Jumping off of the class discussion today at the end of Narrative of the Life of Mary Jemison, I wanted to address in a little more detail the constant comparison between the Indian’s violent, bloodthirsty ways and their peaceful, kind lifestyle before this novel is completely put to rest. Mary describes many scenes of her quiet, happy life in the Seneca village, where they did not have much hard work and few things to worry about. On pages 85 and 97, for instance, Mary elaborates on the high “moral character” of the Indian people, among other virtues. However, throughout the novel, Mary (or Seaver?) often juxtaposes this idyllic view with those of lines upon lines of graphic scenes of blood, gore, and torture of whites at the hands of her “moral” Indians.
This brings into play the entire idea of morality, and its definition across cultures. Viewed from white culture, this torture of white people would be considered immoral and completely savage. However, viewed from Indian culture, since it was a warrior act committed during war time, it would be considered just revenge and justice in their society, and hence not immoral. So, through which moral code should this novel be viewed—through the eyes of white society or those of the Indians? Can either really be considered “moral”?
The Indians also have a unique system of handling prisoners where they give a family of a deceased warrior a prisoner (or scalp, if no live prisoners are available) to replace the family’s dead relative. The family makes the decision of exacting revenge (eye for an eye justice) or adopting (an eye for an eye only leads to more blindness), but either are acceptable and in accordance with the Indians justice system. Hence, both options are considered moral, yet one is very obviously crueler than the other. White society does not really have a similar, widespread infrastructure that allows for possible peaceful hybridization of the family unit and tolerance. The gap in the story concerning how white people treat and deal with Indian captives allows no comparison between the two. Ultimately, there needs to be more than a one-sided view for one to decide how they individually see morality in this novel.
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Another instance of backwards morality and cross-cultural "justice" is the offspring fiasco. John gets off the hook for killing two of his own brothers. Not long afterward, he is murdered as well. She says, "...I could not mourn for him as I had for my others sons, because I knew his death was just...from the hand of justice" (92). She knew that he deserved to die, and she would have one less murdered son if he were duly punished earlier. Yet, because Mary couldn't condemn her son, and because the Indians wouldn't either, he lived to kill again, and was subsequently killed himself. One of his murderers committed suicide. The other was briefly humiliated, and then remained unpunished.
I would submit that, especially in the small Indian societies, it is difficult to enforce punishments on people you know, under the scrutiny of friends and family. Thus, morality becomes skewed into simply appointing the individual as a self-judge and punisher.
Another example of these cultural differences was when Mary's Indian brother almost killed her. I found it fascinating and incredibly disturbing that, to keep her away from the white people because she had expressed her desire to stay, Mary's own brother was willing to kill her. It seems to me that it would make more sense for her to stay if she can and leave if it is a choice between that or death. She ended up hiding for a while until things calmed down, but the entire situation was very strange.
I think this is an example of the way the Indian honor works, that they would rather die before doing something they have stated they wish not to. White society considers survival the most important, so this thought process is not understood entirely.
One aspect of the book that I found interesting was the absence of emotion that was described when these horrible, bloody scenes were taking place. While, yes, Jemison described herself as being incredibly sorrowful when events like these happened, there was not much elaboration compared to the description of the scenes itself.
Initially, I thought these scenes in the book were evidence of Seaver's voice. It made sense that he would go into the dramatic details about torture and leave the emotional, personal aspects lacking of depth to be more appealing. Yet in light of this discussion, I wonder if in fact, Jemison's emotions regarding these instances had changed. Perhaps her emotions were less dramatic because she saw that the actions of her Indians to not just be of cruelty, but of an understood justice.
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