Going back further, we find among the “Jesuit Relations” and narratives of other explorers, descriptions of certain ceremonies which appear to retain their aboriginal character. In other words, they were less European than similar affairs of later dates. Particularly is this true among the Hurons, Iroquois, Ojibwa, etc. The customs seen among the Sioux by Hennepin do not exist to-day.
It seems to me that in our haste to make records of tribes that are passing away, we have published much material that the future ethnologist will consider less important than similar observations of a century ago. No matter how much tribes are affected by contact with civilization, it is well to preserve their records even although the more able scholars of the future will question some of our observations. But while admitting the above, I wish to go on record as against the present tendency, so general, to explain the arts, customs, daily life, etc., of prehistoric man through our knowledge of a degenerate culture among modern Indians.
Much of the material presented in this work cannot be explained through such agencies; for there are hundreds of objects found in graves and tombs, village-sites and cliff-houses, the like of which have been seen in use among Indians by no white man whatsoever.
Fig. 5. (S. 1–1.) First stage of work, after blocking-out. See Fig. 7 for description.
Therefore, it appears to me that a classification based on archæological evidence (as far as possible) is needed, and I have attempted this in “The Stone Age.”
The critical reader will wonder why I have quoted at length from certain ethnologists on such subjects as textiles, bows and arrows, clothing, pottery, and pipes, and omitted extensive quotations in other sections. This is done purposely. In the field of ethnology much work has been done. The “Handbook of American Indians” covers fully such subjects as the bow, arrow, blanket, clothing, etc. Professor Mason was our highest authority on the basket and textiles generally, as is Professor Holmes on ceramic art. No possible improvement could have been made by me on the published studies of these men. And as “The Stone Age” carries out in detail the plan of the “Handbook,” I have embodied their papers in part or in whole, where such papers dealt with titles which I had not made the subject of a special study.
Of problematical forms, the divisions of chipped implements, hematites, agricultural implements, hammers, pestles, mortars, tubes, and other types, there are frequent descriptions. But these are brief, as a rule, and I do not concur in some of the conclusions. Therefore, I have not quoted at any length under such titles. Copper presents an extensive and almost new field, and Mr. Charles E. Brown has, therefore, made it one of the longest sections.
But, while “The Stone Age” does contain many quotations of length, I have made all these a part of one general plan, and this leads up, as readers will observe, to the differentiation of the various culture-groups existing in America in very ancient times. And thus, towards the end of Volume II, one enters an entirely new field. There are opened to archæologists possibilities of future study—very important study, in fact.