Chapter 2

Sympathy for what are called the Indian's misfortunes, has, also, induced the class of writers, from whom, almost exclusively, our notions of his character are derived, to represent him in his most genial phases, and even to palliate his most ferocious acts, by reference to the injustice and oppression, of which he has been the victim. If we were to receive the authority of these writers, we should conclude that the native was not a savage, at all, until the landing of the whites; and, instead of ascribing his atrocities to the state of barbarism in which he lived--thus indicating their only valid apology--we should degrade both the white and the red men, by attributing to the former all imaginable vices, and, to the latter, a peculiar aptitude in acquiring them. These mistakes are natural and excusable--as the man who kills another in self-defence is justifiable; but the Indian character is not the less misconceived, just as the man slain is not less dead, than if malice had existed in both cases. To praise one above his merits, is as fatal to his consideration, as decidedly to disparage him. In either case, however, there is a chance that a just opinion may be formed; but, when both extremes are asserted with equal confidence, the mind is confused, and can settle upon nothing. The latter is precisely the condition of the Indian; and it is with a view of correcting such impressions, that this article is written.

The American Indian, then, is the ideal of a savage--no more, no less: and I call him the ideal, because he displays _all_ those qualities, which the history of the human race authorizes us to infer, as the characteristics of an unenlightened people, for many ages isolated from the rest of mankind.[4] He differs, in many particulars, from the other barbarians of the world; but the broadest distinction lies in this _completeness_ of his savage character. The peculiarities of the country in which their lives assume their direction, its climate, isolation; or connection with the world--all these things contribute to modify the aspects presented by native races. In such points as are liable to modification by these causes, the American differs from every other savage; and without entering into an elaborate comparison of circumstances--for which we have neither the material, the inclination, nor the space--it may be proper briefly to consider _one_ of these causes, and endeavor to trace its effects in the Indian's moral physiognomy.

The state of this continent, when the first Asiatic wanderers landed upon its shores, was, of course, that of a vast, unbroken solitude; and the contemplation of its almost boundless extent and profound loneliness, was certainly the first, and probably the most powerful agency, at work in modifying their original character. What the primary effects of this cause were likely to be, we may observe in the white emigrants, who have sought a home among the forests and upon the plains of the west: whatever they may have been before their migration, they soon become meditative, abstracted, and taciturn. These, and especially the last, are the peculiar characteristics of the Indian; his taciturnity, indeed, amounts to austerity, sometimes impressing the observer with the idea of affectation. The dispersion, which must have been the effect of unlimited choice in lands--the mode of life pursued by those who depended upon the chase for subsistence--the gradual estrangement produced among the separate tribes, by the necessity of wide hunting-grounds--the vast expanse of territory at command--causes operating so long, as to produce a fixed and corresponding nature--are the sources, to which we may trace almost all the Indian's distinctive traits.

"Isolation," Carlyle says, "is the sum total of wretchedness to man;" and, doubtless, the idea which he means to convey is just. "But," in the words of De Quincey, "no man can be truly _great_, without at least chequering his life with solitude." Separation from his kind, of course, deprives a man of the humanizing influences, which are the consequences of association; but it may, at the same time, strengthen some of the noblest qualities of human nature. Thus, we are authorized to ascribe to this agency, a portion of the Indian's fortitude under hardships and suffering, his contempt for mere meanness, and above all, the proud elevation of his character. The standards of comparison, which were furnished by his experience, were few, and, of course, derived from the ideas of barbarians; but all such as were in any way modified by the solitude of his existence, were rendered impressive, solemn, and exalted.

In the vast solitudes of Asia, whence the Indian races migrated to this continent, so far as the loneliness of savage deserts and endless plains might exert an influence, we should expect to find the same general character. But the Asians are almost universally pastoral--the Americans never; the wildest tribes of Tartary possess numerous useful domesticated animals--the Americans, even in Mexico,[5] had none; the Tartars are acquainted with the use of milk, and have been so from time immemorial--the Indian, even at this day, has adopted it only in a few localities, among the more enlightened tribes. The migration of the latter either took place at a period before even his Asiatic father had discovered its use, or the accidents which brought him to this continent, were such as to preclude importing domesticated animals; and the lapse of a few generations was sufficient to obliterate even the recollection of such knowledge. "And," says Prescott,[6] "he might well doubt, whether the wild, uncouth monsters, whom he occasionally saw bounding with such fury over the distant plains, were capable of domestication, like the meek animals which he had left grazing in the green pastures of Asia." To this leading distinction--the adoption and neglect of pastoral habits--may be referred most of the diversities among races, unquestionably of one stock.

Reasoning from the effects upon human character, produced by the face of different countries, we might expect to find, in the Indian, among other things, a strong tendency toward poetical thought, embodied, not in the mode of expression usually denominated poetry, but in the style of his addresses, the peculiarities of his theories, or the construction of his mythology, language, and laws. This expectation is totally disappointed; but when we examine the _degree_ and _character_ of his advancement, and recollect a few of the circumstances, among which the poetry looked for would be obliged to grow, our disappointment loses its element of surprise. The contemplation of Nature in her primitive, terrible, and beautiful forms--the habit of meditation, almost the necessary consequence of solitude--the strange, wild enchantment of an adventurous life--have failed to develop in the Indian, any but selfish and sensual ideas. Written poetry was, of course, not to be expected, even from the indigenous civilization of Mexico and Peru; yet we might, with some ground for hope, seek occasional traces of poetical thought and feeling. We look in vain for any such thing.

"Extremes meet," says one of the wisest of adages; and the saying was never more singularly and profoundly vindicated, than in its application to civilization and barbarism. The savage rejects all that does not directly gratify his selfish wants--the highly-civilized man is, in like manner, governed by the principle of _utility_; and, by both, the merely fanciful and imaginative is undervalued. Thus, as Mr. Macaulay[7] ingeniously says, "A great poem, in a highly-polished state of society, is the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius." But, for the same reasons, the savage, who should display any remarkably poetical feeling or tone of thought, would be quite as great a prodigy. Poetry flourishes most luxuriantly midway between the two extremes. Its essence is the contemplation of great passions and actions--of love, revenge, ambition. Imagination is then vivified by the means of expression or articulation; and, in the half-civilized state, neither a refined public sentiment, nor the other extreme of barbarous isolation, restrains the exhibition of great (and poetical) emotions.

The best of Hazlitt's numerous definitions of poetry, determines it to be "the excess of imagination, beyond the actual or ordinary impression of any object or feeling."[8] But the Indian was destitute of all imagination; apparently, the composition of his nature included no such element; and, certainly, the rude exigencies of his life did not admit its action. Even the purity of his mythology, compared to that of the Greeks and Romans,[9] has been (by Lord Lindsay) attributed to this want--though, if such were its only effects, it might very well be supplied.

The Indian has no humor, no romance--how could he possess poetical feeling? The gratification of sensual wants is the end of his life--too often, _literally_ the end! "He considers everything beneath his notice, which is not necessary to his advantage or enjoyment."[10] To him a jest is as unmeaning as the babbling of a brook; his wife is a beast of burden; and even his courting is carried on by gifts of good things _to eat_, sent to the parents.[11] Heaven is merely a hunting-ground; his language has no words to express abstract qualities, virtues, vices, or sentiments.[12] His idea of the Great Spirit, and the word which expresses it, may be applied with equal propriety to a formidable (though not beneficent) _animal_; indeed, the Indian words which we translate "spirit," mean only superior power, without the qualification of good or evil. He has not even the ordinary inhabitive instinct of the human race; his attachment to any region of country depends upon its capacity to furnish game, and the fading of the former keeps pace with the disappearance of the latter. "Attachment to the graves of his fathers," is an agreeable fiction--unfortunately, only a fiction.[13] He has always been nomadic, without the pastoral habits which the word supposes: a mere wandering savage, without purpose or motive, beyond the gratification of the temporary want, whim, or passion, and void of _everything_ deserving the name of sentiment.

An extravagant, and, I am sorry to say, groundless, notion has obtained currency, among almost all writers upon the Indian character, that he is distinguished for his _eloquence_. But the same authors tell us, that his language, the vehicle of the supposed eloquence, can express only material ideas.[14] Now, if we knew no more of his character than this, we should be authorized to infer (what is, indeed, true), that he possesses no standard for the distinction of good and evil, and that his imagination is bounded by the lines of his sensible experience. How any degree of eloquence can be compatible with this state of things, passes comprehension. And what reflection would conclude, a little examination will confirm. The mistake has, doubtless, grown out of a misconception of the nature of eloquence itself.[15] If eloquence were all _figure_--even if it were, in any considerable degree, _mere_ figure--then the tawdriest rhetorician would be the greatest orator. But it is not so. On the contrary, the use of many words (or figures) to express an idea, denotes not command of language, but the absence of that power--just as the employment of numerous tools, to effect a physical object, indicates, not skill in the branch of physics, to which the object belongs, but rather awkwardness. Of course, much must be placed, in both cases, to the account of clumsy instruments; but the instrument of speech differs from others in this: it is fashioned _by_, as well as _for_, its use; and a rude, unpolished language is, therefore, an index, in two ways, of the want of eloquence among the people who employ it.

In this view, the figurative elocution of the Indian, so far from affording evidence of oratorical power, if it proves anything, proves the opposite. It is the barrenness of his language, and not the luxuriance of his imagination, which enforces that mode of speech.[16] Imagination is the first element of oratory, simplicity its first condition. We have seen that the Indian is wholly destitute of the former; and the stilted, meretricious, and ornate style, of even his ordinary communications, entirely excludes the latter from our conception of his character.[17]

For example: take the expressions "bury the hatchet," for "make peace," and "a cloudless sky," for "prosperity"--the latter being the nearest approximation to an abstract idea observed in Indian oratory. Upon examining these, and kindred forms of speech, we shall at once perceive that they are not the result of imagination, but are suggested by _material_ analogies. Peace, to the savage, is, at best, but a negative idea; and the _state_ of peacefulness, abstracted from the absence of war, finds no corresponding word in his language. Even friendship only means that relation, in which friends may be of _use_ to each other. As his dialects are all synthetic,[18] his ideas are all concrete. To say, "_I love_" without expressing _what_ or _whom_ I love, would be, so to speak, very bad Indian grammar. He can not even say "two" correctly, without applying the numeral to some object. The notion of absolute being, number, emotion, feeling, posture, or relation, is utterly foreign to his mode of thought and speech.

So, also, of the "cloudless sky," used to express a state of prosperity. He does not mean, by the phrase, the serenity of mind which prosperity produces, nor any other abstract inflexion or suggestion of the figure. He is constantly exposed to the storms of heaven, in the chase, and on the war path; and, even in his best "lodge," he finds but little shelter from their fury. Clear weather is, therefore, grateful to him--bright sunshine associates itself, in his mind, with comfort, or (that supremest of Indian pleasures) undisturbed indolence. And the transition, though, as we have said, an approach to an abstract conception, is easy, even to the mind of a savage. His employment of such illustrations is rather an evidence of rudeness, than of eloquence--of barrenness, than of luxuriance of idea.[19]

From these considerations, it results, that even the very best specimens of Indian oratory, deserve the name of _picturesque_, rather than of _eloquent_--two characteristics which bear no greater affinity to each other, than do the picture-writing of the Aztec and the alphabetical system of the Greek. The speech of Logan--the most celebrated of Indian harangues--even if genuine,[20] is but a feeble support to the theory of savage eloquence. It is a mixture of the lament and the song of triumph, which may be found in equal perfection among all barbarous people; but, so far as we are aware, was never elsewhere dignified with that sounding name. The slander of a brave and honorable man,[21] which it contains, might be the result of a mistake easily made; the wrongs of which this chief was the victim, might render even a savage eloquent; and the mixture of bloody vaunting with profound grief, is scarcely to be expected in any _but_ a savage. "Logan never knew fear," he says; "he would not turn on his heel to save his life." This species of boasting is perfectly in keeping with the Indian character; but the pathetic reason for this carelessness, which follows--"There is no one to mourn for Logan"--is one not likely to have occurred to an Indian, even in his circumstances. And, granting that the expression _was_ used by the orator, and not (as it seems probable it was) added by Jefferson, it is, I believe, the only example on record of poetical feeling in any Indian speech.

The _religion_ of the Indian has given as much troublesome material to the builders of systems, as has been furnished by all his other characteristics combined. The first explorers of America supposed that they had found a people, quite destitute of any religious belief. But faith in a higher power than that of man, is a necessity of the human mind; and its organization, more or less enlightened, is as natural, even to the most degraded savage, as the formation of his language. Both depend upon general laws, common to the intellect of all races of men; both are affected by the external circumstances of climate, situation, and mode of life; and the state of one may always be determined by that of the other. "No savage horde has been caught with its language in a state of chaos, or as if just emerging from the rudeness of indistinguishable sounds. Each appears, not as a slow formation by painful processes of invention, but as a perfect whole, springing directly from the powers of man."[22] And though this rigor of expression is not equally applicable to the Indian's religion, the fact is attributable solely to the difference in nature of the subjects. As the "primary sounds of a language are essentially the same everywhere," the impulses and instincts of piety are common to all minds. But, as the written language of the Indian was but the pictorial representation of visible objects, having no metaphysical signification, so the symbols of his religion, the objects of his adoration, were drawn from external nature.[23] Even his faith in the Great Spirit is a graft upon his system, derived from the first missionaries;[24] and, eagerly as he adopted it, it is probable that its meaning, to him, is little more exalted, than that of the "Great Beaver," which he believes to be the first progenitor, if not the actual creator, of that useful animal.

We often see the fact, that the Indian believes in his _manitou_, cited as an evidence, that he has the conception of a spiritual divinity. But the word never conveyed such a meaning; it is applicable more properly to material objects, and answers, with, if possible, a more intense and superstitious significance, to the term _amulet_. The Indian's _manitou_ might be, indeed always was, some wild animal, or some part of a beast or bird--such as a bear's claw, a buffalo's hoof, or a dog's tooth.[25] And, though he ascribed exalted powers to this primitive guardian, it must be remembered that these powers were only physical--such, for example, as would enable it to protect its devotee from the knife of his enemy, or give him success in hunting.

Materialism, then, reigns in the religion, as in the language, of the Indian; and its effects are what might be expected. His whole system is a degraded and degrading superstition; and, though it has been praised for its superior purity, over that of the ancients, it seems to have been forgotten, that this purity is only the absence of _one kind_ of _im_purity: and that its cruel and corrupting influences, of another sort, are ten-fold greater than those of the Greek mythology. The faith of the Greek embodied itself in forms, ceremonies, and observances--regularly appointed religious rites kept his piety alive; the erection of grand temples, in honor of his deity, whatever might be his conception of that deity's character, attested his genuine devotion, and held constantly before his mind the abstract idea of a higher power. The Indian, before the coming of the white man, erected no temples[26] in honor of his divinities; for he venerated them only so long as they conferred physical benefits[27] upon him; and his idea of beneficence was wholly concrete. He had no established form of worship; the ceremonies, which partook of a religious character, were grotesque in their conception, variable in their conduct, and inhuman in their details. Such, for example, are the torturing of prisoners, and the ceremonies observed on the occasion of a young Indian's placing himself under his guardian power.

The dogmas of the Indian religion, until varied by the teaching of missionaries, were few and simple--being circumscribed, like everything else belonging to him, by the material world. He believed in a good spirit, and an evil spirit; but his conception was limited by the ideas of benefit or injury, _to himself_; indeed, it may safely be doubted, whether the word "spirit," in its legitimate sense, is at all applicable to his belief. "Power in a state of exertion," is the more accurate description of his imperfect notion: abstract existence he never conceived; the verb "_to be_" except as relating to time, place, and action, had no meaning in his language.[28] He believed, also, in subordinate powers of good and evil; but, since his life was occupied more in averting danger and calamity, than in seeking safety or happiness, he paid far more respect to the latter than to the former--he prayed oftener and more fervently to the devils, than to the angels. His clearest notion of divinity, was that of a being able to injure him; and, in this sense, his devotion might be given to man, bird, or beast.

There seems to be no doubt, that he believed in a sort of immortality, even before the missionaries visited his country. But it was not so much a new state of existence, as a continuation of present life.[29] He killed horses upon the grave of the departed warrior, that he might be mounted for his long journey; and buffalo meat and roasted maize were buried with him, that he might not suffer from hunger.[30] On arriving in the land of the blest, he believed, that the dead pursued the game of that country, as he had done in this; and the highest felicity of which he conceived, was the liberty to hunt unmolested by the war-parties of his enemies. Heaven was, therefore, in his conception, only a more genial earth, and its inheritors but keener sportsmen.

That this idea of immortality involved that of accountability, in some form, seems to admit of no doubt; but this doctrine, like almost all others belonging to the primitive savage, has been moulded to its present definite shape, by the long-continued labors of Christian missionaries.[31] He believed, indeed, that the bad Indians never reached the happy hunting-grounds, but the distinction between the good and the bad, in his mind, was not at all clear; and, since the idea of the passage across the gulf of death most prevalent among all tribes, is that of a narrow bridge, over which only steady nerves and sure feet may carry the wanderer, it seems probable that the line was drawn between the brave warrior and the successful hunter, on the one hand, and the coward and the unskilful, on the other. If these views be correct, the inferences to be drawn from the Indian's belief in immortality and accountability, are of but slender significance.