'Virgin' Forests of White Pine, Birch. Hickory, Oak. A huge tall forest canopy. Such places still can be found in the Porcupine Forest 'museum' of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
Below: 1910 White Chestnuts, NC. and a virgin stand on the Menominee reservation, Wisconsin. All of New England to the Great Lakes were blanketed in this kind of forest, and the attendant natural life.
Small bands of indigenous people originally lived spread out over large hunting territories.
Already, by 1600 the pox and cold and flu viruses had reduced the population, and increased de forestation has occurred from settlements and agricultural practices which are pushing into the hunting territories of the Abenaki, Penobscot, Maliseet, and Passamaquoddy peoples. They all speak the Algonquian linguistic branch of native languages, the Iriquois, whom we associate so much with this period and the New England area are actually Siouan speakers.
The strangeness and otherness of the American peoples as viewed by European eyes is reflected in this portrait made in the early 1700's of a Mohawk warrior leader. Clearly he also seems to have some facial scarring.
We might remember as we look at this portrayal, how Europeans looked to the Japanese and to the Mughal artists.
Portuguese Ladies as portrayed by anonymous Mughal artist.
http://www.artnspire.com The Orient Museum in Lisbon presents images from the 16th and 17th century of Portuguese trade and missionary relations in China and Japan.
The Dutch artist Jan Verelts affected a more romantic and sympathetic understanding of these Leaders from the Mohawk from 1690-1710.
