THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 743 



ing by the chase or fishing, their villages usually near a stream or well- 

 favored locality for wood, water, and grass. In no place did he observe 

 permanency. Even the Mandans he traces to an origin and locality far 

 away from the banks of the Missouri, where he found them. He early 

 detected the Indian's love of practicing his picturesque imagination, and 

 that the Indian mind can be easily led, after confidence is obtained. An 

 ingenious person can find corroboration for almost any theory which he 

 may pour into an Indian's ear. A people without a written language 

 and whose monuments are the most perishable, who live almost alone 

 in traditions, and surely so prior to this century, are weak vessels for his- 

 tory, and food for ingenuity. 



General Ely B. Parker, November 26, 1884, himself an Indian, who 

 has had large experience with Indians, having been Commissioner of 

 Indian Affairs of the United States, says : 



White men visiting Indians for information usually ask specific questions, to which 

 direct and monosyllabic answers are generally given. An ingenious or designing per- 

 son can frame questions for Indians and get about what answer he requires in this 

 way. 



Mr. Catlin relied more upon what he saw than what he heard, and 

 the great and lasting value of his work is that he wrote with pen and 

 pencil. He told the story and painted the object. 



HIS WRITINGS. 



As an author or writer Mr. Catlin was simple, direct, and positive. 

 His works contain but little coloring. He wrote as one would talk. 

 His descriptive powers were unusually good. He saw with the eye of 

 an artist, and described and wrote with the truth of a woman. The 

 picturesque with him was merely accident ; truth was what he sought 

 for. The following account of the Indian manufacture of fiint arrow- 

 heads is illustrative of his descriptive powers : 



APACHES MAKING FLINT-HEAD ARROWS IN 1855. 



Their manufacture of flint arrow and spear heads, as well as their bows of bone and 

 sinew, are equal, if not superior, to the manufactures of any of the tribes existing ; 

 and their use of the bow from their horses' backs whilst running at full speed, may 

 vie with the archery of the Sioux or Cheyennes, or any of the tribes east of the Rocky 

 Mountains. 



Like most of the tribes west of and in the Rocky Mountains, they manufacture the 

 blades of their spears and points for their arrows of flints, and also of obsidian, which 

 is scattered over those volcanic regions west of the mountains ; and, like the other 

 tribes, they guard as a profound secret the mode by which the flints and obsidian are 

 broken into the shapes they require. 



Their mode is very simple, and evidently the only mode by which those peculiar 

 shapes and delicacy of fracture can possibly be produced ; for civilized artisans have 

 tried in various parts of the world, and with the best of tools, without success in 

 copying them. 



Every tribe has its factory, in which these arrow-heads are made, and in those only 

 certain adepts are able or allowed to make them for the use of the tribe. Erratic 

 bowlders of flint are collected (and sometimes brought an immense distance) and 



