106 THE GREAT DENE RACE.

manfully. In other words, he is treacherous: a typical savage. And here we
have the Apache naturally evolved from the child-like northerner.

If the members of that forward tribe became so desperate in their
dealings with the Spaniards and the Americans, I feel no doubt that it was
owing to that innate restlessness, which made them contemplate with
abhorrence what they considered their enslaving or the curbing of their
roving propensities intended by the pale-faced strangers. In their struggles
they were fighting for dear life, such as they understood it. Liberty, that is,
in their minds the unbridled restlessness of children, was their ultimate object,
no less than the avenging of the undoubted wrongs they suffered at the hands
of the intruders. The same conditions did not obtain in the north, where the
population was practically homogeneous, and there was no incentive to plunder.

Being a child, the Déné is again a great imitator. In fact his remarsk-
able receptivity and its innumerable manifestations in his social economy
might occupy our attention in the course of several chapters. As a child he
is also very credulous, and therefore not a little superstitious. For the
same reason he is a past master in the art of telling untruths with the
appearance of the greatest sincerity. When not actually lying he generally
exaggerates, as he can hardly tell the plain truth, but must inevitably either
majorate or minorate, according to the requirements of his personal interests.
His very language partakes of his nature in this respect. Most dialects have,
for instance, no synonym for the adjective “several”: you must say either
“a few” or “many.”

Because he is a child the Déné will not scruple to flatter, nor is he
above begging, especially from strangers. The same moral condition is also
responsible for the reputation he has acquired of being ignorant of the sense
of gratitude. This is due mostly to his being too fickle and inconstant to
manifest for any length of time the feeling which does indeed affect him
momentarily.

It is also owing to the fact of his being a child that he is, as a rule,
more honest than people of our race. Like good children, again, the Dénés
will in most cases be kind to one another, avoiding to contradict their
fellows or tell them anything disagreeable. They are also affectionate, and
exceedingly fond of their parents and relatives.

But the bad child will occasionally assert itself in them. When they do
get angry, they will rage and storm and shout and fight, or seem to fight,
doing generally more execution with their tongues than with their fists,
though, when really excited, they may be guilty of any excess and perpetrate
the most unspeakable cruelties. Before the strong they will crawl, but the
weak and helpless they will rule with a rod of iron. Hence their lack of
consideration for their women, at least in the north. For, cruelty is another
appanage of childhood. Only, instead of tormenting brutes, as is too often
done by children, the Déné man will make his weaker fellows, or those of