History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 10

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534

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1 The following letter of Conrad Weiser, written to a friend, on the subject of the Indians' belief in a Supreme Being, is of more than usual interest :

" ESTEEMED FRIEND,-I write this, in compliance with thy request, to give thee an account of what I have observed among the Indians in re- lation to their belief and confidence in a Divine Being, according to the observations I have made from 1714, io the time of my youth, to this day (about the year 1746). If, by the word religion, people mean an assent to certain creeds, or the observance of a set of religious duties, as appointed prayere, singing, preachiog, baptism, &c., or even heathen- ish worship, then, it may be said, the Five Nations and their neighbors have no religion. But if, by religion, we mean au attraction to the soul to God, whence proceede n confidence in, and hunger after, the knowl- edge of him, then hie people must be allowed to have some religion among thiem, notwithstanding their sometimes savage deportment. For we find among them some tracts of a confidence in God alone, and even, sometimes, thongh but seldom, a vocal calling upon him. I shall give one or two instances of this that fell under my owa observation. In , the year 1737, I was sent, the first time, to Onondaga, at the desire of the Governor of Virginia. I departed in the latter end of February, very unexpectedly, for a journey of five hundred English miles, through a wilderness where there was neither road nor path, and at such n titne of the year when creatures (animals) could not be met with for food. There were with me a Dutchmao and three Indians. After we had gone one hinudred and fitty miles on our journey we came to a narrow valley, about half a mile broad and thirty long, both sides of which were en- compassed with high mountains, on which the snow laid about three feet deep, in it ran a stream of water also about three feet deep, which WAS so crooked that it kept a cootinned winding course from one side of the valley to the other. In order to avoid wnding so often through the water, we endeavored to pass along the slope of the moun- tain, the snow being three feet deep, and so hard frozen on the top that we could walk upon it; but we were obliged to make holes in the snow with our hatchets that our feet might not slip down the mountain, and thue we crept on. It happened that the old Indian'e foot slipt, and the root of n tree, by which he held, breaking, he slid down the mioun. tain ae from the roof of a honse; but, happily, he was stopped in his fall by the string which fastened his pack hitching on the stump of a emall tree. The other two Indians could not go to hisaid, but our Dutch fellow-travellor did, yet not without visible danger of his own life. I, also, could not put n foot forward till I was helped. After this we took the first opportunity to descend into the valley, which was not till we had Jabored hard for half an hour with hands and feet. Having ob. served a tree lying directly off from where the Indian fell, when we were got into the valley again, we went back about one hundred paces, where we saw that if the Indian had slipt four or five paces further he would have fallen over n rock, one linndred feet perpen- dicular, upon craggy pieces of rock below. The Indian was astonished and turned quite male; then, with outstretched arms and great earnestness he spoke these words: ' I thank the great Lord and gov- ernor of this world, in that he has had mercy upon me, and has been willing that I should live longer.' Which worde I at that time put down in my journal. This happened on the 25th of March, 1737. In the 9th of Aprit following, while we were yet ou our journey, I found myself extremely weak through the fatigue of so long a journey, with the cold and hunger which I had suffered. There having fallen a fresh snow, about twenty inches deep, and we being yet three days' journey

THE ABORIGINES.

They have been, and still are, a subject of interesting study, and as the last of their tribes melt away before or are absorbed in the superior civilization that has dispossessed them of a continent, interest in their

from Onondaga, in a frightful wilderness, my spirit failed, my body trembled and shook; I thought I should fall down and die. I stept aside and sat down under a tree, expecting there to die. My compavions svon missed me. The Indians came back and found me sitting there. They remained awhile silent; at last the old Indian said : 'My dear companion, thou hast hitherto encouraged us, wilt thou now quite give np ? Remember that evil days are better than good days, for when we suffer much, we do not sin ; sin will be driven out of us by suffer- ing ; but good days will cause men to sin, and God cannot extend his mercy to them, but, contrawise, when it goeth evil with us, God hath compassion upon us.' These words made me ashamed ; I rose up and traveled as well as I could. The next day I went another journey to Onondaga in company with Joseph Spanhenberg and two others. It happened that an Indian came to us in the evening who had neither shoes, stockings, shirt, guo, knife, bor hatchet; iu a word, he had nothing but an old torn blanket and some rags. Upon inquiring whither he was going, he answered, to Onondaga. I koew him, and asked him bow he could undertake a journey of three hundred miles so naked and unprovided, having no provisions nor any arms to kill creatures for his subsistence ? Ile answered, he had been aolong ene- mies, and had been obliged to save himself by flight, and so had lost all. This was true in part, for he had disposed of some of his things among the Irish for strong liquors. Upon further talk, he told me very cheerfully, that 'God fed everything which had life, even ibe rattle- snake itself, though it was a bad creature, and that God would also pro- vide in such a manner that he should get alive to Ououdaga, He knew for certain that he should go thither ; that it was visible God was with the Indians in the wilderness, because they always cast their care upon him; but that, contrary to this, the Europeans always carried bread with theDi.' Ile was an Onondaga Indian ; his name was Onon- tagketa. The next day we traveled in company, and the day fol- lowing I provided him with a hatchet, knife, flint, and tinder, also shoes and stockings, and sent him before me to give notice to the Coun- cil at Onondaga tlint I was coming, which he truly performed, being got thither three days before ns. Two years ago I was sent by the Governor to Shamokin on account of the unhappy death of John Arm- strong, the Indian trader (1744). After I had performed my errand, there was a feast prepared, to which the Governor's messengers were invited. There were about one hundred persons prosent, to whom, after we had in great silence devoured a fat hear, the eldest of the chiefs made a speech, in which he said, 'That by a great misfortune three of their brethren, the white mien, hud been killed by an Indian ; that neverthe- less the sun was not yet set (meaning there was no war); it had only been somewhat darkened by a small cloud, which was now done away. He that had done evil was like to be punished, and the land to remain in peace ; therefore he exhorted his people to thankfulness to God, and thereupon he began to sing with an awful solemnity, but without ex- pressing any words. The others accompanied him with their voices. After they had done the same Indian, with great earnestness or fervor, spoke these words: 'Thanks, thanks, be to thee, thou great Lord of the world, in that thou hast again caused the suo to shine, and nath dis- pergril the dark cloud: the Indians are thine.' One more instance may be mentioned on this subject, which has come under my own ob- servation and persooal knowledge. In the summer of the year 1760 a number of religious Indians paid a visit to the Quakers in Philadelphia von religious account. They were mostly of the Minusing tribe, and came from a town called Mahackloosing or Wyalusing, on or near the East Branch of the Susquehanna River, in Pennsylvania, about two hun- dred miles north westward from the city. Their chief man, whom the rest of the company styled their minister, was named Papunehung or Papounan, and their interpreter, Job Chilloway, an Indian. On their arrival they waited on Governor Hamilton, to pay him their respects, and to deliver three prisoners whom they had redeemed, having them- selves absolutely refused to join with the other Indians in the savage war which raged about that time, though their visit was principally en a different account. They had H public conference with the Governor in the State-llouse on the occasion, in the presence of many citizens, wherein Papounan expressed the design of their visit was principally to the Quakers, on a religions account ; that they desired to do justice, to love God, and to live in peace, requesting at the sama tiuie that none

origin, antiquity, habits, and customs seems unabated. Parkman, Campanius, Acrelins, Heckewelder, Penn, Gordon, Proud, and many others have written upon these red men of the forest and their occupancy of the country we now dwell upon. It is certainly true they have nowhere left a deep or lasting impression upon the face of the country occupied by them. To them the earth seems to have had no higher utilities than a vast hunting-ground. The future archeolo- gist may yet find evidence of their origin and earlier conditions of life than those ascertained by writers of our age; to preserve all knowledge thus far ac- quired of them and, if possible, incite and facilitate further research concerning the remarkable race should induce writers of every century to carry for- ward their history. The time is not far distant when the remnant of this singular people will accept the inevitable and yield their wild and savage natures to the constant overtures of Christian civilization, when the descendants of chiefs and warriors will open mind and heart and take rank with educators of their generation. Their own race may yet furnish their archæologists and true historians.

We have reached a period in our history when In- dian training-schools are no longer experimental. The school at Carlisle, Pa., in successful operation with two hundred youthful inmates of both sexes, is in pleasing contrast with the former policy of the government, which maintained a military post at the same place for the training of " regulars" to slaughter the race on the plains of the West. It may well be that from the number of these people now in course of preparation for intellectual pursuits and a higher life there will come some one or more who will fulfill

of his company should be permitted to have any spirituons liquors, etc. He refused the presents offered by the Governor, and gave him the rea- sons, further saying, 'I think on God, who made us; I want to be in- structed in His worship and service. I am a great lover of peace, and have never been concerned in war affairs. I have a sincere remem- brauce of the old friendship between the Indians and your forefathers, and shall ever observe it.' After mentioning some other thiogy, and expressing himself further on the view or design of their visit on a religious account, he said, 'Though what he had mentioned respect- ing religious affairs might appear trivial to some who thought different from him, yet he was fixed in his mind respecting them ; that their young men agreed with him, and wanted to love God, and to desist from their former bad course of life,' further declaring, ' I am glad to have an opportunity of mentioning these several affairs in the presence of such a large auditory of young and old people. The great Gud observes all that passes in our hearts, and hears all that we say one to An- other,' etc. The notes, etc., on the occasion were taken from the in- terpreter by Secretary Peters. Be than finished with a solemn act of public thanksgiving and prayer to God, with great devotion and energy, in the Indian language (not being able to speak nor understand English). The unusualouss, force, and sound of the Indian language on such an occasion, with the manifest great sincerity, fervor, and concern of the speaker, seemed to strike the whole auditory in an uncommon manner, as well as the Indians themselves, who all the while behaved with a gravity and deportment becoming the occasion, and appeared to unite heartily with him in his devotion."

Christian nations have always been zealous in missionary work, and very early in the history of this country pious and devoted men, often more enthusiastic than learned in their calling, came over from Euro- pean countries under special instructions to convert the heathen Indians. The Swedes were notable for their efforts to "Christianize the savage8."

HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

the hope of Humboldt, who says, "I do not partici- pate in the rejecting spirit which has but too often thrown popular traditions into obscurity, but I am, on the contrary, firmly persuaded that by greater dili- gence and perseverance many of the historical prob- leis which relate to the maritime expeditions of the Middle Ages, to the striking identity in religious tradi- tions, manner of dividing time, and works of art in America and Eastern Asia, to the migrations of the Mexican nations, to the ancient centres of dawning civilization in Aztlan, Quivira, and Upper Louisiana, as well as the elevated plateaux of Cundinamarca and Peru, will one day be cleared up by discoveries of facts with which we have hitherto been entirely unacquainted." Professor W. D. Whitney is not so prophetic as Humboldt, but in evident sympathy with lim, and perhaps more practical : "What we have to do at present is simply to learn all we can of the Indian languages themselves, to settle their internal relations, elicit their laws of growth, reconstruct their older forms, and ascend toward their original condi- tion as far as the material within our reach and the state in which it is presented will allow ; if our studies shall at length put us in a position to deal with the question of their Asiatic derivation, we will rejoice at it. I do not myself expect that valuable light will ever be shed upon the subject of linguistic evidence; others may be more sanguine, but all must at any rate agree that, as things are, the subject is in no position to be taken up and discussed with profit." Never- theless, Professor Whitney insists that greater dili- gence should be devoted to the study of our antiqui- ties. "Our national duty and honor," he contends, "are peculiarly concerned in this matter of the study of aboriginal American languages as the most fertile and important branch of American archæology. Eu- ropeans accuse us, with too much reason, of indiffer- ence and inefficiency with regard to preserving me- morials of the races whom we have dispossessed and are dispossessing, and to promoting a thorough com- prehension of their history. Indian scholars and associations which devote themselves to gathering together and making public linguistic and other archæological materials for construction of the proper ethnology of the continent are far rarer than they should be among us."

A recent author 1 has brought to notice in condensed

1 Bancroft, io his first edition, permite himself anough dalliance with the hypothesis of n Calmuck or Mongolian immigration ns to attempt to show that it was not impossible, perhaps not improbable. Grotius, De Laet, etc., speculated with less information perhaps than our his- torian, and with more prejudices, but not more widely from the purpose. Soma writers have assumed that the Phoenicians and Carthaginiana, be- cause they made adventurous voyages nudl passed outside the Straits of Hercules, must have come to America. Plato's myth of tho Atlantides has bean mulo to do service in buoying up n sunken continent out of the onzy depths of the ocean and the mermaides grottoes of fantastic legend. Mexico and Peru, ns has been infallibly shown time and again, must Inve got their monumente from Egypt or from India,-Carnac, Luxor, Elephanta nro reproduced at Jalrugne und Uxmal, nt Cholula und Cuzco. Aristotlo. is quoted to show that the ancieuls must have

form a number of references to the possible origin of the Indian races on this continent, which fully illus- trates the speculative theories indulged in by com- mentators upon the subject. The Indian tribes who

bad a knowledge of nn intercourse with America. Slight similarities of costume, face, and habits have been seized upon as eagerly as Penn seized upon the fact that the Indians counted time by moons (as if Penn himself did not do the esme thing!) to establish relationship for our barbarians with the children of Israel, with the fugitive Canaanites, etc. The sons of Prince Madoc of course have not been neglected. White ladians in North Carolina spoke the purest sort of n Cymric dia- Ject, and some of the Shawanese are reported to have been seea carrying around Welsh Bibles in the same belt along with their tomakawks and scalping-knives. Menassah Ben Israel concludes, upon the same sort of data as those which convinced Penn, that the lost tribes emerged lie- tween California and the Mississippi, but Spizelins and those who ful- lowed him in the last century were conteat to ascribe the origin of our Indians to a country less distant than the Levant. China, Tartary, Si- beria, and Kamtechatka, with the Aleutian archipelago, afforded a natural route før immigration, though no attempt is made to explain how the hordes of savages were able to make their way through the frozen wastes of Alaska and British America. The fact that Leif, son of the Northman, Eric the Red, did discover America ia the yesr 1000 A. D. has make work for the pseudo-ethnologists as well as the poets in the scratchings on the Dighton rocks in Massachusetts, and the ald mill at Newport, R. I., and has even led to the factitious discovery of snp- posed inscriptions upon the face of the masses of Seneca sandstone at the falls of the Potomac. The Norsemen themselves encouraged the belief that oa the Atlantic const, between Virginia and Florida, a white nation existed, who clathed themselves in long, snowy robes, carried banners on lofty poles, and chaated songs aad hymns. These were sup- posed to be the Irish immigrants, who replied in pure Gaelic when Raleigh's scamen accasted them, and spared Owen Chapelain'a life in 1669 because he spoke to tbem in Welsh. Alexander von Humboldt has condescended to listen to some of these fables, and to repeat them in his Cosmos. The Chinese or Japanese settlement of our continent, by vessels caming over the Pacific Ocean, has found many advocates. Span- ish legends nre adduced to confirm this view. M. de Guignes, in a memoir read before the French Academy of Inscriptions, contends that the Chinese penetrated to America A.D. 458, aad adducea the description and chart of Fon Sang in proof. In our own day that ripe Philadelphis scholar, Charles G. Leland, has republished the story of the so-called island of Fon-Sang and its inhabitants. De Guignee holds that the Chinese were familiar with the Straits of Magellan, and that the Coreans had n settlement on Terra del Fuego. Another Chinese immigration is assigned to A n. 1270, the time of the Tartar invasion of the " Central Flowery Kingdom," But there are other speculations still on this sub- ject. Thoise Morton, in his " New Canaan" (A.n. 1637), argnes for the Latin origin of the Indians, because he heard them use Latin words, and make allusions to the god Pan. Williamson thinks that the race unquestionably springs from a Hindoo or a Cingalese source. Thorow- good, Adair, and Boudinot agree with Penn and Rabbi ben Mennssoh. Roger Williams also said, "Some taste of affinity with the Hebrew I have found." Cotton Mather thought that " probably the Devil, seducing the first inhabitants of America into it, theroin nimed at the having of them and their posterity out of the sound of the silver trumpets of the gospel, then to be heard throughout the Roman empire. If tho Devil had any expectation that by the peopling of America he should utterly deprive any Europeans of the two benefits, literature and religion, which dawned upon the miserable world (one just before, the other just ofter the first famed navigation hither), 'tia to be hoped he will bo dieap- pointed of that expectation." As for the source of the Indians, Mathor fancied them Scythians, because they answered Julius Caesar's descrip- tion of "difici'ius invenire quam interficere." But the fact of idle nud comical opinions on this subject does not destroy the interest in these speculations, nor the utility of continuing our investigations, on a rational basis, into American nrchæology.

[Tho Algonkins, tho Lenni Lenapea in Pennsylvania, were also vari- ously called Wapanacki (European corruptions: Openaki, Openagi, Aben- oquis, Apenokis). The Delaware regions appear to have beou their pris- cipal seat, though affiliated nad derivative nations of their stock, were found fram Hudson's Bay to Florida, and from Lake Superior to Elet Tennessee. Forty tribes acknowledged the Loaapee as grandfather or parent stock. Their traditions, which are not always authentic, relate

THE ABORIGINES.

dwelt among the primitive forests of Pennsylvania, as well as those of Delaware, New Jersey, and a part of Maryland, called themselves the Lenni Lenape, or the original people. This general name compre-

that the tribe once upon a time dwelt in the far distant wilds of the West, whence they moved eastward towards sunrise by slow stages, often passing a year in a single camp, Imt eventually reaching the bank of the Namesi Sipu, the River of Fish (Mississippi), where they found the Mengwes or Trognois, migrating liks themselves, but who had de- scended from the northwest. The Lenaps scouts reported tho country east of the river to be held by n people called the Allegewr (whence the name Allegheny River and Monatains), who were numerous, tall, stout, some of them giants, all dwelling in intrenched or fortified towns. The Lenape were denied leave to settle among the Allegewi, but obtained permission to pass through their country. When they were half over the river, however, the Allegewi attacked and drove them back with great loss. The Lenape now formed au alliance with the Mengws; the two nations united forces, crossed the river, attacked the Allegewi, and after a long and desperate war defeated them and expelled them from their country, they fleeing southward. The conquered country was ap- portioned between the conquerors, the Mengwes choosing the northern part, along the lakes, the Lenapes choosing the more sonthern section, binding on both sides of the Ohio. Moving eastward still, they came finally to the Delaware River and the ocean, and thence spread beyond the Iludson on the north and beyond the Potomac on the south. This legend, however, is full of inconsistencies and incompatibilities, and hardly answers to what was known of the condition and location of the great Algonkin race at the time of the first settlement of the whites among them. As to their origin as members of the human family, they have divers legends. They claim to have come out of a cave in the earth, like the woodchuck and the chipmuck ; to have sprung from a snail that was transformed into a human being and taught to hunt by a kind Manitou, after which it was received into the lodge of the beaver and married the beaver's favorite daughter. In another myth a woman is discovered hovering in mid-air above the watery waste of chaos. She liss fallen or been expelled from heaven, and there is no earth to offer her a resting-place. The tortoise, however, rose from the depths and put his broad, shield-like back at her service, and she descended upon it and made it her abode, for its dome-like oval resembled the first emergence of dry land from the waters of the deluge. The tortoise slept upon the deep, and round the margin of his shell the barnacles gathered, the scum of the sea collected, and the floating fragments of the shredded sea-weed accumulated until the dry land grew apace, and by and by there was all that broad expanse of island which now constitutes North America. The woman, weary of watching, worn ont with sighis for her lonesomeness, dropped off into a tranquil slumber, and in that sleep she dreamed of n spirit who came to her from her lost home above the skies, anıl of that dream the fruits were sons and daughters, from whom have descended the human race. Another legend personifies the Great Spirit nuder the form of a gigantic bird that descended upon the face of the waters, and brooded there until the earth arose. Then the Spirit, exer- cising its creative power. made the plants and animals, and Justly man, who was formed out of the integnments of the dog, and endowed with a magic arrow that was to be preserved with great care, for it was at once a blessing and a safeguard. But the man carelessly lost the arrow, whereupon the Spirit soared away upon its bird-like wings and was no longer seen, and man had henceforth to hunt and struggle for his live- lihood. Manabozho, relates the general Algonkin tradition, created the different tribes of red men out of the carcasses of different animals, the beaver, the eagle, the wolf, the serpent, the tortoise, etc. Manabozho, Messon, Michaboo, or Nanabnsb is n demi-god who works the metamor- phoses of nature. He is the king of all the beasts; his father was the west wind, his mother the moon's great-grandfather, and sometimes he appears in the form of & wolf or n bird, but his usual shape is that of the Gigantic llare. Often Manabozho masquerades in the figure of a man of grent endowments and majestic stature, when he is n magician after the order of Prospero ; but when he takes the form of some impish elf, then he is more tricksy than Ariel, and more full of hobgoblin devices than Puck. "His powers of transformation are without limit; his curiosity and malice are insatiable ;" he has inspired a thousand legends; he is the central figure in the fairy realm of the Indian, which, indeed, is not very fully nor genially peopled. Manabozho is the restorer of the world, submerged by a delnge which the serpent- manitous have caused. Manabozho climbs a tree, saves himself, and

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History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 10

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1534

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534