A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians

by J. B. Mackenzie

There are in the Indian tongue no very complex, rules of grammar. This being so, the Indian, pursuing the study of oratory, needs not to undertake the mastery of unelastic and difficult rules, like those which our own language comprehends; or to acquire correct models of grammatical construction for his guidance; and, being fairly secure against his accuracy in these regards being impeached by carping critics, even among his own brethren, can better and more readily uphold a claim to good oratory than one of ourselves, whose government in speaking, by strict rules of grammar is essential, and whom ignorance or contempt of those rules would betray into solecisms in its use, which would attract unsparing criticism, and, indeed, be fatal to his pretensions in this direction.

HIS PHYSICAL MIEN AND CHARACTERISTICS.

It will be interesting, perhaps, to notice the particulars, as to physical conformation, in which the Indian differs from his white brother.

He maintains a higher average as to height, to fix which at five feet ten would, I think, be a just estimate. It is rare, however, to find him attain the exceptional stature, quite commonly observed with the white, though, where he yields to the latter in this respect, there is compensation for it in the way of greater breadth and compactness. There are, of course, isolated cases, in which he is distinguished by as great height as has ever been reached by ordinary man, and, in these instances, I have never failed to notice that his form discloses almost faultless proportions, the Indian being never ungainly or gaunt. I think, on the whole, that I do no injustice to the white man, when I credit the Indian with a better-knit frame than himself.

I am disposed to ascribe, in great measure, the evolving of the erect form that the Indian, as a rule, possesses, to the custom in vogue of the mother carrying her child strapped across the back, as well as to the fact of her discouraging and interdicting any attempts at walking on the part of the child, until the muscles shall have been so developed as to justify such being made. To this practice, at least, I am safe in attributing the rarity, if not the positive absence, with the Indian, of that unhappy condition of bow-leggedness, of not too slight prevalence with us, and which renders its victim often a butt for not very charitable or approving comment.

The Indian is built more, perhaps, for fleetness than strength; and his litheness and agility will come in, at another place, for their due illustration, when treating of certain of his pastimes.

The Indian has a large head, high cheek bones, in general, large lips and mouth; a contour of face inclining, on the whole, to undue breadth, and lacking that pleasantly-rounded appearance so characteristic of the white. He has usually a scant beard, his chin and cheeks seldom, if ever, asserting that sturdy and bountiful growth of whisker and moustache, in such esteem with adults among ourselves, and which they are so careful to stimulate and insure. Indeed, it is said that the Indian holds rather in contempt what we so complacently regard, and will often testify to his scorn by plucking out the hairs which protrude, and would fain lend themselves to his adornment.

The Indian, normally, has a stolid expression, redeemed slightly, perhaps, by its exchange often for a lugubrious one. I should feel disposed to predict for him the scoring of an immense success in the personation of such characters as those of the melancholy Dane; or of Antonio, in the Merchant of Venice, after the turn of the tide in his fortunes, when the vengeful figure of the remorseless Shylock rests upon his life to blight and to afflict it.

He is easily-moved to tears, though, perhaps, his facile transition from the condition presented in the foregoing allusion, into a positively lachrymose state, will be readily conceived of, without proclaiming specially, the fact. He will maintain a mien, which shall consist eminently with the atmosphere of the house of mourning; in truth, as an efficient mourner, the Indian may be freely depended upon.

It is contended that the complexion of the Indian has had the tendency to grow darker and darker, from his having inhabited smoky, bark wigwams, and having held cleanliness in no very exceptional honor; and the contention is sought to be made good by the citing of a case of a young, fair-skinned boy, who, taking up with an Indian tribe, and adopting in every particular their mode of life, developed by his seventieth year a complexion as swarthy, and of as distinctively Indian a hue, as that of any pure specimen of the race.