North America

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 Zuñi, 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 Zuñi 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.

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.

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.

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 Archæology, 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 archæological 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:

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.

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 Archæology, Cambridge, Mass.; the American Museum of Natural History, New York, N. Y.; the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, Ill.; and in the American Archæologist, 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 Archæological Studies among the Ancient Cities of Mexico, published by the Field Columbian Museum, Chicago, 1897.

CHAPTER VIII