stricken down. But for a stranger to re-create the heart or head of a red man, it were easier to change the color of his skin. [Illustration: NATIVE RACES OF THE PACIFIC STATES HYPERBOREAN GROUP] CHAPTER II. HYPERBOREANS. GENERAL DIVISIONS--HYPERBOREAN NATIONS--ASPECTS OF NATURE--VEGETATION--CLIMATE--ANIMALS--THE ESKIMOS--THEIR COUNTRY--PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS--DRESS--DWELLINGS-- FOOD--WEAPONS--BOOTS--SLEDGES--SNOW-SHOES--GOVERNMENT--DOMESTIC AFFAIRS--AMUSEMENTS--DISEASES--BURIAL--THE KONIAGAS, THEIR PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL CONDITION--THE ALEUTS--THE THLINKEETS--THE TINNEH. I shall attempt to describe the physical and mental characteristics of the Native Races of the Pacific States under seven distinctive groups; namely, I. Hyperboreans, being those nations whose territory lies north of the fifty-fifth parallel; II. Columbians, who dwell between the fifty-fifth and forty-second parallels, and whose lands to some extent are drained by the Columbia River and its tributaries; III. Californians, and the Inhabitants of the Great Basin; IV. New Mexicans, including the nations of the Colorado River and northern Mexico; V. Wild Tribes of Mexico; VI. Wild Tribes of Central America; VII. Civilized Nations of Mexico and Central America. It is my purpose, without any attempt at ethnological classification, or further comment concerning races and stocks, plainly to portray such customs and characteristics as were peculiar to each people at the time of its first intercourse with European strangers; leaving scientists to make their own deductions, and draw specific lines between linguistic and physiological families, as they may deem proper. I shall endeavor to picture these nations in their aboriginal condition, as seen by the first invaders, as described by those who beheld them in their savage grandeur, and before they were startled from their lair by the treacherous voice of civilized friendship. Now they are gone,--those dusky denizens of a thousand forests,--melted like hoar-frost before the rising sun of a superior intelligence; and it is only from the earliest records, from the narratives of eye witnesses, many of them rude unlettered men, trappers, sailors, and soldiers, that we are able to know them as they were. Some division of the work into parts, however arbitrary it may be, is indispensable. In dealing with Mythology, and in tracing the tortuous course of Language, boundaries will be dropped and beliefs and tongues will be followed wherever they lead; but in describing Manners and Customs, to avoid confusion, territorial divisions are necessary. [Sidenote: GROUPINGS AND SUBDIVISIONS.]