They live on the tops of the mountains and in the distant plains. Their land is wide of expanse and pure of air, pouring colors over them; they draw their culture from its perpetual brilliance and its native splendor.

So the foreign tourist sees them; so American publicity pictures them to us. But the story that one of them tells differs somewhat from this: — the mountains were all their property, and the near plain, like the far plain, was their pasture; then the white American came and forced them by force of arms to take refuge in their present lands... And the sun poured out its colors over all America, and the air was pure everywhere; then the white American came and fouled the clear atmosphere... And their culture was bright and native; then the white American came and replaced it with an unbridled culture that all but overwhelmed the brilliance of what they knew and wiped out the native character from their ways of living.

And suddenly the white American felt the enormity of the calamity that had befallen the original inhabitants of his country, and before wiping them out to the last man he enacted laws to protect them and to foster their crafts and the color peculiar to their culture.

These laws considered the land on which the various tribes live the property of the government, and thenceforth any aggression upon it, or upon those who live on it, was considered a direct offense against the government. These lands were named the Indians' sanctuaries —

Indian Reservations — and were exempted from the collection of taxes. The Red Indians in America today are different tribes, each with its own language and its distinct culture. Each of them lives in its own reservation, and the members of one tribe differ from the members of another in their appearance, their dress, their conduct, and their customs.

Of these tribes I visited the Cherokee tribe, whose reservation lies on the summit of a great mountain stretching from the northwest of the state of North Carolina to the middle of the state

of Tennessee, called the Smoky Mountain — a stretch of land finer than which, in climate and greenery, I have never seen in my life: wide of expanse, bright with sun, abounding in waters, gentle of air. There, at various distances, are scattered the houses

A young woman representing the Indian girl of today

The Indians, women and men alike, devote themselves to the handicrafts, among them the making of pottery

The Red Indians in their primitive state