86 HORATIO HALE ON LANGUAGE 



get the numerals of certain obscure remnants of tribes ; they persisted in giving me the 

 Hupâ, and in fact they seemed to know no olher." 



But these proud and mnstorfnl children of the savage north had beeu quick to adopt 

 all the arts of incipient civilization which they found in their new abode. Their dress, 

 implements, and houses were copied from the neighbouring tribes of the Klamath River 

 region. The Califoruian currency of shell-money, which had been found highly useful in 

 trade, was adopted by them, with certain changes in rating. One of their septs, the 

 Tolowa, were ni^.ted for their larg.^ and handsome canoes. Mr. Powers saw one which was 

 forty-four feet long, over eight feet wide, and capable of carrying twenty-four men or five 

 tons of weight. It was made of redwood cedar, and seemed 1o him a " thing of beauty," 

 sitting plumb and lightly on the sea, and so symmetrical that a pound's weight on either 

 side would throw it slightly out of trim. 



But the Californian valley proved too narrow for the iiicroasing population, which 

 sent forth new swarms to the far south-east. From one of these sprang the terrible 

 Apaches, whose rapacioias and far-swooping bands became lords of the plains and hills 

 from the Californian gulf to Texas, and dominated for two centuries the feeble i^rovinces 

 of Northern Mexico, — now ravaging the settlements and now contemptuously selling 

 them peace. A still larger swarm mjjde its way into the highlands of Arizona and New 

 Mexico, and found a genial abode in the sunny and grass-clad mountains which surround 

 the stone and brick edifices of the half-civilized Paeblo Indians These Indians had 

 dreaded the mountains as the resort of the predatory Utes of the Shoshonee stock. The 

 fearless Tinneh emigrants, who haA'^e since become famous under the Spanish nickname 

 of Navajos,' seized these inviting uplands for their own fastnesses, drove back the Ute 

 invaders, made friends with the Pueblo Indians, and quickly learned from them their 

 methods of agriculture and their mechanic arts. " "When the Spaniards first met them, in 

 1541, they were tillers of the soil, erected large granaries for their crops, irrigated their 

 fields by artificial water-courses or acequias, and lived in substantial dwellings, partly 

 underground ; but they had not then learned the art of weaving the celebrated ' Navajo 

 blankets,' that being a later acquisition of their artisans."" 



It is admitted on all hands that if they learned their mechanic arts from the Pueblos, 

 they greatly improved these industries. Their blankets are as famous throughout the 

 south-west as the carpets of Persia are throughout Asia Dr. Washington Matthews, the 

 highest authority on all matters relating to this people, in his elaborate monograph on 

 " Navajo "Weavers " (published in the third annual volume of the Bureau of Ethnology), 

 remarks: "It is by no means certain — still there are many reasons for supposing — that 

 the Navajos learned their craft from the Pueblo Indians, and that, too, since the advent 

 of the Spaniards ; yet the pupils, if such they be, far excel their masters to-day in the 

 beauty and quality of their work. It may be safely stated that with no native tribe in 

 America, north of the Mexican boundary, has the art of weaving been carried to greater 

 perfection than among the Navajos, while with none in the entire continent is it less 

 Europeanized." 



In silver-work, according to the same authority, the superiority of the Navajo artisans 



J* — 



' Said by some t(> mean the Lake-people, by otliers tlie Cornfekl-people. Navajo signifies both a pool and a 

 plot of level grounii. 



' Brintoii's " Amerioan Race," jiage 72 ; citing A. A. Bandelier, " Indians of the SuutliweKtern United States." 



