Upper Right — A good example of the
narrow-headed, narrow-nosed Western
Mono t}"pe (Madera County)
Lower Right — A woman of half- Yuki,
half-Huchnom parentage. She illustrates
nicely the Yuki type with its low face and
broad nose (Mendocino County)
1
perhaps parallels that of the Burgun-
dians, in whom original blondness and
blue eyes have been replaced through
intermarriage by brunetness and brown
eyes.
Apparently similar to the Wailaki
case is that of the Eastern Mono who
live on the east side of the Sierra
Nevada in Inyo County. Although
speaking a language only slightly differ-
ent from that of the physically distinc-
tive Western Mono, the Eastern Mono
are unlike them in physical type and
belong instead to the widespread Cali-
fornian type to which their other neigh-
bors, the Washo and JNIiwok, also
belong.
The Yuki type is characterized
primarily by short statui-e (average for
men 157 cm.) and low face; and
secondarily by a relatively narrow head
and broad nose.
The Western Mono type is medium
in statui-e (average for men 165 cm.),
high-faced, relatively narrow-headed,
and medium-nosed. Although similar
to the Yuki type in head form, it
differs in the other characters.
60
NATURAL Til STORY
The widespread Calif ornian type is
at once recognizable by its broad head
and high face. The stature of men
varies from medium (161 cm.) to tall
(172 cm.). The nose form is variable,
too, ranging from relatively narrow to
relatively broad. The three subtypes
distinguished are designated as Nar-
row-nosed, Broad-nosed, and Tall.
As to the physical relationships of
the Californians to other North Ameri-
can Indians little can be said at present.
The Yuki type suggests one of the types
described by Boas from the coast of
British Columbia, while the broad-
headed Californian type seems to re-
semble the broad-headed type of the
Northwest, as represented by the Kwa-
kiutl and the Shuswap. In the south,
the Californian type appears to have
relatives in Mexico. Hrdlicka writes:
Ancient crania from the California Penin-
sula are also of a different type. Arizona and
Sonera show no population, recent or ancient,
allied physically to the Californians. In
Mexico, however, are several great Indian
peoples who in many features approach the
Californians to such a degree that an original
identity must be held as probable. One of
these is the Otomi, of the States of Hidalgo
and Mexico. A large group of peoples in the
States of Puebla, Michoacan, and farther
south, even including the Aztecs, and finally
the Tarahumare, in Chihuahua, are all
physically related to the Otomi as well as to
the Californians.!
It seems clear then that two of the
three outstanding Californian types are
not peculiar to the state. The third
type, the. Western Mono type, will
probably be found to have relatives
elsewhere also.^
^Ales Hrdlicka, Contribution to the Physical An-
thropology of Caliitornia, Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch.
Ethn., IV, 64, 1906.
-The principal published works on the physical an-
thropology of the Indians of California are as follows:
Franz Boas, "Anthropometrical Observations on the
Mission Indians of Southern California," Proceedings
of the American Association for the Advancement of Sci-
ence, Vol. XLIV, pp. 261-69, 1895. "Anthropometry of
Central California," fiw^Ze/m o/ <Ae Am.erican Museum
of Natural History, Vol. XVII, pp. 347-80, 190.5.
Ales Hrdlicka, "Contribution to the Physical An-
thropology of California," Univ. Calif. Publ. Am. Arch.
Ethn., Vol. IV, pp. 49-64, 1906.
Heinrich ^IAT^EGKA, "Ueber Schadel und Skelette
von Santa Rosa (Santa Barbara-Archipel bei Calif or-
nien)", Sitzungsberichte der Koniglichen Bohmischen
Gesellschaft der Wissensehaften in Prog, 1904.
ABC
A. — A Washo of the vicinity of Lake Tahoe, a good example of narrow-nosed variety of
the California type.
B. — ^ Western Mono, | Gashowu Yokuts (Fresno County)
C. — 1 Western Mono, | Gashowu Yokuts (Fresno County). Shows tanning from sun
quite markedly.
D. — -J Eastern Mono, i Miwok, an unusually broad-faced individual
Tsibish decided to turn awaj' from the lake trail, because it was so cold
An Incident in Montagnais Winter Life
PRIMITIVE MAN'S SHELTER
By frank G. speck
Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania
I CAN review in my mind's eye the
scene of our departure some years
ago from the comfortable settlement
at Lake St. John, near the southern
base of the Labrador Peninsula, where
the Montagnais hunters come in the
summer months to secure the necessi-
ties of life in exchange for their furs.
My companion was a seasoned nomad
named Tsibish, who drives two big
sled-dogs, Blacky and Broken-leg.
The scenic setting and the details of our
experience rise in the form of a quiet
panorama of the semi-arctic. It is as
vivid as the immediate present.
We have turned our backs upon the
low buildings of the Hudson's Bay Post
nestling upon the shore now banked
high with snow reaching to the eaves
on the side toward the lake. Tsibish
has decided to push his way through
the small timber and take a land route
to reach a point convenient for his
purpose, rather than to follow the shore
and avail himself of the smooth going
over the lake, because the latter is so
much colder. Foi- the intense cold lies
like a pall over these frozen bodies of
water. After rising some thirty or forty
feet in passing through the fields and
clearings about the Post we welcome
the more comfortable temperature,
despite a slight increase in the breeze,
and the sight of the sun, though it is
dimmed from its usual winter bright-
ness by a drive of sifting snow.
62
NATURAL HISTORY
Our course leads toward the north-
west following the usual dog-trail,
broken and beaten by the sled runners
and the feet of several parties which
have passed this way since the last
heavy snowfall. Not content with the
A breathing spell
easy passage of the beaten trail, the
perverse dogs hardly run fifty feet
without floundering in the soft snow
at one side, and with great fuss are
pulled back to the track. Bad behavior
we say, but evidently good normal
sled-dog progress. A snag has caught
the trace.
''Back up! Pull off your mittens,
Tsibish. Hold them in your teeth to
choke your grumbling. Untwist the
traces and start again."
No order to the going, all snags,
branches, soft powdery places, but still
the Montagnais finds occasion to grin,
for to his well-adapted arctic humor
there is something funny in the gawky
postures of the dogs, their sheepish.
helpless looks, and especially in the
fact that the whole foolish performance
will have to be repeated in all proba-
bility by the time we have covered
the next fifty yards.
Ekwes â– : d! Kakivsht eoshet, ' ' Now
then! Blacky."
And so progress is slow, but before
long the dark line of the evergreen
forest looms nearer. That is what we
want, for not far within the embrace
of its thickset, closely-grown, snow-
laden branches we are going to make
our bed, as open to the stars this cold
night as the bed of the wolf. And
we are going to try what to the Mon-
tagnais and Naskapi of th!s barren
plateau is the very culmination of
severity; a night in the ktabakwend-
zwap "open-top camp." To many
a starving hunter in the Labrador
taiga this term connotes not only the
misery of cold, but the pangs of
hunger, since it is most often that the
open-top camp becomes the night's
bivouac when the game has failed.
And then the able-bodied men as a last
resort launch themselves abroad with-
out the usual camp impediments in a
final endeavor to find food. In this
case, however, such an extremity does
not have to be considered, because
tucked away in the fur bags tightly
strapped on our sled are a frozen north-
ern hare, a quarter of beaver, some
frozen moose-meat, a fat beaver tail,
about half a pound of tea, and some
little cotton sacks of sugar and salt,
providing altogether a source of mental
satisfaction that again brings the
friendly grin to Tsibish's broad face.
Our little run of a couple of hours
on the open stretch has brought out the
perspiration on our bodies, so we open
our fur coats and push back our warm
caps from steaming brows, to look
about, now that we are within the
AN INCIDENT fN M()XTA(!.yA/S WIXTI^h' L/FJ'J
()3
silent lialsaiiiy. No wind in hero.
And I can see by the I'oeus of my com-
panion's eyes that his glance is ian<>;in<2;
both sides of the track for the proper
place, one siu>ltei'ed by living ever-
greens but within reach of enough
standing dead trees to supply the eight
or ten logs which we are going to burn
in the course of the long January night.
The place is found. We plunge from
the path into snow almost hip deep and
pass a couple of rods to the right with
the dogs in still worse plight, wallowing
wdth their sleds in a spray of dry snow.
Everything comes to a stop and out
comes the light steel bush-ax which
every Labrador Indian keeps within
reach while on the trail. A tender
touch to its keen edge, a glance from it
to a small balsam, — whack, and Tsi-
bish's work is begun. Blacky and
Broken-leg are lying just where they
stopped and are guzzhng
in the snow as though
thej^ had never seen it
before. This is their
habit, for the Montagnais
teaches his dogs to nose
into the snow at a signal
to smell for beaver, when
he is hunting near a lake,
until nosing the snow be-
comes habitual with theiu.
Tsibish has dropped the
tops of three or four
balsams now, slanting
dow^n to the snow, by
cutting them only partly
through on the same side.
This is to be the wind-screen of our
night's shelter. Lopping off some
branches, he intertwines them verti-
cally, forming a fence about four feet
high above the snow and ten feet long.
It has a sufficient curve to make almost
a quarter circle. By this time we have
tramped down the snow within the
arc, and n little packing of moj-c snow
ai'oiiiid t he sides is sudiciciil to keep out
the (lirect wiiul and I lie lialik dmfts.
The litter of twigs and small branches
resulting from our operations is now
gathered and laid about a foot deep
under oui- I'cci for a flooring. And
l)eh()ld the ''open-top camp" for a
winter night in tlu; Labradorean
plateau is ready for occupancy by the
hardy Montagnais hunter and his
white connade.
On a stick near the back of the
enclosure, the frozen hare is impaled,
while still one more serious task has to
be performed. AVith a glance at the
gathering dusk of the afternoon twi-
light, Tsibish sinks the keen blade of
his ax into the nearest dead balsam
tree. And the veteran of many winter
blasts and summer droughts, kilk^d by
the consuming tongue of flame of a
/
Guzzling in the snow
bush fire some ten or tw-elve years ago,
now falls prostrate in the soft snow.
In a few minutes six or seven others
follow and we are soon dragging ten- or
twelve-foot lengths of the doughty
spars to the front of our shelter.
It is now too dark to wield the ax in
safetv, so the fire is started with dry
64
A^^ T URAL IIISTOR Y
cedar twigs in the hands of the leader,
Ughted by a match, the "Kttle fires"
which have now become so indispensable
to these Indians who, only a generation
ago, had to rely on flint and steel.
The cheerful flames leap into being,
The "open-top" camp. (Negative exposed
1 hour, 30 minutes at midnight)
spread, and eat their way upward into
fresh bundles of faggots and downward
into the sizzling snow. They catch
into the dry surface of the trees hauled
from the brule, and by the time com-
plete darkness has engulfed our white-
floored canon amid the evergreens,
there is warmth enough and light
enough to illuminate a scene which
would strike the fancy of the most
apathetic beholder. The Labrador
hunters of today, reduced to the straits
of elementary human existence, con-
struct their open winter bivouac in a
form reminiscent of some remote
period of culture before man had
taught himself the device of complete
overhead shelter. We can see our-
selves reproducing now the experience
of boreal hunters in early Neolithic
times, and the thrill of the experience,
even though it be for only a passing
glimpse backward into those hoary
ages, is the reward. We are living for a
while in a primeval atmosphere. These
thoughts, however, are passing through
the mind of only the white man. A
look or two at Tsibish betrays the fact
that to him this is part of life. For I
learned that he and his companions
have resorted winter after winter to
this procedure when, through the
necessity of seeking new hunting dis-
tricts, they betake themselves with
minimum of food, axes, and weapons,
to distant barrens, in the hope of locat-
ing a fresh abundance of meat. Mishte
alimdn! "great hardship," as they
term starvation, is the normal lot of
Tsibish and his kind during the long
hard winters of the interior. Not only
he but his wife and children know it,
and generations of ancestors as well.
More than half of them have fallen
victims, and almost half still do suc-
cumb to that fate.
Back to the immediate present my
thoughts leap with the bounding
flames of the now furnace-like cavern
eating their way through the forest
snow downward to the forest floor.
We kneel on the boughs of our en-
closure and empty the caribou-skin
sack of its frozen contents to prepare
our evening meal. Out come the
viands. Portions of meat hewn off with
the ax are affixed to green twigs and
inclined toward the heat to thaw and
roast. On a piece of rag stretched on
the boughs, is poured a handful of tea.
This goes into the kettle and on top of
it several handfuls of snow from the
dirty but willing hands of "Little-Tea-
Water," for this, I am now ready to
announce, is the meaning of my
Descendants of the Maya Indians
KAMOl'S KOK rilKIH ARCiriTKC'ri KAl. ACllIKV KM lAI"
I'HOTlKiUAI'HH HEl'nODlK'KD THltOUCH TH K COllHTKHY OK TH K <'AHNK(iIE INSTITUTION 1)1 « \-l|]N(iTON
AND E. I,. CnANDAI.L
A SUNNY LITTLE MAYA MAID
The children of Yucatan are happy and cheerful. Their jilaythings are sim])le and their
wants few. The davs slip hv in plaving out-of-doors, bathed in the l)rilliant sinishine of the
subtropics, health-, strength-, and life-giving. This little miss of eight or ten will mother a
whole brood of younger sisters and V)rothers, taking care of them all day long, ]Mloting them
carefully through the village streets, and marshaling them home again, .safe and sound,
at eventide
< 5
3q
YUCATAN TODAY AND YESTERDAY
A Mestiza standing by one of the Plumed Serpent columns in the Temj^le of the
Jaguars at Chichen Itza, Yucatan
M f. j
-iA*. -^'
l!"
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INDIAN GIRL IN THE TEMPLE OF THE JAGUARS
Both Indian and Mestiza girls wear the same kind of garment— the embroidered huipil, and
their costume is considered incomplete without the gold filigree chain and cross
s*;
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CHANGING CUSTOMS AND COSTUMES
The picturesque huipil of the Yucatecan women is gradually being replaced by cheap
European clothing in the vounger generation. Girls wearing modern dresses hke the one m this
picture are called Catarinas to distinguish them from the Mestizas or Indians who wear the old-
fashioned huijjiles
A SHRINE BY THE ROADSIDE
Roadside shrines with wooden crosses are found throughout Yucatan. The devout,
in passing, offer a candle, a bunch of flowers, a bit of colored rilibon or paper, and a prayer
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52 a
A MAYA INDIAN GIRL
A Maya girl in her embroidered huipil, standing in one of the winding stony roads of a
Yucatecan village, with its rough-laid stone walls
A MESTIZA GIRL
This girl is wearing the typical women's garment of Yucatan, a white cotton single-piece
sleeveless slip embroidered "around the neck and the bottom of the skirt with flowers in
cross-stitch
^ i
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i
A ROADSIDE "WELL
In the parched and waterless landscape of Yucatan the traveler hails with delight the
wayside well, the vivid green leaves of the banana tree arching over it offering a gratetiU
island of shade along the sun-baked and dusty road. „ ,. i, i ^ +u„
Modern galvanized iron buckets and even five-gallon gasoline cans have replaced the
old wooden containers at these wayside wells, somewhat destroying their picturesqueness,
but the water still remains the same— cool and refreshing as of old
AX INCIDEXT IX M()XT.\(;XAIS WlXThlll LIFE
65
coinpanion's native luiino. Tsibish is,
incleed, ''kinp; of the tea," and he
smiles at the flax'oi- of his joivc as a
few minutes hiter th(> odor of his hr(n\-
fills his nostrils. The same tawny
hands are now wip(Hl fice of p;rease in
his thiek hair.
The labor of the day is finished. The
genial warmth in front of lis thaws out
tongue as well as face, and the tradi-
tion of taciturnit}^ with which the
north(M'n Indian is accredited is ever-
lastingly shattered by the flow of
conversation and exchange of jokes
lasting through most of the night.
Food consumed, washed down with
several pints of tea, blankets out,
dogs fed and snuggled down on their
crisp couches of snow while still
attached to their harness, and we are
readv for the night.
My own thoughts now turn to the
l<]skimo this cold night, sheltered
beneath tlie ihirk roofs of t lieii' snow-
huts some hundreds of miles to the
noith and east of us. The full foi'ce of
the contrast between tlieii- almost
comfortable existence and the Indians'
comfortless one is borne out in reality,
viewed from the debit side. Even
though we are (Miclosed in hareskin robes
over our fur and woolen garments, the
biting cold descends fi'om the altitudes
above and is drawn with violent suc-
tion against our backs and sides by the
volume of heat ascending from the
cavern of embers. It is no paradox to
declare that it is colder near the fire
than it is at a distance of fift}" feet.
It is this violent draft of in-drawn cold
that makes the bough-screen at our
backs an absolute necessity. No
As the afternoon darkens, the smoke rises, and ovir Ktabakswendzica p , ' balsam camp,
beside the trail is complete
66
NATURAL HISTORY
matter how cold the night is without,
its all the same! To add to it Tsibish
says in his low voice, ^'Kispashnano,'^
''Let's melt some snow for a drink."
Several quarts of crisp snow are forth-
with heaped into our kettle for drinking-
water and for the tea-drinking which
will amount to dissipation this long
night. Tsibish wishes it would snow
hard during the night to raise a drift
against the rear screen, the better to
turn the wind. Wind is deadly! It
cuts through every covering but
leathei'. Hence, our feet enveloped in
moccasins over five pairs of woolen
socks, and our hands in caribou-skin
mittens over woolen gauntlets beneath,
are now our most comfortable parts.
And where, in this congealing night, are
the pair of cross-bills and the Hudso-
nian chickadee, the only birds seen dur-
ing the day's march? And how does
the tiny body of the Labrador red squir-
rel that alarmed us with his rattling
call this afternoon withstand the in-
tensity of this polar chill?
"I am satisfied to be in here now
where it is calm," remarks Tsibish,
"for indeed on the lake now it is blow-
ing hard."
Need I say that our conversation
soon turns to that topic of eternal
interest — the comparison of racial
values? He is as eager to know the
habits of my people, the Bastoneuts,
"Bostonians," as the Labrador In-
dians call all Americans, as I have been,
throughout our twelve years of friend-
ship, to comprehend the life of the
Ilnuits, ''The people," as these Indians
call themselves. And I tell him as he
hstens with rapt attention. Many
grins and some sui prise, show in his
wide eyes as I unravel the mysteries of
home-life, domestic appliances, and
social relationships of the Otcimdwuts,
"Gentlemen-Chiefs," by which name
these simple natives also designate the
occasional Americans whom they en-
counter on their sojourns to the post.
But let us turn from this portion of our
dialogue to that which concerns the
lore of the savage.
"Opitcipwidn Otcimdu," "Gentle-
man-Chief-of-the-Rags," (for such is my
honorable title among these people, —
one derived from the habit of buying
their cast-off objects), "this night is
one like that during which Atikwabeo
"Caribou Man," had his dream which
called him to leave the company of
mankind and become chief of the cari-
bou. Maybe you know the story how
he, with, the men of his family, were
on the tracks of the herd. How they left
their families with all the food to
save them and set forth, with nothing
to eat themselves, in search of relief.
How they were hoping for a dream to
tell them where to go to find the cari-
bou. How after several nights in the
open-top camp, just as we are tonight,
they received no dream at all and began
really to starve. How on this night
Caribou Man received a vision. How
he saw a female caribou appear and
call him forth to join her companions,
to go with her as a mate and become
the chief of the caribou. And how he
told his dream to his father that night
when they awoke to throw more wood
on the fire as we shall soon do. Ha!
ha! And then sure enough when
morning came did it not come true?
The caril^ou were there and a female
came orth. And did he not lay down
his weapons in the snow and walk to
where the female caribou was standing?
And did he not disappear with her and
carry out her wish? And at last did he
not send his relatives some big bulls for
them to kill and thus save them and
their little ones from the great starva-
tion? Ah! It was a night hke this
.i.\ i\(ii)i-:\T IS' M().\'TA(;x.\fs \vi\Ti':i{ life
07
that he left tluMii tor I heir sake and
still lives with tlic carilx)!! li(M-d, ridiiiu
th(> hack of a l)ull wlicn (hey trax'cl,
and slccpinii' aiiioii^- thcii' hodics fof
wainitli, tlu'se many wintei's. I'licy
say he eats moss like his carihou and
even that he has had offspring by
them. Yon know that stoiy, Contle-
man-Chief.
"I have indeed often wished, for the
contentment of my soul-spirit, to
journey to those mountains somewhei-e
far north of the land of the Barren
Ground People to see from a safe dis-
tance the Caribou-House where Cari-
bou-Man dwells, that is so often spoken
of. Ah! to behold such a mountain of
caribou-hair and to see the great
caribou-herds that gather within it at
the summons of Caribou-Man. Even
the Ayestcimeuts, 'the Raw-Meat-
eaters/ the 'Bad People' (Labrador
Eskimo), know that the caribou are
sent forth from there by Caribou-
Man for us to kill.
"But we shall never see that region,
Otcimdu, for I know that neither you
nor I could journey so far, and you,
like us Indians, would not disregard
the tradition which forbids us to
approach it.
"At any rate let us take another
drink of tea and rub grease on our fore-
heads that we may fall asleep for a
while before the fire needs wood again,
and dream of the great food."
" Yes/' I solemnly reply, " I know the
story, my comrade, and I doubt
whether I shall ever try to reach that
land, as I know t lial no ( nc who
I'eafhes it ever returns again. We will
try to sleep for a while to learn what
our souls will I ell us in the 'great
dream,' I'oi' tlu; drink of tea and the
grease rubbing we have given them."
Tsi})ish takes out his moose-skin
tobacco pouch and fills his pipe, "to
give his soul-spirit a drink of smoke,"
as is the custom of these nomads. The
fire getting low, we drag three more
great logs on the embers and settle
down in our "sets" beneath the arctic
sky. As the frigid scene dancing
through the leaping flames grows hazy
and finally melts into blackness, I