A study of Chiriquian antiquities

Front matter

MEMOIRS OF THE

CONNECTICUT ACADEMY OE ARTS AND SCIENCES

INCORPORATED A. D. 1799

Preface

This volume is chiefly the result of a careful study of the unparalleled collections of Chiriquian antiquities belonging to Yale University. These, and especially the gold ornaments, have been supplemented by other collections, public and private, notably those of Mr. George G. Heye and of Mr. Minor C. Keith, both of New York. If the work has merits, they are due in no small measure to the character and extent of the collections examined. Its defects should be ascribed in part, at least, to the fact that, having been prevented by force of circumstances from visiting the region in question, my investigations have been limited to museums and libraries. For this reason the choice of title : " A Study of Chiriquian Antiquities," would seem to be particularly appropriate. Unless otherwise stated in their description, the illustrations are from specimens in the Yale collection.

From the view-point of conventionalism, the art of Chiriqui is so instructive that much space is given to the evolution of decorative motives from animal forms. In this connection, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to two previous writers on the subject, Professor F. W. Putnam of Cambridge, Mass., and Professor William H. Holmes of Washington, D.C. The nature of the study has necessitated the free use of illustrations, in the preparation of which much care has been bestowed. With the exception of the drawings from tracings, the illustration from de Bry (fig. 324), and the five cuts (figs. 277, 278, 331, 332, 365). for the use of which my thanks are due to the Bureau of American Ethnology, they were all made for this volume by Mr. Rudolph Weber of New York, and his assistant, Mr. William Baake. The cost of the drawings, both pen-and-ink and water-color, has been borne by Mrs. Evelyn MacCurdy Salisbury of New Haven, without whose generous cooperation the work could not have been prepared.

Among others whom I desire to thank for cooperation in various ways should be mentioned Professor Charles Schuchert for facilities at the Museum, Professor Joseph Barrell for determining the nature of the materials from which the stone objects were made, Mr. Max Dessauer for testing the powers of the musical instruments, Professor J. W. D. Ingersoll for the translation of a sixteenth century text, and Professor B. B. Boltwood, Dr. C. H. Mathewson. Dr. George F. Kunz of New York, and Mr. Harry N. Ray, for measurements, tests and observations bearing on the metal work.

In New York also where my studies led me, are a number to whom I am much indebted. Mr. George G. Heye and Mr. Minor C. Keith both placed their valuable Chiriquian (and Costa Rican) collections at my disposal, as did also Mr. Edwin Lamson, Dr. Wm. J. Lamson, the Lenox Branch of the New York Public Library through Mr. Wilberforce Eames and Mr. W. A. Elliot, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art through Sir Purdon Clarke and Mr. John H. Buck. To Professor M. H. Saville of Columbia University, I am likewise under obligations for access to comparative material and for valuable suggestions.

VI

PREFACE.

Although the late Professor Othniel C. Marsh died nearly seven years before I began the study of Chiriquian antiquities, it was his foresight, generosity and consummate skill as a collector that brought together the series on which this volume is primarily based. Mention in this place of the part he played is but an inadequate expression of the tribute I would pay to his memory. In the reading of copy and proofs I gratefully acknowledge the valuable assistance of Miss Lucy P. Bush, for sixteen years assistant and private secretary to Professor Marsh, of Dr. Katharine J. Bush, and Miss Mary S. Gillette.

In thanking Yale University and the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, through the Committee on Publication acting on behalf of both, for means of diffusing the results of this study, it is most fitting that I should recall the debt our science owes to the American Ethnological Society, which published nearly all the early literature, now exeedingly rare, on the subject of Chiriquian antiquities, and which at that time numbered among its members such distinguished Yale professors as President Theodore Dwight Woolsey, Professors Edward Elbridge Salisbury and J. Willard Gibbs, the elder and S. Wells Williams, who later became professor of Chinese at Yale.

Yale University, New Haven, Conn., May 26, 1909.

Table Of Contents

Page

PREFACE V

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IX