AMERICAN INDIANS.] AMERICA 691 renown have their bodies painted from the waist upwards. This is the heraldry of the Indians, the devices of which are probably more exactly adjusted to the merits of the persons who bear them than those of more civilised coun tries. Besides these ornaments, the warriors also carry plumes of feathers on their heads, their arms, or ancles. Their arms were the tomahawk, the war-club, knife, the bow and arrow, but now they have muskets. ern- Each tribe is governed by a chief and council, who are
- t and elective ; but in matters of importance the whole warriors
fere - are consulted ; and Mr Keating informs us that questions are not decided by the votes of a majority, but the reso lution adopted must have the consent of every individual warrior. Their assemblies are conducted with much for mality and decorum. The eldest chief commences the debate, which is often carried on by set speeches, abound ing in bold figures and metaphors, and bursts of a rude but impassioned eloquence. The young are permitted to be present and to express their approbation by cries, but not to speak. In their wars the object commonly is, to secure the right of hunting within particular limits, to maintain the Liberty of passing through their accustomed tracts, and to guard from infringement those lands which they consider as their own tenure. War is declared by sending a slave with a hatchet, the handle of which is painted red, to the nation they intend to break with. They generally take the field in small numbers. Each warrior, besides his weapons, carries a mat, and supports himself till he is near the enemy by killing game. From the time they enter the enemy s country, no game is killed, no fires lighted, or shouting heard, and their vigi lance and caution are extreme. They are not even per mitted to speak, but must communicate by signs and motions. Having discovered the objects of their hostility, they first reconnoitre them, then hold a council ; and they generally make their attack just before daybreak, that they may surprise their enemies while asleep. They will lie the Avhole night flat on their faces without stirring, and, at the fit moment for action, will creep on their hands and feet till they have got within a bow-shot of those they have doomed to destruction. On a signal given by the chief warrior, which is answered by the yells of the whole party, they start up, and, after discharging their arrows, they rush upon their adversaries, without giving them time to recover from their confusion, with their war-clubs and tomahawks. If they succeed, the scene of horror which follows baffles description. The savage fury of the conquerors, the desperation of the conquered, the horrid yells of both, and their grim figures besmeared with paint and blood, form an assemblage of objects worthy of pandemonium. When the victory is secured, they select a certain number of their prisoners to carry- home : they kill the rest in cold blood, take their scalps, and then march off with the spoil. The prisoners des tined to death are soon led to the place of execution, where they are stripped, have their bodies blackened, and are bound to a stake. In this situation, while the burn ing faggots embrace his limbs, and the knives of his revengeful enemies are inflicting a thousand tortures, it is common for the warrior to recount his exploits, boast of the cruelties he has committed upon his enemies, and to irritate and insult his tormentors in every way. Some times it happens that this has the effect of provoking one of the spectators to dispatch him with a club or toma hawk. Sometimes the male adult prisoners are given as slaves to women who have lost their husbands in the war, and by whom they are often married. The women taken are distributed among the warriors; the boys and girls bsist- are considered as slaves.
- e. Nearly all the Indian tribes raise maize, beans, and
pumpkins, by the labour o^ their women, but only to a small extent, and as a resource against famine, their chief reliance being upon the chase. The buffaloes which wander over the prairies of the west, in herds of tens of thousands, are their great support ; but deer, bears, and in time of need otters, beavers, foxes, squirrels, and even reptiles, are devoured. The Toltecan family embraced the civilised nations of Toltecan Mexico, Peru, and Bogota, extending from the Rio Gila in races 33 N. latitude along the western shore of the conti- nent to the frontiers of Chili ; and on the eastern coast, along the Gulf of Mexico, in North America. In South America, on the contrary, this family chiefly occupied a narrow strip of land between the Andes and the Pacific Ocean, bounded on the south by the great desert of Atacama. Farther north, however, in New Granada, were the Bogotese, a people whose civilisation, like their geographical position, was intermediate between that of the Peruvians and the Mexi cans. But, even before the Spanish conquest, the Toltecan family were not the exclusive possessors of the regions which we have assigned to them ; they were only the dominant race or caste, while other tribes of the American race. always constituted a large mass of the population. The arrival of the Spaniards reduced both classes alike to vassalage ; and three centuries of slavery and oppression have left few traces of Mexican and Peruvian civilisation, except what may be gleaned from their history and antiquities. These nations can no longer be identified in existing communities ; and the mixed and motley races which now respectively bear the name, arc as unlike their predecessors in moral and intellec tual character, as the degraded Copts are unlike the ancient Egyptians. It is in the intellectual faculties that the great difference between the Toltecan and the American families consists. In the arts and sciences of the former we see the evidences of an advanced civilisation ; their architectural remains everywhere surprise the traveller and confound the antiquary. Among these are pyramids, temples, grottoes, bas-reliefs, and arabesques ; while their roads, aqueducts, and fortifications, and the traces of their mining operations, sufficiently attest their attainments in the practical arts of life. The origin of the populations of America is a problem Origin o which has yet to be solved. It is known that in Europe America man was in existence at a very remote period ; and there PP ula are facts which lend some support to the view that man has also been a denizen of America for ages. Thus there have been found portions of the human skeleton and fragments of human handiwork, associated with the bones of mammals which now have no existence, under circum stances which imply great antiquity. In most instances, however, it is not certain that such relics are of the age of the deposit in which they have been found. Human skeletons and bones in a fossilised state, or associated with bones of extinct mammals, have been found at Guadaloupe, in Missouri, near Natchez, at New Orleans, in the coral reef of Florida, near Charleston, in California, in Orchilla, at Petit Anse, and in Kansas. Some of these are referred to a very distant period. Thus the conglomerate in which the remains occur in the Florida reef is estimated by Agassiz to be 10,000 years old; but, what is still more amazing, the skeleton found by Dr Dowler beneath four buried Antiquit forests in the delta near New Orleans, is said to be 50,000 of man * years old, and the remains from California were found in a America, deposit beneath Table Mountain, which deposit was formed in an old river of the Post-Pliocene, or Pliocene period. At any rate, when this deposit was formed there was a river valley here, down which an overflow of volcanic matter was poured. Since that time denudation has been so great, and the volcanic matter so hard, that the sides of the valley have
been swept away, leaving the valley bottom with its pro-
