A great number of examples seems to establish the fact that the Indian has developed a system of casuistry, based upon a remarkably thorough knowledge of human nature.

Certain matters are kept concealed from some people, whereas they are freely discussed with others, and _vice versa_.

The Indian hardly ever keeps a secret to himself alone; it is nearly always shared by others whom the matter directly concerns.

It may be said of the red man that he keeps secrets in the same manner that he lives,--namely, in groups or clusters.

The reason is that with him individualism, or the mental and moral independence of the individual, has not attained the high degree of development which prevails among white races.
When Europeans began to colonize America in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the social organization of its inhabitants presented a picture such as had disappeared long before on the continent of Europe.
Everywhere there prevailed linguistic segregation,--divisions into autonomous groups called tribes or stocks, and within each of these, equally autonomous clusters, whose mutual alliance for purposes of sustenance and defence constituted the basis of tribal society.