3. The higher civilizations of America were reared on an eco nomic and technological foundation of their own, evidently evolved in and largely remaining confined to the region of "Middle America," namely the area from Mexico to Peru. The basis of this civilization was a form of agriculture limited to a series of indigenous plants. Fundamental among these plants was maize, whose wild ancestor, or hybridizing ancestors, and place of origin, remain a puzzle to botanists. Closely asso ciated with maize were beans (Phaseolus) and pumpkins and squashes. These plants were cultivated by all the Indians of both Americas as far as agriculture was practised by them, from the St. Lawrence to the La Plata. In the tropical region there were cultivated in addition other important plants—the potato, sweet potato, manioc, tomato, pineapple, chili pepper, tobacco, choco late, etc. All this agriculture was practised without implements more complicated than a hoe or simple planting stick; it was strictly a hand culture. Domesticated animals were lacking, ex cept for the llama and alpaca in Peru and the turkey in Mexico. Copper, gold, silver, platinum, tin and lead were smelted, cast, plated and alloyed in middle America; in other words, the metal lurgical arts of the Old World prior to the iron age were known. Cotton, of another species than the cotton of the Old World, had been domesticated in middle America and was the basis of an elaborate textile art, operating however with simple apparatus; and clothing was of types based upon true fabrics instead of skins or bast fibres. Pottery shows a wide distribution almost identical with that of agriculture ; archaeologically, it is generally associated with agricultural remains ; and it may therefore be assumed to have originated in middle America at about the same time as agriculture. Masonry had spread somewhat beyond middle America as far as north-western Argentina and south-western United States.
Middle America was the region of cities, therefore of higher political organization, and in Mexico and Peru of considerable empires. In the same regions ritualistic religion, including altars, permanent edifices, sacrifices and symbolism, reached its most complex development. This development was evidently dependent upon the existence of a priesthood persisting through successive generations under stable social and political conditions. Finally, the intellectual achievements, probably also in large part due to priests, culminated in the mathematical and calendrical systems of the Maya, and in an incipient system of writing employed by them and the neighbouring Mexican nations. Attempts have been made to derive these products of learning from the Old World; but analysis shows their principles, especially those; of the calen dar, to be unique. The Maya, for instance, had devised position numerals and a sign for zero ; but their system of numeration was vigesimal.
Also, they were probably using this system before any people in the Old World had invented a sign for zero.
4. Other culture traits in America, not specially characteristic of higher civilization, do not occur regularly distributed in or around the Mexican-Peruvian area. Some of these traits may be presumed as due to local inventions independent of the middle American stimulus. Others may have originated earlier than the middle American agriculture-metal-town-priesthood growth and have diffused irregularly, or perpetuated themselves only in certain tracts. Most elements peculiar to one or two culture areas (see below) fall into the present class; for instance, the carpentering, wood-carving and frame houses of the North Pacific coast; the special war customs of the eastern United States; the acorn food technique of California. Clan systems or exogamic institutions, usually with totemic manifestations, occur in North America in several areas : the south-east and north-east, the North Pacific coast, in a limited area in the plains, and some what doubtfully in certain parts of Mexico.
5. A certain number of traits restricted to the north-western half of North America show modern or recent analogues in the Old World, usually in northern Asia and Europe, but do not appear to possess extreme antiquity. They may therefore be
assumed as importations into America, mainly by diffusion rather than by migration, in the last few thousand years. For the most part these traits are distinguishable without difficulty from the universal and supposedly very ancient ones of class 1. Into the present group there may fall the sinew-backed bow (the sup posed American equivalent of the composite bow of Asia), the tepee or skin tent on poles, the snow-shoe and toboggan (equiva lent of Old World snow-shoe of ski type), birch bark canoes and vessels, the half-underground house roofed with earth, tailored or fitted clothing of sewn skins, perhaps coiled basketry, and several myth episodes such as "Earth Diving" and the "Magic Flight." The distribution of most of these traits in America stops before it reaches the south-wL _it and south-east United States. None of them had reached the advanced portions of Mexico.
Culture Types.—An attempt has been made by Americanists to organize the complex and irregular manifestations of native culture by classifying them into certain types characteristic of regions known as culture areas. These are to a certain degree environmental; the natural environment is thought to have acted as a stabilizing and perpetuating factor, once a certain type of culture had been achieved in an area. Essentially, however, this classification is one of culture types, and the concordant geo graphical areas largely represent empirical determinations of dis tribution. In this respect the culture area classification, as first formulated by Wissler and accepted with only minor modifications by practically all American students, differs from older attempts which proceeded from environment as the supposed determinative factor (see 0. T. Mason's article "Environment," in the Hand book of American Indians). The more important types of cul ture in these areas are outlined in separate articles. The areas are: 1, Mexican, north about as f ar as the Tropic of Cancer (see AZTEC, TOLTEC, MAYA, ZAPOTEC) ; 2, South-west (i.e., of the United States, but including northern Mexico; see PUEBLO) ; 3, 4, South-east and North-east, perhaps to be joined and called Eastern woodland (see MUSKOGIAN, MOUND BUILDER, IROQUOIS) ; 5, Plains (q.v.), in the untimbered centre of the continent; 6, Plateau, in the western inter-mountain region, an area relatively undifferentiated in culture, with actively entering influences from the adjacent areas (the Great Basin is sometimes separated from the upper Columbia and Frazer region and united with Cali fornia); 7, California; 8, North Pacific Coast (q.v.), from northern California to southern Alaska inclusive; 9, Mackenzie Yukon (see ATHABASCAN) ; i o, Arctic (see ESKIMO). The West Indies seem to belong culturally with South rather than with North America. The southern frontier of the Mexican area may be placed in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama forming part of the Chibcha or Colombian area of South America. In this con tinent there may be recognized: 1, Chibcha or Colombian; 2, Andean (southern Ecuador, Peru, highlands of Bolivia, north-west Argentine, northern Chile) ; 3, Patagonian, a hunting area depend ent largely on the guanaco; 4, Orinoco-Amazonian, where manioc disputed the supremacy with maize; 5, Antillean or West Indian. is notoriously difficult to dissociate from culture habits, but there appears to be a fairly general agreement as to a characteristic American type of mind and personality, though it might be arguable how far this is innate. Almost universally the American Indian is reserved, stoic, endur ing and unresponsive, the antithesis of the negro, and more similar to the Mongolian in behaviour than to the Caucasian. He is not without humour, but holds expressions of it in rigorous check, so that it becomes manifest chiefly in intimacy. He is patient but not quick; tough in adversity but unenterprising; stable but un imaginative; cruel when his inhibitions have been removed, but not given to brutality ordinarily. He prizes control as the highest virtue, and restraint and decorum as the essentials of manners, and therefore almost always impresses as imbued with unusual sense of respect of personality.