163 
to endure privation. They divide the produce of their fisheries 
equally with all who come . . The most ambitious native 
never dreamed of creating a tyranny or of subverting the established 
political constitution for his own advantage. So Indian tribes never 
knew those internal revolts that distracted the city states of ancient 
Greece and rendered our Saxon forefathers an easy prey to Danish 
and Norman invaders. 
Neither did they suffer from those virulent diseases, smallpox 
and measles, that decimated their ranks in historical times. Some 
ailments they had before Europeans came, ailments due to malnu- 
trition and other causes. For these they had specific remedies, prin- 
cipally herbal, a few of which are incorporated in our own materia 
medica. Skeletons from prehistoric graves seem to indicate a very 
healthy population, although the weaklings who died in infancy are 
probably very imperfectly represented in these remains. Hardships 
caused premature ageing in most tribes, and the aged and infirm were 
not always the objects of loving care. Among the Iroquoians and 
Pacific Coast tribes, where the conditions of life were easiest, they 
passed their closing years in comparative comfort, but among the 
more migratory peoples of eastern and northern Canada any who 
through illness or old age could no longer keep up with the march 
were abandoned on the trail or deliberately killed: “ It is the custom 
of this tribe (Montagnais) to kill their fathers and mothers when 
they are so old that they can walk no longer, thinking that they are 
doing them a good service; for otherwise they would be compelled 
to die of hunger, as they have become unable to follow the others 
when they change their location. 
It is not easy to explain either historically or psychologically 
the great variety of methods employed by the Indians in disposing 
of their dead. The Iroquoians deposited them on platforms raised 
several feet above the ground, but collected them all at intervals of 
about twelve years, stripped them of their flesh, and piled the bones 
in a common pit. Other tribes in eastern Canada and on the plains 
sometimes practised platform (or tree) burial followed by inhuma- 
tion, but most of them kept the two methods separate, adopting one 
1 “Jesuit Relations," vol. xliii, pp. 271-273. 
2 “ Jesuit Relation.s,” vol. iv, p. 199. Cf. vol. v, p, 103 et pas.sim. Hoarne ; Op. cit,, p. 218 f. 
Stefansson, V.: “The Stefaiissnii-Anderson Aretie Expedition"; Anthropological Papers of the Am. 
Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. xiv, p. 283 (New York, 1919). 
