420 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 34 



outrigger canoe, of wide-spread use on tlie Pacific was unlcnown to 

 tropical American Indian tribes. 



The strange similarity in the use of calabash containers for lime 

 chewed with coca leaves with the Melanesian use of similar con- 

 tainers for lime chewed with betel nut is perhaps after all but a 

 coincidence. A spoon stopper for extracting the lime from the con- 

 tainer is used in both areas. In the North American northwest the 

 practice of chewing lime with tobacco has been noted. Pan's pipes 

 in Peru appears with early Nasca pottery but apparently is of much 

 later occurrence in Oceania. The stilt house, lire drill, nose flute, 

 hand censer, teeth inlay, bark beaters and bark cloth, the pellet 

 bow and the blowgun, all have a remarkable parallel development 

 in South America and in the East Indies. 



The venesection bow of the Ges tribes of eastern Brazil and also 

 of the Cuna of southeastern Panama has a convergent type in 

 Oceania, whereas the wooden seat of prehistoric Florida, of the 

 Amazonian Arawak, and of the Polynesian Tahitians has an inde- 

 pendent origin in the two areas. Similar pseudo-Polynesian inven- 

 tions used by the Choco are the legged wooden pillow, and leg-sup- 

 ported wooden bowls. To assume the transition from leg-supported 

 potter}^ vessels and from leg-supported stone seats and metates to 

 wooden leg-supported bowls, seats, and pillows is more plausible 

 than to attribute such objects to Polynesian origins. 



The presence of secondary urn burial and cremation in connection 

 with endocannibalism in southeastern North America and Ama- 

 zonia is worthy of mention along with such commonly shared traits 

 within the two areas as artificial head deformation, wooden seats, 

 and the preparation of manioc flour in Amazonia and coonti flour 

 in Florida. 



In the Antilles and in southeastern United States at the time of 

 the first European contacts, metals were used, but the metal-working 

 techniques were elementary. Cold hammering, not casting, was the 

 method employed in shaping. Alloys of gold, copper, and silver 

 were obtained through trade. Intentional alloying to produce bronze 

 is an invention of upland Andean culture, as are also the tools such 

 as the pincers used in working cast and alloyed metals. 



Various methods of hunting, as for instance, from a calabash 

 blind, are common alike to ancient West Indian Arawak, Ama- 

 zonian Mojo, and Chinese practice. It is absurd to propose a carry- 

 over of this hunting practice from China to eastern tropical America. 



There are other interesting parallels in culture traits ranging from 

 the quilted armor of Peru, Yucatan, Borneo, and North Africa; batic 

 design on textiles from the Peruvian coast and Java; the balance- 

 beam scale of Peru and India; the rope ferry ("uruya ") of western 

 South America and the Himalayan Tibet; double rafts of inflated 



