ANCIENT ABORIGINAL TRADE IN NORTH AMERICA. doO 



tlie Uuited States,* the field of their distributiou, iievertlieless, is very 

 wide, extending from the Great Lakes to the Gulf States, and from the 

 Atlantic coast to the Mississippi, and, pei'haps, some distance beyond 

 that river. Taking it for granted, as we may do, that the northern part of 

 Michigan is the point from which the metal was spread over that area, 

 the traf&c in copper presents itself as very extensive as far as distance 

 is concerned. The difficulties connected with the labor of obtaining this 

 metal doubtless rendered it a valuable object, perhajis no less esteemed 

 than bronze in Europe, when the introduction of that comijosition was 

 yet of recent date. The copper probably was bartered in the shape of 

 raw material. Small pieces of this description, I have already stated, 

 were taken from the mounds of Ohio, and larger masses occasionally 

 have been met in the neighborhood of these works. One mass weigh- 

 ing twenty-three pounds, from which smaller portions evidently had 

 been detached, was discovered in the Scioto valley, near Chillicothe, 

 Ohio.f Of course, it is impossible at j)resent to demonstrate in what 

 manner the copper trade was carried on, and we have to rest satisfied 

 with the presumption that the raw or worked copper went from hand to 

 hand in exchange for other productions of nature or art, until it reached 

 the places where we now find it. Perhaps there were certain persons 

 who made it their business to trade in copper. I must not omit to refer 

 here to some i^assages bearing, though indirectly, on the latter question, 

 which are contained in the old accounts of Hernando de Soto's expedi- 

 tion. Garcilasso de la Vega speaks of wandering Indian merchants 

 [marchands], who traded in salt-l The Knight of Elvas is still more 

 explicit on this point. According to him, the Indians of the province 

 of Cayas obtained salt by the evaporation of saline water. The method 

 is accurately described. They exported salt into other provinces, and 

 took in return skins and other commodities. Biedma, who accompanied 

 that memorable expedition as accountant, likewise speaks in various 

 places of salt-making among the Indians.§ 



GALENA. 



It has been a common experience of discoverers that the primitive 

 peoples with whom they came in contact manifested, like children, a re- 

 markable predilection for brightly-colored and brilliant objects, which, 

 v/ithout serving for any definite purpose, were valued merely on account 

 of their external qualities. The later ISTorth American Indians exhibited 



* The Smithsouiaii Institution has heen receiving for years Indian antiquities from 

 all parts of North America, yet possessed in 1870 only seven copper objects ; namely, 

 three spearheads, two small rods, a semilunar knife with convex cutting edge, and an 

 axe of good shape. Professsor Baird was kind enough to seud me photographs and 

 descriptions of these articles. 



t Ancient Monuments, &c., p. 203. 



tConquete de la Floride, Leide, 1731, Vol.II,p. 400. 



§ Narratives of the Career of Hernando de Soto, &c., ]5. 124. Biedma, pp. 152, 153, 

 and 257. 



