| |
|
1848 |
Ancient monuments of the Mississippi Valley.
New York, Bartlett & Welford; Cincinnati, J.A. & U.P. James: xxxix + 306. Illus.
–Also publ. in Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge. Repr.: Smithsonian Inst. Press, 1998. Discusses and illustrates seven supposed manatee effigies in the form of stone tobacco pipes found in Indian mounds (251-252, 254).
Concerning this work, Henshaw (1883: 126) wrote that "each succeeding writer who has attempted to show that the Mound-Builders were of a race different from the North American Indian, or had other than an autochthonous origin, has not failed to lay especial stress upon the presence in the mounds of sculptures of the manatee, as well as of other strange beasts and birds, carved evidently by the same hands that portrayed many of our native fauna. Except that the theories based upon the sculptures have by recent writers been annunciated more positively and given a wider range, they have been left almost precisely as set forth by the authors of the "Ancient Monuments," while absolutely nothing appears to have been brought to light since their time in the way of additional sculptured evidence of the same character. It is indeed a little curious to note the perfect unanimity with which most writers fall back upon the above authors as at once the source of the data they adduce in support of the several theories, and as their final, nay, their only, authority." Henshaw (q.v.), for his part, concluded that the sculptures in question most probably represent otters, but certainly not manatees.
|
Bibliography and Index of the Sirenia and Desmostylia 