contour of the regions through which they pass, are familiar to the
historical students in the Old World. The ancient lines traversed by the
traders between the Persian Gulf and the Levant; the routes of caravans
by way of the oases, across the centre of the Arabian peninsula to the
Red Sea; the lines of access by road and river from the Baltic to the
Danube; and from the British Isles and the North Sea, by the valley of
the Rhone, to the Mediterranean: are all indicated by a variety of
evidence. The geography of Central Africa appears to have been familiar
to the Arabian traders from remote ages. Similar well-trodden routes,
and traverses by lake and river, are well known to the investigators of
American antiquity. The great trail across Pennsylvania to the
Mississippi; the route by the great lakes and by portage to the Hudson
valley, and so to the Atlantic; from Lake Ontario, by the Humber and
Lake Simcoe, to the Georgian Bay; from Lake Superior, by the
Mitchipicotten river, to the Hudson Bay; and by the Mississippi and its
tributaries to the Gulf of Mexico: are all demonstrated by abundant
traces of the interchange of the products of widely severed regions, as
disclosed in ancient burial mounds, and deposits assignable to remote
periods and to long-extinct races. West of the Rocky Mountains the
trails from the Pacific coast to the interior, and through the passes of
that lofty range, have been recovered. Owing to the bold contours of the
region, in the abrupt descent from the western slope of the Rocky
Mountains to the Pacific, the routes of travel are more strictly defined
by the physical geography of the country than in the long stretches of
the continent to the east of that mountain range. An interchange of
commodities between the tribes of the coast and the interior appears to
have been carried on from remote times. Dr. Dawson’s own personal
observations in British Columbia have satisfied him that trading
intercourse was prosecuted by the coast tribes with those of the
interior, along the Fraser River Valley; Bella Coola Valley, from head
of Benetinck Arm; Skeena River; Stiking River; and Chilkoot Pass, from
the head of Lynn Canal. By the second of the above routes oolacten oil
was carried far into the interior; and the old trail leading from Bella
Coola and Fraser river is chiefly associated by the inland Indians with
this traffic. The habitual traffic engendered by the local advantages of
some of the tribes on the northern Pacific coast has manifestly
developed some peculiarities which distinguish them from other Indians
of the northern continent. The Bilqula, a people inhabiting a limited
tract in the vicinity of Dean Inlet and Benetinck Arms, by reason of
their geographical position have held command of the most important
natural pass and trade route from the ocean to the interior between the
Skeena and the Fraser rivers, a distance of upwards of 400 miles. From
remotest times embraced in the native traditions a route has been
traversed by way of the Bella Coola river, thence northward to the
Salmon river, and then along the north side of the Blackwater river to
the Upper Fraser. Dentalium shells and other prized objects of barter
were carried over this route; but the article of chief value brought
from the coast was the oil of the Oolacten or Candle Fish; and hence
this thoroughfare is commonly known among the Tinné of the interior as
the “Grease Trail.”
Along this and other long-frequented trails the broken implements, flint
and obsidian chips, and other traces of the natives by whom they have
been traversed, not only afford proof of their presence there, but at
times disclose indications of the regions they have visited in going to
or returning from the interior. Dr. G. M. Dawson informs me that, while
travelling along various Indian trails and routes in British Columbia,
west of Fraser river, and between lats. 52° and 54°, chips and flakes of
obsidian were not unfrequently observed. The Tinné Indians stated that
the material was obtained from a mountain near the headwaters of the
Salmon river (about long. 125° 40′, lat. 52° 40′), which was formerly
resorted to for the purpose of procuring this prized material. The
Indian name of this mountain is _Bece_, and Dr. Dawson further notes the
suggestive fact that this word is the same with the Mexican (Aztec?)
name for “knife.” Mr. T. C. Weston, of the Geological Survey, also
noted, in 1883, the finding of a flake of obsidian in connection with a
layer of buffalo-bones, occurring in alluvium, and evidently of
considerable antiquity, near Fort M’Leod, Alberta. The nearest source of
such a material is the Yellowstone Park region. Those regions, it is
obvious, were visited by native explorers, not merely to supply their
own wants, but for the purpose of securing coveted objects available for
trade or barter. Dr. Dawson reports to me as the result of observations
founded on repeated visits to the region, in the work of the Geological
Survey: That all the coast tribes of British Columbia are born traders,
and possess in a high degree the mental characteristics generally
attributed to the Jews. Those holding possession of the above routes
regarded trade with the neighbouring inland tribes as a valuable
monopoly, and were ready to fight for it. They also traded among
themselves, and certain localities were well known as the source of
commodities. Thus the Haida Indians regularly purchased oolacten oil
from the Tshimsians, who caught the oolacten at the mouth of the Nass
and Stiking rivers, giving in exchange cedar canoes, for the manufacture
of which they were celebrated. Through the agency of the Tshimsians they
also procured from the inland Indians the large mountain sheep horns,
from which they executed elaborately carved spoons and other implements.
Cumshewa, in Queen Charlotte Islands, was, again, noted for Indian
tobacco, an undetermined native plant, which was an article of trade all
along the coast.
Copper was not unknown to the native tribes on the Pacific coast, and
rich supplies of the native metal appear to have been partially worked,
by the tribes along the shores of Lake Superior from a remote date. The
ancient mines have been disclosed, in the process of turning their
resources to account by the enterprise of civilised settlers; and
abundant evidence has been recovered to show that the native copper of
the Keweenaw peninsula, Ontonagon, Isle Royale, and other points on Lake
Superior, was worked extensively by its ancient miners, and undoubtedly
formed a valuable object of traffic throughout the region watered by the
Mississippi and its tributaries, and along the whole eastern routes to
the seaboard. But, with the imperfect resources of the native miners, it
was a costly rarity, procurable only in small quantities by barter with
the tribes settled on the shores of Lake Superior. Axe blades, spear
heads, knives, gorgets, armlets, tubes and beads, all fashioned out of
the native copper solely with the hammer, have been recovered from
ancient grave mounds and ossuaries in the valleys of the St Lawrence,
the Hudson, the Ohio, the Mississippi, and their tributaries; and to the
west of the Rocky Mountains, copper implements again occur manufactured
from metal derived from some native source on the Pacific slope. The
copper was, no doubt, recognised as a malleable rock, differing from all
others in its ductility, so that it could be fashioned, with the aid of
a hammer-stone, to any desired form. By this means the ancient miners of
Lake Superior provided themselves with the most suitable tools for their
mining operations, and were probably the manufacturers of most of the
widely diffused copper implements. But for general purposes, both of
industry and war, American man had to be content with the more abundant
chert, hornstone, and quartzite.
The source from whence the tribes on the Pacific obtained the coveted
metal has not yet been ascertained; but it was obviously procured only
in small quantities, insufficient to be turned to account for economic
uses. Among a curious collection of objects illustrative of the arts of
the Haida Indians, now in the Museum of the Geological Survey at Ottawa,
is a large copper ring, or torque, which appears to have been handed
down for successive generations, from chief to chief, as a prized
heirloom; and, it may be assumed, as a symbol of official rank. The
ring, or necklet, is composed of three twisted bars, or strands of
hammered copper, each tapering at both ends, and is fashioned with
remarkable skill, if due allowance be made for the imperfect tools of
the native artificer. This unique relic seems to show the accumulated
metallic wealth of the tribe fashioned into a symbol of official rank;
not improbably with mysterious virtues ascribed to it, which passed with
it to its official custodian. A block of native copper now in the
National Museum at Washington is described by the Père Charlevoix as a
sacred object of veneration by the Indians of Lake Superior, on which a
young maiden had been offered in sacrifice.[29] But it is beyond
question that throughout the region north of the Mexican Gulf the native
manufacturer resorted mainly to the abundant hornstone, chert,
quartzite, and the like materials of the Stone period. These were in
universal demand, and must have been industriously collected in the
localities where they abound, and disposed of by a regular system of
exchange for furs, wampum, or other objects of barter. Mr W. H. Dall, in
his report on _The Tribes of the Extreme North-West_, notes the absence
in the Aleutian Islands of any stone, such as serpentine, fit for making
the celts or adzes, recovered by him from the shell mounds. “They were,”
he says, “probably imported from the continental Innuit at great cost,
and very highly valued”; and on a subsequent page he adds: “The
intertribal traffic I have referred to is universal among the
Innuit.”[30]
The occurrence of well-stored caches in some of the ancient mounds of
the Ohio valley, as well as their repeated discovery in other
localities, accords with the idea of systematised industrial labour, and
the storing away of the needful supplies for agricultural and domestic
operations, and for war. Messrs. Squier and Davis, in their _Ancient
Monuments of the Mississippi Valley_, describe one of the mounds opened
by them within the great earthwork on the North Fork of Point Creek, in
which, according to their estimate, about four thousand hornstone disks
were disposed in regular order, in successive rows overlapping each
other. In 1864, I had an opportunity of examining some specimens
retained in the possession of Dr. Davis. They were mostly disks
measuring about six inches long and four wide, more or less oval, or
broad spear-shaped, and fashioned out of a fine gray flint with
considerable uniformity of character. Mr. Squier assumed that the
deposit was a religious offering; but subsequent disclosures of a like
character confirm the probability that it was a hoard of material stored
for the tool-maker.[31]
In other, though rarer cases, the cache has been found containing
finished implements. In digging a cellar at Trenton, New Jersey, a
deposit of one hundred and twenty finished stone axes was brought to
light, at a depth of about three feet below the surface. Another
discovery of a like character was made when digging for the construction
of a receiving vault of the Riverview Cemetery, near Taunton; and
similar deposits are recorded as repeatedly occurring in the same
state.[32] In two instances all the specimens were grooved axes. In
another, fifty porphyry celts were found deposited in systematic order.
Mr. Charles Rau has given the subject special attention, and in a paper
entitled “Ancient Aboriginal Trade in North America,” he furnishes
evidence of addiction to certain manufactures, such as arrow heads, hoes
and other digging tools, spear heads, chisels, etc., by skilled native
craftsmen.[33] Deposits closely corresponding to the one reported by Mr.
Squier as the sole contents of one of the mounds, in “Clark’s Work,”
Ohio, have been subsequently discovered in Illinois, Wisconsin, and
Kentucky. One of the Illinois deposits contained about fifteen hundred
leaf-shaped or rounded disks of flint arranged in five horizontal
layers. Another, said to have contained three thousand five hundred
specimens, was discovered at Fredericksburg, in the same state. A
smaller, but more interesting hoard was accidentally brought to light in
1868, when some labourers in opening up a new street, at East St. Louis,
in the same State of Illinois, came upon a collection of large flint
tools all of the hoe and shovel type. There were about fifty of the
former and twenty of the latter, made of a yellowish-brown flint, and
betraying no traces of their having been used. Near by them lay several
large unworked blocks of flint and greenstone, and many chippings and
fragments of flint.[34] Deposits of a like character, but varying both
in the number and diversity of their contents, and, in general, showing
no traces of use, have been discovered in other states to the east of
the Mississippi. In the _Smithsonian Report_ for 1877, Mr Rau prints a
curious account of “The Stock in Trade of an Aboriginal Lapidary.” In
the spring of the previous year Mr. Keenan presented to the National
Museum at Washington a collection of jasper ornaments, mostly
unfinished, which had been found in Lawrence County, Mississippi. They
were brought to light in ploughing a cotton field, where a deposit was
exposed, lying about two and a half feet below the natural surface. It
included four hundred and sixty-nine objects, of which twenty-two were
unwrought jasper pebbles; one hundred and one were beads of an elongated
cylindrical shape, and a few of them partially perforated. Others were
ornaments of various forms, including two animal-shaped objects. The
whole were made of jasper of a red or reddish colour, occasionally
variegated with spots or streaks of pale yellow, but nearly all were in
an unfinished state, and so fully bore out the idea of their being the
stock in trade of some old native workman, who finished them in
sufficient numbers to meet the demands of his customers.[35]
From time to time fresh disclosures prove the extent to which such
systematic industry was carried on. The various collections thus brought
to light were unquestionably the result of prolonged labour, and were,
for the most part, undoubtedly stored for purposes of trade. In some
cases they may have been accumulated in the arsenal of the tribe in
readiness for war. But whether we recognise in such discoveries the
store of the trader, or the military arsenal, they indicate ideas of
provident foresight altogether distinct from the desultory labours of
the Indian savage in the preparation of his own indispensable supply of
implements for the chase or for war.
But there were also, no doubt, home-made weapons and implements,
fashioned with patient industry out of the large rolled serpentine,
chalcedony, jasper, and agate pebbles, gathered from the sea coast and
river beds, or picked up wherever they chanced to occur. When camping
out on the Neepigon river, with Indian guides from the Saskatchewan, I
observed them carefully collecting pieces of a metamorphic rock,
underlying the syenite cliffs, which, I learned from one of them, was
specially adapted for pipes. This they would carry a distance of fully
800 miles before reaching their lodges on the prairie. Dr. Robert Bell
described to me a pipe made of fine green serpentine, of a favourite
Chipewyan pattern, which he saw in the possession of an Indian on Nelson
river. Its owner resisted all attempts to induce him to part with it,
assigning as a reason of its special value that it had been brought from
Reindeer Lake distant several hundred miles north of Frog Portage, on
Churchill river. The diverse forms in which various tribes shape the
tobacco pipe are highly characteristic. In some cases this is partly due
to the texture and degrees of hardness of the material employed; but the
recovery of pipes of nearly all the very diverse tribal patterns, made
from the beautiful catlinite, or red pipestone of the Couteau des
Prairies, leaves little room for doubt that the stone was transported in
rough blocks and bartered by its quarriers to distant tribes. This
flesh-coloured rock has suggested the Sioux legend of its origin in the
flesh of the antediluvian red men, who perished there in the great
deluge. It is soft, of fine texture, and easily wrought into minutely
varied forms of Indian art, and so was coveted by the pipe-makers of
widely severed tribes. Hence red pipestone pipes of many ingenious forms
of sculpture have been recovered from grave mounds down the Mississippi,
eastward to the Atlantic seaboard, and westward beyond the Rocky
Mountains. This prized material appears to have circulated among all the
Plain tribes. Pipes made of it were to be found in recent years
preserved as cherished possessions among both the Sioux and the
Blackfoot tribes. Dr. George M. Dawson found in 1874 part of an ancient
catlinite pipe on Pyramid Creek, about lat. 49°, long. 105°.
A very different material was in use among the Assiniboin Indians,
limiting the art of the pipe sculptor to the simplest forms. It is a
fine marble, much too hard to admit of minute carving, but susceptible
of a high polish. This is cut into pipes of graceful form, and made so
extremely thin as to be nearly transparent, so that when lighted the
glowing tobacco presents a singular appearance in a dark lodge. Another
favourite stone is a coarse species of jasper, also too hard for any
elaborate ornamentation. But the choice of materials is by no means
limited to those of the locality of the tribe. I have already referred
to my Indian guides carrying away with them pieces of the pipestone rock
on Neepigon river; and Paul Kane, the artist, during his travels, when
on Athabaska river, near its source in the Rocky Mountains, observed his
Assiniboin guides select a favourite bluish jasper from among the
water-worn stones in the bed of the river, to carry home for the purpose
of pipe manufacture, although they were then fully 500 miles from their
lodges.
The favourite material of the Chippewas was a dark, close-grained schist
obtained at some points on Lake Huron. It is easily carved, and many of
their pipes are decorated with groups of human figures and animals,
executed with much spirit. Pabahmesad, an old Chippewa pipe-maker of
unusual skill, pursued his craft on Great Manitoulin Island, on Lake
Huron, in comparatively recent years. The peculiar style of his
ingenious carvings may be detected on pipes recovered from widely
scattered localities, for his fame as a pipe sculptor was great. He was
generally known among his people as _Pwahguneka_, the pipe-maker. He
obtained his materials from the favourite resorts of different tribes,
using the black pipestone of Lake Huron, the white pipestone procured on
St. Joseph’s Island, and the catlinite or red pipestone of the Couteau
des Prairies. But the most varied and elaborate in device of all the
peculiar native types of pipe sculpture are those executed by the
Chimpseyan or Babeen and the Clalam Indians, of Vancouver Island and the
neighbouring shores along Charlotte Sound. They are carved out of a soft
blue claystone or slate, from which also bowls, platters, and other
utensils are made, decorated with native legendary symbols and other
devices. But the most elaborate carving is reserved for their pipes,
which are not less varied and fanciful in design than the details of
Norman ecclesiastical sculpture. The same easily carved claystone was in
great request among the Haida Indians of the Queen Charlotte Islands for
their idols, and for ornamental gorgets and utensils of various kinds.
Thus the available materials of different localities are seen to modify
the forms alike of implements, weapons, and articles designed for
personal ornament or domestic use, and were sought for and transported
to many distant points, with the same object as the tin and copper which
played so important a part in the commercial exchanges of nations at the
dawn of history.
In regions where flint or hornstone is not available, the quartzite
appears to have been most commonly resorted to. I have in my possession
some spear heads measuring from seven to nine inches long, which were
dug up on an old Indian trail at Point Oken, lying to the north of Lake
St. John, Quebec; and implements of the like material are common
throughout eastern Canada. The same widely diffused material was no less
freely resorted to by the tribes on the Pacific coast. The arrow heads
found throughout the Salish country of southern British Columbia are
chiefly formed of quartzite, though chert is also used. The quartzite
occurs in so many localities that it is difficult to trace its special
source. But near the east end of Marble Cañon, and at the Big Bock
Slide, about six miles above Spence’s Bridge, on Thompson river, chips
occur in considerable quantities, suggestive of one of the chosen
localities resorted to for quarrying and manufacture.
The old arrow-makers evidently derived pleasure from the selection of
attractive materials for some of their choicest specimens of handiwork.
The true crystalline quartz was prized for small arrow heads, some of
which are equally pleasing in material, form, and delicacy of finish.
But the material most usually employed in eastern Canada, as well as
that previously referred to as in request by the old workers of the Ohio
valley for their largest implements, is a gneissoid rock of
comparatively common occurrence, which chips off with a broad facet when
sharply struck, and leaves an acute edge and point. Mr. Seller’s
valuable paper on the ancient workshops of Ohio and Pennsylvania also
contains an account of his own experience relative to the flaking and
chipping of flint implements.[36] In this communication he remarks:
“Most of the arrow points found within my reach in Philadelphia,
Delaware, and Chester Counties, Pennsylvania, were chipped from massive
quartz, from the opaque white to semi-transparent, and occasionally
transparent.” He further describes his first chance discovery of one of
the native work-places. He was in company with two scientific
mineralogists, when, as he writes, “we came to a place where (judging
from the quantities of flakes and chips) arrow points had been made.
After much diligent search, only one perfect point was found. There were
many broken ones, showing the difficulty in working the material. Mr.
Lukins, a scientific mineralogist, collected a quantity of the best
flakes to experiment with, and, by the strokes of a light hammer,
roughed out one or two very rude imitations.” Major J. H. Long traversed
the continent westward to the Rocky Mountains, as head of the United
States Military Topographical Department; and from him Mr. Sellers
derived information of the habits of the rude western tribes long before
they had been brought into direct contact with any civilised settlers.
“He said that flakes prepared for points and other implements seemed to
be an object of trade or commerce among the Indian tribes that he came
in contact with; that there were but few places where chert or quartzite
was found of sufficient hardness, and close and even grain, to flake
well, and at those places there were men very expert at flaking.”[37]
Mr. Sellers had known Catlin, the artist and traveller, in his youth,
while he was still an expert worker in wood and ivory in the service of
the elder Catlin, a musical instrument maker in Philadelphia; and from
him he learned much relative to the modes of operation and the sources
of material of the Indian workers in stone. “He considered making flakes
much more of an art than the shaping them into arrow or spear points,
for a thorough knowledge of the nature of the stone to be flaked was
essential, as a slight difference in its quality necessitated a totally
different mode of treatment. The principal source of supply for what he
termed home-made flakes was the coarse gravel bars of the rivers, where
large pebbles are found. Those most easily worked into flakes for small
arrow points were chalcedony, jasper, and agate. Most of the tribes had
men who were expert at flaking, and who could decide at sight the best
mode of working. Some of these pebbles would split into tolerably good
flakes by quick and sharp blows, striking on the same point. Others
would break by a cross fracture into two or more pieces. These were
preferred, as good flakes could be split from their clean fractured
surface, by what Mr. Catlin called ‘impulsive pressure,’ the tool used
being a shaft or stick of between two and three inches in diameter,
varying in length from thirty inches to four feet, according to the
manner of using them. These were pointed with bone or buckhorn.” It is
thus apparent that among rude tribes of modern centuries, as in the
prehistoric dawn, exceptional aptitude and skill found recognition as
readily as in any civilised community. There were the quarriers and the
skilled workmen, on whose joint labours the whole community largely
depended for the indispensable supply of all needful tools.