USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > The history of the city of Albany, New York : from the discovery of the great river in 1524, by Verrazzano, to the present time > Part 6
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" Tionondogue is double stockadoed round, has four Ports, four foott wide, a piece, contains about thirty houses, is scituated on a hill a Bow shott from ye River.
"The small village is withoutt ffence, & conteyns about ten houses, lyes close by ye river side, on ye north side, as do all ye former.
" The Maques passe in all for aboutt 300 fighting men. *
" The Onyades have butt one towne, which lys aboutt 130 miles westward of ye Maques, itt is situate aboutt 20 miles from a small river which comes out of ye hills to ye southward and runs into the Lake Teshirogue [Oneida Lake,] and aboutt 30 miles distant from the Maques river, which lyes to ye northward ; the towne is newly settled, double stockadoed. * * The towne consists of aboutt 100 houses, they are said to have aboutt 200 fighting men. *% *
"The Onondagos have but one towne butt itt is very large consisting of about 140 houses, nott fenced, is situate upon a hill thatt is very large, the Banke on each side extending itt selfe att least two miles. *
* * They have likewise a small village about two miles beyound thatt, consisting of about 24 houses. They ly to the Southward of ye west, about 36 miles from the Onyades. *
* * The Onondagos are said to be about 350 fighting men. * *
" The Caiougas have three townes about a mile distant from each other, they are not stockadoed, they doe in all consist of about 100 houses, they ly about 60 miles to the Southward of ye Onondagos. * * They passe * for about 300 fighting men. * * *
"The Senecques have four towns, vizt Canagora, Tiotohatton, Canoen- ada and Keint-he ; Canagaroh and Tiotohatton lye within 30 miles of ye lake
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diogo. Each of these tribes carries the animal after which it is called (as its ensign) when it goes to war.1 * * *
"These two nations [the Mohawks and the Mohegans] have different languages that have no affinity with each other, as the Dutch and the Latin. These people formerly carried on a great war against each other, but since the Mahakanders were subdued by the Mahakobaas, a peace has existed between them, and the conquered are obliged to bring an annual contribution to the other. We live among the people of each tribe of these Indians, who, coming to us from their country or we going to them, manifest by many acts a great friendship for us. The principal nation of all the savages and Indians in this neighborhood with which we are acquainted, are the Mahakuaas, who have laid all the other Indians near us under contribution. This nation has a very heavy lan- guage, and I find great difficulty in learning it so as to
ffrontenacque [Lake Ontario, ] and ye other two ly about four or five miles apiece to ye southward of these. * None of their towns are stockadoed.
"Canagorah lyes on the top of a great hill. Contayning 150 houses ; Northwestward of Caiougo 72 miles. Tiotehatton which signifies bending, itt lyes to Westward of Canagorah about 30 miles, con- tains about 120 houses. * *
"Canoenda lyes about four miles to ye Southward of Canagorah, con- teys about 30 houses. * * Keint-he lyes aboutt four or five miles to ye Southward of Tiotehatton, contayns about 24 houses. * The Senecques are counted to bee in all aboutt 1000 fighting men."-Observations of Wentworth Greenhalgh in a Journey from Albany to ye Indyans west- ward ; Begun May 28th, 1677, and ended July ye 14th following. London doc. iii. Doc. colonial hist. N. Y. vol. iii. p. 20.
1 Each tribe has, in the gable end of its cabin, the animal of the tribe painted ; some in black, others in red. * *
" When they go to war and wish to inform those of the party who may pass their path they make a representation of the animal of their tribe, with a hatchet in his dexter paw ; sometimes a sabre or a club ; and if there be a number of tribes together in the same party, each draws the animal of his tribe, and the number representing the tribe's party all on a tree from which the bark has been removed. The animal of the tribe heading the expedition is always the foremost."-The nine Iroquois tribes. 1666. Paris doc. i. Doc. hist. N. Y. vol. i. pp. 11, 12.
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speak and preach to them fluently. There is no Chris- tian here who understands the language thoroughly ; those who have lived here long can hold a kind of con- versation just sufficient to carry on trade with them, but they do not understand the idiom of the language. I am making a vocabulary of the Mahakuaa language, and when I am among them I ask them how things are called; but as they are very stupid, I sometimes cannot get an explanation of what I want. Besides what I have just mentioned, one will tell me a word in the infinitive mood, another in the indicative ; one in the first, another in the second person ; one in the present, another in the praeter perfect tense. I often stand and look but do not know how to put it down. And as they have their declensions and conjugations, so they have their augments like the Greeks. Thus I am as if I were distracted, and fre- quently cannot tell what to do, and there is no person to set me right. I must do all the studying myself in order to become in time an Indian grammarian. When I first observed that they pronounced their words so differently, I asked the commissary of the company what it meant. 1 He answered that he did not know, but imagined they changed their language every two or three years. I told him in reply that it could not be that a whole nation should so frequently change its language; and, though he has been associated with them here these twenty years he can afford me no assistance. * *
"We go with them into the woods, we meet with each other, sometimes at an hour or two's walk from any houses, and think no more about it than if we met with a Christian. They sleep by us, too, in our chambers, before our beds. I have had eight at once, who lay and slept upon the floor, near my bed ; for it is their custom to
1 Sebastian Jansen Crol.
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sleep only on the bare ground, and to have only a stone or a piece of wood under their heads. In the evening they go to bed very soon after they have supped; but they rise early in the morning, and are up before day begins to break. They are very slovenly and dirty. They do not wash their faces or hands, but let all kinds of filth remain upon their yellow skin, and look as dirty as hogs. Their bread is Indian corn beaten into pieces between two stones, of which they make a cake, and bake it in the ashes. Their other victuals are venison, turkeys, hares, bears, wild cats, their own dogs and other things. The fish they cook just as they get them out of the water without cleaning them ; also the entrails of deer, with all their contents, which they cook a little ; and if the entrails are then too tough, they take one end in their mouth and the other in their hand, and between hand and mouth they separate and eat them. So they do commonly with flesh. They cut a little piece and lay it on the fire so long as it takes one to go from house to church, and then it is done ; and when they eat it, the blood runs down their chins. They can also take a piece of bear's fat as large as two fists, and eat it with- out bread or any thing else. It is natural to them to have no beards. Not one in a hundred has any hair about his mouth.
"They paint their faces red, blue and other colors, and then they look like the devil himself. They smear their heads with bear's grease, which they all carry with them for this purpose in a small basket. They say they do it to make their hair grow better and prevent their having lice. When they travel they take with them some of their maize, a kettle, a wooden bowl, and a spoon. These they pack and hang on their backs. When- ever they are hungry, they immediately make a fire and
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cook. They can get fire by rubbing pieces of wood together one against the other, and that very quickly.
"They have their set times for going to catch fish, bears, panthers, and beavers. In the spring they catch vast quantities of shad and eels, which are very large here. They lay them on the bark of trees in the sun, and dry them thoroughly until they are hard, and then put them in notasten or bags, which they plait from hemp, which grows wild here, and keep the fish till winter. 'When their corn is ripe, they take off the ears and put them in deep pits, and preserve them the whole winter. They can also make nets and seines in their fashion ; and when they want to fish with seines, ten or twelve men will go together and help one another, all of whom own the seine in common.
"They generally live without marriage, but if any of them have wives, the marriage continues no longer than they think proper, and then they separate and each takes another partner. I have seen those that had parted, and afterward lived a long time with others, seek their former partners and again be one pair. On the birth of a child, the women go about immediately afterward, and be it ever so cold it makes no difference, they wash themselves and the infant in the river or the snow. They will not lie down (for they say that if they did they should soon die), but keep going about. *% * ** The men have great authority over their wives, so that if they do any thing which affronts them and makes them angry, they take an axe and knock them in the head, and there is an end of it. The women are obliged to prepare the land, to mow, to plant and do everything. The men do nothing except hunt, fish, and go to war against their enemies. They are very cruel toward their enemies in time of war. They first bite off the nails of the fingers of their cap-
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tives, and cut off some joints, and sometimes all the fin- gers. The captives are afterward forced to sing and dance before them stark naked ; and finally, they roast their prisoners dead before a slow fire for some days, and then eat them. The common people eat the arms, the rump and trunk, but the chiefs eat the head and heart. * X
"They have also naturally a great opinion of them- selves. They say, 'I hy Othkon'-(I am the devil), by which they mean that they are unequalled. In order to praise themselves and their people, whenever we tell them they are very expert at catching deer, or doing this and that, they say, 'Tkoschs ko, aguweechon kajingahaga kouaane Jountuckcha Othkon;' that is, Really all the Mohawks are very cunning devils. * * * They also make of the peeling and bark of trees, canoes or small boats, which will carry four, five, and six persons. They also hollow out trees and use them for boats, some of which are very large. I have several times sat and sailed with ten, twelve, and fourteen persons in one of these hollowed logs. We have in our colony a wooden canoe obtained from the Indians, which will easily carry two hundred schepels [one hundred and fifty bushels] of wheat. The arms used by them in war were formerly a bow and arrow, with a stone axe and clap-hammer, or mallet ; but now they get from our people guns, swords, iron axes and mallets. * They place their dead upright in holes, and do not lay them down, and then they throw some trees and wood on the grave, or inclose it with palisades.
"They are entire strangers to all religion, but they have a Tharonhijouaagon, (whom they also otherwise call Athzoockkuatoriaho,) that is, a Genius, whom they honor in the place of God ; but they do not serve or present offerings to him. They worship and present offerings to
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the devil, whom they call Otskon, or Aireskuoni. If they have any bad luck in war, they catch a bear, which they cut in pieces, and roast, and these they offer up to their Aireskuoni, saying the following words : 'O great and mighty Aireskuoni, we know that we have offended against thee, inasmuch as we have not killed and eaten our captive enemies ; forgive us this. We promise that we will kill and eat all the captives we shall hereafter take as certainly as we have killed, and now eat this bear.' Also when the weather is very hot, and there comes a cooling breeze, they cry out directly, 'Asoronusi, asoronusi, Otskon aworouhsi reinnuha;' that is, I thank thee, I thank thee, Devil, I thank thee, Oomke ! If they are sick, or have a pain or soreness any where in their limbs, and I ask them what ails them, they say that the devil sits in their body, or in the sore places, and bites them there ; and they always attribute to the devil the accidents which befall them ; they have no other re- ligion than this. When we pray they laugh at us. Some of them really despise praying ; and some, when we tell them what we do when we pray, stand astonished. When we have a sermon, sometimes ten or twelve of them, more or less, will attend, each having a long to- bacco pipe that he has made, in his mouth, and will stand awhile and look, and afterward ask me what I was doing and what I wanted that I stood there alone and made so many words, while none of the rest might speak. I tell them that I admonish the Christians that they must not steal, nor commit lewdness, nor get drunk, nor commit murder, and that they too ought not to do these things, and that I intend in course of time to preach the same to them and come to them in their own country and castles (about three days' journey from here, further inland,) when I am acquainted with their language. They
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say I do well to teach the Christians, but immediately add, 'Diatennon jawij Assyreoni, hagiowisk,' that is, Why do so many Christians do these things? They call us Assyreoni, that is, cloth-makers, or Charistooni, that is, iron workers, because our people first brought cloth and iron among them." 1
A few weeks before the arrival of Domine Megapolensis at Fort Orange, about seventy Mohawk warriors set out on a foray. On the fourth of August they attacked from both sides of the St. Lawrence River a party of Huron Indians and French priests who were ascending the river to the Huron country in twelve canoes. Twenty-two prisoners were taken in the brief struggle. On the march to the Mo- hawk River the captives were subjected to a series of sav- age cruelties, which are partly described by Father Jogues, in a letter written by him at Rensselaerswyck, dated August 5, 1643.2 This holy man they had beaten senseless because he had manifested a tender commiseration for one of the tortured prisoners. "Scarcely had I begun to breathe, when some others, attacking me, tore out, by biting, almost all my finger-nails, and crunched my two forefingers with their teeth, giving me intense pain. * * No trial, however, came harder upon me than to see them, five or six days afterward, approach us jaded with the march, and in cold blood, with minds nowise excited by passion, pluck out our hair and beard, and drive their nails, which are always very sharp, deep into parts most tender and sensitive to the slightest impres- sion. X * On the eighth day we fell in with a band of two hundred Indians going out to fight ;3 and as it is
1 Vide Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Second series. vol. viii. pp. 137-160.
2 This letter, it is said by the translator, John Gilmary Shea, was ad- dressed to the provincial of the Jesuits at Paris. The original, in its classic Latin, was printed by Alegambe, in his Mortes illustres, Rome, 1657; and by Tanner in his Societas Militans, Prague, 1675.
3 At an island in Lake Champlain.
5
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the custom for savages, when out on war-parties, to ini- tiate themselves, as it were, by cruelty, under the belief that their success will be the greater as they shall have been the more cruel, they thus received us : First render- ing thanks to the sun, which they imagine presides over war, they congratulated their countrymen by a joyful volley of musketry. Each then cut some stout clubs in the neighboring wood in order to receive us. After we had landed from the canoes, they fell upon us from both sides with their clubs in such fury, that I, who was the last and therefore the most exposed to their blows, sank overcome by their numbers and severity before I had accomplished half the rocky way that led to the hill on which a stage had been erected for us. I thought I should quickly die there ; and therefore, partly because I could not, partly because I cared not, I did not rise. How long they spent their fury upon me He knows for whose love and sake it is delightful and glorious thus to suffer. Moved at last by a cruel mercy, and wishing to carry me to their country alive, they ceased to strike. And thus half dead and covered with blood, they bore me to the scaffold. Here I had scarce begun to breathe, when they ordered me to come down to load me with scoffs and insults, and countless blows upon my head and shoulders, and indeed . on my whole body. I should be tedious were I to at- tempt to tell all that the French prisoners suffered. They burnt one of my fingers, and crushed another with their teeth ; the others already thus mangled they so wrenched by the tattered nerves that even now, though healed, they are frightfully deformed.
* On the eve of the As- sumption [the fifteenth of August], about three o'clock, we reached a river which flows by their village.1 Both banks were filled with Iroquois, who received us with clubs,
1 The Mohawk.
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fists, and stones. As a bald or thinly-covered head is an ob- ject of aversion to them, this tempest burst in its fury on my bare head. Two of my nails had hitherto escaped ; these they tore out with their teeth, and with their keen nails stripped off the flesh beneath to the very bone." Shortly afterward Father Jogues was approached by an old Indian, who compelled an unwilling squaw to cut off his left thumb. 1
The news of the foray of the Mohawks soon reached Fort Orange. It startled the little community. The armed Mohawks were greater in number than the sol- diers of the garrison and the able-bodied men of the manor. No one could tell how soon some sudden freak of savage temper might suggest an attack upon the fort and the pillage of the farms. The power to enslave French- men might prompt an attempt to subject the people of the church-neighborhood to a similar servitude. The colonists were governed by their apprehensions. They resolved to do two things. The first was to retain the good will of the Mohawks by presenting them with some significant tokens of their friendship. The second was to procure the early release of the French prisoners by offering their captors a large ransom.
Arendt van Curler, the patroon's commissary, Jan Labatie, a French settler, and Jacob Jansen of Amster- dam, were delegated to visit the Mohawks, and to renew the former covenants of peace and amity, and to make overtures for the liberation of Father Jogues, and his assistant laymen, (donnés,) William Couture and Rene Goupil. They proceeded to the Mohawk village, where as Arent van Curler relates the three Frenchmen were kept prisoners, "among them a Jesuit, a very learned man, whom they had treated very badly by cutting off his fin-
1 The Jogues papers, translated and arranged, with a memoir, by John Gilmary Shea. Coll. N. Y. Hist. Soc. Second series. vol. viii. pp. 174-182.
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gers and thumbs. I carried presents there, and desired that we should live as good neighbors and that they should neither harm the colonists nor their castle, to all of which the savages of all three villages readily agreed. We were entertained there very well and very kindly. We had to stop before each castle for about a quarter of an hour that the savages could get ready and re- ceive us with a number of salutes from their muskets. They were highly delighted that I had come there. Some men were immediately ordered to go hunting and they brought home very fine turkeys. After thoroughly in- specting their castle, I called together all the chiefs of the three castles and advised them to release the French prisoners, but without success, for they re- fused it in an eloquent speech, saying : 'We shall be kind to you always, but on this subject you must be silent. Besides you well know how they treat our people when they fall into their hands.' Had we reached there three or four days later they would have been burnt. I offered them a ransom for the Frenchmen, about six hundred florins in goods, which all the colony was to contribute, but they would not accept it. We neverthe- less induced them to promise not to kill them, but to carry them back to their country. The Frenchmen ran screaming after us and besought us to do all in our power for their delivery from the savages. But there was no chance for it. On my return they gave me an escort of ten or twelve armed men who conducted us home.
* * * Two of these Frenchmen, of whom the Jesuit was one, were at my house last May. They expressed their hope that means could be found to procure their release. As soon as the Indians return from hunting, I shall en- deavor to obtain their freedom." 1
1 MSS. of Rensselaerswyck. Letter of Arendt van Curler to the patroon dated at "the Manhattans," June 16, 1643.
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It was not until the summer of 1643 that a way of escape was opened to Father Jogues. About the first of August he was permitted to accompany a party of Mo- hawks to Fort Orange. He then went with them to "a place seven or eight leagues below the Dutch post," to catch fish. Returning about the middle of the month, the Indians tarried at Fort Orange. Here he was advised by the officer commanding the garrison to get privately on board of a vessel anchored in the river and about to sail to Virginia, whence it would carry him to France. He was greatly perplexed. He was afraid that the Indians would suspect the Dutch of aiding him to escape. He said he would wait until morning be- fore accepting or declining the advice given him. "As soon as it was day," he writes, "I went to salute the Dutch governor, and told him the resolution I had come to before God. He called upon the officers of the ship, told them his intentions, and exhorted them to receive and conceal me, in a word, to carry me over to Europe. They replied that if I could once get aboard their vessel I was safe, and would not have to leave it till I reached Bordeaux or Rochelle."
"'Cheer up, then,' said the governor, 'return with the Indians, and this evening, or in the night, steal off quietly and get to the river, where you will find a little boat which I will have ready to take you to the ship.'
" After most humble thanks to all those gentlemen, I left the Dutch, better to conceal my design. In the evening I retired, with ten or twelve Iroquois, to a barn, where we spent the night. Before lying down I went out to see where I could most easily escape. The dogs, then let loose, ran at me, and a large and powerful one snapped at my bare leg and bit it severely. I immediately entered the barn, the Iroquois closed the door securely,
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and to guard me better came and lay beside me, the one who was in a manner appointed to watch me. Seeing myself beset with these mishaps, and the barn secured and surrounded by dogs that would betray me if I attempted to go out, I almost thought I could not escape. * * * This whole night also I spent without sleep. Toward day I heard the cocks crow. Soon after, a servant of the Dutch farmer, who had received us into his barn, entered by some door I had not seen. I went up to him softly and made him a sign, not understanding his Flemish, to stop the dogs from barking. He immediately went out, and I after him, when I had taken up my little luggage consisting of a little office of the Blessed Virgin, an Imitation of Christ, and a wooden cross which I had made to keep me in mind of my Saviour's suffer- ings. Having got out of the barn without making any noise or waking my guards, I climbed over a fence sur- rounding the house, and ran straight to the river where the ship was. It was as much as my wounded leg could do, for the distance was a quarter of a league. I found the boat as I had been told, but as the tide had gone down it was high and dry. I pushed it to get it to the water, but finding it too heavy, I called to the ship to send me their boat to take me on board. There was no answer. I do not know whether they heard me. Be that as it may, no one appeared, and day was beginning to reveal to the Iroquois the robbery which I had made of myself, and I feared to be surprised in my innocent crime. Weary of hallooing I returned to my boat, and praying to the Almighty to increase my strength, I suc- ceeded at last so well by working it slowly on and push- ing stoutly that I got it into the water. As soon as it floated I jumped in and reached the vessel alone, unper- ceived by any Iroquois. I was immediately lodged in the
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bottom of the hold, and to hide me they put a large box on the hatch. I was two days and two nights in the hold of this ship, in such a state that I expected to be suffo- cated and die of the stench.
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