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His Intellectual Gifts
The Indian has little hope of
occupying a sphere, where the discipline and cultivation of the
mind shall be essential to the proper balancing and developing
of its powers, and shall render it equal to the collision with
other keen intellects. It would, therefore, be equally idle and
unprofitable to attempt to measure his mental capabilities,
until we shall have experience of his intellectuality, with
proper stimulating and inciting influences in play, or under
circumstances, conducing, generally, to mental strength and
vigor, to note; and which we may employ as a reliable basis for
judgment; and it would be manifestly unfair to argue weak mental
caliber, or to presage small mental capacity in the Indian, from
his present deplorable state of inertness, a condition which has
been sadly impressed and confirmed by repressive legislation,
and of which that legislation, by practically denying him
occupation of improving fields of thought, and, indeed, scope
for any enlarged mental activity, seeks to decree the melancholy
perpetuity.
In some of the few cases where supervenient aid has
enabled him to qualify for, and embrace, a profession, I have
perceived a tendency to subordinate its practice to the demands
of some less exacting calling, which has rendered nugatory any
efficient mastery of the profession. Memory is, undoubtedly, the
Indian's strong point, and I can myself testify to exhibitions
of it, truly phenomenal. The interpreter will placidly proceed
to translate a long string of sentences, just fallen from a
speaker's lips, to engraft which upon our memory would be a
performance most trying and difficult; and to have their
repetition. even with a proximate adherence to the sense and the
expressions used, imposed upon us, in the peremptory fashion in
which it is sprung upon the interpreter, would carry the wildest
dismay to our mind. Those understanding the Indian tongue have
frequently assured me that the Indian, when interpreting,
reproduces with minuteness, if he be granted, of course, a
certain latitude for differences of idiom, the speaker's thought
and expressions. It is said by one of his own writers that the
Indian is much more prone to follow the evil than the moral
practices of the white; and there can be no doubt, I think,
that, if habitually thrown with a corrupt community, or one
where a low order of morality should obtain, the acquisition of
higher knowledge would tend to make him better skilled in
planning works of iniquity, than to give him higher and purer
tastes. Actual experience of the Indian, in one or two cases,
where there has been a more than common accession to his mental
accomplishments, rather gives color to the notion of the
misdirection of those accomplishments (even without the baneful
white influence) that has been hinted at.
I should think the Indian would, probably, even with
proper discipline to bear, lack powers of concentration, with
the kindred faculty of being able to direct the mind to the
achieving or subserving of some one grand purpose or aim, and
would, likely, be deficient in other allied ways, by which a
gifted and powerful mind will be asserted; and would imagine, on
the whole, that there is slight ground for thinking him capable,
under the most favorable circumstances, of imperiling the
eminence of the white in respect of intellectual power and
attainments.
His
Pastimes
Lacrosse, it is
well-known, is the Indian's national game. The agile form with
which nature has gifted him, and which I have mentioned already
as one of his physical characteristics, brings an essential
pre-requisite for success or eminence to a game, where the
laggard is at heavy discount.
Though a white team can often boast of two or three
individual runners, whose fleetness will outstrip the capacity
of an equal number on the side of the Indians, I think, perhaps,
that it will be allowed that the Indian team, as a rule, will
comprehend the greater number of fleet members. While the
Indian, then, can scarcely be said to yield to the white in this
respect, he lacks obviously that mental quick-sightedness which,
with the latter, defines, as it were, intuitively, the exact
location on the field, of a friend, and, with unerring
certitude, calculates the degree of force that shall be needed
to propel the ball, and the precise direction its flight shall
take, in order to insure its reposing on the net of that friend.
In the frequently recurring "mêlees", begotten of the struggle
amongst a number of contestants for the possession of the ball,
the Indian exhibits, perhaps, in more marked degree than the
white, the qualities of stubborn doggedness, and utter disregard
of personal injury.
The worsting of the Indian by the white in the majority
of competitions of this kind is due to the latter submitting to
be governed by system, and to his recognizing a directing power
in the captain. The Indian, on the other hand, will not bend to
such controlling influence, but chafes under direction of any
kind. He has good facilities for practice at this game, and, I
believe, really tries to excel in it, often, indeed, the expense
of duties, which imperatively call him elsewhere than to the
lacrosse-field.
The Indian is a proficient canoeist, and will adventure
himself with confidence in a canoe of the frailest construction,
which he will guide in safety, and with surpassing skill. He
will dispel the fears of his disquieted and faithless
fellow-voyager (for the motion at times in canoeing is,
unmistakably, perturbing and discomposing; indeed, in this
unsettling experience, the body is a frequent, if not an
inevitable, sharer) who, in view of his sublime disregard of
danger, will quickly re-assert the courage that had waned. If,
however, there be a second Indian in the canoe, he usually
strives to counteract the reassuring effect that the pilot's
bearing has upon you. He stands up in the bottom, and sways, to
and fro, and, with fell and malignant intent proceeds to evolve
out of the canoe a more approved see-saw action than a priori,
and inherently attaches to that order of craft. On that really
"Grand" river, which was his sometime heritage, the Indian can
well improve his skill in this modest branch of nautical
science.
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