THE LEAGUE AND ITS FOUNDERS.
How long the five kindred but independent tribes who were afterwards to
compose the Iroquois confederacy remained isolated and apart from one
another, is uncertain. That this condition endured for several centuries
is a fact which cannot be questioned. Tradition here is confirmed by the
evidence of language. We have good dictionaries of two of their
dialects, the Canienga (or Mohawk) and the Onondaga, compiled two
centuries ago by the Jesuit missionaries; and by comparing them with
vocabularies of the same dialects, as spoken at the present day, we can
ascertain the rate of change which prevails in their languages. Judging
by this test, the difference which existed between these two dialects in
1680 (when the Jesuit dictionaries were written) could hardly have
arisen in less than four hundred years; and that which exists between
them and the Tuscarora would demand a still longer time. Their
traditions all affirm--what we should be prepared to believe--that this
period was one of perpetual troubles. The tribes were constantly at war,
either among themselves, or with the neighboring nations of their own
and other stocks, Hurons, Andastes, Algonkins, Tuteloes, and even with
the distant Cherokees.
There are reasons for believing that attempts were made during this
period to combine the tribes, or some of them, in a federal alliance.
But if such connections were formed, they proved only temporary leagues,
which were dissolved when the dangers that had called them into being
had passed away. A leader of peculiar qualities, aided by favoring
circumstances, was able at last to bring about a more permanent union.
There is no exact chronology by which the date of this important event
can be ascertained; but the weight of evidence fixes it at about the
middle of the fifteenth century. [Footnote: The evidence on this point
is given in the Appendix, note C. It should be mentioned that some
portion of the following narrative formed part of a paper entitled "A
Lawgiver of the Stone Age," which was read at the Cincinnati meeting of
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in August,
1882, and was published in the Proceedings of the meeting. The
particulars comprised in it were drawn chiefly from notes gathered
during many visits to the Reserve of the Six Nations, on the Grand
River, in Ontario, supplemented by information obtained in two visits to
the Onondaga Reservation, in the State of New York, near Syracuse. My
informants were the most experienced councillors, and especially the
"wampum-keepers," the official annalists of their people. Their names,
and some account of them, will be given in a subsequent chapter. It
should be mentioned that while the histories received at the two
localities were generally in close accord, thus furnishing a strong
proof of the correctness with which they have been handed down, there
were circumstances remembered at each place which had not been preserved
at the other. The Onondagas, as was natural, retained a fuller
recollection of the events which took place before the flight of
Hiawatha to the Caniengas; while the annalists of the latter tribe were
better versed in the subsequent occurrences attending the formation of
the League. These facts should be borne in mind by any inquirer who may
undertake to repeat or continue these investigations. When the
narratives varied, as they sometimes did in minor particulars, I have
followed that which seemed most in accordance with the general tenor of
the history and with the evidence furnished by the Book of Rites.]
At this time two great dangers, the one from without, the other from
within, pressed upon these tribes. The Mohegans, or Mohicans, a powerful
Algonkin people, whose settlements stretched along the Hudson river,
south of the Mohawk, and extended thence eastward into New England,
waged a desperate war against them. In this war the most easterly of the
Iroquois, the Caniengas and Oneidas, bore the brunt and were the
greatest sufferers. On the other hand, the two western nations, the
Senecas and Cayugas, had a peril of their own to encounter. The central
nation, the Onondagas, were then under the control of a dreaded chief,
whose name is variously given, Atotarho (or, with a prefixed particle,
Thatotarho), Watatotahro, Tadodaho, according to the dialect of the
speaker and the orthography of the writer. He was a man of great force
of character and of formidable qualities--haughty, ambitious, crafty and
bold--a determined and successful warrior, and at home, so far as the
constitution of an Indian tribe would allow, a stern and remorseless
tyrant. He tolerated no equal. The chiefs who ventured to oppose him
were taken off one after another by secret means, or were compelled to
flee for safety to other tribes. His subtlety and artifices had acquired
for him the reputation of a wizard. He knew, they say, what was going on
at a distance as well as if he were present; and he could destroy his
enemies by some magical art, while he himself was far away. In spite of
the fear which he inspired, his domination would probably not have been
endured by an Indian community, but for his success in war. He had made
himself and his people a terror to the Cayugas and the Senecas.
According to one account, he had subdued both of those tribes; but the
record-keepers of the present day do not confirm this statement, which
indeed is not consistent with the subsequent history of the
confederation.
The name Atotarho signifies "entangled." The usual process by which
mythology, after a few generations, makes fables out of names, has not
been wanting here. In the legends which the Indian story-fellers recount
in winter, about their cabin fires, Atotarho figures as a being of
preterhuman nature, whose head, in lieu of hair, is adorned with living
snakes. A rude pictorial representation shows him seated and giving
audience, in horrible state, with the upper part of his person enveloped
by these writhing and entangled reptiles. [Footnote: This picture and
some other equally grotesque illustrations, produced in a primitive
style of wood engraving, are prefixed to David Cusick's History of the
Six Nations. The artist to whom we owe them was probably the historian
himself. My accomplished friend, Mrs. E. A. Smith, whose studies have
thrown much light upon the mythology and language of the Iroquois
nations, and especially of the Tuscaroras, was fortunate enough to
obtain either the originals or early copies of these extraordinary
efforts of native art.] But the grave Councillors of the Canadian
Reservation, who recite his history as they have heard it from their
fathers at every installation of a high chief, do not repeat these
inventions of marvel-loving gossips, and only smile with good-humored
derision when they are referred to.
There was at this time among the Onondagas a chief of high rank, whose
name, variously written--Hiawatha, Hayenwatha, Ayonhwahtha,
Taoungwatha--is rendered, "he who seeks the wampum belt." He had made
himself greatly esteemed by his wisdom and his benevolence. He was now
past middle age. Though many of his friends and relatives had perished
by the machinations of Atotarho, he himself had been spared. The
qualities which gained him general respect had, perhaps, not been
without influence even on that redoubtable chief. Hiawatha had long
beheld with grief the evils which afflicted not only his own nation, but
all the other tribes about them, through the continual wars in which
they were engaged, and the misgovernment and miseries at home which
these wars produced. With much meditation he had elaborated in his mind
the scheme of a vast confederation which would ensure universal peace.
In the mere plan of a confederation there was nothing new. There are
probably few, if any, Indian tribes which have not, at one time or
another, been members of a league or confederacy. It may almost be said
to be their normal condition. But the plan which Hiawatha had evolved
differed from all others in two particulars. The system which he devised
was to be not a loose and transitory league, but a permanent government.
While each nation was to retain its own council and its management of
local affairs, the general control was to be lodged in a federal senate,
composed of representatives elected by each nation, holding office
during good behavior, and acknowledged as ruling chiefs throughout the
whole confederacy. Still further, and more remarkably, the confederation
was not to be a limited one. It was to be indefinitely expansible. The
avowed design of its proposer was to abolish war altogether. He wished
the federation to extend until all the tribes of men should be included
in it, and peace should everywhere reign. Such is the positive testimony
of the Iroquois themselves; and their statement, as will be seen, is
supported by historical evidence.
Hiawatha's first endeavor was to enlist his own nation in the cause. He
summoned a meeting of the chiefs and people of the Onondaga towns. The
summons, proceeding from a chief of his rank and reputation, attracted a
large concourse. "They came together," said the narrator, "along the
creeks, from all parts, to the general council-fire." [Footnote: The
narrator here referred to was the Onondaga chief, Philip Jones, known in
the council as Hanesehen (in Canienga, Enneserarenh), who, in October,
1875, with two other chiefs of high rank, and the interpreter, Daniel La
Fort, spent an evening in explaining to me the wampum records preserved
at "Onondaga Castle," and repeating the history of the formation of the
confederacy. The later portions of the narrative were obtained
principally from the chiefs of the Canadian Iroquois, as will be
hereafter explained.] But what effect the grand projects of the chief,
enforced by the eloquence for which he was noted, might have had upon
his auditors, could not be known. For there appeared among them a
well-known figure, grim, silent and forbidding, whose terrible aspect
overawed the assemblage. The unspoken displeasure of Atotarho was
sufficient to stifle all debate, and the meeting dispersed. This result,
which seems a singular conclusion of an Indian council--the most
independent and free-spoken of all gatherings--is sufficiently explained
by the fact that Atotarho had organized, among the more reckless
warriors of his tribe, a band of unscrupulous partisans, who did his
bidding without question, and took off by secret murder all persons
against whom he bore a grudge. The knowledge that his followers were
scattered through the assembly, prepared to mark for destruction those
who should offend him, might make the boldest orator chary of speech.
Hiawatha alone was undaunted. He summoned a second meeting, which was
attended by a smaller number, and broke up as before, in confusion, on
Atotarho's appearance. The unwearied reformer sent forth his runners a
third time; but the people were disheartened. When the day of the
council arrived, no one attended. Then, continued the narrator, Hiawatha
seated himself on the ground in sorrow. He enveloped his head in his
mantle of skins, and remained for a long time bowed down in grief and
thought. At length he arose and left the town, taking his course toward
the southeast. He had formed a bold design. As the councils of his own
nation were closed to him, he would have recourse to those of other
tribes. At a short distance from the town (so minutely are the
circumstances recounted) he passed his great antagonist, seated near a
well-known spring, stern and silent as usual. No word passed between the
determined representatives of war and peace; but it was doubtless not
without a sensation of triumphant pleasure that the ferocious war-chief
saw his only rival and opponent in council going into what seemed to be
voluntary exile. Hiawatha plunged into the forest; he climbed mountains;
he crossed a lake; he floated down the Mohawk river in a canoe. Many
incidents of his journey are told, and in this part of the narrative
alone some occurrences of a marvelous cast are related, even by the
official historians. Indeed, the flight of Hiawatha from Onondaga to the
country of the Caniengas is to the Five Nations what the flight of
Mohammed from Mecca to Medina is to the votaries of Islam. It is the
turning point of their history. In embellishing the narrative at this
point, their imagination has been allowed a free course. Leaving aside
these marvels, however, we need only refer here to a single incident,
which may well enough have been of actual occurrence. A lake which
Hiawatha crossed had shores abounding in small white shells. These he
gathered and strung upon strings, which he disposed upon his breast, as
a token to all whom he should meet that he came as a messenger of peace.
And this, according to one authority, was the origin of wampum, of which
Hiawatha was the inventor. That honor, however, is one which must be
denied to him. The evidence of sepulchral relics shows that wampum was
known to the mysterious Mound-builders, as well as in all succeeding
ages. Moreover, if the significance of white wampum-strings as a token
of peace had not been well known in his day, Hiawatha would not have
relied upon them as a means of proclaiming his pacific purpose.
Early one morning he arrived at a Canienga town, the residence of the
noted chief Dekanawidah, whose name, in point of celebrity, ranks in
Iroquois tradition with those of Hiawatha and Atotarho. It is probable
that he was known by reputation to Hiawatha, and not unlikely that they
were related. According to one account Dekanawidah was an Onondaga,
adopted among the Caniengas. Another narrative makes him a Canienga by
birth. The probability seems to be that he was the son of an Onondaga
father, who had been adopted by the Caniengas, and of a Canienga mother.
That he was not of pure Canienga blood is shown by the fact, which is
remembered, that his father had had successively three wives, one
belonging to each of the three clans, Bear, Wolf, and Tortoise, which
composed the Canienga nation. If the father had been of that nation
(Canienga), he would have belonged to one of the Canienga clans, and
could not then (according to the Indian law) have married into it. He
had seven sons, including Dekanawidah, who, with their families, dwelt
together in one of the "long houses" common in that day among the
Iroquois. These ties of kindred, together with this fraternal strength,
and his reputation as a sagacious councillor, gave Dekanawidah great
influence among his people. But, in the Indian sense, he was not the
leading chief. This position belonged to Tekarihoken (better known in
books as Tecarihoga), whose primacy as the first chief of the eldest
among the Iroquois nations was then, and is still, universally admitted.
Each nation has always had a head-chief, to whom belonged the hereditary
right and duty of lighting the council fire and taking the first place
in public meetings. But among the Indians, as in other communities,
hereditary rank and personal influence do not always, or indeed,
ordinarily, go together. If Hiawatha could gain over Dekanawidah to his
views, he would have done much toward the accomplishment of his
purposes.
In the early dawn he seated himself on a fallen trunk, near the spring
from which the inhabitants of the long house drew their water. Presently
the wife of one of the brothers came out with a vessel of elm-bark, and
approached the spring. Hiawatha sat silent and motionless. Something in
his aspect awed the woman, who feared to address him. She returned to
the house, and said to Dekanawidah, "A man, or a figure like a man, is
seated by the spring, having his breast covered with strings of white
shells." "It is a guest," said the chief to one of his brothers; "go and
bring him in. We will make him welcome." Thus Hiawatha and
Dekanawidah--first met. They found in each other kindred spirits. The
sagacity of the Canienga chief grasped at once the advantages of the
proposed plan, and the two worked together in perfecting it, and in
commending it to the people. After much discussion in council, the
adhesion of the Canienga nation was secured. Dekanawidah then dispatched
two of his brothers as ambassadors to the nearest tribe, the Oneidas, to
lay the project before them. The Oneida nation is deemed to be a
comparatively recent offshoot from the Caniengas. The difference of
language is slight, showing that their separation was much later than
that of the Onondagas. In the figurative speech of the Iroquois, the
Oneida is the son, and the Onondaga is the brother, of the Canienga.
Dekanawidah had good reason to expect that it would not prove difficult
to win the consent of the Oneidas to the proposed scheme. But delay and
deliberation mark all public acts of the Indians. The ambassadors found
the leading chief, Odatsehte, at his town on the Oneida creek. He
received their message in a friendly way, but--required time for his
people to consider it in council. "Come back in another day," he said to
the messengers. In the political speech of the Indians, a day is
understood to mean a year. The envoys carried back the reply to
Dekanawidah and Hiawatha, who knew that they could do nothing but wait
the prescribed time. After the lapse of a year, they repaired to the
place of meeting. The treaty which initiated the great league was then
and there ratified by the representatives of the Canienga and Oneida
nations. The name of Odatsehte means "the quiver-bearer;" and as
Atotarho, "the entangled," is fabled to have had his head wreathed with
snaky locks, and as Hiawatha, "the wampum-seeker," is represented to
have wrought shells into wampum, so the Oneida chief is reputed to have
appeared at this treaty bearing at his shoulder a quiver full of arrows.
The Onondagas lay next to the Oneidas. To them, or rather to their
terrible chief, the next application was made. The first meeting of
Atotarho and Dekanawidah is a notable event in Iroquois history. At a
later day, a native artist sought to represent it in an historical
picture, which has been already referred to. Atotarho is seated in
solitary and surly dignity, smoking a long pipe, his head and body
encircled with contorted and angry serpents. Standing before him are two
figures which cannot be mistaken. The foremost, a plumed and cinctured
warrior, depicted as addressing the Onondaga chief, holds in his right
hand, as a staff, his flint-headed spear, the ensign, it may be
supposed, which marks him as the representative of the Caniengas, or
"People of the Flint." Behind him another plumed figure bears in his
hand a bow with arrows, and at his shoulder a quiver. Divested of its
mythological embellishments, the picture rudely represents the interview
which actually took place. The immediate result was unpromising. The
Onondaga chief coldly refused to entertain the project, which he had
already rejected when proposed by Hiawatha. The ambassadors were not
discouraged. Beyond the Onondagas were scattered the villages of the
Cayugas, a people described by the Jesuit missionaries, at a later day,
as the most mild and tractable of the Iroquois. They were considered an
offshoot of the Onondagas, to whom they bore the same filial relation
which the Oneidas bore to the Caniengas. The journey of the advocates of
peace through the forest to the Cayuga capital, and their reception, are
minutely detailed in the traditionary narrative. The Cayugas, who had
suffered from the prowess and cruelty of the Onondaga chief, needed
little persuasion. They readily consented to come into the league, and
their chief, Akahenyonk ("The Wary Spy"), joined the Canienga and Oneida
representatives in a new embassy to the Onondagas. Acting probably upon
the advice of Hiawatha, who knew better than any other the character of
the community and the chief with whom they had to deal, they made
proposals highly flattering to the self-esteem which was the most
notable trait of both ruler and people. The Onondagas should be the
leading nation of the confederacy. Their chief town should be the
federal capital, where the great councils of the league should be held,
and where its records should be preserved. The nation should be
represented in the council by fourteen senators, while no other nation
should have more than ten. And as the Onondagas should be the leading
tribe, so Atotarho should be the leading chief. He alone should have the
right of summoning the federal council, and no act of the council to
which he objected should be valid. In other words, an absolute veto was
given to him. To enhance his personal dignity, two high chiefs were
appointed as his special aids and counselors, his "Secretaries of
State," so to speak. Other insignia of preeminence were to be possessed
by him; and, in view of all these distinctions, it is not surprising
that his successor, who two centuries later retained the same
prerogatives, should have been occasionally styled by the English
colonists "the Emperor of the Five Nations." It might seem, indeed, at
first thought, that the founders of the confederacy had voluntarily
placed themselves and their tribes in a position of almost abject
subserviency to Atotarho and his followers. But they knew too well the
qualities of their people to fear for them any political subjection. It
was certain that when once the league was established, and its
representatives had met in council, character and intelligence would
assume their natural sway, and mere artificial rank and dignity would be
little regarded. Atotarho and his people, however, yielded either to
these specious offers, or to the pressure which the combined urgency of
the three allied nations now brought to bear upon them. They finally
accepted the league; and the great chief, who had originally opposed it,
now naturally became eager to see it as widely extended as possible. He
advised its representatives to go on at once to the westward, and enlist
the populous Seneca towns, pointing out how this might best be done.
This advice was followed, and the adhesion of the Senecas was secured by
giving to their two leading chiefs, Kanya-dariyo ("Beautiful Lake") and
Shadekaronyes ("The Equal Skies"), the offices of military commanders of
the confederacy, with the title of doorkeepers of the "Long-house," that
being the figure by which the league was known.
The six national leaders who have been mentioned--Dekanawidah for the
Caniengas, Odatsehte for the Oneidas, Atotarho for the Onondagas,
Akahenyonk for the Cayugas, Kanyadariyo and Shadekaronyes for the two
great divisions of the Senecas--met in convention near the Onondaga
Lake, with Hiawatha for their adviser, and a vast concourse of their
followers, to settle the terms and rules of their confederacy, and to
nominate its first council. Of this council, nine members (or ten, if
Dekanawidah be included) were assigned to the Caniengas, a like number
to the Oneidas, fourteen to the lordly Onondagas, ten to the Cayugas,
and eight to the Senecas. Except in the way of compliment, the number
assigned to each nation was really of little consequence; inasmuch as,
by the rule of the league, unanimity was exacted in all their decisions.
This unanimity, however, did not require the suffrage of every member of
the council. The representatives of each nation first deliberated apart
upon the question proposed. In this separate council the majority
decided; and the leading chief then expressed in the great council the
voice of his nation. Thus the veto of Atotarho ceased at once to be
peculiar to him, and became a right exercised by each of the allied
nations. This requirement of unanimity, embarrassing as it might seem,
did not prove to be so in practice. Whenever a question arose on which
opinions were divided, its decision was either postponed, or some
compromise was reached which left all parties contented.
The first members of the council were appointed by the convention--under
what precise rule is unknown; but their successors came in by a method
in which the hereditary and the elective systems were singularly
combined, and in which female suffrage had an important place. When a
chief died or (as sometimes happened) was deposed for incapacity or
misconduct, some member of the same family succeeded him. Rank followed
the female line; and this successor might be any descendant of the late
chief's mother or grandmother--his brother, his cousin or his
nephew--but never his son. Among many persons who might thus be
eligible, the selection was made in the first instance by a family
council. In this council the "chief matron" of the family, a noble dame
whose position and right were well defined, had the deciding voice. This
remarkable fact is affirmed by the Jesuit mission-ary Lafitau, and the
usage remains in full vigor among the Canadian Iroquois to this day.
[Footnote: "La dignité de chef est perpetuelle et héréditaire dans sa
Cabane, passant toujours aux enfans de ses tantes, de ses soeurs, on de
ses nièces du côté maternel. Dès que l'arbre est tombé, il fault, disent
ils, le relever. La matrone, qui a la principale autorité, après en
avoir conferé avec ceux de sa Cabane, en confère de nouveau avec ceux de
sa Tribu [clan], à qui elle fait agréer oelui qu'elle a choisi pour
succeder, ce qui lui est assez libre. Elle n'a pas toujours égard au
droit d'ainesse, et d'ordinaire, elle prend celui qui paroit le plus
propre à soûtenir ce rang par ses bonnes qualités."--_Lafitau: Maurs des
Savages Ameriquains_, p. 471.] If there are two or more members of the
family who seem to have equal claims, the nominating matron sometimes
declines to decide between them, and names them both or all, leaving the
ultimate choice to the nation or the federal council. The council of the
nation next considers the nomination, and, if dissatisfied, refers it
back to the family for a new designation. If content, the national
council reports the name of the candidate to the federal senate, in
which resides the power of ratifying or rejecting the choice of the
nation; but the power of rejection is rarely exercised, though that of
expulsion for good cause is not unfrequently exerted. The new chief
inherits the name of his predecessor. In this respect, as in some
others, the resemblance of the Great Council to the English House of
Peers is striking. As Norfolk succeeds to Norfolk, so Tekarihoken
succeeds Tekarihoken. The great names of Hiawatha and Atotarho are still
borne by plain farmer-councillors on the Canadian Reservation.
When the League was established, Hiawatha had been adopted by the
Canienga nation as one of their chiefs. The honor in which he was held
by them is shown by his position on the roll of councillors, as it has
been handed down from the earliest times. As the Canienga nation is the
"elder brother," the names of its chiefs are first recited. At the head
of the list is the leading Canienga chief, Tekarihoken, who represents
the noblest lineage of the Iroquois stock. Next to him, and second on
the roll, is the name of Hiawatha. That of his great colleague,
Dekanawidah, nowhere appears. He was a member of the first council; but
he forbade his people to appoint a successor to him. "Let the others
have successors," he said proudly, "for others can advise you like them.
But I am the founder of your league, and no one else can do what I have
done." [Footnote: In Mr. Morgan's admirable work, "_The League of the
Iroquois_," the list of Councillors (whom he styles _sachems_),
comprises the name of Dekanawidah--in his orthography, Daganoweda.
During my last visit to my lamented friend (in September, 1880), when we
examined together my copy of the then newly discovered Book of Rites, in
which he was greatly interested, this point was considered. The original
notes which he made for his work were examined. It appeared that in the
list as it was first written by him, from the dictation of a
well-informed Seneca chief, the name of Dekanawidah was not comprised. A
later, but erroneous suggestion, from another source, led him to believe
that his first informant was mistaken, or that he had misunderstood him,
and to substitute the name of Dekanawidah for the somewhat similar name
of Shatekariwate (in Seneca Sadekeiwadeh), which stands third on the
roll, immediately following that of Hiawatha. The term _sachem_, it may
be added, is an Algonkin word, and one which Iroquois speakers have a
difficulty in pronouncing. Their own name for a member of their Senate
is _Royaner_, derived from the root _yaner_, noble, and precisely
equivalent in meaning to the English "nobleman" or "lord," as applied to
a member of the House of Peers. It is the word by which the missionaries
have rendered the title "Lord" in the New Testament.]
The boast was not unwarranted. Though planned by another, the structure
had been reared mainly by his labors. But the Five Nations, while
yielding abundant honor to the memory of Dekanawidah, have never
regarded him with the same affectionate reverence which has always clung
to the name of Hiawatha. His tender and lofty wisdom, his wide-reaching
benevolence, and his fervent appeals to their better sentiments,
enforced by the eloquence of which he was master, touched chords in the
popular heart which have continued to respond until this day. Fragments
of the speeches in which he addressed the council and the people of the
league are still remembered and repeated. The fact that the league only
carried out a part of the grand design which he had in view is
constantly affirmed. Yet the failure was not due to lack of effort. In
pursuance of his original purpose, when the league was firmly
established, envoys were sent to other tribes to urge them to join it,
or at least to become allies. One of these embassies penetrated to the
distant Cherokees, the hereditary enemies of the Iroquois nations. For
some reason with which we are not acquainted, perhaps the natural
suspicion or vindictive pride of that powerful community, this mission
was a failure. Another, dispatched to the western Algonkins, had better
success. A strict alliance was formed with the far-spread Ojibway
tribes, and was maintained inviolate for at least two hundred years,
until at length the influence of the French, with the sympathy of the
Ojibways for the conquered Hurons, undid to some extent, though not
entirely, this portion of Hiawatha's work.
His conceptions were beyond his time, and beyond ours; but their effect,
within a limited sphere, was very great. For more than three centuries
the bond which he devised held together the Iroquois nations in perfect
amity. It proved, moreover, as he intended, elastic.--The territory of
the Iroquois, constantly extending as their united strength made itself
felt, became the "Great Asylum" of the Indian tribes. Of the conquered
Eries and Hurons, many hundreds were received and adopted among their
conquerors. The Tuscaroras, expelled by the English from North Carolina,
took refuge with the Iroquois, and became the sixth nation of the
League. From still further south, the Tuteloes and Saponies, of Dakota
stock, after many wars with the Iroquois, fled to them from their other
enemies, and found a cordial welcome. A chief still sits in the council
as a representative of the Tuteloes, though the tribe itself has been
swept away by disease, or absorbed in the larger nations. Many fragments
of tribes of Algonkin lineage--Delawares, Nanticokes, Mohegans,
Mississagas--sought the same hospitable protection, which never failed
them. Their descendants still reside on the Canadian Reservation, which
may well be styled an aboriginal "refuge of nations," affording a
striking evidence in our own day of the persistent force of a great
idea, when embodied in practical shape by the energy of a master mind.
The name by which their constitution or organic law is known among them
is _kayánerenh_, to which the epitaph _kowa_, "great," is frequently
added. This word, _kayánerenh_, is sometimes rendered "law," or
"league," but its proper meaning seems to be "peace." It is used in this
sense by the missionaries, in their translations of the scriptures and
the prayer-book. In such expressions as the "Prince of Peace," "the
author of peace," "give peace in our time," we find _kayánerenh_
employed with this meaning. Its root is _yaner_, signifying "noble," or
"excellent," which yields, among many derivatives, _kayánere_,
"goodness," and _kayánerenh_, "peace," or "peacefulness." The national
hymn of the confederacy, sung whenever their "Condoling Council" meets,
commences with a verse referring to their league, which is literally
rendered, "We come to greet and thank the PEACE" (_kayánerenh_). When
the list of their ancient chiefs, the fifty original councillors, is
chanted in the closing litany of the meeting, there is heard from time
to time, as the leaders of each clan are named, an outburst of praise,
in the words--
"This was the roll of you--
You that combined in the work,
You that completed the work,
The GREAT PEACE." (_Kayánerenh-kowa_.)
The regard of Englishmen for their Magna Charta and Bill of Rights, and
that of Americans for their national Constitution, seem weak in
comparison with the intense gratitude and reverence of the Five Nations
for the "Great Peace," which Hiawatha and his colleagues established for
them. Of the subsequent life of Hiawatha, and of his death, we have no
sure information. The records of the Iroquois are historical, and not
biographical. As Hiawatha had been made a chief among the Caniengas, he
doubtless continued to reside with that nation. A tradition, which is in
itself highly probable, represents him as devoting himself to the
congenial work of clearing away the obstructions in the streams which
intersect the country then inhabited by the confederated nations, and
which formed the chief means of communication between them. That he
thus, in some measure, anticipated the plans of De Witt Clinton and his
associates, on a smaller scale, but perhaps with a larger statesmanship,
we may be willing enough to believe. A wild legend recorded by some
writers, but not told of him by the Canadian Iroquois, and apparently
belonging to their ancient mythology, gives him an apotheosis, and makes
him ascend to heaven in a white canoe. It may be proper to dwell for a
moment on the singular complication of mistakes which has converted this
Indian reformer and statesman into a mythological personage.
When by the events of the Revolutionary war the original confederacy was
broken up, the larger portion of the people followed Brant to Canada.
The refugees comprised nearly the whole of the Caniengas, and the
greater part of the Onondagas and Cayugas, with many members of the
other nations. In Canada their first proceeding was to reestablish, as
far as possible, their ancient league, with all its laws and ceremonies.
The Onondagas had brought with them most of their wampum records, and
the Caniengas jealously preserved the memories of the federation, in
whose formation they had borne a leading part. The history of the league
continued to be the topic of their orators whenever a new chief was
installed into office. Thus the remembrance of the facts has been
preserved among them with much clearness and precision, and with little
admixture of mythological elements. With the fragments of the tribes
which remained on the southern side of the Great Lakes the case was very
different. A feeble pretense was made, for a time, of keeping up the
semblance of the old confederacy; but except among the Senecas, who, of
all the Five Nations, had had least to do with the formation of the
league, the ancient families which had furnished the members of their
senate, and were the conservators of their history, had mostly fled to
Canada or the West. The result was that among the interminable stories
with which the common people beguile their winter nights, the traditions
of Atotarho and Hiawatha became intermingled with the legends of their
mythology. An accidental similarity, in the Onondaga dialect, between
the name of Hiawatha and that of one of their ancient divinities, led to
a confusion between the two, which has misled some investigators. This
deity bears, in the sonorous Canienga tongue, the name of Taronhiawagon,
meaning "the Holder of the Heavens." The Jesuit missionaries style him
"the great god of the Iroquois." Among the Onondagas of the present day,
the name is abridged to Taonhiawagi, or Tahiawagi. The confusion between
this name and that of Hiawatha (which, in another form, is pronounced
Tahionwatha) seems to have begun more than a century ago; for Pyrteus,
the Moravian missionary, heard among the Iroquois (according to
Heckewelder) that the person who first proposed the league was an
ancient Mohawk, named Thannawege. Mr. J. V. H. Clarke, in his
interesting History of Onondaga, makes the name to have been originally
Ta-oun-ya-wat-ha, and describes the bearer as "the deity who presides
over fisheries and hunting-grounds." He came down from heaven in a white
canoe, and after sundry adventures, which remind one of the labors of
Hercules, assumed the name of Hiawatha (signifying, we are told, "a very
wise man"), and dwelt for a time as an ordinary mortal among men,
occupied in works of benevolence. Finally, after founding the
confederacy and bestowing many prudent counsels upon the people, he
returned to the skies by the same conveyance in which he had descended.
This legend, or, rather, congeries of intermingled legends, was
communicated by Clark to Schoolcraft, when the latter was compiling his
"Notes on the Iroquois." Mr. Schoolcraft, pleased with the poetical cast
of the story, and the euphonious name, made confusion worse confounded
by transferring the hero to a distant region and identifying him with
Manabozho, a fantastic divinity of the Ojibways. Schoolcraft's volume,
which he chose to entitle "The Hiawatha Legends," has not in it a single
fact or fiction relating either to Hiawatha himself or to the Iroquois
deity Taronhiawagon. Wild Ojibway stories concerning Manabozho and his
comrades form the staple of its contents. But it is to this collection
that we owe the charming poem of Longfellow; and thus, by an
extraordinary fortune, a grave Iroquois lawgiver of the fifteenth
century has become, in modern literature, an Ojibway demigod, son of the
West Wind, and companion of the tricksy Paupukkeewis, the boastful
Iagoo, and the strong Kwasind. If a Chinese traveler, during the middle
ages, inquiring into the history and religion of the western nations,
had confounded King Alfred with King Arthur, and both with Odin, he
would not have made a more preposterous confusion of names and
characters than that which has hitherto disguised the genuine
personality of the great Onondaga reformer. [Footnote: This subject is
further discussed in the Appendix, Note D.]
About the main events of his history, and about his character and
purposes, there can be no reasonable doubt. We have the wampum belts
which he handled, and whose simple hieroglyphics preserve the memory of
the public acts in which he took part. We have, also, in the Iroquois
"Book of Rites," which in the present volume is given in its original
form, a still more clear and convincing testimony to the character both
of the legislator and of the people for whom his institutions were
designed. This book, sometimes called the "Book of the Condoling
Council," might properly enough be styled an Iroquois Veda. It comprises
the speeches, songs, and other ceremonies, which, from the earliest
period of the confederacy, have composed the proceedings of their
council when a deceased chief is lamented and his successor is installed
in office. The fundamental laws of the league, a list of their ancient
towns, and the names of the chiefs who constituted their first council,
chanted in a kind of litany, are also comprised in the collection. The
contents, after being preserved in memory, like the Vedas, for many
generations, were written down by desire of the chiefs, when their
language was first reduced to writing; and the book is therefore more
than a century old. Its language, archaic when written, is now partly
obsolete, and is fully understood by only a few of the oldest chiefs. It
is a genuine Indian composition, and must be accepted as disclosing the
true character of its authors. The result is remarkable enough. Instead
of a race of rude and ferocious warriors, we find in this book a kindly
and affectionate people, full of sympathy for their friends in distress,
considerate to their women, tender to their children, anxious for peace,
and imbued with a profound reverence for their constitution and its
authors. We become conscious of the fact that the aspect in which these
Indians have presented themselves to the outside world has been in a
large measure deceptive and factitious. The ferocity, craft and cruelty,
which have been deemed their leading traits, have been merely the
natural accompaniments of wars of self-preservation, and no more
indicated their genuine character than the war-paint, plume and tomahawk
of the warrior displayed the customary guise in which he appeared among
his own people. The cruelties of war, when war is a struggle for
national existence, are common to all races. The persistent desire for
peace, pursued for centuries in federal unions, and in alliances and
treaties with other nations, has been manifested by few as steadily as
by the countrymen of Hiawatha. The sentiment of universal brotherhood
which directed their policy has never been so fully developed in any
branch of the Aryan race, unless it may be found incorporated in the
religious quietism of Buddha and his followers.