War is always a game of hazard.In such a state of society it is peculiarly hazardous.There the art of war is surprise.The scanty population which the chase can alone maintain, is divided into small bands, living widely apart -- mere points in a vast continuity of wilderness.In such situations warfare can never be open.The attacking party must advance with secrecy;were they to make their approach known, their enemies would only wait for them, if convinced of their own superiority; otherwise, they would retire, and, if acting prudently, and skilfully, never suffer themselves to be seen, unless to strike their foes, themselves being safe, in some well-conducted ambush.But where success depends upon concealment, and surprise, it also depends on chance.into precautions can succeed in always guarding a small band, encamped in the midst of a great forest, from being unexpectedly assailed.No precautions can prevent the track of a party advancing, through an enemy's country, from being occasionally discovered.Victory, or defeat, and all that follow them, depend on the slightest accident.Fortune is a goddess, on whose influence the schemes of the most skilful, and greatest captains, are always in some measure, dependent, but here she reigns supreme.
The effects of these circumstances are increased by the character of the laws of war of the savage.His wars are wars of extermination.They cannot well be otherwise.Were he pressed to defend, what he thinks requires no defence, but is prepared alike to execute on others, or suffer himself, he might so do from the necessity of the case, the plea which man always urges for every evil he inflicts on his fellows.He can neither safely let his enemies go, nor possibly retain them captive.In the former ease they would be as much to be dreaded as ever.In the woods half a dozen men may make war upon a nation, as wars are there conducted.That is, they may waylay, surprise, and slaughter detached parts of them.Nor can he retain captives.They would both be useless, and must escape.A plunge into the surrounding forest sets them free.Hence it is not conquest, as with other warriors, but destruction, that is his aim, and what he executes on others, when he has the power, he sees continually impending over him, from them, when fortune gives them the power.
Thus the whole existence of the hunter is chequered by quick changing extremes.Abundance, famine, the fierce joys of victory, the horrors of surprise and defeat, rapidly succeed each other, in an order which he can neither pretend to foresee, nor direct.Like all men in similar circumstances, he refers the events, of which his being is the sport, to the continual and capricious agency, of supernatural powers.All the good that happens to him, is from their having been propitious to his designs, and from his having rightly interpreted their omens; all the evil that befalls him, arises, in his conception, from their hostility, or from his having mistaken, or neglected, some vision, or token they sent him.The warrior turns back, in the middle of an expedition, if his sleep be disturbed by a dream betokening evil; the unsuccessful hunter accuses neither his unsteady hand, nor imperfect sight, but some magical influence banging on his weapon which only the priest or sorcerer can therefore remove.The direction of all events whose arrival is distant, seems thus to the hunter of the woods to lie entirely beyond his control; and, instead of endeavoring to make the ease, or abundance of the present, provide for the evils of the future, he prides himself in enjoying the good of to-day undisturbed by a single care, and, in feeling, and knowing, that he can bear the ill of tomorrow without a murmur.
Hence the Indian has a character altogether his own.Feeling himself hurried on by the course of events, not directing it, he thinks as little of refraining from the pleasures that course may offer him, as of shrinking from the pains to which it may expose him, and indulges, therefore, without restraint, in the enjoyments of the hour.His intellectual faculties, unaccustomed to deduce remote consequences from immediate causes, and still less accustomed to adopt as a ground for action, and to watch, carefully, and anxiously, any concatenation of the sort, are feeble; either in themselves, or from inaction..His passions, on the contrary, are strong.Unaccustomed to reflection, the warm and generous feelings of affection and gratitude, as well as the darker ones of hatred and revenge, are often formed hastily, and on inadequate grounds, but while they last they are exceedingly vehement.His tribe forms the point in which all these feelings centre; it is in fact his family, with which all his joys and sorrows are in common.
An attention to the effects, naturally flowing from this character, will explain many circumstances in the present condition, and past history of these tribes, which are in themselves interesting, and which are closely connected with our subject.Of all those circumstances, none is more remarkable, than their neglecting, or refusing, to adopt the arts, of the new neighbors which the discovery by Europeans of the country they inhabit, brought, and has kept in contact with them.Surrounded as are the scattered wrecks of those once numerous tribes, by a great people, rapidly converting the soil, and almost whatever grows on it, or is hid beneath it, into instruments, capable of plentifully supplying every variety of future want, they are yet unable to imitate them.This deficiency among them, of the effective desire of accumulation, the principle leading to the formation of instruments, seems to arise both from a want of motives to exertion, and from a want of the principles and habits of action which would lead to effective exertion.
