272 ANCIENT MONUMENTS. 



Fig. 193. This is probably a rude representation of the head of some kind of 

 toad or frog. It is boldly cut, evidently with little attention to nature, and is 

 chiefly interesting as illustrating the great variety of tigures which these relics 

 assume. " 



Such is the general character of the sculptures found in the mounds. It is unneces- 

 sary to say more than that as works of art, they are immeasurably beyond anything 

 which the North American Indians are known to produce, even at this day, with 

 all the suggestions of European art and the advantages aff'orded by steel instru- 

 ments. The Chinooks, and the Indians of the North-western Coast, carve pipes, 

 platters, and other articles, with much neatness, from slate. We see in their pipes, 

 for instance, a heterogeneous collection of pulleys, cords, barrels, and rude human 

 figures, evidently suggested by the tackling of the ships trading in those seas. 

 Their platters, too, are copies of English ware, differing only in material and orna- 

 ments. The utmost that can be said of them is, that they are elaborate, unmean- 

 ing carvings, displaying some degree of ingenuity. A much higher rank can 

 be claimed for the mound-sculptures ; they combine taste in arrangement with 

 skill in workmanship, and are faithful copies, not distorted caricatures, from 

 nature. They display not only the figures and the characteristic attitudes, but in 

 some cases, as we have seen, the very habits of the objects represented. So far 

 as fidelity is concerned, many of them deserve to rank by the side of the best 

 efforts of the artist-naturalists of our own day. 



The Mexicans and Peruvians were very skilful in their representations of ani- 

 mals, and the early historians are profuse in praise of their workmanship, extolling 

 it beyond that of the old world. Says La Vega of the Peruvians : 



" They fashioned likewise all beasts and birds in gold and silver ; namely, conies, 

 rats, lizards, serpents, butterffies, foxes, mountain cats (for they have no tame cats 

 in their houses) ; and they make sparrows and all sorts of lesser birds, some flying, 

 some perching in trees ; in short, no creature that was either wild or domestic, but 

 was made and represented by them according to its exact and natural shape."* 



Clavigero says of the exceeding skill of the Mexicans in the arts, that then- 

 works " were so admirably finished, that even the Spanish soldiers, all stung with 

 the same wretched thirst for gold, valued the workmanship more than the mate- 

 rials." And Peter Martyr, noticing the works of the people along the coasts of 

 the Caribbean sea and the Gulf of Mexico, exclaims, — " If man's art or invention 

 ever got any honor in such like arts, these people may claim the chief sovereignty 

 and commendation."t 



The method practised by the makers of the articles above mentioned, in reducing 

 them to shape, seems to have been the very obvious one resorted to by all rude 

 nations unacquainted with the use of iron ; namely, that of rubbing or grinding 

 upon stones possessing a sharp grit. The Mexicans, it is said, used tools of 

 obsidian in their sculptures ; and the Peruvians, although possessing implements of 



Commenlaiies of Peru, Book \i. p. 187. t ^^^ Orbo Novo, Dec. 4, cap. 9. 



