Region 5 Zone 01 Directory 05 Page 03

Whether, at the time of which we now speak, the Indians were an old race, already beginning to decline, or a fresh race, which contact with the whites balked of its development, it is difficult to say. Their career since best accords with the former supposition. In either case we may assume that their national groupings and habitats were nearly the same in 1500 as later, when these became accurately known. In the eighteenth century the Algonquins occupied all the East from Nova Scotia to North Carolina, and stretched west to the Mississippi. At one time they numbered ninety thousand. The Iroquois or Five Nations had their seat in Central and Western New York. North and west of them lived the Hurons or Wyandots. The Appalachians, embracing Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles and a number of lesser tribes, occupied all the southeastern portion of what is now the United States. West of the Mississippi were the Dakotas or Sioux.

As in language, so in mythology, investigation has proceeded from, the known to the unknown--from the higher to the lower mythologies. In each step of the progress of opinion on this subject a particular phenomenon may be observed. As each lower status of mythology is discovered it is assumed to be the first in origin, the primordial mythology, and all lower but imperfectly understood mythologies are interpreted as degradations, from this assumed original belief; thus polytheism was interpreted as a degeneracy from monotheism; nature worship, from psychotheism; zooelotry, from ancestor worship; and, in order, monotheism has been held to be the original mythology, then polytheism, then physitheism or nature worship, then ancestor worship.

Hannibal was thus disappointed in the main object of his advance, and he had no means of effecting any thing against Rome itself, where Fulvius and Fabius confined themselves strictly to the defensive, allowing him to ravage the whole country without opposition, up to the very walls of Rome. Nothing therefore remained for him but to retreat, and he accordingly recrossed the Anio, and marched slowly and sullenly through the land of the Sabines and Samnites, ravaging the country which he traversed. From thence he retired to the Bruttii, leaving Capua to its fate. The city soon after surrendered to the Romans. Its punishment was terrible. All the leaders of the insurrection were beheaded; the chief men were imprisoned; and the rest of the people were sold. The city and its territory were confiscated, and became part of the Roman domain.