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32 chapters
INTRODUCTION.
INTRODUCTION.
On glancing at the table of contents the book may seem fragmentary, but instead of devoting a whole long chapter to the dry details of “manners and customs,” I have woven these usually uninteresting materials into the Biographies, so that no one part can be at all understood or appreciated without reading the whole. My title will not be so attractive to American ears as if it related to any other unknown people. A tour in Arabia, or Africa, or Kamchatka , with far less important and interesting
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THE IROQUOIS. CHAPTER I. NATIONAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER.
THE IROQUOIS. CHAPTER I. NATIONAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER.
“Indians believed in witches and burned them too!” Did not the sainted Baxter, with the Bible in his hand, pronounce it right? and was not the Indian permitted to be present, when a quiet, unoffending woman was cast into the fire by the decree of a Puritan council? To come down to more decidedly Christian times, we [ 22 ] are yet called upon to shudder at the revelations of Howard and Miss Dix. It is not so very long since, in Protestant England, hanging was the punishment of a petty theft, and
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CHAPTER II. NATIONAL GOVERNMENT; OR, LONG HOUSE OF THE IROQUOIS LEAGUE.
CHAPTER II. NATIONAL GOVERNMENT; OR, LONG HOUSE OF THE IROQUOIS LEAGUE.
To-do-da-ho, was at first opposed to the league, because as the Sachems were all to be of equal power, he would be deprived of his importance. But to compensate him for giving up the absolute authority he had been accustomed to exercise, the first Sachemship was named for him, and the title would descend to all who afterwards should fill the same office. And though he who inherits it has really no more power than the others, the name signifies to them a combination of more noble qualities than a
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CHAPTER III. THE RELIGION OF THE IROQUOIS.
CHAPTER III. THE RELIGION OF THE IROQUOIS.
Not very long ago, a Romish priest visited a small Indian settlement, for the purpose of establishing a church. The people met together to listen to the expounding of the new doctrine and ceremonies; and after respectful attention to all the preacher had to say, an aged chief arose, and deliberately and coolly remarked that he could not see the necessity of a change from their Pagan customs and doctrines to these which had been presented, as they were so similar. So they went on in the old way,
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CHAPTER IV. CUSTOMS AND INDIVIDUAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER.
CHAPTER IV. CUSTOMS AND INDIVIDUAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER.
They had probably known instances of persons reviving after they were supposed to be dead; and this led to the conclusion, that the spirit sometimes returned to animate the body, after it had once fled. If there were no signs of life for ten days, the fire was extinguished, and the body left unmolested, till decomposition had begun to take place, when the remains were buried, or as was often the case, kept in the lodge for years. If they were obliged to desert a settlement where they had long re
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A LOVE LEGEND.
A LOVE LEGEND.
Then the father’s breast was rent, but too late to save his child. At the bottom of the gulf, one hundred and fifty feet from where he stood, lay the mangled bodies of the two, and there he commanded that they should be buried. Two hollows like sunken graves are to this day pointed out as the “burial place of the lovers.” It is a wild, romantic [ 95 ] haunt, but quiet now, save where a brook slowly murmurs along as if to chant a requiem for the dead. Col. McKenney, who was for seventeen years at
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LEGEND OF THE SENECAS CONCERNING THEIR ORIGIN.
LEGEND OF THE SENECAS CONCERNING THEIR ORIGIN.
The two following, are the legends concerning the principal medicines used among the Iroquois. The ancient manner of administering them, was to take a small wooden goblet, and go to a running stream, and dipping towards the way which the stream ran, fill the goblet and return to set it by the fire, with some tobacco near it. A prayer is offered, while tobacco is thrown upon the fire, that the words may ascend upon the smoke. The medicine is placed upon a piece of skin near the goblet, and being
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MEDICINE LEGENDS.
MEDICINE LEGENDS.
When the medicine is used which is described in the second legend, the tune is sung which was heard at its [ 110 ] discovery, both at the ceremonies of the feast and the time of administering it. They seem to think the ceremonies effectual in making the medicinal qualities of the compound imperishable. Each medicine man has a large quantity which he keeps in a bag, and in order not to exhaust the whole, now and then adds pulverized corn roots, squash vines, &c., and whenever it is admini
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A HUNTING LEGEND.
A HUNTING LEGEND.
Ho-cha-gah was a hunter of great renown. His wife had plenty of venison. In his tent were many furs and nice skins, and the story of his adventures has come down through many generations. He built him a little hut beside a lake, where the dark forest came down to its silvery border, and stretched far away over the mountain. Every day he took his bow and quiver of arrows, and went forth to find the deer or the wolf, and trap the beaver or the otter, but this time he was not successful. Many month
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ADVENTURES OF THE HUNTER HO-CHA-GAH.
ADVENTURES OF THE HUNTER HO-CHA-GAH.
As soon as he was set free, he proceeded on his way and came to a large stream, the color of which was bright crimson. Never before had he seen any thing so beautiful. He drank of it and the taste was like a ripe strawberry. He followed it to its source, and found it issued from one of these berries, the size of which was marvellous, and gave rise to a never failing rivulet, to refresh the hunter when he was weary and found no food. Again he pursued his way, and whilst wandering in the forest he
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A PIGMY LEGEND.
A PIGMY LEGEND.
“The Midsummer Night’s Dream” of Shakspeare, or Spenser’s “Fairy Queen,” have not been the less admired because they were utterly improbable. I cannot relate any thing so beautiful in the way of Indian fairy stories, but those which I relate, and hundreds which have never been related, are exceedingly beautiful in their own metaphorical language; and I almost falter in attempting to convey any idea of their imaginative creations, in English. The following are faint transcripts of the original: T
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LEGEND OF THE JO-GO-O, OR PIGMIES DESTROYING THE MONSTER BUFFALOES.
LEGEND OF THE JO-GO-O, OR PIGMIES DESTROYING THE MONSTER BUFFALOES.
All the little buffaloes from far and near came regularly to dance on the spot where their progenitors were slain, and the Indian, as he passes the place, shows a particle from some mammoth bone, to wear as a charm to procure him whatever he desires—the love of a beautiful maiden—success on the war path, or plenty of game in his hunting excursions. In this story is developed the principle upon which war was waged among the Iroquois. Revenge for a great injury was the cause of the beginnings of s
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A WAR LEGEND.
A WAR LEGEND.
There lived an aged Indian almost alone in the forest, with his wife and two sons. They had never heard of war or dissension; then the woods echoed only the hunter’s happy song, and the sweet melodies of the birds. But there came a vision to the father concerning the future, when nations would hate one another, and the wilderness would resound to the shrill war-whoop, and the tomahawk and scalping-knife would be used among his people. So he called his sons and bade them listen to his instruction
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THE VIRGIN OF WAR.
THE VIRGIN OF WAR.
But they were not content. They had tasted of excitement, and panted again for the war-path. But now their enemies were prepared, and one was taken prisoner, yet they knew not what to do, for they had never before had conflicts with enemies. But the youthful warrior remembered his father’s instructions concerning the treatment of prisoners, and told them he would die by fire—he would be burned at the stake. So with his own hands he piled the fagots and wound the withes about his body, and bade t
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MYTHOLOGICAL LEGENDS.
MYTHOLOGICAL LEGENDS.
A young maiden residing at Ga-u-gwa, a village above Niagara Falls, at the mouth of Cayuga creek, had been contracted in marriage to an old man of ugly manners and disagreeable person. As the marriage was hateful to her, and by the customs of the nations there was no escape, [ 132 ] she resolved upon self-destruction . Launching a bark canoe upon the Niagara, she directed it towards the current, and was soon swept over the frightful precipice amid the foaming waters. He-no the Thunderer had his
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THE LEGEND OF HE-NO, THE THUNDERER.
THE LEGEND OF HE-NO, THE THUNDERER.
Ga-oh was the Spirit of the winds, and is represented in the form of a man, with a face furrowed by age, sitting in solitary confinement, with a tangle of discordant winds ever around him; when he is restless, the rushing noise of the mighty wind is heard, in the forest and upon the sea. On his motions depend the rolling of the billows, and the fury of the tempest. He puts the whirlwind in motion, and bids it again be still. When he is perfectly quiet there is silence over all the earth, and a g
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GA-OH.
GA-OH.
Seven little boys asked their mothers to permit them [ 134 ] to make a feast; but they were denied. Still intent upon their purpose, they went alone and procured a little white dog to sacrifice, and while dancing around the fire, they were suddenly carried away through the air by some invisible spirit. Their mothers gazed after them with inconsolable anguish, till they saw them take their place in the sky among the starry hosts, where they are dancing still as the seven stars of the Pleiades. Th
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THE SEVEN STARS.
THE SEVEN STARS.
Of all the spiritual creations of the Indian, there is none more beautiful than the one concerning the guardians which they imagine to preside over their favorite vegetables, corn, beans, and squashes . Each of these has a spirit, but a separate name is not given to each spirit. They have the forms of beautiful females, and are represented as loving one another as sisters, and dwelling together in perfect unity and happiness. The vines of these vegetables grow in the same soil, and often from th
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THE THREE SISTERS.
THE THREE SISTERS.
To be taken captive by the Indians, was among the early colonists considered the most terrible of all calamities; and it was indeed a fearful thing to become the victim of their revenge. But those who were enduring the actual sufferings of captives, or suffering still more from terror of uncertain evils, thought little of the provocation given by our own people. The innocent often suffered for the guilty, and however persevering the efforts of the government to be just, in its infancy, in a wild
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CHAPTER VII. A CAPTIVE’S LIFE AMONG INDIANS, ILLUSTRATED BY THE LIFE OF “THE WHITE WOMAN.”
CHAPTER VII. A CAPTIVE’S LIFE AMONG INDIANS, ILLUSTRATED BY THE LIFE OF “THE WHITE WOMAN.”
Mary Jewison was eighty years a resident among the Senecas, and in the early part of the time the forests had few clearings, and the comforts and the vices of white men prevailed but little among them. She was born on the ocean, with the billowy sea for her cradle and the tempest for her lullaby. Her parents emigrated from England to this country in 1742, and settled in the unfortunate vale [ 140 ] of Wyoming, where date her first remembrances, which were of the woes that fell upon her family—th
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CHAPTER VIII. ELOQUENCE AMONG THE IROQUOIS—RED JACKET, OR SA-GO-YE-WAT-HA.
CHAPTER VIII. ELOQUENCE AMONG THE IROQUOIS—RED JACKET, OR SA-GO-YE-WAT-HA.
As the government and whole construction of the Iroquois confederacy was a pure democracy, few were born to titles. All honors must be earned. Sometimes families gained a kind of distinction by their wisdom in council, or their bravery in war, as did that of Brandt, the great Mohawk chief; but Red Jacket had an humble origin, even in the estimation of his own people. His birth-place was Canoga, west of Cayuga Lake, in 1750. It has been the universal testimony of books that he was a coward; and t
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CHAPTER IX. SARCASM AND SAGACITY—RED JACKET, OR SA-GO-YE-WAT-HA.
CHAPTER IX. SARCASM AND SAGACITY—RED JACKET, OR SA-GO-YE-WAT-HA.
“Mrs. Porter immediately confirmed what I had said, and gave special point to the hospitality of the house, and the great desire I had to see Red Jacket. Her appeal, added to the reply, relaxed the rigor of his manner and that of the other Chiefs, while it relieved our interview of all painful feelings. “After this general letting down of the scene, Red Jacket turned to me familiarly and asked: ‘What are you? You say you are not a government agent; are you a gambler (meaning a land speculator),
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YOUNG-KING.
YOUNG-KING.
This has been the case with many, and made it almost impossible for the missionaries to convince them that a religion taught by such a people, could have in it any good thing. And only by living among them, and exemplifying its principles by long and intimate intercourse, could induce them to listen to the Gospel messages. Young-King was one of the first among the Seneca chiefs to see the good influence of education and the Christian religion upon his people; and his influence was very great, st
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CHAPTER XI. INDIAN MAGNANIMITY ILLUSTRATED BY THE LIFE OF CORNPLANTER.
CHAPTER XI. INDIAN MAGNANIMITY ILLUSTRATED BY THE LIFE OF CORNPLANTER.
In a speech which he once wrote to the Governor of Pennsylvania, he says of himself: “When I was a child, I played with the butterfly, the grasshopper, and the frogs; and as I grew up, I began to pay some attention, and play with the Indian boys in the neighborhood; they took notice of my skin being a different color from theirs, and spoke about it. I inquired of my mother the cause, and she told me that my father was a resident in Albany. I still ate my food out of a bark dish. I grew up to be
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SPEECH OF LOGAN.
SPEECH OF LOGAN.
The history of Treaties is by far the darkest of all the pages of Indian history. War and bloodshed are terrible,—terrible indeed; the stories of massacres chill the blood in our veins; and the bitter strife of war is revolting to all the finer feelings of our nature. But there has been a far more bitter strife of treaties, at which the heart bleeds, and the spirit moans. When the Six Nations were fairly subdued, and settled on the free reservations which were left to them in the western part of
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CHAPTER XIII. THE DARKEST PAGE OF INDIAN HISTORY.
CHAPTER XIII. THE DARKEST PAGE OF INDIAN HISTORY.
Extract from a Report, made by a deputation of Friends, to investigate the true nature of the differences between the land speculators and the Indians:— “It has been common for those who would deprive the Indians of their lands, first to describe them as ignorant, or stupid, or savage; and then, ‘for such worthy cause, to deem them as their lawful prey,’ to put them out of the pale of civilization, and then shut upon them the gate of mercy. “But it is not true, that these remnants of the Six Nat
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CHAPTER XIV. THE EDUCATED INDIAN.
CHAPTER XIV. THE EDUCATED INDIAN.
“How much of the kindliness of friendship for them, and of esteem for their manners and customs would you feel ? Would not ‘the milk of human kindness’ in your [ 269 ] breasts be turned to the gall of hatred towards them? And have not we , the original and undisputed possessors of this country, been treated worse than you would be, should any supposed case be transferred to reality. “But I will leave the consideration of this point for the present, by saying, what I believe every person who hear
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CHAPTER XV. THE FUTURE OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN.
CHAPTER XV. THE FUTURE OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN.
After awhile he spoke, saying, “Yes, sir; I will go to Ohio and read law with Mr. McLean. I will do any thing that it may be your pleasure for me to do. I should indeed be an ingrate to thwart your kind designs towards me in any thing. But the seal is upon my destiny! ” When the time was fixed for him to go, day after day he still lingered, so great was his reluctance to leave home, and father, and mother, and sisters and friends, to become, as he believed, an alien evermore. But he went, and in
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GAA NAH 8. L. M.
GAA NAH 8. L. M.
O gwe nyoo′ gā̆h′, a ga deā̆h′seek Heh syah daa deh, lis′ ne Je sus; Tā̆h′ā̆h; tā̆h ā̆h deh o gwe nyooh′, Neh huh′ noo′wak ni gooh′da aak. Iis, sā̆h ā̆h, ji sa′yah daa gwā̆h′, Na gat hwa is hā̆h; aa′gā̆ noh, Gih shā̆h′, deh sa′yah da geh hā̆h, A yò dā̆s′theh oh, naeh, ne neh. Deh oi′wa yā̆s doh na′ga deā̆h, Iis ne gā̆h sa dyā̆ nohk′dah oh He yoan jadeh, kuh, he goh heh; Iis, kuh, des gā̆h′nya doh dyòt gont. Deī oi wah′gĕh na ga deā̆h seek; Tā̆h ā̆h, waeh, Nais, heh sa deā̆h oh, Oi wa neā̆′gwat n
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NO. II.
NO. II.
The following documents from the Indian State Department , will show the advance which has been made in the science of government, and the art of diplomacy: The nation has recently undergone quite a revolution, and the people have substituted a popular Representative Government, for the government of the Chiefs, which has heretofore existed. At a Convention, held at Cattaraugus on the 4th of December, 1848, the delegates, in a very formal manner, abrogated the old government, and proclaimed the
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NO. III.
NO. III.
We, the people of the Seneca Nation of Indians, by virtue of the right inherent in every people, trusting in the justice and necessity of our undertaking, and humbly invoking the blessing of the God of Nations upon our efforts to improve our civil condition, and to secure to our nation the administration of equitable, wholesome laws, do hereby abolish, abrogate and annul our form of government by Chiefs, because it has failed to answer the purposes for which all governments should be created. It
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NO. IV.
NO. IV.
Memorial of the Seneca Women to P. E. Thomas. [ Original sent to the Indian Bureau. ] Cattaraugus Reservation , Oct. 13, 1848. To our Respected Friend, Philip E. Thomas: The women of Cattaraugus Reservation wish to address to you a few words, in this time of our trouble, and we do so the more cheerfully, because the Friends are always laboring to promote the welfare of the females among the Indians, and to improve their condition. We would also request you to secure the influence of the Society
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