The Native Races (Vol. 1-5). Hubert Howe Bancroft

North America, and exterminated the natives. From the north of Europe the French, English, and Russians crossed over to the northern part of America; and, with a kinder and more refined cruelty, no less effectually succeeded in sweeping them from the face of the earth by the introduction of the poisonous elements of a debased cultivation.

      Fortunately for the Indians of the north, it was contrary to the interests of white people to kill them in order to obtain the skins of their animals; for, with a few trinkets, they could procure what otherwise would require long and severe labor to obtain. The policy, therefore, of the great fur-trading companies has been to cherish the Indians as their best hunters, to live at peace with them, to heal their ancient feuds, and to withhold from them intoxicating liquors. The condition of their women, who were considered by the natives as little better than beasts, has been changed by their inter-social relations with the servants of the trading companies; and their more barbarous practices discontinued. It was the almost universal custom of the employés of the Hudson's Bay Company to unite to themselves native women; thus, by means of this relationship, the condition of the women has been raised, while the men manifest a kinder feeling towards the white race who thus in a measure become one with them.

      The efforts of early missionaries to this region were not crowned with that success which attended the Spaniards in their spiritual warfare upon the southern nations, from the fact that no attention was paid to the temporal necessities of the natives. It has long since been demonstrated impossible to reach the heart of a savage through abstract ideas of morality and elevation of character. A religion, in order to find favor in his eyes, must first meet some of his material requirements. If it is good, it will clothe him better and feed him better, for this to him is the chiefest good in life. Intermixtures of civilized with savage peoples are sure to result in the total disappearance of refinement on the one side, or in the extinction of the barbaric race on the other. The downward path is always the easiest. Of all the millions of native Americans who have perished under the withering influences of European civilization, there is not a single instance on record, of a tribe or nation having been reclaimed, ecclesiastically or otherwise, by artifice and argument. Individual savages have been educated with a fair degree of success. But, with a degree of certainty far greater, no sooner is the white man freed from the social restraint of civilized companionship, than he immediately tends towards barbarism; and not infrequently becomes so fascinated with his new life as to prefer it to any other. Social development is inherent: superinduced culture is a failure. Left alone, the nations of America might have unfolded into as bright a civilization as that of Europe. They were already well advanced, and still rapidly advancing towards it, when they were so mercilessly stricken down. But for a stranger to re-create the heart or head of a red man, it were easier to change the color of his skin.

      Native Races of the Pacific States

       Hyperborean Group

      CHAPTER II.

       HYPERBOREANS.

       Table of Contents

      General Divisions—Hyperborean Nations—Aspects of Nature—Vegetation—Climate—Animals—The Eskimos—Their Country—Physical Characteristics—Dress—Dwellings—Food—Weapons—Boots—Sledges—Snow-Shoes—Government—Domestic Affairs—Amusements—Diseases—Burial—The Koniagas, their Physical and Social Condition—The Aleuts—The Thlinkeets—The Tinneh.

      I shall attempt to describe the physical and mental characteristics of the Native Races of the Pacific States under seven distinctive groups; namely, I. Hyperboreans, being those nations whose territory lies north of the fifty-fifth parallel; II. Columbians, who dwell between the fifty-fifth and forty-second parallels, and whose lands to some extent are drained by the Columbia River and its tributaries; III. Californians, and the Inhabitants of the Great Basin; IV. New Mexicans, including the nations of the Colorado River and northern Mexico; V. Wild Tribes of Mexico; VI. Wild Tribes of Central America; VII. Civilized Nations of Mexico and Central America. It is my purpose, without any attempt at ethnological classification, or further comment concerning races and stocks, plainly to portray such customs and characteristics as were peculiar to each people at the time of its first intercourse with European strangers; leaving scientists to make their own deductions, and draw specific lines between linguistic and physiological families, as they may deem proper. I shall endeavor to picture these nations in their aboriginal condition, as seen by the first invaders, as described by those who beheld them in their savage grandeur, and before they were startled from their lair by the treacherous voice of civilized friendship. Now they are gone—those dusky denizens of a thousand forests—melted like hoar-frost before the rising sun of a superior intelligence; and it is only from the earliest records, from the narratives of eye witnesses, many of them rude unlettered men, trappers, sailors, and soldiers, that we are able to know them as they were. Some division of the work into parts, however arbitrary it may be, is indispensable. In dealing with Mythology, and in tracing the tortuous course of Language, boundaries will be dropped and beliefs and tongues will be followed wherever they lead; but in describing Manners and Customs, to avoid confusion, territorial divisions are necessary.

      GROUPINGS AND SUBDIVISIONS.

      In the groupings which I have adopted, one cluster of nations follows another in geographical succession; the dividing line not being more distinct, perhaps, than that which distinguishes some national divisions, but sufficiently marked, in mental and physical peculiarities, to entitle each group to a separate consideration.

      The only distinction of race made by naturalists, upon the continents of both North and South America, until a comparatively recent period, was by segregating the first of the above named groups from all other people of both continents, and calling one Mongolians and the other Americans. A more intimate acquaintance with the nations of the North proves conclusively that one of the boldest types of the American Indian proper, the Tinneh, lies within the territory of this first group, conterminous with the Mongolian Eskimos, and crowding them down to a narrow line along the shore of the Arctic Sea. The nations of the second group, although exhibiting multitudinous variations in minor traits, are essentially one people. Between the California Diggers of the third division and the New Mexican Towns-people of the fourth, there is more diversity; and a still greater difference between the savage and civilized nations of the Mexican table-land. Any classification or division of the subject which could be made would be open to criticism. I therefore adopt the most simple practical plan, one which will present the subject most clearly to the general reader, and leave it in the best shape for purposes of theorizing and generalization.

In the first or Hyperborean group, to which this chapter is devoted, are five subdivisions, as follows: The Eskimos, commonly called Western Eskimos, who skirt the shores of the Arctic Ocean from Mackenzie River to Kotzebue Sound; the Koniagas or Southern Eskimos, who, commencing at Kotzebue Sound, cross the Kaviak Peninsula, border on Bering Sea from Norton Sound southward, and stretch over the Alaskan1 Peninsula and Koniagan Islands to the mouth of the Atna or Copper River, extending back into the interior about one hundred and fifty miles; the Aleuts, or people of the Aleutian Archipelago; the Thlinkeets, who inhabit the coast and islands between the rivers Atna and Nass; and the Tinneh, or Athabascas, occupying the territory between the above described boundaries and Hudson Bay. Each of these families is divided into nations or tribes, distinguished one from another by slight dialectic or other differences, which tribal divisions will be given in treating of the several nations respectively.

      Let us first cast a glance over this broad domain, and mark those aspects of nature which exercise so powerful an influence upon the destinies of mankind. Midway between Mount St. Elias and the Arctic seaboard rise three mountain chains. One, the Rocky Mountain range, crossing from the Yukon to the Mackenzie River, deflects southward, and taking up its mighty line of march, throws a barrier between the east and the west, which extends throughout the entire length of the continent. Between the Rocky Mountains