INDIANS 



2962 



INDIANS 



NDIANS, AMERICAN, the "redskins" of 

 romance and history. They were the most pic- 

 turesque of the primitive races of mankind, 

 though under the influence of civilization they 

 have lost most of this charm. Before the com- 

 ing of the "pale-face" the Indians of the United 

 States had made little progress in a material 

 way, and were truly "children of the forest," 

 savage in warfare and often relentlessly cruel. 

 Nevertheless they exceeded the European of 

 their day in many of the simple virtues hon- 

 esty, reverence for their deities, faithfulness to 

 their standards of virtue, self denial, affection 

 for their kin, and ability to suffer uncomplain- 

 ingly. Their intelligence, while not directed to 

 the same ends as that of civilized man, was 

 keen. And even the treachery and blood- 

 thirstiness ascribed to Indians were less than 

 those of their Spanish conquerors in Peru and 

 Mexico, and were sometimes equaled by those 

 of the French, English and Dutch colonists of 

 North America. 



One who reads Longfellow's Hiawatha and 

 Cooper's Leather-stocking Tales is sure to feel 

 sympathy and admiration for their Indian 

 heroes. Though Cooper was accused of por- 

 traying the natives with good qualities which 

 they did not possess, his work is defended by 

 those who know the red men best. The history 

 of William Penn and his followers, and of the 

 Hudson's Bay Company, which traded over all 

 Canada for more than two centuries with never 

 a serious break with any tribe, proves that the 

 Indians were not treacherous in their dealings 

 with those who treated them fairly. 



Physical Characteristics. The poetess Lydia 

 Huntley Sigourney, who speaks of the Indian 

 advancing to greet the Pilgrims 



"With towering form and haughty stride, 

 And eye like kindling flame," 



is picturing the traditional native of Eastern 

 North America. The Indian, wherever found, 

 has as distinguishing features the straight black 

 hair, the broad face which gives the effect of 

 high cheekbones, the striking aquiline nose, the 

 slightly Chinese slant of the eye, and the scant 

 beard. Strangely enough, considering the uni- 



versal employment of the name red man, the 

 Indian is less red than his white neighbor; his 

 complexion is in truth brown, sometimes a very 

 dark shade. 



Origin. No one knows where the Indian 

 came from, or how long he has inhabited this 

 continent. By most scientists he is believed to 

 be descended from the tribes of Central and 

 Northeastern Asia, for the two resemble each 

 other in nearly every physical character. Sto- 

 ries once widely believed, that the Indians are 

 descendants of the lost Hebrew tribes or of 

 shipwrecked Europeans, have been proved im- 

 possible, for the Indian languages are abso- 

 lutely different from other tongues and must 

 have been spoken for thousands of years. The 

 generally-accepted theory is that the natives of 

 America crossed from Asia at Bering Strait, or 

 farther south, by a passage which has now dis- 

 appeared. 



Numbers. Anglo-Saxon North America con- 

 tains but a small fraction of the Indian race. 

 In the United States, Canada and Alaska there 

 are about 400,000, the survivors of a popula- 

 tion estimated to have been a million before 

 the arrival of the white man. Mexico has 

 nearly six million Indians of pure blood, and 

 more than that number of inhabitants partly 

 Indian. South America's Indian population has 

 never been counted, but is greater than North 

 America's and, like Mexico's, is largely mixed 

 with European blood. In Canada the number 

 of Indians is growing smaller, but in the 

 United States, while rapidly decreasing for a 

 hundred years, has been increasing since the 

 beginning of the present century, if we include 

 all degrees of admixture. In 1910 the full- 

 bloods were counted for the first time and found 

 to number 150,053. In 1915 there were 173.747. 

 There is constant intermarriage of Indians and 

 whites, and eventually there will probably be 

 no full-blooded Indians. 



South American Types. The Indians whom 

 the Spaniards found in South America repre- 

 sented all degrees of advancement from near- 

 civilization to the crudest barbarism. Those 

 fiisi seen by Columbus, in the West India is- 



