S66 ETHNOLOGY. 



feet in width ; but large quantities of sand have been removed from it 

 from time to time, greatly reducing its proportions, and scattering or 

 destroying a large number of interesting relics. 



The series of smaller mounds, extending from the great mound to the 

 eastward, has long since been entirely removed 5 so has the greater 

 number of other similar mounds which once stood immediately below 

 the southern city limits. Those which remain are fast disappearing 

 before the march of civilization, the sand, of which they are principally 

 composed, being in demand for building and other purposes. 



ludian tradition says that these mounds were built in ancient times, 

 by a people of whom they (the Indians) know nothing, and for whom 

 they have no name; that the mounds were occu]3ied by the Tuetle 

 Indians, and subsequently by the Wyandotts, but were constructed long 

 before their time. These facts were ascertained by me in the year 

 1869, when I was further informed that the Tuetle Indians had been 

 absorbed by the Six Nations, and that if any survived it is among them 

 they must be looked for. 



In this connection it may be proper to state, that I have lately been 

 iuformed of the results of some inquiries made at my request, through 

 the instrumentality of the Smithsonian Institution, in regard to the 

 name Tuetle. The conclusion arrived at is that the word Tuetle is 

 probably a corruption of Tutelo, a tribe, "admitted as a younger mem- 

 ber of the confederacy of the Six Nations about the middle of the last 

 century," and that the Tuteloes "are believed to have migrated from 

 Virginia northward, to lands assigned them on the Susquehanna by the 

 Six JSTations; but verj' little is kuown of their early history and migra- 

 tions." An interesting paper on the Tuteloes, by Eev. J. Anderson, 

 was read before the American Philological Association in July, 1871. 

 Eeporting Mr. H. Hale's discoveries, this assigns the Tuteloes to the 

 Dakotan and not the Iroquois stock, and gives an account of Mr. Hale's 

 " visit to Nikungha, the last survivor of the tribe of the Tuteloes," and 

 who has since died at the age of one hundred and six years.* 



The establishment of the identity of the Tuetles with the Tuteloes, 

 and their residence on these mounds and along the Detroit Eiver, is not 

 without value, in view of Mr. Hale's opinion, (opposed to the conclusions 

 of others regarding the Dakotan migration,) that "in former times the 

 whole of what is now the central portion of the United States, from the 

 Mississippi nearly to the Atlantic, was occupied by Dakotan tribes, 

 who have been cut up and gradually exterminated by the intrusive and 

 more energetic Algonkins and Iroquois." 



The relics exhumed from the great mound (which has not even yet 

 been thoroughly explored) consist of stone implements, such as axes, 

 scrapers, chisels, arrow-heads, and knives; fragments of pottery of a 

 great variety of pattern, including the favorite cord-pattern ; and the 



* Proceedings of American Pliilological Association, July, 1871, pp. 15, IG. 



