Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley / Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 117-166

by Henry W. Henshaw

TOUCAN.

The a priori probability that the toucan was known to the Mound-Builders is, of course, much less than that the manatee was, since no species of toucan occurs farther north than Southern Mexico. Its distant habitat also militates against the idea that the Mound-Builders could have acquired a knowledge of the bird from intercourse with southern tribes, or that they received the supposed toucan pipes by way of trade. Without discussing the several theories to which the toucan pipes have given rise, let us first examine the evidence offered as to the presence in the mounds of sculptures of the toucan.

It is a little perplexing to find at the outset that Squier and Davis, not content with one toucan, have figured three, and these differing from each other so widely as to be referable, according to modern ornithological ideas, to very distinct orders.

Fig. 14.—Toucan of Squier and Davis.

The first allusion to the toucan in the Monuments of the Mississippi Valley is found on page 194, where the authors guardedly remark of a bird's head in terra cotta (Fig. 79), "It represents the head of a bird, somewhat resembling the toucan, and is executed with much spirit."

This head is vaguely suggestive of a young eagle, the proportions of the bill of which, until of some age, are considerably distorted. The position of the nostrils, however, and the contour of the mandibles, together with the position of the eyes, show clearly enough that it is a likeness of no bird known to ornithology. It is enough for our present purpose to say that in no particular does it bear any conceivable resemblance to the toucan.

Of the second supposed toucan (Ancient Monuments, p. 260, Fig. 169) here illustrated, the authors remark:

The engraving very well represents the original, which is delicately carved from a compact limestone. It is supposed to represent the toucan—a tropical bird, and one not known to exist anywhere within the limits of the United States. If we are not mistaken in supposing it to represent this bird, the remarks made respecting the sculptures of the manitus will here apply with double force.

Fig. 15.—Toucan of Squier and Davis.

This sculpture is fortunately easy of identification. Among several ornithologists, whose opinions have been asked, not a dissenting voice has been heard. The bird is a common crow or a raven, and is one of the most happily executed of the avian sculptures, the nasal feathers, which are plainly shown, and the general contour of the bill being truly corvine. It would probably be practically impossible to distinguish a rude sculpture of a raven from that of a crow, owing to the general resemblance of the two. The proportions of the head here shown are, however, those of the crow, and the question of habitat renders it vastly more likely that the crow was known to the Mound-Builders of Ohio than that the raven was. What possible suggestion of a toucan is to be found in this head it is not easy to see.

Turning to page 266 (Fig. 178) another and very different bird is held up to view as a toucan.

Fig. 16.—Toucan of Squier and Davis.

Squier and Davis remark of this sculpture:

From the size of its bill, and the circumstance of its having two toes before and two behind, the bird intended to be represented would seem to belong to the zygodactylous order—probably the toucan. The toucan (Ramphastos of Lin.) is found on this continent only in the tropical countries of South America.

In contradiction to the terms of their description their own figure, as will be noticed, shows three toes in front and two behind, or a total of five, which makes the bird an ornithological curiosity, indeed. However, as the cast in the Smithsonian collection shows three toes in front and one behind, it is probably safe to assume that the additional hind toe was the result of mistake on the part of the modern artist, so that four may be accepted as its proper quota. The mistake then chargeable to the above authors is that in their discussion they transferred one toe from before and added it behind. In this curious way came their zygodactylous bird.

This same pipe is figured by Stevens in Flint Chips, p. 426, Fig. 5. The wood-cut is a poor one, and exhibits certain important changes, which, on the assumption that the pipe is at all well illustrated by the cast in the Smithsonian, reflects more credit on the artist's knowledge of what a toucan ought to look like than on his fidelity as an exact copyist.

The etchings across the upper surface of the base of the pipe, miscalled fingers, are not only made to assume a hand-like appearance but the accommodating fancy of the artist has provided a roundish object in the palm, which the bird appears about to pick up. The bill, too, has been altered, having become rounded and decidedly toucan-like, while the tail has undergone abbreviation, also in the direction of likeness to the toucan. In short, much that was lacking in the aboriginal artist's conception towards the likeness of a toucan has in this figure been supplied by his modern interpreter.

Fig. 17.—Toucan as figured by Stevens.

This cut corresponds with the cast in the Smithsonian collection, in having the normal number of toes, four—three in front and one behind. This departure from the arrangement common to the toucan family, which is zygodactylous, seems to have escaped Stevens's attention. At least he volunteers no explanation of the discrepancy, being, doubtless, influenced in his acceptance of the bird as a toucan by the statements of others.

Wilson follows the cut of Squier and Davis, and represents the bird with five toes, stating that the toucan is "imitated with considerable accuracy." He adds: "The most important deviation from correctness of detail is, it has three toes instead of two before, although the two are correctly represented behind." How Wilson is guided to the belief that the sculptor's mistake consists in adding a toe in front instead of one behind it would be difficult to explain, unless, indeed, he felt the necessity of having a toucan at all hazards. The truth is that, the question of toes aside, this carving in no wise resembles a toucan. Its long legs and proportionally long toes, coupled with the rather long neck and bill, indicate with certainty a wading bird of some kind, and in default of anything that comes nearer, an ibis may be suggested; though if intended by the sculptor as an ibis, candor compels the statement that the ibis family has no reason to feel complimented.

The identification of this sculpture as a toucan was doubtless due less to any resemblance it bears to that bird than to another circumstance connected with it of a rather fanciful nature. As in the case of several others, the bird is represented in the act of feeding, upon what it would be difficult to say. Certainly the four etchings across the base of the pipe bear little resemblance to the human hand. Had they been intended for fingers they would hardly have been made to extend over the side of the pipe, an impossible position unless the back of the hand be uppermost. Yet it was probably just this fancied resemblance to a hand, out of which the bird is supposed to be feeding, that led to the suggestion of the toucan. For, say Squier and Davis, p. 266:

In those districts (i.e., Guiana and Brazil) the toucan was almost the only bird the aborigines attempted to domesticate. The fact that it is represented receiving its food from a human hand would, under these circumstances, favor the conclusion that the sculpture was designed to represent the toucan.

Rather a slender thread one would think upon which to hang a theory so far-reaching in its consequences.

Nor was it necessary to go as far as Guiana and Brazil to find instances of the domestication of wild fowl by aborigines. Among our North American Indians it was a by no means uncommon practice to capture and tame birds. Roger Williams, for instance, speaks of the New England Indians keeping tame hawks about their dwellings "to keep the little birds from their corn." (Williams's Key into the Language of America, 1643, p. 220.) The Zuñis and other Pueblo Indians keep, and have kept from time immemorial, great numbers of eagles and hawks of every obtainable species, as also turkies, for the sake of the feathers. The Dakotas and other western tribes keep eagles for the same purpose. They also tame crows, which are fed from the hand, as well as hawks and magpies. A case nearer in point is a reference in Lawson to the Congarees of North Carolina. He says, "they are kind and affable, and tame the cranes and storks of their savannas." (Lawson's History of Carolina, p. 51.) And again (p. 53) "these Congarees have an abundance of storks and cranes in their savannas. They take them before they can fly, and breed them as tame and familiar as a dung-hill fowl. They had a tame crane at one of these cabins that was scarcely less than six feet in height."

So that even if the bird, as has been assumed by many writers, be feeding from a human hand, of which fact there is no sufficient evidence, we are by no means on this account driven to the conclusion, as appears to have been believed, that the sculpture could be no other than a toucan.

As in the Cass of the manatee, it has been thought well to introduce a correct drawing of a toucan in order to afford opportunity for comparison of this very striking bird with its supposed representations from the mounds. For this purpose the most northern representative of the family has been selected as the one nearest the home of the Mound-Builders.

The particulars wherein it differs from the supposed toucans are so many and striking that it will be superfluous to dwell upon them in detail. They will be obvious at a glance.

Fig. 18.—Keel-Billed Toucan of Southern Mexico (Rhamphastos carinatus.)

Thus we have seen that the sculptured representation of three birds, totally dissimilar from each other, and not only not resembling the toucan, but conveying no conceivable hint of that very marked bird, formed the basis of Squier and Davis' speculations as to the presence of the toucan in the mounds. These three supposed toucans have been copied and recopied by later authors, who have accepted in full the remarks and deductions accompanying them.

At least two exceptions to the last statement may be made. It is refreshing to find that two writers, although apparently accepting the other identifications by Squier and Davis, have drawn the line at the toucan. Thus Rau, in The Archæological Collections of the United States National Museum, pp. 46-47, states that—

The figure (neither of the writers mentioned appear to have been aware that there was more than one supposed toucan) is not of sufficient distinctness to identify the original that was before the artist's mind, and it would not be safe, therefore, to make this specimen the subject of far-reaching speculations.

Further on he adds, "Leaving aside the more than doubtful toucan, the imitated animals belong, without exception, to the North American fauna." Barber, also, after taking exception to the idea that the supposed toucan carving represents a zygodactylous bird, adds in his article on Mound Pipes, pp. 280-281 (American Naturalist for April, 1882), "It may be asserted with a considerable degree of confidence that no representative of an exclusively exotic fauna figured in the pipe sculptures of the Mound-Builders."