JASON IS READING LORD GRIZZLY BY FREDERICK MANFRED. This novel, written in 1954, is the authoritative creative nonfiction masterpiece by Manfred, far far superior to the more recent The Revenant, which was made into a Leonardo DiCaprio vehicle of the same name. In Manfred’s work, buffeted by many long hours exploring the countryside where Hugh made his 247-mile crawl, and by reading over 100 books written by and about mountain men of the 1820s, the reader is launched into a veritable time capsule, hurtling back exactly 200 years ago to experience, along with ole Hugh Glass, the rough-and-tumble nature of frontiersman life.
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When Major Henry states that the “Fact is, one could almost claim we’ve slipped a little, fallen behind the red devils. The red devils sacrificed animals to live; we sacrificed humans”. He is stating that the “red devils” are more morally advanced than the whites because instead of sacrificing humans, they sacrifice animals, the humans being people like Jesus Christ, and the animals being the grizzlies that the Indians worship as their “giver of life” (73). Not only that, but the Indians feel genuinely sorry about sacrificing the bear, as they “bring him the best food they have left” when they have a shortage of food (73). However, Jesus Christ was not really sacrificed, he was executed as an enemy of the state because he promoted a religion that did not include the Roman emperors as gods; however, the Roman leader Pontius Pilate had initially shown resistance to punishing him, and had reluctantly taken him into the garrison to flog him as a token. When presenting his victim to the Jews, who for religious reasons wouldn’t enter the garrison, they screamed at the top of their lungs, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” As a point worth noting too, Jesus was claiming that he was the Son of God, which had been prophesied in the Old Testament, and the Jews were not happy with this fulfillment of prophecy.
Hugh despises this pro-Indian stance from Henry, as he states that all of these deaths are because of “his love-the-redskins sermons,” and that if he did not let “the Rees off easy last June,” none of this would be happening (79-80). This statement proposes a Machiavellian idea that if one must choose, one would rather be feared than loved. Who says that the Rees would care if the whites loved them? It does not change the fact that they are encroaching on their land and threatening their way of life by cutting them out of trade. People will always fight for their own interests, for example, the Romans executed Jesus Christ because a monotheistic religion would have and did threaten the fabric of their society, and the Indians who sacrificed bears, simply wanted food. Since simply respecting their traditions and their people does not give the Rees what they want, the Rees will continue to fight. Therefore, from the perspective of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, it would have been best if Major Henry had been absolutely brutal with the Rees. Would that have been good for the Rees? Of course, it would have not.