The North-Americans of yesterday : $b a comparative study of North-American Indian life, customs, and products, on the theory of the ethnic unity of the race

by Frederick Samuel Dellenbaugh

The North-Americans of yesterday : a comparative study of North-American…. by Frederick S. Dellenbaugh is a comparative ethnological study written in the late 19th century. It surveys the lifeways, arts, languages, governments, myths, and material culture of Indigenous peoples across North America, arguing for their ethnic unity while correcting romanticism and crude “stone-age” time scales. Drawing on fieldwork, museum collections, and the Bureau of American Ethnology, it offers a broad, illustrated synthesis for general readers and students of American archaeology and ethnology. The opening of this study explains its origin in public lectures, acknowledges major scholarly sources, and sets the author’s aim: to present Indigenous North Americans as a coherent, once-vigorous world-race whose cultures varied by environment and history rather than by kind. Dellenbaugh critiques rigid global “Paleolithic/Neolithic” schemes, proposes that pre- or early-glacial land connections and climate shifts drove latitudinal migrations, and sketches a cultural gradient from southern centers (e.g., Yucatec) through Uto-Aztecan, Siouan, Algonquian, Athapascan, to the distinct Eskimo. He contrasts lowland declines with highland florescence (e.g., Nahuatl), notes mountain barriers shaping east–west differences, and argues the glacial era’s effects persisted into recent times. The introductory chapter also repudiates the misnomer “Indian,” adopts “Amerind,” and frankly recounts European brutality while urging objective study beyond stereotype. The next chapter begins a linguistic overview: many stock families and dialects, the persistence of languages (e.g., Tewa at Hano), sign-language and trade jargons like Chinook, the polysynthetic structure (with a Basque analogy), phonetic peculiarities, efforts to standardize transcription, and the notable homogeneity of Eskimo speech.