III.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON THE INDUSTRIES AND TRADE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES.

_By the Editor._

WHILE we have a moderate list of works on the general subject of prehistoric art and industries,[1824] we lack any comprehensive survey of the subject as respects the American continent, and must depend on sectional and local treatment. Humboldt in the introduction to his _Atlas_ of his _Essai politique_ (Paris, 1813) was among the earliest to grasp the material which illustrates the origin and first progress of the arts in America. The arts of the southern regions and western coasts of North America are best followed in those portions of the chapters on the Wild Tribes, devoted to the subject, which make up the first volume of Bancroft’s _Native Races_,[1825] and for Mexican and Maya productions some chapters (ch. 15, 24) in the second volume. Prescott’s treatment of the more advanced peoples of this region is scant (_Mexico_, i., introd., ch. 5). The art in stone of the Pueblo Indians is beautifully illustrated in Putnam’s portion of Wheeler’s _Report_ of his survey, and comparison may be made with Hayden’s _Annual Rept._ (1876) of the U. S. Geol. and Geographical Survey. The work of Putnam and his collaborators in the archæological volume (vii.) of Wheeler’s _Survey_ is probably the most complete account of the implements, ornaments and utensils of any one people (those of Southern California) yet produced; and its illustrations have not been surpassed. Passing north, we shall get some help from E. L. Berthoud’s paper on the “Prehistoric human art from Wyoming and Colorado,” in his “Journal of a reconnaissance in Creek Valley, Col.,” published by the Colorado Acad. of Nat. Sciences (_Proceedings_, 1872, p. 46). In the _Pacific Rail Road Reports_ (vol. iii. in 1856) there is a paper by Thomas Ewbank in “Illustrations of Indian antiquities and arts.” S. S. Haldeman has described the relics of human industry found in a rock shelter in southeastern Pennsylvania (_Compte Rendu, Cong. des Amér._, Luxembourg, ii. 319; and _Transactions Amer. Philos. Soc._, 1878). The best of all the more comprehensive monographs is Charles C. Abbott’s _Primitive industry: or illustrations of the handiwork, in stone, bone and clay, of the native races of the Northern Atlantic seaboard of America_ (Salem, 1881). Morgan’s _League of the Iroquois_ touches in some measure of the arts of that confederacy, his earliest study being in the _Fifth Report of the Regents of the State of New York_ (1852).

For the Canada regions, the _Annual Reports of the Canadian Institute_, appended to the _Reports_ of the Minister of Education, Ontario, contain accounts of the discovery of objects of stone, horn, and shell. (See particularly the sessions of 1886-87.) Dawson in his _Fossil men_ (ch. 6) considers what he accounts the lost arts of the primitive races of North America. On the other hand, Professor Leidy found still in use among the present Shoshones split pebbles resembling the rudest stone implements of the palæolithic period (_U. S. Geological Survey_, 1872, p. 652).

Many archæologists have remarked on the uniform character of many prehistoric implements, wherever found, as precluding their being held as ethnical evidences. The system of quarrying[1826] for flint best fitted for the tool-maker’s art has been observed by Wilson (_Prehistoric man_, i. 68) both in the old and new world, and in his third chapter (vol. i.) we have a treatise on the ancient stone-worker’s art.[1827]

Treating the subject topically, we find the late Charles Rau making some special studies of the implements used in native agriculture[1828] in the _Smithsonian Reports_ for 1863, 1868, and 1869.[1829] The agriculture of the Aztecs and Mayas is treated in Max Steffen’s _Die Landwirtschaft bei den altamerikanischen Kulturvölkern_ (Leipzig, 1883).[1830]

The working of flint or obsidian into arrowpoints or cutting implements is a process by pressure that has not been wholly lost. Old workshops, or the chips of them, have been discovered, and they are found in numerous localities (Wilson’s _Prehistoric Man_, i. 75, 79; Abbott’s _Primitive Industry_, and Putnam in the _Bull. Essex Institute_), but Powell in his _Report of Explorations of the Colorado of the West_ (1873) does not, as Wilson says he does, describe the present ways.[1831]

Wilson (_Prehistoric Man_, i. ch. 4 and 7) in an essay on the bone and ivory workers substitutes for the corresponding words usually employed in classifying stone implements the terms palæotechnic and neotechnic, as indicating periods of progress, in order that the art of making tools in horn, bone, shell, and ivory might have a better recognition, as of equal importance with that of making such in stone. Separate treatises are few. Morgan has a paper on the bone implements of the Arickarees in the _21st Rept. of the Regents of the University of the State of N. Y._ (1871), and Rau’s monograph on _Prehistoric fishing in Europe and North America, one of the Smithsonian Contributions_ (1884), involves the making of fish-hooks of bone. See also Putnam in the _Peabody Museum Reports_, and in _Wheeler’s Survey_, vol. vii.; Wyman’s contributions on the shell heaps, and the _Journal of the Cincinnati Soc. of Nat. Hist_. for such as have been found in the ash-pits of Madisonville. On shell-work there is a section in Foster’s _Prehistoric Races_ (p. 234); a paper by W. H. Holmes in the _Second Rept. of the Bureau of Ethnology_ (p. 179); and one on American shell-work and its affinities by Miss Buckland in the _Journal Anthropol. Inst._, xvi. 155.

From the primitive materials of stone, bone, horn, or shell, we pass to metals; but as Wilson (i. p. 174) says, “if metal could be found capable of being wrought and fashioned without smelting or moulding, its use was perfectly compatible with the simple arts of the stone period, as a mere malleable stone;” and to the present day, he adds, the rude American race has no knowledge of working metal, except by pounding or grinding it cold.[1832] The story which Brereton tells in his account of Gosnold’s visit (1602) to New England, about the finding of abundant metal implements in use among the natives, is questioned (Baldwin’s _Ancient America_, p. 62). We have the evidences of the early mining[1833] of copper extending for over a hundred miles along the southern shores of Lake Superior and on Isle Royale, in the abandoned trenches and tools first discovered in 1847; and in one case there was found a mass of native copper (ten feet by three and two, and weighing over six tons) which had been elevated on a wooden frame prior to removal, and was discovered in this condition.[1834] There are also indications that the manufacture of copper tools was carried on in the neighborhood of the mines (Wilson, i. 213); and chemical tests have shown that a popular belief in the tempering of metal by these early peoples is without foundation.[1835]

It seems to be a fact that while in the use of metals an intermediate stage of pure copper, as coming between the use of bone and stone and the use of alloyed metals, was not until comparatively recently suspected in Great Britain, the “peculiar interest attaches to the metallurgy of the new world that there all the earlier stages are clearly defined: the pure native metal wrought by the hammer without the aid of fire; the melted and moulded copper; the alloyed bronze; and the smelting, soldering, graving, and other processes resulting from accumulating experience and matured skill” (Wilson, i. 230). It is in the regions extending from Mexico to Peru that the art of alloying introduces us to the American bronze age. Columbus in his fourth voyage found in a vessel which had come alongside from Yucatan crucibles to melt copper, as Herrera tells us; and Humboldt was among the earliest to discover tools alloyed of copper and tin, and many such alloys have since been recognized among Peruvian bronzes (Wilson, i. 239). In Mexico, metallurgic arts were carried perhaps even farther in casting and engraving, and not only the results but the evidences of their mining places have remained to our day (_Ibid._ i. 248). It seems evident, however, that experimenting with them had not carried them so near the perfect combination for tool-making (one part tin to nine parts copper) as the bronze people of Europe had reached, though they fell considerably short of the exact standard (_Ibid._ i. 234). Doubt has sometimes been expressed of Mexican mining for copper, as by Frederick von Hellwald (_Compte Rendu, Cong. des Américanistes_, 1877, i. 51); but Rau indicated the references[1836] to Short (p. 94), which forcibly led him to the conclusion that the Mexicans mined copper to turn into tools.[1837] Among the Mayas, Nadaillac (p. 269) contends that only copper and gold were in use. Bancroft (ii. 749) thinks the use of copper doubtful, and if used, that it must have been got from the north. He cites the evidences of the use of gold. William H. Holmes discusses _The use of gold and other metals among the ancient inhabitants of Chiriqui, Isthmus of Darien_ (Washington, 1887). As to iron, that found in the Ohio mounds, only of late years, has been proved to be meteoric iron by Professor Putnam (_Amer. Antiq. Soc. Proc._, Apr., 1883). Bancroft (i. 164) says iron was in use among the British Columbian tribes before contact with the whites, but it was probably derived through some indirect means from the whites. Though iron ore abounds in Peru, and the character of the Peruvian stone-cutting would seem to indicate its use, and though there is a native word for it, no iron implements have been found.[1838] There is not much recorded of the use of silver. It has been found by Putnam in the mounds in thin sheets, used as plating for other metals.[1839] He has also found native silver in masses, and in one case a small bit of hammered gold.

* * * * *

Wilson, in 1876, while regretting the dispersion of the William Bullock collection of pottery, the destruction of that formed by Stephens and Catherwood, and the transference to an English museum of most of the specimens gathered by Squier and Davis, lamented that no American collection[1840] had been yet formed adequate to the requirements of the students of American archæology and ethnology. Since that date, however, the collections in the National Museum (Smithsonian Institution) at Washington and in the Peabody Museum at Cambridge have largely grown; and especially for the fictile art and work in stone of Spanish North America the Museo Nacional in Mexico has assumed importance. The collection in the possession of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia,[1841] since transferred to the Philadelphia Academy, is also of value for the study of the pottery of middle America.

Rau has supplied a leading paper on American pottery in the _Smithsonian Report_, 1866; and E. A. Barber has touched the subject in papers at the Copenhagen, Luxembourg, and Madrid meetings of the Congrès des Américanistes, and in the _American Antiquarian_ (viii. 76).[1842] W. H. Holmes has a paper on the origin and development of form and of ornament in ceramic art in the _Fourth Report, Bureau of Ethnology_, p. 437.

For local characters there are various monographs.[1843]

There is no satisfactory evidence that the potter’s wheel was known to any American tribe; but Wilson, in his chapter on ceramic art (_Prehistoric Man_, ii. ch. 16), feels convinced that the early potter employed some sort of mechanical process, giving a revolving motion to his clay.

[Illustration: MEXICAN CLAY MASK.

After a cut in _Wilson’s Prehistoric Man_, ii. p. 33, of an example in the collections of the American Philosophical Society, in a totally different style from the usual Mexican terra-cottas; and Wilson remarks of it that one will look in vain in it for the Indian physiognomy. Tyler, _Anahuac_, 230, considers it a forgery.]

Modelling in clay for other purposes than the making of vessels is also considered in this same seventeenth chapter of Wilson, and the subject runs, as respects masks, figurines, and general ornamentation, into the wide range of aboriginal art, which necessarily makes part of all comprehensive histories of art. W. H. Dall has a paper on Indian masks in the _Third Report, Bureau of Ethnology_, p. 73. The subject is further treated by Wilson in a paper on “The artistic faculty in the aboriginal races,” in the _Proceedings_ (iii., 2d part, 67, 119) of the Royal Society of Canada, and again in a general way by Nadaillac on _L’art préhistorique en Amérique_ (Paris, 1883), taken from the _Revue des deux Mondes_, Nov. 1, 1883.[1844]

* * * * *

As regards the textile art in prehistoric times, see for a general view W. H. Holmes in the _American Antiquarian_, viii. 261; and the same archæologist has treated the subject on the evidences of the impression of textures as preserved in pottery, in the _Third Rept. Bur. of Ethnology_, p. 393. Cf. Sellers in _Popular Science Journal_, and Wyman in _Peabody Museum Reports_.

J. W. Foster first made (1838) the discovery of relics of textile fabrics of the moundbuilders; but he did not announce his discovery till at the Albany meeting (1851) of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (_Transactions_, 1852, vol. vi. p. 375). He tells the story in his _Prehistoric Races_, p. 222, and figures the implements, found in the mounds, supposed to be employed in the making their cloth with warp and woof. Putnam has since made similar discoveries (_Peabody Museum Reports_). The subject is also treated in the _Proceedings_ of the Davenport Academy and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The fabrics were preserved by being placed in contact with copper implements.

The Indians of New Mexico were found by the Spaniards in possession of the art of weaving. Cf. Washington Matthews on the Navajo weavers, in the _Third Rept. Bur. of Ethnology_, p. 371, and Bancroft (i. 582), who also records the making of fabrics by the wild tribes of Central America (_Ibid._ i. 766-67). He also notes the references to the textile manufactures of the Nahuas and Mayas (ii. 484, 752). The richest accumulation of graphic data relative to the fabrics of Peru is contained in the great work on the _Necropolis of Ancon_.

Feather-work was an important industry in some parts of the continent. The subject is studied in Ferdinand Denis’ _Arte plumaria: Les plumes, leur valeur et leur emploi dans les arts au Méxique, au Pérou, au Brésil et dans les Indes et dans l’Océanie_ (Paris, 1875).[1845]

Lewis H. Morgan’s _Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines_ (Washington, 1881) is the completest study of the habitations of the early peoples; but it is written too exclusively in the light of universal communal custom, and this must be borne in mind in using it. The edifices of middle America and Peru have been given a bibliographical apparatus in another part of the present volume; but references may be made to Wilson’s _Prehistoric Man_ (ii. ch. 16), Viollet le Duc’s _Habitations of Man_, translated by R. Bucknall (Boston, 1876), and to Bandelier’s _Archæological Tour_, 226, where he quotes as typical the description of a native house in 1583, drawn by Juan Bautista Pomar.

There is no good comprehensive account of American prehistoric trade. The T-shaped pieces of copper in use by the Mexicans came nearest to currency as we understand it, unless it be the wampum of the North American Indians, and the shell money in use on the Pacific coast; but it should be remembered that copper axes and copper plates served such a purpose with some tribes.[1846] The Peruvians used weights, but the Mexicans did not. The latter had, however, a system of measures of length.[1847] The canoe was a great intermediary in the practice of barter.[1848] The Peruvians alone understood the use of sails, and the earliest Spanish navigators on the Pacific were surprised at what they thought were civilized predecessors in those seas when they espied in the distance the large white sails of the Peruvian rafts of burden.[1849] The chief source of trade in such conditions was barter, and we know how the Mexican travelling merchants got information that was availed of by the Mexican marauders in their invasions. Bandelier[1850] gives us the references on the barter system, the traders, and the currency in that country, and we need to consult Dr. W. Behrnauer’s _Essai sur le Commerce dans l’ancien Méxique et en Pérou_, in the _Archives de la Soc. Amér. de France_ (n. s., vol. i.).

All the treatises on the mounds of the Ohio Valley derive illustrations of intertribal traffic from the shells of the coast, the copper of Lake Superior, the mica of the Alleghanies, the obsidian of the Rocky Mountains or of Mexico, and the unique figurines which the explorations of the mounds have disclosed. Charles Rau has a paper on this aboriginal trade in North America, published in the _Archiv für Anthroplogie_ (Braunschweig, 1872, vol. iv.), which was republished in English in the _Smithsonian Report_, 1872, p. 249. Bancroft’s references under “Commerce” (v. p. 668) will help the student out in various particulars.