agriculture for a livelihood. They possessed considerable skill
in the arts. For instance, they wove a cloth from the inner bark
of the mulberry tree and made excellent pottery. They also
constructed great mounds of earth upon which to erect their
dwellings and temples. Like a good many of the other southern
tribes, they fought when it was necessary, but they were
peaceable compared with the Five Nations. They had a form of
sun-worship resembling that of Mexico, and in other ways their
ideas were like those of the people farther south. For instance,
when a chief died, his wives were killed. In times of distress
the parents frequently offered their children as sacrifice.

Many characteristics of the Natchez and other southern tribes
seem to indicate that they had formerly possessed a civilization
higher than that which prevailed when the white man came. The
Five Nations, on the contrary, apparently represent an energetic
people who were on the upward path and who might have achieved
great things if the whites had not interrupted them. The southern
Indians resemble people whose best days were past, for the mounds
which abound in the Gulf States appear to have been built chiefly
in pre-Columbian days. Their objects of art, such as the
remarkable wooden mortars found at Key Marco and the embossed
copper plates found elsewhere in Florida, point to a highly
developed artistic sense which was no longer in evidence at the
coming of the white man.

It is interesting to see the way in which climatic energy tended
to give the Five Nations a marked superiority over the tribesmen
of the South, while agriculture tended in the opposite direction.
There has been much discussion as to the part played by