Of domesticated mammals none are known to have been possessed by the Indians except the dog, which it is presumed was derived from one or more species of the native wolf, and was used to carry or draw burdens, served also for food, and furnished skins for clothing and hair for weaving cloth. The turkey was domesticated by the Aztecs and the village Indians of the New Mexico region; among the latter, even at the present day, eagles are confined in cages and plucked for feathers. There is seemingly no doubt but that in pre-Columbian, as in recent years, the young of wild animals were captured by the Indians and reared as pets, which in times of necessity probably served for food; but there are no records of definite attempts to domesticate the
bison, mountain-sheep, mountain-goat, or the peccary of the Gulf coast and Central America. In the attractive accounts that have appeared in recent years concerning the grandeur of the Aztecs mention is made of extensive menageries, but even the most poetic of historians has not assigned to the tribes of that confederation flocks and herds. The llama and the paco or alpaca, although reared extensively by the Incas of Peru, are not certainly known to have been introduced into North America.
To the eastward of the Mississippi, where numerous earthworks bear testimony of an early settlement by aborigines, heavy forests, the severity of the winter climate, and wide variations in summer rains combined to make the natural conditions to a marked degree adverse to aboriginal development. In Central America, and the West Indies generally, the exuberance of vegetable growth is such as almost to defy the clearing of land by people provided only with stone or copper utensils. Between these two regions, in the southwestern portion of the continent, are the arid lands, where, when once the idea of irrigation was embraced, the conditions favouring a sedentary life, with agriculture as a basis, are far more auspicious than elsewhere. The land is there treeless, the indigenous plants are easily killed by fire and by irrigation, the soil is rich, intense sunshine favours plant growth, and the gathering of harvests is not delayed or the efforts of industry rendered abortive by rain. Of all portions of the continent, this is the one where resistance to human development is least, providing man's ideas are sufficiently advanced to permit him to grasp and put in practise the art of irrigation. It is reasonable to suppose that the Indian there first began to build permanent homes and to cultivate the soil. This hypothesis is sustained in part by historical evidence, and in part by the ruins of ancient villages or communal houses, irrigation, ditches, etc. From this centre it may be presumed, in the absence of definite proof, that the art of horticulture spread to Central America and the Mississippi Valley.
In spite of the glowing accounts given by certain historians concerning the high degree of skill in agriculture
attained by the aborigines of Mexico and Central America, and the extent of their plantations, a conservative balancing of the evidence indicates that they never advanced beyond the stage of gardening, and that field agriculture, the cultivation of orchards, and the domestication of mammals was practically unknown to them.
Fig. 36.—Lodge or Tepee, Blackfoot Indians, Manitoba. Photograph by William Notman & Son.
Houses.—The houses of the primitive Indians, owing to the various stages in culture attained by different tribes and differences in climatic conditions, showed a wide range in material used and in the results obtained. The shelters of the wandering tribes and of the village Indians during their journeys were usually some form of tent, either composed wholly of boughs or of a framework of sticks over which skins were spread and secured by thongs. The typical wigwam consisted of a number of poles from 15 to 18 feet long, lashed together at the top and arranged in a circle some 10 feet in diameter at the base, on which a covering of skins, bark, or mats was spread, leaving an opening at the top for the escape of smoke from a small fire placed on the ground within. At the top a wing-like extension of the covering was frequently provided which could be adjusted to the direction of the wind. An opening on one side, protected by a curtain of skin, or closed by drawing the covering together, served as a door. A modification of this genuine Indian lodge, or tepee, in which cotton cloth is substituted for the primitive covering, may be seen over a wide extent of the country to the west of the Mississippi at the present day (Fig. 36).
A step higher than the usually circular lodge of boughs, etc., in use principally among the Indians to the west of the Mississippi, was furnished by the bark houses of the northeastern tribes, as those of New York, in which a rectangular frame of poles with an arched or triangular roof was covered with bark, usually of the elm, tied to the inner frame and held also by an external frame of poles, the two frames being lashed firmly together. This, the celebrated "long house" of the Iroquois, like most Indian houses, was designed to accommodate a number of families, and may be said to have consisted of several houses placed end to end