There arc, among the American tribes, many pre tenders to a knowledge of futurity. The number of diviners, sorcerers, or jugglers, is exceedingly great; and their predictions, are listened to with attention, and received with implicit confidence. But these conjurors, or wizards, not only pretend to an acquaintance with all that is past, and all that is to come ; they likewise give out, that, by means of their spells and incantations, they are able to command what is future, and regulate the order of events which are yet to take place. Hence they are applied to in all cases where good is expected, or evil is Feared. If the Indians have been unsuccessful in hunting, or if they have been surprised and over powered by their enemies, the sorcerers employ their whole art to ascertain the cause of their misfortunes, and the issue of the calamities which have befallen them. For this purpose, a thousand ridiculous practices are in use. The delusion of the multitude is inconceivable ; the wizards have acquired a name and authority ; and such is their influence among the people of America, that nothing is undertaken without their approbation and advice. Superstition appears in the 101111 of which we are now speaking, even where the savages of the New World arc least improved. Where the reasoning faculty is almost unexercised, where the ideas are few and incorrect, where language has as yet assumed no definite appearance, where records are unknown, and tradition passes speedily away ; even there, man, pre sumptuous in his ignorance, dares to remove the veil which the Almighty Spirit kindly interposes between ns and futurity, to pry into the secret determinations of omniscience, and to guide the counsels of infinite wis dom.
We have now contemplated the rude natives of America, in regard to their political state, their mode of warfare, and their religion ; let us therefore proceed to consider them a little more closely, and attend to them in the privacy of domestic life.
IV. Of the Donzcstic State of the .4nicrican Indians.
The duration of that union, which has for its object the propagation of the species, is always limited by the case or difficulty with which the offspring is reared. This law of nature is general. Where infancy is long and helpless, the care of both parents is required ; and a connection, equally intimate and durable, takes place. The infancy of man is longer, more feeble, and depen dent, than that of other animals : it is after a tedious education that he reaches his maturity, and is fitted for the active duties which he is called to perform. Hence it is, that the union between husband and wife has been regarded in the earliest times, and by the most uncivili zed nations, as a covenant at once sacred and lasting. Even among the rudest tribes of America, who have no settled habitation,and live without religion and without law, this union was established ; and the rights of mar riage were fixed and respected. Where subsistence" was procured with difficulty, the male confined himself to one wife ; it was particularly so with the Hurons and Iroquois, among whom polygamy was unknown ; but in more benignant regions, where the hardships of the savage state were less severely felt, the practice of hav ing many wives was introduced, and had become general among the inhabitants. In some provinces the matri monial union continued through life ; in others it was broken on the most trilling pretexts, and often without any reason which the husband thought it necessary to assign.
But whether marriage was lasting or not, the condi tion of the women in the New World was universally degrading, abject, and wretched. They were the slaves, rather than the companions of their husbands.' Unlike the polished nations of Europe, and unlike some of its rudest inhabitants which history has described, as the Goths and Scandinavians, the uncivilized people of Ame rica regarded their females with indifference and con tempt. Among them, the matrimonial contract was in reality a purchase ; and wherever this is the ease, the women are the property of those who buy them, and arc treated as such : they fall at once to the level of ser vants ; and among barbarous nations, a servant is but another name for a slave. (Karnes' Sketches of the Hist.
of Man, i. 184.) As money is unknown, the means of purchase arc various ; in one place, the suiter, after de claring his intention of marriage, gives presents of furs, hatchets, arrows, or whatever he considers as most ex cellent and valuable, to the parents of the maiden whom he courts ; in another he supplies them with game ; in a third, he assist% them in Iloilo-A ing and shaping their canoes ; and, in a fourth, he aids them in cultivating the ground for a definite portion of time. When the presents are accepted, or the stated service is perform ed, he demands and obtains his wile. But such is the misery of the women in the American continent, that slavery is a name by far too gentle and respectful for their deplorable condition. They arc doomed to all the offices of lab A- and latiguc. Tasks are imposed upon them without feeling or consideraiion, and they are se verely beaten it they neglect to perform them. Their services are exacted and received without requital, ac knowledgment, or complacency. They approach their tyrants with reverence and tear ; and it is seldom that they approach them but when they are commanded : they are not allowed to eat in their presence; they share in none of their amusements ; and such is their awful perception of this barbarous distinction between the sexes, that instances are recorded of mothers who have destroyed their female children as soon as they were born, in order to free them from a state of harsh and unmitigated subjection. Gumilla having reproached a mother of South America for killing her infant daugh ter, the woman made the following pathetic reply, which, he says, is literally translated from the Betoyan lan guage. " Father, (these were her words,) if you will allow me, 1 will tell you what I have in my heart. Would to God, father, would to God, that my mother, when she bore me, had had sufficient loge and compassion for me, to spare me the toil and the pangs which I have suffer ed to this day, and which I shall suffer to the and of my life. If my mother had buried me when I was born, I should have been dead, but I should not have felt death ; and I should have been freed from lasting pains, equal to those of dying ; pains which I cannot escape, more than the daily toil which wrings my soul. Ah ! who can tell what anguish yet awaits me before I shall die ! Re present to yourself, father, the cruel toils to which a woman among us is subject. The men go to see us work, and only carry their bows and arrows ; while we are loaded with heavy baskets ; often one child at our breasts, and another at our backs. Our husbands kill a bird, or catch a fish, while we dig the earth, and sup port all the labours of the harvest, amidst the heat of a burning sun. They return in the evening without any burden ; and we, besides our children, bring roots to cat, and maize for their drink. Our husbands, on their arrival, converse with their friends ; and we are obliged to encrease our daily toil in searching for wood and water, and in preparing their supper. When they have eaten, they go to sleep, while we pass almost all the night in pounding maize to make their chica. And what benefit do we derive from thus watching- to procure them pleasure ? They drink their chica ; they become chunk; and, losing their senses, they beat us with clubs. They drag us by the hair, and trample us under their feet. Would to God, father, that my mother had buried me the instant I was born !—What greater bless ing can an Indian woman procure for her daughter. than an exemption from pains and servitude, a thousand times worse than death ? 0 father, if my mother had buried me when she brought me forth, my heart would not have had so much to suffer, nor my eyes so much to weep.'" See Histoire de ('Orenoque, tome ii. p. 239.