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His kindred would ‘go a thousand miles, for the pur-
pose of revenge, over hills and mountains; through large cane swamps, full of grape vines and briers; over broad lakes, rapid rivers, and deep creeks; and all the way endangered by poisonous snakes, exposed to the extremities of heat and cold, to hunger and thirst.’
And blood being once shed, the reciprocity of attacks involved family in the mortal strife against family, tribe against tribe, often continuing from generation to generation.
Yet mercy could make itself heard even among barbarians; and peace was restored by atoning presents, if they were enough to cover up the graves of the dead.
The acceptance of the gifts pacified the families of those who were at variance.
In savage life, which admits no division of labor, and has but the same pursuit for all, the bonds of relationship are widely extended.
Families remain undivided, having a common emblem, which designates all their members as effectually as with us the name.
The limit of the family is the limit of the interdicted degrees of consanguinity for marriage.
They hold the bonds of brotherhood so dear, that a brother commonly pays the debt of a deceased brother, and assumes his revenge and his perils.
There are no beggars among them, no fatherless children unprovided for. The families that dwell together, hunt together, roam together, fight together, constitute a tribe.
Danger from neighbors, favoring union, leads to alliances and confederacies, just as pride, which is a pervading element in Indian character, and shelters
itself in every lodge, leads to subdivisions.
Of national affinity, as springing from a common language, the Algonqum, the
Wyandot, the Dahcota, the Mobilian, each was ignorant.
They did not themselves know their
