WORKS AND AGRICULTURE
For a long time it was believed by the whites that the “Indians” 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 reasoning 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 excellent book
on the Amerinds,[296] applies unfortunately this method of reasoning
to the copper-mine workers of the Lake Superior district, 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 system 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 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 commerce, 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 overtaxed, 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 of
population diminishes the food-supply; in an arid country where game
is not plenty this diminution is rapid. A corresponding 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 engineering developed. Irrigating canals,
then, are found not where any lost or mysterious race once dwelt, nor
where any particular Amerind stock were living, but where the climatic
conditions 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-western 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 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 receive
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 sandstone 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 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.[297]
[Illustration: SO-CALLED ELEPHANT MOUND, WISCONSIN
Has been ploughed over. Length, 140 ft.; greatest height, 4 ft.
]
[Illustration: ANCIENT FABRIC DESIGN FROM IMPRESSION ON POTTERY, UTAH]
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 the finest he
has seen.[298] 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 bottom, 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 sloping 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 constructed by Americans.
“The ancient ditch is well marked by two clearly defined lines of
pebbles and small boulders.... Probably these pebbles entered into its
construction, as the modern ditch, washed out at its head ... shows no
trace of a similar marking.”
[Illustration: ANCIENT FABRIC PRESERVED BY COPPER CELT, IOWA
See page 108
]
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 place without irrigation.
Mindeleff further states that “on the southern side of Clear Creek,
about a mile above its mouth, there are extensive horticultural[299]
works covering a large area of the terrace 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, including 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 farmers to a
greater or less extent, and many of the earthworks of the Mississippi
valley were in all probability connected with agriculture. It was
necessary there to protect the crops from marauding parties from wilder
tribes, so, in all probability, some of the earthworks, 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,[300] and this is also probable.
[Illustration: LARGE MOUND OF THE ETOWAH GROUP, GEORGIA
Next to the Cahokia, this is probably the most important work of
its kind remaining in the Mississippi valley. It is sixty-one feet
high, and the area of the base is about three acres. With several
smaller ones, it stands in the middle of a tract of about fifty
acres of rich land, bounded on one side by the Etowah River, and on
the other by a semi-circular artificial waterway or moat. The top
approximates a square, with a sort of roadway adjoining and leading
up on the left. The entire contents are about 160,000 cubic yards.
It is composed of earth which was taken from the moat and adjoining
excavations
From a photograph
]
On the upper Gila River in Arizona, Fewkes discovered traces of
reservoirs and irrigating canals. “The large circular or elongated oval
depressions,” he says, “in the immediate neighbourhood 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 leading into it were distinctly traced....
There is abundant evidence 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
marking 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 José irrigation ditches
had been constructed, the ancient aqueducts were much more conspicuous
than they are to-day, and that sections of the modern ditches follow
the course of the ancient waterways.”[301]
[Illustration: A VOTIVE ADZ OF JADITE FROM MEXICO, SHOWING FRONT AND
SIDE
Height, 10¹³⁄₁₆ in.; width, 6 in.; thickness, 4⅝ in. Highly
polished; color light grayish green with streaks of emerald green
on the back. A complete human figure. See page 341 for back.
From _Monumental Records_
American Museum, Kunz Collection
]
The Aztecs built long aqueducts to supply their towns, and the Mayas
constructed large reservoirs. Charnay says: “According to historians
of the Conquest, El Salto del Agua (a monumental fountain in the City
of Mexico) and the aqueduct which it terminates replaced the ancient
aqueduct of Montezuma constructed by Netzahualcoyotl, 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.”[302]
George Bancroft makes the statement that “of the labours of the Indians
on the soil of Virginia, there remains nothing so respectable as would
be a common ditch for the draining of lands,”[303] but in this Bancroft
was somewhat mistaken, for Thomas describes[304] 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 foundation
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 below, 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 removed 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
‘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 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.” 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.”[305] 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.[306] 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
westward, throughout the Mississippi valley, mounds and earthworks of
many shapes and sizes are found. They appear to be concentrated in
various centres, with a sprinkling in between suggesting 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 continent. 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
dwellings, were merely supports for buildings, religious or otherwise.
Others were connected with religious rites in other ways. Doubtless 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 carrying it in baskets to the designated spot.
The United States mounds are, as a rule, made of earth, those of Mexico
and Central 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 composed is usually gathered up
from the surrounding surface, the interior will vary in color and
character only as the soil so gathered up varies.... The places from
whence material was taken to build the small or moderate-sized mounds
are seldom discernible 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.[307] 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 operation 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 Mokis 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 investigation 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 carry 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.
[Illustration: BACK OF VOTIVE ADZ
For front and side see page 339
From _Monumental Records_
]
[Illustration: PATTERNS OF ANCIENT FABRICS FROM POTTERY
From New York
From Illinois
From Tennessee
See page 108
]
Many mounds and earthworks were erected for defensive purposes at
points controlling river passages or trails, where the advance of foes
invading a country could be checked. There were also fortification
works like the so-called “hill-forts” of the eastern portion of the
United States, and the “cérros trinchéras” of northern Mexico. Quoting
again from Thomas,[308] one of the best authorities on mounds and
“Moundbuilders”: “The most extensive example of the ‘hill-forts’ is
that known as Fort Ancient, in Warren County, Ohio. This crowns a spur
of the bluff some two hundred and fifty or three hundred feet high,
which here overhangs 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 surrounding 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 partly 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
beyond any reasonable doubt that the work was one of defence.”
[Illustration: ESKIMO MECHANICAL TOY.]
The Amerinds, though not always engaged in war, were always on the
defensive against stronger tribes whose warriors might appear on
the scene. These stronger tribes were not necessarily Amerinds of a
different stock or strangers; often, as in the South-west, defensive
works were erected against relatives 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 circumstances similar to those that prevailed in the
South-west: a desire 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.[309] Here are circles,
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 tanning 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 descend 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 discovered on this continent. There is nothing difficult
about it. The largest circle at Newark has a diameter of about a
thousand feet. This would require a rope only five hundred feet long,
which would be nothing for any tribe on the continent to make.
[Illustration: MÁHTOTÓHPA (THE FOUR BEARS), A MANDAN CHIEF
George Catlin, 1832
]
Just why the Newark works have the particular arrangement they have
would be impossible to say without knowing the 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 hostiles 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 necessarily 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 attributing 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 not be safe to say that those who
built mounds west of the Alleghany 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 Zuñi surface kivas are found acceptable.
[Illustration: AN ONYX JAR FROM MEXICO IN PROCESS OF MANUFACTURE
The excavating was being done by a hollow drill, probably of reed,
and sand
Photographed and described by M. H. Saville for the American Museum
_Bulletin_, vol. xiii., article xi., July 9, 1900
]
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 composed of clay and
volcanic pebbles, incrusted on the surface with the light porous stone,
tetzontli. Over this was a thick coating 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.”[310] 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 mutilated it. The bricks break
joints and are of various sizes.”[311] The altitude is about two
hundred feet. Limestone slabs were used 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.
[Illustration: WOODEN FOOD BOWL, HAIDA]
[Illustration: DANCING MASK OF THE MAKAHS, WASHINGTON]