Chapter XIII: Races and Peoples of America (1)

The four ethnic elements of the New World--_Origin of the
Americans_--/Ancient Inhabitants of America/--Problem of
palæolithic man in the United States--Palæolithic man in Mexico and
South America--Lagoa Santa race; Sambaquis and Paraderos--Problem
of the Mound-Builders and Cliff-Dwellers--Ancient civilisation of
Mexico and Peru--_Present American Races_--_American languages_.

/Peoples of North America/--I. _Eskimo_--II. _Indians of
Canada and United States_: _a._ Arctic--Athapascan group; _b._
Antarctic--Algonquian-Iroquois, Chata-Muskhogi, and Siouan
groups; _c._ Pacific--Northwest Indians, Oregon-California and
Pueblo groups--III. _Indians of Mexico and Central America_:
_a._ Sonorian-Aztecs; _b._ Central Americans (Mayas, Isthmians,
etc.)--Half-breeds in Mexico and the Antilles.

/Peoples of South America/--I. _Andeans_: Chibcha, Quechua, and
other linguistic families; the Araucans--II. _Amazonians_: Carib,
Arawak, Miranha, and Panos families; unclassed tribes--III.
_Indians of East Brazil and the Central Region_: Ges linguistic
family; unclassed tribes (Puri, Karaya, Bororo, etc.); Tupi-Guarani
family--IV. _South Argentine_: Chaco and Pampas Indians, etc.;
Patagonians, Fuegians.

At the present day about six-sevenths of the population of the two Americas are composed of Whites and Half-breeds of all sorts. The remainder is made up almost equally of Negroes and natives, the latter improperly called Indians.[578] Notwithstanding the relatively small number of these last (about 10 millions), I shall deal almost exclusively with them in this chapter, as they are especially interesting from the ethnological point of view, besides having been the best studied from this point of view. A few words will suffice in regard to the Whites and Negroes. The white colonists and their uncrossed descendants belong for the most part to Anglo-Saxon or Germanic peoples in North America, and to Neo-Latin peoples in South America. Nine-tenths of the population of the United States owe their origin to the Anglo-Scotch, to the Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians, the fusion of which with other European types and with half-breeds tends to produce the _Yankee_ type, which, if not a physical, is at least a social type. In Canada two-thirds of the white population are Anglophones, and the rest Francophones. In Mexico, in the Antilles, and in South America, nearly all the “white” population is made up of Neo-Latins--in Brazil descendants of the Portuguese, in Argentine of Italo-Spaniards, and elsewhere of Spaniards. The Latins have also contributed to form the half-breeds of America, of which several varieties exist. Half-breeds are especially numerous in Mexico and in the countries where the three elements, White, Indian, and Negro come together, as in the Antilles, in Columbia, Venezuela, and in Brazil. I shall give some particulars of the Half-breeds in connection with the populations of these lands (pp. 542 and 545). As to the Negroes of America, they are the descendants of slaves imported, during more than three centuries, almost exclusively from the West African coast, and particularly from Guinea. (See p. 452.) The Negroes are especially numerous in the south of the United States and in the Antilles, as well as in the north and on the east coast of South America, as far as Buenos Ayres.[579]

_Origin of the Americans._--To-day the existence of an _American race_, or rather a _group of American races_ (p. 291), is generally conceded, a group to which all the native populations of the New World belong; but as to the origins of these races unanimity of opinion is far from being reached. According to some authorities, the New World is a special centre of the manifestation of species, the _Homo Americanus_ having developed on the spot; according to others, the ancestors of the present Indians came from neighbouring countries--a few from everywhere: from Siberia and China (by Behring’s Straits), from Polynesia (driven by currents), from Europe (failing Atlantis, by the table-land which in the quaternary period probably stretched between England and Greenland). Unfortunately, almost all these hypotheses are based on a confusion both of time and space. It may without difficulty be conceded that occasional Chinese and Japanese junks may have been driven towards America, although the existence of this continent remained unknown both to China and Japan till quite recent times. We know positively that the Northmen visited the shores of North America long before Christopher Columbus. And there is reason to suppose that the Polynesians, who are excellent navigators, may have ventured, urged forward by currents, as far as the South American coast. But all these occurrences would be too recent, and such migrations would be in fact both too insignificant and too isolated, to account for the peopling of a vast continent. The origins of American man are much more distant in the past, and the migrations, if migrations there were, must have taken place in the quaternary epoch, and probably as much from the coast of Europe as from the coast of Asia.

ANCIENT INHABITANTS OF AMERICA.

Just as is the case with Europe, it is not certain that man existed in America during the tertiary period,[580] but it is certain that he appeared there during the quaternary age. This period, in the New World as in the Old, had its glacial epochs. According to Dawson, Wright, and Chamberlin, there were two or three great movements of invasion and withdrawal of the American glaciers. It is not known if these movements were synchronous with those of Europe, but it is established that, as in Europe, the first invasion of glaciers was also the more widespread.[581]

Chipped argilite tools, similar to the quaternary quartz tools of sub-Pyrennean countries, have been found by Abbott in the gravels of the Delaware, near Trenton (New Jersey), side by side with quaternary animals (probably of the second glacial period, notably the fragment of a jaw-bone). Other implements have been gathered on the spot by Haynes in New Hampshire; by Dr. Metz in the gravels of Little Falls (Minnesota), regarded by W. Upham as more recent than those of Trenton; by Cresson at Medora (Indiana), and at Claymont (mouth of the Delaware), in a more ancient deposit than the Trenton one; by Wright and Volk at Trenton (in 1895); without reckoning the thousands of finds either on the surface or in lesser-known beds, which have been enumerated in a special memoir by Wilson. If I dwell on these details, it is because all these finds have latterly been vigorously attacked in the United States, since Holmes, who had studied the ancient quarries of the Indians, pointed out the great resemblances between the spoiled or waste argilite axes and arrowheads which he had found in these quarries, and the supposed palæolithic implements, particularly those of Trenton. Several authorities, such as Chamberlin, MacGee, Brinton, have, like Holmes himself, come to the conclusion that all the so-called palæolithic tools of America, and perhaps even those of Europe, are only spoiled or waste tools of the same kind, and relatively modern. This conclusion seems to overshoot the mark, seeing that specialists like Wilson, Boule, etc., are almost unable to distinguish undoubted quaternary tools of Europe from those of Trenton, and that the beds of many American prehistoric tools have been perfectly well ascertained not to have undergone any rehandling, and have been established as quaternary by competent geologists.[582]

Outside the United States palæolithic finds in the New World are not very numerous, and often are questionable.

Palæolithic tools of the Chellean and Mousterian type have been found in Mexico by Franco and Pinart;[583] other quaternary tools, together with a fragment of a human jaw-bone, have been described in the valley of Mexico by S. Herrera.[584]

In Brazil, on the shores of Lake Lagoa-do-Sumidoro (province of Minas Geraes), Lund exhumed human skeletons and flint objects, together with remains of animals which, if not quaternary, at least exist no longer in the country. Ameghino[585] also has collected in quaternary layers of the Pampas of the Argentine Republic remains of primitive human industries. I will only mention the numerous neolithic objects found almost everywhere in America. Among these objects it is necessary to give special attention to the “grooved axes” which are entirely characteristic of the New World (Wilson).

As to prehistoric human bones, investigation reduces them to little. I have already said that the tertiary or quaternary skull of Calaveras (brachycephalic) is classed as doubtful. The skeleton of Pontimelo (with dolichocephalic skull), found by Roth under the carapace of the glyptodon, an enormous armadillo of the Pampas regions of the Rio Arrecifes, a tributary of Rio de la Plata, also inspires but a limited confidence in many authorities. Lastly, the skulls and bones of Lagoa Santa, if not quaternary, at least very ancient, afford special characters (dolichocephaly, short stature, third trochanter), on the strength of which De Quatrefages has established a special race,[586] whose probable descendants constitute my _Palæ-American sub-race_. (See p. 292.)

Side by side with finds of stone objects and bones in very ancient strata, it is necessary to note also the shell-heaps and kitchen-middens scattered along all the coast of both Americas, from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Louisiana to Brazil, to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. In this last country the present inhabitants, who subsist especially on molluscs, contribute to the piling up of these heaps or to the formation of new ones. This is enough to indicate that all the kitchen-middens are not synchronous; and if there be some which go far back into antiquity, on the other hand there are some which are quite modern. The “Sambaquis,” for instance, of the mouth of the Amazon and of the province of Parana must be very ancient; some of the skulls which have been found in them recall the Palæ-American or Lagoa Santa race.[587] The _paraderos_, or elongated hillock graves, discovered in the province of Entre Rios, in the valley of the Rio Negro (Argentine Republic), by Moreno and R. Lista, enclose flint tools (neolithic?) and numerous skulls, among which a certain number also exhibit likenesses to those of Lagoa Santa.[588]

In North America, the _Mounds_, fortified enclosures or tumuli of the most varied appearance, round, conical, and in the shape of animals, have also for long attracted the attention of archæologists. But if the discoveries and excavations made in these monuments have been many, an exact explanation of their meaning was lacking till recent times. The groups of mounds are scattered over an immense tract of country, from the great lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean; but they abound particularly in the valley of the Mississippi, along its left tributaries, in Arkansas, Kansas, etc., as well as in the basin of the Ohio. Farther west, towards the Rocky Mountains, as well as towards the Atlantic coast, they become less frequent. Till recently, the construction of these hillocks was attributed to one and the same people, called by the not very compromising name of “Mound-Builders.” This people, tillers of the soil and relatively civilised, must have lived from the most remote antiquity in the region planted with these mounds, and must have been destroyed by the nomadic and wild hordes represented by the present Indians. Such, at least, was the prevailing hypothesis. However, an attentive study of these mounds and the objects they covered has led little by little the most competent authorities (Cyrus Thomas, Carr, H. Hale, Shepherd, and the numerous members of the “Mound Exploring Division”) to distinguish several “types” of mounds, the geographical distribution of which would serve to indicate the settlements of diverse tribes. E. Schmidt, in a comprehensive work, has brought together all these investigations, and, by the light of linguistic data furnished by Hale, Brinton and others, has been able to state precisely who these various tribes were.[589]

It may be said at once that these investigations have by no means confirmed the great antiquity of the mounds; on the contrary, objects of European origin (iron swords, etc.), found in certain mounds, the tales of the early explorers which tell us that the Indians raised these mounds, and the traditions of the natives themselves, all force us to the conclusion that the builders of these funereal monuments or fortified enclosures were no other than the various Indian tribes whose remaining descendants exist to-day in the reservations. These tribes were tillers of the soil at the period of the discovery of America, as indeed the tales of contemporary explorers bear witness, as do also the traces of irrigation canals and other agricultural operations around these mounds. But the invasion of the country by Europeans from the seventeenth century onward, and the introduction of the horse, hitherto unknown, brought so much confusion into the existence of these tribes, that such of the Indians as survived the wars of extermination changed their mode of life and became hunters or nomadic shepherds. If the distribution of the mounds be studied, three parallel archæological zones may be distinguished, extending from west to east, between the Mississippi and the Atlantic Ocean, each such zone presenting great differences in regard to the type of mound it circumscribes.[590] On comparing this distribution with the ancient settlements of the tribes the following result is arrived at: the mounds of the north have been built by the Iroquois and Algonquians, except the mounds of animal shape, which are due to Dakota-Siouan tribes; the mounds of the south may be attributed to tribes of the Muskoki or Muskhogi family; and, as regards the numerous monuments of the basin of the Ohio, there is a strong presumption in favour of their having been raised by the Shawnies and the Leni-Lenaps in the south, and by the Cherokis in the north. The study of these mounds, in connection with historic data, suffices to determine very satisfactorily the migrations of all these tribes, to which I shall refer later.

West of the Rocky Mountains no more mounds are met with. Their place is taken by other monuments, structures of stone erected among the rocks and along the cañons. A large number of these are found in the valley of San Juan, in that of Rio Grande do Norte, of the Colorado Chiquito, etc. These monuments are still more modern than the mounds. The peoples who erected these structures, the “Cliff-Dwellers,” are still represented by the Moqui, Zuñi, and other tribes who inhabit the high table-lands of Arizona and New Mexico.

Tribes probably related to the Cliff-Dwellers erected in Central America those immense phalansteries in stone or adobe of several storeys, constructed to shelter the whole clan, which the conquering Spaniards called pueblos.[591] Adobe pueblos are still occupied by Zuñi people, descendants of the Cliff-Dwellers.

While in North America among the Mound-Builders only rude attempts at civilisation are found, in Central America and Mexico there flourished up to the period of the conquest a relatively advanced civilisation. Various peoples, whom many authors have sought to identify with the Mound-Builders, formed more or less well-organised states in Mexico. Such were the Mayas in the Yukatan peninsula; the Olmecs, and, later, the Aztecs, on the high table-land. And on the west of South America there developed a corresponding civilisation, that of the Incas of Peru. The Incas were none other than one of the tribes of the Quechua people, who, after having brought into subjection the Aymara aborigines founded in Peru a sort of communist-autocratic state. To the north, in present Columbia, lived the Chibchas, who have equally attained a certain degree of civilisation. Lastly, to the south flourished the civilisation of the Calchaquis.

_Existing American Races._--The natives of America, cut off from the rest of the world probably since the end of the quaternary period, form, as we have already seen, a group of races which may be considered by themselves, in the same way as the Xanthochroid or Melanochroid groups of races (see Chap. VIII.). It must be borne in mind that there exists but a single character common to these American races, that is the colour of the skin, the ground of which is yellow. This appears to conflict with the current opinion that the Americans are a _red race_, and yet it is the statement of a fact. None of the tribes of the New World have a red-coloured skin, unless they are painted, which often is the case. Even the reddish complexion of the skin, similar, for example, to that of the Ethiopians, is met with only among half-breeds. All the populations of America exhibit various shades of yellow colouring; these shades may vary from dark-brownish yellow to olive pale yellow.[592] By the yellow colour of the skin, as well as the straight hair common to most, but not to all, Americans, they have affinities with the Ugrian and Mongol races; but other characters, such as the prominent, frequently convex nose, and the straight eyes, separate them widely from these races.

As to the characters peculiar to the five races which I adopt provisionally for the New World: Eskimo, North American, Central American, South American, and Patagonian, with their sub-races, they have been given in Chapter VIII., to which I refer the reader.

(_Phot. Sören Hansen._)]

_American Languages._--Several authors are of opinion that, as regards America, a more satisfactory classification of the peoples may be obtained from linguistic than from ethnic and somatological characters; they even think that these linguistic characters afford indications as to the _races_ of the New World.[593] But opinions are divided on this point, as well as on the question whether all the American dialects belong to one and the same family. Brinton affirms that there exists, in spite of diversity of vocabulary and superficial differences of morphology, a common bond of union among all the American languages. This bond is to be looked for in the inner structure of the dialects, a structure characterised especially by the development of pronominal forms, the abundance of generic particles, the more frequent use of ideas based on actions (verbs) than of ideas of existence (nouns), and as a consequence the subordination of the latter to the former in the proposition.[594] The latter feature characterises the process called _incorporation_, all American languages being polysynthetic (see p. 131). Does the similarity of structure of the American languages (which might further extend to other groups of agglutinative languages) warrant the opinion that they all have sprung from a single stock? Competent philologists like Fr. Müller and L. Adam think it does not, and Powell,[595] attributing much more importance to similarity of vocabulary than to similarities of grammatical form, arrives at the conclusion that the tribes of North America do not speak languages related to each other and springing from a single original stock; on the contrary, they speak several languages belonging to distinct families, which do not appear to have a common origin.

The number of languages spoken by the natives of both Americas certainly exceeds a hundred, even without counting the secondary dialects. Brinton estimates the number of linguistic families known in the New World at 150 to 160; this figure is probably not far short of the truth, for Powell admits, merely for that part of the continent north of Mexico, 59 linguistic families, some of which comprise several dialects.[596]

PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA.

The greater part of the native population of North America is composed of tribes called _Indians_ or _Red-skins_ of the United States and Canada. They touch on the north the Eskimo and Aleuts, and on the south the Mexican and Central American Indians. I shall briefly review these three great divisions, going from north to south.

I. The _Eskimo_,[597] or _Innuit_ as they call themselves (about 360,000 in number), afford the remarkable example of a people occupying almost without a break more than 5000 miles of seaboard, from the 71st degree N. lat. (north-east of Greenland) to the mouth of the Copper river or Atna (west of Alaska). A section of this people has even crossed Behring’s Strait and inhabits the extreme north-east of Asia (see p. 370). Over the whole of this extent of country nowhere do the Eskimo wander farther than thirty miles from the coast. It is supposed that their original home was the district around Hudson’s Bay (Boas) or the southern part of Alaska (Rink), and that from these regions they migrated eastward and westward, arriving in Greenland a thousand years ago, and in Asia barely three centuries ago. Their migrations northward led them as far as the Arctic Archipelago.[598]

Physically, the pure Eskimo--that is to say, those of the northern coast of America, and perhaps of the eastern coast of Greenland--may form a special race, allied with the American races, but exhibiting some characteristics of the Ugrian race (short stature, dolichocephaly, shape of the eyes, etc.). They are above average stature (1 m. 62), whilst the Eskimo of Labrador and Greenland are shorter, and those of southern Alaska a little taller (1 m. 66), in consequence perhaps of interminglings, which would also explain their cranial configuration (ceph. ind. on the living subject, 79 in Alaska, against 76.8 in Greenland), which is less elongated than among the northern tribes (average cephalic index of the skull, 70 and 72). Their complexion is yellow, their eyes straight, and black (except among certain Greenland half-breeds); their cheek-bones are projecting, the nose is somewhat prominent, the face round, and the mouth rather thick-lipped. The Eskimo language differs little from tribe to tribe. Fishers and peaceful hunters, the Eskimo have no chiefs, and know nothing of war; they cultivate the graphic arts, are always cheerful, and love dancing, singing, story-telling, etc.

I have already given, however, in the preceding pages (see especially pp. 137, 151, 160, 245, 263 _et seq._) several characteristics of Eskimo life.[599]

The Aleuts, about 2000 in number, inhabiting the insular mountain-chain which bears their name, speak an Eskimo dialect, but differ from the true Eskimo in some respects, having brachycephalic heads and several peculiarities of manners and customs. Besides, the majority of them have adopted the habits and religion of the Russians.[600]

(_Phot. Prince Roland Bonaparte._)]

II. The _Indians_, improperly called _Red-skins_,[601] occupy a territory of such vast extent that, in spite of a certain common likeness, considerable differences are noticeable among them, according to the countries they occupy, the climate, configuration, and fauna of which vary in a marked degree. We can in the first place distinguish the _Indians of the Arctic and Atlantic slopes_ of Canada and the United States, belonging to a taller and less brachycephalic race than that which predominates among the _Indians_ in the northern part of the Pacific slope. In the southern part of the Pacific slope we note the appearance of the Central American race, short and brachycephalic, and in the Californian peninsula perhaps the Palæ-American sub-race.[602] Each of the slopes in turn afford several “ethnographic provinces,”[603] the boundaries of which approximately coincide with those of the linguistic families now about to be rapidly passed in review.

(_Phot. Prince Roland Bonaparte._)]

_a. The Indians of the Arctic slope_--that is to say, of the low-lying country watered by the Mackenzie and the Yukon--belong to one and the same linguistic family, called Athapascan.

The best known tribes are the _Kenai_ in Alaska, the _Loucheux_ on the lower Mackenzie, the _Chippewas_, the numerous Tinné clans between Hudson’s Bay and the Rocky Mountains, the _Takullies_ to the west of these mountains, etc. All these _Athapascans_, of medium height (1 m. 66), and mesocephalic, are skilful hunters; they traverse the immense forests of their country hunting fur-bearing animals in winter on their snow shoes, in summer in their light beech-bark canoes. The Athapascan linguistic family is not, however, confined to the wooded region of Alaska and western Canada. Members of this tribe have migrated to a far distant part of the Pacific slope, where they have settled in two different districts. The Athapascans of the West, or the Hupas who dwell in southern Oregon and northern California, differ but little physically from the Athapascans properly so called, but they are already Californians in ethnic character. The _Athapascans of the south_--that is to say, the _Navajos_ or _Nodehs_ and the _Apaches_ (Fig. 161), taller (1 m. 69), more brachycephalic (ceph. ind. 84) than their northern kinsfolk[604]--live in the open country of the Pueblo Indians (Arizona, New Mexico), from whom, however, they differ in regard to manners and usages. They are husbandmen relatively civilised, fierce warriors and bold robbers, whose name has been popularised by the novels of Gustave Aimard and Gabriel Ferry. They are more numerous (23,500 in the United States)[605] than the Athapascans of the north (8,500) and the Hupas (scarcely 900).[606]

_b. The Indians of the Atlantic slope_ are divided into three great linguistic families: Algonquian-Iroquoian, Muskhogean-Choctaw, and Siouan or Dakota.

1. The _Algonquians_ and _Iroquoians_ occupy the “ethnographical province” which bears their name and extends over the east of Canada and the north-east of the United States, between the Mississippi and about the 36th degree of N. latitude. This province is characterised by a temperate climate, abundance of prairies, and broad water-ways; it affords facilities for the chase and the gathering of wild rice and tobacco; certain usages are common to all the tribes inhabiting it (tattooing, colouring the body, moccasins similar to those of the Athapascans, etc.).

The original home of the Algonquians was the region around Hudson’s Bay, where the _Cree_ tribe, which speaks the purest Algonquian language, still exists. Leaving this region, they spread as far as the Atlantic, the Mississippi, and the Alleghany Mountains, driving back the Dakotas into the prairies of the right bank of the Mississippi. The _Abnakis_ of Lower Canada, the _Micmacs_ of Acadia and Newfoundland, the _Leni-Lenapé_ of the Delaware, who fought so valiantly against the European immigrants; the _Mohicans_, idealised by Cooper; the warlike _Shawnees_, the _Ojibwas_ or _Chippewas_ (Fig. 30), who, together with the Lenapé, are alone among the Red-skins in possessing a rudimentary writing; the _Ottawas_, the _Black Feet_, the _Cheyennes_, and so many other tribes besides belonged to this great Algonquian people. It has left traces of its existence in the “mounds” as well as in a great number of the geographical names of the region which it formerly occupied. It is estimated that at the present day there are not more than 95,000 Algonquians, of whom two-thirds inhabit Canada. The most numerous tribe is that of the Chippewas (31,000), while the “last” of the Mohicans were only 121 in the census of 1890. Among the Algonquians ought probably to be included a tribe which became extinct in 1827, that of the Beothucs of Newfoundland, whose affinities with other tribes have not yet been definitely established.[607]

At the time when the Algonquians held a large part of modern Canada and the United States, an isolated portion of their territory was peopled with Iroquoians around Lakes Erie and Ontario, as well as on the lower St. Lawrence. The Iroquoians, sprung from the same common stock as the Cherokis, the ancient mound-builders of the Ohio basin, have dwindled down to a few thousand families in the upper valley of the Tennessee (H. Hale). They are divided into _Hurons_ (between Lakes Ontario and Huron) and _Iroquois_ or _Iroquoians properly so called_. The latter formerly comprised five nations: _Mohawks_, _Oneidas_, _Onondagas_, _Senecas_, and _Cayugas_, united into a democratic confederacy by the famous chief Hiawatha, of whom Longfellow has sung. At a later date the _Tuscaroras_, who dwelt farther to the south-west in Virginia, were also admitted into the confederacy.[608]

The wars in which the Iroquoians have been engaged have singularly reduced their number; to-day there are only about 43,000, of whom 9000 are in Canada.

2. The _Muskhogean group_ comprises several tribes: _Apalachi_, _Chata-Choctaw_, _Chicasaws_, _Creeks_ or _Muskhogis_, who formerly dwelt between the lower Mississippi, the Atlantic, the Tennessee River, and the Gulf of Mexico. To these we must add the _Seminoles_ who formerly occupied the Florida peninsula.[609] The habits of the Muskhogean tribes, of which Hernando de Soto drew so vivid a picture in 1540, were those of husbandmen somewhat advanced in civilisation; they had a hieroglyphic writing (Brinton), but were unacquainted with the use of metals, gold excepted. The southern portion of the United States which these tribes occupied is a region with a sub-tropical climate, favourable to the cultivation of the sugar-cane, maize, and tobacco. The ancient Muskhogis wore garments of special texture, and daubed their bodies like the Algonquians, but were unacquainted with tattooing. At the present day they have dwindled down to 25,500 individuals. Certain tribes, like the _Yamasis_, have completely disappeared; in 1886 there were only three _Apalachi_ women left. We include among the Muskhogis the tribes who formerly lived in the lower valley of the Mississippi, and whose dialects have not been classified: the _Natchez_, idealised by Chateaubriand, a score of whom still dwell among the Creeks and Cherokis; the _Atacapas_, reduced in number to a dozen individuals, in the Calcasieu Pass (Louisiana), etc.

3. The _Siouans_ or _Dakotas_ (Figs. 158 and 159) occupied at the time of the discovery of America the whole country extending to the west of the Mississippi, between the river Arkansas on the south and the Saskatchewan on the north, as far as the Rocky Mountains. For a long time this was believed to be their original home; but it has been found necessary to modify this opinion since the discovery by Hale and Gatschet of tribes speaking a Siouan tongue with archaic forms east of the Mississippi. These tribes are the _Tutelos_ of Virginia, of whom but a score of individuals are left; the _Biloxis_ of Louisiana, and the _Winnebagos_. It is now admitted that the original home of the Siouans was the Alleghany Mountains and the surrounding country; thence they were doubtless forced back by the Algonquians into the prairies to the west of the Mississippi, where they became buffalo-hunters.

The principal Siouan tribes are: the _Assinaboins_ on the Saskatchewan, the _Minnetaris_ on the Yellowstone river, the _Ponkas_ and the _Omahas_ in Nebraska, the _Osages_ of the borders of Arkansas, the _Hidatsas_ of Dakota, the _Crows_ of Montana, the _Siouans_ or _Dakotas_ properly so called (Figs. 26, 158, and 159) in the upper basin of the Missouri, etc. The total number of the Siouans is estimated at 43,400 individuals, of whom 2,200 are in Canada.[610]

The Indians of the four groups just enumerated all resemble each other in physical type: stature very high (from 1 m. 68 among the Cherokis of the east, to 1 m. 75 among the Cheyennes and Crows), head sub-dolichocephalic or mesocephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub., from 79.3 among the Iroquoians to 80.5 among the Cheyennes), face, oval.[611] Near the Siouans, in the same ethnographic region of the plains of the Great West, dwelt the _Pawnees_ or _Caddoes_, one of the tribes of which, the _Aricaras_ or _Rikaris_ (450 individuals at the present day), emigrated north towards the sources of the Mississippi. As to the _Pawnees properly so called_ they were established in the valley of the Plata, whence they were transferred in 1878 into the Indian Territory; they numbered 820 individuals in the census of 1890. The rest of the nation, the _Wichitas_ (Fig. 160), the _Caddoes_, etc., have abandoned the predatory habits of the true Pawnees and become good husbandmen distributed over different reservations.

The _Kiowas_ form a small linguistic group by themselves. The neighbours formerly of the Comanches and the Shoshones, these ex-robbers are at the present day installed, to the number of 1,500, in the Indian Territory.

The Pawnees and Kiowas are tall and mesocephalic, with a tendency towards brachycephaly.

_c. Indians of the Pacific slope._--The coast tribes of the Pacific might be united into a single group in spite of the great diversity of language existing among them.[612] In fact, most of these Indians belong to one and the same sub-division of the North American race, the _Pacific sub-race_. They are above medium height (from 1 m. 66 among the _Utes_ to 1 m. 69 among the _Chahaptes_), sub-brachycephalic (mean ceph. ind. from 82.7 to 84.7, except the Utes, whose index is 79.5), with rounded face (Tsimshians and Haidas), or elongated (Kwakiutls); they have straight eyes and their pilous system is well developed (Boas). It is only in the region of the Pueblos that we can detect the admixture of the short, brachycephalic Central American race.[613] Ethnic characters enable us to divide the Indians of the Pacific into three groups: Indians of the north-west, Indians of Oregon-California, and Pueblo Indians.[614]

1. _The Indians of the north-west_[615] are divided into two slightly distinct groups by their ethnic characters. In the north, on the indented coast of Alaska and British Columbia, as well as in the innumerable rocky islands lying off it, dwell tribes of fishers and hunters who form a very characteristic group by their ethnic traits, of which the following are the principal: garments of woven wool or of bark (before the arrival of the Whites); communal barracks, near which are raised “totem posts,” usually of slate, ornamented with anthropomorphic sculptures, grotesque or horrible, representing totems; plated armour, composite bow of wood and bone, tattooing, etc. The Pacific coast to the south of Vancouver and the Columbia drainage area is occupied by another group of populations, which, while having some traits in common with the former (communal barracks but without “totem post,” cooking by means of heated stones, zoomorph masks, etc.), exhibits a multitude of characters (garments of raw hides, cranial deformations, absence of tattooings, plain bow, etc.) which keep them widely separate.

The first group comprises the following tribes, beginning at Cape St. Elias and going towards the south: the _Tlinkits_ or _Kolushes_ as far as the 55th degree of N. lat. (6,437 individuals in 1880, according to Petroff); the _Haidas_ or _Skittagets_ of the Queen Charlotte Islands (2,500), skilful carvers in wood; the _Tsimshians_ of the coast situated opposite to these islands; the _Wakashes_, sub-divided into _Nootkas_ of Vancouver Island and _Kwakiutls_ of the adjacent coast. The second group is composed of the remnants of the _Salishans_, _Selish_, or Flat-heads (12,000 in Canada, 5,500 in the “reservations” of the United States); of the _Shahapts_ or “_Nez-percés_” (300), to the south of these; and lastly, the _Chenooks_, well known for their cranial deformations (p. 176).

2. _The seaboard of Oregon and California_ is a succession of short, isolated valleys, abounding in fibrous plants, fruit, and fish. These are excellent conditions for the formation of little isolated ethnic groups; thus it happens that the Indians of this coast are divided into twenty-four or twenty-six distinct linguistic families.

Of these the principal, as we go from north to south, are: the _Copehs_ of the right bank of the Sacramento; the _Pujunnas_ or _Pooyoonas_ of the left bank of the same water-way; the _Kulanapans_ to the north of San Francisco; the _Costanos_ to the south of that town; the _Salinas_, who formerly inhabited the valley bearing the same name, but of whom there remain but a dozen individuals; the _Maripos_ or _Yokuts_ (145 individuals) to the east of the last-named tribe; the _Chumashes_ around the mission of Santa-Barbara, 35° N. latitude, of whom scarcely two score individuals still speak the language of their fathers; the _Hupas_, very primitive in their habits. Among most of these populations are found vestiges of the ancient custom of tattooing and the use of garments fashioned from vegetable fibres.

It is probably in this group that we must include the _Yumas_ of the lower valley of the Colorado (Arizona) and of the Californian peninsula, of whom the principal tribes are as follows: the _Mohaves_ (Fig. 4) and the _Yumas_ properly so called, in the valley of the Colorado; the _Maricopas_ of the valley of the Gila; the _Soris_ or _Seris_ in Mexico, opposite to the Californian peninsula; lastly, in this peninsula itself the _Cochimis_ in the north and the _Periquès_, now extinct, at the southern extremity of the peninsula; there is not, however, any direct evidence that these last spoke a _Yuma_ tongue; further, they burnt their dead while all the other Yumas buried theirs. The population of lower California was very scattered (10,000 individuals in all); they gained a miserable existence from hunting and fishing, and could not even make canoes. To-day but few are left. To judge from the bones gathered at the extreme end of the Californian peninsula, the Indians who dwelt there (the ancestors of the Periquès?) were if anything of short stature; by this characteristic, as well as by their dolichocephaly, they would appear then to be allied to the Palæo-American sub-race.[616]

3. The name _Pueblo Indians_ is sometimes given to the populations inhabiting the caves hollowed out of the sides of the deep cañons and the “pueblos” of the warm and arid table-lands of Arizona, New Mexico, and the adjacent parts of Utah, California, and Mexico.

Some of these populations, the _Moquis_ (2000) for example, belong to the Shoshone linguistic family,[617] others perhaps to the _Pima_ stock (see p. 535); but there are three small groups of these cliff-dwellers whose languages present no analogy with one another nor with any other dialect. These are the _Keres_ (3,560 individuals) and the _Tanos_ (3,200 individuals), both in the upper basin of the Rio Grande, and the _Zuñis_, who to the number of 1,600 occupy the “pueblo” of the same name in the west of New Mexico.

In spite of the diversity of their dialects all the cliff-dwellers have certain physical characters in common, such as stature above the average, brachycephaly, etc.[618] It must not be forgotten that the cliff-dwellers are surrounded on all sides by immigrant populations of the Athapascan stock (see p. 524).

III. _The Indians of Mexico_[619] _and Central America_ may be divided, from the ethnographical point of view, into two great groups: the Sonoran-Aztecs, inhabiting the north of Mexico or what is improperly called the Anahuac plateau; and the Central Americans of Southern Mexico and the states situated more to the south as far as the Costa Rica republic.[620]

_a._ The _Sonoran-Aztecs_ are allied by language to the Shoshones, and by manners and customs to the true Pueblo Indians of the United States, while they exhibit some divergences as regards physical type. Physically the Sonorans are allied to the North Americans of the Atlantic slope, while the peoples of the Aztec group show a great infusion of Central American blood.

The _Pimas_ and their congeners the _Papajos_ constitute one of the principal tribes of the Sonorans. They dwell in pueblos or “casas grandes,” and expend a prodigious amount of labour in drawing their subsistence from the infertile soil of the Gila valley. However, they are fine tall men (mean height 1 m. 71, according to Ten Kate), slim and nimble, having the head a trifle elongated (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub., 78.6), the nose prominent, etc. Their neighbours the _Yakis_ and the _Mayas_, included in the _Cahita_ linguistic group, 20,000 strong, have the same type as the Pimas. They inhabit the sterile regions through which flow the rivers Yaki and Mayo, and have preserved their racial purity almost intact,[621] unlike their kinsmen the _Opatas_ and the _Tarahumaras_ of Chihuahua and Sonora, in whom there is a powerful strain of Spanish blood.[622]

Under the collective name of _Aztecs_ or _Nahua_ are comprised several peoples and tribes who formerly occupied the Pacific slope from Rio de Fuerte (26th degree of N. lat.) to the frontiers of Guatemala, with the exception of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; their colonies even extended farther into Guatemala and Salvador (example, the _Pipils_). On the other side, on the Atlantic slope the Nahua tribes inhabited the regions around Mexico. There they had formed, probably two or three centuries before the arrival of the Europeans, three confederate states: _Tezcuco_, _Tlacopan_ and _Tenochtitlan_, under whose dominion were ranged tribes of the same origin scattered along the coast, among the _Totonac_ people in the existing province of Vera Cruz; one of these tribes, the _Nicaraos_ or _Niquirans_, migrated into Nicaragua.[623]

At the present day the Aztecs, about 150,000 in number, are dispersed over the whole Mexican coast from Sinaloa in the south to Tepic, Jalisco, Michoacan on the west. Very peaceful, sedentary, with a veneer of civilisation, they are nominally Catholics, though at bottom they are animists, and full of superstition. In many of the Aztec villages the ancient Nahua language is still spoken.[624]

Side by side with the Aztecs there exist in Mexico three other ethnic groups which may be designated by the name of _Mexicans properly so called_. These are:--

1st. The _Otomis_, presumably the aboriginal inhabitants of the Mexican table-lands, now settled in the state of Guanajuato, and the basin of the upper Moctezuma between Mexico and San Luis de Potosi. They afford a unique example of an American people speaking an almost monosyllabic language. They are below the average height, brachycephalic as a general rule, with a tendency towards mesocephaly.[625]

2nd. The _Tarascos_, formerly spread over the whole of the state of Michoacan, in Guanajuato and Queretaro,[626] have been absorbed by the half-breed population. Lumholtz, however, states that nearly 200,000 uncrossed Tarascos are still living (1896) in the mountains of Michoacan. They had a form of pictography peculiar to themselves, and must have come, according to their traditions, from the northern regions, like the Nahuatlans.

3rd. The _Totonacs_ of the province of Vera Cruz, formerly very civilised, resemble physically their neighbours on the north-east, the _Huaxtecs_; the latter, however, belong to the Maya linguistic group (see below).

_b. The Central Americans._--They may be divided into three geographical groups, the Indians of Southern Mexico, the Mayas, and the Isthmians.

I. Among the numerous aboriginal peoples of Southern Mexico the _Zapotecs_ of the state of Oajaca are the most numerous (about 265,000 individuals). These are the descendants of a once powerful people who had attained to nearly the same degree of civilisation as the Aztecs.

The _Miztecs_ (Figs. 163 and 164), who occupy the eastern part of the state of Oajaca and the adjacent regions of Guerrero, have dwindled to a few thousand individuals. They appear to be of fairly pure Central American race, are very short, brachycephalic, and have a dark brown skin and projecting cheek-bones.[627]

(_Phot. Coll. Anthr. Soc. Paris._)]

In the east of Oajaca and in Chiapa, on the frontier of Guatemala, are found the _Zoques_, the _Mixes_, and the _Chapanecs_, with whom it is customary to connect the _Chontals_ and the _Popolucas_. But these two vocables signify in Nahuatlan merely “stranger” and “one who speaks badly or stammers.”[628] Among the tribes of Oajaca and Tabasco, described under the name of Chontals, some speak a dialect peculiar to themselves, the Tequistlatecan, allied to the Yuma language (Brinton), while others speak the Maya dialects.[629]

(_Phot. D. Charney, Coll. Mus. Nat. Hist. Paris._)]

II. The peoples composing the _Maya group_ appear to have come in post-quaternary times (by sea?), and in a state of civilisation already well advanced,[630] into the Yucatan peninsula. Thence they spread into Guatemala and the surrounding regions of Salvador and Honduras, where at the present day they form the bulk of the population. The ancient Maya civilisation resembled that of Mexico, the sanguinary creeds of the latter excepted; their writing was of a perfect hieroglyphic type. Besides the _Mayas properly so called_ of Yucatan, the principal tribes of this group are: the _Tsendals_ or _Chontals_ of Mexico, already mentioned above; the _Mopans_ of Northern Guatemala; the _Koïtches_ or _Quichés_ farther south, the only Indian people possessing an aboriginal written literature; the _Pokomams_ of the district around the town of Guatemala; the _Chortis_ on the territory where the ruins of Copan stand; and a long way off, isolated from the rest of their kinsmen, in the Mexican province of Tamaulipas, the _Huaxtecs_ (p. 537). In spite of linguistic differences, all the Guatemalans or Indians of Guatemala resemble each other physically; they are short, thick-set, with high cheek-bones, prominent and often convex nose.[631] Some characteristic habits, as for instance geophagy, are common to all these populations.

III. _The Isthmians._--We include under this name the native populations of Central America, scattered between Guatemala and the Isthmus of Panama, whose dialects do not fit into any group of American languages.[632]

These are the _Lenkas_ of the interior of Honduras; the _Xicaks_ or _Sihahv_ in the north of this country; the _Chontals_ of Nicaragua, formed from the _Matagalpes_, speaking a language peculiar to themselves; and the tribes adjoining the _Lenkas_, the _Guatusos_ or _Huatusos_, who inhabit the forests surrounding San Juan. The latter were formerly classed, without adequate reason, with the Nahua, and they were represented as having dark complexions, whereas they are as yellow as the rest of Americans. In number they scarcely exceed 600 individuals.[633]

(_Phot. D. Charney, Coll. Mus. Nat. Hist. Paris._)]

To all these peoples there must be added certain uncivilised tribes of the _Ulva_ group (Soumoo of the English),[634] on the coast of Mosquito, who are sometimes called Caribs, although they have nothing in common with the true Caribs (p. 552); then the _Micas_, the _Siquias_ of the Rio Mico, the _Subironas_ of the Rio Coco, etc., who are all distinguished by the colour of their skin, which is darker than that of Indians in general.

The _Moscos_ or _Mosquitos_ who inhabit the neighbourhood of the Blewfields lagoon (Mosquito reservation) are still darker, indeed, almost black like Negroes, without, however, exhibiting other points of resemblance with the latter. They are short in stature, having a fine, prominent nose, etc., and it is not difficult to distinguish those who are the offspring of Mosquitos crossed with true Negro blood. About 6000 in number, the Mosquitos are relatively civilised, and make use of the Latin alphabet, introduced by missionaries, for writing their mother-tongue. In an island of the Blewfields lagoon, between the Rio Mico and the Rio San Juan, have been found the _Rumas_, of very high stature, but their language is as yet unknown.

_Half-breeds of North America._--In the United States and Canada the half-breeds of Indians and Whites, as well as Mulattos, form but a very slight portion of the population. This is not the case in Central America and Mexico. The aboriginal populations of Central America are reduced to a few thousand individuals; on the other hand, the half-breeds, produced by the crossings between them and the Europeans, form almost the whole of the population.

In Mexico the half-breeds form a little less than the half of the population, and in a general way they increase in number as we go from north to south and from west to east. Their nomenclature is somewhat complicated.[635] On the other hand, Negroes and Mulattos are not very numerous in Mexico and Central America. The Negro element exhibits a marked predominance only in the Antilles. The population of the island of Haiti is almost wholly Negro or Mulatto; that of the other islands has sprung from the manifold crossings between the ancient Carib or Arawak aborigines (see p. 552), and between Negroes and Europeans. The children of a white man and a mulatto woman are called Quadroons in the Antilles, but most of the half-breeds among whom European blood predominates prefer the name of _Creoles_. The Creole type of the Antilles is indeed very fine, especially among the women (Fig. 162), who sometimes have a vivacious look and a bewitching smile unique of their kind.

PEOPLES OF SOUTH AMERICA.

Accepting, with Brinton, the northern political frontier of Costa Rica as the ethnological limit of South America, I propose to pass in review the native populations of the continent, grouping them according to the four great natural regions: the Cordillera of the Andes; the plains of the Amazon and the Orinoco, with Guiana; the table-lands of eastern and southern Brazil; lastly, the Pampas of the southern part of the continent, with Tierra del Fuego.

This division corresponds pretty well with the distribution of races, languages, and ethnographic provinces.[636] In fact, the substratum of the Andean populations is formed of the Central American race, while that of the Amazonians and Guianas is composed of the South American race with its two sub-races, South American properly so called, and Palæo-American; the latter predominates also in east Brazil and Tierra del Fuego, while there are mingled with it Patagonian and other elements in the south of Brazil and among the Pampeans.

As regards language there is the same difference. In the Andean dialects the pronominal particles are suffixes, while in the Amazonian dialects these particles are prefixes, but both groups allow of a limitative form of the personal pronoun in the plural. As to the Pampean dialects, they are without the limitative form in most cases, and sometimes make use of prefixes, sometimes of suffixes.[637]

The ethnological differences of the three groups are manifold. This subject will be briefly dealt with further on. For the present let us observe that, in a general way, the Andeans are husbandmen, and have had a highly-developed native civilisation, while the Amazonians and the Brazilians of the east are for the most part fishers or hunters, often in the lowest scale of civilisation. As to the Pampeans, they are typical pastoral nomads. Before the arrival of the Europeans, the Andeans were acquainted with the weaving of stuffs; they worked in gold, silver, and bronze, manufactured fine pottery, had houses of stone and fortified towns, and employed as their chief weapons clubs and slings. The Amazonians and their congeners, on the other hand, still go almost naked, and adorn themselves with feathers; they were unacquainted with metals on the arrival of the Europeans, and some are ignorant even now of the art of pottery; they dwell in shelters or huts of branches and leaves, and their weapons are the blow-pipe and poisoned arrows. The Pampeans, before being influenced by the Andean or European civilisation, clothed themselves with skins, were acquainted neither with metals nor pottery, dwelt in huts, and used the _bollas_ as their principal weapon.

Before beginning a rapid review of the South American tribes, it must again be remarked that their nomenclature often leads to confusion. A great number of terms are only qualifications applied by Europeans to the most different peoples, in no way akin one to the other. Such, for example, is the term “Bougres,” which is given in the east of Brazil to savages in general; or that of “Jivaros,” employed in the same sense in Peru; such also are the appellations of _Coroados_ (crowned or tonsured), of _Orejones_ (pierced ears), of _Cherentes_, _Caribs_, etc., without taking into account those relating to the half-breeds.[638]

I. _The Andeans._[639]--By this name we shall describe the principal populations which are stationed in the Cordilleras, and on the high table-lands shut in by these mountains from Costa Rica to the 45th degree of S. latitude. Most of them belong to the Chibcha and Quechua linguistic families; but there are also several whose linguistic affinities have yet to be determined.

1. _Chibcha Linguistic Family._--The _Talamancas_ of Costa Rica, sub-divided into several tribes (_Chirripos_, _Bribris_, etc.), form the most northern tribe of this group; they dwell partly on the Atlantic slope, partly on the Pacific. By certain ethnic characters (feather ornaments, use of the blow-pipe) they are related to the Amazonians.[640] Farther away the _Guaymis_ inhabit the region of Chiriqui (Panama), where such beautifully ornamented ancient pottery (Figs. 63 and 64) has been found in the tombs of a still mysterious population. They are short, thick-set, and flat-faced, resembling the Otomis of Mexico. There may be about 4000 of them, according to Pinart; but some of their tribes had dwindled to such an extent, that of the _Muoi_, for example, there were only three individuals in 1882. They organise feasts among the tribes, to which invitations are sent by means of a staff sent round (a portion of a liana-stem, having as many knots as there are days remaining before the feast). With their bodies daubed with red or blue, the Guaymis give themselves up during these feasts to drinking and the game of _balza_, which consists in throwing a sort of club at the legs of their adversaries. There are also lesser feasts, feasts of initiation called here _urotes_.[641] The _Chibchas_ of Columbia, whose civilisation is no whit behind that of the _Nahuas_,[642] have been under Spanish influence since the conquest, and to-day but a few tribes are met with who still speak their mother-tongue or who have preserved their ancient customs.

Such are the _Chimilas_ of the Sierra-Perija; the _Tunebos_, true cliff-dwellers, eastward of Bogota; the _Arahuacos_, dwelling to the number of 3000 in the Sierra-Nevada of Santa Marta. The latter have nothing in common with the true Arawaks, unless it be their name, which, however, they repudiate as an insult; the name they give to themselves is _Cöggaba_, that is to say, “Men.”[643] As to the _Chibcha_ or _Muisca_ Indians of the Rio Magdalena, who were the most civilised of all the peoples speaking the Chibcha tongue, no survivors are to be found.

2. _The Quechua Linguistic Family_ is one of the most far-reaching of South America. The Quechua dialects are still spoken to-day on the coast, and along the chain of the Andes from Quito to the 30th degree S. latitude. This is practically the extent of the ancient empire of the _Incas_, the best known nation among the Quechua peoples. But the influence of the Inca civilisation and the Quechua language extended even farther, to Columbia, the borders of Ucayale, and the Bolivian table-land on the north, to the edge of the Pampas on the south (among the Calchaquis). For the western part of South America the Quechua tongue was the _lengua general_, as the Tupi-Guarani tongue was the _lingua geral_ for the east (Brazil, Paraguay, etc.). This language is not at all superseded by Spanish; on the contrary, the Whites learn it, and several Quechua words: _guano_, _pampa_, _condor_, _quina_, have found their way into the languages of all civilised nations.[644] The principal tribes are: the _Huancas_ to the north-east of Lima, the _Lamanas_ near Trujillo, the _Incas_ in the vicinity of the Rio Apurimac, the _Aymaras_ of the high table-lands of Bolivia (600,000 individuals, of whom two-thirds are of pure blood).