Part 5 (1/2)

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VIII.

THE CANADIAN INDIANS AND THE IROQUOIS: THEIR ORGANISATION, CHARACTER, AND CUSTOMS.

At the time of Champlain's death we see gathering in America the forces that were to influence the fortunes of French Canada--the English colonies growing up by the side of the Atlantic and the Iroquois, those dangerous foes, already irritated by the founder of Quebec. These Indians were able to buy firearms and ammunition from the Dutch traders at Fort Orange, now Albany, on the beautiful river which had been discovered by Hudson in 1609. From their warlike qualities and their strong natural position between the Hudson and Niagara rivers, they had now become most important factors in the early development of the French and English colonies, and it is consequently important to give some particulars of their character and organisation. In the first place, however, I shall refer to those Indian tribes who lived in Canada, and were closely identified with the interests of the French settlements. These Indians also became possessed of {112} firearms, sold to them from time to time by greedy traders, despite the interdict of the French authorities in the early days of the colonies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Indian costumes, from Lafitau. 1. Iroquois; 2.

Algonquin.]

Champlain found no traces of the Indians of Cartier's time at Stadacona and Hochelaga. The tribes which had frequented the St. Lawrence seventy years before had vanished, and in their place he saw bands of wandering Algonquins. It was only when he reached the sh.o.r.es of Georgian Bay that he came to Indian villages resembling that Hochelaga which had disappeared so mysteriously. The St. Lawrence in Cartier's day had been frequented by tribes speaking one or more of the dialects of the Huron-Iroquois family, one of the seven great families that then inhabited North America east of the Mississippi, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Hudson's Bay. The short and imperfect vocabulary of Indian words which Cartier left behind, his account of Hochelaga, the intimacy of the two Gaspe Indians with the inhabitants of Stadacona--these and other facts go to show that the barbarous tribes he met were of the Iroquois stock.

The Indians have never had any written records, in the European sense, to perpetuate the doings of their nations or tribes. From generation to generation, from century to century, however, tradition has told of the deeds of ancestors, and given us vague stories of the origin and history of the tribes. It is only in this folk-lore--proved often on patient investigation to be of historic value--that we can find some threads to guide us through the labyrinth of mystery to which we come in the prehistoric {113} times of Canada. Popular tradition tells us that the Hurons and Iroquois, branches of the same family, speaking dialects of one common language, were living at one time in villages not far from each other--the Hurons probably at Hochelaga and the Senecas on the opposite side of the mountain. It was against the law of the two communities for their men and women to intermarry, but the potent influence of true love, so rare in an Indian's bosom, soon broke this command. A Huron girl entered the cabin of an Iroquois chief as his wife. It was an unhappy marriage, the husband killed the wife in an angry moment. This was a serious matter, requiring a council meeting of the two tribes. Murder must be avenged, or liberal compensation given to the friends of the dead. The council decided that the woman deserved death, but the verdict did not please all her relatives, one of whom went off secretly and killed an Iroquois warrior. Then both tribes took up the hatchet and went on the warpath against each other, with the result that the village of Hochelaga, with all the women and children, was destroyed, and the Hurons, who were probably beaten, left the St. Lawrence, and eventually found a new home on Lake Huron.[1]

Leaving this realm of tradition, which has probably a basis of fact, we come to historic times. In Champlain's interesting narrative, and in the Jesuit _Relations_, we find very few facts relating to Indian history, though we have very full information {114} respecting their customs, superst.i.tions, and methods of living. The reports of the missionaries, in fact, form the basis of all the knowledge we have of the Canadian tribes as well as of the Five Nations themselves.

It is only necessary that we should here take account of the Algonquins and Huron-Iroquois, two great families separated from one another by radical differences of language, and not by special racial or physical characteristics. The Eskimo, Dacotah, Mandan, p.a.w.nee, and Muskoki groups have no immediate connection with this Canadian story, although we shall meet representatives of these natural divisions in later chapters when we find the French in the Northwest, and on the waters of the Missouri and Mississippi. The Algonquins and Huron-Iroquois occupied the country extending, roughly speaking, from Virginia to Hudson's Bay, and from the Mississippi to the Atlantic. The Algonquins were by far the most numerous and widely distributed. Dialects of their common language were heard on the Atlantic coast all the way from Cape Fear to the Arctic region where the Eskimo hunted the seal or the walrus in his skin kayak. On the banks of the Kennebec and Pen.o.bscot in Acadia we find the Abenakis, who were firm friends of the French.

They were hunters in the great forests of Maine, where even yet roam the deer and moose. The Etchemins or Canoemen, inhabited the country west and east of the St. Croix River, which had been named by De Monts.

In Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward Island, we see the Micmacs {115} or Souriquois, a fierce, cruel race in early times, whose chief, Membertou, was the first convert of the Acadian missionaries.

They were hunters and fishermen, and did not till the soil even in the lazy fas.h.i.+on of their Algonquin kindred in New England. The climate of Nova Scotia was not so congenial to the production of maize as that of the more southern countries. It was the culture of this very prolific plant, so easily sown, gathered, and dried, that largely modified and improved the savage conditions of Indian life elsewhere on the continent. It is where the maize was most abundant, in the valley of the Ohio, that we find relics of Indian arts--such as we never find in Acadia or Canada.

On the St. Lawrence, between the Gulf and Quebec, there were wandering Algonquin tribes, generally known as Montagnais or Mountaineers, living in rude camps covered with bark or brush, eking a precarious existence from the rivers and woods, and at times on the verge of starvation, when they did not hesitate at cannibalism. Between Quebec and the Upper Ottawa there were no village communities of any importance; for the _Pet.i.te Nation_ of the river of that name was only a small band of Algonquins, living some distance from the Ottawa. On the Upper Ottawa we meet with the nation of the Isle (Allumette) and the Nip.i.s.sings, both Algonquin tribes, mentioned in a previous chapter. They were chiefly hunters and fishermen, although the former cultivated some patches of ground. On Georgian Bay we come to a nation speaking one of the dialects of a language quite distinct from that {116} of the Algonquins. These were Hurons, numbering in all some twenty thousand souls, of whom ten thousand or more were adults, living in thirty-two villages, comprising seven hundred dwellings of the same style as Cartier saw at Hochelaga. These villages were protected by stockades or palisades, and by some natural features of their situation--a river, a lake, or a hill. Neither the long houses nor the fortifications were as strongly or as cleverly constructed as those of the Iroquois.

Maize, pumpkins, and tobacco were the princ.i.p.al plants cultivated.

Sunflowers were also raised, chiefly for the oil with which they greased their hair and bodies. Their very name meant ”Shock-heads”--a nickname originating from the exclamation of some Frenchmen, when they first saw their grotesque way of wearing their hair, ”_Quelles hures!_”

(What a head of hair!) Champlain speaks of a tribe whom he met after leaving Lake Nip.i.s.sing, in 1615, and called the _Cheveux Releves_, or people with the stiff hair, but they were wandering Algonquins.

Champlain called the Hurons, Attigouantans, though their true name was Ouendat, afterwards corrupted to Wyandot, which still clings to a remnant of the race in America.

They were brave and warlike, with perhaps more amiable qualities than the more ferocious, robust Iroquois. The nation appears to have been a confederacy of tribes, each of which was divided into clans or _gentes_ on the Iroquois principle, which I shall shortly explain. Two chiefs, one for peace and one for war, a.s.sisted by a council of tribal chiefs, {117} const.i.tuted the general government. Each tribe had a system of local or self-government--to use a phrase applicable to modern federal conditions--consisting of chiefs and council. The federal organisation was not, however, so carefully framed and adjusted as that of their kin, the Iroquois. At council meetings all the princ.i.p.al men attended and votes were taken with the aid of reeds or sticks, the majority prevailing in all cases. The whole organisation was essentially a democracy, as the chiefs, although an oligarchy in appearance, were controlled by the voices and results of the councils. In this as in other American savage nations, the rule governing the transmission of hereditary honours and possessions was through the female line.

Beyond the Huron villages, south of Nottawasaga Bay--so named probably from the Nottaways, a branch of the same family, driven by war to the south--we come to the Tionotates or Tobacco tribe, who were kin in language and customs to their neighbours and afterwards joined their confederacy. The Neutral Nation, or Attiwandaronks of Iroquois stock, had their homes on the north sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie, and reached even as far as the Niagara. They were extremely cruel, and kept for a long while their position of neutrality between the Hurons and Five Nations.

To the south of Lake Erie rose the smoke of the fires of the Eries, generally translated ”Cats,” but, properly speaking, the ”Racc.o.o.ns.”

Like the Andastes, near the Susquehanna, mentioned in a previous chapter, they were famous warriors, and for years held their own against the Iroquois, but {118} eventually both these nations yielded to the fury of the relentless confederacy.

We have now come to the western door of the ”long house”

(_Ho-de-no-sote_) of the Iroquois, who called themselves ”the people of the long house” (_Ho-de-no-sau-nee_), because they dwelt in a line of villages of ”long houses,” reaching from the Genesee to the Mohawk, where the eastern door looked toward the Hudson and Lake Champlain.

The name by which they have been best known is considered by Charlevoix and other writers to be originally French; derived from ”Hiro” (I have spoken)--the conclusion of all their harangues--and Koue, an exclamation of sorrow when it was prolonged, and of joy when p.r.o.nounced shortly. They comprised five nations, living by the lakes, that still bear their names in the State of New York, in the following order as we go east from Niagara:

IROQUOIS NATIONS. ENGLISH NAMES. FRENCH NAMES.

Nundawaona ) Seneca Tsonnontouans Great hill people )

Gueugwehono ) Cayuga Goyogouin People of the marsh )

Onundagaono ) Onondaga Onnontague People of the hills )