The stone age in North America, vol. 1 of 2Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
History
The stone age in North America, vol. 1 of 2
Moorehead, Warren K. (Warren King)
Indians of North America -- Antiquities; Stone age -- North America
“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.
[Illustration:
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.
]
“_Stone-craft._—This embraces all the operations, tools, and apparatus
employed in gathering and quarrying minerals and working them into
paints, tools, implements, and utensils, or into ornaments and
sculptures, from the rudest to such as exhibit the best expressions in
fine art. Another branch is the gathering of stone for building.
“_Water industry._—This includes activities and inventions concerned in
finding, carrying, storing, and heating water, and in irrigation; also,
far more important than any of these, the making of vessels for plying
on the water, which was the mother of many arts. The absence of the
larger beasts of burden and the accommodating waterways together
stimulated the perfecting of various boats to suit particular regions.
“_Earth-work._—To this belong gathering, carrying, and using the soil
for construction purposes, excavating cellars, building sod- and
snow-houses, and digging ditches. The Arctic permanent houses were made
of earth and sod, the temporary ones of snow cut in blocks, which were
laid in spiral courses to form low domes. The Eskimo were especially
ingenious in solving the mechanical problems presented by their
environment of ice....
[Illustration:
FIG. 14. Free-hand, or direct percussion. First step in shaping an
implement from a boulder. Figs. 23, 28, and 29 to 33 are from the
_American Anthropologist_, vol. IV, 1891—W. H. Holmes’s paper.
]
“_Ceramic art._—This industry includes all operations in plastic
materials. The Arctic tribes in the extreme North, which lack proper
stone, kneaded with their fingers lumps of clay mixed with blood and
hair into rude lamps and cooking-vessels, but in the zone of intense
cold, besides the ruder forms there was no pottery....
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.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account