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to his decrees.
The bounds of his authority float
with the current of opinion in the tribe; he is not so much obeyed as followed with the alacrity of free volition; and therefore the extent of his power depends on his personal character.
There have been chiefs whose commanding genius could so overawe and sway the common mind, as to gain, for a season, an almost
absolute rule,—while others had little authority, and
Marest in Lett Ed. IV. 197 |
if they used menaces, were abandoned.
Each village governed itself as if independent, and each after the same analogies, without variety.
If the observer had regard to the sachems, the government seemed monarchical; but as, of measures that concerned all, ‘they would not conclude aught unto which the people were averse,’ and every man of due age was admitted to council, it might also be described as a democracy.
In council, the people were guided by the eloquent, were carried away by the brave; and this influence, which was recognized, and regular in its action, appeared to constitute an oligarchy.
The governments of the aborigines scarcely differed from each other, except as accident gave a predominance to one or the other of these elements.
It is of the
Natchez that the most wonderful tales of despotism and aristocratic distinctions have been promulgated.
Their chiefs, who, like those of the Hurons, were esteemed descendants of the sun, had greater power than could have been established in the colder regions of the north, where the severities of nature compel the savage to rely on himself and to be free; yet as the
Natchez, in exterior, resembled the tribes by which they were surrounded, so their customs and institutions were but more marked developments of the same characteristics.
Every where at the north, there was
