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                        THE IRISH PENNY JOURNAL.

            NUMBER 6.   SATURDAY, AUGUST 8, 1840.   VOLUME I.

[Illustration: THE RED MEN OF AMERICA.--FIRST ARTICLE.]

It is a melancholy truth that this most interesting portion of the human
race is rapidly disappearing from the surface of the earth. War, its
murderous effects centupled by the destructive weapons acquired from the
white man--disease in new and terrible forms, to the treatment of which
their simple skill, and materia medica, equally simple, are wholly
incompetent--famine, the consequence of their sadly changed habits, of the
intemperance and wastefulness, substituted by the insidious arts of the
trader for the moderation and foresight of their happier fathers--the
vices, in short, and the encroachments of civilization, all and each in
its turn are blotting out tribe after tribe from the records of humanity;
and the time is fast approaching when no Red man will remain, to guard or
to mourn over the tombs of his fathers.

The conviction of this truth is become so deeply felt, that more than one
effort has been made, and is making, to preserve some memento of this
ill-treated people. We are not so much raising our own feeble voice in the
service, as attempting a record of what others have done; but so much has
been effected, and so zealous have been the exertions made to rescue the
memory, at least, of these dying nations from oblivion, that the space we
have assigned to this notice will be taken up long before our materials
are exhausted. The accuracy of the facts and statements we shall lay
before our readers may in every case be relied on.

Among the most devoted and persevering explorers of the Red man’s
territory, is one from whose authority, and indeed from whose very lips,
in many instances, we derive a great portion of the circumstances we are
about to describe--we allude to the celebrated George Catlin, whose abode
of seven years among the least known of their tribes, and whose earnest
enthusiasm in the task of inquiry which formed the sole object of his
visit, together with his entire success in the pursuit, have constituted
him the very first authority of the day. We have, besides, consulted all
the writers on this now engrossing subject, but in most cases have
afterwards taken the highly competent opinion just quoted, as to the
accuracy of their descriptions--an opinion that has always been given with
evident care and consideration.

Mr Catlin has painted with his own hand, and from the life, no less than
three hundred and ten portraits of chiefs, warriors, and other
distinguished individuals of the various tribes (forty-eight in number)
among whom he sojourned, with two hundred landscapes and other paintings
descriptive of their country, their villages, religious ceremonies,
customs, sports, and whatever else was most characteristic of Indian life
in its primitive state; he has likewise collected numerous specimens of
dresses, some fringed and garnished with scalp-locks from their enemies’
heads; mantles and robes, on which are painted, in rude hieroglyphics, the
battles and other prominent events of their owners’ lives; head-dresses,
formed of the raven’s and war-eagle’s feathers, the effect of which is
strikingly warlike and imposing; spears, shields, war clubs, bows, musical
instruments, domestic utensils, belts, pouches, necklaces of bears’ claws,
mocassins, strings of wampum, tobacco sacks; all, in short, that could in
any way exemplify the habits and customs of the people whose memory he
desired to perpetuate, have been brought together, at great cost and some
hazard to life, by this indefatigable explorer--the whole forming a museum
of surpassing interest, and which is daily attracting the people of London
to the gallery wherein it is exhibited.

The most important of the North American tribes are the Camanchees,
inhabiting the western parts of Texas, and numbering from 25,000 to 30,000
expert horsemen and bold lancers, but excessively wild, and continually at
war; the Pawnee-Picts, neighbours to and in league with the Camanchees;
the Kiowas, also in alliance with the two warlike tribes above named, whom
they join alike in the battle or chase; the Sioux, numbering no less than
40,000, and inhabiting a vast tract on the upper waters of the Mississippi
and Missouri rivers. Next come the Pawnees, a tribe totally distinct both
in language and customs from the Pawnee-Picts, whose hunting-grounds are a
thousand miles distant from those of the Pawnees; this wild and very
warlike tribe shave the head with the exception of the scalp-lock (which
they would hold it cowardly and most unjust to their enemy to remove), as
do the Osages, the Konzas, &c. The Pawnees lost half their numbers by
small-pox in 1823, but are still very numerous; their seats are on the
river Platte, from the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains.

The Blackfeet, the Crows (their inveterate enemies), the Crees, the
Assinneboins, occupying the country from the mouth of the Yellow Stone