tribes of the Algonkin family, a fierce and restless people, of northern
origin, who everywhere surrounded them. At one period, however, if the
concurrent traditions of both Iroquois and Algonkins can be believed,
these contending races for a time stayed their strife, and united their
forces in an alliance against a common and formidable foe. This foe was
the nation, or perhaps the confederacy, of the Alligewi or Talligewi,
the semi-civilized "Mound-builders" of the Ohio Valley, who have left
their name to the Allegheny river and mountains, and whose vast
earthworks are still, after half-a-century of study, the perplexity of
archaeologists. A desperate warfare ensued, which lasted about a hundred
years, and ended in the complete overthrow and destruction, or
expulsion, of the Alligewi. The survivors of the conquered people fled
southward, and are supposed to have mingled with the tribes which
occupied the region extending from the Gulf of Mexico northward to the
Tennessee river and the southern spurs of the Alleghenies. Among these
tribes, the Choctaws retained, to recent times, the custom of raising
huge mounds of earth for religious purposes and for the sites of their
habitations, a custom which they perhaps learned from the Alligewi; and
the Cherokees are supposed by some to have preserved in their name
(Tsalaki) and in their language indications of an origin derived in part
from the same people. Their language, which shows, in its grammar and
many of its words, clear evidence of affinity with the Iroquois, has
drawn the greater portion of its vocabulary from some foreign
source. This source is conjectured to have been the speech of the
Alligewi. As the Cherokee tongue is evidently a mixed language, it is
reasonable to suppose that the Cherokees are a mixed people, and
probably, like the English, an amalgamation of conquering and conquered
races. [Footnote: This question has been discussed by the writer in a
paper on "Indian Migrations as evidenced by Language," read before the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, at their Montreal