Pre-Columbian Representations of the Elephant in America

Abstract

I NOTE with no little interest that the subject of “the elephant in America” has been revived in a communication to NATURE by Prof. G. Elliot Smith. The animal pictured by Prof. Smith has been interpreted by Dr. Allen and myself as a blue macaw (Ara militaris) in the following passage:—“The (figure) has even been interpreted as a trunk of an elephant or a mastodon, but is unquestionably a macaw's beak. In addition to the ornamental cross-hatching on the beak, which is also seen on the glyph from the same stela, there is an ornamental scroll beneath the eye, which likewise is cross-hatched and surrounded by a ring of subcircular marks that continue to the base of the beak. The nostril is the large oval marking directly in front of the eye” (Tozzer and Allen, Peabody Museum Papers, vol. iv., No. 3, p. 343, Cambridge, 1910).