The Iroquois Book Of Rites Part 1

The Iroquois Book of Rites.

by Horatio Hale.

PREFACE.

The aboriginal composition now presented to the public has some peculiar claims on the attention of scholars. As a record, if we accept the chronology of its custodians,--which there is no reason to question,--it carries back the authentic history of Northern America to a date anterior by fifty years to the arrival of Columbus. Further than this, the plain and credible tradition of the Iroquois, confirmed by much other evidence, links them with the still earlier Alligewi, or "Moundbuilders," as conquerors with the conquered. Thus the annals of this portion of the continent need no longer begin with the landing of the first colonists, but can go back, like those of Mexico, Yucatan and Peru, to a storied past of singular interest.

The chief value of the Book of Rites, however, is ethnological, and is found in the light which it casts on the political and social life, as well as on the character and capacity of the people to whom it belongs.

We see in them many of the traits which Tacitus discerned in our ancestors of the German forests, along with some qualities of a higher cast than any that he has delineated. The love of peace, the sentiment of human brotherhood, the strong social and domestic affections, the respect for law, and the reverence for ancestral greatness, which are apparent in this Indian record and in the historical events which ill.u.s.trate it, will strike most readers as new and unexpected developments.

The circ.u.mstances attending the composition of this record and its recent discovery are fully detailed in the introductory chapters. There also, and in the Notes and Appendix, such further explanations are given as the various allusions and occasional obscurities of the Indian work have seemed to require. It is proper to state that the particulars comprised in the following pages respecting the traditions, the usages, and the language of the Iroquois (except such as are expressly stated to have been derived from books), have been gathered by the writer in the course of many visits made, during several years past, to their Reservations in Canada and New York. As a matter of justice, and also as an evidence of the authenticity of these particulars, the names of the informants to whom he has been princ.i.p.ally indebted are given in the proper places, with suitable acknowledgment of the a.s.sistance received from each. He ventures to hope that in the information thus obtained, as well as in the Book of Rite's itself, the students of history and of the science of man will find some new material of permanent interest and value.

CHAPTER I.

THE HURON-IROQUOIS NATIONS.

At the outset of the sixteenth century, when the five tribes or "nations" of the Iroquois confederacy first became known to European explorers, they were found occupying the valleys and uplands of northern New York, in that picturesque and fruitful region which stretches westward from the head-waters of the Hudson to the Genesee. The Mohawks, or Caniengas--as they should properly be called--possessed the Mohawk River, and covered Lake George and Lake Champlain with their flotillas of large canoes, managed with the boldness and skill which, hereditary in their descendants, make them still the best boatmen of the North American rivers. West of the Caniengas the Oneidas held the small river and lake which bear their name, the first in that series of beautiful lakes, united by interlacing streams, which seemed to prefigure in the features of nature the political const.i.tution of the tribes who possessed them. West of the Oneidas, the imperious Onondagas, the central and, in some respects, the ruling nation of the League, possessed the two lakes of Onondaga and Skeneateles, together with the common outlet of this inland lake system, the Oswego River, to its issue into Lake Ontario. Still proceeding westward, the lines of trail and river led to the long and winding stretch of Lake Cayuga, about which were cl.u.s.tered the towns of the people who gave their name to the lake; and beyond them, over the wide expanse of hills and dales surrounding Lakes Seneca and Canandaigua, were scattered the populous villages of the Senecas, more correctly styled Sonontowanas or Mountaineers. Such were the names and abodes of the allied nations, members of the far-famed Kanonsionni, or League of United Households, who were destined to become for a time the most notable and powerful community among the native tribes of North America. [Footnote: See Appendix, note A, for the origin and meaning of the names commonly given to the Iroquois nations.]

The region which has been described was not, however, the original seat of those nations. They belonged to that linguistic family which is known to ethnologists as the Huron-Iroquois stock. This stock comprised the Hurons or Wyandots, the Attiwandaronks or Neutral Nation, the Iroquois, the Eries, the Andastes or Conestogas, the Tuscaroras, and some smaller bands. The tribes of this family occupied a long, irregular area of inland territory, stretching from Canada to North Carolina. The northern nations were all cl.u.s.tered about the great lakes; the southern bands held the fertile valleys bordering the head-waters of the rivers which flowed from the Allegheny mountains. The languages of all these tribes showed a close affinity. There can be no doubt that their ancestors formed one body, and, indeed, dwelt at one time (as has been well said of the ancestors of the Indo-European populations), under one roof.

There was a Huron-Iroquois "family-pair," from which all these tribes were descended. In what part of the world this ancestral household resided is a question which admits of no reply, except from the merest conjecture. But the evidence of language, so far as it has yet been examined, seems to show that the Huron clans were the older members of the group; and the clear and positive traditions of all the surviving tribes, Hurons, Iroquois and Tuscaroras, point to the lower St. Lawrence as the earliest known abode of their stock. [Footnote: See Cusick, _History of the Six Nations_, p. 16; Colden, _Hist, of the Five Nations_, p. 23; Morgan, _League of the Iroquois_, p. 5; J.V.H. Clark, _Onondaga_, vol. I, p. 34; Peter D. Clarke, _Hist. of the Wyandots_. p.

I.]

Here the first explorer, Cartier, found Indians of this stock at Hochelaga and Stadacone, now the sites of Montreal and Quebec. Centuries before his time, according to the native tradition, the ancestors of the Huron-Iroquois family had dwelt in this locality, or still further east and nearer to the river's mouth. As their numbers increased, dissensions arose. The hive swarmed, and band after band moved off to the west and south.

As they spread, they encountered people of other stocks, with whom they had frequent wars. Their most constant and most dreaded enemies were the tribes of the Algonkin family, a fierce and restless people, of northern origin, who everywhere surrounded them. At one period, however, if the concurrent traditions of both Iroquois and Algonkins can be believed, these contending races for a time stayed their strife, and united their forces in an alliance against a common and formidable foe. This foe was the nation, or perhaps the confederacy, of the Alligewi or Talligewi, the semi-civilized "Mound-builders" of the Ohio Valley, who have left their name to the Allegheny river and mountains, and whose vast earthworks are still, after half-a-century of study, the perplexity of archaeologists. A desperate warfare ensued, which lasted about a hundred years, and ended in the complete overthrow and destruction, or expulsion, of the Alligewi. The survivors of the conquered people fled southward, and are supposed to have mingled with the tribes which occupied the region extending from the Gulf of Mexico northward to the Tennessee river and the southern spurs of the Alleghenies. Among these tribes, the Choctaws retained, to recent times, the custom of raising huge mounds of earth for religious purposes and for the sites of their habitations, a custom which they perhaps learned from the Alligewi; and the Cherokees are supposed by some to have preserved in their name (Tsalaki) and in their language indications of an origin derived in part from the same people. Their language, which shows, in its grammar and many of its words, clear evidence of affinity with the Iroquois, has drawn the greater portion of its vocabulary from some foreign source.

This source is conjectured to have been the speech of the Alligewi. As the Cherokee tongue is evidently a mixed language, it is reasonable to suppose that the Cherokees are a mixed people, and probably, like the English, an amalgamation of conquering and conquered races. [Footnote: This question has been discussed by the writer in a paper on "Indian Migrations as evidenced by Language," read before the American a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, at their Montreal Meeting, in August, 1882, and published in the American Antiquarian for January and April, 1883.]

The time which has elapsed since the overthrow of the Alligewi is variously estimated. The most probable conjecture places it at a period about a thousand years before the present day. It was apparently soon after their expulsion that the tribes of the Huron-Iroquois and the Algonkin stocks scattered themselves over the wide region south of the Great Lakes, thus left open to their occupancy. Our concern at present is only with the first-named family. The native tradition of their migrations has been briefly related by a Tuscarora Indian, David Cusick, who had acquired a sufficient education to become a Baptist preacher, and has left us, in his "Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations," [Footnote: Published at Lewiston, N. Y., in 1825, and reprinted at Lockport, in 1848.] a record of singular value. His confused and imperfect style, the English of a half-educated foreigner, his simple faith in the wildest legends, and his absurd chronology, have caused the real worth of his book, as a chronicle of native traditions, to be overlooked. Wherever the test of linguistic evidence, the best of all proofs in ethnological questions, can be applied to his statements relative to the origin and connection of the tribes, they are invariably confirmed. From his account, from the evidence of language, and from various corroborating indications, the course of the migrations may, it is believed, be traced with tolerable accuracy. Their first station or starting point, on the south side of the Lakes, was at the mouth of the Oswego river. Advancing to the southeast the emigrants struck the Hudson river, and, according to Cusick's story, followed its course southward to the ocean. Here a separation took place. A portion remained, and kept on their way toward the south; but the "main company," repelled by the uninviting soil and the turbulent waste of waves, and remembering the attractive region of valleys, lakes, and streams through which they had pa.s.sed, retraced their steps northward till they reached the Mohawk river. Along this stream and the upper waters of the Hudson they made their first abode; and here they remained until, as their historian quaintly and truly records, "their language was altered." The Huron speech became the Iroquois tongue, in the form in which it is spoken by the Caniengas, or Mohawks. In Iroquois tradition, and in the const.i.tution of their league, the Canienga nation ranks as the "eldest brother" of the family. A comparison of the dialects proves the tradition to be well founded. The Canienga language approaches nearest to the Huron, and is undoubtedly the source from which all the other Iroquois dialects are derived. Cusick states positively that the other "families," as he styles them, of the Iroquois household, leaving the Mohawks in their original abode, proceeded step by step to the westward.

The Oneidas halted at their creek, the Onondagas at their mountain, the Cayugas at their lake, and the Senecas or Sonontowans, the Great Hill people, at a lofty eminence which rises south of the Canandaigua lake.

In due time, as he is careful to record, the same result happened as had occurred with the Caniengas. The language of each canton "was altered;"

yet not so much, he might have added, but that all the tribes could still hold intercourse, and comprehend one another's speech.

A wider isolation and, consequently, a somewhat greater change of language, befell the "sixth family." Pursuing their course to the west they touched Lake Erie, and thence, turning to the southeast, came to the Allegheny river. Cusick, however, does not know it by this name. He calls it the Ohio,--in his uncouth orthography and with a locative particle added, the Ouau-we-yo-ka,--which, he says, means "a princ.i.p.al stream, now Mississippi." This statement, unintelligible as at the first glance it seems, is strictly accurate. The word Ohio undoubtedly signified, in the ancient Iroquois speech, as it still means in the modern Tuscarora, not "beautiful river", but "great river." [Footnote: See Appendix, note B.] It was so called as being the main stream which receives the affluents of the Ohio valley. In the view of the Iroquois, this "main stream" commences with what we call the Allegheny river, continues in what we term the Ohio, and then flows on in what we style the Mississippi,--of which, in their view, the upper Mississippi is merely an affluent. In Iroquois hydrography, the Ohio--the great river of the ancient Alligewi domain--is the central stream to which all the rivers of the mighty West converge.

This stream the emigrants now attempted to cross. They found, according to the native annalist, a rude bridge in a huge grape-vine which trailed its length across the stream. Over this a part of the company pa.s.sed, and then, unfortunately, the vine broke. The residue, unable to cross, remained on the hither side, and became afterwards the enemies of those who had pa.s.sed over. Cusick antic.i.p.ates that his story of the grape-vine may seem to some incredible; but he asks, with amusing simplicity, "why more so than that the Israelites should cross the Red Sea on dry land?"

That the precise incident, thus frankly admitted to be of a miraculous character, really took place, we are not required to believe. But that emigrants of the Huron-Iroquois stock penetrated southward along the Allegheny range, and that some of them remained near the river of that name, is undoubted fact. Those who thus remained were known by various names, mostly derived from one root--Andastes, Andastogues, Conestogas, and the like--and bore a somewhat memorable part in Iroquois and Pennsylvanian history. Those who continued their course beyond the river found no place sufficiently inviting to arrest their march until they arrived at the fertile vales which spread, intersected by many lucid streams, between the Roanoke and the Neuse rivers. Here they fixed their abode, and became the ancestors of the powerful Tuscarora nation. In the early part of the eighteenth century, just before its disastrous war with the colonies, this nation, according to the Carolina surveyor, Lawson, numbered fifteen towns, and could set in the field a force of twelve hundred warriors.

The Eries, who dwelt west of the Senecas, along the southern sh.o.r.e of the lake which now retains their name, were according to Cusick, an offshoot of the Seneca tribe; and there is no reason for doubting the correctness of his statement. After their overthrow by the Iroquois, in 1656, many of the Eries were incorporated with the ancestral nation, and contributed, with other accessions from the Hurons and the Attiwandaronks, to swell its numbers far beyond those of the other nations of the confederacy.

To conclude this review of the Huron-Iroquois group, something further should be said about the fortunes of the parent tribe, or rather congeries of tribes,--for the Huron household, like the Iroquois, had become divided into several septs. Like the Iroquois, also, they have not lacked an annalist of their own race. A Wyandot Indian, Peter Doyentate Clarke, who emigrated with the main body of his people to the Indian Territory, and afterwards returned for a time to the remnant of his tribe dwelling near Amherstburg, in Canada, published in 1870 a small volume ent.i.tled "Origin and Traditional History of the Wyandots."

[Footnote: Printed by Hunter, Rose & Co., of Toronto.] The English education of the writer, like that of the Tuscarora historian, was defective; and it is evident that his people, in their many wanderings, had lost much of their legendary lore. But the fact that they resided in ancient times near the present site of Montreal, in close vicinity to the Iroquois (whom he styles, after their largest tribe, the Senecas), is recorded as a well-remembered portion of their history. The flight of the Wyandots to the northwest is declared to have been caused by a war which broke out between them and the Iroquois. This statement is opposed to the common opinion, which ascribes the expulsion of the Hurons from their eastern abode to the hostility of the Algonkins. It is, however, probably correct; for the Hurons retreated into the midst of the Algonkin tribes, with whom they were found by Champlain to be on terms of amity and even of alliance, while they were engaged in a deadly war with the Iroquois. The place to which they withdrew was a nook in the Georgian Bay, where their strongly palisaded towns and well-cultivated fields excited the admiration of the great French explorer. Their object evidently was to place as wide a s.p.a.ce as possible between themselves and their inveterate enemies. Unfortunately, as is well known, this precaution, and even the aid of their Algonkin and French allies, proved inadequate to save them. The story of their disastrous overthrow, traced by the masterly hand of Parkman, is one of the most dismal pa.s.sages of aboriginal history.

The only people of this stock remaining to be noticed are the Attiwandaronks, or Neutral Nation. They dwelt south of the Hurons, on the northern borders of Lakes Erie and Ontario. They had, indeed, a few towns beyond those lakes, situated east of the Niagara river, between the Iroquois and the Eries. They received their name of Neutrals from the fact that in the war between the Iroquois and the Hurons they remained at peace with both parties. This policy, however, did not save them from the fate which overtook their Huron friends. In the year 1650 the Iroquois set upon them, destroyed their towns, and dispersed the inhabitants, carrying off great numbers of them, as was their custom, to be incorporated with their own population. Of their language we only know that it differed but slightly from the Huron. [Footnote: "Our Hurons call the Neutral Nation Attiwandaronk, meaning thereby 'People of a speech a little different.'"--_Relation_ of 1641, p. 72. Bruyas, in his "_Iroquois Root-words_" gives _gawenda_ (or _gawenna_), speech, and _gaRONKwestare_, confusion of voices.] Whether they were an offshoot from the Hurons or from the Iroquois is uncertain. It is not unlikely that their separation from the parent stock took place earlier than that of the Iroquois, and that they were thus enabled for a time to avoid becoming embroiled in the quarrel between the two great divisions of their race.

CHAPTER II.

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 pa.s.sed away. A leader of peculiar qualities, aided by favoring circ.u.mstances, 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 ent.i.tled "A Lawgiver of the Stone Age," which was read at the Cincinnati meeting of the American a.s.sociation 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 circ.u.mstances 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 const.i.tution 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 ill.u.s.trations, 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 princ.i.p.ally 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 a.s.semblage. 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 a.s.sembly, 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 circ.u.mstances recounted) he pa.s.sed his great antagonist, seated near a well-known spring, stern and silent as usual. No word pa.s.sed 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 sh.o.r.es abounding in small white sh.e.l.ls. 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 sh.e.l.ls." "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 amba.s.sadors 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 amba.s.sadors 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 amba.s.sadors 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 emba.s.sy 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 a.s.sume 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 t.i.tle 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 a.s.signed 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 a.s.signed 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, embarra.s.sing 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 n.o.ble 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 dignite de chef est perpetuelle et hereditaire dans sa Cabane, pa.s.sant toujours aux enfans de ses tantes, de ses soeurs, on de ses nieces du cote maternel. Des que l'arbre est tombe, il fault, disent ils, le relever. La matrone, qui a la princ.i.p.ale autorite, apres en avoir confere avec ceux de sa Cabane, en confere de nouveau avec ceux de sa Tribu [clan], a qui elle fait agreer oelui qu'elle a choisi pour succeder, ce qui lui est a.s.sez libre. Elle n'a pas toujours egard au droit d'ainesse, et d'ordinaire, elle prend celui qui paroit le plus propre a soutenir ce rang par ses bonnes qualites."--_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 n.o.blest 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 subst.i.tute 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 p.r.o.nouncing. Their own name for a member of their Senate is _Royaner_, derived from the root _yaner_, n.o.ble, and precisely equivalent in meaning to the English "n.o.bleman" or "lord," as applied to a member of the House of Peers. It is the word by which the missionaries have rendered the t.i.tle "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 emba.s.sies 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, Nantic.o.kes, 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.