THE LAWS OF THE LEAGUE.
It is the custom of the officiating orator, while the chant is going on,
to walk to and fro in the council-house. When the hymn is finished, he
breaks out into a passionate invocation to their forefathers, and a
lament over the degeneracy of the times. This, as the French
missionaries inform us, was a favorite topic of Indian speakers.
[Footnote: See the _Relation_ of 1659, p. 57: "C'est la plainte
ordinaire des Capitaines [of the Hurons] que tout se va perdant, a faute
de garder les formes et coustoumes de leurs ancestres."] Among the
Iroquois, who could look back to an era of genuine statesmen and heroes,
the authors of their constitution, this complaint must have had a
peculiar force and sincerity. After this appeal to the founders of their
state, there naturally followed an address to the Council and the
people, reciting "all the rules they decided on, which they thought
would strengthen the house." By "the house" was meant, of course, the
house of many hearths, to which they likened their confederacy. The
"rules" or laws which follow require some explanation, that their full
value may be understood.
The first law prescribes that when a chief dies his office shall not
perish with him. This is expressed, in their metaphorical style, by an
injunction that the "horns," or insignia of office, shall not be buried
with the deceased chief, but shall be taken off at his death, to be
transferred to his successor. This rule is laid down in the most urgent
and impressive terms. "We should perhaps all perish if his office is
buried with him in his grave." This systematic transmission of official
rank was, in fact, the vital principle of their government. It was in
this system that their federal union differed from the frequent and
transitory confederacies common among the Indian tribes. In general,
among nearly all the tribes, the rank of a chief was personal. It was
gained by the character and achievements of the individual, and it died
with him. Hence their government and policy, so far as they can be said
to have had any, were always uncertain and fluctuating. No person
understood the Indian usages better than Zeisberger. His biographer has
well described the difference which existed in this respect between the
Iroquois and their neighbors. "The Algonkins," he writes, "knew nothing
of regular government. They had no system of polity; there was no unity
of action among them. The affairs even of a single tribe were managed in
the loosest manner." After briefly, but accurately, delineating the
Iroquois system of councils, he adds: "Thus they became both a political
and a military power among the aborigines; the influence of their league
was felt everywhere, and their conquests extended in every direction."
[Footnote: De Schweinitz: _Life of Zeisberger_, p. 39.] The principle
that "the chief dies but the office survives,"--the regular transmission
of rank, title and authority, by a method partly hereditary and partly
elective,--was the principle on which the life and strength of the
Iroquois constitution depended.
Next followed a provision of hardly less importance. The wars among the
Indian tribes arise almost always from individual murders. The killing
of a tribesman by the members of another community concerns his whole
people. If satisfaction is not promptly made, war follows, as a matter
of course. [Footnote: _Relation, of_ 1636, p. 119. "C'est de la que
naissent les guerres, et c'est un sujet plus que suffisant de prendre
les armes contre quelque Village quand il refuse de satisfaire par les
presents ordonnez, pour celuy qui vous aurait tue quelq'un des
vostres."--_Brebeuf, on the Hurons_.] The founders of the Iroquois
commonwealth decreed that wars for this cause should not be allowed to
rise between any of their cantons. On this point a special charge was
given to the members of the Great Council. They were enjoined (in the
figurative language employed throughout the Book) not to allow the
murder to be discussed in a national assembly, where the exasperation of
the young men might lead to mischief, but to reserve it for their own
consideration; and they were required as soon as possible to bury all
animosities that might arise from it. The figure employed is impressive.
They were to uproot a huge pine-tree--the well-known emblem of their
League--disclosing a deep cavity, below which an underground stream
would be swiftly flowing. Into this current they were to cast the cause
of trouble, and then, replacing the tree, hide the mischief forever from
their people.
How strictly in spirit these injunctions were followed, and with what
good effect, their whole history shows. A notable instance of the
readiness and ingenuity of their statesmen in finding the means of
public reconciliation in such cases is given in the Jesuit narrative. On
the 24th of July, 1657, a great council was held at Onondaga to consider
three matters, all of special import. First in order was the necessity
of appeasing a threatened quarrel between two of the leading nations,
the Senecas and the Caniengas, caused by a misadventure in which a
Seneca "captain" had been killed by some warriors of the eastern nation.
Next in importance was the reception of a large party of Frenchmen,
headed by Father Francis le Mercier, the Superior of the Jesuit
missionaries in Canada, who had come to form a settlement among the
Iroquois. And, finally, they had to prepare the plan and the means for
an expedition against some hostile tribes. Before the meeting of the
Council the Frenchmen had paid a formal visit to the Seneca delegates,
whom they found "filling the air with songs of mourning" for their
slaughtered chief, and had manifested their sympathy by a present, "to
alleviate the grief" of the mourners. This incident seems to have
suggested to the assembled councillors a method of effecting--or at
least of announcing--the desired accommodation, and of paying at the
same time a happy compliment to their reverend visitors. By common
consent the affair was referred to the arbitrament of the Father
Superior, by whom the difference was promptly settled. [Footnote: On
the: Grand conseil le 24 du mois de Juillet, ou toutes les Nations
remisent entre les mains d'Achiendase qui est nostre Père Superieur le
diffrend Centre les Sonnontoüeronnons et les Agnieronnons, qui fait bien
et terminé.--_Relation of_ 1657, p. 16.] It was not necessary for the
politic senators to inform their gratified visitors that the performance
in which they thus took part was merely a formality which ratified, or
rather proclaimed, a foregone conclusion. The reconciliation which was
prescribed by their constitution had undoubtedly been arranged by
previous conferences, after their custom in such matters, before the
meeting of the Council. [Footnote: For a curious instance of the manner
in which questions to be apparently decided by a Council were previously
settled between the parties, see the _Life of Zeisberger_, p. 190:
"Gietterowane was the speaker on one side, Zeisberger on the other.
These two consulted together privately,--Zeisberger unfolding the import
of the strings [of wampum which he had brought as ambassador] and
Gietterowane committing to memory what he said."] So effective was this
provision of their constitution that for more than three centuries this
main cause of Indian wars was rendered innocuous, and the "Great Peace"
remained undisturbed. This proud averment of their annalists, confirmed
as it is for more than half the period by the evidence of their white
neighbors, cannot reasonably be questioned. What nation or confederacy
of civilized Europe can show an exemption from domestic strife for so
long a term?
The third rule or ordinance which the founders enacted "to strengthen
the house" is of a remarkable character. It relates to the mortuary
usages of the people; and when these are understood, the great
importance of this law becomes apparent. Among the Indians of the
Huron-Iroquois family the ordinary mourning for the dead became
exaggerated into customs of the most extravagant character, exhausting
the time and strength of the warriors, and devouring their substance.
The French missionaries have left us an account of these singular usages
among the Hurons, some of which excited their respect, and others their
astonishment. "Our savages," they wrote, "are in no way savage as
regards the duties which nature herself requires us to render to the
dead. You would say that their efforts, their toils and their commerce
had no other end than to amass the means of honoring the departed. They
have nothing too precious for this object. To this they devote their
robes of skins, their hatchets and wampum, in such profusion that you
would fancy they made nothing of them; and yet these are the riches of
their country. Often in midwinter you will see them going almost naked,
while they have at home, laid up in store, good and handsome robes,
which they keep in reverence for the dead. This is their point of honor.
In this, above all, they seek to show themselves magnificent."
[Footnote: Brebeuf, _Relation of_ 1636, p. 128.]
During the three days that preceded the burial of the dead, or the
removal of his remains to the scaffold, the wails, groans and
lamentations of the relatives and neighbors resounded in the cabin where
he lay. All the stored riches were brought forth and lavished in gifts
"to comfort the mourners." The mourning did not end with the burial; in
fact, it may be said to have then only begun. The "great mourning," as
the missionaries term it, lasted for six days longer, during which the
mourners lay, face downward, upon their mats, and enveloped in their
robes, speechless, or replying only by an ejaculation to those who
addressed them. During this period they had no fire in the house, even
in winter; they ate their food cold, and left the cabin only at night,
and as secretly as possible. The "lesser mourning" lasted for a year,
during which they refrained from oiling their hair, attended public
festivals rarely, and only (in the case of women) when their mothers
ordered, and were forbidden to marry again.
This, however, was not all. Once in twelve years was held a great
ceremony of re-interment,--a solemn "feast of the dead," as it was
called. Until the day of this feast arrived, funeral rites in honor of
the departed were repeated from time to time, and feasts were held, at
which, as the expression was, their names were revived, while presents
were distributed, as at the time of their death. The great Feast of the
Dead, however, was the most important of all their ceremonies. The
bodies of all who had died in the nation during the preceding twelve
years were then exhumed, or removed from the scaffolds on which they had
been laid, and the festering corpses or cleansed bones were all interred
together in a vast pit lined with robes of beaver skins, the most
precious of all their furs. Wampum, copper implements, earthenware, the
most valued of their possessions, were cast into the pit, which was then
solemnly closed with earth. While the ceremony was going on, rich
presents of all descriptions, the accumulations of the past twelve
years, were distributed by the relatives of the deceased among the
people. In this distribution, strange to say, valuable fur robes were
frequently cut and torn to pieces, so as to be rendered worthless. A
lavish display and reckless destruction of wealth were deemed honors due
to the shades of the departed. [Footnote: See the _Relation_ for 1636,
p. 131. A most vivid and graphic description of these extraordinary
ceremonies is given in Parkman's admirable work, _The Jesuits in North
America_, Chapter 7.]
The Attiwandaronks, or Neutrals, who were the nearest neighbors of the
Iroquois, were still more extravagant in their demonstrations of
affection for their lost friends. They, too, had their feasts of the
dead, at regular intervals. In the meantime the bodies were kept in
their houses as long as possible--"until the stench became intolerable."
Then, when this proximity could no longer be borne, the remains were
left for a period to decay on a scaffold in the open air. After a time
the remaining flesh was removed from the bones, which were arranged on
the sides of their cabins, in full view of the inmates, until the great
day of general interment. With these mournful objects before their eyes,
renewing constantly the sense of their loss, the women of the household
were excited to frequent outbursts of grief, expressed in wailing
chants. [Footnote: "Cet object qu'ils ont devant les yeux, leur
renouvellant continuellement le resentiment de leurs pertes, leur fait
ordinairement letter des cris, et faire des lamentations tout à fait
lugubres, le tout en chanson. Mais cela ne se fait que par les
femmes."--_Relation_ of 1641, p. 73.]
That the Iroquois in ancient times had funeral customs similar to those
of their sister nations, and not less revolting, cannot be doubted. How
these shocking and pernicious usages were abolished at one swoop is
shown by the brief passage in the Book of Rites now under discussion.
The injunctions are laconic, but full of meaning. When a death occurs,
the people are told, "this shall be done." A delegation of persons,
officially appointed for the purpose, shall repair to the dwelling of
the deceased, bearing in a pouch some strands of mourning wampum. The
leader, holding these strands, and standing by the hearth, shall
address, in the name of the whole people, a few words of comfort to the
mourners. And then "they shall be comforted," and shall go on with their
usual duties. To this simple ceremony--supplemented, in the case of a
high chief, by the rites of the "Condoling Council,"--the preposterous
funeral usages, which pervaded the lives and wasted the wealth of the
other nations of this stock, were reduced, by the wisdom of the Iroquois
legislators.
In considering these remarkable laws, it becomes evident that the work
which Hiawatha and Dekanawidah accomplished was really a Great
Reformation, not merely political, but also social and religious. They
desired not only to establish peace among the nations, but also to
abolish or modify such usages and beliefs as in their opinion were
injurious to their people. It is deserving of notice that a divinity
unknown, at least in name, to the Hurons, received special reverence
among the Iroquois. The chief characters of the Huron pantheon were a
female deity, Ataensic, a sort of Hecate, whom they sometimes identified
with the moon, and her grandson, Juskeha, who was sometimes regarded as
the sun, and as a benevolent spirit, but most commonly in their stories
appears as a fantastic and capricious goblin, with no moral attributes
whatever. In the Iroquois mythology these deities are replaced by a
personage of a much higher character. Taronhiawagon, the Holder of the
Heavens, was with them the Master of Life. He declared his will to them
in dreams, and in like manner disclosed future events, particularly such
as were important to the public welfare. He was, in fact, the national
god of the Iroquois. It was he who guided their fathers in their early
wanderings, when they were seeking for a place of abode. He visited them
from time to time, in person, to protect them from their enemies and to
instruct them in useful arts.
It is possible that the Iroquois Taronhiawagon may have been originally
the same as the Huron Juskeha. Some eminent authorities on Indian
mythology are inclined to this opinion. On the other hand, the earlier
Jesuit missionaries give no hint of such identity, and the Tuscarora
historian, Cusick, seems to distinguish between these divine personages.
But whether we accept this view or seek for any other origin, there
seems reason to suppose that the more exalted conception of this deity,
who is certainly, in character and attributes, one of the noblest
creations of the North American mythologies, dates from the era of the
confederacy, when he became more especially the chief divinity and
protector of the Kanonsionni. [Footnote: See for Taronhiawagon the
Jesuit _Relations_ for 1670, pp. 47, 66, and for 1671, p. 17: also
Cusick, pp. 20, 22, 24, 34. For Juskeha, see the _Relation_ for 1635, p.
34; 1636, pp. 101-103; 1640, p. 92. Lafitau in one place makes
Tharonhiawagon a deified man, and in another the grandson of
Ataensic.--_Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains_, Vol. 1. p. 146 and p.
244.]