The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-06-23
Strange Tribes Hidden Away in
 Outlying Sections
MANY HAVE INDIAN BLOOD
Secret of Clay Eaters Habit Is Arsenic Found Ir the Soil-MaIungeos of Tennessee Probably of Port
 uguese Descent.
BY FREDERIC HAsKIN.

Sheltered by some pocket in the hills, living in secuson in some quiet val ley or guarded by impenetrable grasses in some far everglade, there are here and t!.ere throughout the United States groups of people that are peculiar and distinctive from the rest of the inhab- itants. Segregating in close communities they have preserved for centuries traits an charaeterstics of some remote and often unknown ancestry, and through tradition only can they trace their past.
 The Zuni Indians, close kin to the Aztec race that peopled Mexico when cortez came, still hold themselves dis tisetiVe and apart from other Indian triles, and are still the striking people that Coronado found in1541 when he bore the banner fo Spain through the far southwest over ever -beckoning purple hills and barren wastes of sand On the tops of enchanted mesas, in rough gashes of naked mountain sides and occasion ally ar the edge of a plain, the pueblos of the Iunis have stood for centuries | ere they were wont to defend them selves against their invading enemies, and the impregnable stone homes they built have been rescued and preserved for their historic value The small rem- nant of this ancient race still treads out its harvested corn after the manner of the Egyptians. and grinds the grain Into meal in troughs as crude as those oI the early Israeites. Of Egyptian cast of feature and of coloring slightly darker than the Chinese, the Zuni an- cestry has been speculated upon for seV- eral centuries. The analogy between the Aztec and Asiatic theories of creation is marked, and as they keep to themselves are self-sustaning by means of their GaIH manage still to keep racial characteris- ties that are interesting and puzzlng to ethnologists
 On Newman's ridge in Hancock coun- ty, Tennessee, overlooking the beautiful Clinch River valley, lives one of the most mysterious people in America. Through their Anglo-Saxon neighbors or through writers O. romance the name ''Malungeon" has been given them, name that the better element resents They resemble in feature tn Cherokee Indians, and yet have a strong Caucasian cast of countenance that makes their claim 10 Portuguese descent seem prob able. They came, so a legend runs, of a band of Portuguese pirates who long years ago were wrecked on an unknown coast, became adopted into an Indian tribe and were part of the Cherokees WHO two or three centuries later refused
 
 that kindly government offered when 1t needed their eastern lands.
 m the "Tractado das Ilhas Novas" written by Francisco de Sousa in 1570 and published in San Miguel, Azores only about forty years ago, there is an account of Portuguese colony which is said or have existed on the eastern coast of British North America over one hun dred years before Jamestown was set tied. This colony was known as Terra Nova. and from 1900 to 1879 the records at LisEon show that commissions were regularly issued to Gaspar and Miguel Corte Real as governors of the settle ment. One hundred years before Colum- bus came to these shores 1t is claimed that the Basques, then great seafarers, but now a mountain people of Spain. came to these shores and lent much of their language to Indian dialects From Corte Real settlements and from these Basque speculatng historians have tried to draw an ancestry for the Malungeons" Whatever the origin may be- as a peo- pie they were practically outcasts for many years. They were there in the Tennessee mountains when John Sevier organized the state of Franklin and were supposed by their neighbors to be Moors In 1884 they were denied the right of suffrage because they were accounted free persons of color" and for many years suffered this political indignity. As a natural consequence they became law ] breakers and evaoers of the newer pro- cesses of civilization. It Is claimed that there is also negro blood in the Ma 1 lungeor" strain.
 In RobeSon county, North Carolina