When even a quite intelligent person hears about "Aboriginal American
Literature," he is very excusable for asking: What is meant by the term?
Where is this literature? In fine, Is there any such thing?

To answer such inquiries, I propose to treat, with as much brevity as
practicable, of the literary efforts of the aborigines of this
continent, a chapter in the general History of Literature hitherto
wholly neglected.

Indeed, it will be a surprise to many to learn that any members of these
rude tribes have manifested either taste or talent for scholarly
productions. All alike have been regarded as savages, capable, at best,
of but the most limited culture.

Such an opinion has been fostered by prejudices of race, by the jealousy
of castes, and in our own day by preconceived theories of evolution.
That it is erroneous, can, I think, be easily shown.

Let us first inquire into the existence of




Section 2. _The Literary Faculty in the Native Mind_.


This faculty is indicated by a vivid imagination, a love of narration,
and an ample, appropriate, and logically developed vocabulary. That, as
a race, the aborigines of America possessed these qualifications to a