In the heart of the savage, there are some noble and redeeming qualities;
he can be faithful, even unto death, to the friend or the stranger who
has dwelt beneath his roof, or sat under the shadow of the same tree. He
can be generous also; can endure all tortures, rather than show weakness
or fear.
“An instance of this occurred,” says Bossu, “when the French were in
possession of New Orleans: a Chactaw, speaking very ill of them, said
the Collapissas were their slaves; one of the latter, vexed at such
words, killed him with his gun. The nation of Chactaws, the greatest and
most numerous on the continent, armed immediately, and sent deputies to
New Orleans to ask for the head of the murderer, who had put himself
under the protection of the French. They offered presents to make up the
quarrel, but the cruel people would not accept any! they even threatened
to destroy the village of the Collapissas. To prevent the effusion of
blood, the unhappy Indian was delivered up to them: the Sieur Ferrand
was charged with the commission. The Indian was called Tichou; he stood
upright in the midst of his own people and of his enemies, and said,
“I am a true man, that is, I do not fear death; but I pity the fate of
a wife and four children, whom I leave behind me very young; and of
my father and mother, who are old, and for whom I got subsistence by
hunting.” (He was the best hunter in the nation.)
He had hardly spoken the last word of this short speech, when his father,
penetrated with his son’s love, rose amidst the people, and spoke as
follows:—
“It is through courage that my son dies; but, being young and full of
vigour, he is more fit than myself to provide for his mother, wife, and
four little children: it is therefore necessary he should stay on earth
to take care of them. As to myself, I am near the end of my career; I am
no longer fit for anything: I cannot go like the roebuck, whose course
is like the winds, unseen; I cannot sleep like the hare, with my ears
never shut; but I have lived as a man, and will die as such, therefore I
go to take his place.”
At these words, his wife, his son, his daughter-in-law, and their little
children, shed tears round the brave old man: he embraced them for the
last time. The relations of the dead Chactaw accepted the offer; after
that, he laid himself on the trunk of a tree, and his head was cut off
with one stroke of a hatchet. Every thing was made up by this death; but
the young man was obliged to give them his father’s head: in taking it
up, he said to it, “Pardon me thy death, and remember me in the country
of spirits.”
All the French who assisted at this event were moved even to tears, and
admired this noble old man. A people among whom such things could be
done, hardly deserved the sweeping censures of Mather and other good
men, who painted them rather as fiends in human shape. Courage is, of
course, the virtue held in most honour: those who run away or desert in
an action are not punished, they are considered as the disgrace of human
nature: the ugliest girls will not accept of them for husbands: they are
obliged to let their hair grow, and to wear an alcoman, or apron, like
the women. “I saw one of them,” says Bossu, who dwelt a long time among
the Indians “who, being ashamed of his figure, went by himself to fight
the Chicachas, for his misery was more than he could bear: for three or
four days he went on creeping like a snake, and hiding himself in the
great grass, without eating or drinking; so he came to their country, and
watched a long time to do some exploit; often lying down in the rushes,
when his enemies came near, and putting out his head above the water
from time to time, to take breath. At last he drew near a village in the
night, cried the cry of death, killed one of the people, and then fled
with the speed of an arrow. He was out three months upon this expedition:
when he drew nigh to his own village, weary, and bearing the head of his
enemy, they came down the hill to meet him. The women were loud in his
praises—the warriors gathered round him; and then they gave him a wife.”