admin CHAPTER I.
THE AMERICAN ABORIGINES – CHARACTERISTICS AND CUSTOMS OF THE FIVE NATIONS OF NEW YORK.
THE American continent, in its natural features, presents a striking and diversified display of resources and grandeurs. Bounded by oceans; indented with numerous gulfs and bays; intersected and drained by large rivers; embracing lakes equal in extent to seas, it affords every facility for commerce; while its fertile valleys and extensive plains are admirably adapted to agricultural pursuits, and its rocks are stored with minerals of inestimable value. The magnificence of mountain scenery, the dashing flood and deafening roar of Niagara, the subterranean labyrinths of Mammoth Cave, are features of nature which fill the beholder with wonder and amazement. To what people were these resources offered and these grandeurs presented in the dim ages of the past? With only the shadowy and uncertain light of tradition, little else than speculation can furnish anything like a beginning to the history of the aborigines of America. The ruins of cities and pyramids in Mexico and Central America, and. the numerous mounds so common in the valley of the Mississippi, are monuments which point to a people more skilled in arts and farther advanced in civilization than the Indian, found in occupancy when the first Europeans landed. Some of these mounds appear to have been erected for burial places, and others for defense. The remains of fortifications present evidence of mechanical skill, and no little display of the knowledge of engineering. Metallic implements of ingenious design and superior finish, and finely wrought pottery, glazed and colored, equal to the best specimens of modern manufacture, have been found, showing a higher degree of mechanical skill than the Indian has ever been known to possess. Some of these remains have been found twenty feet or more below the surface, showing that they must have lain there for centuries. All the investigations of the antiquarian to discover by what people these mounds were erected have ended in uncertainty.
If these are the relics of a lost people, as many believe they are, it seems somewhat probable that they were from Egypt. Their pyramids and skill in the arts, together with the fact that human bodies have been found preserved somewhat similar to Egyptian mummies, support this theory. At an early age the Egyptians, who were noted for their skill in navigation, sailed around Africa, and made many other voyages, in some of which they may have reached America. Aristotle, Plato and other ancient writers appear to have been aware of an extensive body of land in the West, speaking of it as an island, greater than Europe or Africa. It is also supposed that the Egyptians may have reached America through Asia. It is related that an Asiatic people emigrated to Egypt and conquered the Mizraimites, who were then in possession; and that they became distinguished for their arts, built cities and erected gigantic pyramids, which still remain as evidence of their skill and power. The Mizraimites, smarting under their tyranny, rose against them, and after a long struggle succeeded in driving them out of the land. They retreated to the northeast, leaving mounds and walls as far as Siberia as traces of their passage, and, it is thought, crossed Behring’s strait, and eventually settled in the Mississippi valley and Mexico.
Leaving conjecture, in regard to the earliest inhabitants of this continent, it is enough to say that the pioneer explorers of our State found dwelling on its soil a race of savages whom English speaking people have universally called Indians since the American aborigines were first met with in the West Indies. New York was occupied by five confederate tribes of these savages, originally named by the English the Five Nations, by the French the Iroquois, and by themselves Konoshiom “cabin builders” – and Hendtnosaume – the “people of the long house.” The “long house ” formed by the Iroquois confederacy extended east and west through the central portion of the State, having at its eastern portal the Mohawks and at its western the Senecas; while between them dwelt the Oneidas Onondagas and Cayugas, and after 17 14 a sixth nation, the Tuscaroras, southeast of Oneida lake.
While we need not share the enthusiasm of some writers, who have competed for the discovery of the most admirable qualities in the Indians of New York, it is yet impossible to regard without interest these primitive inhabitants of our State. It is needless to dwell minutely on their personal appearance, as their muscular forms, reddish brown and beardless faces, black eyes and coarse, straight black hair, are more or less familiar 10 the present generation. The derivation of the race is still matter of speculation among curious scholars, and the origin of the league of the Iroquois is but little better understood. ” Research into conflicting tradition ” led Mr. Brodhead to adopt 1539 as the date of that event, and to conclude that the ancestors of the Five Nations, before settling in New York, were driven from Canada by the Adirondack One of their own traditions of their origin represented that in the beginning Tharonhyjagon the ” Holder of the Heavens,” evoked them from beneath a mountain near the falls of the Oswego river (which have nothing like a mountain within thirty miles of them); that they journeyed to their final dwelling places by way of that river and its tributary waters; and that they adopted their league at the suggestion of the wise men of the central tribe, the Onondagas, after experiencing the miseries of hostility among themselves and defeat by enemies from abroad.
While such myths but illustrate the ignorance which has always prevailed as to the origin of the Iroquois and their federal compact, the features of their national character and domestic and public policy, some of which made them undeniably superior to the other savages of North America, have been pretty well ascertained. They lived in huts made of bark fastened by withes to a framework of poles, many families usually crowding into one cabin; permanent villages were stockaded with two rows of posts crossed over a log lying between them, and thus fortified were called castles. They clothed themselves scantily in the skins of wild beasts; and fed on the game brought down by the flint-tipped arrows of the men, who would do no servile labor until too old for war and the chase, and on the corn, beans and pumpkins, or squashes, cultivated by the women. Beasts and reptiles indiscriminately were game to them, and their cookery was of the nastiest description. They had a childish fondness for gaudy ornaments and fabrics, and for showy ceremonies and formalities. Polygamy existed among them, and the marriage agreement was annulled at pleasure, the household goods being divided between the man and woman, and the children accompanying the latter.
The shadow of government existing among the tribes was administered by their chiefs, some of whom, as among certain civilized people, held their position by inheritance, and others by conspicuous force of character. Their jurisdiction did not extend to the punishment of crime, which was left to private vengeance rather than committed to public authority. In the matter of religion these savages believed in a Good Spirit and a happy immortality, but worshiped the devil, with heathenish mummeries and incantations.
One of the most notable of the social arrangements of the Iroquois was the division of each nation into clans, distinguished by symbolic devices which have been called “totems,” which they painted upon their cabins and their persons, and in their later history affixed to the deeds of the lands given up by them to the whites. The totems were the same in each of the Five Nations, and the bearer of any one of them was entitled to hospitality from those of his totemic division in any other tribe. The chief clans, as distinguished by their symbols, were those of the Tortoise, the Wolf, the Bear and the Beaver; and the devices of the minor ones were the Deer, Potato, Great and Little Plovers and Eagle.
In their universal fondness for war and their methods of conducting it the Iroquois betrayed their essential savagery. They fought with bows, spears and stone hatchets, and shielded themselves with tough leather; but eagerly obtained rifles, knives and steel tomahawks from the Dutch traders on becoming acquainted with such weapons. They attacked by surprise and ambuscade, and whenever possible fought under cover. They took the scalps of their fallen enemies for trophies, and usually put their captives to death with fiendish tortures, in the unflinching endurance of which was displayed the highest degree of the stoicism which was a marked feature of the Indian character. Hostilities might be suspended at the demand of the women without discredit to the braves who had been carrying them on.
It was in three respects that the Iroquois chiefly showed their mental superiority over the savage tribes surrounding them, namely: the original organization of their league; the boldness of conception with which they pushed their victorious campaigns almost to the eastern and southern limits of the United States and throughout the Mississippi valley; and the cultivation of oratory and its display in their deliberative assemblies. Their confederation united them but loosely and for a few general purposes. There was no authoritative central government, and common action was taken only upon a unanimous vote of the tribes represented in the great council, which sat with the Onondagas, in which each tribe must also speak with unanimous voice. The military advantages of the associated action of the Five Nations are obvious. By their united weight they overcame all opposition until confronted by the superior discipline and armament of the white man, and made their common name a terror to the other native tribes throughout the greater portion of the United States. Their dominance is thus eloquently pictured in Street’s ” Frontenac:”
“The fierce Adirondacs had fled from their wrath.
The Huron been swept from their merciless path;
Around, the Ottawa’s, like leaves, had been strewn.
And the lake of the Eries struck silent and lone,
The Lenape, lords once of valley and hill.
Made women, bent low at their conquerors’ will.
By the far Mississippi the Illini shrank
When the trail of the Tortoise was seen on the bank;
On the hills of New England the Pequod turned pale
When the howl of the Wolf swelled at night on the gale;
And the Cherokee shook in his green, smiling bowers
When the foot of the Bear stamped his carpet of flowers.”
The relative superiority of the Mohawks among the Iroquois, except in point of numbers, is a fact attested abundant historical authority, including the following passage by Mr. Brodhead:
“Of all the confederated nations the Mohawks were the bravest and fiercest. No hunter warriors on the North American continent ever filled a higher measure of heroism and military renown. Their very name was a synonym for blood. From their propinquity to the Dutch settlements, and their superior martial exploits, the name of this nation was frequently applied, by way of eminence, to the whole Iroquois confederation; among all the nations of which the Mohawks were held in the highest veneration. Standing at the eastern door of the ‘ long house,’ the Mohawk warriors were the chief agents in carrying to the sea the conquests of the Iroquois. Far across the hills of Massachusetts, and through the valley of the Connecticut, the dreaded name of Mohawk enforced an absolute submission; and their annual envoys collected tribute and dictated laws with all the arbitrary authority of Roman proconsuls.”
After the advent of the whites opposing interests among them appealed to the Iroquois with distracting influences which finally ruined their famous league and drove them from their ancient hunting grounds.
Though the Indians are generally credited with taciturnity, their deliberations in council were monuments of verbosity. It was in their parleys with the whites in early times that they made the long-winded speeches, which, as interpreted by the civilized reporters, have laid the foundation of their oratorical reputation. Their language was extremely figurative, their speeches often consisting largely of a search for picturesque conceits to express the simplest ideas.
It has been customary with recent writers on the Indians to ascribe to them many and lofty excellencies and abilities, and to begin by deprecating the alleged disposition to do them injustice and to ignore their claims to respect and admiration. If such a disposition ever existed, the tide of opinion has of late certainly been flowing the other way, and it may be time for the ebb. There seems to have been something like statesmanship in the formation of the league of the Iroquois, albeit the expedient was the simplest possible, and the object success in savage warfare; also in the means by which the league was strengthened, including the complicated system of family and tribal relationship; but has not the glory of this barbarian union been exaggerated. For example, must we believe all we read of Indian oratory. Not satisfied with the eloquent periods ascribed to the red speech-makers, their eulogists remind us that we have only white men’s versions of what the orators said, and assume that the speeches suffered by the interpretation. But it is possible that they gained. The interpreters, it is said, were often illiterate men; but they were in all cases less so than the orators, and in many cases they must be admitted to have been quite adequate to the task. One of the most famous of Indian orations is the address of Garangula, alias La Grande Gueule – Big Mouth, as Mr. Parkman translates it – to De La Barre in the conference at the mouth of Salmon river, in Oswego county; “but this,” says Mr. Clinton, in his celebrated eulogy of the Iroquois, “was interpreted by Monsieur Le Moine, a French Jesuit, and recorded on the spot by Baron La Hontan, men of enlightened and cultivated minds.” The man who translated it from the French must have been a scholar, and it is not likely that the speech suffered in his hands. Mr. Parkman makes a very suggestive remark on Big Mouth: ” Doubtless as he stood in full dress before the governor and the officers, his head plumed, his face painted, his figure draped in a colored blanket and his feet decked with embroidered moccasins, he was a picturesque and striking object; he was less so as he squatted almost naked by his lodge fire, with a piece of board laid across his lap, chopping rank tobacco with a scalping knife to fill his pipe, and entertaining the grinning circle with grotesque stories and obscene jests.” Fondness for speechmaking does not necessarily argue eloquence, and it is not easy to believe in a phenomenal development of true oratory in a race of savages, who were primarily warriors, in a skulking and brutal fashion, and whose home life, if we may use the expression, was, generation after generation alike, contentedly passed in idleness and squalor. On the whole we may say that, questionable as may have been some of the white man’s dealings with the Iroquois, the expulsion from their ancient territory of that people, with their doubtful virtues and indubitable barbarity, was an exceedingly good riddance.
SOURCE: History of Wyoming County, N.Y., with Illustrations, Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Some Pioneers and Prominent Residents; F.W. Beers & Co.; 1880