How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
'You allude to the natives—the Maori tribes?'
Nilssen spoke with a touch of eagerness; he cherished a romantic passion for what he called 'the tribal life.' When the Maori canoes came strong and flashing through the Buller Gorge—he had seen them from a distance—he was quelled in awe. The warriors seemed terrible to him, their women unknowable, their customs fearsome and primitive (I.4.136-137).
When George is talking about the savage and the civil, Nilssen gets all excited because he finds the notion of "the tribal life" and primitivism in general kind of exotic and mysterious. As we mentioned in "Foreignness," it wasn't uncommon for people to find the foreign—or, in this case, "savage" or "primitive"—exciting, if only because it was, you know, different.
Quote #5
But Shepard shook his head at Nilssen's interjection. 'I do not use 'savage' in the native sense,' he said. 'I allude to the land itself. Prospecting is an ugly business: it makes a man start thinking like a thief. And here the conditions are foul enough to make the diggers still more desperate.'
'But the diggings can be made civil.''Perhaps—after the rivers are spent. After the prospectors give way to dams and dredges and company mines—when the forests are felled—perhaps then' (I.4.138-140).
Shepard brings Nilssen down to earth from his ogling of the "savage" Maori quickly, though, saying he's trying to make a serious point about the area and its future. In fact, he corrects Nilssen's notion that the "native" is what's savage, implying that prospecting is what's bringing the savagery to the area. Apparently, the only thing that will cure this savagery is total deforestation…sounds, er, great?
Quote #6
'We are not savages; we are civilized men. I do not consider the law to be deficient; I mean to point out, merely, what happens when the savage meets the civil. Four months ago the men and women in my gaol-house were drunks and petty thieves. Now I see drunks and petty thieves who feel indignant, and entitled, and speak righteously, as if they have been unjustly tried. And they are angry' (I.4.147).
In addition to basically correcting Nilssen's romantic view of savagery, Shepard tries to drive home that there is something unique happening right now because the "savage" and the "civil" are in such close proximity in their neck of the woods. In his view, it's creating new tensions.