Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/205

Rh freedom of wild life, the exposure of the person, the liability to mishaps and accidents, and especially when any weaknesses like cowardice or boastfulness, or a vaunting of exploits — which is one of the indulgences most habitual to an Indian — enables a companion to turn the laugh upon him.

Only the slightest reference possible is to be made to a subject which, if presented in the details for which our Indian literature affords such abundant materials, would turn the eyes of most readers from the page before them. One of the most painful and repulsive characteristics of savage life, in its debasing influences, — contrasting most sharply with all the resources for employing time and thought, and adding softening and refining charms to society under civilization, — is the free license for impurity and measureless immorality. The obscenity of the savages is unchecked in its revolting and disgusting exhibitions. Sensuality seeks no covert. If the Indian languages are wholly destitute, as we are told, of words of profanity and blasphemy, there is no lack of terms in them, as neither is there of signs, symbols, and acts in open day, for the foulest display of indecency and beastliness.

The Indians are universally persistent and greedy gamblers. This one vice, at least, they did not learn from the whites. It was native among them in its practice, and they throw into it an earnestness and a passion rarely manifested so intensely and widely among white men. For the most part, gaming is confined to the males; but squaws are fond of catching a sly hour and place for it when the eyes of their masters are withdrawn. The squaws themselves are not infrequently the stake between the players, for there is nothing of value to the Indian which he will not put at hazard. This passion may indicate a longing for relief from the tediousness of that supine and listless indolence which the Indian indulges when not hunting or fighting. But as this utter vacancy and torpidness is also