The love of the American Indian for oratorical display has been
commented on by almost all writers who have studied his disposition.
Specimens of native eloquence have been introduced into school books,
and declaimed by many an aspiring young Cicero. Most of them are,
doubtless, as fictitious as Logan's celebrated speech, which was exalted
by the great Jefferson almost to a level with the outbursts of
Demosthenes, to be reduced again to very small proportions by the
criticisms of Brantz Mayer.[58]
In fact, in spite of all that has been said about the native oratory,
we are in a very inadequate position to judge of it correctly, and this
because we have no accurate reports in the original tongues of their
speeches. Translations, more or less loose, more or less imaginary,
we have in abundance; but, for critical purposes, they are simply
worthless.
Yet that even the ruder tribes in both the northern and southern
continents, attached great weight to the cultivation of oratory, is
amply evident. James Adair, who is competent authority, tells us that
the southern Indians studied public speaking assiduously, and that their
speeches "abound with bolder tropes and figures than illiterate
interpreters can well comprehend or explain."[59] Mr. Howse writes that,
among the Crees, those who possess oratorical talent are in demand by
the Chiefs, who employ them to deliver the official harangues.[60] Among
the Aztecs, the very word for chief, _tlatoani_, literally means
"orator" (from the verb _tlatoa_, to harangue). In the far south,
among the Araucanians of Chili, and their relatives the migratory hordes
of the Pampas, no gift is in higher estimation than that of an easy and
perspicuous delivery. This alone enables the humblest to rise to the
position of chieftain.[61] So it was over the whole continent.
In most of their languages, the oratorical was markedly different from
the familiar or colloquial style. The former was given to antithesis,
repetition, elaborate figures, unusual metaphors, and more sonorous and
lengthened expressions. The Rev. Mr. Byington gives a number of the
oratorical affectations in the Choctaw, as _akakano_ for _ak_,
_okakocha_ for _ok_, etc.[62]
Some genuine specimens of the oratory of the northern tribes are
preserved by Mr. Hale, in the Iroquois _Book of Rites_, to which I
have referred on a previous page. The speeches it contains were learned
by heart, and transmitted from generation to generation, long before
they were committed to writing, and long after some of the words and
expressions they contain had become lost to the colloquial language of
the tribe.
The ancient Mexicans were much given to this sort of formal
speech-making. They had a large number of cut-and-dried orations, which
professional rhetoricians delivered on all important occasions in life.
The new-born child was harangued at, in good set terms, when it was but
a few days old. Betrothals, marriages, festivals, the commencement of
puberty and of pregnancy, etc., were all celebrated by the delivery of
discourses. Fathers taught their children, teachers their pupils,
monarchs their vassals, war chiefs their soldiers, by such declamations.
The general name for these speeches was _huehuetlatolli_, ancient
orations.[63]
Many have been preserved, and a tolerably complete collection could be
made in the original tongue. To effect this, we should have to have
recourse to the original Nahuatl MS. of Sahagun's history, which, I have
already said, exists in Madrid; next, to the extremely rare work of the
eminent Nahuatl scholar, Father Juan Baptista, _Platicas Morales_,
in which, according to Vetancurt, he gives, in the original, the ancient
addresses of fathers to their children, and of rulers to their
subjects;[64] and lastly, to the recently published, though very early
written, _Mexican Grammar_, of the Franciscan Andre de Olmos, which
contains a number of these discourses, carefully edited and translated
by the accomplished scholar, M. Remi Simeon.[65]
The numerous prayers to the heathen gods, preserved by Sahagun, are,
doubtless, faithfully recorded, and are accurate examples of the
elevated literary style of the ancient Aztecs. They should, by all
means, be printed, so that they could be accessible to those who would
acquaint themselves with the genius of the language and the psychology
of the people.
In the Qquichua of Peru, a few similar prayers to Viracocha have been
saved from oblivion, in the pages of Cristobal de Molina. One or more
copies of his _Relacion_ are in the United States, but it has only
appeared in print through a translation by Mr. Markham, in the Hackluyt
Society's publications.[66] Some modern prayers of the Mayas are to be
found in the collection of Brasseur,[67] and, doubtless, several of the
so-called ancient "prophecies," preserved in the _Books of Chilan
Balam_, are, in fact, specimens of the impassioned and mystic
rhapsodies with which the priests of their heathendom entertained their
hearers, as Cortes and his followers heard, one day, on the island of
Cozumel.[68]