The American Indian

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of native populations in pre-Columbian times, a subject we should have gladly made room for if there were available reliable estimates. Recently this problem has been taken up by Mr. James Mooney, who is now preparing a publication on the subject. However, when we take into account the modes of life...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: of native populations in pre-Columbian times, a subject we should have gladly made room for if there were available reliable estimates. Recently this problem has been taken up by Mr. James Mooney, who is now preparing a publication on the subject. However, when we take into account the modes of life followed in the different areas, it appears a fair assumption that in 1492 the native population was about at its maximum; that is, the hunting areas contained as many people as the fauna would support and the agricultural areas about all that could be provided for under the existing systems. Yet, this may prove an error when more data are available. Again, the choice of topics has been governed by the importance of the problems involved. Thus so far, no very important problems have been found in war customs, population, etc., but in forms of social organization, certain industries, art, etc., we do find problems that bear upon the very fundamentals of anthropology. In the preparation of this volume our ideal has been to treat these fundamental problems rather than to present a digest of all possible phases of New World native life. chapter{{Section 4CHAPTER I THE FOOD AREAS OF THE NEW WORLD The most tangible and objective of human traits are those having to do with food. It is obvious that the fundamental necessity for man's existence is a sufficient quantity of some kind of edible organic substance. Moreover, a retrospect of the world, as we find it today, suggests that one of the eternal problems confronting the several groups of mankind has been the discovery of practical methods for adapting living forms to dietary requirements. For this reason, if for no other, it seems advisable to begin our study of man in the New World with a general discussion of food complexes. The ...