18 rNTKODUCTION. 



labor they bestowed on their large and small mortars and pestles made out 

 of extremely hard stones, and in the perfection attained in many other of 

 the early arts. Particularly, in this consideration of the status of any race, 

 should due weight be given to the perfection of the adaption of means to 

 ends, and certainly the old Californians who lived, and buried their dead 

 on the islands off Santa Barbara and on the mainland in that vicinity, had, 

 to judge from the articles found in the graves and shellheaps, very little 

 material benefit to hope for from a contact with a higher race, and every- 

 thing to dread. They were provided by nature with an unfailing supply of 

 food in the waters, and in the forests; they had developed methods of 

 easily securing, and properly preparing, abundant harvest. Their want of 

 vessels of pottery was abundantly supplied by those of stone, by water- 

 tight baskets, and asphaltum covered vessels, while the ever ready asphaltum 

 enabled them to make many articles of use and ornament. They were also 

 workers in wood, of which they made various articles, often holding the 

 several parts together by the use of asphaltum. They also had large 

 canoes. 



From this brief review of some of the arts of the Californians and 

 their perfection in them, it is evident that they were as far advanced as 

 many other American tribes or nations which had reached the stage of 

 pottery making. It is therefore evident that it is necessary to add to Mr. 

 Morgan's definition of the period of the Lower Status of Barbarism, which he 

 considers characterized by the introduction of pottery, that of the substitute 

 for pottery, the manufacture of cooking vessels of stone. 



From what has preceded, it will be seen that the Californians have 

 probably developed by contact of tribe with tribe through an immense 

 period of time, and that the primitive race of America which was as likely 

 autochthonous, and of Pliocene age, as of Asiatic origin, has retained its 

 impress on the people of California. Still more is the character of this 

 autochthonous race preserved in the Innuit, and probably in the natives of 

 Terra del Fuego, the remnants of the race driven north and south, and to 

 the shores of the continent, by people probably of Asiatic development, and 

 in part with early and slight Polynesian admixture. 



It is remarkable that there are on the basis of linguistic evidence two 



