Shut your mouth and save your life / by George Catlin.

  • George Catlin
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Shut your mouth and save your life / by George Catlin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    writer who draws those contrasts, to see with his own eyes the customs of the Native Races, and obtain his information from the lips of the people themselves, in- stead of trusting to a long succession of authorities, each of which has quoted from his predecessor, when the original one has been unworthy of credit, or has gained his information from unreliable, or ignorant, or malicious sources. There is, perhaps, no other subject upon which his- torians and other writers are more liable to lead the world into erroneous conclusions than that of the true native customs and character of Aboriginal Races; and that from the universal dread and fear which have generally deterred historians and other men of Science from penetrating the solitudes inhabited by these people, in the practice of their primitive modes. There always exists a broad and moving barrier between savage and civilized communities, where the first shaking of hands and acquaintance take place, and over which the demoralizing and deadly effects of dissi- pation are taught and practised; and from which, un- fortunately, both for the character of the barbarous races and the benefit of Science, the customs and the personal appearance of the savage are gathered and portrayed to the world. It has been too much upon this field that historians and other writers have drawn for the exaggerated