An old Pani, in speaking of what was perhaps the first official visit by whites to his tribe, said:
“I heard that long ago there was a time when there were no people in this country except Indians. After that the people began to hear of men with white skins; they had been seen far to the east. Before I was born they came to our country and visited us. The man who came was from the Government. He wanted to make a treaty with us, and to give us presents—blankets and guns and flint and steel and knives.
“The head chief told him that we needed none [pg 222] of those things. He said, ‘We have our buffalo and our corn. These things the Ruler gave us, and they are all that we need. See this robe. This keeps me warm in winter. I need no blanket.’
“The white men had with them some cattle, and the chief said, ‘Lead out a heifer here on the prairie.’ They led her out, and the chief, stepping up to her, shot her through behind the shoulder with his arrow, and she fell down and died. Then the chief said, ‘Will not my arrow kill? I do not need your guns.’ Then he took his stone knife and skinned the heifer, and cut off a piece of fat meat. When he had done this, he said, ‘Why should I take your knives? The Ruler has given me something to cut with.’
“Then, taking the firesticks, he kindled a fire to roast the meat; and while it was cooking, he spoke and said, ‘You see, my brother, that the Ruler has given us all that we need: the buffalo for food and clothing; the corn to eat with our dried meat; bows, arrows, knives, and hoes—all the implements that we need for killing meat or for cultivating the ground. Now go back to the country from whence you came. We do not want your presents, and we do not want you to come into our country.’ ”
And the old chief was right. The Indians were supplied with all they needed; what the white man offered them was unnecessary, often it was harmful. They were happy and contented. They were doing very well in their own way.
But the old times are gone. To-day the Indians are few in number, and they are growing fewer. There are many ingenious arguments to prove the contrary. Three facts, however, are perfectly plain. First, there were whole tribes that have disappeared. The Beothuks and the Natchez are but two tribes which are gone; such tribes may be numbered by scores. Their names are on record; their old locations are known; sometimes we have some knowledge of their customs and ways, but they are dead. Secondly, many tribes are rapidly dwindling. The Pani, between 1885 and 1889, a period of five years, fell from one thousand and forty-five to eight hundred and sixty-nine. When I knew the Tonkaways in the Indian Territory, they numbered but thirty-five persons, and had been disappearing at the rate of one-third of the population in eight years. The Haidas of Queen Charlotte Islands are becoming fewer. Dawson says: “One intelligent man told me that he could remember the time—which by his age could not have been more than thirty years ago—when there was not room to launch all the canoes of the village in a single row, the whole length of the beach, when the people set out on one of their periodical trading expeditions to Port Simpson. The beach is about half a mile long, and there must have been from five to eight persons in each canoe.” There are to-day less than five hundred people in that village, Skidgate. Thirdly, there are some tribes, like [pg 224] the Cherokees and Sioux, which are large, prosperous, and wealthy. It is a money advantage to belong to such tribes, and a great many men who should be considered white men are counted with such tribes and help to make them look as if they were not dwindling. It is quite certain that true Indians of pure blood are rapidly diminishing.
The whites have brought them whisky, which has killed thousands. They have brought vices and diseases which have swept off thousands more. They have put an end to the old free, open-air life. They have taught them unwholesome means of cookery that cause scrofula and other diseases. They have taught them to build close, stuffy houses, which cause consumption, which is fearfully destructive to the Indians. It seems to make little difference whether it is an open foe with the whisky bottle, or an apparent friend with money for a “civilized home” (“a nice, comfortable, little house”) who comes; the white man's touch destroys the Indians.
Whether the Indians really die out or not, their old life will surely disappear. One after another many of the things we have here read of together have, disappeared. Others will soon die out. The houses, dress, weapons, games, dances, ceremonials, will go. It is only a matter of time. But they ought always to be interesting to us as Americans.
The condition of the Indians to-day is a sad and pathetic one. They may all echo the words [pg 225] of Red Jacket. They have been crowded upon by the white man's hunger for land until now they have little left. Not long ago they held the continent; to-day they are almost prisoners upon a few patches of land called reservations. They are secure of these only until the white man wants them. Time after time Indians have given up their lands and removed to distant places because their old homes were wanted by white men. Every time they have been promised that in their new homes they should be undisturbed. Yet whenever, in their onward march, white men came to be neighbors, the old troubles came again. Encroachment, aggression, then perhaps open warfare, and then, another removal. Helen Hunt Jackson's Century of Dishonor tells only a part of the story. Every boy and girl in the United States should read it.