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Contents vii
4 Native Peoples of the Subarctic 83

Geography and Environment 83
A Basic Prehistory of the Subarctic 84
The Paleoindian Period (to ca. 10,000 b.p.) 84
The Archaic (ca. 10,000 b.p. to Contact) 85
The Contact Period 85
The Impact of European Contact 86
A Brief History of Ethnographic Research 86
A Broad Portrait of Subarctic Groups 87
Political Organization 87
Social Organization 88
Economics 89
Material Culture and Technology 90
Religion 90
Subarctic Peoples Today 91
Learn More About Contemporary Subarctic Peoples 92
The Western Woods Cree: A Subarctic Case Study 92
5 Native Peoples of the Plateau 101

A Basic Prehistory of the Plateau 103
The Paleoindian Period (ca. 14,000 to 10,000 b.p.) 103
A Broad Portrait of Plateau Groups 105
Economics 106
SIDELIGHT: The Modoc War 107
Religion 109
Plateau Indians Today 109
Learn More About Contemporary Plateau Peoples 110
The Nimiipuu (Nez Perce): A Plateau Case Study 110
VIP PROFILE: Chief Joseph 113
6 Native Peoples of the Northwest Coast 120

A Basic Prehistory of the Northwest Coast 122
The Early Holocene (ca. 10,000 to 5,000 b.p.) 122
The Middle Holocene (ca. 5,000 to 3,500 b.p.) 122
The Developed Northwest Coast Pattern (ca. 3,500 to 200 b.p.) 123
A Broad Portrait of Northwest Coast Groups 125
viii Contents

The Potlatch 127
Economics 128
SIDELIGHT: Art of the Northwest Coast 132
Religion 132
Northwest Coast Indians Today 133
VIP PROFILE: Chief Seathl 134
Learn More About Contemporary Northwest Coast Peoples 135
The Kwakwaka’wakw: A Northwest Coast Case Study 135
7 Native Peoples of the Great Basin 144

A Basic Prehistory of the Great Basin 146
Late Farmers 147
VIP PROFILE: Sarah Winnemucca, Northern Paiute Leader 149
A Broad Portrait of Great Basin Groups 151
Economics 152
Religion 155
Great Basin Peoples Today 156
SIDELIGHT: The Ghost Dance Religion 157
Learn More About Contemporary Great Basin Peoples 158
The Owens Valley Paiute: A Great Basin Case Study 159
The Chemehuevi: A Great Basin Case Study 166
8 Native Peoples of California 173

A Basic Prehistory of California 175
The Paleoindian Period (ca. 12,000 b.p. to 10,000 b.p.) 175
A Broad Portrait of California Indians 178
Economics 179
VIP PROFILE: Ishi: “The Last Wild Indian in North America” 179
Religion 181
Contents ix
California Indians Today 181

Learn More About Contemporary California Peoples 181
The Yokuts: A California Case Study 182
The Chumash: A California Case Study 187
9 Native Peoples of the Southwest 195

A Basic Prehistory of the Southwest 197
The Archaic (ca. 10,000 to 2,000 b.p.) 197
Farmers and Pueblos 197
VIP PROFILE: Geronimo, Apache Leader 202
A Broad Portrait of Southwestern Pueblo Groups 203
Economics 205
Religion 206
Pueblo Peoples Today 207
A Broad Portrait of Non-Pueblo Southwestern Groups 207
SIDELIGHT: The Myth of Don Juan 208
Economics 209
Non-Pueblo Peoples Today 209
Learn More About Contemporary Southwestern Peoples 210
The Hopi: A Southwestern Case Study 210
SIDELIGHT: The Navajo–Hopi Land Dispute 213
The Navajo: A Southwestern Case Study 225
The Rarámuri: A Southwestern Case Study 235
10 Native Peoples of the Plains 245

A Basic Prehistory of the Plains 246
The Plains Woodland Period (ca. 2,500 to 1,000 b.p.) 247
The Plains Village Period (ca. 1,000 b.p. to Contact) 247
The Impact of the Horse on Plains Culture 249
VIP PROFILE: Sitting Bull, Hunkpapa Leader 250
A Broad Portrait of Plains Groups 253
Plains Warfare 254
x Contents

Economics 256
Religion 258
Plains Indians Today 260
Learn More About Contemporary Plains Peoples 261
The Cheyenne: A Plains Case Study 261
The Pawnees: A Plains Case Study 270
11 Native Peoples of the Northeast 280

A Basic Prehistory of the Northeast 282
The Woodland Period (ca. 3,000 b.p. to Contact) 283
A Broad Portrait of Northeastern Groups 286
Warfare 287
VIP PROFILE: Pocahontas 287
Economics 289
Religion 291
Northeastern Indians Today 291
Learn More About Contemporary Northeastern Peoples 292
The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois): A Northeastern Case Study 293
VIP PROFILE: Hiawatha 295
The Ottawa: A Northeastern Case Study 305
12 Native Peoples of the Southeast 313

A Basic Prehistory of the Southeast 315
The Paleoindian Period (to ca. 10,000 b.p.) 315
The Woodland Period (ca. 3,000 to 1,100 b.p.) 315
The Mississippian Period (ca. 1,100 to 500 b.p.) 316
SIDELIGHT: The Development of the Seminole 318
A Broad Portrait of Southeastern Groups 321
Economics 323
Religion 324
Contents xi
Southeastern Indians Today 325

Learn More About Contemporary Southeastern Peoples 326
The Cherokee: A Southeastern Case Study 326
VIP PROFILE: Sequoyah: Cherokee Leader 329
The Natchez: A Southeastern Case Study 336
13 Contemporary Issues 343

Sovereignty and Decolonialism 344
Tribal Recognition 345
Land Claims and Settlements 346
Control of the Past 347
NAGPRA 347
Native American Historians, Anthropologists, and Archaeologists 348
Health and Welfare 349
Preservation of Tradition 349
Religion 349
Education 350
Language Revitalization 350
Misuse of Native Images and Traditions 351
Economic Development 352
Gaming 352
Tourism 354
Natural Resources 354
Fishing, Hunting, and Gathering 355
Climate Change 356
Expression 356
The Future 356
Sidelight: Visiting Native North America 357
Internet Resources for Materials on Native Americans 359

Glossary 360
References and Suggested Readings 365
Index 405
Preface
One of the major goals of this fifth edition was to reorganize and expand the chapter on
Contemporary Issues; add some new photos; correct errors; and update all of the other
materials in the book, particularly the sections on prehistory. The recently published A
Prehistory of North America (Sutton, 2010) is also organized by culture area and can serve
as a companion volume to this edition of An Introduction to Native North America. An
Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank are available to supplement this edition.
What’s New in This Edition?

●● Revised treatments of prehistory for each culture area
●● A major reorganization and expansion of Chapter 13, Contemporary Issues
●● Expansion of the section on governmental policies
●● Addition of new research findings and updating of existing information
Acknowledgments
A number of colleagues have taken the time to suggest improvements to this book,
and I am indebted to them for their efforts. Excellent suggestions were provided by the
anonymous reviewers of this edition. In addition, I benefited from the thoughts and
advice of Jill K. Gardner, James Helmer, Brian E. Hemphill, Henry C. Koerper, William
L. Merrill, and Richard H. Osborne.
M. Q. S.
1 Introduction
In 1492, when Christopher Columbus landed on a small island in the Caribbean,

everyone’s world changed. In Europe, it kick-started the age of exploration (for better or
for worse), science and technology began to dominate, and European powers came to
control much of the planet. The New World followed a very different trajectory, one of
genocide, disease, slavery, and domination.
The New World was occupied by many millions of people belonging to many
hundreds, perhaps as many as a thousand, different cultures. These cultures were
incredibly diverse, ranging from very small groups of hunters and gatherers to large
groups of farmers living in cities, and having social and political institutions of varying
complexities comparable to any in the world.
Europeans wanted to believe that they had “discovered” a new land, untouched
and pristine, a land occupied by wandering, primitive savages who did not “properly”
possess the land. They believed it their duty to drag these native peoples from their state
of savagery into the light of civilization. These beliefs served to justify the conquest of
the New World and are still widely held today. But despite the onslaught of Europeans,
native peoples have survived.
Why are we interested in learning about Native North America? In the abstract, Native
American culture is part of the larger human experience. Each culture is unique and the
more we know about different cultures, the more we know collectively about all people.
Anthropology holds the view that all cultures are valid, that they have the right to exist,
and no one has the right to suppress them. Following this, the more that is known
about a group, the better it is protected.
Another tenet of anthropology is that no culture is better or worse than any other
(with some exceptions such as Nazi Germany) and that cultures should not be judged.
We all live in a multicultural world and it is important that everyone comprehend and
appreciate cultural diversity so that bias, ethnocentrism, and racism can be conquered.
As all cultures are unique, each has lessons to teach others and there is much (good and
bad) that Native Americans can offer, such as their environmental practices, philosophy,
literature, and the like. Their knowledge is useful to everyone and we can all learn from
their successes and failures.
A bit closer to home, American culture has been shaped, in part, by contact and inter-
action with native peoples over hundreds of years and an appreciation of that history
can help to better understand where we all are now and how we got here. It is important
for everyone to grasp the issues that surround minorities within a larger dominant
culture, and to look for solutions to problems inherent in that situation. Many native
peoples have gotten a “raw deal” and everyone should understand how that happened
and what can be done about it.
2 Introduction
The study of native peoples also contributes to our overall understanding of how
decentralized societies respond to colonial regimes, the effects of long-term poverty
and discrimination, cultural adaptations to new environments, and how native cultures
interact with, and influence, the dominant cultures. In some cases, the culture and
practices of some native peoples were, at least in part, preserved for later generations
by anthropologists. Lastly, Native American cultures are not “vanished races” consigned
to natural history museums but modern, active, and vibrant groups. Everyone should
celebrate the survival and revival of those cultures.
The Geography of North America

Prior to 1492, Europeans thought they knew the geography of the world and the location
and extent of the various major landmasses and bodies of water. The landmasses known
at that time consisted of Europe, Africa, Asia, and many of the islands of the western
Pacific. However, when they encountered a huge new landmass full of unfamiliar
people, it was seen as a “New World,” a name that continues to be used today (Fig. 1.1).
The world known to the Europeans prior to 1492 was subsequently referred to as the
Old World, a term also still used. Today, the New World is also known as the western
hemisphere and the Old World is the eastern hemisphere.
The New World is often described as comprising two continents: (1) North America,
which extends from the Arctic to Panama, and (2) South America, which runs from
Colombia to the southern tip of Chile. However, it is now common for the New World
to be thought of as three regions: North, Central, and South America. Many people
Greenland
Europe
North
America Asia
NTIC
EAN
Africa
South
America
Australia
Old World
0 1000 2000 New World
Miles
Kilometers
0 1000 2000
Figure 1.1 Simplified map of the world, showing both New and Old Worlds.
The Geography of North America 3
Greenland
North
America
South
America
Kilometers
0 1000 2000
Figure 1.2 Major cultural divisions of the New World.
consider North America to consist of the United States and Canada, Central America
to include Mexico and all the countries south through Panama, and South America to
extend from Colombia to the southern tip of Chile. A third way to conceptualize the
New World is based on broad cultural distinctions, leading to the specification of three
somewhat different regions: North America, Mesoamerica (meso meaning “middle”),
and South America (Fig. 1.2). According to this frame of reference, the southern
boundary of North America is located in northern Mexico; this definition is used in
this book.
After defining the southern boundary of North America, the question arises as to
whether to include Greenland to the north. Some researchers consider Greenland a part
of Europe, others a part of North America, while most simply ignore the problem. In
this book, Greenland is considered a part of North America, primarily because the Inuit
that inhabited much of Arctic North America also lived in Greenland.
The geography of North America is complex, and many regions can be defined within
it, based on a number of criteria. For the purposes of this book, seven general natural
areas are defined (Fig. 1.3); these overlap with the culture areas defined later. In the far
north lies the Arctic, a largely treeless region covered with snow and ice for most of the
year, roughly corresponding to the Arctic culture area. To the south of the Arctic lies a
region containing mountains and a vast, cold, coniferous forest with thousands of lakes
that generally coincides with the Subarctic culture area. Farther south, and east of the
Mississippi River, lies an extensive temperate forest, much of which has been destroyed
over the past 150 years, and this region is divided into the Northeast and Southeast
culture areas. West of the Mississippi River, an immense region of grasslands called
the Plains (both the geographic region and the culture area) extends west to the Rocky
4 Introduction
ARCTIC
OCEAN Greenland
Arctic
Moun
C
on
tai
Fo ifer
ns
re ou
st s
Pacific
Coast
Plains
Temperate ATLANTIC
PACIFIC
Forest
OCEAN OCEAN
Desert
0 500 1000
Miles
Kilometers
0 500 1000
Figure 1.3 Major natural areas of North America.
Mountains, which run north to south along much of North America. The Plains is now
mostly covered by fields of corn and wheat. A large desert occupies much of western
North America and includes both the Great Basin and Southwest culture areas. Lastly,
the Pacific coast lies along the western boundary of North America and encompasses
the Northwest Coast, California, and Plateau culture areas.
Culture Areas
Researchers recognized early on that cultures in similar environments tend to be similar
to one another, sharing some aspects of economy, politics, and even language. Large-
scale geographic regions where environment and culture were similar were defined in
the late 1890s and called culture areas, first in North and South America (Mason 1894),
then in other areas of the world. The definition of a culture area is never precise, and
there is considerable argument over how many there are, where their boundaries are,
which groups should be included in each, and even whether culture areas should be
defined at all. Ten culture areas are defined herein, following the Handbook of North
American Indians (see Fig. 1.4).
Using the culture area concept gives anthropologists the opportunity to compare
societies within broadly similar environments and to determine the extent of influence
from groups outside a particular culture area (diffusion, migrations, etc.). In spite of
many weaknesses—such as defining a single area that contains considerable cultural
and/or environmental diversity, the use of somewhat arbitrary criteria, the assumption
Ethnography and Ethnology 5
Russia
Asia
ARCTIC
OCEAN Greenland
Arctic
Subarctic
North America
au
Plate
Northwest
Coast
Great Northeast
Basin
Plains
California
ATLANTIC
st OCEAN
ea
uth
Sou
So
thw
PACIFIC
est
Gulf of
OCEAN Mexico
N
Mesoamerica
CARIBBEAN
0 500
1000 SEA
Miles
Kilometers
0 500 1000
Figure 1.4 Culture areas of North America. Adapted from Handbook of North American Indians, Vol.
4, History of Indian-White Relations, W. E. Washburn, ed., p. ix; copyright © 1988 by the
Smithsonian Institution. Used by permission of the publisher.
that a static cultural situation exists, and the tendency to equate environment with
cause—the culture area concept continues to be useful as a point of comparison
and reference. Most anthropologists use this concept, even if informally, to refer to
geographic regions and general culture. Most laypeople also inherently recognize
culture areas, having, for example, at least some idea that the native peoples of the
Plains are different from those of the Arctic.
Ethnography and Ethnology

Anthropologists conduct two general types of studies. The first is an ethnography, the
study of a particular group at a particular time (called the ethnographic present). Such
a study describes a group as they were at some point in time, such as 1850. Much of
the information in many ethnographies is based on memory culture—anthropologists
asking old people what they used to do—although additional information such as
explorers’ accounts, diaries, histories, and church records are also used. Ethnographies
are snapshots in time and often lack perspectives on how a culture developed up to the
ethnographic present and what happened to it afterward. Much of the description of
native groups in this book (the case studies) are ethnographies from the 1800s and so
describe groups as they used to be, but it is important to remember that all cultures are
dynamic, not static, entities.
6 Introduction
The second general type of study, called ethnology, is the comparative study of culture.
This can be done in several ways. Often, an ethnologist will take ethnographies of
different groups to compare their adaptations and responses to different or similar situa-
tions so as to gain some understanding of general cultural responses and adaptations.
Alternatively, one can use multiple ethnographies of the same group. For example, if
one had two ethnographies of the same group, say one describing them in 1850 and
another describing them in 1950, one could then compare the two and gain a consid-
erable understanding of how that culture developed and adapted through time. This
would provide a much richer understanding of the culture than just a snapshot of one
point in time. Unfortunately, there are relatively few such ethnologies.
Native North Americans

Prior to the arrival of Columbus, all of the people living in North America were native.
After 1492, however, immigrants of many ethnicities and cultures flooded the continent,
mixing both among themselves and with native peoples. While many “full-blooded”
native people still exist, the majority have a mixed biological and cultural heritage
(some have even formed new groups, such as the Métis of Canada and the Great Lakes
area, the Choctaw-Apaches of Louisiana, and the Lumbee of North Carolina), compli-
cating their classification (see Snipp 1989) and group memberships (see Basson 2008).
Recently, many more people have claimed Indian ancestry, based on a desire to be
Indian, newfound pride in their previously unclaimed ancestry, or changing definitions
of what an Indian is.
A good definition of Native American remains elusive. At least three general defining
categories apply: biological, administrative, and mystical (see Snipp 1989). Biological
definitions are usually based on some percentage of “Indian blood,” commonly
called “blood quantum” (e.g., one-quarter, one-eighth). Many tribes require a certain
percentage of blood quantum to classify a person as a tribal member. Administrative
definitions, often based on mystical and biological definitions, are also used to serve
whatever agency formulated them, such as a government definition of natives for
benefit and/or settlement purposes or a tribal definition of members for benefit and/
or voting purposes. Mystical definitions may consist of romantic, spiritual, and even
fictional views of a people descended from an ancient past. A person can claim to be an
Indian if he or she somehow feels like one (such as in the census). All of these defini-
tions are used, sometimes interchangeably. In the 2010 census, more than 5.3 million
Americans identified themselves as (at least part) Native American.
The People
It seems impossible to find an objective, universally accepted term for the indigenous
inhabitants of the Americas (see discussions in Churchill [1999]; and Yellow Bird
[1999]). Some use Native American, but others have argued that such a category includes
Native Hawaiians (although Hawai’i is not in North America and Native Hawaiians are
technically Polynesian) or even anyone born in North America regardless of his or her
ancestry. The widely used term Indian is sometimes considered inappropriate since it is
not even a native term, as it was misapplied by Columbus, who thought he was in the
East Indies. It is also possible to confuse Indians of the New World with the people of
India. The term American Indian would bypass those issues but the people of the Arctic
(e.g., the Inuit) are not biologically or culturally Indian although they are still Native
Americans. The terms Native Peoples and Native Nations suffer from similar problems.
Native North Americans 7
Some prefer the term First People to refer to indigenous people in general, a term that
could include Native Americans. In Canada, the term First Nations is commonly used.
The term aboriginal is also used in that same manner. Many Native Americans, such as
Hopi, want their specific group name to be used. In this book, the very general terms
Native American, native peoples, and Indian will be used and will apply to those people
who were indigenous to North America prior to the European invasion. Where possible,
specific group names will be used.
In the United States and Canada, native people are viewed as distinct from the
majority, non-Indian population. However, the situation is quite different in Mexico,
where Indians comprise the vast majority of the population. Some 75 percent of
Mexicans are of mixed Indian and non-Indian heritage (called mestizo), about 20
percent are full-blooded Indian, and some 5 percent are white, mostly of Spanish
heritage (West and Augelli 1989:291). In Mexico, most people identify themselves as
Mexican and only those who speak native languages are considered “Indios.”
Over time, many non-Indians intermarried and had children with Indians. Escaped
black slaves sometimes found refuge with native peoples (most Indians were not
concerned about skin color). Soon, people of mixed native–black heritage, the Black
Indians, came into existence (not limited to North America; see Katz [1997]). In North
America, Black Indians formed an important part of a number of native groups in the
American Southeast, including the Seminole (see Chapter 12).
Political Entities
As with the people themselves, it is difficult to find an accurate term for their political
units. Perhaps the smallest political unit is the band, typically a small group of families
living by hunting and gathering. The term tribe is often employed, but it carries a certain
anthropological meaning that does not apply to all groups (discussed later). Nation
could be (and often is) used, but that term could imply an organization and political
autonomy that is not true of all groups. In this book the generic term group will be used,
and wherever possible, the appropriate political term (e.g., tribe).
In the United States, about 900 groups claim native status. As of 2010, 564 tribes,
including some 229 groups in Alaska, have been formally recognized as having a
special “government-to-government” relationship with the United States (for a listing
of federally recognized groups, log on to www.ncsl.org/research/state-tribal-institute/list-
of-federal-and-state-recognized-tribes.aspx). As of 2008, approximately 250 additional
native groups (about 50 of them in California) have applied for federal recognition
(the number changes frequently as applications are accepted, denied, submitted, or
withdrawn). Many other North American groups exist in Canada and northern Mexico.
Population
The native population of North America prior to 1492 has not yet been accurately
determined. It was first thought that there were about 500,000 native people before the
arrival of Columbus. This low estimate was made partly to minimize native occupation
of the land, further justifying European intrusion. In the early 1900s, however, this view
began to change as a result of detailed work on population by researchers from the
Bureau of American Ethnology, who estimated that perhaps as many as three million
people existed in North America before 1492. After much more work, estimates of the
native population of North America just prior to the time of Columbus range from
about eight million to eighteen million (see Thornton 1987, 1997; Stannard 1992;
8 Introduction
Ubelaker 1992; Reddy 1995; Ogunwole 2006). However, a recent analysis of archaeo-
logical data (Milner and Chapin 2010) suggested that the population of North America
at about a.d. 1500 was between 1.2 and 6.1 million, well below the other estimates.
After 1492, it has been argued (e.g., Stannard 1992:268), there was a population decline
on the order of about 95 percent before the trend was reversed and populations began
to recover (see Table 1.1).
In 2010 (census data), some 2,870,645 people identified themselves as Native
American, with another 2,495,980 people claiming partial ancentry. The criteria for
classifying a person as an Indian or a member of a specific group can vary, depending
on the group, the census, the political climate, or other factors (see Weaver 2001). Also,
people who are Indian but have only recently listed themselves as Indian on the census
create an illusion of population increase. Nevertheless, it is clear that native populations
are increasing rapidly.
Language
Language is communication, either by speaking, signing, or body language, and the study
of language is called linguistics. But language is not simply communication; it is integral
to group identity and forms the basis of the organization of ideology and social structure.
Table 1.1 Native American Population of the United States
Year Population Percent Change Source
1500 10,000,000a N/A estimate

1800 600,000 94 estimate
1820 471,000 22 census
1847 383,000 18 census
1857 313,000 18 census
1870 278,000 11 census
1880 244,000 12 census
1890 228,000 7 census
1900 250,000 10 census
1910 279,000 12 census
1920 244,000 13 census
1930 332,000 36 census
1940 345,000 4 census
1950 357,000 4 census
1960 524,000 47 census
1970 792,000 51 census
1980 1,367,000 73 census
1990 1,900,000 39 census
2000 2,447,000 28 censusb
2010 2,870,645 18 censusc
2050 4,405,000 81 projectedb
a. This estimate of ten million is conservatively in the middle of various modern estimates ranging
from eight million to eighteen million (see Thornton 1987, 1997; Snipp 1989; Stannard 1992; Reddy
1995) although some estimates are considerably lower (e.g., Milner and Chapin 2010).
b. 2000 U.S. census data (Ogunwole 2006: Table 1).
c. 2010 U.S. census data (www.census.gov/population/www/cen2010/cph-t/t-6tables/TABLE%20(1).pdf)
Linguistics is commonly divided into structural and historical components, with

structural linguistics being focused on how languages are organized. Such study
general focuses on phonemes (units of sound), morphemes (units of meaning), syntax
(the rules for the use of phonemes and morphemes), and grammar (the rules for the
language as a whole). Structural linguistics includes the study of metaphor (a word or
phrase with a specific meaning used to apply a similar meaning in another situation);
specialized languages used in a social setting and based on gender, status, or ethnicity;
and lexicons (specialized languages within a language, such as used by doctors, hunters,
and the like). Finally, there is the idea (called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) that since
one thinks in one’s own language, thought is thus structured by the structure of
language, and since any single language is limited in its scope, culture and thought are
thus limited.
Historical linguistics focuses on the history of languages and how they change through
time. Such change can result from any number of factors, including the invention or
introduction of new technologies, interactions with new cultures, diffusion of new
traits (e.g., a new religion) into a culture, and migration into a new area (with different
plants and animals). One of the major research areas in historical linguistics is tracing
the movement of languages across space and time. For example, the enormous linguistic
diversity in California suggests a history of considerable population movements into
the region over the last 10,000 years. Conversely, the stark lack of linguistic diversity in
the Great Basin and northern Arctic suggests recent population movements across those
regions, with little time for languages to have diversified.
A bewildering array of languages was spoken in aboriginal North America—more
than 400 belonging to some 62 language families (see Goddard 1996a, 1996b: Table
3, 1996c) (Fig. 1.5). People were generally multilingual, and in some cases, specialized
languages were developed to facilitate trade and diplomacy (e.g., the Chinook Jargon,
see p. 123). Understanding the distribution of languages across North America is
important for interpreting relationships between cultures, the transmission of culture
and traits, and the interactions between cultures. It is also critical to the reconstruction
of group movements over time and has helped cast light on the past of much of North
America (see Foster 1996).
In 1995, only 209 of the original 400 or so indigenous languages were still spoken,
and only 46 were spoken by children (Goddard 1996b: Table 2). It seems that the
others will become extinct very soon. The loss of native languages carries a high price,
including the loss of knowledge, philosophy, worldview, and many other aspects of
native culture.
Territories and Boundaries

In Europe, nations maintained strict territorial boundaries. The borders defining each
country were set and defended by force of arms. Americans still hold this general view
regarding territory; thus, we have imposed territorial boundaries on many native groups,
even though this may lead to false impressions of how native peoples viewed the land.
A glance at the maps in this book will illustrate this point. Each group’s territory is
bounded by lines, and there are no unassigned areas. In reality, however, many groups
did not have a set territory with well-defined and defended borders. In many cases, a
group would have a core area and a peripheral area that may have overlapped with the
peripheral areas of other groups. Thus it is impossible to draw a single, accurate line
between the lands occupied by any two groups, but nevertheless, this is typically done
for the sake of convenience.
10 Introduction
In addition, groups have moved about the landscape throughout time, and their
territories have changed, just as those of European countries have. When explorers or
anthropologists recorded the territory of a group, they defined it as it existed at that
point in time (known as the ethnographic present) but may not have reflected past
territories. These recorded territories now seem to be set in “stone,” though they reflect
only part of a group’s historical relationship with the land.
However, some groups did claim specific territories and boundaries, which they
frequently defended. In some Northwest Coast groups, clans owned specific areas; some
Plains groups had defined hunting territories; and many groups “owned” particular
places, such as springs and sacred sites, and others could access these localities only by
permission. Even if rigid territories were not as important to native peoples as they were
to Europeans, native groups certainly had an understanding of geography, as illustrated
by Warhus’s (1997) book on Native American geography and maps.
1 Eskimo-Aleut 10 Muskogean
2 Athapaskan 11 Timucuan
3 Algonquian 12 Tanoan
4 Salishan 13 Keresan
5 Penutian 14 Zuni
6 Hokan 15 Chumashan
7 Uto-Aztecan 16 Unclassified region
8 Siouan (too little information)
9 Caddoan
1 Greenland
2
1 1
Athapaskan
5 1
4 3 3
Algonquian
5
6 9 3
Uto-
Aztecan
5
14 3 9 8 3 3
7
16
12 8
2 3
N 12 7 9
10
13
2
7
16
Figure 1.5 General distribution of major language groups in North America. Adapted from Handbook
of North American Indians, Vol. 17, Languages, Ives Goddard, ed., map in rear pocket; copyright
© 1996 by the Smithsonian Institution. Reprinted by permission of the publisher.
Group Names
Each Native American group has always had a name for itself, a name that often
translates to something like “The People.” However, groups have often been known
to the outside world by other names, often applied to them by someone else only to
officially become their name, regardless of the wishes of the groups, assuming they
even knew about it. As time passed, many of these names stuck and now even the
Indians themselves often use them. In many cases, the new name applied to a group
was derogatory. For example, the group known as the Sioux (a Plains group; see Chapter
10) actually encompasses a number of related groups with other names, such as Oglala,
Hunkpapa, and Yankton. The word Sioux comes from a French translation of a term
applied to the general group by their enemies, the Blackfoot, and has something to do
with snakes. Although derogatory in origin, this name has been so commonly used that
it is now generally recognized, although the individual groups want to use their own
original names (e.g., Oglala). Another group, the Creek (in the Southeast; see Chapter
12), got their name from English settlers when describing the locations of their villages,
next to creeks. As part of their increasing pride and power, many native groups are trying
to revive their original names and asking that these be used instead of other names. For
example, the Nez Perce want to be called Nimiipuu, “The People.”
Archaeologists, not knowing what people in ancient cultures called themselves, have
also given various names to Native American groups. For example, the cultures that
lived along the Mississippi River prior to Columbus no doubt had names for themselves
but since those names are unknown, archaeologists generally call them “Mississippian.”
Sometimes the names assigned by archaeologists can cause problems. For example, for
more than 100 years, archaeologists have used the term Anasazi to refer to the prehis-
toric Puebloan people who lived in the American Southwest (see Chapter 9). The term
Anasazi originated from a Navajo word that generally refers to ancestor enemies, friends,
or relatives (Warburton and Begay 2005:537). However, the current Pueblo groups
do not like a Navajo word being used to describe their ancestors and prefer the term
Ancestral Puebloans instead. Most archaeologists now use that term.
The Role of Women

Native North American women, like women in many cultures, are underrepresented in
the ethnographic database; thus, their roles, power bases, and lives are poorly under-
stood. Part of the problem is that most early anthropologists were men. They were
interested only in male activities and talked mostly to men. Some notable exceptions to
this general tendency include the work of Anna Gayton in California and Elsie Parsons
in the Southwest. Recently, however, there has been a considerable increase in the study
of women in native cultures (see P. G. Allen 1986; Boyer and Gayton 1992; Green 1992;
Klein and Ackerman 1995; Maltz and Archambault 1995; Perdue 1997, 2001; G. Riley
1997; Bataille and Lisa 2001; Kugel and Murphy 2007; Sonneborn 2007; B. A. Mann
2008; Valaskakis et al. 2009).
Western people tend to view the women of many traditional cultures around the
world as silent and powerless within their own cultures, as little more than mothers
and domestic laborers. This probably reflects the Western view of women up until very
recent times. The terms squaw, used to refer to average Native American women, and
Indian Princess, used to refer to royal (a European concept) women, are characteristic
of this view. It is probably true that women provided much of the food in most tradi-
tional societies, but it is not true that women had no power. We just do not yet fully
12 Introduction
understand what that power was or how it manifested itself. It has also been argued
(P. G. Allen 1986) that the male-centric colonial powers suppressed knowledge of the
important role of women in native societies.
For example, males held overt political power in Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) society
(in the Northeast; see Chapter 11) but in reality the women controlled the men and so
the political process, exercising much more power than apparent at first glance. In some
North American Indian societies, women were the landowners and exerted considerable
power; in many others, women led the primary social units and controlled many aspects
of their cultures.
Sex and Gender

Most Americans generally view gender as biological anatomy and sex as an activity.
However, in anthropology, sex refers to anatomy, with individuals being either male or
female. True hermaphrodites (having both male and female anatomy) do exist but are
rare in humans and most of us are sexually either male or female.
Gender, on the other hand, is an anthropological description of the culturally
defined role an individual plays in his or her society. Most males are raised to behave
as males (following how a culture defines that role) and most females assume female
roles. In Western society, a male who behaves in a female role is viewed as “abnormal”
and much effort is expended to suppress that desire and to get that male to behave
as a “male.” This is, at least partly, why Westerners do not make the clear distinction
between sex and gender; they want them to be the same because it is simple and neat
and so we can all be “normal.” Westerners do not like things that are in between set
categories and are uncomfortable with things that do not neatly fit our preconceived
notions. Nevertheless, Western culture is full of “in between” people, including trans-
vestites, transsexuals, gay and lesbian people, tomboys, and the like. Acceptance of these
individuals is a major issue in today’s society. There can be many gender categories
within the two sex categories, depending on the society.
Native American people have traditionally recognized the biological duality of
male and female. However, in many native cultures, the “in between” people were not
classified as abnormal but were instead accepted as regular folk doing different things.
Generally, no stigma was attached, and as a result, that individual had a much healthier
psyche. For a detailed treatment of sexual diversity in native North America, see W. L.
Williams (1986), Maltz and Archambault (1995), L. B. Brown (1997), Jacobs et al.
(1997), Lang (1998), Roscoe (1998), and Rifkin (2008).
Males who take on a female role were called “berdaches” (a term applied by early
French explorers) by anthropologists, who now use the term two-spirits. Two-spirits
would wear women’s clothing, participate in women’s activities, associate with women,
and could even have a husband. Some might even simulate a menstrual flow by
cutting themselves and/or simulate pregnancy by stuffing something in their clothing.
Two-spirits would often function in important ceremonial and economic roles. The
other males (in men’s roles) would usually treat a two-spirit as a female (even to the
point of marrying one) rather than as a “weird” male. In general, no automatic stigma
was attached.
Females sometimes assumed male roles and the terms “cross-gender female”
(Blackwood 1984), “Amazon” (W. L. Williams 1986), and “Men-women” (Lang
1998:261) have been applied. Females would dress and act as males, perform male
activities such as hunting, and even marry women. In some Plains groups, females
could participate in combat and even gain leadership status. Females might also become
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XIV
PRISONERS OF STATE AT BORO BOEDOR
The fact is not generally appreciated that there are ruins of Buddhist
and Brahmanic temples in Middle Java surpassing in extent and
magnificence anything to be seen in Egypt or India. There, in the
heart of the steaming tropics, in that summer land of the world below
the equator, on an island where volcanoes cluster more thickly and
vegetation is richer than in any other region of the globe, where
earthquakes continually rock and shatter, and where deluges
descend during the rainy half of the year, remains nearly intact the
temple of Boro Boedor, covering almost the same area as the Great
Pyramid of Gizeh. It is ornamented with hundreds of life-size statues
and miles of bas-reliefs presenting the highest examples of Greco-
Buddhist art—a sculptured record of all the arts and industries, the
culture and civilization, of the golden age of Java, of the life of the
seventh, eighth, and ninth centuries in all the farther East—a record
that is not written in hieroglyphs, but in plainest pictures carved by
sculptor’s chisel. That solid pyramidal temple, rising in magnificent
sculptured terraces, that was built without mortar or cement, without
column or pillar or arch, is one of the surviving wonders of the world.
On the spot it seems a veritable miracle.
It is one of the romances of Buddhism that this splendid
monument of human industry, abandoned by its worshipers as one
cult succeeded another, and forgotten after the Mohammedan
conquest imposed yet another creed upon the people, should have
disappeared completely, hidden in the tangle of tropical vegetation, a
formless, nameless, unsuspected mound in the heart of a jungle, lost
in every way, with no part in the life of the land, finally to be
uncovered to the sight of the nineteenth century. When Sir Stamford
Raffles came as British governor of Java in 1811, the Dutch had
possessed the island for two centuries, but in their greed for gulden
had paid no heed to the people, and knew nothing of that earlier time
before the conquest when the island was all one empire, the arts and
literature flourished, and, inspired by Hindu influence, Javanese
civilization reached its highest estate; nor did the Hollander allow any
alien investigators to peer about this profitable plantation. Sir
Stamford Raffles, in his five years of control, did a century’s work. He
explored, excavated, and surveyed the ruined temples, and
searching the voluminous archives of the native princes, drew from
the mass of romantic legends and poetic records the first “History of
Java.” His officers copied and deciphered inscriptions, and gradually
worked out all the history of the great ruins, and determined the date
of their erection at the beginning of the seventh century.
At this time Sir Stamford wrote: “The interior of Java contains
temples that, as works of labor and art, dwarf to nothing all our
wonder and admiration at the pyramids of Egypt.” Then Alfred
Russel Wallace said: “The number and beauty of the architectural
remains in Java ... far surpass those of Central America, and
perhaps even those of India.” And of Boro Boedor he wrote: “The
amount of human labor and skill expended on the Great Pyramid of
Egypt sinks into insignificance when compared with that required to
complete this sculptured hill-temple in the interior of Java.” Herr
Brumund called Boro Boedor “the most remarkable and magnificent
monument Buddhism has ever erected”; and Fergusson, in his
“History of Indian and Eastern Architecture,” finds in that edifice the
highest development of Buddhist art, an epitome of all its arts and
ritual, and the culmination of the architectural style which, originating
at Barhut a thousand years before, had begun to decay in India at
the time the colonists were erecting this masterpiece of the ages in
the heart of Java.
There is yet no Baedeker, or Murray, or local red book to lead one
to and about the temples and present every dry detail of fact. The
references to the ruins in books of travel and general literature are
vague or cautious generalities, absurd misstatements, or guesses. In
the great libraries of the world’s capitals the archæologists’ reports
are rare, and on the island only Dutch editions are available.
Fergusson is one’s only portable guide and aid to understanding; but
as he never visited the stupendous ruin, his is but a formal record of
the main facts. Dutch scientists criticize Sir Stamford Raffles’s work
and all that Von Humboldt and Lassen deduced from it concerning
Javanese religion and mythology. They entirely put aside all native
histories and traditions, searching and accepting only Chinese and
Arabic works, and making a close study of ancient inscriptions, upon
the rendering of which few of the Dutch savants agree.
We had applied for new toelatings-kaarten, or admission tickets, to
the interior of the island; and as they had not arrived by the
afternoon before we intended leaving Buitenzorg, we drove to the
assistant resident’s to inquire. “You shall have them this evening,”
said that gracious and courtly official, standing beside the huge
carriage; “but as it is only the merest matter of form, go right along in
the morning, ladies, anyhow, and I shall send the papers after you by
post. To Tissak Malaya? No? Well, then, to Djokjakarta.”
Upon that advice we proceeded on our journey, crossed the
Preangers, saw the plain of Leles, and made our brief visit to Tissak
Malaya. We rode for a long, hot day across the swamps and low-
lying jungles of the terra ingrata of Middle Java, and just before
sunset we reached Djokjakarta, a provincial capital, where the native
sultan resides in great state, but poor imitation of independent
rulership. We had tea served us under the great portico of the Hotel
Toegoe, our every movement followed by the uncivilized piazza stare
of some Dutch residents—that gaze of the summer hotel that has no
geographic or racial limit, which even occurs on the American littoral,
and in Java has a fixedness born of stolid Dutch ancestry, and an
intensity due to the tropical fervor of the thermometer, that put it far
beyond all other species of unwinking scrutiny. The bovine, ruminant
gaze of those stout women, continued and continued past all
provincial-colonial curiosity as to the cut and stuff of our gowns,
drove us to the garden paths, already twinkling with fireflies. The
landlord joined us there, and strolled with us out to the street and
along a line of torch-lighted booths and shops, where native products
and native life were most picturesquely presented. Our landlord
made himself very agreeable in explaining it all, walked on as far as
the gates of the sultan’s palace, plying us with the most point-blank
personal questions, our whence, whither, why, for how long, etc.; but
we did not mind that in a land of stares and interrogative English. He
showed us the carriage we could have for the next day’s twenty-five-
mile drive to Boro Boedor—“if you go,” with quite unnecessary
emphasis on the phrase of doubt. He finally brought us back to the
portico, disappeared for a time, and returning, said: “Ladies, the
assistant resident wishes to meet you. Will you come this way?” And
the courteous one conducted us through lofty halls and porticos to
his own half-office parlor, all of us pleased at this unexpected
attention from the provincial official.
A tall, grim, severe man in the dark cloth clothes of ceremony, with
uniform buttons, waved a semi-military cap, and said curtly: “Ladies,
it is my duty to inform you that you have no permission to visit
Djokja.”
It took some repetitions for us to get the whole sensation of the
heavens suddenly falling on us, to learn that a telegram had come
from official headquarters at Buitenzorg to warn him that three
American ladies would arrive that afternoon, without passports, to
visit Djokja.
“Certainly not, because those Buitenzorg officials told us not to
wait for the passports—that they would mail them after us.” Then
ensued the most farcical scene, a grand burlesque rendering of the
act of apprehending criminals, or rather political suspects. The
assistant resident tried to maintain the stern, judicial manner of a
police-court magistrate, cross-examining us as closely as if it were
testimony in a murder trial we were giving, and was not at all inclined
to admit that there could be any mistake in the elaborately perfect
system of Dutch colonial government. Magnificently he told us that
we could not remain in Djokja, and we assured him that we had no
wish to do so, that we were leaving for Boro Boedor in the morning.
The Pickwickian message from Buitenzorg had not given any
instructions. It merely related that we should arrive. We had arrived,
and the assistant resident evidently did not know just what to do
next. At any rate, he intended that we should stand in awe of him
and the government of Netherlands India. He “supposed” that it was
intended that we should be sent straight back to Buitenzorg. We
demurred, in fact refused—the two inflammable, impolitic ones of us,
who paid no heed to the gentle, gray-haired elder member of our
party, who was all resignation and humility before the terrible official.
We produced our United States passports, and quite as much as told
him that he and the noble army of Dutch officials might finish the
discussion with the American consul; we had other affairs, and were
bound for Boro Boedor. He waved the United States passports
aside, curtly said they were of “no account,” examined the letters of
credit with a shade more of interest, and gave his whole attention to
my “Smithsonian passport,” or general letter “to all friends of
science.” That beautifully written document, with its measured
phrases, many polysyllabic words in capital letters, and the big gold
seal of Saint-Gaudens’s designing, worked a spell; and after slowly
reading all the commendatory sentences of that great American
institution “for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,”
he read it again:
“Hum-m-m! Hum-m-m! The Smithsonian Institution of Washington
—National Geographic Society—scientific observation and study—
anthropology—photography—G. Brown Goode, acting secretary! Ah,
ladies, since you have such credentials as this,”—evidently the
Smithsonian Institution has better standing abroad than the
Department of State, and G. Brown Goode, acting secretary of the
one, was a better name to conjure with away from home than Walter
Q. Gresham, actual secretary of the other,—“since you come so
highly commended to us, I will allow you to proceed to Boro Boedor,
and remain there while I report to Buitenzorg and ask for
instructions. You will go to Boro Boedor as early as possible in the
morning,” he commanded, and then asked, “How long had you
intended to remain there?”
“That depends. If it is comfortable, and the rains keep off, we may
stay several days. If not, we return to-morrow evening.”
“No, no, no!” he cried in alarm; “you must stay there at Boro
Boedor. You have no permission to visit Djokja, and I cannot let you
stay in my residency. You must stay at Boro Boedor or go back to
Buitenzorg.”
To be ordered off to the Buddhist shrine at sunrise put the
pilgrimage in quite another light; to be sentenced to Nirvana by a
local magistrate in brass buttons was not like arriving there by slow
stages—meditation and reincarnation; but as the assistant resident
seemed to be on the point of repenting his clemency, we
acquiesced, and the great man and his minions drove away, the
bearer of the pajong, or official umbrella of his rank, testifying to the
formal character of the visit he had been paying. The landlord
mopped his brow, sighed, and looked like one who had survived
great perils; and we then saw that his sightseeing stroll down the
street with us had been a ruse, a little clever scouting, a preliminary
reconnaissance for the benefit of the puzzled magistrate.
We left Djokja at sunrise, with enthusiasm somewhat dampened
from former anticipations of that twenty-five-mile drive to Boro
Boedor, “the aged thing” in the Boro district of Kedu Residency, or
Bára Budha, “Great Buddha.” We had expected to realize a little of
the pleasure of travel during the barely ended posting days on this
garden island, networked over with smooth park drives all shaded
with tamarind-, kanari-, teak-, and waringen-trees, and it proved a
half-day of the greatest interest and enjoyment. Our canopied
carriage was drawn by four little rats of ponies, driven by a serious
old coachman in a gay sarong and military jacket, with a huge
lacquered vizor or crownless hat tied on over his battek turban, like a
student’s exaggerated eye-shade. This gave the shadow of great
dignity and owlish wisdom to his wrinkled face, ornamented by a
mustache as sparsely and symmetrically planted as walrus whiskers.
He held the reins and said nothing. When there was anything to do,
the running footman did it—a lithe little creature who clung to a rear
step, and took to his heels every few minutes to crack the whip over
the ponies’ heads, and with a frenzied “Gree! G-r-r-ee! Gr-r-r-e-e-e!”
urge the mites to a more breakneck gallop in harness. He steered
them by the traces as he galloped beside them, guided them over
bridges, around corners, past other vehicles, and through crowds,
while the driver held the reins and chewed betel tobacco in
unconcerned state. We rocked and rolled through beautiful arched
avenues, with this bare-legged boy in gay petticoat “gr-r-ree-ing” us
along like mad, people scattering aside like frightened chickens, and
kneeling as we passed by. The way was fenced and hedged and
finished, to each blade of grass, like some aristocratic suburb of a
great capital, an endless park, or continuous estate, where fancy
farming and landscape-gardening had gone their most extravagant
lengths. There was not a neglected acre on either side for all the
twenty-five miles; every field was cultivated like a tulip-bed; every
plant was as green and perfect as if entered in a horticultural show.
Streams, ravines, and ditches were solidly bridged, each with its
white cement parapet and smooth concrete flooring, and each
numbered and marked with Dutch preciseness; and along every bit
of the road were posted the names of the kampongs and estates
charged to maintain the highway in its perfect condition. Telegraph-
and telephone-wires were strung on the rigid arms of cotton-trees,
and giant creepers wove solid fences as they were trained from tree-
trunk to tree-trunk—the tropics tamed, combed, and curbed, hitched
to the cart of commerce and made man’s abject servant.
Every few miles there were open red-tiled pavilions built over the
highways as refuges for man and beast from the scorching sun of
one season and the cloud-burst showers of the rainy half of the year.
Twice we found busy passers going on in groves beside these rest-
houses—picturesque gatherings of men, women, and children, and
displays of fowls, fruits, nuts, vegetables, grain, sugar, spices, gums,
and flowers, that tempted one to linger and enjoy, and to photograph
every foot of the passer’s area. The main road was crowded all the
way like a city street, and around these passers the highway
hummed with voices. One can believe in the density of the
population—450 to the square mile[4]—when he sees the people
trooping along these country roads; and he can well understand why
every foot of land is cultivated, how even in the benevolent land of
the banana every one must produce something, must work or starve.
The better sanitary condition of the native kampongs is given as a
great factor in the remarkable increase of population in the last half-
century; but it took many years of precept and example, strict laws,
and a rating of native rulers and village chiefs according to the
cleanliness of their kampongs, before the native hamlets became
tropical counterparts of Broek and the other absurdly clean towns of
Holland. These careless children of the tropics are obliged to
whitewash their houses twice a year, look to their drains and debris,
and use disinfectants; and with the dainty little basket houses, one of
which may be bought outright for five dollars, and the beautiful palms
and shrubberies to serve as screens from rice-field vapors, each little
kampong is a delight in every way.
WAYSIDE PAVILION ON POST-ROAD.
Men and boys toiled to the passer, bent over with the weight of
one or two monstrous jack-fruits or durians on their backs. A woman
with a baby swinging in the slandang over her shoulder had tied
cackling chickens to the back of her belt, and trudged on comfortably
under her umbrella; and a boy swung a brace of ducks from each
end of a shoulder-pole, and trotted gaily to the passer. The
kampongs, or villages, when not hidden in palm- and plantain-groves
behind fancy bamboo fences, were rows of open houses on each
side of the highway, and we reviewed native life at leisure while the
ponies were changed. The friendly, gentle little brown people
welcomed us with amused and embarrassed smiles when our
curiosity as to sarong-painting, lacquering, and mat-weaving carried
us into the family circle. The dark, round-eyed, star-eyed babies and
children showed no fear or shyness, and the tiniest ones—their soft
little warm brown bodies bare of ever a garment save the cotton
slandang in which they cuddle so confidingly under the mother’s
protecting arm—let us lift and carry and play with them at will.
We left the main road, and progressed by a narrower way between
open fields of pepper, manioc, indigo, and tobacco, with picturesque
views of the three symmetrical and beautiful mountains, Soembung,
Merbaboe, and Merapi—the first and largest one as pure in line, as
exquisite and ideal a peak, as Fujiyama, and the others sloping
splendidly in soft volcanic outlines. Soembung is the very center of
Java, and native legends cling to the little hill of Tidar at its base—
the “spike of the universe,” the nail which fastens the lovely island to
the face of the earth. Merbaboe, the “ash-ejecting,” has wrought ruin
in its time, and a faint white plume of steam waves from its summit
still. The capitulations which delivered the Napoleonic possessions
of the Dutch East Indies to England in 1811 were signed at the base
of Merbaboe, and in our then frame of mind toward the Dutch
government we wished to make a pilgrimage of joyous celebration to
the spot. The third of the graceful peaks, Merapi, the “fire-throwing,”
was a sacred peak in Buddhist times, when cave-temples were hewn
in its solid rock and their interiors fretted over with fine bas-reliefs. A
group of people transplanting rice, a little boy driving a flock of geese
down the road, a little open-timbered temple of the dead in a
frangipani-grove—all these, with the softly blue-and-purple
mountains in the background, are pictures in enduring memory of
that morning’s ride toward Nirvana.
A gray ruin showed indistinctly on a hilltop, and after a run through
a long, arched avenue we came out suddenly at the base of the hill-
temple. Instead of a mad, triumphant sweep around the great
pyramid, the ponies balked, rooted themselves past any lashing or
“gr-r-ree-ing,” and we got out and walked under the noonday sun,
around the hoary high altar of Buddha, down an avenue of tall
kanari-trees, lined with statues, gargoyles, and other such recha, or
remains of ancient art, to the passagrahan, or government rest-
house.
XV
BORO BOEDOR
The deep portico of the passagrahan commands an angle and two

sides of the square temple, and from the mass of blackened and
bleached stones the eye finally arranges and follows out the broken
lines of the terraced pyramid, covered with such a wealth of
ornament as no other one structure in the world presents. The first
near view is almost disappointing. In the blur of details it is difficult to
realize the vast proportions of this twelve-century-old structure—a
pyramid the base platform of which is five hundred feet square, the
first terrace walls three hundred feet square, and the final dome one
hundred feet in height. Stripped of every kindly relief of vine and
moss, every gap and ruined angle visible, there was something
garish, raw, and almost disordered at the first glance, almost as
jarring as newness, and the hard black-and-white effect of the dark
lichens on the gray trachyte made it look like a bad photograph of
the pile. The temple stands on a broad platform, and rises first in five
square terraces, inclosing galleries, or processional paths, between
their walls, which are covered on each side with bas-relief
sculptures. If placed in single line these bas-reliefs would extend for
three miles. The terrace walls hold four hundred and thirty-six niches
or alcove chapels, where life-size Buddhas sit serene upon lotus
cushions. Staircases ascend in straight lines from each of the four
sides, passing under stepped or pointed arches the keystones of
which are elaborately carved masks, and rows of sockets in the
jambs show where wood or metal doors once swung. Above the
square terraces are three circular terraces, where seventy-two
latticed dagobas (reliquaries in the shape of the calyx or bud of the
lotus) inclose each a seated image, seventy-two more Buddhas
sitting in these inner, upper circles of Nirvana, facing a great dagoba,
or final cupola, the exact function or purpose of which as key to the
whole structure is still the puzzle of archæologists. This final shrine is
fifty feet in diameter, and either covered a relic of Buddha, or a
central well where the ashes of priests and princes were deposited,
or is a form surviving from the tree-temples of the earliest, primitive
East when nature-worship prevailed. The English engineers made
an opening in the solid exterior, and found an unfinished statue of
Buddha on a platform over a deep well-hole; and its head, half
buried in debris, still smiles upon one from the deep cavern. M.
Freidrich, in “L’Extrême Orient” (1878), states that this top dagoba
was opened in the time of the resident Hartman (1835), and that gold
ornaments were found; and it was believed that there were several
stories or chambers to this well, which reached to the lowest level of
the structure. M. Désiré de Charnay, who spent an afternoon at Boro
Boedor in 1878 in studying the resemblance of the pyramid temples
of Java to those of Central America, believed this well-hole to be the
place of concealment for the priest whose voice used to issue as a
mysterious oracle from the statue itself.
BORO BOEDOR. FROM THE PASSAGRAHAN

A staircase has been constructed to the summit of this dagoba,
and from it one looks down upon the whole structure as on a ground-
plan drawing, and out over finely cultivated fields and thick palm-
groves to the matchless peaks and the nearer hills that inclose this
fertile valley of the Boro Boedor—“the very finest view I ever saw,”
wrote Marianne North.
Three fourths of the terrace chapels and the upper dagobas have
crumbled; hundreds of statues are headless, armless, overturned,
missing; tees, or finials, are gone from the bell-roofs; terrace walls
bulge, lean outward, and have fallen in long stretches; and the
circular platforms and the processional paths undulate as if
earthquake-waves were at the moment rocking the mass. No cement
was used to hold the fitted stones together, and another Hindu
peculiarity of construction is the entire absence of a column, a pillar,
or an arch. Vegetation wrought great ruin during its buried centuries,
but earthquakes and tropical rains are working now a slow but surer
ruin that will leave little of Boro Boedor for the next century’s wonder-
seekers, unless the walls are soon straightened and strongly braced.
GROUND-PLAN OF BORO BOEDOR.
All this ruined splendor and wrecked magnificence soon has an

overpowering effect on one. He almost hesitates to attempt studying
out all the details, the intricate symbolism and decoration lavished by
those Hindus, who, like the Moguls, “built like Titans, but finished like
jewelers.” One walks around and around the sculptured terraces,
where the bas-reliefs portray all the life of Buddha and his disciples,
and the history of that great religion—a picture-Bible of Buddhism.
All the events in the life of Prince Siddhartha, Gautama Buddha, are
followed in turn: his birth and education, his leaving home, his
meditation under Gaya’s immortal tree, his teaching in the deer-park,
his sitting in judgment, weighing even the birds in his scales, his
death and entrance into Nirvana. The every-day life of the seventh
and eighth century is pictured, too—temples, palaces, thrones and
tombs, ships and houses, all of man’s constructions, are portrayed.
The life in courts and palaces, in fields and villages, is all seen there.
Royal folk in wonderful jewels sit enthroned, with minions offering
gifts and burning incense before them, warriors kneeling, and
maidens dancing. The peasant plows the rice-fields with the same
wooden stick and ungainly buffalo, and carries the rice-sheaves from
the harvest-field with the same shoulder-poles, used in all the farther
East to-day. Women fill their water-vessels at the tanks and bear
them away on their heads as in India now, and scores of bas-reliefs
show the unchanging customs of the East that offer sculptors the
same models in this century. Half the wonders of that great three-
mile-long gallery of sculptures cannot be recalled. Each round
disclosed some more wonderful picture, some more eloquent story,
told in the coarse trachyte rock furnished by the volcanoes across
the valley. Even the humorous fancies of the sculptors are expressed
in stone. In one rilievo a splendidly caparisoned state elephant flings
its feet in imitation of the dancing-girl near by. Other sportive
elephants carry fans and state umbrellas in their trunks; and the
marine monsters swimming about the ship that bears the Buddhist
missionaries to the isles have such expression and human
resemblance as to make one wonder if those primitives did not
occasionally pillory an enemy with their chisels, too. In the last
gallery, where, in the progress of the religion, it took on many
features of Jainism, or advancing Brahmanism, Buddha is several
times represented as the ninth avatar, or incarnation, of Vishnu, still
seated on the lotus cushion, and holding a lotus with one of his four
hands. Figure after figure wears the Brahmanic cord, or sacrificial
thread, over the left shoulder; and all the royal ones sit in what must
have been the pose of high fashion at that time—one knee bent
under in tailor fashion, the other bent knee raised and held in a loop
of the girdle confining the sarong skirt. There is not a grotesque nor
a nude figure in the whole three miles of sculptured scenes, and the
costumes are a study in themselves; likewise the elaborate jewels
which Maia and her maids and the princely ones wear. The trees and
flowers are a sufficient study alone; and on my last morning at Boro
Boedor I made the whole round at sunrise, looking specially at the
wonderful palms, bamboos, frangipani-, mango-, mangosteen-,
breadfruit-, pomegranate-, banana-, and bo-trees—every local form
being gracefully conventionalized, and, as Fergusson says,
“complicated and refined beyond any examples known in India.” It is
such special rounds that give one a full idea of what a monumental
masterpiece the great Buddhist vihara is, what an epitome of all the
arts and civilization of the eighth century a. d. those galleries of
sculpture hold, and turn one to dreaming of the builders and their
times.
No particularly Javanese types of face or figure are represented.
All the countenances are Hindu, Hindu-Caucasian, and pure Greek;
and none of the objects or accessories depicted with them are those
of an uncivilized people. All the art and culture, the highest standards
of Hindu taste and living, in the tenth century of triumphant
Buddhism, are expressed in this sculptured record of the golden age
of Java. The Boro Boedor sculptures are finer examples of the
Greco-Buddhist art of the times than those of Amravati and
Gandahara as one sees them in Indian museums; and the pure
Greek countenances show sufficient evidence of Bactrian influences
on the Indus, whence the builders came.
Of the more than five hundred statues of Buddha enshrined in
niches and latticed dagobas, all, save the one mysterious figure
standing in the central or summit dagoba, are seated on lotus
cushions. Those of the terrace rows of chapels face outward to the
four points of the compass, and those of the three circular platforms
face inward to the hidden, mysterious one. All are alike save in the
position of the hands, and those of the terrace chapels have four
different poses accordingly as they face the cardinal points. As they
are conventionally represented, there is Buddha teaching, with his
open palm resting on one knee; Buddha learning, with that hand
intently closed; Buddha meditating, with both hands open on his
knees; Buddha believing and convinced, expounding the lotus law
with upraised hand; and Buddha demonstrating and explaining, with
thumbs and index-fingers touching. The images in the lotus bells of
the circular platforms hold the right palm curved like a shell over the
fingers of the left hand—the Buddha who has comprehended, and
sits meditating in stages of Nirvana. It was never intended that
worshipers should know the mien of the great one in the summit
chalice, the serene one who, having attained the supreme end, was
left to brood alone, inaccessible, shut out from, beyond all the world.
For this reason it is believed that this standing statue was left
incomplete, the profane chisel not daring to render every accessory
and attribute as with the lesser ones.
FOUR BAS-RELIEFS FROM BORO BOEDOR.
After Wilsen’s drawings.
Humboldt first noted the five different attitudes of the seated

figures, and their likeness to the five Dhyani Buddhas of Nepal; and
the discovery of a tablet in Sumatra recording the erection of a
seven-story vihara to the Dhyani Buddha was proof that the faith that
first came pure from the mouth of the Oxus and the Indus must have
received later bent through missionaries from the Malay Peninsula
and Tibet. The Boro Boedor images have the same lotus cushion
and aureole, the same curls of hair, but not the long ears of the
Nepal Buddhas, who in the Mongol doctrine had each his own
paradise or quarter of the earth. The first Dhyani, who rules the
paradise of the Orient, is always represented in the same attitude
and pose of the hands as the image in the latticed bells of these
upper, circular or Nirvana terraces of Boro Boedor. The images on
the east side of Boro Boeder’s square terraces correspond to the
second Dhyani’s conventional pose; those on the south walls, to the
third Dhyani; the west-facing ones, to the fourth Dhyani; and the
northern ones, to the fifth Dhyani of Nepal.
There are no inscriptions visible anywhere in this mass of picture-
writings, no corner-stone or any clue to the exact year of its
founding. We know certainly that the third great synod of Buddhists
in Asoka’s time, 264 b. c., resolved to spread Buddhism abroad, and
that the propaganda begun in Ceylon was carried in every direction,
and that Asoka opened seven of the eight original dagobas of India
enshrining relics of Buddha’s body, and, subdividing, put them in
eighty-four thousand vases or precious boxes, that were scattered to
the limits of that religious world. Stupas, or dagobas, were built over
these holy bits, and all the central dagoba of Boro Boedor is believed
to have been the original structure built over some such reliquary,
and afterward surrounded by the great sculptured terraces. Fa Hian,
the Chinese pilgrim who visited Java in 414 a. d., remarked upon the
number of “heretics and Brahmans” living there, and noted that “the
law of Buddha is not much known.” Native records tell that in 603 a.
d. the Prince of Gujerat came, with five thousand followers in one
hundred and six ships, and settled at Mataram, where two thousand
more men of Gujerat joined him, and a great Buddhist empire
succeeded that of the Brahmanic faith. An inscription found in
Sumatra, bearing date 656 a. d., gives the name of Maha Raja
Adiraja Adityadharma, King of Prathama (Great Java), a worshiper of
the five Dhyani Buddhas, who had erected a great seven-storied
vihara, evidently this one of Boro Boedor, in their honor. This golden
age of the Buddhist empire in Java lasted through the seventh,
eighth, and ninth centuries. Arts and religion had already entered
their decline in the tenth century, when the Prince Dewa Kosoumi
sent his daughter and four sons to India to study religion and the
arts. The princelings returned with artists, soldiers, and many
trophies and products; but this last fresh importation did not arrest
the decay of the faith, and the people, relapsing peaceably into
Brahmanism, deserted their old temples. With the Mohammedan
conquest of 1475-79 the people in turn forsook the worship of Siva,
Durga, and Ganesha, and abandoned their shrines at Brambanam
and elsewhere, as they had withdrawn from Boro Boedor and
Chandi Sewou.
ON THE SECOND TERRACE.
When the British engineers came to Boro Boedor, in 1814, the

inhabitants of the nearest village had no knowledge or traditions of
this noblest monument Buddhism ever reared. Ever since their
fathers had moved there from another district it had been only a tree-

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4 Native Peoples of the Subarctic 83

5 Native Peoples of the Plateau 101

6 Native Peoples of the Northwest Coast 120

Political Organization 125

7 Native Peoples of the Great Basin 144

8 Native Peoples of California 173

California Indians Today 181

9 Native Peoples of the Southwest 195

10 Native Peoples of the Plains 245

Social Organization 255

11 Native Peoples of the Northeast 280

12 Native Peoples of the Southeast 313

Southeastern Indians Today 325

13 Contemporary Issues 343

Internet Resources for Materials on Native Americans 359

What’s New in This Edition?

In 1492, when Christopher Columbus landed on a small island in the Caribbean,

The Geography of North America

Figure 1.2 Major cultural divisions of the New World.

Figure 1.3 Major natural areas of North America.

Ethnography and Ethnology

Native North Americans

Table 1.1 Native American Population of the United States

Year Population Percent Change Source

1500 10,000,000a N/A estimate

Linguistics is commonly divided into structural and historical components, with

Territories and Boundaries

The Role of Women

Sex and Gender

WAYSIDE PAVILION ON POST-ROAD.

The deep portico of the passagrahan commands an angle and two

BORO BOEDOR. FROM THE PASSAGRAHAN

All this ruined splendor and wrecked magnificence soon has an

After Wilsen’s drawings.

Humboldt first noted the five different attitudes of the seated

When the British engineers came to Boro Boedor, in 1814, the

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