INDIANS 



2964 



INDIANS 



INDIAN ARTS AND CRAFTS 



ni 



IDC 



Mound pottery 

 Hopi clay doll tf\ Arkansas 



Chiricahua cat-shaped whistle 

 (Terra Cotta) 



Northwest coast carving 



DC 



Indians. Other languages may have perished 

 when the tribes speaking them were annihilated 

 in battle, for excepting a Cherokee alphabet 

 invented in 1821, none but the Mayas and the 

 Aztecs had any system of writing. Indians 

 speaking the same language did not always 

 live in adjoining regions. Thus, Siouan tribes, 

 besides . occupying the great plains and part of 

 Wisconsin were found at Biloxi, Mississippi, 

 and in Virginia and the Carolinas, dwelling in 

 the midst of Iroquoian, Algonquian and Mus- 

 khogean tribes. For communication between 

 neighbors of different speech, there was a 

 highly-developed sign language.* Some sounds 

 unknown in European languages are common 

 in Indian tongues, but others,- such as our in- 

 dispensable / and r, are often lacking. The 

 grammar of the various Indian tongues is very 

 complicated. 



The Spanish spoken in South America con- 

 tains many Indian words, and our English, be- 

 sides thousands of names for places, has a 

 number of common native terms, such as to- 

 bacco, chocolate, squash, succotash, moose, cari- 

 bou, hickory, hurricane, hammock, tomato, 

 coyote, toboggan, caucus, mugwump, moccasin, 

 cay use, etc. 



Indian Thought. So different was the Indian 

 way of thinking from that of the European 

 that the pioneers failed to understand their 

 brown-skinned neighbors, and much of what 

 has been told about the original American 

 erroneous. The name happy hunting grour 

 for the supposed home of the spirits of tl 

 departed, is purely a myth of the white mar 

 for the Indian looked upon the chase as dif 

 cult labor and thought of heaven as a pi 

 where there was nothing to do but dance ai 

 sing, play games, eat or gamble. The Gi 

 Spirit, too, is an invention of our own, for 

 Indians seem to have had no conception 

 God as a single all-powerful being, all object 

 both animate and inanimate, being endow* 

 with certain spiritual powers. Neverthelt 

 they were intensely religious, after their o\ 

 fashion. Almost every act of their lives 

 performed as religion prescribed. 



For the Indians there was a soul not only ii 

 man and the animals, but in every tree ai 

 flower, and even in an inanimate object like 

 canoe. Certain of the birds and animals 

 counted more powerful and intelligent thf 

 men, and, like the deities of the ancient Greet 

 capable of influence for good or evil. Most 



