Kitap: A Fortnight In The Wilderness

On the other side of the river, down in the reeds by the Saginaw, the Indian occasionally casts a stoic glance on the dwellings of his European brethren. Do not go imagining that he admires their works or envies their lot. For nearly three centuries by now the American savage has been in contest with the civilisation that presses on him and surrounds him, but he still has not learnt to know or esteem his enemy. In vain does generation follow generation in both races. Like two parallel rivers they have been flowing for three centuries towards a common abyss; a narrow space separates them, but their waters never mingle. It is not that the native of the New World is always lacking in natural aptitude, but his nature seems obstinately to repulse our ideas and our skills. Sleeping in his cloak in the smoke of his hut, the Indian looks with mistrust at the European’s comfortable house; he for his part prides himself on his poverty, and his heart swells and rejoices at the thought of his barbarian independence. He smiles bitterly as he sees us plaguing our lives to get useless wealth. What we call industry he calls shameful subjection. He compares the workman to an ox laboriously tracing out a furrow. What we call the comforts of life he calls children’s playthings or women’s affectations. He envies us nothing but our weapons. When a man can find cover at night in a tent of leaves, when he can find enough to light a fire to keep off the mosquitoes in summer and cold in winter, when his dogs are good and the country full of game, what more can he ask from the Eternal Being?

The emigrant from the United States is only interested in victory for its results; he holds glory but a vain clamour, and thinks that man has only come into the world to gain affluence and the comforts of life. He is brave, nonetheless, but brave by calculation, brave because he has found out that there are several things harder to bear than death. An adventurer surrounded by his family, but one who sets little store by intellectual pleasures and the charms of social life.

“But are you not afraid of the Indians?”
“Afraid of the Indians! I would rather live among them than in the society of the whites. No! No! I am not afraid of the Indians. They are worth more than we, provided we have not brutalised them with our strong drinks, the poor creatures!”

This said, the American made a sign to the Indian to come up and began to talk very fluently to him in his
language. It was strange to see what pleasure these two men, so different in birth and manners, took in exchanging ideas with one another. Clearly they were discussing the respective merits of their weapons. The white, having looked at the savage’s rifle very carefully:
“There is a fine carbine,” said he. “No doubt the English have given it to him to use against us, and he will not fail to do so as soon as there is a war. That is how the Indians draw on their heads all the ills that weigh them down. But they know no better, the poor fellows..”

Michigan-Kanada sınır hattındaki Amerikalılar ve Ojibwe (Chippewa) kabilesinin münasebetleri. Sınır hattında kültürlerin kaynaşması, İngilizler yerlileri kışkırtmaya devam ediyor.