Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/825

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INDIANS


747


INDIANS


been accumulated by means of an appeal which it issues annually, and by donations, bequests, and so- cieties instituted for the soliciting of alms for the Indian missions.

Societies. — (1) The Catholic Indian Missionary Association (indults granted 16 July, 1S76 and 20 July, 1S76), for the support of the Bureau and its work, was organized (1S75) in the city of Washington chiefly through the efforts of Mrs. General Wm. T. Sherman. This association accomplished its purpose. The contract school system rendered it unnecessary and it ceased to e.xist.

(2) Society for the Preservation of the Faith among Indian Children (indult granted 20 December, 1904), known as the Preservation Society, established by the Bureau in 1901, approved by the American hierarchy and commended by Pius X (3 April, 190S), collects from each of its members an annual fee of twenty-five cents for the benefit of the missions. It has main- tained an average membership of from forty-five to fifty thousand. Recently the Most Reverend Incor- porators of the Bureau have requesteil the American Federation of Catholic Societies to take a special in- terest in this society and to secure and maintain for it a membership of eight hundreil thousand. The director of the Bureau is the President of the Preser- vation Society.

(3) The Marquette League, an auxiliary to the Preservation Society (blessing bestowed liy Pius X, July, 1904), was organized in New York City (1904), chiefly through the agency of Rev. li. G. Ganss, who for several years devoted his time to the promoting of the Preservation Society. The League exacts a membership fee of two dollars yearly and secures offerings for the repair and building of chapels, the support of catechists, scholarships for Indian pupils in Catholic Institutions, and other missionary purposes. Its funds are distributed through the Bureau. Branches of the League have been established in various eastern centres, but the New York City League, under the able management of its successive presidents, Mr. E. Eyre, Mr. Joseph H. Fargis, Hon. Eugene X. Philbin, and the Brooklyn League, under its president, Mr. Alexander McKinney, have pro- duced the best results.

Benefactors. — Mother M. Katharine Drexel has been the most generous helper of the Bureau and the Indian missions; in the Indian and Negro mission work of the American Church she holds a unique position. Other notable benefactors are; Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop Corrigan, Archbishop Ryan, Archbishop Farley, Archbishop Keane, Bishop Horstmann, Rev. T. K. Crowley, Rev. N. Kersten, Mrs. Edward Mor- rell, Henry Heide, Theodore E. Tack, Thomas Mc- Mahon, E. Eyre, F. S. Horn, John J. Horn, Robert A. Johnston, John G. Kuhrie, Miss Juliana Klein, Michael Fogarty, .Association of the Holy Childhood, Ludwig-Missions-Verein (Mimich) .

Bureau Publications. — From 1877 to ISSl the Bu- reau published "Annals of Catholic Indian Missions in .America". In 1SS3 it published a pamphlet, "The Work of the Decade"; in 1S9.5, a pamphlet, "The Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions 1874 to 1895". From time to time it has circulated statistics and various pamphlets on topics relating to Indian educa- tional and mission work. It publishes each year a Report of the Director to the Most Reverend Incor- porators and an annual, "The Indian Sentinel" (since 1902), in the interest of the Preservation Society. The present (1909) office of the Bureau is at 1326 New York Avenue, N. W., Washington, D. C.

Ada et decreta concilii plenarii Baltimorensis tertii (Balti- more. 1884); WiLTZius, Official Catholic Dire^toru (Milwaukee, 1909); Bureau Publications: T/ie Bureauof Catholic 1 ndian Mis- sions 1874 to 1S95 (Washington, 1895); The Work of the Decade (Washington. 1883); Our Catholic Indian Missions (.Viushin^- ton. 1909); Reports of the Director for 1900-01 antl 1901-02, 1903-04, 1904-05. 1905-06, 1906. 1907. 1908 (W.Tshington); Reports of the Mission Work among the Negroes and Indians for


1901, 1902. 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906. 1907, 190S (Baltimore); Richardson, Messages and Paper.i of the Presidents, 17S9-1S97, VII (Washington, 1899), 109; Congressional Record, &!tv-third Congress, sess. 3; fifty-sixth Congress, sess. 2; fifty-seventh Congress, sess. 1; Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908 (Waishington); Tucker, Appeal cases. District of Columbia, XXX (Rochester, 1908). 151; United States Reports, CC'X (New York, 1908), 50; U. S. Statutes at Large. XXXV, pt. I (Washington, 1909), 814.

Wm. H. Ketcham.

Indians, .A.merican. — Gener.\l. — When Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador in 1492 he was welcomed by a brown-skinned people whose physical appearance confirmed him in his opinion that he had at last reached India, and whom, therefore, he called Indios, Indians, a name which, however mistaken in this first application, continued to hold its own, and has long since won general acceptance, excepting in strictly scientific writing, where the more exact term American is commonly used. As exploration was extended north and south it was found that the same race was spread over the whole continent, from the Arctic shores to Cape Horn, everj^vhere alike in the main physical characteristics, with the exception of the Eskimo in the extreme North, whose features suggest the Mongolian.

Race Type. — The most marked physical character- istics of the Indian race tj-pe are brown skin, dark brown eyes, prominent cheek bones, straight black hair, and scantiness of beard. The colour is not red, as popularly supposed, but varies from very light in some tribes, as the Cheyenne, to almost black in others, as the Caddo and Tarumari. In a few tribes, as the Flatheads, the skin has a distinct yellowish cast. The hair is brown in childhood, but always black in the adult imtil it turns gray with age. Bald- ness is almost unknown. The eye is not held so open as in the Caucasian and seems better adapted to distance than to close work. The nose is usually straight and well shaped, and in some tribes strongly aquiline. The hands and feet are comparatively small. Height and weight vary as among Europeans, the Pueblos averaging but little more than five feet, while the Cheyenne and .\rapaho are exceptionally tall, and the Tehuelche of Patagonia almost massive in build. As a rule, the desert Indians, as the Apache, are spare and muscular in build, while those of the timbered region are heavier, although not proportion- ately stronger. The beard is always scanty, but in- creases with admixture of white blood. The mistaken idea that the Indian has naturally no beard is due to the fact that in most tribes it is plucked out as fast as it grows, the eyebrows being treated in the same way. There is no tribe of "white Indians", but albinos with blond skin, weak pink eyes, and almost white hair and eyebrows, are occasionally found, especially among the Pueblos. In cubical brain-capacity the Indian is not far behind the white man, but in general intel- lectual ability, endurance, and vitality he is far in- ferior. Except when under strong excitement, he is usually more deliberate and less demonstrative than the white man, but is by no means the silent .stoic that he has sometimes been represented to be. His most serious moral defects — which appear to be but slightly modified by education or religious teaching — are lack of persistence and of ambition to improve his condition, without which qualities there can be no permanent advancement.

Origin and Antiquity. — Various origins have been assigned to the Indian race — from Europe and the East, by way of Greenland or the mythic Island of Atlantis; from Asia, by way of Bering Straits, or lower down, by adventurous voyage from the Poly- nesian Islands; or as autochthones from a remote geologic period. The Eastern origin has almost as slender foundation as the Atlantis story itself and may be dismissed without argument. The Asiatic theory, both for Bering Straits and the Polynesian Islands,