274 HOUSES AND HOUSE-LIFE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES. 
past and present will be presented understandingly, and placed in his true 
position in the scale of human advancement. While the Aryan family has 
lost nearly all traces of its experiences anterior to the closing period of 
barbarism, the Indian family, in its different branches, offered for our 
investigation not only the state of savagery, but also that of both the 
opening and of the middle period of barbarism in full and ample develop- 
ment. The American aborigines had enjoyed a continuous and undisturbed 
progress upon a great continent, through two ethnical periods, and the lat- 
ter part of a previous period, on a remarkable scale. If the opportunity 
had been wisely improved, a rational knowledge of the experience of our 
own ancestors, while in the same status, might have been gained through a 
study of these progressive conditions. Beside this, before a science of 
ethnology applied to the American aborigines can come into existence, the 
misconceptions, and erroneous interpretations which now encumber the 
original memorials must be removed. Unless this can in some way be 
effectually accomplished, this science can never be established among us. 
Our ethnography was initiated for us by European investigators, and 
corrupted in its foundation from a misconception of the facts. The few 
Americans who have taken up the subject have generally followed in the 
same track, and intensified the original errors of interpretation until romance 
has swept the field. Whether it is possible to commence anew, and retrieve 
what has been lost, I cannot pretend to determine. It is worth the effort. 
Finally, with respect to the condition and structures of the Village 
Indians of Yucatan and Central America, the following conclusions may be 
stated as reasonable from the facts presented :* 
1 Whether the Indian tribes of any part of North America had learned to quarry stone to use for 
building purposes, is still a question. In New Mexico there is no evidence that they quarried stone, 
They picked up and used such stones as were found in broken masses at the base of cliffs, or as were 
found on the surface and could be easily removed from their bed. In Central America, if anywhere 
they must have quarried stone, in the strict sense of this term, but as yet there is no decisive evidence. 
of the fact. It will be necessary to find the quarries from which the stones were taken, with such eyvi- 
dence of their having been worked as these quarries may exhibit. The stones used in the edifices in 
Yucatan and Central America are represented as a ‘‘soft coralline limestone,” and, in some cases, as in 
that of the Copan Idols, so called, of a ‘soft grit stone.” It requires the application of more than 
ordinary intelligence and skill to quarry stone, even of this character. The native tribes had no 
metals except native copper gold and silver, and these were without the hardness requisite for a lever 
or chisel; and they had no explosives to use in blasting. Other agencies may have been used. We 
tind the stone lintel for the doorway beyond their ability for ordinary use, and that for the want of it, 
they were unable to erect permanent structures in stone. The art of quarrying stone is gained by 
