The extreme northern part of North America is included in the circumpolar lands described in another volume of the series of which the present book forms a part, and the Eskimos as a people will therefore receive but passing attention at this time.

One of the most interesting facts to the geographer concerning the Eskimos is their peculiar distribution. From choice or necessity they make their homes on the bleak, inhospitable northern border of the continent, and do not extend inland except where the coast is indented or large rivers enter the sea. In all localities their dwellings are near the water. They are the most northern people on the earth, and their still greater northward extension is checked only by the absence of land on which to build their winter homes. Their present inland limit on the continent is no doubt determined in part by long-established custom and by the distribution of the animals on which they have become dependent for food, clothing, fuel, etc., but the chief control formerly, no doubt, more potent than at present, is to be sought in the aggressiveness of the Indians. In Greenland, the arctic archipelago, and throughout the immense extent of coast-lands from Labrador to Alaska they have been isolated and withdrawn from contact with other peoples for a long period of time, and their slow development unmodified by extraneous influences. In Newfoundland and Alaska, however, they have been in contact with the Indians, trade relations established, and to a limited extent an interchange of ideas as well as some intermarriage has taken place.

Throughout the vast extent of arctic coast between Newfoundland and Alaska, as well as in Greenland and on the islands of the arctic archipelago, the Eskimo was the sole inhabitant before the coming of Europeans, and one language current from the Atlantic to the Pacific. No other primitive people has such an extent in longitude. The reason for this peculiarity is that between the sea margin, where the Eskimo makes his home, and the southern border of the subarctic forest and adjacent prairies, where the Indians have their hunting-grounds, there intervenes the tundra—a neutral ground attractive neither to the Eskimo nor the Indian.

The one thing which more than all else has enabled the Eskimo to maintain an existence and to thrive in the frozen north is his discovery of a means of obtaining heat and light where wood is scarce—that is, the invention of the lamp. This invention, as has been shown by Walter Hugh and others, was favoured by the occurrence in the far north of animals like the seal and walrus, which yield oil with a high heat-giving property.

In Alaska the Eskimo stock is broken into several tribes speaking diverse dialects. Of these, two main subgroups are distinguished, namely, Innuits and Aleuts or Aleutians. The former includes several tribes living on the margin of the mainland, from near Mount St. Elias northward to the Arctic Ocean, and the latter consists of but two tribes, now intermingled, which at the time of the discovery of the Alaskan region by the Russians inhabited the western portion of the Alaskan peninsula and the Aleutian Islands. A detailed account of these peoples should have united with it a study of the so-called Tuski of northeastern Siberia, who are of the same stock, and, as seems probable, are the descendants of Eskimos who migrated from America to Asia.

The Innuits.—This name, as is stated by W. H. Dall, is applied to themselves by all the tribes of the Eskimo stock, except the Aleuts and the eastern Siberian natives. It is in use at the present time from Greenland to Bering Strait, and thence southward to the vicinity of Mount St. Elias.

In Alaska the Innuits are divided into at least fourteen tribes, speaking as many different dialects, and distinguished by such names as Ugalakmuts, Kaniagmuts, etc. The termination mut, in a substantive sense, means a village at the place or on the river to the name of which it is added (Dall). In common with all other Eskimo tribes the Innuits are a sturdy, well-built people, having lighter-coloured skins than the Indians, and more nearly approaching the yellow of the Asiatics, but distinct from it, and in many instances having a decided reddish tinge to the cheeks. The prevalent idea that the Eskimo is of decidedly short stature is not borne out by the various tribes in Alaska, who are not much, if any, below the average height of Europeans. Their rotund bodies and full, round faces, in which the organ answering to a nose is depressed until between the eyes it is scarcely distinguishable, suggest that the severity of the climate has led to a development of fat for protection against cold in the same manner as among the seals and walruses. Such a generalization is perhaps misleading, as great individual variations occur as among all peoples, but the typical Innuit whose figure remains in one's memory when the bony hags, the cadaverous individuals, and the aged are forgotten or but dimly recalled, favours the conventional pictures of Santa Claus, with a face resembling the full moon, small black eyes with a suggestion of obliquity in their alignment, and nearly complete absence of a beard on the ruddy cheeks.

The food of the Eskimos of Alaska, as is the case with all other divisions of that people, is derived mainly from the sea. Their diet is almost exclusively fish, the blubber and flesh of the seal, walrus, and whales, especially the white whale or beluga, which ascends the larger streams. To these sources of supply are added the arctic hare, caribou (reindeer), and in fact any flesh that can be obtained. Vegetable diet is almost unknown, except so far as it is supplied by the berries that grow in profusion on the tundras. The necessity for salt, so marked in the case of most peoples, is absent in the far north.

The coast of Alaska, where dwells the Innuit, is treeless. Inland from the margin of the sea extends the permanently frozen tundra. Wood for fires, sleds, frames for skin boats, spears, bows, arrows, etc., and in prehistoric time for producing fire by friction, is derived entirely from driftwood cast on the beach by the waves. This wood, consisting in many instances of great tree trunks from which planks two or more feet wide can be hewn, is brought to the sea by rivers heading far inland, as, for example, the Yukon and the Kuskokwim, and distributed by the wind and currents all about the coast and islands of Bering Sea. Driftwood is also carried to the Arctic Ocean by the Mackenzie, but in general is not plentiful on the borders of the ice-bound northern ocean.

The houses of the Alaskan Innuit previous to the coming of the Russians, and still to a great extent, consist of a single room, usually measuring about 10 by 14 feet, situated in part below the surface of the ground and entered by means of a tunnel-like passageway. They are made of driftwood, and floored, lined, and roofed with planks hewn from the same material. On a roof of poles sods and earth are placed and rendered compact by stamping, thus forming a cover which serves to exclude water produced by the melting of the naturally added layer of snow. When spring-time approaches these partially subterranean winter dwellings are liable to be inundated, and are abandoned and tents used during summer seasons. Formerly these tents were made of skins of caribou or seal, but in these degenerate days cotton drilling bought of white traders has been substituted. During winter journeys temporary snow huts are built, of the oval, bake-oven shape, well known to most Europeans from the many pictures that have been published of similar structures made by the more northern Eskimos. On the coast of Alaska, however, when driftwood is available, the roofs of the snow houses are frequently made of poles on which snow is piled.

In addition to the ordinary winter dwellings, which are usually occupied by two or more families, each village is commonly supplied with an assembly house or casine (a word of Russian origin), which serves also as a bath-house, and in them winter dances, the chief amusement of the people, are held. The casine, built by the united efforts of the various members of a community, consist of a single room, in part underground and entered by a tunnel, which frequently measures some 25 by 30 feet on the sides, and is approximately 15 feet high. They are substantially made of logs or of thick planks hewn with much labour from stranded tree trunks. The roof is of logs covered with moss and earth, and has an opening in the centre for the escape of smoke from the fire kindled on a hearth in the centre of the floor. When the fire is not burning, the opening in the roof is closed with a membrane obtained from the intestines of the seal. About the sides of the room there is a raised platform for spectators during dances and for the use of bathers when the customary steam-baths are indulged in. An interesting fact in connection with both the ordinary winter homes and the casines, which indicates their American origin, is that they are communal. A tenement used by several families in common is characteristic of the American aborigines from the arctic to Panama.

The architecture of the Innuits has been modified but little during recent years, except that in localities most visited by white men and where trading stations have been established, as at St. Michael, log-houses built after the manner of those used by the Russian residents have to a considerable extent replaced the native huts, with favourable results so far as sanitary conditions are concerned. The Russian log-house is not unlike the many similar structures still to be seen in portions of Canada and the United States, except that the upper side of each log is hewn so as to have a sharp edge, which fits into a deep groove, cut in the log which rests on it. Moss is placed between the logs, and is also used to fill all holes and crevices. Air is usually admitted through a pipe situated beneath the floor and opening in front of the stove, if one is used, and a small pipe for ventilation passes out through the roof. In the Russian houses the stove is usually a huge affair, made of large flat stones, which retain heat for a long time.

The dress of the Innuits in former days, in common with all the Eskimo tribes, consisted of skins, and in special cases of the intestines of seals. The characteristic garment is the parkie or overshirt, not open in front, however, provided with a hood and made of caribou skin tanned with the hair on. Those worn by men have a different cut than those intended for women. In recent years, and perhaps before the coming of white men, the skins for the manufacture of parkies were derived largely by trade from the people owning domesticated reindeer in Asia. The margin of the hood is commonly made of wolf skins, the long hair of which, blowing across the face, affords much protection. Trousers and boots made of the skin of the hair-seal or moccasins shaped from the skin of the leg of a caribou completed the dress. Mats of grass are worn in the boots or moccasins during cold weather. At the present time the summer clothing of the natives throughout Alaska is generally of cloth obtained from white traders, but nothing brought from more civilized countries can replace the parkies, fur trousers, skin boots, and waterproof shirts or kamlaykas. These articles, except the last mentioned, are largely used by white men, especially if making winter journeys.

The boats in use among the Innuits are still the kayak and the oomiak, for which civilized man can offer no adequate substitute. The well-known kayak, made of a light framework of wood, tied with thongs, over which is tightly stretched a dressed sealskin covering, leaving only one or two circular openings for the occupant, is in use from Greenland all about the arctic coast of America to Asia. Different shapes pertain to different tribes. In recent years, as a result of outside influence, openings for three occupants are sometimes made, the size of the boat also being increased. To one familiar with boat and canoe travel these light skin craft, with their water-tight decks, seem the perfection of boat construction. The occupant lashes the skirt of his kamlayka about the raised rim of the opening in which he sits and the boat is thus rendered impervious to water from whatever direction. The greatest danger is that the parchment-like covering may be ruptured, as by the cutting edge of thin ice. To ordinary storms, however, they are more safe than even the deservedly celebrated "whale-boat" of the white man. The oomiak, or woman's boat, also made of dressed skin stretched over a frame, is much larger than the kayak, has a flat bottom, is without deck covering, and designed for the use of many occupants. As is well known, boats of each of these types are propelled by means of paddles. Both the kayak and oomiak are still in every-day use, and it is to be hoped the boats of the white man will never wholly replace them.

The changes in house-building and dress referred to, which have come from contact with white men, are outward signs of a great modification in the lives of the Innuits, which began in the early days of Russian occupation and has continued with increasing importance to the present time. The natives are quick to imitate the customs of the strangers who have visited them, and but for the restraint that the climatic conditions have put upon them and the high price in furs demanded by traders for imported goods the changes thus produced would be far more marked than is now the case. To some extent the food of the natives has been modified, flour being in demand, but, with minor exceptions, the principal articles consumed are still such as are obtained by hunting and fishing.

The greatest change that has taken place in the condition of the Alaskan Innuits, and one which, perhaps, culminated at the time of the recent "gold excitement" on the Yukon and at Cape Nome, is in relation to the introduction of intoxicating liquors and of certain contagious diseases. These scourges, coming from the south, have been almost as great a blight among the native peoples as would be the sweeping southward of a wave of arctic temperature to the vegetation of tropical lands. The curse of contact, resulting when a civilized race invades a land inhabited by childlike aborigines, as has been seen in many parts of the world, has overtaken the Innuits in common with nearly all other tribes in Alaska, and decadence and the prolongation of a miserable existence, unless cut short by extermination through starvation, is all that seemingly can be hoped for.

The fur-bearing animals of Alaska have been greatly reduced in numbers during the last twenty-five years: the caribou and the moose have, to a marked degree, been killed or driven to remote regions; the larger whales, on account of overcapture by American whalers, have become scarce; the sea-lion and the walrus are nearly extinct; the fur-seal, of more importance to the Aleutians than the Innuits, is rapidly approaching extinction. Thus in many ways the food supply is greatly decreased. Recourse to agriculture is impossible. The one redeeming feature of the white man's aggression is the introduction of the domesticated reindeer from Asia and Lapland. With reindeer, the salmon, not as yet depleted in the streams emptying into Bering Sea, the white whale, the hair-seal, not as yet of commercial value, the countless birds of summer, the berries of the tundra, etc., the Innuits can survive, maintain their manhood, and become useful to civilization in certain ways if the curse of drink and the spread of imported diseases could be stopped. Such a change, however, for various reasons, is not to be hoped for. It may perhaps be said that the influence of missionaries, and, what is vastly more important, the work of the school-teacher, has opened to these children of the cold northern land a way to civilization, but the results up to the present time are not reassuring.

The census of 1890 showed that the Innuits of Alaska numbered 13,045. In the census of 1900 a separate enumeration of Eskimos and Indians was not made.

The dismal picture I have been compelled to sketch of the present condition and future prospects of the Innuits of Alaska, in order to indicate their status at the opening of the twentieth century, applies also with variations in detail and some hopeful signs to a large majority of the other aboriginal tribes of North America.

The Aleutians.—The aboriginal inhabitants of the Aleutian Islands are termed Aleuts or Aleutians, a word of obscure and perhaps foreign derivation. As stated above, they belong to the Eskimo family, but are more widely separated from the parent stock than any other of its constituent tribes. Evidence advanced by W. H. Dall tends to show that they are of American continental origin. At the time of the first coming of the Russians, about 1750, they were at war with the Kaniagmuts, who inhabited the greater part of the Alaskan peninsula and were the nearest tribe of the Innuits.

When discovered by the Russians the Aleuts were an active, sprightly people, fond of the dance and of festivities. They are of lighter colour, but not perhaps in general more nearly white than the full-blooded Innuits. At present it is difficult to find even a single representative of unmixed descent, Russian occupation having stamped out or greatly modified nearly every native characteristic both of body and mind. They were originally a robust people, of about the average height found in civilized countries, with coarse black hair and scanty beards. Their island life, where no large game invited inland journeys, made them emphatically "canoe people." The habit of sitting in their kayaks and using the muscles of the upper portion of the body in paddling, throwing the spear, etc., while the lower portion of the body received but little exercise, led to a fine chest development and to undersized and comparatively weak legs. The women, to whom the use of the kayak was not intrusted, were better proportioned than the men, and many of them are pleasing in appearance. As stated by Dall, they were less determined than their neighbours on the mainland, the Kaniagmuts, but were by no means devoid of courage. Their mode of worship partook more of the character of a religion than that of any other of the Eskimo tribes in their native condition.

From what can be learned of the Aleuts in their uncontaminated native state, they seem to have been the most intelligent of all the Eskimo tribes and the one which gave the greatest promise, if treated humanely, of advancement when civilization was introduced. Less than a century of contact with Russian invaders, however, led to a depth of degradation that is only paralleled and possibly not exceeded by the shameful results of the Spanish invasion among the aborigines of the West Indies. One of the darkest chapters in American history, fortunately for the credit of Europeans now largely lost, is that containing an account of the brutal treatment the Aleuts received at the hands of the Russians. The childlike natives became worse than slaves. The debauchery of their oppressors was shameful. As stated by Dall, "the Aleuts were subjected to the most horrible outrages. The names of Glottoff and Solóvioff (two Russian explorers, 1764-'65) make them shudder to this day. Thousands perished under sword and fire. Long after those enormities were checked the Russians considered the Aleuts as beasts rather than men," etc. Their numbers, estimated at 10,000 in 1799, were, according to a Russian census, reduced to 5,238 in 1808, and, as stated by Dall, numbered not more than 1,500 in 1870. The census of 1890 gives it as 967.

The incentive to Russian oppression was the greed for furs and the lust of rude men at a distance from all centres of control. The Aleutian Islands and neighbouring waters is the home of the sea-otter, which is clothed with the most beautiful of all furs. Near at hand are the Pribilof Islands, to which the fur-seal formerly resorted each summer in countless numbers, and during its migrations traversed the passes separating the islands of the Aleutian chain, where they were easily taken; the commercial value of their skins previous to about 1867, however, was small. In addition, the land-otter and several species of foxes also inhabited the same region. These allurements tempted the Russians, and besides the Aleutian Islands, with their sheltered harbours, furnished favourable stations from which to extend the fur trade into the still greater region to the eastward, and at an early date in the foreign occupation of Alaska became a basis for supplies.

The entire fur trade in Russian America was placed by charter in the hands of the Russian-American Fur Company in 1799, which, like the Hudson's Bay Company, had territorial jurisdiction as well as trade monopoly. This powerful company maintained its existence under various renewals of its charter until the purchase of Alaska by the United States in 1867. The authority conferred on the Russian company gave it exclusive right to purchase furs from the natives, and thus to dictate prices. This system was fraught with evil to the natives, and their extinction would no doubt have resulted had it not been for the influence of missionaries of the Russian-Greek Church, among whom the name of Veniaminoff will ever be held in blessed memory. In a measure the gross oppression of the Russians brought its own punishment to the offenders. The decrease in the number of the Aleutians meant a decline in the number of pelts secured. To insure the gathering of the highly prized furs the native hunters must be maintained. The later days of Russian occupation were characterized by more humane treatment of the natives, schools were established among them, liquors withheld, and their rapid decline checked. When Alaska was purchased by the United States the Russian-American Fur Company was supplanted by the Alaskan Commercial Company, to whom a lease of the Pribilof Islands was granted. In this lease provision was made for the support and education of the Aleutians on the Pribilof Islands. As the chief and almost the sole employment open to the Aleutians during the past thirty years has been the taking of sealskins on these islands, this wise provision had a beneficent influence on the entire tribe. How faithfully the Alaskan Commercial Company carried out its contract has been seriously questioned, but it is, nevertheless, a fact that the Aleutians have fared better under American than under Russian rule. A gradual adverse change in their condition has come about, however, owing to the decrease and threatened extinction of the sea-otter, and the great decline in the number of the fur-seals owing to the attacks made on them during their annual migrations, which amounts to commercial extinction. The lucrative industries of the natives have thus practically disappeared, and there is nothing to take their place. The surviving members are objects of charity, but as yet the United States Government has made no adequate provision for their support. One method of ameliorating the existing adverse conditions that is practicable is the introduction of domesticated reindeer; another, not so easy to accomplish, is the suppression of the liquor traffic.

The aborigines of the New World to the southward of the narrow strip of arctic coast-land inhabited by the Eskimo are designated by the term Indian, as already explained. There is no sharp line of demarcation between the Indians of North and South America, one shading into the other, but only those of the northern continent are here considered.

In many scientific treatises, as well as in books of travel and general literature, the Indians are frequently referred to as "red men," and the term "copper coloured" commonly applied to them. To the writer each of these expressions seems infelicitous. It is true that throughout America the Indians have a reddish undertone in their colour, but in numerous tribes it is not pronounced. As to copper colour, the meaning of the term is vague. What is copper colour? Presumably the colour of the pure metal when unoxidized. No such colour is more than suggested even by the aborigines having the lightest skins in the members of the many tribes that have come under the writer's notice. A more correct term—but this is a matter of opinion, in which differences are permissible—would be brown, of which many shades occur, ranging from light cinnamon colour to dark chocolate, and even nearly black. There is no recognisable connection between variations in colour and climatic conditions. The faces, hands, and other freely exposed portions of their bodies are darker than the parts usually covered with clothing, and frequently suggest the appearance of bronze statutes not fully darkened by exposure to the weather. In colour they more nearly approach that of the Polynesians than any other peoples, but in general are of a darker hue. The members of the various Indian tribes, although presenting a wide range of differences, have many physiological and mental resemblances, which, like their languages, serve to set them apart from all other peoples. A composite picture of their persons would show a man sinewy rather than heavy in build, but there are many exceptions; of average stature, 5 feet 8 or 10 inches, but there are tribes whose average is more, and others in which it is less; dark brown, with a reddish undertone, in colour; deep-set, black, and in general small eyes, their alignment straight; the nose prominent and frequently well shaped; mouth large, with strong, frequently perfect teeth; lower jaw massive; and face beardless or nearly so, and the hair of the scalp long, coarse, and black. In order to make such a sketch realistic, the bronze-like athletic figure must be clothed in a blanket worn with the grace of a Roman toga or wrapped in a robe of bison-skin; the feet encased in moccasins of tanned deerskin, and usually decorated with beads or variously coloured porcupine-quills; the face striped, dotted, or blotched with various colours; the coarse hair falling like a thatch to the shoulder, or braided, and in certain tribes shaved or plucked, except only the traditional scalp-lock, and decorated with feathers, most frequently of the eagle; necklaces, rings in the ears, amulets, etc., made of the claws of the bear, shells, beads, quills, etc., bespeak various tribes; the primitive weapons were the hatchet-like tomahawk, the bow and arrow, and the spear. The Indian has been idealized in the writings of poets and novelists, but occasionally, even at the present day, one meets with an approach to the ideal. Judged by the standards of civilization, as he is seen to-day on numerous reservations and about the streets of towns, he is a lazy, dirty vagabond. A far more favourable and agreeable picture is presented, especially in the eastern portion of Canada and adjacent States to the south and in the Indian Territory, where the blessings of civilization have been accepted and the once roaming savage has become a tiller of the soil, an owner of cattle and sheep, and lives in a comfortable house supplied with furniture such as white men use.

While a racial likeness impossible to conceal unites all of the various tribes, no single picture or generalized description, however carefully prepared, can convey to one unfamiliar with the Indian an accurate idea of his personal appearance. A typical example from one tribe when critically studied is found to differ widely from an equally representative example of another tribe, not only in speech, dress, methods of wearing the hair, ornaments, etc., but also in physique and in mental traits.

In temperament the Indian is usually described as being moody, reserved, wary, grave, and his face expressionless, the current of his thoughts being unrevealed in his proud, indifferent bearing. In his own mind he seems to consider himself superior to all other beings, and to regard them with contemptuous indifference. All this is true enough as seen by a stranger, but in his home life, and not infrequently when in the presence of trusted white men, the mask of indifference is laid aside and the laugh and jest indulged in. The extreme of assumed indifference is exhibited, as has been well attested by many witnesses, when death by torture is inflicted on a captive, as, for example, burning alive, when no outward sign is permitted to reveal his intense suffering.

The Indian is a hunter and fisherman both from inheritance and necessity. From his mode of life his sense of sight and of hearing have become wonderfully acute. His skill in following a trail is proverbial. When living near the sea or by the side of streams and lakes he is as much at home in a canoe as his relative of the plains in post-Columbian days when seated on his hardy pony. In current literature, however, all of these traits, as in the case of the personality of the Indian, have been fused into one ideal. It is true that the Indian hunter is more skilled in following a trail, in interpreting the signs and sounds in the forest, in shooting the foaming rapids in his frail canoe, etc., than the average white man to whom such pursuits are incidental or newly acquired; but many white men, and particularly those who have in a measure degenerated and assumed the Indian mode of life, are his equal, if not his superior, in all that pertains to woodcraft.

In mental qualities the Indian is the inferior of the Caucasian and the Asiatic, but is the superior of the negro. The ability to advance is not absent, and capacity to reach a certain grade in civilization is general, but beyond the acquirement of indifferent skill in the arts, literature, etc., but few have passed. The mental quality of perseverance under adverse conditions and of continuous application has not been granted him.

These children of the forests and plains, easily pleased and as easily angered; kind to their children and friends, but cruelly revengeful when enraged; treasuring a kindness, but never forgetting an injury; without rigid self-control, as is sadly illustrated by their inordinate passion for liquor when once a taste for it is acquired, are plastic organisms, which reflect the conditions under which they have developed. These untutored barbarians, descendants from ancestors who brought little with them save the stone axe and the stone spear, but of necessity originated all their arts and institutions without contact with other peoples, and were exposed to a wide range of climatic and other physical conditions for many centuries, present a most instructive subject for the study of the geographer and others who are interested in the relation of man to his environment.

Resources.—To the Indian in pre-Columbian days no ships from overseas brought supplies, and as the various tribes were frequently at war with their neighbours, trade relations were greatly restricted. Intertribal barter was carried on, however, and the capture of supplies and utensils of various sorts by one tribe from another favoured their dispersion. Although such articles as the native copper of the Lake Superior region, the red pipe-stone (catlinite) of Minnesota, and obsidian from various places found its way to remote localities, each tribe had essentially to supply its wants from the natural resources of its own domain. The range in raw materials, to borrow a modern commercial term, that the Indian's intellectual development permitted him to utilize is indicated in the following table:

In these several ways, and yet others, as in their games, medical practice, elaborate religious ceremonials, mortuary customs, modes of travel, etc., the aborigines utilized a wide range of materials supplied by nature, and supplemented them by horticulture, and to an exceedingly limited extent by domesticating animals. The degree to which they utilized the natural supplies was much less in certain directions than became possible to civilized people, but several sources of raw materials prized by them have not been called upon by white men, and are now in greater or less measure abandoned by the natives themselves. The vast mineral wealth of the continent was almost entirely unavailing to the aborigines, except so far as native metals were discovered; while several articles, such as the camass, the seeds of grasses, insects, etc., for food and material, used for implements, as obsidian for arrow points, spears, and knives, catlinite and other stones for pipes, porcupine-quills for decoration, etc., are of small value to Europeans. While civilized man has become more and more independent of climatic and other natural conditions, largely through the aid of commerce, the aborigines were much less resistant and were forced to adjust themselves to their environment, and like other plastic organisms, were modified by it.

The Natural Food Supply.—The food of the Indians was mainly the flesh of mammals, birds, and fishes. The smaller deer of various species inhabited the entire continent from the subarctic forest to Panama. The range of the bears was equally extensive, but in certain instances, on account of superstitious fear, were not customarily used for food. The almost universal source of food supply furnished by the smaller deer was supplemented at the far north by the Barren Ground caribou, succeeded southward by the woodland caribou; overlapping the range of the latter and extending farther south was the moose; this, in turn, was supplemented and exceeded in southern range by the Wapiti (elk); more restricted was the range of the mountain-sheep and mountain-goat, each inhabiting the Pacific mountains; on the Great plains roamed the bison and the antelope, the former extending from the central Atlantic seaboard to the Snake River plains, and the latter from the subarctic forest to Mexico. The mammalian food supply was most abundant in the temperate belt, and while decreasing northward, declined more rapidly towards the south. The food supply furnished by fishes was plentiful wherever water was present, and in superabundance in tidal rivers and estuaries both on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts; but these resources fluctuated in a conspicuous way with seasonal changes, owing especially to the annual migrations of the shad and salmon. Supplementing the highly desirable fish-food on the ocean shores were the molluscs, and especially the oyster and the clam. The rivers, particularly of the Mississippi Basin, supplied fresh-water "clams" (Unios), and the saline and alkaline lakes of the arid region, inclusive of Mexico, teemed with the larvæ of insects, which were utilized for food. In the Atlantic and Mississippi region, south of the Great Lakes and extending to Central America, lived the wild turkey; the forests of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, the vast prairies, and the no less extensive sage-brush plains to the westward were inhabited by various species of grouse; the land east of the Pacific mountains, from the Gulf of Mexico far northward, was darkened by immense flights of pigeons; the water from the far south to the far north, throughout the breadth of the continent, were visited by large numbers of swans, geese, ducks, and other water birds. In a conspicuous way the feathered hosts, valuable for food, were migratory, thus again introducing a variable quantity into the lives of the aborigines.

The vegetable food of the Indian tribes that did not practise horticulture varied from locality to locality, and in the temperate and more northern regions fluctuated through a wide range with seasonal changes. Berries were abundant in certain regions and at certain seasons. The raspberry, blackberry, huckleberry, strawberry, etc., of many varieties, grew wild in the eastern Mississippi and Atlantic coast regions. The huckleberry extended from the northern Atlantic coast regions westward across the continent on the southern border of the subarctic forest, and reached central Alaska. On the coast of British Columbia and Alaska to Mount St. Elias, salmon-berries, wild currants, huckleberries, and strawberries flourished with marvellous luxuriance and of large size. Wild cherries were abundant on the Atlantic coast and extended to the Pacific mountains. Certain small plums of value for food occurred widely in what is now the United States. The papaw and persimmon thrived in the southern portion of the Atlantic coast region. The fruits of the cacti yielded refreshment in the southwestern States and in Mexico. Throughout all the hardwood forests of the Mississippi Valley and the region south of the St. Lawrence a large variety of nut-bearing trees, such as the walnut, hickory, chestnut, beechnut, oak, etc., were in great abundance and furnished a large annual food supply. In the northern portion of this region grew the maple, the saccharine sap of which was utilized by the Indians for making sugar. In the Pacific mountains south of Canada grew the piñon, perhaps of all the trees of the continent the species that yielded the greatest food supply to the Indians. In this same region, particularly to the northward, grew the small lily-like plant having a blue flower, known as the camass, the bulbs of which are highly nutritious. Both the piñon and the camass are largely utilized even at the present day for food by the Indians. In Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies a large number of tropical fruits, bulbs, nuts, etc., abound, which are suitable for food, and, as we have more or less direct evidence, were utilized by the Indians of that region in prehistoric times. The period of harvest at the south is less sharply defined than in temperate latitudes and the natural food supply subject to less seasonal fluctuations.

The Indians so long as they did not engage in agriculture—there being an absence of anything that could be termed commerce, and even the transfer of food and other supplies by barter being restricted—were obliged to move from place to place, in order to avail themselves of the abundance furnished in certain localities and at certain seasons. This is well illustrated at the present day. With the coming of the salmon in the rivers of the northwest Pacific coast region the Indian feasts by the river-side; when the berries ripen in the valleys of the Cascade Mountains he is there, together with the bears, to profit by the bounties of nature; in Nevada he still makes journeys to the piñon groves in October; and in the subarctic forest he accompanies the migration of the caribou. In former days he followed the movements of the herds of bison on the Great plateaus. In these and many other ways the food supply of the Indian tended to establish nomadic customs, and as each source of fuel and other supplies demanded different methods of capturing animals or different utensils for gathering seeds, etc., variations in culture development was a necessary result. The duty of replenishing the general stores was shared by all, but there was no definite organization for this purpose, and certainly nothing worth the name of business management. As the adage is, "What is every one's business is no one's business," and for this reason the Indian, as a rule, failed to lay aside a sufficient supply of food for winter use, and in consequence frequently went hungry and not infrequently died of starvation.

The scarcity of the spontaneous food supply at certain seasons or during exceptional years, and the recurrence of cold or rainy seasons, necessitating shelter, would naturally lead the Indian to develop in two important directions, namely, agriculture and architecture. As is well known, promising advances had been made in each of these arts, when indigenous development was checked and to a great extent killed by the appearance on the scene and subsequent encroachments of peoples from over the sea.

Horticulture.—Concerning the art of cultivating plants for food, clothing, utensils, etc., practised by the Indians before the coming of Europeans, it is difficult to obtain accurate information. The writings of Spanish and other explorers who first visited various tribes have been diligently searched in this connection by students of American history, and although much that is instructive has been discovered, many questions remain unanswered.

The principal regions where cultivation of the soil was practised in pre-Columbian times are situated in the United States south of the St. Lawrence and east of the Mississippi Valley, and inclusive of the lands bordering the Great Lakes on the south; also much of New Mexico, Arizona, Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies. In the eastern portion of what is now the United States localities naturally devoid of trees were cultivated by the Indians, and partial clearings were made in the vast forest by deadening the trees, probably by girdling or cutting the bark entirely around their trunks with stone axes, and leaving them standing. A similar process was employed by white settlers in later years, and is practised even at the present day. In these partial clearings, from which the underbrush was no doubt burned, gardens of maize, melons, pumpkins, beans, gourds, sunflowers, potatoes, tobacco, and perhaps other plants were grown without irrigation. Garden-beds, as they are termed, are still to be seen in the forests of Michigan, which, as indicated by the trees growing on them, are older than the time white men began the cultivation of the soil of that region. In the arid southwestern portion of the continent and in Central America gardens were cultivated with the aid of irrigation, and what has been described as a high degree of skill in horticulture attained. The chief products of these gardens were maize, cotton, tobacco, beans, melons, cacao, bananas, and the red pepper. Possibly vanilla, tomatoes, and pumpkins were also grown. The aloe was extensively utilized in the south, but whether definitely cultivated or not seems uncertain.

The cultivation of fruit-trees other than the cacao, which furnishes the seeds from which chocolate is made, does not seem to have been carried on, although certain writers imply that native trees were tended and given greater facility for growth by removing adjacent plants. It is stated by some authors that in the region to the eastward of the Mississippi the Chickasaw plum is now found growing in clearings that were abandoned by the Indians and not elsewhere, and the inference is that it was formerly cultivated. Asa Gray mentions, however, that this species is probably not indigenous.

Of domesticated mammals none are known to have been possessed by the Indians except the dog, which it is presumed was derived from one or more species of the native wolf, and was used to carry or draw burdens, served also for food, and furnished skins for clothing and hair for weaving cloth. The turkey was domesticated by the Aztecs and the village Indians of the New Mexico region; among the latter, even at the present day, eagles are confined in cages and plucked for feathers. There is seemingly no doubt but that in pre-Columbian, as in recent years, the young of wild animals were captured by the Indians and reared as pets, which in times of necessity probably served for food; but there are no records of definite attempts to domesticate the bison, mountain-sheep, mountain-goat, or the peccary of the Gulf coast and Central America. In the attractive accounts that have appeared in recent years concerning the grandeur of the Aztecs mention is made of extensive menageries, but even the most poetic of historians has not assigned to the tribes of that confederation flocks and herds. The llama and the paco or alpaca, although reared extensively by the Incas of Peru, are not certainly known to have been introduced into North America.

To the eastward of the Mississippi, where numerous earthworks bear testimony of an early settlement by aborigines, heavy forests, the severity of the winter climate, and wide variations in summer rains combined to make the natural conditions to a marked degree adverse to aboriginal development. In Central America, and the West Indies generally, the exuberance of vegetable growth is such as almost to defy the clearing of land by people provided only with stone or copper utensils. Between these two regions, in the southwestern portion of the continent, are the arid lands, where, when once the idea of irrigation was embraced, the conditions favouring a sedentary life, with agriculture as a basis, are far more auspicious than elsewhere. The land is there treeless, the indigenous plants are easily killed by fire and by irrigation, the soil is rich, intense sunshine favours plant growth, and the gathering of harvests is not delayed or the efforts of industry rendered abortive by rain. Of all portions of the continent, this is the one where resistance to human development is least, providing man's ideas are sufficiently advanced to permit him to grasp and put in practise the art of irrigation. It is reasonable to suppose that the Indian there first began to build permanent homes and to cultivate the soil. This hypothesis is sustained in part by historical evidence, and in part by the ruins of ancient villages or communal houses, irrigation, ditches, etc. From this centre it may be presumed, in the absence of definite proof, that the art of horticulture spread to Central America and the Mississippi Valley.

In spite of the glowing accounts given by certain historians concerning the high degree of skill in agriculture attained by the aborigines of Mexico and Central America, and the extent of their plantations, a conservative balancing of the evidence indicates that they never advanced beyond the stage of gardening, and that field agriculture, the cultivation of orchards, and the domestication of mammals was practically unknown to them.