e investigation of those who come afterward. The
first and foremost object of this museum--as it should be of every such
institution--is the preservation of historical evidence; the second, the
making it accessible in its original aspect for study. Ornamental
display, when in the least degree inconsistent with scientific uses, has
no place in any of the rooms. Nothing is put up because it is pretty;
and if the history of any specimen is at all doubtful, it is kept out of
sight, or else its label contains the proper cautions and queries.

Having scanned the relics of that far-away time which seems to have
preceded the coming even of the red men into the United States, let us
now see what the museum has to show of the arts and industries and
amusements of those "Indians" who were found in possession when
Europeans came to the New World.

The whole continent was inhabited by what was substantially the same
race of men, divided into many language-stocks, subdivided into a still
greater number of more or less cohesive tribes, and segregated into
innumerable bands or villages. As they varied in dialect, organization,
and environment, so were they greatly diversified in mental
accomplishments and in outward customs and belongings. In subordinate
points the characteristics of some divisions contrasted most pointedly
with those of others; yet in certain cardinal aspects the whole
population known in historic times from Tierra del Fuego to Eskimo-land
was a unit. All were red-skinned Americans, "tarred with the same
stick."[1] Moreover, it has been supposed that no race other than these
red men has ever permanently occupied any portion of the United States
between the departure of the palaeolithic Eskimos and the advent of
Europeans,--the "Mound-Builders" not excepted.

To the prehistoric relics and the modern manufactures of these natives
of America the Peabody Museum is chiefly devoted. The material preserved
was obtained by its original collectors in a variety of ways. Much of it
was gathered in farm-fields, where it had been turned up under the
plough one piece at a time. All parts of the United States are
represented, but some regions more plentifully than others, not only
because one district may contain more persons interested in the matter,
but because of the comparative scarcity of relics in some parts. One of
the most densely populated districts in the whole Union in Indian life
was the Atlantic slope of the Alleghani