The Lenape Stone; or, The Indian and the Mammoth — John Shaqi
The Lenape Stone; or, The Indian and the MammothMercer, Henry C.
History
The Lenape Stone; or, The Indian and the Mammoth
Mercer, Henry C.
Delaware Indians; Mammoths; Picture-writing, Indian
Figure 6 is from the gateway of the great Teocallis at Uxmal, and 7
from that of the Casa de las Monjos at Uxmal; as in the case of all
the other "elephant trunks," however, they offer no suggestion of the
prominent tusks of the American elephant, and, as Dr. F. W. Putnam
maintains, should perhaps be looked upon as grotesque representations
of the human race, of which the so-called trunk forms the nose.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.--Elephant Trunk (Uxmal).]
Far more striking among the so-called traces of the elephant in North
America are the priests' head-dresses from Mexico and Yucatan.
Figure 8, a reduction from plate xiii. in Waldeck's "Recherches sur les
Ruines de Palenque," is taken from a stucco bas-relief in the palace of
Palenque. Waldeck considers it "evidently a representation of the head
of a proboscidean."
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--Elephant Head-dress (Palenque).]
[Illustration: FIG. 9.--Elephant Head-dress (Mexico).]
Figure 9, the no less fantastic Mexican head-dress, is from the Vues
des Cordilleras, plate xv. As to it, Humboldt says: "I would not have
had this hideous scene engraved, were it not for the remarkable and
apparently not accidental resemblance of the priest's head-dress to
the Hindoo Ganesa, or elephant-headed god of wisdom. It seems hardly
possible to suppose that a tapir's snout could have suggested the trunk
in the head-dress, and we are almost left to infer either that the
people of Atzlan had received some notice of the elephant from Asia,
or that their traditions reached back to the time of the American
elephant."
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Prehistoric carving of the Mammoth from the
cave of La Madeleine.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Mammoth Carving from the Collection of M.
Lartet.]
[Illustration: FIG. 12.--Mammoth Carving from the Collection of M.
Lartet.]
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