122 INDIAN ANTIQUITIES. 



variegated with colored threads. This specimen is a proof of the correctness of old historians 

 on the subject. Wound round the head, they formed the only covering of the Chachapuyas. 



Frap'ments of round, plaited cord, of brown and white strands — also bits of netting. 



A handsomely wrought bag, closely woven, with fancy stripes in red, brown, and white tints. 



A smaller bag, Avith more elaborately wrought iigures in red, white, black, brown, and green 

 colors. A row of ten pendent tassels were attached to the bottom, (most have dropped off,) 

 making the article look very like a modern lady's reticule or work-bag. 



Lastly, a skull in good preservation; and which, from its long plaited locks, may have 

 belonged to the mother of the family. Perhaps within it sat the mind that contrived the use- 

 ful and ornamental things just mentioned ; and within it turned the eyes that watched their 

 progressive development, from the twisting of the thread with the spindle, and imparting the 

 various colors, to the finishing touches given to the pretty fabrics. 



Besides their historic value, primitive antiquities interest us as representatives of thought, 

 and of inventive resource, in the early conditions of our species. They show us how the arts 

 began, and how they become modified by climate, by soil and its diverse products, and also by 

 location — insular and continental, inland and maritime. Then they indicate, by that remark- 

 able uniformity which pervades them (for while others differ, these are everywhere akin), a 

 natural equality in men to invent. Let specimens be gathered from every part of the earth, 

 and it would seem almost as philosoijhical to assert that animals or birds of one country were 

 originally more ingenious than those of others, as to apply the remark to man. 



Then who does not perceive in them, that to unite the ornamental with the useful is an 

 instinct of our nature ; one early evolved, and found as active in the lowest as in the highest 

 forms of society. Where dwells the savage who adorns not his club, his paddle, and his canoe ; 

 and where the tribe that adds not colors to carving? None of the inferior beings spend labor 

 on what is superfluous; they add nothing that is not essential. Man is by nature the only 

 decorating animal ; and hence the origin of modelling, sculpture, and painting, should not be 

 ascribed to any one people. 



With many these things have no weight, and the same may be said of society at large; still 

 it is well to recur to what we have all sprung from, and, while contemplating the disparity 

 between the condition of our remote progenitors and our own, to remember that we also are in 

 a medium or transition state — one connecting the past to a future surpassing in its achieve- 

 ments those of the present. 



But relics of American arts are of peculiar interest, inasmuch as they are connected with the 

 solution of one of the greatest problems in human history. Here is one half of the planet 

 without a page of written record, without legends or traditions. From its first occupancy, at a 

 period whose date no one can tell or even conjecture, down to comparatively recent days, it pre- 

 sents to the historian, instead of a chronicle of dynasties, of stirring actions and mighty events, 

 a huge and silent blank — not the name of an individual, nor the sound of a foot-fall, preserved. 

 Comparatively sj)eaking, it was but yesterday that the continents were discovered, and the fact 

 of their being in possession of a peculiar race proclaimed to the rest of the world ; and now, as 

 then, there is little more information to be obtained from the Indians respecting their predeces- 

 sors than from the native quadrupeds. Whatever is to be known, has to be drawn out of the 

 ground ; out of what the plough turns up ; what mounds, graves, and existing earth-works may 

 disclose, and what architectural ruins may afford. These are the only archives remaining of 

 the deeds and destinies of the old inhabitants of the hemisphere ; and hence everything regis- 

 tered in them, however trifling under other circumstances it might be considered, has a value 

 proportioned to the insight it may give into national or social habits and conditions. 



The American aborigines are melting away, and, ajiart from the moral view of the subject, 

 t]i.erp is much that is due to them. Poor themselves, they have enriched others. Besides 



