Seventy-four Seneca chiefs attended the general council held here.
Putting their gross population at 2,500, this gives one chief to every
thirty-three souls. This makes them “captains of tens.”
The Seneca language has been somewhat cultivated. Mr. Wright, the
missionary, who has mastered the language, has printed a spelling book
of 112 pages, also a periodical tract for reading, called the “Mental
Elevator.” Both valuable philological data.
The Senecas of this reservation are on the move for Cattaraugus and
Alleghany, having sold out, finally, to the Ogden company. They leave
their old homes and cemetery, however, with “longing, lingering looks.”
Here lie the bones of Red Jacket and Mary Jemison.
Curious and interesting reminiscences the Senecas have. Jot down their
traditions of all sorts. Can’t separate fiction from fact. They must
go together; for often, if the fiction or allegory be pulled up, the
fact has no roots to sustain itself.
KAH-KWAHS, ERIES, ALLEGHANS,—who were they?
Mr. Wright showed me an ancient triturating stone of the Indians, in
the circular depressions of which they reduced the siliceous material
of their ancient pottery.
The Seneca language has a masculine, feminine and neuter gender. It has
also an animate and inanimate gender, making five genders.
It has a general and dual plural.
It abounds in compound descriptive and derivative terms, like the
Algonquin.
They count by the decimal mode. There are names for the digits to ten.
Twenty is a compound of two and ten, and thirty of three and ten, &c.
The comparison of adjectives is effected by prefixes, not by
inflections, or by changes of the words, as in English.
Nouns have adjective inflections as in the Algonquin. Thus _o-a-deh_ is
a road, _o-a-i-yu_ a good road. The inflection, in this last word, is
from _wi-yu_, good.