There Must Be Something More Congenial To Our
Native Dispositions, Than The Fictitious Society In Which We Live;
Or Else Why Should Children, And Even Grown Persons, Become In A
Short Time So Invincibly Attached To It?
There must be something
very bewitching in their manners, something very indelible and
marked by the very hands of nature.
For, take a young Indian lad,
give him the best education you possibly can, load him with your
bounty, with presents, nay with riches; yet he will secretly long
for his native woods, which you would imagine he must have long
since forgot; and on the first opportunity he can possibly find, you
will see him voluntarily leave behind him all you have given him,
and return with inexpressible joy to lie on the mats of his fathers.
Mr. - - , some years ago, received from a good old Indian, who died
in his house, a young lad, of nine years of age, his grandson. He
kindly educated him with his children, and bestowed on him the same
care and attention in respect to the memory of his venerable
grandfather, who was a worthy man. He intended to give him a genteel
trade, but in the spring season when all the family went to the
woods to make their maple sugar, he suddenly disappeared; and it was
not until seventeen months after, that his benefactor heard he had
reached the village of Bald Eagle, where he still dwelt. Let us say
what we will of them, of their inferior organs, of their want of
bread, etc., they are as stout and well made as the Europeans.
Without temples, without priests, without kings, and without laws,
they are in many instances superior to us; and the proofs of what I
advance, are, that they live without care, sleep without inquietude,
take life as it comes, bearing all its asperities with unparalleled
patience, and die without any kind of apprehension for what they
have done, or for what they expect to meet with hereafter.
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