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♦•

PREHISTORIC MAN

VOLUME I.

"* -V V

Cooper* Hois;.!. j.i'.Vi

i-fc.SirUii.j.'radwX'-

K ASK ATACHYUH.

A CHIMPSF-YAN CHIEF.

Dra,-wn Lj^ .D WiUon.L.t D- li-oni skeicliea t)' Paul Kane.

'.■*■■

i -

PREHISTORIC MAN

Researches into the Ongin of Civilisat
in the Old and the New IVorld.

ton

DANIEL WILSON, LL.D.. P.RS.E

i«ii.Hl»TOBIC ANNALS OF SCOTLAND,' ETC.

THI^D EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED
'-yJTH ILLUSTRATIONS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.

MACMILLAN and CO.

1876.

168385

!Etiinburol) iRnibrrisitB ^ttaa :

THOMAS AND ARCIIIUALD CONSTABLK, PllINrKIlS io HKll JIAJESTV.

IN FOND MEMORIAL

OF A BROTHER'S LIFE-LONG SYMPATHY

IN MANY FAVOURITE RESEARCHES

DEPRIVED BY DEATH OF THEIR P U RPOSED D ED I C ATION
ARE INSCRIBED WITH THE LOVED NAME OP

GEOEGB WILSON, M.D. F.R.S.E.

LATE KE0IU3 PROFESSOR OF TECHNOLOGY IN THE UNIVEasiTT OF KDINir .OH
AND DIUECTOR OP THIS INOUSTRL.I. MUSEUM OF SCOTLAND.

PREFACE.

The subject primarily treated of in the following pages
is the man of that new hemisphere which was revealed
to Europe in 1492. There through all historic centuries
he had lived apart, absolutely uninfluenced by any
reflex of the civilisation of the Ancient World ; and yet,
as it appears, pursuing a course in many respects strik-
ingly antilogous to that by means of which the civilisation
of Europe originated. The recognition of this is not only
of value as an aid to the realisation of the necessary con-
ditions through which man passed in reaching the stage
at which he is found at the dawn of history ; but it seems
to point to the significant conclusion that civilisation is
the development of capacities inherent in man.

The term used in the title was first employed, in 1851,
in my Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, where evidence was
adduced in proof of man's presence in Britain " long
anterior to the earliest indications of the Aiyan nations
issing into Europe." It was purposely coined to ex-
press the whole period disclosed to us by means of arch-
aeological evidence, as distinguished from what i . known
through written records ; and in this sense the term was
speedily adopted by the Archoeologists of Europe. But
the subject thus defined is a comprehensive one ; and in
its rapid growth, distinctive subdivisions have been intro-
duced which tend to narrow the application of the term.

VIU

PREFACE.

Nevertheless it is still a legitimate definition of man,
wherever his history is recoverable solely by means of
primitive arts.

The first edition oi Prehistoric Man, published in 1862,
was followed in 18G5 by another, carefully revised in
accordance with later disclosures. Since then I have
availed myself of fiirther opportunities for study and
research in reference both to existing races, and to the
arts and monumental remains of extinct nations of the
New World. Within the same period important addi-
tions have been contributed to our knowledge not only
of the arts, but of the physical characteristics of primeval
man in Europe. In the present edition, accordingly,
much of the original work has been rewritten. Sevcial
chapters have been replaced by new matter. Others
have been condensed, or recast, with considerable modifi-
cations and a new arrangement of the whole.

The illustrations have been correspondingly aug-
mented ; and some of them engraved anew from more
accurate drawings. In the first edition they numbered
seventy-one. They now amount to one hundred and
thirty-four, including several for which I am indebted to
the courtesy of Mr. John Evans, F.R.8., to the publishers
of Nature, and to the Council of the Society of Anti-
quaries of Scotland.

D W.

University Collkoe, Touonto,
]Sth November W 5.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

CHAPTER 1.
INTRODUCTION.

Tho Influence of the Discovery of America — The Old World and the
New — American Phases of Life — The Term Prehistoric— Influence of
Migrations— What is Civilisation? — Domestication — Indian Philo-
sophy — Aborigines — The Tartar ; The Arab — 7. anguages of America
— Wanderings of the Nations— Fossil Man— Occupation of the New-
World,

CHAPTER II. ' ^ V

THE rillMEVAL TRANSITION. « .. :■

The Latest Migrations — Fonnding a Capital — Beginnings of History —
Prehistoric Phases — Non-Metallurgic Eras — Oscillations of the Land
— The Glacial Period — Con<litions of Climate — Fossil Mammalia —
Tho Flint-Folk of the Drift— Advent of European Man— The Drift
Implements — Scottish Alluvium — Proccltio Races — Tlieir Imitative
Arts — Man Primeval — His Intellectual Condition — Instinct— Ac-
oumulated Knowledge -Primeval Britain — Its Fossil Fauna —
Ossiferous Caves — Brixham Cave — Food — Scottish Roindoor — Ameri-
cftu Drift — Relics of Ancient Life — Extinct Fauna — Man and the
Mastodon — Indian Traditions — Giants — Drift Disclosures — Largo
Ovoid Discs — Cave Disclosaros— American Cranial Type — Antiquity
of tho American Man,

PAOE

CHAPTER IIL

THE QUARRY. ^

Tho Quarry— Brixh am Cave— Brixham Flint Implement— Flint Ridge,
Ohio— Flint Pits— Drift Quarry Deposits— Traces of Palteolithio Art
— Lanooolate Flints — Almond-shaped Fliuis — Tho tShawneea — Tho

CONTENTS.

Colorado Indiana — Caches of Worked Flints — Sepulchral Deposits —
Cave Drift Disclosures— Illustrative Analogies — Cincinnati Collec-
tions — Hornstone Spear-heads — American Neolithic Art — Flint Drills
— Modes of Perforatiou — Flint Knives — Razors and Scrapers —
Arrow-head Forms — Discoidal Stones — Sinkers and Lasso Stones —
Cupped Stones — ArchjBological Theories— Georgia Boulders — Hand
Cup-otones — Neolithic Grindstones— Archieological Enigmas — An-
cient Analogies, ..........

PAOR

CHAPTER IV.

BONE AND SHELL WOllKERS.

Bone and Ivory Workers —Substitutes for Flint — Proofs of Relative Age
— Domestic Bone Implements — Rude Palajolithic Art — Whalebone
Workers — Primitive Working Tools — Fish-apears and Harpoons —
Artistic Ingenuity — Dravv^ing of the Mammoth — The Madelaine
Etchings — Righthanded Workers — Deerhorn Quarry Picks — Bone-
bracer or Guard — Birthtime of the Fine Arts — Innuit Carvers of
Alaska — Troglodytes of Central France — Post-Glacial Man — Symme-
trical Head-Form — Intellectual Vigour — Evidence of Latent Powers
— Tawatin Ivory Cawing — Lake-Dwellers' Implements — Cave Im-
jdements — Aits of the Pacific Islanders — Carib Shell-Knives — Abori-
gines of the Antilles — Caribs of St. Domingo — Cave Pictures and
Carvings — Prized Tropical Shells — Ancient Graves of Tennessee —
Shell Manufactures — Huron and Petun Graves — Sacred Shell- Vessels
— Primitive Shell Ornaments — American Shell Mounds — A Shell
Currency— loqua Standard of Value, ......

CHAPTER V.

FIRE.

The Fire-using Animal — Esquimaux use of Fire — Fuegian Fire-making —
Modes of producing Fire — Australian Fire-myth — Men of the Mam-
moth Age— Hearths of the Cave-Men — Pacific Root- Word for Fire —
Great Cycle of the Aztecs — Rekhuliing the Sacred Fire — Peruvian
Sun-Worshi[)pers — Sacrifice of tho White Dog — Sacred Fires of the
Mound-Buildora — ludiaii Fire-niaking—Sanctity of Fire- Tierra del
Fuego, . ,

135

CHAPTER VI.

THE CANOE.

Tho use of Tools — Tool-usiug Instinct -Rudimentary stage of Art — Primi-
tive River-Craft — Tho Guatiahano Canoe — Ocean Navigation — Afri-
can Canoe-making— Oregon Cedar Canoea— Native Whalers of the

It,

CONTENTS.

Pacific — Prehistoric Boat-Builders — Mav\ ai's Canoes — The Polynesian
Archipelago — The Terra Australia Incognita — Canoe-Fleets of the
Pacific— Primitive Navigation — Portable Boats — The Coracle and
Kaiak— The Peruvian Balsa — Ocean Navigators, ....

PAOI

151

CHAPTER VII.

TOOLS.

Man the Artificer — The Law of Reason — Indigenous R .t'S — Man's Capa-
city for Deterioration — What is a Stone-Period?— Materials of Primi-
tive Art — Succession of Races — Indications of Ancient Trade — The
Shoshone Indian — Texas Implements — Modes of Hafting — Det-i's-
horn Sockets — Stone Knives — Thlinkets of Alaska — Metals of a Stone
Period — A ts of the South Pacific -Malayan Influence — Fijian Con-
structive Skill — Fijian Pottery — Slow Maturity of Races — The Flint-
edged Sword — The League of the Five Nations — Iroquois Predomi-
nance — Work in Obsidian and Flint — Honduras Flint In.plements —
Sources of the Material— Collision of Kaces — Fate of Inferior Races,

170

CHAPTER VIII.

THE METALS.

Dawn of a Metallurgic Era- Primitive Copjjer- Working — Copper Region
of Lake Superior — The Pictured Rocks — Jackson Iron Mountain- -
The Cliff Mine— Copper Tools— Ancient Mining Trenches — Great
extent of Works — Mines of Isle Royale — Their estimated Age —
Ancient Mining Implements — Stone Mauls and Axes — Ontonagon
Mining Relics — Sites of Copper Manufactories — Native Copper and
Silver — Brockvillo Copper Implements — Lost Metallurgic Arts —
Chemical Analyses — Native Terra-Cottas — Ancient British Mining
Tools— The Race of the Copper Mines— Chippewa Superstitions —
Earliest notices of the Copper Region — Ontonagon Mass of Copper —
Ancient Native Traffic— Native tiso of Metals — Condition of the
Mound-Builders^Mineral Resources — Antiquity of Copper Workin^',8
— Desertion of the Mines, ........

108

135

CHAPTER IX.

■'''X:7''^7:'^~^'^'^'''^ ''^ ' ALLOYS.

The Age of Bronze — An intermediate Copper Ago — European Copper Im-
plements — Native Silver and Copper— Tin and Copper Ores—The
('assiterides — Ancient Sources of Tin — Arts of Yucatan — Alloyed
Copper Axe-Blados— Bronze Silver-Mining Tool- Peruvian Bronzes —

Sdi CONTENTS.

Primitive Mining Tools— Native Metallurgic Processes — Metallic
Treasnres of the Incas — Traces of an Older Race — Peruvian History
— The Toltocs and Mexicans — Adjustment of Calendar — Barbarian
Excesses — Native Goldsmith's Work — Panama Gold Eelics — Mexican
Metallic Currency — Experimental Processes — Ancient European
Bronzes — Teats of Civilisation — Aticient American Bronzes — The
Native Metallurgist,

CHAPTER X.

THE MOUND-BUILDERS.

Earth Pyramids — Monuments of the Moind-Builders — Seats of Ancient
Population — Different Classes of Works — Ancient Strongholds —
Natural Sites — Fort Hill, Ohio — Iroquois Strongholds — Analogous
Strongholds — Fortified Civic Sites — Sacred Enclosures — Newark
Eagle Mound — Geometrical Earthworks — Plan of Newark Earth-
works, Ohio — A Standard of Measurement — Diversity of Works —
Evidence of Skill — The Cincinnati Tablet — Scales of Measurement —
Traces of Extinct Rites, ........

CHAPTER XI.

SEPULCHRAL MC'TNDS.

Sources of Information — Hill Mounds — The Scioto Mound — The Taylor
Mound — The Issaquina Mound — Tlie Elliot Mound — The Lockport
Mound — Black Bird's Grave — Scioto Valley Mounds — Symbolical
Rites — Human Stwritices — The Grave Creek Mound — Common
Sepulchres — Cremation — Scioto Mound Cranium-— Sacred Festivals,

The Wisconsin Region — Animal Mounds — Symbolic Mounds — Big Elc-
ph'ant Mound — Dade County Mounds — Magnitude of Earthworks —
Enclosed Work-j of Art — Rock River Works — The Northern Aetalan

PACiE

2'29

256

277

CHAPTER XII.

SACRIFICIAL MOUNOS.

Mound Altars — Altar Deposits- Quenching tlio Altar Fires — Mound
Hearths — Mound City — Military Altar Mounds — Their Structure
and Contents — Significance of their Dcjiosits — Analogous Indian
Rites — Transitional Civilisation, ...... 293

CHAPTER XIIT.
SYMnOLIC MOUNDS.

CONTENTS.

— Ancient Ganlon Beils — The Wisconsin Plains — A Sacr-'il Neutral
Land — The Alligator Mound — The Great Serpent, Ohio— Serpent
Symbols — Intaglio Earthworks — Suggestive Inferences — The Ancient
llace — A Sacerdotal Caste — Auticjuity of the Race — Inferiority of the
Indian Tribes,

Xlll

PAOK

303

256

CHAPTER XJV.

NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILISATION.

The Toltecs — Ixtlilxochitl — The Aztecs — American Architecture— Azta-
lan — The Valley of Mexico — Montezuma's Capital — Its Vanished
Splendour — Mexican Calendar— The Calendar Stone — Mexican Deities
— Tolteo Civilisation — llace Elements — Tlie Toltec Capital — Tezcc-
caii raiaces — Their Modern Vestiges— Quetzalcoatl — The Pyramid
of Cholula— The Sacred City— The Moqui Indians— The Holy City
of Peru — Worship of the Sun— Astronomical Knowledge — Agricxd-
ture — The Llama — Woven Textures — Science and Art— Native In-
stitutions — Metallurgy — Origin of the Mexicans- Mingling of llaces,

CHAPTER XV.

324

277

AUT CHRONICLINGS.

Imitative Skill — Archaic European Art — Conventional Ornamentation —
Imitative Design — Analogies in Rites and Customs — Altar Records —
Smelting the Ores — Wisconsin Prairie Lands — The Race of the
Mounds — Mound Carvings — Portrait Sculi)turea — American Icono-
graphy — Deductions —Non-Indian Type — Other Examples — Antique
Iconographic Art — Peculiar Imitative Skill — Animals represented —
Extensive Geographical Relations — Knowledge of Tropical Fauna —
1 eductions — The Toucan and Manatee — Traces of Migration — As-
sumed Indications — Analogous Sculptures — Peruvian Imitative Skill —
Carved Stone Mortars — Nicotian Religious Rites — Indian Legends —
The Red Pipe-stone Quarry — The Leaping Rock — Mandan Traditions
— Sioux Legend of the Peace Pipe — The Sacred Coca Plant — Knis-
teneaux Legend of the Deluge — Indications of Former Migrations —
Favourite Material — Pwahgnneka — Chinipseyan Customs — Chimp-
seyan Art — Babcen Carving- The Medicine Pipe-stem — Indian Ex-
piatory Sacrifices — Nicotian Rites of Divination, ....

355

ILLUSTRATIONS OF VOL. L

r !

PORTRAIT OF KASKATACHYUH, a Cuimpseya

FIO.

1. Flint Knife, Grinell Leads,

2. Lewiston Flint Implement,

3. Flint Disc, Kent's Cavern,

4. Brixham Cave Flint Implement,
6. Lanceolate Flint, Flint Ridge, Ohio,

6. Almond-shaped Flint, Flint Ridge, Ohio,

7. Leaf-shaiied Flint, Sharon Valley, Ohio,

8. Flint Implement, Licking County, Ohio,

9. Flint Hoe, Kentucky,

10. Flint Spear-head, Indiana,

11. Flint Awl, Mayville, Kentucky,

12. Flint Drill, Cincinnati, .

13. Stone Orill, Cincinnati,

14. Flint Knife, Cincinnati,

15. Flint Razor, Kentucky,
10. Flint Scrapor, Ohio,

17. Flint Scraper, Ohio,

18. Foliated Arrow-head,

19. Lasso Stone, Kentucky,

20. Cupped-stone, Ohio,

21. Cupped Boulder, Tronton, Ohio,

22. Bone Spatula, Keiaa,

23. Bone Comb, Burghwr,

24. Bone Comb, Burghar.

25. Whale's Vertebra Cup,
26 to 30. Fish-spears and Harpoons,

31. Harpoon, Kent's Cavern,

32. Bone Spearhead, Dordogne Caves,

33. Fuegian Harpoon,

34. Fish-spoar, Kent's Cavern,

35. Fish-spear with bilateral barbs. La Mailelaine,

36. Fishspear with unilateral barbs. La Madelaine,

37. Carve«l Baton, or Mace, Dordogne Caves, — - --

38. The Mammoth, engraved on ivory, La Madelaine,

39. Scottish Stone Bracer,

40. Hunter's Tally, Deershorn, Cro-Magnon, . ,

f Chief. — Fi-ontispiece.

PAGE

102

103

104

105

loe

107
110
113

no.

ILLUSTRATIONS.

41. Skull of Old Man of Cro-Magaon-Profile

t^^ sM? 1 S'' ^^"^ '' Cro-Magnon-Pront View,

43. SkuU of Old Man of Cro-Magnon-Vertical Viev

44. lawatin Ivory Carving of Whale,

45. Tawatin Ivory Carving,

46. Hog's Tooth Chisel, Concise, '.

47. British Bone Implements,

48. Carib Shell Knives,

49. Tennessee Idol,

50. Clyde Stone Axe,

51. Clalam Stone Adze,

52. Grangemouth Skull,

53. Texas Stone Axe, hafted,

54. Texas Flint Implement, .

55. Chisel and deer's-horn socket. Concise

56. Stone Knife, Concise,

57. South Pacific Stone Implements,

58. Stone Adze, New Caledonia, .

59. Fijian Pottery,

60. Honduras serrated Flint Implement,

61. Honduras State Halberd, flint,

62. Honduras Flint Implement, [

63. Miners' Shovels, Lake Superior,

64. Miners' Stone Mauls,

65. Ontonagon Copper Implement,

66. 67. BrockvUle Copper Dagger and Gouge

68. Brockvillf) Copper Spear,

69. Terracotta Mask,

70. Newark Earthworks, Ohio,

71. Cincinnati Tablet,

72. Stone Pipe, Elliot Mound, Ohio,

73. Lake Washington Disk,

74. Mask, Mexican Calendar Stone,

75. Ticnl Hieroglyphic Vase,

76. Peruvian Web,

77. Portrait Mound Pipe, full face,

78. Portrait Mound Pipe, profile, .

79. Portrait Mound Pijie,

80. Manatee, Pipe-Sculpture,"

81. Toucan, Pipe Sculpture, .

82. Peruvian Black Ware,

83. Peruvian Stone Mortars, .

84. Chippewa Pipe,

85. Babeen Pipe,

86. Babeen Pipe-Sculpture, [ ',

114

115

118

119

120

121

123

128

157

158

160

179

180

181

182

183

186

188

194

195

209

2.10

212

214

216

217

269

274

282

318

333

334

349

366

367

368

373

376

380

381

392

393

395

CHAPTSR I.

INTRODUCTION.

THE INFLDENCE OF TBE DISCOVERY OP AMERICA— THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW-
AMERICAN PHASES OF LIFE— THE TERM PREHISTORIC— INFLUENCE OF MIGRA-
TIONS— WHAT IS CIVILISATION '—DOMESTICATION— INDIAN PHILOSOPHY— ABO-
RIGINES— THE TARTAR— THE ARAB— LANGUAGES OF AMERICA— WANDERINGS OP
THE NATIONS— FOSSIL MAN— OCCUPATION OF THE NEW WORLD.

The recent development of archaeology as a science is
due in no slight degree to the simplicity which charac-
terises the prehistoric disclosures of Scandinavia, Ireland,
and other regions of Europe lying beyond the range of
Greek arid Roman influence. But the same element pre-
sents itself on a far more comprehensive scab alike in the
archaeology and the ethnology of the western hemisphere.
America may be assumed with little hesitation to have
begun its human period subsequent to that of the old
world, and to have started later in the race of civilisation.
At any rate it admits of no question that its most civilised
nations had made a very partial advancement when, in the
fifteenth century, they were abruptly brought into contact
with the matured civilisation of Europe. Hence the earlier
stages of human progress can be tested there freed from
many obscuring elements inevitable from the intermingling
of essentially diverse phases of civilisation on old historic
areas. In the days of Herodotus, Transalpine Europe was
a greater mystery to the nations on the shores of the
Mediterranean than Central Africa is to us. To the Ro-
mans of four centuries later, Britain was still almost
another world ; and the great northern hive from whence

VOL. I.

DISCO VER V OF AMERICA.

[chap.

the spoilers of the dismembered empire of the Caesars were
speedily to emerge, was so entirely unknown to them, that,
as Dr. Arnold remarks, "The Roman colonies along the
banks of the Rhine and the Danube looked, out on the
country beyond those rivers as we look up at the stars, and
actually see with our eyes a world of which we know
nothing." Nevertheless, the civilisation of the historic
centres around the Mediterranean was not without some
influence on the germs of modern nations then nursing the
hardihood of a vigorous infancy beyond the Danube and
the Baltic. The shores of the Atlantic and German oceans,
and the islands of the British seas, had long before yielded
tribute to the Phoenician mariner ; and as the archaeologist
and the ethnologist pursue their researches, and restore to
light memorials of Europe's early youth, they are startled
with affinities to the ancient historic nations, in language,
arts, and rites, no less than by the recovered traces of an
unfamiliar past.

But it is altogether different with the New World which
Columbus revealed. Superficial students of its monuments
have indeed misinterpreted characteristics pertaining to
the infantile instincts common to human thought, into
fancied analogies with the arts of Egypt ; and more than
one ingenious philosopher has traced out affinities with the
mythology and astronomical science of the ancient East ;
but the western continent still stands a world apart, with a
peculiar people, and with languages, arts, and customs
essentially its own. To whatever source the American
nations may be traced, they had remained shut in for
unnumbered centuries by ocean barriers from all the in-
fluences of the historic hemisphere. Yet there the first
European explorers found man so little dissimilar to all
with which they were already familiar, that the name of
Indian originated in the belief, retained by the great
cosmographer to the last, that the American continent
was no new world, but only the eastern confines of Asia.

'']

THE OLD WORLD AND THE NEW.

nents
; to
into
than
1 the
jlast ;
i^ith a
items
rican
n for
e in-
first
,0 all
e of
I great
linent
Isia.

Such, then, is a continent where man may be studied
under circumstances which seem to furnish the best
guarantee of his independent development. No reflex
light of Grecian or Roman civilisation has guided him on
his way. The great sources of religious and moral suasion
which have given form to medieval and modem Europe,
and so largely influenced the polity and culture of Asia,
and even of Africa, were effectually excluded ; and how-
ever prolonged the period of occupation of the western
hemisphere by its own American nations may have been,
man is still seen there in a condition which seems to repro-
duce some of the most familiar phases ascribed to the
infancy of the unhistoric world. The records of its child-
hood are not obscured, as in Europe, by later chroniclings ;
where, in every attempt to decipher the traces of an earlier
history, we have to spell out a nearly ol>literated palimpsest.
Amid the simplicity of its palaeography, the aphorism, by
which alone the Roman could claim to be among the
world's ancient races acquires a new force : " antiquitaa
seculi, juventus mundi."

The discovery of America was itself one of the great
events in the most memorable era of the world's progress.
It wrought a marvellous change in the ideas and opinions
of mankind relative to the planet they occupy, and pre-
pared the way for many subsequent revolutions in thought,
as well as in action. The world as the arena of human
history was thenceforth divided into the Old and the New.
In the one hemisphere tradition and myth reach backward
towards a dawn of undefined antiquity ; in the other,
history has a definite and altogether modern beginning.
Nevertheless no great research is needed to show that it
also has been the theatre of human life, and of many revo-
lutions of nations, through centuries reaching back towards
an antiquity as vague as that which lies behind Europe's
historic dawn ; and the study alike of the prehistoric and the
unhistoric races of America is replete with promise of novel

AMERICAN PHASES OF LIFE.

[chap

truths in reference to primeval man. Some of the oldest
problems in relation to him find their solution there ; and,
amid the novel inquiries which now perplex the student of
science, answers of unexpected value are rendered from the
same source. ^

The study of man's condition and progress in Europe's
prehistoric centuries reveals him as a savage hunter, armed
solely with weapons of flint and bone, frequenting the lake
and river margins of a continent clothed in primeval forests
and haunted by enormous beasts of prey. Displaced by
intrusive migrations, thip rude pioneer disappears, and his
traces are overlaid or erased by the improved arts of his
supplanters. The infancy of the historic nations begins.
Metallurgy, architecture, science, and letters follow, effac-
ing the faint records of Europe's nomadic pioneers ; and the
first traces of late intruders acquire so primitive an aspect,
that the existence of older European nations than the Celtae
seemed till recently too extravagant an idea for serious con-
sideration.

After devoting considerable research to the recovery of
the traces of early arts in Britain, and realising from many
primitive disclosures some clear conception of the barbarian
of Europe's prehistoric dawn, it has bbeir*my fortune to
become a settler on the American continent, in the midst of
scenes whore the primeval forests and their savage occupants
are in process of displacement by the arts and races of
civilised Europe. Peculiarly favourable opportunities have
helped to facilitate the study of this phase of the New
World, thus seen in one of its great transitional eras : with
its native tribes, and its European and African colonists in
various stages of mutation, consequent on migration, inter-
mixture, or coUibion. In observing the novel aspects of
life resulting from such a condition of things, I have been
impressed with the conviction that many of the ethnological
phenomena of Europe's prehistoric centuries are here repro-
duced on the gL-andest scale. Man is seen subject to

1.3

THE TERM PREHISTORIC.

influences similar to those which have affected him in all
great migrations and collisions of diverse races. Here also
is the savage in direct contact with civilisation, and exposed
to the same causes by means of which the wild fauna dis-
appear. Some difficult problems of ethnology have been
simplified to my own mind; and opinions relative to
Europe's prehistoric races, based on inference or induction,
have received striking confirmation. Encouraged by this
experience, I venture to set forth the results of an inquiry
into the essential characteristics of man, based chiefly on
a comparison of the theoretical ethnology of primitive
Europe, with such disclosures of the New World.

Man may be assumed to be prehistoric wherever his
chroniclings of himself are undesigned, and his history is
wholly recoverable by induction. The term has, strictly
speaking, no chronological significance ; but, in iis relative
application, corresponds to other archaeological, in contra-
distinction to geological, periods. There ai*e modern as well
as ancient prehistoric races ; and both are available for
solving the problem of man's true natural condition. But
also the relation of man to external nature as the occupant
of specific geographical areas, and subject to certain in-
fluences of climate, food, material appliances and conditions
of life, involves conclusions of growing importance, in view
of many novel questions to which the enlarged inquiry as
to his true place in nature has given rise. If races of men
arc indigenous to specific areas, and controlled by the same
laws which seem to regulate the geographical distribution
of the animal kingdom, the results of their infringement of
such laws have been subjected to the most comprehensive
tests since the discovery of America. The horse transported
to the New World roams in magnificent herds over the
boundless pampas ; and the hog, restored to a state of
nature, has exchanged the degradation of the stye for the
fierce courage of the wild boar. There also the indigenous
man of the prairie and the forest can still be seen unaffected

I NFL UENCE OF MIGRA TIONS.

[chap.

Ill

by native or intruded civilisation ; while the most civilised
races of Europe have been brought into contact with the
African savage ; and both have been subjected to all the
novel influences in which the western continent contrasts
no less strikingly with the temperate than with the tropical
regions of the eastern hemisphere. The resultant changes
have been great, and the scale on which they have been
wrought out is so ample as to stamp whatever conclusions
can be legitimately deduced from them with the highe. *■
interest and value.

The consequences following from changes of area and
climate play a remarkable part in the history of man, and
have no analogies in the migrations of the lower animals.
The Frank, the Anglo-Saxon, and the Norman ; the Hun-
garian, the Saracen, and the Turk : are all to a great extent
products of the transplanting of seemingly indigenous races
to more favouring localities ; but the change to all of them
was less than that to which the colonists of the New World
have been subjected. There the old process was reversed ;
and the offspring of Europe's highest civilisation, abruptly
transferred to the virgin fotest and steppes of the American
wilderness, was left amid the widening inheritance of new
clearings to develop whatever tendencies lay dormant in the
artificial European man. -r . y

Here then are materials full of promise for the ethnical
student : — the Ked-Man, indigenous, seemingly aboriginal,
and still in what it is customary to call a state of nature ;
the Negro, with many African attributes uneflaced, syste-
matically precluded until veiy recent years from the free
reception of the civilisation with which he luis been brought
in contact, but subjected nevertheless to novel influences
of climate, food, and all external appliances ; the White-
Man also undergoing the transfomiing effects of climate,
- amid novel social and political institutions ; and all tlirce
extreme types of variety or race testing, on a sufficiently
comprehensive scale, their capacity for a fertile inter-

WHAT IS CIVILISATION?

mingling of blood. The period, moreover, is in some
respects favourable for summing up results as changes are
at work which mark the close of a cycle in the novel con-
ditions to which one at least of the intruded races has been
subjected for upwards of three centuries.

In Europe we study man only as he has been moulded
by a thousand external circumstances. The arts, bom at
the very dawn of history, give form to its modern social
life. The faith and morals nurtured among the hills of
Judah, the intellect of Greece, the jurisprudence and
military prowess of Rome, and the civil and ecclesiastical
institutions of medieval Christendom, have il] helped to
make of us what we are : till in the European of the nine-
teenth century it becomes a curious question how much
pertains to the man, and how much to that civilisation, of
which he is in part the author and in part the offspring ?
In vain we strive to detach European man from elements
foreign to him, that we may look on him as he is or was by
nature ; for he only exists for us as the product of all those
multifarious elements which have accumulated along the
track of countless generations. The very serf of the Russian
steppes cannot grow freely, as his nomad brother of Asia
does ; but must don the unfamiliar fashions of the Frank,
as strange to him as the armour of Saul up*^*^ the youthful
Ephrathite.

Is, then, oiviiisation natural to man ; or is it only a habit
or condition artificially superinduced, and as foreign to his
nature as the bit and bridle to the horse, or the truck-cart
to the wild ass of the desert ? Such questions involve the
whole ethnological problem reopened by Lamarck, Agassiz,
Darwin, Huxley, and others. Whence is man? What are
his antecedents ? What — within the compass with which
alone science deals, — are his future destinies ? Does civili-
sation move only through limited cycles, repeating in new
centuries the work of the old ; attaining, under some vary-
ing phase, to the same maximum of our imperfect humanity,

DOMESTIC A TION.

[chap.

and then, like the wandering comet, returning from the
splendour of its perihelion back to night %

Perhaps a question preliminary even to this is : What is
civilisation ? He who has seen the Euromerican and the
Indian side by side can be at no loss as to the difference
between civilised and uncivilised man. But is he therefore
at liberty to conclude that the element which so markedly
distinguishes the AVhite- from the Red- man of the . New
World is an attribute peculiar to the former, rather than
the development of innate powers common to both, and in
the possession of which man differs from all other animals?
Domestication is, for the lower animals, the subjection of
them to artificial conditions foreign to their nature, which
they could not originate for themselves, and which they
neither mature nor perpetuate : but, on the contrary, hasten
to throw off so soon as left to their own uncontrolled action.
Civilisation is for man development. It is self-originated;
it matures all the faculties natural to him, and is progressive
and seemingly ineradicable. Of both postulates the social
life alike of the forest and of the clearings of the New
World seems to offer proofs ; and to other questions involved
in an inquiry into the origin of civilisation and man's rela-
tions to it, answers may also be recovered from the same
source. There the latest developments of human progress
are abruptly brought face to face with the most unpro-
gressive phases of savage nature ; and many old problems
are being sol \ d anew under novel conditions. The race
to which this is chiefly due had been isolated during cen-
turies of preparatory training, and illustrates in some of
the sources of its progress the impediments tc the civilisa-
tion of savage races brought in contact with others at so
dissimilar a stage. The very elements for Britain's great-
ness i<eem to lie in her slow maturity ; in her collision with
successive races only a little in advance of herself ; in hel*
' transition through all the stages from infancy to vigorous
manhood. But that done, the Old Englander becomes the

INDIAN PHILOSOPHY.

New Englander ; starts from his matured vantage ground
on a fresh career, and displaces the American Red- man by
the American White-man, the free product of the great past
and the great present.

It was with a strange and fascinating pleasure, that, after
having striven to resuscitate the races of Britain's prehistoric
ages, by means of their buried arts,^ I found mysolf face to
face with the aborigines of the New World. Much that had
become familiar to me in fancy, as pertaining to a long
obliterated past, was here the living present ; while around
me, in every stage of transition, lay the phases of savage
and civilised life : the nature of the forest, the art of the
city ; the God-made country, the man-made town : each in
the very process of change, extinction, and re-creation.
Here, then, was a new field for the study of civilisation and
all that it involves. The wild beast is in its native state,
and hastens, when relieved from artificial constraints, to
return to the forest wilds as to its natural condition. The
forest-man — is he too in his natural condition ? for Europe's
sons have, for upwards of three centuries, been levelling
his forests, and planting their civilisation on the clearings,
yet he accepts not their civilisation as a higher goal for him.
He, at least, thinks that the white man and the red are of
diverse natures ; that the city and the cultivated field are
for the one, but the wild forest and the free chase for the
other. He does not envy the white man, he only wonders
at him as a being of a different nature.

Broken- Arm, the Chief of the Crccs,recei' iLgthe traveller
Paul Kane and his party into his lodge, at their encamp-
ment in the valley of the Saskatchewan, told him the
following tradition of the tribe. One of the Crees became a
Christian. He was a very good man, and did what was
right ; and when he died he was taken up to the whi*^'".
man's heaven, where everything was very beautiful. Ali
vrore happy amongst their friends and relatives who had

^ Vide Prehistoric Annals qf Scotland.

ABORIGINES.

[chap.

gone before them ; but the Indian could not share their joy,
for everything was strange to him. He met none of the
spirits of his ancestors to welcome him : no hunting nor
fishing, nor any of those occupations in which he was wont
to delight. Then the Great Manitou called him, and asked
him why he was joyless in His beautiful heaven ; and the
Indian replied that he sighed for the company of the spirits
of his own people. So the Great Manitou told him that he
could not seid him to the Indian heaven, as he had, whilst
on earth, chosen this one ; but as he had been a very good
man, he would send him back to earth again.

The Indian does not believe in the superiority of the
white man. The di^erence between them is only such as
he discerns between the social, constructive beaver, and the
solitaiy, cunning fox. The Great Spirit implanted in each
his peculiar faculties ; why should the one covet the nature
of the other ? Her je one element of the unhopeful Indian
future. The progress of the white man offers even less
incentive to his ambition than the cunning of xhe fox, or
the architectural instincts of the beaver. He, at least, does
not overlook, in his sylvan philosophy, that feature in the
physical history of mankind, which Agassiz complained of
having been neglected : viz., the natural relations between
different types of man and the animals and plants inhabit-
ing the same regions. Yet the Indian of the America li
wilds is no more primeval than his forests. Beneath tlie
roots of their oldest giants lie memorials of an older native
civilisation ; and the American ethnologist and naturalist,
while satisfying themselves of the persistency of a common
type, and of specific ethnical characteristics prevailing
throughout all the widely scattered tribes of the American
continent,^ have been studying only the temporary sup-
planters of nations strange to us as the extinct life of older
geological periods.

In that old East, to which science still turns when search -

^ Morton : Crania, Americana; Nott : Indiyenoiia Hace*, etc.

!•]

THE TARTAR; THE ARAB,

ing for the cradle-land of the human family, vast areas
exist, the characteristics of which seem to stamp with un-
progressive endurance the inheritors of the soil. Along the
shores of the Indian Ocean and the Levant, and stretching
from the Persian Gulf into the fertile valleys of the
Euphrates and the Tigris, are still found seats of civilisation
coexistent with the earliest dawn of man's history. But
beyond these lies the elevated table-land of Central Asia,
stretching away northward, and pouring its waters into
inland seas, or directing their uncivilising courses into the
frozen waters of the Arctic circle. Abrupt mountain- chains
subdivide this elevated plateau into regions which have
been for unrecorded ages the hives of pastoral tribes,
unaffected by any intrusion of civilising arts or settled
social habits ; until, impelled by unknown causes, they
have poured southward over the seats of primitive Asiatic
civilisation, or westward into the younger continent of
Europe.

From the wandering hordes of the great Asiatic steppes
have come the Huns, the Magyars, and the Turks, as well
as a considerable portion of the Bulgarians of modern
Europe ; while the sterile peninsula of Arabia has given
birth to moral revolutions of the most enduring influence.
Yet the capacity for civilisation of the Magyar or the Turk,
transferred to new physical conditions, and subjected to
higher moral and intellectual influences ; or the wondrous
intellectual vigour of the Arab of Bagdad or Cordova :
affords no scale by which to gauge the immobility of
the Tartar on his native steppe, or the Arab in his
dasert wilderness. Without agriculture or any idea of
property in land, destitute of the very rudiments of archi-*-
tecturc, knowing no written law, or any form of government
save the patriarchal expansion to the tribe of the primitive
family ties : we can discern no change in the wild
nomad, though we trace him back for three thousand
years. Migratory offshoots of the hordes of Central

LANGUAGES OF AMERICA.

[chap.

Asia, and of the wanderers of the Arabian desert, have
gone forth to prove the capacity for progress of the least
progressive races ; but the great body tarries still in
che wilderness and on the steppe, to prove what an endur-
j.cg capacity man also has to live as one of the wild fauna
of the waste.

The Indians of the New World, whencesoever they de-
rived their origin, present to us just such a type of unpro-
gressive life as the nomads of the Asiatic steppe. The
Ked-Man of the North- West exhibits no change from his
precursors of the fifteenth century ; and for aught that
appears in him of a capacity for development, the forests of
the American continent may have sheltered hunting and
warring tribes of Indians, just as they have sheltered and
pastured its wild herds of buffaloes, for countless centuries
since the continent rose from its ocean bed. That he is no
recent intruder is indisputably proved alike by physical and
intellectual evidence. On any theory of human origin, the
blended gradations of America'^ widely diversified indi-
genous races, demand a lengthened period for their develop-
ment ; and equally, on any theory of the origin of languages,
must time be prolonged to admit of the multiplication of
mutually unintelligible dialects and tongues in the New
World. It is estimated that there are nearly six hundred
languages, and dialects matured into independent tongues,
in Europe. The known origin and growth of some of
these may supply a standard whereby to gauge the time
indicated by such a multi])lication of tongues. But the
languages of the American continents have been estimated
to exceed twelve hundred and sixty, including agglutinate
languages of peculiarly elaborate structure, and inflectional
forms of complex development. Of the grammar of the
Lenni-Lenap^ Indians, Duponceau remarks : " It exhibits
a language entirely the work of the children of nature,
unaided by our arts and sciences, and, what is most remark-
able, ignorant of the art of writing. Its forms are rich,

WANDERINGS OF THE NATIONS.

regular, and methodical, closely following the analogy of
the ideas which they are intended to express ; compounded,
but not confused ; occasionally elliptical in their mode of
expression, but not more so than the languages of Europe,
and much less so than those of a large group of nations on
the eastern coast of Asia. The terminations of their verbs,
expressive of number, person, time, and other modifications
of action and passion, while they are richer in their exten-
sion than those of the Latin and Greek, which we call
emphatically the learned languages, appear to have been
formed on a similar but enlarged model, without other aid
than that which was afforded by nature operating upon the
intellectual faculties of man."^ At the same time it is no
less important to note the limited range of vocabulary in
many of the ^xxnerican languages. Those characteristics,
taken along with their peculiar holophrastic power of inflect-
ing complex word sentences, and expressing by their means
delicate shades of meaning, exhibit the phenomena of
human speech in some of their most remarkable phases.
But the range of the vocabularies furnishes a true gauge
of the intellectual development of the Indian : incapable
of abstract idealism, realising few generic relations, and
multiplying words by comparisons and descriptive com-
pounds.

To whatever cause we attribute such phenomena, much
is gained by being able to study them apart from the com-
plex derivative elements which trammel the study of
European philology. Assuming for our present argument
the unity of the human race, not in the ambiguous sense of
a common typical structure, but literally, as descendants of
one stock : in the primitive scattering of infant nations, the
Mongol and the American v/ent eastward, while the Indo-
European begaa his still uncompleted wanderings towards
the for west. The Mongol and the Indo-European have
repeatedly met and mingled. They now share, unequally,

* American Philosophical Tratuactiona, N. S. vol. iii. p. 248.

FOSSIL MAN.

[chap.

the Indian peninsula and the continent of Europe. But
the American and the Indo-European only met after an
interval measurable by thousands of years, coming from
opposite directions, and having made the circuit of the globe.
The Ked-Man, it thus appears, is among the ancients of
the earth. How old he may be it is impossible to deter-
mine; but with one American school of ethnologists, no
historical antiquity is sufficient for him. The earliest con-
tributions of the New World to the geological traces of man
were little less startling, when first brought to light, than
any that the European drift has since revealed. The island
of Guadaloupe, one of the lesser Antilles, discovered by
Columbus in 1493, furnished the first examples of fossil
man, and of works of art imbedded in the solid rock.
They seemed to the wondering naturalist to upset all pre-
conceived ideas of the origin of the human race. But more
careful investigation proved the rock to be a concretionary
limestone formed from the detritus of corals and shells.
The skeletons are probably by no means ancient, even
according to the reckoning of American history ; though
supplying a curious link in the palseontological treasures
both of the British Museum and the Jardin des Plantes.
Dr. Lund, the Danish naturalist, has described human
bones, bearing, as he believed, marks of geological antiquity,
found along with those of many extinct mammals, in the
calcareous caves of Brazil. Fossil human remains have also
been recovered from a calcareous conglomerate of the coral
reefs of Florida, estimated by Professor Agassiz to be not
lesb than 10,000 years old ;^ and the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia treasures the os innominatum of a
human skeleton, a fragment of disputed antiquity, dug up
near Natchez, on the Mississippi, beneath the bones of the
megalonyx.^
, From those, and other discoveries of a like kind, this at

1 TypeH of Mankind. P. 352.
a Proceed. Acad. Nat. Sc Philad.

Oct. 1846. P. 107.

I.]

OCCUPATION OF THE NEW WORLD.

least becomes apparent, that in the New World, as in the
Old, the closing epoch of geology must be turned to for the
initial chapters of archaeology and ethnology. According
to geological reckoning, much of the American continent
has but recently emerged from the ocean. Among the
organic remains of Canadian post-tertiary deposits are
found the Phoca, Balcena, and other existing marine mammals
and fishes along with the Elephas primigenius, the Mas-
todon Ohioticus, and other long-extinct species. Looking
on the human skeletons of the Guadaloupe limestone in the
Museums of London and Paris, — the first examples of the
bones of man in a fossil state, — the gradation in form
between him ani other animals presents no very important
contrast to the uninstructed eye. Modern though those
rock-imbedded skeletons are, they accord with older traces
of human remains mingling with those of extinct mammals,
to which more recent speculations have given so novel an
interest in relation to the question of the antiquity of man.
The origin and duration of the American type still remain
in obscurity. Man entered on the occupation of the New
World in centuries which there, as elsewhere, stretch back-
ward as we strive to explore them. His early history is
lost, for it is not yet four centuries since its discovery ; and
he still survives there, as he then did, a being apart from
all that specially distinguishes either the cultivated or the
uncultured man of Europe. His continent, too, has become
the stage whereon are being tested great problems in social
science, in politics, and in ethnology. There the civilised
man and the savage have been brought face to face to
determine anew how far God " giveth to all life, and breath,
and all things ; and hath made of one blood all nations of
men to dwell on all the face of the earth ; and hath deter-
mined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their
habitation." There, too, the Black man and the Red, whose
destinies seemed to separate them wide as the world's
hemispheres, have been brought together to try whether the

OCCUPATION OF THE NEW WORLD. [chap.

African is more enduring than the indigenous American on
his own soil ; to try for us, also, as could no otherwise be
tried, questions of amalgamation and hybridity, of develop-
ment and perpetuity of varieties, of a dominant, a savage,
and a servile race. In all ways : in its recoverable past,
in its comprehensible present, in its conceivable future, the
New World invites our study, with the promise of dis-
closures replete with interest in their bearing on secrets of
the elder world.

II.]

THE LATEST MIGRATIONS.

l:VV

CHAPTER 11.

THE PRIMEVAL TRANSITION.

THE LATEST MIGRATIONS— FOUNDING A CAPITAL— BEGINNINGS OP HISTORY— PBE-
HI8T0RIC PHASES— NON-METALLUROIC ERAS— OSCILLATIONS OF THE LAND- THE
GLACLAL PERIOD— FOSSIL MAMMALIA — THE FLINT-FOLK OP THE DRIFT— ADVENT
OF EUROPEAN MAN— THE DRIFT IMPLEMENTS — CHROilOLOQY OF THE FRENCH
DRIFT— SCOTTISH ALLUVIUM— PRECELTIC RACES — THEIR IMITATIVE ARTS — MAN
PRIMEVAL— HIS INTELLECTUAL CONDITION — INSTINCT— ACCUMULATED KNOW-
LEDGE — PRIMEVAL BRITAIN — ITS FOSSIL FAUNA — OSSIFEROUS CAVES— BUIXHAM
CAVE— SCOTTISH REINDEER— AMERICAN DRIFT — RELICS OP ANCIENT LIFE —
EXTINCT FAUNA— MAN AND THE MASTODON— INDIAN TRADITIONS— GIANTS —
DRIFT DISCLOSURES— AMERICAN CRANIAL TYPE— ANTIQUITY OP THE AMERICAN
MAN— PRIMITIVE ARTS.

The striking contrasts which the New World presents, in
nearly every respect, to the Old, are full of significance in
relation to the origin of civilisation, and its influence on the
progress of man. Viewed merely as the latest scene of
migration of European races on a great scale, America has
much to disclose in illustration of primitive history. There
we see the land cleared of its virgin forest, the soil prepared
for its first tillage, the site of the future city chosen, and
the birth of the world's historic capitals epitomised in those
of the youngest American commonwealths. Taking our
stand on one of the newest of these civic sites, let us trace
the brief history of the political and commercial capital of
Upper Canada.

Built along the margin of a bay, enclosed by a peninsular
[, spit of land running out from the north shore of Lake
Ontario, the city of Toronto rests on a drift formation of
sand and clay, only disturbed in its nearly level uniformity
by the rain-gullies and ravines which mark the courses of
the rivulets that drain its surface. This the original pro-

VOL. I. B

FOUNDING A CAPITAL,

[chap.

jectors of the city mapped off into parallelograms, by streets
uniformly intersecting each other at right angles ; and in
carrying out their plan, every ravine and undulation is
smoothed and levelled, as with the indiscriminating pre-
cision of the mower's scythe. The country rises to the
north for about twenty miles, by a gradual slope to the
water-shed between Ontario and Lake Simcoe, and then
descends to the level of the northern lake and the old
hunting-grounds of the Hurons. It is a nearly unvary-
ing expanse of partially cleared forest : a blank, with its
Indian traditions effaced, its colonial traditions uncreated.
The cities of the old world have their mythic founders and
quaint legends still commemorated in heraldic blazonry.
But there is no mystery about the beginnings of Toronto.
Upper Canada was erected into a distinct province in 1791,
only eight years after France finally renounced all claim on
the province of Quebec ; and a few months thereafter
General Simcoe, the first governor of the new province,
arrived at the old French fort, at the mouth of the Niagara
river, and in May 1793 selected the Bay of Toronto as the
site of the future capital. The chosen spot presented a
dreary aspect of swamp and uncleared pine forest ; but amid
these his sagacious eye saw in anticipation the city rise,
which already numbers upwards of 60,000 inhabitants ; tmd
rejecting the old Indian name, since restored, he gave to his
embryo capital that of York. Colonel Bouchette, Surveyor-
General of Lower Canada, was selected to lay out the pro-
jected city and harbour ; and he thus describes the locality
as it then existed : " I still distinctly recollect the ritamed
aspect which the country exhibited when first I entered the
beautiful basin. Dense and trackless forests lined the
margin of the lake, and reflected cheir inverted images in
its glassy surface. The wandering savage had constructed
his ephemeral habitation beneath their luxuriant foliage, the
group then consisting of two families of Mississagas ; and
the bay and neighbouring marshes wore the hitherto uniu-

[chap.

ly streets
; and in
lation is
ting pre-
ss to the
pe to the
and then
the old
' unvary-
, with its
mereated.
aders and
blazonry,
f Toronto.
e in 1791,
1 claim on
thereafter
province,
lie Niagara
mto as the
•esented a
but amid
city rise,
;ants; t^nd
;ave to his
Surveyor-
Lt the pro-
le locality
ritamed
Intered the
lined the
images in
instructed
age, the
tgas ; and
ierto unin-

II.]

BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY.

vaded haunts of immense coveys of wild-fowl ; indeed, they
were so abundant as in some measure to annoy us during
the night."*

The vicissitudes attending the progress of the Canadian
city have bet \ minutely chronicled by local historians, who
record how many dwellings of round logs, squared timber,
or more ambitious frame-houses exceeding a single story,
were in existence at various dates. The first vessel which
belonged to the town, and turned its harbour to account ;
the first brick house, the earliest stone one ; and even the
first gig of an ambitious citizen, subsequent to 1812, are
all duly chronicled. Could we learn with equal truthfulness
of the first years of the city built by Romulus on the Palatine
Hill, its annals would tell no less homely truths, even now
dimlj' hinted at in the legend of the scornful Remus leaping
over its infant ramparts. Tiber's hill was once the site only
of the solitary berdsman's hut ; and an old citizen has
described to me his youthful recollections of Toronto as
consisting of a few log-huts in the clearing, and an Indian
village of birch-bark wigwams, near the Don, with a mere
trail through the woods to the old French fovt, on the lino
where now upwards of two miles of costly stores, hotels, and
public buildings mark the principal street of the busy city.

M. Theodore Pavi describes Toronto, in his Souvenirs
Atlantiqties, published at Paris in 1833, as still in the woods,
a mere advanced post of civilisation on the outskirts of a
boundless waste. " To the houses succeed immediately the
forests, and how profound must be those immense forests,
when we reflect thpt they continue without interruption
till they lose themselves in the icy regions of Hudson's
Bay near the Arctic Pole." Upwards of forty years have
since elapsed, and that for New-World cities is an a3on.
Every year has witnessed more rapid strides, alike in the
progress of Toronto, and in the clearing and settling of the
surrounding country. Railways have opened up new avenues

' The BrilUh Dominiotu in Xitrih AmeiHca. Loud. 1832. Vol. i. p, fi9.

PREHISTORIC PHASES.

[chap.

of trade and commerce, and borne troops of sturdy pioneers
into the wilderness behind. So rapid has been the clearing
of the forest, and so great the rise in the price of labour,
that fuel, brought from the distant coal-fields of Pennsylvania,
already undersells the cord-wood hewn in Canadian forests ;
and even Newcastle coal warms many a luxurious winter
hearth. All is rife with progress. The new past is despised ;
the old past is unheeded ; and for antiquity there is neither
reverence nor faith. These are beginnings of history ; and
are full of significance to those who have wrought out some
of the curious problems of an ancient past, amid historic
scenes contrasting in all respects with this unhistoric but
vigorous youth of the New World. The contrast between
the new and the old is here sufliciently striking Yet the

old also was once new ; had even such begin 'di:

this ;

and was as devoid of history as the rawest clearing of the
Far West.

There are ether aspects also in which a New World, thus
entering on its historic life, is calculated to throw light on
the origin of civilisation. Though neither its forests nor its
aborigines are primeval, they realise for us just such a pri-
mitive condition as that in which human history appears to
begin. In all the most characteristic aspects of the Indian,
as well as in the traces of native American metallurgy,
architecture, letters, and science, we find reproduced
same phases through which man passed in oldest prehis
times; and when, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuric
we witness the mineral wealth of the Andes tempting
European colonisation beyond the Atlantic, we only see the ex-
peditions of new Argonauts; and realise incidents of the first
voyage to the Cassittnides ; or the planting of the infant
colonies of Gadir, Maosala, and Carthage by Phocian and
Punic adventurers of the historic dawn. But the specu-
lations of modern science carry us far beyond any dawn of
definite history, even when reseaich is directed to the evidence
of man's primitive arts, and the origin. ^^ his civilisation.

<-iU

\->

[chap.

oneers
earing
abour,
Lvania,
orests;
winter
spised ;
Qeither
J ; and
it some
historic
ric but
)etween
Yet the
3 this ;
; of the

•Id, tlius
\\A\i on
nor its
h a pri-
pears to
Indian,
;allurgy,
Lced ^bo
ihia ii'

II.]

NON-METALLURGIC ERAS.

The investigation of the underlying chronicles of Europe's
most ancient human history has placed beyond question
that its historic period was preceded by an unhistoric one
of long duration, marked by a slow progression from arts of
the rudest kind to others which involved the germs of all
later development. From Europe, and the historic lands
of Asia and Africa, we derive our ideas of man ; and of the
youngest of these continents, on which he has thus advanced
from savage artlessness to the highest arts of civilisation,
we have history, written or traditional, for at least two
thousand years. But in the year 1492 a New World was
discovered, peopled with its own millions, for the most part
in no degree advanced beyond that primeval starting-point
which lies far behind Europe's oldest traditions. To have
found there beings strange as the inhabitants of Swift's
Houyhnhnm's Land, or the monsters conjured up in the
philosophic day-dreams of Sir Humphry Davy for the
peopling of other planets,^ would have seemed less wonder-
ful to the men of that fifteenth century than what they did
find : man in a state of savage infancy, with arts altogether
rudimentary ; language without letters, tradition without
history, everything as it were but in its beginning, and yet
himself looking back into a past even more vast and vague
than their own. The significance of this state of things is
worth inquiring into, if it be for nothing else than the light
which the analogies of such a living present may throw on
the infancy of Europe, and beyond that, on the primal
infancy of the human race.

Recent discoveries of primitive art in the diluvial forma-
tions both of France and England have tended to add a
fresh interest to the investigation of that " primeval stone-
period" which underlies the most ancient memorials of
Europe's civilisation. The oldest of all written chronicles
assigns a period of some duration in the history of the
human race, during which man tilled the ground, pursued

* CoMoUiiiont \n Travfl, or the Last Days qfa Philosopher,

OSCILLATIONS OF THE LAND.

[chap.

the chase, and made garments of its spoils, without any
knowledge of the working in metals, on which the simplest
of all known arts depend. Through such a primitive stage
it had already appeared to me probable that all civilised
nations had passed,* before disclosures of a still older flint-
period in the chroniclings of the drift added new signifi-
cance to the term primeval, in its application to the non-
metallurgic era of Europe's arts.

The incredulity and even contempt with which the appli-
cation of a system of archaeological periods to the antiquities
of Britain was received, in recent years, by a certain class
of critics, was inevitable, from the exclusive attention pre-
viously devoted to Roman and medieval remains. But the
attention of the antiquary, as well as the geologist, is now
being directed to conclusions forced on both by the traces
of man in the stratified gravel of post-pleiocene formations.
The circumstances attending their repeated discovery place
their remote antiquity beyond question. The difficulty
indeed is to bring the phenomena illustrated by palaeolithic
relics of the quaternary period into any conceivable harmony
with the limits of chronology as hitherto applied to man.
The pre-Celtic architects of the British long-barrow, and the
allophylise of the European stone age, are but men of
yesterday in comparison with the Flint-Folk of the
Drift. They belong to a lost Atlantis, — another conti-
nent, now in part at least buried beneath the ocean ; and
compared with which the Old World of history is as new
as that found for it by Columbus.

The disclosures of geology have familiarised us with the
conviction that the " stable land," the " perpetual hills,"
and the " everlasting mountains " are but figures of speech.
But the idea forces itself on reluctant minds that man
himself has witnessed the disappearance of Alpine chains
and the submergence of continents. The Pacific archi-
pelagos are but the mountain-crests of a southern continent,

^ PreAiston'c Annal4 qf Scotland, vol. i. p. 41.

ill

'"if^f

[chap.

ut any
implest
'^e stage
ivilised
er flint-
signifi-
,he non-

le appli-
tiquities
in class
:ion pre-
But the
:, is now
[le traces
•mations.
3ry place
lifficulty
Iseolithic
larmony
;o man.
and the
men of

OF THE

ir conti-
in ; and
as new

f "•]

THE GLACIAL PERIOD.

with the

,1 hills,"

speech.

Hiat man

le chains

archi-

)ntinent,

which in earlier ages may have facilitated the wanderings
of the nations. The startling discoveries in the French and
English drift are results of oscillations of the northern
hemisphere, which, in times nearer to historic centuries,
depressed the bed of the Baltic in the era of the Danish
kjokkenmoddingr, and made dry land of the upper estuaries
of the Forth and Clyde. It is doubtful, indeed, if the
shallowing of Danish and Scottish seas by the rise of their
ocean-beds is altogether a work of prehistoric times. The
rise still going on in parts of the Swedish coast is a pheno-
menon long familiar to geologists ; and the upheaval of the
Scottish region, embracing the valleys of the Forth and
Clyde, it now appears probable, has been protracted into
historic times, and has even affected the relative levels of
sea and land since the building of the Roman wall.

The changes thus witnessed on a comparatively small
scale, on familiar areas, help us in some degree to estimate
the vast physical revolutions that have taken place through-
out the northern hemisphere within that recent geological
period which succeeded the formation of the pleiocene strata.
One of the most remarkable phenomena now recognised as
affecting the conditions of life in recent geological epochs
is the prolonged existence, throughout the whole northern
hemisphere, of a temperature resembling that of the Arctic
regions at the present time. After a period more nearly
assimilating in climatic character to the tropics, though
otherwise under varying conditions, the temperature of the
whole northern hemisphere gradually diminished towards
the end of the tertiary epoch, until the highlands of Scotland
and Wales — then at a much higher elevation, — resembled
Greenland at the present time, and an Arctic temperature
extended southward to the Pyrenees and the Alps. Glaciers
formed under the influence of perpetual frost and snow
descended into the valleys and plains over the greater portion
of Central Europe and Northern Asia, and an Arctic winter
reigned throughout.

CONDITIONS OF CLIMATE.

[chap.

This condition of things, pertaining to what is known as
the glacial period, was unquestionably of long duration.
But after some partial variations of temperature, and a
consequent advance and retrocession of the glacial influences
along what was then the border lines of a north temperate
zone, the first period of extreme cold drew to a close.
Between the Alps and the mountain ranges of Scotland and
Wales, the winter resembled that which even now prevails
on the North American continent, in latitudes in which the
moose, the wapiti, and the grizzly bear, freely range over
the same areas where during a brief summer of intense heat
enormous herds of buflalo annually migrate from the south.
A similar alternation of seasons within the European glacial
period can alone account for the presence, alongside of an
Arctic fauna, of animals such as the hippopotamus and the
hyaena, known only throughout the historical period as
natives of the tropics. The range of temperature of Cana-
dian seasons admits of the Arctic skua-gull, the snow-goose,
the Lapland bunting, and the like Arctic visitors, meeting
the king-bird, the humming-bird, and other wanderers from
the gulf of Mexico.

Such c aditions of climate may account for the recovery
of the remains of the reindeer and the hippopotamus in the
same drift and cave-deposits of Europe's glacial period.
The woolly mammoth and rhinoceros, the musk ox, reindeer,
and other Arctic fauna, may be presumed to have annually
retreated from the summer heats, and given place to those
animals, the living representatives of which are now found
only in tropical Africa. A period of depression followed,
during which, throughout an extensive area, all but the
highest levels was submerged beneath an Arctic ocean, and
the drift and boulders of the highlands of Norway and
Scotland were dispersed by means of icebergs over the low
levels of what was then an archipelago, in which only the
higher peaks of Britain rose out of the sea. Far to the south
of the Thames and the Seine, the drift of this Arctic ocean

[chap.

lown as
uration.
, and a
.fluences
mperate
a close.
Land and
prevails
^hich the
cig-e over
5nse heat
be south,
m glacial
de of an
3 and the
)eriod as
of Cana-
ow-goose,
meeting
rers from

recovery
us in the
1 period,
reindeer,
annually
to those
)W found
'oUowed,
but the
lean, and
ay and
the low
|only the
he south
tic ocean

"•]

FOSSIL MAMMALIA

was then accumulating the e-ddence which now reveals to us
the fauna and the arts of quaternary Europe ; just as the
overlying boulders of the American drift far south in the
Ohio valleys show their derivation from the Laurentian
mountains of Canada. With the elevation of the old ocean-
bed there appears to have been a renewal of an Arctic tem-
perature indicated by the traces of local glaciers in the
mountains of Scotland, Cumberland, and Wales ; and
so the glacial period drew to a close. A gradual rise of
temperature carried the lines of ice and perpetual snow
further and further northward, excepting in regions of
great elevation, as in the Swiss Alps. This was neces-
sarily accompanied with the melting of the glaciers ac-
cumulated in the mountain valleys throughout the pro-
tracted period of cold. The broken rocks and soil of the
highlands were swept into the valleys by torrents of melted
ice and snow; the lower valleys were hollowed out and
reformed under this novel agency ; and the landscape
assumed its latest contour of valley, estuary, and river-
beds.

This is what the elder geologists, including Dean Buck-
land, accepted for a time as the evidence of the Mosaic
deluge. It is now uni-'^ersally recognised as the product
of no sudden cataclysm, but the result of operations carried
on continuously throughout periods of vast duration, during
which the memorials of animal and vegetable life of the
pleiocene and pleistocene epochs were slowly imbedded in
the accumulated debris of this diluvian reconstruction. The
characteristics of the fossil mammals of the post-glacial
period differ in many respects so widely from all that we
are accustomed to associate with the presence of man, that
they help to suggest even an exaggerated idea of antiquity.
Nevertheless, there is no break of continuity. Animals still
living have their fossil representatives alongside of the
pleiocene mastodon, cave-lion, and bear: if indeed the latter
be not itself the ursus ferox^ or grizzly bear of North

THE FLINT-FOLK OF THE DRIFT.

[chap.

America, the claws of which are still worn as the proudest
trophy of the Red Indian hunter. >u ; v .

Of twenty-one species of post-glacial mammals identified
in the deposits of Brixham Cavern, only four are regarded
as extinct species, and these include the ursus spelwus and
hycena spelcea. But their habitats have been widely changed
in the climatic and geographical revolutions which have
intervened. Some have to be sought for within the Arctic
circle; others in low latitudes, and on continents lying
wholly outside of that world which was alone known to
Aristotle and Pliny. Every thing indicates a revolution
slowlj' wrought through unnumbered ages, during which
the ancient fauna was being supplanted by novel species,
including those which belong to the historical period of
temperate Europe. So far as appearis from present evidence,
man himself has to be included among the new additions to
the European fauna. To this post glacial period must, at
any rate, be assigned the advent of the Flint-Folk of the
Drift : a race of hunters and fishers not greatly differing in
their rude arts from the more immediate precursors of the
Historic races in Europe's Stone Age ; but who were con-
temporaneous with the Siberian mammoth and other extinct
elephants, the woolly rhinoceros, the musk ox, and the
reindeer of France ; and with numerous extinct carnivora
of proportions corresponding to the gigantic herbivora on
which they preyed.

The regions in which remains of the Flint-Folk have
hitherto chiefly occurred embrace the valleys of Northern
France and Southern England, where now the vine and the
hop clothe the sunny slopes with their luxuriance. But as
fresh evidence accumulates, corresponding indications are
found to extend to the shores and islands of the Mediter-
ranean. Traces of Europe's neolithic artificers have been
found in the caves of Gibraltar ; and among a singularly
interesting accumulation of flint-tlakes, polished stone axes,
rude pottery, etc., lying beside the skeletons of their

uiUi

M i Mirt W i r iMh ' J JiMU ii H . ri . ' U tr •ni ifc y j ii ii.i

■»r

. [chap.
proudest

dentified
regarded
IcBus and
changed
ich have
be Arctic
its lying
:nown to
evolution
ig which
I species,
Deriod of
evidence,
litions to
must, at
k of the
fering in
L's of the
''ere con-
r extinct
and the
arnivora
Lvora on

)lk have
orthern
and the
But as
ions are
Iklediter-
ve been
gularly
tie axes,
)f their

IL]

ADVENT OF EUROPEAN MAN.

■■'•¥

owners, in the same caves of Andalusia from one of which a
golden tiara of primitive workmanship has been recovered.*
Among remoter traces in the Maccagnone, Sicilian cave.
Dr. Falconer could discover nothing suggestive of a different
period for the rude flint implements and the numerous
bones of the hippopotamus, mammoth, cave-lion, and other
fossil mammals with which they were conjoined ; while far
eastward, near Beyrout, the Rev. H. B. Tristram reports the
occurrence, in the stalagmitic flooring of a limestone cave,
of bones and teeth assigned to a fossil ox, the red-deer, and
the reindeer, alongside of the flint knives or flakes which
the prehistoric cave-men of Lebanon had used when feast-
ing on such prey.^ But though such traces occur on ancient
historic sites, we search in vain for any connecting link
between the oldest historic races and those belonging to an
era which one distinguished geologist has designated as
"The Second Elephantine Period ;"' when, according to his
reconstruction of the physical geography of the region, the
Thames was a tributary of the Rhine ; the English Channel
was not yet in being, and Britain existed only is part of a
continent which stretched away uninterruptedly northward
towards the Arctic circle.

It thus appears that the advent of man in Northern
Europe is assignable to a period when the mammoth and the
tichorine rhinoceros still roamed its forests, and the great
cave-tiger and other extinct carnivora haunted its caverns ;
when the gigantic Irish elk, the reindeer, the musk-ox,
and the wild horse were objects of the chase ; and the hippo-
potamus major was a summer visitor to the Seine and the
Thames. When first employing the term prehistoric which
has since obtained such universal acceptance, I remarked,
in reference to Scottish aboriginal traces : " There is one
certain point in this inquiry into primitive arts which the

* ArUiguedades Prehiatoricas de Andaluaia, Madrid, 1868.

' The Land oflarael: a Journal of Travsla in Pale«tir.% 1 806, p. 11.

' J. Trimmer: Jour. Oeol. Soc, vo). ix.

THE DRIFT IMPLEMENTS. \

[chap.

Britisli antiquary possesses over all others, and from whence
he can start without fear of error. From our insular posi-
tion it is unquestionable that the first colonist of the British
Isles must have been able to construct some kind of boat,
and have possessed sufficient knowledge of navigation to
steer his course through the open sea."^ It then seemed a
postulate on which the most cautious adventurer into the
great darkness which lies behind us might confidently take
his stand. But the point was no certain one after all. The
fauna of the later Elephantine period still roamed over a
wide continent unbroken by the English Channel or the
Irish Sea ; and the valley of the Khine stretching northward
through the still unsubmerged plain of the German Ocean,
received as tributaries the Thames and the Humber, per-
haps also the Tweed and the Forth. Measured therefore
by the most moderate estimate of geological chronology, the
historical period is, in relation to the interval since the first
appearance of man, somewhat in a ratio with the superficial
soil and vegetable mouldy as compared with the whole
deposits of the stratified drift : in other words, it is so
insignificant as, in a geological point of view, to bo scarcely
worth taking into account.

Whatever be the consequences involved in sucjh compre-
hensive inductions, proofs appear to accumulate, with every
renewed search, of the wide diff'usion throughout the bone-
bearing drift of the post-glacial period, of symmetrically-
formed flints, bearing indubitable traces of intelligence and
primitive mechanical skill.

It is the old argument of Paley, reproduced in a form
undreamt of in his philosophy. "If," he might have said,
" in digging into a bank of gravel we find a flint, we do not
pause to ask whence it came ; but if our spade strike on a

watch?" In the age of the Flint Folk mechanical

ingenuity expended itself for other purposes than the manu-
facture of time-measurers ; but if the artificial origin of the

^ Prehistaric Annals of Scotland, 1861, Isb Ed. p, 29.

M.-

[chap.

oa whence
ular posi-
le British
i of boat,
gation to
seemed a
r into the
3ntly take

all. The
ed over a
lel or the
aorthward
an Ocean,
oaber, per-

therefore
lology, the
le the first
superficial
the whole
?, it is so
)e scarcely

h compre-
viih every
the bone-
letrically-
^ence and

n a form
lave said,
we do not
rike on a
echanical
he manu-
nn of the

II.]

THE DRIFT IMPLEMENTS.

implements of the drift, and their consequent indications of
the presence of man, be acknowledged, our greatest difficulty
is the remoteness of the period which they seem to indicate.
Worked flints and other assumed human industrial remains
have now been recovered from caverns, in various countries
of Europe, as in the caves of Engis and Chokier, near Li^ge ;
at Mont Sal^ve, Geneva ; in the south of France, in Belgium,
and in England : in every case so mingled with remains of
the mammoth, rhinoceros, hyjena, and other extinct mam-
mals, as to lead to the conviction of their contemporaneous
deposition. Recent carefully conducted explorations in the
Devonshire caves have resulted in seemingly indisputable
proof that English flint-implements of the Amiens type are
coeval with the extinct fauna ; and that consequently the
presence of their manufacturers must be assigned to periods
prior to the successive inundations and depositions by which
Brixham cave was gradually filled with layers of water- worn
gravel, silt, or cave-earth, bone breccia, and solid floorings
of carbonate of lime.

The rudeness of many of the worked flints has suggested
the idea of their accidental origin ; but the most diligent
search in the heaps of chalk-flints broken for the roads, in
France or England, or crushed in situ by subterranean
movements, as in the Isle of Wight, has failed to recover a
single specimen resembling even the rudest implements of
the drift ; whereas, in the ancient flint pits of the Shawnces,
and probably of the Mound-Builders of Ohio, — to which I
shall again refer, — I have collected fractured flints of pre-
cisely the same types as those familiar to us among the
rudest drift implements. They diff*er for the most part in
size, and also in type, from those found in early British or
Danish grave-mounds ; but artificial origin and inventive
design are as obvious in the one as in the other.

That forgery of drift implements has been practised
latterly, especially by the French workmen, is indisputable,
but this need not affect the question. The facts connected

THE DRIFT IMPLEMENTS.

[chAP.

with their discovery had been on record for nearly a century
and a half before their significance was perceived ; and
s^ scimens lay unheeded in the British Museum and in the
collection of the Society of Antiquaries of London, with
their human workmanship undisputed, so long as their
origin was ascribed to Celtic art.* In reality the explorers
of the drift have been perplexed by the very abundance of
the traces of art which it discloses. Dr. RigoUot states
that in the pits of St. Acheul alone, between August and
December 1854, upwards of four hundred specimens were
obtained. The lowest estimate of the number recovered in
the valley of the Somme is 3000 ; but this is exclusive of
the more dubious flint-flakes, styled knives, estimated by
Sir Charles Lyell at many thousands more.^ In England
flint implements of the same peculiar type have already
rewarded research in many localities ; so that Mr. Evans
justly remarks: "The number found " almost beyond
belief."^ Some reasons tending to acco. x"or their accu-
mulation in such localities are discussed in the following
chapter, in the light of analogous discoveries in the New
World. But while it is no longer possible to question their
artificial origin, and the consequent evidence of the
presence of man in those localities where they abound, the
haunts of those primeval hunters and fishers were the river-
valleys of an elder world ; and any attempt at estimating
the time required for changes of climate, extinction of fauna,
the succession of races implied in the phases of palaeolithic
and neolithic arts, and the gradual introduction and develop-
ment of metallurgy, involves so many unknown quantities,
that at present it must suffice to recognise as no longer dis-
putable that the whole historic period of Northern Europe
is insignificant when compared with the time requisite to
account for all the phenomena in question. The relative
chronology of the French drift is : \sty superficially, tombs

^ Arch(Bolo(jia, vol. xiii. p. 206 ; vol. xxxviii. p. 301.

* Antiquity of Man, 4th Ed. p. 190. ^ Archveologia, vol. xxxviii. p. 296.

[chap.

a century

^red ; and

md in the

ion, with

as their

explorers

ndance of

[lot states

igust and

nens were

covered in

[elusive of

mated by

England

'^e already

Mr. Evans

5t beyond

leir accu-

foUowing

the New

ition their

of the

lound, the

he river-

stimating

of fauna,

Eilseolithic

develop-

uantities,

>nger dis-

Europe

:juisite to

relative

y, tombs

ii. p. 296.

II.]

SCOTTISH ALLUVIUM.

3«

and other remains of the Koman period, scarcely perceptibly
affected in their geological relations by nearly the whole
interval of the Christian era ; 2cZ, in the alluvium, ssemingly
imbedded by natural accumulation, at an average depth of
15 feet, remains of a European stone-period, corresponding
to those of the recently discovered pfahlbauten, or lacustrine
villages of the Swiss Lakes ; and, 3o?, the tool-bearing gravel,
imbedding works of the Flint-Folk, wrought seemingly
when the rivers were but beginning the work of excavating
the valleys which give their present contour to the land-
scapes of France and England.

With such indications of the remoteness of the era of the
Drift-Folk it scarcely calls for special notice, that their tools
correspond to some of those found in cave-deposits, as in
Kent's Hole, Devonshire ; but that they are readily distin-
guishable from the sn Her implements and weapons of the
same material wrought by the primitive Barrow-Builders
of Europe, or by modern savage tribes still ignorant of
metallurgy. From whatever point we attempt to view the
facts thus presented to our consideration, it becomes
equally obvious that we are dealing with the traces of a
period irreconcilable with any received system of historic
chronology; but within which, nevertheless, we are compelled
to recognise many indications of the presence of man.

By evidence of a like character, the intermediate but still
remote periods of prehistoric centuries are peopled with
successive races of men. Proofs of oscillation, upheaval,
and derangement of the course of ancient rivers, had
furnished indications of the enormous lapse of time embraced
within the British stone-period before the discoveries of
Abbeville and Amiens were heard of.^ In the year 1819
there was disclosed in the alluvium of the carse-land, where
the river Forth winds its circuitous course through ancient
historic scenes, the skeleton of a gigantic whale, with a
perforated lance or harpoon of deer's horn beside it. They

^Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, 1st Ed. p. 33.

PRE CELTIC RACES.

[chap. a

lay together near the base of Dunmyat, one of the Ochil
Hills, twenty feet above the highest tide of the neighbouring
estuary. Over this an accumulation of five feet of allu"vial
soil was covereu with a thin bed of moss. The locality
was examined by scientific observers peculiarly competent
to the task ; and at the same time sufficient traces of the
old Roman causeway were observed, loading to one of the
fords of the Forth, to prove that no important change had
taken place on the bed of the river, or the general features
of the strath, during the era of authentic history.^ Kor was
this example a solitary one. Remains of gigantic Balsenoe
have been repeatedly found ; and one skeleton discovered
in 1824, seven miles further inland, was deposited in
the Museum of Edinburgh University, along with the
primitive harpoon of deer's horn found beside it, which in
this instance retained some portion of the wooden shaft by
which it had been wielded. Among antique spoils recovered
at various depths in the same carsc-land, the collection of
the Scottish Antiquaries includes a primitive quern, or
hand-mill, fashioned from the section of an oak, — such as is
still in use by the Indians of America for pounding their
grain, — and a wooden wheel of ingenious construction,
found with several flint arrow-heads alongside of it.

With such well-authenticated and altogether indisputable
evidence already in our possession, the additions made to
our grounds for belief in the antiquity of the prehistoric
dawn of Brit^dn or Europe do not materially affect the
conclusions thereby involved, though they add to the appar-
ent duration of the human era. Whatever difficulties may
seem to arise from the discoveries at Abbeville and Amiens,
or the older ones at Gray's Inn Lane, Hoxne, and elsewhere,
in relation to the age of man, the chronology which
suffices to embrace the ancient Caledonian whaler within
the period of human history will equally adapt itself to
" more recent disclosures. And lying, as the Scottish relics

' Edin. Phil. Jour., i. 395.

II.]

THEIR IMITATIVE ARTS.

;lie Ochil
hbouring
I alluvial
} locality
ompetent
;es of the
ne of the
ange had
1 features
Kor was
; Balsense
.iscovered
osited in
with the
which in
1 shaft by-
recovered
lection of
quern, or
luch as is
ing their
[struction,
It.

lisputable
made to
Irehistoric
ifFect the
le appar-
|lties may
Amiens,
[Isewhere,
[y which
nr within
itself to
lish relics

■f

did, almost beneath the paving of the Roman causeway,
they suffice to show that discoveries relative to the British
Celt of Julius Caesar's time, or to the Romanised Briton of
Claudius or Nero, which have hitherto seemed to the
antiquary to illuminate the primeval dawn, bear somewhat
less relation to the period to which the Dunmyat and
Blair-Drummond Moss harpoons belong, than the American
aborigines of the fifteenth century do to primeval genera-
tions of the New World. The very question raised anew by
such disclosures as the British drift, ossiferous caves, grave-
mounds, and chance deposits reveal, is whether the ancient
Celt, on whom Roman and Saxon intruded, was not himself
a very recent intruder on older allophylian occupants V- If
he was not, we are left to imagine for his race an antiquity
and a history, compared with which the dreams of
Merlin and the fables of Geoffrey of Monmouth are credible
things. ^^ ''■■■•■■•■■' • --''■'--' ' ^--

With the advent of man antedated in geological eras, the
Roman period becomes, in truth, a part of very modern
history ; and the vast ages computed to have intei^ened
between the two periods baffle the fancy in its efforts to
comprehend the links by which they are connected. But
crude as are the ai'ts of tliat primeval age, it will be seen that
they compare favourably with those of uncultured man at
any later period. Recent explorations, and espccitdly those
of the Dordogne caves of Central France, disclose carvings
in bone, and engravings on ivory and slate, hereafter referred
to, revealing an imitative skill, and powers of observation in
the delineation of characteristic details of form and action,
such as have rarely, if ever, been equalled in tJie art of modern
uncultured races. If by the aid of those si ngularly interesting
disclosures, we do indeed recover traces of tlio l^'liut-Folk"^
bdonging to an era estimated by some scientific chronologists

' This qtiOHtion w«b first hronght forward l>y tlio nuthor in an •' Inquiry into
^ tho Evidciu.e of the <^xi8teMoo of Primitive lliict'8 in Hcotland prior to the Cwltw."
-BrUitih ADsociathn Report, 1850.
VOL. I. ,3

MAN PRIMEVAL.

[chap.

as antedating our own by hundreds of thousands of years, it
is of no Flight importance to perceive that the internal which
has wrought such revolutions on the earth as are recorded in
the mammaliferous drift, show man the same reasoning, tenta-
tive, and inventive mechanician, as clearly distinguished then
from the highest orders of contemporary life of the Elephan-
tine or cave periods, as he is now from the most intelligent of
the brute creation. In truth, so far from arriving by such
disclosures any nearer an anthropoid link between man and
the brute, the oldest art- traces of the palajotechnic men of
Central France not only surpass those of many savage races,
but they indicate an intellectual aptitude in no degree inferior
to the average Frenchman of the nineteenth century.

Much of the reasoning relative to the characteristics
which archaeological discoveries assign to man in his
primeval stage originates in an illogical association of the
concomitants of modern intellectual and social progress
with the indispensable requisites implied in man's primary
condition as a rational being. It is not necessary for the
confirmation of a primeval stone or flint period, that we
degrade man from that majestic genesis of our race, when
he heard the voice of the Lord God amongst the trees of
Paradise and was not afraid. Still less is it requisite that wo
make of him that " extinct species of anthropoid animal "
hastily invented by over-sensitive Mosaic geologists to meet
the problematic case of pleistocene products of art. In that
primeval transition of the ethnologist in which geology draws
to a close, and archseology has its beginning, amid all the
rudeness of palseolithic art, we may still recognise tho
rationiil lord of creation, the being endowed, not with
physical but moral supremacy ; in whom infeiligence aiul
accumulated experience were to prove more than a match f<jr
all the brute force of those gigantic mammalia so familiar to
us now in fossil disclosures of the drift gravels and cave-
earth. Even if no more is claimed for primeval man than a
condition akin to that of many modern uncivilised races,

"•]

JIIS INTELLECTUAL CONDITION.

"is

[ years, it
,:al which
icorded in
ng, tenta-
.shed then
Elephan-
eliigent of
g by such
L man and
ic men of
iTage races,
ree inferior

ury.

racteristics
m in his
bion of the
il progress
I's primary
ary for the
id, that we
race, when
le trees of
lite that wo
d animal"
|sts to meet
In that
logy drawi?
id all the
(gnise th(^,
not with
•ence aad
match for
Ifamiliar to
and cave-
lan than a
lised races,

we can still discern the new and higher order of beings for
which all others were to make way.

But if our modern technological standards are to be the

only received tests of intellectual nobility, " his fair large

front and eye sublime," with all the suggestive picturings

of Milton's primeval man, are vain. His arts, though ample

enough for all his wants, if tested by such standards, declare

bim no better than "the ignoble creature that arrow heads

and flint knives would indicate." He needed no weapons

for war or the chase ; implements of husbandry were scarcely

less superfluous, amid a profusion ampler than the luxuriant

plenty of the islands of the Southern Ocean. The needle

rand the loom were as foreign to his requirements as the

Iprinting-press or the electric telegraph. What use had he for

|the potter's wheel, or the sculptor's chisel, or the mason's

tools '? And if his simple wants did suggest the need of

some cutting implement, the flint knife, or

"Such other gardening tools as ait, yet rude,
Guiltless of lire, had formed,"

armonise with the simpli ity of that primeval life, and i^s
easy toils, far more naturally thnn the most artistic Sheffield
cutlery couid do, with all its requisite preliminary processes
f mining, smelting, forging, grinding, and hafting the
eedless tool.

The idea, which associates man's intellectual elevation
with the accompaniments of mechanical skill, as though
they stood somehow in the relation of cause and effect, and
with the intellectual as the offspring, instead of the parent,
of the mechanical element, ic the product of modern
tliough^.. The very element which begets the unintellectual
^ndJtion of the savage is that his whole energies are
pended, aiid all his thoughts are absorbed, in providing
ily food and clothing, and the requisite tools by which

Jbose are to be secured ; or where, as in the luxuriant islands
f Polynesia, nature seems to provide all things to his hand,

niS INTELLECTUAL CONDITION.

[chap.

his degraded moral nature unparadises the Eden of the
bread-fruit tree.

A primeval " Stone period " appears to underlie the most
remote traces of European civilisation ; and not only to
carry back the evidence of man's presence to times greatly
more remote than any hitherto conceived of, but to confirm
the idea that his earliest condition was one not only devoid
of metallurgy, but characterised by mechanical arts of the
very aimplest kind. But it does not necessarily foUow that
he was in a condition of intellectual dormancy. The degrad-
ation of his moral nature, and not the absence of the arts
which we associate with modern luxury and enterprise,
made him a savage. The Arab sheikh, wandering with his
flocks over the desert, is not greatly in advance of the Indian
of the American forests, either in mechanical skill or artistic
refinement ; yet the Idumean Job was just such a pastoral
Arab, but, nevertheless, a philosopher and a poet, far above
any who dwelt amid the wondrous developments of mechani-
cal and artistic progress in the cities of the Tigris or the
Euphrates. It is not to be inferred, however, that the
whole history of the human race is afiirmed by the archaeo-
logist to disclose a regular succession of periods — Stone,
Bronze, and Iron, or however otherwise designated, — akiu
to the organic disclosures of geology ; or that where their
traces are found they necessarily imply such an order in
their succession. The only true analogy between the geolo-
gist and the archaeologist is, that both find their evidence
imbedded in the earth's superficial crust, and deduce the
chronicles of an otherwise obliterated past by legitimate
induction therefrom. The radical difference between the
palaeontologist and the ethnologist lies in this, that the one
aims at recovering the history of unintelligent divisions of
extinct life ; the other investigates all that pertains to a
still existing, intelligent being, capable of advancing from
his own past condition, or returning to it, under the most
diverse external circumstances.

[chap.
en of the

e the most
Dt only to
ties greatly
to confirm
inly devoid
arts of the
foUow that
Che degrad-
of the arts
enterprise,
ng with his
f the Indian
11 or artistic
h a pastoral
5t, far above
I of mechani-
ligris or the
er, that the
the archseo-
ods — Stone,
lated, — akin
where their
an order in
n the gcolo-
3ir evidence
deduce the
Y legitimate
)etween the
liat the one
divisions of
irtains to a
jicing from
er the most

II.]

INSTINCT.

Amid that strangely diversified series of organic beings
which pertains to the studies of the geologist, there appears
at length one, '* the beauty of the world, the paragon of
animals;"^ a being capable of high moral and intellectual
elevation, fertile in design, and with a capacity for trans-
mitting experience, and working out comprehensive plans
by the combined labours of many successive generations.
In all this there is no analogy to any of the inferior orders
of beinor. The works of the ant and the beaver, the coral
zoophyte and the bee, display singular ingenuity and powers
of combination ; and each feathered songster builds its nest
with wondrous forethought, in nature's appointed season
But the instincts of the inferior orders of creation are in
vain compared with the devices of man, even in his savage
state. Their most ingenious works cost them no intellectual
effort to acquire the craft, and experience adds no improve-
ments in all the continuous labours of the wonderful
mechanicians. The beaver constructs a dam more perfect
than the best achievements of human ingenuity in the
formation of breakwaters, and builds fov itself a hut which
the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
justly contrasts in architectural skill with the ruder dwell-
ing of tlie Asiatic Tartar. The bee, in forming its cell,
solves a mathematical problem which has tasked the labours
of acutcst analysts. But each ingenious artificer is practis-
in2j a craft which no master taught, and to which it has
nothing to add. The wondrous, instincti\ e, living machine
creates for itself the highest pleasure it is capable of in
working out the art with which it is endowed ; and accora*
plishes it with infallible accuracy, as all its untaught
predecessors did, and as, without teaching, each new-born
successor will do. To such architects and artists history
does not pertain, for their arts knew no primeval condition
of imperfection, and witness no progress. Of their works,
as of their organic structure, one example is a sufficient

^ Hamlet, Act ii. bc. 2,

; I

A CCUMULA TED KNO WLEDGE.

[chap.

I i

t i

type of the whole. The palaeontologist's materials have
been designated by one popular geologist, " the Medals of
Creation;" and the term, though borrowed from the anti-
quary, has a significance which peculiarly marks the contrast
now referred to between geology and archseology. Like
medals struck in the same die, the multitude of examples
of an extinct species, each exquisitely modelled coral, and
every cast of a symmetrical sigillaria, repeat the same typical
characteristics ; and the poet's fancy may be accepted as
literally true, in relation to the most ingenious arts which
engage the study of the naturalist : —

" All the winged habitants of paradise,

Whose songs once mingled with the songs of angels,

Wove their first nests as curiously and well

As the wood minstrel in our evil day

After the labour of six thousand years." ^

But with the relics of human art, even in its most primitive
stage, it is otherwise. Each example possesses an indivi-
duality of its own, for it is the product of an intelligent
will, capable of development, and profiting by experience.

Accumulated knowledge is the grand characteristic of
man. Every age bequeaths some results of its experience ;
and this constitutes the vantage ground of succeeding
generations. The deterioration which follows in the wake
of every impediment to such transmission and accumulation
of knowledge no less essentially distinguishes man from the
ingenious spinners, weavers, and builders, who require no
lesson from the past, and bequeath no experience to the
future. Man alone can be conceived of as an intelligent
mechanician, starting with the first rudiments of art,
devising tools, initiating knowledge, and accumulating
experience. Whatever, therefore, tends to disclose glimpses
of such a primitive condition, and of his earliest acquisitions
in mechanical arts and metallurgic knowledge, helps to a
just conception of primeval man. Let us then glance at

^ Montgomery, Pelican Island.

^B^^

\ -\'\

II.]

PRIMEVAL BRITAIN.

rials have
Medals of
I the anti-
lie contrast
)gy. Like
f examples
coral, and
me typical
ccepted as
arts which

t primitive
an indivi-
intelligent

perience.
teristic of

Ixperience ;

[succeeding

the evidence we possess of such an initial stage of being.
And first in seeming chronological order are those traces of
human arts in the drift, or in ossiferous caves among the
bones of strange orders of beings hitherto supposed to have
long preceded the existence of man. In the ancient
alluvial deposits — most modern among the strata of the
geologist, — lie abundant traces of extinct animal life, be-
longing to that recent transitional era of the globe in which
man first appears. In nearly all respects they present a
contrast to everything wo are familiar with in the history
of our earth as the theatre of human action. In a zoologi-
cal point of view they include man and the existing races
of animals, as well as extinct races which appear to have
been contemporaneous with indigenous species. To the
archaeologist they are rich in records of that primeval
transition in which the beginnings of history lie. How
early in that closing geological epoch man appeared, or how
late into that archaeological era the extinct fossil mammals
survived, are the two independent propositions which the
sister sciences have to establish and reconcile.

The insular character of Great Britain renders it a pecu-
liarly interesting epitome of archaeological study, a microcosm
complete in itself, and little less ample in the variety of its
records than the great continent, divorced from it by the
ocean; yet the question, as we have seen, is reopened*
Was it already insular when its earliest nomad trod its
unhistoric soil? The Caledonian allophylian, as we now
know, pursued the gigantic w^hale in an estuary which swept
along the base of the far-inland Ochils ; and guided his tiny
canoe, above an ocean bed, which had to be upheaved into
the sunshine of many centuries before it could become the
arena of deeds that live associated on the historic page with
the names of Agricola, Edward, Wallace and Bruce, of
Montrose, Cromwell, and Mar. Its history dawns in an era
of geological mutation ; yet not more so than is now at
work in other and neighbouring historic lands. It is a type

PRIMEVAL BRITAIN:

[chap.

of the changes which were gradually transformiDg that
strange post-tertiary naicrocosm into the familiar historic
Britain of this nineteenth century.

From an examination of the detritus and included fossils,
and the disclosures of peat-mosses, we learn that, when
the British Isles were in possession of their first colonists,
the country must have been almost entirely covered with
forests, and overrun by animals long since extinct. In the
deposits of marl that underlie the accumulated peat-bogs
of Scotland and Ireland occur abundant remains of the
fossil elk, an animal far exceeding in magnitude any existing
species of deer. Its bones have been found associated with
skeletons of the mammoth and other proboscidians, and
with numerous teeth, jaws, and detached bones of the
extinct rhinoceros, hippopotamus, hyaena, fossil ox, etc. ; yet
no doubt is now entertained that the elk was contempora-
neous with man in the British Isles. Stone hatchets, flint
arrow-heads, and fragments of pottery have been recovered
along side of its skeleton, under circumstances that satisfy
geologists, as well as archaeologists, of their contemporaneous
deposition ; its bones have been found with the tool marks
of the flint chisel and saw ; and evidence of various kinds
seems to exhibit this gigantic deer as an object of the chase,
and a source of primitive food, clothing, and tools.

Professor Jamieson and Dr. Mantell note the discovery,
in the county of Cork, of a human body exhumed from a
marshy soil, beneath a peat-bog eleven feet thick. The soft
parts were converted into adipocere, and the body, thus pre-
served, was enveloped in a deer-skin of such large dimen-
sions, as to lead them to the opinion that it belonged to the
extinct elk. In 1863, Professor Beete Jukes exhibited to
the geological section of the British Association the left femur,
with a portion of one of the tines of an antler, recently dug
up in the vicinity of Edgeworthstown, lying in marl, under
forty feet of bog. A transverse cut on the lower end of the
femur corresponded with another on the antler, by which

[chap.

rming that
iar historic

ided fossils,
that, when
t colonists,
>vered with
ct. In the
I peat-bogs
ins of the
iny existing
iciated with
idians, and
nes of the
IX, etc. ; yet
!ontempora-
tchets, flint
pi recovered
that satisfy
poraneous
tool marks
Irious kinds
f the chase,
lis. -
discovery,
ed from a
The soft
, thus pre-
rge dimen-
iged to the
hibited to
left femur,
|cently dug
arl, under
end of the
by which

"•]

ITS FOSSIL FAUNA.

they appeared to have been adapted for junction. After
carefully examining this bone, I entertain no doubt of its
having been cut by a sharp tool, and purposely prepared
as the haft of the horn blade which lay beside it. When
the two were fastened together, they must have made a
formidable weapon. Other bones of this fossil deer have
been observed to bear marks of artificial cutting; but
one of the most interesting evidences of their use was pro-
duced at a meeting of the Archaeological Institute, June 3,
1864, when the Earl of Dunraven exhibited an imperfect
Irish lyre, found in the moat of Desmond Castle, Adare, the
material of which was pronounced by Professor Owen to be
bone of the Irish elk. The improbability of the recovery of
a musical instrument coeval with the Irish elk has been
greatly lessened by more recent discoveries. Among the
carved bone and graven ivory relics of the Troglodytes of
the Dordogne valley was a reindeer bone pierced at one
end by an oblique hole, reaching to the medullary canal.
By blowing upon this, as on a hollow key, a shrill sound is
produced ; and to this instrument accordingly M. Paul
Broca applies the name of the rallying whistle. But a
later discovery furnishes more definite evidence of ancient
musical art. In 1871 M. E. Piette explored the cavern of
Gourdan (Haute-Garonne), and there in a layer of charcoal
and cinders, intermingled with flint implements, he found
what he describes as a neolithic flute. It also is formed of
bone, but pierced with holes at the side : an undoubted
example of the art of one of Jubal's primitive disciples.

The evidence supplied by the ossiferous caves of England,
as of the continents of Europe and America, is full of
interest from corresponding revelations. Kirkdale Cave,
Yorkshire, has acquired a special celebrity from the de-
scription and illustration of its contents, given by Dr.
Buckland in his Eeliquiw Diluviance, in connection with a
diluvial theory subsequently abandoned ; and Kent's Hole,
Devonshire, one of the richest depositories of British fossil

4«

OSSIFEiWUS CAVES.

[chap

carnivora, yielded no less remarkable traces of primitive
mechanical arts. Intermingled with remains of the rhino-
ceros, cave-hyaena, great cave-tiger, cave-bear, and other
extinct mammalia in unusual abundance, lay not only
worked flints and the like traces of human art, but also
numerous implements wrought from their bones ; and
subsequent investigations of ossiferous caves in various
localities, by competent scientific explorers, guided by the
accumulated knowledge and experience of upwards of thirty
years, have given precision to the ideas already entertained
of the coexistence of man with the extinct fauna of the
caves.

In those instances, as well as in similar disclosures in
Belgium and Southern France, where the remains of man
himself, as well as his handiwork, have been found associated
with the fossil mammalia, the facts were for a time dis-
credited, or explained away, as irreconcilable with long-
accepted conclusions relative to the age and early condition
of man. But in 1858 another ossiferous limestone cave was
accidentally discovered at Brixham, in the vicinity of the
famous Kent's Hole, and negotiations were soon after entered
into with a view to its thorough exploration for purposes of
science. Unlike Kent's Hole Cavern, after a succession of
prolonged alternations of occupation by the carnivora of a
late quaternary epoch ; of submergence by local floods, with
the deposition of their detrital accumulations in beds of vary-
ing character and contents ; and the formation over all, at
favourable points, of a flooring of carbonate of lime upwards
of a foot thick : the falling in of a portion of the roof
closed up the entrance of Brixham Cave, except to the
smaller rodents and burrow ing animals. Its history as the
resort of the older mammalia, and of man himself, was thus
abruptly closed, and it thenceforth remained intact, until its
recent exploration. Thus, though in its indications of the
presence of man, its evidence is meagre when compared with
Kent's Hole, it is wholly free from any confusing elements

[chap

primitive
:he rhino-
mcl other
not only
, but also
nes ; and
a various
id by the
3 of thirty
ntertained
na of the

jlosures in
ins of man
associated
time dis-
with. long-
T condition

"•]

BRIXHAM CA VE.

such as in that remarkable cavern manifestly pertain to
Celtic, Roman, and even Saxon times. ^^^•

Brixham Cave appears to have long been the resort of
hyenas, who dragged their prey into its main passages, and
left tiiere the gnawed bones of the rhinoceros, the fossil horse
and ox, the reindeer, roebuck, great red deer, etc. It included
unmistakable traces of the mammoth, or other huge probo-
scidian, was visited by the cave-tiger {Felis spelcea), and
finally became a favourite haunt of the great cave-bear
{Ursus speI(Bus), as well as of two other species of bears, one
of which seems to correspond to the Ursus arctos, or brown
bear, and another has been supposed to be identical with
the Ursus ferox, or grizzly bear. From time to time it was
also visited, and some of its remote recesses explored by
man. Thirty-six flints in all have been recovered in the
different strata of the cave beds. A few of those are
simply un worked flints ; but twenty-three of them betray
traces of human workmanship and use ; and include knives
and oval and lanceolate blades, closely analogous to imple-
ments found in the Cavern of Aurignac, in the Pyrenees,
and in that of Le Moustier, in the Dordogne. Others,
though mere flint-flakes, bear decided marks of use as
scraping tools. Another implement is a round pebble of
siliceous sandstone, weighing 1 lb. 3 oz., which must have
been brought from a distance, and shows on the side oppo-
site to that by which it is most readily grasped by the hand
distinct evidence of its use as a hammer stone. One, and
only one, object wrought from animal substance, a small
cylindrical pin, or rod of ivory, accompani^xi the more
durable flints. Some of those indications of the presence of
man were found in the bottom, or shingle-bed, overlaid by
undisturbed cave-earth rich in mammalian remains ; and
the entire succession of beds was overlaid by a layer of
stalagmite in which bones of the mammoth, rhinoceros, and
other fossil mammals occurred. •

It does not appear that Brixham Cave had at any time

BRIXHAM CA VE.

[chap.

i I

! i:

been inhabited by man. It has no accumulation of spHt
bones or broken tools, nor any traces of the hearth, as in
Kent's Hole, or in the Caves ol Dordogne and the Pyrenees.
But the men of the mammoth period had resorted thither
occasionally, — for hiding, it may be, or in pursuit of their
prey ; and thus dropped the worked flints which now reveal
the evidence of their presence. There is no trace of human
bones, or any indication that man fell a prey to the power-
ful wild animals which chiefly haunted the cave. But he
explored its recesses, in one case at least, to a distance of
seventy-four feet from the entrance ; and unless we suppose
him to have groped his way thither, when in search of a
more effectual hiding-place from some human foe, it seems
no unfair surmise that he carried with him the illuminating
torch. The extinguished hearths of the French Caves, as at
Aurignac and the Vezere, leave no room to question man's
early acquaintance with fire. Nor does it seem to me pro-
bable that, under the rigorous climate to which he was
exposed in that remote post-glacial period, he could fail, as
man, to employ the art of fire-making to alleviate his
necessities, even as is now done under corresponding
exigencies by the V.rctic Esquimaux. Nevertheless it is to
be noted that the flint implements found in Brixham Cave
are of the rudest character ; and like other specimens of the
worked-flints of the men of the Drift or Cave periods, indi-
cate a very slight development of constructive skill : unless,
as hereafter shown from analogous American examples,
there may be reason to regard many of them as merely in
the first stage of manufacture into weapons or tools.

Kent's Cavern yielded a greatly more varied illustration
of primitive arts, such as barbed harpoon heads, bodkins,
awls, and needles of bone. Like others found in the French
Caves, they suggest comparison with the ingenious arts of
the Esquimaux : and may also justify the inference that in
milder regions, and under other favouring circumstances,
contemporary man, then as now, manifested a higher in-

ii'

II.]

FOOD.

m of split
irth, as in
3 Pyrenees,
jed thither
lit of their
now reveal
of human
the power-
5. But he
iistance of
ive suppose
learch of a
le, it seems
luminating
/aves, as at
tion man's
to me pro-
:ih he was
Lild fail, as
leviate his
esponding
ess it is to
ham Cave
lens of the
iods, indi-
11 : unless,
examples,
merely in
)ls.

Uustration
bodkins,
he French
us arts of
ce that in
mstances,
ligher in-

tellectual vigour when free from the exhausting strain
involved in the battle for life, either of the modern hyper-
borean, or of the post-glacial artificer of the cave period.

At an epoch which, though still prehistoric, is modern
when compared with the latest traces of post-glacial or cave
periods, the worked flints and implements of bone, found in
many European primitive deposits, in caverns, chambered
cairns, barrows, and among the chance disclosures of the
agriculturist, continue to exhibit the most infantile stage
of rudimentary art. Fragments of sun-baked urns, and
rounded slabs of slate of a plate-like form, are associated
with indications of rude culinary practices, illustrative of
the habits and tastes of savage man. Broken pottery,
calcined bones, charcoal ashes, and other traces of cooking
operations, have been noted under similar circumstances,
alike in England and on the continent of Europe ; showing
where the hearth of the AUophylian had stood. Along with
those, in Kent's cavern especially, the flints lay dispersed
in all conditions, from the rounded mass as it came out of
the chalk, through various stages of progress, on to finished
arrrow-heads and hatchets ; while small flint-chips, and
partially used flint-blocks, thickly scattered through the
soil, served to indicate that the British troglodyte had there
his workshop, as well as his kitchen, and wrought the raw
material of that primitive stone-period into the requisite
tools and weapons of the chase. Nor were indications
wanting of the specific food of man in the remote era thus
recalled for us. Besides accumulated bones, shells of the
mussel, limpet, and oyster, lay heaped together near the
mouth of the cave, along with a palate of the scarus : indi-
cating that the aborigines found their precarious subsistence
from the products of the chase and the spoils of the
neighbouring sea.

The s{ime fact is further illustrated by similar relics of a
subterranean stone dwelling at Saverock, near Kirkwall, in
Orkney, situated, like the natural caverns of Torbay, close

SCOTTISH REINDEER.

[chap.

iii

to the seashore. Accumulated remains of charcoal and
peat ashes lay intermingled with bones of the small northern
sheep, the horse, ox, deer, and whale, and also with some
rude implements illustrative of primitive Orcadian arts ;
while a Lyer of shells of the oyster, escallop, and periwinkle,
the common whelk, the purpura, and the limpet, covered
the floor and the adjacent ground, in some places half a
foot deep.

In the interval since I first drew attention to such traces
of Scotland's prehistoric centuries, this class of remains has
excited special interest. Ancient shell-mounds, analogous
to the kjokkenmoddingr of Denmark, discovered on the
coasts of Elgin and Inverness-shire, have yielded similar
results; and the explorations of other mounds, especially
that of Keiss, in Caithness, have proved beyond question
that the natives of North Britain were familiar at a compara-
tive late period with the Reindeer. Specimens of its horns
have been found not only associated with flint imple-
ments, cups and personal ornaments of stone and shale, the
miscellaneous heaps of fish-bones, littoral shells, and other
debris of a kitchen-midden ; but with the masonry of the
Scottish Broch, or primitive round tower. Some of the
reindeer horns thus found show marks of sawing and
cutting, apparently with metal tools. How old they arc
may not be strictly determinable ; but they serve to place
the Scottish Reindeer Period in a very modern era, compared
with that assigned to the *' Reindeer Period " of France ;
and remove all grounds for rejecting the statement of
Torfneus that, so recently as tne twelfth century, the Jarls
of Orkney were wont to cross the Pentland Firth, to chase
the roe and the reindeer in the wilds of Caithness.

But recent discoveries replete with interest and value,
which thus extend the resources of the Euiopean archteologist
and anthropologist, are only known to me through the
ordinary channels of information ; and I turn therefore to
another field of study and research, rendered valuable by

iiiii'

■**»».

[chap.

rcoal and
iiortliern
dth some
ian arts ;
iriwinkle,
, covered
es half a

ich traces
naius lias
malogous
d on the
d similar
especially
question
CO 111 para-
its horns
It imple-
jhale, the
ind other
y of the
of the
ng and
they arc
to place
ompared
France ;
ment of
ic Jarls
chase

value,
3ologiat
igh the
efore to
able by

I"]

AMERICAN DRIFT,

.,.&

the contrast which it presents in all ways to that of historic
Europe, with its confusing elements perte.lning to times
when the ambition of .Rome so overrode all nationalities,
and obliterated the memories of history, that even now it
is hard to persuade some men there was a European world
before that of the Csesars.

I The city of Toronto, on the northern shore of Lake
Ontario, is built on the drift clays which have accumulated
above the rocks of the Lower Silurian formation to ai
average depth of upwards of thirty feet, and in some places
to more than seventy feet. The same overlying beds of
boulder clay and drift gravel extend Avith monotonous
uniformity eastward from Lake Huron to the Ottawa ; and
throughout the lower valley of the St. Lav/rence to Labrador.
The traces of ancient life recovered from those Canadian
glacial depocics, with very few exceptions, correspond to
living species, — ineJudiiig Radiata. Mollusca, Articulata, and
Vertebrata, now found in other latitudes. As might be
anticipated, the older glacial beds indicate a more Arctic
condition of life ; and thus accord with other evidence in
pointicg to a gradual amelioration of climate in Northern
America. But it is only in the boulder clay of the lower
St. Lawrence that the palaeontologist finds the fossils by
means of which such conclusions are formed ; and alongside
of which it would be reasonable to anticipate tra(;es of the
presence of man. The construction of an esplanade along
the margin of tlio Bay of Toronto, during recent years,
exposed a cutting of upwards of two miles in length, and
laid bare the virgin soil of the most popidous site now
devoted to the civilising processes of European colonisation
in Upper Canada. The same drift clay and gravel ha\ o
been exposed in numerous other excavations, Init hitherto
without disclosures of interest to the archooologiat,, \\\ two
cases only, so far as 1 have been able to ascertain, did any
trace of prior human prescnco appear. At the depth of
nearly two feet from the surface, in front of tlie Parliament

<l II

,i 1 ,

II!

iliilljii

i
I

i I

I i

ittltlll

III

RELICS OF ANCIENT LIFE.

[chap.

buildings, the bones and horn of a deer lay amid an
accumulation of charcoal and wood ashes, and with them a
rude stone chisel or hatchet. More recently, to the west of
the same spot, at a depth of eight or nine feet, one of tlie
cervical vertebrae of the Wapiti {Gervus Canadensis), was
found along with a rude stone hatchet and a lance-head
of flint. But the travelled fossils of the Toronto drift are
of a very different era, and belong to the Hudson river
group of the Lower Silurian, like the rocks on which it is
superimposed. With varying organic remains imbedded
in its clay and gravel, the same formation overlies the true
fossiliferous rocks of Western Canada ; and seems to make
of its long stiTotch of wooded levels and gentle undulations
a country fitted to slumber through untold centuries under
the shadow of its forests, a type of the earth of primeval
man, until the new-born mechanical science of Europe
provided for it the railway and the locomotive, and made
its vast chain of rivers and lakes a highway for the steam-
boat. With such novel facilities added to the indomitable
energy of the intruding occupants, the whole face of the
continent is in rapid process of transformation ; and it is
well, ere the change is completed, that some note be made
of every decipherable index of the characteristics of a past
thus destined to speedy obliteration.

From the uncleared wilds that still occupy the shores of
Lake Superior, south-eastward through the great lakes and
rivers to the valley of the St. Lawrence, those drift deposits
reveal to the geologist marvellous changes that Imvo
transpired in this extensive area of the North Americnu
continent. Along the low shores stretching away from tho
rapids of Sault Ste. Mario to Lake Superior, huge granitic
boulders lie strewed like the wreck of some Titanic Bal)el ;
raised beaches at various levels on the shores of Lakes
Huron, Erie, and Ontario, sliow traces of other rcvolutionn ;
and wherever the waves of tho St. Lawrence reopen the
deposits along the lower portion of tho valley, tho bottoms

[chap.

y amid an
^ith them a

the west of
;, one of tlie
densis), was

lance-head
ito drift are
udson river

which it is
s imbedded
iies the true
ms to make
undulations
turies under
of primeval

of Europe
B, and made
: the steam-
1 indomitable

face of the
and it is
)te be made
OS of a past

lie shores of

lit lakes and

:ift deposits

that have
h American
^ly from the
igc granitic
auic Bal)el ;
of Lakes
[evolutions ;

reopen the
Iho bottoms

"•]

HEirCS OF ANCIENT LIFE,

of an ancient ocean are revealed, frequently with littoral or

deep-sea shells imbedded at different levels in the stratified

drift. But remote as is the antiquity, according to all

human chronology, to which the fauna of these beds of

marine detritus belong, the palseontologist detects among

their post- tertiary fossils the phoca, balsenrs of more than

one species, fishes, articulata, and the shells of many

mollusca still inhabiting the neighbouring ocean along the

northern Atlantic coasts. The period, therefore, whicli

embraces those relics of ancient life is the same to which

man belongs ; and they mark for it one of the phases of that

last transitional era during which the continent Avas being

prepared for his entrance upon it. Since the natica, fusus,

turritelJa, and other marme animals of the post-pleiocenc

period, were the living occupants of the St. Lawrence valley,

vast changes h;.,/e been wrought on the physical geography

of the continent. The relative levels of the sea and land

liave altered, so as to elevate old aca-margius to the slopes

h jOf lofty hills, and leave many hundred miles inland escarp-

™ents wrought by the waves of that ancient sea. The

"conditions of climate have undergone no less important

'chaTiges. developing in a corresponding degree the new

character and conditions of life pertaining to this bed of an

lextiuct ocean : C' /ered with successive de2)osits of marine

*deti:iiis, and then elevated into the region of sun and rain,

be > ' othed with the umbrageous forest, and to become

10 dwe- 'ng-place through another dimly-measured period

^f tlie vva^dti, the beaver, and the bison ; and with them, of

fhc Iroquois, the Huron, and the Chippewa : all alike the

fauna of conditions of life belonging to a transitional period

)f the New World preparatory to our own.

Marvellous lus are those cosmical revolutions belonging to
|he period of emergence of the northern zone of America
>m the great Arctic Ocean, wlien we look on each
)nipk'ted whole the process appears to have been character-
id by no almormal violence. Sluwl^ tlirougli

V(M 1 „

long

l^l^^B

Wu Ml

1% He

i 1

■H t

SSi

l^^B ■ ^ '

EXTINCT FAUNA. '

[chap.

centuries the ocean shallowed. The deep-sea organisms
of a former generation were overlaid by the littoral shells of
a newer marine life, and then the tidal waves retreated
from the emerging sea-beach ; until now we seek far dov/n
in the gulf of the St. Lawrence and on the coast of Labrador
for the living descendants of species gathered from the post-
pleiocene drift. Thus the closing epoch of geology in the
New World, as in the Old, is brought into contact with thut
in which its archaeology begins ; and we look upon the
North American continent as at length prepared for the
presence of man.

Such records are here noted among the disclosures of the
great valley of the St. Lawrence, which drains well-nigh hiilf
a continent ; fo^* it is in the valleys by which the present
drainage of historic areas takes place, that not only such
deposits of recent shells and fossil relics of existing fauna
occur, but also that the most extensive remains of the
extinct mammalia are disclosed, in association with objects
serving to link them with those of modern eras. In for-
mations of this character have been found, in the lower valley
of the Mississippi, the Elephas 'primigenius, the Mastodon
Ohioticus, the Megalonyx, Megalodon, Ereptodon, and the
Equus curvidens, or extinct American horse : with many
other traces of an unfamiliar fauna, and also a flora, con-
temporaneous with those gigantic mammifers, but which also
include both marine and terrestrial representatives of exist-
ing species. Corresponding in its great geographical out-
lines very nearly to its present condition, the American
continent must have presented in nearly all other character-
istics a striking contrast to its modern aspect, clothcil
though it seems to us in primeval forests, and scarcely
modified by the presence of man. In the post-pleiocene
formations of South Carolina, exposed along the bed of the
Ashloy River, remains of the megatherium, megalodon, ami
other gigantic extinct mammals occur, not only associated
with existing species peculiar to the American continent; but

[chap,

organisms
al shells of
J retreated
k far dovm
if Labrador
[n the post-
[ogy in the
;t with that
c upon the
•ed for the

sures of the
ill-nigh half
the present
t only such
isting fauna
ains of the
with objects
as. In fol-
lower valley
le Mastodon
'on, and the
with many
[I flora, con-
it which also
ves of exist-
.phical out-
le American
T character-
!ct, clothed
,nd scarcely
ist-plciocene
le bed of the
[alodon, and
associated
Intinent; Imt

n.]

EXTINCT FA r"^^

also apparently with others, hitherto believed to have been
domesticated and introduced for the first time by modern
European colonists. But more interesting for our present
purpose, as possibly indicating the contemporaneous ex-
istence of some of those strange mammals with man, are
notices of remains of human art in the same formation.
Professor Holmes, in exhibiting a collection of fossils from
tlie post-pleiocene of South Carolina before the Academy of
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, remarked : " Dr. Klipstein,
who resides near Charleston, in digging a ditch for the
purpose of reclaiming a large swamp, discovered and sent
to me the tooth of a mastodon, with the request that I should
go down and visit the place, as there were indications of the
bones and teeth of the animal still remaining in the sands
which underlie tlie peat-bed. Accordingly, with a small
party of gentlemen, w^e visited the doctor, and succeeded
not only in obtaining several other teeth and bones of this
tmimal, but nearly one entire tusk, and immediately along-
side of the tusk discovered the fragment of pottery which I
hold in my hand, and which is similar to that manufactured
at the present time by the American Indians."^ It would
not be wise to found hasty theories on such strange juxta-
position of relics, possibly of very widely separated periods.
Tiie Ashley River has channeled for itself a course through
the eocene and post-pleiocene formations of South Carolina,
and where these are exposed on its shores the fossils arc
washed from their beds, and become mingled with the
remains of recent indigenous and domestic animals, and
objects of human art. But the discovery of Dr. Klipstein
was made in excavating an undisturbed and, geologically
speaking, a comparatively recent formation. The tusk of
the mastodon lay alongside of the fragment of pottery, in a
leposit of the peat and sands of the post-pleiocene beds,
[mmediately underneath lie marine deposits, rich with

> Procmtinga qf the Academy q/* Natural Sctencea, Philadelphia, July 1859,
}\f. 178, 180.

! I

! i

MAN AND THE MASTODON.

[chap.

varied groups of moUusca, corresponding to species now
living on the sea-coast of Carolina, but also including two
fossil species no longer to be met with there, though
common in the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indian
seas.

Here the pakeontology of the New World discloses to us
types of a fauna pertaining to its latest transitional period,
which serve to illustrate the marvellous contrast between
its commencement and its close. Until the discovery of
teeth of the megatherium in the post-pleiocene bed of the
Ashley River, remains of that extinct mammal had been
found only in the state of Georgia, in North America, while
the Mastodon Ohioticus and Elephas primigenius are
among the well-known fauna of the Canadian drift. Of
those, some North American localities have furnished
remains in remarkable profusion, but none more so than the
celebrated morass in Kentucky, known by its homely but
expressive name of the Big-bone Lick. Imbedded in the
blue clay of this ancio^^t. bog, entire skeletons, or detached
bones, of not less than one hundred mastodons and twenty
mammoths, have been found, besides remains of the
megalonyx and other extinct quadrupeds. A magnificent
skeleton of the Mastodon Ohioticus, now in the British
Museum, was discovered, with teeth and bones of many
others, near the banks of La Pomme de Terre, a tributary of
the Osage Eiver, Missouri ; and there once more we seem
to come upon contemporaneous traces of man. "The
bones," says Mantell, who examined them in the presence of
Mr. Albert Koch, their discoverer, "were imbedded in ci
brown sandy deposit full of vegetable matter, with recog-
nisable remains of the cypress, tropical cane, and swamp-
moss, stems of the palmetto, etc., and this was covered by
" beds of blue clay and gravel to a thickness of about 15 feet.
Mr. Koch states, and he personally assured me of the
correctness of the statement, that an Indian flint arrow-heml
was found beneath the leg-bones of this skeleton, and four

II.]

INDIAN TRADITIONS.

icloses to us
onal period,
ist between
liscovery of
bed of the
il had been
lerica, while
[genius are
1 drift. Of
c furnished
1 so than the
homely but
dded in the
or detached
and twenty
liins of the
magnificent
the British
es of many
tributary of
are we seem
nan. "The
presence of
)eddcd in a
with recog-
,nd swamp-
covered by
out 15 feet.
me of the
arrow-head
u, and four

similar weapons were imbedded in the same stratum
Some of the deductions of Mr. Koch were extravagant, and
tended to bring discredit on his statement. But there
appear to be no just grounds for doubting the main facts.
A full-sized view of the large arrow-head is given in the
Smithsonian Eeport of 1872. Another, but more dubious
account, preserved in the A'.neincan Journal of Science,
describes the discovery in Missouri of the bones of a
mammoth, with considerable portions of the skin, associated
with stone spear-heads, axes, and knives, under circumstances
which suggest the idea that it had been entangled in a bog,
and there stoned to death and partially consumed by fire.^
Such contiguity of the works of man with those extinct
mammals warns us at least to be on our guard against any
supercilious rejection of indications of his ancient presence
in the New World as well as in the Old. : i ^ ^ • U;'.
Whether or not the mammoth and mastodon had been
contemporary with man, their remains were objects of
BufHciently striking magnitude to awaken the curiosity even
of the unimj^rossible Indian ; and traditions were common
among the aborigines relative to their existence and destruc
tion. M. Fabri, a French officer, informed Buffon that they
ascribed those bones to an animal which they named the
Fere anx Bccufs. Among tae Shawnees, and other southern
tribes, the belief was current that the mastodon once
• occupied the continent along with a race of giants of
; corresponding proportions, and that both perished together
by the thunderbolts of the Great Spirit. Another Indian
tradition of Virginia told that these monstrous quadrupeds
had assembled together, and were destroying the herds of
;deer and bisons, with the other animals created by tlic
Great Spirit for the use of his red children, when he slew
them all ^v-ith his thunderbolts, excepting the big bull, who
defiantly presented his enormous forehead to the bolts, and

1 Mantell'a FomUs of the Britixh Mmeun), p. 473.

^ Ainmcan Juurn. of Science and Arti), vol. xxxvi. ]». 199, First Series.

GIANTS.

[chap.

shook them off as they fell ; until, being at length wounded,
he fled to the region of the great lakes, where he is to this
day.

The first notice in an English scientific journal of the
fossil mammals of the American drift furnishes such a
counterpart to the Shawnee traditions of extinct giants as
might teach a lesson to modern speculators in science ;
when it is borne in remembrance that the difiiculty now is
to reconcile with preconceived beliefs the discovery of works
of human art alongside of their remains. In 1712, certain
gigantic bones, which would now most probably be referred
to the mastodon, were found near Cluverack, in New
England. The fiimous Dr. Increase Mather soon after
communicated the discovery to the Koyal Society of
London ; and an abstract in the Philosophical Transactions
duly set forth his opinion of this supposed confirmation of
the existence of men of prodigious stature in the antedilu-
vian world, as proved by the bones and teeth, which he
judged to be human, " particularly a tooth, which was a very
large grinder, weighing four pounds and three-quarters,
with a thigh bone seventeen feet long."^ They were doubt-
less locked upon with no little satisfaction by Dr. Mather,
as a striking confirmation of the Mosaic record, that " there
were giants in those days." To have doubted the New
England philosopher's conclusions might have been even
more dangerous then than to believe them now. Possibly,
after the lapse of another century and a half, some of our
own confused minglings of religious questions with scientific
investigations will not seem less foolish than the antedilu-
vian giants of the New England divine.

In all that relates to the history of man in the New
World, we have ever to reserve ourselves for further truths.
There are languages of living tribes, of which we have
neither vocabulary nor grammar. There are nations of
whose physical aspect we scarcely know anything ; and

^ Philoaophical Tranaactiont, vol. xxiv. p. 85.

.4^. .

^sste.

:, in
soon

[chap.

wounded,
s is to this

lal of the
es such a
D giants as
a science ;
Ity now is
y of works
1 2, certain
be referred
New
after
Society of
'ansactions
irmation of
e antedilu-
, which he
was a very
e-quarters,
ere doubt-
r. Mather,
hat " there
the New
been even
Possibly,
>me of oiu'
scientific
antedilu-

the New

ler truths.

we have

lations of

ling; and

I..]

DRIFT DISCLOSURES.

^
,(*%?

areas where it is a moot point even now, whether the
ancient civilisation of central America may not be still
a living thing. The ossiferous caves of England have only
revealed their wonders during the present century, and the
works of art in the French drift lay concealed till our own
day. We cannot, therefore, even guess what America's
disclosures will be. Discoveries in its ossiferous caverns
have already pointed to the same conclusions as those of
Europe. A cabinet of the British Museum is filled with
fossil bones of mammalia, obtained by Dr. Lund and
M. Claussen from limestone caverns in the Brazils, closely
resembling the ossiferous caves of Europe. The relics were
imbedded in a reddish-coloured loam, covered over with a
thick stalagniitic flooring; and along with them lay
numerous bones of genera still inhabiting the continent,
with shells of the large huUmus, a common terrestrial
mollusc of South America. ,

No clear line of demarcation can be traced here between
the era of the extinct carnivora and edentata, and those of
existing species ; and there is therefore no greater cause of
wonder than in the analogous examples of Europe, to learn
that in the same detritus of those Brazilian caves Dr. Lund
found human skeletons, which he believed to be coeval with
some of the extinct mammalia. Nor have the first dis-
closures of works of art in the American drift still to be
made. 1 have in my possession an imperfect flint knife
(Fig. l), to all appearance as unquestionable a relic of
human art as the most symmetrical of those assigned to a
similar origin by the explorers of the French and English
drift-gravels. It was given to me by Mr. P. A. Scott, an in-
telligent Canadian, who found it at a depth of upwards
of fourteen feet, among the rolled gravel and gold-bearing
quartz of the Grinell Leads, in Kansas Territor}'^, while
[engaged in digging for gold. In an alluvial bottom, in the
Blue Range of the Rocky Mountains, distant several
[hundred feet from a small stream called Clear Creek, a shaft

p' IK!

> I . ' !

! lit

I; ill

ii : i
iliiliii

'III I

1 , nil

! hi

• II

1 1

' ti

I' I'

'" iiiiiiilii

^ IB.i

s«

DRIFT DISCLOSURES.

[chap.

was sunk, passing through four feet of rich black soil, anil
below this, through upwards of ten feet of gravel, reddish
clay, and rounded quartz. Here the flint implement was
found, and its unmistakably artificial origin so impressed
the finder, that he secured it, and carefully noted the depth
at which it lay.

It is difiicult at present to test such chance evidence
accurately. The discovery of the palseolithic implements
of Europe had been recorded upwards of half a century
before their true significance was recognised ; whereas the
American explorer is on the look-out for similar disclosures,
and evinces at times a feeling as thouojh the honour of his
country is imperilled if he fail. It will be set n, moreover,
from the narrative of a subsequent chapter, that the
abundance of flint and stone implements in the virgin soil

Fio. 1.— Flint Knifi-. Orinell Leads.

of the New World is almost marvellous. Tlie discovery,
therefore, of stray specimens in modern river-gravels, the
washings of gold-drift, or in any excavations liable to be
affected by surface admixtures, must be viewed with the
utmost caution. Several flint implements from the auri-
ferous gravel of California were produced at the Paris
Expositicii of 1855. According to the geological survey
of Illinois, for 1866, the bones of the mastodon and other
fossil mammals have been found in abed of "local drift"
near Alton, underlying the Loess ; and at the same depth
stone axes and flint spear- heads w^re obtained.*

* Geol, Hurvey qf lUinoia, by A. H. Woitlifii, vol. i. j». 38.

''"^

[chap.

soil, and
1, reddish
naent was
impressed
the depth

evidence
iplements
I century
ereas the
sclosures,
ur of his
moreover,

that the
drgin soil

II.]

DRIFT DISCLOSURES.

iscovery,
vels, the
»lo to be
with the
le auri-
le Paris
d survey
id other
il drift "
LC depth

But such disclosures of worked flints or polished imple-
ments of stone are cast into the shade by the reputed dis-
covery of human remains in the auriferous drift of California.
In 1857 Dr. C. F. Winslow produced a fragment of a
human skrU found eighteen feet beh w the surface, in the
"pay drift," at Table Mountain, in connection with the
bones of the mastodon and fossil elephant. A later dis-
closure brought to light a complete human skull, reported to
have been discovered in auriferous gravel, underlying five
successive lava formations. Professor Whitney, after
satisfying himself of the genuineness of the discovery, pro-
duced the skull at the Chicago meeting of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1869, to the
manifest delight of some who were prepared at once to
relegate American man to a remoter epoch than the Flint-
folk of the Abbeville and Amiens gravel drift. More
recently a highly polished plummet of syeaite, in the form of
a double cone perforated at one end, was produced before
the Chicago Academy of Sciences, as an implement found at
a depth of thirty feet, in the drift gravel of San Joaquin,
California, by some workmen engaged in digging a well. In
this case also Professor Whitney appears to have had no
hesitation in assigning it to the age of the foswil elephant
and mastodon. It does not seem to have been recognised
how much more probable it is that a highly finished stone
implement like the San Joaquin plummet should fall from
the surface, in the process of excavation, and so be perhaps
no older than the era of the Mexican conquest, than that
it is a choice specimen of post- pleiocene art.

Much of the evidence hitherto adduced for the antiquity
of the American man has a singularly modern aspect. The
human skulls are of the predominant Indian type of the
present day, though that need not surprise us. Dr. Usher
only notes this in the case of the " human fossils " from the
Ijiazil Caves, to add : " this consideration may spare science
the trouble of any further speculation on the modus through

nil

'f '

\'\ \\'\mv
ill

i II

111!

Hi iriiiiii
ii

,1 !l

'■I

ii!

ijlli

DRIFT DISCLOSURES.

[chap.

which the New World became peopled from the Old ; for
after carrying backwards the existence of a people monu-
mentally into the very night of time, when we find that
they have also preserved the same type back to a remote,
even to a geological, period, there can be no necessity for
going abroad to seek their origin."^ The question of this
fancied American type will come under review hereafter.
But on a par with this evidence are fragments of baskets
and clay vessels submitted to the New Orleans Academy of
Sciences in 1867, as contemporary with the elephant and
other fossil mammals, the bones of which were found in
digging the same salt-pits in which the pottery and basket-
work were met with ; or a fragment of cane-matting pre-
sented to the Smithsonian Institution in 1866 by Mr. J.
F. Cleu, along with portions of tusks and teeth of the fossil
elephant which lay above it, at a depth of thirteen feet in a
Louisiana salt mine. Matting, or basket-work, of split
cane is as common among the contents of southern
Indian graves as fragments of pottery ; and both may be
reasonably suspected to carry with them evidence incon-
sistent with any geological antiquity.

Mr. Charles C. Jones notes a discovery of a more
suggestive character, due also to the search for gold. In the
state of Georgia the river Chattahoochee flows through an
auriferous region of the Nacoochee valley. From time to
time the gold-diggers have made extensive cuttings through
the soil and underlying drift-gravel, down to the slate-rock
upon which it rests. During one of these excavations, at a
depth of some nine feet, intermingled with the gravel and
boulders of the drift, three large flint implements were
found, measuring between three and four inches in length,
and " in material, manner of construction, and appearance
so nearly resembling some of the rough so-called flint
hatchets belonging to the drift-type that they might very
readily be mistaken the one for the others."^ With those

->^4 'Sypti of Mankind, p. 361. - Antiquities of the Soulhem Indians, p. 293.

>iil,"-ttiii^>ii(lL

I..]

LARGE OVOID DISCS.

a more

■I

may not unfitly be classed a large implement of hornstone,
now in the collection of the Scottish Antiquaries, obtained
by me from a dealer in Indian curiosities at Lewiston in the
State of New York, where it was said to have been found
at a great depth when sinking a well. Its form, though
common enough among the implements of the American
Mound-Builders, rarely, if ever, occurs on so large a scale

Fia. 2.— Lewiston Flint Implement. J.

in Europe, except among palaeolithic remains. Ovoid discs
of the same class attracted the attention of the Rev. J.
MacEnery in his early explorations of Kent's Cavern, and
have anew been brought to light in the recent systematic
researches there. Mr. Evans figures one found there in
1866 (Fig. 3), somewhat smaller, and more ovoid in
outline, but of the same type. The Lewiston implement

CA VE DISCLOSURES.

[chap,

is showu in Fig. 5^. It has been reduced to the present
shape l)y comparatively few strokes ; and on the reverse
side it appears as if broken off by a final ill-directed blow.
One edge is worn and fractured as if by frequent use.
Unfortunately more minute information of the locality and
the circumstances attendant on its discovery could not
bo obtained. But even if it be regarded as only a stray relic
of the same class as those hereafter described among the
ancient mound deposits of Wisconsin and Ohio, it possesses
a novel interest from its discovery near the banks of the

Fia. 8.— F lit Disc, Kent's Cavern, \.

Niagara Biver, where no traces of the Mound -Builders or
tiieir arts occur. Mr. Evans permits me to introduce Iutc
the analogous example from Kent's Cavern. It is of j^rcy
cheriy flint, and chipped on both faces with more than
wonted care. Though smaller thnn the Lcwiston im})le-
ment, the difference is only about half an inch ; the larger
of the two being a little over five inches long. I hi'vc pur-

r^i

.s,W

vfsr

K 11

■ Y. ,'

"•]

Cy^F£ DISCLOSURES.

posely engraved the Lewiston disc on a large scale, in order
to suggest more clearly the proportions of this class of im-
plements ; and to show the close analogy traceable between
those of the American continent, and the European dis-
closures of the river and cave drift.

Such, then, are some of the indications which have been
assumed to point to the ancient presence of man in the New
World. If we estimate this by historical, and not by
geological periods, whatever proofs of hi^ antiquity
archaeology may supply will be found to accord with other
evidence ; and especially with proofs furnished by the
multitude of independent languages, and the diversity of
types of race, ranging from the Arctic circle to Tierra del
Fucffo. But it would be rash to assume from the partial
evidence yet obtained, that the juxtaposition of flint arrow-
heads with the mastodon of Missouri, the pottery with
bones and tusk of the same animal in the post-pleiocene of
South Carolina, the human bones in the rich ossiferous
caverns of the Brazils, or the flint implements, and human
remains recovered from Californian and o^her auriferous
diifts, unquestionably piove the existence of man on the
American continent contemporaneouBly with the fossil
elephant or the m.istodon.

The proofs hitherto adduced have been at best only
suggestive of further research. There is no question tlmt
Dr. Lund visited that portion of Jirazil lying between the
liio das Velhas and the liio Paraopeba, with very important
palseontological results. He there found a mountain chain
of limestone rock, abounding with fissures and caverns ;
and from some of these calcareous caves he recovered, not
only the bones of numerous fossil inammals imbcdd<'d in
red eartli, but also human bones which l:e pronounced to bo
fossil. The remains included not only those of shiths and
armadillos of gigantic size, but also extinct genera of
monkeys, all assumed to have been contemporaricH of the
fossil cavo-mcu. But expcrienco is teaching the ptdieonto-

' ,1 ; i

1 ilany

lii.u,,..,.

: ! Illillllill

I '

I in'

! Ill, I ,

'oil I nnii

n iliPiif!!

iik-

111)1

AMERICAN CRANIAL TYPE.

[chap.

logist that the mere recovery of bones or implements
from the aanie cave is no proof of contenipoj-aneity. A
cave which had been filled with cave-earth and bone
breccia, together with extinct animals of the period of the
cjlyptodon and the mylodon, may in a long subsequent
era have become the shelter or the place of sepulture of
Indians,

Nearly forty years have elapsed since Dr. Lund's dis-
ccvery. Since then the lamented Agassiz has visited
Brazil with valuable results to science ; but no additional
light has been thrown on the significance of the disclosures
of this interesting locality. One important fact, however,
has not only been admitted, but insisted upon. The
crania of the fossil men of Brazil betray no traces of
approximation to that of the fossil monkey, but on the
contrary differ in no respect from the predominant
American Indian type ; and the same has since been
afiirmed of a set of human skulls now in the Smithsonian
collection, which were found incrusted with stalagmite, in
a limestone cave in Calaveras County, California. Their
fossil character and extreme antiquity were at first assumed
to be indisputable. In this other respect they correspond
with the Brazilian fossil remains. Professor Jeifreys Wyman
reported of them that they present ** no peculiarities by
which they could be distinguished from other crania of
California."^

Here then might seem to be additional proofs " that
the general type of races inhabiting America at that incon-
ceivably remote era was the same which prevailed at the
period of the Columbian discovery ;"^ and that, there-
fore, Dr. Morton's assumed uniform cranial type pertains
to the American man from remotest geological time. Theie
seems more reason, however, for believing that the Calaveras
Cave was a place of interment of the present race of

I ilHiil

» SmUhMmian lii-porf, 1807, p. 407.
• Dr. Uiher, Ti/pes of Mankind, p. 301.

IT.]

ANTTQUTTY C^F 7WE AMERICAN MAM.

(>^

Indians ; and that its crania are very modern compared
even with the fossil Caribs of Guadaloupe. But the increas-
ing evidence of the remote antiquity of the European roan
h^s naturally suggested a revision of the evidence adduced
in confirmation of his ancient presence in the New World.

Sir Charles Lyell latterly regarded with greater favour
than he had once done, the possible coexistence of man
with the mastodon, megalonyx, and other extinct species,
among bones of which, in the loam of the Mississippi valley,
near Natchez, a human pelvic bone was recovered, and made
the basis of very comprehensive theories. In the delta of the
same river, near New Orleans, a complete human skeleton is
reported to have been found, buried at a depth of sixteen
feet, under the remains of four successive cypress forests ;
and this discovery furnished the data from which Dr.
Bennet Dowler has assigned to the human race an exist-
ence in the delta of the Mississippi 57,000 years ago.^

Evidence of this exceptional nature requires to be used
with modest caution Antiquaries of Europe having found
tobacco pipes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
alongside of pottery and other undoubted remains of
Roman art, have hastily antedated the use of tobacco to
classic times. ^ On equally good evidence it might be
carried back to those of the mammoth, as the discovery of
a similar relic lias been recorded at a depth of many feet,
in sinking a coal-pit at Misk, in Ayrshire."

> TyiH'» of Manktnd, p. 272.

2 La Normand'w. l^'outenuiine, )>. 7(5.

^ Prehktork Annala of Scotland, vol. ii. p. flOO.

THE QUARRY

[chap.

CHAPTER III.

THE QUARRY.

THR QUAUUT— BUIXHAM OWE — BUrXHAM PUNT IMPLEMENT- FLINT BIDQK, OHIO-
FLINT I'lTS— DUIFT QUAURY DKPOSITS— TUACEa OF PALAEOLITHIC ART— LANCEO-
LATE FLINTS — ALMOND-SHAPED FLINTS — THE SHAWNEE3 — THE COLORADO
INDIANS— CACHES OP WORKED FLINTS— SEPULCHRAL DEPOSITS— CAVE DRIFT
DISCLOSURES — ILLUSTRATIVE ANALOaiES — CINCINNATI COLLECTIONS — HORN-
STONE SPEARHEADS- AMERICAN NEOLITHIC ART— FLINT DRILLS— MODES OP
PERFORATION— FLINT KNIVES- RAZORS AND SCRAPERS— ARROW-HEAD FORMS
— DI8C0IDAL STONES— SINKERS AND LASSO-STONES— CUPPED STONES— ARCH^O-
LOr.lTAL THEORIES — OEOBOIA BOULDERS - HAND CUP-STONES — NEOLITHIC
GRINDSTONES- ARCHiKOLOUIOAL ENIGMAS— ANCIENT ANALOGIES.

If mere rudeness is to be accepted as the indication of the
first artless efforts of man to furnish himself with tools, the
investigator into primeval history may assume that in the
rudest of the drift and cave implements he has examples of
the most infantile efforts in the industrial arts. He may
even indulge the fancy that in the large, unshapely flint
implements recovered from ossiferous caves and alluvial
deposits, alongside of remains of the extinct fauna of a
palasolithic period so dissimilar to any historical era, he has
traced his way back to the fii'st crude efforts of human ai't,
if not to the evolutionary dawn of a semi-rjitional artificer.
It is a significant fact that no such clumsy unshapeliness
cliaracterises the stone implements of the most degraded
savage races. Examples may indeed be produced, selected
for their rudeness, from among the implements of modern
8avag(^a. But liushmen, Patagoniaus. I,. . Aus-

tralianfl, or whntever other race bo k \ .4 •• lli* . 1,e of
liumanily, on/^.h .iinplay ingenuity nd idu .» i i . i tmi-

^iiima...

....]

BRIXHAM CA VE.

facture df some special tools or weapons. Nor is it less
worthy of note tliat the commoner implements and weapons
of flint and stone recovered from ancient Scandinavian,
Gaulish, and British graves, from the lake dwellings of
Switzerland, the Danish shell-mounds, and other European
depositories of prehistoric Industrie 1 art, are scarcely distin-
guishable from the flint knives, scrapers, lance and arrow-
heads, or the stone gouges, axes, and mauls, of the Ked
Indians, or of the Islanders of the Pacific. Peculiar types
do indeed occur; and the materials abounding in special
localities, such as the obsidian of Mexico, or the greenstone
of Tasmania, give a specific character to the implements of
some regions ; but, on the whole, the arts of the stone
periods of different races, however widely separated alike
l)y space aud time, present so many analogies that they
seem to confirm the iviea of certain instinctive operations of
human ingenuity finding everywhere the same expression
within the narrow range of non-metallurgic art. Few facts,
therefore, related to this branch of the subject ^have im-
pressed me more than the essentially diverse types charac-
teristic of the massive and extremely rttuu implements of the
caves and river-drift. They seem to point to some unex-
phiined difference between the artificer of the Mammoth
or Keindeer period, and the tool-maker of Britain's neolithic
era, or the Indian sjivagij of modern times.

Sufficient correspond ence is traceable between the imple-
ments of the cave-earth and the river-drift to assign them
to the same era ; aud so to justify us in testing its arts by
their combined disclosurcB, The ossiferous cave of Ih'ixham,
wliich has recently been subjected to an exhaustive scientific
investigation, coiwists of ii series of galleries and passages
in the Dovonsbife limestoD*'. They arc partly natural
riHsure*' awd partly chamb<3rs hollowed out by the action of
running •.ater. Those havv? been refilled with gravel, red
• ave^jwrUi, ai>d layers of stalagmite, which were in pjocess
'•f deposition wl^ the nrmn^ apelwus, or great cave bear,

'!.,',iv>'

iii

;1 l[

mum

;

m !

til i'in|' ll
I III!

ill mill'"

! I

BRIXHAM FLINT IMPFEMENT.

[chap.

still haunted their recesses, and whe. tlie reindeer was a
native of the neighbouring region. Though visited from
time to time by man, Brixham cave had never been made
his dwelling-place or workshop ; and so it has revealed only
his rudest tools. Of these, Fig. 4 is a characteristic example
of a rude lanceolate implement, which embodies within itself
some very significant glimpses of the era to which it belougy.

' I Ln,
i i li I i Hi|

.ill,. ill:

iii'l I

I ! r !

Fid. I -JJiixliinii C'av»i Flint Iiiniluniciil. (Kviiim.) j.

The great valleys were excavated and refilled with the
rolled gravel of the drift during the prolonged operations of
ice and floods. Hut it is Iicig seen that the violence of the
floodH cxtciidod evou to the re(;cm<s8 of the caves. The
impli'.ment has been l»rok<;n Into '.hrec pieces, evidently at
the period of the original filling up of the cave. One por-

till itV.':

i.i j;

[chap.

,11.]

FLINT RIDGE, OHIO,

was a
d from
n made
ed only
xample
in itself
aelougy.

Ltli the
bions of

of the

The

^ntly at

ic por-

tion was recovered buried in the cave-earth of the flint-
knife gallery ; another fragment lay far apart, under three
and a half feet of earth, in a neighbouring gallery ; while a
third portion has escaped even the careful and discriminat-
ing search which resulted in the recovery of those long-
dissevered fragments. It has to be borne in remembrance
that every fragment of flint found in the cave-earth was
preserved, whether showing traces of human workmanship
or not. Thirty-two fragments were discovered in all ;
with an interval of nearly a month between the finding of
the first and second portions of the implement figured here.
A still longer period elapsed before it was noticed tliat tliey
fitted to each other as parts of the same worked flint. Most
of the fragments so found have undergone great alteration in
their structure, and have become absorbent and luittle. How
little chance, therefore, is there that any delicately formed
flint-tool should be recovered in the rolled gravel-beds !

But the comparatively virgin soil of the New World has
examples of like primitive workmanship in reserve, to illus-
trate the significance of some of those amorphous flints
which bear the evidence of art, and yet seem almost too
artless for any purpose of man. The valleys of the Ohio
and its tributaries have a special attraction as the sites of
numerous earth-works and other remains of a prehistoric
race, known, from one prominent class of their structures, ;(
the Mound-Builders. In more recent tenturies, within tl\c
period of European intercourse with th(> New \\\>rld, the
same valleys have been occupied by warlike tribo« of the
Ked Indian race ; and now that an iudust\iovi« pv>pulatiou
has supplanted their ephemeral 'odg^vs with the cities and
farmsteads of the Anglo An\orieau wettler, tlic traces evou
of the latest aborigines soinu ])rinutivo us those of Europe's
neolithic era. During the Hunimer of IR'74 \ devottxl part
of the long vacation to an inspection of son\e of the wvoat
remarkable earth- works and other aricient ivn\5vius of thia
intei^jsting locality ; and among other objects illustrative oC

FLINT PITS.

[chap.

its past history, I visited the Flint Ridge, a siliceous deposit
of the carboniferous age, which extends through the State,
from Newark to New Lexington, and has been worked at
various points to furnish materials for native implements.
Here I had an opportunity of exploring the ancient pits
from which it is assumed that the constructors of the
gigantic earth-works of the neighbouring valleys procured
the flint, or horn-stone, of which their weapons and imple-
ments were chiefly made. The point visited is on the
summit of an undulating range of hills about ten miles
distant from the city of Newark and its remarkable earth-
works, hereafter described. At various points along the
ridge, both there and in other parts of the State, numerous
funnel- shaped pits occur, varying from four or five to fifteen
feet deep ; and similar traces of mining may bo soon in other
localities, as at Leveiiworth, nbo\it thiee hundrcMl miles below
(Hueiuuati, where tlio grey flint, or chert, Rbouuds, of which
large implomentd are chiefly made. I'he, sloping sides of
the pita are in many cases covered with the fraeiiuod Hints,
broken ii[), and partitdly shaped as if for purposes of manu-
faetuvo. There for the first time I looked upon true counter-
parts of the drift implements ; and in the courso of an ho^l*
Ul' two had no difficulty ii. procuring specimnIlN I'luHuly re-
peating many f( rms fymiliar among those common to tjio
cave-earth ujad the dnit-^avel of France and Ejiglaiid

We ai*c apt to tliink "f the old flint and stone-woikers ns
merely picking up the chance mia;terials saited to their
Mmpie craft, ikit the use of flint in the manufactujM iiC
siing-stones, siofr-kea^, a»«i othtsr missile wea,j)onH, as
well as of all ordinary houseiwid implements, and those of
w;ir and the chase, involved a couatant demaiid for fresh
mutc'rialfi-. frequ^iaJy procurable only from distant localities.
It \a wki^t might be mmmmn^ tii€Tefore, apaxt from any
direct evidence, that a pe|fakj system of qiUBijiiiig for flint
niMiules 1» dtted for the tool makers' art was pursued ;
aad that a tiads or hix\m m tbe raw irat^mi famished

[chap.

I.I.]

DRIFT QUARRY DEPOSITS.

the

supplies to tribes remote from the flint-bearing chalk or
gravel. But also it appears from the interesting explora-
tions of Colonel A. Lane Fox at Cissbiy:y, near Worthing,^
and from those of the Kev. W. Greenwell, at Grime's
Graves, near Brandon, in Norfolk,^ that the flint nodules
were not only quarried, but prepared on the spot ; so that
the miner carried off with him, not a mere load of flint
nodules, as the modern manufacturer might burden himself
with the iron ore : but flints of the required dimensions,
roughly shaped for the final operation which was to fashion
them into knives, scrapers, arrow and lane heads, hatchets,
etc. Precisely the same process is manifest in the remains
found in the pits of Flint Ridge, Ohio. Flakes or spawls,
knives, scrapers, almond and lanceolate blocks, abound in
the first crude stage of manufacture. In studying those on
the spot, J was strongly impressed by the similarity of many
of them to the ruder implements of the drift ; and hence
WHS led to surmise that in the latter also we have in many
cases, not the artless implements which fitly suggest a
iiiiikor GuiiuHpon<lingly fleficient in even such skill and
reiiBoning ns guides the modern tool making savage ; but
only ri|aejy-)uiJjii)|B(i (IIkM, fr^^sh from the quarry, and in
ft nopditiolj least susceptiblft m/* \t})iitY \ii tllfl violence to
willed llie tool-bearing gravels Iz/jVe /joffissarliy (/fetn si7b
\m\m]. Blfly it not be, jnoreover, that in soino ohl/o \>]i\v\
de|K)S)tia (4 m\\\ wnii'"1 rijijfs ]U t//e gravels of Franco and
lilngliind, we have reuIJi lh' «J)h(»((|'^mi1 materials of such
c)iiiii'i'y iMM'uniiihiHons, and not the stray \m[i\ui\\i\\\i& fif \iul\
vidua! huntuiH / j/i IIiIh way only can we eatisfactoiily
utmonnt fnp th^ M that bucIi traces of p/llnev/il nnin nh
U'iW Biicces&rully sought for on fnifely geological eviden<iOi
The orchnBologist digs into the Celtic or Hnnitfi fwfrow, atuf
llmls as his r(5wai'<l the iniphsnn'nts «//|rt IHiiitiff of Ui^
builder. But English geologists, having df'tnr/nwn'j thn
character of llio too|-|)earing gravel of the French drjffc|
> AHhimihiilitf to), xjli. ).. OH. ■ Joiiin. mi'4- ftw. /V.J,, vfiJ. il. \>. 4I«.

TRACES OF PALAEOLITHIC ART.

[chap.

ill! 'I

have sought for flint implements in corresponding English
strata, as they would seek for the fosbil shells of the same
period, and with like success. They have now been ob-
tained in Suffolk, Bedford, Hartford, Kent, Middlesex, and
Surrey.^ So entirely indeed has the man of the drift passed
out of the province of the archaeologist, that in 1861 Pro-
fessor Prestwich followed up his " notes on further dis-
coveries of flint implements in beds of post-pleiocene gravel
and clay," with a list of forty-one localities where gravel
and clay-pits, or gravel-beds occur, as some of the places in
the south of England where he thought flint implements
might also by diligent search possibly be found, and sub-
sequent discoveries have confirmed his anticipations.

It has been felt by many as an element which in some
degree detracted from the otherwise incontrovertible force
of this accumulated proof, that here the wrought flints
are discovered in situ, they occur in beds of gravel and
clay abounding in unwrought flints in every stage of acci-
dental fracture, and including many which the most expe-
rienced archaeologist would h/^sitate whether to classify as
of natural or artificial origin. But on the assumption of
regular quarrying and working in the flint-bearing strata,
such traces of palaeolithic art may be expected to occur in
the river gravels, as a geological formation in which the
requisite material abounded ; and which, moreover, in its
latest reconstruction belongs to the river- valleys best adapted
to be the habitat of post-glacial man. They are, in fact,
the localities to which the experience of the archaeologist
would direct him when in search of the traces of rude
hunting and fishing tribes ; but also they are the same
mammaliferous strata to which the geologist turns when
looking for remains illustrative of the extinct fauna of the
post-glacial age. „„_^,.^.^;.ife^ -i--^-^----^ — i^^^^.-^-

In and around the pits of Flint Ridge, Ohio, are now to
be seen the accumulated results of centuries of mining

• 1 Journ. OeoU Soc, Lond., vol, xvii. ^jp. 322, .368 ; vol. xviii. p. 113, etc.

1...]

LANCEOLATE FIJNTS.

jind quarrying, extending in all probability from the era
of the Mound-Bu Iders to the extinction of the Miamis,
Shawnees, and other recent occupan^'=^ of the Ohio valley.
Swept by floods into the lower valleys, the smaller frag-
ments would be broken up and disappear ; and only such
specimens would survive uncha iged as in the valley of the
Somme have startled archseolo^ists by their numbers ; and
tempted sceptics to assign their origin to a< idental frac-

Fid. O.-IjiiuToliitt' Flint, Flint Ilidge, Ohio. ii.

ture in the beds of gravel and unwrought flints in whicli
they chiefly occur. In Fig. 5 a worked flint is shown, picked
up in one of the pits on Flint Kidge, in Licking County,
Ohio. A small piece has been broken ofl" the point by
recent fracture. Its analogy to one familiar type of drift
implements can scarcely admit of question. This, it will be
remembered, had never been removed from the pit, and
doubtless represents the material thus roughly blocked out,

III

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ALMOND-SHAPED FLINTS.

[chap.

from which the old artificer designed to fiishion a finished
tool. Another common type is shown in Fig. 6, roughly
chipped into the crude form of an almond-shaped blade.
Some of the specimens acquired by me are weather-stained
from long exposure, and others discoloured and brittle ; but
many of them exhibit little traces of the effect of time. It
may be doubted, indee 1, if any of them can be regarded as
of remote antiquity; though, doubtless, the ancient Mound

Fia. 0.— Alinon(l-8hiiiin.l Flint, Flint Ri.lge, Olilo. f •

Jiuilders derived the materials for their stone implements
from this inexhaustible source ; and specimens of the same
class of worked flints arc frequently met with in the vicinity
of the mounds, and even among their contents. Flint flakes,
and rudely fashioned knives and scrapers, arc so common
in the ploughed fields, that they arc spoken of generally
throughout Ohio and Kentucky by the name of "spawls."

[chap.

HI.]

THE SHAWNEE S.

It is difficult, indeed, to make a selection from the abundant
m..terials illustrative of this part of the subject. The supply
of flint, or its horn-stone and chert equivalents, was inex
haustible ; and its natural fracture and cleavage resulted in
forms which frequently required little labour to convert
them into useful household implements. The examples
thus far figured were obtained directly from the Flint Ridge
pits ; but equally characteristic specimens lie intermingled
with the finished axes and arrow-heads turned up by the

Fio. 7.- Lenf-slmpcd Flint, Bhnron Valley, Ohio. *•

])lougli, or recovered from the mounds. In the example
figured liere (Fig. 7), from the original ploughed up in Sharon
Valley, Licking County, Ohio, in the vicinity of a largo
mound, the reader cannot fail to recognise an analogy to a
familiar class of miplemeuts of the drift.

The Shawuees, who last occupied the region now referred
to, were a numerous and warlike tribe, who according to
Indian tradition had come from Georgia and West Florida
into the Ohio Valley. But they became involved in the

V' ;''''•,

I :|l

t i i il

i!!!;'
iliii'

THE COLORADO INDIANS.

[chap.

French wars, joined in tlie famous conspiracy of Pontiac
in 1763, and were nearly exterminated in a battle fought
within two miles of the city of Newark. To them must, no
doubt, be ascribed many of the flint and stone implements
so abundant in the neighbouring valleys, as wel! as the par-
tially worked flints in the numerous pits along Flint Kidge.
But the material for the largest implements is here inex-
haustible ; and the natural lines of conchoidal fracture equally
controlled the workmanship of the Troglodyte of the Drift,
and the most recent Shawnee or Chippewa arrow-maker.

In the great mounds which abound throughout the region
watered by the Ohio and its tributaries, delicately-wrought
knives and arrow-heads, prized axe-heads, plummets and
hemispheres of haematite, elaborately carved pipes, and even
pins and bodkins of bone, lie buried along with the largest
lanceolate and oval-shaped flints ; or blocks of the same
mnterial, rough hewn, as brought from the pits. A general
and well-founded idea prevails that the old Mound- Builders,
and, in some cases also, the modern Indians, were in the
habit of making caches of flint-blocks, so as to protect the
material from exposure to the atmosphere. The modern
English gun-flint makers entertained the same idea, be-
lieving that a certain amount of moisture present in the flint
was necessary for working it with ease, and that it lost this
by long exposure. Professor J. W. Powell, in his report of
explorations of the Colorado of the West, made in 1873,
thus describes the method pursued by the Colorado Indians
in the manufacture of their stone implements: "Theob
sidian, or other stone of which the implement is to be made,
is first selected by breaking up larger masses of the rock,
and choosing those which exhibit the fracture desired, and
which are free of flaws; then these pieces are baked or
bieamed, perhaps I might say annealed, by placing them in
damp earth covered with a brisk fire for twenty four hours ;
then with sharp blows they are still further broken into
flakes approximating to the shape and size desired. For the

ii&fijiiii

.,..]

CACHES OF WORKED FLINTS.

more complete fashioning of the implement* a tool of horn,
usually of the mountain sheep, but sometimes of the deer
or antelope, is used. The flake of stone is held in one hand,
placed on a little cushion made of untanned skin of some
animal, to protect the hand from the flakes which are to be
chipped off, and with a sudden pressure of the bone-tool the
proper shape is given. They acquire great skill in this, and
the art seems to be confined to but few persons, who manu-
facture them, and exchange them for other articles." ^ No
doubt some of the simple bone implements found in the
mounds were used for this purpose. I was shown recently,
in Cincinnati, some well-made arrow-heads, the work of
Dr. H. H. Hill, who informed me that his sole implement
was the bone handle of a tooth-brush.

Among the many interesting disclosures due to the re-
searches of Messrs. Squier and Davis, was the discovery in
a moi lid of " Clark's Work," one of the largest earthworks
in the Scioto Valley, of what may fairly be regarded as a
magazine of such flint-Wocks, fresh as from the quarry.
Many of them are half a foot in length, but they vary in
size and shape. Out of an excavation six feet long by four
wide, nearly six hundred were taken. They lay regularly
stacked, edge- ways, in two layers, one above the other ; and
the explorers estimated that the whole deposit might amount
to four thousand discs of hornstone, roughly prepared for
future manufacture.

Blocks of flint from ten to twelve inches in length,
fashioned in like manner into the nucleus of a lance or
spear-head, have occurred from time to time in Denmark,
France, and Belgium ; and arc to be looked for elsewhere :
since implements of flint are common in many localities
where the material out of which they are fashioned is
wholly unknown. Those are rightly conjectured to be the
raw material, which, like pig-iron, was thus ready to be
turned to the special uses of the artificer. No doubt, by

* Report of Krphrntiom of the Colorado of the Wf»t and its Tr'tbutnrlrs, p. 27.

!■

■ 1

til

SEPULCHRAL DEPOSITS.

[chap.

barter and traffic in vftrious ways, such material for the
flint-workers of Europe's and America's different stone
periods was disseminated from centres where native flint
occurs ; just as in the later copper and bronze periods of
both continents the prized metals were diffused through
remote areas. But it is only in localities where the flint
abounds that implements, or even blocks or nuclei, of the
largest size are of common occurrence. Fig. 8 represents
one of the class of smaller rudely shaped flint implements
recovered from a large mound in the vicinity of Newark.

Pia. 8.— Flint Iinplemont, Licking County, Ohio. {.

It indicates, alike in the discoloration and the change of the
dulled surface, characteristic evidences of considerable an-
tiquity. Thus buried in the mounds, or scattered about
in the furrows of every ploughed field, slender flint-
chips, knives, or spawls, with arrow-heads, axes, and other
relics both of the Mound-Builders and their Indian suc-
cessors, abound. The huge rough-hewn block of flint or
hornstone takes its place as fittingly beside the delicately
finished implements, as the prized lump of unwrought

III.]

CA VE- DRIFT DISCLOSURES.

lijBmatite, tlie large pyrula, or even the mass of copper or
galena. Possibly they were deposited in the sepulchral
mound to furnish to the dead the materials from which
to fashion implements adapted to the new life on which
he was about to enter. More probably, however, they were
laid there simply as part of the ordinary furnishings adapted
to the daily experiences of life. But if the Palaeolithic
tool-maker fashioned anything akin to the more delicate
implements, the vicissitudes of diluvial and other geological
changes have left few and partial illustrations of such
finished handiwork of the Drift-folk. Their cave dwellings
did indeed admit, under specially favouring circumstances,
of the occasional preservation of bone implements, the
smaller knives and lances of flint, and other comparatively
delicate objects used in indoor work ; and the value of these
as illustrations of the habits and usages of the ancient Trog-
lodytes can scarcely be exaggerated. But even those owe
their preservation to processes akin to that which fractured
and dispersed the fragments of the Brixham Cave imple-
ment ; and which, in the more violent rearrangement of
the river gravels, must have generally reduced any carved
bone or delicately worked flint to indistingu'shable frag-
ments. The exceptions indeed are exceedingly rare of
finding in the gravel beds a single bone of ai.y animal so
small as man.

The caves also undoubtedly embody in the contents of
their silt and stalagmite the industrial implements of a
later period than that of the river gravels ; and, as in the
case of Kent's Cavern, even preserve the evidence of a suc-
cession of occupants belonging to distinct eras, and probably
to essentially diverse races of men. But it is only in excep-
tional cases of special interest that the cave-drift discloses
traces of actual habitation, the refuse heaps of the kitchen,
the broken or stray tools, and even the flint- cores, hammer-
stones, and flint chips, which indicate the workshop of the
ancient tool-maker. Mr. Evans figures hammer stones of

ILLUSTRATIVE ANALOGIES.

[chap.

llW^st

iiij

i; : !

\-\ .

1; ^i

various kinds, made of diverse pebbles and of chipped flint ;
and others from the French caves consist of tiint-cores with
the prominent surfaces worn round by their use as hammer-
stones in the process of chipping the flint into the desired
forms. One of this class of implements now in my posses-
sion, of light grey flint, and bearing manifest traces of long
use, was turned up in a ploughed field in Licking County,
Ohio. Another example in my collection was presented
to me by Mr. W. L. Merrin, who picked it up in the
vicinity of one of the pits on Flint Kidge, among the broken
flakes and nodules which showed where the old flint miner
had been at work. The cave deposits embedded animal
remains and human implements in part by the same pro
cesses which in neighbouring river valleys were burying
the works of man alongside of the bones of the largest
fossil mammalia. In the fo:''mer, at times, the silting up
was by a process sufliciently gentle to preserve un-
harmed the minuter traces of the c£,ve-dweller and his
arts; but as a rule there have remained to us from
that remote Palseotechnic era, only the larger and ruder
implements, corresponding as it were to the axe of the
woodman, and the mattock or plough of the field labourer,
which were alone capable of withstanding the violence of
floods, and the like elements of geological reconstruction.

Enough survives to us, from the disclosures of a diff'erent
character in the actual cave-dwellings of the Men of the
Drift, to confirm the idea that we have as yet obtained a
very partial glimpse of the arts of that icmote dawn ; and
that we may watch with interest every fresh disclosure cal-
culated to lessen the wonder excited by the large lanceolate
or ovate worked flints of that era : rude enough at times to
be ascribed to some irrational Caliban, rather than to a human
artificer. It may perhaps be thought t]i;tt I have yielded
too ready credence to a fanciful analogy ; but as I explored
the deserted flint pits of the Shawnees, and the ancient
quarry of the Ohio Mound-Builders, or picked up in the

111.]

CINCINNATI COLLECTIONS.

furrows of their desecrated earthworks huge half-formed
ovate and spear-shaped blocks of hornstone akin to those
of the European drift, it seemed to me like a glimpse of
light illuminating the obscurity of that remote dawn.

The whole region of Ohio and Kentucky is rich in remains
of the old flint- workers. In the Granville, the Cherry,
Sharon, Hanover, and other valleys around Newark, in the
vicinity of Dayton, and at Fort Ancient, in Warren County,
Ohio, all of which I had special facilities for exploring, as
well as in numerous other localities ^.hroughout the State,
flint and stone implements abound. In Cincinnati I ex-
amined large collections, chicxly obtained by searching along
the bauk^ of the Ohio and its tributaries after the spring
floods. Occasionally fine specimens may be observed in
situ, projecting from the eroded bank, at a depth of about
twenty inches from the surface ; but the greater number are
picked up in the silt and gravel left by the falling river,
while many more must be buried in its bed : to form, per-
chance, a subject of study for future generations, in the
reconstructed river-valleys of a newer world. Their number
indeed is astonishing, in the contrast which the virgin soil of
the New World thus presents to the rare traces of Europe's
neolithic arts. One enthusiastic collector, Dr. Byrnes, of Cin-
cinnati, told me that his most successful gleaning had been
at a point near the junction of the Little Miami and Ohio
rivers, where in one day he found upwards of seventy stone
implements of various kinds, exposed by the ice and spring
floods, on the river banks.

Many of the flint implements are finished with exquisite
delicacy, to the finest serrated edge ; while, no doubt owing
to the abundant material, they are frequently on a scale
considerably surpassing those of the European neolithic
period. In the collections of Dr. Hill, Dr. Byrnes, and Mr.
Hosea, of Cincinnati, I made drawings of flint-knives, spear-
heads, and hoes, measuring nearly eleven inches in length.
Fig. 9 shows an example of the latter implement, reduced

!il.l';*'

~ ' ' ■ ■ t ..''! ■ - !■ " i

IIP Mil '

if I'M

i i

i>l:il!i i:

4 1 Ml!

HORNSTONE SPEAR HEADS.

[chap.

to one third, linear measure. It was found by Dr. iTill,
on the river edge of the Ohio, near Smithland, Kentucky,
and fully illustrates the character of the flint hoe. Ihe
broad end has been worked to an edge, and is fractured

from use ; while the narrow end
terminates in a flat unworked sur-
face, showing the natural texture
of the nodule from which it has
been made. The same collections
above referred to include spear-
heads of dark horn stone, from 6 J
to 7 inches long, of which upwards
of fifty were found on a farm in
Casey County, Kentucky. On
another farm in Jackson County,
Indiana, the owner's curiosity was
excited by the large size of two or
three spear-heads of dark grey
hornstone turned up by the plough ;
and on digging down he found
about ninety stacked edgeways,
one tier above another. Speci-
mens of them examined by me
in difierent collections measured
from i\ to 5 inches long. One
of the smallest of them is figured here full size, Fig. 1 0. Along
with some of these large spear-heads. Dr. Hill produced
several beautifully finished leaf-shaped blader, chipped to a
fine edge, measuring upwards of 5 inches long. They arc
worked in a pale grey hornstone speckled with white.
Twelve of these were ploughed up in a level between two
large mounds, near Brookville, Indiana ; and ten perfect,
\/ith numerous broken specimens of a rarer type of large
arrow-head, equally well finished, were found in the vicinity
of another mound, near Anderson's Fe:try a few miles below
Cincinnati. The number of such implements in this region

Fio. 9.— 1-Uut It 00, Kentucky. \.

I.I.I

AMERICAN NEOLITHIC ART.

Jong

luced

to a

T arc

^hite.

two

rfect,

[large

jinity

lelow-

is astonishing ; and frequently the beauty of a piece of
milky quartz, yellow chert, or pure rock crystal, appears
to have stimuhited the workman to his utmost dexterity
in the manufacture of serrated, dentated, and elaborately
finished blades of various forms.

Fid. 10. —Flint Spear-liPnil, liidinna. \.

In the collections I have named, as well as in those
of Mr. Cleneay and Mr. James of Cincinnati, and of Mr.
Merrin and Mr. Shrock of Newark, the examples of flint
and stone implements numl)er many hundreds, and would
require a volume not less ample than Mr. John Evans's com-
prehensive monograph of The Ancient Stone Implements^

VOL. T. F

' i;

.^1

FLINT DRILLS.

[CHAI

,|i '

Wea'pon^, and Ornamcrds of Great Britain, to illustrate
their details. I shall limit myself here to a few examples
selected from among those peculiar to the neolithic art of
the New World which offer any suggestive hint relative tr»
the origin or use of objects already familiar to the archaeo-
logist. Perforated teeth of bears and other animals occur
among the mound relics ; shell-beads are still more abundant ;
bone and horn pins and lance -heads, and a peculiar class of
stone implements, most frequently made of a striated, grey
or blue shale, perforated with two or more holes, are all of
common occurrence. The chief varieties are shown in the
Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, Fig. 136,
p. 237. Some of them bear so near a resemblance to the
bracers, or guards, found in British graves, and supposed
to have been worn on the left arm to protect it from the
recoil of the string in the use of the bow, that I am inclined
to ascribe the same purpose to them. But others are curved
at the edges, and frequently of too large a size for this
purpose. The latter are also occasionally formed of copper.
One example of this class of implements, or personal decora-
tions, obtained from the Lockport mound, and now in the
possession of Mr. Merrin, measures 5*30 by 3*80 inches.

The frequent occurrence of drilled and perforated stone and
shell implements, tubes, pipes, etc., accounts for the finding
of a variety of awls, or drills, made of flint and stone. Not
only perforated shell-gorgets, stone tablets or guards, plum-
mets, and the like relics, but also beads, bears' teeth, and
other pendants or personal ornaments of various kinds,
have been found in the mounds. They correspond to some
extent to a class of perforated shell and bone implements
met with in the ancient cave deposits of France and Eng-
land ; and the flint awls or borers by which they were drilled
have been recognised among the rarer objects of the neo-
lithic period found in England, France, Denmark, and in
the Swiss Lake-dwellings.^ Figs. 11, 12 are good examples

' Ancient Stone Implements of Orrat Britain, p. 289.

HAP.

rate

rt of

JQ to

bseO"

)CCUl

lant ;
iss of
grey
all of
n the
, 136,
bo tlie
posed
m the
clined
iurved
)r this
opper.
ecora-
n the

i,..1

MODES OF PER FOR A TION.

Eng-

iri

iUed

of two types of such tools in use by the ancient flint-
workers of the Ohio Valley. Fig. 11 was found by its
present owner, Mr. James Pierce, near Mayville, Ken-
tucky. The square butt which forms the handle retains the
natural shape of the block of yeUow chert of which it is
made, while the chipped surfaces of the blade show the dark
grey colour of the core. Fig. 12 is a larger and ruder
example of the flint drill, from the collection of Dr. Hill,
of Cincinnati, probably designed to be attached to a

FiQ. 11.— Flint Awl, Miiyville, Kentucky.

Fio. 12.— Flint Drill, Cincinnati.

wooden haft, and used for operations on a larger scale. A
more carefully finished small flint- awl, with a neatly worked
handle, but unfortunately broken at the point, was pre-
sented to me by Mr. Merrin, of Newark, who picked it up
in a field in that vicinity. A drill of a diflferent kind is
shown in Fig. 13, also from the collection of Dr. Hill.
It is of diorite, and at the first glance might be taken for -a
stone arrow-head. But it is worn perfectly smooth along

FLINT KNIVES.

[chap.

its two edges, especially towards the point, evidently from
continuous use in the perforation of some hard substance,
such as mififht result in the hollowino; out of the bowl of
a stone pipe : though such an instrument would be called
into use in many operations of the old Hint-workers.
Knives and razors of diverse forms, and some of them
finished with great care, at times in very fantastic shapes,
are also c ' sequent occurrence. Their unusual shapes are
probably in part due to the chance fracture of the flint-
flakes, specimens -^f whicjh abound in the pits on Flint

Kio. i;i.-8toiio Drill, Clncinnntl.

Fin 14.- Flint Kiilfo, Cincliiiiiitl.

Ridge, frequently requiring little manipulation to convert
them into cutting implements. Fig. 14 is a small knife of
this class, selected from several in the collection of Dr. Hill.
It is made of yellow chert, and has a keen cutting edge.
But there is another class of flint-knives not unfamiliar to
European archaeologists, of which interesting examples occur.
A good American specimen of the flint-core, such as has
been found in Kent's Cavern, and elsewhere on nritisli
sites, and is common among the neolithic relics of Den-
mai'k, is now in my possession. It was picked up in the

tri

„..]

RAZORS AND SCRAPERS.

Granville valley, Licking county, Ohio, not fur from the
famous Alligator Mound ; and shows the facets from which
long curved flakes have been struck oft'. The curved form
Avhicli the flake naturally assumes is fretj[uently retained in
the finished implements, along with three facets, form-
ing an acute triangular blade, coming to a sharp edge.
The Mexican obsidian is characterised by the same frac-
ture ; and some of the early Spanish writers enlarge on
the keenness of the edge of the obsidian razors, as scarcely
inferior to those of steel, though they speedily lose their
edge. A good example of the flint razor is shown in
Fig. 15, from the collection of Mr. James Pierce of May-
ville, Kentucky. It is one of the outer flakes of the core,
coming to a good edge on the one side, and chipped to a
broad back. Fitted with a wooden haft, it would form a

i''iu. 15. —Flint Uuzor, Kentucky.

convenient cutting implement for many purposes. It is
shown here nearly 5-Oths of the original size. The natural
cleavage of the flint, thus controlling the forms which the
fractured nodules assume, has tended to beget certain classes
of implements common to all the stone periods of which we
have any trace, from the palaeolithic era of the drift and
cave men to that of the flint- workers among savage tribes of
our own day. Horse-shoe, pear-shaped, oval, discoidal, and
other scrapers abound among the more familiar imple-
ments of the old American flint-workers, reproducing all
the forms common to the early stone periods of Europe, and
which have been minutely illustrated by Mr. Evans.^ But
there is another type of scraper, of a more finished character,

' Ancient Slow. Implements 0/ Great Britain, pi\ 270-277.

•ili..
11.(11

ARROW-HEAD FORMS.

[chap.

which frequently occurs among American flint implements,
of which I am not aware that any example has hitherto been
noted in Europe. In its more common form it might be mis-
tnLen at the first glance for a broken arrow-head. But the
repeated occurrence of examples of this type, with the well-
finished edge invariably inclining, with a curve, to the one
side, leaves no room for doubt as to its purpose as a scraper,
designed to be fastened to a haft, and used for fashioning
neeclles, bodkins, lance-heads, and other implements of ivory,
bone, or horn. This type is shown in Fig. 16, picked up
in the neighbourhood of Newark. Fig. ] 7 is another com
mon form, with the edge wrought to one side, but with
slighter curve, or inclination otherwise to the side. Both of

Fig. 16.

Fio. 17.

Flint Scrai)er8, Ohio.

these are figured the full size ; but many specimens occur of
larger sizes, and varying curves of the blade, from a long
horse-shoe to a broad crescent shape. There are olso
arrow-heads of analogous forms, but with no curve in the
blade. Similar arrow-heads are now made by the Blackfect
Indians out of iron hoops obtained from the Hudson Bay
fur traders, and it is said that with thofte a skilful marks-
man will behead a bird on the wing. Others of the rarer
ft' ms of flint implements include foliated, flamboyant, or
f itastically -shaped arrow-heads, and the like implements, of
which an example is shown in Fig. 18, and for which it is
diflicult to assign any specific use. Some of them, indeed,
look like the spoils of an ingenious workman tempted by

I...]

DISCOIDAL STONES.

Fio. J8.— Foliated Arrow-lienil.

chance forms of the fractured ilint to try his hand at some
fanciful knife, arrow-head, or other implement of unwonted
design. ^-^^'•--■--:--"-/- "" ■■ ■":■ V'^v, ^ -^ -— - v^ ■:-.-.:/•. iv ■■■"

Discoidal stones, somewhat vc^rying in form and size, are
common in the valley of the Ohio, and throughout the
Southern States. Messrs. Squier and Davis figure two
examples found by them along with
an unusually rich deposit of choice
relics, including several coiled ser-
pents carved in stone, and carefully
enveloped in sheet mica and copper,
under a mound within the great earth-
work of Paints Creek. The discoidal
stones found there are made of a
very dense ferruginous stone, of a
dark brown ground interspersed with
specks of yellow mica. Others are
of granite, porphyry, jasper, green-
stone, and quartz, sometimes with concave surfaces, or
perforated with a funnel-shaped hollow on either side ;
but always of a hard stone, and highly polished. One
fine specimen in the collection of Dr. Byrnes is of
polished novaculite, and another of quartz. The largest
are about six inches in diameter, and art generally finished
with great symmetry. There is no doubt that such im-
plements were employed among the Southern Indians,
subsequent to their being visited by Europeans, in certain
favourite games. Adair describes their use ; and adds that
they were so highly valued " that they were kept with the
strictest religious care from one generation to another ; and
were exempted from being buried with the dead." It
may l)e that in some of them wo have implements used in
the gnnies which formed a prominent part in the sacred
festivities, for wliich it is aasunied that the great geometrical
earthworks were constructetl. Indeed the perfect symmr'try
of form in the majority of this class of relics seems to

s 1

t-i

h \

4S i ■

III

,1,; ^
tfc" i

V?- '■
%^ i

i r

SINKERS AND LASSO-STONES.

[chap.

accord wich the idea of their having been fashioned by the
race who have left such gigantic memorials of their regard
for geometrical configuration. One perforated discoid al
stone, of polished granite, which I examined at Cincinnati,
was dug up by Dr. J. H. Hunt, within a large earthwork at
Cleves, near the great Miami Kiver; and another in the
possession of Dr. Byrnes was found in the vicinity of one
of the great mounds on the Ohio. <

Among the rarer stone implements which occur among
the relics of Europe's neolithic arts are certain objects
which, though of small size, otherwise so closely resemble
the most highly finished mining hammers that they have
been generally designated hammer-stones. A more careful
and discriminating study of them, however, has led to the
assignment of them to a totally different purpose. An
example found near Ambleside, Westmoreland, and figured
in the Archceological Journal,^ shows a well-finished ovoid
implement of stone, with a deep groove round the middle.
Others have been repeatedly found in the neighbourhood of
the English lakes, as well as in other localities ; and as they
show no traces of being battered or worn from use in ham-
mering, and are frequently made of sandstone or other
material unsuited for such a purpose, they are now generally
regarded as sinkers for nets or fishing lines. Objects of
nearly similar form, but most frequently made of diorite,
granite, or other equally hard rocks, occur among the
stone implements of the Ohio Valley. Many of them
measure from 3 to 4 inches long. But while in them also
the absence of any marks of abrasion or battering serves to
show that they were not used as hammers, a hard and heavy
material appears to have been preferred in their coi?struc-
tion. Hence it has been surmised that they were the
weights attached to a hunting thong, or lasso ; though they
would equally serve as sinkors for the fisherman's nets.
One of them, from a mound in Kentucky, is shown in

• Archaol. Jouni., vol. x. p. 64.

111.]

CUPPED STONES.

Fig. 19. It is of granite, and carefully finished, but a hard
siliceous concretion at one end has resisted the efforts of the
workman to reduce it to perfect symmetry. * The attempt
to determine the uses for which implfmeuts were made,
under circumstances so wholly different from everything
v/e are familiar with, is at best guesswork. But it seems
unlikely that so much labour and skill would be expended
in fashioning such intractable material into symmetrical
shape for a mere net-sinker. In the collection of Mr.
Merrin is a large implement of the same form, weighing
fully eighteen pounds. It was found on the site of the
Lockport Mound, at Newark, along with numerous other
stone, shell, mica, and copper relics. Its size and weight at

Fig. 10. — LasBO atone, Keutucky.

once suggest the idea of its use as a miner's maul ; but it is
made of sandstone, and retains no traces of use as a hammer.
It is equally inapplicable for the hunter's lasso and the
fisher's net ; and if designed for a weight, must have been
for some very different ;)urposo.

Among various novel relics of the Ohio Valley which
attracted my notice from their resemblance to others familiar
to European archaeologists, was a class of cupped stones,
very abundant in many localities. In 180 7 Sir James Y.
Simpsoi. published an elaborate and nearly exhaustive dis-
quisition on ** Airchaic stones and rocks in Scotland, Eng-
land, and other countries;" and about the same time
Algernon, Duke of Northumberland, undertook the illustra-

ARCH^OLOGICAL THEORIES.

[chap.

ISK

tion of the same class of relics in his own district. The
work was projected on a large scale, and did not appear
till after his death, when a large imperial folio was produced,
entitled ^^ Incised Markings on Stone found in the County of
Northumhe^iandj Argyleshire, dc." The simplest types of
this clasp of archaic sculpturings consist of rounded depres-
sions, or "cups," formed in the surface of rocks and standing-
stones, and varying from 1 to 3 inches in diameter. Those
are scattered irregularly over the surface. But another
class has the cups surrounded by concentric rings, and with
lines leading from one group to another, with so much
apparent system as to have suggested the idea of their
being specimens of primitive chorography, not unlike the
delineations which I have seen made by an Indian on a bit
of birch-bark, in order to indicate the geography of a
locality. They have, in fact, been supposed to be maps,
whether of the Celtic Britons, or of some older people, and
to represent the chief towns, or intrenched strongholds, and
neighbouring villages or encampments, with the roads lead-
ing from one to another. But while the cup-like hollows
constitute their main features, the accompanying linear
marks vary sufficiently to afford antiquarian fancy and
conjecture ample scope in assigning their origi i or use.
They have accordingly been described as Phoenician, Druid-
ical, Mithraic ; as originating in the worship of Baal, or of
the Persian Sun-god ; as the blood- focuses of Druid altars ;
emblems of female Lingam worship ; Sabean astrono-
mical devices ; or as in some way or other recognisable as
possessing a sacred or religious character.

Attention had not been long directed to the cup sculp-
turings in Britain, when Professor Nilsson reported their
occurrence on Scandinavian standing-stones; Dr. Keller
recognised their presence on the rocks and boulders of
Switzcilaud ; and now it appears that they arc no less
common in Ohio and Kentu(;ky, and extend southward into
Georgia and other states of the Uulf Fig. 20 represents a

[chap.

. The
appear
►duced,
unty of
)^pes of
depres-
tnding-
Those
mother
id with
much
if their
ike the
n a bit
^ of a
5 maps,
)le, and
ds, and
Is lead-
oUows
linear
y and
T use.
iDruid-
or of
Itars ;
itrono-
,ble as

[sculp -

their

l^eller

)rs of

less

U into

3nts a

....]

GEORGIA BOULDERS.

cupped sandstone block on the banks of the Ohio, a little
below Cincinnati. Others, much larger, were described to
me by Dr. Hill. One above Mayville has thirty- nine cups,
and another, close to the river's bank, eighty of the same
characteristic hollows, with other linear and circular carv-
ings. Mr. Charles C. Jones figures, in his Antiquities of
the Southern Indians, a sculptured boulder of fine grained
granite in Forsyth county, Georgia, which in more than one
respect is the precise counterpart of ancient British ring and
cup sculpturings. Like the cap-stone of the Bonnington

Pio. 20.— Cuppcd-stone, Oliio.

Cromlech, the Old Bewick block described by Sir J. Y.
Simpson, and the Lancressc Cromlech in the Channel
Islands : the Georgia boulder has a row of cups, or drilled
holes, running along one side, while its surface is indented
with cup-like hollows fi'om a half to three quarters of an
inch deep, with concentric rings and connecting lines closely
resembling the sculpturings on some of tlie ancient Scottisli
stones. In Georgia they are nssumed to be the work of the
Chcrokees ; but Mr. Jones adds : ** No interpretation t *" these
figures has been offered, nor is it known by whom or for

1^1

;:l-l

HAND CUP-STONES.

[chap.

what puipose they were made."^ But besides the hirge rock
sculptures, numerous small stones occur in the ploughed
fields with similar cups wrought in them. They are mostly
of rough-grained sandstone, frequently with several holes
irregularly disposed on more than one surface ; and closely
corresponding to examples figured by Dr. Keller, some of
which were procured from the lake-dwellings of Neuchatel.
I gathered several specimens, and could have obtained many
more on Ohio farms, including both the smoothly hollowed
cups, from one to two and a half inches in diameter, and
those where the hollow is roughly picked out, or only
partially worn into a smoothly rounded cup. Some of
those examples were found in neighbouring fields, while
engaged in excavating the Evans Mound, in Sharon Valley,
near Newark, where also I obtained both polished axes and
mullers. The cupped stones were of a coarse-grained sand
stone, with the depressions occurring irregularly on both
sides, and occasionally so close as to run into each other.
Into these the rounded ends of the stone axes and pestles
fitted, and the two classes of objects seemed complements of
each other. Here was the roughly picked hollow, gradually
worn into a smooth rounded depression, in the process, as I
conceive, of grinding the ends of stone axes, maize-cmshers,
pestles, and the like implements, some of which fitted exactly
into the cups. As the hollow gradually wore too large, a
new one was made. The edges of the smaller cup-stones
also frequently show evidence of their use in grinding down
the surfaces of such stone implements. Such, however, is
not the theory which finds favour in the Ohio Valley. There
the hickory, or native walnut, abounds, with its hard shell,
defying all ordinary efforts to reach the tempting kernel.
But the boys have learned to hunt up a cupped stone, and
placing the nut in its hollow, it is fractured at a blow with
another stone, and its contents secured. Hence such
objects are called nut stones ; and Mr. C. C. Jones, in his

1 Aniiqnilm of the Southern Indians, p. 37S.

HI.]

NEOLITHIC GRINDSTONES.

Antiquities of the Southern Indians, has adopted both the
nnme and the idea implied in it, in spite of the occurrence
of the same cups or depressions on rocks and boulders alto-
gether inapplicable for such a purpose.^

Whatever may have been the purpose of the cupped
stones, tliey were not unknown to the ancient Mound-
Builders. Messrs. Squier and Davis state that " in opening
one of the mounds, a block of compact sandstone was dis-
covered, in which vvere several circular depressions, in all
respects reseml)ling those in the work-blocks of copper-

Fio. 21. — Cuiipel jiouliler, Troiiton, Oliio.

smiths, in whicli plates of metal are hammered to give them
convexity." These accordingly they suppose to have been
the moulds in which the copper bosses and discs were formed,
of which numerous cxami^les have been obtained from the
mounds.

A highly characteristic example of wliat may not inaptly
be styled a neolitliic grindstone was found near Tronton,
Ohio, in the summer of 1874. It is a large sandstouci
boulder, as shown in Fig. 21, covered witli cui)a, or pits ;

' Anlu/idtiea of the Southern Indiana, pp. 315 320.

:».

■V)

ARCHAEOLOGICAL ENIGMAS.

[chap.

«•

and also, as will be seen, with long gi'ooves, which suffice to
prove its use as a stone for shaping and polishing tools.
This adds confirmation to the probable origin of the cups
from a like cause. Since I drew attention to the subject,
I have been informed of the discovery of numerous similarly
indented and grooved rocks along the shores of the Ohio
river, including some of the hard granite, or liaurentian
boulders. But gritty sandstone rocks appear to have been
preferred.

The supposition that the cups on large boulders and small
sandstone grinders may alike be referred to the manipu-
lations of the stone tool-maker, leaves the more elaborate
accompaniments of concentric rings and linear devices un-
accounted for ; though it seems to me less improbable that
these additions — which are thus found among other traces of
the Cherokees and Shawnees of the new world, as well as
amid the remains of Europe's prehistoric races. — may be no
more than supplements of an idle fancy added to the hollows
which originated in the needful grinding of flint and stone
implements into their required forms, than that they are
mysterious religious symbols. Yet there is a fascination in
the idea that they are "archaeological enigmas :" Phoenician,
Mithraic, Sabean, or Druidical ; " lapidary hieroglyphics and
symbols," as Sir J. Y. Simpson assumes, " the key to whose
mysterious import has been lost, and probably may never
be regained."^ "They are," he again says, "too decidedly
* things of the past ' for even the most traditional of human
races to have retained the slightest recollection of them ;"
and, as in his attempt to determine the race to which to
refer them he follows up the glimpses of their occurrence
beyond the British Isles, he asks : ** Are they common in
countries which the Celtic race never reached ? still more,
are they to be found in the lands of the Lap, Finlander, or
Basque, which apparently neither the Celt nor any other
Aryan ever occupied ? Do they appear in Asia within the

* Archaic Sculpturinga, p. 92.

n..]

ANCIENT ANALOGIES.

bounds of the Aryan or Semitic races ? Or can they be
traced in Africa, or in any localities belonging to the
Hamitic branches of mankind ? Do they exist upon the
stones or rocks of America or Polynesia?"^ If my theory
is correct, they may be looked for in all. It is with tender
memories of a dearly valued friend that I render the response,
that such sculptured cups do exist upon the stones and rocks
of America, and amply justify the reference of those of the
Old World to Europe's neolithic age, when the men of its
polished stone period were grinding and working into per-
fected form the most prized relics of their laborious art.

The explanation thus derived from the traces of America's
native savage arts, in possible elucidation of a class of
archaic European sculptures which have been made the
subject of such learned speculation anel research, may seem
too artless to be substituted for theories of religious sym-
bolism or rites of worship. But the ancient evidences
of artistic labour in either hemisphere accord with the idea
that man's earliest arts were of the most practical kind. He
did, indeed, find leisure to ornament the tools designed for
common uses ; and gave play to his imitative faculty in
drawings and carvings which answered no other end than
the pleasure the draughtsman in all ages has derived from
the manifestation of his skill in the arts. But the grafting
of recondite theories of symbolism and ritualistic devices
either on such delineations, or on the simpler evidences of his
handiwork, is apt to lead us astray into fanciful and pro-
fitless speculations, wholly apart from the true significance
of such traces of primitive mechanical ingenuity as reveal
the presence of man even on the skirts of ancient glaciers,
and among the drift-gravels, of Europe's post-pleiocene
dawn. __..._.. ,.

1 Ihid. p. 147.

BONE AND IVORY WORKERS.

[chap.

CHAPTER IV.

BONE AND IV^ORY WORKERS.

lii

BOXR AND IVORY WORKERS— SUBSTITUTES FOR FtJNT— PROOFS OF RELATIVE AC!K -
DOMESTIC BONE IMPLEMENTS— RUDE PALVROLITHIC ART— WHALEBONE WORKERS
-PRIMITIVE WORKINO TOOLS— FISH-SPEAHS AND HARPOONS —ARTISTIC IN-
fiENUITV— DRAWING OF THE MAMMOTH— THE MADELAINE ETCHINGS— RIOHT-
HANDKO WORKERS— DEERHORN QUARRY PICKS— BONE-BRACER OR GUARD —
BIRTHTIME OF THE FINE-ARTS — INNUIT CARVERS OF ALASKA -TROGLODYTES OF
CENTRAL FRANCE— POST-GLACIAL MAN -SYMMETRICAL HEAD FORM -INTELLEC-
TUAL VIGOUR— EVIDENCE OF LATENT POWERS— TAW ATIN IVORY 'iARVINO— LAKE-
nWELLERS' IMPLEMENTS -CAVE IMPLEMENTS— ARTS OF THE PACIFICISLAVDERS
— CARIB SHELL-KNIVES— ABORIGINES OF THE ANTILLES— CARIBS OF ST. DOMINGO
—CAVE PICTURES AND CARVINGS— PRIZED TROPICAL SHELI-S — ANCIENT GRAVES
OF TENNESSEE— SHELL MANUFACTURES- HURON AND PETUN GRAVES— SACRED
SHELL-VESSELS— PRIMITIVE SHELL ORNAMENTS— AMERICAN SHELL MOUNDS— A
SHELL CURRENCY— lOQUA STANDARD OF VALUE.

The nearest type which we can now conceive of to the
Drift-Folk of Europe's post-glacial era is the Esquimaux.
It is even possible that, like them, they may have occu-
pied winter snow-huts ; and only retreated to their cave-
dwellings during the brief heat of a semi-arctic summer.
Among a people so situated the industrial arts are called
into utmost requisition, alike for clothing and tools; and
the simplest experience of the hunter directs him to the
produce of the chase for the most easy supply of both.
The pointed horn of the deer furnishes the ready made dag-
ger, lance-head, and harpoon ; the incisor tooth of the larger
rodents supplies a more delicately edged chisel than primi-
tive art could devise ; and the very process of fracturing
the l}ones of the larger mammalia in order to obtain the
prized marrow, produces the splinters and pointed fragments

IV.]

SUBSTITUTES FOR FLINT

which an easy manipulation converts into bodkins, hair-pins,
and needles. The ivory of walrus, narwhal, or elephant is
more readily wrought into many desirable forms, and is less
liable to fracture, than the intractable flint or stone ; and
all those materials are abundant in the most rigorous winters,
when flint nnd stone are sealed up under the frozen soil.
Tools and weapons of bone and ivory may therefore be
assumed to have preceded all but the rudest stone imple-
ments ; and although, owing to the indestructible nature of
their material, it is from the latter that our ideas of earliest
post-glacial art are chiefly derived, enough has been found
in contemporary cave-deposits to confirm this inference
from the analogous hyperborean arts of our own day.

Flint, indeed, though so widely used as the primitive
tool-maker's material, is unknown in many localities. We
are familiar with regions at the present time, where man
not only subsists, but supplies himself with implements and
weapons adapted to his need, though neither flint nor stone
is available. This fact has been practically ignored in the
accepted terminology of the science. As now reduced to
system, it proceeds in retrospective order thus : — Historic,
prehistoric, neolithic, palaeolithic, with a possible protolithic
period of still older geological epochs. An awkward mis-
nomer inevitably results from this assumption of stone as
the sole basis of primitive art : as where the archaeologist
speaks of palaeolithic bone implements, or neolithic pottery.
I have therefore substituted here the more comprehensive
terms palaeotechnic and neotechnic. They suffice equally for
the classification of implements and personal ornaments of
flint, stone, bone, ivory, or even of metal : as in the neotechnic
gold and bronze work ; and also for those made from marine
shells. Many of the latter have been recovered under circum-
stances which establish their claim to be classed with other
examples of primitive art ; and even find illustration among
the rarer disclosures of the ancient cave-drift. In the great
Archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, as well aa in widely

VOL. 1. G

i %

PROOFS OF RELATIVE AGE.

[chap.

scattered islands of the Pacific Ocean, the primeval stage of
native art might indeed be more correctly designated a shell
period ; for until their discovery by Europeans, the large shelb
which the moUusca of the neighbouring oceans produce in
great abundance, furnished to the native artificers the most
convenient and easily wrought material. For the natives of
the coral islands of the Pacific especially, marine shells sup-
plied the want not only of copper and iron, but of flint
and stone ; and left them at little disadvantage when com-
pared, for example, with the Indians of the copper regions
of Lake Superior. :

Alike in the ivory and bone carvings of the modern
Esquimaux, and in the rare but invaluable evidences of pri-
mitive art furnished by those of the ancient Cave-Folk of the
Dordogne and other oldest human dwellings, it is seen how
favourable such easily wrought material was to the develop-
ment of a mechanical skill and artistic ingenuity such as must
have lain dormant had the primitive artificers been wholly
liniited to flint and stone. The same result is traceable,
though in a less degree, to the analogous material of the
Islanders' shell-period. But implements and ornaments made
of marine shells have a further interest from the evidence
they occasionally afford of distant traffic, or interchange of
foreign commodities.

Tools of horn, bone, and ivory possess a value of another
kind. With them, as on a common ground, the palaeonto-
logist and the archceologist meet and determine the relative
ages of the primitive artist and his materials. In the Gla-
morganshire cavern at Paviland Dr. Buckland found the
skull of a mammoth, or other fossil proboscidian, and beside
it the remains of cylindrical rods and armlets made from its
ivory. In the famous Aurignac cave, on the northern slope
of the Pyrenees, were arrows and other implements of rein-
deer horn, a bodkin fashioned out of the horn of the roedeer,
and a tusk of the ursus spelceus, perforated and carved in
imitation of the head of a bird. The Dordogne caves in

,v.]

DOMESTIC BONE IMPLEMENTS.

like manner reveal the natives of Southern France in its old
post-glacial era, hunting the aurochs and reindeer, and
fashioning their horns and bones into lances, bodkins, needles,
clubs, ceremonial or official batons, and other implements of
varied purpose and design. Among the "prehistoric re-
mains of Caithness," which rewarded the explorations of
Mr. Samuel Lainfj in the mounds at Keiss, were numerous

■^&:

"W \

If-

Fio. 22— BoneSpfttida,
Keiss.

Fio. 23 —IJono Comb, Biirglmr

Fio 24. BonoComli,
liurglmr.

implements made from the horns and bones of the reindeer,
red-deer, ox, horse, and whale. Some of them are of the
rudest character ; and all indicate a condition of life akiii to
that of the tribes of the Labrador, or the Alaska coast at
the present day. Fig. 22 is a spatula roughly formed from
the bone of an ox ; unless, as Mr. Joseph Anderson has sug-
gested, it be the fii'st stage in the process of fabricating a
comb, of the type shown in Figs. 23, 24. The latter, found

■f#6

RUDE PAL A OLITHIC ART.

[chap.

at Burghar, in Orkney, is a precise counterpart of the long-
handled combs still in use by the Esquimaux for separating
the sinew threads, which supply them "rith one important
resource in making their clothing. Those relics point to times
when the fauna differed even more than the men of this era
from those of the present day. In tht mounds of the Ohio
Valley, on the other hand, the bone implements and animal
remains appear to be referable to existing species ; and ^ o
supply evidence in contradiction of the extrem antiquity
assigned by some to the mounds and their builders. One
special value of primitive tools of horn, bone, and ivory is
thus manifest. They embody glimpses of truth in relation to
climate, native fauna, culinary practices, and special objects
of the chase ; and to this easily worked material we owe
disclosures of an aesthetic faculty, and of artistic capabilities
pertaining to the Troglodytes of the Dordogne, to whom,
but for such evidence, might, and probably would have been
assigned a rank in humanity as far below the standard of the
modern savage as the Patagonian or Australian falls short
of that of the average European of our own day.

The artificial origin of many of the rudest of the worked
drift-flints has been challenged. But of the human work-
manship of the large flint implement found alongside of the
bones of a fossil elephant in the quaternary gravels of the
London basin, near Gray's Inn Lane ; or of the spear-heads
which lay under similar fossil bones in the drift of the valley
of the Waveney, at Hoxne, in Suffolk, no doubt has ever been
suggested. Both were discovered upwards of a century before
the idea of man's contemporaneous existence with the mam-
mals of the drift had been mooted ; but if such specimens
of his art are to be made the sole test of human capacity in
that primeval era, they might justify the idea of some lower
type even than the wretched Patagonian or Australian.
But contemporary cave deposits check our conclusions from
such partial evidence; and suggest that in those rudest
specimens of {^oleeolithic art we have only the most inde-

IV.]

WHALEBONE WORKERS.

loi

stnictible relics of an epoch by no means destitute of inven-
tive ingenuity or artistic skill. t
All the cave deposits referred to were accompanied with
human remains. In the Glamorganshire Cavern a female
skeleton lay in close proximity to the skull of the fossil
elephas, embedded in a mass of argillaceous loam. Adapt-
ing his deductions to the ruling idea which then guided the
author of the ReliquicB Diluviance, Dr. Buckland refers to
the cylindrical rods and rings of ivory as " made from part
of the antediluvian tusks that lay in the same cave ; and,"
he adds, ** as they must have been cut t? their present shape
at a time when the ivory was hard, and not crumbling to
pieces as it is at present on the slightest touch, we may from
this circumstance assume to them a high antiquity." Dr.
Buckland's idea of the antiquity implied by such cave remains
was veiy different from what is now universally accepted.
But it is not to be overlooked that here, as in the Aurignac,
and other sepulchral caverns, the interment may belong to
an epoch long subsequent to that of the fossil mammals.
The tusk of a mammoth from the Carse of Falkirk, now in
detached pieces in the museum of the University of Edin-
burgh, was rescued from the lathe of an ivory-turner ; and
the fossil ivory of Siberia is a regular c*:ticle of commerce.
■ But in other examples of a like character we are left in no
doubt. The deer's horn harpoons of the whalers of Blair-
Drummond Moss are unquestionably contemporaneous, with
the fossil whales ; and although the implements are rude
enough, they will class with harpoons and fish-spears hero
described, some of which have been found associated
with works in bono and ivory of great ingenuity and skill.
The Greenland whale undoubtedly haunted the northern
shores of Scotland within historic times. Its bones occur
in Scottish brochs and kitchen-middens ; and among the
many traces of prehistoric arts and habits of life disclosed
by the contents of the Scottish subterranean dwellings,
one of the moat interesting is a largo drinkuig-cup fashioned

nil

PRIMITIVE WORKING TOOLS.

[chap.

■■■' :'\

from the vertebra of a whale. It was found in a weem
on the Isle of Eday, in Orkney, along with a bone scoop,
bone pins, combs, and other primitive relics, including
some of metal. The cup measures 4j inches high ; and,
as shown in Fig. 25, is a very simple adaptation of the

natural form of the bone by saw-
ing off the protruding spinous
processes.

The ancient workman had his
knife, saw, adze, chisel, drill,
and scraper, — or plane, as we
may term it, — all made of flint.
I'he worn and triturated edges
of many of those flint-tools show
abundant evidence of their use in
fashioning some hard substance.
He had also his file, made of
grit -stone ; of which various
examples have been found in
the caves. Tliey are generally styled whetstones ; but their
purpose was probably the very same as that of a modern
file. Some are of coarse-grained stone, and others of a finer
grit. Without some such tools it would have been impos-
sible to bring the more elaborate implements of bone and
ivory to the state of finish which they present. Among
BU<^h, the harpoons and fish-spears furnish a variety of types,
diversified by the ingenuity of the workman, and the neces-
sities of his craft. Examples of such primitive fishing
implements of widely different eras are here grouped to-
gether. The three-pronged fish-spear, Fig. 26, illustrates
the art of the Esquimaux fisherman : that living race of
Arctic seas, which alike in arts and in condition of life,
realises for us in so many ways the men of Europe's post-
glacial age. Alongside of it are a hook, or spear-heavi of
deer's-horn, Fig. 27, and a barbed fish-spear of the same
material. Fig. 28, both the work of the ancient Lakc-

Fio. 26.— Whale's Vertebra Cup.

IV.]

FISH-SPEARS AND HARPOONS.

103

dwellers of NeuchAtel. They present interesting analogies
to the most familiar types of bone or ivory fish-spears of
the French and English post-glacial era, of which Figs. 29,
30 are examples from the Dordogne Caves. Fig. 31, though
worn and fractured, illustrates a form of the cave harpoon-
blade, barbed only on one side. It is from Kent's Cavern,
where other, though less perfect, examples have been found.
One of these, figured by Mr. Evans,^ is specially noticeable
for its curved form. Similar implements have repeatedly
occurred in the cave-deposits, as in those of the Dordogne,

Fio. 26.

Fio. 27.

Pio. 29.

Fia. 80,

Fia. 28.

and at Bruniquel, where also serrat' 1 Hints or saws were
found in unusual abundance. Fig. 36, from the cave of
La Madelaine, is a good example of the unilateral fish-spear,
much superior in workmanship to the similar implement of
the modem Fuegian, shown in Fig. 33, and well adapted
to the wants of a river-fisherman. But the form of the
Kent's Cavern type rather suggests that it was c .. of
the blades of a large two-pronged, or three-pronged
spear, similar to examples still in use among the Es-

'^ Ancient Stone Implements of Great Britain, Fig. 405, p. 460.

111

.■J .

■ [
I I

• }■- : •■3 , :

J.'' ^'^

104

FISH-SPEARS AND HARPOONS.

[chap.

quimaux : of which one, now in the museum of the Uni-
versity of Toronto, shown in Fig. 26, illustrates the pro-
bable design of the curved blades. In the caves of the
Dordogne and Garonne valleys repeated discoveries of bone
needles, in association with the barbed fish-spear, have been
noted. They are objects of delicate manipulation, the value
of which is proved by the occurrence of examples accidentally
broken, and drilled with a new eye. The caves of the Dor-
dogne pertained, even in the remote era of the mammoth or
reindeer periodic, to a race of inland hunters and fishermen
to whom such a harpoon would have been cumbrous, if not

Fio. 81.— Harpoon, Koiit'H Cavern.

Pig. 82.— Boue Spearhead, Dordogne Caves.

Fio. 33.— Fuegiim Harpoon,

wholly unsuited to their requirements. But the Kent's
Hole Troglodyte had probably more formidable prey to en-
counter, and so adapted the implements of the chase to his
special requirements. Of the bilateral barbed fish-spear, a
good, though imperfect example is shown, the natura] size, in
Fig. 32, from Laugerie Basse, in the Dordogne. Another,
Fig. 34, was found imbedded iu the red cave-earth of
Kent's Cavern, underneath a bed of black eai-th, containing
flint-flakes and bones of extinct mammals, over which the
stalagmitic flooring had accumulated to a thickness of a
foot and a half. Similar implements have been recovered

,v.]

ARTISTIC INGENUITY.

105

from other Dordogne Caves. Fig. 35, from La Madelaine,
is a variation of the latter type, in which the barbs are dis-
posed alternately on either side.

It is alike interesting &nd highly suggestive of the char-
acteristics of man as a rational being, thus to find his in-
genuity, when stimulated by similar necessities, begetting
closely analogous results in ages separated by intervals so
vast that we vainly strive to measure them by any standards
of historical chronology. But the ingenuity manifested in
the construction of his fishing and hunting gear very in-
adequately reveals to us the aptitudes of the men of the

Fio. 34.— Fish-speur, Keut'H Cavern.

^ ^^,- J.J-U.-i„L

Fio. 36.— Fish-spear with bilateral barbs, La Madelaine.

^ Fio. 86.— Flflh-spear with unilateral barbs, La Madelaine.

drift or the cave periods. In those remote epochs, as now,
man was an intelligent being, gratifying his taste in many
ways by works often involving great labour, and leading to
no other practical results than many labours of the carver
and house-decorator, the painter, sculptor, and engraver of
our own day. Among the works of art, for example, of the
cave men of the Dordogne, contemporary with the mammoth
and the reindeer of Central France, voxious incised draw-
ings of animals, executed both on bone and slate, apparently
with a flint stylus or graver, have excited an unusual
interest. They include representations of the fossil horse,
as on a carved baton, or mace, Fig. 37 ; of the reindeer,
in groups, and engaged in . combat ; of the ox, fish

J'^a*

io6

Z>/?A WING OF THE MAMMOTH.

[chap.

of different kinds, flowers, ornamental patterns, and some
ruder attempts at the human form. Carvings ^'n bone
and ivory illustrate the same ingenious mimetic art.
But the most remarkable of all is the portraiture of
the mammoth. Fig. 38, outlined on a plate of ivory, and
to all appearance drawn from the life. It represents the
extinct elephant, sketched with great freedom and even
artistic skill ; and not only compares favourably with the
best specimens of modern savage delineation, but exhibits
so much freedom of handling as to look more like the sketch
of an artist skilled in the use of his pencil. I can recall no
example of savage art exhibiting such freedom ; and none

Fio. 37.— Carved Baton, or Mace (reduced to a third).

but an experienced draughtsman could execute with pencil
or etching-needle anything approaching to the expression
and character given by means of a few lines, executed with
no laboured effort, but evidently dashed off by one who
had full confidence in his powers. ^

This most ancient example of imitative art was found in
the Madelaine Cave, on the river V^z^re, by M. Lartet,
when in company with M. Verneuil and Dr. Falconer. The
circumstances of the discovery, therefore, no less than the
character of the explorers, place its genuineness beyond
suspicion. Its worth is great as a piece of contemporary
portraiture of an animal known to us only by its fossil
remains. But this sinks into insignificance in comparison
with its value as a gauge of the intellectual capacity of the

IV.]

THE MADELAINE ETCHINGS.

107

pry

)ssil

Ison

the

men of the reindeer age of central Europe. Many of their
carvings ornament the horn or ivory handles of implements
and weapons ; but the etching referred to was manifestly
executed with no other aim than the gratification of the
artistic taste of the draughtsman, and resembles the free
sketches thrown off by an artist in an idle hour.

But there is another point worthy of notice here, the
interest of which is greatly increasod by the undoubted
antiquity of the relic. This palseographic tablet is a right-
handed drawing ; and the same may be affirmed of the
group of reindeer, and of others of the Madelaine etchings.
They are executed in profile, looking to the left, as any

Fig. 38.— Tlie Mammoth, engraved on ivory.

right-handed draughtsman naturally does, unless he has
some special reason for deviating from the direction which
the facility of his pencil suggests.

The question of right-handedness, as a natural or acquired
practice peculiar to man, has a special interest when viewed
in relation to his innate instincts or attributes in the remote
dawn of human intelligence thus anew brought to light.
The universality of right-handedness as a characteristic of
man has been assumed, partly on the concurrent evidence
of language, w^hich shows the general habit of using one
hand in preference to another. But the prevalence of the
use of the right hand among savage nations is still a mere
assumption. The statistics have yet to be collected, and are

io8

RIGHT-HANDED WORKERS.

[chap.

': r -it

ft'.

by no means readily accessible. Any evidence of the pre-
valence of right-handedness among a people still in the primi-
tive stage of stone implements must be exceedingly vague.
In the rude manipulations of a purely savage life, with the
imperfection of the tools and the general absence of com-
bined operations, the distinction in the use of one hand
rather than the other is of little importance. In digging
roots, climbing rocks or trees, in the rude operations of the
primitive boat-maker or hut-builder, in hunting, flaying,
cooking, or most other of the operations pertainuig not only
to the hunter, but even to the pastoral stage, there is little
manifest motive for the use of one hand more than the other;
and on the supposition of either becoming more generally
serviceable, it would neither attract notice, nor interfere in
any degree with the arts of life, though some gave a preference
to the right hand, and others to the left. Hence the diffi-
culty of determining the prevalence of right-handedness
among savage nations. Its manifestations in the rude arts
of the isolated workman are obscure, and any uniformity of
action becomes apparent only in those combined operations
which are comparatively rare in savage life. Yet even in
the languages of the Hawaians, I'ijiaus, Maories and Aus-
tralians, terms are met with showing the preferential use of
one hand. In the rudest state of society, man as a tool-
using animal has this habit engendered in him ; and as he
progresses in civilisation, and improves on his first rude
weapons and implements, there must arise an inevitable
tendency to give the preference to one hand over the other,
not only in combined action, but from the necessity of
adapting certain tools to the hand.^

An interesting episode relating to this assumed speciality
of man is introduced in a communication by the Rev. W.
GreenweU to the Ethnological Society of London, on the
opening of some ancient Norfolk flint-pits, popularly known

^ For a detailed diBcv.3<iou of this subject in its general bearings, vide *' Righir
handednata," Canadian Journal, N.S., vol. xiii. p. 193. '

IV.]

DEERHORN QUARRY PICKS.

tog

as " Grime's Graves." In these v^ere found not only imple-
ments of flint, a hatchet of basalt, hammers, stones of qiiartz-
ite and other pebbles, and numerous chippings and cores of
flint, along with a bone pin, and another implement of bone
which Mr. Greenwell supposes to have been used in detach-
ing the flakes of flint for knives and arrow-heads ; but also a
number of primitive deer-horn picks, which had been used
by the ancient quarrymen by whom the flint was thus pro-
cured, and fashioned into tools.

The picks made from the antlers of the red deer were
constructed simply by detaching the horn at a distance of
al)0ut sixi-een or seventeen inches from the brow end, and
then breaking off" all but the large brow-tine, with the help
of fire and rude cutting implements of flint. They had been
used both as picks and hammers, the point of the brow-
tine serving for a pick, and the broad flat part opposite to
it as a hammer for breaking ofi" and detaching the flint from
the chalk ; while excavations through the solid chalk were
effected by means of hatchets of basalt. The marks of both
tools were abundant on the walls of the galleries ; and many
of the rude picks, including the two specially referred to,
were coated with an incrustation of chalk, bearing the
impress of the workmen's fingers. Here, as in the Brixham
cavern, an accident, which brought the ancient operations
to an abrupt close, sealed up the evidence of them beyond
reach of all obscuring interpolations, until their discovery in
recent years. In clearing out one of the subterranean
galleries excavated in the chalk, it was found that " the roof
had given way about the middle of the gallery, and blocked
up the whole width of it. On removing this, it was seen
that the flint had been worked out in three places at the
end, forming three hollows, extending beyond the chalk face
of the end of the gallery." In front of two of these hollows
lay two picks, corresponding to others found in various
parts of the shafts and galleries, made from the antler of the
red deer. But in this case the writer notes that the handle

BONE BRACEk or GUARD.

[chap.

of each was laid towards the mouth of the gallery, the tines,
which formed the blades of the tools, pointing towards each
other, " showing, in all probaoility, that they had been used
respectively by a right and a left-handed man. The day's
work over, the men had laid down each his tool, ready for
the next day's work ; meanwhile the roof had fallen in, and
the picks had never been recovered," until their reproduc-
tion in evidence of the supposed habits of the right and
left-handed workmen, by whom they were employed at the
close of that last day's labour, in the prehistoric dawn.^

Mr. Evans, in discussing the use of certain perforated
plates of stone frequently found in British graves, adopts
the idea that they were bracers, or guards, to protect the
left arm of the archer against the recoil of the string in
shooting with the bow. But, he adds, " unless there was
some error in observation, plates of this kind have been
occasionally found on the right arm;" and he refers to a
skeleton observed by Lord Londesborough, on the opening
of a chambered barrow ut Driffield, the bones of the right
arm of which were laid in a very singular and beautiful
armlet, made of some large animal's bone, set with two
gold-headed bronze pins or rivets, most probably to attach
it to a strap which passed round the arm, and was secured
by a small bronze buckle found underneath the bones. This
also Mr. Eva 3 supposes to have been the bracer, or guard
of an archer , and he adds, " possibly this ancient warrior
was left-handed." A Scottish example, from a large tumulus
on the shore of Broadford Bay,
Isle of Skye, is here shown,
Fig. 39. These plates, or
guards, are most frequently
made of a close-grained green
chlorite slate ; and in various
cases flint arrow-heads have been noted among other con-
tents of the same grave. But the cist in which the supposed

* Joum. Ethnol. Soc, N.S., vol. ii. p. 419.

Pia. 39.— Scottish Stone Bracer.

IV.]

BIRTHTIME OF THE FINE ARTS.

Ill

on-
sed

left-handed warrior lay contained a bronze dagger, some
large amber beads, and a drinking- cup ; but no arrow-heads
to confirm the idea that he had been laid to rest with his bow
beside him, and the guard ready braced on his arm, like one of
the seven hundred left-handed Benjamites, every one of
whom could sling stones at a hair's breadth, and not miss.
Posdbly the novel and richly finished armlet occupied its
proper place on the right arm as a personal decoration suite 1
to the rank of the wearer. •' v S K v ?, v k: >

But bronze pins and daggers carr}' us into kiter times
tlian those of the Troglodytes of the Dordogne. Ancient
though the Driffield, barrow unquestionably is according to
ordinary chronology, it is a very recent sepulchre compared
with the catacombs of the French reindeer period, the draw-
ings from which undoubtedly suggest the right -handedness
of the draughtsmen who used the stylus and graver so dex-
terously in that birthtime of the fine arts in transalpine
Europe. .-::-.--.-v-ii-' "

But similar traces of primitive art, assigned to a still
earlier epoch, have been recently reported fi:om the vicinity
of the Dardanelles. Mr. Frank Calvert describes the dis-
covery of numerous stone implements, some of them of large
size, and much worn, imbedded in drift two or three hun-
dred feet thick, underlying stratified rocks, as he believes, of
the miocene period. Flint implements are rare, and the
most common material is red or other coloured jasper.
Among fossil bones, teeth, and shells from the same forma-
tion, remains of the Dinotherium, and the shell of a species
of Melania pertaining to the miocene epoch, have been
identified ; and Mr. Calvert writes to the Levant Herald : —
"From the face of a cliff" composed of strata of that period,
at a geological depth of 800 feet, I have myself extracted a
fragment of the joint of a bone of either a dinotherium or a
mastodon, on the convex side of which is deeply incised the
unmistakable figure of a horned quadruped, with arched
neck, lozenge-shaped chest, long body, straight forelegs, and

112

JNNUIT CARVERS OF ALASKA.

[chap.

broad feet. There are also traces of seven or eight othoi
figures, which, together with the hind quarters of the first,
are nearly obliterated. The whole design encircles the
exterior portion of the fragment, which measures nine inches
in diameter, and five in thickness. I have also found, not
^ar from the site of the engraved bone, in diflferent parts of
the same cliff, a flint flake, and some bones of animals frac-
tured longitudinally, obviously by the hand of man, for the
purpose of extracting the marrow, according to the practice
of all primitive races."^

These traces of primitive art Mr. Calvert recognises as
"conclusive proofs of the existence of man during the
miocene period of the tertiary age." They at least furnish
additional illustrations of his intellectual activity, however
remote the antiquity to which he is traced ; and show the
same ideas of comparison which enter so largely, not only
into modern artistic design, but into much of the rhetoric
and poetry of later times.

Among living races the Innuit of Alaska, within three
degrees of Behring's Strait, are skilful carvers in ivory.
They chiefly use the teeth of the Beluga, a small white
whale common in their seas, and from this they c rve
birds, fish, seals, deer, and other animals, as well as bod-
kins, needles, awls, and other implements, with consider-
able skill. They obtain the walrus tusks in barter from
more northern tribes; and from those they make fish-
spears, harpoons, and other larger implements. They also
amuse themselves with graving, on plates of bone or ivory,
dances, hunting-scenes, and other familiar incidents. Of
the latter, Mr. W. H. Dall remarks, in his int resting nar-
rative of Alaska and its Resources: "These drawings are
analogous to those discovered in Franco, in the caves of
Dordogne."* They are so, in so far as both are attempts
at representing contemporary animal life by untutored

1 Athenatum, April 6, 1873.

' Almhaw'l Uh Hesourcet, p. 237.

IV.]

TROGLODYTES OF CENTRAL FRANCE.

man ; but the accompanying illustrations of Innuit art
show how greatly the work of the modern savage draughts-
man falls short of that of the artist of the Mammoth epoch
of Europe.

Fortunately our knowledge of the men of that remote era
is supplemented by evidence of a still more direct kind.
In 1868 the construction of a railroad led to the removal
of an extensive talus on the left bank of the river V^z^re,
at Cro-Magnon, exposing a cave, or shallow recess in the
face of the rock, within which were found a succession of
strata, with traces of the action of fire, and including flint
scrapers, bone bodkina, arrow-points, and other implements,
along with bones of the Elephas prinii<jenius, Felts spelcea,
the reindeer, fossil-horse, and ivory tablets and tynes of
deerhorn, marked with a series of notches, supposed to be
hunters' tallies recording the produce of the chase. One of
the latter, interesting as an illustration of these earliest efforts
at numerical notation, is shown in Fig. 40. But most valu-

rory,
Of

Pi«. 40.— Hunter's Tally Deorshoni.

able of all were the human skeletons, including those of an
old man, a woman, and portions of others of two young
men, and a child. Beside them lay nearly three hundred
marine shells, chiefly the Littorina littorea, some perforated
teeth, and — as if to determine the era of the Troglodytes of
Cro-Magnon, — several implements made of reindeer horn.

Evidence of a similar kind accumulates with the in-
terest which it has excited. To the south of the Alps the
caverns of Baouss6 Rouss6 have yielded a singularly rich
series of implements and personal ornaments of flint, ivory,
bone, and shell ; and more important than all, a nearly per-
fect human skeleton, brought to light in the Mentone
Cave, with the skull still decorated with its ornamental

VOL. I.

114

POST- GLA CTA L MAN.

[chap.

»'N

ii ■:ft?

head-gear of perforated sliells (Cyclonassa neritea) and
canine teeth of the Gervus elaphus, originally strung, as is
supposed, on a net for the hair. Across the forehead lay a
large bone hair pin, made of the radius of a stag, with the
natural condyle retained as its head.^ The correspondence
between the Mentone skull and those of Cro-Magnon is
considerable. Already, therefore, sufficient remains of the

Km. 41.— SkullofOMManofCro-Miigiiou Pmnio.

ancient cave dwellers have been recovered to ol,. * ns to
f<n*iu Home definite idea of their physical charncterisi r i.

The Cro Magnon men nnd women are largo of stature.
Their skulls, like that of the Mentone Cave, are of it
dolichocephalic type, and so far accord with the Esqui-
maux, rather than with any Turanian head-form. But it is
important to note that in no other respect do they yield
the slightest countenance to the theory favoured by some,
that the cave-men of pjdtuolithic Europe bore an affinity to
the Esquimaux, and that in the latter we have the living

• DPmuwrte. iVun Hqnvlkttv humain de l\'poqiui l\il('i>lUhi<jHe ilunt lea caven^es
ilea liaoHM^ iiimm\ par Kiuilo Riviere, p. 31.

.v.]

S YMMETRTCA L HE A D-FORM.

representatives of post-glacial, if not still older man. If
indeed the Cro-Magnon and Mentoue skulls are, as they
have been assumed to be, those of contemporaries of the
mammoth and reindeer of Southern Europe, Dr. Pruner-Bey
remarks of the race : " If we consider that its three in-
dividuals had a cranial capacity much superior to the
average at the present day ; that one of them was a female,
and that female crania are generally below the average of
male crania in size ; and that nevertheless the cranial

Fio. 42.
Skull of Old Mini of Cro-Mngiioii— Front View.

Fio. 4:).
Skull of Oltl Miiu of L'ro-.Mngnou -Vortionl View.

capacity of the Cro-Magnon woman surpasses the average
capacity of male skulls of to-day, we arc led to rigard the
great size of the brain as one of the more remarkable
characters of the Cro-Magnon race. This cerebral volume
seems to me even to exceed that with which at the present
day a stature equal to that of our cave-folks would be asso-
ciated : whether the skulls from the Belgium caves are
small, not only absolutely, but even relatively in the rather
small stature of the inhabitants of those caves."^ Along

^ Itelhiuhv Aijuiliiiiiav. VII. Acaount of Uio liuuxui Itunes found in the oave
of Cr«i.Mai»non in Donlogno, by \h\ I*rinu'i-- IVy.

ii6

INTELLECTUAL VIGOUR.

[chap.

with this ample cerebral development, the general form of
the head is graceful and symmetrical. Alike in the Gro-
Magnon and Mentone examples the total absence of pro
gnathism is noted. An expressive, though strongly marked
orthognathic profile with ample forehead, prominent nose,
moderately developed superciliary ridges and maxillaries,
and a well-formed chin, all compare favourably, not only
with the foremost savage races, but with many civilised
nations of modern times.

Of the age of those Troglodytes of France, M. Lartet
remarks : " The presence of the remains of an enormous
bear, of the mammoth, of the great cave-lion, of the rein-
deer, the spermophile, etc., in the hearth-beds, strengthens
in every way the estimation of their antiquity ; and this
can be rendered still more rigorously, if we base our argu-
ment on the predominance of the horse here, in comparison
with the reindeer, on the form of the worked flints, and of
the bone arrow and dart-heads." * This argument, however,
overlooks the possibility of the interments long after the
accumulation of the hearth- beds with their included relics.
Assuming this cavern period of Central France as the later
subdivision of the palaeolithic age of Europe, its drawings
and carvings represent the arts of a remote era, compared
even with the polished stone-hammers and chipped flints
contemporary with the oldest implements of bronze. It is
obvious, therefore, that a comparison between the rude
worked flints of the cave-men of Southern France, and the
highly finished stone implements of the bronze period of
Northern Europe, is no true gauge of any intermediate pro-
gress or development. The artist to whose pencil or
graving-tool we owe the only authentic portraiture of the
mammoth, unquestionably possessed skill and intellectual
vigour adequate to the production of any stone implement
or personal ornament pertaining to the arts of Western
Europe at the commencement of its metallurgic period.

' Hi'liqula AquUanieo'. M. Louis I^ftrtet, p. 70.

IV.]

EVIDENCE OF LATENT POWERS.

117

111 truth it is far easier to produce evidences of deterioration
than of progress, in instituting a comparison between the
contemporaries of the mammoth, and later prehistoric races
of Europe, or savage nations of modern centuries. They
had advanced, as M. Paul Broca says, " to the very thresh-
old of civilisation." They possessed arts, industry, and
apparently such a degree of social organisation as their ex-
ternal circumstances admitted of. But then, as at many
subsequent periods, the elements of progress were arrested
at this stage, and the whole work of civilisation had to be
begun anew.

A careful study of the native arts of the American con-
tinent, in subsequent chapters, will bring under our notice
the intellectual efforts of man in a purely savage state, and
so help to a determination of what is implied in certain par-
tial manifestations of mimetic design. This is the true cor-
rective of any tendency to an undue estimate of the general
progress implied by such evidence. It will be seen that a
rare aptitude is shown among certain tribes for mimetic
drawing and carving; yet it is of limited application, and
accompanied by little superiority to surrounding tribes in
the employment of the arts for the general requirements of
savage life. Even in such cases, however, it is an evidence
of latent powers, capable of development under favourable
circumstances. The Esquimaux have been stimulated by
the necessities of Arctic life to great ingenuity in the fashion-
ing of their weapons, and in all other appliances of the
chase, on which their very existence depends ; but they are
skilful, as a savage people, in the ornamental, as well as
the useful arts. Their skin and fur dresses are fashioned
and decorated with great taste ; and many of their ivory
and bono implements are beautifully carved. There is in
the Museum of the University of Toronto a set of Esqui-
maux children's toys, including miniature men, dogs, sledges,
and objects of the chase, all carved in ivory witli ingenious
skill. The Thlinkets of Alaska, lying on the borders of tho

ii8

TA WATIN IVOR V CAR VING.

[chap

true Esquimaux region, make ladles and spooiis from the
horns of the deer, the mountain sheep, and the goat, which
are special objects of the chase, and carve them with ela
borate ingenuity. Grotesque masks of wood, paddles, knife
handles of bone, bodkins, combs, and other personal orna-
ments, chiefly of walrus ivory, are all carved with great
variety of design, though scarcely in a style of high art.

Among the tribes lying immediately to the south, the
Tawatin Indians of British Columbia specially excel in ivory
carving. Their personal ornaments are lavishly decorated ;
and many of their carvings resemble in so far the mammoth
portraiture of the Madelaine artist, that they are simply
eff'orts of skill, having no other end in view than the plea-

Flo. 44.— Tftwiitia Ivory Curving of Wlmlo.

sure derived from their execution. It will be seen, however,
in the conventional representation of the whale, as shown in
Fig. 44, how far they fall short of the ancient workers in
ivory in literal truthfulness of delineation. In one respect
indeed this piece of Tawatin carving recalls a characteristic
of early Christian art. Trifling as the correspondence is,
it is curious tlius to find the modern Indian carver of the
Pacific coast giving to the monster of the deep the same
bt^rbed tongue which forms the conventional attribute of the
dragons and leviathans of medieval Europe. But it is
greatly more interesting to note, not only the thoroughly
native style of art of their more elaborate carvings ; but to
recognise in many of them certain traits which recall

IV.]

LAKE-DWELLERS IMPLEMENTS.

X19

same
fthe
it is

ghiy

it to
ecall

characteristics of the finished sculptures on the ruins of
Central America and Yucatan. This is strikingly shown in
another of their carvings, Fig. 45, where some of the points
of resemblance help to confirm other traces, hereafter indi-
cated on difi'erent grounds, of early intercourse, if not of a
common relationship, between savage tribes of the North-
West, and ancient civilised nations of Central America and
the Mexican plateau.

In times still prehistoric, th>mgh apparently recent in
comparison with the mammcth or reindeer period of France,
the works of the ancient Lake-dwellers of Switzerland 'fur-
nish illustrations of the application of horn, bone, and ivory
to many useful purposes for which the metals are now con-

" Fm. 45. — Tftwatin Ivory carving. ' '

sidered as alone suitable. The site of the pfahlbautcn at
Concise, ou Lake Neuch^tel, has been peculiarly rich in the
illustrations it has yielded of implements in flint, stone,
l)one, horn, and also in bronze. The skulls, horns, and bones,
both of domesticated animals, and of those procured in the
chase, are also abuiuhmt ; and among the latter, the red
deer and the wild boar fippear to have predominated as
articles of food. ^__

The Natural History Museum of Cambridge, Massachu-
setts, which owes its existence to the indefatigable zeal of
the lamented Professor Agassiz, is enriched by a collection
of remains of the ancient (Swiss Lake dwellers, obtained
under peculiarly favourable circumstances. The lather of

133

CA VE IMPLEMENTS.

[chap.

the distinguished naturalist was for a period of fifteen years
the clergyman of Concise ; and it chanced that the son
revisited his native canton at a time when the construction
of a railway viaduct across part of the neighbouring lake led
to the discovery of numerous trace s of its ancient popula-
tion. He was accordingly able to secure a choice collection
illustrative of aboriginal arts, including some characteristic
specimens of horn and bone implements, from which some
illustrative examples are here selected. Fig. 46 may be
described as a chisel made of a hog's tooth inserted in a
haft of deer's horn, precisely after a fashion familiar to the
Red Indian, of converting the incisor of the beaver into a

Flu, 40.— Hog's Tooth Chisel, Conciae.

useful cutting tool. The same collection includes knives,
daggers, bodkins, or awls, made of bone or ivory, and hafted
in like manner with horn ; as well as implements of flint
and stone hereafter referred to.*

Among the tools and personal ornaments wrought of
mammoth ivory, which Dean Buckland describes as found in
the Goat Hole Cavern at Paviland, is a skewer made of the
metacarpal bone of a wolf, flattened at the edge at one end,
and terminated at the other by the natural rounded condyle
of the bone. Implements of this type are by no means
rare. The original disclosures of Kent's Cavern included
arrow and lance heads, bodkins, pins, hair-combs, netting-

' For a more detailed account, vldt Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot., vol. vi. p. 376.

iv.l

ARTS OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDERS.

121

tools, and other implements, all made of bone. Similar
objects have been repeatedly found in Scottish weems
and brochs, and in the kitchen-middens of Britain, Den-
mark, and other European accumulations of the like kind.
Fig. 47 represents a group of such objects, chiefly from one
of the primitive subterranean dwellings, at Skara, in Orkney.
It includes a small perforated ivory pin, and a bodkin made
after the fashion of the Goat Hole wolf-bone implement
from the metatarsal bone of a smr.U ox. Implements of
this simple character are common to the arts of many

Fni. 47.— British Bono Imploiiioiits.

periods and states of society ; and like the flint and stone
implements of nearly every age and country, help to illus-
trate the tool-making instinct peculiar to man.

Isolated in the little island-worlds of the Pacific Ocean,
man is found again and again, in a condition which seems
to involve all but absolute privation of the materials on
which his constructive faculty can operate. The extensive
archipelago interposed between the Society and Gambler
Islands and the Marquesas, consists exclusively of coral
islands. There the native arts are mostly of an inferior

122

CARIB SHELL- KNIVES.

[chap.

character ; though their small and slight canoes are propelled
with great rapidity by means of a paddle ingeniously formed
with a curved blade. But every idea of rudeness in their arts
gives way to wonder and admiration on discovering the
limited materials at the command of the workmen. The
cocoa-palm furnishes supplies for matting and weaving, and
the cassytha stems and cocoa-nut fibre are plaited into ropes.
A finer cord is made of human hair ; and bones of the
turtle and the larger kinds of fish supply the only material
for fish-hooks and spears. There are no natural productions
on the islands harder than shell or coral ; and from these
accordingly the native tools are made. Here, therefore, we
see what reason is capable of achieving in the development
of ingenious arts, amid a privation of nearly all that seems
indispensable to the first efforts at constructive skill. Com-
pared with such inadequate means, the flint, stone, horn,
and bone of Europe's stone-period seem little less ample, than
the contrast of her later metallurgic riches with the re-
sources of that primitive era. ; . ^ ■ '{ "

Though the natives of the Antilles possespsd some natural
advantages over the inhabitants of the volcanic and coral
islands of the Pacific : yet the abundance of large and
easily-wrought shells invited their application to many use-
ful purposes ; and accordingly when first visited by the
Spaniards, the large marine shells with which the neighbour-
ing seas abound, constituted an important source for the
raw material of their implements and manufactures. The
great size, and the facility of workmanship of the widely-
diffused pyrulcB, turhinella, strombi, and other shells, have
indeed led to a similar application of them among uncivilised
races, wherever they abound. Of such, the Caribs made
knives, lances, and harpoons, as well as personal ornaments ;
while the mollusc itself was sought for and prized as food.
In Barbadoes the Stromhus gigas still furnishes a favourite
repast ; and numerous weapons and implements made from
its shells have been dug up on the island. The accompany-

iv.l

ABORIGINES OF THE ANTILLES.

123

re-

ing illustrations (Fig. 48) are selected from specimens
illustrative of the primitive manufactures of the Antilles
presented to me by Dr. Bovell. They were dug up with
other relics, in the island of Barbadoes, where traces of the
aboriginal Carib blood continued till very recently to mark
a portion of the coloured population. The Christy collection
includes various examples of axes believed to be of Carib
workmanship, from Porto Rico, St. Juan, and St. Thomas.
They are worked in greenstone, mottled jade, green jasper,
and a hard light green slate, mostly in wedge-form. But
the most characteristic specimen of local art is an axe of
coral rock, 7^ inches long, semi-cylindrical, and tapering at

Fia. 48.— Carib Sliell-Kuivcs.

both ends, which was found in the cave of Cuevetas, twenty
miles from Puerto del Principe, Cuba.

The Carib aborigines of the Antilles furnish a striking
example of what the more active manifestations of moral
degradation among a savage people really imply. Compared
with the gentle, passive Indians met by the Spaniards on
the first islands visited by European explorers, the Ciiribs
were a cruel and fierce race of cannibals, as hateful in all
their most salient characteristics as the New Zealanders or
Fijians. Yet time has proved, even under very unfavour-
able circumstances, that the fierceness and aggressive cruelty
of the Caribs of the Lesser Antilles corresponded to the wild
fury of the old viking rovers of Europe, and gave proof of
energy and stamina capable of sturdy endurance ; while the
gentle and friendly Indians of the larger Antilles, without.

124

CARIBS OF ST. DOMINGO.

[chap.

lii

in reality, any superior moral attributes, but only the char-
acteristics of a weak and passive nature, have disappeared,
leaving behind them scarcely a memorial of their existence.
The Caribs are the historic race of the Antilles. Their
chronicles derive vitality and endurance, like those of ancient
Europe, from the vicissitudes of war. Those show them as
restless aggressors; and though long since expelled from
their ancient insular possessions, they still appear on the
southern mainland as the people of an encroaching area ;
and the marches of their extending frontier ring with the
shouts of border warfare, as fierce, and to us not greatly less
substantial than the Wendish and Bulgarian warrings of
Henry the Fowler, and his German Markgrafs of well-nigh
a thousand years ago.

In 1851, Sii' Robert Schomburgk communicated to the
British Association the results of recent ethnological re-
searches in St. Domingo. In these tl bservant traveller
deplored the fact that of the millions ^^ natives who at its
discovery peopled the island, not a single pure descendant
now exists, though he could trace in the Indios of mixed
blood the peculiar features and other physical characteristics
of the Indian still uneradicated. In the absence of a true
native population. Sir Robert Schomburgk remarks: "My
researches were restricted to what history and the few and
poor monuments have transmitted to us of their customs
and manners. Their language lives only in the names of
places, trees, and fruits, but all combine in declaring that
the people who bestowed these names were identical with
the Carib and Arawaak tribes of Guiana. An excursion to
the calcareous caverns of Pommier, about ten leagues to the
west of the city of Santo Domingo, afforded me the exami-
nation of some picture-writings executed by the Indians
after the arrival of the Spaniards. These remarkable caves,
which are in themselves of high interest, are situated within
the district over which, at the landing of the Spaniards, the
fair Indian Oatalina reigned as cacique." To this district

IV.]

CAVE PICTURES AND CARVINGS.

they were tempted by the news of rich mines in its moun
tains. In 1496, a fortified tower was erected, called origi
nally San Aristobal ; but so abundant was the precious
metal, that even the stones of the fortress contained it, and
the workmen named it the Golden Tower. But the lives of
millions of the miserable natives were sacrificed in recover-
ing the gold from their mountain veins ; and then, the mines
being exhausted, the country was abandoned to the exuber-
ance of tropical desolation, while the caverns which had
previously been devoted to religious rites, became places of
retreat from the Spaniard and his frightful bloodhounds.
One of the smaller caves still exhibits a highly interesting
series of symbolic pictures, which the Indians had traced on
its white and smooth walls. Near the entrance of a second
cave, Sir R Schomburgk discovered decorations of a more
enduring charac jr carved on the rock, and of these he re-
marks : " They belong to a remoter period, and prove much
more skill and patience than the simple figures painted with
charcoal on the walls of the cave near Pommier. The figures
carved of stone, and w^orked without iron tools, denote, if
not civilisation, a quick conception and an inexhaustible
patience, to give to these hard substances the desired forms."
From his examination of the tools and utensils still in, use
in Guiana, Sir Robert doubted such to be the work of the
Caribs ; but he admitted that they are only found where we
have sure evidence of their presence ; and he under- estimated
both the skill and patience shown by many native artists
equally poorly provided with tools.

Other relics of native art and history attracted the atten-
tion of the traveller, and he specially dwelt with interest on
a paved ring of granite, upwards of 2200 feet in circumfer-
ence, with a human figure rudely fashioned in granite occu-
pying the centre. It stands in the vicinity of San Juan de
Maguana, in St. Domingo, which formed, at the time of its
first discovery, a distinct kingdom, governed by the cacique
Caonabo, the most fierce and powerful of the Carib chiefs,

126

PRIZED TROPICAL SHELLS.

[chap

and an irreconcilable enemy of the European invaders. It
is called at the present day, "El Cercado de los Indios,"
but Sir Robert Schomburgk questioned its being the work
of the inhabitants of the island when first visited by the
Spaniards, and assigned it, along with figures which he ex-
amined cut on rocks in the interior of Guiana, and the
s^culptured figures of St. Domingo, to a people far superior
in intellect to those Columbus met with in Hispaniola. These
lie conceived to have come from the northern part of Mexico,
adjacent to the ancient district of Huastecas, and to have
been conquered and extirpated by their Carib sup planters,
prior to European colonists displacing them in their turn.

The roving Caribs supplied themselves with axes and
clubs of jade, greenstone, and others of the most prized
materials of the mainland ; but they turned the easily
wrought shells of the neighbouring seas to account in much
the same way as the natives of the coral islands of the
Pacific to whom any harder material is unknown. But
while noting the varied uses to which the shells of the
Caribbean Sea were applied by the natives of the archi-
pelago, a greater interest attaches to the indications of an
ancient trade in these products of the Gulf of Florida,
carried on among widely-scattered tribes of North America,
long before its discovery by Columbus.

Abundant evidence proves that the large marine shells
were regarded with superstitious reverence, alike by the
more civilised nations of the land around the Gulf, and by
others even so fixr north as beyond the shores of the great
Canadian Lakes. In the latter case it is not difficult to
account for the origin of such a feeling among tribes
familiar only with small native fresh-water shells. But in
one of the singular migratory scenes of the ancient Mexican
paintings, copied from the Mendoza Collection,^ in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford, a native, barefooted, and
dressed in a short spotted tunic reachi ig to his loins, bears

' Lonl KiiigHl)()r(»uj?li'H ^Ffricati Autii/iiidrH, vol. i. plntw (58.

IV.J

ANCIENT GRA VES OF TENNESSEE.

127

ibes
it in
icaii
the
and
►ears

in his right hand a spear, toothed round the blade, it may
be presumed with points of obsidian, and in his left hand
a large univalve shell. A river, which he is passing, is
indicated by a greenish stripe winding obliquely across the
drawing, and his track, as shown by alternate footprints,
has previously crossed the same stream. On this trail he
is followed by other figures nearly similarly dressed, but
sandalled, and bearing spears and large fans ; while a
second group ap[)roaches the river by a different trail, and
in an opposite direction to the shell-bearer. Other details
of this curious fragment of pictorial history are less easily
interpreted. An altar or a temple appears to be repre-
sented on one side of the stream ; and a highly coloured
circular figure on the other, may be the epitomised symbol
of some Achaean land or Sacred Elis of the New World.
But whatever be the interpretation of the ancient hiero-
glyphic painting, its general correspondence with other
migratory depictions is undoubted ; and it is worthy of
note, that, in some respects, the most prominent of all the
figures is the one represented fording the stream, and bear-
ing a large ropical univalve in his hand.

The evidence thus afforded of an importance attached to
the large sea-shells of the Gulf of Mexico, among the most
civilised of the American nations settled on its shores,
deserves notice in connection with the discovery of the same
marine products among relics pertaining to Indian tribes
upwards of three thousand miles distant from the native
habitat of the mollusca, and separated by hundreds of niilba
from tlie nearest sea- coast.

Tracing them along the northern route through the Mis-
sissippi and Ohio valleys, these sliells have been found in
the ancient graves of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana^
and northward to the regions of tlie Great Lakes. Dr.
Gerard Troost, in a communication to the American Etli-
nological Society,\le8cribe3 an interesting series of H(!!pulchral

' TranmctioHM, Amfrkan Ethnoloyicnl SoHety, vol. i. pp. 3fir)-305,

128

SHELL MANUFACTURES.

[chap.

remains discovered in Tennessee, The crania were charac-
terises! by remarkable artificial compression, as in an ex-
amp^ figured by Dr. Morton (plate 55, Crania Americana),
and the graves abounded with relics, " lares, trinkets, and
utensils, all of a very rude construction, and all formed of
some natural product, none of metal." From an examina-
tion of those. Dr. Troost was led to the conclusion that the
race to whom they pertained came from some tropical
country. Among their stone implements obsidian abounded.
Numerous beads were formed of tropical marine shells of
the genus 7narginella, ground so as to make a perforation
on the back, by means of which they could be strung
together for purposes of personal ornament. Plain beads
were made from the columella) of the Stromhus (jigas;
and such columell^e were found worked to a uniform thick-
ness, perforated through the
centre, and in all stages of
manufacture, to that of per-
fected beads and links of
the much-prized wampum.
Similar accumulations of
shell-beads in the great
mounds of the Ohio valley
are referred to in a subse-
quent chapter ; but another
relic has an additional value
from the light it throws not
only on early native arts,
but on ancient manners and
modes of thought. Dr.
Troost describes and figure«
Fio.4i>.-To.n.e88eoMoi. vaHous rudcly sculpturcd

idols, from some of which he was led to assume the existence
of Phallic rites among the ancient idolaters of Tennessee.
The greater number of the idols were of stone, but the one
figured hero (Fig. 40) has been modelled of clay and pounded

,v.]

HURON AND PETUN GRA VES.

129

shells, and hardened in the fire. It represents a nude human
figure, kneeling, with the hands clasped in front ; and when
found, it still occupied, as its primitive niche or sanctuary, a
large tropical shell {Cassis Jlammea), from which the in-
terior whorls and columella had been removed, with the
exception of a small portion at the base, cut off" flat, so as
to form its pedestal. The special application of this ex-
ample of the tropical cassides adds a peculiar interest to it,
as manifestly associated with the religious rites of the
ancient race by whom the spoils of southern seas were trans-
ported inland, and converted to purposes of ornament
and use. ,^ ' 1

The discovery of similar relics to the north of the Great
Lakes is still more calculated to excite interest ; and, in-
deed, when first brought under notice they gave rise to extra-
vagant ethnological theories, based on the assumption of
their East Indian origin.^ But though they furnished no
evidence of such far wanderings from the old East, they
throw considerable light on ancient migrations of native
American races, and illustrate the extent of traffic carried
on between tho north and south, in ages prior to the dis-
placement of the Kcd-man by the European. Two large
cropical shells, both specimens of the Pyrula perversa, have
been presented to the Canadian Institute at Toronto : not
as cxjimples of the native conchology of the tropics, but as
Indian relics pertaining to the great northern chain of fresh-
water lakes. The first was discovered on opening a grave-
mound at Nottawasaga, on tho Georgian Bay, along with a
gorget made from the same kind of shell ; tho second was
brought from the Fishing Islands, near Capo Hurd, on Lnko
Huron. Thirteen other examples from tho Georgian Bay
are in tho Museum of Laval University ; and many
more have come under my notice procured from grave-
mounds and sepulchral depositories in different parts of
Western Canada. Recently, in the summer of 1874, a

* Inquiry into the Origin qf the Antiqiiiliea of America, p. 162.
VOL. I. I

13^

SACRED SHELL- VESSELS.

[chap.

8<t t:

large ossuary of the Tiontonones, or Petuns, was accident-
ally opened at Lake Medad, in the county of Wentworth,
within which were found evidences of extensive sepul-
ture, numerous clay and stone pipes of curious work-
manship, shell and stone implements, and a number
of the same tropical shells, both whole and in pieces,
most of which are now in the possession of Mr. B. E.
Charlton of Hamilton, Ontario. Similar ossuaries have
been repeatedly opened in the Huron Country, between
Lake Simcoe and the Georgian Bay. In one pit, about
seven miles from Penetanguishene, three large conch-shells
were found, along with twenty-six copper kettles, a pipe, a
copper bracelet, a quantity of shell beads, and numerous
other relics. The largest of the shells, a specimen of the
Pyrula spirata, weighed three pounds and a quarter, and
measured fourteen inches in length ; but a piece had been
cut off this, as well as another of the large shells, probably
for the manufacture of some smaller ornament. In another
cemetery in the same district, among copper arrow-heads,
bracelets, and ear-ornaments, pipes of stone and clay, beads
of porcelain, red pipe- stone, etc., sixteen of the same prized
tropical univalves lay round the bottom of the pit arranged
in groups of three or four together. From such shells the
sacred wampum, official gorgets, and other special decora-
tions were made ; and the appearance of some of those found
in northern graves suggests that they may have been handed
down through successive generations as great medicines,
before their final deposition, with other rare and costly
offerings, in honour of the dead.

The attractions offered by such products of tropical seas
are by no means limited to the untutored tastes of the
American Indian. In India, China, and Siam, the Pyrum,
and other large and beautiful shells of the Indian Ocean,
are no less highly prized by the natives, not only u& an
easily wrought material for implements and personal orna-
ments ; but in some cases, as vessels employed in their most

[chap.

ident-
worth,
sepul-
work-
umber
pieces,
B. E.
J have
3twecn
about
i-shells
pipe, a
naerous
of the
jr, and
Ld been
robably
mother
|-heads,
beads
prized
ranged
lis the
iecora-
5 found
landed
(icines,
costly

seas
lof the
\yrum,
)ccan,
uS an
orna-
most

IT.]

PRIMITIVE SHEIL ORNAMENTS.

131

sacred rites. A sinistrorsal variety found on the coasts of
Tranquebar and Ceylon, is devoted by the Cingalese exclu-
sively to such purposes. Reversed shells of the species Tur-
binella, are held in like veneration in China, where great
prices are given for them ; and are often curiously orna-
mented with elaborate carvings, as shown on several fine
specimens in the British Museum. They are kept in the
pagodas, and are not only employed by the priests on special
occasions in administering medicine to the sick ; but the
vessel for holding the. consecrated oil, with which the Em-
peror is anointed at his coronation, is made from one of them.
Such analogies in the choice of materials, and in objects
set apart for the sacred rites of diflferent nations, are full of
interest in reference to characteristics common to man in all
ages, and in regions the most remote. But when they arc
met with in the arts and customs of the same continent, they
point with greater probability to borrowed usages, and often
help the ethnologist to track the footprints of migrating
nations to their earlier homer>. But the use of shells for
personal ornaments has been traced back, along with other
evidence of the antiquity of man, almost to what seems the
primeval dawn. In the caves of southern Franco and Italy,
along with mammoth and reindeer bones and ivory, and
iu the sepulchral deposits at Aurignac, lay shell necklaces
or bracelets made of the Littorma Uttorea, still abundant
on the shores of the Atlantic, along with perforated shells
of the miocene period, evidently gathered in a fossil stato
to be converted to purposes of personal decoration. So also
in a later, but still prehistoric age, the megalithic tomb,
brought to light, in 1838, under the Knock-Maraidho Crom-
lech in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, disclosed two male skele-
tons, underneath the skulls of which lay a number of tho
common Nerita littoralis, perforated, evidently for tho
purpose of being strung together as neck ornaments. An
ornamental bone-pin, with a knob carved at each end, and a
rudo flint knife, constituted the only other contents of this

132

AMERICAN SHELL MOUNDS.

[chap.

primitive tomb which had been constructed with such costly
toil.

Other British cists and cairns have disclosed similar relics
of the shell necklace and bracelet, made of the oyster, limpet,
and cockle shells, the contents of which supplied an import-
ant source of food. For not only in the ancient kitchen-
middens of northern Europe, but mingling with more ancient
cave deposits, as in Kent's Cavern, lay heaps of the shells of
such edible molluscs, the refuse of the table of the old cave-
men, which shows one resource on which they depended for
subsistence. America, too, had its ancient shell and refuse
heaps, as at Cannon's Point, St. Simon's Island, Georgia,
where a vast mound of oyster and mussel shells, intermingled
here and there with a mediola or helix, and with flint arrow-
heads, stone axes, and fragments of pottery, covers an area
of not less than ten acres. But they abound upon all the
sea islands of the Southern States, and in many cases con-
stitute regular sepulchral mounds or shell cairns. One of
these singular cairns on Stalling's Island, in the Savannah
river, more than two hundred miles from its mouth, is an
elliptical mound measuring nearly three hundred feet in
length, and enclosing, along with human skeletons,
bones of large fish, deer, and other wild animals, accom-
panied with broken pottery, arrow-heads, axes, flint-knives,
and charred wood. On the islands, and along the coast of
Georgia and Florida, the inexhaustible supplies of oysters,
conches, and clams, furnished an abundant supply of food.
Around the Indian villages the shells accumulated in waste
heaps ; and even now, at times, show the circular hollow
where the native hut had stood. With a mild climate,
abundant game and indigenous fruits, in addition to the
• inexhaustible spoils of the sea, the Southern Indians had
little temptation to roam ; and the numerous shell mounds
and cairns affbrd proof of their settled occupation of many
localities. A large drinking-cup, made of the conch shell,
was one of the special attributes of the Indian cacique ; and

IV.]

A SHELL CURRENCY.

^iZ

many
shell,
and

such cups are frequently found deposited beside the buried
skeleton.

Fresh-water shell heaps also abound ; and Professor
Jeffries Wyman made those of East Florida the subject
of an interesting paper in The American Naturalist. Such
memorials of the encampments of the aborigines are histo-
rical records of the habits and customs of ancient native
tribes. The fresh-water mussels, which constituted an
important article of food, and also supplied the pearls which
they prized for decoration, enter largely into the contents
of the heaps. Intenningled with them are " numerous frag-
ments of pottery, stone axes, chisels, crushing-stones, awls,
mortars, net-sinkers, arrow and spear points, flint knives,
shell beads, soapstone ornaments, pipes, and the bones of
deer, buffalo, alligators, turtles, racoons, and other animals."^
Many of the bones have been split, like those found in the
ancient mounds and caves of Europe, for the purpose of ex-
tracting the marrow ; and along with such evidences of
culinary arts are piles of chipped flint and stone, with broken
or unfinished axes, spear and arrow heads, and other traces
of the Indian tool-maker's workshop. In all ways we
thus recognise, amid diversities of race, climate, and other
external circumstances, many minute analogies between the
men of p.ilseolithic and neolithic ages of Europe, and those
of the new world's more recent centuries, in regions apart
from its singular centres of a native civilisation.

But also the convenient form and beauty of various marine
shells have led to their use, not only as a substitute for the
flint and stone of other localities, or the unknown bronze
and iron of later ages, but even for the precious metals as
the medium of a recognised currency, and this from times
of unknown antiquity, alike in the old world and in the new.
Of such substitutes for a metallic currency the Gyprcea
moneta is the most familiar. The cowrie shells used as
currency are procured on the coast of Congo, and in the

^ AnUquiliet of lh« Southern Indians, p. 200.

lOQUA STANDARD OF VALUE.

[chap.

V\ I

Philippine and Maldive Islands. Of the latter, indeed, they
still constitute the chief article of export. At what remote
date, or at what early stage of rudimentary civilisation, this
singular representative shell-currency was introduced, it is
perhaps vain to inquire ; but the extensive area over which it
has long been recognised proves its great antiquity. The
Philippine Islands form, in part, the eastern boundary of the
Southern Pacific, and the Maldives lie off the Malabar coast
in the Indian Ocean ; but their shells circulate as currency
not only through Southern Asia, but far into the African
continent. ■■.- ■ :^': -■.',- >'■''■;£ ;.':■;,■...>,.. :>/::-,.. ^..^■v,;--:,^ ;-;■•"■' ,*

Corresponding to this cowrie currency of Asia and Africa
is the American loqua, or Dentalium, a shell found chiefly
at the entrance of the Strait of De Fuca, and employed both
for ornament and money. The Chinooks and other Indians
of the Northern Pacific coast wear long strings of ioqua
shells as necklaces and fringes to their robes. These have a
value assigned to them, increasing in proportion to their
size, which varies from about an inch and a half to upwards
of two inches in length. Mr. Paul Kane thus wrote to me :
"A great trade is carried on among all the tribes in the
neighbourhood of Vancouver's Island, through the medium
of these shells. Forty shells of the standard size, extending
a fathom's length, are equal in value to a beaver's skin ; but
if shells can be found so far in excess of the ordinary stand-
ard that thirty-nine are long enough to make the fathom, it
is worth two beavers' skins, and so on, increasing in value
one beaver skin for every shell less than the first number."

But as the New World has thus its disclosures and illus-

,t'

trations of native arts and usages full of interest to tho
student of primeval man, so also the first glimpse of a western
hemisphere revealed its aborigines already familiar with that
distinctive evidence of reason, the art of fire-making, earliest
of all the practical sciences, and the indispensable precursor
of every higher art of civilisation.

v.]

THE FIRE- USING ANIMAL.

'35

>»

CHAPTER V.

FIRE.

THE PinK-USINO ANIMAL— ESQUIMAUX U8R OF FIRE— FUEOIAN FIRE-MAKINQ—
MODES OP PRODUCTNO FIRE— AUSTRALIAN FIRE-MYTH— MEN OP THE MAM-
MOTH AGE— HEAF.THS OF THE CAVE-MEN— PACIFIC ROOT-WORD FOR FIRE— GREAT
CYCLE OP THE AZTECS— REKINDLING THE SACRED FIRE— PERUVIAN SUN-WOR-
SHIPPERS- SACRIFICE OP THE WHITE DOG— SACRED FIRES OP THE MOUND-
BUILDERS— INDIAN FIRE-MAKING — SANCTITT OF FIRE— TIERRA DEL FUEOO.

No incident attending the discovery of America is more
suggestive than the evidence which first satisfied Columbus
that his exploration of the mysterious western ocean had
not been in vain. The sun had descended beneath the
waves as his eye ranged along the horizon in search of the
long expected land, when suddenly a light glimmered in the
distance, once and again reappeared to the eyes of Pedro
Gutierrez and others whom he summoned to confirm his
vision, and then darkness and doubt resumed their reign.
But to Columbus all was clear. Not only did those flitting
gleams reveal to him certain signs of the long-wished-for
land ; they told him no less clearly that the land was
inhabited by man.

There is something singularly significant in the old Greek
myth which represents the Titanic son of lapetus stealing
the fire of Zeus that he might confer on the human race a
power over the crude elements of nature. Man is peculiarly
fire-using. The element which becomes in his hands a
power that controls all the others, and subjects them to his
use, is an object of dread to the lower animals, alike amid
arctic snows and the shadows of a night-camp in the tropics.
Its use, moreover, is so universal as to admit of its being

136

ESQUIMAUX USE OF FIRE.

[chap.

regarded aa one of the primitive instincts of man, and so
peculiarly his own that he may be appropriately designated
the fire-using animal. Nevertheless, his supposed ignorance
of fire during primitive ages has been employed as an argu-
ment in confirmation of the idea that the first habitat of
man must have been a climate where his unclothed body
experienced no discomfort from the changing seasons, and
'.vhere fruit was found in sufficient abundance to supply his
wants without need of artificial preparation.^

Yet it is in climates where the torrid sun presents itself
as the life-giving force that, alike in the old and the new
world, the worship of fire, and the rites associated with its
use, have been found most fully developed. It is noticeable,
moreover, that fire is less used in the frigid than in the tem-
perate zones as the direct source of heat. The Esquimaux
in his snow-hut would find a fire productive only of dis-
comfort. Even in the adaptation of animal food to his use
cookery is less indispensable than in other latitudes ; and
fire is more prized by him in his brief summer as a protec-
tion against the myriads of noxious insects then warmed
into life, than as a means of counteracting the rigour of a
polar winter. He depends for warmth on his fur clothing,
and still more on the heat-producing blubber and fat which
constitute so large a portion of his food. Yet the lamp,
generally made of stone, with its moss wick, and the stone
kettle, play an important part among the implements and
culinary apparatus of an Esquimaux s hut. On those he
depends for his supply of water from melted snow, for
thawing and drying his clothes, and for cooking ; and with-
out the light of the lamp the indoor life of the long un-
broken arctic night would be spent as in a living tomb.
The Esquimaux generally possess a piece of iron pyrites
and of quartz. These serve them for flint and steel, with
which they ignite a tuft of dried moss frayed in the hand.
But they are also familiar with the more laborious firo-

^ Flourens, De la LotigSvUd Ilumaine, p> 127.

v.]

FUEGIAN FIRE-MAKJNG.

137

making process by means of friction, which is in general
use throughout America.

At the opposite extremity of the Continent lies Tierra del
Fuego, the natives of which are exposed to still greater
privations, and have been pronounced by observant voyagers
as among the most degraded of savage races. Yet the .
Fuegians exhibit considerable ingenuity in constructing
their fishing tackle, slings, bows and stone-tipped arrows,
stone knives, and javelins pointed with bone. A bone har-
poon in use by them, barbed only on one side (Fig. 33), re-
sembles examples already referred to found in the Dordogne
and other caves of the era when the mammoth and its
hunters existed together in Southern France. M. Lecoq dc
Boisbeaudrau suggests that the deflection of the harpoon
80 formed serves as an equivalent for the refraction of the
fish in the water, and thus the fisherman secures an unerring
aim. If so, it furnishes an ingenious application of the fruits
of experience directed to rectify a difficulty common to the
modern Fuegian and to the Troglodyte of post-glacial times.
The cunoes of the Fuegians are rudely constructed of
bark sewed together with prepared sinews. In the bottom
a hearth of clay is made, on which they habitually keep a
fire alight. They too have learned the value of iron pyrites,
and with its help readily obtain the spark required for
igniting their prepared tinder of dried moss or fungus.
Captain WeddeU states that he produced the tinder box in
preso!!ce of a party of Fuegians, in order to ascertain how
fire is obtained by them, and presently he discovered that
his steel had been purloined. This, however, he recovered,
and after sending the culprit to his canoe with threats of
punishment, he learned that they procure fire by rubbing
iron pyrites and a flinty stone together, catching the sparks
in a dry substance resembling moss.^

The ancient use of pyrites for fire-making is supposed to
be embodied in its etymology (ttO/j). Mr. John Evans has

* WeddoU's Voyaqt tvimrUs ihe South Pole in 1822-24, p. 167.

mm'

|8b,.

^S 'SIKm''^

^UHW "

i3«

MODES OF PRODUCING FIRE.

[chap.

pointed out that the lower beds of the same English chalk
in which the flint abounds are prolific of pyrites ; and he
makes the suggestion that the use of a nodule of pyrites for
a hammer-stone in the process of manufacturing flint im-
plements, may have led to the discovery of this method of
producing fire. But if so, it is a discovery of remote an-
tiquity, for such nodules have been found both in French
and Belgian caves, associated with the bones of fossil mam-
mals and worked flints of the palaeolithic era. They also
occur in the Swiss lake-dwellings, as at Robenhausen, along
with neolithic implements.

But pyrites is not always available ; and Esquimaux, Fue-
gians, and Australians practise also the more usual, and pro-
bably the more ancient, method of producing fire by friction.
The process among the Tahitians and South Sea Islanders
is pursued in the laboriously artless fashion of rubbing one
piece of wood against another ; though it is said that, with
perfectly dry wood, they obtain fire in this way in two or
three minutes, Australian fire-making is eflfected in nearly
the same way ; but the American Indians have improved
on the process by the use of the bow and drill. Among
the Iroquois ad other tribes, the drill was provided with a
stone whorl, or fly-wheel, to give it momentum ; and when
rapidly revolved by means of a bow and string, with the
point resting on a piece of dry wood, surrounded with moss
or punk, sparks are produced in a few seconds, and the
tinder is ignited.

The art of fire-making is thus found in use among savage
nations, even in the most degraded state : as among the
Fuegians, whose wretched condition and repulsive appear-
ance and habits have led travellers to describe them as
scarcely human. They are indeed in every way inferior to
the Esquimaux. Yet their implements and weapons display
remarkable ingenuity and skill ; and the origin of the name
of their desolate region is traced to the numerous fires seen
by the first Spanish discoverers who navigated its coasts.

A USTRALIAN FIRE-MYTH.

139

The aborigines of Australia rival t:ie Fuegians alike in
physical and intellectual degradation ; but, like them also,
have achieved or perpetuated the discovery which lies at
the very foundation of all possible civilisation. According
to the inconsequential account furnished by a native Aus-
tralian of their first acquisition of fire : — " A long, long time
ago a little bandicoot* was the sole owner of a fire-brand,
which he cherished with the greatest jealousy. So selfish
was he in the use of his prize, that he obstinately refused to
share it with the other animals. So they held a general
council, \<^here it was decided that the fire must be obtained
from the Tsandicoot either by force or strategy. The hawk
and pigeon were deputed to carry out this resolution ; and
after vainly trying to induce the fire-owner to share its
blessings with his neighbours, the pigeon, seizing, as he
thought, an unguarded moment, made a dash to obtain the
prize. The bandicoot saw that affairs had come to a crisis,
and, in desperation, threw the fire towards the river, there
to quench it for ever. But, fortunately for the black man,
the sharp-eyed hawk was hovering near, and seeing the fire
falling into the water, with a stroke of his wing he knocked
the brand far over the stream into the long dry grass of the
opposite bank, which immediately ignited, and the flames
spread over the face of the country. The black man then
felt the fire, and said it was good."^

The discovery of the art of fire-making, prefigured in this
rude myth, is intimately associated in the minds of the
Australian aborigines with their distinctive ideas of man.
According to the mythology of the Booroung tribe, inhabit-
ing the Mallee country, on Lake Tyrill, they were preceded
on the earth by a race of Nurrumbunguttias, or old spirits,
who had the knowledge of fire ; but these were translated
to heaven before the black man came into existence. One
of them, named War, or the Crow, — the Australian Prome-

^ A amall sharp-nosed animal, not unlike the Ouiuea-pig.
- Canadiati Journal^ N.S.y vol. i. p. 609.

140

MEJSI OF THE MAMMOTH AGE.

[chap.

thous, — is now the star Canopus ; and he it was who first
brought fire back to earth, and gave it to *he black men.^

It is a noticeable fact that, while the Maoris of New Zea-
land use the same word, ahii for fire, which under slight
modifications is employed through widely severed island
groups of the Pacific : different Australian tribes use distinct
names for it, as darloo at Moreton Bay, hoyung at Lake
Macquarrie, and kauhi at Bathurst. In the Kamilarai of
Wellington Valley it is called koyan ; while in the Wiradurei,
spoken about 200 miles inland from Lake Macquarrie, it is
Such diversity of names for the common acquisition

win.

proves that fire is no recent novelty derived from a single
source by the savage tribes of that strange southern continent.
Amid all the remarkable evidence recently disclosed re-
lative to the antiquity and the rude arts of primitive man,
nothing has yet appeared suggestive of a condition inferior
to the savages of Tierra del Fuego or Australia; while much
tends to an opposite conclusion. Alike in physical devel-
opment and in arts, the Troglodytes of the Dordogne caves
were undoubtedly far in advance of either; and yet tlu^y
were the contemporaries of the mammoth, the Siberian
rhinoceros, the cave lion and bear, the gigantic Irish elk,
the reindeer, and the fossil horse of Central Europe, — the
men of a period separated from our own by epochs the dura-
tion of which can be gauged by no standards of historical
chronology. It could scarcely admit of doubt that such men
were capable of achieving the art of fire-making. It might
even be questioned if they could have subsisted under the con-
ditions of life marking ^hat post-glacial epoch without the use
of fire. But on this subjectwe are not left to conjecture.
. The contents of the Aurignac cavern, in the department
of the Haute Garonne, at the foot of the Pyrenees, were at
first supposed to disclose a singularly interesting example
of sepulture contemporaneous with the fossil mammals of
the drift; and accompanied not only with implements

* Tran*. Phitoaoph. Institute, Victoria, vol. i.

v.]

HEARTHS OF THE CA VEMEN.

141

and pcrsonjil omanients fashioned from their bones and
tusks, as well as others of flint ; but with the ashes of the
funeral fires and the dfJbris of the funeral feast which
formed a part of the last rites to the dead. Unfor-
tunately some discredit has been cast on the evidence
which seemed' to indicate that the remains of extinct mam-
malia, and those of the entombed dead, were contempo-
raneous ; and the importance of the deductions whi^'h this
discovery seemed to justify render it all the mo: ^ v ^dful
that the proof should be indisputable. But tl ' prf\;tice
of regular interment of the dead, accompanied with some
funeral rites, by the men of the post-glacial age, is suggested
by the contents of the sepulchral recess of Cro-Magnon, in
the valley of the V6z6re. No ashes of funeral fires ca.n 1)0
pointed to, but the traces of the use of fire are abundant.

Throughout the floors of various caves in this district
which have been rich in disclosures of primitive art, par-
ticles of charcoal abound at every level where broken bones
occur, suggesting that fires were in da.ily use, and were
employed for cooking much more than for Avarmth, Pos-
sibly, indeed, those caverns were only the summer dwellings
of the Drift-Folk of post-glacial times ; and with tbem, aa
with the Esquimaux, «nd the Indiana of North America
generally, fire may have been valued as a protection against
the noxious insects which, especitdiy in the brief summer of
n rigorous climate, render life intoh^rabk;. Fire is the iiiii-
rersjd servant of man. The Esquimaux and the Red Indian
ward off the mosquito, the bluck-fly, and the sand-fly by
means of a '* smudge " made with the smoke of grass find
green- wood; while the Hottentot or Bushman I'ndles Ida
night-fii'o in the tropics as the most cffe(?tual guardian
against })eu.sts of prey. Everywhere, and at ali epochs, firo
appears aa one of tlie most characteristic indices of rationtil
man ; and as we study such traces of him as reappear for
us in the works of art and the extiuguishod fires of the
Moustier and Madelaine cave-dwcllinga, or those of the oeo-

1 1

142

PACIFIC ROOT- WORD FOR FIRE.

fcHAP.

lithic, if not an earlier period of the Aurignac catacomb, wo
see the unmistakable evidences of human intelligence ; and
anew concur in the decision of Columbus, that the night- torch
of the Guanahan^ savage was indisputable proof that the un-
known world which lay before him was the habitation of man.

It may be doubted if man has anywhere existed without
the knowledge of fire. By means of it some of his earliest
triumphs over nature have been achieved. With its aid
his range is no longer limited to latitudes where the spon-
taneous fruits of the earth abound at every season. The use
of fire lies at the root of all the industrial arts. The friendly
savages found by Columbus on the first-discovered island of
the New World were armed with wooden lances, hardened
at the ond by its means. The most civilised among the
nations conquered by Cortes and Pizarro, had learned by the
same means to smelt the ores of the Andes, and make of their
metallic alloys the tools with which to quarry and hew
the rocks, to sculpture the statues of the gods of Anahuac,
and the palaces and temples of the Peruvian children of the
sun. Without fire the imperfect implements of the stone
period would be altogether inadequate to man's necessities.
By its help he fells the lofty trees, against which his un-
aided stone hatchet would be powerless. It plays a no less
important part in preparing the log- canoe of the savage,
than in propelling the wonderful steamship, l)y means of
which the great lakes and rivers of the New World have
become the highways of migrating nations.

A common root-word for fire serves to connect numerous
scattered insular races of the great Pacific archipelagos,
through their intercourse with the Malay voyagers. Yet
while the Malay word d'pi may be taken as the source of many
diversified forms of the insular term for fire, the Papuans,
rather than the Mjilays, ])resent the ethnical peculiarities pre-
dominant throughout Polynesia, and characteristic of the
Maoris of New Zealand ; and distinct roots in many intcrmo
diato island vocabularies prove the independent knowlo^lgc of

v.l

GREAT CYCLE OF THE AZTECS.

143

fire. The Vitian is rich in terms for light, warmth, shining,
kindling, burning, boiling, etc. Aundre, to shine or flame,
becomes oundreva, to kindle, and vakaundre, to cause to
burn. From yame, the tongue, is made, by a familiar ana-
logy, yame-ni-mhuhiy a flame of fire. Ilgatu, fire, begets a
group of words, including ilgilaisOy charcoal, and ilgilaison-
gawa, hot cinders. Liva, a flash of lightning, gives lavi, to
bring fire, lovOy a furnace, a native oven ; and recalls one
familiar source of the knowledge of fire : as the asa, the
sun ; atua, a deity, probably the sun-god ; asu^ smoke, etc.,
of the Rotuma dialect suggest another association of ideas
common to the Old and New World.

The fire-worship of the Ghebirs is but a degraded form
of that homage to visible divinity with which man worships
the god of day, and bows down before the heavenly host.
Among the civilised nations of the New World, accordingly,
a peculiar sanctity was associated with the familiar service
of fire. At the close of the great cycle of the Aztecs, when
the calendar was corrected to true solar time at the end of
the fifty-second year, a high religious festival was held, on
the eve of which they ])roke in pieces their household gods,
destroyed their furniture, and extinguished every fire. In
the reconstruction of the ritual calendar, the intercalated
days were held as though non-existent, and dedicated to no
god : on which account they were reputed unfortunate.
At the end of that dreary interval of fasting and penitence,
during which no hearth smoked, and no warm food could bo
eaten throughout the land, the ceremony of the new fire was
celebrated. After sunset the priests of the great temple went
forth to a neighbouring mountain, and there, at midnight,
the sacred flame was rekindled, which was to light up the
national fires for another cycle. The process by which it was
procured, by revolving one piece of dry wood in the hollow
of another, is repeatedly illustrated in the Mexican paintings
of Lord Kiugsborough's work. But, true to the bloody
rites of the national faith, at this sacred festival the fire was

! «

■' 1

r il

144

REKINDLING THE SACRED FIRE. [chap.

kindled on the breast of a human victim, from whence the
reeking heart was immediately afterwards torn out, and
cast as a bloody offering to the gods. The period from the
extinction to the rekindling of the sacred flame was one of
great suspense. With a superstitious feeling, in striking
accordance with the customs and ideas of the northern
Indians, the women remained confined to their houses, with
their faces covered, under the belief that if they witnessed
the ceremony they would be forthwith transformed into
beasts. Meanwhile, the men gathered on the terraced roofs,
and looked forth in dread suspense into the darkness. The
flames on the summits of the great teocaliis, which lighted
up the city at all other seasons, had been extinguished ; and
if the priests failed to rekindle them, it was believed that
the night must be eternal, and the world would come to an
end. But dimly, through the darkness, a spark was seen
to glimmer on the distant summit of the mountain, and from
thence it was swiftly borne to the temple, towards which
the worshippers turned with renewed hope. As the sacred
flame again blazed on the high altar, and was distributed to
the other teocaliis, shouts of triumph ascended with it to
the sky. Feasts, joyous processions, and oblations at the
temples followed, and were prolonged through a festival of
thirteen days, devoted to a national jubilee for the recovered
flame, the type of a regenerated world.^ The long interval
which transpired between this closing rite of the great cycle
was of itself suflicient to give it an impressive sanctity in
the eyes of the Aztec worshipper. He who witnessed it in
youth saw it only once again as life drew towards a close;
whilst few indeed of all who rejoiced at the renewed gift of
fire could expect to look again on the strangely significant
rite. Compared with the annual miracle of the Greek
Church in the crypt of the Holy Sepulchre, to which it bears
Bomo resemblance, the great festival of the Aztecs was re-
plete with significance and solemn grandeur, though stained
with the blood of their hideous sacrifices.

' ClaiHgcro, vol. ii. p. 84.

PERUVIAN SUN- WORSHIPPERS.

Ibears

The Peruvian sun-worsmppers preserved the harmony
between their recurrent festivals and the true solar time, by
a ruder process of adjustment than that which was devised
by the remarkable proficiency of the Aztec priests in astro-
nomical science. Nevertheless, they too had their secular
festival of Raymi, held annually at the period of the summer
solstice. For three days previous a general fast prevailed,
the fire on the great altar of the sun went out, and in all
the dwellings gf the land no hearth was kindled. As the
dawn of the fourth day approached, the Inca, surrounded
by his nobles, who came from all parts of the country to
join in the solemn celebration, assembled in the great square
of the capital to greet the rising sun. The temple of the
national deity presented its eabtern portal to the earliest
rays, emblazoned with his golden image, thickly set with
precious stones ; and as the first beams of the morning were
reflected back from this emblem of the sun-god, songs of
triumph mingled with the jubilant shout of his worshippers.
Then after various rites of adoration, preparations were made
for rekindling the sacred fire. But this, Avith the Peruvians,
was done by a process far in advance of that retained by
the Aztec priests. The rays of the sun, collected into a
focus by a concave mirror of polished metal, were made to
inflame a heap of dried cotton ; and a llama was sacrificed
as a, burnt-offering to the sun. Only in the case of the sky
being overcast did the priests resort to friction for rekindling
tlic altar ; but the hiding of his countenance by the god of
day was regarded as little less ominous than the extinction
of the sacred fire, which it became the duty of the virgins
of the sun to guard throughout the year. A slaughter of
the llama flocks of the sun furnished a universal banquet;
and, while the god was propitiated by offerings of fruit and
flowers, there appear to have been some rare occasions on
which the sacrifice of a human victim — a beautiful maiden
or a child, — gave to this graceful anniversary a nearer resem-
blance to the appalling rites of Aztec worship.

VOL. I. K

146

SACRIFICE OF THE WHITE DOG. [chap.

Amons: the northern Indian tribes some faint traces of the
annual festival of fire are discernible. At the sacrifice of
the white dog, the New Year's festival of the Iroquois, the
proceedings extended over six days ; and such were the obli-
gations which its rites imposed on all, that if any member
of a family died during the period, the body was laid aside,
and the relatives participated, in the games as well as the
religious ceremonies. The strangling of the white dog
destined for sacrifice was the chief feature of the first day's
proceedings. On the second day the two keepers of the
faith visited each house, and performed the significant cere-
mony of stirring the ashes on the hearth, accompanied with
a thanksgiving to the Great Spirit. On the morning of the
fifth day the fire was solemnly kindled by friction ; and the
white dog was borne in procession on a bark litter, until the
ofiiciating leaders halted, facing the rising sun, when it was
laid on the flaming wood and consumed, during an address,
which included a special thanksgiving to the sun, for having
looked on the earth with a beneficent eye.^ v

There is, perha^ j, no connection traceable between the
various rites thus described ; for it would be easy to find
their parallels among ancient and modern nations. They
pertained to the religious practices of the Chaldeans, to the
rites of Baal, and to other early forms of idolatry. Sabaism
is indeed the most natural form of false worship, commending
itself by many visible tokens, as of a divine influence and
power, to un instructed man ; and readily suggests the asso-
ciation of fire with the sun as its source. " Take ye good
heed unto yourselves," says the lawgiver of Israel to the
tribes in the wilderness, " for ye saw no manner of simiU-
tudo on the day that the Lord spake unto you in Horeb out
of the midst of the fire ; lest thou lift up thine eyes unto
heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and
the stars, oven all the host of heaven, shouldst be driven to
worship them." This worship of the sun, though associated

* League qf Ui^ Iroquois, pp. 207-221,

v.] SACRED FIRES OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS. 147

with ancient rites of Asiatic nations, is not therefore neces-
sarily an evidence of the eastern origin either of the faith or
of the nations of the New World. But, in the sei /ices to
which it gave rise there, we have, at least, suggestive hints
of the links that bind together its own ancient and modern
tribes. Perhaps also they may supply a clew to the inter-
pretation of some of the obscure sculptures still remaining
on sites of the (jxtinct native civilisation of America, and
of rites once practised amid the sacred enclosures, and on
the altar-mounds which give such peculiar interest to the
river-terraces of the Mississippi valley.

Among the remarkable structures of the Mound- Builders,
reviewed in a subsequent chapter, their explorers have been
struck by the peculiarities of a certain class of mounds,
erected on the most elevated summits of outlying hills.
Concerning these " there can be no doubt that the ancient
people selected prominent and elevated positions upon which
to build large fires, which were kept burning for long periods,
or renewed at frequent intervals. They appear to have been
built generally upon heaps of stones, which are broken up and
sometimes partially vitrified. In all cases they exhibit marks
of intense and protracted heat."^ Such indications have been
supposed to mark ancient signal-stations adapted to the
telegraphic system still in use among native tribes, of send-
ing up columns of smoke as a warning that enemies are at
hand. But this " putting out fire," as it is called among the
Indians of the north-west, for the purposes of signal, is now
accomplished by the simple process of setting the short-
tufted buffalo grass in flame, and presents slight analogy
to the traces of intense fires on the ancient hill-mounds,
where the amount of scoriaceous material often covers a
large space several feet deep.

Perhaps greater importance is due to the employment of
the sam? method of fire-making at the present day among
the Indians of the north-west, as we see illustrated in ancient

* Ancxfnt Monumenfs of the Mississippi Valley, p. 183.

148

INDIAN FIRE-MAKING.

[chap.

Aztec paintings ; while the sun- worshippers of the southern
continent had devised a totally distinct method, correspond-
ing to that by which the Romans kindled the sacred fire.
Mr. Paul Kane thus describes the process employed by the
Chinooks on the Columbia River : — " The fire is obtained by
means of a flat piece of dry cedar, in which a small hollow
is cut, with a channel for the ignited charcoal to run over ;
on this the Indian sits to hold it steady, while he rapidly
twirls a round stick of the same wood between the palms of
his hands, with the point pressed into the hollow. In a
very short time sparks begin to fiiU through the channel
upon finely frayed cedar-bark placed underneath, which they
soon ignite. There is a great deal of knack in doing this,
but those who are used to it will light a fire in a very short
time. The men usually carry these sticks about with them,
as after they have been once used they produce the fire more
quickly."^ I witnessed the process successfully employed
under the most unfavourable circumstances, on one occasion
when camping out with Chippewa guides on the Lake of Bays,
in Western Canada. We had struck our tents, and were
making our way down the river, when a steady rain set in,
which continued throughout the day. We had to pass
several long portages, involving in each case the unloading,
and carrying over them, our canoes and baggage ; and on
one of these occasions, finding myself alone with my Indian
guide at the foot of a portage where we must necessarily be
detained a considerable time, I suggested to him by words
and signs, whether it were possible to kindle a fire. Rain
was falling in torrents, the trees were dripping, and the
grass and fallen leaves resembled a soaked sponge. But
Kinees^ set to work in Indian fashion, hunted out a pine-
knot, such as are of common occurrence in the Canadian
forest, where the tree itself has rotted away and left the
cores of its oldest branches like pins of iron. Having
secured this, and a piece of half-burned wood from under

^ Wanderings of an Artist among the Indiana of North America, p, 188.

v.]

SANCTITY OF FIRE.

une-
idian
the
iving
Inder

the remains of an old camp-fire, he next stripped ojff the bark
from the lee-side of a birch tree, and collecting a heap of the
dry inner bark, thin as paper, he carefully disposed it under
a cover of pine-bark, and placed over all a pile of chips cut
with his axe from the centre of a pine log. All being now-
ready, he frayed a handful of the birch bark into the con-
sistency of tow, and placing this on the charred wood, he
made the hard point of the pine-knot revolve in the wood
by means of a cord, while his bent position, pressing the
other end to his breast, protected it from the rain. In a
surprisingly short time he blew the tinder into a flame, ap-
plied it to the pile he had prepared, and nursing this with
chips and dry twigs, we were able to welcome our com-
panions to a blazing log fire, kindled under circumstances
wliich, even with the aid of flint and steel, would have
seemed impossible to the European woodsman.

The knowledge of this simple process, however acquired,
constitutes perhaps the oldest of all human traditions relat-
ing to the arts of life. A mode of obtaining fire nearly
equivalent to that of flint and steel has already been re-
ferred to as in use both among the Fuegians and Esquimaux ;
but the process of friction is also resorted to by the latter,
and with slight variations in the application of the prin-
ciple, it appears to be the recognised Indian mode of pro-
curing fire. Among all the Indian tribes not only was a
certain superstitious sanctity attached to fire, but they looked
with distrust on the novel methods employed l)y Europeans
for its production. When, in 1811, Elksatovva, the prophet
of the Wabash, — a brother of Tecumseh, the Shawnee
warrior, — was exhorting his tribe to resist the deadly en-
croachments of the white man, he concluded one of his
eloquent warnings by exclaiming : " Throw away your fire-
steels, and awaken the sleeping flame as your fathers did
before you ; fling away your wrought coverings, and put on
skins won for yourselves as was their wont, if you would
escape the anger of the Great Spirit." Nor is there wanting

^^ j

ISO

TIERRA DEL EUEGO.

. [chap.

among many Indians a conviction that the Ishkodaiwaubo,
or fire-liquid, is a malignant form of the same mysterious
element ; an evil medicine wrought for their destruction by
the white Manitou.

Various methods are thus traceable throughout the western
hemisphere for calling into existence the wondrous element,
so peculiarly distinctive of man. Yet even in these, common
relations of a very comprehensive character are apparent ;
while the Peruvian, with the solar mirror, stands apart alike
from the rude Indian and the cultivated native of the
Mexican plateau ; and far to the south of both, the Fuegian
finds in the natural products of his inhospitable clime a
means of fire-making analogous to that which the Shawnee
prophet taught his people to regard as one of the unhallowed
practices of the Whites. All alike exhibit man, even in
the rudest stago master of the same secret ; and turning to
many useful, a i even indispensable purposes, that which
no other animal can be taught to use, or scarcely even to
look upon without dread.

■.l<ir

TI.]

THE U::>J': OF TOOLS.

151

CHAPTER VI.

THE CAN OK

■M

THE USE or TOOlJj — T(X)L USING INSTINCT — IIUDIMENTABY STAGE OF ART —
PRIMITIVE KIVEB-OnAFT— THE GUANAHAKE CANOE— OCEAN NAVIGATfdN— AKRI-
CAN CANOE-MAKINO — OREGON CEDAR CANOES— NATIVE WHALERS OF THE PACIFIC
— PREHISTORIC BOAT BUILDERS -MAWAl'S CANOES — THE POLTNI.SIAN ARCHI-
PELAGO—THE TERRA AU8TRALI8 INCOGNITA— CANOE-FLEETS OP THE PACIFIC —
PRIMITIVE NAVKJATION— PORTABLE BOATS— THE CORACLE AND KAIAK— THE
PEBDVIAS BALSA — OCEAN NAVIGATORS.

The discovery of fire, and its application even to such
simple purposes of art is the hardening of the wooden spear,
or the hollowing of the monoxyh)Us canoe, suflfice to iQus-
trate the characteristics of man, not merely as a reasoning,
but also as a tool-using, or, as Franklin defined him, a tool-
making animal. Whilst, however, an innate instinct seems
to prompt him to supplement his helplessness l)y such
means, mechanical science, the industrial and the tine arts,
are all progressive developments which his intellect super-
induces on that tool-using instinct. And through all the
countless ages revealed to the geologist, with ever new
orders of successive life ; with beast, bird, crustacean, insect,
and zoophyte, endowed with wonderful constmctive instincts,
and perpetuating memorials of architecture and sculpture, of
which the microscope is alone adequate to reveal the exquisite
beauty and infinite variety of design : yet so thoroughly is
the use of tools the exclusive attribute of man, that the dis-
covery of a single artificially shaped flint in the drift or

^£!'

«52

TOOL-USING INSTINCT.

[chap.

cave-breccia, is deemed proof enough that man has been
there. The flint implement or weapon lies beside bones
revealing species kindred to the sagacious elephant, or to
those of carnivora allied to the dog, with its wonderful
instincts bordering on reason and the forethought of ex-
perience ; yet no theorist dreams of the hypothesis that some
wiser Elephas primigenius, in advance of his age, devised
the flint spear wherewith to oppose more efiectually the
aggressions of the gigantic carnivora, whose remains abound
in the ossiferous caverns.

But if man was created with a tool-using instinct, and
with faculties capable of developing it into all the mechani-
cal triumphs which command such wonder and admiration
in our day, he was also created with a necessity for such.
** The heritage of nakedness, which no animal envies us, is
not more the memorial of the innocence that once was ours,
than it is the omen of the labours which it compels us to
undergo. "With the intellect of angels, and the bodies of
eai'th-worms, we have the power to conquer, and the need
to do it. Half of the industrial arts are the result of our
being born without clothes ; the other half of our being
born without tools." ^

With the growing wants of men as they gathered into
communities, novel arts were developed ; and the demands
of each new-felt want called into being means for its supply.
Artificers in brass and iron multiplied, and the sites of the
first cities of the earth were adorned with temples, palaces,
sculptured marbles, and cunningly-wrought shrines. But
whenever communities were broken up and scattered, the
elements of an acquired civilisation were inevitably left
behind. All but the most indispensable arts disappear
during the process of migration ; and although the wan-
derers might at length find a home in " a land whose stones
are iron, and out of whose hills thou maycst dig brass,"

* WhatU Technology? an Inaugural Lecture. By George Wilson, M.D., Regius
Professor of Technology, Edinburgh University.

VI.]

RUDIMENTARY STAGE OF ART.

153

into
anus

ppiy-

f the
aces,
But
tie
left
>pear
wan-
iones

3."

Icgius

no arts are so speedily lost among migratory tribes as
those of metallurgy. The hold of the accumulated wisdom
and experience of successive generations must be partial
and uncertain among an unlettered people, dependent on
tradition for all knowledge excepting such as is practi-
cally transmitted in the operations of daily experience. Few
indeed of all the wanderers from the old centres of European
civilisation to the wilds of the New World bring with them
the slightest knowledge either of the science or the practice
of metallurgy. Every chemical analyst knows what it is to
receive pyrites for silver, and ochres for iron or gold. Even
now the skill of the American miner has to be imported, and
the copper-miners of Lake Superior are chiefly derived from
Cornwall, Norway, or the mining districts of Germany.

With all our many artificial wants so promptly supplied,
even in the remotest colony, we are slow to perceive how
much we owe to the wondrous appliances of modern civilisa-
tion, and its division of labour. The Dutchman exported
his very bricks across the Atlantic, wherewith to found his
New Amsterdam on the banks of the Hudson; and the
English colonist, with enterprise enough to mine the copper
and iron of Lake Superior, still seeks a market for the ores
in England, and imports from thence both the engineers and
the iron wherewith to bridge his St. Lawrence. With such
facts before us in relation even to the systematic colonisation
of a highly civilised and enterprising commercial nation, it
is easy to understand what must have been the condition of
the earth's primeval wanderers. Their industrial arts were all
to begin anew ; and thus w^e see that the non-metallurgic
condition of primitive social life which is designated its
Stone Period, is not necessarily the earliest human period,
but only the rudimentary state to which man had returned,
and may return again, in the inevitable deterioration of a
migratory era..

Evidence of various kinds still points to a cradle-land for
the human family towards the western borders of Central

154

PRIMITIVE RIVER CRAFT.

[chap.

iii

■ *-r -^y,:

Asia, and remote from its coasts : probably in that range of
country stretching between the head wateis of the Indus
and the Tigris. The earliest history of man that we
possess represents the postdiluvian wanderers journeying
eastward, and at length settling on a plain that long after-
war '<s remained one of the chief centres of history. But
the artii there developed belonged exclusively to a far inland
people ; and to this day the rude craft of the Tigris and
the Euphrates betrays a total absence of maritime instinct
or skill in navigation. The highest effort of their boat-
builders is little more than to construct a temporary raft,
on which themselves and their simple freight may float in
safety down the current of the great river. Similar rafts
are still in use by the Egyptians, formed of earthenware
jars bound together by withes and cords, and covered with
bulrushes. Like the corresponding river-craft of the Eu-
phrates, these are steered down the I^yile, never to return ;
for, on theii arriv'al at Cairo, the rafts are broken up, and
the jars sold in the bazaars. Such was the rudimentary
condition of navigation in that great Asiatic hive of nations
where man chiefly dwelt for centuries remote from the sea.
But from thence the wanderers were scattered over the face
of the whole earth. The primitive river-craft, therefore,
found an early development into sea-craft ; and oceanic
migration gave a new character to the wanderings of the
primeval nomads. Thenceforth, accordingly, those instinc-
tive tendencies began to characterise certain branches of
the human family, as leaders of maritime enterprise,
which may be tr-'ced under very diverse degrees of social
development : as in the Phoenicians, the Northmen, the
Malays, and the Polynesians ; while other tribes and nations,
such as the Celts and the Fijians, though living on the
coast, are tempted by no longings to voyage on the ocean's
bosom.

The islands of the Central American archipelago were the
first to reward the sagacity of Columbus, as he steered his

VI.]

THE GUANAHANE CANOE.

155

course westward in search of the old East. The arts of their
simple natives accordingly attracted his attention ; and
although he found among thorn personal ornaments of gold,
sufficient to awaken the avaricious longings of the Spaniards
for that fatal treasure of the New World, yet practically
thev were in ignorance of metallurgic arts, and Jacked that
stimulus to ingenious industry which the requisites of
clothing call forth in less genial climes. The natives of
Guanahan^, or San Salvador, were friendly and gentle
savages, in the simplicity, if not in the innocence, of naked-
ness. Their only weapons were lances of wood hardened in
the fire, pointed with the teeth or bone of a fish, or i'urnished
with a blade made cither of the universal flint, or more fre-
quently, with thorn, from liic large tropical shells which
abound in the West Indian seas. They had learned to turn
the native cotton plant to economical account; but their
chief mechanical ingenuity was expended on the light
barks to which they gave the now universal name of
canoe. These were formed from the trunk of a single tree,
hollowed by fire, with the help of their primitive adzes
of flint or shell, and were of various sizes, from the tiny
bark only capable of holding its solitary owner, to the
galley manned by forty or fifty rowern, who propelled it
swiftly through the water with their paddles, and baled
it with the invaluable native calabash, which sujiplied
every domestic utensil, and rendered them indifferent to
the potter's art.

The canoe has a peculiar interest and volue in relation to
the arch«eology of the New World. With our wondrous
steam-ahips, wherewith we have bridged tho Athmtic, wo
are apt to lose faith in the capacity of uncivilised man for
overcoming such obstaclen as the dividing ' i'cjuih which ha<l
so long concealed America from the ancient world. But
the bark in which Columbus first crossed the Atlantic was
in no degree more capable of braving the ocean's terrors
than the navies of the Mediterranean had been a thousand

156

OCEAN NA VIGATION.

[chap.

years before ; and the primitive canoes of the American
archipelago far more nearly resembled the Pinta, or the
Niila with its lateen sails, than the smallest of our modern
ocean craft.

Throughout the Polynesian archipelago, fragments of
foreign vocabularies are the chief traces of that oceanic mi-
gration by which alone the descendants of a common race
could people those distant islands of the sea. The recog-
nition of certain Malay and Polynesian words in the language
of the remote island of Madagascar is one striking illustra-
tion of what such intrusive linguistic elements imply. We
can thus trace the primitive voyagers, in their praus, or
slight Malayan vessels, navigating an ocean of three thou-
sand miles ; and perceive how, even by such means, the
ocean highway was open to the world's grey fathers in
remotest prehistoric times.

In this view of the case, the canoe of America is the type
of a developed instinct pregnant with many suggestive
thoughts for us ; and the traces of the primeval ship-
builder's art accumulate wonderfully so soon as attention is
drawn to it. On the banks of the Clyde, the voyager from
the New World looks with peculiar interest on the growing
fabrics of those huge steamers, which have made the ocean,
that proved so impassable a barrier to the men of the
fifteenth century, the easy highway of commerce and
pleasure for us. The roar of the iron forge, the clang of the
fore hammer, the intermittent glare of the furnaces, and all
the novel appliances of iron ship-building, tell of the
modern era of steam ; but, meanwhile, underneath these
very ship-builders' yards lie the memorials of ancient Clyde
fleets, in which we are borne back, up the stream of human
history, far into prehistoric times. The earliest recorded
discovery of a Clyde canoe took place in 1780, at a depth
of twenty- five feet below the surface, on a site known
by the apt designation of 8t. Enoch's croft. It was hewn
(jut of a single oak, and within it, ueur the prow, lay a

AFRICAN CANOE-MAKING.

T57

Fio. 50. —Clyde Stone Axe.

beautifully finished stone axe or celt, represented here (Fig.
50), doubtless one of the simple implements with which
this primitive ship of the Clyde had been fashioned into

shape. At least sixteen other canoes have
been since brought to light ; some of
them buried many feet underneath sites
occupied by the most ancient structures
of the city of Glasgow. It is difficult to
apply any satisfactory test whereby to
gauge the lapse of centuries since this
[)rimitive fleet plied in the far-inland
estuary that then occupied the area
through which the Clyde has wrought its
later channel ; but that the changes in
geological, no less than in technological,
aspects indicate a greatly prolonged interval, cannot admit
of doubt. Yet primitive man, alike in Africa and in the
Now World, is still practising the rude ingenuity of the
same boat-builder's art which the allophylian of the Clyde
pursued iu ^hat remote dawn.

The vessel in which Captain Speke explored Lake Tan-
ganyika was a long narrow canoo, hollowed out of the trunk
of a single tree. " These vessels," he says, " are mostly
built from large timbers, growing in the district of Ugubha,
on the western side of the lake. The savages fell them, lop
oti' the branches and ends to the length required, and then,
after covering the upper surface with wet mud as the tree
lies upon the ground, they set fire to, and smoulder out its
interior, until nothing but a case remains, which they finish
by paring out witli roughly constructed hatchets."

The islanders of the Southern Ocean, the natives of many
\>m\^ of the African continent, and the canoe-builders of
the New World, all employ the agency of fire to supplement
their imperfect tools. The stone axe of the St. Enoch's
croft canoe is formed of highly polished dark greenstone.
It measures five and a half inches in length by three and a

158

OREGON CEDAR CANOES.

[chap.

half in breadth ; and an unpolished band round the centre
indicates where it had been bound to its haft, leaving both
ends disengaged, as is frequently the case with the stone
hatchets of the American Indians and the Polynesians. But
the accompanying woodcut (Fig. 51) drawn from one
brought by Mr. Paul Kane from the Strait of De Fuca,
shows a more ingenious mode of hafting the stone adz
Such implements are in use by the Clalam Indians for cou-
structing out of the trunks of cedar trees, large and highly
ornamented canoes, in which they fearlessly face the dangers
of the Pacific Ocean. Some of their canoes, made out of

Fig. 51.— Clalam Stono Adze.

a single tree, measure upwards of fifty feet long, and are
capable of carrying thirty as a crew. They ha^'e thwarts
from side to side, about three inches thick, and their gun-
wales curve outwards so as to throw off the waves. Tiio
bow and stern rise in a graceful sweep, sometimes to a
height of five feet, and arc decorated with grotesque figures
of men and animals. The Indian crew kneel two and two
along the bottom, and propel the canoe rapidly with paddles
from four to five feet long, while a bowman and steersman
sit, each with his paddle, at either end, and thus equipped
these savages venture in their light bark upon the most
tempestuous seas. One of their most coveted prizes is the
whale, the blubber of which is r '-^ nhng with dried fish,
and esteemed no lesp highl'. '/ f> om M. n by the Esqui
maux. Since the encvoachmer' ^f f ' r , * m 8ettlement>»

hi;

vi.l

NATIVE WHALERS OF THE PACIFIC.

159

on tiieir territories their game lias greatly diminished, and
few whales approach the coast ; but, when an opportunity
offers, the Indians are enthusiastic in the chase, and the
process by which their prize is secured furnishes an interest-
ing illustration of native ingenuity and daring. When a
whale is seen blowing in the offing, they rush to their
canoes and push off, furnished with a number of large seal-
skin bags filled with air, each attached by a cord to a
barbed spear-head, in the socket of which is fitted a handle
five or six feet long. Upon coming up with the whale, the
barbed heads are driven into it, and the handles withdrawn ;
until the whale, no longer able to sink from the buoyancy
of the air-bags, is despatched and towed ashore. By just
such a process may the whale have been stranded at the
base of Dunmyat, in times when an ancient ocean washed
the foot of the Ochil hills, and the old Scottish whaler
revelled in spoils such as now reward the enterprise of the
savages of the North Pacific coast.

It is thus seen to how large an extent the primitive canoe
may have sufficed for remote ocean expeditions. The old
navigators of the Clyde were prol)al)ly not a whit less fearless
than the native whalers ot the Oregon coast ; and they had to
face dangers fully equal to any of those to wliich voyagers of
the Pacific are exposed, whenever they navigated the lochs
and island channels towards its mouth, or ventured beyond it,
to face the gales and currents of the Irish Sea. The Clyde has
supplied ail unusually rich store of illustrations of primitive
ship-carpentry ; but the disclosures of another Scottish locality
also merit notic*^ liere. The carse of Falkirk is intimately as-
sociated with some very memorable events of Scottish history.
It is traversed l>y the vallum and chain of forts reared by
LoUiuii Urbieuh the Roman propra3tor of Antoninus Pius in
the early part of the second century, and is rich in memorials
of many later incidents. But underneath lie far older
records. In the year 172G, a sudden rise of the river
CWron undermined a portion of its banks, and exposed to

IBi

.iji

1 60

rREJIISTORIC BOAT BUILDERS.

[chap.

view a canoe of unusually lai ■ dimensions, fashioned with
care from a single oak-tree, ana lying at a depth of fifteen
feet beneath successive strata of clay, shells, moss, sand,
and gravel. The Statistical Accounts record the discovery,
in the vicinity of Falkirk, of another ancient boat buried
thirty feet below the surface, in the same carse from which
the remains of a mammoth were exhumed in excavating
the Union Canal in 1821. Those traces of primitive human
art have already been referred to in the PrehiHoric Annals
of Scotland, but a further discovery in the same locality
confers a fresh interest upon them. Soon after the publica-
tion of that work, when on a visit to Falkirk, I was shown

Fio. 52.— Qmngcuiouth bkiill.

by Dr. G. Hamilton a human skull, which at once attracted
my attention from its marked correspondence to the brachy-
cophalic crania of ancient British graves. It is figured
here. Fig. 52, from a careful drawing executed at a later
date. The facial bones and the whole of the base are want-
ing, but enougli remains to show that it is well developed,
according to a type of crania of the early Scottish tumuli.
But what confers a special interest on it is, that it was
found in the same alluvial carse-land as the ancient canoes
and the fossil bones of the Elephas primigenius, twenty
feet beiow the surface, in a bed r/f shell and gravel, when
digging the area of the luige Grangemouth lo(;k of the
Union Canal, on tho 29th of June J 843. Buried at such a

VI.]

MAWArS CANOES.

i6i

depth in the detritus of the river- valley, it may be regarded
as a record of the men of the period when the valleys of
the Forth and Carron were navigable arms of the sea ; and
may even belong to the epoch when their shores were
peopled by a race of fishermen contemporaneous with the
whalers of Dunmyat and Blair-Drummond Moss, and with
the monoxylous boatmen of the Clyde.

Among many of the islands of the Southern Ocean the
boats are simple wooden «anoes, pointed at eitlier end, and
propelled through the water with the paddle ; ])ut the barks
of the true Polynesians are more elaborate and ingenious.
They frequently are double, with a raised platform or
quarter-deck ; and are invariably provided with an outrigger,
an article seemingly of Malay origin. So essential, indeed,
is the latter deemed for safe navigation, that the most re-
markable characteristic recognised by the Taliitians, when
Captain Cook's vessels first revealed to them the wonders of
European civilisation, was the want of the indispensable
outrigger. Throughout the mythology of oceanic Polynesia,
Mawai, the upholder of the earth, and the revealer of the
secrets of the future, plays a prominent part. In one of his
prophecies, Mawai foretold that a ship such as had never
been seen before, a canoe without outriggers, should in pro-
cess of time come out of the ocean. But to the mind of a
Tahitian, an ocean canoe without an outrigger was so impos-
sible a thing that they laughed their pn)phet to stv.vu ; whoiv-
upon Mawai launched his wooden dish on the waters, whioU
swam without outrigger, and the Tahitiaus thoncoforw awl
looked for the strange marvel v>f the tuUviggcvlesH oanoo.
Cook's ship was regainloil as tl\o t\\ltilu\o\\t of Mawai'a
prediction, and still English vessels fti"0 freipK^itly called
Mawai 'h eatiooR. The ui)thie )n\)phecy seema in reality
one of those vague traditions of nneeatral intercoui'so \\\\\\
other n\end)ers of the human family, auelv as, aimnig the
Aztecs, led to the belief that the ships of (\)rte8 had w-
tm-ned f\>nn the somvo of the risitxg «uii with Qvietzaleoutli

t6a

THE POLYNESIAN ARCHIPELAGO.

[chap.

the divine instructor of their forefathers in the arts of
civilisation.

The population of the great Polynesian archipelago pre-
sents many highly interesting and suggestive features, bear-
ing closely on the question of oceanic migration. The area
of Polynesia proper extends from the small islands westward
of the Pelews to Easter Island, and from the Mariannes
and the Sandwich Islands to New Zealand on the south.
In Tongatabti and Easter Island, as well as in the Micro-
nesian Rota, Tinian, Ualan, and throughout the Caroline
group, remains of massive stone buildings, the origin or use
of which is wholly unknown to the natives, reveal traces of
an extinct civilisation, and afford some possible clew to the
strange ethnological phenomena of the Oceanic archipelago.
Professor Dana, who, as geologist to the United States
Exploring Expedition, had abundant opportunities for obser-
vation, canu^ \\\ the conclusion llial an innuenso arcjiin Ihc
Pacific hiiH lor ages been gradiinlly subsiding ; and that the
numerous Lagoon Islands ninrk tlie spots where what were
once the highest peaks of mountains have Hiially lienn sub-
merged. Mr. Hah', the philologist of the same expedition,
gathered sufficient data from a European who had heen
resident for a time on the islanrl of Hojllibe, Jn the Caroline
archif>elago, and from his own obHerviltlons, to m\h\)i \s\\\\
^kt the reiL-a-kaliie stone structures, both Unhin and Bonalje,
were erected when the sites on which tin)' hIiiim) w«<)'U |(| ||
Jifileient lev l from whai they now occupy. "At prosetit
tbey are actually in the water ; what were once paths, are
Aov paasE^es for canoes, and when the walls luu bfukuil
%mmk the woiaer tmsers the enclosure."

Sudi an idea m3tm& like a glimpse of far-rea<^;hJng tJUtliH
relatiTe to tke unwritten history of that recently (JXplorcMJ
BoutbRn Ocaean. Wnen Columbus discovered the inhinilH
<if IIk New yiftMi tefemid them lym^ in thickly cluHtornd
ffTOoye, and ere long he reached tht mainland of a great conti
licnt, which lay in close vicinity to its island aaUjllites. But

y*4-

THE TERRA AUSTRALIS INCOGNITA.

163

it was altogether different with the Columbus of the Southern
Ocean. A strange Antarctic, as well as an Australian conti-
nent lay there also, awaiting new discoverers; but far
beyond their coasts the Pacific and Southern groups dotted
the wide expanse of ocean like the stars that lose themselves
in the abysses of night. We read with wonder, as strange
as that which rewarded the revelations of the Western
Ocean in the closing years of the fifteenth century, of the
voyages and discoveries of Byron, Waliis, Carteret, and of
Cook and later explorers of the South Pacific Ocean. When
Captain Cook reached the Cape on his return from his second
expedition, in 1774, he had saiied no less than twenty thou-
sand leagues, through unknown seas, since he left the same
point twenty months before. His grand quest was in search
of the Terra Australis Incugnita, a continent which it was
assumed must exist in the Southern Ocean, as a counterpoise
to tlic hmd occupying so large a portion of the northern
hemisphere ; but instead of this, the voyagers sailed for days
and weeks througli vast seas, arriving by chance, now
and again, at some little island, cut off from all the v/orld
besides, yet Icnanted by Imman beings. And, as later
yOFflgprs 1)0 VG noted, on sailing on< e more into the limitless
liofboii, litiiii' UtuMwi' hiUfj hitorvfd, in which many Imudrrds
of pirn have l)eeli t)t|ss(i(|, aiiothei js]nnd-speck appears;
ami iiof, only is it iijiuiljii(3d, Ijui »i/J)jdJjrH f/f ejjeech. mytho
Mljlif j rtii4 ilia pimiHAe Ingenuity of iiativa aha, all concur
III lil'ovljiy fl miUiuUwlly of origin. The idea eiiggestcid

to the sagaciui/a liutuiiillsL 1h mw ^i^ij kmliUH' t*t iljuHijtH}
(ili'f lllllllfi tlio Pacific Ocean Is pto el/jjiieiilly im nmi (it
aiibsl(|oU'!0, wliote altetuly uul ii\\\^ iitiplements in hM /mm)
stjillB, lull |)r()l)fd)ly carvings, sculpturos, ami uytiii m^hU^a-
lural structures, lie lujie<1 uiuhj- (j/o inm] l)fccc(ft of a
rnodern cietaeean formatjoii, ihd]U^A It may hi, til yilit!$iii
the intelligent rcsearcli (if a romoio fuliu»», wIk'H I1j<« tiil^m
• III linniiaphere shall once niofo \mmm llie iiroa ill nu}i
sideuco ; ami iku wJttfiJs id iim Pacific mil m^^lMUi ttm

/;^

4JW«*ipi*W**|*p^**WL

mmmmm

164

CANOE- FLEETS OF THE PACIFIC.

[chap.

§i

summits of mountain-chains in the Terra Australis of that
coming time.

We must not be misled here, any more than in our esti-
mate of possible Atlantic voyagers, by the undue contempt
with which the European is apt to gauge the capacity of
primitive island mariners. At Vanikoro, the native canoe is
a mere rudely-fashioned trunk of a tree, sufficiently grooved
to afford foot-hold ; yet to this the islander attaches an out-
rigger, spreads a mat for his sail, and boldly launches forth
into the ocean, though few Europeans would be induced to
venture in such a craft on the stillest pool. Dr. Pickering,
when illustrating the ideas of ocean migration which he
was led to form from intimate observations of widely-scattered
and very diverse branches of the human family, remarks :
" Of the aboriginal vessels of the Pacific, two kinds only are
adapted for long sea-v^ ages : those of Japan, and the large
double canoes of the Society and Tonga groups. In times
anterior to the impulse given to civilised Europe through
the noble enterprise of Columbus, Polynesians were accus-
tomed to undertake, sea- voyages nearly as long, exposed to
equal dangers, and in vessels of far inferior construction.
However incredible this may appear to many, there is suffi-
cient evidence of the fact. The Tonga people are known to
hold intercourse with Vavao, Samoa, the Fiji Islands,
Rotuma, and the New Hebrides. But there is a document,
published before those seas were frequented by whalers and
trading-vessels, which shows a more extensive aboriginal
acquaintance with the islands of the Pacific. I allude to
the map obtained by Forster and Cook from a native of the
Society Islands, and which has been shown to contain not
only the Marquesas, and the islands south and east of Tahiti,
but the Samoan, Fiji, and even more distant groups.
Again, in regard to the principles of navigation, the Poly-
nesians appear to possess a better knowledge of the subject
than is commonly supposed, as is shown from recent dis-
coveries at the Hawaiian Islands. One of the Hawaiian

VI.J

PRIMITIVE NAVIGATION.

»(>5

headlands has been found to bear the name of The
start ng -place for Tahiti: the canoes, according to the
account of the natives, derived through the missionaries,
leaving in former times at a certain season of the year, and
directing their course by a particular star."

But leaving such glimpses of oceanic migration, there is
another aspect in which the ingenuity of the primitive boat-
builder of the Now World is exhibited, which is highly
characteristic in itself ; and also worthy oi notice from
some of its elements of comparison with the primeval in-
genuity of the nncient work! Throughout the islands of
the American archipelago, and among the southern tribes,
where large and freely navigable rivers abound, the native
canoe was made of various sizes, uut invariably of the trunk
of a tree hollowed out, and reduced to the required shape.
Such appears to be the normal type of the primitive mari-
ner's craft; but where obstacles interfere with its accomplish-
ment, the rudest races devise means to obviate the difficulty.
The Calif ornian canoe is a mere float made of rushes, in the
form of a lashed-up hammock ; while those of the Navigator
Islands, in the Pacific, — so called by La Perouse, their first
discoverer, owing to the graceful shape and superior work-
manship of their canoes, —are formed of pieces of wood sewed
together by means of a raised margin. In this the skilful
carpenter is guided rather by utility or taste, than by neces-
sity, for the Navigator Islands are fertile and populous, and
clothed to the summits of their lofty hills with luxuriant
forests and richly laden fruit-trees.

But across the wide area of the northern continent of
America, which stretches from the Guli of the St. Lawrence
to the Pacific, a difiierent combination of circumstances has
given bent to the development of native ingenuity in the
art of boat-building. In the St. Lawrence i tself, and through-
out all its principal tributaries, navigation is constantly
impeded by waterfalls or rapids, which constitute an insur-
mountnldc barrier to virdinaiy navigation. In like manner

ilMAGE EVALUATION
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Corporation

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WIUTM.N.V. MSM

(716)173-4303

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j66

PORTABLE BOATS.

[chap.

1- J

f,\

the country along the northern and southern shores of L?ike
Ontario, the valley of the Ottawa,, reaching towards the
Georgian Bay and Lake Superior, and much of the route be-
tween that and the Kocky Mountains, is a chain of lakes or
interrupted river navigation. Hence all the principal routes
of travel con'^ist of lines of lake and river united by " por-
tages," or carrying-places, over which the canoe and all its
contents have to be borne by the native boatmen, or voy-
ageurs, as the French Canadians and Half breeds of the
traders and Hudson's Bay Company are called. For such
mode of transport the wooden canoe would be all but im-
practicable ; and accordingly, probably ages before voy-
ageurs of European descent had learned to handle such
canoes, the native Indian devised for himself his light and
graceful bark-boat, made from tho rind of the Betvla pajpy-
racea, or canoe-birch, diicli grows in great abundance, and
where the soil is good often acquires a height of seventy
feet.

Portable boats were not unknown to the ancient tribes of
the British Isles. In Mr. Shirley's Account of the Dominion
of Farney in Ulster , a curious example of a portable boat
is described, formed of the trunk of an oak tree, measuring
twelve feet in length by three feet in breadth, hollowed out,
and furnished with handles at both ends, evidently for
facility of transport from one loch to another. The district
is one abounding with small lakes, such as the ancient Irisli
chiefs frequently selected as chosen retreats in which to
construct their crannoges, or other insulated strongholds,
beyond the reach of hostile surprise. But a closer analogy
may bo traced between the Indian birch-bark canoe and the
coracle of the ancient Briton described by Julius Coosar ns
a frame of wicker-work covered with skins. The same kind
of canoe is in use at the present day on the lakes in the
interior of Newfoundland, where the Montngnars from the
Labrador coast frequently spend the summer. Their bircli
canoes arc carefully secured for the return voyage to the

VI.1

THE CORACLE AND KAIAK.

167

mainland ; and a deer -skin stretched over a wicker frame
supplies all the requisites for inland navigatTon. But the
true counterpart to the British coracle is the Esquimaux
kaiak, which consists of a light frame covered with skin ;
and as this is brought over the top, and made to wrap
round the body of its occupant, it enables the amphibious
navigator, both of the North Pacific and the Greenland
seas, to brave a stormy ocean in which no open boat could
live.

Hamilco, the Carthaginian, according to Festus Avienus,
witnessed the ancient Britons " ploughing the ocean in a
novel boat; for, strange to tell, they constructed their
vessels with skins joined together, and often navigated the
sea in a hide of leather." Upwards of four centuries later,
Coesar found the same stormy sea navigated bj^ the southern
Britons in their coracles. When, in the sixth century, in
the lives of the Irish Saints, we once more recover some
glimpse of maritime arts, it is in the same coracles — some-
times made of a single hide, and in other casec, such as the
ocean currach of St. Columba, of several skins sewed to-
gether, — that the evangelists of lona crossed the Irish sea,
visit J d the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and even, as there
is reason to believe, preceded the Northmen in the discovery
of Iceland. The old Scottish historian Bellcnden, writing
in the sixteenth century, asks : " How can there be greater
ingyne than to make a boat of a bull's hyde bound witli
nothing but wands ? This boat is called a currock, with
which they fish, and sometimes pass over groat rivers."
This primitive boat is even now to be met with in tlie river-
estuaries of Wales, and on various parts of the Irish coast :
the counterpart of the Esquimaux haiakt or the haydar with
which the Aleutian Islanders navigate the intervening ocean
between Asia and America. Dr. Pickering remarks, on en-
counterina: the latter to the north of the Strait of De Fuca :
— "P'rom its lightness, elegnnce, and the cnpacity of
being rendered impervious to both air and water, I could

1 68

THE PERUVIAN BALSA.

[chap.

not but admire its perfect adaptation to the purposes of
navigation ; for it seemed almost to enable man to take a
place among the proper inhabitants of the deep. Such ves-
sels are obviously fitted to cope with the open sea, and, so
far as the absence of sails permits, to tra\^erse a considerable
expanse of ocean."

It is a curious fact, well worthy of notice, that through-
out the American continent, seemingly so dependent on
maritime colonisation for its settlement by man, the use of
sails as a means of propelling vessels through the water
appears to have been almost unknown. Prescott, when
describing the singular suspension bridges, made of the tough
fibres of the maguey, with W"hich the Peruvians spanned the
broad gullies of their mountain streams, adds : " The wider
and more tranquil waters were crossed on balsas, a kind of
raft still much used by the natives, to which sails were
attached, furnishing the only instance of this higher kind of
navigation among the American Indians."^ This statement
of the historian is too comprehensive; for, although the
Peruvians were so essentially an agricultural and unmaritime
people, the use of sails in their coasting trade constitutes one
of their noticeable points of superiority over other nations of
the New World. Attention is specially directed to this by
ftn incident recorded in the second expedition for the dis-
covery of Peru preparatory to its conquest. Bartholomew
Kuiz, the pilot of the expedition, after lingering on the coast,
near the Bay of St. Matthew, stood out into the ocean, when
he was suddenly surprised by the sight of a vessc? in that
strange, silent sea, seemingly like a caravel of considerable
size, with its broad sail spread before the wind. " The old
navigator was not a little perplexed by this phenomenon,
as he was confident that no European bark could have been
before him in these latitudes; and no Indiiin nation yet dis-
covered, not even the civilised Mexican, was ac^^uaintc'd
with the use of sails in navigation." As ho drew near, it

* Conqmat of Peru, vol. i. B. i. oli. ii.

VL]

OCEAN NA VIGATORS.

169

proved to be a native halsa^ formed of huge timbers of light,
porous woo J, and with a flooring of rccds raised above them.
Two masts sustained the large, square, cotton sail ; and a
moveable keel and rudder enabled the boatman to steer. On
board of it Kuiz found ornaments displaying great skill,
wrought in silver and gold, vases and mirrors of burnished
silver, curious fabrics, both cotton and woollen, and a pair
of balances made to weigh the precious metals. Here were
the first undoubted evidences of the existence of that strange
seat of a native American civilisation, among the lofty
valleys of the Southern Andes, which he was in search of.
The balsa's crew included both men and women, who carried
with them provisions for their voyage, and had come from
a Peruvian port some degrees to the south. Like older
voyagers of the Mediterranean, the Peruvian pilots were
wont to creep timidly along the shore*; but the Spaniards
encountered them in the open Pacific, where no European
prow had ever sailed. Caught by a sudden gale their bark
might have been borne far off among the islands that stud
the Southern Ocean, and here was the germ of a race of
ishuidcrs, to whom, after a few generations, the memory of
their Peruvian ancestry would have survived only as some
mythic legend, like the Manco Capac of their own lucas, or
the Mawai of the Polynesian archipelago.

170

MAN THE ARTIFICER.

[chap.

CHAPTER VII.

TOOLS.

MAN TJIR ATlTIFICEn- THK lAW OF llEASON— INDIOENOCS nACES— MAN's CAPACITY
FOB DETERIORATION— WHAT IS A 8T0NE-PEKI0D ?— MATERtaM OP PRIMITIVE
ART— SUCCESSION OF RACES— INDICATIONS OF ANCIENT TRADE— THE SHO-
SHONE INDIAN— TEXAS IMPLEMENTfj— MODES OF HAi<TINa— DEEIl'S-HORN SOCKETS
—STONE KNIVES— THLINKEVS OF ALASKA— METALS OF A STONE PERIOD— ARTS
OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC— MALAYAN INFI UKNOB— FIJIAN CONSTRUCTIVE SKILL —
FIJIAN POTTERY— SLOW MATURITY OF RACES— THE FLINT-EDGED SWORD— THE
LEAGUE OF THE FIVE NATIONS— IROQUOIS PREDOMINANCE— WORK IN OBSIDIAN
AND FLINT— HONDURAS FLINT IMPLEMENTS— SOURCES OF THE MATERIAL— COL-
LISION OF RACES— FATE OP INFERIOR RACES.

As the type of oceanic migration, the canoe claims a pro-
minent place among the primitive arts of man. In it we
see the germs of commerce, maritime enterprise, and much
else that is indispensable to any progress in civilisation.
But the primitive ship implies the existence of tools ; and,
as we have seen, probably owed its earliest fashioning to the
useful service of fire. Intelligent design was working out
the purposes of reason by processes which, even in their
most rudimentary stage, reveal the characteristics of a new
order of life, compared with which the tool-born ant, the
spider, and the bee, seem but as ingenious self-acting
machines, each made to execute perfectly its one little item
in the comprehensive plan of creation.

^Vs industrial artificers, the creatures so far beneath us in
the scale of organisation seem often to put to shame our
most perfect workmanship ; yet provided with no other
instruments than the eye and the hand, but guided by that
intelligent reason which distinguishes man from the brutes,
we see him, even as an artificer, presenting characteristics

vn.]

THE LA W OF REASON.

which arc altogether wanting in the lower animals. Labour
is for them no sternly imposed necessity, but an inevitable
process, having only one possible form of manifestation ;
producing in its exercise the highest enjoyment the labourer
is capable of ; and in its results leading our thoughts from
the wise, unerring, yet untaught worker, to Him whose
work it is, and of whose wisdom and skill the workman-
ship, not less than the workman, appears a direct manifesta-
tion. It is not so with man. The capacity of the work-
man is a divine gift, but the work is his own, and too often
betrays, in some of its most ingenious de\Tices and results,
anjrthing rather than a divine origin.

If ours be not the latest stage of being, but is to be suc-
ceeded by "new heavens and a new earth," marvellous
indeed are the revelations which posthistoric strata have
yet to disclose. But even they will scarcely suffice to
reveal the most striking characteristics of a being on whom
the economy of nature reacts in a way it never did on
living being before ; in whom all external influences arc
subordinated to an inner world of thought, by means of
which he is capable of searching into the past, anticipating
the future, of looking inward, and being a law unto him-
self His nature embraces possibilities of the widest con-
ceivable diversity, for his is no longer the law of instinct,
but of reason : law, therefore, that brings with it conscious
liberty, and also conscious responsibility.

But an important and seemingly conflicting clement
arises out of the capacity of man for moral progression, to
which some ethnologists fail to give due weight. A sug-
gestive thought of Agassiz, relative to certain real or sup-
posed analogies between the geographical distribution of
species of simiae, and especially the anthropoid apes, and
certain inferior types of man, sufficed as the nucleus of
Gliddon's elaborate monkey-chart, in the Indujenous Races
of the Earth, illustrative of the geographical distribution of
monkeys in relation to that of certain types of men. Not-

Jul

iw«j7;!^i?r^-9if39^»?r'i^.s^'^'fw^^

172

INDIGENOUS RACES.

[chap.

witlistanding the very monkey fying process to which some
of the illustrations of inferior human types have been sub-
jected in this pictorial chorogi iphy, the correspondences
are not such as to carry conviction to most minds. But,
assuming, as a supposed reductio ad ahsurdum, the descent
of all the diverse species of monkeys from a single pair, Mr.
Gliddon thus sums up his final observations : "I propose,
therefore, that a male and female pair of the ' species '
Cynocephalus Hamadryas. be hsnceforward recognised as
the anthropoid analogues of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japhet;
and that it must be from these two individuals that, owing
to transplantation, together with the combined action of
aliment and climate, the fifty-four monkeys represented on
our chart have originated. It is, notwithstanding, suffi-
ciently strange, that, under such circumstances, this * prim-
ordial organic type ' of monkey should have so highly im-
proved in Guinea, and in Malayana, as to become gorillas
and chimpanzees, orangs and gibbons ; whereas on the con-
trary, the descendants of * Adam and Eve ' have, in the
same localities, actually deteriorated into the most degraded
and abject forms of humanity." In reality, however, what-
ever may be said about the possibility of such simian devel-
opment, possible human deterioradon is an inevitable
attribute of the rational, moral free-agent man : capable of
the noblest aspirations and of wondrous intellectual advance-
ment, but also with a capacity for moral degradation such
as belongs to him alone. The one characteristic, no less
than the other, separates man from all those other living
creatures that might appear in some respects gifted with
endowments akin to his own.

Man, as a tool-using artificer, seems to have a rival m the
beaver, felling its timber, carrying its clay, and building its
dam ; in the spider weaving its web, more perfect thf^n any
net of human fisher ; and even in the squirrel with its pro-
vident hoard of well-secured wt .ter store, or the monkey
employing the cocoa-nut and other shell-fruit as missiles.

vii.l MAN'S CAPACITY FOR DETERIORATION. 173

I m the
ig its

in any

|s pro-
mkey

[ssiles.

But in such artificial appliances there is nothing obsolete,
nothing inventive, nothing progressive ; whereas the child
born amid the most highly developed civilisation, — the son
of a Watt, a Stephenson, a Brunei, — if reared from infancy
to manhood without any knowledge of mechanical science
or the industrial arts, would start anew from the rudi-
mentary instincts of the tool- using animal, and expend his
ingenuity, not perhaps without some traces of hereditary
mechanical genius, on tlie primitive materials of flint, stone,
horn, or shell.

Man depends for all on his teachers ; and when mortd
and intellectual deterioration return him to the tooUess con-
dition of the uncivilised nomad, he is thrown back on the
resources of his infantile reas(m and primary instincts, and
reaches that point from which the prime v^al colonist has had
to start anew in all lands, and work his way upwards, through
stone, and bronze, and iron periods, into the full co-opera-
tion of a civilised community, treasuring the experience of
the past, and making for itself a new and higher future.

The subdivisions of the archaeologist designated The
Stone Period, The Buonze Period, and The Iron Period,
have been brought into some discredit, in part by what, as
a general system, must be regarded only as a hypothesis,
being assumed as involving facts of no less indisputable
and universal application than the periods of the geologist.
In part, also, their non acceptance is due to wilful errors of
their impugners ; and to the want of appreciation of the
inevitable characteristics which pertain to transitional
periods, such as chiefly come under the European archaeolo-
gist's observation. So far as the American Indian is con-
cerned, the New World is in the first transitional stage still :
that of a stone-period, very partially afi'ected by the intro-
duction of foreign-wrought weapons and implements ; and
scarcely indicating, among the numerous tribes of North
America, any traces of the adoption of a superinduced
native metallurgy. Such therefore appears to be a condi-

"-'■lJ|!l!'.«V«mUJ-U.ii»MIH4.B

■''.-iTJ^'T^Vv^' - " .^I^I^T-.'rT^

174

WHAT IS A STONE-PERIOD i

[chap.

tion of things, the comparison of which with traces of a
corresponding stage in the early ages of Britain, may be of
use in clearing the subject from much confusion.

The special characteristics of the native civilisation which
the early Spanish adventurers found already existing in
Mexico and Central America, will come under review at a
later stage ; but it cannot admit of question that throughout
the whole Red Indian forest-area metallurgic arts were un-
known, as they still are among the Indians of the North-
west after an intercourse of upwards of three centuries
and a half with Europeans. Copper, indeed, was wrought
among them, but it was used without any application of
fire, and as what maybe most fitly designated a mere malle-
able stone. In Britain, as I have already observed, " the
working of gold may have preceded the age of bronze, and
in reality have belonged to the Stone-Period. If metal
could be found capable of being wrought and fashioned
without smelting or moulding, its use was perfectly com-
patible with the simple arts of the Stone-Period. Masses
of native gold, such as have been often found both in the Old
and the New World, are peculiarly susceptible of similar
appHcation by the workers in stone ; and some of the
examples of Scottish gold personal oi-naments fully corre-
spond with the probable results of such an anticipatory use
of the metals." * The idea thus formed from an examina-
tion of some of the most artless examples of primeval
British goldsmiths' work, has been amply confirmed by ob-
serving the mode of using the native copper, and the traces
of its former working, among the American Indians. Even
now their highest attainment in metallurgic skill extends
only to grinding the iron hoops with which the Hudson's
Bay fur-traders supply them, into knives, arrow-heads, and
the like substitutes for the older implements chipped out of
flint, or ground from the broken stone. Further oppor
tunities will occur for illustrating this subject ; which is

^ /Ve/tw)<wic ^Hnafa o/(Sco<fo»«i, 2d Ed. vol. i. I). 331.

Ml
I

VII.]

MATERIALS OF PRIMITIVE ART

^75

full of interest to the ethnologist, from the light it thr^ \vs
on the rate of progress of a barbarous people towards civili-
sation ; or rather on the capacity of man in a certain unde-
veloped stage, for witnessing the most remarkable products
of the useful arts, without evincing any desire to master them.
After centuries devoted to the elucidation of Roman
remains, and the assignment to Roman artificers of much
which more discriminating classification now awards to
totally different workmen : the discovery of weapons and
implements of stone, shell, or bone, in nearly every quarter
of the globe, has at length excited a lively inlerest among
the 9 rcb geologists of Europe. Made, as these primitive
relics are, of the most readily wrought materials, and by
what may be styled the constructive instincts, rather than
the acquired skill of their rude artificers, they belong to
one condition of man, in relation to the progress of civilisa-
tion, though pertaining to many periods of the world's
history, and to widely separated areas. In one respect, how-
ever, those relics possess a peculiar value to the ethnologist.
The materials employed in their manufacture have within
themselves, most frequently, the evidence of their geographi-
cal origin, and in some of them also of their era. The
periods to which numerous European relics pertain may
frequently be determined, like those of older strata, by the
accompanying imbedded or buried fossils. The bones of
the Bos primige7iius have been found indented with the
stone javelin of t)ie aborigines of Northern Europe, and dug
up even in places of regular British sepulture. Those of
the Megaceros Hihernicus seem, in like manner, to be traced
to a period of ancient Irish colonisation, when flint knives
and stone hatchets prove the simple character of the native
arts ; though even then they furnished the material for con-
structing one of the oarHest musical instruments. Yet other
evidence shows that the same gigantic Irish deer was con-
~ temporary with the woolly rhinoceros, the mammoth, and
the fossil carnivora of the caverns. The Bos longijroiiSt

~^1

176

SUCCESSION OF RACES

[chap.

doubtless, traces its descent from an ancestry not less an-
cient ; but from its wild herds the native Briton derived
his domesticated cattle, and its most recent relics pertain to
an era later than the Koman times. The ornamented tusks
of the wild boar, the bones of the brown bear, the teeth and
skulls of the beaver, carvings wrought from the walrus
ivory, skates formed from the metatai'sal and metacarpal
bones of the red-deer and small native horse, with numerous
kindred relics of palaeontology within the era of the occu-
pation of the British Islands by man, all serve to assign
approximate dates to the examples of his ancient arts which
they accompany.

Thus within the historic period, as in prior geological
eras, the progress of time is recorded by the extinction of
races. The advent of man was speedily marked by the
disappearance of numerous groups of ancient life which per-
tain to that transitional era where archaeology begins ;
thouo:h the most recent discoveries of works of art along
with the fossil mammals of the drift, confirm, by new and
striking evidence, the fact that man entered on this terres-
trial stage, not as the highest in an entirely new order of
creation, and belonging to an epoch detached by some over-
whelming catastrophe from all preceding periods of organic
life : but as the last and best of an order of animated beings
whose line sweeps back into the shadows of an unmeasured
past.

The disclosures of British tumuli, along with rarer chance
deposits, show that the Celtic Briton was an intruder upon
older allophylian occupants ; while the presence of the
Roman is recorded for us by the extinction of an ancient
fauna, as well as of whole BritisI) tribes. What the Roman
partially accomplished, the Saxon, the Dane, and the Nor-
man completed : displacing the Briton everywhere but from
the fastnesses of Wales ; and gradually extirpating all but
such animals as are either compatible with the development
of social refinement, or are worthy of protection as a means

VII.]

INDICATIONS OF ANCIENT TRADE.

177

along

of ministering to man's pleasures. And as it has been
in the Old World, so it is in the New. The progress of
the European colonists not only involves the extirpation
alike of the wild animals and the forests which formed
their haunts ; but also the no less inevitable disappear-
ance of the aborigines who made of them a prey. Thus
the grave-mound of the Red Indian, and the relics of
his simple arts, become the memorials of an extinct order of
things no less clearly defined than the post-tertiary fossils
of the drift.

But while the remains of extinct species thus serve to
determine the periods at which certain eras had their close,
the traces of living or extinct fauna are no less valuable as
fixing the geographical origin of the ancient colonists, amid
whose relics they are found : just as the elephants, the
camels, the monkeys, and baboons of the Nimrod obelisk, or
the corresponding sculptures on the walls of Memphis or
Luxor, indicate the countries whence tribute was brought,
or captives were carried off, to aggrandise their Assyrian or
Egyptian conquerors. Among relics which help to fix the
geographical centres of ancient arts, the sources of early
commerce, or the birthplaces of migrating races, might bo
noted the tin and amber of the Old, and the copper of the
New World. So also the Mexican (>l)sidian, tho clay-slate
of Columbia, the favourite red pipe- one, or (Jatlinite, of
the Coutcau des prairies, and the pyru and conch-shells
of the Gulf of Florida, indicate varied sources of arjuient
trade or barter, and lines of migration extending over fully
twenty degrees of latitude. Objects wrought in the favour-
ite materials brought from such remote sources have
been found minscliug with relics of ancient tribes in the
islands and on the north shores of the great Canadian lakes,
along the southern slo[)C of the same water-shed whence the
Moose and the Abbitibbe pour their waters into the frozen
sea of Hudson's Bay.

The designation of any primitive stage of industrial arts

VOL. I. M

> Si

178

7 HE SHOSHONE INDIANS.

fcHAP.

as a Stone-Period signifies, as has been already sufficiently
indicated, that condition in which, in the absence of metals,
and the ignorance of the simplest rudiments of metallurgy,
man has to find materials for the manufacture of his tools,
and the supply of his mechanical requirements, in the com
moner objects which nature places within his reach.

Nothing can well be conceived mnch more artless than
some of the stone implements still in use among savage
tribes of America. Yet it is worthy of note that it is not
..xxiid the privations of an Arctic winter, but in southern
latitudes, with a climate which furnishes abundant resources
for savage man, that the crudest efforts at tool-making are
found. In the report of the United Stares Geological Sur-
vey for 1872, which embraces Montana, Idaho, Wyoming,
and Utah, Professor Joseph Leidy furnishes an interesting
account of numerous implements of art, rude as any found
in the drift, met by him during a survey of the Bridgers
Basin at the base of the Unitali Mountains, in Southern
Wyoming. " In some places the stone implements are so
numerous^ and at the same time are so rudely constructed,
that one is constantly in doubt when to consider them as
natural or accidental, and when to view them as artificia]."^
But with them are mingled implements of tlie finest finish.
The Shoshoncs who liount the region have no further know-
ledge of them than is indicated in their belief that they were
a gift of God to their ancestors. But m^my arc sharp, and
fresh in appearance, as if recently worked from tlie parent
block ; and though others are worn, and decomposed on
the sarface, Professor Leidy does not assume more t' a
date of " centuries back " for the oldest of them. For, in-
deed, he found that the Shoshone Indians had in use a stone
implement of so simple a character that he sa^s, "had I not
observed it in actual use, and had noticed it among the
materials of the buttes, or horizontal strata of indurated
clays and sandstone, I would have viewed i^ as an accidental

' U. 8, Ofoloffkal Survey, 1872, p. Oi)2.

'•1

TEXAS IMPLEMENTS.

179

iuish.
know-

werc
), ami
»arei)t
ccl on
a
or, iii-

stoiic

T not
ig the

iratod
Idcntal

spavvl. It consists of a thin segment of a quartzite boulder,
made by striking the stone with a smart blow. It is called
a teslioa, and is employed as a scraper in dressing buffalo
skins." Subsequently he discovered a precisely similar im-
plement, together with some perforated tusks of the elk, in
an ancient Indian grave.

No such rude implements are found among the produc-
tions of the arctic tool-makers. The necessities of the
Esquimaux, in thuir clothing and hunting, beget systematic
liabits of industry and matured skill. The elaborate decora-
tions of their skin and fur dresses, the carving of their ivory
and bone implements, and the ingenuity lavished upon their
children's toys, all prove how thoroughly the a)sthetic, as
well as the industrial arts, are developed by the stimulus
which man's necessities create. In Fig. 58, an axe, or war-

h'lo. m. -Tfxiis Stoiif Axu, hiifteJ.

club, is shown, procured from the Indians of the Rio Frio, in
Texas. The blade is a piece of trachyte, so rudely chipped
that it could scarcely attract attention as having been sub-
jected to any artificial working, but for the club-like haft
into which it is inserted. I am indebted to Mr. Evans for
the use of the woodcut. He describes the haft as formed of
some indigenous wood, which has evidently been chopi)ed
into shape by means of stone tools. Nothing ruder i^as been
brought to liffht amon<j: the earliest d iclosures of drift or cave
deposits. Another Texas implement in the Smithsonian col
lection at Washington is a roughly shaped Hint blade, which,
as shown of the full size in Fig. 54, closely resembles a fami-
liar class of oval implements of the river-drift. It is curious,
indeed, to note the undesigned correspondence between the

L 5! 1*'

% '. j

'■A

' i' '-■'

180

MODES OF IIAFTING.

[cHAr

implemeuts of races equally widely separated by time and
space. Several examples of stone celts or hatchets attached
to their handles have been recovered in British and Irish
bogs, and in the submerged lake-dwellings of Switzerland.
All alike show a wooden haft pierced so as to admit of the
insertion of the stone blade, which must have been secured

Kid. 64. -ToxiiH inint Imiilcniotit. |. '', ' ,

by a withe or thong tiglitly bound round it, according to a
fawliion still practised in Anmicji, and among the ishind.^ of
the Pacific. Hut in s[)ite of this ligature, the wedge-like
form of the axe must have liad a tendency to cleave the haft,
and 80 to loosen its hold. The experience of the ancient
liakc-dw oilers led them to counteract this by inserting the

VII.]

DEER'S HORN SOCKETS.

i8i

stone blade in a socket of deer's horn, the end of which is
usually cut into a squared tenon designed to fit into a mor-
tice in the handle. This must have accomplished the desired
purpose, as examples of such deer's-horn sockets are common
on the sites of lake-dwellings. During the last visit of Pro-
fessor Agassiz to his native Swiss Cant jn, and the village
parsonage of Concise where his early years were passed, he
obtained from Lake Neuchatel a valuable collection of stone
implements, along with pottery and other illustrations of
the arts and habits of the Lake-dwellers, already referred

Pifl. r)5. Clilsol Mill iloiii'H-lioni soi'kot, CoiicIro.

to. Some of those are specially interesting as exami)le3 of
tlic mode of hafting implements of flint and stone. Fig. 55
shows a perforated deer's-horn socket with a chisel of green
stone inserted in it. The exposed part of tlie blad(^ measures
nearly two inches in length. It must have boen secured
in its liaft by a strong cement, such as some of the Pacific
Ishmders employ at the present day in fastening their axe-
heads to bone and wooden handles. In some cases a tine of
the deer's antler has been left so as to form the handle of the
hammer or hatchet. A rare example of this type is described

vi ;

182

STONE KNIVES.

[]CHAP.

by Dr. Clement, among numerous varieties recovered from
diftorent localities on Lake NeuchiUel. The horn of the
stag was also at times converted into a formidable weapon
by retaining the brow-antler as the offensive weapon, and
detaching the rest, so as to leave only the main portion of
the horn as a handle. Fig. 56, also from Lake Neuchdtel,
may be described as a stone knife. The blade, which is of

Fio. f)0. — StDiiP Knife, Coiiclsi!.

polished serpentine, measures 3i inches in the exposed part,
and is still secure in its horn haft. In the collection of Mr.
J. H. Blake of Boston are flint implements recovered from
an ancient Peruvian tomb on the Bay of Chacota, attached
to their liafts by a tough gi'cen cement.

It is remarkable to notice how rarely the simple process
of perforating the blade for the reception of the handle was
resorted to, even where the workmen were in the habit of
perforating both bone and stone implemerits for other pur-
poses. This was no doubt portly due to the frangible
character of much of the material in which they wrought ;

VII.]

THLINKETS OF ALASKA.

■«%.

but even after the primitive metallurgist bad mastered the
art of alloying ard casting bis bronze, it seems to have been
long before he learned to fit a handle to his axe or hammer
by perforating the blade or hammer-head. Some of the
most usual modes of attaching the axe or hatchet to a haft
of wood or bone, in use amon;^the islanders of the Pacific, are
shown in a group of implements from the collection of the
Scottish Antiquaries, Fig. 57. They bear a close resemblance

to others described by Mr.
William H. Dall as pertain-
ing to the Thlinkcts, a coast
tribe of Alaska, not far to the
south of Behring's Strait.^
But tools and weapons of
stone, as well as of native
copper, are already becom-
ing rare among the tribes
of the North Pacific Coast,
owing to the introduction
of iron by the Russian and
Hudson's Bay traders. Pi e-
vious to this change, the
Alaskans knew metal only
in the form of cold-wrought
native copper, as among
all the native tribes north
of the Mexican Gulf. Such
a recognition of some con-
venient uses to which the
malleable native metals
could be applied as substitutes for stone, can scarcely be
regarded as even an initial step in the transition towards
the first true metallurgic period. This cannot be considered
to have been introduced until the native copper-worker liad
perceived the wonderful transformations which could bo

' Alaska and Iti* Rcsoiircfn, \\ 418.

Fio. 67.— Souf' PiMiitio StoHo Imploments.

i84

METALS OF A STONE PERIOD.

[chap.

wrought by fire, and had learned at least to melt the pure
metal, and to mould the weapons and implements he re-
quired ; if not to harden it with alloys, and to quarry and
smelt the unfamiliar ores. To this stage the savage tribes of
the New World have not even now attained, after intercourse
with Europeans for more than three centuries and a half.
There, on the contrary, the Indians, who originally possessed
only weapons, implements, and personal ornaments of bone,
shell, flint, and stone, or at most of native copper rudely
hammered into shape, are still seen after an interval of up-
wards of three centuries of European colonisation and traffic,
without the slightest acquired knowledge of working in
metals. They do, indeed, possess numerous metal imple-
ments and weapons, which, as their greatest treasures, they
freely lavish on the loved or honoured dead; but such
traces of metallurgy aflford no proof of acquired native art.
The copper kettles of the ancient Huron graves on the
Georgian Bay, or the Chinook coffin-biers on the Columbia
river, were brought, not from the copper regions of Lake
Superior, but from France, London, or Liverpool, along
with the beads, knives, hatchets, and other objects of barter,
by means of which the fur- traders still carry on their traffic
with the Indian hunter. At most this only proves that a race,
still in its stone-period, and possessinr no greater skill than
is required to grind an iron hoop into lance or arrow heads,
has been brought into contact with a civilised people, fami-
liar with metallurgy and many acquired arts, such as the
musket and the rifle may most aptly symbolise.

The same diversity of inventive power and {irtistic skill is
discernible among the Indians of North America as has
been already referred to in comparing the arts of other un-
civilised races. In some constructive skill predominates,
while others manifest a peculiar aptitude for imitative art.
The powers of imitation common to the barbarous and the
civilised nations of the New World, are specially worthy of
note ; and will jigain come under review when referring to

vn.]

ARTS OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC.

X85

the pipe manufacture, so curiously typical of American art.
But meanwhile an equally instructive illustration of what may
thus be designated aesthetic and constructive instincts may
be selected from the diversely gifted islanders of the South-
ern Pacific. On the extreme western verge of the Polynesian
archipelago lie the Fiji Islands, occupied by a people re-
markable among the islanders of the Pacific alike for phy-
sical and intellectual peculiarities. The Fijian physiognomy
is descril)ed as presenting general characteristics of debase-
ment, when compared with that of the true Polynesian, and
the entire proportions and contour of their figure are
markedly inferior to those of the Friendly and Navigiitor
islanders. This is the more remarkable in a people dwelling
in the midst of abundance, and enjoying an unusual variety
of choice articles of food. Their ferocious and treacherous
habits, however, and the hideous customs of cannibalism,
and systematic parricide, with attendant crimes inevitable
in such a social condition, have rendered the Fijian Islands,
which seem fitted by nature to be abodes of happiness,
among the most wretched scenes of moral degradation.
Nevertheless it is in this strange island-group that the arts
of the South Pacific have their highest development.

The Papuans, or Negrillos, appear to be the true inven-
tive race, from whom the Fijians, who ;.rc unquestionably
allied to them in blood, acquired, elaborated, and greatly
improved many ajiplications of art and skill. The Papuans
of New Caledonia, though superior in physical charac-
teristics to other islanders of the Negrillo type, present some
curious analogies to the Australian, especially in their mode
of sepulture. Fig. 58 is an example of their ing(;nuity in
adapting a sinqjle stone chisel to its haft, so as to serve
as a boat-carpenter's adze. But the ingenious Negrillo
is altogether unsocial and prone to isolation, and the
Fijians manifest an equally strong disinclination to
leave their island-home. It required, therefore, the inter-
vention of a migratory or aggressive^ race to difluse their

i86

MALA VAN INFLUENCE.

[chap.

acquired knowledge and skill ; and this is supplied by the
Malayans, who are found in contact with many natitms, and
are of a roving disposition, the proper children of the sea.
" Naturally," says Dr. Pickering, " the most amiable of man-
kind, they are free from antipathies of race, are fond of
novelty, inclined rather to follow than to lead, and in every
respect seem qualified to become a medium of communica-
tion between the different branches of the human family."
Such an impressible race of mediators being found, a curious
light is thrown on the diffusion of knowledge and the primi-
tive arts throughout the widely-scattered island groups of

Fio. 5S.— Stone Adze, New Caleduiiiii.

the Southern Pacific, where almost every Polynesian art, it
is said, can be distinctly traced to the Fiji Islands, while
the Fijian himself is so averse to roam.

Mr. Wallace, in reviewing the races of the Malay archi-
pelago, dwells on the marked differences, physically, intel-
lectually, and morally, between the Papuan and the Malay.
The central home of the Papuans is New Guinea and some
of the adjacent islands ; but the same ethnical characteristics
are traceable over the islands to the east of New Guinea,
as far as the Fijis. " The Papuan," Mr. Wallace remarks,
" has a greater feeling for art than the Malay. He decorates
his canoe, his house, and almost every domestic utensil,

VII.]

FJJIAN CONSTRUCTIVE SKILL.

187

with elaborate carving ; a habit which is rarely found among
tribes of the Malay race." In the affections and moral sen-
timents, on the contrary, the Papuans compare unfavourably
with the Malays, who are gentle and passive in all their
social relations. But this is properly traced to their listless,
apathetic character ; while the vigour of the uncivilised
Papuan manifests itself in the unrestrained display of
every emotion and passion, even among the women and
children, and in violent collisions, inevitable in the social
life of ':his savage race. Among such a people the best
and the worst characteristics are often strangely inter-
mingled. The Fiji Islanders use the bow and throw thi3
javelin with great dexterity ; but their peculiar and distin-
guishing weapon is a short missile club, which all habitually
wear stuck in the belt, the symbolic national instrument of
assassination. Many analogies of history tend, however, to
refute the error of assuming the occurrence of moral degra-
dation, even when manifested in parricide, cannibalism,
and systematic treachery and assassination, to be necessarily
incompatible with such intellectual development as distin-
guishes the Fijians from the Malays or other islanders of
the Pacific. Of all the aborigines of the Pacific, the fero-
cious New Zealander has proved most capable of civilisa-
tion ; and is found moreover to possess a traditional poetry
and mythical legends of a highly striking and peculiar
character. And turning from still undeveloped races of the
world, we have only to study deeds perpetrated by the
pagan Saxon, the Hun, or the later Dane and Norseman, to
see in what hideous aspects the energies of a rude people
may be manifested, who are nevertheless capable of becom-
ing leaders in the civilisation of Europe. To judge by the
monkish chronicles, no Fiji cannibal could surpass, either
in savage atrocity or in hideousnoss of aspect, the Hun-
garian or Northman from whom the proudest of Europe's
Dobles claim descent. The chroniclers of Germany,
France, and Italy, dwell on the savage fury of the Huns ;

Mil

i88

FrjIAN POTTERY.

[chap.

and tliG liturgy of the Gallican Church of the nmth ceii
tury preserves the memorial of the pagan Northmen's
ravages, in the supplication added to its litany : A furore
Normawioi'um libera nos.

It is obvious therefore that the savage vices of the
Fijians are perfectly compatil)le with considerable skill in
such arts as pertain to theiv primitive and insular condi-
tion. Their musical instruments are superior to those of
the Polynesians, and include the Pan-pipe and others un-
known in the isLinds beyond their range. Their jiottery
also exhibits great variety of form, and includes examples
of vessels combined in groups, presenting a curious cor-

I'la. 5i>.— Fijian Pottery.

respondence to similar productions of Peruvian art. Their
fishing-nets and lines are remarkable for neat and skilful
workmanship, and they carry cultivation to a considerable
extent. " Indeed," remarks the ethnologist of the United
States Expedition, in summing up the characteristics of the
Fijians, " we soon began to perceive that the people were in
possession of almost every art known to the Polynesians,
and of many others besides. The highly-finished work-
manship was unexpected, everything being executed until
recently, and even now for the most part, without the use
of iron. In the collection of implements and manufactures
brought home by the Expedition, the observer will dis-

iiiiiii

1..]

SLOW MATURITY OF RACES.

189

tinguisli in the Fijiun division somctliing like a school of
arts for the other Pacific ishmds." Fie:. ^^ shows two
characteristic specimens of their pottery selected from the
Smithsonian collections at Washington. They are ex-
tremely well burnt, and finished with a bright glaze. One
of them illustrates a class of double vessels suggestive of
certain analogies with a familiar style of Peruvian pottery ;
and the prevailing characteristics of the whole collection
confirm the superiority ascribed to tne Fijian artificer.
In such a strangely -gifted savage race we see the degrada-
tion of which human nature is susceptible; and at the same
time recognise germs of a constructive and artistic capacity
capable of development into many marvellous mauifesta
tions, if once subjected to such infiuences as those which
changed the merciless pirate of the northern seas into the
refined Norman, the chivalrous crusader, and the imaginative
troubadour.

The native races of America are neither devoid of energy
nor ingenious artistic skill ; and the progress attained by the
Mexicans and Peruvians, as well as by the nations of Cen-
tral America, proved their capacity for advancement in the
arts of civilisation. But the fiite which has everywhere
befallen the Red Indians when brought into direct contact
with European settlers, shows how impossible it is to
abruptly bridge over the gulf whicli separates the infancy
of nations from a maturity like that to whicli the rude
Saxon and Northman attained through the schooling of
many centuries. The Aztecs at the time of the Mexican
conquest were probably not ruder than the first xVngle and
Saxon colonists. They were certainly no cruder than the
Northmen of the eighth century. But they were far in
advance of the northern tribes from whicli, according to
Aztec traditions, they traced their descent. — —— ^z—r— ^— ---~

Among the barbarous races of the northern continent, the
tribes of the Iroquois confederacy, though scarcely rising
above the hunter stage, oifer a subject of study of peculiar

\ i

ii;i <'.!i

lili; lii

190

T/fE FLINT-EDGED SWORD.

[chap.

value in reference to the ethnology of the New World. In
the great valley of the St. Lawrence, at the period of earliest
European contact with its native tribes, we find this con-
federacy of Indian nations in the most primitive condition
as to all knowledge of progressive arts ; but full of energy,
delighting in military enterprise, and amply endued with the
qualities requisite for effecting permanent conquests over a
civilised but unwarlike people. Nor did the primitive arts
of the Iroquois prevent the development of incipient germs
of civilisation among them. Agriculture was systematically
practised ; and their famous league, wisely established, and
maintained unbroken through very diversified periods of
their histor}% exhibits a people advancing in many ways
towards the initiation of a self-originated civilisation, when
the intrusion of Europeans abruptly arrested its progress,
and brought them in contact with elements of foreign pro-
gress pregnant for them only with sources of degradation
and final destruction.

The historian of the Iroquois,^ when describing their
simple arts and manufactures, remarks, that in the western
mounds rows of arrow-heads or flint-blades have been found
lying side by side, like teeth, the row being about two feet
long. " This has suggested the idea that they were set in a
frame, and fastened with thongs, thus making a species of
sword." ^ In this description we cannot fail to recognise the
mahguahuitl, or native sword of Mexico and Yucatan. In
the large canoe with its armed crew, first met off* the latter
coast, Herrera tells us the Indians had "swords made of
wood, having a gutter in the forepart, in which were sharp-
edged flints strongly fixed with a sort of bitumen and
thread." Among the Mexicans this toothed blade was
armed with the itzli, or obsidian, capable of taking an edge
like a razor ; and the destructive powers of this formidable
weapon are frequently dwelt upon by the early Spaniards.
Among the ruins of Kabah, in Yucatan, the attention of

* Lewis H. Morgan : League of the Ho d6-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois.

VII.]

THE LEAGUE OF THE FIVE NATIONS.

191

Stephens was attracted by the protruding corner of a hirge
sculptured slab, the basso-relievos on which consist of an
upright figure having a lofty plume of feathers falling to
his heels ; wliile another figure kneels before him holding in
his hands the very same weapon, with its flint or obsidian
blades projecting from the wooden socket. The idea it
suggests is not necessarily that assumed by Stephens : that
the sculptors and architects of the great ruins of Central
America and Yucatan were the same people whom the
Spaniards found there on their landing. The sculpture may
be of a greatly older date. On its lower (compartment is a
row of hieroglyphics ; and the suppliant attitude of the
armed figure is rather suggestive of a record of conquest
over some barbarian chief of Mexican or more northern
tribes, of whom the flint- edged sword-blade was the most
typical characteristic. Nevertheless, there is a singular in-
terest in the simple chain of evidence, thus confirmatory of
the Aztec traditions of original migration, and the subjuga-
tion of the elder civilised race of Anahuac by northern
warriors : which leads us, step by step, from such rude arts
us those of the Iroquois, and relics of other barbarous tribes
in western sepulchral mounds, to the Mexican armature of
the era of the conquest, and artistic records of the lettered
architects of Yucatan.

The history of the Iroquois and their simple arts, illus-
trates with peculiar aptness the unwritten chronicles of the
New World. In their rude state thev achieved a remark-
able civil and military organisation, and acquired more
extensive and enduring influence than any nation of native
American lineage, excepting the civilised Mexicans and
Peruvians. Their own traditions pointed to an era when
they migrated from the northern shores of the St. Lawrence
into that region to the south and oast of Lake Ontario,
where they dwelt through all the period of their authentic
history ; though two members of the league, the Senecas
and Onondagas, claimed to be autochthones, sprung from

,1: i

If, «,
% f

192

IROQUOIS PREDOMINANCE.

[CHAr.

the soil of that Iroquois territory. The league embraced
the Oiieidas, Ouondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, and Mohawks,
all united in a strictly federal union ; and to this the Tus-
caroras were admitted, on their expulsion from North Caro-
lina in 1715. The claim of a common origin advanced by
a people occupying territory so far to the south, throws an
interesting light on the migrations of Indian tribes. It is
confirmed by the character of their language, and received
practical recognition in the assignment of a portion of the
Oneida territory for their occupation. In the seventeenth
century the Iroquois were the great aggressive nationality
of the continent to the north of Mo.^ico. In the very be-
ginning of that century. Captain John Smith, the founder
of Virginia, encountered their canoes on the upper part of
the Chesapeake Bay, bearing a band of them to the terri-
tories of the Powhattan confederacy. The Shavvuees, Sus
quehannocks, Nanticokes, Miamis, Delawares, and Miusi,
were, one after another, reduced by them to the condition
of dependent tribes. Even the Canarse or Long-Island
Indians found no protection from them in their sea-girt
homo beyond the Hudson ; and their power was felt from
the St. Lawrence to Tennessee, and from the Atlantic to
the Mississippi.

How long before the discovery of this vast region by Eu-
ropeans, it had l)een in occupation by those who claimed to
be its autochthones, we have no other knowlediife tliiin llioir
own traditions of migration. But so far as arts are any
evidence of national progress, they were then in tlieir in-
fancy. The region tliey occupied offered no advantages for
the inauguration of a coi)per or bronze era, such as tliosc of
Lake Superior or the Soutlicrn Andes supplied to their
ancient possessors. Of working in nic*^'Us they kn'nv
nothing ; and only supplemented their primitive imple
ments, wrought in stone, Hint, horn, bone, and wood, by
barter with the European intruders. Nevertheless, for
nearly two centuiies, the Indians of the Five Nations, as

vn,]

WORK IN OBSIDIAN AND FLINT,

193

they were called before the addition of the Tuscaroras,
presented a sturdy and unbroken front to the encroach-
ments alike of Dutch, French, and British colonists. But
their hostility was concentrated in opposition to the French
nation ; and as the rival colonies of France and England
were long nearly balanced, it is not unjustly affirmed by
the historian of the Iroquois, that France owed the final
overthrow of her magnificent schemes of colonisation in
North America to their uncompromising antagonism.

Among the Mexicans the arts of a true stone period had
been carried to the highest perfection, along with a develop-
ment of those of their bronze age. On the northern frontier
of Mexico, towards the head waters of the Great Barauca,
is the Cerro de Navajas, the " Hill of Knives," where, before
the conquest, obsidian was mined for manufacturing pur-
poses : like the chert and hornstone of the Flint-Ridge pits
of Kentucky and Ohio. Examples of elaborately-worked
obsidian and flint, and of polished implements and orna-
ments of stone, executed by Mexican artificers, rival the
finest specimens recovered among the relics of Europe's
neolithic period. The Christy collection is specially rich in
objects of this class. One flame-shaped arrow-head chipped
with the nicest art, is evidently executed as a display of
lapidary skill. Another fine spear-blade, made of a semi-
o})alescent chalcedony which occurs as concretions in the
trachytic lavas of Mexico, measures eight inches long, and
is supposed to have served as a state halberd, as it is
much too delicate for actual warfare. But it is obvious
that a finer material than usual frequently tempted the
worker in flint or obsidian to an unwonted display of his
art. In various private collections in Kentucky, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania, I have seen choice specimens of spear and
arrow-heads, and other objects, made of jasper, milky-quartz,
and rock crystal ; some of them wrought into fantastic or
purely ornamental forms.

A state battle-axe in the Christy collection made of groeu

VOL. I. N

,p;

194

HONDURAS FLINT IMPLEMENTS.

[chap.

quartzose avanturiio, measures 11 inches in length. It is a
thick wedge, with the upper part carved as the head of a
Mexican idol or king, and the arms outlined on the blade.
Jade, green serpentine, grey granite, agate, and obsidian of
different colours, were all worked into various shapes for
ornament or use, with a care often prompted by the attractive
character of the material, and with a skill no longer known
to the native Mexican aitificers.

In the southern continent also examples of mastery in the
manufacture of flint and stone implements survive, in some
cases as the sole memorials of races w. 'ch have perished ;
and traces of the arts of savage tribes in the primitive
condition of a purely stone-period lie everywhere outside
of the remarkable centres of Peruvian civilisation. Three
such relics from the Bay of Honduras are deserving of

Fio. 60.— Honduras serrated Implement.

special notice, from their unusually large size and peculiar
forms. They were found, along with other implements,
about the year 1794, in a cave between two and three
miles inland. One of them is now preserved in the British
Museum, and the others have been repeatedly exhibited at
meetings of the Archaeological Institute. The accompany-
ing illustrations will best convey an idea of their peculiar
forms. One (Fig. GO) is a serrated weapon, pointed at
both ends, and measuring sixteen and a half inches long.
Another (Fig. Gl), in the form of a crescent, with pro-
jecting points, measuring 17 inches in greatest length,
may have served as a weapon of parade, like the state par-
tisan or halberd of later times. The third, which is im-
perfect, is shown in Fig. 62. The whole are examples
of flint implements of unusually largo proportions, and

VII.]

SOURCES OF THE MATERIAL.

*9S

long.
. pro-

CDgtll,

par-
is im-
imples
aud

chipped with extraordinary regularity and skill. A well-
executed head of a warrior, in terra cotta, obtained about
the same period, if not indeed along with these implements,
was presented to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland iri
1798, and is figured on a subsequent page. The unwonted

Pio. 01.— Honduras State Halberd.

size of those Honduras implements attracted special notice
wlien first produced ; but this ceases to excite surprise when
it is seen that blocks of flint or hornstonc adequate for the

Fia. 62.— Honduras Implement.

largest of them are readily procurable throughout extcnsiv'o
regions of North America, as in Ohio and Kentucky. To
the north of Ohio, where the material is rare, flint imple-
ments and weapons arc mostly of small size. The larger im-

196

COLLISION Of^ RACES.

[chap.

plements are of stone ; and among the Iroquois, the Hurons,
the Chippewas, and other tribes on the shores of the great
lakes, the copper of Lake Superior seems to have been
recognised, and sought for, as a fitter material for large
hatchets and spear-heads. ; » ,

In this respect we see the very privations of those Indian
tribes forcing on their notice the resources of the copper
region, which might, among so energetic a people as the
Iroquois proved themselves to be, have at length led to such
a mastery of the metallurgic arts as was achieved by the
nations of Mexico and Peru. But their energies were
diverted into far different channels by the very advent of
races already familiar with all the highest acquirements of
civilisation ; and whatever time might have developed out
of the Iroquois confederacy, akin to the native civilisation
which had already taken ioot beyond the verge of their
southern conquests, they had little to hope from the triumph
of either of the European aggressors between whom they so
long held the balance. In the rivalry of the French and
English colonists the insular race proved the victors ; and
when at a later date England and her American colonies
came into collision, the nations of the League took different
sides, and the Hodenosaunee* finally ceased to be the ideal
rallying-point of a united people. They had run their des-
tined course ; and now the poor scattered remnants of the
once-famous Indian federation serve only to illustrate how
irreconcilable arc the elements of high civilisation with the
most vigorous and progressive energy of a people only
maturing the first stage in the progress of nations. They
lacked the qualities which protect an inferior race from
extinction when brought into contact with a long ma-
tured civilisation. Passive and naturally submissive race?,
like the Malay or the Negro, survive the intrusion of a
dominant race, and are protected by their docility, as the

* JI(hilS-no-aau-nee, or People of the Long Ilouse, expressive of the numerous
assembly in the Council of the Confederaoy.

VII.]

FATE OF INFERIOR RACES.

197

natural serfs of the intruders. But an energetic people, who
find their chief employment in war and the chase, can be
subjected to no useful servitude. They are separated by
too wide a gulf from their rivals to claim any equality in
the rights of civilisation. The only alternative left for them
is to drive out the intruder, or to be exterminated by him
like the bear and wolf. Stone, bronze, and iron periods
are not indispensable steps in the advancement of the human
race ; but all experience proves that when such extreme
social conditions are abruptly brought into contact as stone
and iron periods aptly symbolise, the tendency is towards
the degradation and final extinction of the less advanced
race.

11!

ill
11

:K1.

198

£>A IVN OF A METALLURGIC ERA.

[chap.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE METALS.

DAWN OP A METALLUROIC EBA— PRIMITIVE COPPER-WOBKINO — COPPER REGION OP
LAKE SUPERIOR— THE PICTURED ROCKS— JACKSON IRON MOUNTAIN— THE CUFF
MINE— COPPER TOOLS— ANCIENT MININO TRENCHES —GREAT EXTENT OP WORKS
— MINES OP ISLE ROTALE— THEIR ^TIMATED AGE— ANCIENT MININO IMPLEMENTS
— STO.fE MAULS AND AXES— ONTONAGON MINING RELICS— SITES OP COPPER M.'.NU-
FACT0UIE8— NATIVE COPPER AND SILVER — BROCKVILLE COPPER IMPLEMENTS—
iMiii METALLURGIC ARTS— CHEMICAL ANALYSES— NATIVE TERRA-C0TTA8—
ANCIENT BRITISH MINING-TOOLS — THE RACE OP THE COPPER MINES— CHIPPEWA
SUPERSTITIONS- EARLIEST NOTICES OP THE COPPER REGION- ONTONAGON MASS
OP COPPER— ANCIENT NATIVE TRAFFIC— NATIVE USE OF METALS— CONDITION
OP THE MOUND-BUILDERS— MINERAL RESOURCES— ANTIQUITY OP COPPER WORK-
INGS — DESERTION OP THE MINES.

The same rational instinct which prompted man in his
first efforts at tool-making, guided him in a discriminating
choice of materials ; and to this the discovery of metals,
and the consequent first steps in metallurgy and the arts,
may be traced. The Bronze Age of Europe derives its name
from the predominance of relics illustrative of a period
which, though old compared with that of definite history,
belongs to a comparatively late era, characterised by many
traces of artistic skill, and of mastery in the difficult pro-
cesses of smelting ores and alloying metals. But the dawn
of the metallurgic era in the New World is marked by
phases which derive their distinctive character from two
widely separated regions ; and of which one supplies an
important link in the history of human progress, at best
but partially indicated in the disclosures of European
archaeology.

To untutored man, provided only with implements of
stone, the facilities presented by the great copper regions of

VIII

]

rRIMITJVE COPPER- WORKING,

199

Lake Superior for the first step in the knowledge of metal-
lurgy were peculiarly available. The forests that flung their
shadows along the shores of that great lake were the haunts of
the deer, the beaver, the bear, and other favourite objects of
the chase ; the rivers and the lake abounded with fish ; and
the rude hunter had to manufacture weapons and implements
out of such materials as nature placed within his reach.
The water- worn stone from the beach, patiently ground to
an edge, made his axe and tomahawk : by means of which,
with the help of fire, he could level the giants of the forest,
or detach from them the materials for his canoe and paddle,
his lance, club, or bow and arrows. The bones of the deer
pointed his spear, or were wrought into his fish-hooks ; and
the shale or flint was chipped and ground into his arrow-
head, after a pattern repeated with little variation, in all
countries, and in every primitive age. But besides such
materials of universal occurrence, the primeval occupant of
the shores of Lake Superior found there a stone possessed of
some very peculiar virtues. It could not only be wrought
to an edge without liability to fracture ; but it was malleable,
and could be hammered out into many new and convenient
shapes. This was the copper, found in connection with the
trappean rocks of that region, in inexhaustible quantities,
in a pure metallic state. In other rich mineral regions, as
in those of Cornwall and Devon, the principal source of
this metal is from ores, which require both labour and skill
to fit them for economic purposes. But in the veins of the
copper region of Lake Superior the native metal occurs in
enormous masses, weighing hundreds of tons ; and loose
blocks of various sizes have been found on the lake shore, or
lying detached on the surface, in sufficient quantities to
supply all the wants of the nomad hunter. These, accord-
ingly, he wrought into chisels and axes, armlets, and per-
sonal ornaments of various kinds, without the u^e of the
crucible ; and, indeed, without recognising any precise dis-
tinction between the copper which he mechanicaUy separated

' 4

200 COPPER REGION OF LAKE SUPERIOR. [chap.

from the mass, and the unmalleable stone or flint out of
which he had been accustomed to fashion his spear and
arrow-heads. This is confirmed by philological evidence.
The root of the names for iron and copper in the Chippewa
is the same abstract term, walihik, used only in compound
words. Thus pewahhik, iron ; ozahwahhik, copper : lit.
the yellow stone ; metahbik, on the bare rock ; oogedahhik,
on the top of a rock ; kishkahbikah, it is a precipice ; etc.

The earliest references to Britain pertain exclusively to
the peninsula cf Cornwall and the neighbouring islands,
whither the fleets of the Mediterranean were attracted in
ages of vague antiquity, and the traders from Gaul resorted
in quest of its metallic wealth. The mineral regions of the
New World disclose some corresponding records of its long-
forgotten past ; and some idea of their present condition is
indispensable for preparing the mind to appreciate the
changes wrought by time on localities which are now being
rescued once more from the wilderness. The vast inland
sea, which constitutes the reservoir of the chain of lak'- ,
whose waters sweep over the Falls of Niagara, and find their
way by the St. Lawrence to the ocean, has been as yet so
partially encroached upon by the pioneers of modern civilisa-
tion, that the general aspect of its shores diff'ers but little
from that which they presented to the eye of its first Eu-
ropean explorers in the seventeenth century : or indeed to its
Indian voyagers before the Spaniard first coasted the island
shores of the Bahamas, and opened for Europe the gates of
the West,, With its wide extent of waters, covering an area
of thirty two thousand square miles, a lengthened period of
sojourn in the regions with which it is surrounded, and
many facilities for their exploration, Avould be required, in
order to satisfy the curiosity of the scientific inquirer. But
even a brief visit discloses much that is interesting, and
that serves at once to illustrate, and to contrast with what
comes under the observer's notice elsewhere.

In tracing out the evidence of ancient occupation of the

VIII.]

THE PICTURED ROCKS.

201

shores of Lake Superior, I have, on repeated visits, coasted
its shores for hundreds of miles in canoes ; and camped for
weeks in some of its least accessible wilds. The force of the
evidence is slowly appreciated, even by careful personal
observation; but some description of the ancient copper
region may help the reader to estimate the lapse of time
since its forest-glades and rocky promontories were enlivened
by the presence of industrious miners. The memorials of
Time's unceasing operations reach indeed to periods long
prior to the earliest presence of man, and present certain
lake phenomena, on a scale only conceivable by those who
have sailed on the bosom of these fresh- water seas with as
boundless a horizon as in mid Atlantic ; and who have
experienced the violence of the sudden storms to which
they are liable. But while the same broad ocean-like ex-
panse, and the violence of their stormy moods, characterise
Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Michigan : it is only on Lake
Superior that the traveller witnesses the grandeur and wild
ruggedness of scenery commensurate with his preconceived
ideas of such inland seas. Along its northern and western
shores bold cliffs tnd rocky headlands frown in savage
grandeur, from amii the unbroken wastes of forest that
reach to the frozen regions around the Hudson Bay, while
the gentler coast-lines of its southern shores are varied by
some of the most singular conformations, wrought out of its
rocky walls by the action of the waves. Among such rock-
formations, no features are so remarkable as those presented
by a portion of the extensive range of sandstone cliffs, which
project in jagged and picturesque masses from the southern
shore, soon after passing the Grand Sable ; and to which
fresh interest has been given by the interweaving of the
Algonquin legends of the locality into Longfellow's Indian
Song of Hiaivatha. '■.■^-c-]-^-'.::^-'':_^^x:

The Pictured Rocks are situated between the copper
regions and the ancient portage, which has been recently
superseded by a canal opening navigation for the largest

.fir

202

JACKSON IRON MOUNTAIN.

[chap.

vessels from Lake Huron to Lake Superior. They lie in
the centre of the long indentation, which, sweeping from
Keweenaw Peninsula eastward to White Fish Point, forms
the coast most distant from the northern shores of the lake.
Here the cliffs have been exposed through unnumbered ages
to the waves under the action of northerly winds ; while a
contemporaneous upheaval, prolonged probably through
vast periods of time, has contributed no unimportant share
in the operations by which their striking forms have been
produced. Beyond those the voyager comes once more on
rocky cliffs in the vicinity of Marquette : so named after the
Jesuit missionary by whom the upper waters of the Missis-
sippi were first reached two centuries ago, in 1673. Impor-
tant changes have been wrought in the interval. Mineral
treasures, undreamt of by the ancient miners, are now re-
warding the industry of the Indians' supplanters. The iron
period, with its fully developed civilisation, is invading those
forest tracks ; and when I first visited Marquette in 1855,
on the bold trappean rocks which form the landing, abraded
and scratched with the glacial action of a long superseded
era, were piled the rich products of the " Jackson Iron
Mountain," which rears its bold outline at a distance of
twelve miles from the shore. Immediately to the north of
this point the promontory of Presque Isle presents in some
respects a striking contrast to the Pictured Rocks ; though,
like them, also indented and hollowed out into detached
masses, and pierced with the wave-worn caverns of older
levels of shore and lake. Here the water-worn sandstone
and the igneous rocks overlie or intermingle with each other
in picturesque confusion : the symbol, as it were, of the
transition between the copper and iron eras. For it is just
at Presque Isle that the crystalline schists, with their inter-
mingling masses of trappean and quartz rocks, richly impreg-
nated with the specular and magnetic oxide of iron, pass
into the granite and sandstone rocks, which intervene
between the ferriferous formations and the copper-bearing

V'TI.]

THE CLIFF MINE.

20"

Ting

traps of Keweenaw Point. Beyond this, the rich copper-
bearing region of the Keweenaw Peninsula stretches far
into the lake, traversed in a south-westerly direction by
magnificent cliffs of trappean rocks, presenting their per-
pendicular sides to the south-east, and covered even amid
the rocky debris with ancient forest-trees. In this igneous
rock are found the copper veins, which in recent years
have conferred such great commercial value on the district
of Michigan ; and there I not only witnessed extensive
mining operations in progress, but have investigated
evidences of the ancient miners' labours which prove the
prolonged practice there, at some remote period, of native
metallurgic arts.

On landing at Eagle river, one of the points for shipping
the copper ores, on the west side of the Keweenaw Penin-
sula, the track lies through dense forest, over a road in some
parts of rough corduroy, and in others traversing the
irregular exposed surface of the copper-bearing trap. After
a time it winds through a gorge, covered with immense
masses of trap and crumbling debris, amid which pine, and
the black oak and other hard wood, have contrived to find a
sufficient soil for taking root and attaining their full propor-
tions ; and beyond the cliffs, in a level bottom on the other
side of the trap ridge, is the Cliff Mine settlement, one of
the most important of all the mining works in operation in
this region. Here I descended a perpendicular shaft by means
of ladders, to a depth of sixty fathoms, and explored various
of the levels : passing in some cases literally through tun-
nels made in the solid copper. The very abundance of the
metal proves indeed, at times, an impediment to its profitable
working, owing to the labour necessarily expended in chisel-
ling out masses from the solid lump, to admit of their being
taken to the surface, and transported through such tracts as
have been described, to the Lake shore. The floor of the
level was strewed with copper shavings : for the extreme
ductility of the native copper precludes the application of

204

COPPER TOOLS.

[chap.

li!,|;:|:,:Ml

other force than manual labour for separating it from the
parent mass. I saw also beautiful specimens of silver, in a
matrix of crystalline quartz, obtained from this mine ; and
the copper of the district is stated to contain on an average
about 3*10 per cent, of silver. This is indeed by far the
richest mineral locality that has yet been wrought. In a
single year upwards of sixteen hundred tons of copper have
been procured from the Cliff Mine, and one mass was esti-
mated to weigh eighty tons. Its mineral wealth was known
to the ancient miners ; but the skill and appliances of the
modern miner give him access to veins entirely beyond the
reach of the primitive metallurgist, who knew of no harder
material for his tools than the native rock and the ductile
metal he was in search of.

At the Cliff Mine are preserved some curious specimens
of ancient copper tools found in its vicinity, but it is to the
westward of the Keweenaw Peninsula that the most exten-
sive traces of the aboriginal miners' operations are seen.
The copper-bearing trap, after crossing the Keweenaw Lake,
is traced onward in a south-westerly direction till it crosses
the Ontonagon river about twelve miles from its mouth,
at an elevation of upwards of three hundred feet above
the lake. At this locality the edges of the copper veins crop
out in various places, exposing the metal in irregular patches
over a considerable extent of country, many of which have
been partially wrought by the ancient miners. Here, in the
neighbourhood of the Minnesota Mine, are extensive traces
of trenches and other mining operations, which prove that
they must have been carried on for a long period. These
excavations are partially filled up, and so overgrown in the
long interval between their first excavation and their obser-
vation by recent explorers, that they scarcely attract atten-
tion. Nevertheless some trenches have been found to
measure from eighteen to thirty feet in depth ; and one of
them disclosed a detached mass of native copper, weighing
upwards of six tons, resting on an artificial cradle of black

VIII.]

ANCIENT MINING TRENCHES.

205

oak, partially preserved by immersion in the water with
which it had been filled. Various implements and tools
of the same metal also lay in the deserted trench, where
this huge mass had been separated from its matrix, and
elevated on the oaken frame, preparatory to its removal
entire. It appeared to have been raised about five feet, and
then abandoned, abruptly as it would seem : since even the
copper tools were found among the accumulated soil by
which it had been anew covered up. The solid mass
measured ten feet long, three feet wide, and nearly i\' > feet
thick ; every projecting piece had been removed, so that the
exposed surface was left perfectly smooth, possibly by other
and ruder workers of a date subsequent to the desertion of
the mining trench by its original explorers.

The mining operations of upwards of a quarter of a cen-
tury have done much to efface the traces of the ancient
works, as every indication of them is eagerly followed up
by the modern miner, as the most promising clew to rich
metalliferous deposits. But towards the close of 18 74 Mr.
Davis, an experienced old miner of Lake Superior, recovered
from another ancient trench, in the same region, a solid
mass of nearly pure copper, heart-shaped, and weighing
between two and three tons. It lay at a depth of seventeen
feet from the surface, as when originally detached from its
bed by the ancient miners. Alongside of it were a number
of smaller pieces, from a single ounce to seventeen pounds in
weight, evidently broken ofi" the large mass by the original
workers of the mine. Numerous stone mauls and hammers
also, weighing from ten to thirty pounds, lay scattered
through the lower debris with which the trench was refilled.
But the absence of any copper tools seemed to point to the
final desertion of the mine, from some unknown cause, at
the very time when its resources were most available.

Attention was first directed to such traces of ancient
mining operations, by the agent of the Minnesota Mining
Company in 1847. Following up the indications of a con-

'2o6

GREAT EXTENT OF WORKS.

[chap.

tinuous depression in the soil, he came at length to a cavern
where he found several porcupines had fixed theii quarters for
hybernation ; but detecting evidences of artificial excavation,
he proceeded to clear out the accumulated soil, and not only
exposed to view a vein of copper, but found in the rubbish
numerous stone mauls and hammers of the ancient workmen.
Subsequent observation brought to light excavations of great
extent, frequently from twenty-five to thirty feet deep, and
scattered over an area of several miles. The rubbish taken
from these is piled up in mounds alongside; while the
trenches have been gradually refilled with soil and decaying
vegetable matter gathered through the long centuries since
their desertion ; and over all, the giants of the forest have
grown, withered, and fallen to decay. Mr. Knapp, tlic
agent of the Minnesota Company, counted 395 annular
rings on a hemlock tree, which grew on one of the mounds
of earth thrown out of an ancient mine. Mr. Foster also
notes the great size and age of a pine-stump which must
have grown and died since the work:> were deserted ; and
Mr. Whittlesey not only refers to living trees upwards of
three hundred years old, now flourishing in the abandoned
trenches; but he adds : "on the same spot there are the decayed
trunks of a preceding generation or generations of trees that
have arrived at maturitv and fallen down from old age."
The deserted mines arc found at numerous points extending
over upwards of a hundred miles along the southern shore
of the lake ; and reappear beyond it, in extensive excava-
tions on Isle Royale. Sir William Logan reports others
observed by him on the summit of a ridge at Maimnnse, on
the north shore, where the old excavations are surrounded
by broken pieces of vein-stone, wi*^h stone mauls rudely
formed from natural boulders. The extensive area over
which such works have thus been traced, the evidences of
their prolonged working, and of their still longer abandon-
ment, all combine to force upon the mind convictions of
their remote antiquity.

VIII.]

MINES OF ISLE ROYALE.

207

At Ontonagon river I met with Captain Peck, a settler
whose long residence in the country has afforded him many
opportunities of noting the evidences of its ancient occu-
pation. Repeated discoveries had led him to infer the
great antiquity of the works ; and he specially referred to
one disclosure of ancient mining operations near the forks
of the Ontonagon river, where, at a depth of upwards of
twenty-five feet, stone mauls and other tools were found
in contact with a copper vein ; in the soil above these
lay the trunk of a large cedar, and over all grew a hem-
lock-tree, with its roots spread entirely above the fallen
cedar, in the accumulated soil with which the , trench was
filled, and indicating a growth of not less than three
centuries. But the buried cedar, which in favourable cir-
cumstances is far more durable than the oak, represents
another and longer succession of centuries, subsequent to
that protracted period during which the deserted trench was
slowly filled up with accumulations of many winters. In
another excavation a bed of clay had been formed aljove the
ancient flooring to the depth of a foot. On this lay the
skeleton of a deer which had stumbled in and perished there ;
and over it clay, leaves, sand, and gravel had accumulated
to a depth of nineteen feet. Not only are such indications
frequent throughout the Keweenaw Peninsula, and to the
westward and southward of Ontonagon ; but on Isle Royalo
the abandoned mines disclose still stronger evidence of their
great antiquity. The United States Geologists remark :
" Mr. E. G. Shaw pointed out to us similar evidences of
mining on Isle Royalc, which can be traced lengthways for
the distance of a mile. On opening one of these pits, which
had become filled up, he found the mine had been worked
through the solid rock, to the depth of nine feet, the walls
being perfectly smooth. At the bottom he found a vein of
native copper eighteen inches thick, including a sheet of
puro copper lying against the foot-wall." Stone hammers
and wedges lay in great abundance at the bottom of the

aoS

THEIR ESTIMATED AGE.

[chap.

I ",.

trenches, but no metallic implements were found : a proof
perhaps that the mines of Isle Royale continued to be wrought
after their workers had been hastily compelled to abandon
those on the mainland. Mr. Shaw adopted the conclusion,
from the appearance of the wall-rocks, the multitude of
stone implements, and the mat^^ial removed, that the labour
of excavating the rock must have been performed solely
with such instruments, with the aid, perhaps, of fire. But
the appearance of the vein, and the extent of the workings,
furnished evidence not only of great and protracted labour,
but also of the use of other tools than those of stone. Ac-
cumulated vegetable matter had refilled the excavations to
a level with the surrounding surface, and over this the forest
extended with the same luxuriance as on the natural soil.
In this barren and rocky region t1 e filhng up of the trenches
with vegetable soil must have been the work of many cen-
turies ; so that the whole aspect of the deserted mines of Isle
Royale confirms the antiquity ascribed to them.

What appear to the eye of the traveller as the giants of
the primeval forest, are the growth of comparatively modern
centuries, subsequent to the era when the shores of Lake
Superior rang with the echo(es of industrial toil. Two or
three centuries would seem altogether inadequate to furnish
the requisite time for the most partial accumulation of soil
and decayed vegetable matter with whirh the old miners'
trenches have been filled. Four contf ' thereafter are
indisputably recorded by recent ,3urvivur^, i' 3 forest, inde-
pendent of all traces of previous arborescci.1 generations ;
and thus in the excavations and tools of the copper regions
of Lake Superior, we look on memorials of a metallurgic
industry long prior to those closing years of the fifteenth
century, in which the mineral wealth of the New World
awoke the Spanish lust for gol<i. An uncertain, yet con-
siderable interval must be assumed between the abandon-
ment of those ancient works, and the forest's earliest growth ;
and thus we are thrown back, at latest, into centuries corre-

vni.]

ANCIENT MINING IMPLEMENTS.

309

sponding to Europe's mediaeval era for a period to which to
assign those singularly interesting traces of a lost American
civilisation. ';

Owing to the filling up of the abandoned mining trenches
with water, not only the copper and stone implements of the
miners are found, but examjjles of wooden tools and timber
framing have also been preserved, in several cases in wonder
ful perfection ; and these furnish interesting supplementary
evidence of the character of their industrial arts.

or the wooden implements, the most noticeable are the
shovels, by means of which the soil was excavated. The
accompany] nf^ woodcut represents two of them worn away

urgio
'cnth
V^orld
con-
idon-
wth;
orre-

/S2--

Fio. O.t.— Miners' SliovelH.

to the one side, as in most of the examples found, as if used
for scraping rather than digging the soil. Mr. Whittlesey
gives a drawing of one which measured three and a half feet
long, recovered among the loose materials thrown out from
an extensive rock excavation in the side of a hill about four
miles south-cast of Eagle Harbour. Part of a wooden bowl
used for baling water, and troughs of cedar-bark, were also
found in the saiir,: debris, above which grew a birch about
two feet in diameter, with its lower roots scarcely leach-
ing through the ancient rubbish to the depth at which
those relics lay. Mr. Foster describes another wooden bowl
found at a depth of ten feet, in clearing out some ancient
workings opened by the agent of the Forest Mine; and which,
from the splintered pieces of rock and gravel imbedded in
its rim, must have been employed in baling water. Similar
implements have been met with in other workings, but they
speedily perish on being exposed to the air. All of them

VOL. I.

2ro

STONE MAULS AND AXES.

[chap.

appear to have been made of white cedar. The indestructible
nature of this wood, when kept under water, or in a moist
soil, is abundantly illustrated by the experience of settlers
who, on attempting to clear and cultivate a cedar swamp,
discover that the dead trunks, exhumed undecayed after
centuries of immersion, rest above still older cedar-forests,
seemingly unaffected by the influences which restore alike the
oak and the pine to the vegetable mould of the forest soil.

The process of working the ancient mines seems to be
tolerably clearly indicated by the discoveries referred to.
The soil having been removed by means of wooden spades,
doubtless with the aid of copper tools to break up the solid

FiQ. 64.— MiiiiTfl' Stone Mauls.

earth and clay :• remains of charcoal, met with in numerous

instances on the surface of the rock, show that fire was an

important agent for overcoming the cohesion between the

copper and its matrix. Before the introduction of gunpowder

^ fire was universally employed in excavating rock ; and where

' fuel abounds, as in the old Harz and Altenberg mining dis-

' i j^ tricts of Europe, it is even now found to bo quite as economical

'*^:; in destroying siliceous rocks. Stone hammers or mauls were

— next employed to break up the metalliferous rock. These

have been found in immense numbers on dift'crent mining

sites. Mr. Knapp obtained in one locality upwards of ten

VIII.]

ONTONAGON MINING RELICS.

211

cart-loads ; and I was shown a well at Ontonagon constructed
almost entirely out of stone hammers, obtained from ancient
workings in the immediate vicinity. Many of these are mere
water-worn boulders of greenstone or porphyry, roughly
chipped at the centre, so as to admit of their being secured
by a withe around them. But others are well finished, with a
single or double groove for attaching the handle by which
they were wielded. They weigh from ten to forty pounds ;
but many are broken, and some of the specimens I saw were
worn and fractured from frequent use.

The extent to which co-operation was carried on by the
miners, with the imperfect means at their command, is illus-
trated by the objects recovered on exploring one of their
trenches, on a hill to the south of the Copper Falls mines.
On removing the accumulations from the excavation, stone
axes of large size made of greenstone, and shaped to receive
withe-handles, and some large round greenstone masses that
had apparently been used for battering-rams, were found.
" They had round holes bored in them to the depth of several
inches, which seemed to have been designed for wooden
plugs to which withe handles might be attached, so that
several men could swing them with sufficient force to break
the rock and the projecting masses of copper. Some of them
were broken, and some of the projecting ends of rock exhi-
bited marks of having been battered in the manner here
suggested."*

But the industrious miners fully appreciated the practical
utility of the metal they were in search of ; and it is not to
be supposed that they employed themselves thus laboriously
in mining copper, and yet themselves used only stone
and wooden tools. Copper axes, gads, chisels, and gouges,
as well ns knives and spear- heads, of considerable diversity
of form, have been brought to light, all of them wrought
from the virgin copper by means of the hammer, without
smelting, alloy, or the use of fire. At Ontonngon, I had an

' SquicrV Ahorig'innl Monumfnfuo/thp Slate of Hew Y^rk. Appeinlix, p. 184.

212

SITES OF COPPER MANUFACTORIES. [chap.

opportunity of examining au interesting collection of mining
relics, found a few months before. These consisted of copper
tools, with solid triangular blades like bayonets, one four-
teen inches, and the others about twelve inches in length ;
a chisel, and two singularly shaped copper gouges about
fourteen inches long and two inches wide, the precise use
of which it would be difficult to determine. The whole
were discovered buried in a bed of clay on the banks of
the river Ontonagon, about a mile above its mouth, dur-
ing the process of levelling it for the purposes of a brick-
field. Above the clay was an alluvial deposit of two feet of
sand, and in this, and over the relics of the ancient copper
workers, a pine-tree had grown to full maturity. Its gigan
tic roots gave proof, in the estimation of those who witnessed
their removal, of more than two centuries* growth ; while
the present ordinary level of the river is such that it would
require a rise of forty feet to make the deposit of sand
beneath which they lay. ,. <

An experienced practical miner, who had been among the
first to reopen some of the ancient works at the Minnesota
mine, recognised in the copper gouges implements adapted
to produce the singular tool-marks which then excited his
curiosity. Subjoined is a representation of a peculiar type

Pio. 66.— Ontonagon Copper ImpU>nkent.

of copper tools, sketched from one of those found at Onto-
nagon. The socket, formed by hammering out the lower
part flat, and then turning it over partially at each side,
corresponds to some inimitivc forms of bronze implements

VIII.]

NATIVE COPPER AND SILVER.

)nto-
lowov

side,
hen is

found in Britain and the north of Europe ; but the latter
are cast cf a metallic compound, and prove a .skill in
metallurgy far in advance of the old metal-workers of Onto-

nagon.

Another, and in some respects more interesting discovery,
was made at a point lying to the east of Keweenaw Point,
in the rich iron district of Marquette, in what appears to
have been the ancient bed of the river Carp. About ten
feet above the present level of its channel, various weapons
and implements of copper were found. Large trees grew
over this deposit also, ; iid the evidences of antiquity seemed
not less obvious than in that of Ontonagon. The relics
included knives, spear or lance heads, and arrow-heads, some
of which were ornamented with silver. One of the knives,
made, with its handle, out of a single piece of copper,
measured altogether about seven inches long, of which the
blade was nearly two-thirds, and of an oval shape. It ws
ornamented with pieces of silver attached to it, and was in-
laid with a stripe of the same metal from point to haft.
Numerous fragments and shavings of copper were also
found, some of which were such as, it was assumed, could
only have been cut by a fine sharp tool ; and the whole
sufficed to indicate, even more markedly than those at Onto-
nagon, that not only was the native copper wrought in ancient
times in the Lake Superior regions, but that manufactories
were established along its shores, and on the banks of its
lavigable rivers. The recognition of silver as a distinct
metal by the present race of Indians is proved by the specific
term skooneya, by which it is designated in Chippewa ;
whereas gold is only known as ozahivahshooneya, or yellow
silver.

In 1856, Dr. Thomtis Reynolds of Brockville exhibited
to the Canadian Institute a collection of copper and other
relics discovered in that neighbourhood under singular cir-
cumstances ; and possessing a special interest owing to the
distance of the site from Lake Superior. They included a

214

BROCKVILLE COPPER IMPLEMENTS, [chap.

peculiarly-shaped chisel or gouge, six inches in length,
(Fig. 67), a rude spear-head, seven inches long (Fig. 68),
and two small daggers or knives, one of which is shown
in Fig. 66, all wrought by means of the hammer, out of
native copper which had never been subjected to fire, as
is proved by the silver remaining in detached crystals in
the copper. They were found at the head of Les Galops
Eapids, on the river St. Lawrence, about fifteen feet below
the surface, along with twenty skeletons disposed in a cir-
cular space with their feet towards the centre. Dr. Rey-
nolds remarks of them : " Some of the skeletons were of
gigantic proportions. The lower jaw of one is sufficiently

Fio. 60.

Fio. 67.

: • Brockvillo Cojipor Dagger and Gouge.

large to surround the corresponding bone of an adult of our
present generation. The condition of the bones furnished
indisputable proof of their great antiquity. The skulls
were so completely reduced to their earthy constituents that
they were exceedingly brittle, and fell in pieces when re-
moved and exposed to the atmospliere. The metallic
remains, however, of more enduring material, as also several
stone chisels and gouges, and some flint arrow-heads, all
remain in their original condition ; and furnish evidence of

VIII.]

LOST METALLURGIC ARTS.

'^li

the same rude arts which we know to be still practised by
the aborigines of the far West." After discussing the possi-
bility of their European origin, Dr. Eeynolds adds : " There
is also a curious fact, which these relics appear to confirm,
that the Indians possessed the art of hardening and tem-
pering copper, so as to give it as good an edge as iron or
steel. This ancient Indian art is now entirely lost."

The reference thus made to the popular theory of some
lost art of hardening the native copper, afforded an oppor-
tunity of testing it in reference to the Brockville relics.
They were accordingly submitted to my colleague. Pro-
fessor Henry Croft, of Un'versity College, Toronto, with the
following results : The object of the experiments was to
ascertain whether the metal of which the implements are
made is identical with the native copper of the Lake Superior
mines ; or whether it has been subjected to some manufac-
turing process, or mixed with any other substance, by which
its hardness might have been increased. A careful exami-
nation established the following conclusions : — No percep-
tible difference could be obsi ved between the hardness of ihe
implements and that of metiulic copper from Lake Superior.
The knife or small dagger was cleansed as far as possible
from its green coating ; and its specific gravity ascertained
as 8 "6 6. A fragment, broken off the end of the broad, flat
implement, described as a " copper knife of full size," hav-
ing been freed from its coating, was found to have a specific
gravity of 8 '5 8. During the cleaning of this fragment, a
few brilliant white specks became visible on its surface,
which appeared, from their colour and lustre, to be silver.
The structure of the metal was also highly laminated, as if
the instrument had been brought to its present shape by
hammering out a solid mass of copper, which had either
split up, or had been originally formed of several pieces.
These lamince of course contained air, and the metal was
covered with rust, hence the specific gravity. The process
by which a flat piece of copper has been overlapped, and

!■■■

s SI

2r6

CHEMICAL ANALYSES.

[chap.

wrought with the hammer into a rude spear-head, is shown
in the accompanying illustration. A portion of very solid
copper, from Lake Superior, of about the same weight as
the fragment, was weighed in water, and its gravity found
to be 8*92. The specific gravity of absolutely pure copper
varies from 8'78 to 8 '9 6, according to the greater or less
degree of aggregation it has received during its manufacture.
The fragment was completely dissolved by nitric acid ; and
the solution, on being tested for silver by hydrochloric acid,
gave a scarcely perceptible opacity, indicating the presence
of an exceedingly minute trace of silver. The copper having
been separated by hydro-sulphuric acid, the residual liquid
was tested for other metals. A very minute trace of iron
was detected. The native copper from Lake Superior was
tested in the same manner, and was found to contain no

Fio. C8.— Brockville Copper Spnar.

trace of silver, but a minute trace of iron. From this, it
appears that the implements are composed of copper almost
pure, differing in no material respect from the native copper
of Lake Superior.

It is thus apparent that, in the case of the Brock'^dlle
relics, the theory of a lost art of hardening and tempering
copper w^as a mere reflex of the prevalent popular fallacy ;
and there is no reason for anticipating a different result in
other cases in which the same theory is tested.

More recently a well-finished dagger of hammered copper,
nine inches long, and a smaller copper gouge, have been
turned up by the plough : the former at Burnhamthorpe,
and the latter at Chinguacousy, in Ontario ; and from time
to time similar discoveries suffice to show the ancient diffu-
sion of the native copper throughout the whole region of

VIII.]

NATIVE TERRA-COTTAS.

ipper,
been

the great lakes. In his account of the discovery of the
Brockville relics, Dr. Eeynolds assumes them to pertain to
the present Indian race. The evidences of antique sepul-
ture, however, are unmistakable ; and other proofs suggest a
different origin. Mr. Squier, by whom they had been pre-
viously described, remarks in the Appendix to his Abori-
ginal Monuments of the State of New York:^ "Some
implements entirely corresponding with these have been
found in Isle Royale, and at other places in and around
Lake Superior." But besides the copper implements, there
lay in the same deposit a minia-
ture mask of terra-cotta of peculiar
workmanship, suggestive rather
of relation to the arts of the
Mound-Builders. Mr. Squier has
figured it from an incorrect draw-
ing, which indicates a minuter
representation of Indian features
than the original justifies. It is
engraved here, the size of the
original, from a photographic
copy, and, as will be seen, is a
rude mask, such as is by no
means uncommon among the small terra-cottas of Mexico
and Central America. This mingling of traces of a certain
amount of artistic skill with the arts of the primitive metal-
lurgist, entirely corresponds with the disclosures of the
ancient mounds of the Mississippi ; and, indeed, agrees with
other partial manifestations of art in an imperfectly de-
veloped civilisation.

I was struck, when examining the rude stone mauls of
the miners of Ontonagon, by their resemblance to some
which I have seen, obtained from ancient copper workings
of North Wales. In a communication made to the British
Archseological Institute by the Hon. William Owen Stanley,

* SmiUuonian Contributions, vol. ii, pp. 14, 176.

Pio. 69.— Terra-cotta Mask.

^1
J5 i

2r8

ANCIENT BRITISH MINING . uOLS.

[chap.

in 1850, he gave an account of an ancient shaft broken
into at the copper mines of Llandudno, Carnarvonshire. In
this were found mining implements, consisting of chisels, or
picks of bronze, and a number of rudely-fashioned stone
mauls of various sizes, weighing from about 2 lbs. to 40 lbs.
Their appearance suggested that they had been used for
breaking, pounding, or detaching the ore from the rock ; and
the character both of the bronze and stone implements
seems to point to a period long prior to the Koman occu-
pation of Britain. These primitive mauls are stated to be
similar to water-worn stones found on the sea-beach at Pen
Mawr. Mr. Stanlej'^ also describes others, corresponding in
like manner to those found on the shores of Lake Superior,
which had been met with in ancient workings in Anglesea.
Were we, therefore, disposed to generalise from such analo-
gies, as ingenious speculators on the lost history of the New
Worlt^ have been prone to do, we might trace in this cor-
respondence a confirmation of he supposed colonisation of
America, in the twelfth centu y Madoc, the son of Owen
Gwynnedd, king of North Wales. But the resemblance
between the primitive Welsh and American mining tools,
can be regarded only as evidence of the corresponding opera-
tions of the human mind, when placed under similar cir-
cumstances, and with the same limited means, which is illus-
trated in so many ways by the arts of the stone-period,
whether of the most ancient or of modern date. Nor can
such correspondences be regarded as altogether accidental.
They confirm the idea of certain innate and instinctive
operations of human ingenuity, ever present and ready to
be called forth for the accomplishment of similar purposes
by the same limited means.

From this review of the evidences of long-abandoned
mining operations on the shores and islands of Lake Superior,
it cannot admit of doubt that in them we look on the traces
of an imperfectly developed yet highly interesting native
civilisation, pertaining to centuries long anterior to the dis-

Sllllli

VIII.]

THE RACE OF THE COPPER MINES.

219

)ned
|jrior,
taces
itive
dis-

covery of America in the fifteenth century. The question
naturally arises : By whom were those ancient mines
wrought ? AVas it by the ancestry of the present Indian
tribes of North America, or by a distinct and long-super-
seded race ? The tendency of opinion among American
writers has been towards a unity and comprehensive isola-
tion of the races and arts of the New World. Hence the
theories alike of Morton and of Schoolcraft, though founded
on diverse premises, favour the idea that the germs of all that
is most noticeable even in the civilisation of Central America
may be found among the native arts, and the manners and
customs of the forest tribes. But neither the traditions nor
the arts of the Indians of the northern lakes supply any
satisfactory link connecting them with the Copper-Miners
or the Mound-Builders. Of Loonsfoot, an old Chippewa
chief of Lake Superior, the improbable statement is made
that he oould trace back his ancestry by name, as heredi-
tary chiefs of his tribe, for upwards of four hundred years.
At the request of Mr. Whittlesey he was questioned by an
educated half-breed, a nephew of his own, relative to the
ancient copper mines, and his answer was in substance
as follows: — "A long time ago the Indians were much
better off" than they are now. They had copper axes, arrow-
heads, and spears, and also stone axes. Until the Frtiich
came here, and blasted the rocks with powder, we have no
traditions of the copper mines being worked. Our fore-
fathers used to build big canoes and cross the lake over to
Isle Royale, where they found more copper than anywhere
else. The stone hammers that are now found in the old
diggings we know nothing about. The Indians were for-
merly much more numerous and happier. They had no
such wars and troubles as they have now." At La Pointe
on Lake Superior, it was my good fortune to meet with
Beshekee, or Buffalo, a rugged specimen of an old Chippewa
chief. He retained all the wild Indian ideas, though accus-
tomed to frequent intercourse with white men ; boasted of

m.'^

220

CHIPPE WA SUPERSTITIONS.

[chap.

k..£: i

the scalps he had taken ; and hehl to his pagan creed as the
only religion for the Indian, whatever the Great Spirit
might have taught the white man. His grandson, an edu-
cated half-breed, acted as interpreter, and his reply to
simixar inquiries was embodied in the following sententious
declaration of Indian philosophy : — " The white man thinks
he is the superior of the Indian, but it is not so. The Red
Indian was made by the Great Spirit, who made the forests
and the game, and he needs no lessons from the white man
how to live. If the same Great Spirit made the white man,
he has made him of a different nature. Let him act accord-
ing to his nature ; it is the best for him ; but for us it is
not good. We had the red-iron before white men brought
the black-iron amongst us ; but if ever such works as you
describe were carried on along these Lake shores before
white men came here, then the Great Spirit must once
l^efore have made men with a different nature from his red
children, such as you white men have. As for us, we live
as our forefathers have always done."

La Pointe, or Chaquamegon, where this interview took
place, was visited by the Jesuit Father, Claude Alloiiez, in
1666, and is described by him as a beautiful bay, the shonvs
of which were occupied by the Chippewas in such numbers
that their warriors alone amounted to eight hundred. In
the journal of his travels, he thus refers to the mineral re-
sources for which the region is now most ftimed : — " The
savages reverence the lake as a divinity, and offer sacrifices
to it because of its great size, for it is two hundred leagues
long and eighty broad ; and also, because of the abundance
of fish it supplies to them, in lieu of game, which is scarce
in its environs. They often find in the lake pieces of copper
weighing from ten to twenty pounds. I have seen many
such pieces in the hands of tlie savages ; and as they are
superstitious, they regard them as divinities, or as gifts
which the gods who dwell beneath its waters have bestowed
on them to promote their welfare. Hence they preserve

VIII.] EARLIEST NO TICES OF THE COPPER REGION. 2 2 1

sucli pieces of copper wrapped up along witii their most
prized possessions. By some they have been preserved
upwards of fifty years, and others have had them in their
families from time immemorial, cherishing them as their
household gods. There was visible for some time, near the
shore, a large rock entirely of copper, with its top rising
above the water, which afforded an opportunity for those
passing to cut pieces from it. But when I passed in that
vicinity nothing could be seen of it. I believe that the storms,
which are here very frequent, and as violent as on the ocean,
had covered the rock with sand. Our Indians wished to
persuade me it was a divinity which had disappeared, but
for what reason they would not say."^

Such is the earliest notice we have of Indian ideas
relative to the native copper. It accords with all later
information on the same subject, and is opposed to any tra-
dition of their ancestors having been the workers of the
abantioned copper mines. A secrecy, resulting from tlie
superstitions associated with the mineral wealth of the great
Lake, appears to have thrown impediments in the way of
inquirers. Father Dablon narrates a marvellous account
connnunicated to him, of four Indians who, in old times,
befoie the coming of the French, had lost their way in a
fog, and at length effected a landing on Missipicooatong.
This was believed to be a floating island, mysteriously vari-
able in its local position and aspects. The wanderers cooked
their meal in Indian fashion, by heating stones and casting
them into a birch-bark pail filled with water. The stones
proved, to be lumps of copper, which they cariied off with
tliem ; but they had hardly left the shore when a loud and
angry voice, ascribed by one of them to Missibizi, the goblin
spirit of the waters, was heard exclaiming, "' Wliat thieves
are these that carry off my children's cradles and |>lay.
tliings?" One of the Indians died immediately from fear,
and two otliers soon after, while the fourth only survived

' Rilations tltm JhuUrn, vol, iii, UiftO H iflOT.

aaa

ONTONAGON MASS OF COPPER.

[chap.

long enough to reach home and relate what had happened,
before he also died : having no doubt been poisoned by the
copper used in cooking. Ever after this the Indians steered
their course far ojQf the site of the haunted island. In the
same relation, Father Dablon tells that near the river On-
tonagon, or Nantonagon as he calls it, is a bluff from which
masses of copper frequently fall out. One of these pre-
sented to him weighed one hundred pounds ; and pieces
weighing twenty or thirty pound?; are stated by him to be
frequently met with by the squaws when digging holes for
their corn. The locality thus celebrated by the earliest
French missionaries for its traces of mineral wealth, is in like
manner referred to by the first English explorer, Alexander
Henry : a bold adventurer, who visited the island of Mack-
inac, at the entrance of Lake Michigan, shortly before the
Treaty of Paris in 1763, and was one among the few who
escaped a treacherous massacre perpetrated by the Indians
on the Whites at Old Fort Mackinac. In his Travels and
Adventures in Canada and the Indian TerHtories, he
mentions his visiting the river Ontonagon, in 1765, and
adds, " I found this river chiefly remarkable for the abund-
ance of virgin copper which is on its banks and in its neigh-
bourhood. The copper presented itself to the eye in masses
of various weight. The Indians showed me one of twenty
pounds. They were used to manufacture this metal into
spoons and bracelets for themselves. In the perfect state
in which they found it, it required nothing but to be beat
into shape.'" ^ In the following year, Henry again visited
the same region. " On my way," he says, " I encamped a
second time at the mouth of the Ontonagon, and now took
the opportunity of going ten miles up the river with Indian
guides. The object which I went most expressly to see,
and to which I had the satisfaction of being led, was a maps
of copper, of the weight, according to my estimate, of no
less than five tons. Such was its pure and malleable state

1 Hoiiry's Traveln and AdrentiircH, Now York, 1809, p. 194.

VIM.]

ANCIENT NATIVE TRAFFIC.

223

that with an axe I was able to cut off a portion weighing
a hundred pounds." This mass of native copper which thus
attracted the adventurous European explorer upwards of a
century ago, has since acquired considerable celebrity, as one
of the most prominent encouragements to the mining opera-
tions projected in the Ontonagon and surrounding districts.
It is now preserved at Washington, and is believed to be
the same to which Charlevoix refers as a sacrificial block
held in peculiar veneration by the Indians ; and on which,
according to their narration, a young girl had been sacrificed.
The Jesuit father did not obtain access to it, as it was the
belief of the Indians that if it were seen by a white man,
their lands would pass away from them. Those various
notices are interesting as showing to what extent the pre-
sent race of Indians were accustomed to avail themselves of
the mineral wealth of the copper regions. Illustrations of a
like kind might be multiplied, but they are all nearly to the
same effect, exhibiting the Indian gathering chance masses,
or hewing off pieces from the exposed copper lodes, in full
accordance with the simple arts of his first stone period ;
but affording no ground for crediting him with any tradi-
tionary memorials of connection with the race that once
excavat( 1 the trenches, and laid bare the mineral treasures
of the great copper region.

The evidence indicative of the great length of time which
has intervened since the minors of Lake Superior abandoned
its shores, receives confirmation from traces of a long pro-
tracted traffic carried on by the subsequent occupants of
their deserted territory. The mineral wealth that still lay
within reach of the non- industrial hunter of the forests wliich
grew up and clothed the deserted works, in the interval
l)etwecn their abandonment and re-occupation, furnished
him with a prized material for barter. The head-wators of
the Mississippi are within easy reach of an Indian party,
carrying light birch-bark canoes over the intervening por-
tages ; and, once launched on its broad waters, the whole

' \

224

ITATIVE USE OF METALS.

[chap.

range of the continent through twenty degrees of latitude
is free before them. Through Lake Huron and the Ottawa
into the St. Lawrence, and by Lakes Huron, Erie, and On-
tario, into the Hudson, other extensive areas cif native ex-
change were commanded. Articles wrought in the brown
pipe-stone of the Upper Mississippi, the red pipe-stone of
the Couteau des Prairies, west of St. Peters, and the copper
of Lake Superior, constituted the wealth which the old north
had to offer. In return, one of the most valued exchanges
appears to have been the large tropical shells of the Gulf of
Florida and the West Indian seas : from which wampum -
beads, pendants, gorgets, and personal ornaments of various
kinds were manufactured.

Copper is obtained in its native state still farther north ;
and Mackenzie, in his Second Journey, mentions its being
in common use among the tribes on the borders of the Arctic
Sea ; by whom it is wrought into spear and arrow heads,
and a considerable variety of personal ornaments. Mr,
Henry found the Christinaux of Lake Winipagon wearing
bracelets and other ornaments of copper ; and most of the
earlier explorers describe copper implements and personal
ornaments among widely-scattered Indian tribes of the New
World. But in all cases they appear to have been rudely
wrought with the hammer, and sparingly mingled with the
more abundant weapons and implements of stone, of a
people whose sole metallurgic knowledge consisted in gather-
ing or procuring by barter the native copper, — ^just as they
procured the red or brown pipe-stone, — and hammering the
mass into some simple useful form. Silver, procured in like
manner, was not unknown to them ; and pipes inlaid both
with silver and lead arc by no means rare. But it is only
when wc turn to the scenes of a native-born civilisation, in
Mexico, Central America, and Peru, where metallurgic arts
were developed, that wc discover evidence of the use of
the crucible and furna.co, and find copper superseded by
the more useful alloy, bronze.

VIII.] CONDITION OF THE MOUND BUILDERS. 225

But intermediately between the copper regions of Lake
Superior and the ancient southern scenes of native American
civilisation, the Mississippi and its great tributaries drain
a country remarkable for monuments of a long forgotten
past, not less interesting and mysterious than the forsaken
mines of Keweenaw and Ontonagon, or Isle Royale. Those
great earthworks are ascribed to an extinct race, conve-
niently known by the name of the Mound-Builders. Care-
ful investigations into their structure and contents prove
these builders to have been a people among whom copper
was in frequent use, but by them also it was worked only
by the hammer. The invaluable service of fire in reducing
and smelting ores, moulding metals, and adapting them to
greater usefulness by well-proportioned alloys, was unknown ;
and the investigation and analysis of their cold-wrought
tools seem to prove that the source of their copper was the
Lake Superior mines. But though the ancient Mound-
Builder was thus possessed of little higher metallurgic
knowledge than the Indian hunter : he manifested in other
respects a capacity for extensive and combined operations,
the memorials of which perpetuate bis monumental skill and
persevering industry in tha gigantic earthworks from whence
his name is derived. From these we learn that there was a
period in America's unrecorded history, when the valleys of
the Mississippi and its tributaries were occupied by a numer-
ous settled population. Alike in physical conformation — so
far as very imperfect evidence goes, — and in some of their
arts, these Mound-Builders approximated to races of Central
and South America, and differed from the Red Indian occu-
pants of their deserted seats. They were not, to all appear-
ance, far advanced in civilisation. Compared with the
people of Mexico or Central America when first seen by the
Spaniards, their social and intellectual development was
probably rudimentary. But they had advanced beyond
that stage in which it is possible for a people to continue
unprogressive. The initial steps of civilisation had been

VOL. I. P

226

MINERAL RESOURCES.

[chap.

inaugurated ; and the difference between them and the civi-
lised Mexicans is less striking than the contrast which the
evidences of their settled condition, and the proofs of exten-
sive co-operation in their numerous earthworks supply,
when compared with all that pertains to the tribes by whom
the American forests and prairies have been exclusively
occupied during the centuries since Columbus.

The Mound-Builders were greatly more in advance of the
Indian hunter than behind the civilised Mexican. They
had acquired habits of combined industry ; were the settled
occupants of specific territories ; and are proved, by numer-
ous ornaments and implements of copper deposited in their
monuments and sepulchres, to have been familiar with the
mineral resources of the northern lake regions, whether by
personal enterprise, or by a system of exchange. What
probabilities there are suggestive of a connection between
the Mound-Builders and the ancient Miners will be dis-
cussed in a later chapter, along with other and allied ques-
tions ; but to just such a race, with their imperfect mecha-
nical skill, their partially developed arts, and their aptitude
for continuous combined operations, may be ascribed, d,
priori, such mining works as are still traceable on the shores
of Lake Superior, overshadowed with the forest growth of
centuries. The mounds constructed by the ancient race arc
in like manner overgrown with the evidences of their long
desertion ; and the condition in which recent travellers have
found the ruined cities of Central America, may serve to
show what even New York, Washington, and Philadelphia :
what Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec, would become after a
very few centuries, if abandoned, like the desolate cities of
Chichenitza or Uxmal, to the inextinguishable luxuriance of
the American forest growth.

The accumulations of vegetable mould, the buried forests
of older generations, and the living trees with their roots
entwined among the forsaken implements of the miners, all
point to the lapse of many centuries since their works were

[chap.

e civi-
h the
exten-

whom
isively

of the
They
settled
numer-
in their
nth. the
ther by
What
jetween
be dis-
3d ques-
mecha-
iptitudc
ibed, d
,e shores
owth of
Irace are
eir long
lers have
lerve to
lelphia :
after a
cities of
■iance of

forests
kir roots

lers, all
I'ks were

VIII.]

ANTIQUITY OF COPPER WORKINGS.

227

abandoned. Changes wrought on the river-courses and
terraces in the Ohio vaUeys suggest an interval of even
longer duration since the construction of the great earth-
works with which that region abounds. But to whatever
period the working of the ancient copper mines of Lake
Superior be assigned, the aspect presented by some of them
when reopened in recent years is suggestive of peculiar cir-
cumstances attending their desertion. It is inconceivable
that the huge mass of copper discovered in the Minnesota
mine, resting on its oaken cradle, beneath the accumulations
of centuries, was abandoned merely because the workmen,
who had overcome the greatest difficulties in its removal,
were baffled in the subsequent stages of their operations,
and contented themselves by chipping off any accessible
projecting point. Well-hammered copper chisels, such as
lay alongside of it, and have been repeatedly found in the
works, were sufficient, with the help of stone hammers, to
enable them to cut it into portable pieces. If, indeed, the
ancient miners were incapable of doing more with their mass
of copper, in the mine, than breaking off a few projections,
to what further use could they have turned it when trans-
ported to the surface ? It weighed upwards of six tons, and
measured ten feet long and three feet wide. The trench at
its greatest depth was twenty-six feet ; while the mass was
only eighteen feet from the surface ; and in the estimation
of the skilled engineer by whom it was first seen, it had been
elevated upwards of five feet since it was placed on its
oaken frame. The excavations to a depth of twenty-six feet,
the dislodged copper block, and the framework prepared for
elevating the solid mass to the surface, all consistently point
to the same workmen. But the mere detachment of a few
accessible projecting fragments is too lame and impotent a
conclusion of proceedings carried thus far on co different a
scale. It indicates rather such results as would follow at
the present day were the Indians of the North-west to dis-
place the modern Minnesota miners, and possess themselves

228

DESERTION OF THE MINES.

[chap.

of mineral treasures which they are as little capable as ever
of turning to any but the most simple uses.

Such evidences, accordingly, while they serve to prove
the existence, at some remote period, of a mining popula-
tion in the copper regions of Lake Superior, seem also to
indicate that their labours came to an abrupt termination.
Whether by some devastating pestilence, like that which
nearly exterminated the native population of New England
immediately before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers ; by
the breaking out of war ; or, as seems not less probable, by
the invasion of the mineral region by a barbarian race,
ignorant of all the arts of the ancient Mound-Builders of
the Mississippi, and of the miners of Lake Superior : certain
it is that the works have been abandoned, leaving the
quarried metal, the laboriously wrought hammers, and the
ingenious copper tools, just as they may have been left when
the shadows of the evening told their long forgotten owners
that the labours of the day were at an end, but for which
they never returned. Nor during the centuries which have
elapsed since the forest reclaimed the deserted trenches for
its own, does any trace seem to indicate that a native popu-
lation again sought to avail itself of their mineral treasures,
beyond the manufacture of such scattered fragments as lay
upon the surface.

IX.]

THE AGE OF BRONZE,

229

CHAPTER IX.

ALLOYS.

THE AGE OF BRONZE— AN INTERMEDIATE COPPER AGE— EUROPEAN COPPER IMPLE-
MEXT8— NATIVE SILVER AND COPPER— TIN AND COPPER ORES— THE CASSITERIDES
—ANCIENT SOURCES OF TIN— ARTS OP YUCATAN— ALLOYED COPPER AXE-BLADES
—BRONZE SILVER-MINING TOOL— PERUVIAN BRONZES— PRIMITIVE MINING
TOOLS— NATIVE HETALLURGIO PROCESSES— METALLIC TREASURES OF THE INCAS
—TRACES OF AN OLDER RACE— PERUVIAN HISTORY— THE TOLTECS AND MEXI-
CANS—ADJUSTMENT OF CALENDAR— BARBARIAN EXCESSES— NATIVE GOLDSMii'U 3
WORK— PANAMA GOLD RELICS- MEXICAN METALLIC CURRENCY— EXPERIMENTAL
PROCESSES— ANCIENT EUROPEAN BRONZES— TESTS OP CIVIUSATION— ANCIENT
AMERICAN BRONZES— THE NATIVE METALLURGIST.

The age of bronze in the archaeological history of Euro-
pean civilisation symbolises a transitional stage of very
partial development, and imperfect materials and arts,
through which the Old World passed in its progress towards
the maturity of true historic times ; but the bronze period
of the New World is the highest stage of its self-developed
civilisation, prior to the intrusion of European arts. Whether
we regard the bionze implements of Britain and the North
of Europe as concomitant with the intrusion of new races,
or only as proofs of the discovery or introduction of a new
art pregnant with many civilising and elevating tendencies,
they constitute an important element in primitive ethno-
logy. For a time they necessarily coincide with many
monuments and works of art pertaining in character to the
stone-period ; just as the stone implements and weapons
still manufactured by the Indians and Esquimaux are con-
temporaneous with many products of foreign metallurgy,
but nevertheless are the perpetuation of processes developed
in a period when metallurgic arts were entirely unknown.
The evidence that the British^ bronze-period followed a

230

AN INTERMEDIATE COPPER AGE.

[chap.

Fa-
in • •■

simpler and ruder one of stone is such as scarcely to admit
of challenge, independent of the d> priori likelihood in
favour of this order of succession. The question however
suggests itself whether metallurgy did not find it natural
beginning there, as elsewhere, in the easy working of the
virgin copper, and so intercalate a copper age between
Europe's stone, and its true bronze period. On this subject
Dr. Latham remarks, in his Ethnology of the British Islandsy
" Copper is a metal of which, in its unalloyed state, no relics
have been found in England. Stone and bone first ; then
bronze, or copper and tin combined ; but no copper alone.
I cannot get over this hiatus; cannot imagine a metal-
lurgic industry beginning with the use of alloys." It is a
mistake, however, to say that no unalloyed British copper
relics have been found. No very special attention was
directed till recently to the distinction. Nearly all the
earlier wnriters who refer to the metallic weapons and tools
of ancient Mexico and Central America, apply the term
" copper " to the mixed metal of which these were made ;
while among European antiquaries the corresponding relics
of the Old World are no less invariably designated bronze,
though in many cases thus taking for granted what analysis
can alone determine. It is an error, however, that the
later nomenclature of archaeological periods has tended to
strengthen : partly from the lack of appreciation of the im-
portance of the argument in favour of the first use of the
metals in a condition corresponding to the most primitive
arts, and the discovery of scientific processes at later stages.
This peculiar interest attaches to the metallurgy of the
New World, that there all the earlier stages are clearly de-
fined : the pure native metal, wrought by the hammer with-
out the aid of fire ; the melted and moulded copper ; the
alloyed bronze ; and then the smelting, soldering, graving,
and other processes resulting from accumulating experience
and matured skill. But examples of British implements of
pure copper have also been noted. In a valuable paper by

IX.]

EUROPEAN COPPER IMPLEMENTS.

mug,
Iricnce
Ints of

)er by

Mr. J. A. Phillips, on the metals and alloys known to the
ancients,^ the results of analyses of thirty-seven ancient
bronzes are given. Among these are included three swords,
one from the Thames, the others from Ireland ; a spear-
head, two celts, and two axe-heads : all of types well known
among the weapons of the " bronze period." Yet of the
eight articles thus selected as examples of "bronze" weapons,
one, the spear-head, proved on analysis to be of impure but
unalloyed copper. Its composition is given as copper,
99'7l ; sulphur, 28. In 1822, Sir David Brewster described
a large battle-axe of pure copper, found at a depth of twenty
feet in Katho Bog, near Edinburgh, under circumstances
scarcely less remarkable than some of the discoveries of
works of art in the drift. The workmen dug down through
nine feet of moss and seven feet of sand, before they came
to the hard black till-clay ; and at a depth of four feet in
the clay the axe was found. The author accordingly re-
marks : " It must have been deposited along with the blue
clay prior to the formation of the superincumbent stratum
of sand, and must have existed before the diluvial opera-
tions by which that stratum was formed. This opinion of
its antiquity is strongly confirmed by the peculiarity of its
shape, and the nature of its composition. "^ In 1850, my
brother. Dr. George Wilson, undertook a series of analyses
of ancient British bronzes for me, and out of seven specimens
selected for experiment, one Scottish axe-head, rudely cast,
apparently in sand, was of nearly pure copper.^ Of eight
specimens of metal implements selected for me by Mr.
Thomas Ewbank, of New York, as examples of Peruvian
bronze ; four of them, on analysis, proved to be of unalloyed
copper. The rich collections of the Royal Irish Academy
furnish interesting confirmation of this idea of a transitional
copper era. Dr. Wilde remarks, in his Catalogue of An-

;/ 1 Mems. Chemical Society, vol. iv. p, 288.

2 Edinlmrqh Philoaophical Journal, vol. vi. p. .357.

3 Prehistoric Annala of Scotland (2d ed.), vol. i. p. 319.

«p

232

NATIVE SILVER AND COPPER.

[chap.

tiquitics, " Upon careful examination, it has been found that
thirty of the rudest, and apparently the very oldest celts,
are of red, almost unalloyed copper." In addition to those
there are also two battle-axes, a sword-blade, a trumpet,
several fibulae, and some rudely formed tools, all of copper ;
and now that attention has been directed to the subject,
further examples of the same class will doubtless accumulate.
A very important difference, however, distinguishes the
mineral resources of the British and the North American cop-
per regions. Copper, as we have seen, occurs in the trap-
pean rocks of Keweenaw and Ontonagon, in masses of many
tons weight ; and detached blocks of various sizes lie scat-
tered about in the superficial soil or exposed along the lake
shore, ready for use without any preparatory skill, or the
slightest knowledge of metallurgy. Nature in her own vast
crucibles had carried the metal ores through all their prepa-
ratory stages, and left them there for man to shape into
such forms as his convenience or simplest wants suggested.
The native silver had undergone the like preparation, and
is of frequent occurrence as a perfectly pure metal, being
found, even when interspersed in the mass of copper, still in
distinct crystals, entirely free from alloy with it. But
neither tin nor zinc occurs throughout tlie whole northern
region > suggest to the native metallurgist the production
of that valuable alloy which is indissolubly associated with
the civilisation of Europe's bronze age. In Britain it is
altogether different. The tin and copper lie together, ready
for alloy, but both occur in the state of impure ores, invit-
ing and necessitating the development of metallurgy before
they can be turned to economic uses. Tin is obtained in
Cornwall almost entirely from its peroxide ; and copper
occurs there chiefly combined with sulphur and iron, form-
ing the double sulphuret which is commonly called copper
pyrites or yellow copper ore. The smelting process to which
it has to be subjected is a laborious and complicated one ;
and if we are prepared to believe in the civilisation of

IX.]

TIN AND COPPER ORES.

)per

Britain's bronze period as a thing of native growth, the
early discovery and use of alloys very slightly affects the
question.

The ancient American miner of Lake Superior never
learned to subject his wealth of copper to the action of fire,
and transfer it from the crucible to the shapely mould. No
such process was needed where it abounded in inexhaustible
quantities in a pure metallic state. If, in the midst of such
readily available metallic resources, he was found to have
used tools of bronze or brass, to have transported the tin or
zinc of other regions to his furnaces, and to have laboriously
converted the whole into a preferable substitute for the
simpler metal that lay ready for his use, it would be difficult
indeed to conceive of such as the initial stage in his metal-
lurgic industry. But Britain presents no analogy to this in
its development of metallurgic arts. Tin, one of the least
widely diffused of metals, is found there in the greatest
abundance, and easily accessible, not as a pure metal, but as
an ore which is readily reduced by charcoal and a moderate
degree of heat to that condition. This was the metallic
wealth for which Britain was sought by the ancient traders
of Massilia, and the fleets of the Mediterranean ; and on it we
may therefore assume her primitive metallurgists to have
first tried their simple arts. But alongside of it, and even
in natural combination with it, as in tin pyrites and the
double sulphuret, lies the copper, also in the condition of an
ore, and requiring the application of the metallurgist's skill
before it can be turned to account. We know that at the
very dawn of history tin was exported from Britain. Cop-
per also appears to have been wrought, from very early times,
in North Wales as well as in Cornwall. Both metals were
found rarely, and in small quantities, in the native state, but
these may have sufficed to suggest the next step of supply-
ing them in larger quantities from the ores. To seek in
some unknown foreign source for the origin of metallurgic
arts, which had there all the requisite elements for evoking

234

THE CASSITERIDES.

fCHAP,

them, seems wholly gratuitous ; and, if once the native
metallurgist learned to smelt the tin and copper ores, and
so had been necessitated to subject them to preparatory
processes of fire, the next stage in progressive metallurgy,
the use of alloys, was a simple one. It might further be
assumed that, with the discovery of the valuable results
arising from the admixture of tin with copper, the few pure
copper implements — excepting where already deposited
among sepulchral offerings, — would for the most part be
returned to the melting-pot, and reproduced in the more
perfect and useful condition of the bronze alloy. There
seems, however, greater probability in the supposition that
if Britain had a coj)per period, or age of unalloyed metals, it
was of brief duration.

The cassiteroii, or tin which made the British Islands
famous among Phoenician and Greek mariners, long before
the Roman legions ventured to cross the narrow seas, was
derive**!, as has been noted, from the same south-western
peninsula, whei-e copper is still wrought. The name of Caa-
siterides, or Tin Islands, bestowed on Cornwall and the
adjacent isles, seems to imply that tin was the chief (>xport,
and was transported to the Mediterranean, to be mixed with
the copper of the Wady Maghara, and other Asiatic mines,
to form the Egyptian, Phoenician, and Assyrian bronze.
Tin, therefore, the easiest of all metals to subject to the re-
quisite processes, first engaged the skill of the British metal-
lurgist ; and that mastered, the proximity of the copper ore
in the same mineral districts, inevitably suggests all the
subsequent processes of smelting, fusion, and alloy.

The practical value cf the alloy of copper and tin was
well known both to the Phoenicians and the Egyptians.
Tin occurs in considerable abundance, and in the purest
state, in the peninsula of Malacca, and thence, probably, it
was first brought to give a new impetus to early eastern
civilisation. Britain is its next and its most abundant
source ; and since America was embraced within the world's

IX.]

ANCIENT SOURCES OF TIN,

235

sisterhood of nations, Chili and Mexico have become known
as productive sources of the same useful metal. But the
mineral wealth of Mexico and Peru was familiar to nations
of the New World long before it was made to contribute to
European commerce ;, and to a proximity of the metals best
suited for tlie first stages of human progress, corresponding in
some degree to that to which Britain's ancient metallurgy has
bet;n traced, the curious phases of a n<i,tive and purely abori-
ginal civilisation maybe ascribed, whicb 'aled itself to
the wondering gaze of the first Europea ' ai' • nturers who
followed in the steps of Columbus. Whai.c"f .' doubts may
arise relative to the native origin of British metfillurgy, and
the works of art of the European bronze r>eriod, in conse-
quence of their most characteristic illustrations being pre-
served in the mixed metal, bronze, and not in pure copper :
there is no room for any such doubts relative to the primi-
tive metallurgy of the New World. The American con-
tinent appears to have had its two entkely independent
centres of self-originated metallurgic arts : its greatly
prolonged but slight progressive Copper Period. ; and apart
from this, jind in part at least contemporaneous with it, a
separate Bronz(i Period, with its distinct centres of more
advanced civilisation and better regu ated metallurgic in-
dustry, in which the value of metfdlic .alloys was practically
understood.

The great copper region of North America lies along the
shores of Lake Superior, and on its larger islands between
the 4Gth and 48tli parallels of north latitude ; and from
thence its metallic treasures were diffused by piiniitivo r<^n-
raercial exchanges, throughout the whole vast rcgi is
watered by the Mississippi an<l its triljuiiiries : including
also the Atlantic states, and the shores of the great lakes.
But southward and westward of this area of difiusion, tlio
liio Grande and its tributaries, with the Rio Colorado, drain
a country modified by verj'- diverse conditions of climate,
and having a totally distinct centre of metallurgic weidth

236

ARTS OF YUCATAN.

[chap.

and civilising influences. In this central region of the twin
continents of America, as well as independently in tropical
Peru, native civilisation had advanced a considerable way,
before it was arrested and destroyed by the aggressions of
foreign intruders. The peculiar advantages derivable from
the proximity of the distinct metals had been discovered,
and metallurgy had been developed into the practical arts
of a true American Bronze Age.

When Columbus, during his fourth voyage, landed on one
of the Guanaja islands, before making the adjoining mainland
of Honduras, it was visited by a large trading canoe, the
size and freight of Vi^hich equally attracted his notice. It
was eight feet wide, and in magnitude like a galley, though
formed of the trunk of a single tree. In the centre a raised
awning covered and enclosed a cabin, in which sat a cacique
with his wives and children ; and twenty-five rowers pro-
pelled it swiftly through the water. The barque is believed
to have come from the province of Yucatan, then about forty
leagues distant, through a sea the stormy violence of which
had daunted the most hardy Spanish seamen. It was
freighted with a great variety of articles of manufacture,
and of the natural produce of the neighbouring continent ;
and among them Herrara specifies " small hatchets, made of
copper, small bells and plates, crucibles to melt copper, etc."
Here, at length, was the true answer to that prophetic faith
which upheld the great discoverer, when, peering through
the darkness, the New World revealed itself to his eye in
the glimmering torch, which told him of an unseen land
inhabited by man. Hero was evidence of the intelligent
service of fire. Well indeed might it have been for Colum-
bus had he been obedient to the voice that thus directed his
way. All the accompaniments of the voyagers furnished
evidence of civilisation. They were clothed with cotton
mantles. Their bread was made of Indian corn, and from it
also they had brewed a beverage resembling beer. They
informed Columbus that thoy had just arrived from a

IX.]

ALLOYED COPPER AXE-BLADES.

237

country, rich, populous, and industrious, situated to tlie
west ; and urged him to steer in that direction. But his
mind was bent on the discovery of the imaginary strait that
was to lead him directly into the Indian seas, and it was
left to Cortez to discover the singular seats of native civilisa-
tion of Mexico and Central America. - -;

When at length the mainland was reached, the abundance
and extensive use of the metals became apparent ; and as
further discoveries brought to the knowledge of the Spaniards
the opulent and civilised countries of Yucatan, Mexico, and
Peru, they were more and more astonished by the native
metallic wealth. When the Spaniards first entered the pro-
vince of Tuspan, they mistook the bright copper or bronze
axes of the natives for gold, and were greatly mortified
after having accumulated them in considerable numbers to
discover the mistake they had made. Bernal Diaz narrates
that " each Indian had, besides his ornaments of gold, a
copper axe, which was very highly polished, with the handle
curiously carved, as if to serve equally for an ornament, as
for the field of battle. We first thought these axes were
niade of an inferior kind of gold ; we therefore commenced
taking them in exchange, and in the space of two days had
collected more than six hundred ; with which we were no
less rej.oiced, as long as tve were ignorant, of their real value,
than the Indians with our glass beads."

Ancient Mexican paintings show that the tribute due by
certain provinces of the Mexican empire was paid in wedges
of copper ; and Dupaix describes and figures examples of a
deposit of two hundred and seventy-six axe-heads, cast of
alloyed copper, such as, he observes, " are much sought by
the silversmiths on account of their fine alloy." The forms
of these, as well as of the chisels and other tools of bronze,
are simple, and indicate no great ingenuity in adapting the
moulded metal to the more perfect accomplishment of the
artificer's or the combatant's requirements. The methods
of hafting the axe-blade, as illustrated by Mexican paint-

238

BRONZE SILVER-MINING TOOL.

[chap.

ings, are nearly all of the same rude description as are em-
ployed by the modem savage in fitting a handle to his
hatchet of flint or stone ; and, indeed, the whole character-
istics of the metallurgic and artistic ingenuity of Mexico
and Peru are suggestive of immature development ; though,
from the nature of Peruvian institutions, the civilisation of
the latter, like that of China, may have long existed, with
slight and intermittent manifestations of progress. It was
indeed, in many respects, the transitional bronze period of
the New World, in which not only the arts of an elder
stone-period had been very partially modified by metallurgic
influences, but in which the sword, or mahguahuitl, made
of wood, with blades of obsidian inserted along its edge,
the flint or obsidian arrow-head, the stone hatchet, and
other weapons, were still in common use, along with those
of metal.

Yet such traces of primitive arts are accompanied with
remarkable evidence of progress in some directions. Hum-
boldt remarks, in his Vues des CordilUres, on the surpris-
ing dexterity shown by the Peruvians in cutting the hardest
stones ; and, after reference to the observations of other
travellers, he adds: — "I conjectured that the Peruvians
had tools of copper, which, mixed with a certain proportion
of tin, acquires great hardness. This conjecture has been
justified by the discovery of an ancient Peruvian chisel,
found at Vilcabamba, near Cuzco, in a silver mine worked in
the time of the Incas. This valuable instrument, for which
I am indebted to the friendship of the Padre Narcissc
Gilbar, is four and seven-tenth inches long, and four-fifths
of an inch broad. The metal of which it is composed has
been analysed by M. Vauquelin, who found in it 0*94 of
copper, and 0"0G of tin." Unfortunately, the composition
of Mexican and Peruvian bronzes has hitherto attracted so
little attention, that it is impossible to obtain many accurate
records of analyses, or to procure specimens to submit to
chemical tests. Dr. J. H. Gibbon, of the United States

IX.]

PERUVIAN BRONZES.

239

Mint, favoured me with the analysis of another chisel or
crowbar, brought from the neighbourhood of Cuzco by his
son. Lieutenant Laidner Gibbon, who formed one of the
members of the Amazon Expedition. Through the kind
services of Mr. Thomas Ewbank, of the American Ethnolo-
gical Society, I also obtained, in addition to results deter-
mined by himself, eight specimens of such Peruvian imple-
ments, though only a portion of them proved to be of
metallic alloys. They were submitted to careful analysis
by my colleague. Professor Henry Croft, and the results in
reference to the bronzes are given on a subsequent page.
Mr. Squier, in the Appendix to his Aboriginal Monuments
of the State of New York, engraves an implement found
with various Peruvian knives and chisels, about the person
of a mummy, taken by Mr. J. H. Blake, of Boston, from an
ancient cemetery near Arica. On analysis, it proved to
contain about four per cent, of tin. More recently I in-
spected a valuable collection of antiquities brought by Mr.
Blake from Peru, including a variety of bronze implements ;
and he has favoured me with the following results : —
" Many years ago, I made a series of analyses of bronze
instruments, knives, chisels, hoes, etc., which I found in
ancient cemeteries in Peru in connection with embalmed
bodies. I have not been able to find my notes made vt the
time ; but I know that they consisted of copper and tin
only, and that the proportion of the latter varied from up-
wards of two to four per cent. After receiving your last
letter, I made an analysis of a small knife found by mo,
with many other articles, with the body of a man, in the
ancient cemetery near Arica, in South Peru. The handle
is of the same metal as the blade, and at right angles with
it, being joined at the middle. The end is fashioned to
represent the head of a llama. On analysis, tho composi-
tion proves to be : Copper, 97'87 ; tin, 213." Dr. C. T^
Jackson communicated another analysis of a "Chilian bronze
instrument, probably a crowbar," to the Boston Natural

240

PRIMITIVE MINING TOOLS.

[chap.

li'-

liHi

History Society. It contained 7*615 parts of tin, and '3
described by him as a bronze, well adapted for such instru-
ments as were to be hammer-hardened.^ The general re-
sults indicate a variable range of the tin alloy, from 2 "130 to
7*615 per cent. ; which, in so far as any general inference
can be drawn from so small a number of examples, shows a
more indeterminate and partially developed metallurgy than
the analyses of primitive European bronzes disclose.

Such is all the evidence I have been able to obtain rela-
tive to the composition of Peruvian alloys, and the progress
indicated thereby in scientific metallurgy. It accords with
other evidence of their mining operations. During a recent
visit to Peru Mr. James Douglas obtained for me a set of
primitive stone mining implements recovered from an
ancient shaft, exposed in working the Brillador mine, in
the Province of Coquimbo, Chili. They consist of a maul
of granite, eight inches long, with a groove wrought round
the centre and over the thicker end ; one of diorite, also
with a groove about one-third from the thicker end ; a
conical hammer of granite ; and another implement made
of diorite, apparently designed for pounding the copper ore.
It has indentations worked in the sides for the fingers and
thumb; and when found was covered at one end with
green oxide of copper, as if from use in pounding the ore.
Near the mine are ancient graves indicated by circles of
stones ; within which the skeletons are disposed in a sitting
posture, accompanied by conical bones and rude pottery.
Such mining implements were, no doubt, supplemented with
others of metal ; but so far as they illustrate the progress of
the ancient miners of Chili, the evidence fully accords with
the ideas otherwise formed of the Peruvians as a people who
had discovered for themselves the rudiments of civilisation,
but who had as yet very partially attained to any mastery
of the arts which have been matured in modern centuries
for Europe. This agrees with the description furnished by

* Proceedings, B. N. II. S., vol. v. p. 63.

IX.]

NATIVE METALLURGIC PROCESSES.

241

ore.
3S of
fting
tery.
dth
js of
kvith
Iwho
bioii,
bery
iries

Dr. Tschudi of some of the metallurgic processes still
practised in Peru. " The Cordillera, in the neighbourhood
of Yauli," he remarks, " is exceedingly rich in lead ore
containing silver. Within the circuit of a ftiv miles above
eight hundred shafts have been made, but they have not
been found sufficiently productive to encourage extensive
mining works. The difficulties which impede mine-work-
ing in these parts are caused chiefly by the dearness of
labour and the scarcity of fuel. There being a total want
of wood, the only fuel that can be obtained consists of the
dried dung of sheep, llamas, and huanacos. This fuel is
called taquia. It produces a very brisk and intense flame,
and most of the mine-owners prefer it to coal. The process
of smelting, as practised by the Indians, though extremely
rude and imperfect, is adapted to local circumstauces. All
European attempts to improve the system of smelting in
these districts have either totally failed, or in theii* results
have proved less effective than the simple Indian method.
The Indian furnaces cau, moreover, be easily erected in the
vicinity of the mines, and when the metal is not very
abundant the furnaces may be abandoned without any great
sacr fice. For the price of one European furnace the Indians
may build more than a dozen, in each of which, notwith-
standing the paucity of fuel, a considerably greater quantity
of metal may be smelted than in one of European construc-
tion." At the village of Yauli, near the mines referred to,
situated at an elevation of 13,100 feet above the sea, from
twelve to fourteen thousand Indians are congregated to-
gether, chiefly engaged in mining, after the fashion handed
down to them from generations before the Conquest. Their
processes correspond with the imperfect results disclosed by _
the analysis of native alloys ; as well as by other proofs
that the Peruvians were also accustomed to work the native
copper into tools and personal ornaments for common use,
Vt^y much in the same fashion as the ancient metallurgists
of the Ohio valley.
The contrast which the civilisation alike of Mexico tind
VOL. I. g

iL^I

24a METALLIC TREASURES OF THE INC AS. [chap.

Peru presents, when compared with the highest arts per-
taining to any of the tribes of North America, is well cal-
culated to excite admiration. But the wonder of the
Spanish conquerors at their gems and gold, the ready cre-
dulity of the missionary priests in their anxiety to magnify
the gorgeous paganism which they had overthrown, and the
patriotic exaggeration of later chroniclers of native descent,
have all tended to overdraw the picture of the beneficent des-
potism of thelncas of Peru ; or the crueller but not less magni-
ficent rule of the Caciques of Mexico. With a willing credulity
Spanish historians perpetuated what the Peruvian Garcilasso
and the Mexican Ixtlilxochitl related, in their adaptations
of native history and traditions to European conceptions.
Religious, political, and social analogies to European ideas
and institutions, accordingly, strike the modern student
with wonder and admiration ; nor has the gifted author of
the Conquests of Mexico and Peru always sufiiciently dis-
criminated between the glowing romances begot by an
alliance between the barbarous magnificence of a rude native
despotism and the associated ideas of European institutions.
The metallic treasures of the Incas of Peru are probably not
exaggerated ; and if so, the precious metals with which
their palaces and temples were adorned would have been
the index, in any European capital, of a wealth sufficient to
employ the merchant-navies of Venice, Holland, or England
in the commerce of the world. But in Peru this was the
mere evidence of the abundance of the precious metals in a
country where they were as little the representatives of a
commercial currency as the feathers of the coraquenquc,
which were reserved exclusively for the decoration of royalty.
The Peruvians occupied a long extent of sea-coast, but
no commercial enterprise tempted them to launch their
navies on the Pacific, excepting for the most partial coast--
ing transit. The great mass of the people patiently wrought
to produce from their varied tropical climates and fer-
tile soil the agricultural produce on which the entire com-
munity depended ; resembling in this, as v/ell as in the

IX.]

TRACES OF AN OLDER RACE.

243

vast structures wrought by a patiently submissive people at
the will of their absolute rulers, the great oriental despotisms
when in their earliest and least licentious forms. Their own
traditions traced the dawn of their government no further
back than the twelfth century ; and the characteristics of
their imperfect and unequally developed civilisation confirm
the inference that they have not in this respect departed
from the invariable tendency of historic myth and tradition
to exaggerate the national age. Extensive ruins still exist-
ing on the shores of Lake Titicaca are affirmed by the Peru-
vians to have existed before the Incas arrived. But slight
importance can be attached to the traditions of an un-
lettered people concerning events of any kind dating four
or five centuries back. The authority of Bede is of little
value relative to Jute or Anglo-Saxon colonisation less than
three centuries before his time ; and the modern New
Englander, with deeds and parchments, as well as abundance
of printed history to help his tradition, cannot make up his
mind as to whether the famous Newport Round Tower was
built by a Norse viking of the eleventh, or a New England
miller of the seventeenth century. "No account," says
Prescott, " assigns to the Inca dynasty more than thirteen
princes before the Conquest. But this number is altogether
too small to have spread over four hundred years, and would
not carry back the foundations of the monarchy, on any
probable computation, beyond two centuries and a half —
an antiquity not incredible in itself, and which, it may be
remarked, does not precede by more than half a century the
alleged foundation of the capital of Mexico." Humboldt,
in his Yues des Cordilldres, indicates the borders of Lake
Titicaca, the district of Callao, and the high plains of
Tiahuanaco, as the theatre of ancient American civilisation ;
and Prescott, in view of the apparently recent origin of the
Incas, assumes that they were preceded in Peru by another
civilised race, which, in conformity with native traditions,
he would derive from this same cradle-land of South
American arts. Beyond thisj however, he does not attcmj)t

244

PERUVIAN HISTORY.

[chap.

^>'

fM'«

III

to penetrate into that unchronicled past. Who this people
were, and whence they came, may afford a tempting theme
for inquiry to the speculative ethnologist ; but it is a land
of darkness lying beyond the domain of history. The same
mists that hang round the origin of the Incas continue to
settle on their subsequent annals ; and so imperfect were
the records employed by the Peruvians, and so confused
and contradictory their traditions, that the historian finds
no firm footing on which to stand till within a century of
the Spanish conquest.

In reality only a very small portion of what is called
Peruvian history prior to that conquest can be regarded as
anything but a historical romance; and the exaggerated
conceptions relative to the completeness and consistent de-
velopment alike of Peruvian and Mexican civilisation, are
based on the old axiom which has so often misled the
archaeologist, ex jpede Herculem.

Vie^^ . however, without exaggeration, the progress
in mechanical skill and artistic ingenuity attained by both
of the semi-civilised American nations, is very remarkable ;
and seems to find its nearest analogy among the modern
Chinese and Japanese. Smdl mirrors of polished bronze
now in use in Japan exactly reproduce some of those found
in the royal tombs of Peru. These tombs of the Incas, and
also their royal and other depositories of treasure, have dis-
closed many specimens of curious and elaborate metallurgic
skill : bracelets, collars, and other personal ornaments of
gold, vases of the same abundant precious metal, and
iilso of silver ; mirrors of burnished silver and bronze, as
well as of obsidian ; polished ma.sks, rings, and cups of the
same intractable material ; finely adjusted balances made
in silver ; bells both of silver and bronze ; and numerous
commoner articles of copper, or of the more useful alloy of
copper and tin, of which theii tools were chiefly made. -__

But while the arts of civilisation were being fof^fcred on
those southern plateaux of the Andes, another seat 'f native
American civilisation had been founded on tlie correspona-

IX.]

THE 2JLTECS AND MEXICANS.

245

ing plateaux of the northern continent, and the Aztecs were
building up an empire even more marvtllous than that of
the Incas. The site of the latter is amonoj the most remark-
able of all the scenes consecrated to such memories. On
the lofty table-land which lies between the Gulf of Mexico
and the Pacific Ocean, at an elevation of nearly seven
thousan<l five huLilred feet, the valley of Mexico lies en-
girdled by its ramparts of porphyritic rock, like a vast
fortress provided by nature for guarding the infancy of
American civilisation. Here was the scene of the heroic
age of Toltec Art, where the foundations of all later pro-
gress were laid, and architecture achieved its earliest
triumphs in the New World on the temples and towers of
Tula, the ruined remains of which attracted the attention
of the Spaniards at the time of the Conquest. But the
history of the Toltecs and their ruined edifices stands on
the border lines of romance and fable, like that of the
Druid builders of Carnac and Avebury. To them, accord-
ing to tradition and such historical evidence as is accessible,
succeeded their Aztec or Mexican supplanters, along with
the Acolhuans, or Tezcucans, as they were latterly called
from their capital Tezcuco. Mr. Edward B. Tylor describes
an ancient arch v/hich still stands there. It is a skew-bridge
of twenty feet span, built with slabs of stone set on edge
in the form of a roof resting on two buttresses ; and is an
ingenious approximation to the true arch.^ On the opposite
shores of the same Mexican lake, the largest of five inland
waters that diversified the surface of that great table-land
valley, stood Tezcuco and Mexico, the capitals of the two
most important states within which the native civilisation
of the North American continent developed itself. From
the older Toltecans, the encroaching Tezcm^ans are believed
to have derived the germs of that progress, which ia best
known to us in connection with the true Aztec or Mexican
state. Legends of the golden age and heroic races of Ana-
huac abound, and liave been rendered into their least extra-

* Anahuac, p. lo3.

• ,

246

ADJUSTMENT OF CALENDAR.

[chap.

vagant forms by the patriotic zeal of Ixtlilxochitl, a lineal
descendant of the royal line of Tezcuco. But the true
Mexicans are acknowledged to be of recent origin, and
the founding of Mexico is assigned to a.d. 1326. Among
the special evidences of their civilisation is their calendar.
By the unaided results of native science the dwellers on
the Mexican plateau had effected an adjustment of civil
to solar time, so nearly correct that when the Spaniards
landed on their coast, their own reckoning, according to the
unreformed Julian calendar, was nearly eleven days in error,
compared with that of the barbarian nation whose civilisa-
tion they so speedily effaced. But the diflference thus noted
represented in the European calendar the accumulated error
of upwards of sixteen centuries ; so that the approximation
of Mexican computation to true solar time is probably only
a proof of the recent adjustment of their calendar ; and so
confirms the probability of the founding of the Mexican
capital within two centuries of its overthrow. But the
founders of Tenochtitlan, as the new capital was called,
were a vigorous, enterprising, and ferocious race. The later
name of Mexico was derived from the Aztec war-god
Mexitli, whose favours to his votaries enabled them to form
a powerful state by conquest, to enrich themselves with spoil,
and to replace the rude structures of their city's founders
with substantial and ornate buildings of stone. ■ ^

Whatever gloze of mild paternal absolutism may linger
around our conceptions of the prehistoric chronicles of Peru,
a clearer light illuminates the harsh realities of Mexican
sovereignty. The god of war was the supreme deity of the
Aztecs, worshipped with hideous rites of blood. Their
civil and military codes, according to the narrative of their
conquerors, were alike cruel as that of Draco ; and their
religious worship was a system of austere fanaticism and
loathsome butchery, which seemed to refine the cruelties
of the Red Indian savage into a ritual service fit only
for the devil. But besides their hideous war-god, the
Mexican mythology was graced by a beneficent divinity,

IX.]

BARBARIAN EXCESSES.

247

linger
Peru,
exican
of the
Their
• their
. their
I and
cities
only
, the
Knity,

named Quetzalcoatl, the instructor of the Aztecs in the
use of metals, in agriculture, and in the arts of government.
This and similar elements of Mexican mythology have been
regarded as traces of a milder faith inherited from their
Toltecan predecessors. The idea is one supported by many
probabilities, as well as by some evidence. The early his-
tory of the Northmen, however, in which we witness the
blending of a rich poetic fancy, wherein lay the germ of
later Norman romance and chivalry, with cruelties pertain-
ing to a creed little less bloody than that of the Mexican
warrior, shows that no such theory is needed to account
for the incongruities of the religious system of the Aztecs.
In truth, the ferocity of a semi-barbarous people is often
nothing more than its perverted excess of energy ; and, as
has been already noted in reference to the Caribs, is more
easily dealt with, and turned into healthful and beneficent
action, than the cowardly craft of the slave. It is only
when such hideous rites are consciously engrafted on the
usages of a people already far in advance of such a semi-
barbarous childhood, as in the adoption of the Inquisition
by Spain at the commencement of its modern history, that
they prove utterly baneful ; because the nation is already
past that stage of progress in which it can naturally out-
grow them.

Hideous, therefore, as were the human sacrifices, wdth
their annual thousands of victims ; the oflerings of infants
•to propitiate Tlaloc, their rain-god ; and the loathsome
banquets on the bodies of their sacrificed victims: — if in-
deed this be not an exaggeration of Spanish credulity and
fanaticism ; — it is nevertheless difficult to concur in the
verdict of the gifted historian of The, Conquest of Mexico,
that " it was beneficently ordered by Providence that the
land should be delivered over to another race who would,
rescue it from the brutish superstitions that daily extended
wider and wider, with extent of empire." The rule of the
conquerors, with their Dominican ministers of religion, was
no beneficent sway ; and its fruits in later times have not

248

NATIVE GOLDSMITH'S WORK.

[chap.

.)''

,-> I

proved of such value as to reconcile the student of that
strange old native civilisation of the votaries of Quetzal-
coatl, to its abrupt arrestment, at a stage which can only
be paralleled by the earlier centuries of Egyptian progress.

Metallurgic arts were carried in some respects further by
the Mexicans than by the Peruvians. Silver, lead, and
tin were obtained from the mines of Tasco and Pachuca ;
copper was wrought in the mountains of Zacotollan, by
means of galleries and shafts opened with persevering toil
where the metallic veins Avere imbedded in the solid rock ;
and there, as at the Lake Superior copper regions, the
traces of such ancient mining have proved the best guides
to modern searchers for the ores. The arts of casting, en-
graving, chasing, and carving in metal, were all practised
with great skill. Vessels l)otli of gold and silver were
wrougL: ■ f enormous size : so large, it is said, that a man
could not encircle them with his arms ; and the abundant
gold was as lavishly employed in Mexico as in Peru, in the
gorgeous adornment of temples and palaces. Ingenious
toys, birds and beasts with moveable wings and limbs, fish
with alternate scales of silver and gold, and personal orna-
ments in great variety, were wrought by the Mexican gold-
smiths of the precious metals, with such curious art, that
the Spaniards acknowledged the suj^eriority of the native
workmanship over anything they could achieve. When
Cortes first entered the capital of Montezuma in 1513, the
Mexican ruler received him in the palace built by his
father Axayacatl, and hung round his neck a decoration of
the finest native workmanohip. The shell of a species of
craw-fiah, set in gold, formed the centre, and massive links
of gold completed the collar, from which depended eight
orntiments of the same metal, delicately wrought in imita-
tion of the prised shell-fish.

The arts thus practised on the great plateau extended to
the most southern limits of the North American continent.
The ancient graves of the Isthmus of Panama have been
ransacked by thousands in recent years, from the temptation

IX.]

PANAMA GOLD RELICS.

249

fish

that

the
his
n of
of
inks
ight
lita-

1 to
cut.
)cen
tion

which the gokl relics they contain bold out to their explorers.
Those include representations of beasts, birds, and fishes,
frogs, and other objects, imitated from nature, often with
great skill and ingenuity. One gold frog which I examined
had the eyes hollow, with an oval slit in front, and within
each a detached ball of gold, which appeared to have been
executed in a single casting. This insertion of detached
balls is frequently met with in the pottery, as well as in
the goldsmith s work of the Isthmus, and is singularly
characteristic of a peculiar phase of local art. Human
figures, and monstrous or grotesque hybrids wrought in gold,
with the head of the cayman, the eagle, and other animals,
attached to the human form, are also found in the same
graves ; but, so far as my own opportunities of observation
enable mc to judge, the human figure generally exhibits
inferior imitative skill and execution to the representations
of other animate subjects. But all alike display abundant
metallurgic art. Soldering as well as casting was known
to the ancient goldsmith, and the finer specimens have been
finished with the hammer and graving-tool. Judging from
the condition of the hum'ni remains found in those huacas
of the peninsula, they are probably of a much higher an-
tiquity than the era of Mexican civilisation ; and lying as
they do in the narrow isthmus between the twin continents,
they suggest the probability of a common source for the
ovigin of Peruvian and Aztec arts.

But while the Mexicans wrought their ingenious toys,
lavished their inexhaustible resources of gold and silver
in personal decoration, and adorned their })ublic edifices
with scarcely less boundless profusion than the Peruvians,
they had learned to some extent the [irtxcWvn] value of gold
and other metals as a convenient currency. By means of
this equivalent for the gold and silver coinage of Ktirope,
the interchange of commodities in the great markets of
Mexico was facilitated, and an important step in the pro-
gress towards a higher stage of civilisation secured. This
metallic currency consisted of pieces of tin cut in the form

1 1 ',■

■?»■

I «!

250

111

MEXICAN METALLIC CURRENCY. [chap,

of a T or stamped with a similar character, and of trans-
parent quills filled with gold dust. These were apparently
regulated to a common standard by their size : for the use
of scales and weights, with which the Peruvians were
familiar, appears to have been unknown in Mexico.

The nature of the Mexican currency accords with the
knowledge and experience of a people among whom metal-
lurgic arts were of comparatively recent origin. The easily
fused tin, and the attractive and accessible gold-dust, sup-
plied ready materials for schooling the ingenious metallurgist
in the use of the metals. Copper was probably first employed
when found in a pure metallic state, as among the old
miners of Lake Superior ; while the art of fusing, taught 1)y
the Aztec Tubal-Cain, was tried only on the readily-yield-
ing tin. By this means the arts of smelting and moulding
the ores would be acquired, and applied to copper, silver,
and gold, as well as to tin. Accident might suggest the
next important stage, that of metallic alloys ; but under
the circumstances alike of Peruvian and Mexican civili-
sation, progressing in regions abounding with the most
attractive and easily-wrought metals, it is not difiicult to
conceive of the independent discovery of the useful ])ronze
alloy. Yet by the standard composition of their bronze,
far more than by the ingenious intricacy of their personal
ornaments, utensils, and architectural decorations, the
actual progress of the Incas or of the Aztecs may fairly be
tested. The delight of the savage in personal adornment
precedes even the needful covering of his nakedness, and
the same propensity long monopolises the whole inventive
ingenuity of a semi-barbarous people ; while the useful
bronze tools embody the true germs of incipient civilisation.
Tested by such a standard, the metallurgic arts of Peru
furnish evidence of very partial development.

The alloy of copper and tin, when destined for practical
use in manufacture, is found to possess the most serviceable
qualities when compostnl of about ninety per cent, of cop})er
to ten of tin ; and so near is the approximation to this

«■ j»»«>7,' w* ""f ^^•' ■*"'--

,x.]

EXPERIMENTAL PROCESSES,

25t

theol^tieal standard among the bronze relics of the ancient
worM, that the archaeologists of Europe have been divided
in opinion as to whether they should assume a Phoenician
or other common origin for the weapons, implements, and
personal ornaments of that metal found over the whole
continent ; or that the mixed metal, derived from a common
centre, was manufactured in various countries of Europe
into the objects of diverse form and pattern abounding in
their soil, or deposited among their sepulchral offerings.

But the approximation to a uniform alloy is no more than
would inevitably result from the experience of the extreme
brittleness resulting from any undue excess of the tin. Ac-
cident, or the natural proximity of the metals or ores, as
they occur in the mineral regions of England, may have
furnished the first disclosure of the important secret. But
that once discovered, the subsequent steps were inevitable.
Having ascertained that lie could produce a harder and
more useful compound than the pure copper by alloying it
with tin, the native metallurgist would not fail to vary
the proportions of the latter till he had obtained a sufficiently
Lvc^r approximation to the best bronze, to answer the
purposes for which it was designed. No interchange of
experience was necessary to lead the metallurgists of
remote regions to similar results ; nor would a closer cor-
respondence between the proportionate ingredients of th(^.
native American and European bronze than has yet been
detected, indicate more than common aims, and the inevi-
table experience, consequent on the properties of the varying
alloy, leading to corresponding results.

The following table of analyses of ancient European
bronze relics will suffice to show how little foundation there
is for the assumption of any common origin for the alloy
of which they were made ; and the corresponding evidence
of proportionate ingredients disclosed by analyses of native
American bronzes, disproves the theory of any European
or other foreign source for the nietallurgic arts of the New
World.

252

Ancient European bronzes.

fCHAP.

ANALYSES OF ANCIENT BRONZES.

Im,-

No.
1.

Copper.

Tin.

Lead.
1-78

Iron.

Silver.

Caldron,

Berwickshire, . |

92-89

515

Sword,

Duddingston,

88-51

9-30

2-30

• • •

Kettle,

Berwickshire,

88-22

5.63

5-88

■ ■ •

Axe-head, .

Mid-Lotliian,

88-05

1112

0-78

« ■ ■

Caldfun,

DiUidingston,

84-08

719

8-53

. • •

Palstave,

Fifeshire,

8119

18-31

0-75

• • •

Vessel,

Ireland,

88-

12-

...

Wedge,

94-

5 09

• • •

OOJ

Sword,

j> •

88-63

8-54

2-83

• • •

10.

Sword,

jj •

83-50

515

8-35

300

. ■ .

11.

Lituus,

Lincolnshire,

88-

12-

• • •

...

12.

Roman patella,

f »

86-

14-

...

* « •

...

13.

Spear-hearl,

»»

86-

14-

• • ■

• • •

■ . .

14.

Scabbard, .

»»

90-

10-

...

• • •

• *•

15.

Axe palstave.

Cumberland,

91-

■ • >

...

• . .

16.

Axe-head, .

>> •

88-

12-

...

17.

Vessel,

Cambridgeshire,

88-

12-

• * •

. . .

18.

Axe-head, .

Ireland,

91-

...

19.

Sword,

Thames,

89-69

9-58

• • •

0-33

• ■ •

20.

Sword,

Ireland,

85-62

1002

...

0-44

...

21.

Celt, .

'»

90-68

7-43

1-28

• • •

22.

Axe-head, .

)} •

90-18

9-81

...

23.

Axe-head, .

>» •

89-33

9-19

...

• . I

24.

Celt, .

»»

83 61

10-79

3-20

0-58

• . •

25.

Celt, .

King's Co. , Ireland,

85-23

J3-11

1-14

• • •

...

26.

Drinking-horn,

99 99

79-34

10-87

911

...

27.

Celt, .

Co. Cavan, ,,

8()-98

12-57

...

• . .

0-37

28.

Celt, .

98-74

1-09

• • -

0-08

006

29.

Celt, .

Co. Wicklow, ,,

88-30

10-92

0-10

% * •

• * *

30.

Celt, .

Co. Cavan, ,,

95-64

4-56

0-25

0-02

31.

Spear-head,

86-28

12-74

0-07

0-31

. • •

32.

Spear-head,

84-64

14-01

...

33.

Scythe,

Roscommon, ,,

95-85

2-78

0-12

1-32

...

34.

Sword-handle,

87-07

8-52

3-37

• ..

. ■ •

35.

Sword,

87-94

11-35

0-28

, ,

• • »

36.

Dagger,

90-72

8-25

0-87

• > •

...

37.

Cliisel,

91 03

8-39

...

■ « •

...

38.

Caldron,

88.71

9-46

1-66

003

...

39.

Sword,

Franco,

87-47

12-53

• • •

...

40.

Spear-head, .

N orthumbcrland.

9112

7-97

0-77

...

No8. 1-6. Dr. (Joorgo Wilson.

7-8. Dr. J. H. Oibbon, U.S. Mint.
910. Professor Davy.

11-18. Dr. Pearson, iVafo«o/)A. Trann. 1796.
19-24. J. A. Philips, Mem. Chvm. Sot:, iv. p. 288.
25, 26. Dr. Donovan, V/i,'m. anzrUe, 186(>, p. 176.
27-38. Mr. J. W. Mallet, Tnuimctions Jt. I. A. vol. xxii. p. 326.

39. Mongez, M6in. dr r/nstUut,

40. Dr. E. Macadam, Piocre ' ^ * S!fot. viii. 300.

In No. 31 is also Cobalt, 09; im Isy, ., u( my, '04; and in No. 41,
Amuuio, '03.

IX.]

TESTS OF CIVILISATION.

25s

From the varied results which so many analyses dis-
close, ranging as they do from 79 to 98 per cent, of
copper ; as well as from the diversity of the ingredients :
it is abundantly obvious that no greater uniformity is
traceable, than might be expected to result from the opera-
tions of isolated metallurgists, very partially noquainted
with the chemical properties of the standard alloy, and
guided for the most part by the experience derived from
successive results of their manufacture. It is thus cippa-
rent that the various exigencies of the metallurgist, under
the control of a very ordinary amount of practical skill, would
lead to the determination of the best proportions for this
useful alloy ; though it would only be after the accumulated
fruits of isolated experiment had been combined, that any-
thing more than some crude approximation to the best
composition of bronze would be determined. Hence the
value of analytical evidence in determining the degree of
civilisation of Mexico and Peru, as indicated by their metal-
lurgic arts. For the general requirements of a tool, or
weapon of war, where a sufficient hardness must be ob-
tained without any great liability to fracture, the best
proportions pn ed to be about 90 per cent, of copper to 10
of tin ; or with a .small proportion of lead in lieu of part of
the tin : which, as further experience taught the primitive
worker in bronze, communicates to the - utting instrument
a greater degree of toughness, and consequently diminishes
its liability to fracture. But where great hardness is the
chief requisite, as in (certain engraving, carving, and gem-
cutting tools, the mere increase of tin in the alloy supplies
the requisite quality : until the excessive brittleness of the
product gives warning that the true limit has been exceeded.
In this, I doubt not, lies the whole secret of Mexican and
Peruvian metallurgy, which has seemed so mysterious, and
thereibre so marvellous to the most sagacious inquirers.

The follow ing table furnishes the results of analyses of
various ancient American bronzes. Few (is the examples

254

ANCIENT AMERICAN BRONZES.

[chap.

are, they afford definite illustration of the subject under
review, and supply some means of comparison with the
data already furnish*, relative to the ancient bronzes of
Europe.

ANALYSES OF ANCIENT AMERICAN BRONZES.

No.

Copper.

Tin.

Iron.

Chisel from silver mines, Cuzco,

94-

•

Chisel from Cuzco, .

92-385

7-015

Knife from grave, Atacania,

97-87

2-13

Knife „ „

96-

Crowbar from Chili,

92385

7-615

Knife from Amaro, .

95 -604

3 965

0-371

Perforated axe.

96-

Personal ornament, Truigilla, .

95-440

4-560

Bodkin from female grave, do.,

96-70

3-30

Nos. 1. Humboldt.

2. Dr. J. H. Gibbon.
3, . J. H. Blake, Esq.

Nos. 5. Dr. T. C. Jackson.
6, 7. Dr. H. Croft.
8, 9. T. Ewbank, Esq.

The compaiison of this with the previous table indicates
a smaller amount of tin in the American bronze than in
that of ancient Europe. For some Egyptian spear-heads
Gmelin gives, copper 77*60, tin 22*02 ; and the composition
of ancient weapons, armour, vessels, and coins, seems to
indicate such a systematic variation of proportions as implies
the result of experience in adapting the alloy for the specific
purpose in view. A much larger number of analyses w^ould
be desirable as data from which to generalise on the metal-
lurgic skill developed independently by native American
civilisation ; but the examples adduced seem to show that
there is no lost secret for Europe to discover.

The native metallurgist had learned the art of alloying
his ductile copper with the still softer tin, and producing
by their chemical admixture a harder, tougher metal than
cither. But he does not appear to have carried his obser-
vation so liiv as to ascertain the most efficiont proportions
of Oie comlnuing metals; ift even to have made any very

li^ li

IX.]

THE NATIVE METALLURGIST.

255

definite approximation to a fixed rule, further than to use
with great moderation the alloying tin. He had discovered,
but not entirely mastered, a wonderful secret, such as in
the ancient world had proved to lie at the threshold of all
higher truths in mechanical arts. He was undoubtedly ad-
vancing, slowly but surely, on the direct course of national
elevation ; and the centuries which have followed since the
conquests of Cortes and Pizarro might have witnessed in
the New World triumphs not less marvellous in the pro-
gress of civilisation tlian those wlii(;h distinguish the England
of Victoria from that of the first Tudor. But native science
and art were abruptly arrested in their progress by the
Spanish conquistadors ; and it is difficult to realise tlio
conviction that either Mexico or Peru has gained any
adequate equivalent for the loss which thus debars us from
the solution of some of the most interesting problems cotl-
nected with the progress of the human race. Amid all the
exclusiveness of China, and the isolation of Japan, there is
still an unknown (juantity among the elements of their
civilisation derived from the same sources as our own. But
the America of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was
literally another world, securely guarded from external
influences. Nevertheless while all appears to have been
self-originated, we meet everywhere with affinities to the
arts of man elsewhere, and trace out the processes by which
he has been guided, from the first promptings of a rational
instinct to the intelligent development of many later steps
of reason and experience.

256

EARTH-P YRAMIDS.

[chap.

■IM-t

CHAPTER X.

THE MOUND -BUILDERS.

KARTH-PTRAMIDS— MONUMKNT8 OF THE MOUND-BUILDEBS— SEATS OP ANCIENT POPU-
LATION—DIFFERENT CLASSES OP WORKS— ANCIENT STRONGHOLDS--NATURAL
SITES — FORT HILL, OHIO — IROQUOIS STRONGHOLDS— ANALOGOUS STRONGHOLDS
— FORTIFIED CIVIC SITES — SACRED ENCLOSURES— NEWARK EAGLE MOUND — GEO-
METRICAL EARTHWORKS— PLAN OP NEWARK EARTHWORKS, OHIO -A STANDARD
OP MKASUREMENT — DIVERSITY OF WORKS — THE CINCINNATI TABLET- A GEO-
METRICAL INSTRUMENT— TRACES OF EXTINCT ARTS.

\ -

The progress hitherto noted hiiH related chiefly to the
tools of the woiKniun. In Mexico, and HtilliiHtreiij Central
Au\oriiMi and Peru, thoae wjmo appHed both to Bcul|)ture
and architecture on a grand scale. But some of the most
singular memorials of the primltlv^e nrclijli'chim of the
New AVorld survive in the form of gigantic earth woiks,
perpetuating in their construction remarkable evidence of
geometrical skill.

Along tht broad levels drained by lliB AllsslMHlpjij nlld IM
numer</«ss tributaries traces of America's allophylian popu-
lation abound; and the Ohio vnlh'y )m ji|o (!|flj|ll«'|l||| ('/»-
■larkablf for the nunnlier and magiiihnbj of sucli worlcs.
The Ohio and ifcs tributary streams flow through a flne un-
daladng, fertile country, which now" fornm (tiiu of llio ginMl-
centres of popaiation : and the evidence of modfun enterprise
aiwi skill whki mbouuds there gives additional lliieltjst («j
tnictas which disclose to ns proof that this va«t aiiiii Is not
nom rescu^^d for th^^ fn-^ time from the primeval forest, with
its ^ild fa.— ..ii - ...i wilder s;.vage num.

^ ^.r^rt-Z-^-s.. ."fV^.^T^Tl^ST

X.] MONUMENTS OF THE MOUND-BUILDERS, 257

In a region such as this, attracting population to the
broad alluvial terraces overlooking its smoothly-flowing
rivers, it was natural that the building instinct of man
should first employ itself on earthworks ; and that the
monuments should assume a pyramidal form. The great
mound of Miamisburg, Ohio, is sixty-eight feet high, and
eight hundred and fifty-two feet in circumference at its
base. The more famous Grave Creek Mound of Virginia
rises to a height of seventy feet, and measures at its base
one thousand feet in circumference. Other and still larger
earthworks have been noted, such as the truncated pyramid
at Cahokia, Illinois, which, while it remained intact, occu-
pied an area upwards of two thousand feet in circumference,
and reared its level summit, of several acres in extent, to a
height of ninety feet. But this last belongs to a difierent
class from the sepulchral mounds which appear to be un-
surpassed by any known works of their kind. " We have
seen mounds," remarks Flint, an American topographer,
with a just appreciation of the relation of these earthworks
to the features of the surrounding landscape, " which would
require the labour of a thousand men employed on our
canals, with all their mechanicHl aids, and the improved
luiplemeiits of their labour, for mouths. We have more
^)m once hesitated in view of one of those prodigious
tljoUii(|l3, ^\\\\\\\\>\ jt were not really a natural hill But
they are uniformly so tijacea, ih reference to the adjacent
country, and their coiifullnfltjon j« m Unirjue and sifnilar,
rtirti tjb eye hesitttloa long h) fefeiring \\m\\ to the <lass 0/
ttl'tJll«j)f^| ^»f'pn)/|nll«(" ^\w^ expioratj(»n of these huge earth
pyramitlii \m «ofc ftt l'«st my <i<mbts m tii il/ej/- a/j)fj//|«|
lili^llli} ninl has, moreover, tdit^MwA ll/(i mi iliiii r//^jr
urn HUuiikmm erected to |)er|»eliiate the ttmmtj of tiju
linnourefl dead ill ages utterly forgotten, H\\i\ hy A tath ^f
which they preserve /dni'ist ll^/i fniU remaining veHtiges.

T'he w-nks of the Moimd Himm eitend over h wide
area, and include ninny ntiief ^U'Mtim htsuim limH (4 ^

)9.h h

258

SEATS OF ANCIENT POPULATION.

[chap

N-fl

sepulchral character. The people by whom they were exe-
cuted must have been in a condition very different from
the forest tribes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Nevertheless, though congregated at many favourite points
in large communities, they may have been isolated by ex-
tensive tracts of forest from the regions beyond the river-
systems on which they were settled. The country lying
remote from the larger tributaries of the Mississippi was
probably in the era of the Mound-Builders, as in later times,
covered with forest ; while perchance on outlying regions,
or beyond the great Lakes and the Rocky Mountains, the pro-
genitors of modern Indian tribes lurked : like the barbarians
of ante -christian Europe, beyond the Rhine and the Baltic.
The fertile valley of the Scioto appears to have been one
of the seats oi densest population, as indicated by the
numerous works which diversify its surface. Correspond-
ing evidence prespTves the traces of an equally numerous
population in th' Miami Valley ; and the mounds and
earthworks of various kinds throughout the state of < hio are
estimated at between eleven and twelve thousand. They
are stated to be scarcely less numerous on the Kenhawas in
Virginia than c n the Scioto and Miamis, and are abundant
on the White River and Wabash, as also upon the Kentucky,
Cumberland, Tennessee, and numerous other tributaries
of the Ohio and Mississippi. Works accumulated in such
numbers, and, including many of great magnitude and ela-
borateness of design, executed by the combined labour of
large bodies of workmen, afford indisputable evidence of a
settled and industrious population. Beyond those carefully
explored regions, traces of other ancient structures have
been observed at widely separated points ; though caution
must be exercised in generalising from data furnished by
casual and inexperienced observers. All primitive earth-
works, whether for defence, sepulchral memorials, or religious
rites, have certain features in common ; and the tendency
of the popular mind is rather to exaggerate chance reseni-

X.]

DIFFEREISrr CLASSES OF IVORKS.

259

blances into forced analogies and parallels, than to exercise
any critical discrimination. Including, however, all large
earthworks essentially dissimilar from the slight structures
of the modern Indian, they appear to stretch from the
upper waters of thi Ohio to the westward of Lake Erie, and
thence along Lake Michigan, nearly to the Copper Regions
of Lake Superior. Examples of a like character have been
traced throug .i Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Nebraska Territory ;
while in the south their area is bounded by the shores of the
Gulf of Florida and the Mexican territory, where they seem
gradually to luse their distinctive character, and pass into
the great t( ocaliis of a higher developed Mexican architec-
ture. Their affinities are indeed more southern than northern.
Tiiey are scarcely, if at all, to ^*o found to the eastward of
the watershed between tho Mississippi and the Athintic, in
the States of Pennsylvania, New York, or Virginia , and
they have been rightly designated, from their chief site, the
Ancient Monuments of the MississippiValley, including those
of its tributaries, and especially of the valley of the Ohio.
There their localities fully accord with those which, in the pri-
mitive history of tlie Old World, reveal the most abundant
traces of an aboriginal population, in their occupation of the
broad alluvial terraces, or " river bottoms," as they are styled.
To the north the memorials of an ancient population are of
a different character ; and the earthworks in the vicinity
of the Great Lakes must be classed by themselves, as indi-
cating distinct customs and rites.

The remarkable works thus traceable over so large an
extent of the North American continent admit of being
primarily arranged into the two subdivisions of Enclosi res
and Mounds, and those again embrace a variety of works
evidently designed for very different uses. Under the first
of these heads are included the fortifications or strongholds ;
the sacred enclosures, destined, as is assvmed, for religious
rites ; and numerous miscellaneous works of "^he same class,
generally symmetrical in structure, but the probable use of

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ANCIENT STRONGHOLDS.

[chap.

which it is difficult to determine. The second subdivision
embraces the true mound-buildings, including what have
been specially designated sacrificial, sepulchral, temple, and
animal mounds. All partake of characteristics pertaining
to a broad level country ; but this is nowhere so strikingly
apparent as where mounds seem to have been purposely
erected as obser'^^atories or points of sight from whence to
survey the works elaborated on a gigantic scale on the level
plain. In addition to the s^rikiug features which their
external aspect exhibits : v/herever they have been excavated
interesting velics of the ancient builders have been disclosed,
adding many graphic illustrations of their social condition,
and of the artistic and industrial arts of the period to which
they pertain.

The British hill-forts, the remarkable vitrified forts of
Scotland, and the larger strongholds of the British abori-
gines, such as the ingenioi^ circumvallotions of the White
Caterthun overlooking the valley of Strathmore, all derive
their peculiar character from the mountainous features of
the country ; v:hile on the low ground, under the shadow
of the Ocliils, the elaborate earthworks of the Camp of
Ardoch show the strikingly contrasting castrametatiou of
the Koman invaders. The ancient raths of Ireland, which
abound in the level districts of that country, as well as on
heights where stone is not readily accessible, also furnish
highly interesting illustrations of earthworks with a special
cliaracter derived from the features of their localities. An
earthen dune or rath, as in the celebrated Rath Keltair at
Downpatrick, occupies a commanding site, where it is
strongly entrenched, with a considciable space of ground
enclosed within its outworks. The celebrated Hill of l^ani,
in the county of Meath, ceased, according to tradition, to
bo the chief seat of tlic Irish kings, since its desertion in the
latter part of tlie sixth century, shortly after the death of
Dermot, the son of Fergus. It appears to have been a for-
tified city ; and now, after the devastations of thirteen

[chap.

X.]

NATURAL SITES.

261

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centuries, its dunes, circumvallations and trenches, present
many interesting points of comparison with the more exten-
sive earthworks of the Mississippi valley. But n'^ither the
Scottish White Caterthun, nor the Irish Eath Keltair, or
even the Rath High of Tara Hill, can compare with the
remarkable American stronghold of Fort Hill, Ohio, or
Fort Ancient on the Little Miami River, in the same State.
The valley of the Mississippi is a vast sedimentary basin
extending from the AUeghanies to the Rocky Mountains.
Through this the great river and its numerous tributaries
have made their way for countless ages, working out shallow
depressiors in the plain, on which are recorded successive
epochs of change in the terraces that mark the deserted
levels of ancient channels. The edges of these table-lands
bordering on the valleys are indented by numerous ravines ;
and the junctions of many lesser streams with the rivers
have fo:7ned nearly detached peninsulas, or in some cases
tracts of considerable elevation insulated from the original
table-land. Many of those bluft' headlands, peninsulas, and
isolated hills presented all the requisite adapt^.tions for
native strongholds. They have, accordingly, been fortified
with great labour and skill. Embankments and ditches
enclose the whole space, varying in strength according to
the natural resources of the ground. The approaches are
guarded by trenches and overlapping walls, more or less
numerous in different forts ; and have occasionally a mound
alongside of the other defences of the approach, but rising
above the rest of the works, as if designed both for out-look
and additional defence. In some few cases the walls of
these enclosures are of stone, but if they were ever charac-
terised by any attempt at regular masonry all traces of it
have disappeared, and there seems little reason for suppos-
ing that such walls differed in essential character from the
earthworks. No cement was used, and in all probability
we have in them only the substitution of stone heaps instead
of earth-banks, owing to special local facilities.

262

FORT HILL, OHIO.

[chap.

One of the simplest, but most extensive of those primitive
strongholds, is Fort Hill, Ohio. The defences occupy the
summit of a height, elevated about five hundred feet above
the bed of Bush Creek, which flows round two sides of the
hill, close to their precipitous slope. Along the edge of this
hill a deep ditch has been cut, and the materials taken
from it have been piled up into an embankment, rising from
six to fifteen feet above the bottom of the ditch. In its
whole extent the wall measures eight thousand two hundred
and twenty-four feet, or upwards of a mile and a half in
length ; and encloses an area of forty-eight acres, now covered
with gigantic forest-trees. One of them, a chestnut, mea-
sured twenty-one feet, and an oak, though greatly decayed,
twenty-three feet in circumference, while the trunks of
immense trees lay around in every stage of decay. Such
was the aspect of Fort Hill, Ohio, a few years ago, and it
is probably in no way changed now. Dr. Hildrcth counted
eight hundred rings of annual growth in a tree which grew
on one of the mounds at Marietta, Ohio ; and Messrs. Squier
and Davis, from the age and condition of the forest, rscribed
an antiquity to its deserted site of considerably more than
a thousand years. In their present condition, therefore,
the walls of " Fort Hill " are ruins of an older date than
the most venerable stronghold of the Normans of England ;
and we see as little of their original completeness, as in the
crumbling Norman keep we are able to trace all the com-
plex system of bastions, curtains, baileys, buttress-towers,
and posterns, of the military architecture of the twelfth cen-
tury. Openings occur in the walls, in some places on the
steepest points of the hill, where access is impossible ; and
where, therefore, we must rather suppose that platforms
may have been projected to defend more accessible points.
The ditch has in many places been cut through sandstone
rock as well as soil ; and at one point the rock is quarried
out so as to leave a mural front about twenty feet high.
Large ponds or artificial resjrvoirs for water have been

X.]

IROQUOIS STRONGHOLDS.

263

►CI

made within the enclosure ; and at the southern point,
where the natural area of this stronghold contracts into a
narrow and nearly insulated projection terminating in a
bold bluff, it rises to a height of thirty feet above the
bottom of the ditch, and has its own special reservoirs, as
if here were the keep and citadel of the fortress : doubt-
less originally strengthened with palisades and military
works, of which every trace had disappeared before the
ancient forest asserted its claim to the deserted fortalice.
Here then, it is obvious we look on no temporary retreat of
some nomadic horde, but on a military work of great mag-
nitude ; which, even with all the appliances of modern
engineering skill, would involve the protracted operations
of a numerous body of labourers, and when completed must
have required a no less numerous garrison for its defence.
The contrast is very striking between such elaborate works
and the most extensive of those still traceable in Western
New York the origin of which appears to be correctly
assigned to Iroquois and other tribes known to have been in
occupation of their sites in comparatively recent times.

Among the native Indian tribes who have come under
direct observation of Europeans, none played a more pro-
minent part than the Iroquois. At the period of Ducch
disco s^ery in the beginning of the seventeenth century, they
occupied the territory between the Hudson and the Genesee
rivers, of which they continued to maintain possession for
nearly two centuries, in defiance of warlike native foes, and
the more formidable aggression of the French invaders.
Their numbers, at the period of their greatest prosperity,
about the middle of the seventeenth century, have been
variously estimated from 70,000, which La Hontan assigned
to them, to the more probable estimate of 25,000 given by
the historian of their League. Very cxjiggerated pictures
have been drawn by some modern writers of the Iroquois
confederacy. It was a union of tribes of savage hunters,
among whom only the germs of incipient civilisation are

264

ANALOGOUS STRONGHOLDS.

[chap.

traceable. They had indeed acquired settled habits, and
devoted themselveu to some extent to agriculture. But
with all the matured arts resulting from combined action
in the maintenance of their territory for successive genera-
tions against fierce hostile tribes, and the defence of an
extensive frontier constantly exposed to invasion, the traces
of the Iroquois strongholds are of so slight a description
that many of them have already been obliterated by the
plough.

From the facts thus presented to our consideration, it is
obvious that the highest estimate we can entertain of the
powers of combination indicated by the famous League of
the Iroquois, furnishes no evidence of a capacity for the con-
struction and maintenance of works akin to the strongholds
of the Mound-Builders in the Ohio valley. Striking as is
the contrast which the Iroquois present to more ephemeral
savage tribes, the remains of their earthworks present in
some respects a greater contrast to those of the Mound-
Builders than the latter do to the elaborate architecture of
Mexico and Yucatan. There are indeed points of resem-
blance between the strongholds of the two, as there are
between them and the British hill-forts, or any other earth-
works erected on similar sites ; but beyond such general
elements of comparison, — equally interesting, but as little
indicative of any community of origin as the correspondence
traceable between the flint and stone weapons in use by
the builders of both, — there is nothing in such resemblances
calculated to throw any light on the origin of those remark-
able monuments of the New World. It is rather from the
contrast between the two that we may turn the remains of
Iroquois defences to account, as suggestive of a greatly
more advanced condition of social life and the arts of a
settled population among the Mound-Builders of the Mis-
sissippi and its tributaries.

Further proofs of the settled character of th: ancient
population arc furnished by another class of defensive

[

X.]

FORTIFIED CIVIC SITES.

works, supposed to mark the sites of fortified towns. One
of these, called " Clark's Work," on the north fork of Point
Creek, in the Scioto valley, embraces an area of one hundred
and twenty-seven acres ; and encloses within its circum-
vallations sacrificial mounds, and symmetrical earthworks
assumed with every probability to have been designed for
religious or civic purposes. A stream has been turned into
an entirely new channel, in order to admit of the completed
circuit of the walls. " The embankments measure together
nearly three miles in length ; and a careful computation
shows that, including mounds, not less than three million
cubic feet of earth were used in their composition."^
Within the enclosures thus laboriously executed, many of
the most interesting relics of ancient art have been dug up,
including several coiled serpents of carved stone, carefully
enveloped in sheet mica and copper ; pottery, fragments of
carved ivory, discoidal stones, and numerous fine sculptures.
It is obvious that the population capable of furnishing
the requisite labour for works of so extensive a nature must
have been numerous, and its resources for the maintenance of
such a phalanx of workers proportionally abundant. The
garrisons of the great strongholds, and the population that
found shelter within such mural defences as *' Clark's
Work," must also have been very large, requiring for
their subsistence the contributions of an extensive district.
But this only accords with other proofs of the condition of
the Mound-Builders as a settled people. When we turn
from the consideration of single large fortifications crown-
ing the insulated heights, and estimate the number and
extent of mounds, symmetrical enclosures, and works of
various kinds connected with the arts of peace and the rites
of religious worship, which give so striking a character to the
river valleys and terraces, it is no longer possible to doubt
that many sections of this fertile region were once before
filled by an industrious, settled population.

— * Anciant Monuments of the Miealsslppi Valley, pp. 20-29, plate x. ^ -~

wm^fmm^m^smmmmmmKmmmm

266

SACRED ENCLOSURES.

[chap.

The Sacred Enclosures have been separated from the
military works of the Mound-Builders on very obvious
grounds. Their elaborate fortifications occupy isolated
heights specially adapted for defence ; whereas the broad
river terraces have been selected for their religious works.
There, on the great unbroken levels, they form groups of
symmetrical enclosures, square, circular, elliptical, and octa-
gonal, with long connecting avenues, suggesting compari-
sons with the British Avebury, or the Hebridean Callernish ;
with the Breton Carnac ; or even with the temples and
Sphinx-avenues of the Egyptian Karnak and Luxor.

The predominant impression suggested by the great mili-
tary earthworks of th3 Mound-Builders is that of the action
of a numerous population, co-operating under the guidance
and authority of approved leaders, with a view to the
defence of large communities. Elaborate fortifications such
as that of " Clark's Work " in the Scioto Valley, or " Fort
Ancient" on the Little Miami Kiver, are constructed on well-
chosen hills or blufis, and strengthened by ditches, mounds,
and complicated approaches ; but the lines of earthwork,
like those of the great Scottish hill-forts, are everywhere
adapted to the natural features of the site. With the
sacred enclosures it is wholly different. Some of these also
do, indeed, impress the mind with th.a imposing scale of
their embankments. On first entering the great circle at
Newark, and looking across its broad trench at the lofty
embankment overshadowed with full-grown forest trees, my
thoughts reverted to the Antonine vallum, which by like
evidence still records the presence of the Roman masters of
the world in North Britain. But after driving over a circuit of
several miles embracing the remarkable group of earthworks
of which this is only a single feature, and satisfying myself
by personal observation of the existence of parallel avenues
which have been traced for nearly two miles ; and of the
grand central oval, circle, and octagon, the smallest of
which measures upwards of huii->t-mile in circumference :

X.]

KiEWARK EAGLE MOUND.

267

all idea of mere combined labour is lost in the higher con-
viction of manifest skill, and even science. The angles of
the octagon are not coincident, but the sides are very nearly
equal ; and the enclosure approaches so closely to a perfect
figure that its error is only demonstrated by actual survey.
Connected with it by parallel embankments 350 feet long,
is a true circle, measuring 2880 feet in circumference ; and
distant nearly a mile from this, but connected with it by
an elaborate series of earthworks, is the circular structure
above referred to. Its actual form is an ellipse, the respective
diameters of which are 1250 feet, and 1150 feet, respec-
tively ; and it encloses an area of upwards of 30 acres.

At the entrance of i-his great circle the enclosing embank-
ment curves outward on either side for a distance of 100
feet, leaving a level way between the ditches, 80 feet wide.
The earthen mound, which is here higher than at any other
point, measures about 30 feet from the bottom of tie ditch
to the summit. The area of the enclosure is so nearly a
perfect level that Mr. J. M. Dennis, to whose intimate local
knowledge I was indebted for a thorough survey of the
works, informed me that he had observed during the rains
of the previous spring the water stood at a uniform level
nearly to the edge of the ditch. In the centre of this
enclosure is an earthen mound, still called " The Eagle." Mr.
Squier says of it : "It much resembles some of the animal-
shaped mounds of Wisconsin, and was probably designed
to represent a bird with expanded wings." It has been
opened and found to contain a hearth, or "altar." The fact
is important ; as it distinguishes it in this respect essen-
tially from the emblematic mounds of Wisconsin, and tends
to confirm the idea that the great circle and its related
groups of earthworks all bore some reference to sacred
games, or other strange rites of religion, once practised
within their circumvallations. But successive excavations
have greatly marred the original contour of the mound ;
and now that, with a view to the preservation of the prin-

V'^

r f«

268

GEOMETRICAL EARTHWORKS.

[chap. X.

cipal earthwork, it has been secured as the Licking County
fair ground, the erection of a grand stand on the summit of
the Eagle Mound has contributed still further to obscure
the traces of its primary form.

From the elliptical enclosure a wide avenue of two dis-
similar parts, seemingly constructed without relation to each
other, leads to a square of twenty acres, with seven mounds
disposed symmetrically within the enclosing walls, and
numerous other works occupy hundreds of acres with their
geometrical configurations. But in spite of the intelligent
interest which prevails in reference to those remarkable
monuments of an ancient people, the industrial operations
of the modern occupants of their sites ave fast obliterating
all but the most prominent works. In the great octagon I
noticed a difference of nearly five feet between the height
of the embankments still standing on uncleared land, and
those portions which have been long under the plough.
But for the aid of my intelligent guide I should have found
it impossible to trace out the indications of the parallel
ways ; and already many of the smaller mounds and en-
closures have entirely disappeared. Roads, railways, and a
canal, have successively invaded the sacred enclosures, and
wrought more changes in a single generation than had been
effected in all the previous interval since the discovery of
America. But the accompanying plan (Fig. 70), derived
from surveys executed while the chief earthworks could still
be traced in all their integrity, will enable the reader to
comprehend their character ; and if he clearly realises the
scale on which these geometrical figures are constructed, he
can be at no loss in recognising their essential difference
from the ephemeral earthworks which mark the sites of
Indian stockades or sepulchral mounds. While they pre-
sent certain analogies to mound-groups and enclosures both
of Europe and Asia, in many other respects they are totally
dissimilar : and illustrate rites and customs of an ancient
American people without a parallel among the monumental
memorials of the Old World.

t ,,

o
o

J25

!■

'ii

i. ;

:■'■ r,

•M'

i--

Ijilt:'

III'-. 1'^

Fill

CHAP. X.] A STANDARD OF MEASUREMENT.

371

Several striking coincidences between the details of these
works and others of the same class are worthy of notice.
The diameter of the circle, the perfect form of which has
been noted, is nearly identical with two others forming
parts of remarkable groups in the Scioto valley, one of them
seventy miles distant. The square has also the same area
as a rectangular enclosure belonging to the "Hopeton
Works," where it is attached to a rirclj 1050 feet in dia-
meter, and to an avenue constructed between two parallel
embankments 2400 feet long, leading to the edge of a bank
immediately over the river-flat of the Scioto. A like coin-
cidence in the precise extent of the area enclosed has been
noticed in the octagon of a group, called the High Bank
Works, on the same river-terrace ; and in another, at the
junction of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers. The authors
of the elaborate surveys embodied in the Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge, remark generally that the
figures of the Scioto valley earthworks are not only accurate
squares and perfect circles, but are in most cases of corre-
sponding dimensions ; each square being 1.080 feet a side,
and the diameter of each of the larger and smaller circles a
fraction over 1700 and 800 feet. This they observe is " a
coincidence which could not possibly be accidental, and
which must possess some significance. It certainly estab-
lishes the existence of some standard of measurement among
the ancient people, if not the possession ( " some means of
determining angles."^ It is no less import 't to note that
it establishes the use of instruments. A sti lard of mea-
surement could not otherwise exist, still less be applied, on
so large a scale in geometrical construction ; and the very
simplest instruments that we can conceive of, constitute no
less certain evidence of a condition of intellectual develop-
ment attained by this ancient people very diff'erent from
anything achieved by the most advanced Indian tribes.
Varied, moreover, as the combinations of their singular

^ Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 48.

272

DIVERSITY OF WORKS.

[chap.

groups of earthworks are, traces are clearly discarnible that
certain well-defined plans of construction, and a proportion-
ate scale of parts, guided their builders. Justly estimating
the importance of such coincidences, and the still greater
value of the evidence of the construction of geometric
figures on so large a scale, the authors of the surveys
have detailed their method of procedure, in order " to put
at once all scepticism at rest, which might otherwise arise
as to the regularity of these works." This important point
rests accordingly on the most satisfactory evidence ;^ nor
are evtxx the imperfections observed in the construction of
some of the roctaup^ular figures without their significance,
as a test of the extent to which geometry had been mastered
by the ancient builders.

That this remarkable class of earthworks originated in
some totally different purpo3e from the strongholds already
described, is obvious. Their site is invariably on a level
plateau, and their avenues are connected with the neigh-
bouring flats by laboriously constructed approaches, as if to
facilitate the solemn march of processions. The embank-
ments are frequently slight ; where a ditch occurs it is
generally in the interior ; and their whole construction is in
striking contrast to the defensive enclosures in their vicinity.
At Newark they extend over the level terrace, and, with
outlying structures, embrace an area of several miles in
extent ; while on each side of the Valley, formed by the
Racoon Creek, military works occupy prominent elevations
presenting special natural advantages for defence. One of
those, obviously of a defensive character, encloses the sum-
mit of a high hill ; but it also contains a small circle with
tumuli, covering " altars " corresponding to those hereafter
described, wluch give their peculiar character to the sacred
mounds. There is no room, therefore, for doubt that the
various works referred to illustrate what may be styled the
civil, military, and ecclesiastical structures of the same

* Ancknt Monumerits 0/ (he Mmissijipi Valley, p. 57.

|:'f 1

X.]

EVIDENCE OF SKILL,

273

people, including in the latter public games, such as among
many ancient nations constituted one special feature of their
religious festivals.

One important inference deducible from the peculiar fea-
tures of the works here referred to, is the state of knowledge
of their constructors. The most skilful engineer of our
own day would find it difficult, without the aid of instru-
ments, to lay down an accurate square on the scale of some
of those described, enclosing an area four-fifths of a mile
in circumference. Circles of moderate dimensions might
indeed be constructed, so long as it was possible to describe
them by a radius ; but with such works measuring five
thousand four hundred feet, or upwards of a mile in circum-
ference, the ancient geometrician must have had instru-
ments, and means of measuring arcs : for it seems impossible
to conceive of the accurate construction of figures on such a
scale, otherwise than by finding the angle by its arc, from
station to station, through the whole course of their delinea-
tion. It is no less obvious from the correspondence in area
and relative proportions of so many of the regular en-
closures, that the Mound-Builders possessed a recognised
standard of measurement; and that some peculiar signi-
ficance, possibly of astronomical origin, was attached to
figures of certain forms and dimensions.

The city of Cincinnati occupies a remarkable site, within
a fine basin of hills, on the Ohio river, which had for its
older occupants the remarkable people now referred to.
But the grow th of the modern city has swept away every
vestige of their old earthworks ; and no definite record of
their details has been preserved. One memorial, however,
survives, which was discovered in 1841, when excavating 1
largo mound within the limits of the city. It has been the
subject of ingenious speculations ; and may have some bear-
ing on our present investigations. In the centre of the mound,
slightly below the level of the natural surface, a skeleton was
found greatly decayed, alongside of which lay two pointed

VOL. I. §

»■; 3

Sii;.

274

yw/c' cmcrNNATr tablet.

[chap.

bones, about seven inches long, formed from the tibia of tlie
elk, and the engraved tablet shown in the accompanying
illustration (Fig. 71). It is made of fire grained sandstone,
and measures five inches in length, ])y two and six-tenths
across the middle, and three inches at the ends. Upon its
smooth surface an elaborate figure is represented, by sink-
ing the interspaces within a rectangular border, so as to
produce what has been regarded l)y some as a hieroglyphic
inscription. But the most remarkable feature of its graven
device is the series of lines by which the plain surface at
each end is divided. The ends of the stone, it will bo
observed, form arcs of circles of different dimensions. The

Fid. 71. (JiiKMiumtl Tiibli't,

greater arc is divided by ii series of lines, twenty-seven in
number, into eijual spaces, and within this is another series
of seven oblique lines. The lesser arc at the o[)positc end
is divided in like manner by two series of twenty-five and
eight lines, similarly .'n-raiiged. This tablet has not failed
to receive due attention. It hns been noted that it bears
II "singular resemblance to the Egyptian cartouche." Its
series of lines were discovered to yield, in the sum of the
])r()ducts of the longer and shorter ones, a near approxima-
tion to the number of days of the year. An astrono-

x.|

SCALES OF MEASUREMENT.

mical n-igiii was accordingly assigned to it ; and it has been
surmised to l)c an ancient calendar, recording the approxi-
mation of the Mound -Builders to the true length of the
solar year. Mr. Squier perhaps runs to an opposite extreme
in suggesting that it is nothing more than a stamp, of which
s])ecimens have been found made of clay, both in Mexico
and in the Mississippi mounds ; and which wcie probably
used in impressing ornamental patterns on cloth or prepared
skins. Such clay stamps always betray their purjjose by
the handle attached to them, as in the corresponding bronze
stamps common on Roman sites ; whereas the Cincinnati
tablet is about half an inch in thickness, with no means of
holding or using it as a stamp, and bears on its unfinished
reverse grooves apparently made in shar})ening the tools by
which it was engraved, l^ut whatever theory be adoptcil
as to its original object or destinatlcm, the series of lines on
its two ends have justly attracted attention : for they con-
stitute no part of the device ; and can scarcely be regarded
as an ornamental border. Possil)ly in them wc have a
record of certain scales of measurement in use l)y the
Mound-Builders ; nnd if so, the discovery is calculated to
add fresh interest to our study of the geometrical structures,
which, far more than their great mounds, are the true
cliaracteristics of that mysterious people.^

The precise objects aimed at in the construction of the
remarkal)le series of American earthworks here refen-ed to
must ol)viously be difficult to determine with certainty.
Analogies to these structures have been traced in the works
f Indian tribes formerly in occupation of Carolina and
Georgia. 'I'liey were attcustomed to erect a circular terrace
or platform on which their council-house stood. In front
of this, a ([uadranguhir area was enclosed with earthen

T:M^

%l<

' Tho WLxxlout is cngravwl from i\ rulil)iiig taken from tlio origimil. Mr. Whit-
UoHoy 1)08 inoludod this tiiltlct among IiIh " Archiuologioal Frauds ;" hut thn
result of inquiries made hy mo during a roccnf visit to Cincinnati has removed
from my mind any doubt of its genuinuness.

276

TRACES OF EXTINCT RITES.

[chap.

embankments, within which public games were played and
captives tortured. To this was sometimes added a square
or quadrangular terrace at the opposite end of the enclosure.
Upon the circular platform it is also affirmed that the
sacred fire was maintained by the Creek Indians, as part of
their most cherished rites as worshippers of the sun. But
even the evidence, thus far, is vague and unsatisfactory ;
and any recognisable analogies point, at best, only to the
possibility of some of the Indian tribes having perpetuated
on a greatly inferior scale some maimed rites borrowed
from their civilised precursors. The scale upon which the
Southern Indian earthworks were constructed may compare
with those of the Iroquois in the State of New York, but in
no degree approximates to the erections of the Mound-
Builders. What, for example, shall we make of che graded
ways, sujh as that of Piketon, Ohio, where au approach
has been laboriously formed from one terrace to another,
one thousand and eighty feet long by two hundred and
fifteen feet in greatest width ? The excavated earth has
])een employed, in part, to construct lofty embankments on
each side of the ascent, which are now covered with trees of
large size. Beyond this approach, mounds and half-obliter-
ated earthworks indicate that it was only part of an ex-
tensive series of structures. But, viewed alone, it is one of
the most remarkable monuments of prehistoric times to be
found on the whole continent, and certainly bears not the
slightest resemblance, either in its character or the great
scale on which it is executed, to any known work of the
Red Indians.

XL]

SOUR CES OF INFORM A TION.

277

^::i^'

CHAPTER XL

SEPULCHRAL MOUNDS.

SOURCES OP INFORMATION— HILL MOUNDS— THE SCIOTO MOUND— THE TAYLOR MOUND
— THK ISSAQUINA MOUND— THE ELLIOT MOUND — THE. LOCKPORT MOUND—
BIACK bird's grave— SCIOTO VALLEY MOUNDS— SYMBOLICAL RITES— HUMAN
SACRIFICES— THE GRAVE CUEEK MOUND— COMMON SEPULCHRES— CREMATION —
SCIOTO MOUND CRANIUM— SACRED FESTIVALS.

When the significance of the military and sacred en-
closures of the Mound- Builders has been fully estimated as
memorials of a remarkable people belonging altogether to
prehistoric ages of the New World, their sepulchral mounds
acquire a new value. In the former we see unmistakable
indications of a settled condition of society greatly in
advance of anything attained by the Red Indian, and of
populous communities devoted to agriculture and other
industrial arts. From the latter we may hope to recover
some traits of ethnical character ; to find in the gifts to the
d'jad illustrations of their arts and customs ; and to catch
by means of their sepulchral rites some glimpses of the
nature of that belief which stimulated the Mound -Builders
to the laborious construction of -so many sacred earthworks.'
Their great mounds are for us not merely the sepulchres of
an ancient race ; they are the cemetery of nn early though
partial civilisation, irom whence we may derive illustrations
of the life, manners, and ideas of a people over whose
graves the forest had so long resumed its swny, that it
seemed to the Red Indians' supplantcrs to have been the
first occupant of the soil. ^ i

» Barrows, dunes, moat-hills, cairns, and earth or stono

i?s ' Pi

" t M

II I

278

///LL MOUNDS.

[chap.

mounds of various kinds, abound in many parts of the Old
as well as of the New World, and are nowhere more abun-
dant than in some districts of the British Isles. But
although corresponding primitive structures are met with
from tlie Gulf of the St. Lawrence to the Isthmus of
Panama, and beyond it, far into the southern continent :
nevertheless the works of the Mound -Builders have a
character of their own altogether peculiar; and though
numbered by thousands, they are limited to well-defined
areas, leaving a large portion of the continent, including
the whole of the Atlantic sea-board, without any traces of
their presence. The Mound-Builders were not a maritime
people. Their whole traffic w\as confined to the great
rivers, along the banks of which their ancient traces abound,
and to communication by long-obliterated overland routes
of travel. Notwithstanding the careful observations which
have been put on record relative to the mounds and earth-
works of " The West," much yet remains to be disclosed ;
for, happily, the excavation of such earth-pyramids is a
work greatly too laborious and costly to tempt those who
are influenced by mcx^e idle curiosity ; while their contents,
however valuable to the archooologist, off'er no such stimulus
to cupidity as, in Mexico and Peru, has led to the destruc-
tion of thousands of \he memorials of extinct arts and
customs.

As a general rule, the earth and stone works appear to
have been alike constructed of materials derived from the
immediate neighbourhood ; so that such differences do not,
in the majority of instances, supply any indication of
diversity in the enclosed deposits. A special character,
however, appears to i)ertain to one class, designated ** Hill
Mounds," from, the sites they occupy. Of these Mr. Squier
remarks: "The most elevated and commanding positions
are fre(|uently crowned with them, suggesting at once the
purposes to which. some of the mounds or cairns of the
ancient Celts were applied : that of signal or alarm posts.

xr.]

THE SCIOTO MOUND.

279

[

It is not unusual to find detached mounds among the hills
back from the valleys, and in secluded places, with no other
monuments near. The hunter often encounters them in the
depths of the forests when least expected : perhaps over-
looking some waterfall, or placed in some narrow valley
where the foot of man seldom enters." Similar structures
crown many western heights ; but some at least arc of
Indian origin ; and our knowledge of the characteristics
and contents of those of an earlier race must be greatly
extended, before we can assign the true and probably varied
objects aimed at in their erection.

But it is to the exploration of one of the smaller hill-
mounds that we owe the recovery of the most characteristic
illustration of the physical type of the ancient Mound-
Builders. The " Scioto Mound Cranium," described in a
later chapter, was obtained from a mound erected on the
summit of a commanding height overlooking the valley of
the Scioto, with its numerous earthworks. A conical knoll,
crowning the hill, rises with such regularity as almost to
induce the belief that it is artificial ; and on its apex stands
the tumulus overshadowed by the trees of the primitive
forest. Here under a covering of tough yellow clay, im-
pervious to moisture, a plate of mica rested on an inner
cairn, composed chiefly of large rough stones ; and within
this, a compacted bed of carbonaceous matter contained the
skull, with a few bones, and some shells of fresh water
molluscs, disposed irregularly round it. This, therefore, it
will be seen, confirms the idea that cremation played an
important part in the ancient sepulclir;d rites.

More recently Professor 0. C. Marsh explored the Taylor
Mouml, another of the hill-mounds, about two and a half
miles south of Newark. Apparently a cemetery had been
excavated on tlie summit of the ridge, within which lay the
remains of at least eiglit skeletons, chiefly of women and
children, all huddled together, and some of them showing
evidouco of long exposure. Along with those were found

"Ms

l-:r

,u J

prm**"'^

280

THE TAYLOR MOUND.

[chap.

I \

nine lance or arrow-heads of flint, six small axes, one of
them made of hematite, and the remainder of diorite or
compact green-stone, a small wedge or hatchet of hematite,
a flint chisel, a scraper, numerous implements of bone and
horn, including needles, a spatula or modeller's tool, and a
whistle made from the tooth of a black bear. Above this
ossuary a number of dead had been disposed : some of
them evidently interred with care, others as if slaughtered
and flung upon the heap of dead ; while a mass of incin-
erated human remains left no doubt on the minds of the
explorers that cremation had taken place directly over the
dead, and before the regular interment was completed.
Hence they were led to the conclusion that the funeral rites
had probably included a suttee sacrifice.

Directly under the apex of the mound upwards of one
hundred beads of native copper, intermingled with a few
shell beads, lay in contact with portions of the cervical
vertebrae of a young child, showing that they had been
worn as a necklace. The shell beads are about half an inch
long, and have been carefully polished. The copper beads
are only half this length, and wrought with the hammer
out of the native copper ; but with so much skill, that in
most of them it is difficult to detect the joining. Only two
of the skulls were sufficiently preserved to indicate their
true form. Both were small, and showed the vertical
occiput and large parietal diameter, supposed to pertain to
the Mound-Builders, but which are characteristic of many
American crania.

The contents of the two hill-mounds are thus seen to
differ widely ; and so far furnish no clew to any special
mode of burial or funeral ceremonies. But the interment
of a detached skull, as shown in the Scioto Mound, is no
solitary case. I was shown by Mr. L. M. Hosea, of Cincin-
nati, a large bowl-shaped vessel of steatite, capable of hold-
ing about two gallons, discovered by the blowing down of
a tree which stood on the summit of a mound on the

XI.]

THE ISSAQUINA MOUND.

281

^!i"

borders of Lincoln and Casey Counties, Kentucky. It had
been inverted over a human skull, beside which lay a num-
ber of shell-beads, and a quantity of mica. In the same
mound was a large conch-shell, hollowed out, and filled
with bone implements, including two large, well-finished
whistles, several deers' horn hammers, and about thirty
bone pins and awls. A perforated copper plate, and some
well -finished stone and flint implements, completed the
contents of the mound. Unfortunately the skull was too
much decayed to admit of preservation.

I am indebted to Mr. W. Marshall Anderson for some
curious disclosures of the contents of another mound
recently opened by him at Issaquina, Mississippi. The
first remarkable discovery was the exposure of three
skeletons disposed vertically, as if they had been buried
with their heads above ground. On reaching the natural
level, a heap of ashes, with numerous fragments of bone,
showed where cremation had taken place. Over this were
three skeletons disposed at length, side by side, with a
drinking vessel and a wide-mouthed bowl of native pottery
close to the head of each. Numerous implements, including
tools of copper, well-finished celts of jasper and lignite, and
a grotesque clay-pipe representing a human head with dog's
ears, and a frog's mouth, lay alongside of them. But most
noticeable of all was the discovery of two inverted bowls in
the centre of the mound, underneath each of which lay a
human skull. One of them is described by Mr. Anderson
as " a beautiful skull, worthy of a Greek." But on being
exposed to the sun, as they dried, they crumbled to ashes,
" literally," as he says, " disintegrating before my eyes,
whilst I was busy gathering up copper and stone imple-
ments which would have waited for ever unharmed."

The only skeletons exposed in the Evans Mound, — a
large mound, near Newark, Ohio, at the opening of which I
was present, were in a similar condition of extreme decay.
Among the contents of the Taylor Mound, in the same

282

THE ELLIOT MOUND.

[chap.

locality, the curious fact was communicated to me, that the
fractured quarter of a nearly spherical mass of hematite
was found, which at the time attracted less notice than a
well-finished wedge and hatchet of the same material.
But on subsequently opening the Elliot and Wilson Mounds,
situated about five miles apart, in the same valley, each of
them was found to include among its contents a correspond-
ing fragment of hematite, which on being placed in juxta-
position, proved to be portions of the same broken sphere,
or nodule of hematite, valued in all probability for some
wonder-working power. Meteoric stones and pieces of
hematite have been repeatedly found in the Mounds ; and
were evidently objects of special regard. The Elliot
Mound furnished another object of interest, in a pipe 7i
inches long, neatly carved in gi'ey hmestone, with the bowl
finished in the form of a bear's head. As sliown in Fig. 72,
it is of an unusual style of design.

Fic. 72.— Stono Pipe, Elliot Mound, Ohio.

The establishment of the village of Lockport, on the
outskirts of Newark, and the more recent erection of
extensive ironworks there, have swept away a curious
group of mounds in that neighbourhood, including a
truncated pyramid, the contents of which appear to have
been of unusual interest. I examined in the collection
of Mr. Wm. L. Merrin, a solid copper armlet, a pair of
remarkable objects like double cymbals, a sheath subdivided
into thi3c tubes, supposed to be a quiver, a polished axe,

XI.]

THE LOCKPORT MOUND.

and several perforated plates, all of copper ; a perforated
lead amulet, a polished chisel of diorite, numerous large
shell Leads, and large plates of mica cut into a horse-shoe
shape : all of which were found at the base of the Lockport
Mouml, along with a number of skeletons. Subsequently
other objects of interest, including a large, well-finished
stone maul, of oval shape, with a deep groove round its
centre, and a mass of pure lead weighing upwards of four
pounds, have been found on its site, in opening up a road.
But it is obvious that in this, as in so many other cases, we
have to regret the destruction of a valuable memorial of
the past, without any adequate record of its disclosures
being preserved. Happily a more intelligent interest has
now been awakened in the subject ; the rarer objects of
antiquity in stone and in metal are highly prized, and are
therefore likely to be preserved as marketable articles even
by those who can see in them no other value ; and as each
mound or earthwork discloses some novel feature, fur-
ther research may be expected to add materially to our
knowledge.

The remoter hill-mounds may reveal similar analogies
in structure or contents to those of the plains ; and so fur
nish evidence that the population which crowded the great
centres, was diffused in smaller numbers, far inland from
the river's banks, in outlying valleys and among the
secluded recesses of the hills. There, perhaps, as among
the higher valleys of the Andes under the rule of the
Incas, a pastoral people supplemented the agricultural
industry of the central provinces, and shared with them
the common rites and superstitions of the national religion.

In some cases the lofty site of the hill-mound may have
determined its selection from the same motive which occa-
sionally guides the modern Indian in his choice of a spot
for his grave. Of this a striking illustration is furnished
in the history of one modern tumulus on the Missouri.
Upwards of half a century has elapsed since Black iiird, a

mi,
■:1-

!?;

384

BLACK BIRUS GRAVE.

[chap.

famous chief of the Omahaws, visited the city of Washing-
ton, and when returning was seized with small-pox, of which
he died on the way. When the chief found himself dying,
he called his warriors around him, and, like Jacob of old,
gave commands concerning his burial, which were as liter-
ally fulfilled. Dressed in his most sumptuous robes, and
fully equipped with his scalps and war-eagle's plumes, he
was borne about sixty miles below the Omahaw village, to
one of the loftiest bluflfs on the Missouri, which commands
a magnificent extent of river and landscape. His favourite
war-horse, a beautiful white steed, was led to the summit ;
and there, in presence of the whole nation, the dead chief
was placed on its back, looking towards the river, where,
as he had said, he could see the canoes of the white men as
they traversed the broad waters of the Missouri. His bow
was placed in his hand, his shield and quiver, with his pipe
and medicine-bag, were hung by his side. A store of
pemmican and a well-filled tobacco-pouch were supplied, to
sustain him on the long journey to the hunting-grounds of
the good Manitou, where the spirits of his fathers awaited
his coming. The medicine-men of the tribe performed their
most mystic charms to secure a happy passage to the land
of the great departed ; and all else being completed, each
warrior of the chiefs own band covered the palm of his
right hand with vermilion, and stamped its impress on the
white sides of the devoted war-steed. This done, the
Indians gathered turfs and soil, and placed them around its
feet and legs. Gradually the pile rose with the combined
labour of many willing hands, until the living steed and its
dead rider were buried together under the memorial mound;
and high over the crest of the lofty tumulus which covered
the warrior's eagle-plumes, a cedar post was reared to mark
more clearly to the voyagers on the Missouri, the last resting-
place of Black Bird, the great chief of the Omahaws.

One of the most striking evidences of the extent of occu-
pation of the country, and the denseness of its ancient

X..]

SCIOTO VALLEY MOUNDS.

28s

population, is furnished by a map in the Ancient Monu-
ments of the Mississippi Valley, showing a section of twelve
miles of the Scioto Valley. Square, circular, and polygonal
enclosures, single and in groups, parallels, ditches, and
mounds, occupy every available terrace along the banks of
the Scioto River, and its tributary Paint Creek. A group
of mounds in Ross county, Ohio, occupies the third terrace
on tl • east side of the Scioto Valley, nearly a hundred feet
above the river, and about equidistant from two remarkable
sacred enclosures. The principal mound is twenty-two feet
high ; and on penetrating to its centre the traces of a rude
sarcophagus of unhewn logs were indicated by the cast
which still remained in the compacted earth. The bottom
had been laid with matting or wood, the only remains of
which were a whitish stratum of decomposed vegetable
matter; and the timbers of the sarcophagus had in like
manner decayed, and allowed the superincumbent earth to
fall on the skeleton. Alongside of it were several hundred
beads, made of the columellse of marine shells and the
tusks of some animal, several of them bearing marks which
seemed to indicate that they were turned, instead of being
carved, or ground into shape by the hand. They retained
their position, forming a triple row, as originally strung
round the neck of the dead ; and, with the exception of a
few laminae of mica, were the only objects discovered in
the grave. A layer of charcoal, about ten feet square, lay
directly above the sarcophagus ; and seemed, from the
condition of the carbonised wood, to have been suddenly
quenched by heaping the earth over it while still blazing.

Similar layers of charcoal constitute a noticeable feature
in mounds of this class, and seem to indicate either that
sacrifices were performed over the bier, or that funeral rites
of some kind were celebrated, in which fire played an
important part. On these funeral pyres probably many
perishable articles were consumed ; as the beds of charcoal
are intermingled occasionally with fragments of bone, stone

286

SYMBOLICAL RITES.

[chap.

implements, ami other evidences of sacrifices and tribute to
the deceased. It is also apparent that the fire was kindled
and allowed, to blaze only for a limited time, when its
flames were quenched by heaping the earth over the glow-
ing embers ; so that while charcoal occurs beneath as well
as above the skeleton, the bones are unaffected by fire.
The rite was practised where cremation was not followed ;
and may have been symbolical of the lamp of life quenched
for ever in the grave. Implements, both of stone and
metal, have been found in these grave-mounds, but for the
most part their contents indicate a different condition of
society and mode of thought from what Indian sepulture
implies:. Weapons are of rare and exceptional occurrence.
The more common articles are personal ornaments, such as
bracelets, perforated plates of copper, beads of bone, shell,
or metal, and similar decorations worn on the body at the
time of its interment. Among the objects which appear to
have been purposely disposed around the dead, plates of
mica occur most frequently. In some cases the skeleton
has been found entirely covered with this material ; and in
others the laminae have been cut into regular figures : disks,
ovals, and symmetrical curves. As a general rule, how-
ever, it would appear that reverence for the dead was mani-
fested in other ways than by depositing costly gifts in the
grave ; nor do the relics found indicate any belief akin to
that which induces the modern Indian to lay beside his
buried chief the arms .and weapons of the chase, for use by
him in the future hunting-grounds or on the war-path. In
a few cases the simple sarcophagus has been constructed of
stone instead of wood ; in others the body appears to have
been merely wrapped in bark or matting. In some of the
Southern States both cremation and urn- burial seem to
liavebe'^n practised; but throughout the valleys of the Ohio
and its tributaries a nearly uniform system of sepulchral
rites has been traced. These no doubt bore some important
relation to the solemn religious observances indicated by

X..]

HUMAN SACRfFICES.

287

other works of the same people ; and as it is not in tlie
sepulchral mounds, but in those which cover the *' altars "
on which the sacrificial fires of the ancient worshippers
appear to have often blazed, that the greater number of
their works of art, and even their implements and weapons
have been found : it may be that there, rather than at the
grave-mounds, they propitiated the manes of the dead, and
sought by sacrifices of love and reverence to reach beyond
this world to one unseen. Other indications, however,
present analogies to the arrangements of cists and cinerary
urns in ancient British tumuli, which suggest no less clearly
the probability of human sacrifices, and a suttee self-immo-
lation at the grave of the great chief, so congenial to the
ideas of barbaric rank. Such cruel rites we know were
practised among the Mexicans and Peruvians on the largest
scale ; wives, concubines, and attendants being immolated
by the latter on the tomb of their deceased Inca, in some
cases even to the number of thousands.

The Grave Creek Mound, at the junction of Grave Creek
with the Ohio river, in the State of Virginia, commands,
on various accounts, a prominent distinction among the
sepulchral monuments of America. It occupies a site on an
extensive plain in connection with works now much oblit-
erated ; but its own gigantic proportions bid effectual
defiance to the operations which are lapidly erasing less
salient records of the ancient occupants of the soil. In the
year 1838, when various circumstances combined to direct
an unusual degree of attention to American antiquities,
Mr. Tomlinson, the pro})rietor of the land, had it explored
at considerable cost. A shaft sunk from the top, and a
tunnel carried to the centre, disclosed two sepulchnd cham-
l)ers, one at the base, and another thirty feet above. They
had been constructed, as in other cases, of logs, which
had decayed, and permitted the superincumbent earth,
with stones placed immediately over them, to fjdl upon the
skeletons. In the upper chamber a single skeleton was

288

THE GRA VE CREEK MOUND.

[chap.

found in an advanced :ate of decay, whilst the lower one
contained two skeletons, one of which was believed to be
that of a female. Beside these lay between three and four
thousand shell-beads, a number of ornaments of mica,
several bracelets of copper, and sundry relics of stone carv-
ing, referred to, along with works of art from other ancient
mounds, in a future chapter. But among them was in-
cluded an inscribed stone disc, which constitutes one of the
marvels of American antiquities. On reaching the lower
vault, after removing its contents, it wa? determined to
enlarge it into a convenient chamber for isitors, and in
doing so ten more skeletons were discovered, all in a sitting
posture, but in too fragile a state to admit of preservation.
The position of these immediately around the sepulchral
chamber, in the very centre of the mound, precludes all
idea of subsequent interment, and scarcely admits of any
other mode of accounting for their presence than that which
the human sacrifices both of ancient and modern American
obsequies suggest.

A tumulus of the gigantic proportions of the Grave Creek
Mound serves emphatically to impress the mind with the
conviction that such structures, even when of smaller
dimensions, were no accompaniments of common sepulture,
but the special memorials of distinguished chiefs ; or, it
may be, at times, of venerated priests. Of the busy popu-
lation that once thronged the valleys of the West we have
no other memorials than those which commemorate the toil
of many to give a deathless name to one now as nameless
as themselves. The investigators of their works, after de-
scribing in detail the monumental mounds, remark : " The
graves of the great mass of the ancient people who thronged
our valleys, and the silent monuments of whose toil are
seen on every hand, were not thus signalised. We scarcely
know where to find them. Every day the plough uncovers
crumbling remains, but they elicit no remark ; are passed
by, and forgotten. The wasting banks of our rivers occasion-

XL]

COMMON SEPULCHRES.

289

ally display extensive cemeteries ; biit sufficient attention
has never been bestowed upon them to enable us to speak
with any degree of certainty of their date, or to distinguish
whether they belonged to the Mound- Builders or a sub-
sequent race. These cemeteries are often of such extent
as to give a name to the locality in which they occur. Thus
we hear, on the Wabash, of the ' Big Bone Bank ' and the
Little Bone Bank,' from which, it is represented, the river
annually washes many human skeletons, accompanied by
numerous and singular remains of art, among which arc
more particularly mentioned vases and other vessels of
pottery, of remarkable and often fantastic form."* I have
been fortunate enough to obtain an interesting example of
the latter class of pottery, from Big Bone Bank, figured on
a subsequent page, which is specially valuable from the
striking analogy it suggests to familiar forms of Peruvian
pottery.

The Ohio and Erie canal traverses the river-terrace of the
Scioto Valley in the vicinity of Chillicothe, where the ancient
works of the Mound-Builders are more abundant than in any
other area of equal limits hitherto explored. In some cases the
canal has been cut through them, and it can scarcely admit
of doubt that many interesting traces of the arts and habits
of the remarkable people who once filled the long-deserted
scene, mu^t have been disclosed to heedless eyes. Here and
there, doubtless, a stray relic was picked up, wondered at,
and forgotten ; but nu note was taken of the circumstances
under which it was found, and no record made of the dis-
covery. And so must it ever be. The pioneers of civili-
sation in the uncleared wilds of the West are too entirely
preoccupied with the present, to spare a thought for long
forgotten centuries. Happily, however, this state of things
is passing away, and every year shows increasing evidence
of intelligent zeal in the recovery and preservation of wluit-

^ Ancient Monumenti qf tJie Misaiasippi Valley, p. 171.
VOL. I. T

290

CREMATION.

[chap.

ever is calculated to throw light on the prehistoric ages of
America.

The contents of the Scioto Valley Mound, as well as
of others described above, prove that the human remains
were deposited in them long after the body had gone to
decay ; and while numerous indications serve to show that
cremation was extensively practised by the Mound-Builders,
it is not improbable that a custom may have prevailed
analogous to the modern Indians' scaffolding and subsequent
sepulture of the bones of their dead. The remains thus
periodically gathered were sometimes deposited in a com-
mon ossuary, as in that of the Taylor Mound; and in
other cases were burnt, with fitting rites, and their ashes
heaped together, forming mounds, such as one opened on
the bank of Walnut Creek, in the Scioto Valley. The prin-
cipal portion of this consisted seemingly of long-exposed
and highly-compacted ashes, intermingled with specks
of charcoal, and small bits of burned bones. Beneath this
was a small mound of very pure white clay, resting on the
original soil, without any traces of the action of fire, over
which the incinerated remains had been piled into a mound,
nine feet in height by forty in base. The customs of the
North American Indians, however, were very diverse ; and
among the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians inhumation,
cremation, urn-burial, and mummification, accompanied
with deposition in artificial vaults and in caves, were all
practised. It need not therefore surprise us to find excep-
tions among the ancient Mound-Builders to any practice
recognised as most prevalent among them. Considering the
decayed state of most of the bones recovered from the great
sepulchral mounds, where they were equally protected from
external air and moisture : if the common dead were in-
humed under the ordinary little grave-mound, their bones
roust, for the most part, have long since returned to dust.
Nor must it be overlooked that the extremely comminuted
state to which most of the skeletons in the larger mounds

[chap.
Lges of

veil as
emains
rone to
)W that
;uilders,
cevailed
sequent
ns thus
a com-
and in
ir ashes
(cned on
]he prin-
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ti specks
eath this
ig on the
fire, over
a mound,
IS of the
;rse; and
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ompanied
, were all
od excep-
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lering the
the great
icted from
were in-
leir bones
I to dust,
minuted
r mounds

XI.]

SCIOTO MOUND CRANIUM.

291

have been reduced, when brought to light by modern ex-
plorers, is due, in part at least, to the falling in of a super-
incumbent mass of earth and stones upon them, when the
timber ceiKng of their sarcophagus had sustained the weight
long enough only to render them the less able to resist its
crushing force. The perfect preservation of the "Scioto
Mound cranium " was due to its being imbedded in char-
coal, over which a superstructure of large stones enveloped
with tough yellow clay had been piled, without any
treacherous timber vaults. It lay in the centre of the car-
bonaceous deposit, resting on its face. The lower jaw was
wanting, and only the clavicle, a few cervical vertebrae, and
some of the bones of the feet were huddled around it.
Unaccompanied though it was by any relics of art, it is, in
itself, one of the most valuable objects hitherto recovered
from the American mounds.

Such are some of the traces we are able to recover of
the sepulchral rites of this people. In discussing the con-
clusions suggested alike by their disclosures, and by those
which the sacrificial mounds, the sacred circumvallations,
and the buried works of art reveal, we are dealing with
characteristics of a race pertaining to periods long preceding
any written history. For us these are their sole chronicles ;
and yet, even from such data, we are able to deduce some
traits of moral and intellectual character. Perhaps the most
important fact for our present purpose is the rarity of
weapons of war among the sepulchral deposits. It accords
with other indications of the condition of the Mound-
Builders. They had passed be^' jnd that rude stage of
savage life in which war and the chase are the only honour-
able occupations of man. Their weapons of war, like their
fortresses, were means for the defence of acquisitions they
had learned to prize more highly. They had conquered the
forests, and displaced the spoils of the hunter with the
wealth of autumn's harvestings; and with the h ' 'ts of a
settled agricultural people, many new ideas had takcki the

li m

!;: 'i

292

SACRED FESTIVALS.

[chap.

place of the wild imaginings and superstitions of the savage.
As among all agricultural nations, the vernal and autumnal
seasons doubtless had their appropriate festivals; and we
can still, in imagination, reanimate their sacred enclosures
and avenues with the joyous procession bearing its thank-
offering of first-fruits, or laden with the last golden treasures
of the harvest-home.

XII.]

MOUl^D ALTARS.

293

^:S.I

CHAPTER XII.

SACRIFICIAL MOUNDS.

MOUND ALTARS— ALTAB OEFOSITS— QUENCHINQ THE ALTAR FIRES— MOUIO) HEARTHS
—MOUND CITY— MIUTARY ALTAR MOUNDS— THEIR STRUCTURE AND CONTENTS
—SIGNIFICANCE OP THEIR DEPOSITS— ANALOGOUS INDIAN BITES— TRANSI-
TIONAL CIVDJSATION.

The name of sacrificial mounds has been conferred on a
class of monuments peculiar to the New World, and highly
illustrative of the rites and customs of the ancient race of
the mounds. From their contents also we derive many of
the most interesting examples of the arts of that singular
people. The most noticeable characteristics of the sacrifi-
cial mounds are : their almost invariable occurrence within
enclosures ; their regular construction in uniform layers
of gravel, earth, and sand, disposed alternately in strata
conformable to the shape of the mound ; and their covering
a symmetrical hearth or altar of burnt clay or stone, on
which are deposited numerous relics, in all instances exhi-
biting traces, more or less abundant, of their having been
exposed to the action of fire.

, A sufficient number of sacrificial mounds has been opened
to justify the adoption of certain general conclusions rela-
tive to their construction and the purposes for which they
were designed. On the natural surface of the ground, in
most cases, a basin of fine clay appears to have been
modelled with care, in a perfectly symmetrical form, but

M \

nca

294

ALTAR DEPOSITS.

[chap.

varying in shape, and still more in dimensions. They have
been found square, round, elliptical, and in the form of
parallelograms ; and, in size, range from a diameter of two
feet, to fifty or sixty feet long, and twelve or fifteen feet
wide. The most common dimensions, however, are from
five to eight feet in diameter. The clay basin, or " altar,"
as it has been designated, invariably exhibits traces of
having been, subjected to the action of fire, and frequently
of intense and long-continued or oft-repeated heat. It is,
moreover, evident that in some cases it had not only been
often used ; but, after being destroyed by repeated expos-
ures to intense heat, it had been several times remodelled
before it was finally covered over by the superincumbent
mound.

Within the focus or basin of the altars are found numer-
ous relics : elaborate carvings in stone, ornaments cut in
mica, copper implements, disks, and tubes, pearl, shell, and
silver beads, and various other objects, hereafter referred
to, but 0,11 more or less injured by fire. In some cases the
carved pipes and other works in stone have been split and
calcined by the heat, and the copper relics have been melted,
so that the metal lies fused in shapeless masses in the centre
of the basin. Traces of cloth completely carbonised, but
still retaining the structure of the doubled and twisted
thread ; ivory or bone needles, and other objects destruc-
tible by fire, have also been observed ; and the whole are
invariably found intermixed with a quantity of ashes.
Large accumulations of calcined bones, including fragments
of human bones, also lay above some of the deposits, or
mingled with them ; and in other cases a mass of calcined
shells, or of fine carbonaceous dust, like that formed by the
burning of vegetable matter, filled up the entire hollow.
But while it is obvious from a few traces, that the deposits
on the altars had included ofierings of objects which yielded
at once to the destructive element to which they were there
exposed, as well as others capable in some degree of with-

XII.]

QUENCHING THE ALTAR FIRES.

295

standing the intensity of the flame : there are only faint
traces of all but the least destructible relics of stone or
metal. In one mound portions of the contents were
cemented together by a tufa-like substance of a grey colour,
resembling the scoriae of a furnace, and of great hardness.
But subsequent analyses demonstrated that it was made up
in part of phosphates ; and a single fragment of partially
calcined bone found on the altar was the patella of a human
skeleton. The long-continued, and probably oft-repeated
application of intense heat had reduced the cemented mass
to this condition. A quantity of pottery, many implements
of copper, and a large number of spear-heads chipped out
of quartz and manganese garnet, were also deposited on the
hearth ; but they were intermixed with much coal and ashes,
and were all more or less melted or broken up with the
intense action of the fire. Out of a bushel or two of frag-
ments of the spear-heads, and of from fifty to a hundred
quartz arrow-heads, only four specimens were recovered
entire. Scattered over the deposits of earth filling one of
the compartments, were traces of a number of pieces of
timber, four or five feet long, supposed by the explorers to
have supported a funeral or sacrificial pile. They had been
somewhat burned, and the carbonised surface preserved
their casts in the hard earth, although the wood had entirely
decayed. They had been heaped over while glowing, for
the earth around them was slightly baked ; and thus, after
repeated, and perhaps long-protracted sacrificial rites, some
grand final service had consummated the religious mys-
teries ; and the blazing altar was quenched by means of the
tumulus that was to preserve it for the instruction of future

ages. ^ :___—.-

The evidence that some of the altars remained in use for
a considerable period, and were repeatedly renewed ere
they were finally covered over, has suggested the idea that
they are no more than the hearths of the ancient Mound-
Builders' dwellings. But in some cases a single altar-hearth

296

MOUND HEARTHS.

[chap.

has been found within extensive circumvallations. When
in groups their enclosures aie slight demarcations, as of
places sacred to religious observances, and not defensive
embankments with outer ditch. Their contents cannot
be regarded as mere miscellaneous deposits, either like the
waste heap of an Indian hut, or the contents of the modern
Indian's ossuary ; and it is obvious that those hearths have
been systematically overlaid with mounds constructed with
great care, even where they were devoid of other traces
than the ashes of their final fires. In one large mound, for
example, one hundred and forty feet in length, by sixty feet
in greatest breadth, — already referred to as that in which so
many quartz spear and arrow heads, with copper and other
relics, were found ; — a new and smaller hearth was observed
to have been constructed within the oblong basin of the
original altar. In this all the relics deposited in the mound
were placed, and the outer compartments of the large basin
had been filled up with earth to a uniform level, the surface
of which showed traces of fire. A more minute examina-
tion led to the discovery that three successive altars had
been constructed, one above another, in addition to the
smaller hearth or focus which had received the final offer-
ings, ere it was buried under its enclosing mound. In other
examples the altars have been observed to be very slightly
burned ; but wherever such was the case, they have also
been destitute of remains.

Along with the evidences of a uniformity of system t:nd
purpose in those structures, there is also considerable
variety in some of their details ; and one group may be
selected, as on several accounts possessing peculiar features
of interest. On the western bank of the Scioto, an ancient
enclosure occupies a level terrace immediately above the
river. In outline it is nearly square with rounded angles,
and consists of a simple embaiiment, between three and
four feet high, unaccompanied by a ditch, or any other
feature suggestive of its having been a place of defence.

XII.]

MOUND CITY.

297

It encloses an area of thirteen acres, within which are
twenty-four mounds, including the large oblong one already
referred to. The whole of these have been excavated, and
found to contain altars and other remains, suggestive of
places of sacrifice, and not of sepulture. Here, therefore, it
may be assumed, was one of the sacred enclosures of the
Mound-Builders. The name of " Mound City " has been
given to it ; and the results of its exploration prove it to
have been one of the most remarkable scenes of ancient
ceremonial in the Scioto Valley. It would almost seem as
if here an altar had been reared to each god in the Ameri-
can pantheon ; for not the least remarkable feature observed
in reference to this class of mounds is, that they do not
disclose a miscellaneous assemblage of relics, like the
Indian's ossuary or grave-mound. On the contrary, the
sacrificial deposits are generally nearly homogeneous. On
one altar sculptured pipes are chiefly found, to the number
of hundreds ; on another pottery, copper ornaments, stone
implements, or galena ; on others, only an accumulation of
calcined shells, carbonaceous ashes, or burnt bones. One
mound of this enclosure covered a hearth in the form of a
parallelogram of the utmost regularity, measuring ten feet
in length, by eight in width, and containing a deposit of
fine ashes, with fragments of pottery, from which the pieces
of one beautiful vase were recovered and restored. With
these also lay a few shell and pearl beads. In another
oblong mound, the altar was an equally perfect square, but
with a circular basin, remarkable for its depth, and filled
with a mass of calcined shells. Another, though of small
dimensions, contained nearly two hundred pipes, carved
with ingenious skill, of a red porphyritic stone, into figures
of animals, birds, reptiles, and human heads. In addition
to these were also disks, tubes, and ornaments of copper,
pearl and shell beads, etc., but aU more or less injured by the
heat, which had been sufficiently intense to melt some of
the copper relics. The number of the objects found in this

298

MILITARY ALTAR MOUNDS.

[chap.

Mi, ■ 'i
IP-

mound exceed any othor single deposit. Some of them
supply illustrations of great importance relative to the arts,
habits, and probable origin of their makers ; and that they
were objects of value purposely exposed to the destructive
element can scarcely admit of doubt. A like diversity
marks the contents of other mounds, both within the enclos-
ure referred to, and in others where careful explorations
have been effected. From one, for example, upwards of
six hundred disks of homstone were taken, and it was
estimated that the entire deposit numbered little short of
four thousand.

It thus appears that sacrifices by fire were practised as an
important and oft-repeated part of the sacred rites of the
Mound-Builders ; and also that certain specific and varying
purposes were aimed at in the offerings. The altar-mounds
are chiefly found within what appear to have been enclos-
ures devoted primarily, if not exclusively, to religious pur-
poses; but they also occur, generally as single works,
within the military strongholds : where it may be assumed
they sufficed for sacrifices designed to propitiate the objects
of national worship, and to win the favour of their deities,
when the garrisons were precluded from access to the
sacred enclosures where national religious rites were chiefly
celebrated.

Within a quarter of a mile of " Mound City " a work of
somewhat similar outline, but of larger dimensions, suggests
the i<5ea of a fortified site : not designed as a military
stronghold, but as a walled town, wherein those who offici-
ated at the sacrifices of the adjacent temple may have
resided. Unlike the slight enclosure of the latter, its walls are
guarded by an outer fosse ; and if surmounted by a palisade,
or other military work, they were well suited for defence. The
area thus enclosed measures twency-eight acres ; and nearly,
if not exactly, in the centre is a sacred mound, which covered
an altar of singular construction, and with remarkable traces
of sacrificial rites. It had undergone repeated changes

XII.]

THEIR STRUCTURE AND CONTENTS.

299

before its final inhumation. Upon the ftA'-ar was found an
accumulation of burnt remains, carefully covered with a
layer of sand, above which was heaped the superstructure
of the mound. " The deposit consisted of a thin layer of
carbonaceous matter, intermingled with which were some
burnt human bones, but so much calcined as to render
recognition extremely difficult. Ten well- wrought copper
bracelets were also fcand, placed in two heaps, five in each,
and encircling some calcined bones, — probably those of the
arms upon which they were worn. Besides these .v^re
found a couple of thick plates of mica, placed upon :Le
western slope of the altar."^

All investigations coincide in proving that the altars of
the Mound-Builders were used for considerable periods, and
that their final incovering was effected with systematic
care. In this respect they present a striking contrast to
the sepulchral mounds of the Indians, the largest and most
imposing of which are no more than huge grave-mounds, or
earth -pyramids, sometimes elliptical or pear-shaped, but
exhibiting in their internal structure no trace of any further
design than to heap over the sarcophagus of the honoured
chief such a tumulus as should preserve his name and fame
to after times.

The investigation of this class of ancient works suggests
many curious questions to which it is difficult to furnish
any satisfactory answer. It seems probable that not only
each successive stage in the use and reconstruction of the
altar, but in the building of the superincumbent mound,
had its own significance and accompanying rites. In one
of the ** Mound City" structures, after penetrating through
four successive sand-strata, interposed at intervals of little
more than a foot between layers of earth ; and excavating
altogether to a depth of nineteen feet : a smooth level floor
of slightly burned clay was found, covered with a thin
layer of sand, and on this a series of round plates of mica,

* Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, p. 157.

i|^

^i;

"1
■ 'a

■a

> Hi

•J

: ^li

300

SIGNIFICANCE OF THEIR DEPOSITS.

[CHAP.

ten inches or a foot in diameter, were regulaily disposed,
overlapping each other like the scales of a fish. The whole
deposit was not uncovered, but sufficient was exposed to
lead the observers to the conclusion that the entire layer of
mica was arranged in the form of a crescent, the full dimen-
sions of which must measure twenty feet from horn to horn,
and five feet at its greatest breadth. In some mounds the
accumulated carbonaceous matter, like that formed by the
ashes of leaves or grass, might suggest the graceful oflPerings
of the first-fruits of the earth. In others, the accumulation
of hundreds of elaborately carved stone pipes on a single
altar, is suggestive of some ancient peace or war pipe cere-
monial, in which the peculiar American custom of tobacco-
smoking had its special significance, and even perhaps its
origin. In others again, we should perhaps trace in the
deposition under the sacred mound of hundreds of spear
and arrow heads, copper axes, and other weapons of war, a
ceremonial perpetuated in the rude Indian symbolism of
burying the tomahawk or war-hatchet. But looking to the
evidence which so clearly separates the sepulchral from the
sacred mounds, it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusion
that on some of the altars of the Mound-Builders human
sacrifices were made ; and that within their sabred en-
closures were practised rites 'lot less hideous than those
which characterised the worship which the ferocious Aztecs
arc affirmed to have regarded as most acceptuble to their
sanguinary gods. Among the Mexicans, if we are to
believe the narratives of their Spanish conqucrora, human
sacrifices constituted the crowning rite of almost evp^y
festival. That great exaggeration is traceable in the narra-
tives of the chronicles is admitted in p: rt even by the
enthusiastic historian of the conquest of Mexico ; and the
charming historical romance woven by Prescott, is perhaps
even more open to question in its reproduction of the gross
charges of cannibalism and wholesale butchery in the super-
stitious rites of the Mexicans : than in its gorgeous pictur-

XII.]

ANALOGOUS INDIAN RITES.

■^

■r S

QYPry

narra-
the
dtho
rhaps
gross
mpor-
ictur-

ings of their architectural magnificence, their temples and
palaces, sculptured fountains, floating gardens, and all the
strange blending of Moorish luxury, with the refinements
of European life, and its unreserved freedom of women.

Nothing corresponding to the geometrical enclosures or
altar-mounds of the Mississippi Valley appears among the
Torks of any Indian nation known to Europeans. Never-
theless in searching for evidence of their ethnical affinities,
we are naturally led to inquire if no traces of their peculiar
rites and customs can be detected in the ruder practices
of savage nations found in occupation of their deserted
sites ; and some of those in use by different Indian tribes
undoubtedly suggest ideas such as may have animated the
ancient people of the valley in the construction and use of
their mounds of sacrifice. One class of mound relics, for
example, is thus illustrated in Harlot's narrative of the dis-
covery of Virginia in 1 584. He describes the use of tobacco,
called by the natives uppdwoc, and greatly enlarges on its
medicinal virtues. He then adds : " This uppdivoc is of so
precious estimation amongst them that they think their gods
are marvellously delighted therewith, whereupon sometime
they make hallowed fires, and cast some of the powder
therein for a sacrifice." The discovery of unmistakable
evidence that one of the sacred altars of "Mound City"
was specially devoted to nicotian rites and offerings, renders
such allusions peculiarly significant. In the belief of the
ancient worshippers, the Great Spirit smelled a sweet savour
in the smoke of the sacred plant ; and the homely imple-
ment of modem luxury became in their hands a sacred
censer, from which the vapour rose with as fitting propitia-
tory odours as that which perfumes the awful precincts of
the cathedral altar, amid the mysteries of the Church's high
and holy days. --7-~"T"n"^^"'"?~T7~— ■'" •' ..,.::', .■-'••w:i:

It is indeed a vague and partial glimpse that wo recover
of the old worshipper, with his strange rites, his buried arts,
and cho traces of his propitiatory sacrifices. But slight as

'II' >i '

wmmm

302

TRANSITIONAL CIVILISATION

[chap.

it is, it reveals a condition of things diverse in many
respects from all else that we know of the former history
of the New World ; and on that account, therefore, its most
imperfect disclosures have an interest for us greater than
any discoveries relating to the modern Indian can possess.
Still more is that interest confirmed by every indication
which seems to present the ancient Mound-Builders as in
some respects a link between the rude tribes of the Ameri-
can forests and prairies, and those nations whom the first
Europeans found established in cities, under a well-ordered
government, and surrounded by many appliances of civilisa-
tion akin to those with which they had been long familiar
among ancient nations of southern Asia. To the great
centres of native progress still manifest in the ruined
memorials of extinct arts in Centra- America, and illus-
trated by so many evidences of iiaiional development
attained under Aztec and Inca rule, attention must be
directed with a view to comprehend whatever was essen-
tially native to the New World. But before turning south-
ward to those seats of a well-ascertained native civilisation,
there still remains for consideration one other class of earth-
works of a very peculiar character. The mineral regions
from whence the Mound-Builders derived their stores of
copper have been described ; but between them and the
populous valleys of the Ohio, an extensive logion inter-
venes, abounding in monuments no less i :'r-':able than
some of those already referred to ; and valuai iS* a possible
link in the detached fragments of such ancient v>.^roniclings.
Lying as they do in geographical, and perhaps also in other
relations, immediately between the old regions of the
Mound-Builders and the Miners of ante-Columbian cen-
turies, they cannot be overlooked in any archaeological
researches into the history of the New World.

■,l ; l«t.

XIII.]

THE WISCONSIN REGION,

CHAPTER XIII.

SYMBOLIC MOUNDS.

TIIF WISCONSIN HEGION— ANIMAL MOUNDS— SYMBOLIC MOUNDS— BIO ELEPHANT
MOUND— DADE COUNTY MOUNDS— MAGNITUDE OF EARTHWORKS— ENCL0SJJ3
WORKS OP ART— ROOK RIVER WORKS — THE NORTHERN AZTALAN— ANCIENT
GARDEN BEDS— THE WISCONSIN PLAINS— A SACRED NEUTRAL LAND— THE
ALLIGATOR MOUND— THE GREAT SERPENT, OHIO — SERPENT SYMBOLS— INTAGLIO
EARTHWORKS— SUGGESTIVE INFERENCES— THE ANCIENT RACE— A SACERDOTAL
CASTE— ANTIQUITY OF THE RACE —INFERIORITY OF THE INDIAN TRIBES.

The well-watered region which stretches westward from
Lake Michigan to the Mississippi, was occupied until
recently by a comparatively dense Indian population ; and
even now aflfords shelter to the remnants of native tribes.
But besides the traces of their ephemeral dwellings and
graves, it abounds with earthworks of a distinctive charac-
ter, peculiar to the New World. But of this as of other
partially explored regions of the west, the earlier accounts
were vague and contradictory ; and it is only very recently
that the characteristics of its monuments have been accur-
ately defined. Mr. J, A. Lapham, to whose Antiquities of
Wisconsin surveyed and described, the minute knowledge
of these remarkable earthworks is chiefly due, claims to
have first described the Turtle Mound at Waukesha and
other animal eflfigies of the same territory, so early as 1836.
These notices, however, only appeared in local newspapers ;
and general attention was for the first time directed to
them by Mr. R. C. Taylor in the American Journal of
Arts and Sciences, in 1838. Their peculiar character was
thereby perceived, and such general interest awakened, that
the American Antiquarian Society was induced to place

- a

304

ANIMAL MOUNDS.

[chap.

'"M

sp-i-r

funds at Mr. Lapham's disposal for carrying out the
elaborate surveys since published.

The occurrence of "Animal Mounds" is by no means
exclusively confined to the State of Wisconsin. Some
examples are specially worthy of notice among the varied
earthworks of the Ohio and Scioto Valleys. But the im-
portant fact connected with the aboriginal traces of Wis-
consin is that its Animal Mounds do not occur interspersed,
as in the Ohio Valley, with civic and sacred enclosures,
sepulchral mounds, and works of defence ; but within its
well-defined limits, thousands of gigantic basso-relievos of
men, beasts, birds, and reptiles, all wrought with persevering
labour on the surface of the soil, constitute its distinguish-
ing characteristic; and disclose no evidence of their con-
struction with any other object in view than that of
perpetuating their external forms. The vast levels or
sUghtly undulating surfaces of prairie land present peculiarly
favourable conditions for the colossal relievos of the native
artist : yet not more so than are to be met with in other
localities where no such mounds occur. It is importabt
therefore to bear in remembrance that defensive or military
structures, and such as are apparently designed for sacrificial
rites or religious ceremonies, are scarcely to be met with in
the territory marked by those singular groups of imitative
earthworks. The country, moreover, is well adapted for
maintaining a large population, in very diverse stages of
social progress. Through its gently undulating surface
numerous rivers and streams flow in sluggish, yet limpid
current, eastward and westward, to empty themselves into
Lake Michigan or the Mississippi. The pools and groups
of lakes into which they expand, furnish abundance of wild
rice, which is at once a means of sustenance to numerous
aquatic birds, and also constituted an important source of
supply to the aborigines, so long as they held possession of
the territory. The rivers and lakes also abound with excel-
lent fish ; and where the soil remains uninvaded by the

XIII.]

SYMBOLIC MOUNDS.

305

lerous
•ce of
on of
;xcel-
tho

ploughshare of the intruding settler, numerous traces of
older agricultural labour show where the Indians cultivated
the maize, and developed some of the industrial arts of a
settled people. Indian grave-mounds diversify the surface,
and enclose ornaments and weapons of the rude nomads
that still linger on the outskirts of that western state. But
such slight and inartificial mounds arc readily distinguish-
able from the remarkable structures of a remoter era which
constitute the archaeological characteristic of the region.
Here, indeed, as elsewhere, the Indian^i have habitually
selected the ancient earthworks as places of sepulture ; and
as a rule have given the preference to the larger and more
conspicuous mounds. On some of these the surveyors
recognised recent graves of the Potowattomies. But their
irregular position shows that they bear no relation to the
original design. In their superficial character they cor-
respond to the slight grave-mounds made with the imper-
fect implements of the modern Indians ; and they contrast
in all other respects with the laborious construction of the
gigantic animal mounds.

The symbolic earthworks of the Wisconsin plains are not
confined to the representation of animals, though the pre-
dominance of animal mounds has suggested that name for
the whole. Embankments occur in the form of crosses,
crescents, angles, and straight lines ; and also seemingly
as gigantic representations of the war-club, tobacco-pipe,
and other familiar implements or weapons. Some of the
crosses and other simpler forms probably originally repre-
sented animals, birds, or fishes, with extended wings or
fins. But in those, as in the better-defined animal mounds,
time has obliterated the minuter touches of the ancient
modeller, and effaced indications of his meaning. Yet
fancy still recognises among the best preserved relievos the
elk, buffalo, bear, fox, otter, and racoon. The lizard is of
frequent occurrence ; the turtle and frog also appear ; bir<l8
and fishes are repeatedly represented ; and man himself
VOL. L U

li I

" II

3o6

BIG ELEPHANT MOUND.

[chap.

figures among the ancient relievos. Of one form of mound
which Mr. Lapham identifies as the otter, seven examples
occur. Sixteen cruciform earthworks are described, and
the ordinary examples, of all sizes, are counted by hundreds.
It is not without reason that some of the larger mounds
in the midst of those emblematic earthworks have been
designated observatory mounds, and assumed to have been
constructed in order to afford a view of the laborious
devices. Ordinarily the mound builder is tempted to give
greater prominence to his tumulus by erecting it on the
s^immit of a hill or bluflf ; but on the prairie land of Wis-
consin, such natural elevations are wanting ; and hence the
construction of a class of works for which the lowest
levels were preferred. The "Big Elephant Mound," which
measures 135 feet in length, is constructed in a valley gently
sloping to the Mississippi, a few miles below the junction
of the Wisconsin River. The ridges on both sides offered a
choice of elevated sites ; but the bottom land nearly on a
level with the Mississippi at high water, has been purposely
chosen, so that the device might be surveyed from the
neighbouring heights. Fancy is prompt to assign a mean-
ing to the old modellers' works. In this example, the pro-
longed snout, or proboscis, has led to its designation as the
"Big Elephant Mound ;" and the delineator of it, in the
Smithsonian Report for 1872, so confidently relies on its
purposed significance that he asks : " Is not the existence
of such a mound good evidence of the contemporaneous
existence of the mastodon and the Mound-Builders ? " The
figure, though comparatively large, is surpassed by many.
Some indeed are on a gigantic scale. One mound of pecu-
liar, but indeterminate form, tapers for a length of five
hundred and seventy feet. At its smaller extremity or tail,
it slightly curves to the east. At the opposite extremity
are a large cross, and one of the largest circular mounds.
Its device can no longer be recognised; but much ingenuity
and still more labour, have been expended on its construe-

XIII.]

DADE COUNTY MOUNDS.

307

tion. Another remarkable group in Dade County, includes
six quadrupeds of indeterminate species, six parallelograms,
a large tumulus, a circle, and a human figure. The animals
are grouped in two rows ; and the tumulus seems as though
it had been erected as an observatory from which to view
the elaborate design. An ingenious English critic recog-
nises in it the possible memorial of a triumph like that of
the ancient Greek charioteer in the national games, with
the appropriate substitution of a sledge for the chariot,
and a train of dogs for the fleet racers of the hippodrome.
" Taking," he says, " the rudeness of the age and workman-
ship into account, the impracticability of the material, and
the scale and material, the whole is really not a bad repre-
sentation of the dog-drawn sledges of the Kamschatdales of
the present day. Supposing their horns to have been
omitted, from the impracticability of raising earthworks
that would stand well, and in proportion to represent them,
they might have signified the elk or the reindfeer. What-
ever animal, however, be taken, it is perhaps a legitimate
inference that we have here the colossal trophy of a super-
Atlantic charioteer at some American race ; why not the
curious hippodrome, or, more correctly here, cynodrome,
with its starting-cells (carceres), its course, its meta, and
road of triumph to the town?" ^

It was not necessary for the fanciful interpreter to resort
to remote Kamschatka for the model of his dog-drawn
sledge, for such are common enough among the Indians of
the North-west. But a general survey of the earthworks
of Wisconsin in no degree tends to confirm this interpreta-
tion, unless in so far as such animal mounds may have been
monumental memorials, and trophies of achievements in
wars and the chase. As such they are executed on a scale
which gives evidence of the systematic expenditure of an
enormous amount of labour ; and as the opinion has latterly
found favour with some that the great mounds are simply

^ Journ. Brit, ArcliOfol, Am, xfA, \. \t. MX,

3o8

MAGNITUDE OF EARTHWORKS.

[chap.

I" I I

.h. I

the result of many successive interments ; and the marks of
regular stratification in some of them have been adduced
in confirmation of this idea : the corresponding proportions
of the animal mounds are significant. In them at least a
preconceived design has guided the builders from the out-
set ; and some adequate idea of the magnitude of the Dade
County group will be formed from a correct estimate of the
proportions of the supposed charioteer. He is figured, as
is usual in similar mounds, with his limbs extended, and
with arms of disproportionate length ; possibly owing to
the design originally representing some implement in each
hand. From head to foot he measures one hundred and
twenty-five feet, and one hundred and forty feet from the
extremity of one arm to that of the other. The head alone
is a mound twenty-five feet in diameter, and nearly six
feet in highest elevation from the surrounding soil. Mea-
suring the whole by this scale, it is abundantly apparent
that a group, including altogether fifteen mound -figures,
must have been a work of immense time and labour, and
doubtless owed its origin to some motive or purpose of
corresponding magnitude in the estimation of its con-
structors. ,;

Mr. Schoolcraft attempted to solve the mystery of the
emblematic mounds by assuming them to be the Totems, or
heraldic symbols, in use among the Indian tribes, thus
reproduced in earthworks on a gigantic scale. The fox, the
bear, the eagle, turtle, or other animal, is selected among
them as the sign of the tribe or family. This usage pre-
vailed among the Iroquois, Hurons, Algonquins, Cherokees,
and other nations occupying very extensive areas; and,
accordingly, guided by the superficial resemblance of the
Animal Mounds to such totemic signs, Mr. Schoolcraft
says : " A tribe could leave no more permanent trace of an
esteemed sachem, or honoured individual, than by the erec-
tion of one of these monuments. Th ey are clearly sepulchral ,
and have no other object but to preserve the names of dis-

XIII.]

ENCLOSED WORKS OF ART.

309

tinguished actors in their history." ^ But exploration seems
to prove that the emblematical mounds of Wisconsin are
not sepulchral ; while any correspondence that may be
traced between them and the totemic symbols of tribes once
so widely spread as the Algonquins, Iroquois, and Cherokees,
only increases the mystery of symbols constructed on this
colossal scale, and confined to a territory so limited. So
far indeed is a careful survey from confirming any such
convenient and summary fancy, that Mr. Lapham states, as
the result of elaborate explorations, that he conceives four
epochs are traceable in the history of the locality, two of
which at least preceded the era of occupation by the Indian
tribes. The period of the animal-mound builders strikingly
contrasts with that of the earthworks previously described,
in the rarity of enclosed works of art. But the few im-
plements discovered are full of interest from their obvious
resemblance to those of the Mound-Builders. Several of
the large hornstone discs which I have seen are of the same
type as those found in immense numbers in the Ohio
Mounds; and Mr. Albert H. H ^y of Racine, Wisconsin,
describes in a letter to me the disi every of about thirty of
the same relics, in that vicinity, under circumstances sug-
gestive of great antiquity. They lay at a depth of eight
feet in undisturbed soil, under a thin bed of peat, in what
appeared to have been the ancient bed of the Kuck River.

The sites of the symbolic earth w^orks of Wisconsin cor-
respond to those adopted by the Mound-Builders for their
sacred enclosures ; though others of their works, and espe-
cially the most remarkable of their animal-mounds, were
constructed on prominent heights. Within the fertile
region bounded by the great lakes and the Mississippi, a
numerous population may have long dwelt undisturbed, in
the enjoyment of the profusion which wood and water and
the easily cultivated soil supplied. On the bluffs and
terraces surmounting the rivers and lakes by which facilities

^ Hhlor]] of Fndian Tribes, vol. i. p. 52.

310

ROCK RIVER WORKS.

[chap.

of communication with the surrounding territory, and with
more distant regions, were commanded, the earthworks are
found in extensive and evidently dependent groups. But,
unlike the rich memorial mounds of the Scioto Valley, they
reveal few enclosed relics to chronicle the history of their
erection, and throw light on the race of artists "who labori-
ously diversified the natural landscape with such devices.
In a few cases, human remains have been found in them,
under circumstances which did not clearly point to a modern
date ; but in summing up the results of his explorations,
Mr. Lapham remarks : — " So far as I have had opportunity
to observe, there are no original remains in the mounds of
imitative form, beyond a few scattered fragments that may
have gained a place there by accident. Many of the mounds
have been entirely removed, including the earth beneath
for a considerable depth, in the process of grading streets
in Milwaukee ; and it is usually found that the natural sur-
face had not been disturbed at the time of the erection, but
that the several layers or strata of mould, clay, gravel, etc.,
are continuous below the structure, as on the contiguous
grounds. Great numbers of the smaller conical tumuli are
also destitute of any remains ; and if human bodies were
ever buried under them, they are now so entirely * returned
to dust ' that no apparent traces of them are left." *

The extensive works at Aztalan, on the west branch of
Kock Kiver, present analogies of a different kind from the
sacred and civic enclosures of the Mound-Builders. They
constitute, it is believed, the only ancient enclosure, pro-
perly so called, throughout the whole region of the emble-
matic mounds ; and, under the name of the " ancient city
of Aztalan," were long recarded as one of the wonders of
the western world. Early explorers were on the look-out
for the mother city of the Aztecs, and the first surveyor of
the earthworks on Rock Kiver named them Aztalan, in the
full belief that the long-sought city of Mexican tradition

* Antiquities (^ Wisconsin, p. 80.

XIII.]

THE NORTHERN AZTALAN.

had at length been found. The name was a stimulus to
credulity and wonder; and proved the source of much
extravagant exaggeration. Walls of brick still sustained
by their solid buttresses ; a subterranean vault and stair-
way discovered within one of its square mounds ; a subter-
ranean passage, arched with stone ; bastions of solid masonry,
and other features of the like kind : were all made to cor-
respond with the supposed mother-city of the Aztecs, and
the cradle -land of America's native civilisation. On being
subjected to accurate survey, those wondrous features vanish.
Freed, however, from exaggeration and falsehood, the Azta-
lan works still present remarkable characteristics. An
area of seventeen acres on the banks of the Rock River is
enclosed on three sides by a vallum with regular " bastions,"
as they have been termed ; although both the construction
of the walls, and the site of the enclosure — commanded as
it is by elevated land on nearly every side, — preclude the
idea of its having been a place of defence. Large, square,
terraced mounds occupy the northern and southern angles.
In one of them a human skeleton was found ; and in others
of the mounds coarse pottery occurs ; but both may have
been deposited long subsequent to the completion of the
earthworks of Aztalan. With these exceptions, nothing
has yet rewarded the careful and elaborate excavations of
its explorers tending to throw light on the original builders.
Its bastions have been tunnelled in vain ; and cuttings
made in some of the largest of a remarkable range of
tumuli outside the enclosures revealed only ashes, mingled
with charcoal and fragments of human bones, unaccom-
panied by a single work of art, like those which confer so
graphic an interest on the mounds of the Ohio VaUey.

Assuming the works of Aztalan and the animal mounds
of Wisconsin to belong to the same period : Mr. Lapham
assigns the conical mounds to a later era. These he regards
as built for sepulchral purposes, and exhibiting, both in
construction and materials, the workmanship of a greatly

' ! ^^1

I' I

312

ANCIENT GARDEN BEDS.

[chap.

inferior race of builders. Next come what are designated
by the modern settlers " ancient garden beds," consisting of
low, broad, parallel ridges, as if corn had been planted in
drills. They average four feet in width, and the depth of
the space between them is six inches. These appearances
indicate a more perfect system of agricultural operations
than anything known to have been practised by the modern
Indian tribes ; but, at the same time, they are no less dis-
tinctly disconnected with the construction of the ancient
mounds. Where these occur within a cultivated area, the
parallel ridges of the old cultivators are carried across them
in the same manner as over any other undulation of the
ground. It is obvious, therefore, not only that the emble-
matic earthworks preceded them, but that they had neither
sacredness nor any special significance in the eyes of the
cultivators of the soil. Probably, indeed, such traces of
agricultural operations belong to a greatly more modern
period.

What, then, are the inferenc "> be drawn from the
ancient monuments peculiar to the territory lying immedi-
ately to the south of the great copper region of Lake
Superior? They are mostly of a negative character, yet
not on that account without significance. If we assume
the existence of contemporary nations in Wisconsin and the
Ohio Valley in the period of the Mound-Builders, the
chronicles of that era exhibit them to us in striking con-
trast. In the one region every convenient height is
crowned with the elaborate fortifications of a numerous and
warlike people ; while, on the broad levels of the river-
terraces, ingenious geometrical structures prove their skill
and intellectual development as applied to the formation of
civic and temple enclosures. Their sacred and sepulchral
mounds, in like manner, reveal considerable artistic skill,
and a singular variety in the rites and customs exacted in
the performance of their national worship. Turning to the
northern area, all is changed. Along the river- terraces we

XIII.]

THE WISCONSIN PLAINS.

313

look in vain for military structures. The mounds disclose
no altars rich with the metallurgic or mimetic workman-
ship of their builders ; but, on the contrary, the sole traces
of imitative art occur in the external forms of earthworks,
the exploration of which confutes the idea of their having
been erected over either grave or altar, and reveals no other
purpose of their construction.

When it is considered that, along with the mica of the
Alleghanies, the shells of the Gulf of Mexico, and obsidian
from the ancient centre of American civilisation, the copper
of Lake Superior is one of the most abundant materials
found in the Mississippi mounds : we are tempted to trace
some intimate relation between the warlike occupants of
the Ohio and Scioto valleys and the singular race who
dwelt in peaceful industry on the well watered and plenti-
fully stocked plains to the south of the copper region, and
there const ncted their strange colossal memorials of imita-
tive art. i he country seems peculiarly adapted by nature
as a central neutral land for the continent to the east of the
Kocky Mountains. On the east it is guarded by Lake
Michigan, and on the north by the great inland sea which
constitutes the fountain of the whole lake and river chain
that sweeps away on its course of twenty-five hundred
miles, over Niagara, and through the islands and rapids 0"
the St. Lawrence, to the Atlantic. On the west, with its
infant streamlets originating almost from the same source,
the Mississippi rolls onward in its majestic course, receiving
as its tributaries the great rivers which rise alike on the
western slope of the Alleghanies and the eastern declivities
of the Rocky Mountains, and loses itself at length in the
Gulf of Mexico. This wonderful river system, and the
great level contour of the regions which it drains, exercised
a remarkable influence on the extinct civilisation of America,
as well as on later Indian nomad life, making its primitive
eras so different from any phase of Europe's history. The
Indians who traded with Carticr at Tadousac, on the lower

[■: I'll!

A SACRED NEUTRAL LAND.

[chap.

St. Lawrence, and those whom Raleigh met wuth on the
coast of Carolina, obtained their copper from the same
northern region towards which the head- waters of the
Missitot*T)pi and the St. Lawrence converge ; while the world
of Europe between the Rhine and the Baltic remained, even
in its late Roman era, almost as much apart from that on
its Mediterranean shores as the America of centuries before
Columbus. It seems, therefore, not inconceivable that the
prairie land of Wisconsin derives some of its archaeological
characteristics from its relation to the physical geography
of the region between the Rocky Mountains and the
Atlantic, possibly as a sacred neutral ground attached to
the metallurgic region of Lake Superior, like the famous
pipe-stone quarry of the Couteau des Prairies.

This idea of some peculiar relations connecting the
symbolic architects of Wisconsin with the Mound-Builders
of the Ohio, derives confirmation from the few but remark-
able animal mounds of the latter, in which their connection
with the religious rites of the ancient race is borne out.
One example of an animal mound, upwards of 250 feet
in length, and probably designed to represent a bear, occu-
pies a high level terrace on the west bank of the Scioto
river. Unlike any of the symbolic mounds of Wiscon-
sin, it is surrounded bv an oval embankment measurin<]j
four hundred and eighty feet in greatest diameter. On the
south side a space of about ninety feet wide breaking the
continuity of the embankment, is covered by a long exterior
mound, leaving two avenues of approach where it overlaps
the inner oval. This mound has not been opened ; but in
the process of excavating the Ohio canal, large quantities of
mica, similar to what occurs so abundantly in the sacrificial
mounds, were found in its immediate vicinity.

The same canal intersects Newark earthworks ; and there,
within another elliptic vallum, is the Eagle Mound, measur-
ing 155 feet in length of body, and 200 feet between the
tips of the wings. It is only -x minor feature of the remark-

XIII.]

THE ALLIGATOR MOUND.

315

the

able group, already described, which includes geometrical
enclosures, mounds, and avenues ; but it is distinguished
from all the others, by the great scale of its enclosing walls,
and interior ditch. Unfortunately it was opened by a
former proprietor in search of treasure ; and no further
record of its contents has been preserved, except that it
covered a hearth of a similar character to the altars already
described as characteristic of the sacrificial mounds. The
fact, however, illustrates the contrast between works bearing
so much external resemblance to each other as the symbolic
mounds of the Mississippi Valleys and those of Wisconsin.
In the absence of all included relics of worship or inhuma-
tion, the latter seem but as symbols of the rites practised by
the southern Mound- Builders.

About six miles higher up the same valley, the " Alli-
gator," of Licking County, attracts attention as another
remarkable colossal animal-mound. It occupies the summit
of a lofty hill or spur, which projects into the Racoon Creek
Valley. The outline and general contour of this huge
lizard-mound are still clearly defined, though agricultural
operations have obliterated some of the minuter traces
noted by early visitors. The average height is four feet ;
but the head, shoulders, and rump, are elevated in parts to
a height of fully six feet. The tail curls off to the left side,
and is now so indefinite, as it tapers towards a point, that
the precise measurement is uncertain ; but the total length
of the " Alligator " may be stated at about 220 feet. Exca-
vations made at various points have only shown that the
figure has been modelled in fine clay upon a framework of
stones of considerable size. But when I visited it, a rain
gully had exposed part of the side of the hill, showing this to
consist to a large extent of loose atones ; so that the mound
is no doubt constructed with materials obtained on tlic
spot. A raised circular structure, designated the altar, and
covered with stones which had been much exposed to the
action of fire, is described by former observers aa standing

'58

11 \

3i6

THE GREAT SERPENT, OHIO.

[chap.

on the right side, and connected with the summit of the
mound by a graded way ten feet broad ; but the traces of
'' his feature are now very slight.

The site of this remarkable monument commands a view
of the entire valley for eight or ten miles, and is by far the
most conspicuous point within that limit. An ancient
fortified hill stands about three-fourths of a mile distant on
a spur of the same range of heights ; and another entrenched
hill nearly faces it on the opposite side of the valley.
Numerous mounds occupy both the hill-tops and the levels
in surrounding valleys ; and it is only the luxuriant gi'owth
of the forest which conceals the great Newark group, with
its geometrical enclosures, parallels, and mounds. The
Alligator Mound may, therefore, be assumed to symbolise
some object of special awe or veneration, thus reared on one
of the chief high-places of the nation, where the ancient
people of the valley could witness the celebration of rites
of their unknown worship. Its site was obviously selected
as the most prominent natural feature in a populous dis-
trict abounding with military, civic, and religious structures.
Yet its imposing proportions are surpassed by another sym-
bolic work constructed on a height remote from any traces
•of ancient settlement.

The Great Serpent of Adam's County, Ohio, occupies the
extreme point of a crescent-formed spur of land formed at
the junction of two tributary streams of the Ohio. This
elevated site has been cut to a conformity with an oval cir-
cumvallation on its summit, leaving a smooth external
platform ten feet wide, with an inclination towards thci
embankment on every side. Immediately outside the inner
point of this oval is the serpent's head, with distended jaws,
as if in the act of swallowing what, in comparison with its
huge dimensions, is spoken of as an ^^g, though it measures
100 feet in length. Conforming to the summit of the hill,
the body of the serpent winds back, in graceful undulations,
terminating with a triple coil at the tail. The figure is

XIII.]

SERPENT SYMBOLS.

boldly defined, the earth-wrought relievo being upwards
of five feet in height by thirty feet in base at the centre of
the body ; and the entire length, following its convolutions,
cannot measure less than a thousand feet.

This singular monument stands alone, and though classed
here with the symbolic animal-mounds of Wisconsin, it has
no analogue among the numerous basso-relievos wrought on
the broad prairie-lands of that region. It is indeed alto-
gether unique among the earthworks of the New World, and
without a parallel in the Old ; though it has not unnaturally
furnished the starting-point for a host of speculations rela-
tive to serpent- worship. Among the miniature sculptures
of the Mound-Builders, repeated examples of the serpent
occur. On one of the altars of " Mound City " was a pipe
of the form peculiar to the mounds, with a rattlesnake
coiled round the bowl. From another mound of the same
earthwork several sculptured tablets were recovered, repre-
senting the rattlesnake, delicately carved in fine cinnamon-
coloured sandstone ; and one of them carefully enveloped
in sheets of copper. The character of these sculptures, and
the circumstances under which they were discovered, sug-
gested to the explorers that they were not designed for
ornaments , but had some relation to superstitious rites.
Other serpents are represented by the Mound-Sculptors ;
but the rattlesnake is the favourite type. I recently
examined, in the Pcabody Museum of ArchoBology at Cam-
bridge, Mass., a series of eighteen engraved circular plates
made from the shell of the Pyrula, which were obtained
from the Brakebill and Lick Creek Mounds, in East Ten-
nessee. Thirteen of them bear the same device of a rattle-
snake. Among the Mexicans it was the symbol of royalty ;
and this helps to give a special interest to a remarkable
tablet figured here, in the same style of art. so suggestive of
Mexican affinities. It is a disk of fine-grained sandstone,
nearly 8i inches in diameter, and three-quarters of an inch
thick, on which is graven the elaborate device of two inter-?

3i8

INTAGLIO EARTHWORKS.

[chap.

twined rattlesnakes, as shown in Fig. 73. On the back a
slight ornament runs round the border ; and a fractured
mort'ce-hole, somewhat out of the true centre, shows where
a handle has been attached to it. It was fourd in two
pieces, near Lake Washington, Issaquina County, Missis-
sippi ; and is now in the possession of Mr. W. Marshall
Anderson, of Circleville, Ohio.

The imitative mounds of Wisconsin hitherto described
are in bold relief ; but on the Indian Prairie, a few miles

«*;

Fio. 73.— Lake Wiwhington Disk.

from the city of Milwaukee, there occur five designs, wrought
— to use a term of European art, — in intaglio. Instead of
the representations of animals being executed in relief, the
process has been reversed, and the outline has been com-
pleted by piling the excavated earth round the edge. A
few similar examples have been noted at other points ; but
such a process is more liable to effacement in the progress
of time, unless renewed like the famous " White Horse " of
Berkshire, by a periodical " scouring." The chall'. hills of
southern England present peculiar facilities for effective

XIII.]

SUGGESTIVE INFERENCES.

319

colossal intaglio work. Another White Horse, ascribed to
Saxon victors of the Danes, accompanies a group of British
earthworks on Braddon Hill, Wiltshire ; and the colossal
human figure, armed with a club, at Cerne, in Dorsetshire,
preserves a still closer counterpart to those scattered over the
prairie lands beyond the western shores of Lake Michigan.
But for our present purpose the comparison of these
ancient earth w^orks with others clearly traceable to modem
Indian tribes, is more important than any analogies
between the antiquities of the two hemispheres. One fact
of obvious significance is the great scale on which the pre-
historic races of America wrought, and the consequent
evidences of numbers, and of combined labour pcrseveringly
applied to the accomplishment of their aim. It is difficult
to convey any definite conception of this by mere descrip-
tion, even though accompanied with minute measurements.
A single cruciform mound measures four hundred and
twenty feet between the extreme points of its limbs. Liz-
ard and other animal-mounds ranging from eighty to a
hundred and fifty feet in length occur in extensive groups ;
and by their systematic arrangement, impress the mind
with the idea of protracted toil carried on under the control
of some supreme rule, or stimulated by motives of para-
mount influence. The Indian tribes that have come under
observation are as diverse in habits, arts, and religious rites
as in language ; but none of them have manifested any
capacity for the combination involved in the construction of
monuments which more nearly resemble the great embank-
ments and viaducts of modern railway engineering. The
extent of such works indicates a settled condition of society,
and industry far beyond that of the Iroquoia Confederacy.
In all this there may be nothing absolutely incompatible
with the idea of the Indians being degenerate descendants
of such a people, yet it is unsupported by proof. No
modern tribe preserves any traces of such ancestral construc-
tive habits ; and while the animal-mounds appear to bo

K .*

I' it

i*'

320

THE ANCIENT RACE.

[chap.

regarded with superstitious reverence by the Indians, and
are rarely disturbed except for purposes of sepulture, they
lay no claim to them as the work of their fathers. The
only theory of their origin is, that they are the work of the
great Manitou, and were made by him to reveal to his red
children the plentiful supply of game that awaits them in
the world of spirits. The idea is a consoling one to tribes
whose hunting-grounds have been invaded and laid desolate ;
and it is fully as philosophical as a theory gravely pro-
pounded to the American Scientific Association, that the
cruciform and curvilinear earthworks intermingled with the
animal-mounds include characters of the Phoenician alpha-
bet, and are half-obliterated inscriptions commemorative of
explorations by the great voyagers of antiquity.

What then are the inferences thus far deducible as to the
races of Northern America in ante-Columbian centuries?
Assuming a community of arts, and certain intimate rela-
tions in race and social condition, among the ancient people
who worked the mines on Lake Superior, and constructed
the varied earthworks that reach southward into Indiana,
Ohio, and Kentucky: there is no reason to suppose that
they were united as one nation. While coincidences of a
remarkable kind in the construction, and still more in the
dimensions of their great earthworks, point to a common
knowledge of geometrical configuration, and a standard of
measurement : no two earthworks so entirely correspond as
to show an absolute identity of purpose. The marked diver-
sity between the truncated, pyramidal mounds of the states
on the Gulf, the geometrical enclosures of Ohio, and the
symbolic earthworks of Wisconsin, indicate varied usages
of distinct communities. A dense population must have
centred in certain favourite localities, still marked by evi-
dence of the combined labours of a numerous people ; and
some supreme rule, like that of the Incas of Peru, must
have regulated the operations requisite for the execution of
works planned on so comprehensive a scale.

XIII.]

A SACERDOTAL CASTE.

321

The Scioto and the Ohio valleys, it may be presumed,
were the seats of separate states, with frontier populations
living in part on the produce of the chase ; but depending
largely on agricultural industry for the sustenance of the
communities crowded on the flats and river- valleys where
their monuments abound, and for the supply of the work-
men by whose combined labour they were constructed.
The religious character and uses ascribed to one important
class of their earthworks, in which scientific skill is most
clearly manifested, points to the probable existence of a
sacerdotal order, such as played an important part in
the polity both of Mexico and Peru. There is indeed so
great a discrepancy between the remarkable combination of
science and skill in the execution of the Ohio earthworks,
and the crude state of the arts otherwise associated with
them, as to suggest the idea of a sacerdotal caste, like the
Brahmins of India, distinct in race, and superior in intel-
lectual acquirements to the great mass of the people.

Of the physical cliaracteristics of the Mound-Builders,
notwithstanding the ransacking of many sepulchral mounds,
we possess as yet very partial evidence. This department
of the subject will come under review in a subsequent
chapter ; and it will then be seen that while the accepted
Mound-Builders' type of head has been largely based on the
very specimen selected by Dr. Morton, as " the perfect type
of Indian conformation," with its undoubted traces of com-^
pression, and of the use of the cradle -board, go character-
istic of the Indian hunter : it seems not improbable that a
systematic exploration of the mounds may disclose evidence
of a ruling class differing physically as well as intellectually
from the mass of the community l)y whose toil the enduring
monuments of their singular rites and customs have been
perpetuated. -- _^— -.^,^-.— ^

But, while the Mound-Builders are essentially prehistoric,
according to all New World chronology, there is nothing in
the disclosures hitherto made calculated to suggest for them

VOL. I. 1 X

322

ANTIQUITY OF THE RACE.

[chap.

an extremely remote era. Tlie marvellous traces of geo-
metrical skill in their great earthworks, more than any-
thing else, separate them from every known race north of
Mexico. The indications of antiquity in the mines of Lake
Superior, and the mounds of Ohio, suggest no such enor-
mous intervals of time as perplex us in attempting to deal
with the relics of the caves and river-valleys of Europe.
The refilled trenches on the barren rocks of Isle Koyal
manifestly demand centuries for the slow accumulation of
sufficient soil and vegetable matter to refill the excavations.
Dr. Hildreth ascribes eight hundred years of growth to a
tree felled on one of the mounds at Marietta ; and other
trustworthy authorities, including Messrs. Squier and Davis,
furnish similar evidence for lesser periods of four, five, and
six centuries. The longest term thus indicated would be
little enough for the filling up of the deserted trenches of
Isle Royal. But however far back we carry the era of the
Mound-Builders, the chief change which the regions occu-
pied by them have since undergone, is the clothing of their
valleys, and the earthworks erected there, with the forests
which help us to some partial guess at the intervening
centuries since their disappearance. The animal remains
hitherto found in their mounds are those of the existing
species of deer, bears, wolves, and other fauna, not even now
wholly extirpated from Ohio ; and while their ingenious
sculptures prove that they were familiar with a more
southern, and even a South- American tropical fauna :
nothing has yet been discovered to connect them with an
extinct, much less a fossil mammalia, such as the mastodon.:
The probability rather is that the ruins of Clark's Work, or
Fort Ancient, may match in antiquity with those of Eng-
land's Norman keeps, and even that their builders may
have lingered on into centuries nearer the age of Columbus.
The Zuni, Moquis, Pimos, and other tribes of New
Mexico, have left curious evidences of a people of gentle
skill in agriculture, in ceramic art, and above all, in archi-

xni.] INFERIORITY OF THE INDIAN TRIBES. 323

tecture, beyond anything pertaining to the northern Indians,
or even in some respects to the Mound- Builders. But
there still remains the distinct and perplexing element
of a people so partially civilised, and comparatively rude ;
yet able to construct squares, circles, ellipses, and other
geometrical figures on a scale which would tax the skill of
many a well -trained civil engineer of the present day.

Other characteristic traits of the Mound-Builders, espe-
cially as shown in their ingenious sculptures, and illustrated
by their mimetic art, have yet to be considered. But this
at least is apparent, that the most advanced among the
Indian tribes of North America within its historical period
represent a phase of life essentially inferior to that which
had preceded it. Before the great river- valleys were over-
shadowed with their ancient forests, nations dwelt there
practising arts and rites which involved many germs of
civilisation. Their defensive military skill, their agricul-
tural industry, and even their ideas of the relations
of man to some supreme spiritual power, are suggested
by evidence, which, though inadequate for any detailed
chronicle, discloses glimpses of an unwritten history full
of interest even in this tantalising form. We have still to
consider other characteristics of the ancient race, including
their geographical n.nd ethnical relations. But before doing
so, it is desirable to review the history of other ancient
American races among whom civilisation attained a higher
development, and of whom we have historical evidence, as
well as the chronicles which archaeology supplies.

!'J;

I I

&f p,

324

T/f£: TOLTECS.

[chap.

CHAPTER XIV.

NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILISATION.

THE TOLTECS — IXTLILXOCHITL — THE AZTECS— AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE— A2TALAIT
— THE VALLEY OP MEXICO — MONTEZUMa'S CAPITAL — ITS VANISHED SPLENDOUR
—MEXICAN CALENDAR— THE CALENDAR STONE— MEXICAN DEITIES— TOLTEO
CIVIUSATION— RACE ELEMENTS— THE TOLTEC CAPITAL— TEZCUCAN PALACES—
THEIR MODERN VESTIGES— QUETZALCOATL— THE PYRAMID OF CHOLULA— THE
SACRED CITY— THE MOQUI INDIANS — THE HOLY CITY OP PERU— WORSHIP OF
THE SUN— ASTRONOMICAL KNOWLEDGE— AGRICULTURE— THE LLAMA— WOVEN
TEXTURES — SCIENCE AND ART— NATIVE INSTITUTIONS— METALLURGY — ORIGIN
OP THE MEXICANS— MINOLINQ OP RACES.

The Toltecs play a part in the initial pages of the New
World's story akin to the fabled Cyclops of antiquity.
They belong to that vague era which lies beyond all definite
records, and furnish a name for the historian and the
ethnologist alike to conjure with : like the Druids or the
Picts of the old British antiquary, or the Phoenicians
of his American disciple. Yet it is not without its value
thus to discover among the nations of the New World,
even a fabulous history, with its possible fragments of
truth embodied in the myth. Mr. Gallatin has com-
piled a laborious digest of the successive migrations and
dynasties of Mexico, as chronicled from elder sources, by
Ixtlilxochitl, Sahagun, Veytia, Clavigero, the Mendoza
Collection, the Codex Tellurianus, and Acosta.^ The
oldest dates bring the Toltec wanderers to Huehuetla-
pallan, a.d. 387, and close their dynasty in the middle of
the tenth century; when they are superseded by Chichi-

' American Ethnological Sockty'a Transactions, vol. i. p. 102.

XIV.]

IXTLILHOCHITL.

"^^

mecas and Tezcucans, whose joint sovereignty, by the
unanimous concurrence of authorities, endured till the
sixteenth century. But, meanwhile, the same authorities
chronicle the foundation of Mexico or Tenochtitlan, vari-
ously in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, by Aztec
conquerors ; and profess to supply the dynastic chronology
of Aztec power. The earliest date is not too remote for the
commencement of a civilisation that has left such evidences
of its later maturity ; but unfortunately the various
authorities differ not by years only, but by centuries.
Ixtlilxochitl carries back the founding of Mexico upwards
of a century farther than any other authority ; and in the
succeeding date, which professes to fix the election of its
king, Acamapichtli, the discrepancies between him and
other authorities vary from two to considerably more than
two and a half centuries, and leave on the mind of the
critical student impressions as unsubstantial as those per-
taining to the regal dynasties of Alban and Sabine Rome.
Spanish chroniclers and modern historians have striven to
piece into coherent details the successive migrations into
the Vale of Anahuac, and the desertion of the mythic
Aztalan for the final seat of Aztec empire on the lake of
Tezcuco ; but their shadowy history marshals before us only
shapes vague as the legends of the engulfed Atlantis.

There is something suggestive of doubt relative to much
else that is greatly more modern, to find the historian of
the Conquest of Mexico tracing down the migrations and
conquests of the Toltecs from the seventh till the twelfth
century, when the Acolhunns or Tezcucans, the Aztecs, and
others, superseded them in the Great Valley. We turn to
the foot-notes, so abundant in the carefully elaborated
narrative of Prescott, and we find his chief or sole authority
is the christianised half-breed Don Fernando de Alva, or
Ixtlilxochitl, who held the ofiice of Indian interpreter of the
Viceroyalty of New Spain in the beginning of the seven-
teenth century. Compared with such an authority, Bedo

' ,»

f ''

' i, ,'i

i I

TTkj
Its

■ i

326

THE AZTECS.

[chap.

should be indisputable as to the details of Hengist and
Horsa's migrations, and Geoffrey of Monmouth may be
quoted implicitly for the history of Arthur's reign.

But the Aztecs, at any rate, are no mythic or fabulous
race. The conquest of their land belongs to the glories
of Charles v., and is contemporary with what Europe
reckons as part of its modern history. The letters of its
conqueror are still extant ; the gossiping yet graphic
marvels of his campaigns, ascribed to the pen of Bemal
Diaz, a soldier of the Conquest, have been diligently ran-
sacked for collation and supplementary detail ; and the
ecclesiastical chroniclers of Mexican conquest and coloni-
sation, have all contributed to the materials out of which
Prescott has woven his fascinating picture of Hernando
Cortes and his great life-work. It is a marvellous historical
panorama, glittering with a splendour as of the mosques
and palaces of Old Granada. But a growing inclination is
felt to test the Spanish chroniclers by surviving relics of
that past which they have clothed for us in more than
oriental magnificence ; and, for this purpose, to relume that
curious phase of native civilisation which the Conquest
abruptly ended. Yucatan and Central America still reveal
indispu^'ble memorials of an era of native architectural
skill, to which attention must be directed. But, mean-
while, it is important to note that an assumed correspon-
dence between the architecture of Central America and that
which is atiirmed to have existed in Mexico at the time of
the Conquest constitutes the basis of many fallacious argu-
ments on the nature and extent of Aztec civilisation in
the era of the second Montezuma. Again, the conflicting
elements apparent between the barbarous rites and canni-
balism ascribed to the Aztecs, and the evidences of their
matured arts and high civilisation, have been the plentiful
source of theories as to Toltecan and other earlier deriva-
tions for all that pertained to such manifestations of intel-
lect and inventive genius. It is important, therefore, to

XIV.]

AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE.

327

determine the actual character of Mexican architecture.
The remains of the extinct Mound-Builders are full of
wonder for us ; but the reputed magnificence of Monte-
zuma's capital throws their earthworks into the shade, as
things pertaining to America's childhood. Before, however,
this conclusion can be accepted, it is indispensable that we
test, by existing evidence, the descriptions of Mexican art
and architecture handed down to us by chroniclers of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

A peculiar style is recognised as pertaining to the native
architecture of America, which it has been the favourite
fancy of American antiquaries to trace to an Egyptian or
Phoenician source. Alike in general character and mode of
construction, in the style of sculpture, and the hieroglyphic
decorations which enrich their walls : the ruined palaces
and temples of Mexico, as well as of Yucatan and Central
America, have been supposed to reproduce striking charac-
teristics of the Nile valley. But the experienced eye of
Stephens saw only elements of contrast instead of com-
parison ; and while Prescott sums up his history of Mexican
conquest with this conclusion, "that the coincidences are
sufficiently strong to authorise a belief that the civilisation
of Anahuac was, in some degree, influenced by that of
eastern Asia," he adds, that the discrepancies are such as to
carry back the communication to a period so remote as to
leave its civilisation, in all its essential features, peculiar
and indigenous.

It is not always easy to determine the characteristics of
some of the most famous monuments of Mexican art. The
ruined city of Aztalan, on the western prairies : after fill-
ing the imagination with glowing fancies of a Baalbek or
Palmyra of the Nev^ World, from whence the Aztecs had
transplanted the arts of an obliterated civilisation to the
Mexican plateau, shrunk before the gaze of a truthful sur-
veyor into a mere group of mounds and earthworks, pre-
senting no other analogies than those which class them

328

AZTALAN.

[chap.

with the works of the American Mound- Builders. It may
be, however, that a critical survey will reveal traits in the
later Aztecs of Anahuac, rendering such an ancestral birth-
land not wholly inconsistent with their actual condition
when brought into contact with the civilisation of Europe.
Such at least seems to be the tendency of modern dis-
closures ; if, indeed, they do not point to the possibility
that much even of the latest phase of Mexican civilisation
may present closer analogies to the actual Aztalan of the
Wisconsin prairies than to the fancied mother-city of the
Aztecs.

• Midway across the continent of North America, where it
narrows towards a point between the Gulf of Mexico and
the Pacific, the civilisation of the New World appears to
have converged at the close of the fifteenth century. Here
the traveller from the Atlantic coast, after passing through
gorgeous tropical flowers and aromatic shrubs of the deadly
tier7'a caliente, emerges at length into a purer atmosphere.
The vanilla, the indigo, and flowering cacao-groves are
gradually left behind. The sugar-cane and the banana
next disappear ; and he looks down through the gorges of
the elevated iierra templada on the vegetation of the
tropics, carpeting, and scenting with its luscious but deadly
odours, the region which stretches along the Mexican Gulf.
Higher still are regions where the wheat and other grains
of Europe's temperate zone replace the tall native maize ;
until at length he enters the tierra fria: climbing a suc-
cession of terraces representing every zone of temperature,
till he rests or the summit of the Cordillera. Beyond this
the volcanic peaks of the Andes tower into the regions of
perpetual snow ; while the traveller crosses the once thickly-
wooded table-land into the valley of Mexico : an oval basin
about sixty-seven leagues in circumference, and elevated
beyond the deadly malaria and enervating heat of the
coast, into a temperate climate, nearly seven thousand five
hundred feet above the sea. Here, encompassed by the

[chap.

t may

in the

birth-

iditicn

kirope.
rn dis-
sibility
iisation
L of tlie
r of the

svhere it

ico and

pearB to

-. Here
through

le deadly

[losphere.

oves are
banana

gorges of
of the

at deadly
can Gulf,
er grains
^e maize ;
ng a sue-
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regions of

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i elevated
:;at of the
>usand five
ed by the

XIV.]

THE VALLEY OF MEXICO.

salt marshes of the Tezcucan Lake, stood the ancivint
Tenochtitlan or Mexico, " The Venice of the Aztecs."

In the month of October 1519, Don Diego de Ordaz
effected the ascent of the volcanic Popocatepetl, from whence
he beheld the valley of Mexico with its curious chain of
lakes ; and caught a glimpse of the far-f;imed capital of
Montezuma, with its white towers and pyramidal teocallis
reflecting back the sun from their stuccoed walls. The
scene seemed to realise such a dream of ror • e as Bernal
Diaz reports of Cempoal : '*The Buildings," ui o - s, " having
been lately whitewashed and plastered, one of <>' r horsemen
w^as so struck Avith the splendour of their appearance in the
sun, that he came back in full speed to Co.Hes to tell him
that the walls of the houses were of silver!" The men of
that generation which witnessed the discoveries of mighty
empires, and an El Dorado beyond the known limits of the
world, had their imaginations expanded to the reception of
any conceivable wonders. Sir Thomas More constructed
his Utopia out of such materials ; and Othello styles his
wonderful rela tions " of antres vast and deseits idle," a
" traveller's history."

The poetical imagination of Columbus was one of the
sources of his power, whereby he anticipated withundoubt-
ing faith the realisation of his grand iifev^ork. But from
the position in which Cortes was placed, it was his interest
to give currency to the highly-coloured visions of his first
pioneers, rather than to transmit to Europe the colder
narrative of matured experience. A})proachiiig the Mexican
capital, he exclaims in his first burst of enthusiasm : " Wo
could compare it to nothing but the enchanted scenes . >
had read of in Atnadis de Oa/id, from the ^reat towers and
temples, a»d other edifices of lime and stone which seemed
to rise up out of the water." To achieve the recognised
mastery of this scene of enc^iaivtment, he had not only to
conquer its Mexi(jan lords, but to defeat his Spanish foes,
and to win to his side that Emperor who, while shaping

%ii

I T

330

MONTEZUMA'S CAPITAL.

[chap.

Europe's history in one of its mightiest revolutions, could
control the destinies of the New World. When reading the
accounts transmitted to Spain of the gorgeous treasures of
Montezuma's palaces, we have to bear in remembrance that
the treasures themselves perished in the retreat of the noche
triste, as the city itself vanished in the final siege and
capture. The very dreams of an excited imagination could
become realities of the past to the narrators themselves,
when every test of their truth had been swept away.

On the 9th of November 1519, Cortes made his first
entry into the capital of Montezuma, and from thence he
wrote to the Emperor Charles v., giving an account of the
Indian metropolis, with its palaces and stately mansions,
far si:vpassing in grandeur and beauty the ancient Moorish
capital of Cordova. Conduits of solid masonry supplied the
city with water, and furnished means of maintaining hang-
ing-gardens luxurious as those of ancient Babylon. " There
is one place," says Cortes, " somewhat inferior to the rest,
attached to which is a beautiful garden with balconies
extending over it, supported by marble columns, and having
a floor formed of jasper elegantly inlaid ;" and he adds,
" Within the city, the palaces of the cacique Montezuma
are so wonderful that it is hardly possible to describe their
beauty and extent. I can only say that in Spain there is
nothing equal to them." The population of ancient Mexico,
" the greatest and noblest city of the whole New World,"
as Cortes styles it, amounted, according to the lowest com-
putation of its conquerors, to three hundred thousand ; and
its streets and canals were illuminated at night by the
blaze from the altars of numberless teocallis that reared their
pyramidal summits in the streets and squares of what Pres-
cott fitly calls " this city of enchantment." Vast causeways,
defended by drawbridges, and wide enough for ten or
twelve horsemen to ride abreast, attracted the admiring
wonder of the Spaniards by the skill and geometrical
precision with which they were constructed. " The great

XIV.]

ITS VANISHED SPLENDOUR.

street facing the southern causeway was wide, and extended
some miles in nearly a straight line through the centre of
the city. A spectator standing at one end of it, as his eye
ranged along the deep vistaof temples, terraces, and gardens,
might clearly discern the other, with the blue mountains in
the distance, which, in the transparent atmosphere of the
table-land, seemed almost in contact with the buildings."^
Near the centre of the city rose a huge pyramidal pile,
dedicated to the war-god of the Aztecs, the tutelary deity
of the city : second in size only to the great pyramid-temple
of Cholula, and occupying the area on which now stands
the Cathedral of modern Mexico. Beyond the Lake of
Tezcuco stood the rival capital of that name, resplendent
with a corresponding grandeur and magnificence ; and the
whole Mexican valley burst on the eyes of the conquerors
as a beautiful vision, glittering with towns and villages,
with rich gardens, and broad lakes crowded with the canoes
of a thriving and busy populace.

Three centuries and a half have intervened since Cortes
entered the gorgeous capital of Montezuma ; and what
remains now of its ancient splendour, of the wonders of its
palaces, the massive grandeur of its temples, or the cyclopean
solidity of its conduits and causeways ? Literally, not a
vestige. The city of Constantino has preserved, in spite of
dl the destructive vicissitudes of siege and overthrow,
enduring memorials of the griuideur that pertained to the
Byzantine capital more than a thousand years ago. Rome
has been sacked by Goth, Hun, Lombard, and Frank ; yet
memorials not only of three or four centuries, but of genera-
tions before the Christian era, survive. Even Jerusalem
appears to have some stones of her ancient walls still left
one upon another. In spite, therefore, of the narrative of
desolating erasure which describes to ua the final siege and
capture of Mexico, we must assume its edifices and cause-
ways to have been for the most part more slight and fragile

1 Preaoott's Conquest of Mexico, b, hi. ch, ix.

332

MEXICAN CALENDAR.

[chap.

than the description of its conquerors implies, or some
evidences of such extensive and solid masonry must have
survived to our time. Yet if we look in vain for its
architectural remains, evidence of another kind shows what
its civilisation really was. Mr. Tylor describes the ploughed
fields around it as yielding such abundance of obsidian
arrow heads, pottery, and clay figures, that it is impossible
to tread on any spot w^here there is no relic of old Mexico
within reach. He left England full of doubts as to the cre-
dibility of the historians of the conquest ; but personal
observation inclines him rather " to blame the chroniclers
for having had no eyes for the wonderful things that sur-
rounded them."^

One trustworthy memorial of this native civilisation is
the famous Calendar Stone : a huge circular block of dark
porphyry, disinterred in 1790 in the great square of Mexico,
which discloses evidence of progress in astronomical science
altogether wonderful in a people among whom civilisation
was in other respects so partially developed. The Mexicans
had a solar year of 365 days divided into eighteen months
of twenty days each, with the five complementary days
added to the last. The discrepancy between the actual
time of the sun's annual path through the heavens and
their imperfect year, was regulated by the intercalation of
thirteen days at the end of every fifty-second year. Accord-
ing to Gama, who diff'ers from Humboldt on this point, the
civil day was divided into sixteen parts ; and he conceives
the Calendar to have been constructed as a vertical sun-
dial. Mexican drawings also indicate that the Aztecs were
acquainted with the cause of eclipses. But beyond this our
means of ascertaining the extent of their astronomical know-
ledge fail ; while there is proof that their inquiries were
zealously directed to the more favoured speculations of the
astrologer, which have supplanted true science in all primi-
tive stages of society. Mr. Stephens drew attention to

1 ^jiaAwac, p. 147.

XIV.]

THE CALENDAR STONE.

333

points of correspond'^nce between tlie central device on the
Calendar Stone, and a mask, with widely expanded eyes
and tongue hanging out, prominent in the curious sacrificial
scene sculptured on the Casa de Piedra at Palenque. But
the correspondence amounts "to little more than this, that
each is a gigantic mask with protruding tongue. That of
the Calendar Stone is engraved here from a cast brought
home by Mr. Bullock, and now in the Collection of the

Fia. 74.— Mask, Mexican Calondar Stone.

Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. The statues dug up
along with it on the site of the great teocalli of Mexico,
were buried in the court of the University, to place tliem
beyond reach of the idolatrous rites which the Indians
were inclined to pay to them. At the solicitation of Mr.
Bullock they were again disinterred, to admit of his obtain-
ing casts ; and he furnishes this interesting account of the
sensation excited by the restoration to light of the largest
and most celebrated of the Mexican deities : — " During the

334

MEXICAN DEITIES.

[chap.

time it was exposed, the court of the University was crowded
with people, most of whom expressed the most decided
anger and contempt. Not so, however, all the Indians.
I attentively marked their countenances. Not a smile
escaped them, or even a word. All was silence and atten-
tion. In reply to a joke of one of the students, an old
Indian remarked, * It is very true we have three very good
Spanish gods, but we might still have been allowed to keep
a few of those of our ancestors !' And I was informed that
chaplets of flowers had been placed on the figure by natives
who had stolen thither unseen in the evening."^

The figure which thus reawakened patriotic sympathies
in the descendants of Montezuma's subjects is a rude dis-

Fio. 76.— Tioul nieroglyphto Vase.

proportioned idol, strikingly contrasting with the elaborate
hieroglyphical devices and well-proportioned figures and
decorations which accompany the grotesque mask in the
Casa de Piedra of Palenque. In the latter, the principal
human figures present the remarkable profile of the ancient
Central American race, as shown on a vase dug up among
the ruins of Ticul (Fig. 75), with the prominent nose,
retreating forehead and chin, and protruding under-lip, so

^ Biillook'B^S'w if (m</^m ilfextco, p. 111. ^^

XIV.]

TOLTEC CIVILISATION.

335

essentially different from the features either of the Mexicans
or northern Indians. The subject race on whom they tread
are characterised by a diverse profile, with overhanging brows,
a Roman nose, and a well-defined chin ; while their costume
is equally indicative of a different origin.

But the sculpture of the Mexican Calendar Stone em-
bodies evidence of an amount of knowledge and skill not
less interesting for us than the mysterious hieroglyphics of
the Palenque tablets ; and was believed by Humboldt to
indicate unmistakable relations to the ancient science of
south-eastern Asia. Mr. Stephens has printed a curious
exposition of the chronology of Yucatan, derived from
native sources by Don Juan Pio Perez. From the corre-
spondence of their mode of computing time with that
adopted by the Mexicans, he assumes that it probably
originated with them ; but at the same time he remarks
that the inhabitants of Mayapan, as the Peninsula was
called at the period of Spanish invasion, divided time by
calculating it almost in the same manner as their ancestors
the Toltecs, differing only in the particular arrangement of
their great cycles. Their year commenced on the 16th of
July, an error of only forty-eight hours in advance of the
precise day in which the sun returns there to the zenith, on
his way to the south, and sufficiently near for astronomers
who had to make their observations with the naked eye.:
Their calendar thus presents evidence of native and local
origin. According to Humboldt, the Mexican year began
in the corresponding winter half of the year, ranging from
the 9th to the 28th of January ; but Clavigero places its
commencement from the 14th to the 26th of February.
If my ideas as to a marked inferiority in the terracottas
^ and sculptures of the Mexicans, and the very questionable
proofs of their architectural achievements, are correct, they
~ tend to confiim the inference, that not to the Aztecs, but to
thoir more civilised Toltec predecessors, must be ascribed
that remarkable astronomical knowledge in the arrange-

i; ■:,;'<:■■

336

RACE ELEMENTS.

[chap.

ment of their calendar, which exhibits a precision in the
adjustment of civil to solar time, such as only a few of the
most civilised nations of the Old World had attained to at
that date. But, so far as an indigenous American civilisa-
tion is concerned, it mattei-s little whether it be ascribed to
Toltec or Aztec origin. Of its existence no doubt can be
entertained ; and there is little more room for questioning,
that among races who had carried civilisation so far, there
existed the capacity for its further development, indepen-
dently of all borrowed aid. The fierce Dane and Norman
seemed to offer equally little promise of intellectual progress
in their first encroachments on the insular Saxon. But out
of such elements sprung the race which outstripped the
Spaniard in making of the land of Columbus a New World ;
and, left to its own natural progress, the valley of Anahuac,
with its mingling races, might have proved a source of
intellectual life to the whole continent. But modern
Mexico has displaced the ancient capital of Montezuma ;
cathedral, convents, and churches, have usurped the sites of
Aztec teocallis ; its canals have disappeared, and its famous
causeways are no longer laved by the waters of the Tezcucan
Lake. It is even denied by those who have personally
surveyed the site, that the waters of the lake can ever have
overflowed the marshes around the modern capital, or stood
at a much nearer point to it than they do at present.^
Fresh doubts seem to accumulate around its mythic story.
The ruined masonry of its vanished palaces and temples may
be assumed to have been all swallowed up in the edifices
which combine to make of the modern capital so striking
an object, amid the strange scenery of icJG elevated tropical
valley. But Mexico was not the only cifA'-, nor even the
only great capital, of the valley.

In attempting to trace back the history of the remarkable
population found in occupation of the Mexican territory
when first invaded by the Spaniards, we learn, by means

* Topographical View of the Valley, Wilson's Nw) History of Mexico, p. 452.

XIV.]

THE TOLTEC CAPITAL.

%l%

)ical
the

lable
tory

of various sources of information already referred to, but
chiefly on the authority of Ixtlilxochitl's professed interpre-
tations of picture-writings, no longer in existence ; and of
traditions of old men, concerning events reaching back
from seven or eight, even to twelve centuries before their
own time : that the Toltecs, advancing from some un-
known region of the north, entered the territory of Anahuac,
" probably before the close of the seventh century." They
were, according to their historian, already skilled in agri-
culture and the mechanical arts, familiar with metallurgy,
and endowed with all the knowledge and experience out of
which grew the civilisation of Anahuac in later ages. In
the time of the Conquest, extensive ruins are said to have
indicated the site of their ancient capital of Tula, to the
north of the Mexican valley. The tradition of such ruined
cities adds confirmation to the inferences derived from those
more recently explored in regions to the south ; and still
the name of Toltec in New Spain is synonymous with
architect : the mythic designation of a shadowy race, such
as glances fitfully across the first chapters of legendary
history among the most ancient nations of Europe. But
subsequent to those Pelasgi of the New World, there fol-
lowed from unknown regions of the north the Chichimecas,
the Tepanecs, the Acolhuans or Tezcucans, the Aztecs or
Mexicans, and other inferior tribes ; so that, as we approach
a more definite period of history, we learn of a league be-
tween the States of Mexico and Tezcuco and the kingdom
of Tlacopan, under which the Aztec capital grew into the
marvellous city of temples and palaces described by Cortes
and his followers. But Don Fernando de Alva claimed
descent on his mother's side from the Imperial race of Tez-
cuco ; and he has not failed to preserve, or to create the
memorials of the glory of that imperial city of the laguna.
It contained upwards of four hundred stately edifices for
the nobles. The magnificent palace of the Tezcucan
emperor " extended from east to west, twelve hundred and

VOL. I. Y

ft'.,.

■';t,i :.■■

■iijM:

33^

TEZCUCAN PALACES.

[chap.

thirty-four yards, and, from noi-th to south, nine hundred
and seventy eight. It was encompassed by a wall of un-
burnt bricks and cement, six feet wide and nine high for
one-half of the circumference, and fifteen feet high for the
other half. Within this enclosure were two courts. The
outer one was used as the great market-place of the city,
and continued to be so until long after the Conquest. The
interior court was surrounded by the council-chambers and
halls of justice. There were also accommodation there for
foreign ambassadors ; and a spacious saloon, with apart-
ments opening into it, for men of science and poets, who
pursued their studies in this retreat, or met together to hold
converse under its marble porticoes."^ In this style the
native historian describes the glory of ancient Tezcuco. A
lordly pile, provided for the fitting accommodation of the
sovereign of Mexico and Tlacopan, contained three hun-
dred ap^. . tments, including some fifty yards square. Solid
materitds of stone and marble were lil)erally employed both
on this and on the apartments of the royal harem, the walls
of which were incrusted with alabasters and richly tinted
stucco, or hung with gorgeous ta[)estries of variegated
feather- work. Some two leagues distant, at Tezcotzinco,
was the favourite residence of the sovereign ; on a hill,
*'laid out in terraces, or hanging gardens, having a flight
of five hundred and twenty steps, many of them hewn in
the natural porphyry. In the garden on the summit was a
reservoir of water, fed by an aqueduct carried over hill and
valley for several miles on huge buttresses of masonry. A
large rock stood in the midst of this basin, sculptured with
hieroglyphics representing the years of Nezahualcoyotl'H
reign, and his principal achievements in each. On a lower
level were three other reservoirs, in each of which stood a
marble statue of a woman, emblematic of the three estatos
of the empire. Another tank contained a wingc lion," —
but here the modern historian grows incredulou8, and ap-

■m..

^ Prcscott's Cutiqticst of Mexico, B. i. chap. vi.

XI V.J

THEIR MODERN VESTIGES.

I;, SI

339

peiids a ^?) before proceeding in accordance with his author-
ities to add — "cut out of the sohd rock, bearing in his
mouth the portrait of the emperor."

The authority for all this wrote in tho beginning of the
seventeenth century ; but his narrative receives Sf me confir-
mation from architectural remains still visible on the hill of
Tezcotziuco. They are referred to by Latrobe and Bullock
as relics of an era greatly more remote than that of
Aztec civilisation ; and more recently Mr. Tylor describes
the hill of Tezcotziuco as terraced, and traversed by numer-
ous roads and flights of steps cut in the rock. It is con-
nected with another hill by an aqueduct of immense size
constructed with ])locks of porphyry, and with its channel
lined with a hard stucco, still very perfect. Baths also
remain, cut out of the solid rock ; and on the summit of
the hill, overlooking the ancient city, sculptured blocks of
stone furnish evidence that the tales of architectural magni-
ficence are not wholly fabulous. Mr. Christy, his travelling
companion, made excavations in the neighbouring mouii-ls,
and was rewarded by the discovery of some fine idols of
hard stone, and *' an infinitude of pottery and small objects."
But the spirit of Spanish romance still asserts its influence.
Bullock, in his Six Months in Mexico, describes the remains
of the royal fountain of Tezcotziuco as a " beautiful basin,
twelve feet long by eight wide, having a well fiv^e feet by
four deep in the centre ; " while Latrobe, in his Rambles in
Mexico, reduces the dimensions of the royal bath to " pern-
haps two feet and a half in diameter, not large enough for
any monarch bigger than Oberon to take a duck in ! "

Of the great pyramid or teocalli of Huitzilopotchtli in old
Mexico, no vestige now reraaius, unless such as is reputed
to lie buried under the foundations of the cathedral which
occupies its site. But time and fate have dealt moro
tenderly with the scarcely less famous pyramid of Cholula,
The ancient city of that name, when first seen by Coites,
waa said to include, within and without its walls, about --

« ^.

if,.

QUETZALCOATL.

[chap.

liii'M

forty thousand houses, or according to ordinary rules of
computation, two hundred thousand inhabitants. But
whatever its ancient population may have been, while the
fruits of Spanish conquest have advanced it to the rank of
capital of the republic of Cholula, they have left only sixteen
thousand as the number of its occupants. Still, Cholula was
unquestionably one of the most famous of the cities of the
New World : a sacred Mecca for the pilgrims of Anahuac.

Quetzalcoatl, the milder god of the Aztec pantheon,
whose worship was performed by offerings of fruits and
flowers in their season, was venerated as the divine teacher
of the arts of peace. His reign on earth was the golden age
of Anahuac, when its people learned fix)m him agriculture,
metallurgy, and the art of government. But their bene-
factor, according to the tradition handed down to the
Aztecs by an elder people whom they had superseded,
incurred the wrath of another of the gods. As he passed
on his way to abandon the land to the rule of the terrible
Huitzilopotchtli, he paused at the city of Cholula; and
while he tarried there, the great teocalli was reared and
dedicated to his worship. But the benevolent deity could
not remain within reach of the avenger. After spending
twenty years among them, teaching the people the arts of
civilisation, he proceeded onward till he reached the ocean ;
and there embarking in a vessel, made of serpents' skins,
his followers watched his retreating bark on its way to the
sacred isle of Tlapallan. But the tradition lived on among
the Mexicans that the bark of the good deity would revisit
their shores ; and this fondly cherished belief materially
contributed to the success of the Spaniards, when their
huge-winged ships bore the beings of another world to the
mainland of the Mexican Gulf. The legend bears all the
marks of anciently derived hero-worship, in which love for
a lost benefactor framed for itself a deified embodiment of
his virtues. This, however, is important to note, that Aztec
traditions assigned the pyramid of Cholula to an older race

[chap.

les of
But
Ic the
mk of
sixteen
ila was
of tlic
huac.
ithcon,
its and
teacher
len age
culture,
x bcne-
to the
srsedecl,
passed
terrible
a; and
red and
y could
pending
J arts of
} ocean ;
skins,
to the
among
revisit
.terially
en their
d to the
all the
love for
iment of
at Aztec
Ider race

XIV.]

THE PYRAMID OF CHOL ULA.

341

and era than their own. It was there when they entered
the plateau ; and the arts of the divine metallurgist were
taught, not to them but to the Toltecs, whom they super-
seded. Nevertheless, the deity shared in their worship ;
his image occupied a shrine on the summit of the
pyramid of Cholula when the Spaniards first visited the
holy city ; and the undying flame flung its radiance far
into the night, to keep alive the memory of the good deity
who was one day to return and restore the golden age.

The present appearance of the great teocalli very partially
justifies the reference made by Prescott to it as "that tre-
mendous mound on which the traveller still gazes with
admiration as the most colossal fabric in New Spain, rival-
ling in dimensions, and somewhat resembling in form, the
pyramidal structures of ancient Egypt." If it ever was a
terraced pyramid, time and the elements have nearly cfijiced
the traces of its original outline. On the authority of
Humboldt, it is described as a pyramidal mound of stone
and earth, deeply incrusted with alternate strata of brick
and clay, which " had the form of the Mexican teocallis,
that of a truncated pyramid facing with its four sides the
cardinal points, and divided by the same number of ter-
races." But the adobe of the Mexican, which is frequently
styled brick, is nothing more than a mass of unbaked clay,
or even mud. If such, therefore, is the supposed brick
which alternated with the other materials of the mound, we
can the more readily reconcile the seeming contradictions of
observers. One of the latest thus describes the impression
produced on his mind : " Right before me, as I rode along,
was a mass of trees, of evergreen foliage, presenting indis-
tinctly the outline of a pyramid, which ran up to the
height of about two hundred feet, and was crowned by an
old stone church, and surmounted by a tall steeple. It
was the most attractive object in the plain ; it had such a

It
attractiveness had it been the stiff'

.T
f

look of uncultivated nature in the midst of grain fields.

342

THE SACRED CITY. •

[chap.

and clumsy thing which the picture represents it to be." It
is accordingly described by Mr. R A. Wilson, in his Mexico
and its Religion, as no more than " the finest Indian monnd
on this continent," rising to a height of about two hundred
feet, and crowned by an old stone church. But careful
examination satisfied Mr. Tylor that it still retains the
traces of a terraced teocalli. The church on its summit,
dedicated to Our Lady de los Remedios, is served by a priest
of the blood of the Cholulans ; and the masonry and architec-
tural skill which it displays have no doubt somewhat to do
with their absence elsewhere ; for if the clergy found the
teocalli cased like the pyramidal terraces of Central America,
with cut stone steps and facings, there can be little doubt
thc} 'ould go no furtlier for a quarry for their intended
church.

- To the north of the Mexicc.i valley ancient ruins arrest
the ga^e of the traveller, onward even to California. On
the Kio Colorado and its tributaries, ruins of great extent,
surveyed by recent exploring parties, are described as built
with large stones, nicely wrought, and accurately squared.
But nothing in their style of architecture suggests a com-
mon origin with the ruins of Mexico or Central America.
They are large and plain structures, with massive walls,
evidently built for defence, and with no tracers of the orna-
mentation which abounds on the ruins of Yucatan. The
Moqui Indians, the supposed remnant of the ancient
builders, still construct their dwellings of stone with con-
siderable art and skil' They are a gentle and intelligent
race, small of stature, with fine black hair; and differ
essentially from the Indians of the North-west Their
villages arc included in one common stone structure, gene-
rally of a quadrangular form, witii solid, unpierced walls
externally, and accessible only by means of a ladder. These
hive-like colonies are usually placed, for further defence, on
the summits of the lofty plateaus, which in the region of
New Mexico are detached by the broad canons with which

[chap.

be." It
Mexico

mound
mndred

careful
lins the
mmmit,
a priest
irchitec-
[it to do
and the
\merica,
le doubt
intended

IS arrest
lia. On
j extent,
as built
squared.
8 a com-
^mcrica.
^e walls,
he orna-
Hn. The
ancient
ith con-
telligcnt
d differ
Their
re, gene-
ed wallH
I. These
once, on
fegion of
th whicJi

XIV.]

TI/£ MOQUI INDIANS.

343

that remarkable region is intersected. By such means this
ingenious people seek protection from the wild tribes with
whicn they are surrounded. Thus permanently settled,
while exposed to the assaults of marauders, the Moquis
cultivate the soil, raise corn, beans, cotton, and more re-
cently vegetal)les derived from intercourse with the Mexi-
<!ans. They have also their flocks of sheep and goats ; and
weave their dyed wools into a variety of substantial and
handsome dresses. But only a small remnant now survives,
occupying seven villages on the range of the Rio del Norte.*

Tnioughout New California ruined structures of stone,
and sometimes of clay abound. The Casas grandes, as
they are called, appear to have been defensive structures
like the Moqui villages. Captain Johnston describes one,
called the Casa de Montezuma, on the river Gila, which
nieasured fifty feet by forty, jind had been four storeys
high. It is indeed worthy of note that while we find
throughout the continent, from the Rocky Mountains to
the Atlantic, scarcely a vestige of ante-CoUunbian stone
archi'^ecture : traces of it increase upon uh with every new
exploration of the country that lies between the Rocky
Mountains and the Pacific, and merges towards the south
into the seats of ancient native civilisation und mature<J
architectural skill.

But the Southern Continent had also its seat of a re-
markable native civilisation ; whi(;h, like that of Mexico,
derived some of its most striking cliaractt-ri.stics from tlio
[>hysical aspects of the country in wliich it originated. The
peculiar natural advantages of Peru resulted from tliti
settlement of a people on the lofty lAuUnMn of tlie Andes,
but within the tropics, where at each succesBive elevation i\

* Dr. iMItnin spt-aks of the Moquis an n itooplo tluifc " no living M'ritor scorns
to havo Keen." — Vnru'ilea of Afan, p. 394, lint the ftbovo infoi ination oomniiijiu-
catod to rtio by I'rofoHsnr Newberry, is the resnlt of liia own ](oraonal observa-
tions. Ho sbowod mo also siicciincns of thoir wovon iln'sspH, tnanifoflting
uonsiderablv skiil, and uxhibtting grc-it tr.sto in tho anangt'inunt of thoir bright
colours. They have recuuUy been greatly luducud by Hiiiall-|)ox.

•344

THE HOLY CITY OF PERU.

[chap.

different climate was secured. Such products as the mer-
cantile navies of Northern Europe gather from many dis-
tant shores, were there brought within the compass of an
industrious population : who fed their flocks on the cold
crests of the sierra ; cultivated their gardens and orchards
on its higher plateaus ; and gathered the luxuriant products
of the tropics from the country that for them lay, for the
most part, beneath the clouds, and spread away from the
lowest slopes of the Andes to the neighbouring shores of
the Pacific. The character of the people, and the nature of
the civilisation of this remarkable country, presented many
striking contrasts to the customs and institutions of the
Mexicans, and they have generally been assumed as of
totally independent origin.

Peru has her historic traditions, no less than Mexico ;
and her native historian, Garcilasso de la Vega, a descendant,
through his mother, from the royal line of the Incas : who
plays for them the part which Fernando de Alva did for
his Tezcucan ancestry. Seen through such a medium, the
traditions of the Inca race expand into gorgeous pages of
romance ; and the institutions of European chivalry and
medieval polity are grafted on the strange usages of an
Indian nation, remarkable for its own well- matured com-
monwealth, and unique phases of native-born civilisation.
Sabaism constituted the essential element of Peruvian
religious faith, and gave form and colour to the national
rites and traditions. Manco Capac and Mama Oello Huaco,
their mythic instructors in the arts of agriculture, weaving,
and spinning, were the Children of the Sun ; their high
religious festivals were determined by the solstices and
equinoxes ; and Quito, the holy city, which lay immediately
under the Equator, had within it the pillar of the sun,
where its vertictd rays threw no shadow at noon, and they
believed the god of light to seat himself in full effulgence
in his temple. The sacred pillar stood in the centre of a
circle described within the court of the great temple, tra-

XIV.]

WORSHIP OF THE SUN.

345

fiivirig,

high

and

versed by a diameter drawn from east to west, by means of
which the period of the equinoxes was determined ; and
both then, and at the solstices, the pillar was hung with
garlands, and offerings of fruit and flowers were made to
the divine luminary and parent of mankind. The title of
the sovereign Inca was the Child of the Sun ; and the
territory of the empire was divided into three portions, of
which one, constituting the lands of the Sun, maintained
the costly ceremonial of public worship, with the temples
and their numerous priests and vestal virgins. The national
traditions pointed to the Valley of Cuzco as the original
seat of native civilisation. There their mythic Manco
Capac founded the city of that name ; on the high lands
around it a number of columns were reared which served
for taking azimuths, and by measuring their shadows the
precise time of the solstices were determined.

Besides the divine honours paid to the sun, the Peruvians
worshipped the host of heaven, and dedicated temples to
the thunder and lightning, and to the rainbow, as the
w: thful and benign messengers of the supreme solar deity.
It might naturally be anticipated that a nation thus devoted
to astronomical observations, and maintaining a sacred
caste exclusively for watching solar and stellar phenomena,
would have attained to considerable knowledge in that
branch of science. Apparently, however, the facilities
which their equatorial position afforded for determining the
few indispensable periods in their calendar, removed the
stimulus to further progress ; and not only do wc find them
surpassed in this respect by the Muyscns, occupying a part
of the same great southern plateau, wlio regulated their
calendar on a system presenting considenU)lo points of
resemblance to that of the Aztecs ; but they remained to
the last in ignorance of the ti'ue causes of eclipses, and
regarded such phenomena with the same superstitious and
apprehensive wond(3r as has affected tlie untutored savage
mind in all ages. One historian, indeed, aflirnis that they

346

ASTRONOMICAL KNO WLEDGE.

[chap.

iffi;

recognised the actual length of the solar year, and regulated
their chronology by a series of cycles of decades of years,
centuries, and decades of centuries, the last of which consti-
tuted the grand cycle or great year of the sun.^ This is only
confuted by a reference to the silence of earlier authorities,
and the absence of all evidence on the subject ; and may
serve to remind us how partial is the knowledge we pos-^
sess of the intellectual development of this singularly interest-
ing people, among whom science was essentially esoteric. .
Prescott seelcs to account for the very imperfect nature
of the astronomical science of Peru, by the fact, that the
Peruvian priesthood were drawn exclusively from tlie body
of the Incas : a privileged order of nobility who claimed
divine origin, and were the less tempted to seek in superior
learning the exclusive rights of an intellectual aristocracy.
But other reasons help to explain this singular intellectual
condition of a nation, which had in so many other directions
made remarkable progress in civilisation. The very fact that
astronomy constituted, as it were, the national religion,
placed it beyond the reach of scientific speculation, among
a people with whom blasphemy against the sun, and male-
diction of the Inca, were alike punislied with death. 'J'he
impediments to Galileo's astronomical discoveiies were
trifling compared with those which must have beset the
presumptuous Inca priest who ventured to deny the diurnal
revolution of the sun round the earth ; or to explain, by
the simple interposition of the moon between themselves
and the sun, the mysterious and malign infirmities with
which it constituted a part of the national crec ' to believe
their supreme deity was aftiicted during a solar eclipse.
But another cause also tended to retard the progress of tlic
Peruvians in the intelligent solution of astronomical phe-
nomena. Among the ancient Egyptiaub we find the division
of the year determined by th< ^luinges of the NiK' ; and
their year regulated by pji,^' vi.^.tio *. istronomicai science,

5 M»afce«i»o'8 ATew. AutiqMt Af^ ' >. t. "■. - oited by Pmnicott.

[chap.

xiv]

AGRICULTURE,

347

minutely interwoven with their sacred and civil institutions.
But the plienomena of the seasons, which have fostered with
every other civilised nation the accurate observation of the
astronomical divisions of time, and the determination of
the recurring festivals dependent on seed-time and harvest,
were almost inoperative, where, among a people specially
devoted to agriculture, each season and every temperature
could be commanded by a mere change of elevation under
the vertical sun of the equator.

The Peruvians, however, must be tried by their own
standards of excellence. Manco Capac, their mythic
civiliser, was no war-god, like the Mexitli of the ferocious
Aztecs. Agriculture was the special art introduced by him;
and husbandry was pursued among them on principles
which modern science has only recently fully developed in
Europe. There alone, in all the New World, the plough
was in use ; and the Inca himself, on one of the great
annual festivals, consecrated the labours of the husbandman
by turning up the earth with a golden ploughshare. Arti-
ficial irrigation was carried out on a gigantic scale by means
of aqueducts and tunnels of great extent, the ruins of which
still attest the eiighioering skill of their constructors. The
"virtues of guano, which are now so well appreciated by
the agriculturists of Europe, were familiar to the Peruvian
farmer ; and as the country of the Incas ijicluded, at its
various levels, nearly all varieties of climate and production,
from the cocoa and palm that fringed the borders of the
Pacific, to the pasture of their mountain flocks on the verge
of the high regions of perpetual snow : a systematic succes-
sion of public fairs, regulated, like all else, by the supremo
government, afforded abundant opportunities for the inter-
change of their diverse commodities.

Such a <'.ountry, if any, could dispense with commerce,
and att lin to considerable advancement without a represen-
tative currency or circulating medium. Gold, which waa
80 abundant, served only for barbaric pomp and dccoratioUi

348

THE LLAMA.

[chAPi

;•-«■ il,

■w

Silver was accessible in su i quantities, that Pizarro found
in it a substitute for iron to dhoe the horses of his cavalry.
Copper and tin in like manner abounded in the mountains ;
and the Peruvians had learned to alloy the copper both with
tin and silver, for greater utility in its application to the
useful arts. Bartholomew Euiz, it will be remembered,
found on board the haha first met by him off the Peruvian
coast, a pair of balances for weighing the precious metals ;
and the repeated discovery of well-adjusted silver balances
in tombs of the Incas, confirms the evidence that they made
use of weights in determining the value of their com-
modities. The Peruvians were thus in possession of a mode
of exchange, which, for their purposes, was superior to that
of the currency of the Mexicans, in the absence of any such
means of asc rtaining the exact apportionment of commo-
dities produced for sale.

Progress in agriculture was accompanied by a correspond-
ing development of the resources of a pastoral people. Vast
flocks of sheep ranged the mountain pastures of the Andes,
under the guidance of native shepherds ; while the Peru-
vians alone, of all the races of the New World, had attained
to that important stage in civilisation which precedes the
employment of machinery, by their use of the lower animals
in economising human labour. The llama, trained as a
beast of burden, carried its light load along the steep paths
of the Cordilleras, or on the great highways of Peru.

As the mythic Manco Capac was the instructor of the
nation in agriculture, so also the divine daughter of the Sun
introduced the arts of weaving and spinning. Such tradi-
tions serve at least to indicate the favourite directions of
the national taste and skill, which were displayed in tho
irumufacturo of a variety of woollen articles of ingeniouc
patterns and tlie utmost delicacy of texture. Numerous
examples of the woven textures of the Peruvians have
been recovered from their ancient graves at Atacama and
elsewhoro ; though it cannot be assumed that in these we

XIV.]

WOVEN TEXTURES.

349

have specimens of the rare and costly fabrics which excited
the wondering admiration of the early Spaniards. In the
arid soil and tropical climate of the great desert of Atacama,
articles which prove the most perishable in northern lati-
tudes are found, after the lapse of centuries, in perfect pre-
servation. Of these I had an opportunity of examining a
collection recovered by Mr. J. H. Blake from ancient huacas
explored by him, and now preserved in his cabinet at
Boston. They include specimens of cloth, wrought in dyed
woollen thread, and sewed in regular and ornamental de-
signs. Each piece is woven of the exact size which was
required for the purpose in view, and some of them furnish
proofs of ingenious skill in the art of weaving. The threads
consist of two or more strands of dyed llama-wool twisted
together ; and elaborate pntterns are woven into a noffc juhI
delicate web. The accompanying figure, though grotesque,
is a good specimen of a complicated feat achieved in dyed
woollen threads on the ancient Peruvian loom. It was
found in a grave at Atacama, along with many other relics

described in a subsequent chapter, Mr.
Blake remarks, in reference to the dis-
coveries of this class which rewarded his
researches : — " In forming an opinion of
the degree of skill displayed in the arts
of spinning and weaving, by th(\sc speci-
mens, it should be bi^rne in mind that the
implementH in use wovt^ of the simplest
contrivance. The only ones \\\\\A\ havi^
been discovcivd aiv simple di^talVn ; and
auiong the articles obtaiuod from tho
Ataca\ut\ giNivea woi^o several formed of
\^^K-\i)A and atone, such as are still in use
Ho. nw-muvirtu W.K jii^^oug the luvliana of Peru at the proaowli
day. Weaving on tho loom has not been inti*od\\\HMl among
then\, Tho warp ia secured by staktv^ dviveu ii\to the
gi\)uud, and the filliug-in ia iusevtcd by tho slow pvoeoia ut'

■S\M\

■ J^^^fw""'

350

SCIENCE AND ART.

[chap.

i! H

passing it by hand over and under each thread alternately."
It would be a grave error, however, to assume that we
possess in such relics, recovered from the ordinary graves
formed in the loose sand of the desert, the highest achieve-
ments of Peruvian skill. On the contrary, regarding them,
as we must, as fair specimens of the common woollen tissues
of the country, they confirm the probability that the costly
hangings, and beautifully wrought robes of the Inca and
his nobles, fully justified the admiration with which they
are referred to by Spanish writers of the sixteenth century.
Marvellous specimens of ceramic art are also noted among
the manufactures ascribed to the Peruvians before the con-
quest, surpassing anything found in the common cemeteries
of the race ; but the proofs which exist of the ingenuity ex-
pended by the ancient potter on utensils in daily use, render
probable the accounts of such rare chefd'aiuvres executed by
their cunningoHt work men for \\w imperial stM'vire. So also
we roi\d of animals and plantn wrought with wonderful
delicacy, in gold and silver ; imd scuttered vvKIi proi'iiso
magnificence about the apartments of Ihe I'eriiviiiii nobles.
Such s[»ecimens of goldsmiths* work no longer survive ; \)\\i
still the huacas of the ancient race are ransacked for go|de||
ornaments, which prove consiib^rable niehillurglc skj)|, rtjlft
leave no room zo doubt that gold iihil iijlvnj' wiilM |||o|lh1nii
and grav'SL into many ingenious foiina. Science ana arj;
kad indeed maue wonderful advanccH fili|ii|||| |)dH |u||)/ir^

abie people : though w i laem, as with the Clilncisn, they

ipae more frequently expended in the gratification of a
CTwring for display, than in realising triunipliM of t nil eh
piafcctical value. Nevertheless, Peruvian civilisation had
wrought out for isself many eJementB of progresj iMliijibtd
to its native soiL Its a^^rcaiomie^ alienee adm+f8, Inoeed,
of no comparison witi that of Mexico ; 2nd in lieu of t ho
artier pictiBK^ writing of the Mexicans, it employed tho
qnipiis, an artifickl system of mnemonics not greatly
siq)erior to tie Red Indian wasipum, to which it bears

■

XIV.]

NATIVE INSTITUTIONS.

351

ira

considerable resemblance. In tliis it contrasts with the
matured hieroglyphical inscriptions of Central America and
Yucatan, which preserve evidences of progress in advance
of the highest civilisation of the Aztecs and the Incas, and
indeed of all but the most civilised nations of ancient or
modern centuries. But this higher phase of intellectual
development must be reserved for consideration in its rela-
tions to the psychology of the whole continent.

The remarkable system of national polity doubtless
originated in part from the docile nature still manifested by
the descendants of the Peruvian people ; and, when viewed
in this connection, it fir lushes some key to the peculiar
characteristics of their civilisation. Their government was
a sacerdotal sovereignty, with an hereditary aristocracy, and
a system of castes more absolute seemingly than that of
tlie Egyptians or Hindus. Something of the partial and
unprogressive development of the Chinese mingled in the
ancient Peruvians along with numerous other traits of
resemblance to that singular people. Unlike the Mexicans,
we see in their whole polity, arts, and social life, institutions
of indiirenous growth, it wouhl be difficult to limit the
centurierf during which such a people may have handed on
i^{\\\\ goOBfilMop fco generation tlio slowly brightening torch.
^\\\^\t owh [ii\i\\{\i)m, pl-eservefl with the help of (pjipus and
national lialj/njflj ^\^ yffj|[je|ess \)\\ this point, fiut their
institutions reveal some ietii((/|i//|/l/» ^jyidoaees of a people
)>/'M/»M»vJ/ig nuiiiy tniits of social infn/icy, alongside of su/'ii
mailllfr/l \\\\^ \\m (|/f)/|ts OS could only grow up together
nround the uudiwturhc*! gl7iv^«3 O^uniiy ge//f*/7j|/o/if(. O/fiiif-
lllp \\i ftlljls and flowers ia^k liio pJ/i/'M of i\\\\ iilfii}(if
liiinuin sacrifices of Aisttjo wofshipj hut tlm BitUm rlMi
which disnlnso fhcif tfttces every wliOji» Ui flm Hcpulchral
usages of primitive fJflilf//W, fyfJf'fJ Ffitaified in full force.
The simple soliility f>f ineg/in/lilc iiH gave hv o<j!//f)|^ pritt;l-
tive character iu tlioir ttfchiteclMr^i mfMthHiuilmlfu Itn
ujjpUcation to many pmctlcal {myoma of Ijfo j lilnf fhe

■ w««s«ti^.H»il, »i'«w>,v';

3S»

METALLURGY.

[chap.

precious metals, though existing in unequalled profusion,
were retained to the Inst solely for their contribution to
barbaric splendour. The habits of pastoral life, by means
of which the foremost nations of the Old World appear to
have emerged out of barbarism, were with them modified
by the haunts of flocks peculiar to the strange region of
mountain and plateau, where also they carried the next step
in human progression, that of agriculture, to a degree of
perfection probably never surpassed. They had advanced
metallurgy through all its stages, up to that which preceded
the use of iron ; and with the help of their metal tools,
displayed a remarkable skill in many mechanical arts.
They did no more, because, under their peculiar local
circumstances and the repressive influences of the mild
despotism of Inca rule, they had achieved all that they
Required.

A gentle people . jund abundant occupation in tilling the
soil, without being oppressed by a labour which was light-
ened by the frequently recurring festivals of a joyous, and,
in some respecis, elevating national faith. Nor is it difficult
to conceive of sdch a people continuing to pursue the even
tenor of their way, with scarcely perceptible progression,
through all the subsequent centuries since their discovery
to Europe : had not the hand of the conqueror ruthlessly
overthrown the structure reared by many generations, and
quenched the lamp of native civilisation. The conquerors
of the sixteenth century have given expression to the
astonishment with which they beheld everywhere evidences
of order, contentment, and prosperity ; and while the archi-
tectural magnificence of Montezuma's capital has so utterly
disappeared as to suggest the doubt if it ever existed : tlic
traveller along the ancient routes of Peruvian industry still
sees on every hand ruins, not only of temples, palaces,
and strongholds, but of terraced declivities, military roads,
causeways, aqueducts, and other public works, that astonish
him by the solidity of their construction and the grandeur

XIV.")

ORIGIN OF THE MEXICANS.

353

the

of their design. But between these two great divisions of
the western hemispliero, in the curiously insulated region of
Central America, traces of ancient civilisation abound, with
evidences of a highei, if not longer enduring development
than either. The closing annals both of Mexico and Peru
have acquired a vivid interest from the incidents of Spanish
conquest ; and retain many romantic associations connected
with the lustre of their conquerors. But the interest which
attaches to Central America and Yucatan derives little value
from history. There, under the luxuriant forests of that
tropical region, may still be studied the monuments of a
lettered people, and the sculptures and symbolic inscriptions
of an extinct faith, amid ruins hich appear to have been
already abandoned to decay before Cortes explor ^ the
peninsula in his lust of conquest. Their basso-relievos
preserve the physiognomy of a race essentially divci-* from
the Mexicans ; and their sculptured hieroglyphics show a
process of inscription very far in advance of the picture-
writing of the Aztecs. The magnitude and solidity of ilie
ruins of Peru still al test the practical aim of works Avrought
there on a grand scale, and for purposes of more obvious
utility than those of the Central American peninsula ; and
the characteristics of some of the Peruvian crania suggest
striking analogies \^ ith the peculiar physiognomy of the
northern basso-relievos, such as are no longer recognisable
when we turn to the Mexican race.

Notliing pertaining to the northern continent east of the
liocky INIountains presents any counterpart to Peruvian
architecture, sculpture, or the ingenious modelling of I he
potter's art ; or suggests affinities in language or astrono-
mical science, to Peru or Central America ; unless it be the
remarkable remains of the Mound-Builders. But with
Mexico it is otherwise. In the region between the Eocky
Mountains and the Atlantic the stock is to be sought, from
which on muny grounds it appears most reasonable to trace
the predominant Mexican race of the era of the Conquest.

VOL. I.

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IMAGE EVALUATION
TEST TARGET (MT.3)

1.0

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Sciences

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33 WIST MAIN STRUT

WlblTH.N.Y. 14SI0

( 71* ) 172-4903

^■^

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354

MINGLING OF RACES.

[chap.

They were inheritors, not originators of the civilisatior of
the plateau. But while the traditions of the Aztecs appear
to point to a migration from the north, the Toltecs whom
they displaced can be assigned on no tangible evidence to
a similar origin. Amid many diversities recognisable among
the nations of the New World, the forest and prairie tribes,
now clustering chiefly in the North-west, are the represen
tatives of one great subdivision, the source of which may
be sought in that northern hive stretching westward towards
Behring Strait and the Aleutian Islands, with possible
indications of an Asiatic origin. But for the more intcllec
tual nations whose ancient monuments lie to the south of
the Rio Grande del Norte, the most probable source appears
to be the southern plateaus of the Peruvian Cordilleras. In
the copper regions of the north the abundant metal sup-
plied all wants too readily to stimulate to further progress ;
but the southern region rises through every change of climate
under the vertical rays of the equator ; and its rocky steeps
arc veined with exhaustless treasures of metallic ores, in
such a condition as to lead man on step by step from the
infantile perception of the native metal as a ductile stone,
to the matured intelligence of the metallur(?ist, minglino-
and fusing the contiguous ores into his most convenient
and useful alloys. A branch of the same race, moving
northwsird along the isthmus, may account for the abundant
architectural remains of the central peninsula, consistently
with its ethnographic traces ; while beyond this, to the
northward, we see in the conflicting elements of Mexican
civilisation, tlie confluence of races from north and south,
and the mingling of their diverse arts find customs undiM-
the favouring influences which the vah) of Anahuac sup-
plied.

'„\i

[chap.

tior of
appear
whom
mce to
camong
tribes,
presen-
h may
;owards
possible
ntellec-
50utli of
appears
ras. In
tal sup-
rogress ;
climate
:y steeps
ores, in
rom the
c stone,
ningling
ivcnicnt
moving
)unelant
istently
to the
Vlexican
1 soutli,
under
ae siip-

XV.]

IMITATIVE SKILL.

355

CHAPTER XV.

AllT CHRONICLINGS.

IMFTATIVK SKILL— ARCH.MC KUUOPKAK ART— CONVRNTIONAL ORNAMENTATION-
IMITATIVK DESION— ANALOGIES IN RITES AND CUSTOMS— ALTAR RECORDS—
fMELTING THE ORE3— WISCONSIN rRAHUE LANDS— THE RACE OP THE MOUNDS-
MOUND CARVINGS— PORTRAIT-SCULPTURES— AMERICAN ICONOGUAPHY— DEDUC-
TIONS— NON-INDIAN TYPE— OTHER EXAMPLES— ANTUJUE ICONOGRAPHtC ART-
PECULIAR IMITATIVE SKILL —ANIMALS REl'RIvSENTED— EXTENSIVE GEOGRAPHICAL
RELATIONS -KNOWLEDGE OK TROPICAL EAU.nA— DEDUCTIONS— THE TOUCAN AND
MANATEE— TRACES OP MIGRATION- ASSUMED INDICATIONS— ANALOGOUS SCULP-
TURED — PERUVIAN IMITATIVE SKILL — CARVED STONE MORTARS — NICOTIAN
RELIGIOUS RITES -INDIAN LEGENDS -THE RED PIPE-STONE (iUARRY— THE
LEAPING ROCK— MANDAN TRADITIONS— SIOUX LEGEND OP THE PEACE PIPE-
THE SACRED COCA PLANT— KNISTENEAUX LEGEND OF THE DELUGE- INDICATIONS
OF FORMER MIGRATIONS— FAVOURITE MATERIAL— PWAUGUNEKA—CHIMPSEYAN
CUSTOMS— CHI.MPSEYAN ART— BARKEN CARVING— THE MEDICINE i'lPE-STEM—
INDIAN EXPIATORY SACRIFICES— NICOTIAN RITES OF DIVINATION.

In studying the elaboi-ate sculptures of Central American
architecture, one of the first of its peculiar characteristics
to strike the eye is the predominance of representations of
natural ol)jecta, alike in its decorative details and in the
symbolism of its hieroglyphic tablets. The liuman form,
the head, the heart, the skull, the hand and foot, along with
familiar objects of animate and inanimate nature, sui)plied
the readiest architectural devices, and the most suggestive
signs for attributes and ideas. In the imitation involved
in such a stylo of art, re8end)lauces mny be traced to tho
productions of many partitdly civilised nations both of
ancient and modern tunes. But in reviewing the primitive
art of the New World, whether pertaining to extinct nations,

1:1 .■

lii

^■i;

% ■

3S6

ARCHAIC EUROPEAN ART.

[chap.

like the Mound-Builders of Ohio and the architects of
Yucatan, or to Indian tribes still occupying their old hunt-
ing grounds, the critical observer can scarcely overlook
many peculiar manifestationa of imitative skill. Though
by no means to be regarded as an exclusive distinction of
the American races, this is a characteristic in which they
present a striking contrast to the primitive races of Europe.
Many of the implements and personal ornaments of the
ante-Christian era of European art, designated the " Bronze
Period," are exceedingly graceful in form, and some of
them highly ornamented, but there is rarely a trace of
imitative design. So also, though the peculiar form of one
primitive class of gold ornaments, found in the Britisli
Isles, has suggested a name derived from the calyx of a
flower, which the cups of its rings seem in some degree to
resemble, it is a mere fanciful analogy ; for no example
bears the slightest trace of ornament calculated to suggest
that such similarity was present to the mind of the ancient
goldsmith. Where incised or graven ornaments are wrought
upon the flower-like forms, they are the same chevron, or
herring-bone and saltire patterns, which occur on the rudest
clay pottery, alike of northern Europe and of America :
though executed on the finer gold work with considerable
delicacy and taste.

The correspondence between the forms and ornamentation
of the rudest classes of pottery of the Old and New World,
appears, at first sight, remarkable ; but it originates in tlie
inartistic simplicity inseparal)lc from all infantihi art. Tlu^
ornamentation is only an improvement on the accidents
of manufacture. The first decorations ol the aboriginal pot-
ters of Europe and America appear to have been an unde-
signed result of the twisted cords passed round the clay to
retain its form before it was hardened in the fire. More
complicated patterns were produced by plaited or knitted
cords, or imitated in ruder fashion with the point of ji bone-
lance or bodkin. But it is only among the ullophyliau arts

[chap.

its of
liunt-
Brlook
hough
:ion of
1 they
luropc.
of the
Bronze
me of
ace of
of one
Britisli
X of a.
[Tree to
sample
mggest
jincient
rought
Ton, or
rudest
nerica :
dcrable

ntation
World,
5 in the
The
'cidents
iial pot-
unde-
clay to
More
knitted
a bone-
ian arts

XV.]

CONVENTIONAL ORNAMENTATION

357

of Europe that such arbitrary patterns are perpetuated with
improving taste and skill. The European vase and cinerary
um become more graceful in contour, nnd more delicate in
material and construction, when they accompany the
beautiful weapons and personal ornaments wrought in
bronze. But no attempt is made to imitate leaf or flower,
bird, beast, or any simple natural object ; and when in the
bronze work of the later Iron Period, imitative forms at
length appear, they are chiefly the snake and dragon pat-
terns, borrowed seemingly by Celtic and Teutonic wanderers,
with the wild fancies of their mythology, from the eastern
cradle-land of their birth.

This absence of every trace of imitation in the form., and
decorations of the archaic art of northern Europe, is curious
and noteworthy : for remarkable traces, already referrea to,
pertaining to its palseotechnic era, prove that it is by no
means an invariable characteristic of primitive art. In the
simplest forms of ancient weapons, implements, and pottery,
mere utility was the aim. The rude savage, whether of
Europe or America, had neither leisure nor thought to spare
for decorative art. His Aesthetic faculty had not begun to
influence his constructive instincts. Art was the child of
necessity, and borrowed its first adjuncts of adornment
from the sources whence it liad received its convenient but
arbitraiy forms. But the moment we get beyond this utili-
tarian stage, the contrast between the products of European
and Ameri(*an art is exceedingly striking ; and their value
to the ethnologist and archaeologist becomes great, from the
insight they give into the aspects of mental expression, and
the intellectual phases of social life, among unhistoric
generations. The useful arts of the British all()2)liylian
progressed until they superinduced the decorative and fine
aits. But the ornamentation was inventive, and not
imitative ; it was arbitrary, conventional, and singularly
persistent in style. It wrought itself into all his external
expressions of thought ; and Avhatever his religious worship

fill

'^-r^"yj'-'*^"-*t^^r'

K-» '

p., ■ '
it ■■ ii

iPm

558

IMITATIVE DESIGN.

[chap.

may Lave been, we look in vain for proofs of idolatrv,
among the innumerable relies which have been recovered
from supposed Druidical fanes, or the older cromlechs and
tumuli of the British Isles.^ The very opposite character-
istics meet the eye the moment we turn to the primitive
arts of the New AVorld. There, indications of imitative
design meet us on every hand. The rude tribes of the
North-west, though living in the simplest condition of
savage life, not only copy the familiar animal and vegetable
forms with which they are surrounded : but represent, with
ingenious skill, novel objects of European art introduced to
tlieir notice. Even their plaited and wo7en grass and
quill- work assume a pictorial aspect ; and the pottery is not
only ornamented with patterns derived from flowers and
other natural objects, but more elaborated examples are
occasionally moulded into the forms of animals. Still more
is this the case with the tubes, masks, personal ornaments,
and, above all, the pipe-heads, alike of the Mound-Builders,
and of living races. Nor does it stop with such miniature
productions of art. The same imitative faculty reappears
in the great earthworks of Wisconsin and Ohio : where the
artist has wrought out representations of natural objects on
a colossal scale.

The chronicles recorded by such means are invaluable.
The walls of Central American ruins are covered with voice-
less hieroglyphics ; and the costly folios of Lord Kings-
borough's Mexican Antiquities have placed at the command
of the scholars of both hemispheres the dubious ideography of
native historians. But the artistic representations preserved
alike in the bas-reliefs and statues of Palenquc, or in the char-
actv-ristic pipe sculpture of the Ohio mounds, arc as signifi-
cant and easy of interpretation as those on the Ramesian
tablets of Abbosimbul in Nubia, which demonstrate the
existence, in the era of Lameees, of Semitic and Ethiopian
races, with ethnical diversities as clearly defined as now.

* Vide Prehistoric Aunah of Scotland, vol, i. pp. •40G-498.

XV.]

ANALOG /ES IN RITES AND CUSTOMS.

359

Among the characteristics of ancient and modern nations
discernible in peculiar rites and customs, or disclosed in
their arts, there are some that indicate widely diffused
hereditary influences, and so furnish a clew to remote
affinities of race. The practice of circumcision, for example,
which prevails both in Asia and Africa, wherever the
influence of Semitic nations can be traced, strikingly illus-
trates the value of such indices. Another ancient custom,
that of systematic cranial distortion, was common to
nations of both hemispheres, and is proved by the evidence
of ancient sculpture to hive been in use at the period of
highest architectural art in Central America. The Indian war-
trophy of the scalp, and its singular counterpart, the peace-
pipe, are also significant usages of the New World ; though
the former appears to have been equally common among
ancient Asiatic nations. Herodotus refers to scalping as
one of the most characteristic war-customs of the Scythians,
and to their hanging the scalp-trophies to the warrior's
bridle-rein. Hence the airoa-KvOl^eiv of Euripides, quoted
by Rawlinson, when remarking on the rcs»jmblance of such
ancient customs to those of the Ked Indians. The corre-
spondence is worthy of note, in connection with others
afterwards referred to, as possibly indicative of something
more than a mere American coi.nterpart to Egyptian and
Oriental accumulations of trophies of the slain — the skulls,
the bauds, the ears, or even the foreskins, — repeatedly
referred to in the Old Testament Scriptures, and recorded
with minute detail on the paintings of Egypt, and the
sculptures of Nimroud and Khorsabad. But no such
analogies throw light on the singular usage of the peace-
pipe. The ethnical relations wdiich it indicates beh)ng
exclusively to the New World, where it seems to perpetuate
a Hignificaiit synd)oliHm derived from an extinct native
civilisation. As such, it is worthy of study by the Ameri-
can ethnologist, as the most curious of the nuiiiy pnictices
connected with the use of the strange nicotian stimulant.

Ill

300

ALTAR RECORDS.

[chap.

The pipe appears to have been associated with solemn
religious rites and civic ceremonials, both in ancient and
modern times. It bore a prominent part in the worship of
the old Mound- Builders ; and still retains its place among
the paraphernalia of the inspired medicine man or priest,
and the most sacred credentials of the ambassador or war-
chief.

The implements designed for the use of tobacco or other
narcotic herbs, occupy a prominent place among the works
of art of which the sacrificial mounds are the principal
depositories. In accordance with the almost universal
custom of barbarous and semi-civilised nations, the Mound-
Builders devoted to their dead whatever had been most
piized in life, or was deemed valuable for some talismanic
<vharm. Hence the Mississippi mounds, and the ancient
tombs of Mexico and Peru, disclose the same kind of
evidence of the past as Wilkinson has deduced from the
catacombs of Egypt, or Dennis from the sepulchres of
Etruria. But in addition to this, the remarkable religious
rites of the American Mound-Builders have preserved not
only their altars, but the oflferings lai^l upon them. The
perishable garments of the dead have necessarily disap-
peared ; and of instruments or utensils of wood or other
combustible materials it is vain to expect a trace, where
even metal has melted, and the stone been calcined in the
blaze of sacrificial fires ; but articles of copper and stone,
of fictile ware, and even of shell, ivory, and bone, have
escaped the destructive flame, and withstood the action of
time. In such enduring chaiacters inscriptions are legibly
graven upon the altars of the Mound-Builders. Let us try
to translate their records into the language of modern
thought.

What such relics record in reference to metallurgy has
already been seen. The Monnd-Builders were acquainted
with several of the metals. Tiiey had both tlie silver and
lead of Iowa and Wisconsin in use. Implements and

XV.]

SMELTING THE ORES.

361

ry has
liiited
\x and
and

personal ornaments of copper abound on tlieir altars ; and
the mechanical combination of silver ,vith the native copper
of which those are made, indicates that they derived their
supplies from Lake Superior, where alone the metals have
hitherto been found in the singular mechanico-chemical
combination of crystals of silver in a copper matrix. Their
sacrificial fires have in some cases fused the metallic offer-
ings on the altars into a mass of molten metal, so that the
Mound-Builders had thus presented to them this all-impor-
tant lesson of metallurgy. Mr. F. S. Perkins, of Burlington,
Wisconsin, whose collection of native copper implements
numbers upwards of sixty specimens, has arrived at the
conclusion that some of those from the ancient mounds
have been cast in moulds \ and Mr. J. W. Foster concurs
in the belief that the Mound-Builders had learned to smelt
tb jres.^ This still requires further proof. At Cincinnati,
I saw in the collection of Mr. Cleneay, a choice specimen of
a copper axe, found on the banks of Hog Creek, a tributary
of the Oreat Miami. It measures fifteen inches long, and
weighs 5 lb. 5 J oz. ; but though well proportioned, and
finisiied with unusual care, it is entirely the work of the
hammer. Only in one case, of an axe from the Lockport
Mound, have I seen indications which seem to suggest a
process of casting. But specimens of accidentally melted
copper repeatedly occur ; and Mr. Jas. R. Skinner, of Cincin-
nati, showed me a melted mass of pure sib^'^r, of 4 lb.
weight, found lying on a heap of charcoal, in cutting through
the embankment surrounding a large mound at Marietta.
Nothing further was needed than the practical sagacity by
which similar accidents have been turned to account, to
lead the Mound-Builders one step beyond this, to the use
of the crucible and the mould. It would not, therefore,
surprise me to find partial trace?, of the use of both. Their
imitative skill, and ability in modelling, had already taught
them the use of the mould v/hen working in clay. But

1 Prehistoric Raca qf the Unitetl States, p. 293.

362

WISCONSIN PRAIRIE-LANDS.

[chap.

I'.'.

J-p;

■'ill

they had, at best, a very rudimentary knowledge of metal-
lurgy ; they do not appear to have acquired, b}" barter or
otherwise, any specimens of the alloyed metals ; and only
mechanically combined their copper with silver. Hematite,
though prized by them, was used simply as a stone. They
were familiar with silver, and shaped it into many personal
ornaments. The sulphuret of lead was also known to them ;
and was turned to account both for use and ornamentation.
Thus far, then, it appears that the Mound-Builders
shared in the metallurgic wealth of the great copper region.
We are reminded, accordingly, that the broad undulating
prairie-lands of Wisconsin, with their remarkable symbolic
earthworks, lie directly between the shores of Lake Supe-
rior and the region occupied by the Mound-Builders. The
monuments of the latter abound with examples of their
builders' arts ; and are surrounded with varied proofs of
settled occupation, civic and religious structures, and per-
manent defensive military works. Throughout Wisconsin,
on the contrary, the symbolic mounds stand alone, and have
hitherto been found, with a few rare exceptions, to contain
no relics. Neither earthworks adapted to religious rites,
nor military defences, attest that that region was occu-
pied by a numerous population, such as its many natural
advantages fitted it to sustain. Hencd the conjecture that
the mineral country on the southern shores of the Great
Lake was the recognised source of supply for the whole
population north of the Gulf of Mexico ; and that diflerent
tribes throughout the vast basin of the Mississippi and its
tributaries were wont to send working parties thither, as to
a region common to all. Such an idea accords with the
further conjecture that the symbolic mounds of Wisconsin
may be memorials of sacred rites, or pledges of neutrality
among nations from the various tributaries of the great
river, as they annually met on this border-land of the
common metallic storehouse. It is obvious that the Mound-
Builders were a highly religious people. Their superstitious

XV.]

THE RACE OF THE MOUNDS.

l^l

onsiii
rality
great
the
Dund-
itious

rites were of frequent occurrence, and accompanied vviili
costly sacrifices ; while in the numerous symbolic mounds
of Wisconsin, labour alone is the sacrifice, and the external
form preserves the one idea at which their builders aimed.

So far, this theory of a sacred neutral ground and common
mineral region is conjectural. Nevertheless, it involves
certain facts to be borne in view for comparison with others
of a diverse kind. In the once densely peopled regions of
Ohio and Illinois, where the works of the Mound-Builders
abound, the river valleys were occupied by an ingenious
and industrious agricultural population : who, if not aggres-
sive and war-like, employed their constructive skill on
extensive works for military defence. Whencesoever the
danger existed that they had thus to apprehend and guard
against, there is no trace of its localisation within the region
lying immediately to the south of Lake Superior, through
which their path lay to the great copper country. More
probably offensive and defensive warfare was carried on
between tribes or states of the Mound Eace settled on
diflerent tributaries of the same great water-system. But
the growing civilisation of the nations of the Mississippi
valley was also exposed to the aggression of barbarian tribes
of the North-west ; for if the Mound-Builders diff*ered in
culture and race from the progenitors of the modern Red
Indian, some of their arts and customs render it probable
that the latter were not unknown to them.

So far, then, we connect the race of the Mounds with the
shores of Lake Superior, and thus trace out for them a
relation to regions of the North. But the objects wrought
by their artistic skill reveal no less certninly their fiimiliarity
with animals of southern and even tropical latitudes ; and
the materials employed in their manufactures include mica
of the Alleghanies, the obsidian of Mexico, and jade and
porphyry derived probal)ly from the same region, or from
others still farther south. Such facts warn us against any
hastily constructed hypothesis of migrations for a people to

I v.-

■tk'lf

1 n

I -'i

-1,: .' !l

364

MOUND CARVINGS.

[chap.

whom the resources of so many dissimilar regions were
partially known. We see in them, however, proofs of an
extensive traffic ; and may assume, as at least exceedingly
probable, the existence of widely extended relations among
that singular race. It is not to be inferred from the use
of terms specifically applied to modem trade, that they
are intended to suggest the possession of a currency and
exchanges, of banking agencies, or manufacturing corpora-
tions. But, without confounding the traces of a rudimentary
civilisation with characteristics of its mature development,
there are proofs sufficient to justify the inference that the
Mound-Builders traded with the copper of Lake Superior
for objects of necessity and luxury brought from widely-
separated regions of the continent. Such exchanges may
have been effected by many intermediate agencies, rather
than by any direct traffic. But the river system of the
Mississippi has furnished to the later forest tribes facilities
for interchange under far less favourable circumstances ;
and such a systematic trade among an ingenious and settled
people may have materially contributed to the progress of
civilisation in the populous valleys of the Ohio.

Turning next to the carvings in stone recovered from
the mounds, they include objects of singular interest, some
cf which, at least, fully merit the designation of works of
art. Compared, indeed, with the sculptures in porphyry
and the great Calendar Stone of Mexico ; the elaborate
fa§ades and columned terraces of Uxmal, Zayi, and Kabah ;
and the colossal statues, basso-relievos and hieroglyphics of
Copan and Palenque : the art of the Mound-Builders, which
expended its highest efforts on the decoration of a tube, or
the sculpture of a pipe-bowl, may appear insignificant
enough. But the imagination is apt to be impressed by
mere size, and requires to be reminded of the superior
excellence of a Greek medal or a Roman gem to all the
colossal grandeur of an Egyptian Memnon. The architec-
ture and sculpture of Central America preserve to us the

[chap,

IS were
s of an
sdingly

among
the use
it they
cy and
orpora-
nentary
)praeut,
hat the
luperior
widely-
;es may
, rather

of the
acilities
stances ;
. settled
gresa of

d from
5t, some
^orks of
)rphyry
aborate
vabah ;
hies of

which
ube, or
nificant
sed by
uperior

all the
rchitec-

us the

XV.]

PORTRAIT-SCULPTURE.

365

highest intellectual efforts of the New World, and are ani-
mated by a historical significance which cannot be over-
estimated. Nevertheless, examples among the miniature
works of art of the Ohio Valley admit of comparison with
them in some essential elements of artistic skill. Apart,
indeed, from the significance of the hieroglyphics with
which the colossal statues of Copan are graven, they might
rank with the monstrous creations of Hindu art ; whereas
some of the objects taken from altars of " Mound City "
furnish specimens of imitative design and portrait-sculpture
full of cliaracter and individuality.

The simplicity, variety, and minute expression in many
of the miniature mound-sculptures, their delicacy of execu-
tion and imitative skill, render them just objects of interest.
But foremost in every trait of value for the elucidation of
the history or characteristics of their workers, are the
human heads, which, when the accuracy of many of the
miniature sculptures of animals is considered, it can scarcely
be doubted, perpetuate faithful representations of the
ancient people by whom they were executed. Equally
well-authenticated portraiture of Umbrian, Pelasgian, or
other mythical races of Europe would be invaluable to the
ethnologist. It would solve som^' of the knottiest problems
of his science, better than all the ol ^ure disquisitions to
which the aboriginal population of G ^ce and Itnly has
given rise. American ethnologists, ace dingly, have not
failed to turn such iconographic evidence to even more
account than legitimate induction will sustain, in support
of their favourite argument for an indigenous unity of the
whole ancient and modern races of the New World.

By means of such artistic relics we can determine the
physical characteristics of the Mound -Builders, and of con-
temporary tribes or nations known to them. We also learn
the character of fauna, native and foreign to the region
occupied by them, with which they were familiar. I have
had an opportunity of carefully inspecting the valuable

366

AMERICAN ICONOGRAPHY.

[chap.

I :M

collection of mound-sculptures in the possession of Dr. E.
H. Davis of New York.^ In some cases, perhaps, their
artistic merits have been overrated. Nevertheless the
minute accuracy with which many of the objects of natural
history have been copied is reDiarka1)le ; and confirms the
reliance to be placed on the ethnical portraiture perpetuated
in their representations of the human head.

Of these invaluable examples of ancient American icono-
o-^-apliy, one (Fig. 77) has attracted special notice, not only
as the most beautiful head of the series, but from its sup-
posed oorrerpondcnce to the type of the modern North
American Indian. The workmanship of thi.^ head is

l'"io. 7".— rortrait Mound Piiic.

described by its discoverers as '* unsurpassed by any speci-
men of ancient American arc which has fallen under the
notice of th<i authors, not excepting the best productions of
Mexico and Peru."^ In the well-executed illustration whic]i
accompanies these remarks, the Red Indian features are
unmistakably represented ; nor has this failed to rt re
abundant attention, and to have ascribed to it evc^n more
than its due importance. Mr. Francis Pulszky, the learned
Hungarian, thus comments on it in his Icofiographie
Researches on Human Races and their Art: — "A most
characteristic, we may say artistically beautiful head, the

' This collection Ims since bcou acquired for the Bh.;kiii()re Mneeum.

^ Ancient AIummiHfii ii/' the 4yiit.HisHl/>i>i Vtill'ji, ]u '245, tig, 145. ? ^ -

XV.]

DEDUCTIONS.

3^7

apcci-
T the
oils of
vvliicli
s arc
re
more
iriiod

most
, the

workmanship of these uiiknowu Mound-Builders, dug up
and published by Squier, exhibits the peculiar Indian feat-
ures so faithfully, and with such sculptural perfection, that
we cannot withhold or.r admiration from their artistic pro-
ficiency. It proves three things : 1st, That these Mound-
Builders were American Indian in type ; 2d, That time
(age ante-Columbian, but otherwise, unknown,) has not
changed the type of this indigenous group of races ; and
3d, That the Mound-Builders were prob[d)ly a<;quainted
with no other men but themselves."^ Such are the sweep-
ing deductions drawn from premises supplied by a single
example of mound-sculpture : or rather by tlic depiction of

Fi(t. VS.—roitralt Mound rii>c.

it in Messrs. Squier and Davis's volume ; for after a careful
examination of the original, its ethnic characteristics appear
to me to be mainly due to tlie pencil of the draughtsman,
who has, no doubt undesignedly, given to his drawing much
more of the typical Indian features than are traceable in the
original. Of this Figs. 77 and 78 are more accurate copies ;
and from these it will be seen that the nose, instead of
having the salient Roman arch there represented, is per-
fectly straight, and is neither very prominent nor dilated.
The mouth, though protuberant, is small ; the lips are thin ;
instead of the characteristic ponderous maxillary region of the
true Indian, the chin and the up[)er lij) are both short ; and

^j V: >.,:;:: ' » UuU\}vmm llaevs of the Earth, p. 183. 1; ;- " 1'; ; :'r

;-i.ii

368

NON-INDIAN TYPE,

[chap.

' !

riw

«8t , 1 tffi

the lower jaw, without any marked width between the con-
dyles, is small, and tapers gradually towards the chin.
Perhaps it is owing to this smallness of the lower portion
of the head and face, that it was supposed to represent a
female. But such an idea is not suggested by any marked
characteristic either in the features or head-dress. The
cheek-bones, though high, are by no means so prominent as
in the original engraving. Indeed, the projection is almost
entirely in front, giving a tumid cheek immediately under
the eye. I doubt if any competent observer, ignorant of
the history of this relic, would assign it to an Indian type.

It is apparent, therefore, that the inferences drawn from
the representation of a single example of mound-sculpture
are based on inaccurate premises. But even supposing the
head to reproduce the features of the modern Indian : it
would by no means prove the three propositions deduced
from its discovery ; since it is not the uuly specimen of
sculptured portraiture discovered in the mounds, and we
look in vain in other examples for these points of Indian
physiognomy which would first attract the eye of the imita-
tive modeller or sculptor. The salient and dilated nose,

prominent cheek-bones, massive
jaw, and large mouth, may be as-
signed as the most noticeable
characteristics ; but all or nearly
all of those are wanting in most
of the other sculptured heads or
masks. The character of these may
be seen iii the hc;id engraved here
(Fig. 79), derived from the same
rich depository opened in " Mound
City.' It is cut in a compact yel-
lowish stone. The nose is nearly in a
line with the forehead, excepting at the point, which projects
in a manner certainly by no means characteristic of Indian
features ; and though the lips protrude, they arc delicate,

Fiu. 79.- I'oitiiiit Mouiul I'iiw.

XV.]

OTHER EXAMPLES.

369

may
hero
iame
mnd
y(3l-
iii a
Ijccts
]diaii
Icate,

and the mouth is small. The ears in both are larj^e, and
in the latter are perforated with four small holes around
their upper edges, in this case, from the delicacy of the
features, it is suggested with greater probability than in the
former example, that it has been designed after a female
model. Another head,* executed in the same material, is
much altered by fire. It has not, like the previous examples,
been designed for a pipe-head, but is broken ofif from a com-
plete human figure, or other larger piece of carving. It is
much inferior as a work of art, and indeed approaches the
grotesque or caricature. Nevertheless, it has considerable
character in its expression ; and no one familiar with the
Indian cast of countenance would readily assign either to it
or the previous specimen of mound-sculpture any aim at
such representation, if unaware of the circumstances of their
discovery. In this, as in others of the heads, the face is
tattooed, and the ears have been perforated ; and from the
strongly attached oxide of copper, there can be little doubt
that they were decorated with rings or pendants of that
metal. Other portrait sculptures and terra-cottas, either
found in the mounds, or discovered within the region where
they chiefly abound, are figured in the works of Squier,
Schoolcraft, Laphara, Foster, Jones, and in the American
Ethnological Society's Transactions. The majority of them
are inferior as works of ait to those already described.
But if they possess any value as indications of the physio-
gnomical type of ancient American races, they tend to
confirm the idea of a prevailing diversity instead of a
uniformity of cranial form and features.

The discovery of a sculptured head betraying traces of
Indian features, among many of a different typo, co'iesponds
to another interesting fact, that animals foreign to the
region, and even to the North American continent, are
figured in the mound-sculptures. It presents a parallel to
well-known examples of Etruscan vases moulded in the

' Anmut Monumenta of the Afmissippi Valley (No. 14.S).
VOL. 1. 2 A '

370

ANTIQUE JCONOGRAPHIC ART.

[chap.

;''

form of negroes' heads ; and of Greek pottery painted with
the same characteristic features and woolly hair. Specimens
of both are preserved among the collections of the British
Museum, and furnish interesting evidence, alike of the
permanency of the negro type, and of the familiarity both
of Greek and Etruscan artists with the African features,
long prior to the Christian era. Similar examples of foreign
portraiture have attracted attention on the older monu-
ments of Egypt, and among the basso-relievos of the tomb
of Darius Hystaspes at Persepolis : supplying interesting
illustrations of imitative art employed in the perpetuation
of ethnic peculiarities of physiognomy. Supposing, there-
fore, the Mound Builders to have been a {settled population,
as distinct from a contemporaneous Indian race as the
classic nations of antiquity differed from the barbarian
tribes beyond the Alps and the Rhine : it is no more sur-
prising to trace the genuine Indian features in mound-
sculptures, than to discover those of the Dacian or the Gaul
on the column of Trajan. It proves that the Mound-
Builders were familiar with the American Indian type, but
nothing more. The evidence indeed tends very distinctly
to suggest that they were not of the same type ; since the
majority of sculptured human heads hitherto recovered
from their ancient depositories do not reproduce the Indian
features.

The physical type of the Mound-Builders will again come
under consideration in a subsequent chapter ; but it is
interesting meanwhile to observe that even in the charac-
teristics of this portrait-sculpture distinctive qualities appear.
The imitative faculty manifests itself in expressive varieties
of style, in mod(;rn Indian art. Some tribes, such as the
Algonquins, confine themselves to literal reproductions of
natural objects, while others, such as the Babeens, indulge
in a grotesque and ingeniously diversified play of fancy.
But the intellectual development implied in individual
portraiture goes beyond this, and is rare indeed among

Y \ 1
- 1 - --

I!:

CHAP.

with

mens

ritisli

i the

'both

itures,

Dieign

oaonu-

', tomb

:esting

uation

there-

ilation,

as the

rbarian

ire sur-

mound-

lie Gaul

Vlound-

pe, but

stinctly

nee the
ovcred
Indian

lin come
it it is
charac-
appcar.
arieties

as the
:ions of
I indulge

fancy,
[ividual

among

XV.]

PECULIAR IMITATIVE SKILL.

371

nations in the earlier stages of civilisation. Even among
the civilised Mexicans, imitations of the human face and
figure appear to have seldom passed beyond the grotesque ;
and although the sculptors of Central America and Yucatan
manifested an artistic power which accords with the civili-
sation of a lettered people : yet in the majority of their
statues and reliefs, we see the subordination of the human
form and features to the symbolism of tLcir mythology, or
to mere decorative requirements. It thus seems that, amid
the general prevalence of an aptitude for imitative art, alike
among the ancient and modern nations of the American
continent, the Mound-Builders, though working within a
narrow range, developed a power of appreciating its minuter
delicacies such as is only traceable elsewhere among th-^
choicest sculptures of Uxmal and Palenque.

To this imitative skill we owe othev works which have
an important signifi^cance in relation to ethnological problems
affecting the ancient population of the New World. Refer-
ence has already been made to the curious collection of stone
pipes, recovered from one of the smaller tumuli of " Moimd
City." They included some of the sculptured human heads ;
but the bowls of most of them were carved into figures of
beasts, birds, and reptiles. On these the ancient sculptors
appear to have lavished their artistic skill with a degree of
care bestowed on none other of the less perishable works, from
which alone we can now judge of their intellectual develop-
ment. " Not only," as Messrs. Squier and Davis observe,
" are the features of the various objects represented faith-
fully, but their peculiarities and habits are in some degree
exhibited. The otter is shown in a characteristic attitude,
holding a fish in his mouth ; the heron also holds a fish ;
and the hawk grasps a small bird in its talons, which it tears
with its beak. The panther, the bear, the wolf, the beaver,
the otter, the squirrel, the racoon, the hawk, the heron, crow,
swallow, buzzard, the paroquet, toucan, and other indigen-
ous and southern birds ; the turtle, the frog, toad, rattle-

Ill]

i:^ii.

372

ANIMALS REPRESENTED.

[chap.

' ^1

W*K

snake, etc., are recognised at first glance ;"^ and in addition
to those, the jaguar or panther, the cougar, the elk, the
opossum, the alligator, and numerous land and water birds,
including several varieties of the owls, herons, and other
species, have all been recognised among more recent dis-
closures. Many of those are represented in characteristic
attitudes, and with much skill nnd fidelity of portraiture.
The exuberant fancy of the ancient sculptors also displays
itself at times in humorous masks, and incongruous devices,
such as a goose's head cut in a hard black stone, which on
looking to the back becomes a human skull. Some of those
works appear to have been executed, like the sportive
sketches of the modern artist, with no other object than the
carver's own gratification.

Unfinished carvings show the process by which they
wore wrought. A toad, in a characteristic attitude, but
only roughly shaped out, " very well exhibits the mode of
workmansliip. While the general surface appears covered
with stripe running in every direction, as if produced by
rubbing, the folds and lines are clearly cut with some sort
of graver. The marks of the implement, chipping out
portions a fourth of an inch in length, are too distinct to
admit the slightest doubt that a cutting tool was used in
the work." Again, in another pipe-head, blocked out into
the form of a bird, "the lines indicating the feathers,
grooves of the beak, and other more delicate features, are
cut or graved on the surface at a single stroke. Gome
pointed tool appears to have been used, and the marks are
visible where it has occasionally slipped beyond the control
of the engraver. Indeed, the whole appearance of the
specimen indicates that the work was done rapidly by an
experienced hand, and that the various parts were brought
forward simultaneously. The freedom of the strokes could
only result from long practice ; and we may infer that the
manufacture of pipes had a distinct place in the industrial

1 Ancient Monuments of the MiHaitia'ipjn Valley, p. 152.

CHAP.

ition

, the

Dirds,

other

; dis-

iristic

iture.

splays

(vices,

ch on

those

ortive

m the

. they
e, but
lode of
overed
;ed by
e sort
12: out
Inct to
Ised in
t into
Xhers,
jes, are
Some
tks are
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)f the
by an
[•ought
could
[at the
lustrial

XV.] EXTENSIVE GEOGRAPHICAL RELATIONS. 373

organisation of the Mound-Builders." But this, though
full of interest, need not surprise us, since the art of the
arrow-maker, which required both skill and experience, was
pursued among the forest-tribes as a special craft ; nor is
that of the pipe-maker even now wholly abandoned.

So far, therefore, we are enabled by such means to look
back into that remote past. We see the industrious sculp-
tor at his task ; and holding silent converse with him over
his favourite works, we learn somewhat of his own physical
aspect, of the range of his geographical experience, his
mental capacity and intellectual development. The pottery
of the mounds, in like manner, adds to our knowledge of
the art and civilisation of the age in which it was pro-

l''i(i. 80. — Miiiialce, I'iptj-Sculiitui'c.

duced. But, next in importance to the evidence thus fur-
nished, the miniature sculptures of the mounds derive their
chief value from indications they supply of the extent and
nature of the geographical relations of their owners. By
the fidelity of the representations of so great a variety of
subjects copied from animal life, they furnish evidence of a
knowledge in the Mississippi Valley of fauna peculiar not
only to southern but to tropical latitudes, extending beyond
the Isthmus into the southern continent : and suggestive
either of arts derived from a foreign source, and intercourse
maintained with regions where the civilisation of ancient
America attained its highest development ; or else indicat-

374

KNOWLEDGE OF TROPICAL FAUNA. [chap.

^1' ' '.

ing migration into the northern continent of the race of the
ancient graves of Central and Southern America, bringing
with them the arts of the tropics, and models derived from
animals familiar to their fathers in the parent-land of the
race.

Of one of the most interesting of those exotic models, the
Lamantin or Manatee, seven sculptured figures have been
taken from the mounds of Ohio. This phytophagous
cetacean, which, when full grown, measures from fifteen to
twenty feet in length, is found only in tropical waters.
Species haunt the estuaries and large rivers of Central and
intertropical South America ; as also those of both the
eastern and western sides of tropical Africa : and sometimes
ascend the rivers to a great distance from the sea. Ex-
amples were seen by Humboldt in the Kio Meta, a branch
of the Orinoco, one thousand miles above its mouth. They
are also found among the Antilles, and on the coast of the
Florida peninsula. The most characteristic details in their
form which chiefly attracted attention when the Manatee
was first brought under the notice of Europeans, are faith-
fully reproduced in the Mound sculptures. Fancy helped
to exaggerate the peculiarities of this strange animal to the
earliest European voyagers, and from them it received the
name of the Siren. But its most remarkable feature is the
fore paw, occupying the usual place of the cetacean fin,
but bearing so close a resemblance to a human hand that
the name Manatee is generally supposed to have been con-
ferred on it by the first Spanish explorers on this account.*
It is ranked according to ecclesiastical natural history as a
fish ; and its flesh is in special request at St. Christopher's,
Guadaloupe, Martinique, and in various South American
localities, during Lent. Its form is therefore familiar to
the natives of South America, and was once equally well
known to those of the Antilles, and probably to the ancient

^ Thia derivation from the Spanish Mano is rejected by some etymologists for
n native Carib one, Manaitoiii. * '

XV.]

DEDUCTIONS.

375

as a

sta for

coastmen of the Gulf. But we must account bv other
means for the discovery of accurate representations of it
among the sculptures of the far-inland Ohio mounds ; and
the same remark applies to the jaguar or panther, the
cougar, the toucan ; to the buzzard possibly, and also to
the paroquet. The majority of those animals are not known
in the United States ; some of them are totally unknown
within any part of the North American continent. Others
may be classed with the paroquet, which, though essentially
a southern bird, and common around the Gulf, does occasion-
ally make its appearance inland ; and so might become known
to the antravelled Mound-Builder in his northern home.

The importance of such evidence that the ancient dwellers
in the Scioto Valley hud some knowledge of tropical animpJs,
and even of those confined exclusively to the southern con-
tinent, has not escaped the notice of the explorers of the
mounds. It has even induced them to hesitate in assigning
the name of the toucan to sculptures concerning the design
of which there could be no other reasonable ground for
doubt. Referring to the manatee sculptures, they remark :
"These singular relics have a direct bearing upon some
of the questions connected with the origin of the mounds.
They are undistinguishable, so far as material and work-
manship are concerned, from an entire class of remains
found in them, and are evidently the work of the same
hands with the other effigies of beasts and birds; and
yet they faithfully represent animals found (and only in
small numbers), a thousand miles distant upon the shores
of Florida, or — if the birds seemingly belonging to the
zygodactylous order be really designed to represent the
toucan, — found only in the tropical regions of South
America. Either the same race, possessing throughout a
like style of workmanship, and deriving their materials
from a common source, existed contemporaneously over the
whole range of intervening territory, and maintained a
constant intercommunication; or else there was at some

|J|
i I

I.'.

h'J

■i-f --^

376

THE TOUCAN AND MANATEE.

[chap.

period a migration from the south, bringing with it charac-
teristic remains of the land from which it emanated. The
sculptures of the manatees are too exact to have been the
production of those who were not well acquainted with the
animal and its habits." Of the representations of the
toucan, the accompanying woodcut (Fig. 81) will furnish a
sufficient illustration. It is imitated with considerable
accuracy, though inferior to some of the finest specimens of
mound sculpture. The most important deviation from
correctness of detail is, that it has three toes instead of two
before, although the two are correctly represented behind.
It is stooping its head to take food from a rudely outlined

Fio. 81. — Toucan, Pipe-Sculiitui'e.

human hand ; and as it is known that the brilliant plumage
of the toucan leads to its being frequently tamed by the
natives of Guiana and Brazil, this tends not only to confirm
the idea of its representation by the sculptures in question :
but to suggest that the Mound-Builders may have had
aviaries, like those in which the Aztec caciques assembled
birds of splendid plumage and beautiful form from every
part of their Mexican empire.

Unless we assume such a lap^ic of time as may suffice
for important changes in the climate and fauna of the
Ohio Valley, the evidence thus far adduced suggests the
inference either that the whole extensive regions thus indi-
cated were occupied at some remote period by a common
race ; or we must recognise in such indications of famili-
arity with the natural history of the tropics, and even of

XV.]

TRACES OF MIGRATION.

377

the southern continent, proof that that very people, who
derived all their metal from the great northern regions of
Lake Superior, had themselves migrated from southern
latitudes rich in metallic ores.

Various considerations tend to favour the idea of such a
migration, rather than the maintenance of intercommunica-
tion and exchange, among a people of the same race, through-
out regions so extensive and so geographically distinct.
If the Mound-Builders had some of the arts and models,
not only of Central but of Southern America : they also em-
ployed in their ingenious manufactures pearls and shells of
the Gulf of Florida ; obsidian from Mexico ; mica believed
to have been brought from the AUeghanies ; jade, such as
that described by Humboldt among the rare materials of
ancient manufacture in Chili ; the lead of Wisconsin ; and
the copper, and probably the silver, of Ontonagon and the
Keweenaw peninsula. The fact indeed that some of their
most elaborate carvings represent birds and quadrupeds
belonging to latitudes so far to the south, naturally tends to
suggest the idea of a central region where arts were culti-
vated to an extent unknown in the Mississippi Valley ; and
that those objects, manufactured where such models are
furnished by the native fauna, remain only as evidences of
ancient intercourse maintained between these latitudes and
the localities where now alone such are known to abound.
But in opposition to this, full value must be given to the
fact that neither the relics, nor the customs which they
illustrate, pertain exclusively to southern latitudes ; nor are
sucli found to predominate among the singular evidences of
ancient and more matured civilisation which abound in
Central and Southern America. The varied nature of the
materials employed in the arts of the Mound-Builders, we
must also remember, indicates a wide range of relations ;
though it cannot be assumed that these were maintained in
every case by direct intercourse.

The earlier students of American archoeology, like the

J78

ASSUMED INDICATIONS.

[chap-

older school of British antiquaries, gave full scope to a
system of theorising which built up comprehensive ethno-
logical schemes on the very smallest premises ; but in the
more judicious caution of later writers there is a tendency
to run to the opposite extreme. Perhaps Messrs. Squier
and Davis indulge at times in an exaggerated estimate of
the merits of the remarkable works of art discovered and
published as the result of their joint labours ; but subse-
quent critics have either unduly depreciated them, or solved
the difficulties att'. ndant on such discoveries, by ascribing
their manufacture to an undetermined foreign source. Mr.
Schookraft specially manifested a disposition to underrate
the artistic ability discernible in some of them ; while Mr.
Haven, who fully admits their skilful execution, derives
from that very fact the evidence of foreign manufacture.
After describing the weapons, pottery, and personal orna-
ments obtained from the mounds, the latter writer adds,
" and, with these were found sculptured figures of animals
and the human head, in the form of pipes, wrought with great
delicacy and spirit from some of the hardest stones. The
last-named are relics that imply a very considerable degree
of art ; and if believed to be the work of the people with
whose remains they are found, would tend gTcatly to
increase the wonder that the art of sculpture among them
was not manifested in other objects and places. The fact
that nearly all the finer specimens of workmanship represent
birds, or land and marine animals belonging to a different
latitude ; while the pearls, the knives of obsidian, the marine
shells, and the copper equally testify to a distant, though
not extra- continental origin, may, however, exclude these
from being received as proofs of local industry and skilL"^

A reconsideration of the list already given of animals
sculptured by the ancient pipe-makers, cannot fail to satisfy
the inquirer that it is an over-statement of the case to say
that nearly all belong to a different latitude. The real

<« ^ Archceology of the United Stittes, p. I'z2.

XV.]

ANALOGOUS SCULPTUFES.

379

interest and diflSculty of the question lie in the fact of dis-
covering, along with so many sculptured figures of animals
pertaining to the locality, others represented with equal
spirit and fidelity, though belonging to diverse latitudes.
To those familiar with early Scandinavian and British
antiquities, such an assignment of the mound sculptures to
a foreign origin, on account of their models being in part
derived from distant sources, must appear a needless
assumption which only shifts without lessening the diffi-
culty. On the sculptured standing stones of Scotland-
belonging apparently to the closing <}ra of Paganism, and
the first introduction of Christianity there, — may be seen
the tiger or leopard, the ape, the camel, the serpent, and as
supposed by some, the elephemt and walrus, along with
other representations or symbols, borrowed, not like the
models of the Mound-Builders, from a locality so near as
to admit of the theory of direct commercial intercourse, or
recent migration, but from remote districts of Asia, or from
Africa. The most noticeable difference between the imita-
tions of foreign fauna on the Scottish monuments, and in
the ancient American sculptures, is that the former occa-
sionally betray, as might be expected, the conventional
characteristics of a traditional type ; while the latter, if
they furnish evidence of migration, would in so far tend to
prove it more recent, and to a locality not so distant as to
preclude all renewal of intercourse with the ancestral birth-
land. Traces of the same reproduction of unfamiliar objects
are, indeed, apparent in the mound sculptures. The objects
least truthfully represented, in some cases, are animals
foreign to the region where alone such works of art have
been found. But the South American toucan of the mound
sculptor, figured on a previous page, is certainly not inferior
to the accompanying specimens of the Peruvian modeller's
imitative skill, wrought on a vessel of black ware (Fig. 82),
now in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Scot-
land : though it will be remembered that the latter are the

38o

PERUVIAN /Mil \TIVE SKILL.

[chap.

work of an artist to whom the original may be presumed to
have been familiar. Several of the animals engraved in the
Ancient Monuments of the Mississijyin Valley fall far short
of the fidelity of imitation ascribed to them in the accom-
panying text : but the characteristic individuality of others
displays remarkable imitative power. The lugubrious ex-
pression given to more than one of the toads is full of
humour; and some of the ruder human heads may be
described as portrait-sketches in tiie style of Punch. But
after making every requisite deduction from the exaggera-
tions of enthusiastic observers, abundant evidence of artistic

Kid. 82.— Peruvittii Blttck Ware.

skill and ingenuity remains to justify the wonder that a
people capable of executing such works shoidd have left no
large monuments of their art. While, however, this affords
no sufficient ground for transferring their origin to another
region, we may still look with interest for the disco\ ery of
analogous productions in some of the great centres of native
American civilisation.

With one or two stray exceptions, objects precisely
similar to the mound sculptures have not hitherto been met
with, beyond the valleys where other traces of the Mound
Builders abound ; but the points of resemblance between

XV.]

CARVED STO.YE MORTARS.

3*?f

the sculptured mound-pipes and numerous miniature stone
mortars found in Peru are too striking to be overlooked.
Of the two examples given here (Fig. 83), the one is a
llama, from Huarmachaco, in Peru, in the collection of the
Historical Society of New York. It is cut in a close-
grained black stone, and measures four inches long. The
other, of darkish brown schist, is from a drawing made by
Mr. Thomas Ewbank, while in Peru. The greater number
of those seen by him represent the llama and its congeners,
the alpaca, guanoco, and vicuna. They are all hollowed
preci,=«ftly like the bowl of the sculptured mound-pipes, but

Fio, 83.— reruvlan Stoiio Mortars.

have no lateral perforation or mouth-piece. Their probable
use was as mortars, in which the Peruvians rubbed tobacco
into powder, working it with a small pestle until it became
heated with the friction, when it was taken as snuff. The
transition from this practice to that of inhaling the burning
fumes is simple ; and the correspondence between the
ancient Peruvian tobacco-mortar and the stone pipe of the
Mound-Builder is worthy of note, when taken into con-
sideration alOiig with the imitations of birds of the southern
continent found among the sculptures of ihe mounds. Dr.
Tschudi describes four of the Peruvian mortars preserved

382

NICOTIAN RELIGIOUS RITES.

[chap.

at Vienna, carved in porphyry, basalt, and granite ; and he
adds : " How the ancient Peruvians, without the aid of
iron tools, were able to carve stone so beautifully, is incon-
ceivable."

The absence of any but such miniature carvings in the
northern mounds may also merit notice when viewed in
connection with the ideas of religious worship suggested by
the contents of the mound altars. Idolatry, in its most
striking, and also in some of its most barbarous forms, pre-
vailed, as we know, among the nations of the Mexican
Valley, at the period of the Conquest The mcaments of
Yucatan and Central America leave no room to doubt that
the worship of such visible impersonations of Divine attri-
butes as their sculptors could devise formed a prominent
part of their religious services. Reference has also been
made in a previous chapter to rudely modelled and sculp-
tured idols, accompanying other ancient remains, in sepul-
chral deposits in Tennessee. Others have been found in
the huacals of Chiriqui, on the Isthmus of Panama, along
with numerous gold relics and many fine specimens ol
pottery. Those facts render it the more singuhir that, amid
so many traces of imitative sculpture, no relics obviously
designed as objects of worship have been dug up in the
mounds, or found in such circumstances as to connect them
with the religious practices of the Mound-Bnilders. But
the remarkable characteristics of the elaborately sculptured
pipes, and their obvious connection with services accom-
panying some of the rites of sacrifice or cremation, may
indicate their having played an important part in the
religious solemnities of the ancient race ; and on this the
arts and customs of modern tribes help to throw some
curious light.

So far as we can now infer from evidence furnished by
relics connected with the use of the tobacco-plant, it seemd
to have been as familiar to the ancient tribes of the North-
west, and the aborigines of the Canadian forests, as to those

XV.]

INDIAN LEGENDS.

2>H

of the American tropics, of which the Nicotiana tabaciim
is a native. No such remarkable depusitories indeed have
been found to the north of the great lakes as those disclosed
to the explorers of the tumuli In the Scioto Valley ; but
even now the tobacco-pipe monopolises the ingenious art
of many tribes ; and some of their most curious legends
and superstitions are connected with the favourite national
implement. Among them the dignity of time-honoured
use has conferred on it a sacredness, which survives with
much of its ancient force ; and to this accordingly the
student of American antiquities is justified in turning, as a
link connecting the present with that ancient past. But it
is worthy of note that the form of the mound-pipes differs
essentially from the endless varieties of pattern wrought by
Indian ingenuity. Some consideration, therefore, of tho
arts of the modern pipe-sculptor, and of native customs and
traditions associated with the use of tobacco, is necessary,
as a means of comparison between ancient and modern races
of the New World.

In the Old World, the ideas connected with the tobacco-
pipe are prosaic enough. The chibouk may, at times, be
associated with the poetical reveries of the oriental day-
dreamer, and the hookah with pleasant fancies of the Anglo-
Indian reposing in the shade of his bungalow ; but its
seductive antique mystery, and all its symbolic significance,
pertain to the New World. Longfellow, accordingly, fitly
opens his Song of Hiawatha with the institution of " the
peace-pipe." The Master of Life descends on the mountains
of the prairie, breaks a fragment from the red stone of tho
quarry, and, ftishioning it with curious art into a pipe-head,
he fills it with the bark of the red willow, chafes the forest
into flame with the tempest of his breath, and kindling it,
smokes the calumet as a signal to the nations. The tribes
gjither at the divine summons from river, lake, and praiiic,
to listen to the warnings and promises with which the
Great Spirit seeks to guide them ; and this done, and the

384

THE RED riPE-STONE QUARRY.

[chap.

warriors having buried their '.var-clubs, they smoke their
first peace-pipe, and depart : —

"While the Master of Life, ascending,
Through the opening of cloud-curtains,
Through the doorways of the heaven,
Vanished from before their faces
In the smoke that rolled around him.
The pukwana of the peace-pipe ! "

In this, ar, in other passages of his national epic, the
American poet has embodied cherished legends of the New
World : placing the opening scene of ITiaivatha on the
heights of the red pipe-stone quarry of Coteau des Prairies,
between the Mirmesota and Missouri rivers.

On the summit of the ridge between these two tributaries
of the Mississippi rises a bold cliff, beautifully^ marked with
horizontal layers of light grey and rose or flesh-coloured
quartz. From the base of this a level prairie of about half
a mile in width runs parallel to it ; and here it is that the
famous red pipe-stone is procured, at a depth of from four to
five feet from the surface, in a ravine at the head of the Pipe-
stone Creek, a tributary of the Big Sioux River. Numerous
excavations indicate the resort of Indian tribes to the
locality. " That this place should have been visited," says
Catlin, " for centuries past by all the neighbouring tribes,
who have hidden the war-club as they approached it,
and stayed the cruelties of the scalping-knife, under the
fear of the vengeance of the Gr^at Spirit who overlooks it,
will not seem strange or unnatural when their superstitions
are known. That such has been the custom there is not a
shadow of doubt, and that even so recently as to havt
been witnessed by hundreds and thousands of Indians of
different tribes now living, and from many of whom I have
personally drawn the information."^

1 Illustraliona of the. Manners, etc., of the North American Indians, By fJoo.
(Jatlin. Eighth edition. Vol. ii. p. 107. Vide Proceed. Amer. Philosoph, Sue.,
vol. X. p. 274. ..

't m

XV.]

THE LEAPING-ROCK.

385

it,
the

it,
ons
ot a
avt

of
lave

Oeo.

The enterprising traveller speaks elsewhere of thousands
of inscriptions and drawings observed by him on the neigh-
bouring rocks ; while the feeling iu which they originate
was thus illustrated by an Indian whose portrait he painted
when in the Mandan country : — " My brother," said the
Mandan, " you have made my picture, and I like it much.
My friends tell me they can see the eyes move, and it
must be very good ; it must be partly alive. I am glad it
is done, though many of my people are afraid. I am a
young mnn, but my heart is strong. I have jumped on to
the Medicine Rock ; I have placed my arrow on it, and no
Mandan can take it away. The red stone is slippery, but
my foot was true ; it did not slip. My brother, this pipe
which I give to you I brought from a high mountain ; it is
towards the rising sun. Many were the pipes we brought
from thence, and we brought them away in peace. We
left our totems on the rocks ; we cut them deep in the
stones ; they are there now. The Great Spirit told all
nations to meet there in peace, and all nations hid the war-
club and the tomahawk. The Dahcotahs, who are our
enemies, are very strong ; they have taken up the toma-
hawk, and the blood of our warriors has run on the rocks.
We want to visit our medicines. Our pipes are old and
worn out."

The Medicine or Leaping-Rock, here referred to, is a de-
tached column standing between seven and eight feet from
the precipitous cliff ; and the leap across this chasm is a
daring feat which the young warriors are ambitious of per-
forming. It was pointed out to Catlin by a Sioux chief,
whose son had perished in "^hc attempt. A conical mound
marked the spot of his sepulture ; and though the sanctity
of this ancient neutral ground has been invaded, and the
Sioux now refuse to permit other tribes to have access to it,
this is of quite recent occurrence. The memorials of many
tribes on the graven rocks ; numerous excavations, sepul-

VOL. I. '""■■ ;---- -'-;^ "■^^'/; -■■;''■- '^■■-^^-■';^;;^ 2 b

386

MANDAN TRADITIONS.

[chap.

chral mounds, and other earthworks in the vicinity ; and
the recovery from time to time, in chance excavations, or
in ancient ossuaries and grave-mounds, of pipes wrought
in the favourite material : all confirm the Indian tradition
that this had been recognised as neutral ground by the
tribes to the west, and many of those to the east of the
Mississippi, to which they have made regular pilgrimages
to renew their pipes from the rock consecrated by the foot-
prints of the Great Spirit. The marks of his footsteps are
pointed out, deeply impressed in the rock, and resembling
the track of a large bird 1

Mandan traditions respecting this sacred spot have a
special interest ; for the migrations of that once powerful
Indian nation have been traced from the country lying
between Lake Erie and Cincinnati, down the Valley of the
Ohio, over the graves of the ancient Mound-Builders, and
thence up the western branch of the Mississippi, until the
extinction of nearly the whole nation, by the ravages of the
small-pox, in the year 1838, at their latest settlements on
the Upper Missouri. The site of their last homes lies to
the north of the Sioux's country, in whose possession the
pipe-stone quarries are now vested by the law of the
strongest. To uhe Sioux, accordingly, the guardianship of
the traditions of the locality belongs. For, although they
have thus set at defiance its most sacred characteristic, and
so slighted the mandate of the Great Spirit, they do not
the less strongly hold by the superstitious ideas associated
with the spot.

One of these legends is connected with the peculiar fea-
tures of the scene. Five large granite boulders form pro-
minent objects on the level prairie in the vicinity of the
pipe-stone quarries ; and two holes under the largest of
them are regarded by the Sioux as the abodes of the
guardian spirits of the spot. Catlin, who broke off and
carried away with him fragments of these sacred boulders.

XV.]

SIOUX LEGEND OF THE PEACE-PIPE.

387

fea-

pro-

' the

jst of

the

and

Iders,

remarks : " As for the poor Indian, his superstitious venera-
tion of tliem is such, that not a spear of grass is ])roken or
bent by his feet within three or four roods of them, where
he stops, and, in humble supplication, by throwing plugs of
tobacco to them, solicits permission to dig and carry away
the red stone for his pipes." For here, according to Indian
tradition, not only the mysterious birth of the peace-pipe,
but the postdiluvian creation of man, took place.

The institution of the peace-pipe is thus narrated by the
Sioux : "Many ages after the red men were made, when
all the tribes were at war, the Great Spirit called them
together at the Red Rocks. He stood on the top of the
rocks, and the red nations were assembled on the plain
below. He took out of the rock a piece of the red stone,
and made a large pipe. He smoked it over them all ; told
them that it was part of their flesh ; that though they were at
war, they must meet at this place as friends ; that it belonged
to them all ; that they must make their calumets from it,
and smoke them to him whenever they wished to appease
him or get his goodwill. The smoke from his big pipe
rolled over them all, and he disappeared in its cloud. At
the last whifl" of his pipe a blaze of fire rolled over the
rocks and melted their surface. At that moment two
Indian maidens passed in a name under the two medicine
rocks, where they remain to this day. The voices of Tso-
mecostee and Tsomecostewondee, as they are named, are
heard at times in answer to the invocations of the suppliants,
jind they must be propitiated before the pipe-stone is taken
away."

An offering of tobacco is the usual gift, and it appears
to have been employed in similar acts of worship from
the earliest period of intercourse w^ith Europeans. In the
narrative of the voyage of Drake, in 1572, it is stated
that the natives brought a little basket made of rushes, and
filled with an herb which they called tohah. This was

388

THE SACRED COCA-PLANT.

[chap.

regarded as a propitiatory offering ; and the writer subse-
quently notes : they " came now the second time to us,
bringing with them, as before had been done, feathers and
bags of tohak for presents, or rather, indeed, for sacrifices,
upon this persuasion that we were gods." Harriot in like
manner tells, in his " Briefe and True Ke^jort of the New
Found Land of Virginia," of a plant which the Spaniards
generally call tobacco, but there named by the natives
uppowoc. " This uppowoc is of so precious estimation
among them, that they think their gods are marvellously
delighted therewith, whereupon sometime they make hal-
owed fires, and cast some of the powder therein for a sacri-
fice. Being in a storme upon the waters, to pacific their
gods they cast some up into the aire, and into the water ;
so a weare for fis^> being newly set up, they cast some therein
jmd into the aire ; also after an escape of danger, they cast
some into the aire likewise ; but all done with strange ges-
tures, stamping, sometime dancing, clapping of hands,
holding up of hands, and staring up into the heavens,
uttering therewithal and chattering strange words a^ 1
noises. "

Such practices and ideas of propitiatory offerings among
southern Indian tribes of the sixteenth century, show that
the offerings of tobacco still made by the Sioux to the
spirits that haunt the pipe-stone quarry, are of no merely
local origin, but were anciently as universal as the peace-
pipe itself. Nor were such religious associations confined
to the favourite narcotic of the northern continent. Among
the Peruvians the coca-plant took the place of tobacco ; and
Dr. Tschudi states that he found it regarded by the Indians
as something sacred and mysterious. " In all ceremonies,
whether religious or warlike, it was introduced for produc-
ing smoke at the great offerings, or as the sacrifice itself.
During divine worship the priests chewed coca-leaves ; and,
unless they were supplied with them, it was believed that

lies,
iic-
lelf.
nd,
hat

XV.] KNISTENEAUX LEGEND OF THE DELUGE. 389

the favour of the gods could not be propitiated." Chris-
tianity, after an interval of upwards of three hundred years,
has not eradicated the Indian's faith in the virtues of the
sacred plant. In the mines of Cerro de Pasco, masticated
coca is thrown on the hard veins of metal to propitiate the
gnomes of the mine, who, it is believed, would otherwise
render the mountains impenetrable ; and leaves of it are
secretly placed in the mouth of the dead, to smooth the
passage to another world. Thus we find, in the supersti-
tions perpetuated among the Indians of the southern Cordil-
leras, striking analogies to those which survive among the
Sioux, and give character to the strange rites practised by
them at the red pipe-stone quarry, on the Coteau des
Prairies.

One of the Indian traditions connected with that locality,
whicli seems to perpetuate the idea of a general deluge, was
thus narrated by a distinguished Knisteneaux on the Upper
Missouri, on the occasion of presenting to Catlin a hand-
some red stone pipe : " In the time of a great freshet, which
took place many centuries ago, and destroyed all the nations
of the earth, all the tribes of the red men assembled on the
Coteau des Prairies, to get out of the way of the waters.
After they had g'^thered liere from every part, the water
continued to rise, until at length it covered them all in a
mass, and their flesh was converted into red pipe-stone.
Therefore, it has always been considered neutral ground ; it
belongs to all tribes alike, and all were allowed to get it
and smoke it together. While they were all drowning in
a mass, a young woman, Kwaptahw, a virgin, caught hold
of the foot of a very large bird that was flying over, and
was carried to the top of a high cliff not far off, that was
above the water. Here she had twins, and their father was
the war-eagle, and her children have since peopled the earth."
The idea that the red pipe-stone is the Hesh of their ances-
tors is a favourite one among different tribes. When Catlin

390 INDICATIONS OF FORMER MIGRATIONS. [chap.

and his party attempted to penetrate to the sacred locality,
they were stopped by the Sioux, and one of them addressing
him, said : " This red pipe was given to the red men by
the Great Spirit. It is a part of our flesh, and therefore is
great medicine. AVe know that the whites are like a great
cloud that rises in the east, and will cover the whole country.
We know that they will have all our lands ; but if ever
they get our red-pipe quarry they will have to pay very
dear for it." Thus is it that even in the farthest West the
Indian feels the fatal touch of that white hand ; and to the
intrigues of interested traders is ascribed the encroachment
of the Sioux on the sabred neutral ground, where, within
memory of living men, every tribe on the Missouri had
smoked with their enemies, while the Great Spiiit kept the
peace among his red children.

Apart, then, from such indications of an artistic power of
imitation, by which the ancient pipe-sculptors are distin-
guished, it becomes an object of interest to observe other
elements, either of comparison or contrast, between the
memorials of the Mound-Builders' skill, and numerous speci-
mens of pipe-sculpture produced by modern tribes.

Notwithstiinding the endless variety which characterises
the ancient Mound-Builders' pipes, one general type is trace-
able through the whole. A curved base forms the stem and
handle, from the centre of which rises the bowl, as shown in
Fig. 78, so that it is complete as found ; whereas the modern
Indian generally employs a pipe stem, and ascribes to it the
peculiar virtues of the implement. The medicine-man
decorates it with his most elaborate skill, and it is regarded
with awe and reverence by the whole tribe. The stem
would seem, therefore, to be characteristic of the modern
race ; if indeed it be not the distinguishing memorial of an
origin of the Northern tribes diverse from Toltecan and
other ancient nations. One idea which such comparisons
suggest is that in the sacred associations with the pipe of

XV.]

FA VO URITE MA TERIAL.

391

the Mound-Builders, we have indications of contact between
a migrating race of Central or Southern America, where no
superstitious pipe-usages have been found, and one of the
Northern tribes among whom such superstitions are most
intimately interwoven with all their sacred mysteries.

The utmost variety distinguishes the pipes of the modern
Indians : arising in part from the local facilities they possess
for a suitable material, and in part also from the special
style of art and decoration which has become traditioT^rl
with the tribe. The easily wrought red pipe-stone has been
generally sought after, from the beauty of its colour and
texture, as well as the mysterious virtues attached to it.
But the pipe-sculptures of many tribes can be distinguished
no less certainly by the material, than by the favourite con-
ventional pattern.

Among the Assinaboin Indians a fine marble, much too
hard to admit of minute carving, but susceptible of a high
polish, is cut into pipes of graceful form, and made so
extremely thin, as to be nearly transparent. When lighted
the glowing tobacco shines through, and presents a singular
appearance at night, or in a dark lodge. Another favourite
stone is a coarse species of jasper, also too hard to admit of
elaborate ornamentation. But the choice of material is by
no means invariably guided by the facilities which the
position of the tribe affords. Mr. Kane informed me that,
in coming down the Athabaska river, when near its source
in the Rocky Mountains, he observed his Assinaboin guides
select the favourite bluish jasper from among the water-
worn stones in the bed of the river, to carry home for the
purpose of pipe manufacture, although they were then fully
five hundred miles from their lodges ; and my own Chip-
pewa guides carried off pieces from the pipe-stone rock, at
the mouth of the Neepigon river, though they had several
hundred miles to traverse before they would reach their
homes. Such traditional adherence to the choice of materials

392

rWAHGUNEKA.

[chap.

peculiar to a remote source, as well as the perpetuation of
special forms and p^^Lterns, are of value as clews to former
migrations, and indications of affinity among scattered
tribes.

The Chippewas, at the head of Lake Superior, carve their
pipes out of a dark close-grained stone procured from Lake
Huron ; and frequently introduce groups of animals and
human figures with considerable artistic skill. Pabakmesad,
or the Flier, an old Chippewa, still living on the Great
Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, is generally known as
Pwahguneka, tiie Pipe Maker, literally " he makes pipes."
Though brought in contact with tlie Christian Indians of
the Manitoulin Islands, he resolutely adheres to the pagan
creed and rites of his fathers, and resists all encroachments
of civilisation. He gathers his materials from the favourite

Fig. 8-1.— Cliiiipewa Pijie.

resorts of different tribes, using the muhkuhda-pwahgunah-
bcck, or black pipe-stone of Lake Huron ; the wahbe-pwah-
gunahbeck, or white pipe-stone, procured on St. Joseph's
Isi nd ; and the misko-pwahgunahheck, ov red pipe-stone of
the Coteau des Prairies. His saw, with which the stone is
first roughly blocked out, is made of a bit of iron hoop ; and
his other tools are correspondingly rude. Nevertheless the
workmanship of Pabahmesad shows him to be a master of
his art ; as will be seen from a characteristic illustration of
his ingenious sculpture, engraved here (Fig. 84) from the
original, in the museum of the University of Toronto.

XV.]

CHIMPSEYAN CUSTOMS.

393

But the most elaborate and curious specimens of pipe-
scalpture are those executed by the Chimpseyan or Babeen
Indians, who also carve skilfully in wood and b(«iie. They
display much ingenuity in grass-plaiting lor hats and
waterproof Ijaskets, or kettles ; and in the manufacture of
basket-nets of wicker-work, with which they catch the
ulikon, a kind of smelt aljundant in the rivers along their
coast. They are, indeed, pre-eminent among the savages of
the North Pacific coast for artistic skill ; yet to all appear-
ance, in the collision with the whites, their extermination
is inevitable at no distant date. The ftontispi' ;c Plate i.
illustrates the characteristic physiognomy of this people.
It is the portrait of Kaskatachyih, a Chimpseyan chief,
from sketches taken by Mr. Paul Kane, while travelling
in their country. He wears one of the native hats made of
dyed and plaited grass. The Chimpseyans belong to the

Fio. 85.— Babeen Pipe.

Thlinket stock, tribes of which extend as far north as
Behring Bay. They do not feast on the whale, because it
is one of their tribal totems ; but the blubber of the por-
poise and seal is a favourite delicacy. The Babeens or big-
lip Indians, — as the Chimpseyans are most frequently
called, — have received this name from the deformation of
the under lip in the women of the tribe, produced by the
insertion of a piece of wood into a slit made in infancy,
and increased in size until the lip protrudes like the bill of
a duck ; and among the wooden masks which they carve
of life-size, this protruding lip is the invariable character-

394

CHIMPSEYAN ART.

[chap.

istic of tho::e of the women. Other and not less singular
customs mark the distinction between the sexes, and are
perpetuated even after death. Their women a'-e wrapped
in mats and placed on an elevated platform, or in a canoe
raised on poles, while the bodies of the males are invariably
burned. The Chimpseyans and the Clalam Indians, occu-
pying Vancouver's Island and the coasts in the neighbour-
hood of Charlotte's Sound, carve bowls, platters, and other
utensils out of a blue claystone or slate, from which also
they make their pipes, and decorate them with many in-
genious and grotesque devices. One of the smaller and
simpler of these pipes, shown in Fig. 85, is placed here along-
side of a chef-d'oeuvre of Pabahmesad, the Chippewa artist.
Nothing could better serve to illustrate the contrast between
the ingenious imitative art of Algonquin pipe- sculpture and
the exuberant fancifulness of the Babeen carvings. Large
and complicated designs are common, sometimes inlaid with
bone or ivory, and embracing every native or foreign object,
adapted to the sculptor's fancy. The same talent for carv-
ing finds room for its display on their ivory combs ; and on
ladles and spoons made from the horns of a mountain goat,
which is one of the principal animals that they hunt on
land. The claystone carvings of strictly native design
chiefly occur on their pipe-sculptures, and consist of human
figures, and of strange monstrosities intermingling human
and brute forms, in which curious analogies may frequently
be traced to the sculptures of Central America. But the
powers of observation and imitation are most strikingly
illustrated in claystone carvings of objects c^ foreign origin.
The collections formed by the United States Exploring Ex-
pedition, now at Washington, include numerous specimens
of this class, representing Europe in houses, forts, boats,
horses, and fire-arms ; and reproducing in minute detail the
cords, pulleys, and other minutiae of the shipping which
frequent the coast. The example shown in Fig. 86 is a

XV.]

BABEEN Car VING.

395

curious combination of native and foreign elements; and
may be regarded as the conventional representation by the
native artist of a bear hunt in the vicinity of one of the
Hudson Bay Company's stations. The animal-heads on some
of the human figures represent the grotesque masks already
referred to as among their favourite carvings, and a special
branch of native art. They are executed in wood, the size
of life, and brilliantly coloured ; and are worn in the grand
dances of the tribe.

In some of the larger pipes, the entire group presents
much of the grotesque exuberance of fancy, mingled with
imitations from nature, which constitute the charm of
ecclesiastical sculptures of the thirteenth century. Figures
in the oddest varieties of posture are ingeniously interlaced,

Fio. 80.— Diiboou ripe-Sciiliiturc.

and connected by elaborate ornaments; the intermediate
spaces being perforated, so as to give great lightness to the
whole. But though well calculated to recall the quaint
products of the medieval sculptor's chisel, sucli comparisons
are not suggested by any imitation of European models.
Their style of art is thoroughly American ; and traits of
the same peculiar devices and modes of thought wliicli
mark some of the most finished sculptures of Yucatan are
replete with interest, when thus recognised in regions so
remote, and in the productions of rude Indian tribes.

But while the modern Indian thus rivals in the elabor-
ateness of his art the ingenious pipe-sculpture of the

396

THE MEDICINE PIPE-STEM.

[chap,

mounds, all his superstitious reverence is reserved for the
pipe-stem. On it depends the safety of the tribe in peace,
and its success in war. It is guarded accordingly with
jealous care, and produced at the medicine dance or
the war-council with mysterious ceremonies. Even on
such great occasions, so long as the medicine pipe-stem is
used, it is a matter of indifference whether the bowl
attached to it be of the richest carving, or a common
trader's clay pipe. Many special privileges and honours
pertain to its bearer. It is not only disrespectful, but
unlucky, to pass between him and the fire. An ornamental
tent is provided for his use, and his other official accoutre-
ments are so numerous that frequently he requires to main-
tain several horses for their transport. A bear skin robe is
employed for wrapping up the consecrated pipe-stem, and
thus enveloped, it is usually L>or* ^ ^y the favourite wife of
the dignitary. But it is never allowed to be uncovered in
her presence ; and should a woman, even by chance, cast
her eyes on it, its virtues can only be restored by a tedious
ceremony.

Among the Indian portraits executed by Mr. Paul Knne,
is one of Kea-keke-sacowaw, head chief of the Crees, whom
he met on the Saskatchewan, engaged in raising a war-party
against the Blackfeet. He had with him eleven medicine
pipe-stems, the pledges of different bands tliat had joined him.
The grim old chief appears decorated i":!) his war-paint,
and holding in his hand one of the pipt . /n.8 adorned with
the head and plumage of an eagle. BoJ i beginning his
work, the artist had to witness the ccemony of " opening
the medicine pipe-stem," in the course of which he smoked
each of the eleven pipes ; and, thus enlisted in the cause,
his painting was esteemed a great medicine, calculated to
contribute materially to the success of the war-party.

A young Cree Half-breed confessed to the painter that, in

a spirit of daring scepticism, he had once secretly thrown

XV.]

INDIAN EXPIATORY SACRIFICES.

down the medicine pipe-stem and kicked it about ; but soon
after, its official carrier was slain, and such misfortunes
followed as. left no doubt on his mind of the sanctity
pertaining to this guardian and avenger of the honour of
the tribe.

But all the ideas and superstitions which such usages
illustrate, are peculiar to the modern Indians. The pipes
of the Mound-Builders show that they used no pipe-stem ;
and the same appears to have been the case with the Mexi-
cans before the Conquest. Throughout the whole of T^ord
Kingsborough's great work, traces of the use of the tobacco
pipe are rare ; and where they do occur they tend to confirm
the idea that it was not invested, either in Mexico or Central
America, with such sacred attributes as were attached to
it by the ancient race of the Mississippi Valley : and which,
luider other but no less peculiar forms, are maintained
among the Indian tribes of the North-west.

Various early writers on the customs of the American
Indians refer to expiatory sacrifices, which present striking,
though rude analogies, to the ancient offerings by fire on
the mound-altars. Hearne describes a custom among the
Cliippewas, after the shedding of blood, of throwing all
their ornaments, pipes, etc., into a common fire, kindled at
some distance from their lodges ; and Winslow narrates of
the Nanohiggansets of New England, that they had a great
house ordinarily resorted to by a few, whom he supposes to
be priests ; but he adds, " Thither, at certain times, resort
all their people, and offer almost all the riches they have to
their gods, as kettles, skins, hatchets, beads, knives, etc , all
which are cast by the priests into a great fire that they
make in the midst of the house. "^ The analogies, however,
which appear to be traceable in such practices of tribes
remote from the localities of the old Mound-Builders, are
after all slight, and lack the most important elements

. * il/os<i. //w<. Co^/., Sccouci Scries, vol. ix. p. 04.

398

NICOTIAN RITES

[chap.

which give a special character to the ancient mound-altars.
The use of tobacco is no longer a characteristic peculiar to
the New World ; hut it may be that in the mode of indul-
ging in its favourite narcotic, we have perpetuated as a
practice of mere sensual indulgence, what was once a solemn
rite associated with the mysterious worship of the sacred
enclosures and the altar-mounds of the Mississippi Valley.
Oviedo, who is the earliest authority, at least for any
minute account of tobacco -smoking among the native
tribes, speaks of it as an evil custom practised among the
Indians of Hispaniola to produce insensibility ; and greatly
prized by the Carribees, who called tobacco kohiha, and
" imagined, when they were drunk with the fumes of it,
the dreams they had were in some sort inspired."* Again,
Girolamo Benzoni narrates in his travels in America, recently
translated from the edition of 1753 by Rear- Admiral
Smyth : " In La Espaiiola, and the other islands, when their
doctors wanted to cure a sick man, they went to the place
where they were to administer the smoke, and when he was
thoroughly intoxicated by it the cure was mostly effected.
On returning to his senses, he told a thousand storico of his
having been at the council of the gods, and other high
visions.

Many Indian legends ascribe a divine origin to tobacco.
A chief of the Susquehannas told of two hunters of the tribe
sharing the venison they had cooked with a lovely squaw,
who suddenly appeared to them ; and on returning to the
scene of their feast thirteen moons after, they found the
tobacco plant growing where she had sat. Harriot, who
sailed in Sir Walter Raleigh's expedition of 1584, states
that the Indians of Virginia regarded tobacco as a means
of peculiar enjoyment, in which the Great Spirit was wont
freely to indulge, and that he bestowed it on them that

' JJialorin Ooneral de Ian JudidK, aecontl edit. p. 74.

^ Il'mlory qf the New World. By Oirolanio Beuzoui. Hakluyt Society, 1857.

XV.]

OF DIVINATION.

399

they might share in his delights. Repeated aUusions also
refer to its intoxicating effects as an influence analogous to
that which produced the visions and inspirations of their
fasting dreams. It seems, therefore, by no means impro-
bable, that the original practice of inhaling the fumes of
tobacco was associated exclusively with superstitious rites
and divination ; so that the tobacco-plant may have played
a part in the worship of the ancient Mound-Builders,
analogous to that of the inspiring vapour over which the
Delphic tripod was placed, when the priestess of Apollo
prepared to give utterance to the divine oracles.

END OF VOL. r.

PRINTKD nV T. AND A. CdNHTAUI.K, PKINTEUH TO IIKK MAJ^TY,
AT THE KDINUUROII UNIVKUHITV PKEH8.