E. N. Waddington'
Bookstall,
Blackpool.
PURCHASED FOR THE
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
FROM THE
CANADA COUNCIL SPECIAL GRANT
FOR
ANTHROPOLOGY
IS
f
'I
b
LIFE
AS10NG
THE INDIANS
BY GEORGE CATLIN.
LONDON:
GALL AND INGLIS,
25 PATERNOSTER SQUARE
AND EDINBURGH.
LIBR4*>
MAH *
ten
^VOFTO^
PREFACE.
ON my recent return from a long and toilsome campaign
amongst the Indian tribes of South and Central America,
as well as those on the Pacific side of the Kocky Mount-
ains in North America, I was requested to prepare a book
of facts for youthful readers on the character and condi-
tion of the American Indians.
I at once embraced the
suggestion made to me, and am here entering upon the
plan, the results of which will be met and judged of
in the following pages.
As the youthful readers of this volume will scarcely
have read my work on the North American Indians, pub-
lished some years since, they may reasonably expect me to
give some introduction of myself before we start together,
which I will here do in a few words, and leave them to
learn more of me when I may incidentally appear in scenes
and scenery to be described.
The place of my nativity was Wilkesbarre, in the Valley
of Wyoming, rendered historically famous by its early and
disastrous warfare with the Indians whom the civilized
races had driven out of it, and celebrated in lore by the
popular poem by Campbell,
" Gertrude of Wyoming."
In my early youth I was influenced by two predominant
and inveterate propensities, those for hunting and fishing.
My father and mother had great difficulty in turning my
VI
PREFACE.
attention from these to books. But when, at the proper age,
I commenced reading the law for a profession, I attended
the law school of the celebrated Judges Reeve and Gould,
in Connecticut, for two years, and after reading for a
couple of years longer, passed my examination, was admit-
ted to the Bar, and commenced the practice of the law,
which I followed for several years.
During this time, fortunately or unfortunately, another
and a stronger passion was getti