Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/434

 402 AMERICAN INDIANS unless when the passions are excited. The features are frequently regular, and the ex- pression noble ; many of the' women are hand- some. The skin is thinner, softer, and smoother than in the white races. The practice of arti- ficially moulding the skull was often adopted. The average volume of the brain, as measured in nearly 650 crania, is only 77 cubic inches for the semi-civilized and 84 for the barbarous tribes. Dr. Morton, from a scientific examina- tion of skulls from existing tribes and ancient tombs, considers the American nations, except- ing the polar tribes, as of one species and one race, but of two great families, which resemble each other in physical but differ in intellectual character. The North American Indian was of haughty demeanor, taciturn, and stoical to the last degree ; cunning and watchful in the sur- prise, persevering in the pursuit, and revenge- ful in the destruction of his enemies ; cruel to prisoners of war, without regard to age or sex, and when himself a captive enduring the most painful tortures without a murmur ; brave and too often ferocipus in war ; idle and grave in peace, except when engaged in hunting and amusements; hospitable, and grateful for fa- vors ; of necessity a close observer of natural phenomena, his temperament poetic and im- aginative, and his simple eloquence of great dignity and beauty of expression. As a race, however, the animal propensities strongly pre- ponderate over the intellectual. The origin of the American Indians has been a matter of de- bate for centuries, and Grotius, De Laet, Gar- cia, and others discussed it in their day with more learning than judgment. During the last century and early in this a number of wri- ters, treating many early usages of mankind as peculiarly Jewish, endeavored to prove the Indians to be descended from the ten tribes. Others, with as little foundation in facts, endeavored to derive them from the Welsh, the Mongols, or Malays. The tribes of North America regarded themselves as com- paratively recent occupants of the soil. The Algonquins and Iroquois had traditions of their journey eastward : the Algonquins styled the Dakotas men of the salt water, and, being pressed eastward by them, repelled their ad- vance. The Athabascans kept up the remem- brance of their emigration across the Pacific ; the Choctaws came from the northwest, and the Mexicans are generally supposed to have come from the north, though the latest theo- ries assign to them a southern origin. All this pointed to the northwest, where the abundance of fish made a natural halting spot for tribes till they were driven south by a new emigra- tion. The Huastecas seem the first moving northward. While language fails to connect them with any Asiatic families, their modes of life and implements are thought to connect them with all the earlier races of the eastern continent whose relics are found in mounds and shell heaps. The most civilized parts when discovered by Europeans were those ex- tending from New Mexico to Peru. There permanent architecture prevailed, the work of the occupants or of a previous race, the finest specimens being in the Maya region and in Peru, and the least enduring the adobe build- ings of the Gila and Kio del Norte. Out of the limits of this district nothing but the most perishable structures were raised, the only monuments being mounds, often peculiar and apparently symbolical in shape. The inhabi- tants were divided into a number of tribes, whose natural state seemed to be that of war. The Esquimaux in the north were warmly clad in furs, and lived in close huts of snow or dug into the earth. The sea furnishing their sub- sistence, they invented peculiar boats, spears, and means for kindling and preserving fire. Below them, the wild tribes covering most of British America and the United States were hunters and fishers, giving little attention to agriculture, except among the Huron Iroquois, who raised maize, beans, squashes, and tobacco, and seem to have been the earliest who carried on any trade. In point of manufactures they were about equally advanced. All made pot- tery. The Iroquois bark lodges were superior to the tent-like hide huts of the Algonquins, but the latter excelled in the manufacture of the in- genious snow shoes and in canoe building, the Iroquois using elm bark, the Algonquins birch. The Dakotas excelled in the manufacture of stone pipes, and the Pacific tribes in that of baskets, some so closely woven as to hold water. The Kocky mountains furnished a sheep whose wool several tribes learned to spin and weave. In point of progress the Cherokee and Choctaw Muscogees resembled the northern tribes. The Natchez were the first tribe going south who seem to have had anything like a temple for worship. The Pue- blo Indians of New Mexico had towns, built with a dead wall without for protection, rising several stories, and entered by ladders. They had also temples, and cultivated the soil. The Mexican and Peruvian tribes were still further advanced; their range of manufactures and cultivated plants was greater ; their means of perpetuating the memory of events better. At the north the rudest hieroglyphics formed the only means, the Micmacs in Nova Scotia hav- ing the most distinct system, and the only one which Europeans were able to adopt and em- ploy ; but the Mexicans had a system of picture writing of which enough has been preserved and explained to give us an insight into their history. The Peruvians at first had a system of record- ing by quipos or knotted cords, which, like the wampum belts of the north, seem to have been merely aids to the memory. The uncivilized tribes of South America, embracing the large families of the Caribs on the north, the Tupi- Guaranis on the east, and the Araucanians on the south and west, closely resembled in their state of advancement the wild tribes of the northern portion of the continent. None of these tribes seem to have domesticated any