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
The Indian finds his bedroom under the stars. He puts the invalid flat
on the ground,--a sheepskin, perhaps, between him and the earth, but
that is all. When will the superior white race learn that rejuvenation
of the body comes quicker to those who “shed” their civilization,
forswear their home comforts, quit their indulgence in fixed-up dishes,
refrain from social frivolities (commonly called duties), and first
and foremost,--after throwing away all the cares and worries that come
of being so highly civilized,--get to a place where it is possible to
sleep out of doors _on the hard ground_, protected, of course, as the
Indians are. Get into the woods, on to the hills, down in the canyons,
out on the deserts. Take a roll of blankets along, and no matter what
the weather, learn to sleep on the bosom of Mother-Earth, out of doors.
And if the region is one near hot springs or mud baths, all the better.
Make it for the time being your home.
Ah! how wise is the Indian in his choice of a home. I have before
referred to this, but I cannot help writing of it again. Home! It is
not a place of unrest to him, where it requires the labor of wife and
daughter, or a host of servants, to keep it in order; where polished
furniture, polished floors, polished doors, polished mirrors, keep
one forever with wiping-cloth in hand, removing the marks of careless
fingers; where bric-a-brac is accumulated and piled everywhere to the
shattering of nerves if the children get near it, or careless visitors
happen to call; where “social demands” are so great that children
are relegated to the care of servants; where brothers and sisters
scarce have time to know each other, and husbands and wives meet
semi-occasionally--no, it is not a home of this kind. To most Indians
“everywhere” is home provided there is a little shade, water, and grass
for his burro or pony. In the mountains, where he can shelter under
an overhanging rock, or in the forest where he has a roof of emerald,
supported by great pillars of pine or cottonwood or sycamore,--there
is home. In the desert, where the roof is millions of miles high,
decorated with suns and moons and stars and comets and meteors and
Milky Way and countless nebulæ, and the walls are bounded on the east
by the rising sun, and on the west by the setting sun, and God’s own
laboratories make new, fresh, pure air every moment--there is home.
The San Francisco disaster taught thousands of people the healthfulness
of the outdoor life. People who had been ailing for years, puny
children, anæmic youths and maidens, dyspeptic parents, all “picked
up” appetite and health when compelled to live in the parks and on the
streets.
Let us heed the lesson. Let us follow the example of the Indian and
be more simple, more natural. Let us relegate to the museum the
collecting of curios and bric-a-brac and the thousand and one things
that so crowd our houses as to make museums rather than homes of them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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