The Aborigines of America: Mississippi Valley and Mexico

The customs and religious ceremonies of this tribe are of particular interest, as there is reason to believe that in the Natchez we have the most direct descendants of the Mound-Builders, and that in the despotism of their chief and the superstition of the people there survived until historical times the conditions under which the great works of the Mississippi Valley were erected. The destruction of the tribe by the early French colonists has been a serious loss to archaeological science.

It is believed by some writers that the Mexican civilization was a direct development of that of the Mound-Builders. Among the peoples of Mexico and Central America traditions of an original migration from the north were common, while the affinity between the customs and religious ideas of the Aztecs and the Indians of the southern United States was so great that the civilization of the former may with some assurance be considered an outgrowth from the semi-civilization of the latter.

Land-communism was the general practice in Mexico, and the Creek public storehouse, under the control of the Mico, was imitated by the Aztec public stores, under the control of the emperor, in which a fixed portion of all produce had to be placed. The Creek council of chiefs and elders was represented by a similar council in Mexico, by whose decisions the emperor was controlled. Worship of the sun was an early form of the Mexican religious ideas, though it was afterwards replaced by worship of the god of war. Human sacrifice had grown to enormous proportions, and the sacrifice of war-captives by the Natchez had its Aztec counterpart in vast warlike raids for the purpose of obtaining victims for sacrifice to the terrible wargod. The sacred fire was guarded with the utmost care, and dire calamities were predicted if it should be extinguished. It was voluntarily extinguished once every fifty-two years, and rekindled after a week of lamentation and mortal dread. The passage of the "new fire" through the country was the occasion of universal joy and festivity.

We have already indicated the resemblance between the temple mounds of the two regions, and other points of affinity might be named, but the above will suffice to show the great probability that the civilization of the Mississippi Valley and that of Mexico and Central America were directly connected and formed parts of one general growth of American culture. As for the actual history of the aborigines prior to the advent of the whites, very little is known. Numerous legends and traditions exist, though few of these can be considered of historical authenticity. The Indians of the United States, indeed, possess no records that can be accepted as historical. What seem most so are stories of migrations; yet none of these can be taken as representative of actual events, but are rather to be viewed as vague remembrances of some of the many movements which must have taken place.

The only traditions that are to any extent historical are those of the Nahuas and Mayas of Mexico and Central America. These describe the movements, during a number of centuries preceding the Spanish conquest, of several successive peoples, as the Toltecs, the Chichimecs, and the Aztecs of Mexico, and a parallel series in the Maya region. Extensive details of the history of these and other tribes are given, much of which is undoubtedly authentic, yet the actual is so mingled with the mythical in these records that no trust can be placed in any but their latest portions, and even these are not to be accepted without question.

The traditions of migrations from the north and east are so generally reiterated that they seem to indicate actual events, and the same may be said of the very common tradition of the coming of a great hero or deity from the east, the Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs, the Votan of the Mayas, and similar deities of other tribes. These are fabled to have brought civilization and taught habits of industry and lessons of political subordination to the previously uncultured tribes. They may represent the actual advent of civilized navigators from Europe or elsewhere, though this is a problem that can never be solved.

Much might here be said concerning the historical records of the Nahuas and Mayas, had we space to review them, yet a consideration of the whole leads to the conclusion above avowed, that the American aborigines had no records that can be considered absolutely of historical value previous to the discovery of America by Columbus. We may, therefore, look upon their trustworthy history as beginning with that event, since in their earlier records it is impossible to distinguish between the mythical and the actual.