What mounds? What earth works? The authority quoted remarks, "That many Indian tribes built mounds and earthworks is beyond doubt, but that all the mounds and earthworks of North America were made by these same tribes or their immediate ancestors is not thereby proved."
That the term "mound-builders" is as applicable to the people who constructed the mounds of Siberia, Japan, or elsewhere as those who built the tumuli of the Mississippi Valley must be admitted, but the term, when used in this country with reference to the mounds of this country, has, as is well known, been generally understood to include only those found in that part of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains unless otherwise stated; and Mr. Carr's paper, to which allusion is made in the next sentence of the quotation, is expressly limited to the "mounds of the Mississippi Valley." North America is therefore a broader field than is generally understood by those who enter upon the discussion, and I may add that "these same tribes," unless with explicit definition, is a limitation claimed by no one.
The term "Indian" is so indefinite and so variously applied that more or less uncertainty must ensue unless the writer discussing this question makes clear the sense in which he uses it. It was probably an appreciation of this fact that caused the author of the report referred to to make use of the terms "American stocks," "nations," and "groups of tribes." We can fully appreciate the difficulty he and all others writing upon this subject experience from the want of an adequate and definite nomenclature that is applicable. But his expansions in one direction and limitations in another, in the paragraph quoted, as it seems to me, have left the statement of the question in worse confusion than it was before.
In what sense does he use the terms "Indians," "Indian tribes," "American stocks," and "groups of tribes"? Are the cultured Central American and Mexican nations and the Pueblo tribes to be included or excluded? Professor Carr evidently proceeds upon the idea that they are to be excluded, and that the mounds and other ancient works of the Mississippi Valley are to be attributed to one or more of the American stocks found in possession of this region at the time of its discovery by Europeans.
This I believe to be the correct view, except in this: Professor Carr fails to clear his work of the idea of one people, one stock, when the evidence is conclusive that the mound-builders were divided into tribes and stocks, as were the Indians when first encountered by the whites. Hence when I use the terms "Indians," "Indian tribes," and "American stocks" in this connection, they are to be understood as thus limited.
I do not claim that this use of these terms is correct, but it is not my intention at present to discuss the question "What is the proper use of the indefinite term Indian?" My only object in referring to it and the other equivalent terms is to explain the sense in which I use them in this connection, because I can find no better ones.
As thus limited the question for discussion maybe stated as follows:
Were all the mounds and other ancient works found in that part of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains (except such as are manifestly the work of Europeans of post-Columbian times) built by the Indians found in possession of this region at the time of its discovery and their ancestors, or are they in part to be attributed to other more civilized races or peoples, as the Aztecs, Toltecs, Pueblo tribes, or some lost race of which we possess no historical mention? I say in part, as it has long been conceded, that some of these works are to be attributed to the Indians.
If it can be shown that some of the mounds and other works of all the different types and classes found in the Mississippi Valley and Gulf States were built by Indians, or even that they were built by people in the same stage of culture and art and having the same customs and habits as the Indians of this region in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, we shall be justified in concluding that the rest are the work of the same race and of the same tribes, or those, closely allied in habits, customs, art, and culture. That here and there a single mound-building tribe may have become extinct or absorbed into other tribes in pre-Columbian times, as has been the fate of some since the discovery of the continent, does not alter the case, unless it be claimed that such tribes belonged to different "American stocks" and had reached a higher degree of culture than those found in this part of the continent at the time of the arrival of the Europeans.
No one believes that we will ever be able to ascertain the history of the construction of each mound and earthwork; the utmost to be hoped is that we may be able to determine with satisfactory certainty that such and such works were built by such and such tribes.