TWO DAYS IN A MOHAWK VILLAGE
A very voluminous writer, and an explorer of no small repute in
Germany--Johann Georg Kohl--has drawn up, from personal experience, as
exhaustive an account of the Mohawk section of the Iroquois Indians as
Surgeon Bigsby gave of the Huron and Cherokee branches of that once
powerful family. Herr Kohl spent the years 1859-60 in travelling about
the north-eastern portion of the United States and Southern Canada,
and thus was able to gather some interesting and valuable information
concerning the tribe, which the writers of story-books seem to have
maligned very much. He shows us the Mohawks of Quebec as hard-working
farmers, respectable traders in fur, bold hunters, and pious
Christians; and he reminds us that there is nothing extraordinary in
all this if we take into account a century and a half of French
influence at its best, together with the splendid labours of the
Jesuit missionary heroes.
From Lake Champlain, Herr Kohl travelled across the boundary in a
Canadian farmer's waggon, which eventually set him down at an Indian
village that stood on the verge of an immense pine-forest. To be
"dumped" down suddenly in a place where there is not a single white
person would be disconcerting enough to any but a man of inquiring and
adventurous disposition; but Kohl, on learning from his companion that
here was a purely native population, eagerly jumped out of the cart
with his gun and his luggage and bade the farmer drive on. Of course,
he was stared at; but so he would have been in an English or German
village; with this difference: that these Mohawk women and children
possessed a native politeness and readiness to oblige that few English
and fewer Germans can muster up. Kohl spoke encouragingly to the
starers; was there an inn in the place? he asked in French. No; there
was not. Where could he get a night's lodging then? Anywhere in the
village; perhaps the gentleman would like to see the chief's house, as
being the largest and most fitting for his reception. A neat little
old woman called a youth who was repairing a timber-trolley.
"Go, my son; carry the gentleman's _paquet_ and show him the chief's
house."
The idlers drew back, and though they continued to stare, made no
attempt to follow the stranger. He began to ask questions. Where were
all the men? The men were at work, a few in the fields, but most of
them in the forest--hunting, wood-lumbering, or clearing the traps set
for foxes, squirrels, etc.; many of them would be home by sundown.
The German looked curiously up the little street; nearly all the
houses were on one side of it; on the other there were but four
buildings; the church, which--said the lad--was visited three times a
week by a French _cure_ from a neighbouring town; the school, the
chief's dwelling, and the "assembly house"--a long wooden shed where
public functions took place; e.g. certain games and sports, the
entertaining of chiefs from a distance, tribal discussions, etc.
"This is where the chief lives, Monsieur," said the Indian lad,
pointing to a wooden hut about thirty feet square, painted a dull red,
with a bright yellow door. The place was not architecturally
beautiful, to be sure; but it was the residence of the ruler of the
place; and, as the lad tapped at the door, the traveller began to
experience the same diffidence that a stranger in London might feel in
asking for a night's lodging at Buckingham Palace.
A buxom serving-woman opened the door, and, on the boy's explaining
the visit, bade him bring the luggage in and courteously asked the
German to follow her into the chief's presence. Kohl gave the lad
about a shilling's-worth of coppers, whereat both he and the servant
exclaimed. The man must be a prince! A halfpenny would have been
thought a more than sufficient tip for such a task as the Indian boy
had performed.
The woman led the way through the house--which was so ill-lighted,
that anyone coming in from the bright sunshine could at first see
nothing--and out by another small door to a huge space which seemed to
be cornfield, garden, meadow, and orchard all in one. The back of the
house was as tasteful as the front was grotesque; the porch was
covered with honeysuckle, now in full bloom, and all kinds of
creepers ran over the blank wall. In the middle of the garden a man
was digging early potatoes. He looked round as the two walked up the
path, and, to Kohl's surprise, the woman introduced the potato-digger
as the Mohawk chief. When she had gone, the intruder entered into
explanations to which the chief--a bright-eyed, gentle-looking old
man--listened with polite attention.
"You are very welcome," he said. "We country people are always glad to
see visitors and learn all their news; strangers seldom come this way
now; they go over there instead--they travel by the _chemin de fer_";
he pointed westwards, where, fifteen miles away, ran a line of
railroad. "But--it must be an awful thing to go about the country like
that, sir. I myself have never been in a train, thank God." He spoke
the ordinary Canadian _patois_, though he evidently understood Kohl's
Parisian French quite well.
"You do not travel far, I suppose?" said the white man gently.
"No; I am over eighty years of age. But in my time I have been far,
very far. I have traded and fought with the _Inwi_" (Eskimos); "I have
guided white hunters through Ungava; I have seen steamboats and
railway trains."
While he was speaking the old gentleman shouldered his fork, picked up
his potato-basket, and turned towards the house.
"You will like some refreshment. We do not dine till my sons return."
They entered the house again, and, as soon as Kohl's eyes were
accustomed to the gloom, he saw that it was simply one large room. The
floor was of planks, beautifully clean; and the walls were almost
entirely hidden by the skins of various animals; these certainly made
for snugness in winter, stopping the draught that otherwise would have
come through the chinks; but the effect was more startling than
artistic, for some ambitious soul had dyed or painted most of them, a
magnificent elk-hide being daubed with alternate stripes of green,
red, and yellow, while a black bear-skin had little yellow crosses
painted all over it. Two of the walls were partitioned off into a sort
of loose-boxes, each six feet wide; these were the bedrooms; the light
came through a hole in the roof (which was also the chimney) and from
two small windows, where a clumsy attempt had been made at fitting
ready-made sashes into openings that were anything but "true." Near
the door hung a crucifix and holy-water stoup, not ill-carved in wood;
but this was the only attempt at civilised wall-decoration.
The woman whom Kohl had imagined to be a servant came bustling forward
with a platter of cakes and a basin of cider, which she pressed on the
visitor.
"This is my youngest son's wife," said the chief. "I have three sons,
and they and their wives live with me."
"And their children?" asked Kohl.
"Only one girl; all the others are married; and she is to be betrothed
to-morrow. To-morrow we keep holiday; there will be much dancing and
ball-play and feasting."
Then they fell to talking of the old man's early days. He could
remember the time when it was still quite a new thing for the English
to be regarded by the French colonists as anything but tyrants; he had
heard his father talk of seeing the white soldiers of General Wolfe;
he himself had fought against the Sioux many times. Bah! the Sioux
were bad men; cruel men, who would not keep faith.
His reminiscences were so engrossing, that Kohl lost all count of the
time, till the sound of footsteps, voices, and horses' hoofs past the
house told him that the men were returning from their day's work. The
eldest son, the future chief of the tribe, now entered. He was a very
tall, lithe man, between fifty and sixty, less formal in his manner
than his father, but quite as modest and agreeable. He had been
superintending the carting of the hay from some distant meadows which
he owned; and Kohl could not refrain from smiling at the talk that
went on between father and son. He had come out here prepared to see
bloodthirsty robbers and torturers and bear-slayers; and behold, the
chief dug potatoes, and the chief's son performed his ablutions in a
bucket of water, and talked of the hay-harvest and the amount of cider
consumed by the mowers that day, as if he were in Kohl's native
Bavaria. He was now almost ready to see a telegram or a Munich
newspaper brought to the door.
As soon as the other sons returned from their hunting, two of the
women dragged a deal table from one side of the room, and all sat down
to supper. This was the first time that Herr Kohl had seen the women
sit down with the men; here it seemed a recognised thing. The
unmarried granddaughter--a pretty girl of seventeen--did most of the
waiting, and that by helping an enormous stew of onions, beef,
chickens and hare from the pot on to wooden platters, and handing them
round. Forks were not used.
After supper they all adjourned to the benches outside the house. The
visitor had brandy and cigars in his portmanteau; and, while he handed
these delicacies round, another surprise greeted him; the chief was a
teetotaller! and even the sons partook very sparingly of the brandy,
though they appreciated the cigars as having a flavour of town life.
He was beginning to understand now why there was no inn in the place.
The street was the village public-house. Men sat and smoked outside
the huts, or strolled up and down in twos and threes; some even
squatted in the middle of the road. To-night, as there was a stranger
in the place, a knot of Indians stood looking on from a respectful
distance at the chief's party; and presently, most of the elders of
the tribe came and sat or lounged near the chief. Each of these
greeted the stranger with a guttural "Bon soir, M'sieu'" (one or two
of them promoted him to "Monseigneur"). Had they forgotten their own
language even? For a while the talk was of the morrow's festivity, and
a tall young brave, whose face was indistinguishable in the twilight,
was introduced to Kohl as the future bridegroom; but this topic soon
flagged, and the traveller guessed, from the general turning of faces
towards him, that it was "news" that everybody wanted. Before he had
talked many minutes he had become a personage; for he had read and
travelled widely, and had the rare knack of being able to suit himself
to whatever company he happened to be in. He could tell the redskins
nothing of Quebec City, for he had not been there; but what pleased
them more than anything else was his talk of England; he had once
stayed in London; had even seen their White Queen. They wanted no
fresher news than that, though it was more than three years old; and
they let him talk till his head was nodding with sleep.
After a night passed in one of the loose-boxes and between two
bear-skins, he rose early and started off to the woods with the three
sons of the house, who had to clear some traps a few miles away. For
some time their talk mystified him, for they continually spoke of the
animal for which the snares were set as _le chat_. He knew that wild
cats were almost unknown so far north, and the tame ones could
scarcely be so plentiful in a pine-forest as to need trapping. He
asked for an explanation, which his companions laughingly gave.
"We call him that because it is easier to say than _le loup cervier_;
many of the French trappers call him _le lynx_. It is only lately that
we have taken the trouble to catch him."
"How is that?"
"We must catch what the fur-dealers ask us for, sir. Just now, they
tell us, the white people in the towns are very fond of wearing
lynx-skin as part of their dress."
When they arrived at the line of traps the Bavarian perceived that the
Mohawks' progressive notions extended even to these, for they were
steel gins bearing the trade-mark of a Montreal hardware firm. In all,
ten well-grown lynxes were taken from the traps, which were reset and
baited with fresh meat. Then the four hungry men sat down to their
breakfast of cold meat, barley bread, and cider, and chatted gaily
over it, finding far more rational matter that they could discuss in
common than the average English gentleman would often find in
conversation with three average English peasant-farmers. Yet Kohl, who
had a healthy admiration for the fighting-animal in man, was becoming
conscious of a certain melancholy as he looked at his companions. Of
course, a Mohawk who went to church, paid his taxes, and sent his
children to school was a more desirable neighbour than one whose
merits were reckoned according to the number of human scalps in his
possession; still, one could almost have wished----
He got no farther with these reflections, for, just then, something
happened that upset all his fine theorising, and proved conclusively
that there is something in the old saying about scratching a Russian
and finding a Tartar. All in a moment the Indians dropped their
cider-horns and sprang to their feet, shouting:
"_Musquaw! Musquaw!_"
It was almost the first native word he had heard, and it meant a
black bear. Peering among the trees, he at length caught sight of
a large animal hastily turning his back on them and preparing to
beat a retreat. The Mohawks ran in pursuit like deerhounds, though
all of them were over fifty years of age. Their rifles--modern
breech-loaders--lay to hand ready charged, but they left them behind;
those were all very well for money-getting, but just now it was
sport that they wanted. Kohl picked up his own gun and hastened after
them. They were shouting at the top of their voices--and in Iroquoian;
reviling the bear, daring him to turn on them, and taunting him with
his cowardice; in a word, hunting as their fathers and grandfathers
had done before them. Each had slipped a formidable-looking hatchet
from his belt, and now, as they came up with the fugitive, the
youngest brother dealt him a blow across the haunches that made him
stop and bellow with pain.
As a rule, the _musquaw_ is a perfectly harmless beast if left alone;
but, when he turns to bay, he is as ferocious and almost as strong as
a grisly. Maddened and almost maimed, the great brute now reared, and
so suddenly, that the eldest Indian, who had been aiming a similar
blow to his brother's, lost his balance and fell with his head
actually touching the beast's back as he rose on his hind feet. But
this was only matter for laughing; he was up again in a second, and
striking for the back of the bear's head, while his brothers sprang
backwards or sidewards with terrier-like activity, dodging his
outspread claws and awaiting an opportunity to bring him down with a
blow across his snout.
Kohl had now reached the scene of the combat, and took up a position
whence he could easily cover the enemy with his rifle, which he had
just loaded with ball. But the Mohawks wanted no such help as that.
"No; don't fire, we would kill fifty like him," screamed Andre, the
second brother; and, as he spoke, his hatchet fell, cleaving the
forepart of the great creature's skull. The blade stuck fast, and it
was only by letting go of the haft and taking a tremendous backward
spring, that he saved himself from the paw that struck out at him
almost automatically. The bear was tottering now, and another blow on
the back of the head from the Indian behind brought him down,
stone-dead. Other redskins, attracted by the shouting, had now left
their traps and come up, and to these was given the task of flaying
the carcase and bringing home the skin; while the chief's sons, happy
as a boy who has killed his first rabbit, went back for their guns.
When they reached the village again, they found it _en fete_. On the
wide space between the chief's house and the church, all the
inhabitants had collected to do honour to the hero and heroine of the
day; and, coming out from the house, were the chief, a French priest,
and all the womenfolk of the family.
"Come along," cried the old man gaily to his youngest son; "we are
only waiting for you."
Then ensued a quaint mingling of ancient and modern Mohawk custom.
Much of the success of Catholic missions probably lies in the fact
that the clergy have never opposed those traditions and customs of
savages which were in themselves innocent; here was an instance. A
girl was about to become engaged to her future husband, and there was
no difficulty in grafting on to the Indian ceremony the mediaeval
religious rite of betrothal.
The chief's youngest son, the girl's father, approached the lover,
carrying a bow and four arrows.
"My brother," he said solemnly; "you have asked to have my daughter
for your wife. But, before you can take the bird to your own nest, you
must catch her."
He fitted an arrow to his bow and shot it so that it stuck in the
ground about a hundred yards away. Then, amid dead silence, he stuck a
second arrow in the turf at the young man's feet, and, taking his
daughter's hand, led her to where the first arrow had dropped. He shot
a third arrow, this time high in the air, and it fell about twenty
yards away from where the girl was standing.
"Will you try to catch my bird?" he shouted to the bridegroom-elect;
and of course received "yes" for an answer.
"Then fly," and he shot his fourth arrow as a signal for the start.
It was queer handicapping--a hundred yards start out of a hundred and
twenty--but the girl had doubtless made up her mind beforehand. After
hurrying off at full speed, in coquettish pretence of wishing to
escape, she contrived to stumble, fell on her face, lay there till the
happy man was within a yard or two of her, and allowed herself to be
caught before she reached the goal. Of course, the ceremony was a
survival from a time when an Indian girl received no other intimation
of the wishes of the man who wanted her for his wife, and might
reasonably wish to bestow her hand on some other suitor--in which case
here was an escape for her; but the result of the race was received
with as much applause as though everything had been real earnest.
Immediately afterwards, everyone went into the church; the lovers
stood at the altar, and the priest read the short betrothal office
(_Fiancailles_) which had been introduced by the early French
settlers. Games and dancing followed; not the genuine Indian dancing
which Kohl had hoped to see, but a rough imitation of the French
peasants' dance; and the day ended with a great feast in the assembly
house.
Kohl was obliged to proceed on his way in the morning, but he made
many subsequent visits to this queer little community, and always
found himself treated like an old friend.
[Illustration: A NOVEL BRIDAL CEREMONY
Among the Mohawks a suitor must pursue and capture his bride. She is
given a start, and if her lover captures her before she reaches a certain
point she becomes his wife, and to bring about this happy result she
coquettishly trips, or gets exhausted.]