THE BOOK OF RITES.
For a proper appreciation of this peculiar composition, some further
particulars respecting its origin and character will be needed. During
my earlier visits to the Reserve of the Six Nations, near Brantford, I
had heard of an Indian book which was used at their "Condoling
Councils," the most important of their many public gatherings. But it
was not until the month of September, 1879, that I had an opportunity of
seeing the work. At that time two copies of the book were brought to me
by the official holders, two of the principal chiefs of the confederacy.
One of these was Chief John "Smoke" Johnson, who for many years had held
the high office of Speaker of the Great Council, though, of late,
yielding to age and infirmity, he has withdrawn from the public
performance of its duties. His second name is a rude rendering of his
truly poetical Indian appellation, Sakayen-gwaraton, or "Disappearing
Mist." It signifies properly, I was told, the haze which rises from the
ground in an autumn morning and vanishes as the day advances. His
English name, and, in part, his blood, Chief Johnson derives from no
less distinguished an ancestor than Sir William Johnson, who played so
notable a part in colonial history during the last century, and who
exercised, perhaps, a greater influence on the destiny of the Iroquois
than any other individual since the formation of their confederacy. To
him, indeed, may be ascribed the distinction, such as it is, of
destroying the work which Hiawatha and Dekanawidah had founded. But for
the influence over the Indians which he had acquired, and was able to
bequeath to others, it is probable that the Six Nations would have
remained neutral during the Revolutionary War, and the disruption of
their League would not have taken place. Yet there can be no doubt that
he was sincerely attached to them, and desired their good. Unfortunately
for them, they held, as was natural, only the second place in his
affections. He was, by adoption, an Iroquois chief, but his first
allegiance was due to his native country, to whose interests, both in
the war with France and in the separation which he foresaw between
England and her colonies, he did not hesitate to sacrifice the welfare
of his red brethren. Against his subtle arts and overmastering energy
the wisest of their statesmen, worthy successors of the great founders
of their constitution, strove in vain, on each occasion, to maintain
that neutrality which was evidently the true policy of their people.
[Footnote: For the confirmation of these statements see the excellent
biographies of Sir William Johnson and Joseph Brant, by Wm. L. Stone,
_passim_.]
Sakayengwaraton is not an elected chief, nor does he bear one of the
hereditary titles of the Great Council, in which he holds so
distinguished a station. Indeed, his office is one unknown to the
ancient constitution of the Kanonsionni. It is the creation of the
British Government, to which he owes, with the willing consent of his
own people, his rank and position in the Council. The Provincial
administrators saw the need of a native official who should be, like the
Speaker of the English House of Commons, the mouthpiece of the Council,
and the intermediary between it and the representative of the Crown. The
grandson of Sir William Johnson was known as a brave warrior, a capable
leader, and an eloquent speaker. In the war of 1812, at the early age of
twenty, he had succeeded an elder brother in the command of the Indian
contingent, and had led his dusky followers with so much skill and
intrepidity as to elicit high praise from the English commander. His
eloquence was noted, even among a race of orators. I can well believe
what I have heard of its effects, as even in his old age, when an
occasion has for a moment aroused his spirit, I have not known whether
most to admire the nobleness and force of his sentiments and reasoning,
or the grace and flowing ease with which he delivered the stately
periods of his sonorous language. He has been a worthy successor of the
distinguished statesmen, Garagontieh, Garangula, Decanasora, Canasatego,
Logan, and others, who in former years guided the destinies of his
people. He is considered to have a better knowledge of the traditions
and ancient usages of the Six Nations than any other member of the
tribes, and is the only man now living who can tell the meaning of every
word of the "Book of Rites."
The other chief to whom I have referred is the Onondaga Councillor who
is known to the whites as John Buck, but who bears in council the name
of Skanawati ("Beyond the River"), one of the fifty titular names which
have descended from the time of Hiawatha. He is the official keeper of
the "wampum records" of the confederacy, an important trust, which, to
his knowledge, has been in his family for at least four generations. His
rank, his character, and his eloquence make him now, virtually, the
Iroquois premier--an office which among the Six Nations, as among the
Athenians of old and the English of modern days, is both unknown to the
constitution and essential to its working. His knowledge of the legends
and customs of his people is only inferior to that of the more aged
Speaker of the Council.
The account which Chief J. S. Johnson gave me of the book may be briefly
told. The English missionaries reduced the Canienga language to writing
in the early part of the last century. The Jesuit fathers, indeed, had
learned and written the language--which they styled the Iroquois--fifty
years before; but it does not appear that they had instructed any of the
Indians in the art of writing it, as their successors in the Eastern
Province have since done. The English missionaries took pains to do
this. The liturgy of their church was printed in the Mohawk tongue, at
New York, as early as the year 1714. [Footnote: This date is given in
the preface to the Mohawk Prayer Book of 1787. This first version of the
liturgy was printed under the direction of the Rev. Wm. Andrews, the
missionary of the "New England Society."] By the middle of the century
there were many members of the tribe who could write in the well-devised
orthography of the missionaries--an orthography which anticipated in
most points the well known "Pickering alphabet," now generally' employed
in writing the Indian languages of North America. The chiefs of the
Great Council, at once conservative and quick to learn, saw the
advantages which would accrue from preserving, by this novel method, the
forms of their most important public duty--that of creating new
chiefs--and the traditions connected with their own body. They caused
the ceremonies, speeches and songs, which together made up the
proceedings of the Council when it met for the two purposes, always
combined, of condolence and induction, to be written down in the words
in which they had been preserved in memory for many generations. A
Canienga chief, named David, a friend of Brant, is said to have
accomplished the work. In Stone's Life of Sir William Johnson, mention
is made of a Mohawk chief, "David of Schoharie," who in May, 1757, led a
troop of Indians from his town to join the forces under Sir William, in
his expedition to Crown Point, to repel the French invaders. [Footnote:
_Life of Sir William Johnson_, Vol. II. p. 29] Brant appears to have
been in this expedition. [Footnote: Ibid., p. 174] It is highly probable
that in Chief David of Schoharie we have the compiler, or rather the
scribe, of this "Iroquois Veda."
The copy of this book which Chief J. S. Johnson possessed was made by
himself under the following circumstances: During the prevalence of the
Asiatic cholera, in 1832, the tribes on the Reserve suffered severely.
Chief Johnson, then a young man and not yet a leader in the Great
Council, was active in attending on the sick. He was called to visit an
aged chief, who was not expected to live. The old chief informed him
that he had this book in his possession, and advised him, as he was one
of the few who could write the language, to make a copy of it, lest by
any accident the original should be lost. Johnson followed this advice,
and copied the book on loose sheets of paper, from which he afterwards
transcribed it into a small unbound book, resembling a schoolboy's
copy-book. He states that the original book contained, besides the
ceremonies of the Condoling Council, an addition by a later hand,
comprising some account of the more recent history of the Six Nations,
and particularly of their removal from New York to Canada. This portion
of it he unfortunately omitted to copy, and shortly afterwards the book
itself was destroyed, when the house of the old chief was accidentally
burned.
The other copy which I transcribed was held by Chief John Buck, in his
official capacity of record-keeper. It is written in a somewhat
different orthography. The syllables are separated, as in the usual
style of Indian hymnbooks, and some of the words, particularly the
proper names, show by their forms that the person who copied the book
was an Onondaga. The copy was evidently not made from that of Chief
Johnson, as it supplies some omissions in that copy. On the other hand,
it omits some matters, and, in particular, nearly all the adjurations
and descriptive epithets which form the closing litany accompanying the
list of hereditary councillors. The copy appears, from a memorandum
written in it, to have been made by one "John Green," who, it seems, was
formerly a pupil of the Mohawk Institute at Brantford. It bears the date
of November, 1874. I could not learn where he found his original.
The translation has been made from the dictation of Chief J. S. Johnson,
who explained the meaning of the archaic words in the modern Canienga
speech. This was interpreted in English by his son, Chief George H. M.
Johnson, and afterwards more fully elucidated by my esteemed friend, the
Rev. Isaac Bearfoot, who kindly came from his parish, at Point Edward
(near Sarnia), to the Reserve, to assist me in this work. Mr. Bearfoot
is an Onondaga by birth, but a Canienga by adoption, and has a thorough
knowledge of the Canienga language. He prepared the revised edition of
the hymnbook in that language, which is now used on the Reserve. He is a
good English scholar, and, having been educated in Toronto for the
ministry, has filled for some years, with much acceptance, the office of
pastor to a white congregation of the Church of England. I am greatly
indebted to him for his judicious assistance, and, finally, for a
complete revision of the entire version of the Canienga portion of the
book.
To my friend Chief George Johnson I am under still greater obligations.
Mr. Johnson, as has been stated, is the son of Chief J. S. Johnson, and
is himself a high chief of the Canienga nation. He bears in the Great
Council the name of Teyonhehkwen (otherwise spelt Deyonheghgonh),
meaning "Double Life," one of the titular names which were borne by the
companions of Hiawatha and Atotarho in the first council. He succeeded
in this title, according to the rules of the confederacy, his maternal
uncle, on the nomination of his mother, as the chief matron of the
family. Mr. Johnson is an educated gentleman. In early life he was a
pupil of the English missionaries. He now holds the position of
Government Interpreter for the Six Nations, and is, in fact, the chief
executive officer of the Canadian government on the Reserve. His duties
have several times brought him into collision with the white ruffians
who formerly infested the Reserve, and from whom he has on two occasions
suffered severe injuries, endangering his life. His courage and
firmness, however, have been finally successful in subduing this
mischief, and the Reserve is now as secure and as free from disorder as
any part of Canada. To Chief, George Johnson's assistance and
encouragement I owe most of the information contained in these pages,
and I am glad to have an opportunity of paying him this tribute of
respect and gratitude.
The second or supplementary part of the Book, which is in the Onondaga
dialect, was found on the, small Reservation in the State of New York,
near Syracuse, where a feeble remnant of the great Onondaga nation still
cling to the home of their forefathers. In October, 1875, during my
first visit to Onondaga Castle, as this Reservation is called, I
obtained from the intelligent interpreter, Daniel La Fort--a son of the
distinguished chief Abram La Fort (Dehatkatons), who is commemorated in
Clark's "Onondaga"--a list of the original councillors in the Onondaga
dialect, and also a copy, in the same dialect, of the "Condoling Song,"
which I had heard sung on the Canadian Reserve, and which I afterwards
found in the Canienga Book of Rites. He read them to me from a small
manuscript book, in which, as I then supposed, he had noted them for his
own convenience. When I afterwards discovered the Canienga book, it
occurred to me that I might have been mistaken on this point, and that
the manuscript from which he read was possibly a copy of the Book of
Rites in the Onondaga dialect. To clear up this point, I again visited
Onondaga Castle, in September, 1880. I then found, to my great
gratification, that his book was not a copy, but a valuable addition, or
rather an essential complement, to the Canienga book. The last-named
book comprises the speeches which are addressed by the representatives
of the three elder nations to the younger members of the League,
whenever a chief who belonged to the latter is lamented. The Onondaga
book, on the other hand, gives us the exhortations which are addressed
by the younger nations to the elder when a chief of the latter is
mourned. The circumstance to which it owes its preservation on the
Onondaga Reserve is easily explained. Of late years, since the
chieftainships among the New York Senecas and Tuscaroras have been made
purely elective offices, the only body of Indians in that State among
whom the original system of mingled descent and appointment has been
retained is the remnant of the intensely conservative Onondagas. Among
these, in spite of missionary efforts continued for two centuries,
paganism still lingers, and chiefs are still "raised up" as nearly as
possible after the ancient fashion. When a chief dies, the members of
his family or clan select another, who is presented to the national
council for induction. The ceremonies of condolence, with which the
proceedings commence, are modeled after the primitive form. As the
Onondagas were one of the elder nations, the addresses of condolence
must proceed from a younger brother. Fortunately for this purpose, a few
Oneidas reside on the Reserve, among whom is a single chief, by name
Abram Hill. To him is committed the duty of representing the "younger
brothers" on this occasion, and with it the charge of the wampum
strings, which are produced occasionally as the ceremony proceeds, each
string representing one section or topic of the condoling address.
La Fort said that he had copied his book from a manuscript in his
father's handwriting. This manuscript, unfortunately, was lost, and he
could not say whether his rather had first written it down from memory,
or had merely transcribed it from an earlier composition. However this
may have been, the substance of the composition undoubtedly dates from a
period preceding the disruption of the confederacy. The language,
indeed, so far as can be judged from the very irregular orthography, is
modern. If, as there is reason to suppose, the composition is ancient,
it has evidently undergone a "revision" at the hands of the later
copyists. In former times, as we know from the Jesuit vocabularies, the
sound of _r_ existed in the Onondaga dialect. Since their day this sound
has disappeared from it entirely. In La Fort's manuscript the letter
frequently occurred, but always, as his pronunciation showed, either as
a diacritical sign following the vowel _a_, to give to that vowel the
sound of _a_ in "far," or else as representing itself this vowel sound.
Thus the syllable which should properly be written _sa_ was written by
La Fort either _sar_ or _sr_. But, though the language is modern, the
speeches themselves, as I am assured by Chief John Buck, are precisely
those which are still in use among his people in Canada, and which are
believed to have been preserved in memory from the days of their
forefathers. [Footnote: The disappearance of a vocal element from a
language is a phenomenon with which etymologists are familiar. The loss
of the Greek digamma is a well-known instance. The harsh guttural,
resembling the German ch. which formerly existed in the English
language, has vanished from it, leaving its traces in the uncouth
orthography of such words as _plough_, _high_, _though_, and the like.
Within the past three centuries the sound of _I_ has been lost from many
words, such as _walk_, _talk_, _balm_ and _calm_. The sound of _r_ is
disappearing from a large portion of the language. In ordinary speech,
_arm_ rhymes with _calm_, _morning_ with _fanning_, _higher_ with
_Sophia_. Modern French, as is well known, has attained its present
euphony through the disappearance of consonantal elements from many
words in which they formerly existed.]
The translation of La Fort's book was procured from him and another
educated member of his tribe; but there was not time to obtain all the
elucidations needed to ensure precise verbal accuracy throughout.