The magazine of American history with notes and queries . In the latterthe robes thus made constituted the State or Court dress. The outercovering of these mummies usually consists of leather. The manufact-ure of leather from the hides of animals, is a very ancient inventionknown to almost all the natives of the earth; but to find it in Americawrapped around mummies as in several instances brought to light innitrous caves and in Kentucky caverns, shows a knowledge of a branch ofarts in the possession of the people of America at an era coeval with theEgyptians—as the art of embalming is found i
The magazine of American history with notes and queries . In the latterthe robes thus made constituted the State or Court dress. The outercovering of these mummies usually consists of leather. The manufact-ure of leather from the hides of animals, is a very ancient inventionknown to almost all the natives of the earth; but to find it in Americawrapped around mummies as in several instances brought to light innitrous caves and in Kentucky caverns, shows a knowledge of a branch ofarts in the possession of the people of America at an era coeval with theEgyptians—as the art of embalming is found in connection with that oftanning the skins of animals. Among the vast variety of discoveries made in the mounds, tumuli andfortifications of these people, have been found not only hatchets made ofstone, but axes as large and much of the same shape as those made ofiron at the present day, also pickaxes and pestles and mortars, with variousother implements. Besides these there have been found very cleverlymanufactured swords and knives of iron or THE CAVE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS Among the curious things discovered by the Spaniards in the NewWorld was a novel account of the origin of mankind. There is in theisland, says Peter Martyr, speaking of the island of Hayti, a certainregion, called Gaunana, where they say that mankind came first out of twocaves of a mountain ; and that the biggest sort of men came out of thebiggest cave, and the least sort out of the least cave. (Peter Martyr—Decades, i. Bk. ix.) Peter Martyr goes on to relate a legend of this nota-ble event—how these first men were opposed by the sun-god in their firstattempts to escape from their subterranean prison, and how many of themwere metamorphosed into rocks, animals, etc.; but the story is somewhatconfused as well as puerile, and need not be repeated here. It is chieflyinteresting as the earliest recorded version of a remarkable origin-tradition,which has been found to run through the entire l
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