ies than fathers or mothers. And so these traditions, probably a
good deal brightened by being passed along century after century, came
down to the Indians who were first met by white people, and thus we have
heard many of them.

The stories told by the Indians inhabiting the country which is now the
Middle States, all agree that their remote forefathers came from some
region beyond the Mississippi River. Like the traditions of most
nations, these go so very far back that they are vague and misty; but,
as this gave the Indians a great opportunity for their imaginations, it
is not wonderful that they improved it. These Indians believed that in
the very earliest stages of their existence they were all animals, and
lived in caves under the earth. They were hunters; but their game
consisted of mice, and creatures of that sort. One of them accidentally
discovered a hole by which he got out on the surface of the ground; and,
finding it so exceedingly pleasant, it was not long before the whole of
his tribe came out, and began life in the light of day.

It may be supposed that these animals gradually changed to human beings,
and built villages, and planted corn; but in one respect they did not
change, nor have they changed at this present day. Many of them still
call themselves after the names of animals; and now the greater part of
the noted Indians of our country have such names as "Sitting Bull,"
"Black Bear," and "Red Horse." But the stories say that all of the
animals did not come out of their underground homes. Among these were
the hedgehog and the rabbit; and so some of the tribes will not eat
these animals, because in so doing they may be eating their family
connections.

Gradually the ancestors of the Indians who told their stories to the
first settlers, and who afterwards called themselves the Lenni-Lenape,
moved eastward, and after many years they reached the Mississippi River.
By this time they had become a powerful body. But in the course of their
journeys they discovered that they were not the earliest emigrants in
this direction, for they met with a great tribe called the Mengwe, later
known as the Iroquois, who had come from a country west of the
Mississippi, but farther north than that of our Indians.

We do not hear that these two great tribes of early Indians interfered
with each other; but when the Lenni-Lenape investigated the other side
of the Mississippi, they found there still another nation, powerful