Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley | Page 9

it would be difficult to explain, unless, indeed, he felt the
necessity of having a toucan at all hazards. The truth is that, the
question of toes aside, this carving in no wise resembles a toucan. Its
long legs and proportionally long toes, coupled with the rather long
neck and bill, indicate with certainty a wading bird of some kind, and
in default of anything that comes nearer, an ibis may be suggested;
though if intended by the sculptor as an ibis, candor compels the
statement that the ibis family has no reason to feel complimented.
The identification of this sculpture as a toucan was doubtless due less
to any resemblance it bears to that bird than to another circumstance
connected with it of a rather fanciful nature. As in the case of several
others, the bird is represented in the act of feeding, upon what it would
be difficult to say. Certainly the four etchings across the base of the

pipe bear little resemblance to the human hand. Had they been intended
for fingers they would hardly have been made to extend over the side of
the pipe, an impossible position unless the back of the hand be
uppermost. Yet it was probably just this fancied resemblance to a hand,
out of which the bird is supposed to be feeding, that led to the
suggestion of the toucan. For, say Squier and Davis, p. 266:
In those districts (i.e., Guiana and Brazil) the toucan was almost the
only bird the aborigines attempted to domesticate. The fact that it is
represented receiving its food from a human hand would, under these
circumstances, favor the conclusion that the sculpture was designed to
represent the toucan.
Rather a slender thread one would think upon which to hang a theory
so far-reaching in its consequences.
Nor was it necessary to go as far as Guiana and Brazil to find instances
of the domestication of wild fowl by aborigines. Among our North
American Indians it was a by no means uncommon practice to capture
and tame birds. Roger Williams, for instance, speaks of the New
England Indians keeping tame hawks about their dwellings "to keep the
little birds from their corn." (Williams's Key into the Language of
America, 1643, p. 220.) The Zuñis and other Pueblo Indians keep, and
have kept from time immemorial, great numbers of eagles and hawks
of every obtainable species, as also turkies, for the sake of the feathers.
The Dakotas and other western tribes keep eagles for the same purpose.
They also tame crows, which are fed from the hand, as well as hawks
and magpies. A case nearer in point is a reference in Lawson to the
Congarees of North Carolina. He says, "they are kind and affable, and
tame the cranes and storks of their savannas." (Lawson's History of
Carolina, p. 51.) And again (p. 53) "these Congarees have an
abundance of storks and cranes in their savannas. They take them
before they can fly, and breed them as tame and familiar as a dung-hill
fowl. They had a tame crane at one of these cabins that was scarcely
less than six feet in height."
So that even if the bird, as has been assumed by many writers, be
feeding from a human hand, of which fact there is no sufficient

evidence, we are by no means on this account driven to the conclusion,
as appears to have been believed, that the sculpture could be no other
than a toucan.
As in the Cass of the manatee, it has been thought well to introduce a
correct drawing of a toucan in order to afford opportunity for
comparison of this very striking bird with its supposed representations
from the mounds. For this purpose the most northern representative of
the family has been selected as the one nearest the home of the
Mound-Builders.
The particulars wherein it differs from the supposed toucans are so
many and striking that it will be superfluous to dwell upon them in
detail. They will be obvious at a glance.
Thus we have seen that the sculptured representation of three birds,
totally dissimilar from each other, and not only not resembling the
toucan, but conveying no conceivable hint of that very marked bird,
formed the basis of Squier and Davis' speculations as to the presence of
the toucan in the mounds. These three supposed toucans have been
copied and recopied by later authors, who have accepted in full the
remarks and deductions accompanying them.
At least two exceptions to the last statement may be made. It is
refreshing to find that two writers, although apparently accepting the
other identifications by Squier and Davis, have drawn the line at the
toucan. Thus Rau, in The Archæological Collections of the United
States National Museum, pp. 46-47, states that--