HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



where irrigation was necessary. The civilian unable to overcome the 

 savage must keep out of his reach. 



The general considerations set forth above are applicable to all 

 people, at all times, in all parts of the world. The North American 

 Indian is to be regarded in the same light as any other primitive 

 man. The Eskimo may be omitted from discussion, because he could 

 not have lived otherwise than he did in the bleak region where 

 cultivation of the soil was impossible. So may the ancient Mexican, 

 for we know nothing about him. 



Except in the extreme west, from the Columbia river northward, 

 the Indian of the United States and Canada was not a fisherman in 

 the sense that he depended principally or even largely on fish for 

 his subsistence. He was a successful fisherman, it is true, when he 

 lived near water, but his main reliance was on game and natural 

 productions except in small and scattered areas where temporary 

 settlements were formed. These were along streams for the greater 

 part, where alluvial tracts yielded good returns for his crude labor. 

 Over nearly all the eastern half of the continent interminable forests 

 sheltered an abundance of beasts and birds which he snared and 

 hunted. While in Asia, horses, cattle, sheep, and goats were domesti- 

 cated before the beginning of recorded history, while even the Lap- 

 lander of the frozen north of Europe had teams of reindeer and the 

 Peruvians made use of the llama and alpaca, the Indian of North 

 America had no animal which he ever succeeded in taming, beyond 

 a few fowls in the South and Southwest, and the wolf which he con- 

 verted into a sort of dog. Until the coming of the white man there 

 was not an animal, excepting the dog, of which he could make use in 

 any occupation, or which, excepting the turkey, he could keep in 

 flocks or herds; consequently, he could not become a stockman, as 

 were those in a similar stage of development in Asia. Being unac- 

 quainted with iron, he was restricted in his employment to those 

 industries in which he could do all his work with fire or stone. With 

 arduous labor and infinite patience he could fell trees and remove 

 brush; and in this way cleared small tracts on which he raised various 

 grains and vegetables. 



But his main food was flesh; and this must be had from the forests. 

 The animals which he hunted soon learned to avoid his settlements, to 

 retreat deeper into the woodland. He found, in time, that other men 

 were hunting over the same ground. As there was not enough for 

 all, one hunter must seek new fields or perish in conflict. Thus arose 

 the savage, bloodthirsty spirit, the aptitude for warfare, which we, 

 somehow, always think of as the Indian's principal characteristic. 



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