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CHAP. given up by Mr. Robertson after a shew of res sistance. Their ignorance of abstract ideas; their beauty and limited acquaintance with the arts; their indothe power lence and aversion to labour, are peculiarities of love. growing rather out of their moral condition than

their physical structure. It is also objected to the Indian, that he is a cold and tyrannical husband, an unnatural son, a father without sensibility or affection; that he is selfish, treacherous and cowardly. I cannot omit introducing the compendious answer of Mr. Jefferson to these unnatural speculations.

"MONS. BUFFON has indeed given an affecting picture of human nature in his description of the man of America. But sure I am there never was a picture more unlike the original. He grants. indeed that his stature is the same as that of the man of Europe. He might have admitted that the Iroquois were larger, and the Lenopi or Delawares taller than the people of Europe generally are. But he says their organs of generation are smaller and weaker than those of the Europeans. Is this a fact? I believe not, at least it is an observation I never heard of before. They have no beard. Had he known the pains and trouble it cost the men to pluck out by the roots the hair that grows on their faces, he would have seen that nature had not been deficient in that respect. Every nation has its customs. I have. seen an Indian beau with a looking glass in his hand, examining his face for hours together, and plucking out by the roots every hair he could discover with a kind of tweezers made of a peice of fine brass wire that had been twisted round a stick, and which he used with great dexterity. They have no ardour for their females. It is true they do not indulge those excesses nor discover that fondness which is customary in Europe; but

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this is not owing to a defect in nature but in man- CHAP. ners. Their soul is wholly bent upon war; this is what procures them glory among the men and makes them the admiration of the women. Το this they are educated from their earliest youth. When they pursue the game with ardour; when they bear the fatigues of the chase; when they sustain and suffer patiently hunger and cold, it is not so much for the sake of the game they pursue, as to convince their parents and the council of the nation that they are fit to be enrolled in the number of warriors. The songs of the women; the dance of the warriors; the sage council of the chiefs; the tales of the old; the triumphal entry of the warriors returning with success from battle, and the respect paid to those who distinguish themselves in war and in subduing their enemies; in short, every thing they see or hear tends to inspire them with an ardent desire for military fame. If a young man were to dis cover a fondness for women before he had been to war, he would become the contempt of the men and the scorn and rebuke of the women; or were he to indulge himself with a captive taken in war, and much more were he to offer violence in order to gratify his lust, he would incur indelible disgrace. The seeming frigidity of the men, therefore, is the effect of manners and not of nature. Besides, a celebrated warrior is oftener courted by the females, so that he has no occasion to court, and this is a point of honour which the men aim at. Instances similar to that of Ruth and Boaz* are not uncommon among them. For

When Boaz had eaten and drank, and his heart was merry, he went to lie down at the heap of corn, and Ruth came softly and uncovered his feet and laid her down Ruth, 3. 7.

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CHAP. though the women are modest and diffident, and so bashful that they can seldom lift up their eyes and scarce ever look a man full in the face, yet being brought up in great subjection, custom and manners reconcile them to a mode of acting, which judged of by Europeans, would be deemed inconsistent with the rules of female decorum and propriety. I once saw a young widow whose husband had died about eight days before, hasting to finish her grief, and who by tearing her hair, beating her breast and drinking spirits, made the tears flow in greatest abundance, in order that she might grieve much in a short space of time, and be married that evening to another warrior. The manner in which this was viewed by the men and women of the tribe who stood round silent and solemn spectators of the scene, and the indifference with which they answered my questions respecting it, convinced me that it was no unusual custom. I have known men advanced in years, whose wives were old and past child bearing, take young wives and get children, though the practice of polygamy is not common. Does this savour of frigidity or want of ardour for the female? Neither do they seem to be deficient in natural affection. I have seen both fathers and mothers in the deepest affliction when their children have been dangerously ill, though I believe the affection is stronger in the descending than the ascending scale, and though custom forbids a father to grieve immoderately for a son Siain in battle. That they are timorous and cowardly,' is a character with which there is little reason to charge them, when we recollect the manner in which the Iroquois met Mons., who marched into their country, in which the old men who scorned to Ly or survive the capture of their town, braved death like the old Romans

in the time of the Gauls, and in which they soon CHAP. after revenged themselves by the sacking and burning of Montreal.

"BUT above all the unshaken fortitude with which they bear the most excruciating tortures and death when taken prisoners, ought to exempt them from that character: Much less are they to be charactized as a people of no vivacity, and excited to war or motion only by the call of hunger and thirst. Their dances, in which they so much delight, and which to an European would be the severest exercise, fully contradict this, not to mention the long marches and the toils they cheerfully and voluntarily undergo in their military expeditions. It is true that when at home they do not employ themselves in labour or the culture of the soil, but this again is the effect of custom and manners which has assigned that to the province of the women. But it is said they are averse to society and a social life. Can any thing be more inapplicable than this to a people who always live in towns or clans? or can they be said to have no republic, who conduct all their affairs in national council; who pride themselves on their national character; who consider an insult or injury done to one individual by a stran ger as done to the whole, and resent it accordingly? In short, this picture is not applicable to any nation of Indians I have ever known or heard of in North America. The Indian of North America being more within our reach, I can speak of them some what from my own knowledge, but more from the information of others better acquainted with him, and on whose truth and judgment I can rely. From these sources I am able to say, in contradiction to the representation, that he is neither more defective in ardour, or more impotent with his female than the white

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reduced to the same diet and exercise. That he is brave when an enterprize depends on bravery;` education with him making the point of honour consist in the destruction of his enemy by stratagem and the preservation of his own person free from injury; or perhaps this is nature, while it is education teaches us to honour force more than finesse; that he will defend himself against an host of enemies, always choosing rather to be killed than surrender, though it be to the whites, who he knows will treat him well; that in other situations also he meets death with more deliberation, and endures tortures with a firmness unknown almost to religious enthusiasm with us.

"THAT he is affectionate to his children, careful of them and indulgent in the extreme; that his affections comprehend his other connections, weakening as with us from circle to circle as they recede from the centre; that his friendships are strong and faithful to the uttermost extremity; that his sensibility is keen, even the warriors weeping most bitterly on the loss of their children, though in gencral they endeavour to appear superior to human events; that his vivacity and activity of mind is equal to ours in the same situation: Hence his cagerness for hunting and his fondness for games of chance. The women are submitted to unjust drudgery. This I believe is the case with every barbarous people; with such force is law. The stronger sex, therefore, impose on the weaker. It is civilization alone which replaces women in the enjoyment of their natural equality. That first teaches us to subdue the selfish passions, and to respect those rights in others which we value in ourselves. Were we in equal barbarism, our females would be in equal drudgery. The man with them is