GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND ANECDOTES.
I hope I shall be excused for bringing here together into one view a
few observations and anecdotes which either could not well find their
places under any of the preceding divisions of my subject, or escaped
my recollection at the proper time. These additional traits will
contribute something to forming a correct idea of the Indian character
and manners.
I have observed a great similarity in the customs, usages, and opinions
of the different nations that I have seen, however distant from each
other, and even though their languages differ so much that no traces
of a common origin can be found in their etymology. The uniformity
which exists in the manners of the Christian nations of Europe is
attributed to their common religion, and to their having once been
connected together as parts of the Roman Empire. But no such bond of
union appears to have subsisted between the Iroquois, for instance, and
the Delawares, and yet, the language excepted, they resemble each other
considerably more than the inhabitants of some European countries. I
shall not endeavour to account for this remarkable fact, but I think it
my duty to state it.
I have shown in a former chapter[237] that the mythological notions of
the Delaware Indians prevailed in the same manner among the Wabash; it
is not in that alone that those nations resemble each other, though
living at a great distance. It is the custom among the Delawares that
if a hunter shoots down a deer when another person is present, or
even accidentally comes by before the skin is taken off, he presents
it to him, saying, “Friend, skin your deer,” and immediately walks
off. William Wells, whom I have before spoken of, once paid me this
compliment, and when I asked him the reason, he answered that it was
the custom among the Indians on the Wabash.
In the year 1792, I travelled with a number of Indian chiefs of various
tribes from Post Vincennes to Marietta, and I found in most instances
that their usages and customs were the same that I had observed among
the Delawares.[238]
The Indians in general, although they understand and speak our
language, yet prefer speaking to a white man through an interpreter.
For this they give various reasons. With some it is a matter of pride;
as their chiefs deliver their public speeches through interpreters,
they think that they appear with more dignity when they do the same.
Others imagine that their words will have greater weight and effect
when expressed in proper grammatical language, while some are afraid
of committing mistakes when speaking in an idiom not their own.
Particularly when they have a joke to pass, a hint to give, or a shrewd
remark to make, they wish it to have all the advantages of a good
translation, and that their wit may not be spoiled by a foreign accent,
improper expression, or awkward delivery.
Though the Indian is naturally serious, he does not dislike a jest on
proper occasions, and will, sometimes, even descend to a pun. Once at a
dinner given at Marietta by the late Colonel Sproat,[239] to a number
of gentlemen and Indian chiefs of various tribes, a Delaware chief,
named George Washington, asked me what the name of our good friend,
the Colonel, meant in the Lenape language? It should be observed that
Colonel Sproat was remarkably tall. I told him that _Sprout_ (for so
the name is pronounced) meant in English a shoot, or twig of a tree.
“No, no,” replied the Indian, “no shoot or twig, but the _tree_ itself.”
I have spoken before[240] of the wit of the Indians, and the shrewd and
pointed remarks which they occasionally make, but passed rather lightly
on the subject. A few characteristic anecdotes will best supply this
deficiency.
An Indian who spoke good English, came one day to a house where I was
on business, and desired me to ask a man who was there and who owed him
some money, to give an order in writing for him to get a little salt at
the store, which he would take in part payment of his debt. The man,
after reproving the Indian for speaking through an interpreter when he
could speak such good English, told him that he must call again in an
hour’s time, for he was then too much engaged. The Indian went out and
returned at the appointed time, when he was put off again for another
hour, and when he came the third time, the other told him he was still
engaged, and he must come again in half an hour. My Indian friend’s
patience was now exhausted, he turned to me and addressed me thus in
his own language: “Tell this man,” said he, “that while I have been
waiting for his convenience to give me an order for a little salt, I
have had time to think a great deal. I _thought_ that when we Indians
want any thing of one another, we serve each other on the spot, or if
we cannot, we say so at once, but we never say to any one ‘call again!
call again! call again! three times call again!’ Therefore when this
man put me off in this manner, I _thought_ that, to be sure, the white
people were very ingenious, and probably he was able to do what no body
else could. I _thought_ that as it was afternoon when I first came,
and he knew I had seven miles to walk to reach my camp, he had it in
his power to stop the sun in its course, until it suited him to give
me the order that I wanted for a little salt. So _thought_ I, I shall
still have day light enough, I shall reach my camp before night, and
shall not be obliged to walk in the dark, at the risk of falling and
hurting myself by the way. But when I saw that the sun did not wait
for him, and I had at least to walk seven miles in an obscure night,
I _thought_ then, that it would be better if the white people were to
learn something of the Indians.”
I once asked an old Indian acquaintance of mine, who had come with
his wife to pay me a visit, where he had been, that I had not seen
him for a great while? “Don’t you know,” he answered, “that the
white people some time ago summoned us to a treaty, to buy land of
them?”[241]--“That is true,” replied I, “I had indeed forgotten it; I
thought you was just returned from your fall hunt.”--“No, no,” replied
the Indian, “my fall hunt has been lost to me this season; I had to go
and get my share of the purchase money for the land we sold.”--“Well
then,” said I, “I suppose you got enough to satisfy you?”
INDIAN. “I can shew you all that I got. I have received such and such
articles, (naming them and the quantity of each), do you think that is
enough?”
HECKEW. “That I cannot know, unless you tell me how much of the land
which was sold came to your share.”
INDIAN. (after considering a little), “Well, you, my friend! know who
I am, you know I am a kind of chief. I am, indeed, one, though none of
the greatest. Neither am I one of the lowest grade, but I stand about
in the middle rank. Now, as such, I think I was entitled to as much
land in the tract we sold as would lie within a day’s walk from this
spot to a point due north, then a day’s walk from that point to another
due west, from thence another day’s walk due south, then a day’s walk
to where we now are. Now you can tell me if what I have shewn you is
enough for all the land lying between these four marks?”
HECKEW. “If you have made your bargain so with the white people, it is
all right, and you probably have received your share.”
INDIAN. “Ah! but the white people made the bargain by themselves,
without consulting us. They told us that they would give us so much,
and no more.”
HECKEW. “Well, and you consented thereto?”
INDIAN. “What could we do, when they told us that they must have the
land, and for such a price? Was it not better to take something than
nothing? for they would have the land, and so we took what they gave
us.”
HECKEW. “Perhaps the goods they gave you came high in price. The goods
which come over the great salt water lake sometimes vary in their
prices.”
INDIAN. “The traders sell their goods for just the same prices that
they did before, so that I rather think it is the _land_ that has
_fallen_ in value. We, Indians, do not understand selling lands to the
white people; for when we sell, the price of land is always low; land
is then cheap, but when the white people sell it out among themselves,
it is always dear, and they are sure to get a high price for it. I had
done much better if I had stayed at home and minded my fall hunt. You
know I am a pretty good hunter and might have killed a great many deer,
sixty, eighty, perhaps a hundred, and besides caught many raccoons,
beavers, otters, wild cats, and other animals, while I was at this
treaty. I have often killed five, six, and seven deer in one day. Now I
have lost nine of the best hunting weeks in the season by going to get
what you see! We were told the precise time when we must meet. We came
at the very day, but the great white men did not do so, and without
them nothing could be done. When after some weeks they at last came, we
traded, we sold our lands and received goods in payment, and when that
was over, I went to my hunting grounds, but the best time, the rutting
time, being over, I killed but a few. Now, help me to count up what I
have lost by going to the treaty. Put down eighty deer; say twenty of
them were bucks, each buckskin one dollar; then sixty does and young
bucks at two skins for a dollar; thirty dollars, and twenty for the old
bucks, make fifty dollars lost to me in deer skins. Add, then, twenty
dollars more to this for raccoon, beaver, wild cat, black fox, and
otter skins, and what does the whole amount to?”
HECKEW. “Seventy dollars.”
INDIAN. “Well, let it be only seventy dollars, but how much might I
have bought of the traders for this money! How well we might have
lived, I and my family in the woods during that time! How much meat
would my wife have dried! how much tallow saved and sold or exchanged
for salt, flour, tea and chocolate! All this is now lost to us; and
had I not such a good wife (stroking her under the chin) who planted
so much corn, and so many beans, pumpkins, squashes, and potatoes last
summer, my family would now live most wretchedly. I have learned to be
wise by going to treaties, I shall never go there again to sell my land
and lose my time.”
I shall conclude this desultory chapter with another anecdote which is
strongly characteristic of the good sense of the Indians and shews how
much their minds are capable of thought and reflection.
Seating myself once upon a log, by the side of an Indian, who was
resting himself there, being at that time actively employed in fencing
in his corn-field, I observed to him that he must be very fond of
working, as I never saw him idling away his time, as is so common with
the Indians. The answer which he returned made considerable impression
on my mind; I have remembered it ever since, and I shall try to relate
it as nearly in his own words as possible.
“My friend!” said he, “the fishes in the water and the birds in the air
and on the earth have taught me to work; by their examples I have been
convinced of the necessity of labour and industry. When I was a young
man I loitered a great deal about, doing nothing, just like the other
Indians, who say that working is only for the whites and the negroes,
and that the Indians have been ordained for other purposes, to hunt
the deer, and catch the beaver, otter, raccoon and such other animals.
But it one day so happened, that while a hunting, I came to the bank
of the Susquehannah, where I sat down near the water’s edge to rest a
little, and casting my eye on the water, I was forcibly struck when
I observed with what industry the _Meechgalingus_[242] heaped small
stones together, to make secure places for their spawn, and all this
labour they did with their mouths and bodies without hands! Astonished
as well as diverted, I lighted my pipe, sat a while smoking and looking
on, when presently a little bird not far from me raised a song which
enticed me to look that way; while I was trying to distinguish who
the songster was, and catch it with my eyes, its mate, with as much
grass as with its bill it could hold, passed close by me and flew into
a bush, where I perceived them together busy building their nest and
singing as they went along. I entirely forgot that I was a hunting, in
order to contemplate the objects I had before me. I saw the birds of
the air and the fishes in the water working diligently and cheerfully,
and all this without hands! I thought it was strange, and became lost
in contemplation! I looked at myself, I saw two long arms, provided
with hands and fingers besides, with joints that might be opened and
shut at pleasure. I could, when I pleased, take up anything with these
hands, hold it fast or let it loose, and carry it along with me as I
walked. I observed moreover that I had a strong body capable of bearing
fatigue, and supported by two stout legs, with which I could climb
to the top of the highest mountains and descend at pleasure into the
valleys. And is it possible, said I, that a being so formed as I am,
was created to live in idleness, while the birds who have no hands, and
nothing but their little bills to help them, work with cheerfulness and
without being told to do so? Has then the great Creator of man and of
all living creatures given me all these limbs for no purpose? It cannot
be; I will try to go to work. I did so, and went away from the village
to a spot of good land, built a cabin, enclosed ground, planted corn,
and raised cattle. Ever since that time I have enjoyed a good appetite
and sound sleep; while the others spend their nights in dancing and are
suffering with hunger, I live in plenty; I keep horses, cows, hogs and
fowls; I am happy. See! my friend; the birds and fishes have brought me
to reflection and taught me to work!”