ore progressive in other ways. The
Catawbas, for instance, in South Carolina were sedentary agriculturists
and seem to have differed little in general customs from their
neighbors. Their men were brave and honest but lacking in energy. In
the Muskhogean family of Indians, comprising the Creeks, Choctaws,
Chickasaws, and Seminoles, who occupied the Gulf States from Georgia to
Mississippi, all the tribes were agricultural and sedentary and occupied
villages of substantial houses. The towns near the tribal frontiers were
usually palisaded, but those more remote from invasion were unprotected.
All these Indians were brave but not warlike in the violent fashion of
the Five Nations. The Choctaws would fight only in self-defense, it was
said, but the Creeks and especially the Chickasaws were more aggressive.
In their government these Muskhogean tribes appear to have attained
a position corresponding to their somewhat advanced culture in other
respects. Yet their confederacies were loose and flimsy compared with
that of the Five Nations. Another phase of the life of the tribes in the
southern part of the region of deciduous forests is illustrated by
the Natchez of Mississippi. These people were strictly sedentary and
depended chiefly upon agriculture for a livelihood. They possessed
considerable skill in the arts. For instance, they wove a cloth from the
inner bark of the mulberry tree and made excellent pottery. They also
constructed great mounds of earth upon which to erect their dwellings
and temples. Like a good many of the other southern tribes, they fought
when it was necessary, but they were peaceable compared with the Five
Nations. They had a form of sun-worship resembling that of Mexico, and
in other ways their ideas were like those of the people farther south.
For instance, when a chief died, his wives were killed. In times of
distress the parents frequently offered their children as sacrifice.

Many characteristics of the Natchez and other southern tribes seem to
indicate that they had formerly possessed a civilization higher than
that which prevailed when the white man came. The Five Nations, on
the contrary, apparently represent an energetic people who were on the
upward path and who might have achieved great things if the whites had
not interrupted them. The southern Indians resemble people whose best
days were past, for the mounds which abound in the Gulf States appear
to have been built chiefly in pre-Columbian d