american-holocaust

30 AMERICAN HOLOCAUSTCharlevoix: "A mother on seeing her daughter behave ill bursts into tears;and upon the other's asking her the cause of it, all the answer she makesis, Thou dishonourest me. It seldom happens that this sort of reproof failsof being efficacious." Some of the Indians, he adds, do "begin to chastisetheir children, but this happens only among those that are Christians, orsuch as are settled in the colony." 37 The most violent act of disapprobationthat a parent might use on a misbehaving child, Charlevoix and othervisitors observed, was the tossing of a little water in the child's face, agesture obviously intended more to embarrass than to harm.Children, not surprisingly, learned to turn the tables on their parents.Thus, Charlevoix found children threatening to do damage to themselves,or even kill themselves, for what he regarded as the slightest parental correction:"You shall not have a daughter long to use so," he cites as atypical tearful reaction from a chastised young girl. If this has a familiarring to some late twentieth-century readers, so too might the Jesuit's concernabout the Indians' permissive methods of child rearing: "It wouldseem," he says, "that a childhood so ill instructed should be followed bya very dissolute and turbulent state of youth." But that, in fact, is not whathappened, he notes, because "on the one hand the Indians are naturallyquiet and betimes masters of themselves, and are likewise more under theguidance of reason than other men; and on the other hand, their naturaldisposition, especially in the northern nations, does not incline them todebauchery." 38The Indians' fairness and dignity and self-control that are commentedon by so many early European visitors manifested themselves in adult lifein various ways, but none more visibly than in the natives' governingcouncils. This is evident, for example, in a report on the Huron's councilsby Jean de Brebeuf during the summer of 1636. One of the most "remarkablethings" about the Indian leaders' behavior at these meetings, he wrote,"is their great prudence and moderation of speech; I would not dare tosay they always use this self-restraint, for I know that sometimes they stingeach other,-but yet you always remark a singular gentleness and discretion.... [E]very time I have been invited [to their councils] I have comeout from them astonished at this feature." 39 Added Charlevoix on thissame matter:It must be acknowledged, that proceedings are carried on in these assemblieswith a wisdom and a coolness, and a knowledge of affairs, and I may addgenerally with a probity, which would have done honour to the areopagusof Athens, or to the Senate of Rome, in the most glorious days of thoserepublics: the reason of this is, that nothing is resolved upon with precipitation;and that those violent passions, which have so much disgraced thepolitics even of Christians, have never prevailed amongst the Indians overthe public good. 40