Aboriginal America

by Jacob Abbott

  Mental Adaptations

  This adaptation of the powers and faculties of animals to the duties, so to speak, which they are destined to perform in life, applies to their mental qualities, as well as to those which are more purely corporeal. A lamb, being intended to feed on grass and flowers, is gentle in spirit, and is furnished with an instinct which leads him to save himself from danger by running away from his foe. The tiger, on the other hand, is endowed with a degree of courage and of combative ardor so great that we call it ferocity; and this simply because he is to live by seizing and conquering a living and resisting prey. The fox, who is to feed upon timid animals that have wings to fly away from him, is made cunning, that he may be enabled to catch them off their guard. For him simple strength would not be sufficient. So the dog, who is intended to gain his livelihood by the services which he renders to man, is provided with a mental constitution which leads him to attach himself to a human master, and to remain faithful to him in every extremity; while other animals, taken from their native haunts and brought artificially into this relation, are with difficulty retained, and on the first favorable opportunity fly away into their native woods again.

  Designs of Divine Providence in Respect to Man

  Upon a principle somewhat similar to this the different races of men seem to be endowed with different qualities, each being adapted, both in physical and intellectual constitution, to the place it has to occupy in the history of the species.

  For some reason or other which we cannot fully understand, Divine Providence has not seen fit to bring the family of man at once into the full possession of all the attainments and enjoyments of which the species is capable, or to the high social state for which their nature fits them. On the contrary, the system which has been adopted for the human race, unlike that seen in operation in respect to any race of animals not connected with man, is that of an exceedingly slow and gradual development. The different regions of the earth have been stocked with different branches of the human family, strikingly dissimilar to each other in their persons, in their physical powers, and in their mental constitutions--each, however, being exactly adapted to the part which they are respectively called upon to perform in the great drama.

  The Great Divisions in the Human Family

  Thus the races of Central and Southern Asia are endowed with very peculiar physical and mental powers, differing essentially from those of the prevailing race in Europe, which is called the Caucasian race, and both differing essentially also from those of the African races. The differences which exist would seem to be innate and permanent, so far as we can judge from the results-- each particular branch being able apparently to attain only to a certain degree of refinement and civilization, and these remaining unchanged, or almost unchanged, for many centuries. The Chinese, the Malays, and the negroes of Africa appear to have subsisted in substantially their present condition from a very early age, while the Caucasian race has been constantly progressive, having built up in succession a great number of independent empires. The Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and, following them, the great European nations of modern times, have entirely outstript in arts, in science, and in civilization all the other races of the globe; although many of these other races have possessed, each in its own region of the earth, equal facilities for advancement, and have held them for the same length of time.

  Constitutional Diversities

  We must suppose, then, that there is a great and permanent difference in the physical and intellectual constitution of the different races--permanent at least in this respect, that it cannot be changed by an human means in the course of any moderate number of generations. Whether these differences have been produced by external causes, such as climate and modes of life, or by some hidden innate causes more or less connected with these, or whether they have originated in some other way to us wholly inscrutable, is at present entirely unknown. We must, at any rate, accept the difference actually existing as a fact, and conform our reasonings and our actions to it--always acknowledging, however, that the inferiority of any race to ours, if we claim that such inferiority exists, imposes upon us a special obligation to be just toward them, and to protect them in the enjoyment of all their rights, instead of giving us any authority to tyrannize over them or oppress them in any way. We may rightfully recognize and act upon our superiority to them in the social arrangements which we make, but we are bound in doing so to consider them as under our protection, and to guard their rights and provide for their welfare and happiness faithfully, honestly, and with feelings of sincere good will.

  Mental and Physical Constitution of the American Aborigines

  The American Aborigines have been generally considered by mankind as a stern, taciturn, immovable, unfeeling, and yet shrewd and cunning people. Some travelers, like the celebrated Catlin, among others, who spent a great deal of time among the western tribes, maintain that the degree in which they possess these qualities has been exaggerated. Catlin found the Indians at their own homes, in the villages which they had built on the banks of the Missouri and upon the western prairies, as jovial, as talkative, and as full of life and animation as other men. But the prevailing testimony, especially in respect to those tribes that dwelt on the Atlantic coast at the time of the first settlement of the country, represents them as exceedingly grave and stolid in all their deportment, and possessing very little sensibility of any kind. Their power to endure hunger, cold, and fatigue was surprising. This powers was doubtless, in a great degree, acquired by habit, and must of their apparent insensibility was due to a feeling prevalent among them that it was weak and unmanly to complain. Still there seemed to be something in their physical constitution which gave them a greater power of endurance than belongs to the Caucasian race. They felt cold and hunger, and the pain of wounds, much less, and could consequently endure much more, with the same exercise of fortitude, than other men.

  Indeed, we might have been almost certain that this would be so. The same kind and watchful Providence which gives the eagle his astonishing extent of vision, in order that he may have power to survey the vast field over which he is to seek his food, and enables the polar bear to sleep in comfort on a floor of ice where mercury would freeze, would surely not impart a delicate sensibility to the organization of a man who was to live by seeking his food in the winter in a howling forest, with a certainty of often passing days without sustenance, and nights without any covering but bushes and snow.

  The Taciturnity of the Indians

  The extreme taciturnity of the Indians was one of their most striking characteristics. We shall explain it in different ways according as we suppose, that the Indian was made to fit the circumstances in which he was to be placed, or that he was made like other men, and that the circumstances changed him. On the latter supposition he has learned to be silent, from the fact that silence is so necessary for him while prowling through the woods in search of game, or watching against an ambuscade on the part of an enemy.

  But talkativeness is the result of a peculiar mental organization, leading to a lively and rapid flow of ideas, ardent sensibilities, and a quick and ready action of the nerves and muscles are connected with the organs of speech. All this nice mechanism would be out of place, in a great measure, with these children of the forest;; and, indeed, it would be worse than out of place, for it might be, necessarily for aught we know, connected with a greater sensibility to pain, which to the Indian would be a very serious evil.

  We might suppose, it is true, that the inward mechanism was with him, at birth, the same in respect to these faculties as in the Caucasian race, but that, on account of the mode of life which the Indian leads, it remained undeveloped. This is, doubtless, to some extent true. But it would seen that the Indian children manifest from their earliest infancy the same low degree of sensibility, giving them the power of bearing without inconvenience, or at least without pain, what would be intolerable to the children of another race, which characterizes their fathers a
nd mothers. The children seldom cry. They remain patient, strapped upon their board, looking quietly about, and content apparently with existence alone; while a white child of the same age is endowed with powers of observation and with mental instincts and propensities so sensitive and active that it craves the incessant occupation of its faculties, and scarcely ever intermits his restless activity.

  Where we find peculiarities of temperament thus showing themselves at the earliest age, and continuing to mark the character and conduct under all circumstances to the end of life, it would seem that we are entitled to conclude that they are innate, and, in the individual at least, are not the result of climate or of education, or of any other outward causes.

  Cruelty

  The American Indians, like all other savages, were extremely cruel in the treatment of prisoners captured in war. They took great delight in torturing them, and often burnt them alive. Whether any palliation for these enormities can be derived from the fact that such inflictions produced a less exquisite pain in sufferers of their race than they would have done in ours, we will not undertake to say. At any rate, it is known that prisoners subjected to such treatment bore their tortures with most astonishing fortitude. Sometimes, indeed, such suffering was voluntarily incurred, under the impulse of some exalted sentiment of generosity, or other strong emotion.

  The Father Dying For His Son

  An account is given of an Indian who belonged to a tribe that was involved in some quarrel with a neighboring tribe, and one day when he came home from his hunting he found his wife in a state of extreme anguish and terror from the fact that a party of the enemy had come suddenly upon the wigwam during the absence of the father, and had made a prisoner of the oldest son, and carried him away.

  The father immediately bade his wife farewell, and putting himself upon the trail of the hostile party he followed them with the utmost diligence. He knew that the destiny of the poor prisoner was most assuredly to be tortured to death by fire, and he was going to offer himself for this sacrifice, in order to obtain the ransom of his child.

  He came up with the party of the enemy just as they were making preparations to enjoy their cruel revenge. He approached them with a signal which was equivalent to a flag of truce in civilized warfare, and offered himself as a substitute for his son. “My poor boy,” said he, “is just entering upon life. Do not cut him off so prematurely from the enjoyment of it. He is vigorous and strong, too, and is the hope of his mother, and he will be, for many years, the stay and support of the family. But I am old and infirm. My work will soon be done, and I am of little value to my wife and children. But I am just as good to be burned alive for your revenge as he.”

  This, or something equivalent to this, the old man said to his savage enemies. They acknowledged the propriety of the proposal, and made the exchange. They unbound the young man and gave him his liberty. The father sent him away, charging him to go home and take care of his mother and of the children, and then gave himself up to be burnt to death by a process protracted as long as possible, while his enemies feasted and danced around the fire.

  The Practice of Scalping

  The practice which prevailed among all the native tribes of North America of taking off the scalps of enemies slain in battle, and preserving them as trophies of victory, has generally been considered a special token of the barbarous cruelty of the Indian character. The practice, it is true, presents a most shocking image to our imaginations, yet, when we reflect upon it, it does not seem to denote any special and peculiar cruelty. It is barbarous, without doubt, yet still perhaps not specially and peculiarly so.

  Origin of the Practice

  The practice arose very naturally from the custom that prevails universally among all hunting savages, and indeed among all hunting men, whether savage or civilized, of obtaining from the boy of the animal slain something to be preserved as a trophy of the prowess of the hunter in killing him. A barbarous hunter wears the trophies thus obtained upon his person. A civilized one hangs them up in his hall. That seems to be the chief difference between barbarism and civilization in this respect.

  The Indians made their dresses of the skins of animals that they had killed; and the fiercer and more furious the beast that furnished the material, the more distinguished and glorious was the attire.

  There were many parts of the bodies of these animals that were used in this way. Skins were made into quivers, moccasins, leggins and robes. Horns were used in head-dresses; bones were worked into beads and ornaments of every kind; and long hair, dyed of various colors, was formed into fringes to decorate the borders of garments. There was a particular species of eagle called the war-eagle, on account of his strength and fierceness, whose feathers were prized above all others for purposes of dress and decoration.

  From this practice of taking the skin, the horns, the hair, or the feathers of animals slain in the chase as trophies to be used as articles of dress or ornament, it is but a single step to that of preserving a portion of the long hair of an enemy slain in battle for the same purpose; and when the man was dead there was no special cruelty in taking a portion of the skin with the hair. Not that we are to suppose that the Indians could have any feeling that would lead them to defer taking a scalp till after death from motives of humanity, but only that in ordinary cases they would be compelled to do so. It would, of course, be very seldom that a scalp could be taken from a victim while he was alive.

  Customs Connected with the Practice of Scalping

  The portion of the skin which was taken from the head in scalping an enemy was quite small, only a few inches in diameter. All that was essential was that it should include the crown of the head--that is, the central point from which the hair separates. The hair itself, however, which grew from the other parts of the head was usually cut off too, especially if it was long, and suitable to be worked into fringes and other such ornaments.

  A scalp, when taken from the head, was first stretched in a sort of hoop to keep the skin distended while drying. This hoop was formed upon the end of a long pole by bending the end round into a circle, first cutting away a portion of the wood at the end to make it sufficiently flexible. The scalp was placed in the center of this hoop, and fastened there by strings passing out in every direction to the circumference--the long hair hanging down the pole. The pole served, of course, for a handle by which the trophy could be borne in a conspicuous and triumphant manner.

  There were certain ceremonies to be performed with the fresh scalps as soon as the party taking them had reached home, by way of public recognition of them as warlike trophies. These ceremonies consisted of feastings and rejoicings, accompanied with songs and dances--that is, if such wailing and unearthly succession of sounds as they made could be called songs, or their horrid contortions and gesticulation dances. When these ceremonies were completed the scalps were considered as duly consecrated, and were thenceforth preserved with great care in the wigwam, or worn upon the person, as badges of the highest distinction and honor.

  Treatment of Women

  The Indians have been accused of treating their women as slaves, and there is no doubt that the women were always held by them in a state of very complete and absolute subordination to the men. They were employed all the time in arduous labors, but this was a matter of necessity, for the continual toil of both men and women was in most cases necessary for the maintenance of the family. The woman had the house to put up and take down, the mats and clothing to make, fuel to bring for the fire, and the field to till.

  But all this probably made no more than her fair proportion of toil and exposure, when we consider the sufferings and danger and fatigue which fell to the lot of the husband in his hunting and fishing expeditions. The privations which the men sometimes endured in their long tramps through the forests, especially amid the snows and storms and intense cold which reigned in all the northern forests for so large a portion of the year, were indescribably great, especially since the indomitable pride of the hunter often pre
sented his returning home, however urgent his own personal necessities might be, without having first obtained his game. Instances have been known of the Indians wandering in the woods until they have become perfectly exhausted, and of their then lying down and perishing hunger, rather than go home to a starving family, without the means of supplying them with food.

  Polygamy

  Polygamy prevailed to some extent among the Indian tribes. Of course, since the number of the sexes is everywhere so nearly equal, this practice can never be carried to any very great extent in any human community, even if there were no natural instincts in the heart to war against it. There was no law among the Indians restricting men to a single wife, and prominent personages, such as great warriors and chieftains, often accordingly possessed themselves of more than one. The motive which influenced them, however, in these cases was not, as it would seem, a sensual one. but rather a desire to extend their influence by connecting themselves with powerful families, and to aggrandize themselves in the estimation of the community by enlarging their domestic establishment. The practice, however, being in violation of the natural instincts of man and the essential laws of his constitution, led generally to domestic disquiet and suffering, and sometimes to catastrophes which would have comported well with the strength of the sentiment of jealousy in the heart of the most civilized woman.