Yet in spite of this kind of reasoning and the clemency shown towards children (which would make a pedagogue of the educational rod system commit suicide) the Sakais are honest and respectful to their parents and the old; they are affectionate in their family and, poor savages! are still a long way off from such a degree of civilization as to cut up a cross wife or a troublesome lover into pieces and send them in a mysterious valise to take a sea-bath or in a butcher's sack to take a fresh water one in a convenient river.
But the answer given me by the boy and his mother's implicit approval were only the decisive affirmation of that indomitable spirit of freedom that animates the Sakai and makes him do what he likes but never what others command.
In fact, even taking him as a guide or travelling companion it is always wise to let him have his own way without interfering at all. He will rest, eat, smoke, and walk on just as he chooses and if you contradict him in his desire he will turn his back upon you and abandon you in the midst of the forest.
Every act of his life reveals and marks this mania of independence. I will quote a rare case. Should a mother-in-law and a daughter-in-law not be able to agree in consequence of the difference in their characters no tragic scenes or petty quarrels occur; the young couple merely take up their scanty belongings, destroy their own hut and march off to build another at a sufficient distance to avoid troublesome contact or the possibility of further misunderstandings and discord.
It is so: nobody will submit to the will of another and even when settling some particular question unless they are all of the same identical opinion the matter has to be abandoned.
Sons-in-law and daughters-in-law love their fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law well enough and viceversa, and they all respect each other and can live peaceably together, but no one can impose his own will without determining a strike.
They put into practice the same simple remedy when there is not very good harmony in the conjugal state. A man and woman cannot exactly agree as husband and wife? They cheerfully divorce themselves instead of poisoning their existence by continual altercations and the reluctance they both feel at doing what the other wishes.
How much regarding the human spirit civilized people have yet to learn from savages! Do you not think so, kind reader?
The Sakai is commonly believed to be lazy by nature. This is an error, for their so-called laziness is nothing but the result of the circumstances amidst which they live.