538 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



Of tliis sad termination of their existence there need not be a doubt in the minds of 

 any man who will read the history of their former destruction, contemplating them 

 jswept already from two-thirds of the continent, and who will then travel, as I have 

 done, over the vast extent of frontier, and witness the modes by which the poor fel- 

 lows are falling, whilst contending for their rights with acquisitive white men. Such 

 -a reader and such a tra,veler, I venture to say, if he has not the heart of a brute, will 

 shed tears for them, and be ready to admit that their character and customs are at 

 this time a subject of interest and importance, and rendered peculiarly so from 

 the facts that they are dying at the hands of their Christian neighbors; and, 

 from all past experience, that there will probably be no effectual plan instituted that 

 will save the remainder of them from a similar fate. 



NUMBER IN 1838. 



As they stand at this day there may be four or five hundred thousand in their 

 primitive state and a million and a half that may be said to be semi-civilized, con- 

 tending with the Eophistry of white men, amongst whom they are timidly and unsuc- 

 cessfully endeavoring to hold up their heads and aping their modes, whilst they are 

 swallowing their poisons and yielding their lands and their lives to the superior tact 

 and cunning of their merciless cajolers. 



In such parts of their community their customs are uninteresting, being but poor 

 aud ridiculous imitations of those that are bad enough, those practiced by their first 

 teachers ; but in their primitive state their modes of life and character, before they 

 are changed, are subjects of curious interest, and all that I have aimed to preserve. 

 Their personal appearance, their dress, and many of their modes of life I have already 

 described. 



GOVERNMENT, RELIGION, WAR. 



For their government, which is purely such as has been dictated to them by nature 

 and necessity alone, they are indebted to no foreign, native, or civilized nation. For 

 their religion, which is simply Theism, they are indebted to the Great Spirit and not 

 to the Christain world. For their modes of war they owe nothing to enlightened 

 •nations, using only those weapons and those modes which are prompted by nature, 

 and within the means of their rude manufactures. 



If, therefore, we do not find in their systems of polity and jurisprudence the efficacy 

 and justice that are dispensed in civilized institutions; if we do not find in their re- 

 ligion the light aud the grace that flow from Christian faith ; if in wars they are less 

 honorable, and wage them upon a system of " murderous strategem," it is the duty of 

 the enlightened world, who administer justice in abetter way, who worship in a more 

 acceptable form, and who war on a more honorable scale, to make great allowance 

 for their ignorance, and yield to their credit the fact that if. their systems are less wise, 

 they are often more free from injustice, from hypocrisy, and from carnage. 



Their governments, if they have any (for I am almost disposed to question the pro- 

 priety of applying the term), are generally alike ; each tribe having at its head a 

 <5hief (and most generally a war and civil chief), whom, it would seem, alternately 

 hold the ascendency, as the circumstances of peace or war may demand their re- 

 spective services. These chiefs, whose titles are generally hereditary, hold their of 

 fices only as long as their ages will enable them to perform the duties of them by 

 taking the lead in war parties, &c., after which they devolve upon the next incum- 

 bent, who is the eldest son of the chief, provided he is decided by the other chiefs to 

 Be as worthy of it as any other young man in the tribe, in default of which a chief is 

 elected from amongst the subchiefs ; so that the office is hereditary on condition and 

 elective in emergency. 



The chief has no control over the life or limbs or liberty of his subjects, nor other 

 power whatever, excepting that of influence which he gains by his virtues and his 

 exploits in war, and which induces his warriors and braves to follow him as he leads 



