The Red Man's Continent - Chapters V-Bibliographical Note



CHAPTER V.
THE RED MAN IN AMERICA 

When the white man first explored America, the parts of the continent that 
had made most progress were by no means those that are most advanced 
today.(*) None of the inhabitants, to be sure, had risen above barbarism. 
Yet certain nations or tribes had advanced much higher than others. There 
was a great contrast, for example, between the well-organized barbarians 
of Peru and the almost completely unorganized Athapascan savages near 
Hudson Bay.

(* In the present chapter most of the facts as to the Indians north of 
Mexico are taken from the admirable "Handbook of American Indians North of 
Mexico," edited by F. W. Hodge, Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of 
Ethnology, Bulletin 30, Washington, 1907, two volumes. In summing up the 
character and achievements of the Indians I have drawn also on other 
sources, but have everywhere taken pains to make no statements which are 
not abundantly supported by this authoritative publication. In some cases 
I have not hesitated to paraphrase considerable portions of its articles.)

In the northern continent aboriginal America reached its highest 
development in three typical environments. The first of these regions 
centered in the valley of Mexico where dwelt the Aztecs, but it extended 
as far north as the Pueblos in Arizona and New Mexico. The special feature 
of the environment was the relatively dry, warm climate with the chief 
rainfall in summer. The Indians living in this environment were notable 
for their comparatively high social organization and for religious 
ceremonials whose elaborateness has rarely been surpassed. On the whole, 
the people of this summer rain or Mexican type were not warlike and 
offered little resistance to European conquest. Some tribes, to be sure, 
fought fiercely at first, but yielded within a few years; the rest 
submitted to the lordly Spaniards almost without a murmur. Their 
civilization, if such we may call it, had long ago seen its best days. The 
period of energy and progress had passed, and a time of inertia and decay 
had set in. A century after the Spaniards had overcome the aborigines of 
Mexico, other Europeans--French, English, and Dutch--came into contact 
with a sturdier type of red man, best represented by the Iroquois or Five 
Nations of central New York. This more active type dwelt in a physical 
environment notable for two features--the abundance of cyclonic storms 
bringing rain or snow at all seasons and the deciduous forest which 
thickly covered the whole region. Unlike the Mexican, the civilization of 
the Iroquois was young, vigorous, and growing. It had not learned to 
express itself in durable architectural forms like those of Mexico, nor 
could it rival the older type in social and religious organization. In 
political organization, however, the Five Nations had surpassed the other 
aboriginal peoples of North America. When the white man became acquainted 
with the Iroquois in the seventeenth century, he found five of their 
tribes organized into a remarkable confederation whose avowed object was 
to abolish war among themselves and to secure to all the members the 
peaceful exercise of their rights and privileges. So well was the 
confederation organized that, in spite of war with its enemies, it 
persisted for at least two hundred years. One of the chief characteristics 
of the Iroquois was their tremendous energy. They were so energetic that 
they pursued their enemies with an implacable relentlessness similar to 
the restless eagerness with which the people of the region from New York 
to Chicago now pursue their business enterprises. This led the Iroquois to 
torture their prisoners with the utmost ingenuity and cruelty. Not only 
did the savages burn and mutilate their captives, but they sometimes added 
the last refinement of torture by compelling the suffering wretches to eat 
pieces of flesh cut from their own bodies. Energy may lead to high 
civilization, but it may also lead to excesses of evil. The third 
prominent aboriginal type was that of the fishermen of the coast of 
British Columbia, especially the Haidas of the Queen Charlotte Islands. 
The most important features of their environment were the submerged coast 
with its easy navigation, the mild oceanic climate, and the dense pine 
forests. The Haidas, like the Iroquois, appear to have been a people who 
were still advancing. Such as it was, their greatness was apparently the 
product of their own ingenuity and not, like that of the Mexicans, an 
inheritance from a greater past. The Haidas lacked the relentless energy 
of the Iroquois and shared the comparatively gentle character which 
prevailed among all the Indians along the Pacific Coast. They were by no 
means weaklings, however. Commercially, for instance, they seem to have 
been more advanced than any North American tribe except those in the 
Mexican area. In architecture they stood equally high. We are prone to 
think of the Mexicans as the best architects among the aborigines, but 
when the white man came even the Aztecs were merely imitating the work of 
their predecessors. The Haidas, on the contrary, were showing real 
originality. They had no stone with which to build, for their country is 
so densely forested that stone is rarely visible. They were remarkably 
skillful, however, in hewing great beams from the forest. With these they 
constructed houses whose carved totem poles and graceful facades gave 
promise of an architecture of great beauty. Taking into account the 
difficulties presented by a material which was not durable and by tools 
which were nothing but bits of stone, we must regard their totem poles and 
mural decorations as real contributions to primitive architecture. 

In addition to these three highest types of the red man there were many 
others. Each, as we shall see, owed its peculiarities largely to the 
physical surroundings in which it lived. Of course different tribes 
possessed different degrees of innate ability, but the chief differences 
in their habits and mode of life arose from the topography, the climate, 
the plants, and the animals which formed the geographical setting of their 
homes. 

In previous chapters we have gained some idea of the topography of the New 
World and of the climate in its relation to plants and animals. We have 
also seen that climate has much to do with human energy. We have not, 
however, gained a sufficiently clear idea of the distribution of climatic 
energy. A map of the world showing how energy would be distributed if it 
depended entirely upon climate clarifies the subject. The dark shading of 
the map indicates those regions where energy is highest. It is based upon 
measurements of the strength of scores of individuals, upon the scholastic 
records of hundreds of college students, upon the piecework of thousands 
of factory operatives, and upon millions of deaths and births in a score 
of different countries. It takes account of three chief climatic 
conditions--temperature, humidity, and variability. It also takes account 
of mental as well as physical ability. Underneath it is a map of the 
distribution of civilization on the basis of the opinion of fifty 
authorities in fifteen different countries. The similarity of the two maps 
is so striking that there can be little question that today the 
distribution of civilization agrees closely with the distribution of 
climatic energy. When Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, and Rome were at the 
height of their power this agreement was presumably the same, for the 
storm belt which now gives variability and hence energy to the thickly 
shaded regions in our two maps then apparently lay farther south. It is 
generally considered that no race has been more closely dependent upon 
physical environment than were the Indians. Why, then, did the energizing 
effect of climate apparently have less effect upon them than upon the 
other great races? Why were not the most advanced Indian tribes found in 
the same places where white civilization is today most advanced? Climatic 
changes might in part account for the difference, but, although such 
changes apparently took place on a large scale in earlier times, there is 
no evidence of anything except minor fluctuations since the days of the 
first white settlements. Racial inheritance likewise may account for some 
of the differences among the various tribes, but it was probably not the 
chief factor. That factor was apparently the condition of agriculture 
among people who had neither iron tools nor beasts of burden. Civilization 
has never made much progress except when there has been a permanent 
cultivation of the ground. It has been said that "the history of 
agriculture is the history of man in his most primitive and most permanent 
aspect." If we examine the achievements and manner of life of the Indians 
in relation to the effect of climate upon agriculture and human energy, as 
well as in relation to the more obvious features of topography and 
vegetation, we shall understand why the people of aboriginal America in 
one part of the continent differed so greatly from those in another part. 
In the far north the state of the inhabitants today is scarcely different 
from what it was in the days of Columbus. Then, as now, the Eskimos had 
practically no political or social organization beyond the family or the 
little group of relatives who lived in a single camp. They had no 
permanent villages, but moved from place to place according to the season 
in search of fish, game, and birds. They lived this simple life not 
because they lacked ability but because of their surroundings. Their 
kayaks or canoes are marvels of ingenuity. With no materials except bones, 
driftwood, and skins they made boats which fulfilled their purpose with 
extraordinary perfection. Seated in the small, round hole which is the 
only opening in the deck of his canoe, the Eskimo hunter ties his skin 
jacket tightly outside the circular gunwale and is thus shut into a 
practically water-tight compartment. Though the waves dash over him, 
scarcely a drop enters the craft as he skims along with his double paddle 
among cakes of floating ice. So, too, the snowhouse with its anterooms and 
curved entrance passage is as clever an adaptation to the needs of 
wanderers in a land of ice and snow as is the skyscraper to the needs of a 
busy commercial people crowded into great cities. The fact that the 
oilburning, soapstone lamps of the Eskimo were the only means of producing 
artificial light in aboriginal America, except by ordinary fires, is 
another tribute to the ingenuity of these northerners. So, too, is the 
fire-drill by which they alone devised a means of increasing the speed 
with which one stick could be twirled against another to produce fire. In 
view of these clever inventions it seems safe to say that the Eskimo has 
remained a nomadic savage not because he lacks inventive skill but partly 
because the climate deadens his energies and still more because it forbids 
him to practice agriculture. 

Southward and inland from the coastal homes of the Eskimo lies the great 
region of the northern pine forests. It extends from the interior of 
Alaska southeastward in such a way as to include most of the Canadian 
Rockies, the northern plains from Great Bear Lake almost to Lake Winnipeg, 
and most of the great Laurentian shield around Hudson Bay and in the 
peninsula of Labrador. Except among the inhabitants of the narrow Pacific 
slope and those of the shores of Labrador and the St. Lawrence Valley, a 
single type of barbarism prevailed among the Indians of all the vast pine 
forest area. Only in a small section of the wheat-raising plains of 
Alberta and Saskatchewan have their habits greatly changed because of the 
arrival of the white man. Now as always the Indians in these northern 
regions are held back by the long, benumbing winters. They cannot practice 
agriculture, for no crops will grow. They cannot depend to any great 
extent upon natural vegetation, for aside from blueberries, a few lichens, 
and one or two other equally insignificant products, the forests furnish 
no food except animals. These lowly people seem to have been so occupied 
with the severe struggle with the elements that they could not even 
advance out of savagery into barbarism. They were homeless nomads whose 
movements were determined largely by the food supply. 

Among the Athapascans who occupied all the western part of the northern 
pine forests, clothing was made of deerskins with the hair left on. The 
lodges were likewise of deer or caribou skins, although farther south 
these were sometimes replaced by bark. The food of these tribes consisted 
of caribou, deer, moose, and musk-ox together with smaller animals such as 
the beaver and hare. They also ate various kinds of birds and the fish 
found in the numerous lakes and rivers. They killed deer by driving them 
into an angle formed by two converging rows of stakes, where they were 
shot by hunters lying in wait. Among the Kawchodinne tribe near Great Bear 
Lake hares were the chief source of both food and clothing. When an 
unusually severe winter or some other disaster diminished the supply, the 
Indians believed that the animals had mounted to the sky by means of the 
trees and would return by the same way. In 1841 owing to scarcity of hares 
many of this tribe died of starvation, and numerous acts of cannibalism 
are said to have occurred. Small wonder that civilization was low and that 
infanticide, especially of female children, was common. Among such people 
women were naturally treated with a minimum of respect. Since they were 
not skilled as hunters, there was relatively little which they could 
contribute toward the sustenance of the family. Hence they were held in 
low esteem, for among most primitive people woman is valued largely in 
proportion to her economic contribution. Her low position is illustrated 
by the peculiar funeral custom of the Takulli, an Athapascan tribe on the 
Upper Frazer River. A widow was obliged to remain upon the funeral pyre of 
her husband till the flames reached her own body. When the fire had died 
down she collected the ashes of her dead and placed them in a basket, 
which she was obliged to carry with her during three years of servitude in 
the family of her husband. At the end of that time a feast was held, when 
she was released from thraldom and permitted to remarry if she desired. 

Poor and degraded as the people of the northern forests may have been, 
they had their good traits. The Kutchins of the Yukon and Lower Mackenzie 
regions, though they killed their female children, were exceedingly 
hospitable and kept guests for months. Each head of a family took his turn 
in feasting the whole band. On such occasions etiquette required the host 
to fast until the guests had departed. At such feasts an interesting 
wrestling game was played. First the smallest boys began to wrestle. The 
victors wrestled with those next in strength and so on until finally the 
strongest and freshest man in the band remained the final victor. Then the 
girls and women went through the same progressive contest. It is hard to 
determine whether the people of the northern pine forest were more or less 
competent than their Eskimo neighbors. It perhaps makes little difference, 
for it is doubtful whether even a race with brilliant natural endowments 
could rise far in the scale of civilization under conditions so highly 
adverse. 

The Eskimos of the northern coasts and the people of the pine forests were 
not the only aborigines whose development was greatly retarded because 
they could not practice agriculture. All the people of the Pacific coast 
from Alaska to Lower California were in similar circumstances. 
Nevertheless those living along the northern part of this coast rose to a 
much higher level than did those of California. This has sometimes been 
supposed to show that geographical environment has little influence upon 
civilization, but in reality it proves exactly the opposite. 

The coast of British Columbia was one of the three chief centers of 
aboriginal America. As The Encyclopaedia Britannica(*) puts it: "The Haida 
people constituted with little doubt the finest race and that most 
advanced in the arts of the entire west coast of North America." They and 
their almost equally advanced Tlingit and Tsimshian neighbors on the 
mainland displayed much mechanical skill, especially in canoe-building, 
woodcarving, and the working of stone and copper, as well as in making 
blankets and baskets. To this day they earn a considerable amount of money 
by selling their carved objects of wood and slate to traders and tourists. 
Their canoes were hollowed out of logs of cedar and were often very large. 
Houses which were sometimes 40 by 100 feet were built of huge cedar beams 
and planks, which were first worked with stone and were then put together 
at great feasts. These correspond to the "raising bees" at which the 
neighbors gathered to erect the frames of houses in early New England. 
Each Haida house ordinarily had a single carved totem pole in the middle 
of the gable end which faced toward the beach. Often the end posts in 
front were also carved and the whole house was painted. Another evidence 
of the fairly advanced state of the Haidas was their active commercial 
intercourse with regions hundreds of miles away. At their "potlatches," as 
the raising bees were called by the whites, trading went on vigorously. 
Carved copper plates were among the articles which they esteemed of 
highest value. Standing in the tribe depended on the possession of 
property rather than on ability in war, in which respect the Haidas were 
more like the people of today than were any of the other Indian tribes. 

(* 11th Edition, vol. XXII, p. 730)

Slavery was common among the Haidas. Even as late as 1861, 7800 Tlingits 
held 828 slaves. Slavery may not be a good institution in itself, but it 
indicates that people are well-to-do, that they dwell in permanent abodes, 
and that they have a well-established social order. Among the more 
backward Iroquois, captives rarely became genuine slaves, for the social 
and economic organization was not sufficiently developed to admit of this. 
The few captives who were retained after a fight were adopted into the 
tribe of the captors or else were allowed to live with them and shift for 
themselves--a practice very different from that of the Haidas. 

Another feature of the Haidas' life which showed comparative progress was 
the social distinctions which existed among them. One of the ways in which 
individuals maintained their social position was by giving away quantities 
of goods of all kinds at the potlatches which they organized. A man 
sometimes went so far as to strip himself of nearly every possession 
except his house. In return for this, however, he obtained what seemed to 
him an abundant reward in the respect with which his fellow-tribesmen 
afterward regarded him. At subsequent potlatches he received in his turn a 
measure of their goods in proportion to his own gifts, so that he was 
sometimes richer than before. These potlatches were social as well as 
industrial functions, and dancing and singing were interspersed with the 
feasting. One of the amusements was a musical contest in which singers 
from one tribe or band would contend with one another as to which could 
remember the greatest number of songs or accurately repeat a new song 
after hearing it for the first time. At the potlatches the children of 
chiefs were initiated into secret societies. They had their noses, ears, 
and lips pierced for ornaments, and some of them were tattooed. This great 
respect for social position which the Haidas manifested is doubtless far 
from ideal, but it at least indicates that a part of the tribe was 
sufficiently advanced to accumulate property and to pass it on to its 
descendants--a custom that is almost impossible among tribes which move 
from place to place. The question suggests itself why these coast 
barbarians were so much in advance of their neighbors a few hundred miles 
away in the pine woods of the mountains. The climate was probably one 
reason for this superiority. Instead of being in a region like the center 
of the pine forests of British Columbia where human energy is sapped by 
six or eight months of winter, the Haidas enjoyed conditions like those of 
Scotland. Although snow fell occasionally, severe cold was unknown. Nor 
was there great heat in summer. The Haidas dwelt where both bodily 
strength and mental activity were stimulated. In addition to this 
advantage of a favorable climate these Indians had a large and steady 
supply of food close at hand. Most of their sustenance was obtained from 
the sea and from the rivers, in which the runs of salmon furnished 
abundant provisions, which rarely failed. In Hecate Strait, between the 
Queen Charlotte Islands and the mainland, there were wonderfully 
productive halibut fisheries, from which a supply of fish was dried and 
packed away for the winter, so that there was always a store of provisions 
on hand. The forests in their turn furnished berries and seeds, as well as 
bears, mountain goats, and other game. 

Moreover the people of the northwest coast had the advantage of not being 
forced to move from place to place in order to follow the fish. They lived 
on a drowned shore where bays, straits, and sounds are extraordinarily 
numerous. The great waves of the Pacific are shut out by the islands so 
that the waterways are almost always safe for canoes. Instead of moving 
their dwellings in order to follow the food supply, as the Eskimo and the 
people of the pine forest were forced to do, the Haidas and their 
neighbors were able without difficulty to bring their food home. At all 
seasons the canoes made it easy to transport large supplies of fish from 
places even a hundred miles away. Having settled dwellings, the Haidas 
could accumulate property and acquire that feeling of permanence which is 
one of the most important conditions for the development of civilization. 
Doubtless the Haidas were intellectually superior to many other tribes, 
but even if they had not been greatly superior, their surroundings would 
probably have made them stand relatively high in the scale of 
civilization. Southward from the Haidas, around Puget Sound and in 
Washington and Oregon, there was a gradual decline in civilization. The 
Chinook Indians of the lower Columbia, beyond the limits of the great 
northern archipelago, had large communal houses occupied by three or four 
families of twenty or more individuals. Their villages were thus fairly 
permanent, although there was much moving about in summer owing to the 
nature of the food supply, which consisted chiefly of salmon, with roots 
and berries indigenous to the region. The people were noted as traders not 
only among themselves but with surrounding tribes. They were extremely 
skillful in handling their canoes, which were well made, hollowed out of 
single logs, and often of great size. In disposition they are described as 
treacherous and deceitful, especially when their cupidity was aroused. 
Slaves were common and were usually obtained by barter from surrounding 
tribes, though occasionally by successful raids. These Indians of Oregon 
by no means rivaled the Haidas, for their food supply was less certain and 
they did not have the advantage of easy water communication, which did so 
much to raise the Haidas to a high level of development. 

Of the tribes farther south an observer says: "In general rudeness of 
culture the California Indians are scarcely above the Eskimo, and whereas 
the lack of development of the Eskimo on many sides of their nature is 
reasonably attributable in part to their difficult and limiting 
environment, the Indians of California inhabit a country naturally as 
favorable, it would seem, as it might be. If the degree of civilization 
attained by a people depends in any large measure on their habitat, as 
does not seem likely, it might be concluded from the case of the 
California Indians that natural advantages were an impediment rather than 
an incentive to progress." In some of the tribes, such as the Hupa, for 
example, there existed no organization and no formalities in the 
government of the village. Formal councils were unknown, although the 
chief might and often did ask advice of his men in a collected body. In 
general the social structure of the California Indians was so simple and 
loose that it is hardly correct to speak of their tribes. Whatever 
solidarity there was among these people was due in part to family ties and 
in part to the fact that they lived in the same village and spoke the same 
dialect. Between different groups of these Indians, the common bond was 
similarity of language as well as frequency and cordiality of intercourse. 
In so primitive a condition of society there was neither necessity nor 
opportunity for differences of rank. The influence of chiefs was small and 
no distinct classes of slaves were known. Extreme poverty was the chief 
cause of the low social and political organization of these Indians. The 
Maidus in the Sacramento Valley were so poor that, in addition to 
consuming every possible vegetable product, they not only devoured all 
birds except the buzzard, but ate badgers, skunks, wildcats, and mountain 
lions, and even consumed salmon bones and deer vertebrae. They gathered 
grasshoppers and locusts by digging large shallow pits in a meadow or 
flat. Then, setting fire to the grass on all sides, they drove the insects 
into the pit. Their wings being burned off by the flames, the grasshoppers 
were helpless and were thus collected by the bushel. Again of the 
Moquelumne, one of the largest tribes in central California, it is said 
that their houses were simply frameworks of poles and brush which in 
winter were covered with earth. In summer they erected cone-shaped lodges 
of poles among the mountains. In favorable years they gathered large 
quantities of acorns, which formed their principal food, and stored them 
for winter use in granaries raised above the ground. Often, however, the 
crop was poor, and the Indians were left on the verge of starvation. 

Finally in the far south, in the peninsula of Lower California, the tribes 
were "probably the lowest in culture of any Indians in North America, for 
their inhospitable environment which made them wanderers, was unfavorable 
to the foundation of government even of the rude and unstable kind found 
elsewhere." The Yuman tribes of the mountains east of Santiago wore 
sandals of maguey fiber and descended from their own territory among the 
mountains "to eat calabash and other fruits" that grew beside the Colorado 
River. They were described as "very dirty on account of the much mescal 
they eat." Others speak of them as "very filthy in their habits. To 
overcome vermin they coat their heads with mud with which they also paint 
their bodies. On a hot day it is by no means unusual to see them wallowing 
in the mud like pigs." They were "exceedingly poor, having no animals 
except foxes of which they had a few skins. The dress of the women in 
summer was a shirt and a bark skirt. The men appear to have been 
practically unclothed during this season. The practice of selling children 
seems to have been common. Their sustenance was fish, fruits, vegetables, 
and seeds of grass, and many of the tribes were said to have been 
dreadfully scorbutic." A little to the east of these degraded savages the 
much more advanced Mohave tribe had its home on the lower Colorado River. 
The contrast between these neighboring tribes throws much light on the 
reason for the low estate of the California Indians. "No better example of 
the power of environment to better man's condition can be found than that 
shown as the lower Colorado is reached. Here are tribes of the same family 
(as those of Lower California) remarkable not only for their fine physical 
development, but living in settled villages with well-defined tribal 
lines, practising a rude, but effective, agriculture, and well advanced in 
many primitive Indian arts. The usual Indian staples were raised except 
tobacco, these tribes preferring a wild tobacco of their region to the 
cultivated."(*)

(* Hodge, "Handbook of American Indians")

This quotation is highly significant. With it should be compared the fact 
that there is no evidence that corn or anything else was cultivated in 
California west of the Rio Colorado Valley. California is a region famous 
throughout America for its agriculture, but its crops are European in 
origin. Even in the case of fruits, such as the grape, which have American 
counterparts, the varieties actually cultivated were brought from Europe. 
Wheat and barley, the chief foodstuffs for which California and similar 
subtropical regions are noted, were unknown in the New World before the 
coming of the white man. In pre-Columbian America corn was the only 
cultivated cereal. The other great staples of early American agriculture 
were beans and pumpkins. All three are preeminently summer crops and need 
much water in July and August. In California there is no rain at this 
season. Though the fall rains, which begin to be abundant in October and 
November, do not aid these summer crops, they favor wheat and barley. The 
winter rains and the comparatively warm winter weather permit these grains 
to grow slowly but continuously. When the warm spring arrives, there is 
still enough rain to permit wheat and barley to make a rapid growth and to 
mature their seeds long before the long, dry summer begins. The 
comparatively dry weather of May and June is just what these cereals need 
to ripen the crop, but it is fatal to any kind of agriculture which 
depends on summer rain. 

Crops can of course be grown during the summer in California by means of 
irrigation, but this is rarely a simple process. If irrigation is to be 
effective in California, it cannot depend on the small streams which 
practically dry up during the long, rainless summer, but it must depend on 
comparatively large streams which flow in well-defined channels. With our 
modern knowledge and machinery it is easy for us to make canals and 
ditches and to prepare the level fields needed to utilize this water. A 
people with no knowledge of agriculture, however, and with no iron tools 
cannot suddenly begin to practice a complex and highly developed system of 
agriculture. In California there is little or none of the natural summer 
irrigation which, in certain parts of America, appears to have been the 
most important factor leading to the first steps in tilling the ground. 
The lower Colorado, however, floods broad areas every summer. Here, as on 
the Nile, the retiring floods leave the land so moist that crops can 
easily be raised. Hence the Mohave Indians were able to practice 
agriculture and to rise well above their kinsmen not only in Lower 
California but throughout the whole State. 

In the Rocky Mountain region of the United States, just as on the Pacific 
coast, the condition of the tribes deteriorated more and more the farther 
they lived to the south. In the regions where the rainfall comes in 
summer, however, and hence favors primitive agriculture, there was a 
marked improvement. The Kutenai tribes lived near the corner where Idaho, 
Montana, and British Columbia now meet. They appear to have been of rather 
high grade, noteworthy for their morality, kindness, and hospitality. More 
than any other Indians of the Rocky Mountain region, they avoided 
drunkenness and lewd intercourse with the whites. Their mental ability was 
comparatively high, as appears from their skill in buffalo-hunting, in 
making dugouts and bark canoes, and in constructing sweat-houses and 
lodges of both skins and rushes. Even today the lower Kutenai are noted 
for their water-tight baskets of split roots. Moreover the degree to which 
they used the plants that grew about them for food, medicine, and 
economical purposes was noteworthy. They also had an esthetic appreciation 
of several plants and flowers--a gift rare among Indians. These people 
lived in the zone of most stimulating climate and, although they did not 
practice agriculture and had little else in their surroundings to help 
them to rise above the common level, they dwelt in a region where there 
was rain enough in summer to prevent their being on the verge of 
starvation, as the Indians of California usually were. Moreover they were 
near enough to the haunts of the buffalo to depend on that great beast for 
food. Since one buffalo supplies as much food as a hundred rabbits, these 
Indians were vastly better off than the people of the drier parts of the 
western coast. 

South of the home of the Kutenai, in eastern Oregon, southern Idaho, 
Nevada, Utah, and neighboring regions dwelt the Utes and other Shoshoni 
tribes. In this region the rainfall, which is no greater than that of 
California, occurs chiefly in winter. The long summer is so dry that, 
except by highly developed methods of irrigation, agriculture is 
impossible. Hence it is not surprising to find a traveler in 1850 
describing one tribe of the Ute family as "without exception the most 
miserable looking set of human beings I ever saw. They have hitherto 
subsisted principally on snakes, lizards, roots." The lowest of all the 
Ute tribes were those who lived in the sage-brush. The early explorer, 
Bonneville, found the tribes of Snake River wintering in brush shelters 
without roofs merely heaps of brush piled high, behind which the Indians 
crouched for protection from wind and snow. Crude as such shelters may 
seem, they were the best that could be constructed by people who dwelt 
where there was no vegetation except little bushes, and where the soil was 
for the most part sandy or so salty that it could not easily be made into 
adobe bricks. 

The food of these Utes and Shoshonis was no better than their shelters. 
There were no large animals for them to hunt; rabbits were the best that 
they could find. Farther to the east, where the buffalo wandered during 
part of the year and where there are some forests, the food was better, 
the shelters were more effective, and, in general, the standard of living 
was higher, although racially the two groups of people were alike. In this 
case, as in others, the people whose condition was lowest were apparently 
as competent as those whose material conditions were much better. Today, 
although the Ute Indians, like most of their race, are rather slow, some 
tribes, such as the Payutes, are described as not only "peaceful and
moral," but also "industrious." They are highly commended for their good 
qualities by those who have had the best opportunities for judging. While 
not as bright in intellect as some of the prairie tribes whom we shall 
soon consider, they appear to possess more solidity of character. By their 
willingness and efficiency as workers they have made themselves necessary 
to the white farmers and have thus supplied themselves with good clothing 
and many of the comforts of life. They have resisted, too, many of the 
evils coming from the advance of civilization, so that one agent speaks of 
these Indians as presenting the singular anomaly of improving by contact 
with the whites. Apparently their extremely low condition in former times 
was due merely to that same handicap of environment which kept back the 
Indians of California. 

Compare these backward but not wholly ungifted Utes with the Hopi who 
belonged to the same stock. The relatively high social organization of the 
latter people and the intricacy and significance of their religious 
ceremonials are well known. Mentally the Hopi seem to be the equal of any 
tribe, but it is doubtful whether they have much more innate capacity than 
many of their more backward neighbors. Nevertheless they made much more 
progress before the days of the white man, as can easily be seen in their 
artistic development. Every one who has crossed the continent by the Santa 
Fe route knows how interesting and beautiful are their pottery, basketry, 
and weaving. Not only in art but also in government the Hopi are highly 
advanced. Their governing body is a council of hereditary elders together 
with the chiefs of religious fraternities. Among these officials there is 
a speaker chief and a war chief, but there seems never to have been any 
supreme chief of all the Hopi. Each pueblo has an hereditary chief who 
directs all the communal work, such as the cleaning of the springs and the 
general care of the village. Crimes are rare. This at first sight seems 
strange in view of the fact that no penalty was inflicted for any crime 
except sorcery, but under Hopi law all transgressions could be reduced to 
sorcery. One of the most striking features of Hopi life was its rich 
religious development. The Hopi recognized a large number of supernatural 
beings and had a great store of most interesting and poetic mythological 
tales. The home of the Hopi would seem at first sight as unfavorable to 
progress as that of their Ute cousins, but the Hopi have the advantage of 
being the most northwesterly representatives of the Indians who dwell 
within the regions of summer rain. Fortunately for them, their country is 
too desert and unforested for them to subsist to any great degree by the 
chase. They are thus forced to devote all their energy to agriculture, 
through which they have developed a relatively high standard of living. 
They dwell far enough south to have their heaviest rainfall in summer and 
not in winter, as is the case in Utah, so that they are able to cultivate 
crops of corn and beans. Where such an intensive system of agriculture 
prevails, the work of women is as valuable as that of men. The position of 
woman is thus relatively high among the Hopi, for she is useful not only 
for her assistance in the labors of the field but also for her skill in 
preserving the crops, grinding the flour, and otherwise preparing the 
comparatively varied food which this tribe fortunately possesses. 

From northern New Mexico and Arizona to Mexico City summer rains, dry 
winters, and still drier springs, are the rule. Forests are few, and much 
of the country is desert. The more abundant the rains, the greater the 
number of people and the greater the opportunities for the accumulation of 
wealth, and thus for that leisure which is necessary to part of a 
community if civilization is to make progress. That is one reason why the 
civilization of the summer rain people becomes more highly developed as 
they go from north to south. The fact that the altitude of the country 
increases from the United States border southward also tends in the same 
direction, for it causes the climate to be cooler and more bracing at 
Mexico City than at places farther north. 

The importance of summer rains in stimulating growth and in facilitating 
the early stages of agriculture is noteworthy. Every one familiar with 
Arizona and New Mexico knows how the sudden summer showers fill the 
mountain valleys with floods which flow down upon the plain and rapidly 
spread out into broad, thin sheets, often known as playas. There the water 
stands a short time and then either sinks into the ground or evaporates. 
Such places are favored with the best kind of natural irrigation, and 
after the first shower it is an easy matter for the primitive farmer to go 
out and drop grains of corn into holes punched with a stick. Thereafter he 
can count on other showers to water his field while the corn sprouts and 
grows to maturity. All that he needs to do is to watch the field to 
protect it from the rare depredations of wild animals. As time goes on the 
primitive farmer realizes the advantage of leading the water to 
particularly favorable spots and thus begins to develop a system of 
artificial irrigation. In regions where such advantageous conditions 
prevail, the people who live permanently in one place succeed best, for 
the work that they do one year helps them the next. They are not greatly 
troubled by weeds, for, though grasses grow as well as corn in the places 
where the water spreads out, the grasses take the form of little clumps 
which can easily be pulled up. In the drier parts of the area of summer 
rain, it becomes necessary to conserve the water supply to the utmost. The 
Hopi consider sandy fields the best, for the loose sand on top acts as a 
natural blanket to prevent evaporation from the underlying layers. 
Sometimes in dry seasons the Hopi use extraordinary methods to help their 
seeds to sprout. For instance, they place a seed in a ball of saturated 
mud which they bury beneath several inches of sand. As the sand prevents 
evaporation, practically all the water is retained for the use of the 
seed, which thereupon sprouts and grows some inches by the time the first 
summer floods arrive. 

The Indians of the Great Plains lived a very different life from that of 
the natives of either the mountains or the Pacific coast. In the far 
north, to be sure, the rigorous climate caused all the Indians to live 
practically alike, whether in the Rockies, the plains, or the Laurentian 
highland. South of them, in that great central expanse stretching from the 
latitude of Lake Winnipeg to the Rio Grande River, the Indians of the 
plains possessed a relatively uniform type of life peculiar to themselves. 
This individuality was due partly to the luxuriant carpet of grass which 
covered the plains and partly to the supply of animal food afforded by the 
vast herds of buffaloes which roamed in tens of thousands throughout the 
whole territory. The grass was important chiefly because it prevented the 
Indians from engaging in agriculture, for it must never be forgotten that 
the Indians had neither iron tools nor beasts of burden to aid them in 
overcoming the natural difficulties in the way of agriculture. To be sure, 
they did occasionally pound meteoric iron into useful implements, but this 
substance was so rare that probably not one Indian in a hundred had ever 
seen a piece. The Indians were quite familiar with copper, but there is 
not the slightest evidence that they had discovered any means of hardening 
it. Metals played no real part in the life of any of the Indians of 
America, and without such tools as iron spades and hoes it was impossible 
for them to cultivate grassland. If they burned the prairie and dropped 
seeds into holes, the corn or beans which they thus planted were sure to 
be choked by the quickly springing grass. To dig away the tough sod around 
the hole for each seed would require an almost incredible amount of work 
even with iron tools. To accomplish this with wooden spades, rude hoes 
made of large flakes of flint, or the shoulder blades of the buffalo, was 
impossible on any large scale. Now and then in some river bottom where the 
grass grew in clumps and could be easily pulled up, a little agriculture 
was possible. That is all that seems to have been attempted on the great 
grassy plains. 

The Indians could not undertake any widespread cultivation of the plains 
not only because they lacked iron tools but also because they had no draft 
animals. The buffalo was too big, too fierce, and too stupid to be 
domesticated. In all the length and breadth of the two Americas there was 
no animal to take the place of the useful horse, donkey, or ox. The llama 
was too small to do anything but carry light loads, and it could live only 
in a most limited area among the cold Andean highlands. Even if the 
aboriginal Americans could have made iron ploughs, they could not have 
ploughed the tough sod without the aid of animals. Moreover, even if the 
possession of metal tools and beasts of burden had made agriculture 
possible in the grass-lands, it would have been difficult, in the absence 
of wood for fences, to prevent the buffalo from eating up the crops or at 
least from tramping through them and spoiling them. Thus the fertile land 
of the great plains remained largely unused until the white man came to 
the New World bringing the iron tools and domestic animals that were 
necessary to successful agriculture. 

Although farming of any sort was almost as impossible in the plains as in 
the dry regions of winter rains farther west, the abundance of buffaloes 
made life much easier in many respects. It is astonishing to see how many 
purposes these animals served. An early traveler who dwelt among one of 
the buffalo-hunting tribes, the Tonkawa of central Texas, says: "Besides 
their meat it [the buffalo] furnishes them liberally what they desire for 
conveniences. The brains are used to soften skins, the horns for spoons 
and drinking cups, the shoulder blades to dig up and clear off the ground, 
the tendons for threads and bow strings, the hoofs to glue the arrow-
feathering. From the tail-hair they make ropes and girths, from the wool, 
belts and various ornaments. The hide furnishes . . . shields, tents, 
shirts, footwear, and blankets to protect them from the cold."(*)

(* See Hodge, "Handbook of American Indians," vol. II, p. 781)

The buffalo is a surprisingly stupid animal. When a herd is feeding it is 
possible for a man to walk into the midst of it and shoot down an animal. 
Even when one of their companions falls dead, the buffaloes pay no 
attention to the hunter provided he remains perfectly still. The wounded 
animals are not at first dangerous but seek to flee. Only when pursued and 
brought to bay do they turn on their pursuers. When the Indians of an 
encampment united their forces, as was their regular habit, they were able 
to slaughter hundreds of animals in a few days. The more delicate parts of 
the meat they ate first, often without cooking them. The rest they dried 
and packed away for future use, while they prepared the hides as coverings 
for the tents or as rugs in which to sleep. 

Wherever the buffaloes were present in large numbers, the habits of the 
Indians were much the same. They could not live in settled villages, for 
there was no assurance that the buffalo would come to any particular place 
each year. The plains tribes were therefore more thoroughly nomadic than 
almost any others, especially after the introduction of horses. Because 
they wandered so much, they came into contact with other tribes to an 
unusual degree, and much of the contact was friendly. Gradually the 
Indians developed a sign language by which tribes of different tongues 
could communicate with one another. At first these signs were like 
pictographs, for the speaker pointed as nearly as possible to the thing 
that he desired to indicate, but later they became more and more 
conventional. For example, man, the erect animal, was indicated by 
throwing up the hand, with its back outward and the index finger extending 
upward. Woman was indicated by a sweeping downward movement of the hand at 
the side of the head with fingers extended to denote long hair or the 
combing of flowing locks. 

Among the plains Indians, the Dakotas, the main tribe of the Sioux family, 
are universally considered to have stood highest not only physically but 
mentally, and probably morally. Their bravery was never questioned, and 
they conquered or drove out every rival except the Chippewas. Their 
superiority was clearly seen in their system of government. Personal 
fitness and popularity determined chieftainship more than did heredity. 
The authority of the chief was limited by the Band Council, without whose 
approbation little or nothing could be accomplished. In one of the Dakota 
tribes, the Tetons, the policing of a village was confided to two or three 
officers who were appointed by the chief and who remained in power until 
their successors were appointed. Day and night they were always on the 
watch, and so arduous were their labors that their term of service was 
necessarily short. The brevity of their term, however, was atoned for by 
the greatness of their authority, for in the suppression of disturbances 
no resistance was suffered. Their persons were sacred, and if in the 
execution of their duty they struck even a chief of the second class they 
could not be punished. 

The Dakotas, who lived in the region where their name is still preserved, 
inhabited that part of the great plain which is climatically most 
favorable to great activity. It is perhaps because of their response to 
the influence of this factor of geographical environment that they and 
their neighbors are the best known of the plains tribes. Their activity in 
later times is evident from the fact that the Tetons were called "the 
plundering Arabs of America." If their activities had been more wisely 
directed, they might have made a great name for themselves in Indian 
history. In the arts they stood as high as could be expected in view of 
the wandering life which they led and the limited materials with which 
they had to work. In the art of making pictographs, for instance, they 
excelled all other tribes, except perhaps the Kiowas, a plains tribe of 
Colorado and western Kansas. On the hides of buffalo, deer, and antelope 
which formed their tents, the Dakotas painted calendars, which had a 
picture for each year, or rather for each winter, while those of the 
Kiowas had a summer symbol and a winter symbol. Probably these calendars 
reveal the influence of the whites, but they at least show that these 
people of the plains were quickwitted. 

Farther south the tribes of the plains stood on a much lower level than 
the Dakotas. The Spanish explorer, Cabeza de Vaca, describes the Yguases 
in Texas, among whom he lived for several years, in these words: "Their 
support is principally roots which require roasting two days. Many are 
very bitter. Occasionally they take deer and at times fish, but the 
quantity is so small and the famine so great that they eat spiders and 
eggs of ants, worms, lizards, salamanders, snakes, and vipers that kill 
whom they strike, and they eat earth and all that there is, the dung of 
deer, things I omit to mention and I earnestly believe that were there 
stones in that land they would eat them. They save the bones of the fish 
they consume, the snakes and other animals, that they may afterward beat 
them together and eat the powder." During these painful periods, they bade 
Cabeza de Vaca "not to be sad. There would soon be prickly pears, although 
the season of this fruit of the cactus might be months distant. When the 
pears were ripe, the people feasted and danced and forgot their former 
privations. They destroyed their female infants to prevent them being 
taken by their enemies and thus becoming the means of increasing the 
latter's number." 

East of the Great Plains there dwelt still another important type of 
Indians, the people of the deciduous forests. Their home extended from the 
Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. As we have already seen, the Iroquois 
who inhabited the northern part of this region were in many respects the 
highest product of aboriginal America. The northern Iroquois tribes, 
especially those known as the Five Nations, were second to no other Indian 
people north of Mexico in political organization, statecraft, and military 
prowess. Their leaders were genuine diplomats, as the wily French and 
English statesmen with whom they treated soon discovered. One of their 
most notable traits was the reverence which they had for the tribal law. 
The wars that they waged were primarily for political independence, for 
the fundamental principle of their confederation was that by uniting with 
one another they would secure the peace and welfare of all with whom they 
were connected by ties of blood. They prevented blood feuds by decreeing 
that there should be a price for the killing of a co-tribesman, and they 
abstained from eating the flesh of their enemies in order to avoid future 
strife. So thoroughly did they believe in the rights of the individual 
that women were accorded a high position. Among some of the tribes the 
consent of all the women who had borne children was required before any 
important measure could be taken. Candidates for a chiefship were 
nominated by the votes of the mothers, and, as lands and houses were the 
property of the women, their power in the tribe was great. 

The Iroquois were sedentary and agricultural, and depended on the chase 
for only a small part of their existence. The northern tribes were 
especially noted for their skill in building fortifications and houses. 
Their so-called castles were solid wooden structures with platforms 
running around the top on the inside. From the platforms stones and other 
missiles could be hurled down upon besiegers. According to our standards 
such dwellings were very primitive, but they were almost as great an 
advance upon the brush piles of the Utes as our skyscrapers are upon them. 
Farther south in the Carolinas, the Cherokees, another Iroquoian tribe, 
stand out prominently by reason of their unusual mental ability. Under the 
influence of the white man, the Cherokees were the first to adopt a 
constitutional form of government embodied in a code of laws written in 
their own language. Their language was reduced to writing by means of an 
alphabet which one of their number named Sequoya had devised. Sequoya and 
other leaders, however, may not have been pure Indians, for by that time 
much white blood had been mixed with the tribe. Yet even before the coming 
of the white man the Cherokees were apparently more advanced in 
agriculture than the Iroquois were, but less advanced in their form of 
government, in their treatment of women, and in many other respects. In 
general, as we go from north to south in the region of deciduous forests, 
we find that among the early Indians agriculture became more and more 
important and the people more sedentary, though not always more 
progressive in other ways. The Catawbas, for instance, in South Carolina 
were sedentary agriculturists and seem to have differed little in general 
customs from their neighbors. Their men were brave and honest but lacking 
in energy. In the Muskhogean family of Indians, comprising the Creeks, 
Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles, who occupied the Gulf States from 
Georgia to Mississippi, all the tribes were agricultural and sedentary and 
occupied villages of substantial houses. The towns near the tribal 
frontiers were usually palisaded, but those more remote from invasion were 
unprotected. All these Indians were brave but not warlike in the violent 
fashion of the Five Nations. The Choctaws would fight only in self-
defense, it was said, but the Creeks and especially the Chickasaws were 
more aggressive. In their government these Muskhogean tribes appear to 
have attained a position corresponding to their somewhat advanced culture 
in other respects. Yet their confederacies were loose and flimsy compared 
with that of the Five Nations. Another phase of the life of the tribes in 
the southern part of the region of deciduous forests is illustrated by the 
Natchez of Mississippi. These people were strictly sedentary and depended 
chiefly upon agriculture for a livelihood. They possessed considerable 
skill in the arts. For instance, they wove a cloth from the inner bark of 
the mulberry tree and made excellent pottery. They also constructed great 
mounds of earth upon which to erect their dwellings and temples. Like a 
good many of the other southern tribes, they fought when it was necessary, 
but they were peaceable compared with the Five Nations. They had a form of 
sun-worship resembling that of Mexico, and in other ways their ideas were 
like those of the people farther south. For instance, when a chief died, 
his wives were killed. In times of distress the parents frequently offered 
their children as sacrifice. 

Many characteristics of the Natchez and other southern tribes seem to 
indicate that they had formerly possessed a civilization higher than that 
which prevailed when the white man came. The Five Nations, on the 
contrary, apparently represent an energetic people who were on the upward 
path and who might have achieved great things if the whites had not 
interrupted them. The southern Indians resemble people whose best days 
were past, for the mounds which abound in the Gulf States appear to have 
been built chiefly in pre-Columbian days. Their objects of art, such as 
the remarkable wooden mortars found at Key Marco and the embossed copper 
plates found elsewhere in Florida, point to a highly developed artistic 
sense which was no longer in evidence at the coming of the white man. 

It is interesting to see the way in which climatic energy tended to give 
the Five Nations a marked superiority over the tribesmen of the South, 
while agriculture tended in the opposite direction. There has been much 
discussion as to the part played by agriculture among the primitive 
Americans, especially in the northeast. Corn, beans, and squashes were an 
important element in the diet of the Indians of the New England region, 
while farther south potatoes, sunflower seeds, and melons were also 
articles of food. The New England tribes knew enough about agriculture to 
use fish and shells for fertilizer. They had wooden mattocks and hoes made 
from the shoulder blades of deer, from tortoise shells, or from conch 
shells set in handles. They also had stone hoes and spades, while the 
women used short pickers or parers about a foot long and five inches wide. 
Seated on the ground they used these to break the upper part of the soil 
and to grub out weeds, grass, and old cornstalks. They had the regular 
custom of burning over an old patch each year and then replanting it. 
Sometimes they merely put the seeds in holes and sometimes they dug up and 
loosened the ground for each seed. Clearings they made by girdling the 
trees, that is, by cutting off the bark in a circle at the bottom and thus 
causing the tree to die. The brush they hacked or broke down and burned 
when it was dry enough. 

There is much danger of confusing the agricultural condition of the Indian 
after the European had modified his life with his condition before the 
European came to America. For instance, in the excellent article on 
agriculture in the "Handbook of American Indians," conditions prevailing 
as late as 1794 in the States south of the Great Lakes are spoken of as if 
typical of aboriginal America. But at that time the white man had long 
been in contact with the Indian, and iron tools had largely taken the 
place of stone. The rapidity with which European importations spread may 
be judged by the fact that as early as 1736 the Iroquois in New York not 
only had obtained horses but were regularly breeding them. The use of the 
iron axe of course spread with vastly greater rapidity than that of the 
horse, for an axe or a knife was the first thing that an Indian sought 
from the white man. In the eighteenth century agriculture had thus become 
immeasurably easier than before, yet even then the Indians still kept up 
their old habit of cultivating the same fields only a short time. The 
regular practice was to cultivate a field five, ten, and sometimes even 
twenty or more years, and then abandon it.(*)

(* Ordinarily it is stated that this practice was due to the exhaustion of 
the soil. That, however, is open to question, for five or ten years' 
desultory cultivation on the part of the Indian would scarcely exhaust the 
soil so much that people would go to the great labor of making new 
clearings and moving their villages. Moreover, in the Southern States it 
is well known today that the soil is exhausted much more rapidly than 
farther north because it contains less humus. Nevertheless the southern 
tribes cultivated the land about their villages for long periods. Tribes 
like the Creeks, the Cherokees, and the Natchez appear to have been 
decidedly less prone to move than the Iroquois, in spite of the relatively 
high development of these northern nations.)

What hindered agriculture most in the northern part of the deciduous 
forest was the grass. Any one who has cultivated a garden knows how 
rapidly the weeds grow. He also knows that there is no weed so hard to 
exterminate as grass. When once it gets a foothold mere hoeing seems only 
to make it grow the faster. The only way to get rid of grass when once it 
has become well established is to plow the field and start over again, but 
this the Indians could not do. When first a clearing was made in the midst 
of the forest, there was no grass to be contended with. Little by little, 
however, it was sure to come in, until at length what had been a garden 
was in a fair way to become a meadow. Then the Indians would decide that 
it was necessary to seek new fields. 

One might suppose that under such circumstances the Indians would merely 
clear another patch of forest not far from the village and so continue to 
live in the old place. This, however, they did not do because the labor of 
making a clearing with stone axes and by the slow process of girdling and 
burning the trees was so great that it was possible only in certain 
favored spots where by accident the growth was less dense than usual. When 
once a clearing became grassy, the only thing to do was to hunt for a new 
site, prepare a clearing, and then move the village. This was apparently 
the reason why the Iroquois, although successful in other ways, failed to 
establish permanent towns like those of the Pueblos and the Haidas. Their 
advancement not only in architecture but in many of the most important 
elements of civilization was for this reason greatly delayed. There was 
little to stimulate them to improve the land to which they were attached, 
for they knew that soon they would have to move. 

Farther south the character of the grassy vegetation changes, and the 
condition of agriculture alters with it. The grass ceases to have that 
thick, close, turfy quality which we admire so much in the fields of the 
north, and it begins to grow in bunches. Often a southern hillside may 
appear from a distance to be as densely covered with grass as a New 
England hayfield. On closer examination, however, the growth is seen to 
consist of individual bunches which can easily be pulled up, so that among 
the southern tribes the fields did not become filled with grass as they 
did in the north, for the women had relatively little difficulty in 
keeping out this kind of weed as well as others. 

In this survey of aboriginal America we have been impressed by the 
contrast between two diverse aspects of the control of human activities by 
physical environment. We saw, in the first place, that in our own day the 
distribution of culture in America is more closely related to climatic 
energy than to any other factor, because man is now so advanced in the 
arts and crafts that agricultural difficulties do not impede him, except 
in the far north and in tropical forests. Secondly, we have found that, 
although all the geographical factors acted upon the Indian as they do 
today, the absence of metals and beasts of burden compelled man to be 
nomadic, and hence to remain in a low stage of civilization in many places 
where he now can thrive. In the days long before Columbus the distribution 
of civilization in the Red Man's Continent offered still a third aspect, 
strikingly different both from that of today and from that of the age of 
discovery. In that earlier period the great centers of civilization were 
south of their present situation. In the southern part of North America 
from Arizona to Florida there are abundant evidences that the Indians whom 
the white man found were less advanced than their predecessors. The 
abundant ruins of Arizona and New Mexico, their widespread distribution, 
and the highly artistic character of the pottery and other products of 
handicraft found in them seem to indicate that the ancient population was 
both denser and more highly cultured than that which the Europeans finally 
ousted. In the Gulf States there is perhaps not much evidence that there 
was a denser population at an earlier period, but the excellence of the 
pre-Columbian handicrafts and the existence of a decadent sun worship 
illustrate the way in which the civilization of the past was higher than 
that of later days. The Aztecs, who figure so largely in the history of 
the exploration and conquest of Mexico, were merely a warlike tribe which 
had been fortunate in the inheritance of a relatively high civilization 
from the past. So, too, the civilization found by the Spaniards at places 
such as Mitla, in the extreme south of Mexico, could not compare with that 
of which evidence is found in the ruins. Most remarkable of all is the 
condition of Yucatan and Guatemala. In northern Yucatan the Spaniards 
found a race of mild, decadent Mayas living among the relics of former 
grandeur. Although they used the old temples as shrines, they knew little 
of those who had built these temples and showed still less capacity to 
imitate the ancient architects. Farther south in the forested region of 
southern Yucatan and northern Guatemala the conditions are still more 
surprising, for today these regions are almost uninhabitable and are 
occupied by only a few sickly, degraded natives who live largely by the 
chase. Yet in the past this region was the scene of by far the highest 
culture that ever developed in America. There alone in this great 
continent did men develop an architecture which, not only in massiveness 
but in wealth of architectural detail and sculptural adornment, vies with 
that of early Egypt or Chaldea. There alone did the art of writing 
develop. Yet today in those regions the density of the forest, the 
prevalence of deadly fevers, the extremely enervating temperature, and the 
steady humidity are as hostile to civilization as are the cold of the far 
north and the dryness of the desert. 

The only explanation of this anomaly seems to be that in the past the 
climatic zones of the world have at certain periods been shifted farther 
toward the equator than they are at present. Practically all the 
geographers of America now believe that within the past two or three 
thousand years climatic pulsations have taken place whereby places like 
the dry Southwest have alternately experienced centuries of greater 
moisture than at present and centuries as dry as today or even drier. 
During the moist centuries greater storminess prevailed, so that the 
climate was apparently better not only for agriculture but for human 
energy. At such times the standard of living was higher than now not only 
in the Southwest but in the Gulf States and in Mexico. In periods when the 
deserts of the southwestern United States were wet, the Maya region of 
Yucatan and Guatemala appears to have been relatively dry. Then the dry 
belt which now extends from northern Mexico to the northern tip of Yucatan 
apparently shifted southward. Such conditions would cause the forests of 
Yucatan and Guatemala to become much less dense than at present. This 
comparative deforestation would make agriculture easily possible where 
today it is out of the question. At the same time the relatively dry 
climate and the clearing away of the vegetation would to a large degree 
eliminate the malarial fevers and other diseases which are now such a 
terrible scourge in wet tropical countries. Then, too, the storms which at 
the present time give such variability to the climate of the United States 
would follow more southerly courses. In its stimulating qualities the 
climate of the home of the Mayas in the days of their prime was much more 
nearly like that which now prevails where civilization rises highest. 

From first to last the civilization of America has been bound up with its 
physical environment. It matters little whether we are dealing with the 
red race, the black, or the white. Nor does it matter whether we deal with 
one part of the continent or another. Wherever we turn we can trace the 
influence of mountains and plains, of rocks and metals from which tools 
are made, of water and its finny inhabitants, of the beasts of the chase 
from the hare to the buffalo, of domestic animals, of the native forests, 
grass-lands, and deserts, and, last but not least, of temperature, 
moisture, and wind in their direct effects upon the human body. At one 
stage of human development the possibilities of agriculture may be the 
dominant factor in man's life in early America. At another, domestic 
animals may be more important, and at still another, iron or waterways or 
some other factor may be predominant. It is the part of the later history 
of the American Continent to trace the effect of these various factors and 
to chronicle the influence that they have had upon man's progress. 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 

Although many books deal with the physical features of the Western 
Hemisphere and many others with the Indians, few deal with the two in 
relation to one another. One book, however, stands out preeminent in this 
respect, namely, Edward John Payne's "History of the New World Called 
America," 2 vols. (1892-99). This book, which has never been finished, 
attempts to explain the conditions of life among the American aborigines 
as the result of geographical conditions, especially of the food supply. 
Where the author carries this attempt into the field of special customs 
and religious rites, he goes too far. Nevertheless his work is uncommonly 
stimulating and deserves the careful attention of the reader who would 
gain a broad grasp of the relation of geography to the history of the New 
World. 

Two other good books which deal with the relation of geography to American 
history are Miss Ellen C. Semple's "American History and its Geographical 
Conditions" (1903) and A. P. Brigham's "Geographic Influences in American 
History" (1903). Both of these books interpret geography as if it included 
little except the form of the land. While they bring out clearly the 
effect of mountain barriers, indented coasts, and easy routes whether by 
land or water, they scarcely touch on the more subtle relationships 
between man on the one hand and the climate, plants, and animals which 
form the dominant features of his physical environment on the other hand. 

In their emphasis on the form of the land both Semple and Brigham follow 
the lead of W. M. Davis. In his admirable articles on America and the 
United States in "The Encyclopaedia Britannica" (11th edition) and in The 
International Geography edited by H. R. Mill (1901), Davis has given an 
uncommonly clear and vivid description of the main physical features of 
the New World. Living beings, however, play little part in this 
description, so that the reader is not led to an understanding of how 
physical geography affects human actions. 

Other good descriptions of the North American continent are found in the 
following books: I. C. Russell's "North America" (1904), Stanford's 
"Compendium of Modern Geography and Travel," including the volumes on 
Canada, the United States, and Central America, and the great volumes on 
America in "The Earth and its Inhabitants" by Elise Reclus, 19 vols. (1876-
1894). Russell's book is largely physiographic but contains some good 
chapters on the Indians. In Stanford's "Compendium" the purpose is to 
treat man and nature in their relation to one another, but the 
relationships are not clearly brought out, and there is too much emphasis 
on purely descriptive and encyclopedic matter. So far as interest is 
concerned, the famous work by Elise Reclus holds high rank. It is an 
encyclopedia of geographical facts arranged and edited in such a way that 
it has all the interest of a fine book of travel. Like most of the other 
books, however, it fails to bring out relationships. 

As sources of information on the Indians, two books stand out with special 
prominence. "The American Race," by D. G. Brinton (1891), is a most 
scholarly volume devoted largely to a study of the Indians on a linguistic 
basis. It contains some general chapters, however, on the Indians and 
their environment, and these are most illuminating. The other book is the 
"Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico," edited by F. W. Hodge, and 
published by the United States Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1897, 
1910, 1911). Its two large volumes are arranged in encyclopedic form. The 
various articles are written by a large number of scholars, including 
practically all the students who were at work on Indian ethnology at the 
time of publication. Many of the articles are the best that have been 
written and will not only interest the general reader but will contribute 
to an understanding of what America was when the Indians came here and 
what it still is today.