516 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1930 



furniture of Egypt contrasts favorably with that of any period. 

 Wall paintings show the nianu,f acture of chairs and other furniture, 

 workmen making parts, indicating the division of labor. It is very 

 likely that Egypt must be looked to for the first great development 

 of joinery. Even with our knowledge of the skill of the Egyptians 

 in designing furniture, the luxurious pieces taken by Howard Carter 

 from the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen excite our liveliest w^onder. The 

 ordinary people, in the midst of sumptuous furniture enjoyed by the 

 favored, were content with the very ancient stool. 



Greek furniture reflects the art feeling of that highly cultured 

 nation. The chair in which sits Aphrodite as portraj^ed by the 

 Tanagra artist of Boetia in the figure in the Berlin Museum is a work 

 of splendor, massiveness, and genius. (PL 22.) A cast of a great 

 seat of carved marble which was the chair of Dionysos Eleuthereus 

 from the theater of Dionysos at Athens, fifth century B. C, is 

 exhibited in the British Museum. (PI. 23.) 



Something is kniown concerning the cult usages connected with 

 the stool or simple seats mentioned as occurring among uncivilized 

 tribes; more with regard to joined chairs appearing in the higher 

 civilizations and the thrones or seats of honor of gods and monarchs. 



W. C. Farabee states that the men of the Jivaro Indians of East- 

 ern Peru sit on stools and the women must sit on the floor.^^ The 

 stool here is the particular possession of men. In British Guiana 

 the Indians have in their houses stools that are used indiscriminately 

 and others carved in the form of animals as the alligator and 

 " tiger," upon which a candidate for admission into a society was 

 made to sit down during initiation. Stools in animal shape evi- 

 dently had a fetishistic intent.^*' Divining seats carved in the form 

 of the macaw or tiger and alligator combined are used in the prac- 

 tices of the Arawak doctors of British Guiana.^'^ 



According to observers of 1556 the Samoyed shamans of Siberia 

 have a stool with a back which they use in their incantations. Refer- 

 ence is also made to a similar seat from the Indians of the northwest 

 coast of America.^* It is probable this seat went out of use among 

 these Indians many years ago. From the description, "An arm 

 chair of cedar boards without legs," apparently a modified chest is 

 meant. 



Here and there are found traces of the employment of special 

 seats for the rituals of initiation and other purposes outside of 

 domestic uses. The idea here appears to be localization of the per- 



" Tribes of Eastern Peru. Papers Peabody Museum, vol. 10, p. 116, Cambridge, 

 Mass., 1922. 



" W. E. Roth, 38th Ann. Rep., Bur. Amer. Ethnol., p. 274, 1924. 



" W. E. Roth. Animism and folic lore of the Guiana Indians. 30th Ann. Rep., Bur. 

 Amer. Ethnol., p. 330. 



" Jackson. The great frozen land. London, 1809, quoting Hakluyt, vol. 1, pp. 317-318. 



