy or a 
partial theocracy — the priesthood being the governing caste. The construction 
of the stupendous works described could best be explained by a supposition that 
a large portion of the people lived in a servile condition. The mining exploits o f 
the Mound-builders have been suflSciently referred to and the mounds are elo- 
quent with mechanical skill and industry. 
When the passage of the Mound-builders was stopped by the southern sea- 
board, what then ? Were they slaughtered by pursuing enemies, or driven into 
the waves, or exterminated by pestilence, or overwhelmed by some tremendous 
cataclysm ? They were a race of navigators. Their journeys were almost invar- 
iably pursued along the courses of navigable streams; and it is only natural to 
suppose that these journeys were really voyages by water. Why then should the 
waves of the Gulf affright them ? With canoes no larger than many used by the 
