INTKODUCTIOiq'. 



The !N"ational Museum has been for years the depository of Kirge and vaki- 

 able collections illustrative of IN"orth American Ethnology, which now form 

 one of its most important dcjKirtments. In classifying this rich material for the 

 purpose of exliibition during the Centennial Celebration at Philadelphia, it has 

 been thought proper to separate the objects supposed to belong to times ante- 

 ceding the European occupation of the continent from those that are known 

 to have been manufactured within the period of contact between the Indian 

 and the Caucasian. Only thus it became possible to exhibit, approximately 

 at least, the aboriginal state of culture before it had been modified by European 

 influences. The first or archceological series, to which the following account 

 more particularly refers, comprises objects found in mounds and other burial- 

 places of early date, on and below the surface of the ground, in caves, shell- 

 heaps, etc., — in fact all articles of aboriginal workmanship that cannot with 

 certainty be ascribed to any of the tribes which are either still in existence 

 or have become extinct within historical times. These relics, consisting of 

 chipped and ground stone, of copper, bone, horn, shell-matter, clay, and, to a 

 small extent, of wood, have been grouped according to material, and then 

 classed under such denominations as their forms suggested. Similarity of 

 shape afforded the principal guidance in arranging these specimens, many of 

 which leave a wide scope for conjecture as to the iises to which they were 

 applied by their makers. The second or more strictly etlmological series, a 

 description of which is not attempted at present, consists of articles ob- 

 tained from existing native tribes by private explorations as well, as by 

 expeditions undertaken by order of the United States Government, and con- 

 tains almost every object tending to illustrate their domestic life, hunting, 

 fishing, games, warfare, navigation, travehng by land — in short every phase 

 of their existence that can be represented by tangible tokens. The use of 

 these objects, many of which show forms copied from the manufactures of the 

 whites, is in most cases well understood, and they have been arranged accord- 

 ing to their mode of application, and without refei'ence to the substances of 



