282 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s., i, 1899
I visited one Indian home where could be counted nineteen outbuildings of various size, including long rows of overflowing cornhouses, ample, well-stored barns, and all else that went to make up abundant evidence of thrift. The farmer who owned this place began with nothing ; now he is able to give one of his sons a two-hundred-acre farm, keeps two sawmills in operation, maintains his fields and cattle in excellent order, and is popularly credited by the whites with being the richest man in that region. I heard his possessions estimated at $60,000, which stands for more in southeastern Delaware between Cypress swamp and the ocean than a much larger amount in one of our great cities. The money had been made fairly by diligent labor, enterprise, and a vigilant eye to the main chance. " A man of good judgment and mother wit " are the terms in which he was defined to me by an Indian neighbor, relative, and friend.
These interesting people should not be neglected any longer. They ask no help, being very well able to take care of themselves, except that in the matter of school facilities the state of Delaware might go a little out of its way in their behalf. There would be no loss, but some fairness, in letting their taxes support their own schools. But the anthropologic world may brighten matters a little for them by showing that in their long struggle for indi- vidual existence they have at last become visible to the scientific eye. Certainly they have a nearly unique interest, sharing the position of the Pitcairn islanders as instances of successful modern hybridization of two widely different human-race stocks, the re- sultant type, when established, preserving itself wilfully from further intermixture or change.
I have called these people Indians, and certainly their domi- nant tone of feeling and the more obvious characteristics of some of their race warrant the name ; but it is evident, also, that they have nearly as many white attributes of mind and body, habit and temper. The result is a singularly alert, versatile, capable kind of men, with no present sign of vanishing from among us.
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