Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1802).djvu/297

Rh He grants indeed that his ſtature is the ſame as that of the man of Europe. He might have admitted, that the Iroquois were larger, and the Lenopi, or Delawares, taller than the people in Europe generally are. But he ſays their organs of generation are ſmaller and weaker than thoſe of the Europeans. Is this a fact? I believe not; at leaſt it is an obſervation I never heard before. ‘They have no beard.’ Had he known the pains and trouble it coſts the men to pluck out by the roots the hair that grows on their faces, he would have ſeen that nature had not been deficient in that reſpect. Every nation has its cuſtums. I have ſeen an Indian beaux, with a looking-glaſs in his hand, examining his face for hours together, and plucking out by the roots every hair he could diſcover, with a kind of tweezers made of a piece of fine braſs wire, that had been twiſted round a ſtick, and which he uſed with great dexterity.—‘They have no ardor for their females.’ It is true, they do not indulge thoſe exceſſes, nor diſcover that fondneſs which is cuſtomary in Europe; but this is not owing to a defect in nature but to manners. Their ſoul is wholly bent upon war. This is what procures them glory among the men, and makes them the admiration of the women. To this they are educated from, their earliſt youth. When they purſue game with ardor, when they bear the fatigues of the chaſe, when they ſuſtain and ſuffer patiently hunger and cold; it is not ſo much for the ſake of the game they purſue, as to convince their parents and the council of the nation that they are fit to be enrolled in the number of the warriors. The ſongs of the women, the