Abnakis, Nova Scotia and S. bank of St. Lawrence.Arapahoes, head waters of Kansas river.Blackfeet, head waters of Missouri river.Cheyennes, upper waters of Arkansas river.Chipeways, shores of Lake Superior.Crees, southern shores of Hudson Bay.Delawares, seeLenâpés.Illinois, on the Illinois river.Kaskaskias, on Mississippi, below Illinois river.Kikapoos, on upper Illinois river.Lenâpés, on the Delaware river.Meliseets, in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.Miamis, between Miami and Wabash rivers.Micmacs, in Nova Scotia.Menomonees, near Green Bay.Mohegans, on lower Hudson river.Manhattans, about New York Bay.Nanticokes, on Chesapeake Bay.Ottawas, on the Ottawa river and S. of L. Huron.Pampticokes, near Cape Hatteras.Passamaquoddies, on Schoodic river.Piankishaws, on middle Ohio river.Piegans, seeBlackfeet.Pottawattomies, S. of Lake Michigan.Sauteux, seeCrees.Sacs and Foxes, on Sac river.Secoffies, in Labrador.Shawnees, on Tennessee river.Weas, near the Piankishaws.
When the French first explored the St. Lawrence River, they found both its banks, in the vicinity where the cities of Montreal and Quebec now stand, peopled by theIroquois. This tribe also occupied all the area of New York state (except the valley of the lower Hudson), where it was known as the Five Nations. West of these were the Hurons and Neutral Nation in Canada, and the Eries south of Lake Erie, while to the south of the Five Nations, in the valley of the Susquehanna and pushing their outposts along the western shore of Chesapeake Bay to the Potomac, were the Andastes and Conestogas, called also Susquehannocks. Still further south, about the head-waters of the Roanoke River, dwelt the Tuscaroras, who afterwards returned north and formed the sixth nation in the league. West of the Apalachians, on the upper waters of the Tennessee River, lived the Cherokees who, by their tradition, had moved down from the upper Ohio, and who, if they were not a branch of the same family, were affiliated to it by many ancient ties of blood and language. The latest investigations of the Bureau of Ethnology result in favor of considering them a branch, though a distant one, of the Iroquois line.
The stock was wholly an inland one, at no point reaching the ocean. According to its most ancient traditions we are justified in locating its priscan home in the district between the lower St. Lawrence and Hudson Bay. If we may judge from its cranial forms, its purest representatives were toward the east. The skulls of the Five Nations, as well as those of the Tuscaroras and Cherokees, are distinctlydolichocephalic, and much alike in other respects, while those of the Hurons are brachycephalic.[95]Physically the stock is most superior, unsurpassed by any other on the continent, and I may even say by any other people in the world; for it stands on record that the five companies (500 men) recruited from the Iroquois of New York and Canada during our civil war stood first on the list among all the recruits of our army for height, vigor and corporeal symmetry.
In intelligence also their position must be placed among the highest. It was manifested less in their culture than in their system of government. About the middle of the fifteenth century the Onondaga chief, Hiawatha, succeeded in completing the famous league which bound together his nation with the Mohawks, Oneidas, Senecas, and Cayugas into one federation of offence and defence. “The system he devised was to be not a loose and transitory league, but a permanent government. While each nation was to retain its own council and management of local affairs, the general control was to be lodged in a federal senate, composed of representatives to be elected by each nation, holding office during good behavior and acknowledged as ruling chiefs throughout the whole confederacy. Still further, and more remarkably, the federation was not to be a limited one. It was to be indefinitely expansible. The avowed design of its proposer wasto abolish waraltogether.”[96]
Certainly this scheme was one of the most far-sighted, and in its aim beneficent, which any statesman has ever designed for man. With the Iroquois it worked well. They included in the league portions of the Neutral Nation and the Tuscaroras, and for centuries it gave them the supremacy among all their neighbors. The league was primarily based upon or at least drew much of its strength from the system of gentes; this prevailed both among the Iroquois and Cherokees, descent being traced in the female line. Indeed, it was from a study of the Iroquois system that the late Mr. Morgan formed his theory that ancient society everywhere passed through a similar stage in attaining civilization.
It is consonant with their advanced sentiments that among the Iroquois women had more than ordinary respect. They were represented by a special speaker in the councils of the tribe, and were authorized to conduct negotiations looking towards making peace with an enemy. Among the Conestogas we have the instance of a woman being the recognized “Queen” of the tribe. With the Wyandots, the council of each gens was composed exclusively of women. They alone elected the chief of the gens, who represented its interests in the council of the tribe.[97]
In sundry other respects they displayed an intelligent activity. In many localities they were agricultural, cultivating maize, beans and tobacco, building large communal houses of logs, fortifying their villages with palisades, and making excellent large canoes of birch bark. According to traditions, which are supported by recent archæological researches, the Cherokees when they were upon the Kanawha and Ohio had large fields under cultivation, and erected mounds as sites for their houses and for burial purposes. When first encountered in East Tennessee they constructed long communal houses like the Five Nations, had large fields of corn, built excellent canoes and manufactured pottery of superior style and finish. Although no method of recording thought had acquired any development among the Iroquois, they had many legends, myths and formal harangues which they handed down with great minuteness from generation to generation. In remembering them they were aided by the wampum belts and strings, which served by the arrangement and design of the beads to fix certain facts and expressions in their minds. One of the most remarkable of these ancient chants has been edited with a translation and copious notes by Horatio Hale.[98]The Cherokees had a similar national song which was repeated solemnly each year at the period of the green corn dance. Fragments of it have been obtained quite recently.
The Iroquois myths refer to the struggle of the first two brothers, the dark twin and the white, a familiar symbolism in which we see the personification of the light and darkness, and the struggle of day andnight.
Andastes, seeConestogas.Cayugas, south of Lake Ontario.Cherokees, on upper Tennessee river.Conestogas, on lower Susquehanna.Eries, south of Lake Erie.Hurons, seeWyandots.Mohawks, on Lakes George and Champlain.Neutral Nation, west of the Niagara river.Oneidas, south of Lake Ontario.Onondagas, south of Lake Ontario.Senecas, south of Lake Ontario.Susquehannocks, on lower Susquehanna.Tuscaroras, in Virginia.Wyandots, between Lakes Ontario and Huron.
The various nations who are classed under the Muskoki stock occupied the broad and pleasant lowlands stretching from the terminal hills of the Apalachian Mountains to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and even beyond that mighty barrier. The remains of a few other stocks in the eastern portion of this area indicate that the Muskokis were not its original occupants, and this was also their own opinion. Their legends referred to the west and the northwest as the direction whence their ancestors had wandered; and the Choctaw legend which speaks ofNani Waya, the Bending Mount, a large artificial mound in Winston county, Mississippi, as the locality where their first parents saw the light, is explained by another which describes it as the scene of their separation from theChickasaws.
Of the main division of the stock, the Choctaws lived furthest west, bordering upon the Mississippi, the Chickasaws in the centre, and the Creeks on the Atlantic slope. The Seminoles were a branch of the latter, who, in the last century, moved into Florida; but it is probable that the whole of the west coast of that peninsula was under the control of the Creeks from the earliest period of which we have any knowledge of it.
The various members of this stock presented much diversity in appearance. The Creeks were tall and slender, the Chickasaws short and heavy; the skulls of both have a tendency to dolichocephaly, but with marked exceptions, and the custom among many of them to deform the head artificially in various ways adds to the difficulties of the craniologist.[99]The color of all is called a dark cinnamon.
The gentile system with descent in the female line prevailed everywhere. The Creeks counted more than twenty gentes, the Choctaws and Chickasaws about twelve, united in phratries of four. In the towns each gens lived in a quarter by itself, and marriage within the gens was strictly prohibited. Each had its own burying place and sepulchral mound where the bones of the deceased were deposited after they had been cleaned. The chief of each town was elected for life from a certain gens, but the office was virtually hereditary, as it passed to hisnephew on his wife’s side unless there were cogent reasons against it. The chief, ormiko, as he was called, ruled with the aid of a council, and together they appointed the “war chief,” who obtained the post solely on the ground of merit. Instances of a woman occupying the position of head chief were not unknown, and seem to have been recalled with pleasure by the tribe.[100]
The early culture of these tribes is faithfully depicted in the records of the campaign of Hernando De Soto, who journeyed through their country in 1540. He found them cultivating extensive fields of maize, beans, squashes and tobacco; dwelling in permanent towns with well-constructed wooden edifices, many of which were situated on high mounds of artificial construction, and using for weapons and utensils stone implements of great beauty of workmanship. The descriptions of later travellers and the antiquities still existing prove that these accounts were not exaggerated. The early Muskokis were in the highest culture of the stone age; nor were they deficient wholly in metals. They obtained gold from the uriferous sands of the Nacoochee and other streams and many beautiful specimens of their ornaments in it are still to be seen.
Their artistic development was strikingly similar to that of the “mound-builders” who have left such interesting remains in the Ohio valley; and there is, to say the least, a strong probability that they are the descendants of the constructors of those ancientworks, driven to the south by the irruptions of the wild tribes of the north.[101]Even in the last century they built solid structures of beams fastened to upright supports, plastered on the outside, and in the interior divided into a number of rooms. The art of picture-writing was not unknown to them, and some years ago I published their remarkable “national legend,” read off from its hieroglyphics painted on a skin by their chief Chekilli in 1731.[102]
The religious rites of the Creeks were so elaborate that they attracted early attention, and we have quite full accounts of them. They were connected with the worship of the principle of fertility, the chief celebration, called thebusk(puskita, fast), being solemnized when the young corn became edible. In connection with this was the use of the “black drink,” a decoction of theIris versicolor, and the maintenance of the perpetual fire. Their chief divinity was referred to as the “master of breath” or of life, and there was a developed symbolism of colors, white representing peaceful and pleasant ideas; red, those of war and danger. The few Seminoles who still survive in the southern extremity of the peninsula of Florida continue the ceremonies of the green corn dance and black drink, though their mythology in general has become deeply tinged withhalf-understood Christian teachings.[103]
Apalaches, on Apalache Bay.Chickasaws, head waters of Mobile river.Choctaws, between the Mobile and Mississippi rivers.Coshattas, on the Red river.Creeks, seeMuskokis.Hitchitees, sub-tribe of Creeks.Muskokis, between Mobile and Savannah rivers.Seminoles, in Florida.Yamassees, around Port Royal Bay, South Carolina.
Within the horizon of the Muskoki stock were a number of small tribes speaking languages totally different. We may reasonably suppose them to have been the débris of the ancient population who held the land before the Muskokis had descended upon it from the north and west. TheCatawbasin the area of North and South Carolinas were one of these, and in former times are said to have had a wide extension. South of them was the interesting tribe of theYuchis. When first heard of they were on both banks of the Savannah river, but later moved to the Chatahuche. They call themselves “Children of the Sun,” which orb they regard as a female and their mother. Their gentes are the same as those of the Creeks, and are evidently borrowed from them. Descent is counted in the female line. Women are held in honor, and when De Soto first met them they were governed bya queen.[104]
Some of both these tribes still survive; but this is not the case with theTimucuas, who occupied the valley of the St. John river, Florida, and its tributaries, and the Atlantic coast as far north as the St. Mary river. They have been extinct for a century, but we have preserved some doctrinal works written in their tongue by Spanish missionaries in the seventeenth century, so we gain an insight into their language.[105]It is an independent stock.
Near the Choctaws were theNatchez, not far from the present city of that name. An account of them has been preserved by the early French settlers of Louisiana. They were devoted sun-worshippers and their chief was called “The Sun,” and regarded as the earthly representative of the orb. They constructed artificial mounds, upon which they erected temples and houses, and were celebrated for their skill in weaving fabrics from the inner bark of the mulberry tree and for their fine pottery. In their religious rites they maintained a perpetual fire, and were accustomed to sacrifice captives to their gods, and the wives of their chieftain at his death.
TheTaensaswere a branch of the Natchez on the other bank of the Mississippi. Attention has beendrawn to them of late years by the attempt of a young seminarist in France to foist upon scholars a language of his own manufacture which he had christenedTaensa, and claimed to have derived from these people.[106]The Natchez language contains many words from the Muskoki dialects, but is radically dissimilar from it.[107]A few of the nation still preserve it in Indian Territory.
TheChetimachaslived on the banks of Grand Lake and Grand River, and were but a small tribe. They are said to have been strictly monogamous, and to have had female chieftains. Their chief deity was Kut-Kähänsh, the Noon-day Sun, in whose honor they held sacred dances at each new moon.
TheTonicasare frequently mentioned in the early French accounts of the colony of Louisiana. They lived in what is now Avoyelles parish, and were staunch friends of the European immigrants. Their language is an independent stock, and has some unusual features in American tongues, such as a masculine and a feminine gender of nouns and a dual in three pronouns.
TheAdaizeor Atai were a small tribe who once lived between Saline river and Natchitoche, La. They spoke a vocalic language, differing from any other, though including a number of Caddo words, which was owing to their having been a member of the Caddo confederacy.
TheAtakapashad their hunting grounds about Vermilion river and the adjacent Gulf coast. Their name in Choctaw means “man-eaters,” both they and their neighbors along the Texan coast having an ugly reputation as cannibals, differing in this from the Muskokis and their neighbors east of the Mississippi, among whom we have no record of anthropophagy, even of a ritual character. The later generations of Atakapas have been peaceful and industrious. Their language, though in the main quite alone, presents a limited number of words evidently from the same roots as their correspondents in the Uto-Aztecan family.
The coast of Texas, between the mouths of the Colorado and Nueces rivers, was the home of theCarankaways. The Spaniards gave them a very black character as merciless cannibals, impossible to reduce or convert; but the French and English settlers speak of them in better terms. In appearance they were tall and strong, with low foreheads, hooked noses, prominent cheek bones, tattooed skins, and wore their black hair long and tangled. The older writers affirm that they spoke Atakapa, and were a branch of that tribe; but the scanty material of their idiom which we possess seems to place them in a stock by themselves.
TheTonkawaysare a small tribe who lived in northwest Texas, speaking a tongue without known relationship. A curious feature of their mythology is the deification of the wolf. They speak of this animal as their common ancestor, and at certain seasons hold wolf dances in his honor, at which they dress themselves in wolf skins and howl and run inimitation of their mythical ancestor and patron. A branch of them, the Arrenamuses, is said to have dwelt considerably to the south of the main body, near the mouth of the San Antonio river.
The lower Rio Grande del Norte was peopled on both its banks by a stock which was christened by Orozco y Berra theCoahuiltecan, but which Pimentel preferred to call the Texan. The latter is too wide a word, so I retain the former. There is not much material for the study of its dialects, so we are left in the dark as to the relationship of many tribes resident in that region. They were small in size and rich in names. Adolph Uhde gives the appellations and locations of seventy-four, based on previous works and personal observations.[108]The missionary Garcia, in hisManual of the Sacraments, published in the last century, names seventeen tribes speaking dialects of the tongue he employs, which appears to be a branch of the Coahuiltecan.[109]
It is useless to repeat the long list, the more so as the bands were unimportant and have long since become extinct, with a few exceptions. They were in a savage condition, roving, and depending on hunting and fishing. The following appear to have been the principal members of the
Alazapas, near Monclova.Cacalotes, on the left bank of the Rio Grande.CatajanosorCartujanos, near Monclova.Carrizos, near Monclova.Coaquilenes, near Monclova.Cotonames, left bank of Rio Grande.Comecrudos, near Reynosa.Orejones, near San Antonio de Bejar.PacaosorPakawas, near San Antonio.
Among the extinct dialects of Tamaulipas was theMaratin, which at one time had considerable extension. The only monument which has been preserved of it is a wild song, in which the natives celebrated all too early their victories over the Spaniards. The text contains several Nahuatl words, but the body of the roots appear to have been drawn from some other source.[110]Uhde locates the Maratins near Soto la Marina and along the Gulf between the Rio Panuco and the Rio Grande.[111]
The Pani[112]stock was scattered irregularly from the Middle Missouri River to the Gulf of Mexico. The Pawnees proper occupied the territory from the Niobrara River south to the Arkansas. The Arikari branch had separated and migrated to the north at a comparatively recent period, while the Wichitas, Caddoes and Huecos roamed over Eastern Louisiana and Western Texas. The earliest traditions of all these peoples assign their priscan home toward the south, and the Pawnees remembered having driven the Dakota tribes from the hunting grounds of the Platte Basin.
The stock as a rule had an excellent physique, being tall and robust, with well-proportioned features, the lips thin and the eyes small. Longevity however was rare, and few of either sex reached the age of sixty. The division of the tribes was into bands and these into totems, but the gentile system did not prevail with much strength among them. The chieftainship of the bands was hereditary in the male line, and the power of the chief was almost absolute. He was surrounded by a body of retainers whom he supported, and who carried out his orders. When he wished a council these messengers carried the summons. Property as well as power passed to the family of the male, and widows were often deprivedof everything and left in destitution. Marriage was a strictly commercial transaction, the woman being bought from her parents. The purchase effected, the bridegroom had a right to espouse all the younger sisters of his wife as they grew to maturity, if he felt so inclined. The laxity of the marriage rules of the stock was carried to its limit by the Arikaris, among whom it is said fathers united with their daughters and brothers with their sisters, without offending the moral sense of the community. This may have arisen after corruption by the whites.
Agriculture among them was more in favor than generally on the plains. Maize, pumpkins and squashes were cultivated, each family having its own field two or three acres in extent. For about four months of the year they were sedentary, dwelling in houses built of poles and bark covered with sods, while the remainder of the time they wandered over their hunting grounds, carrying with them tents of skins which were stretched on poles. The women manufactured a rude pottery and the men implements and weapons of wood and stone. The Arikaris were skilled in the construction of boats of skin stretched over wooden frames, an art they may have learned from the Mandans.
The information about their religion is vague, but it seems in some respects to have resembled that of the Mexican nations. One of their chief divinities was the morning star,Opirikut, which was supposed to represent the deity of fertility and agriculture. At the time of corn-planting a young girl, usually a captive, was sacrificed to this divinity. The victim wasbound to a stake and partly burned alive; but before life had ceased, her breast was cut open, her heart torn out and flung in the flames. Her flesh was then cut into small pieces and buried in the cornfield. This was believed to secure an abundant crop. The similarity of the rite to that in vogue among the Mexicans, who also worshipped the morning star as the goddess of fertility, is interesting.
The dead were buried with their possessions, and the customs of mourning continued sometimes for years.[113]
Anaddakkas, on left bank of Sabine river.Arikaris, on the middle Missouri.Assinais, in central Texas.Caddoes, near Clear Lake, La.Cenis, seeAssinais.Huecos, on the upper Brazos river.Innies, seeTexas.Nachitoches, on upper Red river.Natacos, seeAnaddakkas.Pawnees, between Niobrara and Arkansas rivers.Tawakonies, on upper Leon river.Texas, on upper Sabine river and branches.Towachies, seePawnees.Wichitas, on north bank of Red river.Yatasses, on Stony creek, an affluent of Red river.
The western water-shed of the Mississippi river was largely in the possession of the Dakota or Sioux stock. Its various tribes extended in an unbroken line from the Arkansas river on the south to the Saskatchewan on the north, populating the whole of the Missouri valley as far up as the Yellowstone. Their principal tribes in the south were the Quapaws, Kansas and Osages; in the central region the Poncas, Omahas and Mandans; to the north were the Sioux, Assiniboins and Crows; while about Green Bay on Lake Michigan lived the Winnebagoes.
The opinion was formerly entertained that this great family moved to the locations where they were first met from some western home; but the researches of modern students have refuted this. Mr. Dorsey has shown by an analysis of their most ancient traditions that they unanimously point to an eastern origin, and that the central and southern bands did not probably cross the Mississippi much before the fourteenth century.[114]This is singularly supported by the discovery of Mr. Horatio Hale that the Tuteloes of Virginia were a branch of the Dakotas; and further, the investigations of Catlin among the Mandans resulted in showing that this nation reached the Missouri valley by travelling down the Ohio. They therefore formed a part of the great easterly migration of the North Atlantic tribes which seem to have been going on for many centuries before thediscovery. In the extreme south, almost on the gulf coast of Louisiana, lived some small bands of Dakotas, known as Biloxis, Opelousas, Pascagoulas, etc. They were long supposed to speak an independent tongue, and only of late years has their proper position been defined.
Their frames are powerful, and the warriors of the Sioux have long enjoyed a celebrity for their hardihood and daring. The massacre of General Custer’s command, which they executed in 1876, was the severest blow the army of the United States ever experienced at the hands of the red man. With reference to cranial form they are dolichocephalic, sixteen out of twenty-three skulls in the collection of the Academy[115]offering a cephalic index under 80.
The northern Dakotas do not seem to have had the same system of gentes which prevailed in most of the eastern tribes. Mr. Morgan was of the opinion that it had existed, but had been lost; this, however, requires further proof. There are many societies among them, but not of the nature of clans. Their chiefs hold their position by hereditary descent in the male line, though among the Winnebagoes the early traveller, Carver found the anomaly of a woman presiding over the tribe. The central bands, the Mandans and Minnetarees, recognized gentes with descent in the female line; while among the Poncas and Omahas there were also gentes, but with descent in the male line. The condition in this respect, of the members of this family, as also of that of the Athabascan, seems to prove that the gentilesystem is by no means a fixed stadium of even American ancient society, but is variable, and present or absent as circumstances may dictate.
A few members of this family, notably the Mandans, attained a respectable degree of culture, becoming partly agricultural, and dwelling most of the year in permanent abodes; but the majority of them preferred depending on the bounties of nature, pursuing the herds of buffaloes over the boundless pastures of the plains, or snaring the abundant fish in the myriad streams which traversed their country.
The mythology of the Dakotas is concerned with the doings of giants in whom we recognize personifications of the winds and storms. One of these is Haokah, to whom the warrior sends up an invocation when about to undertake some perilous exploit. The thunder is caused by huge birds who flap their wings angrily and thus produce the portentous reverberations. The waters are the home of Unktahe, a mighty spirit who lurks in their depths. Indeed, to the Dakotas, and not to them alone, but to man in their stage of thought, “All nature is alive with gods. Every mountain, every tree is worshipped, and the commonest animals are the objects of adoration.”[116]
Arkansas, on lower Arkansas river.Assiniboins, on Saskatchewan and Assiniboin rivers.Biloxis, in Rapides Parish, Louisiana.Crows, on Yellowstone river.Iowas, on the Iowa river.Kansas, on the Kansas river.Mandans, on the middle Missouri river.Minetarees, on the Yellowstone river.Ogallalas, sub-tribe of Sioux.Omahas, on the Elkhorn river.Osages, on Arkansas and Osage rivers.Ottoes, on the Platte river.Poncas, on the middle Missouri river.Quapaws, on lower Arkansas river.Sioux, on upper Mississippi and affluents.Tetons, sub-tribe of Sioux.Tuteloes, on upper Roanoke river, Va.Winnebagoes, western shore of Lake Michigan.Yanktons, on upper Iowa river.
The upper basin of the Canadian branch of the Arkansas River was the home of theKioways. At the middle of this century they were estimated to be over three thousand, all given to a wild hunting life over the great plains on which they lived. In close proximity to the Comanches and other tribes of Shoshonian lineage, their language presents many affinities to the Shoshonian stock, but not sufficient in the opinion of those who have examined both to justify classing them together as from a common source.
The Kioways are light in color, broad shouldered and strong armed, and for generations were the Arabs of the Great American Desert, depending on hunting and robbery for a subsistence. Their homes were light skin lodges, which they spread on poles about twelve feet long. With plenty of ponies and without fixed habitations, it was easy for them tomove rapidly over the Plains. According to their traditions they came originally from the North, from some cold country, where they had to walk on snow shoes, definitely located near the Black Hills, Dakota, where they were associated with the Apaches. They were idol worshippers, their priesthood consisting of ten medicine-men. The dead were buried in deep graves. At present they have been reduced to about one thousand souls.[117]
The lofty chains of the Rocky Mountains extend from north to south, leaving a narrow coast line seamed with deep and fertile valleys along the Pacific from Mt. St. Elias to the Gulf of California. In spite of its great extent in latitude—from the 30th to the 60th degree—there is less difference in climate than one would suppose from analogy in any other part of the world. The warm ocean current which bathes the northern coast mitigates the cold of the winter to such an extent that the isothermal lines on the Pacific are fifteen degrees of latitude more northerly than on the Atlantic border of the continent.
A few of the eastern stocks, the Athabascan and the Shoshonian, have sent out colonies who have settled on the banks of the Pacific; but as a rule the tribes of the western coast are not connected with any east of the mountains. What is more singular, although they differ surprisingly among themselves in language, they have marked anthropologic similarities, physical and psychical. Virchow[118]has emphasized the fact that the skulls from the northern point of Vancouver’s Island reveal an unmistakable analogyto those from the southern coast of California; and this is to a degree true of many intermediate points. Not that the crania have the same indices. On the contrary, they present great and constant differences within the same tribe;[119]but these differences are analogous one to the other, and on fixed lines.
There are many other physical similarities which mark the Pacific Indians and contrast them with those east of the mountains. The eyes are less oblique, the nose flatter, the lips fuller, the chin more pointed, the face wider. There is more hair on the face and in the axilla, and the difference between the sexes is much more obvious.[120]
The mental character is also in contrast. The Pacific tribes are more quiet, submissive and docile; they have less courage, and less of that untamable independence which is so constant a feature in the history of the Algonkins and Iroquois.
Beginning at the sixtieth degree of north latitude and extending to the fifty-fifth, are theTlinkitorKolosch. They dwell on the coast of Alaska and the adjacent islands. Physically they are a strong and often tall people, light in color, with black or slightly reddish hair, eyes horizontal, nose aquiline. The Russians spoke of them as the most intelligent tribe they encountered on the coast. They certainly seem to have developed an uncommon appreciation ofproperty, which is supposed to be a sign of a high order of intellect. Thus they have a gentile system with descent in the female line, but their aristocracy and the selection of their chiefs are entirely on a property basis. The richest obtain the highest places.
The Tlinkit villages are permanent, the houses solidly constructed of wood, sometimes with the additional protection of a palisade. The carving and painting upon them are elaborate, the subjects being caricatures of faces, men, and animal forms. The chiefs erect at one side of their doors carved and painted “totem posts,” some of which are nearly fifty feet high. These are also found among the Haidahs and Tshimshians to the south. The arts are correspondingly developed. Seaworthy canoes are hewn from the trunks of the red cedar, hides are dressed and the leather worked into a variety of articles; lamps, mortars and utensils were chipped or ground out of stone, and they are handy in beating out ornaments of silver and copper. The Tlinkits have always been active merchants, and when the first navigators visited their villages in 1741, they were surprised to find them in possession of iron knives and other articles obtained by trade over East Cape or from the south. The usual currency were the dentalium shells found along the coast. One of the staple articles of trade were slaves, a custom not in existence on the Atlantic. They were bought from the neighboring tribes, and treated with great cruelty.
Tlinkit mythology is rich, having a coherent creation and deluge myth, the principal figure in which isJelchs, the raven. He is the Promethean fire-bringer, and sets free the sun, moon and stars from their prisons. The religious rites are in the hands of priests (shamans), who as usual exert a great and injurious influence.[121]
TheHaidahs, who dwell on Queen Charlotte Islands and Prince of Wales Archipelago, are probably a distant branch of the Tlinkit, though the affinity has not been clearly established, so they are officially classed as theSkittagetanstock, from the Skidegate dialect of the coast. In culture and appearance they resemble the Tlinkits, having similar mechanical skill. Their canoes and their intricate carvings, especially totem-posts and pipes of black slate, are celebrated products of the northwest coast.
The above and other tribes of British Columbia and Washington, the Tshimshian, the Kwakiutl, the Nootka, Salish, Chinook, etc., are so much alike physically that Dr. Boas, who has carried out the most recent and thorough examination of them, observes that no physical distinctions can be drawn between them.[122]In some the hair is slightly wavy; in others the nose is aquiline or flatter; the heads of several are artificially deformed, etc.; but these differences do not characterize whole stocks. All have a great respect for wealth, and consider its accumulation the chief object of life. Among themall, women are honored for their chastity and industry, men for their skill in hunting and fishing, and for their bravery in war. Their character is generally sombre, and vanity and servility are prominent faults. The animal totemic system generally prevails, the child among the Salish and Kwakiutl following the father’s gens. The communities are divided into social strata, as common people, middle class and chiefs. A favorite method to obtain popularity is to give apotlatch—a great feast, at which the host makes expensive presents to the guests, and thus becomes as it were their creditor to the amount of his disbursement.
TheSalish, who are distinctively known as Flatheads, though the custom of deforming the cranium is not confined to them, occupied a large tract in northern Washington and British Columbia.
The principal contribution of the Chinooks to modern life has been the “Chinook jargon” which has become the trade language of the coast. It is a curious medley of words, and has been recently made the subject of an interesting study by Mr. Horatio Hale.[123]
TheSahaptinsorNez Percés, with their affiliated tribes, occupied the middle and upper valley of the Columbia and its affluents, and also the passes of the mountains. They were in contiguity with the Shoshonees and the Algonkin Blackfeet, thus holding an important position, intermediate between the eastern and the Pacific tribes. Having the commercialinstinct of the latter, they made good use of it, and every summer carried the various products of the coast, as shells, carved pipes, hammered copper, etc., far down the Missouri, where they exchanged them for the wares of the tribes there situate.
Of the numerous other linguistic stocks on the coast it will be sufficient for me to append the classification adopted by the Bureau of Ethnology at Washington.
(From north to south.)
TlinkitorKoloschan, in southern Alaska.HaidahorSkittagetan, on Queen Charlotte Islands.Dialects—Masset, Skidegate, etc.TshimsianorChimmessyanian, on Nass and Skeena rivers.Dialects—Chimmessyan, Nasqua.KwakiuootlorHaeltzukian, on Gardiner’s Channel.Dialects—Heiltsuk, Kwakiutl, Quaisla.NutkaorWakashan, on western coast of Vancouver Island.Dialects—Aht, Nootka, Wakash.ChinookorChinookan, Columbia river to Dalles; Pacific coast to Shoalwater Bay; south to Tillamuk Head.Salish, Admiralty Inlet to Spokane river.Dialects—Bilcoola, Kawitschin, Lummi, Samie.Chimakuan, Puget Sound, Port Townsend to Port Ludlow.KutenayorKitunahan, head-waters of Columbia.SahaptinorSahaptanian, middle affluents of Columbia.Dialects—Klikatat, Nez Percé, Sahaptani, Wallawalla, Yakama.WayilaptuorWaiilaptuan, near mouth of Wallawalla river.Yakonan, coast of Oregon from Yaquina river to Umpqua river.Kalapooian, on the Wilamette river.Kusan, about Coos Bay.PalaihnihanorAchomawi, on Pit river.Takilman, on upper Rogue river.SasteanorShasta, on upper Klamath river.LutuamianorModoc, on Klamath Lake and Sprague river.QuorateanorEhnek, on lower Klamath river to junction of Trinity river.Yukian, in Round Valley, California.YananorNozi, Lassen Butte and Round Mountain.PujunanorMaidu, east bank of Sacramento river.KulanapanorPomo, Russian river and adjacent coast.CopehanorWintun, on Trinity river.WeitspekanorRurok, lower Klamath river from Trinity river down.Chimarikan, on New river and Trinity river.Wishoskan, on Humboldt Bay.MariposanorYokuts, on Kings river and Tulare Lake.MoquelumnianorMutsun, on Tuolumne river.Costanoan, north of San Francisco Bay to Monterey Bay.Esselenian, Monterey Bay to San Lucia Mts.Salinan, about San Antonio and San Miguel missions. Includes the Tatche or Telame.Chumashan, at missions of San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara, Santa Inez, Purissima and San Luis Obispo.
The valley of the Colorado River in Arizona, the peninsula of California and portions of the eastern shore of the Gulf of California, formed the home of the Yuma stock. They were found in these regions by Coronado as early as 1540, and own no traditions of having lived anywhere else. The considerable differences in their dialects within this comparatively small area indicates that a long period has elapsed since the stock settled in this locality and split up into hostile fractions.
It has also been called the Katchan or Cuchan stock, and the Apache, that being the Yuma word for “fighting men”; but we should confine the term Apaches to the Tinneh (Athapascan) tribe socalled, and to avoid confusion I shall dismiss the terms Apache-Yumas, Apache-Tontos and Apache-Mohaves, employed by some writers. The Yumas, from whom the stock derives its name, lived near the mouth of the Colorado River. Above them, on both banks of the river, were the Mohaves, and further up, principally on Virgin River, were the Yavapai.
Most of the Yumas are of good stature, the adult males averaging five feet nine inches high, well built and vigorous. The color varies from a dark to a light mahogany; the hair is straight and coarse, the eyes horizontal, the mouth large, and the lips heavy. The skull is generally brachycephalic, but there are a number of cases of extreme dolichocephaly (68).[124]
Animal totems with descent in the male line prevailed among the Yumas, though they seem for a long time not to have regarded these matters closely. In culture they vary considerably. The Seris or Ceris, who formerly lived in the hills near Horcasitas, but in 1779 were removed to the island of Tiburon, are described as thieves and vagrants, lazy and wretched. They were exceedingly troublesome to the Mexican government, having revolted over forty times. The boats they use are of a peculiar construction, consisting of rushes tied together. As weapons up to recent years they preferred the bow and arrow, and upon the arrow laid some kind of poison which prevented the wounds from healing.Their dialect, which is harsh, is related especially to the western branch of the Yuma stem. They are described as light in color and some of them good-looking, but filthy in habits.[125]
The Yumas and Maricopas were agricultural, cultivating large fields of corn and beans, and irrigating their plantations by trenches. It is highly probable that formerly some of them dwelt in adobe houses of the pueblo character, and were the authors of some of the numerous ruined structures seen in southern Arizona. The pottery and basket work turned out by their women are superior in style and finish. A few years ago the Mohaves of the west bank lived in holes in the earth covered with brush, or in small wattled conical huts. For clothing they wore strips of cottonwood bark, or knotted grass. Tattooing and painting the person in divers colors were common. The favorite ornament was shells, arranged on strings, or engraved and suspended to the neck. The chiefs wore elaborate feather head-dresses.[126]
The Tontos, so-called from their reputation for stupidity, are largely mixed with Tinné blood, their women having been captured from the Apaches. Though savage, they are by no means dull, and are considered uncommonly adept thieves.
Quite to the south, in the mountains of Oaxaca and Guerrero, the Tequistlatecas, usually known by themeaningless term Chontales, belong to this stem, judging from the imperfect vocabularies which have been published.
The peninsula of California was inhabited by several Yuma tribes differing in dialect but much alike in culture, all being on its lowest stage. Wholly unacquainted with metals, without agriculture of any kind, naked, and constructing no sort of permanent shelters, they depended on fishing, hunting and natural products for subsistence. Their weapons were the bow and the lance, which they pointed with sharpened stones. Canoes were unknown, and what little they did in navigation was upon rafts of reeds and brush.
Marriages among them were by individual preference, and are said not to have respected the limits of consanguinity; but this is doubtful, as we are also told that the mother-in-law was treated with peculiar ceremony. Their rites for the dead indicate a belief in the survival of the individual. The body was buried and after a certain time the bones were cleaned, painted red, and preserved in ossuaries.
The population was sparse, probably not more than ten thousand on the whole peninsula. At the extreme south were the Pericus, who extended to N. Lat. 24°; beyond these lived the Guaicurus to about Lat. 26°; and in the northern portion of the peninsula to latitude 33° the Cochimis.[127]The early writers state that in appearance these bands did not differ from the Mexicans on the other side of the Gulf.Their skulls, however, which have been collected principally from the district of the Pericus, present a peculiar degree of elongation and height (dolichocephalic and hypsistenocephalic).