CHAPTER VII

THE ABORIGINES

At the time the Western Hemisphere became known to Europeans, as has

been shown by subsequent explorations, it was inhabited by native tribes

from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the extreme north to

Patagonia. The aborigines were distributed principally along the coast,

about the borders of lakes, and on the margins of streams, but much of

the interior was also inhabited or roamed over by hunting and war

parties, or crossed by various tribes during their migrations. Large

areas, it is true, more especially among the rugged mountains, in the

great subarctic forest, and on the trackless tundras, had no permanent

residents, but in general terms the entire land was inhabited.

In spite of the reports as to the density of the aboriginal population

made by several early explorers, who for the most part followed the

waterways, visited the most thickly inhabited regions, and saw the

natives when brought together by motives of curiosity or defence, it is

now known that North America, considering its vast extent, was but

sparsely peopled. As to the number of the inhabitants, there is no even

approximately accurate knowledge. The greatest density of population, so

far as can be judged, was in the tropical region, and decreased

northward in a general way in conformity with change in latitude, but

varied also in a conspicuous manner in accord with local climatic and

topographic influences.

In the same manner as the exploration of the New World led to the

discovery of many species, genera, etc., of plants and animals, it also

added two types of man to those previously known to Europeans. The

propriety of separating the American aborigines into two groups of

tribes is based on the contrasts the members of these divisions

present not only in colour and other physiological characteristics, but

on well-marked differences in language, customs, arts, etc. On this

basis two varieties of the human species have been recognised, namely,

the Eskimo and the Indian.

The term Eskimo, formerly spelled Esquimau, is of obscure origin, but is

thought to have been adopted by Europeans from the Indians of Labrador,

who thus designated a northern people living on the coast, and is said

to mean "raw-flesh eaters." The word in use among the Eskimos to

designate themselves is _Innuit_, meaning people, or the people, in the

sense that in their own estimation they are of more importance than all

other peoples.

The term Indian, as is well known, arose from an error of the early

Spanish voyagers, who, on arriving in America, believed they had reached

India, and hence termed the natives of the new land Indians. This

mistake has led to many attempts to substitute some other word by which

to designate the people referred to, but thus far none of the terms

proposed has been generally accepted. In the present book the word

Indian is used to designate the aborigines of the New World, exclusive

of the Eskimos.

The geographical distribution of the Eskimos and Indians is sharply

defined even at the present day, and is indicated on the map forming

Plate VI.

_Origin of the Aborigines._--The generally accepted conclusion in

reference to the origin of the American aborigines seems to be that man

reached this continent while the peoples of the Old World were yet in a

primitive condition, and at a time when the highest stage of culture was

expressed by the knife and spear-point of chipped stone, and developed

independently in accord with the natural conditions with which he was

surrounded. More than this, once planted, the original stock received

but slight if any accessions by subsequent immigration. This last

statement is not in strict accord with the conclusions reached by

certain ethnologists, who claim that the use of masks, the art of

carving on wood, stone, ivory, etc., the practise of tattooing, the

preservation of human heads, and other customs practised by the Indians

of the Pacific coast of the two Americas--and in North America,

extending eastward along lines of easiest communication--suggest an

influence coming from Polynesia at a time when the peoples dwelling on

the west borders of the Pacific had made a well-marked advance in

culture. Some influences on the aborigines of America coming both from

Polynesia and eastern Asia must seemingly be admitted, the importations

having been by means of storm- and current-swept boats and junks, but

the evidence does not point to trade relations. The most that can be

claimed seems to be slight modifications of the arts and customs of the

American aborigines, but not enough to make what may be termed an

indelible impression upon them.

The low state of culture of the original stock from which the American

aborigines were derived, implied in their distinct subsequent

development in language, arts, etc., indicates that man appeared in

America previous to the invention of boats capable of crossing broad

oceans. The necessary inference from this--if the hypothesis of one

place of origin for the human race is accepted--is that migration to

America was by land, or at most across narrow straits. The geography of

the continents must have been markedly different from what it is at

present to admit of this, providing the proof that access was not gained

where Asia and America make a near approach to each other at Bering

Strait is conclusive, and at present that evidence seems unquestionable.

The present state of opinion in reference to the origin of the American

aborigines is thus expressed by one well qualified to speak with

authority. At the close of a review of several lines of evidence J. W.

Powell says:

"Thus we are forced to conclude that the occupancy of America by mankind

was anterior to the development of arts, industries, institutions,

languages, and opinions; that the primordial occupancy of the continent

antedates present geographical conditions, and points to a remote time

which can be discovered only on geological and biological

investigation."

_Antiquity of the Aborigines._--The conclusions to be drawn from the

studies of ethnologists in reference to the length of time man

has made his home in America are qualitative, not quantitative. The time

is certainly long, probably embracing tens of centuries; but how long no

one can state in years. This claim for a great although indefinite

antiquity is based on several lines of evidence, some few of which the

reader may find it profitable to briefly consider.

A comparison of physiological characteristics shows that the American

aborigines have well-marked differences from all other varieties of the

human race. This conclusion is not based on any one special feature,

although colour and character of the hair are the most conspicuous, but

on the resultant, so to speak, of many attributes. It is, in a measure,

a comparison of ideal type-examples of each variety. While each

characteristic that may be chosen has individual and tribal variations,

and but few of them are perhaps conspicuously different from those

pertaining to the peoples of the Old World, yet taken together they

clearly differentiate the American aborigines from all other varieties

of the human species.

Applying the same principles to man that are used in the study of the

geographical distribution of the lower animals, the only legitimate

conclusion the naturalist can deduce from the evidence just referred to

is that the branch of the human family indigenous to North America has

been isolated for a sufficient length of time to develop into a new

variety. The American aborigines are different from all other varieties

of the human species because each more or less isolated community or

group of communities the world over has varied in its own way in accord

with climatic and other conditions, and the connecting links have been

lost. The differences that have arisen in this manner are so great that

the nature of the parent stock is no longer determinable from its living

representatives. This process of development among the lower animals is

understood to involve a great length of time; and the inference is that

man's development is no exception to the rule.

The evidence favouring a great antiquity for the American aborigines is

strengthened by the fact that when first known to Europeans both North

and South America were inhabited by tribes having more or less

well-defined territorial limits. If this population spread from one or

even from several centres it is evident that a great length of time

would be required for it to reach all parts of the New World and to

become adjusted to a wide range in climatic and other conditions, as is

known to be the case.

Students of languages have shown that the most enduring characteristics

of man are to be found in his speech. The fundamental principles of a

language outlive not only political and social changes, but even

physiological distinctions, and are inherited from a primitive stock by

all its branches. We might reasonably expect, therefore, that a study of

the languages spoken in America in pre-Columbian days would be a sure

index as to the primitive stock from which the various tribes came, and

show to which of the many other branches of the linguistic tree they are

most closely related. Turning with this question to those who have made

a critical study of the languages of the American aborigines, and no one

is better qualified to bear testimony in this connection than J. W.

Powell, the honoured director of the American Bureau of Ethnology, we

find a definite answer. He says:

"The North American Indian tribes, instead of speaking related dialects,

originating in a single parent language, in reality speak many

languages, belonging to distinct families, which have no apparent unity

of origin."

To the north of Mexico (Plate VI) the aborigines are divided into 58

linguistic families. In a large portion of these languages there are

tribal dialects not understood by members of other tribes of the same

family. Thus the Algonquin linguistic family contains some 30 or 40

distinct languages. In the Athapascan the diversity is nearly as great.

The smaller families present similar conditions in proportionate degree,

although there are stocks which speak but one language. Four of the

linguistic families referred to extend into Mexico, but to the south of

the territory occupied by them other languages and dialects are spoken.

Ethnologists who have studied the tribes of Mexico report 19 linguistic

stocks, containing 108 distinct languages, among which there are upward

of 60 dialects. In Central America a similar diversity in the

native tongues exists. Reclus, in his great work The Earth and its

Inhabitants, states that in the New World 450 native languages are

spoken--a number greater than that of all the languages in use in the

rest of the earth. Not only are the American linguistic stocks different

from each other, and fail to furnish evidence of having been derived

from a single parent tongue, but, as philologists assure us, no one of

them is analogous to any language spoken in other lands.

As is well known, a language is not created _de novo_, but by a slow

process of development. Since the first acquirement of articulate speech

by man a succession of languages has appeared owing to the growth,

differentiation, etc., of pre-existing forms of speech. It is a

warrantable inference, therefore, that the marvellous diversity in

speech present in America could only have arisen by a process of

evolution involving a very long period of time.

As the American languages have no affinity with the Teutonic or Semitic

stocks, it is evident that the source or sources from which they came

far antedate the birth of the oldest people of which history takes

cognizance. Man must therefore have set foot on American soil before the

sprouting of the linguistic twig which, after millenniums, produced the

cuneiform inscriptions of ancient Persia and Assyria.

The diversity of arts, customs, myths, religions, etc., among the

American aborigines, and their difference in nearly all instances from

the analogous attributes of the peoples of other lands, also point to a

long period of isolated development in much the same manner as has been

referred to in the case of a comparative study of their languages. The

skin boats used by the Eskimos are widely different from the birch-bark

canoes of the Algonquins, and these again differ conspicuously from the

dug-out canoes of southeastern Alaska and British Columbia; still other

varieties of boats are peculiar to the more southern Indian tribes, and

all alike differ from the boats used in other lands. Like individuality

pertains also to the houses of the American aborigines, their clothing,

arms, utensils, basket-work, picture-writings, etc. One is forced to

recognise in each of these arts or industries not only development in

many diverging lines among the various tribes, but the birth of ideas

analogous to those which arose in other lands, and their independent

growth under special conditions. All of this, and much more in the same

general direction that might be discussed did space permit, points to a

great antiquity for the indigenous American peoples.

Among the nations of the Old World certain plants have been under

domestication for so long a time, and have varied so greatly, that the

wild species from which they came are no longer known. This is true of

nearly all our common fruits and vegetables and many of our flowers that

were derived from the Old World. At the time of the Spanish conquest the

aborigines of America were cultivating tobacco, potatoes, beans,

tomatoes, squashes, maize, cotton, etc., and in the case of most of

these plants the wild species from which they were derived has not been

ascertained. The argument that points to a great antiquity in the case

of wheat and the peach applies equally well to tobacco and maize, and

indicates that horticulture began in America in remote antiquity. At the

time of Columbus, the ox, sheep, goat, pigeons, fowls, cat, etc., long

domesticated in the Old, were absent in the New World, and the llama,

turkey, etc., indigenous in America, were unknown in Europe. These

striking differences, among which there is not even a single exception,

amount to positive evidence that contact between the peoples of the Old

and the New World did not occur after the inhabitants of the former

emerged from savagery, or, what is the same thing, never existed in the

sense that trade relations were entered into. This same line of argument

seemingly casts grave doubts on the deductions already referred to

concerning the importation into America from Polynesia of the practise

of tattooing, the wearing of masks, the use of labrets, etc.; and

indicates also that but slight changes were produced in the American

aborigines owing to the wrecking of Asiatic junks on the northwest

coast.

Another factor bearing on the antiquity of the indigenous Americans is

the stage of development reached in spite of their long and nearly

complete isolation. Stimuli from without, and particularly

contact with more advanced peoples, having been lacking or of small

importance, incentive to bodily and mental activity arose mainly from

the desire for food, clothing, and shelter, and from intertribal

rivalry, jealousy, and war. This process of indigenous development was

certainly slow. With man, as with the lower animals, the rate of advance

and of specialization increases as higher and higher grades of

development are reached. For the American aborigines to have attained

the higher stages of barbarism at the time of the arrival of civilized

Europeans, solely by self-growth and self-education, is perhaps even a

stronger argument for their antiquity than their differentiation in

culture, languages, etc.

These several lines of evidence point to the coming of man to America as

an event of the far distant past--a time so remote, in fact, that it

pertains to geology rather than to ethnology.

Turning to the geological records, we find no authentic and

well-attested evidence of the presence of man in America either previous

or during the Glacial period. From time to time so-called "finds" of

stone implements in gravel and other deposits more or less definitely

determined to be of Glacial age have been made, but in all of these

instances convincing proof as to the age of the deposits, or of the

relation of the implements in question, to them, has not been presented.

Certain discoveries of the bones of men and of articles of human

manufacture found in California have been claimed to be of Tertiary

age--that is, much older than the Glacial epoch--but more critical

studies, especially by W. H. Holmes, have shown that they are decidedly

modern and pertain to the Indians still living in the region where they

were found. In brief, all the geological evidence thus far gathered

bearing on the antiquity of man in America points to the conclusion that

he came after the Glacial epoch. Judgment in this respect, however,

should be held in abeyance, as the search for evidence is as yet

incomplete.

As the problem now stands, the origin of the American aborigines is not

only unknown, but no generally accepted or fairly promising

hypothesis as to the land from which they came, the route followed, or

the date of their arrival is to be found among the large number

suggested. A continuation of the critical, ethnological, and geological

studies now in progress, it is hoped, will do much to clear away this

mystery, but at present only small progress can be truthfully reported.

_Culture of the Aborigines._--In the classification of peoples in terms

of culture three main divisions are commonly recognised, namely,

_savagery_, _barbarism_, and _civilization_; but the boundaries between

these divisions are not sharply defined and a wide range of intermediate

gradations is easily discernible.

By savagery is understood the lowest grade of culture and of ethics, in

which social customs are lax or wanting and tribal organization not

attempted. In the condition of savagery people are without permanent

homes, do not attempt agriculture or even horticulture, have no

domesticated animals except perhaps the dog, and subsist on fish and

game, including molluscs, small mammals, and reptiles, and such seeds,

fruits, nuts, etc., as wild plants supply. The art of kindling fire is

probably known to all existing savages, but much of their food is eaten

uncooked.

In the state of barbarism tribal organization may exist; some form of

religion is usually recognised; definite marriage relations are entered

into, although polygamy is commonly practised; permanent houses, perhaps

for winter use only, are built; clothes are made from woven cloth as

well as from skins; the plaiting of baskets and the art of making coarse

pottery, frequently highly decorated, are understood; essentially all

utensils, arms, etc., are of stone, wood, bone, or ivory, the metals

other than those occurring in a native state being unknown; and writing

is unknown, although pictographs may be employed.

Civilization implies a well-marked development in ethics, laws, social

organization, institutions, arts, writing, etc.

Under this scheme of classification various divisions of the aborigines

of North America at the time of the coming of Columbus occupied each of

the planes of development designated; but those frequently classed as

civilized had not arrived at an advanced stage of culture, and

can perhaps with greater propriety be designated as semicivilized, or,

better still, be referred to the highest stage of barbarism.

Some of the native tribes, as those of southern California and certain

of the peoples of Mexico and Central America, were in a state of

savagery, and, in fact, have not advanced beyond that state at the

present day. A large majority of the aborigines, as, for example, the

Algonquins, Shoshoneans, etc., or, in general, all of the Indians to the

northward of Arizona and New Mexico, together with certain of the tribes

to the south of that boundary, had definite tribal organization,

permanent homes at least for winter use, in part practised horticulture,

and for these and other reasons are to be classed as in the barbarous

stage of development. The Aztecs, Mayas, etc., of Mexico and Central

America had well-established governments, built permanent and frequently

large and elaborately decorated houses, some of which were of hewn

stone, practised horticulture with the aid of irrigation, had developed

a system of picture-writing, and were skilled in working native metals.

These and other advances towards civilization were great and promising,

but the use of iron was unknown, and their practice of human sacrifice

and the absence of phonetic writing denies them a place among truly

civilized peoples.

Another scheme for the classification of peoples in terms of the highest

grade of implements used by them is current under which they are placed

in certain ages on the assumption that man in all regions has passed

through an orderly sequence in his development, and that the successive

changes are expressed by the nature of the material used in the

manufacture of implements. Under this plan of classification we have an

age of stone, an age of bronze, and an age of iron. The stone age is

commonly divided into two parts: an earlier or _paleolithic_, during

which the highest type of implement used is fashioned of stone by

chipping; and a later, or _neolithic_, when implements of stone are

shaped by grinding and polishing. Following the stone age came one of

bronze, when a mixture of copper and tin was used for implements; and

later the age of iron, beginning when the art of reducing metals

from their ores was discovered. In this scheme a copper age is sometimes

included, with doubtful propriety, however, if, as in America, the metal

referred to is obtained in its native condition.

Under the somewhat indefinite scheme of classification just referred to

the North American aborigines, inclusive of the Aztecs, etc., previous

to the coming of European civilization were in the stone age of

development, although bronze was in use among the Incas of Peru, and to

some extent had found its way northward as far as Mexico. Certain of the

tribes still used implements of chipped stone, but in the great majority

of instances implements of polished stone were the highest type known.

Native copper was widely used for axes, knives, ornaments, etc., but

iron, except such as occurs in meteors, was unknown.

The difficulty met with in selecting any one article or any one material

used by primitive peoples as a basis for their classification is

illustrated by the facts just cited, as it places the lowest savage of

America in the same group as the Aztec and the Maya. Obviously, in the

classification of peoples as with the lower animals all characteristics

should be included.

THE ESKIMOS

The extreme northern part of North America is included in the

circumpolar lands described in another volume of the series of which the

present book forms a part, and the Eskimos as a people will therefore

receive but passing attention at this time.

One of the most interesting facts to the geographer concerning the

Eskimos is their peculiar distribution. From choice or necessity they

make their homes on the bleak, inhospitable northern border of the

continent, and do not extend inland except where the coast is indented

or large rivers enter the sea. In all localities their dwellings are

near the water. They are the most northern people on the earth, and

their still greater northward extension is checked only by the absence

of land on which to build their winter homes. Their present inland limit

on the continent is no doubt determined in part by long-established

custom and by the distribution of the animals on which they have become

dependent for food, clothing, fuel, etc., but the chief control

formerly, no doubt, more potent than at present, is to be sought in the

aggressiveness of the Indians. In Greenland, the arctic archipelago, and

throughout the immense extent of coast-lands from Labrador to Alaska

they have been isolated and withdrawn from contact with other peoples

for a long period of time, and their slow development unmodified by

extraneous influences. In Newfoundland and Alaska, however, they have

been in contact with the Indians, trade relations established, and to a

limited extent an interchange of ideas as well as some intermarriage has

taken place.

Throughout the vast extent of arctic coast between Newfoundland and

Alaska, as well as in Greenland and on the islands of the arctic

archipelago, the Eskimo was the sole inhabitant before the coming of

Europeans, and one language current from the Atlantic to the Pacific. No

other primitive people has such an extent in longitude. The reason for

this peculiarity is that between the sea margin, where the Eskimo makes

his home, and the southern border of the subarctic forest and adjacent

prairies, where the Indians have their hunting-grounds, there intervenes

the tundra--a neutral ground attractive neither to the Eskimo nor the

Indian.

The one thing which more than all else has enabled the Eskimo to

maintain an existence and to thrive in the frozen north is his discovery

of a means of obtaining heat and light where wood is scarce--that is,

the invention of the lamp. This invention, as has been shown by Walter

Hugh and others, was favoured by the occurrence in the far north of

animals like the seal and walrus, which yield oil with a high

heat-giving property.

In Alaska the Eskimo stock is broken into several tribes speaking

diverse dialects. Of these, two main subgroups are distinguished,

namely, Innuits and Aleuts or Aleutians. The former includes several

tribes living on the margin of the mainland, from near Mount St. Elias

northward to the Arctic Ocean, and the latter consists of but two

tribes, now intermingled, which at the time of the discovery of

the Alaskan region by the Russians inhabited the western portion of the

Alaskan peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. A detailed account of these

peoples should have united with it a study of the so-called Tuski of

northeastern Siberia, who are of the same stock, and, as seems probable,

are the descendants of Eskimos who migrated from America to Asia.

_The Innuits._--This name, as is stated by W. H. Dall, is applied to

themselves by all the tribes of the Eskimo stock, except the Aleuts and

the eastern Siberian natives. It is in use at the present time from

Greenland to Bering Strait, and thence southward to the vicinity of

Mount St. Elias.

In Alaska the Innuits are divided into at least fourteen tribes,

speaking as many different dialects, and distinguished by such names as

Ugalakmuts, Kaniagmuts, etc. The termination _mut_, in a substantive

sense, means a village at the place or on the river to the name of which

it is added (Dall). In common with all other Eskimo tribes the Innuits

are a sturdy, well-built people, having lighter-coloured skins than the

Indians, and more nearly approaching the yellow of the Asiatics, but

distinct from it, and in many instances having a decided reddish tinge

to the cheeks. The prevalent idea that the Eskimo is of decidedly short

stature is not borne out by the various tribes in Alaska, who are not

much, if any, below the average height of Europeans. Their rotund bodies

and full, round faces, in which the organ answering to a nose is

depressed until between the eyes it is scarcely distinguishable, suggest

that the severity of the climate has led to a development of fat for

protection against cold in the same manner as among the seals and

walruses. Such a generalization is perhaps misleading, as great

individual variations occur as among all peoples, but the typical Innuit

whose figure remains in one's memory when the bony hags, the cadaverous

individuals, and the aged are forgotten or but dimly recalled, favours

the conventional pictures of Santa Claus, with a face resembling the

full moon, small black eyes with a suggestion of obliquity in their

alignment, and nearly complete absence of a beard on the ruddy cheeks.

The food of the Eskimos of Alaska, as is the case with all other

divisions of that people, is derived mainly from the sea. Their diet is

almost exclusively fish, the blubber and flesh of the seal, walrus, and

whales, especially the white whale or beluga, which ascends the larger

streams. To these sources of supply are added the arctic hare, caribou

(reindeer), and in fact any flesh that can be obtained. Vegetable diet

is almost unknown, except so far as it is supplied by the berries that

grow in profusion on the tundras. The necessity for salt, so marked in

the case of most peoples, is absent in the far north.

The coast of Alaska, where dwells the Innuit, is treeless. Inland from

the margin of the sea extends the permanently frozen tundra. Wood for

fires, sleds, frames for skin boats, spears, bows, arrows, etc., and in

prehistoric time for producing fire by friction, is derived entirely

from driftwood cast on the beach by the waves. This wood, consisting in

many instances of great tree trunks from which planks two or more feet

wide can be hewn, is brought to the sea by rivers heading far inland,

as, for example, the Yukon and the Kuskokwim, and distributed by the

wind and currents all about the coast and islands of Bering Sea.

Driftwood is also carried to the Arctic Ocean by the Mackenzie, but in

general is not plentiful on the borders of the ice-bound northern ocean.

The houses of the Alaskan Innuit previous to the coming of the Russians,

and still to a great extent, consist of a single room, usually measuring

about 10 by 14 feet, situated in part below the surface of the ground

and entered by means of a tunnel-like passageway. They are made of

driftwood, and floored, lined, and roofed with planks hewn from the same

material. On a roof of poles sods and earth are placed and rendered

compact by stamping, thus forming a cover which serves to exclude water

produced by the melting of the naturally added layer of snow. When

spring-time approaches these partially subterranean winter dwellings are

liable to be inundated, and are abandoned and tents used during summer

seasons. Formerly these tents were made of skins of caribou or seal, but

in these degenerate days cotton drilling bought of white traders

has been substituted. During winter journeys temporary snow huts are

built, of the oval, bake-oven shape, well known to most Europeans from

the many pictures that have been published of similar structures made by

the more northern Eskimos. On the coast of Alaska, however, when

driftwood is available, the roofs of the snow houses are frequently made

of poles on which snow is piled.

In addition to the ordinary winter dwellings, which are usually occupied

by two or more families, each village is commonly supplied with an

assembly house or _casine_ (a word of Russian origin), which serves also

as a bath-house, and in them winter dances, the chief amusement of the

people, are held. The casine, built by the united efforts of the various

members of a community, consist of a single room, in part underground

and entered by a tunnel, which frequently measures some 25 by 30 feet on

the sides, and is approximately 15 feet high. They are substantially

made of logs or of thick planks hewn with much labour from stranded tree

trunks. The roof is of logs covered with moss and earth, and has an

opening in the centre for the escape of smoke from the fire kindled on a

hearth in the centre of the floor. When the fire is not burning, the

opening in the roof is closed with a membrane obtained from the

intestines of the seal. About the sides of the room there is a raised

platform for spectators during dances and for the use of bathers when

the customary steam-baths are indulged in. An interesting fact in

connection with both the ordinary winter homes and the casines, which

indicates their American origin, is that they are communal. A tenement

used by several families in common is characteristic of the American

aborigines from the arctic to Panama.

The architecture of the Innuits has been modified but little during

recent years, except that in localities most visited by white men and

where trading stations have been established, as at St. Michael,

log-houses built after the manner of those used by the Russian residents

have to a considerable extent replaced the native huts, with favourable

results so far as sanitary conditions are concerned. The Russian

log-house is not unlike the many similar structures still to be

seen in portions of Canada and the United States, except that the upper

side of each log is hewn so as to have a sharp edge, which fits into a

deep groove, cut in the log which rests on it. Moss is placed between

the logs, and is also used to fill all holes and crevices. Air is

usually admitted through a pipe situated beneath the floor and opening

in front of the stove, if one is used, and a small pipe for ventilation

passes out through the roof. In the Russian houses the stove is usually

a huge affair, made of large flat stones, which retain heat for a long

time.

[Illustration: PLATE VI.--Linguistic stocks of indians north of Mexico.]

The dress of the Innuits in former days, in common with all the Eskimo

tribes, consisted of skins, and in special cases of the intestines of

seals. The characteristic garment is the parkie or overshirt, not open

in front, however, provided with a hood and made of caribou skin tanned

with the hair on. Those worn by men have a different cut than those

intended for women. In recent years, and perhaps before the coming of

white men, the skins for the manufacture of parkies were derived largely

by trade from the people owning domesticated reindeer in Asia. The

margin of the hood is commonly made of wolf skins, the long hair of

which, blowing across the face, affords much protection. Trousers and

boots made of the skin of the hair-seal or moccasins shaped from the

skin of the leg of a caribou completed the dress. Mats of grass are worn

in the boots or moccasins during cold weather. At the present time the

summer clothing of the natives throughout Alaska is generally of cloth

obtained from white traders, but nothing brought from more civilized

countries can replace the parkies, fur trousers, skin boots, and

waterproof shirts or _kamlaykas_. These articles, except the last

mentioned, are largely used by white men, especially if making winter

journeys.

The boats in use among the Innuits are still the _kayak_ and the

_oomiak_, for which civilized man can offer no adequate substitute. The

well-known kayak, made of a light framework of wood, tied with thongs,

over which is tightly stretched a dressed sealskin covering, leaving

only one or two circular openings for the occupant, is in use from

Greenland all about the arctic coast of America to Asia. Different

shapes pertain to different tribes. In recent years, as a result

of outside influence, openings for three occupants are sometimes made,

the size of the boat also being increased. To one familiar with boat and

canoe travel these light skin craft, with their water-tight decks, seem

the perfection of boat construction. The occupant lashes the skirt of

his kamlayka about the raised rim of the opening in which he sits and

the boat is thus rendered impervious to water from whatever direction.

The greatest danger is that the parchment-like covering may be ruptured,

as by the cutting edge of thin ice. To ordinary storms, however, they

are more safe than even the deservedly celebrated "whale-boat" of the

white man. The oomiak, or woman's boat, also made of dressed skin

stretched over a frame, is much larger than the kayak, has a flat

bottom, is without deck covering, and designed for the use of many

occupants. As is well known, boats of each of these types are propelled

by means of paddles. Both the kayak and oomiak are still in every-day

use, and it is to be hoped the boats of the white man will never wholly

replace them.

The changes in house-building and dress referred to, which have come

from contact with white men, are outward signs of a great modification

in the lives of the Innuits, which began in the early days of Russian

occupation and has continued with increasing importance to the present

time. The natives are quick to imitate the customs of the strangers who

have visited them, and but for the restraint that the climatic

conditions have put upon them and the high price in furs demanded by

traders for imported goods the changes thus produced would be far more

marked than is now the case. To some extent the food of the natives has

been modified, flour being in demand, but, with minor exceptions, the

principal articles consumed are still such as are obtained by hunting

and fishing.

The greatest change that has taken place in the condition of the Alaskan

Innuits, and one which, perhaps, culminated at the time of the recent

"gold excitement" on the Yukon and at Cape Nome, is in relation to the

introduction of intoxicating liquors and of certain contagious diseases.

These scourges, coming from the south, have been almost as great

a blight among the native peoples as would be the sweeping southward of

a wave of arctic temperature to the vegetation of tropical lands. The

_curse of contact_, resulting when a civilized race invades a land

inhabited by childlike aborigines, as has been seen in many parts of the

world, has overtaken the Innuits in common with nearly all other tribes

in Alaska, and decadence and the prolongation of a miserable existence,

unless cut short by extermination through starvation, is all that

seemingly can be hoped for.

The fur-bearing animals of Alaska have been greatly reduced in numbers

during the last twenty-five years: the caribou and the moose have, to a

marked degree, been killed or driven to remote regions; the larger

whales, on account of overcapture by American whalers, have become

scarce; the sea-lion and the walrus are nearly extinct; the fur-seal, of

more importance to the Aleutians than the Innuits, is rapidly

approaching extinction. Thus in many ways the food supply is greatly

decreased. Recourse to agriculture is impossible. The one redeeming

feature of the white man's aggression is the introduction of the

domesticated reindeer from Asia and Lapland. With reindeer, the salmon,

not as yet depleted in the streams emptying into Bering Sea, the white

whale, the hair-seal, not as yet of commercial value, the countless

birds of summer, the berries of the tundra, etc., the Innuits can

survive, maintain their manhood, and become useful to civilization in

certain ways if the curse of drink and the spread of imported diseases

could be stopped. Such a change, however, for various reasons, is not to

be hoped for. It may perhaps be said that the influence of missionaries,

and, what is vastly more important, the work of the school-teacher, has

opened to these children of the cold northern land a way to

civilization, but the results up to the present time are not reassuring.

The census of 1890 showed that the Innuits of Alaska numbered 13,045. In

the census of 1900 a separate enumeration of Eskimos and Indians was not

made.

The dismal picture I have been compelled to sketch of the present

condition and future prospects of the Innuits of Alaska, in order

to indicate their status at the opening of the twentieth century,

applies also with variations in detail and some hopeful signs to a large

majority of the other aboriginal tribes of North America.

_The Aleutians._--The aboriginal inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands are

termed Aleuts or Aleutians, a word of obscure and perhaps foreign

derivation. As stated above, they belong to the Eskimo family, but are

more widely separated from the parent stock than any other of its

constituent tribes. Evidence advanced by W. H. Dall tends to show that

they are of American continental origin. At the time of the first coming

of the Russians, about 1750, they were at war with the Kaniagmuts, who

inhabited the greater part of the Alaskan peninsula and were the nearest

tribe of the Innuits.

When discovered by the Russians the Aleuts were an active, sprightly

people, fond of the dance and of festivities. They are of lighter

colour, but not perhaps in general more nearly white than the

full-blooded Innuits. At present it is difficult to find even a single

representative of unmixed descent, Russian occupation having stamped out

or greatly modified nearly every native characteristic both of body and

mind. They were originally a robust people, of about the average height

found in civilized countries, with coarse black hair and scanty beards.

Their island life, where no large game invited inland journeys, made

them emphatically "canoe people." The habit of sitting in their kayaks

and using the muscles of the upper portion of the body in paddling,

throwing the spear, etc., while the lower portion of the body received

but little exercise, led to a fine chest development and to undersized

and comparatively weak legs. The women, to whom the use of the kayak was

not intrusted, were better proportioned than the men, and many of them

are pleasing in appearance. As stated by Dall, they were less determined

than their neighbours on the mainland, the Kaniagmuts, but were by no

means devoid of courage. Their mode of worship partook more of the

character of a religion than that of any other of the Eskimo tribes in

their native condition.

From what can be learned of the Aleuts in their uncontaminated native

state, they seem to have been the most intelligent of all the Eskimo

tribes and the one which gave the greatest promise, if treated humanely,

of advancement when civilization was introduced. Less than a century of

contact with Russian invaders, however, led to a depth of degradation

that is only paralleled and possibly not exceeded by the shameful

results of the Spanish invasion among the aborigines of the West Indies.

One of the darkest chapters in American history, fortunately for the

credit of Europeans now largely lost, is that containing an account of

the brutal treatment the Aleuts received at the hands of the Russians.

The childlike natives became worse than slaves. The debauchery of their

oppressors was shameful. As stated by Dall, "the Aleuts were subjected

to the most horrible outrages. The names of Glottoff and Solovioff (two

Russian explorers, 1764-'65) make them shudder to this day. Thousands

perished under sword and fire. Long after those enormities were checked

the Russians considered the Aleuts as beasts rather than men," etc.

Their numbers, estimated at 10,000 in 1799, were, according to a Russian

census, reduced to 5,238 in 1808, and, as stated by Dall, numbered not

more than 1,500 in 1870. The census of 1890 gives it as 967.

The incentive to Russian oppression was the greed for furs and the lust

of rude men at a distance from all centres of control. The Aleutian

Islands and neighbouring waters is the home of the sea-otter, which is

clothed with the most beautiful of all furs. Near at hand are the

Pribilof Islands, to which the fur-seal formerly resorted each summer in

countless numbers, and during its migrations traversed the passes

separating the islands of the Aleutian chain, where they were easily

taken; the commercial value of their skins previous to about 1867,

however, was small. In addition, the land-otter and several species of

foxes also inhabited the same region. These allurements tempted the

Russians, and besides the Aleutian Islands, with their sheltered

harbours, furnished favourable stations from which to extend the fur

trade into the still greater region to the eastward, and at an

early date in the foreign occupation of Alaska became a basis for

supplies.

The entire fur trade in Russian America was placed by charter in the

hands of the Russian-American Fur Company in 1799, which, like the

Hudson's Bay Company, had territorial jurisdiction as well as trade

monopoly. This powerful company maintained its existence under various

renewals of its charter until the purchase of Alaska by the United

States in 1867. The authority conferred on the Russian company gave it

exclusive right to purchase furs from the natives, and thus to dictate

prices. This system was fraught with evil to the natives, and their

extinction would no doubt have resulted had it not been for the

influence of missionaries of the Russian-Greek Church, among whom the

name of Veniaminoff will ever be held in blessed memory. In a measure

the gross oppression of the Russians brought its own punishment to the

offenders. The decrease in the number of the Aleutians meant a decline

in the number of pelts secured. To insure the gathering of the highly

prized furs the native hunters must be maintained. The later days of

Russian occupation were characterized by more humane treatment of the

natives, schools were established among them, liquors withheld, and

their rapid decline checked. When Alaska was purchased by the United

States the Russian-American Fur Company was supplanted by the Alaskan

Commercial Company, to whom a lease of the Pribilof Islands was granted.

In this lease provision was made for the support and education of the

Aleutians on the Pribilof Islands. As the chief and almost the sole

employment open to the Aleutians during the past thirty years has been

the taking of sealskins on these islands, this wise provision had a

beneficent influence on the entire tribe. How faithfully the Alaskan

Commercial Company carried out its contract has been seriously

questioned, but it is, nevertheless, a fact that the Aleutians have

fared better under American than under Russian rule. A gradual adverse

change in their condition has come about, however, owing to the decrease

and threatened extinction of the sea-otter, and the great decline in the

number of the fur-seals owing to the attacks made on them during

their annual migrations, which amounts to commercial extinction. The

lucrative industries of the natives have thus practically disappeared,

and there is nothing to take their place. The surviving members are

objects of charity, but as yet the United States Government has made no

adequate provision for their support. One method of ameliorating the

existing adverse conditions that is practicable is the introduction of

domesticated reindeer; another, not so easy to accomplish, is the

suppression of the liquor traffic.

THE INDIANS

The aborigines of the New World to the southward of the narrow strip of

arctic coast-land inhabited by the Eskimo are designated by the term

Indian, as already explained. There is no sharp line of demarcation

between the Indians of North and South America, one shading into the

other, but only those of the northern continent are here considered.

In many scientific treatises, as well as in books of travel and general

literature, the Indians are frequently referred to as "red men," and the

term "copper coloured" commonly applied to them. To the writer each of

these expressions seems infelicitous. It is true that throughout America

the Indians have a reddish undertone in their colour, but in numerous

tribes it is not pronounced. As to copper colour, the meaning of the

term is vague. What is copper colour? Presumably the colour of the pure

metal when unoxidized. No such colour is more than suggested even by the

aborigines having the lightest skins in the members of the many tribes

that have come under the writer's notice. A more correct term--but this

is a matter of opinion, in which differences are permissible--would be

brown, of which many shades occur, ranging from light cinnamon colour to

dark chocolate, and even nearly black. There is no recognisable

connection between variations in colour and climatic conditions. The

faces, hands, and other freely exposed portions of their bodies are

darker than the parts usually covered with clothing, and frequently

suggest the appearance of bronze statutes not fully darkened by

exposure to the weather. In colour they more nearly approach that of the

Polynesians than any other peoples, but in general are of a darker hue.

The members of the various Indian tribes, although presenting a wide

range of differences, have many physiological and mental resemblances,

which, like their languages, serve to set them apart from all other

peoples. A composite picture of their persons would show a man sinewy

rather than heavy in build, but there are many exceptions; of average

stature, 5 feet 8 or 10 inches, but there are tribes whose average is

more, and others in which it is less; dark brown, with a reddish

undertone, in colour; deep-set, black, and in general small eyes, their

alignment straight; the nose prominent and frequently well shaped; mouth

large, with strong, frequently perfect teeth; lower jaw massive; and

face beardless or nearly so, and the hair of the scalp long, coarse, and

black. In order to make such a sketch realistic, the bronze-like

athletic figure must be clothed in a blanket worn with the grace of a

Roman toga or wrapped in a robe of bison-skin; the feet encased in

moccasins of tanned deerskin, and usually decorated with beads or

variously coloured porcupine-quills; the face striped, dotted, or

blotched with various colours; the coarse hair falling like a thatch to

the shoulder, or braided, and in certain tribes shaved or plucked,

except only the traditional scalp-lock, and decorated with feathers,

most frequently of the eagle; necklaces, rings in the ears, amulets,

etc., made of the claws of the bear, shells, beads, quills, etc.,

bespeak various tribes; the primitive weapons were the hatchet-like

tomahawk, the bow and arrow, and the spear. The Indian has been

idealized in the writings of poets and novelists, but occasionally, even

at the present day, one meets with an approach to the ideal. Judged by

the standards of civilization, as he is seen to-day on numerous

reservations and about the streets of towns, he is a lazy, dirty

vagabond. A far more favourable and agreeable picture is presented,

especially in the eastern portion of Canada and adjacent States to the

south and in the Indian Territory, where the blessings of civilization

have been accepted and the once roaming savage has become a tiller of

the soil, an owner of cattle and sheep, and lives in a comfortable

house supplied with furniture such as white men use.

While a racial likeness impossible to conceal unites all of the various

tribes, no single picture or generalized description, however carefully

prepared, can convey to one unfamiliar with the Indian an accurate idea

of his personal appearance. A typical example from one tribe when

critically studied is found to differ widely from an equally

representative example of another tribe, not only in speech, dress,

methods of wearing the hair, ornaments, etc., but also in physique and

in mental traits.

In temperament the Indian is usually described as being moody, reserved,

wary, grave, and his face expressionless, the current of his thoughts

being unrevealed in his proud, indifferent bearing. In his own mind he

seems to consider himself superior to all other beings, and to regard

them with contemptuous indifference. All this is true enough as seen by

a stranger, but in his home life, and not infrequently when in the

presence of trusted white men, the mask of indifference is laid aside

and the laugh and jest indulged in. The extreme of assumed indifference

is exhibited, as has been well attested by many witnesses, when death by

torture is inflicted on a captive, as, for example, burning alive, when

no outward sign is permitted to reveal his intense suffering.

The Indian is a hunter and fisherman both from inheritance and

necessity. From his mode of life his sense of sight and of hearing have

become wonderfully acute. His skill in following a trail is proverbial.

When living near the sea or by the side of streams and lakes he is as

much at home in a canoe as his relative of the plains in post-Columbian

days when seated on his hardy pony. In current literature, however, all

of these traits, as in the case of the personality of the Indian, have

been fused into one ideal. It is true that the Indian hunter is more

skilled in following a trail, in interpreting the signs and sounds in

the forest, in shooting the foaming rapids in his frail canoe, etc.,

than the average white man to whom such pursuits are incidental or newly

acquired; but many white men, and particularly those who have in a

measure degenerated and assumed the Indian mode of life, are his

equal, if not his superior, in all that pertains to woodcraft.

In mental qualities the Indian is the inferior of the Caucasian and the

Asiatic, but is the superior of the negro. The ability to advance is not

absent, and capacity to reach a certain grade in civilization is

general, but beyond the acquirement of indifferent skill in the arts,

literature, etc., but few have passed. The mental quality of

perseverance under adverse conditions and of continuous application has

not been granted him.

These children of the forests and plains, easily pleased and as easily

angered; kind to their children and friends, but cruelly revengeful when

enraged; treasuring a kindness, but never forgetting an injury; without

rigid self-control, as is sadly illustrated by their inordinate passion

for liquor when once a taste for it is acquired, are plastic organisms,

which reflect the conditions under which they have developed. These

untutored barbarians, descendants from ancestors who brought little with

them save the stone axe and the stone spear, but of necessity originated

all their arts and institutions without contact with other peoples, and

were exposed to a wide range of climatic and other physical conditions

for many centuries, present a most instructive subject for the study of

the geographer and others who are interested in the relation of man to

his environment.

_Resources._--To the Indian in pre-Columbian days no ships from overseas

brought supplies, and as the various tribes were frequently at war with

their neighbours, trade relations were greatly restricted. Intertribal

barter was carried on, however, and the capture of supplies and utensils

of various sorts by one tribe from another favoured their dispersion.

Although such articles as the native copper of the Lake Superior region,

the red pipe-stone (catlinite) of Minnesota, and obsidian from various

places found its way to remote localities, each tribe had essentially to

supply its wants from the natural resources of its own domain. The range

in raw materials, to borrow a modern commercial term, that the Indian's

intellectual development permitted him to utilize is indicated in the

following table:

{ Animal: Mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes,

{ crustaceans, insects, and at times human flesh.

{

{ { Wild--roots, bulbs, seeds, fruits, nuts,

{ { bark, berries, sap.

Used for food. { Vegetable { Cultivated--maize, cacao, melons,

{ { squashes, tomatoes, sweet potatoes,

{ { potatoes, pineapple, (tobacco).

{

{ Mineral: Salt, (earth in certain instances).

{ Animal: Skins, sinews, tendons, hair, wool,

{ feathers, and cochineal for dyes.

{

Used for clothing. { Vegetable { Wild--bark, fibres, roots, dyes, gums.

{ { Cultivated--cotton, aloe (?)

{

{ Mineral: Dyes, such as ochres and cinnabar,

{ charcoal.

{ Animal: Skins, sinew, etc.

Used in the {

construction of { Vegetable: Logs, bark, seeds; grass, roots, etc.,

houses. { for mats.

{

{ Mineral: Stone, adobe, sods, earth, selenite

{ (caves).

{ Animal: Skins, sinew; oil in paint; quills, shells,

{ etc., for decoration.

Used in making {

boats. { Vegetable: Tree trunks, bark, seeds, pitch.

{

{ Mineral: Asphaltum; metallic oxides, etc., for

{ paint.

{ Animal: Bones, horns, skins, scales, teeth, shells.

{

{ Vegetable: Wood, bark, nuts, leaves, fibre, dyes,

{ pitch.

Used in making {

utensils and { Mineral: Soapstone for pots, pipes, etc.; obsidian,

weapons. { flint, etc., for spear and arrow points, knives,

{ scrapers, etc.; various hard stones and pebbles

{ for axes, mortars, pestles, etc.; copper for axes,

{ knives, etc.; mineral dyes; gold and silver.

{ Animal: Skins, hair, fur, bones, hoofs, claws,

{ teeth, ivory, oil in paints; shells, coral,

{ pearls, feathers, quills, scales, etc.

Used as personal {

ornaments and in { Vegetable: Seeds; fibres for mats, basket-work, etc.

the decoration {

of houses, { Mineral: Stone (turquoise, emerald, jasper, mica,

boats, etc. { catlinite, etc.), clay, gold, silver, meteoric

{ iron; and various metallic oxides, cinnabar, etc.,

{ for paints.

In these several ways, and yet others, as in their games, medical

practice, elaborate religious ceremonials, mortuary customs, modes of

travel, etc., the aborigines utilized a wide range of materials supplied

by nature, and supplemented them by horticulture, and to an exceedingly

limited extent by domesticating animals. The degree to which they

utilized the natural supplies was much less in certain directions than

became possible to civilized people, but several sources of raw

materials prized by them have not been called upon by white men, and are

now in greater or less measure abandoned by the natives

themselves. The vast mineral wealth of the continent was almost entirely

unavailing to the aborigines, except so far as native metals were

discovered; while several articles, such as the camass, the seeds of

grasses, insects, etc., for food and material, used for implements, as

obsidian for arrow points, spears, and knives, catlinite and other

stones for pipes, porcupine-quills for decoration, etc., are of small

value to Europeans. While civilized man has become more and more

independent of climatic and other natural conditions, largely through

the aid of commerce, the aborigines were much less resistant and were

forced to adjust themselves to their environment, and like other plastic

organisms, were modified by it.

_The Natural Food Supply._--The food of the Indians was mainly the flesh

of mammals, birds, and fishes. The smaller deer of various species

inhabited the entire continent from the subarctic forest to Panama. The

range of the bears was equally extensive, but in certain instances, on

account of superstitious fear, were not customarily used for food. The

almost universal source of food supply furnished by the smaller deer was

supplemented at the far north by the Barren Ground caribou, succeeded

southward by the woodland caribou; overlapping the range of the latter

and extending farther south was the moose; this, in turn, was

supplemented and exceeded in southern range by the Wapiti (elk); more

restricted was the range of the mountain-sheep and mountain-goat, each

inhabiting the Pacific mountains; on the Great plains roamed the bison

and the antelope, the former extending from the central Atlantic

seaboard to the Snake River plains, and the latter from the subarctic

forest to Mexico. The mammalian food supply was most abundant in the

temperate belt, and while decreasing northward, declined more rapidly

towards the south. The food supply furnished by fishes was plentiful

wherever water was present, and in superabundance in tidal rivers and

estuaries both on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts; but these resources

fluctuated in a conspicuous way with seasonal changes, owing especially

to the annual migrations of the shad and salmon. Supplementing the

highly desirable fish-food on the ocean shores were the molluscs,

and especially the oyster and the clam. The rivers, particularly of the

Mississippi Basin, supplied fresh-water "clams" (_Unios_), and the

saline and alkaline lakes of the arid region, inclusive of Mexico,

teemed with the larvae of insects, which were utilized for food. In the

Atlantic and Mississippi region, south of the Great Lakes and extending

to Central America, lived the wild turkey; the forests of the Atlantic

and Pacific coasts, the vast prairies, and the no less extensive

sage-brush plains to the westward were inhabited by various species of

grouse; the land east of the Pacific mountains, from the Gulf of Mexico

far northward, was darkened by immense flights of pigeons; the water

from the far south to the far north, throughout the breadth of the

continent, were visited by large numbers of swans, geese, ducks, and

other water birds. In a conspicuous way the feathered hosts, valuable

for food, were migratory, thus again introducing a variable quantity

into the lives of the aborigines.

The vegetable food of the Indian tribes that did not practise

horticulture varied from locality to locality, and in the temperate and

more northern regions fluctuated through a wide range with seasonal

changes. Berries were abundant in certain regions and at certain

seasons. The raspberry, blackberry, huckleberry, strawberry, etc., of

many varieties, grew wild in the eastern Mississippi and Atlantic coast

regions. The huckleberry extended from the northern Atlantic coast

regions westward across the continent on the southern border of the

subarctic forest, and reached central Alaska. On the coast of British

Columbia and Alaska to Mount St. Elias, salmon-berries, wild currants,

huckleberries, and strawberries flourished with marvellous luxuriance

and of large size. Wild cherries were abundant on the Atlantic coast and

extended to the Pacific mountains. Certain small plums of value for food

occurred widely in what is now the United States. The papaw and

persimmon thrived in the southern portion of the Atlantic coast region.

The fruits of the cacti yielded refreshment in the southwestern States

and in Mexico. Throughout all the hardwood forests of the Mississippi

Valley and the region south of the St. Lawrence a large variety

of nut-bearing trees, such as the walnut, hickory, chestnut, beechnut,

oak, etc., were in great abundance and furnished a large annual food

supply. In the northern portion of this region grew the maple, the

saccharine sap of which was utilized by the Indians for making sugar. In

the Pacific mountains south of Canada grew the pinyon, perhaps of all the

trees of the continent the species that yielded the greatest food supply

to the Indians. In this same region, particularly to the northward, grew

the small lily-like plant having a blue flower, known as the camass, the

bulbs of which are highly nutritious. Both the pinyon and the camass are

largely utilized even at the present day for food by the Indians. In

Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies a large number of tropical

fruits, bulbs, nuts, etc., abound, which are suitable for food, and, as

we have more or less direct evidence, were utilized by the Indians of

that region in prehistoric times. The period of harvest at the south is

less sharply defined than in temperate latitudes and the natural food

supply subject to less seasonal fluctuations.

The Indians so long as they did not engage in agriculture--there being

an absence of anything that could be termed commerce, and even the

transfer of food and other supplies by barter being restricted--were

obliged to move from place to place, in order to avail themselves of the

abundance furnished in certain localities and at certain seasons. This

is well illustrated at the present day. With the coming of the salmon in

the rivers of the northwest Pacific coast region the Indian feasts by

the river-side; when the berries ripen in the valleys of the Cascade

Mountains he is there, together with the bears, to profit by the

bounties of nature; in Nevada he still makes journeys to the pinyon

groves in October; and in the subarctic forest he accompanies the

migration of the caribou. In former days he followed the movements of

the herds of bison on the Great plateaus. In these and many other ways

the food supply of the Indian tended to establish nomadic customs, and

as each source of fuel and other supplies demanded different methods of

capturing animals or different utensils for gathering seeds,

etc., variations in culture development was a necessary result. The duty

of replenishing the general stores was shared by all, but there was no

definite organization for this purpose, and certainly nothing worth the

name of business management. As the adage is, "What is every one's

business is no one's business," and for this reason the Indian, as a

rule, failed to lay aside a sufficient supply of food for winter use,

and in consequence frequently went hungry and not infrequently died of

starvation.

The scarcity of the spontaneous food supply at certain seasons or during

exceptional years, and the recurrence of cold or rainy seasons,

necessitating shelter, would naturally lead the Indian to develop in two

important directions, namely, agriculture and architecture. As is well

known, promising advances had been made in each of these arts, when

indigenous development was checked and to a great extent killed by the

appearance on the scene and subsequent encroachments of peoples from

over the sea.

_Horticulture._--Concerning the art of cultivating plants for food,

clothing, utensils, etc., practised by the Indians before the coming of

Europeans, it is difficult to obtain accurate information. The writings

of Spanish and other explorers who first visited various tribes have

been diligently searched in this connection by students of American

history, and although much that is instructive has been discovered, many

questions remain unanswered.

The principal regions where cultivation of the soil was practised in

pre-Columbian times are situated in the United States south of the St.

Lawrence and east of the Mississippi Valley, and inclusive of the lands

bordering the Great Lakes on the south; also much of New Mexico,

Arizona, Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies. In the eastern

portion of what is now the United States localities naturally devoid of

trees were cultivated by the Indians, and partial clearings were made in

the vast forest by deadening the trees, probably by girdling or cutting

the bark entirely around their trunks with stone axes, and leaving them

standing. A similar process was employed by white settlers in later

years, and is practised even at the present day. In these partial

clearings, from which the underbrush was no doubt burned, gardens of

maize, melons, pumpkins, beans, gourds, sunflowers, potatoes, tobacco,

and perhaps other plants were grown without irrigation. Garden-beds, as

they are termed, are still to be seen in the forests of Michigan, which,

as indicated by the trees growing on them, are older than the time white

men began the cultivation of the soil of that region. In the arid

southwestern portion of the continent and in Central America gardens

were cultivated with the aid of irrigation, and what has been described

as a high degree of skill in horticulture attained. The chief products

of these gardens were maize, cotton, tobacco, beans, melons, cacao,

bananas, and the red pepper. Possibly vanilla, tomatoes, and pumpkins

were also grown. The aloe was extensively utilized in the south, but

whether definitely cultivated or not seems uncertain.

The cultivation of fruit-trees other than the cacao, which furnishes the

seeds from which chocolate is made, does not seem to have been carried

on, although certain writers imply that native trees were tended and

given greater facility for growth by removing adjacent plants. It is

stated by some authors that in the region to the eastward of the

Mississippi the Chickasaw plum is now found growing in clearings that

were abandoned by the Indians and not elsewhere, and the inference is

that it was formerly cultivated. Asa Gray mentions, however, that this

species is probably not indigenous.

Of domesticated mammals none are known to have been possessed by the

Indians except the dog, which it is presumed was derived from one or

more species of the native wolf, and was used to carry or draw burdens,

served also for food, and furnished skins for clothing and hair for

weaving cloth. The turkey was domesticated by the Aztecs and the village

Indians of the New Mexico region; among the latter, even at the present

day, eagles are confined in cages and plucked for feathers. There is

seemingly no doubt but that in pre-Columbian, as in recent years, the

young of wild animals were captured by the Indians and reared as pets,

which in times of necessity probably served for food; but there are no

records of definite attempts to domesticate the bison, mountain-sheep,

mountain-goat, or the peccary of the Gulf coast and Central America. In

the attractive accounts that have appeared in recent years concerning

the grandeur of the Aztecs mention is made of extensive menageries, but

even the most poetic of historians has not assigned to the tribes of

that confederation flocks and herds. The llama and the paco or alpaca,

although reared extensively by the Incas of Peru, are not certainly

known to have been introduced into North America.

To the eastward of the Mississippi, where numerous earthworks bear

testimony of an early settlement by aborigines, heavy forests, the

severity of the winter climate, and wide variations in summer rains

combined to make the natural conditions to a marked degree adverse to

aboriginal development. In Central America, and the West Indies

generally, the exuberance of vegetable growth is such as almost to defy

the clearing of land by people provided only with stone or copper

utensils. Between these two regions, in the southwestern portion of the

continent, are the arid lands, where, when once the idea of irrigation

was embraced, the conditions favouring a sedentary life, with

agriculture as a basis, are far more auspicious than elsewhere. The land

is there treeless, the indigenous plants are easily killed by fire and

by irrigation, the soil is rich, intense sunshine favours plant growth,

and the gathering of harvests is not delayed or the efforts of industry

rendered abortive by rain. Of all portions of the continent, this is the

one where resistance to human development is least, providing man's

ideas are sufficiently advanced to permit him to grasp and put in

practise the art of irrigation. It is reasonable to suppose that the

Indian there first began to build permanent homes and to cultivate the

soil. This hypothesis is sustained in part by historical evidence, and

in part by the ruins of ancient villages or communal houses, irrigation,

ditches, etc. From this centre it may be presumed, in the absence of

definite proof, that the art of horticulture spread to Central America

and the Mississippi Valley.

In spite of the glowing accounts given by certain historians concerning

the high degree of skill in agriculture attained by the

aborigines of Mexico and Central America, and the extent of their

plantations, a conservative balancing of the evidence indicates that

they never advanced beyond the stage of gardening, and that field

agriculture, the cultivation of orchards, and the domestication of

mammals was practically unknown to them.

[Illustration: FIG. 36.--Lodge or Tepee, Blackfoot Indians, Manitoba.

Photograph by William Notman & Son.]

_Houses._--The houses of the primitive Indians, owing to the various

stages in culture attained by different tribes and differences in

climatic conditions, showed a wide range in material used and in the

results obtained. The shelters of the wandering tribes and of the

village Indians during their journeys were usually some form of tent,

either composed wholly of boughs or of a framework of sticks over which

skins were spread and secured by thongs. The typical _wigwam_ consisted

of a number of poles from 15 to 18 feet long, lashed together at the top

and arranged in a circle some 10 feet in diameter at the base, on which

a covering of skins, bark, or mats was spread, leaving an opening at the

top for the escape of smoke from a small fire placed on the ground

within. At the top a wing-like extension of the covering was frequently

provided which could be adjusted to the direction of the wind. An

opening on one side, protected by a curtain of skin, or closed by

drawing the covering together, served as a door. A modification of this

genuine Indian lodge, or _tepee_, in which cotton cloth is substituted

for the primitive covering, may be seen over a wide extent of the

country to the west of the Mississippi at the present day (Fig. 36).

A step higher than the usually circular lodge of boughs, etc., in use

principally among the Indians to the west of the Mississippi, was

furnished by the bark houses of the northeastern tribes, as those of New

York, in which a rectangular frame of poles with an arched or triangular

roof was covered with bark, usually of the elm, tied to the inner frame

and held also by an external frame of poles, the two frames being lashed

firmly together. This, the celebrated "long house" of the Iroquois, like

most Indian houses, was designed to accommodate a number of families,

and may be said to have consisted of several houses placed end to end

with a common passageway running through them. Fires were lighted

in this passageway, one for each family, and the smoke allowed to escape

through openings in the roof. One of these bark houses is described by

an early traveller as being 80 feet long, 17 feet wide, and with a

common passageway 6 feet wide running through its length, on each side

of which were apartments 5 feet square. Smaller houses, usually for the

use of a few families, were also built. The larger ones, as was common

in many Indian villages, were occupied both as dwellings and for general

assemblies. These houses were grouped in villages, about which

palisades, consisting of poles planted in the ground, were frequently

built, and in at least one instance a ditch filled with water was used

on the outside of the palisade to increase their security against

attack.

The feature of special interest concerning the houses of the American

aborigines, inclusive of the Eskimos, is that they were usually occupied

by a number of families. This communal idea runs through all the

indigenous American architecture. As remarked by Lewis H. Morgan, one of

the most judicious students of American ethnology, "the house for a

single family was exceptional throughout aboriginal America, while the

house large enough to accommodate several families was the rule.

Moreover, they were occupied as joint tenement-houses. There was also a

tendency to form these households on the principle of gentile kin, the

mothers with their children being of the same gens or clan."

The idea of the joint tenement-house, as has been clearly shown by

Morgan, illustrated by the bark cabins of the Iroquois, finds its most

striking expression in the communal houses, or _pueblos_, of the village

Indians of New Mexico and Arizona, and in the abandoned stone houses of

Central America. In the arid southwestern portion of the continent

certain tribes, termed the Pueblo Indians, are still living in the

villages they occupied when first visited by Spanish explorers (1640).

On account of their exclusiveness and the isolation of their villages in

an immense desert region they have been but slightly modified, so far as

their home life is concerned, even at the present day, by contact

with white men. The hot desert has shielded these people in much the

same manner that the frozen tundra has served to preserve the purity of

the Eskimo.

The homes of Pueblo Indians, as described by Morgan, are immense

tenement-houses, built of stone and adobe, frequently occupying several

acres of ground, and from 1 to 6 or 7 stories high. The number of

inhabitants at Zuni, one of the most typical of these pueblo towns, is

stated to have been 1,500 in 1851, but to have previously included some

5,000 souls. The adobe, of which the houses are largely constructed, is

the soil of the region, which when mixed with water and allowed to dry

becomes sufficiently hard to retain indefinitely in an arid climate the

form given to it. The soil is formed into bricks, and also used as a

mortar to unite rough stones. Although much stone was used in the

construction of the pueblos, it was roughly dressed by hammering, or not

changed at all from its natural condition, and regularly cut and carved

stones do not occur in the buildings. The pueblos were built in

successive terraces, usually either in a semicircle or on three sides of

a rectangle, the open side being protected by a wall. Irregular forms

are also known, the general plan being adapted to the natural condition

of the site chosen. In certain instances the structures were placed on

elevations where a high degree of safety was insured, but others are on

the open plain and even at the base of a commanding eminence, and near

enough to be reached by arrows shot from a bow. Protection against

enemies was increased by an absence of openings in the exterior walls,

except at a considerable height above the ground; ingress and

communication from terrace to terrace being by means of ladders, which

were drawn up or their steps removed in times of danger. The roofs of

the pueblos, as may be seen at Zuni at the present day, are flat and

consist of poles covered with adobe.

The controlling ideas in the construction of the pueblos seems to have

been communal residence and defence. The houses are at the same time

tenements and fortresses. A characteristic feature of these, as of

practically all Indian villages, is the presence of one or more

assembly rooms, and of open courts or plazas, where the people gathered

for council, worship, amusement, etc.

When white men first visited the Pueblo Indians they cultivated gardens

with the aid of irrigation in which maize, mostly of a blue colour, was

the principal crop, and had domesticated the turkey; earthen vessels of

large size, frequently elaborately and pleasingly decorated, were

manufactured; cotton fabrics were woven of spun threads, and the men

were armed with bows and arrows and shields; clothing was made of

dressed deerskins, buffalo-robes, and cotton cloth usually dyed dark

blue. The descriptions of the Pueblo Indians given by the first visitors

from civilized peoples would, to a great extent, apply to them at the

present day, although in reality their lives have been profoundly

modified and their indigenous development checked.

Throughout a wide extent of the arid southwest the ruins of ancient

pueblos, irrigation canals, remnants of pottery, the latter frequently

marking village sites on isolated eminences, bear witness of a formerly

widely spread people. This evidence shows also that the ancestors of the

present tribes have inhabited the same territory for a great length of

time. In this same general region are found the houses of the

cliff-dwellers, who excavated rooms in the faces of precipices,

frequently high above their bases and only accessible by means of holes,

serving as steps, cut in the rock, or with the aid of ladders. In many

instances these ancient cliff-dwellers, of which no certain descendants

remain, took advantage of natural caverns, or of overhanging ledges,

which were closed by means of walls of rough stone and adobe.

[Illustration: FIG. 37.--Panorama of Uxmal, Yucatan.

In the foreground at the left is the Pyramid-temple of the

Magician, _A_, with its small court at the right-hand base.

Connecting immediately with this is the Nunnery quadrangle,

_B_, occupying the greater part of the foreground. Behind the

latter, on the ground level, are two massive ruined walls

usually referred to as the Gymnasium, _C_, and rising behind

this is a great triple terrace, on the second level of which,

at the right, is the House of the Turtles, _D_, and crowning

the summit is the Governor's Palace, _E_. To the right and

beyond is the serrated crest of the House of the Pigeons, _F_,

overshadowed on the left by the massive pyramid, _G_, and

backed up by a temple-crowned pyramidal pile of inferior

dimensions, _H_. To the left of the House of the Governor and

beyond is a group consisting of two pyramids, _I_, and on the

right of the Nunnery quadrangle, and some distance farther

away, are other ruined masses, one only coming fully within the

limits of the picture.--_W. H. Holmes._]

The pueblo dwellings, built largely of adobe, are stated by ethnologists

to have extended southward into Mexico, and illustrate the nature of the

houses in which the Aztecs lived, but the highest type of aboriginal

architecture in America is furnished by the dwellings and so-called

temples, palaces, etc., still standing in Yucatan and other portions of

Central America. In these ruins we have abundant example of buildings

made of cut stone, laid in regular and even courses, united with

mortar composed of burned lime and sand, and elaborately sculptured in

bas-relief and in the round, or covered with designs moulded in stucco.

In size and proportions these unique structures are impressive. The

so-called Governor's Palace at Uxmal, Yucatan, is 320 feet long, 40 feet

wide, and 25 to 26 feet high, and surmounts an artificially constructed

platform of earth 35 feet high and approximately 550 feet square.

This platform is terraced and provided with broad flights of stone steps

(Fig. 37). These dimensions will serve to render more instructive the

accompanying sketch of the principal ruins at Uxmal by W. H. Holmes.

[Illustration: FIG. 38.--Examples of Maya Arches. After W. H. Holmes.

_a._ Section of cuneiform arch with acute apex, Chichen-Itza.

_b._ Section of ordinary arch with flat capstone.

_c._ Section of ordinary arch with dressed surfaces.

_d._ Section of ordinary arch with dressed surfaces and curved

soffit slopes.

_e._ Portal arch with long slopes, showing masonry of exterior

facing.

_f._ Section of trefoil, portal arch of Palenque.]

Mere size and their great number are not the significant features of

these ruins. They are well built, of cut stone, and most elaborately

decorated, as may be seen by the accompanying reproduction of a

photograph of a typical example. In reference to the skill displayed by

the unknown architects and builders, Holmes, one of the most recent as

well as the most critical of Central American travellers, remarks as

follows:

"The stone used is the pale-yellowish and reddish-gray, obscurely

marbled limestone of the locality.... The facings and ornaments are all

cut and sculptured with a masterly handling not surpassed where chisels,

picks, and hammers of iron and steel are used, and the faces and contact

margins are hewn with perfect precision. Though the finish of the

surfaces was often secured by means of abrasion or grinding, picking or

pecking were the main agents employed, and the indents of the tools are

often apparent and wonderfully fresh-looking. The stones were set in

mortar, although in many cases the joints are so perfect that the mortar

does not appear on the surface."

The extensive ruins of Uxmal, although only a part of the treasures

concealed in the forests of Central America, express with an eloquence

not as yet fully appreciated the advanced stage of culture and

refinement attained in America from the growth of indigenous ideas. Some

of the special features illustrated by them from which the degree of

mental development of their builders can be judged is the presence of

the wedge-shaped but not of the true arch. The character of the simplest

and perhaps the first style of arch constructed by the awakening peoples

in many lands are shown in the accompanying sketches, borrowed from

Holmes's most instructive report. Columns, both square and round, were

used, and statues both in bas-relief and in the round are common. The

designs, whether of animals, grotesque monsters, feathers, or

plants, are in strong relief, either cut in stone or moulded in stucco.

These designs are not confined to single stones, but embrace several

blocks, and together with the diaper fretwork extend the entire length

of even the larger structures. Accompanying the well-wrought figures of

men, and at times forming separate inscriptions, are many hieroglyphics,

the meanings of which are still unknown. All or nearly all of the

structures stand on artificial platforms, which are terraced. A terraced

pyramid, with a broad flight of steps on one or more sides, surmounted

by a well-proportioned rectangular building, faced with cut stone,

highly decorated, and with a flat roof, are the larger features of the

Maya ruins.

[Illustration: FIG. 39.--Sculptured Facade of Governor's Palace, Uxmal,

Yucatan.

This very handsome and elaborate piece of work is a section of

the embellished entablature zone of the palace. The height from

the lower or medial moulding below to the coping course above

is about 10 feet. The entire length, covering the four walls of

the building, is some 725 feet. If we allow that the stones

employed average 6 by 12 inches in surface dimensions, this

deeply coffered and relieved mosaic would comprise upward of

20,000 pieces, all specially cut and a large percentage

elaborately sculptured. Two plain coping courses are seen at

the top, followed by a twined fillet moulding, while under this

is a line of very ornate snouted masks. The broad space below

is filled with bold fretwork, set on a lattice ground and

interrupted by the wonderful overdoor trophy, the central

feature of which is a human figure, fully life size, sculptured

in the round and seated in a niche with festooned base. The

head [now displaced] was surrounded by an elaborate and

colossal head-dress, most of which remains. The horizontal bars

terminating in serpent heads at both ends are separated by

lines of hieroglyphs.--_W. H. Holmes._]

All of this and more, as can be read in the elaborately illustrated

books of Stephens, Holmes, and others, shows that the Maya people, at

the time they were crushed by the more than cruel Spanish invasion, had

reached a stage in their development but little short of true

civilization.

_Ethnological Studies._--The native dress of the Indians, their boats,

ornaments, and still more their customs, systems of government,

religions, myths, traditions, etc., offer attractive subjects for study,

which are being earnestly pursued by many students at the present time.

The closing decade of the nineteenth century witnessed a true awakening

of the white people of America to an interest in the many relics

of ancient earthworks, buildings, utensils, etc., found throughout the

continent, and a healthy growth of an earnest desire to record all that

can be learned concerning the representatives still remaining of the

vanished peoples to whom they pertain.

In the van of this important work is the Bureau of Ethnology of the

Smithsonian Institution. Important work has also been carried on by the

Peabody Museum of Archaeology, situated at Cambridge, and more recently

has been taken up in an energetic manner by the American Museum in New

York and the Field Columbian Museum at Chicago. The National Museum of

Mexico has assembled rich stores of archaeological and ethnological

material pertaining to the native races of Mexico, and the Mexican

Government is doing much to preserve the priceless prehistoric monuments

of the republic from vandalism. There are also many private antiquarian

collections and many individual students who are doing good work along

their chosen historic, linguistic, and other branches of research. One

phase of this work, particularly in reference to ancient earthworks,

buildings, and also the observations of early travellers, missionaries,

explorers, etc., is the removal of the incrustation of romance, and in

part of fable, that has been formed about them. As shown by W. H.

Holmes, in reference to many reputed finds of the relics of men in

various glacial and other deposits; by W. H. Henshaw, in respect to

certain animal carvings; by Cyrus Thomas, in the case of the earthwork

of the eastern part of the United States; by L. H. Morgan, in connection

with the history of the Mexican and Central American aborigines and

other similar examples, imagination has only too frequently taken the

place of critical study and hasty generalizations have been given

publicity. It is perhaps not too strong a statement to say that the

fascinating histories pertaining to Mexico and Central America, written

by Irving, Prescott, and Bancroft, need to be thoroughly revised and

rewritten from the standpoint of the scientific ethnologist. This

clearing of the field of an underbrush of fancy is as necessary as the

work of the axe or _machete_ in removing the vegetable growths

that conceal many of the records of America's history.

_The Contact of the Aborigines with Foreign Peoples._--The chief

interest of the ethnologist concerning the American aborigines relates

to their condition before the introduction of European ideas and

customs. This external influence has been far-reaching and cumulative in

its effects, and to-day there is not a tribe in North America that

stands where it would have stood but for its coming. Among some of the

Eskimo tribes, and in the case also of certain Indian communities in

central Alaska and northern Canada, there have been but slight

modifications even in dress, utensils, etc., by reason of contact with

the white man. The Pueblo Indians have been resistant to change, but

although still grinding their blue corn in primitive stone hand-mills,

and dressed nearly as the first Spanish visitors found their ancestors

in the same villages, there has been a slowly progressing revolution in

the undercurrent of their thought, ideas, religion, customs, etc.

Whether this change is for the better or the worse depends on the point

of view. In attempting to judge of it from the Indian's side, the only

possible conclusion seems to be that the coming of the white man has

been a curse.

The reception of Europeans by the Indian, although in many instances

kindly, has, in the main, been but an outward show of friendship,

concealing suspicion, fear, and jealousy. That this distrust was well

founded is abundantly proved by history. Since the slaughter and

enslavement of the aborigines of the West Indies and of the southern

portion of the continent by Spaniards, through all the bloody conflicts

of the English and French with the Indians of the Atlantic and

Mississippi regions, to near the close of the nineteenth century, almost

constant war, marauding, murder, rapine, and jealousy have accompanied

the contact of the aborigines and the whites. Although the Indians

succeeded in retarding the spread of civilization, they were not strong

enough to permanently check it. In the United States and Canada they

have been, to a great extent, dispossessed of their hunting-grounds by

so-called treaties, or by formal purchase, and placed on

reservations. In Mexico the struggle is still in active progress, but

there and in Central America and the West Indies the contact of the two

races has in part assumed a different phase, and one less visibly

detrimental to the Indian. In the countries now held by people of

Spanish descent, and in fact throughout Latin America, as it is termed,

amalgamation has, to a great extent, caused the disappearance of the

Indian race in its purity. North of the indefinite boundary where the

Spanish language is largely spoken much less admixture of the two races

has occurred than farther south, and the half-breed is classed as an

Indian. While to the north of Mexico it is possible to trace the

post-Columbian histories of the Indian tribes with an approach to

completeness and to state their present census, and note the results of

the attempts that have been made to civilize them, to the south of the

Mexican boundary such a task is seemingly hopeless.

In Alaska the Indians still roam at large with no other restraint than

that arising from the adjustment reached through intertribal relations,

with slight modifications due to the widely scattered settlements of

white men. No attempt has been made by the United States Government to

place them on reservations, and this will probably not occur, as the

white man does not wish their lands for agricultural purposes.

Displacement by contact seems to express the change now in progress.

In Canada the present condition of the Indians varies with locality. In

the southeastern part, including the maritime provinces, they have been

greatly changed from their native condition, and to a large extent

gathered on reservations or have settled on land of their own and become

self-sustaining. In the Labrador region and throughout the Rocky

Mountains they still roam at will, and depend mainly on hunting and

fishing for a livelihood. On the Pacific coast, the Haidas, etc., of

British Columbia--and the same is true of their neighbours, the Tlingits

of southeastern Alaska--have become interested as labourers in the

commercial fisheries, principally the salmon industry.

The Canadian Government has purchased extensive tracts of land

from the Indians, and the purchase money, together with the returns from

the sale of relinquished lands, etc., amounting in 1900 to $3,893,623,

is held in trust for their benefit. The interest on this sum, together

with appropriations made by the Government for the support, education,

etc., of the Indians, amounted during the year 1900 to $1,309,127. The

total--in part estimated--Indian population of Canada is about 99,000,

and those classed as resident Indians number 77,450. The last-named

during the year 1900 cultivated 108,850 acres of land; owned 83,019 head

of cattle, horses, sheep, etc.; cut 68,395 tons of hay; gathered 471,596

bushels of potatoes and other root crops, besides an output of

$1,639,398 worth of fish, furs, etc. During the same year 9,634 Indian

children attended industrial schools. This is certainly a creditable

report and one encouraging to the hope that all the Indians in Canada

will in the course of a few generations become civilized, in spite of

the fact that the Indians outside of the reservations and beyond the

limits of the treaty lands still roam at large and to a great extent are

in a deplorable condition.

In the treatment of the aborigines within her borders Canada has to a

marked degree been both humane and just. Her policy in this connection

is largely an inheritance from that of the Hudson's Bay Company, whose

success in trade depended on maintaining friendly relations with the

native peoples. The work of the factors of "the Great Company" scattered

throughout Canada and carried on continuously for more than two

centuries did much to prepare the aborigines for civil government. Owing

largely, also, to the efficiency of the mounted police of Canada much

less trouble has been experienced in the management of the Indians of

that country than has been the case in the adjacent portion of the

United States. In any comparison, however, of the relation of the

Canadian and United States governments to the aborigines within their

respective borders account needs to be taken of the widely different

conditions on the opposite sides of the boundary line between them. Not

only are the Indians of Canada about one-third as numerous as in the

United States, while the area of each country is about the same,

but owing to a less dense white population to the north of the

international boundary, far less demand has there arisen for their lands

for agricultural, mining, and other purposes than in the United States.

The Indian problem within the United States has been a most serious one,

and is still a severe tax on the nation. The union of the colonies and

the final separation from the mother country left the United States with

an immense western frontier, extending in an irregular way from north to

south through the trackless forests of the Mississippi Valley. As the

nation grew in strength this frontier was pressed farther and farther

westward, while settlements established on the Pacific coast presented a

frontier to the eastward. These two inundations of civilization, crude,

but virile and aggressive, approached each other and entered the passes

in the mountains separating them. Between the two were the

hunting-grounds of the Indians, but the advance of the whites was

irregular and the outposts of civilization were in the Indian country.

In 1867 the buildings of the first of the transcontinental railroads

divided the region roamed over by savage tribes. Railroads continued to

be built, and presently there was no frontier. In a later stage in this

process of subduing a continent it became imperative that the more

hostile and treacherous Indian tribes should be either exterminated or

segregated and confined to definite regions, where they could be under

military surveillance. Many treaties were made between the United States

and the Indians, and by this means and by force the original occupants

of the land were placed on reservations. The aim of the Government, it

must be conceded, has during the past fifty years or more been humane,

but in many instances treaties have been unfulfilled, and individuals in

authority have proved incompetent, unfaithful, and dishonest. In judging

of the dealings of the white man with the Indian, it must be remembered

that the problem was highly complex and in certain ways of such a nature

that no result just to each party was practicable. On one hand, the

rights of the Indian to the land they inherited from their ancestors was

to be recognised, but a larger interest, the march of civilization, had

also to be encouraged. The good of humanity demanded that the barbarian,

roaming over broad lands of which he made no use except for hunting,

should give place to more enlightened people, who wished to cultivate

the soil and make it support thousands of individuals, where before only

a few hundred could find sustenance. The history pertaining to so many

countries, where civilized peoples have displaced races in the lower

stages of culture, was here repeated. The main issue was the same, only

the details differ. In the struggle between the white and the red man it

became evident that the latter must yield, assume habits of industry,

and earn his bread by the sweat of his brow or be exterminated. It may

be said that neither of these seemingly inevitable results has occurred;

the Indian has not been exterminated, and possibly not seriously reduced

in numbers, and to a great extent is not self-supporting. It is

believed, however, that this is but a transient stage, resulting from

the reservation system. In a large number of instances the lands

formerly occupied by the Indians have been purchased from them by the

Government and thrown open to settlement by white people. The money due

for these purchases has in several instances been paid to the Indians,

either as tribes or individually, while in other cases it is still held

in trust by the Government, and the interest on it used for the benefit

of the original occupants of the land.

The United States Government by treaty with certain of the tribes, as

the Sioux, for example, has agreed to pay definite annuities and issue

to each individual a certain amount of clothing and food each year.

Other tribes placed on reservations were also granted clothing and food

sufficient to keep them from want, although no agreement to that effect

was entered into, the theory of the Government being that the Indians

deprived of their hunting-grounds should receive aid until they could

adopt the ways of civilized men sufficiently to be self-supporting. The

number of Indians assisted in this way each year during the past decade

has been about 85,000. The food issued, usually twice a month, consists

of meat, either beef or its equivalent in bacon, flour, coffee,

and sugar. The ration supplied each individual is sufficient to maintain

a person, or at least keep him from starving, but is not intended to

meet all his wants. The desire on the part of the Government that want

should compel the Indian to work, has been still further pressed by a

gradual decrease in the ration issued in certain instances where

definite agreement has not been made and where a tendency to

self-support is manifest. In general, however, this assistance, instead

of stimulating industry, and, as would seem natural, gradually leading

the recipient to desire and obtain more and more of the comforts and

luxuries that may be had as a reward of exertion, served but to enhance

his inherited aversion to all forms of labour. The issuing of rations

even to the extent of insuring the Indian against starvation has to a

great extent removed the incentive to industry, and the Indian, being an

Indian, has remained thriftless and indifferent. The reservation system,

so far as attaining the main aim in view, namely, the civilizing of the

Indian and encouraging him to work, has, to a great extent, been a

failure.

In addition to the issuing of food and clothing, the Government, with

the view of extending still further encouragement, has in a large number

of instances provided the Indians with tools, horses, agricultural

implements, etc., and aided in irrigation and other schemes tending to

the improvement of the lands comprised in reservations.

Besides the direct material aid just referred to, schools have been

established, and an earnest and widely extended effort made to educate

the Indians and make them worthy of citizenship. The result of this

effort, while highly encouraging in many individual instances, has on

the whole fallen far short of what was expected in view of the large

expenditures incurred. The sum thus employed during the past

thirty-three years is about $240,000,000. The total appropriation made

by the Government for the care and education of the Indians, inclusive

of the aborigines of Alaska, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1901,

was over $9,000,000. Of this sum, over one-third was expended in the

maintenance of schools. In addition to this provision there are a number

of mission and other schools, supported mainly by religious or

benevolent organizations, and certain public schools not receiving aid

from the General Government which were wholly or in part for the benefit

of Indian pupils.

In the case of the larger of the Government Indian schools the Indian

children are removed from their homes and placed in institutions where

they live for a period of four years under military discipline. In these

schools literary is subordinate to industrial training. The majority of

the schools are equipped with shops for shoe- and harness-making,

carpentry, blacksmithing, wagon-making, etc., and in several instances

the girls are taught cooking and house-work. The largest of these

schools is situated at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, at which the average

attendance during the year 1900 was 961. The extent to which education

is spreading through the Indian tribes and its rate of increase are

indicated by the fact that the attendance on the Government schools has

increased from 3,598 in 1877 to 21,566 in 1900.

While the benefits received by the Indians through the issuing of

clothing, rations, and by education has been great and the seed for

future progress sown broadcast, the results, so far as lifting the

recipients into an atmosphere of refinement and civilization and making

them self-supporting are concerned, are far from encouraging. The

Indians in general are still wards of the Government and not worthy of

citizenship.

The aim of the Government is not only to educate the Indians, but to

induce them to adopt the ways of industrious and progressive white men,

build homes on land ceded to them and which they may hold as

individuals, thus breaking up their long-established practise of

communal or tribe ownership, and finally become citizens of the

republic. To this end land has been divided among the heads of families

of several tribes and titles in severalty granted, with restrictions in

most, if not all instances, in reference to the sale of the land within

a certain period. In many instances this plan has been productive of

good results, and the Indians have become industrious and to a large

extent citizens. The numerous successes that have followed the

allotment of land in severalty, accompanied as it is with

responsibilities and the necessity of self-support, is encouraging and

leads to the hope that in the course of a few generations all the

Indians will have passed from the condition of barbarism to one of

civilization.

In Mexico since 1824 the Indians have been on the same political basis

as the whites, although to a great extent they have failed to profit by

their advantages, and so far as legal restrictions are concerned are

eligible to any office of the republic. The brightest example of the

wisdom of this policy is furnished by the fact that in at least one

instance a man of pure Aztec blood has occupied the highest office in

the gift of the people. In general, and in fact almost universally, the

position of the Indian in Mexico is that of a farm labourer, but

although nominally free, owing to a prevalent system of debt, he is

really held in vassalage by the owners of the large plantations or

_haciendas_. In many ways his condition is but little better than that

of a slave. Unlike the roaming tribes of the more northern portion of

the continent, where the food supply fluctuates greatly with the

seasons, the natives of Mexico early became sedentary, and, owing no

doubt in part to the density of the population, became horticulturists,

and have continued to cultivate the soil to the present day. They are

now essentially agriculturists, wedded to their place of birth, and not

only do not desire change, but repel by passive resistance the invasion

of civilization and the use of new and improved tools and machinery.

They are non-progressive, and on account of their great numbers,

constituting about 38 per cent of the entire population, serve to retard

advancement in a manner that is highly detrimental to the enlightened

and progressive members of the ruling class. Education in nearly all

parts of the republic is compulsory and the schools free. With both

political and educational advantages, however, but indifferent progress

towards civilization has been made.

The present condition of the Indians throughout Central America is

similar to that of the descendants of the Aztecs and other tribes in

Mexico both politically and socially. They are a disheartened

race, living in a region where exuberant nature supplies their small

wants with but little exertion on their part, and incentives to activity

either of body or mind are, to a great extent, lacking.

In the West Indies the native Caribs were nearly exterminated by the

Spaniards early in their occupation of the islands, their places as

labourers being supplied by the importation of negro slaves, and at the

present time but few, if any, Indians of pure blood are to be found.

Throughout Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies amalgamation of

the Indian with both Europeans and negroes has taken place, and a mixed

race, consisting of a large percentage of the total population, has

resulted. In Mexico these _mestizos_, as they are termed, number about

5,000,000, or about two-fifths of the entire population. In the Central

American republics the supplanting of the aboriginal race by the same

process is thought to have progressed at about the same rate as in

Mexico.

To the student of geography a comparison of the state of the aborigines

of North America before peoples from other lands came among them, with

reference to the influence of environment, is full of significance. The

highest degree of culture and the greatest advance towards refinement

was in Mexico and Central America, where a uniform climate prevails and

bodily wants are few and easily supplied. It was there that skill in

architecture reached its highest development, and what is worthy the

name of art, and we may almost say letters, but in truth

picture-writing, reached a high degree of advancement.

This marked progress in a tropical country beyond what was attained by

the Indian tribes in the temperate and cold portions of the continent

seems to be an exception to the general rule that intellectual progress

is stimulated by changeable climatic conditions, and reaches the highest

development in cold, temperate climates. Apparently the degree of

stimulation needed for the Caucasian and the Indian differs, and the

latter thrives best where the obstacles to be overcome are least. This

is in harmony with the oft-repeated statement that the Indian is but a

child. The struggle which would discourage the boy is but zest to

the man. Among the Indians themselves, however, we find an exception to

the rule suggested in the fact that the Iroquois or the Six Nations of

New York, in their tribal organization and alliances of offence and

defence probably surpassed even the Aztecs and Mayas. In physical

strength and endurance, and in mental powers, so far as government and

oratory are concerned, the Iroquois probably surpassed all other

Indians; but in architecture, art, picture-writing, etc., they were far

the inferiors of the Mexican and Central American Indians. Thus,

intellectual strength and vigour seem to have been most markedly a

product of the colder and more changeable climate, while the highest

attainment in architecture, etc., was reached at the south.

It is in the temperate region also that the best results have been

reached in attempting to civilize the Indians. This, however, cannot be

claimed as a result of climate simply, since the aid that has been

extended to them in Canada and the United States is far different from

the influence exerted on their relatives at the south by men of Spanish

blood. The results of the efforts of Canada and the United States to

civilize the Indian and make him worthy of citizenship, although costly

and slow in reaching the desired end, are full of promise. By the

methods referred to in the last few pages a strong effort is being made

to counteract the harsh treatment the Indians received during the

earlier years of French and English aggression, and to give them a fair

chance to advance. One important result of the present firm control is

the total cessation of intertribal warfare. Seemingly the aborigines

throughout North America, with the exception--and it is hoped this is

but temporary--of the Alaskan Eskimos and the still uncared-for Indian

tribes of Alaska and Canada, should increase in numbers as well as in

enlightenment. In reference to numbers, the enumerations that have been

made in recent years, although not exact, seem to indicate a diminution

in the rate of decrease, if not a positive advance. In the case of most

of the Indian tribes north of Mexico the change from a free life, passed

to a large extent in tents or temporary homes, to an inactive,

sedentary existence, mostly on reservations, and the influences of

house-life without a knowledge of sanitary conditions was a most severe

one. The adverse results of this change, it is probable, are not yet

past, but the rate of decrease in numbers resulting from it appears to

be diminishing. Aside from the comparative suddenness with which the

Indian has been forced to change his ways of thinking and living, it

must be confessed that there is something inherent in his mental

qualities that makes him unduly resistant to progress. As a race it is

not to be hoped that he can ever be placed on really equal terms with

the white man.

The total aboriginal population of North America in 1900, as nearly as

it is now practicable to ascertain, is shown in the following table:

{ Canada, Arctic coast 1,000

Eskimos. { Newfoundland (Labrador coast) 800

{ United States, Alaska (1890) 14,000

----------

Total Eskimo population, about 15,800

{ Canada 99,010

{ United States, exclusive of Alaska 270,544

Indians. { " " Alaska 15,500

{ Mexico (1895) 5,000,000

{ Central America (largely estimated) 1,600,000

---------

Total Indian population, about 6,985,054

---------

Total aboriginal population, about 7,000,800

In this enumeration no account is taken of the Indians of the West

Indies, for the reason, so far as can be learned, that there are few, if

any, of pure blood remaining.

LITERATURE

Vast stores of information concerning the aborigines of America

have been published by the Bureau of American Ethnology,

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.; the Peabody Museum

of Archaeology, Cambridge, Mass.; the American Museum of Natural

History, New York, N. Y.; the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago,

Ill.; and in the _American Archaeologist_, a monthly magazine now

printed by Putnam's Sons, New York.

Readily accessible books relating to the Eskimos of Alaska are:

DALL, W. H. _Alaska and its Resources._ Lee & Shepard, Boston,

1870.

PETROFF, IVAN. _Reports on the Population, Resources, etc., of

Alaska._ In the reports of the tenth and eleventh censuses of

the United States.

The condition of the Indians in the United States during the

past half century is recorded in the annual reports on Indian

affairs published by the Department of the Interior,

Washington, D. C. Similar information concerning the natives of

Canada may be found in the reports on Indian affairs issued by

the Canadian Government at Ottawa.

Of the numerous books on ethnology in which the relation of the

aborigines of America to other peoples is discussed, perhaps

the most useful to the general reader is A. H. Keane's _Man

Past and Present_, printed at the University Press, Cambridge,

England.

Of the many attractive books of travel in which the Indians of

Mexico and Central America and the ruins, etc., of the same

region are described, the most readily accessible are: John L.

Stephens's _Incidents of Travel in Yucatan_, 2 vols., and his

_Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan_,

2 vols., published by Harper & Brothers, New York, 1867-'68;

and W. H. Holmes's _Archaeological Studies among the Ancient

Cities of Mexico_, published by the Field Columbian Museum,

Chicago, 1897.