NATIONAL GOVERNMENT; OR, LONG HOUSE OF THE IROQUOIS LEAGUE.
Let us look for a moment into the Long House of the Indian confederacy,
and learn something of the government of a people, whom we have been in
the habit of considering ungoverned, and utterly lawless and rude.
In the country which stretches from the Hudson to Lake Erie, and from
the St. Lawrence to the Susquehanna, there dwelt five separate nations,
concerning whose origin we have no knowledge, and with regard to whom
all conjecture is vain.
Concerning themselves they can only say, they grew up out of the
ground, or sprung up like the trees of the forest. They cannot remember
when they were not as the sand on the sea-shore for multitude, and when
their laws and manners and customs were not the same as when white
people came among them.
They had no written language, and, of course, no written lore; and not
a trace of any thing their fathers did, is upon leaf or parchment; but
by studying their legends and fables, observing and understanding their
customs, we can easily imagine what they were.
The Five Nations, called by the French, the Iroquois, date the
formation of the league only a few years before the white man first
landed upon their shores, and it seems to be Columbus to whom they
refer as the first invader.
They called themselves the Ho-de-no-sau-ne, or People of the Long
House; implying that they were one family, sheltered by the same roof.
Each nation was divided into eight tribes or clans, which bear the
names of Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk, and at
the formation of the League these names were retained and all their
laws and customs made with reference to this division into tribes.
One of the historical traditions concerning this union relates that
just before its formation there appeared among them a most
extraordinary and formidable warrior, To-do-da-ho, whose hair was a
mass of living snakes, and whose fingers and toes also terminated in
living serpents, that kept continually hissing and darting their forked
tongues. The snakes were combed out of his hair by a Mohawk Sachem, who
was afterwards called Ha-yo-went-ha, the man who combs.
To-do-da-ho, was at first opposed to the league, because as the Sachems
were all to be of equal power, he would be deprived of his importance.
But to compensate him for giving up the absolute authority he had been
accustomed to exercise, the first Sachemship was named for him, and the
title would descend to all who afterwards should fill the same office.
And though he who inherits it has really no more power than the others,
the name signifies to them a combination of more noble qualities than
any other, and is regarded with a little more reverence.
After the first formation of the league, there seems to have been
little change in the government or any of the institutions connected
with it, though it is evident that there was a gradual progression in
their domestic habits, and great improvements in agriculture. The
journal of De Nonville, who was sent by the French, as commander of an
expedition against the Six Nations in 1607, speaks of large villages,
especially among the Senecas. In four towns the whole number of houses
was three hundred and twenty four, and in these four villages alone he
destroyed one million two hundred thousand (1,200,000) bushels of corn,
besides great quantities of beans, squashes and other vegetables. There
was also a large fort about fifteen miles from the present town of
Rochester, of eight hundred paces in circumference, situated on a
commanding height overlooking an extensive valley.
Had the invasions of the Saxons been deferred a century longer, they
might have found a state of civilization in New York, as advanced as
the Spaniards formed among the Aztecs. Their name, as a united people,
had spread far and wide, and awakened terror in many a bosom.
“By far Mississippi the Illini shrank,
When the trail of the tortoise was seen on the bank.
On the hills of New England, the Pequod turned pale,
When the howl of the wolf swelled at night on the gale;
And the Cherokee shook in his green smilling bowers,
When the foot of the bear stamped his carpet of flowers.”
As the Tuscaroras had been driven away, there were only five nations
when the league was formed, but the exiles returned, and were admitted
as one of the families of the Long House, in 1715.
The first council fire was kindled on the north shore of the Onondaga
lake; and, in the metaphorical language of the Indian, was spoken of as
always burning, to indicate that the people were ever acting in
concert. The Mohawks dwelt at the eastern door, and kept watch towards
the rising sun. The Senecas were the western door, and were expected to
defend the western lodge, that no enemy should enter towards the
setting sun.
The Onondagas were in the centre, and to them was committed the council
brand and the wampum, and they were expected to understand the keeping
of records by the wampum belt.
There were created fifty Sachemships, all the Sachems being of equal
authority—nine belonging to the Mohawk nation, nine to the Oneida,
fourteen to the Onondaga, ten to the Cayuga, and eight to the Seneca
nation. They had no separate territory over which each ruled, but, in
general council, attended to the affairs of the whole.
Formerly, when their numbers increased so that their fields could not
furnish corn, nor their forests venison for so great a number, a band
would go forth in search of new hunting-grounds, and thus be lost to
their people and kindred. But now they were to belong to the
confederacy wherever they might roam, and continue their allegiance.
It was not for the purpose of conquering and subjugating that the new
government was formed, though they hoped, by this means, better to
defend themselves against their border enemies, yet they became very
formidable in their consolidated strength, and carried a war of
extermination among all the surrounding nations, who would not join the
league, or leave them in peace.
“Nought in the woods now their might could oppose,
Nought could withstand their confederate blows—
Banded in strength, and united in soul,
They moved on their course with the cataract’s roll.”
Their names were very significant, and whether belonging to persons or
places, were descriptive of something in their lives or national
history.
To the Onondagas belonged the privilege of naming the Sachems, when the
league was formed, and as these names were to descend to all the
Sachems of posterity, it was a perpetual honor to the nation. In
council they were addressed as Ho-de-sau-no-gata—name-bearers.
Onondaga signifies on the hills, as their principal village, at the
time they became known, was upon an eminence overlooking a beautiful
country.
The Oneidas were the granite people, sprung from a stone, and they,
too, dwelt upon a hill, from which they could look far away through an
extensive and fertile valley, on the borders of Oneida lake. The stone
which was the rallying point of the people, is a great boulder,
differing in geological formation from any within a hundred miles. In
council, they came afterwards to be called the great tree people, from
some occurrence in a treaty beneath a big tree. The original Oneida
stone may be seen in the cemetery at Utica.
The first settlement of the Cayugas was at the foot of Cayuga lake, and
they were called the people at the mucky land. In council they were
called the great-pipe people. The tradition concerning them is
explanatory of all Indian names. The ideal was seldom understood by
those who interpreted them. When it is said, the man of this nation
whose voice was first heard in council, was in the habit of smoking a
great pipe, it is true, but conveys nothing to us, that it conveys to
the Indians. When the chiefs and sachems were all seated in the council
chamber, they commenced smoking, filling their pipes anew when a speech
was about to be made, that they might listen without interruption. The
Cayuga had a large pipe, so that his tobacco lasted longer than that of
others, and he could, therefore, longer attend, and was better able to
concentrate his thoughts; to say he was the great-pipe man, was the
same as saying he was more thoughtful, and listening more attentively,
he was better able to judge.
The device of the Mohawks was a flint and steel, because they first
proposed the formation of the league, and struck the first council
fire. In Council they were called Da-de-o-ga, the people of the two
policies, because a portion were in favor of the league, and a portion
were not.
The Senecas being at the door, were called the first fire; the Cayugas,
the second; and those next in order, the third and fourth, on to the
Mohawks, who were the fifth. As they had no cisterns or wells, they
built their habitations upon the borders of the rivers, near bubbling
springs, and on the shores of lakes. The boundaries between the
different nations were distinctly defined, and in their hunting
excursions they confined themselves to their own territory, whilst
within the limits under the jurisdiction of the league, but without
their united borders, they roamed unrestrained, and all had equal
liberty on the soil of their enemies.
It seems a curious problem now, how such a people were to be called
together; but their runners were almost as fleet of foot as the deer in
the forest, and their trails were the connecting links, not only
between village and village, clans and nations, but stretched far away
to the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic ocean and the
northern lakes. They were a mere foot-path, just wide enough for one to
walk therein, but they were sometimes so deep by the myriad footsteps
which traversed them for centuries, that the sides were several inches
deep. And these trails have become the thorough-fare of our great
nation. In them the Indians wound along beneath the mountains and
through the valleys, carrying the light canoe upon their shoulders, in
which they skimmed the broadest lakes and deepest rivers, and were so
familiar with all the connecting links, that the darkest recesses of
the forest were threaded as easily as the streets of a village, and
almost as quickly as the fiery engine wheels its way over the smooth
iron pathway. I have heard a young Indian say, that his father had
often run from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico, and for four or five
days at a time, scarcely stopping to eat by the way. And I have heard
an aged Indian say, that in the days of his youth, he would run the
distance between certain boundaries, which must have included forty
miles, returning the same day, and thought it no great feat. Only a few
years ago there was a trial of speed between an Indian runner and
several horsemen, or their caparisoned steeds, and the runner left the
horsemen far in the rear. But it is not by these thoroughfares alone
that the Indian is to be traced in all our borders. Their expressive
and musical names are upon every hill-side, in every glen; in the
foaming cataract and on the bosom of the broad lake,—from the mountain
top to the green islet in the midst of the waves, we listen to their
silvery voices.
“Ye say that all have passed away,
The noble race and brave,
That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;
That ’mid the forests where they roamed,
There rings no hunters’ shout;
But their name is on your waters,
Ye may not wash it out.
Ye say their cone-like cabins,
That clustered o’er the vale,
Have disappeared like withered leaves
Before the autumn gale;
But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore,
Your ever living waters speak
Their dialect of yore.”
The several nations held nearly the same relationship to each other and
the league, that the several States do to the Federal Government, and
it has been said that they gave to our Fathers the idea of E Pluribus
Unum.
Their Councils were divided into three classes. The Civil Council for
the purpose of considering their foreign relations, and transacting
business upon foreign affairs; the Mourning Council, which was called
upon the death of a Sachem, to fill a vacancy, if one had occurred, or
confer upon a brave warrior the title and office of Chief; and the
Religious Councils, convened, as the name implies, for religious
observances.
The chiefs did not form any part of the original corps of officers, but
were admitted afterwards, and in their figurative language were styled
the braces of the Long House, because a chieftainship was the reward of
merit, and conferred upon those who had “gained honor in war,” or those
who had in some other way earned distinction, and were ambitious of
renown. And it is recorded as a curious fact in their history, that all
their great orators were among the Chiefs. Except the three of the
first fifty Sachems, there has never one attained to any distinction
until Logan, who was the son of a Cayuga Chief, and himself a Sachem.
The Sachems attended entirely to the affairs of peace, and had not so
much to arouse their enthusiasm, as those who had mingled in the
excitements of war. No Sachem could be at the same time a civil officer
and a warrior; if he took the war-path, he laid aside for the time his
governmental duties. That their League was not instituted for the
purpose of making war, is evident from the fact, that there was no war
department connected with the government. All war expeditions were
private enterprises. The nations not belonging to the League were
considered enemies, and any warrior was at liberty to form a party and
constitute himself leader or captain, and go forth to conquer; if he
was successful, he was honored with a chief-ship and seat in the
Council, but no special military power was conferred on him, as the
Indian Confederacy seemed to have as much fear of military supremacy as
our own government.
But there was this difference between their government and ours—when
the council was not sitting there was no administration of affairs. If
any thing happened in any tribe or nation that required the advice or
deliberation of the assembled Sachems, a runner was sent to the nation
nearest, and they sent a messenger to the next, and so on, till all had
been apprised.
If, for instance, the Senecas wished a council called, the Sachems of
this nation convened and determined whether the matter was of
sufficient importance to require a council of the Six Nations. If they
concluded it was, they sent a runner, with a wampum belt, to the
Cayugas. The Cayugas informed the Onondagas in the same manner, and
they the Oneidas, and the Oneidas the Mohawks. If it was something
which interested all, the effect was like an electric shock; and not
the Sachems and chiefs and warriors alone, but women and little
children gathered around the council fire, coming from the farthest
limits of their territory, heeding no toil or danger in their zeal for
the common welfare.
No message was of any weight unless it was accompanied by the wampum
belt. This originally consisted of small shells, strung upon strings of
deer-skin. After their acquaintance with the Dutch they used
manufactured wampum, which resembled small pieces of broken pipe stem.
The belts consisted of several strings, woven together, and were some
of them black and some white. The process by which they treasured up
speeches and events was a kind of mnemonics, and done entirely by
association. “This belt preserves my words” was the common expression
at the end of every speech or sentence, and each part was associated
with a particular portion of the belt or string which was held in the
hand. When messengers were sent from tribe to tribe, or nation to
nation, the wampum belt was the proof of its genuineness, and without
it no messenger was heeded. White was the emblem of peace, and black of
war, or danger.
The calumet of peace is another mysterious symbol among the Indians,
and not less respected than the sceptre of a king. It is a species of
pipe of stone, with the head finely polished, and the quill two feet
and a half long, made of a strong reed. The red calumets are most
esteemed, and often trimmed with white, yellow, and green feathers.
“Whilst high he lifted in his hand
The sign of peace, the calumet;
So sacred to the Indian soul,
With its stem of reed, and its dark red bowl,
Flaunting with feathers—white, yellow, and green.”
It is the flag of truce among Indian nations, and a violation of it as
disgraceful among them as an insult to the waving stars and stripes of
the United States, or the Lion and the Unicorn, when these national
emblems are borne to the enemy’s camp as a signal that strife may
cease.
Smoking the calumet together was a pledge of amity, and was often used
as a figure of speech, in the expression of friendship. Their language
is a language of metaphors, and very difficult to be translated or
interpreted into any other, and is to them full of classical allusions,
as every important event is transmitted by transferring it to some
person as a name, or baptizing with it some mountain, lake, or stream.
No son or daughter of any tribe was allowed to marry a person belonging
to a tribe of the same name in his own or any other nation. A Deer of
the Seneca nation could marry a Turtle of his own, or of the Mohawk or
Cayuga nation, and so of each of the others. But a Wolf could not marry
a Wolf, or a Heron a Heron.
The children belonged to the tribe of the mother. If she was of the
Deer tribe all her children were of the Deer tribe. They called her
mother, and also called her sisters mother, and her sister’s children,
brothers and sisters; and hence arose the impossibility of marrying in
their own clan. They looked upon all belonging to it as one family, and
a marriage within those degrees of consanguinity was as disgraceful and
revolting in their eyes as a marriage with us between real brothers and
sisters.
The offices also, Sachems, etc., were inherited in the line of the
mothers. So it will be seen that the women were treated with quite as
much respect as among Christian governments, and though they cultivated
the fields and were the servants of men in some respects, their toil
was very light, and it is the testimony of captives who have resided a
long time among them, that their lords were uniformly kind and
considerate.
The emblem of power worn by the Sachem was a deer’s antlers, and if in
any instance the women disapproved of the election or acts of a Sachem,
they had the power to remove his horns and return him to private life.
Their officers or runners from council to council were chosen by
themselves and denominated women’s men, and by these their interests
were always fully represented. If at any time they wished any subject
considered, by means of their runners, they called a council in their
clan; if it was a matter of more general interest there was a council
of the nation, and if the opinions of the women or Sachems of other
nations were necessary, a grand council was called as readily to attend
to them as to the interests of men. Thus a way was provided for them to
have a voice in the affairs of the nation, without endangering their
womanly reserve or subjecting them to the masculine reproach of
publicity, or a desire to assume the offices and powers of men!
It is not recorded that they were more unreasonable than men, or more
disposed to disputations, or that they ever abused their privileges!
Neither do we find that they ever encroached upon the powers granted
them, or “meddled with that which did not belong to them.” They never
manifested any desire to become warriors, or Sachems, or chiefs; but,
on the contrary, planted corn, dressed deer-skins, and worked wampum
belts for centuries without a murmur, and their pale sisters might more
contentedly follow their example if treated with the same deference and
consideration!
The land, they said, belonged to the warriors who defended it, and to
the women who tilled it, and who were also the mothers and wives of the
warriors, and if the men had not degraded themselves by intemperance
and left themselves to be bribed to act dishonestly, and make treaties
contrary to the rules of their people, and the judgment of the best men
and all the women, their glory would not have thus faded away!