Part 9

But while the theory of the Iroquois government thus distributed its powers between two classes of chiefs, one of which ruled in the council, and the other in the field, there was a third power of controlling influence in both, which respected, it is true, this ancient theory, but which annulled, confirmed, originated, or set aside all other power. I allude to the popular will as exercised by the warriors. Whatever was proposed had to come under the voice of the armed men, who had the free right, at all times, to assemble in council, and put their approval or veto on every measure. Practically considered, a purer democracy, perhaps, never existed. The chiefs themselves had no power in advance of public sentiment, or else it was their policy, as we see it at this day, to express no such power, but rather to keep in abeyance of, or be the mere agents of the popular will. In all negociations such absolute power is disclaimed by them. Acting on principles of the highest diplomacy, they invariably defer general answers, until a reference can be had to the warriors or men. They risk nothing by taking grounds in doubtful positions in advance, and the consequence is that the results of most Indian councils are unanimous.

There was yet a reserved power in the Iroquois councils which deserves to be mentioned. I allude to the power of the matrons. This was an acknowledged power of a conservative character, which might, at all times, be brought into requisition, whenever policy required it. And it exists to-day as incontestibly as it did centuries ago. They were entrusted with the power to propose a cessation of arms. They were literally peace-makers. A proposition from the matrons to drop the war club could be made without compromitting the character of the tribe for bravery; and accordingly, we find, in the ancient organization, that there was a male functionary, an acknowledged speaker, who was called the representative or messenger of the matrons. These matrons sat in council, but it must needs have been seldom that a female possessed the kind of eloquence suitable to public assemblies; and beyond this there was a sentiment of respect due to the female class, which led the tribes, at their general organization, to create this office.

Councils, so organized—so perpetually and truly swayed by popular will, gave the greatest scope for eloquence. Eloquence, in the aborigines, takes the place entirely of books and letters. It is the only means of acting on the multitude, and we find that it was, from the earliest times, strenuously and successfully cultivated by the Iroquois. By far the best and most abundant specimens of native eloquence we possess are from this stock. And their history is replete in proofs that they employed it, not only in their internal affairs and negociations, but in teaching to appreciate their rights and the principles of their government.

[_d._] Ancient Worship.

SACRED FIRE.—THE SUN A SYMBOL OF DIVINE INTELLIGENCE.

It was a striking peculiarity of the ancient religious system of the Iroquois that, once a year, the priesthood supplied the people with sacred fire. For this purpose, a set time was announced for the ruling priest’s visit. The entire village was apprized of this visit, and the master of each lodge was expected to be prepared for this annual rite. Preliminary to the visit, his lodge fire was carefully put out and ashes scattered about it, as a symbolic sign of desolation and want. Deprived of this element, they were also deprived of its symbolic influence, the sustaining aid and countenance of the supreme power, whose image they recognized in the sun.

It was to relieve this want, and excite hope and animation in breasts which had throbbed with dread, that the priest visited the lodge. Exhibiting the insignia of the sacerdotal office, he proceeded to invoke the Master of Life in their behalf, and ended his mission by striking fire from the flint, or from percussion, and lighting anew the domestic fire. The lodge was then swept and garnished anew, and a feast succeeded.

This sacred service annually performed, had the effect to fix and increase the reverence of the people for the priestly office. It acted as a renewal of their ecclesiastical fealty; and the consequence was, that the institution of the priesthood among these cantons was deeply and firmly seated. Whether this rite had any connection with the period of the solstices, or with the commencement of the lunar year, is not known, but is highly probable. That men living in the open air, who are regardful of the celestial phenomena, should not have noted the equinoxes, is not probable. They must have necessarily known the equinoxes by the observation of capes and mountains, which cast their shadows from points and describe angles so very diverse at the periods of the sun’s greatest recession, or return. Yet we know not that the time of such extreme withdrawal and return marked and completed the circle of the year. Their year was, in all the Algonquin tribes, a lunar year. It consisted of thirteen moons, each of which is distinctly named. Thirteen moons of 28 days each, counting from visible phase to phase, make a year of 364 days, which is the greatest astronomical accuracy reached by the North American tribes.

That the close of the lunar series should have been the period of putting out the fire, and the beginning of the next, the time of relumination, from new fire, is so consonant to analogy in the tropical tribes, as to be probable.

The rite itself offers a striking coincidence, with that solemn performance at the close of each year, by the Aztec priests, in the valley of Mexico, and may not unreasonably be supposed to denote a common origin for the belief. The northern tribes had, however, dropped from the ritual, if it ever was in it, that of their remote ancestors, the horrid rite so revolting in the Aztec annals, of _human sacrifice_. For although prisoners were burned at the stake, this was not an act of the priesthood. It was a purely popular effervescence of revenge for losses of friends in war, or some other acts done by the enemy. Such sacrifices appeased the popular cry—all classes, young and old, rejoiced in them. They were looked on alone as an evidence of their nation’s power; and by it the warriors also shewed their regard for the relations of the bereaved. The widow of the warrior dried her tears. The children rejoiced—they hardly knew why—it was the triumph of the nation. And they were thus educated to regard the public burning of prisoners as a proper and glorious deed. Women, indeed, rejoiced in it apparently more than men. It seemed a solace for the loss of their progeny. And all authors agree in attributing to the older females the most extravagant and repulsive acts of participation and rejoicing in these warlike rites.

[_e._] Witchcraft.

The belief in witchcraft prevailed extensively among the North American tribes. It is known that even in modern times, it was one of the principal means used by the Shawnee prophet to rid himself of his opponents, and that the venerable Shawnee chief Tarhe and others were sacrificed to this diabolical spirit.

Among the Iroquois the belief was universal, and its effects upon their prosperity and population, if tradition is to be credited, were at times appalling. The theory of the popular belief, as it existed in the several cantons, was this. The witches and wizzards constituted a secret association, which met at night to consult on mischief, and each was bound to inviolable secrecy. They say this fraternity first arose among the Nanticokes. A witch or wizzard had power to turn into a fox or wolf, and run very swift, emitting flashes of light. They could also transform themselves into a turkey or big owl, and fly very fast. If detected, or hotly pursued, they could change into a stone or rotten log. They sought carefully to procure the poison of snakes or poisonous roots, to effect their purposes. They could blow hairs or worms into a person. [D.]

While in Onondaga, James Gould, one of the original settlers on the Military Tract, told me that he had been intimate with Webster, the naturalized Onondaga, who told him many things respecting the ancient laws and customs of this people. Amongst them there was a curious reminiscence on the subject of witchcraft. Webster had heard this from an aged Onondaga, whom he conversed with during a visit which he once made to Canada. This Onondaga said that he had formerly lived near the old church on the Kasonda creek, near Jamesville, where there was in old times a populous Indian village. One evening, he said, whilst he lived there, he stepped out of his lodge, and immediately sank in the earth, and found himself in a large room, surrounded by three hundred witches and wizzards. Next morning he went to the council and told the chiefs of this extraordinary occurrence. They asked him whether he could not identify the persons. He said he could. They then accompanied him on a visit to all the lodges, where he pointed out _this_ and _that_ one, who were marked for execution. Before this inquiry was ended, a very large number of persons of both sexes were killed. He said ——[55] hundred.

[55] Having doubts, I omit to fill this blank.

Another tradition says that about fifty persons were burned to death at the Onondaga castle for witches. [D.]

The delusion prevailed among all the cantons. The last persons executed for witchcraft among the Oneidas, suffered about forty years ago. They were two females. The executioner was the notorious Hon Yost of revolutionary memory. He entered the lodge, according to a prior decree of the Council, and struck them down with a tomahawk. One was found in the lodge; the other suffered near the lodge door. [B.]

[_f._] Wife’s Right to Property.

Marriage, among the Iroquois, appears to be a verbal contract between the parties, which does not affect the rights of property. Goods, personal effects, or valuables of any kind, personal or real, which were the wife’s before, remain so after marriage. Should any of these be used by the husband, he is bound to restore the property or its worth, in the event of separation. It is not uncommon at present to find a husband indebted to a wife for moneys loaned of her, derived from payments or property, which she owned, and still owns, in her own right; and it is a cause of union in some cases where, without this obligation, a separation would probably ensue.

Marriage is therefore a personal agreement, requiring neither civil nor ecclesiastical sanction, but not a union of the rights of property. Descent being counted by the female may be either an original cause or effect of this unique law.

IV. ARCHÆOLOGY.

In considering the subject of American antiquities it may facilitate the object, to erect separate eras of occupancy, to which the facts may be referred. Such a division of the great and almost unknown period, which preceded the arrival of Europeans, will at least serve as convenient points to concentrate, arrange and compare the facts and evidences brought forward; and may enable the observer, the better to proceed in any future attempts to generalize.

There appear to have been three eras in the aboriginal occupancy of the continent, or more strictly speaking, three conditions of occupancy, which may be conveniently grouped as eras, although the precise limits of them, may be matters of some uncertainty. To make this uncertainty less than it now is, and to erect these eras on probable foundations, the proofs drawn from monuments, mounds, fortifications, ditches, earth-works, barrows, implements of art, and whatever other kind of evidence antiquity affords, may, it is thought, be gathered together in something like this shape, namely:

1. Vestiges and proofs of the original era of the aboriginal migration from other parts of the globe. These, so far as arts or evidences of a material character are denoted, must necessarily be exceedingly limited, if any, of undoubted authenticity, shall indeed now be found. The departments of physiology, and philology, which have heretofore constituted the principal topics of research, are still an attractive, and by no means a closed field.

2. Proofs and vestiges of their continental migrations, wars, affinities and general ethnological characteristics, prior to the discovery of the continent. Such are the grouping of languages; the similarity, or dissimilarity of arts, modes of defence, and means of subsistence.

3. Proofs and vestiges of occupancy, change, and progress, subsequent to the Columbian period.

With regard to the first era, it is almost wholly the subject of general and profound scientific and philosophical investigations, which require a union of great advantages for successful study. The second and third eras, fall within the compass of ordinary observation. Both kinds of proof may exist at the very same localities. They do not necessarily imply diverse or remote geographical positions. We know that some of the leading tribes, the Cherokees, (till within a few years,) and the Iroquois, for instance, have continued to live in the very same positions in which they were found by the first explorers.

As their chiefs and warriors died, they carried to their places of burial, (such was the result of ancient and general custom,) those kinds of ornaments, arms and utensils, which were the distinguishing tokens of art, of the several eras in which they lived.

The coming of European races among them introduced fabrics of metal, earths, enamels, glass, and other materials more or less durable, and capable of resisting decomposition. These would necessarily take the place of the aboriginal articles of stone and shell, before employed.

If, then, places of sepulture were permanent, the inquirer at the present day would find the various fabrics of the second and the third era, in the same cemeteries and burial grounds, and sometimes in the same barrows and mounds.

Modes of defence would also alter by the introduction of the second period. The simple ring-fort, with palisades, crowning a hill, which would serve as a place of excellent defence, against bows and arrows and clubs, would prove utterly useless, as the Tuscaroras found at Naharuke in 1712, after the introduction of artillery. A trench to obtain water, from a spring or creek, leading from one of the works of the older period, might have been so covered as to afford full protection from the simple aboriginal missiles. Besides this, the combination of several tribes, as the Iroquois, the Algonquins, the Eries, Alleghans and others, might render these simple forts, defended with ditches, mounds, and otherwise, no longer necessary, in the interior of their territory, after the time of such general combinations or confederacies. And in this case, these works would be deserted and become ruins, long before the period of the discovery.

It is affirmed by their traditions, that, in the older periods of their occupancy of this continent, they were even obliged, or their fears suggested the measure, to build coverts and forts to protect themselves and families from the inroads of monsters, giants and gigantic animals. We are not at liberty to disregard this, be the recitals symbolic or true. Such places would afford convenient shelters for their women and children, at the particular times of such inroads, while the warriors collected to make battle against the common enemy. Whether this enemy carried a huge paw or a spear we need not determine. The one was quite as much an object of aboriginal terror as the other. Whatever be the character of the antiquarian object to be examined, it will be well to bear in mind these ancient and changing conditions of the aboriginal population. If no absolute historical light be elicited thereby, we shall be the more likely to get rid of some of the confessed darkness enveloping the subject, and thus narrow the unsatisfying and historically hateful boundaries of mystery.

In applying these principles to the antiquarian remains of the area of western New-York, which has been a theme of frequent allusion and description, at least since the life time of De Witt Clinton, it is merely proposed to offer a few contributions to the store of our antiquities, in the hope that other and abler hands may proceed in the investigation.

[_a._] Vestiges of an Ancient Fort or Place of Defence in Lenox, Madison county.

Some years have elapsed since I visited this work,[56] and the plough and spade may have further obliterated the lines, then more or less fully apparent. But in the meantime no notice of it has been published. The following outlines denote its extent and character.

[56] 1812.

A. indicates the lines of a picketed work. B. is an extensive plain, covered with wild grass and some shrubbery, which had once been in cultivation. The northern edge of this plain is traversed by a stream, which has worn its bed down in the unconsolidated strata, so as to create quite a deep gorge, C. This stream is joined from the west, by a small run, having its origin in a spring, D. Its channel, at the point of junction, is as deep below the level of the plain as the other.[57] The point of junction itself forms a natural hornwork, which covered access to the water. The angle of the plain, thus marked, constituted the point defended. The excavations E. may have once been square. They are now indentations, disclosing carbonaceous matter, as if from the decay of wood. No wood, or coal, however, existed. Their use in this position is not apparent, connected with the designated lines of palisades, unless it be supposed that they were of an older period than the latter, and designate pits, such as the aborigines used in defence. This idea is favored by the ground being a little raised at this point, and so formed that it would have admitted the ancient circular Indian palisade. If such were the case, however, it seems evident that the spot had been selected by the French, at an early period, when, as is known, they attempted to obtain a footing in the country of the Oneidas. The distance is less than ten miles northwest of Oneida Castle. It probably covered a mission. The site, which my informant, living near, called the OLD FRENCH FIELD, may be supposed to have been cultivated by servants or traders connected with it.

[57] Some few miles below this stream is the site of an iron cupola or blast furnace, where the red or lenticular oxyd is reduced.

The oak and maple trees, which once covered it, as denoted by the existing forest, F. F., are such, in size and number, as to have required expert axmen to fell.

With the exception of two points, in the Oneida Creek valley, where there are still vestiges of French occupation, supported by tradition, this work is the most easterly of those known, which remain to testify the adventurous spirit, zeal and perseverance which marked the attempt of the French crown to plant the flag and the cross in western New-York.

The bold nature of this scheme to colonize the country, and bring the Iroquois to acknowledge their dependence upon France, and the importance of the experiment and the issue, cannot be well conceived without reference to the history of those times. Pending the famous expedition of the Chevalier de Vandreiul, 1696, into the Iroquois country, it is known that the Jesuit Milet was stationed among the Oneidas, over whom he had so much influence, that soon after the termination of this vain display of power, thirty Oneidas deserted to the French, and desired that Milet might be appointed their pastor.[58]

[58] Colden’s Five Nations, p. 193.

[_b._] Ancient site of the Onondagas in the valley of the Kasonda, or Butternut creek of Jamesville.

The fact that the ruins of a square fort, with extensive sub-lines in the nature of an enclosure, had existed on the elevated grounds on the right banks of this stream, a mile or two from Jamesville, at the period of its first settlement, led me to visit it. There was the more interest imparted to this well attested tradition of the present inhabitants, by the accounts of the Onondagas, that this valley, in its extent above and below Jamesville, was one of their earliest points of settlement, prior to the era of their establishing their council fire at Onondaga Hollow. The subjoined sketch, although not plotted from actual measurement, will convey an idea of the relative position and former importance of the principal features, geographical and artificial, denoted.

A. indicates the site of the fort, which, at the time of my visit, was covered with a luxuriant field of wheat, without a feature to denote that it had ever been held under any other jurisdiction but that of the plough. The farm which embraces it, is owned and occupied by Isaac Keeler, who remarks that, at the time he came to settle here, the site of the old fort was an extensive opening in the forest, bearing grass, with some clumps of wild plumb trees, and a few forest trees. On this opening, the first regiment of militia that ever paraded in Onondaga county, met. It was commanded by MAJOR DE WITT, after whom the township is now named.

About the year 1810, he felled an oak, near the site of the fort, measuring two feet six inches in diameter. In recutting it for fire wood, after it had been drawn to his door, a leaden bullet was found, covered by one hundred and forty-three cortical layers. From its position, embedded as it was in the compact wood, it was still some distance to the heart of the tree. He thinks this tree may have been a sapling when the bullet was fired. Whether this conjecture be true or not, one hundred and forty-three years appear to have elapsed since the bullet assumed its position. This would give A. D. 1667 as the era.

In 1666, the Governor of Canada concluded a treaty with the Onondaga Iroquois, as is seen from the “Paris Documents” obtained by Mr. Broadhead. Colden’s history of the Five Nations, which has been the principal source of information heretofore, after a brief summary of traditionary matter,[59] in the first chapter, opens with the transactions in 1665. This matter is more fully and satisfactorily stated by Charlevoix in his history of New France, from whom it is presumable, Colden drew his information of the former power and pre-eminence of the Adirondacks.

[59] The States General of Holland surrendered New-York to the English crown in 1664.

During this year De Traci came out as viceroy of New-France, and the same year Monsieur Coursel, who is notorious for his perfidy in executing the Iroquois sachem, Agariata, arrived with the commission of Governor-General of Canada. But there is little to be found bearing directly on the subject before us.

It would appear from the journal of the Jesuit, Father Le Moyne, as given in the missionary “Relacions,” that the country of the Onondagas was not discovered and explored until the year 1653. Facts disclosed by him in the same letter denote, however, prior negociations with the French authorities, and we are probably to understand only that as yet, no missionaries from his or any other order, had visited, or been established amongst this tribe. In this view, and from the incidental light which he throws on some other topics, such as the new breaking out of the war with the Eries, the discovery of the salt springs, and the existence of the buffalo in the country, this letter is important to the early Iroquois history, and a translation of it is hereto appended. It is certain that no mission or fort had then been introduced. A footing may, however, have been gained by the French within the next fourteen years, that is, at the time of the apparent date of the existence of the old fort on the right banks of the Kasonda.[60]