Minyans

“ A Sac despises the man who is so base.”
“What will the Indians do?”
“What they will do is not for an Indian girl to say; their hearts are very sore, but they would be friends with the white men, if the white men will let them. But fire-water and bad men will make trouble in the land. Tell the people of the village that it would be better for them to give up the Sac town and build for themselves upon another place.”
In order to understand the words of Minneoba fully, it will be necessary to set down the history of the events which finally drove Black-Hawk to desperation. ”

“ She tried to beguile him with the news of the neighborhood, and to inspire him with bright hopes for the future; that future in which they should clasp hands again and find their duty and their pleasure in living for the welfare and happiness of our race, as Minnie would often say.
A race upon whose brows God had poured the chrism of a new era—a race newly anointed with freedom.
Oh, how the enthusiasm of her young soul gathered around that work! She felt it was no mean nor common privilege to be the pioneer of a new civilization. ”

“ The ubiquitous Chinaman has found a firm footing in the northerly port of Celebes, and the splendidly-carved dragons of a stately temple, rich in ornaments of green jade, blue porcelain, and elaborate brass-work, denote the important status of the wealthy community. A busy passer supplies the usual pictures of native life, but the people of the Minahasa, here as elsewhere, lack both the gay insouciance of the South, and the strenuous energy of the Northern mind, the residuum of apathetic dullness, deprived of all the salient characteristics which constitute charm and interest. ”

“ These Indians, the Minneways, were attacked by a general confederacy of other nations, such as the Sauks and Foxes, resident at Green Bay and on the Ouisconsin; the Sioux, whose frontiers extended south to the river des Moines: the Chippeways, Ottoways, and Potawatimies from the lakes, and also the Cherokees and Choctaws from the south. The war continued for a great many years and until that great nation the Minneways were destroyed, except a few Miamies and Weas on the Wabash, and a few who are scattered among strangers. ”

“ The Indians of Minoya, during the time that they were there came to serve them (being driven thereunto by necessity) that of the maize which they had taken from them, they would bestow some crumbs upon them, and because the country was fertile, and the people used to feed of maize, and the Christians had gotten all from them that they had, and the people were many, they were not able to sustain themselves. Those which came to the town were so weak and feeble, that they had no flesh left on their bones: and many came and died near the town for pure hunger and weakness. ”

“ Perhaps all the folk named belong to one people. They are heathen and of the Malay race.
Manguianes.—The heathen, unaffiliated natives inhabiting the interior of Mindoro, Romblon, and Tablas. Manguian (forest people) is a collective name of different languages and races. According to R. Jordana, the Manguianes of Mindoro are divided into four branches, one of which, Bukil or Buquel, is a bastard race of Negritos, while a second in external appearance reminds one of Chinese Mestizos, and on that account it is to be regarded as a Mongoloid type. The other two are pure Malay. ”

“ There do not exist at the present day (1826) more than five hundred souls of the once great and powerful Minne [Pg 17] way or Illini nation. These Indians, the Minneways, are said to have been very cruel to their prisoners, not unfrequently burning them. I have heard of a certain family among the Miamies who were called man-eaters, as they were accustomed to make a feast of human flesh when a prisoner was killed. For these enormities, the Sauks and Foxes, when they took any of the Minneways prisoners, gave them up to their women to be buffeted to death. ”

“ As already mentioned, the Ming had to keep a large army along the northern frontiers. But they also had to keep armies in south China, especially in Yünnan. Here, the Mongol invasions of Burma and Thailand had brought unrest among the tribes, especially the Shan. The Ming did not hold Burma but kept it in a loose dependency as "tributary nation". In order to supply armies so far away from all agricultural surplus centres, the Ming resorted to the old system of "military colonies" which seems to have been invented in the second century B.C. and is still used even today (in Sinkiang) . ”

“ Petersen, the European, the outbreak was of immense significance; it was the falling of Damocles’ sword. He read the papers avidly. He was not partisan; he felt nothing but the passionate interest of an onlooker observing a mortal struggle between equally unpleasant adversaries. A struggle among capitalists. With the poor man dying, bleeding, suffering, whether victor or conqueror. He shook his head over the fate of the Continent.
It surprised him that Minnie’s feelings were so vehement. She was absolutely furious that there should be a war. All those men should have known better. ”

“ The Minæans, whose importance has been already indicated, appear in the inscriptions as only second to the Sabæans, and with details which have put an end to much guesswork, e.g., to the idea that they are connected with Miná near Mecca. Their capital, Ma‘ín, lay in the heart of the Sabæan country, forming a sort of enclave on the right hand of the road that leads northward from Ma’rib. South-west of Ma‘ín, on the west of the mountain range, and commanding the road from San‘a to the north, lies Baráḳísh, anciently Yathil, which the inscriptions and Arabic geographers always mention with Ma‘ín. ”

“ Major H.R. Davies, whose treatise on the tribes of Yün-nan at the end of his excellent work on travel in the province, is probably the best yet written, writes that he met Minchia people only on the plains of Tali-fu and Chao-chow, and never east of the latter place. This was in travel some ten or twelve years ago, and the fact that there are now many Minchia families living in Hungay is a testimony to their enterprise as a tribe in going farther afield in search of the means to live. ”

“ Kublai Khan outlined the greater part of them in mud in the thirteenth century, and then, two hundred years after, came the Ming conquerors who faced the great Tartar's walls with grey Chinese brick, curtailing them a little to the north, and as the Mings left them, so are they to-day when the foreign nations from the West, and that other Asiatic nation from the East, have built their Legations—pledges of peace—beneath them and, armed to the teeth, hold, against the Chinese, the Legation Quarter and a mile of their own wall. ”

“ The most celebrated of these sects is the White Lotus. Under the Yüan dynasty it was anti-Mongol, and prepared the way for the advent of the Ming. When the Ming dynasty in its turn became decadent, we hear again of the White Lotus coupled with rebellion, and similarly after the Manchus had passed their meridian, its beautiful but ill-omened name frequently appears. It seems clear that it is an ancient and persistent society with some idea of creating a millennium, which becomes active when the central government is weak and corrupt. ”

“ As we went on our way, we noticed a great difference in the people; they were more singular-looking and of a type more Oriental: the villagers, the yemschiks, and even the posting masters, were nearly all Buriats. We now often passed Chinese, in carriages or palanquins, clad in silks, red, blue, and in fact of every colour; still more frequently Mongols perched on camels, or mounted on frisky little horses, all of them capped alike with a yellow turban lined with fur, and wrapped in a full287 cloak, made of the skin of the white deer of the Gobi desert, folded across the chest. ”

“ They agree also, in every particular, with the Abyssinians, about the remaining part of the story, the birth and inauguration of Menilek, who was their first king; also the coming of Azarias, and twelve elders from the twelve tribes, and other doctors of the law, whose posterity they deny to have ever apostatised to Christianity, as the Abyssinians pretend they did at the conversion. They say, that, when the trade of the Red Sea fell into the hands of strangers, and all communication was shut up between them and Jerusalem, the cities were abandoned, and the inhabitants relinquished the coast ”

“ They are warlike, savage, and resist approach. Sometimes they eat human flesh as a ceremonial act, and some prize above all other trophies the heads of their enemies, which they cut from the body and preserve in their homes. It is probable that these tribes represent the earliest and rudest epoch of Malayan culture, and that these were the first of this race to arrive in the Philippines and dispute with the Negritos for the mastery of the soil. In such wild state of life, some of them, like the Manguianes of Mindoro, have continued to the present day. ”

“ THE MIN-KIA POPULATION.
The plain of Taly formerly contained upwards of one hundred and fifty villages, which the sultan has attempted to repeople almost exclusively with Mohammedans. The eastern shore is inhabited by the Min-kia and Pen-ti populations, who are descended from the first Chinese colonists whom the Mongolian dynasty sent into Yunnan after the conquest of that province. The Min-kia come from the neighbourhood of Nankin. The women do not mutilate their feet; and the young people of both sexes wear a kind of bonnet, of original form, ornamented by a silver pearl. ”

“ The Indonesians of Mindanao are also aborigines. The Igorrotes are a wild tribe of Luzon and the Visayas, who have from the first been enemies of Spain. The Spanish treated them cruelly and won their hatred. The civilized Filipinos are of Malay origin, and came here from the Malay Peninsula. Those who settled in Mindanao were converted to the Mohammedan faith in the twelfth or thirteenth century by Arabian missionaries; and they are called Moros. The people of the islands are broken up into many tribes, and this has hindered their becoming a united people. ”

“ Look at that—the pakeha does not bear malice; I would kill you if he asked me; you are a bad people, killers of pakehas; be off with you, the whole of you, away!" This command was instantly obeyed by all the women, boys, and slaves. Melons also, being in disgrace, disappeared; but I observed that "the whole of you" did not seem to be understood (p. 29) as including the stout, able-bodied, tattooed part of the population, the strength of the tribe—the warriors, in fact, many of whom counted themselves to be very much about as good as the chief. ”

“ Through much of her history the Chinese have been ruled by aliens, as they are to-day. About 1368, however, the Chinese overthrew the Mongol rulers and established the Ming dynasty, the last Chinese house of emperors, who ruled China until 1644, when the Manchus, the present rulers, conquered the country.
China was great and prosperous under the Mings. Commerce flourished and the fleets of Chinese junks sailed to India, the Malay Islands, and to the Philippines for trade. ”

“ This last question was addressed to Menelik’s agent. The Abyssinian answered by a smile that showed his formidable white teeth.
‘The King of Italy is the enemy of Abyssinia. The King of Italy must die. If an Abyssinian tries to kill him, he will be suspected, and stopped; therefore he must be killed by a European. The Negus has sent me to find a European who will do this for money. I have been in Italy and France, and there they told me that it was best for me to apply to the followers of your religion, which teaches that all kings ought to be killed. ”

“ The Minatarees, as I have before said, are a bold, daring, and warlike tribe; quite different in these respects from their neighbours the Mandans, carrying war continually in their enemies’ country, thereby exposing their lives and diminishing the number of their warriors to that degree that I find two or three women to a man, through the tribe. They are bold and fearless in the chase also, and in their eager pursuits of the bison, or buffaloes, their feats are such as to excite the astonishment and admiration of all who behold them. ”

“ Now considering Mindanao under its social and political aspect, its population is divided into Christians, heathens, and Moros, all of whom proceed in general from the Malay, Indonesian races,21 and the indigenous or Negrito race, and from crosses of the same races among themselves and with other superior races, especially the Chinese and Spaniards. The Christians are divided into old and new. ”

“ These people, though uncultured, seemed to absorb culture wherever they went. They learned the methods of the civilization that had been established in the Orient wherever they came in contact with other peoples, and also in the Aegean country. In fact, though they conquered and occupied the Aegean country, they took on the best of the Minoan civilization. [2] As marauders, pirates, and conquerors, they were masterful, but they came in conflict with the ideas developed among the Semitic people of Asia and the Hamitic of Egypt. ”

“ We must take things as they come, and make the best of them. Do you know the natives have a curious fancy about you?" he said to Minnie. "There was once in their tribe a young woman of rare beauty and virtues, who was idolized by all I don't know how long ago this was, and it is only by piecing stray words and actions together that I have been able to understand it. Well, this young woman, by some means or other, was transformed into a star. They believe you to be her, having taken mortal form again to visit them. 'Tis a pretty fancy, isn't it?" ”

“ In accordance with Minnie's wish, the tribe moves farther and farther southward, and is rewarded by finding plenty of game in the woods, and fish in the rivers and pools. Summer dies, and the beautiful autumn brings strength to Minnie; but the succeeding winter strikes her down. Her savage friends and worshippers are grieved to the heart at her weakness, and she, true to her purpose and to Joshua, makes them understand that health and strength for her lie southward, and urges them on towards the settled districts.
"If we are saved," says Joshua, "I shall owe all my happiness to you, Minnie. ”