species of wild roots, and certain nutritious bark supplied the failure of the cultivated crop, and furnished the means to eke out a subsistence when the hunt was unsuccessful or the last year's stores had been consumed before the season of harvest. To effect a clearing, and to secure a crop with such rude implements of stone as they possessed, appears to us almost an impracticable undertaking; but we are assured, by early writers, that they obtained as large a yield from a given spot of ground as can be produced by the assistance of all modern conveniences and contrivances. Two dishes, greatly in vogue among the Indians, have maintained their popularity among their European successors. Green corn, the ripening of which was celebrated by a national dance, is sought as eagerly as when it supplied a grateful refreshment to the red men, emaciated, as Smith describes them, by the spring diet of fish and roots. A preparation, denominated "Succotash," consisting of maize, boiled with beans, and flavored with fat bear's meat, or fish, still remains (with the substitution of pork for wild meats) a favorite dish in New England. Carver says that, as prepared by the natives, it was "beyond comparison delicious." It is singular that the use of milk should have been entirely unknown before the advent of the whites, although there were various animals in the country from which it might have been procured. This fact has been adduced as a strong argument against the hypothesis, that immigrants from the nomadic tribes of Tartary have mingled with the red race in comparatively modern times. If the ferocity or wildness of the buffalo, deer, or elk, had at first seemed to render their domestication impracticable, yet it is not probable that so important an article of subsistence would have been not only disused, but entirely forgotten, until many generations had passed away.. With the foregoing brief sketch of some of the more marked Indian traits and peculiarities, we will dismiss this portion of our subject; and, dealing no more in generalities, proceed to take up the history of various tribes and nations, somewhat in the order of the dates of their first intercourse with Europeans. We need make no apology for the omission of many minor clans, or for avoiding that particularity, in the delineation of private character, which belongs rather to biography than to general history. AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES. CHAPTER I. UNITED STATES TERRITORY, ETC. "But what are These, still standing in the midst? To the vast Mountains and the eternal Sea, They want no written history; theirs a voice Forever speaking to the heart of Man! - ROGERS. In the absence of any written record of those numerous races which formerly peopled this hemisphere, information must be sought in their monuments, and in the disinterred relics of their ancient manner of life. These, considering the almost unbroken wilderness which presented itself to the first white adventurers, are surprisingly numerous. They indicate the former existence of populous nations, excelling in many of the arts of civilization, and capable, by their numbers and combination, of executing the most gigantic works for religion, public defence, and commemoration of the dead. Such relics, though, for the most part, not immediately pertaining to the history of the Indian tribes, have supported the conjectures advanced by Humboldt and other eminent cosmographers, that these races are but the dwindled and degraded remains of, once flourishing and populous nations. The retrograde process to which certain forms of incomplete civilization appear doomed, has perhaps been most strikingly exemplified in the difference to be discovered between the feeble and scattered tribes of the red race, and those powerful and populous communities who occupied the soil before them. The relics of the former people, usually discovered on or slightly beneath the surface of the ground, are of a rude and simple character, differing little from the specimens common among their descendants of the present day. The flint arrow-head, chipped painfully into shape the stone tomahawk, knife, and chisel- the pipe, the rude pottery and savage ornaments, are their only relics; and these differ but little from the same articles still fabricated by their successors. Except among the Esquimaux, who occasionally use stone, and who avail themselves of the arch and dome in the construction of their snow huts, nothing like regular architecture can be assigned to the late or modern tribes occupying this continent northward of Mexico. The Indian tumuli, or mounds of burial, are generally small and of simple construction. It has, however, been rationally supposed that the force of religious custom, surviving art and civilization, has preserved to the red tribes this characteristic method of their forefathers; and that the rude barrows, which they still erect, are but the puny and dwindled descendants of those mighty mounds and terraced pyramids which still rear their heads from the isthmus to the lakes, and from the shores of Florida to the Mexican Cordilleras. The origin of these and of other unquestionably ancient remains, is to the antiquarian a question of the most lively and perplexing interest. Here, in unknown ages and for unknown periods, have existed wealth, power, and civilization; yet the remains by which these are indicated seem to furnish but a slight clew to the epoch and history of their long-vanished constructors. Within the mounds and mural embankments scattered through a large portion of this country, are found the remains of high mechanical and scientific art. Pottery, the most fragile of man's works, yet almost indestructible by time, still remains in large quantities and in good preservation. In the composition and coloring of these articles, much chemical skill is evinced; while in many cases, their grace of form and perfection of finish rival the remains of Grecian or Etruscan art. Some of these ancient vessels are of immense size; one, disinterred from a Western mound being eighteen feet in length by six in breadth. Glass beads of rare and elaborate construction have been found; stone ornaments, skilfully wrought, and brick, much resembling that in modern use, have been often discovered. Metallic remains are frequent. Copper, used both for weapons and for ornament, has often been found, and occasionally specimens, plated with silver, have been disinterred. At an ancient mound in Marietta, a silver cup finely gilt on the inside, was exposed to view by the washing of a stream. It has been often questioned whether the use of iron was known to these aboriginal races; but except the occasional presence of rust in the excavations, little has been ascertained with certainty-the perishable nature of that metal peculiarly exposing it to the destroying influence of time and dampness. Inscriptions upon rocks, mostly of a hieroglyphic character, are numerous; and on the walls of several caverns in the west, some extraordinary specimens may be seen. In the same gloomy receptacles have been found numbers of a species of mummy, most carefully prepared, and beautifully covered with colored feathers, symmetrically arranged. Stone coffins and burial urns of great beauty have also been disinhumed from the Western mounds. |