362 
t AtMiL 30, 1904. 
selves with paddling about and offering bananas, plan- 
tain and alligator pears for exchange. These three 
products of the soil, with the fish which they net and 
cstch, form the chief subsistence of the Indians. On 
looking closely I found that most of those which had 
come out to visit us were boys, most of them little fellows 
not more than eight or nine years old and some of them 
evidently not more than five, and here they were paddling 
about in the open sea, in spite of the sharks which infest 
these waters, with a total disregard of possible mishaps. 
Curiosity overcame the distrust of one of them and 
enabled us to get a good photograph while he was trying 
to decide whether to stay and see what was going on or 
jump overboard. His name was Sammy, so the trader 
learned, and he speaks for himself. 
Early the next morning we went ashore, taking along a 
trader to interpret, and saw the chief. He was a short 
m.an, not over five feet six inches, with close cut hair, 
: high cheek bones, deep reddish skin and very square 
shoulders, a characteristic of the tribe. Th-? general con- 
tour of his face suggested the Asiatic. His dress con- 
. sisted of a pair of overalls, a white cotton shirt and a 
I jaunty little^ yachting cap, made in Germany, the tout 
ensemble being rather original. There was no way of 
■ discovering by observation that the responsibility of the 
government of this particular key rested with him, as he 
^ v/ore no badge of office, his hut was not of unusual size, 
\ and there was nothing distinctive about him. The cur- 
: rent phrase with them on meeting a stranger is Ibi nuga, 
\ which means "What's your name?" The interpreter 
: gave ours and on asking the same question of the chief 
i was told, "Henry Clay." 
! There are between forty and fifty of these chiefs, 
I located on different of the larger keys along the coast, 
I and probably eight or ten have American names, such as 
■ Henry Clay, Washington Harvey and George Washing- 
ten. They receive no salary or remuneration of any kind 
for the responsibility of governing, and, it must be said, 
; that owing to_ the ordinarily peaceful natures of the 
natives the chiefs' duties are not onerous. They are 
elected by popular acclamation and govern by the consent 
; of those governed, with an absolute lack of safeguards, 
: such as a constitution, or law, or police, and an efficiency 
of decency and order which puts our civilized countries, 
with their complicated machinery of legislation and jus- 
; tice, to the blush. When the natives become tired of or 
dissatisfied with any chief they request him to resign and 
he henceforth retires into obscurity. A few cases only 
have there been of a chief refusing to be shelved, all of 
them attended with disastrous results, they having no 
scruples about killing a chief or anybody else if he stands 
in the way of the accustomed order of things. Several 
have as a badge of office plain polished mahogany sticks 
about three feet long, but very little significance is at- 
tached to them. 
The head chief, who lives at Sasardi, a few miles south 
c f the Isle of Pines, which marked the nearest approach 
cf Colombian troops to Colon during the recent imbroglio, 
IS distinguished by a flag pole which flies no flag, and 
v/hich constitutes the only external difference from the 
sub-chiefs. He is probably the most intelligent Indian 
on the coast, having been once to the United States when 
a young boy and to Bogota several times to treat with 
the Colombian Government. His sense of justice is well 
defined by his method of dissolving a cocoanut corner 
which the Indians, the whole length of the coast, had 
formed about five years ago. In their haste to get rich 
they unwisely put the price at $40 a thousand, Colombian 
silver, an almost prohibitive figure. The traders refused 
to buy and for two _ months not a nut changed hands. 
P'inally, the head chief summoned to him the youngest 
trader on the coast, a New Englander by birth, and as 
shrewd a man as could be met with, and said to him, 
"My friend, it has been told to me that while the other 
traders cursed and threatened my people for not selling 
our nuts, you, though losing much money every day 
through haying men and vessels idle, said to my people, 
'The price is too high. I will not buy. The nuts belong 
to you and my goods and money belong to me. Good, 
then keep your nuts and I will keep my goods.' That 
IS fair dealing," continued the chief, "my people are ig- 
norant but they admire truth. I give you the pick of 
my people's nuts at the former price." The young Amer- 
ican bought praclically the whole market and cleared 
over twelve thousand dollars by his appreciation of the 
Indian character, while the rival concern, believing in 
m^ore high-handed methods of finance, were unable to buy 
a nut. 
The language is most peculiar and very difficult to 
understand because of the use of the same words to ex- 
press different meanings, and because the verb is not used. 
Thus their sentences are abrupt and disconnected, and 
the thought obscured, except to one of long acquaintance 
with their tongue. Without exaggeration, I should say 
that it is more difficult to master than any of the six 
languages most commonly spoken throughout the world 
to-day. It does not seem to have developed or enriched 
itself in any way by assimilation of words or phrases 
from other tongues, and may safely be said to be prac- 
tically the same as it was long before Columbus ever saw 
the Western Hemisphere. 
The same tendency of segregation is very noticeable in 
their marriage customs. Intercourse with other tribes 
or peoples is not indulged in or thought of, and thus their 
native intelligence, which at times betrays itself in aston- 
ishing ways, lies dormant for the lack of infusion of out- 
side blood to quicken it to life. On coming to marriage- 
able age the Indian maiden is kept in seclusion for a 
period of three days, attended by a number of the oldest 
women of the village, and her hair cropped close, in 
which fashion she wears it for the rest of her life. Mar- 
riage is a mere agreement between the man and woman, 
there being no attendant ceremony and no obligations 
except that they live together until death parts them and 
that the man support his wife's father. The mother-in- 
law is thus happily ignored, and it can hardly be doubted 
that in this manner one potent cause for the severance of 
the conjugal tie is removed. Divorce is, of course, un- 
heard of, and separation most rare, and in cases where it 
does occur neither party is allowed to remarry before the 
death of one of them. If immoral intercourse should be 
perpetrated and discovered the head men in the com- 
munity take matfers into their own hands and the offend- 
ers when caught are put to death. And there can be no 
question that the effect of this custom is morally most 
salutary and economically most judicious. 
The women are a little shorter than the men and prob- 
ably average in height about five feet two. They wear, 
for the most part, fancy short kimonas of gaudy yellow, 
black and red combinations, cut off at the elbows, a 
breech cloth, and blue jeans to the knees. On their legs 
from infancy are tightly wrapped above and below the calf 
bands of fancy native bead work, the result of which is 
to make the calf very prominent. For adornment they 
wear thin nose and ear rings about the size of an Amer- 
ican half dollar, and about her neck the mistress of the 
house strings her lord's money, Chinese fashion. The 
Colombian dollar and half dollar are the only coins used 
oil the coast, and the wealthiest woman we saw was 
v/earing a string of probably two hundred of the latter. 
The women are more carefully kept from the near view 
cf strangers than is customary in Turkey, and it was only 
the greatest good fortune that enabled us to procure one 
cf the photographs here shown. The lady here repro- 
duced had never seen a camera and did not really know 
what was going on, as the photographer was screened by 
the overhanging eaves of a hut. They are not all so 
ignorant, however, as the experience of a trader whom we 
met attests. Being something of a collector, and hoping 
to get some pictures of the natives, he one day produced, 
v/hile trading, a kodak, telling the Indians that it was a 
machine that made a fine cloth for their women. "No," 
replied an old chief in his own tongue, "you lie, that is 
a machine to take our women to New York." They re- 
fused to deal with this particular trader from that day on, 
and, needless to say, the traders attempted to take no 
more pictures. 
Though they distrust the camera they actually fear the 
phonograph, which they think is the very devil himself, 
and they made such an impression on an agent who was 
sent down there by a New York concern that he did not 
look for any more customers until he had reached Car- 
thagena, 200 miles away. 
Their religion is crude; they believe in a God, but they 
neither specify his attributes nor accord him much power. 
He is an elusive deity, and is neither gratified by regular 
devotion or by altars, temples or any sort of sacrifice. 
Sunday is the same as any other day in San Bias. The 
deceased were once buried with all their property, but 
this custom has been dispensed with and they are now 
iiiterred about ten miles up the rivers, in a sitting posture, 
and facing the east, with nothing to mark the spot. 
There is no weeping or period of mourning and the in- 
cident is forgotten as soon as possible. 
The huts are built very simply, thatched over with palm 
leaves, so naturally that they appear to be a production 
of the soil, and so strongly as to weather the fiercest 
gales that sweep the coast. They consist generally of 
two rooms, one large, the sleeping apartment, and the 
other smaller, the kitchen. They use no couches or beds 
but sleep in single hammocks which the women weave 
from twine on hand looms, dye in variegated colors, and 
v/hich are really works of art. A fine hammock will take 
an expert native six weeks to make and will last a life- 
time. 
The men are poor bush hunters, but excel in diving, 
swimming and handling their little canoes. In sailing their 
dugouts, which carry mainsail and jib, one man handles 
the sheet rope and rudder and another, standing on the 
gunwale, holds to a rope attached to the top of the mast 
and by leaning out from the side when a gust comes man- 
ages to preserve the balance of the craft, which are in- 
finitely more cranky than the crankiest Adirondack canoe 
ever built. Thus they make good sailors, but seldom do 
they ship aboard any vessel which leaves the coast. 
The country inland is almost a closed book, and prac- 
tically nothing is known of the Indians who inhabit the 
mountains, a tribe of bushmen descended as the San Bias 
natives from the ancient Caribs, and of whom the former 
live in some dread. Fifteen miles up a couple of rivers 
in search for monkey and jaguar hunting is the furthest 
cur party penetrated, for at about this distance from the 
ccean our guides invariably refused to proceed further. 
In view of the deflection of the world's commerce to 
the Panama Canal, which seems assured, and which is 
at the very boundary of the land of those Indians, and 
the recent change of government of the department of 
Panama, in which the land wholly lies, it is a decidedly 
interesting speculation as to what will become of the un- 
known and unnoticed Indians. For centuries they have 
held their land, secured in peace, from the Government 
of Bogota and those which preceded it, always enjoying 
fair and generous treatment, exempt from taxation, and 
free from any sort of state burdens. By the events of a 
few short weeks they have been thrust unwittingly into 
a position where their friendship or hostility means much 
to both Panama and Colombia. Their land is the buffer 
between the two countries. In my opinion, everything 
tends to cause them to side with Colombia; she has been 
their friend, while Panama is the friend of the United 
States, whose people they distrust. There is no doubt 
that at the present time they are being exploited by emis- 
saries from Bogota, in proof of which I would cite the 
attack made by the Indians on the United States gunboat 
Bancroft last January, which was repelled without dam- 
age to either side by the discharge of a few rounds from 
the machine guns over the heads of the natives. 
Whichever way they turn the result, I think, will be 
the same. They lie between the devil and the deep sea. 
The land is the most fertile in the world. On account of * 
the trade winds, which blow continuously, it is the most 
healthy in Central America. It has industries which 
could be pushed profitably, and its very contiguity to the 
canal places it in the path of civilization, which super- 
imposed would be more destructive to the Indian than 
war. 
The pages of history are filled with instances of like 
character, and while they may be considered the mile- 
stones which mark the advance of civilization to its 
ultimate triumph, they are none the less the tombstones 
cf many a tribe and race conquered by the unequal con- 
test with advanced conditions of life. 
PHn,ip Le Boutillier. 
New York Citv. 
"This race problem is a. dreadful thing." "Yes," 
answered young Mrs. Torkins; "whenever I see Charley 
get a pencil and begin to figure on the entries in a race, 
I know there's going to be trouble." — Washington Star. 
Short Talks on Taxidermy. 
How to Skin and Preseive a Bird or Mammal. 
There are few things easier to do than to remove 
r.nd properly preserve the skin of a small bird or mam- 
mal, and yet few that to the inexperienced person seem 
so difficult. Without direction, one knows not how to 
begin nor how_ to proceed, and the first efforts of the 
self-taught taxidermist are sure to prove discouraging 
failures., 
I remember well my first attempt. The bird was a 
crow that I had shot from a window as it was flying 
over the house; it was the first bird that I had shot 
on the wing, and I wished to preserve it. As soon as 
I returned from school, I began to skin it, kept at 
the work until night, and after the evening meal, worked 
till bed time. By this time the skin was turned inside 
out, and fairly well cleaned, and in this condition I 
left It over night. After school next day I tried to 
turn It right side out, but the skin had dried and shrunk. 
I did not know enough to moisten it, so as to make 
it slip back, and in endeavoring to force the head back 
through the neck, to my great disappointment I split 
the skm, and was obliged to throw it away. Some 
similar experience has come to many a boy. 
To become a good taxidermist, one who can mount 
birds and mammals in an artistic and life-like man- 
ner, requires a deep love for nature, implying close 
observation and careful study, together with love for 
art, and much practice. Taxidermy, though considered 
a mechanical trade, is much more than that. It is a 
department of art, and is closely akin to sculpture. To 
attain the highest degree of excellence one must devote 
his life to it, and by study and work, through discour- 
agements and failures he may at last attain eminence. 
On the other hand, a little instruction and a little 
practice will enable any one to attain a fair degree of 
skill in preserving skins, which may be useful either for 
study or to be mounted in a collection. Nothing is 
more common than for the gunner to shoot some game 
or other bird with which he is unacquainted, and about 
which he is curious. He would like to save it, so as 
to submit it to some expert ornithologist, who can tell 
him what it is and something of its manners of life. 
If a rare bird it may have a certain scientific value, or, 
at least, have sufficient interest to be a desirable addi- 
tion to some collection. If the gunner understands how 
to remove and preserve the skin he is in a position at 
least to satisfy his own curiosity, and possibly to per- 
form a useful service to science. No month passes 
without the record in some ornithological periodical of 
the capture of certain birds in localities where, accord- 
ing to the experience of previous ornithological col- 
lectors, they have no business to occur. But, no doubt, 
every year hundreds of birds are killed whose occur- 
rences ought to be recorded, but, through the ignor- 
ance of those who shoot them, fail of such record. 
To say nothing of the gunners who like to possess a 
collection of game birds, representing all the species 
that they have killed, there are many young men and 
boys interested in natural history who wish to acquaint 
themselves with the birds and the mammals found in 
the localities where they reside. Such study of the local 
fauna is useful and profitable, provided it is intelligently 
undertaken, and under proper direction. But it is very 
wrong— hardly less than criminal — to make a collection 
of birds, or of mammals, from the mere desire to ac- 
cumulate a great number of specimens. The practice 
once so common of making large collections of birds' 
skins solely for purposes of exchange, or from a desire 
to have a large collection, is frowned on by all good 
ornithologists and is forbidden by the law, which, in 
rnany States, provides that small birds shall not be 
killed except by some one who possesses a license to 
kill for scientific purposes only. Usually such a license 
is granted on the recommendation of one or more 
competent ornithologists, none of whom in these days 
is likely to lend his sanction to the granting of a li- 
cense to a mere collector. 
In this, and the succeeding articles, I shall describe 
very briefly a common method of preparing the skins 
of birds and small mammals. There are a number of ex- 
cellent works on this subject, but several of them leave 
much to be desired in the matter of detail. 
Small birds and mammals are commonly obtained 
either by shooting or trapping. The birds are usually 
taken with a shotgun, while mammals are more com- 
monly caught in traps of various descriptions, and these 
traps usually kill the animal at once. 
Gam.e birds and larger birds are killed in ways that 
are familiar to us all. Smaller birds are commonly 
taken with a shotgun, loaded with very light charges 
of powder, and of the smallest shot, usually dust shot, 
or No. 12. Often, however, for collecting the smallest 
birds, where the shot frequently has to be fired at a 
distance of only a few yards, the ordinary .12-gauge 
shotgun is too large, for it cannot be so lightly loaded 
that it will not cut the bird to pieces badly at very close 
range. For the collector, then, several devices have 
been invented, one of which is a shell fitting the cham- 
ber of an ordinary gun, and with extremely thick walls, 
and a small opening through it about the size of a 32- 
caliber rifle. Into the base of this shell, or auxiliary barrel 
may be slipped a small cartridge, lightly charged with 
powder and shot, and exploded by the firing pin of the 
gun. The length of the useable barrel for this small 
shell is less than three inches, but this small shell is 
used only for small birds, at a distance or four or five 
yards. 
Another gun is described by Mr. C. J. Maynard, in 
his Manual of Taxidermy, as follows: "This gun con- 
sists of two brass tubes, a smaller one within the larger, 
with an air space between them, thus greatly deadening 
the sound, and both are securely fastened to a finely 
nickel-plated, five-shot revolver. We make two sizes, 
a .22-gauge, the report of which is very slight, and a 
.32-gauge, which makes a little louder noise. The former 
will kill warblers at fifteen yards, and the latter at 
twenty yards, while birds like jays, thrushes and robins 
