Part 12

“_He once told a lie_”—was the emphatical expression of an Indian to me, in 1794, when I was attending to the surveying of a large body of lands in, what was then called, ‘The French-Creek Country,’ and West of the Alleghany River: and, as some of my people were killed by the Western Indians, I found it necessary, while the surveying was going on, to visit the Indian Towns on the Alleghany River frequently:—they were inhabited by the Senecas. General Wayne was then on his way, with his army, to the Indian settlements on the Miami River.

One day, when I was at the Cornplanter’s town, the ‘_News-Spout_,’ as it is called, was heard. All the Indians in the village immediately retired to their houses (and even their dogs went with them;) when an old man went out to meet the person who brought the news, and to take him to the Long, or Council-House, where a fire was made and refreshments were carried to him, and time given for him to dress and paint himself, so as to appear decent.

When sufficient time had elapsed for the preparatives to be performed, the chiefs went first to the house; and, as the young men were following, I asked an Indian—who spoke English, and to whom (as he professed to be a priest, physician, and conjurer) I gave the name of Doctor—whether there was any impropriety in my going to hear the news. He said, “No”—and that, as I was received as a friend and visiter, all their houses were open to me: and if I did not go without any ceremony, it would appear as if _I doubted their words and hospitality_; which was considered as the greatest affront that could be put on an Indian. For that, if there was any secret business going on, they would inform me of it, in a friendly way; and then I might retire.

I accordingly went into the house with him; when the Chiefs immediately rose, and gave me a seat among them.

All the Indians in the house were smoking their pipes when I came in; and the stranger was sitting opposite the Chiefs, in a seat, or rather a platform, by himself. The time appeared to me very long, as I was anxious to hear the news; being much interested in the event, as the Indians had been deliberating, whether or not they would permit me to continue surveying, or send me out of the country: and, what surprised me, was, that no one—contrary to their usual custom—asked him for the news; and I was at a loss to account for their conduct. Eventually, the Indian himself—after prefacing the business, with telling them, he had no doubt,—as they knew he had been to the West—they would be gratified in hearing his news. But no one appeared to signify his assent or negative. The Indian then gave an account of an affair between a convoy of Americans—who were carrying reinforcements and provisions to one of our frontier posts—and the Indians; and they had killed the commanding officer and a number of our men: and, after he had related all he had to say, no one asked for any particulars of the action, or for any corroborating circumstance; as I had formerly observed, they were particularly polite to strangers and visiters, and were very cautious to say or do any thing to hurt their feelings, and, soon after, the chiefs and other Indians began to leave the house.

I left the house with the Doctor; and, as soon as we had passed the door, I expressed my surprise to him, at the manner they treated the man who brought the news, as it was so different from any treatment I had before seen, when visited by strangers; and that I would thank him to inform me of the cause of it:—when he, without any hesitation, and with considerable emphasis, answered, “HE ONCE TOLD A LIE”—and continued: “What that man said, may be so true; may be so not. We always listen to what a newsman has to say,—even when we know him to be a liar. But, whether we believe him or not, it is not our custom to let him know; or to say any thing on the subject: for, if we had asked him any questions about the fight, it would have been a great gratification to him; as he would have concluded some of the company did believe him: which is a thing we do not indulge any person in, who has been guilty of telling a lie.” He concluded, by saying, “_He all one as dead_.”

PETER OTSAQUETTE, THE ONEIDAN.

Peter Otsaquette was the son of a man of consideration among the Oneida Indians of New York. At the close of the Revolutionary war, he was noticed by the Marquis de La Fayette, who, to a noble zeal for liberty, united the most philanthropic feelings. Viewing, therefore, this young savage with peculiar interest, and anticipating the happy results to be derived from his moral regeneration, he took him, though scarcely twelve years old, to France. Peter arrived at that period when Louis XVI. and Maria Antoinette were in the zenith of their glory. There he was taught the accomplishments of a gentleman;—music, drawing, and fencing, were made familiar to him, and he danced with a grace that a Vestris could not but admire. At about eighteen, his separation from a country in which he had spent his time so agreeably and so profitably, became necessary. Laden with favours from the Marquis, and the miniatures of those friends he had left behind, Peter departed for America—inflated, perhaps, with the idea, that the deep ignorance of his nation, with that of the Indians of the whole continent, might be dispelled by his efforts, and he become the proud instrument of the civilization of thousands.

Prosecuting his route to the land of his parents, he came to the city of Albany; not the uncivilized savage, not with any of those marks which bespoke a birth in the forest, or years spent in toiling the wilds of a desert, but possessing a fine commanding figure, an expressive countenance, an intelligent eye, with a face scarcely indicative of the race from which he was descended. He presented, at this period, an interesting spectacle: a child of the wilderness was beheld about to proceed to the home of his forefathers, having received the brilliant advantages of a cultivated mind, and on his way to impart to the nation that owned him, the benefits which civilization had given him. It was an opportunity for the philosopher to contemplate, and to reflect on the future good this young Indian might be the means of producing.

Shortly after his arrival in Albany—where he visited the first families—he took advantage of Governor Clinton’s journey to Fort Stanwix (where a treaty was to be held with the Indians,) to return to his tribe. On the route, Otsaquette amused the company (among whom were the French Minister, Count De Moustiers, and several gentlemen of respectability) by his powers on various instruments of music. At Fort Stanwix, he found himself again with the companions of his early days, who saw and recognised him. His friends and relations had not forgotten him, and he was welcomed to his home and to his blanket.

But that which occurred soon after his reception, led him to a too fearful anticipation of an unsuccessful project; for the Oneidas, as if they could not acknowledge Otsaquette, attired in the dress with which he appeared before them,—a mark which did not disclose his nation,—and, thinking that he had assumed it, as if ashamed of his own native costume, the garb of his ancestors, they tore it from him with a savage avidity, and a fiend-like ferociousness, daubed on the paint to which he had been so long unused, and clothed him with the uncouth habiliments held sacred by his tribe. Their fiery ferocity, in the performance of the act, showed but too well the bold stand they were about to take against the innovations they supposed Otsaquette was to be the agent for affecting against their immemorial manners and customs, and which, from the venerable antiquity of their structure, it would be nothing short of sacrilege to destroy.

Thus the reformed savage was taken back again to his native barbarity, and—as if to cap the climax of degradation to a mind just susceptible of its own powers—was _married to a squaw_!

From that day, Otsaquette was no longer the accomplished Indian, from whom every wish of philanthropy was expected to be realized. He was no longer the instrument by whose power the emancipation of his countrymen from the thraldom of ignorance and superstition, was to be effected. From that day, he was again an inmate with the forest; was once more buried in his original obscurity, and his nation only viewed him as _an equal_. Even a liberal grant from the State, failed of securing to him that superior consideration among them which his civilization had procured for him with the rest of mankind. The commanding preeminence acquired from instruction, from which it was expected ambition would have sprung up, and acted as a double stimulant, from either the natural inferiority of the savage mind, or the predetermination of his countrymen—became of no effect, and, in a little time, was wholly annihilated. Otsaquette was lost! His moral perdition began from the hour he left Fort Stanwix. Three short months had hardly transpired, when Intemperance had marked him as her own, and soon hurried him to the grave. And, as if the very transition had deadened all the finer feelings of his nature, the picture given him by the Marquis—the very portrait of his affectionate friend and benefactor himself—he parted with!

Extraordinary and unnatural as the conduct of this educated savage may appear, the anecdote is not of a kind altogether unique; which proves, that little or nothing is to be expected from conferring a literary education upon those children of the forest:—An Indian, named George White-Eyes, was taken, while a boy, to the college at Princeton, where he received a classical education. On returning to his nation, he made some little stay in Philadelphia. He was amiable in his manners, and of modest demeanour, without exhibiting any trait of the savage whatever; but, no sooner had he rejoined his friends and former companions, in the land of his nativity, than he dropped the garb and manners of civilization, and resumed those of the savage, and, drinking deep of their intoxicating cup, soon put a period to his existence.

Many other instances might be adduced, to show how ineffectual have been the attempts to plant civilization on savage habits, by means of _literary_ education—“Can the leopard change his spots?”

THE CATASTROPHE.

The son of a Kickapoo Chief, being engaged to a Ouiattanon girl, came in quest of her to fort Knox, at Vincennes—though an Indian war was then waging against the United States; and, in this, the Kickapoos were among the most formidable. We happened to be there at this time. It was summer, and the weather very warm. The young Kickapoo was admitted into the fort, and, among other presents, threw down several joints of venison; observing to the commanding officer, that, if he could not eat them himself, (for they were tainted,) they might answer for his _hogs_ and _dogs_—muttering at the same time, and making the sign of a halter round his neck, that perhaps they might hang him for appearing among them; alluding, no doubt, to the then Indian war.

On the evening of the same day the young Kickapoo got into a drunken frolic, with other savages, among whom was the before mentioned Indian. The latter said to the Kickapoo, “May be I shall kill you:” and, without further preface, he plunged a knife into him—which instantly proved fatal. At this moment the Ouiattanons in company took the alarm—fearful of the consequences that might befal their tribe, from the death of the son of a powerful chieftain. It was therefore determined to propitiate the Kickapoo’s father, by sending a deputation to him with the present of a ten gallon keg of whisky as a peace offering. This was furnished for the purpose, on request, by the commanding officer of the fort. They had not gone far when the precious liquor proved too great a temptation: the keg was broached, and soon emptied. What then was to be done?

Next morning, however, they appeared again at the fort—deplored the ‘_accident_,’ (as they called it,) and begged for another keg of liquor. This too was granted—and off they went again. But this keg met with the fate of the former: its contents proved an irresistible temptation. As no more whisky could now be obtained, the mission fell through.

Upon this, the Indians appeared before the fort, with the murderer in custody, under the window of the writer, and demanded justice to be done on the prisoner. He told them it was an affair for themselves to settle, as it was confined to themselves alone. They now marched in Indian file, carrying off the murderer, who, every now and then, looked fearfully behind him—for the brother of the deceased’s sweetheart had taken post next in his rear. They had not proceeded far, when this brother plunged a knife into the prisoner’s back, which broke, and a part was left buried in the wound. The whole party now returned before the fort—the wounded man singing his death-song. He was borne off by his friends into a thicket, in the prairie, where all their efforts to extract the broken blade proved ineffectual; and the next day or two he died.

The Spider, a brother of the murderer, and then at Kaskaskia, hearing of the predicament which had befallen the latter, hastened to Vincennes—but death had closed the scene. He came in time, however, to attend the funeral. When the body was about to be consigned to the earth, he opened the blanket which enveloped the corpse, and taking off a silver ornament which encompassed his head, he bound it around that of the defunct, saying, “There, brother! this will bring you respect in the land of Spirits.”

BUFFALO HUNTING.

The buffalo, more properly called the bison, is the great object of Indian hunting in the west. These animals abound in the prairies; and they are often seen coursing over the plains in immense herds. Thousands of them appear under the direction of one of their number, who acts as leader. This propensity to follow a leader affords a ready means to the Indians of destroying them. The manner in which this is accomplished is graphically described in the following extract from the account of a late writer. It affords a wild picture of the scenes which present themselves to the notice of the traveller as he passes through the great prairies of the west.

We passed a precipice of about one hundred and twenty feet high, under which lay scattered the fragments of at least one hundred carcases of buffaloes, although the water, which had washed away the lower part of the hill, must have carried off many of the dead. These buffaloes had been chased down the precipice, in a way very common on the Missouri, and by which vast herds are destroyed in a moment. The mode of hunting is, to select one of the most active and fleet young men, who is disguised, by a buffalo skin around his body, the skin of the head, with the ears and the horns, fastened on his own head, in such a way as to deceive the buffalo. Thus dressed, he fixes himself at a convenient distance, between a herd of buffaloes and any of the river precipices, which sometimes extend for some miles. His companions, in the meantime, get into the rear, and on the side of the herd, and, at a given signal, show themselves, and advance towards the buffalo: they instantly take the alarm; and, finding the hunters beside them, they run towards the disguised Indian or decoy, who leads them on at full speed toward the river, when, suddenly securing himself in some crevice of the cliff which he had previously fixed on, the herd is left on the brink of the precipice. It is then in vain for the foremost to retreat, or even to stop—they are pressed on by the hindmost rank, who, seeing no danger, but from the hunters, goad on those before them, till the whole are precipitated, and the shore is strewed with their dead bodies. Sometimes, in this perilous seduction, the Indian is himself either trodden under foot, by the rapid movements of the buffaloes or missing his footing in the cliff, is urged down the precipice along with the falling herd.

The Indians now select as much meat as they choose, and the rest is abandoned to the wolves, and creates a most dreadful stench. The wolves who had been feasting on these carcases were very fat, and so gentle, that one of them was killed with an espontoon.

RELIGION OF THE INDIANS.

The earliest visiters of the New World, on seeing among the Indians neither priests, temples, idols, nor sacrifices, represented them as a people wholly destitute of religious opinions. Closer inquiry, however, showed that a belief in the spiritual world, however imperfect, had a commanding influence over almost all their actions. Their creed includes even some lofty and pure conceptions. Under the title of the Great Spirit, the Master of Life, the Maker of heaven and earth, they distinctly recognise a supreme ruler of the universe and an arbiter of their destiny. A party of them, when informed by the missionaries of the existence of a being of infinite power, who had created the heavens and the earth, with one consent exclaimed, “_Atahocan! Atahocan!_” that being the name of their principal deity. According to Long, the Indians among whom he resided ascribe every event, propitious or unfortunate, to the favour or anger of the Master of Life. They address him for their daily subsistence; they believe him to convey to them presence of mind in battle; and amid tortures they thank him for inspiring them with courage. Yet though this one elevated and just conception is deeply graven on their minds, it is combined with others which show all the imperfection of unassisted reason in attempting to think rightly on this great subject. It may even be observed, that the term, rendered into our language “great spirit,” does not really convey the idea of an immaterial nature. It imports with them merely some being possessed of lofty and mysterious powers, and in this sense is applied to men, and even to animals. The brute creation, which occupies a prominent place in all their ideas, is often viewed by them as invested, to a great extent, with supernatural powers; an extreme absurdity, which, however, they share with the civilized creeds of Egypt and India.

When the missionaries, on their first arrival, attempted to form an idea of the Indian mythology, it appeared to them extremely complicated, more especially because those who attempted to explain it had no fixed opinions. Each man differed from his neighbour, and at another time from himself; and when the discrepancies were pointed out, no attempt was made to reconcile them. The southern tribes, who had a more settled faith, are described by Adair as intoxicated with spiritual pride, and denouncing even their European allies as “the accursed people.” The native Canadian, on the contrary, is said to have been so little tenacious, that he would at any time renounce all his theological errors for a pipe of tobacco, though, as soon as it was smoked, he immediately relapsed. An idea was found prevalent respecting a certain mystical animal, called Mesou or Messessagen, who, when the earth was buried in water, had drawn it up and restored it. Others spoke of a contest between the hare, the fox, the beaver, and the seal, for the empire of the world. Among the principal nations of Canada, the hare is thought to have attained a decided preeminence; and hence the Great Spirit and the Great Hare are sometimes used as synonymous terms. What should have raised this creature to such distinction seems rather unaccountable; unless it were that its extreme swiftness might appear something supernatural. Among the Ottowas alone the heavenly bodies become an object of veneration; the sun appears to rank as their supreme deity.

To dive into the abyss of futurity has always been a favourite object of superstition. It has been attempted by various means; but the Indian seeks it chiefly through his dreams, which always bear with him a sacred character. Before engaging in any high undertaking, especially in hunting or war, the dreams of the principal chiefs are carefully watched and studiously examined; and according to the interpretation their conduct is guided. A whole nation has been set in motion by the sleeping fancies of a single man. Sometimes a person imagines in his sleep that he has been presented with an article of value by another, who then cannot, without impropriety, leave the omen unfulfilled. When Sir William Johnson, during the American war, was negotiating an alliance with a friendly tribe, the chief confidentially disclosed that, during his slumbers, he had been favoured with a vision of Sir William bestowing upon him the rich laced coat which formed his full dress. The fulfilment of this revelation was very inconvenient; yet, on being assured that it positively occurred, the English commander found it advisable to resign his uniform. Soon after, however, he unfolded to the Indian a dream with which he had himself been favored, and in which the former was seen presenting him with a large tract of fertile land most commodiously situated. The native ruler admitted that, since the vision had been vouchsafed, it must be realized, yet earnestly proposed to cease this mutual dreaming, which he found had turned much to his own disadvantage.

The manitou is an object of peculiar veneration; and the fixing upon this guardian power is not only the most important event in the history of a youth, but even constitutes his initiation into active life. As a preliminary, his face is painted black, and he undergoes a severe fast, which is, if possible, prolonged for eight days. This is preparatory to the dream in which he is to behold the idol destined ever after to afford him aid and protection. In this state of excited expectation, and while every nocturnal vision is carefully watched, there seldom fails to occur to his mind something which, as it makes a deep impression, is pronounced his manitou. Most commonly it is a trifling and even fantastic article; the head, beak, or claw of a bird, the hoof of a cow, or even a piece of wood. However, having undergone a thorough perspiration in one of their vapour-baths, he is laid on his back, and a picture of it is drawn upon his breast by needles of fish-bone dipped in vermilion. A good specimen of the original being procured, it is carefully treasured up; and to it he applies in every emergency, hoping that it will inspire his dreams, and secure to him every kind of good fortune. When, however, notwithstanding every means of propitiating its favour, misfortunes befall him, the manitou is considered as having exposed itself to just and serious reproach. He begins with remonstrances, representing all that has been done for it, the disgrace it incurs by not protecting its votary, and, finally, the danger that, in case of repeated neglect, it may be discarded for another. Nor is this considered merely as an empty threat; for if the manitou is judged incorrigible, it is thrown away; and by means of a fresh course of fasting, dreaming, sweating, and painting, another is installed, from whom better success may be hoped.