for in him the domestic virtues are but partially expanded. War and the chase,
on the other hand, call forth all his energies. Hunger, fatigue and toil, are
encountered without a murmur, and the mind, goaded on by the powerful impulse
of ambition or revenge, becomes untiring and indomitable. The firmness of
purpose, its attendant privations, and the final contest with a courageous adversary,
give a seductive exaltation to the character of the American savage. He returns
to: his home, h e . is greeted by the applauding shouts of his countrymen, and the
bloody deeds of a crafty and destroying spirit are recounted, even in civilised
communities, as acts of heroism and greatness. How transient is tliis seeming
glory! The excitement of the moment has passed away, and where is the
warrior now? For him domestic life has no charms, and tranquillity resolves
itself into the most grovelling pastimes. Behold him lounging under the shade
of a tree* the victim of apathy and sloth, too vain to cultivate his fields, or to
raise a handfor his own support, while he looks with complacency on the toils of
a mother, a wife, or a daughter, whom the barbarous usages of Indian thraldom
have • condemned to perpetual slavery. To such an extent is this servitude
carried, that mothers'not Unfrequently destroy their female children, alleging as a
reason that it is better they should die than live to lead a life so miserable as that
to which they are doomed ;* while among some tribes grief and jealousy drive the
women to suicide.f The Indian is habitually cold in his manner ito the gentler
sex, and stern to his children, considering it unmanly to show much; tenderness to
either. This exterior reserve, however, is by no means indicative of their real
character ; for after all that has been said to the contrary, I these people are not
remarkable for the purity of their morals. The very reverse; indeed, is true; for
when they throw off the mask of reserve which they habitually assume in the
presence of strangers, they are observed to be as much depraved by vice and
sensuality as most other barbarous nations.:}:
The Americans are, perhaps, less swayed by superstitious fears than most
other savages; and their religion, if it merits the name, is more remarkable for its
poverty than its grossness. It is chiefly a simple theism which acknowledges a
good and an evil spirit; the former of course exerting a benign influence on the
* Bradbury, Trav. in Amer. p. 89.—Depens. Voy. à la Terre Ferme, T, p. 302.
t Keating, Expéd. to the St. Peters; I, p. '227, 395.
jS é e Bradbury, Trav. in Amer.-p, 37, 1.49, 154. Jim. ed.-—Keating, Exped. I; p..224.-UDe
Azara, II, p. 115.—Lewis and Clark, Exped. I, p. i05, 421; II, p. 134.— Muratori, Missions of
Paraguay, p. 29.
destinies of men, while the latter is looked upon as the author of all their misfortunes.
Yet there is, for the most part, no regularity in the time or manner of
their worship, which appears to be the mere result of occasion or impulse. The
Indian hears God in the winds, and in the cataract, and acknowledges his presence
in all the phenomena of the elements; yet these are always attributed to the same
spirit, and not, as with most barbarous people, to a multiplicity of spiritual agents.
Again, the Americans are little prone to idolatry; for it is rare to find any community
among them paying homage to an image of their own making. So far as
inquiry has been extended to this subject, it appears that all the American nations
believe in the immortality of the soul, which is to enjoy in a future state the most
exciting temporal pleasures without fatigue or alloy: of these pastimes hunting
and fishing are the most esteemed, and hence the implements used in both are
buried with the dead.
The Indians have an extraordinary veneration for their dead, which sometimes
induces them, on removing from one section of the country to another* to
disinter the remains of their deceased relatives, and bear them to the new home
of the tribe. Heckewelder says, that when at Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, about
the middle of the last century, he saw a removing party of the Nanticokes pass
through that town, loaded with the bones of their dead friends, some of which
were in sojTecent a state as to taint the air as they passed.*
The intellectual faculties of this great family appear to be of a decidedly
inferior cast when compared with those of the Caucasian or Mongolian races.
They are not only averse to the restraints of education, but for the most part
incapable of a continued process of reasoning on abstract subjects. Their minds
seize with avidity on simple truths, while they at once reject whatever requires
investigation and analysis. Their proximity, for more than two centuries, to
European institutions, has made scarcely any appreciable change in their mode of
thinking or their manner of life; and as to their own social condition, they are
probably in most respects what they were at the primitive epoch of their existence.
They have made few or no improvements in building their houses or their boats;
their inventive and imitative faculties appear to be of a very humble grade, nor
have they the smallest predilection for the arts or sciences. The long annals of
missionary labor and private benefaction bestowed upon them, offer but very few
exceptions to the preceding statement, which,1 on the contrary, is sustained by the
combined testimony of almost all practical observers. Even in cases where they
1 Narr. p. 76.