SOURCE: Ellingson, Ter. “The Noble Savage Myth and Travel-Ethnographic Literature.” In The Myth of the Noble Savage, pp. 45-63. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

[In the following essay, Ellingson surveys travel writings throughout history, maintaining that the idea of the Noble Savage was not widely held by the writers of these works or by the general population.]

In the interval between Lescarbot's invention of the Noble Savage concept at the beginning of the seventeenth century and its reemergence as a full-blown myth in the 1850s, the Noble Savage appears to have receded into a state of virtual nonexistence. Although no one could say with certainty how many instances of discursive linkage of the terms “noble” and “savage” occur in the thousands of travel-ethnographies produced during this period, anyone who takes the trouble to carefully read more than a few of them can verify that such linkages do not occur in the vast majority of works. Most writers, even in the eighteenth century, when popular myth has it that belief in the Noble Savage was almost universal, simply do not juxtapose the two terms. In the few cases where they do occur together, a closer look reveals that juxtapositions of nobility and the “savage” reveal only the most ambiguous and vestigial links with either Lescarbot's Noble Savage concept or the later myth. To understand this, we need to consider some of the characteristic features of the myth itself.

First, the Noble Savage myth posits an ontologically essential rather than a trait-ascriptive nobility. That is, according to the myth, there were many who believed that “savages” were noble by nature, rather than displaying isolated traits, such as ways of moving or speaking, or other elements to which qualities of nobility could be ascribed. Thus, for example, when Joseph-François Lafitau says in 1724 that “the Huron language is noble, majestic and more regular than the Iroquois dialects” (2:263), the ascription of nobility as an aesthetic quality of their language is far from being an ontological claim about the Hurons themselves. Many ascriptions of “nobility” during this period follow this same trait-ascriptive pattern. We have already seen several examples of this kind in the writings cited by Fairchild, and we will encounter a greater variety of them as we pursue our investigation.

Second, the nobility of the Noble Savage myth is an absolute rather than a relative quality. To say “Some Indians are more honest than others” is a very different kind of statement than “Indians are honest” (or “noble”!). For example, when William Howitt says in 1838 that “Philip was one of the noblest specimens of the North American Indian” (352), the comparison presupposes that other Indians were less noble than this outstanding “specimen”—a term that itself ought to connote an exemplar typical of its species and hence a typical example of the skewed application of scientific rhetoric to ethnography. The relative quality of this comparison highlights its divergence from the mythical nobility of “the savage,” whose absolute nobility ought to be characteristic of a “nation” or “race” (depending on the period of writing) rather than an individual, as it is the result of a natural way of life shared by all members of the group.

Furthermore, the nobility of the mythical Noble Savages consists of their shared moral superiority to Europeans, not a status superiority to each other. When a writer singles out a chief or leader as an exemplar of nobility, as Howitt does in the above quote, again the implication is that some other “savages” are less noble by comparison—or, perhaps, not very noble at all. But according to the myth, the nobility of the “savages” should not be a nobility of distinction of status of one over another but rather a nobility of inclusion of all in the state of moral superiority engendered by their natural way of life.

Finally, we should also remember that the myth vaguely associates belief in the Noble Savage with the egalitarian ideals of the Enlightenment, an association implicit in its linkage with Rousseau, and whose significance will only become clear as we look into the history of the myth itself. With these features in mind, then, let us consider some of the discourse on “savages” and “nobility” in the centuries after Lescarbot.

THE UNPHILOSOPHICAL TRAVELERS AND THE SAVAGE

In surveying the ethnographic literature, a useful point of departure might be to note that in the great collections of travel narratives, with their hundreds of authors and thousands of pages, from Richard Hakluyt (1589) and Samuel Purchas (1625) in Lescarbot's lifetime to John Green (1745-47) in Rousseau's, we find little discourse on nobility. In the relatively few instances where it does occur, the only non-Europeans we are likely to find described as “noble” are the hereditary aristocrats of royal courts. The same pattern generally holds true of individual travel-ethnographies. We may find representations of nobility in descriptions of stratified societies and, especially, the royal courts and palaces of places such as the Ottoman Empire (Nicolay 1567-68; Montagu 1716-18), India (della Valle 1665), Persia (Chardin 1686), or China (Du Halde 1735; Barrow 1804), but they obviously have little to do with the “wild” condition of humans in a “state of nature.” In omitting further consideration of discussions of the nobility of distinction of the hereditary elites of centralized and urbanized states and empires, we take a necessary and logical step; but we should recognize that it immediately eliminates from consideration the largest share of European discourse on “nobility” among non-European peoples.

Of the traveler-ethnographers of the Age of Exploration, the majority could be characterized as “unphilosophical travelers” who, unlike Lescarbot, describe without reflecting much on the significance of what they see, particularly on the meanings of similarities and differences in the ways of life of human communities. They seem to wander almost at random between positive and negative interpretations of what they observe; but even in relatively neutral or positive moments, negative overtones make their appearance, giving a generally negative cast to the whole. Since the American Indians provided the paradigm case for views of the “savage,” let us consider a few examples of accounts of them. Jacques Cartier, one of the first European voyagers to the region later treated by Lescarbot, describes some of his encounters with Canadian Indians:

They were more than three hundred men, women, and children: some of the women which came not over, we might see them stande up to the knees in water, singing and dauncing, the other that had passed the river where we were, came very friendlye to us, rubbing oure armes with their owne handes, then woulde they lifte them uppe towarde heaven, shewing manye signes of gladnesse: and in such wise were we assured one of another, that we very familiarly beganne to trafficke of whatsoever they had, till they had nothing but their naked bodies, for they gave us al what soever they had, and that was but of small value. We perceived that this people might verie easily be converted to our religion. … We gave them knives, combs, beades of glas, & other trifles of smal value, for which they made many signes of gladnesse, lifting their handes up to Heaven, dauncing and singing in their boates. These men may very wel & truely be called Wilde [sauvage], bicause there is no poorer people in the world. … [W]e with our boates wente to the bancke of the river, and freelye went on shore among them, whereat they made many signes of gladnesse, and al their men in two or three companies began to sing and daunce, seeming to be very glad of our comming. They had caused al the yong women to flee into the wood, two or three excepted, that staed with them, to each of which we gave a combe, and a little bell made of Tinne, for which they were very glad, thanking our Captaine, rubbing his armes and breastes with theyr handes. … These women were about twentie, who altogither in a knot fell upon our Captain, touching and rubbing him with their hands, according to their manner of cherishing and making muche of one, who gave to eache of them a little Tinne bell: then sodainely they began to daunce, and sing many songs.

(1580: 18-20)

Although there is nothing in Cartier's account to suggest “nobility,” there is also no overt hostility. Rather, we seem to get a curious foretaste of the fantasies of an intertwined erotic and commercial gratification that would assume its full-blown form in the later colonial dreams of the South Seas tropical paradise. But Cartier does not reflect, he only describes; and for him, the meaning of what it is to be “wel & truely called Wilde”—that is, “Savage”—is to be truly poor.

Samuel de Champlain, the leading French New World explorer of the seventeenth century, made extensive voyages to Canada, one of them in the same expedition that brought Lescarbot there. A few years earlier, in 1603, Champlain had published a book titled Des savvages (Of the Savages), a work that, like Cartier's, must be classed with the ethnographic contributions of the typical unphilosophical traveler. Quantitatively, its ethnography is scanty by comparison with Lescarbot: where Lescarbot devotes a chapter to a subject, Champlain is typically content with a paragraph. Champlain's specifically ethnographic sections total about two or three chapters out of thirteen. The remainder of the ethnographic information in the book occurs incidentally in narratives of exploration and adventure, with the typical geographic-military-commercial priorities that we find in most such narratives. Indeed, we find a strong resemblance to Cartier's narrative in Champlain's repeated descriptions of how, in his encounters with the Indians, they would perform dances in which the women “stripped themselves stark naked” (Champlain 1603: 107-8, 180). Even in the chapters devoted to a specific focus on ethnographic subjects, Champlain reveals himself as a conventional, unreflective observer:

I asked him what ceremony they used in praying to their God. He told me, that they did not make much use of ceremonies, but that every one prayed in his heart as he thought good. This is why I believe they have no law among them, nor know what it is to worship and pray to God, and that most of them live like brute beasts; and I think they would speedily be brought to be good Christians, if their country were colonised, which most of them would like.

(1603: 117)

The representation of the Indians' favorable attitude toward colonization may be more than simple wishful thinking; for, far from encountering a scene of pristine “wild” peoples and cultures in their primordial state, the French travelers of even this early period moved in a complex network of alliances and hostilities, in which strengthened relationships could be highly profitable to both parties, if not crucial to survival. But in any case, the negative comparisons and bestial similes of Champlain's narrative bear no affinity to concepts of the nobility of the savage. Indeed, Champlain provided those who wished to draw favorable comparisons from “savage” life with a discursive alternative untinged by nobility and idealism:

We had recognized him all the time we were there as a bon sauvage, even though he had the reputation of the greediest and most treacherous of all his nation.

(1613a: 107)

Here, the goodness of the savage assumes nothing about the goodness of savages in general, or even about the general goodness of the particular individual under consideration. It is a purely contingent, instrumental value, reflecting only the strategic usefulness to the observer of the object of observation, who otherwise is viewed in overwhelmingly negative terms. But, ironically, this ambivalent prototype of the bon sauvage was none other than Membertou, chief of the Mi'kmaq, so recently eulogized by Lescarbot as the shining exemplar of the savages who were “truely noble.”

We see in this vignette of faint praise from Champlain's narrative one of the characteristics of the ethnographic literature that has fostered the illusion of the widespread existence of the Noble Savage concept: namely, that it is possible for isolated bits of positive rhetoric to exist within a context of overall negativity. For example, Gabriel Sagard, the seventeenth-century missionary-ethnographer of the Hurons, actually connects them with nobility in one passage:

Among all these Nations there is none that does not differ in some thing, whether in its manner of living and subsisting, or in clothing and adornment, each Nation considering itself the wisest and best advised of them all, for the way of a fool is always right in his own eyes, says the wise man. And to give my opinion about some of them, and to say which are the most happy or miserable, I consider the Hurons and other Sedentary peoples as the Nobility, the Algonquin Nations as the Bourgeois, and the other Savages nearer us, such as the Montagnais and Canadians, as the villagers and poor people of the country.

(1632a: 342)

This, though, is clearly a case of class or status nobility rather than moral nobility; and, moreover, a case of “some savages are more noble than others” rather than an ontological attribution of nobility to all “savages.” In fact, the Hurons and others can be likened to the European nobility only because they practice a sedentary life, that is, because they are more “civilized,” and less “savage,” than the nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes. The latter, precisely because they are closest to a “state of nature,” are thus necessarily the least “noble.” And the contextualization of the comparison in the “a fool is always right in his own eyes” model of cultural differences does not do much to convince us that we have found a believer in the Noble Savage as a paradigm of natural wisdom.

Sagard (1632b: 139-42), indeed, continues the long-established ethnographic tradition of the dialectic of virtues and vices; and he not only finds things to praise in Huron character, he even cites some of their criticism of Europeans:

They reciprocate hospitality and give such assistance to one another that the necessities of all are provided for without there being any indigent beggar in their towns and villages; and they considered it a very bad thing when they heard it said that there were in France a great many of these needy beggars, and thought that this was for lack of charity in us, and blamed us for it severely.

(1632b: 88-89)

But in the end, Sagard's narrative includes far more strongly negative than positive evaluations of the Hurons. He finds their ceremonies “ridiculous” (1632a: 331), “absurd” (1632b: 185), and “damnable and wicked” (1632b: 120). As for comparisons with Europeans,

This [chief] had no small opinion of himself, when he desired to be spoken of as brother and cousin of the King and on an equality with him, like the two forefingers on the hands which he showed us touching one another, making a ridiculous and absurd comparison thereby.

(1632b: 149)

Sagard's overall evaluation of “savage” life, and his perspective on ethnography, is given in his introduction:

It will not be in imitation of Apollonius, to cultivate my mind and become wiser, that I shall visit these wide provinces. There savagery and brutishness have taken such hold that the rest of this narrative will arouse in your souls pity for the wretchedness and blindness of these poor tribes. … You shall see as in a perspective picture, richly engraved, the wretchedness of human nature, tainted at the source, deprived of the training of the faith, destitute of morality, and a victim of the most deadly barbarism to which in its hideousness the absence of any heavenly illumination could give birth.

(1632b: 17-18)

Two decades earlier, one of the first Jesuit missionaries in Canada, Father Pierre Biard, had likewise assessed the “savages” in strongly negative terms:

The nation is savage, wandering and full of bad habits; the people few and isolated. They are, I say, savage, haunting the woods, ignorant, lawless and rude: … as a people they have bad habits, are extremely lazy, gluttonous, profane, treacherous, cruel in their revenge, and given to all kinds of lewdness. … With all these vices, they are exceedingly vainglorious: they think they are better, more valiant and more ingenious than the French; and, what is difficult to believe, richer than we are. … They consider themselves better than the French: “For,” they say, “you are always fighting and quarreling among yourselves; we live peaceably. You are envious and are all the time slandering each other; you are thieves and deceivers; you are covetous, and are neither generous nor kind; as for us, if we have a morsel of bread we share it with our neighbor.” They are saying these and like things continually.

(1611: 173-74)

The prejudicial character of this early Jesuit reaction may be better appreciated by reflecting that the people Biard describes are the Mi'kmaq, the same people who were called “truely noble” by Lescarbot just two years earlier. But if Jesuit and Recollect missionaries shared a tendency toward equally negative views of the Indians early in the seventeenth century, over the next century and a half their views would diverge into a nearly diametric opposition. Lahontan, the promoter of semifictionalized “savage” critiques of French culture, noted the difference at the end of the century:

The Recollets brand the Savages for stupid, gross and rustick Persons, uncapable of Thought or Reflection: But the Jesuits give them other sort of Language, for they intitle them to good Sense, to a tenacious Memory, and to a quick Apprehension season'd with a solid Judgment. The former allege that ‘tis to no purpose to preach the Gospel to a sort of People that have less Knowledge than the Brutes. On the other hand the latter (I mean the Jesuits) give it out, that these Savages take Pleasure in hearing the Word of God, and readily apprehend the meaning of the Scriptures. In the mean time, ‘tis no difficult matter to point to the Reasons that influence the one and the other to such Allegations.

(1703a: 2:423)

James Axtell's The Invasion Within (1985: chaps. 2-6, esp. chap. 4) provides a clear overview of divergences between Recollect and Jesuit strategies and practices, while George R. Healy's “The French Jesuits and the Idea of the Noble Savage” (1958), despite its partial acceptance of the Noble Savage myth, provides a deeper look at the ideological framing of their contrasting representations of Indian cultures. As Healy (1958: 145) cautions us, “The Jesuit literature did not, in sum, represent the Indian in as noble a posture as is sometimes imagined. Any quantitative analysis … must conclude that most of them considered pagan Indian life a thoroughly miserable existence.” Yet the contrast between later Jesuit and Recollect views is indeed striking. The reasons behind the divergent views of the two orders include the increasingly greater success of the Jesuits in gaining converts as the Recollect missions were declining after an early head start, together with the consequences this entailed for the relative ability of the two orders to attract financial and political support for their missions.

But there were in fact philosophical differences between the two orders that lent ideological energy to their movement away from common ground into increasingly polarized opposition: for the Jesuits, an inclination toward classical humanist traditions and theological movements that encouraged a positive outlook on the state of nature and natural goodness; and for the Recollects, increasing involvement with the Jansenist movement in Catholic thought, with its uncompromising condemnation of the sinfulness of natural man (Healy 1958). On the Jesuit side, this led to increasingly positive constructions of at least some aspects of Indian character and culture and to a practical policy of encouraging the formation of isolated Indian Christian communities in order to reduce contact with some of the more harmful elements of French culture, such as the alcohol used as a come-on by the fur traders. From the Recollect perspective, “Frenchifying” (franciser) the Indians was necessary before they could be Christianized, since their own culture was irredeemably permeated with the sinfulness of man's natural state (Healy 1958).

Thus, if the diverging positions of the Jesuits and Recollects were, in a sense, equally “philosophical” in terms of adherence to explicit ideological principles, they led to markedly contrasting results from the standpoint of the “love of knowledge” that constitutes the root meaning of “philosophy.” For the Jesuits' stance impelled them toward a relatively greater respect for Indian cultures and the acquisition of broader and deeper ethnographic knowledge about them; while the Recollects' hard-line ideology ended up reinforcing old prejudices, discouraging the kind of ethnographic inquiries that might lead to deeper knowledge of, and perhaps sympathy for, the subjects, and promoting an intensification of negative energy in their characterization.

If we compare the two most famous Recollect accounts of Indians from the seventeenth century, Sagard's narrative from the 1630s and Father Louis Hennepin's accounts of Indian life from later in the century (Hennepin 1683: 273-339; 1698: 2:448-588), we find the later author's antiphilosophical, Jansenist-inspired constructions reflecting even more negativistic prejudices than those entertained by his predecessor. Hennepin's only uses of the rhetoric of nobility are applied to gifts of food, whether given by Indians or Europeans:

They gave us also a Noble Treat according to their own way, which I lik'd very well.

(1698: 1:196)

We regal'd the three Savages for their good News very nobly, having plenty of Provisions at that time.

(1698: 1:300)

If this very limited use of the rhetoric of nobility has any meaning beyond the aesthetic, it can only be in terms of the old feudalistic ideal, “the chief and highest part of noblesse must rest in liberality” (see chap. 2 above), already rejected by humanist writers of the period. As for substantive nobility, Hennepin offers little in the way of praise of “savage” life. It is true that in one case, delighted by a map of a canoe route that an Indian drew for him, he speaks with high enthusiasm:

After this, with a Pencil, he mark'd down on a Sheet of Paper, which I had left, the Course that we were to keep for four hundred Leagues together. In short, this natural Geographer describ'd our Way so exactly, that this Chart serv'd us as well as my Compass cou'd have done. For by observing it punctually, we arriv'd at the Place which we design'd, without losing our way in the least.

(1698: 1:298-99)

But this is an isolated description of an outstanding individual, a chief of whom Hennepin had high hopes for cooperation in establishing a trading monopoly. Even in cases of other exceptional individuals, in whom Hennepin saw good qualities that distinguished them from their less praiseworthy compatriots, the good he sees usually consists in their adoption of European customs; and, even so, his praise is never given without reservation:

There are few that salute after the mode of Europe. … Another Captain of the Hojogoins [Cayugas] seeing his little Daughter which he had given to the Count de Fontenac to be instructed, said very civilly to him, Onnontio, … thou art the Master of this Girl; order the business so that she may learn to write and read well; and when she grows great, either send her home, or take her for a Wife. Which shows you, that the Iroquois look upon themselves as much as the greatest Persons in the World.

I knew another Iroques who was called Atreovati [Fr. Grande Guele, or “Grangula”; cf. Lahontan's description of the same individual, chap. 5], which signifies great Throat: this Man eat [sic] as the Europeans do; he washed his Hands in a Bason with the Governour; he sat last down at the Table, and opened his Napkin handsomly, and eat with his Fork; and did all things after our mode: But often he did it out of Craft or Imitation, to get some Present from the Governour.

(1698: 2:550-51)

Indeed, Hennepin repeatedly succumbs to grudging admiration of the Indians' skillful pursuit of their own self-interest. He remarks, “These Barbarians want no Wit; on the contrary, their Natural Parts are extraordinary” (1698 1:298); and further explains: “We are not to imagine that these People are Brutes, and irrational; no, they understand their own Interest thorowly, and order their Affairs very discreetly” (2:515). For example,

'Tis to be observ'd here, that the Savages, though some are more cunning than others, are generally all addicted to their own Interests; and therefore though the Iroquese seem'd to be pleas'd with our Proposals, they were not really so; for the English and Dutch affording them the European Commodities at cheaper Rates than the French of Canada, they had a greater Inclination for them than for us.

(Hennepin 1698: 1:86)

When Hennepin focuses on the differences between different “savage” peoples, as when he discusses outstanding individuals, his language sometimes takes on a tone of high praise, extending even to favorable contrasts of “savage” behavior with that of Europeans:

One of them … came to the Shoar with the Women and Children to receive us, which they did even with more Civility than they had express'd the first time. Our Men suspected that this was only to get our Commodities, which they admir'd; but they are certainly a good sort of People; and instead of deserving the Name of a Barbarous Nation, as the Europeans call all the Natives of America, I think they have more Humanity than many Natives of Europe, who pretend to be very civil and affable to Strangers.

(1698: 1:206)

However, this passage is from a part plagiarized, part fantasized account of an imaginary journey. Hennepin, like the Baron de Lahontan who would soon follow his route from Canada through the Great Lakes to the Mississippi, had expanded his physical journey into a metaphysical excursion to more remote peoples and places than he was actually able to visit (Thwaites 1905: 1:xxxiii-xxxix, 155); and the people singled out for such high praise here were ones that the explorer himself knew only through secondhand reports. As in Lahontan's case, Hennepin's most positive language is received for the peoples he met on his imaginary journey: “The Manners and Temper of that Nation [Taensa] is very different from that of the Iroquese, Hurons, and Illinois. These are Civil, Easie, Tractable, and capable of Instructions; whereas the others are meer Brutes, as fierce and cruel as any wild Beasts” (1698: 1:195).

Here, the nations Hennepin actually knew are reduced to the level of “meer Brutes.” Elsewhere, he treats them in terms of a version of the dialectic of vices and virtues that seems curiously heightened in both positive and negative intensity.

The Iroquese are an Insolent and Barbarous Nation, that has shed the Blood of more than Two millions of Souls in that vast-extended Country. They would never cease from disturbing the Repose of the Europeans, were it not for fear of their Fire-Arms. …

These Savages are for the most part tall, and very well shap'd, cover'd with a sort of Robe made of Beavers and Wolves-Skins, or of black Squirrels, holding a Pipe or Calumet in their Hands. The Senators of Venice do not appear with a graver Countenance, and perhaps don't speak with more Majesty and Solidity, than those ancient Iroquese.

(1698: 1:44, 82)

Unlike the Iroquois, in whose country Hennepin had lived for four years, the Illinois, among whom the exploring expedition stopped for two months, were for him partly known and partly imagined. Thus sometimes they receive the kind of high praise he accorded to others described in his fantasy travels.

The Union that reigns amongst that Barbarous People, ought to cover with Shame the Christians; amongst whom we can see no Trace of that brotherly Love, which united the Primitive Professors of Christianity.

(1698: 1:153)

At other times, however, the dialectic of vices and virtues appears to be slanted strongly in a more negative direction.

They are tall, strong, and manage their Bows and Arrows with great dexterity; for they did not know the use of Fire-Arms before we came into their Country. They are Lazy, Vagabonds, Timorous, Pettish, Thieves, and so fond of their Liberty, that they have no great Respect for their Chiefs.

(1698: 1:167)

And in the end, Hennepin leaves no doubt as to his final assessment of the general character of the Illinois, and of the other “savage” peoples he encounters.

The Illinois, as most of the Savages of America, being brutish, wild, and stupid, and their Manners being so opposite to the Morals of the Gospel, their Conversion is to be despair'd of, till Time and Commerce with the Europeans has remov'd their natural Fierceness and Ignorance, and thereby made ‘em more apt to be sensible of the Charms of Christianity.

(1698: 1:168-69)

George Healy juxtaposes this passage of Hennepin to a remark by the Jesuit Claude Dablon made in the early 1670s.

His [the chief of the Illinois] countenance, moreover, is as gentle and winning as is possible to see; and, although he is regarded as a great warrior, he has a mildness of expression that delights all beholders. The inner nature does not belie the external appearance, for he is of a tender and affectionate disposition. … And what we say of the chief may be said of all the rest of this nation, in whom we have noted the same disposition, together with a docility which has no savor of the barbarian.

(Dablon 1670-71, cited in Healy 1958: 146)

If we find that Hennepin's version of the dialectic of vices and virtues leads to strongly negative constructions, the same is true of his version of the litany of comparative negations.

The Apostolick Man [missionary] ought much more to acknowledg this dependance upon the Soveraign Lord, in respect of those barbarous Nations who have not any regard of any Religion true or false, who live without Rule, without Order, without Law, without God, without Worship, where Reason is buried in Matter, and incapable of reasoning the most common things of Religion and Faith. Such are the people of Canada.

(Hennepin 1698: 2:616)

Or, perhaps more to the point:

They live without any subordination, without Laws or any form of Government or Policy. They are stupid in matters of Religion, subtle and crafty in their Worldly concerns; but excessively superstitious.

(Hennepin 1698: 2:456)

Here the litany of comparative negations does not resolve into a golden age but only into a virtually impenetrable darkness of brute stupidity. Thinking of the obstacle they pose to his missionary endeavors, Hennepin's cold contempt for them reduces him to a frozen state of helplessness:

These miserable dark Creatures listen to all we say concerning our Mysteries, just as if ‘twere a Song; they are naturally very vitious, and addicted to some Superstitions that signifie nothing; their Customs are savage, brutal and barbarous; they will suffer themselves to be baptized ten times a Day for a Glass of Brandy, or a Pipe of Tobacco, and offer their Children to be baptiz'd, but all without any Religious Motive.

When we dispute with them, and put them to a nonplus, they hold their tongues; their Minds are stupid, their Faculties are besotted. If we propose our Mysteries to them, they heed them as indifferently as their own nonsensical Whimsies. I have met with some of them, who seem to acknowledg that there is one first Principle that made all things; but this makes but a slight Impression upon their Mind, which returns again to its ordinary Deadness, and former Insensibility.

(1698: 2:460, 466)

Indeed, it seems at times that Hennepin is driven into a frenzy, reduced to mindless ranting and raving. His chapter “Of the barbarous and uncivil Manners of the Savages” (2:547 ff.) consists mainly of vituperations and attributions of bestiality, rivaling the worst diatribes of the racist writers of the nineteenth century.

They eat sometimes snuffling and blowing like Beasts. As soon as they enter into a Cabin, they fall a smoaking. If they find a pot covered, they make no difficulty to take off the Lid to see what's in it. They eat in the Platter where their Dogs have eaten, without wiping it. When they eat fat Meat, they rub their Hands upon their Face and Hair to clean them: They are perpetually belching.

Those that have trucked Shirts with the Europeans, never wash them; they commonly let them rot on their backs: They seldom cut their Nails: They seldom wash the Meat they dress. Their Cabins in the North are commonly filthy. I was surprized one day to see an old Woman bite the Hair of a Child, and eat the Lice. The Women are not ashamed to make water before all the World: abut they had rather go a League in the Woods than any body should see them go to stool. When the Children have pissed their Coverlets, they cast away their piss with their hands. One may often see them eat lying along like Dogs. In a word, they act every thing brutally.

(Hennepin 1698: 2:548-49)

But perhaps surprisingly in a narrative so freely sprinkled with rhetoric of “brutishness” and “stupidity,” Hennepin repeatedly praises the “Civilities” of the Indians: “The Chief Captains of that people receiv'd us with great Civilities after their own way” (1698: 1:115); “For all that there are many things found among them honest and civil” (1698: 2:549); or:

The chief of that Nation had been formerly in Canada, and had an extraordinary Respect for Count Frontenac, who was Governour thereof; and upon that account receiv'd us with all the civility imaginable, and caus'd his Men to dance the Calumet, or Pipe, before us. This is a piece of Civility we shall describe anon.

(1698: 1:119)

Hennepin's emphasis on Indian “Civility” sometimes seems to suggest a tolerant, relativistic acceptance of cultural differences, assimilating “savage” customs and values with those of civilization. However, there are other times when the word is used in contexts alien enough to have shocked or disgusted a contemporary reader.

These Savages have more Humanity than all the others of the Northern America. … They rubb'd our Legs and Feet near the Fire, with Oil of Bears and Wild Bulls Fat, which, after much Travel, is an incomparable Refreshment; and presented us some Flesh to eat, putting the three first Morsels into our Mouth with great Ceremonies. This is a great piece of Civility amongst them.

(1698: 1:157)

This seems rather close to the many ironic, patronizing references to the “beauty, such as it is,” of non-European women that we find littering the ethnographic literature. Clearly, the civilities of “savages” are not those of civilization, and may ultimately even be worse than the “barbarous and uncivil Manners” to which Hennepin (1698: 2:547) devotes a chapter. Indeed, he finds one of their civilities highly problematic:

That People, tho' so barbarous and rude in their Manners, have however a Piece of Civility peculiar to themselves; for a Man would be accounted very impertinent, if he contradicted any thing that is said in their Council, and if he does not approve even the greatest Absurdities therein propos'd; and therefore they always answer, Niaoua; that is to say, thou art in the right, Brother; that is well.

Notwithstanding that seeming Approbation, they believe what they please and no more; and therefore ‘tis impossible to know when they are really persuaded of those things you have mention'd unto them, which I take to be one of the greatest Obstructions to their Conversion; for their Civility hindring them from making any Objection, or contradicting what is said unto them, they seem to approve of it, though perhaps they laugh at it in private, or else never bestow a Moment to reflect upon it, such being their Indifference for a future Life. From these Observations, I conclude that the Conversion of that People is to be despair'd of, ‘till they are subdu'd by the Europeans, and that their children have another sort of Education, unless God be pleas'd to work a Miracle in their Favour.

(1698: 2:86-87)

For Hennepin, this “civility” of mutual self-respect, of believing everyone entitled to the integrity of his own opinion, proved the most frustrating and maddening feature of “savage” life. Again and again, he would cite instances of Indian opposition to European claims of the right to unquestioning acceptance and obedience based on scriptural authority; and the dialogues he recorded often prefigure, in logical construction and rhetorical style, the “imaginary” dialogues that the religious skeptic Lahontan would publish a decade later.

When I told them it was a Foolery to believe so many Dreams and Fancies; they ask'd me how old I was? You are not above thirty five or forty years old, and do you pretend to know more than our Antient Men? Go, go, you know not what you say; you may know what passes in your own Country, because your Ancestors have told you, but you cannot tell what has passed in ours, before the Spirits, that's to say the Europeans, came hither.

I reply'd to these Barbarians, that we knew all by the Scripture, which the great Master of Life has given us by his Son; that this Son died to deliver Men from a place where burns an eternal Fire, which would have been their lot, if he had not come into the World to save us from Sin and from Death; that all Mankind were Sinners in Adam, the first Man of the World. These Savages, who have a large share of common Sense, often ask'd me, Did you Spirits know of our being here before you came hither? I answered them, No: You do not learn therefore all things by Scripture; it tells you not all things, reply'd they.

(Hennepin 1698: 2:535-36)

When one speaks to them of the Creation of the World, and of the Mysteries of the Christian Religion; they say we have Reason: and they applaud in general all that we say on the grand Affair of our Salvation. They would think themselves guilty of a great Incivility, if they should shew the least suspicion of Incredulity, in respect of what is proposed. But after having approved all the Discourses upon these Matters; they pretend likewise on their side, that we ought to pay all possible Deference to the Relations and Reasonings that they make on their part. And when we make answer, That what they tell us is false; they reply, that they have acquiesced to all that we said, and that it's want of Judgment to interrupt a Man that speaks, and to tell him that he advances a false Proposition. All that you have taught touching those of your Country, is as you say: But it's not the same as to us, who are of another Nation, and inhabit the Lands which are on this side the great Lake.

(Hennepin 1698: 2:541)

But if Lahontan would find in such verbal resistance a basis for admiring the Indians and criticizing Europeans, Hennepin saw in them a unique reason for condemning the Indians:

Another hindrance lies in a Custom of theirs, not to contradict any Man; they think every one ought to be left to his own Opinion, without being thwarted: they believe, or make as if they believed all you say to them; but 'tis their Insensibility, and Indifference for every thing, especially Matters of Religion, which they never trouble themselves about.

America is no place to go to out of a desire to suffer Martyrdom, taking the Word in a Theological Sense: The Savages never put any Christian to death upon the score of his Religion; they leave every body at liberty in Belief: They like the outward Ceremonies of our Church, but no more. These Barbarians never make War, but for the Interest of their Nation; they don't kill people, but in particular Quarrels, or when they are brutish, or drunk, or in revenge, or infatuated with a Dream, or some extravagant Vision: they are incapable of taking away any Person's Life out of hatred to his Religion.

(1698: 2:468-69)

What a reason to condemn a people as “savages” and “barbarians”: because they will not kill you for your religious beliefs! But Hennepin is genuinely true to his temporocultural milieu; and he would certainly not be the last to find the ultimate damnation of the “savages” in their “liberty.” However, he is moved to flirt with theological heresy:

They have Skill enough to make a little Cloke or sort of Robe with dress'd Skins of Bears, Bevers, Otters, black Squirrels, Wolves, Lions, and other Animals. … But the Savages of our last discovery betwixt the frozen Sea and new Mexico, appear always naked upon all occasions; from whence I took occasion to tell Father Gabriel one day, whilst we were among the Illinois, that probably these Savages did not sin in Adam; because he cover'd himself with Leaves, and then had a Habit of Skins given him after he had sinned: These Savages have really no manner of Shame to see themselves naked; nay they seem to glorify in it. When they talk with one another, they often make use of those Terms, Tchetanga, which are obscene, and would make me write 'em down, when I was about composting a Dictionary, and they nam'd the Parts of the Body to me. [But] Whatever I might say to Father Gabriel de la Ribourd, I am nevertheless perswaded by the Scripture, that all Mankind are descended from Adam; and therefore the Savages as well as others, are Sinners, and corrupted by their Birth, and that they will perish in their Sins if they don't receive the Gospel; for there is no other name by which Men can be saved but the Name of Christ. I know very well that Habits don't save any body; but in short, if these poor People would observe the Precepts of the Law of Nature, God would work a Miracle in their favour, rather than suffer 'em to perish in their Ignorance; and therefore he would lead 'em into the knowledg of the Truth, by means worthy of his Wisdom. But these unhappy Barbarians violate the Precepts of the Law of Nature, and live in Stupidity, and in the disorders of a dreadful Corruption, which makes them fit Subjects of God's Wrath.

(1698: 2:494-95)

It seems strange in retrospect that if Europeans could have imagined the existence of a Law of Nature, they could also imagine it possible for creatures of nature to “violate” it. But at the time, scientific concepts of universal and inviolable natural “laws” were only tentatively beginning to become differentiated from their paradigmatic inspiration in the older concepts of Royal and Divine Laws; and notions of violation and just retribution could as well be applied to the one as to the others. For Hennepin, the sense of the Indians' guilt seems to have been strong enough that it made little difference under which code of “Law” they were to be accused, convicted, and punished. The severity of his attitude set him at odds with La Salle, the commander of the exploring expedition.

M. de la Salle had often entertain'd me with the unheard of Cruelties exercised by the Spaniards in New Mexico, and Peru, against the Inhabitants of those vast Empires, whom they destroyed as much as ever they could, preserving only their Children to make new People. He exclaimed against that Cruelty of the Spaniards, as unworthy of Men of Honour, and contrary to the Doctrine of the Christian Religion. I blamed them my self; but yet I offered now and then some Reasons to excuse them, as the Necessities they found themselves under of exterminating those Nations, or perishing themselves, and forsaking their Conquest; for whenever they thought themselves safe, they were suddenly invaded by great Armies, and therefore in a perpetual Danger.

(Hennepin 1698: 2:398-99)

To do him justice, Hennepin expressed a preference for methods other than genocide, even if he was willing to excuse it as an occasional “necessity”:

From these observations we may conclude, that Meekness and Charity so much recommended in the Gospel, are two Vertues absolutely necessary for the establishment of Colonies in those new Countries; for otherwise the new Inhabitants must destroy the Ancient, or be destroyed by them, either of which is a cruel Necessity unworthy of a Christian.

(1698: 2:399)

Still, the Christian missionary ultimately did not regard the deaths of “savages” as worthy of regret; and for this attitude, too, he found a theological justification.

I found the Infant-Child of one call'd Mamenisi, very sick. Having a little examin'd the Symptoms of its Distemper, I found the Child past hopes of Recovery … I thought my self oblig'd in Conscience to baptize it. … I am sure I saw it laughing the next Day in its Mother's Arms, who believ'd I had cur'd her Child. However it dy'd some time after, which affected me more with Joy than Grief.

Had this Child recover'd, 'twas much to be fear'd 'twou'd have trod in the Steps of its Fore-fathers, and been overgrown with their infamous Superstitions, for want of a Preacher to instruct it. For indeed, if those of its Nation dwelling in Darkness and Ignorance, continue to sin without Law, they shall also perish without Law, as we are told by the Apostle. Upon these Considerations I was glad it had pleas'd God to take this little Christian out of the World, lest it might have fall'n into Temptations, had it recover'd, which might have engag'd it in Errour and Superstition. I have often attributed my Preservation amidst the greatest Dangers which I have since run, to the Care I took for its Baptism.

(1698: 1:263-65)

The above random selection of early travel-ethnographic writings present us with a continuum of negativity, extending from Cartier's relatively indifferent treatment of the Indians as potential objects of commercial exploitation and erotic gratification to Hennepin's deeply negative assessment of the value of their lives. It would be no great challenge to multiply into the hundreds such negativistic portrayals of “savagery” from the writings of the unphilosophical travelers, complacent in their Eurocentric prejudices. Their views have to be taken into account if only for the sake of balance, to counteract the tendency built up over a century and a half of unquestioning acceptance of the myth of the Noble Savage, to assume that belief in the nobility of “savages” was ever predominant in the ethnographic literature. But once the overall balance has been taken into account, it would be overkill to dwell on the negativity that pervades European views of the “savage.” Let us continue, instead, with the more complex and interesting task of exploring the works of writers who have been perceived as advocates of positive interpretations of “savage” life, with emphasis on writers on the North American Indian, who continues to represent the paradigm case of the “savage” as we move ahead into the eighteenth century and the period known as the Enlightenment.

References

Axtell, James

1985 The Invasion Within: The Contest of Cultures in Colonial North America. New York: Oxford University Press.

Barrow, John

1804 Travels in China. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies.

Biard, Pierre

1611 “Letter from Father Biard, to Reverend Father Christopher Baltazar, Provincial of France, at Paris.” Jesuit Relations 1: 139-83.

Cartier, Jacques

1580 A Shorte and Briefe Narration of the two Nauigations and Discoueries to the Northweast Partes called Newe Fraunce. Trans. John Florio. London: H. Bynneman. Facsimile ed. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1966.

Champlain, Samuel de

1603 Des savvages, ov, Voyage de Samvel Champlain. Paris: Clavde de Monstr'œil. Reprinted with English translation in H. P. Biggar, ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain, 1:81-189. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1922-36.

1613a Les Voyages dv Sievr de Champlain. Paris: Iean Berjon. Reprint. N.p.: Readex Microprint, 1966.

1613b Les Voyages dv Sievr de Champlain. Paris: Iean Berjon. Reprinted with English translation in H. P. Biggar, ed., The Works of Samuel de Champlain, 1:189-469. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1922-36.

Chardin, John [Jean], Sir

1686 Travels of Sr. Iohn Chardin into Persia and ye East Indies. London: Moses Pitt.

della Valle, Pietro

1665 The Travels of Sig. Pietro della Valle, a Noble Roman. London: Printed by J. Macock, for John Place.

Du Halde, Jean-Baptiste

1735 Description geographique, historique, chronologique, politique, et physique de l'Empire de la Chine et de la Tartarie Chinoise. Paris: P. G. Lemercier.

Green, John

1745-47 A New General Collection of Voyages and Travels. London: Printed for Thomas Astley. [This collection, actually compiled and edited by Green, is usually mistakenly attributed to Astley, the publisher, in bibliographies.]

Hakluyt, Richard

1589 The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques & Discoveries of the English Nation. Glasgow: J. MacLehose and Sons, 1903-5.

Healy, George R.

1958 “The French Jesuits and the Idea of the Noble Savage.” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d Ser., 15 (2): 143-67.

Hennepin, Louis

1683 A Description of Louisiana. Trans. John Gilmary Shea. New York: John G. Shea, 1880. Reprint. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, 1966.

1698 A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America. London: Printed for M. Bentley, J. Tonson, H. Bonwick, T. Goodwin, and S. Manship. Reprint, Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Chicago: McClurg, 1903.

Howitt, William

1838 Colonization and Christianity: A Popular History of the Treatment of the Natives by Europeans in All Their Colonies. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans.

Lafitau, Joseph-François

1724 Customs of the American Indians Compared with the Customs of Primitive Times. Ed. and trans. William N. Fenton and Elizabeth L. Moore. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1974-77.

Lahontan, Louis Armand de Lom d'Arce, baron de

1703a New Voyages to North-America. London: H. Bonwicke et al. Reprint. Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1905.

1703b Suite du voyage, de l'Amerique, ou, Dialogues de Monsieur le Baron de Lahontan et d'un sauvage dans l'Amerique. Amsterdam: Chez la veuve de Boeteman, 1704.

1703-5 Dialogues curieux entre l'auteur et un sauvage de Bons Sens qui a voyage, et memoires de l'Amerique Septentrionale. Ed. Gilbert Chinard. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1931.

Montagu, Mary Wortley

1716-18 Turkish Embassy Letters. London: Virago, 1994.

Nicolay, Nicolas de

1567-68 Les quatre premiers livres des navigations et peregrinations orientales. Lyon: Gvillavme Roville.

Purchas, Samuel

1625 Hakluytus Posthumus, or Purchas His Pilgrimes: Contayning a History of the World in Sea Voyages and Lande Travells by Englishmen and Others. Glasgow: J. MacLehose and Sons, 1905-7.

Sagard, Gabriel

1632a Le grand voyage dv pays des Hvrons. Paris: Chez Denys Moreav, rue S. Iacques, a la salamandre d'argent. Reprinted in Sagard 1632b: 273-406.

1632b The Long Journey to the Country of the Hurons. Ed. George M. Wrong; trans. H. H. Langton. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1939.

Thwaites, Reuben Gold

1903 Introduction and notes to Hennepin 1698.