past and present will be presented understandingly, and placed in his true position in the scale of human advancement. While the Aryan family has lost nearly all traces of its experiences anterior to the closing period of barbarism, the Indian family, in its different branches, offered for our investigation not only the state of savagery, but also that of both the opening and of the middle period of barbarism in full and ample development. The American aborigines had enjoyed a continuous and undisturbed progress upon a great continent, through two ethnical periods, and the latter part of a previous period, on a remarkable scale. If the opportunity had been wisely improved, a rational knowledge of the experience of our own ancestors, while in the same status, might have been gained through a study of these progressive conditions. Beside this, before a science of ethnology applied to the American aborigines can come into existence, the misconceptions, and erroneous interpretations which now encumber the original memorials must be removed. Unless this can in some way be effectually accomplished, this science can never be established among us.
Our ethnography was initiated for us by European investigators, and corrupted in its foundation from a misconception of the facts. The few Americans who have taken up the subject have generally followed in the same track, and intensified the original errors of interpretation until romance has swept the field. Whether it is possible to commence anew, and retrieve what has been lost, I cannot pretend to determine. It is worth the effort. Finally, with respect to the condition and structures of the Village Indians of Yucatan and Central America, the following conclusions may be stated as reasonable from the facts presented:[1]
- ↑ Whether the Indian tribes of any part of North America had learned to quarry stone to use for building purposes, is still a question. In New Mexico there is no evidence that they quarried stone. They picked up and used such stones as were found in broken masses at the base of cliffs, or as were found on the surface and could be easily removed from their bed. In Central America, if anywhere they must have quarried stone, in the strict sense of this term, but as yet there is no decisive evidence of the fact. It will be necessary to find the quarries from which the stones were taken, with such evidence of their having been worked as these quarries may exhibit. The stones used in the edifices in Yucatan and Central America are represented as a "soft coralline limestone," and, in some cases, as in that of the Copan Idols, so called, of a "soft grit stone." It requires the application of more than ordinary intelligence and skill to quarry stone, even of this character. The native tribes had no metals except native copper gold and silver, and these were without the hardness requisite for a lever or chisel; and they had no explosives to use in blasting. Other agencies may have been used. We find the stone lintel for the doorway beyond their ability for ordinary use, and that for the want of it, they were unable to erect permanent structures in stone. The art of quarrying stone is gained by
