Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations | Page 7

humanity; or, if I may be
allowed to say it, the spirit with which any christian should be able to
consider the character and deeds of his foe. I would not detract from the
virtues of your forefathers. They were at that time unrivalled, but
bigotry and superstition of the dark ages still lingered among them, and
their own perils blinded them to the wickedness and cruelty of the
means they took for defence.
Four, and perhaps two centuries hence, I doubt not, some of your
dogmas will seem unchristian, as the Indians seem to you, and I truly
hope, ere then, all wars will seem as barbarous, and the fantastic dress
of the soldiers as ridiculous, as you have been in the habit of
representing the wars and the wild drapery of the Indians of the forest.
How long were the Saxon and Celt in becoming a civilized and
Christian people? How long since the helmet, the coat of mail, and the

battle axe, were laid aside?
To make himself more terrific, the Briton of the days of Henry II drew
the skin of a wild beast over his armor with the head and ears standing
upright, and mounted his war-horse to go forth crying, "To arms! Death
to the invader!" The paint and the Eagle plume of the Indian warrior
were scarcely a more barbarous invention, nor his war-cry more
terrible.
It is not just to compare the Indian of the fifteenth, with the christian of
the fifteenth century. But compare them with the barbarian of Britain,
of Russia, of Lapland, and Tartary, and represent them as truly as these
nations have been represented, and they will not suffer by the
comparison.
* * * * *

CAPTIVE'S LIFE AMONG INDIANS.
ILLUSTRATED BY THE LIFE OF THE "WHITE WOMAN."
* * * * *
To be taken captive by the Indians, was, among the early colonists,
considered the most terrible of all calamities, and it was indeed a
fearful thing to become the victim of their revenge. But those who were
enduring the actual sufferings of captivity, or suffering still more from
terror of uncertain evils, thought little of the provocation given by the
white people. The innocent suffered for the guilty, and however
persevering--I suppose the efforts of the government to be just--in its
infancy, in a wild unknown country it was impossible to control
unprincipled marauders. Some atrocious act was first committed by
white men, which drove the Indian to retaliation, and thinking pale
faces were all alike, he did not wait till the real offender fell into his
hands.
When the white men first came, the Indian looked upon them as
superior beings. They were ready to worship Columbus and his little
party, and all others along the coast, until their simple trust was
outraged beyond endurance, they welcomed the strangers, gave them
food when they were hungry, and sheltered them when they were cold.
It was not till their encroachments became alarming, that the Indians
asserted their rights, and if in all cases they had been as justly and
kindly dealt with as by the Quakers of Pennsylvania, there would not

have been so dark a record of sins, wrongs and tortures. If none but
men of principle had made treaties with them, and all whose duty it was
to observe them, had kept their faith, revenge had not come out so
prominently in Indian character.
But it was not in obedience to national policy that those who were
taken in battle, were put to the torture, burned, and flayed. The Six
Nations had never found it necessary to build prisons, and dig
dungeons for their own people. If any man committed murder, they
sometimes decided that he should die, and sometimes bade him flee far
away where none who knew him could look upon his face. But crimes
were so rare that they had no criminal code, and when they overcame
their enemies, they either adopted them and treated them as brethren, or
put them immediately to death.
White people have often put Indians to death, and oftener put them in
dungeons to waste and starve, but it was not part of their practice to
adopt them and call them brethren. Had they sometimes done this, or
sent them freely back to their friends unharmed, they might have
conciliated where they were only made more desperate.
When families are bereaved, they sought to be revenged on those who
had bereaved them, and when warriors returned from battle, the
prisoners were given up to the friends of the afflicted. With them alone
it remained to decide the fate of those who fell into their hands. If they
chose, they adopt them in place of the husbands, or brothers, who were
slain; and if they so