Sauvages

“ The capacity is as extraordinary as the developed result; for the capacity involves the result. If savage man be the germ of the most highly civilized man, he differs from all other animal germs, as man differs from brute. And add to this again, that in the tribes which we call savage, and whose condition most differs, in external circumstances, from ours, there are, after all, a vast mass of human attributes: thought, purpose, language, family relations; [Pg 121] generally property, law, government, contract, arts, and knowledge, to no small extent; and in almost every case, religion. ”

“ I know well there are persons of [40] good judgment who believe that, although the Savages are nomadic, the good seed of the Gospel will not fail to take root and bring forth fruit in their souls, although more slowly, as they can only be instructed at intervals. They imagine also that, if a few families come over here, as they are already beginning to do, the Savages will follow the example of our French and will settle down to cultivate the land. ”

“ When a young Savage of our cabin was dying of hunger, as I shall relate in the following Chapter, they often asked me if I was not afraid, if I had no fear of death; and seeing me quite firm, they were astonished, on one occasion in particular, when I saw them almost falling into a state of despair. When they reach this point, they play, so to speak, at "save himself who can;" throwing away their bark and baggage, deserting each other, and abandoning all interest in the common welfare, each one strives to find something for himself. ”

“ We are going on by short stages, quite well, as 221 far as we are concerned; but our Savages are all sick. We paddle [332] all the time, and do this the more because our people are sick. What ought not to be done for God, and for souls redeemed by the blood of the son of God! All our Savages are very much pleased with us, and would not have cared to take others on board; they speak well of us to those whom they meet, persuading them not to embark any others. ”

“ I remember to have felt sorry, in reading Le Play, for that family of Mélougas, who defended their old home so desperately because they confused its history with the land’s. In Savoy I have come across so many similar adventures. But the soil, and the dead who sow the seed of our sensibilities, are carried with us in our hearts if we have extracted the essential quality of tradition, that is to say, a sense of honour, and that will to live which the sentiment of duration incarnate in the family communicates to us. ”

“ But if we found no dwellings, we often discovered traces of the savages,—extinguished fires, remains of kangaroos and of fish, cocoa-nut shells, and even entire nuts, which we secured for ourselves; we remarked, also, footmarks on the sand. We both wished anxiously to meet with a savage, that we might endeavour to make him comprehend, by signs, whom we were in search of, hoping that natural affection might have some influence even with these untaught creatures. ”

“ Sauveur, as we see it to-day, is disappointing. It has been so much rebuilt after different convulsions, and pulled about when there has been less excuse, that many a church in an obscure village gives more pleasure as a whole to the eye that seeks unity of design and inspiration in a work of art. ”

“ These sawyers form a fine feast for the woodpeckers, and jointly they assist in promoting the rapid decomposition of the gigantic forest- trees, that would otherwise encumber the earth from age to age. How infinite is that Wisdom that rules the natural world! How often do we see great events brought about by seemingly insignificant agents! Yet are they all servants of the Most High, working his will, and fulfilling his behests. One great want which has been sensibly felt in this distant settlement, I mean the want of public worship on the Sabbath-day, promises to be speedily remedied. ”

“ The youth of the country have the same habitation, and amidst the trees old age is rocked to rest. Savage as this way of life may seem, they prefer it to the drudgery of the field, the labor of building, and the painful vicissitudes of hope and fear, which always attend the defense and the acquisition of property. ”

“ Suppose a great hollow tree, in which the formidable wasps of the tropics have built for ages. The average savage hurries past the spot in mere bodily fear; for if they come out against him, they will sting him to death; till at last there comes by a savage wiser than the rest, with more observation, reflection, imagination, independence of will—the genius of his tribe. ”

“ Outcasts of civilization flung into the world of savagery, they had in the beginning none of the adaptability and none of the resources of the savage—knew nothing of the properties of unfamiliar plants, knew neither what to weave nor how to weave it, and often from sheer lack of understanding, starved and shivered in the midst of plenty. ”

“ His first inclination to attempt a composition of that tender kind arose, as Mr. Savage told me, from his perusal of Prior's "Nut-brown Maid." How much he has surpassed Prior's work, it is not necessary to mention, when perhaps it may be said with justice, that he has excelled every composition of the same kind. The mixture of religious hope and resignation gives an elevation and dignity to disappointed love, which images merely natural cannot bestow. The gloom of a convent strikes the imagination with far greater force than the solitude of a grove. ”

“ However anxious we may be for the civilization of the American Savages, there is no historic fact more certain than that they are not yet civilized. Missionaries and preachers are not the men likely to produce any great change in the condition of these children of nature. ”

“ Beneath the frightful exterior of the North American savage, there are noble attributes. Such races are as necessary for the well-being of the human family as the whirlwind to the atmosphere when it sweeps through the forest and bears off the decaying and tainting vegetation. ”

“ For to think of living as the Savages do seems to me out of all reason. And to prove this, the following is an example of their way of living: Manner of living of the Souriquois and Ethechemins.From the first land (which is Newfoundland) to the country of the Armouchiquois, a distance of nearly three hundred leagues, the people are nomads, without agriculture, never stopping longer than five or six weeks in a place. Pliny mentions a certain people called Ichthyophagi, i.e., Fish-eaters, living in the same way. These Savages get their living in this manner during three seasons of the year. ”

“ Indeed, intellectual progress of any kind implies a degree of refinement that requires a certain cultivation of both useful and elegant art. The savage wandering through the wide forest, without shelter for his head or raiment for his back, knows no other wants than those of animal appetites, and, when they are satisfied, seems to himself to have answered the only ends of existence. ”

“ The Savages have great fear of these people, and humor them lest they do them some injury. Little by little we shall learn more of the other Tribes, who are more sedentary in their habits; but, as to these where we now are with the French, they are wanderers only during six months of the year, which are the six Winter months,—roving here and there, according as they may find game, only two or three families erecting their cabins together in one place, two or three in another, and so on. ”

“ On the other hand those who have been individualized at a comparatively low level along one of the regular lines — as by affection — provide us with a type of equally primitive but joyous and good-natured savages — savages, in fact, who are not savage but kindly, as are many of the tribes to be found in some of the islands of the Southern Seas. ”

“ A thousand vague apprehensions and surmises of evil, began to suggest themselves, as we approached this unknown shore, inhabited by savages, and under the dominion of a savage. We doubted not that we might depend upon the good-will, and friendly offices of the little native, but we felt at the same time, that the influence of one so young, might prove insufficient for our protection. ”

“ The sense of locality is marvellously developed among the savages. Without being able to explain why it is so, the savage will indicate in an instant—without any examination of trees, rocks, &c.—the exact direction of the point he wishes to reach. Animals, and especially horses and mules, obey the same instinct. Frequently, when I have been hunting buffaloes in all directions over the prairie, and evening warned me about returning home, I have been in doubt as to the direction in which the Fort lay. ”

“ Neither can we say for how many centuries 7 they occupied land in what we now call Britain. It was a long period, at any rate, and during that time their manners and their customs changed very, very slowly.
The lowest forms of savage life seem very much alike all the world over. Savages are hunters, and do not as a rule cultivate the soil. Now hunters must follow their prey from place to place, so that we should expect these early men to have no settled homes. But even the earliest Pit-men had advanced beyond this lowest stage, for they had flocks and herds, and dogs. ”

“ Poor little savage, you are pretty indeed—with a prettiness which civilization would give many of its privileges to possess. So, I doubt not, were fashioned the wood-nymphs of old, with strength and with health and with grace beyond all power of reproduction—even so have they gazed deep into their woodland lakes ”

“ An immense number of those from whom I inherit descent must, in the old savage days, have depended almost wholly upon chance for the very means of subsistence. When, wild in wood, the savage ran, he ran on speculation. He might, or he might not, be lucky enough to earn his living on any day, by a successful chase, or by finding such fruits of the earth as would supply him with a satisfactory amount of food. ”

“ The sunlight blazed down upon the earth, there was a vividness of flamy vegetation, of fierce seclusion amid the savage peace of the commons. Strange how the savage England lingers in patches: as here, amid these shaggy gorse commons, and marshy, snake infested places near the foot of the south downs. ”

“ How can it be otherwise, when a system prevails which whirls families and scatters their members, as the wind whirls and scatters the leaves of autumn? These shores of refuge, like the eternal shore, often unite again, in glad communion, hearts that for long years have mourned each other as lost. ”

“ Those that were carried captives shall be brought back out of their captivity; their enemies shall not be able to detain them in the land of their captivity, nor shall they themselves incline to settle in it, but the remnant shall return, and shall build the waste cities and inhabit them, shall form themselves into Christian churches and set up pure doctrine, worship, and discipline among them, according to the gospel charter, by which Christ's cities are incorporated; and they shall enjoy the benefit and comfort thereof; they shall plant vineyards, and make gardens. ”

“ It is true that the transition from the savage state to the pastoral is less violent than that from the savage state directly to the agricultural, but this does not prove that the latter is impossible. ”

“ The parallels between the folk-lore of Europe and savage custom establish two very important facts—first, the primitive origin of European folk-lore; and, secondly, the identity between the early stages of modern civilisation and the present stage of modern barbarism; thus proving the state of arrested progress which modern savage life presents, and leading up to one of the most important problems of anthropology, namely, the value of the evidence of savage society for the early history of man. ”

“ As the circle in which I stood inclosed by this time was much thinned, and death seemed to be approaching with hasty strides, it was proposed by some of the most resolute to make one vigorous effort, and endeavour to force our way through the savages, the only probable method of preserving our lives that now remained. ”

“ This is what makes [28] nomads of the Savages, and prevents them from remaining long in one place. When they have been six weeks in a place, they are obliged to leave their habitation. This winter, in the neighborhood of Port Royal they took six Grignaces34 or Elks, and brought a quarter or half of them to our people. But that did not go far with so many men. ”

“ Sails from the Island for the Brazils IT now came into my thoughts that I had hinted to my friend the clergyman that the work of converting the savages might perhaps be set on foot in his absence to his satisfaction, and I told him that now I thought that it was put in a fair way; for the savages, being thus divided among the Christians, if they would but every one of them do their part with those which came under their hands, I hoped it might have a very good effect. ”

“ The first necessity of savages is a sufficient supply of food, and this, they hold, is to be procured either by the application of what they conceive to be natural laws, or by appeal to superhuman Powers. Among economic ceremonies, therefore, we may distinguish those which may be loosely described as natural, those in which a supernatural element enters, and those in which the two orders of procedure appear to be combined. ”

“ Generations of savages lived and died—chiefly died—here. They came where the Father of Waters roared and tumbled and they made their prayers to the Great Spirit, but the sight never suggested to them a great city. ”