Indian Turnip

. See Jack-In-The-Pulpit

Indians, the red men whom Columbus found inhabiting the New World. He called them Indians because he supposed the country to be India. Students thought for a time that some tribes, as the Aztecs, the Eskimo, and the Mound Builders, belonged possibly to the Mongolian or to the Malay race, but they are now well agreed that all the inhabitants of the New World at the time of its discovery by the white race were Indians. The most highly civilized tribes were found in Arizona, Mexico, Yucatan, Colombia, and Peru. It has been suggested that their civilization is Asiatic in origin, but there is little to support such a theory.

Next to these tribes in rank are the Indians with whom the American colonists first came into contact. The subject of classifying the tribes is a difficult one. There are twenty-two Indian dialects or languages in California, thirty in Mexico and Central America. There are fifty-eight Indian languages north of Mexico. Ethnologists are unable to bring the native languages of the two Americas into fewer than 133 groups. While there is a general similarity, the characteristics of the Indians as a whole are difficult to state. The head may be either round or long. The two forms are mingled beyond separation. The jaws are heavy and project slightly; the nose is large and is straight or aquiline; the cheek bones are more or less prominent; the eyes are small, straight, and black; the complexion is coppery, shading off to yellowish and brown. The hair is much like that of the Mongolians. It is long, straight, and coarse. The beard is scant. The height varies greatly. Some tribes are low and squatty. The Patagonians are among the tall people of the world. In disposition the Indian is austere, moody, too proud to show emotion, and wary. He has little capacity for mathematics or science, and but moderate ability in learning to read. So far as known all the tribes believe in a multiplicity of deities. The more highly developed tribes offered human sacrifices. Elsewhere their religion was largely nature worship. All the languages and dialects exhibit a common tendency to group many simple words into compound words of prodigious length. Nothing of the sort has been found elsewhere in the world.

The Indian families are too numerous to be described. Six are of especial interest to Americans. The most northerly American stock is the Eskimo, ranging from Labrador to Alaska through an extent of 5,000 miles. It is now conceded generally that the inhabitants of northeastern Asia are of Eskimo stock. Next are the Athapascan Indians. Including the Chippewas, the Apaches, and the Navajos, they are scattered over a large part of northwestern Canada and Alaska. They extend in spots down the Pacific coast and through the Rocky Mountain region, as far as Mexico. The Snake or Shoshonean family, including the Bannocks, Comanches, Utes, and Moquis, extends from Oregon and Idaho to southern California and Texas. Sioux tribes, including the Crows, Mandans, Assiniboins, Winnebagos, Omahas, Catawbas, and Biloxis, have occupied various regions from the Rocky Mountains to the Carolinas and from Hudson Bay to Arkansas. The Creek family included the more important Indian tribes of the South,--the Creeks, the Choctaws, the Seminoles, and the Chickasaws,--ranging from Kentucky to Florida.

The Indians of literature are the Algonkins and the Iroquois. The Algonkins occupied the greater territory. Their tribes were to be found from Labrador to South Carolina, and from the mouth of the Ohio northwesterly to the Rocky Mountains, and farther north among the Athapascans. The Crees, the Ojibways, Blackfeet, Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Powhatans were all of Algonkin stock. Pocahontas, King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, and Black Hawk were members of the Algonkin family. The colonists adopted many Algonkin words, such as chipmunk, hickory, hominy, hammock, moccasin, mugwump, papoose, cuckoo, skunk, squaw, tammany, terrapin, toboggan, tomahawk, totem, and persimmon.

The traditions of the American Indian, with his war paint, deerskin dress, his bow and arrow, his tent and his canoe, are drawn largely from the Algonkin Indian.

Next in traditional importance are the Iroquois. They were of all Indian families the most warlike--the most given to the use of the scalping knife. Their chief habitat was the basin of the St. Lawrence. Lakes Huron, Erie, and Ontario were theirs. Their chief tribes were the Hurons, Mohawks, Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, and Oneidas. The far-removed Cherokees of the Carolinas were Iroquois. Their names linger especially in the present geographical names of New York, Pennsylvania, Ontario, and Michigan. Red Jacket and Cornplanter were Iroquois.

The twelfth census places the entire Indian population of the United States at 237,196. There are fifteen cities in the United States each having more inhabitants than there are Indians in the entire country.

See Eskimo; Six Nations; Dakota; Chippewa; Creek; Choctaw; Seminole; Apache; Comanche; Navajo; Sequoia; Pocahontas; Little Crow; Black Hawk; Aztecs; Incas; Yucatan; Cliff Dwellers; Deer; Wampum; Bow And Arrow; Buckskin; Mound Builders