The Red Man's Continent: A Chronicle of Aboriginal AmericaYale University Press, 1919 - 421 pages |
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The Red Man's Continent: A Chronicle of Aboriginal America (Dodo Press) Ellsworth Huntington No preview available - 2010 |
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aboriginal abundant Africa agriculture Amazon basin animals Appalachian appear Asia Atlantic Atlantic coastal plain band Bering Strait borders buffalo California chief civilization climate coast coastal plain cold continent cordillera crops crust deciduous deciduous forests desert developed driftless driftless area earth east eastern Élisée Reclus energy environment erosion Eskimo Europe Farther south favorable feet fertile glaciation grass grass-lands Greenland grow growth Haidas Holland Thompson Hopi human hunters important Indians iron tools Iroquois islands jungle lakes land latitudes Laurentian highland live man's Mexico migrations Mississippi Nathaniel W Norsemen North America northern ocean Old World Pacific peneplain physical pine forest plants plateau potlatches prairies primitive race rain forest region ridges River rocks season soil southern southward square miles Strait summer temperature thousands tion trees tribes tropical United valleys vast vegetation western winter Yucatan
Popular passages
Page 118 - None of the inhabitants, to be sure, had risen above barbarism. Yet certain nations or tribes had advanced much higher than others. There was a great contrast, for example, between the well-organized barbarians of Peru and the almost completely unorganized Athapascan savages near Hudson Bay. In the northern continent aboriginal America reached its highest development in three typical 1 In the present chapter most of the facts as to the Indians north of Mexico are taken from the admirable Handbook...
Page 140 - Santiago wore sandals of maguey fiber and descended from their own territory among the mountains "to eat calabash and other fruits" that grew beside the Colorado River. They were described as "very dirty on account of the much mescal they eat." Others speak of them as " very filthy in their habits. To overcome vermin they coat their heads with mud with which they also paint their bodies. On a hot day it is by no means unusual to see them wallowing in the mud like pigs." They were "exceedingly poor,...
Page 43 - Athabascan and the Shoshonian, have sent out colonies who have settled on the banks of the Pacific; but as a rule the tribes of the western coast are not connected with any east of the mountains. What is more singular, although they differ surprisingly among themselves in language, they have marked anthropologic similarities, physical and psychical. Virchow* has emphasized the fact that the skulls from the northern point of...
Page 136 - ... chief points of gathering in the salmon season. The people were also noted traders, not only among themselves, but with the surrounding tribes of other stocks, and trips from the mouth of the Columbia to the Cascades for the purpose of barter were of frequent occurrence. They were extremely skilful in handling their canoes, which were well made, hollowed out of single logs, and often of great size. In disposition they are described as treacherous and deceitful, especially when their cupidity...
Page 138 - Valley were so poor that, in addition to consuming every possible vegetable product, they not only devoured all birds except the buzzard, but ate badgers, skunks, wildcats, and mountain lions, and even consumed salmon bones and deer vertebrae. They gathered grasshoppers and locusts by digging large shallow pits in a meadow or flat. Then, setting fire to the grass on all sides, they drove the insects into the pit. Their wings being burned off by the flames, the grasshoppers were helpless and were...
Page 153 - Americas there was no animal to take the place of the useful horse, donkey, or ox. The llama was too small to do anything but carry light loads, and it could live only in a most limited area among the cold Andean highlands. Even if the aboriginal Americans could have made iron ploughs, they could not have ploughed the tough sod without the aid of animals. Moreover, even if the possession of metal tools and beasts of burden had made agriculture possible in the grass-lands, it would have been difficult,...
Page 22 - No one," adds another observer, "could live among the Indians of the Upper Amazon without being struck with their constitutional dislike to heat. The impression forced itself upon my mind that the Indian lives as a stranger or immigrant in these hot regions."2 Thus when compared with the other inhabitants of America, from every point of view the Indian seems to be at a disadvantage, much of which may be due to the path which he took from the Old World to the New. Before the red man lost his American...
Page 139 - They were of medium stature, and were regarded by Hardy as excessively poor, having no animals except foxes, of which they had a few skins. The dress of the women in summer was a short bark skirt; the men appear to have been practically without clothing during this season. Both sexes practised facial painting, from which they were likened to the cobra de capello.
Page 133 - giving,' or 'a gift.' Although varying considerably in different parts of the coast, these potlatches were mainly marked, as the name implies, by the givingawayof quantities of goods, commonly blankets. The giver sometimes went so far as to strip himself of nearly every possession except his house, but he obtained an abundant reward, in his own estimation, in the respect with which his fellow-townsmen afterward regarded him, and when others "potlatched" he, in turn, received a share of their property...
Page 130 - ... victor. Then the girls and women went through the same progressive contest. It is hard to determine whether the people of the northern pine forest were more or less competent than their Eskimo neighbors. It perhaps makes little difference, for it is doubtful whether even a race with brilliant natural endowments could rise far in the scale of civilization under conditions so highly adverse. The Eskimos of the northern coasts and the people of the pine forests were not the only aborigines whose...