POPULATION.

As the question of the Indian population of the country has a direct

bearing upon the extent to which the land was actually occupied, a few

words on the subject will be introduced here, particularly as the area

included in the linguistic map is so covered with color that it may

convey a false impression of the density of the Indian population.

As a result of an investigation of the subject of the early Indian

population, Col. Mallery long ago arrived at the conclusion that their

settlements were not numerous, and that the population, as compared with

the enormous territory occupied, was extremely small.[1]

[Footnote 1: Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. Science, 1877, vol. 26.]

Careful examination since the publication of the above tends to

corroborate the soundness of the conclusions there first formulated.

The subject may be set forth as follows:

The sea shore, the borders of lakes, and the banks of rivers, where fish

and shell-fish were to be obtained in large quantities, were naturally

the Indians’ chief resort, and at or near such places were to be found

their permanent settlements. As the settlements and lines of travel of

the early colonists were along the shore, the lakes and the rivers,

early estimates of the Indian population were chiefly based upon the

numbers congregated along these highways, it being generally assumed

that away from the routes of travel a like population existed. Again,

over-estimates of population resulted from the fact that the same body

of Indians visited different points during the year, and not

infrequently were counted two or three times; change of permanent

village sites also tended to augment estimates of population.

For these and other reasons a greatly exaggerated idea of the Indian

population was obtained, and the impressions so derived have been

dissipated only in comparatively recent times.

As will be stated more fully later, the Indian was dependent to no small

degree upon natural products for his food supply. Could it be affirmed

that the North American Indians had increased to a point where they

pressed upon the food supply, it would imply a very much larger

population than we are justified in assuming from other considerations.

But for various reasons the Malthusian law, whether applicable elsewhere

or not, can not be applied to the Indians of this country. Everywhere

bountiful nature had provided an unfailing and practically inexhaustible

food supply. The rivers teemed with fish and mollusks, and the forests

with game, while upon all sides was an abundance of nutritious roots and

seeds. All of these sources were known, and to a large extent they were

drawn upon by the Indian, but the practical lesson of providing in the

season of plenty for the season of scarcity had been but imperfectly

learned, or, when learned, was but partially applied. Even when taught

by dire experience the necessity of laying up adequate stores, it was

the almost universal practice to waste great quantities of food by a

constant succession of feasts, in the superstitious observances of which

the stores were rapidly wasted and plenty soon gave way to scarcity and

even to famine.

Curiously enough, the hospitality which is so marked a trait among our

North American Indians had its source in a law, the invariable practice

of which has had a marked effect in retarding the acquisition by the

Indian of the virtue of providence. As is well known, the basis of the

Indian social organization was the kinship system. By its provisions

almost all property was possessed in common by the gens or clan. Food,

the most important of all, was by no means left to be exclusively

enjoyed by the individual or the family obtaining it.

For instance, the distribution of game among the families of a party was

variously provided for in different tribes, but the practical effect of

the several customs relating thereto was the sharing of the supply. The

hungry Indian had but to ask to receive and this no matter how small the

supply, or how dark the future prospect. It was not only his privilege

to ask, it was his right to demand. Undoubtedly what was originally a

right, conferred by kinship connections, ultimately assumed broader

proportions, and finally passed into the exercise of an almost

indiscriminate hospitality. By reason of this custom, the poor hunter

was virtually placed upon equality with the expert one, the lazy with

the industrious, the improvident with the more provident. Stories of

Indian life abound with instances of individual families or parties

being called upon by those less fortunate or provident to share their

supplies.

The effect of such a system, admirable as it was in many particulars,

practically placed a premium upon idleness. Under such communal rights

and privileges a potent spur to industry and thrift is wanting.

There is an obverse side to this problem, which a long and intimate

acquaintance with the Indians in their villages has forced upon the

writer. The communal ownership of food and the great hospitality

practiced by the Indian have had a very much greater influence upon his

character than that indicated in the foregoing remarks. The peculiar

institutions prevailing in this respect gave to each tribe or clan a

profound interest in the skill, ability and industry of each member. He

was the most valuable person in the community who supplied it with the

most of its necessities. For this reason the successful hunter or

fisherman was always held in high honor, and the woman, who gathered

great store of seeds, fruits, or roots, or who cultivated a good

corn-field, was one who commanded the respect and received the highest

approbation of the people. The simple and rude ethics of a tribal people

are very important to them, the more so because of their communal

institutions; and everywhere throughout the tribes of the United States

it is discovered that their rules of conduct were deeply implanted in

the minds of the people. An organized system of teaching is always

found, as it is the duty of certain officers of the clan to instruct the

young in all the industries necessary to their rude life, and simple

maxims of industry abound among the tribes and are enforced in diverse

and interesting ways. The power of the elder men in the clan over its

young members is always very great, and the training of the youth is

constant and rigid. Besides this, a moral sentiment exists in favor of

primitive virtues which is very effective in molding character. This may

be illustrated in two ways.

Marriage among all Indian tribes is primarily by legal appointment, as

the young woman receives a husband from some other prescribed clan or

clans, and the elders of the clan, with certain exceptions, control

these marriages, and personal choice has little to do with the affair.

When marriages are proposed, the virtues and industry of the candidates,

and more than all, their ability to properly live as married couples and

to supply the clan or tribe with a due amount of subsistence, are

discussed long and earnestly, and the young man or maiden who fails in

this respect may fail in securing an eligible and desirable match. And

these motives are constantly presented to the savage youth.

A simple democracy exists among these people, and they have a variety of

tribal offices to fill. In this way the men of the tribe are graded, and

they pass from grade to grade by a selection practically made by the

people. And this leads to a constant discussion of the virtues and

abilities of all the male members of the clan, from boyhood to old age.

He is most successful in obtaining clan and tribal promotion who is most

useful to the clan and the tribe. In this manner all of the ambitious

are stimulated, and this incentive to industry is very great.

When brought into close contact with the Indian, and into intimate

acquaintance with his language, customs, and religious ideas, there is a

curious tendency observable in students to overlook aboriginal vices and

to exaggerate aboriginal virtues. It seems to be forgotten that after

all the Indian is a savage, with the characteristics of a savage, and he

is exalted even above the civilized man. The tendency is exactly the

reverse of what it is in the case of those who view the Indian at a

distance and with no precise knowledge of any of his characteristics. In

the estimation of such persons the Indian’s vices greatly outweigh his

virtues; his language is a gibberish, his methods of war cowardly, his

ideas of religion utterly puerile.

The above tendencies are accentuated in the attempt to estimate the

comparative worth and position of individual tribes. No being is more

patriotic than the Indian. He believes himself to be the result of a

special creation by a partial deity and holds that his is the one

favored race. The name by which the tribes distinguish themselves from

other tribes indicates the further conviction that, as the Indian is

above all created things, so in like manner each particular tribe is

exalted above all others. “Men of men” is the literal translation of one

name; “the only men” of another, and so on through the whole category. A

long residence with any one tribe frequently inoculates the student with

the same patriotic spirit. Bringing to his study of a particular tribe

an inadequate conception of Indian attainments and a low impression of

their moral and intellectual plane, the constant recital of its virtues,

the bravery and prowess of its men in war, their generosity, the chaste

conduct and obedience of its women as contrasted with the opposite

qualities of all other tribes, speedily tends to partisanship. He

discovers many virtues and finds that the moral and intellectual

attainments are higher than he supposed; but these advantages he

imagines to be possessed solely, or at least to an unusual degree, by

the tribe in question. Other tribes are assigned much lower rank in the

scale.

The above is peculiarly true of the student of language. He who studies

only one Indian language and learns its manifold curious grammatic

devices, its wealth of words, its capacity of expression, is speedily

convinced of its superiority to all other Indian tongues, and not

infrequently to all languages by whomsoever spoken.

If like admirable characteristics are asserted for other tongues he is

apt to view them but as derivatives from one original. Thus he is led to

overlook the great truth that the mind of man is everywhere practically

the same, and that the innumerable differences of its products are

indices merely of different stages of growth or are the results of

different conditions of environment. In its development the human mind

is limited by no boundaries of tribe or race.

Again, a long acquaintance with many tribes in their homes leads to the

belief that savage people do not lack industry so much as wisdom. They

are capable of performing, and often do perform, great and continuous

labor. The men and women alike toil from day to day and from year to

year, engaged in those tasks that are presented with the recurring

seasons. In civilization, hunting and fishing are often considered

sports, but in savagery they are labors, and call for endurance,

patience, and sagacity. And these are exercised to a reasonable degree

among all savage peoples.

It is probable that the real difficulty of purchasing quantities of food

from Indians has, in most cases, not been properly understood. Unless

the alien is present at a time of great abundance, when there is more on

hand or easily obtainable than sufficient to supply the wants of the

people, food can not be bought of the Indians. This arises from the fact

that the tribal tenure is communal, and to get food by purchase requires

a treaty at which all the leading members of the tribe are present and

give consent.

As an illustration of the improvidence of the Indians generally, the

habits of the tribes along the Columbia River may be cited. The Columbia

River has often been pointed to as the probable source of a great part

of the Indian population of this country, because of the enormous supply

of salmon furnished by it and its tributaries. If an abundant and

readily obtained supply of food was all that was necessary to insure a

large population, and if population always increased up to the limit of

food supply, unquestionably the theory of repeated migratory waves of

surplus population from the Columbia Valley would be plausible enough.

It is only necessary, however, to turn to the accounts of the earlier

explorers of this region, Lewis and Clarke, for example, to refute the

idea, so far at least as the Columbia Valley is concerned, although a

study of the many diverse languages spread over the United States would

seem sufficiently to prove that the tribes speaking them could not have

originated at a common center, unless, indeed, at a period anterior to

the formation of organized language.

The Indians inhabiting the Columbia Valley were divided into many

tribes, belonging to several distinct linguistic families. They all were

in the same culture status, however, and differed in habits and arts

only in minor particulars. All of them had recourse to the salmon of the

Columbia for the main part of their subsistence, and all practiced

similar crude methods of curing fish and storing it away for the winter.

Without exception, judging from the accounts of the above mentioned and

of more recent authors, all the tribes suffered periodically more or

less from insufficient food supply, although, with the exercise of due

forethought and economy, even with their rude methods of catching and

curing salmon, enough might here have been cured annually to suffice for

the wants of the Indian population of the entire Northwest for several

years.

In their ascent of the river in spring, before the salmon run, it was

only with great difficulty that Lewis and Clarke were able to provide

themselves by purchase with enough food to keep themselves from

starving. Several parties of Indians from the vicinity of the Dalles,

the best fishing station on the river, were met on their way down in

quest of food, their supply of dried salmon having been entirely

exhausted.

Nor is there anything in the accounts of any of the early visitors to

the Columbia Valley to authorize the belief that the population there

was a very large one. As was the case with all fish-stocked streams, the

Columbia was resorted to in the fishing season by many tribes living at

considerable distance from it; but there is no evidence tending to show

that the settled population of its banks or of any part of its drainage

basin was or ever had been by any means excessive.

The Dalles, as stated above, was the best fishing station on the river,

and the settled population there may be taken as a fair index of that of

other favorable locations. The Dalles was visited by Ross in July, 1811,

and the following is his statement in regard to the population:

The main camp of the Indians is situated at the head of the narrows,

and may contain, during the salmon season, 3,000 souls, or more; but

the constant inhabitants of the place do not exceed 100 persons, and

are called Wy-am-pams; the rest are all foreigners from different

tribes throughout the country, who resort hither, not for the

purpose of catching salmon, but chiefly for gambling and

speculation.[2]

[Footnote 2: Adventures on the Columbia River, 1849, p. 117.]

And as it was on the Columbia with its enormous supply of fish, so was

it elsewhere in the United States.

Even the practice of agriculture, with its result of providing a more

certain and bountiful food supply, seems not to have had the effect of

materially augmenting the Indian population. At all events, it is in

California and Oregon, a region where agriculture was scarcely practiced

at all, that the most dense aboriginal population lived. There is no

reason to believe that there ever existed within the limits of the

region included in the map, with the possible exception of certain areas

in California, a population equal to the natural food supply. On the

contrary, there is every reason for believing that the population at the

time of the discovery might have been many times more than what it

actually was had a wise economy been practised.

The effect of wars in decimating the people has often been greatly

exaggerated. Since the advent of the white man on the continent, wars

have prevailed to a degree far beyond that existing at an earlier time.

From the contest which necessarily arose between the native tribes and

invading nations many wars resulted, and their history is well known.

Again, tribes driven from their ancestral homes often retreated to lands

previously occupied by other tribes, and intertribal wars resulted

therefrom. The acquisition of firearms and horses, through the agency of

white men, also had its influence, and when a commercial value was given

to furs and skins, the Indian abandoned agriculture to pursue hunting

and traffic, and sought new fields for such enterprises, and many new

contests arose from this cause. Altogether the character of the Indian

since the discovery of Columbus has been greatly changed, and he has

become far more warlike and predatory. Prior to that time, and far away

in the wilderness beyond such influence since that time, Indian tribes

seem to have lived together in comparative peace and to have settled

their difficulties by treaty methods. A few of the tribes had distinct

organizations for purposes of war; all recognized it to a greater or

less extent in their tribal organization; but from such study as has

been given the subject, and from the many facts collected from time to

time relating to the intercourse existing between tribes, it appears

that the Indians lived in comparative peace. Their accumulations were

not so great as to be tempting, and their modes of warfare were not

excessively destructive. Armed with clubs and spears and bows and

arrows, war could be prosecuted only by hand-to-hand conflict, and

depended largely upon individual prowess, while battle for plunder,

tribute, and conquest was almost unknown. Such intertribal wars as

occurred originated from other causes, such as infraction of rights

relating to hunting grounds and fisheries, and still oftener prejudices

growing out of their superstitions.

That which kept the Indian population down sprang from another source,

which has sometimes been neglected. The Indians had no reasonable or

efficacious system of medicine. They believed that diseases were caused

by unseen evil beings and by witchcraft, and every cough, every

toothache, every headache, every chill, every fever, every boil, and

every wound, in fact, all their ailments, were attributed to such cause.

Their so-called medicine practice was a horrible system of sorcery, and

to such superstition human life was sacrificed on an enormous scale. The

sufferers were given over to priest doctors to be tormented, bedeviled,

and destroyed; and a universal and profound belief in witchcraft made

them suspicious, and led to the killing of all suspected and obnoxious

people, and engendered blood feuds on a gigantic scale. It may be safely

said that while famine, pestilence, disease, and war may have killed

many, superstition killed more; in fact, a natural death in a savage

tent is a comparatively rare phenomenon; but death by sorcery, medicine,

and blood feud arising from a belief in witchcraft is exceedingly

common.

Scanty as was the population compared with the vast area teeming with

natural products capable of supporting human life, it may be safely said

that at the time of the discovery, and long prior thereto, practically

the whole of the area included in the present map was claimed and to

some extent occupied by Indian tribes; but the possession of land by the

Indian by no means implies occupancy in the modern or civilized sense of

the term. In the latter sense occupation means to a great extent

individual control and ownership. Very different was it with the

Indians. Individual ownership of land was, as a rule, a thing entirely

foreign to the Indian mind, and quite unknown in the culture stage to

which he belonged. All land, of whatever character or however utilized,

was held in common by the tribe, or in a few instances by the clan.

Apparently an exception to this broad statement is to be made in the

case of the Haida of the northwest coast, who have been studied by

Dawson. According to him[3] the land is divided among the different

families and is held as strictly personal property, with hereditary

rights or possessions descending from one generation to another. “The

lands may be bartered or given away. The larger salmon streams are,

however, often the property jointly of a number of families.” The

tendency in this case is toward personal right in land.

[Footnote 3: Report on the Queen Charlotte Islands, 1878, p. 117.]