vacancy occurred having the name of the office in her keeping could
confer it on any one of the family (always on the female side), whom she
should regard as the most reliable. It was always the province of the
female head of the household to settle such questions although she
consulted the whole household as to their judgment of the fitness or
unfitness of any candidate. In like manner she could also depose (knock
the horns off), for any dereliction of duty. After the election etc. the
act would be confirmed (Da-ye-a-wit ha-di-yaas-gwah), by the relations
and then by the council. These rules applied to all ranks even to the
Ho-ya-neh-gowaak of the Grand Council.
Johnson says that 72 years ago[81] last spring, he with many others, was
invited over from Canada by the chiefs and that he was 20 years old at
this time and he says at that time the Indians had an idol over at
Cornplanter’s made of wood and ornamented with feathers around which
they sung and danced and called it GOD. He had seen the idol but not the
dancing around it. He says that Cornplanter’s son threw it into the
river (corroborating the story I have heard before). He says that he
never knew of any other such idol. But he says that the women very
commonly made little images, made in conformity to their dreams. (They
consider all remarkable dreams as revelations from the spirit world.)
And not alone the dolls, but images of any other object they might be
impressed by in a dream, they considered them to be their gods,
considered them as their protectors, etc. Some of them, not all of them,
used to dance before them as objects of worship. (He does not know that
the women ever received from the Catholics any images of the Virgin, but
he has often seen gold or silver crucifixes among them used simply as
ornaments.)
The Indians did not all believe that their New Years and other feasts
were ordained of God. Johnson says that when he was about ten years old
he saw some of the disgusting things connected with the New Years and he
asked his grandfather if God appointed that institution. The old man
said _No_. And from that time Johnson did not believe in them and hence
when the gospel came his mind was open to conviction and he embraced it.
He says they had the New Years from time immemorial, but the dog
burning, he thinks, was added to it not very long ago in consequence of
somebody’s dreams. The Big Feather and Green Corn dances he thinks were
of equal antiquity with the New Years. He thinks all other observances
comparatively modern, dreamed out and agreed upon and then proclaimed to
the people as being God’s ordinances.
He adds to the smoke of the tobacco to propitiate the pigeons when they
took their young, the offering of payment to the old ones,—a brass
kettle or other little dish full of ot-go-ah,[82] brooches, and various
other things which the man who raised the smoke would deposit on the
ground before he put the tobacco on the fire, and he says that they left
the kettle there when they left home, considering it a real payment to
the pigeons, etc. (The prayers are the same as related by Oliver
Silverheels.)
He says that anciently they had a law that if a man died his widow
should mourn a whole year, she should clothe herself in rags, keep her
head covered with rags, never wash her face or hands, never to go
anywhere except at night weeping to the grave. (The same rules applied
in case it was her child that died. It was the general law of mourning.)
The chiefs at last forbade these customs, as being too hard, often
resulting in the death of the mourners before the year was up, and they
appointed that the mourning should last only ten days, at the end of
which they should hold the funeral feast (Ho-non-di-aak-hoh-ga-ya-soh),
and during these ten days they should abstain from all ordinary
business; a chief, e.g. could not meet in council or attend any public
business till the ten days were over. At the funeral feast the chief or
other person would proclaim the removal of the disabilities.
Johnson says that a long time ago squashes were found growing wild. He
says that he has seen them and that they were quite unpalatable, but the
Indians used to boil and eat them. He says that in their ancient wars
with the Southern Indians they brought back squashes that were sweet and
palatable and beans which grow wild in the South, calico colored, and
which were very good, and he thinks the white folks have never used
them. Also the o-yah-gwa-oweh they brought from the south where it grows
wild, also the various kinds of corn, black, red and squaw corn they
brought from the prairie country south where they found it growing wild.
All these things they found on their war expeditions and brought them
here and planted them and thus they abound here, but he does not know
where they first found the potato.
STONE GIANTS.
He says the old people used to tell the story that after God had made
the world and man and animals he was one day walking around and he saw a
strange people coming towards him, clothed with stone and he asked them
who they were and who created them. They replied that they were free and
independent and that they had no creator, that they were their own
masters. He then said, “Where are you going?” They said, “We are going
to find men that we may devour them.” He said, “You must not go. Very
likely if you do they will kill you.” But the more he forbid them the
more they were determined to go. So he went away and blackened his face
with coal and took him a basswood club three or four inches through and
came around in front of them and fell upon them and killed all but two
who fled and he came around again and having washed off the black met
them in the place where he first saw them, and said, “What is the matter
with you that you flee so?” They answered, “They have been killing us,
and we only are left.” He said, “That is what I told you,” though he had
done it himself. He said then, “You must go away and leave mankind
alone. You must keep away from and never come nigh them again.”
THE THUNDER GOD.
He also at another time saw the Hih-noh coming towards him and did not
know him for he had not created him and he said to him, Who are you? Who
created you? And whom do you own as your lord? He answered no one. Then
he said What do you think of men? He replied Oh they are my
grandchildren and if you wish me to do anything I can do it, (or I am
ready to do it.) GOD said to him, What can you do. Oh he said I can wash
the earth, &c. And so the Indians, when it thunders think that Hih-noh
is washing the earth again and they call him Grandfather because he told
GOD that they were his grandchildren.
ANOTHER STORY, OR FABLE, THE THUNDERER.
In ancient times there was a war party got up to go against the
southwestern Indians. There were four or five men and there was a poor
friendless boy, an orphan, and he came to one of these men and found him
painted and ready for the expedition. He painted himself, and the man
befriended him and sent him to where there was a company of men, who
seeing him painted enquired the object and said to him, that man is your
friend? He said yes and they said we will go with you. There were five
in the party besides this boy whose name was Shot-do-gas, in allusion to
his filthy miserable condition. They came together near Smoke’s Creek
(near Buffalo) and there they made a bark canoe and then started up the
lake. They came after several nights to Ga-yah-hah-geh (Clear Land), and
there while the moon was yet high and it was quite light, they became
sleepy, and the leader said Let us stop here. So they ran in among the
cattail flags and tied a lot of them together on each side of the canoe
and fastened it to them, so as to have it lie still. (Noe-oh-gwah
ga-ya-soh, cattail flag.) So they slept in the canoe. After a little
while the leader awoke and thought he saw evidence that they were in
motion, and putting his hand over the side of the canoe, felt the rush
of water, and aroused his companions, saying Wake up! The canoe is
running swiftly. Another put his hand on the other side of the canoe,
and said Yes we are going rapidly! They could not tell the cause of the
motion, but the canoe kept on. They lay in it mostly asleep and when
they awaked they found themselves at Green Bay, and the canoe kept on,
and they finally landed at Chicago, at daylight, having come from
Cleveland in one night. They took the canoe into the bushes and hid it
and got ready their breakfast and ate it and about noon they found a
trail leading off into the country and they started on that trail and
they went till night and camped and started again the next morning, and
till perhaps 5 p. m., they saw a man coming. They stopped beside the
trail till he came up. He said the chief sent me on this trail saying
you will meet men coming. Tell them to come on with you. They went on a
great way for he had run very fast and at length they came to a house.
Beside the door there was something tied and concealed, and he said to
them you must not look upon this. Something will happen to whosoever
looks upon it. (It was a She-wah, a sable.) They went into the house, no
one of them having looked upon the forbidden object. They found the
house full of people who made room for them, and all men, women and
children saluted them kindly. The chief said to his family We are in a
hard case we have nothing for these guests to eat. They can not eat our
food. You must provide for them of such kind of food as they can eat.
Four of them then went out and presently it began to thunder. Then these
men began to realize their situation. They had come into Hih-noh’s
house. The whole household were his family, although in form and speech
they seemed to be human beings. These four soon returned bringing with
them green corn, beans, squashes, etc., for their guests. The women
cooked these things for them and they ate. They soon discovered that the
Hih-noh family lived upon serpents,—that whenever they discovered a
snake they shot down a bolt upon him, and carried him home for food, and
that it was this that made the old man say We are in a hard case because
our guests cannot eat our food. They remained there a long time living
together. At length the old man said to them, Pretty soon you will see
something coming in the air from the North. We have tried to kill it but
we cannot do it. You can do it for us. They then all went out and soon
there was a wind from the North and they saw something flying towards
them. It seemed to be a man entirely naked of a yellow color, without
wings or any means of flying, and yet it flew swiftly towards them.
Shot-da-gas said, “Shoot it with an arrow,” and he shot, and he shot and
the arrow fell below and he shot again but over-shot it. By the time his
third arrow was ready it had come directly overhead, and he shot and
pierced him through the body, so that he fell but a little way off. The
Hih-noh family were greatly rejoiced and poured forth many thanks upon
him for his exploit.
Afterwards Hih-noh said, Yonder is another thing which we cannot kill,
and he led them a long way till they came to a monstrous big whitewood
tree, and from a large limb projecting from near the top there was a
creature sitting and Hih-noh said Shoot that, and Shot-de-gas drew his
bow and shot it through the body. It crawled along the limb and finally
fell, (bum!) and was stone dead. It proved to be a monstrous porcupine
with quills as large as one’s finger, which the Hih-noh family had tried
in vain to kill.
They staid a long time, when at last Hih-noh said, they are about to
take you home, but let Shot-do-gas remain with us, we will take care of
him. Shot-do-gas was willing and his friend gave his consent. They went
out and saw a very big Mortar, (gä-ne-gah-tah,) and Hih-noh called them
to it. Shot-do-gas climbed into it and there he was killed, but Hih-noh
restored him to life and he also became a hih-noh. Then the five men
were about to start, and all at once there commenced a terrible thunder
storm and Hih-noh said now take them home, and suddenly they were taken
up on the backs of as many men and carried along with the storm and down
at Smoke’s Creek where they started. They then washed off their paint
and started to go home, but they found the trail grown up with bushes;
they kept on to where there was a bark shanty, it had been rebuilt,—to
the council house, it was gone, every(thing) was changed they kept on
and at last met a man whom they did not know, he asked them where and
whither they were going, they replied we went from here and have come
home, he said wait and I will go and tell the people. He found the chief
and told him here are men whom I never saw before, saying that they have
come home. The chief gave the call implying important business,—the
people rushed together into the council house, the man told what he had
seen, the chief said to him go call these men, they came, no one knew
them and they knew no one. The chief asked the leader of the party for
his name, we may perhaps remember that, he would not tell his own name
but the rest of the party told it and each others names, but nobody
recollected them. Then said the chief there is a very old woman living
yonder, go call her, if so be she can recollect them. She came and they
told her their names and that one of the party named Shot-do-gas had
remained behind. She recollected the leaving of the party a long, long
time ago, and recalled their names, and said that when they went away,
there was a poor miserable little boy, on that account called
Shot-do-gas, who left with them. It proved that one of these men was
elder brother of this old woman, and he returned in all the freshness of
youth, as when he left, while his younger sister had become a
superannuated old woman. All the rest of the people had grown up since
they left and therefore did not know them. She, the sole survivor of her
generation, was the only one to recognize them and remove the unbelief
of those that did not believe that they had ever gone from this region
of country.
D. EMBLEMATIC TREES IN IROQUOIAN MYTHOLOGY.[83]
BY ARTHUR C. PARKER.
A student of Iroquoian folk-lore, ceremony or history will note the many
striking instances in which sacred or symbolic trees are mentioned. One
finds allusions to such trees not only in the myths and traditions which
have long been known to literature and in the speeches of Iroquois
chiefs when met in council with the French and English colonists, but
also in the more recently discovered wampum codes and in the rituals of
the folk-cults.
There are many references to the “tree of peace” in the colonial
documents on Indian relations. Colden in his Five Nations, for example,
quotes the reply of the Mohawk chief to Lord Effingham in July, 1684.
The Mohawk agree to the peace propositions and their spokesman says: “We
now plant a Tree who’s tops will reach the Sun, and its Branches spread
far abroad, so that it shall be seen afar off; & we shall shelter
ourselves under it, and live in Peace, without molestation.” (Gives two
Beavers).[84]
In a footnote Colden says that the Five Nations always express peace
under the metaphor of a tree. Indeed in the speech, a part of which is
quoted above, the Peace tree is mentioned several times.
In Garangula’s reply to De la Barre, as recorded by Lahontan are other
references to the “tree.” In his “harangue” Garangula said:
“We fell upon the Illinese and the Oumamis, because they cut down the
Trees of Peace—.” “The Tsonontouans, Gayogouans, Onnotagues, Onnoyoutes,
and Agnies declare that they interred the Axe at Cataracuoy, in the
Presence of your Predecessor, in the very Center of the Fort; and
planted the Tree of Peace in the same place; ’twas then stipulated that
the Fort should be us’d as a Place of Retreat for Merchants, and not as
a Refuge for Soldiers.... You ought to take Care that so great a number
of Militial Men as we now see ... do not stifle and choak the Tree of
Peace.... it must needs be of pernicious Consequences to stop its Growth
and hinder it to shade both your Country and ours with its Leaves.”[85]
[Illustration:
Fig. 1.—The pictograph of the sky-dome in the Walum Olum. _a_ is
interpreted “At all times above the earth.” _b_, “He made them [sun
and moon] all to move evenly.”
]
The above examples are only a few of many that might be quoted to show
how commonly the Iroquois mentioned the peace tree. There are also
references to the tree which was uprooted “to afford a cavity in which
to bury all weapons of war,” the tree being replanted as a memorial.
In the Iroquoian myth, whether Cherokee, Huron, Wyandot, Seneca or
Mohawk, the “tree of the upper world” is mentioned, though the character
of the tree differs according to the tribe and sometimes according to
the myth-teller.
Before the formation of the lower or earth-world the Wyandot tell of the
upper or sky world and of the “Big Chief” whose daughter became
strangely ill.[86] The chief instructs his daughter to “dig up the wild
apple tree; what will cure her she can pluck from among its roots.”
David Boyle[87] wondered why the apple tree was called “wild,” but that
the narrator meant wild-apple and not wild apple is shown by the fact
that the Seneca in some versions called the tree the crab-apple. The
native apple tree with its small fruit was intended by the Indian myth
teller who knew also of the cultivated apple and took the simplest way
to differentiate the two.
With the Seneca this tree is described more fully. In manuscript left by
Mrs. Asher Wright, the aged missionary to the Seneca, I find the
cosmologic myth as related to her by Esquire Johnson, a Seneca, in 1870.
Mrs. Wright and her husband understood the Seneca language perfectly and
published a mission magazine as early as 1838 in that tongue. Her
translation of Johnson’s myth should therefore be considered authentic.
She wrote: “—there was a vast expanse of water—. Above it was the great
blue arch of air but no signs of anything solid—. In the clear sky was
an unseen floating island sufficiently firm to allow trees to grow upon
it, and there were men-beings there. There was one great chief there who
gave the law to all the Ongweh or beings on the island. In the center of
the island there grew a tree so tall that no one of the beings who lived
there could see its top. On its branches flowers and fruit hung all the
year round. The beings who lived on the island used to come to the tree
and eat the fruit and smell the sweet perfume of the flowers. On one
occasion the chief desired that the tree be pulled up. The Great Chief
was called to look at the great pit which was to be seen where the tree
had stood.” The story continues with the usual description of how the
sky-mother was pushed into the hole in the sky and fell upon the wings
of the waterfowl who placed her on the turtle’s back. After this mention
of the celestial tree in the same manuscript is the story of the central
world-tree. After the birth of the twins, Light One and Toad-like (or
dark) one, the Light One, also known as Good Minded, noticing that there
was no light, created the “tree of light.” This was a great tree having
at its topmost branch a great ball of light. At this time the sun had
not been created. It is significant as will appear later that the Good
Minded made his tree of light one that brought forth flowers from every
branch. After he had gone on experimenting and improving the earth “he
made a new light and hung it on the neck of a being and he called the
new light Gaa-gwaa (gä’´gwā) and instructed its bearer to run his course
daily in the heavens.” Shortly after he is said to have “dug up the tree
of light and looking into the pool of water in which the stump (trunk)
had grown he saw the reflection of his own face and thereupon conceived
the idea of creating Ongwe and made them both a man and a woman.”
The central world-tree is found also in Delaware mythology, though as
far as I discover it is not called the tree of light. The _Journal_[88]
of Dankers and Slyter records the story of creation as heard from the
Lenape of New Jersey in 1679. All things came from a tortoise, the
Indians told them. “It had brought forth the world and in the middle of
its back had sprung a tree upon whose branches men had grown.”[89] This
relation between men and the tree is interesting in comparison with the
Iroquois myth as it is also as the central world-tree. Both Lenape and
the Iroquois ideas are symbolic and those who delight in flights of
imagination might draw much from both.
[Illustration:
Fig. 2.—A false face leader rubbing his rattle on a stump. Drawn from
a photograph.
]
The Seneca world-tree is described elsewhere in my notes as a tree
whose branches pierce the sky and whose roots run down into the
underground waters of the under-world. This tree is mentioned in
various ceremonial rites of the Iroquois. With the False Face Company,
Hadĭgo^n’´săsho^n’´o^n, for example, the Great Face, chief of all the
False Faces, is said to be the invisible giant that guards the
world-tree (gaindowo´nĕ‘). He rubs his turtle shell rattle upon it to
obtain its power and this he imparts to all the visible false faces
worn by the Company. In visible token of this belief the members of
the Company rub their turtle rattles on pine tree trunks, believing
that they become filled with both the earth and the sky-power thereby.
In this use of the turtle shell rattle there is perhaps a recognition
of the connection between the turtle and the world-tree that grows
upon the primal turtle’s back.
In the prologue of the Wampum Code of the Five Nations Confederacy we
again find references to a symbolic “great tree.” In the code of
Dekānăwī´dă and with the Five Nations’ confederate lords (rodiyā´nĕr) “I
plant the Tree of the Great Peace. I plant it in your territory,
Adōdar´ho‘ and the Onondaga nation, in the territory of you who are
Firekeepers.
“I name the tree the Tree of the Great Long Leaves. Under the shade of
this Tree of Peace we spread the soft feathery down of the globe
thistle, there beneath the spreading branches of the Tree of Peace.”
In the second “law” of the code the four roots of the “tree” are
described and the law-giver says, “If any individual or any nation
outside the Five Nations shall obey the laws of the Great Peace and make
known their disposition to the Lords of the Confederacy, they may trace
the Roots to the Tree and if their minds are clean and obedient—they
shall be welcome to take shelter beneath the Tree of the Long Leaves.
“We place in the top of the Tree of the Long Leaves an Eagle who is able
to see afar;—he will warn the people.”
In another place is the following: “I Dekānăwī´dă, and the union lords
now uproot the tallest pine tree and into the cavity thereby made we
cast all weapons of war. Into the depths of the earth, down into the
deep under-earth currents of water flowing to unknown regions we cast
all the weapons of strife. We bury them from sight and we plant again
the tree. Thus shall the Great Peace, Kayĕ’´narhe‘kowa, be established.”
These laws and figures of speech are very evidently those which the
Iroquois speakers had in mind when addressing “peace councils” with the
whites.
Symbolic trees appear not only in Iroquois history, mythology and folk
beliefs but also in their decorative art. The numerous decorative forms
of trees embroidered in moose hair and porcupine quills by the eastern
Algonquins and by the Huron and the Iroquois appear to be attempts to
represent the world-tree and the celestial tree, in some cases with its
“all manner of fruits and flowers.” Many, if not most, of the modern
descendants of the old-time Indian, who copy these old designs have
forgotten their meanings and some have even invented new explanations. A
few of the more conservative, however, remember even yet the true
meaning of their designs and from such much of interest has been
learned.
[Illustration:
Fig. 3.—Portion of legging strip. The inward curving design at the top
sometimes symbolizes sleep or death. (Specimens collected for the
New York State Museum by M. R. Harrington.)
]
In examining examples of Iroquois decorative art one is immediately
impressed with the repeated use of a pattern consisting of a semi-circle
resting upon two parallel horizontal lines having at the top two
divergent curved lines each springing from the same point and curving
outward, like the end of a split dandelion stalk, (See fig. 4b.) This
design or symbol, with the Iroquois represents the celestial tree
growing from the top of the sky, or more properly, from the bottom of
the “above-sky world” (gä´oñyă’gĕ‘´). The two parallel lines represent
the earth. This symbol is found with the same meaning among the
Delaware. In the Walum Olum[90] parallel semi-circles represent the
sky-dome, though single semi-circles appear. Two parallel horizontal
lines, likewise, represent the earth. (See fig. I, a.)
[Illustration: