I was told once about the Mowhawk Indians working on tall structures as steelworkers....apparently they had no fear of heights.....but....read on...

"Do the Mohawks really have no fear of heights? Their employers think so, and the Indians themselves like to make out as though dancing on some I-beam 600 feet in the air is no more disruptive to their peace of mind than stepping off a curb. Edmund Wilson, who wrote several essays about the Iroquois for the New Yorker in the 1950s, quoted one modest steel jockey's claim that he had "an uncanny sense of balance," and attributed their skill to "their earlier life, from threading forests and scaling mountains, from canoeing in streams rough with rapids. A very important factor is undoubtedly their habit, in walking, of putting one foot in front of the other, instead of straddling, as we seem to them to do. They do not need to make an effort in walking a narrow beam."

Far be it from me to make light of this portrait of the noble red man, but there may be a simpler explanation: they do it because it's macho. Evidence on this point comes to us from anthropologist Morris Freilich, who published a solemn academic study on the subject in 1958. Ordinarily Cecil doesn't take this kind of thing too seriously, but in this instance was impressed by Freilich's impeccable research methodology: he spent his nights getting schnockered with the Mohawks at their favorite bar in Brooklyn.

One night when they were all drunk the Indians admitted they were scared fecal matter-less while iron hopping; they just didn't admit it because of the above-mentioned warrior ethic. (They didn't actually say "warrior ethic," of course; that was Freilich's take on it.) Freilich pointed out in his article that the Iroquois warrior tradition boiled down to going off with the boys to perform insane feats of bravery and generally raise hell, then coming home and boasting about your exploits. The warpath being no longer socially acceptable, steelwork was the next best thing. Sure, it's one of those silly male things."