Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1901-01-12
What Is Going On In the W0menS Clubs of Butte

words in some tribal languages which
are Identical with those in the Latin.
German, French, the old Irish and the
Hlndoo tongues, or that many of the
old-time legends marvelously duplicate
some features of the mythology of the
beauty-loving Greeks and the more
sensual Romans, would not make him
proud nor dispose him to research did
he know and comprehend these specula-
tions of the studious. Perhaps, did he
reason at all over this matter he would
agree with our best authority. Major
Powell. of the United States bureau of
ethnology, whose business it is to dig
and delve and gather material concern
ing the origin and life of primitive man,
that there is little scientific evidence
to sustain these theories. Arclaeologi-
cal Investigations now make it clear
that man was distributed throughout
the habitable earth at some remote
time, in the very lowest stage of human
culture, stone tools and other agencies of
industry of a like lowly character and
that from this rude condition men have
some 70 a much greater degree than
others The linguistic evidence comes
in to sustain the conclusions of archae-
ology, for study of the languages of
the world leads to the conclusion that
they were developed in multiplicity of
centers; that languages of stocks in
crease in number as tribes of lower Gull
ture are found and that probably man
was distributed through the world be-
fore the development of organized or
grammatic speech
Accepting this judgment. the Indian
would only be as wise as We with all
our accumulated knowledge ana boosted
higher intell gence. But poor Lo can
tell us nothing more certain about it.
He has no written tongue, no ponder
Gus and dusty tones to serve as au-
thority on this or any other subject.
He has only the imperishable traditions
of his race. which teaches him that man
was once an animal. and that thence he
came--thus ante-dating Darwin a long
long way. These legends are fairly
peopled with the birds of the air, the
beasts and creeping things of the wood
and plain. and the mammals ana fish OF
the hriny deep. with all of which his
race was familiar, and many of which
We're to him actual participants in his
life-history. All through them runs a
broad and palpable streak of human ma
ture. all indicate that the mythical in
dividua!s-in spite of the glamor of ro-
nance thrown about them and the in
dorsement of tradition-are but mortals
masquerading in the suse of the brute
creation. This was the education of
the Indian youth. Here WAS his kim
dergarten. his school, academy, college,
university. Great moral lessons were
taught by the qualities given to heroes,
heroines and villains. and virtue was
ever rewarded and vice punished eX-
actly as happens today in the modern
drama of book or stage.
l find it stated on good authority that
it is a general but erroneous impression
that the Indian is fast dying off and
soon the world shall know him no more.
Many years ago. when impediments We're
many and conveniences We're few, off,
cials sent TO take the Indian census
"often found it easier to sit in more or
less comfortable offices and guess,
rather than to go in the saddle
and know by actual counting. So at
first the number was estimated, partly
through carelessness or indifference,
partly to make up large numbers to GER
tain agencies, and partly because no
madic people was hard to catch and
count Year after year, however, sta
tistcs have become more accurate and
reliable, as the Indians We're rounded
up on reservations and the census
bureau has perfected its methods and
eradcated faults until it is said to
work precisely and accurately, and
losses and gains are now known with
sufficient eXactness to permit an accu-
rate estimate Of the effect of civiliza-
ton upon the race. AS to whole tribes
becoming extinct it is claimed that it
was not wholly due to epidemics OF
disease, to bad habits or to wars, but
that t e same tribe when the country
was new was known by several names.
The English, French, Spanish and
Dutch each made their peculiar attempts
to express the native pronunciation OF
tribal names, and thus statistics be-
came confused. While it is true that
many individuals, especially of mixed
bloods, have disappeared from the nu-
merical strength of tribes, they have
disappeared not by extinction but by alb
sorption. Severing tribal relationships,
they appear in other communities as
white men.
The race may be doomed but the blood
will not die. and this condition may fore
shadow the fate of the Indian. Diffusion
not extinction, may solve the Indian
problem.
-MeduW Illlc LIZ Is cApctleu 10 i've upon
the reservation. For a long time now he
has eaten of the white mans lotus-the
bi-monthly beef issue. For him and his
the day of the buffalo hunt and the war
path is gone forever, but the whole coun-
try is dotted with their latter-day homes.
Comfortable and generally comforted he
dwells on land set aside for his exclusive
use by our government, which means to
be kind and paternal whatever phli-
ticians, or partisan press, or z few
too benevolent, theorizing clergym n may
have to say to the contrary. The system
seems to have developed as the safest
and wiseSt yet devised or enplOye l.
Gradually the Indian had been swept
back by the increasing flood of civiliza-
ton until it became necessary to guaran-
tee him foOthold somewhere lest he be