Professor A. H. Keane does not hesitate, in _The World's Peoples_
(London, 1908), to use "Amerinds" in lieu of "American Indians." Other
popular terms for the American Indians, which have more or less
currency, are "Red race," "Red men," "Redskins," the last not in such
good repute as the corresponding German _Rothäute_, or French
_Peaux-rouges_, which have scientific standing. The term "American
Indians" covers all the aborigines of the New World past and present, so
far as is known, although some European writers, especially in France,
still seek to separate from the "Redskins" the Aztecs, Mayas,
Peruvians, &c., and some American authorities would (anatomically at
least) rank the Eskimo as distinct from the Indian proper. When the name
"Indian" came to be used by the European colonists and their
descendants, they did not confine it to "wild men," but applied it to
many things that were wild, strange, non-European in the new environment
(see _Journ. Amer. Folk-Lore_, 1902, pp. 107-116; _Handbook of Amer.
Inds._, 1907, pt. i. pp. 605-607). Thus more than one hundred popular
names of plants in use in American English (e.g. "Indian corn," "Indian
pink," &c.) contain references to the Indian in this way; also many
other things, such as "Indian file," "Indian ladder," "Indian gift,"
"Indian pudding," "Indian summer." The Canadian-French, who termed the
Indian _sauvage_ (i.e. "savage"), remembered him linguistically in
_botte sauvage_ (moccasin), _traîne sauvage_ (toboggan). The term
"Siwash," in use in the Chinook jargon of the North Pacific coast, and
also in the English of that region, for "Indian" is merely a corruption
of this Canadian-French appellation. In the literature relating to the
Pacific coast there is mention even of "Siwash Indians." Throughout
Canada and the United States the term "Indian" occurs in hundreds of
place-names of all sorts ("Indian River," "Indian Head," "Indian Bay,"
"Indian Hill," and the like). There are besides these _Indiana_ and its
capital _Indianapolis_. In Newfoundland "Red Indian," as the special
term for the Beothuks, forms part of a number of place-names. Pope's
characterization of the American aborigine,
"Lo! the poor Indian, whose untutor'd mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind,"
is responsible for the creation in the mind of the people of a "Mr Lo,"
who figures in newspaper lore, cartoons, &c. The reputations, deserved
and undeserved, of certain Indian tribes north of Mexico have been such
that their names have passed into English or into the languages of other
civilized nations of Europe as synonyms for "ruffian," "thug," "rowdy,"
&c. Recently "les Apaches" have been the terror of certain districts of
Paris, as were the "Mohocks" (Mohawks) for certain parts of London
toward the close of the 18th century.
Popular fallacies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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