THE CONDOLENCE AND THE INSTALLATION.
With the arrival at the Council House the "opening ceremony" is
concluded. In the house the members of the Council were seated in the
usual array, on opposite sides of the house. On one side were the three
elder nations, the Caniengas, Onondagas, and Senecas, and on the other
the younger, who were deemed, and styled in Council, the offspring of
the former. These younger members, originally two in number, the Oneidas
and Cayugas, had afterwards an important accession in the Tuscarora
nation; and in later years several smaller tribes, or, as they were
styled, additional braces of the Extended House, were
received;--Tuteloes, Nanticokes, Delawares and others. In the Onondaga
portion of the book the younger tribes speak as "we three brothers." The
earliest of the later accessions seems to have taken place about the
year 1753, when the Tuteloes and Nanticokes were admitted. [Footnote:
_N. Y. Hist. Col._, Vol. 6, p. 811. Stone's _Life of Sir William
Johnson_, p. 414.] These circumstances afford additional evidence that
the Book was originally written prior to that date and subsequent to the
year 1714, when the Tuscaroras were received into the League.
If the deceased chief belonged to one of the three older nations, the
duty of conducting the condoling ceremony which followed was performed
by the younger nations, who mourned for him as for a father or an uncle.
If he were a chief of one of the younger nations, the others lamented
him as a son or a nephew. The mourning nations selected as their
representative a high chief, usually a distinguished orator, familiar
with the usages and laws of the League, to conduct these ceremonies. The
lamentations followed a prescribed routine, each successive topic of
condolence being indicated by a string of wampum, which, by the
arrangement of its beads, recalled the words to the memory of the
officiating chief. In the "Book of Rites" we have these addresses of
condolence in a twofold form. The Canienga book gives us the form used
by the elder nations; and the Onondaga supplement adds the form employed
by the younger brothers. The former is more ancient, and apparently more
dignified and formal. The speaker addresses the mourners as his children
(_konyennetaghkwen_, "my offspring,") and recites each commonplace of
condolence in a curt and perfunctory style. He wipes away their tears
that they may see clearly; he opens their ears that they may hear
readily. He removes from their throats the obstruction with which their
grief is choking them, so that they may ease their burdened minds by
speaking freely to their friends. And finally, as the loss of their
lamented chief may have occurred in war--and at all events many of their
friends have thus perished--he cleans the mats on which they are sitting
from the figurative bloodstains, so that they may for a time cease to be
reminded of their losses, and may regain their former cheerfulness.
The condolence of the younger brothers, expressed in the Onondaga book,
is more expansive and more sympathetic. Though apparently disfigured and
mutilated by repeated transcriptions, it bears marks of having been
originally the composition of a superior mind. All such topics of
consolation as would occur to a speaker ignorant or regardless of a
future life are skillfully presented, and the whole address is imbued
with a sentiment of cordial tenderness and affection. Those who have
been accustomed to regard the Indians as a cold-hearted people will find
it difficult to reconcile that view of their character with the contrary
evidence afforded by this genuine expression of their feelings, and,
indeed, by the whole tenor of the Book.
This address concludes with the emphatic words, "I have finished; now
point me the man;" or, as the words were paraphrased by the interpreter,
"Now show me the warrior who is to be the new chief." The candidate for
senatorial honors, who is to take the place and name of the deceased
councillor, is then brought forward by his nation. His admission by the
assembled Council, at this stage of the proceedings, is a matter of
course; for his nation had taken care to ascertain, before the meeting,
that the object of their choice would be acceptable to the councillors
of the other nations. The ceremony of induction consisted in the formal
bestowal of the new name by which he was henceforth to be known. A chief
placed himself on each side of the candidate, and, grasping his arms,
marched him to and fro in the Council house, between the lines of the
assembled senators. As they walked they proclaimed his new name and
office, and recited, in a measured chant, the duties to which he was now
called, the audience responding at every pause with the usual chorus of
assent.
When this ceremony was finished, and the new councillor had taken his
proper seat among the nobles of his nation, the wampum belts, which
comprised the historical records of the federation, were produced, and
the officiating chief proceeded to explain them, one by one, to the
assemblage. This was called "reading the archives." In this way a
knowledge of the events signified by the wampum was fastened, by
repeated iteration, in the minds of the listeners. Those who doubt
whether events which occurred four centuries ago can be remembered as
clearly and minutely as they are now recited, will probably have their
doubts removed when they consider the necessary operation of this
custom. The orator's narrative is repeated in the presence of many
auditors who have often heard it before, and who would be prompt to
remark and to correct any departure from the well-known history.
This narrative is not recorded in the Book of Rites. At the time when
that was written, the annals of the confederacy were doubtless supposed
to be sufficiently preserved by the wampum records. The speeches and
ceremonies which followed, and which were of equal, if not greater
importance, had no such evidences to recall them. From this statement,
however, the "hymn" should be excepted; to each line of it, except the
last, a wampum string was devoted. With this exception, all was left to
the memory of the orator. The Homeric poems, the hymns of the Vedas, the
Kalewala, the Polynesian genealogies, and many other examples, show the
exactness with which a composition that interests a whole nation may be
handed down; but it is not surprising that when the chiefs became aware
of the superior advantages of a written record, they should have had
recourse to it. We need not doubt that Chief David of Schoharie, or
whoever else was the scribe appointed to this duty, has faithfully
preserved the substance, and, for the most part, the very words, of the
speeches and chants which he had often heard under such impressive
circumstances.
The hymn, or _karenna_, deserves a special notice. In every important
council of the Iroquois a song or chant is considered a proper and
almost essential part of the proceedings. Such official songs are
mentioned in many reports of treaty councils held with them by the
French and English authorities. In this greatest of all councils the
song must, of course, have a distinguished place. It follows immediately
upon the address of greeting and condolence, and is, in fact, regarded
as the completion of it, and the introduction to the equally important
ceremony which is to follow, viz., the repetition of the ancient laws of
the confederacy. This particular hymn is of great antiquity. Some of the
chiefs expressed to me the opinion that it was composed by Dekana-widah
or Hiawatha. Its tenor, however, as well as that of the whole book,
shows that it belongs to a later period. The ceremonies of the council
were doubtless prescribed by the founders of the League; but the
speeches of the Book, and this hymn, all refer to the League as the work
of a past age. The speakers appeal to the wisdom of their forefathers
(literally, their grandsires), and lament the degeneracy of the later
times. They expressly declare that those who established the "great
peace" were in their graves, and had taken their work with them and
placed it as a pillow under them. This is the language of men who
remembered the founders, and to whom the burial of the last of them was
a comparatively recent event. If the league was formed, as seems
probable, about the year 1450, the speeches and hymn, in their present
form, may reasonably be referred to the early part of the next century.
There is reason to believe that the formation of the confederacy was
followed by wars with the Hurons and Algonkin tribes, in which, as
usual, many changes of fortune took place. If the Hurons, as has been
shown, were expelled from their abode on the northern shore of the St.
Lawrence, the Mohegans, on the other hand, inflicted some serious blows
upon the eastern nations of the confederacy. [Footnote: See the Jesuit
_Relation_ for 1660, p. 6.] The Delawares were not conquered and reduced
to subjection without a long and sanguinary struggle. In a Condoling
Council we might expect that the tone of feeling would be lugubrious;
but the sense of loss and of danger is too marked in all the speeches of
the Canienga Book to be merely a formal utterance. It does not appear in
those of the Onondaga Book, which is seemingly of later composition.
The "karenna," or chant of the Condoling Council, may be styled the
National Hymn of the Iroquois. A comparison between it and other
national hymns, whose chief characteristics are self-glorification and
defiance, might afford room for some instructive inferences. This hymn,
it should be remarked, brief as it is, is regarded by the Indians as a
collection of songs. Each line, in fact, is, in their view, a song by
itself, and is brought to mind by its own special wampum string. In
singing, each line is twice repeated, and is introduced and followed by
many long-drawn repetitions of the exclamation _aihaigh_ (or rather
_haihaih_) which is rendered "hail!" and from which the hymn derives its
designation. In the first line the speaker salutes the "Peace," or the
league, whose blessings they enjoy. In the next he greets the kindred of
the deceased chief, who are the special objects of the public sympathy.
Then he salutes the _oyenkondonh_, a term which has been rendered
"warriors." This rendering, however, may have a misleading effect. The
word has nothing to do with war, unless in the sense that every grown
man in an Indian community is supposed to be a soldier. Except in this
hymn, the word in question is now disused. An elderly chief assured me
that he had sung it for years without knowing its precise meaning. Some
of his fellow-councillors were better informed. The word is apparently
derived from _ankwe_, man, which in the Onondaga dialect becomes
_yenkwe_. It comprises all the men (the "manhood" or mankind) of the
nation--as, in the following verse, the word _wakonnyh_, which is also
obsolete, signifies the "womanhood," or all the women of the people with
whom the singer condoles. In the next line he invokes the laws which
their forefathers established; and he concludes by calling upon his
hearers to listen to the wisdom of their forefathers, which he is about
to recite. As a whole, the hymn may be described as an expression of
reverence for the laws and for the dead, and of sympathy with the
living. Such is the "national anthem,"--the Marseillaise,--of the
ferocious Iroquois.
The regard for women which is apparent in this hymn, and in other
passages of the Book, is deserving of notice. The common notion that
women among the Indians were treated as inferiors, and made "beasts of
burden," is unfounded so far as the Iroquois are concerned, and among
all other tribes of which I have any knowledge. With them, as with
civilized nations, the work of the community and the cares of the family
are fairly divided. Among the Iroquois the hunting and fishing, the
house-building and canoe-making, fell to the men. The women cooked, made
the dresses, scratched the ground with their light hoes, planted and
gathered the crops, and took care of the children. The household goods
belonged to the woman. On her death, her relatives, and not her husband,
claimed them. The children were also hers; they belonged to her clan,
and in case of a separation they went with her. She was really the head
of the household; and in this capacity her right, when she chanced to be
the oldest matron of a noble family, to select the successor of a
deceased chief of that family, was recognized by the highest law of the
confederacy. That this rank and position were greatly prized is shown by
a remarkable passage in the Jesuit Relations. A Canienga matron,
becoming a Christian, left her country, with two of her children, to
enjoy greater freedom in her devotions among the French. The act, writes
the missionary, so offended her family that, in a public meeting of the
town, "they degraded her from the rank of the nobility, and took from
her the title of Oyander, that is, honorable (_considerable_)--a title
which they esteem highly, and which she had inherited from her
ancestors, and deserved by her good judgment, her prudence, and her
excellent conduct; and at the same time they installed another in her
place." [Footnote: _Relation_ of 1671, p. 6. The word _oyander_ in
modern pronunciation becomes _oyaner_. It is derived from the root
_yaner_, noble, and is the feminine form of the word _royaner_, lord, or
nobleman,--the title applied to the members of the federal council.]
The complete equality of the sexes in social estimation and influence is
apparent in all the narratives of the early missionaries, who were the
best possible judges on this point. Casual observers have been misled by
the absence of those artificial expressions of courtesy which have
descended to us from the time of chivalry, and which, however gracious
and pleasing to witness, are, after all, merely signs of condescension
and protection from the strong to the weak. The Iroquois does not give
up his seat to a woman, or yield her precedence on leaving a room; but
he secures her in the possession of her property, he recognizes her
right to the children she has borne, and he submits to her decision the
choice of his future rulers.