Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations | Page 9

Indian life or Indian death staring them in the face. They had
no hope of mercy, whether permitted to live or condemned to die. The
mother said to Mary, "My daughter, you, I think will be permitted to
live, but they will deprive you of your father and mother, and perhaps
of your brothers and sisters, so that you will be alone. But endeavor in
all things to please the Indians, and they will be more kind to you. Do
not forget your own language, and never fail to repeat your catechism
and the Lord's prayer every morning and evening while you live." This
she promised to do, and having kissed her child, the mother was
removed from her sight.
Mary must at this time have been ten years of age. She was afterwards
told, when she could understand the Indian language, that they would
not have killed her parents if the captors had not been pursued, and that
a little boy, who was the son of a neighbor, and was also taken, was
given to the French, two of whom were of the party.
In the marches of the Indians it was the custom for one to linger behind,
and poke up the grass with a stick after a party had passed along, to
conceal all traces of their footsteps, so a pursuit was seldom successful.
In deviating from a direct course in order not to get lost, they noticed
the moss upon the trees, which always grows thickest upon the north
side, as the south side being most exposed to the sun, became soonest

dry. They also had some knowledge of the stars, and knew from the
position of certain clusters that were to be seen at certain seasons,
which was east and which west.
Mary was adopted in place of two brothers who had fallen in battle, and
for whom the lamentations had not died away. The ceremony of
adoption is very solemn, requiring the deliberations of a council and the
formal bestowing of a name, as a sort of baptism, from which time the
captive is not allowed to speak any other language but the Indian, and
must in all things conform to Indian habits and tastes.
It is customary among them to give children a name which corresponds
with the sports and dependence of childhood, and when they arrive at
maturity to change it for one that corresponds with the duties and
employments of manhood and womanhood. The first name is given by
the relatives and afterwards publicly announced in council. The second
is bestowed in the same way; and by this they are ever afterward called,
except on becoming a Sachem, and, sometimes, on becoming a Chief
or warrior another name is taken, and each denotes definitely the new
position. Each clan, too, had its peculiar names, so that when a person's
name was mentioned it was immediately known to what clan he
belonged.
A curious feature in the Indian code of etiquette is that it is exceedingly
impolite to ask a person's name, or to speak it in his presence. In the
social circle and all private conversation the person spoken of is
described if it is necessary to allude to him, as the person who sits there,
or who lives in that house, or wears such a dress. If I ask a woman,
whose husband is present if that is Mr. B-- she blushes, and stammers,
and replies, "He is my child's father," in order to avoid speaking his
name in his presence, which would offend him. On asking a man his
name he remained silent, not understanding the reason the question was
repeated, when he indignantly replied, "Do you think that I am an owl
to go about hooting my name everywhere?" The name of the owl in
Indian corresponding exactly to the note he utters.
When Mary Jemmison had been formally named De-he-wa-mis, they
called her daughter and sister, and treated her in all respects as if she
had been born among them and the same blood flowed in her veins, or
rather, they were accustomed to be more kind to captives than to their
own children, because they had not been inured to the same hardships.

There was no difference in the cares bestowed, no allusion was ever
made to the child as if it belonged to a hated race, and it never felt the
want of affection.
Mary said her tasks were always light, and everything was done to win
her love and make her happy. She now and then longed for the
comforts of her cottage home, and wept at the thought of her mother's
cruel death, but gradually learned to love the freedom of the forest, and
to gambol freely and gaily with her Indian play-mates. When she