Studia Językoznawcze

The purpose of the article is to present the picture of the indigenous inhabitants of North America painted by Henryk Sienkiewicz in his Letters from a Journey to America. That picture of the Indians was confronted with the one presented in the articles published in ‘Wędrowiec’ [a Polish weekly]. According to the analyses that have been conducted Sienkiewicz quite often described the representatives of the Indians community from the perspective of their external appearance, cultural conditions and psychological features. He was much less interested in the religious and socio-economic aspect. The point of view of the European is dominant in his description and evaluation of Indians both in the Letters form a Journey and in the articles published in ‘Wędrowiec’. On the other hand, Sienkiewicz did his best to create a relatively objective picture of the Indians community. The Indians were portrayed as the ones who had been taken freedom away from, and their main enemy was the civilisational progress. In turn, in ‘Wędrowiec’ the Indians were depicted as enemies of the civilisation and a threat to the settlers.