USA > New York > Cayuga County > History of Cayuga County, New York : with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 5
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After these rebukes, the father was often re- pulsed, driven from the cabins while attempting to offer consolation or aid to the sick. They believed that by pouring water upon their heads, as in baptism, he caused their death, and the most determined opposition was made to his ministrations. His death was resolved upon, and those intent upon it were only restrained by the active influence of his friends. He was chased from one cabin by a young warrior for refusing to admit that in "roasting an ear of Indian corn in the ashes, he was roasting the master of his life."
But this danger soon passed, and Father de Carheil lived and labored among the Cayugas for sixteen years from 1668 to 1684. He had had much previous experience as a missionary, having been sent twelve years before, 1656, as a mission- ary to the Hurons, and could speak their language
* These feasts often lasted for days, accompanied by howlings.and dances and all sorts of extravagant actions.
26
INDIAN FAITH IN DREAMS.
and that of the Iroquois with fluency, and com- posed valuable works in both languages.
Father de Carheil writes from Cayuga, under date of June, 1670, that this Canton has three principal bourgs or villages: Cayuga, Thiohero and Ontare, or St. Rene. The Indian reverence for, and faith in dreams, gave Father de Carheil much anxiety and trouble. It was with them a very controlling superstition and the main source of their error. They regarded dreams as rev- elations of the Divine will, to which they must yield implicit obedience.
Father Chaumanot, who came to Cayuga with Father Menard, in 1656, and proceeded thence to the Senecas, relates a few illustrative cases :
" It is not long since, that a man of the bourg of Cayuga, dreamed one night that he saw ten men plunge into a frozen river through a hole in the ice and all came out of a similar opening a little way beyond. The first thing he did on awakening, was to make a great feast, to which he invited ten of his friends. They all came, it was a joyous occasion. They sang, they danced and went through all the ceremonies of a regular banquet. 'This is all well enough.' At length said the host, ' You give me great pleasure, my brothers, that you enjoy the feast. But this is not all. You must prove to me that you love me.' Thereupon he recounted his dream, which did not appear to surprise them ; for immediately the whole ten offered themselves for its prompt execution. One goes to the river and cuts in the ice two holes, fifteen paces from each.other, and the divers strip themselves. The first leads the way, and plunging into one of the holes, fortu- nately comes out at the other. The second does the same ; and so of all of them, until the tenth, who pays his life for the others, as he misses his way out and miserably perishes under the ice."
But a more cruel sacrifice was sometimes made in compliance with the demands of a dream. This too happened, as Chaumanot relates, to a Cayugan. He dreamed that he had made a can- nibal feast, and thereupon invites the chiefs of the nation to assemble in council, and informs them of his dream, and states that if not executed it will cost the life of the nation. One offers his brother as a sacrifice ; but the dreamer demands a woman ; a maiden is offered and prepared for the cruel ordeal ; but, while all are expecting the sacrifice of the innocent victim, the dreamer ex- claims,-" I am content, my dream is satisfied," and the offered victim is released.
Among the converts to the faith in 1670, was the famous chief of the Cayugas, Saonchiagwa.
He, next to Garicontie of the Onondagas, was the most influential of the Iroquois chiefs, and a sin- cere and devoted friend of the missionaries. He was baptized by the Lord Bishop of Canada, whither he had gone as. the head of a commis- sion to negotiate a peace. The ceremonies ať- tending his baptism were very elaborate and im- posing, and calculated to make a deep impression upon the minds of the ignorant savages. They were concluded with a magnificent feast at which were present large numbers of Iroquois, Algon- quins and Hurons, all of whom were liberally entertained, and, on their departure, loaded with supplies for those left at home.
In 1671, Father de Carheil, on account of ill health, was obliged to take a rest from his labors, which he did for a year, Father Rafeix, of the Seneca mission, supplying the place in de Car- heil's absence ; the latter returned at the end of the year 1672, and remained with the mission until 1684.
Of Father Rafeix's labors, de Carheil writes in his relation of 1672-'3 :
" The number baptized this year is fifty-five, of whom eleven are adults, the rest are children ; of whom thirteen received baptism in the chapel with the ceremonies, the others without cere- monies. I had not yet until this year been able to baptize any one, except secretly and without any one being cognizant of it, except those from whom I could not conceal it, when necessity and an evident danger of death obliged me to prepare them for this sacrament by a previous instruc- tion, with which I could not dispense, on ac- count of their too advanced age. I was com- pelled to act in this manner, to avoid the calum- nies which hell raised up against me and against baptism, by the universal idea which he had im- printed on all minds that this first and most necessary of all sacraments had not the advan- tageous effects which I had declared to them ; but others, quite contrary, which I concealed, in order to bring them to it more easily, and of which the chief two which sprang from it as their source, were a speedy death, and an eternal cap- tivity after death, under the dominion of the French. As the rage of the demons could in- vent nothing more contrary to the salvation of the souls of my dear mission than this thought, therefore, I could hope to do nothing for the establishment and advancement of the faith, ex- cept by banishing it from their minds; or, at least, gradually diminishing it, although with the efforts I had made in this direction in previous years, I could not see any success, and this even, I could hope for it still less than ordinarily ; because
27
" RELATIONS," 1674- 1679.
sickness and death had been more frequent than * before.
* As for the eleven adults whom I baptized, they are all dead, inasmuch as I no longer baptize any who are not in danger of immediate death, apart from which I find none who are susceptible of all the dispositions neces- sary to baptism. License in marrying and un- marrying at their option, the spirit of murder and human respect prevent their becoming docile to instruction. Of the children baptized, eighteen are dead, who, added to the adults, make in all twenty-nine. *
The " Relations" of 1674-'5 are mainly con- fined to a description of de Carheil's missionary instruction and their results, similar in charac- ter to those already quoted.
The "Relations " of 1676-'7 are quite brief in respect to the Cayuga mission. A noticeable change of opinion in reference to the Senecas and Cayugas is expressed. Le Moyne, it will have been noticed, gave as a reason for visiting the Cayugas, that they were " more tractable and af- fectionate " yet here we have the opposite opinion given, thus : " The upper Iroquois, that is to say those that are the most remote from us, as the Sonowtowans, (Senecas,) and the Ouoguens, (Cayugas,) are the most haughty and the most insolent, running after the missionaries with ax in hand, chasing and pelting them with stones, throwing down their chapels, and their little cabins, and, in a thousand other ways treating them with indignity."
But the apostolic zeal of the fathers supports and consoles them; "knowing well that the apostles did not plant the faith in the world oth- erwise than by persecution and suffering." They say they had baptized within the year three hun- dred and fifty Iroquois, and that the spiritual gain among the Cayugas was fifty persons.
The notice of the mission of 1677-'8 is also very brief and of the same general tone ; "Father de Carheil, who had experienced most of the effects of Iroquois fury, and who for the last two years had been in aproximate danger of death, had not failed to administer at Ouoguen, (Cayu- ga,) baptism to fifty persons, and to send to heaven more than forty children who had died with baptismal grace."
Father Dablon thus sums up the condition of the several Iroquois missions, for the six years, from 1673 to 1679:
" By all that we have related, it may be judged that the Iroquois mission render great glory
to God, and contribute largely to the salva- tion of souls. This encourages the missionaries, amid the evident danger of death in which they have lived constantly for three years, that the Iroquois speak of making war upon us ; so that they have not been willing to leave their mis- sions, although they were urged by their friends, who warned them of the evil designs formed against their persons. They accordingly per- severe in laboring for the conversion of these peoples ; and, we learn that God has rewarded their constancy by a little calm, which he has given them, and by more than three hundred baptisms which they have conferred this last year to which I add that the preceding year they had baptized three hundred and fifty Iroquois. The year before Father Garnier had baptized fifty- five in one of the towns of the Sonowtowans ; Father de Carheil as many at Ouoguen ; Father Milet forty-five at Onelout, (Oneida) ; Father Jean de Lamberville more than thirty at one of the towns of Agnie, (Mohawk), and Father Bruyas, in another, eighty ; Father Jacques de Lamberville, seventy-two at Onnontage, and Father Pierron ninety at Sonowtowan. It is estimated that they have placed in heaven more than two hundred souls of children and sick adults, all dead, after baptism."
Nothing further is now accessible bearing upon the Jesuit missions among the Cayugas, resident in New York. A colony of this nation had lo- cated in Canada, at the western extremity of Quinte Bay, in fear of the Andastes, and among them missions were established ; but it is not within the scope of this work to trace their op- erations there, and we close this subject with the following succinct, able and eloquent summary of the causes of the failure of the Jesuits :
"The cause of the failure of the Jesuits is obvious. The guns and tomahawks of the Iro- quois were the ruin of their hopes. Could they have curbed or converted these ferocious bands, it is little less than certain that their dream would have become a reality. Savages tamed, not civ- ilized, for that was scarcely possible, would have been distributed through the valleys of the great lakes and the Mississippi, ruled by priests in the interests of Catholicity and of France. Their habits of agriculture would have been developed and the instincts of mutual slaughter repressed. The swift decline of the Indian population would have been arrested, and it would have been made through the fur trade, a source of prosperity to New France. Unmolested by Indian enemies and fed by a rich commerce, she would have put forth a vigorous growth. True to her far-reaching and adventurous genius, she would have occupied the West with traders, settlers and garrisons and cut up the virgin wilderness into fiefs, while as yet
4
28
INDIAN DWELLINGS.
the colonies of England were but a weak and broken line along the shores of the Atlantic ; and when at last the great conflict came, Eng- land and liberty would have been confronted, not by a depleted antagonist, still feeble from the exhaustion of a starved and persecuted infancy, but by an athletic champion of the principles of Richelieu and Loyola.
" Liberty may thank the Iroquois, that by their insensate fury the plans of their adversary were brought to nought and a peril and a woe averted from her future. They ruined the trade which was the life-blood of New France ; they stopped the current of her arteries and made all her early years a misery and a terror. Not that they changed her destinies. The contest on this con- tinent between liberty and absolutism was never doubtful ; but the triumph of the one would have been dearly bought, and the downfall of the other incomplete. Populations formed in the habits and ideas of a feudal monarchy and con- trolled by a hierarchy profoundly hostile to free- dom of thought, would have remained a hindrance and a stumbling block in the way of that majes- tic experiment of which America is the field.
"The Jesuits saw their hopes struck down and their faith, though not shaken, was sorely tried. The providence of God seemed in their eyes dark and inexplicable ; but, from the standpoint of liberty, that providence is as clear as the sun at noon. Meanwhile let those who have pre- vailed, yield new honor to the defeated. Their virtucs shine amidst the rubbish of error, like diamonds and gold in the gravel of the torrent."*
CHAPTER IV.
NATIVE INHABITANTS, (CONCLUDED.)
INDIAN HABITS AND USAGES-INDIAN DWELL- INGS-DETAILS OF THEIR CONSTRUCTION AND USES - INDIAN TOWNS - HOW BUILT AND FORTIFIED-SOCIAL USAGES-LAW OF MAR- RIAGE-LICENSE -- EXPERIMENTAL MARRIAGES - FAMILY DISCIPLINE - EMPLOYMENTS AT HOME-GAMBLING UNIVERSAL-DANCES AND FEASTS-FIVE STATED ANNUAL FESTIVALS DESCRIBED - THE WAR DANCE - MEDICAL FEASTS-DREAMS-WIZARDS AND WITCHES -BURIALS - IROQUOIS SUPERIORITY.
W 'E shall close the part of our work de- voted to "Our Native Inhabitants," with some of the more striking usages which prevailed among them when first visited by the * Parkman's Jesuits,
whites. These usages will throw much light in a concrete form, upon their character and capa- bility, and show them to have been " as patient and politic as they were ferocious."
INDIAN DWELLINGS. - These, though rude, were generally built with considerable labor and care. They usually were about thirty feet square. The sides were formed of thick sap- lings set in two parallel rows, the tops bent in- ward toward each other to form the roof, the upper ends fastened together, and the sides bound together by cross poles or guides. In some cases separate poles formed the rafters. An open space about one foot wide extended the whole length of the ridge, securing at once the double purpose of window and chimney. Transverse poles were bound to the uprights and over the roof, the whole covered with bark overlapping like shingles and held in place by smaller poles bound to the general frame. At each end was an enclosed space for the storage of supplies of Indian corn, dried flesh, fish, etc., which was kept in bark vessels. Along each side ran wide scaffolds, some four feet from the floor, which, when covered with skins formed the summer sleeping places, while beneath was stored their firewood gathered and kept dry for use. In some cases these platforms were in sections of twelve to fourteen feet, with spaces for storage between them. Overhead poles were suspended for va- rious uses, to smoke and dry their fish and flesh, hang their weapons, skins, clothing, Indian corn, etc. In cold weather all the inmates slept on the floor, huddled about the fires, which were built upon the ground floor, up and down the centre of the house.
The interiors of all these houses were thickly covered with smoke and soot, arising from the large fires maintained for warmth or for cooking. The effect of living in such dense and acrid smoke was to produce weakness of the eyes, and in the aged often blindness .*
The foregoing was the general style of the Iroquois and Huron houses. But many of them
* " He who entered on a winter night, beheld a strange specta- cle ; the vista of fires lighting the smoky concave ; the bronzed groups encircling each, cooking, eating, gambling, or amusing them- selves with idle badinage; shrivelled squaws, hideous with three score years of hardship ; grisly old warriors scarred with war clubs; young aspirants whose honors were yet to be won; damsels, gay with ochre and wampum; restless children pell meli with restless dogs each wild feature in vivid light."-Parkman.
29
INDIAN TOWNS-SOCIAL USAGES.
were much longer ; some are described that were two hundred and forty feet in length, and ten- anted by as many as twenty families, each with their wolfish dogs, the latter as regular occupants of the cabins as the children.
INDIAN TOWNS .- The Indian towns were but an irregular and confused aggregation of Indian houses, clustered together with little regard to order, and covering from one to ten acres. They were often fortified with palisades about thirty feet high. Large trees were felled by burning, the process being aided by hacking off the coals with stone hatchets. By a similar process the trees were separated into suitable lengths for the palisades, which were set on an embankment surrounding the town, formed from the earth cast from a deep ditch. The palisades were set in several rows, and often interlaced with flex- ible branches, to prevent their destruction by fire, a common effort of an enemy. Wooden con- doctors were so placed as to conduct water to any part of them ; interior galleries and parapets were formed of timber, for the protection of those within the enclosure ; ladders and a supply of large stones completed the means of defense.
In building and fortifying their towns, large quantities of timber were consumed, and about their villages, therefore, large tracts were cleared and opened to their rude cultivation. In that work the squaws were employed with their bone or wooden hoes, in planting and cultivating corn, beans, pumpkins, tobacco, sunflowers, hemp, fruit trees, etc. When the soil in one locality became exhausted, and the timber so far con- sumed as to be at an inconvenient distance from the towns, the latter were removed to a new lo- cality, these removals occurred at varying in- tervals of from ten to thirty years. Hence the numerous remains of Indian towns, orchards, etc., found scattered throughout the country.
SOCIAL USAGES .- The laws of marriage were exceedingly lax. There was no form or ceremo- ny. The acceptance of a gift from a suitor, by the intended wife, and the return on her part of an armful of fuel and a dish of boiled maize, sealed the compact. Marriages were dissoluble at the pleasure of the parties and separations oc- cured for trifling causes. Among the Hurons experimental marriages were common, which usually were of short duration, and sometimes a score of such experiments were made before a
final settlement was concluded ; great license was tolerated without loss of reputation to either party. Notwithstanding the entire freedom of the par- ties to separate at will, the great majority of Iro- quois marriages were permanent. The wife when married entered the lodge of her master and, in accordance with the customs of her nation, be- came thenceforward a drudge. She tilled the soil, prepared the firewood, gathered the harvest, dressed the skins, prepared the hemp for, and made the nets and rush mats. She cooked the food, and when on the march, bore the burdens of the party, the men built their houses, made their pipes and weapons and were otherwise mainly employed in hunting or war.
Family discipline was little resorted to. Fill- ing the mouth with water and spurting it over the refractory urchins, or denuding and plunging them into cold water, were the principal means employed.
Taciturn, morose and cruel as the Indians were usually in their hunting and warlike expeditions, in their own cabins and communities they were very social, patient and forbearing ; in their festal seasons, when all were at leisure, they engaged in a round of continual feasting, gambling, smoking and dancing. In gambling they spent much of their leisure and staked all they controlled on the chances of the game, their food, ornaments, canoes, clothing and even their wives. Various devices were employed, plum stones or pieces of wood, painted black on one side and white on the other, these were put into a wooden bowl, which, being struck heavily upon the ground, caused the balls to bound upward, and the betting was upon the white or black faces that were up- permost when they fell. The game had a pecu- liar fascination, in which two entire villages some- times contended, and cases are related where some of the contestants lost their leggings and moccasins, and complacently returned home barefooted through the snow. Some of the Iro- quois believed that they would play this game in the spirit land.
DANCES AND FEASTS .- The Iroquois had five stated annual festivals or thanksgivings, each conducted in a manner appropriate to the espe- cial event commemorated.
The first, in the Spring, in gratitude for the abundance of the sap and quantity of sugar, in which the aged chiefs pointed out to their young
30
DANCES-FEASTS.
men the paths which they should pursue to se- cure the continued favor of their ruling deity, Ha-wah-ne-u.
The second, after corn-planting, when thanks were rendered for a favorable seed time ; instruc- tions were given for the care and cultivation of the crop, and the great spirit was invoked to give to it a healthy growth and an early maturity.
The third, when the green corn was ready for use, in which thanks were rendered for this valu- able gift, which was prepared and consumed in great quantity and in a variety of ways, boiled, roasted, in succotash, etc., closing with songs and dances, the head men smoking the pipe of peace.
The fourth, at the close of the corn harvest, in which thanks were returned for its abundance, followed by the usual festivities.
The fifth, the crowning and concluding fes- tival of the year, is held immediately after the return of the hunters from the chase, with their wealth of game and skins. This is celebrated with peculiar pomp and ceremony. The whole nation is invited to assemble at the council house, by runners, who visit every cabin. Immediately the fires are extinguished in every wigwam, the houses purified and new fires kindled. This oc- cupies the first day. The managers then visit each house, to gather the gifts of the people, and all must give something. or receive a rub, from the managers, which leaves a mark difficult to erase and which remains a signet of disgrace. The gifts consisted of various articles of food, or necessary supplies. These gifts are supposed to represent the sins of the people, which will be expiated by the sacrifices soon to be made.
Meanwhile many have met at the council house, and have been engaged in leaping, running, danc- ing, and their various national sports. When all the gifts of the people have been gathered, and which they call the ills of the nation, preparations are made for the great sacrifice, which is the of- fering of two white dogs, to which the sins of the nation have, by a formal ceremony, been trans- ferred. These dogs are suffocated and brought with much ceremony into the council chamber and laid upon the platform. Meanwhile each gift had been presented by the giver to the master of ceremonies, who had received it, ejaculated a prayer, and then hung it up in the council house. The dogs were now to be sacrificed by fire,
which was ready outside the house. After chants and prayers the dogs were, in turn, cast upon the fire, with tobacco and sundry herbs, and were consumed, the whole ceremony concluding with the
WAR DANCE .- This War Dance was intended to represent the return of a war party, in which thirty young braves, fully armed, painted and adorned, with representations of scalps, rushed into the council house and were cordially received by the chiefs and aged men, by whom they were questioned, and to whom they recounted their exploits in detail, with all the earnestness and gesticulations of actual transactions, showing how and where they had met the foe, how many they had slain, the fortitude of prisoners under tor- ture, and their own willingness to again enter the war path. Then followed the thrilling war dance. Their bodies were almost naked and painted with striking and fantastic figures. A rude, but conspicuous head dress, ear and nose jewels, deer hoofs dangling from their ankles, with hatchets, war clubs and bows with full quivers, gave the warriors a most grotesque, yet warlike appearance, akin to real life. One of the party was bound to represent a captive, and told that his career as a warrior was now over, that he must be tortured by fire, and that his courage would be shown by the fortitude with which he should endure his sufferings. This was followed by a wild war-whoop. The victim manifested total indifference to his fate. They danced vio- lently about him, made continual feints as if to dispatch him with their hatchets or war clubs, the victim remaining calm and taunting them with their ignorance of the arts of torture, and lauding his own exploits. This dance lasted more than two hours, during which the warriors had exerted themselves to the utmost, were drenched with perspiration, their breasts heaving with their violent efforts. The cord binding the prisoner having been cut he peered slyly about him, and seeing an opening in the ring, darted for it like an arrow ; but the gleaming of hatch- ets, the thud of war clubs, mingled with deafen- ing yells, told that the effort was vain, and he sank, imitating perfectly the struggles of the dying, the slow and solemn death song, chanted as they marched around the dead, closed the scene. *
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