CHAPTER VIII.

THE AMERICAN INDIANS.

Views of Savage Life. The Five Nations.-Form of Policy.War. Declaration. - March. -Surprise. - Return. - Treatment of Captives. -Negotiations. Religious Belief and Observances.-Arts. Amusements.-Music. - Dancing. - Domestic Life. General Decline and Disappearance of these Tribes. -Its Causes.

AMONG the results of American discovery there is none which, considering man as an intellectual being, seems entitled to rank higher than the new, bold, and picturesque forms under which it presented human manners and existence. The species appeared much more nearly approaching to what has been accounted his state of nature than in any region of the old continent. The Scythian, among the ancients, had been taken as the representative of the man of nature; but, however rude might be his aspect when compared with the civilized Greek or Roman, he had already made a certain progress in the arts of life. He belonged to the pastoral state, possessed numerous flocks and herds, while the nation was assembled in large bodies, and obeyed ancient and hereditary chiefs. The Indians of North America, on the contrary, formed only a handful of men, scattered over an immense extent of continent. Destitute of sway over any part of the animal creation, they subsisted entirely on the precarious produce of the chase. In this state they afforded favourable elements for solving the interesting question of what man is, when not yet subjected to the influence of order, law, and civilization? They then fatally refuted the theory maintained by some philosophers, and even fondly cherished by the human heart, of a state of nature as one of simplicity and innocence. Such a state, so far as it has any real existence, is found only among the inhabitants of a civilized country placed in retired and rural situations, restrained by law, and maintained by the order of society in a round of regular and peaceful occupation. But man, untaught and freed from every restraint, soon shows, that there is within him a source of evil which arrives at a rapid and terrible development. It inspires fierce and unbounded passions, impelling to excesses of crime, such as are viewed with horror by the most corrupted members of a civilized society. Yet this dark picture is not without some great and some amiable features. Liberal hospitality, unbounded attachment to their chiefs or communities, fearless courage, and daring fortitude, are virtues thoroughly and uniformly displayed by the Indian. Wehave caught striking views of savage life, in tracing the progress of settlement in the countries along the Atlantic coast; but it is on the lakes of Canada, and along the Mississippi and its tributaries, that this life was displayed under its boldest and grandest features. In particular

the Iroquois, or Five Nations took long a most prominent part, and displayed, in the most marked and decided manner, all that is peculiar in the Indian character. They were formed of the Mohawks, the Oneydas, the Onondagoes, the Cayugas, and the Senekas; to which the Tuscaroras, by a voluntary union, added a sixth. Their enemies, the Hurons and Algonquins, ranged on the opposite side of the lake and river boundary. The Outagamis and Nadouessis, on the Upper Mississippi, the Illinois, on the river of that name, the Natches, Chikasaws, and Choktaws, on the Lower Mississippi, were also prominent among the Indian nations.

Philosophers, who have drawn in the closet the ideal picture of man in the savage state, have imagined, that where the supply of food and clothing is so scanty and precarious, the obtaining of these first and necessary objects will absorb every effort, and leave scarcely room for any farther thought. Actual observation tells a different tale. It shows, that the finding of food is neither the only nor the chief object which occupies the time or mind of the savage. Agriculture, and the rude processes of clothing and covering, are carelessly devolved upon the enslaved females. Hunting, which, as a train of suspense and adventure, derives an attraction which renders it always a favourite recreation of the opulent in civilized life, is the only form under which he deigns, en s'amusant, to contribute to the public subsistence. The objects which engross his soul, and call forth all its energies, are those of the state and of war. Our modern economists, following Smith, of whose few errors this is perhaps the greatest,

are too apt to consider man as a mere money-making animal, who will never hesitate to work, provided he is well paid for it. They do not consider that the desire of power and of esteem are more powerful principles than the desire of wealth, which is itself chiefly valued from the consideration which is attached to it in a commercial state of society. But by the naked tenant of the Indian wigwam the invitation to do hard work at a guinea a-day would be rejected as the foulest insult. It would sink him at once from a statesman and warrior, the highest characters in the eyes of mankind, to the humble station of a peasant and a mechanic.

It might have been supposed, that nations which possessed nothing, which never aimed at conquest, and which never exercised an internal police or jurisdiction, would have little subject on which to consider or debate. This is so far from being the case, that the British senate is not more crowded with business than the Mohawk or Oneyda councils. Surrounded by other tribes, with whom they are in a state of perpetual enmity, they have to negotiate treaties of peace, to form alliances, to learn every movement of the enemy, and, above all, to mature the plans and organize the resources of war. It was by their deep and deliberate policy as much as by their arms that the Iroquois acquired such an ascendant throughout America. The French and English, who went to treat with them, found them as well acquainted with the interest of their own tribes, and of all those for more than a thousand miles round, as the best instructed European cabinet. All the warriors are present at the national council; but each family names an orator, who alone is permitted to speak; and their oratory is much extolled. They have a hereditary chief, to whom some form of respect is paid, and a war-chief, who, by personal influence and the opinion of his valour, usually leads them to battle. Neither chief nor council, however, can exercise the smallest control over the actions of any individual, or punish him for the most enormous crime of which he may be guilty. Even if one murders another, the right of exacting blood for blood rests entirely with the relations of the deceased. The public never interfere, unless as mediators, that the national tranquillity may not be disturbed; with which view, instead of forwarding the ends of justice, they endeavour to persuade the injured party to compound matters on the easiest possible terms; they will even provide a compensation out of the public funds. Outrages of this nature, however, are rendered very rare, by the attachment which unites the members of these communities to each other, cemented by fear and hatred of all the surrounding tribes; and, in general, there is much internal peace and courtesy.

But war is the grand occupation of savage life; and, though waged with frantic fury, is prepared with the same deep and solemn deliberation which is bestowed upon all their other concerns. Chateaubriand seems to suppose, that the protection of their huntinggrounds affords the most frequent pretext of hostility; but almost all other authorities agree in considering this a very secondary motive, and revenge as altogether the ruling one. Doubtless they are secretly and