Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley

Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley - Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1880-81, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1883, pages 117-166

The considerable degree of decorative and artistic skill attained by the so-called Mound-Builders, as evidenced by many of the relics that have been exhumed from the mounds, has not failed to arrest the attention of archologists. Among them, indeed, are found not a few who assert for the people conveniently designated as above a degree of artistic skill very far superior to that attained by the present race of Indians as they have been known to history. In fact, this very skill in artistic design, asserted for the Mound-Builders, as indicated by the sculptures they have left, forms an important link in the chain of argument upon which is based the theory of their difference from and superiority to the North American Indian. Eminent as is much of the authority which thus contends for an artistic ability on the part of the Mound-Builders far in advance of the attainments of the present Indian in the same line, the question is one admitting of argument; and if some of the best products of artistic handicraft of the present Indians be compared with objects of a similar nature taken from the mounds, it is more than doubtful if the artistic inferiority of the latter-day Indian can be substantiated. Deferring, however, for the present, any comparison between the artistic ability of the Mound-Builder and the modern Indian, attention may be turned to a class of objects from the mounds, notable, indeed, for the skill with which they are wrought, but to be considered first in another way and for another purpose than mere artistic comparison. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 18184
Author: Henshaw, Henry W. (Henry Wetherbee)
Release Date: Apr 17, 2006
Format: eBook
Language: English