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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE DELAWARE INDIAN AS AN ARTIST. 



By Dr. CHAELES C. ABBOTT. 



WHEN a considerable collection of the stone and bone handi- 

 work of the Delaware Indians has been brought together, 

 and with this material before us we picture to ourselves the people 

 in possession of the country when first visited by the Dutch and 

 Swedes, and afterward by the English, the thought arises that 

 considerable importance must be given to a chance remark of Peter 

 Kalm, who spent the winter of 1748-'49 in New Jersey to wit : 

 " At the first arrival of the Swedes in this country, and long after 

 that time, it was filled with Indians. But as the Europeans pro- 

 ceeded to cultivate the land, the Indians sold their land, and went 

 further into the country. But in reality few of the Indians really 

 left the country in this manner ; most of them ended their days 



Fig. 1. Common Forms of Arrow-points from New Jersey. 



before, either by wars among themselves, or by the small-pox, a dis- 

 ease which the Indians were unacquainted with before their com- 

 merce with the Etiropeans, and which since that time has killed 

 incredible numbers of them." Again, our author states : " The 

 Indians formerly, and about the time of the first settling of the 

 Swedes, were more industrious and laborious in every branch of 

 business than they are now." In other words, they were not 

 known at their best, even by those who had earliest opportunities 

 of observing them, and what they habitually used and constantly 

 produced, perhaps, but a century or two before the advent of the 

 European, was far superior to their cleverest handiwork in the 

 seventeenth century. The European had to do with a diseased, 

 discouraged, and disappearing people. It is safe to assert that 

 history, as pertaining to the Delaware Valley, would have been 



