Red man

“ The most powerful source of influence, with the Red man, is his religion. Here is the true groundwork of his hopes and his fears, and, it is believed, the fruitful source of his opinions and actions. It supplies the system of thought by which he lives and dies, and it constitutes, indeed, the basis of Indian character. By it he preserves his identity, as a barbarian, and when this is taken away, and the true system substituted, he is still a Red Man, but no longer, in the popular sense, an Indian—a barbarian, a pagan. ”

“ The noble Red Man has always been a friend and darling of mine. I love to read about him in tales and legends and romances. I love to read of his inspired sagacity, and his love of the wild free life of mountain and forest, and his general nobility of character, and his stately metaphorical manner of speech, and his chivalrous love for the dusky maiden, and the picturesque pomp of his dress and accoutrements. ”

“ Away beyond the mighty waters of the dreary sea, He gave the white man a home, with everything he wanted, and He gave him a mind which was for him, and only him. The red man is satisfied with the gifts to him of the Great Spirit ”

“ Through both he brings us into companionship with the red man, as if careering with him over the boundless plains, the primeval forests of his hunting grounds in the far West, or in the vicinity of his temporary village settlements, witnessing his athletic games, his strange, fantastic dances, and his spontaneous endurance of those revolting tortures by which he evinces his unflinching stoicism. ”

“ All that we can say of this self-degradation of the white man — civilized, Christian — to the barbarism of the red man is, that he was swift to learn and imitate all ill examples; and that he adopted scalping simply as one of the elements of wilderness warfare, like the lurking in ambushed thickets and ravines, and skulking behind a tree when firing his piece. ”

“ Why, on the broad and ample fields of this continent, whose larger expanses are still in a wild state, have not the red man and the white man consented to keep apart, leaving each other alone, each to his own preferred way of life? ”

“ But there came a time when the animals saw that the red man was their master. He had the wisdom of the beaver, the keen scent of the bear and the wolf, the patience and fidelity of the dog, the agility of the raccoon, the speed and endurance of the horse, the spring of the panther and the cunning of the fox. ”

“ The superiority of this foreign race, which has so firmly established itself upon his former patrimony, is evident to the red man. He sees their magnificent cities, their thousands of vessels upon the once silent rivers, their successful agriculture; he knows that even his own rude wants, the blanket with which he covers himself, the weapon with which he slays his game, the ardent spirits he has learned to love so well, can be supplied only by the stranger. The last feeble hope to see his native soil delivered from the presence of the conqueror's race, has long since vanished from his breast ”

“ Yet I like to think—and it may be I have imbibed somewhat of the red man's pagan philosophy from over-much dwelling in his society—that in this shadowy after-world of spirits, in which both red man and white profess belief, man shall find awaiting him the brave beasts that loved him on earth. ”

“ This interesting spot, if we may believe tradition, was the favorite haunt of the red man, before the axe of his pale-faced visitor had laid low its loftier honors, or his 'strong water' had wasted the energies of the race. ”

“ Attached as the Red man was to his own mode of life, he was induced at length to form a part of the establishment, in the capacity of grieve, or head shepherd—a duty he undertook most cheerfully, as it still left him opportunities of meeting and communing with his friends, and reconnoitering the altering denizens of the forest. ”

“ The red man peoples air, earth, and the waters with countless creatures of his fancy; his expressions are figurative and metaphorical; he is quick to seize analogies; and when he cannot explain he is ever ready to invent. ”

“ Here we may see, not the red man of the novel or the drama, but the red man as he appears to himself, and to those who live with him. His better characteristics will be found quite as numerous as ought to be expected under the circumstances ”

“ Acute writers who have wrought upon the theme have confessed themselves unable to draw at any point a sharp dividing line, or to define any one single trait, quality, or condition which shall distinguisli between a state of civilization and a state of barbarism or savagery.
Our latest science, alike archæological and speculative, fails to give us positive knowledge about the origin of the red man and his relation to the other races of human beings on the other continents. ”

“ The red man was comforting him till he got him to bed. When he slept, the red man went out. He put on the dark cloak and the slippery shoes, and took the sword of light. He stood outside the door. It was not long till she came out. ”

“ A tall, athletic, red-haired man, of the middle age, was then made manifest. He had on a red frock coat, a red vest, and a red neckcloth; nay, his gloves were red! What was more extraordinary, when the overalls which covered his thighs were unbuttoned, it was discovered that his small-clothes were red likewise. 'All red!' ejaculated the parson almost involuntarily. 'As you say, the gentleman is all red!' added the schoolmaster, with his characteristic flippancy. He was checked by a look from the landlady. ”

“ And when the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among white men shall have become a myth, these shores shall swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children shall think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway or in the silence of the woods they will not be alone. ”

“ A modification of the opinion that such must needs be the fate of the red man suggests to us, that the only condition which will arrest that result is such a transformation of his habits, mode of life, and even of his nature, that those who in three or four generations may represent the stock, in pure or mixed descent, will have wholly parted with the original and distinctive characteristics of the race. ”

“ By the will of our Father in heaven, the Governor of the whole world, the red man of America has become small, and the white man great and renowned. When the ancestors of the people of these United States first came to the shores of America, they found the red man strong—though he was ignorant and savage, yet he received them kindly, and gave them dry land to rest their weary feet. ”

“ To most Americans, the red man is, to this day, just what he was to the first settlers of the country—a being with soul enough to be blameable for doing wrong, but not enough to claim Christian brotherhood, or to make it very sinful to shoot him like a dog, upon the slightest provocation or alarm. ”

“ If we are to judge from the past experience of our times, we should infer that there is but very little hope of anything being done for the red man; and we should infer that, in the opinion of his white brethren, his doom has already been written and recorded. ”

“ To reveal this to others, even to his own people, is, he believes, to expose himself to the counteracting influence of other agents known to his subtle scheme of necromancy and superstition, and to hazard success and life itself. This conduces to make the Red man eminently a man of fear, suspicion, and secrecy. But he cannot avoid some of these disclosures in his pictures and figures. These figures represent ideas—whole ideas, and their juxtaposition or relation on a roll of bark, a tree, or a rock, discloses a continuity of ideas. This is the basis of the system. ”

“ If we look carefully into these quaint tales and folk-lore of the red man, we shall find that he lived upon very intimate relations with all his wild brothers and while he hunted them for meat and used their skins for garments and their hides for bowstrings, yet he knew and understood them and treated them with a reverence that his white brother has never been able to feel. ”

“ There’s a few highfaluting poems, and some other things, about the noble red man that works you up so when you read them that you get to wishing the Almighty had seen fit to let you be a red man, too. ”

“ But the Red Man roamed over the vast forests and prairies of his undiscovered continent, accompanied by few of his fellows, unassisted by beasts of burden, [204] and trusting alone to his skill and fortune in the chase for a support. The first European visitors to the New World were filled with such astonishment at the appearance and complexion of the Red Man, that they hastily concluded he belonged to a different species from themselves. As the native nations became better known, their warriors, statesmen, and orators commanded the admiration of the strangers. ”

“ But throughout Siberia, China, central Asia, India, and Europe they left behind much of their stock blended with the other colored races.
When the red man crossed over into America, he brought along much of the teachings and traditions of his early origin. His immediate ancestors had been in touch with the later activities of the world headquarters of the Planetary Prince. But in a short time after reaching the Americas, the red men began to lose sight of these teachings, and there occurred a great decline in intellectual and spiritual culture. ”

“ That the red man should be a first-rate hunter, and a mighty warrior, but he was not to learn anything from books, as the Great Spirit had not given him any: nor was he to make rum and whisky, lest he should kill himself with drinking. As to the black man, as he had nothing but working-tools, it was clear he was to work for the white and red man, which he has continued to do. ”

“ They say that the land, and the lakes, and the rivers, and the hunting-grounds, belong to the red-man only, and that no other color ought ever to be seen there. The Great Spirit has thought otherwise, and what he thinks happens. Men are of many colors. Some are red, which is the color of my father. Some are pale, which is the color of my friends. Some are black, which is the color of my father's friend. He is black, though old age is changing his skin. ”

“ A wild, low laugh of scorn and derision, which causes the strong, bold man to quake and quail far more than were he to hear the loud, fierce growl of a bear behind him. Saving the red man, no one knows who or what this terrible shape of the wilderness is—where he dwells, nor how he exists; whom he loves, nor whom he hates; but white men call him 'Nick of the Woods.'"
[Pg 34]
CHAPTER V. Who Gave Sprigg The Red Moccasins? ”

“ To turn to more substantial conclusions concerning the racial affinities of the Red Man, we find that it is only within very recent times that anything like a reasoned scientific argument has been arrived at. ”

“ The tie which binds the mother to the child, in Indian life, is a very strong one, and it is conceived to admit of illustration in this manner. It is not alone in the war-path and the council, that the Red Man is to be studied. To appreciate his whole character, in its true light, he must be followed into his lodge, and viewed in his seasons of social leisure and retirement. If there be any thing warm and abiding in the heart or memory of the man, when thus at ease, surrounded by his family, it must come out here ”

“ Let him call the white man’s increase from a little beginning, the red man’s decrease from a great,—the white man’s victories, the red man’s defeats,—the white man’s flourishing, the red man’s fading; and he will have the history of the red men, and the reasons of their sad history, in this country. ”

“ In closing, the author desires to make a strong appeal for a reasoned and charitable consideration of the Indian character on the part of his readers. This noble, manly, and dignified race has in the past been grossly maligned, chiefly by persons themselves ignorant and inspired by hereditary dislike. The Red Man is neither a monster of inhumanity nor a marvel {360} of cunning, but a being with like feelings and aspirations to our own. ”

“ It might have been grimly submitted to as relieved by the suggestion — giving the comfort of companionship to misery — that they would share the terrible doom in the fellowship of their own race. And there were many reasons and occasions which strongly disposed the red man to long for a wide distance and a complete severance of associations from the white man, as well for the unknown hereafter as here on earth. ”

“ The race of dominance during the early ages of the inhabited worlds is the red man, who ordinarily is the first to attain human levels of development. But while the red man is the senior race of the planets, the succeeding colored peoples begin to make their appearances very early in the age of mortal emergence. ”

“ During those eleven minutes, through part of which Black had been at leisure to glance several times at Red, he had received the distinct impression that he was looking at a much overworked man, who needed certain things rather badly—one of which was another man who was not just a good-fellow sort of friend, but one who understood at least a little of what life meant—and what it ought to mean. ”

“ Day and night cannot dwell together. The red man has ever fled the approach of the white man, as the changing mists on the mountain side flee before the blazing morning sun. ”