FIG. 161.—Christian Apache Indian.
The principal Siouan tribes are: the Assinaboins on the Saskatchewan, the Minnetaris on the Yellowstone river, the Ponkas and the Omahas in Nebraska, the Osages of the borders of Arkansas, the Hidatsas of Dakota, the Crows of Montana, the Siouans or Dakotas properly so called (Figs. [26], [158], and [159]) in the upper basin of the Missouri, etc. The total number of the Siouans is estimated at 43,400 individuals, of whom 2,200 are in Canada.[610]
The Indians of the four groups just enumerated all resemble each other in physical type: stature very high (from 1 m. 68 among the Cherokis of the east, to 1 m. 75 among the Cheyennes and Crows), head sub-dolichocephalic or mesocephalic (ceph. ind. on the liv. sub., from 79.3 among the Iroquoians to 80.5 among the Cheyennes), face, oval.[611] Near the Siouans, in the same ethnographic region of the plains of the Great West, dwelt the Pawnees or Caddoes, one of the tribes of which, the Aricaras or Rikaris (450 individuals at the present day), emigrated north towards the sources of the Mississippi. As to the Pawnees properly so called they were established in the valley of the Plata, whence they were transferred in 1878 into the Indian Territory; they numbered 820 individuals in the census of 1890. The rest of the nation, the Wichitas (Fig. [160]), the Caddoes, etc., have abandoned the predatory habits of the true Pawnees and become good husbandmen distributed over different reservations.
The Kiowas form a small linguistic group by themselves. The neighbours formerly of the Comanches and the Shoshones, these ex-robbers are at the present day installed, to the number of 1,500, in the Indian Territory.
The Pawnees and Kiowas are tall and mesocephalic, with a tendency towards brachycephaly.
c. Indians of the Pacific slope.—The coast tribes of the Pacific might be united into a single group in spite of the great diversity of language existing among them.[612] In fact, most of these Indians belong to one and the same sub-division of the North American race, the Pacific sub-race. They are above medium height (from 1 m. 66 among the Utes to 1 m. 69 among the Chahaptes), sub-brachycephalic (mean ceph. ind. from 82.7 to 84.7, except the Utes, whose index is 79.5), with rounded face (Tsimshians and Haidas), or elongated (Kwakiutls); they have straight eyes and their pilous system is well developed (Boas). It is only in the region of the Pueblos that we can detect the admixture of the short, brachycephalic Central American race.[613] Ethnic characters enable us to divide the Indians of the Pacific into three groups: Indians of the north-west, Indians of Oregon-California, and Pueblo Indians.[614]
1. The Indians of the north-west[615] are divided into two slightly distinct groups by their ethnic characters. In the north, on the indented coast of Alaska and British Columbia, as well as in the innumerable rocky islands lying off it, dwell tribes of fishers and hunters who form a very characteristic group by their ethnic traits, of which the following are the principal: garments of woven wool or of bark (before the arrival of the Whites); communal barracks, near which are raised “totem posts,” usually of slate, ornamented with anthropomorphic sculptures, grotesque or horrible, representing totems; plated armour, composite bow of wood and bone, tattooing, etc. The Pacific coast to the south of Vancouver and the Columbia drainage area is occupied by another group of populations, which, while having some traits in common with the former (communal barracks but without “totem post,” cooking by means of heated stones, zoomorph masks, etc.), exhibits a multitude of characters (garments of raw hides, cranial deformations, absence of tattooings, plain bow, etc.) which keep them widely separate.
The first group comprises the following tribes, beginning at Cape St. Elias and going towards the south: the Tlinkits or Kolushes as far as the 55th degree of N. lat. (6,437 individuals in 1880, according to Petroff); the Haidas or Skittagets of the Queen Charlotte Islands (2,500), skilful carvers in wood; the Tsimshians of the coast situated opposite to these islands; the Wakashes, sub-divided into Nootkas of Vancouver Island and Kwakiutls of the adjacent coast. The second group is composed of the remnants of the Salishans, Selish, or Flat-heads (12,000 in Canada, 5,500 in the “reservations” of the United States); of the Shahapts or “Nez-percés” (300), to the south of these; and lastly, the Chenooks, well known for their cranial deformations (p. [176]).