Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/165

145 they assigned all such work to their squaws, who were their beasts of burden, who put together the materials of their lodges, fetched wood and water, cooked the food, carried their pappooses and household goods on their shoulders, and flayed the beasts of the hunt and cured their skins. The white man as a warrior always had the respect of the savage, but drew only his wonder or contempt when seen in any industrious occupation. Trusting thus in the fostering care of Nature, the Indians were content with its furnished resources or supplies, whether for a moment these were full or scant. They would gorge themselves to repletion, like the beasts, when they had an abundance, and would endure with marvellous fortitude the sharp pangs of hunger to the verge of starvation.

Doubtless it is to this earthward kinship and compliance with Nature in the savage that we are to ascribe his utter unconsciousness of and indifference to what we call offensive and revolting to the senses, — foul odors, uncleanliness, filth, vermin, parasites, etc. Regarding himself as akin to the elements, the soil, and the creatures around him, the savage did not recognize what we call dirt. Dirt has been well defined as valuable matter out of place. But the savage did not regard dirt as ever out of place, — whether on his person, his apparel, in his foul lodge, or in his scant utensils and his food. Consequently to him there was no such thing as dirt. He would eat with gusto frogs, toads, snakes, and decomposing animal remains just as he took them from the ground; and his first delicious repast from the game which he killed — large or small, beast, fish, or fowl — was from its raw, quivering entrails and its warm blood. The ordinary functions and processes of his organism were exactly like those which he recognized in animals: obedience to their impulses and necessities was as unrestrained as was the use of the lungs and the voice in breathing and speaking. The relief of nature was as seemly a process as was that of satisfying it: