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UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM.

THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN.

OTIS T. MASON,

Curator of the Department of Ethnology.

 

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UNIVERSITY © ea ORNIA

From the Report of the National Museum, 1886-"87, pages 237-295.

WASHINGTON:
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE,

1893.

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ANTHROP,
LIBRARY

THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN.
By Otis T. MASON.

I never see a great passenger or express train approaching a station
without thinking of the long and tiresome experiences through which
the human mind has passed upward to this concrete climax of inven-
tions.

I take my stand as near as safety will allow, that I may drink in the
eddies of the boiling atmosphere with the aroma of civilization which
it represents.

There is something wonderful in the iron -horse—his glaring head-
light, irresistible momentum, extreme docility. On the platform of the
locomotive stands the controlling mind, the engineer, one hand upon a
lever, which sets in motion all this ponderous mass at the rate of even
a mile a minute, as Cicero says, ‘quadam inclinatione corporis.” His
other hand rests upon the air-brake, by means of which he controls the
momentum of 500 tons, reducing it at will to absolute rest. Who has
not imagined, as he whirled along on one of these trains, that he could
hear the measured hoof-beats of this horse of progress striking the ties
or the iron rails? If we consider all the industries and motives involved

in this man’s activity, the myriad trades and occupations invoked in
the manufacture of train and track, the multitudinous avocations ac-
commodated by and stimulating his movements, the infinite variety of
freight, animate and inanimate; bags of letters, the messengers of

every want and emotion; an endless caravan of passengers of every class

of humanity on every possible errand, representing all commercial de-

signs, social and civil structures and functions, we shall have an example
of the climax of human endeavor in its most highly organized condition
relative to a long series of inventions, of which this is only the intro-
ductory chapter. Besides these there are thousands of other occupations,
in which carrying is neither directly nor remotely interested, wherein
man’s handiwork has preceded, initiated, and kept up the higher utili-
zation of animals and of natural forces.

‘But we are not concerned at the present moment so much with the
tedious and varied manipulations by which the railway train has been
manufactured from the forest’and the mine (that would be its ontogeny)
as with the millenniums of change through which a common human

055 Be
238 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

back-strap or head-band has passed upward through inventive creation
into the train and track, the latest common carrier (which constitutes
the phylogeny of the railway).

At the lower end of this line of inventions and experiences, neglecting
all the mental burdens which often weigh heavier on us than our packs,
as we pass downward ignoring wagon trains, mule trains, caravans,
couriers, pack-horses, dog travois and sleds, reindeer sledges, donkeys,
llamas, and other beasts of burden, we come at last to the primitive
common, carrier, the pack-man himself, and also the pack-woman, for
men and women were the first beasts of burden.*

Primitive commerce and all the carrying and running involved in
primeval arts connected with food, shelter, clothing, rest, enjoyment,
and war were accomplished on the heads or foreheads, shoulders or
backs, or in the hands of men and women; and civilization, while it has
invented many ways of burden bearing, finds also an endless variety of
uses for the old methods. How many thousands of our fellow-creatures
are still in this condition of mere beasts of burden? It is, for instance,
only a few years since the invention of the passenger and freight ele-
vator began to supplant that train of ¢hod-carriers,” who have been
since the beginning of architecture carrying upward to its completion
every wooden and brick structure in the world.

To get something like an adequate conception of the enormous amount
of labor performed by human backs, calculate the weight of every earth-
work, mound, fort, canal, embankment, wooden, brick, metal, and
stone structure and fabrication on earth. These have all been carried
many times and elevated by human muscle. In the light of this con-
templation, Atlas, son of Heaven and Earth, supporting on his shoul-
ders the pillars of the sky, is the apotheosis of the human son of toil,
and the gaping wonder of archaeologists over the hand-made stroct-
ures of Thebes, Palenque, Carnac, and Salisbury Plain subsides to the
level of a mathematical problem. Indeed, the great majority of earth-
works, mounds, menhirs, cairns, cromlechs, and dolmens now to be seen
witnessed the exertions of no other artisan than the human carrier. t

In the Internationale Archiv fiir Ethnographie, Plate IX, is a street
scene in Singapore. The first thing that arrests the attention is that
everybody is carrying something or is harnessed to something. Com-
mencing at the left hand occur the following:

(1) Two coolies carrying a lady in a hammock.

(2) Two coolies carrying a live pig in a bamboo cylinder suspended
to a pole.

(3) A lady carrying a fan and a reticule.

 

* Innumerable examples of women as burden-bearers may be cited. See Schoolcraft,
Archives, vol. v1, plate opp. p. 560; J. G. Wood, Unciv. Races, vol. 1, p. 330, ef seq.

t Cf. Lucien Carr, Mounds of the Mississippi Valley, p. 90, for a calculation of the
time required to build an earth mound. Reference is made to the coal-carriers in St.
Thomas, and to a paragraph by Isaac McCoy in the History of the Baptist Indian
Missions, p. 27, for the capabilities in this line of a single tribe of Indians,
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 239

(4) A cooliecarrying on his right shoulder a pole; from one end dangles
a box, from the other a basket. Indeed, there are three men hitched in
this fashion in the foreground.

(5) A man dragging a small track loaded with bundles.

(6) A coolie carrying a furnace on the end of a stick resting on his
shoulder, as a peddler does his pack.

(7) A coolie drawing a jinrickasha.

(8) A Chinese gentleman carrying a fan and a cane.

Considering the activity now displayed in transporting men and pro-
ductions from one part of the earth to another, it will not be a valueless
contribution to science if we trace the natural history of those early
occupations and industries, the improvement of whose apparatus and
methods stimulated the pristine inventors to make their burdens lighter,
to enable the human carrier to bear the load with greater ease, to ren-
der his pack weight proportionate to the length of his journeys, and to
adapt his occupation to the ever new exigencies of his environment.

It is a common saying that we must go to nature for our supplies.
Equally true is it that we go in vain, unless we descend to the condi-
tion of the brutes, if we expect nature to supply us with aught else
than that whereon we may exercise the inventive faculty. Indeed, there
are innumerable examples of animals transporting materials to distant
places in order to utilize them. The beaver, the bird, the lamprey eel,
the bee, the ant are all carriers.* Many animals also modify natural
objects for the purpose of using them. But the two ideas of modifying
a natural object for the purpose of making a carrying tool seem to con-
cur only in the human mind. We are the only animals that modify
nature to produce a earrying device. Again, these creatures all carry
their implements and weapons with them as part of their natural en-
dowment; they do not have to invent them. But the farmer, the arti-
san, the professional man, even the laborers go about weighted down,
with their tools, apparatus, books, or even their carrying implements
as ponderous often as the trunk and tusks are to the elephant.

There are two sets of ideas involved in harnessing the human jument,
which may be studied in part separately, in part together. They are
conveyance and transportation, or the carrying of the man and the carry-
ing of things. The former may be older, for devices in which to carry
infants may have been the first in the order of invention. The passen-
ger and the freight train express the two ideas exactly, because each,
while encroaching on the fanction of the other, has modifications for its
own ends. The subject of mere locomotion involving srow-shoes, canes,
staves, alpenstocks, stilts, crutches, and the like will not be here con-
sidered, because they are only aids to locomotion and involve little that
relates to the beast of burden.

The cradle-board and other devices for carrying infants will also be

 

*For comparison of the engineering skill of beavers and ants with that of the mound-
builders, cf. Lucien Carr, “The Mounds of the Mississippi Valley,” p. 66.
240 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

the theme of a separate chapter, inasmuch as other ideas are involved,
but the methods of human conveyance on the backs of bearers among.
people not highly civilized will receive brief mention. :

Many other industries have been created, stimulated and modified
by the carrying trade. Every one will have a dozen suggested by the
mere mention of the subject. One has lately come to the writer’s notice,
which will serve as a very primitive example. The crudest agriculture
in the world is practiced by the Pimasand contiguous tribes in sonthern-
most California to procure gourds for the transportation of seeds and
water. The women, accompanied by a body-guard of men, go, in the
spring time, to the bluffs or rocky slopes, where a little rich, moist
earth fills the crevices, and therein, by the help of a sharpened stick,
they insert their gourd seed. In the autumn the women return to these
spots to gather the large gourds hanging from their natural trellis, and
from them supply their households with a variety of utensils. So the
carrier is patron to the farmer.

In the same way has the carrier stood friend to the potter. Among
the Pueblos and other pottery-making peoples hundreds of jars are made’
to be carried on the head or to be swung from the shoulder in a yoke.
The potter molds his vase at the order and convenience of the carrier.

Basketry has also lent its services largely to the carrying industry,
and in turn has assumed a multitude of shapes and textures demanded
by this occupation alone.

In the National Museum, at Washington, gathered from many parts
of the world, are a great variety of devices designed exclusively to
facilitate the carrying of burdens by mankind. There are many others
in various parts of the world quite as important.

We may approach our task from different points of view, guided by a
variety of ruling concepts. It is possible to consider the subject geo-
graphically. I was delighted to find this fact recognized by Plato :*

“ CLEINIAS: Look at the character of our country. Crete is not like
Thessaly, a large plain, and for this reason they have horses there and
we have runners on foot here. The inequality of the ground in our coun-
try is more adapted to locomotion afoot.”

The word ¢¢ geography” as here used applies to all natural advantages,
to materials used in constructing appliances, and to objects carried.

Or we may view the subject ethnically, in relation to tribal patterns,
customs, and the prejudices of clan, class, or sex.

Or it may be regarded nationally, with reference to the regulations
concerning carriers under the same government and treaties relating
thereto between different political bodies.

A philogenetic method would lead us to scrutinize the various ways of
carrying in relation to the influence of one invention in giving birth to
another or in some way modifying the form of another, either in the
same category or in other categories.

* Laws N. Y. (1873), Scribner, vol. 1v, p. 156.

 
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 241

An interesting method of study would be by crafts, and it would en-
list the co-operation of many searchers. For instance, we might ask the
fur trader of Hudson Bay territory to tell us all the ways of carrying
peltry that his land had seen, from packing up to the Red River cart.
In like manner the emigrant over the earth, the peddler or merchant,
the woodman, the miner, the fisherman, the farmer could each tell us
a wonderful story, beginning with a very simple process and winding up
with a story worthy of the Arabian Nights; or, finally, our thoughts
could be arranged progressionally in relation to the phenomena, includ:
ing both what some call natural evolution and also technical elabora-
tion or design.

One of the most interesting chapters in the history is that which por-
trays the methods of hitching up this animal of burden, the parts of the
body utilized, the harness adopted, and the adaptation of these to the
burden, the country, and, in short, all the exigencies of the case. With
this one idea in mind look carefully over the great works devoted to the
ancient monuments of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome, or turn the
leaves of pictorial journals and books of travel, and the variety of
ways by which man has grown equal to his burden will be astonishing.

As the study of railroading includes the engine or motor, the train or
burden, the road and the signal, no less does the consideration of the
original freightman or pappoose-carrier involve the person, the load,
the trail, and the primitive signal. Indeed, the germ of the latest pas-
senger and freight train was in the first human burden-bearer.

The task of duly appreciating rude inventions is not easy, and some
of thestatements herein made may seem trivial. Living in the enjoyment
of so many privileges in the matter of conveyance and transportation,
we shall find it hard to realize the former condition of things unless we
transport ourselves to savage and barbarous lands or out-of-the-way
country places. In a thriving city one no longer thinks of walking.
The cheapest hand laborers ride to their work in cars of palatial splendor
drawn by horses, steam, or electricity. Men and women flit around on
cycles. It is considered vulgar to carry a parcel. The servant girl
buys a few cents’ worth ot tawdry stuff and has it brought to her in a
parcel-dispatch wagon that is covered with forty coats of lacquer.
Everywhere the old régime is changed in our civilization. We get an
inadequate conception of the early history of human backs by contem-
plating the service that nature is at present rendering to the comfort
and convenience of our race.

It would hardly be worth while to mention the clothing and Adoni)
ment of mankind as a load to be carried, were it not for the fact that in
some cases, such as the brass wire of the Africans and the mail of the
medi@val knight,* asmuch as one hundred pounds are borne by a single
individual. Counting all humanity, it is safe to say that two millions of
tons of apparel and personal ornament are constantly worn to supply

 

 

x Cf. Meyrich, or Hewitt, or Demmin.

H. Mis. 600, pt. 2——16
242 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

artificially what nature has given gratis to other animals, either in the
way of hair or wool to keep them warm, or plumage to increase their at-
tractions.

It is impossible to enumerate every form of burden-bearing, but to
show the almost endless variety in which inventive genius has dis-
played itself in loading the human body, the following enumeration is
introduced :

METHODS OF BEARING BURDENS.

1. In the hand.—This method is universal. In the house, at the sta-
tion, on the street, wherever one turns, light parcels are flitting in every
direction, which in the aggregate amounts to an enormous mass, carried
principally in the right hand. At the other end of human history the
act repeats itself. For we can scarcely frame a conception of man pri-
meval without a club or stone weapon or rude spear in one hand, and
here again the right hand has been selected to do the work.*

2. In both hands.—1t is really easier to carry in both hands than in
one, even though the load be larger. So it is a common sight to see a
man or a woman dividing the luggage into two parcels, bearing two
buckets or baskets, sometimes held apart with a hoop. In raising a load
to the shoulders both hands are used. It is amusing to watch the pot-
ters on the Egyptian monuments—to see the multiplicity of attitudes
they assume in the application of the two hands to burden-bearing.

3. On the fingers.—This is a kind of fine art in carrying. In the old
descriptions and pictures of royal cup-bearers the salver is delicately
poised on three fingers. The climax of this plan is the summer-resort
waiter’s feat of bringing the food of half a dozen individuals borne aloft
on the ends of his fingers in a huge tray.

4. With a baldric.—The modern tourist hangs his opera-glass, satchel,
haversack, ete., to a strap passing over one shoulder and under the op-
posite arm. The hunter carries his game-bag in a similar manner.
Among hurdy-gurdy players and fruit-peddlers the strap hangs on
the back of the neck and the load rests against the stomach. The hands
are then free to make music, handle the merchandise, or even to help in
carrying the load. The baldrie is now a military ornament especially,
and may never have had extensive use among savages.

5. Hung to a belt.—Combining the belt with the baldrie, the soldier
carries his weapons. It is common to see small objects hung to a belt
before, behind, or on either side. This is not an easy way to carry a
heavy burden ; yet among semi-civilized peoples it is the place for trans-
porting treasures—in short, the first step in the insurance of carrying
treasures. Also, the broad sash of many peoples serves admirably for
holding children, victuals, weapons, papers, and things not to be exposed.

 

* The writer hasexamined a great many savage weapons and tools that will fit only
one hand. The proportion of left-handed is not more than one in fifty for men, and
he has never seen a left-handed woman’s implement.
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 243

6. On the arm.—This might be called the retail method of carrying.
One sees every moment about the farm boys and men using this method
of carrying, and on the busy street multitudes of men, women, and
children are ever flitting to and fro with loads. These vary from a few
ounces to several pounds, and are borne under the arm, on the forearm,
on both forearms. In the stores it is the same thing. The arm seems
to be the vehicle for retail conveyance. To vary this style a little we
must increase the load and basket and watch the market people as they
trudge along with 50 pounds of food hung on the elbow, resting on the
hip, and the body bent to get the center of gravity poised exactly. The
writer has never seen in any book of travels a savage man with a load
hung to his arm like a great hook and himself twisted around so as
to throw a part of the weight upon his hip. This must be a product
of civilization.

7. Hung from the shoulders.—This is the favorite device of farmers and
others who carry small loads in abag. One ofthe indelible recollections
of country life is of the farm hand carrying grain, plaster,and other things
about the premises in a sack suspended from his shoulders. The same
man on Saturday afternoon trudges homeward from the mill and the store
with the week’s provisions for his family carried in the same manner.
The peddler of small wares, the laborer moving with his little property,
the hunter returning with his game, the woman of southern climes with
her child, all are examples of the importance of the shoulder in the
economy of transportation when used merely as an accessory to the
back. The universal sack of the negro population of the rural districts
in the Southern United States as a receptacle for everything, is a good
example of this method of carrying, which has come down to us from the
remotest antiquity. Travelers state that a Peruvian miner will ascend
100 or more feet of a rude ladder with 300 pounds of ore in a skin bag
hung from his shoulder.

8. On the shoulder.—The shoulder alone plays a leading part in trans-
portation. Thereis no lack of examples of women pursuing this method.
The miller takes a sack of grain on his shoulder, places his palm on his
hip, and moves on to his hopper, or he reverses the process with a sack
of flour from the mill to the farmer’s wagon.

In great shipping houses lines of porters carry sacks of grain to the
ship in the same way.

Again, the hod-carrier, antecedent of all modern elevators, with 75
to 100 pounds of brick or mortar on his back, has been for ages all over
the world transporting upward the material of the builder.

Look, moreover, at the coolies of the Orient. More than a million
Chinese make their living as professional carriers. In the cities are the
porters and others who carry rice, ete., on the shoulder in sacks or bur-
dens upon a pole, half the weight at either end.

Writes a friend :

“The average load of a coolie is 100 pounds, and with this he travels
244 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

30 miles. Kinkiang is an important place for the export of tea. The
tea districts are situated about 60 miles from the town, and the coolies
bring in the chests in two days, each man carrying a load of 100 pounds.
The weight of a load and the distance over which a coolie travels may
be different in the north and south. I have not been able to make in-
quiries elsewhere but at this port.”

In Shanghai 140 pounds is an ordinary burden. For long distances
100 pounds is the load and 20 miles the ordinary day’s journey. The
bearer has a staff in his hand and rests ad libitum by balancing his bur-
den on top. One hundred pounds 20 miles equals a ton a mile per day.
Now, if there are a million coolies, there are each day in China 1,000,000
tons of freight moved 1 mile on the backs of professional carriers. The
ancient Egyptians practiced this mode of carrying extensively.

9. On the scapulee.—The grain carriers or lumpers who load vessels
with wheat or corn may frequently be seen with a full sack resting on
top of their backs. They run up a plank to the hatch, toss the sack in -
the air, mouth downwards, and catch the lower corners so as to save -
the sack and dump the grain into the hold.

The English porters and furniture men have a knot, padded with
something soft, which they place around the forehead and on the
scapula, They are then ready to take on the largest pieces of furni-
ture, such as bureaus, sideboards, etc. The higher form of this art of
carrying on the scapulwe is the Holland yoke, a device which enables
the bearer to bring the hands into play.

10. On the back.—The back is the natural resting place for the bur-
den. The lowest savages know this, and inventive genius early began
to devise apparatus for harnessing this part of the body. In Africa,
on the Andes, in Mexico, throughout the civilized world, the peaceable
carrier bears on his back the commerce of the race. The load is held in
place either by the forehead strap, the breast strap, the shoulder strap,
or by two or more of these combined. Bock, in his ¢ Head-hunters of
Borneo,” represents a carrier using both the head band and the sboul--
der straps as in knapsack carrying. In war the soldier fastens his
knapsack to his back and shoulders, leaving his arms free to do their
work. There are many patent devices for distributing the soldier’s load
over the shoulders, breast, back, and hips. For obvious reasons his

(rand hips are left free. Children play at pick-a-pack, passengers are landed
in shallow ports, persons of means pass over difficult places in the man-
ner described by Cassius:

I, as AEheas, our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder
The old Anchises bear, so from the waves of Tiber
Did I the tired Cesar.

The burdens of Kurdish women are thus graphically described :

“Soon we came to a place where the road was washed away, and we
were obliged to go around. We saw a woman there with a loaded
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 245

donkey which could not pass with its load; the woman took the load
on her own back and carried it over, and then led the donkey over.
She also carried a load of at least 100 pounds, and she had a spindle in
her hands. Thus she went spinning and singing .over the rugged way
which I had passed with tears and pain. * * * In the evening they
spin and make sandals; when they lie down, they place under their heads
the ropes to bind the heavy loads of grass and wood which they bring
down from the mountains. After midnight they go up to get loads.
* * * Jn the early morning I often saw the women, looking like
loaded beasts, coming down the precipitous mountain path, one after
the other, singing and spinning as they came. * * * | saw women
with great paniers on their backs and babies on top of these or in their
arms, going four days over that fearful Ishtazin pass, carrying grapes
for sale and bringing back grain. Men said the women must suffer
much more before God could forgive Eve's sin.

“A few years ago a woman from Jeloo came to my home in Geogtapa.
Her husband, who was almost a giant, sickened in Gawar, and she told
me she had carried him on her back all the way, four days’ journey. He
died in our house. I did not believe her then; now I do, for my eyes
have seen what loads these women carry.”*

11. On the head.—This process is usually called toting, and is espe-
cially characteristic of woment of the lower classes and of negroes.i The
traveler may see the dairy-maids anywhere in Europe carrying 25 pounds
of milk on the head, women in Iceland carrying loads of unsavory cod-
fish on their heads, and Italian peddlers of all sorts use the head for a
carriage. In the southern part of the United States 50 pounds is the
“toter’s” steady load. Men and women constantly bear that amount.
A slater’s assistant mounts a ladder with 50 pounds of slate on the head.
The farm woman totes a tub of water holding 10 gallons, the whole
weight being 100 pounds. The head-ring is seen among the Zui In-
dians as a means of keeping the load on the head and relieving the
pressure. Pads of various kinds replace the ring where toting is for
long distances.§

12. The forehead and the bregma are also parts on which to hang har-
ness. In civilization the yoke has passed from the forehead of the ox
to his scapul@. Comparing the head-strap of all our Indian tribes with
the neck-yoke of the Holland woman, it is permitted to see the same

 

* Woman’s Work for Women, November, 1828, p. 296.

t See illustration of Kaffir women carrying fagots in Wood’s “ Unciv. Races, vol. 1,
Pp. 91.

1 “All along the road we met numbers of men, women, and children going to the ~
Badagry market, with palm-oil, corn, yams, fawls, fire-wood, etc., which they carried
in heavy loads on their heads, according to the universal custom of this country,
though the Golahs and others in that region carry burdens on their backs.” (Bowen,
Cent. Africa, p. 103.)

§ Wood mentions the Bechuana habit of “hogale,” or drilling young girls in carry-
ing loads of wood long distances and jars of water without spilling a drop. (Unciv.
Races, 1, p. 26.)
246 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

process of improvement antedating the domestication of the ox, and pos-
sibly suggesting his harness.

13. In pockets.—This method of conveyance is scarcely worth mention-
ing from the civilized point of view; yet, when we consider the endless
variety of small merchandise carried in the pockets of men and women,
and remember that all these pockets are for no other purpcse than to
serve as instruments of transportation, we can not omit including it.
We must remember also that the Oriental, especially the Corean, has
pockets in his sleeves having the capacity of a half bushel. The Turk
and the Arab stow away as much as this in the ample folds of their
robes, and any boy who has stolen fruit can add his testimony.

14. Men combined.—Two men bearing a log or burden on their shoul-
ders, four or six men carrying a bier or stretcher,* sailors hoisting to
the rhythm of a song or ¢“ohyea,” two or more men with a palankin
borne among them, a set of bearers in Madagascar and elsewhere with
relays, a company or a regiment of men carrying an immense stone in
India, as figured by Count Wurmbrand, a lot of men setting up a barn
frame or telegraph pole, all illustrate the utility of combined effort to
transport a heavy mass. There is no doubt that the great works of
modern times, whose existence and utility depend entirely upon the
co-working of thousands to make and to maintain them, were fore-
shadowed and completely outlined in the days when hand-work alone
was the force employed. Herodotus ascribes the beginning of the first
canal between the Nile and the Red Sea to Neku, and the completion
to Darius, the Persian. A hundred and twenty thousand Egyptians
lost their lives in Neku’s reign.t Peons entering some Mexican city or
slave trains from the heart of Africa often reveal a long row of men
and women co-operating in carrying a great weight. The same is true
of the pulley, answering to a compound hod, by means of which one
man transports a single weight much too heavy for one.f In an account
of Cheops’ causeway, “some were required to drag blocks of stone
down to the Nile; others drew them to the range of hills called Libyan;
a hundred thousand men eat bread constantly, and were relieved every
three months by a fresh lot.Ӥ In Munich those who carry large sacks
use an implement like M to grasp, as it hurts the hands to lock fingers
under the end of the sack. They stand face to face and grasp the
rounded sides of this wooden buckle, slide it under the sack, lift it up,
and steady it with the free hand, which carries it along and gives it a
toss in unloading.|| In this country men carry pianos by means of a

* Rawlinson’s Herodotus, 11, 77, figure. The transportation of the disabled with
reference to conveyance by human bearers. By James E. Pilcher, M.D., Ph. D. J.
Mil. Serv. Inst., IX (1888), 222-242.

t Rawlinson’s Herodotus, 11, 158, with notes.

{ Rawlinson’s Herodotus, 11, 124.

§ Rawlinson’s Herodotus, Ir, 277 ; 111, 377.

|| Theo. A. Mills. See Prescott, Conquest of Mexico (Philad., 1874, 1, 145) for the
transportation of the calendar stone from the mountains beyond lake Chalco, a dis-
tance of many leagues, over a broken country intersected by water-courses and canals.

 
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 247

shoulder-strap and a peg that goes into the hole left by unscrewing the
legs. Two men can carry a piano thus.

15. Hauling.—The simplest form of traction among men may be seen
in the small boy dragging his wagon or sledge. With the arms alone
for traces the primitive man dragged his game over the ground or ice
to his distant home. Even two or more might co-operate in this prime-
val team. The next step would be the use of a line, perhaps of raw-
hide, perhaps of fiber. Along the edge of some quiet water they walked,
those pristine tow-men, dragging their rafts or rude boats from the
pebbly beach. Here began that immense industry now carried on in
the canals of the world.

The ways of fastening one’s self to this traction or tow line are many.*
The simplest is the grasp of the hand. Others may be seen bending
to their work with the line over the shoulder, around the waist, or tied
to a becket or bricole. A curious variety of this tracking is seen on
Russian rivers, where an anchor is carried up-stream in a small boat
and dropped. The cable passes back to a windlass or a heavy barge.
by which the great mass is moved up to the anchor. A delightful spec.
imen of helpless modern invention is a picture in Baker's ¢Ismailia.”1
Steamer No. 10 has balked among the rank vegetation of a canal, and
she is being hauled along by a hundred or more naked Africans drag-
ging at a cable. In the Southern States formerly the great shad-nets
were drawn ashore by a gang of fifty to one hundred negroes, who wore
each a becket with a Turk’s-head kuot, which the seine-hauler knew
how to attach or detach in a second.

A species of tracking practiced on the Upper Missouri and other
northern rivers in the fur-trading period before steam-boat days, has
been called to the writer’s attention by Dr. Washington Matthews, U.
S. Army. It is called cordeling.i The goods of the trader are loaded
upon a boat and the craft dragged by a tow-line along the margin of
the stream. These articles were traded for furs until the boat had
gradually exchanged its freight of civilized wares for peltry. Then the
craft was easily floated back to St. Louis, its starting point. Mention
is made of this process by Lewis and Clarke, Prince of Wied, Brack-
enridge, and other travelers of the pre-steamboat days.

Before cordeling, even, there was a method of ferriage of the most
primitive character practiced on the Missouri River. The bull-boat was
a contrivance used as a primitive ferry. It was made as follows: A

* Hinds’s Labrador, vol. 1, pp. 77,94.

t New York, 1875, opp. p. 53. J

{ ““ The British fur companies held the trade of these Indians until 1807, when Man-
uel Lisa ascended the river in keel-boats to the Mandan villages and beyond. Until
1832 goods were brought up the Missouri River chiefly in keel-boats, or Mackinaw
boats, which were cordeled, or towed by men with great labor against the rapid cur-
rent of the river. Two summers at least were always occupied in dragging a boat

from St. Louis to the head of navigation, the crew sustaining themselves chiefly by
hunting.” Ethnography of the Hidatsa, p. 30,

 
248 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

number of elastic poles were firmly inserted in the earth in a circle the
size of the gunwale of the boat, and a horizontal pole was lashed to
these a few inches from the ground. The tops of these poles were bent
inward, each opposite pair being firmly and neatly lashed together at
a height from the ground to correspond with the depth of the craft.
This done, a buffalo-bull hide, depilated and thoroughly soaked, was
drawn down and stretched over the frame, and the edges secured to the
horizontal pole which served the purpose of a gunwale. The ends of
the poles were then cut off, the vessel turned over, any little crevices
were stopped, and the ferry-boat was ready to launch ;* and this is the
way the apparatus worked: Whenever an Indian wished to cross a
river in his bull-boat he placed therein his luggage and babies, and
fastening a rawhide line to his gunwale, he swam across the river with
the other end attached to his body. Behind the craft swam his wife or
daughters, pushing the boat as much as possible against the stream.
Indians have told the writer that oblong bull-boats were formerly used,
before the days of steam, whenever longer journeys were to be taken.
The practice would be perfectly in keeping with the birch-bark canoe
journeys of the tribes north and east, where the vessel was only an im-
proved bull-boat, in which birch-bark took the place of rawhide.

According to Herodotus (I, § 1) Cleobis and Bito were honored by
Solon with the second place of happiness among men. “There was a
great festival in honor of the goddess Juno at Argos, to which their
mother must needs be taken in a car. Now, the oxen did not come home
from the field in time, so the youth, fearful of being too late, put the
yoke on their own necks and themselves drew the car.” Without dream-
ing of their distinguished company hundreds of rag-pickers, small-
truckmen, and peddlers are pulling and pushing wagons and carts
about the streets, sometimes alone and often hitched by the side of dog
or donkey.t

16. Throwing or tossing.—An immense amount of material is moved
by various methods of throwing, with or without tools. Itis a process
of rapid transit in which the material alone moves without the neces-
sity of a track of any kind. Doubtless many will remember the old fash-
ion of passing buckets of water at a fire before the invention of engines.
The negroes in southern cities move many thousands of watermelons and
other produce from the vessels to the warehouses or wagons, often hun-

* Cf, Lewis and Clarke's Travels, London, 1817, vol. 3, p. 348.

t The Egyptian sculptures abound in representations of human traction in every
attitude in which it is possible for a man to be attached to a rope. See Rawlinson’s
Herodotus, 11, 72. See also in Rawlinson’s Five Monarchies, New York, 1871, p. 402, from
Layard, a spirited picture of men moving a human-headed bull. We have here in
one picture men drawing sledges, others drawing hand-carts filled with ropes, and
others fixing rollers, working levers, holding props and guys, carrying rollers, relays
coming to relieve their fellows, taskmasters with clubs, and the boss on the front of

the sledge marking time for those at the ropes. All the draft-men have bricoles or
beckets as individual harness.

 
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 249

dreds of feet, by tossing them from one to another, standing ten feet
apart. It is a simple step from this to the shovel, the fork, the hoe, or
the rake, used on every farm and in connection with almost every busi-
ness in the world.* In the oldest forms of embankment the laborers
doubtless carried the dirt in sacks or baskets. To this day the fellaheen
of Egypt follow the primitive method.t But in all military operations,
canal and railroad work, excavation in cities, the shovel is the vehicle
of transportation, and the navvy, or his technical representative, is the
beast of burden.

17. Caravans.—It is only a step from the single carrier to the organ-
ized train under the direction of a leader performing in common a task
which would be dangerous to one, or in which mutual help is needed.
No one supposes that the caravans of historic times were invented at
a single effort. The caravansaries, the wells, the armed guard, the
joining of forces at difficult places, are complicated affairs which are
the resultants of many trials of much simpler character.

In the old slave-hunting days in Africa the same method was prac-
ticed with slaves. A lot of negroes would be captured and driven to
the coast for sale, but to save freight each individual was loaded with
ivory, gold-dust, and other commodities. On arriving at the coast the
trader sold out the whole concern and returned to repeat the process.i
In Southern Mexico and Central America the trade from the interior
is brought to the coast on the backs of peons marching en traine under
a leader.

18. In all the early accounts of settlements in our country trails are
not only mentioned as the veritable war-path, but commercial trails
were also known. This introduces us to the whole subject of roads, the
series being paths marked by stakes or blazed trees, unkept roads, high-
ways, turnpikes, plank roads, paved streets, tramways. In these rude
trails or paths are many obstacles—declivities, streams, chasms. To
overcome these, inventive genius has devised bridges, fords, steps,
graded ways, tunnels, etc., part of the outcome of the packman’s in-
dustry.§

 

* Dr. Samson reports a curious combination of the spade with traction. ‘In spad-
ing up the ground a fellah pressed the spade into the earth, while a woman on each
side, by means of a rope attached to the handle, raised the spade with its load and
turned it over.”

t +“I saw in the Delta of Egypt a common occurrence, young women and girls dig-
ging in the canals, shoveling the black, dripping mud with a bit of wood and their
hands into palm-leaf baskets, putting the dripping baskets on their heads so that
their hair and faces were all matted with slime, toiling up the sides of the canal to
empty their loads, while a taskmaster with a whip would cut their bare legs as they
passed if in weariness they loitered.”—Dr. G. W. Samson.

i See reference to selling boat and cargo in Herodotus, vol. 1, p. 194.

§ Mommsen’s ‘‘ Rome,” New York, 1869, 1, 177. For an excellent account of the
swinging bridges of Peru, cf, Squier, Incidents of Travel, etc., New York, 1877, 544
547.
250 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

19. Relaying.—An important element in transportation is resting and
relaying.* In most rude carrying-devices the greatest effort is put forth
in rising from the ground or in getting the load in place. The organ-
grinder and the coolie carry staves, on which they rest their load when
they are fatigued. The Damara girl lifts her load from her head and
holds it aloft on both hands while she proceeds on her journey. The
soldier shifts his weapons; the Malagasy bearers replace one another
under the poles of the filanzana, or carrying-chair, without interrupting
their journey. The Montezumas had relays of runners between the sea
and the city of Mexico, so as to receive fish and other lowland products
in a fresh condition.

20. Couriers.—From this inquiry must not be omitted the courier,
swift messenger of tidings, earthly prototype of Hermes, who was sue-
ceeded later by horses, dromedaries, carrier-pigeons, ships on the sea,
steam-cars on land, and, last of all, the telegraph. His modern sur-
vival is the district and telegraph messenger boy. I have seen some-
where the picture of a naked Kaffir running at full speed, bearing in
one hand a pair of assegais and in the other a rod split at the upper end
to receive a letter, carried thus to keep it from being soiled by contact
with his naked body.

In ancient Mexico, says Prescott, ‘communication was maintained
with the remotest parts of the country by means of couriers. DPost-
houses were established on great roads, about two leagues distant from
each other. The courier, bearing his dispatches in the form of a hiero-
glyphic painting, ran with them to the first station, where they were
taken by another messenger -and carried forward to the next, and so on
until they reached the capital. These couriers, trained from childhood,
traveled with incredible swiftness, not four or five leagues an hour, as
an old chronicler would make us believe, but with such speed that dis-
patches were carried from one to two hundred miles a day.”

There is no doubt that all of these various devices have had their in-
fluence in shaping and deforming the human body. Students of crani-
ology and anthropometry should have their attention called to the fact
that among savages the use of carrying-pads, straps, and other devices
about the head commences just as soon as the child can walk, with little
loads at first in small baskets, wallets, nets, frames, or what not, when

 

* Hinds’s * Labrador,” vol. 1, p. 43.

t Conquest of Mex., Phila., 1874, vol.1,p. 43. For an exciting account of couriers
with lighted torches proclaiming the new cycle, id., 130, compare C. A. Muray, Travels
in North America, New York, 1839, vol. 1, p. 193, who says that an Indian of his party
traveled a hundred miles in four and twenty hours. Prescott also alludes to Plutarch’s
account of the Greek who brought the news of victory to Plataea, 125 miles, in a day; to
pedestrian capabilities of man in a savage state collected by Buffon; to Marco Polo’s
account of couriers in China in the thirteenth century ; to Anderson’s account of Gov-

ernment couriers in China in 1796. (Cong. of Mex., Phila., vol. 1, p. 44, note.) ‘‘Noth-

"ing in the world is borne so swiftly as messages by the Persian couriers.” (Herod.
Urania, 98.) In this case horses were used as in the pony mail formerly in use across
the plains, but the man or courier went on,
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 251

a forehead strap for the top of the head is employed. Even though these
marks may not be hereditary, they can not escape the notice of the crani-
ometer.

It should not be overlooked that this human pack animal possesses
the greatest versatility. In the case of your train, hundreds of men
load the cars, carrying burdens on back and trucks; men manipulate
the senseless and purposeless thing looking so proud and capable; men
unload the train, and, indeed, put the fiery steed to bed. Not so in
primitive culture; the man-beast feeds, waters, and curries himself,
gathers and adjusts his own load, changes himself into propeller, track-
man, carrier ad libitum, besides adapting himself to a multitude of sub-
sidiary occupations not here under consideration. Indeed, the man is
engineer, engine, freight-car, truck, wheelbarrow, horse cart, dray, tow-
path, mule, etc., all combined.

The mean elont of the power of a man sition zy a machine, working
to the best possible advantage and at a moderate estimation, is the rais-
ing of 70 pounds 1 foot high in a second for ten hours in a day.

Two men working at a windlass at right angles to each other can raise
70 pounds more easily than one man can raise 30 pounds.

Mr. Bevan’s results with experiments upon human strength are for a
short period:

Pounds of force.

With adrawing-knife. .... ......c.cetr sci csoncnnsonrsisens stan scr ssaisn=res. 100
With aagerthothhands. 2.0 0 io uliii ilar denise tons nsitnes vues 100
With screw driver one hand. .... cc: i... Jiao iidiicenticas sannntitane sansianes 84
Withhbenchevise handle... .ccc.. init o ons coh unnr sininne sats sams viinin wane = 2nn 72
With chisel, vertical Pressure. i vo. coin coctiuncnvcoinens rman snes vans nue save 72
a OR I TAS I rE la I AEE 60
With pincers, compression... ..c.c... .... --. i ice cieansnsvmnssrssnsmsrrnzan 60
Wath liondeplane i. i ie tir etna tune iia manent 50
With han@-8aW {.. .... caer ohacnsanasinadanss sev thss senses amen Sammars ns 36
HDI VISE io. i nian. chadmnins sats Anse Mh dey a a Wan 45
With brace-bit, revolving . ; crass asnan tan naan 10
Twisting with the thumb and agers only, and With a sal SeravAiriver.. -- 14

By Mr. Field’s experiments in 1838 the maximum power of a strong
man exerted for two and one half minutes is 18,000 pounds raised 1
foot in a minute.

A man of ordinary strength exerts a force of 30 pounds for ten hours
in a day with a velocity of 2} feet in a second, equal to 4,500 pounds
raised 1 foot in a minute, equal to one-fifth of the work of a horse.

A foot soldier travels in one minute in common time ninety steps
equal 70 yards; in quick time, one hundred steps equal 86 yards; in
double-quick time, one hundred and forty steps equal 109 yards.

He occupies in the ranks a front of 20 inches and a depth of 13 inches
without a knapsack; the interval between the ranks is 13 inches.

Average weight of men, 150 ‘pounds each; five men can stand in a
space of 1 square yard.

A man travels without a load on level ground during eight and one-
half hours a day at the rate of 3.7 miles an hour or 31} miles a day. He
252 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

can carry 111 pounds 11 miles in a day. Daily allowance of water for
a man, one gallon for all purposes.

A porter going short distances and returning unloaded carries 135
pounds 7 miles a day. He can carry in a wheelbarrow 150 pounds 10
miles a day.

The muscles of the human jaw exert a force of 534 pounds.

Dr. Dwight observes: “Indians will travel with a facility, a celerity,
and a freedom from fatigue unknown to the people of Europe. Their
couriers or runners are said to go at the rate of 100 miles a day. Two
Choctaws followed my father 500 miles to steal from him two valuab:e
horses. When I asked how they could be willing to take so much trouble
for such an object, he observed that they had no other business, and
that roving was their favorite enjoyment.” *

The number of pounds that a man is able to lift or carry a short
distance hardly enters into this investigation, but rather belongs to
feats of strength and agility. A naval officer tells of a Swede who, wish-
ing to show his captain how nicely he had polished a brass cannon, took
it on his shoulder and carried it upon the bridge. The weight could
not have been less than a half ton. The following example of woman’s
strength, by Captain Healy, involves also the idea of ingenuity and the
conquest of natural forces: A woman volunteered to bring in her boat
a stone for an anchor to his launch which required two strong men to
lift; weight guessed to be 800 pounds [that is too high]. She first filled
her boat with small branches of spruce; then, choosing a part of the
bank where her boat-rail would be on a level with the ground, rolled
the stone over on the pliant boughs. Afterwards the spruce boughs
were removed one by one, to allow the stone to slip to its place in the
boat.t [From Capt. Healy’s account I infer that she first filled her boat
with water and used the buoyancy of the water to help her in moving
the stone. He says that they understand this.]

As to the amount one man can carry, Prof. Asaph Hall, of the United
States Naval Observatory, communicates the following :

‘““ When I was nineteen years old I could carry a barrel of flour from
the wagon into the house without putting it down, a distance of 3 rods,
and up six stone steps; but I could not do this with a barrel of cider.
If we put my carrying strength equal to x, we have therefore, barrel of
cider 7 x 7, barrel of flour. It was the custom in Litchfield County,
Connecticut, forty years ago, to use 112 pounds for a hundredweight.
A common test of strength among the young men was to string ten
half-hundred weights on the shanks of a fork for a lift. There were many
men who could lift 560 pounds.”

THE PROFESSIONAL CARRIER.

A new epoch in the history of the human beast of burden commences
with the appointment of professional bearers or professional common

 

* Hodgson’s North America, vol. 1, p. 250.
t M. A. Healy, Cruise of the Corwin, 1887, p. 49,
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 253

carriers. It is brought about by the differentiating process of advanc-
ing society. As soon as a body or caste of men are allowed to give
their whole time to a pursuit their efficiency is quadrupled; the unsuc-
cessful drop out of line; advantages are handed down; powers of per-
ception and skill are strengthened ; all sorts of devices for packing,
padding, shifting the load, resting, relieving, relaying, combining effort,
are thought of as measures of self-protective necessity. The profes-
sional carrier is more likely to have been the inventor of the beast of
burden, having to suffer more in his own back and legs by reason of his
daily burden. The Bajuli of the Romans were professional porters:
¢“ Ferri proprie dicimus quae quis suo corpore bajulat; portari ea, quae
quis in jumento secum ducit; agi ea, quae animalia sunt. Gaj. Dig., 50,

“16, 235, ete. Bajulos dicebant antiqui, quos nunc dicimus operarios.”
Fest., p. 29. In late Latin, a bearer at a funeral. Ammian., 14,7. The
Greek equivalent is Badraxtys.

PEDDLERS.

This chapter would not be complete without a passing mention of the
peddler as a beast of burden who enters on his work as a professional
for the purpose of commerce. The coolie, for instance, is a carrier pure
and simple. He takes up his burden at the instance of another and
lays it down for the same reason. The peddler combines employer and
employed, retail buyer and seller, with common carrier. Col. C. C. Jones
says: “The primitive merchantmen engaged in this traffic were held
in special repute, were generously treated, and had at all times safe
conduct through the territories, even of those who were at war with
each other.”* The peddlers of the Middle Ages held a conspicuous place
in the social order, special laws were enacted on their behalf, and they
enjoyed immunities not accorded to warriors and statesmen. Julius
Caesar attributes the bravery of the Belgians to the absence of peddlers,
“minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant, atque ea, quae ad ef-
feminandos animosi pertinent, important.”

THE PREHISTORIC CARRIER.

Although we have no evidence in the remains of early prehistoric
man that carrying apparatus of any kind was employed, yet the exist-
ence of mounds, earthworks, and walls of many sorts of material far
from its original source, of relics in old camp sites, indicating that the
former occupants lived very much as do those tribes from which the
specimens hereafter to be described have been collected, attests the use
of similar harness and methods of conveyance and transportation. In-
deed, nothing is more probable than that the first men and women on
earth bowed their backs and foreheads to those loads which their de-
Ber CB. Ds Tousctiverlillin oe dor Bingebotonn Nordammiws Aves,
f. Anthrop., v. (Antiq. So, Indians, 64, 243.)
254 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

scendants have borne unremittingly and will continue to carry in spite
of, and forsooth because of, the progress of invention.

The whole world is covered with megalithic inonumentsin the erection
of which it is extremely doubtful whether any living beings were used
except men. Inthe Easter Island are immense platforms on which stand
images weighing from three to twenty tons. These have been hewn
out in the crater of a volcano and moved in some instances several miles
over a region as rough as it can be. On the monuments of Egypt are
exhibited teams of men hitched to long cables dragging a sledge on
which sits an enormous statue. Rollers were used and greased tracks,
but we look in vain for the pulley. The immense buildings on our own
continent from Central Mexico to Southern Peru were the sole work of
man. Without a draft animal he brought togetber the material for
his splendid palaces and temples, and put every stone in place with his
own hands. We may go further than this. Long after horses, camels,
oxen, mules, and donkeys were used as beasts of burden the wagons
and wheel conveyances were so clumsy as to be practically useless in
transporting heavy loads. Allover Asia, and indeed in many parts of
Europe, the inconvenience of clumsy carriages kept rapid transport in
the hands of human bearers.

To one who believes implicitly in the universal domination of inven.
tion throughout all human activities, the temptation is great to pass
beyond the study of the human bearer to those intermediate stages be-
tween the same and the shifting of the load to vehicles and the backs of
animals. As interesting to the technologist as to the naturalist are
those intermediate forms that now apd then appear to confirm his
theories of creation.

The forces of nature, the wind, the water-fall, the expansion of steam,
the electric current would form another series, the last in the climax, in
which the wind acts directly like a hand ; the water, through machinery,
as a hand turning a crank; the steam, Snrongh change of form and the
element, like a hand winding a spring; the electricity, through chemical
changes, like a hand discharging a gun.

THE ESKIMO CARRIER.

Let us commence the special application of our subject at the farthest
north, the land of almost perpetual ice and snow. What time the Es-
kimo freight-man is not moving about in open waters moving chattels
and merchandise from place to place in the lightest of all boats, the seal-
skin pontoon or oomiak, he appears as a draft-man, dragging the
dead seal or other game over the ice by means of a rawhide line. He
has invented an infinite variety of toggles, made chiefly of walrus ivory
in shape of seal, walrus, bear, and other game. These are grasped in
the hand firinly, the rawhide line passing out between the ring and the
middle finger. The short piece of rawhide attached thereto is a loop
which is connected by an easily detachable arrangement to the drag-
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 255

line of any length. It is rare to see an Iiskimo carrying anything, ex-
cept a mother bearing around a baby in her ample hood. It is a beau-
tiful illustration of the play between environment and the industry to
mark the absence of all carrying devices, and at the same time the great-
est expenditure of invention and energy upon traction apparatus where
the safety of the carrier would be endangered by the very medium which
offers the greatest facility in the world to the draft-man. Nothing
but this perfect harmony could have induced the Eskimo to expend so
much time and energy. Parry, in his second voyage, gives a figure
(plate opp. p. 274) of a man carrying a kyak by placing his head in the
manhole and resting the gunwale on his shoulders. This is indeed the
first step to the portages in the birch-bark country farther south.

In the study of the human burden-animal we must not forget that
material had to be moved in very early times vertically as weil as hori-
zontally. For instance, a great walrus is killed out at sea or near the
shore, and the carcass must be lifted out of the water. It has dawned
on the mind of the Alaskan Eskimo that by cutting slits in the hide of
the animal and placing paddles or other wooden bars between the rocks
above, a very respectable tackle may be improvised with the aid of the
ever present rawhide line (Fig. 1). Friction is overcome by means of

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fig. 1.
THE PRIMITIVE PULLEY. ESKIMO LANDING A WALRUS BY MEANS OF 4 RAWHIDE LINE (AFTER A
DRAWING BY HENRY W. ELLIOTT).

abundant grease, and five or six sturdy fellows, by dint of surging and
pulling, succeed in landing the monster, weighing many times as much
256 ; REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

as any one of the Eskimo hunters. This art may have been suggested
by the tackle used by the Russians on their ships.
In many places along the sloping beaches and quiet waters the Es-
~kimo has learned to track ‘or tow his loaded oomiak. Again, on land
he is often compelled to draw loads without the aid of a sledge. [For
these purposes he has invented a breast-board of wood. The specimens
in the National Museum are from Nunivak Island and Oogashik, on the
Alaskan peninsula. These localities have between them the shallows
and inlets of Kuskokvim and Bristol Bays. The board is made of drift-
wood and has the curve to fit around the breast at the shoulders (Fig. 2).
Unfortunately no description of the manner of use accompanies the spec-

 

Pig. 2.

BREAST YOKES USED IN HITCHING THE ESKIMO TO HIS LOAD.

-
a. (Cat. No. 127326, U. S. N. M., from Oogashik, Alaska. Collected by S. Srglenats, b and c. (Cat. Nos.
16251-2), from Nunivak Island. Collected by Dr. W. H. Dall.)

imens, so we must remain in doubt as to the way in which the primitive
draft-man hitched himself up. In the northern regions traction of
sledges is performed by dogs, either alone or assisted by men. There
is no doubt, however, that the sledge was in use before the dog was do-
mesticated. The material and style of the sledge vary much according
to the region. Dr. E. R. Young, who spent many years in the Saskatch-
ewan regions, says that a great deal of sledging is done by men. He
has even seen dogs disabled riding on a sled drawn by men. In
the east it is ruder than in the west. In Labrador, where timber can
be procured, the sledge differs little from that of the school-boy. Only
the uprights at the back enable the driver to steer. Farther north bits
of old wrecks or sections of whale jaw do duty for runners. The method
of putting a coating of ice on the bottom of the runners is very ingenious
and effective. :

Parry’s description of those in Igloolik is as follows :

“The Eskimo sledges vary in size, being from 64 to 9 feet in length
and from 18 inches to 2 feet in breadth. Some of those at Igloolik were
of larger dimensions, one being 11 feet in length and weighing 268
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 251

pounds, and two or three others above 200 pounds. The ranners are
sometimes made of the left jaw-bones of a whale, but more commonly
of several pieces of wood or bone, scarfed and lashed together; the
interstices being filled to make all smooth and firm, with moss stuffed
in tight and then cemented by throwing water to freeze upon it. The
lower part of the runner is shod with a plate of harder bone, coated
with fresh-water ice to make it run smoothly and to avoid wear and
tear. This coating is effected with a mixture of snow and fresh water,
about a half inch thick, rubbed over until itis smooth and hard upon
the surface. When the ice is only in part worn off, it is removed by
taking some water in the mouth and spirting it over the former coating.

“We noticed a sledge which was curious on account of one of the run-
ners, and a part of the other, being constructed without wood, iron, or
bone of any kind. For this purpose a number of seal-skins were rolled
up and disposed into the required shape, and an outer coat of the same
kind was sewed tightly around them. This formed the upper half of the
runner; the lower part consisted entirely of moss, molded while wet
into the proper form, and being left to freeze, adhering firmly together
to the skin. The usual shoeing of smooth ice completed the runner,
which for six months of the year is as hard as wood. The cross-pieces
which form the bottom of the sledge are made of bone, wood, or some-
thing they can muster. Over these is generally laid a seal-skin as a
flooring, and in summer a pair of deer’s horns are attached to the sledge
as a back, which are removed in winter to enable them, when stopping,
to turn the sledge up, to prevent the dogs running away with it. The
whole is secured by lashings of thong, giving it a degree of strength,
combined with flexibility, which no other mode of fastening could effect.”
(Parry’s Expedition, 514,515.)

Of the natives of Point Barrow, Lieutenant Ray says: ¢“Thesleds which
they use for this purpose are made from drift-wood fastened with whale-
bone and rawhide lashing; they are about 10 feet long, 2 feet wide, and
the runners 8 inches wide and 14 inches thick, straight on top, and have
no rail; they are shod for ordinary use with strips of bone cut from the
whale’s jaw-bone, and sometimes with walrus ivory ; but this would not
do in hauling a heavy load over the snow, where there is no beaten trail,
so they are shod with ice in the following manner: From the ice on a
pond that is free from fracture, they cut the pieces the length of a sled-
runner, 8 inches thick and 10 inches wide; into these they cut a groove
deep enough to receive the sled-runner up to the beam; the sled is care-
fully fitted into the groove, and secured by pouring the water, a little
at a time, and allowing it to freeze. Great care is taken in this part of
the operation, for should the workmen apply more than a few drops at
a time the slab of ice would be split and the work all to do over again ;
after the ice is firmly secured the sled is turned bottom up and the ice-
shoe is carefully rounded with a knife, and then smoothed by wetting
the naked hand and passing it over the surface until it becomes per-

H. Mis. 600, pt. 2—17
258 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

fectly glazed; the sled when ready for use will weigh over 300 pounds,
and they load them with the carcasses of from seven to nine deer, weigh-
ing over 100 pounds each. Men, women, and children harness them-
selves in with the dogs to haul these loads to the coast, often the dis-
tance of 100 miles and over, seldom making more than 8 or 10 miles
each day.” (Report of the Expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska, Lieut.
P. H. Bay, p. 28.) :

The Eskimo sled is framed of spruce, birch, or whalebone, strongly
bound with thongs, and the runners shod with smooth strips of whale’s
jaw-bone. This sled is heavy and fit only for traveling over ice and snow.

Indian sleds of the interior are lighter, the runners being of thin,
fiexible boards.

Sleds used by voyageurs of Hudson Bay are of different construction.
Three boards, each about 1 foot in width and 12 feet in length, thinned
and curved into a semicircle at one end, are placed side by side, and
firmly lashed together with thongs. (Bancroft, 1, 52.)

SLEDGE ISLAND.

This sledge is about 20 inches in breadth and 10 feet in length, a sort
of rail-work on each side, and shod with bone, and put together with
wooden pins or with thongs or lashings of whalebone. (Cook’s Voy.)

KAMTSCHATKA.

The length of the body of this sledge is about 43 feet and the breadth
1 foot. It is made in form of a crescent, of light, tough wood, fastened
together with wicker-work, and, among the principal people, is stained
with red and blue, the seat being covered with furs or bear-skins. It
has four legs about 2 feet in height, resting on two long flat pieces of
wood of the breadth of 5 or 6 inches, extending a foot beyond the body
of the sledge at each end. These turn up before, somewhat like a skate,
and are shod with the bone of some animal. The carriage is ornamented
at the fore part with tassels of colored cloth and leather thongs. It has
a cross-bar, to which the harness is jointed, and links of iron or small
bells are hanging to it, which by the jingling are supposed to encourage
the dogs. (Cook.)

YUKON RIVER.

The snow shoes used in this district are about 44 feet long, are rounded
and bent upward in front and pointed behind. They are made of birch
wood and covered at either end with a fine netting of gut. The lash-
ings are strips of rawhide. (Whymper.)

The sledge consists of a plank, one end of which has been softened by
steam and bent in prow-like form. The material does not exceed one-

‘half an inch in thickness and the width varies from 10 to 14 inches.
Thongs keep the curved ends in place. It is especially adapted to soft
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 259

snow. Runners are occasionally added, the freight held in place by
lashings.

When a canoe or other heavy burden requires to be transported over
the land, the Indian has discovered that however much a piece of rein-
deer-skin may be used it will stretch a little more when again strained
with the weight it is to support. The skin of a seal will not, when dry,
sensibly lengthen after it has sustained a load for a length of time.
This valuable quality renders the skin of the seal a matter of conse-
quence to the people, who are unable to procure it for themselves, and
must necessarily rely upon their Innuit neighbors to furnish it in ex-
change for other value.

The strap is employed to sustain the weight carried on the shoulders
while the person may be traveling on snow-shoes, or when carrying a
burden over a portage to the next landing place. It is generally placed
over the forehead and shoulders, the muscles of the neck supporting the
entire strain, while the hand carries the gun, spear, or staff.

Turner says that he has seen the Ungava natives place a barrel of
flour on their shoulders and carry it up a hill-side so steep as to require
one not burdened to pick his steps with care.

Day after day, with plenty of food or none at all, whether pack on
back, trapping in the woods, treading out a path with snow-shoes in
the deep snow for the sleigh dogs, or running after them at a racing
pace from morning to night, when there is a well-beaten track, they will
travel 50 or 60 miles a day for a week together without showing any
sign of fatigue. (Northwest Passage, Fitzwilliam, p. 43.)

“The Indian packers over these mountain passes usually carry 100
pounds, although one I had walked along readily with 127 pounds,
and a miner informed me that his party employed one that carried 160
pounds. The cost of carriage of a pack (100 pounds) over the Chilkoot
trail for miners has been from $9 to $12, and the Indians were not in-
clined to see me over at any reduced rates, despite the large amount of
material required to be transported, some two tons. By giving them
two loads, or doubling the time over the portage, a slight reduction
could be had, not worth the time lost in such an arrangement, and I
made contracts with enough of them to carry my effects over at once.
Mr. Spuhn was also very energetic in his efforts to secure for me better
terms, but without avail, and after I had crossed the trail I in no way
blamed the Indians for their stubbornness in maintaining what seemed
at first sight to be exorbitant, and only wondered that they would do
this extremely fatiguing labor so reasonably.” (Lieutenant Schwatka,
Reconnaissance in Alaska, 1383.)

Fig. 8 of the Reconnaissance is a view on Payer Portage, and repre-
sents a Chilkat Indian, with two ammunition boxes, going over the port-
age. The amount some of these packers will carry seems marvelous,
and makes estimates for pack-mules or trails therefor seem superfluous.
Their only packing gear is a couple of bands, one passing over the fore-
260 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

head, where it is flattened out into a broad strip, and the other over the
arms and across the breast; the two meet behind on a level with the
shoulder, and are there attached to lashings, more or less intricate, ac-
cording to the nature of the material to be transported.

“If a box or stiff bag, the breast-band is so arranged in regard to length
that when the elbow is placed against it (the box) the strip fits tightly
over the extended forearm across the palm cf the hand bent backwards.
The head-band is then the width of the hand beyond this. At least I
saw a few Indians arranging their packs and their harness according
to this mode. The harness proper will not weigh over a pound and the
lashing according to its length. The strip across the head and breast
is of untanned deer-skin about 2 inches wide, with holes or slits in the
ends protected from tearing out by spindles of bone or ivory.” (Recon.
in Alaska, p. 23.)

“It seemed marvelous beyond measure how these small Indians, not
averaging I think over 140 pounds each, could carry 100 pounds up
such a precipitous mountain, alternately on steeply inclined glacial snow
and treacherous rounded bowlders, where a misstep in many places
would have hurled them hundreds of feet down the slope or precipices.”
(Reconnaisance in Alaska, p. 18.)

“The Indian then chased the goat, almost keeping up with him,
down into the valley where we camped, and up the steep mountain
slopes of the eastern side, equally as high as those mentioned, and all
this immediately after he had carried over 100 pounds across the trail.”
(Reconnaisance in Alaska, p. 17.)

“The things were then divided into bundles or packs of as even
weight as possible, giving some 50 or 60 pounds to each man. Ar-
ranging these packs is a matter of no little difficulty, for the Indian
has a great objection to altering his load after he has started, so that
you have to give the men carrying the provisions, which grow lighter
daily, a heavier load at starting than those who have the canteens or
tent to carry. They generally stop for some five minutes’ rest every
half-hour. This they do with surprising regularity. They generally
squat near a ledge of rock on which they can rest their burden without
removing it. They carry everything the same way, viz, with a band
over the forehead, the pack resting on their shoulder-blades or a little
below.” (Mayne’s British Columbia and Vancouver Island, p. 100.)

Col. Cecil Clay says that the commonest methods used in carrying
from the St. Lawrence to the jumping-off place northward and from
Labrador to the Pacific is by a * tump-line,” a long strap with a broad
band in the center.

The Indians of the Ungrava district are often compelled, by particu-
lar conditions of weather, to travel afoot, and while on a journey of
this description they must carry the articles necessary to their comfort
or the articles they desire to barter and those they receive in return
upon their backs. In order that the arms may be free and aid their
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 261

progress, the bundles are made as compact as their nature will permit,
and slung across the shoulders transversely or suspended over the
neck, and the arms passed over the thong supporting the weight behind.

A piece of netting, made of deer-skin twisted and then netted, having
thongs run through the outer meshes, draws the net tight over the
bundle, which is slung as indicated above.

The method employed by the Makah Indians in carrying burdens
when afoot is to strap or tie the load together, whenever practicable, in
a compact form, and then, by means of straps or belts that they weave
themselves from rags, the pack” is carried resting on the back, the
strap resting against the forehead. The packing strap is woven round,
except when it is intended to rest against the forehead; then it is flat.
In carrying a number of small parcels or berries, fish, clams, sea-urchins,
small pieces of wood, and when haste in loading or unloading a canoe
is desired, they use a basket, also woven by themselves, of different
patterns, resting on the back and held by a strap around the forehead.
They carry cord-wood in the same manner, the sticks lying transversely
on the basket.

The baskets intended for heavier articles are woven of the twies of a
tree that resembles lignum-viteae, the sides intended to rest against the
back being flatter and broader than the others. For berries, dried
fish, and lighter articles, the baskets are woven of the inner fiber of
cedar bark. It may be needless to say that all this work is done by
the women.

The native name for the heavier basket is ¢ kah-ow-utz,” and for the
lighter ¢ bu-hquee.” Their name for the packing-strap is ¢“de-de-quad-
ut,” derived from de-ahp (hanging) and quad-ut (handle), the com-
bination or derivation meaning ‘ hanging handle.”

The Makahs do not ‘ track,” there being no rivers of any size in the
country, and the nature of the country forbidding travel along the
banks of such as there are for any distance, the timber being very
dense and extending to the very edge of the stream. The canoeing is
principally on salt water.

CARRYING LOADS.—INDIANS NEAR STILLWATER, MONTANA TER-
RITORY.

The men and women carry loads in a similar way. He or she takes
areata, or rope about the size of your finger, which is made out of buffalo-
hair or braided elk-skin, three plait, lays it on the ground in the shape
of an elongated U, placing the load across the legs of the letter. They
generally get a little rise in the ground or a cut bank, but if on the level
of a prairie they are helped to raise it by one of their number, or else
work over on their side until they can get upon their knees, when they
are all right. After placing their load of a hundred-pound sack of flour,
or a quarter of a buffalo or steer, or a half cord of dry wood, they, with
their back against it, take the curve of the rope over their head, down
262 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

across their breast and across their shoulders, and then taking the tow
ends in each hand bring them up behind their back, catch the rope on
top of the load by running each end under, then pulling ends over each
shoulder tighten the load if loose and then raise on one side, then the
other, to make it more secure, and with a heave forward she or he comes
to the knees before getting on their feet. The load or burden rests on
the back and shoulders. When moving the body is bent forward and
the heavier the load the more the body is inclined. Have seen them
carrying wood over four miles in this way, resting whenever they found
a suitable place like a cut bank or a washed gully so the load will be
even with the place and can be taken again in a minute or so.

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Fig. 3.
COARSE WALLET FOR BURDEN-BEARING. CONICAL CARRYING-BASKET, WITH HEAD-BAND.
(Cat. No. 127843. Quinaielt Indians. Chehalis County, Washing (Collected by James G. Swan.)

ton. Collected by Charles Wiiloughby.)

Among the Salish tribes of Washington Territory, as well as those of
British Columbia and southeast Alaska, twined weaving in pine root,
cedar bark, rushes, and grasses is very common. These tribes-all use
the wallet for carrying, resting on the back, and prevented from falling
as well as partly supported by the head-band resting on the forehead
(Fig. 3). One specimen of wallet in the collection is a very interesting
example of weaving. The warp threads are very far apart. The twine
threads are coarse and loosely woven. At the top two rows of close
twine ran parallel with the warp. The loose ends of the weft are
fastened off in true Indian style to imitate braiding.
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 263

A more elaborate example of carrying-basket from Washington Ter-
ritory is cone-shaped, like those of the Utes. Strengthening rods are
fastened to the outsides of the cone (Fig.4). A braid of tough fiber
passes quite around the basket and is loose enough to pass over the
forehead of the bearer. The weaving is close enough to hold fine seeds,
the rushes being held in place by twined weaving and by a species of
braiding with one thread, which will be seen better in a cradle from
northern California, in the article on Cradles in this volume. The top
of the basket is explained in the enlarged drawing below the figure
* showing the outside and the inside of the margin.

Still further south are encountered the artistic tribes of northern
California. Mr. Powers and the” gentlemen of the Fish Commission
have sent some beautiful examples of carrying-basketsfrom the M¢Cloud
fishing Indians. One here illustrated is in twined weaving, as close
almost as the Sitka work. The bottom is protected frequently by a
thimble of leather (I'igs. 5 and 6). The ornamentation on the outside is

 

Fig. 5. Fig. 6.
BURDEN-BASKET WITH HEAD-BAND. BURDEN-BASKET.
(Cat. No. 19289, U .S. N. M. McCloud River Indians. Shasta (Cat. No. 19290, U. S. N. M. McCloud River Indians, Shasta
County, California. Collected by Livingston Stone. County, California. Collected by Livingston Stone.)

produced by an overlaying of maiden-hair fern or dyed grass, and the
figure may or may not appear on the inside of the weaving. This bas-
ket is bordered by a wooden hoop sewed on by coiled work.

One of the most noteworthy specimens of carrying appliances in the
National collection was collected by Dr. Palmer from the Mohaves of
264 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

the mouth of the Colorado River. The affair, as can be readily seen
from the drawing, consists of two long bent poles, securely lashed to-
gether at their middles. The four ends are fastened to a hoop at equal
distances (Fig. 7). Warp-threads are stretched from the intersection
at the bottom to the hoop at the top. The weaving is done by a series
of turns around the poles and the warp-threads in passing. This is the
most interesting sample of aboriginal weaving the writer has ever seen.
Collected many years ago from the Mohaves it is undoubtedly a genuine ;
specimen of their work. Indeed, as no white man weaves in that man-
ner, this could not possibly be an example of borrowing. The chief in- :

 

Fig. 7. Fig. 8.
CARRYING-BASKET. CARRYING-FRAME, WITH HEAD-BAND AND Fev oF
5 i 2 PROPS, SHOWING THE MOST PRIMITIVE STYLE OF
(Cat. No. 24145, U. S. N. M. Mojave Indians, California.
Collected by Edward Palmer.) COILED NETTING.
(Cat. No. 126680, U N. M. Pima Indians, Arizona.

i ‘by Edward Palmer.)

terest in the specimen, however, is not in its simple method of manip-
ulation, but in the connection which it has with regions far remote.
In Foster’s Pre-historic Races (p.225)is figured a piece of weaving, taken
from the bottom of a mound in Ohio. There are three warp-threads,
precisely as in our Mohave basket, and three weft-threads wrapped sue
cessively around each warp-thread in an orderly manner. Mr. Holmes,
in speaking of impressions of textiles on pottery, draws attention to this $s
interesting specimen from Foster. The writer has rolled out a larg
sheet of sculptor’s clay and pressed it against the interior of this net

work and found that the threads held the clay in place perfectly unti

 

  

    
 
 
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 265

it dried. On the deserts of southern Arizona one has to go a long way
for food and fuel. It is a common thing, says Dr. Palmer, to see a Mo-

- have woman coming in with this great basket stacked full of mesquite-
bean pods, to be broken up and ground into meal when they are dry.
The head-band is made of coarse rags, made into a pad at the center for
the forehead.

Contiguous to the Mohaves, and belonging to the same Yuman stock,
are the Pimas. (By some writers the Pimas are relegated to a separate
stock.) Their arts are similar to those of the Mohaves. In the example
of carrying-basket figured four rude sticks form the uprights. The
netting is formed by a continuous coil of yucca-fiber thread caught into
the coil beneath it. When this material is pressed flat it has the ap-
pearance given by the drawing (Fig. 8). The head-band and the staff
(which also serves to support the carrying-basket when the porter is
resting) complete the outfit. The form of stitch here seen looks like
the boundary between the
hard coil of the California
and interior basketry on the
one side, and the more elab-
orate net-work of Mexico and
Central America. From the
same region Dr. Palmer has
collected three specimens of
a still more elaborate device
for carrying. It consists of
a frame-work of four sticks,
two of which project down-
ward for legs. These sticks
are attached to a hoop, which
holds them in place above,
but they extend some dis-
tance above the hoop, like
standards on a wagon, to
hold a top load of all sorts
of light material. There is a
pad of cane fabric attached
to the portion of the appara-
tus next to the back, and a
broad head-band also, which Fig. 9.
can be used on occasion (Fig. CARRYING OUTFIT.

9). The net-work of these (Cat. No. 76083, U. 8. N. M. Pima Indians, California. Collected by
baskets is very delicately

wrought. In reality the coarse yucca thread is coiled, as in the last ex-
ample, but all sorts of straight or zigzag bands are produced by making
a whole turn in the thread before passing downward through the next
stitch of the uuderlying coil. This work is done with a needle and
thread, as one may see the carrying nets and bags made in Central

 
266 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

America or the snow-shoes furnished with sinew among the Eskimos.
The latter use a double-pointed needle, with the thread hole in the mid-
dle, but the natives of Central America and Mexico employ a needle
of wood or bone about 4 inches long and one-tenth inch in thickness.
Around the uprights of this specimen are ropes for lashing on the load,
and a staff, with a crutch at top, serves the double purpose of a cane
and a rest.

In a former paragraph allusion was made to the correlation of primi-
tive agriculture with transportation. At the borders of Mexico gourds
raised by rude processes begin to appear as vessels. In the example
here figured a long gourd, holding a gallon or more, is inclosed in a
net-work of yucca twine, laid on in coils, with half hitches above, and
with the standard open net-work below (Fig. 10). A bandolier of com-
mon rag furnishes the carrying-strap. This specimen was collected
from the Pimas by Dr. Palmer.

The Diegenos belong to the Yuman stock, and dwell about San Diego,
California. A rade carrying basket or wallet, collected by Dr. Palmer,
is made of sticks in open work, held in place by a series of twined
weft (Fig. 11). The handle is a common bale of string. There is noth-

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Fig. 10.

RYING-GOURD.
QanRvINe R BASKET FOR CACTUS-FRUIT, ETC.
(Cat. No. 76047, U. S. N. M. Pima Indians.

Colorado River, Arizona. Collected by (Cat. No."19742, U.S. N. M. Diegenos Indians. San Diego, Cali-
Edward Palmer.) ornia. Collected by Edward Palmer.

Fig. 11.

ing striking about the specimen, excepting the occurrence of twined
weaving so far south. It will be remembered from former studies that
this style of textile gives place to the coil in northern California, In
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 267

the Great Interior Basin the Shoshonian stock have carried it much
further southward, and even to the Pacific Ocean in southrn California.

The Shoshonian stock, especially the central tribes in Utah, are agri-
culturists in a crude fashion. The women gather the seeds of fifty or
more plants, fan out the chaff in a basketry tray, elsewhere described,
grind the seeds on a flat slab with a muller, and of the meal make
cakes or mush. The gathering-basket in which this harvest is collected
and transported is shown in the accompanying figures (12, 13). This

 

Fig. 13.
Fig. 12.
g UTE TYPE OF HARVESTING-BASKET AND FAN,
HARVESTING-BASKET, USED BY ALL TRIBES IN USED BY ALL OTHER TRIBES; ALSO IN THE
COLORADO, UTAH, AND NEVADA. GREAT INTERIOR BASIN.
(Cat. No. 14664, U. S. N. M.) (Cat. No. 42155, U. 8. N. M, Collected by James Stevenson.)

conical receptacle is held with the point on the ground and the rim close
to the plants. The female harvester holds the gathering-basket with
her left hand, and by means of a coarse fan held in the right hand
beats the seed into the receptacle. The carrying-strap of soft buckskin
is passed across the forehead to hold the basket high on the back.
Thus burdened the Ute pack-woman trudges home to change her craft
from the burden-bearer to the miller and the baker. , The carrying-bas-
ket of the Utes is made in twined weaving. The pattern is varied
according to the number of warp-sticks included within each turn.
The simplest incloses each rod separately; another style takes in two,
and the twines are always between the same pairs of warp twigs. A
third style imitates diagonal or twill by including a different set of rods
on each round. This has been described in another place. (Smithson.
Rep. 1884, Pt. 11.)

 
268 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1587.

The Utes have no pottery except what they have borrowed. Not to
be defeated, however, in a matter so necessary to their happiness, their
ingenuity -has been equal to the occasion. Both the Utes and the
Apaches make bottles and jars of twigs (Fig. 14) holding from half a
pint to many gallons. These they calk with hot pitch until they are
perfectly water-tight. On the side of this primitive demijohn lugs or

 

SAN CARLOS APACHE WOMAN CARRYING WATER IN A WICKER JAR LINED WITH PITCH.

(From a photograph in the U. S. National Museum.)

loops are fastened, and a soft buckskin head-band served through these
enables Aquaria to bring often from a great distance water, seeds, and
other necessaries. : :

The use of the carrying-net is not common in America. Major Powell
brought from Utah in 1874 a large collection to illustrate the life of the
tribes there. The Utes, and indeed the tribes south of them, employ
the net to catch rabbits and other small game. They know also how to
turn the net into a carrying appliance. (Fig. 15.) One of the devices
is here shown. The knot here used is the standard mesh-knot found all
over the world, and it is interesting to find it here among the savages
of Utah. roy

In northwestern Arizona are the Moki Pueblos. The westernmost
of these, Oraibi, is celebrated for its basketry, In addition to the twined
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 269

and coiled work, which they practice in common with their neighbors
and blood kindred, the Utes, though with vastly greater taste and skill,
they have somewhere learned the art of making true wicker-work.
(Fig. 16.) Thisisindeed rare west of the Rocky Mountains. Two speci-
mens are here figured, the one coarse and holding over a bushel, the
other fine and having the capacity of a peck. Both of them are carried
by means of a head-band. The wicker is based on a warp of rigid twigs,
in bunches of twos or threes. The woof is made up of twigs passing
alternately over and under the warp. In fact, it would be more correct
to call the bent twigs the warp, because they are alternately raised and

 

CARRYING-NET. *“CARRYING-CRATE” OF ZUNI AND OTHER PUEBLOS.

(Cat. No. 11244, U. S. N. M. Ute Indians. Southern Utah. (Cat. No. 22971, U.S. N. M. Collected by Major J. W. Powell.)
Collected by Major J. W. Powell.) %

lowered as if with a weaver’s harness, while the straight twigs pass
along the openings just as the warp does in common weaving. The
method of fastening off the wicker twigs is shown in the detail of the
coarser pattern. (Figs. 17, 18.) Baskets of this very pattern are found
at Zuiii, but the opinion obtains that the basketry of this region belongs
especially to the Shoshonian and the Apache-Tinné stock. Barter is
going on all the time, and it is difficult to follow tribal characteristics
under such circumstances.

The Zuiii and most of the Rio Grande pueblos are famous for their
pottery. The pack-men and the pack-women here distinguish them-
selves, especially for the ease and grace with which they carry water
and other burdens on the head. Here comes in the head-ring or burden-
pad, specimens of which are figured (Figs. 19,20). They are made either
by wrapping a bundle of soft bast or grass into a ring, as in the top
270 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

figure, or by weaving a ring of yucca fiber neatly around a mass of the
shredded fiber. This ring is placed upon the head and the round-bot-
tomed jar upon that. When the jar is set down the ring still is made
to support it and keep it in an upright position. Many jars have a
concavity beneath, which really seems to be an afterthought. Itisonly
a seeming, however, as there is no evidence either way. In comparison
with the Zuii water-carrier is shown an Italian girl in Palermo perform-
ing the same feat. It is only a short step from this figure to the cary-
atid, in which architecture glorifies in marble one of the humblest oe-
cupations of humanity. (Fig. 21.)

   
   
  
 
     
 
  
   
   
  

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SMALL FRUIT-PICKER’'S BASKET. FRUIT-BASKET. 2

(Cat. No. 70937, U. 8. N. M. Moki Pueblos, Arizona. Collected by James (Cat. No. 22993, U.S. N. M. Moki Pueblos, Arizona. Collected
Stevenson 3 by Major J. W. Powell.) ES

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The Pueblo Indians, like the Eskimo above described, use the breast-
strap in dragging loads. They have the clumsy wooden Spanish cart
and the diminutive burro, but there are occasions when the man or the
woman is regularly hitched up to drag a load up the precipitous mesas,
where even a burro could not climb. The breast-strap is made of yucca
fiber woven in diagonal patterns, and forms a very efficient harness.
This strap, however, is even more likely to be rested across the fore-
head than upon the breast. (Fig. 22.)

The Apaches are extremely artistic in their manufacture of appliances
for burden-bearing. The carrying basket, here figured, is made of rods
sewed together by the coiled process. Ornamentation is effected by the

 
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 211

manner of stitching, by using different-colored material, and by sewing
on strips of soft, white buckskin, to the lower end of which are attached
the small hoofs of deer or bits of tin rolled up. (Fig.23.) The method
of carrying burdens among the Apaches is shown in the next figure, of
a woman bearing the cradle frame hung to the top of her head. Note
here the position of the strap high up on the head, as suggesting the

inquiry whether various uses and abuses of the head may not have con-
tributed to its deformation. (Ifig. 24.)

 
  
         
        
 
  
 
  

   
 
  
    

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= HEAD OR MILKMAID'S PADS.
ZUN1 WOMAN SUPPORTING A JAR OF WATER. + .
(Cat. No, 404€6, U. S. N. M. Pueblo Indians, Arizona and New
(From a photograph in the U. S. National Museum. ) exico. Collected by James Stevenson.)

Before passing southward it is well to consider the habits of the In-
dians east of the Rocky Mountains. No less than their western neigh-
bors were they formerly accustomed to carry heavy burdens. For this
272 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

purpose they used baskets, hampers, wallets, par-fleche cases, skin
bottles, skin wallets, and every other receptacle hitherto described.
(Figs. 25, 26.) In some of the mounds that have been carefully ex-
amined little strize showed that about a peck of earth constituted the
separate loads of dirt which were doubtless scraped up near by and
carried on the head or back in baskets to the mound. The first settlers
found the aborigines carrying on a respectable commerce, and using
inventions that were truly labor-saving machines.

 

 

 

Fig. 21.
Fig. 22.
ITALIAN WOMAN SUPPORTING EMPTY
JAR. BREAST STRAPS.
(From a photograph in the U. S. National Mu- (Cat. No. 70962—4, U. S. N. M. Zui Indians. New
seum. ) Mexico. Coilected by James Stevenson.)

Fortunately a beautiful example of a carrying apparatus was gath-
ered forty years ago from the Arikara and Mandan area. (Fig. 26.)
Its composition is worthy of our closest study. Four bent poles con:
stitute the frame-work, two of them with a wide interspace, the other
two narrow, like an ox-yoke bow. The two wide bows are placed nearly
parallel and about 10 inches apart at top and 4 at bottom. The nar-
row ones cross these at right angles nearly, only they are spread a
little at top. They are also as far apart as the length of the basket
demands. These two narrow bows descend 6 inches to afford a rest for

dima a ola an es

 

 

 
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 293

the load. The carrying-strap is of rawhide. The weaving is allied
to that of the Columbia River natives and the tribes northward to the

 

Fig. 23. : Fig. 24.
DECORATED CARRYING-BASKET. APACHE SQUAW CARRYING PAPPOOSE-FRAME BY MEANS
% : OF HEAD-BAND.
(Cat. No. 21489, U.S. N. M. Apache Indians of Arizona. .
Collected by Dr. J. B. White, U. S. N.) (From a photograph in the U. S. National Museum. )

 

 

: Fig. 25.
THE UNIVERSAL ** PAR FLESH’ CASE OF RAWHIDE, USED BY ALL BUFFALO HUNTING INDIANS.

~ Peel River, in British Columbia. It is indeed weaving in diaper, the
warp and the weft equally important in width, flexibility, and manip-
H. Mis. 600, pt. 2——18
274 REPORT. OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

ulation, narrow strips of birch or other tough bark, some of them
having the dark, others the light side exposed. This gives a pretty
figured effect to the surface.

Mexico is the land of carriers. The early chroniclers mention over
and over the employment of pro-
fessional bearers by the rulers
of the ancient city. Indeed, the
mountainous condition of the
country has kept alive the prac-
tice of using men for beasts of
burden up to the present time,
when the very best substitute
is the pack-mule. Travelers in
modern Mexico refer to regular
caravans of peons, who are to be
seen entering the city {from every
direction, bringing to market
every kind of commodity. Even
the butchers send their meat
around on the backs of men.
The Mexican carrier is a student
of attitudes, to the extent that
there is not a position of his
body adapted to burden-bearing
with which he is not familiar.

One specimen of basket in the
National Museum is made of split

CAI I Cre Rp cane, woven in diaper. (Figs. 28,
tort, So 0 03 8 0, SY Dots. Coton 20.) 14 Dolls ahwomi & bushel,
but in some cases the top load is
greater than the contents of the basket. The strap passes beneath the
basket up to the two loops midway. It extends Just around the
shoulders to the breast-bone in front. The head-band is also used in
Central America, but the breast-strap has not appeared since we left
Alaska. In the figure of the carrier here presented, quite an elaborate
back-pad is shown. In the Pima specimen a pad of this sort is attached
to the basket, but in the Mexican example the pad is attached to the
man. It consists of a large piece of soft leather, folded several times,
hung to the neck above, and held down at the bottom by a belt around
the waist. (Figs. 29, 30.) The Pima carrier, therefore, has but one
basket, while the Mexican is detachable from his basket, and padded
for any load whatever.

The human yoke is probably a foreign invention to Mexico. It is a
common sight now to see a man with a stout strip of wood on his
shoulder, from either end of which depends a jar by means of a strap,
as shown in the figure. These Jars hold about two gallons each of

 

Fig. 26.
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 275

 

PORTRAIT OF A WASHINGTON NEGRO, SHOWING A VERY COMMON
METHOD OF BURDEN-BEARING.

(From life, by W. H. Chandlee.) .

eral re
Ole

 

Tig. 28.
CARRYING-BASKET OF THE CARGADOR.

(Cat. No. 91508, U.S, N. M. Choctaw Indians, Mobile, Alabama. Collected
y Edward Palmer. )
276 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

water, pulque, flour, beans, etc. The frame at the bottom of the draw-
ing holds two of these jars. Other frames hold three or more. One of
these frames on either side of a burro makes up a pack, when the load
is easily transferred from the pack-man to the pack-mule. The pottery
is made in the mountainous districts, and one may frequently see mule-
trains coming along, their packs filled with pottery of this kind. (Fig.
31.)

        

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Fig. 29.

PORTRAIT OF A MEXICAN CARGADOR STANDING ON A TRACK, SHOWING THE TWO
EXTREMES OF TRANSPORTATION.

(Original drawing by W. H. Chandlee.)

Another method of hitching up mankind has crept into Mexico,
namely, the wheelbarrow. The drawing here given is an exact copy
of a Guadalajara potter’s conception of the happy wheelbarrow man,
his machine made entirely of wood, the shafts supported by a strap
hung from one shoulder and passing under the right arm. (Fig. 32.)

Tylor (Anahuac, 120) says: “A crowd of women follow close in the
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. . 217

rear of a Mexican army, almost every soldier having some woman who
belongs to him, who carries a heavy load of Indian corn and babies,
and cooks tortillas for her lord and master. The number of these
poor creatures who perish in the wars is very great.”

 

PORTRAIT OF A MEXICAN BUTCHER.
(After W. H. Holmes. )

Observe the parts of the body involved.

Mrs. Polhemus, in her ¢ Woman’s Work for Woman,” speaks thus of
the Mexican burden-bearers: ¢ Who are these two men coming towards
us, and what do they carry? The first is bearing to the city nothing
less than a load of wash-tubs. Very primitive they are, as you may see,
yet clothes will come from them as white and beautiful as any you
may have washed in your stationary tubs at home, with all the modern
improvements. Our next friend carries a bundle of wood, picked up
outside the city, and how precious those crooked sticks are you would
never guess till you tried to buy them. Here comes the bakers boy,
with his great flat basket, nicely balanced on his head, and filled with
fresh rolls and sweetened breads for your afternoon chocolate; then
comes an Indian woman with a great bundle of charcoal strapped to
her back, a baby tucked into her rebozo in front, and beyond walks
another, bearing on her head an earthen jar. In Guatemala this is the
way they carry milk, but here in Mexico City the jar is more likely to
contain water, either for bathing or drinking. On the corner stands a
porter, waiting and ready for a few cents to hoist to his back your
heaviest Saratoga trunk and transport it whither you will. Here comes
278 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

another Indian woman. A few peas, beans, and perhaps peppers are
tied up in a blanket, which is knotted around her neck. She stops at
doors, calls out her wares, and trots along till she is sold out and her
blanket empty; and so, as we pass along, do you notice how much in
Mexico is carried by men and still oftener by Indian women.”

        

     
 

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Fig. 31.
CARRYING-YOKE. A FRAME FOR SHIFTING THE JARS TO THE BACK OF A MULE.

(Cat. No. 126592, U.S. N M. Guadalajara, Mexico. Collected by Edward Palmer.)

It is well known that the ancient Mexicans worked in the silver mines.
The art of mining is about as primitive now in Mexico as formerly. The
ore is placed in rude bags or baskets. The carriers work their way to
the surface by means of notched poles put across a part of the shaft in a
zigzag fashion, and they then give their load to the breakers, who knock
the ore into pieces exactly as if they were going to macadamize a road.
(Mexico Illustrated, Mark Beaufoy, p. 268.)

Mr. W. A. Croffut speaks as follows about the remarkable carrying
capacity of those ubiquitous porters of Mexico, the cargadores :

“In every part of the country have I observed them patiently following
the trails and carrying immense loads on their backs. I recollect seeing,
four years ago, near a railroad station, half a dozen of them squatting
on the ground, resting. One had a sofa upon his shoulders, strapped
on I could not see how; another bore a tower of chairs locked into each
other and rising not less than 8 feet above his head; another carried a
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 279

hen-coop with a dozen or twenty hens, and others were conveying laden
barrels and various household goods. They had come, they said, {from
San Luis Potosi, not less than 50 miles distant. These cargadores will
cover 30 miles a day for a week or more, going from ocean to Gulf.

 

Fig. 32.
PEDDLFR WITH RUDE BARROW. MEXICO.

(After a figure in the U.S. National Museum, by a Guadalajara potter.)

“During a ride which I made over the Andes, on the Mexican National
Railroad, these persistent carriers were almost always in sight from the
car windows, the peons and burros following each other up and down
the slopes. The vice-president of the road, Thomas C. Purdy, whose
guest I was, said, as ye watched these animated trains advancing on
parallel lines, ¢ There is our rival. That is the only transportation
company we fear. If it were not for that line, this country would treble
its railroads next year, and the roads would double their profits. We
are combating the custom of centuries. Those fellows carry on their
backs to Mexico the entire crops of great haciendas far over the mount-
ains. I have been and sat down with a wealthy and enterprising haci-
endado, and explained to him that we could do his carrying in a quarter

of the time and for half the cost, and have seen him refuse to change,

and stubbornly stick to the old method. I was never before so im-
pressed with the tremendous force of habit.”

All the salt produced in Salinas is carried away on the backs and heads
of men, who come for it (many from great distances) and sell it at home
or in a suitable market. In Guatemala everything—with the exception
of grain, vegetables, and sugar, which are transported on beasts of
burden—is carried on the heads of men, there being no cart-road of any
length except that from the port to the capital. The articles to be car-
ried are adjusted into a package higher than wide, and secured by a
net, called red, To the back part of this pack, near its base, is fastened
280 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

a strap of rawhide, the two ends of which are attached to another strap,
called tapal, of the size and form of a large hand. The burden is placed
on a stone, or some other elevated object, and the man, stooping down,
puts the tapal on the top of his head, and lifting his burden trots off
with it. When a paterfamilias, going on a journey, has baggage to
carry, either his wife or one of his children accompanies him to carry
his provisions. A professional carrier dispenses with such company
and secures his provisions on the top of the load. In most instances
his food consists of tortillas and a few peppers as a condiment, to which,
exceptionally, some boiled beans are added. Carriers always take with
them, in a little bag, some meal of toasted maize mixed with scraped
brown sugar (dulce). A handful of this mixture put in hot water forms
their only beverage, for they never touch fresh water, and whatever they
drink must be warm. For preparing this beverage every one carries
with him a small iron pot. All these articles are put in a netted bag,
called matate. There are, at certain intervals on the road, places where
the carriers rest during the day or at night. Such places are generally
near to a brook, if there is one by the road, or to a rancho, where there
are always some sticks of wood left glimmering by the previous party
for making a fire and preparing the drink (pinol). The usual weight
of a man’s load is from 4 to 5 arrobas, an arroba being fixed by law at
25 pounds. Occasionally a man will carry a great deal more for a short
distance. To protect the load from rain every carrier takes with him
a kind of cloak (soyacal) made of the leaflets of a palm, stitched to-
gether in such manner as to overlap each other and form a short cone
with a broad base. This cloak is rolled up and secured to one side of
the load, indicating the nationality of the bearer; for by this he is at
once recognized as an inhabitant of Guatemala whenever he comes to
the neighboring states. This mode of carrying loads is undoubtedly
the cause of the fashion in which men wear their hair, which is elipped
short in front and on the top of the head, but allowed to grow to some
length on the back part. A similar fashion is observed by the Hanaks,
the inhabitants of the fertile plain of Central Moravia. The hair on the
top of the head of a professional carrier becomes much abraded.

A specimen of carrying frame from British Honduras begins to fore-
shadow the apparatus used in the Andes for transporting travelers. It
consists of a stout wooden frame like the seat of a child’s carriage elon-

“gated, and is fastened to the back as in the Mexican basket carrier.
All sorts of luggage are brought within the lines of the British trading
posts on the backs of men in frames of this sort. (Fig. 33.)

The far-famed coffee-carriers of Rio usually go in troops, numbering
ten or twenty individuals, of whom one takes the lead and is called
the captain. These are generally the largest and strongest men that
can be found. While at work they seldom wear any other garment
than a pair of short pantaloons; their shirt is thrown aside for the time
as an incumbrance. Each one takes upon his head a bag of coffee,
.

THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 281

weighing 160 pounds, and when all are ready they start off upon a
measured trot, which soon increases to a rapid run. (Fig. 34.) (Kidder
and Fletcher, Brazil and the Brazilians, p. 29.) :

   

     

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Fig. 33. Fig. 34.
CARRYING-FRAME. COFFEE-CARRIER OF RIQ,

(Cat. No. 126305, U. S. N. M. British Honduras. (After Wilkes.)
- Collected by U. S. Consul A. E. Morlan.

Slaves are almost the only carriers of burdens in Rio Janeiro. They
go almost naked and are exceedingly numerous. They appear to work
with cheerfulness, and go together in gangs with a leader, who carries
a rattle filled with stones, similar to a child’s rattle. With this he keeps
time, causing them all to move on in a dog-trot. Each one joins in the
monotonous chorus, the notes seldom varying above a third from the
key. The words they use are frequently relative to their own country,
sometimes to what they heard from their master as they started with
their load, but the sound is the same.

The coffee-carriers go in gangs of twenty or thirty. In singing, one-
half take the air, with one or two keeping up a kind of hum on the
common chord, and the remainder finish the bar. These slaves are re-
quired by their masters to obtain a certain sum, according to their
ability, say from 25 to 50 cents a day, and pay it every evening. The
surplus belongs to themselves. In default of not gaining the requisite
sum, castigation is alwaysinflicted. The usual load is about 200 pounds.
(Wilkes.)
282 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

In Rio Janeiro as well as in the United States and the West Indies
may be seen in perfection the African toting on the head. This prac.
tice does not seem to have been a favorite one among the American
aborigines, if we except the water-carriers of the interior basin of the
United States. In the coffee-carriers of Rio as well as among the steve-
dores of all our sea-ports and commercial towns, the load rests partly on
the head and partly on the top of the scapula, there being local vari-

“ations of the method running from support on the head alone to support
on the scapula alone. The method is an exceedingly convenient one
either for unloading or for emptying the sack.

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Fig. 35.
NEGROES IN R10 JANEIRO, BRAZIL, ACTING AS DRAUGHT ANIMALS.

(From an old print.)

From Rio we have also an old sketch, after Wilkes, illustrating the
use of man as a draft animal. (Fig. 35.) All over the world the
«push-cart” is known. Nothing is commoner in Washington than the
sight of a negro with his little two-
wheeled cart, moving at a dog-trot,
with a light load of everything con-
ceivable. The freight of one of these
carts rarely exceeds the quarter of a
ton, but the draft-man moves much
faster tkan a horse or a mule. The
climax of this process of using men
for draft is seen on the monuments
of Egypt, where hundreds of them
are hitched to a single sledge. The
romantic survival presents itself
everywhere in firemen’s processions,
the car of Juggernaut, the trinmphal
car.

A negro dray team in Rio consists
of five stalwart Africans pushing,
pulling, steering, and shouting as
they make their way amid the ser- Fig. 35a.
ried throng. Now an omnibus thun- NAPO INDIAN CARRIER, OF ECUADOR.
ders through the crowd, and a large {Afies Sinnfort)
four-wheeled wagon, belonging to some company for the transportation
of « goods,” crashes in its wake. Formerly all this labor was performed

 
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 283

 

by human hands, and scarcely a cart or a dray was used in the city,
~ unless, indeed, it was drawn by negroes. Carts and wagons propelled
by horse-power are now quite common; but for the moving of light
burdens and for the transportation of furniture, pianos, ete., the negro’s
head has not been superseded by any vehicle. (Kidder and Fletcher,
Brazil and the Brazilians, page 29.)

The Napos Indians, of Ecuador, also use the head-band to support
the basket; the staff is also introduced to throw a portion of the load
upon the arms and turns the bearer into a veritable quadruped. (Fig.
35 A.)

In the island of Madeira is also seen the rudimentary form of loading
up two or more men. The primitive palankin is simply a hammock
swung on a pole, with ornamental awning and so forth to suit the rider.
We will pause a moment to scrutinize this apparatus. (Fig.36.) When-

 

   

 
      
 
  
    

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Fig. 36.
HAMMOCK CARRIAGE, WITH TWO BEARERS. MADEIRA.

(Frcm a photograph in the U S. National Museum. )

ever a man wishes to carry a stick of timber he finds the center of
gravity and places that upon his shoulder. It is only a slight step
forward to make the stick lighter and add weights on either end, as do
the Mexican carrier and Chinese cooly. Revolve the pole ninety de-
grees so as to be perpendicular to the line of progression and we have
the typical Holland yoke. We are proceeding here, as always, on the
supposition that the human mind sets ever before itself the problem
how to get the greatest result with the least effort. This involves in
the case in hand a study of padding, fitting, resting, etc., all of which
things have their local methods of treatment.
Again, suppose two men have a log or plank to carry between them,
* each rests one end of the load on his shoulder. This is the first step
in that varied apparatus which becomes in different lands palankin,
bier, filanzana, in which rank or circumstance make one set of men the
carriers of another. Many of the peasantry are employed as carriers,
and one is much struck by their numbers as they enter Funchal early
.

in the morning with sheep-skins filled with wine upon their shoulders,

 

Fig. 37.
WINE-CARRIER IN MADEIRA.

(After Wilkes, in Report on the U. S. Exploring Expedition.)

are bearers, and they rest them-
selves by supporting the load
on crutch-like staves, since they
can not set it down. (Fig. 36.)

A sledge, about 6 feet in
length, 20 inches wide, and 6 or
8 inches high, with two strips
of hard wood fastened together
for runners, used to transport
pipes of wine, is the only vehicle
employed in Madeira. Figured
(Wilkes I, p. 10.)

A drawing of the Persian
water-carrier is introduced here
(Fig. 38) for the purpose of trac-
ing the head-band and the skin
bag in their distribution. The
pulque-gatherer of Mexico uses
the skin of a hog in collecting
the crude juice of the plant;
the Eskimo employs the closed
skin for a water-carrier as well
as for a float. All over the
Orient and in Africa the goat
skin is the accompaniment of

looking at a distance more like
a live animal than a filled skin.
The skins are preserved entire,
even the legs of the animal being
retained. (Fig. 37.) These bur-
dens are kept steady by a band
that passes over the forehead,
which supports a great part of
the weight. About 25 gallons,
weighing more than 200 pounds,
is a load. They move rapidly and
carry this load for a mere trifle.
To us a remarkable feature in the
population was to see a female not
only thus employed, but a stout
mountain lass trudging up a steep
path with ease under a load that
would have staggered one of our
laborers even a short distance.
(Wilkes.)

In the Madeira type two men

 

d
Fig. 38.
PERSIAN WATER-CARRIER.
(After H. Fenn, in Century Magazine.)
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 285

 

the water and the wine carrier. A load of this kind rests on no particu-
lar portion of the back, adjusting itself perfectly to head, neck, should-
ers, and back.

The paternity of the modern knapsack appears in the carrying-basket
of Holland represented in the figure. (Figs. 39, 40.) This method of

       
    

  
   
   
  

 

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Fig. 39. Fig. 40.
GERMAN WOMAN CARRYING-BASKET WITH SHOULDER- HOLLAND YOKE, SHOWING BOTH HANDS AND
STRAPS. SCAPULAS USED IN CARRYING.
(From a photograph in the U. S. National Museum.) (From a photograph in the U. S. National Museum.)

hitching up the pack-woman can not be very ancient. It is not widely
spread among the aborigines of America, where the woman is the bearer
and the man goes on ahead to do the fighting or hunting. To all ap-
pearances this is a sacrifice of great weight to the labor-saving scheme
of joining the bearer and the warrior in one individual. Hence the sol-
dier discards the head-strap or the breast-strap, and adopts the knap-
sack. (Fig. 41.)

In an example of head-strap from Africa we have a repetition of one
from Montana, in which the pack-man becomes, as it were, his own driver.
‘He puts the sack, or bundle of fagots or what not, on the two lines
about the middle. He then backs up to his load, inserts his forehead
into the head-band, and seizing the lines by the outer ends rolls his
load upon his back. In the same manner grocers roll barrels of goods
up and down the cellar skids. (Fig. 42.)

A very neat and ingenious framework for burden-bearing comes from
286 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

the Congo region. Two stout palm leaves are laid about a foot apart
and the leaflets on their adjacent sides are braided together. The leaf-

  

A
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7. Fl : x pe
REY

     

PEASANT WOMEN OF RUSSIA CARRYING STONE ON A BIER.

(After George Kennan, in Century Magazine.)

lets on their outer margins are twisted into short cords and then braided
into a continuous margin for the frame. (Fig. 43.) This apparatus is
loaded with the greatest variety of merchandise, to be carried to and
from the coast in trade.

“The Madis of Africa make admirable porters, being very careful of
the loads intrusted to them, and display no little forethought and inge-
nuity in preserving them from injury. The rule is that no load should ex-
ceed 50 pounds in weight, and that it should be either square or oblong,
the latter being preferred. They always carry the load on the head on
a pad made of grass, very rarely steadying it with the hand unless going
over very rough ground. They strongly object to carry loads over 50
pounds, but if pressed will take them up to 70 pounds, if the distance to
be marched is not more than three days and extra food is given them.
Loads of 100 or 120 pounds are carried by two men, hung on a pole,
which they balance on their heads, but they do not like the work. If
a very heavy load has to be carried, e. ¢g., a man, they place him on a
native bed and carry him, two at a time, changing relays of men at
about each mile. This they prefer to carrying by four men at once. I
can testify from personal experience that it is far better to be carried
by two men than four, for they go much more easily and do not run
against so many trees or overhanging branches. The relief men march
before those who are bearers and cry out when obstacles occur.

As regards distance they carry loads of 50 pounds 20 miles a day, for
eight or ten consecutive days, without showing signs of distress, but
 

THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 287

   
    
  

n the march they appear to require a great deal of water, and will
ooner burden themselves with a gourd full than go without it for more
han two hours at a time. If they go by a road where water is scarce,
‘they generally take a few women or children with them to carry it.
‘When they arrive at a stream all loads are put down, and they bathe,
if the water is deep, or sit down and wash themselves, if it be shallow,

 

  
 
 

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2! y
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Fig. 42. Fig. 43.
AFRICAN CARRYING-STRAP. THIS METHOD OF CARRYING-FRAME OF THE CONGO, MADE BY BRAID-
CARRYING ALSO PREVAILS IN NORTHWEST ING THE LEAVES OF THE PALM.
UNITED STATES. *
(Cat. No. 4959 (?), U. S. N. M. Collected by Capt. Charles Cat. No. 72708, U.S. N. M. T.oango Coast, West Africa. Col-
% Wilkes, U.S. Navy.) lected by Museum fiir Volkerkunde, Leipzig, Germany.

. and then take a long drink. The Madis can scarcely be prevailed upon
~ to march at night, even in bright moonlight, on account of bad roads,
~ which is strange, as their eye-sight is remarkably good. Neither will
~ they start until the dew is entirely off the grass, or if made to do so by
promises of reward, they tie bunches of grass.or skins before them to
avoid as much as possible being wetted by the dew.
~ In crossing a river of 4 or 5 feet deep they stand in the water in a
~ double row and hand the loads from one to the other. Should the
. stream be very strong, they break down branches which have broad
forks, and placing one end firmly in the bed of the stream lean against
the fork, and so get the needed support. They march at a quick pace,
but geneypally halt for ten or twenty minutes after each 3 or 4 miles.
In carrying the Egyptian post these men make long and quick
288 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887,

marches, 60 or 70 miles often being accomplished in twenty-four hours.
(Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, 1883-34, Nos. 115-118, p. 316.)

The open palankin or chair has reached an excellent differentiation in
Madagascar. A traveler sits in a leather seat, made to fit the body, at-
tached to the two bearing poles and having a stirrup for the feet. To
the poles are also attached the traveler’s gun, haversack, assagais, and
other necessary apparatus.

The frame rests upon the shoulders of four carriers, who trot along
with the load until they get tired. Extra bearers shift the load upon
their shoulders without stopping. In this method of relaying the bear-
ers are enabled to carry the traveler oftimes a hundred miles a day.
This same method of bearing and relaying is found also in Africa, and
furnishes an advanced and quite complicated system of transportation.
(Fig. 44.)

 

 

: Fig 44.
FILANZANA OR CARRYING-FRAME OF MADAGASCAR. (After Shufeldt.)
(Cat. No. of frame 75928, U. S. N. M. Madagascar. Collected by Lieut. M. A. Shufeldt, U. S. Navy.)

“The average load of a coolie,” says Mr. Neumann, ¢ is 100 pounds,
and with this he travels 30 miles. Kinkiang is an important place for
the export of tea. The tea districts are situated about 60 miles from
the town, and the coolies bring in the chests in two days, each man
carrying a load of 100 pounds.

“The weight of a load and the distance over which a cooly travels,
may be different in the north or south. I have not been able to make
inquiries elsewhere but at this port.”

Any one who has looked at all into the subject will recall the thousand
and one attitudes of Chinese carriers in all pictures of social life. The
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 289

same is also true of Japan and the countries south of China. (Figs. 45,
46, 47.) :

 

 

=

 

Fig. 45. = 46.
SHOULDER-YOKE AND CARRYING-BASKETS. SIMPLEST FORM OF FRAME FOR SHOULDER-
(Cat. No. 74506, U.S. N. M. China. Gift of the Chinese Centennial
Commission, Philadelphia, 1876. (€at. No. 54174, U. S. N. M. China. Gift of the Chinese

Centennial Commission, Philadelphia, 1876.)

 

Fig. 47.
JAPANESE PEDDLER AND SHOULDER-YOKE.

(From a photograph in the U. S. National Museum, )

H. Mis. 600, pt. 2——19

 
290 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

The shoulder-pole, or carrying-pole, assumes as many forms in China
and Japan as the ingenuity of one-fourth of the human race has been
able to devise. Inasmuch as they all operate on the same plan, a de-
scription of a very simple one in the National Museum will suffice for
the whole series.

The essential parts of a Chinese carrier's outfit are, first, a stout strip
of bamboo, 6 feet or more long, wide in the middle, and having knobs or
notches at either end. :

The middle of this apparatus rests on either shoulder of the bearer,
and from the notched ends, with or without suspending strings, hangs
the well-balanced load. The bearer carries a staff in hand, upon the
top of which he may support his load while resting.

The wheelbarrow reaches its highest perfection in China (Fig. 48).

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Fig. 48.

CHINESE BARROW WITH TWO SIDES, FOR BURDENS OR PASSENGERS.
‘

(From a photograph in the U. S. National Museum.)

The man of burden is harnessed by means of his hands acting as stirrups,
and a rope or strap passing from the shafts over his neck. To his rope
or band he gives the effect of a trace by fastening it to the shaft some
distance behind the hand.

The wheel is, moreover, in the center of the barrow, so that the
downward pressure on the shoulders is far less than in our European
barrows.

The load of this apparatus is disposed around the wheel, with some
attention to the center of gravity ; and the disposing of men, pigs, mer-
RR RAT

THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 291

chandise, and household effects, with this sole object in view, gives to
some of the Chinese loaded barrows rather a romantic effect.

The Japanese back is one of the best in the world, and the people
have repeated many of the Chinese methods of burden bearing. The
most frequent method of burden bearing isthe bamboo basket, suspended
from the shoulders in like manner to the knapsack. (Fig. 49.)

The palankin of Japan is also very similar to that of China. In
both countries, especially in the latter, on ceremonial occasions, frames
and other devices have been invented for hitching up a great number of
men, and thus of securing the advantage of combined effort. This

 

Fig. 49.
COMMON CARRYING-BASKET OF JAPAN.

(From a photograph in the U. S. National Museum. )

should not be overlooked in studying the civilization of countries that
became quite elevated without our modern appliances.

Any knowledge of Aino culture at this time is valuable, when a sys-
tematic effort is being made to discover the relationships of this primi-
tive people. For carrying burdens the Ainos use a frame, like a small
trellis or ladder, around which braided cord is wrapped to furnish a bed
for the load. (Fig. 50.)
292 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

This frame is attached to the body by means of shoulder-ropes braided
80 as to be thick, and padded in the portions against the shoulders.

This is quite primitive as a carrying device, and has its counterpart
only among the rude carriers of America and Africa.

 
 

 
     

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Fig. 50.
CARRYING-FRAME.

(Cat. No. 73093 U.S. N. M. Tate Yama, Japan. Collected by
P. L. Jouy.)

      
   

The palankin of Corea is an empty
cube 2% feet each way. Little win-
dows look out in front and on either
side, each fitted with a pair of slid-
ing screens. Into these are let tiny
panes of glass 2 inches square. Two
men carry this box and divide the
burden by means of a yoke, with
straps that fit over the ends of the
poles to which the box is fastened,
two other men accompaning as re-
lief. Each man is armed with a
stick, which is used to insert under
the chair and lift it up to ease their
fellows. (Percival Lowell, Choson,
p. 50.)

The same author informs us that
there is not a single wheel in Corea,
the palankin being the only means
of conveyance.

One of the most primitive illus-
trations of carrying on the shoulder
is furnished by a copy of a small
photograph, taken in the Karen hill
country by the Rev. R. M. Luther.

A boy is returning home with two bread-

fruits attached to the stock by their
natural stem. The pole on the shoulder,
with a weight depending from either
end, is the commonest device of the pro-
fessional carrier throughout this whole
region. And in this picture we have
the ancestor of every Chinese coolie
art, of the principal part of Japanese,. A
Siamese, and Polynesian carrying onthe pv, ~ Zid JV Pe

shoulder.

Indeed the Karen bread-fruit picker |

     

   

is at a single view the primitive agri- wer Nal

: . . Ting SEARLES ~
culturist, taking his load at once from ni =" =.
nature and the primitive agent of trans- Fig. 51.

portation.

KAREN BOY OF BURMA, CARRYING BREAD-
FRUIT.

A very elaborate and highly artistic (From a photograph in the U. S. National Museum.)
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 293

offshoot of the Chinese coolie’s double load is found in Siam. The pole
rests on the shoulder, and on either end is suspended a long, daintily
woven hamper. A wooden bottom protects the basket from injury,
and the holes for the insertion of the pole are arranged like grommets
by means of bamboo sewing. (Fig. 52.)

Cords are provided, both for
the attachment of the top load
and the convenience of the
bearer. In all the Siamese car-
rying apparatus from Siam in
the National Museum the work-
manship is of the most delicate
character. The baskets are wov- [=
en of split rattan, and the stitch-
ing compares favorably with
that of our best California weav-
ers.

Compare the Siamese with the

Sandwich Island pack, and the
rude parentage of the Siamese
method may be seen. (Fig. 53.)
Captain Wilkes long ago said of
the Hawaiian carriers: “One
can not but be struck with see-
ing the natives winding their
way along the different thor-
oughfares laden with all kinds
of provisions, wood, charcoal, ; Fig, 52:
and milk, to supply the mar- (Cat. No. 27613, U. S. Sg by the King of Siam.)
ket and their regular customers.
Their mode of carrying burdens is to suspend them with cords from
the ends of a stick; this is laid across the shoulders, and so accustomed
are they to carry the load in this manner that they will sometimes in-
crease the weight by adding a heavy stone in order to balance it. The
stick on which they carry their load is made of the Hibiscus tiliaceus,
which is light and tough. Instead of baskets they use a kind of gourd
which grows to a large size. These are thin and brittle, but with the
care the natives take of them are extremely serviceable. They are
used for almost everything. It takes two gourds to make one of the
baskets used for transporting articles, the smaller one being turned
over the opening cut in the larger one, effectually protecting the con-
tents from rain. Some of these gourds will contain upwards of two
bushels. The gait of the Kanaka moving with his load is a quick trot,
and he takes very short steps.” (Wilkes.)

The carrying net of the Utes of Utah and Colorado re-appears in the
Papuan area in the shape of a bow of wood, the space between being

    
   

   
   
  
   

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294 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1887.

filled with a net-work. All sorts of loads are fastened within this frame
and it is borne on the back in the most comfortable manner to the
bearer. (Fig. 54.)

 

 

Fig. 53.
CARRIER OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.
(From a photograph in the U. S. National Museum. )

CARRYING-NET AND FRAME.

(Cat. No. 73386, U. S. N. M. New Guinea. Collected by
A. P. Godwin.)

In the vast majority of the islands in the great oceanic area the human
burden-bearer is transformed into the human propeller, most of the
savage life here being passed on the water; but it is curious to notice
that hand-work even here precedes machine work, in that men, women,
and children are the most expert swimmers in the world.

“The women of New Britain,” says Mr. W. Powell,* ¢ carry their
babies in net-work bags, the band or strap of which comes round the
forehead, and the child in the bag rests on their shoulder blades, and in
traveling to market and elsewhere, should the child require suckling,
they do it over the shoulder.

“They will also carry on their backs two or three cocoanut-mat bags
full of merchandise, as well as the baby; this gives them a stooping
gait and makes them always walk in a doubled-up manner, even when
not carrying anything.”

 

*W. Powell, ‘‘ Wanderings, ete.,” London, 1884,

 
THE HUMAN BEAST OF BURDEN. 295

It would be a faseinating task to note the thousand and one devices
by means of which mankind have shifted their burdens upon the backs
of animals, upon the winds and the waters. The authorities of the U.S.
National Museum have organized a section of Transportation and ap-
pointed to the curatorship Mr. J. E. Watkins, to whom I shall leave the
task of working out the subsequent chapters in the history of this

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