Strange neighbors

Preface

The author claims no originality for the matter of this book for young readers on Strange Peoples. He has culled material where he could. His aim has been to present a series of sketches which may render the maps in the geography more interesting and give school children a broader and deeper sympathy with other races and peoples. Indebted to many books, he has been under constant obligations to Verneau's Les Races Humaines dind Ratzel's Vdlkerkimde . Other books which have been helpful will be found listed at the close of this volume.

At first the author planned to use only original or new illustrations. It has been, however, impossible to carry out this plan. Less than one fourth of the pictures are really new; it is believed, however, that all are authentic and will prove instructive.

It would have been easy to make the book more interesting by the introduction of descriptions, more detailed, of the ridiculous or dreadful practices of some races. The purpose has, however, not been to hold other peoples up to ridicule nor to teach morality by contrast; there are, indeed, too many matters for criticism in our own mode of life to warrant such a treatment. Nor would it be possible in a book for children

VI PREFACE.

to present that full discussion which might be expected in a treatise on ethnology for students. The book makes no pretence to systematic treatment ; only a fewpeople are taken, here and there, almost at haphazard, to illustrate the marvellous richness of the field for study which, even now, is presented by the Strange Peoples of the globe.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGB

I. Introduction i

II. The Peoples of North America: Eskimo . 6

I. Introductory

We are to read about some of the Strange Peoples of the world. We shall find many curious customs. There is an old saying, —

" Many men of many minds; Many birds of many kinds; Many fishes in the sea; Many men who don't agree."

Peoples differ in so many ways. There are tall Patagonians and short Bushmen. There are white peoples, and black, yellow, and brown peoples. There are peoples whose bodies are so covered with hair as almost to be called furry, and there are peoples whose faces even are hairless except for eyebrows and eyelashes. There are lively peoples and there are sluggish peoples; gay peoples and sad ones. Negroes do not think and feel like white men, and the Chinaman thinks and feels differently from either. All peoples have their own customs. When we speak of other peoples as Strange Peoples, we must never forget that we are as strange to them as they are to us. We think it curious that the Chinese dwarf, by bandaging, the feet of their women; they think it strange that we do not. To us the Chinese face seems much too flat; the Chinese think ours are like the face of an eagle and that they are harsh and cruel. We think the flat, wide nose of the negro is ugly ; negroes think it far handsomer than ours. So we will remember that all these peoples are " strange ' only because they are unlike us: that we ourselves are just as strange as they are. They have as much right to their ideas and customs as we have to ours : often indeed we might find theirs better than our own.

We begin with North America. We then pass to South America; then to Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific Islands in order. We shall find that the different peoples of the world are not scattered haphazard ; on the contrary, they are quite regularly distributed by types. Thus until lately the peoples living in America were all Indians, with red-brown skin, straight and coarse black hair, and high and wide cheek bones. Europe and Northern Africa (which really belongs rather to Europe than Africa) form the land of the white peoples. South Africa —

INTRODUCTORY. 3

Africa proper — is the home of negroes and negroids, with dark brown, almost black, skin, narrow heads and faces, and woolly hair. The proper population of Asia is yellow peoples, with round heads, slant eyes, and straight, long, black hair. In Australia are brown peoples with curly or bushy hair. In Oceanica are several well-marked types — the little brown Malays, the dark, almost black, Melanesians with crinkly hair, and the tall, well-built, fine-featured, light Polynesians. This is, in general, the distribution of the human races. But there has been much movement. There are now both white and blacks in America; the English whites have crowded in upon the natives of Australia ; in Asia there are white peoples, like the Ainu and Todas, who have certainly lived there a long time.

The different peoples are unlike in their culture. Some peoples live on wild food, having no cultivated plants or domestic animals. They hunt animals and catch fish; they search for birds' eggs and honey ; they grub up roots and gather barks, leaves, fruits, seeds, and nuts for food. To such tribes, who usually wander in little bands from place to place, the name savage is given. The word does not mean that they are fierce and cruel in disposition ; most savage tribes, to-day living, are neither. The Eskimo and Mincopies are savages, but they are quite kind and gentle. When peoples settle down to cultivate the soil and build homes, or when they raise herds of animals with which they move from time to time for new pastures, their life is easier. To such peoples — so long as they do not know how to work iron by smelting, to write by means of characters that represent sounds, and to make animals assist them in tilling the ground — the name barbarian is applied. When any peoples have learned these three great helps, they are called civilized. There are then three great stages of culture, — savagery, barbarism, and civilization. The Eskimo is in savagery ; the American Indians are mostly in barbarism ; the Chinese are in civilization.

The way in which the life of peoples is affected by the lands in which they live is most interesting. The Eskimo live in the cold north ; there is little wood there for construction; fuels such as are used elsewhere are rare ; no fibre-yielding plants grow there. Yet the Eskimo has made full use of what nature gives him. He builds his house, when necessary, of the snow itself, heats it with animal fats and oils, clothes himself in excellent garments of skins, knows the ways of

INTRODUCTORY. 5

all the animals and birds around him for their destruction, and has invented an ideal hunter's boat and devised a beautiful series of weapons and tools. The way in which he has fitted himself to the place in which he lives is wonderful. The world over we notice the same thing : man everywhere ransacks his home-land to find out what is useful and turns it to his needs.

Often where two different peoples live in the same district marriage takes place between them, and mixed types arise. Where one people has long occupied a country alone the type is very well-marked, and all look alike. Thus in the Andaman Islands, the little Mincopies look so much alike that a person needs to know them well to tell them apart. We, ourselves, are a great mixture. Even in one family there may be tall and short, light and dark, blue-eyed or browneyed persons. Such differences are only found where there has been much mixing between different peoples. In Mexico, once purely Indian, there has been since the coming of the Spaniards much mixture, and to-day a large part of the population is of a new type — part Indian, part Spanish. The people range in color from almost white to dark brown according to the amount of Spanish or Indian blood each has.

II. The Peoples Of North America : Esklmo

For the larger part, North America is now occupied by populations of our own kind. The greater part of the people of Canada is of French or English descent ; the people of our own country are mainly Europeans or of European descent. There are of course many negroes, especially in the South, who have descended from African slaves. There are also some Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Malays, and others. Formerly the United States and Canada were occupied by Indians, but now there are few left, who mostly live upon reser\'ations. South of the United States lie Mexico and Central America. They, too, were Indian lands when first visited by white men. In Northern Mexico a new, mixed population live ; Southern Mexico is yet quite purely Indian. In Central America we find the mixed Spanish-Indian in some districts, and pure Indians in others. In the northmost part of the continent live the Eskimo. We shall speak about the Eskimo, wild Indians, and Mexicans.

The home-land of the Eskimo is dreary. They live in Labrador, Greenland, and the Arctic countr}^ stretching from Greenland west to

THE PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA: ESKIMO. 7

Northern Alaska. Generally, it is a land of snow and ice, where it is impossible to raise even the most hardy plants. The people are forced to live chiefly on animal food. Not only is the weather usually cold, but for a large part of the year the nights are long and dreary, and the sun is seen for but a little time each day. In some districts the swarms of mosquitoes in the warmer part of the year are a great trouble. There are few trees, and those are stunted ; wood is precious, and drift wood is carefully gathered to make into tools and weapons. But notwithstanding his dreary home the Eskimo are rarely ugly and ill tempered.

They are little people with yellowish brown skin. Some Greenlanders are of fair stature. Their faces are broad and round, with coarse features. The eyes are small, dark, and often oblique, like the Chinese ; the nose is narrow at the root, but fat ; the cheeks are round and full ; the mouth is big, with good, strong teeth. Eskimo are usually filthy and appear much darker than they really are.

The clothing is generally made of skins with the hair left on. Men and women dress much alike. Trousers are worn by both : a shirt or jacket with a hood attached is much used. That worn by men is often made of bird skins, and the feather side is worn next the body. The lower part of the legs and the feet are encased in kamiks, skin socks and boots. The little babies are carried naked in a great pouch at the back of their outer jacket. This pouch makes a fine nest for the little creatures, as it is lined with soft sealskin or reindeer skin. Formerly — and perhaps sometimes now — the Eskimo mothers used to wash their babies by licking them with their tongues.

In Greenland the Eskimo houses are usually built of stones and earth. They are partly below ground, and only the upper part shows outside, like a mound of dirt. To enter the house one crawls through a long and narrow passage, also built of stones and earth, and which is also partly below ground. The house is not large, and consists of one room. It is lined with skins. Wide benches around the sides, covered with skins and moss, ser\^e as beds. Several families live crowded together in one house. One house in East Greenland, measuring twenty-seven by fifteen feet, contained eight families, — thirty-eight persons. The houses are so low that a tall man cannot stand upright in one. Until lately the only heating was by stone lamps. These were flat and hardly

GROUP OF GREENLAND ESKIMO (NANSEN).

lO STRANGE PEOPLES.

deeper than a plate : oil was burned in them. They were kept burning day and night, and above them were racks of poles on which wet clothing was dried. In the middle part of the Eskimo land they build the quaint round-topped huts made of blocks of snow, of which you have often seen pictures.

The Eskimo eat the flesh of seals, whales, birds, hares, bears, dogs, foxes, and deer. In that cold country they like fat meat. Sometimes meat and fish are eaten raw, but they may be boiled or fried. Fresh, raw blubber is much loved. The skin of whales, seals, and halibut is favorite food. Travellers tell astonishing stories of the quantities of candles and oil that Eskimo eat and drink when they are supplied to them. The supply of plant food is small : stalks of angelica, dandelion, sorrel, berries, and seaweed are used.

The man's great business is hunting. He has studied the habits of the bear, deer, seal, and walrus, and has learned just how to capture or kill them. He has invented many curious darts, harpoons, spears, bolas, etc. The bird spears have several points projecting in different directions from the shaft, so that if one misses, another may strike, or several birds may be impaled at once. The bolas consists of several pebbles

THE PEOPLES OF NORTH AMERICA: ESKIMO.

II attached to cords, which are knotted togethei at the end. These are set to whirling and then hurled through the air at birds to entangle them. The point of the harpoon separates from the shaft when an animal is struck ; it remains in the game while the shaft floats on the water ; the point is connected by a line to a bladder, which,

A GREENLAND ESKIMO FISHING (NANSEN).

floating, shows where the animal goes, and helps to tire him out. In hurling harpoons and darts the Eskimo uses a spear-throwing stick which enables him to send them with more force and directness than by his hand alone.

Much of his hunting is done from his canoe or kayak. This is narrow, sharp-pointed at both ends, and light. It consists of a slight framework over which skins are tightly stretched. The opening above is but large enough for him to get his legs and body through. When he has crept in, he ties a collar of skin, that surrounds the opening, about his body, below his arms, to prevent the water dashing into the kayak, and paddles away. His different weapons are all fastened in their proper places on top of the canoe, where he can seize them when wanted. The Eskimo are wonderful boatmen and drive their kayaks over the waves like seabirds. If they tip over, they easily right themselves.

Formerly the Greenland Eskimo made long summer trips along the coast. The clumsy, great, woman's boat was brought out. The oldest man, the women, children, and baggage went in it. The younger men went in their kayaks. In the big boat the women rowed while the old man steered. They often went fifty miles a day. At good spots they landed and built a tent of thin skins. They loved these summer journeys as our boys love their camping trips.

WILD INDIANS. 1 3

III. Wild Indians

There are no really wild Indians left in the United States. Formerly there were many tribes of them> but some have disappeared, and others have lost their old-time spirit. To-day our Indians live idly on the reservations or work their little farms with fair industry. Sometimes a tribe, roused by new wrongs inflicted on it by the white man, takes the war-path ; sometimes some religious idea goes from tribe to tribe creating great excitement, like the Ghost Dance. But such outbreaks and excitements are less and less common.

Mr. Lummis has written of the Apache warrior and described the war led by Geronimo. It was a daring thing. There was but a handful of the Indians. " Thirty-four men, eight well-grown boys, ninety-two women and children " — that was all. Only forty-two who could be called fighters. On May 17, 1885, the little band broke forth from their reservation and headed for Mexico. It took the United States a year and a half of useless trouble and expense to pursue them. Time after time, when it seemed certain that the Indians were trapped, they

STRANGE PEOPLES.

vanished. They never stood for a pitched battle. But anywhere, concealed behind rocks or hidden in brush, they picked off the soldiers sent to capture them. The forces of the United States and Mexico were both kept constantly upon the move. When a year had passed about sixty of the Indians returned home. Twenty warriors, with fourteen women, kept up the battle, when they too went home.

During the year and a half of fighting more than four hundred whites and Mexicans were killed ; only two of the Indian band were destroyed.

During that time Arizona and New Mexico and all the northern part of Mexico were kept in constant terror. These Apaches were truly " wild Indians."

The Navajo are not wild Indians though they are related to the Apaches and were formerly bold fighters. They live near the settled Pueblos and have learned from them many things. They

VICTORIO, AN APACHE WARRIOR (LUMMIS).

WILD INDIANS. 1 5

are a prosperous tribe, numbering fully ten thousand. They are well-to-do, having nine thousand cattle, one hundred and nineteen thousand horses, and one million six hundred thousand sheep and goats. They dress well in their own way and wear many ornaments.

A Navajo house is a simple affair. It consists of sticks or poles stacked up so as to meet in a point above ; they are then covered over with bark, weeds, or earth, a hole being left for an entrance and one at the top for smoke escape : an old blanket hung over the entrance hole serves as a door. Near this hut there is often a little shelter of boughs where the family spend most of their time on fine days. The Navajo also build sweat houses for vapor baths. These are like the regular hut, but have no smoke hole, and are thickly covered over with earth. Stones are heated in a fire outside and carried into the sweat house between sticks ; water is dashed over them, and in the steam thus made the bather sits.

The Navajo are good workers in silver and are all the time improving in their art. They make spherical beads, bracelets, and rings of several sorts, breast ornaments, decorations for harness and bridle, and many other things out of coins or other silver furnished them. The Navajo excel l6 STRANGE PEOPLES.

as weavers of blankets, though they use extremely simple looms. The yarn is home-spun from wool taken off their own flocks ; they do, however, buy some yarn ready-made from the white man. Formerly they dyed their yarn with dyes taken from various plants or colored earths, but now they mostly use white men's dyes. Their blankets are firm and closely woven and shed water finely. They are woven in bright patterns. All the Indians who live near the Navajo like their blankets and pay good prices for them. The Navajo greatly like turquoise beads, but they do not find turquoise on their reservation. For these beads and ornaments they trade their fine blankets, and silverware, and good ponies with the Pueblo Indians who live near the mines of this handsome greenstone.

The Navajo are great singers and have many songs ; but it is the men who sing and not the women. They have also many interesting stories and curious customs, but we cannot stop to tell about them. The Apaches and Navajo are but two tribes out of the hundreds of American Indian tribes. In another book, American Indians^ you may read about their manners and customs, their songs and music, their stories and worshipc

IV. Mexicans

Though Mexico is our next-door neighbor, life and customs are greatly different there from our own. Three different peoples make up the population. First, are the pure-blood Spaniards, who have been born in the country; second, there are the Mestizos, mixed people, partly Indian, partly Spanish ; third, are the pure Indians, who now form about five-twelfths of the whole population. From the City of Mexico northward the land belongs chiefly to the mestizos ; from the City of Mexico southward Indians prevail.

We will say nothing of the Spaniards nor of the wealthy mestizos, both of whom are like European whites generally in their life. But the poorer mestizos in the cities and towns and the country people generally are interesting. The dress of the country gentleman was brilliant. It was of broadcloth or soft-dressed leather, of a buff or brown color. The little, close-fitting jacket, cut square at the waist, was supplied with two lines of silver or steel buttons, and embroidered with patterns in gilt or silver thread. The trousers fitted almost as a glove fits the hands, and there was a double row of bright buttons up the sides of the legs and a lacing of silver cord. The shoes, which were tan or buff, were sharp pointed. Unfortunately this handsome costume is not common nowadays. All mestizos, rich and poor, still use the serape^ which is a long and narrow blanket, usually of handsome, bright colors. In putting it on, one corner is held with the hand at the left shoulder, while the blanket is passed behind the back and around the body in front ; the free end is then thrown over the left shoulder and hangs down behind. It thus holds itself in place and needs no tying or pinning. However poor a mestizo may be, he wants a fine hat or sombrero, Mexican sombreros have high, pointed crowns, and wide brims. They are made of palm or wool. Those of wool are of various colors — gray, brown, black, sometimes red, blue, or green. They are of all prices. They are decorated with bands of silver or gilt tinsel, and true silver ornaments are made in many forms for fastening to them ; a fine sombrero, well made and well decorated, may weigh several pounds and cost many dollars.

The Mexicans are highly polite in manner. This is partly the result of Spanish training, but is also partly due to the old Indian fondness for ceremony. The movements of the hands and fingers by which they greet each other are graceful and pretty. Friends, meeting each other, warmly embrace. If a boy is spoken to by a gentleman he politely removes his hat and holds it while he is being addressed and while he answers. Should a stranger ask a little Mexican his name, with his hat off the boy would reply, giving his name and adding, '^Servidor de usted^ senor " — *' your servant, sir."

The houses of poor Mexicans are miserable. The walls are usually built of great sun-dried adobe bricks ; there is but one room and that is small. There are no windows and but one door; the roof is flat and the floor is of dirt or stone. Generally there is no bed and there may be no table, and few if any chairs or stools. There are usually some rush mats in the corner, which are spread out upon the floor at night for sleeping on. There are always a brasero and a metate. The brasero is a little kettle-shaped earthenware stove, where food is cooked over a wee fire of charcoal. The metate is the grinding-stone, on which the woman grinds corn-meal.

The three common foods of the Mexican poor are corn-cakes, eggs, and beans — tortillas, huevos, and frijoles. The corn after being well soaked is ground on the stone; the woman, taking the lump of wet dough, throws it back and forth from one hand to the other, turning it as she does so around and around. In this way she shapes a flat, thin, round cake which she bakes upon a round pottery griddle. The eggs are usually fried, so are the black beans, a great deal of lard being used. Often they use no knives, forks, or spoons in eating. The corn-cakes themselves will be used in handling the eggs and in scooping up the beans. After thus serving as a fork and a spoon it will itself be eaten.

But rich people in Mexico have beautiful homes. The outside, on the street, is quite plain. The house surrounds a square court or space which is called ?Lpatio, Passing through a great doorway, one goes from the street into the patio. All the rooms of the house open on the patio, either directly or under pretty arched galleries or corridors. The patio itself may be planted with trees and shrubs bearing sweet flowers, and often there is a fountain at the centre, with goldfish in the basin.

Cages of birds are hung around the patio, or under the corridors, and the little captives delight with their brilliant colors or their sweet songs. Every one in Mexico keeps birds as pets, and you may see, even in the houses of the very poor,

MEXICANS.

Wherever there are real roads in Mexico, there you may see the quaint old-fashioned ox-carts with wheels often made from solid blocks of wood cut

A MEXICAN OX-CART (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH).

to shape. Two oxen are generally yoked to each, but when heavy loads are to be dragged, four, six, or even more are used at once.

In Central Mexico water is precious, and in the cities special men make it a business to sell water from house to house. The water-carriers

STRANGE PEOPLES.

of different towns greatly differ in the form and size of the jars they use and in the mode of carrying them. In the city of Mexico, where they are becoming an uncommon sight, the

MEXICAN WATER-CARRIER (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH).

man carries two water-jars of metal, one in front, one behind, hanging by straps from his shoulders and cap ; in Guadalajara a number of round pottery water-jars are set into a sort of a frame mounted on a cart or barrow; in San Luis

Potosi there are four oval jars set into a wheelbarrow with an enormous wheel ; in Guanajuato they use great slender jars nearly as tall as the man himself, with a ring of wood at the bottom to hold them when they are set on the ground.

In the centre of every Mexican city or town of any importance is the plaza or public square. Sometimes this is surrounded by handsome buildings and laid out with care as a garden. Among orange trees laden with sweet blossoms and golden fruit, rose bushes, banana trees, there wind pleasant walks with benches in the shade, where rich or poor may rest. Usually at the centre of the plaza there is a band-stand where on certain evenings every week fine concerts are given.

The plaza is the pleasure-spot and gatheringplace of all. To it flock venders of all kinds, with cakes, candies, fruits, sugar-cane, peanuts, toys, etc. Some of the wares are strange, and I am sure you could not guess them. There goes a man with a lot of pretty colored balls like wee toy balloons; they are red, white, blue, yellow; they are chewing-gum! There is another man with a great crumpled sheet of some whitish brown stuff ; children flock to him with their

STRANGE PEOPLES.

coppers, and he cuts off pieces which they walk away munching ; it is fried pigskin !

Mexicans delight in holidays, and they celebrate a great many. The 2d of November, the

OTOMI INDIAN GIRLS (FROM A PHOTOGRAPH).

day of the dead, is a great day. For several days beforehand thousands of strange toys have been offered for sale. Some are skulls made of sugar or clay; there are skeletons of various sizes and materials, corpses, funeral processions, grave monuments. These are all called "deaths/ When the day of the dead comes children expect to receive these strange presents. When they rise in the morning their first cry is, " Papa, mamma, give me my death." There is a great excitement the day before Easter. All down the streets may be seen figures of Judas hung up above the heads of the passers. In the big cities there will be hundreds of them of all sizes and shapes. They are made of cardboard and paper, and have fireworks inside. At a certain hour they are all set on fire, and burn and explode at a great rate, much to the delight of the boys and girls. But these are only two of many occasions during each year to which little Mexicans look forward with delight.

We have spoken only of the mestizos. The Indians are also interesting. There are many tribes, all with their own customs, and many with their old languages still in use. In the State of Oaxaca alone there are fifteen languages still spoken. Among the many Mexican Indian tribes perhaps the Aztecs, Otomis, Tarascans, Zapotecs, and Mayas are the best known.

V. South American Peoples

South America, like North America, was occupied by Indians at the time of the discovery. The tribes differed in appearance, language, and customs, but all were true American Indians. To be sure, some tribes were dark, others light ; some were tall, others short; some were true savages, while others were almost civilized.

Probably the most advanced tribes lived along the Pacific border. In Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Chili many relics of ancient art and many ruins of old buildings are found. Here and there east of the mountains similar evidences of culture are found, but they are less known. Best known of all are those of Peru.

The ancient Indians of Peru were industrious and hard workers. Their rulers, the Incas, were called " the children of the sun." The old Peruvians had important towns and cities. They diligently cultivated their fields and irrigated them by great systems of canals. They wove capital cotton cloth, from which they made good clothing. Their cloth was often decorated with pretty inwoven designs in colored threads. They tamed and bred the llama, and trained it for a pack ani-