394 ARCHEOLOGY. 



SPECIMENS OF ART, ETC. 



Another department to which the Institution wishes to direct the 

 attention of collectors is that of the weapons, implements, and uten- 

 sils, the various manufactures, ornaments, dresses, &c., of the Indian 

 tribes. 



Such a collection may naturally be arranged under three periods. 

 The first, that of the races which had alread}^ passed away before the 

 discovery of the continent by Europeans, or whose extinction may 

 be considered as coeval with that event; next, of the tribes who have 

 disappeared with the settlement of the Atlantic States and the coun- 

 try between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi; and finally, the 

 present time, or that of the yet existing nations confined to the 

 northern and western portions of the continent and to Mexico. 



It is among the last that the greatest variety exists, and of which 

 it is especially important to make immediate collections, as many ar- 

 ticles are of a perishable nature, and as the tribes themselves are 

 passing away or exchanging their own manufactures for those of the 

 white race. It is hardly necessary to specify an}'^ as of particular 

 interest, for almost everything has its value in giving completeness 

 to a collection. Among the most noticeable, however, are dresses 

 and ornaments, bows and arrows, lances, war clubs, knives, and wea- 

 pons of all kinds, saddles with their furniture, models of lodges, par- 

 flesh packing covers and bags, cradles, mats, baskets of all sorts, gam- 

 bling implements, models of canoes, (as nearly as possible in their 

 true proportions,) paddles, fish-hooks and nets, fish spears and gigs, 

 pottery, pipes, the carvings in wood and stone of the Pacific coast 

 Indians, and the wax and clay models of those of Mexico, tools used 

 in dressing skins and in other manufactures, metates or stone mor- 

 tars, &c., &c. 



In making these collections care should be taken to specify the 

 tribes from whom they are obtained, and where any doubt may exist, 

 the particular use to which each is applied. Thus, for instance, among 

 the Californians one form of basket is used for holding water; another 

 for sweeping the seeds from various plants and grasses; a third, as 

 their receptacle during the process of collection; a fourth, for storage; 

 still another, in which to pound them; again, one to boil the porridge 

 made from the flour; and finally, others as dishes from which the 

 preparation is eaten. It will also be desirable to ascertain the Indian 

 names given to each article. 



Of the second class the remains are also numerous, and are scat- 

 tered through all the States east of the Mississippi in the form of 

 axes, arrowheads, sinkers for nets, fleshing chissels, and other imple- 

 ments of stone, and in some cases fragments of rude pottery. 



To the first class belong the only antiquities of America, and these 

 are of various descriptions. They include the tools found in the 

 northern copper mines; the articles enclosed in the mounds of Ohio 

 and elsewhere; the images common in Kentucky and Tennessee, in- 

 dicating, among other things, the worship of the Phallus; pottery, 



