308 



PROJECTILES PROPERTY AND PROPERTY RIGHT 



[3. A. E. 



N. W. coast tribes, many of which have 

 been handed down for generations and 

 appear to be but imperfectly understood 

 even by their present owners. 



It may be observed, however, that none 

 of these groups of objects can owe their 

 origin to the play of fancy merely, for 

 individual selections of talismans and 

 tutelary deities are made at random and 

 do not constitute or develop into groups 

 of objects of well-established and wide- 

 spread types with numerous variants. 

 Such established types must be the out- 

 growth of customs of wide extent and 

 affecting a large body of people. That 

 some of the classes of objects devoted 

 to esoteric uses had their origin in com- 

 mon implements, as axes, clubs, sinkers, 

 mortars, pestles, etc., is highly proba- 

 ble, and it is equally likely that some 

 of them had not been divorced wholly 

 from their original application. Such 

 transfers from practical to symbolic use 

 are common with primitive peoples, the 

 process being an easy and a natural one. 

 It is not unlikely, therefore, that some 

 of these classes of objects, exhibiting 

 marked diversity of form, size, and finish, 

 had multiple offices, serving on occasion 

 or with different communities as imple- 

 ments, ornaments, and symbols. It may 

 fairly be assumed, also, that such of these 

 objects as embody conventional life forms 

 had their origin in some animal fetish, 

 totem, or other form of mythological 

 symbol. 



Most of the objects here referred to 

 have been described and discussed by 

 various writers, especially in archeolog- 

 ical aud other scientific journals, as the 

 American Anthropologist, American An- 

 tiquarian, Antiquarian, Archaeologist, 

 Wisconsin Archeologist, Science, Amer- 

 ican Naturalist, etc.; in publications of 

 institutions, societies, and the Govern- 

 ment, as reports of the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution, National Museum, Bureau of 

 American Ethnology, Geographical and 

 Geological Surveys, American Museum 

 of Natural History, Peabody Museum of 

 Archaeology and Ethnology, Free Museum 

 of Science and Art of the University of 

 Pennsylvania, New York State Museum, 

 Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel- 

 -phia, American Ethnological Society, 

 Ohio Archaeological and Historical Soci- 

 ety, Canadian Institute, Education De- 

 partment of Ontario, etc. ; and in vai-ious 

 works most of which are referred to in 

 the articles treating of the individual va- 

 rieties of problematical objects. Promi- 

 nent among the latter are Abbott, Prim. 

 Indus., 1881; Ann. Archseol. Reps. On- 

 tario, 1888-1907; Brown in Wis. Archeol., 

 II, no. 1, 1902; Clark, Prehist. Remains, 

 1876; Foster, Prehist. Races, 1878; Fowke, 

 Archseol. Hist. Ohio, 1902; Jones, Antiq. 



So. Inds., 1873; MacLean, Mound Build- 

 ers, 1879; Moorehead, ( 1 ) Prehist. Impls., 

 1900, (2) Bird-stone Ceremonials, 1899; 

 Peabody in Bull. Mus. Univ. Pa., iii, no. 

 3, 1901; Read and Whittlesey, Ohio Cen- 

 ten. Rep., 1877; Thruston, Antiq. of 

 Tenn., 1897; Yates in Bull. Santa Barbara 

 Soc. Nat. Hist., I, no. 2, 1890. (w. ii. h.) 



Projectiles. See Bows, Arrows, and 

 Quivers; Rabbit sticks; Slings; Throwing 

 Sticks. 



Property and Property right. Broadly 

 speaking, Indian property was personal. 

 Clothing was owned by the wearer, 

 whether man, woman, or child. Weap- 

 ons and ceremonial paraphernalia be- 

 longed to the man; the implements used 

 in cultivating the soil, in preparing food, 

 dressing skins, and making garments and 

 tent covers, and among the Eskimo the 

 lamp, belonged to the women. In many 

 tribes all raw materials, as meat, corn, 

 and, before the advent of traders, pelts, 

 were also her property. Among the 

 tribes of the plains the lodge or tipi was 

 the woman's, but on the N. W. coast the 

 wooden structures belonged to the men 

 of the family. Communal dwellings were 

 the property of the kinship group, but 

 individual houses were built and owned 

 by the woman. While the land claimed 

 by a tribe, often covering a wide area, was 

 common to all its members and the entire 

 territory was defended against intrud- 

 ers, yet individual occupancy of garden 

 patches was respected. ( See Land tenure. ) 

 In some instances, as among the Navaho, 

 a section of territory was parceled out 

 and held as clan land, and, as descent in 

 the tribe was traced through the mother, 

 this land was sjjoken of by members of 

 the clan as "my mother's land." Upon 

 such tract the women worked, raising 

 maize, etc., and the product was recog- 

 nized as their property. The right of 

 a family to gather spontaneous growth 

 from a certain locality was recognized, 

 and the harvest became the personal 

 property of the gatherers. For instance, 

 among the Menominee a family would 

 mark off a section by twisting in a pecu- 

 Mar knot the stalks of wild rice growing 

 along the edge of the section chosen; this 

 knotted mark would be respected by all 

 members oi the tribe, and the family 

 could take its own time for gathering the 

 crop. On the Pacific slope, as among the 

 Hupa, varying lengths of river shore 

 were held as private fishing rights by 

 heads of families, and these rights i^assed 

 from father to son, and were always re- 

 spected. Clan rights to springs and tracts 

 of land obtained among the Pueblos. The 

 nests of eagles were also the property of 

 the clan within whose domain they were 

 found. The eagle never permanently left 

 the vicinity of the nest where it was born, 



