280 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s„ i, 1899
age and rural surroundings. They seemed also in a fair way to keep more than even with the death-rate, while the continual loss by emigration is well offset by the love of this secluded sept of people for the tribal home. The city draws them, or the ends of the country draw them in early life ; but with middle age the Indian hundred prevails and they are back in the trials and limi- tations of their environment. Of course the little community brightens by this outflow and inflow. In that sense there is a growth, but the best available estimate held their numbers to be nearly stationary. In area of occupancy they have perhaps con- tracted a little since the middle of the century, but I think not at all during the last twenty years.
They have quite lost their language. It is believed by them that Lydia Clark, great-great-grandmother of the gentle- man above named, was the last of them who could speak it. To the day of her death she wore an Indian cap and short skirts, altogether refusing the ordinary garb of white women. Every relic of distinctly Nanticoke customs has disappeared as com- pletely.
They have, of course, no tribal organization, but live on such land as they have been able to earn and buy, quite out of sight and reach of the Indian Bureau, with no sort of Governmental aid, and with more hindrance than help from anybody. They pay their taxes and vote like other citizens. For a long time there was a determined effort to crowd them into the ranks of the negroes, when the latter were denied many of the rights of citizenship ; but their steady resistance and persistence have tri- umphed over it, although a certain measure of obstruction, dis- paragement, and jealousy may still be discovered about them. Their first church was burned down to compel them (as they be- lieve) to worship with the negroes. They built a second, and the latter, they say, got possession of it. Then they built a third, and they assemble in it weekly to this day.
They are a neat people in their persons and homes. Myself
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