THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 59 



held subordinate. This subordination, however, I should rather record as their 

 former and native regulation, of which there exists no doubt, than an existing one, 

 since the numerous innovations made amongst these people by the fur traders, as 

 well as by the proximity of civilization along a great deal of their frontier, which 

 soon upset and change many native regulations, and particularly those relating to 

 their government and religion. 



There is one principal and familiar division of this tribe into what are called the 

 Mississippi and Missouri Sioux. Those bordering on the banks of the Mississippi, 

 concentrating at Prairie du Chien and Fort Snelling, for the purposes of trade, &c, 

 are called the Mississippi Sioux. These are somewhat advanced towards civilization, 

 and familiar with white people, with whom they have held intercourse for many 

 years, and are consequently excessive whisky drinkers, though constituting but a 

 meager proportion, and at the same time, but a very unfair and imperfect sample of 

 the great mass of this tribe who inhabit the shores of the Missouri, and fearlessly 

 roam on the vast plains intervening between it and the Rocky Mountains, and are 

 still living entirely in their primitive condition. 



There is no tribe on the Continent, perhaps, of finer looking men than the Sioux ; 

 and few tribes who are better and more comfortably clad, and supplied with the 

 necessaries of life. There are no parts of the great plains of America which are more 

 abundantly stocked with buffalos and wild horses, nor any people more bold in de- 

 stroying the one for food and appropriating the other for their use. There has gone 

 abroad, from the many histories which have been written of these people, an opinion 

 which is too current in the world, that the Indian is necessarily a poor, drunken, 

 murderous wretch ; which account is certainly unjust as regards the savage, and 

 doing less than justice to the world for whom such histories have been prepared. I 

 have traveled several years already amongst these people, and I have not had my 

 scalp taken, nor a blow struck me ; nor had occasion to raise my hand against an In- 

 dian ; nor has my property been stolen, as yet to my knowledge, to the value of a 

 shilling; and that in a country where no man is punishable by law for the crime of 

 stealing ; still some of them steal, and murder too ; and if white men did not do the 

 same, and that in defiance of the laws of God and man, I might take satisfaction in 

 stigmatizing the Indian character as thievish and murderous. That the Indians in 

 their native state are "drunken," is false ; for they are the only temperance people, 

 literally speaking, that ever I saw" in my travels, or ever expect to see. If the civ- 

 ilized world are startled at this, it is the fact that they must battle with, not with 

 me ; for these people manufacture no spirituous liquor themselves, and know nothing 

 of it until it is brought into their country and tendered to them by Christians. That 

 these people are "naked" is equally untrue, and as easily disproved ; fori am sure 

 that with the paintings I have made amongst the Mandans and Crows, and other 

 tribes, and with their beautiful costumes which I have procured and shall bring 

 home, 1 shall be able to establish the fact that many of these people dress, not only 

 with clothes comfortable for any latitude, but that they also dress with some consid- 

 erable taste and elegance. Nor am I quite sure that they are entitled to the name 

 of "poor," who live in a boundless country of green fields, with good horses to ride ; 

 where they are all joint tenants of the soil, together; where the Great Spirit has 

 supplied them with an abundance of food to eat — where they are all indulging in the 

 pleasures and amusements of a lifetime of idleness and ease, with no business hours 

 to attend to, or professions to learn — where they have no notes in bank or other debts 

 to pay — no taxes, no tithes, no rents, nor beggars to touch and tax the sympathy of 

 their souls at every step they go.— Mr. Catlin, 1832. Pages 208-210 ; vol. 1, Eight 

 Years. 



It is not improbable that some of the Sioux painted by Mr. Catlin from 

 1832 to 1834 were photographed and are in the Photographic Catalogue 

 of Professor Hayden, Mis. Pub. No. 9, United States Geological Sur- 



