USA > New York > The natural, statistical, and civil history of the state of New-York, v. 2 > Part 21
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The Powhatans divided the year into five seasons. Winter, or cold weather, they called Po-pa-now; Spring, Cat-ta-pe-uck, the leaving of the trees ; Summer, Co-hat-ta-yough ; the earing of corn, Ne-pin-ough ; the harvest, and falling of the leaves, Ta-qui-tock. As to the seasons of the Powhatans, see the travels and voyages of Captain John Smith, the founder of the state of Virginia.
David Cusick, in his Sketches of the Six Nations says, "the people had particular times of the moon to make sugar, plant corn, and hunt deer, and other animals.
The state of society must be far advanced before man can make any considerable progress in astronomy. The Mexicans are almost
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the only people in America who had reduced astronomy to a sys -. tem. ' .
Religion .- With respect to religion the Agoneaseah may be said to have been under the thickest gloom of ignorance. They had no priests ; no altars ; no temples. They believed in two superior beings, and that the world was under their domination. The one they called the Good Being, and the other the Bad Being. If any good happened to them, they attributed it to the former, and if any evil, to the latter. If prosperous in hunting, fishing, and war, or any other avocation, they assigned it to the first, or if otherwise to the second. . The Bad Being they feared and venerated most, be- cause they supposed he might do harm to them. The Good Be- ing they called Lough-en-ne-yugh, that is, the Great Spirit. They believed in the immortality of the soul, and in a future state of re- wards and punishments. They had their Elysium; their Styx, and their Tartarus. They believed that different rewards and punish- ments awaited men after death ; and that these were meted out ac- cording to their conduct during life. The region of pure spirits the Agoneaseah called Eskanane. This was their Elysium. The only persons debarred a participation in its ineffable pleasures and delights, were suicides, the disobedient to the councils of the chiefs, and such as put away their wives on account of pregnancy. Near the confines of this delightsome place there is a dark, gloomy, fa- thomless gulf, over which all the good pass ,with safety, under the guidance of a faithful conductor ; but whenever any of the bad ap- proach this gulf, the conductor refuses them his aid. They then attempt to cross upon a pole, which, before they reach the middle, trembles and shakes, till by and by they fall into the abyss below, where they are shrouded in utter darkness .- See Morse's Geog. Vol. 1. In this horrid gulf resides a great dog infected with the " itch, which makes him very restless and spiteful. . From him they catch this disease, which renders them very uneasy and miserable, and occasions them to wander to and fro in thick darkness. Some- times they in their wanderings approach so near the happy fields of Eskanane, shaded with delightful groves, and watered by crystal streamns, that they can hear the songs and dances of their former companions. But this only serves to increase their torments, as
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The Agoncaseah, on particular . occasions offered up sacrifices. They invoked the great spirit by prayers, fastings, ablutions, and sweating or steaming. David Cusick, in his sketches of the Six Nations, remarks, that at this day they have a certain time of wor- ship : that the false faces first commence the dances ; that they visit the houses to drive away sickness, &c. Each town or district is allowed to sacrifice a couple of white dogs ; the dogs are painted and ornamented with strings of wampum. They throw the dogs in the fire, and some tobacco, and address the Maker. They pre- tend to furnish him a coat of the skin, and a pipe full of tobacco ; after which they have dances for several days."
The Reverend Sampson Occum, a Moheakannew by birth, who lived since our time, says, " the Indians of Long Island imagined that there were a great many gods ; but at the same time, they had a notion that there was only one great and good being, who was over all of them." The ideas of the Agoneaseah in respect to their belief of superintending beings, have suffered a change, in con- sequence of their intercourse with our people; now, they in general believe that there is only one Supreme Being, and that he is the maker of all things, and the fountain of all good. Him they call Lough-en-ne-yugh.
Origin of Man .- The Agoneaseah are unwilling to admit that they, and the other hunting nations of North America, are derived
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from the same stock that the whites and other members of the human family are. The Great Spirit, say they, in the beginning created different races of men and women, to whom he alotted the several quarters of the earth. In America, he created one red man, and one red woman. In Europe, one white man and one white woman, and in Africa, one black man and one black woman. The Indians are descended from the red man and red woman, and the whites and blacks from the others. To the Indians, he gave the Island on this side of the great water, and to the whites and blacks, the Islands on the other side of that water. The first man and woman, the Great Spirit named Ea-gwe-ho-e-we, that is a real people. He gave them all the game of the forests, and the fish of the waters for their food. The whites, say they, have intruded upon the patrimony of the Red Men; have taken their lands, and destroyed the game, contrary to the intention of the creator. But there will come a time when the Great Spirit will interpose, and redress all their wrongs, and restore them to the possession of their country, after having removed the whites and all other intruders. Then peace, plenty, and happiness will reign.
Stature, Persons, &c .- The Agoneaseal were of large stature, muscular, robust, straight limbed, and well proportioned, and of a martial appearance. Their complexion was of a reddish brown, resembling the color of a smoked ham. They had round faces, smallish black eyes full of animation, noses rather flat and small, with wide nostrils, large mouths, high cheek bones, small round fore- heads, short round chins, and long teeth firmly set. Their hair was coarse, thick, straight, sleek and black. They had no beards, nor had they any hair upon their bodies, or those parts which the rules of decency required them to conceal. The defect of beards and hair originated in custom, which enjoined upom them their extirpa- tion. Before their intercourse with the Dutch and English, they depilated their beards with shells or bits of flints made for that pur- pose. The tweezer, which is made of small wire rolled round a small piece of wood, in the form of a spiral spring, and which grasps the hairs within its turns, is an invention of the Dutch or English. They possessed very strong constitutions, and could en- dure incredible hardships and long fastings. Without the cares and
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enervations of civilized nations they were not liable, except at au . advanced period of life, to the infirmities of old age. They had few diseases. They seldom began to fail before sixty. Strangers to the luxuries and vices of sedentary nations, they retained their vigor, strength, activity, and mental faculties, almost to the last mo- ment of their life. Their moral qualities were in a measure com- mensurate with their bodily endowments. They were animated, ardent, brave, and quick of perception when called, into action. They were patient of fatigue, and cheerful under hardships, priva- tions, and adversity. Zealous lovers of freedom, they would undergo every thing, even death itself for its preservation. To strangers they were hospitable, kind, generous, and faithful. But these noble traits in their character, were tarnished with pride, in- solence, contempt, vindiction, cruelty, and inebriety.
Ulloa, a Spanish author of some note, observes, in relation to the complexion and physiognomy of the Americans, " if we have seen one American, we may be said to have seen them all." Dr. Robertson, and some other writers, who never saw any of the Americans, have copied the assertion, and enlarged upon it. Facts, however, disprove the assertion. A very slight acquaintance with the Americans, will convince any one that there are marked differences, not only in complexion,. but in physiognomy. Every nation and tribe can distinguish its own members, as readily as the nations of Europe. Surely these writers, when they made the assertion, might as well have said that every goat is alike, and that he who has seen one has seen all, since it would have been as ap- plicable and as true, and would have conveyed as correct an idea to the reader.
The Iroquoise (Agoneaseah,) M. de la Salle informs us in his travels, " are the most warlike and cruel of all the American nations. They are indefatigable and undaunted. They never ask, and seldom give quarters. They drink the Blood of their enemies." M. de la Salle travelled among them, and other American nations in 1678. The Agoneaseah were then in the zenith : of their power. European intercourse had not then debased them to any considerable extent.
There were very few, or no deformed persons among the Ago-
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neaseah. Weakly persons, or persons having weak constitutions, were equally uncommon among them. The women were large, strong, muscular, and active, and capable of undergoing great hard- ships, fatigues, and abstinence. . They were easily delivered, and endured very little pain; they attended to their common avocations immediately after delivery. The children, like their parents, were healthy, hardy, lively, active, and playful. Throughout each tribe there was a family likeness, and throughout the nation, a national likeness. When they walked, they carried the toes either straight . forward, or turned them a little inward.
Such were the Agoneaseah before they became debased by the influence of civilization, and sedentary habits. Even at this day, debased as they are, we can see many of the foregoing character- estics in their persons, features, and manners. But civilization and its concomitants, are extinguishing them. In a short time, no trace, beyond color, will be left, unless they retire to the western wilds. It will be with them, as it is with the miserable remains of the tribes that once possessed New England, dejected, despised, for- lorn, degraded, and sunk amidst vices.
The Agoneaseah interred the bodies 'of their dead in sitting postures. Arms, such as bows, arrows, tomahawks, &c. were put into the grave with the body. Sometimes they raised heaps of stones over the bodies of distinguished chiefs. We remember to have seen one of these in the northern part of the town of Scho- harie, by the side of the Agoneasean path, leading from Schobarie to Icanderago. It is now removed. Graves are now and then opened in the districts which were inhabited by the Agoneaseah. In the towns of Minden and Oppenheim, in the county of Mont- gomery, several have been opened within the last twenty years. They were on or near the river hills, in loamy lands. In those graves, bones, tomahawks, arrow heads, pipes, guns, brass kettles, and some other articles were met with. Those containing stone axes, arrow and spear heads, contain the remains of persons entered before European intercourse. The disposition of the head, verte- bræ, ribs, thigh, leg, and feet bones, prove conclusively that they were inhumed in sitting positions. The bones, in such graves as have been opened in the country of the Chit-o-won-e-augh-gaw or Senecas, have similar positions.
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CHAPTER VIII.
Population, origin of the hunting nations, &c.
Population .-- In every society population depends upon various causes and circumstances, which are modified according to the de- gree of civilization which exists. In civilized countries which have been inhabited for a great length of time, and which have a gene- rous soil, fine climate, and good government, the population is . dense. In savage countries, on the contrary, where there are on- ly wide spread forests, it is thin. The latter was the condition of the country which the Agcneaseah possessed. Covered with woods, it denied them those aliments that are indispensably necessary for a dense population, which it now yields to a people who have cut down its forests, and cultivated its soil. The same extent of coun- try which then yielded subsistence to only twenty or twenty-five thousand souls, now yields it to nearly a million of persons; and will, at no greatly distant day, to five or six millions. The one subsisted by hunting and fishing, and the spontaneous productions of the earth ; the other, by industry. It is then agriculture and the arts that lead to a numerous population. Agriculture affords sub- sistence, and most of the wants and comforts of life. This subsis- tence is certain and uniform. It does not, like hunting and fishing, depend on adventitious circumstances. It does not depend on cun- ning, stratagem, and force. It depends entirely on industry, per- severance, steadiness, sobriety, and virtue. The husbandman lives securely, comfortably and affluently ; all his necessary wants, all his necessary desires, are satisfied and gratified. The savage, on the contrary, lives insecurely, wretchedly, and poorly.
The forests did not contain the twentieth part of the game that the fields now do of domestic animals. The deer, the elk, and the moose, from which the Agoneaseah derived their principal subsist- ence, were in small flocks. It required as much land to subsist ten deer as it does to support two or three hundred sheep, and so of other animals. No wonder then, taking all the circumstances into
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consideration, the country was thinly peopled, and that the Ago- neasean cantons contained only a few thousand souls. The means of subsistence were wanting, and they did not possess industry and art to acquire.it from the earth. The same remarks are applica- ble to all the American nations of Tartar origin. They all sub- sisted, and still, if we except some individuals, subsist themselves by hunting and fishing. Husbandry was not known among them, nor is it at present. !
Remarks in relation to the numbers of the Agoneaseah and Moheak- anneews, about the time of the colonization.
In regard to former times the numbers are frequently exaggera- ted, and lose all credit. The early writers of New England very gravely tells us that the country was filled with people. The Dutch writers inform us that the Mohiccons, Mohickanders, Unami, Mun- si, and Chihohocki, were considerable nations. These tribes com- posed the confederacy of the Lenni Lenape, and might in the ag- gregate have amounted to twenty-five thousand souls. The wri- ters of both nations aver, that the Agoneaseah could bring upwards of ten thousand fighting men into the field. But mark, the same writers inform us, that New England, New-York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, were covered with woods, and that the natives sub- sisted mostly on game and fish. In this particular they have un- questionably informed us correctly: But we would ask, what has become of that numerous population ? How did it subsist? Why did it not overwhelm the early colonists of England and Holland ? Did the aborigines want courage ? No. Why have they left such feeble traces ? A solution may be given to all these questions : The fears of the early settlers magnified the numbers of the natives. Hence the origin of these exaggerated accounts. The Roman and Greek authors represent the Germans, Sarmatians, and Britons, to have been great nations. They tell us that the Goths, to the number of one million, broke up their settlements in the Ukraine, and retreated before the Huns; that the Alamani burst into Italy with one hundred and twenty thousand men ; that the Britons in a single battle lost eighty thousand men, and that the Huns made an irruption into Gaul with five hundred thousand men. The reader VOL. II. 31
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will note that the numbers are all round and full. But will he rea- dily believe such loose accounts? No. The Germans, Sarma- tians, and Britons, were either shepherds or hunters. A people in the former state may, under favorable circumstances, bring forty or fifty thousand men into the field for a short time, but the latter can- not. The fears of the Romans and Greeks, like the fears of the English and Dutch, magnified the numbers of the barbarians and savages of ancient Germany, Sarmatia, and Britain. These coun- tries, at the present day, contain at least fifty times the amount of population they did in the third, fourth, and fifth centuries. Then the inhabitants lived on game, fish, and the produce of some badly fed domestic animals. Husbandry was not much farther advanced among those nations; if we except those living on the borders of the Roman empire, than it was among the Moheakanneews and the Agoneaseah two hundred years ago. No nation ever became pop- ulous without agriculture and the arts. No country ever abounded . so much with game, and spontaneous products, as to subsist a great nation. Those writers, therefore, who have represented barbarous and savage nations to have been numerous ought not to be credited without making great deductions. America, if we except Mexico and Peru, was very thinly peopled, and still is, where civilized man. has not taken up his abode.
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On comparing the manners, customs, and laws of the Agoneaseah, and those of the other hunting tribes of North America, with those of the Tartars, and even their arts, we have found them almost ex- actly alike in all essentials. In physiognomy and complexion the analogies are striking and marked. Every thing appears to be Tartarian.
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, The Agoneaseah were a branch of the Huron nation. They spoke the same language, had the same physiognomy, complexion, manners, customs and laws. When or where they separated or the causes which led to the separation, are unknown. The tribes cal- led the Hurons occupied Michigan and the country between lakes Erie, Ontario, and Huron, and thence northeastwardly as far as the Utawas, and perhaps some farther. The Hurons were the original root. The Erigas, Wyandotts, Dinondadies and Utawas were por- tions of the same nation. Huron was a general appellation for
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many tribes or cantons and clans that spoke the same language or dialects, differing very little from the mother tongue. According to La Hontan and Charlevoix, the dialects did not differ so widely but that a person well versed in the Huron could understand all of them, and converse with the different tribes. La Hontan, who was well acquainted with several of the Indian languages, informs us that there were but two mother tongues, the Huron and the' Algonquin, . (Adirondack,) in the whole extent of Canada, as far as the Missis- sippi ; and in a list which he gives of the Indian nations, it appears that they all spoke the Algonquin in different dialects, except the Hurons and the Agoneaseah ; the difference between whose lan- guages he considered to be not greater than that between the French and Norman French. Charlevoix expresses himself in the same manner, in respect to the Huron and Algonquin languages. La Hontan and Charlevoix travelled throughout Canada, and re- sided in it many years. The French called the whole country Canada as far as the Mississippi.
De Witt Clinton, the late governor of this state, in a discourse delivered before the New-York Historical Society, advances the same opinion. See Vol. 2, of the collections of the Society. Ro- gers, Barton, and Mc Kinsie, are of the same opinion. Dr. Ed- wards asserts that the language of the Lenni Lenape, Nanticokes, Shawnese, Mohegans, Penobscotts, and St. Francis Indians, was alike. . The two latter tribes resided in Nova Scotia, and Lower Canada. The remains of these tribes still live in those provinces. Dr. Edwards, during the time his father was a missionary among the Mohegans, acquired a perfect knowledge of their language, which differed in no essential respects from that spoken by all the tribes from the Labrador coast, to the borders of North Carolina. The Mohegans dwelt on the banks of Connecticut river. In our tabular view, we have treated them as a clan of the Lenni Lenape. We shall quote a passage in relation to this subject, from a sketch of the first settlement of Long Island, by the Hon. Silas Wood, published at Brooklyn in 1828. " It is supposed that there were only two original Indian languages in the United States, north of the Roanoke. The Delaware (Lenni Lenape,) and the Iroquoise (Agoneasean.) The languages of the different tribes of New
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England, and most of the Indian tribes from the Mississippi to Nova Scotia, are only different dialects of the Delaware," p. GS. The Reverend Sampson Occum, who was a Mohegan, on bring asked whether the several tribes that inhabited New England, could understand one another or not, answered in the affirmative. and that the Lenni Lenape had the same language. The difier- ence he remarked was provincial, and consisted rather in the pro- punciation of certain words, than any thing else. "The Reverend Sampson Occuin was born in 1723, was educated by Mr. Wheelock of Lebanon, and Mr. Pemeroy of Hebron. In the spring of 1758, he was licensed to preach by the association of Windham county Connecticut, and on the 20th of August, 1759, he was ordained to the ministry by the Presbytery of Suffolk county, with a view to send him as a missionary among the Southern Indians. . He preached to the Montauks, Mohegans, and others. In 1786, he removed. with the Indians under his care, consisting of the Mohe- gans, and the remnants of some other tribes to Oneida, where he died in 1792, aged 69. See the Hon. Silas Wood's Sketch of Long Island, pages 71, 72. .
The Hurons, Mo-hea-kan-neews, Knis-te-neaux, Nau-do-wess- ies, Che-pa-wy-ans, &c .* are of Tartar origin. They have a strik-
. The Esquimcaux are excepted, and the people of Nootka Sound. The former, generally speaking, possess those parts of North. America, north of latitude sixty-five. In some instances, bands have progressed southwardly as far as latitude fifty. Beyond latitude sixty-five, however, may be regarded as the Esquimeaux country. Their progress has been eastwardly. West and East Greenland are possessed by the same people. All the Esquimeaux tribes resemble one another in stature, features, and complexion, and speak the same .language. The Esquimeaux are a distinct people from the Moheakannews, Knisteneaux, Hurons, Naudowessies, Chepawyans, and others who derived their origin from Tartary. In some respects, they have a likeness to the Laplanders, Finns, Votiacks, and Ostiacks. They are, however, of shorter stature and much ruder in their manners. The Greenlanders, we are assured by Crantz a missionary among them, are real Esquimeaux. " The Esquimeaux call them- selves Keralit, that is men."" See Ellis' voyage to Hudson's bay.
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The latter, or the people of Nootka and the Northern Archipelago, situated between the western coast of the continent of North America, and the eastern coast of Kampt-schat-ca, differ not only from the nations of Tartar origin under discussion, but also from the Esquimeaux. The Nootkans have grey eyes. Nootka is in latitude fifty north. The same people dwell along the American coast to the peninsula of Alasca. The Northern Archipelago, according to
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ing resemblance to the Tongusi, and some of the other Tartar na- tions in their physiognomy, and complexion, and even in their mode of living, manners, customs, and laws. Like them they have little eyes, small. noses, high cheek bones, round chiins and foreheads, and broad faces. Like them they have a roving disposition, and are fond of hunting, fishing, and war. . They have the same me- thod of destroying, devastating, and burning. Like the ancient Scythians, the progenitors of the modern Tartars, they scalp their dead. Like the Ta-shuts-ki, Kam-skat-ki, Tongusi, and some other Tartar nations, they paint their faces and bodies, depilate their beards, march in single file, make bark canoes, bury their dead in sitting postures, and in some instances raise heaps of stones over .. them. Like them they avoid labor as the greatest slavery, they have no cities, they dress in deer skins, or other skins, and reside in huts. Like those of the Tartars, their huts have no hearths, backs, jambs, or chimnies. Like them they are guided in their travels in - cloudy weather by the configuration of the trees, and by the moss which grows on them. Like them, they use bows, arrows, spears, and clubs, lure game into traps, snares, and gins. Like them, they are divided into tribes, and subsist on the produce of the chase.
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