and a literature. They are pastoral and agricultural in habits, and
usually the women are well treated, and enjoy a certain degree of
freedom. Monogamy is the prevalent custom, but polyandry (see p. 53)
is frequent, and infanticide, particularly of female children, is
looked upon with approval. Their religion is a nature-worship of a low
order, consisting principally of conjurations against evil spirits and
divination by sorcerers.
The Munda tribes include the Kohls, the Santals, the Bhillas and
others, dwelling on the highlands of the interior, northwest of
Calcutta. They are hunting and agricultural peoples, having a better
reputation among the Europeans than their Hindoo neighbors. The
physical type among them is variable, natives of the same village
differing in color and hair, indicating frequent crossings with the
Aryac and other foreign stock.
[Illustration: ETHNIC CHART OF HINDOSTAN.]
The languages of the Dravidians, though of the type called
agglutinative, have no demonstrative connection with those of the
Sibiric (Altaic) stock, and the efforts to connect them historically
are visionary. The original roots are monosyllabic, which are modified
by the addition of suffixes. These suffixes often show the same
“vocalic harmony” to which I have referred in some of the Sibiric
idioms (above, p. 212); but its action is reversed, as while in
Turkish, for example, the vowel of the suffix alters the vowel of the
root, in Telugu it is the latter which controls the former.
Although all the Dravida tongues have borrowed more or less from the
Sanscrit, it has been in words only, and their peculiar structure
stands as ever wholly apart from all Aryac speech. There is something
that looks like inflection in them, but the case-endings are merely
particles referring to place, and not true grammatical cases. They are
still in that stage of growth where the distinction of verb and noun is
ill-defined, and relative pronouns are absent.
The literature which has been developed in these tongues is of
respectable extent. That of the Tamils of southern Hindostan and
northern Ceylon stands in the front rank. It is in both prose and
poetry, special forms of expression being characteristic of the latter.
Everywhere it reveals Aryac inspiration, and illustrates the general
traits of the Dravidian intellect, ready facility in imitating and
adapting the forms of a higher civilization, but limited originality
and independence of thought.
LECTURE IX.
THE AMERICAN RACE.
CONTENTS.--Peopling of America. Divisions.
1. The Arctic Group. Members. Location. Character. 2. The North
Atlantic Group. Tinneh, Algonkins, Iroquois, Dakotas, Muskokis,
Caddoes, Shoshonees, etc. 3. The North Pacific Group. Tlinkits,
Haidahs, Californians, Pueblos. 4. The Mexican Group. The Aztecs
or Nahuas. Other nations. 5. The Inter-Isthmian Group. The Mayas.
Their culture. Other tribes. 6. The South Atlantic Group. The
Caribs, the Arawaks, the Tupis. Other tribes. 7. The South Pacific
Group. The Qquichuas or Peruvians. Their culture. Other tribes.
The American Race includes those tribes whom we familiarly call
“Indians,” a designation, as you know, which perpetuates the error of
Columbus, who thought the western land he discovered was a part of
India.
I shall not undertake to discuss those extensive questions, Who are
the Indians? and, When was America peopled? and, By what route did the
first inhabitants come here? These knotty points I treat in another
course of lectures, where I marshal sufficient arguments, I think, to
show satisfactorily that America was peopled during, if not before,
the Great Ice Age; that its first settlers probably came from Europe
by way of a land connection which once existed over the northern
Atlantic, and that their long and isolated residence in this continent
has moulded them all into a singularly homogeneous race, which varies
but slightly anywhere on the continent, and has maintained its type
unimpaired for countless generations. Never at any time before Columbus
was it influenced in blood, language or culture by any other race.
So marked is the unity of its type, so alike the physical and mental
traits of its members from Arctic to Antarctic latitudes, that I cannot
divide it any other way than geographically, as follows:
1. Arctic Group.
2. North Atlantic Group.
3. North Pacific Group.
4. Mexican Group.
5. Inter-Isthmian Group.
6. South Atlantic Group.
7. South Pacific Group.
All the higher civilizations are contained in the Pacific group, the
Mexican really belonging to it by derivation and original location.
Between the members of the Pacific and Atlantic groups there was very
little communication at any period, the high Sierras walling them
apart; but among the members of each Pacific and each Atlantic group,
the intercourse was constant and extensive. The Nahuas, for instance,
spread down the Pacific from Sonora to the straits of Panama; the Inca
power stretched along the coast for two thousand miles; but neither of
these reached into the Atlantic plains. So with the Atlantic groups;
the Guarani tongue can be traced from Buenos Ayres to the Amazon, the
Algonkin from the Savannah River to Hudson Bay; but neither crossed the
mountains to the west. The groups therefore are cultural as well as
geographical, and represent natural divisions of tribes as well as of
regions.
The northernmost of this division is
_1. The Arctic Group._
This group comprises the Eskimo and Aleutian tribes.
The more correct name for the former is that which they give
themselves, _Innuit_, “men.” They are essentially a maritime people,
extending along the northern coasts of the continent from Icy Bay in
Alaska on the west, almost to the Straits of Belle Isle on the Labrador
side. Northward they reach into Greenland, where the Scandinavians
found them about the year 1000 A. D., although it is likely that these
Greenland Eskimos had come from Labrador no long time before.[179]
Throughout the whole of this extensive distribution, they present a
most remarkable uniformity of appearance, languages, arts and customs.
The unity of their tribes is everywhere manifest.
The physical appearance of the Eskimos is characteristic. Their color
is dark, hair black and coarse, stature medium, skull generally long
(dolichocephalic, 71-73). The beard is scant and the cheek bones high.
They usually have a cheerful, lively disposition, and are much given
to stories, songs and laughter. Neither the long nights of the polar
zone, nor the cruel cold of the winters, dampens their glee. Before
their deterioration by contact with the whites, they were truthful and
honest. Their intelligence in many directions is remarkable, and they
invented and improved many mechanical devices in advance of any other
tribes of the race. Thus, they alone on the American continent used
lamps. They make them of stone, with a wick of dried moss. The sledge
with its team of dogs is one of their devices; and gloves, boots and
divided clothing are articles of dress not found on the continent south
of them. Their “kayak,” a light and strong boat of sealskins stretched
over a frame of bones or wood, is the perfection of a sea-canoe. Their
carvings in bone, wood or ivory, and their outline drawings, reveal no
small degree of technical skill; and they independently discovered the
principle of the arch and apply it to the construction of their domed
snow-houses. The principal weapons among them are the bow and arrow and
the lance.
The Aleutians proper live on the central and eastern islands of the
Archipelago named from them. Their language differs wholly from the
Eskimo. At present they are largely civilized.
_2. The North Atlantic Group._
The spacious water-shed of the Atlantic stretches from the crests of
the Rocky Mountains to the Eastern Ocean. Whether the streams debouch
into Hudson Bay or the Gulf of Mexico, their waters find their way to
the Atlantic. The most of this region was in the possession of a few
linguistic stocks, whose members, generally at war with each other,
roved widely over these lowlands.
The northernmost of them was the _Athapasca_ stock. Its members called
themselves Tinnéh, “people,” and they are also known as Chepewyans, an
Algonkin word meaning “pointed skins,” applied from the shape of the
skin robe they wore, pointed in front and behind.[180]
Their country extended from Hudson Bay to the Cascade Range of the
Rocky Mountains, and from the Arctic Ocean southward to a line drawn
from the mouth of the Churchill river to the mouth of the Frazer river.
The northern tribes extend westward nearly to the delta of the Yukon
river, and reach the seacoast at the mouth of the Copper river. At some
remote period, some of its bands forsook their inhospitable abodes in
the north, and following the eastern flanks of the Cordillera, migrated
far south into Mexico, where they form the Apaches and Navajos, and the
Lipans near the mouth of the Rio del Norte.
The general trend of the pre-historic migrations of the Tinnéh, seems
to have been from a centre west of Hudson Bay, whence they diverged
north, west, and southwest.
In physical features they are of average stature and superior muscular
development. The color varies considerably, even in the same village,
but tends toward a brown. The skull is long, the face broad, and the
cheek-bones prominent.[181]
In point of culture the Tinnéh stand low. The early missionaries
who undertook the difficult task of bringing them into accord with
Christian morals have left painful portraitures of the brutality
of the lives of their flocks. The Apaches have for centuries been
notorious for their savage dispositions and untamable ferocity. They
are, however, skilful hunters, bold warriors, and of singular physical
endurance.
Immediately south of the Athabascans, throughout their whole extent,
were the _Algonkins_. They extended uninterruptedly from Cape Race, in
Newfoundland, to the Rocky Mountains, on both banks of the St. Lawrence
and the Great Lakes. The Blackfeet were their westernmost tribe, and
in Canada they embraced the Crees, Montagnais, Micmacs, Ottawas, etc.
In the area of the United States they were known in New England as the
Abnakis, Passamaquoddies, Pequots, etc.; on the Hudson, as Mohegans;
on the Delaware, as Lenape; in Maryland, as Nanticokes; in Virginia,
as Powhatans; while in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, the Miamis,
Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos and Chippeways, were of this stock. Its most
southern representatives were the Shawnees, who once lived on the
Tennessee, and, perhaps, the Savannah river, and were closely related
to the Mohegans of New York.
Most of these tribes were agricultural, raising maize, beans, squash
and tobacco; they occupied fixed residences in towns most of the
year; they were skilled in chipping and polishing stone, and they
had a definite, even rigid, social organization. Their mythology was
extensive, and its legends, as well as the history of their ancestors,
were retained in memory by a system of ideographic writing, of
which a number of specimens have been preserved. Their intellectual
capacities were strong, and the distinguished characters that arose
among them--King Philip, Tecumseh, Black Hawk, Pontiac, Tammany,
Powhatan--displayed, in their dealings of war or peace with the
Europeans, an ability, a bravery and a sense of right, on a par with
the famed heroes of antiquity.
The earliest traceable seat of this widely extended group was somewhere
between the St. Lawrence River and Hudson Bay. To this region their
traditions point, and there the language is found in its purest and
most archaic form. They apparently divided early into two branches, the
one following the Atlantic coast southward, the other the St. Lawrence
and the Great Lakes westward. Of those that remained, some occupied
Newfoundland, others spread over Labrador, where they were thrown into
frequent contact with the Eskimos.
Surrounded on all sides by the Algonkins, the _Iroquois_ first appear
in history as occupying a portion of the area of New York State. To the
west, in the adjoining part of Canada, were their kinsmen, the Eries
and Hurons; on the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, the Conestogas; and
in Virginia, the Tuscaroras. All were closely related, but in constant
feud. Those in New York were united as the Five Nations, and as such,
are prominent figures in the early annals of the English colony. The
date of the formation of their celebrated league is reasonably placed
in the fifteenth century.
Another extensively dispersed stock is that of the _Dakotas_. Their
area reached from Lake Michigan to the Rocky Mountains, and from the
Saskatchewan to the Arkansas rivers, covering most of the valley of
the Missouri. A fragment of them, the Tuteloes, resided in Virginia,
where they were associated with the Monacans, now extinct, but who were
probably of the same stock.
They are also called the Sioux. Their principal tribes are the
Assiniboins, to the north; the Hidatsa or Crows, at the west; the
Winnebagoes to the east; the Omahas, Mandans, Otoes, and Poncas, on the
Missouri; the Osages and Kansas to the south.
The _Chahta-Muskoki_ stock occupied the area of what we call the Gulf
States, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. They comprised the
Creeks or Muskokis, the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and later the Seminoles.
The latter took possession of Florida early in the last century.
Previously that peninsula had been inhabited by the Timucuas, a nation
now wholly extinct, though its language is still preserved in the works
of the Spanish missionaries.
The Creeks and their neighbors were first visited by Fernando de Soto
in 1540, on that famous expedition when he discovered the Mississippi.
The narratives of his campaign represent them as cultivating extensive
fields of corn, living in well fortified towns, their houses erected
on artificial mounds, and the villages having defences of embankments
of earth. These statements are verified by the existing remains, which
compare favorably in size and construction with those left by the
mysterious “Mound Builders” of the Ohio valley. In fact, the opinion
is steadily gaining ground that probably the builders of the Ohio
earthworks were the ancestors of the Creeks, Cherokees, and other
southern tribes.[182]
Much of the area of eastern Texas, and the land north of it to the
Platte River, were held by various tribes of the _Caddoes_. Fragments
of them are found nearly as far north as the Canada line, and it is
probable that their migration was from this higher latitude southerly,
though their own legends referred to the east as their first home. They
depended for subsistence chiefly on hunting and fishing, thus remaining
in a lower stage of progress than their neighbors in the Mississippi
valley.
Sometimes this is called the _Pani_ family, from one of their members,
the Pawnees, on the Platte River. Their most northerly tribe was the
Arickarees, who reached to the middle Missouri, and in the south the
Witchitas were the most prominent.
The _Kioways_ now live about the head-waters of the Nebraska or Platte
River, along the northern line of Colorado. Formerly they roamed over
the plains of Texas, but according to an ancient tradition, they came
from some high northern latitude, and made use of sleds.[183]
Omitting a number of small tribes, whose names would weary you, I
shall mention in the Atlantic group the _Shoshonee_ bands, called
also Snake or Ute Indians. They extended from the coast of Texas in
a northwesterly direction over New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and
Nevada, to the borders of California, and reached the Pacific near
Santa Barbara. Many of them are a low grade of humanity, the lowest
in skull-form, says Professor Virchow, of any he has examined on the
continent. The “Root-diggers” are one of their tribes, living in the
greatest squalor. Yet it would be a serious error to suppose they
are not capable of better things. Many among them have shown decided
intellectual powers. Sarah Winnemucca, a full blood Pi-Ute, was an
acceptable and fluent lecturer in the English language,[184] and
their war chiefs have at times given our army officers no little
trouble by their skill and energy.
[Illustration: INDIAN TRIBES OF THE UNITED STATES.]
The Comanches are the best known of the Shoshonees, and present the
finest types of the stock. They are of average stature, straight noses,
features regular, and even handsome, and the expression manly. They
are splendid horsemen and skilful hunters, but men never given to an
agricultural life.
_3. The North Pacific Group._
The narrow valleys of the Pacific slope are traversed by streams rich
in fish, whose wooded banks abounded in game. Shut off from one another
by lofty ridges, they became the home of isolated tribes, who developed
in course of time peculiarities of speech, culture and appearance.
Hence it is that there is an extraordinary diversity of stocks along
that coast, and few of them have any wide extent.
In the extreme north the _Tlinkit_ or _Kolosch_ are in proximity to
the Eskimos near Mount St. Elias. They are an ingenious and sedentary
people, living in villages of square wooden houses, many parts of
which are elaborately carved into fantastic figures. Their canoes are
dug out of tree trunks, and are both graceful in shape and remarkably
seaworthy. With equal deftness they manufacture clothing from skin,
ornaments from bone, ivory, wood and stone, utensils from horn and
stone, and baskets and mats from rushes.[185]
To the south of them are the Haidahs of Vancouver’s island, distantly
related in language to the Tlinkit, and closely in the arts of life.
Their elaborately carved pipes in black slate, and their intricate
designs in wood, testify to their dexterity as artists. South of them
are various stocks, the Tsimshian on the Nass and Skeena rivers, the
Nootka on the sound of that name, the Salish, who occupy a large tract,
and others.[186]
All the above are north of the line of the United States. Not far south
of it are the Sahaptins, or Nez Percés, who are noteworthy for two
traits, one their language, which is to some extent inflectional, with
cases like the Latin, and the second, for their commercial abilities.
They owned the divide between the headwaters of the Missouri and of
the Columbia rivers, and from remote times carried the products of the
Pacific slope--shells, beads, pipes, etc.--far down the Missouri, to
barter them for articles from the Mississippi valley.
The coast of California was thickly peopled by many tribes of no
linguistic affinities, most of whom have now disappeared. They offer
little of interest except to the specialist, and I shall omit their
enumeration in order to devote more time to the Pueblo Indians and
Cliff-dwellers of New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona.
These include divers tribes, Moquis, Zuñis, Acomas and others, not
related in language, but upon the same plane of culture, and that one
in many respects higher than any tribe I have yet named to you. They
constructed large buildings (pueblos) of stone and sun-dried brick,
with doors and windows supported by beams of wood; they were not only
tillers of the soil, but devised extensive systems of irrigation, by
which the water was conducted for miles to the fields; they were both
skilful and tasteful in the manufacture of pottery and clothing; and
as places of defence or retreat they erected stone towers and lodged
well-squared stone dwellings on the ledges of the deep cañons, known as
“cliff houses.”
_4. The Mexican Group._
The nations of leading prominence in this group spoke the Aztec or
Nahuatl tongue. On the arrival of Cortes, they controlled the territory
from the Gulf to the Pacific, and their colonies and commerce extended
far north and south. They dwelt in populous cities built of brick and
stone, were diligent cultivators of the soil, made use of a phonetic
system of writing, and had an ample literature preserved in books.
The physical traits of the Aztecs were nowise peculiar. Their skulls
were moderately long or medium, though a few are brachycephalic, the
forehead narrow, the face broad. The hair is occasionally wavy, and
they present more beard than most of the other Indians. The color is
from light to dark brown, the nose prominent, and the ears large. In
stature they are medium or less, strongly built and muscular. Persons
ill-made or deformed are rare, and among the young of both sexes
graceful and symmetrical forms are not uncommon.
The governments of the various nations were based on the system of
clans, gentes or totems, which was common not only in America, but in
most primitive communities. Each gens had a right of representation,
and the land belonged to its members, not as individuals, but as parts
of the clan. The highest officer of the State was in early times
elected by the chiefs of the gentes, but later the office became
hereditary.
Of all the arts, that of architecture was most developed. The pyramid
of Cholula compares in magnitude with the most stupendous results of
human labor. It has four terraces, and its base is a square, 1500 feet
on each side. Similar structures are found at Papantla, Teotihuacan,
and other localities. They are built of earth, stone, and baked brick,
and could only have been completed by the united and directed labor
of large bodies of workmen. The cities of ancient Mexico were many in
number, and contained thousands of houses. Tenochtitlan was surrounded
by walls of stone, and its population must have been at least sixty
thousand souls.
Of their cultivated plants the most important were maize, cotton,
beans, cacao and tobacco. An intoxicating beverage, called _octli_, was
prepared from the fermented juice of the agave, but its use was limited
by stringent regulations, and repeated drunkenness was punished with
death.
The Aztecs were in the “bronze age” of industrial development. Various
tools, as hoes, chisels and scrapers, ornaments, as beads and bells,
formed of an alloy of tin and copper, and copper plates of a crescentic
shape were used as a circulating medium in some districts. In welding
and hammering gold and silver they were the technical equals of the
goldsmiths of Europe of their day. Most of their cutting instruments,
however, were of stone.
They were lovers of brilliant colors, and decorated their costumes
and buildings with dyed stuffs, bright flowers, and the rich plumage
of tropical birds. Such feathers were also woven into mantles and
head-dresses of intricate designs and elaborate workmanship, an art
now lost. Their dyes were strong and permanent, some of them remaining
quite vivid after four centuries of exposure to the light.
In order to obtain the materials used in their arts and to exchange
their completed products, they carried on an active commerce, both
domestic and foreign. All the cities had market days, when the
neighboring country people would flock in great numbers to town, and
the journeys of their merchants extended far toward the Isthmus of
Panama.
The national religion was a polytheism built up on a totemic
worship; that is, it was originally a nature worship grafted upon
the superstitious devotion paid to the presiding genius of the
gens. Huitzilopochtli was the chief divinity of the Aztecs of
Tenochtitlan, Quetzalcoatl was especially adored at Cholula, and the
two Tezcatlipocas, the one dark and one white, were other prominent
mythical figures. According to the myth these four were brothers, but
engaged in a series of contentions among themselves, which repeatedly
wrecked the world.[187]