INDIANS, AMERICAN, OR RED

were called Indians by British as being inhabitants of what the early discoverers of America believed to be the W. Indies, but are known to most nations as Redskins (¢.g., Fr. Peauz-rouges). They are confined to the Amer. continent, and now generally believed to be a Mongolian people separated from Asia by the comparatively recent subsidence of the Pacific continent.’ In the convenient approximation to racial division of the cla ification Black, Brown (or Red), Yellow, and White, they constitute the Brown group (see Races or Mawxrnp). The Pal eolithic remains show early habitation. The numerous tribes may be divided into these main stocks: (1) N. Central America: Cuna, Lencan, Maya3) 8. America: Antisuyu, Araucan, Zaparo. The largest remaining tribes are the Sioux, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Creeks. Over 60 different languages, all pol synthetic, have been recorded in N. America, At present there are about six million Indians in N. America, Mexico and Central America, about 434 million in S. America, in both cases including half breeds, of which there are about 14% million in 8. America, where, however, the estimate of the Ind. population is only a rough one, owing to the amount of almost unexplored forest region. The half-breeds of N. America belong chiefly to the ‘Five Civilized Tribes,’ of whom c. 60,000 (i.e., two-thirds) are pure Indians, Excluding Alaska,[there are about 800,000 pure Indians in the U.S., mostly resident in Ind. reservations (tracts of land set apart for their habitation), the chief being in Arizona, 8. Dakota, Montana, and Oklahoma. Alaska has c. 30,000 Indians. The very few Indians who have abandoned their tribes in the U.S. pay taxes but have no political rights. The Indians of Arizona and New Mexico, who are U.S. citizens by treaty, exercise no political rights, and have so far shown no political interest. The total Indians of Canada are c. 111,000. ‘The various estimates of the numbers of Indians vary, but seldom fall below the figures given above. The various stocks are characterized by. copper-colored skin, lank black hair, high cheek bones, long, deep-set eyes, and powerful, often aquiline noses. They vary in stature and development, the finest specimens being found among the Patagonians ofS. America and the froquois, Pawnees, and Sioux of the U.S. and Canada. Before they were ousted by Europe ans they were skilled hunters, trained observers, of extraordinarily acute senses, capable of enduring without a murmur great hardships and torture, which they freely employed on others, and they have never shown any liking for European comforts or any sympathy with Eurepean ideals. Most of them were still ix the Stone Age when Columbus landed. Iron seems never to have been known to the makers of the old civilizations of Peru and Mexico. The Indians are of the utmost importance for the study of primitive institutions and religions, and this importance has been recognized in late years by a growing number of students. The matriarchate was common, if not universal, and at the close of the XVIII. cent. European commi ioners still found that the tribe was to be treated with through its head women; polygamy is rare, monogamy the rule; the chieftainship was very rarely hereditary, the strongest man of the tribe being chosen by varying systems of election. The great power. Their tales of the Creation are interesting as giving prominence to the Deluge. Their well-known belief in a future happy hunting-ground seems widely spread, but is not universal. The ghosts of the dead take animal forms or appear as skeletons or unsubstantial bodies, and may inflict harm on the living. Many tribes believe in reincarnation as human beings. In their creed is a strong element of animism, but over all deities and spirits is ‘Atiuch’ or the ‘Father’ or ‘Manito,’ to whom alone direct prayer is offered. He is sometimes conceived as the sun. Corn is worshipped, credited with miraculous powers, and named the ‘Mother.’ Reverence for certain animals, the white eagle, beaver, buffalo, etc., is seen in the curiously pe names of chieftains and _braves—White Bear, Many Horses, Buffalo Ribs—and in names of women, such as White Anteope. — a the XVII. and XVIII. cents. the British and French were continual rivals for the favor of the Indians, and the dispatches of Eng. colonial governors to the home government often expre admiration of Fr. methods of dealing with the natives. There were ‘friendly’ or Brit. Indians and Fr. Indians. The early colonists lived in constant dread of the a SE ‘Indian peril,’ and the state of New York was particularly exposed until Fr. alliance with the Algonquins led to the Iroquois becoming firm friends of the British. These two peoples played an important part in the history of N. America. The Iroquois inhabited the district round St. Lawrence R. and the Great Lakes, part of New York state, and lands in Virginia, the Carol in as, and Georgia. Their tribes included the federation formed by Hiawatha, important in Brit. colonial history as the Five Nations, which became Six Nations by the acce ion of the Tuscaroras. The Cherokees of this stock were the chief tribe with which the Carol in as and Virginia had to deal in the XVIII. cent. They were transferred bodily to the other side of the Mi i ippi in 1838. The Iroquois, however, by their bitter enmity to the French in Canada, did much towards the establishment of Brit. N. America. The Athabascan tribes were of great importance in western N. America; the Apaches and Nawvajos are said to be able to run down the deer while hunting, and the grim, mysterious, and skilled Apache has given his name to the Paris i an thug, while Navajo blankets are widely known. The Siouan tribes formerly spread over the N. and center of the present U.S. To this stock belonged the now extinct tribe of Catawbas, prominent in the history of 8S. Carolina, and it includes the A iniboines and famous Dakotas, or confederate Sioux, who were allies of the British in the XVIII. cent. The Sioux, roused by a religious prophet, gave much trouble in the late XIX. cent. General Custer was slain by a force under Sitting Bull while invading Sioux territory, in 1876, but they were put down by Sheridan, and in 1889, sold 11,000,000 ac., parcel of the Dakota reservation, to the U.S. A rising in Badlands, 8. Dakota, followed immediately after, 1890, other tribes joined and the Indians laid waste surrounding territory. Before the close of the year General Miles’s forces captured and slew Sitting Bull, his son, Crow Foot, etc. A small heroic band under Big Foot sought to revenge Sitting Bull’s death, but were exterminated at Wounded Knee Creek, 1890; further forces surrendered to Crook and Miles, 1891. Risings of the Chippewa, 1892, and Navajo, 1893, followed. Unrest seems to have ceased with the union of Indian Territory and Oklahoma in the state of Oklahoma, 1907.