Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley | Page 2

objects left by the Mound-Builders, pipes
occupy a prominent place. This is partly due to their number, pipes
being among the more common articles unearthed by the labors of
explorers, but more to the fact that in the construction of their pipes this
people exhibited their greatest skill in the way of sculpture. In the
minds of those who hold that the Mound-Builders were the ancestors of
the present Indians, or, at least, that they were not necessarily of a
different race, the superiority of their pipe sculpture over their other
works of art excites no surprise, since, however prominent a place the
pipe may have held in the affections of the Mound-Builders, it is
certain that it has been an object of no less esteem and reverence among
the Indians of history. Certainly no one institution, for so it may be
called, was more firmly fixed by long usage among the North
American Indians, or more characteristic of them, than the pipe, with
all its varied uses and significance.
Perhaps the most characteristic artistic feature displayed in the pipe
sculpture of the Mound-Builders, as has been well pointed out by

Wilson, in his Prehistoric Man, is the tendency exhibited toward the
imitation of natural objects, especially birds and animals, a remark, it
may be said in passing, which applies with almost equal truth to the art
productions generally of the present Indians throughout the length and
breadth of North America. As some of these sculptured animals from
the mounds have excited much interest in the minds of archæologists,
and have been made the basis of much speculation, their examination
and proper identification becomes a matter of considerable importance.
It will therefore be the main purpose of the present paper to examine
critically the evidence offered in behalf of the identification of the more
important of them. If it shall prove, as is believed to be the case, that
serious mistakes of identification have been made, attention will be
called to these and the manner pointed out in which certain theories
have naturally enough resulted from the premises thus erroneously
established.
It may be premised that the writer undertook the examination of the
carvings with no theories of his own to propose in place of those
hitherto advanced. In fact, their critical examination may almost be said
to have been the result of accident. Having made the birds of the United
States his study for several years, the writer glanced over the bird
carvings in the most cursory manner, being curious to see what species
were represented. The inaccurate identification of some of these by the
authors of "The Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley" led to
the examination of the series as a whole, and subsequently to the
discussion they had received at the hands of various authors. The
carvings are, therefore, here considered rather from the stand-point of
the naturalist than the archæologist. Believing that the question first in
importance concerns their actual resemblances, substantially the same
kind of critical study is applied to them which they would receive were
they from the hands of a modern zoological artist. Such a course has
obvious disadvantages, since it places the work of men who were in, at
best, but a semi-civilized condition on a much higher plane than other
facts would seem to justify. It may be urged, as the writer indeed
believes, that the accuracy sufficient for the specific identification of
these carvings is not to be expected of men in the state of culture the
Mound-Builders are generally supposed to have attained. To which

answer may be made that it is precisely on the supposition that the
carvings were accurate copies from nature that the theories respecting
them have been promulgated by archæologists. On no other supposition
could such theories have been advanced. So accurate indeed have they
been deemed that they have been directly compared with the work of
modern artists, as will be noticed hereafter. Hence the method here
adopted in their study seems to be not only the best, but the only one
likely to produce definite results.
If it be found that there are good reasons for pronouncing the carvings
not to be accurate copies from nature, and of a lower artistic standard
than has been supposed, it will remain for the archæologist to
determine how far their unlikeness to the animals they have been
supposed to represent can be attributed to shortcomings naturally
pertaining to barbaric art. If he choose to assume that they were really
intended as imitations, although in many particulars unlike the animals
he wishes to believe them to represent, and that they are as close copies
as can be expected from sculptors not possessed of skill adequate to
carry out their rude conceptions, he will practically have abandoned the
position