At the time when Bancroft published his Native Races (1875), he referred to John D. Baldwin’s Ancient America (N. Y., 1871) as the only preceding, comprehensive book on America before the Spaniards.[1819] It still remains a convenient book of small compass; but its absence of references to sources precludes its usefulness for purposes of study, and it is not altogether abreast of the latest views. To the popular element a moderate share of the indexical character, rendering the book passably serviceable to the average reader, has been added in the somewhat larger North Americans of Antiquity, their origin, migrations, and type of civilization considered, by John T. Short (N. Y., 1880,—somewhat improved in later editions), though it will be observed that the Peruvian and other South American antiquities have not come within his plan. The latest of these comprehensive books is the Marquis de Nadaillac’s (Jean F. A. du Pouget’s) L’Amérique préhistorique (Paris, 1883), which in an English version by N. D’Anvers was published with the author’s sanction in London in 1882. With revision and some modifications by W. H. Dall, which have not met the author’s sanction, it was republished as Prehistoric America (N. Y., 1884). It is a work of more theoretical tendency than the student wishes to find at the opening stage of his inquiry.
But as a compend of every department of archæological knowledge up to about fifteen years ago no advance has yet been made upon Bancroft’s Native Races as indicative of every channel of investigation which the student can pursue. Upon the monuments of the moundbuilders (iv. ch. 13) and the antiquities of Peru (iv. ch. 14) the treatment is condensed and without references, as occupying a field beyond his primary purpose of covering the Pacific slope of North America and the immediately adjacent regions. Mention is made elsewhere of Bancroft’s methods of compilation, and it may suffice to say that in the five volumes of his Native Races he has drawn and condensed his matter from the writings of about 1200 writers, whose titles he gives in a preliminary list.[1820] The method of arranging the departments of the work is perhaps too far geographical to be always satisfactory to the special student,[1821] and he seems to be aware of it (for instance, i. ch. 2); but it may be questioned if, while writing with, or engrafting upon, an encyclopædic system, what might pass for a continuous narrative, any more scientific plan would have been more successful. Bancroft’s opinions are not always as satisfactory as his material. The student who uses the Native Races for its groups and references will accordingly find a complemental service in Sir Daniel Wilson’s Prehistoric Man (London, 1876), in which the Toronto professor conducts his “researches into the origin of civilization in the old and the new world,” by primarily treating of the early American man, as the readiest way of understanding early man in Europe. His system is to connect man’s development topically in the directions induced by his habits, industries, dwellings, art, records, migrations, and physical characterizations.
Another and older book, in some respects embodying like purposes, and though produced at a time when archæological studies were much less advanced than at present, is Alexander W. Bradford’s American Antiquities and researches into the origin and history of the red race (N. Y., 1841).[1822] The first section of the book is strictly a record of results; but in the final portion the author indulges more in speculative inquiry. Even in this he has not transcended the bounds of legitimate hypothesis, though some of his postulates will hardly be accepted nowadays, as when he contends that the red Indians are the degraded descendants of the people who were connected with the so-called civilization of Central America.[1823]
The periodical literature of a comprehensive sort is not so extensive as treatments of special aspects; but the student will find Poole’s Index and Rhee’s Catalogue and Index of the Smithsonian publications serviceable.
[III.]
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES ON THE INDUSTRIES AND TRADE OF THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES.
By the Editor.
While we have a moderate list of works on the general subject of prehistoric art and industries,[1824] we lack any comprehensive survey of the subject as respects the American continent, and must depend on sectional and local treatment. Humboldt in the introduction to his Atlas of his Essai politique (Paris, 1813) was among the earliest to grasp the material which illustrates the origin and first progress of the arts in America. The arts of the southern regions and western coasts of North America are best followed in those portions of the chapters on the Wild Tribes, devoted to the subject, which make up the first volume of Bancroft’s Native Races,[1825] and for Mexican and Maya productions some chapters (ch. 15, 24) in the second volume. Prescott’s treatment of the more advanced peoples of this region is scant (Mexico, i., introd., ch. 5). The art in stone of the Pueblo Indians is beautifully illustrated in Putnam’s portion of Wheeler’s Report of his survey, and comparison may be made with Hayden’s Annual Rept. (1876) of the U. S. Geol. and Geographical Survey. The work of Putnam and his collaborators in the archæological volume (vii.) of Wheeler’s Survey is probably the most complete account of the implements, ornaments and utensils of any one people (those of Southern California) yet produced; and its illustrations have not been surpassed. Passing north, we shall get some help from E. L. Berthoud’s paper on the “Prehistoric human art from Wyoming and Colorado,” in his “Journal of a reconnaissance in Creek Valley, Col.,” published by the Colorado Acad. of Nat. Sciences (Proceedings, 1872, p. 46). In the Pacific Rail Road Reports (vol. iii. in 1856) there is a paper by Thomas Ewbank in “Illustrations of Indian antiquities and arts.” S. S. Haldeman has described the relics of human industry found in a rock shelter in southeastern Pennsylvania (Compte Rendu, Cong. des Amér., Luxembourg, ii. 319; and Transactions Amer. Philos. Soc., 1878). The best of all the more comprehensive monographs is Charles C. Abbott’s Primitive industry: or illustrations of the handiwork, in stone, bone and clay, of the native races of the Northern Atlantic seaboard of America (Salem, 1881). Morgan’s League of the Iroquois touches in some measure of the arts of that confederacy, his earliest study being in the Fifth Report of the Regents of the State of New York (1852).