230 ART IN SHELL OF THE ANCIENT AMERICANS. 



These circlets may be numerals. The design may be significant of 

 some rank, the badge of a secret order, or the totem of a clan. The 

 general arrangement of the figures upon the face of these disks sug- 

 gests an incipient calendar. 



Tliese beads are doubtless American in origin, as nothing of a similar 

 form, so far as I can learn, occurs in European countries. The fiict that 

 they are found in widely separated localities indicates that they were 

 probably used in trade since the advent of the whites. This is possibly 

 some form of bead held in high esteem by tribes of the Athmtic coast 

 when first encountered by the whites who liave taken up its manufacture 

 for puri)oses of trade. 



BEADS AS OHNAMEIVTS. 



I have already spoken casually of the use of beads for personal orna- 

 ment, but it will probably be better to enlarge a little upon the subject 

 at this point. 



Beads are generally found in the graves of ancient peoples in a loose 

 or disconnected state, the strings on which they were secured hav- 

 ing long since decayed. We cannot, therefore, with certainty, restore 

 the ancient necklaces and other composite ornaments; but we can form 

 some idea of their character by a stmly of the objects of which they 

 were made and the positions held by these objects at the period of ex- 

 humation. Much can also be learned by a study of the ornaments of 

 modern peoples in similar stages of culture. 



As a rule, the combinations in the pendant ornaments of the ancient 

 American seem to have been quite simple. Being without glass, and 

 ])ractically without metals, they had few of the resources of the modern 

 savage. Their tastes were simple and congruous, uot having been dis- 

 turbed by the debasing influence of foreign innovation, which is the 

 cause of so much that is tawdry and incongruous iu the art of modern 

 barbarians. 



A curious example of a modern necklace is given by Professor Halde- 

 man,' who had in liis possession an Abyssinian necklace "composed of 

 European beads, cowries [Cyi)rca shell), a triangular i)lale of glass, two 

 small copiier coins, small spheric brass buttons, cornelian, date seeds, 

 numerous cloves pierced through the sides, a fragment of wood, a bit 

 of cane, and an Arab i)hylactery." 



Something can be learned of the practices of the ancient Americans 



in tlie use of beads and jjendant ornanueuts generally, by a study of the 



remains of tlieir ])aiiiiiiigs and sculptures — such, for instance, as may 



yC--\^^ be found in tlie Gt44«bor()ngh manuscripts or the superb lithographs 



J of Waldeck, examples of which are given in Plate XLV. 



In a numl)er of cases necklaces of the mound-builders have been 

 found ui)on the necks of skeletons, just as they were placed at the time 

 of burial. 



'Haldemau, iu Surveys West of the 100th MeriUiau, Vol. VII, p. 26:5. 



