Chapter 7 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.

Plate VI.-Linguistic stocks of indians north of Mexico.

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Plate VI.-Linguistic stocks of indians north of Mexico. (Continued.)

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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 Solóvioff (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:

Used for food. Animal Mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, crustaceans, insects, and at times human flesh.

Vegetable Wild-Roots, bulbs, seeds, fruits, nuts, bark, berries, sap.

Cultivated-maize, cacao, melons, squashes, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, potatoes, pineapple, (tobacco).

Mineral Salt, (earth in certain instances).

Used for clothing. Animal Skins, sinews, tendons, hair, wool, feathers, and cochineal for dyes.

Vegetable Wild-bark, fibres, roots, dyes, gums.

Cultivated-Cotton, aloe (?)

Mineral Dyes, such as ochres and cinnabar, charcoal.

Used in the construction of houses. Animal Skins, sinew, etc.

Vegetable Logs, bark, seeds; grass, roots, etc., for mats.

Mineral Stone, adobe, sods, earth, selenite (caves).

Used in making boats. Animal Skins, sinew; oil in paint; quills, shells, etc., for decoration.

Vegetable Tree trunks, bark, seeds, pitch.

Mineral Asphaltum; metallic oxides, etc., for paint.

Used in making utensils and weapons. Animal Bones, horns, skins, scales, teeth, shells.

Vegetable Wood, bark, nuts, leaves, fibre, dyes, pitch.

Mineral Soapstone for pots, pipes, etc.; obsidian, 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.

Used as personal ornaments and in the decoration of houses, boats, etc. Animal Skins, hair, fur, bones, hoofs, claws, teeth, ivory, oil in paints; shells, coral, pearls, feathers, quills, scales, etc.

Vegetable Seeds; fibres for mats, basket-work, etc.

Mineral Stone (turquoise, emerald, jasper, mica, 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 larv? 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 pi?on, 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 pi?on 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 pi?on 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.

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 Zu?i, 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 Zu?i 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.

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.

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.

Fig. 39.-Sculptured Fa?ade 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 Arch?ology, 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 arch?ological 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:

Eskimos. Canada, Arctic coast 1,000

Newfoundland (Labrador coast) 800

United States, Alaska (1890) 14,000

----

Total Eskimo population, about 15,800

Indians. Canada 99,010

United States, exclusive of Alaska 270,544

United States Alaska 15,500

Mexico (1895) 5,000,000

Central America (largely estimated) 1,600,000

----

Total Indian population, about 6,985,054

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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 Arch?ology, Cambridge, Mass.; the American Museum of Natural History, New York, N. Y.; the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, Ill.; and in the American Arch?ologist, 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 Arch?ological Studies among the Ancient Cities of Mexico, published by the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, 1897.

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