"American Indian" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the potency of music as a remedial force. Tuneful strains were believed by the physicians of old to be uncongenial to the spirits of sickness; but among medicine-men of many American Indian tribes, harsh discordant sounds and doleful chants have long been a favorite means of driving away these same spirits.[178:3] Aulus Gellius, the Roman writer of the second century, in his "Attic Nights,"[178:4] mentioned a ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... side by side on an equality largely results from this economic 'question' which, broadly stated, is that the Caucasian is willing to work beyond his immediate need voluntarily and without physical compulsion; the African in his natural state is not. The American Indian had the same prejudice against manual labor; but rather that, as a gentleman, he thought himself above it; and his character was such that he always successfully resisted any attempts at enslavement ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... harm, and often act as an emetic, they are probably more innocent than the physic administered by eastern physicians, who are the most ignorant of their profession. The fact is, that the soi disant "teachers" of mankind, in all ages and countries—the African fetish, the American Indian sachem, the Hindu jogi, the Musalman mulla, and the Romish priest and miracle-monger—have all agreed on one point, viz., to impose on their silly victims a multitude of unmeaning ceremonies, and absurd ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli
... learn the cause of the unwonted excitement of their dogs, George noted with appreciative eyes the splendid physique of the men and women who constituted its inhabitants. They were of mixed breed, ranging from the robust, full- blooded African negro to the slimmer and slighter figure of the Central American Indian with long, straight, black hair and copper-coloured skin. But these were the extreme types; the majority were a mixture of the two races, and the mingling of African and American blood appeared to have ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... liberty of conscience was at stake. "We have encountered the red men time and again," he continued, "so that I may conclude that we have become acclimated, as they say, and understand the nature of the American Indian very well." ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... contrast between the normal aesthetic standpoint in this matter and the lover's is well illustrated by the following quotations: Dr. A.B. Holder, in the course of his description of the American Indian bote, remarks, concerning fellatio: "Of all the many varieties of sexual perversion, this, it seems to me, is the most debased that could be conceived of." On the other hand, in a communication from a writer and scholar of high intellectual distinction ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... their theory the observations of the men of travel. Abroad this connection of travellers and philosophers was no less intimate. Both Montesquieu and Rousseau owed much to the tales of the Iroquois, the North American Indian allies of France. Locke himself is the best example of the closeness of this alliance. He was a diligent student of the texts of the voyagers, and himself edited out of Hakluyt and Purchas the best collection of them current in his day. The purely literary influence of the age of ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... it in my "First Footsteps" (p. 68, etc.). There is an old idea in Europe that the maniacal vengeance of the Arab is increased by eating this flesh, the beast is certainly vindictive enough; but a furious and frantic vengefulness characterises the North American Indian who never saw a camel. Mercy and pardon belong to the elect, not to the miserables who make ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... stuff made from the bark of trees. Two pieces of stuff completed their costume, one was square and looked like a blanket. The head was thrust through a hole in the centre, and it recalled the "zarapo" of the Mexicans, and the "poncho" of the South American Indian. The second piece was rolled round the body, without being tightened. Almost all, men and women, tattoo their bodies with black lines close together, representing different figures. The operation was thus performed: the pattern was pricked in the skin, and the holes filled with ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... poet who has spoken most sincerely and sympathetically to the hearts of the common people and to children. His style is notable for its simplicity and grace. His Hiawatha is a national poem that records the picturesque traditions of the American Indian. Its charm and melody are the delight of all children, and in years to come, when the race which it describes has utterly disappeared, we shall value at even higher state; the clinking of gold was no more heard at night in the chamber of the ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... be found everywhere; and they are always practising. Red-letter days or black-letter days, festival or fast, makes no difference to them. This enormous nuisance I feel the more, because it is one which I never retaliate. Interrupted in every sentence, I still practise the American Indian's politeness of never interrupting. What, absolutely never? Is there no case in which I should? If a man's nose, or ear, as sometimes happens in high latitudes, were suddenly and visibly frost-bitten, ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... ivory. They are made to order usually, to match in their ground color some special color in the room where they are to be placed, and the borders are made in harmonious tones. The range of design is wide, from Oriental to Occidental—from Japanese to North American Indian. But all suggestions, so soon as received, are modified and removed as far as possible from direct imitation of any foreign rugs. Mrs. Albee has aimed, not to reproduce Oriental effects, but to have the designs original and distinctive. Fortunately, for ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... Maypures, the making of pottery is an occupation principally confined to the women. They purify the clay by repeated washings, form it into cylinders, and mould the largest vases with their hands. The American Indian is unacquainted with the potter's wheel, which was familiar to the nations of the east in the remotest antiquity. We may be surprised that the missionaries have not introduced this simple and useful machine among the ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... ethnological point of view that collection was very valuable. What a striking contrast was presented there by the rounded form of the skull of the fierce, indomitable American Indian, who is so averse to intercourse with strangers, and the rather narrow, elongated head of the indolent negro, who is devoted to social enjoyments. How wide was the difference between the head of the Sandwich Islander or of the Tahitian and that of the Australian or the Tasmanian. How much superior ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... author of this classification, in his Ancient Society, "with the Australians and the Polynesians, following with the American Indian tribes, and concluding with the Roman and Grecian, which afford the best exemplification of the six great stages of human progress, the sum of their united experiences may be supposed to fairly represent that of the human family from the middle status of ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... will give us any help on the present occasion. We have an original susceptibility of music, of beauty, of religion, it is said. Granted; but as the actual development of this susceptibility exhibits all the diversities between Handel's notions of harmony and those of an American Indian—between Raphael's notions of beauty and those of a Hottentot—between St. Paul's notions of a God and those of a New Zealander—it would appear that the education of this susceptibility is at least as important as the susceptibility ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... the weird look, the dismal thoughtful scrutiny, which it was his habit to fix on persons talking with him, no matter whether they were worthy of attention or not. His straight black hair hung as gracelessly on either side of his hollow face as the hair of an American Indian. His great dusky hands, never covered by gloves in the summer time, showed amber-coloured nails on bluntly-pointed fingers, turned up at the tips. Those tips felt like satin when they touched you. When he wished to be careful, he could handle the frailest objects with ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... importance, since, if the Indian tribes were in the main sedentary, and not nomadic, the changes resulting in the course of one or two centuries would not make material differences. Exactly the opposite opinion, however, has been expressed by many writers, viz, that the North American Indian tribes were nomadic. The picture presented by these writers is of a medley of ever-shifting tribes, to-day here, to-morrow there, occupying new territory and founding new homes—if nomads can be said to have homes—only to abandon them. Such a picture, however, ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... anything that could be called a violent quarrel between two members of the household, nor have I seen the Orang Tuah or the Penghulu submit any of the members to what might be considered harsh treatment. I have also been with them when they were out on the warpath, to use a North-American Indian term, when every nerve was at high tension on the look-out for enemies and every thought was turned to slaughter, but I have never seen the counsel of the Chief disregarded. Of course, some Chiefs are weak and fail to give commands because they are afraid to act, but a command ...
— Folk-lore in Borneo - A Sketch • William Henry Furness
... feather, and the two cavalry regiments of Negroes have, on several occasions, found themselves in very serious situations. While the fact is well known out on the frontier, I don't remember ever having seen it mentioned back here that an American Indian has a deadly fear of an American Negro. The most utterly reckless, dare-devil savage of the copper hue stands literally in awe of a Negro, and the blacker the Negro the more the Indian quails. I can't understand why this should be, for the Indians decline to give their reasons ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... the future that this voyage was to open to him. He knew little or nothing at that time of Labrador or Newfoundland. He had never seen an Eskimo nor an American Indian, unless he had chanced to visit a "wild west" show. He had no other expectation than that he should make a single winter cruise with the mission schooner, and then return to England and settle in some promising locality to the practice of his profession, there to rise to success ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace
... a great day when Miss Slopham, so many years conspicuous in our best society, discovered the North American Indian—not for the Indian, perhaps, but certainly for Miss Slopham. Envious and slanderous tongues said that Miss Slopham was afflicted with an ambition. She wanted a mission—not a foreign mission, in any sense of the words. She was debarred from one kind by her sex, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... The lower berth, like most of those upon the Kamtschatka, was double. There was plenty of room; there was the usual washing apparatus, calculated to convey an idea of luxury to the mind of a North-American Indian; there were the usual inefficient racks of brown wood, in which it is more easy to hang a large-sized umbrella than the common tooth-brush of commerce. Upon the uninviting mattresses were carefully folded together those blankets which a great ...
— The Upper Berth • Francis Marion Crawford
... therefore fewer of them are unsatisfied; and probably the gaiety which they assume before strangers may result from their constitution, which, under the same circumstances, may render them gayer than others, just as a Frenchman is gayer than an Englishman, or an Englishman than a North-American Indian. In a word, in looking upon this race, and upon the other recorded varieties of our species, from the woolly-headed African to the long-haired Asiatic, from the blue-eyed and white-haired Goth to the black-eyed and black-haired North American, and ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... from pain, but which one keenly on the watch, and who was striving to communicate with him, would be apt to understand as a sign of attention. The whispering then ceased altogether, and the prisoner waited the result with the stoic patience of an American Indian. A minute later the Chippewa felt the thongs giving way, and his arms were released at the elbows. An arm was next passed round his body, and the fastenings at the wrist were cut. At this instant a voice whispered in his ear—" Be of good heart, Chippewa—your friend, Bourdon, is here. ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... that the Indian (our American Indian, with whom we have now to do) has all the faculties—however defaced and blurred by long centuries of bloody crimes, which they regard not as crimes, but as virtues—seeing that these red, thriftless, bloody-minded Indians have ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... continuously until nearly a year had passed, when he was killed by them. His notes and specimens were fortunately preserved and, when published, should constitute the most original and important contribution ever made to Philippine ethnology. Dr. Jones was part American Indian, a member of the Sac and Fox tribe. He was not only a brilliant scientist, but one of the most engaging and interesting men I have ever known—a man to cleave to. Here are brief extracts from two letters written by him from ...
— The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and The Ilongot or Ibilao of Luzon • David P. Barrows
... island around me still no evidence of man. But men were here. The American Indian, still bearing evidence of the Mongols, plied these waters in his frail canoes. His wigwams of skins, the smoke of his signal fires—these were not enduring enough for me ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Broomstick'? I have been laughed at for making so much of such a common thing as a wheel. Idiots! Solomon's court fool would have scoffed at the thought of the young Galilean who dared compare the lilies of the field to his august master. Nil admirari is very well for a North American Indian and his degenerate successor, who has grown too grand to admire anything but himself, and takes a cynical pride in his stolid indifference to everything worth ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... census of 1890 and 1900, the increase of the Negro has suffered a positive check, if not back-set. In explanation of this, one theory and another has been advanced. Some have seen that he, like the American Indian, is on the road to a kindred fate—final and utter extinction. Others have consigned him to this or that destiny, according as they have felt kindly or unkindly towards him. True, he has increased less rapidly, but more surely, because of his stricter observance and ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... nations, where the experience of alcohol has been less prolonged, there is still a good deal of drunkenness, although not so much as formerly. But among nations to whom strong alcohol has only recently been made available—the American Indian, for instance, or the Eskimo—drunkenness is frequent wherever the protecting arm ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... consciousness. The poet takes the most delicate sentiments and the finest emotions of civilization and cultivation, and grafts them upon the best qualities of savage life; which is as if a painter should represent an oak-tree bearing roses. The life of the North-American Indian, like that of all men who stand upon the base-line of civilization, is a constant struggle, and often a losing struggle, for mere subsistence. The sting of animal wants is his chief motive of action, and the full gratification of animal wants his highest ideal of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... battle four hundred Spanish soldiers were killed. It seems that the rebels in the Philippines fight in the American Indian fashion; that is to say, they get under cover, behind bushes or trees, and, taking careful aim at their enemy, make every shot tell. In this manner they are able to inflict great injury without ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 50, October 21, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... general appearance of the men of various races are most striking. No one could mistake a Chinaman for a North American Indian, or a Negro for a Malay or a Maori. Not only are these men of various races different in outward appearance, but they have also minds of different characters, and seem naturally fitted for ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... first erected them. When so large a party as that now present travelled together, it was certain that they could find no adequate shelter unless they constructed it for themselves; and the Aleut, after all, is not like the American Indian, who makes himself comfortable where night finds him, but is rather a village-dweller, who rarely wanders farther from home than a day's journey or so ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... Drawing of an American Indian, with Chocolate Whisk, etc. Native American Indians Roasting the Beans, etc. Ancient Mexican Drinking Cups Cacao Tree, with Pods and Leaves Cacao Tree, shewing Pods Growing from Trunk Flowers and Fruits on main branches of a Cacao Tree Cacao Pods Cut Pod, revealing the White Pulp round the Beans ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... out of sight, even by those most inclined to rely on the military prestige of France, acquired in wars of the old conventional European type. Brought year by year more and more into contact with the white man, and year by year more debased by an insatiable thirst for the deadly fire-water, the American Indian had indeed gradually become less and less formidable to his foes; he was, however, by no means an enemy to be despised. Many a well-conceived plan was defeated by the sudden and murderous onslaught of a tribe whose stealthy approach had eluded ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach
... that Henry Horsecollar rose to a point of disorder and intervened, showing, admirable, the advantages of education as applied to the American Indian's natural intellect and native refinement. He stood up and smoothed back his hair on each side with his hands as you have seen little girls do when ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... of the world, the most interesting parable of this class that occurs to my memory is one attributed to a North American Indian in conversation with a Christian missionary. The red man had previously been well instructed in the Scriptures, understood the way of salvation, and enjoyed peace with God. Desiring to explain to his teacher the turning point of ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... control the human race. They make the Australian a savage; incapacitate the negro, who can never invent an alphabet or an arithmetic, and whose theology never passes beyond the stage of sorcery. They cause the Tartars to delight in a diet of milk, and the American Indian to abominate it. They make the dwarfish races of Europe instinctive miners and metallurgists. An artificial control over temperature by dwellings, warm for the winter and cool for the summer; variations of clothing to suit the season of the year, and especially the management of fire, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Spring of 1917 the fighting in the air took on an entirely new interest abroad, because of the German policy of painting their machines most grotesque patterns. They seemed to have taken this idea from the old American Indian custom of painting their faces to frighten their opponents, or else the fancies of the German airmen were allowed to run riot with ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... difficulty in imagining what he does, and even of imagining what he probably imagined, and finding our suppositions verified by discovery. Yet his powers of observation may be marvellously developed. The North American Indian tracks his foe through the forest by signs unrecognizable to a white man, and he reasons most astutely upon them, and still that very man turns out to be a mere child when put before problems a trifle out of his beaten path. And all ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... or more generic forms that constituted the varieties of Hawaiian dress, which were the malo of the man, the pa-u of the woman, and the decent kihei, a toga-like robe, which, like the blanket of the North American Indian, was common to both sexes. Still another gesture, a sweeping of the hands from the shoulder down toward the ground, would be used to indicate that costly feather robe, the ahuula, which was the regalia and prerogative of kings ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... high moral and mental status of these people is fully recognised by their European successors is proved by the fact that many Americans in high stations to-day actually boast of having in their veins the blood of the North American Indian. And yet these highly gifted people had not when Columbus discovered America attained to the knowledge of iron. Despite the advantages of a most favourable environment and a stimulating climate, the Red Indians were in point of mechanical ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... tribe. He, himself, had made a large circle of acquaintance among the braves, and many of them had become strongly attached to him. Some of these attachments have existed for years and are still maintained; for, a fact well known, the American Indian warrior, as a general rule, is true and unchangeable in his friendships. With this object in view, Carson, putting his horse to his speed, started for the Utah village. On making his errand known to such of the braves as enjoyed his confidence, he found no difficulty in engaging a well-known ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... Song of Hiawatha is based on the legends and stories of many North American Indian tribes, but especially those of the Ojibway Indians of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. They were collected by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, the reknowned historian, pioneer explorer, and geologist. He was superintendent of Indian affairs for ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... what name to give to—not my new baby, but my new poem. Shall it be 'Gabrielle,' or 'Celestine,' or 'Evangeline'?" In the journal for 1854 is noted on June 22, "I have at length hit upon a plan for a poem on the American Indian, which seems to me the right one and the only. It is to weave together their beautiful traditions into a whole. I have hit upon a measure, too, which I think the right and only one for such a theme;" and on June 28, "Work at 'Manabozho'; ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... license, this scene takes place in the Court of King George III. Colonial emissaries, accompanied by a North American Indian, attend, and are graciously granted by the King a Royal Charter establishing the Society of the New York Hospital, along with a seal, insignia, and a money gift. A bit of color and romance attaches to the Cherokee's appearance ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... Stewart to have them taken off, but the unhappy captive was still held as a pledge until the flax was paid over. It was paid over. Then this British sea-captain gave up his security, who with his wife was tortured and killed, enduring his torments with the stoicism of a North American Indian. The instrument of his death ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... only with the inhabitants of the district, but with the troops themselves; and these, from frequent association with the whites, had lost much of that fierceness which is so characteristic of the North American Indian in his ruder state. Among these, with the more intelligent Hurons, were the remnants of those very tribes of Shawanees and Delawares whom we have recorded to have borne, half a century ago, so ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... of the American Indian is well illustrated in this skirmish which took place at Saco. The old chief Mabretou, whose life had been prolonged through several generations, had inspired his allies to revenge, and had been present at the conflict. The Indian Panounias had been killed in an affray, the ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... seldom attained by them. Unceasing agitation wears out the animal frame and is unfriendly to length of days. We have seen them grey with age, but not old; perhaps never beyond sixty years. But it may be said, the American Indian, in his undebauched state, lives to an advanced period. True, but he has his seasons of repose. He reaps his little harvest of maize and continues in idleness while it lasts. He kills the roebuck or the moose-deer, which maintains him and his family for many days, during which cessation ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... natural hollows in the earth as that in which we had interred the hunter. On a search, it was ascertained that their arms and ammunition had been carried off, and that the pockets of the dead men had been rifled. The American Indian is seldom a thief, in the ordinary sense of the term; but, he treats the property of those whom he slays as his own. In this particular, he does not differ materially from the civilized soldier, I believe, plunder being usually considered as a legitimate benefit ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... all outdoors, smiling with a dignity that did not challenge and yet seemed to arm her against impertinence, not very dark, except for her long eyelashes—I have seen Italians and Greeks much darker—she somewhat resembled the American Indian, only that ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... too weak to sustain it, a magnificent sky-parlor, with all heaven in view from the upper windows, but with the whole family coming down in a crash presently, through a fatal neglect of the basement. In such a view, an American Indian or a Kaffir warrior may be a wholesome object, good for something already, and for much more when he gets a brain built on. But when one sees a bookworm in his library, an anxious merchant-prince in his counting-room, tottering feebly about, his thin underpinning scarcely able to support ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... South Dakota. Part of them later moved south and allied themselves with the Arapahoes. Their whole history has been one of war with their red and white neighbours. They are a powerful athletic race, mentally superior to the average American Indian. They are divided into eleven subdivisions and formerly had a council of chiefs. They number some 3000, and are divided into northern and southern Cheyennes; the former being on a reservation in Montana, the latter in Oklahoma. In 1878-79 a band of the former revolted, and some ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... themselves Dayaks, and to use the designation as an anthropological descriptive is an inadmissible generalisation. Nevertheless, in the general conception the word has come to mean all the natives of Borneo except the Malays and the nomadic peoples, in the same way as American Indian stands for the multitude of tribes distributed over a continent. In this sense, for the sake of convenience, I shall myself use the word, but to apply it indiscriminately to anthropological matters is as unsatisfactory as if one should describe a certain tribe in the new world ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... together thoughtfully. "That might explain it. Maybe she thinks I'm only a sort of wild North American Indian because our place is named Ware's Wigwam, and that it is beneath her dignity to be intimate with her inferiors. But if that is what is the matter, she's just a snob, and can't be very sure ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... cannot certainly tell; but we may well suppose it to be due to its being more or less correlated with constitutional characters favourable to life. By far the most common colour of man is a warm brown, not very different from that of the American Indian. White and black are alike deviations from this, and are probably correlated with mental and physical peculiarities which have been favourable to the increase and maintenance of the particular race. I shall infer, therefore, that the brown or red was the original colour of man, and ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... the temptation to enter upon the analysis and portraiture of the original and native character of the North-American Indian. Voluptuary and stoic; swept by gusts of fury too terrible to be witnessed, yet imperturbable beyond all men, under the ordinary excitements and accidents of life; garrulous, yet impenetrable; curious, yet himself reserved, proud and mean alike beyond compare; ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... the Raven cycle of American Indian mythology indicated that these stories originated in the northern part of British Columbia and traveled southward along the coast. One of the evidences of the direction of this progress is the gradual diminution of complexity in the stories as they traveled into regions farther ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... depended crosses and lockets of the same material: she had jet earrings and jet bracelets; and had altogether a beaded and bugled appearance, which would have been eminently fascinating to the untutored taste of a North American Indian. ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... print, I find. Victor Hugo has presented him in a light not unlike that of Cooper's noble savage—with large difference of color and pose, of course. The average Frenchman knows Cooper's noble savage as well as we know Hugo's romantic ragpicker, and he knows nothing of the American Indian besides. (It is a curious fact, which I may note in passing, that the only American author whose writings appear to be really well known in Paris to-day is Fenimore Cooper. Next to him stands Edgar Poe—Poaye, as the French call him, pronouncing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... easily-roused condition in the North American Indian. The feast began, despite the absence of our waif; and the waif's mother set to work with undiminished appetite. Meanwhile the waif himself went farther and farther astray—swayed alternately by the spirit of the stoic and the spirit of the little child. But little ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... fabrics and qualities of cloth, &c.; and, in walking, often ascertain, by the feeling of the air, or by other sensations, when they approach a building, or any other considerable body. So the North American Indian, whose habits of life seem to require it, can hear the footsteps of an approaching enemy at distances which astonish us. So also the deaf and dumb are very keen-sighted, and generally make very accurate observations. Any reader who is ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... transportation, and her farewell address was as follows: 'If they should be cruel enough to order you to be transported for fourteen years, Freddy, my dear, I shall try to persuade your father (though he's just like a savage North American Indian about you) to get it changed "for life" instead, for they always die of the yellow fever for the sharks to eat them, when they've been over there three or four years; and four years are better than fourteen, though bad's the best, and ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... race, such as are met with in the tribes and peoples of Asia. Compare, for instance, the plastic mobility of the Pangwee and Bakwain with the rigidity of the Hindu or Chinese. Or where the case may be seen in even a more striking way, compare the African negro with the American Indian; take the one from his tropical wilds, the other from his forest home, and place them both under the same civilizing influences, and where at the end of a fixed period will you find them? In a single generation ...
— The Future of the Colored Race in America • William Aikman
... hold-on, never-let-go fighting power, and his high, full forehead of intellectual, mightily intellectual power; and they are re-enforced with cheek-bones and nose which suggest that this fighting power has in it something of the grim ruthlessness of the North American Indian. The eyes, however, are the crowning characteristic ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... (Celtic) Samovar (Russian) Polka (Polish) Chess (Persian) Shekel (Hebrew) Tea (Chinese) Algebra (Arabic) Kimono (Japanese) Puttee (Hindoo) Tattoo (Tahitian) Boomerang (Australian) Voodoo (African) Potato (Haytian) Skunk (American Indian) Guano ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... American Indian who discovered the silver mines of Potosi by the turning up of a bush at the roots, which he had caught hold of to aid his ascent while pursuing a deer up a steep hill, represents very well how far intention and will are concerned in the grand ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... greater. Another class was restrained by a sentiment possibly the oldest and most general amongst men; that which casts a spell of sanctity around wells and springs, and stays the hand about to toss an impurity into a running stream; which impels the North American Indian to replace the gourd, and the Bedouin to spare the bucket for the next comer, though an enemy. In other words, the cistern ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... were left alive among the pack, including several wounded ones, withdrew to a far end of the ice floe, the adventurers crawled back under the tent for a much-needed rest. The Esquimaux, with a silence worthy of an American Indian, took up his position in ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... shouts and chants changed abruptly, and the dancing increased in fervor, even the children throwing themselves wildly about. The witch-doctors ran around like so many maniacs, and it looked as much like an American Indian war dance as ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... cover," suggested Selwyn, which was immediately acted upon. With their combined efforts, amid much laughter, it was draped about Rex's shoulders in a fashion very nearly approaching the graceful style of a North American Indian's blanket. A Russian bath towel, which they also found in the closet, was arranged on his head for a wig; then Selwyn was placed behind a chair which was supposed to be the prisoner's box, the judge took ...
— The Children's Portion • Various
... various publications are: "Problems of Race Assimilation," by Arthur C. Parker, in the January number of The American Indian Magazine; The Cavalry Fight at Carrizal, by Louis S. Morey, in The Journal of the United States Cavalry Association; The Present Labor Situation, in the January number of The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences; Physic Factors in the New American ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... so widespread that it cannot be fastened on any one race or even family of nations. The Scotch have it; it is characteristic of the Chinese and of the American Indian. But, independently of the basic mode or scale, negro songs show here and there a strange feeling for a savage kind of lowering of this last note. The pentatonic scale simply omits it, as well as the fourth step. But the African ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... distinguishing feature among the races of men, not only in regard to its colour, but also as to its texture. In fact, the human race is by some classified according to the character of the hair of the head. Compared under the microscope a section of the hair of a Chinaman or an American Indian is found to be circular, that of a European oval in shape. As a rule, the flatter the hair the more readily it curls, the perfectly cylindrical hair hanging down stiff and straight. A section of the straight hair of a Japanese, for instance, ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... money-changer's show-window; a sister of charity walks beside a Jewish Rabbi; then comes a brawny negro, then a bare-legged Highlander; figures such as are met in the Levant; school-boys with their books and lunch-boxes, Cockneys fresh from Piccadilly, a student who reminds us of Berlin, an American Indian, in pantaloons; a gaunt Western, a keen Yankee, and a broad Dutch physiognomy alternate; flower-venders, dog-pedlers, diplomates, soldiers, dandies, and vagabonds, pass and disappear; a firemen's procession, fallen horse, dead-lock of vehicles, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... Universal Races Congress was held in the city of London in 1911, Dr. Eastman was chosen to represent the American Indian at that historic gathering. He is generally recognized as the foremost man of his race to-day, and as an authority on the history, customs, and traditions of ...
— The Indian Today - The Past and Future of the First American • Charles A. Eastman
... show how demoralizing the traffic was I will relate an instance: "Old Bull Tail," a chief of the Sioux, had an only daughter, who was named Chint-zille. She was very handsome as savage beauty goes, and the old chief really loved her, for the North American Indian is possessed of as much devotion to his family as is to be found in the most cultivated of the white race; but the old fellow was inordinately fond of getting drunk, and at one time, not having the wherewithal to procure the necessary liquor, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... physically perfect, grand in character, and true to the instincts of his conscience—than any other race of beings, civilized or uncivilized. Where do we hear such noble sentiments or meet with such examples of heroism and self-sacrifice as the history of the American Indian furnishes? Where shall we go to hear again such oratory as that of Black Hawk and Logan? Certainly the records of our so-called civilization do not furnish it, and the present century ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... as to the rights and wrongs, privileges and grievances, and worthiness and worthlessness of the North American Indian. Some people think that the red man has been shamefully treated and betrayed by the white man, and that the catalogue of his grievances is as long as the tale of woe the former is apt to tell, whenever he can make himself ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... of speculation, on this sanative power in the physical constitution of man, lies open to out view, had we time to pursue it, in contemplating the habits, customs, and manners of the North American Indian. Guided by the simple dictates of nature, he gratifies his appetite with such food as comes most readily within his reach, and slakes his thirst at the first mountain brook. Sometimes, for days, he lies sleeping in his smoky wigwam without the means of appeasing hunger; ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... characterized by promiscuous relations of the sexes. In 1877 Mr. Lewis H. Morgan, an American ethnologist and sociologist, put forth again, independently, practically the same theory, basing it upon an extensive study of the North American Indian tribes. Morgan had lived among the Iroquois Indians for years and had mastered their system of relationship, which previously had puzzled the whites. He found that they traced relationship through mothers only, and not at all along the male line. This method of reckoning relationship, moreover, ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... resound the splash of water and the merry laughter of matrons and maidens bathing in the clear pools, and from above the more boisterous shouts of men and boys. Surely he who says the American Indian is morose, stolid, and devoid of humor never knew him in the intimacy ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... drawn from their native barbarism and carried among civilized nations, they soon forget what they learn and relapse into barbarism. If the inherent potency of the prognathous type of mankind had been greater than it actually is, sufficiently great to give it the independence of character that the American Indian possesses, the world would have been in a great measure deprived of cotton and sugar. The red man is unavailable as a laborer in the cane or cotton field, or any where else, owing to the unalterable ethnical ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... well-being. Theoretically, child-bearing ought to be but little more painful than the functionating of numerous other vital organs—stomach, heart, bladder, bowels, etc.—and, indeed, it is not in the case of certain savage tribes and other aboriginal people, such as our own North American Indian. ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... the liquor was a mystery, but it was an attraction that never failed to draw Teddy forth into the forest. The effect of alcoholic stimulants upon persons is as various as are their temperaments. The American Indian almost always becomes sullen, vindictive and dangerous. Now and then there is an exception, as was the case with the new-made friend of Teddy. Both were affected in precisely a similar ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... toes through, were pondering over the embarrassment of shoes impervious to the air. The minor apparatus of court costume scattered round on the chairs, the bags and swords, the buckles and gloves, were stared at by the groups with the wonder and perplexity of an American Indian. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... would paint up this mask for me like a North American Indian," Bertie interrupted, pulling a hideous pasteboard face from his pocket. "Will you, Eddie? If I attempt to put on the war-paint, I shall make a mess of it." But Eddie indignantly refused to lend his talent to such base uses, and Agnes declared she would ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... like the attempt to put a coat and trousers on the American Indian. The hero flings them off on the first opportunity, takes to his plumes and painted skin, and prefers being tomahawked in a swamp to dying in a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... belongs to the nature or character of the person, thing, or class, and serves to identify an object; as, a copper-colored skin, high cheek-bones, and straight, black hair are characteristics of the American Indian. A sign is manifest to an observer; a mark or a characteristic may be more difficult to discover; an insensible person may show signs of life, while sometimes only close examination will disclose ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... were magi as they were priests in the same sense that the American Indian shaman is both magus and priest. That is, they were medicine-men on a higher scale, and had reached a loftier stage of transcendental knowledge than the priest-magicians of more barbarous races. Thus they may be said to be ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... art, however, will probably supersede equestrian performances on the turf. The horse will no longer be tortured for the amusement of man; but fellow bipeds, equipped in querpo, will start for the prize, and, with the fleetness of a North-American Indian, bound along the lists, amid the acclamations and cheers of admiring multitudes. The competition between man and man in the modern foot-race is certainly fair; but, for the better regulation of the movements of public runners, it might be expedient that an amateur, mounted ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... tail, you see!" said Phil, and the Urson remarked that as that was the case he must learn to do without. Yawning at intervals, he told Phil how his great-great-grandfather ("a most distinguished inhabitant of this forest") had defended himself single-handed against the attack of an American Indian, coming off victorious in the fight, though leaving half his tail ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... endeavoring to drill a band of Indians, whom he had dressed in red coats and trowsers. A more ridiculous performance was never seen anywhere, and only an officer like Captain Woodbine, who knew absolutely nothing of the habits and character of the American Indian, would ever have thought of attempting to make regularly drilled and uniformed soldiers out of men of that race. They were excellent fighters, in their own savage way, but no amount of drilling could turn them into soldiers of ...
— Captain Sam - The Boy Scouts of 1814 • George Cary Eggleston
... lithe, strong, graceful, commanding. His jaw was the jaw of courage; his chin meant purpose; his nose symboled intellect, poise and power; his brow spelled brain. He was a handsome man, and he was not wholly unaware of the fact. In him was the pride of the North American Indian, and a little of the reserve of the savage. His silence was always eloquent, and in it was neither stupidity nor vacuity. With friends he was witty, affable, generous, lovable. In business negotiation he was rapid, direct, incisive; or smooth, plausible ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... more noticeable than the costume, as among the coolies or laborers from India or Arabia. Chinese, Japanese, various races of Malays and East Indians, jostle elbows with Englishmen, Americans and every other race under the sun except perhaps, the American Indian. It is surely a motley throng and the tower of Babel was nowhere compared to ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... The story of the American Indian is one of the darkest blots on the page of the history of civilization. Of the three principal peoples of Europe who settled the New World,—the Spanish, the British, and the French,—the Spanish made slaves of them and dealt ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and are, gradually, by honorable marriage among themselves, changing the alleged "race characteristics and tendencies" of the Negro people. A race element, it is safe and fair to conclude, incapable, like that of the North American Indian, of such a process of elimination and assimilation, will always be a thorn in the flesh of the Republic, in which there is, admittedly, no place for the integrality and growth of a distinct race type. The Afro-American people, for reasons that I have ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.
... American Indian name, the lovely white Cherokee Rose (R. Sinica), that runs wild in the South, climbing, rambling, and rioting with a truly Oriental abandon and luxuriance, did indeed come from China. Would that our northern thickets and roadsides might be decked with its pure flowers and almost equally ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... instruction of the Ireus at Sparta. Compare with the training given among the best of the American Indian tribes (1). ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... ordered him at once to take his place inside and eat his dinner. The henpecked husband dared not refuse, and he was accordingly compelled to take part in the meal, while constantly occupied in thinking that the Huron was waiting for him; but, as patience is one of the cardinal virtues of the North American Indian, Hans was sure of finding him at the ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... Isles' first occurs at Lake Huron, and thence westward is met with in Superior, Michigan, and the vast and numerous lakes of the interior. Those who have been in Asia, and have turned their attention to the subject, will recognize the resemblance in sound between the North American Indian and the Tartar names."—Montgomery Martin's History of Canada, vol. i., ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton
... no book outside of the Bible has been translated into so many languages, or circulated so widely. Thirty-seven years after its publication one hundred thousand copies were in circulation. The first book translated into any of the dialects of the American Indian, it was from its pages that the red man read his first lessons concerning the true God, and his own relations to that God. At the present day it is taught in ten different ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... torture employed by criminal women are so horrible that they cannot be described without outraging the laws of decency. Less squeamish than Lombroso or Mr Barry, I gather aloud that the tortures have to do with the organs of generation. But male savages in African and American Indian tribes have a punishment for adulterous women which will match anything in that line women have ever achieved, and men in England itself have wreaked perverted vengeance on women in ways indescribable too. Though ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... Polynesian in this, as in all other respects, is our grave and decorous North American Indian. While the former bestows a name in accordance with some humorous or ignoble trait, the latter seizes upon what is deemed the most exalted or warlike: and hence, among the red tribes, we have the truly patrician appellations of "White ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville |
