Western Characters | Page 7

before even his Asiatic father had
discovered its use, or the accidents which brought him to this continent,
were such as to preclude importing domesticated animals; and the lapse

of a few generations was sufficient to obliterate even the recollection of
such knowledge. "And," says Prescott,[6] "he might well doubt,
whether the wild, uncouth monsters, whom he occasionally saw
bounding with such fury over the distant plains, were capable of
domestication, like the meek animals which he had left grazing in the
green pastures of Asia." To this leading distinction--the adoption and
neglect of pastoral habits--may be referred most of the diversities
among races, unquestionably of one stock.
Reasoning from the effects upon human character, produced by the face
of different countries, we might expect to find, in the Indian, among
other things, a strong tendency toward poetical thought, embodied, not
in the mode of expression usually denominated poetry, but in the style
of his addresses, the peculiarities of his theories, or the construction of
his mythology, language, and laws. This expectation is totally
disappointed; but when we examine the degree and character of his
advancement, and recollect a few of the circumstances, among which
the poetry looked for would be obliged to grow, our disappointment
loses its element of surprise. The contemplation of Nature in her
primitive, terrible, and beautiful forms--the habit of meditation, almost
the necessary consequence of solitude--the strange, wild enchantment
of an adventurous life--have failed to develop in the Indian, any but
selfish and sensual ideas. Written poetry was, of course, not to be
expected, even from the indigenous civilization of Mexico and Peru;
yet we might, with some ground for hope, seek occasional traces of
poetical thought and feeling. We look in vain for any such thing.
"Extremes meet," says one of the wisest of adages; and the saying was
never more singularly and profoundly vindicated, than in its application
to civilization and barbarism. The savage rejects all that does not
directly gratify his selfish wants--the highly-civilized man is, in like
manner, governed by the principle of utility; and, by both, the merely
fanciful and imaginative is undervalued. Thus, as Mr. Macaulay[7]
ingeniously says, "A great poem, in a highly-polished state of society,
is the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius." But, for the same
reasons, the savage, who should display any remarkably poetical
feeling or tone of thought, would be quite as great a prodigy. Poetry

flourishes most luxuriantly midway between the two extremes. Its
essence is the contemplation of great passions and actions--of love,
revenge, ambition. Imagination is then vivified by the means of
expression or articulation; and, in the half-civilized state, neither a
refined public sentiment, nor the other extreme of barbarous isolation,
restrains the exhibition of great (and poetical) emotions.
The best of Hazlitt's numerous definitions of poetry, determines it to be
"the excess of imagination, beyond the actual or ordinary impression of
any object or feeling."[8] But the Indian was destitute of all
imagination; apparently, the composition of his nature included no such
element; and, certainly, the rude exigencies of his life did not admit its
action. Even the purity of his mythology, compared to that of the
Greeks and Romans,[9] has been (by Lord Lindsay) attributed to this
want--though, if such were its only effects, it might very well be
supplied.
The Indian has no humor, no romance--how could he possess poetical
feeling? The gratification of sensual wants is the end of his life--too
often, literally the end! "He considers everything beneath his notice,
which is not necessary to his advantage or enjoyment."[10] To him a
jest is as unmeaning as the babbling of a brook; his wife is a beast of
burden; and even his courting is carried on by gifts of good things to
eat, sent to the parents.[11] Heaven is merely a hunting-ground; his
language has no words to express abstract qualities, virtues, vices, or
sentiments.[12] His idea of the Great Spirit, and the word which
expresses it, may be applied with equal propriety to a formidable
(though not beneficent) animal; indeed, the Indian words which we
translate "spirit," mean only superior power, without the qualification
of good or evil. He has not even the ordinary inhabitive instinct of the
human race; his attachment to any region of country depends upon its
capacity to furnish game, and the fading of the former keeps pace with
the disappearance of the latter. "Attachment to the graves of his
fathers," is an agreeable fiction--unfortunately, only a fiction.[13] He
has always been nomadic, without the pastoral habits which the word
supposes: a mere wandering savage, without purpose or motive,
beyond the gratification of the temporary want, whim, or passion, and

void of everything deserving the name of sentiment.
An extravagant, and, I am sorry to say, groundless, notion has obtained
currency, among