THE GEORGE CaTLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 569 



in his work ; and yet that he might have had the indiscretion to have made some 

 misrepresentations attributed to him, I was not able positively to deny. His work, 

 as far as it treats on the maAers and customs of the American Indians, and which 

 could not have been written or dictated by any other than a person who had lived 

 that familiar life with them, is decidedly the most descriptive and best work yet 

 published on their every-day domestic habits and superstitions; and, of itself, goes 

 a great way, in my opinion, to establish the fact that his early life was identified 

 with that of the Indians. 



I stated that I believed his character had been cruelly and unjustly libeled, and 

 that I had the peculiar satisfaction of believing that I had justly defended it, and 

 given the merited rebuke at the fountain of all his misfortunes, which I described as 

 follows : 



MR. CATLIN'S INTERVIEW WITH PETER DUPONCEAU AT PHILADELPHIA IN 1838. 

 HIS OPINION OF JOHN HUNTER. 



" On my return from an eight years' residence amongst the remotest tribes of In- 

 dians in America, and paying a visit to my old friends in the city of Philadelphia, M. 

 Duponceau, of whom your royal highnesj has spoken, an old and very learned gen- 

 tleman, and deeply skilled in the various languages of America, and who was .then 

 preparing a very elaborate work on the subject, invited me to meet several of his 

 friends at his table to breakfast ; which I did. He was at this time nearly blind and 

 very deaf, aud still eagerly grasping at every traveler and trapper from the Indian 

 country, for some new leaf to his book or some new word to his vocabularies, instead 

 of going himself to the Indian fireside, the true (and in fact the only) school in which 

 to learn and write their language. 



"After our breakfast was finished and our coffee-cups removed this learned M. Du- 

 ponceau opened his note-book upon the table and began in this way : 'My dear sir 

 (addressing himself to me), I am so delighted with such an opportunity — I am told 

 that you have visited some forty or fifty tribes of Indians, and many of them speak- 

 ing different languages. You have undoubtedly in eight years learned to speak flu- 

 ently ; and I shall draw from you such a valuable addition to my great work — what 

 a treat this will be, gentlemen, ha ? Now you see I have written out some two or 

 three hundred words, for which you will give mo the Blackfoot, the Mandan, the 

 Pawnee, Pict, &c. You have been amongst all these ttibes V ' Yes.' The old gentle- 

 man here took a pinch of snuff and theu said. ' In this identical place and on this 

 very table it was, gentlemen, that I detected the imposture of that rascal, Hunter ! 

 Do you know that fellow, Mr. Catlin V l Yes, I have seen him.' 'Well,' said he, 'I was 

 the first to detect him ; I published him to the world and put a stop to his impost- 

 ures. I invited him to take breakfast with me as I have invited you, and in this 

 same book wrote down the Indian translation of a list of words and sentences that I 

 had prepared, as he gave them to me ; and the next day when I invited him again, 

 he gave me for one-third at least of those words a different translation. I asked for 

 the translation of a number of words in languages that were familiar to me and which 

 he told me he understood, and he gave them in words of other tribes. I now dis- 

 covered his ignorance, and at once pronounced him an impostor, and closed my book.' 



" ' And now,' said I, 'M. Duponceau, lest you should make yourself and me a great 

 deal of trouble, and call me an impostor also, I will feel much obliged if you will 

 close your book again ; for I am quite sure I should prove myself under your examina- 

 lion just as ignorant as Mr. Hunter, and subject myself to the same reproach which 

 is following him through the world, emanating from so high an authority. Mr. Hun- 

 ter and myself did not go into the Indian countries to study the Indian languages, 

 nor do we come into the civilized world to publish them, and to be made responsible 

 for errors in writing them. I can well understand how Mr. Hunter gave you, to a 

 certain extent, a different version on different days ; he, like myself, having learned 

 a little of fifteen or twenty different languages, would necessarily be at a loss, with 



