Des relations qui existent entre les diverses peuplades d’espèce cuivrée, du nord de l’Amérique. — D

CHAP. 16: > Of the relations that exist between the diverse tribes of the copper-colored species, of the north of America. — Of the causes of the wars they wage. — Of the spirit they bring to them.

If so little harmony and so little benevolence exist in the relations from individual to individual, still less exists in the relations that take place from horde to horde. Among the tribes that live principally by means of hunting or fishing, private property is a small thing: it is reduced, in a way, to the weapons and instruments that each possesses. But public or common property, that which furnishes food to the entire population, is very extensive. It includes the entire territory in the expanse of which one engages in hunting; it includes, moreover, the rivers, streams, lakes, and gulfs that furnish fish for daily existence. The limits of the territory or the possessions of a horde of savages are scarcely less precise than those of the territory of a civilized nation, and they are not guarded with less jealousy [448]. A tribe that penetrates into the territory of another to seek means of existence there, infallibly exposes itself to war, if it is surprised; and this war is waged with all the more fury, as on both sides it is starving men who fight for their subsistence. However, it is difficult for individuals in scarcity or famine, who see the prey they have long pursued pass onto a territory that is not theirs, to stop suddenly, out of respect for the property of others. It is an effort of courage or virtue of which even men who are less barbarous and especially less famished are rarely capable.The custom among these peoples of considering an offense done to an individual as an offense done to the entire horde, and that of avenging an injury one has received upon any individual who belongs to the family or tribe of the offender, are no less fertile sources of war. It is thus up to each to put his nation at war with any other he pleases to provoke; and individual antipathies always change into national antipathies [449]. Thus, all the tribes that inhabit the north and northwest of America are in a state of continual hostility with one another; the less civilized they are, the more cruel and destructive is the war they wage [450]. In their victories they spare neither age nor sex: the elderly, women, children, all are massacred. If they happen to take prisoners, it is to reserve them for a slower and more painful death [451]. The distance at which one finds oneself from an enemy, the difficulties he has to overcome, the dangers to which he must expose himself, are not guarantees against his attacks. A troop of savages travels a distance of five hundred leagues through the forests; it crosses mountains, advances through ice and snow, exposes itself to perishing from famine, to go and surprise and massacre a tribe from which it believes it has received some injury [452]. The spirit of vengeance that animates them is appeased only by the complete destruction of the nation they consider their enemy. It is to the violence of this passion, above all, that must be attributed the extinction of a multitude of tribes that existed not yet two centuries ago in the north of America, and of which today no remains are to be found [453].

The spirit in which these peoples make war is manifested by the education they give their children, and by the manner in which they prepare for their expeditions. Children who give themselves over to acts of violence are never repressed, even when the authors of their days are the victims; for one would fear diminishing their courage [454]. They are accustomed from their earliest age to suck the blood of prisoners. “I want,” said a mother who was thus raising her son to a missionary, “I want my children to be warriors; they must be nourished on the flesh of their enemies [455].” As soon as the children have reached the age of adolescence, they are trained to torment the captives taken in war themselves, and to prolong their torture [456].

When a warrior has resolved to undertake a military expedition, he goes from village to village to invite the young men to the feast; they go to his hut, singing: I am going to war, I am going to avenge the death of my kinsman; I will kill, I will burn, I will bring back slaves, I will eat men. The war proclamation of some of these tribes is short, but energetic: Let us go, and eat this people [457].

Never making their attacks except by surprise and often in the middle of the night, these hordes all live in continual alarm. Thus, when the exposure of the places favors them, they place their villages on steep mountains, on almost inaccessible rocks that they fortify with care. If they cannot take advantage of the position of the places, they surround themselves with artificial fortifications; they place their huts at great distances from one another, as if each family feared the vicinity of all those of which the tribe is composed. But these precautions are not sufficient to shelter them; and it is not rare for travelers to encounter destroyed and deserted villages in places that seemed inaccessible to the attacks of the enemy. The fury of destroying, which made the overly praised Romans famous, is a passion that is neither less energetic nor less irresistible in a tribe of savages than it was among the senators of Rome [458].

However, whatever the violence with which these peoples make war, the need to put an end to it often overcomes the hatred that animates them. They then send ambassadors to one another, and the individuals who are charged with this mission are no less respected by the enemy than are, among the most civilized peoples, all men placed in similar circumstances. The agents charged with negotiating the peace bring to their relations the same circumspection and the same finesse that one observes among European diplomats. Perhaps they are even more skilled at persuading, for the reason that favor and intrigue have less influence in their election. The treaties of peace become laws that direct the conduct of the contracting parties, until some unforeseen event obliges them to transgress them and to recommence hostilities.