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Show AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY Brief Survey of General Moral Status of Red Men in Early Days Different Characteristics Char-acteristics of Indians of Pacific Coast and the Mississippi Valley Belief in Immortality Almost Universal Among the Savages of America. Betore the KranrUcans cuter usi tli-ir explorations ex-plorations and before we discuss the moral condition condi-tion and the domestic life of thf tribes t. whom the priests will introduce us. let us rapidly survey the divisions, subdivisions and general moral status of the fierce and crafty race oi' men who roamed mvr the American continent north of Mexico, and the remnants of whom art today withering aw:iy on. go ve rn me n t al rest r va t i o n s. Speculation, examination, theory, investigation have failed to account for the original habitat of the American Indians. We know mulling of their past, when or how their forbears came to this continent. con-tinent. What we know of them is what we have learned from the French and Spanish priests who began to mingle with and dwell among them immediately imme-diately after the discovery of America. Contact with them in more recent times has taught us nothing. noth-ing. Their past is impenetrable to the eye of historic his-toric research, and the origin of the settlement of the Atlantic and Pacific tribes is veiled by the mists, of unknown ages.. Of the eight great Xations of savages and barbarians, bar-barians, divided into six hundred and thirty-three j tribes and sub-tribes, some were in a state of barbarism bar-barism near to civilization, others in a lower stage of barbarism, and many in a condition of savagery approaching that of offal animals. The lowest tribes were those roaming the deserts and horrent mountains of Lower California, the valley oi the Columbia river, and possibly the tribes of Labrador Labra-dor and Hudson's Bay. These people were the Bedouins of the deserts and forests ; knew nothing of domestic roots and vegetables and. having no settled life, depended for subsistence on hunting and fishing. The immense region of the L'nited States ayd Canada, which today is yielding to the Japhetic race plethoric wealth of timber and minerals, min-erals, which is broken up largely into farms and cattle ranges was, at the close of the seventeenth century, an enormous forest flecked with deserts and mountains and carrying a prodigious variety of vegetable life. The adventurous traveler entering in tho-H? early days the St. Lawrence river aud continuing his j voyage westward would hav on his right and left ! as he advanced sub-tribes and families of the great hunting nation, the Algonquin. On his left, after passing the Esquimaux, were the Rersiamites. the Papinkos, the Mistassinis. the Montagnais of the Sagfneney and the St. John wilderness, the Porcupines Porcu-pines and, towards the height of land looking to the Hudson Bay, the Attikamegues, or the family of the White Fish. . Ascending the Ottawa, a tributary of the St. Lawrence, were the hunting grounds of the Ciu-veux-Relevesor or men of the standing hair, the Iroquets or island people: veering to the north on the eastern and northern coasts of Lakes Huron and Superior were the Pet u us or Tobacco people, the Hurons, th Amikoues or Beavers, the Xippi-sings Xippi-sings or Soroc f rs. the Wyandottes, the Tema-agami, Tema-agami, the Tetniscornings. the Abittibi, the Chippe-was Chippe-was or Sauteurs. Xorthward still of Lake Superior Supe-rior and dipping to the Hudson Bay were the A-;-siniboines and the Crees. the buffalo hunters. On the southwestern river lands of the St. Lawrence, Law-rence, the traveler, on entering the river, would have on his right the Caspian, who claimed the ownership of splendid meadow lands and splendid virgin forests, then, the Etchmins. the Micmacs and the Abenaki. Advancing westward h? skirted what are now the eastern states of the union aud. crossing cross-ing into Xew York state, enters the lands of the dreaded Iroquois, t lie generic name for the confederated con-federated tribes, the Mohawks, the' Oneidas, Sen-ecas, Sen-ecas, Cayugas and the Onondaga. On the northern and southern shores of Lake Erie dwelt the Attiwandarons or Xeutrals. and the Eries. or Xation of the Raccoon. West of the Fries were the Miami and to the south of Lake Michigan the Illini or Illinois; then in the im- $ mense forests and prairies south and west of the j Great Lakes were the Mascoutins. or Xation of Fire, the Puants, the Folles-Avoines or Wild-Oats. i the Renards or Foxes, the Pottowatimies, the. Sioux and the Monominis. (Continued on Page -4.) jj s AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY (Continued from page 1.) All these tribes, with their sub-tribes, sprang from an Algonquin or Huron-Iroquois stock, and their languages with dialectic variations would indicate in-dicate the racial stock from which they sprang. , As we advance towards and cross the Missouri river, we enter the lands of the Dacotahs and their i offshoots, the Missouris, Poncas, Iowas, Kaws, Sioux, Omahas and Otoes, with their tribal divi-I divi-I sions. On the upper Missouri were Catlin's Man-dans Man-dans and Minncetarees, having no tribal affinity with any known Indian race, and whose language bore no resemblance to that of any other people. ! In grouping- the North American Indians and ' 1 separating them into affinities by simJanty of lan-Tunge, lan-Tunge, J5m Fiske and Major Powell cWy the ) Pawnees with the Arickarees of the Platte dram-age dram-age and a few minor tribal families as a distinct The Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Chrr- kees, now on the Oklahoma reservations, w.rh the Muskhogees and Seminoles formed a group l, themselves and spoke a radical language of th-u- own differing only in family patois. W hen we en- . ter the Pvocky mountain region, we come in con- J tact with the Cheyennes, Comanches and rovin- tribes of the Sioux and Apaches, who had stray.,! away from their own territories. fj- In Colorado, Utah and Idaho, the Bannock- i Shoshones and Yutcs roamed in the lowest state or 1 barbarism, and are classified by some ethnologist, j as one great and separate family.. Advancing towards the Canadian boundary. v enter the hunting grounds of the Selish Natln,,. commonly called Flat-Heads. The land of tii Flat-Heads was that part of Montana lying west cf and near to the base of the main range of th Eocky mountains. In northern Montana roamed the Black-Feet, and around them dwelt nine other tribes, including the Spokanes, the Coeur d'Alew -. the Kalispels, the Nez Perces, Pend d'Oreilles an ! the Crow3. :! Descending to the Pacific coast line, tu altogether al-together different class of people saving th intrusive in-trusive Apache and Apache Navajo possessed tlv deserts, the river depressions and the Colorado delta. del-ta. With these the reader is already partially familiar, fa-miliar, and they will not now detain us. The Indians of the United States and Canada, at the time of which we write, were separated by their mode of living into two national divisions. These were the sedentaries living in villages like the Huron or, forming a confederation like tho Iroquois, who practiced a rude horticulture and stored Indian corn and beans for the winter months, and the hunters and fishers, rovers of the forest and the plain, like the Algonquin and Daco- I tah. The sedentary races raised Indian corn, J-- pumpkins and tobacco. Corn, supplemented by s, fish and the flesh of wild animals, was their only f , Ki food. They knew nothing of alcoholic drinks, fU bread, salt, pepper or vegetables. ' y A remarkable fact, which seems to prove thai the American savage was familiar with the disastrous disas-trous effects of marriage between blood relations, I or of inbreeding, was that no warrior ever took a - wife from the members of his own clan. The men and women of the clan were nearly all, by consanguinity, consan-guinity, related to one another. Immemorial tribal law barred their marriage. The man or woman selected a partner from another clan, and the children chil-dren of the marriage belonged to the clan of the mother. The children did not inherit from the father, all his property, even his weapons, descending descend-ing by right to his brothers or to the sons of his sisters. The children inherited from the mother. And the reason for this custom was that there could be no doubt who was the mother of the child, but. I such was the looseness of morals among the Indians, In-dians, the husband might not always be the father. The religion of all the Indians was a stew of ridiculous fables, of absurd superstitions and, very often, of obscure and cruel rites. Every nation had its own divinities, which it evolved from animate . or inanimate things or beings in the water, in the air or in the earth. ; The Algonquins worshipped the Great Hare, the sun and evil spirits, which they called Manitous. The Iroquois, the Attiwandarons and the Hurons peopled the universe with demons known as Okis. I The Iroquois sacrificed human beings to their war-- god, Ariskone; the Pawnees slaughtered young girls as an offering to the sun, and the Tanos and I southern tribes, when in dire straits, offered young f girls in sacrifice to their tutelary demons. The spirits of the air dwelt with thunder, light- L - j ning, the moon, eclipses, hurricanes or in what- . " ever was unusual and carried fear to their hearts. x Rattlesnakes and other venomous reptiles, certain animals and, with some, the bear, the coyote and . the beaver, because of their superior intelligence, were regarded as divinities. Many tribes believed that the sky was inhabited by a great and powerful power-ful being, who arranged the seasons, controlled the winds and the waves and was able to help man when he wa3 encompassed with danger. At times 4i they offered to their divinities, particularly to the heavenly elements and the spirits dwelling in them, -either to invoke their good will in some enterprise J or to placate them, gifts of tobacco or weapons I which they cast into water or fire. I Belief in the immortality of the soul was uni- f versal among the tribes, with the solitary exception i of the Peourian Illinois, who believed that soul and ! body expired at the same time. 1 They pushed their belief in immortality to its I limit, for they accorded life after death to all ani- mals, and in some instances to inorganic things. I It is impossible to state, with any approach to accuracy, what was the population of North Amer- I ica, excluding Mexico, when Champlain entered the . St. Lawrence in 1612. To judge from the number J of tribes, we might quite naturally assume the pop- , ulation to be numerous if not dense. We must, P' however, remember that people who depend for sub- sistence on the chase must, in order to live, have immense territory. Figures compiled with great ( . care by the Canadian historian. Garneau, repre- sented the probable population of Canada, at tho time Jacques Carrier, in 1534, discovered the Do- minion, to be anywhere from two hundred to two ' i hundred and fifty thousand. Assuming the Indians S of the territory of the United States to be, at that j date, about the same, we would have a native pop- j ulation of about five hundred thousand. f Of the 284,000 Indians in the United States to- ' ! day, only 60,000 are full-blooded, and the same pro- portion of half- or quarter-bloods in the Canadian N population of 290,000 would not be very far away j from that of the United States. 1 s |