The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1895-08-16
A PRIMITIVE RACE.
The North American Indians and
Civilization.
Although the Aborigines Have Been Ed
ucated Somewhat, They still Retain
Their Wild and Barbarous
Instincts.

OF discussion whether the North Amer
ican Indian could be- civilized 1t was
admitted that he could be ''conyerted:"
IL was demonstrated, in individual cases
that he could bc educated But could
he be civilized? In our observation the
process OF civilization is Il very slow one
IN a race. 1t must pass through a mum
Der OF long stages of development, and
the process cannot be hastened by arti-
hcial means. In our day. writes Charles
dudley Warner iii Harper's Magazine
we have seen number of races brought
INTO sudden contact with civilization
shrlvel and shrink away before it to the
point of disappearance. The physical
development seemed to be arrested
and the moral nature To be set from a
savage non-moral condition into an
immoral condition. We have in our
day. a belief in the omnipotent power
OF education. of the beneticent effect of
the hot-hOuse system applied to bar
barians. or semi-barbarians When we
come in contact with a race like that in
the Sandwich islands, or in Tahiti or
the Africans, we fancy that all we need
To do Is to teach them our knowledge in
order To put tn EN- at once in the line of
civilized peoples. 1t seems to us that
by this forcing process we can cut short
the slow natural phases of develop
ment. And we are surprised when the
race thus being operated on does not
respond to our treatTTent, but fades
away under it, and, in fact, finds civili-
Zation fatal to its life.
We go upon the assumption that
every race is capable of as high a civili-
Zation as we have attained, and that it
is only a question of means and time
that Is, that nature has no failures in
its plan, and is not satisfied, in many
instances, with very limited develop
ment. The careful and intimate study
of the hairy Ainoo. on the japanese
island OF Gezo made recently by Mr..
y. H Savage Landor-the grandson of
Walter Savage Landor-throws some
light upon this subject. The Ainoo
were once supposed to be the aboriginal
Japanese, for they overran the islands;
but they are a distinct and, SO far as we
know, a unique race They are wholly
savages, but gentle savages, like
the more amiable of the wild ami
mails. and filthy in their habits as
animals usually are not They are
ideally near the conception of our sup
pOsititiOus ancestors, whose habits
cred with hair like monkeys: but they
are distinctly human, and not III onlieys
They have no social organization. no
laws. no religion, though many of the
suUerstitions which are common in
civilized communities, meager vo-
cabulary, and no written language.
They show susceptibility To kindness,
and form attachments as animals do
Here is no case of degeneration. They
have never been civilized: they have
never been in any higher intellectual
or moral condition than they are now,
and they never can be civilized. They
are in process of slow extinction in con
tact with the Japanese. There il muc!.
evidence to show that here is a race Il
near primeval conditions as any W.
have found, who ages ago advanced To-
certain stage and there stopped The
advance that they have made il thai
they wear clothes in the win
ter weather, that they dwell Ill
hutS. that certain communities adhere
together. that they intermarry in the
community, and that there is a certain
sketchy outline of family life. If one
could say that they live without crime
il would be because they live without
law. The monkey has the advantage of
them in having tail and a mischievous
and malignant disposition. But hairy
and savage as the Ainoo il. he Is just
far from a monkey is Frenchman
or senator of the United States
Even To the capacity of being insane.
he is distinctly human being. and yet
apparently the end of a chain of de
velopment. incapable of ever going a
step further. He seems to have been
preceded in IeZO by a race of pit dwell
ers savages who lived in pits excavated
in the ground, in the bottom of which
fires were built, and which were prob
ably rooted over in inclement weather.
These would seem To be lower order
of beings than cave dwellers. Hav1
we. in them, another race that was only
capable of a certain degree of develop
ment; and must these perish. without
handing anything on or contributing
anything tn the progress of the human
race? Wencver can tell. Theymay have
been cut off in their experiment by too
early a contact with higher grade OF
development. 1t is possible that the
North American Indian would have
grown into civilization in time. if ho
had not been prematurely discovered.
and confronted with our whitening in
fluence 1t is possible that Africa.
which has SO many distinct types
might have evolved something worth
in long cycles of time. But we shai
never know. In applying our civiliza
ton to- Africa we probably doom all tn,
tribes. We shall get their lands. and
we shall try to speedily educate them
out of existence.