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Prof. Cyrus Thomas’ Eminent Labor in Ethnology. The New York Nation, the noted weekly review of politics and literature, devoted a page of its valuable space in to issue of last week to a favorable review of the work of Prof. Cyrus Thomas, of this city, In the field of ethnology. The subject of the review is the twelfth annul report of the Bureau of Ethnol ogy, issued this year, in which the results of the Investigations of Prof. Thomas among the Indian mounds of the Missis sippi Valley are given. The Nation says: For a hundred years and more the ori gin of these structures has been a sub ject of debate, and various theories have been brought forward at different times by way of accounting for them. Thus, for instance, we are told by one class of writers that they were built by the Tol tecs; others ascribe them to the Azteca, the Pueblos, etc., etc., and then, again, there are those who assert that they were the work of a mysterious people who once dwelt in the Mississippi Valley, but who are now extinct. Differ as these theories do in certain particulars, they may all be classed under one head in 60 far as they are based upon the assumption that these remains (and under this term we include the earthworks of sort, every size, and description) indicate a phase of civil ization to which, in point of artistic, reli gious, and political development, the action is said to have been unequal. From this extreme view there has always been more or less dissent, though it is but fair to me that aince the publica tion by the Smithsonian Institution, in 1848, of “The Ancient Monuments of the Miselestop Valley,” Squier’s theory as to the superior civilization of the mound builders and low condition of the modern Indians, together with the corollary as to the origin of these “monuments,” has been accepted by a large majority of those who have written upon the subject. Indeed, #0 comprehensive is his state ment end so clear and compact his reason ing, that,In spite of numerous errors of detail for which he was not always re sponsible, to say nothing of his adoption of a system of nomenclature which not only was erroneous In techf, but has been a pro lide source of error in others, his book is still the great storehouse from which the advocates of the mound builder the ory draw their arguments. But while we ee had one In our appreciation of quler's great work, it is well to remem ber that he subsequently so far modified his view as to admit that “the earthworks of western New York were erected by the Iroquois or their western neighbors;” and that although he never changed his opinion in regard to the origin of the 80 called “sacred enclosures,” etc., of southern Ohio and elsewhere, yet even upon this point his conclusion has been successfully questioned by a school of ethnologists who do not find in the mounds, or in anything that has been taken from them, any unification of a higher degree of civilization than the Indians of the Mississippi valley, such as they were when the whites that came in contact with them, are known to have reached. Among those who have been especially prominent to advo cating this theory, Professor Cyrus Thomas of the Bureau of Ethnology to easily frat. Placed in charge of the de partment of mound exploration soon ater the organization in 1881, he has had exceptional advantages for studying this roblem, and to those of us who are amiliar with the amount and character of the work that has been done in the library as well as in the field, it is need less to say that he has made the most of his opportunities. He has labored assid uously to every branch of the investiga tion, and though some of his conten tions—as, for instance, the theory about “archerological areas and distribution of types”—are open to doubt, yet, in the main, his researches have led to decisive results. To enumerate a tithe of the diffi cult points he has cleared up would lead us too far astray, and we content our selves with calling attention to the fact that, in the way of field exploration alone, hundreds of groups of earthworks have been ex amined, numerous graves, cemeteries, caches, and cave deposits have been opened, and over two thousand mounds, including almost every known type of form, from the low, diminutive, circular burial tamulus of the North to the huge truncated earthen pyramid of the South, have been explored” In a word, “every variety of construction hitherto known, as well as a number decidedly different in detail,” are said to have been exam ined, and hundreds of them, we may add, are figured in the twelfth annual report of the Bureau of Ethnology, issued this year. Of the tangible result of these explo rations the account is somewhat meagre, though enough is told to enable us to form an idea of the size and value of the collection. In the item of pottery, for instance, there are “1,500 specimens, in most of the known varieties and several that are new to form and orna mentation.” Of implements and orna ments in stone, bone, copper and shell there is a large and varied assort ment, among which we recognize the carved shells and copper plates from the Etowah (Georgia) group of mounds, about which we have heard before. Of the great mass of these articles, however as far as we are permitted to judge of their character, it may be safely said that while they tell us nothing new of the life of the people who made and used them, they do, when taken in connection with the graves and mounds in which they were found, give us a good picture of the arte and austries, manners and customs of the people whom ‘is the fash ion to call mound builders. Unsatisfac tory as this result seems to be, it is, nev ertheless, a step in the right direction for It establishes a test or standard a mound-builder work, and thus marks out the course which the investigation must follow. Evidently, if it can shown that at some time in the distant past there lived in the region in which these mounds occur a people who were in the same state of develop ment as the mound-builder—a people who, in other words, made and did all the things that he is known to have made and done—then the question as to the origin of these works may be re arded as settled, and the search for that iteresting but somewhat elusive per sonage the mound-builder becomes a waste of time. This, in effect, was the shape In which the problem presented itself to Thomas, and In solving it he adopted the compar ative method—the only one which has thus far given positive results. Thus, for example, instead of indulging a idle disquisitions about the civilization of the Aztecs or the Pueblos, neither of whom can be shown to have ever held a foot of the on in which these mounds are found, he began his investi gation with the Indians who were
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Frederick News
Frederick, Maryland, US
Sat, Nov 09, 1895
Page 8
Full Page
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Kelley L.
USA 13 Jul 2026
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