reser worse. Variety in Indian Culture in the United In his interesting essays, Who are the American Indians? and Popular Fallacies concerning the American Indians, Professor H. W. Henshaw has called attention to a number of misconceptions of the aborigines and their activities and achievements as human beings. Few of them, indeed, could be truthfully designated " mere wandering nomads, with no knowledge of any fixed abodes and no body of culture whatever." Such epithets as stolid and taciturn, improvident, fickle and altogether unreliable, devoid of originality, lacking in the powers of concentration and abstraction, shallow in moral and religious ideas and ideals, etc., cannot be justly applied to them as a whole, and few of these to any at all. The variety in culture among the more than half a hundred linguistic stocks occupying the territory of the United States at the time of the Columbian discovery, is remarkable. In general character it ranged from the root-digging Shoshonian tribes of Nevada and the adjoining country to the Iroquoian peoples of the Northeast with their ex rado, New Mexico, and Arizona, par- of interpretation, hallucinations, or ticularly on the Rio Grande, San Juan, Rio Verde, etc. In this arid region, in pre-historic times, agriculture was carried on " with the aid of extensive irrigation-canals, voirs and dams," the most important of which works occur in the valley of the Gila in southern Arizona. Hundreds of thousands of acres of arid lands were utilized in this way for agricultural and other purposes, and the Pueblos were supplied with plenty of good water. But in all this there is nothing un-Indian, or beyond the capacity of the red race. The population of this region in pre-Columbian times, while not insignificant, has been much exaggerated by some recent writers. Many of the cliff-dwellings were inhabited in rather recent times, as their condition, contents, etc., indicate, and the question of their antiquity is difficult to determine, but of few of them, if of any, can we, on present evidence, speak in terms of "thousands of years," thorities have ventured to do. Alleged discoveries of remains of "great cities," etc., in other parts of the United States (and sometimes such remarkable "finds are even reported from the Canadian Northwest), thought to demonstrate " immense antiquity" for the civilizations they represent, assumed often to be of very ancient origin on the part of colonists from the Old World, can all be left out of account as errors as some au 'an tensive cultivation of maize and tobacco and their notable instinct for political leadership, organization, etc., and the Pueblos Indians of Arizona, New Mexico, etc., with their villagelife and conquest of the desert by VARIETY IN INDIAN CULTURE. means of irrigation; from little tribes shut away in the Californian valleys and mountain-lands to populous stocks like the Siouan, whose lines of migration reach from their original home in the Carolinas to beyond the Mississippi, and north to the Saskatchewan; or the Iroquoian, representatives of which were found, at one time or another, from the borders of Alabama to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and westward to the Great Lakes; or the Algonkian, whose tribes reached from the Saskatchewan to beyond the Ohio, and from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean. Exemplifying more remarkably the differences in culture and the possibilities of human evolution with change of environment, may be cited the Athapascan and Shoshonian stocks, both again, widespread, the former counting its greatest territory in Canada, the latter in Mexico. To the Athapascan stock belong alike "the terrible Apaches," and the Navahos, who have shown themselves so capable of progressing since coming into contact with the whites difference in culture here is now very great. Even more significant is the fact that the Shoshonian (Uto-Aztecan) stock includes "the miserable Utes" of Nevada, etc., the Hopi or Moqui (one of the Pueblos tribes), the Pimas and related peoples of northern Mexico, and the ancient Aztecs and their kindred, as the possession of cognate languages clearly proves. In California a curious di the 63 versity in languages (twenty-one distinct stocks are represented) has developed; something which occurs also, but not so numerously or so conspicuously, along the Pacific coast further north. The North Pacific group of peoples, concerning whom we owe so much to the investigations of Dr. F. Boas, are socially and religiously of great interest (e. g. such institutions as totemism, the potlatch, etc.). The Great Plains, stretching from Texas to far northwestern Canada, have, particularly by reason of the range of the buffalo, been roved over by tribes of many different stocks (Algonkian, Siouan, Caddoan, Kiowan, etc.), and the combinations and associations or alliances, temporary and permanent, due to the pursuit of a common object, have given rise to marked inter-tribal influence, noteworthy transferences of culture-elements (those of a social and ceremonial or religious nature, especially), etc. From the point of view of environment, in a somewhat general sense, Professor Mason recognized the following special areas within the limits of the United States or closely adjoining: St. Lawrence and Lake region, Atlantic slope, Gulf coast, Mississippi Valley, Plains, North Pacific coast, Columbia-Fraser region, Interior basin, CaliforniaOregon, Pueblo country, in all of which the effects of environment in producing diversities of human life, activities, ideas, and ideals are clearly perceptible. There are great varia tions in the form of dwellings (from the brush shelters of some of the Shoshonian tribes to the wooden houses of the peoples of the North Pacific coast, the "long house" of the Iroquois, and the stone and adobe "pueblos of the Southwest). Vessels for navigation and transport include dug outs, skin-boats, wooden and bark canoes, ending with the rather delicate constructions of the peoples of the Great Lakes, etc. Art ranges from mere scribbles on rocks to the sand-paintings of the Navahos and Pueblos, and the shell and copper work of the tribes of the Mississippi Valley and the Gulf States to the turquoise mosaics of some of the Pueblos Indians. Pottery is unknown among the tribes of the North Pacific coast, and reaches a maximum in form, ornamentation, etc., in the Gulf States and the Pueblo country. Basketry attains its most exquisite form among some of the least cultured tribes in California, its maximum of service among the agricultural peoples in other regions. Ceremonials and religion are represented by all types from the simple rites of some of the tribes of the West and Northwest, to the secret societies of many of the tribes of a rather higher stage of culture (Plains peoples, Pueblos, Algonkian, Iroquoian, North Pacific coast). Here may be specially mentioned the sun-worship of the British Columbian Tsimshians, the nature-worship of the Pawnees, the "medicine-rites" of the Navaho (the 66 legends are sometimes almost Dantean), the great cosmogonic myths of the Zuñi, and the culture-hero legends of certain Algonkian and Iroquoian peoples. In the art of government and the development of civil society, the range is all the way from tribes with woman practically a slave to the Iroquoian peoples among whom she was the mother of all," and practically controlled the destinies of the nation. The idea that throughout primitive America woman was held in abject servitude, having no social or political rights whatsoever, is a gross misconception of the actual facts. The range again is from some petty isolated tribe, few in numbers, such as, e. g., occurs in the CaliforniaOregon country to such extensive alliances and "leagues" as were known to the Indians of the east, Algonkian and Iroquoian, and which were not without their influence in suggesting and strengthening the idea of federation among the European colonies of North America. Effect of the Presence and Distribution of the Indians upon the General Course of European History and Civilization in the United States, Etc. The fact that North America, like the rest of the habitable regions of the New World, had a native population, able to resist for centuries the whites in their efforts to acquire complete possession of it, has influenced profoundly the course of history on this continent since the time of Co lumbus. EFFECT OF INDIANS ON AMERICAN CIVILIZATION. Had the land been unoccupied by human beings, the white race might have swarmed all over America within a comparatively brief period, and the social and political constitution of the United States might have been very much different from what it is to-day; and the "typical American" would also have been other than he now is. The occurrence of so many different Indian tribes, often speaking mutually unintelligible languages, and constituting entirely independent political entities, almost made necessary the establishment of similarly numerous and often slightly conoften slightly connected "colonies" of white men, even if this had not been more or less dictated in the first place by the conditions in the home-country at the time of the beginnings of settlement in America. The fact that the Indians were here in sufficiently large numbers and so organized politically and otherwise as to be able to check a too rapid advance on the part of the European settlers, really created a number of successive Americas, beginning with the coasts of Massachusetts and Virginia, and ending with California, the Oregon-Columbia region, Alaska, etc. The existence for so long of a "frontier" ever receding westward as the tide of immigration advanced, has been emphasized by Professor Turner* in a very suggestive article, in which he points out how this situa 65 tion conditioned the development of European culture in North America. His discussion of "the frontier in American history" is a valuable contribution to the literature of race-contact in the New World. The boundaries and proportions of some of the States which now make up the Union are sometimes as contingent originally upon pre-existing Indian delimitations and adjustments as they are upon natural or deliberately devised extensions and restrictions. The late Professor O. T. Mason, the ethnologist, used to point out as an interesting fact, quite accidental in all probability, and having no actual significance, the curious resemblance between the looks of the "Louisiana Purchase "as indicated on historical maps of the United States and the . territory of the Siouan linguistic stock as shown on Major Powell's classic map of the distribution of Indian linguistic families of America north of Mexico. The situation of the Iroquoian and Algonkian stocks with relation to each other in northwestern North America was potent for the future history of the New World. The adhesion of the Algonkian tribes so largely to the French and of the Iroquoian tribes as extensively to the English, at a certain critical period, practically settled which of these nations was ultimately to win the struggle for supremacy in America. Lewis H. Morgan was of opinion that "the and 1894; Ann. Rep. Amer. Histor. Assoc., 1893. Iroquois alliance with the English See Proc. Wisconsin State Histor. Soc., 1889 VOL. I.-5 forms the chief fact in American history down to 1763." Time and again in the course of the Indian wars, the fate of the European race in America lay almost in the hands of the natives. Says Mr. Weeden* of the famous Algonkian chief, "King Philip," who fought the English so long in New England: "Had the opposing power been a little weaker, he might have founded a temporary kingdom on the ashes of the colonies." In other parts of the country, at other times, combinations and confederacies of the Indians, like those of Pontiac and Tecumseh, were occasionally on the verge of success. shell Before the coming of the Europeans a number of Indian tribes had already begun to act as middle-men for many others, and trade and commerce of a primitive sort had taken on a noticeable development in some regions. In the Iroquoian-Algonkian area of the Atlantic slope, shellmoney, known as wampum, etc., appeared as a medium of exchange. The copper of Lake Superior, the sea-shells of the Gulf of Mexico, obsidian from the Rocky Mountains, dentalium-shells from the Pacific, catlinite pipes from Minnesota, etc., have been found far distant from their places of origin. Areas of local trade and exchange for cured and dried fish, preserved meat and berries, maize and tobacco, etc., were numerous. The beginnings of European settle * Indian Money, p. 12 (1884). ment in North America, with the need of dependence upon native supplies of food, acted as a marked stimulus to the already existing aboriginal industries of this sort, and the effect was increased by the introduction of all kinds of domestic animals (particularly the horse, which made travel in certain sections easy), guns and other weapons (tomahawks, axes, etc.) of European manufacture, more effective than the corresponding native ones, iron knives and other tools and implements, articles of clothing and ornaments, serving both for purposes of exchange and as means of attaching certain tribes to the cause of the whites in political disputes, wars, etc. On the other hand, the commercial instinct of the Europeans was stimulated also, as the demand on the part of the settlers in America and their kindred in Europe for Indian products and manufacture constantly tended to increase. The fur-trade and the fish-trade are reported from the Gulf of St. Lawrence in the first half of the Sixteenth century, and it would take long to tell the story that begins with the establishment of the first trading-post at Tadousac (at the mouth of the Saguenay) in 1603, past the French fur-companies of the early days, the Hudson's Bay Company (for two centuries rulers of half of what is now the Dominion of Canada), the Northwest Company, the Missouri Fur Company, the Russian-American Company, etc., to the Alaska Com |