Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8) / Aboriginal America

by Unknown

The American Geographical Society has published a Bulletin (1852-56); Journal (or Transactions) (1859), etc., and Proceedings (1862-64). Some of the papers have been of archæological interest.

The Anthropological Institute of New York printed its transactions in a Journal (one vol. only, 1872-73).

The Archæological Institute of America was founded in Boston in 1879, and has given the larger part of its interest to classical archæology. The first report of its executive committee said respecting the field in the new world: “The study of American archæology relates, indeed, to the monuments of a race that never attained to a high degree of civilization, and that has left no trustworthy records of continuous history.... From what it was and what it did, nothing is to be learned that has any direct bearing on the progress of civilization. Such interest as attaches to it is that which it possesses in common with other early and undeveloped races of mankind.” Appended to this report was Lewis H. Morgan’s “Houses of the American Aborigines, with suggestions for the exploration of the ruins in New Mexico,” etc.,—advancing his well-known views of the communal origin of the southern ruins. Under the auspices of the Institute, Mr. A. F. Bandelier, a disciple of Morgan, was sent to New Mexico for the study of the Pueblos, and his experiences are described in the second Report of the Institute. In their third Report (1882) the committee of the Institute say: “The vast work of American archæology and anthropology is only begun.... Other nations, with more or less of success, are trying to do our work on our soil. It is time that Americans bestir themselves in earnest upon a field which it would be a shame to abandon to the foreigner.” Still under the pay of the Institute, Mr. Bandelier, in 1881, devoted his studies to the remains at Mexico, Cholula, Mitla, and the ancient life of those regions. At the same time, Aymé, then American consul at Merida, was commissioned to explore certain regions of Yucatan, but the results were not fortunate.

The Institute began in 1881 the publication of an American Series of its Papers, the first number of which embodied Bandelier’s studies of the Pueblos, and the second covered his Mexican researches. In 1885 the American Journal of Archæology was started at Baltimore as the official organ of the Institute, and occasional papers on American subjects have been given in its pages. The editors were called upon to define more particularly their relations to archæology in America in the number for Sept., 1888. In this they say: “The archæology of America is busied with the life and work of a race or races of men in an inchoate, rudimentary, and unformed condition, who never raised themselves, even at their highest point, as in Mexico and Peru, above a low stage of civilization, and never showed the capacity of steadily progressive development.... These facts limit and lower the interest which attaches ... to crude and imperfect human life.... A comparison of their modes of life and thought with those of other races in a similar stage of development in other parts of the world, in ancient and modern times, is full of interest as exhibiting the close similarity of primitive man in all regions, resulting from the sameness of his first needs, in his early struggle for existence.” The editors rest their reasons for giving prominence to classical archæology upon the necessity of affording by such complemental studies the means of comparison in archæological results, which can but advance to a higher plane the methods and inductions of the prehistoric archæology of America.

The American Folk-Lore Society was founded in Jan., 1888, and The Journal of American Folk-Lore was immediately begun. A large share of its papers is likely to cover the popular tales of the American aborigines.

The Anthropological Society of Washington is favorably situated to avail itself of the museums and apparatus of the American government, and members of the Geological Survey and Ethnological Bureau have been among the chief contributors to its Transactions,[1920] which in January, 1888, were merged in a more general publication, The American Anthropologist. A National Geographic Society was organized in Washington in 1888.

There are numerous local societies throughout the United States whose purpose, more or less, is to cover questions of archæological import. Those that existed prior to 1876 are enumerated in Scudder’s Catalogue of Scientific Serials; but it was not easy always to draw the line between historical associations and those verging upon archæological methods.[1921]

The oldest of the scientific periodicals in the United States to devote space to questions of anthropology is Silliman’s American Journal of Science and Arts (1818, etc.). The American Naturalist, founded in 1867, also entered the field of archæology and anthropology. The same may be said in some degree of the Popular Science Monthly (1877, etc.), Science (1883), and the Kansas City Review. The chief repository of such contributions, however, since 1878, has been The American Antiquarian (Chicago), edited by Stephen D. Peet. Its papers are, unluckily, of very uneven value.[1922]

The best organized work has been done in the United States by the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology, in Cambridge, Mass., and by certain departments of the Federal government at Washington.