Prehistoric man

by Sir Daniel Wilson

Fig. 77.—Portrait Mound Pipe.

Of these invaluable examples of ancient American iconography, one (Fig. 77) has attracted special notice, not only as the most beautiful head of the series, but from its supposed correspondence to the type of the modern North American Indian. The workmanship of this head is described by its discoverers as “unsurpassed by any specimen of ancient American art which has fallen under the notice of the authors, not excepting the best productions of Mexico and Peru.”[^[103]] In the well-executed illustration which accompanies these remarks, the Red Indian features are unmistakably represented; nor has this failed to receive abundant attention, and to have ascribed to it even more than its due importance. Mr. Francis Pulszky, the learned Hungarian, thus comments on it in his Iconographic Researches on Human Races and their Art:—“A most characteristic, we may say artistically beautiful head, the workmanship of these unknown Mound-Builders, dug up and published by Squier, exhibits the peculiar Indian features so faithfully, and with such sculptural perfection, that we cannot withhold our admiration from their artistic proficiency. It proves three things: 1st, That these Mound-Builders were American Indian in type; 2d, That time (age ante-Columbian, but otherwise unknown,) has not changed the type of this indigenous group of races; and 3d, That the Mound-Builders were probably acquainted with no other men but themselves.”[^[104]] Such are the sweeping deductions drawn from premises supplied by a single example of mound-sculpture: or rather by the depiction of it in Messrs. Squier and Davis’s volume; for after a careful examination of the original, its ethnic characteristics appear to me to be mainly due to the pencil of the draughtsman, who has, no doubt undesignedly, given to his drawing much more of the typical Indian features than are traceable in the original. Of this Figs. 77 and 78 are more accurate copies; and from these it will be seen that the nose, instead of having the salient Roman arch there represented, is perfectly straight, and is neither very prominent nor dilated.

Fig. 78.—Portrait Mound Pipe.

The mouth, though protuberant, is small; the lips are thin; instead of the characteristic ponderous maxillary region of the true Indian, the chin and the upper lip are both short; and the lower jaw, without any marked width between the condyles, is small, and tapers gradually towards the chin. Perhaps it is owing to this smallness of the lower portion of the head and face, that it was supposed to represent a female. But such an idea is not suggested by any marked characteristic either in the features or head-dress. The cheek-bones, though high, are by no means so prominent as in the original engraving. Indeed, the projection is almost entirely in front, giving a tumid cheek immediately under the eye. I doubt if any competent observer, ignorant of the history of this relic, would assign it to an Indian type.

Fig. 79.—Portrait Mound Pipe.

It is apparent, therefore, that the inferences drawn from the representation of a single example of mound-sculpture are based on inaccurate premises. But even supposing the head to reproduce the features of the modern Indian: it would by no means prove the three propositions deduced from its discovery; since it is not the only specimen of sculptured portraiture discovered in the mounds, and we look in vain in other examples for these points of Indian physiognomy which would first attract the eye of the imitative modeller or sculptor. The salient and dilated nose, prominent cheek-bones, massive jaw, and large mouth, may be assigned as the most noticeable characteristics; but all or nearly all of those are wanting in most of the other sculptured heads or masks. The character of these may be seen in the head engraved here (Fig. 79), derived from the same rich depository opened in “Mound City.” It is cut in a compact yellowish stone. The nose is nearly in a line with the forehead, excepting at the point, which projects in a manner certainly by no means characteristic of Indian features; and though the lips protrude, they are delicate, and the mouth is small. The ears in both are large, and in the latter are perforated with four small holes around their upper edges. In this case, from the delicacy of the features, it is suggested with greater probability than in the former example, that it has been designed after a female model. Another head,[^[105]] executed in the same material, is much altered by fire. It has not, like the previous examples, been designed for a pipe-head, but is broken off from a complete human figure, or other larger piece of carving. It is much inferior as a work of art, and indeed approaches the grotesque or caricature. Nevertheless, it has considerable character in its expression; and no one familiar with the Indian cast of countenance would readily assign either to it or the previous specimen of mound-sculpture any aim at such representation, if unaware of the circumstances of their discovery. In this, as in others of the heads, the face is tattooed, and the ears have been perforated; and from the strongly attached oxide of copper, there can be little doubt that they were decorated with rings or pendants of that metal. Other portrait sculptures and terra-cottas, either found in the mounds, or discovered within the region where they chiefly abound, are figured in the works of Squier, Schoolcraft, Lapham, Foster, Jones, and in the American Ethnological Society’s Transactions. The majority of them are inferior as works of art to those already described. But if they possess any value as indications of the physiognomical type of ancient American races, they tend to confirm the idea of a prevailing diversity instead of a uniformity of cranial form and features.

The discovery of a sculptured head betraying traces of Indian features, among many of a different type, corresponds to another interesting fact, that animals foreign to the region, and even to the North American continent, are figured in the mound-sculptures. It presents a parallel to well-known examples of Etruscan vases moulded in the form of negroes’ heads; and of Greek pottery painted with the same characteristic features and woolly hair. Specimens of both are preserved among the collections of the British Museum, and furnish interesting evidence, alike of the permanency of the negro type, and of the familiarity both of Greek and Etruscan artists with the African features, long prior to the Christian era. Similar examples of foreign portraiture have attracted attention on the older monuments of Egypt, and among the basso-relievos of the tomb of Darius Hystaspes at Persepolis: supplying interesting illustrations of imitative art employed in the perpetuation of ethnic peculiarities of physiognomy. Supposing, therefore, the Mound-Builders to have been a settled population, as distinct from a contemporaneous Indian race as the classic nations of antiquity differed from the barbarian tribes beyond the Alps and the Rhine: it is no more surprising to trace the genuine Indian features in mound-sculptures, than to discover those of the Dacian or the Gaul on the column of Trajan. It proves that the Mound-Builders were familiar with the American Indian type, but nothing more. The evidence indeed tends very distinctly to suggest that they were not of the same type; since the majority of sculptured human heads hitherto recovered from their ancient depositories do not reproduce the Indian features.

The physical type of the Mound-Builders will again come under consideration in a subsequent chapter; but it is interesting meanwhile to observe that even in the characteristics of this portrait-sculpture distinctive qualities appear. The imitative faculty manifests itself in expressive varieties of style, in modern Indian art. Some tribes, such as the Algonquins, confine themselves to literal reproductions of natural objects, while others, such as the Babeens, indulge in a grotesque and ingeniously diversified play of fancy. But the intellectual development implied in individual portraiture goes beyond this, and is rare indeed among nations in the earlier stages of civilisation. Even among the civilised Mexicans, imitations of the human face and figure appear to have seldom passed beyond the grotesque; and although the sculptors of Central America and Yucatan manifested an artistic power which accords with the civilisation of a lettered people: yet in the majority of their statues and reliefs, we see the subordination of the human form and features to the symbolism of their mythology, or to mere decorative requirements. It thus seems that, amid the general prevalence of an aptitude for imitative art, alike among the ancient and modern nations of the American continent, the Mound-Builders, though working within a narrow range, developed a power of appreciating its minuter delicacies such as is only traceable elsewhere among the choicest sculptures of Uxmal and Palenque.