Stroudwater, as Wm. Byrd II, called it at an earlier day; cloth manufactured in Stroud, Gloustershire, England, and widely sold to early Indian traders for blankets or garments; usually scarlet-dyed. Footnote 9: Therefore, the Choctaws were called by the traders Flat-Heads (Fr. Têtes Plates) a term that came into general use as descriptive of the tribe. See on artificial head deformation, Catlin, _North American Indians_, and Hodge, _Handbook of American Indians_, I, pp. 97, 465. Dumont gives as reason: “So that when they grow up they may be in better condition to bear all kinds of loads.” _Memoires Historique sur La Louisiane_ (1753) I, 140. _Observations on the origin and descent of the Indians._ The very remote history of all nations, is disfigured with fable, and gives but little encouragement to distant enquiry, and laborious researches. Much of the early history and antiquities of nations is lost, and some people have no records at all, and to this day are rude and uncivilized. Yet a knowledge of them is highly interesting, and would afford amusement, and even instruction in the most polished times, to the most polite. Every science has certain principles, as its basis, from which it reasons and concludes. Mathematical theorems, and logical propositions, give clear demonstrations, and necessary conclusions: and thus other sciences. But, _history_, and the _origin_ of tribes and nations, have hitherto been covered with a great deal of obscurity. Some antient historians were ignorant; others prejudiced. Some searchers into antiquities adopted the traditional tales of their predecessors: and others looking with contempt on the origin of tribes and societies, altogether exploded them, without investigation. My design is, to examine, and if possible, ascertain the genealogy and descent of the Indians, and to omit nothing that may in the least contribute to furnish the public with a full INDIAN SYSTEM. In tracing the origin of a people, where there are no records of any kind, either written, or engraved, who rely solely on oral tradition for the support of their antient usages, and have lost great part of them—though the undertaking be difficult, yet where several particulars, and circumstances, strong and clear, correspond, they not only make room for conjecture, but cherish probability, and till better can be offered, must be deemed conclusive. All the various nations of Indians, seem to be of one descent; they call a buffalo, in their various dialects, by one and the same name, “_Yanasa_.” And there is a strong similarity of religious rites, and of civil and martial customs, among all the various American nations of Indians we {10} have any knowledge of, on the extensive continent; as will soon be shewn.