USA > New York > Livingston County > History of Livingston County, New York, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 4
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While the Iroquois were waging war with the Adirondacks, the French, who early signalized their enmity for the former, had, by the establishment of their fur trade, drawn most of the neighboring nations to Quebec, and supplied them with fire- * History of the Five Indian Nations.
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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
arms. These nations joined in the war against the Iroquois. The Adirondacks now resolved on the utter destruction of the Five Nations; but their young warriors, from their superiority in numbers and arms, became rash and insolent and restive under the disciplinary restraints of their chiefs. The Iroquois, who were thrown on the defensive by the rash impetuousness of their enemies, soon dis- covered the advantages they gained by this want of discipline, and became themselves more submis- sive to their chiefs and diligent in executing any enterprise. They opposed strategy, for which they were so conspicuously distinguished,* to the supe- riority in numbers and arms of the enemy, who were adroitly drawn into ambuscades and thereby suffered great losses. This warfare was continued until it culminated in the disastrous defeat and dis- persion of the Adirondacks and their allies, the Quatoghies, or Hurons, in a terrible battle fought within sight of the French settlements at Quebec. They pursued these enemies to their place of refuge with a relentless persistency which only relaxed with their dispersion and almost utter extermina- tion.
With the same terrible, deadly vehemence they pursued other enemies, prominent among whom were the Neutrals and Eries to the west and the Andastes to the south of them, their vengeance never satiated until they were wiped out of exis- tence as nations. Thus they eventually became the dictators of the continent, their sway extending over a territory estimated to be twelve hundred miles long by eight hundred broad, embracing a large part of New England, and reaching thence to the Mississippi ; while the French occupants of Canada, and the Cherokees and Catawbas in the far south were humbled by their power. But they hell in actual possession only the limited territory previously described.
From the conquered nations they exacted tribute and drew conscripts for their armies. From the extent of their conquests, the number of their sub- ject nations, and the tribute and military aid ren- dered them by the latter, they have been called the " Romans of this Western World."t When we re- flect that of their own warriors they could bring into the field barely 2,000 braves, and with this number subjugated nations numerically more than twice as large, and spread terror and consternation among the French settlements in Canada, threat-
* 'The Five Nations are so much delighted with stratagems in war, that no superiority in their forces ever makes them neglect them .- Colden.
t L'olney's View of the United States, 470-476 ; Colden's Five Na- tions 1, 4, 5 ; Collections of the New York Historical Society, 1814, 44.
ening their utter extinction, the magnitude of their achievements may be faintly comprehended. They are thus emphasized by Street :-
" By the far Mississippi the Illini shrank,
When the trail of the Tortoise was seen at the bank,
On the hills of New England the Pequot turned pale,
When the howl of the Wolf swelled at night on the gale,
And the Cherokee shook in his green smiling bowers.
When the foot of the Bear stamped his carpet of flowers."
Their great successes, however. are scarcely ref- erable to the perfection of their military organiza- tion, which, though unquestionably better than that of their neighbors, was wretchedly poor. Occa- sionally, though rarely, they acted in concert as a great confederacy ; but usually their wars were car- ried on by detached parties, small in numbers, or at best by individual nations, by whom their great conquests were mostly made.
They were in a chronic state of warfare, and were easily diverted from other pursuits whenever an opportunity offered to avenge their enemies. The inveterate wars waged by them against their kins- men, as for instance the Hurons, Eries and Andastes, all mighty and valorous nations, is one of the un- explained passages in their history. Any of their warriors who was desirous of avenging a personal insult, rebuking a tribal or national affront, or am- bitious to distinguish himself by some deed of valor, might take the war-path with such following as he could get. He first communicated his design to two others of his most intimate friends and if they approved of it, an invitation was extended in their name to the warriors of the village to attend a feast of dogs' flesh, which was always used on such oc- casions .* His purpose was publicly proclaimed by the singing of war-songs, dancing the war-dance, and sticking his hatchet in the war-post. Any who chose joined him. After a night spent in alimen- tary debauchery they set out, dressed in their finest apparel, with faces hideously bedaubed with paint, to make them objects of terror to their enemies, usually with a little parched corn meal and maple sugar as their sole provision. Often these viands were varied by the addition of a little smoked venison ; and when the supply became scant, as it often did, the tightening of the waist-belt was made to supplement an insufficient meal. They were al- ways followed on such occasions by the women, who took with them their old clothes and brought back the . Colden's Five Indian Nations ; Col. FFist. I.K., 360.
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MILITARY STATUS OF THE IROQUOIS.
finery in which they marched from the castle. They always recorded these exploits by the aid of their mnemonic symbols, rudely sketched on the smooth side of a piece of bark, peeled for that purpose from a tree-usually an oak, as being most durable. These expeditions usually provoked retaliation, and the vengeance of the injured party was wreaked on any of the offending nation with whom they came in contact. Thus the history of Indian warfare is largely the history of the daring exploits of indi- viduals and small bands of warriors, who harrassed their enemies and kept them in perpetual fear of danger. This mode of warfare proved peculiarly distressing to the early settlements of the American colonies.
Authors differ as to the military status of the Iroquois, and it would be difficult, perhaps, with our limited exact knowledge of the various Indian tribes with whom they came in contact, to award them their just meed. It would be manifiestly un- just to compare them with civilized nations, though in some respects this would not reflect disparag- ingly upon them. They had a discipline suited to . the dark and tangled forests where they fought. Here they were a terrible foe; but in an open country, against a trained European force, they were, despite their ferocious valor, less formidable. Their true superiority was a moral one. They were in one of those transports of pride, self-confidence and rage for ascendancy, which, in a savage peo- ple, marks an era of conquest .* They were proud, vindictive, arrogant, sagacious and subtle, and esteemed themselves by nature superior to the rest of mankind. They styled themselves Ongue- honwe, signifying "men surpassing all others."t Great care was taken to inculcate this opinion in their children, and to impress it upon other nations.
The superiority of the Iroquois, as compared with others of their race in the whole western hemi- sphere, and even with the civilized races of Mexico and Peru, with a few doubtful exceptions, is clearly proved by the size of their brain. The average internal capacity of five Iroquois crania, as com- pared by Morton, was eighty-eight cubic inches, which is within two inches of the Caucasian mean, and four of the Teutonic.# The difference in vol- ume is chiefly confined to the occipital and basal portions-the region of the animal propensities- and on this is predicated their ferocious, brutal and
uncivilizable character .* In this remarkable family occur the fullest developments of Indian character, and the most conspicuous examples of Indian in- telligence. If not here, then nowhere are to be found those higher traits popularly ascribed to the race.t They unified and systematized the elements which, among other nations, were digressive and chaotic. The average internal capacity of the cra- nia of the North American Indians generally is eighty-four cubic inches ; greater than the mean of twenty-four crania of Mound builders, as examined by Prof. Jeffreys Wyman, Curator of Peabody Mu- seum of American Archaeology.#
The advent of the European nations to the American continent was the precursor alike of the downfall of the Iroquois Confederacy and the ulti- mate extinction of the American Indian. This was due, not so much to the organic defects of the confederacy itself, as to causes inherent in the struc- ture and mental incapacity of its authors. Stimu- lated at first by the attrition of rugged Saxon thought, they were destined ere long to be con- sumed by it. Though radically intractable, this race possessed in certain external respects a plastic mind; but while they felt and were, in a measure, influenced by this contact with a superior intellect, they lacked the ability to adapt themselves to the conditions essential to its evolvement. It intensi- fied their savage nature, rather than eradicated it; for, unhappily for them, they were brought more in contact with its vices than its virtues. It cannot be denied, however, that the efforts of early mis- sionaries had a softening tendency; and what might have been the result of their labors under more favorable conditions can only be conjectured. But the missionaries themselves gave ample evi- dence of the great difficulty attending their conver- sion, and it should not be overlooked that the in- stances which gave unmistakable evidence of gen- uine conversion were extremely rare. The large liberty allowed by their national compact was an element of great danger with a barbarous people, given, as they were, to the gratification of many of the worst impulses of their nature ; for it held little or no restraint over them. The worst phases of our civilization-a polished barbarism rather-were engrafted on their natures, and served as a stimu- lus to appetites and passions already abnormally developed.
* Parkman's Jesuits.
t Colden's Five Indian Vations.
# Crania Americana, 195.
* Admeasurements of C'rania of the Principal Groups of Indians in the United States. - J. S. Phillips.
t Parkman's Jesuits.
$ Fourth Annual Report, 1871.
20
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
Advanced as the Iroquois were beyond other American tribes, there is no indication whatever of a tendency to overpass the confines of a wild hunter and warrior life. They were inveterately attached to it, impracticable conservatists of bar- barism, and in ferocity and cruelty they matched the worst of their race. That they were sagacious is past denying ; but it expended itself in a blind frenzy which impelled them to destroy those whom they might have made their allies in a common cause. Their prescience, apparently, could not comprehend the destiny of a people capable of emerging from barbarism into civilization. Their decline may be said to have begun when their con- quests ended. They soon became a hopeless de- pendency, without the means, if they had the de- sign, which they probably did not, to stop the en- croachment of the whites upon their domain. As early as 1753. their dissolution was foreshadowed, though it did not take place till about a quarter of a century later. *
CHAPTER 11.
INDIAN HABITS AND USAGES-INDIAN DWELLINGS -INDIAN TOWNS -SOCIAL U'SAGES - DRESS AND> HABITS-LAW OF MARRIAGES-EXPERI- MENTAL MARRIAGES-FAMILY DISCIPLINE - AMUSEMENTS - DANCES AND FEASTS - THE WAR DANCE-RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION- STATED ANNUAL FESTIVALS-MEDICAL FEASTS -DREAMS-WIZARDS AND WITCHES-BURIALS -WAMPUM-HOSPITALITY.
TE purpose giving in this chapter some of the more prominent features of Indian domestic and social life, which furnish the best index to his true character. The Indian, viewed as a distinct branch of the human family, has some peculiar traits and institutions which may be advantageous- ly studied. They furnish the key to those start- ling impulses which have so long made him an object of wonder to civilized communities, and re- veal him as the legitimate product of the condi- tions attending his birth, his forest education, and the wants, temptations and dangers which surround him. They show him also to be as patient and politic as he is ferocious.
"America, when it became known to Europeans,
t See an account of a conference between Col. William Johnson and the Six Nations at Onondaga, Sept. 8, 1753 .- Doc. Ilist. 11., 633.
was, as it had long been, a scene of wide-spread revolution. North and South, tribe was giving place to tribe, language to language; for the Indian, hopelessly unchanged in respect to indi- vidual and social development. was, as regards tribal relations and social haunts, mutable as the wind. In Canada and the northern section of the United States, the elements of change were especially active. The Indian population, which, in 1535, Cartier found at Montreal and Quebec, had disappeared at the opening of the next century, and another race had succeeded, in language and customs widely different ; while in the region now forming the State of New York, a power was rising to a ferocious vitality, which, but for the presence of Europeans, would probably have subjected, absorbed or exterminated every other Indian community east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio." *
Hence we shall see that Indian habitations were not characterized by that durability and perma- nency which is manifest in stable communities. This mutability was governed primarily by success or non-success in war, or the fear of ambitious neighbors, for not unfrequently whole nations, or fragments of nations, submitted to expatriation to save themselves from extermination ; and, second- arily, by the mode of Indian life. They subsisted generally by hunting and fishing. Their agriculture was usually of the most primitive character ; and when, in the course of years, the fertility of their small clearings became exhausted, not being con- versant with the art of refertilization, they removed to and cultivated new fields. The scarcity of gaine and fuel also necessitated their removal to localities where it was more abundant.
Usually, however, they had large central villages, which exhibited in a more marked measure the ele- ments of permanency. Thus the Iroquois, though living at different times in various localities in this State, retained their central habitations in or near the localities where the whites first found them. Of the Iroquois, who subsisted mainly by the chase, the Senecas, who occupied the most fertile portion of the State, brought agriculture to the highest de- gree of perfection, and had the best houses. When General Sullivan passed through their country with his army in 1779, thousands of acres had been cleared, old orchards of apples, pears, peaches and other fruits existed, and evidences of long cultiva- tion abounded. Corn, which was a staple produc- tion, grew to marvelous perfection, ears twenty-two inches in length being found by Sullivan's soldiers, who, it is said, took to New England from the Gen- esee Valley the first sweet corn ever seen there.
* Parkman's Jesuits.
21
DWELLINGS, TOWNS AND FORTIFICATIONS OF THE IROQUOIS.
Their dwellings differed in shape and size, and, though rude, were generally built with considerable labor and care. They were generally about thirty feet square and of the same height. The sides were formed of hickory saplings set in two parallel rows and bent inward, thus forming an arch. Trans- verse poles were bound to the uprights and over the arch. The whole was covered with bark, over- lapping like shingles, and held in place by smaller poles fastened to the frame with cords of linden bark. An open space about a foot wide extended the whole length of the ridge and served the double purpose of window and chimney. At each end was an enclosed space for the storage of supplies of In- dian corn, dried flesh, fish, &c., which were kept in bark vessels. Along each side were 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 plat- forms were in sections of twelve to fourteen feet. with spaces for storage between them. Five or six feet above was another platform, often occupied by children. Overhead poles were suspended for var- ious uses, to make and dry their fish and flesh, and hold their weapons, skins, clothing, corn, &c. In cold weather the inmates slept on the floor, huddled about the fires, which ranged through the center of the house. In their large structures the sides usu- ally consisted of rows of upright posts, and the roof still arched, was formed of separate poles. The door consisted of a sheet of bark hung on wooden hinges, or suspended by cords from above. Gen- erally they were lined with a thick coating of soot by the large fires maintained for warmth and for cooking. So pungent was the smoke that it pro- duced inflammation of the eyes, attended in old age with frequent blindness. Their wolfish dogs were as regular occupants as the unbridled and unruly children. The Iroquois preserved this mode of building in all essential particulars till a recent period, and it was common and peculiar to all tribes of their lineage.
The Indian towns were generally but an irreg- ular and confused aggregation of Indian houses, from five to fifty in number, clustered together with little regard to order, and covering from one to ten acres. As the Indian dug no wells, they were lo- cated adjacent to copious springs or to considerable streams. They were often fortified, and a situation favorable to defense was always chosen-the shore of a lake, the crown of a dithcult hill, or a high point of land in the fork of confluent streams.
These defenses were not often constructed with any mathematical regularity, but made to conform to the nature of the ground. Frequently a precipice or river sufficed for a partial defense, and the line or embankment occurred only on one or two sides.
An embankment was constructed of the earth thrown up from a deep ditch encircling the town, and supported palisades of twenty to thirty feet in height, planted in one to four concentric rows, those of each row inclining towards those of the others till they intersected. These palisades were cut by the alternate process of burning and hack- ing the burnt part with stone hatchets * from trees felled in the same manner, and were often inter- laced with flexible branches, to prevent their de- struction by fire, a common effort of the enemy. They were lined to the height of a man with heavy sheets of bark ; and on the top, where they crossed, was a gallery of timbers for the defenders, together with wooden gutters, by which streams of water could be poured on fires kindled by the enemy. Magazines of stones, and rude ladders for mount- ing the ramparts, completed the provisions for de- fense. The forts of the Iroquois were stronger and more elaborate than those of other nations, and large districts in New York are marked with the remains of their ditches and embankments, many instances of which occur in Livingston county. After the advent of Europeans and the introduction of suitable implements for making excavations, the palisades were set in the ground to a sufficient depth to render the use of embank- ments unnecessary ; t and their later defensive structures evince other modifications in form, sug- gested. probably, by the example or instructions of their white neighbors.
Unsatisfactory efforts have been made to estab- lish a connection between the ancient works in this vicinity and those ascribed to the Mound-builders, and refer them to the same origin. "The resem- blance which they bear to the defensive structures of other rude nations, in various parts of the world, are the results of natural causes, and cannot be taken to indicate either a close or remote connection or dependence."¿ But the differences between the two in size. general conformation and mode of structure are too important to be overlooked and scarcely admit of the thought of a like origin. The
* The Indian had no metallic ax capable of felling a tree prior to 1492. -Schoolcraft.
t A notable instance of this kind came under the observation of the writer in the town of Locke, in Cayuga county.
S Antiquities of New York and the West, 141.
22
HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY.
former are much smaller and more numerous in a given extent of territory than the latter, which also conform in their structure to geometrical principles, while the former are conspicuous for their depart- ure from this rule .* The former also have the ditch outside the embankment, while in the latter it is invariably insidet-a distinction too important and general to be merely accidental. Two of these remains which have come under our observation do not show by the relics found in them evidence of intercourse between their occupants and Euro- peans, showing that few had been abandoned prior to the advent of the white man-a fact which is at variance with the known mutability of the Indian ; furthermore, the forest growths covering these sites when the first settlers came into the country, and usually cited as an evidence of antiquity, with a few possible exceptions, did not indicate an anti- Columbian, if an anti-Jesuit, period. Squier says : " I am driven to a conclusion little anticipated when I started upon my exploration of the monu- ments of the State, that the earth-works of Western New York were erected by the Iroquois or their western neighbors, and do not possess any anti- quity going very far back of the discovery." Inci- dental resemblances in the character of the relics disclosed by them in isolated cases do not warrant the broad deductions sometimes made for them ; for, if the connection is real, these resemblances should be of a general, not a special nature.
Large quantities of timber were consumed in building these fortifications, and hence clearings of considerable extent were made and opened to their rude cultivation. In that work the squaws were employed, assisted by the children and superannua- ted warriors ; not as a compulsory labor, but assumed by them as a just equivalent for the oner- ous and continuous labor of the other sex, in pro- viding meats and skins for clothing, by the chase, and in defending their villages against their enemies and in keeping intruders off their territory.s The implement used for tilling the soil was a bone or wooden hoe, (pemidgeag akwout ; ) and the chief crops, corn ( mondamin, ) beans, pumpkins, tobacco, sunflowers and hemp. There was no individual ownership of land, but each family had for the time exclusive right to as much as they saw fit to cultivate. The clearing process was a laborious one, and consisted in hacking off branches, piling them together with brushwood around the foot
of the standing trunks, and setting fire to the whole.
With the Iroquois the staple article of food was corn, "cooked without salt in a variety of dif- ferent forms, each," says Parkman, "more odious than the last." This, cooked with beans of vari- ous colors, was highly esteemed by them, but was more of a dainty than daily dish. Their bread, which was of indifferent quality, kneaded in a bark tray with unwashed hands, but an article of daily consumption, was made of corn ; from which they also made a porridge, called by some Sapsis, by others Duundare, (boiled bread .* ) Wild game was a common article of food, but venison (used specifically) was a luxury found only at feasts; dog's flesh was held in high esteem, and in some of the towns captive bears were fattened for festive occasions. Their food comprised many other arti- cles, some of which are far from being delectable to a refined taste.
These stationary tribes were far less improvident than the roving Algonquins, and laid up stores of provision against a season of want. Their main stock of corn was buried in caches, or deep holes dug in the earth. In respect to the arts of life, also, they were in advance of the wandering hunters of the North. The women made a species of earthen pot for cooking, but these were supplanted by the copper kettle of the French traders. They wove rush mats with no little skill. They spun twine from the hemp by the primitive process of rolling it on their thighs ; and of this twine they made nets. They extracted oil from fish and from the seeds of the sunflower, the latter, apparently, only for the purposes of the toilet. They pounded their maize in huge mortars of wood, hollowed by alternate burnings and serapings.t To the woman belonged the drudgery of the household, as well as the field, though it may be questioned if the task was as on- erous as it is generally supposed to have been. Among the Iroquois there were favorable features in her condition. She had often a considerable influence in the decisions of the councils. It was her prerogative during war to propose a cessation of hostilities, and this could be done without com- promising the warriors and chiefs. For this purpose a male functionary, who was a good speaker, was designated to perform an office which was deemed unsuitable to the female; and when this resolution was taken by the matrons of the nation or tribe, the message was delivered to this officer, who was
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