OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. XXXIII 



masks and sculptures of human faces are more correct like- 

 nesses than are the animal carvings. 



"Fourth. That the state of art-culture reached by the 

 Mound Builders, as illustrated by their carvings, has been 

 greatly overestimated." 



Mr. Henshaw's paper, while of high value as a successful 

 destructive criticism, liberating an extensive field of research 

 from much error and fraud, also furnishes an instructive com- 

 parison of the art shown in the mounds with that of the 

 modern Indians, and exhibits the relations of conventionalism 

 to imitation in the evolution of graphic art. 



NAVAJO SILVERSMITHS, BT DR. WASHINGTON MAT- 

 THEWS. U. S. A. 



Dr. Washington Matthews, assistant surgeon in the United 

 States Army, distinguished in anthropology from his "Eth- 

 nography and Philology of the Hidatsa Indians" and other 

 works, has spared time from his official duties at Fort Win- 

 gate to continue his studies of the Indian tribes accessible 

 from his post. With his persevering industry he has brought 

 into notice the peculiar appliances and processes of the silver- 

 smiths among the Navajos. ■ Some interest connected with 

 prehistoric inquiries is attached to this exhibition of aboriginal 

 art. It is known that at the period of the Spanish invasion 

 the Mexican tribes had attained some skill in metallurgy, and 

 inference has been made that the sedentary Indians of New 

 Mexico used the forge. The Navajos, from their proximity, 

 may have learned the art from these sources, and their adap- 

 tation to it is suggested by the expertness of other tribes in the 

 same linguistic stock' — the Athabaskan, though far distant in 

 habitat, whose gold ornaments made in British Columbia and 

 Alaska are remarkable for beauty. 



However the art may have become known to the Navajos, 

 their productions in it have improved of late years by their 

 notice of European appliances, especially their voluntary em- 

 ployment of the fine files and emery paper now procurable. 

 The paper of Dr. Matthews is a valuable chapter to the study 

 of Indian industries, and presents additional evidence that the 



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