Returning from this digression, the question may be asked, when was Nanih Waiya built, who were its builders, and how long was it in building? As to the last question, it would be a moderate estimate to say that it would take two Irishmen, equipped with spades and wheelbarrows, full ten years of constant toil to build Nanih Waiya and its rampart. The evidence shows that the earth used in making the mound was carried at least one hundred yards--an additional amount of toil that must be taken into consideration in making an estimate of the time consumed in building Nanih Waiya. Furthermore, it can be safely stated that the two supposed Irishmen could accomplish as much in one hour in the way of dirt-piling as three pre-historic natives with their rude tools of wood and stone, and baskets or skins for carrying the earth, could accomplish in one day. Nanih Waiya then must have been a long time in building. There must have been frequent interruptions of work to allow its builders time to raise crops, or in some manner to procure their supplies of food. The probabilities are, that while the work of building the rampart and the towers was carried on continuously until they were completed, so as to have the people of the place well protected from their foes, the work of building the mound was a gradual one. A small or moderate sized mound may first have been built for the cacique and his attendants. In course of time, perhaps by his successor, the mound may have been made larger and higher, each succeeding cacique adding to its size until it attained its present dimensions. In short, the mound may have been the successive work of two or three generations. As to the builders of Nanih Waiya, all the evidence shows that they were Choctaws. There is no evidence that any race preceded the Choctaws in the occupancy of Central Mississippi. And it is not at all probable that the Choctaws would have held this mound in such excessive reverence if it had been built by an unknown or alien·race. During the decadence of the mound-building custom, the mounds were gradually made smaller and many of these small mounds reveal relics of European manufacture, thus giving indisputable evidence of their modern age. From these facts it can be safely assumed that the larger the mound, the greater, presumably, is its antiquity. Nanih Waiya then, being the largest mound in Central Mississippi, may possibly date back to about fifteen hundred years ago, as the fifth century is given by the archæologists as the beginning of the mound-building age, which age lasted about one thousand years. It may be sufficient to say that Nanih Waiya is very old and was built by the Choctaws themselves, or possibly, granting it a very remote antiquity, by the primordial stock, from which, by subsequent differentiation, the various branches of the Choctaw-Muscogee family were formed.