UC-NRLF 
 
 SB hT 3Efi 
 
GIFT OF 
 MICHAEL REESE 
 
 
 
 r 
 

From a photograph by Maudsley 
 TKOCALLI OF THE SUN, I ALENQUE, YUCATAN 
 
 Discovered about 1750; 28x38 feet on the ground, about 25 feet high without the " roof-comb," a feature of 
 the Palcnque buildings here particularly well preserved. Like all the structures of the group, this crowns 
 a mound of considerable height. The construction is stone ; ornamentation, stucco. Charnay calls atten 
 tion to the resemblance to a Japanese temple. On pages 210, 235, and 237 constructive features are shown, 
 on page 185 is a reproduction of a tablet from it, and on page 238, second figure, is the ground plan. Page 
 404 gives another of the group, and page 436 shows geographical location. 
 
The North- Americans 
 of Yesterday 
 
 A Comparative Study of North- American Indian Life 
 
 Customs, and Products, on the Theory of 
 
 the Ethnic Unity of the Race 
 
 By 
 Frederick S. Dellenbaugh 
 
 " But their name is on your waters, 
 Ye may not wash it out." 
 
 UNIVERSITY] With over 350 Illustrations 
 
 G. P. Putnam s Sons 
 
 New York and London 
 ZTbe Iknicfeerbocfcer press 
 
 1901 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 1900 
 
 BY 
 FREDERICK S. DELLENBAUGH 
 
 TTbe "fcnfcfeetbocfeer press, flew H?orfe 
 
To 
 MAJOR POWELL 
 
 WHOSE COURAGE SOLVED THE PROBLEM 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COLORADO RIVER 
 
 AND WHOSE FORESIGHT ESTABLISHED 
 THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 
 
 THIS BOOK 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 IN MEMORY OF DAYS 
 AFLOAT AND AFIELD 
 
 82565 
 REESE 
 
MOKI DRAWINGS OF STARS 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE basis of this volume is eight lectures given before the 
 Lowell Institute in Boston in 1894. They have been ex 
 panded by the addition of further matter relating to the 
 various subjects, but even with these additions there is but a brief 
 rhume of the vast store of material extant. 
 
 The " Indian " has never seemed to me an abnormal factor, but 
 rather a natural part of our society, for it is now nearly thirty years 
 since I first associated with him in the Far West, and before that 
 the Iroquois were familiar to me as a small boy. When I first 
 went among the Western tribes, it was with the second Colorado 
 River expedition of that gallant explorer and foremost student of 
 Amerindian affairs, John Wesley Powell. His own works and the 
 reports of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, of which he 
 has so long been the head, and where he has gathered together so 
 many eminent ethnologists and archaeologists, have furnished me 
 with much material. These reports form a fine library on Amer 
 indian matters, and reflect great honour on Professor Powell who 
 conceived the idea, and on Congress which has ungrudgingly 
 supported it. A great and timely work has become established, 
 which to private enterprise would have been next to impossible. 
 Add to these the invaluable reports of the Smithsonian Institu 
 tion and the memoirs and reports of the Peabody Museum and 
 American Museum, and the student has before him a large fund 
 of material without seeking farther. Then there are the brilliant 
 works of Parkman, Brinton, Winsor, Bandelier, Putnam, ivforgan, 
 Schoolcraft, Prescott, Maudsley, Goodman, Wilson, Keane, and 
 many others, with the huge production of H. H. Bancroft filling 
 an important place. To all of these and to others I owe much, 
 and I have intended in every case to give credit and references. 
 Where these, in some cases, may not have been properly awarded, 
 it is due to oversight and not to intention. My especial thanks 
 are due to the Bureau of Ethnology for copies of all the reports, 
 and for permission to utilise the illustrations contained in them, 
 
vi Preface 
 
 and to the American Museum, Archaeological Institute, Field Col 
 umbian Museum, Peabody Museum, and Smithsonian Institution 
 for similar generosity. I take pleasure also in acknowledging 
 favours from Professor Putnam, Professor Powell, Dr. McGee, 
 Mr. Saville, Professor Seymour, Professor L,angley, Mr. Bancroft, 
 Professor Holmes, Dr. Baum, and others, and from Mr. E. H. 
 Harriman the opportunity of visiting Alaska under the most 
 favourable circumstances. 
 
 The title, The North Americans of Yesterday, seems to me ap 
 propriate, because while there are still some Amerinds extant, and 
 a few are even yet apparently leading the old-time life, neverthe 
 less they are merely remnants of a people whose sun has set, and 
 who therefore properly belong to yesterday. For this reason I 
 have mainly treated them as a bygone race. Between the so-called 
 " Red Indian " of the United States and northern regions and the 
 so-called " Civilised Tribes" of Mexico and southern regions I 
 have made no race differentiation, because the differences, what 
 ever they may be, are discovered to be not of kind, but of degree. 
 Confusion was formerly caused by misconceptions and by romantic 
 ideas which have been dispelled by the more scientific methods of 
 later days. Some confusion has been caused also by the persistent 
 efforts to classify the progress of mankind as a whole into distinct 
 world-epochs or time periods. It seems to me that no such uni 
 versal epochs of even progress could have existed in past time 
 any more than in present time. Tribes of men are differentiated 
 now, always will be, and, I believe, always have been. Common 
 world-planes of culture in time periods are an impossibility. Such 
 schedules as Morgan s may apply to tribes and stocks as indicating 
 their special, individual advance, but not to the whole world, 
 except in a very general way. That is, they may be culture but 
 never time classifications. The closer we approach the beginnings 
 of man s existence, the less marked, perhaps, the differences in 
 tribes, but differences certainly began at the moment when one 
 group of men left another group of men to live apart. The en 
 vironment and necessities of each group would cause differences 
 and varying rates of progress. One group would gain the bow a 
 thousand years before another. 
 
 Long before the beginning of the glacial period, therefore, 
 some groups must have been far ahead of others, and in the manu 
 facture of stone implements some tribes excelled others ; some 
 
Preface vii 
 
 making ruder ones than others, and some perhaps making well- 
 finished, polished tools. There are a good many arrow- and 
 spear-head shapes, and it is possible that each form originated at 
 a different time or in a different locality. And in our present state 
 of knowledge of these matters, no time position can be assigned to 
 many American stone tools, polished or not. They may have 
 been used over and over again by various tribes for centuries, or 
 for a thousand years, or they may have been made by tribes of our 
 own day. Some of these tribes made no smoothed or polished 
 implements, though otherwise of advanced type, and polished im 
 plements have been found that may be many thousand years old. 
 This is no indication that tribes do not change, but that develop 
 ment began and continues unevenly, and that tribes existed ten 
 thousand or more years ago that were in advance of some that are 
 extant to-day. Nobody can say whether the stone implements, 
 rough or smooth, that have been found in Chiriqui belong to com 
 paratively modern or to very ancient times. The whole subject 
 of stone implements appears to be in a chaotic state, mummified 
 and petrified by a slavish respect and devotion to European pat 
 terns. It is a case of cart before the horse. It will be apparent 
 that I do not consider the finish of stone tools, in the present state 
 of our understanding of them, any guide for a world-classification 
 of peoples in a time-scale, especially in North America. This has 
 been admitted by others back to a certain point, but beyond that 
 point they have continued to play follow-the-leader with their 
 world-classifications of "Paleolithic" and " Neolithic," two of 
 the most confusing, misleading, and useless terms ever invented. 
 Below the limit of the ice action there is nothing to fix the age of 
 stone tools when found on the surface or near it. " Paleoliths " 
 and " neoliths " might therefore be picked up side by side, and 
 the paleolith might not be as old as the neolith, or both might be 
 of the same age. And if a well-made tool, or one resembling 
 some of to-day, is found in an ancient gravel, it does not neces 
 sarily mean an intrusion, but that men lived in that far past who 
 were more skilful than some of their neighbours, and more skilful 
 than we have heretofore been willing to admit. That very ancient 
 men made very rude tools is doubtless true, but that all ancient 
 men made rough tools of the same style down to a certain fixed 
 time, and then all began on an improved or a smoothed type, is 
 undoubtedly wrong. 
 
via 
 
 Preface 
 
 How the Amerinds came here I explain by a theory that there 
 was before, or perhaps during the early part of the glacial period, 
 a wider distribution of land surfaces on latitudinal lines, which 
 invited latitudinal migrations. 1 These land surfaces may have 
 been no more than groups of larger or smaller islands which 
 have been since wholly submerged or have left only their highest 
 parts above the sea. Before the beginning of the glacial cold, a 
 mild climate extended to the North Pole, facilitating migrations 
 also in that region. Changes in the ocean s bottom were prob 
 ably greater in pre-glacial time than now, but they have not 
 altogether ceased. It is little more than fifteen years since a 
 new island appeared off the Aleutian chain, and I think it is 
 doubtful if any of that group existed above water six or eight 
 hundred years ago. I am also of the opinion that no human 
 life was in Alaska or in Northeast Siberia five hundred years 
 back. 
 
 Races not being all of an even grade of culture before the 
 beginning of the cold period any more than now, the tribes that 
 found themselves isolated on this continent by changes in the 
 land levels and by the southward extension of the glaciation, were 
 unevenly developed, some being in advance of others in various 
 ways, though none, of course, had passed beyond the use of stone 
 tools, a condition in which they practically continued down to the 
 Discovery. In this respect the term, " Stone Age," as indicating 
 a condition, is applicable, but it would not be possible to differ 
 entiate it into "Paleolithic" and "Neolithic" periods. The 
 cold pushed them all southward, whether they came by north- 
 lands or by latitudinal lands, or both, towards the narrow 
 funnel-like part of the continent, and also to the lower levels, as 
 there was no chance for latitudinal expansion as in the Eastern 
 Hemisphere, the most advanced tribes being the most southerly, if 
 not from original position, because they were able to choose. 
 Eventually communication with Asia and Europe by the north 
 was by the glaciation severed completely, as it had previously 
 been latitudinally by the disappearance of favourable land surfaces, 
 and communication by the north remained closed till within three 
 or four hundred years. The most crowded tribes developed most 
 rapidly, because such development was imperative for self-preser 
 vation, and their culture filtered through in diminishing ratio, 
 1 See the last chapter. 
 
Preface ix 
 
 according to distance, to the less crowded regions that is, to the 
 climatically less favourable regions ; but all who were closely 
 crowded into the " funnel " progressed along similar lines and in 
 much the same degree, without regard to relationships, so that we 
 find in the narrow part of the continent, where the largest number 
 found refuge from the cold, many different stocks in almost 
 parallel stages of culture. There were no isolated " areas of 
 characterisation" as in the latitudinally broader lands of the 
 Eastern Hemisphere, though in some cases there were slight bar 
 riers tending to produce or maintain slight variations. The long 
 longitudinal chain of the Sierra Nevada abounding in glaciers to 
 a late date, and to a less extent that of the Rocky Mountains, 
 brought about a partial isolation of the stocks in the great north- 
 and-south migrations, maintaining previous differences and origi 
 nating others, so that now we distinguish differences between what 
 is called the Atlantic and what is called the Pacific group, while 
 they are yet practically the same. 1 The tribes farthest advanced 
 at the beginning of the isolation on this continent would not neces 
 sarily continue at the front of progress, for a change of conditions 
 that might cripple such tribes might at the same time be beneficial 
 to others previously inferior. For instance, as the heat gradually 
 returned, the highly developed lowland tribes began to find them 
 selves at a disadvantage, which grew with the intensity of the 
 heat, while others, inured to harsher conditions, found warmth 
 stimulating, and they began to develop germs received from 
 the superior but now declining stocks. " The American In 
 dians," says Brinton, " cannot bear the heat of the tropics even 
 as well as the European." The heat, which at first seems 
 to have been intense in the daytime, then caused a decline of 
 the highest stocks, and a corresponding progression of lower 
 stocks existing on, or migrating to, higher levels. The Yucatec 
 tribes declined, while the Nahuatls, at higher altitudes, began to 
 develop. The finest monuments of North American antiquity, 
 for these reasons, are generally found on comparatively low levels 
 and below a certain latitude, where conditions during the greatest 
 cold were most favourable ; conditions that may have continued 
 fairly favourable down to within, say, a thousand years. 
 
 Long before the dawn of the Columbian era, therefore, the 
 Amerind peoples had become, through the influences indicated, a 
 
 1 See linguistic map p. 33, and list of tribes and stocks in Appendix. 
 
x Preface 
 
 world-race by themselves, existing in various stages of the same 
 general culture, and with a rising and a declining of tribes and 
 stocks directed by environment and circumstances. The great 
 stocks surviving at the beginning of the Columbian era may be 
 approximately traced by their languages, in layers, from Panama 
 northward, about as they expanded mainly eastward of the Sierra 
 Nevada in response to the gradual relief from the pressure of 
 the cold. The Yucatec tribes had held the region south of the 
 Tehuantepec isthmus, and owing to this slight barrier, and per- 
 .haps to another barrier of a strait through the land about on the 
 line of the proposed Nicaragua canal, had developed somewhat 
 differently from tribes to the north, and may also have preserved 
 more of their original character. Thence stretching north far into 
 the United States was the great composite Shoshone, or Uto- 
 Aztecan family, in all its variations, with what appears to be an 
 " island " of Athapascans or Boreal men preserved in its midst by 
 glacial conditions lingering in the high regions near the Mexico- 
 United States line ; then follows the Siouan ; then the widespread 
 Algonquian stock ; next the Athapascan ; and finally the Kski- 
 mauan, which had always been held against the edge of the 
 glaciers by the back pressure of the southern stocks, and being 
 most remote was less affected by filtration from the development 
 centre, and thus remains to-day a more differentiated stock than 
 any other. The western arm of these stocks was generally farther 
 north than the eastern because the climate was and is milder in 
 the west, the trend of the ice front being now, and apparently 
 always having been, N.W. to S.E. Distribution of skill in pot 
 tery follows about the same lines, "petering" out with stocks 
 farthest from the Yucatec centre. The Algonquins crowded the 
 Athapascans off to the N.W., and together they crowded the 
 Eskimo to the limits of human subsistence. In California many 
 stocks found refuge in a climate kept comparatively mild by the 
 ocean currents, where they secured subsistence on fish, and went 
 no farther south. Along the Gulf coast were other tribes resting 
 somewhat aside from the great continental ebb and flow, while in 
 Florida and in the islands of the Caribbean region there was 
 sufficient separation to produce a slight differentiation from the 
 surging continental stocks. Remnants of other stocks were 
 
 1 When the ice front was along the Ohio, the Eskimo naturally were 
 distributed along the southern fringe. 
 
Preface xi 
 
 scattered here and there through the regions below the glaciated 
 area. Mingled with all these developments there were probably 
 certain traits and "tinges" derived from earlier ancestry, and 
 these, with the similarity of development of all races under like 
 conditions prevailing wherever human beings can live, fully ac 
 count for resemblances to other- world tribes and peoples that have 
 caused so much speculation. 
 
 There has been an error, I believe, in considering the glacial 
 period as of the remote past. It does not seem to have yet closed. 
 It influences our climate now, and probably a thousand years ago 
 its meteorological effects were marked as far south as Yucatan. 
 The glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere everywhere appear to 
 be slowly disappearing, and not so slowly either, if the Muir can 
 be taken as a gauge, for it has been for twenty years receding at 
 the rate of 500 feet per annum, and probably at the same rate 
 before that. However this may be, it is probably less than 5000 
 years since the ice front was at Lake Erie. Eminent geologists 
 have estimated it at less than 7000, based on the erosion at 
 Niagara ; but as the erosion immediately following the disappear 
 ance of the ice is extremely rapid, it seems safe to cut down the 
 estimate. The subtleties of meteorology are far from being under 
 stood also, and the theories as to the causes of the cold seem mere 
 guesses. Considerable heat there must have been during the 
 glacial period, or there would have been no glaciers. 
 
 On the theory of the ethnic unity of the Amerind people, I 
 have briefly brought together in chapters notes on their chief 
 habits, products, languages, etc., so that the reader may be able 
 to compare. In collecting material that is now obtainable, but 
 which will shortly be gone forever, much remains to be done, and 
 to be done quickly. If this book helps to arouse a deeper public 
 interest in the gathering of this material, and in the general study 
 of the subject, I shall feel it needs no apology. 
 
 F. S. 
 NEW YORK, January 31, 1900. 
 
 MOKI DRAWINGS OF THE SUN 
 
MOKI DRAWINGS OF SQUASH-BLOSSOMS 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 PREFACE iii 
 
 I INTRODUCTORY I 
 
 II LANGUAGES AND DlALECTS 17 
 
 III PICTURE-WRITING, SIGN - LANGUAGE, WAMPUM, 
 
 CUPPED-STONES 39 
 
 IV THE MEXICAN AND CENTRAL-AMERICAN WRITING, 
 
 INSCRIPTIONS, AND BOOKS 68 
 
 V BASKETRY AND POTTERY 88 
 
 VI WEAVING AND COSTUME 123 
 
 VII CARVING, MODELLING, AND SCULPTURE . . .161 
 
 VIII SHELTERS, DWELLINGS, AND ARCHITECTURE . . 194 
 
 IX W T EAPONS, ARMOUR, IMPLEMENTS, AND TRANSPORT 
 ATION 248 
 
 X MINING, METALLURGY, AND SCIENCE . . . 285 
 
 XI MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS, Music, AMUSEMENTS, AND 
 
 GAMES 308 
 
 XII WORKS AND AGRICULTURE 332 
 
 XIII CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES 352 
 
XIV 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 390 
 
 XIV MYTHS, TRADITIONS, AND LEGENDS 
 XV ORGANISATION AND GOVERNMENT . . 4 10 
 
 XVI ORIGIN, MIGRATIONS, AND HISTORY . 428 
 
 APPENDIX CONTAINING A LIST OF NORTH-AMER 
 
 ICAN STOCKS, SUB-STOCKS, AND TRIBES 
 
 . 4 6i 
 
 ntn 
 
 MOKI DRAWINGS OF RAIN CLOUDS AND LIGHTNING 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 TEOCALLI OF THE SUN, PALENQUE, YUCATAN . . Frontispiece 
 
 MOKI DRAWINGS OF STARS iii 
 
 MOKI DRAWINGS OF THE SUN ix 
 
 f GARGOYLE SERPENT HEAD i 
 
 [From debris of temple, Copan] 
 
 * SOUTH PORTION OF THE TEWA PUEBLO OF TAOS, NEW MEXICO. 
 
 ADOBE; CONSTRUCTION 3 
 
 f SEATED FIGURE CARVED IN TRACHYTE 5 
 
 [From debris of hieroglyphic steps, Copan. Sli htly larger than life 
 size] 
 
 * KICKING BEAR, Sioux ......... 7 
 
 A CORNER OF A MITLA RUIN, MEXICO 9 
 
 [From Bandelier s ArchcEological Tour, published by the Archaeologi 
 cal Institute of America] 
 
 t SCULPTURE FROM TERRACE BAST OF THE GREAT PLAZA, COPAN. n 
 
 *A KIESKABI, OR COVERED PASSAGE, AT WALPI, ARIZONA . . 13 
 
 * MOKI MASK OF PAWIKKATCINA 15 
 
 t SPECIMEN OF SCULPTURE ON HIEROGLYPHIC STAIRWAY, COPAN . 16 
 
 * ESKIMO JADE ADZE *7 
 
 t " SINGING- GIRL " SCULPTURED IN TRACHYTE 19 
 
 [From debris of Temple 22, Copan. Slightly larger than life] 
 
 *TERRA-COTTA STOOL, CHIRIQUI 20 
 
 ALTAR Q, COPAN, HONDURAS 2I 
 
 [From photograph by M. H. Saville. American Museum] 
 
 SOUTH-WEST CORNER OF THE TEMPLE OF XOCHICALCO, STATE OF 
 
 MOR iLOS, MEXICO ... 23 
 
 [Bhotographed by M. H. Saville for the American Museum of Natural 
 History] 
 
 * POLISHED BLACK WARE, SANTA CLARA, NEW MEXICO . . 27 
 EASTERN FACADE OF THE TEMPLE OF XOCHICALCO, STATE OF 
 
 MORELOS, MEXICO 3 1 
 
 [Photographed by M. H. Saville for the American Museum of Natural 
 History] 
 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. t Peabody Museum. 
 
xvi List of Illustrations 
 
 PACK 
 
 AMERIND LINGUISTIC MAP OF NORTH AMERICA . 33 
 
 [After the one prepared by the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology! 
 
 *FAC-SIMILE OF A CHEROKEE MANUSCRIPT 35 
 
 [Written in Sequoyah s Syllabary] 
 
 * PETROGLYPHS NEAR WRANGELL, ALASKA, PROBABLY TLINKIT . 37 
 
 * HUMAN FORMS, MOKI ..... 38 
 
 * OMAHA WAR CLUB 39 
 
 * PAINTED PETROGLYPHS, SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA . 40 
 *PETROGLYPHS IN BROWN S CAVE, WISCONSIN 41 
 
 * PAINTED PETROGLYPHS, SOUTHERN UTAH 42 
 
 *PETROGLYPH AT MILLSBORO, PENNSYLVANIA 43 
 
 * PETROGLYPHS IN GEORGIA 44 
 
 RUNIC INSCRIPTION ON STONE FOUND AT IGALIKKO, GREENLAND. 45 
 
 *DIGHTON ROCK, MASSACHUSETTS 45 
 
 ILLUSTRATION OF THE " WALAM OLUM" OF THE LENAPE . . 46 
 
 [From Brinton] 
 
 KATCINAS IN THE SOMAIKOLI CEREMONY, CICHUMOVI, ARIZONA, 
 
 NOVEMBER, 1884 47 
 
 [Photograph by the Author] 
 
 * KILLED Two ARIKAREES 48 
 
 * PETROGLYPHS ON PAINT ROCK, NORTH CAROLINA . . 49 
 LANDA S MAYA ALPHABET, AFTER BRASSEUR 50 
 
 [From Bancroft s Native Races] 
 
 *FAC-SIMILE OF THE LORD S PRAYER IN MICMAC HIEROGLYPHS . 51 
 
 [From LeClercqJ 
 
 *SEOJJOYAH S CHEROKEE SYLLABARY 5 2 
 
 *LEAN WOLF S MAP, HIDATSA 54 
 
 * THE " PENN " WAMPUM BELT ; * STRINGS OF WAMPUM . . 55 
 *ORCA OR KILLER- WHALE DECORATION, HAIDA ... 56 
 *HAIDA TATTOOING 57 
 
 * ESKIMO DRAWING "THE MAN IN THE MOON COMES DOWN" . 58 
 
 * ESKIMO PICTURE-WRITING 59 
 
 * SPECIMENS OF THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS 60 
 
 * KILLING A BISON 6r 
 
 * SHELL Disc, TENNESSEE . .... 62 
 
 * SHELL GORGET, TENNESSEE 6 4 
 
 [Actual size] 
 
 CUP MARKINGS 6 5 
 
 *Cup FROM CHIRIQUI 6 7 
 
 *TERRA-COTTA FROM CHIRIQUI 68 
 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. 
 
List of Illustrations xvii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PAGE FROM AN AZTEC BOOK 
 
 [From a copy in the possession of M. H. Saville] 
 
 MEXICAN WRITING OF NAME OF MONTEZUMA . . 7I 
 
 [From Brinton] 
 
 *PART OF PIRATE 65, DRESDEN CODEX 72 
 
 [Maya] 
 
 t VASE FROM LABNA, YUCATAN, WITH PECULIAR MARKINGS . . 74 
 
 * CONVEX DISCOIDAL STONE, NORTH CAROLINA .... 75 
 f FEMALE HEAD IN TRACHYTE 
 
 USUAL TYPE OF SCULPTURED "YOKES," CENTRAL AMERICA . 81 
 
 [Field Columbian Museum] 
 
 A SUGGESTION OF THE POSSIBLE SCHEME OF MAYA NUMERALS. 
 
 WHOLLY TENTATIVE Q^ 
 
 oo 
 [From drawing by the Author] 
 
 * OMAHA CALUMET 7 
 
 * OMAHA WAR CLUB .... 38 
 
 * NORTH- WEST COAST FEATHER ORNAMENTATION ON BASKETS . 89 
 
 * ESKIMO BAG-BASKET 8 9 
 
 *MOKI WICKER WATER-JUG 8 g 
 
 *HAVASUPAI CLAY- LINED ROASTING TRAY 9 o 
 
 *lROQUOIS BlRCHBARK VESSEL; * NORTH-WEST COAST BASKET . 91 
 
 *MCCLOUD RIVER BASKET, CALIFORNIA 92 
 
 * MOKI FOOD BASKET; *KLAMATH BASKET 93 
 
 * MOKI FOOD TRAY ; * MOKI FLOOR MAT 
 
 yo 
 
 * ESKIMO WHALEBONE DISH; *CLALLAM BASKET, WASHINGTON . 9 6 
 
 * AMERIND WICKER-WORK APACHE BASKET ; PAI UTE WATER-JUG ; 
 
 MOKI FOOD TRAY; KLAMATH BASKET -97 
 
 * MODELLING AN OLLA AT HANO I00 
 
 [Photograph by the Author] 
 
 *CLAY NUCLEUS I00 
 
 * METHOD OF BUILDING UP COIL .... 100 
 
 *WARE FROM MOKI REGION, ARIZONA I02 
 
 *Cup FROM ARIZONA I03 
 
 *VASE FROM ARKANSAS, SHOWING LINES MADE WITH A SHARP 
 
 POINT BEFORE FIRING I0 3 
 
 * BOTTLE-SHAPED VASE, ARKANSAS 105 
 
 * EARTHENWARE BURIAL CASKET, TENNESSEE I0 6 
 
 * DEATH-MASK VASE, TENNESSEE 107 
 
 * FLUTED VASE, ARKANSAS I09 
 
 * IMPRESSION OF PARTS OF BASKET MOULD ON POTTERY . . 109 
 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. f Peabody Museum. 
 
xviii List of Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 * VASE FROM Cm RIQUI. DECORATED IN BLACK, RED, AND PURPLE, in 
 AN ANCIENT FIGURE OF TERRA COTTA FROM THE VALLEY OF 
 
 MEXICO 113 
 
 [From photograph by American Museum of Natural History] 
 
 *COIL INDENTED FOR DECORATION 114 
 
 ZAPOTECAN TERRA-COTTA FUNERAL URNS FOUND ox CEMENT 
 
 FLOOR IN FRONT OF TOMB i, MOUND 7, Xoxo, OAXACA, MEXICO. 115 
 
 [Photographed by M. H. Saville for the American Museum of Natural 
 History] 
 
 *POT SHOWING DIAGONAL GROOVES ACROSS THE LINES OF THE 
 COIL MADE BY THE HAND IN SMOOTHING UP. MANCOS CANYON, 
 COLORADO 116 
 
 ZAPOTECAN TERRA-COTTA TUBING FOUND LEADING DOWN INTO A 
 
 FIELD FROM THE CENTRE OF MOUND 7, Xoxo, OAXACA, MEXICO. 117 
 
 [Photographed by M. H. Saville for the American Museum of Natural 
 History] 
 
 * PUEBLO POT. PATTERN PRODUCED BY OBLITERATING PINCH 
 
 MARKS . . . . .118 
 
 * PINCH-MARKED COIL 119 
 
 * ENGRAVED WARE, ARKANSAS 120 
 
 * ENGRAVED WARE, ARKANSAS 121 
 
 BLACK CUP, CHIRIQUI 122 
 
 * WOVEN MOCCASIN FROM KENTUCKY CAVE 123 
 
 *MENOMINEE BEADED GARTERS 125 
 
 *NAVAJO WOMAN AT THE LOOM 127 
 
 PART OF THE SOMAIKOLI CEREMONY AT CICHUMOVI, NOVEMBER, 
 
 1884, SHOWING A SACRED BLANKET ON FIGURE IN FOREGROUND. 129 
 
 [From photograph by the Author] 
 
 * DETAILS OF NAVAJO LOOM CONSTRUCTION 131 
 
 *A PUEBLOAN OF SAN JUAN, NEW MEXICO 135 
 
 * METHOD OF MAKING FEATHER-WORK 137 
 
 *CHILKAT CEREMONIAL SHIRT 139 
 
 *CHILKAT CEREMONIAL BLANKET 142 
 
 *MOKI WALL DECORATION. PINK ON A WHITE GROUND. MISH- 
 
 ONGNUVI, ARIZONA 144 
 
 *BELLACOOLAS J 45 
 
 *Top VIEW OF CONICAL NORTH-WEST COAST HAT . . . 146 
 
 WONSIVU, A PAI UTE GIRL J 47 
 
 [Posed by Thomas Moran] 
 
 A NAVAJO LEADER IN NATIVE COSTUME . . i4- s 
 
 [Figure from photograph by the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology] 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. 
 
List of Illustrations xix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 * INTERIOR OF A MOKI HOUSE, ARIZONA 149 
 
 * PUEBLO HEAD MAT . . . . . . . . . -151 
 
 *NAVAJOS 152 
 
 *SEMINOLE MAN S AND WOMAN S COSTUME ..... 154 
 
 * EAR-PERFORATING AND HAIR-DRESSING OF SEMINOLES . . 155 
 *THE GHOST-SHIRT, SIMPLE FORM 157 
 
 * ESKIMO BOOTS 158 
 
 *RAIN HAT, HAIDA 160 
 
 * TOUCAN OF SQUIER AND DAVIS, REALLY A CROW . . . .161 
 DESERTED VILLAGE NEAR CAPE Fox, ALASKA 162 
 
 [Photographed by the Harriman Alaska Expedition, 1899] 
 
 INTERIOR HOUSE-COLUMN 162 
 
 [Sketch by Author from post at Cape Fox Village, Alaska] 
 
 MAJOR PART OF INTERIOR HOUSE-POST FROM CAPE Fox VILLAGE, 
 
 S. E. ALASKA 163 
 
 TOTEM POLE WITH BEAR ON THE TOP, WRANGELL .... 164 
 
 [Sketch by the Author] 
 
 *TERRA-COTTA STATUETTE, CHIRIQUI 165 
 
 *THE BEAR-MOTHER, HAIDA, N. W. COAST 165 
 
 * WOODEN MASKS, N. W. COAST 166 
 
 *KWAKIUTL CARVING, N. W. COAST 167 
 
 ~ :< ~ ESKIMO CARVED IVORY DRUM-HANDLES . . . . . .168 
 
 * SPECIMEN OF MOUNDBUILDER SCULPTURAL SKILL WITH HUMAN 
 
 FIGURE 170 
 
 * STONE PIPE FROM NORTH CAROLINA MOUND 171 
 
 * SO-CALLED ELEPHANT PIPE, IOWA 172 
 
 * TOUCAN OF SQUIER AND DAVIS, POSSIBLY MEANT FOR A YOUNG 
 
 EAGLE 172 
 
 * TRIPOD VASE, CHIRIQUI. LEGS MODELLED TO IMITATE FISH . 173 
 
 * SHELL GORGET, MISSOURI 175 
 
 * BIRD-SHAPED EARTHEN BOWL, ARKANSAS 176 
 
 * SHELL MASK, VIRGINIA 177 
 
 MOKI SCULPTURAL SKILL WITH THE HUMAN FIGURE . . .178 
 
 THE ALOSAKA (MOKI) 179 
 
 [After drawing by A. M. Stephen] 
 
 * SCULPTURAL ART OF CHIRIQUI ... ... 179 
 
 * SHELL GORGET, TENNESSEE l8 
 
 THE AZTEC "CALENDAR" STONE 182 
 
 I From Bandelier s Archaeological Tour] 
 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. 
 
xx List of Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 AZTEC SCULPTURE, THE INDIO TRISTE 183 
 
 [From Bandelier s Arch&ological Tour] 
 
 SANCTUARY TABLET TEMPLE (TEOCALLIJ OF THE SUN, PALENQUE. 185 
 
 [Field Columbian Museum] 
 
 t "ALTAR" IN FRONT OF STELA D, COPAN 186 
 
 t STELA No. 6, COPAN ; BACK OF STELA No. 6 .... 187 
 
 * PUMA-SHAPED STOOL OF GREY ANDESITE, CHTRIQUI . . . 188 
 t HEAD SCULPTURED IN STONE. CHULTUNES OF LABNA,- YUCATAN 189 
 LARGE BUILT-UP HEAD AT IZAMAL 191 
 
 [From Stephens] 
 
 * STOOL OF GREY BASALT, CHIRIQUI 192 
 
 * COPPER BELL FROM TENNESSEE 193 
 
 * PUEBLO MEALING STONES 194 
 
 PAI UTE WIKIUPS, NORTHERN ARIZONA 195 
 
 [From photograph by Colorado River Expedition, 1872] 
 
 *MOKI KISI CONSTRUCTION 196 
 
 * PRIMITIVE AMERIND LADDERS 197 
 
 * A NAVAJO HOUSE 198 
 
 *A SWEAT HOUSE 199 
 
 *AN OMAHA TIPI 201 
 
 *A SEMINOLE DWELLING 203 
 
 * MISSISSIPPI VALLEY METHOD OF USING JACAL CONSTRUCTION, 
 
 ACCORDING TO THOMAS 2O6 
 
 * CLIFF OUTLOOK, CANYON DEL MUERTO, ARIZONA .... 207 
 HALL OF COLUMNS, MITLA 209 
 
 [Field Columbian Museum] 
 
 TRANSVERSE SECTION (SOMEWHAT GENERALISED) SHOWING CON 
 STRUCTION OF PALENQUE BUILDINGS, YUCATAN . . . .210 
 
 [Field Columbian Museum] 
 
 * SOME DETAILS OF PUEBLO HOUSE ARCHITECTURE A TRIANGULAR 
 
 SIPAPU OR SACRED KIVA ORIFICE ; MOKI DOORWAY WITH 
 TRANSOM ; PUEBLO ROOF CONSTRUCTION ; SOME MOKI ROOF 
 
 DRAINS 2I1 
 
 *MOKI NOTCHED DOORWAY, so MADE THAT LARGE BUNDLES 
 
 COULD BE TAKEN IN 213 
 
 A ZUNI CHIMNEY, MOKI THE SAME 215 
 
 ONE FORM OF MOKI CHIMNEY HOOD 215 
 
 * GROUND PLAN OF ESKIMO SNOW IGLU . . . . .217 
 
 * SECTION OF SNOW IGLU 2lS 
 
 *AN ALASKA ESKIMO WINTER HOUSE, POINT BARROW . . .219 
 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. t Peabody Museum. 
 
List of Illustrations xxi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 * INTERIOR GROUND PLAN OF A MOKI HOUSE ..... 220 
 *AN ALASKA ESKIMO WINTER HOUSE OF WOOD AND EARTH, 
 
 POINT BARROW 221 
 
 * INTERIOR OF WOOD AND EARTH IGLU 221 
 
 * STONE STEPS AT ORAIBI 222 
 
 * CLIFF-DWELLING, EASTERN COVE OF MUMMY CAVE, CANYON 
 
 DE CHELLY, ARIZONA ......... 223 
 
 HOUSES IN WALPI, ONE OF THE MOKI TOWNS, ARIZONA . . 224 
 
 [Photograph by U. S. Geological Survey] 
 
 * GENERAL VIEW OF A GROUP OF CAVATE LODGES, ARIZONA . 225 
 *PLAN AND SECTIONS OF A CAVATE LODGE 227 
 
 * DIAGRAM SHOWING POCKET AT BACK OF SOME CAVATE LODGES . 228 
 f THEORETIC ROOF CONSTRUCTION OF MITLA 230 
 
 * GROUND PLAN OF A KIVA AND CEILING PLAN OF ANOTHER . 231 
 CHACO RUINS MASONRY ; CHACO RUINS, GROUND PLANS . . 232 
 
 [From Report of Hayden Expedition] 
 
 *RUIN CALLED CASA GRANDE, ARIZONA 233 
 
 f TRANSVERSE SECTION OF AN ORDINARY YUCATEC BUILDING . 235 
 
 t FORMS OF THE MAYA CORBEL VAULT 237 
 
 f GROUND PLANS OF YUCATEC BUILDINGS 238 
 
 t KWAKIUTL HOUSE FRONT 239 
 
 \ NORTH- WEST COAST HOUSES AND TOTEM POLES .... 241 
 fRuiN OF EAST FACADE AND IGLESIA, "PALACE," CHICKEN- ITZA, 
 
 YUCATAN 243 
 
 \ ELEVATION OF KWAKIUTL HOUSE 244 
 
 * VIEW IN THE MOKI TOWN OF MISHONGNAVI, ARIZONA . . 245 
 
 * ESKIMO HORN DIPPER 247 
 
 *HORN ARROW STRAIGHTENER 248 
 
 * MODERN IRON ARROW-HEADS OF THE OMAHAS .... 248 
 
 * FORMS OF THE Bow 249 
 
 PAI UTE PALM-DRILL 250 
 
 [Drawn by the Author] 
 
 JTHE PALM-DRILL ( FIRE-MA KING) ; THE PUMP-DRILL (FIRE-MAKING) 251 
 
 * ESKIMO STRING-DRILL (FOR FIRE-MAKING WITH MOUTHPIECE) . 251 
 
 * PUEBLO PUMP-DRILL (FOR BORING) 251 
 
 * DRILL-POINT OF CHIPPED FLINT 251 
 
 \ SET OF FIRE-MAKING TOOLS, BRISTOL BAY ESKIMO, ALASKA . 253 
 
 * ESKIMO BOW-DRILL 254 
 
 \ MODERN ROD ARMOUR OF THE KLAMATHS, OREGON . . .255 
 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, f Field Columbian Museum. % U. S. National Museum. 
 
xxii List of Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 tHupA ROD ARMOUR, CALIFORNIA 255 
 
 t ESKIMO PLATE ARMOUR, DIOMEDE ISLAND, BERING STRAIT . 257 
 
 f TLINKIT SKIN ARMOUR, ALASKA 258 
 
 t PREHISTORIC ALEUTIAN ROD ARMOUR 259 
 
 * CHIPPED FLINT ; CHIPPED FLINT BLUNT ARROW-HEAD, GEORGIA ; 
 
 CHIPPED FLINT IMPLEMENT, TENNESSEE; SPECIMEN "CORES," 
 OR BLOCKS OF FLINT ; SPECIMEN OF CHIPPED FLINT Discs, 
 CALLED TURTLEBACK, " MISSISSIPPI VALLEY ; GROOVED STONE 
 
 AXE, TENNESSEE (GROUND) 2 6 1 
 
 * DIAGRAM EXPLAINING TERMS TO BE USED IN DESCRIBING STONE 
 
 WEAPONS 263 
 
 f TLINKIT SLAT-AND-ROD ARMOUR, ALASKA, FRONT VIEW . . 265 
 
 * APACHE WAR-BONNET 266 
 
 * ESKIMO THROWING-BOARDS FOR DARTS 268 
 
 * ESKIMO BIRD BOLAS 268 
 
 * AMERINDIAN KNIVES 269 
 
 *MOKI THROWING-STICK, OR PUTCHKOHU ; PUEBLO PLANTING 
 
 STICK ; ZUNI WOODEN SPADE 270 
 
 A MOKI THROWING THE PUTCHKOHU 271 
 
 [From a drawing by the Author] 
 
 * SHELL SPOON, MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 273 
 
 * PUEBLO MOUNTAIN SHEEP-HORN SPOON 274 
 
 *MENOMINEE WOODEN MORTAR AND PESTLE 274 
 
 * STONE HOUSE-LAMP, POINT BARROW, ALASKA .... 275 
 
 * ESKIMO SLEDGES 277 
 
 * CENTRAL ESKIMO DOG HARNESS 278 
 
 t ENCLOSED CANADIAN TOBOGGAN OR TRAVELLING SLED . . 279 
 
 * ESKIMO SNOW-SHOE, POINT BARROW, ALASKA .... 280 
 t CANOES OF THE NORTH-WEST COAST . . . . . .281 
 
 * UMIAK OF THE CENTRAL ESKIMO 282 
 
 * ESKIMO KAYAKS ........... 283 
 
 * METHOD OF ATTACHING OARS TO UMIAK 284 
 
 * METHOD OF TYING FRAME OF KAYAK 284 
 
 *THIN PLATE OF COPPER WROUGHT BY REPOUSSE, METHOD, ILLI 
 NOIS MOUND 285 
 
 * AMERINDIAN METHOD OF MINING STEATITE FOR UTENSILS . . 287 
 
 * CHIPPED SPADE 289 
 
 * ESKIMO STONE MAUL 290 
 
 * SMALL FIGURE OF FROG IN BASE METAL, PLATED WITH GOLD, 
 
 CHIRIQUI ............ 292 
 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. f U. S. National Museum. 
 
List of Illustrations xxiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 COPPERS FROM THE NORTH- WEST COAST ; PAINTED DESIGN IN 
 BLACK REPRESENTING A SEA MONSTER WITH BEAR S HEAD ; 
 
 PAINTED DESIGN REPRESENTING A HAWK 293 
 
 [U. S. National Museum] 
 
 * HOLLOW SILVER BEADS OF NAVAJO MAKE, ARIZONA . . . 294 
 *NAVAJO SILVER WORK, ARIZONA ; ENGRAVED BUTTON ; BRACELET, 295 
 fKwAKiuTL CHIEF HOLDING HIS COPPER, NORTH-WEST COAST . 297 
 
 * TRIPLE BELL OR RATTLE OF GOLD FROM NEAR PANAMA . . 302 
 
 * BRONZE MEXICAN BELL 302 
 
 * BRONZE BELLS, PLATED OR WASHED WITH GOLD, CHIRIQUI . 304 
 
 * SMALL METAL FIGURE, CHIRIQUI 306 
 
 * SILVER PLATE WITH SPANISH COAT OF ARMS 307 
 
 * MOKI RATTLE OF ANIMAL HOOFS 308 
 
 * AMERINDIAN RATTLES; GOURD, OJIRWA ; EARTHENWARE RATTLE 
 
 FROM CHIRIQUI ; TIN, OJIBWA 309 
 
 * OMAHA LARGE FLUTE 310 
 
 *DRUM OF T^RRA-COTTA, CHIRIOUI ....... 312 
 
 *MENOMINEE TAMBOURINE DRUM 313 
 
 * OMAHA Box DRUM 314 
 
 + SET OF PLAYING STICKS 315 
 
 * PUEBLO RATTLES TURTLE SHELL WITH HOOFS OF GOATS OR 
 
 SHEEP, FASTENED TO THE REAR OF THE RIGHT LEG NEAR 
 
 THE KNEE IN DANCING ; PAINTED GOURD WITH WOOD HANDLE, 317 
 
 * ZUNI DANCE ORNAMENT ; * MOKI NOTCHED STICK ; f KWAKIUTL 
 
 DOUBLE WHISTLE, WITH FOUR VOICES 319 
 
 fTHE AWL GAME 320 
 
 f AMERIND GAMBLING TOOLS SET OF BONE DICE, ARAPAHO ; SET 
 OF COUNTING STICKS, BLACKFEET ; SET OF PLUM STONES, 
 
 ARIKAREE 322 
 
 * TERRA-COTTA RATTLE FROM CHIRIQUI 325 
 
 * CAT-SHAPED WHISTLE OF TERRA-COTTA, CHIRIQUI . . . 327 
 fMANDAN GAME OF TCHUNGKEE 328 
 
 * DOUBLE WHISTLE IN TERRA-COTTA FROM CHIRIQUI . . . 330 
 
 fSET OF STAVES FOR GAME 33 1 
 
 *" BANNER-STONE," TENNESSEE ........ 332 
 
 * SO-CALLED ELEPHANT MOUND, WISCONSIN 334 
 
 * ANCIENT FABRIC DESIGN, FROM IMPRESSION ON POTTERY, UTAH, 335 
 
 * ANCIENT FABRIC, PRESERVED BY COPPER CELT, IOWA . . . 336 
 
 * LARGE MOUND OF THE ETOWAH GROUP, GEORGIA . . . 337 
 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. tU. S. National Museum. 
 
xxiv List of Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A VOTIVE ADZ OF JADITE FROM MEXICO, SHOWING FRONT AND 
 
 SIDE 339 
 
 [American Museum, Kunz Collection] 
 
 BACK OF VOTIVK ADZ . . . . . . . . . . 341 
 
 [American Museum] 
 
 * PATTERNS OF ANCIENT FABRICS FROM POTTERY ; FROM NEW 
 
 YORK ; FROM ILLINOIS ; FROM TENNESSEE 344 
 
 * ESKIMO MECAHNICAL TOY 345 
 
 fMAHTOT6HPA (THE FOUR BEARS), A MANDAN CHIEF . . . 347 
 
 AN ONYX JAR FROM MEXICO IN PROCESS OF MANUFACTURE . . 349 
 
 [American Museum] 
 
 f WOODEN FOOD BOWL, HAIDA 351 
 
 * DANCING MASK OF THE MAKAHS, WASHINGTON .... 352 
 f MOKI WICKER CRADLE WITH AWNING ; CARRYING BASKET OF 
 
 THE ARIKAREES 353 
 
 f TLINKIT MAN AND WOMAN THIRTY YEARS AGO, OR ABOUT 1870, 355 
 A PAWNEE IN BATTLE ARRAY 357 
 
 [Photographed by J. K. Killers, U. S. Geological Survey] 
 
 fTnE KWAKIUTL WOLF DANCE, CALLED WALASAXA, NORTH-WEST 
 
 COAST 359 
 
 fUTE WOMAN CARRYING CHILD 361 
 
 f-KEOKUK, A SAUK CHIEF 362 
 
 f SHRINE OF THE WAR-GODS, TWIN MOUNTAIN, PUEBLO OF ZUNI, 
 
 NEW MEXICO 365 
 
 fA COSTUME OF A HAMATSA IN THE KWAKIUTL CANNIBALISTIC 
 CEREMONY, WHERE SLAVES AND CORPSES WERE FORMERLY 
 
 DEVOURED ........... 367 
 
 f MEXICAN OPERATING THE PALM DRILL FOR FIRE. . . . 368 
 
 fZuNi WOMAN CARRYING WATER ....... 369 
 
 fUTE CRADLE, FRAME OF RODS COVERED WITH BUCKSKIN . . 372 
 f ESKIMO WOMAN OF POINT BARROW CARRYING CHILD ; f APACHE 
 
 WOMAN CARRYING CHILD 374 
 
 *MOKI "SNAKE DANCE" AT WALPI 376 
 
 * AMERINDIAN PICTURE-WRITING 377 
 
 * BEGINNING OF THE MOKI "SNAKE DANCE" AT WALPI. . . 378 
 
 f HORNED RATTLESNAKE, CROTALUS CERASTES 380 
 
 f-THE OKEEPA CEREMONY OF THE MANDANS, LASTING FOUR DAYS, 382 
 
 *THE SACRED POLE OF THE OMAHA 383 
 
 CRUCIFORM STONE TOMB, OAXACA 384 
 
 [American Museum . 
 
 GROUND PLAN OF CRUCIFORM TOMB, OAXACA 385 
 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. t U. S. National Museum. 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 xxv 
 
 * AMERINDIAN ART 
 
 MOKI EARTHERN CANTEEN, ARIZONA 
 
 f MODERN LACED SANDAL OF LEATHER FROM COLIMA, MEXICO . 
 
 * ESKIMO PIPE WITH STONE BOWL 
 
 TEOCALLI (TEMPLE) OF TEPOZTLAN, STATE OF MORELOS, MEXICO, 
 
 [Monumental Records] 
 
 fKwAKiuTL WOOD-CARVING OF THE SISUL NORTH-WEST COAST 
 
 f RUSHING EAGLE, 1872 
 
 -FINE CLOTH PRESERVED BY COPPER BEADS 
 
 * ANCIENT FABRIC-MARKED POTSHERDS, WITH CLAY CASTS BY 
 
 HOLMES 
 
 f EHTOHKPAHSHEPEESHAH, THE BLACK MOCCASIN, CHIEF OF THE 
 
 OF THE MlNATAREES, OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD 
 LACANDON (MAYAN) AMERIND FROM CHOCOLHAO, YUCATAN . 
 
 [Photographed by M. H. Saville] 
 
 ONE OF THE BUILDINGS OF THE PALENQUE GROUP .... 
 
 [Photographed by M. H. Saville j 
 
 f COSTUME WORN IN THE KWAKIUTL FESTIVALS, CALLED LAO- 
 LAXA, NORTH-WEST COAST 
 
 GOD-HOUSES OF THE HUICHOLS AT TEAKATA, NEAR SANTA CATA- 
 RINA, STATE OF JALISCO, MEXICO 
 
 [American Museum] 
 
 * ESKIMO MASK OF WOOD, PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND, ALASKA. 
 PLENTY-HORSES, A CHEYENNE 
 
 [U.S. Geological Survey] 
 
 f NORTH- WEST COAST BASKETRY HATS 
 
 f NORTH-WEST COAST MORTUARY AND COMMEMORATIVE COLUMNS, 
 
 f ANCIENT PUEBLOAN MOCCASINS OF FIBRE, ARIZONA 
 
 f CHIMMESYAN HEAD-DRESS REPRESENTING THE WHITE OWL 
 
 f WOODEN "SEAL" DISH, HA IDA 
 
 TLINKIT SUMMER CAMP ......... 
 
 [Photographed by the Harriman Alaska Expedition, 1899] 
 
 ESKIMO SUMMER CAMP, PORT CLARENCE 
 
 [Photographed by the Harriman Alaska Expedition, 1899] 
 
 * WOODEN SNOW GOGGLES OF THE CENTRAL ESKIMO 
 PRINCIPAL KNOWN RUINS OF CENTRAL AMERICA .... 
 
 [American Museum] 
 
 * NECKLACE OF DRIED HUMAN FINGERS OBTAINED ON BATTLE 
 
 FIELD OF WOUNDED KNEE BY CAPTAIN BOURKE 
 PRINCIPAL KNOWN RUINS OF MEXICO 
 
 American Museum] 
 
 387 
 388 
 
 389 
 390 
 39* 
 
 392 
 394 
 395 
 
 398 
 
 400 
 402 
 
 404 
 
 406 
 
 409 
 
 410 
 413 
 
 415 
 417 
 422 
 426 
 428 
 429 
 
 433 
 436 
 
 437 
 438 
 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. 
 
 t U. S. National Museum. 
 
xxvi List of Illustrations 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PROBABLE ASPECT OF ALASKA SUMMER LANDSCAPE SOMK v Six 
 
 HUNDRED YEARS AGO 440 
 
 [Harriman Alaska Expedition, 1899] 
 
 *A PUEBLOAN WARRIOR OF NAMBE, NEW MEXICO, IN BATTLE 
 
 ARRAY 442 
 
 f APACHE WOMAN CARRYING WATER IN A WICKKR BOTTLE . . 444 
 
 GROUP OF ESKIMO, PORT CLARENCE, ALASKA 446 
 
 [Photographed by the Harriman Expedition, 1899) 
 
 * SHELL SPIDER GORGETS 447 
 
 f BLACK HAWK 448 
 
 PORTION OF THE SO-CALLED "PALACE" OF LABNA, YUCATAN . 450 
 
 [American Museum] 
 
 MUSICAL Bow OF THE SOUTHERN TEPEHUANES AND THE AZTECS, 
 
 MEXICO 45 r 
 
 [American Museum ] 
 
 f GENERAL TYPE OF CHIMMESYAN, HAIDA, AND TLINKIT CHIEF S 
 
 COSTUME, NORTH-WEST COAST 452 
 
 * PERFORATED DISCOIDAL STONE, ILLINOIS ..... 4^3 
 HOBOBO, THE FIRE KATCINA, IN THE SOMAIKOLI CEREMONY, 
 
 CICHUMOVI, 1884 .......... 454 
 
 [From a drawing by the author] 
 
 CIRCLE OF DANCERS IN THE INTERVALS BETWEEN THE APPEAR 
 ANCES OF THE VARIOUS KATCINAS IN THE MOKI SOMAIKOLI 
 CEREMONY, CICHUMOVI, ARIZONA, 1884 455 
 
 [Photographed by the author] 
 
 FRONT OF THE HOUSE OF COLUMNS, MITLA, OAXACA . . . 457 
 
 [American Museum] 
 
 f THE SWASTIKA 459 
 
 * STICK USED IN THE AWL GAME 461 
 
 f WOODEN SEAL-DISH, HAIDA, NORTH-WEST COAST .... 478 
 
 * U. S. Bureau of Ethnology. t U. S. National Museum. 
 
 NOTE 
 
 The cover, designed and drawn by the author, has for its central feat 
 ure a sketch of a stone animal head removed from one of the buildings 
 at Copan and brought to the Peabody Museum by Saville. The sacred 
 butterfly of the Mokis fills the four corners of the space around this, and 
 above and below an arrangement of Puebloan scrollwork completes the 
 composition. On the back is a figure representing the terra-cotta statue 
 shown more exactly on page 113, with a further arrangement of scrollwork 
 and some minor Moki svmbols. 
 
THE NORTH-AMERICANS OF 
 YESTERDAY 
 
THE 
 NORTH-AMERICANS OF YESTERDAY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 WHEN those rapacious enthusiasts, the Spaniards of the 
 sixteenth century, had unfolded some of the mysteries 
 of the great half-world that the resolution and daring 
 of Columbus had opened to them, they found it everywhere already 
 peopled, though often sparsely, by a race strange to the other half, 
 with totally different ideas and customs, existing in various de 
 grees of sylvan felicity, or in the budding promise of a civilisation. 
 They also found imposing ruins that told of the long previous 
 departure of some of the occupants of this land into the vaster 
 unknown, and indeed evidences of still earlier hosts that had 
 travelled the dim pathway through the outer darkness. These 
 new lands were believed to be some part of India, and because of 
 this first error the inappropriate title of " Indians " was bestowed 
 on the natives, and this name continued to cling after the mistake 
 was discovered, growing more and more confusing as intercourse 
 increased with the real Indians, till now in our day it is exceed 
 ingly troublesome, and we are compelled to differentiate, when 
 accuracy is desirable, by saying <( East Indian," " Red Indian," 
 or " American Indian," etc. To add further to this confusion, 
 many persons persist in considering the Algonquin and Iroquois 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
2 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 as the type specimens of " Indians," and exclude all who do not 
 accord with this limited and erroneous standard. The natives of 
 the Western Hemisphere appear all to have been of one race, for 
 there are only minor differences, which will be shown in following 
 pages, and there is therefore a necessity for a broad designation 
 for all these people. When these words were first written I had 
 determined to adopt the term " Redskin " for use in this book, but 
 learning that Amerind, compounded of the first syllables of Amer 
 ican and Indian, had been suggested by the Anthropological 
 Society of Washington, I gave it the preference over Redskin, 
 and on full examination was convinced that it is a satisfactory 
 and useful substitute for " Indian," and, in order to avoid the 
 latter, have used it exclusively in these pages, except where 
 another writer is quoted. 
 
 This Amerind people were indeed more remarkable than has 
 been popularly appreciated. 1 They possessed, as a rule, strong 
 personality, great physical vigour, quick intelligence, and daunt 
 less courage. Their brain power was of a high order and the 
 cerebral quality extremely fine ; capable through the processes of 
 time of a development second to none. They had their trials, 
 their wars, their sicknesses, and their various tribulations before 
 the Europeans fell down upon them ; but had the cargo of misery, 
 disease, and deat4i-for-ihem which freighted the bold caravels of 
 Columbus possessed tangible weight in proportion to its magni 
 tude, those vessels would have plunged to the depths of the un 
 known sea. But Destiny had traced another course for events, 
 and thus the gay banners, glowing on one side with Hope for one 
 race and black on the reverse with Despair for another, flaunted 
 at length their ominous folds in the sunshine of the Amerind con 
 tinent. Great good fortune it was for the Europeans, especially 
 for the Spaniards, but the latter failed to read their star aright. 
 Upon the conquered tribes, an easy prey before the superior 
 weapons of the invaders, they lavished a cruelty which eclipsed 
 that of savages, and settled like a blight over the country, to 
 finally stifle by just retribution the haughty power of Spain her 
 self, and wrench forever from her the last foot of the domain 
 which the unfaltering courage of the Adelantados had bequeathed 
 to her. To attempt to gloss over the oppression of the Spanish 
 
 1 For many details of the life of the American Indians, or Amerinds, see 
 The Indians of To- Day, by George Bird Grinnell. 
 
4 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 rule of the Amerind people would be fruitless. There is no excuse 
 for it. Fresh from the methods of the Inquisition, the Spaniards 
 themselves perhaps were not wholly aware of the horror of their 
 acts. Unfortunately, they do not stand alone as sinners in this 
 respect, and the contemplation of the early intercourse of Euro 
 peans and Amerinds is not likely to give a candid person an 
 agreeable sensation, as it is frequently difficult, if not impossible, 
 to decide which race is the one to whom rightfully belongs the 
 description, " treacherous, bloodthirsty, and savage." Certain 
 it is that the Amerinds from the very beginning had numerous 
 vivid lessons from the whites in murder, treachery, and kindred 
 crimes. 1 They were frequently slain without cause or mercy ; 
 they were enslaved when possible ; their records were destroyed ; 
 and, most terrible of all, they were burned alive at the stake. But 
 this latter diversion had been practised in Europe, where St. 
 Ferdinand with his own hands heaped the fagots on the blazing 
 pile. The Conquistadores of the sixteenth century were versed 
 in as much cruelty as the Amerinds had ever dreamed of ; yet in 
 the midst of it all there were men like Las Casas and Viceroy 
 Mendoza, who had no sympathy with the barbarities practised, 
 and whose characters bring relief in the broad and hideous black 
 ness. Ship-loads of slaves were carried off each year, and the 
 system of repartimientos placed every Amerind in bondage. 
 
 Opposition was punished in the most terrible ways possible 
 to devise. In one instance the offenders, seventeen or eighteen 
 caciques, were strangled and mangled by dogs kept for the pur 
 pose, the execution taking place in the public square, so that the 
 struggles of the unfortunates might make a spectacle. Again 
 the Spaniards invited some chiefs to a conference, as told by 
 Brinton, in a large wooden building, which was then burned up 
 with the chiefs in it. But it is not necessary to go back so far for 
 examples of the treacherous brutality with which the whites have 
 treated the Amerinds. Were it so, the cruelty and injustice 
 might perhaps be regarded as merely circumstances of the period, 
 but Beckwourth, in his Narrative, relates an incident, also referred 
 
 1 It must be borne in mind that the general estimate of the Amerind is 
 entirely drawn from white men s writings. The Amerind side has never been 
 presented. 
 
 2 Narrative of James P. Beckwourth, p. 254 ; Irving s Bonneville, 
 p. 225. 
 
Introductory 5 
 
 to by Washington Irving, quite as horrible as any that occurred 
 in the sixteenth century. Beckwotirth came upon some white 
 trappers who had captured two Amerinds from a party of Ari- 
 
 Peabody Museum 
 
 SEATED FIGURE CARVED IN TRACHYTE 
 From debris of hieroglyphic steps, Copan. Slightly larger than life size 
 
 karees who had stolen their horses. The Arikarees offered to 
 return some, but not all, of the horses in exchange for the prison 
 ers, but the trappers declared they would burn their captives alive 
 
6 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 if all the horses were not returned. The threat was disregarded. 
 Thereupon the logs on the top of a huge fire were separated, the 
 two helpless, chain-bound prisoners were dropped into the red 
 furnace, and the naming logs replaced. " There was a terrible 
 struggle for a moment," says Beckwourth, " then all was still." 
 And thus was another lesson of the mercy and justice of the White 
 rendered unto the Red. 
 
 Nearer to us than this we have an incident even more diaboli 
 cal, because without the provocation the trappers had. Horse 
 stealing down to recent times in the West has always been liable 
 to punishment by death, so the trappers might be somewhat 
 excused on that ground in the minds of some, but in the year 
 1898, in the Indian Territory, two Amerinds were burned alive 
 at the stake by a mob of whites. The accusation, too, was a mere 
 suspicion, and it was later established that the Amerinds were 
 perfectly innocent. After such deeds we may well pause when 
 our inclination is to vaunt the superiority of the white men over 
 the red. 
 
 Notwithstanding the. popular idea that the Amerinds were 
 devils incarnate, many tribes when first encountered were kindly, 
 and trusted the newcomers till the moment came, as it soon did, 
 when they were basely deceived. That all tribes were trusting is 
 not claimed, but it is well known that many explorers found the 
 Amerinds ready to receive them fairly and honestly. Neither 
 Cartier nor Roberval met with hostility from natives, and the suc 
 cess of the straightforwardness of Penn in his dealings with them 
 is unquestioned. 1 It has been stated that the European is no more 
 than a whitewashed savage, and his intercourse with the Amerind 
 people bears out this description. There was often provocation 
 on both sides, augmented by the complete ignorance of each 
 other s ways and customs. Actions which were correct according 
 to the manners of the Amerinds were offensive to the whites, and 
 vice verm, and, to add to the ever-increasing hostility, the whites 
 
 1 " Amidst all the devastating incursions of the Indians in North Amer 
 ica it is a remarkable fact that no Friend who stood faithful to his principles 
 in the disuse of all weapons of war, the cause of which was generally well 
 understood by the Indians, ever suffered personal molestation from them," 
 vol. v., p. 63, Brinton s Library of Am, Ab. Literature, from An Account 
 of the Conduct of the Society of Friends toward the Indians, p. 72. London, 
 1844. 
 
Introductory 7 
 
 resented upon all Amerinds the crime or indiscretion of one or a 
 few members of a particular tribe. If an Amerind committed a 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 KICKING BEAR, SIOUX 
 
 crime, the next one met with suffered for it. When Walker, in 
 1833, treacherously abandoned the line of work Bonneville had 
 
8 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 laid out for him and struck down the Humboldt for California, one 
 of the men had his traps carried off by some of the Shoshokoes. He 
 swore to kill the first one he should meet, and so their trail was 
 one of blood. At one place they murdered no less than twenty- 
 five unsuspecting red people without provocation. This was the 
 manner in which these pioneers exhibited their superiority. There 
 have always, too, been certain whites, more or less outlawed, like 
 one Rose, who have struck up a friendship with the worst tribes 
 for the purpose of inciting them against the whites to advance 
 their own profit. 
 
 Previous to the European invasion the Amerind was not always 
 at war, though many seem to think that he was. His territorial 
 lines were generally well defined, and, as a rule, he stayed within 
 them. Their villages, for the Amerind was always a village 
 dweller, were far apart north of Mexico, and as long as there was 
 no contention over property or water rights, things went smoothly, 
 and even during hostilities intercourse was not always entirely 
 broken off. So that there was frequently a large measure of 
 security and periods of uninterrupted peace. He worked at hunt 
 ing, fishing, and, in all the tribes east of the Mississippi, in 
 Mexico, and many tribes west, at agriculture. The arrival and 
 the westward movement of the Europeans crowded back the tribes 
 across boundaries and upon lands they had no right to, and fre 
 quent wars were the inevitable result. Finally the acquisition of 
 the horse gave facility of movement never before possessed, and 
 made quick journeys and night attacks feasible, while the desire 
 to secure as many of the valuable animals as possible added a 
 new and great incentive to theft and consequent warfare. The 
 Amerind began to change, in fact, the moment he acquired the 
 horse and the gun, adapting both to his needs and using them 
 with consummate skill. The whites did not try to understand 
 him, nor were they superior to him in the matter of patience or 
 forgiveness. One thing was well understood by the whites, how 
 ever, and continues to this day, and that was that an Amerind has 
 no rights that a white man is bound to respect, or even to consider. 
 The natives north of the Aztec country were regarded as vaga 
 bonds and vagrants who had no right to anything, while those of 
 Mexico, whom the Spaniards had meanwhile reduced everywhere 
 to abject slaves, were believed to be a different race, with former 
 qualities that were greatly exaggerated by the Europeans. And 
 
Introductory 
 
 9 
 
 then, later, in the effort to counteract the extravagant notions 
 entertained of the Aztecs, their remarkable growth, and that of 
 the Mayas, was by some writers reduced to the level of that of the 
 Pueblo tribes of New Mexico and Arizona, which is undoubtedly 
 a serious error in the other direction. Montezuma was probably 
 not a king nor an emperor as those terms are understood by us, but 
 it is difficult to accept him as little more than a Moki war-chief, 
 especially as one can readily see that a few steps farther, even in 
 the line of Moki development, might have produced a form of 
 
 A CORNER OF A MITLA RUIN, MEXICO 
 From Bandelier s Archceological Tour, published by the Archaeological Institute of America 
 
 government partaking of the monarchical, but different from any 
 thing that we know about. 1 Ever since I saw one of our Arizona 
 Pai Ute guides, a chief of his band, command a follower to take 
 off his shoes as he reclined by the fire, I have suspected the exist 
 ence among the Amerinds of a latent germ of aristocracy. 
 
 In the first flush of the discovery of America, Europe was wild 
 with the romance of it, and mystery was the order of the day. 
 
 1 Payne says, "Anahuac was becoming a military despotism." History 
 of the New World called Americi, vol. ii., p. 494. 
 
io The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 More wonderful things still were expected. Fables that had done 
 good service for centuries were transported to the new lands, and 
 there blazed up with the mysterious uncertainty of the ignis fatuus> 
 luring and deceiving, till the gold-thirsting Europeans struggled 
 in the pursuit of such phantoms as the " Seven Cities." The 
 most extraordinary tales appeared tame in that atmosphere of 
 dazzling imagination. Exaggeration of one kind or another has 
 ever since been the inheritance of the Amerind people, and it is 
 only within a comparatively few years that these " Americans of 
 Yesterday " have been scientifically studied and their real charac 
 ter and attainments given proper places. The whole matter of 
 American ethnology and archaeology is new ; so new that it is 
 impossible to speak with decision on a great many points. In the 
 United States we have usually regarded the Amerind as the incar 
 nation of evil ; a treacherous demon with a bloody knife in one 
 hand and a scalp-lock in the other, and we have generally refused 
 to consider the finer traits of his character. So callous have we 
 become to his good points that Cooper is ridiculed for his 
 delineation of Amerinds that have instincts or principles above 
 the brute, and yet Cooper s chief models were the Iroquois who 
 established a remarkable political organisation. 
 
 It is not necessary to be what has been scornfully called (l an 
 Indian lover" to be interested in this extraordinarily homogene 
 ous race that was scattered from Alaska to Patagonia. Such 
 interest should be a matter apart from sentiment. We are in 
 terested in the primitive man of Europe ; few would have been 
 pleased to live with him. So the question whether we " like" 
 the Amerind people and would enjoy social intercourse with 
 them is not to the point. It is a matter of education ; a matter, 
 in fact, of the study of ourselves as others saw us some thou 
 sands of years ago, for the Amerind people were passing through 
 phases of human existence which, in all probability, our remote 
 ancestors also passed through ; so that by examining this kind of 
 life we are holding up the mirror to ourselves. Till recently the 
 apathy shown on this subject was surprising. People generally 
 were not aware that there were differences in " Indians," or that 
 they spoke different languages. The idea that there was any 
 profit in studying them was popularly considered ridiculous. He 
 was a " good-for-nothing," and that was all that there was about 
 it. But we can no more find fault with the Amerind for not 
 
Introductory 
 
 II 
 
 being a European than we can with a stage-coach for not being a 
 locomotive. We must accept him as he was, and as he is, and 
 wherever possible study him and write him down so minutely 
 that generations of ethnologists to come will shower blessings on 
 our heads. We must constantly remember that the Amerind 
 point of view is different from ours, and that we too are only in a 
 transitional stage. 
 
 
 
 Peabody Museum 
 
 SCULPTURES FROM TERRACE EAST OF THE GREAT PLAZA, COPAN 
 
 The Amerind people, like ourselves, represent merely a stage 
 of human progress. Our stage is in advance of theirs, but it is 
 by no means perfection. We do not scalp, but the revolver is 
 quite as active as their scalping-knife, and we require a great 
 number of policemen to keep us civilised. As for war, the Euro 
 pean race has certainly not been backward in that respect. In 
 Europe to-day vast bodies of men are withdrawn from every other 
 service and trained for war with a completeness that the Amerind 
 never dreamed of ; and in the United States we have probably 
 
12 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 already killed more men in wars than ever at one time peopled it 
 in aboriginal days. For in those days the various groups of 
 Amerinds were separated by tracts of unoccupied territory ; un 
 occupied except as the hunters roamed over it in search of their 
 food, and the population outside of the Aztec country and Central 
 America was generally sparse. Nor was the distribution of this 
 population always the same as it was revealed to us by the Dis 
 covery. Tribes developed, rose to power, declined and passed 
 away, leaving little, where their art development was slight, to 
 indicate their former presence, no matter what may have been the 
 degrees of their political attainments. Had not our own history 
 come in to rescue the confederacy of the Iroquois, their remains, 
 assuming them to have declined without further art develop 
 ment, would have conveyed no suspicion of their political or 
 ganisation. 
 
 Back and forth the Amerind race moved, up and down, across 
 the face of the American continent through the forgotten ages in 
 ever shifting waves impelled, in the main, by climatic conditions 
 and food quest, some leaving behind no record, others bequeathing 
 to the future monuments and edifices that astonished the world 
 and gave birth to elaborate and far-fetched theories to account for 
 a development that seems to have required no more than time and 
 the circumstances which existed. All the remains on this con 
 tinent appear to be palpably American ; the work of the Amerinds 
 in their various degrees of progress. Whether they came from one 
 source or several, they have been long enough here to become 
 homogeneous from one end of the hemisphere to the other, and 
 this, it is evident, would require a great stretch of time. 1 They 
 clearly separated from the other inhabitants of the world, in any 
 case, at a period before those inhabitants had developed present 
 characteristics From the time the human race was born, whether 
 as an ape or as it now stands, there was differentiation of habits, 
 customs, and knowledge which has never ceased and which never 
 will cease. But as light, air, and natural conditions are similar 
 or the same the world round, and as cerebral matter seems to be 
 practically the same in all peoples, humanity has passed every 
 where through about the same stages of development, and each 
 stock or tribe in time has arrived at about the same place on the 
 road of progress because they could not help it. Conditions might 
 1 See Preface and the last chapter 
 

14 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 force one people ahead while other conditions might be retarding 
 another, but whatever progression there has ever been was made 
 on practically the same lines. The same race, however, does not 
 throughout always develop evenly. Sir John Lubbock has said 
 that " different races in similar stages of development often present 
 more features of resemblance to one another than the same race 
 does to itself in different stages of its history," and to-day in 
 Arizona there exist near to each other two branches of the wide 
 spread Shoshonean l stock, the Pai Utes and the Mokis, who 
 exhibit the most marked differences of customs, the latter living 
 in substantial houses of stone while the former occupy the rudest 
 kind of brush wikiups. 
 
 The Amerind people were living in various stages of progress 
 at the time of the Discovery. The Mexicans, according to Lewis 
 Morgan, were " one stage higher than the Mohawks and one 
 stage lower than the warriors of the Iliad" Accepting this as 
 correct, we would be able to trace human development back of the 
 Greeks through the Amerinds of North America. Morgan sug 
 gested the classification of mankind in three broad ethnic stages : 
 Savagery, Barbarism, and Civilisation, 2 the first ending with the 
 acquisition of the bow and arrow, represented here by the Pai Utes; 
 the second ending with the smelting of iron ore, represented by 
 the early Greeks ; and the third beginning with a phonetic alpha 
 bet, and represented by ourselves. In this scheme the Mexicans 
 would fall in the middle period of Barbarism. This is a fairly 
 good working basis, but, like all generalisations, it is only general. 
 It must not be rigidl} 7 adhered to. The conditions on this con 
 tinent were quite different from those in Europe, and consequently 
 the line of development could not be precisely the same. There 
 seems to be no good argument yet advanced and no archaeological 
 data yet exhibited that compel us to seek an outside derivation 
 for the Amerind race ; and this being so, it is about as reasonable 
 to search this continent for the original home of the yellow race 
 as to go to Asia for that of the red. That they may have come 
 from there is possible, and so also it is possible that they came 
 from Europe. Nor should we at present exclude even the lost 
 
 1 Brinton s Uto-Aztecan . " The connection between the Nabuatl, or 
 Aztec, and Shoshonean is not well established. 
 
 2 Lewis H. Morgan, Houses and House Life. Dr. W. J. McGee has 
 added a fourth stage, " Enlightenment." 
 
Introductory 15 
 
 Atlantis, 1 for the geography of the world was not always as it is 
 now, and the elevation and subsidence of lands are still in progress. 
 This, of course, is admitted, as also that there was a land connec 
 tion across the Atlantic before man appeared in the world ; but 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MOKI MASK OF PAWIKKATCINA 
 
 man may have appeared earlier than we suspect, and this lost 
 land may have been in sunshine later than we believe." 
 
 The Amerinds of North America were practically a people of 
 stone culture, because while some had developed an ability to 
 
 1 For a full statement of this story, see the fascinating book, Atlantis: 
 The Antediluvian World, by Ignatius Donnelly. 
 
 2 See Chap. XVI. and also the Preface. 
 
i6 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 employ copper to a limited extent, they used stone tools for 
 most of their work ; their highest government appears to have 
 been the confederacy, with in some cases perhaps a monarchical 
 tendency ; they were without domestic animals ; without beasts 
 of burden ; without fireplaces or chimneys ; without inside stairs ; 
 and without wheeled vehicles. There was no mystery about 
 them. They ranged the continent, as has been noted, impelled 
 by food quest and climate. They lived bravely and they died 
 without fear. The following chapters will tell some of the things 
 they did, with the hope that readers may arrive at a better under 
 standing of the people that so long had a half- world to themselves. 
 
 Peabody Museum 
 
 SPECIMEN OF SCULPTURE ON HIEROGLYPHIC STAIRWAY, COPAN 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO JADE ADZE 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IvANGUAGES AND DIALKCTS 
 
 THERE were many tribes and many tribe-groups, or, as the lat 
 ter are usually designated, stocks, among the Amerinds. 
 These various stocks differed considerably from each other 
 in manners, customs, possibly in origin, and in languages, the 
 last often being widely different. 1 Yet there was a homogeneity 
 binding them all together as one distinct race while at the same 
 time separating them completely from other races of the world as 
 now constituted. The subdivisions of the Amerind stocks were 
 not always contiguously distributed on the continent, but, as in 
 the case of the Navajo- Apache branch of the Athapascan, some 
 times separated from their kindred by wide stretches of territory 
 peopled by other stocks, and also, as in the case of the Navajos, 
 somewhat altered by absorption of people of another stock. Vari 
 ous methods of arranging the distribution and classification of 
 these stocks have been attempted, but the basis of language appears 
 to offer the most advantages and the greatest accuracy. There 
 are some who dispute the correctness of the present analysis of 
 the Amerind languages, and deprecate the classifications obtained 
 
 1 The widest differences were in the Maya and the Timuquauan. Each 
 of these differed greatly from the bulk of the Amerind languages and from 
 each other, probably because both stocks held more isolated positions than 
 the others during the glacial period, and preserved more of their earlier life, 
 
 whatever it may have been. 
 2 
 
 17 
 
1 8 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 by this means, but foremost students, like Brinton, Gatschet, 
 Powell, Steinthal, and others, have pronounced unequivocally in 
 favour of its value when applied with judgment. 
 
 " Nothing is so indelible as speech," wrote George Bancroft ; 
 " sounds that in ages of unknown antiquity were spoken among 
 the nations of Hindostan still live in their significancy in the lan 
 guage which we daily utter." And this fact has been the corner 
 stone of the modern science of linguistics, which maintains 
 accordingly that the possession of similar language roots and 
 grammatical construction by two otherwise distinct tribes proves 
 a relationship or a common descent. In this way, as is well 
 understood, the Indo-Germanic that is, our European stock 
 has been traced back toward its origin. The accuracy of this has 
 been questioned, but it doubtless affords the best method attain 
 able. 2 The same principle is applicable to the American languages, 
 which afford an immense field for linguistic study in their great 
 diversity. This diversity is not popularly understood, the majority 
 of our people believing that if a person can speak " Indian " he 
 could converse with every tribe on the continent. Yet within a 
 limited area in Arizona he would find useless in four different 
 tribes the language he had learned, say, in California ; and in Cali 
 fornia itself some twenty or thirty tribes would listen to his words, 
 as well as to those of each other, without a gleam of understanding. 
 And not one of the languages of any of these tribes would serve 
 him in the Mississippi or in the Atlantic region any better than 
 gnglish, for the Iroquois and the Algonquin and other Eastern 
 tongues are as widely different from those of California as they 
 are from each other, while every one contains numerous dialects, 
 or what may be called sub-languages, also exhibiting great varia 
 tions. The early missionaries were slow to discover these facts, 
 and it was a source of discouragement for them to learn that, after 
 long study to acquire a language, it was spoken by only a single 
 group of the natives, while adjacent to them dwelt others who 
 spoke a totally different one. 3 
 
 SeeJ. N. B. Hewitt, American Anthropologist, October, 1893. 
 
 2 "There are well-known examples in the ethnography of other races, 
 where reliance on language alone would lead the investigator astray ; but 
 all serious students of the native American tribes are united in the opinion 
 that with them no other clue can compare to it in general results." D. G. 
 Brinton, The American Race, Preface. 
 
 3 As to the value of linguistics as a means of classification, Cyrus 
 
Languages and Dialects 19 
 
 Even where a group of Amerinds speak related languages, or 
 dialects, there are, and were, such wide variations that the one is 
 not understood by those speaking the other. Therefore we have 
 
 Peabody Museum 
 
 "SINGING-GIRL" SCULPTURED IN TRACHYTE 
 
 From debris of Temple 22, Copan. Slightly larger than life 
 
 Thomas says : " On the one side, it is held by some authors that affinity of 
 languages implies racial identity or unity of origin ; on the other, it is con 
 tended that the theory that the affinity of languages necessarily implies 
 identity of race is not warranted." 
 
20 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 in North America not only a large number of distinct languages, 
 but within these separate languages an immense number of dia 
 lects or sub-languages, sometimes as many as twenty in one stock 
 varying from each other as much as, say, English and German. 
 At least sixty-five of the separate stock languages are distin 
 guished in North America which appear so radically separated 
 from each other that it is believed impossible that they ever 
 should have sprung from the same parent, unless it may have been 
 at a time so remote as to be beyond the scope of present investiga 
 tion. In the classification according to these languages it has 
 been necessary to have a general designation for each stock, and 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 TERRA COTTA STOOL, CHIRIQUI 
 
 in selecting the names to be thus used, Powell and others have 
 observed the law of priority of mention, as far as possible, and 
 have derived the stock name from the author first mentioning it 
 in print since 1836, the date of Gallatin s great work, which is 
 taken as the foundation. The termination " an," or " ian," is 
 added to distinguish the family or stock name from a tribal name, 
 for often a tribe bears the name given to the whole stock. As ex 
 amples, Algonquian may be mentioned as a stock name taken from 
 the tribal name of Algonquin, and Mayan from the tribal name, 
 Maya. This is not always strictly adhered to outside of the Bureau 
 of Ethnology because of its frequent inconvenience, and in the case 
 of Mayan the term Maya is preferably used by some investigators 
 and writers as being simpler, and Brinton gives it as the stock 
 
Languages and Dialects 21 
 
 name. 1 Following the distribution of tribes as closely as possible 
 at the time of the first contact with white men, Powell and his able 
 associates of the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology in Washington 
 have produced a map, based on Gallatin s. 2 The separate stocks 
 north of Mexico are each represented by a different colour, every 
 colour standing for a variation in language as great as that between 
 Hebrew and English, not related as English and Spanish. Fifty- 
 eight are thus shown, but south of the Mexican border are perhaps 
 
 ALTAR Q, COPAN, HONDURAS 
 From photograph by M. H. Saville, Museum of Natural History 
 
 a dozen more. Continuous study may succeed in bringing some 
 of the stocks into relationship or in dividing them still further. 
 In their beginning, languages probably changed rapidly;, memory 
 was deficient, intercourse slight, and comparatively short separa 
 tions of tribes speaking originally the same tongue were sufficient 
 to establish entire new sets of words. These separations were apt 
 to occur frequently when methods of subsistence were crude and 
 difficult, migrations frequent, and population sparse. As races 
 developed memory grew to better proportions, and after the 
 
 1 D. G. Brinton, The American Race. He does not approve wholly of 
 these terminations. 
 
 2 Seventh Annual Report, U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, contains complete 
 list of American race stocks, north of Mexico, as far as known. See Appendix. 
 
22 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 introduction among the Amerinds of mnemonic records and other 
 memory devices their languages became more crystallised, till 
 within the later centuries changes have come about slowly. 
 That many more languages once existed on the American conti 
 nents than we have any trace of is, therefore, probable. By 
 intercourse, by intermingling, by the crossing and absorbing of 
 stocks was finally produced what we find to-day, or did find yes 
 terday, a reduced number of different stocks, but still so many 
 that the archaeologist views the field with amazement, and the 
 layman looks upon it with incredulity. 
 
 And these Amerind languages are as remarkable for their sepa 
 ration in a body from the Old World languages as they are in 
 their separation from each other. This in itself seems to bestow 
 upon the Amerind people a vast antiquity in their isolation from 
 other peoples, and adding to it the testimony of their art works, 
 their implements, and their pictographs and hieroglyphs, there 
 seems to be no escape from granting them to be a division of man 
 kind by themselves. 
 
 Not only does the differentiation of the stock languages indi 
 cate antiquity, but that of the dialects adds strong testimony. 
 Brinton cites Dr. Stohl s opinion that " the difference which is pre 
 sented between the Cakchiquel and the Maya dialects could not 
 have arisen in less than 2000 j^ears." 
 
 It may be urged that the Amerind languages are loose and 
 shifting and that a few centuries would be sufficient to bring about 
 on this continent a complete and total difference in a language 
 from its mother tongue in, we will say, Siberia ; but the more 
 closely the matter is studied the more apparent is the tenacity 
 with which each stock retains its special form. Of this tenacity 
 a modern example exists in the village of Tewa (or Hano) now 
 forming one of the seven villages of the Moki, and situated on 
 what is known as the " First or East Mesa." The people of this 
 village are not Hopi (Moki) stock, Hopi being the Moki name for 
 themselves, 2 but belong to a Rio Grande stock, the Taiioan of 
 Powell, and the Tehua of Brinton, having come from the Rio 
 Grande country to their present location somewhere about 1680. 
 The Moki, who are believed to belong to the Shoshonean stock 
 
 1 Essays of an Americanist, p. 35. 
 
 2 Hopi is the singular ; Hopituh the plural. Dr. Fewkes and others 
 having decided in favour of the singular form, it is so given here. 
 
24 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 (though they are probably composite), permitted them to repair 
 and occupy old houses which stood on the site of the present 
 village and there they have lived amicably ever since, to all ap 
 pearances completely amalgamated with the Moki. The ordinary 
 observer sees little to distinguish them from the other Amerinds 
 of the locality, and they speak the Moki language like Mokis, but 
 within their own village and by their own firesides they largely 
 use the speech of their forefathers, and to all appearances will go 
 on speaking it till the end. Here, then, is this little community 
 separated for a long period and by many miles from their imme 
 diate kindred, mingling daily with people of another stock and 
 another language, yet preserving their own language intact. : 
 And if this has happened once within historical times it may have 
 happened before any number of times, and goes to prove that these 
 various languages have in them elements of stability greater than 
 has heretofore been admitted. Powell says that in his long study 
 of savage tongues he has everywhere been " impressed with the 
 fact that they are singularly persistent, and that a language which 
 is dependent for its existence upon oral tradition is not easily 
 modified." On the other hand John Fiske expresses the opinion 
 that " barbaric languages are neither widespread nor durable. In 
 the course of two or three generations a dialect gets so strangely al 
 tered as virtually to lose its identity. The Algonquian languages 
 were spread over an immense area, and the Shoshonean had an even 
 greater range. 
 
 Brinton contradicts the assertion of Waldeck " that the lan 
 guage (of the Mayas) has undergone such extensive changes that 
 what was written a century ago is unintelligible to a native of to 
 day. So far is this from the truth that, except for a few obsolete 
 words, the narrative of the Conquest, written more than three 
 hundred years ago by the chief, Pech, could be read without diffi 
 culty by any educated native." Thus it seems probable that the 
 Amerind languages extant have been spoken nearly as we know 
 them to-day for a great many centuries, and that modifications 
 crept in slowly ; so slowly that the language roots and gram 
 matical construction of the various stocks are so distinct that they 
 
 1 They have intermarried with the Hopi and Navajo till Fewkes believes 
 that in " the next generation the percentage of pure Tafioan blood will be 
 so small that we cannot regard the stock as Tafioan." American Anthro 
 pologist, April, 1894, p. 167. 
 
Languages and Dialects 25 
 
 form the safest guide now available in the classification of the 
 various branches of the Amerind race ; and furthermore that, 
 judged by these tests, these languages have no relationship to any 
 other group. Powell places more reliance, as a test, in the lexical 
 elements, that is, in the language roots, than in the grammatical 
 structure, as the latter is constantly changing. The roots of a 
 language," he maintains, " are its most permanent characteristics, 
 and while the words which are formed from them may change so 
 as to obscure their elements or in some cases even to lose them, it 
 seems that they are never lost from all, but can be recovered in 
 large part. If there should be advanced the criticism that these 
 Amerind languages had little or no literature, and therefore are 
 not equal to languages so recorded, as a test of affinity, it may be 
 noted that the largest number of languages throughout the world 
 have produced no literature. Max Miiller says : " It is a mere acci 
 dent that languages should ever have been reduced to writing." 
 However this may be, such an accident appears to be in the line 
 of regular human development, and when a people arrive at the 
 right point in their mental evolution they invent a means of re 
 cording their thought. It seems, therefore, to be rather a state 
 of mind than an accident. The Mayas of this continent had 
 reached the point for speech recording and, following the natural 
 order, they invented a system and made books of record. 
 
 Because of certain similarities of physique, of words, or of 
 myths, or of customs, however slight, the Amerinds have been 
 identified with almost every people under the sun. 1 These simi 
 larities are only such as might occur where similar organisms are 
 continuously subjected to similar conditions, and the really remark 
 able fact is that there are not more and even closer resemblances. 
 Some of the arguments advanced to uphold the so-called identifica 
 tions are extraordinary. In language the Amerinds have been 
 found to speak or at least have been claimed to speak Irish, 
 Welsh, Norse, Chinese, and many other independent or inter 
 related tongues, yet with the exception of the Basque, the struc 
 ture of all the Old World languages has little in common with the 
 Amerind. Brinton has shown 2 that a number of Maya words re 
 semble our English words of the same meanings, as, bateel and 
 battle, hoi and hole, hun and one, lum and loam, pol and poll 
 
 1 See Chap. XVI. 
 
 2 The American Race and Chronicles of the Maya. 
 
26 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 (head), potum and pot, pul and pull, and so on, but nobody has 
 yet ventured to deduce from this that the Mayas are first cousins 
 of the English. 1 The Maya language certainly does differ from 
 almost all others on the continent in its construction. Before 
 Gallatin s time, the wildest statements flourished because the few 
 linguists who had paid attention to Amerind languages had 
 worked in rather a desultory manner and had made no determined 
 effort to systematise them and group them under their stock 
 names. Gallatin was the first to bring order out of what appeared 
 to be an almost hopeless tangle, and Powell, Brinton, and others, 
 supplementing and developing these labours of Gallatin, have been 
 able to present the subject in definite shape with a promise of 
 greater accuracy in the near future. Many languages which are 
 known to have existed at the beginning of European acquaintance 
 with America have disappeared with the tribes which used them. 
 Some of these were spoken by mere handfuls of people, while 
 others were wider spread. 
 
 With so many distinct languages on the continent, and with 
 many tribes totally ignorant of the speech of their neighbours, 
 there became necessary a means for the interchange of ideas which 
 should not entirely rely on spoken words, and this means was 
 found in a "sign-language" assisted by a few words of each 
 spoken language which were simple and commonly known, or by 
 words which belonged to no spoken language but which through 
 accident were attributed by each side to the other. This sign- 
 language was of extensive development and existed not only 
 among the Amerinds but all over the world, and bore a resem 
 blance to the sign-language now used in some of our deaf-mute 
 schools. This peculiar sign-language possessed varieties like 
 spoken language corresponding to dialects. For a time its exist 
 ence was disputed, but the work of Mallery and others has estab 
 lished it beyond question. 
 
 Besides the gesture language, tribes not understanding each 
 other s speech had recourse to a medley of corrupted words from 
 each language, from other languages, and from no language at 
 all but springing into being through misunderstandings and 
 necessities. When white men came upon the scene they often 
 thought they were talking " Indian," while the Amerinds thought 
 
 1 For further coincidences see Payne, History of the New World Called 
 America^ vol. ii., p. 78, et seq. 
 
Languages and Dialects 
 
 27 
 
 it was the white man s tongue, and neither was talking the lan 
 guage of the other at all or of any other people in existence. It 
 was a jargon. If the whites had previously learned something of 
 another Amerind tongue, for example Algonquin, and they were 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 POLISHED BLACK WARE, SANTA CLARA, NEW MEXICO 
 
 trying to talk to Dakotas, they would use Algonquin terms, sup 
 posing them to be intelligible to the Dakotas, and the latter would 
 suppose them to be English words. These would gradually ac 
 cumulate through usage, together with nondescript terms, until a 
 working jargon was formed. In this may perhaps be discovered 
 
28 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 one of the causes that led to the former belief that Amerind lan 
 guages were loose and changeable. 
 
 One of the most important and most interesting of the jargon 
 languages is that known as the Chinook, 1 in the north-western 
 United States, along the Columbia River, which grew into such 
 proportions that it formed at length the principal language in a 
 wide district. It is made up of words from Chinook, Chehali, 
 Selish, Nootka, English, French, and other languages, with a 
 large number of words that belong nowhere else. This same 
 process in earlier times going on between several different tribes 
 doubtless gave birth to permanent languages, which in their turn 
 were again modified. Even in our own every-day English we use 
 hundreds of borrowed words and also some that, like " skedaddle," 
 " mugwump," etc., were coined for special occasions. We hardly 
 give a thought to the origin of these words which are seen side by 
 side with others that have come to us through a thousand years 
 and still others that were only yesterday the gift of the Amerind. 
 How few realise when they say chocolate, squash, mush, hominy, 
 pone, succotash, or other terms equally familiar from Amerind 
 sources, that they are talking " Indian " ! Tobacco, of course, all 
 understand came from the native language, but it is generally 
 supposed to have been the name of the plant, when in reality it 
 was the name of the roll of leaves from the plant, which was 
 called " a tobacco," as we now call it a cigar. 
 
 Sometimes words appear similar when they have no shadow 
 of relationship, the resemblance being purely accidental. Powell 
 cites the word " tia," meaning deer in some of the Shoshonean 
 languages. This was at first supposed to be an attempt on the 
 part of the Shoshones to pronounce our own word deer, but 
 further investigation has shown it to be the original Shoshone 
 name for deer, and that in some dialects it was called " tiats " and 
 in others " tiav." Brinton, as already mentioned, calls attention 
 to similar resemblances between Maya and English words. 
 
 A tribe would often possess two languages, one known only to 
 the priesthood and the other the language of the people, the priest 
 language being the older, just as to-day we find the priests of the 
 Roman Catholic Church using a dead language in their sacred 
 functions while the parishioners use the ordinary one. Bourke 
 
 1 See the American Anthropologist, July, 1894, vol. vii., "The Chinook 
 Jargon," by Myron Eells. 
 
Languages and Dialects 29 
 
 believed that the Zuiiis and the Mokis each have a language of 
 this kind, and it is thought that the Central- American tribes also 
 had. Such hieratic languages would necessarily be far older than 
 the languages in common use, therefore if the latter tend to indi 
 cate a great antiquity for the Amerind race, we should be carried 
 still farther back by the hieratic languages. Occasionally tribes 
 have spoken two languages, both familiar to the common people, 
 as in the case of the Tewas speaking Moki as well as their own 
 language, already referred to. The Tubares of Mexico, nearly 
 extinct, are said to have spoken two different languages among 
 themselves, one a dialect of the Nahuatl. 2 
 
 Gatschet, the eminent student of Amerind languages, declares 
 that " the majority suppose that an Indian language is simply a 
 gibberish not worth bothering about, but languages that can pre 
 serve identity for centuries are certainly something more than 
 gibberish." He further points out that while " the Indian 
 neglects to express with accuracy some relations which seem of 
 permanent importance to us, as tense and sex, his language is 
 largely superior to ours in the variety of its personal pronouns, in 
 many forms expressing the mode of action, or the idea of property 
 and possession, and the relations of the persons addressed to the 
 subject of the sentence." 
 
 Again it is said by some persons, " Why study languages which 
 have no literature, and dialects that are known only to savages ? " 
 but Max M tiller insists that " dialects which never produced any 
 literature at all, the jargons of savage tribes, the clicks of Hotten 
 tots, and the vocal modulations of the Indo-Chinese, are as im 
 portant, nay, for the solution of some of our problems, more 
 important, than the poetry of Homer or the prose of Cicero. We 
 do not want to know languages ; we want to know language, what 
 language is, how it can form a vehicle or organ of thought ; we 
 want to know its origin, its nature, its laws." 
 
 Here in North America exists a splendid field for this study, 
 but until recently it has been sadly neglected. This neglect has 
 been largely due to the attitude of the people at large, an attitude 
 of apathy and contempt for anything " Indian." Opportunities 
 
 1 Snake Dance of the Mokis, p. 190. 
 
 2 There are analogies between the Nahuatl and some languages of the 
 North-west and Alaska, especially that of the Koluschan, or Tlinkit, living 
 along the sea from Dixon Entrance to Prince William Sound. 
 
30 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 that can never come again have been allowed to pass heedlessly 
 away. We have not half realised the importance of collecting the 
 linguistic treasures that are scattered across the length and breadth 
 of the country, partly because of the foolish and narrow estimate 
 of the Amerind which for so long a time dominated the public 
 mind. We have despised his languages because we thought he 
 did not bathe with sufficient frequency ! To draw conclusions 
 from the exterior appearance of a people on their language," ex 
 claims Gatschet, " and to suppose that a man not worth looking 
 at cannot speak a language worth studying, would be the acme 
 of superficiality." Remnants of tribes have died out and their 
 language unrecorded has died with them even within a compara 
 tively few years. 1 
 
 As an example of the necessity for prompt investigation, an 
 incident mentioned by Putnam may be cited. In a conversation 
 with a gentleman whom he had recently met, he learned of Mrs. 
 Oliver s acquaintance with the Karankawas of Texas, and her 
 knowledge of their language. Now it happened that Gatschet 
 had made a fruitless search in Texas for some trustworthy informa 
 tion regarding the language of this extinct tribe, and when Putnam 
 sent him Mrs. Oliver s vocabulary he was delighted and imme 
 diately paid a visit to the old lady, obtaining much additional 
 information about these Amerinds, among whom Mrs. Oliver had 
 spent her early life. Within three months afterward she died. 
 
 That the Amerind has no literature is true if by literature 
 we mean only written books, for outside of Yucatan and Mexico 
 there were no native books, and the Spaniards burned all the} 
 could find of these, but if we accept the enormous number of 
 legends, myths, songs, and ceremonial lore m Demonically recorded, 
 as literature, and they surely become literature when we write 
 them down, then the Amerind is not so poor in this respect as has 
 been generally considered. 
 
 In North America, as in other parts of the world, the various 
 language stocks occupy areas differing enormously in proportions. 
 Some are confined to small tracts, while others, as mentioned 
 above, are spread over wide territory. The Algonquian stock, for 
 
 1 The Maya, however, has been found a useful language by Europeans. 
 Dr. Berendt met "whole families of pure white blood" who used this lan 
 guage and did not know Spanish, This is not the usual fate of the Amerind 
 tongues. 
 
co 
 
32 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 instance, occupied an immense area while the Zunian is a mere 
 spot in the expanse of New Mexico. More than thirty of the 
 stocks lie within the Pacific region, six on the banks of the 
 Klamath River alone. 
 
 The Amerind languages, with the exception of the Maya and 
 possibly one or two others, are polysynthetic, and no other lan 
 guages of the world have exactly this construction, though, as has 
 previously been stated, that of the Basques has a construction 
 somewhat similar. By polysynthetic is meant a language that 
 permits the incorporation of a great many words in one sentence, 
 till all are fused into one " bunch-word " of from ten to fifteen 
 or more syllables. Examples are often quoted from Eskimo 
 which in our eyes appear ridiculous in their cumbersome length, 
 but they are as intelligible and valuable to the Eskimo as our 
 words are to us. While the Basque more nearly resembles the 
 Amerind languages than does any other Old World tongue, it 
 stops short of the incorporating power of that of the Amerinds. 
 In Basque this is restricted to the verb and some pronominal 
 elements, but in the Amerind it embraces all parts of speech. 
 It is specially interesting to note also that Basque in the Old 
 World is an isolated language, the only one there of its kind. 
 The Amerinds who look alike are not always the ones who speak 
 the same language. Quite different-looking Amerinds will some 
 times speak the same tongue, while others who look the same will 
 speak different ones. The Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona, 
 while apparently of one race, speak several different stock lan 
 guages, while some of the natives of Labrador, who are of appar 
 ently different stocks, speak dialects of one language. Nor, as has 
 been mentioned, is the area occupied by one stock always con 
 tinuous. 2 The Athapascan, next to the Eskimo, is the most 
 northerly stock, yet three small branches are found south, on the 
 Pacific coast of the United States, while two large branches, the 
 Navajos and the Apaches, extend through Arizona and New 
 Mexico, the latter far into the country of Mexico proper. In the 
 
 1 This word was popularly written Esquimaux, after the French. Then 
 the Bureau of Ethnology wrote it Eskimo, and this has been the accepted 
 spelling and pronunciation. But it is from the Abnaki dialect of Algonquin, 
 according to Brinton ( The American Race, p. 59), and is properly Eski- 
 mwhan. This is better represented by Eskima than by Eskimo. 
 
 2 See the list of stocks in the Appendix. 
 
Languages and Dialects 
 
 33 
 
 same way the Siouan 1 lies in the middle region of the United 
 States, but a small band still lingered, at the beginning of the 
 
 AMERIND LINGUISTIC MAP OF NORTH AMERICA, AFTER THE ONE PREPARED BY 
 THE U. S. BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY 
 
 Columbian era, on the Gulf coast in Mexico, and another smaller 
 band in eastern North Carolina, having for a near neighbour still 
 1 "Their language was reduced to writing some sixty years ago and has 
 now a considerable literature. Nearly all the men of the tribe are able to 
 conduct personal correspondence in their own language." Mooney, Ameri 
 can Anthropologist, N. S., vol. i., No. i, p. 137, 1899. 
 
34 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 another, which spread itself over three States. These detached 
 bands indicate great movements on the part of the various stocks. 
 One Amerind language, the Eskimo, has been traced across Bering 
 Strait into Asia, but thus far no language has been traced from 
 Asia into America. When the Asiatic and North-west Coast in 
 vestigations instituted by the American Museum of Natural His 
 tory, under the auspices of Mr. Jesup, are completed, something- 
 more definite will be known on the subject of possible affinities. 
 In addition to the great difference in their formation, some of the 
 Amerind languages do not possess sounds common to European 
 languages, and on the other hand they sometimes have sounds 
 rarely heard elsewhere. The Pai Utes have no " f," and when 
 they try to pronounce fire " they can only say " piah." The Moki 
 cannot say " s" before " k" or hard " c." In trying to pro 
 nounce " school " they say " cool." There is no " r " in Huron, 
 Mexican, Otomi, and some other languages, and several have no 
 " i." The Iroquois have no labials, and do not articulate with 
 their lips. Cherokee has the same peculiarity, as it is an Iroquoian 
 language. The Karankawa contains sounds rarely heard in Euro 
 pean languages, while other sounds common to the latter are absent 
 altogether from the Karankawa, so that in this language is found 
 not only a complete difference from European tongues in gram- 
 matic structure and lexical elements, but a complete difference in 
 phonetics as well, and in the last respect it differs also from other 
 Amerind languages. Altogether the Karankawa shows many 
 peculiarities, and it is unfortunate that the authentic material re 
 lating to it is so limited. In the Navajo there is a common com 
 bination of " tl " with a peculiar explosive click. 1 The tongue is 
 placed with the tip against the roof of the mouth and pressure as 
 for " t " made against it, the " 1 " sound immediately following by 
 an explosion at the side. It is a peculiar sound, and the Navajo 
 language is filled with it. 2 
 
 In recording these Amerind languages and their peculiar 
 sounds, no definite system was employed till recently. Travellers 
 wrote the Amerind words down with ordinary letters as they 
 understood them, thus producing great diversity in method and 
 results. Differences are due sometimes to a lack of perception on 
 
 1 The " 1 " like " cl " in " exclaim." 
 
 2 See also Payne s History of the New World, vol. ii., p. 96 et seq., for an 
 excellent discussion of Amerind languages. 
 
<**/*??<&*&&& \ 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 FAC-SIMILE OF A CHEROKEE MANUSCRIPT 
 Written in Sequoyah s Syllabary. See cut on page 52. 
 
 35 
 
36 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 the part of the recorder, and also sometimes to a difference in pro 
 nunciation on the part of the Amerinds themselves, and again to 
 differences of methods of recording. To catch the exact sounds 
 of a new language requires a musical ear. I do not mean a 
 knowledge of music, but an ear that follows a tune easily. 
 Without such an ear a person is riot fit to record language sounds 
 that are novel no matter how good a linguist he may be. Investi 
 gators ought to have their ears tested for sound-perception as the 
 eyes of locomotive engineers are tested for colour. 
 
 Recognising the importance of a system in the recording of the 
 Amerind languages the importance of systematising the ortho 
 graphy of these languages the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology 
 published an Introduction to the Study of Indian Languages, in 
 which an alphabet was advocated that was adapted to recording 
 harmoniously the Amerind languages. In this over sixty separate 
 sounds are given by signs following as closely as possible our own 
 alphabet. This is complicated and many investigators use their 
 own systems and translate afterwards into the more general one. 
 The great difference in the Amerind sounds necessitates many 
 different characters and inverted letters standing for peculiar 
 sounds. 
 
 Of all the Amerind languages of North America, that of the 
 Eskimo is probably the most homogeneous. Its dialects are alike 
 from one side of the continent to the other, following similarity in 
 other respects. Ball states there is a saying " that a man under 
 standing thoroughly the dialect of either extreme, could pass from 
 village to village, from Greenland to Labrador, from Labrador to 
 Bering Strait, and thence southward to the Copper River, staying 
 five days in each halting place, and that in all that journey he 
 would encounter no greater differences of speech and customs than 
 he could master in the few days devoted to each settlement. Prob 
 ably there is no other race in the world distributed over an equal 
 territory, which exhibits such solidarity." They do not take to 
 new languages. Though the Eskimo of Alaska have had long 
 intercourse with English-speaking men, their English is 
 limited. Like most of the Amerinds, they prefer to invent 
 own terms for articles that are new to them. The Aleutian 
 Islanders are of Eskimo stock, but their language is different from 
 the main body of the family, and would not be understood by them. 
 
 The writings of the Cherokees in the syllabary of Sequoyah 
 
Languages and Dialects 
 
 37 
 
 are of sacred formulas. These were written out by the shamans 
 and are thoroughly Amerind. They are not disjointed frag 
 ments," says Mooney, who made a careful study of the subject, 
 of a system long since extinct, but are the revelation of a living 
 faith which still has its priests and devoted adherents." The 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PETROGLYPHS NEAR WRANGELL, ALASKA, PROBABLY TLTNKIT 
 
 language used is full of archaic forms and figurative expressions, 
 some of which even the shamans cannot now understand. Some 
 of these are highly poetical, especially the prayers " used to win 
 the love of a woman or to destroy the life of an enemy, in which 
 we find such expressions as : Now your soul fades away your 
 spirit shall grow less and dwindle away never to reappear. * Let 
 her be completely veiled in loneliness, O Black Spider, may 
 you hold her soul in your web, so that it may never get through 
 the meshes ! Your soul has come into the very centre of my 
 soul, never to turn away. " l 
 
 In nearly all the Amerind languages there was a poetical touch. 
 But what seems to be poetry to us arose partly from the inability 
 of the Amerind to express himself in a spiritual way. As his 
 
 1 " Cherokee Formulas," Mooney, Seventh Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth. 
 
.18 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 religion was chiefly zootheistic, and the heavenly bodies and nat 
 ural forces were personified as animals, his comparisons and refer 
 ences were not intended for metaphor, but were merely the 
 ordinary workings of his mind on the material at his command, 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 HUMAN FORMS, MOKI 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 OMAHA WAR CLUB 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PICTURE- WRITING SIGN-LANGUAGE WAMPUM CUPPED- 
 
 STONES 
 
 OUR pre- Columbian knowledge of the Amerind people is at 
 present meagre. The majority of the different stocks had 
 not arrived at the point where they understood how to 
 record their thoughts and their doings. Outside of the Maya and 
 Nahuatl stocks, and others in that region, there is nothing but 
 rude picture-writing to refer to besides an abundance of traditions, 
 legends, and other oral matter. All the Amerind languages are 
 capable of being readily written, being possessed of grammars and 
 of copious vocabularies, but none of the tribes north of Mexico had 
 made the discovery that marks can represent sounds. We trace 
 our alphabet back to the Romans, still farther to the Greeks, and 
 yet farther back to the Phoenicians, and then another stage back 
 to even ruder characters connecting the chain of its development 
 with the end links of such writing as that of the Mayas, and ex 
 hibiting writing in all stages, from rock scratching or picture- 
 writing, through all phases down to the work of the writing and 
 printing machines of to-day. 
 
 Mankind are all alike, merely exhibiting different degrees of 
 culture. As the rills in the mountains born of the rains and the 
 snows are all the same and reach the ocean by various devious and 
 
 1 For a complete presentation of the subject of sign-language, see paper 
 by Garrick Mallery, First Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., and for that of picture- 
 writing see Tenth Ann. Rept., a paper by same author, and one in Fourth 
 Ann. Rept. 
 
 39 
 
The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 complicated courses, so the races of men, emerging from the dark 
 ness of the past, follow, because of the immutability of natural law, 
 practically the same lines of development through savagery, bar 
 barism, civilisation, toward a common goal of unification and 
 enlightenment. The progress of humanity from earliest times to 
 now appears to be divided, in each race evolution, into several 
 
 U.S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PAINTED PETROGLYPHS, SANTA BARBARA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA 
 
 epochs by certain great inventions or discoveries which seemed to 
 spread themselves over the world either from one centre or from 
 several. Of these the most important are, first, fire; second, the 
 bow ; third, smelting ; fourth, phonetic writing ; and fifth, print 
 ing. This progression is not even, but a people may stand still 
 for a long time and then suddenly become active in one particular 
 line, or in many lines. 1 Ours is the age of mechanical develop 
 ment ; the Greeks made a stride in art. When development 
 reaches a certain point and conditions are favourable for an in 
 vention, it springs into being not in one individual alone but 
 usually in several widely separated ones, as if the seed of it had 
 
 1 Note in Preface and last chapter statement as to irregularity of culture 
 progress. 
 
Picture-Writing Sign-Language Wampum 41 
 
 been sprinkled over the earth. It may have germinated before 
 when conditions were not ripe, but it then died before even sprout 
 ing. Environment cultivates the mind, and the mind feeds on 
 environment. Only a small portion of those to whom an idea 
 occurs endeavour to carry it out, and often other subsequent 
 inventions are necessary to success. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PETROGLYPHS IN BROWN S CAVE, WISCONSIN 
 
 On the Amerind continent before the advent of the European 
 the various stocks and tribes were rising and falling under the 
 influence of the moulding conditions, and rising again or giving 
 place to more highly vitalised stock which might succeed in 
 fertilising in the brain of a Hiawatha or a Quetzalcohuatl great 
 ideas that should lift them onward. 
 
 In the matter of writing, these races were moving toward suc 
 cess, and had their isolation been maintained they would in time 
 have come to the full measure. As it was, the Mayas 1 had reached 
 a considerable degree of efficiency, and the Aztecs were following 
 close. The more northern stocks, however, had not passed beyond 
 the elementary stage. In the sense in which artists now use the 
 word " drawing," it hardly existed anywhere on this continent ; 
 that is, there was little exactness and delicacy of delineation, but 
 
 The Mayas, however, had passed the zenith of their development. 
 
42 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 it was mainly an offhand representation of objects in a barbaric 
 fashion. There was considerable merit in some of the work 
 executed by the sculptors, but it was nevertheless as a whole 
 aboriginal and primitive. In the middle region the drawings and 
 rock peckings have no artistic merit whatever, and are like the 
 work of little children ; nor are the Eskimo efforts much better. 
 The Eastern States do not afford the same abundance of characters 
 pecked and scratched, and sometimes painted on the rocks, that 
 exists in the Rocky Mountain region, and particularly in the 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PAINTED PETROGLYPHS, SOUTHERN UTAH 
 
 South-west, where they are found everywhere. 2 This may be 
 due to the more verdant nature of the eastern part of the country, 
 and also to the fact that the broad, smooth surfaces of sandstone 
 exposed so universally in the South-west are generally absent in 
 the East. Another reason may be that the Amerinds of the vari- 
 
 1 " Etching " is the word commonly used, but as etching is a totally dif 
 ferent thing it has no place in this connection, and only adds to the incon 
 gruities already existing in writings on the Amerind subject. 
 
 2 Painted characters are found in southern California, west and south 
 west of Sierra Nevada ; painted and scratched, from Colorado River to 
 Georgia, north to West Virginia and along the Mississippi. Remaining parts 
 of United States show rock scratchings almost exclusive of paintings, ac 
 cording to Mallery. 
 
Picture-Writing Sign-Language Wampum 43 
 
 OLIS Pueblo stocks and allied tribes were more given to inscribing 
 the rocks in this manner. Certain it is that wherever evidences 
 exist of the former occupation of a locality by Amerinds of the 
 Pueblo kind, there rocks will be found covered with markings and 
 paintings. These people went everywhere in their region, and 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PETROGLYPH AT MILLSBORO, PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 they generally left some record on the rocks, as they do to-day. 
 If one thinks he has found a place where they did not arrive in 
 that vast land of cliffs and canyons, he is sure soon to be un 
 deceived. Once I reached a little platform on the face of a cliff in 
 Arizona by hard scrambling, part of the way through a narrow 
 crevice, and as I stood viewing the valley a thousand feet below, 
 
44 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 I thought, " Now, at last, I am on a spot where the Shinumo 1 
 never stood." As I turned to make my way down again I was 
 confronted by a lot of pictographs spread across the whole of 
 the smooth wall behind. Thus it was almost everywhere : in the 
 deep gorges of the Colorado River, in its side canyons, in the 
 cliffs above and around, and all along Green River, at least 
 as far north as the lower end of Split-Mountain canyon, these 
 
 pictures occur. 
 The climate is 
 dry, and there 
 is little change 
 from one cent 
 ury s end to 
 another. 2 Some 
 are comparative 
 ly recent, while 
 others, even 
 some of the 
 painted ones, are 
 old ; how old it 
 is impossible to 
 estimate, but 
 many of them 
 are found in re 
 gions where no 
 Amerinds of the 
 
 Pueblo type 3 have lived within historical times, or within the 
 memory of those Amerinds who now occupy the region. Some 
 of the painted figures in sheltered places appeared fresh, but they 
 must have been at least a century or two old. The other Amer 
 inds, while they also executed picture-writings of various kinds, 
 did not so often decorate rock surfaces with them. They were 
 more inclined to drawing and painting on buffalo robes and other 
 1 The name applied by the Pai Utes to the old Puebloans. 
 IJ That is, the rock faces change slowly. Other changes may occur, as, 
 for instance, the foothold from which the pictures were made. I remember 
 seeing in Ream s Canyon, Arizona, some pictographs on a cliff wall that were 
 far above reach, ten or twelve feet above my head. My explanation was that 
 the ground had been washed away after they were made. 
 
 3 1 say "type," because the Pueblo culture was not confined to one 
 stock. " Puebloan " may be used to designate them. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 FETROGLYPHS IN GEORGIA 
 
Picture-Writing Sign-Language Wampum 45 
 
 skins, on bark, on trees, shell, pottery ; even the human form in 
 some regions not being exempt. The Puebloans, while utilising 
 most of these methods, also used the rocks a great deal, the coun 
 try they occupied abounding in broad, smooth faces attractive for 
 this purpose. In the settled East the perishable substances have 
 long ago disappeared, except those 
 fortunately preserved in museums 
 or private collections. Compara 
 tively few rock inscriptions are 
 found there, and these have created 
 considerable discussion and the 
 usual number of theories. The 
 markings, undoubtedly Algonquian, 
 on the now widely known Dighton 
 Rock in Massachusetts were for a 
 long time ascribed to the Northmen, 
 and were copied in a great many 
 different ways. 1 The trouble arose 
 from the same reason that has led 
 to so many mistaken theories re 
 garding the Amerind race that is, 
 an underestimate of their intellect 
 ual side, so far as those north of Mexico are concerned, and an 
 
 RUNIC INSCRIPTION ON STONE 
 FOUND AT IGALIKKO, GREENLAND, 
 
 Introduced here to show contrast to the 
 
 Amerind writings or pictographs. 
 Translation : " Vigdis, Mars daughter, 
 rests here. May God gladden her soul." 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 DIGHTON ROCK, MASSACHUSETTS 
 
 overestimate of those in the latter region. Brinton asserts that 
 
 1 A rock near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, is inscribed with characters supposed 
 to be Runic, which have been translated by Phillips, " Harkussenmen varu " 
 = " Harko s son addressed the men." The Dighton inscription was read as 
 an account of the party of Thorfinn, while other interpreters have made out 
 Scythian and Phoenician characters. It is possible that there may have been 
 a few Runic characters mingled with the Algonquian on the Dighton Rock. 
 
i. Sayewitalli wemiguma wokgetaki. At first, in that 
 place, at all times, above the earth. 
 
 2. Hackung kwelik owanaku wak yutali kitanitowit 
 essop. On the earth (was) an extended fog, and 
 there the great Manito was. 
 
 3. Sayewis hallemiwis nolemiwi elemamik, kitanitowit- 
 essop. At first, forever, lost in space, everywhere, 
 the great Manito was. 
 
 4. Sohalawak kwelik hakik owak awasagamak. He 
 made the extended land and the sky. 
 
 5. Sohalawak gishuk nipahum alankwak. He made 
 the sun, the moon, and the stars. 
 
 6. Wemi-sohalawak yulik yuchaan. He made them all 
 to move evenly. 
 
 Wich-owagan kshakan moshakwat kwelik kshipe 
 helep. Then the wind blew violently, and it 
 cleared, and the water flowed off far and strong. 
 
 Opeleken mani-menak delsin-epit. And groups of 
 islands grew newly, and there remained. 
 
 10 
 
 io. Owiniwak angelatawiwak chichankwak wemiwak. 
 To beings, mortals, souls and all (spoke the 
 Manito). 
 
 ILLUSTRATION OF THE " WALAM OLUM " OF THE LENAPE, FROM BRINTOX 
 
 There are sixty of these figures painted on the sticks. Each one recalls to 
 the memory of those who have become acquainted with the associated idea, that 
 special idea, and as an example nine of the signs are given here in connection with 
 the associated idea, and also with the translation into English. 
 
 There is seen here at once the resemblance to Genesis, and it is difficult to 
 believe that this portion of the Walam Olum was not inspired by the teachings of 
 the missionaries. But Brinton says: " This similarity is due wholly to the identity 
 of 
 in 
 
 psychological action, the same ideas and fancies arising from similar impressions 
 New as well as Old World tribes." 
 
Picture-Writing Sign-Language Wampum 47 
 
 the Algonquins had developed the picture- writing farther than any 
 other stock north of the Aztecs. It had passed, he says, from the 
 representative to the symbolic stage, and was extensively employed 
 to preserve the national history and rites of the secret societies. The 
 figures were scratched or painted on pieces of bark or slabs of wood, 
 and as the colour of the paint was red, these were sometimes called 
 " red sticks. Some of these slabs, or red sticks, like the Wal 
 am Olum (walam 
 = painted, and 
 olum = scores or 
 notches on a 
 stick) ofthel^en- 
 apes, 1 have been 
 preserved. Many 
 of the figures ex 
 ecuted by the 
 Amerinds, not 
 excepting the 
 Aztecs and the 
 Mayas, were 
 grotesque, and 
 even childish. 
 Their strange 
 ness is irequent- KATCINAS IN THE SOMAIKOLI CEREMONY, CICHUMOVI, ARI- 
 ly due to our ZONA, NOVEMBER, 1884 
 
 unfamiliarity 
 with the origin 
 als, figures w r ith queer hair-dressing, masks, or complete ceremonial 
 costume, which, if we could see them to-day, would resemble 
 nothing we had ever imagined or viewed before. The extraordinary 
 make-up of these people for their ceremonials is beyond anything 
 our race can imagine. Those who have witnessed Pueblo cere 
 monials will understand how unlike any human being the wearer of 
 the strange costumes can become. The katcina 2 is fearfully and 
 wonderfully made, and, especially if represented with the half-skill 
 
 1 For a full account of the Walam Olum, see Brinton s "The Lenape" and 
 their Legends, " in vol. v. of his Library of American Aboriginal History. 
 
 2 The pronunciation of this word always sounded to me " kat-chee -nah," 
 but Dr. Fewkes eliminates the "h " sound from this and other words, and 
 as he has devoted much attention to the subject I follow his spelling. 
 
 Photograph by the author 
 
48 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 of the Amerind, would baffle classification by anyone not familiar 
 with the actual object. Among the early tribes there were un 
 doubtedly many of these ceremonial dresses and costumes that we 
 can now have no conception of, and where we see them represented 
 in sculpture or drawing they have a most uncanny and diabolical 
 appearance. Even to-day were we to see a representation in their 
 crude way of a simple little Moki girl, with the singular arrange 
 ment of her hair in flat, circular puffs, like huge wheels, one on 
 each side of the head, and had never seen or heard of this fashion 
 of hair-dressing, we should be puzzled as to what it meant. 
 
 Some of the ordinary rock pictures may have been carved for 
 simple amusement, but the majority were made with a purpose, 
 and this was usually the communication or record of an idea. 
 The Amerind records may be divided into two and perhaps three 
 
 general classes : 
 first, the mnem 
 onic ; second, 
 the ideographic; 
 and, third, the 
 phonetic. Brin- 
 ton suggests for 
 the writings of 
 the Aztecs, 
 which were 
 partly ideogra 
 phic and partly 
 phonetic, the 
 term ikonomatic, l 
 and used it in his 
 own works. The 
 ideographic class 
 are those which 
 
 represent an idea, as a man striking another, like the accompany 
 ing illustration from the autobiography of Running Antelope, 
 who thus records his killing of two Arikarees. The mnemonic 
 class do not represent an idea, but simply are memory helps, 
 like a string tied around one s finger, a good example being 
 any numeral, say the figure 9." The phonetic class represent 
 sounds, like the letters of our alphabet, say the letter " e." It 
 1 See Brinton, .Essays of an Americanist, p. 213. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 KILLED TWO ARIKAREES 
 
UNIVERSITY 
 
 Picture-Writing Sign-Language -^ Wampu 
 
 CALII 
 
 in 49 
 
 is believed that the Maya writings were largely phonetic, but the 
 phonetic quality is not well established. 
 
 It is supposed that the mnemonic symbols originated in sign- 
 language. One of the most striking examples of the univer 
 sality of the sign-language is the case, cited by Mallery, of a 
 professor in a deaf-mute college, who, visiting several wild tribes, 
 was able to communicate freely with them though he knew 
 nothing of their spoken languages. It was a natural thing that 
 races should attempt to record these signs, and some early 
 hieroglyphs in Egyptian can clearly be traced to them. These 
 same efforts occurred amongst the Amerind stocks in varying 
 degree. Picture-writing, the world over, as well as particularly 
 in North America, probably grew 
 out of sign-language, giving, as the 
 first stage in the development, sign- 
 language, second pictographs, third 
 alphabet. These merge into each 
 other, as there was not a series of 
 jumps, but a slow and gradual pro 
 gression. Many pictographs are 
 merely representations of natural 
 objects and had no special signifi 
 cance, others were guide marks to 
 springs, others recorded visits to 
 certain localities. Mallery states a 
 particularly interesting fact, that 
 within " each particular system . 
 precisely the same manner. Therefore, if a perfect understanding 
 of each tribal system is obtained, the various rock markings and 
 other pictographs can be classified. Sometimes frauds have been 
 attempted by white men, one well-known case being where an 
 Illinois blacksmith copied on six copper plates designs from a 
 Chinese tea-box, and then claimed that the plates had been found 
 in a mound. Recently a most ingenious counterfeiter of stone 
 implements was discovered in Dane County, Wis. He had been 
 selling the spurious implements for years. They are usually of 
 bizarre patterns. 2 Bandelier says that " it is certain that some of 
 
 1 At Newark, Ohio, a business was carried on in the manufacture of 
 inscribed stones, buried and dug up to suit occasion. 
 
 2 See "A Remarkable Counterfeiter" by A. K. Jenks, American An 
 thropologist, April-June, 1900. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PETROGLYPHS ON PAINT ROCK, 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 every Indian draws in 
 
50 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 them [pictographs in Mexico] were manufactured after the Con 
 quest, not with the intention of fraud, but with a view to a com 
 promise between the new method of recording and the old one, 
 which the new teachers were loath to comprehend and which they 
 refused to adopt. Powell classifies all the picture-writings as : 
 (i) Mnemonic songs, traditions, treaties, war, and time; (2) 
 Notification departure, direction, condition, warning, guidance, 
 geographic features, claim or demand messages, and communica 
 tions and record 
 of expeditions ; 
 (3) Totemic- 
 tribal, gentile, 
 clan, and per 
 sonal designa 
 tions, insignia, 
 tokens of au 
 thority, personal 
 names, property 
 . marks, status of 
 individuals, 
 signs of partic 
 ular achieve 
 ments ; (4) Re 
 ligious mythic 
 
 person ages, 
 
 LANDA S MAYA ALPHABET AFTER BRASSEUR -u *n n 
 
 slid in a n i s m , 
 
 from Bancroft s Native Races 
 
 dances, cere 
 monies, mortuary practices, grave-posts, charms, fetiches ; (5) 
 Customs, habits ; (6) Tribal history ; (7) Biographic. 
 
 On this continent no true alphabet, so far as now known, was 
 produced, unless we accept that recorded by Bishop Landa, and 
 ascribed to the Mayas. Landa was the second bishop of Yucatan, 
 and he did his best to destroy the Maya records and everything 
 else that in his estimation linked them with the devil. But he 
 did construct an alphabet after theirs, for the purpose, no doubt, 
 of putting before them the Holy Gospel, and it is this alphabet 
 that has been preserved. It has been the basis of many vain at 
 tempts to decipher the few ancient Maya documents that are 
 known, and the failure of these attempts has caused some investi 
 gators to consider the alphabet a pure fabrication, but the identity 
 
Picture-Writing Sign-Language Wampum 5 1 
 
 of the characters with many of those in the ancient writing com 
 pletely disproves this charge. Besides the alphabet, Landa left 
 some other information concerning the Mayas, and Goodman thus 
 presents his respects to his memory : " It is a signal instance of 
 
 * 
 
 nnshlnen W..j..k cbln Irhlptix.k 
 
 Our Father in heaven rcatcil nisy 
 
 etfc: I llr 
 
 W;ijk tfteliilanen tehlptAok I?nomwi<>k uK 
 
 lie respected in heaven to us uiajr graal . tbca 
 
 .nomulek ulc.K-chinen. Natd waji.lc <lrli c)ikc,I..o)c 
 
 to see in staying. Tlicro In lia\on : lU^u ait obeyed 
 
 ! { 
 
 k deli 
 o 
 
 c^ c < 2 
 
 tchiptook deli cbke<lnlek nmtlmigiic-k ctmek 
 
 m:4 o be obeyed on earth wUi-re we are 
 
 rip k<l nl^knm bikchifctin tlwciillirk 
 
 who bare offco Icd oi <<> Iliou O God fur,-ivo ourtmtt* 
 
 r Jis ihou hast given >t to us 
 
 ik Ianwwktccn jwn,min.>nin nih i 
 giro it uiir nouriUiiuent tu 
 
 6 tj.i j? A 2 
 
 nametnik rip k<l n 
 offco Icd oi <<> Iliou 
 
 H 
 
 fntlkfninrprt winncUudii mn k^rs*! " lc?ii.uk*mk.l 
 
 bol.|nstron S bythcbnn.l n.t ( WI ke.i.fir fruin as 
 
 *^ft 311 ?/? 2-^ 
 
 wlnadagnel twtktwia. KMclUtch. 
 
 uffcrlogB cviU Amen. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 FAC-SIMILE OF THE LORD S PRAYER IN MICMAC HIEROGLYPHS 
 From Le Clercq 
 
 the irony of fate that this bigoted destroyer of the fruits of Maya 
 science and art the pietist whose zeal rendered him avid of the 
 obliteration of every vestige of their impious learning should 
 have been the only one to leave a clue by which the mysterious 
 codices and inscriptions will yet be deciphered. Nevertheless he 
 
 *J. T. Goodman, Biologia Centrali Americana, part ix., p. n. 
 
The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 left such a clue slight and vague, it is true ; but, when carefully 
 followed up, it broadens and leads into an open way where every 
 thing will presently become self-evident." The alphabet was 
 
 D* 
 
 ^ ma. 
 
 \Xhna, VP/ 
 
 
 R 
 
 A 
 
 A. 
 
 TV 
 
 Il 
 
 V 
 l> 
 
 o 1 * 1 
 
 C, 
 Ir 
 0, 
 
 A. 
 K 
 
 C, 
 
 Z. 
 V 
 
 W ^20 
 
 *. 
 
 A, 
 <. 
 K. 
 
 O. 
 IL 
 
 to. 
 
 K 
 
 . 
 c; 
 
 din, 
 
 Cl 
 
 <r. 
 p. 
 
 6 
 II 
 
 Sounds represented "by vowels. 
 
 rt. j rt in father cr shirt as a -in n t al I o as aw in iinr or shcrtas o in -net 
 c iis a. in finte or shcrt as e in -me( \ it as flo in JPP! cr slwrt aj u in pull 
 i fit i in pjqueorslicrtasiinpit I r as u, in tnif, nasaiifed^ 
 
 CoBson.-uit Sounds. 
 
 y nearly as in English, but apprcacTtiny tak .d warty- as in fnfflirh. tat apprcacning fy-f..\k.l m.n. q. s. I vv.atm nglish. 
 S UutU-s Iryinnwy nithy. accepts Ttarc sometimes ffie power cf k, AS r; arc scrntturus scurried -to, tu, tr; an* JffffaKef ntten vithlt. 
 eift-pt C. smctdnes -vay to M 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 SEQUOYAH S CHEROKEE SYLLABARY 
 
 probably modified by a desire to make it conform to the Spanish, 
 and it is this foreign element possibly that has led to the unfavour 
 able opinion expressed in some quarters concerning it. 
 
 North of the Mexican country certain alphabets were invented 
 by the European priests for the purpose of furthering the intro- 
 
Picture-Writing Sign-Language Wampum 53 
 
 duction of Christianity among the Amerinds. Of these the Mic- 
 mac is a good example. 1 They were not drawn from pictographs, 
 and were used only for teaching the Bible. In that field they 
 did not serve to preserve Amerind history, traditions, and legends. 
 After long contact with Europeans there was invented but one 
 alphabet, and he who accomplished this was a half-breed. In 
 1821, George Gist (or Guess), whose native name was Sequoyah, 
 a Cherokee, who spoke little if any English, but whose father was 
 a Dutch peddler and whose mother was of mixed blood, produced 
 an alphabet, or, more correctly speaking, a syllabary, which was 
 immediately adopted by his tribe, and enabled them to record 
 their traditions, sacred formulae, prayers, etc., which to-day form 
 a valuable portion of the information we possess of these Ame 
 rind people. Many of the symbols were adapted from our alpha 
 bet, an old spelling-book having found its way into Sequoyah s 
 hands, but it was the forms which were utilised, the sounds they 
 represented being usually different. By means of this syllabary 
 the members of the Cherokee tribe were able to learn in a few 
 hours to write words, and the system is used to this day. 
 
 The endeavour to prove the descent of the Amerinds from one 
 of the numerous foreign sources that have from time to time been 
 advocated has at least resulted sometimes in the accumulation or 
 reproduction of some interesting material. Lord Kingsborough 
 became so infatuated with the idea that the Amerinds were the Lost 
 Tribes of Israel that he attempted to prove it in a number of splen 
 did volumes, which also contain admirable fac-similes of some old 
 Amerind manuscripts. 2 He spent his fortune on this work, and 
 through a business dispute with the merchants who furnished the 
 paper he was thrown into Dublin Jail, where, unfortunately, he 
 died. 
 
 To explain the methods employed in the ruder attempts at re 
 cording, the map made by Lean Wolf, a Hidatsa, who once made 
 a trip from Fort Berthold to Fort Buford, Dakota, with the ambi 
 tion of stealing a horse, is a good example. In the illustration the 
 returning horse-tracks indicate that he was successful and rode 
 
 The Sauk, of Algonquian stock, "have a syllabic alphabet, apparently 
 the work of some early French missionary, by means of which they keep up 
 a correspondence with friends on their various scattered reservations." 
 Mooney, American Anthropologist, January, 1899, p. 143. 
 
 2 For an explanation of the Lost Tribes theory see Payne s History q/ 
 the New World Called America, vol. ii., p. 75 et seq. 
 
54 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 home, i is Lean Wolf himself ; 2, the Hidatsa lodges ; 3, Lean 
 Wolfs tracks on his outward course ; 4, government buildings at 
 Fort Buford ; 5, several Hidatsa lodges whose occupants intermar 
 ried with Dakotas ; 6, Dakota tipis; 7, small square, a white man s 
 home, with a cross indicating that he had married a Dakota 
 woman ; 8, horse-tracks ; 9, the Missouri River and tributaries. 
 
 0, 
 
 
 
 G 
 
 LEAN WOLFS MAP, HIDATSA 
 
 Frequently the marks on the rocks merely record the visit of 
 someone to the place, exactly as when we visit the birthplace of 
 Shakespeare we write our names in a large book kept there for 
 that purpose ; or, perhaps, as some persons carve their names on 
 public buildings and in other conspicuous places. Gilbert found 
 a number of such records at Oakley Springs, Arizona, and old 
 Tuba, a Moki, explained them to him. Tuba said that the Mokis 
 go to a place in the canyon of the Little Colorado for salt, and 
 they stop on the return trip at this spring, where each draws his 
 totem mark, or crest, on the record rocks once, and once only, for 
 each trip. There are many repetitions of the same sign, showing 
 that the owner of that particular sign, or totem, had made that 
 many journeys to the salt mine. Tuba gave the name of the 
 totems, and they were all animals. 
 
 One cannot be too careful in taking statements from Ame- 
 
Picture-Writing Sign-Language Wampum 55 
 
 rinds, for, like some of their white brethren, many of them will 
 lie for the fun of it, or just to experiment as to the probable re 
 sult. Sometimes, r -, 
 
 too, when they are 
 telling the truth 
 they tell only part 
 
 of it. This is par 
 ticularly the case 
 with regard to [ 
 springs, sacred 
 rites, and other 
 matters which are u. s. 
 
 11 -U U ^ THE " PENN " WAMPUM BELT 
 
 specially cherished. 
 
 Some objects in the custody of the heads of the secret orders are 
 never shown in public, or are only shown on special occasions. 
 Pictographs representing them, therefore, should any happen to 
 be made, would not be intelligible to any persons but the initiated. 
 Another class of symbols was worked out in wampum. The 
 popular idea of wampum seems to be that it was a kind of Amerind 
 money, but the money function was only one of its uses. There 
 was another, a mnemonic use, of more im 
 portance that is, it was a means of record 
 ing and of communicating mnemonically 
 among the tribes of the North-east. The 
 Iroquois used it chiefly in the form of belts. 
 The beads were generally white, and were 
 used in strings as well as belts, other colours 
 being mingled with the white, as purple and 
 pp white, or black and white. These strings 
 had important functions in summoning offi- 
 cers, in representing persons, and in confer- 
 ring authority. But all wampum had a 
 j l,f i meaning only to those who remembered the 
 1 particular association of particular forms of 
 it, and the knowledge once entirely for 
 gotten could never be regained. Conse- 
 
 u. s. BU. Eth. quently the ideas with which the belts, etc. , 
 
 STRINGS OF WAMPUM were associated had to be re gularly brought 
 
 to mind. Once a year, therefore, they were exhibited in public, 
 and the story connected with each carefully rehearsed so that it 
 
56 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 should not be lost through forgetfulness. This custom is still kept 
 up among the remnants of the wampum-using tribes. In other 
 tribes, formulae and drawings were often preserved by certain orders 
 who rehearsed them in the privacy of the kiva. The wampum 
 beads were generally -J inch by J inch diameter that is, flat 
 discs of shell. They were sometimes also to inch thick, with 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ORCA OR KILLER-WHALE DECORATION, HAIDA 
 
 the same diameter. When the white men discovered the valuation 
 the Amerinds placed on these beads an attempt was made to intro 
 duce some of European manufacture, but it met with only partial 
 success. 1 The average width of a belt is three inches and the 
 length three feet. 
 
 By some tribes the human body was also used as a surface for 
 the display of pictographs. Among all primitive people the body 
 has been often decorated to a greater or less extent by means of 
 pigments or by tattooing, and even to-day the practice lingers 
 among civilised races, in their sailors and soldiers especially. The 
 primitive totem or tattoo marks are frequently highly elaborate, 
 but the work is not all accomplished at one time. Years some- 
 
 1 Finally, after 1714, the machine-made beads grew in favour, because the 
 supply of native beads diminished with the diminution of the number of 
 Amerinds. These machine-made beads were of uniform size, while the 
 native beads varied considerably. See Horatio Hale, fop. Sci. Monthly, 
 February, 1897. 
 

 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 HAIDA TATTOOING 
 
The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 times pass before the drawings are complete. The Haidas of the 
 North-west coast are specially given to this form of decoration, and 
 their bodies bear carefully prepared symbols. They are heraldic 
 signs, or the family totem, of the clan to which the person belongs. 
 Pottery was also a medium, and some of the designs contained 
 upon earthenware unfold a whole legend to the knowing eye of 
 the native. The designs that are woven into blankets, baskets, 
 and scarfs of Amerind manufacture are also, to a certain extent, 
 symbolic. The Navajos, who weave a superior kind of blanket, 
 put into it a variety of designs, that are carried entirely in their 
 memory. It is asserted that the majority of these designs are 
 Pueblo. The Navajos no doubt absorbed many of the Pueblos, 
 who must have been in the country they now occupy when they 
 arrived. There is some intermarriage of Navajos and Mokis in 
 these latter days. 1 
 
 Everything the Amerind does pertains to his religious 
 belief, and these symbols, totems, and pictures play an im 
 portant part in his life. Some sign or token occurs on 
 almost every article of his manufacture. 
 
 O 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO DRAWING "THE MAN IN THE MOON COMES DOWN" 
 
 Excellent examples of Algonquin mnemonic records are found 
 in the songs of the Mide society, which have been preserved 
 for many generations by means of their picture-writing, and 
 
 1 "The best blanket-makers, smiths, and other artisans among the 
 Navajos are the descendants of captives from Zuiii and other Pueblos. "- 
 J. G. Bourke, Jour. Am. Folk-Lore, p. 115. 
 
Picture-Writing Sign-Language Wampum 59 
 
 some of the records are exceedingly elaborate. The method 
 is to associate certain devices with songs or with parts of 
 songs to recall the words to the memory of the singer when he 
 beholds the pictures, and in this way they have been handed 
 along through the centuries. There is reason to believe that 
 almost all important legends are recorded in this mnemonic way 
 among the tribes of North America. Of course the memory is 
 likely to fail in some details and so the songs become more or less 
 changed as time goes on, but it is not probable that the changes 
 are of much importance, for where the memory is trained in this 
 way it grows remarkably accurate. There was much practising 
 of the various songs at each particular season, under the guidance 
 of some veteran singer. 
 
 The Eskimo, in their picture-writing, seem now to be rather a 
 class by themselves. Whether the suggestion of perspective 
 found in some pictures was a result of contact with the whites I 
 am unable to state, but it seems probable. In the above illus 
 tration the suggestion of perspective is clear. There is a land 
 scape with houses, with the moon in the sky, and with a perfectly 
 evident effort to make the foreground and middle and background 
 take their proper places. Such a thing is not to be found through 
 out all the other Amerind stocks. 
 
 From Alaska come some good examples of the ideographic, by 
 way of San Francisco, where one Naumoff, an Alaskan native, 
 made them. They are written on strips of wood and placed in 
 conspicuous places as notifications. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 The irregular line indicates the contour of the country. The traveller is seen starting out at 
 the left. He presently leaves a stick with a. bunch of grass to show direction, and stops with a 
 friend at night the division of days represented by a line upright. Next morning, on the second 
 hill, he discovers game, etc. 
 
 Some tribes have a system of enumerating the members of it 
 and keeping a kind of clan roll. Chief Big Road, a Dakota, was 
 one day brought to the agency and required to give an account of 
 his followers. He submitted a roster, made on common foolscap 
 paper with black and coloured pencils. The names, represented 
 by pictures, were Big Bear, Bear-looking-behind, Brings-back- 
 
60 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Plenty, White Buffalo, and so on. This is also an example of the 
 ideographic. Red Cloud had a similar census of his warriors. It 
 was prepared under his supervision at the Pine Ridge Agency. 
 Owing to some disagreement, the agent had refused to recognise 
 Red Cloud s leadership and named another man as chief. There 
 upon the adherents of Red Cloud prepared this document, and 
 sent it to Washington to establish his claim. The names pic- 
 torially represented are Shield-Bear, Sees-the-Enemy, Biting- 
 Bear, Cut-through, Red Owl, etc. 
 
 1788-89 1789-90 1790-91 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 SPECIMENS OF THE DAKOTA WINTER COUNTS 
 
 Dates determined by counting back from great events 
 
 The left : 1788-89. Very severe winter. Crows were frozen to death. " Many-crows-died-winter " 
 
 Middle: 1789-90 Two Mandans killed by the Minneconjous 
 
 Right: 1790-91, " All-the-lndians-see-the-flag-winter " 
 
 In this same line are the Dakota winter counts collected by 
 Dr. Corbusier. The years are counted by winters, as the winter 
 among the Dakotas makes the deepest impression. These records 
 have been kept for many years and are used in computing time 
 and to aid the memory in recalling names and events of different 
 years. The enumeration is begun at the winter last recorded and 
 carried backward. There are at least five of these counts kept 
 among the Oglalas and Brules by different men. 1 
 
 From the manuscript drawing-book of an Amerind prisoner at 
 St. Augustine we have a " conversation " about the lassooing, 
 shooting, and final killing of a bison which had wandered into 
 camp. The dotted lines indicate footprints. The Indian drawn 
 under the animal having secured it by the forefeet, so informs his 
 companions, as indicated by the line drawn from his mouth to the 
 object mentioned. The left-hand figure, having secured the 
 buffalo by the horns, gives his nearest comrade an opportunity to 
 strike it with an axe, which he no doubt announces that he will 
 do, as the line from his mouth to the head of the animal indicates. 
 The Indian in the upper left-hand corner is told by a squaw to 
 take an arrow and join his companions, when he turns his head 
 1 Garrick Mallery, Fourth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth. 
 
Picture-Writing Sign- Language Wampum 6 1 
 
 to inform her that he has one already, which fact he demonstrates 
 by holding up the weapon. 1 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 KILLING A BISON 
 
 The Navajos have a singular kind of picture-writing which 
 has been called " dry-painting." These dry-paintings are made 
 on the ground with dry sand of various colours. 2 All the designs 
 
 1 Mallery, Fourth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth. 
 
 2 Washington Matthews, Fifth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth. The dry-paintings 
 also occur in the " Hoshkawn " ceremony, described by James Stevenson, 
 Eighth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth 
 
62 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 are made with the utmost care and precision, being drawn accord 
 ing to an exact system, except in minor points, where the artist is 
 left to his imagination. So far as known this system is not re 
 corded in any way, but depends entirely on the memory of those 
 in charge. Changes must therefore occur in the course of time. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 After Dr. Jones 
 
 SHELL DISC, TENNESSEE 
 Diameter, 4.4 inches 
 
 The sand is trailed out of the hand between the thumb and fore 
 finger, and when a mistake is made it is corrected by renewing at 
 that point the surface of the sand which forms the general ground 
 for the work. No less than seventeen ceremonies are illustrated 
 by drawings of this kind. Sand enters into some of the kiva 
 ceremonies of the Moki, but in a different way. It is used more 
 to maintain in position certain objects that belong to the ritual. 
 
Picture-Writing Sign-Language Wampum 63 
 
 The mounds of the Mississippi valley have yielded antiquities 
 of great interest, but thus far nothing that is beyond the ability 
 of the ordinary Amerind to execute. Some shell discs, which 
 Holmes suggests may have been time symbols, attract special 
 attention. There are generally thirteen small outer circles on 
 the discs, and thirteen is a number that occurs frequently in 
 Amerind chronology. On other discs various objects are drawn, 
 the one first to fix the attention of the white race being the 
 figure of the cross because of its connection with the Christian 
 religion. But it had no similar significance with the Christian 
 cross. Crosses were found among almost all the tribes of North 
 America, because a cross is an easy and a most natural figure 
 to construct. Another emblem found throughout the world, and 
 next to the cross the simplest figure to make, is that called 
 
 the swastika, merely a cross M--J with the arms broken at right 
 
 angles. The Mormons firmly believe, along with Kingsborough, 
 that the Amerinds are the Lost Tribes of Israel, and one of their 
 elders has succeeded in translating some picture-writing thus : 
 4 /, Mahanti, the 2nd king of the Lamanites in five valleys in the 
 mountains, make this record in the twelve hundredth year since we 
 came out of Jerusalem. And I have three sons gone to the south 
 country to live by hunting antelope and deer." Like the power to 
 divine the future, the power to translate picture-writings is rare. 
 
 In some of the Moundbuilder work there is a suggestion of a 
 position for the makers intermediate between, say, the Algonquin 
 and the Nahuatl or Aztec tribes. Their serpent symbols strongly 
 resemble those of more southern tribes, and also some of the fig 
 ures in shell and copper. 
 
 The fact that the serpent was a prominent object with them as 
 with the Nahuatl tribes tends to link the tribes who made these 
 symbols with the Nahuatl tribes. The serpent symbol, especially 
 the feathered kind, 1 belongs mainly to the tribes of the Mexican 
 region, where the rattlesnake exists in its greatest variety. The 
 
 1 "Pictographs of the feathered, horned serpent are also found on the 
 cliff to the south-west of Walpi. These pictographs have the head, with 
 a representation of a horn and feathers, and the same conventionalised 
 markings of parallel lines and arrow-points which are found on the kilts 
 of the vSnake priests." Fewkes, Journal of American Ethnology, vol. 
 ii., p. 38. 
 
64 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 rattlesnake was highly venerated, and tribes as far north as the 
 Moki country in the West, and perhaps as the Ohio in the East, 
 might be correctly called the Snake people. There is nothing 
 
 O 
 
 \ 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 SHELL GORGET, TENNESSEE 
 
 Actual size 
 
 improbable in supposing that some of the tribes of the Mississippi 
 valley, if they were not of the same stock as the Aztecs, were in 
 tolerably close communication with them, or with tribes inter 
 mediate between the two. 
 
Sign-Language Wampum Cupped-Stones 65 
 
 Sometimes there occur markings on the rocks in the South-west 
 that would be a puzzle to us did we not know, through the Mokis, 
 who are still making them, just what they are. There is there 
 fore no room for the imagination ; the long scratchings are only 
 grooves made in sandstone by the Moki farmer sharpening his 
 planting stick. 
 
 > 
 
 > 
 
 CUP MARKINGS 
 
 Another kind of rock markings, the so-called cupped-stones or 
 cup markings, about which there has been a vast amount of 
 discussion, may be considered here because they have generally 
 been thought to have symbolic significance. That some of them 
 may have had such significance is admitted below, but the bulk 
 of those on this continent it seems possible to explain without 
 resort to symbolism. An explanation which I offer, for what 
 it may be worth, I have never seen suggested, though the idea 
 may not be new. It is well known that the common form 
 of fire-drill in use from one end of this continent to the other 
 
66 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 was that in which the end of a straight stick is made to rotate 
 back and forth in a rounded cavity in another stick of softer 
 wood called the hearth. In order that the operation should be 
 speedily successful in producing fire, it was necessary to have the 
 end of the drill convex, so that it would immediately bear as 
 nearly as possible on the whole surface of the hearth cavity. In 
 order to produce this convexity, the Amerind pecked a small cav 
 ity on a slab or rock of sandstone, and when he had it in the 
 proper condition, he could bring his drill very quickly to the 
 desired convexity, and also give it a roughness of surface that 
 would contribute to the friction. As the fire-drill was long in 
 constant use, many cavities were necessary, for a cavity would 
 grow too deep, or for some other cause would not be adequate. 
 A new hole would then be made, and thus in the course of time 
 there would be numbers of the cavities on a rock or slab, which 
 was convenient or had been found to possess the right texture for 
 the purpose. My opinion, therefore, is that these so-called " cup 
 markings " or " cupped " stones were in America the result of the 
 sharpening of fire-drills, just as the long grooves seen at the Moki 
 towns to-day are the result of the sharpening of planting sticks. 
 Gerard Fowke describes the cupped-stones in the Bureau of Eth 
 nology collection, 1 as follows, and it will be noticed that thin 
 pieces have cups on both sides, while the large blocks have them 
 only on one. This was because it was convenient to turn the small 
 stones over. In some cases where a cup had worn too large, an 
 other was started in the bottom of it, perhaps because the rock at 
 that particular spot suited the fancy of the individual. Fowke 
 says : " The cupped-stones in the Bureau are almost invariably 
 of reddish sandstone, of varying texture, from a few ounces to 
 thirty pounds in weight. The holes are from one to twenty-five 
 in number, of various sizes, even in the same stone, and follow 
 the natural contour of the surface even when that is quite irregu 
 lar; the stone is never flattened or dressed to bring the cups on a 
 level ; none show any marks of work, but are rough blocks or 
 slabs in their natural state. Many of the holes are roughly pecked 
 in, but the larger ones are usually smooth, as if ground out, and 
 almost complete hemispheres. They range from a pit only started 
 or going scarcely beyond the surface to one two inches in diam 
 eter. The smaller ones with one cup pass into the pitted stones. 
 1 Thirteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. of Eth., p. 92. 
 
Sign-Language Wampum Cupped-Stones 67 
 
 Occasionally at the bottom of a large cup there is a small second 
 ary hole as though made by a flint drill. Slabs or thin pieces 
 nearly always have cups on both sides, while locks or thick slabs 
 have them on one side only. 
 
 In the case of the cup markings of the Eastern Hemisphere, 
 their frequent peculiar arrangement accompanied by grooves and 
 circles may have pertained to some ceremony connected with the 
 drill-dressing. It may have been thought that the fire would come 
 quicker, be better, or last longer when the drill was dressed in 
 holes of a certain type ; or special stones and holes of peculiar ar 
 rangement may have been required for dressing the drill-end that 
 was to be used by the priest in the sacred ceremony of producing 
 the " new- fire." In this manner a primitive custom might become 
 sacred and be surrounded with symbolism exemplified in cup 
 markings the world over. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 CUP FROM CH1R1QUI 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 TERRA COTTA FROM CHIRIQUI 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE MEXICAN AND CENTRAL-AMERICAN WRITING, INSCRIP 
 TIONS, AND BOOKS 
 
 WHILE there are found in the mounds of the central Mis 
 sissippi region, and also among the living natives of the 
 North-west coast, resemblances to the art work of the 
 Aztecs, Mayas, and other tribes of the Central-American region, 
 there is no evidence that there was any approach, in these local 
 ities or elsewhere, to any kind of record to be compared with the 
 proficiency of the South. What there may once have been in 
 the way of writings on bark or wood we can only conjecture. The 
 Davenport tablet has been pronounced, on good authority, to 
 be within the powers of the Dakota tribes. Other tablets and 
 inscriptions of the Eastern region are surrounded with doubt. 
 The Mexican, that is, the Aztec, writing was more pictorial 
 than that of the Mayas. It was cruder in every way, and com 
 paring the two in the pages of Kingsborough and later reproduc 
 tions, it is easy to distinguish a superior culture indicated by the 
 writing of the Maya. We are more fortunate in the number of 
 Aztec manuscripts preserved. The Spanish priests did what they 
 could to obliterate the books existing when they came into the 
 country, and Bishop Zumarraga made a fine bonfire out of a lot 
 of them. But some escaped. Some priests sent copies or originals 
 
 68 
 
Mexican and Central American Writing, Etc. 69 
 
 back home as curiosities, thinking, doubtless, that this took them 
 out of the sight of the natives quite as effectually as the burning, 
 and the natives themselves succeeded in preserving in secret 
 some of the ancient documents. None of the oldest, however, 
 have been found, but in time the number known to us may be 
 considerably increased. One by one they turn up unexpectedly. 
 That called the Codex Borgia was in use as a plaything of children 
 of the Gustiniani family, till rescued by Cardinal Borgia, and only 
 recently another one has been found dating from the year 1545, 
 wherein there are pictorial combinations never before seen. Thus 
 gradually our data are increasing, and with the awakening interest 
 in Amerindian archaeology that seems to have come in these latter 
 days of the nineteenth century, a century that has let slip much 
 valuable data never to be recovered, further finds may be expected 
 from time to time. The style of the Aztec documents is different 
 from that of the Maya and Brinton believes them to be independent 
 developments. It is possible, however, that both were derived 
 from the same source and developed independently. 2 The Aztec 
 writing is of a " rebus " character, and Brinton has applied to it 
 the term ikonomatic, which he explains as follows in his Essays of 
 an Americanist*: " All methods of recording ideas have been 
 divided into two classes Thought Writing and Sound Writing. 
 The first, simplest and oldest, is Thought Writing. This in turn 
 is subdivided into two forms Ikonographic and Symbolic Writ 
 ing. The former is also known as Imitative, Representative, or 
 Picture Writing. The object to be held in memory is represented 
 by its picture drawn with such skill, or lack of skill, as the writer 
 may possess. In Symbolic Writing, a single characteristic part 
 or trait serves to represent the whole object ; thus the track of an 
 animal will stand for the animal itself. ... It will be observed 
 that Thought Writing has no reference to spoken language ; 
 neither the picture of a wolf nor the representation of his foot 
 print conveys the slightest notion of the sound of the word wolf. 
 
 1 By Dr. Nicolas Leon. Science, Jan. 27, 1899, p. 156. Still another 
 lately turned up in possession of an English gentleman. 
 
 " They may have passed through some of the same stages of growth, 
 but the general consensus of opinion is that the Mayan is the older of the 
 two classes, and that these two classes have developed independently. 
 Thomas, Study of American Archceology , p. 360. 
 
 3 P. 213 et seq. 
 
The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 How was the enormous leap made from the thought to the sound 
 in other words, from an ideographic to a phonetic method of 
 writing ? This question has received considerable attention from 
 scholars with reference to the development of the two most im 
 portant alphabets in the world, the Egyptian and the Chinese. 
 Both these began as simple picture writing, and both progressed 
 to almost complete phoneticism. In both cases, however, the 
 earliest steps are lost, and can be retraced only by indications 
 
 PAGE FROM AN AZTEC BOOK (from a copy in the possession of M. H. Saville) 
 
 Plate 67 of the Nahuan precolumbian Vatican Codex, No. 3773, Loubat edition. This is the igth 
 page of the Tonalamatl, the sacred astrological calendar of the Aztecs. The seated figure is 
 the goddess Xochiquetzal, and on the left is the god Tezcatlipoca. The book is in size about 
 5x6 inches. 
 
 remaining after a high degree of phonetic power had been reached. 
 On the other hand, in the Mexican and probably in the Maya 
 hieroglyphics, we find a method of writing which is intermediate 
 between the two great classes I have mentioned, and which illus 
 trates in a striking manner the phases through which both the 
 Egyptian and the Semitic alphabets passed somewhat before the 
 dawn of history. To this method, which stands midway between 
 the ikonographic and the alphabetic methods of writing, I have 
 given the name ikonomatic, derived from the Greek SIHGOV-OVOS, an 
 
Mexican and Central-American Writing, Etc. 71 
 
 image, a figure ; OVOJJ(X-<XTO, a name. . . . It is this plan on 
 which those familiar puzzles are constructed which are called 
 rebuses and none other than this which served to bridge over the 
 wide gap between Thought and Sound Writing. It is, however, 
 not correct to say that it is a writing by things, rebus ; but it is 
 by the names of things, and hence I have coined the work ikono- 
 matic to express this clearly." The position of the signs often 
 had important significance, just as it has in some of our puzzles, 
 like the following : 
 
 WOOD 
 
 JOHN 
 
 MASS 
 
 which is said to have been the address on a letter that found its 
 destination in John Underwood, Andover, Massachusetts. It 
 might be supposed that, having acquired a knowledge of the 
 method of the Aztec writing, the general principles of which, 
 according to Brinton, were known many years ago, we would 
 now be able to translate the Mexican documents with little diffi 
 culty. The trouble lies, however, in the lack of exact know 
 ledge of the Nahuatl language itself, and till that is acquired small 
 progress will be made. It will be necessary to understand this 
 language before its modern additions and changes came in, in 
 order to connect it with the picture-writing, or rather the ikono- 
 matic writing, of the fifteenth and previous centuries. It has 
 been doubted whether there is any phonetic element in either the 
 Aztec or the Maya hieroglyphics, but the evidence seems to indi 
 cate that there is a phonetic element, notwithstanding that there 
 has been a following in many cases of 
 rather slender threads of evidence. 
 
 Brinton gives the accompanying il 
 lustration of the character of the Aztec 
 writing, this being the name of Mont- 
 ezuma, but really reading Moquahzoma. 
 As most writers spell this name to suit 
 
 - A , MEXICAN WRITING OF 
 
 themselves, judging from the great NAME OF MONTEZUMA 
 
 variety of spellings, we may as well ac- From Brinton 
 
 cept Moquahzoma too. Indeed, as this 
 
 seems to be supported by the evidence of the writing, it is more 
 likely to be correct than the others. The picture at the right is 
 
72 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 of a mouse-trap, montti in Nahuatl, " with a phonetic value of 
 mo or mon ; the head of the eagle has the value quauh, from 
 quauhtli ; it is transfixed with a lancet 20 and surmounted with 
 a hand maitl, whose phonetic value is ma, and these values 
 combined give Moquahzoma" 
 
 When Mendoza was viceroy of New Spain, he caused a speci 
 men of Aztec writing and book-making to be prepared and sent 
 to Charles V., with an explanation in Spanish. Copies of this 
 exist to-day ; one in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and an 
 other, which Prescott thought was the original, though Bancroft 
 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PART OF PLATE 65, DRESDEN CODEX 
 Maya 
 
 believed it to be a copy, in the Escurial Library. This Codex 
 Mendoza was in three parts : ist, historical ; 2d, tribute rolls ; 3d, 
 descriptive of the domestic life and manners of the people. Besides 
 this and the Borgia, there are the Codex Vaticanus, in the Vatican 
 Library, another in the same place written on skin ; the Codex Tel- 
 leriano-Remensis, in the Bibliotheque National, Paris ; the Codex 
 
Mexican and Central-American Writing", Etc. 73 
 
 Bologna, in the library of the Scientific Institute, and a number of 
 others in divers places. 1 The remnants of the native Tezcucan 
 archives were inherited by Ixtlilxochitl, lineal descendant of the 
 last " king " of Tezcuco, who used them in preparing his historical 
 writings. The collection afterwards disappeared. 
 
 Many of the manuscripts were merely chronological, but there 
 were also tribute rolls, law codes, court records, historical records, 
 and all the varied writings that belong to an active and intelligent 
 people. The priests executed and held in their possession the 
 important books, and seem to have been the leaders of whatever 
 learning existed. " These writings," says Bancroft, " were a 
 sealed book to the masses, and even to the educated classes who 
 looked with superstitious reverence on the priestly writers and 
 their magic scrolls." 
 
 The paper used was usually made from the leaves of the 
 maguey. It is probable that the Aztecs learned to make it from 
 the Mayas or from some intervening tribe who had learned from 
 the Mayas. Sometimes the books were long strips of cotton 
 cloth, or even a kind of parchment. They were either rolled up 
 or folded like a screen, and frequently had covers of wood. A 
 great deal of ingenuity and skill was bestowed on the preparation 
 of these books and the writing they contained. 
 
 The appropriate name of " calculiform " 2 has been given to the 
 Maya hieroglyphics because of their resemblance to pebble forms. 
 Besides the inscriptions carved on stone from the Isthmus of 
 Tehuantepec to the northern border of Honduras, there are some 
 on wood and in stucco, but there exist, so far as known, but very 
 few of the numerous records and books of perishable material 
 which the pious zeal of the Spanish priests hastened to gather 
 together and purify of heresy and wickedness in the fires of 
 bigotry. Bishop Landa says : " As they contained nothing that 
 did not savour of superstition and lies of the devil, we burnt 
 them all, at which the natives grieved most keenly and were 
 greatly pained." The practice of the Mayas, it is said, was to 
 bury the books with the priest who had written them, in which 
 case large numbers of the writings must have been disposed of 
 before the Spaniards took a hand. Doubtless, however, only cer 
 tain books were thus buried with the authors, and perhaps copies 
 
 1 Several have recently been splendidly reproduced and may be found 
 at large libraries. 2 Suggested by the Abbe Brasseur. 
 
74 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 of these may have been preserved. At any rate, unless some of 
 the books have been protected in an absolutely dry place, tomb or 
 what not, or there were also writings on tablets of clay or stone, 
 we are not likely to have our present scanty knowledge of the 
 ancient Mayas much increased through this channel. There are 
 possibilities of discovery in many ways, even amongst the papers 
 in forgotten archives. 
 
 Peabody Museum 
 
 VASE FROM LABNA, YUCATAN, WITH PECULIAR MARKINGS 
 Diameter at top, 5 inches ; diameter at bottom, 4 inches ; height, 4^ inches 
 
 In" the Peabody Museum at Cambridge I saw a small vase 
 from Labna that fixed my attention at once, and I understand 
 there are others in existence of a similar character. It bears 
 certain marks in the clay that suggested to my mind an alphabetic 
 system. The marks are in groups, each group contained in a 
 space that apparently corresponds to the calculiform inscriptions 
 of the monuments. It seems possible, therefore, that this may be 
 a development out of the calculiform. Afterwards I found a ref 
 erence apparently to this same vase in Brinton s Primer of Mayan 
 Hieroglyphics. He says : " There is some reason to suppose, 
 
Mexican and Central-American Writing, Etc. 75 
 
 however, that in this part of the Mayan territory there had been 
 a development of this writing until it had become conventional 
 ized into a series of lines and small circles enclosed in the usual 
 square or oval of the katun. I have seen several examples of 
 this remarkable script, and give one, Fig. 79, part of an inscrip 
 tion on a vase from Labna, Yucatan, now in the Peabody Mu 
 seum." If these marks should turn out to be alphabetic, then we 
 may expect to find slabs and tablets similarly inscribed. 
 
 We are but at the beginning of our investigation of the Ame 
 rind field. Only recently Saville discovered an entirely new form 
 of hieroglyphic in Oaxaca in a tomb believed to be Zapotecan. 
 Organised and exhaustive exploration will yield fine results. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 CONVEX DISCOIDAL STONE, NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 " Such organised and exhaustive exploration is the more to be 
 desired," says Goodman, " for the reason that all the inscriptions 
 so far brought to light are of a purely chronological character, 
 destitute of any real historical importance. They are merely pub 
 lic calendars, as it were, showing that at specified dates certain 
 periods of their scheme would begin or end, or that a correspond 
 ence would occur between two or more of their different plans for 
 computing time. Aside from the circumstance that the initial 
 date in most instances undoubtedly marks the time at which the 
 temple, stela, or altar to which it belongs was erected, I do not 
 believe there is the record of a single historical event in all the 
 inscriptions at present in our possession. That a people as cul 
 tured as they should have had no historical records at all, would 
 be a presumption too absurd for credence, even without the testi 
 mony of the early Spanish authorities to the contrary. The actual 
 
76 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 question is whether any of them will ever be discovered. If they 
 were inscribed upon paper or parchment and buried with their 
 priestly owners, as we are told, there is very little hope that any 
 vestige of them remains, unless there may have been some instance 
 of almost miraculous preservation. Still that remote chance is 
 worth a vast amount of research. But a better hope ... is 
 that in crypts or tombs or other unexplored receptacles may be 
 collected historical tablets of durable material stone, stucco, 
 baked clay, or even metal which patient excavation will yet un 
 earth." Chance has played the chief part in the preservation of 
 the few documents that have come down to us. In the Biblio- 
 theque National at Paris the Maya one now known as the Codex 
 Peresianus had been neglected amongst a lot of old papers where 
 De Rosny happened to discover it. It has generally been as 
 sumed that because there was found one form of writing on the 
 monuments and a similar form in the few documents preserved 
 there was but the one method. This, however, does not necessar 
 ily follow. The monumental records and the chronological books 
 may have been written by the priests in the archaic style while 
 the ordinary and common style was something quite different. 1 
 Pio Perez has been followed with great faith, but Goodman thrusts 
 him aside in the following paragraph : "The man who led every 
 body astray . . . was Don Pio Perez. ... In the absence 
 of any regularly ordained authority, he was at once accepted on 
 his own bare assumption as a leader and lawgiver, and then began 
 that journey through the wilderness which has lasted more than 
 forty years. ... I ran in the ruck for seven seasons. 
 Then I turned and went back to Landa to whom all desirous of 
 reliable information concerning Maya chronology must go at 
 last." 2 The trouble with following Landa has been the inaccur 
 acy of the translation by the Abbe Brasseur as well as a certain 
 confusion existing within the original manuscript. 3 
 
 Brinton says : " The Mayas were naturally a literary people. 
 Had they been offered the slightest chance for the cultivation of 
 their intellects, they would have become a nation of readers and 
 
 1 Egypt had three kinds of writing. 
 
 2 Biologia Centrali Americana, part ix., p. n. 
 
 3 For a fac-simile of part of the Landa MS. and bibliographic notes on 
 Mayan and Mexican writing see Winsor 1 s Nar. and Crit. Hist, of the U. S. y 
 vol. i., p. 197. 
 
[Mexican and Central-American Writing, Etc. 77 
 
 writers. Instead of having this chance they were crushed by the 
 Spaniards and never rose again. But the decline of the Mayas 
 cannot be altogether laid at the door of Spain. The remnant of the 
 stock encountered by the Spaniards was already on the down road 
 and had been for a long period. That the Mayas had long passed 
 the zenith of their progress is generally admitted, and we are not 
 entirely sure that the people we know as Mayas were the original 
 stock or only a mixture of the original and an inferior, wilder 
 stock which mingled with them in the days of their decline. When 
 a stock declined or became extinct, other stocks from contiguous 
 territory or from farther off were likely to come in and possess 
 themselves of whatever they found that was valuable and also be 
 come permanent residents of the country, just as the Navajos took 
 up their home in a land that was formerly the residence of a differ 
 ent, house-building stock of whom the Navajos preserve, so far as 
 I am aware, barely a reminiscence. Berendt thus describes the 
 neighbourhood of Cintla : " Not a single tradition, not a single 
 native name survives to cast any light upon these ruins. The 
 whole of this coast was depopulated in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries owing to the slave-hunting incursions of the 
 filibusters and man-hunters. The Indians who are now found in 
 the neighbourhood have removed there from the interior since the 
 beginning of the present century, and are absolutely ignorant of 
 the origin or builders of this city." 
 
 Not until we are in possession of historical data from the Mayas 
 themselves, if that happy time ever arrives, can we be absolutely 
 certain as to the present descendants. 
 
 " In Yucatan," says Brinton, " the books of the Mayas con 
 sisted of a kind of paper made by macerating and beating together 
 leaves of maguey and afterwards sizing the surface with a durable 
 white varnish. The sheet was folded like a screen, forming pages 
 about nine by five inches. Both sides were covered with figures 
 and characters painted in various brilliant colours. On the outer 
 pages boards were fastened for protection, so the completed volume 
 had the appearance of a bound book of large octavo size. Parch 
 ment was sometimes used instead of paper. It was made of deer 
 skin cured and smoked. Twenty-seven rolls of such parchments 
 covered with hieroglyphics were among the articles burned by 
 Bishop Landa at Mani in 1562." " None of them, however," re- 
 1 See the Preface, p. vii., and the last chapter. 
 
78 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 marks Goodman of the Maya books that have been found, <l can 
 be of much assistance in solving Maya historical problems, as they 
 are all merely text-books explaining the meaning of signs, the 
 elementary principles of their respective calendars and certain 
 phases of lunar, solar, and in a few places, bissextile and chrono 
 logical reckoning. I believe the figures usually supposed to repre 
 sent deities to be only personifications of different periods or phases 
 of time, and that most of the glyphs are merely numerals or sym 
 bols used for the occasion in their numerative sense only." 
 
 It is plain, therefore, that much of the supposed interpretation 
 of the Maya inscriptions has had little solid foundation, has in 
 fact been little better than guesswork. There was one sanguine 
 translator who was discovered to have begun at the wrong end of 
 the book ! The readings of the Maya inscriptions sometimes sug 
 gest that other mysterious operation of certain brilliant scholars 
 of our time, the discovery and reading of the Shakespeare-Baconian 
 cipher. The lack of real understanding of the Maya subject is 
 pretty well indicated by the various estimates of the value of 
 Landa s legacy, One author, Holden, states that it was a positive 
 misfortune, while Goodman, after following other lines for a time, 
 returns to Landa as the only real foundation for accurate study. 
 There is even yet difference of opinion as to the proper directions, 
 left to right or up and down, etc., in which the works are to be 
 read when they are read. Apparently the first sensible thing to 
 be done is to gather together all that Landa wrote and reduce it to 
 a shape that will place it before the greatest number of students, in 
 connection with specimens of every kind of a mark or picture that 
 by any possibility might have alphabetic significance. A striking 
 peculiarity of the Maya remains is that there are not found any pre 
 liminary or originating forms of the glyphs. " We are compelled 
 therefore to admit," says Thomas, " that the origin of this writing 
 is a mystery we are unable to fully penetrate." It may be that 
 the forms from which it was derived were recorded on skins, on 
 wood, or on bark, and in that case they probably disappeared be 
 fore the beginning of the Maya decline. " A difference, it is 
 true," says Thomas, 2 " in the forms and ornamentation, and, to 
 a certain degree, an advance toward a more perfect type, can be 
 traced, but no examples, so far as the writer is aware, of the first 
 
 1 Cyrus Thomas, Introduction to Study of American Archcsology, p. 361. 
 * Ibid., p. 343. 
 
Mexican and Central-American Writing, Etc. 79 
 
 rude beginnings or the original forms have been found. Some 
 comparatively rude are found painted on pottery, scratched on 
 
 Peabody Museum 
 
 FEMALE HEAD IN TRACHYTE 
 From slope north of Temple 22 Copan. Slightly larger than life 
 
 shells or other soft material, but these belong to what may be 
 termed demotic writing and are not primitive forms. Comparing 
 the characters of the various inscriptions which have been dis- 
 
So The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 covered and those found in the few remaining pre-Columbian 
 manuscripts, the result is as follows : First, it is apparent that the 
 characters in the manuscripts have been adapted from those of the 
 inscriptions. In other words, inscriptions preceded the manu 
 scripts ; hence we must look to the former for the older forms. 
 What appear to the writer to be the oldest forms of the glyphs yet 
 discovered are seen in those of Palenque and some of the inscrip 
 tions found by Charnay at Menche (Ivorillard City), though others 
 discovered by him at this same place belong to the later and more 
 ornamental type, discovered in the Peten region, that is those 
 carved in wood discovered by Bernouilli at Tikal, a type also 
 found at Copan and Chichen Itza, but in none of the inscriptions 
 at Palenque." For my part, I cannot see that Thomas-has exactly 
 proved that the manuscripts were later than the stone-carved in 
 scriptions, but his knowledge of the subject is so great and his 
 methods so cautious that I am glad to give his statement in this 
 connection. 
 
 The Maya glyphs probably developed out of something like the 
 Mexican or Aztec writing ; and the step was not a very long one 
 from writing of the character of the Lenape Walam Oluni to that 
 of the Aztec, and again it was not a long step from the ordinary 
 picture-writing to the Walam Olum, so that it would seem that in 
 these various writings we have an interesting series of steps from 
 the crudest attempts at records, nearly, if not quite, to the highest, 
 for it must be borne in mind that the step from the Maya glyphs 
 to a true phonetic alphabet would be even shorter than any of the 
 others. It is not impossible that something of the kind may yet 
 be discovered. While the Mayas had made little progress in me 
 chanical inventions, their progress in architecture, art, writing, 
 and in astronomy is a proof that they were a thinking people, 
 and, had conditions continued favourable to their progress, the 
 Spaniards would have found them not easy to vanquish. The 
 prominent and striking quality of the calculiform style has had a 
 tendency to obscure the point that there may have been another 
 system in vogue, more simple, more modern, in short purely 
 phonetic. Perfected phonetic characters are simple characters and 
 are likely not to attract notice, especially when attention has been 
 fixed on other forms. 
 
 So far as now understood, there is no relationship between any 
 kind of Amerindian writing and that of other races. Like every- 
 
Mexican and Central-American Writing, Etc. Si 
 
 thing else pertaining to the Amerind people, the development 
 appears to have been purely indigenous. Le Plongeon, however, 
 asserts that " abundant proofs of the intimate communications 
 of the ancient Mayas with the civilised nations of Asia, Africa, 
 and Europe are to be found among the remains of their ruined 
 cities." 1 The grounds accepted for this statement do not seem 
 to be sufficient to satisfy other investigators. Certainly if there 
 was any inter-communication, it was before the acquirement of 
 iron-working in other countries, as so far no prehistoric iron has 
 been found in the ruins of Yucatan. 
 
 Field Columbian Museum W. H. Holmes 
 
 USUAL TYPE OF SCULPTURED "YOKES," CENTRAL AMERICA 
 
 15^ inches long; 14^ inches wide ; thickness, 3^ x 4% inches 
 
 Substance: Dark, greenish grey, very compact, chlorite; surface well polished. Carving of a 
 
 frog or toad 
 
 After the coming of the Spaniards, some of the Mayas soon 
 learned their alphabet and the missionaries added, says Brinton, 
 " a sufficient number of signs to it to express with tolerable ac 
 curacy the phonetics of the Maya tongue. Relying on their 
 memories, and, no doubt, aided by some manuscripts secretly pre- 
 1 Queen Moo, by A. Le Plongeon, p. xv. 
 
82 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 served, many natives set to work to write out in this new alphabet 
 the contents of their ancient records. Much was added which 
 had been brought in by the Europeans, and much omitted which 
 had become unintelligible or obsolete since the Conquest, while of 
 course the different writers varying in skill and knowledge pro 
 duced works of very various merit. Nevertheless each of these 
 books bore the same name. In whatever village it was written, 
 or by whatever hand, it always was, and to-day still is,, called The 
 Book of Chilan Balam. To distinguish them apart, the name of 
 the village where a copy was found or written is added. Probably 
 in the last century almost every village had one, which was treas 
 ured with superstitious veneration." Sixteen of these curious 
 books are known to exist, but there has never been a complete 
 translation of any of them. The following specimen is from The 
 Book of Chilan Balam of the town of Mani, and is taken from 
 Brinton s Chronicles of the Maya. 1 
 
 " Lai u tzolan katun lukci ti cab ti yotoch Nonoual cante anilo Tu- 
 tulxiu ti chikin Zuiua u luumil u talelob Tulapan chiconahthan . " 
 
 Translation : " This is the arrangement of the katuns since the 
 departure was made from the land, from the house Nonoual, where 
 were the four Tutulxiu, from Zuiva at the West : they came from 
 the land Tulapan, having formed a league." 
 
 The strange title of these books is derived from that of the 
 priests or shamans, who were believed to have divine powers. They 
 date from 1595. The Maya books at present known are three, 
 one in two parts, with these titles : i. Codex Tro or Troano, 70 
 pages, found by the Abbe Brasseur at Madrid ; 2. Codex Cortes- 
 ianus? so named because of a belief that it was brought to Europe 
 by Cortes, also at Madrid, and believed to be a part of the Tro- 
 ano ; 3. Dresden Codex, 74 pages, in the Royal Library, Dresden ; 
 4. Codex Peresianus, 22 pages, the one discovered in the Paris 
 Bibliotheque National by De Rosny, and given its title from the 
 name Perez, written on the outer wrapper. Besides these it has 
 been supposed that there are several in private hands. The 
 Quiches, of Mayan stock, had a sacred book called the Popol 
 Vuh* and the allied Cakchiquels had their Records of Tecpan 
 
 1 Pp. 95 and 100. 
 
 2 The "Codex Cortesianus is considered to furnish a connecting link 
 between Maya and Mexican symbols." Powell. 
 
 3 Written in 1558. An abridgment of an older book. 
 
Mexican and Central-American Writing, Etc. 83 
 
 Atitlan. Other tribes or stocks of the Mexican region undoubt 
 edly had books and records also, but in the present state of 
 knowledge nothing definite can be said about them. But there 
 was a general high development of all, or at least, the majority, 
 of the stocks occupying Mexico and Central America in the 
 fifteenth century and before, so that it is entirely reasonable to 
 expect a considerable corresponding development in the line of 
 picture-writing, hieroglyphs or alphabets. These, in some cases, 
 will come to our knowledge, just as the new hieroglyph attributed 
 to the Zapotecs recently rewarded the investigations of Saville, 
 
 The numeral systems of these people were well developed, 
 and they were able to make exact calculations in astronomical, 
 and in all other matters. The Aztecs used dots from one to ten, 
 or twenty, and then symbols. The Mayas used dots only to four, 
 and then dots and lines to nineteen, beyond which little is known 
 of their method. Like all the rest of the Maya subject, there is 
 in this line of investigation considerable confusion and great un 
 certainty. The table herewith given is a suggestion of a possible 
 line of study. It seems to me to be the method that was followed, 
 though my arrangement or even the figures arc not correct. 
 I introduce it here, before bestowing upon it further study, because 
 it may contain an idea that will start someone else on a right track. 
 It has been generally accepted that one dot is one, two dots two, 
 and so on to four * *, after which five was a straight line, . 
 
 Here arises a question. Did the dots and lines mean the same 
 when horizontal as when vertical ? They occur both ways in the 
 inscriptions and in the manuscripts, and Goodman takes them to 
 
 be the same. Vertical and horizontal occur together frequently, 
 
 
 thus: \\\(&\ from PI. 51, Dresden Codex. A doubt fills my 
 
 mind, however, on this point. It is possible that when vertical 
 the dots and lines had a different meaning. On this assumption, 
 the two, three, etc., horizontally placed would mean either one, 
 two, three, etc., or some higher figures, leaving the vertically 
 placed ones to take their place as one, two, three, etc. I assume 
 that the vertical ones were the beginning. The Maya system was 
 a vigesimal one, that is, a counting by twenties. Every new 
 twenty, therefore, would be represented by a new symbol. Re 
 ferring to the table, it will be seen that the dots and lines ver 
 tically placed and combined carry the table easily to nineteen, 
 
 6 
 
84 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 that is, a dot beside the five line gives six, two five lines give ten, 
 three, fifteen, while the addition of the dots carries the count quite 
 naturally to the nineteen. It is now necessary to adopt a sign for 
 twenty, and there have been adopted by various authors as many 
 various signs, with several variants in each lot. Once settle on a 
 symbol for twenty, and the road is easy to twenty-nine by plac 
 ing the dots and lines horizontally. Thomas gives this figure 
 {^} for twenty, 1 but I do not believe it is twenty, and for 
 convenience will adopt this *|. Then to get twenty-one it would 
 
 be simple for the Maya to put a little cross on each side of 
 
 X 
 the dot, that is above and below, . This figure is frequent, 
 
 /\ 
 
 c ( 
 
 and it is varied sometimes by this , and by this >; , which 
 
 Brinton assumes all to be variants of twenty. I take it they 
 are variants of twenty-one and twenty-two, or of one and two. 
 Running down to twenty-nine by means of the dots and lines, we 
 arrive at the necessity for a new symbol for forty, and I take a 
 common symbol in the inscriptions, /J . To follow precisely the 
 method indicated by progress thus far, we would put a dot in 
 side of this for forty-one, but the Maya does not seem to have done 
 this, but made a slight change, perhaps to avoid confusion, and he 
 
 put the dot outside and to the left, fj . Four of these dots 
 make forty-four, and then forty-five is represented by a straight 
 line vertically within. Dots now outside as before carry to forty- 
 nine, when a vertical line replacing the dots gives fifty. Adding 
 dots again as before leads to fifty-four, while doubling the lines 
 with the dots produces all figures up to fifty-nine, ;|/Q- Then 
 once more a new character is needed to go on, and one is chosen 
 that is very common in the Dresden Codex, occurring in a number 
 of different forms. It is this <^> in its simple form. Thomas 
 takes it in this form <5g^ for naught, and Forsteman for the 
 same numeral in this form ^3T^. The difference between these 
 two is immediately apparent, and it seems that both these able in 
 vestigators have made a mistake in this respect. It is as if some 
 
 1 Goodman gives these three signs for 20 
 
 remarks, "the last of the three being drawn with a great variety of detail." 
 Biologia Central* Americana, part viii., p. 64. 
 
Mexican and Central-American Writing, Etc. 85 
 
 future investigator should give as our naught the figure 6 and 
 the figure 9. The simple form is possibly one of the chief Maya 
 numerals and the enclosed lines give it the necessary differen 
 tiation. Some change occurs again here, in the system I have 
 attempted to outline. There are used lines instead of dots, 
 though dots also were used, and the horizontal line does not 
 appear to have been doubled ; at least I have been unable to 
 find an example of it, though, as the number of manuscripts is 
 limited, I could hardly expect to find examples of all the figures 
 in them. The carved inscriptions being, as is believed, older 
 than the manuscripts, there would be a difference between the 
 numerals in them and in the books. But we will take the simple 
 character <^> for, say, sixty. It may be mentioned again that 
 these selections and their order are merely tentative. Only by 
 long study might the matter be determined. Adding lines trans 
 versely as found in the Dresden Codex, we arrive easily at 
 sixty-four. Following the previous system, a horizontal line 
 with an upward curve then gives ^^^ sixty-five, and transverse 
 lines again take us to sixty-nine. A horizontal line with a down 
 curve produces seventy ^^^. Seventy-four would then be ^1^, 
 and as the horizontal line seems not to have been doubled we are 
 forced to choose another character for seventy-five <^!>. A 
 down curved horizontal line then gives seventy-six ^~^, while 
 for seventy-seven an entirely new form is used. The reversal of 
 seventy-five and seventy -six carries to seventy-nine. The cross 
 lines in some cases appear to have been used up to sixty-seven. 
 There are so many different figures of this kind that it is pos 
 sible they were used interchangeably in some cases. For 
 eighty a new figure is required, and I have selected one that 
 occurs frequently in the Dresden book, in shape something like a 
 
 bow, I . A series of dots readily carries to eighty-four, and 
 then the substitution of a line like a bow-string gives eighty-five 
 
 ij 
 
 The next step at ninety would be to double this bow 
 
 string, but this seems not to have been done, as I can find no ex 
 ample of it. But I do find a differentiation in another way, 
 probably because in this figure doubling the string would be 
 clumsy. The difference is made by a rider on the string, and there 
 
3 
 V 
 
 S 
 
 (, 
 
 1 
 6 
 9 
 
 fO 
 
 II 
 /2. 
 3 
 V 
 
 >s- 
 
 flo 
 
 | 
 4 
 
 7 
 /fr 
 
 I 
 II 
 
 II 
 
 : ll 
 
 ill 
 
 23 
 
 ^5" 
 
 1<c 
 
 3/ 
 
 33 
 
 -|IO 
 
 s ^ : IIO 
 
 iir N 
 
 = :||0 ^ 
 
 = ^illO 
 
 From drawing by the author 
 
 A SUGGESTION OF THE POSSIBLE SCHEME OK MAYA NUMERALS. WHOLLY 
 
 TENTATIVE 
 
 Founded on figures in the codices and on tablets 
 86 
 
Mexican and Central-American Writing, Etc. 87 
 
 are two kinds of rider, one a point or triangle, and the other a 
 double square. Taking one of these riders for ninety, and then 
 
 the dots beside it, we find ourselves at ninety-four f|. Then with 
 the other rider on the string for ninety-five we arrive by means of 
 
 the dots at ninety-nine 
 
 Then comes a demand for a character 
 
 for one hundred, and this appears to have been merely a circle. A 
 dot beside it would give 101, and so on by adding, out or in, the 
 various symbols 199 is reached. To get to 299 it is only nec 
 essary to add another circle. For 500 some other symbol must 
 be adopted, and the apparent one is a sort of circle with a kind of 
 scarf knot at the top, or perhaps it can be described as a knotted 
 
 scarf, 
 
 Taking this as 500 we can easily arrive 
 
 at 599. An extra circle within will then carry to 
 
 and so on by adding circles up to 1000. Thomas in one of his ad 
 mirable discussions of Maya writing is puzzled by what he terms 
 ornamental loops around some of the numerals, but if the line I 
 have indicated here has any sense in it these ornamental loops 
 would be 602, 604, etc., or some other numbers depending on the 
 proper place for this symbol in the general scheme. The series of 
 " loops " mentioned by Thomas is this: 
 
 Something might be determined by a comparison of these sym 
 bols with the known names of numbers. The Mayas counted into 
 the millions, so they must have had a perfected system. 
 1 Sixth Ann. Rep. Bu. Eth., p. 337. 
 
 U. s. BU. Eth. 
 
 OMAHA CALUMET 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 OMAHA WAR CLUB 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 BASKETRY AND POTTERY 
 
 ALMOST every tribe the world round seems to have acquired 
 at a very early stage in its progress a knowledge of plaiting 
 rushes, strips of bark, or other simple substances, for use 
 as beds, covering of shelters, etc., and in this knowledge may be 
 discovered the beginnings of several arts of the first importance 
 to man : basketry, weaving, and pottery. Basketry and pottery 
 are mother and daughter. Plaiting together straws or rushes was 
 a simple operation and must have occurred to the most primitive 
 tribes spontaneously as the need for some such thing arose. Hav 
 ing produced a mat and used it for various purposes, the turning 
 up of the sides, or edges, for the purpose of retaining things upon 
 it, thereby producing a shallow basket or tray, was an easy step, 
 and by such stages did basketry grow to perfection. 1 The Ame 
 rinds excelled particularly in this art, and there were few tribes 
 without ability to make baskets and other wicker-work, the char 
 acter and excellence of which depended to a considerable extent 
 on the material available. 
 
 Wicker jugs, rendered water-tight by means of pitch, were in 
 vented and used for cookery, hot stones being introduced through 
 the wide mouth, to bring the contents to the required temperature, 
 and it was the effort to protect the basketry used in the various 
 culinary operations from the effects of the heat that led to coatings 
 of mud or clay, which being hardened by the fire, disclosed the 
 1 If a small mat is tightly plaited out of fine materials its edges will turn 
 up naturally, and it will be dish-like in spite of every effort to keep it flat. 
 
 88 
 
Basketry and Pottery 
 
 great secret. There is still in use among some of the more primi 
 tive tribes of America a " boiling-basket," that is, a wicker jug 
 rendered water- proof, and in which food is cooked as indicated. 
 In Zuni this basket was known as a " coiled cooking basket," and 
 
 NORTH-WEST COAST FEATHER ORNAMENTATION ON BASKETS 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 ESKIMO BAG-BASKET, 
 
 MOKI WICKER WATER-JUG 
 Similar to boiling-basket 
 
 the corrugated earthen pot used to this day is called a " coiled 
 earthenware cooking basket." And the Navajos still call earthen 
 ware pots, " kle-it-tsa " or mud-basket. In these terms is seen a 
 clear indication of the origin of pottery among the Amerinds in 
 basketry. Gushing found these boiling-baskets in use a few years 
 
9 o 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 ago among the Havasupai, who live an isolated life in northern 
 Arizona, and I saw similar jugs among the Amerinds of Utah 
 twenty years ago, and some more recently among the Moki, the 
 latter, however, not using them for boiling purposes, and perhaps 
 not being the makers of them. They are bottle-shaped, but with 
 wide mouths, and provided near their rims with a sort of cord or 
 strap for a handle attached to two loops or eyes. In some of the 
 pots derived from this form these loops are represented by little 
 knobs of clay, or by an ornament. 
 
 Gushing describes the Havasupai in Arizona as using a wicker 
 
 tray lined with 
 clay for the pur 
 pose of roasting 
 or parching 
 seeds, and this 
 was probably 
 used by all prim 
 itive peoples. 
 The seeds were 
 placed on the 
 clay - lined tray 
 and agitated 
 with live coals. 
 Naturally the 
 clay is hardened 
 by the heat of the 
 
 coals, and would be sure to suggest the making of utensils from it by 
 means of fire. The turning up of the edges would follow the use 
 of the first trays made of clay, in imitation of wicker bowls, and so 
 would other forms of basketry be imitated, as well as forms in horn, 
 wood or shell. Perhaps the wicker jugs may have been coated 
 with clay on the outside for protection, and eventually the heat 
 not only baked the clay but destroyed the wicker framework that 
 had supported it. Thus jugs of clay may have been made by 
 burning away the framework every time, just as Lamb s discov 
 erer of roast pig could find no other way of securing his toothsome 
 morsel than that of burning down the house. Or the jar may 
 have been modelled on the inside and then the wicker burned 
 off. When we speak contemptuously of primitive peoples it is 
 well to remember that they were inventors as well as ourselves. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 HAVASUPAI CLAY-LINED ROASTING TRAY 
 
Basketry and Pottery 
 
 9 1 
 
 When the art of pottery was discovered basketry remained 
 in use, for pottery could not take its place in many uses then 
 any more than it can to-day. The environment and habits of a 
 tribe controlled the amount, the quality, the character, of both 
 basketry and pottery. A tribe possessing plenty of good clay 
 would make more and better pottery than one finding clay difficult 
 to acquire, provided both had reached the same degree of pro 
 ficiency in this art, but mere abundance of good clay would not 
 necessarily make skilful potters ; that is, the degree of progress in 
 culture of a tribe and other factors of environment than the presence 
 or absence of good clay in quantity had much to do with pottery - 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 IROQUOIS BIRCHBARK VESSEL 
 
 NORTH-WEST COAST BASKET, 
 
 making. For example, the Pueblos and the Navajos occupy the 
 same kind of a region, or rather the same region, with plenty of 
 clay and a similar abundance of yucca, willows, etc., for basketry, 
 yet the Pueblos carried pottery-making to a high degree of excel 
 lence, while the Navajos produced only a limited amount of inferior 
 ware. Nor is this a matter of intelligence, for the Navajos are as 
 intelligent as any Amerinds living, and besides, as has been men 
 tioned, probably have a strong infusion of Pueblo blood. While 
 the Navajos have gone farther in silver- and iron-smithing, they 
 have lagged behind in pottery and house-building. So it is also 
 with basketry. While the Pueblos no longer make boiling-baskets 
 or jugs, or at least, if they do occasionally make them, they do not 
 use them for cooking purposes, yet they produce some fine trays 
 
The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 and bowls. 1 Inclination and fancy, as well as necessity, have 
 much to do with the development of the arts. Tribes might 
 attain a wonderful development politically, like the Iroquois, and 
 yet possess hardly any proficiency in any art, while others, like 
 the Navajos, with scarcely any political development, possess 
 "high artistic skill in weaving and metal-working, but none in 
 pottery. Great in war and government the Iroquois certainly 
 were, but they had not reached the border line of artistic develop 
 ment. Neither weavers, potters, nor builders were they (though 
 
 Bandelier main 
 tains that their 
 long-house was as 
 difficult of con 
 struction as any 
 house the Pueblos 
 build), and, out 
 side of the idea of 
 the league, their 
 government was 
 not much superior 
 to that of the 
 Pueblos. Their 
 potter}-, limited in 
 quantity, was 
 very inferior t o 
 that of many 
 other Amerinds. 
 It is probable that 
 following the line 
 of race develop 
 ment they would eventually have produced excellent ware, but the 
 iron pot made its appearance and progress in pottery was doomed. 
 On the North-west coast little or no pottery is found. Quality 
 and quantity increase as we approach Yucatan. 
 
 Tribes with unfavourable environment would find it next to 
 impossible to acquire skill in pottery. The Eskimo, with a tem 
 perature for the greater part of the year near or below freezing, 
 
 1 See the American Anthropologist, April, 1894, vol. vii., "The Basket 
 Drum," by Washington Matthews, as an illustration of how a certain 
 specialty in an art may survive after the art itself is neglected. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MCCLOUD RIVER BASKET, CALIFORNIA 
 
MOKI FOOD BASKET 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 KLAMATH BASKET. 
 93 
 
94 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 and a scarcity of fuel, would find moulding forms out of wet clay 
 about the last occupation to think of. The Eskimo, therefore, 
 made almost nothing of clay except occasionally a lamp. 1 The 
 Kutchins of the Yukon country make pots and cups of clay, but 
 in the main the Far Northern people rely on basketry, soapstone, 
 and on metallic vessels obtained from the whites. Nor is the 
 North land entirely favourable to basketry, yet the Aleut basket- 
 work is exceedingly fine in texture, some of their productions 
 being almost a cloth. This is specially true of baskets made on 
 the island of Attu of the Aleutian chain. These are usually 
 cylindrical, sometimes fitted with a cover of the same material. 
 So soft and pliable are they that they can barely sustain an upright 
 position. This fine texture is a characteristic of all the basketry 
 of the North-west coast, but there is not much variety in form and 
 the artistic shapes so common with the Amerinds southward of the 
 Columbia are absent. The decorations are similar to those of other 
 Amerinds and are woven in with quills, grasses, feathers, bits of 
 silk, or worsteds, apropriately coloured. In the interior of the 
 Northern lands, the Kniks and others make a substitute for 
 baskets out of thin boards steamed and bent around a flat bottom 
 piece which fits into a groove in the board. It is fastened in place 
 with split roots or skin thongs. Among the Eskimo sealskin 
 cups and buckets are used, and some made of whalebone, but 
 they also make a basket out of coiled grasses, which is artistic 
 and has a variety of interesting forms. East of Point Barrow 
 baskets are rare. Birchbark vessels of various kinds were used 
 by many tribes as substitutes for baskets, and doubtless some 
 forms in pottery were derived from these vessels as well as from 
 baskets. Some tribes made pottery and then, as circumstances 
 changed, they abandoned its use and finally forgot how to make it. 
 Dorsey states that " pottery has not been made by the Omaha 
 for more than fifty years. The art of making it has been for 
 gotten by the tribe." a 
 
 Various conditions might cause a tribe to cease making pot 
 tery, if it were not a sedentary tribe. One constantly on the move 
 would either never learn to make pottery, or if, during some seden 
 tary period, it had acquired this art it would soon drop it, because 
 
 1 Murdoch found fragments of a cooking pot at Point Barrow. Ninth 
 Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 91. Rude cups were also sometimes made. 
 8 Thirteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 276. 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MOKI FLOOR MAT. 
 95 
 
The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 in primitive travel basketry and gourds are lighter and more 
 serviceable than the crude pottery they could produce. Thus if 
 
 a tribe living a com- 
 paratively quiet life 
 and developing the 
 potter s art came into 
 possession of the 
 horse, the pottery 
 might be abandoned 
 because it could not 
 readily be transported. 
 This would apply only 
 to tribes making rude 
 pottery, for where a 
 people had attained 
 
 great proficiency in this direction they would not give it up, 
 except, as in the case of Taos, they could purchase nearby a 
 sufficient supply. Proficiency would only accompany a sedentary 
 life, so that great skill in pottery would be a rather sure index of 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO WHALEBONE DISH 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 CLALLAM BASKET, WASHINGTON. 
 
 the character and progress of a people in other directions. While 
 a people might achieve progress without doing much in pottery, 
 
APACHE BASKET. 
 
 PAI UTE WATER-JUG. 
 
 KLAMATH BASKE1 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MOKI FOOD TRAY. 
 
 AMERIND WICKER-WORK 
 
98 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 if they did excel in pottery it would be an indication of excellence 
 in other lines. Pottery is well-nigh imperishable, and therefore it 
 is often the chief record that a departed people has left behind. 
 Where almost every other distinguishing vestige has completely 
 disappeared, we may frequently still discover scattered on the sur 
 face fragments of pottery, or buried in the soil complete specimens, 
 which by their form, texture, or decorative treatment tell what 
 manner of people these were who lived their lives and passed away; 
 tell the limits of their distribution, and also to what other tribes or 
 people they were related. Pottery therefore, next to actual records 
 and inscriptions, is probably the most valuable as well as often 
 the only kind of remains, that a race has left. 
 
 European pottery has long received close attention from archae 
 ologists, but it is only within recent years that it has been thought 
 worth while to study that of the Western continent. Like the 
 other remains of the Amerinds, their pottery was not considered of 
 much importance by archaeologists, and while American money 
 and talent were being bestowed upon the well-worked European 
 field, our Amerind pottery was abandoned to the curiosity hunter. 
 The artistic qualities of the Old World pottery fascinated the 
 student, and this, together with a natural deep interest in peoples 
 closely associated with our own past, served to obscure the real 
 value of an investigation of the Amerind field for the information 
 that might be disclosed concerning the character and distribution 
 of Amerind tribes, for its bearing on the history of the ceramic art 
 in general, as well as for its story of primitive effort and invention. 
 Pottery is said to have been invented 2698 years B.C. by the 
 Chinese emperor Hoang-ti, but of course it was made by some 
 tribes long before this. Like every other art, it existed among 
 some tribes, while other tribes had no knowledge of it. There 
 was never a time, and there never will be a time, when all people 
 possess an equal degree of information or skill, so that when 
 something has been invented or discovered by one tribe or people 
 it may have been in use for a long period by another. At the be 
 ginning of the Columbian era, most of the Amerinds knew how to 
 make some kind of earthenware. Various methods were used 
 in various places to produce the pottery. Some was modelled in 
 baskets or on basket forms, right side up or up side down as hap 
 pened to be necessary, some was modelled in a hole in the ground, or 
 in the lap, and still other groups were produced by coiling round 
 
Basketry and Pottery 99 
 
 and round slender ropes of clay, which were afterwards smoothed 
 off or not as suited the knowledge or desire of the potter. The pro 
 gression in a general way was probably about this : i. Made on the 
 inside of a wicker form confined chiefly to bowls ; 2. Made on a 
 netting in a mould hole ; 3. Coil-made ; 4. Free-hand modelling ; 
 5. Wheel-made, which Amerinds appear never to have attained. 
 There was doubtless no sharp line of separation between these 
 various processes, but they merged into each other. The coil 
 process was about the highest development of the Amerind 
 potter s skill, and it was in use all over the continent. As 
 Holmes points out in his admirable paper, 1 the Pueblos are the 
 only people who used the coil as a means of decoration as well 
 as construction, so far as now known. All the other potters 
 smoothed the coils off so that no trace eventually was left of 
 them, and this is the practice of the modern Moki potters. 
 They work by no special rule. According to my own observation, 
 the making of pottery is a desultory occupation and is done by the 
 women. Sometimes I saw a woman toiling alone with her ropes 
 of clay, out-of-doors, and again several women would form a gay, 
 laughing party in the sunlight. When the work is dry the paint 
 ing and decorating are done by means of a little, long, string-like 
 brush made of yucca fibre. This brush is like a piece of coarse 
 twine, about three inches long, without a handle, very limber, and 
 apparently entirely inadequate, yet they easily accomplished all 
 they desired to do with it. In order to turn the work while in 
 process of manufacture, and not injure it or destroy its shape, it is 
 generally built upon a wicker tray. In this way it can be readily 
 swung round and round, as the potter pays out the clay rope and 
 adjusts it in place. This is the nearest approach to the potter s 
 wheel that seems ever to have been known on the American conti 
 nent. While many shapes are based on some form in basketry, or 
 wood, or horn, or shell, or bark, a great many are pure inventions, 
 the result of fancy or inclination. 
 
 In preparing the clay, sand or pulverised potsherds were mixed 
 with it to temper it and prevent cracking. This was sometimes so 
 coarse and abundant in the old pottery that in the fragments 
 picked up one can frequently see large grains of sand. 
 
 All pottery of primitive races belongs to the class known as soft 
 
 1 W. H. Holmes, Fourth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., "Pottery of the Ancient 
 Pueblos." 
 
ioo The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 pottery, as distinguished from what we call stoneware or hard 
 pottery in its different forms. The Amerinds were no exception, 
 and all their pottery is soft unglazed ware. 1 The reason for this 
 lies in the fact that the making of hard pottery requires not only 
 an extensive knowledge of the poperties of clay, but, what is more, 
 a temperature for firing of about 4000 Fahrenheit, a temperature 
 which can be obtained only in a furnace or retort, of which Ame 
 rinds were apparently ignorant, their pottery being burned, in 
 
 From photo by the author, 1884 
 MODELLING AN OLLA AT HANO 
 
 The potter was not aware of being 
 photographed 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 METHOD OF BUILDING UP COIL 
 
 historic and prehistoric times, in the open air. The common 
 modern method among the Pueblos is to burn with sheep dung, 
 but they are said to have used in ancient times deadwood, common 
 wood, and coal. The method was usually the same in all cases ; 
 the ware was piled up and then covered with the fuel in such a 
 manner that there would be as little as possible direct contact. 
 They also sometimes baked the ware in hot ashes with a fire 
 
 1 The Amerind paste was generally quite dark, a light surface colour 
 being obtained by a " slip." But I have found fragments of a pinkish-white 
 ware in Arizona the same colour all the way through. 
 
Basketry and Pottery 101 
 
 above, and sometimes they dug a pit which they lined with the 
 fuel. A rich shiny black ware was obtained in some localities by 
 allowing the ware to come in contact with the fuel and, at a certain 
 period in the burning, smothering the fire. This produced an 
 apparent glaze as well, an effect obtained also by rubbing and 
 polishing before the firing. But there is no true glazing in any 
 Amerind ware, at least not north of Mexico. Even had they 
 known the process they would have been baffled in attempting to 
 put it in practice, for glazing requires a temperature of at least 
 1300 Fahrenheit, and they apparently had no means of securing 
 it. 1 All of their ware can be scratched with a knife, which is a 
 test of soft ware, and while some of it seems to have lustre, it is 
 the lustre of polish, not of glaze. Some ware, however, recently 
 found in the Central- American region appears to have a true glaze. 
 Some tribes make a variety of kinds of ware, while others confine 
 themselves to some special kind, and still others, as mentioned in 
 the case of Taos, buy all they use and make none. The Pueblos 
 to-day are extensive potters, especially the Zufiis and the Mokis, 
 and produce large quantities of varied ware, which, while similar 
 in many respects to that of the ancients of the region, is not so 
 fine nor so well formed. At the Chaco ruins Pepper found a 
 number of tube-shaped vases, about four inches diameter and a 
 foot high, with four small perforated handles. In the course 
 of time enormous quantities must have been made in the South 
 west, for the ground is everywhere strewn with fragments of it. 
 This would indicate either a dense population or a very long 
 occupation by a comparatively sparse one, and thus far the evi 
 dence is in favour of the latter hypothesis. In such a dry climate 
 as exists in the South-west, even soft pottery is almost indestruct 
 ible when not exposed to river or ice action. In such cases it 
 would soon be destroyed. Though the Colorado River runs 
 through the length of the ancient Pueblo country, and receives 
 many branches whose valleys, like its own, reveal myriads of 
 fragments, I never found a specimen in the river gravels. If 
 this is the case, how could we expect to find remains of pottery in 
 glacial drift ? 
 
 Another kind of pottery has lately been found by Lumholtz at 
 Teuchitlan, State of Jalisco, Mexico. It is a sort of cloisonne, 
 
 1 The earthenware of the Greeks and Romans was not glazed, but cov 
 ered with wax, bitumen, etc. 
 
102 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 apparently made by firing the plain ware and then applying a 
 thick slip which, when dry, was engraved with a pattern down to 
 
 the baked surface. 
 The parts cut 
 away were then 
 smoothly filled in 
 with a white paste 
 and with paste of 
 other colours, pro 
 ducing some ex 
 cellent effects. 
 Another firing 
 then fixed the su 
 perimposed paste. 
 There are nu 
 merous specimens 
 in the American 
 Museum. 
 
 y z The valley of 
 
 the Mississippi is 
 as prolific in its yield of pottery as the South-west, though most of it 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 WARE FROM MOKI REGION, ARIZONA. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 WARE FROM MOKI REGION, ARIZONA. 
 
 is found in mounds. It has therefore been attributed to a departed 
 and mysterious race which has been called " Moundbuilder." 
 
Basketry and Pottery 
 
 103 
 
 CUP FROM ARIZONA. 
 
 These mounds, however, were clearly the work of different tribes 
 and were erected for different purposes, and there is no evidence to 
 show that the build 
 ers were not Ame 
 rinds, similar to 
 tribes that were en 
 countered by our 
 people. True, some 
 of these tribes or 
 stocks may have be 
 come extinct before 
 whites entered the 
 region, for tribes 
 rose to power, dwin 
 dled, and disap 
 peared, but that does 
 not prove that they 
 were anything but 
 Amerinds, even 
 though they may have developed qualities and arts not practised 
 by Amerinds we have known. That there are some marked differ 
 ences between 
 some of the so- 
 called Mound- 
 builder ware and 
 some other Ame 
 rind pottery is 
 freely admitted, 
 but why this 
 should indicate 
 that there was 
 any mystery 
 about the former 
 is not intelli 
 gible, for there 
 are many differ- 
 
 VASE FROM ARKANSAS, SHOWING LINES MADE WITH A ences j n the prO- 
 SHARP PO!NT BEFORE FIRING. % dUCtS of existing 
 
 tribes and stocks. 1 As has been mentioned, the Pueblos are 
 1 With all the differences, however, an examination of pottery from 
 
IO4 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 extremely good potters, while their neighbours the Navajos 
 practically are no potters at all. Had the Pueblos become ex 
 tinct before the appearance of the European, what a fine chance 
 this would have been to speculate on who these mysterious 
 and departed people were who built superior houses of stone and 
 made splendid pottery ! Oh no, they could never have been com 
 mon " Indians," they must have been a migration from China, or 
 Japan ! Unfortunately for writers of the romantic school, the 
 Pueblo is still there, and he is an ordinary Amerind, in some ways 
 hardly as intelligent as his neighbour who makes no pottery and 
 builds no houses. There is no reason, then, for assuming that 
 there was anything extraordinary about any of the former occu 
 pants of the Mississippi valley. They were, at least some of them 
 were, skilful potters, and some had sense enough to dig out copper 
 and hammer it into shapes ; but what is there in this that should 
 lead us to exalt them above other Amerinds ? Progress in the arts 
 may vary among associated stocks, and also among different 
 branches of the same stock. In the Mississippi-valley pottery 
 there was a tendency toward upright bottle-shaped vessels with 
 long necks, while the tendency of the Pueblo ware is in the direc 
 tion of the bowl. There are also long tray-like vessels in the Mis 
 sissippi valley, which do not occur at all amongst the Pueblo ware, 
 and there are more animal shapes, birds, etc. A series of the 
 Mississippi-valley forms suggests a knowledge of the wheel, but 
 it is not likely that they had it, though it is possible. Anyone 
 who has watched the progress of a common jug turning on one of 
 our potter s wheels, must be struck by the series of fine shapes the 
 lump of clay passes through before assuming its last form. Such 
 a progression appears in the Mississippi valley ware, but these 
 jars were all probably made by the " coil " process, which was 
 still in use in the Mississippi valley after the advent of our people. 
 Holmes states positively : " The wheel or lathe has not been 
 used." The pottery of Chiriqui, a province near Panama, is re 
 markable for perfection of finish and execution and a similar 
 suggestion of mechanical aids. In this case Holmes says : " Not 
 withstanding the fact that only primitive methods were known, 
 
 all over North America will convince auy close observer of its general 
 homogeneity. 
 
 1 W. H. Holmes, "Ancient Pottery of the Mississippi Valley," Fourth 
 Ann. Rept. Hu. Eth., p. 372. 
 
Basketry and Pottery 
 
 105 
 
 there is a parallelism with wheel-made ware that cannot but 
 strike the student with amazement. So great is the symmetry 
 and so graceful are the shapes that one is led to suspect the em 
 ployment of mechanical devices of a high order." 
 
 The high-necked Mound- 
 builder bottle is rarely found 
 in other parts of the United 
 States, but it occurs in Mexico 
 and in South America. Ladles, 
 common in Pueblo ware, are 
 of rare occurrence in that 
 of the Moundbuilders, while 
 rectangular box -like vessels 
 are found, which, though rare, 
 are of wide distribution. One 
 remarkable object found in 
 Tennessee is an earthenware 
 burial casket formed of 
 two parts, a body and 
 a lid, and it still 
 bears marks of 
 the baking. 
 It contains 
 the remains of 
 a small child, 
 reduced to 
 dust, except 
 por t i o n s of 
 the skull and 
 limbs ; and 
 two or three 
 dozen small 
 shell beads. It 
 weighs alto 
 gether i2j pounds. Another peculiar vessel was shaped like a shal 
 low trough, with a flat lip or projection at each end. While there 
 was undoubtedly in all tribes a certain progression of forms based on 
 those of basketry, etc. , as before noted, it must not be forgotten that 
 
 1 W. H. Holmes, " Ancient Art of the Province of Chiriqui," Sixth Ann. 
 Kept. Bu. Eth., p. 56. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 BOTTLE- SHAPED VASE, ARKANSAS. 
 
io6 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 the Amerind, like all other human beings, did some things from pure 
 inspiration or invention and with no previous model of any kind. 
 The Mississippi valley, according to Holmes, may be divided 
 into three districts as far as the pottery is concerned : the upper, 
 the middle, and the lower districts. This would seem to indicate 
 as many different tribes or stocks, or even different periods of 
 occupancy by either the same stock or by different stocks. The 
 most northerly examples are the rudest and most different from 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 EARTHEN WARE BURIAL CASKET, TENNESSEE. # 
 
 the others. Some of the pottery that is advanced as showing a 
 skill in sculpture not possessed by Amerinds of the North can be 
 explained in another way than by assuming that the makers 
 were different from other Amerinds of the Mississippi valley as we 
 have known them. As I pointed out elsewhere, these head-shaped 
 vases are death-masks. 2 It does not require a second look at the 
 
 1 F. S. Dellenbaugh, "Death-Masks in Ancient American Pottery," 
 American Anthropologist, February, 1897. 
 
 2 In this connection it may be mentioned that Swallow found a human 
 
Basketry and Pottery 
 
 107 
 
 illustration below to see that the features are those of death re 
 produced in a manner that no aboriginal potter could possibly 
 accomplish by free-hand method. " Here we look on a face per 
 fect in its proportions, accurately modelled, and, above all, de 
 picting death with a master-hand ; yes, more, presenting to the 
 spectator death itself as it seized this personage in the long-for 
 gotten past. Here is death present with us as plainly as it is in 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 DEATH-MASK VASE, TENNESSEE. 
 
 the well-preserved features of an Egyptian mummy. . . . Soft 
 clay was pressed upon the dead features, and when sufficiently dry 
 it was removed and other soft clay thinly pressed into the mould 
 obtained. The mask thus made was built upon till the jar before 
 us was completed. . . . The interior of the wall follows the 
 exterior closely except in projecting features. The potter, finding 
 it difficult as well as unnecessary, to work the clay evenly into the 
 
 skull enclosed in an earthen jar, the opening of which was too small to 
 admit of the skull s extraction. 
 
io8 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 projections of the mould, filled them up more or less solidly." 
 This vase is five inches in height and five inches wide from ear to 
 ear. It is open at the top, and has a perforated knob over the middle 
 of the forehead, perhaps for attaching a head-dress, and the ears 
 are perforated. These holes also would permit cords to be attached, 
 by which the jar could be hung, probably in a dead-house where 
 the body of the deceased original was laid. It has been stated that 
 the features exhibited in this vase are not " Indian," but there 
 seems to be no ground for such a statement. The features are ap 
 parently those of an Amerind boy fourteen or sixteen years of age. 
 Of the basketry of the Mississippi valley there are, of course, 
 no ancient specimens. Wicker-work would not last long in that 
 climate; but there must have been baskets and plaited implements 
 of various kinds, because people do not make pottery without 
 passing through the basketry stage. The Amerinds of that region 
 also made good baskets when first met with, and we know that 
 they did some fairly good weaving both in ancient and modern 
 times. Some of the ancient fabrics have been preserved in the 
 mounds by contact with copper, by being charred, and in other 
 ways, and the ingenuity of Holmes has given us fac-similes of 
 some of the old netting. 1 He noticed curious markings on certain 
 fragments of pottery, and took clay casts of them, thus producing 
 positive from negative, and revealing the fact that the peculiar 
 markings were the impressions of fabrics. He believes these 
 fabrics were impressed on the ware for purposes of ornament, and 
 while this may in some instances have been the reason, in my 
 opinion, the chief object of the netting that made the impres 
 sion was to lift the freshly made jar out of a hole or a wicker 
 form where it had been modelled. Very early pottery was 
 doubtless built on or in wicker-work that is, early in the 
 practice of any particular tribe. This was specially the case 
 with the Amerinds of the Atlantic coast, as is plainly indi 
 cated in the casts made by Holmes from fragments of pottery 
 from that region. " The earlier potters probably used baskets 
 that came up to the curved-in part of the jar, which was continued 
 above the basket by deft handling, or, if a basket of the same 
 form was followed, the basket was destroyed in the firing process. 
 
 ] W. H. Holmes, "Prehistoric Textile Fabrics," Third Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eih. ; Ibid., "Prehistoric Textile Art," Thirteenth Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eth. 
 
Basketry and Pottery 
 
 109 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 FLUTED VASE, ARKANSAS. 
 
 This would seem to the modern mind a great waste of time and 
 material, but it must be remembered that the Indian potter had 
 not learned modern haste, and 
 besides could turn up a coarse 
 basket in a very short time. 
 Therefore it does not seem im 
 probable that he may, in the 
 early stages, have modelled his 
 jar on the inside of a basket 
 frame of similar form and then 
 allowed the basket to be con 
 sumed in the baking process 
 when it could not be separated 
 from the vessel. Even when 
 he developed to a point beyond 
 and modelled the upper por 
 tions with a free hand, he would 
 find great trouble in separat 
 ing his jar from its framework. 
 What, therefore, would be the 
 
 following step ? It seems to me it would have been the placing 
 between the clay and the mould of a piece of netting, which would 
 permit him to lift out his jar easily and intact, and transport it to 
 the drying place. He would then speedily discover that his bas 
 ket was not necessary was 
 not so serviceable, in fact, as 
 a hole in the ground, for the 
 sides of the hole could be 
 plastered with a layer of very 
 sandy clay, and thus would 
 all sticking of the vessel to 
 its mould be avoided. The 
 netting, or fabric, having 
 been spread as evenly as pos 
 sible over the inside surface 
 of the mould hole, the upper 
 edges were allowed to lie out 
 upon the ground. The soft clay being now pressed evenly upon 
 the fabric to the required thickness, the sandy surface of the mould 
 hole easily gave it shape, and gave the potter no anxiety about the 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 IMPRESSION OF PARTS OF BASKET 
 MOULD ON POTTERY 
 
no The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 outside surface. Indeed, he had but one surface to watch till he 
 came to the in-curve, if his vessel was to have a narrow mouth. 
 Then, I surmise, he built up roughly a clay mould, well sanded, 
 pressing what was left of his fabric into the inside of this mould as 
 he built his vessel upward. Frequently, doubtless, the fabric was 
 not sufficient to go to the top, which explains why sometimes only 
 apart of a jar shows the cord markings. . . . The distorting 
 and overlapping of the meshes observed by Holmes were prob 
 ably due to the gathering in to fit the interior of the mould, for it 
 must be borne in mind that the fabric was not shaped in any way 
 to fit the mould, but was doubtless a fragment of some squarely 
 woven article. Thus gathering and overlapping were necessary to 
 make it conform to the inside surface of the mould. . . . 
 
 When coarse basketry was used for a mould that was in 
 tended to be removed before firing, the interstices of the basket 
 work were probably rubbed full of a mixture of sand and clay to 
 prevent the finished vessel from sticking or catching, which ex 
 plains, I think, the peculiarity of design in some cases, for only 
 the more prominent features of the basket work would impress the 
 vessel. ... In some kinds of basketry more filling was neces 
 sary than in others, which explains the frequent greater separation 
 and irregularity of the markings." 1 
 
 It seems, then, that the pottery of the Atlantic region was 
 very rude and was modelled chiefly on wicker moulds, and was 
 not abundant 2 ; that the lower Mississippi valley and the South 
 west were the regions within the United States where pottery 
 attained its highest development ; that as one proceeds northward 
 pottery diminishes in quantity and in quality till it disappears ; 
 and that in a southerly direction it increases in abundance and 
 in excellence of manufacture and artistic design. The pottery 
 area is fan-shaped, with Central America for a handle. This would 
 all appear to indicate that the pottery wave rolled up from the Far 
 South, and that the Moundbuilders and the Pueblos acquired 
 their art from that direction, or brought it north as they came on 
 the retreat of the cold. Attempts have been made to connect the 
 
 F. S. Dellenbaugh, Fabric - Marked Pottery," Popular Science 
 Monthly, March, 1898. 
 
 2 Brinton states that the art of the potter was extensively practised by 
 the Lenape, but if this were accurate fragments of pottery ought to be com 
 moner than they are in the region formerly their home. 
 
Basketry and Pottery 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 Pueblos with the Moundbuilders, and both with the Aztecs, but 
 there is no good evidence now known which substantiates any 
 such claim. Even if they did come from the South, it does not 
 make a mystery nor does it necessarily prove any direct relation 
 ship between these branches of the Amerind race. Those nearest 
 the great culture centre acquired most culture, hence the farther 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 VASE FROM CHIRIQUI. 
 
 DECORATED IN BLACK, RED, AND PURPLE 
 
 north the less pottery. The homogeneity of the Amerinds was 
 due to causes operating on this continent at a very early period, 
 and the same causes may explain why the Moundbuilder, the 
 Pueblo, and the Southern stocks were good potters, while the 
 Algonquins, the Dakotas, the Athapascans, and other Northern 
 stocks were so inferior in this respect, while not being inferior in 
 others. 1 
 
 The Aztecs, Zapotecs, Mayas, and other people of the Mexican 
 
 1 Compare Preface and last chapter. 
 
TI2 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 region were expert potters ; and it was in this region that working 
 in clay, like everything else, was carried to the highest degree of 
 perfection on this continent, and where evidence is found of seem 
 ingly true glaze. Not only ordinary pottery of beautiful shapes 
 and excellent texture was made, but large funeral vases of elabo 
 rate form, terra-cotta water-pipes, and terra-cotta figures, some of 
 them of almost or quite life size. Saville recently found some 
 of these funeral jars and terra-cotta figures in the Zapotec 
 country, south of the city of Mexico, in the province of Oaxaca, 
 and there are specimens in the Museum of Natural History in 
 New York. The principal terra-cotta figure he found is thus de 
 scribed by Saville 1 : " Another trench was started at the eastern 
 side of this mound, and after working down to the level of the 
 surrounding fields near the centre of the mound just back of the 
 tomb, there were found the scattered fragments of what will be, 
 when restored, the largest specimen of terra cotta ever found in 
 America, and I do not know of so large a specimen ever having 
 been found elsewhere. It represented a warrior, and the different 
 pieces of the figure were scattered over a space of about fifteen 
 feet. The central fragment was the head, upper torso, and right 
 arm, lying face upward ; the open mouth revealed the teeth 
 painted white and filed, as in the case of the funeral urns. The 
 eyes were well modelled and painted white and red; the head was 
 covered with a turban of feathers, somewhat resembling the head 
 dress of Chac Mol, found by Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan. A 
 closely cropped beard covered the lower portion of the face, the 
 upper part being pitted as though marked by smallpox. The ears 
 had curious circular ornaments pendent by a string passed -through 
 holes pierced in the lobes. The nose was ornamented with a long 
 cylindrical bead attached by a string fastened at the top and bot 
 tom through the septum. The breast was painted red and white 
 and additionally ornamented with curious designs made by circular 
 indentations. The legs, which lay quite separated from the body, 
 were bare, and the feet were covered with sandals having beautiful 
 heel-pieces. Around each ankle was a line of bells. Both the 
 toe- and the finger-nails were painted white ; the right arm, bent 
 at an angle, grasped a pole or staff of which about a foot remained. 
 These fragments are now in the Museo Nacional, City of Mexico. 
 
 1 M. H. Saville, "Exploration of Zapotecan Tombs ill Southern Mexico," 
 American Anthropologist, N. S., April, 1899. 
 
From photograph by American Museum of Natural History 
 
 AN ANCIENT FIGURE OF TERRA COTTA FROM THE VALLEY OF MEXICO 
 The height of this figure is 150.9 cm. Breadth of shoulders, 46.0 cm. 
 
1 14 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 The entire length of the figure, according to measurements made 
 of the detached pieces, was nearly, if not quite, six feet." 
 
 The specimen now in the New York Museum, page 1 13, is about 
 five feet in height, and while, artistically, it is crude, it exhibits 
 great skill in the potter s art. The walls are thin and it must 
 have taken much labour to build the figure and successfully fire it. 
 It is in three parts. There are also in the Museum several of the 
 funeral urns found in this locality. They are about fifteen or 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 COIL INDENTED FOR DECORATION 
 
 twenty inches high and skilfully made. These urns were found 
 "in series of five in front of tombs, on the roof, or fastened into the 
 facade." They are usually of grotesque design like most of the 
 Amerind figures, and evidently represent personages arrayed in 
 the regalia of certain orders or societies, or possibly the same per 
 sonage in his various offices, or attended by representations of 
 other officers of some society to which he belonged. Saville says 
 of one group : " Resting directly on the cement floor at the centre 
 of the mound were five large funeral urns, page 115, representing 
 seated figures, placed in a row facing west. The urn in the centre 
 has a remarkably well-modelled face, undoubtedly a portrait of some 
 
n6 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 ancient Zapotecan personage. The two on either side are of the 
 same general size and character, with the exception of the face, 
 which is covered with a mask in the form of a grotesque face, pos 
 sibly the conventionalised serpent, as the bifurcated tongue is one 
 of the most prominent characteristics." 1 These are some of the 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 POT SHOWING DIAGONAL GROOVES ACROSS THE LINES OF THE COIL MADE BY 
 THE HAND IN SMOOTHING UP. 1/3. MANGOS CANYON, COLORADO 
 
 most important terra-cotta productions ever found on this conti 
 nent. Some terra-cotta tubing also found at this place is unique. 
 Saville says: "No such terra-cotta tubing has ever been dis 
 covered elsewhere in Mexico, and a new problem is therefore pre 
 sented." One end of this tubing was three feet below the surface 
 1 American Anthropologist, N. S., 1899, i., p. 355. 
 
ii8 The North Americans of Yesterday 
 
 in a field, while the other was in the mound excavated. " It was 
 laid in short sections, of varying length, one end being smaller 
 than the other, the small end of one tube being fitted into the large 
 end of the next, page 117. Several of the joints still preserved the 
 cement; with which they were made tight. The exploration did 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PUEBLO POT. PATTERN PRODUCED BY OBLITERATING PINCH MARKS. % 
 
 not reveal the use of the pipe." The fact, however, that the 
 tubes were so carefully fitted into each other with, apparently, the 
 joinings all on the down slope, that is, connected in such a way 
 that water would flow continuously without waste, and that the 
 joints were made tight with cement, is good evidence that these 
 
Basketry and Pottery 
 
 119 
 
 pipes were laid for conducting water. It seems probable that this 
 tubing was a part of some water-supply or irrigating scheme, 
 which had been abandoned before the mound covering a part of it 
 was constructed. As the valley where these interesting finds were 
 made, as well as neighbouring valleys, contain many more mounds, 
 it is probable 
 that the future 
 exploration o f 
 them will pro 
 duce much more 
 material of 
 value. I f t h e 
 terra-cotta tub 
 ing had a my- 
 t h o 1 o g i c a 1 
 significance i t 
 will be found in 
 other mounds, 
 and if it be 
 longed to an ir 
 rigating scheme, 
 or water-works, 
 it will be ex- u. s. BU. Eth. 
 plained by other 
 finds. Effigy jars were not confined to Mexico, for they are 
 found in various parts of the United States, especially in Ten 
 nessee, but they are nowhere anything like those described from 
 the Zapotec country. The Tennessee specimens artistically and 
 mechanically are exceedingly crude, as are all attempts to de 
 lineate the human figure by the northerly Amerinds. Some of the 
 most elaborate and at the same time artistic forms in Amerind 
 pottery are found in Chiriqui, 1 a province just below Costa Rica. 
 The old occupants of this region seem to have excelled in metal- 
 working, stone-carving, and pottery, and probably in other arts 
 the products of which are of a more destructible nature. As the 
 line of demarkation between the North- and South-American cul 
 tures runs along the southern side of Nicaragua, practically on 
 the line of the proposed Nicaragua Canal, the consideration of the 
 
 1 W. H. Holmes, " Ancient Art of the Province of Chiriqui," Sixth Ann. 
 Rept. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PINCH-MARKED COIL 
 
12O The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Chiriqui products should belong perhaps with the South-American 
 division, but being above the isthmus, they may be mentioned here 
 for the sake of comparison. The casual observer," says Holmes, 
 " would at once arrive at the conclusion that the wheel or moulds 
 had been used, but it is impossible to detect the use of any such 
 
 appliances." And 
 further : "On the ex 
 posed surfaces of cer 
 tain groups of ware 
 the polish is in many 
 cases so perfect that 
 casual observers and 
 inexperienced persons 
 take it for a glaze." 
 There was extraordi- 
 na.ry variety in this 
 ware. There are 
 whistles, drums, rat 
 tles, round vases with 
 necks and without 
 necks; vases of simple 
 and vases of complex 
 form ; vases and jars 
 with elaborate 
 handles ; vases with 
 annular bases or feet ; 
 and vases with short or long legs, three in number generally. 
 This field is so rich that it is practicable to give here only a sug 
 gestion of what it affords, and the reader is referred to the admir 
 able paper by Holmes. 1 
 
 In the matter of decoration there is found a general similarity 
 of methods in the different regions. Apparently the first decora 
 tions were the unavoidable result of methods of manufacture, 
 whether moulded or coil-made. In the first instance the meshes of 
 the wicker mould, or such part of them as could not easily be cov 
 ered up with a sandy paste to prevent adhesion, impressed them 
 selves upon the soft clay ; or the fabric that was employed to 
 remove the work from a mould made impressions upon the ware. 
 1 W. H. Holmes, " Ancient Art of the Province of Chiriqui," Sixth Ann. 
 Rept. Bu. Eth. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ENG RAVED WARE, ARKANSAS. 
 
Basketry and Pottery 121 
 
 If coil-made, the pinching of the clay rope into position left marks 
 of the finger-tips and the finger-nails with a regularity that doubt 
 less came to be admired and then modified to conform to fancy, 
 and finally finger markings and other markings and indentations 
 grew, especially in our South-west, into a regular system of deco 
 ration. The irregularity due to pinching the rope in place is less 
 with the expert than it was with the primitive potters, and it is 
 
 u. s. BU. Eth. 
 
 ENGRAVED WARE, ARKANSAS. ^ 
 
 now smoothed off entirely with a " rib," the left hand being placed 
 opposite the pressure applied with the right. 1 In the earlier forms 
 the fingers of the right hand held stiffly downward seem to have 
 been used to even up the irregularity of the coils to some extent, 
 as may be discerned in figure page 116, where there are diagonal 
 grooves across the lines of the coil,, evidently made, the left hand 
 being inside the jar, by drawing the fingers of the right, or rather 
 the forefinger braced against the others, diagonally upward upon 
 the outer surface. The operation would be almost identical with 
 the modern practice except that the fingers were used instead of 
 a " rib." Indentations were also made with a sharp instrument 
 
 1 Rib is the term applied by our potters to the small thin pieces of wood 
 used for smoothing the ware. The Moki "rib" corresponds closely in 
 size, shape, and use to that I have seen employed by our potters. 
 
122 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 in a pattern, and another method seems to have been to smooth off 
 all the pinch marks, except in certain areas that when left would 
 form a pattern. Thus in the latter case the pattern was produced 
 by a system of obliteration. In figure on page 118, a vase from 
 the Moki country, of the ancient Pueblo manufacture, shows this 
 method of making a pattern by smoothing down pinch marks. 
 To do this the pinch marks would intentionally be made with 
 some regularity. 
 
 Another method of ornamentation was that of scratching or 
 engraving the ware after it had been fired. This is seen in figures 
 on pages 120 and 121, from Arkansas. Still another method of 
 ornamentation was produced after the ware was smoothed to its 
 finish, whether coil-made or not, by drawing on it with a point. 
 An example of this is seen on page 103, also from Arkansas. The 
 method that was most employed by the ancient Amerinds, and is 
 used by those of to-day, as well as by most potters the world round, 
 is colour. A slip or wash of fine clay was given to the ware, and 
 polished and decorated in colours before firing. In this way many 
 beautiful results were obtained in all the regions of North America. 
 Almost every colour was used, but white, black, red, and yellow 
 are most common. These pigments were laid on in a single wash, 
 or were applied in more or less elaborate patterns. The Pueblos, 
 ancient and modern, have produced an astonishing variety of de 
 signs, and the same may be said of the Mexicans, Mayas, Zapotecs, 
 Chiriquis, and other stocks of the South. A large volume could 
 barely do justice to this subject, but enough has been given here 
 to show the nature, distribution, and trend of pottery making by 
 the Amerindian Tribes. 1 
 
 1 For soapstone or steatite vessels, see Chap. X. 
 
 BLACK CUP, CHIRKJUI. 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 WOVEN MOCCASIN FROM KENTUCKY CAVE 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WEAVING AND COSTUME 
 
 THE first article of dress of primitive people was not a woven 
 stuff, but nevertheless weaving, like pottery, begins in plait 
 ing and basketry, and is an ancient art. The first clothing, 
 a necessity of climate, was made of skins of animals where they 
 could be obtained, and where they could not primitive man walked 
 in a state of nature. His desire for clothing was one purely of 
 comfort ; modesty, as we define it, was unknown. Modesty, so 
 far as it relates to concealment of the body, is the child of climate 
 and fashion. A Breton peasant girl does. not mind if her legs are 
 seen, but she is shocked if caught with her hair down or with 
 out her cap ; one of our own ladies thinks nothing of exhibiting 
 her bare shoulders and bosom at the opera under gaslight, but 
 she would not do it in daylight. On the beach it would also be 
 improper, but there she is not troubled if her lower extremities 
 are seen. In some of the milder climates to-day clothing is scanty, 
 while with the Eskimo in the Far North it is composed of warm furs. 
 Cold was responsible for the first clothing, and is to-day respon 
 sible for a good deal of it. The idea of utilising feathers and broad 
 leaves as well as skins would soon occur to a people, especially if 
 they found it difficult to secure the skins, and with these some 
 kind of a string was necessary to hold them together, and if no 
 sinew or thong was at hand the want would be supplied by twisted 
 
 10 
 
 123 
 
124 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 grass or bark, and this twisted grass or bark then came itself to be 
 combined in the form of mats for sleeping on or covering sticks to 
 produce a shelter. This was plaiting, and it is the first step to 
 basketry and weaving. Many of the simpler arts are native in 
 the brain of man, and the expression of them at the proper time is 
 as easy and natural as it is for a birdling to rly, a kitten to catch 
 a mouse, or a baby to walk for the first time. It is, like sight, 
 or thought, or articulate speech, a direct and unconscious result 
 of the innate composition of mankind. It is impossible to tell 
 why a spider builds a web of even proportions instead of one that 
 is irregular, or when it acquired the skill to perform its feat of 
 engineering, or why it builds a web at all, and does not, like a 
 cat and some species of spiders, rely on springing upon its prey. 
 The spider does this the world round because it is a spider, and 
 because its prey also has, the world round, its own habits. So with 
 man. Everywhere he learned to plait mats, make wicker-work 
 and pottery, and a thousand other things simply because he was 
 everywhere the same man. If you examine articles of primitive 
 manufacture from various parts of the globe, you will find them 
 all practically alike, because the men who made them were prac 
 tically alike and their wants and surroundings were practically 
 alike. They plaited together strips of bark or twisted grasses, or 
 rushes, because they had to have them, and they went on finding 
 out the properties of the materials that compose the world just as 
 they are doing to-day, till they made cloth and made it on a ma 
 chine. Primitive fabrics were everywhere about the same, and 
 when the loom was invented it was and is, where still used in its 
 primitive form, very much the same. That in use to-day by the 
 Navajos is much like that used by the Orientals. The Navajos 
 are probably not the inventors of it, but borrowed the idea from 
 the Pueblos, or at least derived it through a mixture of Pueblo 
 blood. Their cousins, the Apaches, do not weave, and they are 
 probably better representatives of the original Athapascan stock 
 than the Navajos. 
 
 The Mexican loom was similar to that of the Navajos, and it is 
 probable that some of the tribes of the Mississippi valley were 
 acquainted with one built on a like pattern. The product of these 
 primitive looms was also much alike in its character; some of the 
 Oriental rugs that we see now strongly resemble the blankets of 
 the Mexicans or Navajos. 
 
, *::!* i 
 
 MENOMINEE BEADED GARTERS 
 125 
 
 
126 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 This is because weaving is a simple art ; and until the inven 
 tion of the Jacquard principle complex patterns were produced 
 only by great labour, as all the different colours had to be adjusted 
 by hand, which is still the case in many fine products like the 
 Turkish rugs or the shawls of Cashmere. 
 
 The primitive products of the loom were square in shape, and 
 when used as garments they were not cut to a pattern or altered, 
 but were worn as they came from the loom. To make a dress, it 
 was only necessary to fasten two of these mats or blankets to 
 gether, just as the Moki women do now. This combination 
 was then slipped over the head, with one corner on the right 
 shoulder and one under the left, and a belt around the waist. This 
 was the costume complete. There was no fitting the fabric to 
 the body. 
 
 Thread, cord, twine, and rope were made by the Menominees 
 chiefly out of the " inner bark of the young sprouts of basswood. 
 The bark is removed in sheets and boiled in water to which a 
 large quantity of lye from wood ashes has been added. This 
 softens the fibre and permits the worker to manipulate it without 
 breaking. The shoulder-blade of a deer or other large animal is 
 then nailed or otherwise fastened to an upright post, and through 
 it a hole about an inch in diameter is drilled ; through this hole 
 bunches of the boiled bark are pulled backward and forward, from 
 right to left, to remove from it all splinters or other hard frag 
 ments. After the fibre has become soft and pliable, bunches of it 
 are hung up in hanks, to be twisted as desired. The manner of 
 making cord or twine, such as is used in weaving mats and for 
 almost all household purposes, is by holding in the left hand the 
 fibre as it is pulled from the hank, and separating it into two parts, 
 which are laid across the thigh. The palm of the right hand is 
 then rolled forward over both so as to tightly twist the pair of 
 strands, when they are permitted to unite and twist into a cord. 
 The twisted end being pushed a little to the right, the next continu 
 ous portions of the united strands also are twisted to form a single 
 cord. The same process is followed in all fibre-twisting, even to the 
 finest nettle thread." In the matter of thread some fine results 
 were obtained by various Amerinds. Holmes says : The finest 
 threads with which I am acquainted are perhaps not as fine as our 
 number ten ordinary spool-cotton thread, but we are not justified 
 1 Hoffman, Fourteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 260. 
 
128 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 in assuming that more refined work was not done." Sage-brush, 
 yucca, and other plants were used for making thread and cord. 
 
 In order to weave, it is first necessary to reduce your fibre, or 
 wool, or cotton, to more or less even threads or yarn. The 
 Amerind way of doing this was the same, practically, wherever 
 spinning and weaving were attempted, from Central America 
 northward. The spindle is a round, slender, pointed stick, a foot 
 to about fifteen inches long, put through a disc, generally of flat, 
 hard wood, four to six inches in diameter, which acts as a fly 
 wheel to keep up the momentum. It is the simplest form of top. 
 The operator holds the wool or cotton, previously prepared, in his 
 or her lap, and attaching one end of it to the top arm of the spin 
 dle, above the disc, gives the spindle a twirl, either by the 
 thumb and forefinger or by a dexterous sweep of the palm of the 
 hand along the thigh. The fibre, or wool, that was attached to 
 the arm of it winds round till it reaches the tip, where it clings 
 and takes on the rotary motion of the stick to which it is fast, 
 being twisted thereby into yarn. It continues to spin with the 
 spindle for some seconds, about fifteen or twenty, and when the 
 momentum slackens below the necessary speed, the yarn thus far 
 made is wound on the spindle and it is started afresh, with more 
 wool paid out to the twisting. The operation is repeated over 
 and over till the spindle is full, and it is surprising to see how 
 rapidly it can be done. I have only seen this performed amongst 
 the Moki, but the descriptions from other places show it to be 
 done in about the same way everywhere. In the Mexican region 
 the spindle-discs were made of pottery. In Nicaragua both wood 
 and terra cotta were employed, and it is likely that wood was also 
 used by some part of the people in Mexico and other places where 
 the terra-cotta discs are now found. 
 
 Weaving was not confined to the Pueblo and Mexican country 
 when the whites first came to the continent, but was in vogue 
 amongst many different tribes, who used various substances in the 
 manufacture of rugs and blankets. Cotton amongst Southern and 
 South-western tribes was a favourite material, and in other places 
 hemp, and the hair of animals, and birds feathers were used. The 
 Kwakiutls of the North-\vest coast " made blankets of mountain- 
 goat wool, dog s hair, feathers, or a mixture of both." * And the 
 
 1 Holmes, Thirteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 22. 
 
 2 Boas, Report U. S. Nat. Museum, p. 319. 
 
Weaving and Costume 
 
 129 
 
 tribes of Ptiget Sound and the Straits of Fuca (t attained consider 
 able skill in manufacturing a species of blanket from a mixture 
 of the wool of the mountain sheep and the hair of a particular kind 
 of dog, though in this art they never equalled the more northern 
 tribes." 1 It is extremely probable that some of the Pueblos, 
 before the introduction of the sheep of Europe, used the hair or 
 wool of a mountain sheep or goat for weaving, and it is possible 
 that they had to some extent domesticated that animal or scfme 
 
 From photograph by the authcr 
 
 PART OF THE SOMAIKOLI CEREMONY AT CICHUMOVI, NOVEMBER, 1884, 
 SHOWING A SACRED BLANKET ON FIGURE IN FOREGROUND 
 
 similar one ; at least they may have kept it imprisoned for its 
 wool in much the same way that they now keep eagles for their 
 feathers. Fray Marcos relates that one of the natives he met 
 with in 1540 told him that the people of Totonteac made cloth, 
 much like the garment he had on, from the hair of certain small 
 animals. These animals have usually been supposed to have been 
 dogs, but as the Northern Amerinds used mountain-goat s wool, it 
 is possible that the Pueblos, who were-in advance of them in all 
 that pertains to weaving, had not only succeeded in weaving such 
 hair or wool garments, but had conceived the idea of holding the 
 1 Gibbs, U. S. G, S., (Jontrib. to N. A. Ethnology, vol. i., part ii., p. 219. 
 
 Q 
 
130 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 animals in captivity. It has been supposed by some that they 
 had an animal of the vicuna kind. Terra-cotta images have been 
 found in the Salado ruins of Arizona that are difficult to identify, 
 and are believed by some zoologists who have seen them to repre 
 sent " a creature allied to the South- American Camellidse." 
 
 " It has been surmised that such animals continued to be 
 domesticated by the sedentary Indians of Arizona and New Mex 
 ico down to historic days and became extinct only when the more 
 serviceable European sheep was introduced by the Spaniards. 
 Fossil bones of an animal of this family have been found 
 in the South-west ; but its bones were not identified in the Salado 
 ruins." 
 
 The Pai Utes made a garment of rabbit-skins which was very 
 warm. The skins were twisted and attached one to another end 
 and end, making a sort of fur rope, and this rope was tied in par 
 allel lines, forming a kind of large cloak which was most service 
 able in winter. Flax, or a plant closely allied to it, also grew 
 wild all over Arizona and New Mexico, and was used for gar 
 ments. The bark of the sage-brush was used to make cord and 
 mats. Yucca also furnished a supply of valuable fibre. Cotton 
 was grown by many of the Pueblos and is still cultivated by the 
 Mokis, who manufacture a sacred blanket from it that is sought 
 after at good prices by the Pueblos of other districts. It is a finely 
 woven white blanket, with a broad red stripe transversely at each 
 end. It is worn by women in the ceremonials. The Mokis are 
 good weavers, using a loom similar to that employed by the 
 Navajos. The Moki loom is generally set up in the kiva 2 where 
 often there are permanent attachments for it, and there the men, 
 who do all the weaving among this tribe, patiently execute their 
 plans. Most of the Moki blankets are of low colours and simple 
 design, dark blue being, with black, the favourite tint. The usual 
 material is the wool of the European sheep, which has flourished 
 among the Pueblos ever since it was introduced by the Spaniards. 
 The sheep are herded on the plains during the day and at night are 
 driven up the talus of the cliffs to corrals that lie just below the pla 
 teau on which the villages are built. The Navajos living in the 
 
 1 National Academy of Sciences, Bones of the Hemenway Expedition, 
 Introduction by Washington Matthews, p. 157. 
 
 3 See for description of kiva the chapter in this book on Architecture, 
 etc., and also Macmillan s Dictionary of Architecture. 
 
Weaving and Costume 
 
 surrounding country have far larger flocks than those of the Moki, 
 and weave only wool. In fact, there are amongst the Navajos 
 more than a million and a half head of sheep and goats. Most of 
 the wool from these they usually sell to dealers at four or five 
 cents a pound and then purchase for their blanket-work at high 
 prices Germantown wools of brilliant colours, which colours they 
 cannot obtain with their own dyes, though the colours they do 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 DETAILS OF NAVAJO LOOM CONSTRUCTION 
 
 secure are far more artistic. Formerly, to get the brilliant red of 
 which they are so fond, they would buy a Mexican cloth, called 
 bayeta, a sort of flannel, and ravel it, to reweave it in their 
 blankets. The women do most of the weaving amongst the Nav 
 ajos. The colours are usually bright, though the every-day serv 
 iceable blanket is of dark blue and white or black and white, or of 
 the natural grey of the wool. The greater gaudiness of much of the 
 Navajo work has given it a reputation of superiority to that of 
 
132 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 the Pueblo, which, in my opinion, is not wholly correct. Wash 
 ington Matthews, 1 who has so carefully studied the subject, states 
 that there is a constant deterioration in Pueblo weaving, which 
 may be true in general, but hardly applies to the Moki. I have 
 a sample of Moki work which, so far as weaving skill is concerned, 
 is as fine as any Navajo work I have ever seen. The Moki do 
 not turn out as much as the Navajo, because they are a far smaller 
 tribe ; and their product is dark, as a rule, in colour, as they use 
 their own dyes, but its texture, and especially the texture of the 
 sacred cotton blankets, is extremely fine, even finer and better as 
 an example of weaving skill than many Navajo blankets. " In 
 some Pueblos," says Matthews, " the skill of the loom has been 
 almost forgotten." 
 
 The Navajo loom is set up anywhere and a shelter of boughs 
 built over it. As the rainfall is light in the Navajo country, it is 
 not necessary to provide permanent shelters. The loom is worth 
 a careful description, and as I do not know of any better, or 
 indeed so good as that given by Matthews, it is here quoted 
 entire : " Two posts, a a, are set firmly in the ground ; to these 
 are lashed two cross pieces or braces, b c, the whole forming the 
 frame of the loom. Sometimes two slender trees, growing at a 
 convenient distance from one another, are made to answer for the 
 posts, d is a horizontal pole, which I call the supplementary 
 yarn-beam, attached to the upper brace, b, by means of a rope,*N 
 e e, spirally applied, f is the upper beam of the loom. As it is 
 analogous to the yarn-beam of our looms, I will call it by this 
 name, although once only have I seen the warp wound around it. 
 It lies parallel to the pole, d, about two or three inches below it, 
 and is attached to the latter by a number of loops, g g. A spiral 
 cord wound around the yarn-beam holds the upper border cord, 
 h h, which, in turn, secures the upper end of the warp, i i. The 
 lower beam of the loom is shown at k. I will call this the cloth 
 beam, although the finished web is never wound around it ; it is 
 tied firmly to the lower brace, c, of the frame, and to it is secured 
 the lower border cord of the blanket. The original distance 
 between the two beams is the length of the blanket. Lying 
 between the threads of the warp is depicted a broad, thin, oaken 
 stick, 1, which I will call the batten. A set of healds attached to 
 
 1 Dr. Washington Matthews, "Navajo Weavers." Third Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eth., p. 375. 
 
Weaving and Costume 133 
 
 a heald-rod, m, are shown above the batten. These healds are 
 made of cord or yarn ; they include alternate threads of the. warp, 
 and serve when drawn forward to open the lower shed. The 
 upper shed is kept patent by a stout rod, n (having no healds 
 attached), which I name the ^bed-rod. Their substitute for the 
 reed of our looms is a wooden fork, which will be designated as 
 the reed- fork." 1 
 
 All the Navajo and Pueblo weaving is the same on both sides. 
 Most of it is straight weaving, but there is a good deal of diagonal 
 work. This is true also of the Moki. The diagonal weaving 
 produces a diamond figure that is very pretty, but I have never 
 seen it used in any of the finest Navajo work. As to the designs, 
 Matthews says that in the finer blankets of intricate pattern, out 
 of thousands which I have examined, I do not remember to have 
 ever seen two exactly alike." 1 Doubtless while some of these 
 designs, or even many, are drawn from Pueblo sources as no 
 ticed, the weaver introduces original features and often invents 
 new patterns. The blankets are woven, as a rule, in two ways, 
 the tight method for protection against rain, and the loose method 
 for protection against cold. The loose, soft blanket is worn under 
 one of the harder ones in wet or windy weather. 2 The Navajos 
 also weave garters and long sashes. The garters are similar to 
 the sashes, only smaller. They are used to hold leggings in place. 
 Small blankets are made to put under the saddle, and these are 
 often very fine in texture as well as in pattern. Similar ones are 
 made for children. 
 
 " Previously to the seventeenth century," says Bandelier, 
 " the aboriginal dress consisted largely of cotton sheets, or rather 
 simple wrappers, tied either around the neck or on the shoulder, 
 or converted into sleeveless jackets." Of the fibre of the yucca, 
 the Zuni Indians made skirts and kilts; of rabbit-skins very heavy 
 blankets were made. The northern Puebloans, of New Mexico, 
 nearer to a game region, dressed in buckskin in preference to 
 anything else. But still, even when cotton was unobtainable for 
 whole garments, they sought to secure cotton scarfs and girdles 
 woven in bright colours, which were used for belts as well as for 
 garters, etc. The dress was more simple than that of to-day. 
 
 1 Washington Matthews, Third Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 377. 
 
 2 Some of the finest Navajo blankets command high prices a hundred 
 dollars or more. 
 
134 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Leggings of buckskin were worn in winter only, and then mostly 
 by the northern Pueblos. The moccasin, or tegua, protected the 
 feet. It is explicitly stated that while the uppers of this shoe 
 without heel were of deerskin, the soles were frequently of buffalo 
 hide." l The moccasin of the South-west is generally soled with 
 rawhide of some kind, the sole being slightly turned up all round. 
 Another material for garments was feathers. These were util 
 ised all over the continent, to a greater or less degree, by various 
 tribes, but it was the Mexicans who carried the work in this line 
 to perfection. " Nothing could be more picturesque," says Pres- 
 cott, " than the aspect of these Indian battalions with the naked 
 bodies of the common soldiers gaudily painted, the fantastic hel 
 mets of the chiefs glittering with gold and precious stones, and 
 the glowing panoplies of feather- work, which decorated their per 
 sons. . . . The common file wore no covering except a girdle 
 round the loins. Their bodies were painted with appropriate 
 colours of the chieftain whose banner they followed. The feather- 
 mail of the higher class of warriors exhibited also a similar selec 
 tion of colours for the like object, in the same manner as the 
 colour of the tartan indicates the peculiar clan of the Highlander. 
 The caciques and principal warriors were clothed in a quilted 
 cotton tunic, two inches thick, which, fitting close to the body, 
 protected also the thighs and the shoulders. Over this the 
 wealthier Indians wore cuirasses of thin gold plate or silver. 
 Their legs were defended by leathern boots or sandals, trimmed 
 with gold. But the most brilliant part of their costume was a 
 rich mantle of the plumaje, or feather-work, embroidered with 
 curious art, and furnishing some resemblance to the gorgeous 
 surcoat worn by the European knight over his armour in the 
 Middle Ages. This graceful and picturesque dress was sur 
 mounted by a fantastic head-piece made of wood or leather, rep 
 resenting the head of some wild animal, and frequently displaying 
 a formidable array of teeth. With this covering the warrior s 
 head was enveloped, producing a most grotesque and hideous 
 effect. From the crown floated a splendid panache of the richly 
 variegated plumage of the tropics, indicating, by its form and 
 colours, the rank and family of the wearer. To complete their 
 defensive armour, they carried shields or targets, made sometimes 
 of wood covered with leather, but more usually of a light frame of 
 
 1 Bandelier, Final Report, part i., p. 158. 
 
\ 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 A PUEBLOAN OF SAN JUAN, NEW MEXICO 
 135 
 
136 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 reeds quilted with cotton, which were preferred as tougher and 
 less liable to fracture than the former. They had other bucklers, 
 in which the cotton was covered with an elastic substance, en 
 abling them to be shut up in a more compact form, like a fan or 
 umbrella. These shields were decorated with showy ornaments, 
 according to the taste or wealth of the wearer, and fringed with 
 a beautiful pendant of feather- work. . . . Such was the cos 
 tume of the Tlascalan warrior, and, indeed, of that great family 
 of nations generally who occupied the plateau of Anahuac. 1 . . . 
 They were particularly struck with the costume of the higher 
 classes, who wore fine embroidered mantles, resembling the grace 
 ful albornoz, or Moorish cloak, in their texture and fashion. 2 . . . 
 Here they were met by several hundred Aztec chiefs, who came 
 out to announce the approach of Montezuma, and to welcome the 
 Spaniards to his capital. They were dressed in the fanciful gala 
 costume of the country, with the maxtlatl, or cotton sash, around 
 their loins, and a broad mantle of the same material, or of the 
 brilliant feather-embroidery, flowing gracefully down their shoul 
 ders. On their necks and arms they displayed collars and brace 
 lets of turquoise mosaic, with which delicate plumage was curiously 
 mingled, while their ears, under-lips, and occasionally their noses, 
 were garnished with pendants formed of precious stones, or cres 
 cents of fine gold. 3 . . . Montezuma wore the girdle and 
 ample square cloak, Hlmatli* of his nation. It was made of the 
 finest cotton, with the embroidered ends gathered in a knot around 
 his neck. His feet were defended by sandals having soles of gold, 
 and the leathern thongs which bound them to his ankles were 
 embossed with the same metal. Both the cloak and sandals were 
 sprinkled with pearls and precious stones, among which the 
 emerald and the chalchivitt a green stone of higher estimation 
 than any other among the Aztecs were conspicuous. On his 
 head he wore no other ornament than a panache of plumes of the 
 royal green which floated down his back, the badge of military, 
 rather than of regal rank." 
 
 1 Prescott s Mexico, vol. i., pp. 439, 442. 
 
 * Ibid., vol. ii., p. 13. 
 
 *Ibid., p. 71. 
 
 4 The timatli or tilmatli for men was a piece of cloth, according to 
 Biart, " four feet long, which enveloped the body, and two corners of which 
 were knotted upon the breast or upon the shoulder." 
 
 Ibid., p. 73. 
 
Weaving and Costume 
 
 137 
 
 These quotations from Prescott will give an idea of the costume 
 of the Mexicans, and of the beautiful feather-work which formed 
 so important a part of it. Though the language of Prescott may 
 somewhat exaggerate the quality and beauty of the Mexican gar 
 ments, we know from what the Mexicans and Pueblos manufac 
 tured afterward that much skill must have been displayed in these 
 various fabrics. The cloak of cotton was probably no more a cloak 
 or mantle than the blankets woven by the Pueblos and Navajos 
 to-day; that is, it was a square of cloth worn about the shoulders. 
 If one should describe the Pueblo in Prescott s delightful language, 
 we should think him and his houses and garments far finer than 
 they really are. To describe a breech-cloth as a girdle round 
 the loins ; to speak of 
 blankets as mantles and 
 robes ; moccasins as 
 sandals, and otherwise 
 gild description, makes 
 pleasant reading, but is 
 liable to convey erron 
 eous impressions. Pres 
 cott s lack of general 
 knowledge of Amerind 
 customs gave him a free 
 rein and his poetical 
 temperament finished 
 the picture. 
 
 Montezuma wore on 
 
 his head " a panache of plumes, . . . the badge of mili 
 tary, rather than of regal rank." And this is exactly what 
 Montezuma was, a war-chief. But Prescott drew his material 
 from the Spaniards, and where he describes what they saw, he 
 is not, in all probability, far from the mark, although his lan 
 guage may be sometimes rather flowery. The feather-work 
 was one of the remarkable products of the Aztecs. In an orna 
 mental way it is still practised in Mexico, and the birds and other 
 objects made from feathers exhibit a wonderful skill. Mantles of 
 fur are mentioned as being used by the Aztecs, but these were 
 probably constructed in much the same manner as the rabbit-skin 
 robes of the Moki and the Pai Ute, that is, by twisting the skins 
 into ropes and then tying them together. The cotton weaving 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 METHOD OF MAKING FEATHER-WORK 
 
138 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 was done on a loom similar to that now in use by the Navajos and 
 the Pueblos. The feather-work was probably made in much the 
 same way as that of Peru, specimens of which have been pre 
 served in the tombs. The figure on page 137 shows the way the 
 Peruvians attached the feathers to the cloth underground, but in 
 many cases the feathers were woven in with the warp and woof, 
 instead of being attached to the surface in this way. This use of 
 feathers was not confined to any particular locality, but, like al 
 most all the arts in use on the continent, was widely distributed. 
 Turkey feathers were used in Virginia for. this work, and in Louis 
 iana the same bird was called upon. " The feather mantles," 
 writes Du Pratz in his history of Louisiana, " are made on a frame 
 similar to that on which the peruke makers work hair ; they 
 spread the feathers in the same manner and fasten them on old 
 fish-nets or old mantles of mulberry bark. They are placed, 
 spread in this manner, one over the other and on both sides ; for 
 this purpose small turkey feathers are used ; women who have 
 feathers of swans or India ducks, which are white, make these 
 feather mantles for women of high rank. 1 Feather mantles of 
 fine quality were also made by the Lenape. 
 
 Almost every Amerind tribe could make thread, cord, nets, 
 mats, and some kind of woven stuff. The Mexicans, Mayas, and 
 other tribes of the Central region excelled in these things, but the 
 Pueblos, and Navajos, as we have seen, execute in modern times 
 some admirable fabrics, which the Pueblos also constructed before 
 the advent of the whites. 
 
 " The Mexicans had also," says Prescott, " the art of spinning 
 a fine thread of the hair of the rabbit and other animals, which 
 they wove into. a delicate web that took a permanent dye. 
 The women, as in other parts of the country, seemed to go about as 
 freely as the men. They wore several skirts or petticoats of differ 
 ent lengths, with highly ornamented borders, and sometimes over 
 them loose flowing robes, which reached to the ankles. These, 
 also, were made of cotton ; for the wealthier classes, of a fine 
 texture, prettily embroidered. No veils were worn here (Mexico) 
 as in some other parts of Anahuac, where they were made of the 
 aloe thread, or of the light web of hair above noticed." 2 Biart 3 
 says the women wore "a piece of cloth cueitl, which they 
 
 1 Du Pratz, Hist, de la Louisiane, vol. ii., pp. 191, 192. 
 
 2 Prescott s Mexico, vol. ii., pp. 133, 134. 3 L,ucien Biart, The Aztecs. 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 CHILKAT CEREMONIAL SHIRT 
 
 I3Q 
 
140 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 wrapped around their bodies, and which descended a little be 
 low the knee ; over this skirt they wore a sleeveless chemise 
 called huepilli." 
 
 The Mayas and other Amerinds of the Central region used 
 woven cloths similar to those of the Aztecs. Of the dress of the 
 modern Amerinds of Nicaragua, Squier says : " It is exceedingly 
 simple. On ordinary occasions the women wear only a white or 
 flowered skirt fastened round the waist, leaving the upper part of 
 the person entirely exposed, or but partially covered by a hand 
 kerchief fastened around the neck. In Masaya and some other 
 places, a square piece of cloth of native manufacture, and pre 
 cisely the same style and pattern with that used for the same 
 purpose before the Discovery, supplies the place of a skirt. It is 
 fastened in some incomprehensible way without aid of strings or 
 pins and falls from the hips a little below the knees. . . . 
 The men wear a kind of cotton drawers, fastened above the 
 hips, but frequently reaching no lower than the knees. Sand 
 als supply the place of shoes, but for the most part both sexes 
 go with bare feet." l The costume of the women of Louisi 
 ana as depicted by Du Pratz in an illustration in his history, is 
 almost, if not quite identical with the costume of the women of 
 Nicaragua. 
 
 Fine dressing was not confined to the Mexicans. Other Ame 
 rinds gave some attention to their personal appearance as well as 
 the tribes of Mexico. In the following description by a Miss Pow 
 ell, who visited an Iroquois council on Buffalo Creek, in 1785, of 
 Captain David, if the worthy Captain had been described as a 
 " lord," and Miss Powell had been less skeptical about his ablu 
 tions, he might easily have ranked with some of the " lords " of 
 Anahuac who are so conspicuous in the charming works of Pres- 
 cott. Miss Powell declared, " that the Prince of Wales did not 
 bow with more grace than Captain David. 1 He spoke English 
 with propriety. His person was as tall and fine as it was possible 
 to imagine ; his features handsome and regular, with a counte 
 nance of much softness ; his complexion not disagreeably dark, 
 and, said Miss Powell, I really believe he washes his face. . . . 
 His hair was shaved off, except a little on top of his head, which, 
 with his ears, was painted a glowing red. Around his head was 
 a fillet of silver from which two strips of black velvet, covered with 
 
 1 Squier, Nicaragua, p. 289. 
 
,, r , ~ UNIVERSITY 
 
 Weaving and Costume 14 
 
 X 
 
 silver beads and brooches, hung over the left temple. A foxtail 
 feather in his scalp-lock and a black one behind each ear waved 
 and nodded as he walked, while a pair of immense silver ear-rings 
 hung down to his shoulders. He wore a calico shirt, the neck and 
 shoulders thickly covered with silver brooches, the sleeves con 
 fined above the elbows with broad silver bracelets engraved with 
 the arms of England, while four smaller ones adorned his wrists. 
 Around his waist was a dark scarf lined with scarlet which hung 
 to his feet, while his costume was completed by neatly fitting blue 
 cloth leggins, fastened with an ornamental garter below the 
 knee." This elegant gentleman belonged to no vanished or 
 mysterious race ; he was a modern Iroquois. Undoubtedly his 
 ancestors had, many of them, with the means at their command, 
 dressed with equal splendour, and we may wonder what kind of a 
 description of them we would have had from the romantic Span 
 iards if they had happened to meet with them. Even this well- 
 balanced American lady was considerably overcome, for she says : 
 " Captain David made the finest appearance I ever saw in my 
 life." About this same time, or to be accurate, in 1776, Father 
 Escalante met with Amerinds in Utah whose dress was very differ 
 ent. Their dress, he says, manifests great poverty ; the most 
 decent which they wear is a coat or shirt of deerskin, and big 
 moccasins of the same in winter ; they have dresses made of hare 
 and rabbit skin." 2 In the latter we recognise the same twisted 
 skin garments that are still used, or were a few years ago, by the 
 Pai Utes and the Mokis. In central Georgia in Soto s time the 
 women wore a kind of shawl, " for covering, wearing one about 
 the. body from the waist downward, and another over the shoulder 
 with the right arm left free." 3 Spinning and weaving were long 
 supposed, by those who had not investigated, to be practised only 
 by the Mexican and Pueblo tribes, and by the Navajos, but the 
 Pimas and Maricopas of Arizona were adepts in these arts in 1857. 
 The government agent reports at that time : " They also spin 
 and weave their cotton, by hand, into blankets of a beautiful 
 texture, an art not acquired from the Spaniards, but found among 
 them more than three hundred years ago, when the Spaniards first 
 
 1 The History of Erie County, N.Y., pp. 58, 59, edited by H. Perry 
 Smith. 
 
 2 Quoted in Captain Simpson s Report, p. 494. 
 
 3 Buckingham Smith s translation. 
 
142 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 penetrated the country." The A1 go n quins of Connecticut 
 dressed in skins " cured so as to be soft and pliable, and some 
 times ornamented with paint and with beads manufactured from 
 shells. Occasionally they decked themselves in mantles made of 
 feathers overlapping each other as on the back of the fowl, and 
 presenting an appearance of fantastic gayety which, no doubt, 
 prodigiously delighted the wearers. The dress of the women 
 consisted usually of two articles : a leather skirt, or under gar 
 ment, ornamented with fringe ; and a skirt of the same material, 
 fastened round the waist with a belt and reaching nearly to the 
 
 feet. . . . Their 
 hair they dressed 
 in a thick heavy 
 plait which fell 
 down upon the 
 neck ; and they 
 sometimes orna 
 mented their 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 CHILKAT CEREMONIAL BLANKET 
 
 heads with bands 
 o f wampum o r 
 with a small cap. 
 The men went 
 bare-headed, 
 with their hair 
 fantastically 
 trimmed, each 
 according to his 
 fancy. One 
 
 warrior would have it shaved on one side of the head and long 
 on the other. Another might be seen with his scalp completely 
 bare, except a strip two or three inches in width running from 
 the forehead over to the nape of the neck. This was kept 
 short, and so thoroughly stiffened with paint and bear s grease 
 as to stand straight after the fashion of a cock s comb, or the 
 crest of a warrior s helmet. The legs were covered with leg- 
 gins of dressed deerskin, and the lower part of the body was 
 protected by the breech-cloth, usually called by the early 
 settlers, Indian breeches. Moccasins, that is, light shoes of soft 
 1 Lieutenant Mowry, Report, p. 587, Ex. Doc. No. u, 35th Cong., ist 
 Session. 
 
Weaving and Costume 143 
 
 dressed leather, were common to both sexes ; and like other por 
 tions of the attire, were many times tastefully ornamented with 
 embroidery of wampum. The men often dispensed with their 
 leggins, especially in summer ; while in winter they protected 
 themselves against the bleak air by adding to their garments 
 a mantle of skins. The male children ran about in a state of 
 nature until they were ten or twelve years old ; the girls were 
 provided with an apron, though of very economical dimen 
 sions. . . . The women . . . used the paint as an orna 
 ment, while the men seldom applied it, except when they wetit 
 to war and wished to appear very terrible in the sight of their 
 enemies. Sachems and great men had caps and aprons heavily 
 wrought with different-coloured beads. Belts were also worn of 
 the same material, some of which contained so great a quantity 
 of wampum as to be valued by the English colonists at eight 
 and ten pounds sterling." 1 
 
 Here we discover the same desire for distinction of individuals 
 by dress that exists in all races, and the same desire to dress richly 
 on the part of those possessing wealth or station, for it must be 
 understood that wealth and station have their degrees amongst 
 the rudest Amerinds as well as amongst the highest and amongst 
 the Europeans. The dress in the summer always differs consider 
 ably from that of winter. In many tribes little is worn by the 
 men in summer but the breech-cloth, and sometimes not even that. 
 I recall one morning when I was living in the Moki village of 
 Tewa, in Arizona, one of the dignitaries came to call upon me, 
 as was a common custom, and he had wrapped about him a native 
 blanket. When he temporarily let this covering drop away from 
 his person, I noticed that there was not even a breech-cloth be 
 neath. The small children of both sexes played about in a state 
 of nature, though some wore a shirt, and the women appeared to 
 have on only the one garment, made of two small black blankets 
 sewed together on their side edges and caught over the right 
 shoulder and under the left. The Moki women wear moccasins 
 only in the ceremonials, or on some state occasion, or when travel 
 ling. They rarely travel. 
 
 Catlin gave a great deal of attention to the costumes of the 
 Amerinds he travelled amongst and painted, and a reference to 
 his works opens up a world of detail that cannot be presented 
 
 1 John W. De Forrest, History of the Indians of Connecticut, pp. 9-11. 
 
144 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 here. Some of his most interesting work was amongst the Man- 
 dans, of Dakota stock, in the year 1832. I will quote from him 
 some general remarks on the Mandan costume. " The Mandans, 
 in many instances, dress very neatly, and some of them splendidly. 
 As they are in their native state, their dresses are all of their own 
 manufacture, and, of course, altogether made of skins of different 
 animals belonging to those regions. There is, certainly, a reign 
 ing and striking similarity of costume amongst most of the North 
 western tribes, and I cannot say that the dress of the Mandans is 
 decidedly distinct from that of the Crows or the Blackfeet, the 
 Assiniboins, or the Sioux ; yet there are modes of stitching or 
 embroidering in every tribe which may at once enable the traveller 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MOKI WALL DECORATION. PINK ON A WHITE GROUND. 
 MISHONGNUVI, ARIZONA 
 
 who is familiar with their modes to detect or distinguish the dress 
 of any tribe. These differences consist generally in the fashions 
 of constructing the head-dress, or of garnishing their dresses with 
 the porcupine quills, which they use in great profusion. 
 The tunic, or shirt, of the Mandan men is very similar in shape to 
 that of the Blackfeet made of two skins of deer, or mountain- 
 sheep, strung with scalp-locks, beads, and ermine. The leggings, 
 like those of the other tribes of which I have spoken, are made of 
 deerskins and shaped to fit the leg, embroidered with porcupine 
 
 1 Catlin had wonderful success in persuading Amerinds to pose for him. 
 When I went amongst the Navajos and Mokis in 1884-855 1 found it next to 
 impossible to get them to sit for me. Only one solitary specimen in the 
 whole region was willing to run the risk. It was considered very "bad 
 medicine." 
 
 2 The Crows, Sioux, Mandans, and Assiuiboins are the same stock the 
 Dakota or Siouan. 
 
Weaving and Costume 
 
 quills, and fringed with scalps from their enemies heads. Their 
 moccasins are made of buckskin, and neatly ornamented with 
 porcupine quills. Over their shoulders (or, in other words, over 
 one shoulder and passing under the other) they very gracefully 
 wear a robe from a young buffalo s back, oftentimes cut down to 
 about half of its original size, to make it handy and easy for use. 
 Many of these are also fringed on one side with scalp-locks, and 
 the flesh side of the skin curiously ornamented with pictured 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 BELLACOOLAS 
 
 representations of the creditable events and battles of their lives. 
 Their head-dresses are of various sorts, and many of them ex 
 ceedingly picturesque and handsome, generally made of war-eagles 
 or ravens quills and ermine. These are the most costly part of 
 an Indian s dress in all this country, owing to the difficulty of 
 procuring the quills and the fur ; the war-eagle being the rara 
 avis, and the ermine the rarest animal that is found in the country." 
 Catlin gave two horses for one of the head-dresses. This specimen 
 came down to the wearer s feet. These are now called " war- 
 bonnets," and are still in use among the Sioux and other tribes. 
 There is occasionally," continues Catlin, " a chief or a warrior 
 
146 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 of so extraordinary renown that he is allowed to wear horns on 
 his head-dress, which give to his aspect a strange and majestic 
 effect. These are made of about a third part of the horn of a 
 buffalo bull, the horn having been split from end to end, and a 
 third part of it taken and shaved thin and light and highly 
 polished. These are attached to the top of the head-dress on each 
 side in the same place that they rise and stand on the head of a 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 TOP VIEW OF CONICAL NORTH-WEST COAST HAT 
 
 Made of spruce roots, ornamented in red and black paint, with totemic device of a duck 
 See figure page 160 
 
 buffalo, rising out of a mat of ermine skins and tails, which hang 
 over the top of the head-dress somewhat in the form that the large 
 and profuse locks of hair hang and fall over the head of a buffalo 
 bull." This head-dress with horns " is used only on certain occa 
 sions, and they are very seldom." 
 
 Among the Omahas, also of Dakota stock, garments, Dorsey 
 
 Ratlin, Smithsonian Report, 1885, pp. 450, 451. 
 
Weaving and Costume 
 
 o 
 
 147 
 
 says, " were usually made by the women, while men made their 
 weapons. . . . There is no distinction between the attire of 
 dignitaries and that of the common people." 1 
 
 The Makahs of the North-west region (U. S.) manufacture a 
 kind of cloth out of cedar bark. The inner bark is selected, 
 boiled, or macerated, and then pounded and hatcheled out. The 
 bark is made to form the warp, the woof being made of grass 
 thread. This stuff is pliable, and 
 makes a convenient outer garment. 
 Very pretty capes, edged with sea- 
 otter skin, are made of it. This tribe 
 also are the principal manufacturers 
 of the cedar mats which are used on 
 the Sound. These are entirely of 
 bark, formed into narrow strips, and 
 woven on the floor. They are thin 
 and perfectly even in texture." 2 
 Among the tribes of the North-west : 
 " The women universally wore a 
 breech-clout of strands gathered 
 around the waist and falling usually 
 to the knees. . . . With the men no 
 idea of modesty existed." They 
 sometimes wear a bearskin with the 
 hair out tied around the throat. 
 Their hats, when they wear any, 
 are of the conical form common along 
 the coast." 4 A conical wicker hat 
 similar to the Japanese shape is found 
 among the Tlinkits (Koluschan) and 
 Chimmesyan up on the Alaskan coast. 
 I saw several at Sitka in the summer 
 of 1899, but not in use. The head covering of various tribes differs 
 considerably. The skull-cap, woven like a basket, was never found, 
 so far as I know, in the Mississippi region. The Pai Utes formerly 
 
 1 Dorsey, " Omaha Sociology," Third Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 310. 
 
 2 Geo. Gibbs, "Tribes of Western Washington and North-western Ore 
 gon," U. S. G, S. Contrib., vol. i., partii., p. 220. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 219. 
 ., p. 176. 
 
 Posed by Thomas Moran 
 WONSIVU, A PAI UTE GIRL 
 
 From photograph by the Colorado River 
 Survey, 1874 
 
148 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 wore caps, or at least some of them did, the men wearing a little 
 buckskin affair tied under the chin with strings. The remainder 
 of their costume often consisted of a string around the waist from 
 which was suspended front and rear a cloth of buckskin reaching 
 half way to the ground. Others wore fine buckskin suits ; a 
 fringed shirt and fringed leggings reaching, like those of the 
 Dakota, to the waist. The southern Utah women wore conical 
 
 A NAVAJO LEADER IN NATIVE COSTUME 
 Figure from photograph by the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology 
 
 caps of wicker-work, like a bowl upside down, except that they 
 had a little point at the top. 1 The women s garment was of buck 
 skin, attached at the neck and hanging down before and behind 
 to below the knee, open at the sides, and bound around the waist 
 by a buckskin sash. There was a plentiful adornment of buckskin 
 fringe also. The feet were bare except in cold weather, when 
 moccasins were worn. The younger women wore a narrow band 
 around the brow composed of two buckskin strings, covered with 
 porcupine quills, which were interwoven to hold the strings 
 
 1 The same kind of a wicker cap is worn by many California Amerinds. 
 
150 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 together, and the men often wore a head-dress of feathers, which 
 stood straight up around the crown. In both men and women the 
 hair was allowed to hang down, brushed back from the face with 
 out braids of any kind. The Navajo men wear a sort of turban ; 
 a piece of red cloth or a bandana twisted around the brow, the hair 
 being done up in a kind of Greek knot behind. Their clothes 
 consist of a shirt or jacket of cotton goods, and trousers of the same 
 stuff reaching to just below the knee and slashed up on the outside 
 for about eight inches. They sometimes wear close-fitting breeches 
 with leggings. This garment is generally held at the waist 
 by a belt, which is often richly decorated by discs of silver about 
 two by four inches elaborately engraved in their native style. The 
 trousers are sometimes bound inside the leggings. Their leggings 
 are of buckskin, red or black, frequently fastened on the outside by 
 a row of silver half-globe buttons of their own make and woven 
 garters, some three feet long, twisted around above the calf. The 
 leggings are also applied without any buttons when they are held 
 by the garters. The moccasin is one finely made, red or black, or 
 the natural tan colour, with a rawhide sole turned up all round, 
 and, like the leggings, often fastened by several silver buttons. 
 The Navajos are extremely fond of black. The hair of the women 
 is parted and tied in a knot behind very much the same as that of 
 the men. Their dress is now very like that of Moki women, 
 that is, a garment that is attached over the right shoulder, under 
 the left, and falls about half way between the knees and the 
 ground, usually caught in at the waist by a sash or belt. Also 
 like the Moki women they wear a kind of combined moccasin and 
 legging, on certain occasions. This is a rawhide-soled moccasin 
 with a long narrow top-piece which is wound round and round the 
 leg after the moccasin is put on, and gives an almost straight line 
 from the knee down, almost exactly the same as the Moki custom. 
 In fact, so far as garments are concerned, it might often be difficult 
 to tell Navajo and Moki women apart. The Moki women wear 
 their hair differently ; the married ones making two cues of it 
 which hang down on each side of the face, usually in front of the 
 shoulders, while the unmarried ones have theirs done up in two 
 extraordinary wheels or discs standing parallel with the side of 
 the face or head, and attached to it by a sort of axle wound round 
 with string. This effect is obtained by first dividing the hair into 
 two equal parts, drawing each part to its side of the head and 
 
Weaving and Costume 151 
 
 winding it with string just above the ear, and a little behind it. 
 Kach division is then again divided, horizontally, into two equal 
 parts, and these parts are carefully brushed around a curved stick, 
 like a letter U, held with the opening sidewise, the upper one down 
 and around and the lower one up and around, till they are com 
 pletely wound over the U and spread out as much as possible at 
 the same time. Then they are tied in the middle with a string, 
 that is, between the arms of the U, and finally, before withdraw 
 ing the U, the two portions are fully spread, till when the U is 
 taken out, and they are further arranged, they almost meet and 
 form a perfect wheel or circle. In ordinary practice they do not 
 meet, but resemble a well tied bow-knot of broad ribbon; but when 
 a girl has a fine head of hair that has been well cared for, and her 
 mother takes a pride in dressing her hair for any ceremon}^ or 
 feast day, the wheel is al 
 most perfect. This peculiar 
 method of hair-dressing is 
 now found nowhere else in 
 the world, except among the 
 unmarried women of the 
 Coyotero Apaches, who are u. s . B U . Eth. 
 said to wear a coil some- PUEBLO HEAD MAT 
 
 thing like it. 
 
 Some of the Pueblo women tie their hair in a knot behind 
 like the Navajo women ; in fact, both Navajo women and men 
 closely resemble the Pueblo in their dress, the reason in my opin 
 ion being that advanced before : namely, the incorporation of 
 Pueblo stock. The Moki men also sometimes wear their hair 
 like Navajos, but full-blood Navajos have taken up their residence 
 with the Moki, so it may be confined to these and their child 
 ren. The regular Moki method of dressing a man s hair is to 
 " bang " it across the eyebrows, cut the side locks straight back 
 on the lower line of the ear, and gather the remainder into a knot 
 behind. 1 The brush used is composed of a bunch of stiff grass 
 
 1 Gushing says of the early Zunis : "They wore but scant clothing be 
 sides their robes and blankets breech-cloths and kilts, short for the men, 
 long for the women, and made of shredded bark and rushes or fibre ; san 
 dals also of fibre. . . . The hair was bobbed to the level of the eyebrows 
 in front, but left long and hanging at the back, etc." Thirteenth Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eth., p. 358. 
 
152 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 tied round the middle with a string. Both Navajo and Moki men 
 as well as those of other tribes now wear white men s trousers 
 when obtainable. The costumes worn in the various ceremonials 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 NAVAJOS 
 
 of the Navajos, Pueblos, Iroquois, and other Amerinds are so 
 numerous and so varied that there is no space in a chapter like 
 this for a description of them. 
 
Weaving and Costume 153 
 
 In the line of embroidery comes the beadwork, see p. 125, 
 the ornamentation with quills, and embroidery with yarns. I will 
 only mention the embroidery of the Mokis, which is done on the 
 ends of broad cotton sashes, with coloured yarns. This is the 
 only form in which I have seen it. The pattern is elaborate, 
 and often a foot or more at each end of a sash will be thus 
 ornamented. The Pueblo women wore a roll on the head on 
 which a water-jar was balanced. Coronado mentions this thus : 
 " I also send two rolls, such as the women usually wear on their 
 heads when they bring water from the spring, the same way that 
 they do in Spain. One of these Indian women, with one of these 
 rolls on her head, will carry a jar of water up a ladder without 
 touching it with her hands. Some of the Pueblo women still use 
 rings to carry water-jars on their heads. See figure on page 151. 
 
 Jaramillo speaks of the natives of the first village of " Cibola " 
 as having clothing of " deerskins, very carefully tanned, and they 
 also prepare some tanned cowhides, with which they cover them 
 selves, which are like shawls and a great protection. They have 
 square cloaks of cotton, some larger than others, about a yard and 
 a half long. The Indians wear them thrown over the shoulder 
 like a gypsy and fastened with one end over the other, with a 
 girdle, also of cotton." * Other Pueblos of New Mexico he de 
 scribes as having " some long robes of feathers which they braid, 
 joining the feathers with a sort of thread ; and they also make 
 them of a sort of plain weaving with which they make the cloaks 
 with which they protect themselves." In the Reladdn Postrera, 
 the Cibola dress is described also, and I add it here because these 
 accounts show so conclusively that the art of weaving was in full 
 practice in this northern country before the Europeans entered it. 
 " Some of these people wear cloaks of cotton and of the maguey 
 (or Mexican aloe) and of tanned deerskin, and they wear shoes 
 made of these skins, reaching up to the knees. They also make 
 cloaks of the skins of hares and rabbits, with which they cover 
 themselves. The women wear cloaks of the maguey, reaching 
 down to the feet, with girdles ; they wear their hair gathered 
 about the ears like little wheels." 3 I would specially call atten 
 tion to the similarity to the costume of the present Moki, even to 
 
 1 "Coronado Letter," Fourteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 562. 
 
 2 " Narrative of Jaramillo," Ibid., pp. 586, 587. 
 
 3 " Relaci6n Postrera de Sivola," Ibid., p. 569. 
 
154 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 the hair-dressing. The Seminole men had a singular way of wear 
 ing their hair. It was cut close to the head, except a strip about 
 an inch wide, running over the front of the scalp from temple to 
 temple, and another strip, of about the same width, perpendicular 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 SEMINOLE MAN S AND WOMAN S COSTUME 
 
 to the former, crossing the crown of the head to the nape of the 
 neck. At each temple a heavy tuft was allowed to hang to the 
 bottom of the lobe of the ear. The long hair of the strip crossing 
 to the neck is generally gathered and braided into two ornamental 
 queues." The mustache is worn among the Seminole, Navajo, 
 1 C. MacCauley, "Seminole Indians of Florida," Fifth Ann. Rept. Bu. 
 Eth., p. 486. 
 
Weaving and Costume 
 
 155 
 
 Tlinkit, Eskimo, and other tribes. Some Eskimo shave a round 
 place on the crown of the head. Some Amerinds also wear a 
 small beard. 
 
 Many Amerinds, especially the men, wore, as before mentioned, 
 nothing whatever in mild weather, and even in winter the dress 
 of some, especially in the more southerly regions, was far from 
 elaborate. I remember one February, in the mountains of Ari 
 zona, visiting a camp of Shevwits to have a talk with the chief. 
 Proceeding toward his wikiup, I found him near it lying naked, 
 basking in the sun, only partly covered by a rabbit-skin robe. 
 He seemed to be warm and happy, the spot being a sheltered one 
 in a canyon, and the rays of the sun being comfortably warm. In a 
 Journal of a Voyage to New York in 1679-80, the authors, speaking 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 EAR-PERFORATING AND HAIR-DRESSING OF SEMINOLES 
 
 of the natives near Sandy Hook, said : " They wear something in 
 front, over the thighs, and a piece of duffels, like a blanket, 
 around the body, and this is all the clothing they have. Their 
 hair hangs down from their head in strings, well smeared with 
 fat, and sometimes with quantities of little beads twisted in it out 
 of pride." 
 
 1 Memoirs Long- Island Hist. Soc. y vol. i., p. 99, "Journal of a Voyage 
 to New York in 1679-80." 
 
156 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 In war the body was generally naked in many tribes. 1 The 
 Navajo warrior wore absolutely nothing but the breech-cloth, and 
 I am not sure that he wore even that. In some tribes the warriors 
 wore a head-dress, either a kind of turban or a feather head-dress. 
 The Dakotas wore their long trailing war-bonnets of feathers, or 
 not possessing one, certain feathers in their hair, according to their 
 standing as warriors ; and sometimes their leggings. Of course 
 each carried bow, quiver, shield, and such weapons of his tribe as 
 were in vogue. On the North-west coast a protective armour was 
 employed, and such a practice obtained in other regions, notably 
 among the Aztecs and other Mexicans, who made a thick quilted 
 cotton armour, as was noted in the quotations from Prescott. 
 The subject of armour, however, belongs to another chapter. The 
 wearing of rings in the nose and ears, and the perforation of the 
 ears, while a part of costume, more properly belongs to customs. 
 In the " ghost " excitement of a few years ago, special shirts were 
 donned, and in the battles resulting from this craze, these shirts 
 were worn because they were thought to be proof against bullets 
 and all other weapons. " During the dance," says Mooney, " it 
 was worn as an outside garment, but was said to be worn at other 
 times under the ordinary dress. Although the shape, fringing, 
 and feather adornment were practically the same in every case, 
 considerable variation existed in regard to the painting, the de 
 signs on some being very simple, while the others were fairly 
 covered with representations of sun, moon, and stars, the sacred 
 things of their mythology, and the visions of the trance. The 
 feathers attached to the garment were always those of the eagle, 
 and the thread used in the sewing was always the old-time sinew." 
 The approved material of the " ghost-shirt" was buckskin, but 
 where this could not be had the shirt was made of cotton cloth. 
 
 In the Far North, clothing is imperative all the year round, and 
 about every minute of the time, out-of-doors. Yet the garments 
 of the Eskimo often do not quite meet around the waist, so that in 
 bending over the bare back is exposed to the cold. In their houses, 
 too, they often wear very little ; nothing more than a kind of deer 
 skin drawers. The material of their clothing is entirely fur-skins; 
 
 1 See chapter on Weapons, and note also the quotation from Prescott 
 pp. 134 and 136. 
 
 James Mooney, "The Ghost-Dance Religion," Fourteenth Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eth. y pp. 789, 790; see also Chap. IX., this work. 
 
Weaving and Costume 
 
 157 
 
 though the Hudson Bay Eskimo sometimes wear trousers of jean, 
 or denim, obtained in trade. Up to a certain age the children of 
 both sexes are dressed much alike, and the smaller ones scrabbling 
 about the bottom of a umiak, or skin boat, can hardly be distin 
 guished at first glance from some kind of a bear cub. At Plover 
 Bay, Siberia, where the natives resemble the Eskimo, I saw one 
 small child in arms, that seemed to be completely sewed up in 
 skins with the hair side in, its arms and legs looking like the 
 
 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 THE GHOST-SHIRT, SIMPLE FORM 
 
 stumps left after a surgical operation. Of the skin 
 of the child nothing was to be seen except its 
 face, its head, too, being entirely enveloped. This 
 was in the middle of July, when the far-away Moki children 
 would be scurrying about without a thread to disguise them. 
 The children of the Eskimo proper, on our side of Bering 
 Strait, were clothed, as mentioned, in skins with the fur side 
 out. Reindeer, otter, fox, and seal seem to furnish the bulk of 
 
158 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 their furs, but a number of other skins and furs are used when 
 they can get them. Murdoch, Boas, and Turner have given such 
 careful detailed accounts of the Eskimo in the various regions they 
 visited, 1 that I refer the reader to them for full information, pre 
 senting here only sufficient to convey a general idea of the cloth 
 ing. " The chief material (at Point Barrow) is the skin of the 
 reindeer (caribou)," says Murdoch, " which is used in various 
 
 stages of pelage. Fine, short- 
 haired summer skins, especially 
 those of does and fawns, are used 
 for making dress garments and 
 underclothes. The heavier skins 
 are used for every-day working 
 clothes, while the heaviest winter 
 skins furnish extra warm jackets 
 for cold weather, warm winter 
 stockings and mittens. . . . 
 The man s dress consists of the 
 usual loose hooded frock, without 
 opening except at the neck and 
 wrists. This reaches j ust over the 
 hips, rarely about to mid-thigh, 
 where it is cut off square, and 
 is usually confined by a girdle at 
 the waist. Under this garment 
 is worn a similar one, usually of 
 lighter skin and sometimes with 
 out a hood. The thighs are clad 
 in one or two pairs of tight-fit 
 ting knee-breeches, confined round 
 the hips by a girdle and usually 
 
 secured by a drawstring below the knee, which ties over the tops 
 of the boots. On the legs and feet are worn, first, a pair of long, 
 deerskin stockings with the hair inside ; then slippers of tanned 
 sealskin, in the bottom of which is spread a layer of whalebone 
 shavings, and outside a pair of close-fitting boots, held in place 
 round the ankle, usually reaching above the knee, and ending 
 
 Murdoch, "The Point Barrow Eskimo," Ninth Ann. Kept. Bu. Eth.; 
 Boas, "The Central Eskimo," Sixth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth.; Turner, "Hud 
 son Bay Eskimo," Eleventh Ann. Kept. Bu. Eth. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO BOOTS 
 
Weaving and Costume 159 
 
 by a string with a rough edge, which is covered by the breeches. 
 . . . The boots are of reindeer skin, with white sealskin soles 
 for winter and dry weather, but in summer waterproof boots of 
 black sealskin with soles of white whaleskin, etc., are worn." 
 
 The woman s frock is much like the man s, in the Point Barrow 
 region, only it has tails, or aprons, front and rear, rounded at the 
 bottom. In the Hudson Bay region, this garment is shaped more 
 at the waist, and the tails are lance-shaped and narrower, while the 
 front one is much shorter than the back. At Point Barrow there 
 is also worn by the men a cloak or mantle of deerskin, in extremely 
 cold weather. These cloaks are put on over the head, and fall 
 down all round, being fastened at the throat by strings. They 
 are not of one piece. The men s leg coverings come only to the 
 knee, but the women s are long enough to reach from the feet to 
 the waist, and the moccasin is attached to the bottom. The edge 
 of the moccasin sole is crimped to make it smaller at the top, and 
 this is the case with the soles of the boots made. This crimping 
 is done by the teeth. The wet-weather boots are waterproof and 
 light, but there is a diasgreeable odour about them. This odour is 
 more pronounced in some of the hastily made stockings which are 
 worn inside the boots. I bought a pair of the common sealskin 
 stockings made with hair side in at Port Clarence, but their smell 
 was something unbearable. For a waterproof garment they 
 take the entrails of the seal and, splitting them longitudinally, 
 sew together the strips thus obtained in the desired shape. Coats 
 made in this way are durable and light, and answer the purpose 
 admirably. Dr. Kane mentions a dress he saw where a man wore 
 " booted trousers of white bearskin, which at the end of the foot 
 were made to terminate with the claws of the animal." 2 
 
 In the middle and upper Mississippi region, according to 
 Hunter, there were tribes who made blankets of the wool of the 
 buffalo, notably the Osages, who were of Siouan stock. Their 
 method of procedure seems to have been very like that of the 
 Navajos and Mokis, to whom they are not related, except that they 
 belong to the Amerind race. Hunter says : " The hair of the 
 buffalo and other animals is sometimes manufactured into blankets; 
 the hair is first twisted by hand and wound into balls. The warp 
 is then laid of a length to answer the size of the intended blanket, 
 crossed by three small smooth rods alternately beneath the threads, 
 
 1 Murdoch. 2 Dr. Kane, Arctic Exploration, vol. i., p. 203. 
 
160 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 and secured at each end to stronger rods supported on forks, at a 
 short distance above the ground. Thus prepared the woof is filled 
 in, thread by thread, and pressed closely together, by means of a 
 long flattened wooden needle. When the weaving is finished, the 
 ends of the warp and woof are tied into knots, and the blanket is 
 ready for use. 
 
 ! John D. Hunter, Memoirs of a Captive among the Indians of North 
 America, London, 1823, pp. 289, 290. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 RAIN HAT, HAIUA 
 See figure page 146 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 TOUCAN OF SQUIER AND DAVIS, REALLY A CROW 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 CARVING, MODELLING, SCULPTURE 
 
 THE shaping of objects in clay, wood, or stone, or other ma 
 terial, known as carving, modelling, etc., constitutes sculp 
 ture. Some form of these methods was in use in very 
 primitive times for the production of weapons or tools of wood, 
 bone, or stone. But the greatest schools of sculpture were basketry 
 and pottery, for in the practice of these arts a sense of form and 
 proportion could not be dispensed with. Thus sculpture finds its 
 birth in several arts, but particularly in basketry, stone-shaping, 
 and pottery. Taken all in all, the Mayas of Yucatan seem to have 
 been the greatest artists and sculptors, and as we travel northward 
 from there the skill in art gradually diminishes till, on passing the 
 old Aztec realm, it drops off rapidly. Far to the northward the 
 " Moundbuilders " exhibited a moderate skill and in some objects 
 a similarity to Mexican work, and still farther to the north-west 
 ward the Haidas, Kwakiutls, etc., in their totem poles, canoes, 
 etc., show not only a singular proficiency in carving in wood, but 
 also similarities to some of the Mexican work. 
 
 Masks, pipes, rattles, and other ceremonial paraphernalia gave 
 the Amerind sculptor much to do. It must not be supposed, though, 
 that all members of a tribe possessed the sculptor s power. There 
 was as much variation as we now find among ourselves. It is not 
 everyone of our people who can model a statue, or even carve the 
 rudest shape imitating man. So it was with the Amerind. He had 
 
 his arrow-makers, his skilful potters, his great carvers, who were 
 ii 
 
 161 
 
1 62 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 employed by the less skilful to do their work. To-day, among the 
 Amerinds of the North-west coast, there are specialists who carve 
 the totem poles, and obtain high prices. The totem poles and 
 house-posts are often elaborate, being covered almost from top to 
 
 Photograph by the Harriman Alaska Expedition, 1899 
 
 DESERTED VILLAGE NEAR CAPE FOX, ALASKA 
 Showing arrangement of totem poles and houses along the shore 
 
 bottom with figures of totemic animals. The carving is often on 
 a large scale, as the totem poles are frequently more than fifty feet 
 in height. They are planted several feet in 
 the ground, then there are several feet plain, 
 and from that on to near the top they may be 
 covered with carving, while surmounting the 
 whole is a figure bird, fish, or bear, or other 
 animal of large proportions. These poles 
 stand in front of the house, 1 and are an indica 
 tion of the clan or clans to which the person or 
 persons who erected it belong. The Haidas 
 and the Tlinkits specially excel in totem poles. 
 The execution of the figures is often extremely 
 good in a barbaric way. Besides the carved 
 poles there are often the carved columns or posts 
 inside the houses. These posts serve to support 
 
 INTERIOR HOUSE- 
 COLUMN 
 
 Sketch by author from 
 post at Cape Fox Village, 
 
 Alaska 
 
 1 Sometimes two high poles are set up, between which, at a potlatch or 
 "grease feast v " the piles of blankets forming payment for a "copper" are 
 laid. These are called "blanket-poles." 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 
 
 the two great rafters on which the jack- 
 rafters rest, and are often elaborate. At 
 a deserted village in south-east Alaska 
 (Cape Fox), I saw two of these col 
 umns, each representing a huge bird, 
 the wings being split out of cedar, 
 quite thin, and attached to the post 
 with a diagonally forward direction, the 
 rest of the bird being erect and facing 
 the room, the posts being within about 
 six feet of the rear of the structure. 
 Its tail was carved out of the post in a 
 sort of bass-relief, the remainder of the 
 post being squared up both below and 
 above, and on the sides of the figure, 
 except where the head was. The latter 
 had a huge beak, of the carnivorous 
 type. On the breast was a singular 
 round face. The whole was brightly 
 painted in reds, yellows, and blacks. 
 The accompanying figure represents 
 another of the house- posts of thi s village 
 which is now at Michigan University. 
 It was similarly painted. The carving 
 of these tribes is done almost entirely 
 in wood, so that had they disappeared 
 a century or so before our coming there 
 would have been found scarcely a trace 
 of their work. In like manner the 
 work of the tribes of the Mississippi 
 valley may have disappeared that is, 
 supposing that they carved in wood, 
 which is probable. There is a great 
 similarity between the carving of the 
 Haida and the Tlinkit totem poles, yet MA J R PART OF INTERIOR HOUSE - 
 
 J POST FROM CAPE FOX VILLAGE, 
 
 these tribes are of different stocks. An s. E. ALASKA 
 
 animal resembling a frog seems to be Presented to University of Michigan 
 
 , .. , by E. H. Harriman. Height, n ft. 
 
 very common as a totem in both stocks. ? in. ; width, 3 ft. ; thickness, 12 to 15 
 
 TT r- * -, i in. ; one piece of spruce. Painted 
 
 Muman figures are also carved on the m several colours. Photograph by 
 
 _ i _ j -i j r Professor Cole, University of Michi- 
 
 poles, and strange heads are frequent. gan 
 
164 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 The Haidas have become famous for their gigantic canoes 
 carved from single logs and elaborately decorated. 1 The other 
 Amerinds of this region also dig out fine boats from the huge logs 
 they obtain so easily in the forest, but there are none equal to 
 those of the Haida, who, indeed, require specially good boats for 
 navigating the waters around their island, Queen Charlotte s. 
 They are the best carvers of all the tribes 
 now living north of Mexico. Their 
 work is grotesque, corresponding with 
 the singular mythology of the artists 
 and their inability to render accurately 
 the forms they see about them. Com 
 binations of human and animal forms 
 are often seen, such as the panther-man 
 found by Swan in this region a crouch 
 ing figure with an attempt at a panther s 
 head and forelegs, with the hind legs hu 
 man. One of the most remarkable of all 
 the Haida works from an artistic point 
 of view is the group called the " Bear- 
 mother," 2 now in the National Museum 
 at Washington, and made by Skaows- 
 keav y one of the tribe. It apparently 
 shows European influence. The lines are 
 more flowing and soft than the ordinary 
 Amerind method of execution, and the 
 conception is more in range with Eu 
 ropean ideas. This may be accidental, 
 however, and merely in the line of the sculptor s development. 
 The material is slate. The subject is a child at the breast of the 
 " Bear-mother." The story of the bear-mother, as told by J. G. 
 Swan, is that "a number of Indian squaws were in the woods 
 gathering berries when one of them, the daughter of a chief, 
 spoke in terms of ridicule of the whole bear species. The bears 
 descended on them and killed all but the chief s daughter, whom 
 the king of the bears took to wife. She bore him a child, half 
 human and half bear. The carving represents the agony of the 
 
 1 There is a fine specimen in the American Museum of Natural History, 
 New York. 
 
 2 See Tenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 478. 
 
 Sketch by the author 
 
 TOTEM POLE WITH BEAR 
 ON THE TOP WRANGELL 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 
 
 165 
 
 mother in suckling this rough and uncouth offspring." From 
 an art standpoint, one failure in the execution of this conception 
 is that the child does not suggest sufficiently its half-bear char 
 acter. Nevertheless, it is an ex 
 traordinary work for an Amerind. 
 All the Amerinds of the 
 North-west coast carve wooden 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 TERRA-COTTA STATUETTE, CHIRIQUI. 
 ACTUAL SIZE 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 THE BEA*R-MOTHER, HAIDA, 
 N. W. COAST 
 
 masks, but here again, the Haidas excel, though the Tlinkits are 
 not far behind. It is the same with the other work, boxes, rattles, 
 etc. Some of the bowls, hollowed from a single piece of wood, 
 and carved on the exterior with their strange figures, and polished, 
 have a decided artistic merit. The Innuit also make wooden 
 
1 66 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 masks, but they are crude when compared with those of Queen 
 Charlotte Island, or the mainland in that vicinity. One feature 
 of all these North-west masks, specially noted by Dall, 1 which re 
 sembles Mexican carvings, is the protruding tongue touching an 
 animal. The protruding tongue is an index of life if firmly held 
 forth, according to Squier, while if it is loose and dangling at one 
 
 side it signifies 
 death or captivity. 
 Dall concludes that 
 the touch of the 
 tongue symbolises 
 the " transmission 
 of spiritual quali 
 ties or powers." In 
 the totem poles this 
 protruding tongue 
 touching an animal 
 is common, while 
 frequently the 
 tongue protrudes 
 without touching 
 any other person 
 or thing. A totem 
 represents the guardian spirit of the individual or clan, and there 
 fore the closer the association with it the better ; hence the idea 
 of placing the tongue upon it. 
 
 " A person," says Boas, " may have the general crest of his 
 clan and, besides, use as his personal crest such guardian spirits 
 as he has acquired. This accounts partly for the great multi 
 plicity of combinations of crests which we observe on the carvings 
 of these people. . . . The crest is used for ornamenting ob 
 jects belonging to a member of the clan ; they are carved on 
 columns intended to perpetuate the memory of a deceased rela 
 tive, painted on the house front or carved on a column which is 
 placed in front of the house, and are also shown as masks in 
 festivals of the clan." 2 Some of the grave monuments of the 
 Kwakiutls, the Chimmesyans, the Tlinkits, and others of the re- 
 
 1 W. H. Dall, Third Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 112. 
 
 2 Franz Boas, <( The Kwakiutl Indians," Rep. Nat. Mus., 1895, pp. 
 323, 324- 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 WOODEN MASKS, N. W. COAST 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 
 
 167 
 
 gion are ambitious carvings and represent considerable labour on 
 the part of the sculptor. One grave I saw at Cape Fox was presided 
 over by two huge wooden bears, the whole sheltered by a neat 
 roof on posts and surrounded by a balustrade. The animals must 
 have been at least 
 four and a half feet 
 high. Boas de 
 scribes a grave- 
 monument bird 
 carved out of cedar 
 bark, which is six 
 feet high and about 
 twelve feet from tip 
 to tip of the ex 
 tended wings. This 
 bird is upright like 
 the one carved on 
 the house-post 
 mentioned above, 
 and, like that, has 
 on its stomach the 
 carved representa 
 tion of a face. 
 This bird s wings 
 were originally 
 painted black to re 
 present feathers, 
 but this decoration 
 has worn off. It 
 is now in the Amer 
 ican Museum. The 
 Kwakiutls also u. s. BU. Eth. 
 have carved some 
 statues in wood re 
 presenting chiefs in a state of nature. These are extremely crude, 
 but are superior to much of the Moundbuilder work as shown 
 in the pipes and other carvings that have been preserved, and not 
 greatly behind the Mexican. Double-headed birds and animals 
 figure prominently among the carvings and drawings of the 
 North-west coast tribes, such as the double-headed " thunder 
 
 KWAKIUTL CARVING, N. W. COAST 
 
1 68 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 bird," the double-headed snake, etc. Boas obtained one of the 
 latter among the Kwakiutls which he describes as having a 
 head at each end and a human head in the middle. It is forty- 
 two inches in length and about six inches wide. It is " worn 
 in front of the stomach and secured with cords passing around 
 the waist." The fabulous animal this affair represents has " the 
 power to assume the shape of a fish. To eat it and even to touch 
 or to see it is sure death, as all the joints of the unfortunate 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO CARVED IVORY DRUM-HANDLES. 
 
 one become dislocated, the head being turned backward. But 
 to those who enjoy supernatural help it may bring power." 1 
 These North-west tribes seem to love to carve, and decorate almost 
 everything that will admit of it in this manner. In the vicinity 
 of Fort Rupert there are on the beach a number of rock carvings. 
 These represent faces of sea monsters, and also some of them 
 human faces. 
 
 Franz Boas, "The Kwakiutl Indians," Rep. Nat. Mus., 1895, pp. 
 
 370, 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 169 
 
 Amongst the Eskimos carving is limited, generally, to a sort of 
 engraving on bone and ivory, except in the matter of masks, which 
 are rudely shaped out of wood without any of the elaborate finish 
 that is observed in the work of Amerinds farther south. The 
 wood they have had to work with is not the kind that promotes 
 carving, and ivory is a rather difficult material to shape. Never 
 theless, they occasionally, form some attractive little heads from it, 
 to adorn the end of a harpoon line or something of that sort. They 
 also shape their drill bows and other implements to some extent 
 and decorate them with neat engraving. Some of these decorations 
 are very pleasing, and exhibit the same taste for symmetrical orna 
 mentation that is found throughout the continent. When they 
 attempt to represent form they are generally successful in giving 
 it the proper character with less of the childish grotesqueness that 
 is seen in most Amerind work. How much the long intercourse 
 with Europeans on whalers has modified the art efforts of the 
 Eskimo it is not possible to judge. Murdoch gives illustrations 
 of seals and whales shaped by the Point Barrow Eskimo, but aside 
 from the character of the animal being generally fairly well ren 
 dered, there is little that is artistically interesting in the work. 
 What I mean by character is that you can generally tell what is 
 intended by an Eskimo carving, which is not always the case with 
 the sculptured efforts of other Amerinds, though the finish may be 
 better. Boas gives illustrations of the carved work of the Central 
 Eskimo, 8 which show the same characteristics as the Western. 
 
 The Far Northern tribes, as a rule, are inferior to the other 
 Amerinds, in sculptural work, yet the Eskimo, mechanically, 
 were, in many respects, apparently in advance of all others. They 
 possessed the lamp, the only stock on the continent who did, but, 
 after all, this shows only the adaptability that saved them from 
 destruction. In a world without fuel and with plenty of seal oil, 
 they would never have survived if they had not invented a way to 
 secure heat from the oil. The Amerind of the forested regions 
 had no need for a lamp. The possession of the lamp, therefore, 
 is no indication of higher mental powers, but of a more severe en 
 vironment. Nor, on the other hand, is the limited amount of their 
 carving an indication on their part of inferior mental endowment. 
 It is, again, the result of circumstances, as pointed out above. In 
 a region without suitable material or climate for extensive carv- 
 1 Ninth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth. 2 Sixth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth. 
 
170 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 ing, they did not carve, that is all. Place them for a few genera 
 tions in the region of the Haidas, and they would begin to develop 
 many different habits and traits. 
 
 On the Atlantic coast, few specimens of sculpture have, thus 
 far, been found, nor has any carving of consequence been dis 
 closed. In New Jersey some rude heads in stone have come to 
 
 light, but such 
 finds are rare. As 
 the bounds of the 
 Mississippi valley 
 are entered, how 
 ever, the art re 
 in a i n s immedi 
 ately increase in 
 importance, but 
 not to the exag 
 gerated extent 
 claimed by many 
 writers. The carv 
 ings and sculp 
 tures of the Mis 
 sissippi valley are, 
 like all Amerind 
 products in this 
 line, crude, and 
 there is no warrant 
 for the claims that 
 the occupants of 
 the region were 
 not " Indians," so 
 far as these re 
 mains testify. The 
 most striking work found up to the present is that of the head- 
 shaped vases from Pecan Point, Arkansas, but as I have pointed 
 out before, these vases were not modelled free-hand, but were the 
 result of a process, are in fact death-masks, built into the vases. 
 While it was a clever thing to accomplish these in that way, yet it 
 is a mechanical method, and has little to do with artistic skill. 
 Thomas Wilson says of these vases that they divide themselves 
 J Chap. V., and American Anthropologist, February, 1897. 
 
 U. s. Bu. Eth. 
 
 . SPECIMEN OF MOUNDBUILDER SCULPTURAL SKILL 
 
 WITH HUMAN FIGURE 
 Height of jar, \o\ in. ; width of shoulders^ 8 in. 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 
 
 171 
 
 into two distinct groups. The specimens forming the first group 
 are death-masks, as becomes more and more evident the more the 
 objects are studied ; the other group, while of the same general 
 form as the first, the human head being represented, has the face 
 and features wrought upon it free-hand, as in sculpturing, without 
 the aid of mould or cast." 1 It may be added that the second group 
 is far inferior to the first, and is quite in line with the rest of the 
 remains of this district. 
 
 The tobacco pipes of the region were lauded as perfect examples 
 of the sculptor s art, but if one gives them 
 critical examination, it is at once plain that 
 they are not out of the Amerind line, and, 
 what is more, that as specimens of sculpture 
 they are pretty bad, because it is difficult to 
 
 decide just 
 what they 
 represent. 
 Even the 
 Eskimo 
 give their 
 work character 
 enough to dis 
 tinguish it, yet the Moundbuilder did much of his carving so 
 poorly that there has been frequent diversity of opinion as to what 
 it was intended to depict. Henshaw took up the matter, and has 
 shown that the degree of excellence of representation in the 
 carving of the Moundbuilder pipes, so long extolled, has been 
 overrated. 
 
 The tobacco pipe, bearing, as it did, a peculiar relation to the 
 sacred paraphernalia and ceremonies of the Amerinds, received 
 much attention from them and was frequently elaborate, from the 
 Amerind standpoint, in its details. The earliest form of pipe was 
 a straight tube seen in Mexican carvings and also found in various 
 parts of North America. In the Eastern United States one is 
 found which is designated as the " Monitor." I suppose this 
 name came from a resemblance to the famous first turret man-of- 
 war, the United States ship Monitor. The base of these pipes was 
 slightly curved downwards, the bowl rising from about the centre 
 of the platform, on the convex side. Many of these show marks 
 
 1 Prehistoric Art, p. 477. 
 
 U.S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 STONE PIPE FROM NORTH CAROLINA MOUND 
 
i 72 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 of steel tools. 1 Squier and Davis, who published their work in 
 1848, discerned wonderful artistic skill in the Moundbuilder pipes, 
 and they discovered an intimate acquaintance between the Mound- 
 builder artists and far-off tropical birds and animals, probably be 
 cause in those days it was thought that an "Indian " was absolutely 
 incapable of producing anything. Especially was great stress laid 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 TOUCAN OF SQUIER AND DAVIS, POSSIBLY MEANT FOR A YOUNG EAGLE 
 
 Only two of the u elephant" pipes have been found and both by the same person. There is a 
 
 doubt as to their genuineness. Even if genuine they are far from depicting the mastodon 
 
 by Squier and Davis upon certain pipes said to delineate the mana 
 tee. Theories of origin and migration were founded on this sup 
 posed knowledge, and other writers accepting these deductions 
 founded yet other theories upon them ; and they were all wrong. 
 Joseph D. McGuire, "American Aboriginal Pipes," Rep. Nat. Mus., 
 1897, p. 468. 
 

 Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 
 
 173 
 
 The trouble seems to lie in the fact that the archaeologists of some 
 years ago not only were not naturalists, but they were not accurate 
 and drew their conclusions from insufficient data. The attitude 
 of the archaeologist of to-day is exceedingly cautious, and before 
 pronouncing a pipe carving a manatee, or any other animal, he 
 would surely institute cautious and careful comparisons. This 
 Messrs. Squierand 
 Davis seem not to 
 have done, nor did 
 any of their fol 
 lowers or success 
 ors, being content, 
 as Henshaw points 
 out, to accept 
 Squier and Davis s 
 statement as abso 
 lute. Henshaw de- 
 m o 1 i s h e s their 
 claims and shows 
 that no manatee is 
 represented and 
 that all the pipe 
 carvings are of 
 birds and animals 
 that had their 
 range in the coun 
 try of the Mound- 
 builders or not far 
 from its borders. 
 What they called a toucan he identifies as a crow, or raven, 
 and in this decision several other ornithologists fully agree. 
 The nasal features are plainly shown, and the general contour 
 of the bill is truly corvine." See figure page 161. Thus is this 
 supposed tropical acquaintance easily disposed of and the crow, 
 certainly not a rare bird in that locality, substituted. A turkey 
 buzzard is shown to be a hawk, and other foreign types claimed by 
 Squier and Davis are disproved with ease. Out of forty-five carvings 
 on pipes figured by them only five, by Henshaw s tests, are correctly 
 named. Some carvings, which they were unable to identify, Hen 
 shaw places without any effort. As for the so-called manatees, he 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 TRIPOD VASE, CHIRIQUI. j. LEGS MODELLED 
 TO IMITATE FI H 
 
174 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 believes they were intended for otter. The manatee is an earless 
 animal with many peculiar features which do not appear in the 
 Moundbuilder carvings, while ears do appear. This is what I 
 mean by not giving "character" to carvings. It is a matter, 
 largely, of perception. The Eskimo appears to have this per 
 ception developed to a considerable degree, and when he deline 
 ates an animal he knows he marks strongly its peculiar features, 
 whatever else he may do. The element of imagination also comes 
 in, for Amerinds often produce drawings or carvings of animals 
 they think they have seen, or as they appeared to them in a sudden 
 and fleeting glimpse, or vision. 
 
 It was a lack of ability to reproduce accurately the lines and 
 character of any object which caused some of the Moundbuilder 
 pipes intended to represent the common otter to look like some 
 thing else. As a matter of fact, these Moundbuilder pipe carv 
 ings, about which so much that is unwarranted has been written, 
 are not superior to the carvings of the Haidas, or other stocks, 
 and indeed, if anything, are not equal to them. They certainly 
 do not compare for a moment with most of the work of the Mexi 
 can tribes. A further important conclusion of Henshaw s is that 
 there is no reason for believing that the masks and sculptures 
 of human faces are more correct likenesses than are the animal 
 carvings," which is exactly in accord with my own opinion, not 
 only as concerns the work of the Moundbuilders, but of every 
 other Amerind tribe. They were not sculptors of a kind that 
 could reproduce a likeness to an individual. Their work was 
 always general ; they seldom drew or painted from the object, as an 
 artist or sculptor of our race does, but they accomplished their re 
 sult by memory, imagination, and " rule of thumb." The sur 
 prise of the Europeans at finding anything at all in the art line, 
 coupled with a wide ignorance on art matters, has awarded all 
 the Amerind carvings and sculptures, as is well illustrated in 
 the Moundbuilder case, a false degree of excellence. The Ame 
 rinds of the Mississippi valley probably also carved wood, but 
 their work in this material has, of course, long ago decayed. 
 They worked other things, like shell, and some of the shell carv 
 ings are strikingly like Aztec drawings. In this shellwork there 
 are a great many discs and gorgets, engraved with figures of 
 spiders, rattlesnakes, birds, geometrical designs, and representa- 
 1 H. W. Henshaw, "Animal Carvings," Second Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 166. 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 1 75 
 
 tions of the human figure. There are also rude shell masks of the 
 human face, but these are primitive in the extreme. It must be 
 borne in mind that this region was occupied for long ages, and by 
 many different tribes, so that the work found is probably from 
 different sources, though all Amerind. A class of singularly shaped 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 SHELL GORGET, MISSOURI. ACTUAL SIZE 
 
 stones is found in the Mississippi valley and northward, mainly 
 north of the Ohio, to which the name " bird-stones " has been ap 
 plied because of their resemblance to avian forms. No satisfac 
 tory explanation of their use has been advanced. 1 
 
 1 Warren K Moore, The Bird-Slone Ceremonial (pamphlet). 
 
176 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 A number of stone statues of the human figure have been un 
 earthed from Georgia to Tennessee, varying in height from three 
 or four inches to something over twenty. They are all of the 
 crudest description, and so far as any resemblance to the type of 
 man who made them is concerned are absolutely valueless. They 
 are undoubtedly human forms, that is all ; not another character 
 istic, except sex, indicated by breasts, 
 is presented. They are mostly in a squat 
 ting posture and on one or two there 
 seems to be a suggestion of the hair 
 dressed behind. Effigy bottles of earth 
 enware from Tennessee are similarly 
 crude and primitive. There is little, 
 therefore, in the whole Mississippi valley 
 or on the Atlantic coast, in the line of 
 carving or sculpture, that could not 
 have been executed by Amerinds that 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 BIRD-SHAPED EARTHEN BOWL, ARKANSAS. 
 
 have been known to our race, many of them living in the same 
 localities where the art remains have been found. The superla 
 tive rank awarded Moundbuilder art is unwarranted. 
 
 Directing our attention now to still- another region, we find in 
 the South-west a vast deal that is absorbingly interesting. For 
 tunately the people were, many of them, still there when the first 
 Spaniards came into the country in 1540, so that we have data to 
 prevent the attributing the works found there to some mysterious 
 race. It has been attempted in the case of the " Cliff-dwellers," 
 but the investigations of competent ethnologists have effectually 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 
 
 177 
 
 settled that matter, and checked the romantic tendency except in 
 the case of a few who will not learn. The ethnographic condition 
 of the South-west since we have known it probably represents also 
 what prevailed in the Mississippi region, that is, a number of 
 different stocks existing in different stages of culture, distributed in 
 patches, not uniformly. 
 
 \ 
 
 U.S.Bu.Eth. 
 
 SHELL MASK, VIRGINIA. 
 
 All of them pitched their camps or built their houses as expe 
 diency dictated, and when cause arose to render them dissatisfied 
 with their site, whether cliff-house, village, or camp, they moved 
 to a more desirable place, leaving behind what they could not 
 easily carry, as well as their houses. Thus in the course of a long 
 time the area presented the appearance from the numerous remains 
 
178 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 of having a larger population than was really the case ; though I 
 may add that I believe the population was at one time somewhat 
 greater than has usually been admitted by the best ethnologists. 
 These various stocks carried on their daily avocations, and when 
 the results were in some indestructible material, many of them were 
 preserved to us, which, taken in connection with the productions 
 of the modern tribes, give an excellent and correct impression of 
 the life and occupations of the inhabitants extending far back into 
 the past. 
 
 Terra cotta Wood Terra cotta 
 
 MOKI SCULPTURAL SKILL WITH THE HUMAN FIGURE 
 
 The Shoshonean is one of the stocks still extant in that and 
 more northerly regions, and spreads far south to the lakes of 
 Mexico. It exists to-day in several stages, the Mexican or Na- 
 huatl, the Moki or Hopi, and the numerous bands of Utes. l Other 
 stocks probably had equal variation in culture within their ranks, 
 this variation being sometimes due to the absorption, as in the 
 
 1 The Pai Utes make rude clay and wood dolls, but nothing larger, and 
 no pottery. 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 
 
 179 
 
 case of the Navajos, of a more cultured tribe. Many of these 
 tribes did no carving whatever, and the region of our South-west is 
 poor in this sort of remains. The Pueblos, while 
 possessing other artistic talents of a high order, 
 do not seem to have done much in the line of 
 carving. They execute the ordinary fetiches 
 with little or no shape, and they also produce a 
 kind of small doll for the children and some that 
 are used in ceremonies, figure page 178, but all 
 these, and all the masks in ceremonies, are fearful 
 things to look upon, bearing little or no resem 
 blance to anything human ; shapeless, botched up 
 . masses of hideousness, usually not carved or mod- 
 
 THE ALOSAKA (MOKI) , 
 
 ., v A M elled, but built up out of various stuffs. Some 
 
 After drawing by A. M. r 
 
 Stephen of them model effigies in earthenware, but these 
 
 attempts do not amount to much. I have never 
 seen any wood carving, from this region, worth mentioning. A. 
 M. Stephen made a sketch of two figures in wood with small knots 
 or horns called the Alosaka, which I copied, but they are primi 
 tive to the last degree. 
 These figures were about 
 four feet high, and were 
 of cottonwood, apparently 
 very old. Figures above. 
 They were discovered by 
 accident in a cave near 
 the ruins of Awatuwi and 
 removed. When the loss 
 was learned by the Moki 
 they requested the return 
 of the images, which was 
 granted, and they have 
 not been seen since, nor 
 does anyone outside of the 
 custodians, or at least no 
 white man, know where 
 they are. Around the 
 Moki towns I saw not a 
 single attempt at rock carving, nor do I remember in exten 
 sive journeys over the South-western region ever seeing any 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. Side 
 
 SCULPTURAL ART OF CHIRIQUI 
 Fragmentary figure in grey basaltic rock. 
 
180 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 relief carving whatever. Rock scratchings, erroneously termed 
 " etchings" by many writers on these subjects, I have seen in 
 great abundance, but not an attempt at sculpture worth noticing. 
 There may, however, in some of the villages, be carvings 
 nevertheless. Governor Prince found at a ruin near Cochiti a 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth 
 
 SHELL GORGET, TENNESSEE. ^ 
 
 Apparently a human figure, with face in profile to the left of the circle near the top. The nose is 
 cut away by a perforation 
 
 number of rudely formed stone figures of human shape. Nearby 
 there are two panthers carved life size in the tufa which forms 
 the surface rock of the locality. They " lie side by side," says 
 Bandelier, " representing the animals as crouching with tails ex 
 tended, and their heads pointing to the east." l Their length is 
 six feet, one third of this being tail. The height is two feet and 
 1 A. F. Bandelier, Final Report, p. 152. 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 181 
 
 the breadth across the shoulders fourteen inches, and across the 
 rump seventeen inches. They are about twenty-two inches apart. 
 Around them is an irregular pentagonal enclosure, made of large 
 blocks, flags, and slabs of volcanic rock, some of which are set in 
 the ground like posts, while the majority are piled on each other 
 so as to connect the upright pillars. . . . When I last saw 
 the monument it looked like a diminutive and dilapidated Stone- 
 henge." l Another pair of similar panthers occurs at not a great 
 distance off at a place now called the Potrero de los Idolos. The 
 size is about the same as the others. " One of them is completely 
 destroyed by treasure hunters, who loosened both from the rock 
 by a blast of powder, and then heaved the ponderous blocks out 
 by means of crowbars. After breaking one of the figures to pieces 
 they satisfied themselves that nothing was buried underneath. 
 . . . The imperfections of the sculpture are very apparent ; 
 were it not for the statements of the Indians, who positively assert 
 that the intention of the makers was to represent a puma, it would 
 be considered to be a gigantic lizard." 3 
 
 The metates or mealing stones, abundant in modern and ancient 
 villages, and which in the Far South are elaborately carved often 
 times, are, in the South-west, so far as I have observed in the field 
 and in reports of investigators, never decorated in the faintest de 
 gree. Articles, also, of various kinds that among the Haidas or 
 Tlinkits would be covered with carving, have here not a vestige of 
 it. Nor is there any carving about the house timbers or the 
 stones that enter into the wall construction, places where the 
 Aztecs, and especially the Mayas, lavished their skill. The Mokis 
 make little clay images which they fire for the children, but they 
 are without merit. Nor do the Navajo, the Pima, the Apache, 
 Yuma, or any of the other stocks attempt anything in the direc 
 tion of carving, so that it seems safe to say that the South-west 
 has not produced any carving worthy of note, either in modern or 
 ancient times. The ruins so far as known are as barren of carved 
 articles as the modern occupied houses. 
 
 Proceeding southward, however, when we approach the vicinity 
 of the City of Mexico, examples of carving appear, and it is 
 quickly evident that the Aztecs gave great attention to this form 
 of art. One of the most remarkable specimens is the so-called 
 Calendar Stone dug up under the present city, and now in the 
 
 1 A. F. Bandelier, Final Report, p. 153. 2 Ibid, p. 161. 
 
1 82 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Mexican National Museum. It has been called a sacrificial stone, 
 but Bandelier thinks it may have served rather as the base for an 
 other stone, holding the rope of a captive doomed to the " gladi 
 atorial " sacrifice. For my part I incline to the opinion that it is 
 an astronomical affair. The date carved on the top is the i3th 
 
 THE AZTEC "CALENDAR" STONE 
 From Bandelier s Arch&ological Tour^ published by the Archaeological Institute of America 
 
 Acatl or A.D. 1479 of our time, according to the accepted calcula 
 tions. In the centre is a head, supposed to represent the sun, 
 and around it are twenty figures, standing for the twenty days of 
 the Mexican month. Then come eight divisions by what appear 
 to be arrow-heads, four being extended farther toward the centre 
 than the others and also curled up at the ends or flukes, and one 
 of these four ending in an elaborate sort of bow-knot ornament 
 which covers a wide space at what is now the lower edge as it 
 stands. Each of the eight divisions is again divided by a kind of 
 crown which is smaller than the smaller arrow-heads, and then 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 
 
 183 
 
 there is a still further subdivision made by a dot, on a line with 
 the base of the crown. This gives thirty-two points, or exactly 
 the number of points on our mariner s compass card, so that this 
 carving can be " boxed " as any compass card can be. The N., 
 E., and W., are more prominent than any other points but the 
 S., which has the decoration referred to. Then come the N.E., 
 S.E., S.W., and N.W., r ., 
 with each set of inter 
 mediate points diminish 
 ing in importance. 1 It 
 looks as if our ancient 
 Aztecs had found a mari 
 ner s compass washed 
 ashore and perpetuated it 
 by thus carving it with 
 mythological significance. 2 
 Stranger things than this 
 have occurred among 
 Amerinds. But I prefer 
 to believe that the Aztec ... 
 astronomer worked out 
 the points of the compass 
 for himself, for these direc 
 tions exist of course in 
 
 every land independent of ^s^^aiiiiiiiiiii mm^amm#smwmKL t 
 the compass, and the mo- AZTEC SCULPTURE, THE INDIO TRISTE 
 
 rnprit flip Amerind beP"a.n From Bandelier s A rchceological Tour, published by 
 
 the Archaeological Institute of America 
 
 to work in astronomy he 
 
 was forced to recognise the thirty-two natural directions that were 
 open to him. No doubt the Mayan and Mexican observatories were 
 somewhat similar to that of the Shah Jahan at Jeypore in India, 
 where circular stones of different sizes formed a part of the observ 
 ing apparatus. The Mayan and Mexican astronomical knowledge 
 was probably equal to any extant in the fourteenth century. 
 
 1 A painted design, similar to that of the " Calendar Stone," was found 
 on one of the inside walls at Mitla. See pi. xxv., Fig. I, Bandelier s 
 Archaeological Tour. 
 
 2 A compass card has five concentric circles, and the Calendar Stone 
 appears to have the same number. The compass was known in Europe in 
 the twelfth century, in China earlier. 
 
184 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Another type of Mexican carving is seen in the statue of Teo- 
 yaomiqui, the god of war and death, of which the two faces are 
 different. Bandelier believes this to be a statue of the war-god 
 Huitzilopochtli. 
 
 Another remarkable statue given mention by Bandelier is the 
 " Indio Triste." This is a squatting figure of an Amerind exe 
 cuted with more simplicity than is usual with Amerind work in 
 this region. Bandelier considers it a torch-bearer, a supposition 
 borne out by evidence he advances, and also by the arrangement 
 of the hands and arms, which are brought out forward of the 
 chest as if clasping something in the empty space between the 
 fingers. This statue is forty inches high and two feet wide. A 
 comparatively small number of Aztec sculptures have been found. 
 Almost all were destroyed or buried by the zeal of the early priests. 
 Under the City of Mexico and in other places there are probably 
 many lying intact, and some day they may come to the light. 
 " The art of sculpture in aboriginal Mexico," says Bandelier, 
 " while considerably above that of the Northern Village-Indians, 
 is still not superior to the remarkable carvings on ivory and wood 
 of the tribes of the North-west Coast and often bears a marked 
 resemblance to them. l 
 
 Proceeding on southward, the next great group of carvings is 
 that ascribed to the Mayas, and extending, in a general way, from 
 the Isthmus of Tehuan tepee to the borders of Honduras and some 
 what beyond. The people formerly occupying this area were 
 extremely active in the line of carving, and there are preserved to 
 us tablets, figures in bass-relief, statues, monoliths, and other 
 stone- and woodwork that, taken together, easily bring this people 
 in the very front place among Amerind artists. Their buildings 
 were most elaborately ornamented with carving in stone, or wood, 
 and with modelling in stucco, and there were many tablets bear 
 ing carved inscriptions. One of the most famous of these tablets 
 adorned a beautiful building called in modern times " The Temple 
 of the Cross." 2 It stands at Palenque. The tablet was affixed 
 
 1 A. F. Bandelier, Report of an Archceological Tour in Mexico, p. 78. 
 
 2 Two structures at Palenque are so called on account of the tablets in 
 them bearing emblems that resemble a cross. In that designated by 
 Stephen as No. 2, by Charnay later as No. I, and by H. H. Bancroft as 
 No. 4, the cross form is the more pronounced, and it is the one usually 
 referred to by the above title. 
 
1 86 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 to the rear wall of an inner chamber, termed by Europeans the 
 " Ad oratorio," and was in three sections, the total dimensions of 
 which were ten feet eight inches wide, by six feet four inches 
 high. One section of this tablet remained in place at the time of 
 Charnay s last visit, one was in L,as Play as, and the other, the 
 third, is in the Smithsonian Institution. At each extreme end of 
 the whole composition was a mass of the calculiform writing; next 
 
 Peabody Museum 
 
 "ALTAR" IN FRONT OF STELA D, COPAN 
 
 came two figures separated by a peculiar design in the centre, 
 which somewhat resembles a cross, and it was this design that 
 gave the name to the tablet. While the execution is remarkable 
 it is nevertheless primitive, and similar to other Amerind art in 
 quality and conception. It is a high development of Amerindian 
 sculptural ideas. Another similar tablet exists in the so-called 
 " Temple of the Sun." A cast of this was made by Charnay and 
 a photograph from this cast is given in figure on page 185. 
 
 At Copan twenty-three stelae, or monolithic monuments, elab 
 orately carved with human figures and hieroglyphs, have been 
 found. Each had in front a sculptured block designated as an 
 1 For the exterior of the Temple of the Sun, see Frontispiece. 
 
STELA NO. 6, COPAN 
 
 BACK OF STELA NO. 6 
 
 I8 7 
 
-icaM 
 
 1 88 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 altar. Their average height is twelve feet, and their breadth and 
 their thickness each about three feet. Stelae and so-called idols 
 have been exhumed around Lake Nicaragua, but all remains 
 grow less important towards the south except in Chiriqui, as well 
 as towards the north. Indeed, here in Yucatan seems to have 
 sprung the living fountain that watered all the desolation of the 
 Western world. 
 
 The stelae at Copan are some of the most artistic and altogether 
 remarkable sculptures found on the continent. They are highly 
 decorative, and the execution of the intricate designs with the 
 poor stone tools at their command is extraordinary. But all the 
 productions of the Mayas pass easily beyond those of any other 
 stock on this continent. Some of the conventionalised animal 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PUMA-SHAPED STOOL OF GREY ANDESITE, CHIRIQUI. % 
 
 heads used as gargoyles are exceedingly well done and so also are 
 several works called "singing-girls" (see figures pages 19 and 
 79). There are no geometric patterns at Copan, and the de 
 signs and execution are of a high order, yet at the same time 
 thoroughly Amerindian. The rattlesnake enters into many of 
 the designs and is represented by itself frequently. It was 
 an animal of great importance to all Amerinds from the thirty- 
 eighth parallel down. Charnay gives an illustration of what 
 he calls votive stones, that are apparently the representation 
 of the rattle of the revered reptile. The segments are clearly 
 indicated and altogether the design seems to me unmistak- 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 
 
 189 
 
 able. The region of the South-west and Mexico is also the 
 richest in species of any part of America, no less than ( eight out 
 
 Peabody Museum 
 
 HEAD SCULPTURED IN STONE, CHULTUNES OF LABNA, YUCATAN 
 
 of a total of seventeen species occurring at or near the boundary 
 between the United States and the Mexican Republic." In 
 
1 90 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 southern Arizona seven different species are found. " Their cen 
 tre of distribution appears to be the tableland of Mexico with its 
 extension northward into the south-western United States." 
 
 One of the " Temples of the Cross " at Palenque is flanked at 
 the entrance by two well-constructed figures, one on either side, 
 supposed to represent the Mayan war and rain gods. 2 These fig 
 ures are in low relief, covered with the customary Amerind trap 
 pings and head-dresses of this region. On each tablet there are 
 some calculiform characters. Many of the ruined buildings still 
 exhibit a wealth of ornamentation either carved in stone, modelled 
 in stucco, or constructed out of rubble and stucco. Some of the 
 carvings, notably certain heads at Uxmal, have formed the basis 
 for much discussion. The latter were supposed by Waldeck to be 
 representations of elephants trunks, but there is no foundation for 
 this supposition. They more likely represent ceremonial masks 
 with long noses. Something similar, though lacking the curve, 
 is seen in some of the remarkable funeral urns found in the 
 Zapotecan tombs. 
 
 The statue of Chac-Mool, found at Chichen Itza by Le Plon- 
 geon, is an example of what was accomplished when the figure 
 was attempted without any of the accessories of masks, draperies, 
 etc. 3 It is a large reclining figure, crude and primitive. Some 
 of the work at other places is more symmetrical, as, for instance, 
 the Lacandon idol described by Charnay. " This idol is very 
 beautiful and unique of its kind, for nothing like it has been 
 found either in Tabasco or Yucatan. It represents a figure sitting 
 cross-legged, the hands resting on the knees . . . the face 
 now mutilated is crowned by an enormous head-dress of a peculiar 
 style, presenting a fantastic head with a diadem and medallions, 
 topped by huge feathers, like those on the columns at Tula and 
 Chichen-Itza." 4 This idol was found at Menche, where there is 
 a lot of excellent work in the line of carving, some of the wooden 
 lintels being particularly interesting. It is impossible in a brief 
 
 1 L,eonhard Stejneger, " Poisonous Suakes of North America," Rep. U. S. 
 Museitm^ 1893, p. 421. 
 
 2 Edward S. Holden, "Studies in Central American Picture-Writing," 
 First Ami. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 229. 
 
 3 Charnay found at Palenque that some of the figures were modelled 
 first nude and draperies applied afterwards, the latter separating from the 
 figure itself. 
 
 4 Desire Charnay, Ancient Cities of the New World. 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 
 
 191 
 
 chapter to convey more than a slight impression of all this elabo 
 rate carving. The reader who desires to obtain a full comprehen 
 sion of the work should study Maudsley s text and illustrations in 
 the Biologia Centrali Americana. 
 
 Where modelling was accomplished by the building-up process 
 with stones and mortar the results were sometimes gigantic. 
 Stephens found an enormous head made in this way at Izamal at 
 the base of the palace of Hunpictok. He described it as being 
 seven feet eight inches high. " The features," he says, " were 
 first rudely formed by small rough stones, fixed in the side of the 
 mound by means of mortar, and 
 afterwards perfected with stucco so 
 hard that it has resisted the action 
 of air and water for centuries." 
 The stone composing the chin 
 alone measures one foot and six 
 inches. The face had an ex 
 tremely large mustache. This sin 
 gular specimen of the Yucatan 
 Amerinds modelling skill has, since 
 the visit of Stephens, completely 
 disappeared. At the same place is 
 another, however, still intact. 
 
 This one is thirteen feet high 
 and is constructed in the same man 
 ner as the one that is gone. 
 
 Everywhere throughout Yuca 
 tan and the contiguous region the 
 architecture is overloaded with orna 
 mentation which many large volumes would barely be sufficient 
 to describe. In Nicaragua, as well as in Honduras, there are 
 found many carvings and sculptures, statues, stelae, etc., but they 
 are rarely equal to those found in the Maya ruins. It must be 
 said, however, that the examination of these states has been even 
 less thorough than that of the Maya region. Tribes of Nahuatl 
 stock built and laboured in the country below the Maya, and in 
 Costa Rica there are indications that the remains belong to 
 Amerinds who differed from both Maya and Nahuatl. 
 
 Some of the supposed metates or mealing stones found in Nic 
 aragua are carved with legs and artistically decorated. One 
 
 From Stephens 
 LARGE BUILT-UP HEAD AT IZAMAL 
 
192 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 figured by Squier is a particularly beautiful specimen. It is a thin 
 curved slab, concave side up, and has four legs. One end pro 
 jects considerably beyond the legs, apparently forming the head 
 or end where the operator sat or kneeled, and is carved in a wide 
 band all the way across. In Chiriqui there are similar stones. 
 Another class of carved remains found in Chiriqui is apparently a 
 sort of metate, but it differs from the latter in being round, and 
 Holmes designates them as stools, for want of a more exact term. 1 
 Some wooden stools have recently been obtained in Central Amer 
 ica which are so nearly like the affair described by Squier as a 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 STOOL OF GREY BASALT, CHIRIQUI. j 
 
 metate, that it is probable the latter was also a stool. The figure 
 on page 188 illustrates this class. They have a depressed upper 
 surface and are carved basalt in one piece. An example of the 
 round is given above. To carve an object like this from solid 
 basalt must have been a work of great duration. It is in their 
 metal- and clay work, however, that the Chiriqui Amerinds spe 
 cially excelled. 
 
 All works are dominated by the customs and religious ideas of 
 the Amerind race, which were practically the same everywhere in 
 
 1 "Ancient Art of the Province of Chiriqui," Sixth Ann. Rept. Bu- 
 Eth., p. 27. 
 
Carving, Modelling, Sculpture 
 
 193 
 
 different stages of development. Nowhere do we find a touch of 
 idealism, which is such a marked characteristic of the work of the 
 European race. The highest of it marks a development in art 
 below the Egyptian. As in picture-writing we trace the growth 
 of letters, so by the aid of the Amerind sculpture and carving we 
 have a line of art progress from infancy to the present 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 COPPER BELL FROM TENNESSEE 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PUEBLO MEALING STONES 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SHELTERS, DWELLINGS, AND ARCHITECTURE 
 
 THE Amerind of North America has generally been considered 
 a shiftless and indolent being, but the preceding pages 
 have shown, I think, that this estimate is an error, and the 
 following chapters, together with the present one, will even more 
 conclusively demolish that false assumption. The Amerind to be 
 sure was not a white man, but it must not be forgotten that the 
 constant holding of the white man s nose to the grindstone is not 
 so commendable as it is often said to be, for it is not choice with 
 him but necessity born of his ways of living and his great num 
 bers. Put him in comparatively small numbers on a vast conti 
 nent rich and fertile and abounding in game, and it is not likely 
 that he would shut himself up in a factory or in an office, where he 
 is only a counting machine. The Amerind was as industrious as 
 his environment demanded. Doubtless had his development not 
 been interfered with by the Discovery, he might have arrived in 
 time at the same condition of pressure that compels us to labour 
 incessantly. 
 
 Almost everywhere on this continent are discovered numerous 
 evidences of Amerind industry and toil. From the brush shelter 
 of the Pai Ute of Arizona to the vast stone structures, richly 
 ornamented, of Yucatan, is an immense range, and within these 
 limits are to be found about every kind of a refuge from the 
 elements that mankind has been able to devise. Mud, boughs, 
 
 194 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 195 
 
 caves, wood, adobe, stone, ice, snow, wicker-work, wattling, skins, 
 ti fact, every material and every possible hole, existing in nature, 
 have been utilised by the Amerind, and the materials have been 
 given every variety of shape. In nothing, perhaps, has his strug 
 gle with environment, and the moulding effects of the environ 
 ment, been more clearly exhibited than in the forms and materials 
 of the dwellings he has been compelled to invent. Other evi 
 dences of his perseverance and exertion are discerned in great 
 aqueducts, in long 
 irrigating canals, in 
 reservoirs, in huge 
 earthworks, and 
 enormous mounds 
 that sometimes 
 rival in magnitude 
 the giant construc 
 tions of Egypt. 
 
 The Amerind 
 dwellings may be 
 divided into three 
 general classes, 
 temporary, porta 
 ble, and fixed. The 
 two classes, tem 
 porary and fixed, 
 only are usually 
 recognised by eth 
 nologists, but it 
 
 has seemed to me proper to add the third class, because of the 
 wide use of the portable tipi, and other forms of tent. The tem 
 porary houses, those abandoned on moving camp and seldom 
 occupied again, may be represented by the Pai Ute wikiup ; the 
 portable, carried from place to place for years, by the tipi of the 
 Dakotas ; the fixed, or those which are occupied either for an 
 extended period or periodically, by the stone or adobe house of the 
 Pueblos, or the wood house of the Iroquois, or the wood and earth 
 house of the Eskimo. 1 
 
 Outside of a natural cave or rock shelter, the wikiup of the Pai 
 
 1 For definitions of aboriginal architecture, see Macmillan s Dictionary 
 of Archtedure. 
 
 PAI UTE WIKIUPS, NORTHERN ARIZONA 
 From photograph by the Colorado River Expedition, 1872 
 
196 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Ute exhibits about the lowest type of house used by man. It is 
 said the chimpanzee makes a rude hut of boughs and branches, 
 but even that could scarcely be less simple than the Arizona 
 wikiup. This is composed merely of several branches arranged 
 in a semi-circle, or rather more than a semi-circle, eight or ten 
 feet in height, their tops together, and covered with boughs of 
 cedar or pine or any other convenient brush. About one third of 
 the circumference is open to the south, and opposite this side the 
 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MOKT KISI CONSTRUCTION 
 
 fire is built a few feet away. The Pai Ute is surrounded by 
 remains of excellent stone dwellings constructed long ago by 
 Amerinds who are believed to be of the same general stock, but 
 he has never tried to improve his wikiup of his own accord. The 
 Utes, his kindred on the north, live in good tipis, but the Pai 
 Ute appears never to have noticed the fact. The Mokis, also 
 allied to him, live not far to southward in excellent houses, yet he 
 has never attempted to emulate them. 
 
 In the kisi construction of the Mokis we may perhaps see the 
 beginning of even the wikiup. The kisi is a sort of windbreak and 
 sun-shelter lightly constructed of boughs and made in two ways, 
 one called kishoni, being simply poles stuck in the ground in the 
 arc of a circle with the concave side towards the north, and 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 197 
 
 interlaced with twigs and branches to form a shade. The other kind 
 is built by planting several posts with crotches at their tops in the 
 ground in the form of a parallelogram and laying other posts or 
 poles across from crotch to crotch and covering these with poles to 
 form a platform or roof. Against the whole, on the south side, 
 poles and branches are erected to form a shade. These affairs are 
 put up in the fields to protect the crop tenders when there is no 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PRIMITIVE AMERIND LADDERS 
 
 convenient cliff or ledge whereon to erect a better structure of stone. 
 Doubtless out of these shelters, now seen in the field structures, 
 originally grew the firm adobe and stone house, by one step or 
 improvement after another, and probably all house construction 
 had some such simple beginning. In a forested area, however, the 
 easy construction of a comfortable house out of poles and bark 
 would delay any development of a durable stone or adobe struc 
 ture ; the adobe, indeed, would not be durable in a humid climate. 
 Protection and subsistence dictated the region a tribe or a stock 
 should occupy, and the region usually determined the character 
 of the house or shelter. House building, in its beginnings, is 
 
198 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 largely a result of environment, and was developed or modified 
 accordingly. The tribes that were compelled to live in a sterile, 
 dry country, where game and wood were both scarce, were forced 
 to provide themselves with different food and different shelter 
 from those which occupied a well-wooded country abounding in 
 game. A few skins and poles, in the latter case, would quickly 
 produce a house. In the arid region, however, man was not pro 
 vided with such convenient material. His shelter from the sun 
 cost him much labour and he was obliged to transport his neces- 
 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 A NAVAJO HOUSE 
 
 sary wood long distances. Additions to the shade to make it 
 more comfortable were therefore obtained by piling up stones 
 or scraping together the mud after a rain, and these operations 
 being repeated, a development of skill was the inevitable re 
 sult ; skill which eventually produced a wall all round the sun- 
 shelter, with the beams of the latter resting upon them instead of 
 upon posts. 
 
 It seems, therefore, altogether probable that stone and mud 
 house building originated in arid regions ; but in a region treeless, 
 like our great plains, the inevitable outcome in the line of a shelter 
 was the portable tipi (teepee), because there bison hides were at 
 hand for covering, but poles of the proper sort were difficult to 
 secure and were carried along. In the forest, neither portable 
 tents nor stone houses were necessary. It would only be when 
 population was dense enough to destroy the game and timber, or 
 when a people were forced to an arid region, that the stone 
 house would develop. The Iroquois was a forest Amerind, 
 and he built a house of wood that was excellent in construc 
 tion and answered his purpose admirably. The Navajo occupying 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 199 
 
 an arid region has been content with a rude shelter of boughs and 
 branches or with boughs or poles covered with mud. They have 
 never profited by the example of their Moki neighbours, and 
 built substantial houses, one reason, and the chief one, being that 
 their habit of never occupying again any shelter where death 
 has occurred has precluded it, for they do not care to bestow 
 great labour on a structure that they may be called upon any time 
 to abandon. There are then other causes besides ability, or ina 
 bility, to build substantially that determine the character of the 
 Amerind house. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 A SWEAT HOUSE 
 
 Bandelier states that the Pimas " dwelt in scattered hamlets, 
 the houses of which combine to-day the mud roof of a typical New 
 Mexican pueblo with the temporary framework of frail branches 
 characteristic of the roaming savage." 1 The roof is dome- 
 shaped, but it is similar in material to the Pueblo mud roof, 
 so that there we have a sort of a cross between the Moki field 
 shelter, already mentioned, and the Navajo hut or hogan. 
 The stock from which the present Pimas descended are sup- 
 1 Bandelier, Final j*vV/w/, part i., p. 103. 
 
20O The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 posed to have built the remarkable structure in Arizona known 
 as Casa Grande, found in ruins by the first explorers. Tribes 
 alter their methods of building, either from summer to winter or 
 at different epochs. The Omahas at one time made lodges of 
 wood, at another of earth, and at still another time they dwelt in 
 tipis of skin. If a stone-house-building tribe should migrate to a 
 region where neither loose flat stones nor adobe clay could be 
 readily obtained, they would be forced to use timber. 1 The Zuni 
 languages and traditions point to the occupancy by the Pueblos in 
 early times of brush houses like those of the Pai Utes. The 
 Mohaves live in low huts of branches covered with mud. 
 
 The communal principle of living pervaded America and 
 largely determined the size and character of the dwellings. A 
 number of families usually lived together, in the same house, or in 
 a group of rooms or houses. The " long-house " of the Iroquois, 
 called by them hodenosote, and the clustered fortress-houses of the 
 Pueblos, are good examples of the results of the practice of the 
 communal principles adhered to by most of the Amerinds. It is 
 also believed by some of the best authorities, like Bandelier and 
 Morgan, that the Mexican and Mayan houses were largely due to 
 the same cause. 
 
 Among the Omahas the tipis were usually grouped according to 
 gentes. 2 Tipi and wigwam are frequently used by us as synony 
 mous, and in some dictionaries a picture of a tipi is made to repre 
 sent a wigwam. 3 This is an error due to unfamiliarity with 
 different forms of Amerind dwellings. The tipi is generally a 
 portable structure while the wigwam is always fixed, and the latter 
 is also of a different shape. Tipi is a Dakota term and wigwam 
 is Algonquin. Tipi is really the plural for " house," the singular 
 being " ti," and " pi " a termination indicating plurality. 4 It is 
 constructed by arranging a number, sometimes as many as twenty 
 or thirty, long poles, previously tied together near their tops, in a 
 
 1 Or, if the climate should change, the character of the house might 
 change with it. 
 
 2 For full information on Dakota customs, etc., see the papers of the 
 late Rev. James Owen Dorsey in the third, eleventh, thirteenth, and fif 
 teenth Ann. Repts. Bu. Eth. 
 
 3 Wigwam is frequently used in a general sense to designate any Amer 
 ind house of the skin or earth or wood type. 
 
 4 Se " ti " and "pi" in Dakota-English Dictionary, vol. vii. ; Cont. 
 U. S. G. S., pp. 421, 467. 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 201 
 
 circle of about ten or fifteen feet diameter. This conical frame is 
 then covered with bison hides sewed together in one sheet, or in 
 modern days with canvas, shaped properly and laced or pinned 
 together along the middle third of the junction of the covering 
 mantle. The upper third is left loose, and its pointed ends are 
 
 U. S. Bu, Eth. 
 
 AN OMAHA TIPI 
 
 extended up and out by means of outside poles stuck into pockets 
 in their extreme upper corners, according to the direction of the 
 wind, to let the smoke escape from the fire built in the middle of 
 
2O2 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 the interior. If the wind blows straight at these flaps they are 
 brought close together. Sometimes an extra skin is adjusted at 
 the top so that it can be placed on any side to accomplish this ob 
 ject. The lower third is left open for a doorway, another skin 
 being adjusted before it with a stick to spread it near its upper 
 end, which end is attached to the tent. The bottom of the tent 
 cover is held down by stakes or pins driven into the ground. In 
 case of high winds, stones or other weights are placed on the bot 
 tom edge of the skins to keep them down. In summer the Omahas, 
 and other tribes of the Dakotas, erected, when convenient, an 
 elliptical lodge covered with bark, the roof being rounded and the 
 construction being generally similar to the Algonquin elliptical 
 wigwam. It was not more than seven feet high, while the tipi is 
 twelve to twenty or more. These tribes also sometimes built earth 
 lodges, chiefly for summer use, the roofs of which resembled in 
 construction those of the Pueblo houses, though they were conical. 
 A number of posts were set up in the ground to support in their 
 crotches the transverse beams upon which numerous slender poles, 
 about two inches in diameter, were laid to reach almost to the top 
 where a hole for the exit of smoke was left. Against the outer 
 series of posts all around slabs of wood were set up and the whole 
 was then covered with earth a foot or two thick after matting and 
 a layer of grass, or grass alone, was placed on the rafters or roof 
 poles. This lodge was circular, the roof being conical, and it was 
 entered through a covered way about ten feet long and five feet 
 wide, the outer opening of which was protected by hanging bison 
 hides. The supporting poles or posts were arranged in two con 
 centric circles, in large lodges, the inner set being higher than 
 the outer. Compartments within opening toward the fire were 
 formed of willow matting, or skins. 
 
 The regular tipi was decorated in accordance with tribal cus 
 toms. Dorsey has published some careful notes on this as on other 
 matters connected with the tribes of the Dakota stock, and Catlin 
 has also given descriptions. The decorations were often the result 
 of a vision. If a man had a vision of the aurora he depicted it on 
 his robes and tent, the latter having a band of paint around the 
 bottom, above which was a zigzag border from which, on one side, 
 three stripes were drawn to the top of the tent, four on the other, 
 and one in the rear. If he had a vision of the night or of some 
 other " superterrestrial object, he blackened the upper part of his 
 
204 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 tent and a small portion on each side of the entrance." Some 
 times a star was also indicated, and night was represented by a 
 black band above the middle or at the bottom. A tent similar to 
 the Dakota dpi is in wide use among the Amerinds. Morgan 
 states that the Dakotas were living in bark-covered houses when 
 first discovered, in villages, in the present state of Minnesota, and 
 that when they were driven " upon the plains by an advancing 
 white population, but after they had become possessed of horses, 
 they invented a skin tent eminently adapted to their present 
 nomadic condition. It is superior to any other in use among the 
 American aborigines from its roominess, its portable character, 
 and the facility with which it can be erected and struck." While 
 this is probably accurate as concerns the Dakotas, it is likely that 
 other tribes invented a similar tent for themselves, before the ap 
 pearance of the Dakotas on the plains. 2 Three tipis among the 
 Omahas were sacred, and sheltered three sacred objects, the Sacred 
 Pole, the Sacred White Buffalo-Cow Skin, and the Sacred Bag. 
 These are all now in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge. They 
 were built like the common tipi. 
 
 The wigwam of the Algonquins was built in two general ways, 
 using bark or mats for covering. One form is made by planting 
 elastic poles in the ground and bringing their tops together, and 
 binding the whole with horizontal poles. It is unlike the tipi, be 
 cause it is not portable, because the poles are flexible, and because 
 the sides curve out from bottom to top instead of being straight 
 lines. It is covered with birchbark. It is from ten to sixteen 
 feet in diameter on the ground, and from six to ten feet high. 
 The fire was built, as in the tipi, in the middle of the floor in a 
 slight depression, and the usual outlet for smoke was left at the 
 top. " Such a lodge," says Morgan, " would accommodate, in 
 the aboriginal plan of living, two and sometimes three married 
 pairs with their children." 3 The Menominee- Algonquin form of 
 wigwam was made by planting in the ground about three feet 
 
 Lewis H. Morgan, "Houses and House Life of the American Abor 
 igines," Contributions to N. A. Ethnology, vol. iv., p. 114. 
 
 2 Castaneda describes the Querechos and Teyas in 1540 as travelling, 
 "like the Arabs, with their tents and troops of dogs loaded with poles, and 
 having Moorish pack-saddles and girths." Winship s translation, Four 
 teenth Ann. Kept. Bu. Eth., p. 527. 
 
 3 Morgan s "Houses and House Life," etc., p. 113. 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 205 
 
 apart, approximating the form of an ellipse, strong saplings some 
 two inches in diameter, leaving at each end an opening for a door 
 way. The poles are then bent over toward each other and tied in 
 an arch with strips of bark. Horizontal poles are tied on to the 
 upright ones for stiffening, and the frame is then covered with 
 bark or mats overlapping each other like sh nigl^jjSjj^. usual 
 smoke outlet is left in the top. A mat curtain tafl Klace of 
 a door. There were seldom, or never, regular doHH^Tny Ame 
 rind houses on the continent before the Disco veryjthe opening 
 being closed by curtains or mats. Another Meiiominee shelter, 
 described by Hoffman, was made by " putting five or six sap 
 lings on each side of a parallelogram ; the ends are left open, and 
 the top of each sapling on a given side is then bound down over 
 its opposite fellow to form a roof somewhat resembling a wagon- 
 top. Horizontal saplings are then bound around the framework 
 to make the structure secure, and over all are laid, longitudinally, 
 a series of long strips of pine bark the upper pieces overlapping 
 those below, while a large piece is placed over the highest part of 
 the roof, which thus sheds the rain or melting snow. . . . 
 The bedding is spread on the ground and usually covers the 
 entire floor." 
 
 The eastern portion of the continent below Labrador, being 
 well-forested, the Amerind houses there appear to have been en 
 tirely of wood, or sometimes of wood and mud combined. For 
 this reason nothing of any of them, except occasional earth rings, 
 is to be found and, so far as remains of houses are concerned, our 
 wonderful, surpassing Moundbuilders appear to have had no 
 houses. Turning to other Amerinds, however, who occupied the 
 country when the whites arrived, we glean a fair idea of what the 
 houses of the Mississippi valley may have been at their best. 
 They varied in design in the same locality, of course, according to 
 the tribe, in the same way that I have mentioned that in the 
 South-west we find to-day Amerinds living in the most primitive 
 form of dwelling not many miles away from others living in high 
 types. 
 
 Some of the Mississippi valley houses were doubtless excellent 
 structures though built of wood, or of wattling plastered with 
 mud. Many of the mounds, squares, and circles were connected 
 
 1 W. J. Hoffman, "The Menominee Indians," Fourteenth Ann. Rept. 
 Bu, Eth., pp. 254-55. 
 
206 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 with buildings, generally forming the foundations for dwellings or 
 other structures as in other parts of the continent. 1 In other 
 words, they were often platforms for houses. The reasons for 
 building a house on a platform raised above the surrounding 
 lands might be many ; one simple one was a desire to keep the 
 floor dry in wet weather. The floor was earth, and earth on a 
 level during long rains got uncomfortably damp if not wet. It 
 would be natural in building, after such lessons, to elevate the floor 
 of the house, which was done by rearing a platform of earth. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MISSISSIPPI VALLEY METHOD OF USING JACAL CONSTRUCTION, 
 ACCORDING TO THOMAS 
 
 This gave good drainage, and besides in a malarial region would 
 be more healthful, and furthermore added to the defensive quali 
 ties. The habitations being built upon platforms, it would not 
 do to build sacred structures on low ground. Man seldom looks 
 down upon his spiritual constructions. Hence the higher the 
 sacred building could be placed, the more sacred it seemed, and 
 the huge flat-topped mounds of the Mississippi valley and Mexico 
 were the result. Some of the Florida Amerinds were still living 
 in dwellings reared on platforms of this kind, and so were others 
 in the Southern United States, at the time of the first visits of the 
 whites. The mounds, as a rule, are on the bottom lands along 
 river courses, though in places where there are higher terraces 
 these have frequently been chosen. Thomas quotes the following 
 passage from Garcilasso : " The town and the houses of the ca 
 cique Ossac hile are like those of other caciques in Florida. . . . 
 
 The Lenape houses "were built in groups and surrounded with a 
 palisade. ... In the centre was sometimes erected a mound of earth, 
 both as a place of observation and as a location to place the children and 
 women." Brinton, The Lenape, p. 51. 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 207 
 
 The Indians try to place their villages on elevated sites ; but in 
 asmuch as in Florida there are not many sites of this kind where 
 they can conveniently build, they erect elevations themselves in 
 the following manner : They select the spot and carry there a 
 quantity of earth, which they form into a kind of platform two or 
 three pikes in height, the summit of which is large enough to give 
 room for twelve, fifteen, or twenty houses, to lodge the cacique 
 and his attendants. At the foot of this elevation they mark out 
 a square place, according to the size of the village, around which 
 the leading men have their houses. . . . To ascend the ele 
 vation they have a straight passageway from bottom to top, fifteen 
 or twenty feet wide. Here steps are made by massive beams, and 
 others are planted firmly in the ground to serve as walls. On all 
 other sides of the platform the sides are cut steep." J Thomas 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 CLIFF OUTLOOK, CANYON DEL MUERTO, ARIZONA 
 
 quotes further from Garcilasso : " The chief, whose name was also 
 Guaxule, came out with five hundred men to meet him and took 
 him in the village (pueblo) in which were three hundred houses, 
 and lodged him in his own. This house stood on a high mound 
 (cerro) similar to others we have already mentioned. Round 
 about was a roadway sufficiently broad for six men to walk 
 abreast." Again he quotes L,e Page Du Pratz, who visited the 
 Natchez in 1720 : " As I was an intimate friend of the sovereign 
 of the Natchez he showed me their temple, which is about thirty 
 feet square, and stands on an artificial mount about eight feet 
 
 1 Cyrus Thomas, "Mound Explorations," Twelfth Ann, Rept. Bu. 
 Eth., p. 647. *Ibid., p. 649. 
 
208 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 high, by the side of a small river." There was also still another 
 reason for building on mounds or elevated platforms ; the reason, 
 or at least one great reason, why the Mayas and Mexicans built on 
 them, namely the desire to protect the foundations. In Louisiana 
 the Taensas, in the time of La Salle, built of " sun-baked mud 
 mixed with straw, arched over with a dome-shaped roof." Now 
 a structure of this kind if reared on ordinary ground would soon 
 be destroyed by the rains and moisture sapping its foundations, 
 but by placing it on an elevated platform, where its footing would 
 be comparatively dry, it would endure a long time. A sacred 
 house would be likely to be so placed, if not others. 
 
 Every tribe had some kind of a sacred structure, the Omahas 
 carrying from place to place the three sacred tents referred to. 
 The sacred structures, too, were generally of the same style as the 
 house of the chief. Each village of the Natchez had a house de 
 voted to the dead, besides others dedicated to different sacred 
 objects. The death-house was oval, " having a circumference of 
 one hundred feet a simple hut without a window, and with a low 
 and narrow opening on the side for the only door." Here were 
 " garnered the choicest fetiches of the tribe, of which some were 
 moulded from clay and baked in the sun. There, too, were gathered 
 the bones of the dead; there an undying fire was kept burning by 
 appointed guardians as if to warm and light and cheer the de 
 parted." 3 " Hard by the temple, on an artificial mound of earth, 
 stood the hut of the Great Sun ; around it were grouped the 
 cabins of the tribe." 3 
 
 It seems unnecessary to give any further space to show that 
 the mounds that have aroused so much discussion and romantic 
 writing were, many of them, the foundations for various structures 
 reared by Amerinds as we know them. 
 
 Morgan advanced a theory that the hollow square earthworks 
 were the foundations for long buildings, at one and the same time 
 dwellings and a part of the defences, the interior area being used 
 for a work place, children s playground, etc. Many Algonquin 
 houses were made of a parallelogram shape, with straight sides 
 about eight feet high and a rounded roof. These houses were 
 fifty or more feet long, and the matting with which they were 
 
 1 Cyrus Thomas, Twelfth Ann. Kept. Bu. Eth., p. 653. 
 
 2 Francis Parkman, Discovery of the West, p. 277.^ 
 
 3 George Bancroft, U. S. History. 
 
210 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 covered could be readily removed to let in the sun and air. As a 
 rule the villages were surrounded by palisades. The Iroquois, as 
 well as most other Amerinds, lived in permanent villages, which 
 
 f i~ -^ -^C j - ^ >~~ o- c =o"- : - t "^^r^L^o--^-^ 3T^ j^T"""- _~" ^C2?rls~3 
 
 i^Ti _- __i>Ar x 1 ~^^^^^^-^~-=^^~^^^^.^^-r c:: ^^--^ ^^j?^$5f ; i 
 
 Field Columbian Museum W. H. Holmes 
 
 TRANSVERSE SECTION (SOMEWHAT GENERALISED) SHOWING CONSTRUCTION OF 
 
 PALENQUE BUILDINGS, YUCATAN 
 
 f, trefoil opening through medial wall ; g, h, two principal varieties of roof comb 
 
 were at first stockaded. They used three kinds of houses ; a 
 triangular lodge made of poles with bark for a covering, used in 
 hunting, and the ganosote or smaller bark house constructed in the 
 same way as the third kind, the hodZnosote or " long-house," which 
 
A TRIANGULAR SIPAPU OR 
 SACRED KIVA ORIFICE 
 
 PUEBLO ROOF CONSTRUCTION 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 Wood SOME MOKI ROOF DRAINS. Stone 
 
 SOME DETAILS OF PUEBLO HOUSE ARCHITECTURE 
 
 211 
 
212 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 was built to accommodate a number of families. This was sometimes 
 a hundred feet long, and from it came the name Hodenosaunee by 
 which the great League of the Five (Six) Nations was known to 
 the world and to themselves. It was made by planting poles in 
 the ground and binding others across them to make a strong frame 
 of the shape of a parallelogram, upon which a roof of triangular 
 pattern was built out of poles covered with bark. Sometimes the 
 roof was round like that of many Algonquin tribes, and that of 
 the ganosote was very frequently round. The height of the sides 
 was about ten feet. The ganosote was about fifteen by twenty 
 feet and fifteen feet high, with inside a kind of double berth built 
 against the longer walls like the berths in a ship. It would accom 
 modate eight persons. The entrance was closed by skins or by 
 bark hung on wooden hinges. The covering was bark held in 
 place by an outer set of poles tied through to the inside ones. 
 The long-house was divided into a number of chambers six or 
 eight feet wide with a passageway through all from end to end 
 where the doors were. Between each four apartments, two on 
 a side, was a fire-pit in the center of the hall, used in common by 
 their occupants. . . . Raised bunks were constructed around 
 the walls of each apartment for beds." 1 These structures consti 
 tuted the village which w r as surrounded by a palisade, sometimes 
 a double or triple row. The houses were placed without arrange 
 ment ; and when the league grew powerful the palisade was dis 
 pensed with. The Lenape " constructed small wattled huts with 
 rounded tops thatched with the leaves of the Indian corn or with 
 sweetflags. ... In summer light brush tents took the place 
 of these. 2 
 
 On the North-west coast the native houses are usually built of 
 cedar slabs. These slabs are split out of the wide trees 3 and the 
 walls are obtained by securing them in an upright position to 
 a frame about ten feet high. On this rests the roof of split 
 shakes, bark, or boards, laid on rafters which are supported in the 
 middle by two long, heavy beams, running the entire length of 
 the house, and themselves borne up by four huge posts, often 
 
 1 Iv. H. Morgan, Houses and House Life, p. 120 ; see also The Iroquois 
 League, by Morgan. 
 
 * Brinton, The American Race, p. 77. 
 
 3 Gibbs cites a split plank he saw in Puget Sound region, 24 feet long 
 and 4^ feet wide. 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 213 
 
 carved with totemic emblems. The general outward appearance 
 of these houses is much like an ordinary low one-story house or 
 barn of our own, except that in the middle of the roof there is a 
 large square hole for a smoke outlet, the fire being made on a 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MOKI NOTCHED DOORWAY, SO MADE THAT LARGE BUNDLES COULD BE TAKEN IN 
 The transom was probably at first a smoke outlet 
 
 patch of sand or earth that forms a square about nine by ten feet 
 in the middle of the room, the size depending on the dimensions 
 of the house. They are usually about thirty or forty feet square, 1 
 
 1 Gibbs mentions a house of the Makah, north-west Washington, 75 feet 
 long, 40 wide, and 15 high, all one room ; and another used for festivals 520 
 feet long, 60 feet wide, 15 feet high in front, and 10 feet in the rear. 
 George Gibbs, "Tribes of Western Washington and North-western Oregon," 
 Contributions U. S. G. S., vol. i., p. 215. 
 
214 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 the interior forming one large room, sometimes having a platform 
 on one or two sides or all the way round about six feet wide and 
 two feet high. This is divided by thin partitions into small com 
 partments, which are covered about six feet above the floor with 
 a ceiling of thin boards. A curtain in front makes a room of it. 
 These houses vary somewhat in the different localities, but the 
 type is about the same from the Puget Sound region to Yakutat 
 Bay. Some of the Sound Amerinds give but one pitch to the 
 roof. Many of the natives now build a house of sawed materials 
 and roof it with shingles so that their modern villages, like the 
 one at Sitka, present outwardly few Amerind signs, as they usually 
 have chimneys, too, instead of smoke holes. Where they have 
 the latter, boards are stuck up above the ridge to form a wind 
 break, or a more perfect arrangement for preventing back 
 draught is applied in the shape of a large solid shutter so pivoted 
 in the middle line that it can be tilted from one side of the ridge 
 to the other. Among some tribes there are several smoke holes 
 with adjustable boards that can be worked from below with a pole. 
 The entire front gable of a chief s house or an assembly house is 
 often ornamented with a huge totemic design, painted on smooth 
 boards that fill the whole space. In front of the house stood the 
 tall pole bearing the totems of the inmates carved, one above an 
 other, with a full relief totem adorning the top. Small houses 
 were built to hold the boxes containing the ashes of the dead, and 
 the roof was sometimes surmounted with a totem carved in wood, 
 or the totem was erected on a small pole nearby, or placed under 
 the roof. 
 
 In all the constructions of the Amerinds of the North-west 
 coast we perceive the powerful influence of surroundings on a 
 primitive people. The region abounds in superb cedars with a 
 grain so fine and straight that the logs can be readily split into 
 slabs a couple of inches thick, that are admirable material for 
 building purposes. Then there are plenty of young straight hem 
 locks, firs, and cedars for rafters and framework, so that these 
 Amerinds, like those of the cliff region of the South-west, had their 
 building material almost ready made. Being largely fishermen, 
 they were not well supplied with skins, so that it was not easy to 
 make pole lodges covered with them, as was the case with many 
 Amerinds of the interior, where trees were absent or hard to split 
 and where skins were plenty. 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 215 
 
 In California a variety of houses was built, as there are many 
 different stocks and conditions. The Yokuts made them of tule 
 mats in the shape of an " A " tent with a door at the front. A 
 half dozen or more of these were placed in a row and above them 
 a flat sun-shelter of branches laid on a platform of poles supported 
 by crotched posts set in the ground. Others build a hut of slabs 
 or bark brought to a point 
 and open on one side, like a 
 tipi cut in two. Others again 
 live in wikiups made by cover 
 ing a square framework with 
 boughs, leaving one side open. 
 When the side of an Amerind 
 
 A ZUNI CHIMNEY, MOKI THE SAME 
 
 ONE FORM OF MOKI CHIMNEY HOOD 
 
 hut is left open in this way, the opening always faces the 
 south, except in hot weather, when it generally faces the other 
 way. Another California tribe lives in earth lodges entered 
 from the top through a hole or hatch with steps on the outside. 
 This lodge was made by excavating a couple of feet and putting 
 this earth on the covering framework, for a roof. In the mount 
 ains where wood was plenty they frequently used no earth at all, 
 showing how quickly they adapted themselves to circumstances. 
 The Modoc " excavates a circular space from two to four feet 
 deep, then erects over it a rounded structure of poles and punch 
 eons, strongly braced up with timbers, sometimes hewn and 
 squared. The whole is warmly covered with earth, and an aper 
 ture left atop, reached by a centre pole. Before the coming of the 
 
216 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 whites secured them against the constant assaults and incursions 
 of their enemies, their dwellings were slighter, consisting generally 
 of a frame of willow poles, with tule matting overspread." 1 An 
 other tribe of the Pacific Slope, the Makhelchel, build cabins " of 
 slender willow poles set upright in the ground, with others cross 
 ing them horizontally, forming a square lattice- work." * The 
 Yokaya have a lodge or dwelling composed of a " huge framework 
 of willow poles covered with thatch, and resembling a large flattish 
 haystack." The Karok " excavate a round cellar, four or five 
 feet deep and twelve or fifteen feet in diameter. Over this they 
 build a square cabin of split poles or puncheons, planted erect in 
 the ground and covered with a flattish puncheon roof. They eat 
 and sleep in the cellar . . . and store their supplies on the 
 bank above next to the walls of the cabin." 3 The Maidu make 
 a hut of slabs placed together in something the shape of a tipi, 
 with a low, square projection for an entrance. 
 
 Passing northward to the Aleuts, we find " houses built with 
 the floor somewhat below the level of the outside soil, the walls of 
 whale- ribs, sticks of wood, or upright stone walls, covered outside 
 with mats, straw and finally turf. . . . The roof was formed 
 by arching whale-ribs, or long sticks of driftwood, matted, 
 thatched, and turfed like the sides, with a central aperture. A 
 platform, somewhat raised, around the sides of the house afforded 
 a place for sitting and sleeping. Later each village had a large 
 house or kashim, which served as a common work-shop, and a 
 lodging for strangers, as well as for a town-hall for their discus 
 sions and festivals. . . . Still later, in a period not greatly 
 antedating the historic, the Aleuts began to build large com 
 munistic dwellings with features peculiar to themselves, without 
 doors, and entered by the hole in the roof, the inmates descending 
 on a notched log placed upright. These large }^ourts were 
 divided, by partitions of wood, stone, or matting, into small rooms 
 like the state-rooms of a steamer, but without doors ; open toward 
 the center of the yourt, and each accommodating one family." 4 
 
 It will be noted that we have again changed materials of con 
 struction ; and why ? Because the Aleutian Islands are devoid of 
 timber, devoid of good building stone that an Amerind could get 
 
 1 Stephen Powers, " Tribes of California," Contributions, etc., vol. iii., 
 p. 255. * Ibid., p. 215. 3 Ibid., p. 45. 
 
 4 \V. H. Dall, "Tribes of Alaska," Contributions U. S. G. S., vol. i., p. 82. 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 217 
 
 at, and he resorted therefore to what there was driftwood, whale- 
 ribs, turf, etc. 1 The house called by the Russians barabdra seems 
 to have been originally made of turf even to the roof, and I saw 
 examples in the summer of 1899 at Unalaska and on St. Paul 
 Island. The turf or sod was cut into slabs and laid up like stones. 
 Continuing northward we reach the vast treeless arctic regions, 
 where cold is the great enemy, and the reader wonders what man 
 can do here in the way of architecture. He has done considerable : 
 
 u. s. BU. Eth. 
 
 GROUND PLAN OF ESKIMO SNOW IGLU 
 
 amongst other things he devised the only true arch found on the 
 continent, and constructed one of the most admirable and unique 
 dwellings in the world. This he built out of the snow which fell 
 about him and prevented him from securing other material. The 
 invention of the snow house by the Eskimo, or Innuit, as they 
 call themselves, was one of the greatest triumphs over environ 
 ment man has ever accomplished. I refer, of course, to the per 
 fected snow house, the dome-shaped iglugeak, commonly called by 
 us igloo or iglu. Iglu is the Innuit generic term for " house," the 
 distinctive name for snow house being igiugeak. This snow 
 house is begun by selecting a suitable deep drift that is compact 
 enough to permit homogeneous blocks to be taken from it, with 
 the snow-knife, which is a bone tool shaped like a short sword. 
 Latterly steel saws are employed when they have them. In the 
 pit formed by removal of blocks of snow the builder works at his 
 
 1 The tree growth ceases at about the line of the village of Kodiak on 
 Kodiak Island. The Aleuts ranged over the Aleutian Islands and eastward 
 as far as Stepovak Bay on the peninsula. 
 
218 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 walls, the bottom of the excavation finally forming the floor of the 
 house. The first block is bevelled down to a wedge shape with 
 the point toward the beginning, and the worker goes on round his 
 circle, and when he comes again to the wedge his wall rises upon 
 the first portion and continues thus in a spiral fashion to the top, 
 constantly narrowing till at last one block fills the opening. It 
 takes two to adjust this, though one may build a small house suc 
 cessfully to that last point. By building spirally and therefore 
 continuously, there is always support on two sides for the last 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 SECTION OF SNOW IGLU 
 
 block laid. The edges are slanted at the same time to bring the 
 tiers gradually toward the centre. Joints and holes are filled with 
 snow, though a small hole is left at the top for ventilation. As 
 the heating of this house is done with lamps there is little smoke* 
 For camping purposes a small snow house is built, seven feet 
 diameter and five feet high, in about two hours. When made for 
 permanent use the house is about twelve feet high and fifteen feet 
 diameter. Plenty of light comes through the snow, but a window 
 of ice or seal intestine is often placed over the entrance, which is 
 reached by a more or less extended passage, with vaults for stor 
 age, by the way. 
 
 But though this house is so cleverly built, and is warm, and 
 proof against everything but mild weather, the Innuit, if he can, 
 will build a permanent winter house of drift wood, stones, earth, 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 219 
 
 and sod and whale-ribs. These from the outside look like mounds 
 of earth, and as soon as warm weather comes are nothing but wet 
 cellars, which the inhabitants quickly abandon for the time, erect 
 ing with ; their walrus and seal skins a summer tent, called a tupek 
 or topek. The Point Barrow tupek is something like a tipi, with 
 out a smoke hole, as the fire is built outside when they can secure 
 wood to build one. All the Alaska Innuit now use canvas tents 
 of the wall pattern, when they can procure them. 
 
 The Amerind of the interior of the northland, where timber 
 grows, utilises it and the skins of the animals he kills. The 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 AN ALASKA ESKIMO WINTER HOUSE, POINT BARROW 
 Interior and sections p. 221 
 
 Nenenot about Hudson Bay occupy, all the year round, a tent 
 almost identical with the Dakota tipi. 
 
 No construction on the continent shows more skill than the 
 Innuit snow iglu. The winter houses, of snow or other material, 
 are usually occupied by two or more families. Many interiors of 
 snow houses are lined with the summer tent covering to prevent 
 the drip of the walls from falling on the occupants. 
 
 As the polar regions developed the snow-house; forest regions, 
 bark and mat houses ; barren plains, portable tents ; so arid re 
 gions, where disintegrating cliffs furnished an abundance of flat 
 slabs of stone, evolved stone houses, and broad dry valleys or 
 
22O The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 plains lacking cliffs, timber, or large game, but yielding good 
 clay soil, produced houses of mud or adobe ; or, according to con 
 ditions, such combinations of these materials as were easiest and 
 most practicable. It is next in order to review the houses of the 
 arid regions constructed of stone, adobe, jacal, cajon, pise, 1 etc., 
 and the cavate lodges. To do full justice to the subject of houses 
 would require a separate volume, but enough may be given here 
 to present a general view. The occupied villages of the South 
 western United States are similar to the ruins found throughout 
 
 that region, and 
 the cliff -dwell 
 ings, which some 
 writers would 
 clothe with mys- 
 
 =*Sir^ \ FW ~X H tery, as has been 
 
 mentioned, were 
 no more mysteri 
 ous than the oc 
 cupied dwellings 
 of the Moki ; or 
 any other Pueblo 
 village, which, 
 fortunately, re 
 mains inhabited 
 by the builders. 2 
 The cliff-dwell 
 ings were con 
 structed in cliffs 
 simply because it 
 was expedient to 
 
 build them there and not because the builders were a race apart 
 from other Amerinds. The canyons where the cliff-dwellings oc 
 cur have bottom lands that are fertile and easily irrigated, both by 
 stream water, and after the Pueblo fashion, by guiding shower 
 waters with hoes amongst the corn. This in itself was a sufficient 
 object for building in the canyons, and the huge, natural conchoidal 
 
 1 For definitions of these terms see Macmillan s Dictionary of Archi 
 tecture. 
 
 2 Schwatka found cliff-dwellings occupied by Tarahumaris in northern 
 Mexico. See Cave and Cliff-Dwellers, by Frederick Schwatka, p. 187. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Etn. 
 
 INTERIOR GROUND PLAN OF A MOKI HOUSE 
 
VERSITT 
 
 INTERIOR OF WOOD AND EARTH IGLU 
 
 VERTICAL SECTION. 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 AN ALASKA ESKIMO WINTER HOUSE OF WOOD AND EARTH, POINT BARROW 
 
 221 
 
222 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 alcoves that .occur in the faces of the prevailing formation were 
 attractive places to build in for several reasons, one of which may 
 have been protection from assault and the weather, and another 
 the frequent presence of springs at the back of these cavities. 
 These springs have almost vanished, in many cases have en 
 tirely disappeared, owing to slightly drier conditions now prevail- 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 STONE STEPS AT ORAIBI 
 
 ing. But I have frequently noticed at the back part of many of 
 the cavities that had no ruins, or few ruins, to cover it up, a 
 moisture that might at times increase to a dripping, or even flow 
 ing, that would furnish enough water for the daily supply of a 
 considerable Amerind village. The construction is the same as 
 other. Pueblo houses of stone. 
 
 The inhabited pueblos, like the ruins, usually consist of a 
 number of rooms built adjoining or on top of each other, like a 
 lot of square boxes placed in rows or in a pyramidal pile, or like 
 a series of steps, with the total height at the back often straight 
 
224 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 down. One or two single-room houses are first built, and then 
 additions are made from time to time till the pile grows to a con- 
 
 Photograph by U. S. Geological Survey 
 
 HOUSES IN WALPI, ONE OF THE MOKI TOWNS, ARIZONA 
 
 In this are well seen the plastered and unplastered walls of stone, the ladders of ascent, the "end 
 wall" steps, the notched doorway, with transom, the projecting roof beams, a rabbit-skin robe 
 hanging on the wall above the right-hand ladder, and also on the left the entrance to a passage 
 way through to another court 
 
 siderable height ; three or four stories. 1 Groups of these groups 
 built near each other form courts between. The lower tier of 
 
 1 In early days upper stories in New Mexico were sometimes built of 
 wood, plastered. 
 
226 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 rooms, in olden times, was not entered from the ground, but from 
 the roof through a hatchway, a ladder leading up on the outside 
 and down on the inside. The upper rooms, or houses, were 
 entered from the roofs of the lower ones ; that is, the roofs of the 
 lower rooms formed the floors of the upper ones, and also balconies 
 in front of the rooms. I occupied for a time one of these upper 
 rooms in Tewa, on the " East Mesa " at the Moki towns, and I 
 found the roof in front of my door a delightful place, command 
 ing a view of the whole mesa and a hundred miles beyond. I 
 could also reach the top of my house easily, by a sort of stairway 
 formed on the edge of the prolonged wall that separated me from 
 my neighbour, and as this was the summit of the village my view 
 was superb. Such stairways are common in all the villages. The 
 ladders by which the various roofs are reached are now much like 
 our own, but rudely made, and the upper ends are often very long, 
 extending in many cases far above the house-top. The walls, 
 about a foot thick, are of stone slabs laid in adobe mortar, and are 
 generally built up by the women, who take their own time to the 
 work, adding a few stones whenever they feel like it. Beams of 
 small tree-trunks, six to eight inches in diameter, form the basis 
 of the flat roof. 1 They are laid across the top of the walls and the 
 ends, if too long, usually allowed to project beyond. These are 
 covered with smaller poles laid about a foot apart, and on these 
 are spread slender willows or reeds, with a layer of grass or twigs 
 next, on which a layer of adobe mortar is laid and earth trod 
 den down on top till it is firm, when a finish is made with an 
 other coat of adobe mortar. A slight pitch is given to the roof. 
 No plumb line, level, or square was used by the Amerinds any 
 where on the continent so far as is now known. Sometimes the 
 floors are paved with irregular flat sandstone slabs, but in most 
 houses the floor is formed by a coat of adobe mortar which is 
 patched and renewed as needed. Moccasined feet are not hard 
 on such a surface, but my heavy soled shoes were the despair of 
 the owner of my habitation. The hand is used as a trowel. The 
 chimney is usually at one corner, and did not exist in America 
 previous to the sixteenth century. A hood is built down from 
 the roof to within about three or four feet of the floor, to catch 
 
 1 For details of Pueblo architecture, see paper on the subject by Victor 
 Mindeleff, Eighth Ann. Kept. Bu. Eth. And "The Cliff Ruins of Canyon 
 de Chelly," by Cosmos Mindeleff, Sixteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth. 
 
SECTION THROUGH. A B< 
 
 SECTION THROUGH C.D. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PLAN AND SECTIONS OF A CAVATE LODGE 
 227 
 
228 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 the smoke, and outside the chimney is built up about three feet, 
 sometimes with stones, but more frequently with large earthen 
 pots with the bottoms knocked out. The hood is formed of sticks 
 plastered with adobe mortar. Doorways were formerly of the 
 notched variety 1 closed by a curtain, and the hatchways were 
 closed by a mat of reeds. In later times the doorways have be 
 come like our own, and doors, too, have been made out of sawed 
 boards. My door at Tewa was hung on hinges and had a latch 
 
 and string. Glazed windows have 
 also been adopted in many houses. 
 The Rio Grande pueblos are built 
 of adobe bricks, and so, largely, is 
 Zuni, but there is little adobe in the 
 Moki towns, except in the form of 
 plaster and mortar. The Rio 
 Grande pueblos were largely con 
 structed of adobe when first visited 
 in 1540. The Pueblo Amerind fre 
 quently abandoned his village for 
 one cause or another and built a 
 
 IJ. b. r>u. r.th. 
 
 DIAGRAM SHOWING POCKET AT BACK nGW OIie elsewhere, SO while his vil- 
 
 OF SOME CAVATE LODGES lage niay be called a permanent one 
 
 It was probably a receptacle for water it WaS IlOt much more SO tliail vil- 
 which dripped slowly from the rock in wet 1 r , . . , T 
 
 seasons lages of the Algonquins and Iro- 
 
 quois. 
 
 Besides houses, some of the Amerinds of the South-west dwelt 
 in shelters excavated wholly or in part in the face of a cliff or 
 mountain, or hill. There are four localities where these cavate 
 lodges occur in numbers, the northern Rio Grande valley, the San 
 Juan River valley, the San Francisco mountain region, and the Rio 
 Verde valley in Arizona. There are in these places thousands of 
 cavate lodges. They average in size two or three rooms, some 
 times communicating by a ledge, sometimes, often, in fact, with 
 excavated connections. Some of the Verde group 2 are cut back a 
 long distance into the rock forty or fifty feet. The rooms are 
 both oblong and circular, about seven feet high and ten by seven 
 teen feet in size, or eight or ten feet diameter, according to the shape. 
 
 1 See Macnrillan s Dictionary rf Architecture. 
 
 2 See paper by Cosmos Mindeleff, "Aboriginal Remains of the Verde 
 Valley," Thirteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth. 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 229 
 
 There were no chimneys, the fire-pits being near the entrances. 
 Nor were there any windows, the doorway being the only opening 
 to the outside. Floors were levelled by filling depressions with 
 adobe clay and low ridges were built up of the same material, prob 
 ably to keep the inmates off the bottom, which must have some 
 times been damp. Poles or willows laid across the ridges with 
 skins on them would have made a flooring. Depressions at the 
 back walls appear to have been made to hold water, and doubtless 
 at times there was a " seepage " of considerable amount, as I have 
 suggested regarding the open conchoidal caves occupied by the 
 Cliff-dwellers. What appear to be stepping-stones are found in 
 some entrances, as if water at times flowed out. The Verde group 
 are in a soft grey sandstone, the Rio Grande in tufa, the San Fran 
 cisco in cinder hills. These cavate dwellings are simply another 
 form of Amerind residence due to necessity or expedience. 1 In 
 other places there are some that were undoubtedly merely farming 
 outlooks, occupied only during the crop season, just as there are 
 cliff houses for this purpose, and also houses erected singly in open 
 valleys. But many cavate lodges were actual residences for a 
 period of years, owing to circumstances of one kind or another. 
 The Cliff-dwellers may still be found among the Tarahumaris of 
 northern Mexico. Schwatka describes some who " had walled 
 up the outward face of a cave nearly to the top, leaving the latter 
 for ventilation." Many small cliff-dwellings in other places were 
 so made to allow the smoke to escape. That is, the wall along the 
 outer edge of the cavity was not carried quite up to the rock above, 
 so that the smoke could drift out. There was, therefore, no roof 
 over the dwelling, but it was sheltered by the overhanging rock. 
 Many more examples of this adaptation of the dwelling to circum 
 stances might be added. 
 
 There are ruins scattered all over the South-west, many of 
 which were built by the same set of Amerinds, and do not repre 
 sent a vanished population. Still, I believe that the population 
 was at one time much greater than it was when our acquaintance 
 with it began. Internecine wars resulting from a diminution of 
 water-supply ; diseases introduced by the whites ; and also the 
 attacks and absorption of tribes by the wilder Amerinds, being 
 some of the causes of the diminution. It would riot be possible to 
 describe even all the prominent ruins here, but I will mention 
 1 See illustrations, pp. 225, 227, 228. 
 
230 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 several. Beginning easterly of the Rio Grande, we find the Pecos 
 Ruins first of importance. There are also remains of a large adobe 
 Catholic church and a convent here, not finally and fully aban 
 doned till about 1840. The ruins consist of two chief buildings on 
 a low table, surrounded by an artificial wall. The buildings were 
 in the form of rectangles, with courts within, one 55 by 440 feet, 
 and the other 170 by 350 feet. In places, they were three or four 
 
 Field Columbian Museum 
 
 W. H. Holmes 
 
 THEORETIC ROOF CONSTRUCTION OF MITLA 
 
 stories high, terraced, Pueblo fashion. The construction was 
 slightly different from the ordinary, as the upper floor and roof 
 beams rested mainly on heavy upright posts set into the walls, 
 and not directly on the walls themselves. The whole framework 
 was thus independent of the enclosing walls, very much as our 
 modern steel frame buildings are. The walls were of sandstone 
 slabs, and were from one to two feet thick. Another group of im 
 portant ruins, and about the finest specimens of the stone buildings 
 of the ancient Pueblos, is that of the Chaco, in north-western New 
 Mexico. 1 There are eleven chief ruins, and many smaller ones. 
 The principal ruins were once houses three, four, or perhaps five 
 stories high, all built of sandstone slabs and blocks obtained from 
 1 See the writings of Geo. H. Pepper, director of the Hyde Expedition. 
 
CEILING OR ROOF PLAN 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 GROUND PLAN OF A KIVA AND CEILING PLAN OF ANOTHER 
 
 The entrance is by ladder through the hole in the ceiling, which is also the smoke outlet. The 
 floor is paved with slabs of stone, and is about 12 inches higher at the right-hand end. There 
 are places on each side for the looms, blankets being woven in the kivas. The fireplace is the 
 black square. At the left is the plank containing the sacred orifice called the sipapu. The 
 foot of the ladder rests on the edge of the raised portion of the floor 
 
 231 
 
2 3 2 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 the debris of the cliffs. Some of the walls are still standing to the 
 height of thirty or forty feet. All are not uniform in the way the 
 stones are laid, the variation being due to building at different 
 times, and to a variation of the available supply of slabs. The 
 stones were usually laid so closely, and so carefully chinked with 
 spalls, that the outside of the walls resembles a smooth mosaic ; 
 though adobe mortar and rubble were freely used in the interior. 
 
 i 2 3 
 
 L... 1 
 
 J * 1 T 
 
 
 CHACO RUINS MASONRY 
 From Report of Hayden Expedition ; 2 and 3 not found in modern Pueblo architecture 
 
 L,intels, as was generally the case throughout America^ were of 
 wood. The date of the abandonment of these buildings is not 
 known. They were first mentioned by Gregg, in 1844. 
 
 There were many round towers of 
 stone in the South-west, also the work 
 of the Pueblos. Some stand alone but 
 most of them are near other ruins. 
 Often they were built with two or three 
 concentric walls from two to five feet 
 apart. A double-walled tower on the 
 Mancos had an outer diameter of forty- 
 three feet. Some of them may have 
 been watch-towers, but those connected 
 
 itaa* 
 
 From Hayden Report 
 
 with other buildings were perhaps religious structures, or were 
 used somewhat as the kiva 2 is to-day. The kiva is a room now 
 
 1 Commerce of the Prairies. 
 
 * See Macmillan s Dictionary of Architecture. Kiva is a Moki term to 
 replace the Spanish estufa, which is misleading. The kiva is not a sweat 
 house, as the Spanish term seems to imply. A sweat house or lodge is ex 
 pressly built and heated for the purpose of a sweat bath. 
 
1fc 
 
 I g 
 
 >f. 
 
 \ 
 
 I 
 
 * - / ^ 
 
 ** : 
 
234 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 usually square, in part, or wholly, below the general surface of the 
 locality, used as a kind of club-house, council-house, lounging 
 place, and meeting place for members of the society to which it 
 belongs ; and also a lodging place for the men ; women are gen 
 erally excluded. In Zufii, the kivas are rooms on the ground 
 floor. Many ancient kivas were round. 
 
 Adobe brick and adobe clay in various forms were largely 
 employed by the South-western and Mexican Amerinds, and there 
 are evidences that some tribes in the Mississippi valley also used 
 it. In the Rio Grande valley the adobe is made into large bricks, 
 sun-dried and laid up with a mortar of the same material. Other 
 wise the villages are much the same as those described. One of 
 the best modern examples of the adobe construction is the village 
 of Taos in north-eastern New Mexico. (See illustration page 3.) 
 Another method of employing adobe is seen in the famous 
 ruin called Casa Grande, near Florence, Arizona, which our 
 government recently repaired so that it will endure for a con 
 siderable time. This was made by the cajon method ; that is, 
 the adobe mud was rammed into large chests or boxes of 
 wicker, without top or bottom, and when the material was 
 sufficiently dried to hold its shape the frame was removed and 
 the operation repeated till the wall was finished. The ruin 
 referred to is ony one of a number that were still standing in 
 an area of about sixty-five acres in 1744, when Father Sedelmair 
 saw them. He described the present ruin as having four stories, 
 but only three are now distinguishable at the highest part. Its 
 age is unknown. Its builders are supposed to have been the an 
 cestors of the present Pimas, though probably there was consider 
 able difference in the matter of culture. Father Kino, in 1694, was 
 the first European to see the place and it was a ruin then. It was 
 doubtless a communal dwelling like all the other large structures 
 of the Amerinds of this region. Its size on the ground is forty- 
 three by fifty-nine feet. Partitions three or four feet thick divide 
 the interior into five rooms, the middle one having higher walls 
 than the rest. The adobe blocks are two feet high, three to five 
 long, and three or four across, and are almost as hard as sandstone 
 while dry. There may have been upper stories of plastered wat 
 tled posts. Another famous ruin similar to this is the Casas 
 Grandes in Chihuahua, Mexico. It is built in much the same way 
 as Casa Grande, and there are more buildings there standing. 
 
Field Columbian Museum 
 
 W. H. Holmes 
 
 TRANSVERSE SECTION OF AN ORDINARY YUCATEC BUILDING 
 , capstones of corbel vault ; /, roof crest or comb. Such a building stood on the top of a mound 
 
 235 
 
236 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Probably there were at one time a great many structures of this 
 kind in that region, and there may be others still standing in less 
 explored parts. In the Salt River valley many of the buildings 
 were of a somewhat different type again, as concerns their wall 
 construction. 1 The Hemenway Expedition excavated a great 
 many sites and found that the walls were often adobe rammed in 
 between two series of posts wattled with reeds and cross-braced 
 with sticks, the outer part of the wattled frames being plastered 
 with adobe mortar. The thinner walls were constructed with only 
 one line of wattled posts plastered on both sides, after the manner 
 of the Mexican construction known as jacal, which is a set of 
 poles fixed in the ground and then plastered on one or both sides 
 with mud. The upper stories of some of the Rio Grande struc 
 tures in the early times were made of wood probably plastered this 
 way, which explains why in the southern part of New Mexico 
 there are not now found higher standing walls of ruins or evidences 
 of several stories. 2 Examples also have been seen in South-western 
 Colorado, where a kind of wicker-work was built on the top of a 
 wall and plastered on both sides. In the Salt River ruins the ex 
 istence of the wood-work was indicated by the cavities left by its 
 decay. There were also other structures built without the wattled 
 frames. The cajon and pise construction are very much alike, 
 one being a Spanish and the other a French term, except that any 
 pounded or rammed earth construction might be pise, while the 
 cajon is distinctly made by ramming earth into a box. 3 There 
 fore the Casa Grande would be a clear example of cajon, while 
 the Salt River construction of adobe rammed between the wattled 
 frames would be pise ; and the plastered wicker-work would be 
 jacal. The pise and cajon method is very old all over the world. 
 It is still to be found in France and England. In France the pise 
 box is about three yards long, one yard high, and about half a 
 yard wide. The readiness with which the Amerind took advan 
 tage of his resources in the architectural line is again apparent in 
 
 1 See Mem. Nat. A cad. Sciences, vii., p. 146. Introduction by Washing 
 ton Matthews. 
 
 2 And have five or six stories, three of them with mud walls and two 
 or three with thin wooden walls."" Relacion del Suceso," Fourteenth Ann. 
 Rcpt. Bu. Eth., p. 575. 
 
 3 Littre gives pise as "made with a species of large bricks made in 
 wooden moulds"; piser, "to construct by beating earth between two 
 planks." 
 

 y v 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 7 V 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 j 
 
 
 e 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Field Columbian Museum 
 
 FORMS OF THE MAYA CORBEL VAULT 
 
 W. H. Holmes 
 
 237 
 
238 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 these great adobe structures of the Amerinds of northern Mexico 
 and the South-western United States. It is not sensible, there 
 fore, when some style of construction is discovered differing from 
 that which we have been accustomed to see, to ascribe it to some 
 mysterious race. 
 
 In southern Mexico they erected extensive cities or pueblos be 
 cause there they were more crowded together than anywhere to the 
 northward, but these cities were essentially the same as the more 
 simple towns in the northern country. At Tlascala " the houses 
 were built, for the most part, of mud or earth ; the better sort of 
 stone and lime, or bricks dried in the sun. They were unpro 
 vided with doors or windows, but in the apertures for the former 
 hung mats fringed with pieces of copper, or something which by 
 its tinkling sound would give notice of anyone s entrance. The 
 streets were narrow and dark." 1 This extract from Prescott 
 might picture a New Mexican pueblo instead of one of the towns 
 encountered by Cortez which have been often so romantically de 
 scribed. The copper on the mats was probably more for Amerind 
 ornament than for the purpose stated by Prescott. While in some 
 respects the Aztec towns may have been more elaborate than the 
 New Mexican towns, there was probably not much difference in 
 their method of construction. " The principal buildings and 
 temples of the city were covered with a hard white stucco which 
 glistened like enamel in the . . . morning sun." 2 This was 
 
 F3 F 
 
 Field Columbian Museum W. H. Holmes 
 
 GROUND PLANS OF YUCATEC BUILDINGS 
 
 Tablets at x 
 
 perhaps a wash of gypsiferous clay similar to that used by the 
 Mokis, or it may have been similar to the zahcab of the Mayas, 
 which was a singular and abundant white earth used by them as 
 a stucco. It was found in pockets. 
 
 " The dwellings of the common people were also placed on 
 
 foundations of stone which rose to the height of a few feet, and were 
 
 then succeeded by courses of unbaked bricks, crossed occasionally 
 
 by wooden rafters. 3 These rafters were the projecting ends of the 
 
 1 Prescott, Mexico, i., p. 474. 2 Ibid., ii., p. 70. 3 Ibid., ii., p. no. 
 
240 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 poles, as in the Pueblo country. The adobe houses in Mexico are 
 now often built on stone foundations, for it is the foundation that 
 is sapped and undermined by the rains. The upper walls of adobe 
 stand well in a climate of that sort. Prescott says of the houses 
 of the " dignitaries " and of the " principal nobles " that " They 
 were low, indeed; seldom of more than one floor, never exceeding 
 two. But they were spread over a wide extent of ground ; were 
 arranged in a quadrangular form, with a court in the centre," l all 
 of which sounds suspiciously like a communal dwelling, as Morgan 
 maintains the Aztec houses were. The Aztecs were crowded 
 around the lake of Mexico, and also built out over the water on 
 piles. Houses raised above the water or ground were nothing 
 unusual in America. Some of the North-west coast Amerinds 
 built dwellings which were " raised and supported near thirty feet 
 from the ground by perpendicular spars of very large size " with 
 " access formed by a long tree in an inclined position from the 
 platform to the ground, with notches cut in it by way of steps 
 about a foot and a half asunder." 2 
 
 So far as the Aztec houses are concerned, " None of the Span 
 ish descriptions," asserts Morgan, " enable us to realise the exact 
 form and structure. . . . But for the pueblos, occupied or in 
 ruins, in New Mexico, and the more remarkable pueblos in ruins 
 in Yucatan and Central America, we would know very little con 
 cerning the house architecture of the Sedentary Village Indians." 3 
 
 Morgan believes all were joint tenements, but in this he may 
 be mistaken, for the life of the Aztecs seems to have passed to a 
 point somewhat higher than that of the New Mexican Amerinds, 
 and a further development of Aztec life certainly included a 
 further development of their house-life also. 
 
 Within a day s journey of the City of Mexico, Saville investi 
 gated some interesting ruins of an old " temple " erected, according 
 to a tablet found there, in 1502, the signs on the tablet represent 
 ing a rabbit and ten dots, or ten tochtli, corresponding to this 
 date. It was built of rubble stone covered in many places inside 
 with stone carving that had been painted. 4 There were also 
 
 1 Prescott, Mexico, ii., p. 109. 
 
 2 Voyages of Vancouver, ii., p. 274. 
 
 3 Morgan, House Life, p. 231. 
 
 4 M. H. Saville, "Temple of Tepoztlau," Monumental Records, i., 
 No. i. 
 
242 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 ornaments in stucco. The outer walls are nearly six feet thick. 
 It is on the top of a high, cliff-like mountain difficult of access, 
 near the Mexican town of Tepoztlan. Another splendid ruin near 
 this is the Temple of Xochicalco. See illustrations, pages 23 and 
 
 31- 
 
 The greatest group of architectural remains on this continent 
 
 is that of the Maya region, mainly in Yucatan. For a full de 
 scription of many of these buildings the reader is referred again 
 to the admirable work of Maudsley. The Mayas were the greatest 
 architects as well as the greatest artists and greatest in almost 
 everything of all the Amerinds, and if Goodman is correct in his 
 rendering of some of their chronology they occupied the region 
 more than ten thousand years. 1 Mound-like foundations sup 
 ported the buildings, which generally rose as from a terrace, 
 though sometimes the mound was very high and very steep, with 
 small space around the building crowning it. At Copan, 2 which 
 was in ruins before the Spaniards arrived, there is a great main 
 terrace from which mounds rise, the latter bearing the buildings. 
 The casing of the mound and the walls of buildings are of nicely 
 dressed oblong stones usually without mortar. The joints were 
 not broken here, nor in other Maya work. The mound slopes 
 were terraced at five-foot intervals and the steps were about five 
 feet high. The so-called "triangular arch" probably existed 
 here as it did at the other Maya ruins. It was made by advanc 
 ing the courses, several feet above the base of an opening, gradu 
 ally toward each other till they met above, where a large slab was 
 usually laid across to bind the whole together. The ceilings or 
 roofs of many rooms in Maya ruins were wholly made this way. 
 It has also been called a corbel arch, though it is, in fact, not an 
 arch at all. See illustrations, pages 210, 235, and 237. There 
 was no arch in Amerindian architecture besides the one the 
 Eskimo constructed in his snow hut. The rooms are generally 
 long and narrow in all the Maya structures and no windows 
 existed. The Maya inability to span wide spaces was the cause 
 
 1 Goodman in Biologia Centrali Americana. From an inscription on 
 the back of the " Yucatec Stone" 10.731 years back to the date of an action 
 represented on the front of the stone from 1895. 
 
 2 Cyrus Thomas (American Anthropologist, July, 1899) says: "Here 
 we see the culmination of Mayan art." There are several terraces, but one 
 is so large as to eclipse the others. 
 
244 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 of the narrow rooms and buildings. At Uxmal the two main 
 rooms of the so-called Governor s Palace are sixty feet long 
 and only eleven to thirteen feet wide. The walls of all the struct 
 ures are very thick, though certain walls, as the rear ones, are 
 usually thicker than the others and have no openings, the latter, 
 as a rule, being along one, two, or three sides. This was a prob 
 able survival of earlier defensive constructions similar to the 
 communal fortresses of the Puebloan type as particularly exem 
 plified in the ruins of the Chaco in New Mexico, where there 
 were no rear openings. See ground plans, page 232. At Palen- 
 que are some fine examples of the Maya construction. The 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 ELEVATION OF KWAKIUTL HOUSE 
 
 largest is called the palace and is 180 feet wide, 228 feet long, 
 and 25 feet high, with fourteen doorways on the side and eleven 
 at the ends. It was one story in height, as were all Maya build 
 ings. There is a vast amount of carving and stucco modelling 
 around them. One of the most unique constructions is that 
 called the " Temple of the Cross," number one, or two, or three, 
 by different explorers, there being two structures much alike. 
 See note 2, page 184. This is on top of a high mound, and is 
 fifty feet front, thirty-one feet deep, and about forty feet high. 
 The roof was something like our gambrel type, being the same 
 all around without gables, with a level platform about three 
 feet wide along the ridge, from which arose a peculiar stone and 
 stucco, latticed, superstructure in two stories, the first about seven 
 and the second about eight feet high. See illustrations, pages 
 210 and 235. There was abundant stucco ornamentation over 
 the exterior, and on each side of the entrance was one of the 
 figures referred to in the last chapter. 
 
a. 
 if 
 
 . 4) 
 
 ii 
 
 < -2 
 u 
 
 >-< -c 
 > H 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 ^ I 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 W cs 
 
 > .5 
 
 12 
 
 !5 
 
 5 
 
 ^s 
 
246 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 The mortar used is said to have been a cement made of one 
 part slaked lime to two parts of zahcab. This was used by all the 
 ancient Mayas and is used still in that country. It is, however, 
 doubtful if slaked lime was known to the ancients. There is no 
 evidence of it. At Mitla is yet another type of house ascribed 
 to the Zapotecs. 1 It is in the Mexican State of Oaxaca. The 
 human figures and animal carvings and forms seen in the Yuca 
 tan ruins are absent. The rooms are the same, long and narrow, 
 with no openings except the doors. One of the most unusual 
 features is a great hall 12 by 121 feet, with six round stone 
 columns standing at intervals of about fifteen feet down the mid 
 dle. See illustrations, pages 9 and 209. These average about 
 twelve feet high and nine feet in circumference. The walls 
 are forty-eight inches thick, of roughly broken stones laid in 
 courses in plenty of adobe mortar, the outer parts of all the build 
 ings being faced by slabs of stone containing the ornamentation, 
 which is wholly geometrical. Some adobe brick walls are forty- 
 six inches thick. The columns are out of the common because 
 they are single stones, but built up piers are often used in Pueblo 
 architecture, and the North-west coast Amerinds use the column 
 in wood very frequently to support their large longitudinal rafters. 
 One of these which I sketched in an Alaskan house at Cape Fox 
 is given in the illustration, page 162. The roofs at Mitla were 
 wooden beams covered with earth and stone slabs. See illustra 
 tion, page 230. There are other ruins all through Honduras and 
 Nicaragua and the rest of Central America. Squier says : " In 
 Honduras, as also in San Salvador, I heard of remains and monu 
 ments equal to those of Copan in extent and interest." 
 
 At the time the Spaniards came into Yucatan the Amerinds, 
 according to Herrera, were dwelling in timber huts thatched with 
 grass or something similar. The dense unexplored forests of the 
 Yucatan region are filled with ruins which have never been seen 
 by white men, at least that is the supposition of archaeologists like 
 Saville and Charnay. The Maya house was divided, according 
 to Luanda, from side to side by a wall with doors, the back part 
 being sleeping quarters. The front portion was whitewashed or 
 painted in designs and was open the whole length, with low 
 
 1 Viollet-le-Duc thinks these buildings and the Maya ones originated in 
 wooden structures. For details of construction, see Bandelier s Archczo- 
 logical Tour in Mexico. 
 
Shelters, Dwellings, and Architecture 247 
 
 sheltering eaves. In the rear there was a doorway leading from 
 that part. A lengthwise division into two main parts was a char 
 acteristic of almost all the Maya buildings now found in ruins. 
 The structures were generally wide and shallow, and subdivided 
 into a great many rooms. It is more in the ornamentation of the 
 .buildings and the stone roofs than in anything else that they differ 
 from structures farther north. The interior masonry is frequently a 
 rubble, with the dressed and carved stones on the outside as a fac 
 ing. Bandelier thinks that some of the stone walls in New Mexico 
 are quite as well constructed as some in Mexico proper. But how 
 ever this may be, there is nothing north of the City of Mexico that 
 compares in architectural excellence with the Yucatan structures, 
 albeit in some respects there is a strong resemblance between the lat 
 ter in plan and conception, and the Pecos and other northern ruins. 
 
 The communal principle of living had much to do almost every 
 where with the size and character of the Amerind houses. Situa 
 tion was determined by expedience and necessity ; material of 
 construction by environment. Throughout the continent the 
 Amerind was a village dweller, and except in the Far North and 
 on the northern Californian and North-west coasts he was gen 
 erally a tiller of the soil, growing, often in large quantities, maize, 
 beans, squashes, cotton, and some other products according to 
 locality. His large communal buildings were in part fortresses to 
 protect the families against marauding Amerinds of a less prosper 
 ous and cultivated type, and against the occupants of other towns, 
 for in general it may be said that there was little political cohesion 
 in the various tribes, though the Aztecs and Iroquois are examples 
 of exceptions that arose from time to time. 
 
 There is nothing in any of the remains, so far developed, that 
 indicates foreign influence, prior to the Discovery. Every archi 
 tectural work on the continent is purely Amerindian or modified 
 by contact with other races subsequent to 1492. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO HORN DIPPER 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 HORN ARROW STRAIGHTENER, 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WEAPONS, ARMOUR, IMPLEMENTS, AND TRANSPORTATION 
 
 THE Amerinds were practically all in the so-called Stone Age of 
 culture ; that is, they were unacquainted with the common 
 use of metals. Some tribes worked silver, gold, and copper, 
 to a limited extent and in an ornamental way, and a high authority 
 asserts that the Eskimo have known iron for nine hundred years. 
 Those Eskimo who came in contact with the Northmen on the 
 North-east coasts very likely saw specimens of manufactured iron, 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 War Arrow War Arrow Hunting Arrow 
 
 MODERN IRON ARROW-HEADS OF THE OMAHAS 
 
 and possessed some, nearly a thousand years ago, but it was a 
 bare acquaintance, and this and the limited working of the other 
 metals do not affect the general statement that the Amerinds were 
 practically a Stone- Age people. Even the Maya, with all their 
 varied skill and knowledge superior to any other Amerinds, still 
 used stone tools for carving in stone. They had no way of suffi 
 ciently hardening the metals they could secure and their stone 
 
 248 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 249 
 
 tools were far more serviceable. So the tools, weapons, and im 
 plements throughout the continent were chiefly wood, bone, and 
 stone, with a few exceptions in Mexico, Central America, and the 
 Mississippi valley. In the last region there was some working 
 of copper obtained from the rich deposits of native metal in 
 northern Michigan, 1 but the main thing they could do with it was 
 to beat and grind it into shape with stones. Arrow-heads, spear 
 heads, chisels, and knife-blades of copper have been found in the 
 Mississippi and Atlantic regions, but there is no certainty that all 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 FORMS OF THE BOW 
 
 of them were made by the Amerinds. 3 The Spaniards and other 
 Europeans were speedily engaged in a considerable traffic with the 
 Amerinds in which copper was an important medium of exchange. 
 Large quantities were therefore early brought into the country from 
 Europe, and we do not always know in what form. It is certain 
 that the traders would try to give it the most attractive shape, 
 and if arrow-heads were found to be good, it would not take long 
 to manufacture them. This is not to say that the Amerind could 
 not have made the implements or copper articles thus far found, 
 but only to question whether he did make all of them. 
 
 The chief weapon of all Amerinds was the bow and arrow. 3 
 The bow was made in a number of ways and of various kinds of 
 wood, and of horn, reinforced as a rule by a backing of sinew. 
 The arrow-shaft was most frequently of service-berry wood when 
 it could be had, and also of reed with a tip of some solid wood. 
 The heads were of chipped stone, or bone, or latterly of bottle- 
 
 1 For mining operations see Chap. X. 
 
 9 The Lenape had arrow-heads and pipes made of copper. See Abbott s 
 Primitive Industry. 
 
 3 The Amerind muscles that came into play in bow shooting were so 
 highly developed that a white man untrained could not half pull a bow that 
 a generally weaker Amerind could pull with ease. 
 
250 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 glass, or often, for small-bird shooting, without any head whatever. 
 
 A few heads were of copper, and in modern times hoop iron is 
 
 used. Amongst all the Amerind 
 bows that I have ever seen, one made 
 from the horns of a mountain sheep, 
 with a portion of the skull as the 
 central part, was the finest and most 
 graceful. It was exactly the shape 
 of the typical bow wielded by the 
 little god Cupid, and I have always 
 regretted that I did not purchase it 
 at the time, for I have never seen one 
 since. I saw it in southern Utah in 
 
 1875- 
 
 I have sometimes thought that the 
 
 bow and arrow were a development 
 from the primitive fire-drill, through 
 the bow-drill and spear. Some day by 
 accident or design perhaps the drill 
 stick sprung from the tightened string, 
 the idea of substituting the spear for 
 the drill stick was suggested, and the 
 greatest invention in its effect on hu 
 manity man has yet seen was born. 
 
 There are three or four forms of 
 fire-drill, but the palm-drill that is, 
 the kind that was rotated between the 
 palms of the hands was the earliest, 
 most widespread, and most compact 
 and portable of all. It consisted of a 
 shaft of wood, or reed with a piece of 
 some harder wood attached to it ; or, 
 where the hard wood was not long 
 enough, it was spliced on to another piece of wood. The illus 
 tration above shows a drill and hearth I obtained from the 
 Pai Utes of Arizona in 1875. These Amerinds were using such 
 
 1 Hoffman (Fourteenth Ann. Rcpt. Bu. Eth., p. 281) describes similar 
 bows found in Arizona and Nevada, three feet long, but made of wood in a 
 composite way. 
 
 PAI UTE PALM-DRILL 
 
 Drawn by the author from a specimen 
 
 obtained by him in Arizona, 1875. 
 
 Lower part of shaft of greasewood 
 
 about 5 in. long and % in. diameter. 
 
 Heanh of cedar (juniper). Upper 
 part of drill shaft is omitted. 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 THE PALM-DRILL (FIRE-MAKING) 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 THE PUMP-DRILL (FIRE-MAKING 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO STRING-DRILL. l /e 
 (FOR FIRE-MAKING WITH MOUTHPIECE) 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PUEBLO PUMP-DRILL. 1 / 5 
 (FOR BORING) 
 
 DRILL-POINT OF CHIPPED FLINT 
 
 251 
 
252 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 drills for fire-making at that time. The other portion of the ap 
 paratus, the hearth, is made of cedar, or any soft and suitable 
 wood. It has cavities cut into it to receive the rounded, blunt 
 end of the shaft, and on the sides of these cavities a little notch is 
 cut to allow the air to get at the superheated wood dust and to 
 permit the dust to be quickly thrust into the tinder which is 
 placed beside and beneath the hearth. This hearth, which is an 
 inch or so in width and about a quarter of an inch thick, is held 
 securely down by the foot or knee, and the drill stick rapidly re 
 volved back and forth in an upright position, with the lower end 
 in one of the cavities. The revolving motion is secured b} r the 
 palms of the hands, which are allowed to slide down the shaft to 
 gain downward pressure, each time being brought quickly back 
 to the top for a repetition of the motion, so that it is practically 
 continuous. A pinch of sand is sometimes added to increase the 
 friction and create dust more speedily. The superheated dust, or 
 spark, is skilfully flung into the tinder of moss or rubbed-up bark 
 and a few puffs of breath bring a flame. All the materials are 
 kept very dry, and an expert will secure a fire in a few seconds 
 under favourable conditions. 1 This was the common form of fire- 
 drill throughout the continent. The " new-fire" of the Aztecs, 2 
 produced at the termination of their fifty-two-year cj^cle, when all 
 fires were permitted to die out, was obtained with a fire-drill simi 
 lar to the one described. Even when a tribe had better means of 
 obtaining fire, it would preserve the primitive method in its re 
 ligious ceremonies. Before the invention of the fire-drill it was 
 of the greatest importance to guard and preserve the fire that had 
 perhaps been procured from a great distance or from some forest 
 conflagration which had passed away. Hence it assumed a sacred 
 character, and those who were entrusted with its preservation were 
 high priests. Eternal fires, or undying fires, were the result at 
 first of the necessity of preserving fire, and later, when the friction- 
 drill was discovered, those who possessed the knowledge of it were 
 correspondingly endowed with power over the remainder. 
 
 After the palm-drill comes the string-drill, wherein the drill is 
 
 1 Hough says he has often made fire in thirty seconds with the palm- 
 drill and in five seconds with the bow-drill. National Museum Report, 
 1888, p. 531. 
 
 2 See chapter on Customs for a quotation from Prescott describing 
 the festival of the new-e. 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. Drill 
 
 SET OF FIRE-MAKING TOOLS, BRISTOL BAY ESKJMO, ALASKA 
 Showing stepped hearth. Mouthpiece is set with a socket-bearing of black stone 
 
 253 
 
254 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 operated by means of a cord twisted about it, the ends being 
 pulled back and forth, and the top of the stick being held firm by 
 insertion in a socket, the latter being grasped in one hand or, 
 when there was only one operator, taken in the mouth. The old 
 Kskimo drill is of this description, produced probably because the 
 surroundings compelled swifter and harder revolutions of the stick 
 to obtain the desired results. A further 
 development is the bow-drill, used by the 
 Eskimo and others, where instead of pulling 
 the ends of the string a bent piece of wood, 
 or bow, is attached 
 to them, the move 
 ment of which back 
 and forth rotates 
 the stick. This is 
 used with a mouth 
 piece for a socket. 
 Another form, but 
 one seldom used for 
 fire-getting, is the 
 pump-drill, where 
 the stick connected 
 
 with the ends of the cord runs across the drill 
 stock, and sometimes has the stock passing 
 through it, the string being so adjusted around 
 the stock that an up-and-down motion of the 
 crossbar imparts a rotary, reciprocating move 
 ment to the stock. This is the form used by the 
 Pueblos for stone drilling, etc. 1 The fire-drill en 
 tered into the religious ceremonies of most tribes, 
 and, conventionalised in the so-called cross of the 
 Palenque tablet, which is a development, accord 
 ing to Bandelier, of the fire-drill through ornamentation, it puzzled 
 the Europeans, causing them for a time to imagine that Christ 
 ianity had preceded Columbus to the New World. 
 
 To return to the bow again, the length of it varies in different 
 
 localities. In a densely wooded country, a long bow would often 
 
 be in the way, and this and other reasons would make it shorter. 
 
 The average length is about forty inches. The string is made of 
 
 1 The Iroquois rigged large pump-drills out of saplings. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
,, 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 MODERN ROD ARMOUR OF THE KLAMATHS, OREGON 
 
 le up of 44 oval rods of pine wood. The cord is of native hemp and cords made of sisal, the latter probably 
 derived from ropes of white make. Cords are co oured red and yellow. Bound with buckskin painted red ; 
 shoulder-straps of buckskin ; tying straps at the sides. Width, 38 in. ; height, 21 in. 
 
 Made 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 HUPA ROD ARMOUR, CALIFORNIA 
 
 11 Made of 118 peeled rods, woven together with native twine, bound with buckskin on upper and lower edges and 
 arm-holes. Shoulder-straps of leather ; six horizontal stripes of red cord cross the front. The red lines 
 denote the number of enemies slain or captives taken ; also the rank of the wearer. This class of armour was 
 in common use among the Natanps and Kennucks before the introduction of firearms ; but it is now obso 
 lete, nearly." Width, 41 in. ; height, 21 in. 
 
 255 
 
256 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 sinew, well twisted and, at the ends, braided. Arrows are of dif 
 ferent kinds in the same tribe : some blunt or with wood points 
 sharpened for bird shooting, or for other small animals ; arrows 
 adapted for deer ; for large fowl ; and others still for heavy game 
 like bison or bear. The head of the game arrow was set in the 
 plane of the string that is, the notch was quite or nearly in line 
 with the head, and, when adjusted to the bowstring, stood at a 
 slight angle, the bow always being held diagonally across the 
 shooter s body. The head would thus strike between an animal s 
 ribs. War arrows, on the other hand, had their notches so placed 
 that the head of the arrow went from the bow in a horizontal po 
 sition, because the ribs of a man lie that way. 1 It will be seen 
 that the head was not at right angles to the notch, for in that case 
 it would not have been projected horizontally. The adjustment 
 of the notch to produce the desired position would always be regu 
 lated by the habit of holding the bow. Since the rifle came into 
 use, little attention probably has been given to this point. The 
 arrow-shaft is round, about a quarter inch in diameter, and from 
 twenty to thirty inches long, though some are longer. 2 Long 
 ones are usually made of reed with a hardwood tip, upon which 
 the head is mounted ; this, as noted above, now being of hoop iron. 
 Stone heads formerly were the chief method of tipping the shaft. 
 In 1875 I purchased a number of these from an old arrow-maker 
 of the Pai Ute tribe. The other end of the shaft is feathered. 
 This is done by attaching split feathers to it with the web cut 
 narrow, for the purpose of giving it guidance. This feathering is 
 a distinguishing feature, and an expert can place the maker of an 
 arrow by the style of feathering. Feathers of birds of prey are 
 almost invariably employed. The number is sometimes two, but 
 generally three. They are attached by strands of moist sinew 
 wound around the ends and when the sinew is dry it becomes a 
 smooth firm band. Three zigzag grooves are scratched down 
 the shaft, some say not, as popularly believed, for the purpose of 
 aiding the flow of blood, but because this is the lightning symbol, 
 and is intended to endow the arrow with speed and certainty. But 
 Dorsey says the Omahas told him their object was to increase flow 
 of blood from the wound. Poisoned arrows were made by dipping 
 
 1 Hoffman denies this, Fourteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 279. 
 " For modern arrow-making among the Menominee, see Fourteenth 
 Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 275 et seq. 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 257 
 
 the points into rotting liver or rattlesnake venom, etc. These 
 were used for war. The arrow-shaft when first made is by no 
 means always straight, but the Amerind invented a piece of horn 
 or stone with perforations through which the heated shaft is 
 drawn till it is straight. See illustration at head of this chapter. 
 Quivers are all very similar in plan also, usually comprising a 
 case for the bow, one for the arrows, and in some tribes a pouch 
 containing arrow-making tools. The Kskimo make their quivers 
 of sealskin, other tribes use cat, deer, panther, otter, etc. The 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 ESKIMO PLATE ARMOUR, DIOMEDE ISLAND, BERING STRAIT 
 
 " Made of five imbricating rows of plates of walrus ivory of unequal size in the different rows, 
 pierced with from 6 to 13 holes, lashed with sealskin thongs." 164 plates in all. In form, 
 lashing and adjustment of plates it is identical with certain types of Japanese armour. Width, 
 extended, 49 in. ; height, 24 in. 
 
 spear doubtless preceded the bow and arrow. It is little used by 
 the interior tribes, but in the form of the harpoon, as well as the 
 regular spear form, is common among the Kskimo and other coast 
 Amerinds. 1 
 
 In armour, the Amerind was inventive, as in everything else, 
 and he devised some excellent means for defence for the body 2 ; 
 
 1 It is said that a blow-gun was also used by some North American 
 tribes. " Many of the Siouan Indians use the lance, javelin, or spear."- 
 McGee, Fifteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 171. 
 
 2 " Primitive American Armour," Report of National Museum, 1893. 
 
258 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 and borrowed one form, according to Hough, from Asia. His 
 shields were made of wood, basketry, cotton, and rawhide, and 
 were usually circular. The commonest material was rawhide, 
 which was often contracted and hardened by fire, and then covered 
 with buckskin. It was variously ornamented, and the decoration 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 TLINKIT SKIN ARMOUR, ALASKA 
 
 "Made of tanned hide; two thicknesses; sewed along the upper edge. The swallow-tail* 
 portion is reinforced with two extra thicknesses, making four in all. The coat is very heavy. 
 The sewing is done with sinew. Width, 25 in. ; height, 33 in." 
 
 was the outcome of many a religious ceremony conducted accord 
 ing to long-established rules. It was <4 invariably held on the left 
 arm, usually by a simple thong of buckskin attached to the in 
 terior." Many shields have two covers, each held on by a gather 
 ing string. In New Mexico and Mexico some tribes used one 
 that could be shut up like a fan, and the Navajos had one that 
 was made of cedar rods tied together with cords. 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 259 
 
 The body armour was made of rows of overlapping plates, 
 lashed together, of slats, of rods, of skins, and of cotton padded. 
 The plate armour is the one that was borrowed from Asia ; a 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 PREHISTORIC ALEUTIAN ROD ARMOUR 
 " The small rods composing it are about ^ in. diameter, painted red. Width, 40 in. ; height, 
 
 25 in. Position as on the body. It was fastened behind with two loops of sinew, into which 
 
 wooden buttons were inserted " 
 
 migration apparently across Bering Strait. The cotton-padded 
 armour was confined to the Amerinds of Mexico and Central 
 America, but the other varieties were distributed over the whole 
 
260 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 area. In the plate armour, " small, flat, oblong plates of ivory 
 or bone pierced near the edges with from four to six or more 
 holes," were lashed in series with rawhide thongs. The coat, 
 made in this way of a number of rows, was tied at the back with 
 thongs, or had a toggle fastening. Some of these plates in iron 
 and in copper have been dug up at Cape Prince of Wales and on 
 St. I^awrence Island. This armour is very similar to that of the 
 Japanese, and if it was wholly an imported idea, it was probably 
 a comparatively recent one. The Tlinkits used the slat armour 
 and also a rod armour, the former being made of very hard wood 
 fastened with cords of sinew. A Tlinkit greave has also been 
 found among the collections in the National Museum, so that it is 
 probable that the North-west coast Amerinds protected arms and 
 legs as well as body. The Iroquois are also reported to have 
 used armour of rods both on their limbs and their vital parts. 
 The rod armour was formed by sewing or lacing together with 
 native twine a series of straight slender rods sufficient to pass 
 around the body and tie in front, with places for the arms, and 
 straps over the shoulders. The skin armour was simply a sort of 
 heavy, sleeveless shirt made of thick hide, doubled and reinforced 
 and otherwise rendered as nearly as possible proof against arrow 
 or spear. In Mexico, where the padded cotton armour was chiefly 
 worn, a breastplate of the same material was put on under it. The 
 common Aztec soldiers wore armour of " reeds, grass, and hides, 
 or nequen cloth, coated with India-rubber." l Veytia says the 
 " private soldiers painted the upper part of the body to represent 
 armour, but from the waist to the thighs they wore short drawers, 
 and over them fastened around the waist a kind of kilt that reached 
 to the knee, and availed them somewhat for defence. Across the 
 body was a sash made of feathers that passed from the right 
 shoulder to the left side of the waist." 2 Many Amerinds also 
 wore in conjunction with the various kinds of armour, a helmet, 
 ranging from the feathered war-bonnet to a heavy mask-helmet of 
 wood. The Tarascos of Mexico, according to Brinton, specially ex 
 celled in defensive armour, which "consisted of helmet, body pieces, 
 and greaves for the legs and arms, all of wood covered neatly 
 
 1 Bancroft, H. H., Native Races, vol. ii., p. 407. 
 
 2 Veytia, Hist. Ant. Mej., torn, i., pp. 289, 290; see also page 134, this 
 
 book. 
 
CHIPPED FLINT 
 
 CHIPPED FLINT BLUNT 
 ARROW-HEAD, GEORGIA 
 
 CHIPPED FLINT IMPLE 
 MENT, TENNESSEE 
 
 SPECIMEN " CORES," OR BLOCKS OF FLINT 
 
 From which flakes were struck off for making arrow-heads, etc. 
 
 Usually about 3 in. long in the U. S., bvc longer elsewhere 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 SPECIMEN OF CHIPPED FLINT DISCS, CALLED 
 
 "TURTLEBACK," MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 
 
 261 
 
 GROOVED STONE AXE, TEN 
 NESSEE (GROUND) 
 
262 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 with copper or gold plates, so well done that the pieces looked as 
 if they were of solid metal." The Mayas wore cotton armour 
 similar to that of the Mexicans, and bore a shield also. Breast 
 plates of copper have been found in the Atlantic region, and many 
 of the Amerinds there used body armour of wood, skins, and bark. 
 Another kind of defensive armour, though its qualities were 
 purely imaginary, is the so-called " ghost-shirt" (see illustration, 
 page 157) made of cloth or skin, and resembling the ordinary war- 
 shirt of the Dakota. This shirt came into notice during the Ghost 
 Dance" 2 excitement that began about 1890 and lasted for six or 
 eight years. It was worn by all men, women, and children who 
 accepted the " Ghost " doctrine, either as an outside or under gar 
 ment, and it was implicitly believed that no bullet or other weapon 
 could penetrate its sacred material. 3 As already remarked in 
 another chapter, the Amerinds in modern times, of at least the 
 United States region, usually went into battle naked. The only 
 defensive armour was, as Mooney records, " his protecting medi 
 cine," which consisted of " a feather, a tiny bag of some sacred 
 powder, the claw of an animal, the head of a bird, or some other 
 small object, which could be readily twisted into his hair or hid 
 den between the covers of his shield. ... Its virtue depended 
 entirely on the ceremony of the consecration, and not on size or 
 texture. The war-paint had the same magic power of protection. 
 The so-called war-shirt was worn chiefly in ceremonial 
 dress parades and only rarely on the warpath." 4 Just when the 
 armour which protected by its intrinsic strength was abandoned 
 for the protection of the " medicine " is not, so far as I am aware, 
 at present known. At one time, it seems quite certain, the ma 
 terial protection of armour was almost universal over the whole 
 of North America, while in our latter day no one ever saw an 
 Amerind fight with armour on. The idea of going into battle 
 nude was that the warrior s movements were unincumbered, while 
 his " medicine" afforded him ample protection. A Navajo who 
 
 1 Brinton, The American Race, p. 138. 
 
 2 The Ghost-Dance Religion," by James Moouey, Fourteenth Ann. 
 Rept. Bu. Eth. ; see also Chap. VI., this book. 
 
 3 The Utah Mormons wear an undergarment supposed to have such 
 resistance. The idea may have come from them. 
 
 4 James Moouey, "The Ghost-Dance Religion," fourteenth Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eth., p. 790. 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 263 
 
 posed for me for a picture in Arizona described the Navajo manner 
 of going to battle, but never mentioned armour, or any kind of 
 protection. He said they always went naked, with even their hair 
 untied from its customary knot and falling loose on the shoulders. 
 
 Stone arrow- and spear-heads are found in all parts of the con 
 tinent, but they are almost always chipped, seldom ground. 
 Maguire, who has made a special study of this subject, declares 
 chipping to be one of the most difficult of arts. " On examina 
 tion," he says, " it is found that every 
 
 rock has been worked in the best and m & 
 
 most economical method which its 
 texture admits." The usual way of 
 making arrow-heads was to place the 
 bit of stone previously flaked from a 
 nodule or fragment and brought near 
 the shape by percussion, on the palm 
 of the left hand, which is protected by 
 a glove or a piece of buckskin, and 
 hold it there by the fingers of that 
 hand while the right brings a down 
 pressure to bear on the edges by the 
 point of a slender piece of horn or 
 bone. The chips spring off and the 
 operation is continued till the desired 
 shape is attained. I tried this method 
 once on a flake of chalcedony I had 
 picked up, and had no difficulty in 
 bringing it to an arrow-head shape. 
 Maguire has made a great many suc 
 cessfully. Chisels, axes, and mauls w r ere made the same way or 
 were ground into shape, a groove being made in the axes across 
 the sides to receive a split stick that was bound on for a handle. 
 It is almost unnecessary to say, perhaps, that there never could 
 have been a time when all tribes were equally proficient in the art 
 of stone working, some being skilful when others could make 
 nothing. 1 
 
 In this country we know so well the origin of the stone 
 implements found in the fields that we smile when we read of 
 people in Europe treating them as charms and talismans. "When 
 
 1 See Preface pages iv. and v., and also the last chapter of this book. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 DIAGRAM EXPLAINING TERMS 
 
 TO BE USED IN DESCRIBING 
 
 STONE WEAPONS 
 , point ; b, edge ; c, face ; */, bevel ; 
 e, blade; f, tang; g, stem ; /&, base; ? , 
 notch ; k, neck ; ;;/, barb, or shoulder 
 
264 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 kept in a house they protect it from lightning ; the water in which 
 a celt has been boiled is a remedy against rheumatism ; and sick 
 cattle are cured by drinking water in which a celt has been 
 placed." The Amerinds frequently treat them as medicine. 1 
 
 Some tools were produced in the rough at various sites, or 
 workshops, located at the quarries. Those in Ohio described by 
 Moorehead are probably the most extensive in North America, 
 except the obsidian mines of Hidalgo, Mexico. The magnitude 
 of the deposit is such," he says, " that it has given to the locality 
 the distinctive name of Flint Ridge." It occupies an area about 
 eight miles long by three wide. Here thousands of cubic yards 
 of earth had been removed to reach the flint beneath. "Acre 
 after acre has been so thoroughly excavated that scarcely a single 
 foot of earth and stone retains its original position. Hundreds of 
 wagon loads of spalls cover the ground." One of the pits formed 
 in this extremely hard stone is almost a hundred feet in diameter 
 and more than eighteen feet deep. The method employed was to 
 build a fire on the rock and then throw cold water on the spot till 
 the edge was broken through and they could knock flakes off of 
 the under side with stone hammers. These were put roughly into 
 shape at some nearby spot and then perhaps taken far away to be 
 finished. This flint formed better tools than that found on the 
 surface. 2 Many of the blades were often piled together for some 
 unknown reason. In sinking a well in a corner of a mound in 
 Illinois, eighteen large flint spades were found a few feet below 
 the surface, closely packed together, and Moorehead found in Ohio 
 the largest cache ever brought to light. This formed a mound 
 in the Hopewell group, six feet high and sixty feet in diameter at 
 the base, and contained over seven thousand flint discs about the 
 size of a man s hand. 3 
 
 Some spear-points found are more than a foot long and three 
 inches wide, and they vary from this down to what may be termed 
 large arrow-heads. Some writers claim that only the very small- 
 
 1 For "Medicine Arrows of the Oregon Indians," see A. S. Gatschet, 
 Journal of American Folk-Lore, 1893. 
 
 2 The surface flint was in bowlders and nodules. 
 
 3 For a valuable account of stone implements of the " Potomac-Chesa 
 peake Tidewater Province," see paper by W. H. Holmes in Fifteenth Ann. 
 Rept. Bu. Eth. ; also, " The Obsidian Mines of Hidalgo, Mexico," by the 
 same author, American Anthropologist, vol. ii., No. 3, N. S. 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 265 
 
 est heads were from arrows, but this would vary according to the 
 tribe and the game hunted, just as we have various bores to our 
 rifles. The stone arrow-heads of the Pai Utes twenty-five years 
 ago were small, but the smallest were often attached to the longest 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mus. 
 
 TLINKIT SLAT-AND-ROD ARMOUR, ALASKA, FRONT VIEW 
 
 " Made of slats and rods of hard wood, i to i in. wide, T 5 S in. thick, woven together by means 
 of fine sinew cord so as to admit of considerable flexibility. The rods and slats are pared 
 down to form channels for the reception of the cord weaving. The front and back portions 
 are woven separately. The neck portions are made up of short slats, and sewed on by means 
 of a strip of rawhide \\ in. wide. The shoulder supports are of very thick elkhide, the one 
 on the right being fastened by a slash and toggle. Width of rear portion, 24 in. ; height, 20 
 in. ; width of front portion, 18 in. ; height, 19 in." 
 
 arrows. The method of securing the head to the shaft was gen 
 erally similar everywhere. A notch being cut in the end of the 
 stick, a small quantity of pitch, asphaltum, fish, or animal glue, 
 
266 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 or cement, was placed in it, warmed, and the stone head squeezed 
 into position, where it was held by wrappings of wet sinew thread 
 which, drying, gave it a firm grip, and yet when moistened -by 
 blood would allow the head to come off in a wound. The sinew 
 was variously applied, according to the shape of the head. The 
 triangular head was held on by passing the sinew over the outer 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 APACHE WAR-BONNET 
 
 edges, while in that with a tang, which went well down into the 
 shaft, the sinew was wound round and round the shaft and over 
 the tang at the same time. All iron heads were made and 
 mounted in the latter way. In the leaf-shaped head with deep 
 notches, the wrapping was thoroughly protected by the depth of 
 the notches through which it passed. The hafting of knives was 
 much like that of arrows and spears, the ordinary stone knife 
 looking much like a spear-head, and probably some implements 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 267 
 
 that are classed as spear-heads were knives instead. Many were 
 double-edged, while others were single. Some of the diminutive 
 stone implements resembling arrow-heads were drill-heads or awls, 
 and also heads for the children s play-arrows. 1 There is also a 
 great range in the size of the stone axes and hammers, from mere 
 toys to those so large as to be unwieldy. Grooved stone axes are 
 found all over the continent, except in the mounds of Ohio. Like 
 other stone implements, they have often been used successively by 
 various tribes. Those used to-day by the Mokis and Zunis are 
 some they have found, and they use them as pounders and pestles. 
 Many of the axes and hammers were weapons of war. 
 
 The Amerinds were so skilful in the use of stone tools that it 
 is related that in the early days of the West they would skin and 
 dress a deer with a stone almost as quickly as a white man could 
 do it with a hunting-knife. For this purpose they would pick up 
 a thin stone and with a few sharp blows from another stone bring 
 it to a cutting edge. Skins were dressed by scrapers of bone or 
 stone to remove superfluous flesh. Pins were used for stretching 
 them on the ground. 
 
 Among the Eskimo the harpoon reached a high state of per 
 fection, and many of their weapons are beautifully made. Bone, 
 wood, and ivory were utilised for the shaft, and a specially unique 
 one was made from the single horn of the narwhal. Spears or 
 lances were also used for land animals before they had firearms. 
 They are now pretty well supplied with the latest Winchester 
 rifles. The harpoon to-day has a blade of thin iron or steel set into 
 an ivory or bone piece which has a hole through it that retains in 
 place a sealskin thong to which a line is attached. The bottom 
 of the ivory piece has a socket in it that fits on to the lance shaft. 
 When the harpoon strikes an animal s body the head of it then 
 hangs there on the end of the line, coming loose from the shaft. 
 There are various forms of the harpoon for different animals, and 
 they are also of different sizes according to the weight and 
 strength of the owner. Formerly the blades were of slate, jade, 
 or flint. Floats of sealskin inflated are used to mark the place of 
 a capture, so that carcass and harpoon can be easily recovered. 
 The Eskimo had a wolf-killer that was ingenious. A stout piece 
 of whalebone, about a foot long and half an inch broad, was sharp- 
 
 1 Tylor declares that it is not possible to distinguish stone weapons from 
 one part of the world from those from any other part. 
 
268 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 ened at the ends and then frozen in a piece of blubber in a Z 
 shape. The wolf swallowing it, its own heat released 
 the whalebone, which penetrated the sides of the 
 stomach and killed the animal. Each tribe had a varied 
 assortment of implements according to 
 locality and occupation, and it would not 
 be possible even to mention them all in 
 a single chapter, so I shall give only the 
 most important. The bird spear of the 
 Eskimo is a singular weap 
 on. The shaft is laid on a 
 short board fifteen to eigh 
 teen inches long, which has 
 a groove to receive the 
 shaft, a handle, and a hole 
 for the first finger. A spike 
 in the shaft prevents slip 
 ping, and when the board is 
 hurled forward by a strong 
 wrist motion, the fingers let 
 go the shaft, which, leaving 
 the board, flies forward to 
 the mark with considerable 
 force. These spears are 
 also used by the Aleuts. 
 The Eskimo also use for 
 bird killing six or seven 
 ivory balls, each attached 
 to a string about thirty 
 inches long, the ends of the 
 strings being supplied with 
 tufts of feathers. The 
 balls spread apart in flying 
 through the air and cover a 
 wide space. For war all 
 tribes had clubs and toma 
 hawks. The Mexicans used 
 some with blades of obsidian set in both edges. u. s. BU. Eth. 
 
 In the line of throwing weapons is tia&putchkohu of ESKIMO B i RD 
 the Mokis, a first cousin to the Australian boomerang. BOLAS. 1 / 9 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO THROWING-BOARDS FOR 
 DARTS. \i 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 269 
 
 It is effective at thirty or forty yards, but does not return. It is a 
 flat piece of curved oak, sawed out of a bend of a limb, about 
 
 U.S.Bu.Eth. 
 
 side 
 
 Ute stone knife. Handle of 
 wood and blade set in a dark cement 
 
 Eskimo slate knives. 
 Handles of wood 
 
 AMERINDIAN KNIVES 
 
 twenty inches long, one quarter to one half inch thick, and two 
 inches wide, with a small handle at one end. It is thrown with 
 the concave side forward. 
 
 Nets were used for fishing and for hunting. The Pai Utes 
 made a good net of cord, from milkweed or sagebrush bark, 
 
270 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MOKJ THROWING-STICK, OR PUTCHKOHL 
 
 about as thick as telegraph wire. It was about fifty feet long and 
 three feet broad, and was propped up on the ground on a number 
 
 of slender rods, 
 one net being 
 joined to an 
 other s end 
 until a large 
 semi-circle was 
 formed into 
 
 which rabbits from a large area were frightened by noises. 
 Caught in the meshes, they were soon despatched 
 by their pursuers. Many Amerinds used nets for 
 fishing, and the Eskimo make a fine, 
 strong one of sealskin, with which they 
 catch the seal itself as it rushes after 
 prey in the waters near some beach 
 where the net is stretched. I obtained 
 one that is fifty feet long and about 
 six feet wide, with meshes seven inches 
 square. 
 
 For agricultural operations the Am 
 erinds had various tools, which, though 
 primitive, answered the requirements. 
 Of the plough, or anything approach 
 ing it, they had no knowledge, the 
 hoe being their chief implement. This 
 was made of flint, the shoulder-blade 
 of a deer or other animal, a turtle shell 
 or some similar object. Spades were 
 also made, often of wood, and in the 
 Mississippi region of flint, but these 
 are seldom found in the Atlantic divi- 
 In the Moki country corn is 
 
 stick 
 
 if, 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 sion. 
 
 still planted with a dibble, a o,.^.^ ^ s Bu Eth 
 sharpened at one end and having on zufti WOODEN 
 one side a projection to receive the SPADE 
 foot, which pressed it into the soil. 
 
 PUEBLO PLANT- Having cultivated a crop of maize, the 
 ;NG STICK. Vj 
 
 Used for shovel 
 ling snow from 
 roofs and for tak 
 ing bread from 
 ovens 
 
 grain had to be reduced to meal 
 before it would serve for winter use, and for this purpose 
 
272 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 mortars of wood and stone were used, and also the metates, or meal 
 ing stones. Other substances besides corn were also ground in 
 the mortars, as seeds of grass, dried fish, nuts, grasshoppers, 
 paint, etc. Sometimes natural depressions in rocks were utilised, 
 but oftener small bowlders were worked into the desired shape and 
 stone pestles were wrought out to accompany them. The cavity 
 was of various depths. Those tribes growing little corn made 
 mortars neither large nor deep, and some, like the Pai Utes, 
 growing no corn at all, ground their grass seeds on a flat stone, 
 while those relying chiefly on corn for food, like the Pueblos and 
 the Mexicans, in the early days made large oblong mortars, of 
 hard basalt cut out to a depth of six or eight inches, with sides 
 not more than an inch and a half or two inches thick. While 
 these were really mortars, the grain was not pounded in them, but 
 crushed and rubbed into meal by means of another stone, flat and 
 oblong, about four and a half inches wide and some ten inches 
 long and an inch or two thick. When the Pueblos and Mexicans 
 settled in permanent houses they departed from the old way of 
 hollowing out these stones, and used instead a flat slab, set up at 
 an angle of about thirty-five degrees in a frame of slabs of stone, or 
 of wood, about six or eight inches deep. Several of these slabs 
 were fixed in a row, usually three, and were each made to produce 
 different degrees of fineness by the girls behind till at the last 
 stone, or metate, 1 as they are usually called, the meal was of the 
 required condition. See page 194. The Eastern Amerinds usually 
 pounded their corn with stone pestles in wooden mortars. Some 
 Western tribes used the same method. Diminutive mortars were 
 used for preparing face paints, while others were children s toys. 
 The so-called cupped-stones have sometimes been supposed to be 
 paint mortars, but, as pointed out in a previous chapter (p. 66), 
 they may have been mostly used for roughing and shaping the 
 ends of fire-drills. 
 
 The Navajos carve moulds for their silver casting in sandstone, 
 and it seems likely that some of the so-called stone tablets, in 
 scribed with figures that are not clearly defined, may have been 
 nothing more than moulds, in those regions, at least, where it is 
 known that copper or other metals were worked. 2 
 
 1 From the Aztec : metlail. 
 
 * While the Eastern Amerinds generally seem not to have known how to 
 melt copper, some few may have experimented in a limited way with it. 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 273 
 
 The spindle and loom, which belong among the implements 
 and tools enumerated here, have already been described in con 
 nection with weaving and they will now be passed by. The tools 
 used in metal working will be mentioned in a following chapter. 
 
 Household utensils were made of various materials, of which 
 earthenware, as noted in the chapter on Pottery, was one of the 
 chief. There were also trays, boxes, buckets, and cups of wood. 
 Others were of whalebone, sealskin, soapstone, and ivory. Spoons 
 were made from the horns of the mountain sheep, from those of 
 goats, and from bison horns. Some of these spoons, made of horn 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 SHELL SPOON, MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 
 Actual size 
 
 by the North-west coast Amerinds, are elaborately carved and 
 polished. Clam, oyster, conch, and turtle shells also served 
 for ladles and spoons. Drinking cups, dippers, water-bottles, 
 and other vessels were made of gourds. Metallic cups or pots 
 have not been found antedating the arrival of the Spaniards. 
 Soapstone vessels, as well as earthenware, were made and used in 
 the Atlantic region ; soapstone by the Eskimo. Quarries exist 
 where the material was obtained, especially in the Chesapeake- 
 Potomac tidewater region. Special pick-like stone tools were 
 made for cutting out these pots and masses. The Eskimo, who 
 once ranged down as far as the mouth of the Hudson and possibly 
 farther, may have originally opened up some of these quarries. 
 
 18 
 
274 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 In the line of utensils, the Eskimo lamp, is, perhaps, one of 
 the most important and unique. 1 No other Amerinds had any 
 thing of the kind. It was a necessity with the Eskimo, while 
 tribes living in wooded regions would have no use for it. They 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PUEBLO MOUNTAIN SHEEP-HORN SPOON. 
 
 could obtain light from camp-fires, especially with the addi 
 tion of pitch pine. But the Eskimo lamp is primarily a heat 
 ing apparatus. What need then for Amerinds, who had wood, 
 to bother with a lamp, for which oil must be prepared? Be 
 sides this consideration was the one of cleanliness, for the lamp 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MENOMINEE WOODEN MORTAR AND PESTLE 
 
 is very dirty, and even Amerinds have standards. ; Far more 
 remarkable than being the unique possessors of the lamp in the 
 Western Hemisphere," says Hough, " the Eskimo present the 
 spectacle of a people depending for their very existence upon this 
 
 1 Walter Hough, 
 p. 1028. 
 
 The Lamp of the Eskimo," Rep. Nat. Mus., 1896, 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 275 
 
 household belonging. Indeed, it is a startling conclusion that 
 the lamp has determined the occupancy of an otherwise uninhabit 
 able region by the Eskimo, or, in other words, the distribution 
 of a race." 1 When fuel can be obtained, which is the case often 
 in summer, fires are used instead of the lamp. This fuel is peat, 
 grass, driftwood, or shrubs. The lamp is generally of soapstone, 
 
 U.S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 STONE HOUSE-LAMP, POINT BARROW, ALASKA. # 
 18 in. to 3 ft. in length 
 
 though some have been made of clay, earthenware, bone, or wood. 
 The usual shape is something like a clam shell, though they are 
 sometimes oval or pear-shaped, or round. They are modified in 
 form according to the use required of them, the traveller s lamp 
 being much smaller necessarily than the ordinary lamp of the 
 iglu. The lamps vary in length from two or three inches to 
 about two feet, and in width from one half inch to nine or ten 
 
 J The Amerinds of Vancouver Island were said by Captain Chase to use 
 a lamp made of a clam shell, with oil from the whale or porpoise. The wick 
 was bark. Hough, p. 1039. 
 
276 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 inches, while the height is from less than an inch to four or five. 
 The smallest specimens are toy lamps of the children, and the 
 next in size the traveller s lamp. Small lamps are often balanced 
 but the large ones are not, but are supported by a wooden block 
 or by pegs of wood or bone stuck into the snow. The shallow 
 hollow of the lamp is filled with seal oil, which is obtained in winter 
 by freezing the blubber, when the oil can easily be extracted by 
 beating ; in summer often by chewing it out. The wick is of moss 
 and is arranged along the wide side of the lamp. It has to be 
 trimmed frequently, but when kept in good order gives a bright 
 illumination which Schwatka declared to be " certainly equal to 
 the light from three or four kerosene lamps." The oil is kept 
 in sealskins, which are made into bottles by sewing, and the com 
 fort and cheerfulness of the iglu during the long night depend on 
 the stock of oil which the family has been able to secure. The 
 farther north, the larger the lamp, because the darkness is longer 
 and the cold greater. Vice versa, southward it finally disappears. 
 In transportation facilities the Amerinds were extremely de 
 ficient, the Eskimo excelling all others in this direction. This 
 was the result of environment and does not indicate superiority 
 of the Eskimo over other stocks. They had vast treeless plains 
 and ice sheets to traverse, and the sledge was a necessity. Dogs all 
 Amerinds had, and some of them used them, to a certain extent, 
 for beasts of burden, so that there was not a great deal of inven 
 tion required to attach one or several to the sledge. On the other 
 hand, most Amerinds were not so situated that they could utilise 
 the dog in this way, and the continent offered them no substitute 
 for it unless, as has been suspected, some of the South-western 
 tribes may have had an animal resembling the vicuna, which they 
 kept for its wool and presumably for transportation purposes also. 
 But there is as yet no trustworthy evidence of this, and it may be 
 said that the Amerinds of North America as a race possessed no 
 beast of burden but the dog. In time, had the bison not been ex 
 terminated, and provided also that the whites had not come, it is 
 possible that this animal might have been domesticated for milk, 
 for meat, and for draught purposes. But the bison, after all, was 
 ill adapted to work, for he is clumsy, so that the Amerind really 
 had only the dog that was practicable, and this he utilised as far 
 as possible, or at least as far as necessity directed. The Amerinds 
 encountered on the plains of Texas in 1540 by Coronado were 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 277 
 
 using the dog, 1 just as they afterward used the horse, for trans 
 porting tents and tent poles. A great many different forms of 
 sledge are in use among the Eskimo, and besides the regular 
 sledges, walrus skins, rolls of sealskins, and even packs of salmon 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO SLEDGES 
 
 are sometimes used for the purpose. When skins are used they 
 are soaked with fresh water and sewed in a bag which is given the 
 desired shape and then allowed to freeze solid, in which condition 
 it remains till the return of warm weather. The Eskimo is never 
 troubled with a " January thaw." Sometimes sledges are made 
 out of slabs of fresh-water ice frozen together; or blocks of ice are 
 hollowed out. The runners of the ordinary sledge are usually 
 made of driftwood and are from five to fifteen feet long and twenty 
 inches to two and a half feet apart. The runners are connected 
 by crossbars of wood or bone and are shod with whalebone, ivory, 
 jawbone of whale, and sometimes with frozen fish. The shoe is 
 either tied or riveted in place, and the parts are generally tied 
 together, though now iron nails are sometimes used. When there 
 is a back to the sledge it is made, in the Central regions, of wood 
 or of deer or caribou antlers. Very small sleds are used for 
 running boats out of water, and their runners are often single 
 walrus tusks, the rest being of any wood obtainable. " The dog 
 1 See Castaneda s narrative, Winship s translation, Fourteenth Ann. 
 Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 527 ; and Ternaux Compans, Relation de Castaneda, p. 190, 
 "ils ont de grands troupeaux de chiens qui portent leur bagage ; ils 1 at- 
 tachent surle dos de ces animaux au tnoyen d une sangle etd un petit bat" ; 
 also the same narrative, Fourteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 456. 
 
278 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 harness consists of a broad band or strap of stout rawhide, with 
 three parallel loops at one end. . . . The head is passed 
 through the middle loop, and a foreleg through each of the side 
 loops, bringing the main part of the thong over the back. This 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 CENTRAL ESKIMO DOG HARNESS 
 
 is the trace, and by means of a toggle it is fastened to a long line 
 that runs back to the sledge and connects all the dogs with it. 
 The Central Eskimo make two bights passing under the forelegs, 
 joined by two straps across the neck and breast. The dogs are not 
 driven in Alaska, 2 but they are in the Central and Eastern regions, 
 and Boas asserts that silence must be maintained during the jour 
 ney, for the dogs will stop, turn around, sit down, and listen to any 
 conversation that is carried on. The dogs are wolf-like in appear- 
 
 1 For excellent descriptions in detail of the Eskimo sledge and methods 
 of using it, see Boas, Sixth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 529 et seq. ; Murdoch, 
 Ninth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 353 et seq. ; and Turner, Eleventh Ann. 
 Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 241 et seq. 
 
 2 Murdoch, Ninth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 358. 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 279 
 
 ance, but are not given to barking. Indeed, they seem to pay little 
 attention to a stranger. A long whip is used for touching them 
 up when on the sledge. Steering is done by the legs of the 
 driver. In the late spring, when there are sharp ice needles, a 
 sort of leather boot, with holes for the nails, is tied to the dogs 
 feet to keep them from getting sore. In summer-time they have 
 an easy life of it. The Alaska sledge has no back, but has a rail 
 on each side. 
 
 1 The sleds of the Chippewayan," says Mason, " are formed 
 of thin slips of board, turned up in front, and are highly pol 
 ished." This is the toboggan, or Amerind sled without runners, 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mus. 
 
 ENCLOSED CANADIAN TOBOGGAN OR TRAVELLING SLED 
 From Porcupine River, Alaska. Length about 8 ft.: width, 14 in.; height of body, 18 in. 
 
 developed and used in the region lying between that occupied by 
 the Eskimo and about the northern limit of the United States. 
 Dogs were attached to the toboggan by some tribes, as the Tinne, 
 who also used the dogs in summer as pack animals. The tobog 
 gan, however, was usually pulled by men, and its object was the 
 transportation of a load which would otherwise need to be carried. 
 It was made of a single thin plank, or of two, fastened together 
 on the upper surface with battens, and having the forward end 
 turned up and over like a letter C and fixed in this position by 
 rawhide cords attached properly to the first cross batten, and some 
 times a rawhide line is also carried back to the last batten to give 
 additional strength. The toboggan is now in common use among 
 the whites of America, especially the Canadians. 
 
 In pulling the toboggan over the snow the traveller would 
 sink deep and become tired with only ordinary foot covering, so 
 the Amerind invented a shoe expressly for snow travel. This is 
 
 1 O. T. Mason, " Primitive Travel," Rep. Nat. Mus., p. 566 ; see also 
 p. 564; and Turner, in the Eleventh Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 307. 
 
280 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 
 familiar to almost everybody, but a brief de 
 scription will be added for the sake of those 
 who may not have seen it. There are two 
 kinds of snow-shoe ; those represented by 
 the Norwegian ski, made of wood, long and 
 slender, and not used in America before 
 their introduction from Europe. The only 
 wooden shoe recorded is an Eskimo one 
 made in the same shape as their others. 
 The other kind of snow - shoe 1 is the 
 Amerind one made by bending to an oval 
 shape a slender piece of wood for a frame, 
 and filling the interval with rawhide net 
 ting ; and it was in use all over North 
 America, where snow remained for any 
 length of time. Among some tribes these 
 shoes were " rights and lefts," but as a rule 
 they were interchangeable. They are gen 
 erally the shape of a long, pointed oval, but 
 some are almost round. There are two cross 
 bars to hold the frame in shape, and also to 
 form supports for the toe and heel. Some 
 shoes were four or five feet long and seven 
 or eight inches wide, and turned up at the 
 forward end, while others were short and 
 broad and not turned up, the interval be 
 tween being filled by a series in great variety. 
 The foot is held in position by suitable 
 thongs or straps. These shoes are now in 
 common use by the whites. 
 
 In summer the means of travel, before 
 the horse came with the European, were, 
 on land, nothing more than a good pair of 
 legs, but, on the water, it was different. 
 There, many of the Amerinds were at home, 
 for they had some of the most admirable 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 See O. T. Mason, "Primitive Travel," Rep. 
 ESKIMO SNOW-SHOE, Nat. Mus., pp. 381-410 ; Eleventh Ann. Rept. Bu. 
 POINT BARROW, ALASKA. Eth., pp. 308-312; Ninth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., 
 Vs PP- 344-352. 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 281 
 
 small boats ever devised. Chief of these, for lightness 
 is the birchbark ca 
 noe, 1 though the Es 
 kimo kayak is not far 
 behind.it. The birch- 
 bark canoe is made in 
 various sizes and in 
 different tribes has va 
 riations, but the type 
 is the same every 
 where. There is a 
 slender, well - made 
 frame of wood, con 
 sisting of ribs, gun 
 wales, and stiffening 
 strips, over which the 
 bark, which has pre 
 viously been sewed 
 together, is stretched. 
 The bow is a trifla 
 broader across the 
 beam than the stern, 
 but both are pointed. 
 The bark covering is 
 rendered water-tight, 
 where there are holes 
 or seams, with pine 
 gum. The paddle is 
 similar to the paddle 
 in use everywhere by 
 the Amerinds, having 
 a sort of T-shaped top 
 to the handle, and 
 being about five feet 
 
 1 For details of con 
 struction see Turner, 
 Eleventh Ann. Rept. Bu. 
 Eth., p. 305 ; and Hoff 
 man, Fourteenth Ann. 
 Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 292. 
 
 and grace, 
 
282 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 long and four to six inches wide. This kind of canoe was made 
 wherever there was birchbark and water to float it. Another form 
 of boat which was universal was the dugout canoe. This varied in 
 size and shape according to locality, and was always hollowed out 
 of a single tree, by fire and by gouging. When completed it was 
 spread open wider, so that one of these boats has the appearance of 
 being from a larger tree than is the case. The finest dugout 
 canoes are those of the North-west coast, where | they are con 
 structed from cedar trees of huge 
 proportions. One of these canoes, 
 made by the Haidas, now in the 
 American Museum in New York, 
 is almost a ship and could be 
 navigated in stormy waters. The 
 Haida canoes are often elaborately 
 carved. Farther up the coast the 
 Tlinkits are experts likewise in 
 canoe building and in the man 
 agement of them. Their ca 
 noes are also hollowed from 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 UMIAK OF THE CENTRAL ESKIMO 
 The Alaska umiak has no oars and is more pointed 
 
 single logs. Many of them are small, being barely large enough for 
 two persons. Some have a peculiar projection, a point sticking out 
 from the lower part in line with the place where the keel would 
 be if they had one, and also another at the top, rather .square ; 
 that is, the wedge-like end is hollowed out in the middle. 
 Either end is sent forward, but the prong end usually first. It 
 seemed as if this projection might be intended to ward off ice, for 
 it is in the regions of Yakutat and Glacier bays that it is the dom- 
 
Weapons, Armour, Implements, Transportation 283 
 
 inant type ; and there ice is always floating from the glaciers. At 
 Prince William Sound the baidarka, 1 or kayak, comes into use. 
 This is certainly the perfection of a canoe. The frame is admi 
 rably made, being tied together and covered with walrus hide, or 
 sealskin, and the boat rests on the sea seeming scarcely to sink 
 into it. The umiak is the boat for travelling and general trans 
 portation. In it the whole family, or even two or three families, 
 with all their trappings, journey about dogs, children, packages, 
 and adults all combined. In the sunlight its rich, translucent 
 yellow colour is beautiful, and when filled with the good-natured, 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 Frame 
 ESKIMO KAYAKS 
 
 The framework is tied together and covered with walrus or other hide. Sometimes, as in the 
 Aleut kayaks, there are two or three hatch-holes 
 
 ruddy-cheeked Eskimo, clad in soft and elegant furs, the picture 
 formed is one that is remembered ever after. In the Eastern 
 regions it is termed the woman s boat. They are usually about 
 thirty feet long, five or six wide, and thirty inches deep. The 
 ends are both rather pointed, and the bottom is flat. Some 
 times there will be fifteen or twenty persons in one of the umiaks 
 at the same time. The frame is on the same general principle as 
 all other boats that is, a combination of certain ribs, thwarts, 
 braces, etc. All these pieces are lashed together, and when the 
 skin covering is on, the umiak is a staunch and excellent craft, 
 albeit it is entirely open. The cover is laced on, and in winter 
 
 1 Baidarka is the Russian term used at Kodiak and along the Alaska 
 peninsula. Baidar umiak ; baidarka kayak. 
 
284 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 it is removed and stored away till the waters are open once more, 
 when it is soaked in the sea to render it soft and again stretched 
 in place. 
 
 The umiak l has a sail of the square sort, made in these days 
 out of cotton, though formerly of seal intestine, which is attached 
 to a yard. The mast is some twelve feet high. The paddles are 
 about five feet long and six inches wide, though there are smaller 
 ones also. Sometimes oars are used as well as the paddles in 
 navigating the umiak. The kayak is made in the same way by 
 stretching skins over a wood frame tied together most dexterously. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 METHOD OF ATTACHING OARS TO UMIAK 
 
 METHOD OF TYING FRAME OF KAYAK 
 
 The navigator sits in a hatchway, as the kayak is entirely cov 
 ered, and a sort of apron tied around his waist and around the 
 coaming renders the boat water-tight. It is said some of the 
 Alaskans will turn a somersault in the water, coming up on 
 the opposite side. 
 
 Besides the boats mentioned there were others on the conti 
 nent made in different ways, 2 but these are the chief ones and serve 
 to show that the Amerind was ready to adapt himself to water 
 when occasion demanded. Taken all in all, his weapons, armour, 
 implements, and his transportation methods show, as other things 
 do, that he was a progressing, thinking being, with a good brain 
 directing his operations. 
 
 1 For details of kayak and umiak construction, see Murdoch, Ninth 
 Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 328 ; Boas, Sixth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 527 ; Tur 
 ner, Eleventh Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 235 ; see, also, for hunting weapons 
 and methods, "Aboriginal American Zob techny," by Otis Tufton Mason, 
 American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. i., No. i, 1899. 
 
 2 The Omahas made one out of dried bison hides, branches, and saplings. 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 THIN PLATE OF COPPER WROUGHT BY REPOUSSE METHOD, ILLINOIS MOUND 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MINING, METALLURGY, AND SCIENCE 
 
 MINING operations were carried on in different parts of the 
 continent, but in a primitive, limited way. Some of the 
 most extensive was the mining for flint with which to 
 make stone implements, mentioned before. The mining was 
 done by means of fire and cold water alternately applied, and 
 this was the method used in all mining operations on the conti 
 nent, so far as is now known, except in the steatite or soapstone 
 mining. But, even in Europe, until the invention of gunpowder, 
 the fire method was employed, and in one or two localities where 
 fuel is plenty it is said to be still considered an economical manner 
 of extracting ore. In the Far West, where the rocks and ledges 
 were more exposed, veins were discovered where the calcedony, or 
 jasper, or other stone desired for stone implements could be easily 
 knocked out. It was then carried away to some comfortable site 
 and wrought into shapes. Along Western rivers one occasionally 
 comes upon a spot where the ground is littered with " chips," 
 rejects, broken arrow-heads, and also perfect ones, the latter prob- 
 
 285 
 
286 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 ably having been dropped and lost ; or possibly in some way not 
 being satisfactory to the arrow-makers. 
 
 In working out soapstone vessels of the larger kind, the min 
 ing and rough shaping were frequently, if not always, accom 
 plished at one and the same time. 1 Holmes describes the methods 
 employed as follows: " When a sufficient area of the solid stone 
 had been uncovered, the workmen proceeded with pick and chisel 
 to detach such portions as were desired. If this surface happened 
 to be uneven, the projections or convexities were utilized, and the 
 cutting was not difficult ; if the rock was massive and the surface 
 flat, a circular groove was cut, outlining the mass to be removed, 
 and the cutting was continued until a depth was reached corre 
 sponding to the height of the utensil to be made ; then, by 
 undercutting, the nucleus was detached or so far severed that it 
 could be broken off by means of sledges or levers. If the stone 
 happened to be laminated, a circular groove was cut through at 
 right angles to the bedding, and the discoid mass was removed 
 without the need of undercutting. ... A notable feature of 
 the cutting out of these masses of stone is the attendant shaping 
 of the mass which was rudely sculptured as the work went on, the 
 contour of the vessel being approximately developed. Although I 
 have seen no good examples of this class, it is confidently stated by 
 others that rude nodes were carved at opposite ends of the mass as 
 incipient handles, and that excavation of the bowl was begun, so 
 that when severed from the stem the vessel was already well under 
 way." 2 These vessels were usually, in their largest size, about 
 two feet long, one foot or more in width, and about seven or eight 
 inches deep. Some are nearly circular. The tools used were of 
 stone, wood, bone, and horn, but chiefly of stone in the form of 
 chisels and picks. Some of the trenches formed in cutting out this 
 material were twenty-five feet wide, sixteen feet deep, and seventy 
 feet long. One described by Fowke near Culpeper, Va., is one 
 hundred and fifty feet in diameter and of considerable depth, 
 being filled with water and debris. Pits of varying depth and 
 size from which steatite, jasper, rhyolite, and other materials have 
 
 1 Mines of steatite vessels have been found on Santa Catalina Island, 
 California, as well as on the Eastern United States coast. Charles F. Holder 
 describes the Santa Catalina mines in the Scientific American for December 
 1 6, 1899. 
 
 2 W. H. Holmes, Fifteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., pp. 108, 109. 
 
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288 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 been extracted by the Amerinds are found in different parts of 
 the continent. In Yucatan there are numerous well-like holes in 
 the ground that were " pockets " of zahcab, and when this valued 
 material was taken out the cavity was either left or transformed 
 into the strange, well-like affairs, carefully walled up and covered 
 over, called chultunes, the object of which is often a mystery. 1 
 
 Native metals, when discovered by the Amerinds, were mined 
 in much the same way as the flint, the largest workings known 
 being those at the Lake Superior copper mines, where copper of 
 remarkable purity continues to furnish this continent and the 
 world with an abundant supply. Doubtless most of the copper 
 used on the North American continent prior to the Discovery was 
 derived from these mines and distributed through the channels of 
 Amerind trade. Bowlders or nuggets of this pure copper were 
 treasured in the homes of the tribes of the northern lake region 
 when first encountered by the whites, and the location of the out 
 crops, both on the mainland and on the islands, appears to have 
 been well known to the Amerinds of that time. An Algonquin 
 chief presented Champlain with a piece of copper a foot long and 
 told him there were " large quantities" where he had obtained 
 this. He also said " that they gathered it in lumps, and, having 
 melted it, spread it in sheets, smoothing it with stones." 2 The 
 mining operations in the Michigan-Minnesota copper region 
 were evidently carried on for a very long period in the laborious 
 Amerind way, and in consequence at the time they were first no 
 ticed had the appearance of extensive operations by a few miners, 
 leading to the erroneous supposition that they had been worked 
 by some other race. 
 
 It must not be forgotten that before the arrival of white men, 
 and even to this day in certain localities, copper appeared about 
 as valuable as gold. If the Lake Superior mines had been gold 
 instead of copper it would not greatly have enhanced the value 
 of the product in the opinion of the Amerinds of the locality and 
 their customers. They worked their way down into the rock 
 which carried native copper and broke off nodules and fragments 
 as they proceeded. Some of the pits were eighteen or twenty feet 
 deep, and in one case a huge bowlder of copper was found lying 
 
 1 For a description of these chultunes, see "The Chultunes 
 Memoirs of Pcabody Museum. 
 
 2 Chaniplaiu s Voyages, Prince Society edition, vol. ii., p. 236. 
 
Mining, Metallurgy, and Science 
 
 289 
 
 on oak supports several feet from the bottom. This mass had 
 been denuded of every projection, and the supposition generally 
 has been that it was being elevated to the surface by means of the 
 wood underpinning. This may have been the case, but it is pos 
 sible that the underpinning was inserted as the miners went down 
 on the vein, because the bowlder was too large to cut or handle. 
 They therefore left it where found and proceeded to mine under and 
 around for the smaller pieces. The large one was ten feet long, 
 three feet wide, nearly 
 two feet thick, and 
 weighed over six tons. 
 Other bowlders of great 
 er weight have been 
 found, moved, as is 
 supposed, a considerable 
 distance from the orig 
 inal bed, but the same 
 hypothesis might apply 
 to these that is suggest 
 ed above. The famous 
 Ontonagon bowlder, 1 
 which was found on 
 the river of that name, 
 is a copper mass weigh 
 ing somewhere near five 
 tons and has been the 
 cause of much specula 
 tion as to how it came u. s. BU. Eth. 
 there. The probability CHIPPED SPADE 
 
 is that it was left by 
 
 glacial action on the surface, not far from, if not on, the spot where 
 found. It is not likely that the Amerinds would take the trouble 
 to move so large a mass far. If they had possessed the power of 
 cutting it up, they would have done it near its source, and the 
 same remark applies to the bowlders of copper that it has been 
 supposed they were trying to lift to the surface. Furthermore, if 
 the Ontonagon bowlder were transported by them to its position, 
 and if the large bowlders in the mines were destined for the 
 
 1 Now in the National Museum, Washington. See article on the sub 
 ject by Charles Moore, Report of U. S. Museum, 1895. 
 
290 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 surface and transportation in bulk, we ought to find somewhere 
 else records or evidences of the presence of great bowlders, but 
 nothing of the kind has been found; no such large copper mass 
 has been discovered in any ruined Amerind town, or on any 
 Amerind village or town site. It seems that the Ontonagon bowl 
 der was a natural deposit. These huge masses of copper were 
 troublesome to modern miners with the most approved machinery. 
 It must not be supposed that all the Amerinds of that region 
 were miners, any more than that all the Amerinds of any other 
 region were equally developed or skilful, or all did the same 
 things. The Navajos of the South-west are some of them ex- 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO STONE MAUL. 
 
 pert silver-workers, yet their neighbours, for the most part, can 
 do little or nothing in that line. But that is no reason for sup 
 posing the Navajos to be a race distinct and apart from the rest. 
 No more were the workers of the Lake Superior copper mines any 
 different from their neighbours in general. They had a knack of 
 working the native copper out of the ground, and they worked it 
 just as others mined for flint. When they ceased it was probably 
 because they had worked out all the easy places they could find, 
 or that their trade fell off owing to the introduction by the Euro 
 peans of manufactured articles of copper and iron. 
 
 In one of the ancient pits a hemlock with 395 annular rings was 
 growing, and this has led to the supposition that the mines were 
 worked before the time of Columbus. The excavations undoubt 
 edly extended over a long period ; from before Columbus to after 
 Champlain. But it was over three hundred years after Columbus 
 before the first explorations of the Lake Superior region were 
 
Mining, Metallurgy, and Science 291 
 
 made by General Cass, and hence the tree had time to grow since 
 that date. On the whole, there seems to be no reason for suppos 
 ing that anyone but Amerinds worked these mines; Amerinds 
 lastly of Algonquin stock, though other stocks probably worked 
 them also. 
 
 The method of utilising this copper in the Northern regions, 
 that is, north of Mexico, was as primitive as the method of extract 
 ing it from the ground. It seems often, perhaps generally, to have 
 been hammered into shape cold and then finished by grinding. 
 Doubtless they knew how to melt it out of the rock on a small 
 scale, allowing it to drop or run into a mould scraped into the sur 
 face of a flat stone, somewhat the shape of the article to be made, 
 which would afterward be finished with hammering and grinding. 
 
 The objects found in the Mississippi valley, formed of copper, 
 which are probably the unaided work of the Amerinds, are chisels, 
 arrow- and spear-heads, knives, and perhaps certain thin plates 
 wrought with designs in the repousse method. No camp utensils 
 or other objects have been found demanding a knowledge of the 
 properties of the metal sufficient to work it into articles requiring 
 a quantity of copper to be manipulated at once. Gushing main 
 tains that the production of thin plates was an easy matter and 
 he shows how the Zunis made them, but admitting that the 
 Amerinds of the Mississippi valley could make these plates, it does 
 not prove that they did, for as copper in various forms was very 
 early an article of trade, it is possible that they used the imported 
 article. Gushing explains how the Zunis, by a process of alternate 
 hammering and annealing and then grinding, produced thin plates, 
 which being pressed with a sharp tool would receive a design. 
 This pressed-out portion could be ground down with a flat slab to 
 sever it from the ragged edges of the sheet, and also to make 
 any desired perforations. The resulting turned-tip edges could be 
 hammered flat and they then would be as if cut by a shear. 
 
 Gushing explains how in the South-west ore was quarried and 
 roasted in an open fire, and then smelted in a sort of oven, the 
 copper or other metal appearing finally at the bottom. Primitive 
 furnaces of this kind he found in the Salt River valley. The 
 singular thing about it is the almost total absence of metal objects 
 in the ruins of the South-west. Aside from several small copper 
 
 Frank Hamilton Gushing, "Primitive Copper Working, An Experi 
 mental Study," American Anthropologist, O. S., vol. vii., No. i, 1894. 
 
292 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 " hawk " bells found in the Salado and other Arizona ruins, I have 
 not heard of any metal object that was not positively European 
 being found in any mound or ruin of the South-west, with one 
 exception. 1 In 1875 a man in my employ in southern Utah told 
 me that several years before that time his uncle either had found 
 in a mound in southern Nevada or northern Arizona, or had 
 obtained from some natives who found it, a small gold image, 
 which he had melted down for the value of the metal it con 
 tained. At the time I thought this tale belonged with that of the 
 "lost mine," but I am now inclined to see a fact in it. It is quite 
 within bounds that one of the small Mexican or Chiriquian figures 
 
 may have found its way up into this 
 region. 
 
 If there had been a wide know 
 ledge of copper and other metal- 
 working in the South-west in the 
 olden time, there ought to be signs 
 of it in the ruins other than an 
 Side oven, and even the latter has been 
 
 SMALL FIGURE OF A FROG IN BASE rard f oun d. CorOliado aild lllS 
 METAL, PLATED WITH GOLD, . . 1 _ . j i- . r 
 
 CHIRIQUI chroniclers, Espejo, and all the list of 
 
 early writers on that region, never, 
 
 so far as I have been able to note, mention copper or any other 
 metal articles. In fact, from the testimony of literature, history, 
 and actual excavation among the ruins so far as carried at present, 
 we should conclude that none of the people of that region knew 
 about metals or the manner of working them before the year i54O. 3 
 New Jersey also furnished the Amerinds some copper and those 
 living in the Atlantic region had ornaments, arrow-heads, and pipes 
 supposed to have been made from it or from Lake Superior copper. 
 Brinton attributes the scarcity of specimens in our collections to 
 " its being bought up and melted by the whites, rather than to its 
 limited employment." 3 A few examples have been found, but 
 if they had been plentiful there should be discovered many im- 
 
 1 Fewkes found several of these bells in his excavations around the 
 headwaters of the Gila. 
 
 * During my stay with the Mokis and in their vicinity and in all the long 
 time I have been observing them, I never saw nor heard of a single object 
 in metal wrought by them. 
 
 ;1 Brinton, The Lenape, p. 52. 
 
Mining, Metallurgy, and Science 
 
 2 93 
 
 piemen ts antedating the arrival of the whites. On Brinton s 
 hypothesis it would be necessary to assume that there were few 
 made before the coming of the whites or they could not have been 
 so easily bought up. As a matter of fact, the finds in copper 
 
 articles compared with the area 
 occupied are astonishingly few, if 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 Painted design in black, representing a 
 sea monster with bear s head 
 
 Painted design representing a hawk 
 
 COPPERS FROM THE NORTH-WEST COAST. T V 
 
 These are made of thin sheets of copper, and grow valuable by sale or exchange, according 
 to peculiar customs. Some rise as high as $5000 or $6000 
 
 the natives turned off the amount of work some writers would 
 have us believe. 
 
 On the North-west coast an article of great importance and 
 value is the " copper." In former days these coppers were made 
 of native metal obtained from the mines of that region, and they 
 must have been made by cold hammering in the way that Gush 
 ing describes. To-day they are made of metal obtained from 
 the whites. The coppers are thin plates of a peculiar shape ; 
 the nearest common thing that they resemble is a gauntleted 
 glove with the fingers cut off and with the gauntlet the top. 
 
294 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Across the wrist runs a ridge from one side to the other, and 
 from the middle of this another ridge extends downward to the 
 bottom, thus making with the first the shape of a letter T below 
 the flaring part. "The top is called the face," says Boas in his 
 valuable and interesting account of the Kwakiutls, "the lower 
 part the hind end. The front of the copper is covered with black 
 lead, in which a face representing the crest animal (totem) of the 
 owner is graven. These coppers have the same function which 
 bank notes of high denominations have with us. The actual 
 value of the piece of copper is small but it is made to represent a 
 large number of blankets, and can always be sold for blankets. 
 A white blanket at fifty cents is the unit. The value is not 
 arbitrarily set but depends upon the amount of property given 
 away in the festival at which the copper is sold. The oftener a 
 copper is sold the higher its value." Every copper has its own 
 
 special name, representing its peerless 
 quality, or an animal ; as, the killer 
 whale, the bear face, beaver face, etc. 
 As ability to destroy valuable property 
 amongst these people distinguishes the 
 great and wealthy, these valuable coppers 
 are demolished piecemeal till only the 
 portion with the T upon it remains. 
 Sometimes all the fragments are bought 
 up by another person, who rivets them 
 together and the copper then has a greater 
 price than ever. A broken copper is a 
 more important piece of property than a 
 whole one, because the possession of it 
 shows that its owner is rich enough to 
 destroy property. These plates are in use 
 from Yakutat to Comox. Sometimes a 
 copper is cast into the sea. 
 
 In the South-west it is not the house 
 building Pueblo who is the metal-worker 
 par excellence but the semi-pastoral Na- 
 vajo, who, besides his flocks and herds, 
 possesses a wealth of silver ornaments that runs up into the thou 
 sands. Silver and copper ornaments are turned out by the 
 1 F. Boas, "The Kwakiutl Indians," Rept. Nat. Mus., 1895, p. 344. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 HOLLOW SILVER BEADS OF 
 NAVAJO MAKE, ARIZONA 
 
 Actual size 
 
Mining, Metallurgy, and Science 295 
 
 native silversmith not only for his own people but for whites 
 also, and a considerable trade exists between the Navajos and 
 other Amerinds in this native jewelry as well as in blankets. 
 If you desire to have an article made, you give the silver it is 
 to contain, usually in dollar pieces, and an equal 
 quantity as wages. The objects manufactured 
 are globular and semi-globular buttons ; brace 
 lets like a letter C in form and shape, buckles, 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 Engraved button Bracelet 
 
 Usually about 2^ inches long 
 
 NAVAJO SILVER WORK, ARIZONA 
 
 rings, plate for the bridle, tobacco canisters, flat buttons, beads, and 
 various discs, and other ornamental objects. These are often en 
 graved quite artistically, and sometimes elaborately. Copper seems 
 to be a valued metal for ornaments, and I have seen copper brace 
 lets on a Navajo woman made exactly the same as silver ones. 
 The Navajo silversmith is up to a trick or two as well as his white 
 neighbour. At Manuelito there was a white trader who often sold 
 Navajo bracelets to passengers from the railway trains that ran 
 within a hundred feet or less of his door, and he was a man who 
 prided himself on " square " dealing. One day a gentleman who 
 had purchased several silver bracelets rushed in full of ire, de 
 manding the return of his money for the worthless bracelets which 
 he threw upon the counter. They were copper. The trader took 
 down a string containing a number, from which the returned ones 
 had been originally taken, and which he had purchased for silver, 
 
296 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 and found that every one was copper. They had been thinly 
 washed over by the Navajo smith with silver. 
 
 It has sometimes been suggested that the Navajos learned 
 their metal-working from the Pueblos, but if so it was a lesson ob 
 tained in quite modern times, for the Pueblos themselves, as has 
 been mentioned, appear to have known nothing about the work 
 ing of metals before the arrival of the Spaniards. The art of metal- 
 working both among the Navajos and the Pueblos is probably a 
 modern acquisition. Washington Matthews, writing about 1883, 
 says : " Old white residents of the Navajo country tell me that 
 the art has improved greatly within their recollection." It is 
 likely that the Navajos, having a keen perception of mechanical 
 matters, had wrought copper to a limited degree and that through 
 their intercourse with, and absorption of, Pueblo tribes, this tend 
 ency was developed by a certain amount of knowledge in this line 
 which the Pueblos acquired from Mexicans who followed in the 
 train of the early Spanish explorers ; but this skill was not given 
 a real impetus till after the South-west fell into our possession, 
 when tools and trade rapidly developed. 2 
 
 When in 1871 I encountered Navajos for the first time, on 
 their way to trade with the Mormons, I do not remember seeing 
 them have any silver ornaments. This was so soon after their 
 liberation from government confinement following their war with us 
 that they were, naturally, very poor. But if they had before pos 
 sessed much silver they would have concealed it, and by the time I 
 saw the ones referred to they would again have been wearing it 
 and trying to trade it for horses, which they sadly needed. The 
 Navajo silver-work is distinguished by an extremely artistic qual 
 ity. Their tools and appliances are very rude and simple. As 
 their method of operation is probably similar to that of Amerinds 
 who have not been observed as closely, I will condense here some 
 of the important details as given by Washington Matthews. 3 
 Only a few have attained a degree of proficiency that enables 
 
 1 Washington Matthews, "Navajo Silversmiths," Second Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eth., p. 171. 
 
 2 The tribes of the North-west made some gold and silver ornaments, and 
 at Sitka to-day there is a jewelry establishment kept by a native Tlinkit, who 
 makes most of his own silverware. 
 
 3 Washington Matthews, "Navajo Silversmiths," Second Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eth., p. 172. 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 KXVAKIUTL CHIEF HOLDING HIS COPPER, NORTH-WEST COAST 
 
 The value of a copper is expressed in white single blankets of American make at 50 cents each. It 
 is rated according to the amount of property given away at the festival where the copper is 
 sold, and each sale adds to its value proportionally. He who can break a copper and cast away 
 the fragment is considered great 
 
 297 
 
298 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 them to make large hollow articles, like flasks and the like, but 
 there are many who can turn out bracelets, buttons, buckles, etc. 
 Their appliances consist " of a forge, a bellows, an anvil, crucibles, 
 moulds, tongs, scissors, pliers, files, awls, cold chisels, matrix and 
 die for moulding buttons, wooden implements used in grinding but 
 tons, wooden stake, basin, charcoal, tools and materials for solder 
 ing (blow-pipe, braid of cotton rags soaked in grease, wire, and 
 borax), materials for polishing (sandpaper, emery paper, powdered 
 sandstone, sand, ashes, and solid stone), and materials for whiten 
 ing (a native mineral substance almogen salt and water). " 
 The forge is built up with several old boards, an old box, or, when 
 these cannot be procured, of sticks. The nozzle of the bellows, 
 being wood, is kept back from the fire several inches and a contin 
 uation built in the mud with which the fire-bed is constructed. 
 The bellows is a tube of goatskin, a foot long and ten inches in 
 diameter, distended by two or three wooden hoops. The back of 
 it is a disc of wood with a valve in it. The nozzle is of four pieces 
 of wood tied together and having a hole an inch square through 
 the centre, the outside being dressed off till it is approximately 
 round. Any old piece of iron, like the king-bolt of a wagon, driven 
 into a log serves for an anvil, though in the absence of this a hard 
 stone is sufficient. They make their own crucibles of clay, gener 
 ally three-cornered, about two inches in every dimension, and 
 baked hard. l< The moulds in which they cast their ingots, cut in 
 soft sandstone with a home-made chisel, are so easily formed that 
 the smith leaves them behind when be moves his residence." 
 " Metallic hemispheres for beads and buttons are made in a con 
 cave matrix by means of a round-pointed bolt." Several matrices 
 are made on a single bar of iron and a bolt that will fit the small 
 est is sufficient to work all. They prepare charcoal by building a 
 large fire, and when it is " reduced to a mass of glowing coals they 
 smother it well with earth and leave it to cool." Blowpipes are 
 made by themselves out of brass wire hammered flat and then bent 
 into a tube. The engraving and chasing of the objects made are 
 done with the sharpened end of a file, or any other suitable sharp 
 piece of steel. It will be seen from the foregoing that the Navajo sil 
 versmith is dependent to a very great extent on materials and 
 tools obtained from the whites, and without these the practice of 
 his art would be difficult. Schools for mechanical processes like 
 dyeing, metal-working, etc., would accomplish much good among 
 

 
 Mining, Metallurgy, and Science 299 
 
 these people. They could readily be taught to use the lathe and 
 other tools, and would become good metal-workers. 
 
 Prescott says of the Mexicans : ; They were as well ac 
 quainted with the mineral as with the vegetable treasures of 
 their kingdom. Silver, lead, and tin they drew from the mines 
 of Tasco ; copper from the mountains of Zacotollan. These were 
 taken, not only from the crude masses on the surface, but from 
 veins wrought in the solid rock, into which they opened extensive 
 galleries. . . . Gold, found on the surface, or gleaned from 
 the beds of rivers, was cast into bars, or, in the form of dust, made 
 part of the regular tribute of the southern provinces of the em 
 pire." Their mining was doubtless carried on by the fire-and- 
 water process used by the Northern people, while gold from the 
 river beds was possibly obtained in much the same manner as 
 I have been told the Amerinds of Peru get it. Selecting a river 
 that was known to be rich in the metal, a series of stone " riffles " 
 would be arranged in the best place at the very lowest stage of the 
 water. Then when the freshets came and swept the gravel across 
 these rude affairs the gold would remain lodged there and on the 
 subsidence of the stream could be readily taken out. There was 
 undoubtedly a vast quantity of gold in the possession of the Mexi 
 cans and Central Americans, but this fact does not signify that 
 they conducted mining operations on a large or continuous scale, 
 for the metal had been accumulating, in the shape of idols and 
 ornaments, for centuries. There was little lost or worn away, as 
 they did not use it as a general medium of exchange. Their 
 plumes in their head-dresses were often set in gold ; rings of gold 
 were worn in their ears and on their arms, and the same metal was 
 wrought into a great many forms of ornament. 
 
 Cortes ordered, says Valentini, eight thousand arrow-heads of 
 copper and they were " made ready for delivery in a single week." 
 It seems, therefore, the Aztecs were accustomed to handling copper 
 in considerable quantities. It is said they made a mixture of cop 
 per and tin which they used for tools, and certain implements and 
 objects are found with a percentage of tin in them, but neverthe 
 less their keenest weapons and their most serviceable tools were 
 made of obsidian, which was also the case with the Mayas. Their 
 hardened copper was useful for some purposes, but they were un 
 able to harden it sufficiently to sustain an edge. For cutting 
 1 Prescott, Mexico, vol. i., p. 138. 
 
300 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 stone in two they used, as the Eskimo does to-day, a thin blade 
 and sand. In their case the blade was copper tempered with tin, 
 and in the Eskimo s case it was formerly probably a thin blade of 
 bone, while now it is an old steel saw. Silver as well as gold and 
 copper was known to the tribes of the Central regions of America, 
 and lead also was one of their metals, though little was done with 
 it. There is a tendency to exaggerate the mechanical as well 
 as the art skill displayed in objects that were made on this conti 
 nent, before the whites came, or that were not discovered till 
 recently. The reason for this seems to be that we love mystery 
 and it is too tame to refer the finds to the ordinary "Indian," 
 who in the popular mind has no ability in any direction, so they 
 are ascribed to that " mysterious " race that we have tried in vain 
 to find some evidence of besides mystery. Daniel Wilson gives 
 an example of how this mystery bubble bursts on the slightest 
 accurate investigation. Some tools were found in the neigh 
 bourhood of Brockville, Canada, of which Dr. Reynolds, who 
 exhibited them, stated: "There is also a curious fact, which 
 these relics appear to confirm, that the Indians possessed the art 
 of hardening and tempering copper, so as to give it as good an 
 edge as iron or steel. This ancient Indian art is now entirely 
 lost." When these Brockville relics were submitted to careful 
 examination it appeared that they were not " different in any 
 material respect from the native copper of Lake Superior." 2 This 
 was all very well, but Wilson was not satisfied with Reynolds s 
 ascribing these relics to the "present Indian race" and goes on 
 to say : The evidences of antique sepulture, however, are un 
 mistakable ; and other proofs suggest a different origin," and he 
 proceeds to call in Squier s aid and ascribes them forthwith to our 
 fabulous friends, the " Moundbuilders." One of his proofs was a 
 terra-cotta mask found with the articles, in which he saw a skill 
 beyond that of the " Indians," but which in reality, judging by 
 the illustration he gives of it, is nothing remarkable. Yet Wilson 
 continues : " It cannot admit of doubt that in them [the mining 
 operations] we look on the traces of an imperfectly developed yet 
 highly interesting native civilisation, pertaining to centuries long 
 anterior to the discovery of America in the fifteenth century," * 
 
 1 Daniel Wilson, Prehistoric Man, vol. i., pp. 213-215. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 216. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 218. 
 
Mining, Metallurgy, and Science 301 
 
 etc. This conclusion he is assisted to by certain quotations from 
 some of the old natives and from Claude Allouez. These convince 
 him ; but a little later on he quotes Alexander Henry s mention 
 of his visit to the Ontonagon, who says : " I found this river 
 chiefly remarkable for the abundance of virgin copper which is on 
 its banks and in its neighbourhood. The copper presented itself 
 to the eye in masses of various weight. The Indians showed me 
 one of twenty pounds. The} 7 were used to manufacture this metal 
 into spoons and bracelets for themselves." If they made brace 
 lets and spoons, they probably made other articles, " melting the 
 lumps and spreading it in sheets to smooth it with stones, as the 
 chief described to Champlain. 
 
 The Chiriquians seem to have possessed a skill in metallurgi 
 cal operations unsurpassed by any other people on the continent. 
 Whether they used gold dust in quills, and T shapes of tin or 
 copper for currency as did the Mexicans, does not appear, but they 
 were skilled in metal-working. They understood smelting, alloy 
 ing, and plating, and apparently were extremely skilful at cast 
 ing. As before noted, no weapons or implements have been found 
 of metal, all the metal objects being ornaments, and " almost ex 
 clusively," says Holmes, " pendent ornaments." " They were, for 
 the most part, cast in moulds, and in nine cases out of ten repre 
 sent animal forms. A few bells are found, all of which are bronze. 
 Pieces formed of alloyed metal are usually washed or plated with 
 gold." 2 Many of these valuable relics of the past have been dis 
 posed of for their money value and duly melted up to be made into 
 something modern. The gold is usually alloyed with copper in 
 varying proportions, though pure metals were also used. From 
 the fact that the alloy is so variable it would seem that the combi 
 nation already existed before it came into the Chiriquian hands ; 
 that is, it was perhaps a natural combination. 
 
 Holmes believes almost all these metal objects were cast in 
 moulds, as noted, but he mentions other processes by which they 
 may have been made. They have the appearance of having been 
 modelled in some plastic material, and then coated with clay, when 
 by the action of heat the wax runs away, leaving the hollow clay 
 as a mould to receive the metal. This is the cire perdue process. 
 
 1 Daniel Wilson, Prehistoric Man, vol. i., p. 222. 
 
 2 W. H. Holmes, "Ancient Art of the Province of Chiriqui," Sixth 
 Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 186. 
 
302 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Small figures of resin, in all respects modelled like those found in 
 metal, have been discovered in the graves. This seems to add to 
 the probability of a Chiriqui acquaintance with the cire perdue pro 
 cess. Another method suggested is that the various metallic parts 
 of a figure were enclosed in a clay matrix and then heated till the 
 parts melted and joined, but this appears to be too uncertain and 
 difficult to have warranted its practice. Still another method ad 
 vanced is the coating of a wax figure with sheet gold and melting 
 the wax, when a hollow gold figure would be the result. This is 
 possible but not probable. Yet one more suggestion is that the gold 
 was reduced to an amalgam with mercury, and thus modelled, when 
 the mercury being driven off by heat the gold figure would remain. 
 
 One difficulty with this the 
 ory seems to be that there is 
 no evidence that the Chiri- 
 quians knew mercury. As 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 TRIPLE BELL OR RATTLE OF GOLD FROM 
 NEAR PANAMA 
 
 BRONZE MEXICAN BELL 
 
 many of the objects are washed or plated with pure gold, it would 
 seem that the pure gold was the most difficult to obtain, and that, as 
 before stated, the gold-copper alloy was a natural one. There is 
 neither engraving nor carving on these objects ; and the objects 
 themselves are the same crude productions that are indicative 
 of pure Amerind art everywhere on the continent. Some are more 
 crude than others, but all Amerind sculpture, modelling, and carv- 
 
Mining, Metallurgy, and Science 303 
 
 ing are essentially rude and primitive. In the form and artistic 
 execution of the Chiriqui objects of gold and copper we may be 
 positive that there is no European influence, whatever there may 
 be in the method of production. It is probable that the objects 
 are entirely native, and they offer another lesson that the tribes of 
 North America were everywhere working and inventing, and 
 gradually conquering the secrets of nature just as our ancestors 
 did and just as we are still doing to-day ; some doing more, others 
 less ; some being quick, and others clumsy, ignorant, and dull. The 
 bells are usually of bronze, having the shape of our common sleigh- 
 bell, and are frequently gold-plated. The bells found in Arizona 
 are of this description but not plated. 
 
 Besides their sciences of mining and metallurgy, the Amer 
 inds understood some others, like the manufacture of glue and 
 cement, the production of paints and dyes, and astronomical 
 reckonings. True, some of these are more properly classed as 
 arts, but requiring knowledge that may be called scientific, they 
 may be considered under that head. Paints were usually obtained 
 from clays and ochres. I once traced to its source the red paint 
 formerly used by the Amerinds of southern Utah and found it in 
 the second great bend of the Colorado River, about three thousand 
 feet below the surface and about two thousand feet above the river, 
 as the canyon is there about five thousand feet deep. The paint 
 was in a cave the mouth of which opened on a little gulch, and the 
 entrance was so small and narrow, and in such hard rock, that we 
 could barely wriggle our way on our bellies, along the eighteen feet 
 of passage, before we reached the cavern, thirty feet long, fifteen 
 wide, and high enough for a man to stand erect in. There were 
 several side passages leading farther, but this seemed to be the main 
 cave, and all over the walls were the marks of the sharp sticks with 
 which the Amerinds cut out the ochre. Our guide stated that it 
 was customary to send in the boys and squaws after the paint. 
 The ochre was of a rich red, but no match for the red lead and 
 vermilion obtained by trade with the whites. The remote and 
 difficult position of this cave and its narrow and repelling en 
 trance show how eager the natives were to secure paint. At 
 the time of our visit, however, the mouth was considerably over 
 grown with small brush, proving that for several years no visit had 
 been made. In every region there were special places for obtain 
 ing paints, and Brinton states that in New Castle County, Dela- 
 
304 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 ware, the vicinity of streams now known as White Clay and Red 
 Clay creeks furnished red, white, and blue clays in such abund 
 ance that they were called by the natives Walamink, or Place of 
 Paint. 1 Charcoal was used for black. 
 
 Of dyes they had a fair assortment, but they were not able to 
 obtain the brilliant hues they now secure by means of the " Dia- 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 BRONZE BELLS, PLATED OR WASHED WITH GOLD, CHIRIQUI 
 These were cast in moulds. The largest is i% in. high and K i n - diameter 
 
 mond" and other aniline dyes. A black dye was made by the 
 Navajos from the twigs and leaves of the aromatic sumac, a native 
 yellow ochre, and the gum of the pinon. 2 These same Amerinds 
 have three different processes for dyeing yellow. The first pro 
 duces a lemon yellow, the second an old gold, and the third still a 
 different shade. 
 
 Red dyes are also made by the Navajos ; and the Mokis possess 
 the skill to produce several colours, one being a deep, rich blue. 
 These processes are all too long to admit of description here. 3 The 
 Lenape and other Eastern Amerinds used the juice of the wild, 
 sweet-scented crab apple to fix the dyes, while among the Mokis 
 the liquid generally used is urine. It must have required long 
 and careful experiment before these people acquired their knowl 
 edge of dyeing, for some of the preparations are rather intricately 
 
 1 Brin ton, The Lenape, p. 53. 
 
 2 Washington Matthews, " Navajo Weavers," Third Ann. Rept. Bu. 
 Eth., p. 376. 
 
 3 Squier describes a Tyrian purple of various shades secured in Nicara 
 gua from the murex. shellfish by a slow and tedious process; see his Nicara 
 gua, p. 286. 
 
Mining, Metallurgy, and Science 305 
 
 compounded, but here is evidence once more that the Amerind was 
 by no means a vagabond, but was constantly at work devising and 
 inventing. Glue the}- made from fish in some localities, and in 
 others by boiling down the skin from the head of the bison or elk, 
 or the hoofs of animals. Cement for attaching arrow-heads and 
 for other purposes was made by combining pine gum with other 
 substances. In all these mixtures and combinations the propor 
 tions were either guessed at or measured, never weighed, for there 
 was no scale or balance in use, so far as now known, in North 
 America, though certain round stones from Mexico in Madrid 
 have been supposed to be weights. 
 
 Remarkable progress had been made in many tribes in the 
 matter of calculating time, and the Mayas and Mexicans had ad 
 vanced so far that they were able to calculate the length of the 
 year with accuracy. What implements they employed is not 
 known, but they were probably of wood and stone, the latter of 
 the form of the calendar stone, before mentioned. Other tribes far 
 ther north made their calculations in a less perfect way, yet they 
 did and do keep time records. The Sun priests of the Mokis use 
 "what ma) 7 be called a calendar stick," says Fewkes. "These 
 sticks are about a foot and a half long, and are divided into two 
 parts, one section being round, the other flattened on one side. 
 The round section is girt by fifteen shallow parallel grooves, and 
 occupies about a third of the whole length of the stick. The re 
 maining two-thirds of the stick have a number of parallel grooves 
 or notches cut upon the flattened surface. Five of the latter 
 grooves, which are situated at equal distances, are deeper than the 
 remaining, and between each pair there are four smaller parallel 
 grooves arranged at equal distances. The space in which these 
 grooves are cut occupies about one-half of the flat portion of the 
 stick. The remaining half, or that more distant from the round 
 section, is divided into two parts, which are separated by a rectan 
 gular space, in the centre of which there is a depression called the 
 na-ta-l-tci. On one side of the depression there are three notches, 
 on the other seven." * The Eastern Amerinds computed time in 
 their own several ways, some computing twelve, others thirteen 
 moons to the year, usually reckoning from one planting time to 
 another. The Dakotas, Chipeways, and others reckoned by winters. 
 In the Zufii country, still existed a few years ago, if it does 
 1 Dr. J. Walter Fewkes, Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol.ii., p. 151. 
 
;o6 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 not to-day, a primitive astronomical station. It is a rude little 
 structure containing an erect slab of sandstone adorned with the 
 circular face of the sun, and it is used, as it was long ago, for de 
 termining the Zuni chronology. 
 
 The Aztec year had eighteen months of twenty days each and 
 that of the Mayas was the same. The Maya week had thirteen 
 days, and the days were counted from one to thirteen continuously 
 throughout the year that is, each month did not begin with i 
 but with whatever number happened to fall on that day ; it might 
 be 2 or 5 or 8 or 13 or in fact any number up to 13. The eighteen 
 months gave them only 360 days, but they intercalated at the end 
 of each year the five days necessary to round it out. At least so 
 the early Spanish writers state, though Thomas, who has given 
 close attention to this subject, has said that he felt doubtful on that 
 point. 1 Prescott states without question, concerning the Aztecs : 
 " Five complementary days, as in Egypt, were added, to make up 
 
 the full number of three 
 hundred and sixty-five. 
 They belonged to no 
 month and were regard 
 ed as peculiarly unlucky. 
 A month was divided 
 into four weeks of five 
 days each." a 
 
 The six hours over 
 the 365 days which we 
 make up in our leap year 
 the Aztecs allowed to run 
 to the end of their fifty- 
 two year cycle, when they 
 intercalated it all at one 
 time, the actual period 
 being twelve and one 
 half days. This brought them "within an almost inappreciable 
 fraction," says Prescott, "to the exact length of the tropical year, 
 as established by the most accurate observations." The Aztecs 
 
 1 Cyrus Thomas, Sixth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 271. 
 
 2 Prescott, Mexico, vol. i., p. in. 
 
 Ibid., p. 112. The intercalation of these i2 l / 2 or 13 days is denied by 
 Payne, History of the Neiv World, vol. ii., pp. 294-316 et seq., but Mrs. 
 Zelia Nuttall and other eminent scholars are certain they were intercalated. 
 
 hide view 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 SMALL METAL FIGURE, CHIRIQUI 
 Copper-gold alloy 
 
Mining, Metallurgy, and Science 307 
 
 had a second calendar used by the priests for keeping their own 
 records and making their own calculations, and doubtless the 
 Maya had the same practice. 
 
 The Cakchiquel year consisted of 366 days. That of the Maya 
 was 365. The former, therefore, says Goodman, " could have no 
 fixed date for its beginning, relative to solar or terrestrial phe 
 nomena, but must revolve regularly through the seasons. 
 The year might begin at the summer or the winter solstice, at the 
 vernal or the autumnal equinox, or any other period." l 
 
 A great Maya event, which Goodman cites, was " the observ 
 ance of the 280, Sooth year of their era. . . . Nearly all the 
 other dates in the inscriptions of Copan and Quirigua either lead 
 up to or recede from it. It was the beginning of the last quarter 
 of their grand era, the completion of which, it is perhaps needless 
 to say, they did not, as a nation, live to see." 1 But when we 
 touch this subject of .chronology it at once opens up a vast and 
 complicated field of investigation. Goodman goes on to say : 
 " How account then for such an immense period? . . . The 
 most reasonable answer that suggests itself is that they had a 
 juster appreciation of the antiquity of the earth than most nations 
 have had, and that they began their chronology with the supposed 
 date of its creation. ... I look upon the Maya chronological 
 scheme as ranking among the most marvellous creations of the 
 human intellect." 1 
 
 1 Goodman, Biologia Centrali Americana, part viii., pp. 5, 8. 
 
 SILVER PLATE WITH SPANISH COAT OF ARMS, 
 from a mound in Mississippi 
 
U.S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MORI RATTLE OF ANIMAL HOOFS. 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 MUSICAL, INSTRUMENTS, MUSIC, AMUSEMENTS, AND GAMES 
 
 THK popular conception that there is no fun in red men is erro 
 neous. All of them, far from being taciturn, silent, morose, 
 and lacking desire for amusement other than scalping or 
 torturing captives, are full of humour and are fond of fun. To 
 strangers, however, they are often silent. In every village there is 
 a great deal of amusement, and while the race is deficient in musi 
 cal instruments, and the music they produce, if it can be designa 
 ted by that term, is usually apart of some ceremonial, they do sing 
 and the singing is accompanied by rattles and drums. These instru 
 ments, with a sort of flute or flageolet and bells and whistles, 
 make the sum-total of their musical apparatus. No stringed in 
 strument, it was believed, was known on the North American con 
 tinent before the Discovery, though recently Lumholtz has found 
 a primitive musical bow among the Huichols in Mexico that seems 
 to show no outside influence. Their drums were usually made out 
 of a hollow log and were of various sizes, though some tribes also 
 used a sort of tambourine-drum formed by stretching a piece 
 of hide over a hoop. In the case of the Mokis, the large drum was 
 made by stretching hide over the ends of a hollow log by means of 
 strings on the outside running from the edge of one skin to that of 
 
 308 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 309 
 
 the other, zig-zag. These drums are about twenty inches in diam 
 eter by some three feet long, and the ones I have seen had an ap 
 pearance of age that seemed to indicate a remote origin. Rattles 
 are frequently made from deer hoofs, or from hoofs of similar ani 
 mals, and also from turtle shells, and garments are trimmed with 
 hoofs so that the movements of the wearer cause them to strike 
 
 Gourd, Ojibwa 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 Earthenware rattle from Chirlqui. 
 AMERINDIAN RATTLES 
 
 Tin, Ojibwa 
 
 together with a musical sound. Sometimes the hoofs are attached 
 in groups of three or more to the ends of a short stick which is 
 shaken to produce the desired sound. This is a form specially in 
 vogue among the Tlinkits, and these rattles are one of the articles 
 of trade with the tourists in the North-west. Another form is a 
 gourd or clay globe containing pebbles or something similar. 
 Rattles of this kind are common in the ceremonials of the Mokis. 
 Bells, as we have seen in the preceding chapter, were made by 
 tribes of the Central American region of copper in the so-called 
 " hawk s-bell " shape, but it is not absolutely certain that this 
 
io 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 form of bell was not derived from European contact. 1 No other 
 form of bell was known to any of the natives. 
 
 Whistles were made of pottery and wood and of human and 
 other bones, 2 and were similar to our common whistles with one or 
 more holes in the tube for changing the note. The flute 
 was of wood, generally of cedar, which is considered 
 a sacred wood. It was eighteen or twenty inches 
 long and was often ornamented with carving 
 and tufts of feathers, etc. In Mexico, some 
 were made of terra cotta. 
 
 It is certain that the sounds pro 
 duced on these various instruments 
 would in no way suggest or 
 resemble what is understood 
 by music among people 
 of European origin, 
 and it is also 
 probable that 
 our music 
 when 
 first 
 
 heard by Amerinds seems to them more 
 like wailing and lamentation than sounds 
 of pleasure. I remember an evening long 
 ago, in Arizona, when we had the interest 
 ing companionship of several intelligent u - s - Bu - Eth - 
 Navaj o chiefs, who entertained us by sing- OMAHA LARGE FLUTE 
 
 ing accompanying themselves by drum- Made of red cedar. Flutes were 
 
 ming on the bottom of one of our camp ^J^/ eagle 
 kettles. At length someone of our party 
 
 exclaimed, " Now let s give them Home, Sweet Home," and this 
 song was accordingly rendered in a way that should have moved 
 
 1 This bell is supposed, however, to have developed here from the rattle. 
 
 2 The Peabody Museum contains an exhibit of forty-five whistles made 
 of bone, all found together in one basket. They were wrapped with split 
 reed and were seven to ten inches in length. 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 311 
 
 the savage to tears, but, though the firelight was brilliant, I failed 
 to detect any ; indeed their expression appeared to resemble that 
 which a professional musician of our own race might have exhib 
 ited. They were perfectly satisfied with a single selection, and 
 they politely said Bu6no. The Navajos have a peculiar drum, 
 the basket drum, described by Washington Matthews. 1 It is a 
 bowl-shaped basket made according to special rules and rites, and 
 inverted is used as a drum in certain ceremonials, being beaten by 
 a stick, also manufactured in a special way, and according to long- 
 established religious rites. Whenever a ceremony is completed this 
 stick is always pulled apart during an appropriate song, and its 
 fragments " deposited, with prayer and ceremony, in the fork of a 
 cedar tree or other secure place." It is made from yucca leaves, 
 four being the prescribed number, and every one of these must be 
 absolutely free from blemish. One from each cardinal point of the 
 compass is necessary, and the making of the drumstick from them 
 is a serious matter, even the rejected fragments being disposed of 
 in some safe place with a benediction : 
 
 "Thus will it be beautiful. 
 Thus walk in beauty, my grandchild." 
 
 " In none of the ancient Navajo rites is a regular drum or tom 
 tom employed, says Matthews. The inverted basket serves the 
 purpose of one. 
 
 "The musical instruments," says Bandelier, "which, while 
 still in use in Mexico, are known to antedate the Conquest, are but 
 three in number, one of which is already falling into oblivion. It 
 is the tozacatl (sounding-cane), described to me as a long cane, bent 
 round like an Alpine horn. I never saw one, but its sound is said 
 to be a sonorous bellowing. The other is the chirimia. It is made 
 of dark brown wood, called tepehuaje, brought to Cholula from 
 Matamoras-Yzucar, or near Atlixco. Its length is 0.46 metre 
 (about 1 8 inches) and its width at the mouth is 0.06 metre (about 
 3 inches). It has eleven holes irregularly arranged, and the 
 mouthpiece is a thin plate of horn on a stem of brass. The noise 
 produced by this instrument is a fit accompaniment to the shrill 
 Indian voices, being horrible beyond all description. . . . 
 The big drum, the tlapan-huehuetl, was formerly made out 
 
 1 Washington Matthews, "The Basket Drum," American Anthro 
 pologist, O. S., vol. vii., No. 2, April, 1894. 
 
312 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 of the trunk of a tree properly hollowed, over which, at one 
 end, a deerskin or some other dried hide was stretched. All the 
 older authors make more or less mention of this instrument, but 
 more particularly Bernal Diez de Castillo, who says, when describ 
 ing the upper platform of 
 the principal mounds of 
 worship of Mexico : And 
 there they had an exceed 
 ingly large drum, which, 
 when beaten, gave a sound 
 as if from the infernal re 
 gions, which was heard at 
 more than two leagues off, 
 and they said that the skin 
 was that of large snakes. 
 The teponaztli was a wood 
 en instrument with two 
 tongues that were beaten 
 with a stick. Conch shells 
 were also used as musical 
 instruments. Some of these 
 were of very great size. 
 
 The Eskimo drum is 
 like a tambourine, a skin 
 stretched over a hoop. Some 
 of the Chiriqui whistles 
 were shaped like a top, 
 while others were straight 
 with finger holes. These 
 various types were distri 
 buted over the whole area 
 of the continent, the drum 
 and the rattle always pre 
 dominating. 
 
 The Amerind singing 
 at first seems extremely 
 monotonous to our ears and the impression is that all tribes sing 
 alike, but each stock has its own methods and peculiarities. A 
 foundation principle with all in the men s singing seems to be an 
 1 A. F. Bandelier, Archaeological Tour, p. 150. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 DRUM OF TERRA COTTA, CHIRIQUI 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 313 
 
 explosive quality of vocalisation that is, violent explosive tones 
 instead of, as with us, tones long drawn out. The Moki seems 
 generally to sing nothing but "ho, ho, ho, ho, he, he, he, he, 
 hay, hay, hay," etc., and he has quite a different rhythm from the 
 Ute, while the singing of the Navajo, when the singer opens out 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MENOMINEE TAMBOURINE DRUM 
 A common form with many tribes 
 
 all the stops, is more like the voice of a cat in the back yard than 
 any other sound in civilisation that I can think of. Farther north 
 the sounds change again : the Tlinkit vocalisation suggests death 
 by strangulation. 
 
 Fillmore states that the Navajo songs were the most primitive 
 of any he studied. " They form in fact the connecting link be 
 tween excited howling and excited singing. The quality of tone 
 is indescribable, being more like a yelp than anything else ; but the 
 intervals yelped are unmistakably those of the major chord or of 
 the minor chord. The tone-quality is that of shouting, or even of 
 howling, but the pitch-relations into which they tend to fall are 
 
14 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 those of the major chord. . . . Some of the Navaho songs are 
 illustrations of melody so primitive as to bring us very near to the 
 beginning of music-making. ... I started my investigations 
 with the impression that there might be essential differences in 
 structure between the Indian music and our own. I studied the 
 Indian music for ten years with the utmost care and thoroughness 
 of which I was capable. I have failed to find one single interval 
 in Indian music which we do not use. It is true, I have often 
 heard Indians sing these intervals out of tune ; but this is a phe 
 nomenon by no means confined to savage or uncivilised races. In 
 every such case, when I was singing with Indians and was able to 
 get at their real intentions, I have found that they meant to sing 
 
 exactly the interval we should 
 sing in their place. 
 I have also found that in 
 crease of power is almost 
 always accompanied with in 
 creased elevation of pitch, 
 and diminution of intensity 
 with a lowering of pitch, 
 seemingly without the Indian 
 being aware of it. ... 
 The evidence of the essential 
 unity of all music, from the 
 most primitive to the most 
 advanced, is cumulative. The 
 Navaho howls his song to 
 the war gods directly along 
 the line of the major chord ; 
 Beethoven makes the first 
 theme of his great Eroica 
 symphony out of precisely 
 the same material. The 
 Tigua makes his Dance of 
 the Wheel out of a major 
 chord, and its relative minor ; Wagner makes Lohengrin sing 
 Mein lieber schwan to a melody composed of exactly the 
 same ingredients. In short there is only one kind of music in 
 the world." Like everything else pertaining to man, it is a 
 matter of development modified by circumstances. Fillmore s 
 
 U. S. Hu. Eth. 
 
 OMAHA BOX DRUM 
 
 A common form with most tribes. Originally made 
 from a hollow log 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 315 
 
 excellent investigation in this line only proves again that man is 
 the same in all climes and ages since first we get track of him, 
 so far as his fundamental make-up is concerned. Variations and 
 differences are only those which come from a development of 
 latent talents or possibilities. He always moves, when he moves, 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 SET OF PLAYING STICKS 
 
 along certain lines that are prearranged by his constitution and his 
 environment. He may stop where circumstances direct, but he 
 will have stopped where others stopped before. 
 
 There is always a great deal of repetition in the songs. The 
 Amerind seems content to go over and over again the same few 
 notes. In some tribes the poet and singer stands in the interior 
 of a circle formed by all the members of the tribe men, women, 
 and children around a cedar tree from which all but the top 
 branches have been removed. A time of moonlight is chosen, and 
 I remember well such a night with some Pai Utes, of Arizona. 
 The poet recited his refrain, then all took it up and repeated it in 
 song, circling round and round the cedar with their peculiar shuffle, 
 repeating and repeating. I joined the circle and the singing till I 
 became tired, and finally left them still enjoying it. The poet 
 would give out some such stanza as 
 
 "No rabbit kill, 
 No rabbit eat," 
 
 1 John Comfort Fillmore, " The Harmonic Structure of Indian Music," 
 American Anthropologist, N. S., April, 1899. See also Chas. K. Wead, 
 "The Study of Primitive Music," Am. Anthropologist, N. S., vol. ii., No. i. 
 
316 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 and it would serve the purpose for a considerable time, when he 
 would be obliged to announce a new one. 
 
 Mooney has translated some of the songs of the Arapahos used 
 in the Ghost or Resurrection Dance, and I give several as speci 
 mens of their style : 
 
 " O, iny children ! O, my children ! 
 Here is another of your pipes He eye ! 
 Here is another of your pipes He eye ! 
 I/ook ! thus I shouted He eye ! 
 Look ! thus I shouted He eye ! 
 When I moved the earth He eye ! 
 When I moved the earth He eye ! 
 
 " The sacred pipe tells me E yahe eye ! 
 The sacred pipe tells me B yahe eye ! 
 Our father Yahe eye ! 
 Our father Yahe eye ! 
 
 We shall surely be put again (with our friends) B yahe eye ! 
 We shall surely be put again (with our friends) B yahe eye ! 
 Our father, B yahe eye ! 
 Our father, B yahe eye ! 
 
 The cedar tree, the cedar tree ! 
 
 We have it in the centre ! 
 
 We have it in the centre ! 
 When we dance, 
 When we dance, 
 
 We have it in the centre ! 
 
 We have it in the centre ! 
 
 " My children, my children ! 
 
 It is I who wear the morning star on my head ! 
 
 It is I who wear the morning star on my head ! 
 
 I show it to my children ! 
 
 I show it to my children ! 
 
 Says the father ! 
 
 Says the father ! 
 
 " With the ba-qati wheel I am gambling ! 
 With the ba-qati wheel I am gambling ! 
 
 With the black mark I win the game ! 
 With the black mark I win the game ! " 
 
 1 James Mooney, " The Ghost-Dance Religion," Fourteenth Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eth., pp. 994, 995. 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 317 
 
 " This (last) song is from the northern Arapaho. The author 
 of it in his visit to the spirit world, found his former friends playing 
 the old game of the baqati wheel, which was practically obsolete 
 among the prairie tribes, but which is being revived since the 
 advent of the Ghost Dance. . . . The game is played with a 
 wheel (baqati, large wheel) and two pairs of throwing sticks. . . . 
 It is a man s game and there are three players, one rolling the 
 wheel while the other two, each armed with a pair of throwing 
 sticks, run after it and throw the sticks so as to cross the wheel in 
 a certain position." 
 
 Among the Mokis, some of the old men are custodians of songs, 
 according to the societies to 
 which they belong. Such a 
 man is leader of the singing. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 Turtle shell, with hoofs of goats or sheep. 
 
 Fastened to the rear of the right leg near 
 
 the knee in dancing 
 
 Painted gourd with wood handle 
 
 PUEBLO RATTLES. 
 
 It is he who knows the old songs. He meets a lot of the 
 young men at a specified house, and placing an old tin pan 
 on the floor to spit in while smoking cigarettes, and beside it a 
 candle for light, they group themselves in a circle, sitting on the 
 
 1 James Mooney, "The Ghost-Dance Religion," Fourteenth Ann. Kept. 
 Bu. Eth., pp. 994, 995. 
 
318 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 floor, while the instructor takes his place on a stool at the large 
 double-headed drum at one end. He runs over a passage, beating 
 time on the drum, and then all join in with a vigour that well- 
 nigh raises the roof. There was something fine in the force and 
 power with which these songs were rendered, and it was the only 
 time in my experience that my artistic sense was stirred by 
 Amerind singing. Later, on the same evening as the gathering 
 mentioned, when the same young men were rehearsing further and 
 also practising the dance with some small girls in a neighbouring 
 house, the singing lost its fire and was not at all thrilling. Be 
 fore the rehearsal with the young men the choir master" rehearses 
 by himself. From my house at Tewa, on the "Hast Mesa," I 
 could hear just after dark, every evening, through the stone wall, 
 continuous singing. It was in the next room or "house," the 
 entrance to which, though on my level, was around a corner and not 
 connected in any way with my balcony. I had a ladder of my own. 
 I was curious to see who it was that was so devoted to this amuse 
 ment. I mounted to my house-top by means of steps on the end 
 of a wall, and then I could look down my neighbour s chimney, 
 from which little smoke and much sound were arising. I could see 
 plainly the singer, an old man, sitting cross-legged before the fire, 
 its light softly illuminating him, with a small double-headed drum 
 between his knees, which he was vigorously beating in accompani 
 ment to a "HO, ho, HO, ho, HO HE, he, HE," etc. When I went 
 afterward to the house of Anawita, the war-chief, to the rehearsal 
 described, this old fellow and Anawita were the leaders of the 
 songs. They were practising at that time for the Somaikoli or 
 Soyaita ceremony. 
 
 The Amerind is fond of singing. He sings in ceremonials, 
 sings in camp, bursts out in yelps as he rides across country, and 
 the women amongst the Pueblos sing a shrill chant while they 
 are grinding corn. Men of some tribes sing at times without 
 knowing what they are singing. I once had a Uinkarets Ute with 
 me in Arizona, and at night this man would build a fire a few 
 yards from us, and sitting by it would sing the words Lola-my, 
 lola-my, lola-my with great vigour and gusto over and over 
 and over again. When I asked him what the words meant, 
 he said he did not know, nor could he explain just why he per 
 formed thus, but it was probably a gambling chant. Singing is 
 used at night for driving away evil spirits that may be near. We 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 319 
 
 had four Pai Utes once travelling with us for a number of weeks, 
 and almost every night, along in the middle, one would wake and 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 ZUNI DANCE ORNAMENT 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 MOKI NOTCHED STICK 
 
 With shoulder-blade of deer 
 or sheep for scraping it to 
 make noise 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 KWAKIUTL DOUBLE 
 WHISTLE, WITH FOUR 
 VOICES. l / 
 
 Yellow gourd with band of 
 black and white squares. 
 A stick is passed through 
 it for a handle. Generally 
 used in social dances 
 
 begin to sing in a low voice, then a second would join, and a third, 
 and so on till all were engaged, their voices rising gradually, and 
 finally as gradually diminishing till they ceased altogether. 1 As 
 
 1 Murdoch says the Point Barrow Eskimo wake up in the night to sing. 
 Ninth Ann. Kept. Bu. Eth., p. 388. 
 
320 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 this performance woke us up there were protests against it, but 
 they were of no avail. The red men declared they did it to drive 
 off the " woonupits," or spirit of evil, and we were forced to par 
 take of their protection. Beginning a song low and rising slowly 
 is an effect often used. Fewkes mentions something of the kind. 
 "At the termination of this ceremonial smoke," he says, "the 
 four priests nearest the bowl picked up the small gourd rattles and 
 began a low, rapid rattling. This continued for a few moments, 
 and then the priests began a song, at first low, rising gradually 
 and increasing in volume." Fewkes recorded many songs by 
 means of the phonograph. The Harriman Expedition recorded a 
 number of Tlinkit songs, and afterwards some of these were 
 reproduced for the benefit of men of the same stock farther north, 
 who immediately recognised the melodies and, as their hilarity 
 testified, enjoyed them hugely, though they had never before 
 heard a talking machine. 
 
 Most Amerind songs 
 are connected with cere 
 monials, and some are 
 imported or adopted . 
 Ceremonials are not al 
 ways sacred. Many of 
 them are full of amusing 
 features intended to enter 
 tain the onlookers. The 
 attendance at a camp or 
 village on a ceremonial 
 day is for amusement as 
 much as anything else. 
 The different tribes of 
 a locality expect to meet 
 friends then and enjoy 
 social intercourse. The 
 Amerind is fond of games, races, and all forms of sport on which 
 a wager can be laid. A game without a stake would be no 
 game at all for him. He must put up something to lose, and 
 I once noticed after a distribution of goods among individuals 
 of a certain tribe that within twenty-four hours a few had all 
 the goods. In modern times many Amerinds play cards. Their 
 own games are numerous. In the " awl game," played chiefly by 
 
 (STOVE. 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 THE AWL GAME 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 321 
 
 women, * the players, according to Mooney, sit upon the ground 
 around a blanket marked in charcoal with lines and dots and quad 
 rants in the corners as shown in illustration on preceding page. In 
 the centre is a stone upon which the sticks are thrown. Each dot 
 counts a point, making twenty-four points for dots. Each 
 of the parallel lines, and each end of the curved lines in the cor 
 ners, also counts a point, making sixteen points for the lines, or 
 forty points in all. The players start from the bottom, opposing 
 players moving in opposite directions, and with each throw of the 
 sticks the thrower moves her awl forward and sticks it into 
 the blanket at the dot or line to which her throw carries her. 
 The parallels on each of the four sides are called rivers, and the 
 dots within these parallels do not count in the game. The rivers at 
 the top and bottom are dangerous and cannot be crossed, and 
 when the player is so unlucky as to score a throw which brings 
 her upon the edge of the river (i. e. , upon the first line of either of 
 these pairs of parallels) she falls into the river and must lose 
 all she has hitherto gained and begin again at the start. In the 
 same way, when a player moving around in one direction makes a 
 throw which brings her awl to the place occupied by the awl of 
 her opponent coming around from the other side, the said op 
 ponent is whipped back to the starting-point and must begin 
 all over again. . . . The game is played with four sticks, 
 each from six to ten inches long, flat on one side and round on the 
 other. One of these is the trump stick and is marked in a distinct 
 ive manner in the centre on both sides, and is also distinguished 
 by having a green line along the flat side, while the others have 
 each a red line. . . . There are also a number of small green 
 sticks, about the size of lead pencils, for keeping tally. Each 
 player in turn takes up the four sticks together in her hand and 
 throws them down on end upon the stone in the centre. The 
 number of points depends upon the number of flat round sticks 
 which turn up. . . . Only the flat sides count except when all the 
 sticks turn round side up. On completing one round of forty 
 points the player takes one of the small green tally sticks from the 
 pile and she who first gets the number of tally sticks previously 
 agreed on wins the game." 
 
 Another game, widely spread and in some respects resembling 
 
 James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion, Fourteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. 
 Eth., pp. 1002, 1003. 
 
3 22 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 the Mexican game of patolli, is thus described by Fewkes as he 
 found it among the Mokis : 
 
 This game, totolospi, resembles somewhat the game of check 
 ers, and can be played by two persons or by two parties. In play- 
 
 Set of bone dice, Arapaho. Length, 1% to 2% in. 
 
 Set of counting sticks, Blackfeet. Length, 5^ in. 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 Set of plum stones, Arikaree. Diameter, JJ in. 
 
 AMERIND GAMBLING TOOLS 
 
 ing the game, a rectangular figure divided into a large number of 
 
 squares is drawn upon a rock, either by scratching or by using a 
 
 different-coloured stone as a crayon. A diagonal line, tuhkiota, is 
 
 1 J. Walter Fewkes, Jour, of Am. Eth., vol. ii., p. 159- 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 323 
 
 drawn across the rectangle from north-east to south-west, and the 
 players station themselves at each end of this line. When two 
 parties play, a single person acts as player, and the other members 
 of the party act as advisers. The first play is won by tossing up a 
 leaf or corn husk with one side blackened. The pieces which are 
 used are bean or corn kernels, stones and wood, or small fragments 
 of any substance of marked colour. The players are stationed at 
 each end of the diagonal line, tuhkiota. They move their pieces 
 upon this line but never across it. The moves which are made are 
 intricate and the player may move one or more pieces successively. 
 Certain positions entitle him to this privilege. He may capture or, 
 as he terms it, kill one or more of his opponent s pieces at one play. 
 In this respect the game is not unlike checkers, and to capture the 
 pieces of the opponent seems to be the main object of the game." 
 
 Horse-racing is a great sport among all Amerinds and much 
 valuable property changes hands on these occasions. There are 
 also foot races. Anything they can bet on constitutes a game, 
 and they are much like many white men in this respect. Ar 
 rows are shot into the air to see who can shoot out of sight, or 
 they are shot at a mark and dexterous archers try to split the 
 shaft of the preceding shooter. Or they throw arrows or bows 
 over the ground or the snow to see who can throw farthest. In 
 this line the Iroquois had the game known as "snow snake," 
 wherein a specially formed stick was caused to glide over the 
 snow or ice. The Arapahos used for a similar purpose slender 
 willow rods about four feet long peeled and painted and tipped 
 with a point of buffalo horn. This is swung from one end like a 
 pendulum and then let fly with a sweeping motion. 
 
 Among the Pai Utes a common gambling game was played by 
 four men sitting down in two rows opposite each other, that is, two 
 on a side, and about five feet apart. In front of each side was a 
 row of little sticks placed diagonally in sand heaped up, the ends 
 sticking out toward the side to which the lot belonged. Two bits 
 of bone formed the pieces, one being plain and the other having a 
 buckskin string around it. These pieces were about two and a 
 half inches long, tapering toward their ends. The leader of one 
 side tosses both pieces into the air and, catching them, crosses his 
 arms, pressing the fists against each shoulder. The point is for 
 the other side to guess in which hand is the piece that is marked 
 with the string, and the diagonally opposite player chooses. He 
 
324 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 does not at once indicate a choice, but sways his body back and 
 forth, his right hand extended and waving to and fro across 
 the opponent s breast, and slapping his own chest, all the while 
 fiercely uttering a gambling song. Finally he would point directly 
 at the hand he chose, and if his guess were correct he received a 
 tally stick, if not, the other side got one. The side that wins all 
 the tally sticks is victor and carries off the stakes, which are usu 
 ally put on the ground at one end of the group. This is some 
 thing like the "hunt the button" game of the prairie tribes 
 described by Mooney. 1 " It is the regular game in the long win 
 ter nights after the scattered families have abandoned their ex 
 posed summer positions on the open prairie and moved down near 
 one another in the shelter of the timber along the streams. 
 . . . The players sit in a circle around the tipi fire, those on 
 one side of the fire playing against those on the other. The only 
 requisites are the button, usually a small bit of wood, around 
 which is tied a piece of string or otter skin, with a pile of tally 
 sticks. . . . Each party has a button, that of one side being 
 painted black, the other being red. The leader of one party takes 
 up the button rnd endeavours to move it from one hand to the 
 other, or pass it on to a partner, while those of the opposite 
 side keep a sharp lookout and try to guess in which hand it is." 
 This game is played by both sexes but never together. 
 
 Still another game which was a great favourite all over the 
 country, and is yet, especially among the women, is the "plum 
 stone" or dice game. Five or six dice made of bone or plum 
 stones, a small bowl or basket, and the usual tally sticks are the 
 implements. Two of the dice are alike in shape and marking, 
 while the others are different from these but like each other. The 
 dice are tossed up and the count made according to the way the 
 marks and blanks fall. 
 
 The camps and villages are particularly lively in winter, when 
 there is not much to do in the way of hunting, farming, or fishing. 
 The sound of the drum, gambling songs, and rattles make the eve 
 ning merry where the village is one of skin tipis or other light struc 
 tures, but among the Pueblos the walls of the houses are so thick 
 that sounds do not easily come through. The great drum is pene 
 trating and its deep "bum-bum-bum" could be heard vibrating 
 on the winter air, but other sounds were muffled or extinguished 
 1 James Mooiiey, Fourteenth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 1008. 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 325 
 
 altogether by the walls. One moonlight evening when I arrived 
 before the town of Oraibi, about eight o clock, not a single sound 
 was distinguishable, and to judge by appearances, the place was 
 a deserted ruin, till the dogs got a sniff of our approach and then 
 pandemonium ruled so far as they were concerned. Many tribes 
 have an assembly house, where there are various congregations in 
 the winter evenings, to sing and to dance. Among the Pueblos 
 these congregations, when there are women or girls involved, take 
 place in an ordinary dwelling ; the kiva, which is council room, 
 club, and society lodge, seldom being open to w 7 omen. An orches 
 tra that performed in a Kabinapek assembly hall described by 
 Stephen Powers is worth mentioning. "The orchestra, eight in 
 number, all young men, were squatted together opposite the 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 Section 
 
 TERRA COTTA RATTLE FROM CHIRIQL"! 
 
 entrance, four facing four. Between them was a hollow slab, serving 
 as a kind of drum to be beaten by a drummer with the naked foot, 
 and each of them held in his right hand a little stick, split half 
 way down, to be used as a clapper in keeping time. The dancers 
 were all young women, who stood in a curved row in front of the 
 orchestra." This orchestra sang a chorus accompanied by the 
 clappers they held. " I/Ike everything they sung it has no mean 
 ing. They all sung in a high falsetto voice, the women especially, 
 
326 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 so that they were less agreeable to listen to than the men. The 
 sharp monotonous clacking of the sticks and the dull tunk, tunk 
 of the slab drum were execrable. He states that the)- kept per 
 fect time, however, and also that " there was one short passage in 
 this chorus which when chanted by the men alone was one of 
 the most moving I ever heard. These three rude, barbaric, and 
 wholly unintelligible syllables, hu-di-go, were trilled and pro 
 longed out with a sweet, soft, and wild melodiousness that I shall 
 not forget to my dying hour." 
 
 The Eskimo, despite the severity of their surroundings, are a 
 merry people, and have many diversions. Football, strange to 
 say, is a favourite pastime, but neither their method nor their ball 
 would pass muster with a college expert. The ball is a pudgy 
 affair from three to seven inches in diameter, and is either kicked 
 or whipped along. The whip is a short stick with several loops 
 of seal thong at the end. The game, according to Turner, is a 
 favourite with all. Throwing stones at a mark is also a pastime. 
 Another is a kind of wrestling or struggling with each other, such 
 as is in vogue with almost all the tribes of the continent. Turner 
 says : The opponents remove all their superfluous garments, seize 
 each other around the waist and lock hands behind each other s 
 backs. The feet are spread widely apart and each endeavours to 
 draw, by the strength of the arms alone, the back of his opponent 
 into a curve and thus bring him off his feet. Then with a lift he 
 is quickly thrown flat on his back. The fall must be such that 
 the head touches the ground. . . . The feet are never used 
 for tripping." 2 
 
 Anything like scientific boxing is unknown among the tribes 
 of the continent. When they try anything of this sort it is a 
 mere clawing at each other s heads, and one professional pugilist, 
 if fists alone were used, could knock out a whole tribe. Among 
 the Hudson Bay Eskimo, a popular game is played by trying to 
 catch, on the end of an ivory point, an ivory piece that looks some 
 thing like a stumpy revolver. A string is attached to it and to 
 the ivory point, and the game is to throw up the piece and cause 
 the point to enter one of the holes and catch it. Cards, such as we 
 have, are known to almost all tribes, and where they have not 
 learned games from the whites they invent some of their own. 
 
 1 Stephen Powers, Tribes of California, pp. 211, 212. 
 
 2 Eleventh Ann. Kept. Bu. Eth., p. 255. 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 327 
 
 Ball games of various kinds were played and the Canadian 
 game called lacrosse is of Amerind origin. Parkinan in his 
 Pontiac vividly describes one of these lacrosse games used in 
 strategy to gain entrance to an English fort. "The plain in 
 front was covered by the ball players. The game in which they 
 were engaged, called baggattaway by the Ojibwas, is still, as it al- 
 
 CAT-SHAPED WHISTLE OF TERRA COTTA, CHIRIQUI 
 
 ways has been, a favourite with many Indian tribes. At either ex 
 tremity of the ground, a tall post was planted, marking the stations 
 of the rival parties. The object of each was to defend its own 
 post and drive the ball to that of its adversary. Hundreds of 
 lithe and agile figures were leaping and bounding upon the plain. 
 Each was nearly naked, his loose black hair flying in the wind, 
 and each bore in his hand a bat of a form peculiar to this game. 
 At one moment the whole were crowded together, a dense throng 
 of combatants all struggling for the ^ball ; at the next they were 
 scattered again, and running over the ground like hounds in full 
 cry. Each, in his excitement, yelled and shouted at the height 
 of his voice. Rushing and striking, tripping their adversaries, or 
 hurling them to the ground, they pursued the animated contest 
 amid the laughter and applause of the spectators." 
 
28 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 In Central America, a form of tennis was in vogue and stone 
 courts where the game was played have been found and described 
 by some of our modern archaeologists. 
 
 I never saw any ball playing amongst the Uinkarets, Shevwits, 
 or other Amerinds of the northern Arizona-southern Nevada re 
 gion. They all appeared to be deficient in games, at the time I 
 was first among them, not knowing what our playing-cards were, 
 and having even no games of exterior origin. There were flat 
 pieces of cedar bark, painted with red stripes, said by some to 
 have been used like dice, but I never saw them engaged in playing 
 with them. The children used a flat piece of bark as a doll, and 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 George Catlin 
 
 MANDAN GAME OF TCHUNGKEE 
 
 most Amerind children play with dolls made of wood, terra cotta, 
 and other materials The small boys devote themselves to the 
 bow and arrow for amusement in many tribes, and they will go 
 out in the woods, or on the plain, and bring down small birds 
 and mice with considerable skill. The whip-top, made of wood, 
 is a favourite everywhere, especially among the Moki boys, whose 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 329 
 
 life on the barren mesas precludes much hunting with bow and 
 arrow. The children also beat the drum for fun. 
 
 Horse-racing is a sport in which many tribes, especially 
 those of the plains, are past masters. The Pueblos, particularly 
 the Mokis, owing to their sedentary life, have less opportunity 
 to develop in this line, but the Navajos, Sioux, Crows, Black- 
 feet, and Comanches have little to learn about rough-and-ready 
 racing. It goes without saying that the Eskimo, Aleuts, Tlin- 
 kits, Haidas, and other North-west tribes, whose range of life is 
 on and by the sea, have no knowledge of handling horses. They 
 never adopted the horse, because it was as useless to them as an 
 elephant or a hippopotamus. But to the plains tribes this animal 
 came like a gift from the gods, and they appreciated it fully, and 
 horses became their standard of wealth. Some tribes, like the 
 Kaivavits, Uinkarets, and Shevwits Utes of northern Arizona 
 have never possessed many horses because of their poverty, 
 but there were always a goodly number owned, and horse-racing 
 was a great amusement with them, as well as with those tribes 
 which counted their horses by the thousand. Dodge describes 
 an amusing race that took place near Fort Chadbourne, Texas, 
 between a horse of a Comanche chief and three horses of the 
 officers of the garrison, which illustrates the Amerind cleverness 
 in the jockeying line. 1 It took several days of manoeuvring to 
 bring the chief to the point, and then a race was arranged with 
 the third best horse of the white men. The distance was four 
 hundred yards, and property to the amount of sixty dollars a side 
 was wagered on the result. "At the appointed time all the 
 Indians and most of the garrison were assembled at the track. 
 The Indians showed a miserable sheep of a pony with legs like 
 churns ; a three-inch coat of rough hair stuck out all over the 
 body, and a general expression of neglect, helplessness, and patient 
 suffering struck pity into the hearts of all beholders. The rider 
 was a stalwart buck of one hundred and seventy pounds, looking 
 big and strong enough to carry the poor beast on his shoulders. 
 He was armed with a huge club, with which, after the word was 
 given, he belabored the miserable animal from start to finish. To 
 the astonishment of all the whites, the Indian won by a neck. 
 Another race was proposed by the officers and, after much dick 
 ering, accepted by the Indians, against the next best horse of the 
 1 Col. Richard Irving Dodge, The Plains of the Great West, pp. 329, 330. 
 
330 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 garrison. The bets were doubled, and in less than an hour the 
 second race was run by the same pony, with the same apparent 
 exertion and with exactly the same result. The officers, thoroughly 
 disgusted, proposed a third race, and brought to the ground a 
 magnificent Kentucky mare, of the true Lexington blood, and 
 known to beat the best of the others at least forty yards in four 
 hundred. The Indians accepted the race, and not only doubled 
 the bets as before, but piled up everything they could raise, seem- 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 DOUBLE WHISTLE IN TERRA COTTA FROM CHIRIQUI 
 Actual size 
 
 ingly almost crazed with the excitement of their previous success. 
 The riders mounted ; the word was given. Throwing away his 
 club, the Indian rider gave a whoop, at which the sheep-like pony 
 pricked up his ears and went away like the wind, almost two feet 
 to the mare s one. The last fifty yards of the course were run by 
 the pony with the rider sitting face to his tail, making hideous 
 grimaces, and beckoning to the rider of the mare to come on. It 
 afterwards transpired that the old sheep was a trick and straight 
 pony, celebrated among all the tribes of the South." Yet some 
 people think the Amerind has no sense of humour. 
 
 Story telling is another amusement, and a good story teller, says 
 Dodge, is a man of importance. "The bucks, and squaws, and 
 children crowd to his lodge, or any other where he happens to be, 
 and spend the long winter evenings listening to his recitals. 
 These stories are as marvellous as the imagination of the teller 
 can create, jumbling gods and men, fabulous and living animals, 
 the impossible and the possible in the most heterogeneous con 
 fusion." 
 
 The Navajos, or at least some of them, have considerable 
 1 Plains of the Great West, p. 324. 
 
Musical Instruments, Amusements, and Games 331 
 
 dramatic sense. On one occasion, when some Navajos camped 
 near us, one of them gave an exhibition of character delineation 
 that would have done credit to a professional actor. Choosing a 
 large bush nearby as a screen for his costuming, he came out to 
 the fire successively representing the various nationalities with 
 which he was familiar. Some of these were extremely well done. 
 The Pai Ute. for instance, is poor in clothing and always begging. 
 Our actor took off all his clothing but the breech-cloth, approached 
 the fire timidly and cringingly, and crouched down beside it, 
 drawing the back of his hand across his nose with an accompany 
 ing sniffle, and exclaimed in Pai Ute: Tabac ashanty (I want 
 some tobacco). Another was the American, who stepped nerv 
 ously to the fire, and restlessly turned first front, then back, 
 extended his hands, rubbing them over the heat ; held up first 
 one foot, then the 
 
 other, and so on. L^AVX-.^ " < "" nj) 
 
 These impersona- * g =-- -*= 
 
 tions were full of 
 the character of 
 the types indi 
 cated. The ex- pvSZZT - -^L^^ = jj) 
 hibition finally ^^ **- " "^ 
 culminated in a 
 
 representation of ftiV*^ . , 9 f Z~= ; _ ^h 
 
 the characteristics i 4=.- *-*SA^- 
 
 of his own people. * * . ^^^^ 
 
 Retiring once ^^ ?--^===r ^.^JS^g^J^^- , p 
 
 again behind the u- s. Nat. M U . 
 
 , , , SET OF STAVES FOR GAME 
 
 bush, he at last 
 
 The lowest shows obverse of one above. Length, 5^2 in. 
 
 appeared with his 
 
 full costume on, carefully adjusted. His head bore a red tur 
 ban, his shirt was held by a fine belt, his broad Navajo trousers 
 met at the knee the red buckskin leggings, ornamented with silver 
 buttons, and his feet were protected by moccasins finely wrought, 
 held by silver buttons. About his shoulders was a fine blanket 
 of Navajo make, and across his back a large bow and its arrows in 
 a panther-skin case and quiver. Approaching the fire with a 
 measured, haughty tread, head erect and folded arms, he paused 
 majestically before it, straightened to his full height, and in a 
 deep, dignified tone spoke the single word, " Navajo." 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 " BANNER-STONE," TENNESSEE 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 WORKS AND AGRICULTURE 
 
 FOR a long time it was believed by the whites that the Indi 
 ans " were incapable of doing anything beyond weaving 
 baskets, and from this condition of ignorance much of the 
 confusion concerning the Amerinds has arisen. The line of rea 
 soning was based on some such syllogism as this : The Indian 
 never worked ; The Cliff-dweller and the Moundbuilder worked 
 at building houses and mounds ; Conclusion, The Cliff-dweller 
 and the Moundbuilder were not " Indians." Short, in his excel 
 lent book on the Amerinds, 1 applies unfortunately this method of 
 reasoning to the copper-mine workers of the Lake Superior dis 
 trict, saying: "The labour involved in a journey of a thousand 
 miles from the Ohio valley to the copper regions, the toil of the 
 summer s mining, and the tedious transportation of the metal to 
 their homes upon their backs, and by means of an imperfect sys 
 tem of navigation, indicates either industry and resolution such as 
 no savage Indian ever possessed, or a condition of servitude in which 
 thousands occupied a position of abject slavery." This seems a 
 complete misunderstanding of the people and conditions existing 
 on this continent. Without consuming space in discussing these 
 errors, I think my preceding pages have demonstrated that far 
 ! John T. Short, The North Americans of Antiquity. 
 332 
 
Works and Agriculture 333 
 
 from lacking industry and resolution, the "savage Indian" was 
 applying himself in his way to a solution of the life problems 
 which surrounded him. He knew nothing of the rules of com 
 merce, book-keeping, and exchange, but there are other things 
 in the world besides figures and accounts. The Amerind s 
 game-supply and clothing, and the soil about him, were not over 
 taxed, at least not north of Anahuac, till the whites arrived with 
 their mania for "killing something," and introduced on this 
 continent the destructive practice of hunting for the fun of seeing 
 how many animals could be killed in a certain time ; or of 
 killing for a special part of an animal, as for the tongues, or the 
 hides and tallow, of the bison. When I first went to the Far 
 West bison were spread over the plains by thousands. Not a 
 single specimen can to-day be found alive outside of some private 
 herd or the Yellowstone Park. Hunting, as before mentioned, 
 was with the Amerind labour, not amusement, but in conjunction 
 with their hunting most tribes carried on farming operations. It 
 has often been asserted that the Indian did no work, even 
 leaving the cultivation of the corn and squashes to the women. 
 That the women in some of the tribes tended the crops, is true, 
 but in others, like the Pueblos, they seldom or never touched hoe 
 or spade. The Eastern men were hunting or building boats, or 
 were on the warpath, hence it was necessary for the women to 
 look after the fields. 
 
 In the Eastern regions the crops grew without watering, but in 
 the West and South-west the soil was arid and irrigation was 
 necessary, hence there are found to this day remnants of extensive 
 irrigation canals built to bring rivers out on the dry land. The 
 fact that the resident Apaches do not irrigate does not prove 
 that these great canals were built by people who emigrated from 
 China or India, in the absurd line of argument that has so often 
 been advanced in discussing Amerindian affairs ; it simply proves 
 that the Apaches did not cultivate the soil, or not extensively 
 enough to require irrigating works, and also, over again, that 
 tribes and stocks exist in a region, in different conditions or stages 
 of development, either at the same time or at different times. 
 These irrigating canals are unquestionably the work of tribes 
 similar to the Pueblos; that is now well established. They were 
 constructed because, in an increasing population and a probable 
 decrease of precipitation, they were found necessary. An increase 
 
334 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 of population diminishes the food-supply ; in an arid country 
 where game is not plenty this diminution is rapid. A correspond 
 ing development of a food crop is the inevitable course, unless 
 the tribe were to migrate to more humid regions. In this case, 
 hostile people already there might have to be met, and it would 
 be easier to remain at the old place and invent new methods of 
 obtaining food. In some such way irrigating and its attendant 
 
 Scale 34 feet to the inch. 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 SO-CALLED ELEPHANT MOUND, WISCONSIN 
 Has been ploughed over. Length, 140 ft. ; greatest height, 4 ft. 
 
 engineering developed. Irrigating canals, then, are found not 
 where any lost or mysterious race once dwelt, nor where any par 
 ticular Amerind stock were living, but where the climatic con 
 ditions and population made irrigation imperative. These 
 conditions prevailed on this continent in Mexico and our South 
 west, and there consequently are found the most important works 
 of this kind. The remains of irrigating canals in the south-west 
 ern United States are numerous. There are indications of them 
 along the fertile bottoms of the Colorado River in Glen Canyon. 
 These bottoms are deposits of alluvial soil, generally occupying 
 the inside of a bend at the base of the cliffs. They are of various 
 extent, about three to eight feet above ordinary high- water mark, 
 and are fringed with willows. I remember examining several 
 
Works and Agriculture 
 
 335 
 
 indications of these " ditches," but as I made no notes at the time, 
 and it was long ago, I cannot give details. There were ruins of 
 houses here and there, both on the cliffs and below, and the cliff 
 faces bore pictographs. Amongst these I found, and copied, one 
 which suggested some kind of a scaffolding and sweep for lifting 
 water, and it is not improbable that something of this kind was 
 utilised for raising water from the river. As there would be no 
 opportunity to construct a canal or ditch sufficiently long to re 
 ceive water by natural flow from the river owing to the shortness 
 of the alluvial stretches, a system of lifting it into the ditches 
 might have been devised. Water might have been obtained also 
 in another way. The country on both sides of the river at this 
 point is composed chiefly of barren surfaces of homogeneous sand 
 stone which collect enormous quantities of water, like the roof of 
 a house, during rain-storms, and pour it over the edges of the 
 cliffs and down the alcoves and lateral canyons. This water may 
 also have been utilised for irrigating purposes. The Mokis utilise 
 showers by collecting and guiding the streamlets with low dams 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 ANCIENT FABRIC DESIGN FROM IMPRESSION ON POTTERY, UTAH 
 
 hastily thrown up by their hoes, so it is certain that all these 
 Amerinds understood thoroughly the importance of utilising 
 shower- water on their crops. 1 
 
 In the Verde River region of Arizona some very large canals 
 or "ditches" have been observed. Mindeleff has described a 
 number of these, and I will mention one which he says is one of 
 
 1 From the Moki method of guiding shower-waters amongst the corn to 
 guiding waters from a brook or river in that way would not be a great step ; 
 indeed, it would be most simple and natural and would easily be forced by 
 circumstances. 
 
The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 the finest he has seen. 1 This is "about two miles below the 
 mouth of Limestone Creek on the opposite or eastern side of the 
 river." The canal extends across the northern and western part 
 of an extent of fertile bottom land. In one place it is marked 
 
 " by a very shallow trough 
 in the grass-covered bot 
 tom, bounded on either 
 side by a low ridge of earth 
 and pebbles, at another it 
 was cut through a low 
 ridge. It is probable that 
 the water was taken out of 
 the river about two miles 
 above this place, but the 
 ditch was run on the slop 
 ing side of the mesa which 
 has recently washed out." 
 It is supposed that this 
 ancient canal irrigated 
 nearly the whole of the 
 bottom land mentioned, 
 which was recently again 
 reclaimed by another 
 "ditch" or canal con 
 structed by Americans. 
 The ancient ditch is well 
 marked by two clearly de- 
 u. s. BU. Eth. fined lines of pebbles and 
 
 ANCIENT FABRIC PRESERVED BY COPPER CELT, Sma ll boulderS. 
 
 IOWA Probably these pebbles en- 
 
 ee page Io8 tered into its construction, 
 
 as the modern ditch, washed out at its head . . . shows no 
 trace of a similar marking." 
 
 Farming was carried on very much as the Mokis carry it on 
 to-day, except that the Mokis do not have to build irrigating 
 ditches, the showers supplying by their method water enough to 
 mature the crops. A German has recently settled south-westerly 
 from the Mokis and, I have been told, grows good crops on his 
 
 1 Cosmos Mindeleff, "Aboriginal Remains of Verde Valley," Thirteenth 
 Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 238. 
 

 1{^ ; 
 
 a in 
 
338 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 place without irrigation. Mindeleff further states that "on the 
 southern side of Clear Creek, about a mile above its mouth, there 
 are extensive horticultural works covering a large area of the ter 
 race or river bench. . . . For a distance of two miles east and 
 west along the creek, and perhaps half a mile north and south, 
 there are traces of former works pertaining to horticulture, includ 
 ing irrigating ditches, reservoirs, farming outlooks, etc." The 
 reservoirs are supposed by some to have been threshing-floors, 
 being large circular depressions lined with clay. The produce 
 derived from these farming operations was corn, beans, squashes, 
 and cotton, corn being the principal. Cotton was grown by 
 some, but not all, of the south-western tribes. A great many of 
 the tribes throughout the United States and Mexico were farm 
 ers to a greater or less extent, and many of the earthworks of the 
 Mississippi valley were in all probability connected with agricult 
 ure. It was necessary there to protect the crops from marauding 
 parties from wilder tribes, so, in all probability, some of the earth 
 works, surmounted by palisades or by watch-houses, served to 
 guard the crops from depredations. Morgan thinks some of the 
 square ones were foundations for communal houses, 2 and this is 
 also probable. 
 
 On the upper Gila River in Arizona, Fewkes discovered traces 
 of reservoirs and irrigating canals. " The large circular or elong 
 ated oval depressions," he says, "in the immediate neighbour 
 hood of some of the house-mounds have been identified as the sites 
 of former reservoirs. . . . The reservoir at Buena Vista is one 
 of the largest that was discovered, yet no irrigating ditches lead 
 ing into it were distinctly traced. . . . There is abundant ev 
 idence that the ancient people of the Pueblo Viejo Valley led the 
 water from the Gila River over the plain by means of canals for 
 purposes of agriculture, for in many places the depressions mark 
 ing the old ditches may be traced for considerable distances. 
 I have been informed by some of the older residents that 
 when they came into the country, before the Montezuma and San 
 Jose irrigation ditches had been constructed, the ancient aque 
 ducts were much more conspicuous than they are to-day, and that 
 
 1 The term " horticulture " as employed by some writers means agricult 
 ure on a small scale, the operations not being considered by them extensive 
 enough to merit the title of agriculture. 
 
 2 Refer to previous chapter on " Architecture and Dwellings." 
 
Works and Agriculture 339 
 
 sections of the modern ditches follow the course of the ancient 
 waterways." 1 
 
 American Museum, Kunz Collection From Monumental Records 
 
 A VOTIVE ADZ OF JADITE FROM MEXICO, SHOWING FRONT AND SIDE 
 
 Height, lofcj in. ; width, 6 in. ; thickness, 4! in. Highly polished ; color light grayish green with 
 streaks of emerald green on the back. A complete human figure. See page 341 for back. 
 
 The Aztecs built long aqueducts to supply their towns, and the 
 Mayas constructed large reservoirs. Charnay says : "According 
 
 J. Walter Fewkes, "Preliminary Account of Archaeological Field 
 Work in Arizona in 1897," Smithsonian Report, 1897, p. 613. 
 
34-O The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 to historians of the Conquest, El Salto del Agua (a monumental 
 fountain in the City of Mexico) and the aqueduct which it termin 
 ates replaced the ancient aqueduct of Montezuma constructed by 
 Netzaliualcoyotl, King of Tezcuco, between the years 1427 and 
 1440. At that time it was brought through an earthen pipe to the 
 city, along a dyke constructed for the purpose, and that there 
 might be no failure in so essential an article, a double course 
 of pipes in stone and mortar was laid. In this way a column of 
 water the size of a man s body was conducted into the heart of the 
 capital." 
 
 George Bancroft makes the statement that " of the labours of 
 the Indians on the soil of Virginia, there remains nothing so re 
 spectable as would be a common ditch for the draining of lands," 
 but in this Bancroft was somewhat mistaken, for Thomas describes 3 
 some mounds in West Virginia, which was Virginia when the 
 above sentence was written, that were undoubtedly the work of 
 some of the Amerinds formerly occupying that soil. " First the 
 earth (unless the place selected is a bare rock) is removed to the 
 solid rock foundation and an approximately level space from ten 
 to thirty feet in diameter formed. Centrally on this was placed a 
 layer of flat stones, with the edge inward, around a circle about 
 three feet in diameter. Upon the outer edge of these, others were 
 placed with their outer edges resting upon the prepared founda 
 tion running entirety round the circle. Then another inner layer 
 with the best edge inward and the thinner edge resting on the 
 outer layer, the stones of one layer breaking joints with those be 
 low, as far as the size and form would admit. Outside of the 
 inner row, and with the edges resting on it, other circles were 
 added until a diameter ranging from twenty to fifty feet or even 
 more was attained, thus extending upon the sloping earth not re 
 moved in forming the foundation. The last or outer circle usually 
 consisted of but a single layer, over which earth was thrown, being 
 sometimes heaped up until it equalled in contents the rock pile. 
 The height of these piles was found to vary from four to eight 
 feet, in one or two instances reaching ten feet. But in all cases 
 the circular space or opening in the centre continued to the top the 
 same diameter as at the bottom, somewhat resembling the so-called 
 
 1 Desire Charnay, Ancient Cities, p. 36. 
 
 2 Bancroft, History of the United States, vol. i., p. 209. 
 8 Cyrus Thomas, Twelfth Ann. RepL Bu. Eth., p. 408. 
 
Works and Agriculture 341 
 
 well-holes of the early western pioneers." The stones used in 
 these constructions were obtained by " rude quarrying in stratified 
 cliffs one half mile distant. Some of them measure from four to six 
 
 American Museum from Monumental Records 
 
 BACK OF VOTIVE ADZ 
 For front and side see page 339 
 
 feet in length, half as wide, and of a thickness which renders them 
 so heavy as to require from two to four stout men to handle 
 them." Skeletons were found in cavities of these piles "with 
 head or feet (generally the latter) toward the central well-hole." 
 
342 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Coarse pottery, rude large celts, lance- and arrow-heads were 
 also discovered, and " all the cavities of the heap not originally 
 used for burial are filled with earth or mortar, often well baked 
 by fire." 1 Many mounds and other earthworks have been 
 found in the western Virginia region, and in some of them copper 
 articles have been brought to light. 2 In New York there are 
 many mounds called "old forts," of various shapes, with walls 
 from one and one half to two feet or more high, and thence west 
 ward, throughout the Mississippi valley, mounds and earthworks 
 of many shapes and sizes are found. They appear to be concent 
 rated in various centres, with a sprinkling in between suggest 
 ing a number of different groups of Amerinds as their builders, 
 which has been pretty well established by evidence was the case. 
 Some of the mounds were of enormous size, the famous one at 
 Cahokia, Illinois, being one of the highest and largest on the con 
 tinent. Its altitude is about ninety feet, and it contains nearly 
 500,000 cubic yards of earth. Its purpose is, of course, not known, 
 but it probably supported some religious structure of wood. 
 Many of the mounds, as pointed out in the chapter on dwell 
 ings, were merely supports for buildings, religious or otherwise. 
 Others were connected with religious rites in other ways. Doubt 
 less the figures of birds found in Wisconsin represented the 
 "Thunder-bird," of which there are legends and traditions in 
 many tribes. It was to the Amerind the cause of the thunder and 
 lightning. These great and small earthworks were constructed in 
 the United States by scooping up earth from the vicinity and car 
 rying it in baskets to the designated spot. The United States 
 mounds are, as a rule, made of earth, those of Mexico and Cen 
 tral America of clay or adobe brick, faced with stone or wholly of 
 stone. " It is often the case, says Thomas, speaking of the burial 
 mounds of the Mississippi valley, "when a mound is carefully 
 excavated and closely scanned as the work proceeds, especially 
 where the material is clay or muck, that the individual loads can 
 be readily discerned. As the earth of which the mounds is com 
 posed is usually gathered up from the surrounding surface, the in 
 terior will vary in color and character only as the soil so gathered 
 
 1 Cyrus Thomas, Twelfth Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 408. 
 
 2 In New England there was once a fortification in Sanbornton, N. H., 
 which had walls six feet thick and breast-high, faced outside with stone. 
 Winsor, Nar. and Crit. Hist., vol. i., p. 404. 
 
Works and Agriculture 343 
 
 up varies. . . . The places from whence material was taken 
 to build the small or moderate-sized mounds are seldom discerni 
 ble at the present day, but depressions plainly mark the points 
 about the larger works, as the Cahokia and Etowah mounds and 
 some of the enclosures of Ohio and elsewhere. 1 In some cases the 
 one act has been made to serve two purposes, that is to say, the 
 earth used to construct the mound or other work has been taken 
 from one or two points so as to leave a basin-shaped excavation 
 for holding water, or to form a trench to serve as a protective 
 moat, or for drainage or other purposes." For a long time it was 
 believed by a great many persons, scientific and otherwise, that 
 these piles of earth, often called pyramids quite erroneously, could 
 not have been made by ordinary Amerinds, but as the study of the 
 native American proceeded and the data of what he did and does 
 actually do began to be recorded, it was perfectly plain that it was 
 not at all necessary to look beyond the " Indian " for the origin of 
 the mounds that is, beyond the " Indian " as he was known in the 
 region where the mounds occur. It was found that he had 
 erected mounds after the arrival of the whites, and if he built one 
 or several he might have built all. It was not a very difficult op 
 eration to dig up earth and carry it a few hundred feet and drop 
 it on a pile. The transportation of the stones referred to above 
 was far more laborious, and modern Amerinds do a great deal 
 harder work. The Navajos are fairly good labourers, and the Mo- 
 kis carry all their wood from forests fifteen miles away. It is work 
 to carry water up the cliffs where the Mokis live, it is work to 
 hoe the corn, it is work to tend and herd sheep. On full investiga 
 tion it seems strange that it should ever have been thought that 
 the mounds were not " Indian" because they represented work. 
 Fowke has estimated that a mound a hundred feet in diameter 
 and twenty feet high could have been erected by the " Indians " 
 in forty-two days. I have seen Uingkaret Utes in Arizona carrj- 
 on their backs with ease for twelve or fifteen miles loads that 
 would average about thirty or forty pounds. People who can do 
 this could carry earth in short stretches for forty or fifty days. It 
 is probable, however, that the mounds were not built by steady 
 and consecutive labour, but rather by intermittent effort, after the 
 usual fashion of Amerindian work. 
 
 1 The great Cahokia mound in Illinois is seven hundred feet by five 
 hundred feet on the ground. For illustration of Etowah mound see page 337. 
 
344 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 From New York 
 
 Many mounds and earthworks were erected for defensive 
 purposes at points controlling river passages or trails, where the ad 
 vance of foes invad 
 ing a country could 
 be checked. There 
 were also fortifica 
 tion works like the 
 so-called "hill- 
 forts" of the east 
 ern portion of the 
 United States, and 
 the "cerros trin- 
 cheras " of northern 
 Mexico. Quot 
 ing again from 
 Thomas, 1 one of 
 the best authorities 
 on mounds and 
 "Moundbuilders" : 
 The most exten 
 sive example of the 
 hill-forts is that 
 known as Fort 
 Ancient, in War 
 ren County, Ohio. 
 This crowns a spur 
 of the bluff some 
 two hundred and 
 fifty or three hun 
 dred feet high, 
 which here over 
 hangs the Miami 
 River. The area 
 embraced is only 
 some seventy - five 
 or eighty acres, but the length of the wall, which follows all 
 the windings and zigzags of the margin of the bluff and of the 
 side ravines, is a little over three miles and a half. This is one 
 of the best-preserved monuments of the Ohio valley, the surround- 
 1 Cyrus Thomas, Study of North American Archeology, p. 125. 
 
 From Illinois 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. From Tennessee 
 
 PATTERNS OF ANCIENT FABRICS FROM POTTERY 
 See page 108 
 
Works and Agriculture 
 
 345 
 
 ing wall being uninjured save at points where the turnpike cuts 
 through it, and at a few places where ravines have been formed 
 since it was abandoned. This wall, which is partty of stone, but 
 chiefly of dirt thrown up from the inner or upper side, varies in 
 height from three or four to nineteen feet, and from twenty-five to 
 seventy feet in width at the base. As the earth has all been taken 
 from the inside (except along the high wall which crosses the level 
 at the rear) and thrown outward on the crest of the slope, this has 
 left an inside ditch. As a rule, the wall is strongest and highest at 
 the points of easiest approach ; and at some places the outside slope 
 has been artificially 
 steepened, proving be 
 yond any reasonable 
 doubt that the work 
 was one of defence." 
 
 The Amerinds, 
 though not always en 
 gaged in war, were 
 always on the defens 
 ive against stronger 
 tribes whose warriors 
 might appear on the 
 scene. These stronger 
 tribes were not neces 
 sarily Amerinds of a 
 different stock or 
 strangers ; often, as in 
 the South-w T est, de 
 fensive works were 
 erected against relat 
 ives as much as 
 against different 
 tribes, just as we, in 
 our time, have had 
 
 three wars that were not with another race. In New Mexico the 
 villages, besides being built on the communal principle, were often 
 surrounded by a defensive wall. Such a wall can still be traced 
 around the ruins of Pecos, as well as in parts at other ruins. The 
 hill-forts of the Ohio kind were undoubtedly the result of circum 
 stances similar to those that prevailed in the South-west : a desire 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO MECHANICAL TOY. 
 
346 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 to combine as closely as possible defence and the cultivation of the 
 soil. They were often interdependent. If conditions changed, or 
 a tribe grew strong enough to dominate the situation, the defences 
 might be abandoned. These works do not necessarily imply that 
 their builders were defeated and driven back by wilder tribes. 
 They indicate only that the builders felt defensive works necessary 
 at the time of the building ; their circumstances then demanded 
 them. They do not indicate difference in race or remote origin. 
 The constructors were Amerinds, though not all one stock. There 
 were tribes of different stocks in the Mississippi valley all the 
 time, just as there were in other parts of the land, and the attempt 
 that has been made by some writers to establish the idea that the 
 Mississippi valley was once occupied by a single mysterious race 
 that was overpowered and driven out or exterminated by the 
 " Indians " has no good foundation. 
 
 One of the most extensive groups of these defensive village 
 sites is that known as the Newark group, in Ohio. 1 Here are cir 
 cles, squares, and straight-line mounds, all connected, covering an 
 area of two or three square miles. There are two large circles in 
 this group which approximate true circles, and have been the 
 basis of much unnecessary speculation as to how " Indians " could 
 have " done it," with the conclusion that the " mysterious race " 
 did it. When it is remembered how easy it is to construct a fairly 
 accurate circle in a great many ways, it is surprising that anyone 
 should have thought " Indians" could not do it, when they did 
 and do so many things that require more skill. One clear-headed 
 and accurate writer reminds the reader that people who could 
 manufacture cloth could certainly make a rope with which to lay 
 out a plan. Almost all Amerinds could make rope, the Pai Ute, 
 Uingkarets, and Shevwits Utes, who cannot make cloth at all, 
 making excellent rope and cord. But it was not necessary to 
 make a rope of fibre. Amerinds have always been skilful at tan 
 ning deerskins, and buckskin strings braided make one of the 
 best kind of ropes ; indeed, it does not even require to be tanned, 
 as it can be worked in the rawhide state. We should have to de 
 scend low in the scale of humanity, indeed, to find a tribe that 
 could not make a cord long enough to lay out any circle yet dis 
 covered on this continent. There is nothing difficult about it. 
 
 1 Gerard Fowke describes in the American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. ii, 
 No. 3, " Points of difference between Norse Remains and Indian works." 
 
Works and Agriculture 347 
 
 The largest circle at Newark has a diameter of about a thousand 
 feet. This would require a rope only five hundred feet long, 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. George Catlin, 1832 
 
 MAHTOTOHPA (THE FOUR BEARS), A MANDAN CHIEF 
 
 which would be nothing for any tribe on the continent to make. 
 Just why the Newark works have the particular arrange 
 ment they have would be impossible to say without knowing the 
 
348 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 customs of the tribe that built them and the circumstances of the 
 time. It is probable, however, that some enclosures were farm 
 fences. The plan suggests two communal villages, closely allied 
 and united by a sort of runway, which, while preventing hos- 
 tiles from .separating the two villages in time of attack, always 
 afforded a safe passage for the women and children from one town 
 to the other. The builders were evidently beset by enemies at the 
 time the works were occupied, but this does not necessarily imply 
 that when the works were abandoned the occupants were driven 
 out or annihilated, for their enemies may have been people of their 
 own stock with whom they eventually became reconciled, or the 
 enemies may have passed on to other fields, or the occupants of 
 the works may have grown more powerful and at length have 
 assumed the offensive. Abandoned works, I repeat, do not neces 
 sarily mean annihilation of the builders. The South-west offers 
 countless examples of the truth of this statement. Villages and 
 works were abandoned there for a variety of causes ; sometimes it 
 was little more than caprice. Quoting Thomas again : " Nor is 
 the theory that, while some of the monuments are due to the 
 Indians, others are to be ascribed to a different race, justified by 
 the data, or reasonable, as no one is able to define the characters 
 which distinguish the classes. If the Indians built mounds of the 
 most advanced type and of large size, as history shows positively 
 the natives of the Gulf States did, there is no necessity for attrib 
 uting the works of the middle and northern sections to a different 
 race. That the Moundbuilders were divided into various and 
 often contending tribes, is shown by the works for defence and 
 protection, as also by the evidences of varying customs. Yet 
 there is nothing in the antiquities to indicate a higher culture than 
 that of the southern Indians or a greater difference between the 
 people of the different sections than existed among the natives 
 when first encountered by the whites." Granting this, there is 
 still nothing to prove that some of these tribes did not come 
 from a long distance off, for the Amerinds very often have been 
 travellers. 
 
 Few mounds or earthworks are found east of the Alleghany 
 Mountains, north of Tennessee and North Carolina, but to my 
 mind this is not positive proof that the people who built earthworks 
 in other places did not live there. The Amerind changes his 
 methods so completely when circumstances demand, that it would 
 
American Museum 
 
 Photographed and described by M. H. Saville for the American Museum Bulleti >i. vol. xiii. 
 article xi., July q, 1900 
 
 AN ONYX JAR FROM MEXICO IN I ROCESS OF MANUFACTURE 
 
 Three-eighths natural size 
 The excavating was being done by a hollow drill, probably of reed, and sand 
 
 349 
 
350 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 not be safe to say that those who built mounds west of the Alle- 
 gliany range did not live east of it. If the Mokis should have 
 migrated to Ohio in priscan days, they certainly would not have 
 built stone houses there. They would have erected mounds and 
 wooden houses, for the reason that the stone would have been 
 difficult to secure. Many tribes have readily changed from one 
 method to another in building, as pointed out in a previous 
 chapter. With the Amerind, it depends so much on circumstances 
 what he will do in a given locality. For example, the traditions 
 of the Mokis require their kiva to be under ground. This is easy 
 in their cliff-land, but how would it be in Louisiana ? Even in 
 Zuni surface kivas are found acceptable. 
 
 In Mexico there are numerous large mounds which, as noted 
 before, sustained buildings, now commonly called "temples." 
 "At Teotihuacan " says Charnay, "the pyramid of the Sun is 
 six hundred and eighty feet at the base by one hundred and 
 eighty feet high. . . . Like all great pyramids they [the 
 Sun and Moon pyramids] were divided into four storeys, three 
 of which are still visible, but the intermediate gradations are 
 almost effaced. A temple stood on the summit of the large 
 mound, having a colossal statue of the Sun, made of one single 
 block of stone. . . . The interior of the pyramid is com 
 posed of clay and volcanic pebbles, incrusted on the surface 
 with the light porous stone, tetzontli. Over this was a thick coat 
 ing of white stucco such as was used for dwellings. Where the 
 pyramid is much defaced, its incline is from 31 to 36 degrees, and 
 where the coatings of cement still adhere 47 degrees. One of 
 the largest mounds in Mexico and one of the largest in North 
 America is the Great Mound of Cholula. It is about one thousand 
 feet square at the base, of which the approximate area is over 
 twenty acres. It now has much the appearance of a natural hill, 
 surmounted by a church of modern construction. There are 
 " three distinct projections, surrounding and supporting a conical 
 hill, and separated from each other by wide depressions. The 
 entire mass consists of adobe bricks laid in adobe clay, undisturbed 
 except where erosion, earthquakes, or the hand of man have muti 
 lated it. The bricks break joints and are of various sizes. The 
 altitude is about two hundred feet. Limestone slabs were used 
 
 1 Ancient Cities. 
 
 2 Ad. Bandelier, Arch&ological Tour, p. 233 et seq. 
 
Works and Agriculture 351 
 
 for steps. Bandelier does not ascribe it to the Aztec or Nahuatl 
 stock which occupied the region at the time of the Conquest, but 
 to some anterior tribe. 
 
 It has been called a pyramid, with other mounds in Mexico 
 and Central America, but this is not a proper term for these 
 Amerindian works. 
 
 They have not the character of the Egyptian pyramids, nor 
 were they constructed with the same object. The pyramids were 
 tombs, while the large Amerind mounds were foundations for 
 buildings. Almost every ancient building of any consequence in 
 Mexico and adjoining regions, as well as far up into the United 
 States, stood on a mound of greater or less elevation. The so-called 
 palace of Palenque, in which Stevens lived while studying the 
 ruins, " stands on an artificial elevation of an oblong form, forty 
 feet high, three hundred and ten feet in front and rear, and two 
 hundred and sixty feet on each side. This elevation was formerly 
 faced with stone, which has been thrown down by the growth of 
 trees, and its form is hardly distinguishable." See illustration of 
 a part of this palace, page 403. 
 
 The chief ruins at Copan are all on a huge mound, and at 
 Mitla the edifices have mound foundations, or rather platforms. 
 A more or less elevated site for his dwelling-place or temple, 
 whether natural or artificial, seems to have been almost universal 
 with the Amerindian people from the Isthmus of Panama to British 
 Columbia. The amount of labour expended in constructing the 
 artificial foundation platforms and mounds was something 
 prodigious. 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 WOODEN FOOD BOWL, HAIDA 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 DANCING MASK OF THE MAKAHS, WASHINGTON 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES 
 
 FEW Europeans can look at the world from the Amerind 
 point of view, because few know what it means to have 
 lands free. Happy the man who has trod the wilderness 
 primeval, and tasted the world in its original freshness. _He alone 
 can understand what the Amerind has lost forever. When I first 
 went into the West about thirty years ago, the regions we tra 
 versed were untamed, and often we did not meet even Amerinds 
 for weeks at a time. Such a condition has its charms, and when 
 we remember that, except in the southern regions of Mexico, the 
 native American was born and bred to it, we can see that it must 
 be a difficult matter for him to suddenly change. But a few genera 
 tions hence, where once he scaled the cliffs, or followed the deer, 
 he will be sitting down to a course dinner in a swallow-tail coat. 
 He has already conquered at football, and the rest of the down 
 ward road will be easy for him ! 
 
 Our general impression of the native American, the Amerind, 
 is that he is a kind of human demon, or wild animal, never to be 
 trusted, unable to keep a compact, always thirsting for gore ; but 
 it is a mistake. He is not altogether unreliable. The Iroquois 
 
 352 
 
Customs and Ceremonies 
 
 353 
 
 maintained the covenant chain with the British unbroken for 
 a round century. The Amerind never broke-faith with Penn, and 
 it is seldom that he will violate any compact that he fully under 
 stands he has entered into. His daily life in the earlier days was 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 MOKI WICKER CRADLE WITH AWNING CARRYING BASKET OF THE ARIKAREES 
 
 In the smaller figure the awning is over the bowed end 
 
 by no means bloodthirsty. Powell has truly said that the scalp- 
 ing-knife was no more the emblem of pre-Columbian society 
 than the bayonet is of ours of the nineteenth century. In the 
 United States existence of a trifle over a hundred years have 
 been waged several long and bloody wars, one the most gigantic 
 known to history, all police records are full of horrible crimes 
 the Amerind was a stranger to. and within a year or so white 
 people have burned alive several victims. When anyone defends 
 the Amerind he is accused of trying to make an angel of him, 
 23 
 
354 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 but this only shows again how universally unjust toward him 
 we are. We are blind to our own shortcomings and exaggerate 
 those of the Amerind. It was inevitable that the weaker race 
 should be forced to the wall, but we can at least give it credit 
 for any good that was in it without injuring ourselves. In 
 estimating their traits we do not regard them enough from 
 their own standpoint, and without so regarding them we can 
 not understand them. The Amerind was something of a farmer, 
 of an architect, of an engineer, of a statesman, of an artist, 
 the amount and quality of his interest in these things de 
 pending, as with us, on circumstances. In most localities, he 
 achieved for all what all are with us still dreaming to attain, "lib 
 erty and a living," and his methods of government possessed ad 
 mirable qualities. We call him lazy and despise him for it, but 
 many of our people would not work if they could avoid it. One 
 of Balzac s characters is made to say : " I fear God ; but I am still 
 more afraid of the hell of poverty. To be without a penny is the 
 last degree of misery in our present social state." The great phil 
 osopher here put European life in a nut-shell. The Amerind was 
 fortunate perhaps in not knowing what poverty, as we understand 
 it, is. With him the keen eye, the woodman s skill, and a gener 
 ous and abundant soil gave him his daily bread. The idea of 
 piling up treasure for the satisfaction of holding it did not occur to 
 him any more than did killing of game for pleasure. A tribe may 
 have passed through famine, but the individual never knew 
 hunger in the midst of riches, as the civilised man so often meets 
 it. Not long ago a whole family ^wandering about the streets of 
 New York, homeless and without food, dropped from exhaustion 
 at the corner of Thirty-fourth Street and Broadway. In Amerind 
 society, such an occurrence would have been impossible. No 
 friendly stranger ever left an Amerind village hungry, if that 
 village had a supply of food. And "the hungry Indian," says 
 Powell, "had but to ask to receive, and this no matter how small 
 the supply or how dark the future prospect. It was not only his 
 privilege to ask, it was his right to demand." 
 
 The Amerind distribution of food was based on long custom, 
 on tribal laws ; food was regarded like air and water, as a neces 
 sity that should in distress be without money and without price. 
 Hospitality was a law, and was everywhere observed faithfully 
 till intercourse with the methods of our race demolished it. 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 TLINKIT MAN AND WOMAN, 30 YEARS AGO, OR ABOUT 1 870 
 
 41 The labret, a small cylinder of silver with a broad head, is the modern style of lip ornament, 
 
 differing materially from the large ones worn until a few years ago." Niblack 
 
 Many tribes wore lip, nose, and ear ornaments 
 
 355 
 
356 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Among isolated tribes it is still observed. Among the Mokis a 
 hungry man of any colour is cheerfully fed. 
 
 We cannot seriously condemn the Amerind for not jumping at 
 the opportunity to tie himself to the plough, or to the ledger, or 
 the grindstone. He was, as a rule, close to Nature, and like all 
 men who live thus he imbibed some of her grandeur. He lived in 
 independence ; and when he died, he died as the sun sets at even 
 ing, expiring in glory, without a tear, without lamentations. In 
 the hands of the enemy at the stake, his passing away was sub 
 lime, like the summer cloud that sails steadily out into the infinite 
 blue and dissolves. The most painful tortures failed to bring a 
 moan to his lips, or a tear to his defiant eye, and his proud spirit 
 departed in silence. An offer of liberty was frequently refused. 
 Charnay tells of a Tlaxcaltec chief, of great fame as a warrior, 
 who was captured and who, on being recognised, was offered his 
 freedom. He refused to accept it and desired to be devoted to the 
 gods, as was the custom. He was tied to the gladiatorial stone, 
 where he killed eight warriors and wounded twenty others before 
 being overpowered and offered up to the war-god. 
 
 The habit of mind and body of dense commercial populations 
 tends toward degeneration because it is a concentration in one 
 line. The Western mountaineer exhibits the effect of removal from 
 trade considerations in a repose of manner and a tranquillity of 
 nerves which strongly suggest the Amerind. " There are incom 
 mensurable differences, says Balzac, between the man who min 
 gles with others and him who dwells with Nature. Once cap 
 tured, Toussaint Louverture died without uttering a word, while 
 Napoleon on his rock chattered like a magpie." 
 
 Freedom of limb and strength of mind eliminated much dis 
 ease from the native races. Deformity amongst Amerinds was 
 rare. There were seldom cases of diseased spine, blindness, in 
 sanity, squinting eyes, deafness, or any deficiency or excess of the 
 organs. 1 Sitting Bull was a fine specimen of the Amerind, and he 
 was a man of great ability. Such men could not be enslaved, and 
 from the first the European efforts to reduce the red race to 
 slavery were failures. They held their own in most localities, 
 and often compelled governments to treat with them as with a sov 
 ereign power. Where the treaties were kept by the other side the 
 
 1 Contact with civilisation has, however, changed the average health in 
 many if not all tribes. 
 
Photographed by J. K. Killers, U. S. Geological Survey 
 A PAWNEE IN BATTLE ARRAY 
 
 357 
 
358 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Amerind seldom violated them. Penn never had any difficulty 
 because he treated the Amerinds fairly and honourably. Ofiate, 
 in his long journey across Arizona, had no conflict with the natives, 
 but found them without exception friendly, and this was the ex 
 perience of other explorers who were just. The native was a 
 child. He expected absolute fidelity and truthfulness from the 
 whites, though he did not always give this in return ; once let 
 him detect prevarication or deceit, and his confidence vanished. 
 He never forgave a white man for talking " crooked," and those 
 who have been invariably truthful and honourable toward him 
 have commanded trust and respect. I know two men who had 
 great influence over the Navajos because they had always been 
 fair and just to them. " We call them cruel," says George Ban 
 croft, "yet they never invented the thumb-screw, or the boot, 
 or the rack, or broke on the wheel, or exiled bands of their nations 
 for opinion s sake ; and never protected the monopoly of a medi 
 cine man by the gallows, or the block, or by fire. There is not 
 a quality belonging to the white man which did not also belong 
 to the American savage ; there is not among the aborigines a rule 
 of language, a custom, or an institution which when considered 
 in its principle has not a counterpart among their conquerors." J 
 Throughout the continent there was a general homogeneity of 
 customs and ceremonies which separates the Amerindian races from 
 the rest of the world, and argues an immense period of isolation 
 from all other people. 
 
 Some tribes have become civilised, like the Iroquois, the Chero- 
 kees, and the Choctaws. Some tribes of Arizona and the contigu 
 ous regions are at the other end of the scale, living a rude life, 
 even for Amerinds, and subsisting on uncultivated products of the 
 soil, like pinon nuts, fruits of cactus and yucca, " yant," a kind 
 of agave, and seeds of grasses, as well as "on what game the sterile 
 region affords. The grass seeds are, some of them, large and fat, 
 and make nutritious food. Many tribes cultivated a grain that 
 has no superior in the world for its yield, its ease of cultivation, 
 and its nutritious qualities. This was maize, or Indian corn, 
 which grows in new ground with little attention, and can be dried 
 and stored indefinitely. No machinery was required to separate 
 it from the husk, and it was easily reduced to meal or flour be 
 tween two stones or in a mortar. Nor did it even need to be 
 1 Bancroft, History of the United States, vol. i. 
 
VFRS1TY 
 
360 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 ground, but, roasted in pits, or prepared in other ways, it offered a 
 palatable and nutritious food, even before the ripening. Dried, or 
 parched, it was carried on journeys, and dried venison added to it 
 made a strengthening diet. There were, besides, other foods, like 
 beans, squashes, native fruits and berries, and nuts. Nor was the 
 native without beverages, some of them intoxicating ; the pulque, or 
 octli of the Mexicans, extracted from the maguey, being a well- 
 known example. There are many varieties of this drink, though 
 all are made in the same way. In the spring the central part of the 
 plant is removed, leaving a cup-like cavity which fills up with 
 juice, that is taken out from time to time, and put into a kind of 
 vat made of hide stretched on four poles. After fermentation, 
 bitter herbs are added. Mescal is another drink made from a 
 smaller kind of maguey. It is a colourless, brandy-like liquid, pro 
 duced by distillation since the Conquest, but before that made by 
 boiling, just as the Comanches make it to-day. 1 The Kaivavits 
 and Uinkarets made a kind of wine out of the fruit of the cactus. 
 The fruit was put into a cloth and the juice squeezed out. This 
 was then allowed to ferment, and I was told produced intoxication, 
 though I never observed this result. The cake resulting from the 
 process was consumed as food, being sliced down like bread, and 
 eaten without further preparation. The Pimas and Maricopas, 
 after drying cactus fruit in the sun, macerate it in water, and after 
 fermentation get drunk on the compound. 
 
 Tortillas were made of maize, " shelled and soaked in an alkali 
 to remove the hull, then repeatedly washed in cold water." 2 
 This product was then ground on a metate, beaten into flat 
 cakes, and baked on an earthen griddle called comalli. Tiste was 
 parched corn ground with chocolate and sugar and mixed with 
 water. Atolli was a drink made of cornmeal cooked in water. 
 Chocolatl was prepared by grinding equal parts of cacao beans 
 and seeds of pochotl or sequoia, which were then boiled. This 
 liquid was shaken up to make it frothy, mixed with dough made 
 of maize and then submitted to a new cooking to thicken it." 
 
 No tribe learned to use the milk of any animal. The bison 
 was about the only native animal that offered any. In the whisky 
 of the whites they found their fate, and this has done more than any 
 
 1 For further details of the Mexican drinks, see Charnay s Ancient 
 Cities. 
 
 Squier, Nicaragua, p. 272. 3 Biart, The Aztecs, p. 290. 
 
Customs and Ceremonies 
 
 other single cause except smallpox to destroy the race. For it they 
 exchanged tobacco, and the white man smokes as the Amerind 
 drinks. 
 
 Beckwourth, referring to the trading of the mixture of alco 
 hol and water called whisky on the frontier in his day, to the 
 natives, remarks: "This trading whisky for Indian property is 
 one of the most infernal practices ever entered into by man. L,et 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 UTE WOMAN CARRYING CHILD 
 
 the reader sit down and figure up the profits on a forty-gallon 
 cask of alcohol, and he will be thunderstruck, or, rather, whisky- 
 struck. When disposed of, four gallons of water are added to each 
 gallon of alcohol. In two hundred gallons there are sixteen 
 hundred pints, for each one of which the trader gets a buffalo robe 
 
362 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 worth five dollars ! The Indian women toil many long weeks to 
 dress these sixteen hundred robes. The white trader gets them all 
 
 A/flcfl 
 
 KEOKUK, A SAUK CHIEF 
 
 for worse than nothing, for the poor Indian mother hides herself and 
 children in the forests until the effect of the poison passes away 
 
Customs and Ceremonies 363 
 
 from the husbands, fathers, and brothers who love them when they 
 have no whisky, and abuse and kill them when they have. . . . 
 In short, the sixty gallons of fire-water realised to the company 
 over eleven hundred robes and eighteen horses, worth in St. 
 L/ouis six thousand dollars." 
 
 These were the honourable methods employed by the fur com 
 panies. They .secured from the Amerinds thousands on thousands 
 of dollars worth of valuable property for, as Beckwourth says, 
 " worse than nothing," and no man knew better than he the fear 
 ful effect of the fire-water on the native. To-day there are a great 
 many white men engaged in the same traffic, despite the govern 
 ment s efforts to crush it out. And still we cannot understand 
 why the " Indian has degenerated " ! 
 
 A Cheyenne chief said : " White man, I have given you my 
 robes, which my warriors have spent months in hunting, and 
 which my women have slaved a whole year in dressing ; and what 
 do you give me in return ? I have nothing. You give me fire 
 water, which makes me and my people mad ; and it is gone, and 
 we have nothing to hunt more buffalo with, and to fight our 
 enemies." 2 
 
 I never saw an Amerind smoke as much tobacco in a week as 
 I have seen Americans or English smoke in a single day. Tobacco 
 and the pipe were part of the Amerindian religious paraphernalia. 
 The pipe seems not to have been much used for ordinary smoking 
 among the Nahuatl or Mexican tribes, nor among the sedentary 
 tribes of our South-west. They used the cigarette chiefly, leaving 
 the pipe for ceremonials, while the West Indian tribes rolled the 
 leaf up for smoking. Many Eastern tribes cultivated tobacco ex 
 tensively and were able to sell it to traders. It was generally 
 mixed with other leaves and bark for smoking, and among the 
 Eskimo with wood. The exact place of the pipe in the ceremonials 
 of the Eastern tribes is not yet thoroughly understood, but its 
 function was always an important one. 3 Among the Iroquois, 
 
 1 The Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, 
 Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief of the Crow Nation of Indians, p. 444. 
 Harper Bros., 1856. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 445. 
 
 3 The council was opened by the sachem puffing smoke from the pipe 
 over the heads of the assembly, and then each councillor in turn drawing 
 at the pipe. This accomplished, business was begun. 
 
364 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 when the horizon was filled with " thunderheads," or " sons of 
 thunder," in a period of drought, it was a custom to burn tobacco, 
 as an offering to bring rain. Each family made an offering on 
 its secret altar to Hinu n , God of Thunder, and then bore a por 
 tion to the council-house, where a general offering was burned in 
 the council fire. " While the tobacco was burning the agile and 
 athletic danced the rain dance." 
 
 The Eskimo of Alaska, it is asserted, will eat with relish the 
 oily refuse from the bottom of a pipe, and they are also fond of 
 the ashes of tobacco. The smoke is deeply inhaled by them, as by 
 all the tribes. Among the Arikarees a special pipe was kept in a 
 " bird box." Any criminal or enemy who could reach this box 
 and smoke the pipe was free from molestation. This right of 
 asylum is noticed in other ways. It is said that the first whites 
 who came among the Apaches, tired and hungry, were not molested 
 by them. Everywhere, if an enemy were permitted to smoke the 
 pipe or partake of food with the Amerinds he was absolutely safe 
 for the time being, both because of the pipe and because the law 
 of hospitality was never violated. If Macbeth had been an 
 Amerind no blood would have been shed on that fatal night, 
 and Duncan would have passed unharmed beyond the castle 
 walls. The pipe was the invariable accompaniment of all councils 
 and treaties among Eastern tribes, and it was the emblem of peace. 
 Each village had its calumet, a pipe of peace made of sacred pipe- 
 stone, and whoever travelled with it, passed, even among the 
 enemy, with impunity. Envoys coming within a short distance 
 of the town would utter a cry and seat themselves on the ground. 
 " The great chief," says George Bancroft," bearing the peace pipe 
 of his tribe, with its mouth pointing to the skies, goes forth to 
 meet them, accompanied by a long procession of his clansmen, 
 chanting the hymn of peace. The strangers rise to receive them, 
 singing also a song, to put away all wars and to bury all revenge. 
 As they meet, each party smokes the pipe of the other, and peace 
 is ratified. The strangers are then conducted to the village ; the 
 herald goes out into the street that divides the wigwams, and 
 makes repeated proclamation that the guests are friends ; and the 
 glory of the tribe is advanced by the profusion of bear s meat, 
 and flesh of dogs, and hominy, which give magnificence to the 
 
 1 Mrs. Ertninnie A. Smith, <l Myths of the Iroquois," Second Ann. Rcpt. 
 Bu. Eth., p. 72. 
 
366 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 banquets in honour of the embassy . " Thus would a war terminate. 
 In beginning it among Eastern tribes, various ceremonies preceded 
 the departure of the warriors, especially the war dance or scalp 
 dance and accompanying songs, expressing contempt for death 
 and certainty of victory. Beckwourth remarks: "When war is 
 declared on any tribe, it is done by the council. 2 If any party 
 goes out without authority of the council, they are all severely 
 whipped ; and their whipping is no light matter, as I can personally 
 testify. It makes no difference how high the offender ranks, or 
 how great his popularity with the nation there is no favour 
 shown ; the man who disobeys orders is bound to be lashed, and 
 if he resists or resents the punishment, he suffers death." 3 Faces 
 were variously decorated for the warpath ; and sometimes when a 
 tribe is full of anger and resentment, but not engaged in actual 
 war, they will paint themselves strangely. Once I was among 
 the Shevwits of Arizona (1875) when they were nursing their 
 wrath against the Mormons, and the faces of the men were painted 
 in a way that perhaps seemed terrible to them, but which was 
 laughable to me. Some had the face divided into three or four 
 sections by different colours, for example : forehead white ; left 
 side of face, black ; right side, red ; with lines of each colour over 
 the others. Ordinarily the number of wounds received in battle 
 is recorded by streaks of vermilion. 
 
 Before the acquisition of firearms and the horse, and the 
 crowding back of tribe against tribe by the whites, wars were in 
 some parts rather infrequent. Night attacks were never made. 
 Captives were often compelled to run the gauntlet, and if they 
 did it bravely they were adopted into the tribe. Frequently a 
 captive was given his life without this ordeal if he would join the 
 tribe of the captors and fill the place of some slain warrior. 
 Cooper utilises this custom where Deerslayer is offered his liberty 
 if he will take the wife and family of one he has killed and be 
 come a member of the tribe. Such adoption always rested, how 
 ever, on the consent of the kindred of the deceased. The war- 
 gods were propitiated by acts of cruelty, and by human sacrifices 
 from among the prisoners. It is related by Bancroft 4 that on one 
 
 1 History of the United States. 
 
 2 Important announcements are made by appointed criers. 
 
 3 Life and Adventures of James P. Beckwourth^ p. 228. 
 
 4 History of the United States. 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 A COSTUME OF A HAMATSA IN THE KWAKTUTL CANNIBALISTIC CEREMONY, 
 WHERE SLAVES AND CORPSES WERE FORMERLY DEVOURED 
 
 The head and neck rings were from his mother s tribe, the Tongass (Tlinkit) 
 367 
 
3 68 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 occasion the Iroquois sacrificed an Algonquin woman, exclaim 
 ing, " Areskoni, to thee we burn this victim; feast on her flesh 
 and grant us new victories." Her flesh was afterwards eaten as 
 a religious rite. Cannibalism of this kind prevailed in many 
 tribes ; always, ostensibly, a religious ceremony, not a means of 
 satisfying hunger. The victims were often richly feasted and 
 generously treated for some time before being executed. Payne 
 holds that the Aztec custom of consuming captives at religious 
 feasts was in reality a means of procuring animal food resulting 
 from the limited meat supply, and that perpetual war was waged 
 mainly to obtain prisoners for this purpose. 1 Prescott says : " In 
 deed the great object of war, with the Aztecs, was quite as much to 
 gather victims for their sacrifices as to extend their empire." 2 
 
 One of the great ceremonials of the Aztecs was the obtaining 
 of the "new-fire," admirably described by Prescott, according to 
 his custom. " On the evening of the last day, a procession of the 
 priests, assuming the dress and ornaments of their gods, moved 
 from the capital towards a lofty mountain, about two leagues dis 
 tant. They carried 
 with them a noble vic 
 tim, the flower of their 
 captives, and an ap 
 paratus for kindling 
 the new-fire, the suc 
 cess of which was an 
 augury of the renewal 
 of the cycle. On 
 reaching the summit 
 of the mountain, the 
 procession paused till 
 midnight ; when as 
 the constellation of the 
 Pleiades approached 
 the zenith, the new-fire 
 was kindled by the friction of the sticks placed on the wounded 
 breast of the victim. The flame was soon communicated to a 
 funeral pile, on which the body of the slaughtered captive was 
 thrown. As the light streamed up towards heaven, shouts of 
 
 1 Payne s History of the New World, vol. ii., pp. 495, 499, an( l SOL 
 
 2 Conquest of Mexico, vol. i., p. 81. 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 MEXICAN OPERATING THE PALM-DRILL FOR FIRE 
 
 Fac-simile outline of an original Mexican painting presented 
 
 to the University of Oxford by Archbishop Sand 
 
i 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 ZU5JI WOMAN CARRYING WATER 
 
 Shows also style of moccasin and leg wrapping worn by Puebloan and Navajo women 
 
 369 
 
370 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 joy and triumph burst forth from the countless multitudes who 
 covered the hills, the terraces of the temples, and the house-tops, 
 with eyes bent anxiously on the mount of sacrifice. Couriers, with 
 torches lighted at the blazing beacon, rapidly bore them over every 
 part of the country ; and the cheering element was seen brighten 
 ing on altar and hearth-stone, for the circuit of many a league, 
 long before the sun, rising on his accustomed track, gave assur 
 ance that a new cycle had commenced its march and that the laws 
 of nature were not to be reversed for the Aztecs." 1 
 
 New-fire was also obtained by friction, with the Aztecs, once 
 each year, and once each four years, as well as at the fifty-two 
 year cycle. In Arkansas it was produced every year. On a cer 
 tain day, as the sun began to decline the fires were extinguished 
 in every hut, and universal silence reigned." 2 A priest next 
 produced fire by friction. " It was then brought out of the 
 temple in an earthen dish and placed upon an altar that had been 
 previously prepared in the square. Its appearance brought joy to 
 the hearts of the people as it was supposed to atone for all past 
 crimes except murder. A general amnesty was proclaimed except 
 for this one crime, and all malefactors might now return to their 
 villages in safety." The Mokis still produce the new-fire each 
 November. 4 
 
 Sacrifices to the gods were made by the Mayas at the sacred 
 cenote of Chichen Itza, and similar places. 6 This sacred well was 
 one of the openings to the subterranean waters of Yucatan, and 
 was about one hundred and fifty feet in diameter and sixty-five 
 feet deep from the brink to the surface of the water, with perpen 
 dicular sides. Pilgrims came here to make offerings and Landa 
 states that in time of drought they would cast live men into it as a 
 tribute to the gods, believing that though the} 7 disappeared they 
 would not die. Valuable property was also thrown in and still 
 lies with the bones at the bottom. Charnay tried to work some 
 automatic sounding machines there, but he failed to obtain satis 
 factory results. Among the Aztecs a person to be sacrificed was 
 
 1 Conquest of Mexico, vol. i., p. 126 ; see also pp. 251, 252 of this book. 
 
 - Lucien Carr, Smithsonian Report, 1891, p. 543 ; see also Payne s His 
 tory of the New World, page 330. 
 
 4 See Fewkes, "The New-Fire Ceremony at Walpi," American An 
 thropologist, N. S., vol. ii., No. i. 
 
 5 For details of cenote, etc., see Desire Charnay s Ancient Cities. 
 
Customs and Ceremonies 371 
 
 extended full length over a convex stone, and the priest with a 
 long obsidian knife made a gash in the breast through which he 
 extracted the living heart and laid it at the feet of the idol. Parts 
 of the victim were afterward served at a grand ceremonial banquet. 
 "Forty days previous to the festival of Quetzalcohuatl," says 
 Bandelier, a slave was selected, who must be in perfect health 
 and of faultless body. He was dressed in the same manner as the 
 idol, and, after having been carefully bathed, and kept in honour 
 able confinement, as an object of worship for that length of time, 
 he was sacrificed at midnight. The heart was tendered to the 
 moon, and afterwards thrown at the idol, and the body cut up, 
 cooked and publicly devoured." 1 In times of drought children 
 from six to ten years old were offered up ; they were not 
 eaten, but buried before the idol. The priests who officiated were 
 medicine-men, or shamans. Bvery tribe on the continent had 
 shamans. These individuals held a peculiar power, and among 
 tribes known to us now they still exercise it. Even among the 
 Christian Pueblos of New Mexico, the authority of the shaman 
 has not altogether waned and ancient rites are said to be still 
 enacted in secret. For some of these it is believed rattlesnakes 
 have been carefully guarded for years. "Among Indians," 
 Mooney states, 2 "the professions of medicine and religion are in 
 separable. The doctor is always a priest and the priest is always 
 a doctor. Hence to the whites in the Indian country the Indian 
 priest-doctor has come to be known as the medicine-man and 
 anything sacred, mysterious, or of wonderful power or efficacy in 
 Indian life or belief is designated as medicine, this term being 
 the nearest equivalent of the aboriginal expression in various 
 languages. To make medicine is to perform some sacred cere 
 mony, from the curing of a sick child to the consecration of the 
 Sun-dance lodge." An Iroqtiois student states, 3 that, "among 
 the Indians, the knowledge of the medicine-man and the more ex 
 pert sorceress is little above that of the body of the tribe. Their 
 success depends entirely on their own belief in being supernattir- 
 ally gifted and on the faith and fear of their followers. I do not 
 
 1 Arches ologi cat Tour, p. 204. 
 
 2 James Mooney, "The Ghost-Dance Religion," Fourteenth Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eth., p. 980. 
 
 3 Mrs. Brminnie Smith, " Myths of the Iroquois," Second Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eth., p. 68. 
 
372 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 believe that the Iroquois lives to-day who is not a believer in sor 
 cery, or who would not in the night time quail at seeing a bright 
 light the nature of which he did not understand." 
 
 The functions and powers of the shamans or medicine-men 
 have never been completely understood, but over the sick they 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. Frame Back 
 
 UTE CRADLE, FRAME OF RODS COVERED WITH BUCKSKIN 
 Carried on the back. In principle the majority of Amerind cradles are similar 
 
 carried on various incantations and administered decoctions of 
 native vegetable and animal substances. Powell defines a shaman 
 as "a person who has the power to control ghosts through magic. 
 They mortified their own flesh and the priests of Mexico would 
 pierce their tongues and draw through the wound thus formed a 
 long knotted cord, or twigs fastened together, or a cord set with 
 some animal s claws or teeth. Speaking of Mexico, Prescott says : 1 
 
 1 Conquest of Mexico, vol. i., p. 121. 
 
Customs and Ceremonies 373 
 
 "In no country, not even in ancient Egypt, were the dreams of 
 the astrologer more implicitly deferred to. On the birth of a child 
 he was instantly summoned. The time of the event was accur 
 ately ascertained, and the family hung in trembling suspense as 
 the minister of Heaven cast the horoscope of the infant and 
 unrolled the dark volume of destiny. The influence of the priest 
 was confessed by the Mexican in the first breath which he inhaled." 
 Other tribes were not behind. In some the shamans were her 
 editary, but it would seem that their selection and appointment 
 were due to various regulations existing in the secret orders and 
 also to a reputation for the possession of occult power. Some 
 writers hold that the shamans are self appointed, but this does not 
 seem to correspond with the intricacies of the Amerindian social 
 organisation. Powell adopts the Algonquin name for them, jossa- 
 keeds, and describes them as the head men of the fraternities. 
 Whatever he may do to obtain his supposed magical powers, it 
 would appear reasonable to believe that so prominent a functionary 
 as this shaman, or jossakeed, would require in the beginning to be 
 a man of some distinction, or special initiation. In making such 
 decoctions as he used the shaman boiled various plants together 
 with a stone arrow-head, or similar article. Out of twenty plants 
 used by the Cherokees, only seven are noted in the United States 
 Dispensatory. "Five plants or 25 per cent.," says Mooney, 
 " are correctly used; 12 or 60 per cent, are presumably either 
 worthless or incorrectly used, and three plants or 15 per cent, 
 are so used that it is difficult to say whether they are of 
 any benefit or not. Granting that two of these three produce 
 good results as used by the Indians, we should have 35 per 
 cent., or about one third of the whole, as the proportion actually 
 possessing medical virtues, while the remaining two thirds are 
 inert, if not positively injurious." " For a disease caused by the 
 rabbit the antidote must be a plant called rabbit s food, rab 
 bit s ear, or rabbit s tail ; for snake dreams, the plant used 
 is snake s tooth, " and so on, " an empiric development of the 
 fetich idea." 1 No sanitary precautions were taken during the 
 treatment except fasting. When the patient eats, certain kinds 
 of food are forbidden, but on the ground of some fancied connec 
 tion between the disease and the food. If squirrels are supposed 
 
 1 James Mooney, "Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees," Seventh Ann. 
 Rcpt. Bu. Eth. , p. 328. 
 
374 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 to be at the root of the trouble, the patient is prohibited from 
 eating squirrel meat. 1 
 
 The sweat bath was, and is, the great cure-all among the 
 Amerinds, except the Central and Eastern Eskimo. It was also a 
 means of religious purification. Sometimes the sweat house was 
 a large structure, but usually it was only large enough to hold one 
 or two persons in a squatting posture, and was constructed of poles 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 ESKIMO WOMAN OF POINT BARROW 
 
 CARRYING CHILD 
 Photograph by Capt. Healy, U. S. R. M. 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 APACHE WOMAN CARRYING 
 
 CHILD 
 
 Shows also moccasins and leg wrappings 
 similar to the Puebloan and Navajo 
 
 covered with skins, blankets, or earth. The patient entered and 
 those outside heated stones and passed them in to him by means 
 of sticks. Water or some decoction was then poured over the 
 
 1 " Our materia medica owes tobacco, gum copal, liquid amber, sarsapa- 
 rilla, resin of tecamaca, jalap, and huaca to the Aztecs." L. Biart. The 
 Aztecs, p. 285. 
 
Customs and Ceremonies 375 
 
 stones and the opening closed. Profuse perspiration was the re 
 sult. At the proper time, if a stream were near, the patient would 
 run out and plunge in ; otherwise cold water was poured over him. 
 This was the chief remedy for smallpox, which has made such 
 ravages in all tribes, but of course it was ineffective. The sweat 
 lodge and the sweat bath connected with it must not be con 
 founded, as is often the case, with the estufa, (or kiva). The latter 
 has no connection with the sweat bath, but is an entirely different 
 thing, the confusion arising from the Spanish term, which means 
 a hothouse, derived from the fact that the kivas are kept stiflingly 
 close and hot in winter. 
 
 Most Amerinds believe that all living things, even trees, once 
 had human shape, and " have been transformed, for punishment or 
 otherwise, into their present condition." They had no understand 
 ing of a single Great Spirit till the Europeans, often uncon 
 sciously, informed them of their own belief. 
 
 The Iroquois in many ways were the finest Amerinds of all. 
 Brinton says, " unsurpassed by any other on the continent [phys 
 ically], and I may even say by any other people in the world." l 
 " In legislation, in eloquence, in fortitude and in military sagac 
 ity they had no equals," says Morgan. 2 He also maintains that 
 they represented the highest development the Indian ever reached 
 in the hunter state." " Crimes and offences were so unfrequent 
 under their social system that the Iroquois can scarcely be said to 
 have had a criminal code." Theft was barely known, and "on 
 all occasions, and at whatever price, the Iroquois spoke the truth 
 without fear and without hesitation. 3 The Iroquois, Algonquins, 
 and other stocks carried on a considerable commerce with far- 
 distant points. " The red pipe-stone was brought to the Atlantic 
 coast from the Coteau des Prairies, and even the black slate highly 
 ornamented pipes of the Haidah on Vancouver Island have been 
 exhumed from graves of Lenape Indians." 4 The wide extent of 
 Amerindian commercial traffic has hardly been appreciated. 
 
 The religion of most of the Amerinds was zootheism that is, 
 their gods were deified men and animals. The heavenly bodies, 
 personified as men and animals, also formed a part of their galaxy. 
 
 1 D. G. Brinton, The American Race, p. 82. 
 
 2 League of the Iroquois, p. 55. 
 3 Ibid., pp. 33-333. 
 
 4 Brinton, The American Race, p. 77. 
 
76 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Their worship of these various deities, who were believed to con 
 trol each his division of human affairs and earthly phenomena, 
 was through numerous ceremonials, many of them embodying 
 their form of dancing, and called by the whites " dances," though 
 this term fails properly to describe them. Often there is very 
 
 little dancing, and even 
 that has a minor part. 
 The ceremonials take 
 place at all times and 
 seasons, many being as 
 absolutely fixed to a cer 
 tain date as our own 
 holidays or church cele 
 brations. The Kastern 
 tribes had ceremonials 
 on tapping the maple 
 trees, and others for the 
 close of the maple-sugar 
 season. There were also 
 the Corn-Planting Festi 
 val, the Strawberry Fes 
 tival, the Bean Festival, 
 and the famous Green 
 Corn Dance of the Iro- 
 quois, followed by the Harvest Dance. Some ceremonials occur in 
 their perfection only at specified intervals, as the Snake Dance of 
 the Mokis, which, while performed annually at some one of the 
 towns, is seen in its full glory only once every two } 7 ears at 
 the village of Walpi. This now famous ceremonial, in which a 
 hundred or more rattlesnakes are used alive, covers altogether a 
 period of nine days, including the search for the snakes, as well as 
 rites performed in the kiva. It is only on the last two days that 
 there are public ceremonies. Spectators who are known or have 
 a proper introduction are sometimes allowed to visit a kiva when 
 it is reserved by the order owning or controlling it ; at other times 
 a visitor is generally freely admitted. During my stay in the 
 Moki country I never was barred from any place that I desired to 
 enter ; though it may have happened that I never tried to enter at 
 a time when outsiders were forbidden. The snakes are brought 
 out of the kiva by one set of priests, or shamans, and dropped on 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. Photograph (reversed) 
 
 MOKI "SNAKE DANCE" AT WALPI 
 
 Snake priests in action 
 

 Sixth Ann. Kept., PI. V. 
 Drawings by the Central Eskimo. See page 59. 
 
 ff 
 
 t 
 
 Fourth Ann. Kept., PI. XXXVIII. 
 
 Page of the Dakota Winter-Counts, also 
 called by them " Counts Back." See 
 page 60. 
 
 Fourth Ann. Kept., PI. LXIII. 
 
 Page from Red Cloud s Census, Dakota. 
 See page 60. 
 
 IIP 
 
 Fourth Ann. Kept., PI. IV. 
 
 Ojibwa Mnemonic Record of a Mide Song. 
 See page 58. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 AMERINDIAN PICTURE-WRITING 
 
 377 
 
378 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 the ground to be picked up by another set with much ceremony. 
 At the end all the snakes are carried to the valley and liberated to 
 return through their holes to the underworld, there to communi 
 cate the desires of the people to the gods. The towns of the Mokis 
 on the East Mesa are now frequently visited by whites, but 
 Oraibi and the others are not so often approached. When I went 
 to Oraibi, in 1885, we were followed about by a band of curious 
 small boys, and the women peered at us from the roof hatchways, 
 quickly ducking out of sight if one of us happened to look their 
 way. The men declined to talk except in monosyllables, and I 
 am free to confess that it was a relief to finally mount and ride 
 away. Oraibi has never had a reputation for hospitality. From 
 
 there we went 
 to Shimopavi, 
 where our re 
 ception was 
 exactly the re 
 verse of what 
 it had been at 
 Oraibi, and I 
 shall always re 
 member with 
 pleasure the 
 frank, genial, 
 smiling men 
 who received us 
 in one of the 
 chief kivas, and 
 the alacrity 
 with which a 
 clean repast of 
 watermelon 
 and piki was 
 
 brought and placed before us. This only shows what a difference 
 in manners may exist in the divisions of one tribe, and how easy 
 it would be to denounce all the Mokis as being surly and ugly, if 
 one saw only the Oraibi branch. 
 
 A simple occurrence means to the superstitious mind of the 
 Amerind a great deal. In illustration of this I may mention that 
 two men I knew were one day at one of the Moki towns and 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. Photograph (reversed) 
 
 BEGINNING OF THE MOKI " SNAKE DANCE" AT WALPI 
 
 Antelope priests lined up 
 This scene precedes the one on page 376 
 
Customs and Ceremonies 379 
 
 carelessly entered a kiva where the preparing and blessing of certain 
 sacred water were in progress. When they had departed, a fright 
 ened rock-wren fluttered in. This was accepted as an evil omen. 
 The bird was immediately killed and some of its blood sprinkled 
 over the floor of the kiva. Then it was taken to the first house 
 the whites had entered when they arrived at the town, and more 
 blood sprinkled wherever they had stood. After this the bird s 
 body was carefully laid outside, near the door. 
 
 Thus the struggles of a dazed bird are considered by these 
 people a portentous circumstance. 
 
 The dancing of the Amerinds is everywhere much alike, and 
 it is generally performed in a circle. It has been described as a 
 heel dance, and with some tribes is apparently that because they 
 seem to strike the ground only with the heel, but it is usually a toe- 
 and-heel step, the toe first touching and then the heel being brought 
 down with more or less force. When rapidly done the separate 
 touching of the toe is hardly noticeable. The movement of the 
 circle is commonly from left to right, and during this progress va 
 rious contortions are gone through with, more or less violently ac 
 cording to the intensity of the occasion. In the remarkable Okeepa 
 ceremony of the Sioux fearful tortures were submitted to, and 
 sometimes a bison skull was dragged around by means of ropes 
 attached to skewers thrust through the bodies and limbs of the 
 performers. They were also pulled aloft in the dancing-lodge 
 by these skewers, and the pain was often so intense that the 
 devotee would faint. (See page 382.) When Catlin first described 
 this ceremonial and its ordeals it was received with doubt, but it 
 has since been seen by others and full} authenticated. It is, of 
 course, not possible to more than touch on the customs and cere 
 monies of the Amerinds in this short chapter. A large volume 
 would be required to exhibit even a quarter part of the details. 
 
 The ceremonials of the Pueblos are marked by elaborately 
 costumed katcinas, 2 but perhaps not more so than those of other 
 tribes. Those of the North-west coast are full of strange costumes 
 
 1 These ceremonials often introduce historical matters. I was surprised 
 once to hear the song change to one of our Sunday-school hymns. This 
 portion of the ceremony was describing the establishment of a Presbyterian 
 mission at Ream s Canyon years before. 
 
 2 See J. Walter Fewkes, Journal of American Ethnology, for a descrip 
 tion of some of the Moki ceremonials and other papers by the same author. 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 HORNED RATTLESNAKE, CROTALUS CERASTES 
 
 Commonly called "Sidewinder" because of its sidling motion. Inhabits desert plains and 
 valleys of Southern Arizona, California, and Nevada, and south-western Utah. One killed 
 by the author in 1875 was about three ft. long. The rattlesnake was identified with 
 religious ceremonials of most of the tribes from Ohio to Central America 
 
 380 
 
Customs and Ceremonies 381 
 
 also, and the plains tribes executed their wild scalp dance, bear 
 dance, buffalo dance, etc., in costumes that were as singular as 
 the dance itself. In the ceremony of the Mokis called Soyaita 
 or Somaikoli, I counted sixteen different katcinas with extraordi 
 nary costumes weighing them down, except one who wore nothing 
 but a round bullet-like mask and a breech-cloth. The others were 
 so loaded that it was nearly impossible to recognise in them human 
 beings. The preparations for a ceremonial occupy a week or two 
 beforehand. One evening, some time before the public perform 
 ance of the Somaikoli, as I was walking from one village to the 
 other on the East Mesa, I was about half way when I suddenly 
 became aware of a hideous yelling ahead of me, and discovered 
 the flaring of torches in the darkness. There being no rock, tree, 
 or shrub near, I was fully illumined by the glare as the torches 
 approached. Then I saw six stalwart fellows, entirely nude, ex 
 cept for the breech-cloth, though it was a chilly night in Novem 
 ber. I paused to await results, as I perceived they meant to come 
 up with me. I could not understand their object. They were 
 marching in single file. When they saw that I was not a 
 native, but the solitary white visitor to the mesa who lived at 
 Hano, they grinned and passed on without a word. What they 
 would have done with one of their people I do not know, but I 
 heard afterwards that they captured anyone they found out and 
 kept them in one of the kivas till the day of the public ceremony. 
 At any rate, I found that everybody took care to be indoors on this 
 night between certain hours. The mysteries of the different secret 
 orders are not known to outsiders, not even if members of the 
 tribe. 1 
 
 Photographs and paintings were considered "bad-medicine" 
 by most tribes, and I had no success whatever in persuading the 
 Mokis to pose for me when I was there. One who finally con 
 sented ran away when it came to the test. I was permitted to use 
 my snap-camera and to sketch buildings freely, but when it came to 
 painting persons they rebelled. They believed that the possessor 
 of a likeness held power over the person represented. 
 
 Murder in most tribes was settled by property atonement, or by 
 the assumption by the guilty one of the victim s duties, and when 
 
 1 In some of the pueblos there is a constant inter-killing going on for sup 
 posed evil practices of witchcraft (Bandelier Report, part i., p. 35), but 
 whether this has any connection with the secret orders, I do not know. 
 
jajjj 
 
 illll 
 
 382 
 
Customs and Ceremonies 
 
 383 
 
 once settled the matter could never again be reopened. No con 
 troversy was ever permitted, and to terminate it there were three 
 methods : i. When controversy arises in relation 
 to ownership, the property is usually destroyed by 
 the clan or by the tribal authorities. This is one 
 reason why property is found buried with Amer 
 inds. By thus disposing of it all controversy is 
 avoided. Or the property may be completely aban 
 doned by all concerned, as in the case mentioned 
 by Powell, where a war party of Sioux surprised 
 and killed a squad of sleeping soldiers at the first 
 volley. " Their arms, blankets, and other property 
 were untouched because the attacking party being 
 large, it could not be decided by whose bullets the 
 soldiers were slain." 2. If two persons come to 
 blows, it is, unless serious injury be done, con 
 sidered a final settlement. Appeal to authority is 
 thereby forever barred in that matter. 3. Estab 
 lishment of a day or festival once a month, usually 
 once a year, beyond which crimes do not pass. 
 Marriage is by what is called legal appointment. 
 In this way controversy over the women of a tribe 
 is largely avoided, for little is left to personal choice. 
 But kinship groups allowed to intermarry do not 
 remain stationary in numbers, hence, one set of 
 men may have many wives to choose from, another 
 few, which, says Powell, leads to modification of 
 the principle and three additional forms of marriage 
 are the result, by elopement, by capture, and by 
 duel. That is, if a pair elope and can evade their 
 pursuers till the day limiting controversy has passed, 
 they are safe from molestation. We once met an 
 interesting example of this class in theUinta Valley, 
 u. s. BU. Eth. Utah, and with our boats put the runaway s across 
 THE SACRED POLE Green River, thus obliterating their trail, though at 
 OF THE OMAHA the time we fa not SQ well un derstand the situ- 
 
 Qf men wh() haye but & Hmited dass 
 
 ^ A 
 
 to choose wives from sometimes combine to capture 
 for one of their number a wife from some other group within their 
 own tribe. A fight is often the result, but without weapons. A 
 
 Now in the Peabody ^ 
 Museum 
 
gfi 
 
 o " "--o - 
 
 o^3 o 
 6 3 ?> 
 
 384 
 
Customs and Ceremonies 
 
 385 
 
 second battle for the same woman at that time is not permitted. 1 Or 
 one man, if he feel strong enough, may deprive some other fellow 
 in his own tribe of his wife. In southern Utah, Tom came to our 
 camp one night weeping bitterly, and when I could get at his 
 statement it was to the 
 effect that someone 
 had deprived him of 
 his wife. Our men 
 were indignant and 
 wished t o proceed 
 forthwith to the Amer 
 ind camp and compel 
 the thief to restore the 
 wife to Tom, but they 
 finally decided to 
 abandon him to the 
 established customs 
 of his people. 
 
 Sometimes a woman 
 is assigned to a man 
 who already has a 
 wife, while some other 
 man has none, because 
 the group into which 
 
 he is permitted to marry is exhausted. He then challenges the 
 man who is entitled to more than one and endeavours to win 
 the woman by success in battle. On one occasion in southern 
 Nevada a white man s sympathies were so aroused by one of 
 these affairs, in which the girl was being roughly pulled about, 
 that he threw off his coat and, taking an active part in the 
 struggles, rescued her. Then he was amazed at the information 
 that the girl belonged to him and he must keep her. This 
 he declined to do and turned her over again to their tender 
 mercies. These three forms of marriage become roundabout 
 methods of personal choice. When the supply of wives is nor 
 mal the young man in some tribes goes out into the woods by 
 a certain trail, and if the girl of his choice follows him, it 
 is considered a marriage, and is celebrated with prescribed 
 
 1 For information on these and other social points see the various writings 
 of J. W. Powell. 
 
 25 
 
 GROUND PLAN OF CRUCIFORM TOMB, OAXACA 
 
386 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 ceremonies. Polygamy was practised by most tribes. Among 
 the Navajos, who buy their wives, it is very common, but there a 
 wife can depart at pleasure, and as the husband acquires no right 
 to her property, she takes it with her. 
 
 Totemism is an important custom in vogue among all the stocks 
 of the continent, and it was probably a custom the world over 
 when tribes were in a certain stage. The word totem is derived 
 from the Ojibwa, and is said to have first been introduced into 
 literature by one Long, an interpreter. Totems are of three kinds : 
 clan totems, sex totems, and individual totems. The first are the 
 most important. 1 Totemism is at the same time a religious and a 
 social system. The totem is usually an animal, as a frog, bear, 
 bat, etc. The Amerind believes that between these objects and 
 himself there is a particular bond, and he has for them the 
 most profound respect. From them he believes himself de 
 scended. Therefore he would not harm an animal that was 
 his totem. The Bear clan would not kill a bear, the Red Maize 
 clan would not eat red maize, and so on. Totemism existed 
 among the Israelites, and the objection to eating pork is sup 
 posed by some to rest on the pig having been one of their 
 totems. The Amerind also generally derived his name from 
 some animal or object, and he represented this as his individual 
 totem mark. In the totem poles of the North west coast, these 
 various representations of totems were combined and set up be 
 fore the door to indicate the relationships of the persons who 
 lived there. " 
 
 Cleanliness varies among the tribes, and is sometimes in 
 proportion to the ease or difficulty with which water can be pro 
 cured. The Mokis who live in an arid country and have to carry 
 water long distances seldom waste it in bathing or washing, 
 though I did once see an old Moki fill his mouth with water and 
 blow it out in instalments over his hands. The Omahas, according 
 to Dorsey, generally bathe twice every day in warm weather. 
 They used to help women and children to alight from horses, and 
 sometimes carried them over streams on their backs. Old men 
 and women were never abandoned by them. Some men were not 
 wanting in gallantry. Dorsey tells of a young woman who 
 
 1 The clan totem is probably an expansion of the individual totem by 
 increase. 
 
 2 See pp. 162, 164, 241, this book, for illustrations of totem poles. 
 
Fifth Ann. Kept., PI. XV. 
 
 A Navajo ll Dry " Painting made with sand in the 
 Mountain Chant Ceremony. See page 61. 
 
 Fourth Ann. Kept., PI. LII. 
 
 Page of an Oglala Roster " Big- 
 Road" and band. See page 59. 
 
 Third Ann. Report, PI. IV. 
 
 Copy of Plates 65 and 66, Vatican Codex B. 
 Each figure is a tree with a person 
 clasping the trunk. See page 72. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 See Twelfth Ann. Kept., PI. XVII. 
 
 Drawing restored from fragments of a thin copper 
 plate, in repousse work, from a mound of the 
 Etowah group, Georgia. 
 
 AMERINDIAN ART 
 
 387 
 
388 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 wished to halt at a spring. Her brother was with her. The 
 ground was muddy and she would have soiled her clothes 
 had she knelt to drink, but another man rode up at the 
 moment, and, jumping from his horse, he pulled a lot of grass, 
 placing it on the wet ground so that she could drink without 
 soiling her dress. 
 
 When he died the Amerind was disposed of in a number of dif 
 ferent ways. There were burials in pits, graves, mounds, cists, 
 
 caves, and so on ; there was 
 cremation ; there was em 
 balming ; there was aerial 
 sepulture in trees or scaf 
 folds ; there was burial be 
 neath water, or in canoes 
 that were turned adrift. The 
 Navajos leave the dead in 
 the place where they die, 
 or throw them into a cleft 
 in the rocks and pile stones 
 upon the corpse. In Ten 
 nessee graves are found 
 which were made by lining 
 a rectangular excavation 
 with slabs of stone. These 
 are ancient and resemble 
 the graves of the reindeer 
 period in France. Yarrow 
 speaks of them as being 
 almost identical. I found 
 
 graves of similar description in southern Utah near the Arizona 
 line, but in the two or three that I opened there were no bones, 
 only on the bottom a shallow layer of what appeared to be fine 
 dark earth with thin slabs upon it ; doubtless the slabs once forming 
 the top. 1 Some tribes wrapped their dead in fine furs or in grasses 
 
 1 Dr. H. C. Yarrow, " Mortuary Customs," First Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth. 
 
 The head-stones of these graves were this shape, T / and a portion 
 
 in some cases protruded above the ground when I\ /was there. 
 The ground was very sandy. The stones were natural \ / slabs, about 
 \ 2 in. thick. * * 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 MOKI EARTHEN CANTEEN, ARIZONA. 
 
Customs and Ceremonies 
 
 389 
 
 and matting ; l others buried in urns. In the North-west a living 
 slave was buried with the deceased. If the slave were not dead in 
 three days, he was strangled by another slave. In Mexico the 
 custom of burying slaves with the dead was common. 
 
 1 Stansbury, in his Report, describes graphically a "death lodge" he 
 found, but, unfortunately, space is lacking to reprint it here. 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 MODERN LACED SANDAL OF LEATHER FROM COL1MA, MEXICO 
 
U.S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 ESKIMO PIPE WITH STONE BOWL. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MYTHS, TRADITIONS, AND LEGENDS 
 
 PERSONS who are obliged to rely on memory find that mem 
 ory develops with use and becomes more reliable. The 
 Amerinds, having no written language, if we except the 
 Nahuatl and Mayan tribes, had no way of preserving their tales, 
 traditions, and legends except to remember them, and there can 
 be no doubt that everywhere on the continent memory was highly 
 developed. To assist in recalling them they had their picture- 
 writing, already described. The method is well illustrated in the 
 remarkable Walam Olum, or Red Score of the Lenape, where a 
 most poetic account of the origin of things is recorded by means 
 of a few rude pictures made by lines and dots. 1 There has been 
 some doubt as to the genuineness of this score, first recorded by 
 Rafinesque, but Brinton, who was a scholar of fine intellect and 
 calm judgment and thoroughly versed in all the intricacies of the 
 situation, accepted it as a genuine Amerind production "which 
 was repeated orally to someone indifferently conversant with the 
 Delaware language, who wrote it down to the best of his ability. 
 In its present form it can, as a whole, lay no claim either to an 
 tiquity, or to purity of linguistic form. Yet, as an authentic 
 modern version, slightly coloured by European teachings, of the 
 ancient tribal traditions, it is well worth preservation. . . . 
 The narrator was probably one of the native chiefs or priests, who 
 had spent his life in the Ohio and Indiana towns of the Lenape, 
 and who, though with some knowledge of Christian instruction, 
 1 See p. 46, this book. 
 39 
 
Monumental Records Pnotographed by M. H. Saville 
 
 TEOCALLI (TEMPLE) OF TEPOZTLAN, STATE OF MORELOS, MEXICO 
 
 This view is from the west or back and shows a stairway and also the built up mound forming the 
 foundation. The front is entered by a broad flight of about fourteen steps. The construction is 
 stone. The site, formerly approached by flights of steps, is on the summit of a high and dangerously 
 precipitous mountain. The ground plan, about 30 ft. square, is similar to the first plan on page 238, 
 with a front like the second. The outer walls are i meter, 90 centimeters thick. They were covered 
 with a smooth cement, which was painted in different colors. See page 240. 
 
 391 
 
392 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 preferred the pagan rites, legends, and myths of his ancestors. 
 Probably certain lines and passages were repeated in the archaic 
 form in which they had been handed down for generations. . . . 
 The cosmogony describes the formation of the world by the Great 
 Manito, and its subsequent despoliation by the spirit of the waters, 
 under the form of a serpent. The happy days are depicted, when 
 men lived without wars or sickness, and food was at all times 
 abundant. Evil beings of mysterious power introduced cold and 
 war and sickness and premature death. Then began strife and 
 long wanderings." 1 We can readily understand how a few 
 rude lines could recall to the Amerind mind a whole story, and 
 especially to the mind of one trained to exercise his memory in 
 such directions. It is not necessary for me to do more for the 
 Christian reader than write "Xmas," and he can from it review 
 the whole wonderful story of Christ in all its details. So it was 
 with the Amerind. Those entrusted with the preservation of the 
 legends, etc., learned them perfectly and year by year repeated 
 them on the proper occasion to their followers. Changes were 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 KWAKIUTL WOOD CARVING OF THE SISUL , NORTH-WEST COAST 
 Worn in front of the stomach. Length, 42 in. See page 168 
 
 probably sometimes made in the text of some to suit them to 
 changed conditions, but the accuracy was so great that myths and 
 legends have been found to contain archaic words which the mem 
 bers of the tribe were unable to explain, and which yielded only 
 to the expert analysis of a white linguist. 
 
 1 D. G. Brinton, The Lenapeand their Legends, pp. 158, 164. 
 
Tv/r i ^ i- i i UNIV 
 
 Myths, 1 raditions, and l^egends 
 
 ^5CALJ 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 With the Amerind a group of myths, traditions, and legends 
 developed along with each particular stock. Each language had 
 its own accumulation of these tales, etc., relating to animals, to 
 natural forces personified, and sometimes to real personages. 
 Savage races worship animal gods and natural objects personified 
 as animals. 1 In the middle state called barbarism the religion 
 becomes a worship of the phenomena of nature, pure and simple, 
 frequently personified as animals or beings, as in the case of the 
 thunder and lightning generally attributed by the Amerinds to the 
 mysterious " thunder-bird," which is also believed by some to be 
 a great being who takes on the form of a bird. In civilisation the 
 worship of one God takes the place of all the others, while the 
 myths and legends of earlier days survive in mythological litera 
 ture and in unconscious thoughts and acts of individuals. Look 
 ing at the moon over the right shoulder for luck, objections to a 
 certain number, the belief that one stone is lucky and another un 
 lucky, are all remnants of the era of zootheism, physitheism, and 
 other early beliefs. 2 Races cannot shake off earlier beliefs entirely, 
 but continue them under changed forms. Thus we celebrate many 
 pagan rites in our holidays, and pay a tribute to the Druid priests 
 every time we suspend a branch of mistletoe in our parlours in the 
 season when the sun turns his course towards the vernal equinox. 
 
 To primitive man night was a mysterious phenomenon, and 
 dawn often became personified to him as a bright and fair deliv 
 erer, a beneficent being who comes out of the east bringing a train 
 of blessings. Many myths recounting the coming of a hero, 
 prophet, and teacher among the Amerinds and other races are ac 
 counted for as being dawn myths, but there is danger of over 
 working this convenient hypothesis. 
 
 In our literature many Amerind myths and legends have be 
 come firmly implanted, and they are now as much a part of it as 
 the tale of Orpheus, or of Theseus, or of Hercules. Some of them 
 have been beautified by the diction of our poets, and Longfellow s 
 rendering of Hiawatha is admired the world over. This is good 
 literature, but it is not good ethnology, because in it an Iroquois 
 
 1 " The spirit of any plant, any star, or other personage in creation may 
 become a man s attendant. In our popular phraseology this is called his 
 medicine." Jeremiah Curtin, Creation Myths, p. 29. 
 
 2 See "The Lessons of Folklore," J. W. Powell, American Anthropolo 
 gist, vol. ii., No. I, N. S., January, 1900. 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 RUSHING EAGLE, 1872 
 Second chief of the Mandans and son of Four Bears, Catlin s great friend 
 
 394 
 
Myths, Traditions, and Legends 
 
 395 
 
 hero-god is placed in a setting of Algonquin legends, but this was 
 not Longfellow s mistake, but Schoolcraft s, on whose work Long 
 fellow based his poem. Jeremiah Curtin says: "Schoolcraft, 
 with his amazing propensity to make mistakes, with his remark 
 able genius for missing the truth and confusing everything with 
 which he came in contact, gave the name 
 Hiawatha to his patchwork. ... In 
 the face of all this Schoolcraft makes 
 Hiawatha, who is peculiarly Iroquois, the 
 leading personage in his Algonkin con 
 glomerate : Hiawatha being an Iroquois 
 character of Central New York (he is con 
 nected more particularly with the region 
 about Schenectady), while the actions to 
 which Schoolcraft relates him pertain to 
 the Algonkin Chippewas near Lake Supe 
 rior. It is as if Europeans at some future 
 age were to have placed before them a great 
 epic narrative of French heroic adventure 
 in which Prince Bismarck would appear as 
 the chief and central Gallic figure in the 
 glory and triumph of France." 1 
 
 But Hiawatha, nevertheless, is incorporated in our language 
 and our literature, and altogether the conquered race, as was in 
 evitable, has left an impress on our character, on our language, 
 on our geography, and on our literature which can never, even if 
 desired, be effaced. The mark of our contact with the red man is 
 upon us indelibly and forever. George Bancroft is not quite right 
 when he says, "The memorials of their former existence are 
 found only in the names of the rivers and the mountains." 
 These memorials have not only permeated our poetry and litera 
 ture generally, but they are perpetuated in our daily food, and 
 every mention of " succotash," of " mush," of " chocolate," is a 
 tribute to their existence, while the fragrance of the "tobacco" 
 we smoke is incense to their memory. Mrs. Sigourney touched 
 this subject prettily in the little poem entitled Indian Names : 
 
 " Ye say they all have passed away, 
 That noble race and brave, 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 FINE CLOTH PRESERVED 
 BY COPPER BEADS 
 
 Jeremiah Curtin, Creation Myths of Primitive America, p. 499. 
 
396 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 That their light canoes have vanished 
 
 From off the crested wave ; 
 That mid the forests where they roamed 
 
 There rings no hunter s shout, 
 But their name is on your waters, 
 
 Ye may not wash it out. 
 
 "Ye say their cone-like cabins 
 
 That clustered o er the vale 
 Have fled away like withered leaves 
 
 Before the autumn gale. 
 But their memory liveth on your hills, 
 
 Their baptism on your shore ; 
 Your everlasting rivers speak 
 
 Their dialect of yore." 
 
 And she might have added that their gods have seated them 
 selves with those of the Greeks in our libraries ; that Michabo, 
 Tlaloc, Quetzalcohuatl, and others are now companions of Jupiter 
 and Neptune ; in short, that their literature, which relied on oral 
 transmission, has to a large extent been crystallised in our printed 
 pages. 
 
 The Amerind, not fortified by our modern knowledge and 
 philosophy, regarded the outer world in a far different way from 
 what we do. To him it was not a place where a gold mine might 
 be found, or good grazing or tillable soil, but he looked upon the 
 far distance as the home of magical beings. Did the wind blow ? 
 It was the breath of some monster dwelling in a cave in the far 
 west, or it was the beating of the wings of giant birds living at 
 the four quarters of the compass. It was not to the sky alone that 
 he looked for the abode of his gods ; they came to him from every 
 direction, even from the bowels of the earth. We know what the 
 earth contains and we grope for the unknown. The Amerind did 
 not know what the earth contains ; it was still to him the abode of 
 monsters and ghosts. 
 
 There is in some respects so great a similarity between the 
 myths of the New World and those of the Old, that it was at first 
 assumed that there must have been early communication with 
 Europe, but more careful analysis has shown that this is but an 
 other evidence of what may be called the parallelism of human de 
 velopment. Even where the similarity is greatest there is nothing 
 to prove that the myths did not originate independently, and they 
 
Myths, Traditions, and Legends 397 
 
 are merely the results of similar thoughts, in similar stages of 
 ignorance, about the sun, the sky, and natural forces. 
 
 The Popol Vuh, the great collection of Quiche myths, presents 
 Gukumatz as one of the four principal gods who created the 
 world. Gukumatz means shining or brilliant snake, and hence 
 seems to be the same character as that known to the Nahuatls, or 
 Aztecs, as Quetzalcohuatl, whose name also means bright or shin 
 ing snake. But among the Aztecs Quetzalcohuatl is represented 
 as a man, while Gukumatz is purely a god. Quetzalcohuatl was 
 the third of the four Mexican or Aztec gods, and to him is 
 ascribed all the wisdom which came to the Aztecs. He appears 
 under two forms, as a god and as an historical personage. He 
 has been frequently identified with the dawn, but there seems to 
 be good reason for believing that he was a real character, who be 
 came deified as his good deeds passed down to successive genera 
 tions. Such prophets and teachers rise up in all times, in all 
 ages, by the wayside of tribal or national development, like 
 some rare and favoured tree of the forest which out-tops all the 
 others. A divine origin may be claimed for these teachers and 
 prophets, but generally they are only men endowed with an ex 
 tremely fine moral sense and with a perception and knowledge 
 beyond their time. Among the Tzendals of Chiapas, the tradition 
 of Votan, who is said to have been the first founder of that tribe, 
 bears great resemblance to Quetzalcohuatl. After an admirable 
 discussion of the subject of the character and origin of Quetzalco 
 huatl, Bandelier sifts the matter down to this: that he was " a 
 prominent gifted Indian leader, who certainly preceded the coming 
 of those Nahuatl tribes that subsequently formed the valley confed 
 eracy, as well as that of the later tribe of Tlaxcallan. The claim to 
 his origin accordingly rests between the so-called Toltecs on one side 
 and the Olmeca and Xicalanca on the other." 2 Brinton believed 
 that Quetzalcohuatl was a pure personification of the dawn myth, 3 
 but there is too much testimony on the opposite side to permit the 
 acceptance of this opinion as final. It must not be forgotten that 
 there were very good, extremely good, almost saintly, men, and 
 
 1 Bandelier, Archceological Tour, p. 180. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 193. See p. 170 et seq. for his whole discussion of Quetzalco 
 huatl. See also the "Book of Quetzalcohuatl." Payne, History of the 
 New World, II., p. 435 et seq. 
 
 3 American Hero Myths, p. 64 et seq. 
 
Potsherd 
 
 Clay Cast 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 Potsherd Clay Cast 
 
 ANCIENT FABRIC-MARKED POTSHERDS, WITH CLAY CASTS BY HOLMES 
 See page 108 
 
 393 
 
Myths, Traditions, and Legends 399 
 
 women, too, among the Amerinds. The historical Mexican 
 tribes were preceded by other tribes, some of which had appar 
 ently reached a higher state of culture than the Aztecs, and Quet- 
 zalcohuatl possibly came from one of them as a teacher to the 
 newer and less cultivated people ; newer in the sense of having 
 come into that region from some distance off. There is nothing 
 preposterous in supposing that there were teachers and moralists 
 in the early days of this continent. The character of a high- 
 thinking teacher is not incompatible with some of the tribes that 
 have lived and died on North-American soil. As stated pre 
 viously, never were all the tribes of the continent in one culture 
 condition ; there were always tribes that could teach something to 
 other tribes, and undoubtedly philanthropic individuals sometimes 
 attempted the role of missionaries, just as they do in other races 
 to-day. In fact, the recent "Resurrection Dance" or "Ghost 
 Dance" had its prophet who preached to the natives that " the 
 earth was to be all good hereafter ; that we must be friends with 
 one another. Fighting, he declared, was bad and all must keep 
 from it." " There is no doubt that his religious teachings rest on 
 a well-ordained religious system, and in spite of the numerous 
 false reports that are spread about him, he does not claim to 
 be either God or Jesus Christ, the Messiah, or any divine, superhu 
 man being whatever. I am the annunciator of God s message 
 from the spiritual world and a prophet for the Indian people, is 
 the way he defines the scope of his work among men. 
 Thus he considers himself a messenger of God appointed in a 
 dream, and has on that account compared himself to St. John the 
 Baptist." 1 This man is a full-blood, and it is evident that such an 
 inspiration might have seized a man of a similar temperament at 
 any period of Amerind history, and given rise finally to legends and 
 worship that would incorrectly be ascribed to the myth of the dawn. 
 
 Quetzalcohuatl at length departed with a promise to return, and 
 it was the belief that he would return that caused Montezuma to 
 at first mistake the bearded Spaniards for his emissaries. Quet 
 zalcohuatl also wore a beard. 
 
 Michabo, the Algonquin counterpart of Quetzalcohuatl, was 
 considered to be the ancestor of the whole tribe, the founder of 
 their ceremonies, the inventor of picture-writing, the ruler of the 
 
 1 A. S. Gatschet, " An Indian Visit to Jack Wilson, the Payute Messiah," 
 Journal of American folk-Lore. 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. George Catlin, 1835 
 
 EHTOHKPAHSHEPEESHAH, THE BLACK MOCCASIN, CHIEF OF THE MINATAREES 
 
 OVER 100 YEARS OLD 
 
 40O 
 
Myths, Traditions, and Legends 401 
 
 weather, the creator and preserver of earth and heaven. " From 
 a grain of sand," says Brinton, "brought from the bottom of the 
 primeval ocean he fashioned the habitable land and set it floating 
 on the waters till it grew to such a size that a strong young wolf, 
 running constantly, died of old age ere he reached its limits." 
 
 Among the Iroquois the hero-god was called loskeha, and he 
 possessed many of the qualities of Michabo and Quetzalcohuatl, 
 etc., though in his case as well as that of Michabo there seems to 
 be no historical evidence of existence, as there is with Quetzalcoh 
 uatl, and therefore they may be, as claimed by Brinton and others, 
 merely dawn myths. It is possible that they may be compounds 
 of a dawn myth and one or more actual personages. 
 
 The hero-god of the Mayas was Itzamna, and he was a bene 
 ficent personage like the others. Like Cadmus, he invented let 
 ters, and he also devised their calendar. He is spoken of as an 
 historical personage and " is intimately associated with the noble 
 edifices of Itzamal, which he laid out and constructed, and over 
 which he ruled, enacting wise laws and extending the power and 
 happiness of his people for an indefinite period." Brinton iden 
 tifies him with the dawn myth, but here again it is not conclusive. 
 It seems quite as probable that he was a real person, upon whose 
 history certain myths have been engrafted. 
 
 In putting the Amerind stories into other languages, embel 
 lishments and variations have often been introduced, or the 
 translators have been deceived by interpreters or by the Amerinds 
 themselves, while sometimes both causes have operated to colour or 
 to alter the tales. Schoolcraft has generally been regarded as a 
 faithful recorder, but in some instances he has gone considerably 
 astray. In his time the Amerinds were not so well understood, 
 nor were the} 7 , in all their various stocks, so accessible as now. 
 
 Formerly the European was prepared to find in the Amerind 
 rites evidences of the Lost Tribes of Israel, of the Chinese, or some 
 other extraordinary or romantic idea. He was not content to 
 take things as they were. Marquette on arriving at Green Bay 
 was delighted with what he believed to be an evidence of Christ 
 ianity, a large cross set up in the middle of the village, adorned 
 with skins, bows, etc., which the people were offering to their gods. 
 It was only one of the symbols of the Mide society, and was in use 
 long before the Discovery. In the same way Coronado found 
 
 1 American Hero Myths, p. 147. 
 
 26 
 
Photographed by M. H. Saville 
 
 LACANDON (MAYAN) AMERIND FROM CHOCOLHAO, YUCATAN 
 
 402 
 
Myths, Traditions, and Legends 403 
 
 crosses in New Mexico, and there were also in Yucatan the tablets 
 of the cross referred to in a previous chapter. The early Span 
 iards turned loose their own myths in the New World and then 
 started in pursuit of them. Columbus himself was the first to float 
 the Amazon myth to these shores, for in a letter to Rafael Sanchez 
 he speaks of an island inhabited solely by women, and the Span 
 iards had a long and fruitless chase after it. 1 Thus they also pur 
 sued the myth of the Seven Cities, El Dorado, and similar tales. 
 El Dorado, or, " The Gilded Man," really existed in a certain cere 
 mony in Peru, where a man was covered with gold dust, but 
 when the Spaniards had taken all the gold from these people they 
 went on hunting for Kl Dorado just the same, though they never 
 found him again. 
 
 Certain resemblances between the myths of the Amerinds and 
 those of the Israelites increased the belief that the American race 
 is the lyost Tribes. The Mormons specially hold to this opinion. 
 But there is positively no ground for the belief. The peculiar in 
 terest, however, which attaches to a comparison of Amerind and 
 Israelite myths lies in the fact that they resemble each other, not 
 only generically, but specifically. They are alike in their details. 
 Mallery has given much attention to this subject, and he says that 
 "an Ojibway tradition tells the adventures of eight, ten, and some 
 times twelve brothers, the youngest of whom is the wisest and the 
 most beloved of their father, and especially favoured by the high 
 powers. He delivers his brothers from many difficulties which 
 were brought about by their folly and disobedience. Particularly 
 he supplies them with corn. . . . The Chahta have an elab 
 orate story of their migrations, in which they were guided by a 
 pole leaning in the direction which they should take, and remain 
 ing vertical at each place where they should encamp. A still 
 closer resemblance to the guidance of the Israelites in the desert by 
 a pillar of fire is found in the legendary migrations of the Tusayan 
 (Mokis),when indication was made by the movement and the halting 
 of a star. The Pai Utes were sustained in a great march through 
 the desert by water that continually filled the magic cup given to 
 the Sokus Waiunats in a dream until all were satisfied ; and a 
 similarly miraculous supply of food to the starving multitude is 
 reported by the same people. In the genesis myth of the Tusayan, 
 
 Payne accepts the Amazon stories as true. History of the New 
 World, vol. ii., p. n. 
 
404 
 
Myths, Traditions, and Legends 405 
 
 the culture hero was enabled to pass dry-shod through lakes and 
 rivers by throwing a staff upon the waters, which were at once 
 divided as by walls. . . . Mr. W. W. Warren, in his -History of 
 the Ojibway Nation, tells that he sometimes translated parts of 
 Bible history to the old Ojibway men, and their expression invari 
 ably was, The book must be true, for our ancestors have told 
 us similar stories generation after generation since the earth was 
 new. There is also a strong resemblance between many of the 
 Amerind myths and stories, and those of the negro, as anyone may 
 see who will compare them with Harris s delightful Uncle Remus. 
 
 All races have malignant sprites that haunt rocks and watering 
 places, and the Amerind was no exception. The Uinkarets of 
 Arizona declared that a certain water-pocket where we camped was 
 a favourite resort of the Woonupits, a little elf that is full of mis 
 chief, and Chuar one night insisted that he heard one whistling in 
 the forest. He fired a shot out into the darkness to drive it 
 away. He did this with great solemnity and deliberation, and 
 there was no question as to his faith in the belief. The same lit 
 tle elf crops out in the Moki country in the form of the Kwokwuli, 
 a malignant sprite lurking in out-of-the-way places. He is about 
 knee-high and conceals himself behind a rock or bush, like the 
 Breton Kerrigans inhabiting the Dolmens, and when a Moki ap 
 pears he calls out in a shrill falsetto voice, Kwo-kwul-i-nl-i. If 
 the hearer gives no heed to the cry he may pass by in safety, but 
 should he willingly or unwillingly express any notice he must ap 
 proach the elf, who immediately climbs on his back and holds fast 
 round his neck Sindbad s Old-Man-of-the-Sea over again. The 
 elf has only rudimentary legs and no wings, and this is his method 
 of journeying from place to place. 
 
 The Amerinds of the straits of Fuca have distinct traditions of 
 the Eskimo as a race of dwarfs, who live in the " always dark 
 country," on the ice, dive and catch whales with their hands, and 
 produce the aurora by boiling out the blubber, the fires reflecting 
 on the sky. The Iroquois had legends of great giants, as also had 
 other tribes, which were due probably to the same cause as the 
 dwarf Eskimo myths : ignorance of the outside world. These 
 were stone giants, and they inhabited the west. Once upon a time 
 they started to come and destroy the Senecas, and a war party of 
 the latter proceeded to the encounter. Before the battle came off 
 a mighty wind came out of the west and swept all the giants into 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 COSTUME WORN IN THE KWAKIUTL FESTIVALS CALLED LAOLAXA, 
 
 NORTH-WEST COAST 
 
 406 
 
Myths, Traditions, and Legends 407 
 
 a vast abyss from which they could not escape, and because of 
 this friendly act the West Wind became one of the Seneca gods, 
 and was revered ever after. And the Eskimo, while themselves 
 furnishing the material for more southerly tribes to build myths 
 on, have their own tales of a tribe called Ardnainiq, living in the 
 extreme North-west. The men of this people are small as children, 
 but entirely covered with hair. They are carried about in the 
 hoods of their wives like babies, the wives being of normal size. 
 They have also stories of a race of women. The Iroquois believed 
 that there was a strange creature consisting simply of a head with 
 large eyes and long hair, called " Great Head." When he saw 
 any live thing he growled, * I see thee, I see thee, thou shalt 
 die." They also had their race of dwarfs with wonderful powers, 
 who carved the cliffs and caves and could destroy monster animals. 
 
 The coyote, the bear, the sun, and all the animals are endowed 
 with speech and great cunning, the coyote especially so among 
 some of the Western tribes, and are conceived as possessing human 
 attributes, like the Brer Rabbit" and other animals whose 
 prowess is related by Uncle Remus. But the Kskimo, according 
 to A. L. Kroeber, have comparatively few animal stories. Ex 
 amples of these animal stories may be found in the reports of the 
 U. S. Bureau of Ethnology and other publications. Lack of 
 space prevents me from introducing any here. 
 
 The slightest misunderstood noise is sufficient to rouse the 
 Amerind imagination, of which I had an illustration in Arizona. 
 I arrived at an out-of-the-way mine one night with two Amer 
 ind guides. It was winter and a stone cabin was placed at my 
 disposal, to which I sent the natives while my white compan 
 ions and I visited the men in charge. The natives presently 
 came in, saying there was something wrong at the cabin, and they 
 would not stay in it or even near it. When we investigated we 
 discovered that the w r hole trouble arose from the ticking of a small 
 clock, which we forthwith stopped ; but nevertheless they would 
 not remain there alone. 
 
 Flood stories are numerous with all tribes, and whether they 
 arose in local inundations or in some vast and general flood can 
 not now be determined. If in the latter, it would be melting ice 
 of the glacial period. A fabulous being in Eskimo mythology is 
 Kalopaling, who lives in the sea. His bod}^ is like that of a human 
 being and he wears clothing made out of eider ducks skins. His 
 
408 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 jacket has an enormous hood, into which he thrusts any boatman 
 that may be drowned. He cannot speak, but merely cry, " Be 1 
 be ! be ! be ! " An Eskimo flood tale relates how the ocean long ago 
 rose till it covered the whole land, even to the tops of the mountains, 
 till the ice drifted over them. When the flood subsided the ice 
 stranded and has ever since formed a cap on their summits. 
 
 The keepers of the mythological tales were the shamans, and 
 they are the real powers, generally, in a tribe. Had Cortes under 
 stood this point he would have seized, not the war-chief, Monte- 
 zuma, but one of the shamans, who would have been more valuable 
 as a hostage. Many of the shamans are believed to be able to pass 
 through fire unharmed, and to handle it with impunity ; to be able 
 to change themselves into coyotes, etc., and then return to their 
 normal shape, all at their own pleasure. 
 
 A legend of Montezuma s coming has been attributed to the 
 Pueblos of New Mexico, but this is an error, for they knew no 
 thing about Montezuma till the whites came into the country. 
 There are a great many legends concerning the occupation of this 
 or that place, and one of these, the legend of the former occupa 
 tion of the Mesa Encantada, or, " Enchanted Mesa," New Mexico, 
 has recently caused a lively discussion between two distinguished 
 ethnologists, as to whether some Puebloans did or did not once 
 live on top of the mesa as related, Both succeeded in reaching the 
 top. One found no evidence of any continued occupation of the 
 mesa top ; the other found what he accepted as sufficient evidence of 
 the truth of the legend that Pueblos had once lived there and had 
 been cut off from the world below and destroyed by a fearful storm. 
 
 Large portions of the Maya chronicles relate the predictions of 
 the astrologers, seers, or prophets, and after the habit of the class 
 they foretold all manner of evil, but strangely enough they seem 
 to have foretold the arrival of the Spaniards, for they said that 
 white and bearded strangers would come and control the land and 
 alter the prevailing religion. What was it that instilled them 
 with this faith or fear? Was it coincidence, or was it what is 
 now termed telepathy ? Whatever it was, the terrible fulfilment 
 came upon their race like a cyclone ; and when one more century 
 has passed away the Amerind race will be more truly even than 
 now, the North- Americans of Yesterday. 1 
 
 1 For some Amerind legends delightfully related, see Pawnee Lodge 
 Tales, and other books, by George Bird Grinnell. 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 ESKIMO MASK OF WOOD, PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND, ALASKA 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 ORGANISATION AND GOVERNMENT 
 
 TRIBES often had a definite organisation and a regular gov 
 ernment, and each held sway over a territory with fixed 
 boundaries. When the limits were not placed at a river, 
 lake, or mountain range they were marked by certain trees or 
 stones, or other natural features along the trails. When at peace, 
 those who entered another domain were considered visitors, and 
 they were expected to be friendly with all friends of the occupants 
 of the region. "Both the Kuchins and the Eskimos are very 
 jealous," says H. H. Bancroft, "regarding their boundaries." 
 
 When I was once coming out of the Shevwits country, my 
 Uinkarets guide exclaimed as we passed a certain bowlder near the 
 trail, "Now we are out of the Shevwits land." Beyond that 
 point the Shevwits would not venture except in a friendly way, 
 so long as they were friendly with the owners of the land. I re 
 joiced in this fact at the time because the Shevwits had not been 
 entirely agreeable, and I was glad to pass the point where I was 
 certain they would not bother us. We were now in the country 
 of the Santa Clara tribe. 
 
 1 Native Races, vol. i., p. 129. 
 410 
 
Organisation and Government 411 
 
 The Iroquois had the habit of occupying both banks of a river 
 or lake, hence they did not utilise these as boundaries, but ran 
 straight lines, marked here and there by some well-known object. 
 "On the boundary line between the Onondagas and Orieidas," 
 says Morgan, 1 " the most prominent point was the Deep Spring 
 (Deosongwa) near Manlius, in the county of Onondaga. This 
 spring not only marked the limital line between them, but it was 
 a well-known stopping-place on the great central trail or highway 
 of the Iroquois. . . . From Deep Spring the line ran due 
 south into Pennsylvania, crossing the Susquehanna near its con 
 fluence with the Chenango. North of this spring the line was 
 deflected to the west, leaving in the Oneida territory the whole 
 circuit of the lake. Crossing the She-u-ka or Oneida outlet, a few 
 miles below the lake, the line inclined again to the east, until it 
 reached the meridian of the Deep Spring. From thence it ran 
 due north, crossing Black River, at the site of Watertown, and 
 the St. Lawrence to the eastward of the Thousand Islands. 
 
 This line separated territories belonging to two tribes of the 
 celebrated league, and was not a boundary between hostile or dif 
 ferent tribes. The Iroquois were exact about their internal 
 boundary lines, because it served to keep each member of the con 
 federacy distinct and independent, and enabled the idea of home 
 rule to be properly carried out. They always knew just whose 
 ground they were on, just as we know to-da}^ which county or 
 State we are in. It was another mark of the wisdom with which 
 the confederacy was planned. 
 
 When the whites came to these shores and took possession 
 right and left of the soil, they immediately stirred up the hostility 
 of the owners, who naturally desired to be considered in the matter. 
 Penn did consider them, and he had no trouble ; and I have no 
 doubt much of the fighting and enmity which followed our com 
 ing might have been avoided if Europeans had more fully recog 
 nised the native rights and had paid a fair equivalent for what 
 they wanted. But there was nothing to compel this attention to 
 the moral side, and justice must have force to bind it ; besides, 
 owing to the large influx of whites, the Amerinds were inevitably 
 driven back. The English in a measure finally recognised the 
 Iroquois rights and then afterwards turned this to good account 
 by claiming sovereignty over the territory on the ground that the 
 1 League of the Iroquois, p. 43. 
 
412 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Iroquois were British subjects. The Navajos recognise the San 
 Juan River as their northern limit and the Southern Utes corre 
 spondingly accepted it as their southern limit. "The claims of 
 the Susquehannocks extended down the Chesapeake Bay on the 
 east shore, as far as the Choptank River and on the west shore as 
 far as the Patuxent. In 1654 they ceded to the government of 
 Maryland their southern territory to these boundaries." Thus 
 it is proved that Maryland recognised their ownership. These 
 examples are enough to show that the territorial rights of each 
 tribe were definitely understood, just as nations to-day have estab 
 lished limits. When the settlements of our people finally crowded 
 tribes back upon each other s domain, a great deal of confusion 
 and dispute arose as to ownership, and when the government be 
 gan to pay for lands it was often necessary to pay for the same 
 tract several times, owing to the conflicting claims. 
 
 Scattered over the territory claimed or held by a tribe were the 
 houses and villages of the tribe or the sub-tribes. Powell states 
 that " every tribe lived in a village, and every village constituted 
 a distinct tribe." But the village was often spread over a wide 
 region. Speaking of this, Adair says : " A stranger might be in 
 the middle of one of their populous, extensive towns without seeing 
 half a dozen houses in the direct course of his path." 2 But this 
 was only in the interior of the country of a tribe. Along the front 
 ier the towns would be more compactly arranged, in order that 
 the people might easily be called to defend them. The villages 
 were usually permanent, though they were frequently, some annu 
 ally, abandoned temporarily at certain seasons for the pursuit of 
 game or for some other good reason, all the people coming to 
 gether again as the cold weather approached. The Navajos often 
 have a winter home in the lower, sheltered lands of their territory, 
 while in summer they proceed to the higher levels where the win 
 ter snows are deep and the summer grass is high. Each Amerind 
 village always had at least one assembly place for which they 
 had their special names, but the general term that is now 
 often used by ethnologists is that of kiva* borrowed from the 
 Mokis, because the Moki kiva is a representative of the general as 
 sembly hall and council-chamber, or lodge. The kiva, besides 
 
 1 Brinton, The Lenape, p. 15. 
 
 " History of the American Indians, p. 282. 
 
 3 See Mactnillan s Dictionary of Architecture ; pronounced kee-vah. 
 
Photographed by J. K. Millers, U. S. Geological Survey 
 
 PLENTY-HORSES, A CHEYENNE 
 
 413 
 
414 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 being used for social purposes, as a lounging-place and a working- 
 place for the men, is also used for religious functions. Those 
 structures, therefore, which crowned the mounds of the United 
 States and Mexico, and are usually designated as "temples," 
 were possibly more of the nature of kivas, a temple in our 
 usage being a structure devoted solely to worship, whereas many 
 Amerind buildings of this class were used for various purposes. 
 Often there were several, depending on the size of the tribe. The 
 tribe was organised on the basis of the gens or the clan, and each 
 gens or clan might have its own kiva. They might also belong 
 to some of the secret orders, so that we may enumerate three 
 kinds : the tribal, or chief kiva, the kiva belonging to the gens or 
 clan, and the kiva belonging to the phratry, or secret society. The 
 gens and the clan were groups of blood relations, or, as put by 
 Powell, "an organised body of consanguineal kindred." l The 
 members of a gens often lived in one house or in a group of 
 houses ; for example, among the Iroquois in the long-house, 2 
 with its row of camp-fires, while in some other tribes each family 
 might have its own house or tent, but they would then generally 
 pitch or build it contiguous to the other habitations of their gens. 
 It was this principle, in vogue in almost all the tribes of America, 
 which directed the character of most of the Amerind structures. 
 Everybody in a tribe belonged to a gens or clan, otherwise he 
 could not be in the tribe. The complete organisation of the tribe 
 then was : a group of families forming a gens or clan, two gentes 
 being represented in each family ; the " father must belong to one 
 gens and the mother and her children to another," descent being 
 commonly in the female line, and marriage within a gens being 
 forbidden ; a group of gentes formed the phratry, and a group of 
 phratries formed the tribe, while a group of tribes formed the con 
 federacy, probably the highest form of government the Amer 
 inds reached. The phratry as an organisation was often absent, 
 and the tribe was then composed of the gentes without any further 
 grouping. Powell seems to use "phratry" in a different sense 
 from Morgan and some other writers. Morgan described a 
 phratry as a group of gentes, whereas Powell defines it as simply 
 a brotherhood or society. Each gens governed itself so far as its 
 internal affairs were concerned ; that is, it had home rule, just as 
 
 1 First Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 59. 
 
 2 See Macnrillan s Dictionary of Architecture. 
 
II 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 NORTH-WEST COAST BASKETRY HATS 
 
 Made of grass and spruce roots 
 
 A. Parasol-shaped hat with totemic design on top and painted in solid colour on remainder of outside sur 
 
 face. Tlinkit 
 
 B. Has wooden appendages representing the beak of the raven. Tlinkit 
 
 C. Cedar bark hat. G shows method of plaiting it 
 
 E. Top view of D, showing totemic design of hooyeh, the raven. Haida 
 H. Is method of weaving the top, F of the bottom part of D 
 
 See also figures on pp. 146, 160 
 
 415 
 
416 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 we have it to-day in our towns, counties, etc. It sent delegates 
 to the council of the tribe to represent it, and it elected its own 
 officers. There was sometimes no tribal or head chief. I never 
 could learn of any among the Navajos, and the Iroquois had none. 
 When, as was frequent, there was a sachem, or tribal chief, he was 
 chosen or elected by the chiefs of the various clans or gentes 
 forming the council, but in some tribes he inherited the office, or 
 at least the right to hold it. I understood this to be the case 
 among the Kaivavits Utes of southern Utah. A gens had the 
 right to take into its ranks any alien it chose to. Such a person 
 was then a member of that gens and partook of all the benefits or 
 disadvantages, as the case might be. He was a son or brother or 
 husband, or the corresponding relationships if a woman, and on all 
 occasions was treated as if he had been born into the gens or clan 
 instead of adopted into it. He was therefore eligible for all offices 
 in the tribe, and white men in this way sometimes became chiefs. 
 Beckwourth, 1 who, however, was really supposed by a Crow 
 woman to be her long-lost son, became head chief of the Crows, 
 and held the office with distinction for a number of years. He 
 began by being fifth councillor. In the Crow nation there are 
 six councillors, and by them the nation is ruled. There are also 
 two head chiefs, who sit with the council whenever it is in session. 
 The office of first councillor is the highest in the nation next to 
 the head chiefs, whose authority is equal. If in any of these divi 
 sions, when a matter is brought to the vote, the suffrages are 
 equal, one of the old pipemen is summoned before the council and 
 the subject under discussion is stated to him, with the substance 
 of the arguments advanced on both sides ; after hearing this he 
 gives his casting vote, and the question is finally settled." 2 
 
 George Bancroft says, " There have been chiefs who could not 
 tell when, where, or how they obtained power. . . . Opinion could 
 crowd a civil chief into retirement, and could dictate his succes 
 sor." Opinion was a most potent factor in all tribes, and this 
 would be largely directed by those having popularity and power. 
 Officers, in fact all persons, become extremely well known in the 
 
 1 Parkman mentions Beckwourth in the Oregon Trail, p. 124, as ( a 
 mongrel of French, American, and Indian blood. . . . He is a ruffian 
 of the worst stamp, bloody and treacherous, without honour or honesty "; 
 but other writers seem to give him a better character. 
 
 2 Beckwourth, Life and Adventures, first ed., pp. 227, 228. 
 
D 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 c 
 
 F 
 
 NORTH-WEST COAST MORTUARY AND COMMEMORATIVE COLUMNS 
 
 A. Kaigani. Contains a box holding ashes of the dead 
 
 B. Kaigani. Compartment boarded up contains the remains in a box 
 
 C. Kaigani. Supported box contains the dead 
 
 D. Different form of C 
 
 E. Haida. Commemorative column put in front of the house of deceased, the body being placed 
 
 at a distance 
 
 F. Haida. Commemorative column same as last but with two posts 
 
 417 
 
4i 8 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 small community of an Amerind tribe. Every peculiarity of tem 
 perament was understood, and the individual was respected or 
 despised according to his predominating characteristics. Those 
 who were bold and fierce and full of strategy were made war- 
 chiefs, while those who possessed judgment and decision were 
 made civil chiefs or governors. In many tribes the civil and the 
 military branches of government are separate and distinct. Cert 
 ain chieftains were the peace chiefs. "They could neither go to 
 war themselves, nor send nor receive the war belt the ominous 
 string of dark wampum, which indicated that the tempest of strife 
 was to be let loose. Their proper badge was the wampum belt, 
 with a diamond-shaped figure in the centre, worked in white 
 beads, which was the symbol of the peaceful council fire, and was 
 called by that name. War was declared by the people at the in 
 stigation of the war-captains, valorous braves, of any birth or 
 family, who had distinguished themselves by personal prowess, 
 and especially by good success in forays against the enemy. Nor 
 did the authority of the chiefs extend to any infringement on the 
 traditional rights of the gens, as, for instance, that of blood re 
 venge. The ignorance of this limitation of the central power led 
 to various misunderstandings at the time, on the part of the 
 colonial authorities, and since then, by later historians. Thus in 
 1728 the Delaware Indians on Brandy wine were summoned by 
 the Governor to answer about a murder. Their chief, Civility, 
 answered that it was committed by the Minisinks, over whom 
 they had no authority. This did not mean but that in some 
 matters authority could be exerted, but not in a question relating 
 to a feud of blood." War-chiefs as well as civil chiefs were 
 elected by the council, and could be deposed also by the council 
 whenever it was desirable. 
 
 Brinton says, The gentile system is by no means universal, 
 . . . where it exists, it is often traced in the male line ; both prop 
 erty and dignities may be inherited directly from the father. . . . 
 In fact, no one element of the system was uniformly respected, and 
 it is an error of theorists to make it appear so. It varied widely in 
 the same stock and in all its expressions." This intricate sub 
 ject cannot be fully understood till the organisation of many tribes 
 has been studied in detail. In some tribes, as the Dakota, 
 
 1 Brinton, The Lenape, p. 47. 
 
 2 The American Race, p. 46. 
 
Organisation and Government 419 
 
 the gentes had fallen out ; in others as among the Ojibways, the 
 Omahas and the Mayas of Yucatan descent had been changed 
 from the female to the male line." * But Powell and Morgan both 
 hold that the majority of the Amerind tribes were organised on 
 the basis of descent in the female line. "The gens came into 
 being," says Morgan, " upon three principal conceptions, namely : 
 the bond of kin, a pure lineage through descent in the female line, 
 and non-intermarriage in the gens." 2 
 
 Powell in his article on the North American Indians in John 
 son s Cyclopedia seems to use the term clan to describe a body of 
 kindred with descent in the female line, and gens where the de 
 scent is in the male line. " In most of the tribes the fundamental 
 unit of organisation was the clan," he says, and then again, " a few 
 of the tribes were organised on the gentile plan and in the gens kin 
 ship is reckoned in the male line." Such a distinction would be 
 convenient, but Morgan did not recognise it at the time of his 
 writing, as is evident from the quotation above from his Ancient 
 Society, and general usage seems not to have denned gens to mean 
 descent in either line specifically. Nevertheless, there is probably 
 no reason why the distinction should not be made with regard to 
 the Amerinds, at least, if it should be agreed upon. Powell also 
 says : " As a clan is a group of people who reckon kinship through 
 females to some ancestral female, real or conventional, so a gens is 
 a group of people who reckon kinship through males to some an 
 cestral male, real or conventional. It seems that the primordial 
 constitution of the tribe is by clanship and that the clanship tribe 
 is developed into the gentile tribe. Most of the tribes of North 
 America have clanship organisation, yet there is a goodly number 
 with gentile organisation, while perhaps it may be said that a 
 majority of the clanship tribes have some elements of the gentile or 
 ganisation ; so that it may be justly affirmed that a great many of 
 the tribes on this continent are in the stage of transition, and there is 
 scarcely a gentile tribe which has not some feature of clanship or 
 ganisation as a survival." 3 The privileges and obligations of the 
 gens (or clan) were, according to Morgan as follows : 
 
 " I. The right of electing its sachem or chief. 
 
 1 Morgan, Houses and House Life, p. 8. "In the ancient gens descent 
 was limited to the female Hue." Ibid., p. 5. 
 
 2 Ancient Society, p. 69. 
 
 8 American Anthropologist, N. S., vol i., No. 4, October, 1899, p. 710. 
 
420 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 " II. The right of deposing its sachem or chief. 
 
 " III. The obligation not to marry in the gens. 
 
 " IV. Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased 
 members. 
 
 "V. Reciprocal obligations of help, defence, and redress of in 
 juries. 
 
 "VI. The right of bestowing names upon its members. 
 
 "VII. The right of adopting strangers into the gens. 
 
 "VIII. Common religious rites. 
 
 " IX. A common burial-place. 
 
 "X. A council of the gens." 
 
 Among the Wyandots there is a council in each gens composed 
 of four women. " These four women councillors select a chief of 
 the gens from its male members that is, from their brothers and 
 sons. This gentile chief is the head of the gentile council. The 
 council of the tribe is composed of the aggregated gentile councils. 
 The tribal council then is composed of one-fifth men and four-fifths 
 women." 2 This is not the case with other tribes, however. 
 Among the Tlinkits it is the richest who obtain the highest 
 places," the selection of the chiefs depending entirely on the 
 amount of property they have ; that is, on a property basis. 
 These Amerinds have a better appreciation of property than any 
 others I have ever seen. They seldom haggle, but in selling they 
 state a price and adhere to it. A smaller amount offered is usually 
 treated with scorn. 
 
 The sign of clan or gens membership was the totem, all mem 
 bers of the same gens having the same totem, and his or tier name 
 usually indicating this totem. For example, if we know an Am 
 erind woman s name to be Spotted Fawn, we place her at once in 
 the deer clan. The deer is the animal that she looks up to as be 
 ing most intimately connected with her past and her future, and 
 from which her ancestors were descended. This is the clan or 
 gens totem. As mentioned in a previous chapter, there are also 
 two other kinds of totems, those pertaining to sex and those per 
 taining to the individual alone. Totems are always chosen from 
 a class of organic objects, while a fetich may be anything at all. 
 Thus the totems are deer, frogs, bears, snakes, corn, etc., while 
 a fetich may be a pebble, a piece of glass wrapped in a bit 
 
 1 Ancient Society, p. 71, and Houses and House-Life, p. 7. 
 
 2 Powell, First Ann. Rept. Bu. Eth., p. 61. 
 
Organisation and Government 421 
 
 of buckskin together with a feather, or some similar object. The 
 fetich was a talisman, the totem a beneficent attending spirit and 
 a sign of family and origin. 
 
 The Iroquois confederacy was planned by Hiawatha through 
 Daganoweda as an interpreter of his ideas and wishes. Some, 
 Horatio Hale for one, think that Hiawatha was a real person, and 
 others that it was Daganoweda who did the work under the guise 
 of representing Hiawatha. 1 However this may be, the organisa 
 tion of the several tribes into the confederacy was a work of 
 genius, and this was one of the highest governments that was 
 discovered on this continent. We cannot say, however, that it 
 was the highest that ever existed, next to that of the Aztecs or the 
 other Central Amerinds, for we really do not know what there 
 may have been before, not only in Mexico and Central America, 
 but in the Mississippi valley or even in the State of New York. 
 As noted in a previous chapter, if the Iroquois had disappeared 
 before our arrival, we could have gained no conception of their re 
 markable government from any remains that we would have 
 found. The Mississippi valley and the South-west, as well as 
 Mexico and Central America, exhibit traces of tribes who may 
 easily have arrived at a governmental development equal to, if, 
 indeed, not superior to, that of the Aztecs or the Iroquois. These 
 tribes were undoubtedly Amerind, but there is nothing to prove 
 that earlier Amerind tribes were inferior in their political develop 
 ment to later ones. 
 
 The misconceptions of the Spaniards due to ignorance of Am 
 erind organisation gave false colouring to the Aztec confederacy ; 
 and the flowing diction of Prescott, gemmed with terms and titles 
 applicable to Old- World society, but having no place in that of the 
 New, added to the confusion. Pages relating to "nobles," 
 "princes," "royal allies," "sovereigns," "lords," etc., do 
 not help in fathoming the intricacies of Amerind government. 
 Had the Spaniards met with the Iroquois we should have had 
 something similar in their case; and the fact that they had no 
 head chief would not have been discovered by the conquistadores, 
 so eager for other prey. One of the war-chiefs would again have 
 been taken for a royal personage, and the sachems and councillors 
 would have been nobles and princes, while the outlying tribes of 
 
 1 Originally Hdyowenthd in the Mohawk. He and Daganoweda are 
 usually considered mythical personages. 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 ANCIENT PUEBLOAN MOCCASINS OF FIBRE, ARIZONA 
 
 Except lower left hand one worn by the Ainos of Yezo, Japan Introduced for comparison Th 
 Ainos were probably the earliest inhabitants of Japan. In language and character they an 
 different from Japanese 
 
 422 
 
Organisation and Government 423 
 
 the Five Nations would have filled the bill for royal allies. It is 
 likely that the Aztec government was in advance of that of the Ir- 
 oquois, but that there was any royalty about it must be doubted 
 till better evidence is available. On the other hand, Morgan s at 
 tempt to prove that the Aztec organisation was not beyond that 
 of the Pueblos or the Iroquois is to be taken with caution. Brin- 
 ton says : The government of these states did not differ in princi 
 ple from that of the northern tribes, though its development had 
 reached a later stage. Descent was generally reckoned in the 
 male line, and the male children of the deceased were regarded as 
 the natural heirs both to his property and his dignities. Where 
 the latter, however, belonged rather to the gens than the individ 
 ual, a form of election was held, the children of the deceased being 
 given the preference. In this sense, which was the usual limita 
 tion in America, many positions were hereditary, including that 
 of the chieftaincy of the tribe or confederation. The Montezuma 
 who was the ruler who received Cortez, was the grandson of Ax- 
 ayacatl, who in turn was the son of the first Montezuma, each of 
 whom exercised the chief power." The daughter of the first 
 Montezuma seems to have occupied the position of head chief 
 for a time, or, as Prescott would put it, she was queen. It is pos 
 sible that while Montezuma was a war-chief he may have com 
 bined certain civil powers with his war office, and that the 
 confederacy was actually on the road to an absolute monarchy 2 or 
 something of the kind, which, if human progress takes always the 
 same general directions, was the next stage to be expected on this 
 soil. Bandelier, Morgan, and others see in the various Mexican 
 tribes and confederacies little that is different from the organisa 
 tion of the Amerinds to the northward, and probably when all is 
 well understood we may find that they are not far from correct ; 
 that, while there are differences, they are yet not sufficient to en 
 title the Mexicans to the separation from other Amerinds that has 
 been claimed for them by romantic writers. Speaking of Tlax- 
 cala, the famous "province" where Cortes found a resting-place 
 on his inward journey, Bandelier says : " Owing to a misconcep 
 tion of aboriginal institutions, it has been palmed off as a kind of 
 Mexican Switzerland, as a free republic in the midst of despoti 
 cally ruled communities. Such was not the case. There was not 
 
 1 The American Race, p. 130. 
 
 2 Payne, as before noted, says " a military despotism." 
 
424 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 ttie slightest fundamental difference between the social organisa 
 tion and mode of government of the Tlaxcaltecos and that of the 
 Mexican tribe ; but the exceptional geographical position of the 
 latter and the natural barrenness of their land led them to 
 seek means of subsistence from abroad. The confederacy of tribes 
 grew out of tribal organisation, and the greater ability of the in 
 habitants of the Central Valley gave to their confederacy a power 
 of aggression superior to that of any other aboriginal cluster in the 
 same country. . . . The Tlaxcaltecos were organised in four lo 
 calised phratries, like the Mexicans. Two elective chiefs that is, 
 elective in regard to the individual, but with heredity of office in 
 a certain gens formed the nominal head of the tribe. The true 
 directive power, however, lay in the council of the tribe. The 
 tribe of Mexico had a similar organisation. What created an ap 
 parent dissimilarity was the confederacy of the valley tribes, with 
 its chief-captain always taken from the Mexicans. As, in the 
 single tribe, the war-chief office was hereditary in the gens, so, in 
 the confederacy, the same office becomes hereditary in the tribe" 1 
 How different is the wording of Prescott when speaking of the 
 Aztec organisation ! "The government was an elective monarchy. 
 Four of the principal nobles, who had been chosen by their own 
 bod} - in the preceding reign, filled the office of electors, to whom 
 were added, with merely honourary rank, however, the two royal 
 allies of Tezcuco and Tlacopan. The sovereign was selected from 
 the brothers of the deceased prince, or, in default of them, from 
 his nephews. Thus the election was always restricted to the same 
 family. The candidate preferred must have distinguished him 
 self in war, though, as in the case of the last Montezuma." 2 In 
 other words, the election was restricted to a certain gens. Morgan 
 says : " Nearly all American Indian tribes had two grades of 
 chiefs, who may be distinguished as sachems and common chiefs. 
 Of these two primary grades all other grades were varieties. 
 They were elected in each gens from among its members. A son 
 could not be chosen to succeed his father when descent was in the 
 female line, because he belonged to a different gens, and no gens 
 would have a chief or sachem from any gens but its own." (Mor 
 gan here evidently forgot the right of adoption. It would be 
 perfectly regular, should a gens wish to do so, to adopt a son into 
 
 1 Archaologiail Tour, p. 31, and footnote, p. 31. 
 Conquest of Mexico, vol. i., p. 23. 
 
Organisation and Government 425 
 
 the gens in order that he might succeed his father.) "The office 
 of sachem was hereditary in the gens, in the sense that it was 
 filled as often as a vacancy occurred ; while the office of chief was 
 non-hereditary, because it was bestowed in reward of personal 
 merit, and died with the individual. Moreover, the duties of a 
 sachem were confined to the affairs of peace. He could not go out 
 to war as a sachem. On the other hand, the chiefs who were 
 raised to office for personal bravery, for wisdom of affairs, or for 
 eloquence in council, were usually the superior class in ability, 
 though not in authority over the gens. The relation of the sachem 
 was primarily to the gens, of which he was the official head, while 
 that of the chief was primarily to the tribe, of the council of which 
 he, as well as the sachem, were members." 1 
 
 As the Iroquois league was such an important affair, and as 
 it was so thoroughly studied by Morgan, I will quote him further 
 by giving his statement of the main points in the organisation. 
 
 " I. The Confederacy was a union of Five Tribes (afterwards 
 Six), composed of common gentes under one government on the 
 basis of equality, each Tribe remaining independent in all matters 
 pertaining to local self-government. 
 
 " II. It created a General Council of Sachems, who were lim 
 ited in number, equal in rank and authority, and invested with 
 supreme powers over all matters pertaining to the Confederacy. 
 
 " III. Fifty Sachemships were created and named in perpetuity 
 in certain gentes of the several Tribes; with power in these gentes 
 to fill vacancies as often as they occurred, by election from among 
 their respective members, and with the further power to depose 
 from office for cause ; but the right to invest these Sachems with 
 office was reserved to the General Council. 
 
 IV. The Sachems of the Confederacy were also Sachems in 
 their respective Tribes, and with the Chiefs of these Tribes formed 
 the Council of each, which was supreme over all matters pertain 
 ing to the Tribe exclusively. 
 
 "V. Unanimity in the Council of the Confederacy was made 
 essential to every public act. 
 
 "VI. In the General Council the Sachems voted by Tribes, 
 which gave to each Tribe a negative upon the others. 
 
 " VII. The Council of each Tribe had power to convene the 
 General Council; but the latter had no power to convene itself. 
 1 Ancient Society, pp. 71, 72. 
 

 
 ,j 
 
 
 
 m : 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 CHIMMESYAN HEAD-DRESS REPRESENTING THE WHITE OWL 
 
 It is made of maple ; eyes, tongue, eye-ornament on wings, and ornament at base of the wing- 
 feathers inlaid in Haliotis shell. Wings and eyebrows of owl, and eyebrows, eyes, and noses 
 of the surrounding men painted black ; margin of beak and body of the owl except talons and 
 knees, mouths, arms, and legs of the surrounding men and the broad band surrounding the 
 owl s body, painted red. 6% in. wide, 7^ in. high. In the American Museum 
 
 426 
 
Organisation and Government 427 
 
 "VIII. The General Council was open to the orators of the 
 people for the discussion of public questions ; but the Council alone 
 decided. 
 
 "IX. The Confederacy had no Chief Executive Magistrate or 
 official head. 
 
 " X. Experiencing the necessity for a General Military Com 
 mander, they created the office in a dual form, that one might 
 neutralise the other. The two principal War-chiefs created were 
 made equal in powers. 
 
 Such was the remarkable construction of the government of 
 these Amerind people of New York. In its conception, in its de 
 tails, and in its execution it was one of the most extraordinary 
 primitive governments ever recorded. From a comparatively 
 weak people it placed the Iroquois, though they were far inferior 
 in numbers to surrounding tribes, in a commanding position, and 
 enabled them to extend their sway over a vast territory. They 
 made no attempt to hold the region that was subject to their de 
 vastation, but probably, had not the European appeared on the 
 scene, they would have gradually expanded until their villages 
 covered many times the area which they specifically claimed when 
 our people first came. An increase of population which would have 
 overtaxed the game-supply would have pushed the development 
 of their agriculture and forced the confederacy to move along 
 higher and broader lines. One great drawback to Amerindian 
 progress, internecine wars, was entirely obliterated by the masterly 
 organisation of the Iroquois league^ while at the same time they 
 gained by their union a strength for offence and defence that, to 
 gether with their fertile and well-watered domain, rendered their 
 organisation impregnable. This and the Mexican confederacy 
 prove that the Amerind was capable of great things in govern 
 mental organisation. It only remained for him to discover the 
 secrets of smelting and forging, and he was apparently on the 
 brink of these discoveries, to step into a foremost place of develop 
 ment and progress. In some respects it is a pity the Europeans did 
 not remain in ignorance of this continent for another five hundred 
 years. 
 
 1 Houses and House- Life^ p. 28. 
 
WOODEN "SEAL" DISH, HAIDA 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ORIGIN, MIGRATIONS, AND HISTORY * 
 
 THE manner in which America was originally peopled has 
 been the cause of considerable speculation. For a long 
 time it was generally believed, and there are some who 
 still hold that belief, that this peopling occurred within compara 
 tively recent times by way of Bering Strait, and that before that 
 the continent was not inhabited. But peoples do not willingly 
 migrate into frozen regions, and the Bering Strait and Alaska 
 down to Dixon Entrance were not many centuries ago buried un 
 der a mantle of ice. I doubt if there were even Eskimo in Alaska 
 five hundred years back. It is my belief that all the tribes of the 
 North-west migrated there from the South and South-east, and not 
 within recent geologic time from the Asiatic direction. 
 
 That the continent was entirely peopled by way of Bering Strait 
 within the last thousand- years, by migrations through a zone of ice, 
 is improbable. To assume that a population came over and passed 
 down to Mexico and Yucatan and even South America, carry 
 ing with them their arts, but not exercising them Oil this inter 
 minable journey, is ridiculous. No pottery has yet been found 
 between the Yukon and the Humboldt, or even farther south, 
 probably because the Eskimo learned what little they knew about 
 it while in the St. Lawrence valley or the Atlantic region, and the 
 tribes of the North-west coast never came into sufficiently close con 
 tact with potters to learn the art. 2 Furthermore, no authentic trace 
 
 See the Preface of this book, and also Payne s History of the New 
 World, vol. ii., which, unfortunately, the author did not have the benefit of 
 seeing till after this book was written. 
 
 2 In this connection see " Archaeology of the Thompson River Region, 
 British Columbia," by Harlan I. Smith, Memoirs of the American Museum, 
 vol. ii., May, 1900. The Eskimo probably entered Alaska along the coast 
 from the east. 
 
 428 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 
 
 429 
 
 of any Old- World language thus far has been found on this conti 
 nent, and the only Asiatic language now known to be allied to an 
 American is that of a branch of the Eskimo family which crossed 
 from this side within the last three hundred years. The Amerind 
 languages change slowly. An immense period must have elapsed 
 since their separation from the rest of the world. It is said that two 
 Japanese vessels a year are wrecked on our California coast, and 
 some have peopled the continent from this source ; a more absurd 
 theory than the other. The number of Japanese vessels that were 
 afloat a thousand years ago was as nothing compared with those 
 afloat to-day, and if only two per annum are wrecked on these shores 
 to-day, the wrecks a thousand years ago did not add materially to 
 the population. 1 It is possible, however, that a few persons may 
 have reached either seaboard that way, and like Cabeza de Vaca, 
 they may have wandered for years among the various tribes as 
 teachers and medicine-men, giving rise to legends of " white and 
 bearded strangers." But in the early days vessels were frail and 
 did not venture far 
 from the coast, so 
 that the chances of 
 being driven to 
 American shores 
 without foundering 
 were very slight. 
 The Northmen 
 made the voyage, 
 however, and others 
 may have done 
 it. Yet the sup 
 posed visits of the 
 Irish and Danes 
 are hardly worthy 
 of serious consider 
 ation, although it would be rash to deny the possibility of their 
 having come. As for the Lost-Tribes-of-Israel theory, on which 
 Kingsborough was wrecked, no archaeologist of to-day would be 
 willing to give it a second thought. A multitude of stock languages, 
 differing from each other, yet forming a world-group by themselves, 
 
 1 It is of course possible that some infusion of blood occurred in this 
 manner, but it is not likely that it was ever sufficient to tinge a whole stock. 
 
 From photograph by the Harriman Alaska Expedition, 1899 
 TLINKIT SUMMER CAMP 
 
43O The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 are found here. The people who speak them, from Panama to the 
 Arctic, are in their habits, customs, and physical characteristics 
 wonderfully homogeneous, 1 yet they appear to exhibit several 
 types that have been moulded into a family resemblance by some 
 strange circumstance. Toward Panama, some of them attained a 
 considerable degree of progress, but these were not of one special 
 stock but of diverse stocks. Farther north there was another 
 group attaining to a less but a similar kind of progress, and they 
 also were, and are, of diverse stocks. In the Mississippi valley 
 are evidences of another similar culture group, probably also of 
 diverse stocks because some of them were allied to, or were part of, 
 the stocks found there when the whites came. The same general 
 conditions prevailed farther east, and a centre of development was 
 rapidly forming in New York when it was destroyed by our com 
 ing. One of the most widespread stocks, the Shoshonean or Uto- 
 Aztecan, is composite, containing within it tribes of the highest 
 culture and tribes of the least culture, tribes that were peaceful 
 and tribes that were warlike. It is evident then that culture was 
 no evidence of relationship or the reverse among the Amerind peo 
 ple. By some powerful influence and long association they had, 
 whatever their origin, been moulded into one race. " Where had 
 they come from ? " " How did they come to be so much alike ? " 
 "Why did their highest development take place down by the 
 Isthmus instead of by the Great Lakes or in the fertile valley of 
 the Mississippi ? These are pertinent questions. Attempts have 
 been made to answer them by importing different people from dif 
 ferent parts of the world and their recent culture with them. But the 
 more the Amerinds are studied, the more homogeneous do we find 
 them and the more isolated from Old- World influences. Culture, as 
 mentioned, was not confined to one stock ; it permeated through 
 unrelated stocks. The languages too are totally different from all 
 others. Thus the more the matter is investigated, the more 
 closely are we confined to the Western Hemisphere for the origin 
 of the Amerind people, as we know them. Toward Panama, that 
 is fcelow the City of Mexico, a kind of civilisation was attained, 
 and there we find was the densest population on the continent. 
 
 1 "This uniformity finds oneof its explanations in the geographical features 
 of the continent, which are such as to favour migrations in longitude, and 
 thus prevent the diversity which special conditions of latitude tend to pro 
 duce." Brinton, American Race, p. 41. 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 431 
 
 Culture never develops in a game country with a sparse popula 
 tion, and there is, therefore, an intimate connection between a 
 crowded population and "culture" or "civilisation." It may be 
 broadly asserted, I think, that civilisation is crowding ; it is man s 
 effort at self-preservation. Where the game-supply is exhausted 
 or insufficient and subsistence must be wholly or largely wrested 
 
 From photograph by the Harriman Expedition, 1899 
 
 ESKIMO SUMMER CAMP, PORT CLARENCE 
 
 from the soil, there will be found the culture centres, the hot 
 houses of art and science, from which a filtration occurs into all 
 the contiguous regions and peoples. On this continent the chief 
 centre of culture was the narrowest part ; the population was 
 packed there as in the narrow end of a funnel, leaving the whole 
 broad top thinly peopled. The question immediately arises : 
 "Why was this so?" It is evident at a glance that there was 
 some preponderating, irresistible influence which compelled the 
 inhabitants to draw into these narrow, restricted regions, there to 
 act and react one tribe on another, and this influence was con 
 stantly at work moulding them all. If the continent had been 
 peopled within any comparatively recent time, it is not reasonable 
 to suppose that the tribes would willingly have huddled together 
 far down in the most limited area. It is also from this area ap 
 parently that all the arts have spread. The crowding and the 
 culture development were coincident. What was the cause of it ? 
 If we can arrive at a satisfactory understanding of the cause, it 
 seems to me that we have the solution of the whole matter. The 
 
432 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 explanation appears to be that the continent was peopled before the 
 beginning of the glacial epoch, and the crowding into the narrow 
 regions, and consequently the development of culture there, were 
 due to the encroachment from the north of the great cold. Wright 
 says: "Just before the beginning of the ice age, a temperate 
 climate corresponding to latitude 35 on the Atlantic coast ex 
 tended far up toward the north pole, permitting Greenland and 
 Spitzbergen to be covered with trees and plants similar in most 
 respects to those found at the present time in Virginia and North 
 Carolina. Here 7 indeed in close proximity to the north pole were 
 then residing, in harmony and contentment, the ancestors of 
 nearly all the plants and animals which are now found in the 
 north temperate zone." It is not unreasonable to suppose, then, 
 that man was also here, though as yet the scientific evidence is 
 perhaps not sufficient to prove it. If he circled the globe in the 
 Northern regions at that time, and was also occupying Central 
 portions, the cold drove all south and together with changes 
 of land levels cut off the American division from the other world. 1 
 Migration legends are useless in determining the origin of the 
 Amerinds, for they can only relate to the comparatively recent 
 changes of location before which, for a long period, the people 
 drifted up and down and across the continent under the influences 
 I have suggested. However man first originated, or where, he was 
 doubtless distributed, like the flora and fauna, at some exceedingly 
 remote period, over the whole world, by causes not now understood, 
 but one of which was probably a greater continuity of land surfaces 
 than exists to-day. 2 Some of the earlier-world people were pos 
 sibly more advanced than we have been willing to concede, and 
 there was, from a very early day, a differentiation of tribes. Some 
 were making respectable weapons and tools of stone while others 
 were using clubs. Too much stress has been placed upon the Eu 
 ropean classification of stone implements. It may exhibit condi 
 tions that existed in Europe, but it has nothing to do with a 
 standard of measurement for the world. When Moses was leading 
 his enlightened people, the European was a painted savage. The 
 
 See also " On the Peopling of America," by August R. Grote, Bulletin 
 Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, February 2, 1877. 
 
 2 The tinge of resemblance between certain Amerind stocks and foreign 
 stocks endures from the pre-glacial period, then, when intercourse was on 
 different lines, and does not indicate any latter-day relationship. 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 433 
 
 period of time in which man used stone implements is enormous ; 
 that in which he has used metal tools, comparatively insignificant. 
 It stands to reason, therefore, that during this long use of stone, 
 tribes attained to varying degrees of culture, and varying degrees 
 of perfection in stone tools. There never could have been a single 
 period of time when all tribes the world round made a certain qual 
 ity of implements, then another period when they all made other 
 quality of implements. Classification of tribes and races in a time- 
 scale, or even in a culture scale, according to the kind of stone im 
 plements they used, is impossible. The Pai Ute and the Iroquois 
 made equally good tools in the seventeenth century, while in other 
 lands still inferior tribes were making implements about as good, 
 and others were struggling on with poorer ones. At the time of 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 WOODEN SNOW GOGGLES OF THE CENTRAL ESKIMO 
 
 the Aztec confederacy, their stone tools were not greatly superior 
 to those of the Pai Ute. Therefore, it would seem that any re 
 semblance between so-called American "paleolithic" implements 
 and modern stone implements cannot be used as an argument to 
 disprove the age of the former, nor that a polished stone imple- 
 
434 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 nient found in a supposed ancient gravel is necessarily an indica 
 tion of intrusion or that the gravel is not ancient. The imple 
 ments thus far found in the California auriferous gravels have 
 been similar to those found on the surface to-day, and this has 
 been held by some to be a suspicious circumstance. It is not. 
 Some tribes in California in those remote times were probably 
 making stone implements quite as good as anything inade to-day. 
 Stone-working is not capable of high development. The range is 
 limited. Some tribes compassed it early. Because also we do 
 not find stone implements abundant in the North- American 
 glacial drift proves nothing concerning man s condition, presence 
 or absence on the continent at that time. The population was 
 almost entirely below the glacial limit, only a few inferior tribes 
 skirting its southern fringe. We should, then, expect to find few 
 northerly pre-glacial evidences, 1 as the main culture development 
 took place south of the ice line, and tribes above this in pre-glacial 
 times would be the most primitive. 
 
 The material evidences concerning the antiquity of man in 
 America are many, but few are entirely satisfactory. The Cal- 
 averas skull and other remains in the auriferous California grav 
 els seem to place him here as early as the Tertiary, and this, says 
 Holmes, 2 would make man older on this continent than anywhere 
 else in the world according to present evidence. A rudely 
 chipped arrow-head has also been found in another region under 
 some elephant bones. A primitive hearth was discovered in well 
 digging in an old beach of Lake Ontario which dates back to the 
 glacial time. Many specimens of stone implements have been 
 found throughout the land in deposits which appear to be of great 
 age. There is always the question of modern introduction 
 through burials, overturned trees, etc., but the number and vary 
 ing positions seem to indicate that some of these tools have been 
 found in their original places. I excavated a mound in southern 
 Utah from the depths of which I brought out an exceedingly 
 primitive grinding-stone, yet not a single stone implement of any 
 
 1 These tools might easily be quite as good as many found on the surface 
 to-day, and it would be difficult to distinguish them from at least the ruder 
 forms of modern implements. 
 
 8 W. H. Holmes, " Preliminary Revision of the Evidence Relating to 
 Auriferous Gravel Man in California," American Anthropologist, October, 
 1899. 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 435 
 
 other kind was found. The grinding-stone was twenty feet below 
 the top of the mound and ten below the present general level 
 of the surface. The mound was formed of many layers of earth 
 interspersed with thin layers of charcoal and ashes. All around 
 the site there were house ruins on the surface, but in the mound 
 not a trace of a building stone was seen. I was told that in dig 
 ging a well not far from this locality a small earthen jug of an 
 tique type was found about thirty feet below the present level. I 
 did not see it nor even the man who found it, but the great 
 abundance of such finds must indicate antiquity, for they could 
 not all be fraudulent, nor all recent intrusions. 
 
 The cause of the glacial period has been much discussed. It 
 seems to have been largely due to changes in land levels, 1 and 
 to other causes not now understood. The people inhabiting the 
 world before it may have been originally much alike in kind and 
 colour with local variations, and the isolation produced by glacial 
 conditions modified this colour and increased the variations, those 
 finally left in hot lands becoming darker, medium temperatures 
 producing brown, still cooler the reds and yellows, and the forests 
 of Kurope evolving a shade or shadow people, shrinking from the 
 strong sun ; the so-called white race. The glacial epoch is often 
 spoken of as if the whole world were frozen solid, whereas in North 
 America, from the Ohio and the Columbia to the Isthmus, the cli 
 mate was doubtless about relatively the same as it is now from 
 Davis Strait to the Potomac and from Yakutat Bay to northern 
 California. The ice extended down about to the Ohio River in the 
 Bast and on lowlands not below the Columbia in the West. The 
 Western mountain tops must have been completely glaciated and 
 all elevated regions were cold, the conditions prevailing resembling 
 those now found in Southern Alaska. The Sierra Nevadas, re 
 ceiving the warm, moist airs from the Pacific, must have been far 
 more heavily glaciated than the Rockies, which received less 
 moisture in consequence. The ice period is estimated to have 
 endured from ten to twenty thousand years, with an interval of 
 recession in it and subsequent advance. The people were driven 
 southward, and those most favourably situated developed the 
 most. The people most favourably situated were all who were 
 
 1 An elevation of the ocean bottom in the Atlantic tropical regions 
 would probably disturb the existing climate of the North Atlantic regions 
 by deflecting the warm currents. 
 
436 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 
 
 437 
 
 already in, or could fight their way to, the temperate lowlands of 
 southern Mexico and Central America, which were rendered some 
 what more extensive by the recession of the sea, caused by 
 the withdrawal of the immense quantities of water that were 
 heaped up in ice thousands of feet in thickness. 1 This has been 
 estimated to have lowered the waters of the ocean by from 600 to 
 1000 feet. 2 The lands thus laid bare were climatically inviting 
 and probably were soon covered with vegetation. In South 
 America the people were crowded northward, or held there by the 
 cold coming from the south. It would be in the northern portions, 
 particularly the lowlands, that we ought to find evidence of the 
 highest devel 
 opment, espec 
 ially on the side 
 receiving warm 
 currents, and 
 there is where 
 we do find it. 
 We apparently 
 have then a 
 northern and a 
 southern limit 
 to the ancient 
 inhabitants of 
 this h e m i - 
 sphere, within 
 which climatic 
 conditions dur 
 ing the period 
 of great cold, 
 and for some 
 time thereafter, 
 
 were most favourable to human development. This limit in the 
 Northern continent is latitude 23 and in the Southern also 23. 
 Within these lines the great precolumbian development took place, 
 
 1 See A Naturalist in Nicaragua, by Thomas Belt, Chap. XIV. 
 
 2 Payne believes that by this lowering of the waters combined with land 
 elevation, a Miocene land passage was formed leading from Asia to the 
 North-west coast and that the American continent was then peopled by this 
 route. 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 NECKLACE OF DRIED HUMAN FINGERS OBTAINED ON BATTLE 
 FIELD OF WOUNDED-KNEE BY CAPTAIN BOURKE 
 
o 
 
 cr 
 
 LLl 
 
 CO 
 LU 
 
 438 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 439 
 
 and the heart of this development on the Northern continent 
 seems to have rested between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the 
 present upper frontier of Honduras, chiefly on the lowlands, and 
 probably also on lands now beneath the ocean. 
 
 In North America, south of latitude 23, then, most of the tribes 
 of the continent were crowded by the great cold, and here they 
 developed their chief characteristics, so that by the time the ice 
 began its last recession they had become a homogeneous. people, 
 with the greatest advancement and the greatest similarities in the 
 region where the population had been densest, with a diminishing 
 scale outward, those tribes farthest from the culture centre varying 
 most from the highest culture attained. The tribe on the extreme 
 edge was, and is now, represented by the Eskimo. 1 The develop 
 ment and the distribution of the arts were in the same order, and 
 here apparently is the explanation of the superior excellence of 
 Central-American arts, and the seeming derivation of all the arts 
 on the continent from this centre. Finally the recession of the ice 
 caused renewed trouble. The melting of it and the return 
 thereby of the locked-up waters to the ocean caused a submergence 
 of lowlands that had been made habitable by their withdrawal. 
 There were floods and floods. Tribes were overwhelmed or were 
 driven to higher ground. There was a renewed shifting of popu 
 lations over the whole continent. Those which had been held 
 back toward the highlands and toward the ice, accustomed to the 
 cool airs and to a particular food, readily followed the retrogression 
 of the ice, impelled always by pressure of the tribes farther south. 
 They were inured to cold. The most southerly tribes became 
 inured somewhat to heat, and clung to their lands, impelled also 
 to do this by the pressure of wilder tribes recoiling from contact 
 with still other tribes. But heat being debilitating, and especially 
 so to the Amerind constitution, the Yucatec peoples, who were those 
 who had attained the highest development, gradually degenerated 
 under its influence, and before the voyage of Columbus whole 
 cities were depopulated. Some held their own for a longer period, 
 but were already on the way to decline when the Spaniards ap 
 peared. In some cases their towns were occupied by an inferior 
 tribe of perhaps the same stock, or an inferior tribe dwelt around 
 
 1 See also, "Man and the Glacial Period in America," Payne s History 
 of the New World, vol. ii., p. 62 ct scq., and discussion of the effects of 
 glaciation, ibid,, p. 348. 
 
440 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 them and, not knowing the origin of the architectural works, at 
 tempted to account for them by fairy tales like the legend of the 
 Dwarf s House, which Stephens learned. The people nearest the 
 
 Harriman Alaska Expedition, i8gg Photographed by the author 
 
 PROKABLE ASPECT OF ALASKA SUMMER LANDSCAPE SOME 6OO YEARS AGO 
 
 ice front are still represented by the Eskimo, and their next 
 neighbours, as of yore, are the Athapascans, and Algonquins, and 
 so on down in zones more or less distinct, but considerably deranged 
 by subsequent migrations, to the builders of the Yucatec ruins. 
 The Apaches and Navajos are usually said to have come down from 
 their kin in the North, but it is equally possible that they remained 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 441 
 
 behind in the high mountains while their kin pushed on. 1 The 
 table-lands of Mexico, being high and temperate, formed a final 
 refuge for many tribes, some of whom had profited by contact with 
 the centre of development, and these roamed the plateau, one 
 branch finally settling around the lake of Mexico, and there 
 planting again the seeds of the lowland culture. Many tribes 
 were early crowded into the California coast region, because the low 
 land climate there remained comparatively mild, and the supply 
 of fish, seals, etc. was so great that they were not compelled to 
 till the soil for subsistence (if indeed they were possessed of 
 sufficient knowledge, or if the land were in condition to produce), 
 as was the case farther south, where the population was denser 
 and natural supplies insufficient. But the region was so inhos 
 pitable that only fragments of these tribes survived. They did 
 not multiply. 
 
 The reason the Eastern continents produced many and diverse 
 peoples is that the glacial period temperate zone, or warm zone, 
 extended through many degrees of longitude, offering extensive 
 areas of settlement to the races in that hemisphere, where they 
 remained more or less isolated and independent, to advance in their 
 own way and along their own lines ; that is, on the Eastern con 
 tinents there was ample latitudinal land space, while on the West 
 ern there was a very limited latitudinal land space that retained a 
 salubrious climate. This was the cause of North American race 
 homogeneity. 
 
 The period of time that has elapsed since the so-called dis 
 appearance of the ice was formerly believed to be very great, but 
 latterly views on this point have been much modified. Gilbert has 
 declared, after a study of the Niagara gorge, that the time since the 
 ice left that region is not more than seven thousand years, perhaps 
 Jess. More recent investigations have tended to confirm his sug 
 gestion of fewer years. Immediately after the recession of glacial 
 ice, as may be seen in Alaska to-day, erosion is extremely rapid. 
 I have not space to discuss this point at length, but it is apparent 
 that the rate of erosion is variable, and I doubt if more than five 
 thousand years have passed since the ice left the vicinity of the 
 Niagara gorge. As it still lingers in the North, far down on the 
 Pacific side, it is probably not more than a thousand years since its 
 
 1 " When first met with the Navajos occupied the same range of country 
 they now inhabit." Bandelier, Report, part i., p. 175. 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 A PUEBLOAN WARRIOR OF NAMBE, NEW MEXICO, IN BATTLE ARRAY 
 
 442 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 443 
 
 influence was powerful in affecting the climate of all the region south 
 ward. The North is undoubtedly growing warmer. Some five 
 hundred years ago Alaska was still covered with glacial ice. 
 Five hundred years from now there will scarcely be a glacier 
 to be found there, except in the highest mountains. "The next 
 generation will find few of them with their fronts still in the sea," 
 says Henry Gannett. 1 
 
 The most widely spread stocks are made up of those that were 
 forced to occupy a middle position during the cold, like the Algon- 
 quins and Athapascans, who were invigorated by it. Other stocks, 
 for reasons not understood, dwindled to mere handfuls of people, 
 like the Karankawan, now extinct, the Adaizan, the Natchezan, 
 the Uchean, the Zufiian, Keresan, and others. The oldest people 
 of the Valley of Mexico mentioned are the Xicalancas, Olmecas, 
 and the Toltecs. Brinton believed the latter never existed, but 
 other authors, fully as distinguished, accept them as a bona-Jidc 
 tribe. They may have been kindred to the Nahuatls, coming from 
 the crowded lowlands, as the waters rose and the heat increased, 
 and occupying the cooler plateau. Their wilder relatives later be 
 came influenced by them and adopting their learning began the 
 famous development in the Valley of Mexico. The period of evo 
 lution in the crowded region was very long. Tribes rose to power 
 and declined. 2 Other tribes, profiting by their experience, took up 
 some of their ways and progressed. Many of these tribes we have 
 no reminiscence of. 
 
 Back of the Conquest of Mexico by Cortes, the thread of au 
 thentic history becomes most uncertain. It begins about the sixth 
 century. Ixtlilxochitl, the native Mexican, has written a good 
 deal, but it must be taken, oftentimes, with extreme caution. 
 The history of the Amerind race is written mainly by their con 
 querors. It is a one-sided affair, and even so is not pleasant read 
 ing. Balzac says : Historians are privileged liars, who lend 
 their pen to popular beliefs." Certainly the character of the 
 Amerind and his doings have not often been too charitably drawn, 
 
 1 National Geographical Magazine, December T, 1899, p. 509. 
 
 2 " That there was a primitive empire . . . seems to some minds 
 confirmed by other evidences than the story of Votan . . . and out of 
 this empire . . . have come, as such believers say, after its downfall, 
 somewhere near the Christian era, and by divergence, the great stocks of 
 people called Maya, etc." Winsor, Nar. and Crit. Hist., vol. i., p. 134. 
 
444 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 while, on the other hand, our actions toward him, even as related 
 by ourselves, are enough to make one sometimes doubt the bene 
 fits of civilisation. Morgan, speaking of the remnant of the 
 Senecas, says : "To embitter their sense of desolation as a nation, 
 the pre-emptive right to these last remnants of their ancient pos 
 sessions is now held by a company of land speculators, the Ogden 
 Land Company, who, to wrest away these few acres, have pursued 
 and hunted them for the last fourteen years with a degree of 
 
 wickedness hardly to be 
 paralleled in the history 
 of human avarice. Not 
 only have every principle 
 of honesty, every dictate 
 of humanity, every Chris 
 tian precept been violated 
 
 WJ/ft/iiiPBl^ ky tn i s company in their 
 
 / , /fflBKfe eager artifices to despoil 
 
 theSenecas; butthedark- 
 est frauds, the basest brib 
 ery, and the most exe 
 crable intrigues which 
 soulless avarice could 
 suggest, have been prac 
 tised in open day upon 
 this defenceless and much 
 inj ured people. 
 
 On one occasion in 
 1643, out of a spirit of re 
 venge for a murder com 
 mitted by an Indian who 
 had been infuriated by 
 whisky, but whose 
 friends, according to 
 Amerind custom, offered 
 to pay a blood indemnity, 
 Governor Kieft, heading 
 a band of soldiers and freebooters from Dutch privateers, fell upon 
 the unsuspecting Algonquins and slaughtered over a hundred of 
 them. Little children were tossed into the river, and the parents 
 1 League of the Iroquois. 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 APACHE WOMAN CARRYING WATER IN A 
 WICKER BOTTLE 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 445 
 
 who plunged to the rescue were prevented from landing by the 
 soldiers, and child and parent both perished. In this incident be 
 gan the Dutch and Indian War, which lasted two years. Can 
 anyone condemn them for going to war after such treatment ? 
 
 Acts of white brutality of this character could be quoted to fill 
 a volume, but these are sufficient to indicate the manner of the 
 European approach, except in the case of Perm. The more docile 
 the Amerinds were, the more abuse they got. If they became self- 
 supporting like the Navajos, the government gave them nothing ; 
 if they were murderous and deadly, like the Apaches, the govern 
 ment took care of them and fed them. Issuing rations is a proper 
 thing, when we have destroyed the native means of subsistence, 
 but the tribe that works and helps itself ought to be aided further 
 toward civilisation in other ways. One of the most stubborn of 
 the numerous Amerind wars was the Seminole in the Everglades 
 of Florida. Our whole available force was engaged in this war, 
 besides some fifty thousand militia and volunteers. Though there 
 were probably not more than four hundred warriors, the cost of the 
 war was over $30,000,000, and three thousand lives were sacri 
 ficed. The wars with the Apaches were long and difficult. The 
 Modocs also carried on a disastrous war, and recently the Sioux 
 took their turn. These wars could generally have been averted 
 by proper diplomacy. The battle of Wounded Knee was precipi 
 tated by a wild and unauthorised shot at a critical moment by one 
 of our soldiers. Had he remained inactive the battle would prob 
 ably never have occurred. Many tribes were exterminated at an 
 early period. Most of the Carolina tribes were destroyed between 
 1714 and 1740. To-day very few Amerinds exist in the United 
 States east of the Mississippi. Those who were not destroyed, or 
 who are not still living on lands reserved for them, are mostly west 
 of the Mississippi, either on lands belonging to them in the Indian 
 Territory, or on scattered reservations. Tribes in Indian Terri 
 tory have long conducted a sort of civilised government, but some 
 of them are now on the eve of selling their lands and purchas 
 ing broader tracts with the funds obtained, in Mexico. The 
 Navajos are in possession of an enormous area lying across the line 
 of Arizona and New Mexico, and their vast herds of sheep, cattle, 
 and horses require extensive grazing, so that it will be impossible 
 to reduce the area allotted to them, especially as the tribe is 
 steadily increasing in numbers. Schools of mechanic arts should 
 
446 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 
 
 447 
 
 speedily be established among them, in order that when they 
 eventually are obliged to look to other avenues of support .than 
 stock-raising, they can do work that will command a price. It 
 makes not the slightest difference whether or not they are able to 
 read English, if they have wares to sell that white people need and 
 want, and the Navajo is capable of great development on the 
 mechanical side. They will learn Knglish when necessity requires 
 it. The Mokis have a reservation 
 adjoining the Navajos, and it is 
 ample for them for all time, as 
 they are not increasing, and their 
 herds of sheep are small. 
 
 In the West the history of the 
 Amerind is linked mainly with 
 that of but two other races, the 
 Spanish and the Anglo-Saxon, 
 while in the East it is intimately 
 bound up with the wars and his 
 tory of the Dutch and French as 
 well. All the struggles of these 
 European races for supremacy 
 affected the Amerind, and in the 
 East he is found sometimes on 
 one side, sometimes on another. 
 He did not for some time discover 
 that his doom was in the Euro 
 pean regardless of kind. At first, 
 too, the Amerind extended the 
 law of hospitality to the new 
 comers, and the Europeans would have starved to death in some 
 instances had it not been for the timely aid of the race in possession 
 of the soil, and whose reward was subsequent destruction. The 
 Amerinds at last tried to combine, as in the conspiracy of Pontiac, 
 against their increasing foe, and had they been able to throw aside 
 some of their peculiar regulations and form a wide-spreading and 
 
 1 For information on the Amerindian wars, their efforts to preserve their 
 territory, etc., see Bancroft s History of the United States ; Winsor s Nar 
 rative and Critical History of the United States; Winsor s other works ; 
 Parkman, John. Fiske ; and numerous other books to be found in any good 
 library. 
 
 PI. LXI. Second Ann. U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 SHELL SPIDER GORGETS 
 
 From mounds in Missouri, Illinois, 
 and Tennessee 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 George Catlin 
 
 BLACK HAWK 
 The great central figure in the Black Hawk War, 1832 
 
 448 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 449 
 
 close confederacy, they could have compelled the Europeans to halt 
 on the Atlantic slopes of the Appalachian chain for a long period. 
 " In our ignorance, " says Simon Pokagon, chief of the Pokagon 
 Pottawatomies, we did not comprehend the mighty ocean of hu 
 manity that lay back of the advance waves of pioneer settlement. 
 But being fired by as noble patriotism as ever burned in the hearts 
 of mortals, we tried to beat back the reckless white man who dared 
 to settle within our borders and vast armies were sent out to pun 
 ish us. We fought most heroically against overpowering numbers 
 for home and native land ; sometimes victory was ours, as when, 
 during the last decade of the eighteenth century, after having 
 many warriors killed, and our villages burned to the ground, our 
 fathers arose in their might, putting to flight the alien armies of 
 Generals Harmer and St. Clair, hurling them in disorder from the 
 wilderness across our borders into their own ill-gotten domain." 
 But the whites who had already come to America, however 
 much they might have desired to leave the Amerinds alone, were 
 powerless to prevent other whites, in search of better fortunes, 
 from dispossessing them, and so impelled by the pressure of Euro 
 pean population, numbers came and numbers came again and 
 again, and yet still others behind them. The result, the final 
 result, was inevitable. The Amerind was doomed when Colum 
 bus first saw the Western land, and nothing that the Amerind 
 could have done would have greatly changed the final course of 
 events. Tecumseh made an heroic effort to unite his people in a 
 stubborn stand against the enemy, but the difficulty was that 
 there were not enough Tecumsehs. The powerful league of the 
 Iroquois, that once promised to dominate the whole continent, 
 began its decline with the very first intercourse with the Euro 
 peans, so that in 1750 they were about half their former number. 
 The league was probably formed about the middle of the six 
 teenth century, and in these two hundred years they reached their 
 highest power and were on the wane. As it must have taken 
 them some time to reach the point where they could form such a 
 body as the league, they must have been a powerful and pro 
 gressive people at least a hundred years before, so that their main 
 existence as a progressive people probably covered a period of 
 some three hundred years if not more. Had they not been 
 wrecked by contact with Europeans, it is safe to assume that they 
 1 Harper s Magazine, March, 1899, p. 640. 
 
450 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 451 
 
 would have advanced to double their power, at least, in another 
 century. They destroyed the Siouan tribes of the Bast, held the 
 Lenape in subjection, and terrorised the Algon quins as far as the 
 banks of the Mississippi. 
 
 King Philip, Red Jacket, Pontiac, Black Hawk, and many 
 other Amerinds distinguished themselves as men of wide capacity, 
 and in our later day may be mentioned the famous Sitting Bull, 
 whose sagacity, intelligence, and military skill were of an ex 
 tremely high order. He gave us much trouble, to be sure, but 
 if all is fair in war, Sitting Bull deserves great praise for his ability. 
 
 In war the Amerinds were given to killing all they could, but 
 as this is the business of war, and as white armies use weapons 
 
 American Museum 
 
 MUSICAL BOW OF THE SOUTHERN TEPEHUANES AND THE AZTECS, MEXICO 
 The sounding-board is a gourd with a hole in it. The other end of the brace attached to the bow 
 rests on a stone. The cord of the bow was struck by a stick to produce the desired noise. 
 Found by Lumholtz in use. Length of bow, i metre 36.5 centimetres. See page 308 ; and also 
 article on "Geographical Distribution of the Musical Bow" by O. T. Mason, American 
 Anthropologist, November, 1897; Natural History of the Musical Bow, by Henry Balfour ; 
 and "Symbolism of the Huichol Indians," by Carl Lumholtz, Memoirs of the American 
 Museum, vol. iii, pages 206, 207 
 
 that are also meant to kill, and seem to try to do killing in battle, 
 we cannot be too hard on the Amerind warrior if he did not always 
 do his killing exactly in the way we do it. " Murder as a fine 
 art was not one of his studies. He killed and we kill ; where is 
 the difference ? Wars may be necessary ; I think they sometimes 
 are ; so did the Amerind. 
 
 Long before any permanent settlers pushed to the wilderness, 
 adventurous traders penetrated to remote regions with the whisky 
 keg, and as they seldom expected to go to the same place twice, they 
 usually swindled the native outrageously. Many of these were 
 Frenchmen, and they were given the name of Coureurs du Bois. 
 There were also always certain outlaws who found safety in put- 
 
U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 GENERAL TYPE OF CHIMMESYAN, HAIDA, AND TLINKIT CHIEF S COSTUME, 
 NORTH-WEST COAST 
 
 The Chilkat blanket which this man has over his shoulders " is so called because the best specimens 
 come from the Chilkat country," says Niblack. All the North-west coast tribes use it. Ine 
 warp is cedar bark twine and the woof a yarn made of mountain-goat wool. See pages 128, 142. 
 
 452 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 
 
 453 
 
 ting a great distance between themselves and the law. These 
 classes were more apt to stir the native up against the European 
 than to render intercourse easy, and often, in early times as well 
 as in our day, they incited the Amerinds to war for the sake of 
 their own gains. But it was the coming of actual settlers which 
 caused the greatest trouble. They appropriated the soil, killed 
 the game, and otherwise interfered with rights which the tribe 
 concerned had for centuries, perhaps, regarded as theirs alone. In 
 the case of the Hudson Bay Company, it being well understood 
 that they occupied certain points merely for trade, no trouble 
 was ever experienced. For two hundred years this company 
 
 U. S. Bu. Eth. 
 
 PERFORATED DISCOIDAL STONE, ILLINOIS 
 
 traded all over the northern part of the continent without a seri 
 ous rupture with any tribe ! Each tribe held its own lands 
 as before, so far as the company was concerned, hence there was 
 no clashing ; but with settlers taking up choice places it becomes 
 another matter. 
 
 The stories of Cabeza de Vaca, Soto, Cortes, Coronado, John 
 Smith, La Salle, Tonti, Joliet, Lewis and Clark, Fremont, and 
 many others are valuable, not only for the adventures contained in 
 them and the descriptions of new country, but because of the 
 descriptions of Amerinds as they existed in the beginning. Our 
 understanding of the routes of some of these explorers is not 
 always strictly accurate, and the accuracy of the route has much 
 to do with our properly placing geographically the Amerinds 
 named therein. There are grave discrepancies in the tracing of 
 
T-S 
 
 HOBOBO, THE FIRE KATCINA IN THE SOMAIKOLI CEREMONY, CICHUMOVI, 1884 
 
 From a drawing by the author, after one of his photographs. The mask enclosed the 
 whole head, and was of cloth, stained green, with globular eyes attached 
 
 454 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 455 
 
 that of Coronado, for example. In another place I have presented 
 my views on this subject 1 
 
 As there were outlaws among the whites, so too there were 
 outlaws among the Amerinds. These were men from various 
 tribes who had committed crimes and escaped the punishment they 
 should have received according to the law of their people, and 
 coming together they sometimes formed a band by themselves in 
 some strong 
 and isolated po 
 sition. A good 
 example of 
 such a band of 
 renegades was 
 that of one Pat- 
 nish in south 
 eastern Utah 
 near the Navajo 
 mountain. It 
 was composed 
 of outlaws from 
 the surround 
 ing tribes, 
 chiefly Utes 
 and Navajos, 
 and was the ter 
 ror of the coun 
 try, though in 
 1872, when I 
 first knew of it, 
 
 nothing in the way of serious depredation had been attempted forsev- 
 eral years. The Mormons of southern Utah looked upon Patnish as 
 a dangerous man, yet he sometimes came to their frontier villages in 
 a peaceful way. He had three or four stalwart sons who usually 
 accompanied him in his travels, and they were always ready for 
 emergencies. The band wore the Navajo dress and, I understood, 
 preferred to be considered Navajos. Beckwourth mentions a rene 
 gade band of this sort in his time, a village "composed of out 
 laws from all the surrounding tribes, who were expelled from their 
 
 1 "The True Route of Coronado s March," Bulletin of American Geo 
 graphical Society, December, 1897. 
 
 Photographed by the author 
 
 CIRCLE OF DANCERS IN THE INTERVALS BETWEEN THE 
 APPEARANCES OF THE VARIOUS KATCINAS IN THE 
 MOKI SOMAIKOLI CEREMONY, CICHUMOVI, ARIZONA 
 
 1884 
 
456 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 various communities for sundry infractions of their rude criminal 
 code ; they had acquired a hard name for their cruelties and 
 excesses, and many white traders were known to have been killed 
 by them. . . . The village numbered three hundred lodges, 
 and could bring from twelve to fifteen hundred warriors into the 
 field. ... We called it the City of Refuge." He speaks of 
 them as Cheyennes, but I suppose they were Cheyennes in the 
 same way that Patnish s band were Navajos ; because they 
 preferred to be called so. 
 
 These outlaws often caused trouble between the better class of 
 Amerinds and the whites, because, especially in the earlier days, 
 an "Indian" was an "Indian" always and everywhere, and a 
 crime of the outlaws or others was revenged upon the first Indian 
 that was met with. There never was any inquiry to find out if he 
 committed the crime ; he was generally shot on sight. Innocence 
 was a quality never thought of in dealing with " Indians." By 
 reason of their birth, they were all guilty of any crime perpetrated. 
 
 But I have already exceeded the limits prescribed for this 
 book. In concluding, I would say that it seems from all the 
 evidence available that this continent was peopled at a period 
 so remote that other races had not yet developed their present 
 characteristics. This was probably before the glacial epoch 
 began, while the Northern climate was mild, and while land 
 surfaces were distributed more on latitudinal lines, separated by 
 narrower waters. Afterwards there was a rearrangement by the 
 forces of nature, which, together with the extreme cold of the 
 North, effectually separated the Amerinds from other peoples, and 
 caused them to mingle and react on each other till even the affini 
 ties which had before developed in different localities and had pro 
 duced some differentiation of types were almost rubbed out and 
 remain to-day only as tinges of the earlier qualities. The other 
 world tribes, subjected to other influences, have developed other 
 differences and have diverged from their original stocks. It is 
 also probable that in the redistribution of land surfaces and rear 
 rangement of land levels, many stocks, some nighty developed, 
 were obliterated. Slight modifications may have occurred through 
 later accidental intrusions from the Eastern Hemisphere, but if 
 there had been any considerable intercourse within a recent period 
 
 1 Life and Adventures, p. 438. 
 
The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 between outside peoples and the Amerinds we should have found 
 distinct traces of it in the writings of early days. People as differ 
 ent and extraordinary as the Amerinds were would have produced 
 a vivid impression on any who might have seen them and contrari 
 wise a European, for example, would have left a lasting impression. 
 On the extreme North-west coast there seems to be a type re 
 semblance to Asiatics, but this is more likely due to an extremely 
 early colouring which was preserved by special isolation on this 
 continent, rather than to any considerable infusion of Asiatic blood 
 in recent time. As before remarked, I am of the opinion that the 
 Alaska and North-west coast tribes reached those regions from 
 the South and South-east in comparatively late times. 1 Tak 
 ing a broad view of the question, it seems to be an inevitable 
 conclusion that the Amerind race, or rather the various races of 
 which it was originally composed, were early cut off on this hem 
 isphere from intercourse with the remainder of the world, and held 
 in isolation by a change in land distribution and by the continued 
 glaciation of the northern portions of the continent which in a 
 measure endures to this day. The climate of North-eastern Siberia 
 was also glacial and prevented migrations from milder regions. 
 Many eminent archaeologists agree that the Amerind was here 
 before the great cold moved down, although the evidence of 
 implements and remains as we now understand them is, perhaps, in 
 sufficient. Languages, traits, customs, and arts are also to be con 
 sidered, and they seem all to favour, as outlined above, the theory 
 of an exceedingly remote peopling of this continent from various 
 directions. But this slight attempt to outline vast movements must 
 be brought to a close. To sum briefly up, then, it seems that the 
 Amerindian race, while originally composed of different elements, 
 was, as a body, separated from the other peoples of the world, at 
 a remote epoch, and by peculiar climatic and geographic influences, 
 welded into an ethnic unity, which was unimpressed by outside 
 influences till modern times. 
 
 NOTE. For an excellent resume of facts on " The Prehistoric Archaeology 
 of North America," see the article by Henry W. Haynes, p. 329, Winsor s 
 Narrative and Critical History of the United States, vol. i. ; also "The 
 
 1 Bering found no inhabitants on the Aleutian islands and his visit of 
 discovery was recent 1741. 
 
Origin, Migrations, and History 
 
 459 
 
 Progress of Opinion Respecting the Origin and Antiquity of Man in 
 America," by Justin Winsor, ibid., p. 369 ; also the " Critical Essay on 
 Sources of Information," p. 316 ; and for pre-Columbian explorations see 
 p. 76 ; and, The Common Source or Basis of Old and New World Civil 
 isations, by Mrs. Zelia Nuttall, Peabody Museum. 
 
 U. S. Nat. Mu. 
 
 THE SWASTIKA 
 A primitive and universal sign 
 
U. S. Bu. Eth. STICK USED IN THE AWL GAME 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 A LIST of the principal stocks or families, tribes, and many sub-tribes of" 
 the North American Amerinds, based on the linguistic classification 
 of the U. S. Bureau of Ethnology, as given in the Seventh Annual Report ; 
 on Brinton s classification in his The American Race , on Mason s "Lin 
 guistic Families of Mexico," in the American Anthropologist, N. S., vol. ii., 
 No. i ; in Mexico, Washington, 1900, Bureau of American Republics ; Ball s 
 Tribes of the Bxtreme Northwest, Contributions to North American Eth 
 nology, vol. i. ; James Mooney s Siouan Tribes of the East ; and on lists 
 in the Bibliographies of James C. Pilling, with tribal names from other 
 
 LIST OF STOCKS AND SUB-STOCKS 2 
 
 The abbreviations are the ones used in the alphabetical list of tribes. 
 By referring back from that list to this, the linguistic affinity and general 
 geographical location of a tribe may be determined. The author has added 
 the term " HOPITAN " as a sub-stock of the SHOSHONEAN to designate the 
 group of Hopi tribes, which, while showing strong linguistic affinity, are 
 otherwise, like the PIMAN and NAHUATL.AN, so markedly separated in habits 
 from the true SHOSHONEAN stock that an individual classification for them 
 seems desirable. As the HOPITAN are ranked as SHOSHONEAN in the 
 general scheme the harmony of the classification is not interfered with. 
 PTJEBI,OAN is also given as a comprehensive descriptive term for all the 
 permanent house-building tribes, regardless of linguistic affinities, or 
 ancient or modern existence. This is necessary because it is not possible to 
 assign a linguistic place to the former occupants of ruins like those of the 
 Chaco, yet it is settled that they were of a kind with the other town builders. 
 Thus, also, the Cliff-dwellers may be conveniently classed under this head. 
 Tusayan and Cibola, as applied respectively to the HOPITAN and the 
 ZUNIAN, should never be used, for the reason that it is not certain that these 
 are the places that were so designated by Coronado in 1540. The author 
 believes they were not seen by Corouado. 3 It is in the interest of accuracy 
 to avoid these unnecessary designations, which confuse ethnological and 
 geographical matters. 
 
 1 The thanks of the author are due to Prof. Otis Tufton Mason, of the United States 
 National Museum, for kindly reviewing- this appendix in proof. Prof. Mason writes, 
 " Your work has my approval and it is well done." 
 
 a See map, page 33 this book, and also the original of it in the Seventh Ann. Rept. 
 Bu. Eth. 
 
 3 See " The True Route of Coronado s March," by F. S. Dellenbaugh, in the Bulletin 
 of the American Geographical Society , December, 1897. 
 
 461 
 
462 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Ada. ADAIZAN. Western Louisiana. 
 
 Alq. AirfGONguiAN. North-east third of the continent, from Tennessee and 
 Montana. 
 
 Ath. ATHAPASCAN. North-west part of the continent, and from the Utah- 
 Colorado line southward into Mexico. There are also some small 
 groups on the Pacific coast in south-western Oregon and north 
 western California. 
 
 Att. ATTACAPAN. Southern Louisiana. 
 
 Beo. BEOTHUKAN. Northern Newfoundland. Extinct. Formerly all 
 Newfoundland. 
 
 Cad. CADDOAN. Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and North Dakota. 
 
 Crb. CARIBBEAN. Caribbean Islands and British Honduras. Also prob 
 ably Florida and S. E. United States at a very early period. 
 
 Cpn. CHAPANECAN. Chiapas, Mexico. 
 
 Chi. CHIMAKUAN. North-west Washington. 
 
 Chrk. CHIMARIKAN. Northern California. 
 
 Chyn. CHIMMESYAN. British Columbia, near Dixon Entrance, and the 
 neighbouring Annette Island, in Alaska. 
 
 Cit. CHINANTECAN. Oaxaca, Mexico. 
 
 Chik. CHINOOKAN. Lower portion of the Columbia River. 
 
 Cht. CHITIMACHAN. Southern Louisiana. 
 
 Chon. CHONTAI,. See Zap., My., Tqs., also Tzental. 
 
 Chm. CHUMASHAN. Southern California coast. 
 
 Coh. COAHUII/TECAN. Lower valley of the Rio Grande del Norte, ad 
 jacent to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 Cop. COPEHAN. Northern California. 
 
 Cso. CUSABOAN. Coast of South Carolina ; possibly mainly related to the 
 Muskhogean. It is a group title. See Gp. 
 
 Cost. COSTANOAN. California, south of the Golden Gate. 
 
 Dak. DAKOTA. See Siu. 
 
 E. Siu. SIOUAN OF THE EAST. Same as Siu. 
 
 Esk. ESKIMAU^N. From Prince William Sound, Alaska, all along the 
 northern coasts, islands, and inlets to Hudson Bay, Greenland, and 
 northern Newfoundland. 
 
 Alk. Esk. Alaska Eskimo. 
 
 Alu. Esk. Aleut Eskimo. Aleutian Islands. 
 
 Gr. Esk. Greenland Eskimo. 
 
 Lab. Esk. Labrador Eskimo. 
 
 M. Esk. Middle or Central Eskimo. North of Hudson Bay. 
 
 Gp. GROUP TiTl,E. Several tribes of different stocks classed erroneously 
 together. 
 
 Gua. GUATUSOAN. Nicaragua. 
 
 Ess. ESSEI/ENIAN. South coast of California. 
 
 Hai. HAIDA. See Skit. 
 
 Hua. HUAVAN. Isthmus of Tehuantepec. 
 
 Ho. HOPITAN. North-east Arizona. Classed as Shoshonean. 
 
 Ir. IROQUOIAN. Around lakes Erie and Ontario, and down the St. Law- 
 
Appendix 463 
 
 rence as far as Quebec ; along the Susquehanna and its branches as 
 far as the mouth, and also a belt through northern Georgia, eastern 
 Tennessee, western North Carolina, and southern Virginia. 
 
 Kal. KAI,APOOIAN. Western Oregon. 
 
 Kar. KARANKAWAN. Southern Texas. Extinct. 
 
 Kers. KERESAN. Northern New Mexico. 
 
 Kio. KIOWAN. Indian Territory, formerly in the Platte valley. 
 
 Kit. KITUNAHAN. British Columbia and Oregon. 
 
 Kols. KOUJSCHAN. Dixon Entrance to Prince William Sound, Alaska. 
 
 Kuln. KUI,ANAPAN. North-western California. 
 
 Kus. KUSAN. Western Oregon. 
 
 Ln. LENCAN. Honduras. 
 
 Lilt. LUTUAMIAN. Southern Oregon and northern California. 
 
 Mar. MARIPOSAN. Southern California. 
 
 Mgn. MATAGAI,PAN. Nicaragua. 
 
 My. MAYAN. Northern border of Honduras to Isthmus of Tehuan tepee. 
 
 Mex. MEXICANA. See Nah. 
 
 Mixt. MIXTECA. See Zap. 
 
 Mo. MOQUEIJJMNAN. Central California. 
 
 Mm. MUSKHOGEAN. Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, northern Florida, 
 and western Tennessee. 
 
 Nah. NAHUAN. See NAHUATLAN. 
 
 Nah. NAHUATXAN. Southern portion of Mexico and parts of Central 
 America. Classed as Shoshonean. 
 
 Nah. NAHUAIXACA. See NAHUATI.AN. 
 
 Nat. NATCHESAN. Northern I/ouisiana, western Mississippi. Now in In 
 dian Territory. 
 
 Oto. OTOMIAN. Central Mexico. 
 
 Pal. PAI,AIHNIHAN. North-eastern California. 
 
 Pa. PANI. See Cad. 
 
 Pirn. PIMAN. The Sonoran region of Mexico, and southern Arizona. 
 Classed as Shoshonean. 
 
 Pbl. PUEBI,OAN. See Ho., Kers., Pirn., Tan., Zun., etc. Northern Mex 
 ico and the south-western part of the United States. The stone and 
 adobe house building tribes. 
 
 Puj. PUJUNAN. North-eastern California. 
 
 Qrs. QuERES. See Kers. 
 
 Qor. QUORATEAN. Northern California. 
 
 Sli. SAUNAN. Southern California coast. 
 
 Salh. SAUSHAN. North-west Oregon, northern Washington, northern 
 Idaho, western Montana, south-western British Columbia. 
 
 Sas. SASTEAN. Northern California. 
 
 Ser. SERIAN. Tiburon Island and adjacent coast of Mexico. 
 
 Shap. SHAHAPTIAN. South-east Washington, north-west Oregon, western 
 Idaho. 
 
 Sho. SHOSHONEAN. Southern Texas to northern Montana and north of the 
 Colorado River, west to the Sierra Nevada. In southern California 
 
464 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 through to the Pacific. Under Shoshonean are classed by some 
 authorities not only the true Shoshonean but the Nahuatlan, Piman. 
 and Hopitan. Including the Piman and Nahuatlan the stock range 
 would extend throughout Mexico and to parts of Central America. 
 
 Siu. SIOUAN. Continuously from northern Louisiana to the province of 
 Saskatchewan, eastward to the Mississippi, and in Wisconsin as far 
 as Lake Michigan. Westward to the eastern boundaries of Colo 
 rado and Idaho. There were also formerly a number of tribes of 
 this stock in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia, See 
 E. Siu. 
 
 Skit. SKITTAGETAN. Queen Charlotte Island, North-west coast. 
 
 Sub. SUBTIABAN. Nicaragua. 
 
 Tak. TA KIDMAN. South-west Oregon. 
 
 Tan. TANOAN. Valley of the Rio Grande del Norte, New Mexico. 
 
 Tar. TARASCAN. Michoacan, Mexico. 
 
 Tqs. TEQUISTI,ATECAN. Oaxaca, Mexico. 
 
 7>. TEWAN or TEHUAN. See Tan. 
 
 Tim. TIMUQUANAN. Florida. 
 
 77. TUNKIT. See Kols. 
 
 Tkn. TONIKAN. Eastern Louisiana and western Mississippi. 
 
 Tow. TONKAWAN. Western and southern Texas. 
 
 Tot. TOTONACAN. State of Vera Cruz, Mexico. 
 
 Tzl. TZENTAI,. Tabasco, Mexico. See also Chon. 
 
 Uch. UCHEAN. Georgia. 
 
 Ulv. UiyVAN. Honduras. 
 
 Un. UNIDENTIFIED. Region, state, or possible affinity following. 
 
 Uto-Az. UTo-AzTECAN. See Ho., Nah., Pirn., Sho. 
 
 Wlp. WAIH,ATPUAN. North-east Oregon. 
 
 Wak. WAKASHAN. Coast of British Columbia. 
 
 Wash. WASHOAN. Eastern California ; western Nevada. 
 
 Wei. WEITSPEKAN. North-west California ; south-west Oregon. 
 
 Wish. WISHOSKAN. North-west California. 
 
 Ykn. YAKONAN. Coast of Oregon. 
 
 Yan. YANAN. Northern California. 
 
 Yuk. YUKIAN. Western California. 
 
 Yma. YUMAN. Arizona, southern California, and Lower California. 
 
 Zap. ZAPOTECAN. Southern Mexico. 
 
 Zo. ZOQUEAN. Chiapas and Oaxaca, Mexico. 
 
 Zun. ZUNIAN. Western New Mexico. 
 
Appendix 
 LIST OF TRIBES 
 
 465 
 
 The stocks are also included and are printed in capitals. In order to 
 facilitate reference several titles of the same tribe are sometimes given. 
 
 Abbato-tena. Ath. 
 Abnaki. Alq. 
 Absaruqe. Siu. 
 Acadian. Alq. 
 Acaxees. JVah. 
 Acconeechy. E. Siu. 
 Acha. Pbl. 
 Ache to-tin neh. Ath. 
 Achis. My. 
 Achomawi. Pal. 
 Acolhua. Nah. 
 Acoma. Kers. 
 Acomita. Kers. 
 Acquera. Tim. 
 Acxoteca. Nah. 
 Adahi. Ada. 
 Adai. Ada. 
 ADAIZAN. Ada. 
 Adaize. Ada. 
 Adees. Ada. 
 Adshusheer. E. Siu. 
 Aggomiut. M. Esk. 
 Agualulco. Nah. 
 Aguateca. My. 
 Aguile. Tim. 
 Agutit. M. Esk. 
 Ahaknanelet. M. Esk. 
 Ahantchuyuk. Kal. 
 Ahome. Pirn. 
 Ahowsaht. Wak. 
 Aht. Wak. 
 Ahtena. Ath. 
 Aicale. My. 
 Aivillinniut. M. Esk. 
 Aiyan. Ath. 
 Ajoye. My. 
 Akansea. Siu. 
 Akbat. Gr. Esk. 
 Akenatzy. E. Siu. 
 Akoklako. Kit. 
 Akorninak. Gr. Esk. 
 
 Akudliarmiut. M.Esk. 
 Akudnirrniut. M. Esk. 
 Alaguilac. Nah. 
 Alame. My. 
 Alasapa. Coh. 
 Aleut. Alu. Esk. 
 Algonkin. Alq. 
 AI,GONQUIAN. Alq. 
 Algonquin. Alq. 
 Alibamu. Mus. 
 Aliche. Cad. 
 Alikwa. Wei. 
 Alimacani. Tim. 
 Alsea. Ykn. 
 Altatin. Ath. 
 Aluik. Gr. Esk. 
 Amitormiut. M. Esk. 
 Amuchgo. Zap. 
 Amusgo. Zap. 
 Anaddakka. Cad. 
 Anani. E. Siu. 
 Anarnitsok. Gr. Esk. 
 Anasitch. Kus. 
 Andaste. Ir. 
 Augmagsalik. Gr. Esk. 
 Annocchy. E. Siu. 
 Anouala. Tim. 
 Apache. Ath. 
 Apalachi. Mus. 
 Appalou. Tim. 
 Aquamish. Wak. 
 Aquonena. Tim. 
 Arapaho. Alq. 
 Arctic Highlander. Gr. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Ariquipa. Ath. 
 Arikara. -> 
 Arikaree. } Cad 
 Aripa. Yma. 
 Arispa. Pirn. ? 
 Arivaipa. Ath. 
 
 Arkansa. Siu. 
 Arra-arra. Qor. 
 Arvillirmiut. M. Esk. 
 Aseguang. Skit. 
 Ashochimi. Yuk. 
 Asomoches. Alq. 
 Assinaboin. Siu. 
 Assinai. Cad. 
 Assiwikales. Alq. 
 Astina. Tim. 
 Ataakut. Ath. 
 Atakwa. E. Siu. 
 Atai. Ada. 
 Ateacari. Nah. 
 Atfalati. Kal. 
 Athabascan. Ath. 
 Athapacca. Ath. 
 Athapasca. Ath. 
 ATHAPASCAN. Ath. 
 Atka. Alu. Esk. 
 Atnah (i). Salh. 
 Atnah (2). Ath. 
 Atore. Tim. 
 Attacapa. Att. 
 ATTACAPAN. Att. 
 Atuamih. Pal. 
 Auk. Kols. 
 Awani. Mo. 
 Axion. Alq. 
 Ayankeld. Kal. 
 Ayapai. Mar. 
 Ayhuttisaht. Wak. 
 Aztec. Nah. 
 
 Babiocora. Pirn. 
 Backhooks. E. Siu. 
 Baiyu. Puj. 
 Ball6Kai Porno. Kuln. 
 Baluxa. E. Siu. 
 Bannock. Sho. 
 Basirora. Pirn. 
 
466 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Basis a. Tim. 
 Batemdikdyi. Kuln. 
 Batucari. Pint. 
 Batuco. Pirn. 
 Beaver. Ath. 
 Belbellah. Wak. 
 Bellacoola. Salh. 
 Benixouo. Zap. 
 Beotbuk. Beo. 
 BEOTHUKAN. Beo. 
 Bethuck. Beo. 
 Biara. Pirn. 
 Bilkula. Salh. 
 Biloxi. E. Siu. 
 Binukhsh. Siu. 
 Blackfeet. Siu. (See 
 
 Sihasapa.) 
 Blackfeet. Alq. (See 
 
 Siksika.) 
 
 Blood Indians. Alq. 
 Boka. Puj. 
 Bollanos. Mo. 
 Braba. Pbl. 
 Brule. Siu. 
 Bulbul. Ulv. 
 Buldam Porno. Kuln. 
 
 Cacalote. Coh. 
 Cachopostate. Coh. 
 Cacores. E. Siu. 
 Cadapouce. E. Siu. 
 Caddo. Cad. 
 CADDOAN. Cad. 
 Cadica. Tim. 
 Cahita. Pirn. 
 Cahokia. Alq. 
 Cahrok. Qor. 
 Cahuillo. Sho. 
 Cailloux. Wlp. 
 Cajono. Zap. 
 Cakchiquel. My. 
 Calabaw. E. Siu. 
 Calanay. Tim. 
 Calapooya. Kal. 
 Canai. Alq. 
 Caniba. Alq. 
 Canaway. Alq. 
 
 Capaha. Siu. 
 Cape Fear. E. Siu. 
 Carcha. Ulv. 
 
 :arib. Crb. 
 CARIBBEAN. Crb. 
 Carrizo. Coh. 
 
 :asa Chiquita. Coh. 
 
 :asa Grande. Pbl. 
 
 lasas Graudes. Pbl. 
 
 Cascade. Chik. 
 Casti. Tim. 
 Catajano. Coh. 
 Catawba. E. Siu. 
 Cathlamet. Chik. 
 Cathlapotle. Chik. 
 Cathlascon. Chik. 
 Cattoway. E. Siu. 
 Caughnawaga. Ir. 
 Cayuga. Ir. 
 Cayuse. Wlp. 
 Cenis. Cad. 
 Ceri. Yma. 
 Chaco (Ruins). Pbl. 
 Chahta. Mus. 
 Chainimaini. Mar. 
 
 Chalca. Nah. 
 
 Chalquefio. Nah. 
 
 Chamule. My. 
 
 Chaneabal. My. 
 
 Changuaguane. Ath. 
 
 Chapa. Cpn. 
 
 Chapanec. Cpn. 
 
 CHAPANECAN. Cpn. 
 
 Charack. Siu. 
 
 Charaeo. Ot. 
 
 Charense. Ot. 
 
 Chasta Costa. Ath. 
 
 Chata. Mus. 
 
 Chatcheeni. Skit. 
 
 Chatino. Zap. 
 
 Cbaucbila. Mo. 
 
 Cbawisbek. Kuln. 
 
 Cbay opine. Coh. 
 
 Cbebalis. Salh. 
 
 Cbelamela. Kal. 
 
 Cbele. My. 
 
 Cbelekee. Ir. 
 
 Cbemehuevi. Sho. 
 Cbenposel. Cop. 
 Cbepewyau. Ath. 
 Cberaw. E. Siu. 
 
 Cbetco. Ath. 
 Cbeyenne. Alq. 
 bia. Pbl. 
 bicasa. Mus. 
 :bicben Itza. My. 
 :bicbilticalli. Pbl. 
 Cbicbimec. Gp. 
 Cbicbominy. Alq. ? 
 Cbickasaw. Mus. 
 Cbicklesabt. Wak. 
 Cbicora. Cso. 
 Cbiglit. A Ik. Esk. 
 Cbikakokim. Alq. 
 Cbikaree. E. Siu. 
 Cbikelaki. Alq. 
 Cbilicotbe. Alq. 
 Chilili. Tim. 
 Cbilkat. Kols. 
 Cbilluckquittequaw. 
 
 Chik. 
 
 Cbillula. Wei. 
 Cbilpain. Ath. 
 CHIMAKUAN. Chi. 
 Cbimakum. Chi. 
 Cbimalakwe. Chrk. 
 Cbitnalapa. Zo. 
 Cbimalapas. Zo. 
 Cbimalpanec. Nah. 
 CHIMARIKAN. Chrk. 
 Cbimariko. Chrk. 
 CHIMMESYAN. Chyn. 
 Cbimsian. 
 Cbimsyan. 
 CHINANTECAN. Cit. 
 Cbinanteco. Cit. 
 Cbinarra. Nah. 
 Cbinipa. Pini. 
 Cbinook. Chik. 
 CHINOOKAN. Chik. 
 Cbinquirae. Zo. 
 Cbipeway. Alq. 
 Cbippewa. Alq. 
 
Appendix 
 
 467 
 
 Chippewyan. Ath. 
 Chiricahua. Ath. 
 Chiroehaka. Ir. 
 Chitimacha. Cht, 
 CHITIMACHAN. CM. 
 Choam Chadila Porno. 
 
 Kuln. 
 
 Chochona. Zap. 
 Choctaw. Mus. 
 Chokuyem. Mo. 
 Chole. My. 
 Cholupaha. Tim. 
 Chontal (i). Gp. 
 Chontal (2). My. 
 Chontal (3). Tqs. 
 Chopunnish. Shap. 
 Chorotega. Cpn. 
 Chorti. My. 
 Chowanoc. Alq. 
 Choya. Tim. 
 Chozetta. E. Siu. 
 Christarma. E. Siu. 
 Chuchaca. Kers. 
 Chuchona. Zap. 
 Chugachigmiut. A Ik. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Chukaimina. Mar. 
 Chukchansi. Mar. 
 Chumash. Chm. 
 CHUMASHAN. Chm. 
 Chumawa. Pal. 
 Chumaya. Yuk. 
 Chumidok. Mo. 
 Chumteya. Mo. 
 Ctmmtiwa. Mo. 
 Chumuch. Mo. 
 Chumwit. Mo. 
 Chunut. Mar. 
 Chwachamaju. Kuln. 
 Cia. Pbl. 
 Cicumovi. Ho. 
 Cicuye. Pbl. 
 Cimopavi. Ho. 
 Cipaulovi. Ho. 
 Clackama. Chik. 
 Clahoquaht. Wak. 
 Clallam. Sal A. 
 
 Clamets. Lut. 
 Clatsop. Chik. 
 Clickass. Skit. 
 Cliff-Dwellers. Pbl. 
 Clowetsus. Wak. 
 
 COAHUII/TECAN. Coh. 
 
 Coahuilteco. Coh. 
 Coaquilenes. Coh. 
 Cochimi. Yma. 
 Cochiti. Kers. 
 Coco. Ulv. 
 Cocomaricopa. Yma. 
 Cocome. My. 
 Coconino. Yma. 
 Coconun. Mar. 
 Cocopa. Yma. 
 Creur d Alene. Salh. 
 Coguinache. Pirn. 
 Cohonino. Yma. 
 Cohuixca. Nah. 
 Colotlan. Nah. 
 Colouse. Cop. 
 Colville. Salh. 
 Comanche. Sho. 
 Combahee. Cso. 
 Comecrudo. Coh. 
 Comeya. Yma. 
 Comiteco. My. 
 Comopari. Pirn. 
 Comupatrico. Pirn. ? 
 Comuripa. Pirn. 
 Comux. Salh. 
 Concho (i). Yma. 
 Concho (2). Coh. 
 Conestoga. Ir. 
 Confitachiqui. Uch. 
 Congaree. E. Siu. 
 Coninos. Yma. 
 Conoy. Alq. 
 Cook-koo-oose. Kus. 
 Cooniac. Chik. 
 Coosa. Un. Mus. ? 
 
 Cso. ? 
 
 Cootenai. Kit. 
 Copal is. Salh. 
 Copan. My. 
 Copeh. Cop. 
 
 COPEHAN. Cop. 
 Coquilth. Wak. 
 Cora. Pirn. 
 Coraru. Nah. 
 Coree. Ir. ? 
 Corsaboy. Cso. 
 Coshatta. Mus. 
 Cosninos. Yma. 
 Costano. Cost. 
 COSTANOAN. Cost. 
 Cotober. E. Siu. 
 Cotoname. Coh. 
 Coutani. Kit. 
 Covisca. Zo. 
 Covisco. Zo. 
 Cowichin. Salh. 
 Cowlitz. Salh. 
 Coyotero. Ath. 
 Cree. Alq. 
 Creek. Mus. 
 Crow. Siu. 
 Cuchan. Yma. 
 Cuicateco. Zap. 
 Cuitlateco. Nah. 
 Culua. Nah. 
 Cutnshawa. Skit. 
 Cufiopavi. Ho. 
 Cusabo. Cso. 
 CUSABOAN. Cso. 
 Cushna. Puj. 
 Cusso. Cso. 
 Cuthead. Siu. 
 Cuttawa. E. Siu. 
 
 Daho x -tena. Ath. 
 Dakota. Siu. 
 Dakubetede. Ath. 
 Ddpishul Porno. Kuln. 
 Daupom. Cop. 
 Delamateno. Ir. 
 Delaware. Alq. 
 Didja-Za. Zap. 
 Diegueno. Yma. 
 Digger. Gp. 
 Digothi. Ath. 
 Dirian. Cpn. 
 Doeg. Alq. 
 
468 
 
 The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Dog Rib. Ath. 
 Dob me. Pirn. 
 Dowaganha. Alq. 
 Dwatnish. Salh. 
 
 Eastern People. Kuln. 
 Eataubau. Sin. 
 Echeloot. Chik. 
 Edelano. Tim. 
 Edisto. Cso. 
 Ebiamana. Tim. 
 Ehnek. Qor. 
 EkSg mint. Alk. Esk. 
 Eloquale. Tim. 
 Enecaqua. Tim. 
 Eno. E. Sitt. 
 Erie. Ir. 
 Erio. Kuln. 
 Eriworieck. 
 Ertissi. Kuln. 
 Esaw. E. Siu. 
 
 ESKIMAUAN. Esk. 
 
 Eskimo. Esk. 
 Eskin. Puj. 
 Esopus. Alq. 
 Esquimaux. Esk. 
 Esselen. Ess. 
 ESSELENIAN. Ess. 
 Estakewach. Pal. 
 Etchemin. Alq. 
 Etiwaw. ) _ 
 Entaw. f CSO 
 Euchre Creek. Ath. 
 Eudeve. Pirn. 
 iSuksbikni. Lut. 
 Eurok. Wei. 
 
 Faraone. Ath. 
 Flachbogen. Kit. 
 Flanahaskie. E. Siu. 
 Flatbow. Kit. 
 Flathead(i). E. Siu. 
 Flathead(2). Salh. 
 Flathead-Cootenai. 
 
 Kit. 
 
 Flonk o. Ath. 
 Fox. Alq. 
 
 Gallinomreo. Kuln. 
 Gauawese. Alq. 
 Gaspesian. Alq. 
 Gileno. Ath. 
 Gobunes. Yma. 
 Gosiute. Sho. 
 Grand Pawnee. Cad. 
 Gros Veutres. Siu. 
 Guaicuru. Yma. 
 Guailopo. Pirn. 
 Guajiquero. Ln. 
 Gualala. Kuln. 
 Guatuso. Gua. 
 GUATUSOAN. Gua. 
 Guaymas. Pirn. 
 Guazapari. Nah. 
 Guetares. Cpn. 
 Guilito. Cop. 
 Guimen. Mo. 
 Gyidesdzo. Chyn. 
 Gyitgaata. Chyn. 
 Gyi tksan . Chyn . 
 Gyitqatla. Chyn. 
 Gyitsalaser. Chyn. 
 Gyitsumralon. Chyn. 
 
 Haeltzuk. Wak. 
 Haida. Skit. 
 Hailtzuk. Wak. 
 Haisbilla. Wak. 
 Hammonasset. Alq. 
 Hanabaskies. Siu. 
 Hanega. Kols. 
 Hano. Tan. 
 Hanocoroucouay. Tim. 
 Hantewa. Pal. 
 Hapaluya. Tim. 
 Hare. Ath. 
 Hasatcb. Kers. 
 Hasinniuga. E. Siu. 
 Hatteras. Alq. 
 Havasupai. Yma. 
 Helto. Puj. 
 Hemes. Tan. 
 Hettitoya. Mo. 
 Heve. Pirn. 
 Hicaranaou. Tim. 
 
 Hicbucios. Pirn. 
 Hidatsa. Siu. 
 Himeri. Pirn. 
 Hiouacara. Tim. 
 Hirribiqua. Tim. 
 Hisbquayquabt. Wak. 
 Hitcbitee. Mus. 
 Hizo. Pirn. 
 Hoak. Puj. 
 Hoankut. Puj. 
 Hololupai. Puj. 
 Homolua. Tim. 
 Hoodsunu. Kols. 
 Hoopab. Ath. 
 Hopi. Ho. 
 HOPITAN. Ho. 
 Hopitu. Ho. 
 Howakan. Skit. 
 Howcbuklisabt. Wak. 
 Hualapai. Yma. 
 Huasteca. My. 
 HUAVAN. Hua. 
 Huaves. Hua. 
 Huaztonteco. Hua. 
 Huecos. Cad. 
 Huicbol. Nah. 
 Huite. Nah. 
 Huma. 
 Hume. 
 Humawhi. Pal. 
 Hunab. Kols. 
 Hupa. Ath. 
 Huron. Ir. 
 Husky. Esk. 
 Husorone. Pirn. 
 Hutcbuom. Yuk. 
 Hydab. Skit. 
 
 Igdlolnarsuk. Gr. Esk. 
 Iglulingmiut. M. Esk. 
 Ikogmiut. Alk. Esk. 
 Illinois. Alq. 
 Ilmawi. Pal. 
 Imabklimiut. Alk. 
 
 Esk. 
 Ingubklimiut. Alk. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Nah. 
 
Appendix 
 
 469 
 
 Innies. Cad. 
 Innuit. Esk. 
 Iowa. Siu. 
 Ipapapan . Tot. 
 IROQUOIAN. Ir. 
 Iroquois. Ir. 
 Isantei. Siu. 
 Isleta, New Mex. Tan, 
 Isleta, Texas. Tan. 
 Issa. E. Siu. 
 Iswa. E. Siu. 
 Itafi. Tim. 
 Itara. Tim. 
 Itaziptco. Siu. 
 Ititcha. Mar. 
 Itivimiut. Lab. Esk. 
 Itza. My. 
 Ivimiut. Gr. Esk. 
 Ixil. My. 
 
 Janos. Ath. 
 Jaripecha. Tar. 
 Jemez. Tan. 
 Jicarilla. Ath. 
 Jocolabal. My. 
 Jonaz. Ot. 
 Jope. Zo. 
 Joshua. Ath. 
 
 Kabinapek. Kuln. 
 Kadapaw. E. Siu. 
 Kagutl. Wak. 
 Kaialigmiut. Alk.Esk. 
 Kaigani. Skit. 
 Kaime". Kuln. 
 Kaiowe. Kio. 
 Kai Porno. Kuln. 
 Kaivavitz. Sho. 
 Kaiyuh-khotana. Alh. 
 Kakamatsis. Wak. 
 KAI^APOOIAN. Kal. 
 Kalapuya. Kal. 
 Kaltsuerea tunne. Ath. 
 Kamalel Porno. Kuln. 
 Kangivamiut. Lab. 
 
 Esk. 
 Kaugmaligmiut. Alk. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Kaugormiut. M. Esk. 
 Kani. Mo. 
 
 Kaniagmiut. Alk. Esk. 
 Kansa. Siu. 
 Karankawa. Kar. 
 KARANKAWAN. Kar. 
 Karok. Qor. 
 Karsuit. Gr. Esk. 
 Kaskaskia. Alq. 
 Kassooo. Mar. 
 Kassovo. Mar. 
 Kastel Porno. Kuln. 
 Kasua. Sli. 
 Katchan. Yma. 
 Kato Porno. Kuln. 
 Kauia. Mar. 
 Kaulits. Salh. 
 Kaus. Kus. 
 Kauvuyas. Sho. 
 Kaviagmiut. Alk. Esk. 
 Kaw. Siu. 
 Kaweah. Mar. 
 Kaweya. Mo. 
 Kawiasuh. Sho. 
 Kayowe. Kio. 
 Kayuug. Skit. 
 Kcaltana. Ath. 
 Kechemeches. Alq. 
 Kechis. Sho. 
 Keimanoeitoh. Wak. 
 Kek. Kols. 
 Kelta. Un., Ath. ? 
 Kemisak. Gr. Esk. 
 Kenai. Ath. 
 Kenay. Ath. 
 Kenesti. Ath. 
 Kera. Kers. 
 Keres. Kers. 
 KERESAN. Kers. 
 Keswhawhay. Ker. 
 Keyauwee. E. Siu. 
 Kiawaw. Cso. 
 K iapkwainakwin. 
 
 Zun. 
 
 Kiawetni. Mar. 
 Kichai. Cad. 
 Kickapoo. Alq. 
 
 Kiguaqtagmiut. Lab. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Kikapoo. Alq. 
 Kikkertarsoak. Gr. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Killamuk. Salh. 
 Kinarbik. Gr. Esk. 
 Kingnaitmiut. M. Esk. 
 King s River. Mat. 
 Kinnepatu. M. Esk. 
 Kiowa. Kio. 
 KIOWAN. Kio. 
 Kio way. Kio. 
 Kisani. Pbl. 
 Kiscapocoke. Alq. 
 Kitsmaht. Wak. 
 Kittegareut. Alk.Esk. 
 Kittuwa. Jr. 
 
 KlTUNAHAN. Kit. 
 
 Kizh. Sho. 
 Klallam. Salh. 
 Klamath (i). Lut. 
 Klamath (2). Wei. 
 Klanoh-Klatklam. Kit. 
 Klaokwat. Wak. 
 Klenekate. Kols. 
 Klikitat. Shap. 
 K naia-khotona. Ath. 
 Knik. Ath. 
 Knisteneau. Alq. 
 Koasati. Mus. 
 Koloma. Puj. 
 Kolomum. Puj. 
 Kolosch. Kols. 
 KOUJSCHAN. Kols. 
 Komacho. Kuln. 
 Kombo. Un., Yan. ? 
 Komuk. Salh. 
 Konjagen. Esk. f 
 Konkau. Puj. 
 Kootenai. Kit. 
 Kopagmiut. Alk. Esk. 
 Kope. Cop. 
 Korusi. Cop. 
 Kouksoarmiut. Lab. 
 
 Esk. 
 Kowagmiut. Alk. Esk. 
 
470 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Kowelits. Salh. 
 Kowilth. Wish. 
 Koyukukhotana. Ath. 
 Kramalit. M. Esk. 
 Kuagmiut. Alk. Esk. 
 Kuchin. Ath. 
 Kuitc. Ykn. 
 Kula Kai Porno. Kuln. 
 KUI,ANAPAN. Kuln. 
 Kulanapo. Kuln. 
 Kulmeh. Puj. 
 Kulomum. Puj. 
 Kung. Skit. 
 Kunxit. Skit. 
 Kupule. My. 
 Kusa. Kus. 
 KUSAN. Kus. 
 Kuscarawock. Alq. 
 Kuskwogmiut. Alk. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Kutani. Kit. 
 Kutcha-Kutchin . Ath. 
 Kutclian. Yma. 
 Kutchin . Ath. 
 Kutenay. Kit. 
 Kwaiantikwoket. Sho. 
 Kwakiutl. Wak. 
 Kwalhioqua. Ath. 
 Kwantlen. Salh. 
 Kwapa. Siu. 
 Kvvashilla. Wak. 
 Kwat6a. Puj. 
 Kwazami. Ath. 
 Kwikhpagmiut. Alk. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Kwokwoos. Kus. 
 Kyoquaht. Wak. 
 
 Lacandon. My. 
 Laguna. Kers. 
 Laimono. Yma. 
 Lakmiut Kal. 
 Lama. Kuln. 
 Las sik. Cop. 
 Leaf-shooters. Siu. 
 Lenape*. Alq. 
 Lenca. Ln. 
 
 LENCAN. Ln. 
 Leuni-Lenape. Alq. 
 Likatuit. Mo. 
 Likwiltoh. Wak. 
 Lilowat. Salh. 
 Lipan. Ath. 
 Liwaito. Cop. 
 Llanero. Ath. 
 Loldla. Cop. 
 Lolon kuk. Ath. 
 Lolsel. Cop. 
 Long Island. Alq. 
 Long Valley. Sho. 
 Lopolatimne. Mo. 
 Loucheux. Ath. 
 Lower Coquille. Kus. 
 Lucururu. Tim. 
 Lummi. Salh. 
 Lutuami. Lut. 
 LUTUAMIAN. Lut. 
 
 Macaw. Wak. 
 Machapuuga. Alq. 
 Machaua. Tim. 
 Machemni. Mo. 
 Machemoodus. Alq. 
 M acock. Alq 
 Magemiut. Alk. Esk. 
 Mahican. Alq. 
 Mahlemiut. Alk. Esk. 
 Mahoc. Un.,E.Siu.? 
 Maidu. Puj. 
 Mai era. Tim. 
 Makah. Wak. 
 Makhelchel. Cop. 
 Malaka. Cop. 
 Malica. Tim. 
 Maliseet. Alq. 
 Mam. My. 
 Mamaleilakitish. Wak. 
 Manahoac. E. Siu. 
 Mauakin. E. Siu. 
 Man dan. Siu. 
 Maneetsuk. Gr. Esk. 
 Mangoac. Ir. 
 Maugue. Cpn. 
 Manhattan. Alq. 
 
 Mano de perro. Coh.. 
 Manosaht. Wak. 
 Mantese. Alq. 
 Mareschit. Alq. 
 Maricopa. Yma. 
 Mariposa. ]\[ar. 
 MARIPOSAN. Mar. 
 Marracou. Tim. 
 Mascoutin. Alq. 
 Maskegon. Alq. 
 Maskoki. Mus. 
 Massachuset. Alq. 
 Massawomek. //-. 
 Massett. Skit. 
 Massinacak. E. Siu. 
 Matagalpan. Un. 
 Matapane. Pirn. 
 Matelpa. Wak. 
 Mathaica. Tim. 
 Matlaltzinco. Ot. 
 Matlame. Ot. 
 Mattamuskeet. Alq. 
 Mattapouy. Alq. 
 Mattoal. Ath. 
 Mauvais-Monde. Ath. 
 Maya. My. 
 MAYAN. My. 
 Mayapan. My. 
 Maya-Quiche. My. 
 Mayarca. Tim. 
 May ay u. Mar. 
 Mayo. Pirn. 
 Mazahua. Ot. 
 Mazapil. Nah. 
 Mazateco. Zap. 
 Mecos. Ot. 
 Meewoc. Mo. 
 Mehemencho. E. Siu. 
 Meherriu. Ir. 
 Meidoo. Puj. 
 Meipontsky. E. Siu. 
 Melchora. Ulv. 
 Meliseet. Alq. 
 Melona. Tim. 
 Melukitz. Kus. 
 Mengwe. Ir. 
 Menominee. Alq. 
 
Appendix 
 
 Mequachake. Alq. 
 Mescal. Coh. 
 Mescal ero. Ath. 
 Met how. Salh. 
 Mexicana. Nah. 
 Meztitlateca. Nah. 
 Miakan. Coh. 
 Miami. Alq. 
 Michoa. Tar. 
 Michopdo. Puj. 
 Micikqwutme tunne. 
 
 Ath. 
 
 Micmac. Alq. 
 Mico. Ulv. 
 Micoiiinovi. Ho. 
 Mije. Zo. 
 
 Mikono tunne. Ath. 
 Mimbreiio. Ath. 
 Mingo. Ir. 
 Minisink. Alq. 
 Minitaree. Siu. 
 Minneconjou. Siu. 
 Minsi. Alq. 
 Misdlamagun. Kuln. 
 Mishougnovi. Ho. 
 Misisauga. Alq. 
 Missouri. Siu. 
 Mita. Wei. 
 Mitodm Kai Porno. 
 
 Kuln. 
 
 Mi wok. Mo. 
 Mixe. Zo. 
 Mixtec. Zap. 
 Mixteca-Zapoteca. Zap. 
 Moau auzi. Sho. 
 Moapariats. Sho. 
 Mobilian. Mus. 
 Mochilagua. Pirn. ? 
 Mocoso. Tim. 
 Mocossou. Tim. 
 Moctoby. E. Siu. 
 Modoc. Lut. 
 Modokui. Lut. 
 Mogollon. Ath. 
 Mohave. Yma. 
 Mohawk. Ir. 
 Mohegan. Alq. 
 
 Mohetan. E. Siu. 
 Mohican. Alq. f 
 Mokelutnni. Mo. 
 Moki. Ho. 
 Molale. Wlp. 
 Molua. Tim. 
 Monachi. Sho. 
 Monagan. E. Siu. 
 Monahasanugh. E. Siu. 
 Monasiccapano. E.Siu. 
 Mono. Sho. 
 Monocan. E. Siu. 
 Monqui. Yma. 
 Monsey. Alq. 
 Monsoni. Alq. 
 Montagu ais (i). Ath. 
 Montagnais (2). Alq. 
 Montagnard. Ath. 
 Montauk. Alq. 
 Moose. Alq. 
 Moosonee. Alq. 
 Mopan. My. 
 
 MOQUEXUMNAN. Mo. 
 
 Moquelumne. Mo. 
 Moquis. Ho. 
 Moscoso. Tim. 
 Mosilian. Alq. 
 Moundbuilder. Com 
 posite. Gp.> 
 Mowachat. Wak. 
 Mowhemcho. E. Siu. 
 Muclaht. Wak. 
 Muctobi. E. Siu. 
 Mukaluk. Lut. 
 Mulluck. Kus. 
 Multnoma. Chik. 
 Munsee. Alq. 
 Musakakun. Kuln. 
 
 MUSKHOGEAN. MUS. 
 
 Muskhogee. Mus. 
 Muskoki. Mus. 
 Musquito. Un. 
 Mutsun. Mo. 
 Muutzizti. Pirn. 
 
 Naas. Gp. , Chyn.,Salh. f 
 Nachitoches. Cad. 
 
 Nacu. Kus. ? 
 Nadowessiwag. Siu. 
 Nagailer. Ath. 
 Nageuktormiut. M. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Nahauni. Ath. 
 Nahsuzi. Pbl. 
 Na htchi. Nat. 
 Nahua. Nah. 
 Nahuatl. Nah. 
 NAHUATI,AN. Nah. 
 Nahuatleca. Nah. 
 Nahyssan. E. Siu. 
 Na-isha. Ath. 
 Naktche. Nat. 
 Nakum. Puj. 
 Nakwahtoh. Wak. 
 Naltun netunne. Ath. 
 Nambe. Tan. 
 Nanaimo. Salh. 
 Nanoos. Salh. 
 Nantic. Alq. 
 Nanticoke. Alq. 
 Naolingo. Tot. 
 Napa (i). Cop. 
 Napa (2). Yuk. 
 Napetuca. Tim. 
 Narraganset. Alq. 
 Narsuk. Gr. Esk. 
 Nascapee. Alq. 
 Nasqud. Chyn. 
 Nataco. Cad. 
 Natches. Nat. 
 NATCH ESAN. Nat. 
 Natchez. Nat. 
 Natchitoches. Cad. 
 Natowek. Ir. 
 Natowesieux. Siu. 
 Natsit-Kutchin . Ath. 
 Naugatuck. Alq. 
 Nauset. Alq. 
 Navaho. 
 Navajo. 
 Nawiti. Wak. 
 Nayerit. Pirn. 
 Nehalim. Salh. 
 Nehantic. Alq. 
 
472 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Nehaunee. Ath. 
 
 Nuncock. Siu. 
 
 Nehethawa. Alq. 
 
 Nunivagmiut. Alk. 
 
 Nenenot. Alq. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Nespelum. Salh. 
 
 Nuntaly. Un., E. Siu. ? 
 
 Netchillirmiut. M.Esk. 
 
 Nuntaneuck. /.., E. 
 
 Netela. Sho. 
 
 Siu. ? 
 
 Netzicho. Zap. 
 
 Nusdalum. Salh. 
 
 Neusiok. Alq. ? 
 
 Nusbagagmiut. Alk. 
 
 Neuter. Ir. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Nevome. Sho. 
 
 Nusulpb. Salh. 
 
 New Gold Harbour. 
 
 Nutcbu. Mo. 
 
 Skit. 
 
 Nutba. Sho. 
 
 Newicbumni. Mo. 
 
 Nutka. Wak. 
 
 Nez Perce. Shap. 
 
 Nuwungmiut. Alk. 
 
 Nicaraos. Nah. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Nicassias. Mo. 
 
 
 Nicoutamucb. Salh. 
 
 Oatbcaqua. Tint. 
 
 Nibalotb. Chik. 
 
 Occaneecbi. E. Siu. 
 
 Nikonba. E. Siu. 
 
 Ocbingita. Mar. 
 
 Nimkisb. Wak. 
 
 Ocotlano. Zap. 
 
 Nipissing. Alq. 
 
 Oenock. E. Siu. 
 
 Nipmuc. Alq. 
 
 Ogalalla. 1 & . 
 
 Nipnet. Alq. 
 
 Ogldla. / 
 
 Niquiran. Nah. 
 
 Oglemiut. Alk. Esk. 
 
 Nishinam. Puj. 
 
 Obiat. Wak. 
 
 Nisqualli. Salh. 
 
 Ojadagocbroene. E. 
 
 Nitinabt. Wak. 
 
 Siu. 
 
 Niwiti. Wak. 
 
 Ojibwa. Alq. 
 
 Noema. Cop. 
 
 Okaboki. Alq. 
 
 Noje. Van. 
 
 Okeeogmiut. Alk. Esk. 
 
 Nomlaki. Cop. 
 
 Okinagan. Salh. 
 
 Nommuk. Cop. 
 
 Okkiosorbik. Gr. Esk. 
 
 Nootka. Wak. 
 
 Okomiut. M. Esk. 
 
 Norelmuk. Cop. 
 
 Olamentke. Mo. 
 
 Normuk. Cop. 
 
 Olelato. Cop. 
 
 Nor ridge wock. Alq. 
 
 Olbone. Mo. 
 
 Notcbee. Nat. 
 
 Olla. Puj. 
 
 Notodtiaiti. Mar. 
 
 Olineca. Un., Mex. 
 
 Nottoway. Ir. 
 
 Olowidok. Mo. 
 
 Noyuki. Cop. 
 
 Olowit. Mo. 
 
 Nozi. Yma. 
 
 Olowiya. Mo. 
 
 Nucbalabt. Wak. 
 
 Olposel. Cop. 
 
 Nugumiut. M. Esk. 
 
 Oluldto. Cop. 
 
 Nuksabk. Salh. 
 
 Olumpali. Mo. 
 
 Numpali. Mo. 
 
 Omaha. Siu. 
 
 Num su. Cop. 
 
 Onatbcaqua. Tim. 
 
 Nunatogmiut. Alk. Esk. 
 
 Onava. Pint. 
 
 Oneida. Ir. 
 Onocbaquara. Tim. 
 Onondaga. Ir. 
 Ontponas. E. Siu. 
 Oobenopa. Siu. 
 Opata. Pint. 
 Opatoro. Ln. 
 Opecbisabt. Wak. 
 Openango. Alq. 
 Opubnarke. Alq. 
 Oraibe. Ho. 
 Orariau. Alk. Esk. 
 Orejone. Coh. 
 Orista. Cso. 
 
 Orotioa - \C P n. 
 Orotman. J 
 
 Osage. Siu. 
 Osile. Tim. 
 Otaki. Puj. 
 Otari. Ir. 
 Otayacbgo. Alq. 
 
 Oto. 
 
 Siu. 
 
 Otoe. 
 Otomi. Ot. 
 OTOMIA.N. Ot. 
 Ottawa. Alq. 
 Oundngan. Esk. 
 Oustaca. Tim. 
 Owilapsb. Alh. 
 
 Paanese. E. Siu. 
 Paboksa. Siu. 
 Pacaos. Coh. 
 Pachenaht. Wak. 
 Pacbera. Pirn. 
 Pacuacbe. Coh. 
 Padlimiut. M. Esk. 
 Paduca. Gp. 
 Paguate. Kers. 
 Pah Ute. ^ 
 Pai Ute. [ Sho. 
 Paiuti. J 
 Pajalate. Coh. 
 Pakamalli. Pal. ? 
 Pakawd. Coh. 
 Palaibuib. Pal. 
 
 PAI.AIHNIHAN. Pal. 
 
Appendix 
 
 473 
 
 Palaik. Pal. 
 Palenque. My. 
 Paleumni. Sho. 
 Palligawonap. Sho. 
 Paloos. Shap. 
 Paluxsi. E. Siu. 
 Patnaque. Coh. 
 Pamawaioc. Alq. 
 Fame. Ot. 
 Pamlico. Alq. 
 Pampopa. Coh. 
 Pamticoke. Alq. 
 Pamunkey. Alq. 
 Paul. Cad. 
 Panpakan. Puj. 
 Pantasma. Ulv. 
 Panteco. My. 
 Papabuco. Zap. 
 Papago. Pirn. 
 Parrastah. Ulv. 
 Paskagula. Siu. 
 Pasquotank. Alq. 
 Passamaquoddi. Alq. 
 Pastancoya. Coh. 
 Patacale. Coh. 
 Patawat. Wish. 
 Patdwe 
 Patchdwe 
 Pat chic a. Tim. 
 Patshenin. E. Siu. 
 Pat win. Cop. 
 Paugusset. Alq. 
 Paupak an . Puj. 
 Pausane. Coh. 
 Pavant. Sho. 
 Paviotso. Sho. 
 Pawnee. Cad. 
 Pay a. Un. 
 Payseya. Coh. 
 Pea. Alq. 
 Pecos. Pol. 
 Pedee. E. Siu. 
 Pehtsik. Qor. 
 Pekwan. Wei. 
 Pend d Oreille. Salh. 
 Penobscot. Alq. 
 Pennacook. Alq. 
 
 } Cop. 
 
 Pentlash. 
 Pentlatc. 
 Peoria. Alq. 
 Pequot. Alq. 
 Pericu. Yma. 
 Perquiman. Alq. 
 Peten. My. 
 Piankishaw. Alq. 
 Picuris. Tan. 
 Pi Ede. Sho. 
 Piegan. Alq. 
 Pihique. Coh. 
 Pilingmiut. M. Esk. 
 Pi ma. Pint. 
 PIMAN. Pirn. 
 Pinal Coyotero. Ath. 
 Pinome. Zo. 
 Pintahae. E. Siu. 
 Pipile. Sho. 
 Piqua. Alq. 
 Pirinda. Ot. 
 Piros. Tan. 
 Piscataway. Alq. 
 Pisquow. Salh. 
 Pitkachi. Mar. 
 Pitt River. Pal. 
 Pi Ute. Sho. 
 Poam Porno. Kuln. 
 Pocomtock. Alq. 
 Poduuk. Alq. 
 Poelo. Sho. 
 Pohdllin Tinleh. Mar. 
 Pohonichi. Mo. 
 Pojoaque. Tan. 
 Pokomam. My. 
 Pokonchi. My. 
 Poluksalgi. E. Siu. 
 Porno. Kuln. 
 Pomouik. Alq. 
 Ponca. Siu. 
 Ponderay. Salh. 
 Popoluca. Gp., Mex. 
 Poquonnoc. Alq. 
 Potanou. Tim. 
 Poteskeet. Alq. 
 Potlapigua. Pirn. 
 Pottawatomi. Alq. 
 
 Pottawattomi. Alq. 
 Powhattan. Alq. 
 Pueblito. Kers. 
 Pueblo. Pbl. 
 PUEBI,OAN. Pbl. 
 Pujunan. Puj. 
 Pujuni. Puj. 
 Pulairih. Pal. 
 Punyeestye. Kers. 
 Punyekia. Kers. 
 Pusityitcho. Kers. 
 Pusuna. Puj. 
 Putum. My. 
 Puyallup. Salh. 
 
 Qagutl. Wak. 
 Qaumauangmiut. M. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Qinguamiut. M. Esk. 
 Quaitso. Salh. 
 Quapaw. Siu. 
 Quatquiutl. Wak. 
 Quatsino. Wak. 
 Ouekchi. My. 
 Queniut. Salh. 
 Oueptlmamish. Salh. 
 Ouerechos. Un., Sho. ? 
 Queres. Kers. 
 Quiahanless. Skit. 
 Quiche. My. 
 Quile-Ute. Chi. 
 Quinnebaug. Alq. 
 Quinnipiac. Alq. 
 Quinpi. Alq. 
 Quivira. Un., Siu. ? 
 Quoddy. Alq. 
 QUORATEAN. Qor. 
 Quoratem. Qor. 
 Qwinctunnetun. Ath. 
 
 Rama. Un. 
 Ramapoo. Alq. 
 Ramcock. Alq. 
 Reho. Un., Cali. 
 Republican Pawnee. 
 
 Cad. 
 Riccaree. Cad. 
 
474 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Rickohockan. Ir. 
 
 Rikwa. Wei. 
 
 Rogue River. Ath, 
 
 and Tak. 
 Runsien. Gp. 
 Rurok. Wei. 
 
 Saagit. Wei. 
 
 Sabaquis. Pint. 
 
 Sabaibo. Nah. 
 
 Sac. Alq. 
 
 Sac and Fox. Alq. 
 
 Sacumehu. Salh. 
 
 Sagdlirmiut. M. Esk. 
 
 Saharipa. Pirn. 
 
 Sahewamish. Salh. 
 
 Sahkey. Alq. 
 
 Saiaz. Ath. 
 
 Saidyuka. Sho. 
 
 Saint Regis. Ir. 
 
 Saiwash. Sas. 
 
 Sakaiakumni. Mo. 
 
 SALINAN. Sli. 
 
 Salish. Salh. 
 
 SALISHAN. Salh. 
 
 Saluda. Alq. ? 
 
 Samamish. Salh. 
 
 Samish. Salh. 
 
 San Antonio. Un. 
 
 Sandia. Tan. 
 
 Sanetch. Salh. 
 
 San Felipe. Kers. 
 
 Sanhican. Alq. 
 
 San Ildefonso. Tan. 
 
 Sanipao. Con. 
 
 San Juan. Tan. 
 
 San Juan de Guacara. 
 Tim. 
 
 San Mateo. Tim. 
 
 San Rafael. Mo. 
 
 Sans Arcs. Siu. 
 
 Sans Puell. Salh. 
 
 Santa Ana. Kers. 
 
 Santa Barbara. Sli. 
 
 Santa Clara, New Mex 
 ico. Tan. 
 
 Santa Clara, Utah. Sho. 
 
 Santa Cruz, Cali. Mo. 
 Santa Elena. Cso. 
 Santa Inez. Sli. 
 Santa I/ucia de Acuera. 
 
 Tim. 
 
 Sau tee. E. Siu and Siu. 
 Santiam. Kal. 
 Santo Domingo. Kers. 
 Saponi. E. Siu. 
 Saps. E. Siu. 
 Saptiu. Shap. 
 Sara. E. Siu. 
 Sarcees. Ath. 
 Saste. Sas. 
 SASTEAN. Sas. 
 Satsika. Alq. 
 Satsop. Salh. 
 Saturiwa. Tim. 
 Sauk. Alq. 
 Saumingmiut. M. Esk. 
 Sauteux. Alq. 
 Savanna. Alq. 
 Sawakhtu. Mar. 
 Sawamish. Salh. 
 Saxapahaw. E. Siu. 
 Sayuskla. Ykn. 
 Scatacook. Alq. 
 Sebasa. Wak. 
 Secoffie. Alq. 
 Secotau. Alq. 
 Seemunah. Kers. 
 Seguas. Nah. 
 Sekamish. Salh. 
 Sekumne. Puj. 
 Selawigmiut. Alk. Esk. 
 Selisb. Salh. 
 Seminole. Mus. 
 Seneca. Ir. 
 Senecu. Tan. 
 Senel. Kuln. 
 Sequas. Nah. 
 Seri. Ser. 
 SERIAN. Ser. 
 Sermiligak. Gr. Esk. 
 Sermilik. Gr. Esk. 
 Serousbamne. Mo. 
 Serrano. Of. 
 
 Sesbabt. Wak. 
 Sewee. E. Siu. 
 Sbacco. E. Siu. 
 Sbackaconias. Siu. 
 Shahaptaui. Shap. 
 SHAHAPTIAN. Shap. 
 Shakan. Skit. 
 Sbanktonwan. Siu. 
 Shasta. Sas. 
 Sbastika. Sas. 
 Shasty. Sas. 
 Shawano. Alq. 
 Shawnee. Alq. 
 Shesbtapoosb. Alq. 
 Shetimasba. Cht. 
 Sbevwitz. Sho. 
 Sbeyenne. Alq. 
 Shibal ni Porno. Kuln. 
 Shingwauk. Alq. 
 Shinomo. \ p^ 
 Shinumo. / 
 Sbiwapmuk. Salh. 
 Shiwokugmiut. Alk. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Shoccori. E. Siu. 
 Sh6doKai Porno. Kuln. 
 Shomamish. Salh. 
 Shoos wap. Salh. 
 Shoshokoes. Sho. ? 
 SHOSHONEAN. Sho. 
 Shosbone. \ ^ JQ 
 Shosboni. / 
 Sbotlemamisb. Salh. 
 Sia. Kers. 
 Siako. Kuln. 
 Sicatl. Salh. 
 Sicaunie. Ath. 
 Sihasapa. Siu. 
 Sikonesse. Alq. 
 Sikosuilarmiut. M. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Siksika. Alq. 
 Silets. Salh. 
 Silla. Kers. 
 Similaton. Ln. 
 Sinaloa. Pirn. 
 Sinimiut. M. Esk. 
 
Appendix 
 
 475 
 
 Sinnager. Ir. 
 
 Squonamish. Salh. 
 
 SIOUAN. Siu. 
 
 Stahkin. Kols. 
 
 Sioux. Siu. 
 
 Stegara. E. Siu. 
 
 Siquai. Ulv. 
 
 Stehtsasamish. Salh. 
 
 Sisseton. Siu. 
 
 Stenkenocks. E. Siu. 
 
 Sissipahaw. E. Siu. 
 
 Stillacum. Salh. 
 
 Sitcaxu. Siu. 
 
 Stono. Cso. 
 
 Sitcomovi. Ho. 
 
 St. Regis. Ir. 
 
 Sitka. Kols. 
 
 Subirona. Ulv. 
 
 Siuslaw. Ykn. 
 
 Subtiaba. Sub. 
 
 Skagit. Salh. 
 
 SUBTIABAN. Sub. 
 
 Skedan. Skit. 
 
 Sugan. E. Siu. 
 
 Skidi. Cad. 
 
 Sugaree. E. Siu. 
 
 Skihwamish. Salh. 
 
 Sugon. Wei. 
 
 Skiteiget. Skit. 
 
 Suinyi. Zun. 
 
 Skitsuish. Salh. 
 
 Suisun. Cop. 
 
 Skittaget. Skit. 
 
 Sumass. Salh. 
 
 SKITTAGETAN. Skit. 
 
 Supi. Yma. 
 
 Skoffi. Alq. 
 
 Suquamish. Salh. 
 
 Skokomish. Salh. 
 
 Suquinimiut. Lab. Esk. 
 
 Skopamish. Salh. 
 
 Susquehannock. Ir. 
 
 Skoyelpi. Salh. 
 
 Swali. Siu. 
 
 Sktehlmish. Salh. 
 
 Swinamish. Salh. 
 
 Skwaksin. Salh. 
 
 
 Skwallyamish. Salh. 
 
 Tacame. Coh. 
 
 Slave. Ath.. 
 
 Tacatacura. Tim. 
 
 Sluacus tinneh. Ath. 
 
 Tacbi. Mar. 
 
 Smoos. Ulv. 
 
 Taculli. Ath. 
 
 Smulkamish. Salh. 
 
 Taderighroue. E. Siu. 
 
 Snake. Sho. 
 
 Taensa. Nat. 
 
 Snohomish. Salh. 
 
 Tagish. Kols. 
 
 Snoqualmi. Salh. 
 
 Tahichapahanna. Sho. 
 
 Sobaipuri. Pirn. 
 
 Tahkaht. Wak. 
 
 Sochimiloco. Nah. 
 
 Tahkali. Ath. 
 
 Soke. Salh. 
 
 Tah ko-tin neh. Ath. 
 
 Sokoa. Kuln. 
 
 Tahlewah. Ath. 
 
 Solteco. Zap. 
 
 Tahltan. Ath. 
 
 Songish. Salh. 
 
 Taiakwin. Zun. 
 
 Sonomi. Mo. 
 
 Tait. Salh. 
 
 Sonora. Pirn. 
 
 Taitchida. Puj. 
 
 Sonorense Opata. Pint. 
 
 Takilma. Tak. 
 
 Sorrocho. Tim. 
 
 TAKII.MAN. Tak. 
 
 Souriquoi. Alq. 
 
 Taku. Kols. 
 
 Spirit Lake. Siu. 
 
 Talamanca. Un. 
 
 Spokan. Salh. 
 
 Talamo. Salh. 
 
 Squawmisht. Salh. 
 
 Talatui. Mo. 
 
 Squaxon. Salh. 
 
 Talirpingmiut. M.Esk. 
 
 Taltuctun tude. Ath. 
 Tamal. Mo. 
 Tamaroi. Alq. 
 Tamoleka. Mo. 
 Tanek. E. Siu. 
 Tano. Tan. 
 TANOAN. Tan. 
 Tantoyoc. My. 
 Tanu. Skit. 
 Taos. Tan. 
 Tapaneco. Nah. 
 Tapijulapane. Zo. 
 Tappas. Cad. 
 Taqagmiut. Lab. Esk. 
 Tarahumara. Pirn. 
 Tarasca. Tar. 
 TARASCAN. Tar. 
 Tarasco. Tar. 
 Tarelepa. My. 
 Tarratine. Alq. 
 Tartanee. Skit. 
 Tataten. Ath. 
 Tatera. E. Siu. 
 Taterat. Gr. Esk. 
 Tatimole. Tot. 
 Tatsab-kutcbin. Ath. 
 Tatu. Yuk. 
 Tauxsnitania. E. Siu. 
 Tawakomie. Cad. 
 Taywaugb. Tan. 
 Tceme. 
 Tcbeme. 
 Tcetlestcan tunne. 
 
 Ath. 
 
 Tchikun. Ath. 
 Tcbisbi. Ath. 
 Tcbokoyem. Mo. 
 Teacualitzistis. Pim. 
 Teata. Pim. 
 Tebaca. Nah. 
 Teco. Nah. 
 Tecojine. Zo. 
 Tecoripa. Pim. 
 Tecualme. Pim. ? 
 Tigninato. E. Siu. 
 Teguima. Pim. 
 Tebania. Cop. 
 
The North- Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Tehanin-kutchm. Ath. 
 Tehua. Tan. 
 TEHUAN. Tan. 
 Tehueco. Pirn. 
 Tejauo. Coh. 
 Tektikilhatis. Tot. 
 Telumni. Mar. 
 Tenaino. Shap. 
 Tenan-kiitchin. Ath. 
 Tenez. Cit. 
 Tenime. Zo. 
 Tennuth-Kutclnn .^M. 
 Teotenanca. Un.,Mex. 
 Tepaneco. Nah. 
 Tepehuane. Pirn. 
 Tepozcolula, Zap. 
 Tequis. Pirn. 
 Tequistlateca. Yma. 
 Terwar. Ath. 
 Tessuisak. Gr. Esk. 
 Tesuque. Tan. 
 Tetero. E. Siu. 
 Teton. Siu. 
 Teuteca. Cit. 
 Tewa. Tan. 
 TEW AN. Tan. 
 Texano. Coh. 
 Texas. Cad. ? 
 Texone. Coh. 
 Teyas. Cad. f 
 Tezcucan. Nah. 
 Tezcuco. Nah. 
 Thlinket. Kols. 
 T ho. My. 
 Tientien. Cop. 
 Tigua. 
 Tiguex. 
 Tillamook. Salh. 
 Timoga. Tim. 
 Timucua. Tim. 
 Timuquana. Tim. 
 TIMUQUANAN. Tim. 
 Tinlinneh. Mar. 
 Tinne*. -| 
 Tinneh. V Ath. 
 Tinney. J 
 Tionontate. Ir. 
 
 Tipatoldpa. Sho. 
 Tisechu. Mar. 
 Tishum. Puj. 
 Titowa. Siu. 
 Tiutei. E. Siu. 
 Tlacopan. Nah. 
 Tlahuico. Nah. 
 Tlamatl. Lut. 
 Tlaoquatch. Wak. 
 Tlapanec. Zap. 
 Tlapaueco. Zo. 
 Tlascalan. Nah. 
 Tlascaltecan. Nah. 
 Tlatluican. Nah. 
 Tlatscanai. Ath. 
 
 n f U - \Kols. 
 
 mkit. J 
 
 Ath. 
 
 Tlmkit. 
 Todmtcha. Puj. 
 Tobikhar. Sho. 
 Tocaste. Tim. 
 Tockwhogh. Alq. 
 Todericbroone. E. Siu. 
 Todetabi. Cop. 
 Tokar. Sho. 
 Tokoaat. Wak. 
 Tolemato. Tim. 
 Tolewa. 
 Tolowa. 
 
 Toi/TEC. Nah. f 
 Tongass. Kols. 
 Tonika. Tkn. 
 TONIKAN. Tkn. 
 Tonkawa. Tow. 
 
 TONKAWAN. TOW. 
 
 Ton to. Yma. 
 Topaidisel. Cop. 
 Topoqui. Tim. 
 Toquaht. Wak. 
 Tosikoyo. Puj. 
 Totero. E. Siu. 
 Toto. Puj. 
 
 TOTONACAN. Tot. 
 
 Totonaco. Tot. 
 Towiachies. Cad. 
 Towakarehu. Cad. 
 Triqui. Zap. 
 Tsamak. Puj. 
 
 Tsawadinoh. Wak. 
 Ts emsidn. Chyn. 
 Tshinkitani. Kols. 
 Tshokoyem. Mo. 
 Tsimshian. Chyn. 
 Tsinuk. Chik. 
 Tubare. Nah. 
 Tucano. Pbl. 
 Tucururu. Tim. 
 Tukkuth-kutchin. Ath. 
 Tukuarika. Sho. 
 Tulare. Mo. 
 Tumidok. Mo. 
 Tumun. Mo. 
 Tunglas. Mus. 
 Tununirmiut. M. 
 
 Esk. 
 Tununirusirmiut. M. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Tunxi. Alq. 
 Tuolomne. Mo. 
 Tusayan. Pbl. 
 Tuscarora. Ir. 
 Tutahaco. Pbl. 
 Tutchone-kiitchin. 
 
 Ath. 
 
 Tutelo. E. Siu. 
 Tututena. Ath. 
 Tutu tunne. Ath. 
 Twaka. Ulv. 
 Twana. Salh. 
 Twichtwicht. Alq. 
 Twightwee. Alq. 
 Two Kettle. Siu. 
 Tyigh. Shap. 
 Tzendal. \ ^ f 
 Tzental. / 
 Tzotzil. My. 
 Tzutuhil. My. 
 
 Ucalta. Wak. 
 Uchd. Uch. 
 
 UCHEAN. Uch. 
 
 Uchita. Yma. 
 Ucita. Tim. 
 Ugalakmiut. Alk. Esk. 
 Ugaqpa. Siu. 
 
Appendix 
 
 477 
 
 Ugjulirmiut. M. Esk. 
 
 Venado. Coh. 
 
 Wateree. E. Siu. 
 
 Uinkaretz. Sho. 
 
 Viard. Wish. 
 
 Watlala. Chik. 
 
 Ukiah. Kuln. 
 
 Vunta-kutchin . Ath. 
 
 Waxhaw. E. Siu. 
 
 Ukivokgmiut. Alk. 
 
 
 Wazaza. Siu. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Waccamaw. E. Siu. 
 
 Wea. Alq. 
 
 Ukumnom. Ath. 
 
 Waco. Cad. 
 
 Weapemeoc. Alq. 
 
 Ukusiksalingmiut. M. 
 
 Wagluxe. Siu. 
 
 Weenee. E. Siu. 
 
 Esk. 
 
 Wahaikan. Chik. 
 
 Weeyot. Wish. 
 
 Ukwulta. Wak. 
 
 Wahkiacum. Chik. 
 
 Weitspek. Wei. 
 
 Ulva. Ulv. 
 
 Wahpeton. Siu. 
 
 WEITSPEKAN. Wei.. 
 
 UI.VAN. Ulv. 
 
 Waicurru. Yma. 
 
 Wendat. Ir. 
 
 Umaha. Siu. 
 
 Waiilatpu. Wlp. 
 
 Wepawaug. Alq. 
 
 Umanak. Gr. Esk. 
 
 WAIIIvATPUAN. Wlp. 
 
 Westo. Cso. 
 
 Umatilla. Shap. 
 
 Waikenmuk. Cop. 
 
 Whilkut. Ath. 
 
 Unierik. Gr. Esk. 
 
 Waikosel. Cop. 
 
 Whonkenteae. E. Siu. 
 
 Umkwa. Ath. 
 
 Waikur. Yma. 
 
 Wichikik. Mar. 
 
 Umpqua. Ath. 
 
 Wailaki (i). Cop. 
 
 Wichita. Cad. 
 
 Unakhotana. Ath. 
 
 Wailakki (2). Ath. 
 
 Wihinasht. Sho. 
 
 Unalachtigo. Alq. 
 
 Wailaksel. Cop. 
 
 Wikchumni. Mar. 
 
 Unalashka.j^ ^ 
 Unalaska. / 
 
 Wailatpu. Wlp. 
 Wairika. Sas. 
 
 Wikenak. Wak. 
 Wiksachi. Mar. 
 
 Unaligmiut. Alk. Esk. 
 
 Wak ash. Wak. 
 
 Wilaksel. Cop. 
 
 Uuami. Alq. 
 
 WAK ASH AN. Wak. 
 
 Willamat. ) RaL 
 
 Uncapapa. Siu. 
 
 Walakumni. Mo. 
 
 Willamette. J 
 
 Uuechtgo. Alq. 
 
 Walapai. Yma. 
 
 Wima. Puj. 
 
 Ungavamiut. Lab. Esk- 
 
 Walla Walla. Shap. 
 
 Wimbee. Cso. 
 
 Unquachog. Alq. 
 
 Walli. Mo. 
 
 Winangik. Sho. 
 
 Unungun. Alu. Esk. 
 
 Walpi. Ho. 
 
 Winatsha. Salh. 
 
 Urriparacuxi. Tim. 
 
 Wampanoag. Alq. 
 
 Winnebago. Siti.. 
 
 Usheree. E. Siu. 
 
 Wan gum. Alq. 
 
 Wintoon. Cop. 
 
 Ushiti. Yma. 
 
 Wan gunk. Alq. 
 
 Wintu. Cop. 
 
 Uspaiiteca. My. 
 
 Wapanachki. Alq. 
 
 Wintun. Cop. 
 
 Ustoma. Puj. 
 
 Wapanoc. Alq. 
 
 Winyaw. E. Siu. 
 
 Uta. . 
 
 Wapoo. Cso. 
 
 Wisack. E. Siu. 
 
 Utah. 1 Sho. 
 
 Wappinger. Alq. 
 
 Wishosk. Wish. 
 
 Ute. J 
 
 Wappo. Chik. 
 
 WlSHOSKAN. Wish.. 
 
 Utchium. Mo. 
 
 Wapuchuseamma. 
 
 Witchita. Cad. 
 
 Utina. Tim. 
 
 Kers. 
 
 Wiwash. Alq. 
 
 Utlateca. My. 
 
 Waptimni. Puj. 
 
 Wiyot. Wish. 
 
 Uttewa. Skit. 
 
 Warren nuncock. E. 
 
 Woccon. E. Siu. 
 
 Uxmal. My. 
 
 Siu. 
 
 Wolokki. Puj. 
 
 
 Wasco. Chik. 
 
 Woolwa. Ulv. 
 
 Vacissa. Tint. 
 
 Washaki. Sho. 
 
 Wyandot. Ir. 
 
 Valiente. Un. 
 
 Washita. Cad. 
 
 Wylackker. Cop- 
 
 Varogio. Nah. 
 
 Washo. Wash. 
 
 
 Vebetlateca. My. 
 
 WASHOAN. Wash. XICAQUK. Un. 
 
 Venaambakaiia. Kuln- 
 
 Waskiteng. E. Siu. Xicayan. Zap.. 
 
478 
 
 The North-Americans of Yesterday 
 
 Xirne. Nah. 
 
 Yavipais. Yma. 
 
 Ximena. Pbl., Pirn. ? 
 
 Yellow-knives. Ath. 
 
 XINCA. Un. 
 
 Yecpin. Alq. 
 
 Xicalanca. Un., My. ? 
 
 Yesang. E. Siu. 
 
 Xuala. E. Siu. 
 
 Yodetdbi. Cop. 
 
 
 Yokdya Porno. Kuln. 
 
 
 Yokultat. Wak. 
 
 Yaketahnoklatakmaka- 
 
 Yokut. Mar. 
 
 nay. Kit. 
 
 Yonkalla. Kal. 
 
 Yakon. Ykn. 
 
 Yope. Zo. 
 
 YAKONAN. Ykn. 
 
 Yosemite. Mo. See 
 
 Yakutat. Kols. 
 
 Awani. 
 
 Yakwina. Ykn. 
 
 Y6towi. Puj. 
 
 Yamacraw. Mus. 
 
 Youkone. Ykn. 
 
 Yamasi. Mus. 
 
 Yuba. Puj. 
 
 Yamil. Kal. 
 
 Yucatec. My. 
 
 Yamkally. Kal. 
 
 Yuchi. Uch. 
 
 YANAN. Yan. 
 
 Yuclulaht. Wak. 
 
 Yankton. Siu. 
 
 Yuit. Asiatic Esk. 
 
 Yanktounais. Siu. 
 
 Yukai. Kuln. 
 
 Yaqui. Pirn. 
 
 Ynke -XA 
 
 Yatasses. Cad. \ Yuki. J 
 
 YUKIAN. Yuk. 
 
 Ytikol. Mar. 
 Yukulta. Wak. 
 Yuloni. Mo. 
 Yuma. Yma. 
 YUM AN. Yma. 
 Yupaha. Tim. 
 Yuqueyunque. Pbl. 
 Yurok. Wei. 
 Yusal Porno. Kuln. 
 Yuta. Sho. 
 
 Zapotec. Zap. 
 ZAPOTECAN. Zap. 
 Ziamma. Kers. 
 Zoque. Zo. 
 ZOQUEAN. Zo. 
 Zoque-Mixe. Zo. 
 Zuaque. Pirn. 
 Zuiii. Zun. 
 ZUNIAN. Zun. 
 
 U.S.Nat. Mu. 
 
 WOODEN SEAL-DISH, HAIDA, NORTH-WEST 
 COAST 
 
INDEX 
 
 See also list of illustrations, page xv. 
 
 Abandoned works, meaning of, 348 
 
 Aboriginal dress, 126, 133 
 
 Adobe, 220; brick, 234; house, 195 
 
 Adoption, 366, 416 
 
 Adoratorio, 186 
 
 Alaska, peopled from S. and S.-B., 
 
 457 
 
 Albornoz, 136 
 Aleut houses, 216 
 Aleutian islands, when inhabited, 
 
 457 
 
 Aleuts, range of, 217 
 
 Algonquin, dress, 142 ; records, 58 
 
 Alloy of gold and copper, 301 
 
 Alosaka, the, 179 
 
 Alphabet, Bureau of Ethnology, 36 ; 
 Cherokee, 52 ; Sauk, 53 
 
 Amazon myth, 403 
 
 America, when peopled, 456 
 
 Amerind, a village dweller, 247; de 
 finition of, 2 ; literature, 30 
 
 Amerindian race composed of differ 
 ent elements, 457 
 
 Amerinds a stone-age people, 248 
 
 Amnesty, 370 
 
 Amusements, 308 
 
 Ancient fabrics, 108 
 
 Antiquity of man in America, evid 
 ences of, 434 
 
 Antiquity of Mayas, 242 
 
 Apaches and Navajos remaining be 
 hind, 440 
 
 Appendix, 461 
 
 Aqueduct, 339 
 
 Arch, 217, 242 
 
 Ardnainiq, tribe called, 407 
 
 Armour, 156, 255, 257 
 
 Arrow- and spear-heads, 263 
 
 Assembly place, 412 
 
 Astrology, reliance of Aztecs on, 373 
 
 Astronomical, knowledge, .183; reck 
 onings, 303 ; station at Zuiii, 306 ; 
 stone, 182 
 
 Atlantis, 15 
 
 Atolli, 360 
 
 Authentic history, beginning of, 443 
 
 Awatuwi, ruins of, 179 
 
 Awl game, 320 
 
 Aztec, books, 73 ; cannibal banquet, 
 371 ; confederacy, 421, 423, 424 ; 
 descent, how reckoned, 423; 
 sculptures, 184 ; states, govern 
 ment of, 423 ; stone tools, 433 ; 
 towns, 238 ; writing, 68, 69 ; year, 
 306 
 
 B 
 
 Bag, sacred, 204 
 
 Baggattaway, 327 
 
 Baidar, 283 
 
 Baidarka, 283 
 
 Balance not known, 305 
 
 Ball games, 327 
 
 Baqati wheel, 317 
 
 Barabara, 217 
 
 Bark for rope-making, 126 
 
 Basket-drum, 92, 311 
 
 Basketry hats, 147, 148, 415 
 
 Basque, resemblance of language to 
 
 Amerind, 32 
 Bathing, 386 
 Battle, costume, 357 ; for a wife, 385; 
 
 of Wounded Knee, how begun, 
 
 445 
 Bay eta cloth, how used by Navajos, 
 
 Beads, wampum, 56 
 
 Bead work, 153 
 
 Bear-mother carving, 164 
 
 Beckwourth, head chief of the 
 Crows, 416 
 
 Bells, 292, 301, 302 
 
 Belts, 143 
 
 Bird box, 364 ; spear, Eskimo, 268 
 
 Bird -stones, 175 
 
 Bison, disappearance of, 333 ; possi 
 bility of domestication, 276 
 
 Black dye, 304 
 
 479 
 
480 
 
 Index 
 
 Blanket and basket designs sym 
 bolic, 58 
 
 Blanket-loom, 124, 131, 132 
 
 Blanket-making, 128, 133 
 
 Blanket-pole, 162 
 
 Blue dye, 304 
 
 Boats, 281 ; Omaha, 284 
 
 Boiling-basket, 89 
 
 Bolas, 268 
 
 Bologna codex, 72 
 
 Books, of Chilan Balam, 82 ; of the 
 Mayas, 77, 82 
 
 Borgian codex, 69 
 
 Boundary lines, 410, 411 
 
 Bow and arrow, 249, 254, 256 
 
 Bow-drill, 254 
 
 Boxing, 326 
 
 Bronze tools, 299 
 
 Buffalo wool blankets, 159 
 
 Building methods, change of, 200, 
 350 
 
 Bunch-word, 32 
 
 Burial, 388 
 
 Burning pottery, 100 
 
 Cactus-fruit wine, 360 
 
 Cahokia mound, 342 
 
 Cajon, 220, 236 
 
 Cakchiquel year, 307 
 
 Calaveras skull, 434 
 
 Calculiform writing, 73, 186 
 
 Calendar, stick, 305 ; stone, 181, 305 
 
 California houses, 215 
 
 Calumet, 364 
 
 Cannibal banquet, 371 
 
 Cannibalism, 368 
 
 Canoe, dugout, 282 ; Haida, 164, 282 
 
 Captain David, 140 
 
 Captives, treatment of, 366 
 
 Card-playing, 320, 326 
 
 Carved panthers, 180 
 
 Carving, 162, 167, 169 
 
 Casa Grande, 200, 233, 234 
 
 Casas Grandes, 234 
 
 Casting metals, 301 
 
 Cause of North-American race homo 
 geneity, 441 
 
 Cavate lodge, 220, 228 ; plan and 
 sections, 227 
 
 Cedar mats, 147 
 
 Cement, 303, 305 
 
 Cenote, 370 
 
 Central-American arts, why supe 
 rior, 439 
 
 Centre of culture, 431 
 
 Ceremonials, 320, 376, 381 
 
 CeVros trinche*ras, 344 
 
 Chac-Mool, statue, 190 
 
 Chaco ruins, 230, 232 
 
 Chalchivitl, 136 
 
 Change in building methods, 200, 
 350 
 
 Cherokee, alphabet, 52 ; syllabary, 
 52 ; writing, 36 
 
 Chiefs, 416, 424; civil, 418; grades 
 of, 424 ; war, 418 
 
 Chief s office hereditary in the gens, 
 424 
 
 Chilkat blanket, 452 
 
 Chimney, Puebloan, 226 
 
 Chinook jargon, 28 
 
 Chirimia, 311 
 
 Chiriqui, pottery, 104 ; stools, 192 
 
 Chocolatl, 360 
 
 Cholula, Great Mound of, 350 
 
 Chultune, 288 
 
 Cigarette used, 363 
 
 Cire perdue process, 301 
 
 City of Refuge, 456 
 
 Civil and military branches often, 
 separate, 418 
 
 Civilised tribes, 358 
 
 Clan, 414; crest, 166, 220 ; privileges 
 and obligations of, 419 
 
 Classification by stone implements 
 impossible, 433 
 
 Cleanliness, 386 
 
 Cliff-dwellers, 176, 229 
 
 Codex, Bologna, 72 ; Borgia, 69 ; Cor- 
 tesianus, 82; Dresden, 82; Men- 
 doza, 72 ; Peresianus, 76, 82 ; Tell- 
 eriano-Retnensis, 72 ; Troano, 82 ; 
 Vaticanus, 72 
 
 Coil- process pottery, 99, 104 
 
 Comalli, 360 
 
 Commerce, 375 
 
 Communal, buildings, 247 ; living, 
 200, 247 
 
 Complementary days, 306 
 
 Confederacy, Aztec, 421, 423, 424 ; 
 Iroquois, 421, 425, 449 
 
 Conical cap, 148 ; hat, 147 
 
 Continent peopled before glacial pe 
 riod, 432 
 
 Controversy, 383 
 
 Cooking-basket, 89 
 
 Copan, 242, 351 
 
 Copper, bells, 292; bowlder, 288; hard 
 ening, 299; implements, 291 ; mines, 
 date of working, 290; plates, 291 ; 
 working, 249, 288, 291, 301 
 
 Coppers, 162, 293 
 
 Corbel, arch, 242 ; vault, 235, 237, 242 
 
 Cord, 126 
 
Index 
 
 481 
 
 Cord-marked pottery, 106 
 
 Coronado, error in tracing of route 
 of, 453 
 
 Cortesianus codex, 82 
 
 Costume, 133 to 144, 367 
 
 Cotton, 128, 338 
 
 Cotton-padded armour, 259 
 
 Cotton weaving, 137 
 
 Council, 420; general, 420 ; of wom 
 en, 420 ; tribal, 420 
 
 Councillors, 416, 420 
 
 Counterfeiting, 49 
 
 " Counts back " of the Dakotas, 60, 
 377 
 
 Coureurs du Bois, 451 
 
 Covenant chain of the Iroquois ^2 
 
 Crest, 166 
 
 Crops, 333 
 
 Cross, the, 254 ; in America, 63 
 
 Crotalus, 380 
 
 Cruciform tomb, 3, 384 ; ground plan, 
 3 8 5 
 
 Cueitl, 138 
 
 Culture not evidence of relationship 
 430 
 
 Cup-markings, 65 
 
 Cupped-stones, 65, 272 . 
 
 Curtains for doors, 205 
 
 Daganoweda, 421 
 * Daily life not bloody, 353 
 
 Dakota winter counts, 60 
 
 Dance, around a cedar tree, 315 ; 
 Ghost, 316; Rain, 364; Resurrec 
 tion, 316 ; Snake, 376 ; Somaikoli, 
 3i8, 381, 454 
 
 Dancing, 376, 378, 381 
 
 Dead, disposal of, 388 
 
 Death-house, Natchez, 208 
 
 Death-masks in Amerindian pottery, 
 
 106, 171 
 Declaration of war, 366 
 
 Decoration of pottery, 99 
 
 Defensive, village, 346 ; walls, 345 
 -Deformity rare, 366 
 
 Degeneration of Yucatecs, 439 
 
 Descent, basis of, 419 
 Destruction of Amerinds by Gov. 
 Kieft, 444 
 
 Details of Puebloan house architect 
 ure, 211 
 
 Dibble, 270 
 
 Dighton Rock, 45 
 
 Diseases introduced by whites, 229 
 
 Distinction between gens and clan, 
 419 
 
 31 
 
 Distribution of, arts, 439 ; food, 354 
 Dog, harness, Eskimo, 278 ; whip, 
 
 279 
 
 Dogs, 276 
 Dolls, 328 
 Doors, 205 
 Doorways, 228 
 
 Double-headed snake, 168, 392 
 Dramatic sense, 331 
 Dresden codex, 82 
 Dress, 143 
 Drill, 251, 252 
 Drums, 308 
 Dry-painting, 61, 387 
 Dugout canoe, 282 
 Dwarfs, races of, 405 
 Dwellings, 195 
 Dyes, 303, 304 
 
 E 
 
 Early advancement, 432 
 
 Earthenware burial casket, 105 
 
 Earth, iglu, 219 ; lodge, 202 
 
 Earthworks, Cahokia mound, 342 ; 
 connected with agriculture, 338 ; 
 Etowah group, 337, 346 ; founda 
 tions for houses, 338 ; method of 
 construction, 342 ; Newark group, 
 346 
 
 East Mesa, 378 
 
 Effigy jars, 119 
 
 Eldorado myth, 403 
 
 Election of Aztec chief, 424 
 
 Election of chiefs, 418 
 
 Elephant mound, 334; pipe, 172 
 
 Elephant s trunks, 190 
 
 Elopement, 383 
 
 Emblem of peace, 364 
 
 Embroidery, 153 
 
 Enchanted mesa, 408 
 
 Eskimo, boots, 158 ; cloak, 159 ; 
 clothing, 156, 158 ; derivation of 
 term, 32 ; dog harness, 278 ; drum, 
 313 ; fuel, 275 ; house, 217, 219, 
 221 ; lamp, 169, 274 ; language, 36 ; 
 light from lamp, 276 ; not in Alas 
 ka 500 years back, 428 ; southern 
 range of, 273 ; wick for lamp, 276 
 
 Estufa, not a sweat-house, 375 
 
 Etchings, rock - scratchings incor 
 rectly called, 180 
 
 Eternal fires, 252 
 
 Etowah mound, 337, 346 
 
 Fabric-marked pottery, 109 
 Face decoration, 366 
 
482 
 
 Index 
 
 Farming, 336 
 
 Farm products, 247, 338 
 
 Feather, garments, 134, 137, 138 ; 
 
 mail, 134 ; mantles, 138 
 Feather-work, method of making, 
 
 137 
 
 Feathered, horned serpent, 63 
 Fetich, of what consisting, 420 
 Fire-drill, 250, 252 ; by friction, 368, 
 
 370 ; eternal, 252 
 Firing pottery, 100 
 Five Nations (or Tribes), 212, 425 
 Flageolet, 308 
 Flax, 130 
 Flint Ridge, 264 
 Flood stories, 407, 408 
 Floods, 439 
 Flute, 308 
 
 Fondness for singing, 318 
 Football, Eskimo, 326 
 Foot-races, 323 
 Forbidden food, 373 
 Foreign influence, no, 247 
 Fort Ancient, 344 
 Fortifications, 344 
 Fraudulent implements, 49 
 Funeral, jars, 112 ; urns, 190 
 Fur companies, methods of, 363 
 
 Gallantry, 387 
 
 Gallatin s work, 20-26 
 
 Gambling, 323 
 
 Games, 320 
 
 Garments, primitive, 126 
 
 Garters, 133 
 
 Gauntlet, running the, 366 
 
 Genesis, myth of the Mokis, 403 
 
 Gens, 414 ; basis of, 419 ; definition 
 of, 414 ; privileges of, and obliga 
 tions, 419 
 
 Gentes, 414 
 
 Gentile system, 414 
 
 Georgia costume, 141 
 
 Gesture language, 26 
 
 Ghost dance, 316, 399 
 
 Ghost-shirt, 156, 262 
 
 Gilded man, the myth of, 403 
 
 Glacial period, cause of, 435 
 
 Glaciation, duration of, 435 ; extent 
 of, in North America, 435 
 
 Glue, 303, 305 
 
 God-houses of the Huichols, 409 
 
 Gold, alloy, 301 ; plating, 302 
 
 Government, 414 
 
 Governor s palace, Uxmal, 244 
 
 Grass seeds for food, 358 
 Grave monuments, 166 
 Graves, 388 ; stone box, 388 
 Grease feast, 162 
 Great Heads, 407 
 Great Mound of Cholula, 350 
 Great Spirit, no knowledge of a sin 
 gle, 375 
 Gukuniatz, 397 
 
 H 
 
 Haida canoes, 164 
 
 Hair dressing, 150 
 
 Hall of Columns, 209, 246 
 
 Hano, establishment of village of, 22 
 
 Hard pottery, 100 
 
 Hardened copper, 299, 300 
 
 Harpoon, 267 
 
 Hawk bells, 292, 309 
 
 Head at Izamal, 191 
 
 Head chief, 416 
 
 Head roll for carrying, 153 
 
 Health, 356 
 
 Heat, debilitating to Amerinds, 439 
 
 Helmet, 260 
 
 Hereditary offices, 423-424 
 
 Hero-gods, 371, 396, 399, 401 
 
 Hiawatha, 393 ; in Longfellow and 
 Schoolcraft ranked as an Algon 
 quin, 395 
 
 Hieratic languages, 29 
 
 Hill forts, 344 
 
 Hinu n , God of Thunder, 364 
 
 History, linked with other races, 
 
 447 
 
 Hodenosaunee, 212 
 Hodenosote, 200, 210 
 Hollow square earthworks, 208 
 Homogeneity, 358 
 Hopewell cache, 264 
 Horse-racing, 323, 329 
 Hospitality, a law, 354, 447 
 House, column, 162 ; of the dead, 
 
 208 ; post, 162 
 Household utensils, 273 
 Houses on piles, 240 
 Hudson Bay Co., peaceful success 
 
 of, 453 
 Huepilli, 140 
 
 Human flesh eaten, 367, 368 
 Hunt-the-button game, 324 
 Hut of the Great Sun, 208 
 
 Ideographic records, 48, 59 
 Iglu, 217 
 
Index 
 
 Iglugeak, 217 
 
 Ikonographic writing, 69 
 
 Ikonomatic, 48, 69 
 
 Imaginary animals, 174 
 
 Indian, corn , 358 ; names, 395 ; stocks 
 
 or families, list of, 461 ; tribes, list 
 
 of, 465 
 
 Indio Triste, 184 
 Intercalation of days, 306 ; denied, 
 
 306 
 
 Interkilling, 381 
 Internecine wars, 229, 427 
 Irish and Danes in Ancient Amer 
 ica, 429 
 
 Irrigating, 333; canals, 195, 333, 336 
 Iroquois, confederacy, 421, 425, 449 ; 
 
 costume, 140 ; house, 198, 200, 210 ; 
 
 unsurpassed, 375 
 Israelite and Amerindian myths 
 
 compared, 403 
 Itzamna, 401 
 Ixtlilxochitl, 443 
 Izamal, head at, 191 
 
 J 
 
 Jacal construction, 220, 236 
 Jargon, Chinook, 28 
 Joint tenements, 240 
 Jossakeed, 373 
 
 K 
 
 Kabinapek orchestra, 325 
 
 Kalopaling, 407 
 
 Karankawa, 34 
 
 Kashim, 216 
 
 Katcina, 47, 378 
 
 Kayak, 281, 283 
 
 Kishoni, 196 
 
 Kisi construction, 196 
 
 Kiva, 231, 232, 325, 350, 375, 412,414 
 
 Knives, 269 
 
 Kwakiutl, house front, 239 ; statues, 
 
 167 
 Kwokwuli, 405 
 
 Labna, palace of, 450 
 
 Labret, 355 
 
 Lacandou idol, 190 
 
 Lack of carving in the South-west, 
 181 
 
 Lacrosse, 327 
 
 Ladders, 197, 226 
 
 Lamp, 169, 274 ; of Vancouver Is 
 land, 275 ; wick, 276 
 
 Landa s alphabet, 50 ; legacy, 78 
 
 Language, classification, 17 ; roots, 
 
 18, 25 
 Languages, number of, 20 ; polysyn- 
 
 thetic, 32 
 
 Laolaxa costume, 406 
 Law of hospitality, 354, 447 
 League of the Iroquois, 421, 425, 449 
 Legends, 393, 403, 405 
 Leggings, 134, 143, 144, 148, 150 
 Lenape houses, 206 
 Length of year calculated, 305 
 Limits of ancient inhabitants, 437 
 Linguistic map, 33 
 Long-house, 200, 210, 414 
 Loom, 124, 131, 132 
 Lost-Tribes-of- Israel theory, 53, 63, 
 
 401^ 403, 429 
 Louisiana costume, 140 
 
 M 
 
 Main points of Iroquois organisa 
 tion, 425 
 
 Maize, 358 
 
 Makah house, 213 
 
 Malignant sprites, 405 
 
 Man always the same, 315 
 
 Manatee pipe, 173 
 
 Mandan costume, 144 
 
 Manner of dying, 356 
 
 Mantle of fur, 137 
 
 Map, Central-American ruins, 436; 
 linguistic, 33 ; Mexican ruins, 438 
 
 Masks, 165 
 
 Mats, 147 
 
 Maxtlatl, 136 
 
 Maya, alphabet, 50 ; books, 77, 82 ; 
 buildings, ground plans, 238 ; 
 chronicles, 408 ; chronology, 242, 
 37 i greatness, 242 ; house, 246 ; 
 numeral system, 83 ; numerals, 
 86 ; paper, 77 ; parchment, 77 ; war 
 and rain gods, 190 ; week, 306 ; 
 writing, origin of, 78 ; year, 306 
 
 Mealing stones, 194 
 
 Medicinal remedies, 373 
 
 Medicine-men, 371, 372 
 
 Mendoza codex, 72 
 
 Mesa Encantada, 408 
 
 Messiah, the, 399 
 
 Metates, 181, 191, 194, 272 
 
 Method of attaching arrow-heads, 
 265 
 
 Methods of the fur companies, 363 
 
 Metlatl, 272 
 
 Mexican, bronze tools, 299; cos 
 tume, 134, 136, 138 ; hardened 
 copper, 299 ; houses, 238 ; know 
 ledge of metals, 299 ; mining, 299 
 
484 
 
 Index 
 
 Mezcal, 360 
 
 Michabo, 396, 399, 401 
 
 Mide, society, 401 ; songs, 58 
 
 Migration theory, 428 
 
 Milk not used, 360 
 
 Mining, 285 ; by fire method, 285 
 
 Misconceptions of the Spaniards, 421 
 
 Mississippi valley, houses, 205 ; pot 
 tery, 1 06 
 
 Mitla, 209, 246 ; roof construction, 
 230 
 
 Mnemonic records, 48, 59 
 
 Moccasin, 134, 142, 145, 150, 159, 369 
 
 Modoc houses, 215 
 
 Moki, hair dressing, 150, 151 ; house 
 plan, 220 ; loom, 130 ; method of 
 watering crops, 335 ; putchkohu, 
 268, 270; reservation, 447 ; sacred 
 blanket, 130 ; throwiug-stick, 268, 
 270; women s costume, 150 
 
 Monitor pipe, 171 
 
 Monolithic monuments, 186 
 
 Montezuma, legend of, 408 ; rank 
 of, 423 
 
 Moons computed to the year, 305 
 
 Morgan s classification, 14 
 
 Mormon protective garment, 262 
 
 Mortar, 246, 272 
 
 Most widely spread stocks, 443 
 
 Mound foundations, 242 
 
 Moundbuilder pipes, 172, 174 
 
 Moundbuilders, lack of skill, 174 
 
 Mounds, 195, 206, 207, 342, 350 ; 
 builders of, 343 
 
 Murder, settlement of, 381 
 
 Musical, bow, 308, 451 ; instruments, 
 308 
 
 Mustache, 154 
 
 Myths, 393, 403 ; resemblances to 
 those of Israelites, 403 
 
 N 
 
 Nahuatls, 443. Sec Mexican and 
 Aztec 
 
 Names, derivation of, 386 ; indicat 
 ing totem, 420 
 
 Natchez temple, 207 
 
 Navajo, costume, 150 ; dramatic 
 sense, 331 ; dry-painting, 61 ; 
 house, 199; loom construction, 
 131, 132 ; reservation, 445 silver 
 smiths, 294 ; silver-work, 296 ; 
 songs the most primitive, 313 ; 
 summer and winter homes, 412 ; 
 women s costume, 150 
 
 Navajos remained behind, 440 
 
 Nenenot tent, 219 
 
 Nets, 269 
 
 New-fire, 252, 368, 370 ; Moki, 370 
 Newark group of earthworks, 346 
 Nicaragua costume, 140 
 Night attacks, 366 
 North growing warmer, 443 
 North-west coast, "coppers," 293; 
 houses, 212, 241 ; totem poles, 241 
 North-western tribes, costume, 144 
 Notched doorway, 213, 228 
 Numerals of the Mayas, 83, 86 
 
 O 
 
 Object of Aztec war, 368 
 
 Observatories, 183 
 
 Obsidian, mines, 264 ; tools, 299 
 
 Octli, 360 
 
 Oglala roster, 387 
 
 Okeepa ceremony, 362, 378 
 
 Oldest people of Valley of Mexico, 
 
 443 
 
 Olmecas, 443 
 
 Omaha boat, 284 
 
 Only one kind of music, 314 
 
 Ontonagon bowlder, the, 289 
 
 Opinion, effect of, on civil chief, 416 
 
 Oraibi at night, 325 
 
 Organisation and government, 410, 
 414 
 
 Organisation of Iroquois confeder 
 acy, 425 
 
 Origin, migrations, and history, 428 
 
 Origin of Maya writing, 78 
 
 Ornamentation of Yucatec architect 
 ure, 191 
 
 Outlaws, 453, 455 
 
 Pai Ute Messiah, 399 
 
 Pai Utes, 303 
 
 Painting faces, 366 
 
 Palace of Palenque, 351 
 
 Palenque buildings, 244, 351, 404, 
 
 Frontispiece ; transverse section 
 
 of, 210 
 
 Palm-drill, 252, 368 
 Paper of the Mayas, 77 
 Parallelism of human development, 
 
 396 
 
 Patnish and his band, 455 
 Patolli, 322 
 
 Peace chiefs, 418 ; envoys, 364 
 Penn s dealings, 358 
 Peopling of America, 428 
 Peresianus codex, 76 
 Period of time since recession of ice, 
 
 441 
 
Index 
 
 485 
 
 Permanent houses, 195 
 
 Phonetic element in Mayan and 
 
 Mexican writing, 71 
 Phonographic records of songs, 320 
 Photographs ba^ medicine, 381 
 Phratry, 414 
 Pictographs, painted, 42 
 Picture-writing, 39 ; classified, 50 
 Piki (Moki bread), 377 
 Pima house, 199 
 Pifion nuts for food, 358 
 Pipe, 171 ; of peace, 364 ; stone, 375 
 Pise, 220, 236 
 Platforms, 206 
 Plutnaje, 134 
 Plum-stone game, 324 
 Pochotl, 360 
 Poet, 313 
 
 Pokagon, Simon, quoted, 449 
 Pole, sacred, of the Omahas, 204 
 Polygamy, 386 
 Polysynthetic languages, 32 
 Popol t/uh, 82, 397 
 Population, 177 ; before glacial cold, 
 
 434 
 
 Portable houses, 195 
 
 Potlatch, 162 
 
 Pottery, area, no; burnished, 100 ; 
 cloisonne, 101 ; coil made, 99 ; dec 
 oration of, 99, 120, 122 ; Eskimo 
 knowledge of, 428 ; glaze, 101 ; in 
 vented, 98 ; preparation of clay for, 
 
 99 
 
 Priest doctor, 371 
 Primitive, fabrics, 124 ; garments, 
 
 126 ; loom, 121 
 Pronunciation, 34 
 Protective, armour, 156 ; medicine, 
 
 262 
 
 Protruding tongue, 166 
 Pueblo, 207 
 Puebloan, costume, 133, 151, 153 ; 
 
 ignorance of metals, 292 ; use of 
 
 term, 44 
 Pulque, 360 
 Pump-drill, 251, 254 
 Putchkohu, 268, 270 
 Pyramid, not a proper term, 343, 351 ; 
 
 of Cholula, 350; of the Sun, 350 
 
 Quarries, 264, 273 
 Quetzalcohuatl, 371, 396, 397 
 
 R 
 Rabbit-skin robe, 130 
 
 Rain dance, 364 
 
 Raised houses, 240 
 
 Rapidity of erosion after recession of 
 
 ice, 441 
 
 Rations, issue of, 445 
 Rattles, 309 
 Rattlesnake, centre of distribution, 
 
 190 ; designs, 188 ; horned, 380 ; 
 
 species, 189 ; venerated, 63 
 Recession of the sea, 437 
 Records of Tecpan, Atitlan, 82 
 Red Cloud s census, 60 
 Red dye, 304 
 Red pipe-stone, 375 
 Red score, authenticity of, 390 ; of 
 
 the Lenapes, 46, 47, 390 
 Rehearsal, a, 317 
 Religion, 375 
 Religious feasts, 368 
 Remedies, medicinal, 373 
 Remedy for smallpox, 375 
 Repousse" method of working cop 
 per, 291 
 
 Resemblance to Asiatics, 457 
 Resemblances of Amerinds and Old 
 
 World people, cause of, 432 
 Reservoirs, 195, 338 
 Resurrection dance, 316, 399 
 Right of asylum, 364 
 Roasting tray, 90 
 Rock, carving, 168 ; peckings, 42, 
 
 168, 180 
 Roof construction, Mitla, 230 ; 
 
 Moki, 226 
 
 Rope-making, 126, 346 
 Round towers, 232 
 Ruins in Honduras and Nicaragua, 
 
 246 
 Running the gauntlet, 366 
 
 Sachems, duties of, 425 
 
 Sacred, bag, 204 ; buffalo-cow skin, 
 
 204 ; Moki blanket, 130 ; pole, 
 
 204, 383 ; structures, 208 ; tent, 
 
 204, 208 ; tipi, 204 
 Sacrifice, method of Aztec, 371 ; of 
 
 children, Aztec, 371 
 Sacrificial stone, 182 
 Sail of umiak, 284 
 Sauk alphabet, 53 
 Sealskin, bottles, 276 ; floats, 267 
 Secret society, 414 
 Section of Yucatec building, 235 
 Seminole, costume, 154 ; war, 445 
 Sequoia, 360 
 Sequoyah (George Gist) syllabary, 52 
 
486 
 
 Index 
 
 Seven cities myth, 403 
 
 Shamans, 371, 373, 48; definition j 
 of, 372 
 
 Shell carvings, 174 
 
 Shields, 258 
 
 Shoshokoes, 8 
 
 Sign-language, 26 
 
 Sign of clan or gens membership, 
 420 
 
 Silversmith s tools, 298 
 
 Silversmiths, Navajo, 294, 296 ; Tim- 
 kit, 296 
 
 Similarities between Amerind and 
 European words, 25, 28 
 
 Singing, 312, 318 ; in the night, 319 
 
 "Singing-girl," statue, 188 
 
 Sisul, 1 68, 392 
 
 Sitting Bull, 356, 451 
 
 Six Nations, 425 
 
 Skin armour, 260 
 
 Skull-cap, 147 
 
 Slab houses, 212 
 
 Sledge, 277 
 
 Smallpox remedy, 375 
 
 Smelting ore, 291 
 
 Smoking, 363 
 
 Snake dance, 376 
 
 Show-house, 217; iglu, 217; knife, 
 217 ; shoe, 280; snake, 323^ 
 
 Soapstoue quarries, 273, 28C ; ves 
 sels, 273 
 
 Sod house, 217 
 
 Soft pottery, 99 
 
 Sokns Waiunats and the magic cup, 
 
 403 
 
 Somaikoli ceremony, 318, 381, 454 
 
 Songs of the Ghost dance, 316 
 
 Sorceress, 371 
 
 Sound writing, 69 
 
 Soyaita ceremony, see Somaikoli 
 
 Spades, 270 
 
 Spear- and arrow-heads, 263 
 
 Spindle, 126 
 
 Spinning, 128 
 
 Statue of the Sun, 350 
 
 Stela?, Copan, 186 
 
 Stock names, how derived, 30 
 
 Stocks, 17 
 
 Stone, cutting, 300 ; graves, 388 ; im 
 plements as charms, 263 ; statues 
 in Georgia and Tennessee, 176 
 
 Stools of Chiriqui, 192 
 
 Story telling, 330 
 
 String-drill, 252 
 
 Sun priests of the Moki, 305 
 - Superstition, 377 
 
 Swastika, 63, 458 
 
 Sweat, bath, 374; house, 374 
 
 Syllabary, Cherokee, 52 
 
 Symbol of the peaceful council fire, 
 
 418 
 Symbolic writing, 69 
 
 Tablet of the, Cross, 184; Sun, 186 
 
 Tablets, Maya, 184 
 
 Taensa house, 208 
 
 Tambourine-drum, 308, 313 
 
 Taos, 3, 234 
 
 Tattooing, 56 
 
 Tchungkee game, 328 
 
 Tecumseh, 449 
 
 Tegua (moccasin), 134 
 
 Telleriano-Remensis Codex, 72 
 
 Temple, of the Cross, 184, 190, 244 ; 
 of the Natchez, 207 ; of the Sun, 
 Frontispiece, 186 ; of Tepoztlan, 
 242, 391 ; of Xochicalco, 23, 31, 
 242 
 
 Temples, 350 
 
 Temporary house, 195 
 
 Tennis, 328 
 
 Teocalli, Frontispiece, 391 
 
 Tepehuaje, 311 
 
 Teponaztli, 312 
 
 Tepoztlan, temple of, 242, 391 
 
 Terms for describing stone weapons, 
 263 
 
 Terra-cotta, figures, 112, 113, 115; 
 tubing, 116, 117 
 
 Tetzontli, 350 
 
 Tewa, village of, when established, 
 22 
 
 Thought writing, 69 
 
 Thread, 126, 138 
 
 Throwing-stick of Mokis, 267, 268 
 
 Thunder-bird, 167, 342, 393 
 
 Tiltnatli, 136 
 
 Time calculations, 305 
 
 Tipi, 195, 198, 200, 204 ; construction, 
 200 ; decoration, 202 ; derivation 
 of, 200 ; sacred, of the Omahas, 
 204 
 
 Tiste, 360 
 
 Tlaloc, 396 
 
 Tlapan-huehuetl, 311 
 
 Tlaxcala, not a Mexican Switzer 
 land, 423 
 
 Tlaxcalteco organisation, 424 
 Tlinkit silversmith, 296 
 Tobacco, 28, 363 ; pipe, 171, 363, 
 
 3 6 4 
 
 Toboggan, 279 
 Toltecs, 443 
 Tongue in Amerindian carving, 166 
 
Index 
 
 487 
 
 Tools, 249 
 
 Topek, 219 
 
 Tortillas, 360 
 
 Totem, and totemism, 386 ; poles, 
 
 162, 386 
 
 Totems, where chosen, 420 
 Totolospi game, 322 
 Towers, round, 232 
 Tozacatl, 311 
 - Traditions, 393 
 Traits, 354 
 Translation of picture-writing by 
 
 Mormons, 63 
 Transportation, 276 
 Triangular arch, 242 
 Tribal, chief, 416 ; organisation, 414 
 Tribes, change building methods, 
 
 350 ; exterminated, 445 
 Troano Codex, 82 
 True arch, 217 
 Tupek, 219 
 Turf house, 217 
 Turtleback flints, 261 
 
 U 
 
 Umiak, 157, 282, 283 ; sail, 284 
 Unity of all music, 314 
 Unseen ruins, 246 
 Utahs, costume of 1776, 141 
 
 V 
 
 Value of a " copper," 297 
 Variation in culture, 178 
 Vase from Labna, 74 
 Vatican Codex, 72 
 Veils, 138 
 
 Vicuna in Arizona, 130, 276 
 Village dweller, 8 
 
 Villages, location of, 412 ; perman 
 ent, 228 
 
 Virgin copper, 301 
 Votan, 397 
 Votive stones, 188 
 
 W 
 
 Walamink, or Place of Paint, 304 
 Walasaxa dance, 359 
 Wall, steps on, Moki, 222, 224 
 Walls, Moki, 226 
 
 Walam Olum, 47, 390 
 
 Wampum, 55, 143, 418 ; belt, 418 
 
 War, 8, 366, 445 ; belt of Iroquois, 
 418 ; bonnet, 145, 156, 266 ; chief s 
 office hereditary in the tribe, 424 ; 
 chiefs, 418, 424; costume, 156, 
 357, 442 ; declaration of, 418 ; infre 
 quent, 366 ; object of, with Aztecs, 
 368; Seminole, 445 ; shirt, 262 
 
 Water-pocket, 405 
 
 Waterproof, boots, 159; garment, 159 
 
 Weaving, 126, 128, 137., 141, 147 
 
 Weighing, 305 
 
 Whalebone dish, 96 
 
 Whip, of Eskimos, 279 ; top, 328 
 
 Whisky, 360, 361 
 
 Whistles, 308, 310 
 
 White, brutality, 445 ; buffalo-cow 
 skin, sacred, 204 ; men as chiefs, 
 416 
 
 Wicker-work, in house construction, 
 234, 236 ; plastered, 236 
 
 Wigwam, 200, 204 
 
 Wikiup, 195 
 
 Wilson, Jack, the Pai Ute Messiah, 
 
 399 
 -Windows, 228, 242 
 
 Wine, from cactus fruit, 360 
 
 Winter counts, Dakota, 60, 377 
 
 Wolf-killer, 267 
 
 Wooden, house, 195 ; walls in ancient 
 Puebloan construction, 236 
 
 Woonupits, 320, 405 
 
 Wrecks of Japanese vessels on Pa 
 cific coast, 429 
 
 X 
 
 Xicalancas, 443 
 
 Xochicalco, temple of, 23, 31, 242 
 
 Yant, 358 
 Yellow dye, 304 
 Yokuts houses, 215 
 Yourt, 216 
 
 Yucatec, buildings, ground plans, 
 238 ; stone, 242 
 
 Zahcab, 238, 288 
 Zootheism, 375 
 
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