: oratory; the best speaker having the most influence. The Indian women till the ground, drefs the food, nurfe and bring up the children, and preferve and hand down to pofterity the memory of public tranfactions. Thefe employments of men and women are accounted natural and honourable. Having few artificial wants, they have abundance of leifure for improvement by conversation. Our laborious manner of life, compared with theirs, they esteem flavish and bafe; and the learning on which we value ourselves, they regard as frivolous and useless. An inftance of this occurred at the treaty of Lancaster, in Pennsylvania, anno 1744, between the government of Virginia and the Six Nations. After the principal bufinefs was fettled, the commiffioners from Virginia acquainted the Indians by a speech, that there was at Williamsburg a college, with a fund, for educating Indian youth; and that if the chiefs of the Six Six Nations would fend down half a dozen of their fons to that college, the government would take care that they fhould be well provided for, and inftructed in all the learning of the white people. It is one of the Indian rules of politeness not to answer a public propofition the fame day that it is made; they think it would be treating it as a light matter; and that they fhew it refpect by taking time to confider it, as of a matter important. They therefore deferred their answer till the day following; when their speaker began, by expreffing their deep fenfe of the kindness of the Virginia government, in making them that offer ; "for we know," fays he, " that you highly esteem the kind of learn"ing taught in those colleges, and that "the maintenance of our young men, "while with you, would be very expen"five to you. We are convinced, there"fore, that you mean to do us good by N 4 66 your your propofal; and we thank you heartily. But you who are wife muft "know, that different nations have dif"ferent conceptions of things; and you " will therefore not take it amifs, if our "ideas of this kind of education happen "not to be the fame with yours. We "have had some experience of it: feve"ral of our young people were formerly "brought up at the colleges of the "northern provinces; they were in"structed in all your fciences; but "when they came back to us, they were "bad runners; ignorant of every means "of living in the woods; unable to "bear either cold or hunger; knew "neither how to build a cabin, take a "deer, or kill an enemy; fpoke our language imperfectly; were therefore "neither fit for hunters, warriors, or "counsellors; they were totally good "for nothing. We are however not the lefs obliged by your kind offer, though : "we decline accepting it and to show "our grateful fenfe of it, if the gentle"men of Virginia will fend us a dozen ❝of their fons, we will take great care "of their education, instruct them in "all we know, and make men of them." Having frequent occafions to hold public councils, they have acquired great order and decency in conducting them. The old men fit in the foremost ranks, the warriors in the next, and the women and children in the hindmoft. The bu nefs of the women is to take exact notice of what paffes, imprint it in their memo ries, for they have no writing, and communicate it to their children. They are the records of the council, and they preserve tradition of the ftipulations in treaties a hundred years back; which, when we compare with our writings, we always find exact. He that would speak, rifes. The rest observe a profound filence. When he has finished, and fits down, down, they leave him five or fix minutes to recollect, that, if he has omitted any thing he intended to fay, or has any thing to add, he may rife again and deliver it. To interrupt another, even in common converfation, is reckoned highly indecent. How different this is from the conduct of a polite British House of Commons, where fcarce a day paffes without fome confufion, that makes the speaker hoarse in calling to order; and how different from the mode of converfation in many polite companies of Europe, where, if you do not deliver your fentence with great rapidity, you are cut off in the middle of it by the impatient loquacity of those you converse with, and never fuffered to finish it! The politeness of these favages in converfation, is, indeed, carried to excess; fince it does not permit them to contradict or deny the truth of what is afferted in their prefence. By this means they |
