412 
ElfMITT OF T1IE INDIAN TRIBES 
defenceless familv is surprised in the night ; or an enemy, 
who is met with" by chance in the woods, is killed by » 
poisoned arrow. The body is cut to pieces, and carried as a 
trophy to the hut. It is civilization only, that has made 
man ieel the unity of the human race; which has revealed 
to him, as we may say, the ties of consanguinity, by whic i 
he is linked to beings to whose Language and manners he is 
a stranger. Savages know only their own family ; and ® 
tribe appears to them but a more numerous assemblage oi 
relations. When those who inhabit the missions see In- 
dians of the forest, who are unknown to them, arrive, they 
make use of an expression, which has struck us by its simp \ 
candour; “they are, no doubt, my relations: I understana 
them when they speak to me.” But these very savages 
detest all who are not of their family, or their tribe ; an 
hunt the Indians of a neighbouring tribe, who live at war 
with their own, as we hunt game. They know the duties o 
family ties and of relationship, but not those of humanity, 
which require the feeling of a common tie with being'’ 
framed like ourselves. No emotion of pity prompts them 
to spare the wives or children ot a hostile race ; and 
latter are devoured in preference, at the repast given at tn 
conclusion of a battle or warlike incursion. 
The hatred which savages for the most part ieel tor m 
who speak another idiom, and appear to them to 
of an inferior race, is sometimes rekindled in the mission > 
after having long slumbered. A short time before 
arrival at Esmeralda, an Indian, bom in the forest* behin 
the Duida, travelled alone with another Indian, who, atte 
having been made prisoner by the Spaniards on the ban* 
of the Ventuario, lived peaceably in the village, or, as i 
expressed here, “within the sound of the bell,” (debaxo 
la campana.) The latter could only walk slowly, because 
■was suffering from one of those fevers to which the natl '*L 
are subject," when they arrive in the missions, and abrupt^ 
change their diet. Wearied by his delay, his fellow-travel! 
• fill el monte. The Indians born in the missions are distinguish* 11 
from those born in the woods. The word monle signifies more frequen • 
in the colonies, a forest (bosque) than a mountain, and this circumsw . 
lias led to great errors in our maps, on which chains of mountains (=> ,cr * 
are figured, where there are only thick forests, (monte espeso.) 
