Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/21



“ do you, White Men, call us Indians?” This was a question asked many times, on many occasions, in widely distant places, by the aborigines of this country, when they began to converse familiarly with the new comers from across the sea. The question was a very natural one under the circumstances. The name “Indians” was a strange one to those to whom it was thus assigned. They did not know themselves by the title. They had never heard the word till the white men addressed them by it. Courtesy, in a wilderness as well as amid civilized scenes, would have seemed to allow that when nameless strangers met to introduce themselves to each other, each party should have been at liberty to name himself. But the savage curiously inquired of the white man, “Why do you call us Indians?” If, before giving an answer, the white man had asked, “What do you call yourselves?” he too would have received but little satisfaction. It does not appear that our aborigines had any one comprehensive name, used among themselves, to designate their whole race on this continent. They contented themselves with tribal or local titles.

Nor is it likely that every white man to whom the red man put the question, “Why do you call us Indians?” would or could have given the intelligible and true answer