In the Proceedings of the New York Academy of Sciences an abstract is
given of a paper on the above, read by Dr. Frederick Starr:
It is well known that a tribe may have peculiarities in speech, in
manners, in arts, that distinguish it at once from its neighbors. The
Haida carves slate as no other tribe does. The elegant blankets of
mountain sheep wool from Chilcat are characteristic. The Hebrews
tested the enemy with the word _shibboleth_, and found that he could
only say _sibboleth_. A twist of the tongue in pronouncing a word is a
small matter, but, small as it is, it may be perpetuated for ages.
Such a perpetuation of a tribal peculiarity has been aptly called an
ethnic survival. Some of the advanced linguists of the present day are
beginning to query whether the group of modern languages of the Aryan
family are not examples of such ethnic survival; whether the
differences between French and Italian and Spanish, Latin, Greek and
Slavonic, are not due to the difficulty various ancient tribes found
in learning to speak the same new and foreign language. To draw an
example of ethnic survival from another field of science, consider the
art of the French cave men. The archæologist finds in the caverns
bones of various mammals, teeth of cave bear, and antlers of reindeer
carved with animal figures. The art is _good_ for a barbarous people,
but it is certainly barbarian art. The range of designs is quite
great: horses, bears, mammoths, reindeer, are among the figures. The
people who did this work were an artistic people. To carve and
represent animal forms was almost a mania with them. An ethnic impulse
seems to have driven them on to such work, just as a similar impulse
drives the Haida slate carver to-day; just as a similar impulse has
driven the Bushman to cover the walls of his caves in South Africa
with pictures whose boldness and fidelity are the amazement of all who
see them.
We have, then, in the French cave dwellers a people who had a well
defined art, and who, as art workers, were isolated and unlike all
neighbors. An eminent English scientist believes that neither they nor
their art are gone. There is a people who to-day lives much as a cave
man of France lived so long ago, who hunts and fishes as he did, who
dresses as he did, who builds houses in whose architecture some think
they can see evidence of a cavern original, who above all still carves
batons from ivory, and implements from bone, adorning them with
skillfully cut figures of animals and scenes from the chase. This
people is the Eskimo. If Dawkins' view is true, we have in the Eskimo
carvings of to-day a true ethnic survival--an outcropping of the same
passion which displayed itself in the mammoth carving of La Madelaine.
Scarcely anything in the range of American antiquities has caused more
wonder and led to more discussion than the animal mounds of Wisconsin.
We do not pretend to explain their purpose. Perhaps they were village
guardians; perhaps tribal totems marking territorial limits; some may
have been of use as game drives; some may even have served as fetich
helpers in the hunt, like the prey gods of Zuñi. We may never know
their full meaning. It is sufficient here for me to remind you what
they are and where. They are nearly confined to a belt of moderate
width stretching through Wisconsin and overlapping into Minnesota and
Iowa. Within this area they occur by hundreds. Dr. Lapham published a
great work on the effigy mounds in 1855, in which he gave the results
of many accurate surveys and described many interesting localities.
Since his time no one has paid so much attention to the effigies as
Stephen D. Peet, editor of the _American Antiquarian_, whose articles
have during this year been presented in book form. Mr. Peet has paid
much attention to the kind of animals represented, and has, it seems
to us, more nearly solved the question than any one else. He
recognizes four classes of animals--land animals or quadruped mammals,
always shown in profile; amphibians, always shown as sprawling, with
all four feet represented; birds, recognized by their wings; and
fishes, characterized by the absence of limbs of any kind. The land
animals are subdivided into horned grazers and fur bearers. Of the
many species he claims to find, it seems to us the most satisfactorily
identified are the buffalo, moose, deer, or elk; the panther, bear,
fox, wolf and squirrel; the lizard and turtle; the eagle, hawk, owl,
goose and crane; and fishes. One or two man mounds are known, although
most of those so-called are bird mounds--either the hawk or the owl.
Sometimes, too, "composite mounds" are found. Nor are these mounds all
that are found. Occasionally the same forms are found _in intaglio_,
cut into the ground instead of being built above it, but just as
carefully and artistically made. Notice, in addition to the form of
these strange earth works, that they are so skillfully done that the
attitude frequently suggests action or mood. Nor are they placed at
random, but are more or less in harmony with their surroundings.
Remember, too, their great number and their large size--a man 214 feet
long, a beast 160 feet long, with a tail measuring 320 feet, a hawk
240 feet in expanse of wing.
They are _unique_. To be sure, there are in Ohio three effigies, in
Georgia two, and in Dakota some bowlder mosaics in animal form. None
of these, however, are like the Wisconsin type. The alligator and
serpent of Ohio are different in location and structure from the
Wisconsin mounds, and are of designs peculiar. The bird mound in the
Newark circle is more like a Wisconsin effigy, but is associated with
a type of works not found in the effigy region. The birds of Georgia
are different in conception, in material, and in build. The mosaics of
Dakota are simply outlines of loose bowlders.
It seems to us that the effigy builders of Wisconsin were a peculiar
tribe, unlike their mound-building neighbors in Ohio or the South;
that they were a people with a passion for representing animal
figures. This passion worked itself out in these earth structures.
That a single tribe should be thus isolated in so remarkable a custom
is no more strange than that the Haida should carve slate or the
Bushman draw his pictures on his cavern walls.
Who were the effigy builders? This is a question often asked and
variously answered. Some writers would refer them to the Winnebagoes,
or, if not to them directly, to some Dakota stock from which the
Winnebagoes have descended.
Formerly I was a frequent visitor to the Sac and Fox Reservation in
Iowa. About 400 of the tribe are left. To an unusual degree they
retain the old dress, language, arts and dances. With them lived a few
Winnebagoes. In general the lives of the two peoples are similar.
Certain arts common to both of them particularly interested me. They
are the making of sacks of barks and cords, and the weaving of bead
bands for legs and arms, upon the _ci-bo-hi-kan_. Of the bark sacks
there are several patterns, the simplest being made of splints of bark
passing alternately over and under each other. Another kind, far more
elaborate in construction, is before you. Yet more elaborate ones are
made entirely of cords. The first of these I saw was in old Jennie
Davenport's wikiup. It was of white and black cords, and the black
ones were so manipulated as to form a pattern--a line of human figures
stretching across the sack. Jennie would not sell it, as she said, "It
is a Winnebago woman's sack; Fox woman not make that kind." I found
afterward a large variety of these Winnebago sacks, and all were
characterized by patterns of men, deer, turtles, or other animals. Not
one Fox sack of such pattern was to be found, though many elaborate
and beautiful geometrical designs were shown me.
The most beautiful work done on this reservation is the bead weaving
on the ci-bo-hi-kan--woven work, _not_ sewed, remember. In appearance
the result is like the Iroquois wampum belts, but the management of
the threads is dissimilar. The Sac and Fox patterns are frequently
complex and beautiful, but always geometrical. We have seen hundreds
of them, but none with life forms. The Winnebago belts, made in
exactly the same way, frequently, if not always, present animals or
birds or human beings.
This, it seems to us, is very curious. Here are people of two tribes
living side by side, with the same mode of life and the same arts, but
in their art designs so diverse. It is a case parallel to that of the
old effigy builders, a people who have a passion for depicting animal
forms--a passion not shared by their neighbors.
If this were the only evidence that the Winnebagoes built the effigy
mounds, or that their ancestors did so, it would have no great weight.
But the claim has been made already on other grounds. This being the
case, we think that this adds something to the testimony, and we ask,
_Have we here an ethnic survival?_
At the close of the paper Dr. Starr exhibited a number of fine
specimens of Indian handiwork, including woven work, bags, belts, etc.
Dr. Newberry explained that these mounds were not sepulchral, like
many others in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. Geologically
speaking, man is very recent. The early inhabitants of America may
have originally come from the East, but, if so, they were cut off from
that part of the world at a very early date. The development of the
tribes in America was complete and far-reaching. Copper and lead mines
were worked, the forests removed, and large tracts given over to the
cultivation of corn, grain, etc. This was the mound age, and the
constructions were certainly abandoned over one thousand years since.
The Pueblo Indians now existing in Arizona and New Mexico took their
origin from Central America, and spread as far north as Salt Lake,
Utah, and south as far as Chili. Their structures were permanent stone
buildings, many of which still exist in a good state of preservation.
Professor Munroe found rocks on the Ohio river, near the Pennsylvania
line, inscribed with figures of men, horses and other animals. At low
water these figures can be distinctly observed.
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