Note 2.
"Save the plaintive song of the whip-poor-will."
That the Indian mind and language are not devoid of poetry, the names they have given to this bird (the whip-poor-will) sufficiently evidence. Some call it the "Muckawis," others the "Wish-ton-wish," signifying "the voice of a sigh," and "the plaint for the lost." Those, who in its native glens at twilight, have listened to its indescribably melancholy song, will know how beautifully appropriate these names are.
Note 3.
"They, the foul slaves' of lust and gold,
Say that our blood and hearts are cold."
It has been advanced by some writers, that the almost miraculous fortitude often displayed by Indians, under the most intense suffering, is to be accounted for by their insensibility to pain, resulting, they allege, from a defective nervous organization. From the absence of a display of gallantry and tenderness between the sexes, they argue also, in them, the nonexistence of love, and its kindred passions. This we think unjust, as it robs them of the honours of a system of education, which is life-long, and whose sole object is to attain the mastery of all feeling, physical or mental. The view taken of this subject by Robertson, in his History of America, to us, seems most accordant with truth. He says: "The amazing steadiness with which the Americans endure the most exquisite torments, has induced some authors to suppose that, from the peculiar feebleness of their frame, their sensibility is not so acute as that of other people; as women, and persons of a relaxed habit, are observed to be robust men, whose nerves are more firmly braced. But the constitution of the Americans is not so different in its texture, from that of the rest of the human species, as to account for this diversity in their behaviour. It flows from a principle of honour, instilled early and cultivated with such care, as to inspire him in his rudest state with a heroic magnanimity, to which philosophy hath endeavoured in vain to form him, when more highly improved and polished. This invincible constancy he has been taught to consider as the chief distinction of a man, and the highest attainment of a warrior. The ideas which influence his conduct, and the passions which take possession of his heart, are few. They operate of course with more decisive effect, than when the mind is crowded with a multiplicity of objects, or distracted by the variety of its pursuits; and when every motive that acts with any force in forming the sentiments of a savage, prompts him to suffer with dignity, he will bear what might seem impossible for human patience to sustain. But whenever the fortitude of the Americans is not roused to exertion by their ideas of honour, their feelings of pain are the same with those of the rest of mankind."
Note 4.
"Bathed in the poisonous manchenille."
The slightest wound from an arrow dipped in the juice of the Manchenille, causes certain and speedy death. "If they only pierce the skin, the blood fixes and congeals in a moment, and the strongest animal falls motionless to the ground."—Robertson's America.
S. L. Sawtelle.