CUSTOMS AND INDIVIDUAL TRAITS OF CHARACTER.
The more I read, and the better I understand Indian history, the more
am I impressed with the injustice which has been done the Iroquois, not
only in dispossessing them of their inheritance, but in the estimation
which has been made of their character. They have been represented, as
seen in the transition state, the most unfavorable possible for judging
them correctly.
In the chapter upon National Traits of Character, I have, in two or
three instances, quoted Washington Irving, and might again allow his
opinions to relieve my own from the charge of partiality.
He says, in speaking of this same subject, that “the current opinion of
Indian character is too apt to be formed from the miserable hordes
which infest the frontiers, and hang on the skirts of settlements.
These are too commonly composed of degenerate beings, corrupted and
enfeebled by the vices of society, without being benefited by its
civilization. The proud independence which formed the main pillar of
native virtue, has been shaken down, and the whole moral fabric lies in
ruins. Their spirits are humiliated and debased by a sense of
inferiority, and their native courage cowed and daunted by the superior
knowledge and power of their enlightened neighbors. Society has
advanced upon them like one of those withering airs that will sometimes
breed desolation over a whole region of fertility. It has enervated
their strength, multiplied their diseases, and superinduced upon their
original barbarity the low vices of artificial life. It has given them
a thousand superfluous wants, while it has diminished their means of
mere existence. It has driven before it the animals of the chase, who
fly from the sound of the axe and the smoke of the settlement, and seek
refuge in the depths of remote forests and yet untrodden wilds. Thus do
we often find the Indians on our frontiers to be mere wrecks and
remnants of once powerful tribes, who have lingered in the vicinity of
settlements, and sunk into precarious and vagabond existence. Poverty,
repining and hopeless poverty, a canker of the mind before unknown to
them, corrodes their spirits, and blights every free and noble quality
of their natures. They loiter like vagrants about the settlements,
among spacious dwellings replete with elaborate comforts, which only
render them sensible of the comparative wretchedness of their own
condition. Luxury spreads its ample board before their eyes; but they
are excluded from the banquet. Plenty revels over the fields; but they
are starving in the midst of its abundance. The whole wilderness has
blossomed into a garden; but they feel as reptiles that infest it. How
different was their state while undisputed lords of the soil! Their
wants were few, and the means of gratification within their reach. They
saw every one around them sharing the same lot, enduring the same
hardships, feeding on the same aliments, arrayed in the same rude
garments.
“No roof then rose that was not open to the homeless stranger; no smoke
curled among the trees, but he was welcome to sit down by its fire, and
join the hunter in his repast.
“In discussing Indian character, writers have been too prone to indulge
in vulgar prejudice and passionate exaggeration, instead of the candid
temper of true philosophy. They have not sufficiently considered the
peculiar circumstances in which the Indians have been placed, and the
peculiar principles under which they have been educated. No being acts
more rigidly from rule than the Indian. His whole conduct is regulated
according to some general maxims early implanted in his mind. The moral
laws which govern him are few; but he conforms to them all; the white
man abounds in laws of religion, morals, and manners, but how many does
he violate?
“In their intercourse with the Indians, the white people were
continually trampling upon their religion, and their sacred rights.
They were expected to look meekly on while the grave was robbed of its
treasures, and the bones of their fathers were left to bleach upon the
field. And when exasperated by the brutality of their conquerors, and
driven to deeds of vengeance, there was very little appreciation of the
motives which influenced them, and no attempt to palliate their
cruelties.”
It was their custom to bury with the dead their best clothing, and the
various implements they had been in the habit of using whilst living.
If it was a warrior they were preparing for burial, they placed his
tomahawk by his side, and his knife in his shield; with the hunter, his
bow and arrow, and implements for cooking his food; with the women,
their kettles, and cooking apparatus, and also food for all. Tobacco
was deposited in every grave, for to smoke was an Indian’s idea of
felicity in the body and out of it, and in this there was not so much
difference as one might wish, between them and gentlemen of paler hue.
Among the Iroquois, and many other Indian nations, it was the custom to
place the dead upon scaffolds built for this purpose, from tree to
tree, or within a temporary inclosure, and underneath a fire was kept
burning for several days.
They had probably known instances of persons reviving after they were
supposed to be dead; and this led to the conclusion, that the spirit
sometimes returned to animate the body, after it had once fled. If
there were no signs of life for ten days, the fire was extinguished,
and the body left unmolested, till decomposition had begun to take
place, when the remains were buried, or as was often the case, kept in
the lodge for years. If they were obliged to desert a settlement where
they had long resided, these skeletons were collected from all the
families, and buried in one common grave, with the same ceremonies as
when a single individual was interred.
They did not suppose the spirit was instantaneously transferred from
earth to heaven, but that it wandered in aerial regions for many moons.
In later days they allow only ten days for its flight. Their period of
mourning continues only whilst the spirit is wandering; as soon as they
believe it has entered heaven, they commence rejoicing, saying, there
is no longer cause for sorrow, because it is now where happiness dwells
for ever. Sometimes a piteous wailing was kept up every night for a
long time, but it was only their own bereavement that they bewailed, as
they had no fear about the fate of those who died. Not till they had
heard of Purgatory from the Jesuits, or of endless woe from
Protestants, did they look upon death with terror, or life as any thing
but a blessing.
They were sometimes in the habit of addressing the dead, as if they
could hear. The following are the words of a mother, as she bent over
her son, to look for the last time upon his beloved face.
“My son, listen once more to the words of thy mother. Thou wast brought
into life with her pains; thou wast nourished with her life. She has
attempted to be faithful in raising thee up. When thou wert young she
loved thee as her life. Thy presence has been a source of great joy to
her. Upon thee she depended for support and comfort in her declining
days. But thou hast outstripped her and gone before. Our great and wise
Creator has ordered it thus. By His will I am left to taste more of the
miseries of this world. Thy friends and relations have gathered about
thy body, to look upon thee for the last time. They mourn as with one
mind thy departure from among us. We too have but a few days more and
our journey will be ended. We part now, and you are conveyed from our
sight. But we shall soon meet again, and shall look upon each other.
Then we shall part no more. Our Maker has called thee to his home.
Thither will we follow.”
It has been said and written that the Indians were in the habit of
murdering the aged to get them out of the way. There might have
occurred, once in a century, an instance when, to relieve great
suffering, an aged person was put to death. If they were on a long
journey, or there was great scarcity, they might do this from pure
kindness and benevolence, but not to save themselves trouble.
After the adoption of the League of the Iroquois, and they dwelt
together in villages, this was one of the duties enjoined by their
religious teachers at their festivals—“It is the will of the Great
Spirit that you reverence the aged, even though they be helpless as
infants.” And also “kindness to the orphan, and hospitality to all.”
“If you tie up the clothes of an orphan child, the Great Spirit will
notice it and reward you for it.”
“To adopt orphans, and bring them up in virtuous ways, is pleasing to
the Great Spirit.”
“If a stranger wanders about your abode, welcome him to your home, be
hospitable towards him, speak to him with kind words, and forget not
always to mention the Great Spirit.”
Upon the opening of their morning councils, a ceremony of condolence
was performed, and an appropriate speech delivered in memory of those
who had died or been slain in battle since their last meeting. The
ceremonies on these occasions were very solemn, and their speeches full
of pathos and tenderness. The funerals of chiefs, warriors, and
distinguished women were attended by the heads of tribes, and all their
people; and the respect in which they held their women is evinced by
the honors they paid them when dead, being the same as those they
bestowed upon chiefs and warriors.
Their lamentations on being driven far away from the graves of their
fathers have been the theme of all historians and travellers.
Said an Indian chief, in his remonstrance against the treaty that was
to remove the remnant of the Six Nations beyond the Mississippi, “We
cannot go to the west, and leave the graves of our fathers to the care
of strangers. The unhallowed clods would lie heavily upon our bosoms in
that distant land if we should do this.”
“Bury me by my grandmother,” said a little boy of seven years of age, a
few moments before his death. “She used to be kind to me.”
“Lay me in the churchyard by my mother,” said a little orphan girl, who
had been under the care of the missionaries, when she learned she could
not recover.
“I shall be sorry if we must go far away to the west,” said an aged
woman, who had seen eighty winters, “for I had hoped to be laid by my
mother in yonder churchyard.”
“In ancient times they had a beautiful custom of capturing a bird, and
freeing it over the grave on the evening of burial, to bear away the
spirit to its heavenly rest.” And their anxiety to obtain the bodies of
their warriors slain in battle, and the impossibility of leaving the
aged and helpless to die alone in the wilderness, was the result of a
belief that the souls of those who received not the burial rites
wandered about restless and unhappy.
It may be easily imagined that a people who so loved their homes and
revered their fathers’ graves, would become fierce with indignation and
rage, on seeing themselves treated as without human feeling and the
sacred relics of the dead ploughed up and scattered as indifferently as
the stones, or the bones of the moose and the deer of the forest. It
was this feeling which often prompted them to acts of hostility, which
those who experienced them ascribed to wanton cruelty and barbarity. An
instance occurred in New England, where the grave of a Sachem’s mother
was robbed of the skins which had been placed there for her use, and
the chieftain gathered his people together and exhorted them to
revenge. In him it was the promptings of filial piety, and the dictates
of his religion. He thus speaks:
“When last the glorious light of all the sky was underneath this globe,
and birds grew silent, I began, as my custom is, to take repose. Before
mine eyes were fast closed, methought I saw a vision, at which my
spirit was much troubled, and trembling at that doleful sight the
spirit cried aloud—‘Behold, my son, whom I have cherished, see the
breasts that gave thee suck, the hands that lapped thee warm, and fed
thee oft. Canst thou forget to take revenge of those wild people who
have defaced my monuments, disdaining our antiquities and honorable
customs? See now the Sachem’s grave lies like the common people,
defaced by an ignoble race. Thy mother doth complain, and implores thy
aid against those thievish people, who have newly intruded upon our
land. If this be suffered I shall not rest quiet in my everlasting
habitation.’”
A tribe has been known to visit the spot which had been, in former
times, the burial place of their people, though long deserted, and
spend hours in silent meditation; and not till every hope had died in
their bosoms, or the last drop of blood was shed, did they leave the
sod which covered the dust of any of their kindred to the footsteps of
the stranger.
To their hospitality I have often alluded, and there are many anecdotes
to illustrate this trait in their character. The selfishness which they
continually saw in those who were greedy of gain, was something which
they could not comprehend.
In many of their villages there was a Stranger’s Home—a house for
strangers, where they were placed, while the old men went about
collecting skins for them to sleep upon, and food for them to eat,
expecting no reward.
They called it very rude for people to stare at them, as they passed in
the streets, and said that they had as much curiosity as white people,
but they did not gratify it by intruding upon them and examining them.
They would sometimes hide behind trees, in order to look at strangers,
but never stood openly and gazed at them. Their respectful attention to
missionaries was often the result of their rules of politeness, as it
is a part of the Indian’s code, that every person should have a
respectful hearing. Their councils are eminent for decorum, and no
person is interrupted during a speech. Some Indians, after respectfully
listening to a missionary, thought they would relate to him some of
their legends. But the good man could not restrain his indignation, and
pronounced them foolish fables, while what he told them was sacred
truth. The Indian was, in his turn, offended, and said, “We listen to
your stories. Why do you not listen to ours? You are not instructed in
the common rules of civility!”
A hunter, in his wanderings for game, fell among the back settlements
of Virginia, and on account of the inclemency of the weather, sought
refuge at the house of a planter, whom he met at his door. He was
refused admission. Being both hungry and thirsty, he asked for a bit of
bread and a cup of cold water. But the answer to every appeal was, “No,
you shall have nothing here. Get you gone, you Indian dog.”
Some months afterwards this same planter lost himself in the woods, and
after a weary day of wandering, came to an Indian cabin, into which he
was welcomed. On inquiring the way and distance to a settlement, and
finding it was too far for him to think of going that night, he asked
if he could remain. Very cordially the inmates replied that he was at
liberty to stay, and all they had was at his service. They gave him
food, they made a bright fire to cheer and warm him, and supplied him
with clean deerskins for his couch, and promised to conduct him the
next day on his journey. In the morning the Indian hunter and the
planter set out together through the forest. When they came in sight of
the white man’s dwelling, the hunter, about to leave, turned to his
companion, and said, “Do you not know me?” The white man was struck
with horror that he had been so long in the power of one whom he had so
inhumanly treated, and expected now to experience his revenge. But, on
beginning to make excuses, the Indian interrupted him, saying, “When
you see poor Indians fainting for a cup of cold water, don’t say again,
‘Get you gone, you Indian dog,’” and turned back to his hunting
grounds. Which best deserved the appellation, Christian? and to which
will it be most likely to be said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto
the least of these, ye have done it unto me?”
CANNASATEGO
Was a chief of the Onondaga nation. Of him Dr. Franklin tells the
following story:—Conrad Meyses, an interpreter, who had been
naturalized among the Indians, and could speak several of their
dialects, was passing through the country on a governmental mission,
and stopped at the house of Cannasatego, by whom he was warmly
welcomed. Clean furs were spread for him to sit upon, and venison and
succotash placed before him to eat. When he was refreshed, and had
lighted his pipe, the chief conversed with him cheerfully, asking him
concerning his health and prosperity since they had met, and expressing
undiminished friendship for his old acquaintances, who were known to
both, till the ordinary topics were exhausted, when he revived
conversation by asking concerning the customs of white people, which he
could not understand.
“Conrad,” said he, “you have lived long among our white neighbors, and
know their customs. I have been sometimes at Albany, and have observed
that, once in seven days they shut up their shops, and assemble in the
great house; tell me what it is for?—what do they do there?”
“They meet there,” said Conrad, “to hear and learn good things.”
“I do not doubt they tell you so,” said the Indian. “They have often
told me the same; but I doubt the truth of it; and I will tell you the
reason. I went the other day to Albany to sell my skins, and buy
powder, knives, blankets, &c. I usually trade with Hans Hanson, but I
thought this time I would try some other merchant. I went first to
Hans, however, and asked him how much he would give for beaver. He said
he could not give more than four shillings a pound, but that he could
not talk about it then, as it was the day they shut their shops, and
went to meeting to hear about good things. I thought, as I could not do
any business, I might as well go to the meeting too. So we went
together. There stood up a man in black, who began talking very
angrily. I could not understand what he said; but as he looked very
much at me and Hans, I thought he was angry at seeing me there. So I
went out and sat by the door till the meeting broke up. I thought, too,
he said something about beaver, and that this might be the subject of
their meeting. When they came out, I asked Hans if he had not concluded
to give more than four shillings a pound? “No,” said he, “I cannot give
so much; I cannot give more than three shillings and sixpence.” I then
spoke to several other dealers, and they all sang the same song—three
and sixpence—three and sixpence! This made it clear to me that the
purpose of the meeting was not to learn good things, but to consult how
to cheat Indians, in the price of beaver. Consider but a little Conrad,
and you will see that if they met so often to learn good things, they
would certainly have learned some before this time. But they are still
ignorant. If a white man, in travelling through our country, enters one
of our cabins, we all treat him as I do you; we dry him if he is wet;
we warm him if he is cold, and give him meat and drink if he is hungry
and thirsty; we spread soft furs for him to sleep upon, and ask nothing
in return. But if I go into a white man’s house at Albany, and ask for
food and drink, they say, “Get out, you Indian dog.” You see they have
not yet learned those little good things which we need no meetings to
be instructed in, because our mothers taught them to us when we were
children; and therefore it is impossible their meetings should be for
any such purpose, as they say, or have any such effect; they are only
to contrive the cheating of Indians in the price of beaver!”
In shrewdness and quickness of perception, the Indian was not at all
deficient, and there was a great deal of quiet humor lurking in their
natures.
An officer presented a Chief with a medal, on one side of which
President Washington was represented as armed with a sword, and on the
other, the Indian was burying the hatchet. The Chief saw at once the
idea conveyed, and sarcastically asked, “Why does not the President
also bury his sword?”
A Swedish minister having assembled several Chiefs, related to them the
principal facts on which the Christian religion is founded—the eating
of the apple—the coming of Christ to make an atonement—his miracles and
sufferings. When he had finished, an Indian orator stood up to thank
him: “What you have told us,” said he, “is all very good. It is indeed
bad to eat apples. It is better to make them all into cider. We are
much obliged by your kindness in coming so far to tell us these things
you have heard from your mothers.”
Whatever may be said of other nations, the Iroquois certainly
considered it a great stain upon their national escutcheon, to violate
a treaty, and if any nation belonging to their confederacy was guilty
of this breach of honor, it was severely punished. The Delawares were a
subjugated nation, and not at liberty to make war without the knowledge
and approbation of the confederacy. A treaty had been made with a
western nation, and the Delawares invaded their territory, with a full
knowledge that they were at peace with, and under the protection of the
Iroquois. For this they were reprimanded, and forbidden in future to go
to war at all, and deprived of all civil authority,—in their
phraseology, they made them women! This was a great degradation, as war
alone could furnish them an opportunity to gain distinction, and
distinction alone could gain them a position of honor in the
administration of the government. They had been a very brave and
warlike nation, but never afterwards recovered from this humiliation.
There is no instance of the Six Nations having violated a treaty that
was legally made, and which they perfectly understood. They were
faithful to their British allies, and “poured out their blood like
waters,” and in return were deserted and left to the mercy of their
enemies. Not till they saw the faithlessness of those whom they had
trusted and relied upon, did they turn against them.
Falsehood and evasion were no part of the original character of Indians
of any name, and an instance of theft was seldom known among them. Bars
and bolts are still strangers in their settlements, and among the
unchristianized; the custom still prevails of placing the mortar pestle
upon the threshold when the family are all absent, and the famous locks
that received the prize at the World’s Fair could not more effectually
keep all intruders away, than this simple signal. No Indian thought of
entering a cabin where the mortar pestle stood sentinel!
The food of the Indian consisted in the flesh of animals which were
killed in the chase, and the few vegetables they cultivated, with corn
or maize, which was their staple article; and of this they have three
kinds. The white, red, and white-flint. If you ride through an Indian
settlement, you will see hundreds of bushels of corn hanging by the
braided husks upon poles to dry. When fit for use it is pounded in
large stone or wooden mortars, and usually by two women at a time. The
operation is very similar in appearance to the churning in the
old-fashioned dash-churn in New England. When the meal is sufficiently
fine to pass through a coarse sieve, it is made into small loaves of
unleavened bread, and boiled in large kettles, containing a dozen
loaves at a time. It is very palatable and healthy. Hominy was also a
favorite dish with the Indians, and is now so common every where that
it needs no description.
From the Indian, too, are obtained the knowledge of tobacco, and in the
use of this, “all nations of every kindred, tongue, and people,” have
shown their appreciation of Indian taste and refinement. It is strange
that civilized people should have so generally adopted their most
filthy and uncivilized habit!
Maple sugar must have been in use among them for centuries, “as is
proved by their festival to give thanks to the maple.” Beans and
squashes grew wild all over America, and were rendered fruitful by
cultivation among the Iroquois. In the valley of the Genesee, the first
white people who came, of whom we have any definite knowledge, found
large orchards, and in some places peach trees, which were of Indian
cultivation.
They made a tea of the fine green boughs of the hemlock steeped in
water, which I have drank when among them in preference to any other.
Their cooking utensils were very few, and housewifery occupied very
little of the Indian matron’s time. She tilled the soil, and from the
simple manner of tilling it, her labor was very light.
The cradle or baby-frame, the birch canoe, and the moccasin were the
prettiest articles of Indian manufacture, though since their
intercourse with white people they have added an infinite variety of
boxes, bags, and baskets, which they embroider both richly and
tastefully. Indeed I know not if the women of any people can excel them
in fancy work. Where any part of their costume is wrought, the devices
are always neat, and exhibit great skill in the blending of colors. A
full Indian dress is very rich and costly, being mostly of the finest
broadcloth, embroidered with beads around the borders, and with
ornaments of silver around the neck and down the front. Originally they
were clothed entirely in the skins of animals, but the new materials
are made exactly in the old fashion. The kilt was very much like that
worn by the Highlander, and is richly embroidered. The leggin was
fastened above the knee, and fell loosely to the top of the moccasin,
being also deeply embroidered.
There were six dances, at which it was necessary to wear a peculiar
costume. The head-dress of the warriors was adorned with plumes, and
his girdle, gay with many colors, was thrown gracefully over the left
shoulder, tied under the right arm at the waist, and hung in fringes to
the knee.
The style of beauty of the Indian women is so different from that of
the Roman and Grecian, Circassian and Saxon, that at first one would
scarcely pronounce any of them beautiful. But, as a people, I am
inclined to think them better looking than the Saxon, though there are
none among them so beautiful as some among us.
Miss Bremer describes one whom she met on the banks of the Mississippi,
who might be the type of as large a class among Indian women, as a city
belle is, in the throng in which she moves. She says of her—“She was so
brilliant, and of such unusual beauty, that she literally seemed to
light up the whole room as she entered. Her shoulders were broad and
round, and her carriage drooping, as is usual with Indian women, who
are early accustomed to carry burdens on their backs; but the beauty of
the countenance was so extraordinary, that I cannot but think that if
such a face were to be seen in one of the drawing-rooms of the
fashionable world, it would there be regarded as the type of a beauty
hitherto unknown. It was the wild beauty of the forest, at the same
time melancholy and splendid. The bashful glow in those large,
magnificent eyes, shaded by unusually long, dark eye-lashes, cannot be
described, nor yet the glance, nor the splendid light of the smile,
which at times lit up the countenance like a flash, showing the
loveliest white teeth. She was quite young, and had been married two
years to a brave young warrior, who, I was told, was so fond of her,
that he would not allow her to carry burdens, but always got a horse
for her when she went to the town. Her name was Feather Cloud.”
There is not the variety among Indian beauties that exists among white
people. We have all shades, from the lightest blonde to the darkest
brunette; but the shade is nearly the same upon every forest maiden’s
face. The hair is raven black, the cheeks are full, and the eye like
jet. But there is still opportunity for Nature to show her skill;
though there may be few so splendidly beautiful as Feather Cloud, there
are few who may not be called comely; and I have seen many who might
vie with the blondes and brunettes of any drawing-room.