been greatly changed, and he has
become far more warlike and predatory. Prior to that time, and far away
in the wilderness beyond such influence since that time, Indian tribes
seem to have lived together in comparative peace and to have settled
their difficulties by treaty methods. A few of the tribes had distinct
organizations for purposes of war; all recognized it to a greater or
less extent in their tribal organization; but from such study as has
been given the subject, and from the many facts collected from time to
time relating to the intercourse existing between tribes, it appears
that the Indians lived in comparative peace. Their accumulations were
not so great as to be tempting, and their modes of warfare were not
excessively destructive. Armed with clubs and spears and bows and
arrows, war could be prosecuted only by hand-to-hand conflict, and
depended largely upon individual prowess, while battle for plunder,
tribute, and conquest was almost unknown. Such intertribal wars as
occurred originated from other causes, such as infraction of rights
relating to hunting grounds and fisheries, and still oftener prejudices
growing out of their superstitions.

That which kept the Indian population down sprang from another source,
which has sometimes been neglected. The Indians had no reasonable or
efficacious system of medicine. They believed that diseases were caused
by unseen evil beings and by witchcraft, and every cough, every
toothache, every headache, every chill, every fever, every boil, and
every wound, in fact, all their ailments, were attributed to such cause.
Their so-called medicine practice was a horrible system of sorcery, and
to such superstition human life was sacrificed on an enormous scale. The
sufferers were given over to priest doctors to be tormented, bedeviled,
and destroyed; and a universal and profound belief in witchcraft made
them suspicious, and led to the killing of all suspected and obnoxious
people, and engendered blood feuds on a gigantic scale. It may be safely
said that while famine, pestilence, disease, and war may have killed
many, superstition killed more; in fact, a natural death in a savage
tent is a comparatively rare phenomenon; but death by sorcery, medicine,
and blood feud arising from a belief in witchcraft is exceedingly
common.

Scanty as was the population compared with the vast area teeming with
natural products capable of supporting human life, it may be safely said
that