Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines Part 4

9. Ho-e'-ho. [Footnote: Deer gens]

10. Ho-yo-ne-o'-ne. [Footnote: Turtle gens]

11. Sa-do'-kwo-seh. [Footnote: Bear gens]

Five.

12. So-go-ga-ho'. [Footnote: "Having a Glimpse," Deer gens.]

13. Ho-sa-ho'-do. [Footnote: "Large Mouth," Turtle gens.]

14. Sko-no'-wun-de. [Footnote: "Over the Creek" Turtle gens.]

CAYUGAS.

One.

1. Da-go'-ne-yo. [Footnote: "Man Frightened," Deer gens.]

2. Da-je-no'-do-web-o. [Footnote: Heron gens.]

3. Go-do-gwa-sa. [Footnote: Bear gens.]

4. So-yo-wase. [Footnote: Bear gens.]

5. Ho-de-os'yo-no. [Footnote: Turtle gens.]

Two.

6. Da-yo-o-yo'go. [Footnote: Not ascertained.]

7. Jote-ho-weh'-ko. [Footnote: "Very Cold," Turtle gens.]

8. De-o-wate'-ho. [Footnote: Heron gens.]

Three.

9. To-do-e-ho'. [Footnote: Snipe gens.]

10. Des-go'-heh. [Footnote: Snipe gens.]

SENECAS.

One.

1. Ga-ne-o-di'-yo. [Footnote: "Handsome Lake," Turtle gens.]

2. So-do-go'-o-yase. [Footnote: "Level Heavens," Snipe gens.]

Two.

3. Go-no-gi'-e. [Footnote: Turtle gens.]

4. So-geh'-jo-wo. [Footnote: "Great Forehead." Hawk gens.]

Three.

5. So-de-a-no'-wus. [Footnote: "a.s.sistant," Bear gens.]

6. Nis-ho-ne-a'-nent. [Footnote: "Falling Day," Snipe gens.]

Four.

7. Go-no-go-e-do'-we. [Footnote: "Hair Burned Off." Snipe gens.]

8. Do-ne-ho-go'-weh. [Footnote: "Open Door," Wolf gens.]

Two of these sachems.h.i.+ps have been filled but once since their creation. Ho-yo-went'-ho and Da-go-no-we'-da consented to take the office among the Mohawk sachems, and to leave their names in the list upon condition that after their demise the two should remain thereafter vacant. They were installed upon these terms, and the stipulation has been observed to the present day. At all councils for the invest.i.ture of sachems their names are still called with the others as a tribute of respect to their memory. The general council, therefore, consisted of but forty-eight members.

Each sachem had an a.s.sistant sachem, who was elected by the gens of his princ.i.p.al from among its members, and who was installed with the same forms and ceremonies. He was styled an "aid." It was his duty to stand behind his superior on all occasions of ceremony, to act as his messenger, and in general to be subject to his directions. It gave to the aid the office of chief and rendered probable his election as the successor of his princ.i.p.al after the decease of the latter. In their figurative language these aids of the sachems were styled "Braces in the Long House," which symbolized the confederacy.

The names bestowed upon the original sachems became the names of their respective successors in perpetuity. For example, upon the demise of Go-ne-o-di'-yo, one of the eight Seneca sachems, his successor would be elected by the Turtle gens in which this sachems.h.i.+p was hereditary, and when raised up by the general council he would receive this name, in place of his own, as a part of the ceremony. On several different occasions I have attended their councils for raising up sachems both at the Onondaga and Seneca reservations, and witnessed the ceremonies herein referred to.

Although but a shadow of the old confederacy now remains, it is fully organized with its complement of sachems and aids, with the exception of the Mohawk tribe, which removed to Canada about 1775.

Whenever vacancies occur their places are filled, and a general council is convened to install the new sachems and their aids. The present Iroquois are also perfectly familiar with the structure and principles of the ancient confederacy.

For all purposes of tribal government the five tribes were independent of each other. Their territories were separated by fixed boundary lines, and their tribal interests were distinct. The eight Seneca sachems, in conjunction with the other Seneca chiefs, formed the council of the tribe by which its affairs were administered, leaving to each of the other tribes the same control over their separate interests. As an organization the tribe was neither weakened nor impaired by the confederate compact. Each was in vigorous life within its appropriate sphere, presenting some a.n.a.logy to our own States within an embracing Republic. It is worthy of remembrance that the Iroquois commended to our forefathers a union of the colonies similar to their own as early as 1755. They saw in the common interests and common speech of the several colonies the elements for a confederation, which was as far as their vision was able to penetrate.

The tribes occupied positions of entire equality in the confederacy in rights, privileges, and obligations. Such special immunities as were granted to one or another indicate no intention to establish an unequal compact or to concede unequal privileges. There were organic provisions apparently investing particular tribes with superior power; as, for example, the Onondagas were allowed fourteen sachems and the Senecas but eight; and a larger body of sachems would naturally exercise a stronger influence in council than a smaller. But in this case it gave no additional power, because the sachems of each tribe had an equal voice in forming a decision, and a negative upon the others. When in council they agreed by tribes, and unanimity in opinion was essential to every public act. The Onondagas were made "Keepers of the Wampum," and "Keepers of the Council Brand," the Mohawks "Receivers of Tribute" from subjugated tribes, and the Senecas "Keepers of the Door" of the Long House. These and some other similar provisions were made for the common advantage.

The cohesive principle of the confederacy did not spring exclusively from the benefits of an alliance for mutual protection, but had a deeper foundation in the bond of kin. The confederacy rested upon the tribes ostensibly, but primarily upon common gentes. All the members of the same gens, whether Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, or Senecas, were brothers and sisters to each other in virtue of their descent from the same common ancestor, and they recognized each other as such with the fullest cordiality. When they met, the first inquiry was the name of each other's gens, and next the immediate pedigree of their respective sachems; after which they were usually able to find, under their peculiar system of consanguinity the relations.h.i.+p in which they stood to each other.

[Footnote: The children of brothers are themselves brothers and sisters to each other; the children of the latter were also brothers and sisters, and so downwards indefinitely. The children and descendants of sisters are the same. The children of a brother and sister are cousins; the children of the latter are cousins, and so downwards indefinitely. A knowledge of the relations.h.i.+ps to each other of the members of the same gens is never lost.]

Three of the gentes--namely, the Wolf, Bear, and Turtle--were common to the five tribes; these and three others were common to three tribes. In effect, the Wolf gens, through the division of an original tribe into five, was now in five divisions, one of which was in each tribe. It was the same with the Bear and the Turtle gentes. The Deer, Snipe, and Hawk gentes were common to the Senecas, Cayugas, and Onondagas. Between the separated parts of each gens, although its members spoke different dialects of the same language, there existed a fraternal connection which linked the nations together with indissoluble bonds. When the Mohawk of the Wolf gens recognized an Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, or Seneca of the same gens as a brother, and when the members of the other divided gentes did the same, the relations.h.i.+p was not ideal, but a fact founded upon consanguinity, and upon faith in an a.s.sured lineage older than their dialects and coeval with their unity as one people. In the estimation of an Iroquois every member of his gens, in whatever tribe, was as certainly a kinsman as an own brother. This cross relations.h.i.+p between persons of the same gens in the different tribes is still preserved and recognized among them in all its original force. It explains the tenacity with which the fragments of the old confederacy still cling together. If either of the five tribes had seceded from the confederacy it would have severed the bond of kin, although this would have been felt but slightly. But had they fallen into collision it would have turned the gens of the Wolf against their gentile kindred, Bear against Bear; in a word, brother against brother. The history of the Iroquois demonstrates the reality as well as persistency of the bond kin, and the fidelity with which it was respected. During the long period through which the confederacy endured they never fell into anarchy nor ruptured the organization.

The "Long House" (Ho-de'-no-sote) was made the symbol of the confederacy, and they styled themselves the "People of the Long House"

(Ho-e'-no-sau-nee). [Footnote: The Long House was not peculiar to the Iroquois, but used by many other tribes, as the Powhattan Indians of Virginia, the Nyacks of Long Island, and other tribes.]

This was the name, and the only name, with which they distinguished themselves. The confederacy produced a gentile society more complex than that of a single tribe, but it was still distinctively a gentile society. It was, however, a stage of progress in the direction of a nation, for nationality is reached under gentile inst.i.tutions. Coalescence is the last stage in this process. The four Athenian tribes coalesced in Attica into a nation by the intermingling of the tribes in the same area, and by the gradual disappearance of geographical lines between them. The tribal names and organizations remained in full vitality as before, but without the basis of an independent territory. When political society was inst.i.tuted on the basis of the deme or towns.h.i.+p, and all the residents of the deme became a body politic, irrespective of their gens or tribe, the coalescence became complete.

The coalescence of the Latin and Sabrae gentes into the Roman people and nation was a result of the same processes. In all alike the gens, phratry and tribe were the first three stages of organization. The confederacy followed as the fourth. But it does not appear, either among the Grecian or Latin tribes in the Later Period of barbarism, that it became more than a loose league for offensive and defensive purposes. Of the nature and details of organization of the Grecian and Latin confederacies our knowledge is limited and imperfect, because the facts are buried in the obscurity of the traditionary period. The process of coalescence arises later than the confederacy in gentile society; but it was a necessary as well as a vital stage of progress by means of which the nation, the state, and political society were at last attained. Among the Iroquois tribes it had not manifested itself.

The valley of Onondaga, as the seat of the central tribe, and the place where the Council Brand was supposed to be perpetually burning, was the usual though not the exclusive place for holding the councils of the confederacy. In ancient times it was summoned to convene in the autumn of each year but public exigencies often rendered its meetings more frequent. Each tribe had power to summon the council, and to appoint the time and place of meeting at the council house of either tribe, when circ.u.mstances rendered a change from the usual place at Onondaga desirable. But the council had no power to convene itself.

Originally the princ.i.p.al object of the council was to raise up sachems to fill vacancies in the ranks of the ruling body occasioned by death or deposition; but it transacted all other business which concerned the common welfare. In course of time, as they multiplied in numbers and their intercourse with foreign tribes became more extended, the council fell into three distinct kinds, which may be distinguished as Civil, Mourning, and Religious. The first declared war and made peace, sent and received emba.s.sies, entered into treaties with foreign tribes, regulated the affairs of subjugated tribes, and took all needful measures to promote the general welfare.

The second raised up sachems and invested them with office. It received the name of Mourning Council because the first of its ceremonies was the lament for the deceased ruler whose vacant place was to be filled. The third was held for the observance of a general religious festival. It was made an occasion for the confederated tribes to unite under the auspices of a general council in the observance of common religions rites; but as the Mourning Council was attended with many of the same ceremonies it came in time to answer for both. It is now the only council they hold, as the civil powers of the confederacy terminated with the supremacy over them of the state.

When the sachems met in council at the time and place appointed, and the usual reception ceremony had been performed, they arranged themselves in two divisions and seated themselves upon opposite sides of the council-fire. Upon one side were the Mohawk, Onondaga, and Seneca sachems. The tribes they represented were, when in council, brother tribes to each other and father tribes to the other two. In like manner their sachems were brothers to each other and fathers to those opposite. They const.i.tuted a phratry of tribes and of sachems, by an extension of the principle which united gentes in a phratry.

On the opposite side of the fire were the Oneida and Cayuga and at a later day the Tuscarora sachems. The tribes they represented were brother tribes to each other and son tribes to the opposite three.

Their sachems also were brothers to each other, and sons of those in the opposite division. They formed a second tribal phratry. As the Oneidas were a subdivision of the Mohawks, and the Cayugas a subdivision of the Onondagas or Senecas, they were in reality junior tribes; whence their relation of seniors and juniors, and the application of the phratric principle. When the tribes are named in council the Mohawks, by precedence, are mentioned first. Their tribal epithet was "The s.h.i.+eld" (Da-go-e-o'-do). The Onondagas came next, under the epithet of "Name-Bearer" (Ho-de-san-no'-ge-to), because they had been appointed to select and name the fifty original sachems. Next in the order of precedence were the Senecas, under the epithet of "Door-Keeper" (Ho-nan-ne-ho'-ont). They were made perpetual keepers of the western door of the Long House. The Oneidas, under the epithet of "Great Tree" (Ne-ar'-de-on dar'-go-war), and the Cayugas, under that of "Great Pipe" (So-nus'-ho-gwar-to-war), were named fourth and fifth. The Tuscaroras, who came late into the confederacy, were named last, and had no distinguis.h.i.+ng epithet.

Forms, such as these, were more important in ancient society than we would be apt to suppose.

Unanimity among the sachems was required upon all public questions, and essential to the validity of every public act. It was a fundamental law of the confederacy. They adopted a method for ascertaining the opinions of the members of the council which dispensed with the necessity of casting votes. Moreover, they were entirely unacquainted with the principle of majorities and minorities in the action of councils. They voted in council by tribes, and the sachems of each tribe were required to be of one mind to form a decision. Recognizing unanimity as a necessary principle, the founders of the confederacy divided the sachems of each tribe into cla.s.ses as a means for its attainment. This will be seen by consulting the table (supra, p 30). No sachem was allowed to express an opinion in council in the nature of a vote until he had first agreed with the sachem or sachems of his cla.s.s upon the opinion to be expressed, and had been appointed to act as speaker for the cla.s.s.

Thus the eight Seneca sachems being in four cla.s.ses, could have but four opinions, and the ten Cayuga sachems, being in the same number of cla.s.ses, could have but four. In this manner the sachems in each cla.s.s were first brought to unanimity among themselves. A cross-consultation was then held between the four sachems appointed to speak for the four cla.s.ses; and when they had agreed they designated one of their number to express their resulting opinion, which was the answer of their tribe. When the sachems of the several tribes had, by this ingenious method, become of one mind separately, it remained to compare their several opinions, and if they agreed the decision of the council was made. If they failed of agreement the measure was defeated and the council was at an end. The five persons appointed to express the decision of the five tribes may possibly explain the appointment and the functions of the six electors, so called, in the Aztec confederacy.

By this method of gaining a.s.sent the equality and independence of the several tribes were recognized and preserved. If any sachem was obdurate or unreasonable, influences were brought to bear upon him, through the preponderating sentiment, which he could not well resist, so that it seldom happened that inconvenience or detriment resulted from their adherence to the rule. Whenever all efforts to procure unanimity had failed, the whole matter was laid aside because further action had become impossible.

Under a confederacy of tribes the office of general, "Great War Soldier," (Hos-go-o-geh'-da-go-wo), makes its first appearance.

Cases would now arise when the several tribes in their confederate capacity would be engaged in war, and the necessity for a general commander to direct the movements of the united bands would be felt. The introduction of this office as a permanent feature in the government was a great event in the history of human progress. It was the beginning of a differentiation of the military from the civil power, which, when completed, changed essentially the external manifestation of the government; but even in later stages of progress, when the military spirit predominated, the essential character of the government was not changed. Gentilism arrested usurpation. With the rise of the office of general, the government was gradually changed from a government of one power into a government of two powers. The functions of government became, in course of time, co-ordinated between the two. This new office was the germ of that of a chief executive magistrate for out of the general came the king, the emperor, and the president, as elsewhere suggested. The office sprang from the military necessities of society and had a logical development.

When the Iroquois confederacy was formed, or soon after that event two permanent war-chiefs.h.i.+ps were created and named, and both were a.s.signed to the Seneca tribe. One of them (Ta-wan'-ne-ars, signifying needle-breaker) was made hereditary in the Wolf, and the other (So-no'-so-wo, signifying great oyster sh.e.l.l) in the Turtle gens. The reason a.s.signed for giving them both to the Senecas was the greater danger of attack at the west end of their territories.

They were elected in the same manner as the sachems, were raised up by a general council, and were equal in rank and power. Another account states that they were created later. They discovered immediately after the confederacy was formed that the structure of the Long House was incomplete, because there were no officers to execute the military commands of the confederacy. A council was convened to remedy the omission, which established the two perpetual war-chiefs named. As general commanders they had charge of the military affairs of the confederacy and the command of its joint forces when united in a general expedition. Governor Blacksnake, recently deceased, held the office first named, thus showing that the succession has been regularly maintained. The creation of two princ.i.p.al war-chiefs instead of one, and with equal powers, argues a subtle and calculating policy to prevent the domination of a single man even in their military affairs. They did without experience precisely as the Romans did in creating two consuls instead of one, after they had abolished the office of rex. Two consuls would balance the military power between them, and prevent either from becoming supreme. Among the Iroquois this office never became influential.

In Indian ethnography the subjects of primary importance are the gens, phratry, tribe, and confederacy. They exhibit the organization of society. Next to these are the tenure and functions of the office of sachem and chief, the functions of the council of chiefs, and the tenure and functions of the office of princ.i.p.al war-chief. When these are ascertained the structure and principles of their governmental system will be known. A knowledge of their usages and customs, of their arts and inventions, and of their plan of life will then fill out the picture. In the work of American investigators too little attention has been given to the former.

They still afford a rich field in which much information may be gathered. Our knowledge, which is now general, should be made minute and comparative. The Indian tribes in the Lower and in the Middle Status of barbarism represent two of the great stages of progress from savagery to civilization. Our own remote forefathers pa.s.sed through the same conditions, one after the other, and possessed, there can scarcely be a doubt, the same, or very similar inst.i.tutions, with many of the same usages and customs. However little we may be interested in the American Indians personally, their experience touches us more nearly, as an exemplification of the experience of our own ancestors. Our primary inst.i.tutions root themselves in a prior gentile society in which the gens, phratry, and tribe were the organic series, and in which the council of chiefs was the instrument of government. The phenomena of their ancient society must have presented many points in common with that of the Iroquois and other Indian tribes. This view of the matter lends an additional interest to the study of comparative inst.i.tutions of mankind.

The Iroquois confederacy is an excellent exemplification of a gentile society under this form of organization. It seems to realize all the capabilities of gentile inst.i.tutions in the Lower Status of barbarism, leaving an opportunity for further development, but no subsequent plan of government until the inst.i.tutions of political society, founded upon territory and upon property, with the establishment of which the gentile organization would be overthrown.

The intermediate stages were transitional, remaining military democracies to the end, except where tyrannies founded upon usurpation were temporarily established in their places. The confederacy of the Iroquois was essentially democratic, because it was composed of gentes each of which was organized upon the common principles of democracy, not of the highest but of the primitive type; and because the tribes reserved the right of local self-government.

They conquered other tribes and held them in subjection, as for example the Delawares; but the latter remained under the government of their own chiefs, and added nothing to the strength of the confederacy. It was impossible in this state of society to unite tribes under one government who spoke different languages, or to hold conquered tribes under tribute with any benefit but the tribute.

This exposition of the Iroquois confederacy is far from exhaustive of the facts, but it has been carried far enough to answer my present object. The Iroquois were a vigorous and intelligent people, with a brain approaching in volume the Aryan average. Eloquent in oratory, vindictive in war, and indomitable in perseverance, they have gained a place in history. If their military achievements are dreary with the atrocities of savage warfare, they have ill.u.s.trated some of the highest virtues of mankind in their relations with each other. The confederacy which they organized must be regarded as a remarkable production of wisdom and sagacity. One of its avowed objects was peace--to remove the cause of strife by uniting their tribes under one government, and then extending it by incorporating other tribes of the same name and lineage. They urged the Eries and the Neutral Nation to become members of the confederacy, and for their refusal expelled them from their borders. Such an insight into the highest objects of government is creditable to their intelligence.

Their numbers were small, but they counted in their ranks a large number of able men. This proves the high grade of the stock.