THE AMERICAN FAMILY. 77 



even in the marriage ceremony, which is often joyless and even melancholy, as if 

 it were rather the harbinger of sorrow than of happiness. It is indeed seldom 

 that their pastimes excite enthusiasm or hilarity, unless the performers are 

 stimulated by intoxicating drinks ; in which case, as among more civilised men, a 

 temporary madness unmasks the darkest passions, and the natural reserve of the 

 Indian gives place to extravagant mirth and brutal ferocity. 



This perpetual vigilance has led some authors to charge the Indian with 

 cow^ardice ; but he is taught from childhood to consider a successful stratagem 

 more honorable than open victory; and it has been observed by an intelligent writer, 

 that among the North American Indians generally, flight in battle is not considered 

 disgraceful where the number or the resistance of an enemy is greater than had 

 been anticipated. Retreat under these circumstances is a principle of their tactics; 

 and they renew the combat without humiliation when fortune promises better 

 chances of success. The courage of the Indian is evident in his desperate resist- 

 ance to superior force ; by his choice of death to capitulation, even when he has 

 every guaranty of personal safety ; and by that unshrinking firmness with which 

 he sees and feels the approach of death under the most cruel torments. To be 

 whole days and nights fastened to a stake and subjected to incessant but gradual 

 mutilation — to sustain this load of misery with fortitude and even with cheerful- 

 ness, and finally to sink into death without losing for a moment this indomitable 

 self-possession, are surely suj[ficient proofs of the courage of the Indian. The 

 stoicism with which he bears every variety of bodily suffering is so extraordinary, 

 that Ulloa and others have attempted to explain it on the ground that the Ameri- 

 cans have a coarser, stronger and less sensitive organisation than any other race. 

 This, however, is a mere postulate which has no foundation in fact, and might be 

 applied with equal plausibility to the primitive martyrs : nor need we look beyond 

 the influence of a ruling passion for a full explanation of the phenomenon. All 

 an Indian's hope of glory, all his chance of distinction, depend on his ability to 

 endure privation. He goes half clothed to the chase in the depth of winter, not 

 because he is insensible to cold, but because he chooses to appear indifferent to it. 

 In like manner he sustains himself amidst the severest agonies that can be inflicted 

 on human nature, because to shrink from them would stamp him with cowardice 

 and infamy. With many tribes this principle is carried so far that parents torture 

 their children to test their self-possession ; nor are they enrolled on the list of 

 warriors until they can sustain the ordeal without complaint. Let it not be 

 thought, however, that the Indian courts privation ; on the contrary no one can 

 dislike it more. His natural indolence is opposed to it, and he has moreover the 

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