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warfare. Fighting was limited to the surprise, the ambuscade, the massacre; and military strategy consisted of cunning and treachery. Quarter was rarely asked, and never granted; those who were spared from the fight were only reserved for a barbarous captivity, ransom, or the stake. In the torture of his victims all the diabolical ferocity of the savage warrior's nature burst forth without restraint.

In times of peace the Indian character shone to a better advantage. But the Red man was, at his best estate, an unsocial, solitary,

and gloomy spirit.

He was a man of the woods. He communed only with himself and the genius of solitude. He sat apart. The forest

was

better than

his wigwam, and his wigwam better than the village. The Indian

woman was a degraded creature, a drudge, a beast of burden; and the social principle was correspondingly low. The organization of the Indian fam

ily was so peculiar

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as to require a special consideration. Among civilized nations the family is so constructed that the lines of kinship diverge constantly from the line of descent, so that collateral kinsmen with each generation stand at a still greater remove from each other. The above diagram will serve to show how in a European family the lines of consanguinity diverge until the kinship becomes so feeble as to be no longer recognized. It will be observed that this fact of constant divergence is traceable to the establishment of a male line of descent.

In the Indian family all this is reversed. The descent is established in the female line; and as a consequence the ties of kinship

converge upon each other until they all meet in the granddaughter. That is, in the aboriginal nations of North America, every grandson and granddaughter was the grandson and granddaughter of the whole tribe. This arose from the fact that all the uncles of a given person were reckoned as his fathers also; all the mother's sisters were mothers; all the cousins were sisters and brothers; all the nieces were daughters; all the nephews, sons, etc. This peculiarity of the Indian family organization is illustrated in the annexed diagram.

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Civil government among the Indian nations was in its primitive stages of development. Each tribe had its own sachem, or chieftain, to whom in matters of peace and war a tolerable degree of obedience was rendered. At times confederations were formed, based either on ties of kinship or the exigencies of war. But these confederations were seldom enduring, and were likely at any time to be broken up by the barbarous passion and insubordination of the tribes who

composed them. Sometimes a sachem would arise with such marked abilities, warlike prowess, and strength of will, as to gain an influence, if not a positive leadership over many nations. But with the death of the chieftain, or sooner, each tribe, resuming its independence, would return to its own ways. No general Indian Congress was known; but national and tribal councils were frequently called to debate questions of policy and right.

In matters of religion the Indians were a superstitious race, but seldom idolaters. They believed in a great spirit, everywhere present, ruling the elements, showing favor to the obedient, and punishing the sinful. Him they worshiped; to him they sacrificed. But not in tem

ples, for the Indians built none. They also believed in many subordinate spirits-some good, some bad. Both classes frequented the earth. The bad spirits brought evil dreams to the Indian; diseases also, bad passions, cruel winters, and starvation. The good spirits brought sunshine, peace, plentiful harvests, all the creatures of the chase. The Medicine Man, or Prophet, obtained a knowledge of these things by fasting and prayer, and then made revelations of the will and purposes of the spirit world. The religious ceremonies of the Indians were performed with great earnestness and solemn formality.

In the matter of the arts the Indian was a barbarian. His house was a wigwam or hovel. Some poles set up in a circle, converging at the top, covered with skins and the branches of trees, lined and sometimes floored with mats, a fire in the center, a low opening opposite the point from which the wind blew-such was the aboriginal abode of North America. Indian utensils were few, rude, and primitive. Poorly-fashioned earthen pots, bags and pouches for carrying provisions, and stone hammers for pounding parched corn, were the stock and store. A copper kettle was a priceless treasure. The warrior's chief implement was his hatchet of stone or copper. This he always carried with him, and it was rarely free from the stain of blood. His weapon of offence and defence was the bow and arrow, by no means an insignificant or feeble instrument. The arrow pointed with stone or iron was frequently driven entirely through the ponderous buffalo. The range of the winged missile was two hundred yards or more, and the aim was one of fatal accuracy when the White man was the target. The Indian's clothing was a blanket, thrown over his shoulders, bound around him perhaps with a thong of leather. The material for his moccasins and leggins was stripped from the red buck, elk, or buffalo. He was fond of hanging about his person an infinity of nonsensical trappings; fangs of rattlesnakes, claws of hawks, feathers of eagles, bones of animals, scalps of enemies. He painted his face and body, specially when the passion of war was on him, with all manner of glaring and fantastic colors. So the Prophet of his nation taught him; so he would be terrible to his enemies; so he would exemplify the peculiarities of his nation and be unlike the Pale face. All the higher arts were wanting. Indian writing consisted only of quaint and half-intelligible hieroglyphics rudely scratched on the face of rocks or cut in the bark of trees. The artistic sense of the savage could rise no higher than a coarse necessity compelled the flight.

The language spoken by a people is always a matter of special * The Algonquin word is makisin.

interest and importance. The dialects of the North American races bear many and evident marks of resemblance among themselves; but little or no analogy to the languages of other nations. If there is any similarity at all, it is found between the Indian tongues and those

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pressed. Ab

Translation: Eight soldiers (9), with muskets (10), commanded by a captain (1), and accompanied by a secretary (2), a geologist (3), three attendants (4, 5, 6), and two Indian guides, encamped here. They had three camp fires (13, 14, 15), and ate a turtle and a prairie hen (11, 12), for supper.

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stract ideas but

rarely found expression in

any of the Indian languages; such ideas could only be expressed by a long and labored circumlocution. Words had a narrow but very intense meaning. There was, for instance, no general word signifying to hunt or to fish; but one word signified "to-kill-a-deer-with-anarrow;" another, "to-take-fish-by-striking-the-ice." In most of the dialects there was no word for brother; but "elder-brother" and younger-brother" could be expressed. Among many of the tribes. the meanings of words and phrases were so restricted that the warrior would use one set of terms and the squaw another to express the same ideas. The languages were monosyllabic; but many of the monosyllables might be combined to form compounds resembling the polysyllables of European tongues. These compounds, expressing abstract and difficult ideas, were sometimes inordinately long,* the whole forming an explanation or description of the thing rather than a single word. Scholars have applied the term agglutinative to those languages in which such labored and tedious forms of expression occur. Of this sort are the tongues spoken by the nomadic races of Asia.

*For instance, in the Massachusetts dialect, the form of speech meaning "our question" was this: Kum-mog-ko-don-at-toot-tum-moo-et-it-e-a-ong-an-nun-non-ash.

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