The Native American Mind and Its Affinity for the Christ Philosophy

The Traditional Native American Mind and Its Affinity for the Christ Philosophy

and Phi Alpha Theta Oklahoma Regional Conference on March 8, 2008. It received

In his second autobiographical work, From the Deep Woods to Civilization (1916), Charles Alexander Eastman, whose Dakota name was Ohiyesa, reflected on “the racial attitude” of indigenous peoples “toward God” and the clarity that their perspectives gave to the essence of Christian faith.[1] He began thinking about this untapped Native American asset while working as a program organizer for the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA).[2] His work required him to visit various tribes in the western United States and Canada. Moving about among different Indian groups gave him opportunities to observe Protestant missionary activity and to listen to tribal elders opine about “the Man Jesus.”[3] He sought out these older men, because the younger generation had been “so thoroughly drilled in the motives and methods of the white man,” it had become “an entirely different race.”[4] This paper will explore tapping Eastman’s “racial philosophy” for clarifying aspects of the Synoptic Tradition.[5] Toward that objective, it will apply a diachronic, interdisciplinary approach for interpretive advantage with respect to several Matthean verses.

While inhabiting lands that lay beyond the reach of European civilization, Native Americans remained unacquainted with artistic achievements of the Renaissance, empiricist skepticism, industrialization’s social divisiveness, and the acquisitiveness accompanying mercantilism and its successor, laissez faire capitalism. Later in life, when he toured as a public speaker, Eastman noted that many of his auditors “admitted that morality and spirituality are found to thrive better under the simplest conditions than in a highly organized society, and that the virtues are more readily cultivated where the ‘struggle for existence’ is merely a struggle with the forces of nature, and not with one’s fellow-men.”[6] The implications of this admission transcend temporal bounds; therefore, a modern reader who lives in a highly organized society and comprehends the “racial mind” may possess a useful tool for interpreting sublime elements of Jesus’ first-century proclamation. The Renaissance, Enlightenment, and forceful emergence of industrial capitalism had no opportunity to influence Jesus. Belonging to an earlier, simpler age and embracing an even simpler condition of life,[7] he subscribed to a spiritually suffused reality, which he and other Jews called the kingdom of heaven.[8]

As a young man, Eastman aspired to be a warrior and hunter. “I was trained . . . not to care for money or possessions, but to be in the broadest sense a public servant . . . I must do with as little as possible and start with nothing most of the time, because a true Indian always shares whatever he may possess.”[9] Eastman’s description suggests that warrior-hunters underwent physical and ethical rigor that conditioned them to embrace a centrifugal social vision, to be altruistic and content with little, as well as reliant on The-Giver-of-Life for sustenance. The Jesuit missionary, Father Pierre Biard, witnessed similar traits among the Indians of Acadia in the early seventeenth century.

Their food is whatever they can get from the chase and from fishing; for they do not till the soil at all; but the paternal providence of our good God, which does not forsake even the sparrow, has not left these poor creatures, worthy of his care, without proper provision, which is to them like fixed rations assigned to every moon . . . They are never in a hurry. Quite different from us, who can never do anything without hurry and worry; worry, I say, because our desire tyrannizes over us and banishes peace from our actions.[10]

William Cronon, a professor of history and environmental studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, treated Biard’s testimony as a reliable description contrasting Indian and European lifestyles.[11] He also recognized a connection between it and the conclusion of Marshall David Sahlins, a cultural anthropologist who taught at the University of Chicago.[12] Regarding ways to be rich, Sahlins wrote:

For there are two possible courses to affluence: Wants may be “easily satisfied” either by producing much or desiring little. The familiar conception, the Galbraithean way,[13] makes assumptions peculiarly appropriate to market economies: that man’s wants are great, not to say infinite, whereas his means are limited, although improvable: thus, the gap between means and ends can be narrowed by industrial productivity . . . But there is also a Zen road to affluence . . . that human material wants are finite and few, and technical means unchanging but on the whole adequate. Adopting the Zen strategy, a people can enjoy an unparalleled material plenty—with a low standard of living.[14]

In 1899, when Horatio Bardwell Cushman recounted the agricultural habits of the Choctaw and compared them to those of whites, he essentially affirmed Sahlins’ statement. “But [the Choctaw were] . . . an agricultural people . . . though agricultural to a small extent in comparison with the whites; yet to a sufficient degree to satisfy the demands of any people to whom avarice was an entire stranger, and who adhered to the maxim ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’”[15]

Throughout his career as an educator and historian, Calvin Luther Martin has focused on Native Americans.[16] In his book, Keepers of the Game (1978), he included some insightful remarks about Canadian Indians. For example, he wrote that “there were occasions when food shortages were purposely induced in order to underscore and dramatize humankind’s dependence. . . . [These Indians] deliberately created a food crisis—or purposely lived on the brink of starvation—in order to savor their unique commitment to spiritual sources of support.”[17] In a twentieth-century urban environment, Mother Teresa of Calcutta also dramatized her commitment to spiritual sources. She once explained that by serving the poorest of the poor, “We bind ourselves to be one of them, to depend solely on divine providence . . .”[18]

The testimonies of Biard, Cushman, and particularly Eastman open a portal through which moderns may tap the “racial mind” and its accompanying “philosophy.”[19] The impression that one receives from such indirect (and imperfect) contact suggests that a conceptual cohesiveness exists between elements at the core of Jesus’ teachings and Eastman’s racial philosophy. According to Matthew’s retelling of the Lord’s Prayer, the beseecher demands that God should give “this day our daily bread.”[20] A simple reading of this imperative indicates that Jesus expected his disciples to pray this way each morning.[21] To borrow Eastman’s words, the disciples were to “start with nothing.”[22] Benjamin Franklin recognized the significance of the demonstrative “this.” In his conflated rendition of the prayer, he subordinated Luke’s “each day” to Matthew’s “this day.” “Provide for us this day,” wrote Franklin, “as thou has hitherto daily done.”[23]

According to the same chapter of Matthew, Jesus said, “Do not be anxious about your life . . . Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them . . . And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life? . . . Let the day’s own trouble be sufficient for the day.”[24] Jesus’ prescription for worry may be inferred from the natural order. The-Giver-of-Life sustains all living things; he watches over the birds; therefore, he also provides for people. These verses probably contain one of those “essential truths” that endeared the “Christ Philosophy” to Eastman. Such a theological remedy neither would puzzle nor repel an Indian.[25] In fact, Eastman found the “radical, visionary, and even impractical” Christ ideal to be “logical” and “in line with most of [his] Indian training.”[26]

While leading a YMCA sponsored Bible study, Eastman once invited an old man who attended regularly to voice his opinion. The Indian replied, “This Jesus was an Indian . . . opposed to material acquirement and to great possessions . . . as unpractical as any Indian and [setting] no price upon his labor of love.”[27] A similar hue of impracticality may have tinctured the Missionaries of Charity. One of their regional superiors, Sister Theresina, once explained, “We try not to store the things that we need.” The missionaries adopted this strategy of preparedness in order to “never lose sight of God’s providence.”[28]

What if Europeans had discovered this Indian-like Jesus roaming about in the New World? Would they have faulted him for lassitude? The Spanish on Hispaniola in the early sixteenth century probably would have enslaved him.[29] Professor Edmund S. Morgan of Yale University once asked, “What if the Indians refused the enticements of civility and refused to work for what they did not want?” He then looked to history for an answer: “In 1517 a team of Jeronymite friars had investigated the treatment of the remaining Indians [on Hispaniola] and concluded that . . . they must be made to work for Spain, as the Spanish government proclaimed in 1513, ‘to prevent their living in idleness.’”[30] Many western civilizers carried cultural baggage, which they had packed with a peculiar work ethic and a commitment to mercantilism. They also possessed an appetite to acquire and a willingness to enslave in order to do so. They grasped the “Galbraithean way,” Sahlins’ first option, which requires much production.[31] When men and women embraced mercantilism’s ideological framework and produced much, they sought to enrich the treasuries of their homelands, as well as themselves. On a national and personal level, they strove to minimize vulnerability and dependence. Such a program—whether it be governed by mercantilism or its capitalistic scion—impacts spirituality.

Once, twice, or even thrice a century an event of magnitude dishevels America’s highly organized society. At such times, one would expect to see in the aftermath conditions favoring moral and spiritual development, if Eastman’s proposition that “morality and spirituality are found to thrive better under the simplest conditions” is basically correct.[32] On May 10, 1837 the U.S. economy unraveled as banks stopped payment in gold and silver coinage. Panic brought prosperity and speculation to a halt. During the crisis, James Payne, a Methodist minister in Georgia, reported, “The Lord is reviving his work in the south, after such a tide of worldly prosperity and speculation, which has too much intoxicated the Church . . .”[33] Fewer than three decades later, Josiah Gorgas learned to live by Jesus’ admonition not to stress about the future. He had served as the Confederacy’s chief of ordinance. In 1865 he wrote, “I live now for the day and by the day, leaving the future and all its events in His hands without care or conjecture.” Dan T. Carter, an expert on the American South and former Emory University professor, claimed that southerners usually responded like Gorgas when they described the Civil War’s impact on their lives. He wrote that “most survivors of the war—civilian and military—insisted that their faith had been strengthened by defeat and deprivation.”[34]

In a materialistic, over-consumptive society, religious faith flags as the faithful struggle to internalize “essential truths” of the “Christ Philosophy.” Orestes Brownson, an incisive social critic and champion for the working class, who founded the Society for Christian Union and Progress (1836) and published the Boston Quarterly Review (1840-1842), once railed, “Wealth is made a god, industry is a religion . . . poverty is a crime.” Brownson did not aim his critique at American society in general, but at the cozy relationship between Protestantism and capitalism.[35] That relationship evoked a similar response from Eastman decades later. He observed that much “church-going” among white Protestants and “nominally Christian Indians” seemed to be “a machine-made religion . . . supported by money, and more money could only be asked for on the showing made; therefore too many of the workers were after quantity rather than quality of religious experience.”[36]

When dealing with white men, Plains Indians had impractical expectations about verbal integrity. Their mores had fostered a remarkable capacity for fulfilling a spoken word, and, of course, these Indians expected others to reciprocate. In his book on Indian scouts who had served in the United States Army between 1860 and 1890, Thomas W. Dunlay wrote, “Whites [who were] experienced with Plains Indians often remarked that Indians were rigid in expecting fulfillment of promises; nothing should be promised that was not certain of fulfillment.”[37] In an earlier work, Eastman noted that according to Sioux tradition, “In the very early days lying was a capital offense . . . the destroyer of mutual confidence was summarily put to death, that the evil might go no further.”[38] According to Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus cautioned against resorting to swearing an oath in order to ensure fulfillment of a promise. “Do not swear at all, either by heaven . . . or by earth . . . or by Jerusalem . . . [and not] by your head.” Jesus then added: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”[39]

Jesus practiced a type of piety which rejected conduct facilitating sins of commission. Matthew 5:29-30 illustrates the degree to which the Synoptic Tradition attributes the dread of sin to Jesus. “If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out . . . And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.” North American Indians probably devoted more effort to pursuing honor than meditating on the dreadfulness of sin. Their societies were timocratic in character.[40] For example, commenting on how he learned to count at school with money, potatoes, turnips, and bricks, Eastman asserted, “Why, we valued nothing except honor; that cannot be purchased!”[41]

The American painter and ethnologist George Catlin lauded Native Americans. His answer to his own rhetorical questions indicates how much he esteemed these beloved companions.

I love the people who are honest without law, who have no jails and no poor-houses.

That habit of keeping their word permitted Native Americans to forgo the development of certain institutions. Benjamin Franklin printed an essay entitled “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America,” in which he stated, “There are no prisons, no officers to compel obedience or inflict punishment.”[43] By the time Cushman wrote, the federal government had removed the Choctaw from their Mississippi homeland to Indian Territory. In what is today southeastern Oklahoma, the Choctaw established courts, laws, and a police force, but places of incarceration remained unnecessary. As Cushman recalled, “Never was a full-blood Choctaw known to evade the death penalty . . . hence all places of imprisonment were unknown.”[44]

At the conclusion of his autobiography, Eastman fingered the dark side of Western Civilization.[45] More importantly, however, he offered a light source for illuminating the darkness. “I am an Indian . . . I have never lost my Indian sense of right and justice . . . I am for development and progress along social and spiritual lines.”[46] Although he wrote in restrained prose, the attentive reader hears Ohiyesa with stentorian voice saying, “The Native American mind can make a vital contribution to the social and spiritual development of western society!”

Interpreters of the Synoptic Gospels have a part to play in the socio-spiritual development of our world. Familiarizing themselves with Eastman’s racial perspective, they may be able to enhance that part. All responsible students of early Christianity know that Jesus was not a Renaissance man, Enlightenment thinker, nor a capitalist. Yet they occasionally yield to the ease of treating him, as if he were one or even all three. By embracing a racial-mind approach to supplement comparative methodologies that rely upon ancient Jewish, early Christian, and pagan Greco-Roman sources, expositors could benefit from an additional tool for limiting interpretive options. For example, although Jesus’ instructions about keeping one’s word may seem reasonable to interpret as didactic exaggeration or lofty idealism, Native Americans lived by a similar code.[47] In this context Jesus apparently neither used hyperbole nor appealed to an ideal.

Students of the Gospels face a common dilemma: whatever interpretive methodology one may adopt or formulate, the portrait of Jesus that comes into view by its application can resemble the artist as much as the exemplar.[48] The conceptual cohesiveness that seems to inhere Jesus’ core teachings and Eastman’s “racial philosophy” could be exploited as an external control, thereby contributing to more objective use of higher and lower criticism. Moreover, the exclusive application of conventional methodologies (such as source, historical, form, and textual criticism) runs the risk of draining vitality from sacred documents. But the inclusion of a racial-mind approach could shed soft light on underrepresented—perhaps even authentic—elements of Jesus’ teachings in a way that displays elevated sensitivity to those elements on their own terms.

[1] Eastman covered the first fifteen years of his life (1858-1873) in his first volume of memoirs, Indian Boyhood (1902). Note that “racial attitude,” “racial philosophy,” and “racial mind” belong to Eastman’s thesaurus. Ibid, 141, 142, 150.

[2] Eastman started working for the YMCA in 1894. In 1899 he worked at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania. In 1900 he became the physician to the Crow Creek Agency in South Dakota. After being forced to leave the agency for helping Indians protest against government policies, he immediately accepted a tedious assignment lasting from 1903 to 1909—giving the Sioux English names and recording their family lineages. To fulfill this task, he interviewed nearly every living Sioux Indian who retained his or her tribal affiliation. Eastman’s knowledge of tribal traditions obviously transcended his Dakota heritage. This biographical information was paraphrased from T. N. R. Rogers, introduction to The Soul of the Indian: An Interpretation, by Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa) (1911; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980), viii.

[3] Charles A. Eastman (Ohiyesa), From the Deep Woods to Civilization (1916; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977), 141-143.

[4] Ibid, 164. Eastman hinted that even he had ingested a pinch of the white man’s ways. One evening, while camping with his Ojibway guide in a deserted cabin, Eastman heard “a loud scratching on the bark door, as if some hand were feeling for the latch.” Eastman placed his “hand on the trigger of [his] Smith and Wesson,” while his guide “put more sticks on the fire.” A large, defiant turtle standing on its hind legs and scraping the door with its front feet had caused the noise. Ibid, 180-181.

[5] The Synoptic Tradition comprises the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The Gospels of John and Thomas do not belong to the Synoptic Tradition.

[6] Eastman (Ohiyesa), From the Deep Woods, 188. Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883), whose life overlapped with Eastman’s, shared neither Eastman’s values nor his world view, but Marx did make a satirical remark about Charles Darwin and “the struggle for existence.” “Darwin did not know,” observed Marx, “what a bitter satire about humanity, and his own countrymen in particular, he was writing when he showed that free competition, the struggle for existence which the economists hold up as the highest achievement of history, was the normal condition of the animal kingdom.” Marx was quoted from Isaiah Berlin, Karl Marx: His Life and Environment, 4^th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 102-103. Toward the end of his autobiography, Eastman wrote: “Behind the material and intellectual splendor of our civilization, primitive savagery and cruelty and lust hold sway, undiminished, and as it seems, unheeded . . . When I reduce civilization to its lowest terms, it becomes a system of life based upon trade. The dollar is the measure of value, and might still spells right; otherwise, why war?” Eastman (Ohiyesa), From the Deep Woods, 194.

[7] In another work Eastman commented on the spiritual disadvantage of living in a complex society. “The native American has been generally despised by his white conquerors for his poverty and simplicity. They forget, perhaps, that his religion forbade the accumulation of wealth and the enjoyment of luxury. To him, as to other single-minded men in every age and race, from Diogenes to the brothers of Saint Francis, from the Montanists to the Shakers, the love of possessions has appeared a snare, and the burdens of a complex society a source of needless peril and temptation.” Eastman, The Soul of the Indian, 2-3.

[8] In Synoptic parlance the kingdom of heaven and kingdom of God are synonymous. The former is simply a circumlocution for the latter. Whenever possible, pious Jews avoid using divine titles such as YHWH, Eloheem, and so forth.

[9] Eastman (Ohiyesa), From the Deep Woods, 1-2.

[10] Reuben Gold Thwaites, trans., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Explorations of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France, 1610-1791 (New York: Pageant Book, 1959), text-fiche, pp. 77, 79, 85, Library of American Civilization 21464. The heading of each odd-numbered page reads “BIARD’S RELATION, 1616.” Biard originally wrote the aforementioned passage in French: “Leur viure eƒt ce que la chaƒƒe, & la peƒche leur donnent: car ils ne labourent point: mais la prouidence paternellé de noƒtre bon Dieu, laquelle n’abandonne pas les paƒƒereaux meƒmes, n’a point laiƒƒé ces pauures creatures, capables de luy, ƒans prouiƒiõ cõuenable, qui leur eƒt comme par eƒtape, aƒƒignee à chaƒque lune . . . Ils n’ont iamais haƒte. Bien diuers de nous, qui ne ƒcaurions iamais rien faire ƒans preƒƒe & oppreƒƒe; oppreƒƒe di je, parce que noƒtre deƒir nous tyranniƒe & bannit la paix de nos actions.” Ibid, pp. 78, 84.

[11] Regarding the reliability of Biard’s statement, Cronon commented: “Historians often read statements like this as myths of the noble savage, and certainly they are attached to that complex of ideas in European thought. But that need not deny their accuracy as descriptions of Indian life. If the Indians considered themselves happy with the fruits of relatively little labor, they were like many peoples of the world as described by modern anthropologists.” William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England, 20^th anniversary ed. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2003), 80.

[12] Ibid. For more biographical information on Sahlins, see Cambridge Biographical Dictionary, ed. Magnus Magnusson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 1285.

[13] John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) was a Canadian-American economist who taught at Harvard and wrote American Capitalism (1952), The Affluent Society (1958), and The New Industrial State (1967).

[14] Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (Chicago: Aldine Atherton, 1972), 1-2.

[15] Horatio Bardwell Cushman, History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians, ed. Angie Debo, abridged ed. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 28. The son of Calvin and Laura Cushman, two missionaries who had left Massachusetts in 1820 to serve among the Choctaw, Horatio Cushman was born at the Mayhew mission station, but spent most of his youth at the newer Hebron station. He possessed an intimate knowledge of the Choctaw, because he had grown up among these Indians in their native Mississippi forest. In 1832 he witnessed their removal (Ibid, 114-115). Later in life he settled in Greenville, Texas across the Red River from the territory where the U.S. government forced the Choctaw and Chickasaw to relocate (Ibid, 7).

[16] Scott Peacock et al., eds., Contemporary Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Nonfiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields. (Detroit: Gale Group, 2002), 195:227-228.

[17] Calvin Martin, Keepers of the Game: Indian-Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 126.

[18] Mother Teresa of Calcutta, A Gift for God: Prayers and Meditations, ed. Malcolm Muggeridge (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1996), 36.

[19] Other testimonies like those of Benjamin Franklin and George Catlin could be added to Biard’s and Cushman’s. Being of American or French background, these men observed Indian societies as outsiders. Eastman’s testimony, however, stands out. According to Michael Oren Fitzgerald, “He became the first and arguably the only American Indian to be raised until he was a young man in a completely traditional nomadic life, later receive both undergraduate and graduate college degrees and then continue to dedicate his life to the well being of his native peoples.” Michael O. Fitzgerald, ed., preface to Light on the Indian World: The Essential Writings of Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa), by Charles A. Eastman (Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2002), ix-x.

[20] Matthew 6:11. All quotations from the Synoptic Gospels are based on the Revised Standard Version.

[21] Compare Luke 11:3 and see David Flusser, “Hillel and Jesus: Two Ways of Self-Awareness” in Hillel and Jesus: Comparisons of Two Major Religious Leaders, ed. James Charlesworth and Loren Johns (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1977), 72.

[22] Eastman (Ohiyesa), From the Deep Woods, 1-2. See footnote 8.

[23] Franklin’s paraphrase was quoted from H. W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (New York: Anchor Books, 2002), 414.

[24] Matthew 6:25-27, 34.

[25] Eastman (Ohiyesa), From the Deep Woods, 71.

[26] Ibid, 138.

[27] Ibid, 142-143.

[28] Lucinda Vardey, ed., Mother Teresa: A Simple Path (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995), 44. The current writer added italicization for emphasis.

[29] At the urging of Bartolomé de Las Casas, Spain enacted the New Laws of 1542-1543. The new legislation prohibited the enslavement of Indians in Spain’s New World colonies. Colonial authorities failed to enforce strictly the New Laws. Furthermore, these laws did not forbid the enslavement of Africans. New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2^nd ed. (Detroit: Gale Goup, 2003), s.v. “Las Casas, Bartolomé de.”

[30] Edmund S. Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia, Francis Parkman Prize edition (New York: History Book Club, 1975), 24.

[31] See footnotes 12 and 13. Sahlins, 2.

[32] Eastman (Ohiyesa), From the Deep Woods, 188. See footnote 6.

[33] Payne was quoted from Christopher H. Owen, The Sacred Flame of Love: Methodism and Society in Nineteenth-Century Georgia (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998), 45.

[34] Gorgas was quoted from Dan T. Carter, When the War Was Over: The Failure of Self-Reconstruction in the South, 1865-1867 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985), 270.

[35] Brownson was quoted from Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years, vol. 4 (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981), 526, 529.

[36] Eastman (Ohiyesa), From the Deep Woods, 141.

[37] Thomas W. Dunlay, Wolves for the Blue Soldiers: Indian Scouts and Auxiliaries with the United States Army, 1860-1890 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 141.

[38] Eastman (Ohiyesa), The Soul of the Indian, 30.

[39] Matthew 5:34-37.

[40] Indian societies were not unique to North America in this respect; the Old South was also a timocratic society. According to Bertram Wyatt-Brown, “Above all else, white Southerners adhered to a moral code that may be summarized as the rule of honor.” Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South (Oxford: Oxford Univeristy Press, 1982), 3.

[41] Eastman (Ohiyesa), From the Deep Woods, 47.

[42] Catlin was quoted from Cushman, 476.

[43] Franklin was quoted from Brands, 700. Brands pointed out the intended irony of the essay’s title. Immediately before his remark about prisons and officers, Franklin wrote that “their government is by the counsel or advice of the sages.” Franklin may have modeled his language describing Indian government and leadership on Plato’s ideal republic where philosophers would serve as rulers: “The establishment of [such a city] . . . would occur if philosophers came to rule, or if a ruler became a philosopher.” Plato was quoted from Nicholas P. White, A Companion to Plato’s Republic (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1979), 153. Franklin’s remark about the absence of prisons seems to be historical, because Cushman, Catlin, and Eastman wrote similar things.

[44] Cushman, 159. Note that the circuit court of the Choctaw Nation convicted Chester Dixon of a capital offense in 1883. From the time of Dixon’s conviction to his execution, “he was neither confined nor guarded” (Ibid, 160). For additional relevant material, see Cushman, 160-163, 190. See also the story of Crow Dog in Eastman (Ohiyesa), The Soul of the Indian, 110-113.

[45] Eastman (Ohiyesa), From the Deep Woods, 194. See the end of footnote 6 for Eastman’s conclusion about what lies “behind the material and intellectual splendor of our civilization.”

[46] Ibid, 195.

[47] Seriousness regarding fulfillment of a spoken word did not make North American Indians historically unique. For example, according to Joseph ben Matthias, whom Bible students know also as Flavius Josephus, the Essenes also kept their promises: “Any word of theirs has more force than an oath; swearing they avoid, regarding it as worse than perjury, for they say that one who is not believed without an appeal to God stands condemned already.” This description of the Essenes was quoted from Flavius Josephus, Josephus: The Jewish War and Other Selections from Flavius Josephus, trans. H. St. J. Thackeray and Ralph Marcus, The Great Histories (New York: Washington Square Press, 1965), 196.

[48] In the spring of 1950, Lillian Ross wrote a piece on Ernest Hemingway for The New Yorker. It covered a two-day period that Ross spent with him in New York City. Some readers complained about the profile; they did not like the way Hemingway talked, spent leisure time, lived with few restraints, and did not take himself seriously. Summing up their aversion, Ross wrote, “In fact, they didn’t like Hemingway to be Hemingway. They wanted him to be somebody else—probably themselves.” Lillian Ross, preface to Portrait of Hemingway: With a New Afterword by the Author (1961; reprint, New York: Modern Library, 1999), xx.