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

SMITHSONIAN 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 remarkable for being
the first town or 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 a memorable and de-
cisive battle"
A FTER the battle, according to Bartrams ac-
L A 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-
thorlty on the southeastern Indian, sounds a word
OF caution against accepting Bartram's store en-
trely He says that it is still debatable whether the
site now being excavated actually was the Creek
capital
He says that prior to IT'S it was the site of
large SPRAYING town collection of villages of the
Htchiti tribe, subordinate Of the Greek confedera
ton. This is all that is known about the site with
positiveness.
The excavation, which was started as civil
WOIhS PROJECT IS unQer the direction
OF DR.. Arthur R. Kelly and James A. Ford of the
Smithsonian institution
Another Indian mystery upon which Smiths oman
scientists are working is the fate of the s1-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 ethnoogst,
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"
~ 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 talking about the
prairie people"
The big task, however, was to decide which of the
prairie jewellers Of the great Algonquin family were
meant After searching many old records he de-
cided that there Mascouten tribe with which
the Hurons had come in contact. 1t was also estab-
hshed that they had been members of the Illinois
Confederacy Of Algonquin tribes which had also
included the Peoria and Miami Indians and num-
Der of smaller tribes.
The mystery of the disappearance of the Mas
coutens was then quickly cleared up In 1859 the
great Indian chieftain, Pontiac had been murdered
by Kaskasia Indian whose tribe was a member of
the confederacy In revenge, the Sauks, Foxes
Kickapoos and Potowatamis got together and at
tackled the Illinois group practically wipng them
out Of existence In mighty massacre