288 I>A\K\POk r A( ADKMN i )l NAH;KAI, SI IF.NCKS. 



Institution was the great work of Stjuier and Davis, entitled "Ancient 

 Monuments of the Mississippi \'alley."' In this work an exactly oppo- 

 site theory from that held by Major Powell was conlidently advanced 

 and strongly supported. The reader will not have failed to notice 

 that a considerable portion of Mr. Henshaw's paper is devoted to an 

 attempted refutation of their important deductions. In contrasting the 

 views of Squier and Davis as to the origin of the Mound-builders with 

 those advanced by Major Powell, as clearly presented in the opening 

 extracts of this paper, the reader will be struck with the extent of the 

 divergence between the earlier and later deductions. Equally at vari- 

 ance are the views expressed by S([uier and Davis and those of Mr. 

 Henshaw ui)on the subject of ancient art. .\s to the degree of artistic 

 skill possessed by the Mound-builders, the former thus state their views :* 



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

 necessary to say more than that as works of art they are immeasurably beyond any- 

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

 with all the suggestions of European art and the advantages afforded by steel instru- 

 ments. The only fair test of the relative degree of skill possessed by the two races 

 would be in comparison of the remains of the mounds with the productions of the 

 Indians before the commencement of European intercourse. A comparison with the 

 works of the latter, however, at any period, would not fail to exhibit in striking 

 light the gieatly superior skill of the ancient people." 



In opposition to these conclusions of Squier and Davis, Mr. Hen- 

 shaw makes this emphatic statement of his own views : f 



" Eminent as is much of the authority which thus contends for an artistic ability 

 on the part of the Mound-builders far in advance of the attainments of the present 

 Indians in the same line, the question is one admitting of aigument, and if son^e of 

 the best products of artistic handicraft of the present Indians be compared with the 

 objects of a similar nature taken from the mounds, it is more than doubtful if the 

 artistic inferiority of the latter-day Indian can be maintained." t 



♦Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge) Vol. I., p. 272. 



•f Second Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, iSSo-Si, p. 123. 



J The fact has been fairly assumed throughout this paper, based upon repeated and emphatic 

 utterances, that Major Powell and Mr. 1 lenshaw, in seeking for the artisans of these mound- 

 relics, exclude the Toltec and Aztec races, and adopt the theory that these ancient sculptures are 

 the artistic handicraft of the ancestors of the Indian tribes at present within the limits of the 

 ITnited States. While it is doubtless true that all the aborigines found on the American conti- 

 nents by the discoverers were designated as " Indians," an obvious distinction may still be made 

 between the semi-civilized races then inhabiting Mexico, Central and South America, and the 

 wild, wandering tribes found within the limits of the I'nited States, and at that date frequenting 

 the region of the mounds. In referring to this distinction, Baldwin remarks: " People of the 

 ancient Mexican and Central American race are not found farther north than New Mexico and 

 Arizona, where they are known as Pueblos, or \'illage Indians. In the old time that was a 

 frontier region, and the Pueblos seem to represent ancient settlers who went there from the 

 south. There was the border line between the Mexican race and the wild Indian, and the dis- 

 tinction between the Pueblos and the savage tribes is every way uniform and so great that it 



