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Rh thread, but in the Gulf states the existence of excellent cane and grasses gave opportunity for several varieties of weaving. On the Pacific coast of America the efflorescence of basketry in every form of technic was known. This art reached down to the borders of Mexico. Loom-weaving in its simplest form began with the Chilkats of Alaska, who hung the warp over a long pole, and wrought mythological figures into their gorgeous blankets by a process resembling tapestry work. The forming of bird skins, rabbit skins and feathers into robes, and all basketry technic, existed from Vancouver Island to Central America. In northern Mexico net-work, rude lace-work in twine, are followed farther south, where finer material existed, by figured weaving of most intricate type and pattern; warps were crossed and wrapped, wefts were omitted and texture changed, so as to produce marvellous effects upon the surface. This composite art reached its climax in Peru, the llama wool affording the finest staple on the whole hemisphere. Textile work in other parts of South America did not differ from that of the Southern states of the Union. The addition of brilliant ornamentation in shell, teeth, feathers, wings of insects and dyed fibres completed the round of the textile art. A peculiar type of coiled basketry is found at the Strait of Magellan, but the motives are not American. (Consult the works of Boas, Dixon, G. T. Emmons, Holmes, Otis T. Mason, Matthews, John Murdoch, E. W. Nelson, A. P. Niblack, Lucien M. Turner.)

Since most American tribes lived upon flesh, the activities of life were associated with the animal world. These activities were not confined to the land, but had to do also with those littoral meadows where invertebrate and vertebrate marine animals fed in unlimited numbers. An account of savage life, therefore, includes the knowledge of the animal life of America and its distribution, regarding the continent, not only as a whole, but in those natural history provinces and migrations which governed and characterized the activities of the peoples. This study would include industries connected with capture, those that worked up into products the results of capture, the social organizations and labours which were involved in pursuit of animals, the language, skill, inventions and knowledge resulting therefrom, and, finally, the religious conception united with the animal world, which has been named zootheism. In the capture of animals would be involved the pedagogic influence of animal life; the engineering embraced in taking them in large numbers; the cunning and strategy necessary to hunters so poorly armed giving rise to disguises and lures of many kinds. Capture begins among the lower tribes with the hand, without devices, developing knack and skill in seizing, pursuing, climbing, swimming, and maiming without weapons; and proceeds to gathering with devices that take the place of the hand in dipping, digging, hooking and grasping; weapons for striking, whether clubs, missiles or projectiles; edged weapons of capture, which were rare in America; piercing devices for capture, in lances, barbed spears, harpoons and arrows; traps for enclosing, arresting and killing, such as pens, cages, pits, pen-falls, nets, hooks, nooses, clutches, adhesives, deadfalls, impalers, knife traps and poisons; animals consciously and unconsciously aiding in capture; fire in the form of torches, beacons, burning out and smoking out; poisons and asphyxiators; the accessories to hunting, including such changes in food, dress, shelter, travelling, packing, mechanical tools and intellectual apparatus as demanded by these arts. Finally, in this connexion, the first steps in domestication, beginning with the improvement of natural corrals or spawning ground, and hunting with trained dogs and animals. Zootechnic products include food, clothing, ornaments, habitations, weapons, industrial tools, textiles, money, &c.

In sociology the dependence of the American tribes upon the animal world becomes most apparent. A great majority of all the family names in America were from animal totems. The division of labour among the sexes was based on zootechny. Labour organizations for hunting, communal hunt and migrations had to do with the animal world.

In the duel between the hunter and the beast-mind the intellectual powers of perception, memory, reason and will were developed; experience and knowledge by experience were enlarged, language and the graphic arts were fostered, the inventive faculty was evoked and developed, and primitive science was fostered in the unfolding of numbers, metrics, clocks, astronomy, history and the philosophy of causation. Beliefs and practices with reference to the heavenly world were inspired by zoic activities; its location, scenery and environment were the homes of beast gods. It was largely a zoopantheon; thus zootheism influenced the organization of tribes and societies in the tribes. The place, furniture, liturgies and apparatus of worship were hereby suggested. Myths, folk-lore, hunting charms, fetishes, superstitions and customs were based on the same idea. (For life zones, see C. H. Merriam, Biol. Survey, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture.)

Excepting for extensive and rapid travel over the snow in the Arctic regions by means of dog sleds, the extremely limited transportation by dog travail (or sledge) in the Sioux province, and the use of the llama as a beast of burden throughout the Peruvian highlands, land travel was on foot, and land transportation on the backs of men and women. One of the most interesting topics of study is the trails along which the seasonal and annual migrations of tribes occurred, becoming in Peru the paved road, with suspension bridges and wayside inns, or tambos. In Mexico, and in Peru especially, the human back was utilized to its utmost extent, and in most parts of America harness adapted for carrying was made and frequently decorated with the best art. In the Mexican codices pictures of men and women carrying are plentiful. Travelling on the water was an important activity in aboriginal times. Hundreds of thousands of miles of inland waters and archipelagoes were traversed. Commencing in the Arctic region, the Eskimo in his kayak, consisting of a framework of driftwood or bone covered with dressed sealskin, could paddle down east Greenland, up the west shore to Smith Sound, along Baffin Land and Labrador, and the shores of Hudson Bay throughout insular Canada and the Alaskan coast, around to Mount St Elias, and for many miles on the eastern shore of Asia. In addition to this most delicate and rapid craft, he had his umiak or freight boat, sometimes called woman’s boat. The Athapascan covered all north-western Canada with his open and portable birch-bark canoe, somewhat resembling the kayak in finish. The Algonquin-Iroquois took up the journey at Bear Lake and its tributaries, and by means of paddling and portages traversed the area of middle and eastern Canada, including the entire St Lawrence drainage. The absence of good bark, dugout timber, and chisels of stone deprived the whole Mississippi valley of creditable water-craft, and reduced the natives to the clumsy trough for a dugout and miserable bull-boat, made by stretching dressed buffalo hide over a crate. On the Atlantic coast of the United States the dugout was improved in form where the waters were more disturbed. John Smith’s Indians had a fleet of dugouts. The same may be said of the Gulf states tribes, although they added rafts made of reed. Along the archipelagoes of the North Pacific coast, from Mount St Elias to the Columbia river, the dugout attained its best. The Columbia river canoe resembled that of the Amur, the bow and stern being pointed at the water-line. Poor dugouts and rafts, made by tying reeds together, constituted the water-craft of California and Mexico until Central America is reached.

The Caribs were the Haidas of the Caribbean Sea and northern South America. Their craft would vie in form, in size, and seaworthiness with those of the North Pacific coast. The catamaran and the reed boat were known to the Peruvians. The tribes of Venezuela and Guiana, according to Im Thurn, had both the dugout and the built-up hull. The simplest form of navigation in Brazil was the woodskin, a piece of bark stripped from a tree and crimped at the ends. The sangada, with its platform and sail, belonging to the Brazilian coast, is spoken of as a good seaworthy craft. Finally, the Fuegian bark canoe, made in three pieces so that it can be taken apart and transported over hills and sewed together, ends the series. The American craft was propelled by poling, paddling, rowing, and by rude sails of matting.