186 ART IN SHELL OF THE ANCIENT AMERICANS. 



and unique cultures. Such a result, I apprehend, has iu a measure 

 been achieved in North America. 



In a broad region at one time occupied by the mound-building tribes 



we observe a peculiar and an original eifort — an art distinctive iu the 



material employed, in the forms developed, and to some extent in the 



• ideas represented. It is an age of shell, a sort of supplement to the age 



of stone. 



It is not my intention here to attempt an extended discussion of the 

 bearings of this art upon the various interesting questions of anthropo- 

 logic science, but rather to present certain of its phases in the concrete, 

 to study the embodiment of the art of the ancient American in this one 

 material, and to present the results in a tangible manner, not as a cat- 

 alogue of objects, but as an elementary part of the whole body of human 

 art, illustrating a particular phase of the evolution of culture. 



This paper is to be regarded simply as an outline of the subject, to 

 be followed by a more exhaustive monograph of the art in shell of all 

 the ancient American peoples. 



Art had its beginning when man first gathered clubs from the woods, 

 stones from the river bed, and shells from the sea-shore for weapons 

 aiid utensils. In his hands these simple objects became modified by 

 use into new forms, or were intentionally altered to increase their con- 

 venience. This was the infancy, the inception of culture — a jieriod 

 from which a tedious but steady advance has been made until the re- 

 markable achievements of the present have been reached. 



Rude clubs have become weapons of curious construction and ma- 

 chinery of marvelous complication, and the pebbles and shells are the 

 prototypes of numerous works in all materials. Rude rafts which served 

 to cross primeval rivers have become huge ships, and the original 

 house of bark and leaves is represented by palaces and temples, glitter- 

 ing with light and glowing with color. 



The steps which led up to these results are by no means clear to us ; 

 they have not been built in any one place or by any one people. Nations 

 have risen and fallen, and have given place to others that in turn have 

 left a heap of ruins. We find it impossible to trace back, through the 

 historic ages into and beyond the prehistoric shadows, the pathway to 

 culture followed by any one people. The necessity for groping in- 

 creases with every backward step, and we pick up one by one the scat- 

 tered links of a chain that has a thousand times been broken. So far 

 our information is meager and fragmentary, and centuries of research 

 will be required to round up our knowledge to such a fullness as to en- 

 able us to rehabilitate the ancient races, a result to be reached only by 

 an exhaustive comparative study of the art products of all peoples and 

 of all ages. 



By collecting the various relics of art in shell I shall be able to add a 

 fragment to this great work. Destructible in their character these relics 

 are seldom preserved from remote periods, and it is only by reason of 



