The Human Race

209. – MEXICAN HAWKER.

The Aztecs, or primitive Mexicans, like their predecessors, the Toltecs, were, as we have said, strangers in Anahuac. Before their arrival this plateau had been inhabited by different races, some of which had acquired a certain degree of civilization, whilst others were utterly barbarous. The Aztecs spread themselves extensively in Central America.

The Olmecas are mentioned among the most ancient tribes, and they are supposed to have peopled the West India Islands and South America. This nation shared the soil of Mexico with the Xicalaucas, Coras, Tepanecas, Tarascas, Mixtecas, Tzapotecas, and the Othomis. The last named and the Totonacs were two barbarous races occupying the country near Lake Tezcuco, previously to the coming of the Chichimecas. Whilst all the other known languages of America are polysyllabic, that of the Othomis is monosyllabic.

Farther to the north, and beyond the northern frontiers of the Mexican empire, dwelt the Huaxtecas. The Tarascas inhabited the wide and fertile regions of Mechoacan, to the north of Mexico, and were always independent of that kingdom. Their sonorous and harmonious tongue differed from all the others. In civilization and the arts they advanced side by side with the Mexicans, who were never able to subdue them; but their king submitted without resistance to the rule of the Spaniards.

Moyas and Lencas. – These are tribes which still live in a wild state in the forests situated between the Isthmus of Panama and that of Thuantépec, but an inquiry into their manners and customs would offer no features of interest. The life of savage nations exhibits an uniformity which greatly abridges our task.

North-eastern Family

In the fifteenth century the North-eastern family occupied that immense expanse of North America which is comprised between the Atlantic Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, but all its nations are now reduced to a few far from numerous tribes, confined to the west of the Mississippi.

The distinguishing qualities of the red race are strongly marked among these groups. A complexion of a light cinnamon-colour, a lengthened head, a long and aquiline nose, horizontal eyes, a depressed forehead, a robust constitution, and a tall stature constitute their principal physical characteristics, to which must be added senses sharpened to an extraordinary degree. They have a habit of painting their bodies, and especially their faces, red. Their disposition is proud and independent, and they support pain with stoical courage.

Almost all these Indian tribes have already disappeared in consequence of the furious war waged upon them by the Europeans. Those that lived in olden times on the declivities of the mountains facing the Atlantic are very nearly extinct. Among such are the Hurons, Iroquois, Algonquins, and the Natchez, rendered famous by Chateaubriand, and the Mohicans, whom Cooper has immortalized.

We cannot speak detailedly here of these different nations, but in order to give an idea of them we shall open Chateaubriand’s “Voyage en Amérique,” and, having quoted a few lines from it, we will make the reader acquainted with the pith of the observations made in our own day in these same countries by contemporary travellers.

Speaking of the Muscogulges and the Simnioles, Chateaubriand writes in the following terms: —

“The Simnioles and the Muscogulges are rather tall in stature: and, by an extraordinary contrast, their wives are the smallest race of women known in America; they seldom depass a height of four feet two or three inches; their hands and feet resemble those of an European girl nine or ten years old. But nature has compensated them for this kind of injustice: their figure is elegant and graceful; their eyes are black, extremely long, and full of languor and modesty. They lower their eyelids with a sort of voluptuous bashfulness; if a person did not see them when they speak, he would believe himself listening to children uttering only half-formed words.”

The great writer passed along the borders of the lake to which its name has been given by the Iroquois colony of the Onondagas, and visited the “Sachem” of that people: —

“He was,” says Chateaubriand, “an old Iroquois in the strictest sense of the word. His person preserved the memory of the former customs and bygone times of the desert: large, pinked ears, pearl hanging from the nose, face streaked with various colours, little tuft of hair on the top of the head, blue tunic, cloak of skins, leathern belt, with its scalping-knife and tomahawk, tattooed arm, mocassins on his feet, and a porcelain necklace in his hand.”

The following is the sketch of an Iroquois: —

“He was of lofty stature, with broad chest, muscular legs, and sinewy arms. His large round eyes sparkled with independence; his whole mien was that of a hero. Shining on his forehead might be seen high combinations of thought and exalted sentiments of soul. This fearless man was not in the least astonished at firearms when for the first time they were used against him; he stood firm to the whistling of bullets and the roar of cannon as if he had been hearing both all his life, and appeared to heed them no more than he would a storm. As soon as he could procure himself a musket, he used it better than an European. He did not abandon for it his tomahawk, his knife, or his bow and arrows, but added to them the carbine, pistol, poniard, and axe, and seemed never to possess arms sufficient for his valour. Doubly arrayed in the murderous weapons of Europe and America, with his head decked with bunches of feathers, his ears pinked, his face smeared black, his arms dyed in blood, this noble champion of the New World became as formidable to behold, as he was to contend against, on the shore which he defended foot by foot against the foreigner.”

With this terrible portrait Chateaubriand contrasts the blithe countenance of the Huron, who had nothing in common with the Iroquois but language: —

“The gay, sprightly, and volatile Huron, of rash, dazzling valour, and tall, elegant figure, had the air of being born to be the ally of the French.”

We now come to travellers of our own day. Fig. 210 is a sketch of the costumes of the wild Indians dwelling at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Missouri, and who bear the name of Creeks.

210. – CREEK INDIANS.

In his travels through the United States and Canada, M. H. Deville had an opportunity of visiting an establishment of Iroquois. These savages were remarkable for their reddish colour and coarse features. They wore round hats with broad brims, and robed themselves in Spanish fashion in a piece of dark cloth.

The manufacture of the native coverings for the legs and feet forms the principal occupation of the women, and under the pretext of purchasing some of their handiwork M. Deville entered several Iroquois dwellings.

Divested of the thick mantle worn by them out of doors, the women had assumed a long, coloured smock-frock with tight-fitting pantaloons that reached to the ankles, and their varnished shoes allowed coarse worsted stockings to be seen. Earrings and a gold necklace constituted their chief ornament. Their hair is drawn up to the top of the head and tied there in a knot. To say that their features are agreeable would be untrue, but in early youth their figures are rather handsome. Work, order, and cleanliness reign in their household. Their brothers and husbands are wood-cutters, steersmen, or conductors of rafts.

The same traveller met with some Chippeway Indians on the heights of Lake Pepin. Their stature was tall, but they had coarse features, and a skin of a very dark reddish colour. Half their face was covered by a thick layer of vermilion extending as far as their hair, which was plaited over the crown. They wore long leather gaiters, tied at the sides by innumerable thongs, and over a sort of tattered blouse was thrown a large woollen blanket, which completely covered them. One individual, armed with a long steel blade shaped like a dagger, had stuck his pipe in his hair.

In his “Voyage dans les Mauvaises Terres du Nebraska,” M. de Girardin (of Maine-et-Loire) describes his journey across part of the Missouri basin occupied by some free and wild Indians.

He brought back with him sketches and illustrations of those tribes, the principal among which are the Blackfeet, and the Dacotas, or Sioux, and was present at a grand council of the latter nation, The chiefs of the various clans, clad in their most brilliant costumes, harangued the warriors, whilst a score of young braves, without any other covering than a thick coat of vermilion or ochre, made their steeds curvet and executed numberless fanciful manœuvres. The horses were painted yellow, red, and white, and had their long tails decked with bright-coloured feathers.

211. – ENCAMPMENT OF SIOUX INDIANS.

An immense tent, composed of five or six lodges of bison-skins, was erected in the centre of the camp. The chiefs and principal warriors formed a circle, in the midst of which the agent, the governor of Fort St. Pierre, and his interpreters were stationed. According to Indian custom, the grand chief lit the calumet of peace, a magnificent pipe of red stone, the stem of which was a yard long and adorned with feathers of every hue. After some impassioned orations the council refused the travellers permission to pass over their territory in order to reach that of the Blackfeet.

Fig. 211 represents the encampment of these Indians visited by M. de Girardin: fig. 212 is a sketch of one of their horsemen, and fig. 213 a likeness of a Sioux warrior, all from the pencil of the same gentleman.

M. de Girardin happened to go to another camp, that of an old chief of the same tribe. It consisted of five or six tents, conical in shape, and made of bison-skins. Remarkable for their whiteness and cleanliness these habitations were covered with odd paintings which portrayed warriors smoking the calumet, horses, stags, and dogs. Numerous freshly scalped locks were hanging at the end of long poles. At the side of each tent, a kind of tripod supported quivers, shields of ox-hide, and spears embellished with brilliant plumage. A few young warriors of strongly marked features, with aquiline noses and herculean forms, but hideously daubed in black and white paint, were engaged in firing arrows at a ball which was rolled along the ground or thrown into the air.

212. – SIOUX WARRIOR.

The chiefs made the travellers seat themselves on skins of bears and bisons, and conversed with the interpreter, whilst M. de Girardin remained exposed to the curiosity of the young folks, women, and children. The girls ventured so far as to search his pockets and extract from them his knife, pencils, and notebook. The most inquisitive, a fine girl with very soft eyes and magnificent teeth, perceiving he had a long beard wished to assure herself that he was not shaggy all over like a bear, when the traveller took it into his head to put a little powder into the hand of the pretty inquisitor and lit it by means of a glass lens, an incident which gave a tremendous fright to the assemblage.

213. – A SIOUX CHIEF.

During a journey to the north-east of America in 1867, M. L. Simonin had an opportunity of visiting a Sioux village, and we avail ourselves of a few of his descriptions. It consisted of about a hundred huts, made with poles and bison skins, or pieces of stitched cloth. The entrance to them was by a low narrow hole covered over with a beaver skin. A fire blazed in the centre of each hovel, and around it were pots and kettles for the repast. The smoke which escaped at the top rendered this abode intolerable. Beds, mattresses, cooking utensils, quarters of wild bison, some raw, others dried and smoked, were scattered here and there. Half-naked children, girls and boys, scampered about outside, as well as troops of dogs that constituted at once their protectors, their vigilant sentinels, and their food.

M. Simonin went inside many of the huts, where warriors were silently playing cards, using leaden balls for stakes. Others, accompanied by the noise of discordant singing and tambourines, were playing at a game resembling the Italian “mora,” the score of which was marked with arrows stuck in the ground. Some tents, in which sorcery, or “great medicine,” was being practised, were prohibited to the visitor. The women were sitting in a ring round some of the wigwams, doing needle-work, ornamenting necklaces or mocassins with beads, or tracing patterns on bison skins.

Some old matrons were preparing hides stretched on stakes, by rubbing them with freestone and steel chisels set in bone handles. The squaws of the Sioux, on whom, moreover, all domestic cares fall, are far from handsome. They are the slaves of the man who purchases them for a horse or the skin of a bison. The great Sioux nation numbers about thirty-five thousand individuals.

The same gentleman from whom we have just been quoting, was enabled to make some observations among the Crows, a tribe of Prairie Indians who are neighbours of the Sioux. Their features are broadly marked, their stature gigantic, and their frames athletic, while, according to M. Simonin, their majestic countenances recall the types of the Roman Cæsars as we see them delineated on antique medals.

The traveller was admitted into the hut of the chiefs, where the “Sachems” were seated in a circle, and as he touched their hands successively, they uttered a guttural “a hou,” a sound which serves as a salutation among the Red Skins. He smoked the calumet.

These men had their cheeks tattooed in vermilion. They were scarcely covered; one had a woollen blanket, the next a buffalo hide or the incomplete uniform of an officer, while the upper part of another’s body was naked. Several wore collars or eardrops of shells or animals’ teeth. Hanging from the neck of one was a silver medal bearing the effigy of a President of the United States, which he had received when he went on a mission to Washington in 1853; and a horse, rudely carved in the same metal, adorned the breast of another of their number.

M. Simonin was afterwards present at a council of the Crow Indians, but we do not intend to give any report of this conference of savages, of which, however, the reader may form some idea by casting a glance at fig. 214.

In dealing with the relations existing between the wild Indians of North America and the civilized inhabitants, that is to say, the Americans of the United States, M. Simonin enters into some interesting reflections which we believe we ought to reproduce.

“A singular race,” says M. Simonin, “is that of the Red Skins, among whom Nature has so lavishly apportioned the finest land existing on the globe, a rich alluvial soil, deep, level, and well watered; still this race has not yet emerged from the primitive stage which must be everywhere traversed by humanity at the outset – the stage of hunters and nomads, the age of stone! If the Whites had not brought them iron, the Indians would still use flint weapons, like man before the Deluge, who sheltered himself in caverns and was contemporary in Europe with the mammoth. Beyond the chase and war, the wild tribes of North America shun work; women, among them, perform all labour. What a contrast to the toiling, busy population around them, whose respect for women is so profound! This population hems them in, completely surrounds them at the present day, and all is over with the Red Skins if they do not consent to retire into the land reserved for them.

214. – CROW INDIANS IN COUNCIL.

“And even there will industry and the arts spring up? How poorly the Red race is gifted for music and singing is well known: the fine arts have remained in infancy among them; and writing, unless it consists in rude pictorial images, is utterly unknown. They barely know how to trace a few bead patterns on skins, and although these designs are undoubtedly often happily grouped and the colours blended with a certain harmony, that is all. Industry, apart from a coarse preparation of victuals and the tanning of hides and dressing of furs, is also entirely null. The Indian is less advanced than the African negro, who knows at least how to weave cloths and dye them. The Navajoes, alone, manufacture some coverings with wool.

“The free Indians of the Prairies, scattered between the Missouri and the Rocky Mountains, may be reckoned at about a hundred thousand, while all the Indians of North America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, are estimated at four times that number. These calculations may possibly be slightly defective, statistics or any accurate census being quite wanting. The Red men themselves never give more than a notation of their tents or lodges, but the assemblage of individuals contained in each of these differs according to the tribe, and sometimes in the same tribe; hence the impossibility of any mathematically exact computation.

“In the north of the Prairies the great family of the Sioux numbering thirty-five thousand is remarkable above all others. The Crows, Bigbellies, Blackfeet, &c., who occupy Idaho and Montana, form, when taken altogether, a smaller population than the Sioux – probably about twenty thousand. In the centre and south, the Pawnees, Arapahoes, Shiennes, Yutes, Kayoways, Comanches, Apaches, &c., united, certainly exceed forty thousand in number. The territories of Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico are those which these hordes overrun. The Pawnees are cantoned in Nebraska, in the neighbourhood of the Pacific Railway, and the Yutes in the ‘parks’ of Colorado.

“These races possess many characteristics in common; they are nomadic, that is to say, they occupy no fixed place, live by fishing, or above all by hunting, and follow the wild buffalo in its migrations everywhere.

“A thoroughly democratic régime and a sort of communism control the relations of members of the same tribe with each other. The chiefs are nominated by election, and for a period, but are sometimes hereditary. The most courageous, he who has taken the greatest number of scalps in war or has slain most bisons, the performer of some brilliant exploit or a man of superior eloquence, all these have the right to be chosen chiefs. As long as he conducts himself well a chief retains his position; if he incur the least blame his successor is appointed. Chiefs lead the tribes to battle, and are consulted on occasions of difficulty, as are also the old men. The braves are the lieutenants of the chiefs, and hold second command in war. There is no judge in the tribes, and each one administers justice for himself and applies the law at his own liking.

“All these nations hunt and make war in the same manner, on horseback; with spear, bow and arrows, in default of revolvers and muskets, and using a buckler as a defence against the enemy’s blows. They scalp their dead foe and deck themselves with his locks; pillage and destroy his property, carry away his women and children captives, and frequently subject the vanquished, above all any white man falling into their hands, to horrible tortures before putting him to death.

“The squaws to whom the prisoner is abandoned exhibit the most revolting cruelty towards him, tearing out the eyes, tongue, and nails of their victim; burning him, chopping off a hand to-day, and a foot to-morrow. When the captive is well tortured, a coal fire is lighted on his stomach and a yelling dance performed round him. Almost all Red Skins commit these atrocities phlegmatically towards the Whites when engaged in a struggle with them.

“Tribes often make war among themselves on the smallest pretext, for a herd of bisons they are pursuing, or a prairie where they wish to encamp alone. They have not indeed any place reserved, but they sometimes wish to keep one so, to the exclusion of every other occupant. Nor is it uncommon for the same tribe to split itself into two hostile clans. A few years ago the Ogallallas when maddened by whisky fought among themselves with guns, and have been broken up ever since into two bands, one of which, the ‘Ugly-Faces,’ is commanded by Red Cloud, and the other, by Big-Mouth and Pawnee-Killer.

215. – PAWNEE INDIANS.

“The languages of all the tribes are distinct; but perhaps a linguist would recognize among them some common roots, in the same way as in our own day they have been found to exist between European tongues and those of India. These languages all obey the same grammatical mechanism; they are ‘agglutinative,’ or ‘polysynthetic,’ and not ‘analytic’ or ‘inflected,’ that is to say, the words can be combined with each other to form a single word expressing a complete idea; but relation, gender, number, etc., are not indicated by modifications of the substantive. I pass over the other characteristics which distinguish agglutinative from inflected languages. The dialects of the Red Skins have not, or seem not to have, any affinity in the different terms of their vocabulary, which is, besides, often very limited.

“In order to comprehend each other the tribes have adopted by common accord a language of signs and gestures which approximates to that of the deaf and dumb. In this way all the Indians are capable of a mutual understanding, and a Yute, for instance, can converse without difficulty for several hours with an Arrapahoe, or the latter with a Sioux.

“The Whites are not acquainted with the languages of the Prairie Indians, or know them very badly. Frequently, there is but one interpreter for the same tongue, often a very poor one, merely understanding the idiom he has translated, not speaking it. Many, à fortiori, are not able to write the language which they interpret. Neither Dr. Mathews, John Richard, nor Pierre Chêne could spell for me in English characters the names of the Crow chiefs. How would it be in the case of the Arrapahoes or Apaches, whose strongly guttural speech is only accentuated by the tips of the lips?

“In all this it must be understood that I speak only of the tribes of the Prairies, and not of those who lived in olden times on the declivities of the mountains overlooking the Atlantic or skirting the Mississippi. The majority of the latter are, as is known, extinct, the Algonquins, Hurons, Iroquois, Natchez and Mohicans, and it is also well to avow that France has contributed in a large measure to their disappearance.

“The residue of these tribes, which I shall term Atlantic – Delawares, Cherokees, Seminoles, Osages, and Creeks – is now cantoned in the reserves, especially in the Indian Territory, where little by little the Red Skins are losing their distinctive characteristics. Histories and authentic documents regarding all these races are extant, whilst only very little is known up to the present concerning those of the Prairies. The greater part of the legends and traditions with which people endow them are only due to the invention of travellers.

216. – A CHAYENE (SHIENNES) CHIEF.

“It is towards a new territory analogous to the one just mentioned, and bordering upon it, that the Commissioners of the Union have recently pushed back the five great nations of the south; while they intend to indicate a reserve of the same kind in the north of Dacota to the Crows and the Sioux, if they find them well disposed to accept it.

“And then, people may say, what will become of the Indians? For this is the question which every one asks when he hears the Red Skins spoken of. If the Prairie tribes go into the reserves, the same will happen to them which has befallen those of the Atlantic borders; little by little they will lose their customs, their wild habits; they will yield insensibly to the sedentary and agricultural life, and, step by step – last phase, of which the first example remains to be seen – their country will pass from the rank of a territory to that of a state. Arrived at this final stage the Indian will be altogether blended with the White; after a few generations he will not perhaps be more distinguishable from him than the Frank is discernible from the Gaul among us, or the Norman from the Saxon in England.