120 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



in accepting the statements of any author relating to any 

 tribe of Indians. 



It will be seen that to follow any tribe of Indians through 

 post-Columbian times is a task of no little difficulty. Yet 

 this portion of history is of importance, and the scholars 

 of America have a great work before them. 



Three centuries of 'intimate contact with a civilized race 

 has had no small influence upon the pristine condition of 

 these savage and barbaric tribes. The most speedy and rad- 

 ical change was that effected in the arts, industrial and orna- 

 mental. A steel knife was obviously better than a stone 

 knife ; fire-arms than bows and arrows ; and textile fabrics 

 from the looms of civilized men are at once seen to be more 

 beautiful and more useful than the rude fabrics and un- 

 dresed skins with which the Indians clothed themselves in 

 that earlier day. 



Customs and institutions changed less rapidly. Yet these 

 have been much modified. Imitation and vigorous propa- 

 gandism have been more or less efficient causes. Migrations 

 and enforced removals placed tribes under conditions of 

 strange environment where new customs and institutions 

 were necessar}^, and in this condition civilization had a 

 greater influence ; and the progress of occupation by white 

 men within the territory of the United States, at least, has 

 reached such a stage that savagery and barbarism have no 

 room for their existence, and even customs and institutions 

 must in a brief time be completely changed, and what we 

 are yet to learn of these people must be learned now. 



But in pursuing these studies the greatest caution must 

 be observed in discriminating what is primitive from what 

 has been acquired from civilized man by the various pro- 

 cesses of acculturation. 



Origin of Man. 



Two papers have been presented on this subject, namely : 

 On the Zoological Relations of Man ; by Theodore GilL 

 Pre-social Man ; by L. F. Ward. 



