The People of the Wilderness—Men without Rights—Killing by Alcohol—Change in the Character of the Native—Growth of the War Spirit—Classification by Language—Dwellers in Tents and Builders of Houses—Farmers and Hunters—Irrigation Works—The Coming of the Horse.

Of more than equal interest with the magnificent wilderness and its animal occupants was the human dweller within its broad limits, the Amerind,[18] commonly called the Indian. Still another name for him was Red Man, yet he was neither an Indian nor was he red, except when he painted himself with ochre and vermilion. His real colour was various shades of brown or bronze, rather yellowish than red where protected from the sun. We are not surprised that roses of different hue grow in a garden, but there has always been unwarranted amazement that different shades of men should be found in the garden of the universe. There appears to be no reason why men should not vary in colour as well as all other animals and plants. But though races of mankind may vary in colour they never, so far as now determined, have varied in any other essential; or at least only slightly in fundamental characteristics. In general physical composition all men to-day are identical, and there is no certain evidence that they have ever differed more than they now do.[19] Man is everywhere the same as far back in the ages as he can be traced. Some may be stronger, or larger, or shorter, than others, with brains more or less developed, but they are all practically alike, even to their emotions.

Races, as a whole, differ from each other, in their ability to make machines, in their ability to secure comfort, in language, and in their social regulations; differences of degree. These qualities are begun and fostered more by stimulating circumstances than by particular superiority of race. For example, the Europeans forged ahead mainly because they were possessed of animals easily domesticated that would supply their needs. The Amerind had no such animals in North America except the bison and the dog. The latter he utilised to the full as a draught and pack animal, as a wool producer, and as a supply of animal food. Why he did not domesticate the bison is a problem. Perhaps it was because there were too many of them. The store of animal food was usually over-abundant with all Amerinds living in the range of the buffalo, so there was no spur to economy. We may imagine that if the buffalo from time to time had appeared in comparatively small numbers in the thickly populated country of the Aztecs where animal food was so scarce that an elaborate system of human sacrifices developed to supply this deficiency, the latter eventually would have been abandoned and captive buffalo substituted for captive man. Domestication, to guard the supply, would then have been an easy step. But the buffalo was permitted to roam at will, and the dog remained the sole domestic animal in possession of the people of North America before the arrival of the white race.[20]

The Amerind was not a savage. He was a barbarian with a rather well ordered society. He possessed a high quality of intellect, and he differed from his white antagonist more in external complexion than in any other particular except his social organisation, which was one the white man had passed through and left behind in centuries far past. But the Amerind had the same emotions. He loved his home, his family,—as constituted by his social regulations,—and his children. As to honesty and dishonesty, the balance was certainly not far from even, average for average; if anything, the Amerind had more respect for the ideals of his race than was the case with the white man with reference to his. Of course he had abundant vices like all the rest of humanity. He was often horribly cruel to his enemies. But on the whole he was not worse than the European who brought him degradation; who frequently soaked him with cheap rum and alcohol, in order more easily to exchange nothing for valuable furs: who engrafted upon him more and worse vices, who shot him needlessly, and who reviled him as he sank helpless under the heavy tide of imposition. Love of home and defence of country are ever extolled as of the highest merit in the white race; in the American native they were crimes. From the beginning of the contact the Amerind began to change for the worse.

The white man blamed all Amerinds for every crime and the Amerind blamed the white man similarly. Each visited retribution on the other without discrimination. The antagonism grew and grew. Tribes which at first received the whites most kindly and were continually cheated were apt to become bitterest enemies. On the Missouri in 1810 Wilson Price Hunt asked some Amerinds why they killed white men, to which they answered, "because they kill us—that man—" pointing to Carson—"killed one of our brothers last summer." This statement was true. Carson while with the Arikara had shot, probably for amusement, across the river at a war party of Sioux. The latter then retaliated by killing three whites. In this way the mutual antagonism multiplied as the years passed, just as a snowball increases when it rolls down hill. The native soon discovered that he must apply himself to his protection, and from being comparatively peaceful he became intensely warlike, emulating the example of the Iroquois and Apache. Had he possessed the power of organising, the story of white encroachment on his domain would have read differently. As it is, it may be considered a great loss to history that we have so little of the story from his point of view.

Before the nineteenth century was half over, the country east of the Mississippi was entirely appropriated by the whites. The various tribes that had lived there were absorbed, exterminated, or crowded out; the same process was to be repeated in the Wilderness. The Iroquois held their ground in New York and succeeded in exchanging their former holdings for small reservations; and here was another story of the white man's perfidy. The Seminole, the Creek, and the Sac-and-Fox tribes were finally crushed and their remnants removed, with others, beyond the Mississippi. The general government as a rule tried to deal justly by the Amerind, yet it has been much censured. Its task was an impossibility as long as so many white men who came in contact with the natives were willing to set aside every principle of fair dealing and treat them with no more consideration than they did the beaver and the buffalo. They wanted their furs and anything else of commercial value that they possessed, and no subterfuge was too dishonourable to practise on them. The matter for surprise is not that the Amerind was occasionally on the war-path, but that he was not always there. He received daily lessons in cupidity, cruelty, and dishonour.

Thus far the most exact basis for the classification of these interesting people has been language. It was some time after the early intercourse with the natives of the East before the wide divergence in language was appreciated and all attempts to classify them fell into confusion. Finally, in 1836, Albert Gallatin began an arrangement by language which, reorganised by Powell, in 1885-86, has been generally adopted by ethnologists, and to-day, while not entirely approved, it is the only method that is satisfactory.

By this system all tribes whose language roots are the same are classed together no matter how widely separated geographically they might have been. Notwithstanding the remarkable homogeneity of all the aboriginal inhabitants of the continent in customs, habits, and organisation, yet more than sixty separate stock languages were discovered in North America. Each one of these is taken to represent a "stock" group to which is given a title derived from Gallatin's first designation or from the leading tribe in that particular stock, with the addition of "an" or "ian," and all tribes having similar language roots are classed with this group or stock. Thus in the Siouan stock, the title is taken from the leading tribe, the Sioux, and all affiliated languages are brought under the same heading, as Dakota, Crow, Hidatsa, Iowa, Mandan, etc., and in the Athapascan the title is taken from the Athapascas of the far north, while the Apaches and Navajos of the south are classed under the same heading, as they speak related languages.[21]

It so happened that the Wilderness possessed a greater variety of these stock groups than any other part of the continent, one portion, that lying west of the Sierra Nevada, containing an astonishing number of small groups living contiguously, yet each speaking a totally distinct language. It was therefore often difficult for the early invaders to make themselves understood, as well as to understand. Among the Amerinds themselves a "sign" language existed which was of remote origin and which was convenient and expressive for intercourse between tribes speaking radically different tongues. Sometimes a third language served to convey ideas between tribes or between them and white men, this third language being one belonging to some widely diffused stock of the region. Still another language was one which grew up spontaneously, composed of words from two or more languages as well as of a lot of words which in one way or another originated themselves, a mongrel language perfectly understandable but made up of flotsam and jetsam. Of this class the most widely used and best known was that called Chinook jargon, originating in the Columbia river region and composed of words from many different languages, including those of the white man, as well as words that never existed anywhere else.

Taking language as a basis, we find the Wilderness divided mainly between two great families, or stocks, which had grown numerous and were able to spread over a vast extent of country, though each contained a large number of separate tribes often at war with each other, at least after the arrival of the whites. These two stocks were the Siouan and the Shoshonean. Of the first, some leading members were mentioned above; of the second, the Shoshone, Comanche, Ute, and Moki (or Shinumo) were representative, in fact comprised almost the entire stock. The Siouan division, or family, ranged from the banks of the Mississippi westward, with its lower border stretching diagonally from south-eastern Arkansas as far as our present Yellowstone Park, north to the upper boundary of the United States and beyond. They were flanked above by tribes of another stock, widespread and powerful, north to Hudson Bay and east of the Mississippi, the Algonquian, represented by the Blackfeet,[22] Chippewa, Knisteneau (or Cree), and others. South of the Siouan range came that of the Caddoan, in south-western Arkansas, the eastern half of Texas, and in Louisiana with a central group in the midst of the Siouan range, in southern Nebraska, and a northern one also surrounded by the Siouan people, in North Dakota. The northern was the Arikara (or Ree), the middle the several sub-tribes of Pawnee, and the southern the Caddo, Wichita, Kichai, and others. Adjacent to the central Caddoan group, on the west, was another section of Algonquian stock, the Cheyenne and Arapaho, and just north of this came the Kiowan, represented by the tribe from which the stock name comes, the Kiowa. This tribe was intimately associated with the Comanche, and there was a strong similarity in language.

West of all these ranged the Shoshonean stock from the middle line of Texas north-westward almost to the State of Washington, west to the Sierra Nevada, and south-westward like an inverted U around other stocks in New Mexico and Arizona, sending a slender arm entirely across California to the sea. This stock occupied a large part of the territory once claimed by Spain and Mexico, while the Siouan covered the major part of what was the Louisiana wilderness. Immediately south of the country of the Shoshonean tribes lay that of some branches of another numerous people already mentioned, the Athapascan, whose main body was far to the north, spreading across the whole extreme north-western part of the continent through Alaska, almost to the coast, which was occupied by a narrow fringe of Eskimauan people. These southern Athapascans, known as Apache and Navajo, were thus a long way from any relatives, but no people on the continent were better able to look out for themselves, both being warlike from the first, though this tendency was aggravated by the impositions of the early whites. The Navajo appear to have been considerably changed by an admixture of other blood, which may be termed Puebloan,[23] the term in this case being used not to designate people with similar language, but with similar culture and social organisation. The Apache, by his swiftness of action, his mobility, and his general skill as a predatory warrior, kept the more peaceful tribes in a state of constant turmoil and terror. At the same time he seems originally to have received the whites fairly well. In some ways he resembled the Iroquois, yet he had no approach to their masterly organisation.

Below the Athapascan group of the present New Mexico and Arizona was the Piman, a peaceful agricultural people, whose main range was in Mexico; and lying between the Piman and the Shoshonean was the northern part of the Yuman country, their southern range being the peninsula of Lower California.

Scattered irregularly through the Athapascan district were the villages of the sedentary Puebloans, a group made up of tribes speaking different languages but more or less affiliated by their similarity of habit. They were often at war with each other. They were house-builders, though that may be stated with regard to many of the tribes of other stocks. Their houses, however, were erected, with a view to greater permanency than any others, of adobe clay, or of stone, for their country was deficient in game and in forest, and they relied largely, chiefly indeed, upon their crops of maize. These groups are now well known, particularly the seven villages of the Moki, that of ZuÑi, of Taos, and a number of others along the Rio Grande. The Moki (or Moquis) as stated above are classed as Shoshonean.[24] The ZuÑi are designated ZuÑian, and others fall under Keresan, from Keres (or Queres), and TaÑoan. When considered otherwise than linguistically, the general term, Puebloan (really villagers) is useful for reasons explained above. The tribes of this group, remnants of a once far more numerous people, are some of the most interesting of all the Amerinds within our borders.

In the middle of Texas was the Tonkawan group, a small remnant, and at the southern extremity the Karankawan, another small remnant, and the Coahuiltecan, named from the Mexican state, Coahuila. In what is now the State of Louisiana were several other remnants, the Chittimachan, Natchezan, Tonikan, Adaizan, and Attacapan. West of the Sierra Nevada and extending north to the boundary, was the extraordinary conglomeration of small stocks, terminating in the wider-spread Salishan which reached up into British Columbia.

The dwellings of these various tribes had a great deal of variety. It was popularly supposed for many years that an "Indian" lived only in a skin tent or a wickiup, or any shiftless kind of a shelter, consequently when it was discovered that there were some who had lived centuries ago in rather well constructed houses which were found in ruins, it was assumed that these people must have been of another race and a superior one. The fact that tribes were still building and occupying houses of the same kind, who were only common "Indians," was not for years permitted to interfere with the romance, but now the "vanished-race" theories are pretty well abandoned except perhaps by visionary writers who do not understand the field. The ruins were found in canyons and valleys where natural-rock dÉbris and a poverty of timber and large skins almost compel house-building. A vast abundance of gypsiferous clay furnished another excellent building material, for that climate, and this was utilised in the South-west where other materials were difficult to secure. They also rammed this clay mixed with gravel into large wicker frames which were lifted, after the mass had hardened, to aid in preparing other blocks on top, so that a sort of clay concrete-block wall was raised. When the white men first came to the country, a ruin of one of these large houses called Casa Grande stood in Arizona near the present town of Florence. No one knows when this structure was erected or abandoned. It is still standing about as first described by whites. The government has assumed its care and protection.

The Mandan built a large round earth-covered wigwam which was substantial and comfortable. The Dakota developed the portable tipi. The Shoshone lived in skin tents and huts of boughs, as did the Comanche. The tribes of the North-west built strong houses of slabs, often very long. The tribes of California built of brush and slabs. Each people constructed a habitation in accordance with the facilities of the region they occupied, and while house-building may indicate a certain superiority of social advancement it is no mark of race differentiation. Tribes of one stock built good houses and lived in mere brush shelters at the same time.

Some of the occupied villages became of great importance in the early days of white intrusion, notably Taos, a pueblo on the headwaters of the Rio Grande. This figured prominently in the events which broke the Wilderness from the time of Espejo to the acquisition of the region by the Americans, and is standing to-day.

For subsistence the tribes relied on different things depending on the nature of the country. The Siouan and other plains people where the buffalo roamed, lived almost exclusively upon it. The meat was food; the skins raiment and shelter; the sinew, thread; the robes, beds, and so on. The Puebloans having few or no buffalo and little game cultivated maize. Many other tribes also cultivated this grain, particularly those living along watercourses. In some districts irrigation had to be resorted to, and the Amerind was equal to the problem. Where shower waters were insufficient or could not be turned at once amongst the corn, elaborate and extensive irrigation canals were constructed, remains of which have been discovered. One of the largest was found by modern engineers to be so well placed that they followed its course for some distance with their canal. The Moki still plant their corn with a sharpened stick and guide the water from every shower through the fields.

These people had solved the problem of agriculture in an arid country, long before the Spaniard, or the Mormon, or any other foreigner planning irrigation had ever set foot on this continent.

Their manufactures covered a considerable range. They made clothing and blankets, of wool, skins, and cotton. They were unsurpassed in basketry; they made excellent pottery. They originally used as weapons the bow and arrow, the lance, and various kinds of war clubs. Their beverage was mainly water, though some knew how to concoct intoxicating drink. Where the maple tree grew, its sap and syrup were utilised, and they also made sugar from it. Salt they obtained from briny lakes. Of mining they had no knowledge whatever, nor did they have metals, excepting, near the Missouri, an occasional fragment of copper.

Cooking was done in pits previously heated by large fires, or in wicker jugs by means of hot stones put inside; or it was done in earthenware pots. Bread, when made of corn, or of grass-seed meal, was baked on hot stones. Their musical instruments were drums, rattles, flutes, and whistles. Of ceremonials they had a great many. Sometimes these were sickening ordeals, like the now famous Sun Dance of the Omaha; or the Moki Snake Dance, where live rattlesnakes form part of the ritual and are carried about by the Snake priests, even in their mouths.

Notwithstanding an intermittent and desultory sort of warfare kept up between tribes of the same stock, as well as of different stocks, comparatively few were killed in this way before the European came. Night attacks were seldom made and in day attacks not many at one time were injured. The ordinary routine was one of peace. It is probable that in the American Civil War alone more men were killed than ever at one time in aboriginal days occupied the same area. Almost four thousand were destroyed at the battle of Shiloh, and in the battles of the Wilderness fully fifteen thousand. Even proportionately the wars of the "savages" were mere child's play compared to this. But when the white man crossed the Mississippi and began to encroach from the east and then from the west and one tribe was forced back upon another as the wind beats the combing waves upon a lee shore, matters began to change. A large infusion of inferior white blood aided this change. Then came the horse! It was a deficiency suddenly and completely supplied. The warrior on horseback was quite a different being from the one on foot. The boundless Plains were circumscribed. And the gun! Another void by this was so admirably filled that horse and gun and Amerind instantly merged into one; an indissoluble trio. Henceforth he supplied himself with an abundance of horses and with the best guns and ammunition he could get, till at the fearful moment on the Little Big Horn, he was better armed than the white soldiers sent to overpower him. It is exceedingly difficult always to view things dispassionately from our antagonist's standpoint, but when we succeed in doing so we invariably discover that he has some of the justice and virtue on his side. The Amerind seen in this way was not half as bad as he has been painted by his conqueror, who was prone to gloss over and forget his own shortcomings.