What the White Race May Learn from the IndianJames, George Wharton
Religion
What the White Race May Learn from the Indian
James, George Wharton
Indians of North America
This serenity of mind in the Indian is often called impassiveness or
stolidity. It shows how little the critics have known of the Indian to
speak thus. They are as sensitive as children, morbidly so sometimes,
but they have the self-control not to show it, and in matters like
this, where they are sure their knowledge is superior to that of their
adviser, they go on with a proud disregard of criticism or censure.
This calmness was also shown in the face of danger. Several times we
came to places where there was both difficulty and danger. We had
three boats. In the first were Jim (the Indian) and myself, seeking
out the way; in the second, Indian Joe and Mr. Louis Francis Brown
(business manager of the Burton Holmes lectures); and in the third
his reverence and two others. When we came to the thrilling places,
Jim soon learned that he was to take the responsibility, save where
there was time and opportunity to discuss matters with me, and with a
dignified self-reliance he made his choice, and then awaited results.
If they were unpleasant, as they often were, there was no murmuring, no
shouting, no remonstrance. He took things as they came, and made the
best of them. The second boat followed, and there was little more said
there than in our boat; but from the third came a constant babble of
voices, cries to do this or that, shouts of warning, remonstrance, and
fault-finding. I could not help contrasting the demeanor of the Indians
with that of the civilized whites, and wishing that the latter could
and would learn the lesson so clearly taught.
The quickness of Jim’s observations and his decisions were remarkable,
and I wished my children, and others too, might have gone to school to
him for a year or two. He saw where the sand bars were that I could
not see; he could tell which way the wind was blowing, when to me it
seemed to be blowing several directions at once; he was generally able
to tell where the largest amount of water was flowing, and only two or
three times did he make a mistake so that we had to turn back. And
when those times came, there was no grumbling, no murmuring, no finding
fault. He accepted the disagreeable inevitable just as easily and
readily as he accepted the pleasant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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