NATURAL HUMANS TO CULTURAL HUMANS 29
between theologians who view them as incapable of reflection (and, thus,
impossible to convert), and those, especially the Jesuits, who assert that
they warmly embrace the Gospels (92). The former denies Amerindians
the cognitive abilities that they quite clearly possess; the latter is mistaken
since, in addition to appearing wholly satisfied with their lives, they seem,
Lahontan contends, to abhor Christianity and the practices of European
civilization. Lahontan’s fictional Huron, Adario, is an especially percep-
tive interlocutor because he is portrayed to be, as the title of the Dia-
logues informs us, “well travelled”. We learn that he has viewed English
America and even France itself with his own eyes; his criticisms, then, are
supposed to gain a credibility they may have lacked without such wide
exposure. But Adario’s powers of reason and speech are perfectly ordi-
nary and typical of less cosmopolitan Amerindians, Lahontan insists, for
when criticizing European life, they all prove themselves to be “great
moralists” [grands Moralistes], drawing upon an extraordinary memory
and employing impressive argumentative skills (104; also, 95–104). They
speak acutely, with subtlety and imagination, in tribal council meetings
during which matters of communal interest are at stake. It appears, at
such moments, that they lead an artful and cultivated life, one that may
be different from European peoples, but not fundamentally different, or
different in kind. Yet, Lahontan’s attempts to humanize Amerindians
cannot stray too far from the notion that they are natural, largely free of
the corrupting trappings of artifice. As we have seen, like other noble
savage writings, the bulk of his social criticism rests upon the claim that
such peoples live purely naturally, or very nearly so. Hence, he suggests
that New World peoples reason and deliberate well despite “having no
advantage of education”; these “truly rustic philosophers”, in short, must
be “directed only by the pure light of nature” (99).
The tensions raised by such comments result from Lahontan’s practice
of describing Amerindians’ various customs, rituals, myths, and social
practices at length without also being able to interpret them as non-
natural, cultural forms of activity and self-understanding. Lahontan does
not treat the inheritance and creative transformation of specific traditions
and self-understandings over generations as a form of “education”, even
though he regularly witnessed such artful activities taking place among
the Huron and other peoples in French Canada. As we have seen, such a
move would not be easy to make for a thinker who has invested heavily
in the principal anthropological claim of noble savagery: that New World
peoples—however much they appear to be situated within and transform
an array of practices, beliefs, and institutions—are ultimately free from
artifice. Thus, Lahontan’s Adario asserts that the Huron
live quietly under the laws of instinct and innocent conduct, which wise Nature
has imprinted upon our minds from our cradles. We are all of one mind; our