Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 | Page 5

the bow and arrow, or the throwing stick; and their best tool is the stone hatchet and the stone spade. This is very much like the lowest condition of the "wild people" to whom I referred.
Above that he would place the condition of barbarism. In the stage of developed barbarism he would place such inventions as, for instance, pottery, the art of weaving (which is a very primitive art) and the taming of a certain number of domestic animals, some for food, some for amusement and hunting, and also the beginnings of the development of agriculture. A type of such a nation of barbarism would be the Indians who used to live here--the Algonkian--the Delaware Indians. When the first Europeans came to the shores of the Delaware River they did not find absolutely rude savages. The Delaware Indians had moderately stationary villages surrounded by pickets, the houses being built of strong timber; they had large fields of maize, pumpkins, squashes and beans, which they cultivated diligently during the summer and stored the food for their winter's supply. They depended largely, to be sure, upon hunting and fishing also; but along with that they had these simple arts: From the rushes which grew below Philadelphia, in a place called the "Neck," they used to weave mats for protecting the floors and also for building the sides of their summer houses and for sleeping upon. They had a method of tanning and dressing buckskin and using it for the purposes of clothing. They were by no means naked savages; they were clothed, and tolerably well clothed; they could make pottery, and the pottery was decorated sometimes with interesting designs, of which we have specimens in our cabinets. Therefore, we find among the old Delaware Indians who formerly lived on the site of Philadelphia a fair specimen of a nation in a barbarous stage, decidedly superior to the Australian natives of to-day or the Indians of the Terra del Fuego or the northern part of British America, who are in the state of complete savagery.
Above that is the period of semi-civilization, a stage marked by the discovery of the method of building stone walls. No Algonkian or Iroquois Indian ever built a stone wall in his life; there is no record of any and no signs of any throughout the United States east of the Mississippi; there was never a stone wall built by a native tribe that really amounted to anything more than a stone pile; but we do find that in the southwest, among the cliff dwellers, and in various parts of Central America and South America, the stone wall was not only known, but it was constructed with a great deal of durability and skill. Also, some knowledge of metals was found among most of the semi-civilized people. The Mexicans and the Peruvians were in a state of semi-civilization when they were discovered by the whites the first time. They, built many extensive temples and houses, erected frequently upon pyramids, the pyramids themselves being supported by stone walls. They knew the dressing of stone; they were distinctly agricultural and depended more on that than anything else for their food supply. They had developed a system of mnemonic records which, in the Yucatan culture, might be called picture writing, but was not phonetic writing in our true sense of the term. The also knew something about weighing and measuring. They had definite laws, laws which were carried out by properly appointed individuals. Their towns and cities would often number thousands of inhabitants; they had roads connecting them, which roads were kept in good condition; they had a regular army made up of men selected and trained for that purpose. In all these respects we see nations who were semi-civilized, but they were not yet civilized. We could call a nation civilized that had a distinct system of phonetic writing and used it; but not all nations having this are civilized. It is only when it is used freely and for purposes of business that we can call them civilized.
The wild Tuaregs of the Sahara have a system of phonetic writing used by a few of them--the women being the literati of those tribes (the men not knowing how to read or write); but civilization means more than this; it means the use of iron weapons and tools; it means also the adoption of a definite currency which is established on a fixed basis and recognized throughout the community; it means the establishment of commercial lines--a progress distinct above that which is the mere barter of the lower conditions of savagery and barbarism. In all these respects we see that civilization means a type about such as we enjoy at present. It is such as has existed in Europe since the Renaissance;