Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians | Page 8

these were the keynote to his power over his
people. He, by manifesting on occasion, these, desirable traits, had his

followers' confidence confirmed in his selection; upheld those
followers' and his own traditions; and often assured his tribe's
pre-eminence. The chief, in addition, by bringing these qualities to bear
in any contact or treaty with a hostile tribe, compelled in a sense the
recognition by his enemies of the prestige and power of his entire
following. Hospitality was also considered a desirable trait in the chief,
who, while habitually dispensing it himself, strove (having his
endeavors distinctly seconded by the advocacy of the duty enforced in
the kindly precepts of the old sages of the tribe) to dispose the minds of
his followers to entertain a perception of the happy results which would
flow to themselves by their being inured to its practice, the expanding
of the heart, and the offering of a vent to the unselfish side of their
nature.
If the chief do not, in the main, conserve the qualities that are deemed
befitting in the holder of the chiefship; or if he originate any measure
which finds popular disfavour, his power with the people declines.
A number of the chiefs have supplementary functions, conferred upon
them by their brother dignitaries. There is, for example, one called the
Forest-Ranger, whose place it is to interpose for the effectual
prevention and checking of sales of timber to whites, by members of
the different tribes; or removal by whites of timber from the Reserve,
where a license, which suffers either to be done, has not been granted.
In cases where an Indian meditates, in a spirit of lofty contempt for the
license, any such illicit sale; or attempts to abet any such unlawful
removal, this functionary has authority to frustrate both objects.
The chief who, at present, fulfils these duties has not been permitted to
hold barren or dormant powers. In putting into effect that interference
which his office exacts of him, he has been more than once terribly
assaulted by whites, foiled in their plans, and exasperated by the agency
that had stepped in for the baffling of their ill-formed designs. On one
occasion, his death was all but brought about by a cruelly concerted
attack upon him.
Certain other chiefs are called Fire-keepers, though their functions are
not in any way suggested by their rather remarkable title. They are,
however, very important persons, and I have already, in treating of the
Indian's meetings of Council, touched upon their duty. I believe the
name Fire-keeper is retained from the circumstance that, in by-gone

days, when the council was an open-air affair, the lighting of the fire
was the initiatory step, and, taken in this way, therefore, the most
important step, in the proceedings.
Another chief is called Marshal, and it is incumbent upon him to
co-operate with the officers of the law in effecting the capture of any
suspected criminal or criminals, who may lie concealed, or be harbored,
on the Reserve. He is a duly qualified county constable, though his
services are not often in request, as the Chief of Police in Brantford,
whose place it is to direct the way in which crimes (committed, of
course, in the city) shall be ferreted out, or their authors tracked,
usually confides in his own staff to promote these desirable purposes,
from the fact of their accountability to him being well defined, whereas
the county constable yields no obedience to him.

HIS CHARACTER, MORAL AND GENERAL.
It is often claimed for the Indian that, before the white man put him in
the way of a freer indulgence of his unhappy craving for drink, he was
as moral a being as one unrenewed by Divine grace could be expected
to be. Unfortunately, this statement involves no definition of what
might be considered moral, under the circumstances. Now, there will be
disagreeing estimates of what a moral character, upon which there has
been no descent of heavenly grace, or where grace has not supervened
to essay its recreation, or its moulding anew, should be; and there will
also, I think, be divergent views as to a code of morals to be practised
which shall comport with the exhibition of a reasonably seemly
morality. I cannot, at least, concur in that definition of a moral
character, upon which no operation of Divine grace has been expended,
for its raising or its beautifying, which accepts that of the pagan Indian
as its highest expression; and, distinctly, hesitate to affirm that a high
moral instinct inheres in the Indian, or that such is permitted to
dominate his mind; and, when I find one of these very writers who
claim for him a high inborn morality, discovering in him such
indwelling monsters as revenge, mercilessness, implacability, the