Of the bodily constitution of the North American Indians, and of the measure of their intellectual faculties.

Robertson, in his graphic representations of Indian character, affirms or rather insinuates, that the constitution of the American Indian labours under some physical defect. But that this defect is an accident arising from the influence of peculiar institutions, and the mode of training prevalent among the Indian tribes, is evidenced by the facts which that historian himself relates. The American Indian may be indolent during a season of peace. Extreme lassitude and an apparent want of physical energy may form the more prominent traits in his character. But when war demands his exertions in the field, or when pressed by the necessities of nature to go in quest of food, he displays a courage, an address, and an amount of bodily energy which prove him to be possessed of physical strength equal to that which the natives of more polished and civilized climes exhibit. It is during a season of hunting or of war that the most strenuous exertions of courage, force, and activity are called forth. The savage of America, at such a time, appears to shake off the native indolence of his disposition. He becomes patient, active, courageous and indefatigable. All the powers of his mind and of his body are roused into exertion; and he performs feats of agility and of strength, and exhibits a degree of perseverance, which prove him to be in these respects equal to the natives of Europe.

It is true the exhibition of perseverance and strength, on the part of the American savage, is not constant but casual. It is only when fierce passions stimulate him to exertion, that he puts forth all his powers. Nevertheless the casual exhibition of this strength and perseverance proves, that the opposite qualities are not essential to his nature; and seemingly warrants the conclusion that the indolence and want of energy which mark his character, are the results of that peculiar system of training to which he has been subjected.

Of the persevering speed of the Americans many instances are on record. Adair mentions a Chikkasah warrior who ran through woods and over[6] mountains, three hundred computed miles in a day and a half and two nights. “I have known the Indians,” he observes in another place, “to go a thousand miles for the purpose of revenge, in pathless woods, over hills and mountains, through huge cane swamps, exposed to the extremities of heat and cold, the vicissitudes of seasons, to hunger and thirst. Such is their over-boiling revengeful temper, that they utterly contemn all these things as imaginary trifles, if they are so happy as to get the scalp of the murderer or enemy to satisfy the craving ghosts of their deceased relations.” Robertson, in the notes to his History of America, states that “M. Godin le Jeune, who resided fifteen years among the Indians of Puru and Quito, and twenty years in the French Colony of Cayenne, in which there is a constant intercourse with the Galibis, and other tribes on the Orinoco, observes, that the vigour of constitution among the Americans is exactly in proportion to their habits of labour. The Indians, in warm climates, such as those on the coasts of the South Sea, on the river of Amazons, and the river Orinoco, are not to be compared for strength with those in cold countries; and yet, says he, boats daily set out from Para, a Portugese settlement on the river of Amazons, to ascend that river against the rapidity of the stream; and with the same crew they proceed to San Pablo, which is eight hundred leagues distant. No crew of white people or even of negroes, would be found equal to a task of such persevering fatigue as the Portugese have experienced; and yet the Indians, being accustomed to this labour from their infancy, perform it.”[2]

These facts prove, that whatever may be the accidental indolence of the Indian tribes, they do not labour under any physical defect essential to them as men, and not peculiar to the natives of other climes. The fine gentleman of Europe, who has been nursed in the lap of luxury and refinement, would, if compelled to labour, exhibit as great a want of physical strength as the Indian of America. The difference in this respect between the Aborigines of the Western world, and the inhabitants of more civilized regions, is purely accidental. Reared within the pale of a civilized community, and surrounded with innumerable objects adapted to awaken thought, stimulate curiosity, and call his mental and bodily powers into exertion, the European feels a variety of wants, and is subject to a variety of influences to which the savage is a stranger. Experience gives him foresight and wisdom, and induces him to act with a view to remote advantage, as well as to present gratification. The numerous casualties and reverses of fortune which happen to individuals in civilised society, teach him to be provident for the future. The simple necessities of nature, as well as the more numerous class of wants which follow in the train of civilization, stimulate him to engage in long courses of action by which his mental faculties are enlarged, his bodily strength disciplined, and his power of persevering increased. But with the Indian of America the case is in many respects reversed. His food and drink are in most cases obtained with little trouble, and his natural wants, which are few, are easily satisfied. The flesh of the wild animals he ensnares or kills in the chase, the roots of native plants and vegetables, and a small proportion of maize or Indian corn, along with fruits and other things obtained with as little art, serve him for food; the skins of beasts for clothing; and a week-wam, constructed with a small amount of skill and labour, affords him shelter from the inclemency of the weather. Surrounded with abundance of hunting territory, wherein the (to him) staple[7] commodities of life are plentiful, he is satisfied, and lives in a state of comparative independence. Believing that his own lot is the happiest, and accustomed to roam the forest from his infancy, he feels not the force of those powerful motives which affect the bosoms of other men. The love of gain is in his case modified by the extent of his information respecting it; and as the commodities, which to him are articles of wealth, are easily procured, he consequently becomes indolent when surrounded by abundance.

We do not attempt to insinuate that the North American Indian is equal to the European in address, wisdom, or even physical ability, at the present time. We only contend that the lack of physical energy, which some authors say the Aborigines of America exhibit, proceeds not from any constitutional defect peculiar to them as a race, but from accidental causes over which they have but little control. Let these causes be removed—let the Indians be subjected to a different mode of treatment—let them be placed under those influences which affect the inhabitants of civilized communities, and we have reason to opine that they would exhibit a character as vigorous as that of Europeans.

The following general description of the physiological part of Indian character we quote from a modern writer:—“the natives of this part of the world are in general of a robust frame, and a well proportioned figure. Their complexion is of bronze, or reddish copper hue—rusty coloured, as it were, and not unlike cinnamon. Their hair is black, long, coarse, and shining, but not thickly set on the head. Their beard is thin and grows in tufts. Their forehead is low, and their eyes are lengthened out, with the outer angles turned up towards the temples; the eyebrows high, the cheekbone prominent; the nose a little flattened but well marked; the lips extended, and the teeth closely set and pointed. In their mouth there is an expression of sweetness, which forms a contrast with the harsh character of their countenance. Their head is of a square shape, and their face is broad, without being flat, and tapers towards the chin. Their features viewed in profile, are prominent and deeply sculptured. They have a high chest, massy thighs, and arched legs: their feet are generally large, though some have been noticed to have small feet and hands; and their whole body is squat and thick-set. Though the shape of the forehead and of the vertex frequently depends on artificial means, yet independently of the custom which prevails among them of disfiguring the heads of infants, there is no other people in the world in whom the frontal bone is so much flattened above; and generally speaking, the skull is light. Such are said to be the general characteristics of all the natives of America, with the exception, perhaps, of those who occupy the two extremities. The Northern Esquimaux, for instance, are below the middle stature; the Abipones, it is said, and still more the Patagonians, exceed the ordinary height. This muscular constitution, with a tall figure, is in some degree met with among the natives of Chili, as well as the Caribbeans, on the banks of the Caroni, a tributary of the Orinoco, and amongst the Arkansas, who are esteemed the handsomest natives of this continent.

“The copper or bronze hue of the skin is, with some slight exceptions, common to all the natives of America, upon which the climate, the situation, or the mode of living appear not to exercise the slightest influence. Some of the tribes in Guiana are described as nearly black, though easily distinguished from the negro. The colour of the natives of Brazil and of[8] California is deep, although the latter inhabit the temperate zone, and the former live near the tropic. The natives of New Spain are darker than the Indians of Quito and New Granada, who inhabit a precisely analogous climate. The nations dispersed to the North of the Rio Gola are darker than those that border on the kingdom of Guatemala. The Indians who, in the torrid zone, inhabit the most elevated table land of the Cordilleras of the Andes, have a complexion as much copper coloured as those who cultivate the Banana under a burning sun in the narrowest and deepest valleys of the equinoctial regions. The Indians who inhabit the mountains are clothed, and were so long before the conquest; while the Aborigines that wander on the plains of South America, are perfectly or nearly naked, and consequently are always exposed to the sun. These facts show that the colour of the American depends very little on the local situation which he actually occupies; and never, in the same individual, are those parts of the body that are constantly covered, of a fairer colour than those in contact with the air; the infants, moreover, are never white when they are born.

“It was formerly supposed that the Americans were without beards, and certainly there are many among them who have neither beard nor hair on any part of their person except the head. But the Indians who inhabit the torrid zone and South America, have generally a small beard which becomes longer by shaving; and among the Patagonians there are many who have beards. A late traveller (Temple) asserts that the Chiriguano Indians of the province of Tarija are beardless, without stating any opinion as to this being natural or the effect of plucking out the hair. Almost all the Indians near Mexico, and some on the North West coast, wear moustachios. An inference has been drawn that the Indians have a larger quantity of beard in proportion to their distance from the equator. The deficiency of beard does not exclusively belong to the Americans, nor is it by any means a certain sign of degeneracy; for some beardless races, such as the negroes of Congo, are very robust and of colossal size.”[3]

Another description of Indian character we borrow from Adair’s “History of the Aborigines of North America.” We quote it with great pleasure, as fully bearing out our own argument with respect to the physical capacity of the North American Indians, and as being the testimony of a man who resided long among them.

“As the American Indians,” he observes, “are of a reddish or copper colour, so, in general, they are strong, well proportioned in body and limbs, surprisingly active and nimble, and hardy in their own way of living.

“They are ingenious, witty, cunning and deceitful; very faithful indeed to their own tribes, but privately dishonourable and mischievous to the Europeans and Christians. Their being honest and harmless to each other, may be through fear of resentment and reprisal, which is unavoidable in case of any injury. They are very close and retentive of their secrets; never forget injuries; and are revengeful of blood to a degree of distraction. They are timorous and consequently cautious; very jealous of encroachments from their Christian neighbours; and likewise content with freedom in every turn of fortune. They are possessed of a strong comprehensive judgement, can form surprisingly crafty schemes, and conduct them with equal caution, silence, and address; they admit none but distinguished warriors and old beloved men, into their councils. They are slow, but very[9] persevering, in their undertakings; commonly temperate in their eating, but excessively immoderate in drinking. They often transform themselves by liquor, into the likeness of mad foaming bears. The women, in general, are of a mild, amiable, and soft disposition; exceedingly modest in their behaviour, and very seldom noisy in the single or married state.

“The men are expert in the use of fire arms—in shooting the bow and throwing the feathered dart into the flying enemy. They resemble the lynx with their sharp penetrating black eye, and are exceedingly swift of foot, especially in a long chase. They will stretch away through the rough woods, by the bare track, for two or three hundred miles, in pursuit of a flying enemy, with the continued speed and eagerness of a staunch pack of bloodhounds, till they shed blood. When they have allayed this burning thirst, they return home at their leisure, unless they chance to be pursued, as is sometimes the case; whence the traders say, ‘that an Indian is never in a hurry, but when the Devil is at his heels.’

“It is remarkable that there are no deformed Indians; however, they are generally weaker and smaller bodied, between the tropics, than in higher latitudes; but not in an equal proportion: for though the Chikkasah and Choktah countries have not been long divided from each other, as appears by the similarity of their language, as well as other things; yet the Chikkasah are exceedingly taller and stronger bodied than the latter, though their country is only two degrees farther north. Such a small difference of latitude, in so healthy a region, could not make so wide a difference in the constitution of their bodies. The former are a comely, pleasant looking people; their faces are tolerably round, contrary to the visage of the others, which inclines much to flatness, as is the case with most of the other Indian Americans. The lips of the Indians, in general, are thin.

“Their eyes are small, sharp, and black; and their hair is lank, coarse, and darkish. I never saw any with curled hair, but one, in the Choktah country, where was also another with red hair; probably, they were a mixture of the French and Indians. Both sexes pluck all the hair off their bodies with a kind of tweezers, made formerly of shells, now of middle-sized wire, in the shape of a gunworm; which being twisted round a small stick, and the ends thereof fastened therein, after being properly tempered, keeps its form: holding this Indian razor between their forefinger and thumb, they deplume themselves after the manner of the Jewish novitiate priests and proselytes.

“Their chief dress is very simple, like that of the patriarchal age; of choice, many of their old head men wear a long wide frock, made of the skins of wild beasts. They seem quite easy and indifferent in every various scene of life, as if they were utterly divested of passions and of the sense of feeling. Martial virtue and not riches is their invariable standard for preferment; for they neither esteem nor despise any of their people one jot more or less on account of riches or dress. They compare both these to paint on a warrior’s face; because it incites others to a spirit of martial benevolence for their country, and pleases his own fancy, and the eyes of spectators for a little time, but is sweated off, while he is performing his war dances, or is defaced by the change of weather.

“They formerly wore shirts made of dressed deer-skins for their summer visiting dress; but their winter hunting clothes were long and shaggy, made of the skins of panthers, bucks, bears, beavers, and otters; the fleshly[10] side outwards, sometimes doubled, and always softened like velvet cloth, though they retained their fur and hair. The needles and thread they used formerly, (and now at times) were fish bones, or the horns and bones of deer, rubbed sharp, and deer’s sinews, and a sort of hemp that grows among them spontaneously, in rich open lands. The women’s dress consists only in a broad softened skin, or several small skins sewed together, which they wrap and tie round their waist, reaching a little below their knees: in cold weather they wrap themselves in the softened skins of buffalo calves, with the wintery shagged wool inward, never forgetting to anoint and tie up their hair except in their time of mourning. The men wear for ornament and for the convenience of hunting, thin deer skin boots well smoked, that reach so high up their thighs, as with their jackets to secure them from the brambles and braky thickets. They sew them about five inches from the edges, which are formed into tassels, to which they fasten fawn’s trotters and small pieces of tinkling metal, or wild turkey cock’s spurs. The Braves used to fasten the like to their warpipes, with the addition of a piece of an enemy’s scalp, with a tuft of long hair hanging down from the middle of the stem, each of them painted red: and they still observe that old custom, only they choose bell buttons to give a greater sound.

“The young Indian men and women, through a fondness of their ancient dress, wrap a piece of cloth round them, that has a near resemblance to the Roman toga, or pr?texta. It is about a fathom square, bordered seven or eight quarters deep, to make a shining cavalier of the Beau Monde, and to keep out both heat and cold. With this frantic apparel the red heroes swaddle themselves, when they are waddling whooping and prancing it away around the reputed holy fire. In a sweating condition they will thus incommode themselves frequently for a whole night, actuated by the same principle of pride which actuates the Spaniard to wear his winter cloak in summer.…

“They make their shoes for common use, out of the skins of the bear and elk, well dressed and smoked to prevent hardening; and those for ornament, out of deer-skins, done in the like manner: but they chiefly go bare-footed, and always bare-headed. The men fasten several different sorts off beautiful feathers, frequently in tufts, or the wing of a red bird, or the skin of a small hawk, to a lock of hair on the crown of their heads. And every different nation when at war, trim their hair after a different manner, through contempt of each other; thus they can distinguish an enemy in the woods so far off as they can see him.

“The Indians flatten their heads in divers forms; but it is chiefly the crown of the head they depress, in order to beautify themselves, as their wild fancy terms it; for they call us long heads by way of contempt. The Choktah Indians flatten their foreheads from the top of the head to the eyebrows with a small bag of sand; which gives them a hideous appearance; as the forehead naturally shoots upwards according as it is flattened: thus the rising of the nose instead of being equidistant from the beginning of the chin to that of the hair, is, by their wild mechanism, placed a great deal nearer to the one and further from the other. The Indian nations round South Carolina, and all the way to New Mexico, to effect this, fix the tender infant on a kind of cradle, where his feet are tilted, above a foot higher than a horizontal position, his head bends back into a hole, made on purpose[11] to receive it; where he bears the chief part of his weight on the crown of the head, upon a small bag of sand without being in the least able to move himself. The skull, resembling a fine cartilaginous substance, in its infant state, is capable of taking any impression. By this pressure, and their thus flattening the crown of the head, they consequently make their heads thick and their faces broad. May we not to this custom and as a necessary effect of this cause attribute their fickle, wild, and cruel tempers? Especially when we connect therewith, both a false education and great exercise to agitate their animal spirits. When the brain, in cooler people, is disturbed, it neither reasons nor determines with proper judgment. The Indians thus look on every thing around them through their own false medium; and vilify our heads because they have given a wrong turn to their own.”

The preceding description of Indian character is more deserving of attention on account of its simplicity, correctness, and the information it affords, than on account of the beauty of its style. Adair is indeed a harsh writer; yet he narrates facts and occurrences which fell beneath his own observation; and therefore his testimony is of considerable value. His history of the American Indians, whatever value we may attach to his theory respecting their origin affords many striking confirmations of the position we have assumed, namely, that the American Indians are not naturally and essentially inferior in physical capacity to any other race of men. Nor is Adair the only author who either adopts this opinion, or furnishes the facts from which it may be inferred. These facts may be found in the narratives of missionaries, traders, and almost all writers who have visited the Indian tribes.

James Buchanan, formerly his Britannic Majesty’s Consul for the State of New York, has some excellent observations on the evidences of general capacity among the Indians, in the first volume of his Sketches of their History and Customs. After describing the hospitable and polite reception which he met with from the children of the celebrated Mohawk Indian Chief, Captain Brandt, he observes:—“My thus becoming acquainted with this young lady and her brother, fully establishes in my mind all I was anxious to prove by the education of a young Indian: and many such instances might be adduced which would evince that w............