USA > New York > History of the state of New-York : including its aboriginal and colonial annals, vol. pt 1 > Part 2
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Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins. [PANT J.
It is, says Mr. Atwater," nothing but one vast cemetery of the beings of past ages. Man and his works, the mammoth, tropical animals, the cassia tree and other tropical plants, are here reposing together in the same formation. By what ca- tastrophe they were overwhelmed and buried in the same strata, it would be impossible to say, unless it was by that of the ge- neral deluge.
In the valley of the Mississippi, the monuments of buried nations are unsurpassed in magnitude and melancholy gran- deur by any in North America. Here cities have been traced, similar to those of ancient Mexico, once containing hundreds of thousands of souls. Here are to be seen thousands of tu- · muli, some a hundred feet high, others many hundred feet in circumference, the places of their sepulchre, their worship, and perhaps of their defence. Similar mounds are scattered throughout the continent, from the shores of the Pacific into the interior of our state, as far as Black river, and from the lakes to South America. Į
There is one class of antiquities which present themselves on digging from thirty to fifty feet below the surface of the ground.(7) They occur in the form of firebrands, split wood, ashes, coals, and occasionally tools and utensils, buried to these depths by the alluvion. They have been observed (as
Sec Atwater's Antiquities of the West, in vol. I. Archeologia Ameri- cana, p. 121. and Pref. p. 5.
t The flying Scythian when asked by his victorious pursuer, where he would pitch battle? replied, upon the burial places of his ancestors. These were the common ancestors also of the authors of the above works, accord- ing to one of the hypotheses hereafter mentioned.
# For particular accounts of these antiquities, see vol. I. Archæ. Amer. or Transactions of the Amer. Antiquarian Soc. Worcester, 1822. Hum- boldt's Monuments, Clavigero's Mexico, &c. Bullock's Mexico, Lond. 1824. p. 296. 326. Mexican Pyramids. Sce 7 v. N. Am. Rcv. (new serics) 14. Brackenridge's Views of Louisiana. Drake's Picture of Cincinnati. Jefferson's Notes on Virg. Bishop Madison, in vol. VI. Transac. of Amer. Pbilo. Soc. Dr. M.Culloh's Researches on Amer. Balt. 1817. Henry's "Travels. Description of the Ruins of an ancient City in South America. Mounds in Indiana, vol. VI. North Am. Rev. 137.
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Authors of the Antiquities.
$ 2.]
Dr. Mitchill says he was informed) in Rhode Island, New- Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, and elsewhere. When facts of this description, so curious for the inquisitive geologist and historian, shall have been collected and metho- dised, light may possibly be shed upon the remote Pelasgians, and upon the traditionary Atlantides.(S)
Philosophers and antiquaries concur in opinion, that these remains of art evince the remote existence of nations far more civilised than the indigenes of the present race ; than, at least, of any known tribes of North America.
The antiquities of this state are, in the opinion of Mr. Clin- ton.(9) demonstrative evidence of the existence of a vast population settled in towns, defended by forts, cultivating agriculture, and more advanced in civilization than the nations which have inhabited the same countries since the European discovery.
It is in reference to the stupendous and curious works of art, and not to mere mounds, that this coincidence in opinion appears. Mounds may indicate a race different indeed from the present, without evidencing any extraordinary advance- ment in improvement. Serving as sepulchres and altars, whereon the officiating priests could be seen by the surround- ing worshippers, they might be traced from Wales, across the Russian empire, to our continent, and from the shores of the Pacific to the eastern end of lake Ontario.(10) They pre- sent, says Dr. Clarke after describing those of Russia, " " the simplest and sublimest monuments which any generation could raise over the bodies of their progenitors, calculated for almost endless duration, and speaking a language more impressive than the most studied epitaph upon Parian marble. When beheld in a distant evening's horizon, skirted by the rays of the setting sun, and touching, as it were, the clouds which hang over them, imagination pictures the spirits of heroes of re- moter periods descending to irradiate the warrior's grave. 'These are the sepulchres of the ancient world, common to al-
Clarke's Travels in Russia, Tartary, and Turkey.
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Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins. [PARTI.
most every habitable country. If there exists any thing of former times, which may afford monuments of antidelnvian manners, it is this mode of burial. They seem to mark the progress of population in the first ages after the dispersion, rising wherever the posterity of Noah came. Whether under the form of a mound in Scandinavia and Russia, a barrow in England, a cairn in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, or those heaps which the modern Greeks and Turks call tepe, or in the more artificial shape of a pyramid in Egypt, they had univer- sally the same origin."
§ 3.
The inquiries now arise :- Who erected these works ? Whence originated these wonderful people ? Were they the primitive ancestors of the indigenes of our state ? What is the story of their first migration and settlements ; their pro- gress from rudeness to comparative refinement ; their retro- gression into barbarism ? What terrible disasters precipitated their ruin, exterminated their national existence, and blotted out their name, perhaps for ever ? In reply-while there are a few remnants of tradition to guide inquiry, and volumes of conjectures to bewilder, not one authentic record remains of even the name of any of these populous and powerful na- tions.
In the revolutions of other people, in the downfall of other empires, relics are found, spots visited, architectural ruins traced, which history, or poetry, or mythological fable has identified with the fame and fate of the nation, or of some hero, statesman, philosopher, poet, orator, or artist, who was its ornament, and who reflected glory upon the age in which he flourished.
'The classic remains of Greece and Italy, the venerable re- lics of Carthagenian and Egyptian antiquity, the spot where Ilium towered, and the ground over which were strewed the ruins of Asia Minor, are associated with reminiscences pain- fully pleasing, but memorably instructive and impressive .--
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5 2.]
Authors of the Antiquities-Traditions.
" The places where Demosthenes and Cicero spoke, where Homer and Virgil sang, and where Plato and Aristotle taught," are now indeed the mementos only of the perishable nature of human glory. But even these are beheld with a melancholy satisfaction, because they are identified as the hallowed spots which genius and science had thus consecrated. " A market for cattle is erected on the site of the ancient Roman forum ; the semi-barbarous girls of Albania, instead of the Muses and Graces, surround the once sacred fountain of Castalia ; and banditti prowl among the laurel groves and deified heights of Parnassus."" History and the Muse associate, however, with these degrading truths the most delightful recollections. The pain of the contrast becomes relieved by an effort of the ima- gination ; and sympathy subdues the feelings to an intense but salutary train of reflections.
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But who can trace amid the ruins of the temples, and groves, and fortifications, and once flourishing seats of the abo- rigines, the rise, progress, and decline of a single nation, tribe, or once celebrated individual, as distinguishable from the com- mnon mass of millions, who have been swallowed into the abyss of successive ages? Where are their sages, their heroes, their politicians, their orators, their poets, their artists, their histo- rians ? All, all are covered by a pall, and invested with a sleep, more impenetrable and profound than the total darkness and deep slumber of the middle ages !
Whatever has survived in the shape of tradition, deserves to he recorded.
If, in the course of our history it will appear, that through- out the eventful revolutions of this state, during the Dutch, English, and independent administrations of its affairs, prin- ciples of justice pervaded the treaties that extinguished the title of the former native proprietors to the soil we occupy, still we owe to their memory a debt of gratitude, and to their few and degraded descendants an act of justice, which should
* See Dis. before the N. Y. Alpha of the Phi Beta Kappa, by De Witt Clinton, I.I .. D. p. 7. and authorities there cited.
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Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins. [PART L.
prompt us to keep alive the traditions and just celebrity of the former, before our own intercourse introduced the causes that have led us to feel too much contempt for the latter.
A concise history, therefore, of the celebrated Iroquois con- federacy, and of the Lenni Lenape (or Delawares,) so far as they owned, flourished, or declined, within the ancient territo- rial boundaries of the state, will hereafter embrace an inter- esting epocha. Their traditions, respecting their ancestral origin and the monumental remains of antique art, forni the sc- cond portion of the preliminary matter to the main question.
§ 4.
The nations of the old continents have their fabulous gene- alogical traditions, analogous to which are those of our abo- riginal descendants. All barbarous or semi-savage nations whose origin was obscure in fact, or has been rendered so by lapse of time, have ever manifested this fabulous inclination. It is the refuge of national pride, or it may be founded in those constituents of human nature which delight to revel in mystery, which are curious to pry into the secrets of ex- istence, to discover, if possible, an intimate relationship be- tween what is visible and invisible, and to enjoy at least, as an equivalent for disappointed curiosity, the conscious pride of superior penetration over vulgar perception. In giving to genealogical fiction the impress of a celestial or heroic an- tiquity, state policy has sometimes consulted national vanity, mystical priesthood has often wrought upon blind superstition, and ignorance has combined with both to render credulity in- vulnerable.
The Chinese extended their chronology of princes to the great Fo-hi, centuries before the flood. (11) Like the Trojan Æneas, he was made the son of a goddess. While walking on the bank of a river, she was encircled by a rainbow, and after twelve years she gave birth to that head of the Chinese race. But Confucius acknowledges that for want of evi-
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Traditions.
dence, he could give no certain account of his nation beyond three thousand years. This carries their history near the birth of Noah. Hehas used around number, which is not quite correct; for Noah was born 2500 years before the age of Confucius, and there are reasons for believing that about one hundred and fifty years after the flood, he removed from Persia to China, of which he became the first patriarch or emperor. (12) All pretensions to anterior antiquity originate in national vanity. The Egyptians also pre- tended to a divine race of princes, who were succeeded by a race of mortals. Herodotus was informed by their priests, that from the age of Menes, the first of mortal kings, to Sethos, who died about 2480 years ago, there had been a regular succession of princes, who reigned in all about eleven thou- sand three hundred and six years ; and during this long dy- nasty the sun rose twice in the west and set in the east ! Yet those priests could not tell when or by whom their pyramids were built, nor give any credible account of Sesostris, one of the greatest of their kings ! The Hindoos outstrip all nations in this race of antiquity. They pretend that their sacred book, containing the institutes of civil and religious duties, was received from the Supreme Being himself, by a subordi- nate divine being, about one thousand nine hundred and sixty millions of years ago ! From another divine being of the same rank, there descended two races of kings, called children of the sun and children of the moon, who reigned in different parts of India about three millions of years. An ancient his- torian, whose ancestors were the Goths who had been driven from their country by the Huns when they passed from Asia into Europe, speaking of the Huns, says,-that a certain Gothic king, removing from Scandinavia into Sarmatia in Asia, discovered that among his subjects were many witches. He banished them into a wilderness at a considerable distance. Evil spirits that inhabited the desert fell in love with those witches, by whom they had children : and these were the an- cestors of the Huns. (13)
VOL. I. 4
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Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins. [PART I.
Some nations pride themselves in being Autochthoni. The Grecians boasted that they sprung from the earth. The I- dians of the nine Mandan villages, whom Lewis and Clark visited,* deduce their origin from a subterraneous village near a subterrancous lake, through which, they believe, the good only will return and rejoin their subterranean ancestors. Their progenitors, they say, saw the light of this world through the apertures of a grape-vine, whose roots reached to their nether abode. The boldest, climbing up the vine, were struck with the beauty of this upper world, plncked some grapes and descended. The whole nation then resolved to exchange their dreary habitation for a brighter. Accordingly, about half of them-had ascended, when a corpulent woman, who. was clambering up the vine, broke it by her weight, and thus shut out the light and the way from the rest of the nation. Those who had gained the earth, settled where the Mandan villages are located. Instances of similar absurdity might be multiplied.f The whole human family, and every living thing, according to some Indian traditions, sprang like vege- tables out of the earth, many hundred snows ago. (14) In this opinion, (which is as old as Epicurus and Lucretius, that men sprung like seedless plants, being engendered by moisture . and heat,) the French advocates of one of the hypotheses hereafter mentioned as to the origin of the aborigines, might find encouragement. Even Lord Monboddo, in his attempt to identify his progenitors with monkeys, might have received the sanction of some of the western Indian .t
The national pride. which animated the Grecians, affected to despise any genealogy except that which made their heroes the offspring of the gods, or their first parents the children of the earth. A similar pride burned in the bosom of the celebrated warrior, great natural statesman and orator,
* See Lewis and Clark's Travels, p. 138, 9.
f Sce Lewis and Clark's Travels, and Hunter's Narrative. Hecke- welder's ditto.
# Sce Hunter's Narrative of Manners and Customs of the Western Tribos, p. 314.
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Traditions.
5 4.]
Tecumseh, on an occasion which afforded an admirable in- stance of the sublimity which sometimes distinguished his cloquence. At the council of 1811, held with the Indians, at Vincennes, by General Harrison, the chiefs of some tribes attended, to complain of a purchase of lands which bad been made from the Kickapoos. The harshness of lan- guage used by Tecumseh, in the course of the conference, caused it to be broken up in confusion. In the progress of the long talks which took place, Tecumseh, having finish- ed one of his speeches, looked around, but seeing every one seated, while no seat was prepared for him, a momen- tary frown passed over his countenance. Instantly Gene- . ral Harrison ordered that a chair should be given him. Some person presented one, and, bowing, said : " Warrior, your father, General Harrison, offers you a seat." Tecum- seh's dark eye flashed. " My father ! (he exclaimed indig- uantly, extending his arm towards the heavens) the Great Spirit is my father, and the earth is my mother ; she feeds and clothes me, and I recline upon her bosom." (15)
We have thus introduced (with a digression by way of ro- lief to the tedium of detail,) these foreign traditions, with a view to couple certain similar fables prevailing among the indigenes of our State, and from their extravagance and in- consistency, we may infer that all traditions pretending to unveil the secrets of remote ages, are the illusions of fable, founded perhaps partially upon facts, which, in the progress of time have been perverted by national pride, misinterpreted by ignorance, and exaggerated by superstition.
The Indians who inhabited and owned this State, entertain- ed traditions somewhat similar to those of the Chinese, Hin- doos, Egyptians, and the other nations. They deduced the appearance of the submerged earth and creation of animals, from the operations of a descended goddess, beautiful in heu- ven, whither she returned after the accomplishment of her embassy. But like the Huns, their primeval ancestors were the offspring of an unnatural intermixture ; and their descen- dants possess at this day a Gothic belief in witches. The
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Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins. [PART ].
tradition is related by Vander Donck,* one of the earliest of our Dutch historians, and corroborated by Charlevoix, f- ene of the earliest French writers who touched upon the sub- ject of our aboriginal history.
It sometimes happens, says Dr. Vander Donck, that when we are engaged in earnest conversation with the oldest and best informed of the Indians, they ask our opinion of the first cause and origin of man; and when we relate to them, in broken language, and in the best manner we can, the creation of Adam, they cannot or will not understand or comprehend that it has any relation to their nation, or the negroes, on ac- count of the great difference of colour ; and according to their opinion, the world was not created in the manner related in the first aud second chapters of Genesis. They say :--- " Before the world existed, and before mountains, men, and animals were created, God was with the woman : when or whence they came, we know not. All was water, or at least water covered all things. No eye could have discovered aught else, had there been an eye to see. "The before-men- tioned beautiful woman, or goddess, (as they say) on a certain time gently descended from heaven until she came to the wa- ter. She was pregnant, and had the appearance as if she would bring forth more than one. She did not sink decp into the water, but immediately where she settled down, some land appeared, upon which she rested and continued sitting. The land grew by degrees, and increased around her, so that in time land was discovered about where she sat, like that which would appear when the water falls and recedes from a. bar upon which there had been three or four feet water, and upon which a person had sat till the water receded, and he remained sitting upon dry land. So round about this de- scended goddess the land became longer and broader, and
* Beschryvinge van Nieuw Nederlant, &c. bescreven door Adriaen vander Donck. Beyder Rechten Doctoor, die teghenwoordigh uoch in Nieuw Nederlant is. 'T Acmsteldam. 1655.
f Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France, &r.
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Traditions.
its extent was soon beyond the sight of the eye. Then grass and herbs began to appear ; also fruitful and unfruitful trees, and in a short time all things proceeded and grew as they now are. Whether that world, an account of which you have given us, and from which you originally came, was brought forth at the same time, we cannot say. But when this was thus finished, the exalted personage fell in labour, and was delivered of three kinds of fruits, to wit : the first was like a deer in every respect as it now appears ; the second had the appearance of a bear; the third was in all things similar to a wolf. The woman nursed these fruits until they obtained their full growth ; after which she remained a long time upon earth, cohabiting with these animals severally, brought forth various others several times, always more than one at a birth, and from these sprang all the men and animals of the various kinds and species to be seen at this day. In time, as well from natural instinct as suitableness, each as- sociated with its own kind and species, and so continued to do. When all things were properly disposed and placed in a condition to subsist and continue of themselves, this univer- sal mother, having accomplished her designs, joyfully ascend- ed into heaven, where she will henceforth continue and dwell, delighting and rejoicing in preserving that love which the Supreme Lord bears her, which she endeavours to retain, and in which she obtains perfect joy and satisfaction : wherefore God also loves her supremely, and esteems her above all things. In the meantime, men, and all the animals here be- low, by mutual cohabitation produced many different species, which increased and multiplied exceedingly, as well as all other things that were created, and as they now appear. Hence it is, that all men, of whatever description, at the pre- sent day, partake of the nature and properties of one of those first created animals : for they are either timorous and ino- cent like the deer ; revengeful, cruel, and in combat erect, nim- ble, and strong-fisted,* like the bear ; or blood-thirsty, subtle
* * Wrackgierigh, wreed, oprecht en voor de ruyst!' Vander Donch. Son Bingley's Animal Biography, Vol. I. Art. Com. Bear.
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Origin of the Aborigines and ancient Ruins. [PART I.
and deceitful like the wolf. That the resemblance is not more apparent than it is, is to be ascribed to the canning of men who know how to dissemble. This (they say) is all that we have beard of our forefathers, and what we esteem to be true : but had they known the art of writing as ye do, possibly they would have left us more particular and further information : that art they were unacquainted with."
The Mandan villagers, mentioned by Lewis and Clarke, may have derived their tradition from that which prevailed among the Delawares and Iroquois as late as the middle of the last century; or the latter may have had it from the former. This tradition bears some allusion to that which Vander Donck ro- Jated nearly a century anterior.
In 1743 the Rev. Mr. Pyrlaus (a resident among the Six Nations, "a man of great truth," says Mr. Heckewelder,*) took down from the mouth of a respectable Mohawk chief, named Sganarady, this account of their original existence :--- They had dwelt in the earth where no sun shone. Though they followed hunting, they ate mice, which they caught with their hands. Ganawagahha (one of them) having accidentally found a hole to get out of the earth, he went out, and walking about he found a deer, which he took back ; and in conse- quence of the meat tasting very good, and the favourable de- scription he gave of the country above, their mother conclud- ed it best for them all to go out ; accordingly they did so, except the ground-hog, who would remain. .
Mr. Heckewelder asks, if the ground-hog might not have been the name of one of their tribes, who was made the subject of this fable ?; Reverting to the Mandan account, it is possible that portion of the subterranean people, who were shut out from the upper world in consequence of the cor- pulency of the old woman, (who might have been the mother here alluded to,) was the ground-hog and tribe of the illustrious Iroquois !
* Hist. and Lit. Trans, Phila.
+ 1 vol. Phil. Hist. and Lit. Trans. p. 214.
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Traditions.
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This piece of Indian mythology prevailed also among the Delawares ; and however ridiculous these stories are, the belief of the Indians in them (says Mr. Heckewelder) canot be shaken .* They consider the earth as their universal mo- ther. They believe that they were created within its bosom, where for a long time they had their abode before they came to live on its surface. They say the great and good Spirit bad prepared all things for their reception, but like an infant in the womb of its natural mother, their first stage of existence was wisely ordained to be within the earth. This might ap- pear to bear an analogy between the Mosaic account of the general and individual creation. The Minsi or Wolf tribe, of the Delawares, have the tradition, that in the beginning they dwelt in the earth under a lake, and one of them disco- vering the hole, (leading through this upper crust) they left their dark abode, for a place where they could enjoy the light , of heaven, and have deer (game) in abundance. (16)
These natives view all beings, cudowed with the power of volition and self-motion, in a manner as one great society, of which they are head ; but between whom and themselves there may have been, in the beginning, a relationship; hence, for- merly, the rattlesnake was called their grandfather.t
The names of their tribes are those of animals. The Tor- toise or Turtle tribe, among the Lenape, claims a superiority and ascendency over the others, because their relation, the great Tortoise, a fabled monster, the Atlas of their mythology, bears, according to their traditions, this great islandt on his
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