USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Annals of Philadelphia, and Pennsylvania in the olden time; being a collection of the memoirs, anecdotes, and incidents of the earliest settlements of the inland part of Pennsylvania, Vol. II > Part 19
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" In sickness impatient to be cured, and for it give any thing, especially for their children, to whom they are extremely natural : they drink at those times a Tesan, or decoction of some roots in spring-water ; and if they eat any flesh, it must be of the female of any creature. If they die, they bury them with their apparel, be they man or woman, and the nearest of kin fling in something pre- cious with them, as a token of their love : their mourning is black- ing of their faces, which they continue for a year : they are choice of the graves of their dead ; for lest they should be lost by time, and fall to common use, they pick off the grass that grows upon them, and heap up the fallen earth with great care and exactness.
" These poor people are under a dark night in things relating to religion, to be sure the tradition of it ; yet they believe in a God and immortality, without the help of metaphysics ; for they say, " There is a Great King that made them, who dwells in a glorious country to
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the southward of them; and that the souls of the good shall go thither, where they shall live again."-Their worship consists of two parts, sacrifice and cantico : their sacrifice is their first fruits; the first and fattest buck they kill goeth to the fire, where he is all burnt, with a mournful ditty of him that performeth the ceremony, but with such marvellous fervency and labour of body, that he will even sweat to a foam. The other part is their cantico, performed by round dances, sometimes words, sometimes songs, then shouts, two being in the middle that begin, and by singing and drumming on a board, direct the chorus : their postures in the dance are very antic, and differing, but all keep measure. This is done with equal earnestness and labour, but great appearance of joy. In the fall, when the corn cometh in, they begin to feast one another. There have been two great festivals already, to which all come that will : I was at one myself.
" Their government is by kings, which they call Sachama, and those by succession, but always of the mother's side : for instance. the children of him that is now king will not succeed, but his bro- ther by the mother, or the children of his sister, whose sons (and after them the children of her daughters) will reign ; for no woman inherits : the reason they render for this way of descent is, that their issue may not be spurious.
" Every king hath his council, and that consists of all the old and wise men of his nation; which perhaps is two hundred people: nothing of moment is undertaken, be it war, peace, selling of land, or traffic, without advising with them ; and which is more, with the young men too. It is admirable to consider how powerful the kings are, and yet how they move by the breath of their people. I have had occasion to be in council with them upon treaties for land, and to adjust the terms of trade. Their order is thus: the king sits in the middle of a half moon, and hath his council, the old and wise, on each hand: behind them, or at a little distance, sit the younger fry in the same figure.
" The justice they have is pecuniary : in case of any wrong or evil fact, be it murder itself, they atone by feasts, and presents of their Wampum, which is proportioned to the quality of the offence or person injured, or of the sex they are of: for in case they kill a woman, they pay double, and the reason they render is, 'that she breedeth children, which men cannot do.' It is rare that they fall out, if sober ; and if drunk, they forgive it, saying, ' it was the drink, and not the man, that abused them.'
" We have agreed, that in all differences between us, six of each side shall end the matter : do not abuse them, but let them have justice, and you win them : the worst is, that they are the worse for the Christians, who have propagated their vices, and yielded them tradition for it, and not for good things.
" For their original, I am ready to believe them of the Jewish race ; I mean, of the stock of the ten tribes, and that for the follow
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ng reasons : first, they were to go to 'a land, not planted or known,' which, to be sure, Asia and Africa were, if not Europe ; and He that intended that extraordinary judgment upon them, might make the passage not uneasy to them, as it is not impossible in itself, from the easternmost parts of Asia, to the westernmost of America. In the next place, I find them of like countenance, and their children of so lively resemblance, that a man would think himself in Duke's place, or Berry street, in London, when he seeth them. But this is not all: they agree in rites ; they reckon by moons ; they offer their first-fruits ; they have a kind of feast of tabernacles ; they are said to lay their altar upon twelve stones ; their mourning a year, cus- toms of women, with many things that do not now occur."
Gabriel Thomas, in his description of Pennsylvania, as written in 1698, says, " The natives of this country are supposed by most peo- ple, to have been of the ten scattered tribes, for they resemble the Jews in the make of their persons and tincture of their complexions. They observe new moons ; offer their first-fruits to a Maneto or sup- posed deity, whereof they have two-one, as they fancy, above- (good) another, below-(bad.) They have a kind of feast of taber- nacles, laying their altars upon twelve stones. They observe a sort of mourning twelve months ; customs of women, and many other rites .* They are very charitable to one another-the lame and the blind living as well as the best. They are also very kind and obliging to the Christians. They have among them many curious physical wild herbs, roots and drugs of great virtue, which makes the Indians, in their right use, as able doctors as any in Europe."
Oldmixon says there were, in 1684, as many as ten nations of In- dians in the province of Pennsylvania, comprising 6,000 in number.
William Penn held a great Indian treaty, in 1701, with forty In- dian chiefs, who came from many nations to Philadelphia to settle the friendship. The same year he had also a great Indian council at Pennsbury, to take leave of him, to renew covenants, &c.
Mrs. Mary Smith's MS. account of the first settlement at Burling- ton, (herself an eye witness,) thus speaks of the Indians there in 1678, saying-" The Indians, very numerous and very civil, brought them corn, venison, &c., and bargained also for their land. It was said that an old Indian king spoke prophetically before his death, and said the English should increase and the Indians should de- crease !"
Jacob Taylor's Almanac of 1743 relates, that " An Indian of the province, looking at the great comet of 1680, and being asked what he thought was the meaning of that prodigious appearance, answered -' It signifies, we Indians shall melt away, and this country be inhabited by another sort of people.' This prediction the Indian
* It is scarcely possible to read these coincidences of opinion with Penn's, which pre cede it, without thinking of Dr. Boudinet's Star in the West, and his efforts to prove them Jewish.
INDIAN TREATY .- Page 156.
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delivered very grave and positive to a Dutchman of good reputation near Chester, who told it to one, now living, of full veracity."
I have compiled from the work of the Swedish traveller, Professo Kalm, his notices of our Indians preceding the year 1748, to wit : " Of their Food and Mode of Living .- Maize, (Indian corn,) some kinds of beans and melons, made up the sum of the Indians' gardening. Their chief support arose from hunting and fishing. Besides these, the oldest Swedes related that the Indians were accus- tomed to get nourishment from the following wild plants, to wit :
" Hopniss, so called by the Indians, and also by the Swedes, (the Glycine apios of Linnæus,) they found in the meadows. "The roots resembled potatoes, and were eaten boiled, instead of bread.
" Katniss, so called by the Indians and Swedes, (a kind of Sagit- taria sagittifolia,) was found in low wet ground, had oblong roots nearly as large as the fist ; this they boiled or roasted in the ashes. Several Swedes said they liked to eat of it in their youth. The hogs liked them much, and made them very scarce. Mr. Kalm, who ate of them, thought they tasted like potatoes. When the In- dians first saw turnips they called them katniss too.
" Taw-ho, so called by the Indians and Swedes, (the Arum vir- ginicum, or Wake-robin, and poisonous,) grew in moist grounds, and swamps ; they ate the root of it. The roots grew to the thickness of a man's thigh ; and the hogs rooted them up and devoured them eagerly. The Indians destroyed their poisonous quality by baking them. They made a long trench in the ground, put in the roots and covered them with earth, and over them they made a great fire. They tasted somewhat like potatoes.
" Taw-kee, so called by the Indians and Swedes, (the Orontium aquaticum,) grew plentifully in moist low grounds. Of these they used the seeds, when dried. These they boiled repeatedly to soften them, and then they ate somewhat like peas. When they got butter or milk from the Swedes, they boiled them together.
" Bilberries or whortleberries (a species of Vaccinium) was a com- mon diet among the Indians. They dried them in the sun, and kept them packed as close as currants.
Of their Implements for Domestic or Field Use .- The old boilers or kettles of the Indians were either made of clay, or of dif- ferent kinds of pot stone-(Lapis ollaris.) The former consisted of a dark clay, mixed with grains of white sand or quartz, and probably burnt in the fire. Many of these kettles had two holes in the upper margin ; on each side one, through which they passed a stick, and held therewith the kettle over the fire. It is remarkable that none of these pots have been found glazed either inside or outside. A few of the old Swedes could remember to have seen the Indians use such pots to boil their meat in. They were made sometimes of a greenish, and sometimes of a grayish pot stone ; and some were made of another species of a pyrous stone. They were very thin. Mr. Bartram, the botanist, showed him an earthen pot, which had been
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dug up at a place where the Indians had lived-on the outside it was much ornamented. Mr. Bartram had also several broken pieces. They were all made of mere clay, in which were mixed, according to the convenience of the makers, pounded shells of snails and mus- cles, or of crystals found in the mountains. It was plain they did not burn them much, because they could be cut up with a knife. Since the Europeans have come among them they disuse them, and have even lost the art of making them .- [All these remarks much accord with the speculations which I have preserved on this subject, respecting the potteries found in the tumilii in the western countries.]
" The hatchets of the Indians were made of stone, somewhat of the shape of a wedge. This was notched round the biggest end, and to this they affixed a split stick for a handle, bound round with a cord. These hatchets could not serve, however, to cut any thing like a tree ; their means, therefore, of getting trees for canoes, &c., was to put a great fire round the roots of a big tree to burn it off, and with a swab of rags on a pole to keep the tree constantly wet above until the fire below burnt it off. When the tree was down, they laid dry branches on the trunk and set fire to it, and kept swabbing that part of the tree which they did not want to burn ; thus the tree burnt a hollow in one place only ; when burnt enough, they chipped or scraped it smooth inside with their hatchets, or sharp flints, or harp shells.
" Instead of knives, they used little sharp pieces of flints or quartz, or a piece of sharpened bone.
" At the end of their arrows they fastened narrow angulated pieces of stone; these were commonly flints or quartz .- [I have such, as well as hatchets, in my possession.] Some made use of the claws of birds and beasts.
" 'They had stone pestles of about a foot long and five inches in thickness ; in these they pounded their maize. Many had only wooden pestles. The Indians were astonished beyond measure when they saw the first wind-mills to grind grain. They were, at first, of opinion that not the wind, but spirits within them, gave them their momentum. They would come from a great distance, and set down for days near them, to wonder and admire at them.
" The old tobacco pipes were made of clay or pot stone, or ser- pentine stone-the tube thick and short. Some were made better, of a very fine red pot stone, and were seen chiefly with the sachems. Some of the old Dutchmen at New York preserved the tradition that the first Indians seen by the Europeans made use of copper for their tobacco pipes, got from the second river near Elizabethtown. In confirmation of this, it was observed that the people met with holes worked in the mountains, out of which some copper had been taken ; and they even found some tools which the Indians probably used for the occasion. They used birds' claws instead of fishing-hooks. The Swedes saw them succeed in this way."
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'The Indians made their ropes, bridles, and twine for nets, out of a wild weed, growing abundantly in old corn-fields, commonly called Indian hemp-(i. e. Linum virginianum.) The Swedes used to buy fourteen yards of the rope for a loaf of bread, and deemed them more lasting in the water than that made of true hemp. Mr. Kalm himself saw Indian women rolling the filaments of this plant upon their bare thighs to make of them thread and strings, which they dyed red, yellow, black, &c.
The Indians at first were much more industrious and laborious, and before the free use of ardent spirits, attained to a great age. In early time they were every where spread about among the Swedes. They had no domestic animals among them before the arrival of the Europeans, save a species of little dogs. They readily sold their lands to the Swedes for a small price. Such tracts as would have brought £400 currency in Kalm's time, had been bought for a piece of baize or a pot of brandy !
The Indians told Mr. Kalm, as their tradition, that when they saw the first European ship on their coast, they were perfectly persuaded Maneto, or God himself, was in the ship; but when they first saw the negroes, they thought they were a true breed of devils.
The Indians whom we usually call Delawares, because first found about the regions of the Delaware river, never used that name among hemselves; they called themselves Lenni Lenape, which means ' the original people," -- Lenni, meaning original,-whereby they expressed they were an unmixed race, who had never changed their character since the creation ; in effect they were primitive sons of Adam, and others were sons of the curse, as of Ham, or of the out- cast Ishmael, &c.
They, as well as the Mengwe, (called by us Iroquois) agreed in saying they came from westward of the Mississippi-called by them Namæsi Sipu, or river of fish, and that when they came over to the eastern side of that river, they there encountered and finally drove off all the former inhabitants, called the Alligewi-(and of course the primitives of all our country !) who, probably, such as survived, Bought refuge in Mexico.
From these facts we may learn, that however unjustifiable, in a moral sense, may be the aggressions of our border men, yet on the rule of the lex talionis we may take refuge and say, we only drive off or dispossess those who were themselves encroachers, even as all our Indians, as above stated, were !
The Indians called the Quakers Quekels, and "the English," by inability of pronouncing it, they sounded Yengees-from whence probably we have now our name of Yankees. In their own lan- guage they called the English Saggenah.
William Fishbourne, in his MS. narrative of 1739, says the pro- prietor's first and principal care was to promote peace with all , accordingly he established a friendly correspondence, by way of
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treaty, with the Indians, at least twice a year. [This fact is worth remembering !] He also strictly enjoined the inhabitants and sur- veyors, not to settle any land to which the Indians had a claim, until he had first, at his own cost, satisfied and paid for the same; so that this discreet method engaged their friendship and love to him and his people-even while other colonies were at war and distress. by the Indians.
William Penn's letter of the 25th of 5 mo., 1700, to James Logan, (in the Logan MSS.) says, that because of an injury done his leg, the Indians must go up to him at Pennsbury, along with the council, &c. Was not this assemblage for something like a treaty ?
Another such assemblage of Indians met there also in 1701; for John Richardson tells us, in his journal, of his being there when many Indians and chiefs were present to revive their covenants or treaties with William Penn before his return home. There they received presents-held their cantico or worship, by singing and dancing round the fire on the ground.
In 1704, the Indians of the Five Nations (Onandago) came on to Philadelphia, to trade and make a treaty. James Logan was present.
In 1724, an Indian chief, in addressing Sir William Keith, com- plains that although Onas gave his people their lands on the Brandy- wine, yet the whites have stopped the river; the fish can no longer go up it; their women and children can no longer, with their bows and arrows, kill the fish in the shallow waters; it is now dark and deep; and they wish they may pull away the dams, that the water may again flow, and the fish again swim !
Mr. Carver, first settler at Byberry, became in great straits for bread stuff ; they then knew of none nearer than New Castle. In that extremity they sent out their children to some neighbouring Indians, intending to leave them there, till they could have food for them at home ; but the Indians took off the boys' trowsers, and tied the legs full of corn, and sent them back thus loaded-a rude but frank and generous hospitality ! His great grandaughter, Mrs. S., told me of this fact as certain.
The Indians upon the Brandywine had a reserved right, (as said James Logan in his letter of 1731,) to retain themselves a mile in breadth on both sides of one of the branches of it, up to its source.
In the year 1742, (vide Peters' letter to the Penns,) there was in Philadelphia an assemblage of two hundred and twenty Indians of the Five Nations. They had come from the north-westward to get goods. While in the city, a fire of eight houses occurred, at which they gave great assistance.
In the year 1744, by reason of some strife between the frontier people and Indians of Virginia and Maryland, they aim to settle their dispute, by the mediation of the Pennsylvania governor, through a treaty, to be convened at John Harris' ferry, (now Harrisburg,) which
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was, however, not held there, but at Lancaster, where the affair was adjusted satisfactorily.
The last of the Lenape, nearest resident to Philadelphia, died in Chester county, in the person of old Indian Hannah, in 1803. She had her wigwam many years upon the Brandywine, and used to travel much about in selling her baskets, &c. On such occasions, she was often followed by her dog and her pigs-all stopping where she did. She lived to be nearly a hundred years of age-had a proud and lofty spirit to the last-hated the blacks, and scarcely brooked the lower orders of the whites ; her family before her, had dwelt with other Indians in Kennet township. She often spoke emphatically of the wrongs and misfortunes of her race, upon whom her affections still dwelt. As she grew old, she quitted her solitude, and dwelt in friendly families.
A person visiting her cabin, on the farm of Humphrey Marshall, thus expressed his emotions :
" Was this the spot where Indian Hannah's form Was seen to linger, weary, worn with care?
Yes,-that rude cave was once the happy home
Of Hannah, last of her devoted race ;
But she too, now, has sunk into the tomb,
And briars and thistles wave above the place."
Several facts concerning the Chester county Indians, collected by my friend, Mr. J. J. Lewis, may be read on page 513 of my MS. Annals, in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania-such as their thickest settlement being about Pequa, and along the great valley In other places they usually settled in groupes of half a dozen families. The last remaining family was remembered about sixty years ago, at Kennet, consisting of Andrew, Sarah, Nanny, and Hannah, the last being the above mentioned Hannah-" last of the Lenape !"
As late as the year 1750, the Shawnese had their wigwam at the Beaver pond, near the present Carlisle ; and as late as 1760, Doctor John, living in Carlisle, with his wife and two children, were cruelly murdered, by persons unknown. He was a chief. The governor offered £100 reward.
As it is the prejudice or misinformation of many, to regard the Indians as wholly barbaric, I herein add some elucidation of their real character as derived now from a living character, John Brickell, of Columbus, Ohio, who was made a prisoner in Pennsylvania when a youth, and who was given up in 1795, after Wayne's victory. He had been adopted and brought up with kindness in the family of Whingwy Pooshies, a Delaware. At his taking leave, the children all hung round him crying ; and when present, before the military, his Indian father stood up and made this touching and pathetic speech, saying : " my son, there are the men of the same colour as yourself-some of them may be of your kin, or can convey you to those who are your kindred. You have lived a long time with us VOL. II-V
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and I call on you to say if I have not used you as well as a father could use a son ? You have hunted for me and been to me as a son. I call on you to say if you will go, or if you will still stay with me ? Your choice is left to yourself." Then Brickell says, he knew its truth, and stood up some time, considerate, hardly knowing what choice to make-he thought of the children he had just left in tears-then of the Indians whom he loved-then of his own kin- and he at length answered, I will go with my kin. The Indian replied, " I must then loose you-I had leaned on you as a staff -- now it is broken-and I am ruined"-he then sank back to his seat and cried, and was joined in tears, by Brickell! Such a scene was like the patriarchal relations in the Bible, and Brickell makes the remark, that many of their observances in his mind seemed to show their affinity to the Jews. They had their regular feasts ; such as the first corn that is fit to use, was made a fruit offering, and when they started on hunting expeditions, the first game that was taken they skinned whole, observing not to break a bone, and leaving thereon, the head, ears and hoofs, this they cook whole and every one partakes, and the rest they entirely burn up. They also observe the law of clean and unclean animals. They never eat catfish, eels, or other fish without scales, nor beasts or birds of prey. They would not even eat rabbits when he had killed them. Their women, too, observed, with remarkable strictness, times of seclusion, and not returning to society, till after washing themselves and their whole apparel. In cases of deaths of husbands or wives they wore mourn- ing apparel for an entire year. It is hardly possible to conceive that such conformities to Jewish rituals, among a people so long "scat- tered and pealed," could be the result of arbitrary choice. He shows too, that they were eminently a religious people in their own way, worshipping God, always, according to "the law of their fathers." They frequently had family worship in which they would sing and pray, and they had no words for profane swearing, and never used false accusation, and are always strictly chaste. Brickell remarks, that they were the best people to train up children he had ever seen ; they never whip, and scarcely ever scold, the whole family is remark- ably quiet, and much of their time they employ in instructing their youths in what they deem to be right, they say much of Maneto, much applaud before their children just actions, and greatly con- demn bad examples.
That their kindness to Brickell was not an exempt case, we may know from a fact which he relates of another prisoner, one Isaac Choat. He had been but a short time a prisoner, when he was observed by his master to be sitting in a pensive mood, and being asked, what was his cause of trouble, he said, "he was thinking about his wife and children." "The Indian said, that makes me think that I should be sorry too, if carried away from my squaw and children, and I will not let you suffer, I must let you go, but not alone lest other Indians see you and kill you-I must go with you,"
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and so saying, he accompained him as far as Muskingum and set him free ; the result was, he joined his family, and was afterwards seen by Brickell.
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