mblance between the works of the
Mound Builders and the Pueblo tribes. The truncated mounds discovered
by Mr. Holmes, we remember, were also used as foundations for house
structures along the Gila. In this feature we, of course, see a
resemblance to the platform mounds of the Mississippi Valley. But we
must be careful in tracing connections on such a slim basis as this. We
must remember also what a difference there is in the pottery of the two
sections.<57> If we were to give an opinion, based on the present known
facts, we should say the separation between the people who afterwards
developed as the pueblo builders of the west and the Mound Builders of
the Mississippi Valley took place at an early date.

But let us not suppose that this conclusion clears up all mysteries.
A problem which has thus far defied the efforts of some of our best
thinkers is still before us, and that is: "From whence came the
Indians?" As we remarked at the beginning of this chapter, no one theory
has yet received universal acceptance. In view of these facts, it is not
best to present any theories, but content ourselves with such statements
as seem reasonably well settled. On all hands it is agreed that the
Indians have been in America a long while, and whatever advance they
were able to make in the scale of civilization has been achieved in this
country.<58>

This statement implies that they were in undisturbed possession of this
country long enough for some tribes of them to reach the middle status
of barbarism, which means advancement sufficient to enable them to
cultivate the ground by irrigation, and to acquire a knowledge of the
use of stone and adobe brick in building.<59> More than half the battle
of civilization had then been won. Look at it as we will, this demands
an immense period of time for its accomplishment. In the arts of
subsistence, government, language, and development of religious ideas
the advancement they had been able to make from a condition of savagism
to that in which the Mound Builders evidently lived, or the Aztecs
in Mexico, represents a progression far greater than from thence to
civilization.

We are, therefore, sure that the Indians have inhabited this country for
an extended period. We can prolong the mental vision backwards until we
discover them, a savage race, gaining a precarious livelihood by fishing
and the chase. In America there was but one cereal, or grain, growing
wild. That was maize, or Indian co