54 The Book of Woodcraft 



Finally, let me reproduce in full the account by Bonne- 

 ville, from which I have already selected portions: 



In 1834, he visited the Nez Perces and Flatheads, and 

 thus sums up these wholly primitive Indians, for they were 

 as yet uncorrupted by the whiskey-trader or those who 

 preached the love of money. 



"They were friendly in their dispositions, honest to the most 

 scrupulous degree in their intercourse with the white man." 

 (P. 200.) " Simply to call these people religious would convey but 

 a faint idea of the deep hue of piety and devotion which pervades 

 their whole conduct. Their honesty is immaculate, and their 

 purity of purpose and their observance of the rites of their 

 religion are most uniform and remarkable. They are certainly 

 more like a nation of saints than a horde of savages. " (" Cap- 

 tain Bonneville's Narrative;" by Washington Irving, p. 171, 

 1837-) 



It would, I know, be quite easy to collect incidents — 

 true ones — that would seem to contradict each of these 

 claims for the Redman, especially if we look among the 

 degraded Indians of the Reservations. But I do not con- 

 sider them disproofs any more than I consider our religion 

 disproved by the countless horrors and wickedness recorded 

 every day as our daily history, in every newspaper in every 

 corner of the land. The fact remains that this was the ideal 

 of the Indian, and many times that ideal was exemplified 

 in their great men, and at all times the influence of their 

 laws was strong. 



One might select a hundred of these great Indians who 

 led their people, as Plato led the Greeks or as Tolstoi led the 

 Russians, and learn from each and aU that dignity, strength, 

 courtesy, courage, kindness, and reverence were indeed the 

 ideals of the teepee folk, and that their ideal was realized 

 more or less in all their history — that the noble Redman 

 did indeed exist. 



