Fig. 11.
Fig. 12.
All described under Fig. 8.
Professor Otis T. Mason, of the United States National Museum, gave much thought to ethnological matters, and particularly his studies have been directed toward the arts, industries, and occupations of living tribes. These studies led him to discourse upon the divisions of labor, beginnings of culture, on the carrying industry, agriculture, traps in use among the Indians, and other subjects.
He grouped the various industries in the “Handbook of American Indians,” page 97; and under the citation of implements, tools, utensils, he gave a sketch-classification of the daily pursuits and implements used therein. His paper upon arts and industries I copy in part (omitting references), as it embodies one of several classifications possible of the life of the Indian:—
“The arts and industries of the North American aborigines, including all artificial methods of making things or of doing work, were numerous and diversified, since they were not limited in purpose to the material conditions of life; a technique was developed to gratify the esthetic sense, and art was ancillary to social and ceremonial institutions and was employed in inscribing speech on hide, bark, or stone, in records of tribal lore, and in the service of religion....
“The arts and industries of the Indians were called forth and developed for utilizing the mineral, vegetal, and animal products of nature, and they were modified by the environmental wants and resources of every place. Gravity, buoyancy, and elasticity were employed mechanically, and the production of fire with the drill and by percussion was also practiced. The preservation of fire and its utilization in many ways were also known. Dogs were made beasts of burden and of traction, but neither beast nor wind nor water turned a wheel north of Mexico in pre-Columbian times. The savages were just on the borders of machinery, having the reciprocating two-hand drill, the bow and strap-drills, and the continuous-motion spindle.
“Industrial activities were of five kinds: (1) Going to nature for her bounty, the primary or exploiting arts and industries; (2) working-up materials for use, the secondary or intermediary arts and industries, called also shaping arts or manufactures; (3) transporting or traveling devices; (4) the mechanism of exchange; (5) the using-up or enjoyment of finished products, the ultimate arts and industries, or consumption. The products of one art or industry were often the material or apparatus of another, and many tools could be employed in more than one; for example, the flint arrow-head or blade could be used for both killing and skinning a buffalo. Some arts or industries were practiced by men, some by women, others by both sexes. They had their seasons and their etiquette, their ceremonies and their tabus.
Fig. 13. (S. about 1–3.) Hammer-stones. Phillips Academy collection. These are from Flint Ridge, Ohio, and were made use of in the manufacture of turtlebacks and discs.