EAST INDIA CHRONICLE.
North American Indians.—Of late years Cooper’s American novels, and various works of travels; and, more recently, the Hon. Mr. Murray’s and Captain Marryat’s attractive volumes, have deeply interested us respecting the Red Indians of North America, their derivation, manners, customs, &c. Mr. Catlin, however, who has devoted eight years of his life to these miscalled savage people, who are now rapidly fading away from the face of the earth, sad victims of oppression, European vice and European disease, is enlightening us still further upon the subject. He has opened an exhibition at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, in which are assembled (all of his own painting) about 500 portraits of Indian chiefs, warriors, squaws, &c.; landscapes and other scenes, illustrating their warlike and religious ceremonies, their customs, dances, buffalo hunts, &c. The portraits, many of them valuable even as works of art, excite a strong and vivid interest from the almost exhaustless variety and force of character which they display. Many of the heads are bold and highly intellectual, and remarkable for their phrenological developments. Several of the young squaws, too, have considerable pretensions to beauty, with abundance of archness, vivacity, and good humour. Then again there is an immense collection of their weapons, pipes, musical instruments, dresses, &c.; amongst them a child’s cradle, or whatever it may be termed, in which the women carry their children at their backs. It is impossible for persons of any age to find themselves otherwise than instructed and gratified by this exhibition. Besides what we have mentioned, Mr. Catlin lectures thrice a week in the evening, with the assistance of living figures for additional illustrations.
THE JOHN BULL.
Catlin’s Indian Gallery.—Mr. Catlin is an American artist, who, after eight years’ toilsome travel, during which he visited forty-eight tribes of the aborigines of his native land, and traversed many thousands of miles, appearing to have crossed in nearly every direction the vast plains which lie between the semi-civilized border and the Rocky Mountains, has succeeded in forming a collection which he truly terms “unique,” and which ought to be so secured by the purchase of some Government or other, as to be rendered what he fondly calls it, “imperishable.” He thus explains the motives which induced him to undertake this labour:—“Having some years since become fully convinced of the rapid decline and certain extinction of the numerous tribes of the North American Indians, and seeing also the vast importance and value which a full pictorial history of these interesting but dying people might be to future ages, I set out alone, unaided and unadvised, resolved (if my life should be spared), by the aid of my brush and my pen, to rescue from oblivion so much of their primitive looks and customs as the industry and ardent enthusiasm of one lifetime could accomplish, and set them up in a gallery, unique and imperishable, for the use and benefit of future ages.”
A proof of the utility of his undertaking is the fact that one of the most singularly interesting tribes which he visited, the Mandans, who numbered 2000 souls in 1834, have been since wholly destroyed, not a remnant of their race left—name, and line, and language utterly extinct. Of the other tribes, too, many thousands have perished since the period of his visit by the smallpox, which deadly disease sweeps them off by wholesale; by the ardent spirits, still deadlier, introduced among them by the traders, and by war. The red man seems doomed to inevitable destruction; and despite the philanthropist, no long period of time, it is to be feared, will elapse before he will exist only by the aid of the “brush and pen.”
Mr. Catlin has made 310 portraits of distinguished individuals of the various tribes, and 200 other paintings illustrative of their manners, games, religious and other customs, as well as portraying some of the most remarkable scenery of the prairies and wilderness. They are roughly executed, but are the more valuable as being evidently faithful transcripts from the life. They occupy the entire of the large room of the Egyptian Hall, covering the walls on either side, whilst in the centre a long table is covered with Indian habiliments and weapons, which likewise hang with bears’ and other skins in profusion from the ceiling, whilst the whole is crowned by a wigwam, a veritable wigwam, brought from the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Will or can any one with a spark of curiosity, not to name enthusiasm, in his composition, begrudge a shilling for the sight?
THE COURT JOURNAL.