It is scarcely to be believed, that in such a state of society there would have been feuds, in the sense of inherited or hereditary quarrels, but at most contentions for particular localities; in which case the weaker or the discomfited party would have pushed on to other ground. There was no long contest, because there was nothing worth contesting. It has been noticed that only the highly civilised man, and the savage who has tasted blood, love fighting for the mere sake and ardour of the conflict. The simple barbarian does not fight until he is attacked, neither do the wild animals of the desert; their ferocity is limited and regulated by the necessity and the provocation. It is the exception, rather than the rule, for animals to fight among themselves. It is not in the nature of man or beast to fight without a reason. Accordingly, there is no such fomenter of war as war. Carver notices that the wars carried on between the Indian nations are principally on motives of revenge, and, when not on motives of revenge, their reasons for going to war are "in general more rational and just than such as are fought by Europeans, &c."--_Carver's "Travels in North America,"_ pp. 351, 297.[25] [25] Such seems, at a comparatively recent period (1762), to have been the state of things at a widely different point among the Samoides:--"The real spot where the habitations of the Samoides begin,--if any case be pointed out among a people which is continually changing residence,--is in the district of Mozine, beyond the river of that name, three or four hundred wersts from Archangel. The colony, which is actually met with there, and which _lives dispersed_ according to the usage of those people, _each family by itself_, without forming villages and communities, does not consist of more than three hundred families, or thereabouts, which are all descended _from two different tribes_, the one called Laghe and the other Wanonte--_distinctions carefully regarded by them_."--_Vide_ "Pinkerton, Voy." i. 524. It is also said (p. 582) of certain moral observances amongst them (_vide infra_, p. 155):--"All these customs, religiously observed among them, are no other than the fruits of tradition, handed down to them from their ancestors; and this tradition, with some reason, may be looked upon as law." It is a common idea amongst us that the word _home_ is a peculiarly English word, and, I confess, it was my own impression, but I am set musing by finding among these same Samoides the word "_chome_" as their word for their _tents_, to which they cling so closely.--_Vide_ Pinkerton, i. 63.