slightly made, and from a survey of their persons one would imagine that
they were much better qualified for any pursuits that required great
agility than great bodily strength. This has been the general opinion of
most of those who have written on this subject. I am induced, however,
from what I have myself been witness to, and from what I have collected
from others, to think that the Indians are much more remarkable for
their muscular strength than for their agility. At different military
posts on the frontiers, where this subject has been agitated, races, for
the sake of experiment, have frequently been made between soldiers and
Indians, and provided the distance was not great, the Indians have
almost always been beaten; but in a long race, where strength of muscle
was required, they have without exception been victorious; in leaping
also the Indians have been infallibly beaten by such of the soldiers as
possessed common activity: but the strength of the Indians is most
conspicuous in the carrying of burthens on their backs; they esteem it
nothing to walk thirty miles a day for several days together under a
load of eight stone, and they will walk an entire day under a load
without taking any refreshment. In carrying burdens they make use of a
sort of frame, somewhat similar to what is commonly used by a glazier to
carry glass; this is fastened by cords, or strips of tough bark or
leather, round their shoulders, and when the load is fixed upon the
broad ledge at the bottom of the frame, two bands are thrown round the
whole, one of which is brought across the forehead, and the other across
the breast, and thus the load is supported. The length of way an Indian
will travel in the course of the day, when unencumbered with a load, is
astonishing. A young Wyandot, who, when peace was about to be made
between the Indians and General Wayne, was employed to carry a message
from his nation to the American officer, travelled but little short of
eighty miles on foot in one day; and I was informed by one of the
general’s aids-de-camp, who saw him when he arrived at the camp, that he
did not appear in the least degree fatigued.
[Sidenote: MEMORY OF THE INDIANS.]
Le P. Charlevoix observes, that the Indians seem to him to possess many
personal advantages over us; their senses, in particular, he thinks much
finer than ours; their sight is, indeed, quick and penetrating, and it
does not fail them till they are far advanced in years, notwithstanding
that their eyes are exposed so many months each winter to the dazzling
whiteness of the snow, and to the sharp irritating smoke of wood fires.
Disorders in the eyes are almost wholly unknown to them; nor is the
slightest blemish ever seen in their eyes, excepting it be a result from
some accident. Their hearing is very acute, and their sense of smelling
so nice, that they can tell when they are approaching a fire long before
it is in sight.
The Indians have most retentive memories; they will preserve to their
deaths a recollection of any place they have once passed through; they
never forget a face that they have attentively observed but for a few
seconds; at the end of many years they will repeat every sentence of the
speeches that have been delivered by different individuals in a public
assembly; and has any speech been made in the council house of the
nation, particularly deserving of remembrance, it will be handed down
with the utmost accuracy from one generation to another, though
perfectly ignorant of the use of hieroglyphicks and letters; the only
memorials of which they avail themselves are small pieces of wood, such
as I told you were brought by them to Captain E——, preparatory to the
delivery of the presents, and belts of wampum; the former are only used
on trifling occasions, the latter never but on very grand and solemn
ones. Whenever a conference, or a talk as they term it, is about to be
held with any neighbouring tribe, or whenever any treaty or national
compact is about to be made, one of these belts, differing in some
respect from every other that has been made before, is immediately
constructed; each person in the assembly holds this belt in his band
whilst he delivers his speech, and when he has ended, he presents it to
the next person that rises, by which ceremony each individual is
reminded, that it behoves him to be cautious in his discourse, as all he
says will be faithfully recorded by the belt. The talk being over, the
belt is deposited in the hands of the principal chief.
On the ratification of a treaty, very broad splendid belts are
reciprocally given by the contracting parties, which are deposited
amongst the other belts belonging to the nation. At stated intervals
they are all produced to the nation, and the occasions upon which they
were made are mentioned; if they relate to a talk, one of the chiefs
repeats the substance of what was said over them; if to a treaty, the
terms of it are recapitulated. Certain of the squaws, also, are
entrusted with the belts, whose business it is to relate the history of
each one of them to the younger branches of the tribe; this they do with
great accuracy, and thus it is that the remembrance of every important
transaction is kept up.
[Sidenote: WAMPUM.]
The wampum is formed of the inside of the clam shell, a large sea shell
bearing some similitude to that of a scallop, which is found on the
coasts of New England and Virginia. The shell is sent in its original
rough state to England, and there cut into small pieces, exactly similar
in shape and size to the modern glass bugles worn by ladies, which
little bits of shell constitute wampum. There are two sorts of wampum,
the white and the purple; the latter is most esteemed by the Indians,
who think a pound weight of it equally valuable with a pound of silver.
The wampum is strung upon bits of leather, and the belt is composed of
ten, twelve, or more strings, according to the importance of the
occasion on which it is made; sometimes also the wampum is sowed in
different patterns on broad belts of leather.
The use of wampum appears to be very general amongst the Indian nations,
but how it became so, is a question that would require discussion, for
it is well known that they are a people obstinately attached to old
customs, and that would not therefore be apt to adopt, on the most grand
and solemn occasion, the use of an article that they had never seen
until brought to them by strangers; at the same time it seems wholly
impossible that they should ever have been able to have made wampum from
the clam shell for themselves; they fashion the bowls of tobacco pipes,
indeed, from stone, in a very curious manner, and with astonishing
accuracy, considering that they use no other instrument than a common
knife, but then the stone which they commonly carve thus is of a very
soft kind; the clam shell, however, is exceedingly hard, and to bore and
cut it into such small pieces as are necessary to form wampum, very fine
tools would be wanting. Probably they made some use of the clam shell,
and endeavoured to reduce it to as small bits as they could with their
rude instruments before we came amongst them, but on finding that we
could cut it so much more neatly than they could, laid aside the wampum
before in use for that of our manufacture. Mr. Carver tells us, that he
found sea shells very generally worn by the Indians who resided in the
most interior parts of the continent, who never could have visited a sea
shore themselves, and could only have procured them at the expence of
much trouble from other nations.
[Sidenote: REMARKS.]
The Indians are exceedingly sagacious and observant, and by dint of
minute attention, acquire many qualifications to which we are wholly
strangers. They will traverse a trackless forest, hundreds of miles in
extent, without deviating from the straight course, and will reach to a
certainty the spot whither they intended to go on setting out: with
equal skill they will cross one of the large lakes, and though out of
sight of the shores for days, will to a certainty make the land at once,
at the very place they desired. Some of the French missionaries have
supposed that the Indians are guided by instinct, and have pretended
that Indian children can find their way through a forest as easily as a
person of maturer years; but this is a most absurd notion. It is
unquestionably by a close attention to the growth of the trees, and
position of the sun, that they find their way. On the northern side of a
tree, there is generally the most moss, and the bark on that side in
general differs from that on the opposite one. The branches towards the
south are for the most part more luxuriant than those on the other sides
of trees, and several other distinctions also subsist between the
northern and southern sides, conspicuous to Indians, who are taught from
their infancy to attend to them, which a common observer would perhaps
never notice. Being accustomed from their childhood, likewise, to pay
great attention to the position of the sun, they learn to make the most
accurate allowance for its apparent motion from one part of the heavens
to another, and in any part of the day they will point to the part of
the heavens where it is, although the sky be obscured by clouds or
mists.
[Sidenote: ANECDOTE.]
An instance of their dexterity in finding their way through an unknown
country came under my observation when I was at Staunton, situated
behind the Blue Mountains, Virginia. A number of the Creek nation had
arrived at that town in their way to Philadelphia, whither they were
going upon some affairs of importance, and had stopped there for the
night. In the morning some circumstance or another, what could not be
learned, induced one half of the Indians to set off without their
companions, who did not follow until some hours afterwards. When these
last were ready to pursue their journey, several of the towns-people
mounted their horses to escort them part of the way. They proceeded
along the high road for some miles, but all at once, hastily turning
aside into the woods, though there was no path, the Indians advanced
confidently forward; the people who accompanied them, surprised at this
movement, informed them that they were quitting the road to
Philadelphia, and expressed their fears lest they should miss their
companions, who had gone on before. They answered, that they knew
better; that the way through the woods was the shortest to Philadelphia;
and that they knew very well that their companions had entered the woods
at the very place they did. Curiosity led some of the horsemen to go on,
and to their astonishment, for there was apparently no track, they
overtook the other Indians in the thickest part of the wood; but what
appeared most singular was, that the route which they took was found, on
examining a map, to be as direct for Philadelphia as if they had taken
the bearings by a mariner’s compass. From others of their nation, who
had been at Philadelphia at a former period, they had probably learned
the exact direction of that city from their village, and had never lost
sight of it, although they had already travelled three hundred miles
through woods, and had upwards of four hundred miles more to go before
they could reach the place of their destination.
Of the exactness with which they can find out a strange place that they
have been once directed to by their own people, a striking example is
furnished us, I think, by Mr. Jefferson, in his account of the Indian
graves in Virginia. These graves are nothing more than large mounds of
earth in the woods, which, on being opened, are found to contain
skeletons in an erect posture: the Indian mode of sepulture has been too
often described to remain unknown to you. But to come to my story. A
party of Indians that were passing on to some of the sea-ports on the
Atlantic, just as the Creeks above mentioned were going to Philadelphia,
were observed, all on a sudden, to quit the straight road by which they
were proceeding, and without asking any questions, to strike through the
woods in a direct line to one of these graves, which lay at the distance
of some miles from the road. Now very near a century must have passed
over since the part of Virginia, in which this grave was situated, had
been inhabited by Indians; and these Indian travellers, who went to
visit it by themselves, had, unquestionably, never been in that part of
the country before; they must have found their way to it simply from the
description of its situation that had been handed down to them by
tradition.
[Sidenote: ANECDOTE.]
The Indians, for the most part, are admirably well acquainted with the
geography of their own country. Ask them any questions relative to the
situation of a particular place in it, and if there be a convenient spot
at hand, they will, with the utmost facility, trace upon the ground with
a stick a map, by no means inaccurate, of the place in question, and the
surrounding country; they will point out the course of the rivers, and
by directing your attention to the sun, make you acquainted with the
different bearings. I happened once to be sitting in a house at the
western extremity of Lake Erie, whilst we were detained there by
contrary winds, and was employed in looking over a pocket map of the
state of New York, when a young Seneka warrior entered. His attention
was attracted by the sight of the map, and he seemed at once to
comprehend the meaning of it; but never having before seen a general map
of the state of New York, and being wholly ignorant of the use of
letters, he could not discover to what part of the country it had a
reference; simply, however, by laying my finger upon the spot where we
then were, and by shewing to him the line that denoted Buffalo Creek, on
which his village was situated, I gave him the clue to the whole, and
having done so, he quickly ran over the map, and with the utmost
accuracy pointed out by name, every lake and river for upwards of two
hundred miles distant from his village. All the lakes and rivers in this
part of the country still retain the Indian names, so that had he named
them wrong, I could have at once detected him. His pleasure was so great
on beholding such a perfect map of the country, that he could not
refrain from calling some of his companions, who were loitering at the
door, to come and look at it. They made signs to me to lend it to them;
I did so, and having laid it on a table, they sat over it for more than
half an hour, during which time I observed they frequently testified
their pleasure to one another on finding particular places accurately
laid down, which they had been acquainted with. The older men also
seemed to have many stories to tell the others, probably respecting the
adventures they had met with at distant parts of the country, and which
they were now glad of having an opportunity of elucidating by the map
before them.
Whenever a track of ground is about to be purchased by government from
the Indians, for no private individuals can purchase lands from them by
the laws of the province, a map of the country is drawn, and the part
about to be contracted for, is particularly marked out. If there be any
mistakes in these maps, the Indians will at once point them out; and
after the bargain is made, they will, from the maps, mark out the
boundaries of the lands they have ceded with the greatest accuracy,
notching the trees, if there be any, along the boundary line, and if
not, placing stakes or stones in the ground to denote where it runs. On
these occasions regular deeds of sale are drawn, with accurate maps of
the lands which have been purchased attached to them, and these deeds
are signed in form by the contracting parties. I saw several of them in
possession of our friend Captain E——, which were extremely curious on
account of the Indian signatures. The Indians, for the most part, take
upon them the name of some animal, as, The Blue Snake; The Little
Turkey; The Big Bear; The Mad Dog, &c. and their signatures consist of
the outline, drawn with a pen, of the different animals whose names they
bear. Some of the signatures at the bottom of these deeds were really
well executed, and were lively representations of the animals they were
intended for.
[Sidenote: INGENUITY OF THE INDIANS.]
The Indians in general possess no small share of ingenuity. Their
domestic wooden utensils, bows and arrows, and other weapons, &c. are
made with the utmost neatness; and indeed the workmanship of them is
frequently such as to excite astonishment, when it is considered that a
knife and a hatchet are the only instruments they make use of. On the
handles of their tomahawks, on their powder horns, on the bowls of their
pipes, &c. you oftentimes meet with figures extremely well designed, and
with specimens of carving far from contemptible. The embroidery upon
their moccasins and other garments shews that the females are not less
ingenious in their way than the men. Their porcupine quill work would
command admiration in any country in Europe. The soft young quills of
the porcupine are those which they use, and they dye them of the most
beautiful and brilliant colours imaginable. Some of their dyes have been
discovered, but many of them yet remain unknown, as do also many of the
medicines with which they perform sometimes most miraculous cures. Their
dyes and medicines are all procured from the vegetable world.
But though the Indians prove by their performances, that they have some
relish for the works of art, yet they are by no means ready to bestow
commendations on every thing curious for its workmanship that is shewn
to them. Trinkets or ornaments for dress, though ever so gaudy, or ever
so neatly manufactured, they despise, unless somewhat similar in their
kind to what they themselves are accustomed to wear, and fashioned
exactly to their own taste, which has remained nearly the same since
Europeans first came amongst them; nor will they praise any curious or
wonderful piece of mechanism, unless they can see that it is intended to
answer some useful purpose. Nothing that I could shew them attracted
their attention, I observed, so much as a light double-barrelled gun,
which I commonly carried in my hand when walking about their
encampments. This was something in their own way; they at once perceived
the benefit that must accrue to the sportsman from having two barrels on
the one stock, and the contrivance pleased them; well acquainted also
with the qualities of good locks, and the advantages attending them,
they expressed great satisfaction at finding those upon my piece so
superior to what they perhaps had before seen.
It is not every new scene either, which to them, one would imagine,
could not fail to appear wonderful, that will excite their admiration.
[Sidenote: ANECDOTE.]
A French writer, I forget who, tells us of some Iroquois Indians that
walked through several of the finest streets of Paris, but without
expressing the least pleasure at any thing they saw, until they at last
came to a cook’s shop; this called forth their warmest praise; a shop
where a man was always sure of getting something to satisfy his hunger,
without the trouble and fatigue of hunting and fishing, was in their
opinion one of the most admirable institutions possible: had they been
told, however, that they must have paid for what they eat, they would
have expressed equal indignation perhaps at what they saw. In their own
villages they have no idea of refusing food to any person that enters
their habitation in quality of a friend.
[Sidenote: REMARKS.]
The Indians, whom curiosity or business leads to Philadelphia, or to any
other of the large towns in the States, find, in general, as little
deserving of notice in the streets and houses there as these Iroquois at
Paris; and there is not one of them but what would prefer his own wigwam
to the most splendid habitations they see in any of these places. The
shipping, however, at Philadelphia and the other sea-ports, seldom fails
to excite their admiration, because they at once see the utility and
advantage of large vessels over canoes, which are the only vessels they
have. The young Wyandot, whom I before mentioned, as having made such a
wonderful day’s journey on foot, happened to be at Philadelphia when I
was there, and he appeared highly delighted with the river, and the
great number of ships of all sizes upon it; but the tide attracted his
attention more than any thing else whatsoever. On coming to the river
the first day, he looked up at the sun, and made certain observations
upon the course of the stream, and general situation of the place, as
the Indians never fail to do on coming to any new or remarkable spot.
The second time, however, he went down to the water, he found to his
surprise that the river was running with equal rapidity in a contrary
direction to what he had seen it run the day before. For a moment he
imagined that by some mistake he must have got to the opposite side of
it; but soon recollecting himself, and being persuaded that he stood on
the very same spot from whence he had viewed it the day before, his
astonishment became great indeed. To obtain information upon such an
interesting point, he immediately sought out an aid-de-camp of General
Wayne, who had brought him to town. This gentleman, however, only
rendered the appearance still more mysterious to him, by telling him,
that the great spirit, for the convenience of the white men, who were
his particular favourites, had made the rivers in their country to run
two ways; but the poor Wyandot was satisfied with the answer, and
replied, “Ah, my friend, if the great spirit would make the Ohio to run
two ways for us, we should very often pay you a visit at
Pittsburgh[16].” During his stay at Philadelphia he never failed to
visit the river every day.
Footnote 16:
A town situated at the very head of the Ohio.
Amongst the public exhibitions at Philadelphia, the performances of the
horse riders and tumblers at the amphitheatre appear to afford them the
greatest pleasure; they entertain the highest opinion of these people
who are so distinguished for their feats of activity, and rank them
amongst the ablest men in the nation. Nothing, indeed, gives more
delight to the Indians than to see a man that excels in any bodily
exercise; and tell them even of a person that is distinguished for his
great strength, for his swiftness in running, for his dexterous
management of the bow or the gun, for his cunning in hunting, for his
intrepid and firm conduct in war, or the like, they will listen to you
with the greatest pleasure, and readily join in praises of the hero.
[Sidenote: REMARKS.]