MADE ON TAKING THE CENSUS OF THE IROQUOIS OF NEW-YORK, IN CONFORMITY
WITH AN ACT OF THE LEGISLATURE, IN 1845.
[_a._] A Sketch of the Iroquois Groupe of Aboriginal Tribes.
On the discovery of North America, the Iroquois tribes, were found
seated chiefly in the wide and fertile territory of western and
northern New-York, reaching west to the sources of the Ohio;[10] north,
to the banks of Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence; and east, to the
site of Albany. They had as much nationality of character, then, as any
of the populous tribes, who, in the 4th century wandered over central
and western Europe. They were, in a high degree, warlike, handling the
bow and arrow with the skill and dexterity of the ancient Thracians and
Parthians. They were confederated in peace and war, and had begun to
lay the foundations of a power, against which, the surrounding nations,
in the Mississippi valley, and along the St. Lawrence, the Hudson,
and the Delaware, could not stand. The French, when they effectually
entered the St. Lawrence in 1608,[11] courted their alliance on the
north, and the Dutch did the same in 1609, on the Hudson. Virginia had
been apprised of their power, at an early day, and the other English
colonies, as they arrived, were soon made acquainted with the existence
of this native confederacy in the north. By putting fire-arms into
their hands, they doubled the aboriginal power, and became themselves,
for more than a century, dependant on their caprice or friendship.
[10] They always denominated the Alleghany river by the name of Ohio.
This I found to be the term constantly used for that river in 1845.
They give the vowel i, in this word, the sound of i, in machine.
[11] They actually discovered this river, in 1535.
The word Iroquois, as we are told by Charlevoix, who is a competent
and reliable witness on this point, is founded on an exclamation,
or response, made by the sachems and warriors, on the delivery to
them, of an address. This response, as heard among the Senecas, it
appeared to me, might be written _eoh_; perhaps, the Mohawks, and
other harsher dialects of this family, threw in an r, between the
vowels. It is recorded in the term Iroquois, on French principles
of annotation, with the substantive inflection in _ois_, which is
characteristic of French lexicography. It is a term which has been
long, and extensively used, both for the language and the history
of this people; and is preferable, on enlarged considerations, to
any other. The term Five Nations, used by Colden, and in popular use
during the earlier period of the colony, ceased to be appropriate
after the Tuscarora revolt in North Carolina, and the reunion of this
tribe with the parent stock, subsequent to 1712. From that period they
were called the Six Nations,[12] and continued to acquire increased
reputation as a confederacy, under this name, until the termination
of the American Revolution in 1783, and the flight of the Mohawks and
Cayugas to Canada, when this partial separation and breaking up of the
confederacy, rendered it no longer applicable.
[12] In 1723, they adopted the NECARIAGES, as a Seventh
Nation, as will be noticed under the appropriate head.
The term NEW-YORK INDIANS, applied to them in modern days,
by the eminence in their position, is liable to be confounded, by
the common reader, with the names of several tribes of the generic
Algonquin family, who formerly occupied the southern part of the State,
down to the Atlantic. Some of these tribes lived in the west, and owned
and occupied lands, among the Iroquois, until within a few years. And,
at any rate, it is too vague and imprecise a term to be employed in
philology or history.
By the people themselves, however, neither the first nor the last of
the foregoing terms appear ever to have been adopted, nor are they now
used. They have no word to signify “New-York” in a sense more specific,
than as the territory possessed by themselves—a claim which they were
certainly justified in making, at the era of the discovery, when they
are admitted, on all hands, to have carried their conquests to the sea.
The term _Ongwe Honwe_, or a people surpassing all others, which Colden
was informed they applied proudly to themselves, may be strictly true,
if limited, as they did, to mean a people surpassing all other red men.
This they believed, and this was the sense in which they boastfully
applied it. But it was a term older than the discovery, and had no
reference to European races. The word _Honwe_, as will appear by the
vocabulary hereto appended, means man. By the prefixed term _Ongwe_,
it is qualified according to various interpretations, to mean real,
as contradistinguished from sham men, or cowards; it may also mean
strong, wise, or expert men, and, by ellipsis, men excelling others in
manliness. But it was in no other sense distinctive of them. It was
the common term for the red race of this continent, which they would
appear, by the phrase, to acknowledge as a unity, and is, the word as I
found it, used at this day, as the equivalent for our term “Indian.”
Each tribe had, at some period of their progress, a distinctive
appellation, as Onondaga, Oneida, &c. of which some traditionary matter
will be stated, further on. When they came to confederate, and form
a general council, they took the name of KONOSHIONI, (or as
the French authors write it, _Acquinoshioni_), meaning literally,
People of the Long House, and figuratively a UNITED PEOPLE,
a term by which they still denominate themselves, when speaking in a
national sense. This distinction, it is well to bear in mind, and not
confound. This Long House, to employ their own figure, extended east
and west from the present site of Albany to the foot of the great
lakes, a distance, by modern admeasurement, of 325 miles, which is now
traversed by railroad. An air palace, we may grant them, having beams
and rafters, higher and longer than any pile of regal magnificence, yet
reared by human hands.
Thus much may be said, with certainty, of the name of this celebrated
family of red men, by which they are identified and distinguished
from other stocks of the hunter tribes of North America. Where they
originated, relatively to their position on this continent, the
progress of ethnology does not, at this incipient period of that
science, enable us to determine, nor is it proposed, save with the
merest brevity, now to inquire. Veiling their own origin, if anciently
known, in allegory, or designing by fancy to supply the utter want
of early history, to the intent, perhaps, that they might put forth
an undisputed title to the country they occupied, the relations
of their old sages affirm that they originated in the territorial
area of western New-York. Their tradition on this point, as put on
record by the pen of one of their own people, (see extracts from
Cusic’s historical and traditionary tract, hereto appended,) fixes
the locality of their actual origin at an eminence near the falls
of the Oswego river. To cut short the narration, they assert that
their ancestors were called forth, from the bowels of a mountain, by
TARENYAWAGON, the Holder of the Heavens. It represents them
as one people, who moved first towards the east, as far as the sea,
and then fell back, partly on their own tracks, towards the west and
southwest. So far, and so far only, the tale appears credible enough,
and as there is no chronology established by it, although dates are
freely introduced, and consequently nothing to contradict it, their
track of migration and countermigration from the Oswego, may be deemed
as probable.
The diversities of language, and the separation into tribes, are
represented to have taken place, according to known principles of
ethnological inference.
Ondiyaka, an Onondaga sage, and the ruling chief of the confederacy,
who died on an official visit to the Oneidas in 1839, at the age of
ninety, confirmed these general traditions of the Tuscarora scribe. He
informed Le Fort, who was with him in that journey and at his death,
that the Onondagas were created by NEO,[13] in the country
where they lived; that he made this island or continent, “Hawoneo,”
for the red race, and meant it for them alone. He did not allude to
or acknowledge any migration from other lands. This, Le Fort, himself
an Onondaga, a chief, and an educated man, told me during the several
interviews I had with him, the present year, at the Onondaga Castle.
[13] The term “Neo,” God, is generally used reverently, with a syllable
prefixed in the different Iroquois dialects, as Yawa-Neo, in the
Tuscarora, Howai-Neo in the Seneca, Hawai-Neo, Onondaga, Lawai-Neo,
Mohawk, &c.
Ondiyaka proceeded to say, as they walked over the ancient ruins in the
valley of the Kasonda,[14] that this was the spot where the Onondagas
formerly lived, before they fixed themselves in the Onondaga valley,
and before they had entered into confederation. In those days they
were at enmity with each other; they raised the old forts to defend
themselves. They wandered about a great deal. They frequently changed
their places of residence. They lived in perpetual fear. They kept
fighting, and moving their villages often. This reduced their numbers,
and rendered their condition one of alarms and trials. Sometimes they
abandoned a village, and all their gardens and clearings, because they
had encountered much sickness, and believed the place to be doomed.
They were always ready to hope for better luck in a new spot. At
length they confederated, and then their fortifications were no longer
necessary, and fell into decay. This, he believed, was the origin of
these old ruins, which were not of foreign construction.[15] Before the
confederacy, they had been not only at war among themselves, but had
been driven by other enemies.[16] After it, they carried their wars
out of their own country, and began to bring home prisoners. Their
plan was to select for adoption from the prisoners, and captives, and
fragments of tribes whom they conquered. These captives were equally
divided among each of the tribes, were adopted and incorporated with
them, and served to make good their losses. They used the term,
WE-HAIT-WAT-SHA, in relation to these captives. This term
means a body cut into parts and scattered around. In this manner, they
figuratively scattered their prisoners, and sunk and destroyed their
nationality, and built up their own.
[14] Butternut Creek, which runs through parts of the towns of Pompey,
Lafayette and De Witt, Onondaga county.
[15] This remark must be considered as applied only to the class of
simple ring forts, so frequent in western New-York. These forts are
proved by antiquarian remains, forest growth, &c. to be the most
ancient of any works, in Onondaga county, in the shape of forts.
[16] Colden represents them as driven by the Algonquins, on the
discovery of Canada.
At what period they confederated, we have no exact means of deciding.
It appears to have been comparatively recent, judging from traditionary
testimony.[17] While their advancement in the economy of living, in
arms, in diplomacy and in civil polity, would lead conjecture to
a more remote date. Their own legends, like those of some other
leading stocks of the continent, carry them back to a period of wars
with giants and demons and monsters of the sea, the land, and the
air, and are fraught with strange and grotesque fancies of wizards
and enchanters. But history, guiding the pen of the French Jesuit,
describes them first as pouring in their canoes through the myriad
streams that interlace in western New-York, and debouching, now on the
gulf of the St. Lawrence, now on the Chesapeake—glancing again over
the waves of Michigan, and now again plying their paddles in the waters
of the turbid Mississippi. Wherever they went, they carried proofs of
their energy, courage, and enterprise.
[17] Vide Pyrlaus.
At one period we hear the sound of their war cry, along the straits
of the St. Mary’s and at the foot of Lake Superior. At another under
the walls of Quebec, where they finally defeated the Hurons under the
eyes of the French. They put out the fires of the Gahkwas and Eries.
They eradicated the Susquehannocks. They placed the Lenapees, the
Nanticokes, and the Munsees under the yoke of subjection. They put the
Metoacks and the Manhattans under tribute. They spread the terror of
their arms over all New-England.
They traversed the whole length of the Appalachian chain, and descended
like the enraged Gish and Megalonyx, on the Cherokees and the Catawbas.
Smith encountered their warriors, in the settlement of Virginia, and
La Salle on the discovery of the Illinois. Nations trembled when they
heard the name of the KONOSHIONI.
They possessed a fine physical structure—they lived in a climate
which imparted energy to their motions. They used a sonorous and
commanding language, which had its dual number, and its neuter,
masculine, and feminine genders. They were excellent natural orators,
and expert diplomatists. They began early to cherish a national pride,
which grew with their conquests. They had, like the Algonquins,
in the organization of the several clans, or families, which
composed each tribe, a curious _heraldic_ tie, founded on original
relationship, which exercised a strong influence, but which has never
been satisfactorily explained. They were governed by hereditary
chieftaincies, like others of the aboriginal stocks, but contrary to
the usage of these other stocks, the claims of their chiefs, were
subjected to the decision of a national council. The aristocratic and
democratic principles, were thus both brought into requisition, in
candidates for office. But in all that constituted national action,
they were a pure Republic. So far was this carried, that it is believed
the veto of any one chief, to a public measure, was sufficient to
arrest its adoption by the Council.
In the development of their nationality, they have produced several men
of energy and ability, who were equal, in natural force of character,
to some of the most shining warriors and orators of antiquity. Few war
captains have exceeded Hendrick, Brant or Skenandoah. The eloquence and
force of Garangula, Logan and Red Jacket, in their public speeches,
have commanded universal admiration. Mr. Jefferson considered the
appeal of Logan to the white race, after the extirpation of his
family, as without a parallel; and it has been imitated in vain, by
distinguished poets and orators.
Such were the aboriginal people who occupied western New-York, and
their memory will forever live in the significant names which they have
bestowed upon Niagara and Ontario, and a thousand lesser waters, which
beautify and adorn the land. Viewed as one of the Indo-American stocks,
they possessed some very striking traits.
Few barbarous nations have ever existed on the globe, who have shown
more native energy, and distinctiveness of character. Still fewer who
have evinced so firm a devotion to the spirit of independence. Yet all
their native manliness and energy of character and action, would have
failed, or become inoperative, had they not abandoned the fatal Indian
principle of tribal supremacy, or independent chieftainships, and made
common cause in a national confederacy. The moment this was done, and
each of the component clans or tribes, had surrendered the power of
sovereignty to a general council of the whole, the foundation for their
rise was laid, and they soon became the most powerful political body
among the native tribes of North America, this side of the palace of
Montezuma.
In visiting the descendants of such a people, after a lapse of more
than two centuries and a quarter from the discovery, it was the impulse
of the commonest interest, to make some inquiries into their former
history, and antiquities. These have been pursued under favorable
circumstances, for the most part, at all points of my journey, and
have been resumed, when broken off, whenever practical. The only method
pursued, was to obtain all the facts possible, from red or white men,
of reliable testimony. There was no time and no intention, to digest
them, into a connected history. They were collected in the pauses which
intervened, in the obtaining of the statistics of the census, and they
are contributed herewith, in the simple garb and freshness of the
original minutes. Those who related the traditions, did not suppose
themselves to be delivering the important lore of their history.
They were related, along the road, or seated around the evening
circle, as the current belief of the people. Sometimes the fields or
hills, disclosing the localities of old forts, were the scene of the
narrations; sometimes the Indian burial ground; sometimes more formal
interviews. He who gleans popular traditions among this race, must have
his ear ever open, his memory under notice “to retain,” and his pen or
pencil ever ready.
Historical and biographical notices, names of places, and sketches
of antiquarian remains, were thus entered on or dropped, as time or
occasion prompted. To make minutes of what occurred, was all that time
permitted me; but it was a rule, to make them promptly and on the spot.
This much seemed necessary in despatching this portion of my report,
with the miscellaneous details accompanying it; and having accomplished
this object, my present task is terminated.
[_b._] Ethnological Suggestions.
Where we have nothing else to rely upon, we may receive the rudest
traditions of an Indian nation, although they be regarded as mere
historical phenomena, or materials to be considered. Whether such
materials are to be credited or disbelieved wholly, or in part, is
quite another thing. Our Indians, like some of the ancient nations of
Asia, whom they resemble in many points of character, were prone to
refer their origin to myths and legends, under which they doubtless,
sometimes meant to represent truths, or at least, to express opinions.
The Indian tribes, very much like their ancient prototypes of the
old world, seemed to have felt a necessity for inventing some story
of their origin, where it is sometimes probable there was little or
nothing of actual tradition to build it upon. They were manifestly
under a kind of self-reproach, to reflect that they had indeed no
history; nothing to connect their descent from prior races; and if they
have not proved themselves men of much judgment in their attempts to
supply the deficiency in their fabrications and allegories, they must
often come in, it must be confessed, for no little share of imagination.
There appears, throughout the whole race, to be the vestiges of a
tradition of the creation and the deluge, two great and striking points
in the history of man, which, however he wandered, he would be most
likely to remember. They uniformly attribute their origin to a superior
and divine power. They do not suppose that they came into existence
without the act of this pre-existing almighty power, who is called
NEO, or OWANEO. This is the third great and leading point in their
traditions. And these three primary vestiges of the original history of
the race are to be found among the rudest tribes, between the straits
of Terra del Fuego and the Arctic Ocean, notwithstanding the amount
of grotesque and puerile matter which serves as the vehicle of the
traditions.
Between the creation and the deluge and the present era of the world,
there is nearly an entire blank. Ages have dropped out of their memory,
with all their stirring incidents of wars and migrations, and the first
reliable truth we hear is, that at such a time they lived on the banks
of the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Lakes, or the St. Lawrence, &c.
Nothing but this kind of _proximate_ origin could indeed be expected
to be retained. They acknowledge relationship to no prior race of man.
We see that they are sui generis with, and much resemble some of the
eastern nations in color and features. Physiologists have never been
able to detect a bone or muscle, more or less, than the Caucasian race
possess. Philologists listen to their speech and admit that in one
tribe or another they possess all the powers of articulate utterance
known to that race. We know by this kind of evidence, physical and
moral, that they are a branch of the original Adamic stock, without
reference to the pages of revelation, where we learn the same truth,
and are told in so many words, that “God out of one flesh, formed all
men.” And we must perforce infer, that the Indian race is of foreign
origin, and must have crossed an ocean to reach the continent.
Ask not the red sage to tell you how? or when? or where? He knows it
not, and if he should pretend to the knowledge, it would be the surest
possible evidence, philosophically considered, that his responses
were fabulous. Three hundred and fifty-three years only has America
been known to Europe, and yet should we strike our history out of
existence, what should we know of the leading facts of the discovery
and the discoverer from Indian tradition? Still the inquisitive spirit
of research leads us to ask, where were this race eighteen hundred and
forty-five years ago? or at the invasion of Britain by Julius Cæsar?
or at the outpouring of the Gothic hordes under Alaric or Brennus?
Scandinavian research tells us they were here in the 10th century.
The Mexican picture writings inform us that some of them reached the
valley of Mexico in the 11th century. Welsh history claims to have
sent one of her princes among them in the 12th century. The mounds
of the Mississippi valley do not appear to have had an origin much
earlier. The whole range of even historical conjecture is absolutely
limited within eight or nine hundred years. Nothing older, of their
presence here certainly, is known, than about the time of the crowning
of Charlemagne, A. D. 800, unless we take the Grecian tradition of
Atlantis.
That we have nothing in the way of tradition older than the dates
referred to, is no positive proof that the tribes were not upon the
continent long prior. There are some considerations, in the very
nature of the case, which argue a remote continental antiquity for
these tribes. It is hardly to be supposed that large numbers of the
primitive adventurers landed at any one time or place; nor is it more
probable that the epochs of these early adventurers were very numerous.
The absolute conformity of physical features renders this improbable.
The early migrations must have been necessarily confined to portions
of the old world peopled by the RED RACE—by a race, not only of red
skins, black hair and eyes, and high cheek bones, who would reproduce
these fixed characteristics, _ad infinitum_, but whose whole mental as
well as physiological development assimilates it, as a distinct unity
of the species. While physiology, however, asserts this unity, in the
course of the dispersion and multiplication of tribes, their languages,
granting all that can be asked for on the score of original diversity,
became divided into an infinite number of dialects and tongues. Between
these dialects, however, where they are even the most diverse, there
is a singular coincidence in many of the leading principles of concord
and regimen, and polysynthetic arrangement. Such diversities in sound,
amounting, as they do in many cases, for instance, in the stocks of
the Algonquin and Iroquois, to an almost total difference, must have
required many ages for their production. And this fact alone affords a
proof of the continental antiquity of the American race.
[_c._] Indian Cosmogony.
ORIGIN OF THE CONTINENT, OF THE ANIMAL CREATION, AND OF THE
INDIAN RACE: THE INTRODUCTION OF THE TWO PRINCIPLES OF GOOD AND
EVIL INTO THE GOVERNMENT OF THE WORLD.
Iroquois tradition opens with the notion that there were originally
two worlds, or regions of space, namely, an upper and lower world.
The upper was inhabited by beings similar to the human race; the
lower by monsters, moving in the waters. When the human species were
transferred below, and the lower sphere was about to be rendered fit
for their residence, the act of their transference or reproduction is
concentrated in the idea of a female, who began to descend into the
lower world, which is depicted as a region of darkness, waters and
monsters. She was received on the back of a tortoise, where she gave
birth to male twins, and expired. The shell of this tortoise expanded
into the continent, which, in their phraseology, is called an “island;”
and is named by the Onondagas, AONAO. One of the infants was called
INIGORIO, or the Good Mind; the other, INIGOHATEA,
or the Bad Mind. These two antagonistical principles, which are such
perfect counterparts of the Ormuzd and Ahriman of the Zoroaster, were
at perpetual variance, it being the law of one to counteract whatever
the other did. They were not, however, men, but gods, or existences,
through whom the “Great Spirit,” or “Holder of the Heavens,” carried
out his purposes. The first labor of Inigorio was to create the sun
out of the head of his dead mother, and the moon and the stars out of
other parts of the body. The light these gave, drove the monsters into
deep water, to hide themselves. He then prepared the surface of the
continent, and fitted it for human habitation, by diversifying it with
creeks, rivers, lakes and plains, and by filling these with the various
species of the animal and vegetable kingdoms. He then formed a man and
woman out of earth, gave them life, and called them “Ea-gwe-ho-we,” or,
as it is more generally known to Indian archæologists, Ong-we-Hon-we;
that is to say, a real people. [D.]
Meanwhile the Bad Mind created mountains, waterfalls, and steeps and
morasses, reptiles, serpents, apes, and other objects supposed to
be injurious to, or in mockery of mankind. He made attempts also to
conceal the land animals in the ground, so as to deprive man of the
means of subsistence. This continued opposition to the wishes of the
Good Mind, who was perpetually busied in restoring the effects of
the displacements and wicked devices of the other, at length led to
a personal combat, of which the time and instruments of battle were
agreed on. They fought for two days, the one using deer’s horns, and
the other flag roots, as arms.[18] Inigorio, who had chosen horns,
finally prevailed; his antagonist sunk down to a region of darkness,
and became the Evil Spirit, or Kluneolux,[19] of the world of despair.
Inigorio, having obtained this triumph, retired from the earth.
[18] By reference to the Algonquin story of the combat between
Manabozho and his father, the West Wind, as given in Algic Researches,
vol. 1, p. 134, it will be seen that the weapons chosen by the parties
were the same as those employed by Inigorio and Inigohatea, namely,
deer’s horns and flag roots.
[19] Oneida.
This piece of ingenuity, or philosophy of the Indian mind, much of
which is pure allegory, under which truths are hid, stands in the
remote vista of Iroquois tradition, and it seemed necessary to notice
it, in preparing to take up their more sober traditions. It is picked
out of a mass of incongruous details, published by a native, [see
App. D.] which only serve, peradventure, to denote its genuineness,
for divested of absurdity, in the original, we should not ascribe
much antiquity to it, or be prone to attribute it to an ignorant,
superstitious, pagan people, living in all their earlier times without
arts, letters or civilization. Futile as it is, it will be found
veritable philosophy, compared with most of the earlier theories of
the renowned nations of antiquity. Take, as an instance, the account
Sanconeathus gives of the theology of the Phœnicians.[20]
[20] Gowan’s Ancient Fragments, 1 vol. 8vo., N. Y., 1835.
[_d._] Gleams of their General Ancient History.
ITEMS: Indians claim to be the offspring of an
independent act of creation. The Iroquois name themselves in
proud allusion to their supposed supremacy. Tribes on the St.
Lawrence and the lakes live in disputes. War with a race of
giants called Ronongweca: the fiend Shotrowea,—contests with
the great Kwiss Kwiss, or Mastodon,—the Big Elk,—and the
Horned Serpent. A meteor falls in the camp. Northern tribes
confederate; send an unfortunate embassage to a great chief
south,—war with him,—war with each other, and the country
thereby depopulated and left to its original desolation.
When we come to draw the minds of the sages and chroniclers of the
Iroquois cantons, to the facts of their early history and origin, they
treat us with legendary fables, and myths of gods and men, and changes
and freaks in elementary matter, which indicate that such ideas, were
common to their progenitors, whatever part of the world they occupied.
We have adverted to their notions on this head, in the preceding
remarks on their cosmogony, tinctured, as it strongly is, with the old
Persian philosophy.
They deny, as do all the tribes, a foreign origin. They assert, that
America, or AONAO, was the place of their origin. They begin by laying
down the theory, that they were the peculiar care of the Supernal Power
who created all things, and who, as a proof of his care and benevolence
of a race whom he had marked by a distinct color, created the continent
for their especial use, and placed them upon it. None of the tribes
pretend to establish dates, nor have they any astronomical data, to
fix them. But they all give to the story of their origin, or creation,
a locality, which is generally fixed to some prominent geographical
feature near to their present respective place of abode, or at least, a
spot well known. This spot, among the Iroquois cantons, is located in
the northern hemisphere.
The term, Ongwe Honwe, is used by these tribes, very much in the
manner in which the ancient Teutons called themselves, Allamanna, or
Ghermanna, from which we have the modern terms, Allemand and German. If
they did not literally call themselves “all-men,” as did these proud
tribes, they implied as much, in a term which is interpreted to mean,
real men, or a people surpassing all others. It is the common term for
the red race, as contradistinguished from all other races, and the true
equivalent of the phrase, “Indian.”
By their earliest traditions, we are told that a body of the Ongwe
Honwe, encamped on the banks of the St. Lawrence, where they were
invaded by a nation few in number, but of giant stature, called
Ronongweca.[21] After a war, brought on by personal encounters
and incidents, and carried on with perfidy and cruelty, they were
delivered at length, by the skill and courage of Yatontea,[21] who,
after retreating before them, raised a large body of men and defeated
them, after which they were supposed to be extinct. They next suffered
from the malice, perfidy, and lust of an extraordinary person called
Shotrowea,[21] who was finally driven across the St. Lawrence, and came
to a town south of the shores of lake Ontario, where, however, he only
disguised his intentions, to repeat his cruel and perfidious deeds.
This person, who assassinated many persons, and violated six virgins,
they point to as a fiend in human shape.
[21] I abbreviate these words from the originals, for the sole purpose
of making them readable to the ordinary reader.
At this time the Big Quisquis[22] invaded the country, who pushed
down the houses of the people, and created great consternation and
disturbance. After making ineffectual resistance, they fled, but were
at length relieved by a brave chief, who raised a body of men to battle
him, but the animal himself retired. In this age of monsters, their
country was invaded by another monster called the “Big Elk,” who was
furious against men,[23] and destroyed the lives of many persons, but
he was at length killed after a severe contest.
[22] Kwis Kwis is the name of a hog in modern Iroquois.
[23] Carnivorous—but this is not a characteristic of the Elk.
A great horned serpent next appeared on Lake Ontario, who, by means of
his poisonous breath, produced diseases, and caused the death of many,
but he was at last compelled to retire by thunderbolts. This fourth
calamity was not forgotten, when a fifth happened. A blazing star fell
into a fort situated on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and destroyed
the people. Such a phenomenon caused great panic and dread, and they
regarded it as ominous of their entire destruction. Prior to this, a
confederation had taken place among these northern tribes, situated
north of and along the banks of the great lakes, and they had a ruling
chief over all. This ruler repaired to the south to visit a ruler of
great fame and authority, who resided at a great town in A LODGE
OF GOLD. But it only proved to be an embassy of folly, for this
great ruler, exercising an imperial sway, availing himself of the
information thus derived, of a great country full of resources, built
many forts throughout the country, and almost penetrated to the banks
of Lake Erie. The people who had confederated on the North resisted. A
long war of a hundred years standing ensued, but the northern people
were better skilled in the use of the bow and arrow, and were more
expert woodsmen and warriors. They at length prevailed, and taking all
these towns and forts, left them a heap of ruins.
But the prediction of the blazing star was now verified. The tribes
who were held together by feeble bands, fell into disputes, and wars
among themselves, which were pursued through a long period, until they
utterly destroyed each other, and so reduced their numbers, that the
land was again overrun by wild beasts. [D.]