ascribe it to the Aztec or Nahuatl stock which occupied the region at the time of the Conquest, but to some anterior tribe. It has been called a pyramid, with other mounds in Mexico and Central America, but this is not a proper term for these Amerindian works. They have not the character of the Egyptian pyramids, nor were they constructed with the same object. The pyramids were tombs, while the large Amerind mounds were _foundations_ for buildings. Almost every ancient building of any consequence in Mexico and adjoining regions, as well as far up into the United States, stood on a mound of greater or less elevation. The so-called “palace” of Palenque, in which Stevens lived while studying the ruins, “stands on an artificial elevation of an oblong form, forty feet high, three hundred and ten feet in front and rear, and two hundred and sixty feet on each side. This elevation was formerly faced with stone, which has been thrown down by the growth of trees, and its form is hardly distinguishable.” See illustration of a part of this palace, page 403. The chief ruins at Copan are all on a huge mound, and at Mitla the edifices have mound foundations, or rather platforms. A more or less elevated site for his dwelling-place or temple, whether natural or artificial, seems to have been almost universal with the Amerindian people from the Isthmus of Panama to British Columbia. The amount of labour expended in constructing the artificial foundation platforms and mounds was something prodigious. [Illustration: WOODEN FOOD BOWL, HAIDA] [Illustration: DANCING MASK OF THE MAKAHS, WASHINGTON] CHAPTER XIII CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES Few Europeans can look at the world from the Amerind point of view, because few know what it means to have lands free. Happy the man who has trod the wilderness primeval, and tasted the world in its original freshness. He alone can understand what the Amerind has lost forever. When I first went into the West about thirty years ago, the regions we traversed were untamed, and often we did not meet even Amerinds for weeks at a time. Such a condition has its charms, and when we remember that, except in the southern regions of Mexico, the native American was born and bred to it, we can see that it must be a difficult matter for him to suddenly change. But a few generations hence, where once he scaled the cliffs, or followed the deer, he will be sitting down to a course dinner in a swallow-tail coat. He has already conquered at football, and the rest of the downward road will be easy for him! [Illustration: MOKI WICKER CRADLE WITH AWNING CARRYING BASKET OF THE ARIKAREES In the smaller figure the awning is over the bowed end ]