A fierce light kindled the old Sakai's eyes, which boded evil for anyone who attempted to disturb the quietude of their present rambling life. And I understood how much stronger these inoffensive people were in their dispersion than when they were banded together in villages. If aggressors should attack these solitary huts they would find their owners prompt to meet the attack with all the ferocity of wild beasts and even if nobody was saved from the massacre to report the terrible news in other encampments, alarm would have been given by the sound of fire-arms and cries. In consequence the other Sakais would immediately destroy all signs of their habitation, and penetrate farther into the forest which, for them, has no secret concealed. Towards night they would creep among the tall grasses until they found the enemy that would serve us a target for their poisoned arrows. However well their foes might know the use of gun and revolver, they would be at a disadvantage, for these weapons reveal the position occupied by those who shoot but the fatal dart flies out of the darkness leaving the spot from whence it comes uncertain.
Nothing could be more disastrous in the way of warfare than an attack with poisoned arrows, in the midst of the forest, during the night. Your men would fall right and left without having been able to defend themselves in any way.
I afterwards got the old man to tell me something about their customs regarding marriage and family organization.
"By thus living separate", he said "each family by itself, without being subject to any chief or authority, save only that of the Elder (be he father or grandfather), our peace is guaranteed. There are no quarrels, there is no jealousy or bad-feeling, for all are equal, all live in the same way and each one divides what he may possess amongst the others, so that there is also no injustice".
I raised the objection that this perfect equality could not possibly exist because the identical rights and duties in domestic economy could not be applied in the same way to the hale and strong members of the family as to the weak and sickly. But I had to repeat my idea in various ways before the Sakai caught the meaning, then he exclaimed:
"Ah, I suppose you are speaking of some sort of deformity, or defect. Amongst us it is so rare to find either one or the other that it would be difficult for a Sakai to understand when you talk of men different to him in form or robustness. If however, the Evil Spirit makes one of our children be born deformed, or with a defect, he is treated with the care necessary to his state but he cannot transmit his infirmity to others because, first of all our customs compel him to lead a life of chastity, and secondly, no woman of our tribe would consent to a union with him".
Oh, Lycurgus, I thought, thy wise laws have here, among savages, a less brutal application. For one who dies loveless (and as the Sakais are not given to strong passions, and are chaste by nature, this is not a very great sacrifice) many are saved from unhappiness and a whole race preserved from degeneration.
The old man having spoken of the Evil Spirit, I abruptly demanded who this much feared being might be.
"He possesses all things", he answered, lowering his voice as if afraid of being heard. "He is in the wind, the lightning, the earthquake, he is in the trees and the water. Sometimes he enters our huts and makes someone die; then we bury our dead very deep under the ground, leaving to them food and their own property, and we fly from the spot, for it is a dangerous thing to remain under the Spirit's gaze".