The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American India | Page 5

conversant with the aerial powers, who are believed to have an influence over men, and hence the great regard which is paid to the flight of these birds in their war and hieratic songs.
Fictitious tales of imaginary Indian life, and poems on the aboriginal model, have been in vogue almost from the days of the discovery. But what has been fancied as life in the forest, has had no little resemblance to those Utopian schemes of government and happiness which rather denote the human mind run mad, than supply models to guide judgment or please philosophy. In general, these attempts have held up high principles of thought and action in a people, against truth, observation, and common sense. High heroic action, in the Indian, is the result of personal education in endurance, supported by pride of character; and if he can ever be said to rejoice in suffering, it is in the spirit of a taunt to his enemy. This error had been so long prevalent, that when, in 1839, the author submitted a veritable collection of legends and myths from the Indian wigwams, which reflected the Indian life as it is, it was difficult, and almost impossible, to excite interest in the theme, in the trade. He went to England and the continent, in hopes of better success. But, although philanthropists and men of letters and science appreciated the subject, as historical elements in the history of the human mind, the booksellers of London, Paris, Leipsic, and Frankfort-on-the-Main, to whose notice the subject was brought, exhibited very nearly the same nonchalant tone; and had it not been for the attractive poetic form in which one of our most popular and successful bards has clothed some of these wild myths, the period of their reproduction is likely to have been still further postponed.
In now submitting so large a body of matter, respecting the mental garniture of a people whose fate and fortunes have excited so much interest, the surprise is not that we know so little of their mental traits, but that, with so little research and inquiry, we should know anything at all. They have only been regarded as the geologist regards boulders, being not only out of place, but with not half the sure guides and principles of determining where they came from, and where the undisturbed original strata remain. The wonder is not that, as boulder-tribes, they have not adopted our industry and Christianity, and stoutly resisted civilization, in all its phases, but that, in spite of such vital truths, held up by all the Colonies and States, and by every family of them, they have not long since died out and become extinguished. No English colony could live three or four centuries, in any isolated part of the world, without the plough, the school-book, and the Bible; it would die out, of idleness and ignorance. If one century has kicked the Indian in America harder than another, it is because the kicks of labor, art, and knowledge are always the hardest, and in the precise proportion to the contiguity of the object.
By obtaining--what these legends give--a sight of the inner man, we are better able to set a just estimate on his character, and to tell what means of treatment are best suited for his reclamation. That forbearance, kindness, and teaching are best adapted to the object, there is no doubt. We are counselled to forgive an erring brother seventy and seven times. If, as some maintain, wrongfully, we believe, the Indian is not, in a genealogical sense, of the same stock, yet is he not, in a moral sense, a brother? If the knowledge of his story-telling faculty has had any tendency to correct the evils of false popular opinion respecting him, it has been to show that the man talks and laughs like the rest of the human family; that it is fear that makes him suspicious, and ignorance superstitious; that he is himself the dupe of an artful forest priesthood; and that his cruelty and sanguinary fury are the effects of false notions of fame, honor, and glory. He is always, and at all times and places, under the strong influence of hopes and fears, true or false, by which he is carried forward in the changing scenes of war and peace. Kindness never fails to soften and meliorate his feelings, and harshness, injury, and contempt to harden and blunt them. Above all, it is shown that, in the recesses of the forest, he devotes a portion of his time to domestic and social enjoyment, in which the leading feature is the relation of traditionary legends and tales. Heroes and heroines, giants and dwarfs, spirits, Monetos or local gods, demons, and deities pass in review. It is chiefly by their misadventures and violations