Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/25

RECOLLECTIONS OF AN INDIAN AGENT. 17 Likely the true interpretation of the phrase so often re- peated, "the Indian is an Indian and you cannot make any- thing else of him," lies not in his want of ability to become a farmer, but that he prefers hunting and fishing and wander- ing habits. I rather suspect this to be true of the Indian, for it is true of the white man, who is only civilized by compulsion and relapses to his first estate whenever the pressure is with- drawn. If he could make no easier or better living than by fishing, he would fish ; and though plowing is one of the most agreeable of farming operations he prefers the gun to the plow. Running a harvester, mower or threshing machine; plowing, hoeing, drilling or harrowing is work, and to most people drudgery. Hunting, though accompanied by greater physical exhaustion, is sport, and the Indian is not alone in loving it. The probable truth is, that men of all colors do not love work for work 's sake, but for what it will bring to them of the necessities, comforts, conveniences and luxuries of this state of existence. That man is a social being, is the supreme fact of human life, but society evolved in conformity to his con- trolling desires is impossible with no other provisions than the spontaneous production of the earth. In this part of the temperate zone not more than two to the square mile could so subsist, and even at the equator where food is comparatively abundant and clothing almost unnecessary, civilized and pro- gressive society seems to be unattainable. Looking over the bald pretense of civilization as I found it at the Umatilla, I was more than ever convinced that tuition was the first thing needed and that it should commence with the parents and grown-up children. And what better to be taught than the unavoidable truth, that under existing con- ditions they could no longer get a living by the methods of their ancestors: the earth could not afford it. Their edible roots, the camas and cous, had been in great degree destroyed by the hogs of white settlers, and the gold miners, roaming the mountains everywhere, had destroyed or frightened away the game. Evidently the time had come when civilization was