Joseph Deniker

RACES AND PEOPLES OF AMERICA.

The four ethnic elements of the New World—Origin of the Americans—ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF AMERICA—Problem of palÆolithic man in the United States—PalÆolithic man in Mexico and South America—Lagoa Santa race; Sambaquis and Paraderos—Problem of the Mound-Builders and Cliff-Dwellers—Ancient civilisation of Mexico and Peru—Present American Races—American languages.

PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA—I. Eskimo—II. Indians of Canada and United States: a. Arctic—Athapascan group; b. Antarctic—Algonquian-Iroquois, Chata-Muskhogi, and Siouan groups; c. Pacific—Northwest Indians, Oregon-California and Pueblo groups—III. Indians of Mexico and Central America: a. Sonorian-Aztecs; b. Central Americans (Mayas, Isthmians, etc.)—Half-breeds in Mexico and the Antilles.

PEOPLES OF SOUTH AMERICA—I. Andeans: Chibcha, Quechua, and other linguistic families; the Araucans—II. Amazonians: Carib, Arawak, Miranha, and Panos families; unclassed tribes—III. Indians of East Brazil and the Central Region: Ges linguistic family; unclassed tribes (Puri, Karaya, Bororo, etc.); Tupi-Guarani family—IV. South Argentine: Chaco and Pampas Indians, etc.; Patagonians, Fuegians.

AT the present day about six-sevenths of the population of the two Americas are composed of Whites and Half-breeds of all sorts. The remainder is made up almost equally of Negroes and natives, the latter improperly called Indians.[578] Notwithstanding the relatively small number of these last (about 10 millions), I shall deal almost exclusively with them in this chapter, as they are especially interesting from the ethnological point of view, besides having been the best studied from this point of view. A few words will suffice in regard to the Whites and Negroes. The white colonists and their uncrossed descendants belong for the most part to Anglo-Saxon or Germanic peoples in North America, and to Neo-Latin peoples in South America. Nine-tenths of the population of the United States owe their origin to the Anglo-Scotch, to the Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians, the fusion of which with other European types and with half-breeds tends to produce the Yankee type, which, if not a physical, is at least a social type. In Canada two-thirds of the white population are Anglophones, and the rest Francophones. In Mexico, in the Antilles, and in South America, nearly all the “white” population is made up of Neo-Latins—in Brazil descendants of the Portuguese, in Argentine of Italo-Spaniards, and elsewhere of Spaniards. The Latins have also contributed to form the half-breeds of America, of which several varieties exist. Half-breeds are especially numerous in Mexico and in the countries where the three elements, White, Indian, and Negro come together, as in the Antilles, in Columbia, Venezuela, and in Brazil. I shall give some particulars of the Half-breeds in connection with the populations of these lands (pp. 542 and 545). As to the Negroes of America, they are the descendants of slaves imported, during more than three centuries, almost exclusively from the West African coast, and particularly from Guinea. (See p. 452.) The Negroes are especially numerous in the south of the United States and in the Antilles, as well as in the north and on the east coast of South America, as far as Buenos Ayres.[579]

Origin of the Americans.—To-day the existence of an American race, or rather a group of American races (p. 291), is generally conceded, a group to which all the native populations of the New World belong; but as to the origins of these races unanimity of opinion is far from being reached. According to some authorities, the New World is a special centre of the manifestation of species, the Homo Americanus having developed on the spot; according to others, the ancestors of the present Indians came from neighbouring countries—a few from everywhere: from Siberia and China (by Behring’s Straits), from Polynesia (driven by currents), from Europe (failing Atlantis, by the table-land which in the quaternary period probably stretched between England and Greenland). Unfortunately, almost all these hypotheses are based on a confusion both of time and space. It may without difficulty be conceded that occasional Chinese and Japanese junks may have been driven towards America, although the existence of this continent remained unknown both to China and Japan till quite recent times. We know positively that the Northmen visited the shores of North America long before Christopher Columbus. And there is reason to suppose that the Polynesians, who are excellent navigators, may have ventured, urged forward by currents, as far as the South American coast. But all these occurrences would be too recent, and such migrations would be in fact both too insignificant and too isolated, to account for the peopling of a vast continent. The origins of American man are much more distant in the past, and the migrations, if migrations there were, must have taken place in the quaternary epoch, and probably as much from the coast of Europe as from the coast of Asia.

ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.

Just as is the case with Europe, it is not certain that man existed in America during the tertiary period,[580] but it is certain that he appeared there during the quaternary age. This period, in the New World as in the Old, had its glacial epochs. According to Dawson, Wright, and Chamberlin, there were two or three great movements of invasion and withdrawal of the American glaciers. It is not known if these movements were synchronous with those of Europe, but it is established that, as in Europe, the first invasion of glaciers was also the more widespread.[581]

Chipped argilite tools, similar to the quaternary quartz tools of sub-Pyrennean countries, have been found by Abbott in the gravels of the Delaware, near Trenton (New Jersey), side by side with quaternary animals (probably of the second glacial period, notably the fragment of a jaw-bone). Other implements have been gathered on the spot by Haynes in New Hampshire; by Dr. Metz in the gravels of Little Falls (Minnesota), regarded by W. Upham as more recent than those of Trenton; by Cresson at Medora (Indiana), and at Claymont (mouth of the Delaware), in a more ancient deposit than the Trenton one; by Wright and Volk at Trenton (in 1895); without reckoning the thousands of finds either on the surface or in lesser-known beds, which have been enumerated in a special memoir by Wilson. If I dwell on these details, it is because all these finds have latterly been vigorously attacked in the United States, since Holmes, who had studied the ancient quarries of the Indians, pointed out the great resemblances between the spoiled or waste argilite axes and arrowheads which he had found in these quarries, and the supposed palÆolithic implements, particularly those of Trenton. Several authorities, such as Chamberlin, MacGee, Brinton, have, like Holmes himself, come to the conclusion that all the so-called palÆolithic tools of America, and perhaps even those of Europe, are only spoiled or waste tools of the same kind, and relatively modern. This conclusion seems to overshoot the mark, seeing that specialists like Wilson, Boule, etc., are almost unable to distinguish undoubted quaternary tools of Europe from those of Trenton, and that the beds of many American prehistoric tools have been perfectly well ascertained not to have undergone any rehandling, and have been established as quaternary by competent geologists.[582]

Outside the United States palÆolithic finds in the New World are not very numerous, and often are questionable.

PalÆolithic tools of the Chellean and Mousterian type have been found in Mexico by Franco and Pinart;[583] other quaternary tools, together with a fragment of a human jaw-bone, have been described in the valley of Mexico by S. Herrera.[584]

In Brazil, on the shores of Lake Lagoa-do-Sumidoro (province of Minas Geraes), Lund exhumed human skeletons and flint objects, together with remains of animals which, if not quaternary, at least exist no longer in the country. Ameghino[585] also has collected in quaternary layers of the Pampas of the Argentine Republic remains of primitive human industries. I will only mention the numerous neolithic objects found almost everywhere in America. Among these objects it is necessary to give special attention to the “grooved axes” which are entirely characteristic of the New World (Wilson).

As to prehistoric human bones, investigation reduces them to little. I have already said that the tertiary or quaternary skull of Calaveras (brachycephalic) is classed as doubtful. The skeleton of Pontimelo (with dolichocephalic skull), found by Roth under the carapace of the glyptodon, an enormous armadillo of the Pampas regions of the Rio Arrecifes, a tributary of Rio de la Plata, also inspires but a limited confidence in many authorities. Lastly, the skulls and bones of Lagoa Santa, if not quaternary, at least very ancient, afford special characters (dolichocephaly, short stature, third trochanter), on the strength of which De Quatrefages has established a special race,[586] whose probable descendants constitute my PalÆ-American sub-race. (See p. 292.)

Side by side with finds of stone objects and bones in very ancient strata, it is necessary to note also the shell-heaps and kitchen-middens scattered along all the coast of both Americas, from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Louisiana to Brazil, to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. In this last country the present inhabitants, who subsist especially on molluscs, contribute to the piling up of these heaps or to the formation of new ones. This is enough to indicate that all the kitchen-middens are not synchronous; and if there be some which go far back into antiquity, on the other hand there are some which are quite modern. The “Sambaquis,” for instance, of the mouth of the Amazon and of the province of Parana must be very ancient; some of the skulls which have been found in them recall the PalÆ-American or Lagoa Santa race.[587] The paraderos, or elongated hillock graves, discovered in the province of Entre Rios, in the valley of the Rio Negro (Argentine Republic), by Moreno and R. Lista, enclose flint tools (neolithic?) and numerous skulls, among which a certain number also exhibit likenesses to those of Lagoa Santa.[588]

In North America, the Mounds, fortified enclosures or tumuli of the most varied appearance, round, conical, and in the shape of animals, have also for long attracted the attention of archÆologists. But if the discoveries and excavations made in these monuments have been many, an exact explanation of their meaning was lacking till recent times. The groups of mounds are scattered over an immense tract of country, from the great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean; but they abound particularly in the valley of the Mississippi, along its left tributaries, in Arkansas, Kansas, etc., as well as in the basin of the Ohio. Farther west, towards the Rocky Mountains, as well as towards the Atlantic coast, they become less frequent. Till recently, the construction of these hillocks was attributed to one and the same people, called by the not very compromising name of “Mound-Builders.” This people, tillers of the soil and relatively civilised, must have lived from the most remote antiquity in the region planted with these mounds, and must have been destroyed by the nomadic and wild hordes represented by the present Indians. Such, at least, was the prevailing hypothesis. However, an attentive study of these mounds and the objects they covered has led little by little the most competent authorities (Cyrus Thomas, Carr, H. Hale, Shepherd, and the numerous members of the “Mound Exploring Division”) to distinguish several “types” of mounds, the geographical distribution of which would serve to indicate the settlements of diverse tribes. E. Schmidt, in a comprehensive work, has brought together all these investigations, and, by the light of linguistic data furnished by Hale, Brinton and others, has been able to state precisely who these various tribes were.[589]

It may be said at once that these investigations have by no means confirmed the great antiquity of the mounds; on the contrary, objects of European origin (iron swords, etc.), found in certain mounds, the tales of the early explorers which tell us that the Indians raised these mounds, and the traditions of the natives themselves, all force us to the conclusion that the builders of these funereal monuments or fortified enclosures were no other than the various Indian tribes whose remaining descendants exist to-day in the reservations. These tribes were tillers of the soil at the period of the discovery of America, as indeed the tales of contemporary explorers bear witness, as do also the traces of irrigation canals and other agricultural operations around these mounds. But the invasion of the country by Europeans from the seventeenth century onward, and the introduction of the horse, hitherto unknown, brought so much confusion into the existence of these tribes, that such of the Indians as survived the wars of extermination changed their mode of life and became hunters or nomadic shepherds. If the distribution of the mounds be studied, three parallel archÆological zones may be distinguished, extending from west to east, between the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean, each such zone presenting great differences in regard to the type of mound it circumscribes.[590] On comparing this distribution with the ancient settlements of the tribes the following result is arrived at: the mounds of the north have been built by the Iroquois and Algonquians, except the mounds of animal shape, which are due to Dakota-Siouan tribes; the mounds of the south may be attributed to tribes of the Muskoki or Muskhogi family; and, as regards the numerous monuments of the basin of the Ohio, there is a strong presumption in favour of their having been raised by the Shawnies and the Leni-Lenaps in the south, and by the Cherokis in the north. The study of these mounds, in connection with historic data, suffices to determine very satisfactorily the migrations of all these tribes, to which I shall refer later.

West of the Rocky Mountains no more mounds are met with. Their place is taken by other monuments, structures of stone erected among the rocks and along the caÑons. A large number of these are found in the valley of San Juan, in that of Rio Grande do Norte, of the Colorado Chiquito, etc. These monuments are still more modern than the mounds. The peoples who erected these structures, the “Cliff-Dwellers,” are still represented by the Moqui, ZuÑi, and other tribes who inhabit the high table-lands of Arizona and New Mexico.

Tribes probably related to the Cliff-Dwellers erected in Central America those immense phalansteries in stone or adobe of several storeys, constructed to shelter the whole clan, which the conquering Spaniards called pueblos.[591] Adobe pueblos are still occupied by ZuÑi people, descendants of the Cliff-Dwellers.

While in North America among the Mound-Builders only rude attempts at civilisation are found, in Central America and Mexico there flourished up to the period of the conquest a relatively advanced civilisation. Various peoples, whom many authors have sought to identify with the Mound-Builders, formed more or less well-organised states in Mexico. Such were the Mayas in the Yukatan peninsula; the Olmecs, and, later, the Aztecs, on the high table-land. And on the west of South America there developed a corresponding civilisation, that of the Incas of Peru. The Incas were none other than one of the tribes of the Quechua people, who, after having brought into subjection the Aymara aborigines founded in Peru a sort of communist-autocratic state. To the north, in present Columbia, lived the Chibchas, who have equally attained a certain degree of civilisation. Lastly, to the south flourished the civilisation of the Calchaquis.

Existing American Races.—The natives of America, cut off from the rest of the world probably since the end of the quaternary period, form, as we have already seen, a group of races which may be considered by themselves, in the same way as the Xanthochroid or Melanochroid groups of races (see Chap. VIII.). It must be borne in mind that there exists but a single character common to these American races, that is the colour of the skin, the ground of which is yellow. This appears to conflict with the current opinion that the Americans are a red race, and yet it is the statement of a fact. None of the tribes of the New World have a red-coloured skin, unless they are painted, which often is the case. Even the reddish complexion of the skin, similar, for example, to that of the Ethiopians, is met with only among half-breeds. All the populations of America exhibit various shades of yellow colouring; these shades may vary from dark-brownish yellow to olive pale yellow.[592] By the yellow colour of the skin, as well as the straight hair common to most, but not to all, Americans, they have affinities with the Ugrian and Mongol races; but other characters, such as the prominent, frequently convex nose, and the straight eyes, separate them widely from these races.

As to the characters peculiar to the five races which I adopt provisionally for the New World: Eskimo, North American, Central American, South American, and Patagonian, with their sub-races, they have been given in Chapter VIII., to which I refer the reader.

West Greenland Eskimo

FIG. 157.—West Greenland Eskimo.
(Phot. SÖren Hansen.)

American Languages.—Several authors are of opinion that, as regards America, a more satisfactory classification of the peoples may be obtained from linguistic than from ethnic and somatological characters; they even think that these linguistic characters afford indications as to the races of the New World.[593] But opinions are divided on this point, as well as on the question whether all the American dialects belong to one and the same family. Brinton affirms that there exists, in spite of diversity of vocabulary and superficial differences of morphology, a common bond of union among all the American languages. This bond is to be looked for in the inner structure of the dialects, a structure characterised especially by the development of pronominal forms, the abundance of generic particles, the more frequent use of ideas based on actions (verbs) than of ideas of existence (nouns), and as a consequence the subordination of the latter to the former in the proposition.[594] The latter feature characterises the process called incorporation, all American languages being polysynthetic (see p. 131). Does the similarity of structure of the American languages (which might further extend to other groups of agglutinative languages) warrant the opinion that they all have sprung from a single stock? Competent philologists like Fr. MÜller and L. Adam think it does not, and Powell,[595] attributing much more importance to similarity of vocabulary than to similarities of grammatical form, arrives at the conclusion that the tribes of North America do not speak languages related to each other and springing from a single original stock; on the contrary, they speak several languages belonging to distinct families, which do not appear to have a common origin.

The number of languages spoken by the natives of both Americas certainly exceeds a hundred, even without counting the secondary dialects. Brinton estimates the number of linguistic families known in the New World at 150 to 160; this figure is probably not far short of the truth, for Powell admits, merely for that part of the continent north of Mexico, 59 linguistic families, some of which comprise several dialects.[596]

PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA.

The greater part of the native population of North America is composed of tribes called Indians or Red-skins of the United States and Canada. They touch on the north the Eskimo and Aleuts, and on the south the Mexican and Central American Indians. I shall briefly review these three great divisions, going from north to south.

I. The Eskimo,[597] or Innuit as they call themselves (about 360,000 in number), afford the remarkable example of a people occupying almost without a break more than 5000 miles of seaboard, from the 71st degree N. lat. (north-east of Greenland) to the mouth of the Copper river or Atna (west of Alaska). A section of this people has even crossed Behring’s Strait and inhabits the extreme north-east of Asia (see p. 370). Over the whole of this extent of country nowhere do the Eskimo wander farther than thirty miles from the coast. It is supposed that their original home was the district around Hudson’s Bay (Boas) or the southern part of Alaska (Rink), and that from these regions they migrated eastward and westward, arriving in Greenland a thousand years ago, and in Asia barely three centuries ago. Their migrations northward led them as far as the Arctic Archipelago.[598]

Physically, the pure Eskimo—that is to say, those of the northern coast of America, and perhaps of the eastern coast of Greenland—may form a special race, allied with the American races, but exhibiting some characteristics of the Ugrian race (short stature, dolichocephaly, shape of the eyes, etc.). They are above average stature (1 m. 62), whilst the Eskimo of Labrador and Greenland are shorter, and those of southern Alaska a little taller (1 m. 66), in consequence perhaps of interminglings, which would also explain their cranial configuration (ceph. ind. on the living subject, 79 in Alaska, against 76.8 in Greenland), which is less elongated than among the northern tribes (average cephalic index of the skull, 70 and 72). Their complexion is yellow, their eyes straight, and black (except among certain Greenland half-breeds); their cheek-bones are projecting, the nose is somewhat prominent, the face round, and the mouth rather thick-lipped. The Eskimo language differs little from tribe to tribe. Fishers and peaceful hunters, the Eskimo have no chiefs, and know nothing of war; they cultivate the graphic arts, are always cheerful, and love dancing, singing, story-telling, etc.

I have already given, however, in the preceding pages (see especially pp. 137, 151, 160, 245, 263 et seq.) several characteristics of Eskimo life.[599]

The Aleuts, about 2000 in number, inhabiting the insular mountain-chain which bears their name, speak an Eskimo dialect, but differ from the true Eskimo in some respects, having brachycephalic heads and several peculiarities of manners and customs. Besides, the majority of them have adopted the habits and religion of the Russians.[600]

GahhiguÉ-Vatake, Chief

FIG. 158.—GahhiguÉ-Vatake (chief), a Dakota-Siouan Indian
with tomahawk, 38 years old.
(Phot. Prince Roland Bonaparte.)

II. The Indians, improperly called Red-skins,[601] occupy a territory of such vast extent that, in spite of a certain common likeness, considerable differences are noticeable among them, according to the countries they occupy, the climate, configuration, and fauna of which vary in a marked degree. We can in the first place distinguish the Indians of the Arctic and Atlantic slopes of Canada and the United States, belonging to a taller and less brachycephalic race than that which predominates among the Indians in the northern part of the Pacific slope. In the southern part of the Pacific slope we note the appearance of the Central American race, short and brachycephalic, and in the Californian peninsula perhaps the PalÆ-American sub-race.[602] Each of the slopes in turn afford several “ethnographic provinces,”[603] the boundaries of which approximately coincide with those of the linguistic families now about to be rapidly passed in review.

Chief, Front View

FIG. 159.—Siouan chief of Fig. 158, front face.
(Phot. Prince Roland Bonaparte.)

a. The Indians of the Arctic slope—that is to say, of the low-lying country watered by the Mackenzie and the Yukon—belong to one and the same linguistic family, called Athapascan.

The best known tribes are the Kenai in Alaska, the Loucheux on the lower Mackenzie, the Chippewas, the numerous TinnÉ clans between Hudson’s Bay and the Rocky Mountains, the Takullies to the west of these mountains, etc. All these Athapascans, of medium height (1 m. 66), and mesocephalic, are skilful hunters; they traverse the immense forests of their country hunting fur-bearing animals in winter on their snow shoes, in summer in their light beech-bark canoes. The Athapascan linguistic family is not, however, confined to the wooded region of Alaska and western Canada. Members of this tribe have migrated to a far distant part of the Pacific slope, where they have settled in two different districts. The Athapascans of the West, or the Hupas who dwell in southern Oregon and northern California, differ but little physically from the Athapascans properly so called, but they are already Californians in ethnic character. The Athapascans of the south—that is to say, the Navajos or Nodehs and the Apaches (Fig. 161), taller (1 m. 69), more brachycephalic (ceph. ind. 84) than their northern kinsfolk[604]—live in the open country of the Pueblo Indians (Arizona, New Mexico), from whom, however, they differ in regard to manners and usages. They are husbandmen relatively civilised, fierce warriors and bold robbers, whose name has been popularised by the novels of Gustave Aimard and Gabriel Ferry. They are more numerous (23,500 in the United States)[605] than the Athapascans of the north (8,500) and the Hupas (scarcely 900).[606]

Woman of Wichita Tribe

FIG. 160.—Woman of Wichita tribe,
Pawnee Nation, Indian Territory, U.S.

b. The Indians of the Atlantic slope are divided into three great linguistic families: Algonquian-Iroquoian, Muskhogean-Choctaw, and Siouan or Dakota.

1. The Algonquians and Iroquoians occupy the “ethnographical province” which bears their name and extends over the east of Canada and the north-east of the United States, between the Mississippi and about the 36th degree of N. latitude. This province is characterised by a temperate climate, abundance of prairies, and broad water-ways; it affords facilities for the chase and the gathering of wild rice and tobacco; certain usages are common to all the tribes inhabiting it (tattooing, colouring the body, moccasins similar to those of the Athapascans, etc.).

The original home of the Algonquians was the region around Hudson’s Bay, where the Cree tribe, which speaks the purest Algonquian language, still exists. Leaving this region, they spread as far as the Atlantic, the Mississippi, and the Alleghany Mountains, driving back the Dakotas into the prairies of the right bank of the Mississippi. The Abnakis of Lower Canada, the Micmacs of Acadia and Newfoundland, the Leni-LenapÉ of the Delaware, who fought so valiantly against the European immigrants; the Mohicans, idealised by Cooper; the warlike Shawnees, the Ojibwas or Chippewas (Fig. 30), who, together with the LenapÉ, are alone among the Red-skins in possessing a rudimentary writing; the Ottawas, the Black Feet, the Cheyennes, and so many other tribes besides belonged to this great Algonquian people. It has left traces of its existence in the “mounds” as well as in a great number of the geographical names of the region which it formerly occupied. It is estimated that at the present day there are not more than 95,000 Algonquians, of whom two-thirds inhabit Canada. The most numerous tribe is that of the Chippewas (31,000), while the “last” of the Mohicans were only 121 in the census of 1890. Among the Algonquians ought probably to be included a tribe which became extinct in 1827, that of the Beothucs of Newfoundland, whose affinities with other tribes have not yet been definitely established.[607]

At the time when the Algonquians held a large part of modern Canada and the United States, an isolated portion of their territory was peopled with Iroquoians around Lakes Erie and Ontario, as well as on the lower St. Lawrence. The Iroquoians, sprung from the same common stock as the Cherokis, the ancient mound-builders of the Ohio basin, have dwindled down to a few thousand families in the upper valley of the Tennessee (H. Hale). They are divided into Hurons (between Lakes Ontario and Huron) and Iroquois or Iroquoians properly so called. The latter formerly comprised five nations: Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Senecas, and Cayugas, united into a democratic confederacy by the famous chief Hiawatha, of whom Longfellow has sung. At a later date the Tuscaroras, who dwelt farther to the south-west in Virginia, were also admitted into the confederacy.[608]

The wars in which the Iroquoians have been engaged have singularly reduced their number; to-day there are only about 43,000, of whom 9000 are in Canada.

2. The Muskhogean group comprises several tribes: Apalachi, Chata-Choctaw, Chicasaws, Creeks or Muskhogis, who formerly dwelt between the lower Mississippi, the Atlantic, the Tennessee River, and the Gulf of Mexico. To these we must add the Seminoles who formerly occupied the Florida peninsula.[609] The habits of the Muskhogean tribes, of which Hernando de Soto drew so vivid a picture in 1540, were those of husbandmen somewhat advanced in civilisation; they had a hieroglyphic writing (Brinton), but were unacquainted with the use of metals, gold excepted. The southern portion of the United States which these tribes occupied is a region with a sub-tropical climate, favourable to the cultivation of the sugar-cane, maize, and tobacco. The ancient Muskhogis wore garments of special texture, and daubed their bodies like the Algonquians, but were unacquainted with tattooing. At the present day they have dwindled down to 25,500 individuals. Certain tribes, like the Yamasis, have completely disappeared; in 1886 there were only three Apalachi women left. We include among the Muskhogis the tribes who formerly lived in the lower valley of the Mississippi, and whose dialects have not been classified: the Natchez, idealised by Chateaubriand, a score of whom still dwell among the Creeks and Cherokis; the Atacapas, reduced in number to a dozen individuals, in the Calcasieu Pass (Louisiana), etc.

3. The Siouans or Dakotas (Figs. 158 and 159) occupied at the time of the discovery of America the whole country extending to the west of the Mississippi, between the river Arkansas on the south and the Saskatchewan on the north, as far as the Rocky Mountains. For a long time this was believed to be their original home; but it has been found necessary to modify this opinion since the discovery by Hale and Gatschet of tribes speaking a Siouan tongue with archaic forms east of the Mississippi. These tribes are the Tutelos of Virginia, of whom but a score of individuals are left; the Biloxis of Louisiana, and the Winnebagos. It is now admitted that the original home of the Siouans was the Alleghany Mountains and the surrounding country; thence they were doubtless forced back by the Algonquians into the prairies to the west of the Mississippi, where they became buffalo-hunters.

FIG. 161.—Christian Apache Indian.

The principal Siouan tribes are: the Assinaboins on the Saskatchewan, the Minnetaris on the Yellowstone river, the Ponkas and the Omahas in Nebraska, the Osages of the borders of Arkansas, the Hidatsas of Dakota, the Crows of Montana, the Siouans or Dakotas properly so called (Figs. 26, 158, and 159) in the upper basin of the Missouri, etc. The total number of the Siouans is estimated at 43,400 individuals, of whom 2,200 are in Canada.[610]

The Indians of the four groups just enumerated all resemble each other in physical type: stature very high (from 1 m. 68 among the Cherokis of the east, to 1 m. 75 among the Cheyennes and Crows), head sub-dolichocephalic or mesocephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub., from 79.3 among the Iroquoians to 80.5 among the Cheyennes), face, oval.[611] Near the Siouans, in the same ethnographic region of the plains of the Great West, dwelt the Pawnees or Caddoes, one of the tribes of which, the Aricaras or Rikaris (450 individuals at the present day), emigrated north towards the sources of the Mississippi. As to the Pawnees properly so called they were established in the valley of the Plata, whence they were transferred in 1878 into the Indian Territory; they numbered 820 individuals in the census of 1890. The rest of the nation, the Wichitas (Fig. 160), the Caddoes, etc., have abandoned the predatory habits of the true Pawnees and become good husbandmen distributed over different reservations.

The Kiowas form a small linguistic group by themselves. The neighbours formerly of the Comanches and the Shoshones, these ex-robbers are at the present day installed, to the number of 1,500, in the Indian Territory.

The Pawnees and Kiowas are tall and mesocephalic, with a tendency towards brachycephaly.

c. Indians of the Pacific slope.—The coast tribes of the Pacific might be united into a single group in spite of the great diversity of language existing among them.[612] In fact, most of these Indians belong to one and the same sub-division of the North American race, the Pacific sub-race. They are above medium height (from 1 m. 66 among the Utes to 1 m. 69 among the Chahaptes), sub-brachycephalic (mean ceph. ind. from 82.7 to 84.7, except the Utes, whose index is 79.5), with rounded face (Tsimshians and Haidas), or elongated (Kwakiutls); they have straight eyes and their pilous system is well developed (Boas). It is only in the region of the Pueblos that we can detect the admixture of the short, brachycephalic Central American race.[613] Ethnic characters enable us to divide the Indians of the Pacific into three groups: Indians of the north-west, Indians of Oregon-California, and Pueblo Indians.[614]

1. The Indians of the north-west[615] are divided into two slightly distinct groups by their ethnic characters. In the north, on the indented coast of Alaska and British Columbia, as well as in the innumerable rocky islands lying off it, dwell tribes of fishers and hunters who form a very characteristic group by their ethnic traits, of which the following are the principal: garments of woven wool or of bark (before the arrival of the Whites); communal barracks, near which are raised “totem posts,” usually of slate, ornamented with anthropomorphic sculptures, grotesque or horrible, representing totems; plated armour, composite bow of wood and bone, tattooing, etc. The Pacific coast to the south of Vancouver and the Columbia drainage area is occupied by another group of populations, which, while having some traits in common with the former (communal barracks but without “totem post,” cooking by means of heated stones, zoomorph masks, etc.), exhibits a multitude of characters (garments of raw hides, cranial deformations, absence of tattooings, plain bow, etc.) which keep them widely separate.

The first group comprises the following tribes, beginning at Cape St. Elias and going towards the south: the Tlinkits or Kolushes as far as the 55th degree of N. lat. (6,437 individuals in 1880, according to Petroff); the Haidas or Skittagets of the Queen Charlotte Islands (2,500), skilful carvers in wood; the Tsimshians of the coast situated opposite to these islands; the Wakashes, sub-divided into Nootkas of Vancouver Island and Kwakiutls of the adjacent coast. The second group is composed of the remnants of the Salishans, Selish, or Flat-heads (12,000 in Canada, 5,500 in the “reservations” of the United States); of the Shahapts or “Nez-percÉs” (300), to the south of these; and lastly, the Chenooks, well known for their cranial deformations (p. 176).

2. The seaboard of Oregon and California is a succession of short, isolated valleys, abounding in fibrous plants, fruit, and fish. These are excellent conditions for the formation of little isolated ethnic groups; thus it happens that the Indians of this coast are divided into twenty-four or twenty-six distinct linguistic families.

Of these the principal, as we go from north to south, are: the Copehs of the right bank of the Sacramento; the Pujunnas or Pooyoonas of the left bank of the same water-way; the Kulanapans to the north of San Francisco; the Costanos to the south of that town; the Salinas, who formerly inhabited the valley bearing the same name, but of whom there remain but a dozen individuals; the Maripos or Yokuts (145 individuals) to the east of the last-named tribe; the Chumashes around the mission of Santa-Barbara, 35° N. latitude, of whom scarcely two score individuals still speak the language of their fathers; the Hupas, very primitive in their habits. Among most of these populations are found vestiges of the ancient custom of tattooing and the use of garments fashioned from vegetable fibres.

It is probably in this group that we must include the Yumas of the lower valley of the Colorado (Arizona) and of the Californian peninsula, of whom the principal tribes are as follows: the Mohaves (Fig. 4) and the Yumas properly so called, in the valley of the Colorado; the Maricopas of the valley of the Gila; the Soris or Seris in Mexico, opposite to the Californian peninsula; lastly, in this peninsula itself the Cochimis in the north and the PeriquÈs, now extinct, at the southern extremity of the peninsula; there is not, however, any direct evidence that these last spoke a Yuma tongue; further, they burnt their dead while all the other Yumas buried theirs. The population of lower California was very scattered (10,000 individuals in all); they gained a miserable existence from hunting and fishing, and could not even make canoes. To-day but few are left. To judge from the bones gathered at the extreme end of the Californian peninsula, the Indians who dwelt there (the ancestors of the PeriquÈs?) were if anything of short stature; by this characteristic, as well as by their dolichocephaly, they would appear then to be allied to the PalÆo-American sub-race.[616]

3. The name Pueblo Indians is sometimes given to the populations inhabiting the caves hollowed out of the sides of the deep caÑons and the “pueblos” of the warm and arid table-lands of Arizona, New Mexico, and the adjacent parts of Utah, California, and Mexico.

Some of these populations, the Moquis (2000) for example, belong to the Shoshone linguistic family,[617] others perhaps to the Pima stock (see p. 535); but there are three small groups of these cliff-dwellers whose languages present no analogy with one another nor with any other dialect. These are the Keres (3,560 individuals) and the Tanos (3,200 individuals), both in the upper basin of the Rio Grande, and the ZuÑis, who to the number of 1,600 occupy the “pueblo” of the same name in the west of New Mexico.

In spite of the diversity of their dialects all the cliff-dwellers have certain physical characters in common, such as stature above the average, brachycephaly, etc.[618] It must not be forgotten that the cliff-dwellers are surrounded on all sides by immigrant populations of the Athapascan stock (see p. 524).

III. The Indians of Mexico[619] and Central America may be divided, from the ethnographical point of view, into two great groups: the Sonoran-Aztecs, inhabiting the north of Mexico or what is improperly called the Anahuac plateau; and the Central Americans of Southern Mexico and the states situated more to the south as far as the Costa Rica republic.[620]

a. The Sonoran-Aztecs are allied by language to the Shoshones, and by manners and customs to the true Pueblo Indians of the United States, while they exhibit some divergences as regards physical type. Physically the Sonorans are allied to the North Americans of the Atlantic slope, while the peoples of the Aztec group show a great infusion of Central American blood.

The Pimas and their congeners the Papajos constitute one of the principal tribes of the Sonorans. They dwell in pueblos or “casas grandes,” and expend a prodigious amount of labour in drawing their subsistence from the infertile soil of the Gila valley. However, they are fine tall men (mean height 1 m. 71, according to Ten Kate), slim and nimble, having the head a trifle elongated (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub., 78.6), the nose prominent, etc. Their neighbours the Yakis and the Mayas, included in the Cahita linguistic group, 20,000 strong, have the same type as the Pimas. They inhabit the sterile regions through which flow the rivers Yaki and Mayo, and have preserved their racial purity almost intact,[621] unlike their kinsmen the Opatas and the Tarahumaras of Chihuahua and Sonora, in whom there is a powerful strain of Spanish blood.[622]

Under the collective name of Aztecs or Nahua are comprised several peoples and tribes who formerly occupied the Pacific slope from Rio de Fuerte (26th degree of N. lat.) to the frontiers of Guatemala, with the exception of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; their colonies even extended farther into Guatemala and Salvador (example, the Pipils). On the other side, on the Atlantic slope the Nahua tribes inhabited the regions around Mexico. There they had formed, probably two or three centuries before the arrival of the Europeans, three confederate states: Tezcuco, Tlacopan and Tenochtitlan, under whose dominion were ranged tribes of the same origin scattered along the coast, among the Totonac people in the existing province of Vera Cruz; one of these tribes, the Nicaraos or Niquirans, migrated into Nicaragua.[623]

At the present day the Aztecs, about 150,000 in number, are dispersed over the whole Mexican coast from Sinaloa in the south to Tepic, Jalisco, Michoacan on the west. Very peaceful, sedentary, with a veneer of civilisation, they are nominally Catholics, though at bottom they are animists, and full of superstition. In many of the Aztec villages the ancient Nahua language is still spoken.[624]

Side by side with the Aztecs there exist in Mexico three other ethnic groups which may be designated by the name of Mexicans properly so called. These are:—

1st. The Otomis, presumably the aboriginal inhabitants of the Mexican table-lands, now settled in the state of Guanajuato, and the basin of the upper Moctezuma between Mexico and San Luis de Potosi. They afford a unique example of an American people speaking an almost monosyllabic language. They are below the average height, brachycephalic as a general rule, with a tendency towards mesocephaly.[625]

2nd. The Tarascos, formerly spread over the whole of the state of Michoacan, in Guanajuato and Queretaro,[626] have been absorbed by the half-breed population. Lumholtz, however, states that nearly 200,000 uncrossed Tarascos are still living (1896) in the mountains of Michoacan. They had a form of pictography peculiar to themselves, and must have come, according to their traditions, from the northern regions, like the Nahuatlans.

3rd. The Totonacs of the province of Vera Cruz, formerly very civilised, resemble physically their neighbours on the north-east, the Huaxtecs; the latter, however, belong to the Maya linguistic group (see below).

b. The Central Americans.—They may be divided into three geographical groups, the Indians of Southern Mexico, the Mayas, and the Isthmians.

I. Among the numerous aboriginal peoples of Southern Mexico the Zapotecs of the state of Oajaca are the most numerous (about 265,000 individuals). These are the descendants of a once powerful people who had attained to nearly the same degree of civilisation as the Aztecs.

The Miztecs (Figs. 163 and 164), who occupy the eastern part of the state of Oajaca and the adjacent regions of Guerrero, have dwindled to a few thousand individuals. They appear to be of fairly pure Central American race, are very short, brachycephalic, and have a dark brown skin and projecting cheek-bones.[627]

In the east of Oajaca and in Chiapa, on the frontier of Guatemala, are found the Zoques, the Mixes, and the Chapanecs, with whom it is customary to connect the Chontals and the Popolucas. But these two vocables signify in Nahuatlan merely “stranger” and “one who speaks badly or stammers.”[628] Among the tribes of Oajaca and Tabasco, described under the name of Chontals, some speak a dialect peculiar to themselves, the Tequistlatecan, allied to the Yuma language (Brinton), while others speak the Maya dialects.[629]

II. The peoples composing the Maya group appear to have come in post-quaternary times (by sea?), and in a state of civilisation already well advanced,[630] into the Yucatan peninsula. Thence they spread into Guatemala and the surrounding regions of Salvador and Honduras, where at the present day they form the bulk of the population. The ancient Maya civilisation resembled that of Mexico, the sanguinary creeds of the latter excepted; their writing was of a perfect hieroglyphic type. Besides the Mayas properly so called of Yucatan, the principal tribes of this group are: the Tsendals or Chontals of Mexico, already mentioned above; the Mopans of Northern Guatemala; the KoÏtches or QuichÉs farther south, the only Indian people possessing an aboriginal written literature; the Pokomams of the district around the town of Guatemala; the Chortis on the territory where the ruins of Copan stand; and a long way off, isolated from the rest of their kinsmen, in the Mexican province of Tamaulipas, the Huaxtecs (p. 537). In spite of linguistic differences, all the Guatemalans or Indians of Guatemala resemble each other physically; they are short, thick-set, with high cheek-bones, prominent and often convex nose.[631] Some characteristic habits, as for instance geophagy, are common to all these populations.

III. The Isthmians.—We include under this name the native populations of Central America, scattered between Guatemala and the Isthmus of Panama, whose dialects do not fit into any group of American languages.[632]

These are the Lenkas of the interior of Honduras; the Xicaks or Sihahv in the north of this country; the Chontals of Nicaragua, formed from the Matagalpes, speaking a language peculiar to themselves; and the tribes adjoining the Lenkas, the Guatusos or Huatusos, who inhabit the forests surrounding San Juan. The latter were formerly classed, without adequate reason, with the Nahua, and they were represented as having dark complexions, whereas they are as yellow as the rest of Americans. In number they scarcely exceed 600 individuals.[633]

To all these peoples there must be added certain uncivilised tribes of the Ulva group (Soumoo of the English),[634] on the coast of Mosquito, who are sometimes called Caribs, although they have nothing in common with the true Caribs (p. 552); then the Micas, the Siquias of the Rio Mico, the Subironas of the Rio Coco, etc., who are all distinguished by the colour of their skin, which is darker than that of Indians in general.

The Moscos or Mosquitos who inhabit the neighbourhood of the Blewfields lagoon (Mosquito reservation) are still darker, indeed, almost black like Negroes, without, however, exhibiting other points of resemblance with the latter. They are short in stature, having a fine, prominent nose, etc., and it is not difficult to distinguish those who are the offspring of Mosquitos crossed with true Negro blood. About 6000 in number, the Mosquitos are relatively civilised, and make use of the Latin alphabet, introduced by missionaries, for writing their mother-tongue. In an island of the Blewfields lagoon, between the Rio Mico and the Rio San Juan, have been found the Rumas, of very high stature, but their language is as yet unknown.

Half-breeds of North America.—In the United States and Canada the half-breeds of Indians and Whites, as well as Mulattos, form but a very slight portion of the population. This is not the case in Central America and Mexico. The aboriginal populations of Central America are reduced to a few thousand individuals; on the other hand, the half-breeds, produced by the crossings between them and the Europeans, form almost the whole of the population.

In Mexico the half-breeds form a little less than the half of the population, and in a general way they increase in number as we go from north to south and from west to east. Their nomenclature is somewhat complicated.[635] On the other hand, Negroes and Mulattos are not very numerous in Mexico and Central America. The Negro element exhibits a marked predominance only in the Antilles. The population of the island of Haiti is almost wholly Negro or Mulatto; that of the other islands has sprung from the manifold crossings between the ancient Carib or Arawak aborigines (see p. 552), and between Negroes and Europeans. The children of a white man and a mulatto woman are called Quadroons in the Antilles, but most of the half-breeds among whom European blood predominates prefer the name of Creoles. The Creole type of the Antilles is indeed very fine, especially among the women (Fig. 162), who sometimes have a vivacious look and a bewitching smile unique of their kind.

PEOPLES OF SOUTH AMERICA.

Accepting, with Brinton, the northern political frontier of Costa Rica as the ethnological limit of South America, I propose to pass in review the native populations of the continent, grouping them according to the four great natural regions: the Cordillera of the Andes; the plains of the Amazon and the Orinoco, with Guiana; the table-lands of eastern and southern Brazil; lastly, the Pampas of the southern part of the continent, with Tierra del Fuego.

This division corresponds pretty well with the distribution of races, languages, and ethnographic provinces.[636] In fact, the substratum of the Andean populations is formed of the Central American race, while that of the Amazonians and Guianas is composed of the South American race with its two sub-races, South American properly so called, and PalÆo-American; the latter predominates also in east Brazil and Tierra del Fuego, while there are mingled with it Patagonian and other elements in the south of Brazil and among the Pampeans.

As regards language there is the same difference. In the Andean dialects the pronominal particles are suffixes, while in the Amazonian dialects these particles are prefixes, but both groups allow of a limitative form of the personal pronoun in the plural. As to the Pampean dialects, they are without the limitative form in most cases, and sometimes make use of prefixes, sometimes of suffixes.[637]

The ethnological differences of the three groups are manifold. This subject will be briefly dealt with further on. For the present let us observe that, in a general way, the Andeans are husbandmen, and have had a highly-developed native civilisation, while the Amazonians and the Brazilians of the east are for the most part fishers or hunters, often in the lowest scale of civilisation. As to the Pampeans, they are typical pastoral nomads. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the Andeans were acquainted with the weaving of stuffs; they worked in gold, silver, and bronze, manufactured fine pottery, had houses of stone and fortified towns, and employed as their chief weapons clubs and slings. The Amazonians and their congeners, on the other hand, still go almost naked, and adorn themselves with feathers; they were unacquainted with metals on the arrival of the Europeans, and some are ignorant even now of the art of pottery; they dwell in shelters or huts of branches and leaves, and their weapons are the blow-pipe and poisoned arrows. The Pampeans, before being influenced by the Andean or European civilisation, clothed themselves with skins, were acquainted neither with metals nor pottery, dwelt in huts, and used the bollas as their principal weapon.

Before beginning a rapid review of the South American tribes, it must again be remarked that their nomenclature often leads to confusion. A great number of terms are only qualifications applied by Europeans to the most different peoples, in no way akin one to the other. Such, for example, is the term “Bougres,” which is given in the east of Brazil to savages in general; or that of “Jivaros,” employed in the same sense in Peru; such also are the appellations of Coroados (crowned or tonsured), of Orejones (pierced ears), of Cherentes, Caribs, etc., without taking into account those relating to the half-breeds.[638]

I. The Andeans.[639]—By this name we shall describe the principal populations which are stationed in the Cordilleras, and on the high table-lands shut in by these mountains from Costa Rica to the 45th degree of S. latitude. Most of them belong to the Chibcha and Quechua linguistic families; but there are also several whose linguistic affinities have yet to be determined.

1. Chibcha Linguistic Family.—The Talamancas of Costa Rica, sub-divided into several tribes (Chirripos, Bribris, etc.), form the most northern tribe of this group; they dwell partly on the Atlantic slope, partly on the Pacific. By certain ethnic characters (feather ornaments, use of the blow-pipe) they are related to the Amazonians.[640] Farther away the Guaymis inhabit the region of Chiriqui (Panama), where such beautifully ornamented ancient pottery (Figs. 63 and 64) has been found in the tombs of a still mysterious population. They are short, thick-set, and flat-faced, resembling the Otomis of Mexico. There may be about 4000 of them, according to Pinart; but some of their tribes had dwindled to such an extent, that of the Muoi, for example, there were only three individuals in 1882. They organise feasts among the tribes, to which invitations are sent by means of a staff sent round (a portion of a liana-stem, having as many knots as there are days remaining before the feast). With their bodies daubed with red or blue, the Guaymis give themselves up during these feasts to drinking and the game of balza, which consists in throwing a sort of club at the legs of their adversaries. There are also lesser feasts, feasts of initiation called here urotes.[641] The Chibchas of Columbia, whose civilisation is no whit behind that of the Nahuas,[642] have been under Spanish influence since the conquest, and to-day but a few tribes are met with who still speak their mother-tongue or who have preserved their ancient customs.

Such are the Chimilas of the Sierra-Perija; the Tunebos, true cliff-dwellers, eastward of Bogota; the Arahuacos, dwelling to the number of 3000 in the Sierra-Nevada of Santa Marta. The latter have nothing in common with the true Arawaks, unless it be their name, which, however, they repudiate as an insult; the name they give to themselves is CÖggaba, that is to say, “Men.”[643] As to the Chibcha or Muisca Indians of the Rio Magdalena, who were the most civilised of all the peoples speaking the Chibcha tongue, no survivors are to be found.

2. The Quechua Linguistic Family is one of the most far-reaching of South America. The Quechua dialects are still spoken to-day on the coast, and along the chain of the Andes from Quito to the 30th degree S. latitude. This is practically the extent of the ancient empire of the Incas, the best known nation among the Quechua peoples. But the influence of the Inca civilisation and the Quechua language extended even farther, to Columbia, the borders of Ucayale, and the Bolivian table-land on the north, to the edge of the Pampas on the south (among the Calchaquis). For the western part of South America the Quechua tongue was the lengua general, as the Tupi-Guarani tongue was the lingua geral for the east (Brazil, Paraguay, etc.). This language is not at all superseded by Spanish; on the contrary, the Whites learn it, and several Quechua words: guano, pampa, condor, quina, have found their way into the languages of all civilised nations.[644] The principal tribes are: the Huancas to the north-east of Lima, the Lamanas near Trujillo, the Incas in the vicinity of the Rio Apurimac, the Aymaras of the high table-lands of Bolivia (600,000 individuals, of whom two-thirds are of pure blood).

In spite of the diversity of dialects all the Quechuas and Aymaras present a remarkable uniformity of physical type. They are of low stature (1 m. 60 according to D’Orbigny, 1 m. 57 according to Forbes), thick-set, and very strong. The chest is broad, the head massive and globular, the nose aquiline, forehead retreating. This last peculiarity should however be attributed to the custom of deforming the head, very widespread among all the Quechuas and neighbouring peoples; this deformation is still practised in the same way as in the days of the Inca civilisation. It is very unlikely that the frequent occurrence of the “Inca bone” (p. 67) in Peruvian skulls has any connection with this deformation. The greatest part of the population of Peru is composed of Quechuas and Aymaras, or of Quechua-Spanish half-breeds.[645]

The Calchaquis,[646] the ancient inhabitants of the modern south-west provinces, Argenton, Catamarca, Rioja, Santiago, etc., probably also spoke a Quechua dialect. It was a very civilised population; the only one in the South American continent which knew how to construct buildings of freestone. Although partly borrowed from the Peruvians, the Calchaqui civilisation has a character of its own, and in several respects recalls that of the Pueblo Indians, particularly the ZuÑis (arrangement of their cities in a series of seven, copper tools and weapons, etc.).

The last Calchaqui tribe, the Quilmes, was transported in 1670 by the Spaniards near to Buenos Ayres, where it forms the village of this name.

3. Unclassified Tribes.—In Columbia let us note the following tribes:—

The Cuna Indians, also called Tula Dariens, etc., of southern Panama. They are people of low stature (1 m. 50, according to Brinton), thick-set, of light yellow complexion, very brachycephalic (ceph. ind. 88.6, according to Catat), with broad faces, somewhat resembling the Guaymis, their neighbours in the east (p. 545). It is asserted that individuals with grey eyes and chestnut or reddish hair are not rare among them. They are not numerous; the tribe of the Changuina Dorasks, which formerly numbered 5000, had dwindled down in 1883 to a dozen individuals, still speaking their mother-tongue; the Sambu Chocos, who occupied the whole of the lower valley of the Atrato, and extended westward to the Pacific coast, are now scarcely 600 in number in southern Darien. They are short (1 m. 55), brachycephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub., 84.1), very broad-faced.[647] To the eastward of the Chibchas (p. 545) dwelt several families of the Paniquitas and Paezes, included in a distinct linguistic group, of which the other representatives, Colimas and Manipos, have entirely disappeared. In central Columbia (state of Antioquia) dwell the last remnants of the Nutabehs and Tahamis, tribes resembling the Muisca Indians (p. 546) in their customs and social state.

As to the Ando-Peruvian region, several ethnic groups, using special dialects, are also found there, having no relation with the Quechuas. Such as the small tribe of the Puquinas in the neighbourhood of Lake Titicaca, the Yuncas or Cuna-Yuncas (“inhabitants of the hot lands” in the Quechua tongue), settled on the Pacific coast between the 5th and 10th degrees of S. latitude; finally, the AtacameÑos, fishers of the Loa valley, and the Shangos or Changos, more to the south, in the desert of Atacama. These two tribes are characterised by their low stature (1 m. 60, according to D’Orbigny).

It may be as well to class with the Andeans the Araucans, or Mapu-che as they call themselves, whose linguistic affinities are still obscure, but whom we must connect with the Central American race by their physical characters; stature almost low (1 m. 61), sub-brachycephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub., 82, skull 81), elongated face, with slightly projecting cheek-bones, straight or convex nose, etc., the general appearance recalling the Aymaras and the Quechuas;[648] certain ethnic characters (perfected weaving of stuffs, irrigation, hoe-culture, metallurgy, etc.) place them in the same category as the Andeans, and point to Peruvian influence. They are only found, in fact, to the north of the Bio-Bio river (37°–38° S. lat.)—that is to say, only in those places reached by the Inca civilisation. South of this line, with the exception of the coast, where European influence makes itself felt, the Araucans have remained until recent times hunters or nomadic shepherds, almost uncivilised. It is estimated that there are 40,000 Chilian Araucans. At a comparatively recent period some Araucan tribes migrated to the eastern slope of the Cordilleras (the Manzanieros)[649] and into the Argentine pampas, as far as the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres. In these parts they have been pushed back, firstly by the European colonists, then by the Argentine soldiers, farther and farther south, beyond the Rio Negro. This population is a very mixed one; we find in it Patagonian, Quechua, Chaco, and even European elements (see p. 574).

From the social point of view, all the Araucans have preserved their ancient organisation of hordes governed by a hereditary chief. Little is known about their religious ideas; it is understood that they hold in the highest reverence an evil spirit called “Pilgan” by the Andean Araucans, “Nervelu” (“bird with metal beak and claws”) by the Araucans of the Pampas. Formerly, the Araucan warriors were buried with their weapons, their horse was felled on the grave and consumed.[650]

Among the Andean populations we must also mention the Yurucares, to the west of the Rio MamorÉ, of very high stature, their skin being, it is said, almost as white as that of Europeans.

II. The Amazonians.—The vast plains and impenetrable forests, rich in birds and arboreal mammalia, watered by the great tropical streams, the Amazon and the Orinoco, are peopled by a large number of tribes who may be grouped to-day—thanks to the recent works of philologists—into four families. Two of these, the Carib and Arawak, or Maypure families, comprise the tribes of the eastern part of the country;[651] the two others, which are less important, the Miranha and Pano families, are composed of the tribes of the western part of the country.

1. The Carib Family.—It was thought until recently that the peoples of this linguistic group had settlements only in the Guianas and the Antilles, but recent studies have shown that they extended much farther over the South American continent, as far as the source of the Yapura on the west, and the 14th degree of S. latitude on the south. As the speech of the southern Caribs is purer, less sprinkled with Arawak words than that of their northern brethren, philologists suppose that the original home of the Caribs in general should be found somewhere in the centre of Brazil, to the south of the Amazon. It is from there that they must have migrated into Guiana, whence their hordes moved towards the Antilles probably two centuries before the arrival of Columbus. There they found already the Arawak tribes (see p. 557), whom they supplanted in the lesser Antilles, and against whom they directed their maritime expeditions as far as the east coast of the island of Haiti. These Antillian Caribs have been exterminated by the European colonists, and except in the islands in the vicinity of the Guianas, like Trinidad, there remain to-day but 192 individuals in the island of St. Vincent (census of 1881) and 200 individuals, of whom there are barely a dozen unhybridised, in the island of Dominica. Most of the Caribs of the island of St. Vincent were transported by the English in 1796 to Ruatan Island and Trujillo, on the north coast of Honduras. Their descendants, crossed with Negro blood, numbering about 6000, live in these places as well as in British Honduras, where they are known by the name of “Black Caribs.”

The most southerly tribes of the Caribs are the Bakairis (Fig. 172), and the Nahuquas of the upper Xingu, as well as the Palmellas of the lower Guapore, a sub-tributary of the right of the Rio Madeira. The Apiacas of the lower Tocantins, who must not be confounded with the Tupi tribe of the same name (p. 569), form the link between this distant branch and the bulk of the Caribs peopling Guiana. The latter are known as Apotos and Waywai in Brazilian Guiana; as Roucouyennes and Galibis in French Guiana; as Kalinas in Dutch Guiana (Figs. 167 and 168). The Caribs of British Guiana belong chiefly to the Macusi tribe, those of Venezuela are represented by the Makirifares in the east, and farther away to the west, by the Motilones, who keep to the borders of Colombia (Ernst). The ancient Carib tribes of Venezuela called Chaimas and Kumanas are represented at the present day by the Indians of Aguasai (87 miles north of Bolivar), who speak Spanish, but who have preserved the Carib type (Ten Kate). It is the same with the Aborigines of Oruba Island, to the north-east of the Gulf of Venezuela (Pinart). Lastly, in the upper basin of the Yapura, outside of Brazilian territory, there are likewise known members of the Carib family, particularly the Uitotos or Carijonas, who live side by side with the Miranhas (p. 560) (Crevaux). To judge from some ethnographical analogies (similarity of tattooing, etc.), the Araras or Yumas, who wander on the right bank of the Amazon, in the neighbourhood of the mouths of the Xingu, Tapajos, Madeira and Purus, belong also to the Carib family, but as yet nothing is known about their language.[652]

FIG. 167.—Kalina or Carib of Dutch Guiana.
(Coll. Mus. Nat. Hist., Paris.)