53* 



THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



among whom it must suffice to mention the Powhatans, formerly inhabiting the east coast, 

 have long since been completely exterminated. It may be added that it was with the 

 Delawares, or Lenni-Lenape, who were then subject to the Iroquois, that William Penn 

 made his celebrated treaty. 



Passing on to the Iroquoians, we find them occupying a prominent position in history as 

 the deadly foes of the Algonquians, whom, in spite of their smaller numbers, they would 

 probably have succeeded in conquering, had it not been for white intervention. In the region 

 of the St. Lawrence, which seems to have formed (heir original home, the northern Iroquoians 

 were divided into two hostile divisions, of which the western was formed by the Hnrons and 

 Eries or Wyandots, and the eastern by the .true Iroquois. These constituted the celebrated 

 'confederation of the five nations," comprising the Mohawks, Oneidas, Cayugas, Onondagas, 

 and Senecas, a union which was strengthened by the admission in 1712 of the Tuscaroras 

 from North Carolina. Either by wars or by the introduction of European diseases, many of 



these tribes have been swept away; the Ilurons 

 and Eries being kept in, remembrance onlv 

 by the lakes of the same name. In Virginia 

 and the Carolinas the Iroquois were represented 

 by the Cherokis, forming a southern division 

 of the stock; these people have, however, uo\v 

 been transported to Indian Territory, where, 

 together with the Choctaws, they are estimated 

 to number something like 27,000. A miserable 

 remnant of 20,000 now alone represents the rest 

 of the once powerful Iroquoians, who were of 

 a decidedly higher type than their Algonquiau 

 neighbours. 



We now come to the important group of 

 the Siouans, whose territory was inferior in 

 extent only to that of the Athabascans and 

 Algonquians. The name Sioux, from which the 

 adjective Siouan is derived, appears to have been 

 originally a term of contempt applied by the 

 forest-dwelling Algonquians to their brethren of 

 the plains. "The Indians of the Siouan stock,'" 

 writes Mr. W. J. McGee, "occupied the central 

 portion of the continent. They were pre- 

 eminently plains Indians, ranging from Luke 

 Michigan to the Kocky Mountains, and from 

 the Arkansas to the Saskatchewan, while an 

 outlying body stretched to the shores of the 

 Atlantic. They were typical American barbarians, headed by hunters and warriors, and 

 grouped in shifting tribes, led by the chase or driven by battle from place to place over their 

 vast and naturally rich domain, though a crude agriculture sprang up whenever a tribe tarried 

 long in one spot. No native stock is more interesting than the great Siouan group, and none 

 save the Algonquian and Iroquoian approach it in wealth of literary and historical records; for 

 since the advent of white men the Siouan Indians have played striking roles on the stage of 

 human development, and have caught the eye of every thoughtful observer." 



In former times they were represented as far south as the coast of the Gulf of Mexico by 

 the Biloxi tribe. To mention all the numerous tribal subdivisions would be merely wearisome, 

 and the reader must accordingly be content with the following main groups. Best known of 

 all are the Dakotas (Friendlies), celebrated in Longfellow's "Hiawatha," who before their 

 isolation in Indian Territory and other districts of the States, occupied a large area in the 



Pliolo bij M, 1'itire l-elit] \_l'ans. 



A NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN SMOKING 



TOMAHAWK-PIPE. 



