THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 713 



The word savage, originally meaning wild or uncultivated, has 

 come to mean cruel and blood-thirsty, because of the representations 

 habitually made that wild or uncultivated tribes of men are cruel 

 and blood-thirsty. And ferocity having come to be thought of as a 

 constant attribute of uncivilized races, which are also distinguished 

 by not having our religion, it is tacitly assumed that the absence of 

 our religion is the cause of this ferocity. But if, struggling success- 

 fully against the bias of patriotism, we correct the evidence which 

 that bias has garbled, we find ourselves obliged to receive this as- 

 sumption with great qualifications. 



When, for instance, we read Cook's account of the Tahitians, as 

 first visited by him, we are surprised to meet with some traits among 

 them, higher than those of their civilized visitors. Though some pil- 

 fering was committed by them, it was not so serious as that of which 

 the sailors were guilty in stealing the iron bolts out of their own ship to 

 pay the native women. And when, after Cook had enacted a penalty 

 for theft, the natives complained of one of his own crew when this 

 sailor, convicted of the offence he was charged with, was condemned 

 to be whipped, the natives tried to get him off, and, failing to do this, 

 shed tears on seeing preparations for the punishment. If, again, we 

 compare critically the accounts of Cook's death, we see clearly enough 

 that tne Sandwich-Islanders behaved amicably until they had been 

 ill-used, and had reason to fear further ill-usage. The experiences of 

 many other travellers similarly show us that friendly conduct on the 

 part of uncivilized races, when first visited, is very general ; and that 

 their subsequent unfriendly conduct, when it occurs, is nothing but 

 retaliation for injuries received from the civilized. Such a fact as 

 that the natives of Queen Charlotte's Island did not attack Captain 

 Carteret's party till after they had received just cause of offence, 1 

 may be taken as typical of the histories of transactions between wild 

 races and cultivated races. When we inquire into the case of the 

 missionary Williams, " the Martyr of Erromanga," we discover that 

 his murder, dilated upon as proving the wickedness of unreclaimed na- 

 tures, was a revenge for injuries previously suffered from wicked Eu- 

 ropeans. Here are a few testimonies respecting the relative behaviors 

 of civilized and uncivilized : 



" After we had killed a man at the Marquesas, grievously wounded one at 

 Easter Island, hooked a third with a boat-hook at Tonga-tabu, wounded one at 

 Namocka, another at Mallicollo, and killed another at Tauna ; the several in- 

 habitants bebaved in a civil and harmless manner to us, though they might 

 have taken ample revenge by cutting off our straggling parties." * 



" Excepting at Cafta, where I was for a time supposed to come with hostile 

 intent, I was treated inhospitably by no one during all my travels, excepting by 

 Europeans, who had nothing against me but my apparent poverty." * 



1 Hawkesworth's " Voyages," vol i., p. 573. s Forster's " Observations," etc., p. 406. 

 8 Parkyns's " Abyssinia," vol ii., p. 431. 



