46 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



in the earlier stages the mental clings to the manual so closely that the primitive 

 artisan feels the implement as a part of himself and commonly believes that a part 

 of his personality goes out into both tool and product; thus his craft is a constant 

 stimulus to mental activity and j^repares him for further steps in the long way lead- 

 ing from the plane of fettering instinct to that of free invention. When the sa^■age 

 or barbarian is so far educated that his hand intuitively moves knife or saw or plane 

 by pushing outward instead of pulling inward, his mind is in the third quarter of 

 the normal course of development; but to this position he can be raised only by the 

 oft-repeated example and simple precept of rational training applied to lower races. 

 The researches along these lines are not complete; some of the results were incor- 

 porated in a brief paper on "Primitive numbers," published in the Nineteenth 

 Annual Report; and a preliminary account of certain results was issued during the 

 year under the title " Germe d'une Industrie de la Pierre en Amerique." 



WORK IN ESTHETOLO(iY. 



Although Mr. Mooney remained in the field throughout the greater part of tlae 

 year, his researches were such as to yield material for a irrespective report on Indian 

 heraldry. His investigations during several years past have shown that various 

 Indian tribes possess heraldic systems analogous in many ways to those of medi;eval 

 Europe, and that such a system is especially developed in the Kiowa tribe; and his 

 work during the year was carried forward in this and neighboring tribes. The ways 

 in which the system is developed render the study extremely difficidt. The principal 

 heraldic devices are closely akin to totems, and are of two types, one pertaining to 

 tipis and the other to shields. The tipis, with their devices, belong to families or 

 clans in which they are hereditary. The shields, with their emblematic (or armorial) 

 bearings, belong to typical aboriginal groups or brotherhoods, which arise in con- 

 nection with the bearings themselves. Usually the devices are "dreamed" liy a 

 shaman (or, as he conceives it, revealed to him in a vision), the dream indicating 

 also the number of shields that it is permissible to make with the particular bearing 

 of the revelation. In due time the shields are made in accordance with the sha- 

 man's dream, and these are adopted Ijy unattached warriors as special devices or 

 crests until all are in use. Each shield usually bears two devices, one on an outer 

 covering of skin placed over the shield proper, which may .be regarded as a 

 symbol of the bearing within, and the other or real device on the face of the shield 

 beneath the cover. Tlie latter is never revealed save in sacred ceremony and in 

 battle, when it is displayed as a magical device for offense, as well as defense, against 

 enemies. Each of the shields is eventually regarded by its bearer, or keeper, as the 

 symbol of his special tutelary and a sort of receptacle for his personal spirit of 

 warfare. It is prized and kept sacred during his lifetime (the purpose of the 

 cover being to protect the sacred device from sacrilegious gaze), and, unless sacrificed 

 in his declining days on the death of a kinsman, is buried \\ith his body — he enters 

 on the dark under-world path of his faith with his head pillowed on the device 

 which mysteriously carried him safely through many dangers in all the days of his 

 life. By reason of the habitual sacrifice of shields and the decline of aboriginal cus- 

 toms, few now remain, though fortunately many others are preserved in memory 

 and tradition. Moreover, the devices can be ade(]uately studied only with the aid 

 of their respective keepers and bearers who can lie induced to reveal the magic, or 

 "medicine," of the devices, or — still better — to reconstruct them in such manner as 

 to permit the investigator to trace the interrelated meanings of the various features 

 as they are slowly wrought in ai-cordance with archaic ritual. The family tipis have 

 also become rare, though nearly every family has surviving representatives ac(juainted 

 with the family crests and with tiie ritualistic and other modes of constructing both 

 tipis and heraldic devices. Mr. Mooney's method has been to employ survivors of 

 both brotherhoods and families to reconstruct their shields and tipis, respectively, 



