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THE SAVAGE.

BY PIOMINGO,

A Headman and Warrior of the Muscogulgee Nation.

THE SAVAGE-NO. I.

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Recollections of Infancy. Thou must become old; thy hands must The existence of things is not strange; tremble, thine eyes become dim, and death "What is but the power of perceiving this existence put a period to thy existence." "Death is the end of life. Death is, beyond comprehension,wonderful. Where death?” - nothing." shall we look for the origin of mind? is "I cannot understand Whence sprang the young idea? Was it that: come, let us look at my brother Quibo. produced by the immediate agency of the Is he asleep? let us awake him. His face Almighty One? or is it a necessary emana- is cold; his eyes are closed; his limbs are If I touch him, he cannot tion from the great fountain of nature, the stiff: he is dead. soul of the universe? Our first thought has feel me; If I cry, he cannot hear me; Should perished for ever; no exertion of ours can I pull oren his eyes, he would not see ine: bring it up from the gulf of oblivion: yet, he is dead. Why did he lie down on this we may awaken the recollection of times bed and die? Why did he fall asleep and long past; we may hid the scenes of child- die? I will run wild on the hills. I will I will hood pass again Lefore us; and remember never lie down to sleep, any more. with pleasure the early excursions of the not die.” unfledged mind. My dear boy, look at Quibo: he has When we first become conscicus of our feet, but he cannot walk; he has hands, but own existence, every thing is new-every he cannot bend his tow, or take an arrow thing delightful. We inquire not whence from his quiver; he has eyes, but he cannot we came; we rejoice because we ARE. see the sun rise among the trees of the The brisk circulation of the blood and the forest: the life-the spirit-the thought of kindly flow of the animal spirits impel us to Quibo is gone away to the land of souls." action. We find it impossible to control the Sudden as a flash of lightning from a sumtumultuous emotions of exultation and joy. mer cloud, sprang up a new and delightful We have no power to remain in one place idea: Quibo is not all dead; his thought is or continue silen: we run, we scream, we gone to another country. "Where is the leap "like roes or young harts on the moun- land of souls ?" Oconi-mico took me by tains of spices." But this blissful period the hand and led me to the door of our hut. passes away as a dream, and visits us no "Raise your eyes, my son, and observe those more. Our prospec's become suddenly red clouds in the heavens." "I observe darkened some faint idea of evil, of sorrow, them." "Do you see those blue mountains, and of death, passes through the mind. whose towering summits are mixed with The first thought concerning the final the descending clouds?" "I see them." period of our joys and of our existence is, "Beyond these mountains, there is a wide inexpressibly distressing. "Must 1 die river; beyond that river, there is a great also?" said I to the sage Oconi-inico- country; on the other side of that country, "must I die as well as Quibo? "Thou there is a world of water; in that water must also die," answered Oconi-mico." Shall there are a thousand islands: the sun is I no more walk? Shall I no more climb up gone down among them. These islands the mountain of buffaloes? Shall I no more are full of fruit trees and streams of water. shake the fruit from the beautiful pawpaw A thousand buffaloes and ten thousand deer tree, or swim in the waters of luckabatchee? graze on the hills or ruminate in the valShall I no more, dear Oconi-mico, shall I leys." "When I die, shall I become an no more see the sun rise among the trees of inhabitant of those islands?" "Love your the forest?" "My dear child," said Oconi- friends; become a great warrior; and when mico, "behold the stalks of maize, do they you die, the good spirit will convey you to flourish longer than one season? Observe the land of souls, where Quibo is." the trees of the forest; they grow old and is the good spirit? Where is he?" become rotten: must a man live for ever? is above the stars; he sends down the rain

"Who

"He

the hail, and the snow; and he passes by in bottom of a well, probably to signify that it the wild tornado." Bad children, like the was acquired by immense labor and with son of Ottoma, go down into the earth, to a great difficulty. These philosophers have dark place, where dwell the wicked spirits. thought proper to bring up truth from the My child, your mind is fatigued as well as shades; but a much more numerous class your body. You must go to rest. To-mor- has deduced its origin from above. Was it row you shall see Quibo."

the angel Gabriel that brought down the leaves of the koran for the illustrious Mohammed? These were said to contain the very quintessence of truth, and teach every thing that was necessary to be known by

He took me in his arms and bore me to my couch he wiped away the tears from my cheeks with the back of his hand, adding, "Rest in peace: the good being will send down his angels to watch over your slum- the children of men. bers." I slept; and sweet was my repose. How many gods, and how many goddesses, What can soothe and calm the mind like at different times, have left the starry pave the protection of a great and benevolent ment of the celestial regions and come down being? The child may repose confidence for our instruction and entertainment? in the arm of its father: but, to whom shall Among the Greeks and among the Romans, the father look up for support? His con- how many sages caught inspiration! how scious of his own weakness, and feels his many sibyls uttered the oracles of the didependence on every thing that surrounds vinity! Yet, notwithstanding all the be him. He cannot subject nature to his em- nevolent exertions of gods and demi-gods, pire, nor drive the planets from their orbits. heroes and sages, we still remained enMust he submit to the operation of causes veloped in thick darkeess until the "dayanl effects? Must he die and be forgot en spring from on high" shed its effulgence on forever! Or is there any truth in the con- the earth--and even yet we grope through solatory invitation: "Come unto me, a ́l ye a darkness that may be felt; we wanter that are weary and heavy-laden, and I will cheerlessly through the "valley of the give you rest. Christians! Your religion shadow of death" where no one can afford sounds sweetly in the ears of a weak and us assistance. erring creature, like man. It speaks to the What is truth? and where can it be found? heart, affords a refuge to the miserable, and The chemist expects to find it in his cruciprovides a remedy for every evil: but I can- ble; the mathematician sees it in a triangle, not divest myself of my original opinions. a circle, or a parallelogram; and the metaHow indelin e are_the_inpressions we re- physician discovers it in the eternal fitness ceive in childhood! Fifty summers have of things. browned my visage, and fifty winters have Great was the search, some hundred furrowed my cheek; yet still the maxims years ago, for the philosopher's stone, for of Oconi-mico are deeply engraven on the the alkahest, and for the elixir of life; but tablets of my mind. The sun of science has some sceptics assert that there is no philostriven in vain to dissipate the darkness of sopher's stone, no alkahest, no elixir of my superstition; still I see my god in the life. black cloud, and listen to "the voice of his Some have drawn a comparison between excellency" in the thunder; still he reigns these alchemists and the investigators of in the tempest, and passes by in the torn do. truth: they assert there is no truth in a well: Navigators inform me that there is no they aver that it is not to be found in the heaven for Indians in the southern seas; yet crucible of the chemist; and they pronounce, my fancy can people still a thousand islands without hesitation, that there is no such with the brave spirits of my forefathers. thing as a circle, a triangle, or a paralleloStill I see their shadowy forms chase the gram in nature. They say that when we fleeting deer over visionary hills, and I sigh follow truth we pursue a phantom of the for their company and their joys.

To be continued.

What is Truth?

imagination, and are led away by an ignus fatuus which will entice us forward to swamps of difficulty, to a region of doub's and a land of shadows. They tell us that the What is truth? This inquiry has been theory of the metaphysician is equally ermade by thousands in all ages of the world, roneous; that there is no eternal fitness of yet still remains unanswered. We have things; that there is nothing but discorneither discovered what it is, nor where it dance and opposition in rebus naturæ. may be found. Some of the ancients went When tired with this scep ical philosophy, down to look for this jewel in the bowels of we may listen to the precepts of another not the earth. They said that truth was at the less gloomy. Truth, they say, may exist,

but is unworthy of so much labor and fa- tains her secrets, their happiness is blighted. tigue. There may be such a thing as the Foolish men! to break the glasses through philosopher's stone as a universal dissol- which their mothers and nurses were convent-as the elixir of immortality; but the tent to receive the rays of knowledge! discovery would be productive of the most Foolish men! to soar with waxen wings Berious consequences in the great economy above the atmosphere of prejudice which of nature. Let us amuse ourselves, say surrounds the dwellings of their fathers! they, with the pleasing delusions of life, and Render not, O ye sons of men, the common not lose our time in searching after realities. occurrences of life insipid, by your folly, Nature has hung out a thousand painted de- which you are pleased to dignify with the ceptions to hide from our eyes the real na- name of wisdom. ture of things. Is not this a sufficient inti- Be as other men. Seize the rattle of folly; mation that that which is concealed is disa- dance to the piping of a giddy multitude; greeable? Is there any such thing as colors write treatises concerning eternity in the inherent in bodies? yet without this pleas- sand; build pyramids of snow to immortalize ing illusion, what a world of deformity your names; erect dams with grayhaired should we have! Nature is the very grave children in the mountain torrent; and sport of abomination. Well: tear down the wall with your brother insects in the sunbeams of the whited sepulchre, and within you will of the evening.-But should truth present find "rottenness and dead men's bones." her flambeau to your eyes-the illusion is O! ye creatures of the moinent, let us dance gone-the "painted clouds that beautify after the rainbow of hope, and revel in the our days" are vanished; and-great God! light and airy fields of imagination. Let us what a waste-"dark dismal wild"-apskim lightly over the surface of nature: the pears! What a chaos of forms without flowers grow on the surface; and honey reality! What myriads of shadows, withmay be extracted from flowers. Let us be out substance, fleet through a universe of content with the trimmings, the colorings, nonentities!the hangings that immediately meet the eye: they are designed to conceal the gloomy walls of our apartment.

Fiction is lovely; O ye sons of men, rejoice in her smiles: but fly from the chambers of Truth; she is a gorgon, a hydra, a fury!

Desire of Distinction.

Let us look back upon our past lives and examine our own minds, that we may see if What shall we say, when we hear the there be not more happiness in error than various opinions of men on these subject: ? in reality. Which have been our happiest What shall we do, but mourn over the folly, moments? those, in which we have searched the imbecility, the insanity of man! successfully into the nature of things? those, in which the light of truth has beamed upon our heads, and enabled us to discover, with precision, the surrounding objects? I am The desire of distinction is so strong in afraid that the result of our investigation the human mind, that men lay hold of any will be, that our davs of bliss were days of thing however insignificant that may render ignorance; and we shall be led to conclude, them conspicuous. Is a man, by some acciwith the preacher, that in "much knowledge dent, a few inches taller than another, you there is much grief." Should we not rather may immediately perceive that he values endeavor to multiply these happy delusions himself on his towering figure. Is he well than to clear them away? If light discover set, and possessed of brawny limbs; you nothing but "sights of wo," had we not will find him anxiously contending for prebetter remain in darkness? My sick brother eminence by measuring round the breast or is asleep; he dreams of light, life and joy. taking the circumference of the thigh, with I see a smile on his countenance. Shall I his athletic competitors. awake him to a life of misery, sorrow and pain? Or shall I not rather remove every intruding noise, darken the windows, and leave him to repose?

I cannot remember of having observed any of these candidates for fame who were desirous of the distinction arising from the prominence of their bellies; yet nothing is Children are happy and were men con- inore common than to hear a man boast of tent to remain children through life, they having swallowed so many oysters, eaten so might be happy also. But when they be many eggs, devoured so many pounds of come infatuated with the desire of know- beef steaks, &c. What honor do these ledge, and, with a daring hand, attempt to idiots expect to derive from the strength of remove the veil with which nature has their stomachs or the capacity of their thought proper to cover the ark which con- paunches?

Why, they hope to have it said in some Juno. Mercury has lost his wand, and tavern or beerhouse that "John Gorinand is Pallas her egis. Etna and Lemnos remain; the damnedest ellow to eat that ever lived. He demolished, the other day, at the sign of the Mousetrap, a whole round of beef, eat ten dozen of oysters, ten dozen of eggs, five pound of cheese, drank a gallon of beer, and then refused to pay 25 cents for his dinner, because there was not a sufficiency of provisions."

I knew two graziers to lay a very considerable bet on who could eat the most lobster. Both eat til they could not walk and then left the matter undetermined. The gentlemen were wealthy; they did not gormandize for the money that was betted, but for the sake of an immortal name. Such men appear determined to deprive "Robin a Bobbin the Bigbellied Hen" of his long established superiority: of whose exploits, in this way, it is recorded in heroic verse that he would eat more than threescore men;" that

“A cow and a calf,

"An ox and a half,

Was Robbin a Bobbin's morning bit.'

The

but where is the blacksmith of Jupiter?
The wind raises the waves without the as-
sistance of Folus, and the storm is calmed
without the interference of Neptune. Bac-
chus is deprived of his thyrsis, and the
mysteries of Ceres are secure from profana-
tion. Thetis and the nercids are no more;
we hear not the shell of the tritons.
dryads and hamadryads have forsaken the
woods, and the naiads deserted the fountains.
Hippocrene is dry; the muses have escaped
to heaven. The shepherds have lost the
protection of Pan, and the orchards the care
of Pomon. Priapus has ceased to 'fray
away' the birds, or interrupt the incantation
of witches. No longer

"Satyrs and sylvan boys are seen,

Peeping from forth their alleys green." The harpies are expelled from their kingdom; and the sirens have ceased to practise their allurements.

Charon has been shipwrecked in the Styx; Cerberus has been deprived of his heads;

And afterwards. it is sublimely added, and the snakes have been taken from the

that

"He licked the ladle, and swallowed the spoon, And was not full when all was done."

There are others, who are scarcely less deserving of a statue than those last mentioned, who plume themselves on having drunk bottles of brandy, decanted dozens of madeira, and swilled oceans of port. Such heroes shall have a niche in the Temple of Fame, about to be established under the direction of the savage Piomingo.

THEOLOGY.

The ancient Greeks and Romans worshipped a multitude of gods: the heavens, the earth, and hades swarmed with innumerable divinities. All the virtues and vices of humanity, and all the operations of nature, were under the direction of superintending deities: and these gods being unaccountably prolific, there was no space left in nature that did not teem with their progeny. The progress of science and the light of the gospel have contributed to lessen the number of immortals. Jupiter has forsaken the Capitol, the thunder has been wrested from his hand, and the father of gods and men is forgotten. Neptune has lost the dominion of the waves, and Pluto, the empire of the shades. The sun is no longer in the chariot of Apollo, nor the moon under the regency of his sister. Paphos and Cyprus are de serted by Venus, and Samos and Argos by

furies. Minos is no longer judge; Phlegethon has ceased to burn; and the frogs of hell have desisted from croaking. The wheel of Ixion revolves no longer; the Danaides have filled their urns; and Sisyphus rests from his labors. The pythia is not forced to the tripod; the cave of Trophonius is neglected; and the smoke of the sacrifice has ceased to ascend. Where is the oak of Dodona? where are the sibyls of Cuma?

But there is one of the ancient divinities who has maintained his situation in opposition to the efforts of philosophy and the benign influence of the gospel. He is wor shipped with more sincere devotion at this day, than he has been at any former period. His temples are crowded froin morning until evening by humble votaries of all sexes and ages. They do not serve him with "mere lip service;" for they have "his law written in their hearts." He is not the true God: yet they adore him "with all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their strength, and with all their mind." They offer up at his shrine, as freewill offerings, every thing that is precious and valuable. He is not Moloch: yet they make their children pass through the fire or his sake.

He is a very old god, and has performed innumerable exploits of the most heroic kind. A thousand volumes, in folio, would not be sufficient to cor tain the thousandth part of the wonders he has effected. What are the

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