The Moccasin Maker | Page 3

was his enemy, the American frontiersman.
Burnings at the stake, scalping, and other savageries, were not confined
to the red man. But whilst his are depicted by the interested writers of
the time in the most lurid colours, those of the frontiersman, equally
barbarous, are too often palliated, or entirely passed by. It is manifestly

unjust to characterize a whole people by its worst members. Of such,
amongst both Indians and whites, there were not a few; but it is equally
unfair to ascribe to a naturally cruel disposition the infuriated red man's
reprisals for intolerable wrongs. As a matter of fact, impartial history
not seldom leans to the red man's side; for, in his ordinary and peaceful
intercourse with the whites, he was, as a rule, both helpful and humane.
In the records of early explorers we are told of savages who possessed
estimable qualities lamentably lacking in many so-called civilized men.
The Illinois, an inland tribe, exhibited such tact, courtesy and
self-restraint, in a word, such good manners, that the Jesuit Fathers
described them as a community of gentlemen. Such traits, indeed, were
natural to the primitive Indian, and gave rise, no doubt, to the
much-derided phrase--"The Noble Red Man."
There may be some readers of these lines old enough to remember the
great Indians of the plains in times past, who will bear the writer out in
saying that such traits were not uncommon down to comparatively
recent years. Tatonkanazin the Dahcota, Sapo-Maxika the Blackfoot,
Atakakoop the Cree, not to speak of Yellow Quill and others, were
noted in their day for their noble features and dignified deportment.
In our history the Indians hold an honoured place, and the average
reader need not be told that, at one time, their services were essential to
Canada. They appreciated British justice, and their greatest nations
produced great men, who, in the hour of need, helped materially to
preserve our independence. They failed, however, for manifest reasons,
to maintain their own. They had to yield; but, before quitting the stage,
they left behind them an abiding memory, and an undying tradition.
And, thus, "Romanticism," which will hold its own despite its hostile
critics, is their debtor. Their closeness to nature, their picturesque life in
the past, their mythical religion, social system and fateful history have
begot one of the wide world's "legends," an ideal not wholly imaginary,
which, as a counterpoise to Realism, our literature needs, and probably
never shall outgrow.
These references to the Indian character may seem too extended for
their place, yet they are genre to the writer's subject. For Miss Johnson's

mentality was moulded by descent, by ample knowledge of her people's
history, admiration of their character, and profound interest in their
fate.
Hence the oncoming into the field of letters of a real Indian poet had a
significance which, aided by its novelty, was immediately appreciated
by all that was best in Canadian culture. Hence, too, and by reason of
its strength, her work at once took its fitting place without jar or
hindrance; for there are few educated Canadians who do not possess, in
some measure, that aboriginal, historic sense which was the very
atmosphere of Pauline Johnson's being.
But while "the Indian" was never far from her thoughts, she was a poet,
and therefore inevitably winged her way into the world of art, into the
realm common to all countries, and to all peoples. Here there was room
for her imaginings, endowed, as she was, with power to appeal to the
heart, with refinement, delicacy, pathos, and, above all, sincerity; an
Idealist who fused the inner and the outer world, and revelled in the
unification of scenery and mind.
The delight of genius in the act of composition has been called the
keenest of intellectual pleasures; and this was the poet's almost sole
reward in Canada a generation ago, when nothing seemed to catch the
popular ear but burlesque, or trivial verse. In strange contrast this with
a remoter age! In old Upper Canada, in its primitive days, there was no
lack of educated men and women, of cultivated pioneers who
appreciated art and good literature in all its forms. Even the average
immigrant brought his favourite books with him from the Old Land,
and cherished a love of reading, which unfortunately was not always
inherited by his sons. It was a fit audience, no doubt; but in a period
when all alike were engrossed in a stern struggle for existence, the
poets, and we know there were some, were forced, like other people, to
earn, by labour of hand, their daily bread. Thackeray's "dapper" George
is credited with the saying, that, "If beebles will be boets they must
starve." If in England their struggle was severe, in Canada it was
unrelenting; a bald prospect,