II. On reviewing the almost insignificantly small group of chipped
stone artifacts, it seems clear that while the material is local the
design is so incongruous with custom and characteristic thought as to
raise the presumption that stone-chipping is an alien and imperfectly
assimilated craft. The conspicuous and significant feature of the
chipped stone artifact is the shapement in accordance with preconceived
design.
III. On reviewing the arbitrarily separated group of metallic artifacts
it is found clear (1) that the material is foreign; (2) that it is
avidly sought and sedulously saved and utilized; (3) that it is wrought
only by the crude methods used for fashioning the most primitive of
implements and tools; and (4) that it is used chiefly as a substitute
for organic substances employed in symbolic imitation of the natural
organs and functions of animals. The significant features of the use
of iron artifacts are (_a_) the absence of either alien or specialized
designs, and (_b_) the mimicry of bestial characters as conceived in
primitive philosophy.
Classed by material and motive jointly, the three groups are diverse in
important respects: The first is local in material, local in motive;
the second is local in material, foreign in design; the third is
foreign in material, local in motive.
* * * * *
On recapitulating the several phases of Seri handicraft, the devices
are found to fall into genetic classes of such sort as to illumine
certain notable stages of primitive technic.
The initial class comprises teeth, beaks and mandibles, claws, hoofs,
and horns, used in imitation or symbolic mimicry of either actual or
imputed function of animals, chiefly those to which the organs pertain,
together with vegetal spines and stalks or splints, used similarly
under the zootheistic imputation of animal powers to plants; also
carapaces and pelts, used as shields combining actual and symbolic
protective functions. While this class of devices is well displayed by
the Seri, it is by no means peculiar to them; clear vestiges of the
devices have been noted among many Amerind tribes. Now the essential
basis of the industrial motive has been recognized by all profounder
students in zootheism, animism, or hylozoism—indeed, the industrial
stage is but the reflex and expression of the zootheistic or hylozoic
plane in the development of philosophy; while both the devices and
the cultural stage which they represent have already been outlined by
the late Frank Hamilton Cushing, on the basis of surviving vestiges
and prehistoric relics, and characterized as “prelithic”.[298]
Cushing’s designation for the initial stage of technic has the merit of
euphony, and of suggesting the serial place of the stage in industrial
development; but since it denotes a most important class of artifacts
only by exclusion and negation it would seem desirable to supplement
it by a positive term. The class of devices (considered in both
material and functional aspects) and the cultural stage in general
might appropriately be styled hylozoic, though it would seem preferable
to emphasize the actual objective basis of the class and stage by a
specific designation—and for this purpose the term _zoomimetic_ (from
ζω̢̃ον, τὁ and μιμητικὁς), or its simplified equivalent, _zoomimic_,
would seem acceptable.
[298] The Development of Form and Function in Implements; an
unpublished paper presented before the British Association for the
Advancement of Science at the Toronκωto meeting in 1897. A brief
abstract, revised by the author of the paper, was printed in the
American Anthropologist, vol. X, 1897, pp. 325-326; and in the absence
of full authorial publication, the more strictly germane passages of
the abstract are worthy of quotation: “Beginning with the semiarboreal
[human] progenitor indicated jointly by projecting forward the lines
of biotic development and projecting backward the lines of human
development, Mr Cushing undertook to trace hypothetically, yet by
constant reference to known facts, (1) the genesis of artificial
devices, and (2) the concurrent differentiation of the human brain
and body in the directions set forth by Sir William Turner; and he
gave special force to his exposition by frequent reference to commonly
neglected characteristics, physical and psychic, of young infants. He
pointed out that the prototype of man, whether infantile or primitive,
is a clumsy ambidexter, the differentiation of hand and brain remaining
inchoate; that one of the earliest artificial processes is a sawing
movement, in which, however, the object to be severed is moved over
the cutting edge or surface, and that the infant or savage at first
selects sharp objects (teeth, shells, etc.) as cutting implements, and
only after long cultivation learns to make cutting implements of stone;
this early stage in development he called _prelithic_. Passing, then,
to the age of stone, he showed that this substance is first in the form
of natural pebbles or other pieces for hammering, crushing, bruising,
and as a missile. That in time the user learns that the stone is made
more effective for severing tissues by fracturing it in such way as
to give a sharp edge, the fracture being originally accidental and
afterward designed; yet that for a long time it is the hammerstone that
is fractured and not the object against which the blows are directed.
In this stage of development (called _protolithic_, after McGee) stone
implements come into more or less extended use in connection with
implements of shell, tooth, etc.; yet the implements are obtained by
choice among natural pieces and by undesigned improvement of these
through use. The next stage is that of designed shaping through
fracture by blows from a hammerstone, followed by intentional chipping.
This may be regarded as the beginning of paleolithic art, and also
marks the beginning of dexterity and the activital differentiation of
the hands. Incidentally the author brought out the importance of that
concept of mysticism which is found of so great potency among infantile
and primitive minds, in such manner as to suggest the genesis, and the
obscure reasons for the persistence of this phase of intellectuality;
for the inchoate imagination is able to expand only in the direction of
mystical explanation, so that fertility in primitive invention seems to
be dependent on appeal to the mysterious powers of nature. At first the
mystery pervades all things, but in time it is largely concentrated in
animate things; then animate powers are imputed, _e. g._, to physical
phenomena. So to the infant or race-child fire is a mystical animal or
demon which, in prelithic or protolithic times, must have been at first
tolerated, then fed with fuel and punished with water and eventually
subjugated and tamed, much as the real animals were afterward brought
into domestication.”
A transitional series of devices is represented by awls of wood
or iron fashioned in imitation of mandibles or claws, by wooden
foreshafts shaped in symbolic mimicry of teeth, and by other vicarious
replacements of material in devices of zoomimic motive; but this
series may be regarded as constituting a subclass, or as a connecting
link between classes rather than a major class of devices. Yet
the subclass is of great significance as a mile-mark of progress
in nature-conquest, and as the germ of that industrial revolution
consummated as tribesmen grew into reliance on their own acumen and
strength and skill rather than on the capricious favor of beast-gods.
[Illustration: BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY