Archives of aboriginal knowledge. Containing all the original paper laid before Congress respecting the history, antiquities, language, ethnology, pictography, rites, superstitions, and mythology, of (14578740879)

Identifier: archivesofaborig03scho (find matches)
Title: Archives of aboriginal knowledge. Containing all the original paper laid before Congress respecting the history, antiquities, language, ethnology, pictography, rites, superstitions, and mythology, of the Indian tribes of the United States
Year: 1860 (1860s)
Authors: Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, 1793-1864. dn United States. Bureau of Indian Affairs. cn
Subjects: Indians of North America United States
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & co.
Contributing Library: University of Pittsburgh Library System
Digitizing Sponsor: Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation



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eir ancestors found vestiges of arts, such as were not commonto the red men. These ancient inhabitants appear to have had the use of irontools. Stumps of trees cut ofi with such tools, they affirm, were found by them,covered with soil, together with other indications of civilization. It is but a few yearssince the gold-diggers in Davidson county. North Carolina, in excavating the golddebris of a valley, disinterred the remains of a rude house, in which was found a.stone, excavated in its top, with a stone pestle lying therein, such as is used, at thisday, by the native Mexicans, in making tortillas. Is this also to be regarded as partand parcel of this ancient supposed North American civilization ? Questions of this kind arc readily propounded; but it is much safer and more inaccordance with the sound deductions of history, to account for facts on morenatural and common principles. It is far more probable that these vestiges of artmay be due to earlier European attempts at settlement.
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ANTIQUITIES. 3. ANTIQUE COLORED E ART II EN-WARE, FROM THE RIOGILA, NEW MEXICO. The ancient Indian tribes who ihlml)ited the Ijanks of the river Gila have attestedtheir residence in that valley very characteristically by fragments of potterj, which areprofusely scattered in all parts of it. The remains of the ruins of buildings on theborders of that stream, are not more characteristic of the peculiar state of Indianart. The name of the river itself is stated to be derived from a tribe called Gilands,whose descendants still dwell on its upper waters; but these descendants do not holda very high rank among the tribes who now rove over the elevated and brokenplains, and sally out stealthily through the precipitous canons, and around thevolcanic peaks, and often dry lateral valleys of the river. They are nicknamedKiataws, or prairie-wolves, by the adventurous foresters and hardy emigrants, andby the United States military detachments who pass through that valley on theirperilous route to