the most characteristic of all the Pampean stone imple ments is the bola (pi. 8, figs. 19, zo), the weapon of war which the Pam pean tribes preferred to all others. It is a stone, generally globular or ovoid in shape, which they fastened to the end of a long rawhide cord. Grasping the cord a few feet from the stone, they whirled it rapidly a few times around the head, and then loosing their hold threw it with surpris ing force and accuracy of aim. The bola is usually of some hard mineral, granite, diorite, porphyry, or mica-schist. Sometimes it has a groove around its centre to which the cord is attached. Some specimens are perfect spheres wrought with astonishing accuracy and polished to the utmost. Others are traversed with grooves at regular intervals. In rare instances the sides are cut into facets of symmetrical shapes.
Chilton the Andean chain into Chili, where from the earliest historic times the warlike Araucanians held sway and still in a measure maintain their independence, we meet a degre,e of culture rather higher than that of the Pampean tribes. There is little doubt that this is to be considered a reflex of the ancient civilization of the Incas, who for generations before the Conquest had their eyes fixed with covet ousness on the fertile plains of their southern neighbors.
Chiflan Stone industry in stone of the ancient Chilians resembled in general character that of the Pampean tribes, as we might expect, inasmuch as they were distantly related. Collections from Chili are noticeable for the unusual number of perforated stones of the utmost diversity in material, size, and shape. What they could all have been used for the archreologists of that region have failed to explain. There are also many specimens in other respects similar to these perfo rated stones, only the cavities worked in the opposite sides do not penetrate entirely through the centre of the object. They are not wholly unlike the "chunky-stones" (see p. 73) of the Eastern United States. These are sometimes found in tombs in such a position that they must have been placed in the hand of the corpse at the interment.
Without pursuing in further detail the Chilian stone implements, we may mention a few forms very common there which are rare elsewhere on the continent. These arc the implements (p1. 8, Jigs. 17, IS) employed in fishing and in net-making and mending. They occur in the mounds along the streams and the sea-shore. To find a parallel to them we must perhaps go to the far North, to the shores of the Great Lakes on the southern border of British America, where ancient tribes, also dependent on a fish diet, manufactured implements almost precisely similar.
A few rude stone idols are found in Chili. They indicate a talent not above the lowest plane of the statuary's art, and arc comparable with those primitive efforts in the same direction which we noted ( p. 75) in the Eastern United States.
In the manufacture of stone implements the Patag,onians and Fuegians had, and still retain, a degree of skill equal to that possessed by their northern neighbors, as shown in the relics just described; but as their implements do not present any novel types, we may omit a detailed con sideration of them.
occur in greatest number in the northern portions of South America, on the banks of the Upper Amazon and of the Orinoco, and in Guiana. Those in the latter country have from their number and character especially attracted the attention of travelers. They are of two classes—the one shallow, the other deep. The former always occur on comparatively large and smooth surfaces of rock, while the latter may be found on smaller detached fragments. The shallow figures are, as a rule, much the larger, and are always combinations of straight or curved lines in figures much more elaborate than those which are seen in the deep engravings. These latter depict the human form, monkeys, snakes, and other animals. The individual figures are small, averaging twelve to eighteen inches in length, but a number are often grouped. (See Vol. I. pl. 45.) A celebrated rock-sculpture on the Rio Negro near the boundary of British Guiana represents a large and a small ship, both evidently of European build. This has led some writers to imagine that it records some ancient, pre-Columbian voyage to America, perhaps by the Cartha ginians; while more sober authors see in it a proof that the habit of pre serving the memory of important events by inscribing these large figures on the surface of rocks was retained by the natives after the first explora tion of the country by the Spaniards; though it is true that at present even the recollection of such an art has wholly died out among the native population.
A number of similar rock-sculptures were described and figured by Professor Hartt from the Rio Tocantins in Brazil and other localities on the affluents of the Amazon. They were engraved on a fine-grained, hard quartzite, the figures having been pecked into the surface by means of some blunt-pointed instrument. Some of them appear to be representations of the sun, moon, and stars; others of men, birds, and various animals of the forest. Circles, single or double, sometimes nucleated, spiral lines, and rayed heads, are also seen. The human figures are never drawn in profile—a trait which assimilates these etchings to the art-designs of the North American Indians; while Mr. min Thum, who has described the rock-sculptures (P. 8, fig. 3o) of Guiana, is of opinion that these latter have greater analogies with the forms of Mexican picture-writing.
Such inscriptions are rare in the southern portions of the continent, yet in Chili several have been noted. The most celebrated is one of con siderable extent on the broad surface of a rock in the valley of Rapiantu, province of Santiago, Chili. The figures are rude, being single-line draw ings of men, of animals, and of unknown objects. The style is different from that seen in Guiana. Some more carefully executed rock-drawings in the north of Chili, representing the sun, moon, etc., have been plausi bly attributed to the artisans introduced by the conquests of the Incas.