240 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887. 



the theme of a separate chapter, inasmuch as other ideas are involved, 

 but the methods of human conveyance on the backs of bearers among 

 people not highly civilized will receive brief mention. 



Many other industries have been created, stimulated and modified 

 by the carrying trade. Every one will have a dozen suggested by the 

 mere mention of the subject. One has lately come to the writer's notice, 

 which will serve as a very primitive example. The crudest agriculture 

 in the world is practiced by the Pimasand contiguous tribes in southern- 

 most California to procure gourds for the transportation of seeds and 

 water. The women, accompanied by a body-guard of men, go, in the 

 spring time, to the bluffs or rocky slopes, where a little rich, moist 

 earth fills the crevices, and therein, by the help of a sharpened stick, 

 they insert their gourd seed. In the autumn the women return to these 

 spots to gather the large gourds hanging from their natural trellis, and 

 from them supply their households with a variety of utensils. So the 

 carrier is patron to the farmer. 



In the same way has the carrier stood friend to the potter. Among 

 the Pueblos and other pottery-making peoples hundreds of jars are made 

 to be carried on the head or to be swung from the shoulder in a yoke. 

 The potter molds his vase at the order and convenience of the carrier. 



Basketry has also lent its services largely to the carrying industry, 

 and in turn has assumed a multitude of shapes and textures demanded 

 by this occupation alone. 



In the National Museum, at Washington, gathered from many parts 

 of the world, are a great variety of devices designed exclusively to 

 facilitate the carrying of burdens by mankind. There are rnany others 

 in various parts of the world quite as important. 



We may approach our task from different points of view, guided by a 

 variety of ruling concepts. It is possible to consider the subject geo- 

 graphically. I was delighted to find this fact recognized by Plato :* 



" Cleinias : Look at the character of our country. Crete is not like 

 Thessaly, a large plain, and for this reason they have horses there and 

 we have runners on foot here. The inequality of the ground in our coun- 

 try is more adapted to locomotion afoot." 



The word u geography" as here used applies to all natural advantages, 

 to materials used in constructing appliances, and to objects carried. 



Or we may view the subject ethnically, in relation to tribal patterns, 

 customs, and the prejudices of clan, class, or sex. 



Or it may be regarded nationally, with reference to the regulations 

 concerning carriers under the same government and treaties relating 

 thereto between different political bodies. 



A philogenetic method would lead us to scrutinize the various ways of 

 carrying in relation to the influence of one invention in giving birth to 

 another or in some way modifying the form of another, either in the 

 same category or in other categories. 



* Laws N. Y. (1873), Scribner, vol. iv, p. 156. 



