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Boulder Place Directory 10
Page 04
So far as diligent field research reveals, there was but one tribe or band of Indians living within proximity of the Apache Indians of Arizona in early times who ever affiliated with them, or associated with them in any way save on terms of enmity. This tribe was the Apache-Mohave, of Yuman stock, whose domain extended along the Rio Verde in central Arizona, immediately adjacent to the territory over which the Apache proper held undisputed sway. With these, affiliation practically became fusion, for in outward semblance, characteristics, mode of living, and handicraft they are typically Apache; but their mother tongue, though impaired, and remnants of their native mythology are still adhered to. Through the Apache-Mohave, allied with the Apache since early times, and resembling them so closely as to have almost escaped segregation until recent years, did the tribe now so widely known as Apache undoubtedly receive its name.
The most important spoon in the Jamestown collection, and one of the most significant objects excavated, is an incomplete pewter spoon--a variant of the trifid, or split-end, type common during the 1650-90 period. Impressed on the handle (in the trefoil finial of the stem) is the mark of the maker, giving his name, the Virginia town where he worked, and the year he started business. This is the sole surviving "touch" or mark of an American pewterer of the 17th century. The complete legend, encircling a heart, reads: "IOSEPH COPELAND/1675/CHUCKATUCK." (Chuckatuck is a small Virginia village in Nansemond County, about 30 miles southeast of Jamestown.) Joseph Copeland later moved to Jamestown where he was caretaker of the statehouse from 1688-91. He may have made pewter in Virginia's first capital. His matchless spoon found in the old Jamestown soil is the oldest dated piece of American-made pewter in existence.
If one looks closely at life, one sees the same quality in humanity, in men and women, in books and pictures, and yet one cannot tell what goes to the making of it. It seems to be a thing which no energy or design can capture, but which alights here and there, blowing like the wind at will. It is not force or originality or inventiveness; very often it is strangely lacking in any masterful quality at all; but it has always just the same wistful appeal, which makes one desire to understand it, to take possession of it, to serve it, to win its favour. It is as when the child in Francis Thompson's poem seems to say, "I hire you for nothing." That is exactly it: there is nothing offered or bestowed, but one is at once magically bound to serve it for love and delight. There is nothing that one can expect to get from it, and yet it goes very far down into the soul; it is behind the maddening desire which certain faces, hands, voices, smiles excite--the desire to possess, to claim, to know even that no one else can possess or claim them, which lies at the root of half the jealous tragedies of life.
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