The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-10-01
TOPEKA STATE. JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
Washington, D. G.
A NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.

of aboriginal American relics and
weapons in the world is the work of
Edward w. Payne, a banker of this
city.
Not only is the collection a most I'M
usual one, but the making of it is a
most unusual avocation for an Amer
lean business man. 1t is true that
some wealthy men in this country col
lect pictures prints or rare books,
often employing experts to do most of
the work of selection and buying.
But these men enter well known
fields. and for the most part obtain
treasuers which would otherwise be
more available to the public in other
places. OF course, the majority of
business men devote all of their leis-
ure to amusement.
Mr.. Payne is the rare example of a
man who has devoted his leisure for
80 years to collecting material of high
scientific value, much of which would
never have otherwise been brought to
light. He contemplates eventually
presenting his collection to sons pub
lie institution, perhaps together with
a building to house it. At present
less than one-tenth of it is in cases
which fill four rooms of Mr.. Payne's
dwelling. The rest of it is stored
away. five vaults being filled with the
more valuable objects.
Most of the objects in the Payne col
lection came from great central region
of the continent in which he lives
This region as you may kn>w, is
dotted with artificial mounds vary
ing from relatively small ones to some
that rival the pyr mids in bulk. II
is from these mounds that a large
part of the Payne collection has come,
1t includes innumerable arrowheads,
RI e nd a T,H iS
cially notable for the beautiful carved
tobacco pipes, and the stone butter
flies and crescents which were evil
IDENTIFY religious symbols of the ancient
men who made them.
Theory of Vanished Race.
These articles deeply impress one
with the artistic skill of their makers,
and seem at first to indicate that they
are the product of a race far more
cultured than the Indians as they have
been known in historic times. In ad
dition to this, the enormous quantities
| of such articles that have been found,
and the great number of mounds
would seem to prove that the people
who made these things were more
numerous than the Indians whom Co
lumbus found here. The occurrence
of Lake Superior copper far to the
south and other like facts show that
| commerce existed among them.
These mounds and the men who
built them have engaged the Ameri-
| can Imagination for a hundred years,
since first they were noticed. The view
| long accepted, and still held by many
persons, is that outlined above-that
| the mounds were built by n race far
more numerous and more advanced in
| culture than the Indians as we know
| them. This view seems to be shared
| by Mr.. Payne, who, however, frankly
| approaches the matter as a collector
rather than as student.
| Science no longer accepts this view
of a vanished race. Extensive study
| of the mounds by the Bureau of Amer
| lean Ethnology has convinced the
! world of science that these mounds
and all of their strange and beautiful
| contents were the work of the anccs-
tors of the Indians whom Columbus
! found here. In fact, 1t was established
| that some of the more western mounds
were built after the white men came,
as shown by the finding in them of
steel knives, European glass beads and
! other articles which the Indians had
! obtained from the white men in trade.
| Moreover, the mound-building habit,
tho largely abandoned, still asserts
Itself occasionally. American ethnolo-
gists have witnessed the building of
several mounds by modern Indians.
| The great number of the mounds,
! which seems at first to prove a num-
| erous people, is eXI lained by the fact
! that war. pestilence and famine al
ways cause primitive men to change
their habitats at frequent intervals.
1t is probable that only a small per-
| centaGe of the mounds were occupied
at any one time. The same pho
nomenon is observed in the south
| west, where there are hundreds of
ruins for one occupied pueblo, fnclud-
ing cliff jewellers and other types OF
habitation which have been aban-
doned because they are no longer
necessary.
The Scientific View.
All of the information upon which
this view of the mound builders is
based was gathered by the Bureau
of EthnolOgy and published in a huge
volume in its twelfth annual report in
1890. Any one who is interested may
there examine all the evidence and
form his own opinion. The govern
ment ethnologists spent some $4,000
in blowing up mounds, collected ar
enormous amount of stuff and sub
jected it to scientific scrutiny. They
/ seem to have proved their case pretty
well.
In spite of this fact, the old belief
in a vanished race is still the popular
one. Mr.. Payne could find many who
agree with him.
The mounds were first noticed
about a hundred years ago. and as far
back as 1877 a book was written set
ting forth Mr.. Payne's theory of a
vanished race. 1t was followed by
many more of the same tenor, and
these were widely read. Mongols
Egyptians, Mayas and Aztees were
: var.ously ascribed as the ancestors OF
the vanished race. Mr.. Payne holds
to the belief in the Mongol origin oil
the mound builders. and points tc
many crescents in his collection
beautifully wrought from stone, a.
evidence in point.
1t is of course true that all tht
American Indians show many AsiatiC
traits and it is a widely accepted
! hypothesis that all of them are o,
ancient Asiatic descent. probably hay
ling come across Behring strait.
! The ak heads. spearheads and ar.
: | rnIrh aa Dc in the Rnuna nnIIecfinrn 4 n