The Human Race

CHAPTER II.
NORTHERN BRANCH.

The members of the North American Branch present more decided differences among themselves than those in the southern division, so far as race is concerned, but their characteristics are merged one in the other. Nevertheless, the populations inhabiting respectively the south, the north-east, and the north-west can be considered as forming so many distinct families, which we shall pass in review in succession.

Southern Family.

The southern family of the Northern Branch still preserves much resemblance to the families of the southern branch which we have just been considering. The complexion of its members is rather fair, the forehead depressed, and the figure tolerably well proportioned.

This group embraces a great number of tribes speaking different languages, peculiar to the central part of the northern continent. The principal among these nations are the Aztecs, or primitive Mexicans, and the Moya and Lenca Indians.

Aztecs.—When the Spaniards landed in Mexico, they found there a people whose customs were far removed from those of savage life. They were very expert in the practice of different useful and ornamental arts, and their knowledge was rather extensive, but thorough cruelty could always be laid to their charge.

The Aztecs were intelligent and hard-working cultivators. They knew how to work mines, prepare metals, and set precious stones as ornaments. Superb monuments had been erected by them, and they possessed a written language which preserved the memorials of their history. Those who dwelt in the region of the present Mexico were advanced in the sciences; they were profoundly imbued with the sentiment of religion; and their sacred ceremonies were full of pomp, but accompanied by expiatory sacrifices revolting in their barbarism. They carried their annals back to very remote antiquity. These annals were traced in historical paintings, the traditional explanation of which was imparted by the natives to some of their conquerors, as well as to a few Spanish and Italian ecclesiastics.

The principal events recorded in these archives relate to the migrations of three different nations, who, leaving the distant regions of the north-west, arrived successively in Anahuac. They were the Toltecs, Chichimecas, and Nahuatlacas, divided into seven distinct tribes, one of which was that of the Aztecs, or Mexicans. The country whence the first of these people came was called Huehuetlapallan, and they commenced their exodus in the year 544 of our era. Pestilence decimated them in 1051, and they then wandered southwards, but a few remained at Tula. The Chichimecas, a barbarous race, arrived in Mexico in the year 1070, and the incursion of the Nahuatlacas, who spoke the same language as the Toltecs, took place very soon afterwards. The Aztecs, or Mexicans, separated themselves from the other nations, and in 1325 they founded Mexico. In a word, the former inhabitants of Mexico were immigrants from a country situated towards the north, on the central plateau of Anahuac, and their successive migrations had continued during several centuries long prior to the discovery of America by the Europeans.

The native Indians forming part of the Mexican population are characterized by a broad face and flat nose, recalling somewhat the lineaments of the Mongolian cast of countenance. They may be judged of from Figs. 202, 203, 204, and 205, which represent aborigines of the interior and coast of Mexico.

M. Roudé, who has published the narrative of his travels in the state of Chihuahua, brought back accurate drawings illustrative of the usages and customs of the population of the Mexican capital.

The ladies envelope themselves very gracefully in their rebosso, with which they cover the head, partly hiding the face, and only allowing their eyes to be seen. Among the wealthy this rebosso is generally of black or white silk, embroidered with designs in bright and gaudy colours. Women of the lower classes wear a rebosso of blue wool dotted with little white squares. Their petticoat is short, and its lower part embroidered with worsted work. The favourite colour for this latter garment among common people is glaring red.

The men’s costume (fig. 206) is richer and more varied than that of the women. On Sundays it is laced with silver; white trowsers are indispensable, and they are covered by another pair made of leather, open along the sides from the waist downwards, and ornamented with a row of silver buttons. A China crape sash is wound round the waist, and the vest is of deerskin or velvet with silver embroidery. The sombrero has a very broad brim, is made of straw or felt, and decorated with a thick twisted band of black velvet or of silver gilt lace. The sarapé is spangled with striking colours and with varied patterns, and the men possess a special talent for draping themselves gracefully in it.

The place above all others where the popular life of the inhabitants of Mexico should be studied is in the markets (fig. 207). There may you see Indians, creoles, and foreigners, beggars in rags and rich citizens, black frock coats, embroidered deerskin jackets, threadbare uniforms, soldiers, muleteers, porters, monks of all shades, shod and shoeless Carmelites, all elbowing each other fraternally. There Basil throws the lengthening shadow of his fantastic head-gear on the wall of the neighbouring church; there dealers in hats, poultry, or wooden trays offer their wares to buyers; there pretty fruit and flower girls, tidy servant maids of some decent house, or winsome Chinas with sparkling eyes, pass to and fro draped in their rebossos. They bear on the upturned palms of the left hand, on a level with the shoulder, and in the most artistic manner, a basket full of green plants, or the graceful red earthenware cantaro painted and glazed, and filled with water.

Through this noisy crowd the water-carrier (aguador), clothed in leather, treads his way with short steps, bearing on his back an enormous red earthen jar, fastened by means of two handles and a broad strap to his forehead, which is protected by a little cap of leather; another band passing across the top of the crown supports a second and much smaller pitcher, hanging before him at his knees.

If a person wishes to become acquainted with Mexico, it is among the lower orders that he must study the country. The people are good; eager for knowledge, notwithstanding the want of instruction, and full of energy in spite of their long bondage. He need be on his guard against the higher classes only, a small minority spoiled by the priests, whose influence is all-powerful. The ignorance of the monks, who swarm in this land, is doubled by an intolerable vanity that inspires them with antipathy to all progress.

The people of Mexico are very simple in their habits. Broth (pilchero) and the national dish, frijoles (beans), form the ordinary fare of the middle class, to which a stew of spiced duck is sometimes added. They allay their thirst with pure water, contained in an immense glass, which holds from one to two quarts. This flagon is placed in the centre of the table, and is the only one that appears on the board, from which decanters and bottles, and very often even knives and forks, are banished. Each in turn steeps his lips in this cup, returning it to its place or passing it to his neighbour. Besides, Mexicans in general do not drink except at the end of the meal. In the evening the circle is swelled by a few friends; guitars are taken down from the wall, and some simple ballads are sung to mournful airs, or they dance to the same measure.

In the fifteenth century the North-eastern family occupied that immense expanse of North America which is comprised between the Atlantic Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, but all its nations are now reduced to a few far from numerous tribes, confined to the west of the Mississippi.

The distinguishing qualities of the red race are strongly marked among these groups. A complexion of a light cinnamon-colour, a lengthened head, a long and aquiline nose, horizontal eyes, a depressed forehead, a robust constitution, and a tall stature constitute their principal physical characteristics, to which must be added senses sharpened to an extraordinary degree. They have a habit of painting their bodies, and especially their faces, red. Their disposition is proud and independent, and they support pain with stoical courage.

Almost all these Indian tribes have already disappeared in consequence of the furious war waged upon them by the Europeans. Those that lived in olden times on the declivities of the mountains facing the Atlantic are very nearly extinct. Among such are the Hurons, Iroquois, Algonquins, and the Natchez, rendered famous by Chateaubriand, and the Mohicans, whom Cooper has immortalized.

We cannot speak detailedly here of these different nations, but in order to give an idea of them we shall open Chateaubriand’s “Voyage en Amérique,” and, having quoted a few lines from it, we will make the reader acquainted with the pith of the observations made in our own day in these same countries by contemporary travellers.

Speaking of the Muscogulges and the Simnioles, Chateaubriand writes in the following terms:—

“The Simnioles and the Muscogulges are rather tall in stature: and, by an extraordinary contrast, their wives are the smallest race of women known in America; they seldom depass a height of four feet two or three inches; their hands and feet resemble those of an European girl nine or ten years old. But nature has compensated them for this kind of injustice: their figure is elegant and graceful; their eyes are black, extremely long, and full of languor and modesty. They lower their eyelids with a sort of voluptuous bashfulness; if a person did not see them when they speak, he would believe himself listening to children uttering only half-formed words.”

The great writer passed along the borders of the lake to which its name has been given by the Iroquois colony of the Onondagas, and visited the “Sachem” of that people:—

“He was,” says Chateaubriand, “an old Iroquois in the strictest sense of the word. His person preserved the memory of the former customs and bygone times of the desert: large, pinked ears, pearl hanging from the nose, face streaked with various colours, little tuft of hair on the top of the head, blue tunic, cloak of skins, leathern belt, with its scalping-knife and tomahawk, tattooed arm, mocassins on his feet, and a porcelain necklace in his hand.”

The following is the sketch of an Iroquois:—

“He was of lofty stature, with broad chest, muscular legs, and sinewy arms. His large round eyes sparkled with independence; his whole mien was that of a hero. Shining on his forehead might be seen high combinations of thought and exalted sentiments of soul. This fearless man was not in the least astonished at firearms when for the first time they were used against him; he stood firm to the whistling of bullets and the roar of cannon as if he had been hearing both all his life, and appeared to heed them no more than he would a storm. As soon as he could procure himself a musket, he used it better than an European. He did not abandon for it his tomahawk, his knife, or his bow and arrows, but added to them the carbine, pistol, poniard, and axe, and seemed never to possess arms sufficient for his valour. Doubly arrayed in the murderous weapons of Europe and America, with his head decked with bunches of feathers, his ears pinked, his face smeared black, his arms dyed in blood, this noble champion of the New World became as formidable to behold, as he was to contend against, on the shore which he defended foot by foot against the foreigner.”

With this terrible portrait Chateaubriand contrasts the blithe countenance of the Huron, who had nothing in common with the Iroquois but language:—

“The gay, sprightly, and volatile Huron, of rash, dazzling valour, and tall, elegant figure, had the air of being born to be the ally of the French.”

We now come to travellers of our own day. Fig. 210 is a sketch of the costumes of the wild Indians dwelling at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Missouri, and who bear the name of Creeks.

In his travels through the United States and Canada, M. H. Deville had an opportunity of visiting an establishment of Iroquois. These savages were remarkable for their reddish colour and coarse features. They wore round hats with broad brims, and robed themselves in Spanish fashion in a piece of dark cloth.

The manufacture of the native coverings for the legs and feet forms the principal occupation of the women, and under the pretext of purchasing some of their handiwork M. Deville entered several Iroquois dwellings.

Divested of the thick mantle worn by them out of doors, the women had assumed a long, coloured smock-frock with tight-fitting pantaloons that reached to the ankles, and their varnished shoes allowed coarse worsted stockings to be seen. Earrings and a gold necklace constituted their chief ornament. Their hair is drawn up to the top of the head and tied there in a knot. To say that their features are agreeable would be untrue, but in early youth their figures are rather handsome. Work, order, and cleanliness reign in their household. Their brothers and husbands are wood-cutters, steersmen, or conductors of rafts.

The same traveller met with some Chippeway Indians on the heights of Lake Pepin. Their stature was tall, but they had coarse features, and a skin of a very dark reddish colour. Half their face was covered by a thick layer of vermilion extending as far as their hair, which was plaited over the crown. They wore long leather gaiters, tied at the sides by innumerable thongs, and over a sort of tattered blouse was thrown a large woollen blanket, which completely covered them. One individual, armed with a long steel blade shaped like a dagger, had stuck his pipe in his hair.

In his “Voyage dans les Mauvaises Terres du Nebraska,” M. de Girardin (of Maine-et-Loire) describes his journey across part of the Missouri basin occupied by some free and wild Indians.

He brought back with him sketches and illustrations of those tribes, the principal among which are the Blackfeet, and the Dacotas, or Sioux, and was present at a grand council of the latter nation, The chiefs of the various clans, clad in their most brilliant costumes, harangued the warriors, whilst a score of young braves, without any other covering than a thick coat of vermilion or ochre, made their steeds curvet and executed numberless fanciful manœuvres. The horses were painted yellow, red, and white, and had their long tails decked with bright-coloured feathers.

Fig. 211 represents the encampment of these Indians visited by M. de Girardin: fig. 212 is a sketch of one of their horsemen, and fig. 213 a likeness of a Sioux warrior, all from the pencil of the same gentleman.

M. de Girardin happened to go to another camp, that of an old chief of the same tribe. It consisted of five or six tents, conical in shape, and made of bison-skins. Remarkable for their whiteness and cleanliness these habitations were covered with odd paintings which portrayed warriors smoking the calumet, horses, stags, and dogs. Numerous freshly scalped locks were hanging at the end of long poles. At the side of each tent, a kind of tripod supported quivers, shields of ox-hide, and spears embellished with brilliant plumage. A few young warriors of strongly marked features, with aquiline noses and herculean forms, but hideously daubed in black and white paint, were engaged in firing arrows at a ball which was rolled along the ground or thrown into the air.

The chiefs made the travellers seat themselves on skins of bears and bisons, and conversed with the interpreter, whilst M. de Girardin remained exposed to the curiosity of the young folks, women, and children. The girls ventured so far as to search his pockets and extract from them his knife, pencils, and notebook. The most inquisitive, a fine girl with very soft eyes and magnificent teeth, perceiving he had a long beard wished to assure herself that he was not shaggy all over like a bear, when the traveller took it into his head to put a little powder into the hand of the pretty inquisitor and lit it by means of a glass lens, an incident which gave a tremendous fright to the assemblage.

The same gentleman from whom we have just been quoting, was enabled to make some observations among the Crows, a tribe of Prairie Indians who are neighbours of the Sioux. Their features are broadly marked, their stature gigantic, and their frames athletic, while, according to M. Simonin, their majestic countenances recall the types of the Roman Cæsars as we see them delineated on antique medals.

The traveller was admitted into the hut of the chiefs, where the “Sachems” were seated in a circle, and as he touched their hands successively, they uttered a guttural “a hou,” a sound which serves as a salutation among the Red Skins. He smoked the calumet.

These men had their cheeks tattooed in vermilion. They were scarcely covered; one had a woollen blanket, the next a buffalo hide or the incomplete uniform of an officer, while the upper part of another’s body was naked. Several wore collars or eardrops of shells or animals’ teeth. Hanging from the neck of one was a silver medal bearing the effigy of a President of the United States, which he had received when he went on a mission to Washington in 1853; and a horse, rudely carved in the same metal, adorned the breast of another of their number.

M. Simonin was afterwards present at a council of the Crow Indians, but we do not intend to give any report of this conference of savages, of which, however, the reader may form some idea by casting a glance at fig. 214.

In dealing with the relations existing between the wild Indians of North America and the civilized inhabitants, that is to say, the Americans of the United States, M. Simonin enters into some interesting reflections which we believe we ought to reproduce.

“A singular race,” says M. Simonin, “is that of the Red Skins, among whom Nature has so lavishly apportioned the finest land existing on the globe, a rich alluvial soil, deep, level, and well watered; still this race has not yet emerged from the primitive stage which must be everywhere traversed by humanity at the outset—the stage of hunters and nomads, the age of stone! If the Whites had not brought them iron, the Indians would still use flint weapons, like man before the Deluge, who sheltered himself in caverns and was contemporary in Europe with the mammoth. Beyond the chase and war, the wild tribes of North America shun work; women, among them, perform all labour. What a contrast to the toiling, busy population around them, whose respect for women is so profound! This population hems them in, completely surrounds them at the present day, and all is over with the Red Skins if they do not consent to retire into the land reserved for them.

“And even there will industry and the arts spring up? How poorly the Red race is gifted for music and singing is well known: the fine arts have remained in infancy among them; and writing, unless it consists in rude pictorial images, is utterly unknown. They barely know how to trace a few bead patterns on skins, and although these designs are undoubtedly often happily grouped and the colours blended with a certain harmony, that is all. Industry, apart from a coarse preparation of victuals and the tanning of hides and dressing of furs, is also entirely null. The Indian is less advanced than the African negro, who knows at least how to weave cloths and dye them. The Navajoes, alone, manufacture some coverings with wool.

“The free Indians of the Prairies, scattered between the Missouri and the Rocky Mountains, may be reckoned at about a hundred thousand, while all the Indians of North America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, are estimated at four times that number. These calculations may possibly be slightly defective, statistics or any accurate census being quite wanting. The Red men themselves never give more than a notation of their tents or lodges, but the assemblage of individuals contained in each of these differs according to the tribe, and sometimes in the same tribe; hence the impossibility of any mathematically exact computation.

“In the north of the Prairies the great family of the Sioux numbering thirty-five thousand is remarkable above all others. The Crows, Bigbellies, Blackfeet, &c., who occupy Idaho and Montana, form, when taken altogether, a smaller population than the Sioux—probably about twenty thousand. In the centre and south, the Pawnees, Arapahoes, Shiennes, Yutes, Kayoways, Comanches, Apaches, &c., united, certainly exceed forty thousand in number. The territories of Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico are those which these hordes overrun. The Pawnees are cantoned in Nebraska, in the neighbourhood of the Pacific Railway, and the Yutes in the ‘parks’ of Colorado.

“These races possess many characteristics in common; they are nomadic, that is to say, they occupy no fixed place, live by fishing, or above all by hunting, and follow the wild buffalo in its migrations everywhere.

“A thoroughly democratic régime and a sort of communism control the relations of members of the same tribe with each other. The chiefs are nominated by election, and for a period, but are sometimes hereditary. The most courageous, he who has taken the greatest number of scalps in war or has slain most bisons, the performer of some brilliant exploit or a man of superior eloquence, all these have the right to be chosen chiefs. As long as he conducts himself well a chief retains his position; if he incur the least blame his successor is appointed. Chiefs lead the tribes to battle, and are consulted on occasions of difficulty, as are also the old men. The braves are the lieutenants of the chiefs, and hold second command in war. There is no judge in the tribes, and each one administers justice for himself and applies the law at his own liking.

“All these nations hunt and make war in the same manner, on horseback; with spear, bow and arrows, in default of revolvers and muskets, and using a buckler as a defence against the enemy’s blows. They scalp their dead foe and deck themselves with his locks; pillage and destroy his property, carry away his women and children captives, and frequently subject the vanquished, above all any white man falling into their hands, to horrible tortures before putting him to death.

“The squaws to whom the prisoner is abandoned exhibit the most revolting cruelty towards him, tearing out the eyes, tongue, and nails of their victim; burning him, chopping off a hand to-day, and a foot to-morrow. When the captive is well tortured, a coal fire is lighted on his stomach and a yelling dance performed round him. Almost all Red Skins commit these atrocities phlegmatically towards the Whites when engaged in a struggle with them.

“Tribes often make war among themselves on the smallest pretext, for a herd of bisons they are pursuing, or a prairie where they wish to encamp alone. They have not indeed any place reserved, but they sometimes wish to keep one so, to the exclusion of every other occupant. Nor is it uncommon for the same tribe to split itself into two hostile clans. A few years ago the Ogallallas when maddened by whisky fought among themselves with guns, and have been broken up ever since into two bands, one of which, the ‘Ugly-Faces,’ is commanded by Red Cloud, and the other, by Big-Mouth and Pawnee-Killer.

“The languages of all the tribes are distinct; but perhaps a linguist would recognize among them some common roots, in the same way as in our own day they have been found to exist between European tongues and those of India. These languages all obey the same grammatical mechanism; they are ‘agglutinative,’ or ‘polysynthetic,’ and not ‘analytic’ or ‘inflected,’ that is to say, the words can be combined with each other to form a single word expressing a complete idea; but relation, gender, number, etc., are not indicated by modifications of the substantive. I pass over the other characteristics which distinguish agglutinative from inflected languages. The dialects of the Red Skins have not, or seem not to have, any affinity in the different terms of their vocabulary, which is, besides, often very limited.

“In order to comprehend each other the tribes have adopted by common accord a language of signs and gestures which approximates to that of the deaf and dumb. In this way all the Indians are capable of a mutual understanding, and a Yute, for instance, can converse without difficulty for several hours with an Arrapahoe, or the latter with a Sioux.

“The Whites are not acquainted with the languages of the Prairie Indians, or know them very badly. Frequently, there is but one interpreter for the same tongue, often a very poor one, merely understanding the idiom he has translated, not speaking it. Many, à fortiori, are not able to write the language which they interpret. Neither Dr. Mathews, John Richard, nor Pierre Chêne could spell for me in English characters the names of the Crow chiefs. How would it be in the case of the Arrapahoes or Apaches, whose strongly guttural speech is only accentuated by the tips of the lips?

“In all this it must be understood that I speak only of the tribes of the Prairies, and not of those who lived in olden times on the declivities of the mountains overlooking the Atlantic or skirting the Mississippi. The majority of the latter are, as is known, extinct, the Algonquins, Hurons, Iroquois, Natchez and Mohicans, and it is also well to avow that France has contributed in a large measure to their disappearance.

“The residue of these tribes, which I shall term Atlantic—Delawares, Cherokees, Seminoles, Osages, and Creeks—is now cantoned in the reserves, especially in the Indian Territory, where little by little the Red Skins are losing their distinctive characteristics. Histories and authentic documents regarding all these races are extant, whilst only very little is known up to the present concerning those of the Prairies. The greater part of the legends and traditions with which people endow them are only due to the invention of travellers.

In the narrative of his travels from the Mississippi to the coasts of the Pacific Ocean, made in 1853, M. Mollhausen has given various details concerning the remnants of the nearly extinct Atlantic tribes.

The Choctaws, to the number of twenty-two thousand souls, are spread over the regions bordering on Arkansas on the east, the plains inhabited by the Chicksaws on the south, and those occupied by the Creeks on the west, while their neighbours to the north are the Cherokees.

The vast plains which adjoin the Choctaw territories, are used for the pastimes of the Indians, and especially for their game of ball or tennis. The Choctaws, Chicksaws, Creeks, and Cherokees are passionately attached to this amusement. A challenge borne by two able performers usually gives rise to the festival, and having arranged the day for the contest, the players dispatch their heralds to all quarters. These emissaries are tattooed horsemen, accoutred in a fantastic style. Carrying a ceremonial racket, they repair from village to village and hut to hut, proclaiming throughout the entire tribe the names of the individuals who have proposed the match, and making known the day of the struggle and the place of meeting. As each of the actors is accompanied by his relatives, half the nation is often found assembled at the appointed locality on the eve of the solemn day, some to take part in the fray, and the others to bet upon the result. This game (fig. 218) is a tremendous tussle, a general scrimmage in which almost the whole tribe is engaged.

Between the Canadian border and Arkansas, sprinkled with flourishing farms, is the fertile domain of the Creek Indians. It is not so long since the warriors there covered themselves with whimsical tattooing; but progress has to-day penetrated into these savannas, and these same Indians to-day read a newspaper printed in their language.

Like the Choctaws, the Creeks formerly inhabited Alabama and Mississippi, which they ceded for a pecuniary consideration to the American government. Their numbers do not amount to more than twenty-two thousand.

A similar estimate may be made of the Cherokees, who have abandoned New Georgia for higher Arkansas.

Further off are the Shawnees, a nation which is reduced to about fourteen hundred members, and yet was once one of the most powerful in North America. They were the first to oppose resistance to the encroachments of civilization, and hunted from everywhere have strewn the bones of their warriors along their route.

Fig. 219 represents two Comanche Indians; fig. 220, one of their encampments, and fig. 221, a buffalo hunt among the same tribe.

Apaches.—The Apache nation is one of the most numerous of New Mexico, including many tribes, several of which are not even known by name.

The Navajoes belong to this group. They are the only Indians of New Mexico who keep large flocks of sheep and pursue a pastoral life. They know how to weave the wool of their flocks, of which they manufacture thick blankets fit to compete with the productions of the west, twisting bright colours into these rugs in a way that imparts to them a very original appearance. Their deerskin leggings are made with the utmost care, and have thick soles and a pointed end, shaped like a beak, a necessary precaution against the thorny cactus plants with which the soil bristles. Their head-gear consists of a leathern cap in the form of a helmet, adorned by a bunch of cock’s, eagle’s, or vulture’s feathers. In addition to bows and arrows, they carry long lances which they handle very skilfully as they dash along on their fleet steeds.

In the last rank of the Apache nation are to be placed the tribes of the Cosninos and Vampays, thievish, savage, and suspicious hordes with which it has been found impossible to establish any relations, and who are natives of the mountains of San Francisco. Cedar-berries, the fruit of a species of pine-tree, and the grass and root of a Mexican plant, constitute their means of subsistence, for they are wretched hunters.

The travellers also fell in with the Mohawk Indians (fig. 222), men of herculean forms who were tattooed from the roots of the hair to the sole of the foot in blue, red, white and yellow, and with eyes that glowed like coals under this layer of paint. Most of them wore vulture’s, magpie’s, or swan’s feathers on the top of their heads, and carried large bows and spears in their hands.

Mr. Catlin made numerous excursions among the Indian tribes of the plains of Columbia and Upper Missouri, and we shall quote presently his remarks concerning the Nayas and Flat-Heads.

Both these nations dwell to the west of the Rocky Mountains, occupying all the country situated round Lower Columbia and Vancouver’s Island. The latter tribe derives its name from the singular custom which exists among them of flattening their children’s heads at their birth.

The Flat-Heads (fig. 223) live in a region where very little in the way of food is to be found except fish, and their lives are spent in canoes. The artificial deformity which constitutes the national characteristic is to be found more especially among the women, with whom it is almost universal; but it is only a question of fashion, and does not appear to have any perceptible effect on the functions of the organs, for persons whose heads have been compressed seem as intelligent as those who have not undergone this strange operation.

“In the course of the year 1853 I found myself on board the Sally Anne, a little vessel flying the star-spangled flag, which having made a few trading cruises along the coast of Kamtschatka and Russian America, was on her way to land in British Columbia several passengers who had been attracted thither by the reputation of the auriferous deposits newly discovered in that country.

“On the third day from our entry into Queen Charlotte’s Sound, the long and magnificent strait separating Vancouver’s Island from the continent, we got into the long-boat to go on shore, and arrived at the village of the Nayas. The Indians had been informed of our visit and were all assembled in their huts; the chief, a very dignified man, being seated in his wigwam, with lighted pipe, ready to receive us. We squatted ourselves on mats spread upon the ground, and whilst the pipe was being passed round—this is the first ceremony on such occasions—hundreds of native dogs—half wolves,—which had followed in our track, completely invaded the approaches to the wigwam, barking and howling in the shrillest and most mournful manner. The sentinel whom the chief had stationed at the door to prevent anyone entering without permission, discharged an arrow at the leader of the band, piercing him to the heart, a proceeding which calmed the rest of the pack, which was then dispersed with many blows of oars by the Indian women. We were not a little embarrassed at having no other way of expressing our thoughts than by signs, yet we seemed to understand each other perfectly, and we gathered that the chief had sent to a village at no great distance in search of an interpreter who ought very soon to arrive. I recommended my companions not to breathe a word before his arrival as to our object in visiting the locality, and in the meantime did not myself lose an instant in endeavouring to rouse the interest of our hosts.

“I motioned to Cæsar to bring me the portfolio, and having seated myself beside the chief, opened it before him, while I gave an explanation of each portrait; he expressed no great surprise, and yet took an evident pleasure in examining them. I showed him several chiefs of the Amazons, as well as others of the Sioux, Osages, and Pawnees. The last likeness was a full-length one of Cæsar, on seeing which he could not restrain himself from bursting into the most tremendous fits of laughter, and turning towards the subject of it who was sitting opposite, signed to him to approach, gave him a grasp of the hand and made him place himself beside him. These drawings excited great animation in the assemblage; three or four under-chiefs were anxious to see them, and the chief’s wife and their young daughter came close to us for the same purpose.

“. . . . As we neared the village a great crowd came to meet us, and I noticed that the throng, especially the women, attached themselves to the steps of Cæsar as he marched solemnly along, his tall figure drawn up to its full height, and with the portfolio on his back. So large were the numbers for so small a village, that I asked the interpreter to explain what this signified. He told me that the news of our arrival and the attraction of the dance which was sure to take place in the evening had drawn and would still draw a vast concourse of Indians from the adjoining districts. At sunset we partook of a meal of venison in the chief’s wigwam, and afterwards set ourselves to smoke until night came on. Then in the midst of dreadful yelling, barking, and singing, we saw about a dozen flaming torches approaching the hut in front of which the dance of masks now began. Grotesque is an imperfect word to convey an idea of the incredible eccentricities and buffoonery that took place before us, and Cæsar was seized with such a fit of laughing as to be almost choked. Picture to yourself, fifteen or twenty individuals, all full-grown men, masked or tricked out in the most extraordinary guise, while many spectators, placed in the first rank, were costumed in similar style. A great medicine man was the conductor of the revels and the most whimsical of all. He represented the ‘King of the Bustards,’ another was ‘Monarch of the Divers,’ a third, ‘Doctor of the Rabbits;’ and there were also the ‘Brother to the Devil,’ the ‘Thunder-Maker,’ the ‘White Rook,’ the ‘Night-travelling Bear,’ the ‘Soul of the Caribout,’ and so on, until the names of every animal and every bird were entirely exhausted. The dancers’ masks, of which I procured several, are very ingeniously made. They are cleverly hollowed from a solid block of wood in such a way as to fit the face, and are held inside by a cross-strap which is taken between the teeth, thus enabling the voice to be counterfeited and disguised; they are covered, moreover, with odd patterns in various colours. With the exception of that of the leader of the dance, all these masks had a round piece of wood in the under lip, to recall the singular custom which exists in the country. Entertainments of this description are not confined to the Nayas, for I have witnessed similar recreations in many other tribes in North as well as South America.

“They also slit the cartilages and lobes of their ears, lengthen them, and insert little billets as ornaments. Those in the lip are principally worn by the women, though some of the men have adopted this fashion, which becomes more and more in vogue among both sexes as the coast is ascended northwards. The same may be said of the masks, which are to be found as far as among the Aloutis. All the women have not the lip pierced, and those who have do not carry the wooden ornament except on certain occasions, at settled periods, when they don full dress. They remove it when eating and sleeping or if they have to talk much, for there are plenty of words which cannot be pronounced with this inconvenient trinket.

“The lip is perforated at the earliest age, and the aperture thus formed, though almost imperceptible at first when the ‘barbote’ is taken out, is kept open and grows larger daily.”

The same traveller had the pleasure of again meeting the Crows, but as we have already spoken of the Indians of this tribe, we shall content ourselves with reproducing here his very picturesque costume of one of their chiefs (fig. 225).

Mr. Catlin twice visited the Mandan Indians in the course of the summer of 1832. The solitary village in which they were collected, to the number of two or three thousand, was on the left bank of the Missouri, at a distance of about 1400 miles from the city of St. Louis. Of medium stature, and comfortably clad in skins, all wore leathern leggings and mocassins elegantly embroidered with porcupine silk dyed in various colours.

Each man had his tunic and his mantle which he assumed or laid aside according to the temperature, and every woman her robe of deer or antelope skin. Many among them had a very fair skin, and their hair, which was silvery gray from childhood to old age, their light blue eyes and oval faces, doubtless testified to an infusion of white blood. Almost all the men adopted a curious fashion, peculiar to this tribe; their hair, long enough to reach the calf of their legs, was divided into matted locks, flattened and separated by hardened birdlime or by red or yellow clay.

North-Western Family.

The Indian tribes composing the North-Western family of the North American Branch, are less warlike and cruel than those of the east. They take no scalps. Their stature is not so tall, their face broader, their eyes more sunken, and their complexion browner. M. d’Omalius d’Halloy cites in this group the Koliouges (from 60° to 50° N. lat.), the Wakisches or Nootkans (Island of Nootka and neighbouring coasts), the Chinooks (mouth of the Oregon), and the Tularenos, or Indians of California.

A detailed description of these different American tribes would be devoid of interest; in fact, we should be only able to repeat with but little alteration what has been said in previous pages concerning the manners, habits, customs, &c., of the last remaining savages who still people the interior of the North American forests.

In connection with the aboriginal inhabitants of California, we must direct the reader’s attention to the fact, that the Californians have a skin of such a deep reddish-brown that it seems black. This colour is certainly exceptional among the primitive inhabitants of America, but the characteristic is so pronounced in the present instance, that we felt that we could not avoid pointing it out, although it may be opposed to the classification which we have adopted, placing in the Red Race all members of the human family proper to America. This exception is one of the inconveniences of classification to which we must submit, without however endeavouring to conceal it.