Chapter XXXIII: Part I: Ethnology (4)

The incursions, then, of the Mundrucus dispersed the Muras of the lower Madeira over vast districts on the Solimoes, and on the Rio Negro. Here they are formidable as pirates. The Muras, with their associates, the Toras (or Torayes), harass the navigation of the Amazons, where the settlers and traders know them as the _Indios de Corso_, and attempt their extermination accordingly. When the stream gets narrow, and the current strong, and the canoe has to labour slowly against the stream of a mighty river, the Mura places himself on the banks, and lies in wait, _turé_ in hand. The _turé_ is an instrument, half wood and half reed, made out of the bamboo, the transverse septum of which is pierced in its centre. Here is inserted a second piece of cane, split. The _turé_ is heard at a considerable distance, and the watchman that blows it has a tree for a watch-tower. The _turé_, too, is the instrument to which they dance, and sing, and drink, at their festivals.

Less formidable than they once were, the Mura is still shy, indocile, intractable, and impracticable as a labourer. Nothing but liquor will tempt him; and liquor tempts him but little in the way of work. He hunts skilfully, and he fishes skilfully; but he is rarely provident enough to economise the results of any successful exertions for the future. He gorges himself when he is in luck, and starves when out of it; he thinks of the passing time only.

As a general rule, the Indians of the Amazons neither respect the female sex, nor vex themselves with jealousy on account of them. The Muras are said to be exceptions. The number of wives is two or three, and of these the youngest is the favoured one. The other is little more than a domestic drudge. To win them, the Mura must have fought at fisticuffs; for a battle of this kind always takes place whenever a young lady becomes marriageable. Those who enter into the list for possession, fight, and the winner carries her off.

Their language is harsh and guttural, and their speech is accompanied with gesticulation. It is peculiar, at least it is different from the _Lingoa Geral_, which but few Muras understand. It has been stated that the Mundrucus are their chief enemies. Besides these there are the Mauhes, and the Catauxis--hostile also.

The use of the _paricá_ is one of the characteristic customs of the Muras. The _paricá_ is a powder. It is made from the dried seeds of a kind of Inga. It is a narcotic stimulating in the first instance, sedative or depressing afterwards. Once a year there is a _paricá_ feast, where the “snuff” is indulged in to excess, and where the additional stimulants of dance, and song, and fermented liquors are superadded.

The other Indians are from the northern bank, on the frontier of Brazil and Bolivia. They cannot be said to represent any particular tribe. If they give an idea of the general character of a South American Indian of the parts in question it is sufficient. All the current descriptions are of this general character. The figures before us approach, however, the _Ticunas_ Indians of Osculati, the nearest. Ticunas, however, is a term of a somewhat lax import; inasmuch as it means any of the Indians who use the Ticunas poison, or come from the country which produces it.

GROUP XI.

INDIANS FROM BRITISH GUIANA.

These are from casts taken from life during Sir R. Schomburgk’s expedition. All belong to the great Carib stock, and speak dialects of the widely-spread Carib language.

This is a point of importance. In _Brazil_ the predominant language is the one alluded to under the name of _Tupi_--the basis of the _Lingoa Geral_ (_General Language_) or _Lingua Franca_.

In other respects, the leading characteristics are the same, or similar; the details being more or less different. Some tribes, for instance, flatten the head, or tattoo the body; which the others do not. Some burn, others bury the dead. With the Carabisi, for instance, in ordinary cases the hammock in which the death took place, serves as a coffin, the body is buried, and the funeral procession made once or twice round the grave; but the bodies of persons of importance are watched and washed by the nearest female relations, and when nothing but the skeleton remains, the bones are cleaned, painted, packed in a basket and preserved. When, however, there is a change of habitation they are _burned_; after which the ashes are collected, and kept.

The _Macusi_, on the other hand, buries his dead in a sitting posture without coffins, and with but few ceremonies.

The Arawak custom is peculiar. When a man of note dies, his relations plant a field of cassava. They lament loudly. But when twelve moons are over, and the cassava is ripe, they reassemble, feast, dance, lash each other cruelly, and severely with whips. The whips are then _hung up_ on the spot where the person died. Six moons later a second meeting takes place; and this time the whips are _buried_.

GROUP XII.

NORTH AMERICANS DANCING.

This group gives us the general character of the more typical North American Indians, rather than the details of any particular division; the chief sources being the portraits in McKennedy’s Gallery, and some well-executed daguerreotypes taken at St. Louis, and kindly placed at the disposal of the Crystal Palace Company by Mr. Fitzherbert of New York.

The prominence of the features, along with the red or copper tinge of the skin, characterises the Americans before us. This contrasts them with the Eskimo. Their size, on the other hand, distinguishes them from the majority of the South American tribes. Nevertheless, the size decreases as we go southward; and the Eskimo configuration (along with the Eskimo habits) is approached as we move westward of the Rocky Mountains.

Nine-tenths, and perhaps a larger proportion of the Indians of the northern half of the United States are referable to one of three great groups--the _Algonkin_, the _Iroquois_, the _Sioux_; each of which falls into divisions and subdivisions.

I. The _Algonkin_ is the greatest; greatest in respect to the number of its divisions and subdivisions, greatest in respect to the ground it covers, and greatest in respect to the range of difference which it embraces.

The whole of the Canadas, with one small exception, the whole of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward’s Isle, was originally Algonkin, as were Labrador and Newfoundland to a great extent.

To the Algonkin stock belonged and belong the extinct and extant Indians of New England, part of New York, part of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, part of the Carolinas, and part of even Kentucky and Tennessee.

The Pequods, the Mohicans, the Narragansetts, the Massachuset, the Montaug, the Delaware, the Menomini, the Sauks, the Ottogamis, the Kikkapùs, the Potawhotamis, the Illinois, the Miami, the Piankeshaws, the Shawnos, &c. belong to this stock--all within the United States.

The Algonkins of British America are as follows:--

1. The _Crees_; of which the _Skofi_ and _Sheshatapúsh_ of Labrador are branches.

2. The _Ojibways_; falling into--

_a._ The _Ojibways Proper_, of which the _Sauteurs_ are a section.

_b._ The _Ottawas_ of the River Ottawa.

_c._ The original Indians of Lake _Nipissing_; important because it is believed that the form of speech called _Algonkin_, a term since extended to the whole class, was their particular dialect. They are now either extinct or amalgamated with other tribes.

_d._ The _Messisaugis_, to the north of Lake Ontario.

3. The _Micmacs_ of New Brunswick, Gaspé, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and part of Newfoundland; closely allied to the--

4. _Abnaki_ of Mayne, and the British frontier; represented at present by the _St. John’s Indians_.

5. The _Bethuck_--the aborigines of Newfoundland.

6. The _Blackfoots_, consisting of the--

_a._ _Satsikaa_, or _Blackfoots Proper_.

_b._ The _Kena_, or _Blood Indians_.

_c._ The _Piegan_.

To these must be added numerous extinct tribes.

II. The _Iroquois_ class has been larger than it is now, many of its members being extinct. It still, however, contains the _Wiandots_, or _Hurons_, of the parts between Lakes Simcoe, Huron, and Erie; the once famous and formidable _Mohawks_, the _Senekas_, the _Onondagos_, the _Cayugas_, the _Oneidas_, and the _Tuskaroras_.

III. To the _Sioux_ class belong the Assiniboins of the Red River, and the Osages of Arkansas; tribes widely distant. It is the great Sioux to which nine-tenths of the Valley of Missouri originally belonged--Sioux, whose original hunting-grounds included the vast prairie-country from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi, and who again appear as an isolated detachment of Lake Michigan; Sioux, known under the names of Winebagoes, Dahcotas, Yanktons, Tetons, Upsarokas, Mandans, Minetaris, Missouris, Osages, Konzas, Ottos, Omahaws, Puncas, Ioways, and Quappas.

None of the Sioux tribes came in contact with the sea. None of them belonged to the great _forest_ districts of America. Most of them hunt over the country of the buffalo. This makes them warlike migratory hunters; with fewer approaches to agricultural or industrial civilisation than any Indians equally favoured by soil and climate.

It is the Iroquois, the Sioux, and certain members of the Algonkin stock, upon which the current and popular notions of the American Indian, the _Red Man_, as he is called, have been formed.

GROUP XIII.

GREENLANDERS.

Greenland is occupied by the same family that occupies the coast of Labrador. It does more. It extends all along the northern coast of North America; all along the shores of the Arctic Sea, both east and west. It extends to Russian America, and beyond it to the other side of Behring’s Straits, and to the Aleutian Islands. Hence, there are certain members of the family to which the Greenlanders belong in Asia.

The general name for this is _Eskimo_, a word, which, like _Malay_ and _Mongol_, is used in a general, as well as a particular sense. It denotes a large family, and it means the special occupants of the coast of Labrador, and the coast of the Arctic Sea.

The Eskimo is the only family common to the Old and the New World.

The large Greenland tent, with its furniture, and a canoe, is from one of the few ethnological museums in existence,--that of Copenhagen; from which it has been liberally and courteously supplied to the Crystal Palace. The details are due to the skill and care of Professor Thomsen of that capital.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

1. For the TIBETANS, &c., TURNER’s Embassy; Works on the Himalayas, by THOMSON and HOOKER; CUNNINGHAM’s Ladakh.

2. The Aborigines of India, by B. HODGSON; Papers in Asiatic Researches; Transactions of the Asiatic Society; Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, &c. &c.

3, 4. MARSDEN’s Sumatra; RAFFLES’ History of Java; CRAUFURD’s Indian Archipelago; Papers in Journal of the Indian Archipelago; SIR JAMES BROOKE’s writings.

5. JUKES’ Voyage of Fly; MCGILLIVRAY’s Voyage of Rattlesnake; The Papuans, by WINDSOR EARL; Works of COLLINS, KING, MITCHELL, &c.; Journal of Indian Archipelago; United States’ Exploring Expedition.

6. Travels in Abyssinia by JOHNSTONE, HARRIS, MANSFIELD, PARKYNS, &c.

7. THE NEGROES, &c. Medical History of the Niger Expedition, by Dr. MCWILLIAM; On the Natives of Old Calabar, by Dr. DANIELL.

8. LICSHTENSTEIN’s Travels; GALTON in Journal of Geographical Society; _The Caffres and Bushmen_.

9, 10, 11, 12. Travels of Prince MAXIMILIAN of NEUWIED, of SPIX, and VON MARTIUS; SIR R. SCHOMBURGK, in Geographical Transactions; WALLACE’s Travels on the Amazon; SQUIER’s Nicaragua.

13. NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.--Archæologia Americana, Vol. ii.; Transactions of American Ethnological Society; Works of SCHOOLCRAFT, SQUIER, &c.; Smithsonean Contributions to Knowledge.

14. Papers by Dr. KING on the Industrial and Intellectual character of the Eskimo, in Transactions of Ethnological Society; Accounts of the Arctic Expedition, by PARRY, ROSS, &c. &c.

For Ethnology in general--PRICHARD’s Natural History of Man, five volumes; Ditto, one volume.

* * * * *

The large Greenland hut, boat and furniture, kindly supplied by the Curator of the Ethnological Museum at Copenhagen (Professor Thomsen) reached us after the present pages were in print.