The Caribou Eskimos/Part 2/Chapter 3

The domed house. In the previous chapter we arrived at the conclusion that the earliest form of Eskimo dwelling was round, partly sunk into the ground and furnished with an entrance passage, whereas the window was possibly a later, independent (?) invention. It was furthermore underlined that the simple domed form was probably older than the conically roofed lodge, so that all in all the primitive snow house with an inside skeleton in Alaska seems to represent the Eskimo dwelling in its most original form. It will now be our task to find out whether in North America and northern Eurasia there are forms of dwellings which may be taken to be genetically connected with it (cf. Table B 1).

It will first be necessary to say something regarding the covering with snow. It must of course be geographically limited to areas with comparatively long winters, but not to any particular type of dwelling. Thus it is a common occurrence that the Chipewyan and Cree cover the lowest part of their conical tents with snow, and among the Tlingit a woman with child stays in a "für sie hergerichteten Zweig- oder Schneehütte";^[1] the form is not stated, but as these Indians know the conical tent, whereas the domed lodge is not mentioned in the literature from them, it is probably the former that is in question. A sort of snow hut is also built on bison drives in the regions round the great Laurentian lakes, unfortunately without any tribes being mentioned;^[2] they seem, however, to be Algonkian (Ojibway? Potawatomi?). The real domed lodge is known in these regions and at any rate the last ​citation referred to may possibly refer to one of these, though the description is not clear. In the affirmative case there is a striking parallel to the Eskimo snow house; and as the Algonkian domed lodge, as we shall soon see, must be taken to be from the same root as the Eskimo house, it is in so far genetically connected with it; the basis for the relationship must, however, be sought for in the construction, not in the use of snow. In the Old World the Gilyak,^[3] Samoyed,^[4] Lapps^[5] and presumably various others sometimes seek temporary shelter for the night in holes in the snow, which may be covered over with the same material.

According to this the use of snow must rather be looked upon as a direct function of the geographical surroundings. This does not, however, apply to the use of a covering material on the whole, and in this connection one can scarcely avoid taking covering with earth into consideration. Earth is used or has been used to a wide extent by the Eskimos; its use, however, is limited to the permanent winter houses. The fact that earth is not used for the simple, dome-shaped houses has quite a natural explanation. These are nowadays always purely temporary, or are to be found where the Eskimos live a more or less wandering life and change their dwelling several times in the course of the winter. Even though it will be easy enough as a rule to find patches that are comparatively bare of snow, the ground is of course frozen so hard that it cannot possibly be used, whereas the snow, one might say, is there waiting to be picked up. Thus it is justifiable to devote particular attention to earth-covered, domed lodges in North America; but on the other hand we will not restrict ourselves to them, for the Eskimos, as we know, also have dome-shaped tents which are not covered with snow.

Among the Kutchin, Loucheux and northern Hare (Nellagotinne) there are domed lodges in direct contact with the Eskimo region; but otherwise, as long as we keep west of the Missouri-Mississippi, we must travel far to the south to find this type. While attempting to determine the original form of Eskimo dwelling we saw that the whole of western North America as far as central California is occupied by house types. which must all be considered to be later than the simple domed form: the four-sided plank house, the conically roofed lodge with roof-entrance and the conically roofed lodge with porch, and partly the conical tent too. In direct connection with this enormous region we find lodges which exhibit the characteristic signs of the most primitive Eskimo dwelling: the domed shape, outside covering (with earth) and porch. ​Thus for instance are the houses of the San Carlos Apache^[6] and, in some cases, of the Havasupai.^[7] Without a porch, but dome-shaped, semi-underground and covered with earth, are the houses of several other tribes in this region. In this connection it is of no significance that as far as the Pima are concerned this form is known to have been adopted later, they having, before the invasion of the marauding Athapaskan tribes in the Southwest, owned a higher culture than now and built their lodges of adobe (the so-called Casas Grandes Culture); for their present form of dwelling must have been borrowed from other, lower tribes in the same region.

Domed, grass-covered lodges without any earth covering occur in southwest California, perhaps among the Mohave, although in late years their houses have been square,^[8] and in a very similar form on the plains among the southern Caddo. Quite primitive domed lodges are met with among the Cochimí (?), Comanche, Shoshoni and Karankawa, among the latter covered with skin.

That all these forms of dwelling are genetically connected can hardly be doubted, even if the connecting threads cannot as yet be traced in detail. It is true that there are one or two insignificant differences such as the presence or absence of porch and earth covering, and both in California and among the Piman tribes there may be one or more posts inside to support the roof, although this is something which seems to depend upon the size and only poorly harmonises with the dome form; it may therefore be that the posts have been directly copied from the conically roofed lodge in the same region. Factors which argue in favour of a connection are the common dome shape. without any separation between wall and roof, in connection with the circumstance that like a continuous curve they enclose the aforementioned region with higher forms of dwellings.^[9] And thus when at the opposite end of this region we meet the domed house of the Eskimo, we are justified in regarding both as the extreme outcrops of a regular series of house-types whose latest form we meet in the rectangular plank house of the northwest coast, or in other words, in regarding them as being genetically connected despite the enormous interval of space which separates them.

In eastern North America it is not necessary to go so far from the Arctic as westwards in order to find the domed house again. As the famous wigwam of the Algonkian tribes it can be followed from La​brador, along the Atlantic coast over the New England states at any rate to New York and Delaware, although in the north it has more or less been forced into the background by the conical tent, whereas to the south the big common houses, having the form of barrel-vaults, vie with it more and more for pride of place; these themselves, however, are possibly mere offshoots of the wigwam, arising out of the peculiar social organisation of the Iroquois.^[10] South of the Great Lakes there is another region with domed lodges, usually covered with mats and, at any rate sometimes, furnished with a porch (the eastern Dakota). That this region was originally connected with the Atlantic region cannot be doubted, having regard to the fact that the interruption coincides with the regions occupied by the Iroquois, who have made their way in from the south. Thus the distribution exhibits a close analogy to conditions in the west: the domed houses occur in a curve from Labrador along by the ocean and south about the Great Lakes, depositing themselves along the periphery of the great subarctic region where the later, conical tent prevails.

Among the more complete regions of the domed lodge in the southwest and northeast there are sporadic occurrences on the plains (Kansa, Osage, Iowa, Omaha, Arikara) where for instance it appears as a temporary dwelling. This completes the chain, so that one may roughly describe the diffusion of the domed house in North America outside the Arctic region as a belt, broken only in few places, stretching from southwest to northeast, from southern California over the southwestern plateaux, the southern plains, south about the Great Lakes to the North Atlantic coast and Labrador. The breaks in this chain are due to the intrusion of foreign elements (the Missouri earth lodge) or, what is the same thing in this respect, foreign peoples (Athapaskans, Shoshoni, Iroquois). The whole of that part of North America which lies between the belt described and the Arctic coast is occupied by forms of dwellings which all — with the exception of some few wind-shelter types among the Athapaskans and Shoshoni — must be regarded as being later than the domed lodge and overlying it. And yet it has not entirely disappeared even here. Everywhere except on the northwest coast we find it preserved as a medicine lodge, among the Nez Percé even with a porch. As a sweat house the dome form is also met with outside the belt where it occurs as a dwelling, as in North Carolina^[11] and Old México.^[12]

​The domed house thus seems to be an ancient element in North America. Conditions are exactly the same in the southern half of the dual continent, where it belongs to the most remote quarters, principally furthest south and in El Gran Chaco, by the upper Amazon and among the Botocudos.^[13] In El Gran Chaco it is sometimes built with a porch.^[14]

In Eurasia we cannot expect to find such a primitive element as the domed house preserved in many places. We have seen that later types of dwellings prevail all the way from East Asia to Lapland, the yurta of the Mongolian and Turkish nomads perhaps included. South of this region we at once meet with higher forms of culture, where the domed house cannot be expected. No doubt the highlands of Tibet are an exception, but there the nomads use another, primitive form of dwelling, the ridge-tent. Under these circumstances it is so much the more significant that the domed house can nevertheless be proved to exist in at least two places in Siberia, in both cases as a summer dwelling, viz. among the Gold and the Baraba Tatars. The occurrence among the Ainu is more uncertain. On the other hand dome-shaped clay huts are still used in northwestern China in the province of Shansi.^[15] In ancient Europe the domed house must at a certain time have been well known, for its form can be traced both in the Minoan cupola graves and their numerous imitations in South and West Europe,^[16] and in the peculiar nuraghs of the Sardinian Bronze Age.^[17] Similar domed houses, built of stone like false vaults, are preserved in Portugal, Ireland and Scotland.^[18]

The platform must be dealt with in conjunction with the dwelling house. It appears from Table B3 that, besides among the Eskimos, it occurs commonly along the whole of the northwest coast, but not on the plateaux in the interior. In some places in California, among the agricultural plains tribes, and in the eastern woodlands the Indians slept upon bedsteads very similar to platforms. Similar bedsteads were found in Old México^[19] and are still used by a number of tribes in Central and South America. There it appears to be an old ​element which has held its own where the hammock has not intruded.^[20]

It would seem that the platform in North America principally has its home where there are the more highly developed forms of houses such as the plank house and the conically roofed house, even if in some cases by the Great Lakes it is also to be found together with the simple wigwam. For this reason it is not clear whether it originally belongs to the domed house or not; its diffusion, however, would rather seem to indicate the contrary. In this case the platform must presumably be a later element among the Eskimos — despite its wide distribution among them — and apparently has come in from the west. In North Asia we find the platform in all permanent houses, in the Amur country and Manchuria^[21] to some extent in the form of the Chinese k'ang. A kind of platform is also arranged in the tents of the Central Asiatic nomads.^[22] In East and North Europe the platform occurs among the Tatars^[23] and formerly among the Finns.^[24]

The temporary shelters do not represent any particular type of dwelling among the Eskimos and therefore may be passed over here.

The same applies to sleeping rugs etc., which of course occur everywhere. It may, however, be observed that mats of willow twigs, which are laid parallel and bound together, are used as back-rests by many plains tribes,^[25] and in CNM there is, from the Samoyed, a tent mat which can barely be distinguished from those of the Central Eskimoṣ.^[26] Mats of this kind are possibly a widely diffused type whose occurrence, however, cannot be determined without difficulty.

Bags and containers for food, water etc. The distribution of seamless bags is shown on Table B 4, which, however, should be compared with B 17, which indicates the diffusion of the quiver. It appears from the latter that seamless bags are extremely common as quivers in California, being made of a wholly-flayed animal skin. They are also found in the sub-arctic and Laurentian region, very often in the same form or made of deer feet and used as tobacco pouches, whilst bison paunches or pericardia are common as water-bottles on the plains. In sub-arctic Eurasia, too, there are seamless ​bags, and the same is the case among the Central Asiatic nomads, among whom bags of horse or ox feet are closely related to the American deer-foot type. These are used by the Kalmuk^[27] and Bashkir.^[28] The Kirgiz-Kazak store water in seamless bags,^[29] and the Tibetans keep butter in sheep stomachs.^[30] From the Vakhan in Pamir there is a seamless bag in CNM (Q 165). The water and wine bags of goat skin in the Mediterranean countries are also well known, and the Arabian Beduins have a kind of water bottle of the same type.^[31] In other words we have here a very widely diffused and certainly ancient culture element.

Edge-seamed bags (Table B 5) usually have a special form among the sub-arctic Indians — not included in the table — consisting of caribou leg-skins sewn together.^[32] This type is also widespread in northern Eurasia. Another type of edge-seamed bag is the previously mentioned tongued bag. These are not included in the table either, for one reason because they are possibly not original Indian, whereas on the other hand the loose tongues might indicate that they have within more recent times been derived from wholly flayed animal skins with the limbs intact. Simple edge-seamed bags are common on the plains, but are also found on the northern plateaux and the northwest coast, although in the latter place they have perhaps been imported in recent times, like the leg-skin bag. They are also known from North Asia. Although the pre-European diffusion cannot be definitely shown, they seem to represent an earlier type than the leg-skin bag. Strangely enough, simple edge-seamed bags, with the embroidery on the skin characteristic of North America, are found again at one place in South America, viz. among the Mataco in El Gran Chaco.^[33]

Certain bags of bird feet (Table B 6) are merely an offshot of the seamless bags, they being formed merely by splitting the foot. This is the case for instance with Hc 835, CNM, which has come from the northern plains. Otherwise, there are bags of bird feet diffused over the sub-arctic region both in the New and the Old World. They seem. to be a common, circumpolar type.

Four-sided wooden trays (Table B 7) are diffused along the northwest coast of America, at any rate as far as northern California; whether they extend further south or not is a question. Among the ​plateaux tribes in British Columbia they are common, even if in some cases (Chilkotin) they are traded from the coast dwellers. On the other hand they seem to be fairly rare among the sub-arctic Indians, to appear again by the Great Lakes among the Algonkian tribes and among the Iroquois, and continue from there along the Atlantic coast to Virginia (Rappahannock). They have probably also been known to the trans-Appalachian Algonkians, although to my knowledge the literature says nothing about this. There can be no doubt that there is a connection between the western and the eastern area of diffusion and that it is the widespread use of bark vessels which has forced the wooden trays into the background in the sub-arctic region. In North Asia wooden trays are very common on the Pacific coast, but nevertheless they are not wholly absent in the west; here, too, bark vessels play a great part however. To understand the later character of these it is significant that they are altogether absent among a tribe like the Yeniseians, whose culture in several respects is old-fashioned.^[34] Foursided wooden trays also occur among the Central Asiatic nomads.^[35]

The round wooden bowl has a much greater distribution than the wooden tray (Table B 8). The fact that it is rare, or in places is missing. entirely, in its typical form on the northwest coast of America is probably solely due to a conversion to bowls of boat or animal shape, in conformity with the artistic taste in the whole of this region. Among the less civilised southern group on the northwest coast it does occur, however. In California, where basket-making is at a high standard, and among the Pueblo tribes where the same thing is true of pottery. wooden bowls are missing or at any rate rare; but otherwise they occur in all North American culture areas. They are also found in México^[36] and in the Taino culture on the Antilles.^[37] In South America they are characteristic of the mountain culture in the west, whence they have spread to El Gran Chaco^[38] and, in historic times, from the Araucanians to the Tehuelche.^[39]

Round wooden bowls are common in northern Eurasia, although among the Amur tribes, who have a high standard of art, they are often of a similar boat-shape to those on the northwest coast of Ame​rica. Among the Mongolian and Turkish nomads in Central Asia they are equally widespread,^[40] nor are they absent when we move still more to the south to the Tibetans,^[41] the Kafirs in Hindukush,^[42] the Arabian Beduins,^[43] etc. They are of course of great importance in the peasant culture of eastern and northern Europe. In Denmark they can be traced back to the early Bronze Age,^[44] but even there they occur in such a highly developed form that it is to be presumed that they date back to a still more distant age. Thus the round wooden bowl is a very widely diffused and certainly ancient element of culture.

The distribution of the skin pail is much more limited and rather sporadic (Table B 9). In North America outside the Eskimo region I only know it from the northern plains. In northern Eurasia it is only mentioned from the Yakut and Bashkir. The Kirgiz-Kazak also have skin pails.^[45] On the whole they seem to belong to places where the lack of other material and a wandering life make the use of vessels of wood, bark, earth or straw difficult. It is therefore possible that they are to be regarded as mutually independent results of an adaptation to geographical environment; but this is by no means certain. It must be remembered that with the exception of wood the materials referred to above all seem to be later culture-acquisitions than the use of skin, and in any case the skin pail of the Yakut can hardly be explained geographically. Thus one cannot reject the possibility that the skin pail too is an ancient culture element which has not been directly created by special environment but merely preserved by it.

It has been stated above that water bottles often have the form of seamless bags, in which form they are common over the whole plains area as well as on the northern plateaux and the Californian Peninsula. Real water bottles of leather are known to the Yakut (K 2: 80, CNM), Kalmuk^[46] and Kirgiz.^[47] On the whole I would refer to what has already been said about the seamless bags.

Implements for serving food and drink. No attempt has been made to draw up any table of the distribution of the meat fork. It is an element which has apparently so rarely found its way into the literature — and as a matter of fact into the museums — that a table would merely be misleading. In reality its occurrence ​must be much more common than the evidence at hand shows. In North America I only know it from the eastern woodlands among the Naskapi,^[48] Montagnais^[49] and Iroquois.^[50] A possible occurrence from Algonkian finds in Kentucky may be added with much reserve.^[51] As regards North America one may add the purely negative circumstance that it is scarcely to be found among the North Pacific tribes, who serve their food with a peculiar implement of ribs tied together (for instance H 1869, CNM, from the Nootka). In Eurasia there is a kind of meat fork among the Lapps;^[52] the Samoyed use an iron hook.^[53]

As to the marrow extractor, the same thing applies as to the meat fork, that there is very little information. It is only expressly mentioned from the Omaha,^[54] Shuswap^[55] — in this case for animal brains — and, to go to Siberia, from the Tungus or Yakut, which of the two is not clear.^[56] These occurrences seem to be so accidentally distributed that one is tempted to assume a wider diffusion in former times, if not now. On the other hand there are definite examples of the marrow extractor not being known. According to what they told me, both Chipewyan and Cree use any suitable stick for the purpose. Finsch refers to marrow eating from the Ostyak, but makes no mention of an extractor.^[57] When the Lapps eat marrow, they split the bone and take the marrow on the point of the knife.^[58] This might indicate one reason why the marrow extractor now (?) is so little known. When the bone is split, the extractor is unnecessary; this procedure, however, requires a metal knife. Otherwise it is necessary to crush the bone, and then the extractor comes into use.

Large ladles and dippers, made of horn or wood (Table B 10), are diffused everywhere in the circumpolar region. Despite all variations of form they are more nearly associated, through their oval bowl and rather long handle, with the dippers used in the Eskimo border regions, but are more removed from the Central, specialised type. Horn dippers occur principally on the northern Pacific coast and the plains, which is naturally connected with the easy access to the material in these places (mountain goat, bison). Otherwise they are mostly of wood, until on the Atlantic coast in the regions round New York they ​are gradually replaced by gourds^[59] and in the Pueblo regions by earthen dippers.^[60] In northern Eurasia wood is the principal material, although bark is also used,^[61] and even metal (CNM, from the Samoyed). Wooden ladles are also met with in Central Asia.^[62]

Spoons of wood, bone or horn have a diffusion which almost coincides with that of the round wooden bowl (Table B 11). They are not entirely lacking in any culture area in North America, although they seem to be somewhat rare in California and the Pueblo regions, in the latter substituted by earthen spoons. The similarity of diffusion extends to South America, where the spoon is principally a western element which has spread from the mountain civilisation to El Gran Chaco^[63] and, with the Araucanians (?) as an intermediate stage in postColumbian times, to the Tehuelche.^[64] In North Eurasia spoons, which there are almost exclusively of wood or bone, are diffused everywhere. In Europe wooden spoons go back to at least Neolithic times in Denmark and Switzerland.^[65]

Spoons of shell are widely spread in North America. They obviously represent an old type. It would seem, however, that no particular importance is to be attached to the circumstance that they are relatively frequently brought to light by archæological research; for conditions of preservation give them great advantage over spoons of wood and horn. In South America spoons of shell are "probably in universal use wherever suitable material is to be found".^[66]

The sucking tube (Table B 12) displays very strange aspects. Whereas among the Eskimos it is a common article of use, we find certain changes as soon as we leave these people, it having assumed a ritual character. On the northwest coast and the northern plains it is used at the ceremonies held when young girls reach the age of puberty, during which their lips must not come into direct contact with water. In one place it is stated that the sucking tube is used in a similar manner in the Mackenzie region, but I have found no confirmation of this in the earlier literature. The Churchill Chipewyan — and the Cree too — in fact denied that they ever used the sucking tube. The statement referred to must therefore be the result of quite a modern influence from the tribes on the plateaux, a circumstance which would not be unique. Only from a single, sub-arctic tribe, the Beaver, is ​there a definite indication of the use of the sucking tube, in this case by young men who wish to become good runners.

By the Great Lakes, however, we enter a region where the sucking tube is in general use, and it continues from there without any real interruption right down to the Gulf of México. There we find that the medicine man removes disease from his patients through the sucking tube, except among the Yuchi, Catawba and Creek, where he does not suck, but blows through the tube down into the decoction of herbs that is to serve as medicine. Practically everywhere in this region archæological investigations have resulted in the finding of stone tubes which, even in earlier times, have been taken as belonging to the paraphernalia of the medicine man. They are, however, entirely absent in the settlements of the Iroquois.^[67] The only Iroquoian tribe from which the sucking tube is known is the Cheroki, who differ from their kinsmen in so many ways.

In southwest North America, commencing as far north as at Puget Sound, the sucking tube again appears, and here, too, stone tubes, brought to light by excavations, may reasonably be taken to be implements of this sort. They are used for sucking out disease in exactly the same manner as among the eastern woodland tribes. This particular point of interest attaches to the sucking tube in these regions, that it is at the same time used as a tobacco pipe, it here being principally a shaman accessory^[68] and, as I have sought to show elsewhere, there is every reason for regarding the pipe as having developed from the sucking tube.^[69]

In Old México this implement also had a ceremonial use. Sahagún relates that those who were to be sacrificed at the feast in honour of Xipe Totec and Uitzilopochtli on the last day of the month of Tlacaxipeualiztli, drank pulque through a tube.^[70] The gods were represented as if they themselves sucked up the blood of the victim through a tube.^[71] In South America this culture element seems to be almost unknown. The medicine men among the Chocó in northern Colombia ​blow on their patients through a tube;^[72] otherwise it is only met with, like so many of the elements that are common to South and North America, farthest south, in this case among the Yagan in Tierra del Fuego, where, as on the north Pacific coast, it is used in their initiation ceremonies.^[73]

It is probable that the sucking tube occurs in some places in Siberia, as for instance among the Samoyed and Ostyak. It is, however, used by the Lapps. The inhabitants of the border regions between China and Tibet use sucking tubes of bamboo,^[74] and the mountain tribes in the Himalayas drink millet ale through a straw,^[75] as the old Armenians drank wine in the days of Xenophon (Anabasis; IV ch. 5). To turn for once to Africa we find the sucking tube among a large part of the Hamito-Nilotian and also several Bantu tribes in Kenya Colony southwards as far as the Rowuma.^[76] It is also well known from Bushmen and Australians.

Thus the sucking tube is certainly a very old culture element which has formerly had an almost world-wide diffusion. One may not doubt that the sucking tube of the Eskimos is in genetic connection with that of the Indians. The North Pacific region passes without a break into the Eskimo, and its shamanistic use in the eastern woodlands and in California is so uniform that it is difficult to imagine it as the result of two independent inventions. And what is more, it is by no means the only culture element in these two regions that is so to say associated by a corresponding occurrence in the Arctic (cf. the domed house). The great interruption in its occurrence in the sub-arctic region in North America and Asia indicates that the sucking tube is older than the culture now prevailing in these regions.

Striking and thrusting weapons. A number of years ago Friederici treated the distribution of the sling in America; it is now possible, however, to record more complete information concerning it (Table B 13). We find the sling here and there on the northwest coast, in California and especially on the plateaux furthest southwest. One or two occurrences are recorded from the northern plains. ​The sub-arctic tribes also have slings. The reiterated assertion that the sling occurred among the Beothuk is not positively proved, however. It may be traced back to an inscription on Sebastiano Cabotto's map. of 1544; but it is by no means certain whether it refers to the Beothuk or to the Labrador Eskimos who, at the end of the eighteenth century, still regularly visited the northernmost point of Newfoundland. Just as uncertain are the indications from the southeastern United States, excepting the Gulf coast itself. Whether Lindeström's statements from Delaware and those of Lederer from the Eno really refer to slings is very doubtful; I will even say that to me it seems most probable that Lederer actually means the well-known chunkey game.^[77]

Bandelier has expressed doubt that the sling is originally Indian in the Pueblo regions,^[78] and in the article on this weapon in the Handbook of the American Indians Walter Hough writes: "Slings . . . . were in use among the ancient aborigines of Middle and South America, and are still employed by the more primitive tribes. There appears to be no absolute proof, however, that the sling was known to the northern tribes before the discovery of America . . .".^[79] This, however, seems to be carrying scepticism too far, even disregarding the Eskimos and the report from Newfoundland which possibly refers to Eskimos. We have so early an observation as that of Cabeza de Vaca from the sixteenth century at "Baya de Cavallos", and both among the Nootka and the Coast Salish slings were seen at the time of the discovery, when European influence was certainly out of the question. There remains the fact that the pre-Columbian occurrence of the sling in great parts of eastern North America continues to be doubtful, even though archæological research has brought to light stones which have been interpreted as sling-stones.^[80]

The sling was known in Old México — Motecúzoma, as we know, was mortally wounded by a stone thrown by a sling — and also among certain Maya tribes.^[81] In Central America it was also used.^[82] In South America the sling has principally a western and southern distribution and must, as Erland Nordenskiöld emphasises, be taken to be a very old element.^[83]

In northern Eurasia slings are used furthest towards the east; but ​I have not been able to determine whether they are otherwise known to the Siberian tribes, whereas they occur again among Lapps and other Finnish-speaking people. The sling is also met with among several Central Asiatic tribes.^[84] In the Mediterranean countries the sling has been known since grey antiquity. The Iliad (c. XIII, v. 599, 716) and the Bible (I Sam. XVII, 40) mention it, Xenophon (Anabasis, III ch. 3, IV ch. 2) describes Persians, Rhodians and Kardukhs as skilful sling-throwers, and we find it illustrated on Egyptian and Assyrian pictures. It is still used by the Arabian Beduins.^[85] The reader is also referred to Dr. Lindblom's comprehensive work on the distribution of the sling in Africa and other places.^[86]

The backed bows of the Eskimos are so highly prized by their neighbours that they often secure these weapons by barter. As a result backed bows are met with among the Tlingit^[87] and Loucheux.^[88] More independent imitations are made both by these tribes and by the Nahane.^[89] In CNM there is a long-bow from the Knaiakhotana, of the usual form from the Mackenzie area but furnished with sinew-cord backing of a different, Western-Eskimo type (Hb 115). Otherwise, backed bows proper do not occur in America.^[90] Bows which, like many Eskimo bows, are composed of several pieces of horn or bone are met with on the northern plains among the Nez Percé, Blackfoot, Hidatsa, Mandan, Crow, and Dakota.^[91] But as it may be regarded as probable that the oldest bows among the Eskimos are those of wood, whereas on the other hand the compound bows of the plains are related to the sinew lined type in the same region, it may be taken that the making of compound bows is the result of a kind of convergence, conditioned by the absence of suitable wood in both regions.

It is otherwise with the sinew backing. That the Eskimos' bow backing is genetically connected with the Indian sinew lining is doubtless generally recognised. In his work on bows and arrows in North America Mason defines the region of the sinew lined bow thus: it "extends up and down the Sierras in the western United States and British Columbia, on both slopes, and reaches as far ​north as the headwaters of the Mackenzie".^[92] This picture agrees with that presented by Table B 14. On the southwestern plateaux it disappears. Simple bows are mentioned from the Pima, but their double curve displays still another reflection of the composite form. In México the simple bow was and is known exclusively. On the plains both simple and sinew lined bows were used, but the former clearly display in their shape the influence of the higher type. On the other hand the sporadic occurrence of sinew lined bows among the eastern woodland tribes is without any doubt of modern times; they are never mentioned in the old records. The extremely strange composite bow of the Penobscot, to which the Menomini have perhaps had something similar, is doubtless a modern phenomenon too. In many cases the forcing of the eastern tribes westwards by colonisation seems to have had something to do with the adoption of the sinew lined bow.

This special American form must again be regarded as a sub-type of the composite, Asiatic bow. It is true that the bows on the northwest coast of America are simple, but their pronounced division in joints with hand-grip and often reflex wings reveals the connection with composite forms. The latter are to be found over practically the whole of Asia with the exception of a few very out-of-the-way regions furthest south. In Europe they were found, closely associated with the northern and central Asiatic bows, for instance among the Lapps and Bashkir. In the old Finnish poem cycle Kalevala the bow is addressed as follows: "Strike now, thou bow of birch! Strike, thou back of fir! Whirr speedily, string of hemp!" (c. VI, v. 156 seqq.). The speaker is Joukahainen, "lean swain, among Lapplanders born"; but here, as everywhere in the poem where the Lapps are in question, the whole environment is Finnish. Thus here too the description must be taken to apply to a composite, Finnish bow or, perhaps, rather a cross-bow. The Iliad scrupuously describes the bow of Pandaros, made of the "horn of a bounding ibex" (c. IV, v. 105), and a distinctly composite bow is pictured on the stone of victory raised in honour of Naram Sin, king of Akkad about 2700 B. C..^[93] Among the Indo-European peoples north of the Alps this weapon never succeeded in taking root, however. It is simple bows that have been discovered in the Neolithic pile buildings of Switzerland and the Danish bog-finds from the last period of ​the early Iron Age,^[94] and it was still the long-bows of the English archers which decided the battle of Crécy.

In the last chapter we came to the conclusion that arrow heads of bone, without barbs, can hardly be assumed to be a type which has developed independently among the Eskimos. The archæological material available to me has been much too small to give any idea of the diffusion and genetic circumstances of this element. Bone heads without barbs have, however, been used by the Nootka^[95] and have been found by Harlan J. Smith's excavations at Thompson and Lower Fraser Rivers.^[96] In Asia we have this type from the Ainu,^[97] southern Manchuria^[98] and the region round Tobolsk.^[99] It is also known from northern Russia^[100] and from Norway — the latter from both Iron Age finds at Varanger Fjord, which are believed to have come from a Lapp fisher population,^[101] and from the Epipaleolithic (formerly so-called "Arctic") Stone Age.^[102]

Feathering, consisting of two tangential feathers, has only a small distribution in North America (Table B 15) outside the Eskimo region, it being limited to the southern part of the northwest coast and the adjacent regions. The possible occurrence among the Naskapi may be due to Eskimo influence.^[103] Presumably, however, we have in this a very ancient form of feathering which has formerly had a very wide diffusion. It has already been mentioned that three radial feathers are common in most of the western and sub-arctic North America and must be taken to be a later type which has come in from Asia. The fact that the Hupa, who otherwise use three radial half-feathers, furnish toy arrows with two whole feathers, is in conformity with this, The three radial feathers are used as far south as on the southwestern plateaux, among the Karankawa in Texas^[104] and among the Tarahumare (H 1210, CNM) and Mexicano (21.5.69, GM) in México. But south of these regions we find again the earlier form, consisting of two tangential feathers, among the Aztec,^[105] and it is still to be found among the Lacandon (H 1425, CNM).

​In South America a rather similar type is met with in the so-called East Brazilian feathering, which Hans Meyer characterises with the words: "Zwei unversehrte, selten halbierte Federn sind einander gegenüber oben und unten mit Faden-, Faser- oder Cipo-Umwickelung an dem Schaft befestigt".^[106] It is not always, however, that the tangential position is pronounced. On the map in his book the diffusion is shown to tropical Brazil, south of the mouth of the Amazon and east of Xingú-Paraguay. Erland Nordenskiöld has since shown, however, that the boundary must be drawn as far to the west as Rio Madeira, even though other types occur in between, and there are, besides, scattered occurrences even by the upper Amazon and Ucayali.^[107] Furthermore, it is very closely related to two other types, the Mauhé feathering by the middle Amazon and the lashed-on, Peruvian feathering by the middle Ucayali,^[108] so that all in all we have over East Brazil and large parts of the Amazon drainage a feathering which does not essentially differ from that of the Eskimos.

In Asia — the native place of the three radial feathers — we cannot of course expect to find the earlier type in many places. In close connection with the Chukchi-Eskimo region it is used by the decultured, Russian population at Anadyr; it is, however, also met with among the Ostyak and especially among the Kuril, Ainus and among some tribes in the Amur country. The scattered diffusion clearly reveals its age.

It has been presumed that the Mediterranean arrow release in North America was limited to the Eskimos.^[109] Wissler, who in a recently published work also goes into the methods of releasing the arrow, is however clear as to the fact that the Mediterranean release was also to be found in a small area in California.^[110] In reality it is known in several places (Table B 16): on the northwest coast (Kwakiutl and Bella Coola, in a slightly modified form), in México (Seri, and possibly the Aztec too) and finally in the sub-arctic region (Chipewyan, Cree, Naskapi), where, however, the possibility of Eskimo influence cannot be entirely disregarded.^[111] In South America this method is, according to Wissler, to be found in a small area in East Brazil.

There is very little information from North Asia. Wissler, however, writes that the Mediterranean release is common here. Dr. Kai Donner writes to me that the Samoyed probably use this method. It is well known from Europe. It also occurs, according to Wissler, in North ​India and South China, and even such a primitive tribe as the Andamanian use it.^[112] Between the northern and the southern Asiatic occurrence there is, from Japan over Korea, North China and Central Asia to Arabia^[113] and the Sudan, a wide belt in which the so-called "Mongolian" release occurs, and Wissler rightly regards this distribution as evidence of the Mongolian type being later than the Mediterranean. On monuments the latter can be traced back to the Assyrians and Egyptians of antiquity; it is illustrated on grave pictures from Usertesen (Sesostris) I, one of the first kings in the 12th Dynasty.^[114] What position it takes chronologically with regard to the other methods, the so-called primary, secondary and tertiary, is not clear; but that it is at any rate. old in America appears from its sporadic distribution.

The skin quiver is extraordinarily widespread in North America, apart from the North Pacific coast where the obviously later wooden quiver has gained a footing (Table B 17). In the southern regions of North America there were also quivers of bark, tule or basket-work. There are numerous sub-types of the skin quiver: a fringed, double case of unhaired, brain-tanned skin on the plains, of hairy skin round the Great Lakes, a single compartment made of a wholly-flayed skin in California, and so on; we will not go into details here, however. In South America the quiver is restricted to two regions, a southern region which, however, stretches as far north as northern Chile, and a smaller, northwestern region; Erland Nordenskiöld compares the southern type of quiver with the North American quivers, but considers the northwestern types as local developments of the case for blow-gun darts.^[115] In Asia the skin quiver is common in Siberia except in the Amur country, and among the Central Asiatic nomads.^[116] It was also found among the Lapps. The familiar Central Asiatic type of stiff leather is adapted to the form of the composite bow.

As was stated in the last chapter, there is a possibility that the stiletto is older in the Eskimo culture than the actual bone dagger. Among present-day Indians I only know the stiletto among the Chipewyan, who when hunting caribou from canoes use a weapon consisting of a pointed piece of round-iron with a handle of antler (H1: 42, CNM). Cushing found a kind of stiletto when excavating on the Florida Keys.^[117] Bone stabbing knives occur quite sporadically in South America, but mostly in its southern part;^[118] but if they are to be ​compared with any North American form, it must rather be with the dagger than the stiletto. I know of no stabbing weapons of bone from North Asia; these have long ago had to make way for iron weapons.

Table B 18 shows the distribution of the lance; I would, however, strongly advise my readers not to regard the illustration given there as being the original one as far as North America is concerned. As Wissler has rightly recognised, the appearance of the "horse culture" on the plains has undoubtedly meant a considerable extension of the region of the lance.^[119] In reality it must be said to be almost impossible to indicate the pre-Columbian diffusion of this weapon. That it was present, however, before the coming of the white man is probable, having regard to some old records such as Thevet's from the 16th century, covering both the mouth of the St. Lawrence and Florida. But already from the beginning of the next century one can no longer be sure of the origin of the lance, at any rate in the eastern part of the continent. In South America, where the lance also occurs, there are also examples of post-Columbian diffusion, i. a. among the Tehuelche.^[120] In North and Central Asia the lance is well known from olden times.

The multi-pronged dart (Table B 19) is scattered over the whole of western North America, and in some cases a fish spear with a crown of thin prongs is used that would seem to be comparable with the bird dart. The only implement which in eastern North America resembles the type in question, i. e. the fish spear shown on John White's excellent pictures of the Virginia Indians in the second half of the 16th century, is also of this kind. In México the Tarascans, and possibly a few other tribes, use three-pronged bird darts.^[121] In the opinion of the Aztec, weapons of this kind were invented by the rain god Opochtli;^[122] the fact that it has been ascribed to such a divine origin of course indicates the age of this element. Fish spears of a rather similar appearance are still to be found in Panamá (H 1615, CNM, from the Cuna) and among the Chocó in northern Colombia.^[123] The natives of Tierra del Fuego impale sea urchins with spears having four prongs.^[124]

From Siberia I only know of bird darts proper from the Russian population at Anadyr, where of course they have been adopted from the Chukchi. On the other hand the Gilyak have a spear with a middle ​prong surrounded by a crown of other prongs. The Tungus sometimes hunt geese with three-pronged leisters.^[125]

On North American throwing boards much has been written since Mason's work on this subject (Table B 20). Thus in 1902 Fritz Krause gave a very complete summary of the material known up to then. The throwing board seems to have once been known on the North Pacific coast, where we have it from the Tlingit and, be it noted, so different in form from the Eskimo implement that it cannot be due to influence from the north; and furthermore, Boas justly refers to the peculiar, broad end with one or two finger holes at the rear of the bird darts and harpoon shafts from the Kwakiutl as "a device clearly related to the throwing stick". A type like this, with two finger holes, is closely related to that which, as late as the end of the eighteenth century, could be brought home from the Chumash in California and which archæological research has shown to be widely diffused in the great Salt Lake basin, characteristic of the earliest culture known there (the "Basket-Maker" culture). On the other hand it is not known from genuine cliff-dwellings nor Pueblos. A throwing board was found as far east as the Ozark Mountains. East of the Mississippi, however, it is only known with certainty from Florida, as the occurrence in a hill in the state of Mississippi seems to be doubtful at present.^[126]

The Florida type recalls, to a certain extent, both the throwing board of the Basket-Makers and the Mexican atlatl. We now know several fine specimens of this weapon, which is still used together with the bird dart by the Tarascan and which in olden times was met with among the Naua tribes, the Mixtec and the Zapotec.^[127] It was the attribute of several old star deities such as the Aztec's Uitzilopochtli, Mixcoat of the Otomí, and Camaxtli of the Tlaxcaltec,^[128] which in itself is evidence of its age and conforms to the fact that it already occurs in what Spinden calls the Archaic culture.^[129] Among the Maya the throwing board only occurred at Chich'en Itzá, to which region it must have been brought at the time of the calling up of the Toltec when the Mayapán league was dissolved.^[130]

​The throwing board of the Taino on the Antilles is of South American origin, a derivation of that of the Chibcha.^[131] Besides this people and other tribes in Colombia,^[132] it was commonly found in Ecuador and Perú, where numerous specimens have been brought to light from pre-Inca times, and it is even pictured on pottery of proto-Nazca style.^[133] At the time of the Discovery the throwing board was also found among many tribes in the basins of the Orinoco and Amazon.^[134] Rivet has advocated the thought that the throwing board, like the blow-gun, head trophies and pan-pipes have come to Perú from the east.^[135] Having regard to the resemblance between the Andine and the Mexican types I do not consider this very probable, and I presume that the diffusion has rather proceeded in the opposite direction, from Colombia or Ecuador to the upper Amazon and on from there. The remarkable type among the Tapuya (Tarairyu?) in Pernambuco in the seventeenth century, of which only the famous specimen in CNM seems to be preserved together with Eckhout's contemporaneous paintings showing it in general use, is however quite isolated. That all the other forms are related, and that in reality all other American throwing boards are local variants of the same ancient type, is to me beyond all doubt. In South America it has perhaps been forced into the background in post-Columbian times by the spread of arrow poison and blow-guns round the upper Amazon.^[136]

The throwing board is not known from Asia at all, except from the Russians at Anadyr, who have it from the Chukchi. Fritz Krause's record of its occurrence among the Gilyak is the result of an erroneous museum label. On the other hand the hunters of the Magdalenian period in France have handed down to us handsomely carved throwing boards^[137] and it is possible that survivals of this Ice Age weapon can still be shown in Europe. Max Buch has indicated the likeness between the "dart slings" of the Votyak and the throwing board: "Denkt man sich nun an solch einem Wurfstocke den Haken etwa durch eine Schnurschlinge oder eine Schnur mit einem Knoten ersetzt, so ist die Aehnlichkeit des ganzen Apparates mit dem unsrigen sofort in die Augen springend".^[138] Similar dart slings ​are known from. the Alps and certain parts of Sweden.^[139] In Ireland up to about 1840 one met with another plaything in the district around Cork: "It consisted of a flexible rod, usually an osier twig about a yard. long, to one end of which was attached a string with a loop made of a thong, or sometimes simply a strip of leather. This loop or strip of leather came close up to the point of attachment of the string; the latter was shorter than the staff, and was terminated by another loop of leather. When used, a flat, and more or less round, stone was inserted between the upper loop or flat piece of leather and the rod at the point at which the string was fastened to the rod; the staff was then caught in the right hand and bent like a bow, until the right thumb could be inserted into the lower loop. The stone was projected when the right arm was moved rapidly, as in making a sword cut, and letting slip the loop off the thumb".^[140] This implement is to the throwing board as the pellet bow is to the ordinary bow.

In determining the diffusion of the leister — and the harpoon — in North America we meet this difficulty, that the French writers of the seventeenth century very often call them both harpon, and, even if one steers clear of this difficulty, it frequently happens that the type is not described in detail. It is therefore with a certain reserve that the distribution of leisters (Table B 21) is indicated as covering the northwest coast, the northwest plateaux and, in the east, a small region among the Montagnais, Micmac and Wabanaki; in the latter, Eskimo influence is perhaps not impossible, but by no means certain and may be scarcely probable. In northern Eurasia leisters are common, but as they are usually made entirely of iron, a comparison with the American types is difficult to carry out in detail.

In North America we find a large, northwest region where the harpoon is of a markedly toggle character, comprising the coast as far south as California, the northern plateaux and the Salt Lake basin (Table B 22). The harpoon head used there is very similar to the most simple forms of the Eskimo Cape Dorset harpoons.^[141] Similar heads are also found along the Asiatic Pacific coast as far as Japan;^[142] but from the most northerly part of Norway there are also forms which quite have the Cape Dorset character, whilst other harpoon heads from there recall primitive Thule types.^[143] The points of agreement are so great that, despite the enormous distance between the occurrences, ​I cannot regard them as being independent of each other. Obviously in the primitive toggle forms like the simple Cape Dorset and Thule types we have old and widely diffused culture elements.

The barbed harpoons with tang seen to be still older, however. They are met with in western North America, in some places together with toggle harpoons, but also occur in large numbers towards the east. In the sub-arctic regions they are rare, apparently having been displaced by the fish hook, whilst archæological investigations are practically never made there, so that we have no information about them through that channel. There are many sub-types, with more or fewer, larger or smaller barbs; some have no line hole like the big harpoons which we know from Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.^[144] As we do not know what the Caribou Eskimos' harpoon type has looked like, it is superfluous to go into detail.

In North Asia, barbed harpoons proper seem to be lacking among the Yakut and Tungus, who instead have a kind of combination of harpoon and gaff. The Siberian barbed harpoons nowadays, however, are always of iron and at the base have a socket instead of a tang and thus lead over into another line of development than the one we are now seeking to follow. Harpoon heads with a tang are, however, found on harpoon arrows, for instance for spring bows. Barbed heads. of bone have been found on the Kuriles, in Japan^[145] and in the region round Tobolsk. Bone heads for harpoons, with a single, powerful barb, are described by Solberg from Varanger Fjord in North Norway. I shall not touch upon the many more southerly occurrences in Europe.

The fish hook and small implements connected with fishing. The simple gorge (Table B 23) is a very widely, but sporadically diffused element in North America, met with on the northern West coast and the northern plateaux, sometimes two tied together to form a cross, others forming an angle. The cross-shaped gorge is also known in the east among the Ojibway in Minnesota. Gorges, of what form is unknown, are used by the Ponka and Omaha; the line, which is plaited of horse hair, is of course post-Columbian, but whether this applies to the whole tackle is uncertain. Many objects which have been found by archæological research in eastern United States have with more or less justification been described as simple gorges. The same hunting principle is used by the Tarahumare when they take birds on corn-cobs which are tied to a cord. I do not know whether simple gorges are known from South America, but the ​angular hook which Erland Nordenskiöld describes from the Tambopata-Guarayo may possibly be regarded as being a variety of it; on the whole it is clear that the diffusion of the fish hook in South America is essentially restricted by the occurrence of the palometa fish (Serrasalmo) in the Amazon region.^[146]

In Eurasia the straight gorge is used in the northeast by the Yukagir and Yakut at Kolyma and in the west by several Finnish-Ugrian peoples including the Lapps.^[147] The latter, like the Altai Tatars and the Bashkir, also use it for birds. In addition, many tribes in Siberia and on the northwest coast of America set long lines with ordinary hooks, which is merely a further development of the principle of the simple gorge. The latter must therefore be an old and widely diffused element.

Fish decoys (Table B 24) occur among several tribes in America and Asia in connection with fishing from the ice.

I have not come across any mention of the fish needle in the literature on North America. The Shuswap^[148] and Wintun^[149] draw fish upon any willow or twig and I heard of the same method among the Chipewyan and Cree. Nevertheless there is reason for regarding the fish needle as being an old culture acquisition, as in El Gran Chaco, where so many North American elements reappear, we meet it too.^[150] From Siberia it is recorded that the Tungus at Okhotsk string birds by means of needles of bone or iron.^[151] The Lapps string fish on willow twigs.^[152]

Traps, snares, deer fences and weirs. To judge from the distribution of the pitfall in North America as shown on Table B 25, the record is apparently very incomplete. Presumably the pitfall occurs or has occurred in several places without being mentioned in the literature. In addition, it is undoubtedly a very old element. This is indicated by its occurrence in widely different culture regions: the southern part of the North Pacific coast, California, the plains and the eastern woodlands. I have no occurrences from the sub-arctic region. The Chipewyan told me that they did not use the pitfall. Its age is also indicated by its very scattered occurrence in South America. There is no comprehensive work on its distribution, and I must there​fore simply refer to the fact that it occurs in Ecuador, the border regions between Perú and Brazil, formerly among the old Tupinambá on the east coast and — as a means of defence in connection with palisades — among so widely separated peoples as the Araucanians, the Guaraní, certain tribes in Venezuela, and so on.^[153]

In Siberia and Europe the pitfall is widely diffused. The Shu-king, or Book of Historical Documents, mentions it from Old China.^[154] It is also used by Central Asiatic peoples,^[155] the Kafirs in Hindukushi^[156] etc. As early as in the Palæolithic period pitfalls were used in Europe;^[157] they are also known from the Stone Age of Norway,^[158] and in later times they have been common in most places north of the Alps.^[159] Lindblom reports on several forms of hunting with pitfalls in Africa.^[160]

Regarding the traps I must be brief. Among the great number of traps in North America and Siberia most of them consist of a rather complicated erection of timber, intended to fall down upon the neck of the animal. A more simple type of stone like that of the Eskimos and intended for birds or small animals is, however, mentioned from Vancouver Island or the adjacent coast of the mainland^[161] and from the Luiseño in California.^[162] Traps with a roof weighted down with stones are recorded from the Yurok^[163] and the New England States.^[164] Some traps among the Hopi, Navaho and Havasupai in the southwest^[165] and among the Ijca in northern Colombia^[166] are almost like the two types mentioned. I do not know it from Siberia, but on the other hand from the Arabian Beduins^[167] and several places in Europe.^[168] Lips has recently set forth the view that the so-called tectiformes on Palæolithic paintings should be interpreted as simple deadfalls.^[169] Be this as it may, this type is presumably a very old one, which only in a few places has been able to hold its own after the invention of the more complicated forms.

​As stated in the last chapter, the history of the Eskimo box-trap is uncertain. It deserves to be mentioned, however, that a similar one was perhaps known to the Mandan,^[170] in Asia to the Kirgiz-Kazak and probably the Turkomans.^[171]

As regards snares (Table B 26) the position is the same as with traps, i. e. that they occur over the most of North America and Siberia, but as a rule in more developed forms: as spring snares fastened to an elastic branch, in conjunction with deer fences, etc. Simple forms, however, seem to occur too, for instance in California among the Maidu, and on the northern plains. How much importance may be attached to the fact that, so far as I know, the snare is not mentioned from the southern plains and large parts of the southeastern woodlands, must for the present remain an open question.

The pole snare (Table B 27) has a very characteristic distribution in North America. Whereas among the Cree and Menomini it is only made as a makeshift implement for catching lynxes when they have climbed up into trees, we find it as an actual fish snare in California and the eastern woodlands south of the Great Lakes. Similar snares are known, mostly for catching parrots, from the Taino on the Antilles and several places in South America.^[172] It will be remembered that the West Greenlanders also catch birds with pole snares. In northern Eurasia they are used for bird catching by the Kamchadal, Samoyed and probably by several Finnish-Ugrian peoples; the latter, including the Lapps, also use them for fish. In Hungary and Bosnia there are also fish snares.^[173] The Mongols have a similar implement, but much enlarged, for catching stray horses.^[174] The pole snare must be a very old culture element.

As we see from Table B 28, hunting fences are missing on the North Pacific coast, where fishing quite puts hunting in the shade; otherwise they are widely diffused in North America. In some cases, especially when bison hunting on the northern plains, the animals are driven over a steep slope, and in others the fences end in an enclosure where snares are suspended. The latter method, which seems to belong mostly to the northwest part of the continent, is presumably the most recent. Quite primitive, but dependent upon topographical conditions, is the use of natural mountain passes among two such widely separated tribes as the Naskapi and Tarahumare. In northern Eurasia, too, hunting fences are widely diffused — although they are ​not mentioned from the Amur country — and they also occur in Central Asia^[175] and among the hill tribes of Himalaya.^[176] In olden times they were used in Norway,^[177] Finland and Lithuania,^[178] and an old engraving by the Flemish artist Adrian Collaert (1520–67), reproduced by Arthur Haberlandt,^[179] shows a West European boar hunt by means of fences.

The fences are often of hurdle work, as on the picture by Collaert just mentioned or Champlain's illustration of this hunting method among the Huron. In other cases they are of stone. The Eskimos' well-known use of poles with flapping gull wings etc. is especially peculiar. In a similar manner the Chipewyan and Beothuk furnished their fences with streamers and "wisps of birch bark". The Samoyed use gull wings like the Eskimos. Lindblom draws attention to the interesting fact that the same method is known in Africa by the Bushmen and by them only — whereas ordinary fences are widely diffused — and from this concludes that it is probably extremely old.^[180]

Game drives with the aid of fire are related to hunting by means of fences. For geographical reasons this method must be restricted in its diffusion; it cannot be practised among the Eskimos and only exceptionally in timbered country. As I have previously pointed out, it seems to be older than hunting with fences.^[181] It is found among some Californian tribes, among the Coeur d'Alène, in some places on the northern plains and in the regions south of the Great Lakes. On the Antilles it was found among the Taino^[182] and in South America among tribes in El Gran Chaco.^[183] In Central Asia the Kirgiz-Kazak hunt the wild boar with fire,^[184] and great hunts with fire are described from Old China in the Shi-king, or Book of Poetry.^[185] It will be seen that this method keeps mostly to the outskirts of the great region in which fences are used. In Africa fire hunting is much more rarely met with and more sporadically than the use of fences. It is mentioned from the Dinka by the White Nile, Kindiga and Isansu near Tanganyika, Bayaka and Bahuana in the Kassai region, Wute in Cameroon and some tribes in Angola.^[186] It is also significant that whilst the Australians know fences, the still lower Tasmanians only hunted with ​fire.^[187] In Europe great drives must have been held as far back as in the Solutrean period,^[188] but whether fire or fences were used can hardly be determined, though Palæolithic paintings in some cases have been interpreted as the latter.^[189]

Fish weirs of various kinds (Table B 29) are spread over the whole of North America except in the southwest and to some extent on the plains, where fishing is of little or no importance. In the West Indies they were found among the Taino, but were lacking among the Island Carib, who only fished in the sea^[190] Like hunting fences, fish weirs are either of plait or stones. To a certain degree the material of course depends upon local conditions; but whilst stone weirs are more simple from a technical point of view, they have their centre in the more southerly tribes, which perhaps might indicate a difference in age. In Columbia the Ijca build weirs of stone, peat or branches,^[191] and in El Gran Chaco the Choroti, Ashluslay and Mataco dam the rivers with plaited fences, whilst the Chiriguano build stone weirs with "pockets" which strongly resemble those of the Eskimos.^[192] On the coasts of Perú and Brazil the Indians built weirs by the beach, these being filled at high tide, and the Araucanians employed a similar method.^[193] The reason why weirs are not found in Tierra del Fuego is possibly that none of the fish there are suitable for this methods.^[194]

In northern Eurasia fish weirs are generally diffused, whereas they cannot of course be employed among the Central Asiatic nomads, who do little or no fishing. The Kirgiz, however, erect weirs of earth.^[195] The fish weirs of the Finnish-Ugrian people are treated in a large monograph by Sirelius, who also considers those of stone to be older than those of basket work.^[196] Whereas plaited weirs are used in Latvia^[197] and the Caucasus,^[198] those of stone are known in France, Germany, Norway and the Ural Mountains, and of earth in other places in Russia.^[199]

Hunting and fishing methods. Hunting of swimming animals (Table B 30) takes place both on the North Pacific coast and the plateaux in British Columbia, although in this pronounced "salmon ​area" it is not particularly marked. The method also occurs in northern and central California but has its real centre in the sub-arctic woodlands. Along the Atlantic coast it stretches as far south as to Virginia. In Eurasia it is met with right from the Yukagir and Gold to the Lapps. Shetelig presumes, with good reason, that it was also practised in Norway's Stone Age.^[200]

Hunting in a disguise — as a rule very primitive — is by the Pacific coast first met with in Oregon (Kalapooia), whereafter it comes strongly into the foreground in California (Table B 30). It is also found on the northwestern plateaux, in the Great Basin (Shoshoni) and in the Southwest. On the plains, at any rate those in the north, it is not uncommon, and finally it again has an important centre in the southeastern United States. A kind of hunting in disguise is also known to a few southern tribes in South America, viz. the Pareci in Matto Grosso, the Lengua in El Gran Chaco and the Ona in the Tierra del Fuego.^[201]

In Siberia the Tungus wear hunting caps of deer heads with the antlers on. In Sweden a kind of hunting disguise, consisting of a cow hide, has been used right up to our day.^[202] In Africa, ostriches and antelopes are hunted in disguises by Bushmen, Hottentots and certain low Somali groups, and in the time of Strabon this method was also found in Nubia and Egyptian Sudan; it is also used by the Wandorobbo and a few tribes in Angola and North Nigeria.^[203] Lindblom considers it to be ancient and draws the obvious conclusion that it is the introduction of mounts — horses and dromedaries — I which has restricted its use. Something of the same sort probably applies to Central Asia. Also in Australia hunting in a disguise is known.

Ice fishing by two men, one of whom, with head covered, peeps through a hole in the ice and holds the harpoon, which the other guides, has already been mentioned from the Ojibway by Steensby. A similar method (cf. Table B 31) is also practised by one man among the Mississauga, a sub-tribe of the Ojibway.^[204] It is also practised by the Menomini and Thompson Indians and has possibly been widely spread among the northern tribes. In regions where the ice does not last long, the method naturally is not used; but it is interesting that in California, where so many old elements are preserved, the Yokut fish with a spear from leaf huts which cut off the light.

A similar method is known to the Ainu, Tungus, Samoyed and ​Vogul. In CNM there is a Japanese painting on silk, representing some Ainu spearing fish with leisters from the ice, on which they have erected semi-conical shelters of mats resting upon three poles above the fishing holes. In Russian there is a special word for such temporary huts for ice fishing (сидевка). This sporadic but very wide distribution characterises the method as old. It must be the later fishing methods with hook and net that have displaced it. We seem to have a mixed form of old and new in the herring fishing of the Kamchadal with a net, the fisherman observing through a cover of straw when the net is full.

Sledges and appurtenances. The primitive "sledge", consisting only of a skin drawn over the snow, is met with in quite a number of places in northern North America (Table B 32). We find it on the northwest plateaux among the Shuswap and Tahltan, although among the latter in a more developed form consisting of strips of skin of moose or caribou sewn together. In the southwest a skin is used by the Pima for dragging home the spoils of the chase, in the sub-arctic region a similar method is employed by the Chipewyan and Montagnais, and from the Beothuk there is mention of a "seal skin sled" which can hardly be interpreted otherwise. It is also used by the Wabanaki. From the northern plains there are records of "skin sledges", either for dragging hunting spoils or as a plaything, from the Arapaho, Arikara, Blackfoot and Atsina. Among the Crow the children amuse themselves by tobogganing upon a skin which is furnished with a kind of runners of bison rib.

In Eurasia, with its much higher culture, the skin sledge seems to be much more rare; it is, however, met with among the Uriankhai (Soyot) in the Altai Mountains and among the Lapps. A medieval Persian writer, Mohammad i 'Aufî, relates how the inhabitants in the Caucasus slid down mountain slopes with their burdens on an ox hide.^[205] In the Middle Ages the skin sledge has also been known in Scandinavia, as appears from Olaus Magnus' picture of a man on a bear hide drawn by a horse.^[206] It can hardly be gainsaid that in this we have a very ancient culture element, even though it must be admitted that such a simple means of conveyance may have originated in several places.^[207]

Much more difficult is the question of the Eskimo sledge proper. In northern America and Eurasia we have four main types of sledges ​which, typologically, belong two and two together, the one pair having runners (the simple and the "built-up" sledge) whilst the other pair rest directly upon the snow (the boat-shaped sledge and the toboggan). That there is a connection between these forms is probable, but what its nature has been is still vague. Sirelius, Hatt, and Kai Donner have all given contributions towards the solving of the problem, but it cannot be said that any final result has been achieved.

Of the forms mentioned the boat-shaped sledge is typical of the Lapps,^[208] but it is also found as a hunter's sledge in North Karelia and as a child's sledge among the Cheremiss,^[209] and again as a hunter's sledge among the Samoyed and Kamass.^[210] Closely related to these forms is a means of conveyance consisting of a single "guide runner" (styrmede) which is used for fetching water in Dalecarlia and Finland. Hatt rejects the idea that the boat-shaped sledge has been directly developed from this contrivance, and is of the opinion that the Lapp sledge descends from a simple dug-out tree trunk.^[211] The fact is that such "monoxyle" sledges have been found by Hatt among the Lapps, and as a matter of fact the boat-shaped Kamass and Samoyed sledges which Kai Donner has later described are of the same kind. The boatshaped sledge and the "guide runner" must thus rather be taken to be parallel forms with the same origin: the roughly hewn tree trunk, which is dragged over the snow.

Almost equally primitive is a type which Kai Donner describes from the Narym Tungus, consisting of a board which is slightly bent up at both ends. Even though I cannot — as the above will show — agree with this writer that this is the original form of the boat-shaped sledge, it is apparently a parallel type in the same series as this and the "guide runner", and it is of particular interest because it may be taken to be closely related to the original form of the North American toboggan. The toboggan consists of two or three planks and is strongly curved up at the front and straight at the rear, but otherwise quite resembles the primitive Tungus sledge.^[212]

From the primitive "guide runner" Sirelius deduces the "built-up" sledge, which is found among most Eurasian peoples and in Alaska ​extends on to American soil. From Finnish bog finds there is a kind of guide runner with holes for rails in the sides, and such a sledge with a single runner and rails on the sides is still used by the Cheremiss. According to Sirelius' hypothesis, the built-up type has come about by two such single-runner rail sledges having been joined together, almost analogous with the double canoes of the Pacific.^[213] This is based upon the fact that in Finland runners have been found with double rows of rail holes, but too narrow to have been used as a single runner sledge. It is outside the scope of this work to discuss this series of developments, which is only referred to because it also connects the built-up type with the original form, the simple tree trunk.^[214]

There remains to be mentioned the simple runner sledge as it is found for instance among the Eskimos. Hatt obviously imagines a connection with the toboggan. "The simple Eskimo sledges make one think of the possibility, that the Eskimo sledge might have originated north of the timber line out of a sort of toboggan; in piecing the toboggan together of several pieces of wood — owing to lack of material — one could hardly avoid developing a form such as the most simple Eskimo sledges".^[215] I must confess that I cannot subscribe to this process of reasoning. In its presumably most primitive form as among the Tungus the toboggan consists only of one piece, and this rests. directly upon the snow, whereas on the other hand the runners are so essential a component of the Eskimo sledge that it cannot at all be imagined without them. The common Eskimo term for the sledge is in fact "runners" (dualis). When we find that the Copper Eskimos. improvise a sledge by tying their staffs under their burden, which is wrapped in skin,^[216] it is evidence of the essential importance of runners to the sledge type, simultaneously with the fact that it gives a hint of its origin. By this I do not of course mean that the sledge has developed out of the staff, but merely that it has its origin in two hewn tree trunks placed under the load. The sledge of the Caribou Eskimos is no other than two split and roughly hewn tree trunks, connected by a number of bars in order to hold them together and carry the load.

It ought thus to be possible to schematically express the development of the various types of sledges as follows, regardless of any mutual influence there may have been between the types:

​The question is now as to what is the position of these forms to each other from a chronological point of view, and to solve this we will first and foremost look at the distribution of the types. The built-up sledge is found over the whole of North Asia and, as already stated, in some places in northwest America. In Europe it is known in Russia, the Baltic countries, and Scandinavia, although in rather primitive form. The sledges in the famous Oseberg find from Norway's Viking period are rather crude, technically, although from an artistic point of view luxuriously decorated, built-up sledges. This type has the most uninterrupted distribution, which in the main corresponds to that of reindeer nomadism, although it passes a little beyond the boundaries of the latter. Just as reindeer nomadism must be taken to be fairly recent and, in certain directions, the culmination of the Polar culture,^[217] the built-up type, which requires work of great precision when building, must also according to its diffusion be the latest form of sledge developed.

The boat-shaped sledge and the toboggan have their distribution in North Europe and West Siberia, and in East Siberia and North America respectively. As Hatt points out, they correspond to each other, as together they form the runnerless sledge type.^[218] Its sporadic occurrence in Eurasia and the great area of distribution in America clearly characterise the runnerless sledge as earlier than the built-up type. Taken together, the boat-sledge and the toboggan are on the whole to be found within the same area as is marked by the snowshoe, the moccasin, and certain other types of dress and which altogether form a well-defined culture complex belonging to an inland hunting culture earlier than, and probably the source of, reindeer nomadism.^[219] The runnerless sledge is uncommonly suitable to the mode of living that is attached to this culture complex, as, like the snowshoe, it is adapted to the soft snow of the forests, and we find that its two sub-types, the boat sledge and the toboggan, in fact meet in the regions near the Baikal Lake, whence the entire snowshoe complex seems to have come.^[220] Thus we are scarcely in error in reckoning the runnerless sledge as being an element belonging to this complex.^[221]

In America the runner sledge has its main distribution among the Eskimos. A somewhat similar form is to be found in the northeastern ​woodlands. It is, Dr. Speck writes to me, "called in Penobscot sóhαk in contrast with tǝbagǝn", whereas the white population in Maine and New Brunswick term it "moose sled". As far as this sledge is concerned there is reason for presuming French influence,^[222] for among the early French writers the runner sledge is never mentioned from there. Possibly the same is the case among the Ojibway, of whom Kohl says that on the ice of Lake Superior they use "wesentlich verschiedene Schlitten", i. e. not toboggans. Unfortunately, no better description is given. By a malicious caprice of fate we are, among the Ojibway, in a region where elements, corresponding to those of the Eskimos, might have been expected (compare the domed lodge, "peep" fishing from the ice, and so on); but what the position is with regard to the history of this ice sledge is uncertain at the moment. Of the games of the Arikara children Gilmore relates: "Another device for coasting was made of buffalo-ribs joined together with sticks tied across their ends with sinew".^[223] It may be, however, that this should rather be regarded as a kind of toboggan and we must thus rest content with the fact that no occurrence of simple runner sledges in pre-Columbian times is known from Indian North America.

From Siberia I only know of a single occurrence, there being a simple toy sledge of this type from the Gilyak (K 1: 132, CNM), but possibly it also occurs among the Ainu of Yezo.^[224] On the other hand hay sledges, doubtless of primitive form, are used by various Central Asiatic tribes.^[225] To come finally to Europe, the simple runner sledge is well known in most places, and as a hay sledge even far beyond regions where the snow lies a long time, as for instance among the Basques.^[226] From the Iberian Peninsula the sledge has been passed over to Madeira, where it has gone through a renaissance on the steep mountain paths.^[227] The Ancients, such as Egyptians and Assyrians, used runner sledges for conveying statues.^[228]

Thus we see that in Europe and Asia the simple runner sledge keeps to the periphery of the region where the runnerless and the built-up types occur. In America we find it among the Eskimos, whose culture on the whole is at an earlier stage than that of the inland population.^[229] Between these extremes there is a huge area occupied by other and presumably later forms; but just because they are later we ​may disregard the distance and regard the Eskimo and the European runner sledge as being genetically related. From this it follows that the primitive runner sledge must be looked upon as altogether the earliest fully developed sledge. The boat-shaped sledge, the toboggan and — perhaps — the built-up type extend in their source back to equally old forms, but their development does not seem to have taken place until later points of time. In this there is nothing self-contradictory, as ancient and primitive types can of course continue alongside more highly developed types.

It is striking that the simple runner sledge in America can only be proved to exist among the Eskimos. With all reserve I will mention a possibility of connection between it and another means of conveyance in a region with other elements which must be regarded as being genetically connected with Eskimo elements. By this I mean the travois of the Plains Indians. Among all the tribes in the MissouriSaskatchewan region, with the sole exception of the Crow, a Y or a V-shaped travois was used, whereas the more southerly tribes improvised one out of the tent poles.^[230] As early a writer as Coronado found this in use.^[231] Wissler draws the conclusion, in itself tempting enough, that the travois has arisen out of the tent poles. Now, however, we have seen that the conical tent is a very late type of dwelling in North America, and the question is, is the travois not earlier than this?

One reason for assuming this is that in some parts of Eurasia too a sort of primitive travois is used. Kai Donner describes one from the Kamass in the Sayan Mountains;^[232] it is true that he considers it to be a new invention, as it is only used for conveying hay and it is only a generation ago since the Kamass became farmers. The form is, however, so characteristic that it is at least most curious to find it again both in Finland^[233] and in Ireland.^[234] Whether the European and the American travois really have any mutual connection, and whether they are also connected with the primitive runner sledge, I would not venture to decide. I have only wished to point out the possibility.

There is of course no ice shoeing on the Indian toboggan as this lacks runners. It is however known in Siberia.^[235]

​Dogs for draught purposes are used much less in sub-arctic America than is often supposed. Of a tribe like the Ahtena it is stated expressly that dogs never draw the sledge,^[236] and of the Beaver it is asserted that the dog is new as a draught animal.^[237] Originally the Chipewyan did not use sledge dogs and, according to tradition, the eastern Cree learned dog-driving from the Eskimos,^[238] which is confirmed by the fact that their harness is an exact copy of the Eskimo harness. The same applies to the northern Naskapi-Montagnais, whereas the southern group have adopted dog teams from the French.^[239] Early writers like de Champlain and Le Jeune mention from the Laurentian regions toboggans drawn by men, but never by dogs.^[240] "The early development of the Canadian fur trade by the Hudson's Bay and French companies greatly stimulated dog traction", says Wissler.^[241] The question is whether dog traction among the Indians is at all a pre-Columbian element or not. It hardly seems so. It may be added that the common sub-arctic dog harness, as we have it for instance from the Chipewyan (H 1: 37, CNM) with a thick padded neck-ring and two traces, gives a much more European than Indian impression, and the driving signals among the Chipewyan are French. In this connection it would be of importance if the problem with regard to the possible connection of the dog-travois with the sledge could be solved. For it is not impossible that dog traction may have been abandoned in the sub-arctic area, either because originally it was not connected with the toboggan, or perhaps for religious reasons. Thus Franklin relates that the Chipewyan would not use dogs as draught animals because they were thought to descend from a woman's association with a dog.^[242]

In Eurasia dog traction is at any rate old. It is general among the Palæ-Asiatic tribes from the Yukagir to the Ainu and among some Tungus, as well as in large parts of West Siberia among the Yeniseians and Ostyak. A Chinese source from the year 1259 tells of dog sledges among the Kirgiz,^[243] and from northern Russia dog traction is mentioned by medieval writers such as Mohammad i 'Aufî and Ibn Battûta.^[244] Without doubt dog traction is older than the much less widely diffused traction with reindeer.^[245] It is most improbable that dog ​traction is later in West Siberia and Europe, as assumed by Bogoras who even holds that reindeer nomadism here goes back to palæolithic times.^[246]

Of teaming methods the fan-form is certainly older than the tandem, as has earlier been pointed out as far as the Eskimos are concerned. The fan-shaped team was in former times used by the Kamchadal, as is to be seen from an old sledge in LAM, and we also find it in West Siberia among the Ostyak. The reindeer teams of the Samoyed are in reality also fan-shaped in so far as the animals form a row across the front of the sledge. Ibn Battûta's description from Russia is, unfortunately, too vague to allow of any conclusions as to the kind of team; in referring to the leader dog he only says that the sledge "est attaché à son cou, trois autres chiens sont attelés avec celui-là".^[247]

Of the dog-harness it has already been mentioned that the Eskimo type has been adopted by the Naskapi and the eastern Cree, but otherwise there is no harness in North America that can be compared with it (cf. Table B 33). The simple shoulder or neck harness belongs to East Siberia, whereas the belt harness has its home in West Siberia. That which separates these two types is more the manner of putting it on than the form itself, which in both cases is a simple loop.

Nowadays the whip is to be found among some sub-arctic Indians such as the Dogrib,^[248] Chipewyan and Cree,^[249] but has probably either been borrowed from the Eskimos or the French together with dog traction. The riding whip of the plains tribes is naturally post-Columbian. In northern Eurasia the long driving switch is, I believe, used exclusively. Whether or not this is a later form, and whether in this case the Eskimos' whip must be connected with the riding whip of the Central Asiatic nomads, will be left unsaid.

Dog socks are mentioned from a few northern Athapaskans, presumably Dogrib or Yellow Knife,^[250] and Carrier,^[251] from the Cree,^[252] Kamchadal^[253] and Lapps.^[254] They are probably much more widely diffused. Their occurrence among the Lapps shows that they might well have been used by the Indians in pre-Columbian times, even if dog traction was unknown.

Tump-lines and carrying bags. It is difficult to arrive at an understanding of the distribution of the various methods of car​rying in North America, for one reason because the particulars given are often incomplete (Table B 34). It seems as if in the western mountain regions it is mostly the forehead alone that supports the weight. Tribes who in this region also wear the tump-line over the breast are the Tlingit, Tahltan, Carrier, Hupa, and Yurok, i. e. either Athapaskans or their neighbours. The Chipewyan also carry in both ways, as probably do the sub-arctic and Laurentian Algonkian tribes, although as regards the Cree and Naskapi I only know of the forehead method. As to the southeast regions and the plains it is impossible to form any total impression. In México the Tarahumare carry the weight with the forehead (?) and breast, the Huichol only (?) over the breast. The Aztec in former days and also now carry in both ways.^[255] In Central America the forehead bears the weight.^[256] In South America the Indians seem to carry only over the breast in the western and southern regions, otherwise over the forehead.^[257]

There is only little information from North Asia. The Yukagir and the Russians at Kolyma carry both over the forehead and the breast, the Ainu — like the Japanese^[258] — over the forehead. The KirgizKazak use the same method,^[259] as do the Himalaya tribes,^[260] whereas the Tibetans carry over the breast.^[261] On the whole the material is obviously too fragmentary to allow of the drawing of any conclusions from it.

The use of pack dogs is general in northwest America (Table B 35), although as regards the Tahltan it is said that it is not an original custom. It is probable, however, that this has been more widely diffused, it presumably having included the plains. Coronado saw pack dogs on the southern plains and, before the development of the travois proper, they have possibly been used very frequently. In Eurasia, where the reindeer plays such a great part in transportation, pack dogs are of course very rarely met with, but not entirely unknown. Schiltberger's old report from the country Ibissibir (i. e. Sibir) and Högström's report from the Lapps would lead one to suppose that formerly they have been common. Transportation by pack dog is doubtless a very old culture element.

Pack saddles for horses are known from many plains tribes^[262] — Blackfoot, Sarsi, Crow, Dakota; Cheyenne — and in the Old World ​from many equestrian peoples, including sub-arctic nations such as the Manegir^[263] and Yakut.^[264] The Uriankhai use similar equipment for reindeer.^[265] To what extent the American pack saddles have been taken over with the horse complex, and to what extent they have been taken over from the pack dogs, cannot be determined.

Skin boats and appurtenances. Genuine kayaks are found among the Yukagir, presumably a loan from the Chukchi (Table B 36). Nor is it rare that kayaks and umiaks are bought or built by the Eskimos' Athapaskan neighbours in Alaska. Even the northern Kamchadal seem to have used skin boats occasionally, presumably traded from the Koryak. Malaspina tells of the native population of Alaska in lat. 60° N., that skin boats were part of the possessions "que tienen el mayor aprecio"; the reference to textiles, totem poles, etc. shows that the tribe in question must be Tlingit (Yakutat).^[266]

Hatt considers that skin boats in themselves are older than the birch bark canoe, the making of which requires a well developed technique; as regards the kayak, however, he inclines to the belief that it has grown out of the bark canoe.^[267] The arguments advanced — partly decked bark canoes among the Athapaskans and the Eskimos' knowledge of hunting swimming caribou — do not, however. seem convincing and, as I have previously said, the kayak and the compound bark canoe must rather be looked upon as specialisations each in its own direction from a mutual fundamental form, a primitive skin boat.^[268]

Even apart from the cases where skin boats among the Indians are the result of borrowing from the Eskimos, and apart also from the well-known bull-boats on the plains, skin boats are not actually rare in North America. Friederici believes, it is true, that "wo immer in alten Berichten von Eingeborenen in Fell-Boten gesprochen wird, deren ethnische Zugehörigkeit im übrigen zweifelhaft bleibt, man Berechtigung zu der Annahme hat, dass es sich um Eskimos handelt".^[269] This is not quite the case, however. Among the Nahane on the northwest plateaux the canoes are almost always "made of moose-hide stretched on a framework of wooden ribs". Here, at any rate, Eskimo influence is out of the question. Among the Chipewyan I heard that ​when they were on the Barren Grounds in summer and lacked birch bark, they covered their canoes with caribou skin. Skin canoes are also known from the Beothuk, Micmac, and Wabanaki and among them are obviously extremely old; Lescarbot's rather vague reference to "willow canoes" among the Micmac possibly means these skin boats. From the boundary between the sub-arctic region and the plains there are reports of skin boats among the Cree, and there most decidedly there is no question of bull-boats. The genuine bull-boat belongs to the northern plains by the Missouri, but is also known from the Flathead and Cheroki. In South America a sort of primitive skin boat, the pelota, is known from the Llanos, Matto Grosso, Pampas, and Patagonia, etc;^[270] probably it is post-Columbian, however.

From northern Asia there is only one report of skin boats which seems to be reliable, a Chinese source, Pei-shi, from the seventh century A. D., mentioning them from a tribe, presumably Tungus, which lived above the outlet of the Sungari in the Amur. On the other hand La Martinière's report of skin boats among the Samoyed — like much else in the work of this writer — is pure invention on the basis of a description of a Greenland kayak.^[271] Among the Västerbotten Lapps there is a tradition of skin boats.^[272] Turning to Central Asia, we find, in Mathæus Parisiensis, who lived in the middle of the thirteenth century, the valuable information that the Mongols had "boats made of oxhides, which ten or twelve of them own in common".^[273] To this day the Tibetans on the upper Yang-tze-kiang use a kind of big bull-boat of yak hide, whilst skin boats of oblong shape, rather narrower forward than aft, are used by their kinsmen on the Tsangpo.^[274] The skin boats in Mesopotamia, which already attracted the attention of Herodotus (I ch. 194), are generally known.

Finally, it cannot be overlooked that skin boats, some round similar to real bull-boats, are still used in Ireland and Wales.^[275] The Britannic skin boat, known from Cæsar, Pliny, etc. is according to Trebitsch mentioned for the first time by the Greek historian Timaios (3rd Cent. B. C.); but evidence which perhaps has its root in still earlier tradition is to be found in Avienus' poem Ora maritima. In this, in connection with the Carthagenian Himilco's cruise about 500 ​B. C., mention is made of a group of islands by the name of Oestrymnides where "strange to say they make their ships of hide sewed together, and often traverse the vast sea with the help of hides"; these islands are presumably identical with the Cassiterides.^[276] Strabon also refers to skin boats from the Lusitanians in Spain; there is an uncertain report from the Venetians and possibly also from some Germanic tribes.^[277]

Trebitsch does not believe in any genetic connection between the European, Asiatic and American forms; but to me it is difficult to reject such a connection. We cannot help noticing that the skin boats regularly keep to the outskirts of the great boreal region where the compound bark canoe occurs, and it has already been mentioned that the latter is probably later than the skin boat in its primitive form. It is true that we have quite another form of craft in the circumpolar region, especially in West Siberia and from the Stone Age of North Europe, viz. the dug-out, whose chronological position as to the skin boat is not clear; but otherwise the distribution of the latter seems to speak a language that cannot be misunderstood.

Double paddles (Table B37) occur among the Kutchin and the Chipewyan; here, however, there may of course have been Eskimo influence at work, even if as regards the Chipewyan it is rather improbable. It is, however, again met with in California among the Costano, Chumash and Diegueño, and in México among the extremely primitive Seri. In South America it is only known from northern Chile and a single tribe by the Rio Paraguay.^[278] Furthermore, Mason relates that "on all the waters of the southern United States the negroes propel their dugouts and skiffs with the double paddle"^[279] and in the Gothenburg Museum there is a double paddle from Guiana (12.1.507), of which Erland Nordenskiöld says that it is certainly not Indian.^[280] Is the double paddle here an African element, introduced by negro slaves? In Africa the double paddle seems to be rare, but Dr. Lindblom has informed me of its occurrence in Cameroon, whence slaves were of course also exported.^[281] Nor does it seem to me that the possibility can entirely be dismissed that the double paddle originates from European sportsmen.

In North Asia the double paddle is very common. It is also mentioned from the Manchu,^[282] whilst in Danish bogs double paddles have ​been found which possibly date from the Stone Age.^[283] Having regard to the wide diffusion of the double paddle there is thus no reason for regarding it, as Steensby did, as a later element in Eskimo culture originating from Asia. Rather is it ancient in America.

The two-skin frock. In his work on Arctic skin garments Hatt has in detail shown that the Eskimo two-skin frock is a derivative of a simple poncho. He also finds garments developed out of the poncho among some North American Indians and the northeastern Palæ-Asiatic tribes; but they are missing otherwise in eastern Siberia and only appear again among the Samoyed and the Finnish-Ugrian peoples. From the early period of the Danish Bronze Age there is also preserved a woman's jacket of a poncho cut.^[284] According to Hatt, the poncho itself is found both in America and several parts of Eurasia (Vogul, Zyryan, Lapps) and in olden times it was worn by Gauls and Germans. With great probability Hatt furthermore presumes that the Roman pœnula, which is preserved in the chasuble of our day, is a slightly transformed poncho.^[285] The great gap in East Siberia in the distribution of the poncho cut is explained by the advance of a new type of dress, the caftan, which is open at the front and must be a derivative of the cloak. Thus we see that, according to Hatt's investigations, in its origin the Eskimo frock belongs to the earliest determinable layer of Arctic culture.

There is no reason for going further into this matter, in so far as the conclusion put forward above is without doubt right. It is true that Wissler has expressed the supposition that the two-skin cut in North America "came first to a skin-using people from some external source, most likely from the textile ponchos of the south".^[286] Wissler has not, however, taken the Arctic occurrences of the poncho and the poncho cut into consideration, and this rather considerably disturbs the lines in his picture. As Hatt only produces a limited American material, however, a few supplementary remarks may be added here.

The skin poncho is mentioned by Hatt from the Tlingit and the Plains Indians, and he also draws attention to the peculiar straw ponchos from the northwest coast.^[287] Table B 38 shows various occur​rences, all of which fall in the western half of North America with one exception, the Iroquois, among whom the poncho was part of the women's dress. The men too, however, seem to have sometimes worn a similar garment. In A Map of Virginia etc. from 1612, Captain John Smith describes the Susquehanna with the following words: ". . . some haue Cassacks made of Beares heades and skinnes that a mans necke goes through the skinnes neck, and the eares of the beare fastned to his shoulders behind, the nose and teeth hanging downe his breast, and at the end of the nose hung a Beares Pawe".^[288] How the occurrence of the poncho so far east is to explained is still a riddle. It seems to be quite unknown among the surrounding Algonkian tribes as originally to this stock on the whole. We can only refer to the fact that there are also other "western" and fairly isolated elements in the culture of the Iroquois, for instance the slat armour and the masks.^[289]

On the Mexican plateau the poncho is still worn, for instance by the Tarahumare.^[290] Hatt refers to a clay figure from Yucatán representing a person who seems to be clad in a poncho, and he also mentions it from Nicaragua.^[291] Aztec godesses and women of high rank are figured in codices and sculpture with a triangular poncho, quechquemitl, which was considered to be an especially costly and distinguished garment in contrast to the ordinary sleeveles jacket. On the other hand the quechquemitl was usually worn by the Huaxtec and Totonac on the Gulf coast, where it is said to occur still.^[292]

The Andine region of South America has long been regarded as being a poncho area more than anything. Recently, however, Gösta Montell has sought to prove that the South American poncho is of post-Columbian origin.^[293] In his opinion the sleeveless jacket, which is sewn down the sides, is the only one pictured on pre-Columbian pottery and discovered by excavations on the coast of Perú. The poncho has, ​he believes, originated among the Araucanians in Chile as an adaptation to equestrian life through the transformation of a jacket with enormously wide shoulders, as we know it from excavations at Arica and Chiuchiu. Against this theory it may be advanced that the poncho is in all probability known from pre-Columbian finds in Perú — besides several seamed jackets preserved in CNM there is also a typical poncho, X 646, with painted bird figures and without the slightest evidence of European influence — and furthermore the sleeveless jacket with side seams can scarcely be explained except as a derivative of an earlier poncho. It is another aspect of the question that the latter, at the stage of culture to which the population had attained at the time of the conquista, was probably already rare in the same manner as among the Naua in Old México. It may be imagined that such an oldfashioned garment has held its own in remote Chile until it went through a renaissance with the introduction of the horse.^[294] We do not know if the Araucanians have ever worn jackets of the Arica type; at any rate the latter is so far only known from northern Chile, which was directly under the sway of the Inca.^[295] It might rather be imagined that it has received its somewhat unserviceable cut as a compromise between the old poncho and the "fashionable" sewn jackets of the Inca, when the latter advanced from the north. In this manner the enormously wide shoulders can be explained, but hardly by Montell's hypothesis.

If we now turn to the forms derived from the poncho in North America we first of all find in several places transitional forms between the poncho and the jacket, as a poncho may be laced together under the arms and fitted with sleeves; this is the case, for instance, among the Thompson Indians and many tribes in the Great Basin and the southwest. The further transformed, genuine two-skin frock is mentioned from the western, sub-arctic region (Knaiakhotana) by Hatt.^[296] Unfortunately the early writers do not describe the cut of the skin frocks of the eastern Athapaskans, and nowadays the dress of these tribes is greatly changed. In the Thule collection there are two deerskin frocks, one a man's and the other a woman's, from the Chipewyan (H 1: 23 and H 1: 24 CNM). Both are very much Europeanized, the former open at the front and, in contrast to the original frocks, fitted with a hood; but the two-skin cut is clear in both. The man's frock among the Naskapi is often open at the front, and even when it is closed the front piece is first cut through lengthwise and thereafter ​sewn together again. Wissler believes that the open-fronted frock is pre-Columbian in the Sub-Arctic,^[297] but this is hardly probable. The open-fronted caftan must, as Hatt has shown, be a derivative of the cloak; but the genuine cloak cut, which is found in its purest form among the Tungus, is quite different to that of the Naskapi frocks which in reality are only two-skin frocks cut open, a form that is presumably an imitation of the European jacket.^[298] In America a jacket of the genuine cloak cut is only known from the Khotana in Alaska, i. e. close to Asia.^[299] In former days the Cree had skin jackets with loose sleeves,^[300] thus recalling the peculiar women's dress of the more southerly Algonkian tribes which will be referred to below.

Outside the sub-arctic region we have the two-skin frock on the western plateaux from the Shuswap and Thompson in the north to the Havasupai, Apache and Pueblo Indians in the south. The camisetas de cuero which Castañeda saw among the Tigua were presumably of this cut. Furthermore, the two-skin frock is practically predominant in the men's dress on the plains; it only reached the more southerly tribes in recent times, however, it originally having been absent. among the Arikara, Hidatsa, Mandan, Pawni, Osage, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho and Comanche.^[301] In more recent times it has also been known from the Great Lakes (Ojibway, Sauk).

In the cases mentioned above the two-skin frock can with great certainty be traced back to the poncho; on the plains, however, it is of more simple and apparently older form than the arctic and sub-arctic types. We need not look upon it as Wissler does^[302] as a compromise between a poncho from the south and the sewn jacket from the north, but on the contrary as a typological and genetic link, later than the former and earlier than the latter.

But what makes the study very difficult is the circumstance that there are also two-skin jackets whose connection with the poncho is extremely doubtful. By this I mean the coat of the Plains Indian women which, like that of the men, consists of a front and back piece but has a separate yoke which runs into the sleeves. Hatt regards this type as being a variant of the ordinary poncho jacket.^[303] The most. simple types of this women's dress, however, would rather seem to ​indicate that its origin must be sought elsewhere, viz. in the remarkable women's dress which may be characterised as a skirt prolonged upwards, as a rule open at one side and fitted with loose sleeves.^[304] This dress is known particularly from the northeast Algonkians, from whom it is mentioned by a large number of writers, mostly early,^[305] and among whom it is still to be found among the Naskapi.^[306] The Beothuk,^[307] Huron and Iroquois^[308] had the same women's dress, and originally the Blackfoot, the eastern Dakota, Assiniboin, Cheyenne and presumably the Pawni too.^[309] On the plateaux it was found among the Shuswap.^[310]

It seems to be less well known that a dress similar in some respects was used on the northwest coast as a man's dress. The Nootka clothed themselves in two sea-otter skins sewn together at one side, open at the other and knotted over the right shoulder.^[311] It is probable that a dress of this kind should rather be taken to be a lengthened skirt than a cloak. The dress of the Hupa was also similar, as described by Goddard: "Two deer-skins with the hair on were joined along one side. The necks met over the left shoulder".^[312] It seems to have been a similar type that formed the ceremonial dress of the Tlingit.^[313] When reference is made to sleeveless skin jackets among the Indians at Puget Sound^[314] and in northern California^[315] there is reason to suppose that they had a similar cut. Another line leads to the women's dress among the Pueblo Indians^[316] and the Aztec tilmatli, which was knotted over the right shoulder,^[317] and from there on to the women's dress of various Chibchan tribes in Colombia such as the Ijca, Kágaba and Paez.^[318] The women's dress in Old Perú was of the same kind,^[319] and it is still among the Araucanians.

Finally — and this is of paramount importance — we have in the pyre-frock of the Koryak and some of their women's frocks a cut consisting of a prolonged skirt with sewn-on sleeves. Hatt has pre​viously placed this in connection with the above mentioned Algonkian dress.^[320] In other words, the distribution of the prolonged skirt and its derivatives appears thus, that there is a large eastern region in North America and a smaller one along the west coast, and between them the poncho cut has intruded like a wedge. In northeast Asia there are, however, reminders of it still, and on the plains it is likewise preserved, though partly transformed; in both cases this refers to the women's dress which is often more oldfashioned than the men's dress.

In the foregoing we have only discussed frocks without hoods, although hooded frocks are now in general use all over the sub-arctic region. There, however, they must be regarded as a result of European influence; for they are never mentioned by the earliest writers, whereas Hennepin writes that the Indians "now" — clearly indicating the difference to what was the case previously — often have "un capot avec un capuchon".^[321] The hooded frock only came to the Athapaskan tribes at a late point of time. As recent a writer as Franklin did not know it from the Chipewyan.^[322]

Caps, belts, and mittens. It would require a more extensive museum material than has been available for me to deal with all the various kinds of caps in North America and northern Eurasia. What is more, there has been a strong Europeanization in North America on this point. So early as in Whitbourne's sketch from Newfoundland (1622) it is stated that there they had "hats . . . . which were made of sealskins, in fashion like our hats, sewed handsomely, with narrow bands about them, set round with fine, white shells."^[323]

I shall therefore restrict myself to following the most primitive form of cap which is also known to the Eskimos and which presumably has given rise to the cut of the hood, viz. the cap consisting of one piece of skin, often the head skin of a caribou or other animal (Table B 39). In many cases the skin is apparently steamed to give it shape, or there is an angular incision, the edges of which are sewn together into a sagittal seam. These very primitive headwear are found commonly in the sub-arctic region and, although the Naskapi nowadays sew a hood on to the frock, they have in the hood retained this cut or — if you will — lack of cut. We also have it among some tribes on the northwest plateaux as a dance cap — an indication of the age of the form — and in the southwest both among the Apache and Hopi. It is common among several Plains Indians.^[324]

​In northern Eurasia the same kind of unsewn cap is common everywhere right over to the Lapps, but not among the Yakut, whose fur caps point southwards in the direction of the Altai Tatars and other Turkish peoples. While hunting, the Tungus wear caps of deer head-skin with the antlers in position. A cap which must certainly be taken to be a survival of this primitive type is K 219, CNM, from the Manegir; it has an edging round the bottom, but the crown is formed of the head-skin of a fawn. Only slightly removed from the unsewn form is A 845, CNM, a hood from the Ainu on Sakhalin, consisting of two pieces of musk-deer skin sewn with a median seam. Among the Central Asiatic tribes we again find the cap of head-skin. among the Buryat,^[325] and Rockhill says that the Tibetans in remote areas use as head-gear "only a piece of cloth or sheepskin arranged so as to come down over the ears".^[326] It is thus a widely diffused and in all probability ancient type.

The belt is used practically everywhere in North America, less for the purpose of holding the dress together than for holding breechcloth and leggings up. In northern Eurasia and Central Asia it is likewise in general use. It may be added that the special use as a shaman attribute, which we know from the Central Eskimos, is possibly an old feature. It is found in use in the same manner among the Aleut,^[327] the Wiyot in California,^[328] and the Gilyak and Olcha in the Amur area.^[329]

We have seen that among the Eskimos there are two styles of mittens, one with the thumb sewn on separately and another on which the underside of the thumb is cut of the same piece as the distal part of the palm. Among the Indians mittens do not seem to have been in general use outside the Sub-Arctic and the northwest plateaux. Neither on the northwest coast, in California nor on the plains have they belonged to the everyday dress. A pair of Tsimshian mittens, H 1665, CNM, with all their decoration of bead embroidery, show decided influence from the interior, and of a plains tribe like the Piegan it is expressly stated that originally they did not wear mittens.^[330] Unfortunately it is still more rare that the literature contains anything about the cut of the mittens (cf. Table B 40). In the few cases where I have had an opportunity of examining it (Tsimshian, Knaiakhotana, Ahtena, ​Chipewyan, Cree, and Ojibway) the cut always displays a separate thumb. From only one American tribe, the Naskapi, is the other cut described; there may here be a question of Eskimo influence. On the other hand mittens on which the underside of the thumb is a part of the palm occur with great regularity in Siberia, where it is only from the Yakut that I know of a case with the other cut.

The extremely primitive form of mitten consisting of a whole bird's skin, as we know it from Southampton Island, is met with in California among the Achomawi and Atsugewi.

Trousers and footwear. There are two main forms of trousers in the circumpolar region, the legging breeches with the cut that is used by the Eskimos, and trousers which are presumably derived from a breech-cloth and which the circumstances of their distribution clearly indicate as a later form.^[331] The legging breeches are not known from Indian North America except in the form of the "hose" of the northwest Athapaskans which I will discuss below. We know nothing of the cut of the Naskapi's "breeches of which the legs are so short as only to cover the upper portion of the thigh"; there is no small possibility here, however, of Eskimo influence, which is by no means rare among the Indians in Labrador.^[332]

Trousers do not seem to be entirely rare in certain parts of northwest America. They are mentioned from the Nahane — both Tahltan and Tsetsaut^[333] — Shuswap and Chilkotin,^[334] Thompson Indians,^[335] several tribes by Puget Sound, Snohomish, Snoqwalmu, Skykomish,^[336] Umpqua^[337] and Takelma.^[338] Thus there is scarcely any reason for rejecting, as Hatt does, Lisianski's statement that the Tlingit sometimes have "a kind of short pantaloon".^[339] Unfortunately we know nothing of the cut, except that among the Thompson Indians it is doubtless of the breech-cloth pattern,^[340] so that the whole of this group must probably be regarded as an offshoot of the great Eurasian breechcloth area. Something quite apart is the statement from the Comanche that the women wear trousers, "qui ne sont pas echancrés et recouvrent complètement l'abdomen".^[341] It is possible that this may be a legging ​cut, because for instance the footwear of this tribe is of the same type as that of the Eskimos; more detailed information is unfortunately lacking.

Throughout the whole of Siberia legging-breeches are not met with except in direct connection with the Eskimo region among the Chukchi and Koryak. Presumably they have been supplanted by the later breech-cloth breeches, and it is only among the southern Lapps that we find the old form again; on the other hand they prevail in modern European clothing and in our part of the world stretch back to antiquity.^[342] As Hatt shows, the legging cut is the origin of the "hose" which have been discovered from the last period of Denmark's early Iron Age. It is probably similar types which gave the Romans occasion to create a name like Gallia bracata.

Loose leggings are familiar from most parts of North America and from Eurasia right to Lappland.^[343]

Hatt has distinguished between two different types of sandal, one with a toe string and the other with loops or holes along the edges and arranged for strapping round the foot.^[344] All Eskimo sandals belong to this latter group, and from it the Eskimo boot has developed. Hatt has given a number of examples of the occurrence of the laced sandal in North America (Klamath, Ute, Cliff-Dwellers in Arizona) and says that it is the same type that we have from the graves at Pachacamac in Perú and that is used nowadays by the Tehuelche and Araucanians. The plaited sandal-like shoes from cave finds in Kentucky often have an ankle strap. In Asia it is mentioned from the Ainu, Japanese and various Caucasus tribes, in Europe from the Baltic countries, the Shetlands and Iceland. It is also found in Polynesia.

This picture undergoes no essential alteration by the addition of a few other occurrences in Table B 41. It may be pointed out that the investigations into the culture of the Basket-Makers in Utah show that the laced sandal is earlier than the cliff-dweller stage. A sort of sandal or overshoe for use in the snow is described from the Havasupai as "made of an oval piece of buckskin extending 15 cm. beyond the sole on all sides. A thong runs through holes around the edge".^[345] In California there is a sandal area where the type unfortunately is not known, except from the Diegueño who use the laced type.^[346] The sandals of the Seri must undoubtedly be of the laced type. This is decidedly indicated by comparison with the Roman boot, by which is ​undoubtedly meant the well known calceus, which never had a toe string.^[347] As regards Asia the most important addition comes from the Yakut; from this tribe the CNM has recently acquired a pair of typical laced sandals of skin for wearing when mowing hay.

The sandal boot must, after Hatt's investigations, be taken to be older than the moccasin, and we shall here limit ourselves to a brief summary on the basis of the material thus brought to light. Apart from the Eskimos the sandal boot is found in southwestern North America among the Zuñi, Hopi, Navaho, Apache, Walapai, Paiute, Ute and Gosiute.^[348] This diffusion, far removed from the Eskimo region and separated from it by later forms of the moccasin type, presents a striking parallel to the diffusion of the domed lodge. On the plains they wear soled shoes, which Hatt supposes are independent of the sandal type, whereas Wissler seems inclined to favour a connection between them.^[349] In California moccasins with an extra sole are known from the Yurok, Hupa and Shasta, but Kroeber considers them to be quite modern.^[350]

In Eurasia we have presumably sandal boots among the Vogul and Ostyak, although footwear in Siberia has undergone such great changes that the boundary between the sandal and the moccasin type is difficult to draw; in Tibet the occurrence of the sandal boot is probable, and in certain parts of Pamir (Vakhan) certain.^[351]

Combination suits, hose, and cloaks. Outside the culture area of the Eskimos Hatt describes combination suits from the following: Naskapi, Kamchadals, Orochon, and the southern Lapps.^[352] To these may be added the Russians at Kolyma (1059–31 a, LAM) and Lamut.^[353] Hatt is undoubtedly justified in regarding the combination suit as being very old.

"Hose", i. e. a combination of trousers and footwear, are, as Hatt points out, worn among several northwest Athapaskan tribes (Table B 42) and with this peculiarity that they have the legging cut, whereas the foot must be taken as having been derived from a moccasin. In Eurasia, hose are worn by the Samoyed, presumably by the Ostyak too, and the Russian Lapps. I am unable to say anything about the cut. The very idea of combining trousers and footwear into one gar​ment would, however, seem to be widely spread; on the other hand it may possibly have arisen in several places.

The skin cloak does not seem to be old among the Eskimos and is possibly a loan from the Indians. In that case it will be sufficient to mention here that it is widely diffused in Labrador and the Laurentian region,^[354] in the Mackenzie area,^[355] on the northwest plateaux^[356] and — as a shaman or ceremonial dress — on the North Pacific coast.^[357] The painted bison robes of the Plains Indians, of which CNM also owns some old and handsome specimens, are too well known to need further notice here; they have formerly been worn as far south as the Pueblo regions.^[358] In North Asia the cloak would now seem to have disappeared, but it forms the basis of the development of the caftan.

Personal adornment, toilet, etc. I have not drawn up any table over the distribution of the brow band, as it is almost impossible to draw the line between it and many adornments or headgear such as the high fur fillet from the regions round the Great Lakes, the turban-like head cloths in the southern United States, etc. I will merely refer to its common occurrence in the sub-arctic region,^[359] on the plateaux in British Columbia,^[360] and on the northwest coast.^[361] In Eurasia it is for instance worn among the Ainu^[362] and in the Amur area.^[363] Otherwise it seems to be a particularly widespread female ornament in Siberia.^[364] A special form — which has also reached the Eskimos at Bering Strait — is the browband with ear-flaps.^[365]

The needle-and-thread tattooing of the Eskimos seems to belong to the Thule Culture and originates from Asia. As Table B 43 shows, we ​find this method exclusively in northwest America among the Tlingit (Yakutat), Tahltan, Carrier, Babine, Lillooet, Thompson, and Twana and — in conjunction with the pricking method — among the Makah, Shuswap, Chipewyan, Cree, and Ojibway.^[366] Among the latter tribes it has certainly only made its way in fairly recent times from the west. For instance, from the Cree it is not mentioned until by Franklin, whereas prick-tattooing is mentioned a hundred years earlier. In Asia, needle-and-thread tattooing is found among the Yakut and Samoyed, both methods among the Tungus. The Kuril use both needle-and-thread and scratch tattooing. In North Asia the latter method is characteristic of the Ainu, of which the Kuril are a branch, whereas in North America it is fairly widely diffused in California (Shasta, Maidu, Yokut, Chimariko); it is also mentioned from the Haida and Naskapi, but the correctness of the statement in these cases is perhaps doubtful. On the other hand we find it again among the Taino on the Antilles^[367] and in Old México, where on the plateaux only the primitive Otomí practised tattooing, whereas it was common among the Maya, Huaxtec and Totonac; both the pricking and the scratching methods were in use here.^[368]

All other North American tribes about which we have information use the pricking method. In Siberia we find it, besides among the Tungus, among the Vogul and Ostyak. It is also known in Japan, where it was not, as Rein writes,^[369] introduced under the Tokugawa (i. e. after 1603), but is mentioned as being common in Han reports from the third century A. D., quite apart from the fact that there are undoubted tattooing patterns on pottery figures from the Stone Age,^[370] in which case they must be presumed to represent Ainu. In the Nihongi, said to be submitted to the Empress 720 A. D., tattooing of the face is mentioned as a punishment in earlier times.^[371] In Europe scratch-tattooing probably extends back to late palæolithic times;^[372] but the pricking method is also known at least from the early and middle Minoan periods,^[373] and it is this which secures first place, as we see from the fine tattooing needles of the Scandinavian Bronze Age and the descriptions by the classic authors of the Thracians, Picts, and others.^[374] Of the three methods in question, needle-and-thread tattooing seems to be later than the much more widespread pricking method, in whatever manner the mysterious occurrence in South ​America may be explained. Scratch-tattooing is presumably the oldest; it is only found here and there, it can in Europe at any rate be traced farthest back and from its whole character gives the impression of being most primitive.

Combs of one piece of wood or bone are not very common in North America (Table B 44). Over large parts of this continent combs are almost completely lacking and have apparently been replaced by the hair brush. On the North Pacific coast combs are used which, with their ornamented handle, may recall later Eskimo forms, with the difference which the angular art of the Northwest Indians must necessarily involve. In the sub-arctic region the original appearance of the comb is uncertain. Hearne says that among the Chipewyan not one out of fifty possesses a comb;^[375] at Churchill I heard that formerly they combed their hair with a pike jaw. What was the appearance of the Ahtena combs of moose hoof mentioned by Allen is not known. The comb consisting of a wooden haft and bone teeth which Woldt figures. from the Kaiyuhkhotana more gives the impression of being a skin comb or a hackle than a toilet article, and finally the Naskapi comb seems, from Turner's figure, to be very Europeanized. In the eastern United States combs have, on the other hand, frequently been discovered by archæological investigations. Besides the heavily carved, presumably mostly Iroquoian specimens which often display animal figures in openworked patterns, we find there simple bone combs which may well be compared with the primitive Eskimo combs. The comb cut in one piece is in South America only found in El Gran Chaco and adjacent areas in the Argentine.^[376]

From northern Asia, too, we know of combs cut in one piece. In CNM there is a wooden comb from the Gilyak with a head-shaped knob on the haft, resembling later Eskimo forms, whereas on the other hand a specimen from the Yeniseians (1048–64, LAM) looks. more like the primitive Eskimo comb. Thus the latter is obviously a very old element which can be met with from Siberia to as far as the eastern United States.

In its distribution the back or head scratcher presents certain, scarcely accidental points of resemblance with the sucking tube (Table B 45). Like the latter, it has in Indian North America almost everywhere a special, ritual purpose, it being used in the puberty ceremonies, especially at the first menstruation of young girls, but on occasion also at childbirth and death. It is widely diffused on the northwest coast, on the plateaux in British Columbia, in California and, in some cases, in the southwest and on the plains, whereas in the east it seems to be very rare. In South America we only find it — like the ​sucking tube — in Tierra del Fuego, where it is used by the Ona at the klóketen ceremonies.^[377] In northern Eurasia it seems to be more common than the sucking tube and, like this, has not the same ritual character as in Indian America. The Mongols have a rather similar implement. "Old people . . . . manage to knead themselves with a great V-shaped crook. This stick they call the 'Rheumatism curer'. Holding it in front, they can knead their own shoulders almost as effectually as by the knuckles of the youngsters".^[378] According to an observation by Professor Rudenko, the Buryat have the same impleinent.^[379]

Several sub-arctic Indian tribes use snow goggles (Table B 46); but I am not sure that they are not due to Eskimo or European influence. The Cree, for instance, now have snow goggles of an appearance which closely approaches that of the Eskimo; an earlier writer, Young, reports however, that he travelled at night to keep off snow-blindness.^[380] Dr. Jenness informs me that the Carrier and Tahltan, instead of wearing snow goggles, rub their eyes with balsam gum. In 1683 La Salle went snow-blind among the Illinois, but writes nothing about snow goggles, which obviously were unknown.^[381]

Snow goggles of thin metal with an edging of skin or, among the Yakut, plaited of horse hair, are on the other hand fairly common in Siberia. In Central Asia the Yakut type is known among the Mongol,^[382] Buryat,^[383] and Tibetans.^[384] The Tadjiks of West Turkestan use snow goggles of wood or leather.^[385] On the other hand the Lapps have no snow goggles, nor do we find them among the Gilyak or Ainu,^[386] whilst the Kamchadal are said to have learned to know them from the Tungus and others. It is thus very probable that they are not a part of the earliest Polar culture.

Fire and its uses. As Table B 47 shows, fire stones are mostly met with in North America among the sub-arctic tribes with ​branches to New England and the Yuchi, among whom, however, they may be post-Columbian, to the northern plains (Crow, Arapaho) and the northwest coast (Tlingit, Tsetsaut). They are, however, also met with in California (Pomo), the southwest (Havasupai) and Old México, where it was said that they were invented by the Otomí god, Mixcoatl. In North and Central Asia the fire stone has doubtless everywhere been supplanted by Yakut and Chinese fire steels, apart from the few cases where the fire drill is used.

Walter Hough says: "It appears probable that flint-and-pyrites, in view of its distribution in northern Europe, was introduced into America through Scandinavian contact, or is accultural either from Europe or Asia".^[387] The possibility of old Scandinavian influence in America outside of Greenland is so extremely small that it may be put at nil. That fire stones without the simultaneous use of steel should have been introduced during the colonisation is equally improbable. What is more, we have evidence from the first half of the seventeenth century of the use of fire stones both in eastern Canada and in New England, and by excavating in Maine and Ontario pyrites have been found which are thought to be firestones.^[388] The supposition of the post-Columbian character of the fire stone in North America is further weakened by the occurrence in México. In South America they are only found among the tribes in Tierra del Fuego.^[389] Having regard to these facts Wissler justly rejects the hypothesis that they are "intrusive from the Old World" and is of the opinion that they rather "suggests that the cause may be environmental".^[390] Like Nordenskiöld, however, I rather think that we have here an old cultural association and that the fire stone must be regarded as a very old element in America.

It is commonly said that the lamp is not to be found among other people in the New World than the Eskimos. This is not entirely correct. The Chipewyan sometimes burn caribou fat with a wick of cloth. There is hardly any question of Eskimo influence, but there may be a question of an imitation of European candles; I have sojourned too short a time among the Chipewyan to have seen this method of illumination in use and would not venture to express any opinion on it. But we have other evidence.

From the Beothuk we have descriptions of soapstone bowls which are two to three inches deep and three to four inches wide on the inside. "Some have a small groove in the upper edge, supposed by some to be intended for a wick, and it is thought that they were used as lamps, though probably they were also used for boiling seal's fat ​in".^[391] I cannot easily imagine this latter use, as I have never heard of the boiling of seal fat either among the Eskimos or the eastern Indians. That there should have been a direct imitating of the lamps of the Labrador Eskimos must be regarded as being out of the question; for while it is true that the description is not very clear, there is nothing in it which points in the direction of the Eskimo form which is even particularly pronounced in Labrador. Of the Tlingit A. Krause writes: "Flache Steingefässe, meist von ovaler Gestalt, dienen als Lampen, 'tsi-na'. Auch sie sind gewöhnlich ohne alle Skulptur, bisweilen aber hat man ihnen die Gestalt eines Frosches oder eines anderen Tieres gegeben".^[392] Nor is there anything here that points in the direction of the Eskimos. Further south the Nootka burned whale oil in lamps of shell.^[393] At the festivals which are held at the catching of the year's first salmon the Lillooet use "a stone vessel for holding the fire", i. e. a kind of lamp.^[394] Such a ceremonial use also indicates the age of this element.

Otherwise the lamp is not used on the North Pacific coast; the Indians simply burn the oil of the extremely fatty Thaleichthys pacificus, through which a wick is threaded.^[395] In a similar manner the Penobscot in Maine have used a fish as a natural lamp.^[396] There is, however, a possibility of a former more general use of lamps on the northwest coast. I mean the numerous stone vessels which have been discovered so far south as California and which as a rule are interpreted as mortars and paint cups. That this interpretation is correct in many, perhaps in most cases, shall readily be admitted; but there are some which do not so well match this label, for instance the bowls from Puget Sound and adjoining areas, which are held up by human figures in a sitting posture.^[397] Among the Plains Indians both the Blackfoot and Cheyenne have traditions telling of the former use of lamps.^[398] As both tribes have presumably once lived in contact with the sub-arctic forest region,^[399] there is so much the less reason to doubt the correctness of this.

​In northern Eurasia we have lamps of stone and clay in direct continuation of the Eskimo culture area, among the Kamchadal,^[400] of stone or shell among the Kuril,^[401] and of shell among the Ainu.^[402] Lamps also occur among the Gold^[403] and Olcha.^[404] Simple bowl-shaped lamps have, I believe, been known in the Stone Age of Japan,^[405] and similar forms are sometimes used to this day.^[406] Otherwise the position is in northern Eurasia as in sub-arctic America, that lamps are only used exceptionally on the outskirts. A very primitive lamp of hollowed-out stone, in which yak-fat was burned, was seen by Sven Hedin among the Mongols in the Tsaidam region.^[407] The Norwegian Coast Lapps formerly illuminated their earth houses with lamps of shell,^[408] and Olaus Magnus writes: "Igitur fatendum eft, ſuppolares homines tempore hyemali vſu pinguedinis marinarum belluarum . . . in omni ſua commoditate perficienda viuere. Quam quidem pinguedinem vulgari eorum Traan, aut Lyſe vocant, à lucendo, quia lampadibus imiſſa clarifsimè, ac amplifsimè lucet",^[409] and exactly the same kind of lamp of shell as that of the Lapps is met with again in the Orkneys^[410] and Aran Islands off Ireland (13.223: 355, HMV). Simple bowl-shaped stone lamps may still be met with in remote parts of Scotland (14.18: 2, HMV) and Switzerland.^[411]

The bowl-shaped lamp is ancient in Europe. In France it has definitely been proved from the Magdalenian, perhaps also from the Solutrean, epochs and in England and Switzerland they go back at any rate to neolithic and eneolithic times.^[412] On the Cyclades bowls of marble were made about 2000 B. C. which seem to be imitations of simple, Egyptian earthen lamps^[413] as we know them from Herodotus' description of the Feast of the Lamps for the goddess Neith in Sais (II ch. 62). The Bible also mentions lamps (II Kg. IV 10 and II Sam. XXII 29). The lamps of later antiquity, with a wick spout, which ​in remote parts of Europe have held out to this day^[414] and which have spread right to the Pelew Islands and Japan, must be regarded as a later development of the bowl type.

In summarising what has been said above, we cannot avoid noticing a certain regularity in the diffusion of the bowl-shaped lamp. We have a closed chain of occurrences from Japan northwards along the east coast of Asia, over Bering Strait to the Eskimos and, in association with them, certain North Pacific Indians. It is a region with a more or less settled fisher and hunter population. But besides, we have in North America lamps among the Beothuk, which in several respects is an oldfashioned tribe, and perhaps on the northern plains, and we have the same employment of whole fish as a means of lighting on the northwest coast and in Maine. In Central Asia we find the bowl-shaped lamp among the Mongols, in Europe several places in the most remote areas, with evidence of a use which stretches back thousands of years.

All these occurrences lie in the periphery of the great sub-arctic region where we have a form of culture that is closely associated with hunting on snow-shoes, or the reindeer nomadism derived from it. both of which require great mobility and whose typical dwelling is the conical tent. They must be regarded as being later than the more settled culture that is connected with fishing on rivers and lakes.^[415] It is to me probable that the bowl-shaped lamp for illumination — not for heating — is an extremely old culture element which with the earlier layer of hunting culture in the circumpolar region has been diffused over the greater part of boreal Eurasia and North-America, but which through the greater mobility which has accompanied snow-shoe hunting and reindeer nomadism has for the greater part again disappared. Only in those places where the later culture did not obtain a firm footing did the lamp remain in use, i. e. by the northern Pacific and among the Eskimos, among the latter in a further developed form as a source of heat as much as a source of light, and likewise in a specialised form among the large number of civilised peoples from the Mediterranean over South Asia to East Asia.^[416]

Stone vessels have a much wider distribution in North America than lamps (Table B 48). As has already been stated, there are in the North Pacific area numerous mortars, paint cups, etc. of stone, and in north​ern California stone bowls are used for preserving oil among the Hupa, Yurok, and presumably the Maidu. In southern California, however, we meet with genuine soapstone cooking pots among several tribes (Yokut, Salina, Chumash, Gabrieliño and presumably other Shoshonean tribes). It will be remembered that it is also in southern California that we meet with the domed earth-lodge, whose connection with the earliest Eskimo dwelling seems certain. There are also soapstone cooking pots in the Great Basin (Shoshoni), and they are mentioned in legends of the Crow on the northern plains;^[417] but not until we come east of the Mississippi have we again, just as in the case of the domed lodge, a complete area much greater than the Californian area, where soapstone vessels are in general use. It begins in the north with the Cree and Ojibway and continues all the way to Florida. The southern, artistically shaped types are, however, so different to the simple cooking pots in the mid-Atlantic states that they cannot be directly compared with them. Of the Algonkian tribes simple, oblong soapstone vessels seem to have been typical, and when soapstone has been lacking, as among the New York tribes and the Lenape, vessels were imported from Pennsylvania and New England. The so-called "Round Grave culture", which in certain parts of Tennessee and Alabama preceded the Cheroki culture and displays great similarity to that of the Algonkians,^[418] was also remarkable for simple, round or oblong soapstone cooking pots. On the other hand they are not found on Iroquois sites.^[419]

In the Old World, stone cooking pots cannot be expected to any great extent. The bark vessels of the Siberian tribes, earthen vessels and later iron pots among the agricultural peoples do not permit of any continuation of such unsuitable types as stone cooking pots. They are, however, mentioned from Tibetan nomads in the district round Ladak,^[420] and even in Linnæus' time among Norwegian peasants at Rørstad.^[421] In Switzerland the making of soapstone vessels can be traced almost without gaps back to the La Tène period,^[422] but may indeed be much older. It is scarcely improbable that the soapstone cooking pot is very old in Eurasia, as it undoubtedly is in North America.

Anything resembling the Eskimos' frying meat on stone is only ​known to me from the northwest coast of America. Niblack mentions from the Tlingit meat "roasted on hot stones"^[423] and the tribes by Puget Sound cook seal meat, fish and shell-fish on hot stones covered with a layer of rushes.^[424]

Knives and scrapers. Wissler has written a small paper on the crooked knife, in which he draws attention to the fact that knives of quite the same form as that which must be regarded as being the oldest among the Eskimos — a stone blade inserted in a crooked handle — are found in Mandan sites by the upper Missouri. Lescarbot mentions whittling knives from the Micmac, but without describing their appearance. On the plateaux in British Columbia knives with a beak-shaped stone blade were used and, in Teit's opinion, are related to the crooked knife.^[425] If one may venture to conclude from the present distribution of this implement, now that it is furnished with an iron blade, the original diffusion must have been very considerable, viz. the north Pacific coast, the Mackenzie region and very large parts of the eastern woodlands (cf. Table B 49).

In Eurasia the crooked knife is widely diffused, and not alone in the eastern part as Wissler believes, but westwards as far as the Lapps. On the Lapp Iron Age sites in Varanger Fjord Solberg has found a whittling knife with an iron blade which, although it cannot be seen from it that it has been crooked, yet is more nearly related to this type.^[426] In Carinthia the crooked knife is used to this day (1665: 65, HMV).

Although it is by no means certain that the Caribou Eskimos had bone knives for flensing, it must be mentioned that these are known especially from the plains^[427] and, for other purposes, from California^[428] and the Pueblo areas.^[429] In the Old World the Kamchadal had fish knives of rib.^[430]

The first picture in Mason's paper on the Eskimo women's knife, or ulo, shows an ancient Egyptian leather worker with an implement of this kind in his hand. There is in reality every reason for regarding this as being just as old as it is widely diffused (cf. Table B 50). In North America we find it among the Northwest Indians as far as Washington (Makah and Twana) and among the tribes in the interior of British Columbia. Yet it is lacking in archæological finds from the ​Shahaptin and Salish region.^[431] From Sta. Barbara in southern California, where the culture, as Friederici has shown, in many respects reflects the conditions on the North Pacific coast, there are bone implements of the ulo type. In eastern North America there is an equally pronounced and still more wide ulo region, comprising the greater part of the eastern woodlands from the Cree and Montagnais in the north — among whom modern Eskimo influence can, however, be traced — over Ontario and New England to Maryland and Kentucky, and possibly still further south. Everywhere they seem to be especially characteristic of Algonkian sites, but are lacking in those of the Iroquois.^[432]

In the old Mexican culture area as far southwards as to Oaxaca and Guatemala we find ordinary small T-shaped copper knives which have a great likeness to Eskimo women's knives with a single tang.^[433] Quite similar are certain forms of Peruvian knives, the so-called tumi; but as far as they are concerned Erland Nordenskiöld has been able to show that the type with a tang is a late bronze type characteristic of the Inca period, developed out of a broad copper tumi with no sharp boundary between blade and tang, a type which presumably goes back to pre-Tiahuanacan times.^[434] It seems to be from Perú that the later tumi form has spread to southern México and thus brought about a point of likeness between Peruvian and Zapotecan culture which is by no means unique.^[435] Here we have an interesting example of the development of parallel forms, as a transition from undifferentiated types to those with a sharp boundary between blade and tang has proceeded both among the Eskimos and in South America. Whether there is a genetic connection between the earlier forms of the North American ulo and the Central and South American tumi is not certain, but very probable.

Turning to Siberia we find there no decided ulos, but among the Yakut curved knives with a lateral handle, corresponding to the form used at the Yukon-Bristol Bay. Single edged knives, which are supposed to have been used as fish knives, have been found near Tobolsk.^[436] From the Stone Age in North Russia and Norway we know. of crescent-shaped stone knives with lateral handle, and it is worth investigating whether the Norwegian forms really, as Brøgger supposes, are local or whether after all they have any connection with ​Siberia.^[437] Genuine ulos, i. e. crescent-shaped knives with a dorsal handle, have however been found on the edge of the sub-arctic region from the Stone Age in Japan,^[438] southern Manchuria,^[439] eastern Mongolia^[440] and North China, where this type, although now of course with an iron blade, has held out until the present day.^[441] In Europe there are still genuine ulos for instance in Bulgaria (18. 15: 495, HMV), in Tyrol (11. 49: 07, HMV) and, in a rather altered form, in Scotland (13.223: 56, HMV). The half-moon knife in Egypt has already been referred to.

If we disregard the occurrence in México and Perú, we thus have all in all a diffusion which in certain respects recalls that of the stone lamp, i. e. the ulo types principally keep to the edges of the great, circumpolar region where now hunting on snow-shoes and reindeer breeding are the bearing factors. Thus we may describe it as an ancient element.

Bone knives or scrapers for pressing the water out of the skin of caribou killed from the canoe are not known to me outside the area of the Eskimo culture.

It is difficult to say anything with certainty about the one-handed scraper (Table B 51). Here and there we find scrapers made of a shoulder blade: at Thompson River and in Algonkian sites in Kentucky as regards North America, among the Ostyak in Siberia and, presumably related to this, a scraper of antler among the same people by the head-rivers of the Vas Yugan. Scrapers formed of a piece of tubular bone have a much wider distribution. They are found over the most of North America, but seem to differ essentially from those of the Central Eskimos in that they are not split right down but chiselsharpened, which again is connected with the fact that they are held. in quite another manner and often have a strap to support the wrist. Their connection with that of the Central Eskimos is therefore doubtful. In Siberia the one-handed scraper as a rule has an iron blade, probably corresponding to an original stone blade, but obviously it plays a much smaller rôle than the two-handed type.

Hewing and drilling implements. The diffusion possibilities of the ice pick are of course geographically limited; but within these boundaries, i. e. in sub-arctic America and Eurasia, it seems to ​be common (Table B 53). Remarkably enough, as far as I have been. able to find there is no report of its occurrence among FinnishUgrian people except of some powerful points of antler which Solberg has found on the settlements of the Lapp Iron Age in Varanger Fjord and doubtless rightly labels as ice picks.

I have not drawn up any table over the distribution of the hand drill, as it seems to have been in general use all over North America as the only type of drill known in pre-Columbian times outside the Eskimo region and some adjoining areas. A detailed study would require much more material than has been available to me. Although the bow drili is much more common in Siberia than the hand drill, the latter is not entirely absent. It is found among the Gilyak (K 1: 117, CNM), Tungus (1524–270, LAM), Karagass (1339–267, LAM), Uriankhai (1340–326, LAM), Samoyed (1791–219, LAM), Ostyak (Kc 139, CNM), and Vogul (1710–235, LRM). Among the latter two peoples it is imported, however.^[442] It also occurs among the Lapps.^[443]

The distribution of the sewing needle is difficult to study with profit, because it is one of those elements which are most quickly absorbed from the whites. Even when dealing with bone needles we must, if they have an eye, reckon with the possibility of an imitation. of European needles, whereas of course needles without an eye are original. The surest way of avoiding error is to keep exclusively to the archæological material from pre-Columbian sites. We will then, as Table B 55 shows, find needles with eyes diffused over the Pacific area from British Columbia to the Pueblo regions and also in the eastern woodlands. The Ojibway are said to have formerly used thorns with an eye or the penis bone of a marten, which has a natural perforation,^[444] indicating that the needle eye is original among them. The Chipewyan told me that in former days they used the fin spikes of a fish, but they knew nothing about whether eyes occurred or not. From the Kutchin^[445] and Tlingit^[446] express mention is only made of bone awls for sewing. The Plains Indians also only knew the awl, and the needles which have been found by excavating in eastern Nebraska^[447] and North Dakota^[448] have no eyes. The future must show how the western and the eastern regions with eyed needles are to be connected. In South America needles with an eye have a markedly western distribution.^[449]

​From Japan's Stone Age we have many bone needles without, but very few with eyes.^[450] In the Ko-ji-ki, or Record of Ancient Matters, we read: ". . . pass a skein of hemp through a needle, and pierce (therewith) the skirt of his garment".^[451] On the other hand the Chinese commentator of Shan-hai-ching, from the beginning of the 4th Cent. A. D., states that the Japanese have no needles, i. e. needles with eyes.^[452] We have unquestionable needles with eyes from neolithic finds in southern Manchuria and northern China.^[453] In Europe the eyed needle was already known from the Aurignacian and Magdalenian epochs.^[454] Having regard to the results given by the latest excavations in China as far as conformity with Europe is concerned, a genetic connection between the European and East Asiatic eyed needles cannot be dismissed as impossible, no more than a connection between the latter and the North American; but too many investigagations in the field are still required for anything definite to be said now.

Other implements. Strangely enough, as far as I know the thimble is not mentioned from any other American people than the Eskimos, whereas it is mentioned — though by no means frequently — from Eurasia. There I know it from the Yakut (K2: 297, CNM), Ostyak,^[455] and Lapps,^[456] in all cases made of skin. Thimbles are also used by the Tibetans.^[457] Hatt draws attention to the fact that the thimble is placed on the index finger — and not on the middle finger as with us — among the Lapps and Tungus, just as the Eskimos do.^[458] The Tibetans follow the same custom.^[459] The thimble is probably diffused over the whole of northern Eurasia; but are the Eskimos really the only people in the New World who know it?

It will presumably be impossible to determine the distribution of the needle cushion in North America. The rolled up sewing bags with several compartments used generally nowadays by the sub-arctic Indians and many Eskimos are scarcely original and have presumably supplanted the earlier needle cases and needle cushions. Needle skins are found here and there in Siberia: the Gold (K 215, CNM), Samoyed ​(spec. in CNM) and Ostyak by the Vas Yugan.^[460] The needle cushion is presumably older than the needle case.

The cutting board is practically never mentioned in the literature but is, according to Hatt,^[461] widely diffused. In CNM there is a specimen from the Ostyak (Kc 146).

Naturally the snow shovel can for the most part only be used in arctic and sub-arctic regions; but as far south as among the Zuñi we find wooden shovels "used by the Indians for shoveling snow from the roofs of their houses, and for taking bread from their bakeovens".^[462] If snow shovels are not very common either in North America or Siberia, the explanation is probably that the snow-shoe or the ski is usually employed instead.^[463] The snow shovel occurs in the eastern part of sub-arctic America, however, on the plateaux in British Columbia, in Kamchatka, the Amur country, western Siberia, and Lapland (Table B56). In CNM there is from the Yakut a shovel for earth work, but its connection with the snow shovel is doubtful. Ostyak and Lapps sometimes have a small shovel cut out on the end of the ski pole. The distribution of the snow shovel is mostly in the periphery of the boreal region, which agrees with regarding it as being an old type which has to some extent been made superfluous by the intrusion of the snow-shoe.

The ice scoop is spread about in sub-arctic America and in Eurasia (Table B 57). Attention has previously been drawn to the fact that the Sibirian net scoop, which is also found in Alaska, is presumably later than the solid type.^[464]

Arrow straighteners and thong smoothers have a very wide but sporadic distribution, obviously a sign of the age of this implement (Table B 58). In North America it is most common in the west, from British Columbia over Utah and California to the southwestern regions; it is not entirely lacking, however, on the northern plains and the eastern woodlands (Ontario, Ohio). Strangely enough it is not found at all in South America.^[465] In northern Eurasia, where it is more used for thongs than for arrows, it is present in the Amur country and West Siberia. The Lapps' implement for drawing tin wire is presumably a survival of this type. It has also been found in paleolithic deposits at Krasnoyarsk, and it is many years since Boyd Dawkins ​proved the identity of the arrow straightener with the bâton de commandement of the Aurignacian and Magdalenian periods.^[466]

The wedge (Table B 59) has, like the arrow straightener, its centre of gravity in western North America: the North Pacific coast, the northern plateaux, and California, although it is also found in the Mackenzie area, the eastern woodlands, and the northern plains. It is also known from here and there in Siberia, and already from neolithic times in China.^[467] In the Ko-ji-ki the wedge is mentioned from Old Japan.^[468]

Technique, etc. The working of soapstone is extremely common in eastern North America, where it is especially characteristic of the Algonkian tribes south of the St. Lawrence; in California, too, soapstone was of considerable importance. A technique like this is, of course, bound up with the occurrence of soapstone; but still it is striking that in North America we find it highly developed just in places which in other directions too show association with Eskimo culture and, as Holmes points out, it is still more remarkable as regards the Algonkians, because they made pottery extensively. From North Asia I know of no working in soapstone except that the Cossacks mine it in Ala-tau for making small objects;^[469] but whether the native population do it too I do not know. In Scandinavia, soapstone working dates back to very ancient times.

The treating of wood and horn with hot water or steam is known from many tribes in North America (Table B 60). I have no definite authority for the use of this method in Siberia; but judging from the appearance of many manufactured objects its presence seems certain.

Preparing skin with water to loosen the hair is common in North America^[470] and is also met with in South America, where, however, skin curing of course is not nearly so prominent as in the northern half of the dual continent.^[471] In Central Asia the Kalmuk use hot water for unhairing.^[472] There is no doubt that it is a very old method.

The common stitches among the Eskimos, overcasting and running stitch, are, as Hatt has already shown, widely diffused both in North America and northern Eurasia.^[473] Blind stitches, too, may be met ​with.^[474] It strikes one as being a survival of ancient times that the clothes in which the Samoyed dress their house gods must not be sewn but only tied on to them.^[475]

Festival equipment. Drums of the tambourine type are widely diffused in North America (Table B 61), but, like those of Eurasia, are different from the drums of the Eskimos and Chukchi in being held centrally. Only from the Omaha is there mention of a drum with a lateral handle.^[476] The tambourine is found on the northwest coast, but there it seems to retire a little into the background in favour of the square, wooden box drum. In California drums are missing entirely, but on the plateaux they stretch southwards to the Pueblo regions. They also occur very frequently in the sub-arctic region, on the plains, and by the Great Lakes. They are to be found among the northern Iroquois; but among these as well as in the southeastern United States the characteristic instrument is the bowl-shaped water drum, which is also widely spread in South America. It may be, however, that the tambourine also occurs there; at any rate Bartram mentions an "espèce de tambour de basque" from these regions.^[477]

In North Asia the shaman drum is found everywhere. The Lapps formerly knew two forms, one with a bowl-shaped body which was especially found in Lule and Torne Lappmarks, the other conforming to the Siberian-American type. The latter was found both north and south of the bowl-shaped and is undoubtedly the earliest.^[478] In Central Asia, too, the shaman drum is still met with despite Lamaism and Islam.^[479] Chinese annals of the seventh century A. D. mention it from the "Khakha", a Turkish people regarded as the ancestors of the Kirgiz.^[480]

In Table B 62 I have summarised the distribution of masks in North America and Siberia. I have not done so without hesitation, as will be understood from the remarks I have made about them in the last chapter. When Dall many years ago wrote the first comprehensive work on masks in North America, their westerly diffusion was striking to ​him.^[481] It will be the same to the modern observer, despite the material collected since then. We find masks on the northwest coast and the Pacific plateaux as far as México and Central America,^[482] whereas they are entirely absent in California. In Alaska masks occur among one or two Athapaskan tribes, but without doubt as a loan from the Eskimos. Petitot says that they are used among the Athapaskans in the Mackenzie area, but he is the only writer I know who mentions them from there.^[483] I am fairly sure that the Chipewyan at Churchill and Reindeer Lake (the Etthen-eldeli band) have no masks. On the other hand, we find them on the northern plains. In the eastern woodlands, where in modern times they have been described from several tribes, the distribution seems to centre upon the Iroquois and may have been brought by these from more southerly regions, as masks. were also used on the Gulf coast and on the Antilles.^[484] With the poncho and slat armour mention has previously been made of "western" elements whose diffusion east of the Mississippi is perhaps connected with a migration northwards of the Iroquois. Father Schmidt and Erland Nordenskiöld have given full reports of the diffusion of masks. in South America.^[485]

In North Asia masks are much more rare than in the New World and more sporadically distributed. Among the Gilyak it is expressly stated that they are not used.^[486] The use of masks at the lamaist temple festivals is well known; the Tibetans have, however, genuine shaman masks too.^[487] Masks are also mentioned from the Tadjik of West Turkestan.^[488]

Sports and pastimes. Ball games, like other forms of games and pastimes in North America, have been dealt with in detail in Culin's great and valuable monograph. It is possible now, however, particularly after the publications of the Berkeley University and especially Kroeber's works on the ethnography of California, to supplement Culin, so that football, handball and a combination of both may be said to be extremely common in North America (Table B 63). In Old México, ball games were characteristic of the Naua tribes, who ​are believed to have introduced them to the Huaxtec and the Maya in Yucatán;^[489] but their ball games, which are also known from the Taino and large parts of South America, scarcely have any connection with the North American games in question here. The ball was of rubber and had not to be touched with the hands, but only with the head, hips or foot.^[490] On the other hand, hand ball with a ball of maize leaves is known in South America as far south as El Gran Chaco.^[491] From northern Eurasia I have some, but not many, records. Ball games are also known to the Central Asiatic Turks.^[492]

Juggling is to be found among some North American tribes which, with the exception of the Naskapi, all are west of the Mississippi (Table B 64). Most probably, however, it is diffused more widely. I do not know it from Asia.

The distribution of the ring-and-pin game will be seen on Table B 65, drawn up on the basis of Culin's and others' works. It is extremely wide, there being a gap only in the southeast. As a rule the ring-and-pin game is of another type among the Indians than among the Eskimos, with several rings of toe-bones of animals, salmon vertebræ, or pieces of gourd; but there are places where only a single "ring" is used. It may be of wood (Haida), leaf (Thompson Indians, Huron) or skin (Tewa). A still greater resemblance to the Eskimo type is found among some tribes, all of them in the west, among whom it is made of a seal bone (Kwakiutl, Nootka, Makah), other bones (Wailaki, Ute), and hare skulls (Paiute, Havasupai).

In Siberia the ring-and-pin game seems to be almost, but not quite, unknown, Besides the occurrence among the Kerek already referred to, we have another from the Forest Samoyed by the upper Pur, south of Tas Bay. I am grateful to Mr. Th. Fjelstrup for this valuable information, which shows that there are perhaps still possibilities of finding the game in Siberia and that at any rate it has possibly been more widespread^[493] Rivet is of the opinion that it was known in Palæolithic times in Europe.^[494]

I know skipping from the Chipewyan and through the literature from the Tungus ). It is of course impossible to say anything on so slender a material.

The hand game is as a rule played with marked sticks or bones, and the rules vary a little from place to place. There can hardly be any doubt that games such as the Northwest Indians' lehal, the Cali​fornians' grass game, etc. are variants of the same fundamental type that is found among the Eskimos. The distribution according to Culin, with some additions, is shown in Table B 66. It comprises practically the whole of North America west of the Mississippi and the subarctic regions as far as the Great Lakes, but seems to be absent in the southeast. I know nothing of games of this kind in Siberia.

Dice, often played with beaver teeth, is as Table B 67 shows, widely diffused. We find it almost over the whole of North America, though rather rarely in the sub-arctic region where it is only mentioned from the Hare, the region about Great Slave Lake, and the Cree. Dice of bones like those of the Eskimos occur in some places in the southwest (Pomo, Salina, Papago, Tarahumare). Dice playing was also known to the Aztec and Maya, among the latter with cocoa beans.^[495] A similar game also occurs in South America, where it has a markedly westerly distribution.^[496]

In Eurasia it is remarkable that dice, as in America, are rare in the sub-arctic region. The Zyryan have a game with knuckle-bones, and the Lapps have dice of wood, but these may have been borrowed from their Scandinavian neighbours; in Danish bog finds we have dice in connection with board games, which are presumed to have been introduced in the early Iron Age.^[497] If we leave the sub-arctic region, however, we find dice, mostly in the form of sheep bones and used for divination, among the Manchu^[498] and a number of Central Asiatic tribes.^[499] It is the same game which Herodotus (I ch. 94) describes from the old Lydians. It would appear as if dice were an old game, but to some extent supplanted by the later forms of culture in the sub-arctic regions.

Toys. Dolls are found everywhere in North America.^[500] In CNM there are dolls from the Gilyak, Yakut, Samoyed and Lapps.

Cat's cradle is scattered over the most of North America (Table B 68) and is presumably known from other tribes too, although we have no information on the point. Strangely enough it seems to be missing on the northwest coast. In Central America string figures were found among the Maya,^[501] and Erland Nordenskiöld has for South America summarised the available information,^[502] which, however, he ​considers to be incomplete. From Siberia I have no occurrences at all outside the region of the Eskimo culture; these figures are, however, known to the Finns. They also occur among the Kirgiz-Kazak^[503] and in China, Korea and Japan.^[504] They are probably very old.

The bull roarer is met with here and there in North America, most commonly in the southwest, if the doubtless very incomplete records permit of such a conclusion (Table B 69). In South America, too, it occurs among several tribes.^[505] I have not been able to find anything with regard to occurrences in Siberia, and it does not seem to be known to Finnish people, whereas according to Professor Sirelius it is used by the Swedish population in Österbotten. It is still known in England, Germany and presumably in other places and was used in antiquity in the mysteries of Dionysos Zagreus and Kybele or Magna Mater.^[506]

The buzz is likewise found in many places in North America but — as far as the records extend — neither on the northwest coast nor in the east, south of the Great Lakes (Table B 70). The latter region was, however, so early decultured that nothing can be constructed from this. In South America there are exactly similar buzzes among several tribes.^[507] We also know it from some tribes in northern Eurasia, from the Kirgiz-Kazak,^[508] Caucasus tribes,^[509] and Arabian Beduins.^[510] It is obviously a very old toy.

The wind-wheel is only known to me from two widely separated nations, in North America and Siberia, viz. the Cree^[511] and the Samoyed (11.45: 532, HMV).

The pop-gun is known from various North American tribes except on the northwestern plateaux (Table B 71). Both from the North Pacific coast and from the tribes south of the Great Lakes there is only one record from each place: from the Bella Coola and from the Sauk and Fox. It is undoubtedly old in America, as it has been discovered during excavations at Ancón on the Peruvian coast.^[512] In Siberia I only know it from the Gilyak and Ostyak, but it is presumably also used by other people.

The top seems to be very common everywhere in North America ​and northern Eurasia (Table B 72). It is also met with in South America.^[513] In many cases it may of course have been borrowed from Europe, where it has been known since antiquity, in Denmark for instance at least since the early Iron Age.^[514]

Of games which occur among the Caribou Eskimos I will merely mention that I have met with both catch and hide-and-seek among the Cree. Nowadays it would be hopeless to attempt to find out whether games such as these are genuine American or of European. origin.^[515]

Graves. We have found that among the Eskimos there is obviously a connection between the two methods, each of them primitive but widely different, of disposing of corpses: leaving on the tundra and sinking in the sea. It might, however, be argued that both were geographically conditioned and were the result of the difficulty of procuring a proper grave. That this will not do can be seen by following these burial customs to regions where the geographical conditions have little or no significance in this connection (Table B 73). In western North America we here and there meet with abandoning the body and sinking in the water, among the Kutenai in quite the same transitional form as in East Greenland, the body being laid out in such a manner that it is taken by the river at flood tide.

We likewise see that these forms of burial are prevalent among the tribes of the lowest order. When they exceptionally occur among more highly developed tribes it is only the bodies of the lower classes that are treated so carelessly (the bodies of poor people are abandoned among the Nootka and Shuswap; bodies of slaves are thrown into the sea among the Tlingit and the tribes by Puget Sound). The sub-arctic Athapaskans too, at any rate the Chipewyan, seem to have made a general practice of abandoning their dead. We find the same thing exceptionally on the northern plains, where, however, in later times platform burial was prevalent. The Cheroki sank their dead in water. It is often difficult to distinguish between simple abandoning of the dead and other burial forms; there are transitions between placing the body in a rock fissure and cave burial, between a covering of piled-up stones and branches and a more regular coffin. I have here kept to the cases where the primitive character appears to be quite certain, and thus we get the impression of having to do with an ancient custom.

​This is confirmed by the fact that sinking in water is also known in some parts of South America. Preuss mentions this custom from the Chibcha, Piro, Campa, and Saliva.^[516] There were special circumstances at Lake Petén, where the Maya on the island of Tayasel threw their dead into the water owing to lack of room on this small island.^[517] Abandonment of the dead occurs among some of the lowest Indians in South America, such as the Sirionó and the natives of Tierra del Fuego.^[518]

We meet abandonment in several places in Siberia, and that this custom is not geographically conditioned here either is to be seen from its occurrence among Central Asiatic peoples too. Abandonment or sinking in water there is a regular custom among all lamaistic nations: Kalmuk,^[519] Mongol,^[520] Shera Yögur,^[521] Tangut^[522] and Tibetans.^[523] But it is obviously a much older custom than Lamaism, and it is said to have been practised formerly in China too.^[524] Might not the relation between. the "Towers of Silence" and the Mazda religion be something similar?

To go for once to foreign parts of the world it may be mentioned. that in Oceania there are many cases where the dead are thrown into the sea, although here the belief in a kingdom of the dead on a distant island has intruded in the obviously fundamental, primitive ideas.^[525] Abandonment of the dead is also found in various forms. Regarding Africa, Küsters in his monograph on burial customs in this part of the world says: "Vom obersten Nigerbogen angefangen, der Südküste von Liberia bis nach Kamerun hin entlang, über das Hinterland von Kamerun, den Kongostaat und ganz Südafrika hin, bis hinauf in das Osthorn finden wir diese Bestattungsart . . . Als eine allgemeine Sitte, die das ganze Volk umfasst, können wir sie nur ansprechen im ostafrikanischen Seengebiete, auf Madagaskar und bei ganz vereinzelten Stämmen des französischen Kongo und Kamerun . . . Sonst bedeutet die Aussetzung eine Ausnahmsregel, sie hat durchgehends den Charakter einer Strafe an sich, schliesst eine Geringschätzung des Toten in sich".^[526]

​That abandonment of the dead is a widely diffused, primitive but in so far permanent burial custom can hardly be contested. We have no means at all of determining how old it is. What we know of the treatment of the dead in palæolithic times in Europe shows that then they had actual graves, which were dug in the very kitchen midden of the settlement; but whether this was the only burial custom we do not know. It must not be forgotten that culture elements such as the abandonment of the dead or sinking the body in water can never be proved by archæological means.

Grouping of the elements. Before it is possible to properly group the elements it is necessary to reject those about which nothing much can be said, either owing to lack of information or for other reasons. These are such elements as the platform covering, the stiletto, the fish needle, the tump-line, snow goggles, the bone knife for pressing out water, the one-handed scraper, the thimble, the needle cushion, the cutting board, skipping and the "wind-wheel". Another rather uncertain item is the platform, as it is not wholly established that it belongs to the original culture of the Caribou Eskimos. What the position is with regard to dog driving and the appurtenant elements such as harness and whip cannot be decided with absolute certainty either, although there is some probability that in reality they are old in North America as they most decidedly are in Eurasia.

With regard to the other elements, the first impression will undoubtedly be surprise at how many of them have an extremely wide distribution. It is by no means unique that an element can be traced over the most of North America and northern Eurasia, indeed in some cases to palæolithic times in Europe. These very widespread elements are: seamless bags, edge-sewn bags (?), bags of birds' feet (?), round wooden bowls, marrow extractors (?), meat fork (?), ladles and dippers, spoons, barbless arrow heads of bone, skin quivers, lances, barbed harpoons with tang, simple snares, hunting fences, of which the fences with flapping bird wings, etc. seem to be especially old, fish weirs, hunting swimming animals, the simple runner sledge, the simple skin boat, the double paddle, the seamless cap, the belt, the combination suit, the cloak, brow band, prick-tattooing, the simple comb of one piece of bone or wood, fire stones, crooked knife, hand drill, arrow straightener, wedge, steaming of wood for bending, unhairing of skin with hot water, running stitch and overcasting, perhaps blind stitch" too, drums of the tambourine type, football and hand ball, ring-and-pin game, hand game, dice, dolls, cat's cradle, bull ​roarer, buzz, pop-gun, top, abandonment of the dead. Some of these elements have only been proved to occur here and there; in so far as this is not due to lack of information they may be taken to be especially old. On the other hand it would be unwarranted to simply declare the more evenly diffused elements as being later; hunting methods such as with fences or hunting swimming animals are so effective that they can very well be imagined to have preserved an even distribution, even though they stretch far back in time. And under all circumstances the diffusion of all elements is so great that none of them can be regarded as being young.

Of elements with a more restricted distribution there are very few showing special association with the sub-arctic regions in America and Eurasia. These are merely such boreal elements as the ice pick, ice scoop, and dog socks. This is of the greatest importance to an understanding of the culture of the Caribou Eskimos, because it must be taken to be evidence that they cannot have derived it direct from the sub-arctic culture, but that it extends its roots down into deeper strata.

This is most convincingly confirmed by the fact that there is a large number of elements which are lacking in the sub-arctic region but appear again, on the one hand, in western North America — especially on the plateaux in British Columbia and in California — and on the other hand in the east in the regions about and south of the Great Lakes. These elements are: the domed lodge, four-sided wooden trays, the sucking tube, the Mediterranean arrow release, (which is also found in Labrador, however), the multi-pronged spear, the two or three pronged leister with inserted barbs, the gorge, the pitfall, the primitive deadfall, the pole snare for fishing, hunting in disguise, fish spearing with the head of the fisherman covered, laced. sandals, back scratcher, lamps, soapstone cooking pots, ulo, snow shovel (in western sub-arctic regions too), sewing needles with an eye (?), and fish decoy (?).

Finally there are some elements which in particular attach the Caribou Eskimos to the western half of the continent: the backed bow, the two tangential arrow feathers (?), the poncho cut of the frock, sandal boots, frying on stones, slings (?), the use of pack dogs (?), juggling (?). If the throwing board and masks are to be placed to the culture of the Caribou Eskimos, they too come under this category. Skin pails and box traps (?) point towards the plains.

Of elements with a restricted distribution in North America there are a great many which we find again in Asia. Thus we meet, besides those which are marked as being widely diffused and sub-arctic, the following elements in northern Eurasia and Central Asia: four-sided wooden trays, pitfalls, pole snare, back scratcher, lamp, ulo, backed ​bow, sling, sandal boot, skin pail, and masks. In northern Eurasia alone we have: the domed lodge, sucking tube, Mediterranean arrow release (?), multi-pronged spear (Amur area), gorge, hunting in disguise, fish spearing with the head covered, fish decoy, two tangential arrow feathers (Amur area), poncho cut of the frock, laced sandals, the employment of pack dogs. In Central Asia, but not in the north, we meet the stone cooking pot, sewing needle with eye (?), and the box trap.

If we summarise this in figures, the uncertain elements being first rejected, we find that of all the remaining (83) elements, more than half (48) must be called generally diffused in North America and northern Eurasia: only very few (3) have any particular connection with the sub-arctic regions in both continents, whereas almost onefourth (19) are found both in the west and east in North America — and of these again 16 in Eurasia — whilst about one-sixth (13) have a particularly western distribution in North America (8 of them in Eurasia). And besides, it must be presumed that in reality there occur several of the elements within the last two categories in the Old World; many of them are easily overlooked, of the kind that are all too often passed over in silence even in otherwise comprehensive descriptions.

Conclusions. The distribution of culture elements which has been illustrated in the foregoing grouping is a clear confirmation of the view, already indicated repeatedly, that the culture of the Caribou Eskimos, not only in relation to Eskimo culture but also in relation to the circumpolar culture region as a whole, has an extremely ancient stamp. It is only in this manner that we can arrive at a sensible explanation of the fact that so many connecting threads run so to say below the present, obviously younger, culture in sub-arctic America to the northwestern plateaux, California, the country around the Great Lakes, or even more distant parts.

It is not only the distribution of the elements of the Caribou Eskimo culture, but also in several cases the types themselves, that show its age. During the course of the analysis there has several times been occasion to point out that when several different types occur in the circumpolar region, it is as a rule the old ones which we meet among the Caribou Eskimos. This applies to the domed house, the runner sledge, the skin boat, the double paddle, the poncho cut, the legging breeches, sandal boots, prick-tattooing, hunting fences and fishing weirs of stone, the primitive deadfalls and box traps, two tangential arrow feathers, stone cooking pots, and the skin pail. An element such as the women's knife is not present in its most primitive form among the Caribou Eskimos, but its fundamental form, the simple ulo with ​dorsal handle, must be regarded as being earlier than the ulo with the lateral handle. In other cases it cannot be proved that a culture element is at an earlier stage than others, but in itself it must be considered to be especially old. I will mention here the combination suit, the seamless cap, the lamp, the snow shovel, hunting fences with flapping birds' wings, fish spearing with the head covered, the sucking tube, and the arrow straightener.

It will be observed that none of these elements are in themselves peculiar to the Caribou Eskimos, but are met with among their kinsmen, so that they must be said to characterise a very oldfashioned component in Eskimo culture and, what is more, a very essential component of it, as we must admit in consideration of what elements we are discussing: dwelling, clothing, means of conveyance, and important hunting methods. There is nothing new in this. The same conclusion has been arrived at previously; but I have considered it most right to try, using former hypotheses as sparsely as possible, to get so far forward — or, if you will, so deep down — as possible. It now only remains to show in a brief concluding chapter how the conclusions fit in with previously expressed views regarding the development of culture in the circumpolar region, and especially what they signify to the question of the origin of Eskimo culture.