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which tillage requires. We see this proved in the bosom of our own society; but it is far more visible among peoples whose partiality for the chase is a part of their national character.
Independently of this general difficulty, there is another which applies peculiarly to the Indians; they consider labour not merely as an evil, but as a disgrace; so that their pride prevents them from becoming civilized, as much as their indolence.[1]
There is no Indian so wretched as not to retain, under his hut of bark, a lofty idea of his personal worth; he considers the cares of industry and labour as degrading occupations; he compares the husbandman to the ox which traces the furrow; and even in our most ingenious handicraft, he can see nothing but the labour of slaves. Not that he is devoid of admiration for the power and intellectual greatness of the whites; but although the result of our efforts surprises him, he contemns the means by which we obtain it; and while he acknowledges our ascendency, he still believes in his superiority. War and hunting are the only pursuits which appear to him worthy to be the occupations of a man.[2] The Indian, in the dreary solitude of his woods, cherishes the same ideas, the same opinions, as the noble of the middle ages in his castle, and he only requires to become a conqueror to complete the resemblance: thus, however strange it may seem, it is in the forests of the New World, and not among the Europeans who people its coasts, that the ancient prejudices of Europe are still in existence.
More than once, in the course of this work, I have endeavoured to explain the prodigious influence which the social condition ap-
- ↑ “In all the tribes,” says Volney in his “Tableau des Etats Unis,” p. 423, “there still exists a generation of old warriors, who cannot forbear, when they see their countrymen using the hoe, from exclaiming against the degradation of ancient manners, and asserting that the savages owe their decline to these innovations; adding, that they have only to return to their primitive habits, in order to recover their power and their glory.”
- ↑ The following description occurs in an official document: “Until a young man has been engaged with an enemy, and has performed some acts of valour, he gains no consideration, but is regarded nearly as a woman. In their great war-dances all the warriors in succession strike the post, as it is called, and recount their exploits. On these occasions their auditory consists of the kinsmen, friends, and comrades of the narrator. The profound impression which his discourse produces on them is manifested by the silent attention it receives, and by the loud shouts which hail its termination. The young man who finds himself at such a meeting without anything to recount, is very unhappy: and instances have sometimes occurred of young warriors whose passions had been thus inflamed, quitting the war-dance suddenly, and going off alone to seek for trophies which they might exhibit, and adventures which they might be allowed to relate.”
