Part 15

They are also called the Sioux. Their principal tribes are the Assiniboins, to the north; the Hidatsa or Crows, at the west; the Winnebagoes to the east; the Omahas, Mandans, Otoes, and Poncas, on the Missouri; the Osages and Kansas to the south.

The _Chahta-Muskoki_ stock occupied the area of what we call the Gulf States, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River. They comprised the Creeks or Muskokis, the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and later the Seminoles. The latter took possession of Florida early in the last century. Previously that peninsula had been inhabited by the Timucuas, a nation now wholly extinct, though its language is still preserved in the works of the Spanish missionaries.

The Creeks and their neighbors were first visited by Fernando de Soto in 1540, on that famous expedition when he discovered the Mississippi. The narratives of his campaign represent them as cultivating extensive fields of corn, living in well fortified towns, their houses erected on artificial mounds, and the villages having defences of embankments of earth. These statements are verified by the existing remains, which compare favorably in size and construction with those left by the mysterious “Mound Builders” of the Ohio valley. In fact, the opinion is steadily gaining ground that probably the builders of the Ohio earthworks were the ancestors of the Creeks, Cherokees, and other southern tribes.[182]

Much of the area of eastern Texas, and the land north of it to the Platte River, were held by various tribes of the _Caddoes_. Fragments of them are found nearly as far north as the Canada line, and it is probable that their migration was from this higher latitude southerly, though their own legends referred to the east as their first home. They depended for subsistence chiefly on hunting and fishing, thus remaining in a lower stage of progress than their neighbors in the Mississippi valley.

Sometimes this is called the _Pani_ family, from one of their members, the Pawnees, on the Platte River. Their most northerly tribe was the Arickarees, who reached to the middle Missouri, and in the south the Witchitas were the most prominent.

The _Kioways_ now live about the head-waters of the Nebraska or Platte River, along the northern line of Colorado. Formerly they roamed over the plains of Texas, but according to an ancient tradition, they came from some high northern latitude, and made use of sleds.[183]

Omitting a number of small tribes, whose names would weary you, I shall mention in the Atlantic group the _Shoshonee_ bands, called also Snake or Ute Indians. They extended from the coast of Texas in a northwesterly direction over New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada, to the borders of California, and reached the Pacific near Santa Barbara. Many of them are a low grade of humanity, the lowest in skull-form, says Professor Virchow, of any he has examined on the continent. The “Root-diggers” are one of their tribes, living in the greatest squalor. Yet it would be a serious error to suppose they are not capable of better things. Many among them have shown decided intellectual powers. Sarah Winnemucca, a full blood Pi-Ute, was an acceptable and fluent lecturer in the English language,[184] and their war chiefs have at times given our army officers no little trouble by their skill and energy.

The Comanches are the best known of the Shoshonees, and present the finest types of the stock. They are of average stature, straight noses, features regular, and even handsome, and the expression manly. They are splendid horsemen and skilful hunters, but men never given to an agricultural life.

_3. The North Pacific Group._

The narrow valleys of the Pacific slope are traversed by streams rich in fish, whose wooded banks abounded in game. Shut off from one another by lofty ridges, they became the home of isolated tribes, who developed in course of time peculiarities of speech, culture and appearance. Hence it is that there is an extraordinary diversity of stocks along that coast, and few of them have any wide extent.

In the extreme north the _Tlinkit_ or _Kolosch_ are in proximity to the Eskimos near Mount St. Elias. They are an ingenious and sedentary people, living in villages of square wooden houses, many parts of which are elaborately carved into fantastic figures. Their canoes are dug out of tree trunks, and are both graceful in shape and remarkably seaworthy. With equal deftness they manufacture clothing from skin, ornaments from bone, ivory, wood and stone, utensils from horn and stone, and baskets and mats from rushes.[185]

To the south of them are the Haidahs of Vancouver’s island, distantly related in language to the Tlinkit, and closely in the arts of life. Their elaborately carved pipes in black slate, and their intricate designs in wood, testify to their dexterity as artists. South of them are various stocks, the Tsimshian on the Nass and Skeena rivers, the Nootka on the sound of that name, the Salish, who occupy a large tract, and others.[186]

All the above are north of the line of the United States. Not far south of it are the Sahaptins, or Nez Percés, who are noteworthy for two traits, one their language, which is to some extent inflectional, with cases like the Latin, and the second, for their commercial abilities. They owned the divide between the headwaters of the Missouri and of the Columbia rivers, and from remote times carried the products of the Pacific slope--shells, beads, pipes, etc.--far down the Missouri, to barter them for articles from the Mississippi valley.

The coast of California was thickly peopled by many tribes of no linguistic affinities, most of whom have now disappeared. They offer little of interest except to the specialist, and I shall omit their enumeration in order to devote more time to the Pueblo Indians and Cliff-dwellers of New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona.

These include divers tribes, Moquis, Zuñis, Acomas and others, not related in language, but upon the same plane of culture, and that one in many respects higher than any tribe I have yet named to you. They constructed large buildings (pueblos) of stone and sun-dried brick, with doors and windows supported by beams of wood; they were not only tillers of the soil, but devised extensive systems of irrigation, by which the water was conducted for miles to the fields; they were both skilful and tasteful in the manufacture of pottery and clothing; and as places of defence or retreat they erected stone towers and lodged well-squared stone dwellings on the ledges of the deep cañons, known as “cliff houses.”

_4. The Mexican Group._

The nations of leading prominence in this group spoke the Aztec or Nahuatl tongue. On the arrival of Cortes, they controlled the territory from the Gulf to the Pacific, and their colonies and commerce extended far north and south. They dwelt in populous cities built of brick and stone, were diligent cultivators of the soil, made use of a phonetic system of writing, and had an ample literature preserved in books.

The physical traits of the Aztecs were nowise peculiar. Their skulls were moderately long or medium, though a few are brachycephalic, the forehead narrow, the face broad. The hair is occasionally wavy, and they present more beard than most of the other Indians. The color is from light to dark brown, the nose prominent, and the ears large. In stature they are medium or less, strongly built and muscular. Persons ill-made or deformed are rare, and among the young of both sexes graceful and symmetrical forms are not uncommon.

The governments of the various nations were based on the system of clans, gentes or totems, which was common not only in America, but in most primitive communities. Each gens had a right of representation, and the land belonged to its members, not as individuals, but as parts of the clan. The highest officer of the State was in early times elected by the chiefs of the gentes, but later the office became hereditary.

Of all the arts, that of architecture was most developed. The pyramid of Cholula compares in magnitude with the most stupendous results of human labor. It has four terraces, and its base is a square, 1500 feet on each side. Similar structures are found at Papantla, Teotihuacan, and other localities. They are built of earth, stone, and baked brick, and could only have been completed by the united and directed labor of large bodies of workmen. The cities of ancient Mexico were many in number, and contained thousands of houses. Tenochtitlan was surrounded by walls of stone, and its population must have been at least sixty thousand souls.

Of their cultivated plants the most important were maize, cotton, beans, cacao and tobacco. An intoxicating beverage, called _octli_, was prepared from the fermented juice of the agave, but its use was limited by stringent regulations, and repeated drunkenness was punished with death.

The Aztecs were in the “bronze age” of industrial development. Various tools, as hoes, chisels and scrapers, ornaments, as beads and bells, formed of an alloy of tin and copper, and copper plates of a crescentic shape were used as a circulating medium in some districts. In welding and hammering gold and silver they were the technical equals of the goldsmiths of Europe of their day. Most of their cutting instruments, however, were of stone.

They were lovers of brilliant colors, and decorated their costumes and buildings with dyed stuffs, bright flowers, and the rich plumage of tropical birds. Such feathers were also woven into mantles and head-dresses of intricate designs and elaborate workmanship, an art now lost. Their dyes were strong and permanent, some of them remaining quite vivid after four centuries of exposure to the light.

In order to obtain the materials used in their arts and to exchange their completed products, they carried on an active commerce, both domestic and foreign. All the cities had market days, when the neighboring country people would flock in great numbers to town, and the journeys of their merchants extended far toward the Isthmus of Panama.

The national religion was a polytheism built up on a totemic worship; that is, it was originally a nature worship grafted upon the superstitious devotion paid to the presiding genius of the gens. Huitzilopochtli was the chief divinity of the Aztecs of Tenochtitlan, Quetzalcoatl was especially adored at Cholula, and the two Tezcatlipocas, the one dark and one white, were other prominent mythical figures. According to the myth these four were brothers, but engaged in a series of contentions among themselves, which repeatedly wrecked the world.[187]

The Nahuas were by no means the only nation who had made decided progress in culture. In Michoacan, to the northwest of the valley of Mexico, dwelt the Tarascos. They spoke a totally different tongue, but according to Aztec legend had accompanied the Nahua from a northern region into their Mexican homes. Physically they are described as a taller and handsomer folk than the Nahuas, with a language singularly vocalic and musical. Bold in war, they were never subject to the Aztecs, and appear to have been their equals in the arts. They constructed houses of stone, and made use of a hieroglyphic writing to preserve the records of their ancestors.[188]

The Mixtecs and Zapotecs were neighboring tribes, who lived on and near the Pacific above the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. By tradition both nations came together from the north; “mixtecatl” in Nahuatl means “people from the cloudy land.” To them are attributed the remarkable edifices of Mitla, stone-built structures, whose walls are elaborately ornamented with rude stone mosaics in meander designs or “grecques.” The roofs seem to have been supported by solid pillars of granite, some of which are still in place. Of the age or purposes of these buildings we know nothing, as they were deserted and in ruins when first visited by the Spaniards.

There are many smaller tribes in Mexico of independent stocks, but a catalogue of their names would be of little use. The most widely distributed are the Otomis. They are of small stature, dolichocephalic, and averse to civilization. According to tradition they are the oldest occupants of the land, possessing it before the arrival of the Nahuas. Their language in singularly difficult, nasal and primitive. In form it is almost monosyllabic, with a tendency to isolation. This has led some writers to believe it akin to the Chinese, for which there is not the slightest ground.

_5. The Inter-Isthmian Group._

Between the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and that of Panama the continent narrows to a point, and the pressure of the population advancing from both directions forced a large number of diverse nationalities into a limited area. Only one of these could lay claim to a respectable civilization, most of the others living in primitive savagery.

This people, the Mayas, occupied the whole of the peninsula of Yucatan, and the territory south of it to the Pacific Ocean. It was divided into a number of independent tribes, the principal of which were the Quiches and Cakchiquels, in the present State of Guatemala. In all there were about eighteen dialects of the tongue, each of which can easily be recognized as a member of the stock.

There can be little doubt that the common ancestors of these tribes moved down from the north, following the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. This is the statement of their most ancient traditions, and it is supported by the presence of one of their tribes, the Huastecas, on the shore of the Gulf, near Tampico. It has been calculated that their entrance into Yucatan was about the beginning of the Christian era.

Physically the Maya peoples are of medium height, dark in hue, the skull usually long (dolichocephalic), the nose prominent, and the muscular force superior. The artist Waldeck compares their features to those of the Arabs.

Their mental aptitudes are reflected in the culture they developed under circumstances not the most favorable. As architects they erected the most remarkable monuments on the continent. The elaborate decorations in stone, the bold carving, the free employment of the pointed arch, and the size of the edifices in the ancient cities of Palenque, Copan, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and others, place them in the front rank among the wondrous ruins of the ancient world.

They were a decidedly agricultural people, cultivating maize, cotton, tobacco, peppers, beans, and cacao. The land was portioned out with care, each house-holder being granted an area in proportion to the size of his family. The cotton was woven into cloth, skilfully dyed, and cut into graceful garments. The dyes were vegetable substances, collected from the native forests. What is not elsewhere paralleled in America, they carried on an extensive apiculture, domesticating the wild bee in wooden hives, and obtaining from its stores both wax and honey.

Their weapons and utensils were mostly of stone. There is no evidence that the Maya tribes had the metallurgical skill of the Nahuas. Obsidian, jade, agate, and chert were the materials from which they made their tools and weapons.

In war and the chase they were expert with the bow, the long lance, and the blow-pipe or sarbacane, a device recurring in both North and South America, as well as familiar to the Malays. The war-club, the sling and the tomahawk or hand-axe were also known to them.

Small quantities of gold, silver and copper were found among them, but not in objects of utility. They were prized as materials for ornaments, and were employed for decorative purposes.

The art of writing was familiar to most of the Maya tribes, and especially to those in Yucatan. The Spanish authors assert that the Quiches in Guatemala had written annals extending eight hundred years before the conquest, or to 750 A. D., and the chronicles of the Mayas which have been preserved, refer to a still more remote past, possibly to about 300 A. D. The script was quite dissimilar in appearance from the Mexican.

Adjoining or near the numerous branches of the Maya peoples, there dwelt several outliving colonies of Nahuas in the Isthmian region, who have left there interesting relics of their culture. The Pipiles near the Pacific coast were the authors of a series of excellent bas-reliefs carved on slabs of stone, which have recently come into the possession of the Berlin museum.[189] The Nicaraos, between the Pacific Ocean and Lake Nicaragua, and on the islands in this lake, were the sculptors of the strange figures in stone pictured by Squier in his travels, and some of which are now in the Smithsonian museum; while the Alaguilacs in Western Guatemala have left ruins which have not yet been explored.[190] All these tribes were Nahuas of pure blood.

On the shores of Lake Managua, to the east and west, were the Mangues, a people of some cultivation, acquainted with a form of hieroglyphic or picture writing, very skilful in pottery, and agricultural in habits.[191] It has been ascertained that they are a branch of the Chapanecs, who dwelt in the province of Chiapas, Mexico.

The other tribes around Lake Nicaragua were wild. The Woolwas on the north, and the Huatusos along the Rio Frio to the east, depended on hunting and fishing for a livelihood. So also did most of the tribes of Honduras, Vera Paz and the Isthmus. The only nation which distinguished itself in the arts were the Cuevas, in and around Chiriqui Bay. They were adroit in the treatment of gold. The early writers describe them as prominent in general culture and certain technical arts. To them we attribute the gold figures disinterred from the mounds of Chiriqui and its neighborhood. They are manufactured by two methods, the one by soldering gold wires drawn out into the finest thread upon thin hammered plates of the same metal, the wire forming the design; the other by casting hollow figures.[192] The skill displayed often excites the astonishment of the jewellers of our own day.

_6. The South Atlantic Group._

The interminable forests of Brazil and the endless plains of the Pampas were at the discovery thickly peopled by bands of roving nations, dependent chiefly on the products of woods and streams for their support. None of them had sedentary dwellings, none knew the art of building with brick or stone, and none laid much stress on agriculture. Some of them had, however, considerable technical skill in various directions, and few if any of them could be assigned to as low a status as the Australians, for example.

The ruling people on the northern coast and the Lesser Antilles at that time were the _Caribs_. They possessed much of the coast line from the Isthmus of Panama to the mouth of the Orinoco, and many of the smaller southern islands of the West Indian archipelago. They had established a colony on Hayti, but probably not on Cuba, and their expeditions, so far as we know, never reached Florida. According to their own statements, all the island Caribs came from the mainland at no long period before the Discovery. Recent researches have shown that the original home of the stock was south of the Amazon, and probably in the highlands at the head of the Tapajoz River. A tribe, the Bakairi, is still resident there, whose language is a pure and archaic form of the Carib tongue.[193]

They were a finely formed set of men, the skull long but variable, their color dark, large narrow nose, prominent cheek bones, wide mouth, and thin lips.

Their language is rich in vowels and pleasant to the ear. In some districts that spoken by the women varied in some degree from that in use among the men. This is not without other examples among the American race, and appears to have arisen partly from the custom of capturing women from other tribes for wives, partly from a tendency to easy dialectic variation in the languages themselves.

The _Arawaks_ occupied on the continent the area of the modern Guiana, between the Corentyn and the Pomeroon rivers, and at one time all the West Indian Islands. From some of them they were early driven by the Caribs, and within forty year of the date of Columbus’ first voyage the Spanish had exterminated nearly all on the islands. Their course of migration had been from the interior of Brazil northward; their distant relations are still to be found between the headwaters of the Paraguay and Schingu rivers.

The extensive slope which is watered by the Amazon and its tributaries is peopled by numerous tribes whose affinities are obscure. Those on the plains near the coast belonged to the _Tupi-Guarani_ stock. This extended along the Atlantic from Rio de la Plata to the Amazon, embracing in the north the Tupis or Tupinambas, and on the south the Guaranis. Scattered tribes of the stock extended westward to the Paraguay and Madeira rivers, reaching to the foot hills of Andes. Though positive data are lacking about their early migrations, the evidence at hand tends to show that these were from south to north, and that the Tupis displaced an earlier people of a different physical type and a lower grade of culture.

This is the result derived both from a comparison of existing dialects and from explorations in the artificial shell-heaps, or _sambaquis_, which are found along the coast. Many of them are of great size and very ancient. They contain skulls of an inferior type, with low foreheads, prominent and strong jaws, and short skulls (brachycephalic), while the Tupi skull is more fully developed and long (dolichocephalic). Similar shell-heaps, proving an equally rude people, are found along the coast of Guinea, and both among the Arawaks of that locality, and still more among the Goajiros of the peninsula of that name on the coast of Venezuela, who are distantly related to the Arawaks, do we find the brachycephalic skull and strong jaws of the builders of the “sambaquis.” We may suppose, therefore, that the Tupis drove these earlier residents to the shores of the northern ocean.[194]

In frequent contiguity with the Tupis was another stock, also widely dispersed through Brazil, called the _Tapuyas_, of whom the Botocudos in eastern Brazil are the most prominent tribe. To them also belong the Ges nations, south of the lower Amazon, and others. They are on a low grade of culture, going quite naked, not cultivating the soil, ignorant of pottery, and with poorly made canoes. They are dolichocephalic, and must have inhabited the country for a long time, as the skulls found in the caves at Lagoa Santa, in connection with the bones of extinct animals, are identical in form with those of the Botocudos, and probably belonged to their ancestors.

West of the Paraguay River is an extensive plain called El Gran Chaco, beginning at the eighteenth degree of south latitude, and continuing to the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. This region was peopled by numerous wandering tribes, the Abipones, the Guaycurus, the Lules, and scores of others. They were in nowise related to the Guaranis, having short skulls, different linguistic stocks, and an inferior grade of culture. As they were warlike, and in constant strife with the whites, as well as among themselves, they have now nearly disappeared.

The tribes of the Pampas were on a similar plane of development, and have also given way before the march of the white race.

In the extreme south of the continent are the Patagonians and Fuegians. The former are sometimes called Tehuelches, or Southerners. They are a nomadic and hunting people, dark olive-brown in color, tall in stature and robust.