The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-10-11

resemble the blade of a knife There were men in every tribe trained in the art of stone cutting, and their skill must have been considerable, as the flint is both hard and brittle. It is a common thing to find in their workshops numbers of arrow points broken when but half finished. At different times and places there have been found knives and hatchets made Of. iron, in Alabama, Arkansas and Tennes- see. In Clark county, Arkansas, such iare specimens were discovered In large mound. near a salt spring, on small creek flowing into the Washita river by Dunbar and Hunter, and re- corded in their "Trip on the Washita, in the year 1864, and preserved among the American state papers in Washington. in this same county of Clark similar specimens were found at a later date, as is testified in the following account: Shell beds, four miles north of the town of Amity, in section IT, township south, range 23 west on the border line of Clark county, on the second bottom of the Caddo, above overflow, close by is an aboriginal workshop, from which arrow heads and cutting implements, the latter hatehet-shaped. and made of a species of iron ore, have been taken" Described by Dr. Andrew Jones' in the Smithsonian. Report for year 1881, page 542. This pr. Jones' grandfather. as stated in a former issue, was a first cousin of John Jones, for whom the famous Jones valley was named, and was himself a pioneer of the year 1917, in that valley. In my humble opinion, these iron hatchets were ob- tained ip trade by the Indians from some caravan of peddlers who, starting from New Orleans, penetrated the interior for hundreds of miles. just as those from Mobile went as far as the Ohio river.
 Those who feel sentimental interest in the Indian, a desire to know more Of him, his home and haunts and wild life full of dramatic phases, his passing from the gaze of those who now occupy the land he loved, will find much valuable in- formation in the reports of the Smithson- ian Institution and "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi" by E. G. Squier and F. H. Davis. published in the year 1s4S; The American Journal of Science and Arts; American Antiquarian, American Naturalist, and Prehistoric Races of the New World" by John Wells Foster It is a singular fact that we know much more about the past history of China than we do of ancient America. The In- dian is. indeed, a mystery.
 ''The stoic of the woods.
 The man without tear"
 It is claimed by many ancient scholars who have gathered all the information possible of the history and characteris- tics of our aborigines that the Indians of Alabama possessed many traits of intel lect and skill. and upon more extended scale, than that of any other American tribe The defense of the ancient city of Manville dhe first Mobile) by the kingly warrior, Tuscaloosa. against the steel clad soldiers of De Soto, and his tragic death amid the flames of his city, was the first scene in long, cruel and bloody dra p1- nant of cavaliers silently placed the dead body of the Spanish commander in the waters of the Mississippi. Then came to this southern land the silence of more than a century, during which we know but little of its history; and when the white man again appears, 1t becomes the theatre of action for French, English and Spanish rulers, all seeking by con- quest and commerce the supremacy of their respective countries at the expense of the Indian inhabitants. I can best express the estimate placed upon the In- dian tribes of our territory by quoting the language of a brilliant writer: "The peculiarites which had ever invested the character of the Indian with so much romantic interest, making him the chosen child of fable and of song, were here ex- hibited in bolder relief than elsewhere. In numbers, in the extent of their terri 
 | state: in their wide and terrific wars; in l intercourse and traffic with the whites; ] in the mystery Of their origin and migra- l ton <. in the arts, rude though they were, which gradually refine and socialize man; in their political and religious forms, arrangements and ceremonies; in manifes- tations of intellectual powers, sagacity and eloquence; and in all those strange moral phenomena which marked them, 4l-- ...I., 1t ...A. a@H passed all the other primitive nations north of Mexico. The study of their his- tory is peculiarly our province, and we should not forget a duty due the past" And though they all have passed away, That noble race and brave,
 Though their light canoes have vanished
 From off the crested wave;
 Though, mid the forests where they roved
 There rings no hunters shout, Yet their names are on our waters And we may not wash them out! Their memory liveth on our hills.
 Their baptism on our shore, Our everlasting rivers speak
 Their dialect of yore.
 Iris heard where Chattahoochee pours His yellow tide along;
 It sounds on Tallapoosa's shores And COoSa sWells the song;
 Where lordly Alabama sweeps
 The symphony remains;
 And young Cahawba keeps
 The echo of its strains;
 Where Tuscaloosa's waters glide
 From stream and town 'tis heard, And dark Tombeckbees winding tide Repeats the olden word;
 Afar where nature brightly wreathed
 Fair Edens for the free,
 Along Tuscumbia's bank tls breathed
 By stately Tennessee;
 And south, where from Conecuh's springs
 Escambia's waters steal.
 The ancient melody still rings From Tensaw and Mobile!'
 Among the legends of the Indians is one which says that when body of large game emigrate from a territory in which, for countless generations. they have lived, 1t Is a sign that the human inhabitants will sooner or later be driven in the same direction. The Creeks and Choctaws declare that about 300 years ago. Alabama was full of buffalo like it used to be in the western states and that terrible drought came upon the land and the rivers. especially the Choctaw 0ndian name for Black Warrior), be- came so dry that there was no water ex- cept in small pools miles apart; but nearly all the large springs continued to rim in a very weak stream. and feeble branch here and there That thousands of the largest trees in the forest perished and many deer, squirrels. rabbits and birds died: and the buffaloes in great numbers migrated to the banks of the Chicauea river Qndian name for the