Much of the area of eastern Texas, and the land north of it to the Platte River, were held by various tribes of the Caddoes. Fragments of them are found nearly as far north as the Canada line, and it is probable that their migration was from this higher latitude southerly, though their own legends referred to the east as their first home. They depended for subsistence chiefly on hunting and fishing, thus remaining in a lower stage of progress than their neighbors in the Mississippi valley.
Sometimes this is called the Pani family, from one of their members, the Pawnees, on the Platte River. Their most northerly tribe was the Arickarees, who reached to the middle Missouri, and in the south the Witchitas were the most prominent.
The Kioways now live about the head-waters of the Nebraska or Platte River, along the northern line of Colorado. Formerly they roamed over the plains of Texas, but according to an ancient tradition, they came from some high northern latitude, and made use of sleds.[183]
Omitting a number of small tribes, whose names would weary you, I shall mention in the Atlantic group the Shoshonee bands, called also Snake or Ute Indians. They extended from the coast of Texas in a northwesterly direction over New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada, to the borders of California, and reached the Pacific near Santa Barbara. Many of them are a low grade of humanity, the lowest in skull-form, says Professor Virchow, of any he has examined on the continent. The “Root-diggers” are one of their tribes, living in the greatest squalor. Yet it would be a serious error to suppose they are not capable of better things. Many among them have shown decided intellectual powers. Sarah Winnemucca, a full blood Pi-Ute, was an acceptable and fluent lecturer in the English language,[184] and their war chiefs have at times given our army officers no little trouble by their skill and energy.
Indian Tribes of the United States.
The Comanches are the best known of the Shoshonees, and present the finest types of the stock. They are of average stature, straight noses, features regular, and even handsome, and the expression manly. They are splendid horsemen and skilful hunters, but men never given to an agricultural life.
3. The North Pacific Group.
The narrow valleys of the Pacific slope are traversed by streams rich in fish, whose wooded banks abounded in game. Shut off from one another by lofty ridges, they became the home of isolated tribes, who developed in course of time peculiarities of speech, culture and appearance. Hence it is that there is an extraordinary diversity of stocks along that coast, and few of them have any wide extent.
In the extreme north the Tlinkit or Kolosch are in proximity to the Eskimos near Mount St. Elias. They are an ingenious and sedentary people, living in villages of square wooden houses, many parts of which are elaborately carved into fantastic figures. Their canoes are dug out of tree trunks, and are both graceful in shape and remarkably seaworthy. With equal deftness they manufacture clothing from skin, ornaments from bone, ivory, wood and stone, utensils from horn and stone, and baskets and mats from rushes.[185]