Chapter 12

It was at early nightfall, on a warm and beautiful day, in the month which the white man calls June, but which the red man calls the Hot Moon, that a little fleet, consisting of three small bateaux, fitted out at Montreal, and conveying a body of pale-faced warriors, under the command of one whose hair was white and whose face was seamed with scars, entered the mouth of the Oswego[A]. This petty armament was joined at the beginning of the following season of sleep by a great number of canoes that contained the traders, artizans, and labourers, with their families, together with such tools and utensils as had been deemed necessary for the commencement of a new settlement, which it was the design of the chief of the strangers to establish on the south side of Lake Ontario. They brought with them, besides a great quantity of provisions, the usual articles wherewith to traffic with the possessors of the soil. The Oswego--as my red brothers know--is principally formed by the confluence of the outlets of those numerous lesser lakes that diversify and adorn the vast space of country that lies between the Great Ocean and the Lake of Storms[B]. Its course is northward, and, after whirling and foaming along the narrow and obstructed channel that nature seems to have grudgingly lent for its passage, it finds repose in the small harbour bearing its name, which mingles its contributions with the placid but mighty waters of the west.

[Footnote A: Rapid river.]

[Footnote B: Lake Superior.]

On the eastern part of this harbour, and on a site sufficiently elevated to command its entrance, this party of daring adventurers began to construct a defence against the attacks of your race. Before the frosts of winter had robbed the surrounding forest of its foliage, or compelled the wild-duck to seek a retreat in the secluded waters of the warm south, or the deer had gathered to their couch of leaves in the thicket, a rude but effectual barrier to hostile attack was raised and completed. The intervening summer had been passed by the artisans and labourers, not only in the building of the fortress, but in the erection of such cabins and lodging-places for warriors within its enclosure, as were deemed requisite for the protection of its inmates from the piercing winds, and cold rains, and chilling frosts, of winter. In the mean time the traders had been diligently and successfully employed in exchanging their beads and trinkets, their knives, blankets, and strong waters, with the men of the adjacent woods, for fish and venison to supply the immediate wants of the warriors, and furs and skins to send to the land of their birth. The Indians, with whom this intercourse and barter was carried on, were of the tribe of the Onandagas. They inhabited a valley as fair as the sun ever shone upon. From a point in the interior--distant more than a sun's journey to the south, this capacious valley opens and widens as it advances northwardly--presenting, in its general outline, an immense space, with three sides, the base of which, for the distance of half a sun's travel, is washed by the waters of the beautiful Ontario. As it recedes from the lake, its surface rises gradually to the point or tip, whence, did the strength of vision and the shape of the earth permit, the eye might command a complete survey of the valley, and of the inland ocean that spreads before it. On either side, it is bounded by steep and high hills that verge towards each other as they stretch to the south, and whose elevation increases, until they are lost among a range of lofty mountains, at the termination of the valley.

At this precise point, there gushes forth, from beneath a huge and precipitous rock, a large spring of pure and clear water, cool and refreshing as the dark forest through which it glides, and which, after a sinuous course along the centre of the dell, receiving as it flows the contributions of numerous lesser springs and streams, communicates its waters to the foaming current of the Oswego. Whether this singular but beautiful region now presents the form in which it was first fashioned by the Master of Life, or has since received the shape and appearance it bears from the disruption of some mighty mass of waters, from frightful earthquakes, or some other great convulsion of nature--neither I nor my red brothers can say. Yet does it appear plain that no convulsive heavings of an earthquake could have left its outline or its surface so smooth or regular. No bursting of waters from the top of a mountain (a mountain too, having no capacious bosom for its reception) could have borne away such an immense body of earth as must have been scooped out from between the high and wide-spreading hills.

But, if this region was singular in its formation, it was not less so in the character and manners of the tribe by which it was peopled. They claimed direct descent from the Great Spirit--the Creator of the world. Regarding themselves as his offspring, they deemed themselves the especial objects of his fatherly care. Deeply possessed with a sense of this superhuman relation, it will not be matter of surprise to my brothers that they should refer to it all the more important events of their lives, and that it should impart its influence even to the minuter circumstances of their daily intercourse both with strangers and with each other. From their belief of their relationship to the Good Spirit, they were a good people. Hence they were, according to their crude notions of religion, strictly a religious people; and, although they worshipped the supposed founder of their race, rather with the qualified adoration that one pays to a good father watching over, and guiding from his dwelling among the stars, the destinies of his earthly children; and, although they were insensible to the deep and humble devotion, and piety, which belong to the worshippers of the same Being in the land of the pale-faces; yet was their superstition free from much of the grossness in which the idolatry of the people of the wilderness is usually buried. Their idols and images were indeed numerous and of rude workmanship, but, like the images before whom kneel no small portion of the people of the land which was mine, they were professed to be worshipped only as the visible representations of invisible spirits. Human sacrifices were not known among them--for they rightly held that the Great Spirit was a kind and affectionate _Father_, and could not delight in the shedding of the blood of his children, or seeing them sacrificed on his peaceful altars. They had numerous fasts and feasts, but they were accompanied by no cruel rites. Those who presided over the religious ceremonies and observances of this simple people, united, as is usual among most, if not all unenlightened nations, the character and office of priest and prophet--of expounders of visions and dreams--and had the ordering of fasts in the acceptable manner, and at the proper time. They were few in number, and universally revered, beloved, and feared. Their influence and authority were felt in every cabin in the nation. No restraint being imposed upon them, as it is upon the priests in the City of the Rock, they had no inclination to impose any unnatural restraint upon others. Assailed by no external temptations to indulgence themselves, their prohibitions were limited to the very few gratifications that are inconsistent with the habits of Indian life. Avarice was a passion of which neither they nor their tribe had, as yet, felt the influence. All things were in common; and individual appropriation of property was unknown. The "strong waters" of the white man, the fire which hath eaten into the bowels of the race of the red man, had not yet diffused their poison, and drunkenness was a vice of which these people did not understand the meaning. A moral influence over the minds of their tribe was the only distinction to which the priests of Onondaga had aspired. This influence they sought to attain, not by inflicting penance upon the people, but by pretending to immediate intercourse and communication with the Great Spirit. Reverencing that Spirit, these good sons of the forest could not forbear to respect the channels through which his wise and benevolent communications were made.

Not only did these priests of the Manitou direct the devotions of the people, and convey to them the responses of the same mighty Being in times of peril, but won their love and confidence by professing to heal their maladies. Identified with them in their ordinary pursuits, they were, on common occasions, distinguished from them in exterior decoration only by a bone which they wore on the left arm, like a bracelet, just above the wrist, and by the method of arranging their hair. On their bracelets were carved, in rude outline, the representations of certain beasts; and on that of the eldest of the prophets were other cabalistic inscriptions, of which none but the wearers themselves could penetrate the meaning. Their hair, instead of hanging loosely over their foreheads and shoulders, as was usual with their tribe, in common with the other red men of the forest, was collected into a roll at the top of the head, and tied round with a string of red wampum, its extremities being suffered to fall on either side, as nature or accident might dispose it. When they would intercede with the Great Spirit, or know his will by divination, they assumed other dresses; the skins of bears or buffaloes, or mantles curiously woven of feathers. They usually dwelt together on a sort of consecrated ground, set apart for their special accommodation, and which was as unlike the rest of the valley, as the valley itself was unlike the ordinary conformation of the earth. The allotted ground, or space set apart for their use, was called _The Prophets' Plain_, and was situated on a projecting declivity of the western side of this beautiful glen, whose banks, although they presented, as they opened and widened to the north, a regular outline, were, nevertheless, varied in their actual surface by occasional deviations and sinuosities, arising as well from the unexplainable curvatures of its original structure, as from the narrow, deep ravines, that had been worn by the autumn floods and perennial streamlets from the adjacent hills. In like manner the surface of the bed of the valley was subject to frequent inequalities, produced, perhaps, by the nature of the soil on which it rested. It was formed of a soft stone and a hard stone. Where the latter prevailed, the surface was usually more elevated and undulating than where the former was found; and of that description was the spot appropriated to the prophets of Onondaga. It was situated about half a day's journey up the valley from the lake, and was sufficiently elevated above the circumjacent level to command a view of the broad bosom of the Ontario over the tops of the forest. Along its outer extremity glided the beautiful stream of the glen. Upon one side of the plain, where it was united to the hills, were the cabins of the prophets.

The whole range of the valley, including its bed, and steep lofty sides, was overspread with a dark and umbrageous forest. With this circumstance, the few scattered patches appropriated to the cultivation of maize, and "the openings," as they are denominated in the western world, present a problem of no very easy solution. They are unique in the vegetable kingdom, being midway between the nakedness of a prairie and the thick gloom of a wilderness. The few scattered trees that grow upon them are uniformly oak. They are separated from each other at unequal distances, but are rarely less than sixty yards apart. They do not shoot up to a lofty height, and destitute of branches like the tenants of the thick woods, but bow their heads, and spread their arms, as if conscious of their dependence upon the precarious charity of a long-cultivated country. Beneath them grows a coarse thin grass; but they are never encumbered with the shrubs and underwood that usually form very serious obstacles in the way of the forest traveller. The Prophets' Plain was the only exception. Along the junction of the plain with the western hill, its margin was thickly set with stunted pines, hemlocks, cedars, and, beneath, tangled briars. No one ventured to penetrate these sacred recesses, for there were extended, near the inner border, the few scattered wigwams of the prophets. Such was the character and description of the plain where the religious ceremonies of the Onondagas were performed, and where their council fires were lighted.

In the interval of eighteen seasons, that had rolled away since the erection of the fortress at Oswego, the character of the red men of the valley had undergone a great and disastrous change.

From the most peaceable, inoffensive, and happy, of all the sons of the forest, they had become the most dissolute, quarrelsome, and drunken. They were constantly seen about the villages of the whites begging, bartering every thing they possessed, and performing every drudgery, however servile or degrading, for the strong waters of the pale-face. The free and lofty spirit that once animated the nation was gone; a spirit which, though it had not been often aroused to action, was yet susceptible of the highest efforts of Indian heroism. Their encounters with the neighbouring tribes had not been frequent, yet, when they did take place, the Onondagas had displayed a spirit of intrepid daring, of craft, of patience, and of hardihood in suffering, that had seldom been surpassed among the nations of the forest. But now the spirit of the tribe was broken, and they were no longer numbered among the fierce resenters of wrong. The Oneidas trespassed upon their hunting-grounds and slaughtered their people, yet their warriors were too debased and abject to avenge the insult, or wipe away the memory of their wrongs with blood. They were, evidently, hastening to ruin. Their numbers were rapidly diminishing, as well from the usual effects of intoxication as from the exposures and accidents to which they were subjected from its influence; and, more than all, from the constant quarrels and murders which daily took place among them. In a few more years, if the course they then pursued had been continued, the whole tribe must have become utterly extinct; their name existing but in the recollection of the story-teller, and the green turf alone marking the lands they once inhabited. It fortunately happened, however, at the period alluded to, that the prophets, together with a few of the elder chiefs, who had stood aloof from the contaminating influence of the white men, were enabled to arouse the almost extinguished energy of the people, so far as to assemble them round a council-fire, that was lighted at early dawn one frosty morning, in the Moon of Falling Leaves, on the Prophets' Plain. The whole tribe was called together. A solemn gravity, even beyond the ordinary measure of Indian deliberation, sat upon the countenance of each chief and prophet, indicating that matters of high importance were impending. These sat in a circle around the great fire, their eyes cast upon the earth, and all silent as a grove of oaks in a calm morning. Without the circle of chiefs and prophets stood promiscuously grouped the remainder of the tribe--men, women, and children--all discovering more than common anxiety to learn the reason of the extraordinary call.

But let me not anticipate the circumstances that attended, nor the events that followed, the _Warning_ of Tekarrah[A], as recited by Wonnehush, chief of the Onondagas.

[Footnote A: Tekarrah, i.e. [Greek: angelos], messenger, of the Great Spirit.]

From a remote corner of the camp, this aged man intimated an intention to speak. A deep silence pervaded the whole crowd, and every eye was fixed upon him. After a short pause, he slowly rose, and cast an anxious eye around the room in which the fire was lighted. But his eye, although it retained proof of its former power and lustre, had now become dim with age. His furrowed brow, his whitened locks, and bended form, once as straight as the arrow that sped from his youthful bow, evinced the ravages which time had made on his noble form. Yet his voice was still strong and clear. At length, adjusting the folds of his blanket, he stretched forth his withered arm, and, with the dignity of one from the Land of Souls, and with all the eloquence of his race, thus addressed the wandering inmates of the camp:--

Brothers, shall Wonnehush tell you a lie? No! Let the white man, whose heart is the heart of a fawn, and whose ways are the ways of the serpent, let him speak with a forked tongue. It is for him that lives in great towns, and buys his bread by selling strong waters, to poison the red men--it is for him to deal in lies. The red man hunts the buffalo, and traps the beaver in the woods that were given him by the Great Spirit. He crosses the big mountain, and enters the deep valleys beyond it, and no man dares to stop his path. He has a great heart, and scorns to tell a lie. Hear, then, the words of Wonnehush!

Brothers, I am an oak of the forest. The snows of a hundred winters have fallen on my branches. Once the tree was covered with green leaves, but they have dropped at my side, and the sap, which once made the tree strong and flourishing, has left the trunk, and the moisture has decayed from my roots.

Brothers, I am an aged, a very aged man. I can no longer bend the bow of my youth, and my tomahawk falls short of its death-mark. But my ears have been open, and my tongue can repeat to you the traditions of the valley. Listen to the chief of Onondaga, and believe the words he will tell you, for he never spoke other than the truth. He never in youth had a forked tongue, or a faint heart, and why should he bear them now?

Brothers, the flowers of the prairie have blossomed and faded, and the leaves of the forest budded and withered, more than fifty times since the canoes of the white men entered the mouth of the Rapid River. My tribe was then spread from the lake to the mountain, and the smoke of their cabins curled over the tops of the hemlocks, from Skeneateles to Oneida. The Great Spirit was their kind father. He looked into their wigwams, and saw they were happy. They hunted the fat bear, the stately moose, and the delicious deer, through wide forests, and speared the juicy fish of many waters. Their hearts were very stout, and their arms were very long. In war, who were so brave as the Onondagas?--The scalps of their enemies were strung as thick upon their belt-girdles as the stars in the path of the Master of Life. Their wives were good and affectionate, their sons strong and brave, and their daughters sweet-tempered and beautiful. They were happy, for they were virtuous, and favoured by the Great Spirit, for they did all they could to deserve his love.

Brothers, the white man came over the Great Lake, and settled down upon all the best spots of the land, as the wild-duck lights upon the lake which contains his favourite food. Soon his brothers joined him, and, to protect their coward hearts from the red men, they built a fort at Oswego. To that vile spot they enticed our young men, and our women, to bring them the spoils of the water and the land--the fish, venison, and skins--and gave them wampum and the fire-eater in exchange. When they had swallowed the strong waters of the pale-faces, they became as beasts, and fell about the earth like trees shivered by lightnings, or prostrated by the tempest. When they arose from the earth, it was to quarrel with each other. The ground was wet, and the waters red, with the blood of Onandagas slain by the hands of their brothers. They sought the deer, and the bear, and the moose, and the wolf, no more, or, if they sought, their hands were so enfeebled by the strong waters that the quest was fruitless, and the maize which was planted was suffered to be choked with weeds. Instead of the noble pastimes of war and the chace, they loitered around the cabins of the white men; and, instead of the tongue which had been given them by their father, the Great Spirit, and with which they had spoken for many, many ages, they learned the tongue of the stranger. The words and wise sayings of the prophets had no longer a charm for them, and the traditions which once flowed from their lips to patient, and pleased, and attentive, hearers, were neglected for the lying tales of the stranger. The knees of the once swift runner shook like a reed in the wind. The heart of the once fearless warrior had become softer than woman's. The blood of his enemies no more reddened his tomahawk; his shout of onset was heard no more among the hills of the Iroquois. He became a prey to the cunning hatred of the strangers, whose anger was kindled against him because he was the son of the Great Spirit. And they mixed the poisonous juices of herbs with the strong waters they gave him, that his death might be sure. Is it strange that our people have disappeared from the plain, as the dew in the morning or the snows of the Planting-Moon before the beams of the noontide sun?

Brothers, more than thirty years have passed since a council-fire was kindled on the Prophets' Plain, in the Moon of Early Frost. It was a great fire, for there were assembled all the people of the valley. In the middle of the assembly stood the priests, next the chiefs and warriors of Wonnehush, and without them the aged men and women, and the children, and the wives of the warriors. Then the priests began the dance and the howl, wherewith they commence their invocations to the Great Spirit. Suddenly there appeared in the midst of the people a stranger who was a head taller than the tallest man of the nation. His form was noble and majestic beyond any thing ever seen by our people. His eye had the brightness of the sunbeam, and his manner was graceful as the waving of a field of corn. Upon the border of his mantle were strange figures; and his belt of wampum glittered like the girdle of the heavens. He was one upon whom no Onondaga eye had ever before looked--a stranger in the valley--perhaps a warrior sent hither by one of the fierce tribes of the land to insult, by some reproach, for their effeminacy and weakness, the terror and sin-stricken Onondagas.

At length he rose to speak, and every sound was hushed, not only in the Indian camp, but in surrounding nature. Not a bird chirped; not a leaf was heard to rustle among the trees of the plain; the beasts of the forests were still; the busy bee desisted from its hum; even the winds were hushed and silent while the stranger delivered his solemn warning.

"I am," said he, "Tekarrah, the messenger of the Great Spirit. Onondagas, listen to my words! I am come from your father, that same Spirit, to speak the words of truth in your ears, and to tell you that he is exceedingly angry with you. You have exchanged your broad and rich lands for useless toys; you have taken the maize and the meat from the mouths of your starving children, to purchase from the strangers the strong waters which have made your warriors as timid as the deer you once hunted through the forests. You have thrown away the tongue which was given you by your Great Father, and have taken that of your destroyers. You have forgotten the deeds of your fathers, which made them feared and honoured from the Falls of the Mohawk to Lake Huron. The Great Spirit has spoken to you in his thunders, and by the mouth of his priests, but you have heard neither; and, though his blessings were showered thick upon you, you have been like adders, and stung the hand which dispensed them.