ents, cut them off from the copper mines, and finally pushed them
down the Mississippi; but nothing more than conjecture is possible in
this case, and the supposition gives the Iroquois migration a greater
antiquity than may be allowable. Moreover, the traditionary lore of the
wild Indians had nothing to say of the Mound-Builders, who appear to
have been as unknown and mysterious to these Indians as they are to us.

NOT ANCESTORS OF THE WILD INDIANS.

Some inquirers, not always without hesitation, suggest that the Indians
inhabiting the United States two hundred years ago were degenerate
descendants of the Mound-Builders. The history of the world shows that
civilized communities may lose their enlightenment, and sink to a
condition of barbarism; but the degraded descendants of a civilized
people usually retain traditional recollections of their ancestors, or
some traces of the lost civilization, perceptible in their customs and
their legendary lore. The barbarism of the wild Indians of North America
had nothing of this kind. It was original barbarism. There was nothing
to indicate that either the Indians inhabiting our part of the
continent, or their ancestors near or remote, had ever been civilized,
even to the extent of becoming capable of settled life and organized
industry. And, besides, the constant tradition of these Indians,
supported by concurring circumstantial evidence, appears to warrant the
belief that they came to this part of the continent originally from the
west or northwest, at a period too late to connect them in this way with
the Mound-Builders.

Two hundred years ago the Valley of the Mississippi, and the regions
east of it, were occupied by two great families of Indians, the Iroquois
and the Algonquins, each divided into separate tribes. Between these two
families there was a radical difference of language. The Indians of New
England were Algonquins. The Iroquois dwelt chiefly in New York, and
around Lake Erie, from Niagara to Detroit, although separate communities
of the group to which they immediately belonged were found in other
places, such as the Dacotahs and Winnebagoes at the West, and the
isolated Tuscaroras of the Carolinas. Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, who has
discussed "Indian Migrations" in several interesting papers printed in
the North American Review, thinks the Iroquois were separated very early
from the same original stem which produced the great Dacotah family. The
Algonquins were spre