USA > New York > Genesee County > History of the Genesee country (western New York) comprising the counties of Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Erie, Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Niagara, Ontario, Orleans, Schuyler, Steuben, Wayne, Wyoming and Yates, Volume I > Part 12
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In addition to games were numerous dances of an orderly nature, which took place upon call of the dance leaders in the long- house or on a suitable green. Morgan shows that there were four- teen dances in which men and women both participated, seven for females alone and eleven for men. In only one dance, that of the "joined hands," in honor of the bean vines, did a person of one sex touch the other, but even this was discontinued by order of the religious leaders, who thought that it might lead strange men to tear the rings from the fingers of their dancing partners. Among the most popular dances were the pigeon dance, the trot- ting dance, the fish dance and the joined hands. The women were fond of the shuffle dances, in which nimbleness of foot and grace of gesture revealed skill and rhythm, while the men for excite- ment liked the war dance, the eagle dance, and the stick striking
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dance. After the dances favorite foods were doled out and either eaten on the spot or carried home. All the dances were regulated by feastmakers or officers of ceremony. It was not for them to command or to exercise arbitrary authority, but to regulate and to see that the requirements and taboos were not infringed. In this, as in all Iroquoian affairs, what a group of people wanted became the thing to do, always providing it was a legal desire, sanctioned by custom.
The Senecas were not a taciturn people, but, on the other hand, a people who were fond of being thrilled and excited. They were fond of humor and jokes, and life in a Seneca town was lightened by the telling of humorous tales and the playing of good-natured practical jokes. When a stranger appeared, however, all was sup- pressed and the women moved with decorum, the children were shy and the warriors bore themselves with august dignity, not a smile appearing, though they might be bursting with internal laughter at the perplexity of the stranger. This is one of the prin- cipal reasons why most historians say that the Indians were taci- turn, gloomy and given to austerity.
The truth is that the Senecas were given to jesting and even punning. Many of their jokes were based upon absurd hyper- boles, not dissimilar to those that cause us to smile even now. Sarcasm and taunts were reserved for public speeches and for games. It was customary for friends to joke with one another, but no person should joke with his mother-in-law, or any elderly blood relative. There were even ceremonial dances where, be- tween each dance, a man would step from the lines and tell a comical story about a dancer on the other side of the line, at the same time presenting a gift of food, a trinket, a packet of tobacco or ball of maple sugar, to the common store, in order that no offense might be taken. Some years ago at the Cattaraugus mid- winter festival the writer witnessed one of these "strike pole" joking dances. A Bear clansman arose and, striking the pole, commenced his tale. "I was out hunting," he began. "I walked along the creek, when suddenly I saw a big brave man chasing a rabbit. On he ran until the creek took a quick turn around the cliff. The rabbit quickly darted into his hole, and when this big brave man, whom I will now reveal was my friend, Chief Big Kettle, rounded the turn, he saw a big dog standing on his hind legs. The dog looked at him and let out a big howl. Big Kettle
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thought that the rabbit had turned into a gigantic monster and stopped short, frozen to the spot with fear. His hair rose on end so that his hat stuck up about six spans from the top of his head. Now the rabbit, fearing that the dog would catch him, gave a leap and landed in Big Kettle's hair, and the dog, thinking some one had thrown a rock at it, turned and ran off. Kettle now went home, not knowing that he had any extra animals in his head. His hair came down again and his cap fitted down over his ears. It was dinner time and he drew up to the table, where his wife had a big pan of soup. Suddenly he remembered that he had his hat on and tock it off. As he did so the little rabbit fell out and into the soup. His wife looked at him with astonishment and said, 'My husband, you astound me. Why is it necessary for you to go hunting when you can look under your nails for rabbits and partridge? But I do wish you would skin and dress your game before you put it into the soup.'"
At this the whole company hurst into a roar of laughter, jeer- ing Big Kettle with a series of "Ho-hohs." The Bear clansman then presented the feast basket with a bag of crackers and the dance was renewed. At its close, Chief Kettle took the stick and struck the pole, signifying that he wanted to make a speech. "It is true," said he, "that I am a great magician and can conjure rabbits and deer and bears from my head by just thinking about them, but you have been deceived as to the manner in which I do it. I have strong thoughts in my head. This is not so with my Bear Clan cousin. He is a Bear and has also a heavy head of hair. He, too, is full of something. You will notice that he likes honey. I once saw him sleeping under a tree, being attracted to him by a strange buzzing which I thought at first was the sound of snoring. Looking closer, I saw that his mouth was open and that a great swarm of bees was going in and out his mouth. It was wonderful to behold this strange sight. Then to my great surprise a black walnut fell down and hit him on the head and it returned a hollow sound. Then I knew why the bees had attempted to make a hive in it."
The company laughed again and the Bear clansman put a cake of sugar in the common basket. And so the dance went on until all had told their tales. Then the master of the dance arose and made a speech, asking that every one take the jokes in the spirit
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in which they were told and not to be offended. The presents were then divided and the big cauldron of corn soup distributed.
The Seneca had all the common desires so fundamental in the human race. He loved his children, wanted a happy home, desired to exercise the powers within him and to rank well among his fellows. To attain his hopes he knew the value of industry. Life and safety, he early discovered, depended upon a settled life and upon an abundance of food. Hunting was a precarious business, and thus the Seneca learned to cultivate fields of food plants.
The principal garden produce consisted of corn, beans, squashes, melons, tobacco and sunflowers. These were grown near the villages in extensive communal fields, in which all clans- women were required to work under the direction of a field matron, who ordered the work and supervised the singing and rest periods, when games were played or stories told. The men did the first rough work of clearing and burning, the women did the cultivating. Under the conditions of the times it was a just division of labor. The products of the communal fields were stored in clan granaries and pits, but any individual might have his own garden plot and reserve its fruits for himself, always providing that a hungry clansman might take what he needed for immediate purposes, if he announced the fact. Otherwise to take from a neighbor's garden was regarded as thievery.
The Senecas had more than a dozen varieties of corn, and cul- tivated them with great care, even understanding that varieties planted too closely together would "visit and establish colonies" on the cobs of their neighbors. They had several varieties of squashes and melons and ten or more varietes of beans, all in pre- colonial times. They grew sunflowers for the oil which they ex- pressed from the seeds and used as their butter. There were many wild foods which needed no cultivation and were gathered in great quantities. These included pond lily roots, cat-tail roots, artichoke tubers, wild leek, mushrooms, and many varietes of nuts and berries.
The Seneca woman knew of many ways of preparing her vegetable dishes, and corn was prepared in a score of palatable ways. There were corn soup, gruel, hominy, samp, hulled corn, corn bread, corn pudding and parched corn meal. These corn foods were mixed with beans and berries, nuts, nut and sunflower oil. Iroquois corn culture was a well developed thing, and it exer-
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cised a marked influence on their social and economic life. It induced industry and thrift and was largely responsible for their sedentary village life.
So vital were the fields to the Seneca people, and so largely did their whole life depend upon agriculture, that when the French punitive expeditions desired to harass the Senecas they would swoop down upon them and destroy their cornfields and burn their storehouses."
Seneca villages were collections of bark lodges, together with storehouses and other outer buildings. Houses were built on frameworks of poles and small tree trunks, covered with the bark of the elm, basswood or hemlock. The elm bark lodge was con- sidered best. Great sheets of bark were removed from the trees during late May and up to mid-July and preserved or used imme- diately for covering purposes. These were tied to the framework of the lodge, not up and down, but with the grain of the bark run- ning horizontally. This insured a long enough stretch to permit the fastening poles to hold the bark in place; besides, if the bark were hung up the natural way of the grain, it had a tendency to curl up, but when hung sideways it straightened out flat. Bark lodges were from twelve to eighteen feet high and from about eighteen feet to two hundred in length, depending upon the char- acter of the structure. On either side of the interior were long bunks arranged like the upper and lower beds in a sleeping car. They were stationary, of course. The lower bunks or seats were used as lounging places during the day and the upper platforms as storage places for dishes, dried food, pelts and other portable property. The lower platforms or bunks could be curtained off so as to give privacy to the sleepers at night. Through the middle of the lodge ran a long hallway, in the center of which were the family fires at intervals, so arranged that one fire served a set of four compartments. The smoke escaped through a hole in the roof, the draft being regulated by opening or closing one of the doors at the extremities of the lodge. On the supporting timbers rested long poles that hung just over the line of the upper plat- forms. Upon these were suspended numerous braids of trussed corn, hanks of herbs, dried pumpkins and squashes, and occa- sionally bunches of dried tobacco, still on the stalk. Each com-
3 For a general treatise on Iroquois agriculture and foods, see Iroquois Uses of Maize and other Food Plants, by A. C. Parker, Bulletin 144, New York State Museum.
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partment was a sacred place and not to be violated by the inquisi- tiveness of another. The space beneath the lower beds was some- times boxed in, making a storage vault below. In this were kept special treasures and personal stores. For any one but the owner to pry into these was an offense of the gravest sort. Thus, while the Senecas lived in a communal way, they still had private owner- ship and privacy.
Children were greatly loved and they swarmed in the villages. The coming of a child was a time of gladness, and girls were as welcome as boys, since the female occupied an honored place among the Senecas. Nevertheless, each family had only as many children as they could properly care for, which was seldom more than three. If there were more or they became orphaned, they were placed in the care of those who had few children or none. It was the rule that the control of life should be in the hands of the women and they deemed it best to bear children only when the last child was able to walk and in a measure care for himself, which was at the age of four or five. By this method every baby had its mother's undivided attention, a most necessary thing under the conditions of life in which they lived.
Children were trained by their elders in such a manner that they learned by experience rather than by admonition. They would be told that to play in the fire would cause the fire demons to bite them. The child might test this statement and find it true, but he did not do so because some one had said, "Don't do that." When children grew up to the age of twelve they were placed under the leadership of certain elderly persons for instruction. It was a primitive Boy Scout system of development. Girls clung more closely to their mothers, but even they had their associates.
The houses and land belonged to the women as a rule, for the right of occupation descended in the mother line. This gave Iro- quois women great advantage over the men in many ways. So important was an Iroquois woman that, when captured by the enemy, it required twice the ransom to redeem her than it did a man. Domestic life was controlled by the women and they were regarded as the heads of the household; the men were only the meat providers and the defenders. The women were the mis- tresses of the vegetable supplies, and they harvested the produce of the fields, but to the men fell the arduous task of bringing in the flesh of the forest. This was no easy task, since it entailed
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carrying heavy burdens for great distances. Explorers and mis- sionaries have left us the record that the hunters frequently became injured and worn out with their heavy tasks, and that they frequently died of exhaustion on the trails. Hunting and fishing in those days was not a sport or a pastime, but an arduous business fraught with danger and uncertainty. Enemies prowled the forests, seeking to catch unwary hunting parties, when they did not dare attack defended villages. It was thus necessary for men to rest upon their arms continually in order to preserve their villages from sudden attack.
Religion played an important part in the life of the Seneca people. One might conclude that religion pervaded everything and regulated the habits of the people almost completely. Most of their customs and their daily behavior were controlled by re- ligious beliefs. There were numerous observances and cere- monies, all of which were deemed essential, but religious freedom was basic. So long as one did not violate the fundamental taboos -things forbidden by long standing custom-he might worship as he wished and call upon his own particular gods in his own way. The Iroquois never waged war over matters of religion or to compel people to believe as they did, neither did they ever tor- ture their captives in order to force them to acknowledge the gods of their pantheon.
The Iroquois, like the Greeks, had many gods, but these were regarded more as unseen celestial beings belonging to the primal order. It has been said that the Iroquois did not have a principal god until after the coming of the Jesuits, who gave them the idea, and this may be true, but it is also true that their gods ranked in importance, some being under the direction of others in the capacity of agents or subordinates.
The chief of the god-beings was Earth Holder (Tehaohwen- jaiwahkonh). He ruled the sky-world and lived in a great white lodge beneath the spreading branches of the celestial tree in the middle of the heavens. His wife was the Great Mother, called Yagentji, whom the Jesuits said the Hurons called Ataentsic. In her curiosity to see what was beneath the roots of the celestial tree, she caused it to be uprooted, to the great wrath of her hus- band, who pushed her down into the hole through the sky made by the root cavity of the tree. Down she fell and was received on the interlaced wings of the water birds. The primal turtle rose from
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the sea beneath and a muskrat diving to the bottom of the ocean brought up a bit of earth which he deposited on the turtle's shell, causing it to grow large enough to receive the woman. The turtle grew and the earth increased until a large growing island was formed. The sky-woman brought life with her and shortly gave birth to a daughter, who immediately grew to maturity and be- gan to help her mother. The daughter explored the island each day, and upon a certain occasion while swinging on a vine she was married to an unseen lover. In due season she gave birth to two boys, one of whom caused her death. The sky-woman had the elder boy bury his mother and watch over her grave. Indeed, she required him to do much work, and petted the younger boy as a favorite. The elder boy was known as the Light One, or Good Mind, and the younger as the Dark One, or Evil Mind. Good Mind watched his mother's grave and watered it as directed. From the soil over her breasts sprang the maize plant, giving sweet milk from its kernels for the nourishment of her children. From her body sprang the squash, from her fingers the bean plant, from her head the tobacco plant, and from her toes the artichokes and other edible tubers.
It was not long before Good Mind sought his father, and after a long and perilous journey over the eastern sea found him on a mountain top. He was put to tests by which he was compelled to overcome whirlwinds, flames, great falling rock masses and the current of the cataract. The great shining being at the mountain top then acknowledged him as his son and announced, "I am your father." The being was the Sun.
Here is a beautiful allegory in which the Seneca was taught: that life came to earth from celestial realms, that to be good- minded one must labor, that the seed dies in giving life to the living plant and that through trials and victory over obstacles; and temptation man finds his supreme father.
When Good Mind returned he brought with him pouches filled: with all manner of birds, fish, mammals and plants. These: escaped from the bags at the proper time and became the progeni -. tors of the living things of earth. The myth goes on to tell us that. Good Mind and Evil Mind had a contest, in which, by betrayal of confidence, Evil Mind sought to slay Good Mind, but failed. Evil Mind was then banished to the under-earth world and.took with him his evil creatures. Good Mind created human beings out of
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the reflection of himself which he saw in a pool of water, molding this reflection into the clay in human form. He then became in- visible and returned to the heaven-world over a celestial path formed by a ray of light, his grandmother, the sky-woman, going with him. This beneficent earth-god was called by the Seneca, Thahonhiawah-kon, but he is mentioned in the literature of the Jesuit fathers, who wrote on the mythology of the Hurons, as Iousheha. He is also called Hahnigoio, and his evil brother Hahnegoetga.
Other gods were the Whirlwind and the Thunderer, but there were also gods of dreams, of death, and of other natural forces. These were conceived rather as spirits who might be propitiated and honored, but who had no creative power other than certain magical power to transform things. The Sun was chief among the spirits of nature, the Moon governed the night, the Morning Star heralded the day, the Zephyr brought health, and the Spirits of Sustenance made the food plants grow. Wonderful beings in- habited the air and the forest, and, likewise, there were malignant monsters with frightful powers for evil. In the sky dwelt Ohsha- dahgea, the Cloud Land Eagle, always ready to do good and to rescue the perishing. The dew-pool rested between his shoulders, and when the rain did not fall he gave drink to the thirsty plants. Under the water dwelt the Horned Snake, who, while a magical creature, committed no evil other than to appear in human form to woo and lure away unsuspecting maidens to his underwater caves. The Horned Snakes loved human wives, but the Thun- derer hated the whole tribe of Horned Snakes and fought them whenever they appeared.
The Senecas believed in fairies and pygmies, and many are the tales of these tiny creatures who were friendly to man, espe- cially to unfortunate persons. Some of the pygmies lived in rocky glens and others under the water. Another tribe lived in the woods and had as their task the turning of the fruit so that it would ripen in the sun. These little folk were unable to do many things for themselves and gave favor in exchange for services rendered them by their human friends. They asked that small bags of tobacco be thrown over the cliffs for them and that boys and girls often trim their finger nails so that they could use them to frighten away bad animals, for the nails smelled like human beings and thus the animals became afraid. Often when they
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needed human help, they would be heard drumming in the glades, and this was a signal that mankind should hold a ceremonial for them and sing pygmy songs; also give them presents.
Giants were supposed to live in the mountains among the rocks. These giants were called Stone Coats because they could not be killed by spear thrusts or arrows. Their skins were as hard as rock. Usually they sought to hunt down men and women and eat them raw. At last all the giants were chased into a cave near Onondaga and the Thunderers shook down the rocks upon them. Some say that one lone survivor imparted his wisdom to a frightened boy, who had sought refuge in his cave, and so trans- mitted his wisdom through the False Face Company, which he told the boy to organize. This mysterious company has in one of its secret ceremonies a great mask covered with pebbles and having a flint arrow point imbedded in its forehead. Its hair is shredded bark, for it was not human and therefore could have no real hair. One might continue with a lengthy description of the folk beliefs of the Iroquois, for they are interesting and have many parallels in the mythology of the ancient world.4
Let us proceed to an examination of some of the basic beliefs upon which their religious and social life was founded. The fundamental belief was in the existence of a Great Power that pervaded all nature. This concept does not seem at first to have been well defined, but it lay at the root of the belief in the god- beings of the universe. Later it matured into a belief in Haweniu as the supreme God. This name means "The Great Good Voice" and is a deification of all the creative good in nature, seen and unseen. The Senecas, in common with the other Iroquois, believed in numerous unseen spirits that lived in everything and were capable of manifesting themselves to man upon proper occasions. It was believed that every atom in nature was conscious and had intelligence. For this reason it was deemed proper for men to talk to the rocks, the winds, the trees and the flowers. Even a clod of soil had life and intelligence, for had not the Creator brought it into being? It was therefore thought that all living creatures had souls of greater or lesser intensity, and that there was an unspoken language emanating from the heart that all souls understood. Many cases were cited to prove that faraway
4 For a full description of the myths and folklore of the Seneca see "Seneca Myths and Folklore," by Parker, published by the Buffalo Historical Society, 1924.
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friends could transmit their thoughts, and that men by thinking could cause animals to obey them. It was deduced that there was an unseen and all-powerful Master of Souls into whose keeping all departed souls went for refuge. The Seneca believed that Good and Evil were in a state of eternal warfare, but that Good should triumph and Evil perish, no matter how much power it had acquired. It was believed that men and women could acquire magical power from the spirits of good or evil, and so become magically powerful for good or wizards for evil. In their belief it was possible for creatures to transform themselves into other beings. Since all living things are only the reflections of the Creator, reflection is the real substance of things, but, as a reflec- tion is not material substance, it might easily be transmuted or transplanted into other forms. Thus a man who had acquired magic might transform himself into a deer, or vice versa. Evil beings sought the reflection of evil and had the same power, but it was not believed to be enduring.
Every Seneca of the Genesee Country believed in ghosts. These were thought to be unhappy earth-bound spirits, who either wanted to straighten out some earthly affair, or who lingered on earth because they were malicious and desired to do harm. All good spirits were thought to be able to settle their mundane affairs in ten days and then to completely depart. As names were cords or strings of attachment, it was not proper to mention the real names of the dead, for fear of calling them back from their pleas- ant abodes to the scenes of earthly conflict and perplexity. Thus when a departed soul was mentioned, an implied or descriptive name was given, as "He-who-dwelt-by-the-river-and-made-good- bows," or "She-who-had-a-shell-necklace-as-a-hair-ornament." Every man sought to have some personal trait or to do certain things, so as to have an implied name as well as a real one. Real names were not revealed to strangers. This was for fear the stranger might conjure the name and perhaps work injury to the name holder.
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