SOUTH AMERICA JT INDIAN CULTUEES — KRIEGER 413 



backwash of South American peoples northward from the Magda- 

 Jena, Cauca, and Orinoco River valleys apparently did not eventuate 

 until after a long period of Indian occupancy of the South American 

 highlands. 



The great triangle of eastern tropical woodlands which actually in- 

 cludes more than one-half of the South American continent may be 

 considered as a cultural backwash from the civilized Andean groups. 

 Many of the traits so remarkably developed in the upland actually 

 are disseminated throughout the tropical forest area. This includes 

 the horizontal loom and the making of pottery. The tropical forest 

 area includes the basins of the three large rivers, the Amazon, the 

 Orinoco, and Parana, and is almost entirely within the tropics. We 

 would naturally expect, therefore, to find many culture traits unrep- 

 resented here because of environmental conditions that in temperate 

 climes would be a prime requisite to existence. Thus, use of clothing 

 is negligible, although the knowledge of the loom and of weaving is 

 almost everywhere present. The use of woven fabrics in this huge 

 jungle area, primarily for ornamental and decorative purposes, is 

 scarcely at all utilitarian. Then too, many objects of daily use can 

 here be found in their natural state and shaped with a minimum of 

 physical exertion into objects substituting for the more finished 

 products of higher cultures. Thus, a calabash substitutes for a pottery 

 or earthenware cup, a rude palm-leaf thatched hut substitutes for 

 a stone structure, the cultivation of a root crop, manioc, requiring 

 but little care and practically no cultivation, substitutes for the care- 

 loving maize. Fibers are everywhere plentiful for cord and tying 

 purposes, no woven fabric cord being required. The domestication 

 of animals is less a prime requisite because of the abundance of vege- 

 tal products. Skin clothing of the peoples of Patagonia and of the 

 Andean uplands are replaced scarcely at all. The chipped stone 

 weapon points of temperate South America, including the stone 

 scrapers and knives, all revealing a chipping technique identical with 

 that of temperate and upland North America, are entirely lacking in 

 Amazonia and in the "West Indies. This may in part be ascribed to 

 absence of stone suitable for chipping, but is more likely due to the 

 lack of need for such cultural development. The sharpened palm- 

 wood lance and fish spear, the foreshafted arrow, and the use of fish 

 poisons serve the same utilitarian purpose with the minimum expend- 

 iture of energy. 



The large number of traits of Amazonia characteristic of tropical 

 peoples elsewhere, but differing sharply from those of the Andean 

 uplands, have led to many discussions as to the distinct origin of 

 Amazonian Indian tribes. Migrations from some oceanic home is 

 suggested. Another explanation pointing to the solution of the proI> 



