48 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. GO 



cause. A remarkable theory is advanced by Slialer regarding the 

 seeming degeneracy of the historic culture of this ethnic area as 

 compared with the prehistoric, which serves to emphasize the potent 

 influence of even single features of environment. It is averred with 

 much show of plausibility that the advent of the buffalo into the 

 Mississippi Valley — a comparatively recent occurrence — revolution- 

 ized the culture, material and innnaterial, changing it from the 

 advanced, sedentary, agricultural type to that of seminomadic fol- 

 lowers of the chase — a good illustration of the "call of the wild" 

 which so readily atlects even those who claim to be civilized. 



When ill liis eastward movement the buffalo came to the semi-civilized inhab- 

 itants of the Mississippi system of valleys, he brought a great plenty of animal 

 food to the people, who had kmg been in a measure destitute of such resources, 

 for they had no domesticated animals save the dog. Not yet firmly fixed in 

 the agricultural art, these tribes appear, after the coming of the buffalo, to 

 have lapsed into the pure savagery which hunting entails. To favor the pas- 

 turage of these wild herds, the Indians adopted the habit of burning the 

 prairies. These fires spread to the forests on the east, killing the young trees 

 which afforded the succession of wood, gradually extending the pasturage area 

 of the wild herds until the larger jiortions of the western plains eastward to 

 central Ohio and Kentucky, probably even into the Carolinas, and southward 

 to the Tennessee Kivcr, had been stripped of their original forests, making way 

 for the vast throngs of these creatures which ranged tlie country at the time 

 when we first knew it. With the rehal)ilitation of the hunter's habit, and v/ith 

 the nomadic conditions which this haliit necessarily brings about, came more 

 frequent contests between tribes and the gradual decadence of the slight civili- 

 zation which the people had acquired.^ 



The highly specialized and mature culture of the Valley of Mexico 

 may be attributed, in no small measure, to the vigor 

 St^'cimuro '" =^"''^ diversified acquirements of a people which had 

 passed through successive stages of migration and 

 conquest in an exacting climate. Allowance must be made also for 

 the influence of the Toltec foundation on which the Nahua people 

 began their final building; at the same time, however, aside from this 

 it is clear that the influence of other features of the local environment 

 has been profound. On acpount of its dimensions, physiography, 

 climate, and natural resources the valley is the natural cradle of a 

 culture and a nation. At the same time it is so related to surround- 

 ing areas that its people, while retaining their own autonomy, were 

 able to hiy tribute upon the cultural resources of numerous less 

 favorably placed neighboring peoples. 



The culture of the Maya-Quiche of Mexico and Central America 

 represents the climax of aboriginal achicA^ement. Little is definitely 

 known, however, either of the period or the place of its earlier 

 manifestations, and there is thus slight chance of determining the 



1 Shaler, Nature and Man in America, op. 184—185. 



