Whether Any Laws Exist Among Them For The Punishment
Of Offences Committed Against Society; Or Whether The Injured Party
In
All cases seeks for relief in private revenge, I will not positively affirm;
though I am strongly inclined to believe
That only the latter method prevails.
I have already said that they are divided into tribes; but what constitutes
the right of being enrolled in a tribe, or where exclusion begins and ends,
I am ignorant. The tribe of Cameragal is of all the most numerous
and powerful. Their superiority probably arose from possessing
the best fishing ground, and perhaps from their having suffered less
from the ravages of the smallpox.
In the domestic detail there may be novelty, but variety is unattainable.
One day must be very like another in the life of a savage. Summoned by
the calls of hunger and the returning light, he starts from his beloved
indolence, and snatching up the remaining brand of his fire, hastens
with his wife to the strand to commence their daily task. In general
the canoe is assigned to her, into which she puts the fire and pushes off
into deep water, to fish with hook and line, this being the province
of the women. If she have a child at the breast, she takes it with her.
And thus in her skiff, a piece of bark tied at both ends with vines,
and the edge of it but just above the surface of the water, she pushes out
regardless of the elements, if they be but commonly agitated.
While she paddles to the fishing-bank, and while employed there, the child
is placed on her shoulders, entwining its little legs around her neck
and closely grasping her hair with its hands. To its first cries
she remains insensible, as she believes them to arise only from
the inconvenience of a situation, to which she knows it must be inured.
But if its plaints continue, and she supposes it to be in want of food,
she ceases her fishing and clasps it to her breast. An European spectator
is struck with horror and astonishment at their perilous situation,
but accidents seldom happen. The management of the canoe alone appears
a work of unsurmountable difficulty, its breadth is so inadequate
to its length. The Indians, aware of its ticklish formation, practise
from infancy to move in it without risk. Use only could reconcile them
to the painful position in which they sit in it. They drop in the middle
of the canoe upon their knees, and resting the buttocks on the heels,
extend the knees to the sides, against which they press strongly,
so as to form a poise sufficient to retain the body in its situation,
and relieve the weight which would otherwise fall wholly upon the toes.
Either in this position or cautiously moving in the centre of the vessel,
the mother tends her child, keeps up her fire (which is laid on a small patch
of earth), paddles her boat, broils fish and provides in part the subsistence
of the day.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 117 of 128
Words from 60740 to 61253
of 66960
