Progress of knowledge—Indian manners.
Conversing with those interesting and deeply-reflecting natives, was, to
thinking minds, no mean source of entertainment. Communication soon grew
easier, for the Indians had a singular facility in acquiring other
languages—the children, I well remember, from experimental knowledge,
for I delighted to hover about the wigwam, and converse with those of
the Indians, and we very frequently mingled languages. But to return:
whatever comfort or advantage a good and benevolent mind possesses, it
is willing to extend to others. The mother of my friend, and other
matrons, who, like her, experienced the consolations, the hopes, and the
joys of Christianity, wished those estimable natives to share in their
pure enjoyments.
Of all others, these mild and practical Christians were the best fitted
for making proselytes. Unlike professed missionaries, whose zeal is not
always seconded by judgment, they did not begin by alarming the
jealousy, with which all manner of people watch over their hereditary
prejudices. Engaged in active life, they had daily opportunities of
demonstrating the truth of their religion, by its influence upon their
conduct. Equally unable and unwilling to enter into deep disquisitions
or polemical arguments, their calm and unstudied explanations of the
essential doctrines of Christianity, were the natural results which
arose out of their ordinary conversation. To make this better
understood, I must endeavour to explain what I have observed in the
unpolished society that occupies the wild and remote districts of
different countries. Their conversation is not only more original, but,
however odd the expression may appear, more philosophical than that of
persons equally destitute of mental culture, in more populous districts.
They derive their subjects of reflection and conversation, more from
natural objects, which lead minds, possessing a certain degree of
intelligence, more forward to trace effects to their causes. Nature,
there, too, is seen arrayed in virgin beauty and simple majesty. Its
various aspects are more grand and impressive; its voice is more
distinctly heard, and sinks deeper into the heart. These people, more
dependent on the simples of the fields and the wild fruits of the woods,
better acquainted with the forms and instincts of the birds and beasts,
their fellow denizens in the wilds, and more observant of every
constellation and every change in the sky, from living so much in the
open air, have a wider range of ideas than we are aware of. With us, art
every where combats nature—opposes her plainest dictates, and too often
conquers her. The poor, are so confined to the spot where their
occupations lie—so engrossed by their struggles for daily bread, and so
surrounded by the works of man, that those of their Creator are almost
excluded from their view, at least form a very small part of the
subjects that engross their thoughts. What knowledge they have is often
merely the husks and orts that fall from the table of their superiors,
which they swallow without chewing.
Many of those who are one degree above the lowest class, see nature in
poetry, novels, and other books, and never think of looking for her any
where else; like a person amused by seeing the reflection of the starry
heavens, or shifting clouds in a calm lake, never lifting his eyes to
those objects, of which he sees the imperfect though resembling
pictures.
Those who live in the undisguised bosom of tranquil nature, and whose
chief employment it is, by disincumbering her of waste luxuriance, to
discover and improve her latent beauties, need no borrowed enthusiasm to
relish her sublime and graceful features. The venerable simplicity of
the sacred scriptures, has something extremely attractive for a mind in
this state. The soul, which is the most familiar with its Creator, in
his works, will be always the most ready to recognise him in his word.
Conversations, which had for their subjects, the nature and virtues of
plants, the extent and boundaries of woods and lakes, and the various
operations of instinct in animals, under those circumstances where they
are solely directed by it, and the distinct customs and manners of
various untutored nations, tended to expand the mind, and teach it to
aspire to more perfect intelligence. The untaught reasoners of the
woods, could not but observe that the Europeans knew much that was
concealed from them, and derived many benefits and much power from that
knowledge. Where they saw active virtue keep pace with superior
knowledge, it was natural to conclude that persons thus beneficially
enlightened, had clearer and ampler views of that futurity, which, to
them, only dimly gleamed through formless darkness. They would suppose,
too, that those illuminated beings, had some means of approaching nearer
to that source of light and perfection, from which wisdom is derived,
than they themselves had attained. Their minds being thus prepared by
degrees, these pious matrons, (probably assisted by those lay-brothers,
of whom I have spoken,) began to diffuse the knowledge of the
distinguished doctrines of Christianity among the elderly and
well-intentioned Indian women. These did not, by any means, receive the
truth without examination. The acuteness of intellect, which discovered
itself in their objections, (of which I have heard many striking
instances,) was astonishing; yet the humble and successful instruments
of enlightening those sincere and candid people, did by no means take to
themselves any merit in making proselytes. When they found their
auditors disposed to listen diligently to the truth, they sent them to
the clergyman of the place, who instructed, confirmed, and baptised
them. I am sorry that I have not a clear and distinct recollection of
the exact manner, or the numbers, &c. of these first converts, of whom I
shall say more hereafter; but I know that this was the usual process.
They were, however, both zealous and persevering, and proved the means
of bringing many others under the law of love, to which it is reasonable
to suppose the safety of this unprotected frontier was greatly owing at
that crisis, that of the first attacks of the French. The Indian women,
who, from motives of attachment to particular families, or for the
purpose of carrying on the small traffic, already mentioned, were wont
to pass their summers near the settlers, were of detached and wandering
families, who preferred this mode of living to the labour of tilling the
ground, which entirely devolved upon the women among the Five Nations.
By tilling the ground, I would not be understood to mean any settled
mode of agriculture, requiring cattle, inclosures, or implements of
husbandry. Grain made but a very subordinate part of their subsistence,
which was chiefly derived from fishing and hunting. The little they had
was maize; this, with kidney-beans and tobacco, the only plants they
cultivated, was sown in some very pleasant fields along the Mohawk
river, by the women, who had no implements of tillage but the hoe, and a
kind of wooden spade. These fields laid round their _castles_—and while
the women were thus employed, the men were catching and drying fish by
the rivers or on the lakes. The younger girls, were much busied during
summer and autumn, in gathering wild fruits, berries, and grapes, which
they had a peculiar mode of drying, to preserve them for the winter. The
great cranberry they gathered in abundance, which, without being dried,
would last the whole winter, and was much used by the settlers. These
dried fruits were no luxury; a fastidious taste would entirely reject
them. Yet, besides furnishing another article of food, they had their
use, as was evident. Without some antiseptic, they who lived the whole
winter on animal food, without a single vegetable, or any thing of the
nature of bread, unless now and then a little maize, which they had the
art of boiling down to softness in lye of wood-ashes, must have been
liable to that great scourge of northern nations, in their primitive
state, the _scurvy_, had not this simple desert been a preservative
against it. Rheumatisms, and sometimes agues affected them, but no
symptom of any cutaneous disease was ever seen on an Indian.
The stragglers, from the confines of the orchards, did not fail to join
their tribes in winter, and were zealous, and often successful in
spreading their new opinions. Indians supposed that every country had
its own mode of honouring the Great Spirit, to whom all were equally
acceptable. This had, on one hand, the bad effect of making them
satisfied with their own vague and undefined notions; and on the other,
the good one of making them very tolerant of those of others. If you do
not insult their belief, (for mode of worship they have scarce any,)
they will hear you talk of yours with the greatest patience and
attention; their good breeding, in this respect, was really superlative.
No Indian ever interrupted any the most idle talker; but when he
concluded, he would deliberately, methodically, and not ungracefully
answer or comment upon all he had said, in a manner which showed that
not a word had escaped him.
Lady Mary Montague ludicrously says, that the court of Vienna was the
paradise of old women; and that there is no other place in the world
where a woman past fifty excites the least interest. Had her travels
extended to the interior of North America, she would have seen another
instance of this inversion of the common mode of thinking. Here a woman
never was of consequence, till she had a son old enough to fight the
battles of his country; from that date she held a superior rank in
society; was allowed to live at ease, and even called to consultations
on national affairs. In savage and warlike countries, the reign of
beauty is very short, and its influence comparatively limited. The
girls, in childhood, had a very pleasing appearance; but excepting their
fine hair, eyes, and teeth, every external grace was soon banished by
perpetual drudgery, carrying burdens too heavy to be borne, and other
slavish employments, considered beneath the dignity of the men. These
walked before, erect and graceful, decked with ornaments, which set off
to advantage the symmetry of their well-formed persons, while the poor
women followed, meanly attired, bending under the weight of the children
and utensils, which they carried every where with them; and disfigured
and degraded by ceaseless toils. They were very early married—for a
Mohawk had no other servant but his wife; and whenever he commenced
hunter, it was requisite that he should have some one to carry his load,
cook his kettle, make his moccasins, and above all, produce the young
warriors, who were to succeed him in the honours of the chase, and of
the tomahawk. Wherever man is a mere hunter, woman is a mere slave. It
is domestic intercourse that softens man, and elevates woman; and of
that there can be little, where the employments and amusements are not
in common. The ancient Caledonians honoured the fair—but then, it is to
be observed, they were fair huntresses, and moved, in the light of their
beauty, to the hill of roes; and the culinary toils were entirely left
to the rougher sex. When the young warrior, above alluded to, made his
appearance, it softened the cares of his mother, who well knew that when
he grew up, every deficiency in tenderness to his wife, would be made up
in superabundant duty and affection to her. If it were possible to carry
filial veneration to excess, it was done here, for all other charities
were absorbed in it. I wonder this system of depressing the sex in their
early years, to exalt them when all their juvenile attractions were
flown, and when mind alone can distinguish them, has not occurred to our
modern reformers. The Mohawks took good care not to admit their women to
share their prerogatives, till they approved themselves good wives and
mothers.
This digression, long as it is, has a very intimate connexion with the
character of my friend, who early adopted the views of her family, in
regard to those friendly Indians, which greatly enlarged her mind, and
ever after influenced her conduct. She was, even in childhood, well
acquainted with their language, opinions, and customs; and, like every
other person possessed of a liberality or benevolence of mind, whom
chance had brought acquainted with them, was exceedingly partial to
those high-souled and generous natives. The Mohawk language was early
familiar to her; she spoke Dutch and English with equal ease and purity,
was no stranger to the French tongue, and could, (I think,) read German:
I have heard her speak it. From the conversations which her active
curiosity led her to hold with native Africans, brought into her
father’s family, she was more intimately acquainted with the customs,
manners, and government of their native country, than she could have
been, by reading all that was ever written on the subject. Books are, no
doubt, the granaries of knowledge; but a diligent, inquiring mind, in
the active morning of life, will find it strewed like manna, over the
face of the earth—and need not, in all cases, rest satisfied with
intelligence accumulated by others, and tinctured with their passions
and prejudices. Whoever reads Homer or Shakspeare, may daily discover
that they describe both nature and art from their own observation.
Consequently, you see the images reflected from the mirror of their
great minds, differing from the descriptions of others, as the
reflection of an object in all its colours and proportions, from an
unpolished surface, does from a shadow on a wall, or from a picture
drawn from recollection. The enlarged mind of my friend, and her simple,
yet easy and dignified manners, made her readily adapt herself to those
with whom she conversed, and every where command respect and
kindness—and, on a nearer acquaintance, affection followed; but she had
too much sedateness and independence to adopt those caressing and
insinuating manners, by which the vain and the artful so soon find their
way into shallow minds. Her character did not captivate at once, but
gradually unfolded itself, and you had always something new to discover.
Her style was grave and masculine, without the least embellishment—and
at the same time so pure, that every thing she said might be printed
without correction, and so plain, that the most ignorant and most
inferior persons were never at a loss to comprehend it. It possessed,
too, a wonderful flexibility; it seemed to rise and fall with the
subject. I have not met with a style, which, to noble and uniform
simplicity, united such variety of expression. Whoever drinks knowledge
pure at its sources, solely from a delight in filling the capacities of
a large mind, without the desire of dazzling or out-shining others;
whoever speaks for the sole purpose of conveying to other minds those
ideas from which he himself has received pleasure and advantage, may
possess this chaste and natural style; but it is not to be acquired by
art or study.
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