[campbbil] the ancient LITERATURE OF A:\IERICA 67 



terestini;-, so that only one person in a thousand suspects tlie existence of 

 a period in the past wlien their intellects were as vigorous, their energies 

 as active as our own. Only in Yucatan, strange to say, do they dream of 

 independence and the restoration of the old state of things, including 

 their original idolatry. Writing as late as 1890, George Squier thus 

 alludes to his Maya guide, and prophesies dimly : 



" When I left the outposts of civilization and plunged into the 

 untracked wilderness, never did a suspicion of a doubt darken for an 

 instant my confidence or impair my faith in the loyal heart of Antonio 

 Chul — once the mild-ej'ed Indian boy, but now the dreaded chieftain and 

 victorious leader .of the unrelenting Itzaes of Yucatan. Time only can 

 determine what will be the final result of the contest which is now 

 waging upon the soil of that beautiful but already half desolated penin- 

 sula. Almost every ari-ival brings us the news of increased boldness and 

 new successes on the part of the Indians ; and it now seems as if the 

 drama of the conquest were to be closed by the destruction of the race of 

 the conquerors. Terribly the frown darkens on the face of Nemesis ! 

 The voice ot the Tiger is loud in the mountains ! " There is no danger 

 of the Indian reasserting his independence in any part of Canada or the 

 United States, but in Mexico, in Central, and in South Amei-ica, they are 

 numerically strong, they live beneath the shadow of their ancestral 

 glories, they keep alive traditions of the happy days of old. Untamable 

 Indian blood, under a smooth and dead-alive skin, is the cause -of unrest 

 in the Spanish and Portuguese republics of the south, and one shudders 

 to think of the consequences should a southern Pontiac or Tecumseh 

 summon the league of the nations and let loose the tiger gnawing at 

 their hearts. 



Our duty is plain to keep in remembrance all that is great in our 

 Eed brethren's past and honour them for it. In so doing we shall 

 detract nothing from our own, and will greatly increase their self- 

 respect. As they cannot expect to achieve independence for themselves, 

 let them share freely in our independence so soon as the spirit of true 

 manhood, crushed out by ages of jjoverty, oppression and injustice, 

 revives within them. We want hundreds and thousands of Dr. Oron- 

 hyatekhas and Miss Pauline Johnsons to give added strength, a new 

 flavour and ])iquancy, to our national life, so that Canada's may be all 

 that is worthy and honourable in Indian character, all that is famous in 

 their history and instructive in their traditions ; that our children's 

 children may prize as part of their own the i3roductions of the native 

 mind since the conquest, and also the more ancient hterature of America 

 before Columbus which I have humbly striven to illustrate. 



