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The migrations of the tribes in this hemisphere have a deep interest. It is evident that their stay has been permanent nowhere. They have conquered and been conquered, until their history, so far as it can be ascertained, has been that of the clouds; with their brightness and their darkness, their masses and their tenuity; now fixed, as if a part of the firmament; now speeding from horizon to horizon, as if they were chariots of fire. These changes have left some vestiges behind them. A slight vestige is sufficient, as one bone is often sufficient proof of the existence of a certain animal ; a whole skeleton would not be more.

The antiquities of this continent are now extensively known. In the north, there are mounds and specimens of rude sculpture; in the central regions, there are architectural remains of a much higher order of human labor. The question has been, with respect to all these antiquities, whether they could have been the work of such inhabitants as are satisfactorily known to have been on this continent, or whether they must have a higher reference. The more elaborate antiquities of the central regions were at first supposed to present the greatest difficulties. Mr. Stephens found many ruined structures which, for a time, suggested a doubt whether they could have been formed by such skill as we know has existed among the aborigines. That doubt is now removed. These structures are massy, but rude; the sculpture is awkward and clumsy; and Mr. Schoolcraft exhibits in his work a few delineations which would compare advantageously as to symmetry with most of Mr. Catherwood's. We believe the public mind is now satisfied, that there is nothing in the central regions, which obliges it to go beyond the time of the Spanish conquest to account for the work. The Guatemalian and Yucatanian are said to excel the Mexican structures; this may be, and not embarrass the question. The same skill would do more with one kind of materials than with another; the same skill would achieve much in a freestone country, that could do almost nothing in a granite country.

We confess, we find more difficulty in accounting for the manner in which certain porphyritic "stone hatchets," or "hammers," occasionally found in the northern mounds, were made, than in accounting for all the structures of Mexico and Central America. These pieces of porphyry, or green

stone, are of the hardest composition; granite is more easily worked than they. We know that diamond will cut diamond; but it is supposing too much to believe that the Indians undertook to fashion these fragments of porphyry into shape by the application of the same stone, or a harder one, if they could find it. It would seem as if nothing but steel, and steel applied with skill, too, could have effected the modification. The boldest theorist has not ventured to give the Indians any help of this kind. Native copper and native iron have been within their reach; but these would not have aided them. They would have been even more powerless than the viper's teeth against the file. If time would have enabled them to finish such a task, the difficulty would have been lessened, as an Indian has time and patience enough. It would be consistent with their habits to devote the leisure of months to such a work. But the modification of porphyry is not within the compass of time or patience. Besides, there is an argument that goes still deeper. Had they the tools thus to work such stone, they would not have needed the stone utensil; no stone hatchets would be made, when steel ones could be had. The Indians have had flint arrow-heads; these must have taxed their ingenuity and labor in all respects. But there is cleavage in the flint-stone; while the greenstone is the severest compression of various components. It is almost as different from those components in their ordinary state, as the brick is from the clay of which it was made. There is no satisfactory solution of this problem, and probably one can never be found which will satisfy us.

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Mr. Schoolcraft has looked much at languages to trace out these bonds of affinity. He has also examined mounds; as he remarks, these mounds are the most intelligible witnesses of these affinities. They are everywhere seen; it is wonderful how they dot and seam the vast Western interior. is almost useless to inquire for what purpose they were thrown up; they are so various in form as to baffle all conjecture. No modes of warfare known among the Indians seem to have called for such aids. Mankind, in their barbarous state, have had some uniformity in their warlike habits, their weapons having had some degree of similarity. But we find no warrant in history for these remains. It is not, therefore, with a view of untying or cutting this Gordian knot,

that we would study these tumuli; we would look into them for such antiquities as resist the earth's corrosive power, and bring them forth for the work of comparison. If a mound is found which is like another already known in a different latitude, one step is gained in the way of affinities; if the same utensils or weapons are found in both, another step is gained. Indeed, the question of affinity is almost settled; the same tribe had probably occupied the two grounds, and left distinctive evidences of its change of locality. It is difficult to arrange aboriginal chronology, desirable as it may be. There are traditions that the north and the south have shifted scenes, but whether the shift was towards or from the equator it is not easy to determine. These mounds, however, though dark oracles, may sooner or later deliver something intelligible; all they utter should be carefully noted and preserved in this hope.

The erection of the structures whose ruins are found in the central parts of America is accounted for with some degree of satisfaction. In a tropical climate, little labor is bestowed upon the shelter of the commonalty. In Egypt, when her pyramids and temples were built, probably little else was built; the labor of nearly the whole people was no doubt concentrated upon these masses; a despotic government could command such a concentration. This consideration greatly diminishes the surprise at first felt in contemplating these wonders of the world. If the whole labor which any one of our large communities bestows upon its private dwellings were applied to one or two architectural objects, similar wonders would rise in our own land.

The governments of the central parts of America appear to have been purely despotic. Their climate also was mild; it is probable, therefore, that nearly the whole labor of the people there was applied to these public structures. The tumuli of the north are humble in magnitude, compared with the vast remains at the south; with proper tools, they could be thrown up without difficulty. But there is no evidence. that the northern tribes had any tools fitted for such a work. A small mound, heaped up by hand merely, would be a greater work than a very large one thrown up by spades. Besides, there does not seem to have been any government organization in these northern regions, that could command the labor of the multitude. We do not know, it is true,

what may have been in those early days; but as far as warrantable conjecture goes, no such despotic organizations existed then. The Northern Indians appear never to have labored, in the usual sense of the word, either for themselves, or for those having the rule over them. They appear to have contemned manual toil, and on all occasions to have been ashamed to dig. We doubt whether all the toil, in the way of digging, that has been got out of the Northern tribes since they have been known to the whites, would achieve any one of the extensive works in question found in the State of Ohio. There is, therefore, the double difficulty in this question, the want of the necessary labor, and the want of suitable means to apply it to advantage, had the labor been at command. The Indian antiquities at the north, though comparatively humble in their character, oppose inquiry at every step. Still, all opposition may be surmounted by such patient and industrious investigators as Mr. Schoolcraft.

We have made no quotations from the Report before us, though we have availed ourselves largely of its facts. These constitute the merit and value of the volume, which hardly admitted much display of literary execution. The manner, however, is good; the arrangement of the subject is judicious, and presents its various parts distinctly to view, while the style is unambitious and clear.

We have alluded to the proofs of intellectual power in the Indians with which Mr. Schoolcraft had before furnished the public; and we are now induced to make an extract from this Report, which has a bearing upon this point. It is a tradition of the Senecas. When we are looking for proofs of this intellectual power in the Indians, in what shape do we expect to find them? They have been a barbarous people from the beginning. With such a character, Indian intellect can be expected to display itself only in their traditions. Imagination is a faculty that develops itself in the infancy of a nation; it is strong almost in proportion as the nation is rude, and gradually loses its force step by step with the advance of civilization. Imagination seems to be a wild product; it luxuriates among a wild people, like the rank and unchecked growth of the face of the earth. The forest puts forth an enormous vegetation; trees and parasites flourish there with a giant's strength; all the nourishment of the soil is sucked up by them. The sun licks up nothing; a dense veil - No. 135.

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intercepts its burning rays, and allows only their genial warmth to sift down upon the ground. Cultivation changes all this; in regulating every thing, we restrain every thing; it is improvement, but it is still a check. The horse under the bit and in the draught is the same animal as the snorting courser of the prairie; but his matchless energies are all cramped and subdued. It is nearly so with the imagination; the Indian gives it full play. These traditions are the coins of the aborigines, often obscured and overlaid with extraneous matter; still, they are almost the only remains that bear the stamp of remote ages. We cannot always understand them; so it is with many coins; nevertheless, they are preserved with great care, in the hope that interpretation may one day come. But these traditions are more valuable than coins in one respect; they have a value, even if they fail to be interpreted. The imagination they display is independent of such interpretation. Very few of the Indian tales which Mr. Schoolcraft has heretofore published are intelligible in their bearing; doubtless, they all had an application to events, either moral or physical. We may hope, but must probably hope in vain, to find out that application in most cases. The tree which has been prostrate for ages in the forest, if undisturbed, still retains an aspect in its final decay that leaves no doubt of its original character. It has not a leaf, a twig, a branch, nor perhaps even a fibre of its trunk, remaining. The only index may be a long, slender tumulus, which, having become a mere spongy mass, a foot might kick out of shape with a few blows. As long as this tumulus remains, it shows to the least-practised eye that a tree once stood and had fallen there, though the most expert botanist might fail to detect the class or genus to which it belonged. It proves that a majestic forest once was there, and we care little whether the remains we now contemplate are those of an oak or a pine.

Thus it is, in some degree, with these tales. They have doubtless lost their original texture, have lost nearly all that gave them, in their day of freshness, their beauty, their force, and their distinctness of character. Nevertheless, they are the best remains of the Indian character, and, as such, should be preserved with jealous care, with all their simplicity, all their mutilations, all their shapelessness. Mr. Schoolcraft gives us in this Report several specimens of the Indian's

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