Title: The Iroquois Book of Rites
Author: Horatio Hale


THE IROQUOIS BOOK OF RITES.


EDITED BY
   HORATIO HALE; M.A.,


AUTHOR OF "THE ETHNOGRAPHY AND PHILOLOGY
OF THE U.S. EXPLORING EXPEDITION," ETC.





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 illustrate it, will strike most readers as new
and unexpected developments.

The circumstances 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 principally indebted are given in the
proper places, with suitable acknowledgment of the assistance 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.





CONTENTS.

MAP

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I. THE HURON-IROQUOIS NATIONS

CHAPTER II. THE LEAGUE AND ITS FOUNDERS

CHAPTER III. THE BOOK OF RITES

CHAPTER IV. THE CONDOLING COUNCIL.--CLANS AND CLASSES

CHAPTER V. THE CONDOLENCE AND THE INSTALLATION

CHAPTER VI. THE LAWS OF THE LEAGUE

CHAPTER VII. HISTORICAL TRADITIONS

CHAPTER VIII. THE IROQUOIS CHARACTER

CHAPTER IX. THE IROQUOIS POLICY

CHAPTER X. THE IROQUOIS LANGUAGE


THE BOOK OF RITES

THE CANIENGA BOOK

THE ONONDAGA BOOK

NOTES ON THE CANIENGA BOOK

NOTES ON THE ONONDAGA BOOK


APPENDIX

NOTE A.--Names of the Huron-Iroquois Nations

NOTE B.--Meaning of _Ohio, Ontario, Onontio, Rawennito_

NOTE C.--The Era of the Confederacy

NOTE D.--The Hiawatha Myths

NOTE E.--The Iroquois Towns

NOTE F.--The Pre-Aryan Race in Europe and America


GLOSSARY

INDEX



[Illustration: THE HURON-IROQUOIS NATIONS AND THE SURROUNDING TRIBES.
A.D. 1535 TO 1780. ]





INTRODUCTION.




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 his question has been discussed by the writer in a
paper on "Indian Migrations as evidenced by Language," read before the
American Association 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
passed, 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
constitution 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 principal
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 passed,
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 passed over. Cusick anticipates 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 shore 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 entitled "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 space 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 passages 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 passed away. A leader of peculiar qualities, aided
by favoring circumstances, was able at last to bring about a more
permanent union. There is no exact chronology by which the date of this
important event can be ascertained; but the weight of evidence fixes it
at about the middle of the fifteenth century. [Footnote: The evidence on
this point is given in the Appendix, note C. It should be mentioned that
some portion of the following narrative formed part of a paper entitled
"A Lawgiver of the Stone Age," which was read at the Cincinnati meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in August,
1882, and was published in the Proceedings of the meeting. The
particulars comprised in it were drawn chiefly from notes gathered
during many visits to the Reserve of the Six Nations, on the Grand
River, in Ontario, supplemented by information obtained in two visits to
the Onondaga Reservation, in the State of New York, near Syracuse. My
informants were the most experienced councillors, and especially the
"wampum-keepers," the official annalists of their people. Their names,
and some account of them, will be given in a subsequent chapter. It
should be mentioned that while the histories received at the two
localities were generally in close accord, thus furnishing a strong
proof of the correctness with which they have been handed down, there
were circumstances remembered at each place which had not been preserved
at the other. The Onondagas, as was natural, retained a fuller
recollection of the events which took place before the flight of
Hiawatha to the Caniengas; while the annalists of the latter tribe were
better versed in the subsequent occurrences attending the formation of
the League. These facts should be borne in mind by any inquirer who may
undertake to repeat or continue these investigations. When the
narratives varied, as they sometimes did in minor particulars, I have
followed that which seemed most in accordance with the general tenor of
the history and with the evidence furnished by the Book of Rites.]

At this time two great dangers, the one from without, the other from
within, pressed upon these tribes. The Mohegans, or Mohicans, a powerful
Algonkin people, whose settlements stretched along the Hudson river,
south of the Mohawk, and extended thence eastward into New England,
waged a desperate war against them. In this war the most easterly of the
Iroquois, the Caniengas and Oneidas, bore the brunt and were the
greatest sufferers. On the other hand, the two western nations, the
Senecas and Cayugas, had a peril of their own to encounter. The central
nation, the Onondagas, were then under the control of a dreaded chief,
whose name is variously given, Atotarho (or, with a prefixed particle,
Thatotarho), Watatotahro, Tadodaho, according to the dialect of the
speaker and the orthography of the writer. He was a man of great force
of character and of formidable qualities--haughty, ambitious, crafty and
bold--a determined and successful warrior, and at home, so far as the
constitution of an Indian tribe would allow, a stern and remorseless
tyrant. He tolerated no equal. The chiefs who ventured to oppose him
were taken off one after another by secret means, or were compelled to
flee for safety to other tribes. His subtlety and artifices had acquired
for him the reputation of a wizard. He knew, they say, what was going on
at a distance as well as if he were present; and he could destroy his
enemies by some magical art, while he himself was far away. In spite of
the fear which he inspired, his domination would probably not have been
endured by an Indian community, but for his success in war. He had made
himself and his people a terror to the Cayugas and the Senecas.
According to one account, he had subdued both of those tribes; but the
record-keepers of the present day do not confirm this statement, which
indeed is not consistent with the subsequent history of the
confederation.

The name Atotarho signifies "entangled." The usual process by which
mythology, after a few generations, makes fables out of names, has not
been wanting here. In the legends which the Indian story-fellers recount
in winter, about their cabin fires, Atotarho figures as a being of
preterhuman nature, whose head, in lieu of hair, is adorned with living
snakes. A rude pictorial representation shows him seated and giving
audience, in horrible state, with the upper part of his person enveloped
by these writhing and entangled reptiles. [Footnote: This picture and
some other equally grotesque illustrations, produced in a primitive
style of wood engraving, are prefixed to David Cusick's History of the
Six Nations. The artist to whom we owe them was probably the historian
himself. My accomplished friend, Mrs. E. A. Smith, whose studies have
thrown much light upon the mythology and language of the Iroquois
nations, and especially of the Tuscaroras, was fortunate enough to
obtain either the originals or early copies of these extraordinary
efforts of native art.] But the grave Councillors of the Canadian
Reservation, who recite his history as they have heard it from their
fathers at every installation of a high chief, do not repeat these
inventions of marvel-loving gossips, and only smile with good-humored
derision when they are referred to.

There was at this time among the Onondagas a chief of high rank, whose
name, variously written--Hiawatha, Hayenwatha, Ayonhwahtha,
Taoungwatha--is rendered, "he who seeks the wampum belt." He had made
himself greatly esteemed by his wisdom and his benevolence. He was now
past middle age. Though many of his friends and relatives had perished
by the machinations of Atotarho, he himself had been spared. The
qualities which gained him general respect had, perhaps, not been
without influence even on that redoubtable chief. Hiawatha had long
beheld with grief the evils which afflicted not only his own nation, but
all the other tribes about them, through the continual wars in which
they were engaged, and the misgovernment and miseries at home which
these wars produced. With much meditation he had elaborated in his mind
the scheme of a vast confederation which would ensure universal
peace. In the mere plan of a confederation there was nothing new. There
are probably few, if any, Indian tribes which have not, at one time or
another, been members of a league or confederacy. It may almost be said
to be their normal condition. But the plan which Hiawatha had evolved
differed from all others in two particulars. The system which he devised
was to be not a loose and transitory league, but a permanent government.
While each nation was to retain its own council and its management of
local affairs, the general control was to be lodged in a federal senate,
composed of representatives elected by each nation, holding office
during good behavior, and acknowledged as ruling chiefs throughout the
whole confederacy. Still further, and more remarkably, the
confederation was not to be a limited one. It was to be indefinitely
expansible. The avowed design of its proposer was to abolish war
altogether. He wished the federation to extend until all the tribes of
men should be included in it, and peace should everywhere reign. Such is
the positive testimony of the Iroquois themselves; and their statement,
as will be seen, is supported by historical evidence.

Hiawatha's first endeavor was to enlist his own nation in the cause. He
summoned a meeting of the chiefs and people of the Onondaga towns. The
summons, proceeding from a chief of his rank and reputation, attracted a
large concourse. "They came together," said the narrator, "along the
creeks, from all parts, to the general council-fire." [Footnote: The
narrator here referred to was the Onondaga chief, Philip Jones, known in
the council as Hanesehen (in Canienga, Enneserarenh), who, in October,
1875, with two other chiefs of high rank, and the interpreter, Daniel La
Fort, spent an evening in explaining to me the wampum records preserved
at "Onondaga Castle," and repeating the history of the formation of the
confederacy. The later portions of the narrative were obtained
principally from the chiefs of the Canadian Iroquois, as will be
hereafter explained.] But what effect the grand projects of the chief,
enforced by the eloquence for which he was noted, might have had upon
his auditors, could not be known. For there appeared among them a
well-known figure, grim, silent and forbidding, whose terrible aspect
overawed the assemblage. The unspoken displeasure of Atotarho was
sufficient to stifle all debate, and the meeting dispersed. This
result, which seems a singular conclusion of an Indian council--the most
independent and free-spoken of all gatherings--is sufficiently explained
by the fact that Atotarho had organized, among the more reckless
warriors of his tribe, a band of unscrupulous partisans, who did his
bidding without question, and took off by secret murder all persons
against whom he bore a grudge. The knowledge that his followers were
scattered through the assembly, prepared to mark for destruction those
who should offend him, might make the boldest orator chary of
speech. Hiawatha alone was undaunted. He summoned a second meeting,
which was attended by a smaller number, and broke up as before, in
confusion, on Atotarho's appearance. The unwearied reformer sent forth
his runners a third time; but the people were disheartened. When the
day of the council arrived, no one attended. Then, continued the
narrator, Hiawatha seated himself on the ground in sorrow. He enveloped
his head in his mantle of skins, and remained for a long time bowed down
in grief and thought. At length he arose and left the town, taking his
course toward the southeast. He had formed a bold design. As the
councils of his own nation were closed to him, he would have recourse to
those of other tribes. At a short distance from the town (so minutely
are the circumstances recounted) he passed his great antagonist, seated
near a well-known spring, stern and silent as usual. No word passed
between the determined representatives of war and peace; but it was
doubtless not without a sensation of triumphant pleasure that the
ferocious war-chief saw his only rival and opponent in council going
into what seemed to be voluntary exile. Hiawatha plunged into the
forest; he climbed mountains; he crossed a lake; he floated down the
Mohawk river in a canoe. Many incidents of his journey are told, and in
this part of the narrative alone some occurrences of a marvelous cast
are related, even by the official historians. Indeed, the flight of
Hiawatha from Onondaga to the country of the Caniengas is to the Five
Nations what the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina is to the
votaries of Islam. It is the turning point of their history. In
embellishing the narrative at this point, their imagination has been
allowed a free course. Leaving aside these marvels, however, we need
only refer here to a single incident, which may well enough have been of
actual occurrence. A lake which Hiawatha crossed had shores abounding in
small white shells. These he gathered and strung upon strings, which he
disposed upon his breast, as a token to all whom he should meet that he
came as a messenger of peace. And this, according to one authority, was
the origin of wampum, of which Hiawatha was the inventor. That honor,
however, is one which must be denied to him. The evidence of sepulchral
relics shows that wampum was known to the mysterious Mound-builders, as
well as in all succeeding ages. Moreover, if the significance of white
wampum-strings as a token of peace had not been well known in his day,
Hiawatha would not have relied upon them as a means of proclaiming his
pacific purpose.

Early one morning he arrived at a Canienga town, the residence of the
noted chief Dekanawidah, whose name, in point of celebrity, ranks in
Iroquois tradition with those of Hiawatha and Atotarho. It is probable
that he was known by reputation to Hiawatha, and not unlikely that they
were related. According to one account Dekanawidah was an Onondaga,
adopted among the Caniengas. Another narrative makes him a Canienga by
birth. The probability seems to be that he was the son of an Onondaga
father, who had been adopted by the Caniengas, and of a Canienga
mother. That he was not of pure Canienga blood is shown by the fact,
which is remembered, that his father had had successively three wives,
one belonging to each of the three clans, Bear, Wolf, and Tortoise,
which composed the Canienga nation. If the father had been of that
nation (Canienga), he would have belonged to one of the Canienga clans,
and could not then (according to the Indian law) have married into it.
He had seven sons, including Dekanawidah, who, with their families,
dwelt together in one of the "long houses" common in that day among the
Iroquois. These ties of kindred, together with this fraternal strength,
and his reputation as a sagacious councillor, gave Dekanawidah great
influence among his people. But, in the Indian sense, he was not the
leading chief. This position belonged to Tekarihoken (better known in
books as Tecarihoga), whose primacy as the first chief of the eldest
among the Iroquois nations was then, and is still, universally
admitted. Each nation has always had a head-chief, to whom belonged the
hereditary right and duty of lighting the council fire and taking the
first place in public meetings. But among the Indians, as in other
communities, hereditary rank and personal influence do not always, or
indeed, ordinarily, go together. If Hiawatha could gain over Dekanawidah
to his views, he would have done much toward the accomplishment of his
purposes.

In the early dawn he seated himself on a fallen trunk, near the spring
from which the inhabitants of the long house drew their water. Presently
the wife of one of the brothers came out with a vessel of elm-bark, and
approached the spring. Hiawatha sat silent and motionless. Something in
his aspect awed the woman, who feared to address him. She returned to
the house, and said to Dekanawidah, "A man, or a figure like a man, is
seated by the spring, having his breast covered with strings of white
shells." "It is a guest," said the chief to one of his brothers; "go and
bring him in. We will make him welcome." Thus Hiawatha and
Dekanawidah--first met. They found in each other kindred spirits. The
sagacity of the Canienga chief grasped at once the advantages of the
proposed plan, and the two worked together in perfecting it, and in
commending it to the people. After much discussion in council, the
adhesion of the Canienga nation was secured. Dekanawidah then dispatched
two of his brothers as ambassadors to the nearest tribe, the Oneidas, to
lay the project before them. The Oneida nation is deemed to be a
comparatively recent offshoot from the Caniengas. The difference of
language is slight, showing that their separation was much later than
that of the Onondagas. In the figurative speech of the Iroquois, the
Oneida is the son, and the Onondaga is the brother, of the
Canienga. Dekanawidah had good reason to expect that it would not prove
difficult to win the consent of the Oneidas to the proposed scheme. But
delay and deliberation mark all public acts of the Indians. The
ambassadors found the leading chief, Odatsehte, at his town on the
Oneida creek. He received their message in a friendly way, but--required
time for his people to consider it in council. "Come back in another
day," he said to the messengers. In the political speech of the Indians,
a day is understood to mean a year. The envoys carried back the reply to
Dekanawidah and Hiawatha, who knew that they could do nothing but wait
the prescribed time. After the lapse of a year, they repaired to the
place of meeting. The treaty which initiated the great league was then
and there ratified by the representatives of the Canienga and Oneida
nations. The name of Odatsehte means "the quiver-bearer;" and as
Atotarho, "the entangled," is fabled to have had his head wreathed with
snaky locks, and as Hiawatha, "the wampum-seeker," is represented to
have wrought shells into wampum, so the Oneida chief is reputed to have
appeared at this treaty bearing at his shoulder a quiver full of arrows.

The Onondagas lay next to the Oneidas. To them, or rather to their
terrible chief, the next application was made. The first meeting of
Atotarho and Dekanawidah is a notable event in Iroquois history. At a
later day, a native artist sought to represent it in an historical
picture, which has been already referred to. Atotarho is seated in
solitary and surly dignity, smoking a long pipe, his head and body
encircled with contorted and angry serpents. Standing before him are two
figures which cannot be mistaken. The foremost, a plumed and cinctured
warrior, depicted as addressing the Onondaga chief, holds in his right
hand, as a staff, his flint-headed spear, the ensign, it may be
supposed, which marks him as the representative of the Caniengas, or
"People of the Flint." Behind him another plumed figure bears in his
hand a bow with arrows, and at his shoulder a quiver. Divested of its
mythological embellishments, the picture rudely represents the interview
which actually took place. The immediate result was unpromising. The
Onondaga chief coldly refused to entertain the project, which he had
already rejected when proposed by Hiawatha. The ambassadors were not
discouraged. Beyond the Onondagas were scattered the villages of the
Cayugas, a people described by the Jesuit missionaries, at a later day,
as the most mild and tractable of the Iroquois. They were considered an
offshoot of the Onondagas, to whom they bore the same filial relation
which the Oneidas bore to the Caniengas. The journey of the advocates of
peace through the forest to the Cayuga capital, and their reception, are
minutely detailed in the traditionary narrative. The Cayugas, who had
suffered from the prowess and cruelty of the Onondaga chief, needed
little persuasion. They readily consented to come into the league, and
their chief, Akahenyonk ("The Wary Spy"), joined the Canienga and Oneida
representatives in a new embassy to the Onondagas. Acting probably upon
the advice of Hiawatha, who knew better than any other the character of
the community and the chief with whom they had to deal, they made
proposals highly flattering to the self-esteem which was the most
notable trait of both ruler and people. The Onondagas should be the
leading nation of the confederacy. Their chief town should be the
federal capital, where the great councils of the league should be held,
and where its records should be preserved. The nation should be
represented in the council by fourteen senators, while no other nation
should have more than ten. And as the Onondagas should be the leading
tribe, so Atotarho should be the leading chief. He alone should have the
right of summoning the federal council, and no act of the council to
which he objected should be valid. In other words, an absolute veto was
given to him. To enhance his personal dignity, two high chiefs were
appointed as hisook is therefore more
than a century old. Its language, archaic when written, is now partly
obsolete, and is fully understood by only a few of the oldest chiefs. It
is a genuine Indian composition, and must be accepted as disclosing the
true character of its authors. The result is remarkable enough. Instead
of a race of rude and ferocious warriors, we find in this book a kindly
and affectionate people, full of sympathy for their friends in distress,
considerate to their women, tender to their children, anxious for peace,
and imbued with a profound reverence for their constitution and its
authors. We become conscious of the fact that the aspect in which these
Indians have presented themselves to the outside world has been in a
large measure deceptive and factitious. The ferocity, craft and cruelty,
which have been deemed their leading traits, have been merely the
natural accompaniments of wars of self-preservation, and no more
indicated their genuine character than the war-paint, plume and tomahawk
of the warrior displayed the customary guise in which he appeared among
his own people. The cruelties of war, when war is a struggle for
national existence, are common to all races. The persistent desire for
peace, pursued for centuries in federal unions, and in alliances and
treaties with other nations, has been manifested by few as steadily as
by the countrymen of Hiawatha. The sentiment of universal brotherhood
which directed their policy has never been so fully developed in any
branch of the Aryan race, unless it may be found incorporated in the
religious quietism of Buddha and his followers.




CHAPTER III.

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.




CHAPTER IV.

THE CONDOLING COUNCIL.--CLANS AND CLASSES.


The name usually given to the Book of Rites, or rather to its contents,
is, in the Canienga dialect, _Okayondonghsera Yondennase_ (or in
the French missionary orthography, _Okaiontonhstra Iontennase_),
which may be rendered "Ancient Rites of the Condoling Council."
[Footnote: _Okaionlonhsera_ is a substantive derived from
_akaion_, old, or ancient. The termination _sera_ gives it an
abstract sense. "The antiquities," or rather "the ancientnesses," is the
nearest literal rendering which our language allows, _Iontennase_
is a verbal form, derived from _kitenre_ (in Bruyas,
_gentenron_), to pity, or sympathize with. It may be rendered "they
who sympathize," or "the condolers." Both, words, however, have acquired
a special meaning in their application to these ceremonies.] Among the
many councils, civil and religious, tribal and federal, in which the
public spirit and social temper of the Iroquois found their most
congenial and most popular mode of display, the Yondennase, the
Condoling (or Mourning) Council, held the highest rank. It was, in a
certain way, typical of the whole, and comprised the elements of all the
other councils. In its earlier form this council was not peculiar to the
Iroquois. We know, from the Jesuit reports, that it was the custom of
the Hurons to hold a public lamentation for the death of a chief, and at
the same time to appoint another who should take his place and assume
his name. But that which among the Hurons was merely a tribal custom
became, in the Iroquois form of government, an important institution,
essential to the maintenance of their state. By the ordinances of their
League, it was required that the number of their federal senate should
be maintained undiminished. On the death of one of its members, it was
the duty of the nation to which he belonged to notify the other nations
of the event, and of the time and place at which he would be lamented
and his successor installed. The notice was given in the usual manner,
by official messengers, who bore for credentials certain strings of
wampum, appropriate to the occasion. The place of meeting was commonly
the chief town of the nation which had suffered the loss. In this nation
a family council, under the presidency, and subject, indeed (as has been
shown), to the controlling decision, of the chief matron of the deceased
senator's kindred--usually his mother, if she survived him--was in the
meantime convened to select his successor. The selection must be
approved both by his clan and by his nation; but as their sentiments
were generally known beforehand, this approval was rarely
withheld. Indeed, the mischief resulting from an unsuitable choice was
always likely to be slight; for both the national council and the
federal senate had the right of deposing any member who was found
unqualified for the office.

At the appointed day the chiefs of the other nations approached the
place of meeting. A multitude of their people, men and women, usually
accompanied them, prepared to take part both in the exhibitions of grief
and in the festivities which always followed the installation of the new
councillor. The approaching chiefs halted when they reached the border
of the "opening," or cleared space surrounding the town. Here took place
the "preliminary ceremony," styled in the Book of Rites,
"_Deyughnyonkwarakda_," a word which means simply "at the edge of
the woods." At this point a fire was kindled, a pipe was lighted and
passed around with much formality, and an address of welcome was made by
the principal chief of the inviting nation. The topics of this address
comprised a singular mixture of congratulation and condolence, and seem
to have been prescribed forms, which had come down from immemorial
antiquity, as appropriate to the occasion.

The guests were then formally conducted--"led by the hand," as the Book
recites--to the Council House of the town. They seem, anciently at
least, to have advanced in the order of their clans. The towns belonging
to the Wolf clan were first enumerated--probably as the chiefs belonging
to them took their places--then the towns of the Tortoise clan (or
double clan, as it is styled), and finally those of the Bear clan. In
all, twenty-three towns are named. Five of them are expressly stated to
have been "added lately." The residue are supposed to be the names of
the towns in which the people of the Five Nations resided at the time
when the confederacy was formed, though this point is uncertain. That
few of these can now be identified, is what would naturally be
expected. It is well known that the Indians had the custom of removing
their towns from time to time, at intervals varying from ten to twenty
years, as the fuel in their neighborhood became exhausted, and as the
diminished crops under their primitive mode of agriculture showed the
need of fresher soil. Only those villages would be permanent whose
localities offered some special advantages, as fortresses, fishing
places, or harbors. [Footnote: See Appendix, note E.]

This list of towns has another peculiarity which arrests the
attention. It apparently comprises all the towns of the League, but
these are divided among only three clans, those of the Wolf, the
Tortoise and the Bear. The other clans of the confederacy are not once
named in the book. Yet there are indications which show that when the
list of chiefs which concludes the book was written, at a date long
after this list of towns was first recited, other clans existed in three
of the nations. This is an important point, which merits further
consideration. Those who have read the admirable account of the "League
of the Iroquois," by Morgan, and his philosophic work on "Ancient
Society," are aware that he has brought out and elucidated with much
clearness and force the nature and results of the remarkable clan system
which prevails among the North American Indians. It is not universal, as
it does not seem to be known among the widely scattered bands of the
Crees and the Athapascans, or among the Indians of Oregon. [Footnote:
See _Ancient Society_, pp. 167, 175, 177.] It was found, however,
among the great majority of tribes in the region north of Mexico and
east of the Rocky Mountains, and was sufficiently alike in all to
indicate a common origin. Mr. Morgan finds this origin in a kinship,
real or supposed, among the members of each clan. He considers the clan,
or gens, and not the single family, to be the natural unit of primitive
society. It is, in his view, a stage through which the human race passes
in its progress from the savage state to civilization. It is difficult,
however, to reconcile this theory with the fact that among some races,
as for example, the Polynesian and Feejeean, which are in precisely the
same stage of social advancement as the North American Indians, this
institution is unknown; and even among the Indians, as has been said, it
is not everywhere found. There are many indications which seem to show
that the system is merely an artificial arrangement, instituted for
social convenience. It is natural, in the sense that the desire for
association is natural to man. The sentiment is one which manifests
itself alike in all stages of society. The guilds of the middle ages,
the masonic and other secret brotherhoods, religious organizations,
trade unions, clubs, and even political parties, are all manifestations
of this associative instinct. The Indian clan was simply a brotherhood,
an aggregate of persons united by a common tie, sometimes of origin,
sometimes merely of locality. These brotherhoods were not permanent, but
were constantly undergoing changes, forming, dividing, coalescing,
vanishing. The names of many of them show their recent origin. The
Chicasas have a "Spanish clan." [Footnote: _Ancient Society_,
p. 163.] The Shawnees had a "Horse clan." [Footnote: Ibid, p. 168.] The
Iroquois, of Eastern Canada, made up of fragments of all the Five
Nations, had an "Onondaga clan," and an "Oneida clan." [Footnote:
Rotisennakete, and Rotinenhiotronon. See J. A. Cuoq, _Lexique de la
Langut Iroquoise_, p. 154. The proper meaning of these names will be
hereafter shown.] It is a curious fact that, as Mr. Morgan states, "the
Iroquois claim to have originated a division of the people into tribes
[clans or gentes] as a means of creating new relationships, to bind the
people more firmly together. It is further asserted by them that they
forced or introduced this social organization among the Cherokees, the
Chippeways (Massasaugas) and several other Indian nations, with whom, in
ancient times, they were in constant intercourse." "The fact," he adds,
"that this division of the people of the same nation into tribes does
not prevail generally among our Indian races, favors the assertions of
the Iroquois." [Footnote: _League of the Iroquois_, p. 91.]
Further inquiry and reflection led this distinguished investigator to
take a totally different view, and to go to what may be deemed the
opposite extreme of regarding this clan system as an essential stage in
the growth of human society.

There can be no question that an idea of kinship pervaded the clan
system, and was its ruling element. It may, in many instances, have been
purely imaginary and, so to speak, figurative, like the "brotherhood" of
our secret associations; but it was none the less efficacious and
binding. As the members of a clan regarded themselves as brothers and
sisters, marriages among them were not allowed. This led, of course, to
constant intermarriages between members of the different clans of which
a nation was composed, thus binding the whole nation together. What the
founders of the Iroquois League did was to extend this system of social
alliances through the entire confederacy. The Wolf clansman of the
Caniengas was deemed a brother of the Wolf clansman of the Senecas,
though originally there may have been no special connection between
them. It was a tie apparently artificial in its origin, as much so as
the tie which binds a freemason of Berlin to a freemason of New
Orleans. But it came to have all the strength of a tie of
kindred. Mr. Morgan has well pointed out the wisdom shown by the
Iroquois founders, in availing themselves of this powerful element of
strength in the formation of their federal constitution. [Footnote:
_League of the Iroquois_, p. 82, _et seq_.] Their government,
though politically a league of nations, was socially a combination of
clans. In this way Hiawatha and Dekanawidah may be deemed to have given
to the system of clan-ship an extension and a force which it had not
previously possessed; and it is by no means unlikely that this example
may, as the Iroquois assert, have acted upon neighboring nations, and
led to a gradual increase in the number and influence of these
brotherhoods.

But here a discrepancy presents itself in the Iroquois system, which has
perplexed all who have written on the subject. Two of the Six Nations,
the Caniengas and Oneidas, had only three clans, the Wolf, the Tortoise
and the Bear; while the others had, or at least have, each eight or
nine, and these variously styled in the different nations. The three
which have been named are, indeed, found in all; but besides these
three, the Onondagas have five, Deer, Eel, Beaver, Ball and Snipe. The
Cayugas and Senecas have also eight clans, which are similar to those of
the Onondagas, except that among the Cayugas the Ball clan is replaced
by the Hawk, and among the Senecas both Ball and Eel disappear, and are
replaced by Hawk and Heron. The Tuscaroras have likewise eight clans,
but among these are neither the Hawk, the Heron or the Ball. In lieu of
them the Wolf clan is divided into two, the Gray Wolf and the Yellow
Wolf, and the Tortoise furnishes two, the Great Tortoise and the Little
Tortoise; [Footnote: It is deserving of notice that this division of the
Tortoise clan seems to exist in a nascent form among the Onondagas. The
name of this clan is Hahnowa, which is the general word for tortoise;
but the clan is divided into two septs or subdivisions, the
Hanyatengona, or Great Tortoise, and the Nikahnowaksa, or Little
Tortoise, which together are held to constitute but one clan. How or why
the distinction is kept up I did not learn. In the Book of Rites the
Tortoise clan is also spoken of in the dual number--"the two clans of
the Tortoise." It is probable, therefore, that this partial subdivision
extended throughout the original Five Nations, and became complete among
the Tuscaroras.] the Bear, the Beaver, the Eel and the Snipe remain, as
among the Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas.

We are naturally led to ask how it happens that only three clans are
found among the Caniengas and Oneidas, while the other nations have
eight. Mr. Morgan was inclined to think that the other five once existed
among the two former nations, and had become extinct. [Footnote:
_League of the Iroquois_, p. 81. Ancient Society, p. 92.] The
native annalists of those nations, however, affirm that no more than
three clans ever existed among them. This assertion is now confirmed,
indirectly but strongly, by the testimony of the Book of Rites, which
seems to show that only three clans were recognized in the whole
confederacy when the League was formed. All the towns of the united
nations were distributed among the three primary clans of the Wolf, the
Tortoise and the Bear. If the other clans existed, it was probably
merely as septs or divisions of these three. [Footnote: "The Turtle
family, or the Anowara, was the most noble of the whole League; next
came the Ochquari, or clan of the Bear, and the Oquacho, or that of the
Wolf. These three were so prominent that Zeisberger hardly recognizes
the others."--_De Sckweinitz's Life of Zeisberger_,
p.79. Zeisberger had been adopted into the nation of the Onondagas and
the clan of the Tortoise. His knowledge of the laws and usages of the
Kanonsionni was acquired chiefly in that nation. Charlevoix makes the
Bear the leading clan of the Iroquois. It would seem that the relative
rank of the clans varied in the different nations. The chiefs of the
Wolf clan come first in the list of Oneida councillors.] It is more
likely, however, that these additional clans were of later creation or
introduction. Their origin, as well as their restriction to the three
western nations, may be easily explained. The successive conquests
achieved by the Iroquois in the early part of the seventeenth century
had the result of incorporating with their people great numbers of
Hurons, Eries, Attiwandaronks, Andastes, and other captives belonging to
tribes of the same stock, speaking similar dialects, and having usages
closely resembling those of their captors. Of these captives, some were
directly adopted into the Iroquois families and clans; but a larger
number remained for a time in separate towns, retaining their own
usages. They were regarded, however, and they regarded themselves, as
Iroquois. Constant intercourse and frequent intermarriages soon
abolished all distinctions of national origin. But the distinction of
clan-ship would remain. The Hurons (or, at least, the Tionontates, or
Tobacco Nation) had clans of the Deer and the Hawk, and they had a Snake
clan bearing a name (_yagonirunon_) not unlike the name of the
Onondaga Eel clan (_ogontena_), and evidently derived from the same
root. The other conquered nations had doubtless some peculiar clans; for
these brotherhoods, as has been shown, were constantly in process of
formation and change among the Indian tribes. Almost all the captives
were incorporated with the three western nations of the League, to whom
the conquered tribes were mostly nearer than to the Caniengas and
Oneidas. The origin of the additional clans among the Onondagas, Cayugas
and Senecas is thus readily understood.

One fact, important in its connection with the structure of the federal
council, remains to be noted, and if possible, elucidated. The
councillors of each nation were divided into classes, whose part in the
deliberations of the councils bore a certain resemblance to that held by
the committees of our legislatures. The operation of this system cannot
be better described than in the words of Morgan: "The founders of the
confederacy, seeking to obviate, as far as possible, altercation in
council, and to facilitate their progress to unanimity, divided the
sachems of each nation into classes, usually of two or three each, as
will be seen by referring to the table of sachemships. No sachem was
permitted to express an opinion in council, until he had agreed with the
other sachem or sachems of his class upon the opinion to be expressed,
and had received an appointment to act as speaker for the class. Thus
the eight Seneca sachems, being in four classes, could have but four
opinions, the ten Cayuga sachems but four. In this manner each class was
brought to unanimity within itself. A cross-consultation was then held
between the four sachems who represented the four classes; and when they
had agreed, they appointed one of their number to express their
resulting opinion, which was the answer of their nation. The several
nations having, by this ingenious method, become of 'one mind'
separately, it only remained to compare their several opinions to arrive
at the final sentiment of all the sachems of the League. This was
effected by a conference between the individual representatives of the
several nations; and when they had arrived at unanimity, the answer of
the League was determined." [Footnote: _League of the Iroquois_,
p, 112.]

A careful consideration of the facts, in the light cast upon them by the
evidence of the "Book of Rites" and the testimony of the Canadian
Iroquois, leaves no doubt that these classes were originally identical
with the clans. Among the Caniengas and Oneidas this identity still
exists. Each of these nations received nine representatives in the
federal council. These were--and still are--divided into three each
composed of three members, and each class representing a clan. In the
Canienga tribe the members of the first class are all of the Tortoise
clan, those of the second class are of the Wolf clan, and those of the
third class of the Bear clan. Among the Oneidas, the councillors of the
first class belong to the Wolf clan, those of the second class to the
Tortoise clan, and those of the third class to the Bear clan. Such was
the information which Mr. Morgan received from his Seneca friends, and
such I found to be the fact among the Iroquois now in Canada. When we
come to the other nations we find a wholly different state of things. No
correspondence now exists between the classes and the clans. The Cayugas
have now, as has been shown, eight clans; but of these only six,
according to the list given by Morgan, and only five in that furnished
to me by the Canadian chiefs, are represented in the council. These are
distributed in three classes, which do not correspond to the clans. In
Morgan's list the first class has five members, the first of whom
belongs to the Deer clan, the second to that of the Heron, the third and
fourth to that of the Bear, and the fifth to that of the Tortoise. In my
list this class also comprises five chiefs, of whom the first two
(identical in name with the first two of Morgan) belong to the Deer
clan, while the third (who bears the same name as Mr. Morgan's third)
is of the Bear clan. In the "Book of Rites" the first Cayuga class
comprises only two chiefs, but their clans (which were supposed to be
known to the hearers) are not indicated. The fourteen Onondaga
councillors are divided into five classes, according to Morgan, and also
in the modern Canadian list. The "Book of Rites" seems to give only
four, but none of these--according to the evidence of the Canadian
chiefs--correspond with the modern clans; and the same councillor, in
lists received from different sources, is found to belong to different
classes and different clans. Thus the distinguished title of Skanawati
is borne, in Mr. Morgan's list, by a chief of the fifth class and of
the third clan. In the list obtained by me at Onondaga Castle this chief
is of the fourth class and of the Ball clan. The great Seneca chief
Kanyadariyo is, in Mr. Morgan's list, a member of the Tortoise clan,
while among the Canadian Senecas he belongs to the Wolf clan. In short,
it is evident that the introduction of the new clans among the western
nations has thrown this part of their constitutional system into
confusion. The probability is that when the confederacy was established
only three clans, Bear, Wolf and Tortoise, existed among the Iroquois,
as only three clans, Bear, Wolf and Turkey, existed in recent times
among their Algonkin neighbors, the Lenni Lenape, or Delawares. Thus the
classes of their Council grew spontaneously out of their clan system, as
the senators of each clan would naturally consult together. Afterwards
new clans arose; but it seems probable that when the list of councillors
comprised in the "Book of Rites" was written--that is, about the middle
of the last century--the correspondence of classes and clans was still
maintained. The number of both was increased in the western tribes, but
each class was still composed of chiefs of the same clan. The written
book fixed the classes to a certain extent, but the clans to which their
members belonged continued to vary, under the influence of political and
social changes. If, at the death of a councillor, no member of his clan
was found qualified to succeed him, a successor would be elected from
another clan which was deemed to be in some way connected with him. I
was assured by the Onondaga chiefs of the New York Reservation that this
was their rule at present; and it is quite sufficient to account for the
departure, in the western nations, from the ancient system. It is
evident that after the nations and clans were rent to fragments by the
dissensions and emigration caused by the American Revolution, these
changes would, for a time, be necessarily frequent. And thus it happens
that chiefs are found in the duplicate confederacies which after this
disruption were established in Canada and New York, who bear the same
titular designation, but differ both in the clans and in the classes to
which they belong.




CHAPTER V.

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.




CHAPTER VI.

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 theiha, 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.]




CHAPTER VII.

HISTORICAL TRADITIONS.


After the declaration of the laws of the League, there follows a passage
of great historical importance. The speaker recites the names of the
chiefs who represented the Five Nations in the conference by which the
work of devising their laws and establishing their government was
accomplished. The native name of the confederacy is here for the first
time mentioned. In the guttural and rather irregular orthography of the
Book it is spelt _Kanonghsyonny_. The Roman Catholic missionaries,
neglecting the aspirate, which in the Iroquois pronunciation appears and
disappears as capriciously as in the spoken dialects of the south of
England, write the word Kanonsionni. It is usually rendered by
interpreters the "Long House," but this is not precisely its
meaning. The ordinary word for "long house" is _kanonses_ or
_kanonsis_,--the termination _es_ or _is_ being the
adjective suffix which signifies _long_. _Kanonsionni_ is a
compound word, formed of _kanonsa_, _house_, and _ionni_,
extended, or drawn out. The confederacy was compared to a dwelling which
was extended by additions made to the end, in the manner in which their
bark-built houses were lengthened,--sometimes to an extent exceeding two
hundred feet. When the number of families inhabiting these long
dwellings was increased by marriage or adoption, and a new hearth was
required, the end-wall,--if this term may be applied to the slight frame
of poles and bark which closed the house,--was removed, an addition of
the required size was made to the edifice, and the closing wall was
restored. Such was the figure by which the founders of the confederacy
represented their political structure, a figure which was in itself a
description and an invitation. It declared that the united nations were
not distinct tribes, associated by a temporary league, but one great
family, clustered for convenience about separate hearths in a common
dwelling; and it proclaimed their readiness to receive new members into
the general household. [Footnote: The people of the confederacy were
known as _Rotinonsionni_, "They of the Extended House." In the
Seneca dialect this was altered and abridged to Hotinonsonni, the n
having the French nasal sound. This word is written by Mr. Morgan,
"Hodenosaunee."]

The names of the six great chiefs who, as representatives of their
several nations, formed the confederacy, are in this narrative linked
together in a manner which declares their political kinship. The first
rulers or heads of the combined households were the Canienga Dekanawidah
with his "joint-ruler" and political son, the Oneida Otatsehte (or
Odadsheghte), whose union with Dekanawidah was the commencement of the
League. Next follows Otatsehte's uncle (and Dekanawidah's brother), the
Onondaga Wathadodarho (Atotarho), who is accompanied by his son, the
Cayuga Akahenyonh. The uncle of the Cayuga representative, the Seneca
chief Kanadariyu, and his cousin, Shadekaronyes, represent the two
sections into which the great Seneca nation was divided. The name of
Hiawatha does not appear in this enumeration. According to the uniform
tradition of the Five Nations, he was not merely present in the
convention, but was the leading spirit in its deliberations. But he did
not officially represent any nation. By birth a high chief of the
Onondagas, he had been but newly adopted among the Caniengas. Each of
these nations had entrusted its interests to its own most influential
chief. But the respect with which Hiawatha was regarded is indicated, as
has been already remarked, by his place in the list of fifty
councillors, with whose names the Book concludes. Though so recently
received among the haughty Caniengas, whose proud and jealous temper is
often noticed by the missionaries and other early observers, his name is
placed second in the list of their representatives, immediately
following that of Tekarihoken, the chief who stood highest in titular
rank among the nobles of the Kanonsionni, and whose lineage was perhaps
derived from the leader of their primitive migrations.

The tradition runs that when the political frame of their confederacy
had been arranged by the members of this convention, and the number of
senators who should represent each nation in the federal council had
been determined, the six delegates, with Hiawatha and some other
advisers, went through all the nations, selecting--doubtless with the
aid of a national council in each case--the chiefs who were to
constitute the first council. In designating these,--or rather,
probably, in the ceremonies of their installation,--it is said that some
peculiar prerogative was conceded to the Onondagas,--that is, to
Atotarho and his attendant chiefs. It was probably given as a mark of
respect, rather than as conferring any real authority; but from this
circumstance the Onondagas were afterwards known in the council by the
title of "the nominators." The word is, in the Canienga dialect,
_Rotisennakehte_,--in Onondaga, _Hotisennakehte_. It means
literally, "the name-carriers,"--as if, said one of my informants, they
bore a parcel of names in a bag slung upon the back.

Each of the other nations had also its peculiar name in the Council,
distinct from the mere local designation by which it was commonly
called. Thus the Caniengas had for their "Council name" the term
_Tehadirihoken_. This is the plural form of the name of their
leading chief, Tekarihoken. Opinions differ much among the Indians as
to the meaning of this name. Cusick, the Tuscarora historian, defines it
"a speech divided," and apparently refers it to the division of the
Iroquois language into dialects. Chief George Johnson, the interpreter,
rendered it "two statements together," or "two pieces of news together."
Another native informant thought it meant "one word in two divisions,"
while a third defined it as meaning "between two words." The root-word
of the name is the Canienga _orihwa_, or _karihwa_, (properly
_karihoa_), which is defined "thing, affair, speech, news."
[Footnote: See Bruyas, _sub voce Gorihoa_. Mr. Morgan (_League of
the Iroquois_, p. 97), who derived his information from the Senecas,
says that the name "was a term of respect, and signifies 'neutral,' or,
as it may be rendered, the shield." He adds, "its origin is lost in
obscurity."] It also apparently means office; thus we have the
derivatives _garihont_, "to give some charge of duty to some one,"
and _atrihont_, "to be an officer, or captain." The name is in the
peculiar dual or rather duplicative form which is indicated by the
prefix _te_ and the affix _ken_ or _ke_. It may possibly,
therefore, mean "holding two offices," and would thus be specially
applicable to the great Canienga noble, who, unlike most of his order,
was both a civil ruler and a war-chief. But whether he gave his name to
his people, or received it from them, is uncertain. In other instances
the Council name of a nation appears to have been applied in the
singular number to the leading chief of the nation. Thus the head-chief
of the Onondagas was often known by the title of _Sakosennakehte_,
"the Name-carrier." [Footnote: "Il y avait en cette bande un Capitaine
qui porte'le nom le plus considerable de toute sa Nation,
Sagochiendagehte."--_Relation_ of 1654, p. 8. Elsewhere, as in the
_Relation_ for 1657, p. 17, this name is spelt Agochiendaguete.]

The name of the Oneida nation in the Council was
_Nihatirontakowa_--or, in the Onondaga dialect,
_Nihatientakona_--usually rendered the "Great-Tree
People,"--literally, "those of the great log." It is derived from
_karonta_, a fallen tree or piece of timber, with the suffix
_kowa_ or _kona_, great, added, and the verb-forming pronoun
prefixed. In the singular number it becomes _Niharontakowa_, which
would be understood to mean "He is an Oneida." The name, it is said, was
given to the nation because when Dekanawidah and Hiawatha first went to
meet its chief, they crossed the Oneida creek on a bridge composed of an
immense tree which had fallen or been laid across it, and noted that the
Council fire at which the treaty was concluded was kindled against
another huge log. These, however, may be merely explanations invented in
later times.

The Cayugas bore in Council the name of _Sotinonnawentona_, meaning
"the Great-Pipe People." In the singular it is
_Sononnawentona_. The root of the word is _kanonnawen_, which
in composition becomes _kanonnawenta_, meaning pipe, or calumet. It
is said that the chief who in the first Council represented the Cayugas
smoked a pipe of unusual size, which attracted the notice of the
"name-givers."

Finally the Seneca mountaineers, the _Sonnontowanas_, bore the
title, in the Canienga speech, of _Ronaninhohonti_, "the
Door-keepers," or literally, "they who are at the doorway." In the
singular this becomes _Roninhohonti_. In the Onondaga dialect it is
_Honinhohonta_. It is a verbal form, derived from _Kanhoha_,
door, and _ont_, to be. This name is undoubtedly coeval with the
formation of the League, and was bestowed as a title of honor. The
Senecas, at the western end of the "extended mansion," guarded the
entrance against the wild tribes in that quarter, whose hostility was
most to be dreaded.

The enumeration of the chiefs who formed the confederacy is closed by
the significant words, "and then, in later times, additions were made to
the great edifice." This is sufficient evidence that the Canienga "Book
of Rites" was composed in its present form after the Tuscaroras, and
possibly after the Nanticokes and Tuteloes, were received into the
League. The Tuscaroras were admitted in 1714; the two other nations
were received about the year 1753. [Footnote: The former date is well
known; for the latter, see _N. Y. Hist. Col._, Vol. 6, p. 311;
Stone's _Life of Sir William Johnson_, p. 434.]

An outburst of lamentation follows. The speaker has recited the names of
the heroes and statesmen to whom the united nations were indebted for
the Great Peace which had so long prevailed among them. He has recalled
the wise laws which they established; and he is about to chant the
closing litany, commemorating the fifty chiefs who composed the first
federal council, and whose names have remained as the official titles of
their successors. In recalling these memories of departed greatness his
mind is filled with grief and humiliation at the contrast presented by
the degeneracy of his own days. It is a common complaint of all
countries and all times; but the sentiment was always, according to the
missionaries, especially strong among the Indians, who are a
conservative race. The orator appeals to the shades of their ancestors,
in words which, in the baldest of literal versions, are full of
eloquence and pathos. The "great law" has become old, and has lost its
force. Its authors have passed away, and have carried it with them into
their graves. They have placed it as a pillow under their heads. Their
degenerate successors have inherited their names, but not their mighty
intellects; and in the flourishing region which they left, naught but a
desert remains. A trace, and not a slight one, of the mournful sublimity
which we admire in the Hebrew prophets, with a similar cadence of
"parallelism" in the style, will be noticed in this forest lament.

The same characteristics mark the chanted litany which closes the
address. There is not merely parallelism and cadence, but occasionally
rhyme, in the stanzas which are interspersed among the names, as is seen
in the oft-repeated chorus which follows the names composing each clan
or "class":--

 Etho natejonhne,
 Sewaterihwakhaonghkwe,
 Sewarihwisaanonghkwe,
 Kayaterenhkowa. [Footnote: For the translation, see _ante_, p. 33.]

This litany is sung in the usual style of their mourning or religious
chants, with many long-drawn repetitions of the customary ejaculation
_haihhaih_,--an exclamation which, like the Greek "ai! ai!" belongs
to the wailing style appropriate to such a monody. The expressions of
the chant, like those of a Greek chorus, are abrupt, elliptical, and
occasionally obscure. It is probable that this chant, like the condoling
Hymn in the former part of the Book, is of earlier style than the other
portions of the work, their rhythmical form having preserved the
original words with greater accuracy. Such explanations of the doubtful
passages as could be obtained from the chiefs and the interpreters will
be found in the notes.

The chant and the Book end abruptly with the mournful exclamation, "Now
we are dejected in mind." The lament which precedes the litany, and
which is interrupted by it, may be said to close with these words. As
the council is held, nominally at least, for the purpose of condolence,
and as it necessarily revives the memory of the departed worthies of
their republic, it is natural that the ceremonies throughout should be
of a melancholy cast. They were doubtless so from the beginning, and
before there was any occasion to deplore the decay of their commonwealth
or the degeneracy of the age. In fact, when we consider that the
founders of the League, with remarkable skill and judgment, managed to
compress into a single day the protracted and wasteful obsequies
customary among other tribes of the same race, we shall not be surprised
to find that they sought to make the ceremonies of the day as solemn and
impressive as possible.

But there are other characteristics of the "Book of Rites," prominent in
the Canienga section, and still more marked in the Onondaga portion,
which may well excite our astonishment. They have been already noticed,
but seem to deserve fuller consideration. It will be observed that, from
beginning to end, the Book breathes nothing but sentiments of kindness
and sympathy for the living, and of reverence for the departed,--not
merely for the chief whom they have come to mourn, but also for the
great men who have preceded him, and especially for the founders of
their commonwealth. Combined with these sentiments, and harmonizing
with them, is an earnest desire for peace, along with a profound respect
for the laws under which they lived. The work in which these feelings
are expressed is a genuine composition of the Indians themselves, framed
long before they were affected by any influences from abroad, and
repeated among them for centuries, with the entire assent of the
hearers. It affords unquestionable evidence of the true character both
of those who composed and of those who received it.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE IROQUOIS CHARACTER.


The popular opinion of the Indian, and more especially of the Iroquois,
who, as Mr. Parkman well observes, is an "Indian of the Indians,"
represents him as a sanguinary, treacherous and vindictive being,
somewhat cold in his affections, haughty and reserved toward his
friends, merciless to his enemies, fond of strife, and averse to
industry and the pursuits of peace. Some magnanimous traits are
occasionally allowed to him; and poetry and romance have sometimes
thrown a glamour about his character, which popular opinion, not without
reason, energetically repudiates and resents. The truth is that the
circumstances under which the red and white races have encountered in
North America have been such as necessarily to give rise to a wholly
false impression in regard to the character of the aborigines. The
European colonists, superior in civilization and in the arts of war,
landed on the coast with the deliberate intention of taking possession
of the country and displacing the natives. The Indians were at once
thrown on the defensive. From the very beginning they fought, not merely
for their land, but for their lives; for it was from their land that
they drew the means of living. All wars between the whites and the
Indians, whatever the color or pretence on either side, have been on
both sides wars of extermination. They have been carried on as such wars
always have been and always will be carried on. On the side of the
stronger there have been constant encroachments, effected now by menace
and now by cajolery, but always prefaced by the display and the
insolence of superior power. On the side of the weaker there have been
alternations of sullen acquiescence and of fierce and fruitless
resistance. It is not surprising that under such circumstances the
character of each party has been presented to the other in the most
forbidding light.

The Indians must be judged, like every other people, not by the traits
which they display in the fury of a desperate warfare, but by their
ordinary demeanor in time of peace, and especially by the character of
their social and domestic life. On this point the testimony of
missionaries and of other competent observers who have lived among them
is uniform. At home the Indians are the most kindly and generous of
men. Constant good humor, unfailing courtesy, ready sympathy with
distress, and a truly lavish liberality, mark their intercourse with one
another. The Jesuit missionaries among the Hurons knew them before
intercourse with the whites and the use of ardent spirits had embittered
and debased them. The testimony which they have left on record is very
remarkable. The missionary Brebeuf, protesting against the ignorant
prejudice which would place the Indians on a level with the brutes,
gives the result of his observation in emphatic terms. "In my opinion,"
he writes, "it is no small matter to say of them that they live united
in towns, sometimes of fifty, sixty, or a hundred dwellings, that is, of
three or four hundred households; that they cultivate the fields, from
which they derive their food for the whole year; and that they maintain
peace and friendship with one another." He doubts "if there is another
nation under heaven more commendable in this respect" than the Huron
"nation of the Bear," among whom he resided. "They have," he declares,
"a gentleness and an affability almost incredible for barbarians." They
keep up "this perfect goodwill," as he terms it, "by frequent visits, by
the aid which they give one another in sickness, and by their festivals
and social gatherings, whenever they are not occupied by their fields
and fisheries, or in hunting or trade." "They are," he continues, "less
in their own cabins than in those of their friends. If any one falls
sick, and wants something which may benefit him, everybody is eager to
furnish it. Whenever one of them has something specially good to eat, he
invites his friends and makes a feast. Indeed, they hardly ever eat
alone." [Footnote: _Relation_ for 1636, p. 117.]

The Iroquois, who had seemed little better than demons to the
missionaries while they knew them only as enemies to the French or their
Huron allies, astonished them, on a nearer acquaintance, by the
development of similar traits of natural goodness. "You will find in
them," declares one of these fair-minded and cultivated observers,
"virtues which might well put to blush the majority of Christians. There
is no need of hospitals among them, because there are no beggars among
them, and indeed, none who are poor, so long as any of them are
rich. Their kindness, humanity and courtesy not merely make them liberal
in giving, but almost lead them to live as though everything they
possess were held in common. No one can want food while there is corn
anywhere in the town." It is true that the missionaries often accuse the
Iroquois of cruelty and perfidy; but the narrative shows that these
qualities were only displayed in their wars, and apparently only against
enemies whose cruelty and perfidy they had experienced.

We can now see that the plan of universal federation and general peace
which Hiawatha devised had nothing in itself so surprising as to excite
our incredulity. It was, indeed, entirely in accordance with the genius
of his people. Its essence was the extension to all nations of the
methods of social and civil life which prevailed in his own nation. If
the people of a town of four hundred families could live in constant
"peace and friendship," why should not all the tribes of men dwell
together in the same manner? The idea is one which might readily have
occurred to any man of benevolent feelings and thoughtful
temperament. The project in itself is not so remarkable as the energy
and skill with which it was carried into effect. It is deserving of
notice, however, that according to the Indian tradition, Hiawatha was
impelled to action mainly by experience of the mischiefs which were
caused in his own nation through a departure from their ordinary system
of social life. The missionaries, in describing the general harmony
which prevailed among the Hurons, admit that it was sometimes
disturbed. There were "bad spirits" among them, as everywhere else, who
could not always be controlled. [Footnote: _Relation of 1636_,
p. 118: "Ostez quelques mauvais esprits, qui se rencontrent quasi
partout," etc.] Atotarho, among the Onondagas, was one of these bad
spirits; and in his case, unfortunately, an evil disposition was
reinforced by a keen intellect and a powerful will. His history for a
time offered a rare instance of something approaching to despotism, or
the Greek "tyranny," exercised in an Indian tribe. A fact so strange,
and conduct so extraordinary, seemed in after-times to require
explanation. A legend is preserved among the Onondagas, which was
apparently devised to account for a prodigy so far out of the common
order of events. I give it in the words in which it is recorded in my
journal. [Footnote: This story was related to me in March, 1882, by my
intelligent friend, Chief John Buck, who was inclined to give it
credence,--sharing in this, as in other things, the sentiments of the
best among his people.]

"Another legend, of which I have not before heard, professed to give the
origin both of the abnormal ferocity and of the preterhuman powers of
Atotarho. He was already noted as a chief and a warrior, when he had the
misfortune to kill a peculiar bird, resembling a sea-gull, which is
reputed to possess poisonous qualities of singular virulence. By his
contact with the dead bird his mind was affected. He became morose and
cruel, and at the same time obtained the power of destroying men and
other creatures at a distance. Three sons of Hiawatha were among his
victims. He attended the Councils which were held, and made confusion in
them, and brought all the people into disturbance and terror. His bodily
appearance was changed at the same time, and his aspect became so
terrible that the story spread, and was believed, that his head was
encircled by living snakes."

The only importance of this story is in the evidence it affords that
conduct so anti-social as that of Atotarho was deemed to be the result
of a disordered mind. In his case, as in that of the Scottish tyrant and
murderer, "the insane root that took the reason prisoner," was doubtless
an unbridled ambition. It is interesting to remark that even his fierce
temper and determined will were forced to yield at last to the pressure
of public opinion, which compelled him to range himself on the side of
peace and union. In the whimsical imagery of the narrative, which some
of the story-tellers, after their usual fashion, have converted from a
metaphor to a fact, Hiawatha "combed the snakes out of the head" of his
great antagonist, and presented him to the Council changed and restored
to his right mind.




CHAPTER IX.

THE IROQUOIS POLICY.


Few popular notions, it may be affirmed, are so far from the truth as
that which makes the Iroquois a band of treacherous and ferocious
ravagers, whose career was marked everywhere by cruelty and
devastation. The clear and positive evidence of historical facts leads
to a widely different conclusion. It is not going too far to assert
that among all uncivilized races the Iroquois have shown themselves to
be the most faithful of allies, the most placable of enemies, and the
most clement of conquerors. It will be proper, in justice to them, as
well as in the interest of political and social science, to present
briefly the principles and methods which guided them in their
intercourse with other communities. Their system, as finally developed,
comprised four distinct forms of connection with other nations, all
tending directly to the establishment of universal peace.

1. As has been already said, the primary object of the founders of their
League was the creation of a confederacy which should comprise all the
nations and tribes of men that were known to them. Experience, however,
quickly showed that this project, admirable in idea, was impossible of
execution. Distance, differences of language, and difficulties of
communication, presented obstacles which could not be overcome. But the
plan was kept in view as one of the cardinal principles of their
policy. They were always eager to receive new members into their
League. The Tuscaroras, the Nanticokes, the Tuteloes, and a band of the
Delawares, were thus successively admitted, and all of them still retain
representative in the Council of the Canadian branch of the confederacy.

2. When this complete political union could not be achieved, the
Iroquois sought to accomplish the same end, as far as possible, by a
treaty of alliance. Two notable examples will show how earnestly this
purpose was pursued, and how firmly it was maintained. When the Dutch
established their trading settlements on the Hudson River, one of their
first proceedings was to send an embassy to the Five Nations, with
proposals for a treaty. The overture was promptly accepted. A strict
alliance was formed, and was ratified in the usual manner by an exchange
of wampum belts. When the English took the place of the Dutch, the
treaty was renewed with them, and was confirmed in the same manner. The
wampum-belts then received by the Confederates are still preserved on
their Canadian Reservation, and are still brought forth and expounded by
the older chiefs to the younger generation, in their great
Councils. History records with what unbroken faith, through many
changes, and despite many provocations from their allies and many
enticements from the French rulers and missionaries, this alliance was
maintained to the last.

If it be suggested that this fidelity was strengthened by motives of
policy, the same cannot be affirmed of the alliance with the Ojibways,
which dates from a still earlier period. The annalists of the
Kanonsionni affirm that their first treaty with this widespread people
of the northwest was made soon after the formation of their League, and
that it was strictly maintained on both sidesat all? We conquered you. We made women of you. You know
you are women, and can no more sell land than women. Nor is it fit that
you should have the power of selling lands, since you would abuse
it. This very land that you now claim has been consumed by you. You have
had it in meat and drink and clothes, and now you want it again, like
children, as you are. But what makes you sell land in the dark? Did you
ever tell us that you had sold this land? Did we ever receive any part
of the price, even the value of a pipe-stem from you? You have told us a
blind story--that you sent a messenger to inform us of the sale; but he
never came among us, nor have we ever heard anything about it. And for
all these reasons we charge you to remove instantly. We don't give you
the liberty to think about it. We assign you two places to go, either to
Wyoming or Shamokin. You may go to either of those places, and then we
shall have you more under our eyes, and shall see how you behave. Don't
deliberate, but remove away; and take this belt of wampum." [Footnote:
Golden: _History of the Five Nations_, Vol. II, p. 36 (2d
Edition).]

This imperious allocution, such as a Cinna or a Cornelius might have
delivered to a crowd of trembling and sullen Greeks, shows plainly
enough the relation in which the two communities stood to one
another. It proves also that the rule under which the conquered
Delawares were held was anything but oppressive. They seem to have been
allowed almost entire freedom, except only in making war and in
disposing of their lands without the consent of the Six Nations. In
fact, the Iroquois, in dealing with them, anticipated the very
regulations which the enlightened governments of the United States and
England now enforce in that benevolent treatment of the Indian tribes
for which they justly claim high credit. Can they refuse a like credit
to their dusky predecessors and exemplars, or deny them the praise of
being, as has been already said, the most clement of conquerors?

4. Finally, when a tribe within what may be called "striking distance"
of the Confederacy would neither join the League, nor enter into an
alliance with its members, nor come under their protection, there
remained nothing but a chronic state of warfare, which destroyed all
sense of security and comfort. The Iroquois hunter, fisherman, or
trader, returning home after a brief absence, could never be sure that
he would not find his dwelling a heap of embers, smoldering over the
mangled remains of his wife and children. The plainest dictates of
policy taught the Confederates that the only safe method in dealing with
such persistent and unappeasable foes was to crush them utterly. Among
the most dangerous of their enemies were the Hurons and the eastern
Algonkins, sustained and encouraged by the French colonists. It is from
them and their historians chiefly that the complaints of Iroquois
cruelties have descended to us; but the same historians have not omitted
to inform us that the first acquaintance of the Iroquois with triese
colonists was through two most wanton and butcherly assaults which
Champlain and his soldiers, in company with their Indian allies, made
upon their unoffending neighbors. No milder epithets can justly describe
these unprovoked invasions, in which the Iroquois bowmen, defending
their homes, were shot down mercilessly with firearms, by strangers whom
they had never before seen or perhaps even heard of. This stroke of evil
policy, which tarnished an illustrious name, left far-reaching
consequences, affecting the future of half a continent. Its first result
was the destruction of the Hurons, the special allies and instigators of
the colonists in their hostilities. The Attiwandaronks, or Neutrals,
with whom, till this time, the Iroquois had maintained peaceful
relations, shared the same fate; for they were the friends of the Hurons
and the French. The Eries perished in a war provoked, as the French
missionaries in their always trustworthy accounts inform us, by a
perverse freak of cruelty on their own part.

Yet, in all these destructive wars, the Iroquois never for a moment
forgot the principles which lay at the foundation of their League, and
which taught them to "strengthen their house" by converting enemies into
friends. On the instant that resistance ceased, slaughter ceased with
it. The warriors who were willing to unite their fortunes with the
Confederates were at once welcomed among them. Some were adopted into
the families of those who had lost children or brothers. Others had
lands allotted to them, on which they were allowed to live by
themselves, under their own chiefs and their native laws, until in two
or three generations, by friendly intercourse, frequent intermarriages,
and community ointed. The
languages of the Huron-Iroquois family belong to what has been termed
the polysynthetic class, and are distinguished, even in that class, by a
more than ordinary endowment of that variety of forms and fullness of
expression for which languages of that type are noted. The
best-qualified judges have been the most struck with this peculiar
excellence. "The variety of compounds," wrote the accomplished
missionary, Brebeuf, concerning the Huron tongue, "is very great; it is
the key to the secret of their language. They have as many genders as
ourselves, as many numbers as the Greeks." Recurring to the same
comparison, he remarks of the Huron verb that it has as many tenses and
numbers as the Greek, with certain discriminations which the latter did
not possess. [Footnote: _Relation_ of 1636, pp 99,100.] A great
living authority has added the weight of his name to these opinions of
the scholarly Jesuit. Professor Max Muller, who took the opportunity
afforded by the presence of a Mohawk undergraduate at Oxford to study
his language, writes of it in emphatic terms: "To my mind the structure
of such a language as the Mohawk is quite sufficient evidence that those
who worked out such a work of art were powerful reasoners and accurate
classifiers." [Footnote: In a letter to the author, dated Feb. 14,
1882. In a subsequent letter Prof. Muller writes, in regard to the study
of the aboriginal languages of tht grammar. For such a work
neither the writer, nor perhaps any other person now living, except M.
Cuoq himself, would be competent.

The phonology of the language is at once simple and
perplexing. According to M. Cuoq, twelve letters suffice to represent
it: _a, c, f, h, i, k, n, o, r, s, t, w_. Mr. Wright employs for
the Seneca seventeen, with diacritical marks, which raise the number to
twenty-one. The English missionaries among the Mohawks found sixteen
letters sufficient, _a, d, e, g, h, i, j, k, n, o, r, s, t, u, w,
y._ There are no labial sounds, unless the _f_, which rarely
occurs, and appears to be merely an aspirated _w_, may be
considered one. No definite distinction is maintained between the vowel
sounds _o_ and _u_, and one of these letters may be dispensed
with. The distinction between hard and soft (or surd and sonant) mutes
is not preserved. The sounds of _d_ and _t_, and those of
_k_ and _g_, are interchangeable. So also are those of _l_
and _r_, the former sound being heard more frequently in the Oneida
dialect and the latter in the Canienga. From the Western dialects,--the
Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca,--this _l_ or _r_ sound has, in
modern times, disappeared altogether. The Canienga _konoronkwa_, I
esteem him (in Oneida usually sounded _konolonkwa_), has become
_konoenkwa_ in Onondaga,--and in Cayuga and Seneca is contracted to
_kononkwa_. Aspirates and aspirated gutturals abound, and have
been variously represented by _h, hh, kh_, and _gh_, and
sometimes (in the works of the early French missionaries) by the Greek
[Greek: chi] and the _spiritus asper_. Yet no permanent distinction
appears to be maintained among the sounds thus represented, and M. Cuoq
reduces them all to the simple _h_. The French nasal sound
abounds. M. Cuoq and the earlier English missionaries have expressed it,
as in French, simply by the _n_ when terminating a syllable. When
it does not close a syllable, a diaeresis above the n, or else the
Spanish _tilde (n)_ indicates the sound. Mr. Wright denotes it by a
line under the vowel. The later English missionaries express it by a
diphthong: _ken_ becomes _kea; nonwa_ becomes _noewa_;
_onghwentsya_ is written _oughweatsya_.

A strict analysis would probably reduce the sounds of the Canienga
language to seven consonants, _h, k, n, r, s, t,_ and _w_, and
four vowels, _a, e, i_, and _o_, of which three, _a, e, and
o_, may receive a nasal sound. This nasalizing makes them, in fact,
distinct elements; and the primary sounds of the language may therefore
be reckoned at fourteen. [Footnote: A dental _t_, which the French
missionaries represent sometimes by the Greek _theta_ and sometimes
by _th_, and which the English have also occasionally expressed by
the latter method, may possibly furnish an additional element. The Greek
_theta_ of the former is simply the English _w_.] The absence
of labials and the frequent aspirated gutturals give to the utterance of
the best speakers a deep and sonorous character which reminds the hearer
of the stately Castilian speech.

The "Book of Rites," or, rather, the Canienga portion of it, is written
in the orthography first employed by the English missionaries. The
_d_ is frequently used, and must be regarded merely as a variant of
the _t_ sound. The _g_ is sometimes, though rarely, employed
as a variant of the _k_. Ttive form, which affixes _ha_; as _knekirhaHA_, I
drink a little; _konkweHA_ (from _onkwe_, man), I am a man,
but hardly one (_i.e._, I am a little of a man).

2. The augmentative, of which _tsi_ is the affixed sign; as,
_knekirhaTSI_, I drink much. This is sometimes lengthened to
_tsihon_; as _wakatonteTSIHON_, I understand perfectly.

3 and 4. The cislocative, expressing motion towards the speaker, and the
translocative, indicating motion tending from him. The former has
_t_, the latter _ie_ or _ia_, before the verb, as
_tasataweiat_, come in; _iasataweiat_, go in.

5. The duplicative, which prefixes _te_, expresses an action which
affects two or more agents or objects, as in betting, marrying, joining,
separating. Thus, from _ikiaks_, I cut, we have _tekiaks_, I
cut in two, where the prefix _te_ corresponds to the Latin bi in
"bisect". The same form is used in speaking of acts done by those organs
of the body, such as the eyes and the hands, which nature has made
double. Thus _tekasenthos_, I weep, is never used except in this
form.

6 The reiterative is expressed by the sound of _s_ prefixed to the
verb. It sometimes replaces the cislocative sign; thus,
_tkahtenties_, I come from yonder; _skahtenties_, I come
again.

7. The motional is a form which by some is considered a special future
tense. Thus, from _khiatons_, I write, we have _khiatonnes_, I
am going to write; from _katerios_, I fight, _katerioseres_, I
am going to the war; from _kesaks_, I seek, _kesakhes_, I am
going to seek. These forms are irregular, and can only be learned by
practice.

8. The causative suffix is _tha_; as from _k'kowanen_, I am
great, we have _k'kowanaTHA_, I make great, I aggrandize. With
_at_ inserted we have a simulative or pretentious form, as
_katkowanaTHA_, I make myself great, I pretend to be great. The
same affix is used to give an instrumental sense; as from
_keriios_, I kill, we have _keriiohTHA_, I kill him with such
a weapon or instrument.

9. The progressive, which ends in _tie_ (sometimes taking the forms
_atie_, _hatie_, _tatie_), is much used to give the sense
of becoming, proceeding, continuing, and the like; as
_wakhiatontie_, I go on writing; _wakatrorihatie_, I keep on
talking; _wakeriwaientatie_, I am attending to the business. The
addition of an _s_ to this form adds the idea of plurality or
diversity of acts; thus, _wakhiatonties_, I go on writing at
different times and places; _wakatrorihaties_, I keep on telling
the thing, _i. e._, going from house to house.

10. The attributive has various forms, which can only be learned by
practice or from the dictionaries. It expresses an action done for some
other person; as, from _wakiote_, I work, we have _kiotense_,
I work for some one; from _katatis_, I speak, _katatiase_, I
speak in favor of some one.

11. The habitual ends in _kon_. From _katontats_, I hear, I
consent, we have _wakatontatskon_, I am docile; from
_katatis_, I speak, _wakatatiatskon_, I am talkative.

12. The frequentative has many forms, but usually ends in _on_, or
_ons_. From _khiatons_, I write, we have in this form
_khiatonnions_, I write many things; from _katkahtos_, I look,
_katkahtonnions_, I look on all sides.

These are not all the forms of the Iroquois verb; but enough have been
enumerated to give some idea of the wealth of the language in such
derivatives, and the power of varied expression which it derives from
this source.

The Iroquois has many particles which, like those of the Greek and
French languages, help to give clearness to the style, though their
precise meaning cannot always be gathered by one not perfectly familiar
with the language. _Ne_ and _nene_ are frequently used as
substitutes for the article and the relative pronouns. _Onenh_,
now; _kati_, then, therefore; _ok_, _nok_, and
_neok_, and; _oni_ and _neoni_, also; _toka_ and
_tokat_, if, perhaps; _tsi_, when; _kento_, here;
_akwah_, indeed, very; _etho_, thus, so; _are_,
sometimes, again; _ken_, an interrogative particle, like the Latin
_ne_--these and some others will be found in the Book of Rites,
employed in the manner in which they are still used by the best
speakers.

It must be understood that the foregoing sketch affords only the barest
outline of the formation of the Iroquois language. As has been before
remarked, a complete grammar of this speech, as full and minute as the
best Sanscrit or Greek grammars, would probably equal and perhaps
surpass those grammars in extent. The unconscious forces of memory and
of discrimination required to maintain this complicated intellectual
machine, and to preserve it constantly exact and in good working order,
must be prodigious. Yet a comparison of Bruyas' work with the language
of the present day shows that this purpose has been accomplished; and,
what is still more remarkable, a comparison of the Iroquois with the
Huron grammar shows that after a separation which must have exceeded
five hundred years, and has probably covered twice that term, the two
languages differ less from one another than the French of the twelfth
century differed from the Italian, or than the Anglo-Saxon of King
Alfred differed from the contemporary Low German speech. The forms of
the Huron-Iroquois languages, numerous and complicated as they are,
appear to be certainly not less persistent, and probably better
maintained, than those of the written Aryan tongues.





ANCIENT RITES OF THE CONDOLING COUNCIL.



[Originally presented as one page Iroquois, followed by one page
English translation. This is confusing in electronic texts, so have
changed it here to be the complete Iroquois text followed by the
complete English translation.]





OKAYONDONGHSERA YONDENNASE.



OGHENTONH KARIGHWATEGHKWENH:

DEYUGHNYOXKWARAKTA, RATIYATS.


1. Onenh weghniserade wakatyerenkowa desawennawenrate ne
kenteyurhoton. Desahahishonne donwenghratstanyonne ne
kentekaghronghwanyon. Tesatkaghtoghserontye ronatennossendonghkwe
yonkwanikonghtaghkwenne, konyennetaghkwen. Ne katykcnh nayoyaneratye ne
sanikonra? Daghsatkaghthoghseronne ratiyanarenyon
onkwaghsotsherashonkenhha; neok detkanoron ne shekonh ayuyenkwaroghthake
jiratighrotonghkwakwe. Ne katykenh nayuyaneratye ne sanikonra
desakaghserentonyonne?

2. Niyawehkowa katy nonwa onenh skennenji thisayatirhehon. Onenh nonwa
oghseronnih denighroghkwayen. Hasekenh thiwakwekonh deyunennyatenyon
nene konnerhonyon, "Ie henskerighwaghfonte." Kenyutnyonkwaratonnyon,
neony kenyotdakarahon, neony kenkontifaghsoton. Nedens
aesayatyenenghdon, konyennedaghkwen, neony kenkaghnekdnyon nedens
aesayatyenenghdon, konyennethaghkwen, neony kenwaseraketotanese
kentewaghsatayenha kanonghsakdatye. Niyateweghniserakeh yonkwakaronny;
onidatkon yaghdekakonghsonde oghsonteraghkowa nedens aesayatyenenghdon,
konyennethaghkwen.

3. Niyawenhkowa kady nonwa onenh skennenjy thadesarhadiyakonh. Hasekenh
kanoron jinayawenhon nene aesahhahiyenenhon, nene ayakotyerenhon
ayakawen, "Issy tyeyadakeron, akwah deyakonakorondon!"  Ayakaweron
oghnonnekenh niyuiterenhhatye, ne konyennedaghkwen.

4. Rotirighwison onkwaghsotshera, ne ronenh,
"Kenhenyondatsjistayenhaghse. Kendeyughnyonkwarakda
eghtenyontatitenranyon orighokonha." Kensane yeshotiriwayen
orighwakwekonh yatenkarighwentaseron, nene akwah
denyontatyadoghseronko. Neony ne ronenh, "Ethononweh yenyontatenonshine,
kanakdakwenniyukeh yenyontatideron."

5. Onenh kady iese seweryenghskwe sathaghyonnighshon:

 Karhatyonni.
 Oghskawaserenhon.
 Gentiyo.
 Onenyute.
 Deserokenh.
 Deghhodijinharakwenh.
 Oghrekyonny.
 Deyuyewenton.

Etho ne niwa ne akotthaghyonnishon.

6. Onenh nene shehhawah deyakodarakeh ranyaghdenghshon:

 Kaneghsadakeh.
 Onkwehieyede.
 Waghkerhon.
 Kahhendohhon.
 Dhogvvenyoh.
 Kayyhekwarakeh.

Etho ne niwa ne ranyaghdenshon.

7. Onenh nene jadadeken roskerewake:
Deyaokenh.
Jonondese.
Otskwirakeron.
Onaweron.

8. Onenh nene onghwa kehaghshonha:
Karhawenghradongh.
Karakenh.
Deyuhhero.
Deyughsweken.
Oxdenkeh.

Etho ne niwa roghskerewake. Eghnikatarakeghne orighwakayongh.

9. Ne kaghyaton jinikawennakeh ne dewadadenonweronh, "ohhendonh
karighwadeghkwenh" radiyats. Doka enyairon, "Konyennedaghkwen; onenh
weghniserade yonkwatkennison. Rawenniyo raweghniseronnyh. Ne onwa
konwende yonkwatkennison nene jiniyuneghrakwah jinisayadawen. Onenh
oaghwenjakonh niyonsakahhawe jinonweh nadekakaghneronnyonghkwe. Akwah
kady okaghserakonh thadetyatroghkwanekenh."

10. "Onenh kady yakwenronh, wakwennyonkoghde okaghsery, akwah kady ok
skennen thadenseghsatkaghthonnyonhheke."

11. "Nok ony kanekhere deyughsihharaonh ne sahondakon. Onenh kady
watyakwaghsiharako waahkwadeweyendonh tsisaronkatah, kady nayawenh ne
skennen thensathondeke enhtyewenninekenneh."

12. "Nok ony kanekhere deyughsihharaonh desanyatokenh. Onenh kady hone
yakwenronh watyakwaghsihharanko, akwah kady ok skennen
deghsewenninekenne dendewadatenonghweradon."

13. Onenh are oya, konyennethaghkwen. Nene kadon yuneghrakwah
jinesadawen. Niyadeweghniserakeh sanekherenhonh
ratikowanenghskwe. Onghwenjakonh niyeskahhaghs; ken-ony
rodighskenrakeghdethaghkwe, ken-ony sanheghtyensera, ken-ony
saderesera. Akwagh kady ok onekwenghdarihengh thisennekwakenry.

14. Onenh kady yakwenronh wakwanekwenghdarokewanyon jisanakdade, ogh
kady nenyawenne seweghniserathagh ne akwah ok skennen then kanakdiyuhake
ji enghsitskodake denghsatkaghdonnyonheke.

15. Onenh nene Karenna,

  Yondonghs "Aihaigh."

  Kayanerenh dcskenonghweronne;
  Kheyadawenh deskenonghweronne;
  Oyenkondonh deskenonghweronne;
  Wakonnyh deskenonghweronne.
  Ronkeghsotah rotirighwane,--
  Ronkeghsota jiyathondek.

16. Enskat ok enjerennokden nakwah oghnaken nyare enyonghdentyonko
kanonghsakonghshon, enyairon.

17. "A-i Raxhottahyh! Onenh kajatthondek onenh enyontsdaren ne
yetshiyadare! Ne ji onenh wakarighwakayonne ne sewarighwisahnonghkwe ne
kayarenghkowah. Ayawenhenstokenghske daondayakotthondeke."

18. "Na-i Raxhottahyh! Ne kenne iesewenh enyakodenghthe nene noghnaken
enyakaonkodaghkwe."

19. "Na-i Raxhottahyh! Onenh nonwa kathonghnonweh dhatkonkoghdaghkwanyon
jidenghnonhon nitthatirighwayerathaghkwe."

20. "Na-i Raxbottahyh! Nene ji onenh wakarighwakayonne ne
sewarighwisahnonghkwe, ne Kayarenghkowa. Yejisewatkonseraghkwanyon
onghwenjakonshon yejisewayadakeron, sewarighwisahnhonkwe ne
Kayanerenhkowah. Ne sanekenh ne seweghne aerengh niyenghhenwe
enyurighwadatye Kayanerenghkowah."

       *       *       *       *       *

21. Eghnikonh enyerighwawetharho kenthoh, are enjonderennoden enskat
enjerenokden, onenh ethone enyakohetsde onenh are enjondentyonko
kanonghsakonghshon, enyairon wahhy:

22. "A-i Raxhotthahyh! Onenh jatthondek kady nonwa
jinihhotiyerenh,--orighwakwekonh natehaotiya-doreghtonh, nene roneronh
ne enyononghsaghniratston. A-i Raxhotthahyh! nene ronenh: 'Onen nonwa
wetewayennendane; wetewennakeraghdanyon; watidewenna-karondonnyon.'"

23. "Onenh are oya eghdeshotiyadoreghdonh, nene ronenh: 'Kenkisenh
nenyawenne. Aghsonh thiyenjide-watyenghsaeke, onok enjonkwanckheren.'
Nene ronenh: 'Kenkine nenyawenne. Aghsonh denyakokwanentonghsaeke, onok
denjontadenakarondako. Nene doka ok yadayakonakarondatye onghwenjakonh
niyaonsakahawe, A-i Raxhottahyh,' none ronenh, 'da-edewenhheye onghteh,
neok yadayakonakarondatye onghwenjakonh niyaonsakahawe.'"

24. "Onenh are oya eghdeshodiyadoreghtonh, nai Raxhottahyh! Nene ronenh
ne enyononghsaghniratston. Nene ronengh: 'Doka onwa
kenenyondatyadawenghdate, ne kenkarenyakeghrondonhah ne nayakoghstonde
ne nayeghnyasakenradake, ne kenh ne iesewenh, kenkine
nenyawenne. Kendenyethirentyonnite kanhonghdakde dewaghsadayenhah."

25. "Onenh are oya eghdejisewayudoreghdonh, nene isewenh:
'Yahhonghdehdeyoyanere nene kenwedewayen, onwa enyeken nonkwaderesera;
kadykenh niyakoghswathah, akwekonh nityakawenonhtonh ne
kenyoteranentenyonhah. Enyonterenjiok kendonsayedane akwah
enyakonewarontye, onok enyerighwanendon oghnikawenhonh ne
kendeyerentyonny; katykenh nenyakorane nenyerighwanendon akare onenh
enyakodokenghse. Onok na entkaghwadasehhon nakonikonra, onenh are ne eh
enjonkwakaronny.'"

26. "Onenh are oya eghdeshotiyadoreghdonh, nene ronenh: 'Kenkine
nenyawenne. Endewaghneghdotako skarenhhesekowah, enwadonghwenjadethare
eghyendewasenghte tyoghnawatenghjihonh kathonghdeh thienkahhawe; onenh
denghnon dentidewaghneghdoten, onenh denghnon yaghnonwendonh
thiyaensayeken nonkwateresera.'"

27. "Onenh are oya eghdeshotiyadoreghdonh, nene roneronh ne
enyononghsaghniratston. Nene ronenh: 'Onenh wedewaweyennendane;
wedewennakeraghdanyon. Doka nonkenh onghwajok onok enjonkwanekheren.
Ken kady ne nenyawenne. Kenhendewaghnatatsherodarho ken kanakaryonniha
deyunhonghdoyenghdongh yendewanaghsenghde, kennikanaghseshah, ne
enyehharako ne kaneka akonikonghkahdeh. Enwadon ok jiyudakenrokde
thadenyedane doghkara nentyewenninekenne enjondatenikonghketsko ne
enyenikonghkwenghdarake. Onokna enjeyewendane yenjonthahida ne
kayanerenghkowa.'"

28. "Onenh kady ise jadakweniyu ken Kanonghsyonny, Dekanawidah, ne
deghniwenniyu ne rohhawah Odadsheghte; onenh nene yeshodonnyh
Wathadodarho; onenh nene yeshohowah akahenyonh; onare nene yeshodonnyh
Kanyadariyu; onenh nene yeshonarase Shadekaronyes; onenh nene onghwa
kehhaghsaonhah yejodenaghstahhere kanaghsdajikowah."

       *       *       *       *       *

29. Onenh jatthondek sewarihwisaanonghkwe Kayarenhkowah. Onenh
wakarighwakayonne. Onenh ne oknejoskawayendon. Yetsisewanenyadanyon ne
sewariwisaanonghkweh. Yejisewahhawihtonh, yetsisewennitskarahgwanyon;
agwah neok ne skaendayendon. Etho
yetsisewanonwadaryon. Sewarihwisaanonghkwe yetsisewahhawitonh.
Yetsisewatgonseraghkwanyon sewarihwisaanonghkwe, Kayanerenhkowah.

30. Onenh kady jatthondek jadakweniyosaon sewarihwisaanonghkwe:

  DEKARIHAOKESH!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatagweniyosaon,

  AYONHWAHTHA!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatagweniyosaon,

  SHATEKARIWATE!
  Etho natejonhne!
  Sewaterihwakhaonghkwe,
  Sewarihwisaanonghkwe.
  Kayanerenhkowah.

  31. Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatagweniyosaon,

  SHARENHAOWANE!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatagweniyosaon,

  DEYONNHEHGONH!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatagweniyosaon,

  OGHRENREGOWAH!
  Etho natejonhne!
  Sewaterihwakhaonghkwe,
  Sewarihwisaanonghkwe,
  Kayanerenhkowah.

 32. Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatagweniyosaon,

  DEHENNAKARINE!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatagweniyosaon,

  AGHSTAWENSERONTHA!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatagweniyosaon,

  SHOSGOHAROWANE!
  Etho natejonhne,
  Sewatarihwakhaonghkwe,
  Sewarihwisaanonghkwe,
  Kayanerenhkowah.

 33. Ise seniyatagweniyohkwe,
  Jatathawhak.
  Senirighwisaanonghkwe,
  Kayanerenghkowah.
  Ne deseniyenah;
  Seninonsyonnitonh.
  Onenh katy jatthontenyonk
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  ODATSEGHTE!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  KANONHGWENYODON!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  DEYOHHAGWENTE!
  Etho natejonhne!
  Sewaterihwakhaonghkwe.
  Sewarihwisaanonghkwe,
  Kayanerenhkowah.

34. Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  SHONONSESE!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  DAONAHROKENAGH!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon.

  ATYATONNENHTHA!
  Etho natejonhne!
  Sewaterihwakhaonghkwe,
  Sewarihwisaanonghkwe,
  Kayanerenhkowah.

35. Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  DEWATAHONHTENYONK!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  KANIYATAHSHAYONK!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  ONWATSATONHONH!
  Etho natejonhne!
  Sewaterihwakhaonghkwe,
  Sewarihwisaanonghkwe,
  Kayanerenhkowah.

36. Eghyesaotonnihsen:
  Onenh jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  THATOTARHO!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Etho ronarasehsen:
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  ENNESERARENH!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  DEHATKAHTHOS!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Waghontenhnonterontye.
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  ONYATAJIWAK!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  AWEKENYADE!
  Jatthontenyonk!
  Jatakweniyosaon,

  DEHAYADKWARAYEN!
  Etho natejonhne!

37. Yeshohawak:
  Rokwahhokowah.
  Etho kakeghrondakwe
  Ne kanikonghrashon,

  RONONGHWIREGHTONH!
  Etho natejonhne!

38. Etho yeshotonnyh,
  Tekadarakehne.

  KAWENENSERONDON!

  HAGHRIRON!
  Etho nadehhadihne!

39. Wahhondennonterontye,

  RONYENNYENNIH!

  SHODAKWARASHONH!

  SHAKOKENGHNE!
  Etho nadejonhne!

40. Etho niyawenonh,
  Karihwakayonh.
  Shihonadewiraratye,
  Tehhodidarakeh.
  Rakowanenh,

  RASERHAGHRHONK!
  Etho wahhoronghyaronnyon:
  Roghskenrakeghdekowah,
  Rakowanenh,
  Tehhotyatakarorenh,

  SKANAWADYH!
  Etho natejonhne!

41. Yeshohhawak,

  TEKAHENYONK:
  Yeshonadadekenah:

  JINONTAWERAON!
  Etho natejonhne!

42. KADAKWARASONH!

  SHOYONWESE!

  ATYASERONNE!
  Etho natejonhneh!

43. Yeshondadekenah,

  TEYORONGHYONKEH!

  TEYODHOREGHKONH!

  WATHYAWENHETHON!
  Etho natejonhne!

44. ATONTARAHERHA!

  TESKAHE!
  Etho natejonhneh!

45. Yeshotonnyh,

  SKANYADARIYO!
  Yeshonaraseshen,

  SHADEKARONYES!
  Etho natejonhneh!

46. SATYENAWAT!
  Yeshonaraseshen,

  SHAKENJOWANE!
  Etho natejonhneh!

47. KANOKARIH!
  Yeshonarase,--onwa

  NISHARYENEN!
  Etho natejonhneh!

48. Onghwa keghaghshonah
  Yodenaghstahhere
  Kanaghstajikowah.
  Yatehhotihohhataghkwen.
  Etho ronaraseshen,
  Yadehninhohhanonghne:

  KANONGHKERIDAWYH!
  Yeshonaraseshen,

  TEYONINHOKARAWENH!
  Etho natejonhneh!

49. Onenh watyonkwentendane
  Kanikonrakeh.






ANCIENT RITES OF THE CONDOLING COUNCIL
[English Translation]



THE PRELIMINARY CEREMONY:

CALLED, "AT THE WOOD'S EDGE."


1. Now [Footnote: The paragraphs are not numbered in the original
text. The numbers are prefixed in this work merely for convenience of
reference.] to-day I have been greatly startled by your voice coming
through the forest to this opening. You have come with troubled mind
through all obstacles. You kept seeing the places where they met on
whom we depended, my offspring. How then can your mind be at ease? You
kept seeing the footmarks of our forefathers; and all but perceptible is
the smoke where they used to smoke the pipe together. Can then your mind
be at ease when you are weeping on your way?

2. Great thanks now, therefore, that you have safely arrived. Now, then,
let us smoke the pipe together. Because all around are hostile agencies
which are each thinking, "I will frustrate their purpose." Here thorny
ways, and here falling trees, and here wild beasts lying in
ambush. Either by these you might have perished, my offspring, or, here
by floods you might have been destroyed, my offspring, or by the
uplifted hatchet in the dark outside the house. Every day these are
wasting us; or deadly invisible disease might have destroyed you, my
offspring.

3. Great thanks now, therefore, that in safety you have come through the
forest. Because lamentable would have been the consequences had you
perished by the way, and the startling word had come, "Yonder are lying
bodies, yea, and of chiefs!" And they would have thought in dismay, what
had happened, my offspring.

4. Our forefathers made the rule, and said, "Here they are to kindle a
fire; here, at the edge of the woods, they are to condole with each
other in few words." But they have referred thither [Footnote: That is,
to the Council House.] all business to be duly completed, as well as for
the mutual embrace of condolence. And they said, "Thither shall they be
led by the hand, and shall be placed on the principal seat."

5. Now, therefore, you who are our friends of the Wolf clan:

_In John Buck's MS._ _Supposed Meaning._
Ka rhe tyon ni.           The broad woods.
Ogh ska wa se ron hon.    Grown up to bushes again.
Gea di yo.                Beautiful plain.
O nen yo deh.             Protruding stone.
De se ro ken.             Between two lines.
Te ho di jen ha ra kwen.  Two families in a long-house,
Ogh re kyon ny.           (Doubtful.) [one at each end.]
Te yo we yen don.         Drooping wings.

Such is the extent of the Wolf clan.

6. Now, then, thy children of the two clans of the Tortoise:

Ka ne sa da keh.          On the hill side.
Onkwi i ye de.            A person standing there.
Weg'h ke rhon.            (Doubtful.)
Kah ken doh hon.          "
Tho gwen yoh.             "
Kah he kwa ke.            "

Such is the extent of the Tortoise clan.

7. Now these thy brothers of the Bear clan:
  De ya oken. The Forks.
  Jo non de seh. It is a high hill.
  Ots kwe ra ke ron. Dry branches fallen to the ground.
  Ogh na we ron. The springs.

8. Now these have been added lately:
  Ka rho wengh ra don. Taken over the woods.
  Ka ra ken. White.
  De yo he ro. The place of flags (rushes).
  De yo swe ken. Outlet of the river.
  Ox den ke. To the old place.

Such is the extent of the Bear clan.

These were the clans in ancient times.

9. Thus are written the words of mutual greeting, called "the opening
ceremony." Then one will say, "My offspring, now this day we are met
together. God has appointed this day. Now, to-day, we are met together,
on account of the solemn event which has befallen you. Now into the
earth he has been conveyed to whom we have been wont to look. Yea,
therefore, in tears let us smoke together."

10. "Now, then, we say, we wipe away the tears, so that in peace you may
look about you."

11. "And, further, we suppose there is an obstruction in your ears. Now,
then, we remove the obstruction carefully from your hearing, so that we
trust you will easily hear the words spoken."

12. "And also we imagine there is an obstruction in your throat. Now,
therefore, we say, we remove the obstruction, so that you may speak
freely in our mutual greetings."

13. "Now again another thing, my offspring. I have spoken of the solemn
event which has befallen you.  Every day you are losing your great
men. They are being borne into the earth; also the warriors, and also
your women, and also your grandchildren; so that in the midst of blood
you are sitting."

14. "Now, therefore, we say, we wash off the bloodmarks from your seat,
so that it may be for a time that happily the place will be clean where
you are seated and looking around you."

       *       *       *       *       *

15. Now the Hymn,

  CALLED "HAIL."

  I come again to greet and thank the League;
  I come again to greet and thank the kindred;
  I come again to greet and thank the warriors;
  I come again to greet and thank the women.
  My forefathers,--what they established,--
  My forefathers,--hearken to them!

16. The last verse is sung yet again, while he walks
to and fro in the house, and says:

17. "Hail, my grandsires! Now hearken while your grandchildren cry
mournfully to you,--because the Great League which you established has
grown old. We hope that they may hear."

18. "Hail, my grandsires! You have said that sad will be the fate of
those who come in the latter times."

19. "Oh, my grandsires! Even now I may have failed to perform this
ceremony in the order in which they were wont to perform it." "Oh, my
grandsires! Even now that has become old which you established,--the
Great League. You have it as a pillow under your heads in the ground
where you are lying,--this Great League which you established; although
you said that far away in the future the Great League would endure."

       *       *       *       *       *

So much is to be said here, and the Hymn is to be sung again, and then
he is to go on and walk about in the house again, saying as follows:

"Hail, my grandsires! Now hear, therefore, what they did--all the rules
they decided on, which they thought would strengthen the House. Hail, my
grandsires!  this they said: 'Now we have finished; we have performed
the rites; we have put on the horns.'

"Now again another thing they considered, and this they said: 'Perhaps
this will happen. Scarcely shall we have arrived at home when a loss
will occur again.' They said, 'This, then, shall be done. As soon as he
is dead, even then the horns shall be taken off. For if invested with
horns he should be borne into the grave,' oh, my grandsires, they said,
'we should perhaps all perish if invested with horns he is conveyed to
the grave.'

"Then again another thing they determined, oh my grandsires! 'This,'
they said, 'will strengthen the House.' They said, if any one should be
murdered and [the body] be hidden away among fallen trees by reason of
the neck being white, then you have said, this shall be done. We will
place it by the wall in the shade."

25. "Now again you considered and you said: 'It is perhaps not well that
we leave this here, lest it should be seen by our grandchildren; for
they are troublesome, prying into every crevice. People will be startled
at their returning in consternation, and will ask what has happened that
this (corpse) is lying here; because they will keep on asking until they
find it out. And they will at once be disturbed in mind, and that again
will cause us trouble.'"

26. "Now again they decided, and said: 'This shall be done. We will pull
up a pine tree--a lofty tree--and will make a hole through the
earth-crust, and will drop this thing into a swift current which will
carry it out of sight, and then never will our grandchildren see it
again.'"

27. "Now again another thing they decided, and thought, this will
strengthen the House. They said: 'Now we have finished; we have
performed the rites. Perhaps presently it will happen that a loss will
occur amongst us. Then this shall be done. We will suspend a pouch upon
a pole, and will place in it some mourning wampum--some short
strings--to be taken to the place where the loss was suffered. The
bearer will enter, and will stand by the hearth, and will speak a few
words to comfort those who will be mourning; and then they will be
comforted, and will conform to the great law.'"

28. "Now, then, thou wert the principal of this Confederacy,
Dekanawidah, with the joint principal, his son, Odadsheghte; and then
again _his_ uncle, Wathadodarho; and also again _his_ son,
Akahenyonh; and again _his_ uncle, Kanyadariyu; and then again
_his_ cousin, Shadekaronyes; and then in later times additions were
made to the great edifice."

       *       *       *       *       *

29. Now listen, ye who established the Great League. Now it has become
old. Now there is nothing but wilderness. Ye are in your graves who
established it. Ye have taken it with you, and have placed it under you,
and there is nothing left but a desert. There ye have taken your
intellects with you. What ye established ye have taken with you. Ye have
placed under your heads what ye established--the Great League.

30. Now, then, hearken, ye who were rulers and founders: [Footnote: The
names in this version are in the orthography of John Buck's MS.]

    TEHKARIHHOKEN!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    HAYENWATHA!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    SHADEKARIHWADE!
  That was the roll of you,
  You who were joined in the work,
  You who completed the work,
  The Great League.

  31. Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    SHARENHHOWANE!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    TEHYONHEGHKWEN!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    OWENHEGHKOHNA!
  That was the roll of you,
  You who were joined in the work,
  You who completed the work,
  The Great League.

32. Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    TEHHENNAGHKARIHNE!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    AGHSTAWENSERONTTHA!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    SHAGHSKOHAROWANE!
  That was the roll of you,
  You who were joined in the work,
  You who completed the work,
  The Great League.

33. Ye two were principals,
  Father and son,
  Ye two completed the work,
  The Great League.
  Ye two aided each other,
  Ye two founded the House.
  Now, therefore, hearken!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    ODATSEGHDEH!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    KAHNONKWENYAH!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    TEHYOHHAKWENDEH!
  That was the roll of you,
  You who were joined in the work,
  You who completed the work,
  The Great League.

34. Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    SHONONGHSESEH!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    THONAEGHKENAH!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    HAHTYADONNENTHA!
  That was the roll of you,
  You who were joined in the work,
  You who completed the work,
  The Great League.

35. Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    TEHWAHTAHONTENYONK!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    KAHNYADAGHSHAYEN!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    HONWATSHADONNEH!
  That was the roll of you,
  You who were joined in the work,
  You who completed the work,
  The Great League.

36. These were his uncles:
  Now hearken!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    WATHADOTARHO:
  Continue to listen!
  These were the cousins:
  Thou who wert ruler,
    ONEHSEAGHHEN!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    TEHHATKAHDONS!
  Continue to listen!
  These were as brothers thenceforth:
  Thou who wert ruler,
    SKANIADAJIWAK:
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    AWEAKENYAT!
  Continue to listen!
  Thou who wert ruler,
    TEHAYATKWAYEN!
  That was the roll of you!

37. Then his son:
  He is the great Wolf.
  There were combined
  The many minds!
    HONONWIREHDONH!
  That was the roll of you.

38. These were his uncles,
  Of the two clans:
    KAWENENSEAGHTONH!
    HAHHIHHONH!
  That was the roll of them!

39. These were as brothers thenceforth:
    HOHYUNHNYENNIH!
    SHOTEHGWASEH!
    SHAHKOHKENNEH!
  This was the roll of you.

40. This befell
  In ancient times.
  They had their children,
  Those the two clans.
  He the high chief,
    SAHHAHWIH!
  This put away the clouds:
  He was a war chief;
  He was a high chief--
  Acting in either office:
    SKAHNAHWAHTIH!
  This was the roll of you!

41. Then his son,
    TAHKAHENHYUNH!
  With his brother,
    JIHNONTAHWEHHEH.
  This was the roll of you!

42. KAHTAHGWAHJIH!
    SHONYUNHWESH!
    HAHTYAHSENHNEH!
  This was the roll of you!

43. Then they who are brothers:
    TEHYUHENHYUNHKOH!
    TEHYUHTOHWEHGWIH!
    TYAWENHHEHTHONH!
  This was the roll of you.

44. HAHTONHTAHHEHHAH!
    TESHKAHHEA!
  This was the roll of you!

45. Then his uncle,
    SKAHNYAHTEIHYUH!
  With his cousin,
    SHAHTEHKAHENHYESH.
  This was the roll of you!

46. SAHTYEHNAHWAHT!
  With his cousin,
    SHAKENHJOHNAH!
  This was the roll of you!

47. KAHNOHKAIH!
  With his cousin,--then
     NISHAHYEHNENHHAH
  This was the roll of you!

48. Then, in later times,
  They made additions
  To the great mansion.
  These were at the doorway,
  They who were cousins,
  These two guarded the doorway:
     KANONHKEHIHTAWIH!
  With his cousin,
     TYUHNINHOHKAWENH
  This was the roll of you!

49. Now we are dejected
  In our minds.





THE BOOK OF THE YOUNGER NATIONS.

(ONONDAGA DIALECT.)


[Originally presented as one page Onandaga, followed by one page
English translation. This is confusing in electronic texts, so have
changed it here to be the complete Onandaga text followed by the
complete English translation.]

[*** Original used ' ' for syllable breaks and '  ' (two spaces) for word
breaks. Changed to '-' for syllable breaks and a single space for word
breaks.]


1. a. Yo o-nen o-nen wen-ni-sr-te o-nen wa-ge-ho-gar-a-nyat
ne-tha-non-ni-sr-son-tar-yen na-ya-ne o-shon-tar-gon-go-nar
nen-tis-no-war-yen na-ye-ti-na gar-weear-har-tye ne swih-ar-gen-ahr
ne-tho-se hen-ga-ho-gar-a-nyat nen-tha-o-ta-gen-he-tak
ne-tho-har-ten-gar-ton-ji-yar-hon-on nar-ye-en-gwa-wen-ne-kentar
ne-ten-gon-nen-tar-hen na-a-yen-tar.

1. b. Tar onon na-on-gen shis-gis-war-tha-en-ton-tye na
on-gwr-non-sen-shen-tar-qua nar-te-har-yar-ar-qui-nar
nan-gar-wen-ne-srh-ha-yo-ton-har-ye nen-gar-nen-ar-ta
ho-ti-sgen-ar-ga-tar nen-o-ne gar-nen-ar-ti kon-hon-wi-sats nen-o-ni
tar-ga-non-tye na on-quar-sat-har nen-o hon-tar-gen-hi-se-non-tye nen-o
wen-gr-ge go-yar-da-nen-tar-hon nen-tho nr-ta-war ta-har-yar-ar-qui-nar
nen-gar-wen-ne-sar han-yo-ton-hr-tye tar o-nen-ti
tya-quar-wen-ne-gen-har nen-a-shen ne-yar-quar-tar-ta-gen.

1. c. O-nen-ti-a-wen-hen nar-ya-he-yr-genh thar-ne-ho-ti-e-quar-te
nen-on-quar-noh-shen-ta-qua nen-o on-qua-jas-harn-ta-qua
nar-ye-gen-na-ho-nen nar-ye-na te-was-hen nen-ne-gon-hi-war na-tho
na-ho-te-yen-nen-tar-e tar-day-was-shen nen-ne-yo-e-wa
na-ar-wen-ha-yo-dar-ge nen-on-quar-twen-non-ty o-nen en-hen-wa-yar-shon
nen-nat-ho-on-ne-yar-quar-ya-ar nen-a-shen ne-yar-quar-tar-te-ken.

1. d. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-ta-yar-quar-wen-ni-ken-ar
nar-ya-hi-yar-gen na-ar-quar-ton sis-jih-wa-tha-en-ton-tye o-yar-na
son-quar-yo-ten-se-nar tar-nr-ye-ti-na hon-sar-ho-har-we-ti-har-tye
nen-qr-nen-hr-te ho-ti-sken-ar-ga-tar nen-o-ne gar-nen-har-te
gon-thon-we-sas on-sar-ho-na-tar-que-har-tye nar-ya-har-tes-gar-no-wen
na o-nen na-en-gar-ya-tye-nen-har nen-war-thon-wi-sas ar-ques-sis-jit
nar-te-yo-nen-ha-ase en-war-nten-har-wat-tha nen-on-quar-ta-shar o-nen
o-yar-nen-eh-te-ge-non-tyes on-quar-te-shar nr-ya-o-ne
sar-o-har-we-ti-har-tye o-nen o-yar nens-o-ni-ta-gen-hi-se-non-tyes
o-wen-gar-ge ga-yr-tr-nen-tak-hon ne-tho nr-te-war
on-sar-ho-har-we-ti-har-tye.

I. e. O-nen ty-a on-yar ta-ya-quar-wen-ne-ken-har nen-a-sen
ne-yar-quar-tar-te-gen o-nen-ty ton-tar-wen-ten-eh nen-o-nen
thon-tar-yar-tyar-ton-tye nen-wa-gon-yon-wenjar-nan-har tar-o-nen
ha-o-yar nen-ta-yo-quar-wen-ne-ken-e-har-tye. O-nen-te-ar-wen-han o-nen
war-quar-de-yen-non-nyar-hen na-shar-non-wa nr-o-tas-are-quar-hen-ten
o-nen wa-tya-quar-ha-tar-wen-ya-hon nen-ar-o-ar-shon-ar
nen-tar-yon-quar-ty ne-tho hon-ne-yar-quar-ya-ar nen-ar-shen
ne-yar-quar-ta-te-kenh.

2. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-tar-yar-quar-wen-ne-ken-har
nen-o-son-tar-gon-go-nar nen-ti-sno-war-gen. O-nen-ti
ton-sar-gon-en-nya-eh-tha ar-guas hi-yar-ga-tha te-jo-ge-grar O-nen-ti
sar-gon-ar-gwar-nen-tak-ten sken-nen-gink-ty then-skar-ar-tayk. O-nen
en-gar-ar-qui-ken-nha ne-tho tens-shar-ar-tyen. O-nen
yo-nen-tyon-ha-tye. Ar-ghwas ten-yo-ten-har-en-ton-nyon-ne. Ne-tho
tens-gar-ar-tye a-ghwas sken-non-jis ten-yo-yar-neh ne onen
en-gr-ar-gwen-har o-ty-nen-yar-wen-har hen-jo-har-ten-har
sar-ne-gon-are. Ne-tho han-ne-yar-gwar-ya-ar nen-ar-sen
ne-yar-quar-tr-ta-gen.

3. O-nen-ti-ch-o-yar nen-ton-ta-yar-quar-wen-ne-ken-har. O-nen-nen-ti
war-tyar-war-see-har-an-qua te-shar-hon-tar-gar-en-tar
nen-they-yon-tar-ge-har-te nen-te-sar-nar-ton-ken hon-ne-ty
ar-war-na-gen-tar wen-jar-wa-gar ha-e nar-ya-har ten-skar-har-we-tar-han
nen-o-ge-gwr-en-yone nen-tye-sar-nar-ton-ken o-ty-nen-yar-wen-har
nen-en-jo-har-ten-ar sar-ne-gon-are ne-tho hon-ne-yar-war-ya-ar
nen-a-sen ne-yar-quar-tar-te-kenh.

4. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-tar-yr-quar-wen-ne-ken-tye hon-nen
ton-sar-war-kon-ha-jar-ha-jan nen-they-gar-kon-ha-shon-ton-har-tye
hon-nen-ti nen-sar-kon-ge-ter-yen-has hon-nen-oni
nen-ton-sar-gon-nen-ha-tieh o-nen o-tieh-nen-yar-wen-har
nen-en-jo-har-tyen-har sar-ne-gon-are ne-tho hon-ne-yar-quar-yar-ar
nen-a-sen ne-yar-qwr-tar-te-kenh.

5. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-tar-yar-qwar-wen-ne-ken-har
nar-ya-ti-ar-wen-han nen-tar-ehe-tar-nen-jar-tar-ti-war-ten
nen-ton-gar-ke-sen nen-na-hon-yar-na on-har-wen-ne-gen-tar nar-ya-na
sar-hon-ta-je-wants as-kar-we ar-san-nen-sen-wen-hat ne-tho o-ni
nis-nen-yar-wen-hon-sken-are-gen-tar hor-go-war-nen-nen-hon-yar-na
an-har-wen-ne-gen-tar are-we ar-sen-nen-sun-sar-wen-hat ne-tho
on-ne-yar-quar-ya-ar nen-ar-sen ne-yr-qwar-tr-ta-kenh.

6. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-tar-yar-quar-wen-ne-ken-hr
nar-ye-ti-na-ar-wen-han nen-an-har-ya-tye-nen-har nen-na-hon-yar-na
nr-ya-ti-nar nen-ne-yo-sar-tar ken-yar-tar nen-ji-gar-han
nen-ta-hon-gren-tar wi-nar-na-ge-ne-yo-snon-wa
nen-o-yar-en-sar-tyar-tar-nyar-ten a-ren ne-tho one-yar-qwar-yaar
nen-ar-sen ne-yr-quar-tar-te-kenh.

7. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-tr-yar-quar-wen-ne-ken-har
nr-ya-ti-ar-wen-han sar-gon-nr-tar-eh-ya-tars nen-gr-nr-gar-yon-ne-ta-ar
nen-jar-ne-qr-nar-sis-ah nen ne-tho war-ar-guar-sins-tar
na-tho-ti-an-sar-wa nen-thon-gr-gey-san e-his-an-skas-gen-nen one-ha-yat
nen-war-o-yan-quar-a-ton-on-tye nen-yar-gar-ker ta-gr-nr-squaw-ya-an-ne
ne-tho on-ne-yar-quar-ya-ar nen-ar-sen ne-yar-quar-ta-te-kenh.

7. b. Tar-o-nen sar-gon-yan-nen-tar-ah tar-o-nen-ti ton-tar-ken-yar-tas.





THE BOOK OF THE YOUNGER NATIONS.

(TRANSLATION.)


I. a. Now--now this day--now I come to your door where you are mourning
in great darkness, prostrate with grief. For this reason we have come
here to mourn with you. I will enter your door, and come before the
ashes, and mourn with you there; and I will speak these words to comfort
you.

I. b. Now our uncle has passed away, he who used to work for all, that
they might see the brighter days to come,--for the whole body of
warriors and also for the whole body of women, and also the children
that were running around, and also for the little ones creeping on the
ground, and also those that are tied to the cradle-boards; for all these
he used to work that they might see the bright days to come. This we
say, we three brothers.

I. c. Now the ancient lawgivers have declared--our uncles that are gone,
and also our elder brothers--they have said, it is worth twenty--it was
valued at twenty--and this was the price of the one who is dead. And we
put our words on it (_i.e._ the wampum), and they recall his
name--the one that is dead. This we say and do, we three brothers.

I. d. Now there is another thing we say, we younger brothers. He who has
worked for us has gone afar off; and he also will in time take with him
all these--the whole body of warriors and also the whole body of
women--they will go with him. Rut it is still harder when the woman
shall die, because with her the line is lost. And also the grandchildren
and the little ones who are running aruund--these he will take away; and
also those that are creeping on the ground, and also those that are on
the cradle-boards; all these he will takeaway with him.

1. e. Now then another thing we will say, we three brothers. Now you
must feel for us; for we came here of our own good-will--came to your
door that we might say this. And we will say that we will try to do you
good. When the grave has been made, we will make it still better. We
will adorn it, and cover it with moss. We will do this, we three
brothers.

2. Now another thing we will say, we younger brothers. You are mourning
in the deep darkness. I will make the sky clear for you, so that you
will not see a cloud. And also I will give the sun to shine upon you, so
that you can look upon it peacefully when it goes down: You shall see it
when it is going. Yea! the sun shall seem to be hanging just over you,
and you shall look upon it peacefully as it goes down. Now I have hope
that you will yet see the pleasant days. This we say and do, we three
brothers.

3. Now then another thing we say, we younger brothers. Now we will open
your ears, and also your throat, for there is something that has been
choking you and we will also give you the water that shall wash down all
the troubles in your throat. We shall hope that after this your mind
will recover its cheerfulness. This we say and do, we three brothers.

4. Now then there is another thing we say, we younger brothers. We will
now remake the fire, and cause it to burn again. And now you can go out
before the people, and go on with your duties and your labors for the
people. This we say and do, we three brothers.

5. Now also another thing we say, we younger brothers. You must
converse with your nephews; and if they say what is good, you must
listen to it. Do not cast it aside. And also if the warriors should say
anything that is good, do not reject it. This we say, we three brothers.

6. Now then another thing we say, we younger brothers. If any one
should fall--it may be a principal chief will fall and descend into the
grave--then the horns shall be left on the grave, and as soon as
possible another shall be put in his place. This we say, we three
brothers.

7. Now another thing we say, we younger brothers. We will gird the belt
on you, with the pouch, and the next death will receive the pouch,
whenever you shall know that there is death among us, when the fire is
made and the smoke is rising. This we say and do, we three brothers.

7. b. Now I have finished. Now show me the man! [Footnote: _i. e._,
"Point out to me the man whom I am to proclaim as chief, in place of the
deceased."]





NOTES ON THE CANIENGA BOOK

       *       *       *       *       *

The meaning of the general title, _Okayondonghsera Yondennase_, has
been already explained (Introduction, p. 48). In the sub-title, the word
_oghentonh_ is properly an adverb, meaning firstly, or
foremost. This title might be literally rendered. "First the ceremony,
'At-the-wood's-edge' they call it."

1. The chiefs, in their journey to the place of meeting, are supposed to
have passed the sites of many deserted towns, in which councils had
formerly been held. Owing to the frequent removals of their villages,
such deserted sites were common in the Iroquois country. The speaker who
welcomes the arriving guests supposes that the view of these places had
awakened in their minds mournful recollections.

_Desawennawenrate_, "thy voice coming over." This word is explained
in the Glossary. It is in the singular number. According to the Indian
custom, the speaker regards himself as representing the whole party for
whom he speaks, and he addresses the leader of the other party as the
representative and embodiment of all who come with him. Throughout the
speeches "I" and "thou" are used in the well understood sense of "we"
and "ye." In like manner, tribes and nations are, as it were,
personified. A chief, speaking for the Onondagas, will say, "I (that is,
my nation) am angry; thou (the Delaware people) hast done wrong." This
style of bold personification is common in the scriptures. Moses warns
the Israelites: "Thou art a stiff-necked people." "Oh my people!"
exclaims Isaiah; "they which lead thee cause thee to err."

2. _Denighroghkwayen_, "let us two smoke." This word is in the dual
number, the two parties, the hosts and the guests, being each regarded
as one individual.

The difficulties and dangers which in the early days of the confederacy
beset the traveler in threading his way through the forest, from one
Indian nation to another, are vividly described in this section. The
words are still employed by their speakers as an established form,
though they have ceased to have any pertinence to their present
circumstances.

3. _Alnuah deyakonakarondon_, "yea, of chiefs,"--literally, "yea,
having horns." The custom of wearing horns as part of the head-dress of
a chief has been long disused among the Iroquois; but the idiom remains
in the language, and the horns, in common parlance, indicate the chief,
as the coronet suggests the nobleman in England. Among the western
Indians, as is well known, the usage still survives. "No one," says
Catlin, "wears the head-dress surmounted with horns except the
dignitaries who are very high in authority, and whose exceeding valor,
worth, and power are admitted by all." These insignia of rank are, he
adds, only worn on special and rare occasions, as in meeting embassies,
or at warlike parades or other public festivals, or sometimes when a
chief sees fit to lead a war-party to battle. [Footnote: _Letters and
Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American
Indians._ By George Catlin; p. 172.] The origin of the custom is
readily understood. The sight, frequent enough in former days, of an
antlered stag leading a herd of deer would be quite sufficient to
suggest to the quick apprehension of the Indian this emblem of authority
and pre-eminence.

5. _Sathaghyortnighson_, "thou who art of the Wolf clan."  The clan
is addressed in the singular number, as one person. It is deserving of
notice that the titles of clan-ship used in the language of ceremony are
not derived from the ordinary names of the animals which give the clans
their designations. _Okwatho_ is wolf, but a man of the Wolf clan
is called _Tahionni_,--or, as written in the text,
_Taghyonni_. In ordinary speech, however, the expression
_rokwaho_, "he is a Wolf," might be used.

The English renderings of the names in the list of towns are those which
the interpreters finally decided upon. In several instances they doubted
about the meaning, and in some cases they could not suggest an
explanation. Either the words are obsolete, or they have come down in
such a corrupt form that their original elements and purport cannot be
determined. As regards the sites of the towns, see the Appendix, Note E.

6. _Deyako-larakeh ranyaghdenghshon_,--"the two clans of the
Tortoise." Respecting the two sub-gentes into which the Tortoise clan
was divided, see _ante_, p. 53. _Anowara_ is the word for
tortoise, but _raniahten_ (or, in the orthography of the text,
_ranyaghdengh_) signifies, "he is of the Tortoise clan."

7. _Jadadeken roskerewake_, "thy brother of the Bear clan."
_Okwari_ is bear, but _roskerewake_ signifies "he is of the
Bear clan." _Rokwari_, "he is a Bear," might, however, be used with
the same meaning.

8. _Onghwa kehaghshonha_, "now recently." It is possible that
_onghwa_ is here written by mistake for _orighwa_. The word
_orighwakayongh_, which immediately follows, signifies "in ancient
times," and the corresponding word _orighwake-haghshonha_ would be
"in younger times." The period in which these additions were made,
though styled recent, was probably long past when the "Book of Rites"
was committed to writing; otherwise many towns which are known to have
existed at the latter date would have been added to the list. In fact,
the words with which the catalogue of towns closes--"these were the
clans in ancient times,"--seem to refer these later additions, along
with the rest, back to a primitive era of the confederacy.

9. _Rawenniyo raweghniseronnyh_, "God has appointed this day," or,
literally, "God makes this day." In these words are probably found the
only trace of any modification of the Book of Rites caused by the
influence of the white visitors and teachers of the modern Iroquois. As
the very fact that the book was written in the alphabet introduced by
the missionaries makes us certain that the person who reduced it to
writing had been under missionary instruction, it might be deemed
surprising that more evidences of this influence are not apparent. It is
probable, however, that the conservative feeling of the Council would
have rejected any serious alterations in their ancient forms. It seems
not unlikely that David of Schoharie--or whoever was the penman on this
occasion--may have submitted his work to his missionary teacher, and
that in deference to his suggestion a single interpolation of a
religious cast, to which no particular objection could be made, was
allowed to pass.

The word _Rawenniyo_, as is well known, is the term for God which
was adopted by the Catholic missionaries. It is, indeed, of
Huron-Iroquois origin, and may doubtless have been occasionally employed
from the earliest times as an epithet proper for a great divinity. Its
origin and precise meaning are explained in the Appendix, Note B. The
Catholic missionaries appropriated it as the special name of the Deity,
and its use in later times is probably to be regarded as an evidence of
Christian influence. That the sentence in which it occurs in the text is
probably an interpolation, is shown by the fact that the words which
precede this sentence are repeated, with a slight change, immediately
after it. Having interjected this pious expression, the writer seems to
have thought it necessary to resume the thread of the discourse by going
back to the phrase which had preceded it. It will be observed that the
religious sentiment proper to the Book of Rites appears to us confined
to expressions of reverence for the great departed, the founders of the
commonwealth. This circumstance, however should not be regarded as
indicating that the people were devoid of devotional feeling of another
kind. Their frequent "thanksgiving festivals" afford sufficient evidence
of the strength of this sentiment; but they apparently considered its
display out of place in their political acts.

15. _Nene karcnna_, "the song," or "hymn." The purport of this
composition is explained in the Introduction (_ante_,
p. 62). Before the Book of Rites came into my possession I had often
heard the hymn repeated, or sung, by different individuals, in slightly
varying forms. The Onondaga version, given me on the Syracuse
Reservation, contains a line, "_Negwiyage teskenonhenhne_" which is
not found in the Canienga MS. It is rendered "I come to greet the
children." The affection of the Indians for their children, which is
exhibited in various passages of the Book, is most apparent in the
Onondaga portion.

_Kayanerenh_. This word is variously rendered,--"the peace," "the
law," and "the league," (see _ante_, p. 33). Here it evidently
stands for _Kayancrenhkowa_, "the Great Peace," which is the name
usually given by the Kanonsionni to their league, or federal
constitution.

_Deskenonghweronne_, or in the modern French orthography,
_teskenonhweronne_, "we come to greet and thank," is a good example
of the comprehensive force of the Iroquois tongue. Its root is
_nonhwe_, or _nanwe_, which is found in _kenonhws_, I
love, like, am pleased with--the initial syllable _ke_ being the
first personal pronoun. In the frequentative form this becomes
_kenonhweron_, which has the meaning of "I salute and thank," i.e.,
I manifest by repeated acts my liking or gratification. The _s_
prefixed to this word is the sign of the reiterative form:
_skenonhweron_, "_again_ I greet and thank."  The terminal
syllable _ne_ and the prefixed _te_ are respectively the signs
of the motional and the cislocative forms,--"I _come hither_ again
to greet and thank." A word of six syllables, easily pronounced (and in
the Onondaga dialect reduced to five) expresses fully and forcibly the
meaning for which eight not very euphonious English words are
required. The notion that the existence of these comprehensive words in
an Indian language, or any other, is an evidence of deficiency in
analytic power, is a fallacy which was long ago exposed by the clear and
penetrative reasoning of Duponceau, the true father of American
philology. [Footnote: See the admirable Preface to his translation of
Zeisberger's Delaware Grammar, p. 94.] As he has well explained,
analysis must precede synthesis. In fact, the power of what may be
termed analytic synthesis,--the mental power which first resolves words
or things into their elements, and then puts them together in new
forms,--is a creative or co-ordinating force, indicative of a higher
natural capacity than the act of mere analysis. The genius which framed
the word _teskenonhweronne_ is the same that, working with other
elements, produced the steam-engine and the telephone.

_Ronkeghsota jivathondek_. Two translations of this verse were
given by different interpreters. One made it an address to the people:
"My forefathers--hearken to them!" i.e., listen to the words of our
forefathers, which I am about to repeat. The other considered the verse
an invocation to the ancestors themselves. "My forefathers! hearken ye!"
The words will bear either rendering, and either will be consonant with
the speeches which follow.

The lines of this hymn have been thus cast into the metre of
Longfellow's "Hiawatha:"--

 "To the great Peace bring we greeting!
  To the dead chiefs kindred, greeting!
  To the warriors round him, greeting!
  To the mourning women, greeting!
  These our grandsires' words repeating,
  Graciously, O grandsires, hear us!"

16. _Enyonghdentyonko kanonghsakonghshen_,-"he will walk to and fro
in the house." In councils and formal receptions it is customary for the
orator to walk slowly to and fro during the intervals of his
speech. Sometimes, before beginning his address, he makes a circuit of
the assembly with a meditative aspect, as if collecting his
thoughts. All public acts of the Indians are marked with some sign of
deliberation.

21. _Eghnikonh enyerighwawetharho kenthoh_,--"thus they will close
the ceremony here." The address to the forefathers, which is mainly an
outburst of lamentation over the degeneracy of the times, is here
concluded. It would seem, from what follows, that at this point the
candidate for senatorial honors is presented to the council, and is
formally received among them, with the usual ceremonies, which were too
well known to need description. The hymn is then sung again, and the
orator proceeds to recite the ancient laws which the founders of their
confederacy established.

22. _Watidewennakarondonnyon_, "we have put on the horns;" in other
words, "we have invested the new chief with the ensigns of office,"--or,
more briefly, "we have installed him." The latter is the meaning as at
present understood; but it is probable that, in earlier days, the
panoply of horns was really placed on the head of the newly inducted
councillor.

23. _Aghsonh denvakokwanentonghsacke_, etc., "as soon as he is dead"
(or, according to another rendering, "when he is just dying") the horns
shall be taken off. The purport and object of this law are set forth in
the Introduction, p.67.

24. _Ne nayakoghstonde ne nayeghnyasakenradake,_ "by reason of the neck
being white." The law prescribed in this section to govern the
proceedings of the Council in the case of homicide has been explained in
the Introduction, p. 68. The words now quoted, however, introduce a
perplexity which cannot be satisfactorily cleared up. The aged chief,
John S. Johnson, when asked their meaning, was only able to say that
neither he nor his fellow councillors fully understood it. They repeated
in council the words as they were written in the book, but in this case,
as in some others, they were not sure of the precise significance or
purpose of what they said. Some of them thought that their ancestors,
the founders, had foreseen the coming of the white people, and wished to
advise their successors against quarreling with their future
neighbors. If this injunction was really implied in the words, we must
suppose that they were an interpolation of the Christian chief, David of
Schoharie, or possibly of his friend Brant. They do not, however, seem
to be, by any means, well adapted to convey this meaning. The
probability is that they are a modern corruption of some earlier phrase,
whose meaning had become obsolete. They are repeated by the chiefs in
council, as some antiquated words in the authorized version of the
scriptures are read in our own churches, with no clear
comprehension--perhaps with a total misconception--of their original
sense.

27. _Enjonkwanekheren_, "we shall lose some one," or, more
literally, we shall fail to know some person. This law, which is fully
explained in the Introduction, p. 70, will be found aptly exemplified in
the Onondaga portion of the text, where the speeches of the "younger
brothers" are evidently framed in strict compliance with the injunctions
here given.

28. _Jadakweniyu_. This word, usually rendered "ruler," appears to
mean "principal person," or perhaps originally a "very powerful person."
It is a compound word, formed apparently from _oyata_, body or
person, _kakwennion_, to be able, and the adjective termination
_iyu_ or _iyo_, in its original sense of "great." (See
Appendix, Note B.) M. Cuoq, in his Iroquois Lexicon, defines the verb
_kiatakwenniyo_ as meaning "to be the important personage, the
first, the principal, the president." It corresponds very nearly to the
Latin _princeps_, and, as applied in the following litany to the
fifty great hereditary chiefs of the Iroquois, might fairly enough be
rendered "prince."

_Kanonghsyonny_, in modern orthography, _Kanonsionni_. For the
origin and meaning of this word, and an explanation of the following
section, see the Introduction, p. 75.

_Yejodenaghstahhere kanaghsdajikowah_, lit., "they added
frame-poles to the great framework." Each of these compounds comprises
the word _kanaghsta_, which is spelt by Bruyas, _gannasta_,
and defined by him, "poles for making a cabin,--the inner one, which is
bent to form the frame of a cabin." The reference in these words is to
the Tuscaroras, Tuteloes, Nanticokes, and other tribes, who were
admitted into the confederacy after its first formation. From a
manuscript book, written in the Onondaga dialect, which I found at
"Onondaga Castle," in September, 1880, I copied a list of the fifty
councillors, which closed with the words, "_shotinastasonta
kanastajikona Ontaskaeken_"--literally, "they added a frame-pole to
the great framework, the Tuscarora nation."

29. _Onenh jathondek, sewarihwisaanonghkwe Kayanerenghkowa,_--"now
listen, ye who completed the work, the Great League." This section,
though written continuously as prose, was probably always sung, like the
list of chiefs which follows. It is, in fact, the commencement of a
great historical chant, similar in character to the 78th Psalm, or to
some passages of the Prophets, which in style it greatly resembles. In
singing this portion, as also in the following litany to the chiefs, the
long-drawn exclamation of _hai_, or _haihhaih_, is frequently
introduced. In the MS. book referred to in the last note, the list of
councillors was preceded by a paragraph, written like prose, but with
many of these interjections interspersed through it. The interpreter,
Albert Cusick, an intelligent and educated man, assured me that this was
a song, and at my request he chanted a few staves of it, after the
native fashion. The following are the words of this hymn, arranged as
they are sung. It will be seen that it is a sort of cento or
compilation, in the Onondaga dialect, of passages from various portions
of the Canienga Book of Rites, and chiefly from the section (29) now
under consideration:--

  _ Haihhaih!_              Woe! Woe!
  _Jiyathonick!_            Hearken ye!
  _Xivonkliti!_             We are diminished!
  _ Haihhaih!_              Woe! Woe!
  _Tejoskawayenton._        The cleared land has become a thicket.
  _ Haihhaih! _             Woe! Woe!
  _Skakentahenyon._         The clear places are deserted.
  _ Hai!_                   Woe!
  _Shatyherarta--_          They are in their graves--
  _Hotyiwisahongwe--_       They who established it--
  _ Hai!_                   Woe!
  _Kayaneengoha._           The great League.
  _Netikenen honen_         Yet they declared
  _Nene kenyoiwatatye--_    It should endure--
  _Kayaneengowane._         The great League.
  _ Hai!_                   Woe!
  _Wakaiwakayonnheha._      Their work has grown old.
  _ Hai!_                   Woe!
  _Netho watyongwententhe._ Thus we are become miserable.

The closing word is the same as the Canienga _watyonkwentendane_,
which is found in the closing section of the Canienga book. The lines of
the Onondaga hymn which immediately precede this concluding word will be
found in Section 20 of that book, a section which is probably meant to
be chanted. It will be noticed that the lines of this hymn fall
naturally into a sort of parallelism, like that of the Hebrew chants.

30. _Dekarihaokenh_, or _Tehkarihhoken_. In John Buck's MS.
the list of chiefs is preceded by the words "_Nene Tehadirihoken_,"
meaning the Caniengas, or, literally, "the Tekarihokens."  For an
explanation of this idiom and name, see _ante_, p. 77.

_Ayonhwahtha_, or _Hayeirwatha_. This name, which, as
Hiawatha, is now familiar to us as a household word, is rendered "He who
seeks the wampum belt." Chief George Johnson thought it was derived from
_oyonwa_, wampum-belt, and _ratiehwatha_, to look for
something, or, rather, to seem to seek something which we know where to
find. M. Cuoq refe/s the latter part of the word to the verb
_katha_, to make. [Footnote: Lexique de la Langue Iroquois,
p. 161] The termination _atha_ is, in this sense, of frequent
occurrence in Iroquois compounds. The name would then mean "He who makes
the wampum-belt," and would account for the story which ascribes to
Hiawatha the invention of wampum. The Senecas, in whose language the
word _oyonwa_ has ceased to exist, have corrupted the name to
_Hayowentha_, which they render "he who combs." This form of the
name has also produced its legend, which is referred to elsewhere
(p. 87). Hiawatha "combed the snakes out of Atotarho's head," when he
brought that redoubted chief into the confederacy.

_Shatekariwalf_, "two equal statements," or "two things equal."
This name is derived-from _sate_ or _shate_, equal, and
_kariwa_, or _karihwa_, for which see the Glossary.

_Etho natejonhne_, "this was your number," or, this was the extent
of your class. These words, or the similar form, _etho
natehadinhne_, "this was their number," indicate apparently that the
roll of chiefs belonging to a particular class or clan is
completed. They are followed by three other words which have been
already explained (_ante_, pages 33 and 80),
_sewater-ihwakhaonghkwe, sewarihwisaanonghkwe, kayanerenhkowa_. In
the written litany these three words are omitted toward the
close,--probably to save the penman the labor of transcription; but in
the actual ceremony it is understood that they are chanted wherever the
formula _etho natejonhne_, or _etho natchadinhne_, occurs. In
the modern Canienga speech this verb is thus conjugated in the
plural,--_etho_ being contracted to _eh_:--

  _ehnatetionhne_,  we were that number;
  _ehnatejionhne_,  ye were that number;
  _ehnatehadinhne_, they were that number.

The three Canienga councillors of the first class all belong to the
Tortoise clan.

31. _Sharenhowane_; in Onondaga, _Showenhona_. This name was
translated by the interpreters, "he is the loftiest tree."  It seems
properly to mean "he is a great tree-top," from _karenha_, or
_garenha_, which Bruyas renders _cime d'arbre_, and
_kowane_, great.

_Deyonnhehgonh_, or _Teyonhehkwen_, "double life," from
_onnhe_, life. My friend, Chief George Johnson, who bears this
titular appellation, tells me that it is properly the name of a certain
shrub, which has a great tenacity of life.

_Ohrenregowah_; in Onondaga, _Owenhegona_. The interpreters
differed much in opinion as to the meaning of this name. Some said "wide
branches;" another, "a high hill."  The root-word, _ohrenre_, is
obsolete, and its meaning is apparently lost.

The three chiefs of the second class or division of the Caniengas belong
to the Wolf clan.

32. _Dehennakarine_; in Onondaga, _Tehennakaihne_; "going with
two horns." The root is _onakara_, horn; the termination
_ine_, or _ihne_, gives the sense of going; _de_ or
_te_ is the duplicative prefix.

_Aghstawenserontha_ (Onon. _Hastawensenwa_), "he puts on the
rattles." Mr. Bearfoot writes, "_Ohstawensera_ seems to have been a
general name for anything denuded of flesh, but is now confined to the
rattles of the rattlesnake."

_Shosgoharowane_ (Onon. _Shosgohaehna_), "he is a great
wood-drift." "_Yohskoharo_, writes Mr. Bearfoot, means an
obstruction by driftwood in creeks or small rivers."

The councillors of the third Canienga class are of the Bear clan.

33. _Ise seniyatagweniyohkwe_, "ye two were the principals."
_Atagweniyo_, or _adakweniyu_ (see _ante_, note to Sec. 28)
here becomes a verb in the imperfect tense and the dual number. The
reference is either to Dekanawidah and Odatsehte, the chiefs of the
Caniengas and Oneidas, who worked together in founding the confederacy,
or, rather, perhaps, to their two nations, each regarded as an
individual, and, in a manner, personified.

_Jatatawhak_, or, more properly _jatatahwak_, means,
literally, "son of each other." It is from the root-word _kaha-wak_
(or _gahawak_), which is defined by Bruyas, _avoir pour
enfant_, and is in the reciprocal form. Here, however, it is
understood to mean "father and son," in reference to the political
relationship between the Canienga and Oneida nations.

_Odatsehte_ (Onon., Tatshehte), "bearing a quiver,"--or the pouch
in which the arrows are carried. According to the tradition, when
Dekanawidah's brother and ambassador formally adopted _Odatsehte_
as the political son of the Canienga chief, he took the quiver off his
own shoulder, and hung it upon that of the Oneida chieftain.

_Kanonhgwenyodon_, "setting up ears of corn in a row."  From
_ononhkwenha_, an ear of corn.

_Deyohhagwente_ (Onon., _Tyohagwente_), "open voice" (?)  This
is another obsolete, or semi-obsolete word, about which the interpreters
differ widely in opinion. "Hollow tube," "windpipe," "opening in the
woods," "open voice," were the various renderings suggested. The latter
would be derived from _ohakwa_ or _ohagwa_, voice, and the
termination _wente_ or _gwente_, which gives the sense of
"open."

The three chiefs of the first Oneida class belong to the Wolf clan.

34. _Shononhsese_ (Onon., Shononses), "his long house." or, "he has
a long house." From _kanonsa_, house, with the adjective
termination _es_, long.

_Daonahrokenagh_ (Onon., Tonaohgena), "two branches."  This is
another doubtful word. In modern Canienga, "two branches" would be
_Tonenroken_.

_Atyatonentha_ (Onon., Hatyatonnentha), "he lowers himself," or,
literally, "he slides himself down," from _oyata_, body, self, and
_tonnenta_, to slide.

The councillors of the second Oneida class are of the Tortoise clan.

35. _Dewatahonhtenyonk_ (Onon., _Tehatahonhtenyonk_), "two
hanging ears," from _ohonta_, ear.

_Kaniyatahshayonk_ (Onon., _Kanenyatakshayen_). This name was
rendered "easy throat," as if derived from _oniata_, throat; but
the Oneida form of the word seems to point to a derivation from
_onenya_ (or _onenhia_), stone. This word must be regarded as
another obsolete compound.

_Onwatsatonhonk_ (Onon., _Onwasjatenwi_), "he is buried."

The three chiefs of the third Oneida class are of the Bear clan.

36. _Eghyesaotonnihsen_, lit., "this was his uncle,"--or, as the
words would be understood by the hearers, "the next are his uncles." The
Onondaga nation, being the brother of the Canienga, was, of course, the
uncle of the Oneida. In John Buck's MS. the Onondagas are introduced
with more ceremony, in the following lines:

  _Etho yeshodonnih_;   These are the uncles;
  _Rodihsennakeghde_,   They, the name-bearers--
  _Tehhotiyena_,        They took hold here;
  _Rodihnonsyonnihton_. They made the League.

That is, they helped, or joined, in making the League.

_Thatotarho, Wathatotarho_ (Onon.,
_Thatotarho_). _Thatotarho_ is the passive voice and
cislocative form of _otarho_, which is defined "to grasp," or
"catch" (_accrocher_) but in the passive signifies "entangled."
This great chief, whose name is better known as Atotarho (without the
cislocative prefix), is of the Bear clan.

_Etho ronaraschsen_, "these were cousins," or rather, "the next
were cousins." This cousinhood, like all the relationships throughout
the book, is political, and indicates some close relationship in public
affairs. The announcement applies to the following chiefs, Enneserarenh
and Dehatkahthos, who were the special aids and counselors of Atotarho.

_Enneserarenh_ (Onon. _Hanesehen_). One Onondata chief said
that he knew no meaning for this word. Another thought it might mean
"the best soil uppermost." It is apparently from some obsolete root.

_Dehatkahthos_ (Onon. _Tchatkahtons_), "he is two-sighted,"
or, "he looks both ways." Another rendering made it "on the watch." This
and the preceding chief belong now to the Beaver clan. In one of the
Onondaga lists which I received, these two, with their principal,
Atotarho, formed a "class" by themselves, and were doubtless originally
of the same clan.

_Waghontenhnonterontye_, "they were as brothers thenceforth;" or,
more fully rendered, "the next continued to be brothers."  This
declaration refers to the three next following chiefs, who were
connected by some special political tie. The first who bore the name
were, probably, like the two preceding chiefs, leading partisans and
favorites of the first Atotarho.

_Onyatajiwak_, or _Skanyadajiwak_ (Onon., _Oyatajiwak_).
One authority makes this "a fowl's crop;" another, "the throat alone,"
from _oniata_, throat, and _jiwak_, alone; another defined it,
"bitter throat." Mr. Morgan renders it "bitter body,"--his informant
probably seeing in it the word _oyata_, body. This chief belongs
now to the Snipe clan.

_Awekenyade_. "the end of its journey,"--from awe, going, and
_akonhiate_(Can.) "at the end." This chief is of the Ball tribe,
both in Canada, and at Onondaga Castle. In the list furnished to
Mr. Morgan by the Senecas, he is of the Tortoise clan.

_Dehadkwarayen_ (Onon., _Tchatkwayen_). This word is
obsolete. One interpreter guessed it to mean "on his body;" another made
it "red wings." He is of the Tortoise clan.

In the Book of Rites the first six chiefs of the Onondagas make but one
class, as is shown by the fact that their names are followed by the
formula, _etho natejonhne_, "this was the number of you." It may be
presumed that they were originally of one clan,--probably that of the
Bear, to which their leader, Atotarho, belonged.

37. _Yeshohawak_, _rakwahhokowah_, "then his next son, he the
great Wolf." The chief who follows, _Ronenghwireghtonh_, was
evidently a personage of great importance,--probably the leading chief
of the Wolf class. He forms a "clan" by himself,--the only instance of
the kind in the list. The expression, "there (or, in him) were combined
the minds," indicates--as Mr. Bearfoot suggests--his superior
intellect. It may also refer to the fact that he was the hereditary
keeper of the wampum records. The title was borne in Canada by the late
chief George Buck, but the duties of record-keeper were usually
performed by his more eminent brother, John (_Skanawati_).

_Rononghwireghtonh_ (Onon., _Honanwiehti_), "he is sunk out of
sight." This chief, who, as has been stated, alone constitutes the
second Onondaga class, is of the Wolf clan.

38. _Etho yeshotonnyh tekadarakehne_, "then his uncles of the two
clans." The five chiefs who follow probably bore some peculiar political
relation to Rononghwireghton. The first two in modern times are of the
Deer clan; the last three are of the Eel clan. It is probable that they
all belonged originally, with him, to one clan, that of the Wolf, and
consequently to one class, which was afterwards divided into three.
_Kawenenseronton_ (Onon., _Kawenensenton_). A word of doubtful
meaning; one interpreter thought it meant "her voice suspressing an opinion in the council. This ingenious
device for preventing differences between the two sections of the Seneca
nation is one of the many evidences of statesmanship exhibited in the
formation of the League.

46. _Satyenawat_, "withheld." This chief, in the Canadian list, is
of the Snipe clan; in Mr. Morgan's Seneca list, he is of the Bear
clan. His comrade in the class, Shakenjowane, is, in both lists, of the
Hawk clan. _Shakenjowane_ (Onon., _Shakenjona_), "large
forehead."

There has apparently been some derangement here in the order of the
classes. In Mr. Morgan's list, and also in one furnished to me at
Onondaga Castle, the two chiefs just named belong to different
classes. The variance of the lists may be thus shown:--

  _The Book of Rites_. _The Seneca and Onondaga Lists_.
            Second Seneca Class.
  _Satyenawat_ _Kanokarih_
  _Shakenjowane_ _Shakenjowane_.
            Third Seneca Class.
  _Kanokarih_ _Satyenawat_
  _Nisharyenen_ _Nisharyenen_.

Satyenawat and Kanokarih have changed places. As the Book of Rites is
the earlier authority, it is probable that the change was made among the
New York Senecas after a part of their nation had removed to Canada.

47. _Kanokarih_ (Onon., _Kanokaehe_), "threatened."
    _Nisharyenen_ (Onon., _Onishayenenha_), "the day fell down."

One of the interpreters rendered the latter name, "the handle drops."
The meaning of the word must be considered doubtful. The first of these
chiefs is of the Tortoise clan, and the second is, in Canada, of the
Bear clan. In Mr. Morgan's list he is of the Snipe clan. The disruption
of the Seneca nation, and the introduction of new clans, have thrown
this part of the list into confusion.

48. _Onghwakeghaghshonah_, etc. The verses which follow are
repeated here from the passage of the Book which precedes the chanted
litany. (See _ante_, Section 28.) Their repetition is intended to
introduce the names of the two chiefs who composed the fourth and last
class of the Seneca councillors. _Yatehhotinhohhataghkwen_, "they
were at the doorway," or, according to another version, "they made the
doorway."  The chiefs are represented as keeping the doorway of the
"extended mansion," which imaged the confederacy.
_Kanonghkeridawyh_, (Onon., _Kanonkeitawi_,) "entangled hair
given." This chief, in Canada, is of the Bear clan; in New York,
according to Morgan's list, he is of the Snipe clan.
_Teyoninhokarawenh_, (Onon., _Teyoninhokawenh_,) "open door."
In both lists he is of the Wolf clan.

Mr. Morgan (in his "League of the Iroquois," page 68,) states that to
the last-named chief, or "sachem," the duty of watching the door was
assigned, and that "they gave him a sub-sachem, or assistant, to enable
him to execute this trust."  In fact, however, every high chief, or
_royaner_ (lord), had an assistant, or war chief
(_roskenrakehte-kowa_, great warrior), to execute his
instructions. The Book of Rites shows clearly that the two chiefs to
whom the duty of "guarding the doorway" was assigned were both nobles of
the first rank. Their office also appears not to have been warlike. From
the words of the Book it would seem that when new tribes were received
into the confederacy, these two councillors had the formal office of
"opening the doorway" to the new-comers--that is (as we may suppose),
of receiving and introducing their chiefs into the federal council.

In another sense the whole Seneca nation was deemed, and was styled in
council, the Doorkeeper (_Ronhohonti_, pl., _Roninhohonti_) of
the confederacy. The duty of guarding the common country against the
invasions of the hostile tribes of the west was specially committed to
them. Their leaders, or public representatives, in this duty would
naturally be the two great chiefs of the nation, Kanyateriyo and
Shadekaronyes. The rules of the League, however, seem to have forbidden
the actual assumption by the councillors of any executive or warlike
command. At least, if they undertook such duties, it must be as private
men, and not in their capacity of nobles--just as an English peer might
serve as an officer in the army or as an ambassador. The only exceptions
recognized by the Iroquois constitution seem to have been in the cases
of Tekarihoken and Skanawati, who were at once nobles and
war-chiefs. (See _ante_, pages 78 and 159.) The two great Seneca
chiefs would therefore find it necessary to make over their military
functions to their assistants or war-chiefs. This may explain the
statement made by Morgan ("League of the Iroquois," p. 74) that there
were two special "war-chiefships" created among the Senecas, to which
these commands were assigned.

49. _Onenh watyonkwentendane kanikonrakeh_. The condoling chant
concludes abruptly with the doleful exclamation, "Now we are dejected in
spirit." _Enkitenlane_, "I am becoming poor," or "wretched," is
apparently a derivative of _kitenre_, to pity, and might be
rendered, "I am in a pitiable state." "We are miserable in mind," would
probably be a literal version of this closing ejaculation. Whether it is
a lament for the past glories of the confederacy, or for the chief who
is mourned, is a question which those who sing the words at the present
day would probably have a difficulty in answering. It is likely,
however, that the latter cause of grief was in the minds of those who
first composed the chant.

It is an interesting fact, as showing the antiquity of the names of the
chiefs in the foregoing list, that at least a fourth of them are of
doubtful etymology. That their meaning was well understood when they
were borne by the founders of the League cannot be questioned. The
changes of language or the uncertainties of oral transmission, in the
lapse of four centuries, have made this large proportion of them either
obsolete or so corrupt as to be no longer intelligible. Of all the
names it may probably be affirmed with truth that the Indians who hear
them recited think of their primitive meaning as little as we ourselves
think of the meaning of the family names or the English titles of
nobility which we hear or read. To the Iroquois of the present day the
hereditary titles of their councillors are--to use their own
expression--"just names," and nothing more. It must not be supposed,
however, that the language itself has altered in the same degree. Proper
names, as is well known, when they become mere appellatives, discharged
of significance, are much more likely to vary than the words of ordinary
speech.





NOTES ON THE ONONDAGA BOOK


1 _a. Yo onen onen wen ni sr te,_ "oh now--now this day."  It will
be noticed that this address of the "younger brothers" commences in
nearly the same words which begin the speeches of the Canienga
book. This similarity of language exists in other parts of the two
books, though disguised by the difference of dialect, and also by the
very irregular and corrupt spelling of the Onondaga book. To give some
idea of this irregularity, and of the manner in which the words of this
book are to be pronounced, several of these words are subjoined, with
the pronunciation of the interpreter, represented in the orthography of
the Canienga book:

  _Words as written._         _As pronounced by La Fort._

  wen ni sr te                     wennisaate
  ho gar a nyat                    hogaenyat
  son tar yen                      sontahien
  na ya ne                         nayeneh
  o shon ta gon gonar              osontagongona
  gar weear har tye                gawehehatie
  on gwr non sen shen tar qua      ongwanonsenshentakwa
  ga nen ar ta (or, ga nen ar ti)  ganenhate
  kon hon wi sats                  konthonwitsas
  o wen gr ge                      ohwengage
  nar ya he yr genh                nayehiyaken.

The letter _r,_ it will be seen, is not a consonant. In fact, it is
never heard as such in the modern Onondaga dialect. As used by La Fort,
its office is either to give to the preceding vowel _a_ the sound
which it has in _father,_ or by itself to represent that sound. The
_a,_ when not followed by _r,_ is usually sounded like
_a_ in _fate_, but sometimes keeps the sound of _a_ in
_far._ The _e_ usually represents the English _e_ in
_be,_ or, when followed by _n,_ the _e_ in _pen._
The _i_ and _y_ are commonly sounded as in the word
_city._ The _g_ is always hard, and is interchangeable with
_k._ The _t_ and _d_ are also interchangeable.

While the syllables in the original are written separately, the words
are not always distinguished; and it is doubtful if, in printing, they
have in all cases been properly divided. The translation of the
interpreter, though tolerably exact, was not always literal; and in the
brief time at our command the precise meaning of some of the words was
not ascertained. No attempt, therefore, has been made to form a
glossary of this portion of the text.

In the original the addresses of the "younger brothers" are divided into
sections, which are numbered from one to seven, and each of which, in
the ceremony, is called to mind by its special wampum-string, which is
produced when the section is recited. As the first of these sections is
of much greater length than the others, it has been divided in this
work, for the purpose of ready reference, into sub-sections, which are
numbered 1_a_, 1_b_, and so on.

1 _b_. _Nenthaotagenhetak_, "by the ashes," or "near the
hearth." The root-word is here _agenhe_, the Onondaga form of the
Canienga word _akenra_, ashes, which is comprised in the compound
form, _jiudakenrokde_, in Section 27 of the Canienga book. It will
be seen that the spokesman of the younger nations is here complying
strictly with the law laid down in that section. He "stands by the
hearth and speaks a few words to comfort those who are mourning."

1 _c_. "_It was valued at twenty._" The interpreters explained
that by "twenty" was understood the whole of their wampum, which
constituted all their treasure. A human life was worth the whole of
this, and they freely gave it, merely to recall the memory of the chief
who was gone. Among the Hurons, when a man had been killed, and his
kindred were willing to renounce their claim to vengeance on receiving
due satisfaction, the number of presents of wampum and other valuables
which were to be given was rigidly prescribed by their customary
law. [Footnote: _Relation_ of 1648, p. 80.] From this custom would
easily follow the usage of making similar gifts, in token of sympathy,
to all persons who were mourning the loss of a near relative,

1 _d_. "_Because with her the line is lost._" The same
sentiment prevailed among the Hurons. "For a Huron killed by a Huron,"
writes Father Ragueneau in the letter just quoted, "thirty gifts are
commonly deemed a sufficient satisfaction. For a woman forty are
required, because, as they say, the women are less able to defend
themselves; and, moreover, they being the source whence the land is
peopled, their lives should be deemed of more value to the commonwealth,
and their weakness should have a stronger support in public justice."
Such was the reasoning of these heathen barbarians. Enlightened
Christendom has hardly yet advanced to the mark of these opinions.

I _e. "Where the grave has been made,"_ &c. The recital of Father
Ragueneau also illustrates this passage. "Then followed," he writes,
"nine other presents, for the purpose, as it were, of erecting a
sepulchre for the deceased. Four of them were for the four pillars which
should support this sepulchre, and four others for the four cross-pieces
on which the bier of the dead was to rest. The ninth was to serve as his
pillow."

2. "I will make the sky clear to you." In this paragraph the speaker
reminds the mourners, in the style of bold imagery which the Iroquois
orators affected, that continued grief for the dead would not be
consonant with the course of nature. Though all might seem dark to them
now, the sky would be as clear, and the sun would shine as brightly for
them, as if their friend had not died. Their loss had been inevitable,
and equally sure would be the return of the "pleasant days." This
reminder, which may seem to us needless, was evidently designed as a
reproof, at once gentle and forcible, of those customs of excessive and
protracted mourning which were anciently common among the Huron-Iroquois
tribes.

3. _"You must converse with your nephews,"_ &c. The "nephews" are,
of course, the chiefs of the younger nations, who are here the
condolers. The mourners are urged to seek for comfort in the sympathy of
their friends, and not to reject the consolations offered by their
visitors and by their own people.

4. _"And now you can go out before the people, and go on with your
duties,"_ &c. This, it will be seen, corresponds with the injunctions
of the Canienga book. (See Section 27, _ante,_ p. 127): "And then
they will be comforted, and will conform to the great law."

6. _"Then the horns shall be left on the grave,"_ &c. The same
figure is here used as in the Canienga book, Section 23 (_ante,_
p. 125). It is evident that the importance of keeping up the succession
of their councillors was constantly impressed on the minds of the
Iroquois people by the founders of their League.

7. _"And the next death will receive the pouch."_ The "mourning
wampum," in modern days, is left, or supposed to be left, with the
kindred of the late chief until another death shall occur among the
members of the Council, when it is to be passed on to the family of the
deceased. This economy is made necessary by the fact that only one store
of such wampum now exists, as the article is no longer made. It is
probable that in ancient times the wampum was left permanently with the
family of the deceased, as a memorial of the departed chief.

_"Where the fire is made and the smoke is rising," i.e.,_ when you
receive notice that a Condoling Council is to be held in a certain
place. The kindled fire and the rising smoke were the well-understood
images which represented the convocation of their councils. In the
Onondaga book before referred to (_ante,_ p. 152) a few pages were
occupied by what might be styled a pagan sermon, composed of
exhortations addressed to the chiefs, urging them to do their duty to
the community. The following is the commencement of this curious
composition, which may serve to illustrate both the words now under
consideration and the character of the people. The orthography is much
better than that of La Fort's book, the vowels generally having the
Italian sound, and the spelling being tolerably uniform. The translation
was made by Albert Cusick, and is for the most part closely literal: The
discourse commences with a "text," after the fashion which the pagan
exhorter had probably learned from the missionaries:--

Naye ne iwaton ne gayanencher:

Onen wahagwatatjistagenhas ne Thatontarho. Onen wagayengwaeten, naye ne
watkaenya, esta netho tina enyontkawaonk. Ne enagenyon nwatkaonwenjage
shanonwe nwakayengwaeten netho titentyetongenta shanonwe
nwakayengwaeten, ne tokat gishens enyagoiwayentaha ne oyatonwetti.

Netho hiya nigawennonten ne ongwanencher ne Ayakt Niyongyonwenjage ne
Tyongwehonwe.

Ottinawahoten ne oyengwaetakwit? Nayehiya, ne agwegeh
enhonatiwagwaisyonk ne hatigowanes,--tenhontatnonongwak gagweki,--oni
enshagotino-ongwak ne honityogwa, engenk ne hotisgenrhergeta, oni ne
genthonwisash, oni ne hongwagsata, oni ne ashonsthateyetigaher ne
ongwagsata; netho niyoh tehatinya agweke sne sgennon enyonnontonnyonhet,
ne hegentyogwagwegi. Naye ne hatigowanens neye gagwegi honatiiwayenni
sha oni nenyotik honityogwa shanya yagonigonheten. Ne tokat gishen naye
enyagotiwatentyeti, negaewane akwashen ne honiyatwa shanityawenih.



_Translation._

"The law says this:

"Now the council-fire was lighted by Atotarho. Now the smoke rises and
ascends to the sky, that everybody may see it. The tribes of the
different nations where the smoke appeared shall come directly where the
smoke arises, if, perhaps, they have any business for the council to
consider.

"These are the words of our law,--of the Six Nations of Indians.

"What is the purpose of the smoke? It is this--that the chiefs must all
be honest; that they must all love one another; and that they must have
regard for their people,--including the women, and also our children,
and also those children whom we have not yet seen; so much they must
care for, that all may be in peace, even the whole nation. It is the
duty of the chiefs to do this, and they have the power to govern their
people. If there is anything to be done for the good of the people, it
is their duty to do it."

7 _b. "Now I have finished! Now show him to me!"_ With this laconic
exclamation, which calls upon the nation of the late chief to bring
forward his successor, the formal portion of the ceremony--the
condolence which precedes the installation--is abruptly closed.





APPENDIX.



NOTE A.

THE NAMES OF THE IROQUOIS NATIONS.


The meaning of the term _Kanonsionni,_ and of the other names by
which the several nations were known in their Council, are fully
explained in the Introduction. But some account should be given of the
names, often inappropriate and generally much corrupted, by which they
were known to their white neighbors. The origin and proper meaning of
the word _Iroquois_ are doubtful. All that can be said with
certainty is that the explanation given by Charlevoix cannot possibly be
correct. "The name of Iroquois," he says, "is purely French, and has
been formed from the term _hiro,_ 'I have spoken,' a word by which
these Indians close all their speeches, and _koue,_ which, when
long drawn out, is a cry of sorrow, and when briefly uttered, is an
exclamation of joy." [Footnote: _History of New France,_ Vol. i,
p. 270.] It might be enough to say of this derivation that no other
nation or tribe of which we have any knowledge has ever borne a name
composed in this whimsical fashion. But what is decisive is the fact
that Champlain had learned the name from his Indian allies before he or
any other Frenchman, so far as is known, had ever seen an Iroquois. It
is probable that the origin of the word is to be sought in the Huron
language; yet, as this is similar to the Iroquois tongue, an attempt may
be made to find a solution in the latter. According to Bruyas, the word
_garokwa_ meant a pipe, and also a piece of tobacco,--and, in its
verbal form, to smoke. This word is found, somewhat disguised by
aspirates, in the Book of Rites--_denighroghkwayen,_--"let us two
smoke together." (_Ante._ p. 114, Section 2). In the indeterminate
form the verb becomes _ierokwa,_ which is certainly very near to
"Iroquois." It might be rendered "they who smoke," or "they who use
tobacco," or, briefly, "the Tobacco People." This name, the Tobacco
Nation (_Nation du Petun_) was given by the French, and
probably also by the Algonkins, to one of the Huron tribes, the
Tionontates, noted for the excellent tobacco which they raised and
sold. The Iroquois were equallware tongue, means properly
"Stone Snakes;" but in this conjunction it is understood, according to
the interpretation furnished to Mr. Squier, to signify "Mountain
Snakes." [Footnote: _"Traditions of the Algonquins,"_ in Beach's
_Indian Miscellany,_ p. 33.] The Delawares, it appears, were
accustomed to term all their enemies "snakes." In this case they simply
translated the native name of the Iroquois tribe (the "Mountain
People"), and added this uncomplimentary epithet. As the name, unlike
the word Mohawk, is readily pronounced by the people to whom it was
given, and as they seem to have in some measure accepted it, there is
not the same reason for objecting to its use as exists in the case of
the latter word,--more especially as there is no absolute certainty that
it is not really an Iroquois word. It bears, in its present form, a
close resemblance to the honorable "Council name" of the
Onondagas,--_Sennakehte,_ "the title-givers;" a fact which may
perhaps have made the western nation more willing to adopt it.



NOTE B.

MEANING OF OHIO, ONTARIO, ONONTIO, RAWENNIIO.


The words _Ohio, Ontario_ and _Onontio_ (or
_Yonnondio_)--which should properly be pronounced as if written
_Oheeyo, Ontareeyo,_ and _Ononteeyo_--are commonly rendered
"Beautiful River," "Beautiful Lake," "Beautiful Mountain." This,
doubtless, is the meaning which each of the words conveys to an Iroquois
of the present day, unless he belongs to the Tuscarora tribe. But there
can be no doubt that the termination _io_ (otherwise written
_iyo, iio, eeyo_, etc.) had originally the sense, not of
"beautiful," but of "great." It is derived from the word _wiyo_ (or
_wiio_) which signifies in the Seneca dialect _good,_ but in
the Tuscarora, _great_. It is certain that the Tuscaroras have
preserved the primitive meaning of the word, which the Hurons and the
proper Iroquois have lost. When the French missionaries first studied
the languages of these nations, traces of the original usage were
apparent. Bruyas, in the "Proemium" to his _Radices Verborum
Iroquaorum_, (p. 14), expressly states that _jo (io)_ in
composition with verbs, "signifies magnitude." He gives as an example,
_garihaioston_, "to make much of anything," from _garihea_,
thing, and _io_, "great, important." The Jesuit missionaries, in
their _Relation_ for 1641, (p. 22) render _Onontio_ "great
mountain," and say that both Hurons and Iroquois gave this title to the
Governor of that day as a translation of his name, Montmagny.

_Ontario_ is derived from the Huron _yontare_, or
_ontare_, lake (Iroquois, _oniatare_), with this
termination. It was not by any means the most beautiful of the lakes
which they knew; but in the early times, when the Hurons dwelt on the
north and east of it and the Iroquois on the south, it was to both of
them emphatically "the great lake."

_Ohio,_ in like manner, is derived, as M. Cuoq in the valuable
notes to his Lexicon (p. 159) informs us, from the obsolete _ohia,_
river, now only used in the compound form _ohionha_. _Ohia_,
coalescing with this ancient affix, would become _ohiio,_ or
_ohiyo,_ with the signification of "great river," or, as the
historian Cusick renders it, "principal stream."

M. Cuoq. in his _"Etudes Philologiques"_ (p. 14) has well explained
the interesting word _Rawenniio,_ used in various dialectical forms
by both Hurons and Iroquois, as the name of the deity. It signifies, as
he informs us, "he is master," or, used as a noun, "he who is master."
This, of course, is the modern acceptation; but we can gather from the
ancient Huron grammar, translated by Mr. Wilkie, (_ante_, p. 101)
that the word had once, as might be supposed, a larger meaning. The
phrase, "it is the great master," in that grammar (p. 108) is rendered
_ondaieaat eOarontio or eOauendio_. The Huron _nd_ becomes in
Iroquois _nn_. _EOauendio_ is undoubtedly a form of the same
word which appears in the Iroquois _Rawenniio_. We thus learn that
the latter word meant originally not merely "the master," but "the great
master." Its root is probably to be found in the Iroquois _kawen_,
or _gawen_ (Bruyas, p. 64), which signifies "to belong to any one,"
and yields, in combination with _oyata_, person, the derivatives
_gaiatawen_, to have for subject, and _gaiatawenston_, to
subject any one.



NOTE C.

THE ERA OF THE CONFEDERACY.


Mr. Morgan, in his work on "Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the
Human Family" (p. 151), fixes the date of the formation of the Iroquois
league at about the middle of the fifteenth ^ century. He says: "As near
as can now be ascertained, the league had been established about one
hundred and fifty years when Champlain, in 1609, first encountered the
Mohawks within their own territories, on the west coast of Lake
George. This would place the epoch of its formation about A. D. 1459."
Mr. Morgan, as he informed me, deduced this conclusion from the
testimony of the most intelligent Indians whom he had consulted on the
subject. His informants belonged chiefly to the Seneca and Tuscarora
nations. Their statements are entirely confirmed by those of the
Onondaga record-keepers, both on the Syracuse Reservation and in
Canada. When the chiefs at Onondaga Castle, who, in October, 1875, met
to explain to me their wampum records, were asked how long it had been
since their league was made, they replied (as I find the answer recorded
in my notes) that "it was their belief that the confederacy was formed
about six generations before the white people came to these parts."
Hudson ascended the river to which he gave his name in September,
1609. A boat from his ship advanced beyond Albany, and consequently into
the territories of the League. "Frequent intercourse," says Bancroft, in
his account of this exploration, "was held with the astonished natives
of the Algonquin race; and the strangers were welcomed by a deputation
from the Mohawks."  If we allow twenty-five years to a generation, the
era of the confederacy is carried back to a period a hundred and fifty
years before the date of Hudson's discovery,--or to the year 1459. This
statement of the Onondaga chiefs harmonizes, therefore, closely with
that which Mr. Morgan had heard among the other nations.

I afterwards (in 1882) put the same question to my friend, Chief John
Buck, the keeper of the wampum-records of the Canadian Iroquois. He
thought it was then "about four hundred years" since the League was
formed. He was confident that it was before any white people had been
heard of by his nation. This opinion accords sufficiently with the more
definite statement of the New York Onondagas to be deemed a confirmation
of that statement.

There are two authorities whose opinions differ widely, in opposite
directions, from the information thus obtained by Mr. Morgan and
myself. David Cusick, in his _"Sketches of Ancient History of the Six
Nations,"_ supposes that the League was formed "perhaps 1000 years
before Columbus discovered America." His reasons for this supposition,
however, do not bear examination. He makes Atotarho the hereditary
title of a monarch, like Pharaoh or Caesar, and states that thirteen
potentates bearing that title had "reigned" between the formation of the
confederacy and the discovery of America by Columbus. The duration of
each of these reigns he computes, absurdly enough, at exactly fifty
years, which, however, would give altogether a term of only six hundred
and fifty years. He supposes the discovery of America to have taken
place during the reign of the thirteenth Atotarho; and he adds that the
conquest and dispersion of the Eries occurred "about this time." The
latter event, as we know, took place in 1656. It is evident that
Cusick's chronology is totally at fault. As an Iroquois chief was never
succeeded by his son, but often by his brother, it is by no means
improbable that thirteen persons may have held successively the title of
Atotarho in the term of nearly two centuries, between the years 1459 and
1656.

On the other hand, Heckewelder, in his well-known work on the "History,
Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations." cites a passage from a
manuscript book of his predecessor, the Rev. C. Pyrlaeus, formerly
missionary among the Mohawks, from which a comparatively recent date
would be inferred for the confederation. The inference, however, is
probably due to a mistake of Heckewelder himself. The passage, as it
stands in his volume, [Footnote: P. 56 of the revised edition of 1875,
published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.] is as follows:--

"The Rev. C. Pyrlaeus, in his manuscript book, p. 234, says: 'The
alliance or confederacy of the Five Nations was established, as near as
can be conjectured, one age (or the length of a man's life) before the
white people (the Dutch) came into the country. Thannawage was the name
of the aged Indian, a Mohawk, who first proposed such an alliance.'"

The words which Heckewelder has here included between parentheses arc
apparently explanations which he himself added to the original statement
of Pyrlaeus. The first of these glosses, by which an "age" is explained
to be the length of a man's life, is doubtless correct; but the second,
which identifies the "white people" of Pyrlaeus with the Dutch, is
probably wrong. The white people who first "came into the country" of
the Huron-Iroquois nations were the French, under Cartier. It was in the
summer of 1535 that the bold Breton navigator, with three vessels
commissioned to establish a colony in Canada, entered the St. Lawrence,
and ascended the great river as far as the sites of Quebec and Montreal.
He spent the subsequent winter at Quebec. The presence of this
expedition, with its soldiers and sailors of strange complexion and
armed with terrible weapons, must have been known to all the tribes
dwelling along the river, and would naturally make an epoch in their
chronology. Assuming the year 1535 as the time when the white people
first "came into the country," and taking "the length of a man's life"
at seventy-five years (or three generations) we should arrive at the
year 1460 as the date of the formation of the Iroquois
League. [Footnote: There is an evident difference between the expression
used by my Onondaga informants and that which is quoted by Heckewelder
from Pyrlaeus. The latter speaks of the time before the white people
"came into the country;" the Onondagas referred to the time before they
"came to these parts." The passage cited from Bancroft seems to indicate
that the white men of Hudson's crew presented no novel or startling
aspect to the Mohawks. The French had been "in the country" before
them.]

The brief period allowed by Heckewelder's version is on many accounts
inadmissible. If, when the Dutch first came among the Iroquois, the
confederacy had existed for only about eighty years, there must have
been many persons then living who had personally known some of its
founders. It is quite inconceivable that the cloud of mythological
legends which has gathered around the names of these founders--of which
Clark, in his "Onondaga," gives only the smaller portion--should have
arisen in so short a term. Nor is it probable that in so brief a period
as has elapsed since the date suggested by Heckewelder, a fourth part of
the names of the fifty chiefs who formed the first council would have
become unintelligible, or at least doubtful in meaning. Schoolcraft, who
was inclined to defer to Heckewelder's authority on this point, did so
with evident doubt and perplexity. "We cannot," he says, "without
rejecting many positive traditions of the Iroquois themselves, refuse to
concede a much earlier period to the first attempts of these interesting
tribes to form a general political association." [Footnote: "_Notes on
the Iroquois_ p. 75,"]

In view of all the facts there seems no reason for withholding credence
from the clear and positive statement of the Iroquois chroniclers, who
place the commencement of their confederate government at about the
middle of the fifteenth century.



NOTE D.

THE HIAWATHA MYTHS.


While many of the narratives of preternatural events recounted by Clark,
Schoolcraft and others, in which the name of Hiawatha occurs, are merely
adaptations of older myths relating to primitive Iroquois or Algonkin
deities, there are a few which are actual traditions, though much
confused and distorted, of incidents that really occurred. Among these
is the story told by Clark, of the marvelous bird by which Hiawatha's
only daughter was destroyed. Longfellow has avoided all reference to
this preposterous tale; but to Mr. Clark, if we may judge from the
fullness and solemnity with which he has recorded it, it appeared very
impressive. [Footnote: _"Onondaga"_ Vol. I, p. 25.]  According to
his narrative, when the great convention assembled at the summons of
Hiawatha, to form the league of the Five Nations, he came to it in
company with his darling and only daughter, a girl of twelve. Suddenly a
loud rushing sound was heard. A dark spot appeared in the sky. Hiawatha
warned his daughter to be prepared for the coming doom from the Great
Spirit, and she meekly bowed in resignation. The dark spot, rapidly
descending, became an immense bird, which, with long and pointed beak
and wide-extended wings, swept down upon the beautiful girl, and crushed
her to atoms. Many other incidents are added, and we are told, what we
might well believe, that the hero's grief for the loss so suddenly and
frightfully inflicted upon him was intense and long protracted.

That a story related with so much particularity should be utterly
without foundation did not appear probable. It seemed not unlikely that
a daughter of Hiawatha might have been killed at some public meeting,
either accidentally or purposely, and possibly by an Indian belonging to
one of the bird clans, the Snipe, the Heron, or the Crane. But further
inquiry showed that even this conjecture involved more of what may be
styled mythology than the simple facts called for. The Onondaga chiefs
on the Canadian Reserve, when asked if they had heard anything about a
strange bird causing the death of Hiawatha's daughter, replied at once
that the event was well known. As they related it, the occurrence became
natural and intelligible. It formed, indeed, a not unimportant link in
the chain of events which led to the establishment of the
confederacy. The catastrophe, for such it truly was, took place not at
the great assembly which met for the formation of the league, but at one
of the Onondaga councils which were convened prior to that meeting, and
before Hiawatha had fled to the Caniengas. The council was held in an
open plain, encircled by a forest, near which temporary lodges had been
erected for the Councillors and their attendants. Hiawatha was present,
accompanied by his daughter, the last surviving member of his
family. She was married, but still lived with her father, after the
custom of the people; for the wife did not join her husband in his own
home until she had borne him a child. The discussions had lasted through
the day, and at nightfall the people retired to their lodges. Hiawatha's
daughter had been out, probably with other women, into the adjacent
woods, to gather their light fuel of dry sticks for cooking. She was
great with child, and moved slowly, with her faggot, across the
sward. An evil eye was upon her. Suddenly the loud voice of Atotarho was
heard, shouting that a strange bird was in the air, and bidding one of
his best archers shoot it. The archer shot, and the bird fell. A sudden
rush took place from all quarters toward it, and in the rush Hiawatha's
daughter was thrown down and trampled to death. No one could prove that
Atotarho had planned this terrible blow at his great adversary, but no
one doubted it. Hiawatha's grief was profound; but it was then,
according to the tradition of the Canadian Onondagas,--when the last tie
of kindred which bound him to his own people was broken,--that the idea
occurred to him of seeking aid among the eastern nations. [Footnote:
This account of the events which immediately preceded Hiawatha's flight
differs somewhat from the narrative which I received from the New York
Onondagas, as recorded in the Introduction (p. 22). The difference,
however, is not important; and possibly, if it had occurred to me to
inquire of these latter informants about the incident of the bird, I
might have heard from them particulars which would have brought the two
versions of the story still nearer to accord. The notable fact is that
the reports of a tradition preserved for four hundred years, in two
divisions of a broken tribe, which have been widely separated for more
than a century, should agree so closely in all important
particulars. Such concurrence of different chroniclers in the main
narrative of an event, with some diversity in the details, is usually
regarded as the best evidence of the truth of the history.]

Clark's informants also told him much about a snow-white canoe in which
Hiawatha--or, rather, Ta-oun-ya-wa-tha--made his first appearance to
human eyes. In this canoe the demigod was seen on Lake Ontario,
approaching the shore at Oswego. In it he ascended the river and its
various branches, removing all obstructions, and destroying all enemies,
natural and preternatural. And when his work was completed by the
establishment of the League, the hero, in his human form of Hiawatha,
seated himself in this canoe, and ascended in it to heaven, amid "the
sweetest melody of celestial music."

The nucleus and probable origin of this singular story is perhaps to be
found in the simple fact that Hiawatha, after his flight from the
Onondagas, made his appearance among the Caniengas a solitary voyager,
in a canoe, in which he had floated down the Mohawk river. The canoes of
the Caniengas were usually made of elm-bark, the birch not being common
in their country. If Hiawatha, as is not unlikely, had found or
constructed a small canoe of birch-bark on the upper waters of the
stream, and used it for his voyage to the Canienga town, it might
naturally attract some attention. The great celebrity and high position
which he soon attained, and the important work which he accomplished,
would cause the people who adopted him as a chief to look back upon all
the circumstances of his first arrival among them with special
interest. That the canoe was preserved till his death, and that he was
buried in it, amid funeral wails and mournful songs from a vast
multitude, such as had never before lamented a chief of the Kanonsioani,
may be deemed probable enough; and in these or some similar events we
may look for the origin of this beautiful myth, which reappears, with
such striking effect, in the closing scene of Longfellow's poem.



NOTE E.

THE IROQUOIS TOWNS.


The list of towns comprised in the text contains twenty-three names. Of
this number only eight or nine resemble names which have been in use
since the Five Nations were known to the whites; and even of this small
number it is not certain that all, or indeed any, were in these more
recent times applied to their original localities. My friend, General
John S. Clark, of Auburn, N. Y., who has made a special study of the
positions of the Indian tribes and villages, and whose notes on this
subject illustrate the excellent work of Dr. Hawley on the early history
of the Cayuga nation, [Footnote: _Early Chapters of Cayuga
History:_ By Charles Hawley, D.D., President of the Cayuga Historical
Society.]  has favored me, in a recent letter, with the following brief
but valuable summary of what is known in regard to the Iroquois towns:--

"When the Mohawks were first known, they occupied three principal towns
on the south side of the Mohawk river, between Ganajoharie and Schoharie
creeks. The most eastern was that of the "Turtles" (or Tortoise clan),
and was usually designated as such, and by the Dutch as the Lower or
First Castle. The Middle or Second Castle was commonly termed the
village of the "Bears;" while the Third or Upper Castle was generally
called Teonnondoge or Tionnontogen, a name apparently having reference
to the 'two mountains' near which the original town stood. After these
towns were destroyed by the French, in 1666, their people removed to the
north side of the river,--those of the lower town retreating a few miles
up the stream to the rapids; and then for a hundred years this was
generally known Caughnawaga (_Kahnawake_) "At the Rapids." The
Middle or Second Castle was called Gandagaro in 1670, Kanagiro in 1744,
etc. The third appears to have retained its old name in all positions."

"When the Oneidas were first known they occupied a position on the
headwaters of the Oneida inlet, and afterward gradually drew northward
toward the lake. Their great town was usually called by the name of the
tribe, as Onneiot, Onoyut, etc. One site, occupied about 1700, was
called and known generally as Kanowaroghare, said to signify 'a head on
a pole.'"

"The Onondagas, first known in 1615, occupied several sites, from a
point south of the east end of Oneida lake, where they were when first
known, to the Onondaga valley; but in all cases the chief town, when
named, was called Onondaga, from the name of the tribe. Their great
village in the Onondaga valley, according to Zeisberger, was known in
1750 as Tagochsanagecht, but this was a form derived from the name of
the Onondagas as used in council. In all ages this chief town, wherever
located, had other minor towns within from two to five miles, but they
are rarely named. The great town was also divided into districts, one
for each clan, each of which must have been known by the clan name, but
this is seldom referred to. This rule held good also in all the large
towns. A 'Bear village' was not occupied exclusively by members of the
Bear clan; but these predominated and exercised authority."

"The Cayugas in 1656 occupied three villages,--Onnontare, on a hill near
the Canandaigua river,--Thiohero, near the foot of Cayuga lake ('By the
Marsh,' or, 'Where the Rushes are'),--and a third, which generally took
the name of the tribe, Cayuga, but was occasionally divided into three
districts, like the other large towns."

"The Senecas, when visited by the Jesuits, occupied two great towns, and
several minor villages. The eastern of the two towns, near Victor, was
called Gandougarae. The western, on Honcoye creek, nearly always, in all
localities, took the name of the stream, which signifies 'bending.' It
is said that when the League was first formed, it was agreed that the
two great Seneca towns should be called by the names of two principal
sachems; but I am unable to find that this was carried out in
practice. In La Hontan's narrative of the De Nonville expedition, the
great western town was separated into two parts, Thegaronhies and
Danoncaritowi, which were the names of two important chiefs; while De
Nonville's and other accounts describe it as Totiakton, 'at the bend.'
This discrepancy, however, is found in all cases where the several towns
are mentioned, as it was quite common to speak of them by the name of
the principal chief. Thus, Cayuga in 1750 was called Tagayu, from
Togahayu, the well-known chief sachem; Onondaga was called Canasatago's
town, etc."

The frequent changes in the positions and names of Indian towns, thus
well explained and exemplified, will account; for the fact that so few
of the ancient names in the list which the tenacious memories of the
record-keepers retained have come down in actual use to modern
times. The well-known landmark of the Oneida stone seems to have
preserved the name of the town,--_Onenyute,_ "the projecting
rock,"--from which the nation derived its usual designation.
_Deserokenh_, or, as the Jesuit missionaries wrote it,
_Techiroguen_, was situated near the outlet of the Oneida lake, at
the point where the great northern trail crossed this outlet. A village
of some importance is likely to have been always found at or near that
locality. The same may be said of _Deyuhhero,_ or _Tiohero,_
where the main trail which united all the cantons crossed the river
outlet of Lake Cayuga.

In other cases, though the identity of names is clear, that of the
localities is more doubtful. The _Kaneghsadakeh_ of the list, the
"Hill-side town," may be the _Kanasadaga_ of the Senecas; but, as
General Clark remarks, the name might have been applied to any town on
the side of a mountain. In like manner _Deyughsweken_ (or
_Deyohsweken_), which is said to mean "flowing out," may have been
the town from which the Oswego river took its name, or a town at the
mouth of any other river; and _Deyaokenh,_ "the Forks," may have
been Tioga, or any other village at the junction of two
streams. _Fonondese_ ("it is a high hill") is perhaps the same name
as Onontare, which in Charlevoix's map appears as Onnontatacet;
[Footnote: See _"Early Chapters of Cayuga History,"_ p. 48.] but
the name may well have been a common one. A few other apparent
coincidences might be pointed out; but of most of the towns in the list
we can only say that no trace remains in name or known locality, and
that in some cases even the meaning of the names has ceased to be
remembered. General Clark sums up his conclusions on this point in the
following words: "They appear to belong to a remote--I may say a very
remote--age, and not to be referred to any particular known localities;
and this, as it appears to me, is more to the credit of the manuscript
as an archaic work."



NOTE F.

THE PRE-ARYAN RACE IN EUROPE AND AMERICA.


[The following is the concluding portion of an essay on "Indian
Migrations, as evidenced by Language," which was read at the Montreal
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in
August, 1882, and published in the "American Antiquarian" for January
and April, 1883. As the views set forth in this extract have a bearing
on the subjects discussed in the present work, the author takes the
opportunity of reproducing them here for the consideration of its
readers.]

It will be noticed that the evidence of language, and to some extent
that of tradition, leads to the conclusion that the course of migration
of the Indian tribes has been from the Atlantic coast westward and
southward. The Huron-Iroquois tribes had their pristine seat on the
lower St. Lawrence. The traditions of the Algonkins seem to point to
Hudson's Bay and the coast of Labrador. The Dakota stock had its oldest
branch east of the Alleghenies, and possibly (if the Catawba nation
shall be proved to be of that stock), on the Carolina
coast. Philologists are well aware that there is nothing in the language
of the American Indians to favor the conjecture (for it is nothing else)
which derives the race from eastern Asia. But in western Europe one
community is known to exist, speaking a language which in its general
structure manifests a near likeness to the Indian tongues. Alone of all
the races of the old continent the Basques or Euskarians of northern
Spain and southwestern France have a speech of that highly complex and
polysynthetic character which distinguishes the American
languages. There is not, indeed, any such positive similarity, in words
or grammar, as would prove a direct affiliation. The likeness is merely
in the general cast and mould of speech; but this likeness is so marked
as to have awakened much attention. If the scholars who have noticed it
had been aware of the facts now adduced with regard to the course of
migration on this continent, they would probably have been led to the
conclusion that this similarity in the type of speech was an evidence of
the unity of race. There seems reason to believe that Europe--at least
in its southern and western portions--was occupied in early times by a
race having many of the characteristics, physical and mental, of the
American aborigines. The evidences which lead to this conclusion are
well set forth in Dr. Dawson's recent work on "Fossil Man." Of this
early European people, by some called the Iberian race, who were
ultimately overwhelmed by the Aryan emigrants from central Asia, the
Basques are the only survivors that have retained their original
language; but all the nations of southern Europe, commencing with the
Greeks, show in their physical and mental traits a large intermixture of
this aboriginal race. As we advance westward, the evidence of this
infusion becomes stronger, until in the Celts of France and of the
British Islands it gives the predominant cast to the character of the
people. [Footnote: "The Basque may then be the sole surviving relic and
witness of an aboriginal western European population, dispossessed by
the intrusive Indo-European tribes. It stands entirely alone, no kindred
having yet been found for it in any part of the world. It is of an
exaggeratedly agglutinative type, incorporating into its verb a variety
of relations which are almost everywhere else expressed by an
independent word."--"The Basque forms a suitable stepping-stone from
which to enter the peculiar linguistic domain of the New World, since
there is no other dialect of the Old World which so much resembles in
structure the American languages."--Professor Whitney, in _"The Life
and Growth of Language"_ p. 258.]

If the early population of Europe were really similar to that of
America, then we may infer that it was composed of many tribes,
scattered in loose bands over the country, and speaking languages widely
and sometimes radically different, but all of a polysynthetic
structure. They were a bold, proud, adventurous people, good hunters and
good sailors. In the latter respect they were wholly unlike the
primitive Aryans, who, as was natural in a pastoral people of inland
origin, have always had in the east a terror of the ocean, and in Europe
were, within historic times, the clumsiest and least venturous of
navigators. If communities resembling the Iroquois and the Caribs once
inhabited the British islands and the western coasts of the adjacent
continent, we may be sure that their fleets of large canoes, such as
have been exhumed from the peat-deposits and ancient river-beds of
Ireland, Scotland, and France, swarmed along all the shores and
estuaries of that region. Accident or adventure may easily have carried
some of them across the Atlantic, not merely once, but in many
successive emigrations from different parts to mislead.