ARCHEOLOGY. 45 



will naturally slip over the point of another like it as far as it can go. 

 The teeth frequently met squarely, instead of overlapping, so they were 

 worn down evenly all around; the dentition was the same as in all the 

 human race. Decayed teeth were as common as among whites; and full 

 sets are seldom found. 



To conclude here the subject of Mound Builders: — any statement, 

 drawing, or description of remains, which attempts to show they were a 

 race superior to, or different from, all other native tribes of the United 

 States, is not justified by any evidence so far discovered. 



SECTION IV. 

 INDIANS. 



Frequent comparison has been made herein with modern or known 

 tribes. Some explanation is necessary. 



The popular conception of Indians is based altogether upon one 

 phase of their character, and that, according to civilized ideas, the worst. 

 Histories, especially those relating to frontier life, novels and romances, 

 all picture the Indian as a hunter, warrior, or vagabond. They touch 

 lightly upon, or pass entirely over, the normal condition of sedentary 

 tribes, or the home life of others few of whom spent more than a portion 

 of their time in warfare or the chase. 



The Six Nations devised a form of government admirably adapted to 

 their circumstances; they had fortified towns, cultivated a variety of 

 crops, and in later times had orchards; they well understood the value of 

 alliances, planned their campaigns with foresight, and carried them on 

 with skill and vigor. Several southern tribes, as the Cherokees and 

 Natchez, though less predatory, were equally advanced in all respects; 

 their domestic life would compare favorably with that of many agri- 

 cultural and mining communities of the present time. Tecumseh, I^ogan, 

 Blackhawk, Cornstalk, Red Jacket, Pontiac, and scores of others whose 

 names will live in history, were the intellectual peers of many prominent 

 men of to-day. Individuals of this stamp are impossible in a degraded 

 or debased community; they must have at least a moderately intelligent 

 ancestry and constituency. To suppose that a brain which could formu- 

 late a confederacy such as Tecumseh came near consummating, or a 

 conspiracy like Pontiac's that almost wiped out of being the settlements 

 over a wide territory, could not plan earthworks similar to those found 

 in the Ohio Valley, is nonsensical. No less so is it to assert that a man 

 who will chase a deer a hundred miles or travel several times that dis- 

 tance to attack a foe, or that a woman who will raise a crop of corn, is 

 too lazy to assist in building a mound ; or to claim that persons who will 

 maim, starve, or otherwise maltreat themselves, or destroy property 

 representing months of labor, on the death of a chief or leader, would not 



