Among native inventions which have been of conspicuous use and value to the dispossessors of the Indian we recollect at once the bark canoe, the snowshoe, the moccasin (called the most perfect footwear ever invented), the game of lacrosse and probably other games, also the conical teepee which served as a model for the Sibley army tent. Pemmican, a condensed food made of pounded dried meat combined with melted fat and dried fruits, has been largely utilized by recent polar explorers.
The art of sugar making from the sap of the hard or sugar maple was first taught by the aborigines to the white settlers. In my day the Sioux used also the box elder for sugar making, and from the birch and ash is made a dark-colored sugar that was used by them as a carrier in medicine. However, none of these yield as freely as the maple. The Ojibways of Minnesota still make and sell delicious maple sugar, put up in "mococks," or birch-bark packages. Their wild rice, a native grain of remarkably fine flavor and nutritious qualities, is also in a small way an article of commerce. It really ought to be grown on a large scale and popularized as a package cereal. A large fortune doubtless awaits the lucky exploiter of this distinctive "breakfast food."
In agriculture the achievements of the Indian have probably been underestimated, although it is well known that the Indian corn was the mother of all the choice varieties which to-day form an important source of food supply for the civilized world. The women cultivated the maize with primitive implements, and prepared it for food in many attractive forms, including hominy and succotash, of which the names, as well as the dishes themselves, are borrowed from the red man. He has not always been rewarded in kind for his goodly gifts. In 1830 the American Fur Company established a distillery at the mouth of the Yellowstone River, and made alcohol from the corn raised by the Gros Ventre women, with which they demoralized the men of the Dakotas, Montana, and British Columbia. Besides maize and tobacco, some tribes, especially in the South, grew native cotton and a variety of fruits and vegetables.
The buckskin clothing of my race was exceedingly practical as well as handsome, and has been adapted to the use of hunters, explorers, and frontiersmen, down to the present day. His feathers and other decorations are imitated by women of fashion, and his moccasin was never so much in vogue as now. The old wooden Indian in front of the tobacco store looks less lonely as he gazes upon a procession of bright-eyed young people, with now and then one older, Indian-clad, joyous, and full of health, returning, if only for a few short weeks, to the life he knew of old.
CHAPTER XI
THE INDIAN'S GIFTS TO THE NATION
What does the original American contribute, in the final summing up, to the country of his birth and his adoption? Not much, perhaps, in comparison with the brilliant achievements of civilization; yet, after all, is there not something worthy of perpetuation in the spirit of his democracy—the very essence of patriotism and justice between man and man? Silently, by example only, in wordless patience, he holds stoutly to his native vision. We must admit that the tacit influence of his philosophy has been felt at last, and a self-seeking world has paused in its mad rush to pay him a tribute.
Yes, the world has recognized his type, seized his point of view. We have lived to see monuments erected to his memory. The painter, sculptor, author, scientist, preacher, all have found in him a model worthy of study and serious presentation. Lorado Taft's colossal "Black Hawk" stands wrapped in his stony blanket upon the banks of the Rock River; while the Indian is to keep company with the Goddess of Liberty in New York Harbor, besides many other statues of him which pre-eminently adorn the public parks and halls of our cities.
No longer does the red man live alone in the blood-curdling pages of the sensational story-writer. He is the subject of profound study as a man, a philosopher, a noble type both physically and spiritually. Symmetrical and finely poised in body, the same is true of his character. He stands naked before you, scorning the garb of deception and pretence, for he is a true child of nature.