MALLERY. ] ARTISTIC SKILL. 739 
of Ethnology, but the point to be now considered is whether it is true 
that the historic North American Indians are as low in artistic skill 
as is alleged. 
The French traveler Crevaux, as quoted by Mareano (gq), says that 
he had the happy idea of giving pencils to the Indians, in order to see 
whether they were capable of producing the same drawings. The 
young Yumi rapidly drew for him sketches of man, dog, tiger; in brief, 
of all the animals of the country. Another Indian reproduced all sorts 
of arabesques, which he was wont to paint with genipa. Crevaux saw 
that these savages, who are accused of being absolutely ignorant of the 
fine arts, all drew with extraordinary facility. 
The same idea, i. e., of testing the artistic ability of Indians in sey- 
eral tribes, occurred to the present writer and to many other travelers, 
who generally have been surprised at the skill in free-hand drawing 
and painting exhibited. It would seem that the Indians had about the 
same faults and decidedly more talent than the average uninstrueted 
persons of European descent who make similar attempts. An instance 
—, 
Fic. 1254.—Moose, Kejimkoojik. 
of special skill in portrait painting is given by Lossing (a), where a 
northern tribe in 1812 made a bark pieture of Joseph Barron, a fugi- 
tive, to obtain his identification by sending copies of it to various tribes. 
The portrait given as an illustration in the work cited is very distinct 
and lifelike. This, however, was a special task prompted by foreign 
influence. While the Indians had no more knowledge of perspective 
than the Japanese, they were unable or indisposed to attempt the ac- 
curate imitation of separate natural objects in which the Japanese 
excel. Before European instruction or example they probably never 
produced a true picture. Some illustrations in the present work, which 
show a continuous series of men, animals, and other objects, are no more 
pictures than are the consecutive words of a printed sentence, both 
forms, indeed, being alike in the fact that their significance is ex- 
pressed by the relation between the separate parts. The illustration 
which at a first glance seems to be most distinctively picturesque 
