[_a._] Considerations.
Something on this head appears desirable, if it be only to mitigate,
in some degree, our historical ignorance, and want of accurate or
precise information, touching it. The question of the principles of
their social and political association, is one of equal interest and
obscurity, and would justify a more extended inquiry than is here given.
[_b._] Era of the Confederation.
Chronology finds its most difficult tasks in establishing dates among
our aboriginal tribes. Pyrlaus, a missionary at the ancient site of
Dionderoga or Fort Hunter, writing between 1742 and 1748, states, as
the result of the best conjectures he could form, from information
derived from the Mohawks, that the alliance took place “one age, or
the length of a man’s life, before the white people came into the
country.”[44] He gives the following as the names of the sachems of the
Five Nations, who met and formed the alliance:
[44] Trans. Hist. and Lit. Com. Am. Philo. Soc. vol. 1, p. 36.
TOGANAWITA, _for the Mohawks_.
OTATSCHECHTA, _for the Oneidas_.
TATOTARHO, _for the Onondagas_.
TOGAHAYON, _for the Cayugas_.
GANIATARIO, }_for the Senecas_.
SATAGARUYES,}
The name of THANNAWAGE is given as the first proposer of such
an alliance. He was an aged Mohawk sachem. It was decided that these
names should forever be kept in remembrance by naming a person in each
nation, through succeeding generations, after them.
Taking 1609, the era of the Dutch discovery, and estimating “a man’s
life” by the patriarchal and scriptural rule, we should not at the
utmost have a more remote date than 1539,[45] as the origin of the
confederacy. This would place the event 18 years after the taking of
Mexico by Cortes, and 47 years after the first voyage of Columbus.
Cartier, who ascended the St. Lawrence to Hochelaga, the present site
of Montreal, in 1535, demonstrates clearly, by his vocabulary of words,
that a people who spoke a branch of the Iroquois language, was then at
the place. This people is usually supposed to have been the Wyandots,
or Hurons. But he makes no remark on a confederacy. He only denotes the
attachment of the people to an old and paralytic sachem, or head chief,
who wore a frontlet of dyed porcupine’s skin.[46]
[45] For other data on this topic, see the subsequent paper, entitled
“Onondagas,” in which an earlier date is assigned. See also the article
“Oral Traditions.”
[46] Oneota, p. 172.
Curious to obtain some clue to this era, or test of the preceding
data, I made it a topic of inquiry. The Onondagas, the Tuscaroras,
and the several bands, unite in a general tradition of the event of
a confederacy, at the head of which they place Atotarho, (the same
doubtless whose name is spelt Tatotarho above,) but amongst neither
of these tribes is the era fixed. The dates employed by Cusick,
the Tuscarora legendary, giving an extravagant antiquity to the
confederation, are more entitled to the sympathy of the poet than the
attention of the historian, although other traditions stated by him
debarring the dates, may be regarded as the actual traditions of his
tribe. Were the dates moderate, which he generally employs to confer
antiquity on his nation, they might inspire respect. But like the
Chinese astronomers, he loses no little as a native archæologist, by
aspiring after too much.
Atotarho, who by these traditions was an Onondaga, is the great
embodiment of Iroquois courage, wisdom and heroism, and in their
narrations he is invested with allegoric traits, which exalt him to
a kind of superhuman character. Unequalled in war and arts, his fame
had spread abroad and exalted the Onondaga nation to the highest
pitch. He was placed at the head of the confederacy, and his name,
like that of King Arthur of the Round Table, or those of the Paladins
of Charlemagne, was used after his death as an exemplar of glory and
honor; while like that of Cæsar, it became perpetuated as the official
title of the presiding chief. What is said by Pyrlaus respecting the
mode of the transmission of the names of the first delegates to the
council forming the confederacy, appears to be probable. It is true,
so far as is known, but it seems that not only the name of the ruling
chief, but the title of each minor officer in the council, as he who
presents the message; he who stands by the chief or Atotarho, &c.
is preserved to this day by its being the name of an individual who
exercises a similar office.
The best light I could personally obtain from tradition of the date of
the event, viz. the era of the confederacy, came through a tradition
handed down from Ezekiel Webster, an American, who at an early day
settled among the Onondagas, learned their language, married the
daughter of a chief, and became himself a man of great influence among
them. Mr. Tyler of Seneca-Falls, son of one of the first settlers in
the present county of Onondaga, informed me in a casual interview
at Aurora, on the 13th of August, that his father had received this
account from Webster’s own lips, namely, that the confederation, as
related by the Onondagas, took place about the length of one man’s
life before the white men appeared. A remarkable confirmation of the
statement of Pyrlaus.[47] It must be admitted, however, that we cannot,
without rejecting many positive traditions of the Iroquois themselves
[D.] refuse to concede a much earlier period to the first attempts
of these interesting tribes to form a general political association.
For eighty years before the American Revolution they, in friendly
recommendation, held up their confederacy as a political model to
the English colonies. (See Colden.) Their own first attempts to form
themselves into one nation may have borne the same relation to them and
their subsequent condition as our early confederation of States bears
to the present Union; and this, instead of lasting a few years, as did
ours, may have continued even for centuries, among so rude a people,
before it could ripen into the bonds of empire.
[47] A Seneca tradition which is hereafter noticed, places the event
of the confederation four years before the appearance of Hudson in his
ship, in the bay of New-York.
Two elementary powers existed at an early day in the Iroquois cantons,
namely, the civil and war chieftainships. There is abundant evidence,
both in their own traditions, and in existing antiquarian remains, to
show that they were at variance, in the early periods of their history,
and fought against each other, and built fortifications to defend
themselves. Partial leagues would naturally fail. League after league
probably took place. When they came to see the folly of such a course,
and proposed to confederate on enlarged principles, and direct their
arms exclusively against others, the question doubtless arose, how
they should be represented in the general council. It is clear, from
the preceding remarks on the era of the confederation, whatever age we
assign to the era itself, that the Rakowanas,[48] or leading chiefs of
each of the five cantons, did not assemble. Power was assigned to, and
concentrated on one individual, who stood as the federal representative
of his canton in its sovereign capacity. It was only to the Senecas
that two representatives, of this senatorial dignity, were assigned; a
conclusive evidence that they were, at this era, estimated at double
the numerical strength of the highest of the other four cantons. By
these six men, who appear rather in the capacity of ambassadors,
forming the principles of a treaty, or league, the modern confederacy,
as known to us, was organized. Tradition says that this treaty of
alliance was held at Onondaga, where the central council fire of the
confederacy, organized under it, was also originally fixed, and has
permanently remained. Of the nature and powers of this general council,
or congress of sachems, acting for the whole cantons, some views are
expressed in the following paper.
[48] Mohawk.
[_c._] Principles of the Iroquois Government.
No one has attended to the operations of the Iroquois government
and polity, as they are developed in their councils and meetings
for general consultation and action, without perceiving a degree of
intricacy in its workings, which it is difficult to grasp. Or rather,
the obscurity may be said to grow out of the little time and the
imperfect opportunities which casual observers have to devote to the
object. For, maturely considered, there is no inherent difficulty in
the way. It seems clear that they came together as independent tribes,
who, at an early age, had all proceeded from the same parental stock,
but who, after an indefinite period of fightings and wars, became
convinced of the short-sightedness of such a course, and fell on the
plan of a confederation which should produce general action, and yet
leave the several members free, both in their internal polity, and
in the exercise of most of their co-tribal powers. It was clearly a
confederation for common purposes of defence and offence, and not a
perfect union. Each tribe, or more properly speaking, canton, was still
governed by its own chiefs, civil and military. They came together in
general councils, by sachems, exercising the power of delegates.
These delegates or sages came in their hereditary or elective
character, as the case might be, or as the customs and laws of the
tribe in its popular character had decided. But their voices were,
in all cases, either prompted by prior expressions of the warriors
and wise men, or were to be ratified by these known powers. However
invested with authority they but spoke the popular will. The relative
power of the cantons is denoted, and appears as a question that
was already settled, at the first formal general council for the
purpose of confederating. For we there see precisely the same tribal
representation, which has obtained ever after and still prevails; that
is to say, the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, and the Cayugas,
had each one chief, and the Senecas two, making six supreme dignitaries
or state counsellors. That their powers were merely advisory and
interlocutory, and that they aimed to come to harmonious results, by
the mere interchange of opinion, without any formal or solemn vote, is
evident, from all that we know, or can gather from their still existing
institutions. There appeared to have been no penalties—no forfeiture
of rights—no binding or coercive power, to be visited on tribes or
chiefs beyond that of OPINION. Popular disapproval was the
Iroquois penalty here and elsewhere. It is equally clear, however,
that a single negative voice or opinion, was of the highest efficacy.
A unanimous decision, not a decision on the majority principle, was
required. The latter was a refinement, and an advance in polity, which
they had not certainly reached, although they seem inclined now to
follow it; and herein we may perceive the great power and efficacy of
their old decisions. These decisions were, in their effects, clothed
with all the power of the most full popular will. For what each of the
senatorial chiefs or delegates, and all the cantons, pronounced proper,
there was no one, in a patriarchal community, to lisp a word against.
So little power was abstracted from each tribe, and conceded to the
federative council as a fixed government, that it seems not without
scrutiny, that we can perceive there is _any_. This is, however,
certain. One of the six primary sachems, was selected to preside over
the general councils. His power was, however, exclusively of a civil
character, and extended but little beyond that of a moderator, but he
was a moderator for life, or during the time he retained the right
and full use of his faculties, or until just cause of dissatisfaction
should bring the question of a successor before the council. This head
officer, had also authority to light the council fire,—that is to
say, he could send messengers, and was if so desired, bound to send
messengers to assemble the general council. The act, and the symbol of
the act were both in his hands. He summoned the chiefs, and actually
lit the sacred fire, at whose blaze their pipes were lighted. Thus
limited, and having no other administrative power, but to appoint his
own Har-yar-do-ah, aid or pipe-bearer, and messengers, he enjoyed his
executive dignity; but had little more power when the sessions were
closed, than belonged to every leading chief of the component tribes.
He was himself bound to respect the messages of the tribal chiefs,
and receive the runners who were sent to him from the frontiers with
news, and he thus performed merely and exactly the will of each tribe,
thus expressed. He was never in advance of the popular will. The whole
hereditary machinery was made subservient to this. And he was limited
to the performance of these slender, and popular duties. He might,
it is true, if a man of eloquence, talents or bravery, be also the
ruling civil chief of his tribe, and furthermore, its war captain in
the field. And such is known to have actually been the character and
standing of Atotarho, the first presiding chief in their federative
councils. He was a man of energy and high renown. And such was the
estimation in which he was held in his life time, and the popular
veneration for his character after death, that as above denoted,
his name became the distinctive title for the office. Thus much is
preserved by tradition, and the office and title of the Atotarho as
presiding sachem, is not yet extinct, although the tribes have no
longer wars to prosecute, or foreign embassadors to reply to.
But how, it may be asked, is a government so purely popular, and so
simple and essentially advisory in its character, to be reconciled with
the laws of hereditary descent, fixed by the establishment of heraldic
devices, and bringing its proportion of weak and incompetent minds
into office, and with the actual power it exercised, and the fame it
acquired? To answer this question, and to shew how the aristocratic
and democratic principles were made to harmonize, in the Iroquois
government, it will be necessary to go back, and examine the law of
descent among the tribes, together with the curious and intricate
principles of the TOTEMIC BOND.
Nothing is more fully under the cognizance of observers of the manners
and customs of this people, than the fact of the entire mass of a
canton or tribe’s being separated into distinct clans, each of which
is distinguished by the name and device of some quadruped, bird, or
other object in the animal kingdom. This device is called, among
the Algonquins, (where the same separation into families or clans,
exists,) TOTEM, and we shall employ the term here, as being
already well known to writers. But while the Algonquins have made
no other use of it, but to trace consanguinity, or at least, remote
affinities of families, and while they have also separated into wild
independencies and tribes, who have assumed new tribal names, and
wandered and crossed each other’s track and boundaries in a thousand
ways, the Iroquois have turned it to account by assuming it as the very
basis of their political and tribal bond. How far fixity of territorial
possession and proximity of location may have favored or led to the
establishment of this new bond, need not be inquired into here, but,
while we express no opinion favorable to the remote antiquity of their
residence in the north, it must be evident that this tie would have
lost all its binding force if the Alleghanies, the Great Lakes, or
any other very wide geographical areas, had been interposed between
them, and thus interrupted frequent and full intercourse and united
action. A government wholly verbal, must be conceded to have required
this proximity and nearness of access. The Senecas may be selected as
an example of the influence of the Totemic bond. This canton is still
the most numerous of the existing Iroquois tribes. By the recent
census, the results of which accompany these papers, they number over
two thousand four hundred souls. This population is, theoretically,
separated into eight clans or original families, who are distinguished
respectively by the totems of the wolf, the bear, the turtle, the deer,
the beaver, the falcon, the crane and the plover. Theory at this time,
founded doubtless on actual consanguinity in their inceptive age, makes
these clans brothers. It is contrary to their usages that near kindred
should intermarry, and the ancient rule interdicts all intermarriage
between persons of the same clan. They must marry into a clan whose
totem is different from their own. A wolf or turtle male cannot marry a
wolf or turtle female. There is an interdict of consanguinity. By this
custom the purity of blood is preserved, while the tie of relationship
between the clans themselves is strengthened or enlarged.
But by far the most singular principle connected with totems, the
sign manual of alliance, is the limitation of descent exclusively to
the line of the female. Owing to this prohibition, a chieftain’s son
cannot succeed him in office, but in case of his death, the right of
descent being in the chief’s mother, he would be succeeded not by one
of his male children, but by his brother;[49] or failing in this, by
the son of his sister, or by some direct, however remote, descendant
of the maternal line. Thus he might be succeeded by his own grandson,
by a daughter, but not by a son. It is in this way that the line of
chieftainships is continually deflected or refreshed, and family
dynasties broken up.
[49] Thus Hendrick, who fell at the battle of Lake George, in 1755, was
succeeded, in the Mohawk canton, by his brother Abraham, and not by his
son.
While the law of descent is fully recognized, the free will of the
female to choose a husband, from any of the other seven clans,
excluding only her own, is made to govern and determine the
distribution of political power, and to fix the political character
of the tribe. Another peculiarity may be here stated. The son of a
chief’s daughter is necessarily destined to inherit the honors of the
chieftainship; yet the validity of the claim must, on his reaching the
proper age, be submitted to and recognized by a council of the whole
canton. If approved, a day is appointed for the recognition, and he is
formally installed into office. Incapacity is always, however, without
exception, recognized as a valid objection to the approval of the
council.
Had this law of descent prevailed among the Jews, whose customs have
been so often appealed to, in connection with our red race, neither
David nor Solomon would ever have sat on the throne. It would be easy,
did the purposes of this paper require it, to show by other references
the futility of the proofs, derived from the supposed coincidence of
customs, which have been brought forward with so much learning, and
so little of the true spirit of research, to prove the descent of the
American aborigines from that ancient and peculiar people. But if
theorists have failed on this ground, what shall we say of that course
of reasoning which lays much stress on the most slender evidences of
nativity, in the instance of the great Mohawk sachem, to prove the
superior chances of recurring talent in the line of hereditary descent,
and the legitimacy of his actual claims to the chieftainship, on the
score of paternal right?[50] Vide Appendix C., notes at Oneida Castle.
[50] This remark is not made to depreciate the literary merits of the
esteemed and lamented author of the Life of Brant, but as being simply
due to the cause of truth. Few men have better earned the respect and
remembrance of the public than William L. Stone, whose whole life was
an example of what energy and talents can achieve. It was not, indeed,
to be expected that the incessant duties of the diurnal press should
permit historical scrutiny into a matter, very obscure in itself, and
of which the details are only to be gleaned after laborious search at
remote points.
What was true of the totemic organization of the Senecas, was equally
so of the Mohawks, and of each of the other cantons. Each canton
consisted, like the Senecas, of the clans of the wolf, bear, turtle,
beaver, deer, falcon, plover and crane. But each of these clans were
increments of re-organizations of one of the eight original clans.
They were brothers, and appealed to their respective totems as a proof
of original consanguinity. They were entitled to the same rites of
hospitality, in the lodges of their affiliated totems abroad, that
they were entitled to at home. The affiliated mark on the lodge was
a sufficient welcome of entrance and temporary abode. It results,
therefore, that there were but eight original family clans, estimating
at the maximum number existing in six cantonal departments, or tribes,
and that the entire six tribes were bound together politically by these
eight family ties. As a matter of course, each clan was not equally
numerous in each tribe. This would depend on accidental circumstances
and natural laws; but it is an argument in favor of the antiquity of
the people, or the confederacy, that each of the tribes had organized
in each of the respective clans. For we cannot suppose that at first
there was a systematic, far less, an equal division of the clans,
or that their original separation into separate tribes, or cantons,
was the result of a considerate formal public act. This would be to
reverse the ordinary progress of tribes and nations who, in early ages,
separate from circumstances and causes wholly casual, such as the
ambition or feuds of chiefs, the desire of finding better places to
live, easier means of subsistence, &c.
In the condition of a people, living in a government so purely
patriarchal, following game for a subsistence, and making wars to
enlarge or defend their hunting grounds, the oldest and most respected
man of his clan or totem, would necessarily be its sachem or political
head. We must assume that to be a fixed and settled principle of their
simple constitution and verbal laws, which appears, from all we know,
to have been so. Letters, they had none, and their traditions on this
head are to be gleaned from scattered and broken sources which do not
always coincide.
If each clan had its leading sachem or chief, there were eight
principal chiefs in each canton. Consequently, when the confederacy
consisted of five cantons, there were forty Rakowanas,[51] or head
chiefs. These were the recognized leaders and magistrates in the
villages; but in effect, in a community thus constituted, each Rakowana
or ruling chief of a clan, has a number of aids, Mishinawas[52] and
minor officials, who were also regarded as semi-sachems, or chiefs.
This number is always indefinite and fluctuating, but may be supposed
to be, in relation to the ruling Rakowana, as at least five to one.
[51] Mohawk.
[52] Algonquin.
This would give to each canton forty inferior chiefs, and to the five
cantons, two hundred, denoting a distribution of power and civil
organization, which acting in union must have been very efficacious;
and the more so, when we consider that all their political movements
were entirely of a popular cast, and carried with them the voice of
every man in the canton.
This appears to have been the standing civil organization; but it was
entirely independent of the military system. War chiefs appear ever to
have derived their authority from courage and capacity in war, and to
have risen up as they were required in each canton. The Tekarahogea,
or war captain, founded his rights and powers in the Indian camp, on
former triumphs and present capacity; but the office does not appear
to have been a general one recognized by their constitution. All males
were bound to render military service by custom and opinion, but by
nothing else. Disgrace and cowardice were the penalties, but they were
penalties more binding than oaths or bonds among civilized communities,
and always kept their ranks full. All war parties were, of course,
volunteers. It seems that all able-bodied males over fourteen were
esteemed capable of taking the war path; the early development of
martial power being considered of all traits the most honorable. No
title was more honored than that of Roskeahragehte,[53] or Warrior.
[53] Mohawk.
There was no baggage to encumber the march of an Iroquois army.
The decision of Alexander and the policy of Bonaparte were alike
unnecessary here. Each Iroquois warrior supplied and carried his own
arms and provisions. He joined the war dance, the analogous term for
enlistment, for the particular expedition in hand. If it failed, or
another force was required, other captains called for other volunteers,
and sung their war songs to inflame the ardor of the young. Taunts
and irony of the deepest character were, on these occasions, flung at
the character of the enemy. The war chief lifted his tomahawk as if
actually engaged in combat, and in imagination he stamped his enemy
under foot, while he symbolically tore off his scalp, and uttered his
sharp Sasakwon,[54] or war whoop.
[54] Algonquin.
If it be inquired why this people, with so comparatively small a
population, carried their wars to such an extent, and acquired,
probably in no great time, so wide a sway and power over the other
tribes of the continent, the reply will appear, in a great measure, in
this efficient war organization. It may be said that other tribes had
the same principles. But these eastern and western tribes had feeble
or divided counsels. Each tribe was a sovereignty by itself, and their
powers were tasked by home wars, without attempts at remote conquest.
There is nothing to denote that the number of war chiefs was ever
settled or fixed. Time and chance determined this, as we observe it in
the Algonquin and other American stocks. Fixity, in the number of the
civil chiefs, was indeed rather a theory than an actuality, and the
number must have been perpetually fluctuating, according to obvious
circumstances.
But while the theory of the Iroquois government thus distributed
its powers between two classes of chiefs, one of which ruled in the
council, and the other in the field, there was a third power of
controlling influence in both, which respected, it is true, this
ancient theory, but which annulled, confirmed, originated, or set
aside all other power. I allude to the popular will as exercised by
the warriors. Whatever was proposed had to come under the voice of
the armed men, who had the free right, at all times, to assemble in
council, and put their approval or veto on every measure. Practically
considered, a purer democracy, perhaps, never existed. The chiefs
themselves had no power in advance of public sentiment, or else it was
their policy, as we see it at this day, to express no such power, but
rather to keep in abeyance of, or be the mere agents of the popular
will. In all negociations such absolute power is disclaimed by them.
Acting on principles of the highest diplomacy, they invariably defer
general answers, until a reference can be had to the warriors or men.
They risk nothing by taking grounds in doubtful positions in advance,
and the consequence is that the results of most Indian councils are
unanimous.
There was yet a reserved power in the Iroquois councils which deserves
to be mentioned. I allude to the power of the matrons. This was an
acknowledged power of a conservative character, which might, at all
times, be brought into requisition, whenever policy required it. And
it exists to-day as incontestibly as it did centuries ago. They were
entrusted with the power to propose a cessation of arms. They were
literally peace-makers. A proposition from the matrons to drop the war
club could be made without compromitting the character of the tribe for
bravery; and accordingly, we find, in the ancient organization, that
there was a male functionary, an acknowledged speaker, who was called
the representative or messenger of the matrons. These matrons sat in
council, but it must needs have been seldom that a female possessed
the kind of eloquence suitable to public assemblies; and beyond this
there was a sentiment of respect due to the female class, which led the
tribes, at their general organization, to create this office.
Councils, so organized—so perpetually and truly swayed by popular
will, gave the greatest scope for eloquence. Eloquence, in the
aborigines, takes the place entirely of books and letters. It is
the only means of acting on the multitude, and we find that it was,
from the earliest times, strenuously and successfully cultivated by
the Iroquois. By far the best and most abundant specimens of native
eloquence we possess are from this stock. And their history is replete
in proofs that they employed it, not only in their internal affairs
and negociations, but in teaching to appreciate their rights and the
principles of their government.
[_d._] Ancient Worship.