Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/661

* INDIANS. 577 INDIANS. varied with the tribe and environment, inhuma- tion being most common. Some tribes, as the Choctaw and Xanticoke, dug up the corpse after the flesh had had time to decay, and carefully cleaned the bones, ro be kept thenceforth in a box in the cabin or deposited in a tribal ossuary. Some of the South Atlantic tribes preserved the mummified bodies in dead-houses. The Hurons exposed the bodies on scaffolds until the annual 'Feast of the Dead,' when all the bones were in- terred in a common sepulchre. Jlany of the smaller Eastern mounds were evidently built for sepulchral purposes. The Northern plains tribes usually deposited the bodies in trees or upon scaffolds. The Kiowa buried in the rocks. The Aleut of Alaska doubled the body into a compact bundle and laid it away in a sitting posture in a cave. Southward along the coast canoe burial ■was common. The Piute, Mohave, and others of ■the lower Colorado region practiced cremation. Everywhere it was customary to bury or other- wise destroy the property of the deceased at the time of the funeral, and in many Eastern tribes food was placed ocside the grave and a fire kept 1'Uming for four successive nights, the period supposed to be occupied by the soul in its jour- ney to the land of shades. Laceration of the body and cutting off of the hair on such occa- sions was verj- common, especially' on the plains, with wailing of the relatives for several weeks thereafter. Language. The first attempt at cla-ssifying the North American languages was made by Al- bert Gallatin in 183G, the relationships being established chiefly by a comparison of word roots. The beginning of regular systematic research dates from the establishment of the Bureau of Ethnology, mder iLijor .J. V. Powell, in 1879. The number of linguistic stocks north of Mexico, as at present recognized by the bureau, is 57. as given below, but it is probable that more ex- tended study will reduce this number by disclos- ing affinities as yet undiscovered. Algonquian Athapascan Attacapan Beothukan Caddoan Chimakuan Chimarikan Chimmesyan Chinookan Chitimachan ChumasbaD Coahuihecaa Copehan Costafloan Eskimauan Esselenian Iroquoian Kalapooian Karankawan The necessity for some common means of in- tercommunication was supplied by trade jar- gons, chief of which were the 'Mobilian lan- guage.' and the Chinook jargon, and by the sign language on the plains. Some tribes had made fairly successful attempts at recording their his- tory and mythie traditions by means of pieto- praphs. Of these the best-known are the Walam Olum of the Delaware, and the Kiowa calendars. Intertribal compacts were commemorated among the Eastern tribes by means of symbolic wampum belts. The Cherokee alone had a literature re- corded in an alphabet of their own invention. PopLL.^TioN. The theory of a former large Indian population has been found to be erroneous, Keresan Kiowan Kitunahan Kolusrhan Kulanapan Kusan Luttmtnian Maripnsan Moqiielumnan Muskhogean Natchesan Palaihnihan Piman Pujvinan Quoratean Salinan Salishaa Sastean Sbahaptian Shoshonean Siouan Skittaeetan Takilman Tafloan Timuquanan Tonikan Tonkawan Uchean Waiilatpuan Wakashan ■Washoan Weitspekaii "Wishoskan Yakonan Yanan Yukian Yuman Zufiian but on the other hand the frequent as-sertion that the Indian has held his own, or is even increas- ing, is equally incorrect. It must be remembered that the Indian of the discovery was a full-blood, vhile the officially recognized Indian of to-day may be full-blood, mixed-blood, white man, or negro. The population varied according to the district, being naturally greatest along the coast, and in rich agricultural regions where the means of subsistence were most abundant. The best sum- iiiarizing of trustworthy early wTiters would .seem to mane the original Indian population east of the Mississippi about 200,000. Beyond this we have no reliable data for any large area, al- though it may be noted that so careful an ob- sener as Powers estimates the Indian population of California just before the gold discovery to have been greater than that of all the rest of the I'nited States together. Some examples may serve to show the terrible decrease in almost every section since the advent of the white man, taking only tribes still in existence, and making no account of tribes and whole linguistic stocks ■iNhich have utterly disappeared. In 1701 Lawson crossed the Carolinas from Charleston to Albemarle Sound, meeting in his journey sixteen different tribes. Of these only two have any representatives to-day. viz. the Tus- carora and Catawba. The Tuscarora at that time were estimated at 1200 warriors. They number to-day, all told, perhaps 700, of whom probably not one-fourth could make a valid claim to pure blood. The Catawba, who about the first settle- ment of Carolina had 1500 warriors, were reduced by 174.3 to 400 warriors, in 1775 to about 100 warriors, and now number altogether about 100 souls, of whom hardly a dozen are of pure blood. Furthermore, the Catawba themselves in 1743 represented all that were left of more than twenty broken tribes. The tribes of the ancient Iroquois league, with the larger tribes of the Gulf States, the latter now constituting the five civilized tribes of the Indian Territory, seem to form exceptions to the general histoiy of aboriginal extermination, their numbers now being apparently as great as at any previous era. The figures are deceptive, however, for the reason that an overwhelming majority of those now so enrolled are mixed- bloods — sometimes with but an infinitesimal pro- portion of Indian blood — adopted whites, negroes, or Indians of other tribes. Thus in 1890 the so- called 'Cherokee Nation' of 27.000 souls included 2000 adopted whites, 3000 adopted negroes, and about 1500 Indians of other tribes, while those of full Cherokee blood were estimated at not more than one-fifth of the remainder. Since then the rolls have been swelled by the compulsory admis- sion of some 7000 claimants repeatedly repudi- ated by the tribal Government. On the plains the decrease has been appalling. The confederated Mandan. Minitarf. and Arikara in 1804 numbered nearly 8000 souls in eight vil- lages. In IflOO they were 110 in one village. The Osage and Kaw at the previous date were esti- mated on good authority at 03OO and 1380 respec- tively. In 1900 they niimbered 1781 and 217. in- rluiling all mixed-bloods. The Pawnee numbered over 12.000 in 1834. 8400 in 1847. 3416 in 1861, 1440 in 1870. and fioO in lOOO. The Tonkawa were estimated at 1000 in 1805. 700 in 1S49. counted 314 ir 1861, 108 in 1882. and now num-