The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studiesWilson, Daniel, Sir
History
The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studies
Wilson, Daniel, Sir
America -- Antiquities; Atlantis (Legendary place); Ethnology -- America; Indians of North America -- Antiquities
live in tents, constantly moving from place to place, as the exigencies
of the reindeer-hunting, seal-hunting, or fishing impel them. But they
generally winter in the same place for successive generations, and
manifest as strong an attachment to their native home as the dwellers in
more favoured lands. Their dwelling-houses accommodate from three or
four to ten families; and the same tendency to gather in communities
under one roof is worthy of notice wherever other wandering tribes
settle even temporarily. A drawing, made by me in 1866, of a birch-bark
dwelling which stood among a group of ordinary wigwams on the banks of
the Kaministiquia, shows a lodge of sufficiently large dimensions to
accommodate several families of a band of Chippewas, who had come from
the far West to trade their furs with the Hudson’s Bay factor there. The
Haidahs, the Chinooks, the Nootkas, the Columbian and other Indian
tribes to the west of the Rocky Mountains, all use temporary tents or
huts in their frequent summer wanderings; but their permanent dwellings
are huge structures sufficient to accommodate many families, and
sometimes the whole tribe. They are constructed of logs or split planks,
and in some cases, as among the Haidahs of Queen Charlotte Islands, they
are elaborately decorated with carving and painting.
The gregarious habits thus manifested by many wandering tribes, whenever
circumstances admit of their settling down in a permanent home, may be
due mainly to the economy of labour which experience has taught them in
the construction of one common dwelling, instead of the multiplication
of single huts or lodges. But far to the southward are the ancient
pueblos, the casas grandes, the cliff dwellings, of a race not yet
extinct: timid, unaggressive, living wholly on the defensive, gathered
in large communities like ants or bees; industrious, frugal, and
manifesting ingenious skill in their pottery and other useful arts; but,
they too, in no greatly advanced stage. Still farther to the south we
come at length to the seats of an undoubted native American
civilisation. The comparative isolation of Central America, and the
character of its climate and productions, all favoured a more settled
life; with, as genuine results, its architecture, sculpture, metallurgy,
hieroglyphics, writing, and all else that gives so novel a character to
the memorials of the Central American nations. But great as is their
contrast with the wild tribes of the continent, the highest phases of
native civilisation will not compare with the arts of Egypt, in
centuries before Cadmus taught letters to the rude shepherds of Attica,
or the wolf still suckled her cubs on the Palatine hill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account