they had originated in a land toward the rising sun.
where they had been placed by the command of ••the four councils
sent from above." In this pristine home were great snakes and water
monsters, for which reason it was supposed to have been near the sea
coast, although the assumption is not a necessary corollary, as these
are a feature of the mythology of all the eastern tribes. After this
genesis period there began a slow migration, during which "towns of
people in many nights* encampment removed," but no details are given.
From Heckewelder it appears that the expression, "a night's encamp-
ment." which occurs also in the Delaware migration legend, is an Indian
figure of speech for a halt of one year at a place. 1
In another place Haywood says, although apparently confusing the
chronologic order ofevents: ■"One tradition which they have amongst
them says they came from the west ami exterminated the former
inhabitants; and then says they came from the upper parts of the
Ohio, where they erected the mounds on Crave creek, and that they
removed thither from the country where Monticello (near Charlottes-
ville. Virginia) is situated." 8 The first reference is to the celebrated
mounds on the ( )hio near Moundsville, below Wheeling. West Virginia;
the other is doubtless to a noted burial mound described by Jefferson
in 17sl as then existing near his home, on the low groundsof Kivanua
river opposite the site of an ancient Indian town. He himself had
opened it and found it to contain perhaps a thousand disjointed
skeletons of hoth adults and children, the bones piled in successive
layers, those near the to]) being least