by Edmund Burke
Their physicians generally treat them, in whatever disorder, in the same way. That is, they first enclose them in a narrow cabbin, in the midst of which is a stone red hot, on which they throw water until the patient is well soaked with the warm vapour, and his own sweat; then they hurry him from this bagnio, and plunge him suddenly into the next river. This is repeated as often as they judge necessary, and by this method, extraordinary cures are sometimes performed. But it frequently happens too, that this rude method kills the patient in the very operation, especially in the new disorders brought to them from Europe; and it is partly owing to this manner of proceeding, that the small pox has proved so much more fatal to them than to us. It must not be denied that they have the use of some specifics of wonderful efficacy; the power of which they however attribute to the magical ceremonies with which they are constantly administered.
CHAP. II.
LIBERTY in it’s fullest extent is the darling passion of the Americans. To this they sacrifice every thing. This is what makes a life of uncertainty and want, supportable to them; and their education is directed in such a manner as to cherish this disposition to the utmost. They are indulged in all manner of liberty; they are never upon any account chastised with blows; they are rarely even chided. Reason, they say, will guide their children when they come to the use of it; and before that time their faults cannot be very great. But blows might abate the free and martial spirit which makes the glory of their people, and might render the sense of honour duller, by the habit of a slavish motive to action. When they are grown up, they experience nothing like command, dependence, or subordination; even strong persuasion is industriously forborn by those who have influence amongst them, as what may look too like command, and appear a sort of violence offered to their will.
On the same principle, they know no punishment but death. They lay no fines, because they have no way of exacting them from free men; and the death, which they sometimes inflict, is rather a consequence of a sort of war declared against a public enemy, than an act of judicial power executed on a citizen or subject. This free disposition is general, and though some tribes are found in America, with an head whom we call a king, his power is rather persuasive than coercive, and he is reverenced as a father, more than feared as a monarch. He has no guards, no prisons, no officers of justice. The other forms, which may be considered as a sort of aristocracies, have no more power. This latter is the more common in North America. In some tribes there are a kind of nobility, who, when they come to years of discretion, are entitled to a place and vote in the councils of their nation; the rest are excluded. But amongst the Five nations, or Iroquois, the most celebrated commonwealth of North America, and in some other nations, there is no other qualification absolutely necessary for their head men, but age, with experience and ability in their affairs. However, there is generally in every tribe some particular stocks, which they respect, and who are considered in some sort as their chiefs, unless they shew themselves unworthy of that rank; as among the tribes themselves there are some, who, on account of their number or bravery, have a pre-eminence over the rest; which, as it is not exacted with pride and insolence, nor maintained by tyranny on one hand, so it is never disputed on the other when it is due.
Their great council is composed of these heads of tribes and families, with such whose capacity has elevated them to the same degree of consideration. They meet in a house, which they have in each of their towns for the purpose, upon every solemn occasion, to receive ambassadors, to deliver them an answer, to sing their traditionary war songs, or to commemorate their dead. These councils are public. Here they propose all such matters as concern the state, which have already been digested in the secret councils, at which none but the head men assist. Here it is that their orators are employed, and display those talents which distinguish them for eloquence and knowledge of public business; in both of which some of them are admirable. None else speak in their public councils; these are their ambassadors, and these are the commissioners who are appointed to treat of peace or alliance with other nations. The chief skill of these orators consists in giving an artful turn to affairs, and in expressing their thoughts in a bold figurative manner, much stronger than we could bear in this part of the world, and with gestures equally violent, but often extremely natural and expressive.
When any business of consequence is transacted, they appoint a feast upon the occasion, of which almost the whole nation partakes. There are lesser feasts upon matters of less general concern, to which none are invited but they who are engaged in that particular business. At these feasts it is against all rule to leave any thing; so that if they cannot consume all, what remains is thrown into the fire, for they look upon fire as a thing sacred, and in all probability these feasts were anciently sacrifices. Before the entertainment is ready, the principal person begins a song, the subject of which is the fabulous or real history of their nation, the remarkable events which have happened, and whatever matters may make for their honour or instruction. The others sing in their turn. They have dances too, with which they accompany their songs, chiefly of a martial kind; and no solemnity or public business is carried on without such songs and dances. Every thing is transacted amongst them with much ceremony; which in a barbarous people is necessary; for nothing else could hinder all their affairs from going to confusion; besides that the ceremonies contribute to fix all transactions the better in their memory.
To help their memory, they have bits of small shells or beads of different colours, which have all a different meaning, according to their colour or arrangement. At the end of every matter they discourse upon, when they treat with a foreign state, they deliver one of these belts. If they should omit this ceremony, what they say passes for nothing. These belts are carefully treasured up in each town, and they serve for the public records of the nation; and to these they occasionally have recourse, when any contests happen between them and their neighbours. Of late, as the matter of which these belts is made is grown scarce, they often give some skins in the place of the wampum, for so they call these beads in their language, and receive in return presents of a more valuable nature; for neither will they consider what our commissioners say to be of any weight, unless some present accompanies each proposal.
The same council of their elders, which regulates whatever regards the external policy of the state, has the charge likewise of it’s internal peace and order. Their suits are few and quickly decided, having neither property nor art enough to render them perplexed or tedious. Criminal matters come before the same jurisdiction, when they are so flagrant as to become a national concern. In ordinary cases, the crime is either revenged or compromised by the parties concerned. If a murder is committed, the family which has lost a relation, prepares to retaliate on that of the offender. They often kill the murderer, and when this happens, the kindred of the last person slain look upon themselves to be as much injured, and think themselves as much justified in taking vengeance, as if the violence had not begun amongst themselves. But in general things are determined in a more amicable manner. The offender absents himself; his friends send a compliment of condolance to those of the party murdered; presents are offered, which are rarely refused; the head of the family appears, who in a formal speech delivers the presents, which consist often of above sixty articles, every one of which is given to cancel some part of the offence, and to assuage the grief of the suffering party. With the first he says,
“By this I remove the hatchet from the wound, and make it fall out of the hands of him who is prepared to revenge the injury;”
with the second,
“I dry up the blood of that wound;”
and so on, in apt figures, taking away one by one all the ill consequences of the murder. As usual, the whole ends in mutual feasting, songs, and dances. If the murder is committed by one of the same family, or cabbin, that cabbin has the full right of judgment, without appeal, within itself, either to punish the guilty with death, or to pardon him, or to force him
to give some recompence to the wife or children of the slain. All this while the supreme authority of the nation looks on unconcerned, and never rouses its strength, nor exerts the fulness of a power more revered than felt, but upon some signal occasion. Then the power seems equal to the occasion. Every one hastens to execute the orders of their senate; nor ever was any instance of disloyalty or rebellion known amongst this people. Governed as they are by manners, not by laws, example, education, and the constant practice of their ceremonies, gives them the most tender affection for their country, and inspires them with most religious regard for their constitution, and the customs of their ancestors. The want of laws, and of an uniform strong coercive power, is not perceived in a narrow society, where every man has his eye upon his neighbour, and where the whole bent of every thing they do is to strengthen those natural ties by which society is principally cemented. Family love, rare amongst us, is a national virtue amongst them, of which all partake. Friendships there are amongst them, fit to vie with those of fabulous antiquity; and where such friendships are seen to grow, the families concerned congratulate themselves as upon an acquisition, that promises to them a mutual strength, and to their nation the greatest honour and advantage.
CHAP. III.
THE loss of any one of their people, whether by a natural death, or by war, is lamented by the whole town he belongs to. In such circumstances no business is taken in hand, however important, nor any rejoicing permitted, however interesting the occasion, until all the pious ceremonies due to the dead are performed. These are always performed with the greatest solemnity. The dead body is washed, anointed, and painted, so as in some measure to abate the horrors of death. Then the women lament the loss with the most bitter cries, and the most hideous howlings, intermixed with songs, which celebrate the great actions of the deceased, and those of his ancestors. The men mourn in a less extravagant manner. The whole village attends the body to the grave, which is interred, habited in their most sumptuous ornaments. With the body of the deceased are placed his bow and arrows, with what he valued most in his life, and provisions for the long journey he is to take; for they hold the immortality of the soul universally, but their idea is gross. Feasting attends this, as it does every solemnity. After the funeral, they who are nearly allied to the deceased, conceal themselves in their huts for a considerable time to indulge their grief. The complimen•s of condolance are never omitted, nor are presents wanting upon this occasion. After some time they revisit the grave; they renew their sorrow; they new cloath the remains of the body, and act over again the solemnities of the first funeral.
Of all their instances of regard to their deceased friends, none is so striking as what they call the feast of the dead, or the feast of souls. The day for this ceremony is appointed in the council of their chiefs, who give orders for every thing, which may enable them to celebrate it with pomp and magnificence. The riches of the nation is exhausted on this occasion, and all their ingenuity displayed. The neighbouring people are invited to partake of the feast, and to be witnesses of the solemnity. At this time, all who have died since the last solemn feast of that kind, are taken out of their graves. Those who have been interred at the greatest distance from the villages are diligently sought for, and brought to this great rendevous of carcasses. It is not difficult to conceive the horror of this general disinterment. I cannot paint it in a more lively manner than it is done by Lafitau.
“Without question, says he, the opening of these tombs display one of the most striking scenes that can be conceived; this humbling pourtrait of human misery, in so many images of death, wherein she seems to take a pleasure to paint herself in a thousand various shapes of horror, in the several carcasses, according to the degree in which corruption has prevailed over them, or the manner in which it has attacked them. Some appear dry and withered; others have a sort of parchment upon their bones; some look as if they were baked and smoaked, without any appearance of rottenness; some are just turning towards the point of putrefaction; whilst others are all swarming with worms, and drowned in corruption. I know not which ought to strike us most, the horror of so shocking a sight, or the tender piety and affection of these poor people towards their departed friends; for nothing deserves our admiration more, than that eager diligence and attention with which they discharge this melancholy duty of their tenderness; gathering up carefully even the smallest bones; handling the carcasses, disgustful as they are, with every thing loathsome; cleansing them from the worms, and carrying them upon their shoulders through tiresome journeys of several days, without being discouraged by their insupportable stench, and without suffering any other emotions to arise, than those of regret, for having lost persons who were so dear to them in their lives, and so lamented in their death.”
This strange festival is the most magnificent and solemn which they have; not only on account of the great concourse of natives and strangers, and of the pompous reinterment they give to their dead, whom they dress in the finest skins they can get, after having exposed them some time in this pomp; but for the games of all kinds which they celebrate upon the occasion, in the spirit of those which the ancient Greeks and Romans celebrated upon similar occasions.
In this manner do they endeavour to sooth the calamities of life, by the honours they pay their dead; honours, which are the more chearfully paid, because in his turn each man expects to receive them himself. Tho’ amongst these savage nations this custom is impressed with strong marks of the ferocity of their nature, an honour for the dead, a tender feeling of their absence, and a revival of their memory, are some of the most excellent instruments for smoothing our rugged nature into humanity. In civilized nations such ceremonies are less practised, because other instruments for the same purposes are less wanted; but it is certain a regard for the dead is ancient and universal.
Tho’ the women in America have generally the laborious part of the oeconomy upon themselves, yet they are far from being the slaves they appear, and are not at all subject to the great subordination in which they are placed in countries where they seem to be more respected. On the contrary, all the honours of the nation are on the side of the women. They even hold their councils, and have their share in all deliberations which concern the state; nor are they found inferior to the part they act. Polygamy is practised by some nations, but it is not general. In most they content themselves with one wife, but a divorce is admitted, and for the same causes that it was allowed amongst the Jews, Greeks, and Romans. No nation of the Americans is without a regular marriage, in which there are many ceremonies; the principal of which is, the bride’s presenting the bridegroom with a plate of their corn.
Incontinent before wedlock, after marriage the chastity of their women is remarkable. The punishment of the adulteress, as well as that of the adulterer, is in the hands of the husband himself; and it is often severe, as inflicted by one who is at once the party and the judge. Their marriages are not fruitful, seldom producing above two or three children, but they are brought forth with less pain than our women suffer upon such occasions, and with little consequent weakness. Probably, that severe life which both sexes lead, is not favourable to procreation. And the habit unmarried women have of procuring abortions, in which they rarely fail, makes them the more unfit for bearing children afterwards. This is one of the reasons of the depopulation of America; for whatever losses they suffer, either by epidemical diseases or by war, are repaired slowly.
CHAP. IV.
ALMOST the sole occupation of the American is war, or such an exercises as qualies him for it. His whole glory consists in this; and no man is at all considered until he has increased the strength of his country with a captive, or adorned his house with the scalp of one of it’s enemies. When the ancients resolve upon war, they do not always declare what nation it is they are determined to attack; that the enemy, upon whom they really intend to fall, may be off his guard. Nay, they even sometimes let years pass over without committing any act of hostility, that the vigilance of all may be unbent
by the long continuance of the watch, and the uncertainty of the danger. In the mean time they are not idle at home. The principal captain summons the youth of the town to which he belongs; the war kettle is set on the fire; the war songs and dances commence; the hatchet is sent to all the villages of the same nation, and to all its allies; the fire catches, the war songs are heard in all parts, and the most hideous howlings continue without intermission day and night over that whole tract of country. The women add their cries to those of the men, lamenting those whom they have either lost in war, or by a natural death, and demanding their places to be supplied from their enemies, stimulating the young men by a sense of shame, which women know to excite in the strongest manner, and can take the best advantage of when excited.