344 



COPPER 



[b. a. e. 



region, although native copper in small 

 quantities is found in Virginia, North Caro- 

 lina,Tennes8ee, Arizona, New Mexico, and 

 Nova Scotia. It iw not at all certain, how- 

 ever, that the natives utilized these latter 

 sources of supply to any considerable ex- 

 tent before the coming of the whites. 

 There seems to be little doubt that cop- 

 per was somewhat extensively used in 

 Alaska before the arrival of Europeans. 

 It is possil)le that a small percentage of the 

 copper found in mounds in the Southern 

 states came from Cuba and Mexico, but 

 there is no W'ay of satisfactorily determin- 

 ing this i^oint. The L. Superior copper 

 can often be distinguished from other cop- 

 per by the dissemination through it of 

 minute particles of silver. 



The processes employed in shaping cop- 

 per (see Metal-ivork) were at first prob- 

 ably confined to cold hammering and 

 grinding, but heat was employed to facil- 

 itate hammering and in annealing, and 

 possibly rude forms of swedging in inolds 

 and even of casting were known, although 

 little evidence to this effect has yet been 

 obtained. It appears that in dealing with 

 thin sheets of the metal, which were 

 readily made by hammering with stone 

 implements and by grinding, pressure 

 with suitable tools was employed to pro- 

 duce repousse effects, the sheet being laid 

 for treatment on a mold of stone or wood, 

 or on a pliable pad or a plastic surface. 

 Certain objects of sheet copper with re- 

 pousse designs obtained from Indian 

 mounds in Illinois, Ohio, Georgia, and 

 Florida have attracted much attention 

 on account of the very skilful treatment 

 shown. That primitive methods of ma- 

 nipulation well within the reach of the 

 aborigines are adequate . to accomplish 

 similar results is shown, however, by ex- 

 periments conducted by Gushing. 



The very considerable progress of the 

 native metallurgist in copper working is 

 well shown by examples of plating re- 

 covered from the mounds in Ohio and 

 elsewhere. A headdress belonging to a 

 personage of importance buried in one of 

 the Hopewell mounds, near Ghillicothe, 

 Ohio, found by Moorehead, consists of a 

 high frontal piece made of sheets of cop- 

 per covered with indented figures, out 

 of which rises a pair of antlers imitating 

 those of a deer. The antlers are formed 

 of wood and neatly covered or plated with 

 sheet copper (Putnam). Other exam- 

 ples from the same source are spool-like 

 objects, proliably ear ornaments, formed 

 of thin sheets of copper over a wood base, 

 and most skilfully executed. Willoughby 

 has very effectively imitated this work, 

 using a bit of native copper with bowl- 

 ders and pebbles from the beach as tools. 

 Of the same kind of workmanship are 

 numerous specimens obtained by Moore 



from mounds on St Johns r., Fla., the 

 most interesting being jaw-bones of wolves 

 plated with thin sheets of copper. Other 

 objects similarly treated are disks of lime- 

 stone and beads of shell, bone, wood, and 

 possibly other materials. 



A popular belief exists that the Egyp- 

 tians and other ancient nations, including 

 the Mexicans and Peruvians, had a proc- 

 ess for hardening copper, but there is no 

 real foundation for this belief. The re- 

 puted hardened product is always an 

 alloy. No specimen of pure copper has 

 been found which has a greater degree of 

 hardness than can be produced by ham- 

 mering. 



Although copper probably came into 

 use among the northern tribes in com- 

 paratively recent times, considering the 

 whole period of aboriginal occupancy, 

 there can be no doubt of its extensive and 

 widespread utilization l>efore the coming 

 of the whites. That the ancient mines 

 of the L. Superior region are purely ab- 

 original is amply shown by their char- 

 acter and by the implements left on the 

 ground; and the vast extent of the work 

 warrants the conclusion that they had 

 been operated hundreds of years before 

 the white man set foot on American 

 shores. It is true that the influence ot 

 French and English explorers and colo- 

 nists was soon felt in the copper-producing 

 districts, and led in time to modifications 

 in the methods of shaping the metal and 

 in the forms of the articles made from it, 

 and that later foreign copper became an 

 important article of trade, so that as a 

 result it is now difficult to draw a very 

 definite line between the aboriginal and 

 the accultural phases ot the art; but that 

 most of the articles recovered from ab- 

 original sites are aboriginal and made of 

 native metal can not be seriously ques- 

 tioned. 



Considerable discussion has arisen re- 

 garding the origin and antiquity ot certain 

 objects of sheet copper, the most con- 

 spicuous of which are several human 

 figures in elaborate repousse work, from 

 one of the Etowah mounds in Georgia, 

 and a large number of objects of sheet 

 copper cut in conventional patterns, found 

 in a mound on Hopewell farm, Ross co., 

 Ohio Analysis of the metal in this and 

 similar cases gives no encouragement to 

 the theory of foreign origin (Moore). 

 The evident antiquity of the mounds in 

 which these objects were found and the 

 absence in them of other objects open to 

 the suspicion of foreign ( European ) origin 

 or influence tend to confirm the belief in 

 their American origin and pre-Columbian 

 age. 



The state of preservation ot the imple- 

 ments, utensils, and ornaments found in 

 mounds and other places ot burial varies 



