After the close of the secession war in 1865, I work'd several months
(until Mr. Harlan turn'd me out for having written "Leaves of Grass") in
the Interior Department at Washington, in the Indian Bureau. Along
this time there came to see their Great Father an unusual number of
aboriginal visitors, delegations for treaties, settlement of lands,
&c.--some young or middle-aged, but mainly old men, from the West,
North, and occasionally from the South--parties of from five to twenty
each--the most wonderful proofs of what Nature can produce, (the
survival of the fittest, no doubt--all the frailer samples dropt, sorted
out by death)--as if to show how the earth and woods, the attrition of
storms and elements, and the exigencies of life at first hand, can
train and fashion men, indeed _chiefs_, in heroic massiveness,
imperturbability, muscle, and that last and highest beauty consisting
of strength--the full exploitation and fruitage of a human identity, not
from the culmination-points of "culture" and artificial civilization,
but tallying our race, as it were, with giant, vital, gnarl'd, enduring
trees, or monoliths of separate hardiest rocks, and humanity holding its
own with the best of the said trees or rocks, and outdoing them.
There were Omahas, Poncas, Winnebagoes, Cheyennes, Navahos, Apaches,
and many others. Let me give a running account of what I see and hear
through one of these conference collections at the Indian Bureau, going
back to the present tense. Every head and face is impressive, even
artistic; Nature redeems herself out of her crudest recesses. Most have
red paint on their cheeks, however, or some other paint. ("Little Hill"
makes the opening speech, which the interpreter translates by scraps.)
Many wear head tires of gaudy-color'd braid, wound around thickly--some
with circlets of eagles' feathers. Necklaces of bears' claws are plenty
around their necks. Most of the chiefs are wrapt in large blankets of
the brightest scarlet.
Two or three have blue, and I see one black. (A wise man call'd "the
Flesh" now makes a short speech, apparently asking something. Indian
Commissioner Dole answers him, and the interpreter translates in scraps
again.) All the principal chiefs have tomahawks or hatchets, some
of them very richly ornamented and costly. Plaid shirts are to be
observ'd--none too clean. Now a tall fellow, "Hole-in-the-Day," is
speaking. He has a copious head-dress composed of feathers and narrow
ribbon, under which appears a countenance painted all over a
bilious yellow. Let us note this young chief. For all his paint,
"Hole-in-the-Day" is a handsome Indian, mild and calm, dress'd in drab
buckskin leggings, dark gray surtout, and a soft black hat. His costume
will bear full observation, and even fashion would accept him. His
apparel is worn loose and scant enough to show his superb physique,
especially in neck, chest, and legs. ("The Apollo Belvidere!" was the
involuntary exclamation of a famous European artist when he first saw a
full-grown young Choctaw.)
One of the red visitors--a wild, lean-looking Indian, the one in the
black woolen wrapper--has an empty buffalo head, with the horns on, for
his personal surmounting. I see a markedly Bourbonish countenance among
the chiefs--(it is not very uncommon among them, I am told.) Most of
them avoided resting on chairs during the hour of their "talk" in the
Commissioner's office; they would sit around on the floor, leaning
against something, or stand up by the walls, partially wrapt in their
blankets. Though some of the young fellows were, as I have said,
magnificent and beautiful animals, I think the palm of unique
picturesqueness, in body, limb, physiognomy, &c., was borne by the old
or elderly chiefs, and the wise men.
My here-alluded-to experience in the Indian Bureau produced one
very definite conviction, as follows: There is something about these
aboriginal Americans, in their highest characteristic representations,
essential traits, and the ensemble of their physique and
physiognomy--something very remote, very lofty, arousing comparisons
with our own civilized ideals--something that our literature, portrait
painting, &c., have never caught, and that will almost certainly never
be transmitted to the future, even as a reminiscence. No biographer, no
historian, no artist, has grasp'd it--perhaps could not grasp it. It is
so different, so far outside our standards of eminent humanity. Their
feathers, paint--even the empty buffalo skull--did not, to say the
least, seem any more ludicrous to me than many of the fashions I have
seen in civilized society. I should not apply the word savage (at any
rate, in the usual sense) as a leading word in the description of those
great aboriginal specimens, of whom I certainly saw many of the best.
There were moments, as I look'd at them or studied them, when our own
exemplification of personality, dignity, heroic presentation anyhow (as
in the conventions of society, or even in the accepted poems and plays,)
seem'd sickly, puny, inferior.
The interpreters, agents of the Indian Department, or other whites
accompanying the bands, in positions of responsibility, were always
interesting to me; I had many talks with them. Occasionally I would go
to the hotels where the bands were quarter'd, and spend an hour or
two informally. Of course we could not have much conversation--though
(through the interpreters) more of this than might be
supposed--sometimes quite animated and significant. I had the good
luck to be invariably receiv'd and treated by all of them in their most
cordial manner.
[Letter to W. W. from an artist, B. H., who has been much among the
American Indians:]
"I have just receiv'd your little paper on the Indian delegations. In
the fourth paragraph you say that there is something about the
essential traits of our aborigines which 'will almost certainly never be
transmitted to the future.' If I am so fortunate as to regain my health
I hope to weaken the force of that statement, at least in so far as
my talent and training will permit. I intend to spend some years among
them, and shall endeavor to perpetuate on canvas some of the finer
types, both men and women, and some of the characteristic features
of their life. It will certainly be well worth the while. My artistic
enthusiasm was never so thoroughly stirr'd up as by the Indians. They
certainly have more of beauty, dignity and nobility mingled with their
own wild individuality, than any of the other indigenous types of man.
Neither black nor Afghan, Arab nor Malay (and I know them all pretty
well) can hold a candle to the Indian. All of the other aboriginal
types seem to be more or less distorted from the model of perfect human
form--as we know it--the blacks, thin-hipped, with bulbous limbs, not
well mark'd; the Arabs large-jointed, &c. But I have seen many a young
Indian as perfect in form and feature as a Greek statue--very different
from a Greek statue, of course, but as satisfying to the artistic
perceptions and demand.
"And the worst, or perhaps the best of it all is that it will require
an artist--and a good one--to record the real facts and impressions. Ten
thousand photographs would not have the value of one really finely felt
painting. Color is all-important. No one but an artist knows how much.
An Indian is only half an Indian without the blue-black hair and
the brilliant eyes shining out of the wonderful dusky ochre and rose
complexion."