Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/182

162 seem to us simply an element of rude, natural barbarism; but they mean more to us the more closely we study them. And there is another thing to be said about them; for there is an affinity, strange and unexplained, between these forest totem-symbols and some of the proud escutcheon-bearings of monarchs and nobles, states and empires, in the old civilized world. A simple prejudice or habit of association of our own makes us ridicule in the savage what awes or flatters us among white men. The totems of the Indian tribes were the bear, the beaver, the wolf, the tortoise, the squirrel, etc. The emblems were generally — not always, however — rudely sketched and grotesque. But the design and purpose of them were exactly the same as of similar devices in proud Christian nations; for example, England's unicorn and lion, Scotland's thistle, Ireland's shamrock, the fleur-de-lis and the cock of the Frenchman, the bear of Russia and of the canton Berne, the double-headed eagle of Austria, etc. And if we should follow the comparison down through the shields, the armorial bearings, the escutcheons and coats of arms of nobles and private families, with all their absurd devices and figurings, — perhaps Indian pride and ingenuity might find more countenance. Indeed, the roguish and waggish La Hontan — who so scandalized the French Jesuits by his awful truth-telling that he has been unfairly depreciated, though doubtless often sagacious and trustworthy — heads a chapter of his racy volumes on French Canada with the title, “The Heraldry, or the Coats of Arms, of the Savages.” This he illustrates with lively etchings of tribal symbols, — the beaver, the wolf, the bear, etc., so fitting to wilderness and forest men. The “coat of arms” of the kings of Mexico was an eagle griping in his talons a jaguar. It was a pity that they could not have put life into the emblem in their treatment of their Spanish tormentors.

In the ingenuity that has been spent in tracing tokens of a former relationship between the people of the Old