Elephant pipes and inscribed tablets in the Museum of the Academy of natural sciences, Daveport, Iowa / by Charles E. Putnam.

  • Charles Edwin Putnam
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Elephant pipes and inscribed tablets in the Museum of the Academy of natural sciences, Daveport, Iowa / by Charles E. Putnam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/100 (page 17)
    — 17- absence of “tusks” in both mound and pipes, Mr. Henshaw is doubt- less correct. This omission in the pipes, however, could be sufficiently accounted for from the difficulty the ancient artist would experience in representing them in the soft sandstone used for the purpose of this carving. As will be seen, Mr. Barber adopts this view: “It is, to say the least, a singular fact that the most characteristic feature of this pachyderm, the prominent tusks, should have been omitted both in the pipe sculp- ture and the ‘big elephant mound,’ if the ancient Americans were acquainted with the model. The long, slender, curved tusks, however, would be difficult to imitate, either in the miniature stone sculptures or the embankments of earth, and might ' have been purposely ignored.” * In his “Inglorious Columbus” Mr. Edward P. Vining also notices these omissions, and suggests this plausible explanation: “There are in the possession of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Davenport, Iowa, two carved stone pipes, of which representations are given. * * * They seem to be unmistakable representations of an elephant, or some closely allied quadruped, and their makers must have been acquainted with the animal. The Davenport Academy also have a tablet, found in a mound near their city, contain- ing some thirty rude pictures of animals. Most of them can be recognized, and among them there are two that seem intended for elephants. It may be worthy of notice that in these drawings, in the pipes, and in the sculptures of Yucatan, the animal’s head is uniformly represented without any trace of tusks. In that other- wise truthful r-epresentation of the mastodon, the elephant mound of Wisconsin, the artist has also totally omitted the tusks, and shortened the trunk to very mod- erate dimensions — surely not for want of space, for the whole animal has a length of over one hundred feet, and a proportionate height. There therefore seems some reason for believing that an animal much resembling the elephant, but destitute of tusks, existed in America up to a comparatively recent date.” + In his “Mammalia” Figuier remarks, concerning elephants’ tusks, that “in the females they are sometimes very slightly elongated, and do not project beyond the lips,” and that “in the Indian species they are indeed wanting in the females; so also, either one or both of them, in not a few of the males.” J Mr. John Gibson also makes the state- ment that “in the Asiatic elephant the tusks grow to a considerable size in the male, but are wanting in the female; while in the Ceylon elephant tusks are also absent in the female, and only exceptionally ])resent in the male.”§ Taken in connection with the supposed Asiatic origin of the aborigines of the Pacific slope, these interesting * American Naturalist for April, 1SS2, p. 277. f “ An Ins^lorious Columbus,” pp. 609-611. I‘‘Mammalia,” by I.ouis Figuier, p. 116. V? “ Pmcyclop.Tedia Britanica,” ninth edition; title, “Elephant.” 3