STUDIES OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN 63 



it is easy to discount Bartram's puritanical judgments as to the 

 morality or immorality of the songs and dances of the Indians, 

 and still learn that the Indians composed songs to harmonize 

 with their various classes of dances. 



There can be no question that the appeal which Bartram's 

 Travels had for the Romantic poets was partly due to his Ro- 

 mantic point of view. He viewed nature as the source of per- 

 fection and he idealized primitive life. Yet he never falsified 

 the facts of the primitive life he described. It is to be noted, 

 that, unlike Dr. Bissell, Bartram never speaks of " the Indian " 

 as one general entity, but is careful to distinguish between 

 tribes and nations of Indians. The very title of his book speci- 

 fies that he traveled through " the Cherokee Country, the exten- 

 sive territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and 

 the country of the Chactaws." The published version of his 

 answers to specific questions is entitled, " Observations on the 

 Creek and Cherokee Indians." He tells us that the marriage 

 ceremonies of the Indians " difi^er greatly in the various nations 

 and tribes ";^^ that the Muscogulges bury their deceased in 

 the earth, whereas the Chactaws " pay their last duties and 

 respect to the deceased in a very different manner "; ^* that the 

 Chactaws are " not so neat in the trim of their heads, as the 

 Muscogulges are, and they are remarkably slovenly and negli- 

 gent in every part of their dress "; -^ that the Muscogulge lan- 

 guage is " very agreeable to the ear, courteous, gentle and musi- 

 cal; the letter R is not sounded in one word of their language 

 . . . ," whereas the Cherokee language, " on the contrary, is 

 very loud, somewhat rough and very sonorous, sounding the 

 letter R frequently." ^^ 



A study of Bartram's work, such as is here indicated, reveals 

 the truly scientific quality of his observation. Eliminate his 

 eighteenth-century diction, both neo-classic and Romantic, and 

 his philosophical deductions and digressions, and the residue 

 is accurate information. The attitude with which he seeks his 

 information is the same that actuates modern scholarship. He 

 forms no a priori judgments. By way of illustration, it is inter- 



^^Ibid., 514. -*Ibid., 515-16. ^'Ibid., 517. ^^ Ibid., 519. 



