Stránka:book 1912.djvu/83

The Spartans of the West 51 unless he is able to curb his indulgence in the pleasures of the senses. Upon this truth the Indian built a rigid system of physical training, a social and moral code that was the law of his life. "There was aroused in him as a child a high ideal of manly strength and beauty, the attainment of which must depend upon strict temperance in eating and in the sexual relation, together with severe and persistent exercise. He desired to be a worthy link in the generations, and that he might not destroy by his weakness that vigor and purity of blood which had been achieved at the cost of so much self-denial by a long line of ancestors. " He was required to fast from time to time for short periods and to work off his superfluous energy by means of hard running, swimming and the vapor bath. The bodily fatigue thus induced, especially when coupled with a reduced diet, is a reliable cure for undue sexual desires." (Eastman's "Soul of the Indian," pp. 90-92.) In their wonderful physique, the result of their life-long, age-long training, in their courage, their fortitude, their skill with weapons, their devoted patriotism, they realize more than any other modern race has done the ideal of the Spartan Greek, with this advantage; that, in his moral code, the Indian was far superior. IN GENERAL "I admit, " says Father Lallemant, of the Hurons, "that their habits and customs are barbarous in a thousand ways, but, after all, in matters which they consider as wrong, and which their public condemns, we observe among them less criminality than in France, although here the only punishment of a crime is the shame of having committed it." (“Century of Dishonor,” p. 378.) Even stronger is the summary of the Jesuit Father, J. F. Lafitau: "They are high-minded and proud; possess a courage equal to every trial, an intrepid valor, the most heroic constancy under