200 
CHAPTER XIV 
ORATORY AND DRAMA, MUSIC AND ART 
Among the tribes of the plains and eastern woodlands the recit- 
ing of folk-tales at family gatherings and the recounting of war deeds 
or tribal legends at public festivals provided the Indians with a 
“ school of rhetoric ” for the development of those oratorical talents 
that in democratic communities seejii indisjiensable for public leader- 
ship. Eloquence ranked second only to skill and courage in hunting 
and in war. So essential was it to every leader for the maintenance 
of his prestige and power that it pi’ovoked the exclamation from an 
early Jesuit missionary, “ There is no place in the world where Rhe- 
toric is more powerful than in Canada . . It controls all these 
tribes, as the Captain is elected for liis eloquence alone, and obeyed 
in proportion to his use of it, for they have no other law than his 
word.’’’ In eastern Canada and on the ]>lains the ti'ibes were so 
loosely organized, and so frequently involved in war or engaged in 
communal hunts, that concerted action was impossible without una- 
nimity in the tribal councils, and unanimity was impossible without 
the employment of every art of persuasion and rhetoric. The 
Pacific (’oast natives with their sharp divisions into nobles, com- 
moners, and slaves naturally laid greatest emphasis on lineage, but 
they also helrl eloquence in high esteem, and their public orators who 
functioned on ceremonial occasions were men of rank in the com- 
munities. Among the primitive northern tribes alone eloquence 
counted for little, because there the struggle for existence was so con- 
stant and the political organization so tenuous that prestige and 
authority came only from outstanding personality combined with 
physical prowess, success in hunting, or accreditefl influence over the 
spiritual world. 
The Indians spoke slowly and deliberately, as a rule, but not 
haltingly, being rarely embarrassed for words in which to clothe 
their thoughts. They could develo]) an argument logically, and 
employed repetition, rhetorical questions, and sarcasm with telling 
effect. Wit and humour were conspicuously absent from their 
1 " Jesuit Relations," vol, p. 195. 
