第101章 THE SKETCH BOOK(3)

Another ground of violent outcry against the Indians is theirbarbarity to the vanquished. This had its origin partly in policyand partly in superstition. The tribes, though sometimes callednations, were never so formidable in their numbers, but that theloss of several warriors was sensibly felt; this was particularlythe case when they had been frequently engaged in warfare; and many aninstance occurs in Indian history, where a tribe, that had long beenformidable to its neighbors, has been broken up and driven away, bythe capture and massacre of its principal fighting men. There was astrong temptation, therefore, to the victor to be merciless; not somuch to gratify any cruel revenge, as to provide for futuresecurity. The Indians had also the superstitious belief, frequentamong barbarous nations, and prevalent also among the ancients, thatthe manes of their friends who had fallen in battle were soothed bythe blood of the captives. The prisoners, however, who are not thussacrificed, are adopted into their families in the place of the slain,and are treated with the confidence and affection of relatives andfriends; nay, so hospitable and tender is their entertainment, thatwhen the alternative is offered them, they will often prefer to remainwith their adopted brethren, rather than return to the home and thefriends of their youth.

The cruelty of the Indians towards their prisoners has beenheightened since the colonization of the whites. What was formerly acompliance with policy and superstition, has been exasperated into agratification of vengeance. They cannot but be sensible that the whitemen are the usurpers of their ancient dominion, the cause of theirdegradation, and the gradual destroyers of their race. They go forthto battle, smarting with injuries and indignities which they haveindividually suffered, and they are driven to madness and despair bythe wide-spreading desolation, and the overwhelming ruin of Europeanwarfare. The whites have too frequently set them an example ofviolence, by burning their villages, and laying waste their slendermeans of subsistence: and yet they wonder that savages do not showmoderation and magnanimity towards those who have left them nothingbut mere existence and wretchedness.

We stigmatize the Indians, also, as cowardly and treacherous,because they use stratagem in warfare, in preference to open force;but in this they are fully justified by their rude code of honor. Theyare early taught that stratagem is praiseworthy; the bravest warriorthinks it no disgrace to lurk in silence, and take every advantageof his foe: he triumphs in the superior craft and sagacity by which hehas been enabled to surprise and destroy an enemy. Indeed, man isnaturally more prone to subtility than open valor, owing to hisphysical weakness in comparison with other animals. They are endowedwith natural weapons of defence: with horns, with tusks, with hoofs,and talons; but man has to depend on his superior sagacity. In all hisencounters with these, his proper enemies, he resorts to stratagem;and when he perversely turns his hostility against his fellow-man,he at first continues the same subtle mode of warfare.

The natural principle of war is to do the most harm to our enemywith the least harm to ourselves; and this of course is to be effectedby stratagem. That chivalrous courage which induces us to despisethe suggestions of prudence, and to rush in the face of certaindanger, is the offspring of society, and produced by education. Itis honorable, because it is in fact the triumph of lofty sentimentover an instinctive repugnance to pain, and over those yearnings afterpersonal ease and security, which society has condemned as ignoble. Itis kept alive by pride and the fear of shame; and thus the dread ofreal evil is overcome by the superior dread of an evil which existsbut in the imagination. It has been cherished and stimulated also byvarious means. It has been the theme of spirit-stirring song andchivalrous story. The poet and minstrel have delighted to shed roundit the splendors of fiction; and even the historian has forgottenthe sober gravity of narration, and broken forth into enthusiasm andrhapsody in its praise. Triumphs and gorgeous pageants have been itsreward: monuments, on which art has exhausted its skill, andopulence its treasures, have been erected to perpetuate a nation'sgratitude and admiration. Thus artificially excited, courage has risento an extraordinary and factitious degree of heroism: and arrayed inall the glorious "pomp and circumstance of war," this turbulentquality has even been able to eclipse many of those quiet, butinvaluable virtues, which silently ennoble the human character, andswell the tide of human happiness.

But if courage intrinsically consists in the defiance of dangerand pain, the life of the Indian is a continual exhibition of it. Helives in a state of perpetual hostility and risk. Peril andadventure are congenial to his nature; or rather seem necessary toarouse his faculties and to give an interest to his existence.

Surrounded by hostile tribes, whose mode of warfare is by ambush andsurprisal, he is always prepared for fight, and lives with his weaponsin his hands. As the ship careers in fearful singleness through thesolitudes of ocean;- as the bird mingles among clouds and storms,and wings its way, a mere speck, across the pathless fields of air;-so the Indian holds his course, silent, solitary, but undaunted,through the boundless bosom of the wilderness. His expeditions may viein distance and danger with the pilgrimage of the devotee, or thecrusade of the knight-errant. He traverses vast forests, exposed tothe hazards of lonely sickness, of lurking enemies, and pining famine.