(1) Arctic (Eskimo); (2) Yukon-Mackenzie (practically Athabaskan); (3) Great Lakes and St Lawrence (Algonkian-Iroquoian); (4) Atlantic Slope (Algonkian, Iroquoian, Siouan, &c.); (5) Gulf Coast, embracing region from Georgia to Texas (Muskogian and a number of smaller stocks); (6) Mississippi Valley (largely Algonkian and “mound-builders”); (7) Plains, including the country from the neighbourhood of the Rio Grande to beyond the Saskatchewan on the north, and from the Rocky Mountains to the fertile lands west of the Mississippi (Algonkian, Siouan, Shoshonian, Kiowan, Caddoan); (8) North Pacific Coast, from Mount St Elias to the mouth of the Columbia river (Koluschan, Haidan, Tsimshian, Wakashan, Salishan); (9) Columbia-Fraser region (Salishan, Sahaptian, Chinookan, &c.); (10) Interior Basin between Rocky Mountains and Sierras (Shoshonian); (11) California-Oregon (“the Caucasus of North America,” occupied by more than twenty-five linguistic stocks); (12) Pueblos region, basin of Rio Grande, Pecos, San Juan and Colorado (Pueblos-Keresan, Tanoan, Zuñian, &c.; on the outskirts predatory Shoshonian, Athabaskan tribes; to the south-west, Yuman, &c.).
In the Arctic environment the Eskimo have conquered a severe and thankless climate by the invention and perfection of the snow-house, the dog-sled, the oil-lamp (creating and sustaining social life and making extensive migrations possible), the harpoon and the kayak or skin-boat (the acme of adaptation of individual skill to environmental demands). In the region of the Mackenzie especially the older and simpler culture of the Athabaskan stock has been much influenced by the European “civilization” of the Hudson’s Bay Company, &c., and elsewhere also by contact with Indian tribes of other stocks, for the Athabaskans everywhere have shown themselves very receptive and ready to adopt foreign elements of culture. The culture-type of the North Pacific coast, besides being unique in some respects, stands in certain relations to the culture of the Palaeo-Asiatic tribes of north-eastern Asia who belong properly with the American race. The culture of the Great Plains, which has been studied by Drs Wissler (Congr. intern. d. Amér., Quebec, 1906, vol. ii. pp. 39-52) and Kroeber (ibid. pp. 53-63), is marked by the presence of a decided uniformity in spite of the existence within this area of several physical types and a number of distinct linguistic stocks. Here the tipi and the camp-circle figure largely in material culture; innumerable ceremonies and religious practices (e.g. the “sun-dance”) occur and many societies and ceremonial organizations exist. The buffalo and later the horse have profoundly influenced the culture of this area, in which Athabaskan (Sarcee), Kitunahan, Algonkian, Siouan, Shoshonian, Kiowan tribes have shared. In some respects the Plains culture is quite recent and the result of “giving and taking” among the various peoples concerned. Some of them merely abandoned an earlier more sedentary life to hunt the buffalo on the great prairies.
The culture of the Mississippi valley region (including the Ohio, &c.) is noteworthy in pre-Columbian and immediately post-Columbian times for the development of “mound-building,” with apparently sedentary life to a large extent. In this Algonkian, Iroquoian and Siouan tribes have participated. In the region of the Great Lakes and on the Atlantic slope occurred the greatest development of the Algonkian and Iroquoian stocks, particularly in social and political activities, expressed both generally, as in the leagues and alliances (especially the famous “Iroquois League”), and individually in the appearance of great men like Hiawatha, Tecumseh, &c. The Gulf region is remarkable for the development in the southern United States of the Muskogian stock (Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, &c.), to which belonged the “civilized tribes” now part of the state of Oklahoma. In this area also, toward the west, are to be met religious ideas and institutions (e.g. among the Natchez) suggestive of an early participation in or connexion with the beginnings of a culture common to the Pueblos tribes and perhaps also to the ancestors of the civilized peoples of ancient Mexico. In some other respects the culture of this area is noteworthy. In the east also there are evidences of the influence of Arawakan culture from the West Indies. The Pueblos region has been the scene of the development of sedentary “village” life on the largest scale known in North America north of Mexico, and of arts, industries and religious ideas (rain-cult especially) corresponding, as Professor J. W. Fewkes (Rep. Smiths. Inst., 1895, pp. 683-700) has shown, most remarkably to their environment. The arid interior basin is the characteristic area of the great Shoshonian stock, here seen at its lowest level, but advancing with the Piman and other Sonoran and Nahuatlan tribes till in ancient Mexico it attained the civilization of the Aztecs. The California-Oregon area is remarkable for the multiplicity of its linguistic stocks and also for the development of many local culture-types. Within the limits of California alone Dr Kroeber (Univ. of Calif. Publ. Amer. Arch. and Ethnol. vol. ii., 1904, pp. 81-103) distinguishes at least four types of native culture.
On account of climatic conditions, in part at least, the development of agriculture in North America has not reached with many Indian tribes a high state of development, although its diffusion is much greater than is generally believed. In the south-eastern part of the United States beans, squashes, pumpkins and some other gourds and melons, potatoes, Indian corn, tobacco, a variety of the sunflower, &c., were cultivated, the growing of beans, squashes and pumpkins extending as far north as Massachusetts and the Iroquois country, in which latter also tobacco was cultivated, as the tribal name (“Tobacco Nation”) of the Tionontati indicates. The cultivation of Indian corn extended from Florida to beyond 50° N. and from the Atlantic to far beyond the Mississippi, and, to judge from the varieties found in existence, must have been known to the Indians for a very long period. In the arid region of Arizona and New Mexico a special development of agriculture occurred, made possible by the extensive use of irrigation in pre-Columbian and in more recent times. Here Indian corn, melons, beans, cotton, &c., were cultivated before the arrival of the Spaniards. For religious purposes the Zuñi appear to have selectively produced a great variety of colours in the ears of corn. Where women had much to do with agricultural operations they greatly influenced society and religious and mythological ideas. Hunting and fishing, as might be expected in an extensive and varied environment like the North American continent, exhibit a great range from simple individual hand-capture to combined efforts with traps and nets, such as the communal nets of the Eskimo, the buffalo and deer “drives” of the Plains and other Indians, with which were often associated brush-fences, corrals, “pounds,” pitfalls, &c., advantage taken of a natural cul-de-sac, &c. A great variety of traps, snares, &c., was used (see Mason in Amer. Anthrop., 1899) and the dog was also of great service with certain tribes, although no special variety of hunting-dogs (except in a few cases) appears to have been developed. The accessory implements for the chase (spear, bow and arrow, harpoon, club, &c.) underwent great variation and specialization. The throwing-stick appears in the north among the Eskimo and in the south-west among the Pueblos. In the Muskogian area the blow-gun is found, and its use extended also to some of the Iroquoian tribes (Cherokee, &c.). In part of this area vegetable poisons were used to capture fish. In the New England region torch-fishing at night was in vogue. With the tribes of the Great Plains in particular the hunt developed into a great social event, and often into a more or less marked ceremonial or religious institution, with its own appropriate preliminary and subsequential rites, songs, formulae, taboos and fetishes, &c., as seen e.g. among certain tribes of the Caddoan stock in very interesting fashion.
The art of transportation and navigation among the American aborigines north of Mexico has received special treatment from Mason (Rep. U.S. Nat. Mus., 1894) and Friederici, in his recent monograph Die Schiffahrt der Indianer (Stuttgart, 1907). On land some of the Indian tribes made use of the dog-sled and the toboggan in winter, while the dog-travois was early met with in the region of the Great Plains. The Eskimo made special use of the dog-sled, but never developed snow-shoes to the same extent as did the Athabaskan and Algonkian tribes; with the last and with the Iroquoian tribes came the perfection of the skin-shoe or moccasin. In the south and south-west appear sandals. In North America the cradle, as pointed out by Professor Mason (Rep. U.S. Nat. Mus., 1894), has undergone great variation in response to environmental suggestion. No wheeled vehicle and no use of an animal other than the dog for means of transportation is known among the aborigines north of Mexico, men, women and children, women especially, having been the chief burden-bearers. Among the types of boats in use are the seal-skin kayak and umiak (woman’s boat) of the Eskimo; the bull-boat or coracle (raw-hide over willow frame) of the Missouri and the buffalo-region; the dug-out of various forms and degrees of ornamentation in divers regions from Florida to the North Pacific coast; bark-canoes (birch, elm, pine, &c.) in the Algonkian, Iroquoian and Athabaskan areas, reaching a high development in the region of the Great Lakes; the peculiar bark-canoe of the Beothuks in the form of two half ellipses; the bark-canoe of the Kootenay (a similar type occurs on the Amur in north-eastern Asia), noteworthy as having both ends pointed under water; the plank-canoes of the Santa Barbara region; the basketry-boats (coritas) of the lower Colorado and in south central California; the balsas of tule rushes, &c., in use on the lakes and streams of California and Nevada. In various parts of the country log-rafts of a more or less crude sort were in use. No regular sail is reported from North America, although from time to time skins, blankets, &c., were used by several tribes for such purposes.
Since the appearance of Morgan’s monograph on the Houses and House-life of the American Aborigines (Washington, 1881) our knowledge of the subject has been materially increased by the studies and researches of Boas, Fewkes, Mindeleff, Dorsey, Matthews, Murdoch, Willoughby and others. The dwellings in use among the aborigines north of Mexico varied from the rude brush huts of the primitive Shoshonian tribes, and the still earlier caves, to the communal dwellings of the Iroquois and the Pueblos stocks of New Mexico and Arizona. The principal types are as follows:
Crude brush shelters and huts of the lowest Shoshonian tribes, the Apache (more elaborate), &c.; the hogan or earth-lodge of the Navaho, and the earth-lodges of certain Caddoan and Siouan tribes farther north, with similar structures even among the Aleuts of Alaska; the grass-lodge of the Caddoan tribes, still in use among the Wichita; the semi-subterranean earth-covered lodges of parts of California, &c.; the roofed pits of various styles in use in the colder north, &c.; the Eskimo snow-house and wooden karmak; the elaborately carved and painted wooden houses of Pacific coast region (Tlingit, Haida, Nootka, &c.), some of which were originally built on platforms and entered by log-ladders; the simple wooden house of northern California; the dome-shaped bark wigwams of the Winnebago and the conical ones of many of the Algonkian tribes; the skin tents or tipis of many of the Plains peoples; the mat tents of the Nez Percé, Kootenay, &c., and the mat houses of the South Atlantic region; the circular wigwam of bark or mats banked up at the base, of the Ohio-Mississippi valley; the palmetto-house of certain Louisiana Indians; the pile-dwellings of the ancient Floridians. Communal houses of divers types were found among the Mohegans, Iroquois, &c., but are especially illustrated by the so-called pueblos of the south-western United States, out of which grew probably the elaborate structures of ancient Mexico. Some tribes appear to have had simple and ruder summer dwellings and more elaborate or better constructed winter houses. The Eskimo have sometimes temporary hunting-lodges; the Comanches brush-shelters for summer and lodges of buffalo-skin for winter; with some tribes temporary dwellings were erected for the use of those cultivating the land. Many tribes had their “village-houses” for social purposes, like the kashim of the Eskimo. Special tipis or houses for shamans, “medicine-men,” &c., were common in many parts of North America. Secret societies had their own lodges and the so-called “men’s-house.” The houses of the North American Indians are the subject of a monograph by E. Sarfert (Arch. f. Anthr., 1908, pp. 119-215).
The art of fire-making was known to all the aborigines north of Mexico, two methods being widespread, that with flint and pyrites and that by reciprocating motion of wood on wood. For the latter several varieties of apparatus were in use, the simple two-stick apparatus was very common; the Eskimo have a four-part fire-drill and the Iroquois a weighted drill with spindle whorl. The skill displayed in fire-making by some Indians is very great, and the individual parts of the apparatus have in certain regions been highly specialized. The subject of fire-making apparatus and the kindred topic of illumination have been specially treated by Dr Walter Hough (Rep. U.S. Nat. Mus., 1890, pp. 531-587; Rep. Smiths. Inst., 1901-1902). The camp-fire, the torch and the Eskimo lamp represent the employment of fire for artificial light among the aborigines. Fire and smoke were used for signalling by the Plains tribes, &c., and fire-ceremonies form an important part (“new-fire,” “fire-dance”) of the ritual observances of not a few peoples, especially in the region from Florida to the Rio Grande. In metal-working there is up to the present no convincing evidence of the use of fire (heat only being employed to facilitate the cold-hammering processes by which the metals, copper, silver, gold and iron were manufactured into weapons, implements and ornaments) in metallurgy north of Mexico. The tools used were few and the processes simple, as Cushing (Amer. Anthrop., vol. vii., 1894) has proved by actual experiment. The only metal actually mined in large quantities was copper in the region of Lake Superior, whence came most of that employed in the east and south. In Alaska was a source of copper for the North Pacific coast. No special process of hardening copper other than by hammering was known to the Indians. The gold objects of most interest come from mounds in Florida and a few also from those in the Ohio valley. Galena was used to make simple ceremonial objects by the Indians of the Mississippi valley and the “mound-builders.”
The art of sculpture in wood, stone, bone and ivory is best represented by the wooden masks, utensils, house-carvings and totem-poles of the Indians of the North Pacific coast, the stone pipes, ornaments and images of various sorts of the “mound-builders” and other Indians of the Mississippi valley, the carvings of the people of the Floridian pile-dwellings, and the remarkable ivory carvings, sometimes minute, of the Eskimo. Noteworthy also are the slate-sculpture of the Haida, and the work in bone, ivory and deer and mountain goat horn of the British Columbian Indians. The Indians of the region south of the Great Lakes were expert in the manufacture of tobacco-pipes of great variety, among the most interesting being the Catlinite pipes of the Sioux of Minnesota, &c. Soapstone served some of the Eskimo to make lamps and some Indian tribes for other purposes. Pottery appears to have been unknown in certain regions, but flourished remarkably in the Mississippi valley and the Pueblos region of the south-west, where specialization in form and decoration occurred, and ceramic objects of all sorts were manufactured in abundance. The pottery of the Iroquoian and Algonkian tribes of the north-east was, as a rule, rather crude and undeveloped. In many places the relation of ceramic art to basketry is in evidence. Basketry, of which Professor O. T. Mason has recently made a detailed study in his Aboriginal American Basketry (Washington and New York, 1902, 1904), and related arts were carried on (especially by women) with great variety of form, decoration, material, &c., over a large portion of the continent. In North America basketry is “the primitive art,” and here “the Indian women have left the best witness of what they could do in handiwork and expression.” The most exquisite and artistic basketry in the world comes from an utterly uncivilized tribe in California. The relation of basketry to symbolism and religion is best observable among the Hopi or Moqui of Arizona. The appreciation of white men for the products of Indian skill and genius in basketry finds full expression in G. W. James’s Indian Basketry (1900). Weaving is exemplified in the goat’s hair blanket of the Chilkat Indians (Koluschan) of Alaska, and similar products; also in the manufactures of buffalo-hair, &c., of the Indians of the Great Plains and Mississippi valley and the textile art of a higher type known to the Pueblos tribes and by some of them taught to the Navaho. Famous are the “Navaho blankets,” less so the “Chilkat.”
Feather-work and the utilization of bird-skins and feathers for dresses, hats, ornaments, &c., are known from many parts of the continent. In the Arctic regions bird-skins with the feathers on were used to make dresses; the Algonkian tribes of Virginia, &c., had their bird-skin “blankets” and “turkey robes”; the tribes of the North Pacific coast used feathers for decorative purposes of many kinds, as did Indians in other regions also; feather head-dresses and ornaments were much in use among the Plains tribes, &c.; with the Pueblos Indians eagle and turkey feathers were important in ritual and ceremony; some of the tribes of the south-east made fans of turkey feathers. Beads made from various sorts of shell, rolled copper (“mound-builders,” &c.), seeds, ivory (Eskimo) and the teeth of various animals are pre-Columbian, like the turquoise-beads of the Pueblos, and they were put to a great variety of uses. Wampum was manufactured by many Algonkian and Iroquoian tribes, who also later produced fine specimens of work with the glass beads introduced by the whites. These glass beads made their way over most of the continent, soon driving out in many sections the older art in shell, &c. European-made wampum-beads affected native art in the 17th century. In the regions where the porcupine abounded its quills were used for purposes of ornamentation on articles of dress, objects of bark, &c., some of the Algonkian and Iroquoian tribes producing beautiful work of this sort.