While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
The
more you read, and the better you understand Indian history, the
more you will be impressed with the injustice which has been
done the
Iroquois, not only in dispossessing them of their
inheritance, but in the estimation which has been made of their
character. They have been represented, as seen in the transition
state, the most unfavorable possible for judging correctly. In
the chapter of National Traits of Character, I have in two or
three instances quoted Washington Irving and might again allow
his opinions to relieve my own from the charge of partiality. He
says, in speaking of this same subject, that "the current
opinion of Indian character is too apt to be formed from the
miserable hordes which infest the frontiers, and hang on the
shirts of settlements. These are too commonly composed of
degenerate beings, corrupted and enfeebled by the voice of
society, without being benefited by its civilization."
"The proud independence which formed the main pillar of
motive virtue has been spoken down, and the whole moral fabric
lies in ruins. The spirits are humiliated and debased by a sense
of inferiority, and their native courage cowed and daunted by
the superior knowledge and power of their enlightened neighbors.
Society has advanced upon them like one of a those withering
airs that will sometimes breed desolation over a whole region of
fertility. It has enervated their strength, multiplied their
diseases, and super induced upon their original barbarity the
law-vices of artificial life. It has given them a thousand
superfluous wants, while it has diminished their means of mere
existence. It has driven before it the animals of the chase, who
fly from the sound of the axe and the smoke of the settlement
and seek refuge in the depths of remote forests, and yet
untrodden wilds. Thus do we often find the Indians in the
frontiers to be mere wrecks and remnants of once powerful
tribes, who have lingered in the vicinity of settlements, and
sunk into precarious and vagabond existence. Poverty, repining
and hopeless poverty a canker on the mind before unknown to them
corrodes their spirits and blights every free and noble
qualities of their nature. They loiter like vagrants about the
settlements among spacious dwellings, replete with elaborate
comforts, which only renders them more sensible of the
comparative wretchedness of their own condition. Luxury spreads
its ample board before their eyes, but they are excluded from
the banquet; plenty revels over the fields, but they are
starving in the midst of abundance. The whole wilderness
blossomed into a garden, but they feel as reptiles that infest
them. How different was their state while undisputed lords of
the soil? Their wants were few, and the means of gratification
within their reach, they saw every one among them sharing the
same lot, enduring the same hardships, feeding on the same
aliments, arrayed in the same rude garment. No roof then rose
under whose sheltering wings, that was not ever open to the
homeless stranger, no smoke curled among the trees, but he was
welcome to sit down by its fire and join the hunter in his
repast."
In discussing Indian character, writers have been too
prone to indulge in vulgar prejudice and passionate
exaggeration, instead of the candid temper of the true
philosopher. They have not sufficiently considered the peculiar
circumstance in which the Indians have been placed, and the
peculiar principles under which they having been educated. No
being acts more rigidly from rule than the Indians, his whole
conduct is regulated according to some general maxims early
implanted in his mind. The moral laws which govern him are few,
but he conforms to them all. The white man abounds in laws and
religion, morals, and manners, but how many of them does he
violate. In their intercourse with the Indians the white people
were continually trampling upon their religion and their sacred
rights. They were expected to look merely on while the graves of
their fathers were robbed of their treasures, and the bones of
their fathers were left to bleach upon the fields. And when
exasperated by the brutality of their conquerors, and driven to
deeds of vengeance, there was very little appreciation of the
motives which influenced them, and no attempt was made to
palliate their cruelties.
It was their custom to bury the dead with their best
clothing, and the various implements they had been in the habit
of using whilst living. If it was a warrior that they were
preparing for burial, they placed his tomahawk by his side and
his knife in his shield; with the hunter, his bow and arrows and
implements for cooking his food; with the woman, their kettles
and cooking apparatus and also food for all. Tobacco was
deposited in every grave; for to smoke was an Indian's idea of
felicity in the body and out of it, and in this there was not so
much difference as one might wish, between them and gentlemen of
a paler hue.
Among the Iroquois, and many other Indian nations, it
was the custom to place the dead upon scaffolds, built for the
purpose, from tree to tree, or within a temporary enclosure, and
underneath a fire was kept burning for several days.
They had known instances of persons reviving after they
were supposed to be dead, and this led to the conclusion that
the spirit sometimes returned to animate the body after it had
once fled. If there was no signs of life for ten days, the fire
was extinguished and the body left unmolested until
decomposition had begun to take place, when the remains were
buried, or, as was often the case, kept in the lodge for many
years. If they were obliged to desert the settlement where they
had long resided, these skeletons were collected from all the
families and buried in one common grave, with the same
ceremonies as when a single individual was interred.
They did not suppose the spirit was instantaneously
transferred from earth to Heaven, but that it wandered in aerial
region for many moons. In later days they only allowed ten days
for its flight. Their period for mourning continued only whilst
the spirit is wandering, as soon as they believe it has entered
Heaven they commenced rejoicing, saying, there is no longer
cause for sorrow, because it is now where happiness dwells
forever. Sometimes a piteous wailing was kept up every night for
a long time, but it was only their bereavement that they
bewailed, as they did not fear about the fate of those who died.
Not until they had heard of Purgatory from the Jesuits, or
endless woe from Protestants, did they look upon death with
terror, or life as anything but a blessing.
They were sometimes in the habit of addressing the
dead, as if they could hear. The following are the words of a
mother as she bends over her only son to look for the last time
upon his beloved face: "My son, listen once more to the words of
thy mother. Thou wast brought into life with her pains, thou
wast nourished with her life. She has attempted to be faithful
in raising you up. When you were young she loved you as her
life. Thy presence has been a source of great joy to her. Upon
thee she depended for support and comfort in her declining days.
But thou hast outstripped her and gone before. Our wise and
great Creator has ordered it thus. By his will, I am left yet,
to taste more of the miseries of this world. Thy relations and
friends have gathered about thy body to look upon thee for the
last time. They mourn, as with one mind, thy departure from
among us. We, too, have but a few days more and our journey will
be ended. We part now, and you are conveyed out of our sight.
But we shall soon meet again, and shall look upon each other,
then we shall part no more. Our Maker has called thee home, and
thither will we follow."
After the adoption of the league of the Iroquois, and
they dwelled in villages, this was one of the duties enjoined by
their religious teacher at their festivals: "It is the will of
the Great Spirit that you reverence the aged, even though they
be helpless as infants." And also, "Kindness to the orphan, and
hospitality to all." "If you tie up the clothes of an orphan
child, the Great Spirit will notice it, and reward you for it."
"To adopt an orphan, and bring them up in virtuous ways, is
pleasing to the Great Spirit." "If strangers wander about your
abode, welcome him to your home, be hospitable towards him,
speak to him with kind words, and forget not, always to make
mention of the Great Spirit."
The Indians lamentations, on being driven far away from the
graves of their fathers, have been the theme of all historians
and travelers. It can be easily imagined how those who so loved
their homes and revered their fathers' graves, would become
fierce with indignation and rage, on seeing themselves treated
as without human feeling, and the sacred relics of the dead
ploughed up and scattered as indifferently as the stones, or the
bones of the moose and the deer of the forest. It was this
feeling that often prompted them to acts of hostility, which
those who experienced them, ascribed to wanton cruelty and
barbarity.
In many of the villages there was a strangers home, a
house, for strangers where they were placed, while the old men
went about collecting skins for them to sleep upon, and food for
them to eat, expecting no reward.
They called it very rude for them to stare at them as
they passed in the streets, and said that they had as much
curiosity as the white
people, but they did not gratify it by intruding upon them, by
examining them. They would sometimes hide behind trees in order
to look at strangers, but never stood openly and gaze at them.
Their respective attention to missionaries was often
the result of their rules of politeness, as it is a part of the
Indian's code. Their councils are eminent for decorum, and no
person is interrupted during a speech. Some Indians, after
respectfully listening to a missionary, thought they would
relate to him some of their legends, but the good man could not
restrain his indignation, but pronounced them foolish fables,
while what he told them was sacred truth. The Indian was, in his
turn, offended, and said, we listened to your stories, why do
you not listen to ours? you are not instructed in the common
rules of civility.
A hunter, in his wandering for game, fell among the
back settlements of Virginia, and on account of the inclemency
of the weather, sought refuge at the house of a planter, whom he
met at the door. He was refused admission. Being both hungry and
thirsty, he asked for a bit of bread and a cup of cold water.
But the answer to every appeal was, " You, shall have nothing
here, get you gone you Indian dog! "
Some months afterwards this same planter lost himself in the
woods, and after a weary day of wandering, came to an Indian
cabin, into which he was welcomed. On inquiring the way and
distance to the settlement, and finding it was too far to think
of going that night, he asked if he could remain. Very cordially
the inmates replied, that he was at liberty to stay, and all
they had was at his service. They gave him food, they made a
bright fire to cheer and warm him, and supplied him with clean
deer- skin for his couch, and promised to conduct him the next
day on his journey. In the morning the Indian hunter and the
planter set out together through the forest, when they came in
sight of the white man's dwelling, the hunter, about to leave,
turned to his companion, and said, "Do you not know me?" The
white man was struck with horror, that he had been so long in
the power of one whom he had so inhumanly treated, and expected
now to experience his revenge. But on beginning to make excuses,
the Indian interrupted him saying, "when you see a poor Indian
fainting for a cup of cold water, don't say again, 'get you
gone, you Indian dog.'" and turned back to his hunting grounds.
Which best deserved the appellation of a Christian, and to which
will it most likely be said, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto
the least of these, ye have done it unto me."
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations and History of the Tuscarora Indians
