Let us cultivate the spirit of history. Every intelligent citizen of our State should take an interest in the Mississippi State Historical Society and actively promote its objects. Let local Societies be formed and enthusiasm in their work be engendered; let every item of historic interest be put in typewritten or printed form and let copies be sent to the Secretary of the Mississippi State Historical Society and other copies lodged with the local Society. Let us be careful to mark and preserve every object of historic interest and to emphasize its value. Thus we shall show that we are justly proud of our race, our State and the achievements of our ancestors. FOOTNOTES: [152] For the general plan of such organizations, see "Suggestions to Local Historians" in the _Publication of the Mississippi Historical Society for 1898_.--_Editor._ NANIH WAIYA, THE SACRED MOUND OF THE CHOCTAWS. BY H. S. HALBERT. As Nanih Waiya is so often referred to in the folklore and traditions of the Choctaws, the writer of this paper has deemed it not amiss to give some account of this noted mound and, in connection therewith, some of the legends with which it is inseparably associated. Nanih Waiya is situated on the west side of Nanih Waiya Creek, about fifty yards from it, in the southern part of Winston County, and about four hundred yards from the Neshoba County line. The mound is oblong in shape, lying northwest and southeast, and about forty feet in height. Its base covers about an acre. Its summit, which is flat, has an area of one-fourth of an acre. The mound stands on the southeastern edge of a circular rampart, which is about a mile and a half in circumference. In using the word "circular," reference is made to the original form of the rampart, about one-half of which is utterly obliterated by the plow, leaving only a semi-circle. This rampart is not or rather was not, a continuous circle, so to speak, as it has along at intervals, a number of vacant places or gaps, ranging from twenty to fifty yards wide. According to Indian tradition, there were originally eighteen parts or sections of the rampart, with the same number of gaps. Ten of these sections still remain, ranging from fifty to one hundred and fifty yards in length. All the sections near the mound have long since been leveled by the plow, and in other places some of the sections have been much reduced. But on the north, where the rampart traverses a primeval forest it is still five feet high and twenty feet broad at the base. The process of obliteration has been very great since 1877, when the writer first saw Nanih Waiya. Some of the sections that could then be clearly traced in the field on the west have now utterly disappeared. About two hundred and fifty yards north of Nanih Waiya is a small mound, evidently a burial mound, as can be safely stated from the numerous fragments of human bones that have been exhumed from it by the plow and the hoe. The great number of stone relics, mostly