652 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[April 25, 1908. 
Wonderful Indian Pictures. 
For some years it has been known that Mr. 
E. S. Curtis, of Seattle, was engaged in the 
task of collecting material for a colossal work 
on the North American Indians. This work 
—to consist of twenty quarto volumes accom¬ 
panied by twenty folio portfolios—is intended 
to illustrate pictorially and descriptively all 
those tribes of Indians in the United States 
and Alaska which still retain something of their 
primitive habits, and practice some of their old 
ways. The work of collecting this material is 
being carried on by Mr. Curtis with the aid 
of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, of New York, 
has the cordial approval and support of the 
President of the United States and is under the 
general editorial charge of Mr. Frederick Webb 
Hodge, of Washington, the secretary of the 
Anthropological Society and editor of the 
American Anthropologist. The publication of 
the twenty volumes and twenty portfolios will 
naturally extend over considerable time, but it 
is planned to issue three volumes a year, and 
to complete the entire work within seven years. 
The two first volumes and the two portfolios 
which go with them have just been published. 
Mr. Curtis, who began life as a photographer, 
commenced to collect this material about ten 
years ago; not then with the idea of under¬ 
taking the great work which he is now engaged 
in, but merely to take individual pictures of 
Indians. Although a photographer, Mr. Curtis 
is really an artist, who, instead of using brush, 
paint and canvas to give expression to the pic¬ 
tures which he sees, employes the camera. 
Being an artist, he long ago recognized the 
manner in which the Indian lends himself to 
the picturesque, and he chooses for his pictures 
that side of the Indian which by its closeness to 
nature appeals especially to the artist. 
No such beautiful representations of Indians, 
as those which he now gives us, have before 
been made. They are as wonderful on the side 
of fidelity to nature as on the side of art, and 
they are equally wonderful in the beauty of the 
photogravure reproductions which in strength, 
completeness and color have done ample justice 
to Mr. Curtis’ beautiful pictures. 
The descriptive matter is exceedingly interest¬ 
ing, the history of the tribes being given in so 
popular a way as to touch the imagination of 
the general reader, and being also, so far as ;t 
goes, of high scientific interest, for many things 
not hitherto known are told about the tribes 
treated. To the brief general account of each 
tribe, dealing with history, habits of life, re¬ 
ligious beliefs, myths and ceremonial life, is 
added at the end of each volume an appendix 
which gives much linguistic and other valuable 
information, and so is a real mine of interest 
for the serious student. 
The two volumes now just issued deal with 
tribes of the southwest. The name Apache was 
long one of terror in Arizona and New Mexico, 
and with reason. For many years their hostile 
bands slaughtered settlers and avoided the 
troops, scourging the new region in bitter re¬ 
venge for wrongs earlier inflicted on their 
people. Yet we know that fifty years ago the 
Apaches were a kindly, friendly tribe, some¬ 
what suspicious of the whites on account of 
injuries already committed, yet willing to help 
them by gifts of food and clothing and trans¬ 
portation. The Apaches have perhaps been the 
least known of any of our Indians, and Mr. 
Curtis has discovered many new things about 
them. He had the good fortune to be in the 
country of the Apache when the new Messiah 
craze reached its culmination, and had thus an 
opportunity to observe the rise and progress of 
one of those waves of religious enthusiasm 
which have so many times stirred the hearts 
and roused the hopes of these simple people. 
In this volume appears, too, the account of 
the Navajoes—except the great Sioux nation— 
the largest tribe of American Indians. These 
people are self-supporting by means of their 
flocks and herds and their efforts at agriculture. 
They travel back and forth, here and there over 
their great reservation of ’ more than fourteen 
thousand square miles, leading their flocks at 
different seasons to the pastures which suit their 
needs; in spring to the mesas, where the winter 
rains have produced a scanty growth of grass; 
in summer up into the higher mountains, and 
when autumn comes with its deep snows, back 
again down to the wooded uplands where there 
is grass for the sheep and fuel for winter 
warmth for man. 
The account of their life, their beliefs, their 
folk tales and the ceremonial based on these 
myths is extremely interesting. 
The second volume deals with other Indian 
tribes of the Southwest, the Pimas and Yumas, 
and their allies, agricultural people and builders 
of those monuments of the Southwest, which 
indicate a great population now dispersed and 
vanished, and a culture that it is hard to be¬ 
lieve was no higher than that possessed by 
existing tribes. These were among the people 
met by the early Franciscan Fathers, whose 
reports of the wonderful civilization of the 
Pueblos and of the magnificence' of the seven 
cities of Cibola drew to the north the great ex¬ 
pedition of Coronado with its vast labors, its 
long journeys and its barren results. 
The extraordinarily complicated ritual of the 
Pueblo tribes has been many times described 
and pictured, but it remained for Mr. Curtis 
to take part in such ceremonies as the snake 
dance and those which precede and follow it, 
and finally to be enrolled as a priest of this 
ceremony. 
Within the limits of a notice, so brief as this 
must be, little can be said about the marvelous 
pictures which accompany this work. They 
appeal to the popular mind, to the student of 
humanity, to the ethnologist and to the artist. 
To be appreciated they must be seen, and to 
see them is worth a long journey. When com¬ 
pleted, the work will comprise a series of repre¬ 
sentative Indian types absolutely unequalled by 
anything in the world, and one which can never 
be equalled, because the opportunity for taking 
such pictures is rapidly passing, and because the 
man who is able to see such pictures and then 
to take them will not again be born again in our 
generation. 
Mr. Curtis shows great ingenuity of expres¬ 
sion in his pictures. He does not see the In¬ 
dian with material eyes—the wretched ward of 
the Government in his jioverty and latter day 
commonplaceness—he sees him as the Indian 
really is, a natural man, and he shows us his 
nearness to nature. „The picture entitled, “A 
Vanishing Race” is full of poetry and pathos, 
for what could be more significant than the long 
line of shadow figures passing on into the dark 
ening distance. Mr. Curtis’ nature is imagina¬ 
tive, and by the unconscious use of compositiot 
and the massing of darks and lights he secures 
effects which commend his pictures as grea 
works of art. 
Skunk Tales. 
Knoxville, Tenn., March 31. — Editor Fores 
and Stream: To-day we seem as far from ai 
adjudication of the skunk carrying question a 
when the case was called, and although mucl 
interesting information has been gathered it al 
seems to have established no fact, excepting tha 
no one seems to have been able to forget any 
thing he has ever learned about skunks. 
One actual experience is about the average 
and with due respect to the courage of the mai 
who has more I do not unqualifiedly commem 
his judgment. 
Hunting rabbits, accompanied by a smal 
colored youth and several mongrel dogs, I hai 
mine—long years ago—and concluded then, fo 
all time, that I needed no instructions on th< 
manner of carrying skunks, but would grate 
fully receive hints as to how to keep out o 
reach of them. And then I was only a spectato 
of the real incident, but rather close to it, am 
the wind my way. 
The dogs treed under a large flat rock an< 
the colored boy dragged one away and took it 
place to peer in under the rock while I stood jus 
behind and a little one side, fortunately. Th- 
dogs had been crowding in under the rock, dig 
ging and making a terrible row, but nothing wa 
in the air to indicate that we had anything elsi 
than the much sought rabbit under the rock. 
But it was a case of Bunker Hill tactics. H 
withheld his fire until he saw the whites of th- 
enemy’s eyes, which he did when my companioi 
thrust his head into the hole and peered at him 
The ground sloped away behind us, and thi 
stricken boy just doubled up like a fish worn 
and rolled down the hill, yelling like an Indian 
and I took to my heels. I never saw the bo; 
again, but I heard him some time after losing 
sight of him. My retreat led in another direc 
tion from his, and the first thing I encounterec 
was a fence. Whether I got over it, under it, o 
broke through it, I never knew. Nor do I knov 
that I really ran a mile before getting a breath 
as it seemed, but I do know that I ran a mill 
and walked several more before getting a breatl 
that did me any good. • 
■The more evidence given in the case thi 
further we seem from a verdict, and I fear i 
will come to be a case like one tried befori 
Uncle Waddy, a justice of the peace in the earl; 
history of Kentucky. 
Two neighbors had gotten into a controversy 
over the ownership of a hog, and the whole set¬ 
tlement took sides. It finally grew into a law 
suit and was tried before Uncle Waddy. Aftei 
about half the neighborhood had sworn positively 
that the hog belonged to one man, and the othei 
half that it belonged to the other man, Uncl< 
Waddy gave his decision : ‘’There ain't no pre 
pondr’ance of evidence. You air jest where yor 
started and will have to begin over again.” 
Lewis Hopki ns. 
The Forest and Stream may be obtained fron 
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supply you regularly. 
