Aboriginal American statue by the American sculptor Cyrus Edwin Dallin (1861-1944) located in Arlington, Mass. He also did the "Appeal to the Great Spirit" statue in front of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts which features an aboriginal American.

I was interrupted by rain and/or parking limitations while doing this one. A woman and child stopped to look at my drawing. I found out about the statue some years ago while I was taking in a vista on a hill, perhaps even in another town. There I met an older woman and her friend on a similar mission. On finding I was from Arlington too, they asked me if I knew about this statue, and I didn't.

Originally I titled this picture "Native American Statue". The term "native American" seems a step up from "Indian" in this context, but I later found this term didn't suit me, and that feeling became acute after reading The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz. In the mid-1800's and later, many people used "native American" to refer to people of European ancestry who had been born in this country. Aboriginal American seems a better fit, and I think this is the term that James Fenimore Cooper used.

June 22, 1996