Part 31
Afterwards Hih-noh said, Yonder is another thing which we cannot kill, and he led them a long way till they came to a monstrous big whitewood tree, and from a large limb projecting from near the top there was a creature sitting and Hih-noh said Shoot that, and Shot-de-gas drew his bow and shot it through the body. It crawled along the limb and finally fell, (bum!) and was stone dead. It proved to be a monstrous porcupine with quills as large as one’s finger, which the Hih-noh family had tried in vain to kill.
They staid a long time, when at last Hih-noh said, they are about to take you home, but let Shot-do-gas remain with us, we will take care of him. Shot-do-gas was willing and his friend gave his consent. They went out and saw a very big Mortar, (gä-ne-gah-tah,) and Hih-noh called them to it. Shot-do-gas climbed into it and there he was killed, but Hih-noh restored him to life and he also became a hih-noh. Then the five men were about to start, and all at once there commenced a terrible thunder storm and Hih-noh said now take them home, and suddenly they were taken up on the backs of as many men and carried along with the storm and down at Smoke’s Creek where they started. They then washed off their paint and started to go home, but they found the trail grown up with bushes; they kept on to where there was a bark shanty, it had been rebuilt,—to the council house, it was gone, every(thing) was changed they kept on and at last met a man whom they did not know, he asked them where and whither they were going, they replied we went from here and have come home, he said wait and I will go and tell the people. He found the chief and told him here are men whom I never saw before, saying that they have come home. The chief gave the call implying important business,—the people rushed together into the council house, the man told what he had seen, the chief said to him go call these men, they came, no one knew them and they knew no one. The chief asked the leader of the party for his name, we may perhaps remember that, he would not tell his own name but the rest of the party told it and each others names, but nobody recollected them. Then said the chief there is a very old woman living yonder, go call her, if so be she can recollect them. She came and they told her their names and that one of the party named Shot-do-gas had remained behind. She recollected the leaving of the party a long, long time ago, and recalled their names, and said that when they went away, there was a poor miserable little boy, on that account called Shot-do-gas, who left with them. It proved that one of these men was elder brother of this old woman, and he returned in all the freshness of youth, as when he left, while his younger sister had become a superannuated old woman. All the rest of the people had grown up since they left and therefore did not know them. She, the sole survivor of her generation, was the only one to recognize them and remove the unbelief of those that did not believe that they had ever gone from this region of country.
D. EMBLEMATIC TREES IN IROQUOIAN MYTHOLOGY.[83]
BY ARTHUR C. PARKER.
A student of Iroquoian folk-lore, ceremony or history will note the many striking instances in which sacred or symbolic trees are mentioned. One finds allusions to such trees not only in the myths and traditions which have long been known to literature and in the speeches of Iroquois chiefs when met in council with the French and English colonists, but also in the more recently discovered wampum codes and in the rituals of the folk-cults.
There are many references to the “tree of peace” in the colonial documents on Indian relations. Colden in his Five Nations, for example, quotes the reply of the Mohawk chief to Lord Effingham in July, 1684. The Mohawk agree to the peace propositions and their spokesman says: “We now plant a Tree who’s tops will reach the Sun, and its Branches spread far abroad, so that it shall be seen afar off; & we shall shelter ourselves under it, and live in Peace, without molestation.” (Gives two Beavers).[84]
In a footnote Colden says that the Five Nations always express peace under the metaphor of a tree. Indeed in the speech, a part of which is quoted above, the Peace tree is mentioned several times.
In Garangula’s reply to De la Barre, as recorded by Lahontan are other references to the “tree.” In his “harangue” Garangula said:
“We fell upon the Illinese and the Oumamis, because they cut down the Trees of Peace—.” “The Tsonontouans, Gayogouans, Onnotagues, Onnoyoutes, and Agnies declare that they interred the Axe at Cataracuoy, in the Presence of your Predecessor, in the very Center of the Fort; and planted the Tree of Peace in the same place; ’twas then stipulated that the Fort should be us’d as a Place of Retreat for Merchants, and not as a Refuge for Soldiers.... You ought to take Care that so great a number of Militial Men as we now see ... do not stifle and choak the Tree of Peace.... it must needs be of pernicious Consequences to stop its Growth and hinder it to shade both your Country and ours with its Leaves.”[85]
The above examples are only a few of many that might be quoted to show how commonly the Iroquois mentioned the peace tree. There are also references to the tree which was uprooted “to afford a cavity in which to bury all weapons of war,” the tree being replanted as a memorial.
In the Iroquoian myth, whether Cherokee, Huron, Wyandot, Seneca or Mohawk, the “tree of the upper world” is mentioned, though the character of the tree differs according to the tribe and sometimes according to the myth-teller.
Before the formation of the lower or earth-world the Wyandot tell of the upper or sky world and of the “Big Chief” whose daughter became strangely ill.[86] The chief instructs his daughter to “dig up the wild apple tree; what will cure her she can pluck from among its roots.” David Boyle[87] wondered why the apple tree was called “wild,” but that the narrator meant wild-apple and not wild apple is shown by the fact that the Seneca in some versions called the tree the crab-apple. The native apple tree with its small fruit was intended by the Indian myth teller who knew also of the cultivated apple and took the simplest way to differentiate the two.
With the Seneca this tree is described more fully. In manuscript left by Mrs. Asher Wright, the aged missionary to the Seneca, I find the cosmologic myth as related to her by Esquire Johnson, a Seneca, in 1870. Mrs. Wright and her husband understood the Seneca language perfectly and published a mission magazine as early as 1838 in that tongue. Her translation of Johnson’s myth should therefore be considered authentic. She wrote: “—there was a vast expanse of water—. Above it was the great blue arch of air but no signs of anything solid—. In the clear sky was an unseen floating island sufficiently firm to allow trees to grow upon it, and there were men-beings there. There was one great chief there who gave the law to all the Ongweh or beings on the island. In the center of the island there grew a tree so tall that no one of the beings who lived there could see its top. On its branches flowers and fruit hung all the year round. The beings who lived on the island used to come to the tree and eat the fruit and smell the sweet perfume of the flowers. On one occasion the chief desired that the tree be pulled up. The Great Chief was called to look at the great pit which was to be seen where the tree had stood.” The story continues with the usual description of how the sky-mother was pushed into the hole in the sky and fell upon the wings of the waterfowl who placed her on the turtle’s back. After this mention of the celestial tree in the same manuscript is the story of the central world-tree. After the birth of the twins, Light One and Toad-like (or dark) one, the Light One, also known as Good Minded, noticing that there was no light, created the “tree of light.” This was a great tree having at its topmost branch a great ball of light. At this time the sun had not been created. It is significant as will appear later that the Good Minded made his tree of light one that brought forth flowers from every branch. After he had gone on experimenting and improving the earth “he made a new light and hung it on the neck of a being and he called the new light Gaa-gwaa (gä’´gwā) and instructed its bearer to run his course daily in the heavens.” Shortly after he is said to have “dug up the tree of light and looking into the pool of water in which the stump (trunk) had grown he saw the reflection of his own face and thereupon conceived the idea of creating Ongwe and made them both a man and a woman.”
The central world-tree is found also in Delaware mythology, though as far as I discover it is not called the tree of light. The _Journal_[88] of Dankers and Slyter records the story of creation as heard from the Lenape of New Jersey in 1679. All things came from a tortoise, the Indians told them. “It had brought forth the world and in the middle of its back had sprung a tree upon whose branches men had grown.”[89] This relation between men and the tree is interesting in comparison with the Iroquois myth as it is also as the central world-tree. Both Lenape and the Iroquois ideas are symbolic and those who delight in flights of imagination might draw much from both.
The Seneca world-tree is described elsewhere in my notes as a tree whose branches pierce the sky and whose roots run down into the underground waters of the under-world. This tree is mentioned in various ceremonial rites of the Iroquois. With the False Face Company, Hadĭgo^n’´săsho^n’´o^n, for example, the Great Face, chief of all the False Faces, is said to be the invisible giant that guards the world-tree (gaindowo´nĕ‘). He rubs his turtle shell rattle upon it to obtain its power and this he imparts to all the visible false faces worn by the Company. In visible token of this belief the members of the Company rub their turtle rattles on pine tree trunks, believing that they become filled with both the earth and the sky-power thereby. In this use of the turtle shell rattle there is perhaps a recognition of the connection between the turtle and the world-tree that grows upon the primal turtle’s back.
In the prologue of the Wampum Code of the Five Nations Confederacy we again find references to a symbolic “great tree.” In the code of Dekānăwī´dă and with the Five Nations’ confederate lords (rodiyā´nĕr) “I plant the Tree of the Great Peace. I plant it in your territory, Adōdar´ho‘ and the Onondaga nation, in the territory of you who are Firekeepers.
“I name the tree the Tree of the Great Long Leaves. Under the shade of this Tree of Peace we spread the soft feathery down of the globe thistle, there beneath the spreading branches of the Tree of Peace.”
In the second “law” of the code the four roots of the “tree” are described and the law-giver says, “If any individual or any nation outside the Five Nations shall obey the laws of the Great Peace and make known their disposition to the Lords of the Confederacy, they may trace the Roots to the Tree and if their minds are clean and obedient—they shall be welcome to take shelter beneath the Tree of the Long Leaves.
“We place in the top of the Tree of the Long Leaves an Eagle who is able to see afar;—he will warn the people.”
In another place is the following: “I Dekānăwī´dă, and the union lords now uproot the tallest pine tree and into the cavity thereby made we cast all weapons of war. Into the depths of the earth, down into the deep under-earth currents of water flowing to unknown regions we cast all the weapons of strife. We bury them from sight and we plant again the tree. Thus shall the Great Peace, Kayĕ’´narhe‘kowa, be established.”
These laws and figures of speech are very evidently those which the Iroquois speakers had in mind when addressing “peace councils” with the whites.
Symbolic trees appear not only in Iroquois history, mythology and folk beliefs but also in their decorative art. The numerous decorative forms of trees embroidered in moose hair and porcupine quills by the eastern Algonquins and by the Huron and the Iroquois appear to be attempts to represent the world-tree and the celestial tree, in some cases with its “all manner of fruits and flowers.” Many, if not most, of the modern descendants of the old-time Indian, who copy these old designs have forgotten their meanings and some have even invented new explanations. A few of the more conservative, however, remember even yet the true meaning of their designs and from such much of interest has been learned.
In examining examples of Iroquois decorative art one is immediately impressed with the repeated use of a pattern consisting of a semi-circle resting upon two parallel horizontal lines having at the top two divergent curved lines each springing from the same point and curving outward, like the end of a split dandelion stalk, (See fig. 4b.) This design or symbol, with the Iroquois represents the celestial tree growing from the top of the sky, or more properly, from the bottom of the “above-sky world” (gä´oñyă’gĕ‘´). The two parallel lines represent the earth. This symbol is found with the same meaning among the Delaware. In the Walum Olum[90] parallel semi-circles represent the sky-dome, though single semi-circles appear. Two parallel horizontal lines, likewise, represent the earth. (See fig. I, a.)
With the Iroquois the sky-dome and earth symbols are employed as pattern designs for decorating clothing. Nearly always these symbols are associated with the celestial-tree symbol, though sometimes this is employed alone. These patterns appear embroidered in moose hair, porcupine quills and beads as borders for leggings, skirts, breech-clouts and moccasins. (See fig. 5.) Occasionally the pattern is found on head-bands and hair ornaments. In some cases, especially in examples of silver work and beaded articles it seems evident that the decorator has not the meaning of his pattern in mind. This is true of some of the more modern attempts to use it.
These outward curving designs, beside being symbols of the celestial tree have a secondary meaning, that of life, living and light. Curving inward upon themselves they sometimes represent sleep and death. Fig. 3 shows this design on a leggin strip. In fig. 4 h we have it used in conjunction with a sleeping sun. The Onondaga call the double curve design oĕ^n’´shă’, tendril.
In this connection it may be well to note that the “horns” wampum when placed upon a dead civil chief’s body is curved inward, the two ends touching and forming the outline of a circle or heart. When the condoling ceremonial chief finishes his address and is about to lift the strands of wampum from the corpse to hand it to the successor he turns the wampum-string so that the ends point outward and away from each other. These particular symbols while being those of death and life respectively are regarded as horn and not tree symbols. The wampum so employed “the horns,” onă’gasho‘´ă, and alludes to the symbolic title of the civil chief (roya´ner).
The celestial-tree symbol appears also as a trefoil. The third tendril or branch unfolds from the center of the tree. (See fig. 4 c.) A fourth branch is often used and then appears as a double tree. (See fig. 4 d.) In 4, e the night-sun is represented over the world-tree and in meaning this sign is found to be the same as 4, h. In fig. 4, f the day-sun is represented as shining at zenith above the world-tree. In 4, g the sun-above-the-sky is awake and roosting in the celestial-tree. All of these designs are found on borders of Iroquois garments some of which are shown in plate I.
Another important modification of the sky-dome and celestial-tree combination is that which represents the sky-dome with the celestial-tree upon it and the earth-tree within the dome below and resting upon a long intersection of an oval (possibly the turtle) and sending its long leaves or branches upward to the sky-arch.
Sometimes the design is used as the motif of a rosette or other balanced design. Morgan figured several and the Report of the Director of the State Museum of New York for 1907 shows a picture of Red Jacket’s pipe pouch ornamented with such a pattern. There the ends of the tendrils are split and represented as conventional flowers. In other instances the motif is built upward upon itself as shown in figure 6. The first “tree” in this figure is copied from Lafitau[91] and the others from Mohawk moccasin toes.
With the Iroquois the celestial-tree symbol is generally represented by this anies-like figure. The _earth-tree_, on the other hand, is less highly conventionalized. With the Iroquois as with many other tribes in the forest area in North America, the Ojibwa for example, the ordinary tree sign is commonly used,—that depicting the upward slanting branches of the balsam fir. Figure 7 shows the Ojibwa pictograph which is interpreted as “the big tree in the middle of the earth.” The terminal buds on the conventionalized trees of the Huron moose hair embroidery type resemble in form this balsam fir symbol. The Huron indeed call the bud “balsam fir.”[92] The method of slanting the hair to form the design creates the resemblance and causes the confusion, in all probability. Used alone the “bud” would be a tree if placed in proper position but as ordinarily used by the Huron at the extremity of an embroidered branch, it seems paradoxical to find a tree on the small end of one of its branches. This is discussed more fully hereinafter.
Figure 4, e, and f show the Iroquois “middle-of-theworld-tree” as used in conjunction with the sky-dome and sun symbols.
Another, and more elaborate, form of the “tree” as it appears in Iroquoian decorative art is a flowering plant or tree having conventionalized leaves (generally, “long leaves”), branches, buds, tendrils and flowers. See plate 2. In this plate (9) is shown the flowering tree as embroidered in porcupine quills on an Iroquois pouch collected by Lewis H. Morgan, and now in the New York State Museum. It will be perceived that here the diverging curved lines play a conspicuous part in the make-up of the tree. Like all Iroquois symbolic trees of the purely conventional type the tree is exactly balanced on each side of the central line that represents the trunk or stalk.
With the Huron these trees are, likewise, used as an adornment for bags and other things where a comparatively large surface is afforded. Dr. Speck illustrates one of these trees in the article on moose hair embroidery previously cited, and gives the Huron interpretation for the various parts of the tree. With the Huron, it is most interesting to note, the topmost flower is called not a flower but a star, thus suggesting some dim recollection of the “tree of light.”
The Confederated Iroquois made similar trees, though they interpret some of the parts differently. With them the significance of the tree is recognized. Mr. Hewitt describes the tree in his Onondaga creation myth.[93] His informants in relating the myth said: “And there beside the lodge stands the tree that is called Tooth (Ono’´djă’). Moreover, the blossoms this standing tree bears cause the world to be light, making it light for men-beings dwelling there.” This agrees with the Seneca version previously cited in this article.
The “Tree of Peace” symbolically planted by Dekānăwī´dă, as has been noted was called the “Tree of the Great Long Leaves.” It will be observed that the “tree of light” in nearly every case where leaves are shown at all has long sword-like leaves. This is true among the Huron in their older patterns, as among the Iroquois. The Huron, however, now call these long leaves “dead branches” and the unopened flowers “balsam fir.”[94] The Huron, as with most of the Iroquois, have likely forgotten or confused the true names of the elements of their designs. These designs, with the Huron at least, seem to have undergone some change due to the necessity for trade purposes of working their patterns in outline and quickly. It is most important to observe, however, that oftentimes when the object of using a symbol is primarily for decorative purposes, the Indian artist or needle-worker gives parts of the design “pattern names,” often at entire variance with the real meaning of the part but based upon real or fancied resemblance. With the Huron with whom the decorative element is now of primary importance this seems to have been the case. Indeed, Dr. Speck does not say that the parts of the designs which he illustrates are symbols though he does give the names which the Huron told him. The Huron are very likely making “trees of light” and do not know it, in this respect being similar to their Iroquois brethren. The designs are worked, as some of my Indian informants say, “because they are Indian” and likewise because they have become accustomed to them and because there seems nothing more appropriate to invent.
This instance suggests how with change of environment myths, symbols and ceremonial rites may lose their meaning and yet preserve their outward form.
The two-curve motif in Indian art is widely distributed throughout America. In many instances it seems to have meanings similar to that given it by the Iroquois, though there are other instances where it has not. It is sometimes used with a few simple additions to represent the face of the thunderbird or even the human face, at least the eyes and nose. In a more elaborate form it is found in the Fejérvary Codex as a tree symbol though a variation of the form in the Vienna codex makes the cross-section of a vase.
It is not strange that the simple outline should be found almost universally. It is one of those simple conceptions in art that would occur to any people independently. Many things in nature suggest it. It is not its outline, however, so much as its use as a definite symbol and its combination with others that gives it interest to the writer.
The world-tree with its long leaves and luminous flowers is worthy of more detailed consideration. It seems to have been a deeply imbedded concept with the certain branches of the Algonquin stock and of the Iroquois, affecting not only their mythology and ceremonial language but also their decorative art. Whether the idea has a deeper and more primitive meaning than here suggested the author does not pretend to know.