Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations | Page 6

there any animal that would not struggle against this? Nor is this indeed all. A kinswoman of theirs, a Princess in her own right, Wetamore Pocasset, was pursued and harrassed till she fell exhausted in the wilderness, and died of cold and starvation. There she was found by men professing to be shocked at Indian barbarity, her head severed from her body, and carried bleeding upon a pole to be exposed in the public highways of the country, ruled by men who have been honored as saints and martyrs.
"Let me die among my kindred," "Bury me with my fathers," is the prayer of every Indian's heart; and the most delicate and reverential kindness in the treatment of the bodies of the dead, was considered a religious duty. There was nothing in all their customs that indicated a barbarism so gross and revolting as these acts, which are recorded by New England historians without a censure, while the Indian's protests in his grief at seeing his kindred dishonored and his religion reviled, are stigmatized as savage and fiendish.
If all, or even a few who ministered among them in holy things, had been like Eliot, who is called "the Apostle to the Indians," and deserved to be ranked with the Apostle of old, or Kirkland, who is endeared to the memory of every Iroquois who heard his name, it could not have become a proverb or a truth that civilization and christianity wasted them away.
They were, not by one, but many, unscrupulously called "dogs, wolves, bloodhounds, demons, devils incarnate, hellhounds, fiends, monsters, beasts," always considering them inferior beings, and scarcely allowing them to be human, yet one, who was at that time a captive among them, represents them as "kind and loving and generous;" and concerning this same monster--Philip--records nothing that should have condemned him in the eyes of those who believed in wars aggressive and defensive, and awarded honors to heroes and martyrs and conquerors.
By the Governor of Jamestown a hand was severed from the arm of a peaceful, unoffending Indian, that he might be sent back a terror to his people; and through the magnanimity of a daughter and king of that same people, that colony was saved from destruction. It was through their love and trust alone that Powhatan and Pocahontas lost their forest dominions.
Hospitality was one of the Indians' distinguishing virtues, and there was no such thing among them as individual starvation or want. As long as there was a cup of soup, it was divided. If a friend or a stranger made a call he was welcome to all their wigwams would furnish, and to offer him food was not merely a custom, for it was a breach of politeness for him to refuse to eat however full he might be.
Because their system not being like the white people's, it does not follow that it was not a system. You might have looked into the wigwam or lodge and thought everything in confusion, while to the occupants, there was a place for everything, and everything in its place: each had a couch which answered for bed by night and seat by day. The ceremonies at their festivals were as regular as in the churches, their rules of war as well defined as those of christian nations, and in their games and athletic sports there was a code of honor which it was disgraceful to violate: their marriage vows were as well understood, and courtesy as formally practiced at their dances.
The nature of the Indian is in all respects like the nature of any other nation; placed in the same circumstances, he exhibits the same passions and vices. But in his forest home there was not the same temptation to great crimes, or what is termed the lesser ones, that of slander, scandal, and gossip, as exists among civilized nations.
They knew nothing of the desire of gain, and therefore were not made selfish by the love of hoarding; and there was no temptation to steal, where they had everything in common, and their reverence for truth and fidelity to promises, may well put all the nations of christendom to shame.
I have written in somewhat of the spirit which will characterize a History, by an Indian, yet it does not deserve to be called Indian partiality, but only justice and the spirit of 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