with the Great Father" and other less prominent personages they successfully contrive to exhibit but this one phase.

"Seeing them under these or similiar circumstances only, it is not surprising that by many the Indian is looked upon as a simple-minded son of nature' desiring nothing beyond the privilege of roaming and hunting over the vast unsettled wilds of the West, inheriting and asserting but few native rights, and never trespassing upon the right of others.

"This view is equally erroneous with that which regards the Indian as a creature possessing the human form, but divested of all other attributes of humanity, and whose traits of character, habits, mode of life, disposition and savage customs disqualify him from the exercise of all right and privileges, even those pertaining to life itself. "Taking him as we find him, at peace or at war, at home or abroad, waiving all prejudices and laying aside all partiality, we will discover in the Indian a subject for thoughtful study and investigation. In him we will find

the representative of a race whose origin is, and promises to be, a subject forever wrapped in mystery; a race incapable of being judged by the rules or laws applicable to any other known race of men; one between which aud civilization there seems to have existed from time immemorial a determined and unceasing warfare, a hostility so deep-seated and inbred with the Indian character, that in the exceptional instances where the modes and habits of civilization have been reluctantly adopted, it has been at the sacrifice of power and influence as a tribe, and the more serious loss of health, vigor and courage as individuals.

"Inseparable from the Indian character, wherever he is to be met with, is his remarkable taciturnity, his deep dissimulation, the perseverance with which he follows his plans of revenge or conquest, his concealment and apparent lack of curiosity, his stoical courage when in the power of his enemy, his cunning, his caution, and last, but not least, the wonderful power and subtlety of his senses. In studying the Indian character, while shocked and disgusted by many of his traits and customs, I find much to be admired, and still more of deep unvarying interest. To me, Indian life, with its attendant ceremonies, mysteries and forms, is a book of unceasing interest. Grant that some of its pages are frightful, and if possible to be avoided; yet the attraction is none the weaker. Study him, fight him, civilize him if you can, he remains still the object of your curiosity, a type of men peculiar and undefined, subjecting himself to no known law of civilization, contending determinedly against all efforts to win him from his chosen mode of life. He stands in the group of nations solitary and reserved, seeking alliance with none, mistrusting and opposing the advances of all. Civilzation may and should do much for him, but it can never civilize him. A few instances to the contrary may be quoted, but these are susceptible of explanation. No tribe enjoying its accustomed freedom has ever been induced to adopt a civilized mode of life, or as they express it, to

follow the white man's road. At various times certain tribes have forsaken the pleasures of the chase and the excitement of the warpath for the more quiet life to be found on the reservations. Was this course adopted voluntarily and from preference? Was it because the Indian chose the ways of his white brother, rather than those in which he had been born and bred? In no single instance has this been true."

Custer proceeds to argue that a few tribes, wasted and exhausted by wars with other tribes and the whites, and by contact with civilization and disease, and unable to cope with more powerful tribes, which are always overbearing and domineering, must either become the vassals and tributaries of their enemies, or reluctantly accept the alternative of a sham conformity with the whites. He says:

"The tribe must give up its accustomed haunts, its wild mode of life, and nestle down under the protecting arm of its former enemy, the white man, and try, however feebly, to adopt his manners of life. In making this change the Indian has to sacrifice all that is dear to his heart; he abandons the only mode of life in which he can be a warrior and win triumphs and honors worthy to be sought after; and in taking up the pursuits of the white man he does that which he has always been taught from his earliest infancy to regard as degrading to his manhood, to labor, to work for his daily bread; an avocation suitable only for squaws.

"To those who advocate the application of the laws of civilization to the Indian, it might be a profitable study to investigate the effect which such application produces upon the strength of the tribe as expressed in numbers. Looking at him as the fearless hunter, the matchless horseman and warrior of the plains, where nature placed him, and contrasting him with the reservation Indian, who is supposed to be revelling in the delightful comforts and luxuries of an enlightened condition, but who in reality is grovelling in beggary, bereft of many of his qualities which in his wild state tended to render him noble, and heir to a

combination of vices partly his own, partly bequeathed to him from the pale-face, one is forced, even against desire, to conclude that there is an unending antagonism between the Indian nature and that with which his well-meaning white brother would endow him. Nature intended him for a savage state; every instinct, every impulse of his soul inclines him to it. The white race might fall into a barbarous state, and afterwards, subjected to the influence of civilization, be reclaimed and prosper. Not so the Indian. He cannot be himself and be civilized; he fades away and dies. Cultivation such as the white man would give him deprives him of his identity. Education, strange as it may appear, seems to weaken rather than strengthen his intellect." In confirmation of this last statement, Custer affirms that the gift of forest eloquence is lost under civilization. He asks:

"Where do we find any specimens of educated Indian eloquence comparing with that of such native, untutored orators as Tecumseh, Osceola, Red Jacket and Logan, or Red Cloud or Santanta?"

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My firm conviction, based upon an intimate and thorough analysis of the habits, traits of character, and natural instinct of the Indian, and strengthened and supported by the almost unanimous opinion of all persons who have made the Indian problem a study, and have studied it, not from a distance, but in immediate contact with all the facts bearing thereupon, is that the Indian can not be elevated to that great level where he can be induced to adopt any policy or mode of life varying from those to which he has ever been accustomed by any method of teaching, argument, reasoning, or coaxing which is not preceded and followed closely in reserve by a superior physical force. In other words, the Indian is capable of recognizing no controlling influence but that of stern arbitrary power.

"And yet there are those who argue that the Indian with all his lack of moral privileges is so superior to the white race as to be capable of being controlled in his savage traits and customs, and induced to lead a proper life,

simply by being politely requested to do so." (George Ellis "The Red Man and the White Man in N. A., p. 104.")

CHAPTER XII.

THE INDIAN (CONTINUED.)

A large part of the life of a savage was spent in solitude, and except when he knows himself to be exposed to risks from lurking foes he is never lonely, timid or suspicious. He relies on his own resources of strength, patience and security. He could find a sufficient couch on the mossy grass, on a heap of green boughs, or in a burrow under the snow. If he did not acquire the instinct of a beast for scenting water at a distance, he was a skillful observer of all the signs which would aid him to find it. The inclination of the tops of the trees, showing the direction of the prevailing winds, and the thickening of the bark on the north side of them served him for a compass even. in the depths of the forest and under a clouded and starless sky. No length of distance or obstacle in a day's tramping oppressed him with a fatigue that did not yield to a night's repose. However dampened or soaked with protracted rains, or with wintry snow might be the trees and foliage on his route, he could always gather some fungi, or dry and decayed wood, for lighting a fire. He could mentally divide the space of a journey of hundred of miles into equal parts, without the help of any signpost, and could reach his destination or return to his starting point, as he had proposed to do, at the rise or set of the sun.

In all this he conformed and adapted himself to the ways and the methods of nature. The trail through the deep forest were common to him and the beast. The deer and

the buffalo made his turnpikes.

The Indians took for granted that the earth on which