considerable extent, others rising to but one story, and containing only a few rooms. They are well adapted to resist attack, and must have been admirable resorts in time of danger.

It is very difficult to generalize upon the subject of the customs and characteristic traits of the Indians of North America. They were first seen by men utterly unable to understand their actions, and who could interpret them only by reading in them meanings suggested by European customs. Many statements that have gained currency were made originally by men who had actually never seen an Indian. In an annual address as President of the Anthropological Society of Washington, Mr. J. W. Powell corrects some of these errors, made by Herbert Spencer and other writers of repute, and says that the instances given "illustrate the worthlessness of a vast body of anthropological material to which even the best writers resort."

The same thing had been done by Colonel Garrick Mallery, at the meeting of the Philosophical Society of Washington, in December, 1877. Colonel Mallery showed that the Indians were neither "red" nor "copper-colored," but had been so called from the fact that those first seen were accustomed to color their bodies. Their prevailing color is really brown. He also controverted the notion that the Indians believed in and worshipped one God, the Great Spirit, as, trusting the dictum of the Jesuit missionaries, all subsequent writers have stated. They can scarcely be said to have any religion, as we use the word, but seem to have in their Pantheon many gods and more devils, and to be governed rather by superstition than

things, there is great variation among tribes in differ

ent parts of the country.

In the same manner the Indians have been described as cunning, ever on the alert, stoical under pain, cruel to those they captured, with the animal propensities predominating over the intellectual, haughty and taciturn, but eloquent and full of fire when aroused. While all of these traits may be predicated of certain Indians, it is not true that they are possessed by all. History proves that the same traits may be found in the most intelligent peoples of antiquity also; and on the other hand, many of the kindly virtues have been nowhere more beautifully exhibited than by some swarthy son of the American forest. Cruelty to the captured and hatred of enemies is by no means the universal rule among the Indians. In some instances they have shown a noble appreciation of the valor of an enemy, and a willingness that a captive should have a new opportunity to enjoy life with his own. people.

Mr. Parkman, in his exceedingly interesting introduction to The Jesuits in North America, already says: “To sum up the results of this examination, mentioned [of the native tribes], the primitive Indian was as savage in his religion as in his life. He was divided between fetich worship and that next degree of religious development which consists in the worship of deities embodied in the human form. His conception of their attributes was such as might have been expected. His gods were no whit better than himself. Even when he borrows from Christianity the idea of a Supreme and Universal Spirit, his tendency is to reduce him to a local habitation and a bodily shape; and this tendency disappears only in tribes that have been long in contact with civilized white men. The primitive Indian, yielding his untutored homage to one All-pervading and Omnipotent Spirit, is a dream of poets, rhetoricians and sentimentalists,"

The dress of the Indians varied with the climate, many tribes covering but small portions of their bodies, others being entirely naked, while the greater portion were well clothed in blankets and garments of

As a

various kinds made of skins or woven fabrics. rule, they were given to painting their bodies or decking themselves with beads, shells, or feathers. Some tribes carried the art of weaving to great perfection, using various vegetable fibres with great skill.