The north Iowa times. [volume] (M'Gregor [i.e. McGregor], Iowa) 1856-1857, 1856-11-07
MISCELLANEOUS.
From Household Words.
THE NOBLE SAVAGE.

THE NOBLE SAVAGE.
To come to the point at once, I beg tt
say that l have not the least belief in che
Noble Savage. ! consider him prodig
ious nuisance, and an enormous supersti
ton His calling rum fre-water, and me
a pale face, wholly fail to reconcile me te
him. don't care what he calls me.
call him savage, and | call a savage 8
something highly desirable 10 be civilised
off the face of the earth. l think a mere
gent (which | take to be the lowest form
Of civiIisation) better than a howling
whistling, clucking, stamping, jumping
tearing, savage. II is all one to me,
whether he sticks fshbone through his
visage, or bits of trees through the lobes
of his ears, or birds feathers in his head
whether be haytens his hair between two
boards, or spreads his nose over the
breadth of his face, or drags his lower lip
down by great weights, or blackens his
teeth. or knocks them out, or paints one
cheek red and the other blue, or tattoos
himself, or oils himself, or rubs his body
with fat, Or crimps it with knives. Yield
ing to Whatsoever of these agreeable &C.
centricies, he is a savagc-cruel, false,
thicvish, murderous addicted more or
less to grease, entrails, and beastly Gus
toms a wild animal with the questionable
gift of boasting; conceited, tiresome,
bloodthirsty, monotonous humbug.
Yet it is extraordinary to observe how
some people will talk about him, as they
talk about the good old times how they
will roget his disappearance. in the course
of this worlds development, from such
and such lands where his absance is a
blessed relief and an indispensable prepa-
ration for the sowing of the very first
seed of any influence that can exalt hui
manity how, even with the evidence of
himself before them, they will either be
determined to believe, or will suffer them
selves to be persuaded into believing,
that he is something which their five SEN
ses tell them he is not. ..... X
There was Mr.. Catlin, some few years
ago, with his Ojibbeway Indians. Mr..
Catlin was an energetic earnest man, who
had lived among more tribes of Indians
than | need reckon up here, and who had
written picturesque and glowing book
about them. With his party Of Indians
and splitting on the table before
him, or dancing their miserable jigs after
their own dreary manner, he called, in all
good faith, upon his civilised audience to
take notice of their symmetry and grace,
their perfect limbs. and the exquisite ex-
preston of their pantomime and his civ
ilised audience, in all good faith, complied
and admired. Whereas, as mere animals,
they were wretched creatures, very low in
the scale and very poorly formed and as
men and women possessing any power of
truthful dramatic expression by means of
action, they were no better than the cho-
rus at the Italian Opera in England-and
would have been worse if such a thing
were possible.
Mine are no new views of the noble saw
age. The greatest writer's on ma ural his
tory found rim ou long ago. Button knew
what lie was and showed why he is the
sulky tyrant that he is to his women, and
how it happens Heaven be praised J that
his race is spare in numbers. For evidence
Of the quality of his moral nature, pass
himself for moment and refer to his
faithful dog" Has he ever improved a
dog, OF attached dog, since his nobility
first ran wild in woods, and was brought
down (at very long shott by Pope? Or
does the animal that is the friend of man,
always degenerate is his low society?
1t is not the miserable nature of the no.
bic savage that is the new thing it is the
whimpering over him with maudlin admi-
ration, and the affecting to regret him,
and the drawing ofany comparison of ad-
vantage between the blemishes of civilisa-
tion and the tenor of his switis life
There may have been change now and
then in those diseased aburdities, but there
is none in him.
Think of the Bushmen. Think of the
two men and the two women who have
been exhibited abont England for some
years. Are the majority of persons-who
remember the horrid little leader of thal
party in his fostering bundle of hides,
with his filth and his antopithy to water,
and his straddled legs, and his odious eyes
shaded by his brutal hand, and his cry OF
"Qu-u-u-u-aaa J" Bosjesman for some.
thing desperately insulting l have nc
doubt )--conscious of an atfectionate yearn.
ing towards that noble savage. or is it id.
iosyncratic in me to abhor, detest, abomi
nate. and abjure him ? have no reserve
on this subject, and will frankly state that
setting aside that stage of the entertain
ment when he counterfeited the death o.
some creature he had shot, by laying his
head on his hand and shaking his left les
at which time l think it would have
been jusSifable homicide to slay him
have never seen that group sleeping, smok
ing, and expectorasing round their brazer
but l have sincerely desired that someth
ing might happen to the charcoal smould
ering therein, which would cause the i'm
mediate sutfocation of the whole of til,
noble strangers.
There is at presents a party of Zulu KAT
frs exhibiting at the st. Georges Gallery
Hyde Park Corner, London. These nobl
savages are represented in most agree
able manner they are seen in an elegan
theatre. fitted with appropriate scenery 9
great beauty, and they are described in