Indians of the United States : four centuries of their history and culture

Clark Wissler

Published by Doubleday & Company , hardcover , illustrated
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Preface
THE INDIAN OF THE FRONTIER IS THE THEME OF this book. Many books there are which treat the Indian populations of the New World as a whole and some which, in more restricted fashion, review the Indians of the entire North American continent; but few books specialize in the Indians of the United States, portray their struggles to resist the advancing frontier, describe their mode of life and its modifications due to residing among white people, and finally, give some account of the Indian personalities of the time.
All this we have attempted to do in the succeeding pages.

To this end the different tribes have been grouped by language families since that seemed to be the simplest mode of classification and the one most easily understood by the general reader. It is a curious circumstance that the tribes of these respective language families tend to be neighbors, thus forming geographical blocks. Frequently the main body of a language family occupies a geographical area, with a few outlying stragglers. It is by virtue of this that grouping tribes by language tends to classify them by geography also. Our hope is that this procedure will give the reader a general view of the Indian during the frontier period of United States history.

Finally, this book is the first in a special science series for general readers, to be known as the American Museum of Natural History Science Series. The books in this series will be written by members of the Museum scientific staff and others closely associated with the research and educational work of the ..................