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Title: On Limitations to the Use of Some Anthropologic Data

Author: John Wesley Powell

Release date: July 19, 2006 [eBook #18869]

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON
LIMITATIONS TO THE USE OF SOME ANTHROPOLOGIC DATA ***

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION—BUREAU OF
ETHNOLOGY.
J. W. POWELL, DIRECTOR.

ON LIMITATIONS TO THE USE OF SOME
ANTHROPOLOGIC DATA.

ON LIMITATIONS TO THE USE

OF SOME

ANTHROPOLOGIC DATA.
BY J.W. POWELL.

ARCHÆOLOGY.

Investigations in this department are of great interest, and have attracted to
the field a host of workers; but a general review of the mass of published
matter exhibits the fact that the uses to which the material has been put have
not always been wise.
In the monuments of antiquity found throughout North America, in camp
and village sites, graves, mounds, ruins, and scattered works of art, the
origin and development of art in savage and barbaric life may be
satisfactorily studied. Incidentally, too, hints of customs may be discovered,
but outside of this, the discoveries made have often been illegitimately
used, especially for the purpose of connecting the tribes of North America
with peoples or so-called races of antiquity in other portions of the world. A
brief review of some conclusions that must be accepted in the present status
of the science will exhibit the futility of these attempts.
It is now an established fact that man was widely scattered over the earth at
least as early as the beginning of the quaternary period, and, perhaps, in
pliocene time.
If we accept the conclusion that there is but one species of man, as species
are now defined by biologists, we may reasonably conclude that the species
has been dispersed from some common center, as the ability to successfully

carry on the battle of life in all climes belongs only to a highly developed
being; but this original home has not yet been ascertained with certainty,
and when discovered, lines of migration therefrom cannot be mapped until
the changes in the physical geography of the earth from that early time to
the present have been discovered, and these must be settled upon purely
geologic and paleontologic evidence. The migrations of mankind from that
original home cannot be intelligently discussed until that home has been
discovered, and, further, until the geology of the globe is so thoroughly
known that the different phases of its geography can be presented.
The dispersion of man must have been anterior to the development of any
but the rudest arts. Since that time the surface of the earth has undergone
many and important changes. All known camp and village sites, graves,
mounds, and ruins belong to that portion of geologic time known as the
present epoch, and are entirely subsequent to the period of the original
dispersion as shown by geologic evidence.
In the study of these antiquities, there has been much unnecessary
speculation in respect to the relation existing between the people to whose
existence they attest, and the tribes of Indians inhabiting the country during
the historic period.
It may be said that in the Pueblos discovered in the southwestern portion of
the United States and farther south through Mexico and perhaps into
Central America tribes are known having a culture quite as far advanced as
any exhibited in the discovered ruins. In this respect, then, there is no need
to search for an extra-limital origin through lost tribes for any art there
exhibited.
With regard to the mounds so widely scattered between the two oceans, it
may also be said that mound-building tribes were known in the early history
of discovery of this continent, and that the vestiges of art discovered do not
excel in any respect the arts of the Indian tribes known to history. There is,
therefore, no reason for us to search for an extra-limital origin through lost
tribes for the arts discovered in the mounds of North America.
The tracing of the origin of these arts to the ancestors of known tribes or
stocks of tribes is more legitimate, but it has limitations which are widely
disregarded. The tribes which had attained to the highest culture in the

southern portion of North America are now well known to belong to several
different stocks, and, if, for example, an attempt is made to connect the
mound-builders with the Pueblo Indians, no result beyond confusion can be
reached until the particular stock of these village peoples is designated.
Again, it is contained in the recorded history of the country that several
distinct stocks of the present Indians were mound-builders and the wide
extent and vast number of mounds discovered in the United States should
lead us to suspect, at least, that the mound-builders of pre-historic times
belonged to many and diverse stocks. With the limitations thus indicated the
identification of mound-building peoples as distinct tribes or stocks is a
legitimate study, but when we consider the further fact now established, that
arts extend beyond the boundaries of linguistic stocks, the most
fundamental divisions we are yet able to make of the peoples of the globe,
we may more properly conclude that this field promises but a meager
harvest; but the origin and development of arts and industries is in itself a
vast and profoundly interesting theme of study, and when North American
archæology is pursued with this end in view, the results will be instructive.

PICTURE-WRITING.

The pictographs of North America were made on divers substances. The
bark of trees, tablets of wood, the skins of animals, and the surfaces of
rocks were all used for this purpose; but the great body of picture-writing as
preserved to us is found on rock surfaces, as these are the most enduring.
From Dighton Rock to the cliffs that overhang the Pacific, these records are
found—on bowlders fashioned by the waves of the sea, scattered by river
floods, or polished by glacial ice; on stones buried in graves and mounds;
on faces of rock that appear in ledges by the streams; on cañon walls and
towering cliffs; on mountain crags and the ceilings of caves—wherever
smooth surfaces of rock are to be found in North America, there we may
expect to find pictographs. So widely distributed and so vast in number, it is
well to know what purposes they may serve in anthropologic science.
Many of these pictographs are simply pictures, rude etchings, or paintings,
delineating natural objects, especially animals, and illustrate simply the
beginning of pictorial art; others we know were intended to commemorate

events or to represent other ideas entertained by their authors; but to a large
extent these were simply mnemonic—not conveying ideas of themselves,
but designed more thoroughly to retain in memory certain events or
thoughts by persons who were already cognizant of the same through
current hearsay or tradition. If once the memory of the thought to be
preserved has passed from the minds of men, the record is powerless to
restore its own subject-matter to the understanding.
The great body of picture-writings is thus described; yet to some slight
extent pictographs are found with characters more or less conventional, and
the number of such is quite large in Mexico and Central America. Yet even
these conventional characters are used with others less conventional in such
a manner that perfect records were never made.
Hence it will be seen that it is illegitimate to use any pictographic matter of
a date anterior to the discovery of the continent by Columbus for historic
purposes; but it has a legitimate use of profound interest, as these
pictographs exhibit the beginning of written language and the beginning of
pictorial art, yet undifferentiated; and if the scholars of America will collect
and study the vast body of this material scattered everywhere—over the
valleys and on the mountain sides—from it can be written one of the most
interesting chapters in the early history of mankind.

HISTORY, CUSTOMS, AND ETHNIC CHARACTERISTICS.

When America was discovered by Europeans, it was inhabited by great
numbers of distinct tribes, diverse in languages, institutions, and customs.
This fact has never been fully recognized, and writers have too often spoken
of the North American Indians as a body, supposing that statements made of
one tribe would apply to all. This fundamental error in the treatment of the
subject has led to great confusion.
Again, the rapid progress in the settlement and occupation of the country
has resulted in the gradual displacement of the Indian tribes, so that very
many have been removed from their ancient homes, some of whom have
been incorporated into other tribes, and some have been absorbed into the
body of civilized people.

The names by which tribes have been designated have rarely been names
used by themselves, and the same tribe has often been designated by
different names in different periods of its history and by different names in
the same period of its history by colonies of people having different
geographic relations to them. Often, too, different tribes have been
designated by the same name. Without entering into an explanation of the
causes which have led to this condition of things, it is simply necessary to
assert that this has led to great confusion of nomenclature. Therefore the
student of Indian history must be constantly on his guard in accepting the
statements of any author relating to any tribe of Indians.
It will be seen that to follow any tribe of Indians through post-Columbian
times is a task of no little difficulty. Yet this portion of history is of
importance, and the scholars of America have a great work before them.
Three centuries of intimate contact with a civilized race has had no small
influence upon the pristine condition of these savage and barbaric tribes.
The most speedy and radical change was that effected in the arts, industrial
and ornamental. A steel knife was obviously better than a stone knife;
firearms than bows and arrows; and textile fabrics from the looms of
civilized men are at once seen to be more beautiful and more useful than the
rude fabrics and undressed skins with which the Indians clothed themselves
in that earlier day.
Customs and institutions changed less rapidly. Yet these have been much
modified. Imitation and vigorous propagandism have been more or less
efficient causes. Migrations and enforced removals placed tribes under
conditions of strange environment where new customs and institutions were
necessary, and in this condition civilization had a greater influence, and the
progress of occupation by white men within the territory of the United
States, at least, has reached such a stage that savagery and barbarism have
no room for their existence, and even customs and institutions must in a
brief time be completely changed, and what we are yet to learn of these
people must be learned now.
But in pursuing these studies the greatest caution must be observed in
discriminating what is primitive from what has been acquired from civilized
man by the various processes of acculturation.

ORIGIN OF MAN.

Working naturalists postulate evolution. Zoölogical research is largely
directed to the discovery of the genetic relations of animals. The evolution
of the animal kingdom is along multifarious lines and by diverse
specializations. The particular line which connects man with the lowest
forms, through long successions of intermediate forms, is a problem of
great interest. This special investigation has to deal chiefly with relations of
structure. From the many facts already recorded, it is probable that many
detached portions of this line can be drawn, and such a construction, though
in fact it may not be correct in all its parts, yet serves a valuable purpose in
organizing and directing research.
The truth or error of such hypothetic genealogy in no way affects the
validity of the doctrines of evolution in the minds of scientific men, but on
the other hand the value of the tentative theory is brought to final judgment
under the laws of evolution.
It would be vain to claim that the course of zoölogic development is fully
understood, or even that all of its most important factors are known. So the
discovery of facts and relations guided by the doctrines of evolution reacts
upon these doctrines, verifying, modifying, and enlarging them. Thus it is
that while the doctrines lead the way to new fields of discovery, the new
discoveries lead again to new doctrines. Increased knowledge widens
philosophy; wider philosophy increases knowledge.
It is the test of true philosophy that it leads to the discovery of facts, and
facts themselves can only be known as such; that is, can only be properly
discerned and discriminated by being relegated to their places in
philosophy. The whole progress of science depends primarily upon this
relation between knowledge and philosophy.
In the earlier history of mankind philosophy was the product of subjective
reasoning, giving mythologies and metaphysics. When it was discovered
that the whole structure of philosophy was without foundation, a new order
of procedure was recommended—the Baconian method. Perception must
precede reflection; observation must precede reason. This also was a failure.
The earlier gave speculations; the later give a mass of incoherent facts and

falsehoods. The error in the earlier philosophy was not in the order of
procedure between perception and reflection, but in the method, it being
subjective instead of objective. The method of reasoning in scientific
philosophy is purely objective; the method of reasoning in mythology and
metaphysics is subjective.
The difference between man and the animals most nearly related to him in
structure is great. The connecting forms are no longer extant. This subject
of research, therefore, belongs to the paleontologists rather than the
ethnologists. The biological facts are embraced in the geological record, and
this record up to the present time has yielded but scant materials to serve in
its solution.
It is known that man, highly differentiated from lower animals in
morphologic characteristics, existed in early Quaternary and perhaps in
Pliocene times, and here the discovered record ends.

LANGUAGE.

In philology, North America presents the richest field in the world, for here
is found the greatest number of languages distributed among the greatest
number of stocks. As the progress of research is necessarily from the known
to the unknown, civilized languages were studied by scholars before the
languages of savage and barbaric tribes. Again, the higher languages are
written and are thus immediately accessible. For such reasons, chief
attention has been given to the most highly developed languages. The
problems presented to the philologist, in the higher languages, cannot be
properly solved without a knowledge of the lower forms. The linguist
studies a language that he may use it as an instrument for the interchange of
thought; the philologist studies a language to use its data in the construction
of a philosophy of language. It is in this latter sense that the higher
languages are unknown until the lower languages are studied, and it is
probable that more light will be thrown upon the former by a study of the
latter than by more extended research in the higher.
The vast field of unwritten languages has been explored but not surveyed.
In a general way it is known that there are many such languages, and the

geographic distribution of the tribes of men who speak them is known, but
scholars have just begun the study of the languages.
That the knowledge of the simple and uncompounded must precede the
knowledge of the complex and compounded, that the latter may be rightly
explained, is an axiom well recognized in biology, and it applies equally
well to philology. Hence any system of philology, as the term is here used,
made from a survey of the higher languages exclusively, will probably be a
failure. "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his
stature," and which of you by taking thought can add the antecedent
phenomena necessary to an explanation of the language of Plato or of
Spencer?
The study of astronomy, geology, physics, and biology, is in the hands of
scientific men; objective methods of research are employed and metaphysic
disquisitions find no place in the accepted philosophies; but to a large extent
philology remains in the hands of the metaphysicians, and subjective
methods of thought are used in the explanation of the phenomena observed.
If philology is to be a science it must have an objective philosophy
composed of a homologic classification and orderly arrangement of the
phenomena of the languages of the globe.
Philologic research began with the definite purpose in view to discover in
the diversities of language among the peoples of the earth a common
element from which they were all supposed to have been derived, an
original speech, the parent of all languages. In this philologists had great
hopes of success at one time, encouraged by the discovery of the relation
between the diverse branches of the Aryan stock, but in this very work
methods of research were developed and doctrines established by which
unexpected results were reached.
Instead of relegating the languages that had before been unclassified to the
Aryan family, new families or stocks were discovered, and this process has
been carried on from year to year until scores or even hundreds, of families
are recognized, and until we may reasonably conclude that there was no
single primitive speech common to mankind, but that man had multiplied
and spread throughout the habitable earth anterior to the development of

organized languages; that is, languages have sprung from innumerable
sources after the dispersion of mankind.
The progress in language has not been by multiplication, which would be
but a progress in degradation under the now well-recognized laws of
evolution; but it has been in integration from a vast multiplicity toward a
unity. True, all evolution has not been in this direction. There has often been
degradation as exhibited in the multiplicity of languages and dialects of the
same stock, but evolution has in the aggregate been integration by progress
towards unity of speech, and differentiation (which, must always be
distinguished from multiplication) by specialization of the grammatic
process and the development of the parts of speech.
When a people once homogeneous are separated geographically in such a
manner that thorough inter-communication is no longer preserved, all of the
agencies by which languages change act separately in the distinct
communities and produce different changes therein, and dialects are
established. If the separation continues, such dialects become distinct
languages in the sense that the people of one community are unable to
understand the people of another. But such a development of languages is
not differentiation in the sense in which this term is here used, and often
used in biology, but is analogous to multiplication as understood in biology.
The differentiation of an organ is its development for a special purpose, i.
e., the organic, specialization is concomitant with functional specialization.
When paws are differentiated into hands and feet, with the differentiation of
the organs, there is a concomitant differentiation in the functions.
When one language becomes two, the same function is performed by each,
and is marked by the fundamental characteristic of multiplication, i. e.,
degradation; for the people originally able to communicate with each other
can no longer thus communicate; so that two languages do not serve as
valuable a purpose as one. And, further, neither of the two languages has
made the progress one would have made, for one would have been
developed sufficiently to serve all the purposes of the united peoples in the
larger area inhabited by them, and, cœteris paribus, the language spoken by
many people scattered over a large area must be superior to one spoken by a
few people inhabiting a small area.

It would have been strange, indeed, had the primitive assumption in
philology been true, and the history of language exhibited universal
degradation.
In the remarks on the "Origin of Man," the statement was made that
mankind was distributed throughout the habitable earth, in some geological
period anterior to the present and anterior to the development of other than
the rudest arts. Here, again, we reach the conclusion that man was
distributed throughout the earth anterior to the development of organized
speech.
In the presence of these two great facts, the difficulty of tracing genetic
relationship among human races through arts, customs, institutions, and
traditions will appear, for all of these must have been developed after the
dispersion of mankind. Analogies and homologies in these phenomena must
be accounted for in some other way. Somatology proves the unity of the
human species; that is, the evidence upon which this conclusion is reached
is morphologic; but in arts, customs, institutions, and traditions abundant
corroborative evidence is found. The individuals of the one species, though
inhabiting diverse climes, speaking diverse languages, and organized into
diverse communities, have progressed in a broad way by the same stages,
have had the same arts, customs, institutions, and traditions in the same
order, limited only by the degree of progress to which the several tribes
have attained, and modified only to a limited extent by variations in
environment.
If any ethnic classification of mankind is to be established more
fundamental than that based upon language, it must be upon physical
characteristics, and such must have been acquired by profound
differentiation anterior to the development of languages, arts, customs,
institutions, and traditions. The classifications hitherto made on this basis
are unsatisfactory, and no one now receives wide acceptance. Perhaps
further research will clear up doubtful matters and give an acceptable
grouping; or it may be that such research will result only in exhibiting the
futility of the effort.
The history of man, from the lowest tribal condition to the highest national
organization, has been a history of constant and multifarious admixture of

strains of blood; of admixture, absorption, and destruction of languages
with general progress toward unity; of the diffusion of arts by various
processes of acculturation; and of admixture and reciprocal diffusion of
customs, institutions, and traditions. Arts, customs, institutions, and
traditions extend beyond the boundaries of languages and serve to obscure
them, and the admixture of strains of blood has obscured primitive ethnic
divisions, if such existed.
If the physical classification fails, the most fundamental grouping left is that
based on language; but for the reasons already mentioned and others of like
character, the classification of languages is not, to the full extent, a
classification of peoples.
It may be that the unity of the human race is a fact so profound that all
attempts at a fundamental classification to be used in all the departments of
anthropology will fail, and that there will remain multifarious groupings for
the multifarious purposes of the science; or, otherwise expressed, that
languages, arts, customs, institutions, and traditions may be classified, and
that the human family will be considered as one race.

MYTHOLOGY.

Here again America presents a rich field for the scientific explorer. It is now
known that each linguistic stock has a distinct mythology, and as in some of
these stocks there are many languages differing to a greater or less extent,
so there are many like differing mythologies.
As in language, so in mythology, investigation has proceeded from, the
known to the unknown—from the higher to the lower mythologies. In each
step of the progress of opinion on this subject a particular phenomenon may
be observed. As each lower status of mythology is discovered it is assumed
to be the first in origin, the primordial mythology, and all lower but
imperfectly understood mythologies are interpreted as degradations, from
this assumed original belief; thus polytheism was interpreted as a
degeneracy from monotheism; nature worship, from psychotheism;
zoölotry, from ancestor worship; and, in order, monotheism has been held to
be the original mythology, then polytheism, then physitheism or nature
worship, then ancestor worship.

With a large body of mythologists nature worship is now accepted as the
primitive religion; and with another body, equally as respectable, ancestor
worship is primordial. But nature worship and ancestor worship are
concomitant parts of the same religion, and belong to a status of culture
highly advanced and characterized by the invention of conventional
pictographs. In North America we have scores or even hundreds of systems
of mythology, all belonging to a lower state of culture.
Let us hope that American students will not fall into this line of error by
assuming that zoötheism is the lowest stage, because this is the status of
mythology most widely spread on the continent.
Mythology is primitive philosophy. A mythology—that is, the body of
myths current among any people and believed by them—comprises a
system of explanations of all the phenomena of the universe discerned by
them; but such explanations are always mixed with much extraneous matter,
chiefly incidents in the history of the personages who were the heroes of
mythologic deeds.
Every mythology has for its basis a theology—a system of gods who are the
actors, and to whom are attributed the phenomena to be explained—for the
fundamental postulate in mythology is "some one does it," such being the
essential characteristic of subjective reasoning. As peoples pass from one
stage of culture to another, the change is made by developing a new
sociology with all its institutions, by the development of new arts, by
evolution of language, and, in a degree no less, by a change in philosophy;
but the old philosophy is not supplanted. The change is made by internal
growth and external accretion.
Fragments of the older are found in the newer. This older material in the
newer philosophy is often used for curious purposes by many scholars. One
such use I wish to mention here. The nomenclature which has survived
from the earlier state is supposed to be deeply and occultly symbolic and
the mythic narratives to be deeply and occultly allegoric. In this way search
is made for some profoundly metaphysic cosmogony; some ancient
beginning of the mythology is sought in which mystery is wisdom and
wisdom is mystery.

The objective or scientific method of studying a mythology is to collect and
collate its phenomena simply as it is stated and understood by the people to
whom it belongs. In tracing back the threads of its historical development
the student should expect to find it more simple and childlike in every stage
of his progress.
It is vain to search for truth in mythologic philosophy, but it is important to
search for veritable philosphies, that they may be properly compared and
that the products of the human mind in its various stages of culture may be
known; important in the reconstruction of the history of philosophy; and
important in furnishing necessary data to psychology. No labor can be more
fruitless than the search in mythology for true philosophy; and the efforts to
build up from the terminology and narratives of mythologies an occult
symbolism and system of allegory is but to create a new and fictitious body
of mythology.
There is a symbolism inherent in language and found in all philosophy, true
or false, and such symbolism was cultivated as an occult art in the early
history of civilization when picture-writing developed into conventional
writing, and symbolism is an interesting subject for study, but it has been
made a beast of burden to carry packs of metaphysic nonsense.

SOCIOLOGY.

Here again North America presents a wide and interesting field to the
investigator, for it has within its extent many distinct governments, and
these governments, so far as investigations have been carried, are found to
belong to a type more primitive than any of the feudalities from which the
civilized nations of the earth sprang, as shown by concurrently recorded
history.
Yet in this history many facts have been discovered suggesting that
feudalities themselves had an origin in something more primitive. In the
study of the tribes of the world a multitude of sociologic institutions and
customs have been discovered, and in reviewing the history of feudalities it
is seen that many of their important elements are survivals from tribal
society.

So important are these discoveries that all human history has to be
rewritten, the whole philosophy of history reconstructed. Government does
not begin in the ascendency of chieftains through prowess in war, but in the
slow specialization of executive functions from communal associations
based on kinship. Deliberative assemblies do not start in councils gathered
by chieftains, but councils precede chieftaincies. Law does not begin in
contract, but is the development of custom. Land tenure does not begin in
grants from the monarch or the feudal lord, but a system of tenure in
common by gentes or tribes is developed into a system of tenure in
severalty. Evolution in society has not been from militancy to industrialism,
but from organization based on kinship to organization based on property,
and alongside of the specializations of the industries of peace the arts of war
have been specialized.
So, one by one, the theories of metaphysical writers on sociology are
overthrown, and the facts of history are taking their place, and the
philosophy of history is being erected out of materials accumulating by
objective studies of mankind

PSYCHOLOGY.

Psychology has hitherto been chiefly in the hands of subjective
philosophers and is the last branch of anthropology to be treated by
scientific methods. But of late years sundry important labors have been
performed with the end in view to give this department of philosophy a
basis of objective facts; especially the organ of the mind has been studied
and the mental operations of animals have been compared with those of
men, and in various other ways the subject is receiving scientific attention.
The new psychology in process of construction will have a threefold basis:
A physical basis on phenomena presented by the organ of the mind as
shown in man and the lower animals; a linguistic basis as presented in the
phenomena of language, which is the instrument of mind; a functional basis
as exhibited in operations of the mind.
The phenomena of the third class may be arranged in three subclasses. First,
the operations of mind exhibited in individuals in various stages of growth,
various degrees of culture, and in various conditions, normal and abnormal;

second, the operations of mind as exhibited in technology, arts, and
industries; third, the operations of mind as exhibited in philosophy; and
these are the explanations given of the phenomena of the universe. On such
a basis a scientific psychology must be erected.

As methods of study are discovered, a vast field opens to the American
scholar. Now, as at all times in the history of civilization, there has been no
lack of interest in this subject, and no lack of speculative writers; but there
is a great want of trained observers and acute investigators.
If we lay aside the mass of worthless matter which has been published, and
consider only the material used by the most careful writers, we find on
every hand that conclusions are vitiated by a multitude of errors of fact of a
character the most simple. Yesterday I read an article on the "Growth of
Sculpture," by Grant Allen, that was charming; yet, therein I found this
statement:
So far as I know, the Polynesians and many other savages have
not progressed beyond the full-face stage of human portraiture
above described. Next in rank comes the drawing of a profile, as
we find it among the Eskimos and the bushmen. Our own
children soon attain to this level, which is one degree higher
than that of the full face, as it implies a special point of view,
suppresses half the features, and is not diagrammatic or
symbolical of all the separate parts. Negroes and North
American Indians cannot understand profile; they ask what has
become of the other eye.
Perhaps Mr. Allen derives his idea of the inability of the Indians to
understand profiles from a statement of Catlin, which I have seen used for
this and other purposes by different anthropologists until it seems to have
become a favorite fact.
Turning to Catlin's Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and
Condition of the North American Indians, (vol. 2, page 2) we find him
saying:

After I had painted these, and many more whom I have not time
at present to name, I painted the portrait of a celebrated warrior
of the Sioux, by the name of Mah-to-chee-ga (the Little Bear),
who was unfortunately slain in a few moments after the picture
was done by one of his own tribe; and which was very near
costing me my life, for having painted a side view of his face,
leaving one-half of it out of the picture, which had been the
cause of the affray; and, supposed by the whole tribe to have
been intentionally left out by me, as "good for nothing." This
was the last picture that I painted amongst the Sioux, and the
last, undoubtedly, that I shall ever paint in that place. So
tremendous and so alarming was the excitement about it that my
brushes were instantly put away, and I embarked the next day on
the steamer for the sources of the Missouri, and was glad to get
underweigh.
Subsequently, Mr. Catlin elaborates this incident into the "Story of the Dog"
(vol. 2, page 188 et seq).
Now, whatsoever of truth or of fancy there may be in this story, it cannot be
used as evidence that the Indians could not understand or interpret profile
pictures, for Mr. Catlin himself gives several plates of Indian pictographs
exhibiting profile faces. In my cabinet of pictographs I have hundreds of
side views made by Indians of the same tribe of which Mr. Catlin was
speaking.
It should never be forgotten that accounts of travelers and other persons
who write for the sake of making good stories must be used with the utmost
caution. Catlin is only one of a thousand such who can be used with safety
only by persons so thoroughly acquainted with the subject that they are able
to divide facts actually observed from creations of fancy. But Mr. Catlin
must not be held responsible for illogical deductions even from his facts. I
know not how Mr. Allen arrived at his conclusion, but I do know that
pictographs in profile are found among very many, if not all, the tribes of
North America.
Now, for another example. Peschel, in The Races of Man (page 151), says:

The transatlantic history of Spain has no case comparable in
iniquity to the act of the Portuguese in Brazil, who deposited the
clothes of scarlet-fever or small-pox patients on the hunting
grounds of the natives, in order to spread the pestilence among
them; and of the North Americans, who used strychnine to
poison the wells which the Redskins were in the habit of visiting
in the deserts of Utah; of the wives of Australian settlers, who,
in times of famine, mixed arsenic with the meal which they gave
to starving natives.
In a foot-note on the same page, Burton is given as authority for the
statement that the people of the United States poisoned the wells of the
redskins.
Referring to Burton, in The City of the Saints (page 474), we find him
saying:
The Yuta claim, like the Shoshonee, descent from an ancient
people that immigrated into their present seats from the
Northwest. During the last thirty years they have considerably
decreased, according to the mountaineers, and have been
demoralized mentally and physically by the emigrants. Formerly
they were friendly, now they are often at war with the intruders.
As in Australia, arsenic and corrosive sublimate in springs and
provisions have diminished their number.
Now, why did Burton make this statement? In the same volume he
describes the Mountain Meadow massacre, and gives the story as related by
the actors therein. It is well known that the men who were engaged in this
affair tried to shield themselves by diligently publishing that it was a
massacre by Indians incensed at the travelers because they had poisoned
certain springs at which the Indians were wont to obtain their supplies of
water. When Mr. Burton was in Salt Lake City he, doubtless, heard these
stories.
So the falsehoods of a murderer, told to hide his crime, have gone into
history as facts characteristic of the people of the United States in their
treatment of the Indians. In the paragraph quoted from Burton some other
errors occur. The Utes and Shoshonis do not claim to have descended from

an ancient people that immigrated into their present seats from the
Northwest. Most of these tribes, perhaps all, have myths of their creation in
the very regions now inhabited by them.
Again, these Indians have not been demoralized mentally or physically by
the emigrants, but have made great progress toward civilization.
The whole account of the Utes and Shoshonis given in this portion of the
book is so mixed with error as to be valueless, and bears intrinsic evidence
of having been derived from ignorant frontiersmen.
Turning now to the first volume of Spencer's Principles of Sociology (page
149), we find him saying:
And thus prepared, we need feel no surprise on being told that
the Zuni Indians require "much facial contortion and bodily
gesticulation to make their sentences perfectly intelligible;" that
the language of the Bushman needs so many signs to eke out its
meaning, that "they are unintelligible in the dark;" and that the
Arapahos "can hardly converse with one another in the dark."
When people of different languages meet, especially if they speak
languages of different stocks, a means of communication is rapidly
established between them, composed partly of signs and partly of oral
words, the latter taken from one or both of the languages, but curiously
modified so as hardly to be recognized. Such conventional languages are
usually called "jargons," and their existence is rather brief.
When people communicate with each other in this manner, oral speech is
greatly assisted by sign-language, and it is true that darkness impedes their
communication. The great body of frontiersmen in America who associate
more or less with the Indians depend upon jargon methods of
communication with them; and so we find that various writers and travelers
describe Indian tongues by the characteristics of this jargon speech. Mr.
Spencer usually does.
The Zuni and the Arapaho Indians have a language with a complex
grammar and copious vocabulary well adapted to the expression of the
thoughts incident to their customs and status of culture, and they have no
more difficulty in conveying their thoughts with their language by night

than Englishmen have in conversing without gaslight. An example from
each of three eminent authors has been taken to illustrate the worthlessness
of a vast body of anthropologic material to which even the best writers
resort.
Anthropology needs trained devotees with philosophic methods and keen
observation to study every tribe and nation of the globe almost de novo; and
from, materials thus collected a science may be established.

INDEX
Anthropologic archæology 73, 74
data, limitation of use of 73-86
ethnic characteristics 76, 77
history, customs 76, 77
language 78-81
mythology 81, 82
origin of man 77, 78
picture writing 75
psychology 83, 86
sociology 83

Archæology, Limitations to the Use of, in study of anthropology 73, 74

Ethnic characteristics, Limitations to the use of, in study of anthropology
76

History and customs, Limitations to the use of, in study of anthropology
76, 77

Language, Limitations to the use of, in study of anthropology 78, 81

Man, Origin of, in connection with the study of anthropology 77, 78

Mythology, Limitations to the use of, in study of anthropology 81, 82

Origin of man, in connection with the study of anthropology 77, 78

Picture writing, Limitations to the use of, in study of anthropology 75

Psychology, Limitations to the use of, in the study of anthropology 83, 86

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