Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/97

 78 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899

em portion of South America the robe of a guanaco skin and the plumage of the ostrich complete the habiliment.

The house itself shares this dependence on animal materials. The Eskimo, lacking timber, supports his roof with the jawbones of whales, and in summer, in common with his Canadian neighbors, he dwells under rude skin tents. Southward, in woodless areas, the conical tipi is the house, and in Patagonia it is the toldo of guanaco skin. The textile of hair and quill, furnished by in- numerable birds and by porcupines, dogs, sheep, and notably by the llama, vie with basketry, pottery, and sculpture in giving expression to the highest esthetic and mythic ideals.

V. SOCIOLOGY

The fifth inquiry concerns the relation of zootechny to socio- logic problems. Society was organized among the aborigines of America on the basis of the animals. Even among the agri- cultural Indians of the pueblo region this is true. Again, scarcely an industry relating to the treatment of animals was based on individual action ; men were fowling, fishing, and hunt, ing together. Much of the apparatus could not be managed by any individual, and even where such a weapon as the harpoon or bird-spear was employed, men hunted with ease in groups.

The driving and corraling of game required coSperation. Dupratz, Lawson, La Hontan, Charlevoix, Loskiel, Perrot, John Smith, Roger Williams, and Champlain all speak with enthusiasm of hunting excursions by entire villages. Von den Steinen men- tions the same method of cooperation among the people of the Mato Grosso in South America, and even now in the backwoods of the United States game and fish driving for sport is practiced.

Also, in this connection must be noticed that important study of the division of labor. Men usually attended to the more diffi- cult portions of the work, while the women made the prepa- rations, cooked the food, manufactured the clothing, and took care of the spoils of the hunt.

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