The American Race

The opinion was formerly entertained that this great family moved to the locations where they were first met from some western home; but the researches of modern students have refuted this. Mr. Dorsey has shown by an analysis of their most ancient traditions that they unanimously point to an eastern origin, and that the central and southern bands did not probably cross the Mississippi much before the fourteenth century.[114 - J. Owen Dorsey, “Migrations of Siouan Tribes,” in the American Naturalist, 1886, p. 111. The numerous and profound studies of this stock by Mr. Dorsey must form the basis of all future investigation of its history and sociology.] This is singularly supported by the discovery of Mr. Horatio Hale that the Tuteloes of Virginia were a branch of the Dakotas; and further, the investigations of Catlin among the Mandans resulted in showing that this nation reached the Missouri valley by travelling down the Ohio. They therefore formed a part of the great easterly migration of the North Atlantic tribes which seem to have been going on for many centuries before the discovery. In the extreme south, almost on the gulf coast of Louisiana, lived some small bands of Dakotas, known as Biloxis, Opelousas, Pascagoulas, etc. They were long supposed to speak an independent tongue, and only of late years has their proper position been defined.

Their frames are powerful, and the warriors of the Sioux have long enjoyed a celebrity for their hardihood and daring. The massacre of General Custer’s command, which they executed in 1876, was the severest blow the army of the United States ever experienced at the hands of the red man. With reference to cranial form they are dolichocephalic, sixteen out of twenty-three skulls in the collection of the Academy[115 - The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.] offering a cephalic index under 80.

The northern Dakotas do not seem to have had the same system of gentes which prevailed in most of the eastern tribes. Mr. Morgan was of the opinion that it had existed, but had been lost; this, however, requires further proof. There are many societies among them, but not of the nature of clans. Their chiefs hold their position by hereditary descent in the male line, though among the Winnebagoes the early traveller, Carver found the anomaly of a woman presiding over the tribe. The central bands, the Mandans and Minnetarees, recognized gentes with descent in the female line; while among the Poncas and Omahas there were also gentes, but with descent in the male line. The condition in this respect, of the members of this family, as also of that of the Athabascan, seems to prove that the gentile system is by no means a fixed stadium of even American ancient society, but is variable, and present or absent as circumstances may dictate.

A few members of this family, notably the Mandans, attained a respectable degree of culture, becoming partly agricultural, and dwelling most of the year in permanent abodes; but the majority of them preferred depending on the bounties of nature, pursuing the herds of buffaloes over the boundless pastures of the plains, or snaring the abundant fish in the myriad streams which traversed their country.

The mythology of the Dakotas is concerned with the doings of giants in whom we recognize personifications of the winds and storms. One of these is Haokah, to whom the warrior sends up an invocation when about to undertake some perilous exploit. The thunder is caused by huge birds who flap their wings angrily and thus produce the portentous reverberations. The waters are the home of Unktahe, a mighty spirit who lurks in their depths. Indeed, to the Dakotas, and not to them alone, but to man in their stage of thought, “All nature is alive with gods. Every mountain, every tree is worshipped, and the commonest animals are the objects of adoration.”[116 - Mrs. Mary Eastman, Dahcotah; or Life and Legends of the Sioux, p. 211. (New York, 1849.)]

DAKOTA LINGUISTIC STOCK

Arkansas, on lower Arkansas river.

Assiniboins, on Saskatchewan and Assiniboin rivers.

Biloxis, in Rapides Parish, Louisiana.

Crows, on Yellowstone river.

Iowas, on the Iowa river.

Kansas, on the Kansas river.

Mandans, on the middle Missouri river.

Minetarees, on the Yellowstone river.

Ogallalas, sub-tribe of Sioux.

Omahas, on the Elkhorn river.

Osages, on Arkansas and Osage rivers.

Ottoes, on the Platte river.

Poncas, on the middle Missouri river.

Quapaws, on lower Arkansas river.

Sioux, on upper Mississippi and affluents.

Tetons, sub-tribe of Sioux.

Tuteloes, on upper Roanoke river, Va.

Winnebagoes, western shore of Lake Michigan.

Yanktons, on upper Iowa river.

10. THE KIOWAYS

The upper basin of the Canadian branch of the Arkansas River was the home of the Kioways. At the middle of this century they were estimated to be over three thousand, all given to a wild hunting life over the great plains on which they lived. In close proximity to the Comanches and other tribes of Shoshonian lineage, their language presents many affinities to the Shoshonian stock, but not sufficient in the opinion of those who have examined both to justify classing them together as from a common source.

The Kioways are light in color, broad shouldered and strong armed, and for generations were the Arabs of the Great American Desert, depending on hunting and robbery for a subsistence. Their homes were light skin lodges, which they spread on poles about twelve feet long. With plenty of ponies and without fixed habitations, it was easy for them to move rapidly over the Plains. According to their traditions they came originally from the North, from some cold country, where they had to walk on snow shoes, definitely located near the Black Hills, Dakota, where they were associated with the Apaches. They were idol worshippers, their priesthood consisting of ten medicine-men. The dead were buried in deep graves. At present they have been reduced to about one thousand souls.[117 - W. P. Clark, Indian Sign Language, p. 229 (Philadelphia, 1885); Whipple, Ewbank and Turner, Report on Indian Tribes, pp. 28, 80. (Washington, 1855.)]

II. THE NORTH PACIFIC GROUP

1. THE NORTHWEST COAST AND CALIFORNIAN TRIBES

The lofty chains of the Rocky Mountains extend from north to south, leaving a narrow coast line seamed with deep and fertile valleys along the Pacific from Mt. St. Elias to the Gulf of California. In spite of its great extent in latitude—from the 30th to the 60th degree—there is less difference in climate than one would suppose from analogy in any other part of the world. The warm ocean current which bathes the northern coast mitigates the cold of the winter to such an extent that the isothermal lines on the Pacific are fifteen degrees of latitude more northerly than on the Atlantic border of the continent.

A few of the eastern stocks, the Athabascan and the Shoshonian, have sent out colonies who have settled on the banks of the Pacific; but as a rule the tribes of the western coast are not connected with any east of the mountains. What is more singular, although they differ surprisingly among themselves in language, they have marked anthropologic similarities, physical and psychical. Virchow[118 - R. Virchow, Verhand. der Berliner Gesell. für Anthropologie, 1889, s. 400.] has emphasized the fact that the skulls from the northern point of Vancouver’s Island reveal an unmistakable analogy to those from the southern coast of California; and this is to a degree true of many intermediate points. Not that the crania have the same indices. On the contrary, they present great and constant differences within the same tribe;[119 - Dr. Franz Boas, “Fourth Report on the Tribes of the North West Coast,” in Proceed. Brit. Assoc. Adv. Science, 1887.] but these differences are analogous one to the other, and on fixed lines.

There are many other physical similarities which mark the Pacific Indians and contrast them with those east of the mountains. The eyes are less oblique, the nose flatter, the lips fuller, the chin more pointed, the face wider. There is more hair on the face and in the axilla, and the difference between the sexes is much more obvious.[120 - Dr. J. L. Le Conte, “On the Distinctive Characteristics of the Indians of California,” in Trans. of the Amer. Assoc. for the Adv. of Science, 1852, p. 379.]

The mental character is also in contrast. The Pacific tribes are more quiet, submissive and docile; they have less courage, and less of that untamable independence which is so constant a feature in the history of the Algonkins and Iroquois.

Beginning at the sixtieth degree of north latitude and extending to the fifty-fifth, are the Tlinkit or Kolosch. They dwell on the coast of Alaska and the adjacent islands. Physically they are a strong and often tall people, light in color, with black or slightly reddish hair, eyes horizontal, nose aquiline. The Russians spoke of them as the most intelligent tribe they encountered on the coast. They certainly seem to have developed an uncommon appreciation of property, which is supposed to be a sign of a high order of intellect. Thus they have a gentile system with descent in the female line, but their aristocracy and the selection of their chiefs are entirely on a property basis. The richest obtain the highest places.

The Tlinkit villages are permanent, the houses solidly constructed of wood, sometimes with the additional protection of a palisade. The carving and painting upon them are elaborate, the subjects being caricatures of faces, men, and animal forms. The chiefs erect at one side of their doors carved and painted “totem posts,” some of which are nearly fifty feet high. These are also found among the Haidahs and Tshimshians to the south. The arts are correspondingly developed. Seaworthy canoes are hewn from the trunks of the red cedar, hides are dressed and the leather worked into a variety of articles; lamps, mortars and utensils were chipped or ground out of stone, and they are handy in beating out ornaments of silver and copper. The Tlinkits have always been active merchants, and when the first navigators visited their villages in 1741, they were surprised to find them in possession of iron knives and other articles obtained by trade over East Cape or from the south. The usual currency were the dentalium shells found along the coast. One of the staple articles of trade were slaves, a custom not in existence on the Atlantic. They were bought from the neighboring tribes, and treated with great cruelty.

Tlinkit mythology is rich, having a coherent creation and deluge myth, the principal figure in which is Jelchs, the raven. He is the Promethean fire-bringer, and sets free the sun, moon and stars from their prisons. The religious rites are in the hands of priests (shamans), who as usual exert a great and injurious influence.[121 - Dr. Aurel Krause, Die Tlinkit Indianer. (Jena, 1885.)]

The Haidahs, who dwell on Queen Charlotte Islands and Prince of Wales Archipelago, are probably a distant branch of the Tlinkit, though the affinity has not been clearly established, so they are officially classed as the Skittagetan stock, from the Skidegate dialect of the coast. In culture and appearance they resemble the Tlinkits, having similar mechanical skill. Their canoes and their intricate carvings, especially totem-posts and pipes of black slate, are celebrated products of the northwest coast.

The above and other tribes of British Columbia and Washington, the Tshimshian, the Kwakiutl, the Nootka, Salish, Chinook, etc., are so much alike physically that Dr. Boas, who has carried out the most recent and thorough examination of them, observes that no physical distinctions can be drawn between them.[122 - See the various reports of Dr. Boas to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and the papers of Messrs. Tolmie and Dawson, published by the Canadian government.] In some the hair is slightly wavy; in others the nose is aquiline or flatter; the heads of several are artificially deformed, etc.; but these differences do not characterize whole stocks. All have a great respect for wealth, and consider its accumulation the chief object of life. Among them all, women are honored for their chastity and industry, men for their skill in hunting and fishing, and for their bravery in war. Their character is generally sombre, and vanity and servility are prominent faults. The animal totemic system generally prevails, the child among the Salish and Kwakiutl following the father’s gens. The communities are divided into social strata, as common people, middle class and chiefs. A favorite method to obtain popularity is to give a potlatch—a great feast, at which the host makes expensive presents to the guests, and thus becomes as it were their creditor to the amount of his disbursement.