CHAPTER IX.

VARIETIES OF SAVAGE LIFE.

In the preceding chapters we have examined the most common attributes of barbarism, and shewn that they are such as necessarily result from ignorance every where. We have hitherto found a sad uniformity in all the communities destitute of knowledge and civilization; and our next inquiry-their capacity and opportunities for improvement-necessarily involves an examination of the varieties of barbarism, and the extent of their influence on humanity.

We may class the barbarous races in three divisions: they are hunters, shepherds, or agriculturists. Not, indeed, that any tribe exists deriving its support exclusively from the chase, from flocks, or from tillage; but that the different divisions make one or other of these pursuits their main source of subsistence. Hunting always appears to have been a favourite mode of subsistence it gratifies the love of excitement which is equally the characteristic of human nature in savage and civilized life; and this excitement is necessarily greater when the hunter is dependent on the chase for the means of subsistence. The pleasure derived from the excitement of the chase is increased when the sport is perilous, "The danger's self is lure alone;" and hence a spirit of daring adventure is formed, which at once gratifies and developes pride and self-esteem.

We find that this mode of life, with all its adventures, perils and hardships, has such attractions that men nurtured in the lap of luxury, will quit the comforts and enjoyments of civilized life to share in the stimulating sports of the savage hunter, and will cheerfully endure its privations at least for a season, in order to obtain its pleasures. So delightful does their hunting appear to some of the Siberian tribes, that their most bitter curse is, "May you be obliged to keep flocks and herds!"

Hunting, notwithstanding its pleasures, is so very precarious a mode of subsistence that there can be very few tribes dependent upon it alone. Among the Indians of North America there was always some agriculture practised, and the chase is exclusively followed only by those who can exchange their peltry with merchants for necessaries and conveniences. Those who have adopted this wandering mode of life rarely abandon it; there are countless examples of white men adopting all the usages of the Indian hunter, but there is scarcely one example of an Indian hunter or trapper adopting the steady and regular habits of civilized life.

The Indian tribes, since the discovery of North America, have shewn a greater tendency to exchange the stationary for the nomade life, than to abandon roving habits for settled habitations. The history of the tribe of the Cheyennes in Mr. Washington Irving's Astoria, shews us that the wandering tribes of the prairies did not become hunters from choice, though after having adopted this roving life they displayed aversion to settled habitations.

"The history of the Cheyennes," says Mr. Irving,

"is that of many of those wandering tribes of the prairies. They were the remnant of a once powerful tribe called the Shaways, inhabiting a branch of the Red River, which flows into Lake Winnipeg. Every Indian tribe has some rival tribe with which it wages implacable hostility. The deadly enemies of the Shaways were the Sioux, who after a long course of warfare proved too powerful for them, and drove them across the Missouri. They again took root near the Warricanne creek, and established themselves in a fortified village.

"The Sioux still followed them with deadly animosity; dislodged them from their village, and compelled them to take refuge in the Black hills near the upper end of the Sheyenne or Cheyenne river. Here they lost even their name, and became known among the French colonists by that of the river they frequented.

"The heart of the tribe was now broken; its numbers were greatly thinned by these harassing wars. They no longer attempted to establish themselves in any permanent abode that might be an object of attack to their cruel foes. They gave up the cultivation of the fruits of the earth, and became a wandering tribe, subsisting by the chase, and following the buffalo in its migrations.

"Their only possessions were horses, which they caught on the prairies, or reared, or captured on predatory incursions into the Mexican territories, as has been already mentioned. With some of these they repaired once a year to the Aricara villages, exchanged them for corn, beans, pumpkins, and articles of European merchandise, and then returned into the heart of the prairies.

"Such are the fluctuating fortunes of these savage nations. War, famine, pestilence, together or singly, bring down their strength and their numbers. Whole tribes are rooted up from their native places, wander for a time about the immense regions, become amalgamated with other tribes, or disappear from the face of the earth. There appears to be a tendency to extinction among all the savage nations; and this tendency would seem to have been in operation among the aboriginals of this country long before the advent of the white men, if we may judge from the traces and traditions of ancient populousness in regions which were silent at the time of the discovery; and from the mysterious and perplexing vestiges of unknown races, predecessors of those found in actual possession, and who must long since have become gradually extinguished, or been destroyed."

The tendency to extinction in hunting tribes, obviously arises from the disproportionately large space which they require for subsistence. When population increases they must either change their mode of life, migrate to another land, or thin their numbers by civil wars. We have no example of hunting tribes remaining in their own land and adopting voluntarily an agricultural or even pastoral life, but we have some reason to believe that many pastoral tribes north of the Oxus and east of the Caspian, have been compelled to exchange the care of flocks and herds for the more precarious labours of the chase. The warlike conquerors who have successively appeared in these regions, have almost invariably commenced their career by professing that they designed to avenge some injury done

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to their ancestors. Roderick Dhu's vindication of himself when charged with robbery, is similarly pleaded by the more savage tribes of Tartary, as an excuse for pillaging their neighbours.

These fertile plains, that softened vale,
Were once the birthright of the Gael:
The stranger came with iron hand,
And from our fathers rent the land.

...

Where dwell we now? See rudely swell
Crag over crag, and fell o'er fell. .
Pent in this fortress of the north,
Think'st thou we will not sally forth
To spoil the spoiler as we may,

And from the robber rend the prey?

In the multitudinous revolutions of Tartary and Mongolia, it is not easy to collect from tradition an authentic series of facts; but all authorities are agreed, that the tribes of the mountains and the deserts declare that they were driven to these wilds and fastnesses by usurping rivals.

The fate of hunting tribes is in a great degree determined by the character of the people in their immediate vicinity. If their neighbours be a people progressively advancing in civilization, they will be driven farther and farther back into the wilds, as the Indians of America have been before the Europeans; but if the nation on their frontiers be weakened by any moral or political cause, the hunting tribes become the aggressors, and migrate into the more civilized country. The incessant civil wars among the pastoral tribes of Tartary, have frequently enabled the ruder hunting tribes to bring them under subjection.

The connexion between war and hunting has been