European travellers scarcely distinguish by
their features; while in the old continent very different races of
men, the Laplanders, the Finlanders, and the Estonians, the
Germanic nations and the Hindoos, the Persians and the Kurds, the
Tartar and Mongol tribes, speak languages, the mechanism and roots
of which present the greatest analogy.
The Indians of the American Missions are all agriculturists.
Excepting those who inhabit the high mountains, they all cultivate
the same plants; their huts are arranged in the same manner; their
days of labour, their work in the conuco of the community; their
connexions with the missionaries and the magistrates chosen from
among themselves, are all subject to uniform regulations.
Nevertheless (and this fact is very remarkable in the history of
nations), these analogous circumstances have not effaced the
individual features, or the shades of character which distinguish
the American tribes. We observe in the men of copper hue, a moral
inflexibility, a steadfast perseverance in habits and manners,
which, though modified in each tribe, characterise essentially the
whole race. These peculiarities are found in every region; from the
equator to Hudson's Bay on the one hand, and to the Straits of
Magellan on the other. They are connected with the physical
organization of the natives, but they are powerfully favoured by
the monastic system.
There exist in the missions few villages in which the different
families do not belong to different tribes and speak different
languages.
