man without a cross

[Mark A. Mandel]

The other day I wrote:

>>>>>
I have just started _The Last Of The Mohicans_ and am puzzled by the
repeated use of the expression "man without a cross", often used by the
hero Hawkeye (Natty Bumppo, aka Leatherstocking aka Deerslayer...)
sometimes in reference to himself. Maybe it means a frontiersman, one who
travels the Indian country but is not a missionary; but I have not been
able to puzzle it out clearly. Can someone enlighten this benighted soul?
<<<<<

Having finished the book, I now understand it better. In the first
paragraph of (iirc) Chapter XXVI Hawkeye uses the expression in a more
expanded form and fuller context, making it clear that "no cross of blood"
refers to ethnically unmixed heritage: for Hawkeye, "white" with no
admixture of "redskin". Cooper refers to the natural differences between
the races (I'm giving up on scare quotes, take them as read) on almost
every page. I still don't get *why* he uses this expression in all the
places he does, but that's a literary question, not a linguistic one.

Does anyone know whether the expression was commonly understood in Cooper's
time or in 1752, the time in which the story is set?

-- Mark A. Mandel