Page:Natalie Curtis - The Indians' Book.djvu/41

 be truth in the theory that the American continent was the first to emerge, then are the Indians, indeed, perhaps the most ancient of peoples and their spiritual conceptions should be of interest and value to the whole human race. The whole civilized world to-day faces the question: Is primitive man to retain his God-given right to evolution, or is he to be swept from off the earth before the imperious needs of civilized powers? The Spartan mother left her weakling on the mountain-side to perish. Now science, with the incubator, preserves the life of the pauper babe prematurely born. Should not this recognition of the sacredness of life be applied to races as well as to individuals? He who can offer most to the development of humanity is now deemed the fittest to survive. The primitive races are child races. Who can tell what may be their contribution to humanity when they are grown? And have they not even now something to give?

What of the type of manhood that the Indian presents, reserved and poised, courageous, enduring, master of eloquence, master of silence, above all, self-controlled—a proud, vanishing figure in a nation of unrest? A hewer of wood and a drawer of water, yes—but what more? What of his talents?—have they not a place to fill in the culture and industry of our country? We are a people of great mechanical and inventive genius, but we are not naturally song-makers, poets, or designers. Can we afford to lose from our country any sincere and spontaneous art impulse, however crude? The undeveloped talents native to the aboriginal American are precisely those in which the Anglo-Saxon American is deficient. Far ahead of Europe are we in labor-saving devices, but far behind in all art industries. Our patterns and designs are largely imported from France. And yet, here among us, down-trodden and by us debauched, is a people of real creative artistic genius—the first Americans and possibly the oldest race on earth. And our interests declare that this proud race must perish? If The Indians' Book proves that the Indians have qualities worthy of a place in civilization, may not the same be true of other primitive peoples also? Would we not do well at least to find out what the people really are before we declare that the natural law of the survival of the fittest pronounces for our progress their doom?