The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-03-17
Today's Science
BY DAVID DIETZ :

CMITHSONIAN scientists. working in cooperation
- with officials of the state of Georgia. believe that
they have located Of the great cultural centers
OF America, prior to the coming Of the white man.
Extensive excavations now under way are believed
to have located the ancient capital of the Creek
Confederacy.
The site consists of a group of mounds at Macon,
Ga 1t was last visited in 1778 by a trader named
Bartram who left the following account of it:
IF we are to give credit to the account the Creeks
give OF themselves the place is remarkable for being
the first town settlement where they sat down
after their immigration from the west, beyond the
Mississippi their original native country
Having formed for themselves this retreat. and
driven oil the inhabitants by degrees they recovered
their spirits and again faced their enemies when
they came off victorious in memorable and de-
csive battle"
A FTER the battle, according to Bartrams ac-
count things went better for the Creeks. In
time they gradually subdUed their enemies and final
ly formed confederation Of the surrounding tribes
However, DR.. John R. Swanton, Smithsonian au-
thority on the southeastern Indian, sounds a word
Of caution against accepting Bartram's store en-
tirely He says that it is still debatable whether the
site now being excavated actually was the Greek
capital
He says that prior to 1715 it was the site of
large. sprawng town collection of villages of the
Hltchiti tribe subordinate Of the Greek confedera
ton This is all that is known about the site with
positveness.
The excavation, which was started as civil
WOTkS administration PROJECT IS under the direction
Of DR.. Arthur r. Kelly and James A Ford of the
Smithsonian institution.
Another Indian mystery upon which Smithsonian
scientists are working is the fate of the so-called
fire nation" Early missionaries and traders among
the Huron Indians told exciting stories of the
Mascoutens or fire people" living to the west No
trace of these people however ever has been found
Dr. Truman Nicholson, Smithsonian etanologist,
starting with chance clew found in an old journal
of a Frenchman, believes that he has solved the
problem Of this lost nation which existed in lower
Michigan and Illinois up to the beginning Of the
nineteenth century.
nR. NICHOLSON points out that the term fire"
IL represented the wrong translation of what the
Hurons were really talking about. The words
prairie" and fire" sound very much alike in their
language and they really were talking about the
prairie people"
The big task, however, was to decide which Of the
prairie jewellers Of the great Algonquin family
meant. After searching many old records he de-
cided that there a Mascoften tribe with which
the Hurons had come in contact It was also estab-
lished that they had been members of the Illinois
Confederacy Of Algonquin tribes which had also
included the Peoria and Miami Indians and a num-
Der Of smaller tribes
The mystery Of the disappearance of the Mas
coutens was then quickly cleared up. In 1859 the
by a Kaskasia Indian whose tribe was a member Of
Kickapoos and Potowatamis got together and at
tackled the Illinois group practically wiping them
out Of existence in mighty massacre.