ls the sky, the
plains, with sad and spectre-like memories--with the flutter of unseen
eagle pinions. A land without the tall and sombre figure worshipping the
Great Mystery; without suns and snows and storms--without the scars of
battle, swinging war club, and flashing arrow--a strange, weird world,
holding an unconquered race, vanquished before the ruthless tread of
superior forces--we call them the agents of civilization. Forces that have
in cruel fashion borne down upon the Indian until he had to give up all
that was his and all that was dear to him--to make himself over or die. He
would not yield. He died. He would not receive his salvation by
surrender; rather would he choose oblivion, unknown darkness--the melting
fires of extermination. It is hard to think this virile, untamed creation
has been swept like hurrying leaves by angry autumn gusts across the
sunlit plains into a night without a star.

The white is the conquering race, but every-whither there is a cry in the
heart to delve into the mystery of these ancient forerunners. This type
of colour holds the eye, rivets and absorbs the interest.

Men are fast coming to recognize the high claim of a moral obligation to
study the yesterdays of this imperial and imperious race. The
preservation of this record in abiding form is all the more significant
because all serious students of Indian life and lore are deeply convinced
of the insistent fact that the Indian, as a race, is fast losing its
typical characters and is soon destined to pass completely away. So
rapidly are the remaining Western tribes putting aside their native
customs and costumes, their modes of life and ceremonies, that we belong
to the last generation that will be granted the supreme privilege of
studying the Indian in anything like his native state. The buffalo has
gone from the continent, and now the Indian is following the deserted
buffalo trail. All future students and historians, all ethnological
researches must turn to the pictures now made and the pages now written
for the study of a great race.

It is little short of solemn justice to these vanishing red men that
students, explorers, artists, poets, men of letters, genius, generosity,
and industry, strive to make known to future generations what manner of
men and women were these whom we have displaced and despoiled.
Indisputable figures, the result of more than five years of painstaking
research on the part of the Bureau of