Arma antiqua manus ungues dentesque fuerunt
Et lapides et item silvarum fragmina rami,
Et flamma atque ignes, postquam sunt cognita primum.
Posterius ferri vis est, ærisque reperta.
Et prior æris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus, etc.
Lucretius, v. 1283.
Perhaps, as Munro suggests, Lucretius was thinking of Hesiod; but it does not seem improbable that in both cases there may have been a genuine tradition that their ancestors used bronze tools and weapons before iron, since the change was comparatively recent, and sundry religious observances tended to perpetuate the memory of it.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 30: See his Intellectual Development of Europe, New York, 1863, pp. 448, 464.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 31: Now and then, perhaps, but very rarely, it just touches the close of the middle period, as, e. g., in the lines from Hesiod and Lucretius above quoted.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 32: Winsor, "Bibliographical Notes on American Linguistics," in his Narr. and Crit. Hist., vol. i. pp. 420-428, gives an admirable survey of the subject. See also Pilling's bibliographical bulletins of Iroquoian, Siouan, and Muskhogean languages, published by the Bureau of Ethnology.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 33: Excursions of an Evolutionist, pp. 147-174.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 34: For a good account of Indians in the upper status of savagery until modified by contact with civilization, see Myron Eells, "The Twana, Chemakum, and Klallam Indians of Washington Territory," Smithsonian Report, 1887, pp. 605-681.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 35: An excellent description of them, profusely illustrated with coloured pictures, may be found in Catlin's North American Indians, vol. i. pp. 66-207, 7th ed., London, 1848; the author was an accurate and trustworthy observer. Some writers have placed these tribes in the Dakota group because of the large number of Dakota words in their language; but these are probably borrowed words, like the numerous French words in English.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 36: See Francis Parkman's paper, "The Discovery of the Rocky Mountains," Atlantic Monthly, June, 1888. I hope the appearance of this article, two years ago, indicates that we have not much longer to wait for the next of that magnificent series of volumes on the history of the French in North America.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 37: North American Indians, vol. ii., Appendix A.[Back to Main Text]