For pure malignity? Because there is no other reason to prompt such a wickedness. They have no excuse for jealousy, even if they were capable of entertaining it, for when two young people are fond of each other no pressure is ever made upon them to suffocate their love or to fix their affections upon another through ambition or some sort of hypocritical respect for the usages of society. If the enamoured swain can manage his blowpipe ably enough to procure animal food for his wife their amorous desires are at once contented. And so is the custom among more mature couples. Should it happen that a man no longer cares for his wife or a woman for her husband (which seldom befalls) or should they have met with somebody else that they like better, no demoralizing love-intrigue, or guilty flirtation is the consequence; they simply announce their change of feeling to their conjugal half and if the latter still cherishes a sincere attachment for the faithless partner in wedlock he or she will hasten to make the other happy by giving up all claim upon the loved one and they agree to part upon the best of terms, as also they do when by chance they are reciprocally tired of one another's company. The fact does not give rise to drama, tragedy or Othello-like fury.
Now tell me under what impulse can the Sakai become a criminal?
He is honest and sincere from the kindness and indolence of his character, because of the free life which is his, and the society of people like himself, not because he fears being punished or has any hope of a prize in Heaven.
Will not this strange fact induce some genius of the State to meditate the subject, there being full proof that the alliance of Prison and Hell does not succeed in eradicating the seeds of corruption and crime in civilized nations?
This innate honesty of the Sakai is especially revealed in the manner he respects whatever engagement he has, of his own accord, assumed. Mistrustful in dealing with others, violent and apparently overmastering from the vivacity with which he speaks and gesticulates, as soon as the bargain is fixed he will keep it faithfully to the very letter.
In conformity with the custom that both the Sakai of the hills and his brother of the plain have of not providing for the future, he will consume even beforehand his share of the exchange agreed upon, but all the same he will perform his duties towards the other with the most scrupulous punctuality.
Many times I have intentionally left outside my cabin such articles as would excite in the Sakais a desire of possession, but upon my return I have always found them intact and in their right place. My habitation is always open, even when I am far away but I have never missed a single object.
A little from habit, a little from the virtue I have frequently mentioned, and a little, very likely, because he is too lazy to be otherwise, the Sakai is a just and upright man. He has a great respect for the old, seeks their advice, and—what is much more—follows it; he has a deep sense of gratitude, is unselfish, open-hearted and open-handed, and ever ready to do a service to those who belong to his own village. And this exclusiveness is one of the curious contrasts that may sometimes be noted in human nature.
Meeting upon his road a person who is evidently suffering and has need of aid, if he does not recognize in him, or her, one of his own tribe he will pass on with indifference and grumble out cynically: "All the worse for them". But if the same person were to make an appeal to his charity on the threshold of his rude home, he or she would receive hospitality without being known, and in the event of an accident or any other misfortune which has occasioned grief or trouble to a kinsman, however distant, he will share in their affliction, and do all he can to relieve them in their distress.
After all this, that close and continual observation permits me to affirm, may I not ask the public, or at least those who have followed me in my rambling notes until now: might not this type of savage be held up as an example of perfection to many of our acquaintances in the civilized world whose boundary line of honesty is where it ceases to bring profit, who scorn the thought of gratitude for a favour received as being inconsistent with their "spirit of independence" and who never lose an occasion for exemplifying the tender brotherly love of Cain?