CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 83 



I am aware that the remnants of the Indian stock which still exist in the State, 

 generally profess total ignorance of these works. I do not, however, attach much 

 importance to this circumstance. When we consider the extreme likehhood of 

 the forgetfulness of ancient practices, in the lapse of three hundred years, the lack 

 of knowledge upon this point is the weakest of all negative evidence. Cusick, 

 the Indian, in his so-called " History of the Six Nations," ha&, no doubt, correctly 

 described the manner in which they constructed their early defences. " The 

 manner of making a fort : First, they set fire against as many trees as it requires 

 to make the enclosure, rubbing off the coals with their stone axes, so as to make 

 them burn faster. When the tree falls, they put fires to it about three paces apart, 

 and burn it into pieces. These pieces are then brought to the spot required, and 

 set up around, according to the bigness of the fort. The earth is then heaped on 

 both sides. The fort has generally two gates, one for passage and one to the 

 water." " The people," continues Cusick, " had implements with which they made 

 their bows and arrows. Their kettles were made of baked clay ; their awls and 

 needles of sharpened bones ; their pipes of baked clay or soft stone ; a small turtle- 

 shell was used to peel the bark, and a small dry stick to make fire by boring it 

 against seasoned wood." 



Golden observes of their defences, as they were constructed in his time : " Their 

 castles are generally a square surrounded with palisades, without any bastions or 

 outworks ; for, since the general peace, their villages all lie open."* 



In full view of the facts before presented, I am driven to a conclusion little 

 anticipated when I started upon my trip of exploration, that the earth-works of 

 Western New York were erected by the Iroquois or their western neighbors, and 

 do not possess an antiquity going very far back of the discovery. Their general 

 occurrence upon a line parallel to and not far distant from the lakes, favors the 

 hypothesis that they were built by frontier tribes — an hypothesis entirely conform- 

 able to aboriginal traditions. Here, according to these traditions, every foot of 

 ground was contested between the Iroquois and the Gah-kwas and other western 

 tribes ; and here, as a consequence, where most exposed to attack, were perma- 

 nent defences most necessary. It was not until after the Confederation, that the 

 Five Nations were able to check and finally expel the warlike people which dis- 

 puted with them the possession of the beautiful and fertile regions bordering the 

 lakes ; and it is not impossible that it was the pressure from this direction which 

 led to that Confederation, — an anomaly in the history of the aborigines. Common 

 danger, rather than a far-seeing policy, may be regarded as the impelling cause 

 of the consohdation. 



In conclusion, I may be permitted to observe, that the ancient remains of Western 

 New York, except so far as they throw light upon the system of defence practised 

 by the aboriginal inhabitants, and tend to show that they were to a degree fixed 

 and agricultural in their habits, have shght bearing upon the grand ethnological 



History of the Five Natiom, Vol. 1., p. 9. 



