RECAPITULATION.
| Periods. | Conditions. | ||
| I. | Older Period of Savagery, | I. | Lower Status of Savagery, |
| II. | Middle Period of Savagery, | II. | Middle Status of Savagery, |
| III. | Later Period of Savagery, | III. | Upper Status of Savagery, |
| IV. | Older Period of Barbarism, | IV. | Lower Status of Barbarism, |
| V. | Middle Period of Barbarism, | V. | Middle Status of Barbarism, |
| VI. | Later Period of Barbarism, | VI. | Upper Status of Barbarism, |
| VII. Status of Civilization. | |||
| I. | Lower Status of Savagery, | From the Infancy of the Human Race to the commencement of the next Period. | |
| II. | Middle Status of Savagery, | From the acquisition of a fish subsistence and a knowledge of the use of fire, to etc. | |
| III. | Upper Status of Savagery, | From the Invention of the Bow and Arrow, to etc. | |
| IV. | Lower Status of Barbarism, | From the Invention of the Art of Pottery, to etc. | |
| V. | Middle Status of Barbarism, | From the Domestication of animals on the Eastern hemisphere, and in the Western from the cultivation of maize and plants by Irrigation, with the use of adobe-brick and stone, to etc. | |
| VI. | Upper Status of Barbarism, | From the Invention of the process of Smelting Iron Ore, with the use of iron tools, to etc. | |
| VII. | Status of Civilization, | From the Invention of a Phonetic Alphabet, with the use of writing, to the present time. | |
Each of these periods has a distinct culture and exhibits a mode of life more or less special and peculiar to itself. This specialization of ethnical periods renders it possible to treat a particular society according to its condition of relative advancement, and to make it a subject of independent study and discussion. It does not affect the main result that different tribes and nations on the same continent, and even of the same linguistic family, are in different conditions at the same time, since for our purpose the condition of each is the material fact, the time being immaterial.
Since the use of pottery is less significant than that of domestic animals, of iron, or of a phonetic alphabet, employed to mark the commencement of subsequent ethnical periods, the reasons for its adoption should be stated. The manufacture of pottery presupposes village life, and considerable progress in the simple arts.2 Flint and stone implements are older than pottery, remains of the former having been found in ancient repositories in numerous instances unaccompanied by the latter. A succession of inventions of greater need and adapted to a lower condition must have occurred before the want of pottery would be felt. The commencement of village life, with some degree of control over subsistence, wooden vessels and utensils, finger weaving with filaments of bark, basket making, and the bow and arrow make their appearance before the art of pottery. The Village Indians who were in the Middle Status of barbarism, such as the Zuñians, the Aztecs and the Cholulans, manufactured pottery in large quantities and in many forms of considerable excellence; the partially Village Indians of the United States, who were in the Lower Status of barbarism, such as the Iroquois, the Choctas and the Cherokees, made it in smaller quantities and in a limited number of forms; but the Non-horticultural Indians, who were in the Status of savagery, such as the Athapascans, the tribes of California and of the valley of the Columbia, were ignorant of its use.3 In Lubbock’s Pre-Historic Times, in Tylor’s Early History of Mankind, and in Peschel’s Races of Man, the particulars respecting this art, and the extent of its distribution, have been collected with remarkable breadth of research. It was unknown in Polynesia (with the exception of the Islands of the Tongans and Fijians), in Australia, in California, and in the Hudson’s Bay Territory. Mr. Tylor remarks that “the art of weaving was unknown in most of the Islands away from Asia,” and that “in most of the South Sea Islands there was no knowledge of pottery.”4 The Rev. Lorimer Fison, an English missionary residing in Australia, informed the author in answer to inquiries, that “the Australians had no woven fabrics, no pottery, and were ignorant of the bow and arrow.” This last fact was also true in general of the Polynesians. The introduction of the ceramic art produced a new epoch in human progress in the direction of an improved living and increased domestic conveniences. While flint and stone implements—which came in earlier and required long periods of time to develop all their uses—gave the canoe, wooden vessels and utensils, and ultimately timber and plank in house architecture,5 pottery gave a durable vessel for boiling food, which before that had been rudely accomplished in baskets coated with clay, and in ground cavities lined with skin, the boiling being effected with heated stones.6
Whether the pottery of the aborigines was hardened by fire or cured by the simple process of drying, has been made a question. Prof. E. T. Cox, of Indianapolis, has shown by comparing the analyses of ancient pottery and hydraulic cements, “that so far as chemical constituents are concerned it (the pottery) agrees very well with the composition of hydraulic stones.” He remarks further, that “all the pottery belonging to the mound-builders’ age, which I have seen, is composed of alluvial clay and sand, or a mixture of the former with pulverized fresh-water shells. A paste made of such a mixture possesses in a high degree the properties of hydraulic Puzzuolani and Portland cement, so that vessels formed of it hardened without being burned, as is customary with modern pottery. The fragments of shells served the purpose of gravel or fragments of stone as at present used in connection with hydraulic lime for the manufacture of artificial stone.”7 The composition of Indian pottery in analogy with that of hydraulic cement suggests the difficulties in the way of inventing the art, and tends also to explain the lateness of its introduction in the course of human experience. Notwithstanding the ingenious suggestion of Prof. Cox, it is probable that pottery was hardened by artificial heat. In some cases the fact is directly attested. Thus Adair, speaking of the Gulf Tribes, remarks that “they make earthern pots of very different sizes, so as to contain from two to ten gallons, large pitchers to carry water, bowls, dishes, platters, basins, and a prodigious number of other vessels of such antiquated forms as would be tedious to describe, and impossible to name. Their method of glazing them is, they place them over a large fire of smoky pitch-pine, which makes them smooth, black and firm.”8
Another advantage of fixing definite ethnical periods is the direction of special investigation to those tribes and nations which afford the best exemplification of each status, with the view of making each both standard and illustrative. Some tribes and families