The hero of the Longhouse

Front matter

INDIAN LIFE AND INDIAN LORE

Hiawatha nr:

INDIAN LIFE AND INDIAN LORE rHEHEiOOFTHEl LONGHOUSEF^i

Author's Preface

The story of Hiawatha as it has been handed down in wampum records and oral narrations constitutes a traditional history of unique interest. There have appeared among the people of every great race, whether in a barbarous or a civilized stage of development, human beings of surpassing power whose influence has extended far beyond their nation and their time. Such a man was Hiawatha. The labor of Hiawatha's life was given to creating a nation by uniting the five tribes of the Iroquois. The confederation which, with the aid of Daganoweda, he succeeded in establishing, endured to the opening of the Revolutionary War, without any break in its unity. It is still in existence. It was based on a truly remarkable constitution which has lately been published in a Museum Bulletin of the New York State Archaeological Department.^ This League gave the Iroquois an influence more extended than that of any other Indian race north of Mexico.

It is significant that a fundamental object of the Iroquois Confederation was the elimination of warfare. The motives of the great founders of this union, indicated in the constitution itself, were social and religious as well as political. For this reason the story of the struggle of Hiawatha to bring about the confederation of the Iroquois tribes is the story of a great social-civic movement that is unexcelled in traditional history. It

* Bulletin No. 184, The Constitution of the Five Nations, by Arthur C. Parker. 1916.

vii viii Author's Preface

makes Hiawatha a great statesman and a hero unsurpassed in moral courage.

The story of The Hero of the Longhouse follows in its main line the traditional history related by Horatio Hale in his Iroquois Book of Rites and in manuscripts in the New York State Archaeological Department collected by Mr. Arthur C. Parker. Hale says of his story of the League: "The particulars comprised in it were drawn chiefly from notes gathered during many visits to the Reserve of the Six Nations on the Grand River in Ontario, supplemented by information obtained in two visits to the Onondaga Reservation, in the State of New York, near Syracuse. My informants were the most experienced counselors, and especially the 'wampum-keepers,' the official annalists of their people." ^

Of the early life of Hiawatha there is no record. The writer has placed the story of his childhood and youth against a background of Iroquois life drawn from approved historical sources.

"About the mam events of Hiawatha's history," says Horatio Hale, "and about his character and purposes, there can be no reasonable doubt. We have the wampmn belts which he handled, whose simple hieroglyphics preserve the memory of the public acts in which he took part. We have, also, in the Iroquois Booh of Rites a

* Iroquois Book of Rites, page 19, No. 2 of Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature. Philadelphia, 1883.

Author's Preface ix

still more clear and convincing testimony to the character both of the legislator and of the people for whom his institutions were designed. . . . The persistent desire for peace, pursued for centuries in federal unions and in alliances and treaties with other nations, has been manifested by few as steadily as by the countrymen of Hiawatha. The sentiment of universal brotherhood which directed their polity has never been so fully developed in any branch of the Aryan race, unless it may be found incorporated in the religious quietism of Buddha and his followers." ^

I have ventured on this story of The Hero of the Longhoiise with reluctance, partly because the material itself deserves a more commanding treatment, partly because the name of Hiawatha is sacred to the great poet who immortalized it. But the telling of the true story of Hiawatha for the youth who are growing up in the land where he lived and labored is surely an urgent need.

I acknowledge here my great indebtedness to Dr. Ernest Bernbaum of Harvard University for a critical reading of the manuscript; to Mr. David Cunningham Lithgow for permission to use reproductions of paintings in his studio at Albany; to the New York State JNIuseum for permission to use reproductions of its two lunette frescoes; and to Mr. Arthur Caswell Parker, Arch^ologist of New York State, without whose generous encouragement and assistance this work could not have been written.

^ Ibid., page 36.

Contents

Author's Preface vii

Introduction xiii

The Historical Hiawatha xv

Part One THE childhood AND YOUTH OF WHITE EAGLE

1. The Birth of White Eagle 1

2. Winter in the Longhouse 9

5. White Eagle and Sosoxdoweh 40

10. The Boy Warriors 92

Part Two defending the homeland

15. The Death of Ondiyaka 137

16. The Blight of the Maize Fields 144 xi xii Contents

21. TONEDAWA, the ChILD OP HiAWATHA 193

24. The Awakening of Hiawatha 223

Part Three the going-out of hiawatha

26. The Renunciation 241

28. The Mohawks Listen to the Great Peace . 259

29. The Great Northern Hunting 269

31 . At Nundawao 285

Part Four the building of the longhouse

33. The Great Council 302

34. The White Canoe 309

Bibliography 316

Introduction

The name of Hiawatha has been made familiar and beloved among the children of our land through Longfellow's poem. Yet few people, other than ethnologists, know that there was a real Hiawatha ; that he was the co-founder of the powerful League of the Iroquois; and that nearly every large city from one end of the Empire State to the other stands in a region that once knew his footsteps. In Longfellow's poem we meet with a superhuman character who wanders far. The Hero of the Longhouse gives us a portrayal of the human Hiawatha in and of his own homeland. The first page and the first picture touch the reader as with a magic wand. He is carried backward half a thousand years and set down in the forests of central New York, where he sees the great Iroquois chieftain of old as a flesh-and-blood character with a soul like his own.

Before beginning to write this book the author studied the history of Hiawatha from every possible source. That she might the better visualize the scenes of his lifetime, she did much of her writing out-of-doors — in the woods of the northern Mohawk hunting ground, on the site of Skanehtade, and in the valley of the Gennisheyo. She climbed the heights of Bare Hill where Nundawao stood, she lived at Oswego, and she visited the Falls of the Mohawk where Hiawatha met for the first time his powerful friend Daganoweda. And the author, we feel, has enxiv Introduction

tered very fully into the spirit of the people and the times that she describes. The story is convincing; the Indian epic has never been retold with greater truth and vividness. Reading the book is like a happy adventure.

The illustrations are by David Cunningham Lithgow, who has painted and sketched Hiawatha's people in every part of the old Iroquois confederacy. The pictures are as accurate as it is possible to make them, and they reveal unmistakably the artist's keen insight into his subject and his sympathy with the story.

I have watched this book grow, from the first pencil marks. I have watched the artist paint his pictures, and I have seen the printer's proof; and as one of Hiawatha's people I am very happy to see this work so ably accomplished. I believe that every reader, young or old, will join me in the wish that The Hero of the Longhouse will be read by all who admire nobility of character and by all who love the woods, the hills, the brooks, and the charm of the open.

Arthur C. Parker (Gawasowaneh)

State Archaeologist of New York War Chief, Clan of the Bear of the Seneca Nation

THE fflSTORICAL HIAWATHA

The most authentic history of Hiawatha is found in Horatio Hale's Iroquois Book of Rites and in manuscripts in the New York State Archceological Department collected by Arthur C. Parker. Mr. Parker gained his material from the Iroquois on the Grand River Reservation in Ontario and from intimate intercourse with the Iroquois Indians on the New York State Reservations. Horatio Hale's material was drawn from notes gathered during many visits to the Grand River Reservation and very especially from visits to the Onondaga Reservation in New York State. His informants "were the most experienced counselors and especially the wampum keepers, the official annalists of ^ the people." ^

These accounts agree on the main facts of Hiawatha's history, which was identified with a single great achievement: the founding of the League of the Iroquois. There is much uncertainty as to the date of the founding of the League. Hale concluded that the weight of evidence pointed to the year 1439,. Hiawatha belonged to the Onondaga tribe and was at that time an important chieftain in the Turtle Clan.

The Iroquois understood perfectly that their five tribes had a common descent, their forefathers having lived for a time on the headwaters of the St. Lawrence, subject to the Adirondacks, a numerous and cruel people. Through the

^ Horatio Hale, The Iroquois Book of Rites, page 19.

xvi The Historical Hiawatha

severe discipline of long endurance and by conserving all their native strength, the Iroquois escaped from the Adirondacks, crossed Lake Ontario, and reached the Oswego River. The people believed that their forefathers emerged from the earth where they had hidden, at the Falls of the Oswego, and that under the leadership of the Holder-of-the-Heavens, they settled on the hills of Onondaga. Here they prospered. As they grew numerous, first the Mohawks and then the Senecas left the old home country at Onondaga and found new hunting grounds. Later the Oneidas separated from the Mohawks^ and the Cayugas from the Senecas; hence the Iroquois called the Onondagas, Mohawks, and Senecas the Three Elder Brothers, and the Oneidas and Cayugas the Younger Brothers.

As years passed, there came to be much inter-tribal warfare among the Iroquois; and in the period of the making of the League, these wars had been devastating.

"The Onondagas were then under the control of a dreaded war chieftain named Atotarho. He was a man of great force of character and of formidable qualities — haughty, ambitious, crafty and bold — a determined and successful warrior, and at home, so far as the constitution of an Indian tribe would allow, a stern and remorseless tyrant. He tolerated no equal. The chiefs who ventured to oppose him were taken off one after another by secret means, or were compelled

The Historical Hiawatha xvii

to flee for safety to other tribes. His subtlety and artifices had acquired for him the reputation of a wizard. He knew, they say, what was going on at a distance as well as if he were present ; and he could destroy his enemies by some magical art, while he himself was far away. In spite of the fear which he inspired, his domination would probably not have been endured by an Indian community, but for his success in war." ^

There was at this time among the Onondagas a chief of high rank, whose name, Hiawatha, is rendered, "He who seeks the wampum belt." He had made himself greatly esteemed by his wisdom and his benevolence. He was now past middle age. Though many of his friends and relatives had perished by the machinations of Atotarho, he himself had been spared. Hiawatha had long beheld with grief the evils which afflicted not only his own nation, but all the other tribes about them, through the continual wars in which they were engaged, and the misgovernment and miseries at home which these wars produced. AVith much meditation, he had elaborated in his mind the scheme of a vast confederation which would insure universal peace. In the mere plan of a confederation there was nothing new. There are probably few, if any, Indian tribes which have not, at one time or another, been members of a league or confederacy. It may almost be said to be their normal condition.

* TJie Iroquois Book of Rites, page 20.

xviii The Historical Hiawatha

But the plan which Hiawatha had evolved differed from all others in two particulars. The system which he devised was to be not a loose and transitory league, but a permanent government. While each nation was to retain its own council and its management of local affairs, the general control was to be lodged in a federal senate, composed of representatives elected by each nation, holding office during good behavior, and acknowledged as ruling chiefs throughout the whole confederacy. Still further, and more remarkably, the confederation was not to be a limited one. It was to be indefinitely expansible. The avowed design of its proposer was to abolish war altogether. He wished the federation to extend until all the tribes of men should be included in it, and peace should everywhere reign. Such is the positive testimony of the Iroquois themselves; and their statement, as will be seen, is supported by historical evidence.

Hiawatha's first endeavor was to enlist his own nation in the cause. He summoned a meeting of the chiefs and people of the Onondaga towns. The summons, proceeding from a chief of his rank and reputation, attracted a large concourse. "They came together," said the narrator, "along the creeks, from all parts, to the general council fire." But what effect the great projects of the chief, enforced by the eloquence for which he was noted, might have had upon his auditors, could not be known. For there appeared among them

The Historical Hiawatha xix

a well-known figure, grim, silent and forbidding, whose terrible aspect overawed the assemblage. The unspoken displeasure of Atotarho was sufficient to stifle all debate, and the meeting dispersed.

This result, which seems a singular conclusion of an Indian council — the most independent and free-spoken of all gatherings — is sufficiently explained by the fact that Atotarho had organized, among the more reckless warriors of his tribe, a band of unscrupulous partisans, who did his bidding without question and took off by secret murder all persons against whom he bore a grudge. The knowledge that his followers were scattered through the assembly, prepared to mark for destruction those who should offend him, might make the boldest orator chary of speech. Hiawatha alone was undaunted. He sunmioned a second meeting, which was attended by a smaller number, and broke up as before in confusion, on Atotarho's appearance. The unwearied reformer sent forth his runners a third time ; but the people were disheartened. When the day of the council arrived, no one attended. "Then," continued the narrator, "Hiawatha seated himself on the ground in sorrow. He enveloped his head in his mantle of skins, and remained for a long time bowed in grief and thought. At length he arose and left the town, taking his course toward the southeast. He had formed a bold design. As the councils of his own nation were

XX The Historical Hiawatha

closed to him, he would have recourse to those of other tribes. At a short distance from the town (so minutely are the circumstances recounted) he passed his great antagonist, seated near a well-known spring, stern and silent as usual. No word passed between the determined representatives of war and peace: but it doubtless was not without a sensation of triumphant pleasure that the ferocious war chief saw his only rival and opponent in council going into what seemed to be voluntary exile." ^

"The flight of Hiawatha from Onondaga to the country of the Mohawks," said Hale, "is to the Iroquois what the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina is to the votaries of Islam. It is the turning point of their history."

Manuscripts in the New York State Archaeological Museum relate the story of Hiawatha's farewell to the hunting grounds of the Onondagas. Overwhelmed with grief, he went from point to point in the familiar homeland fasting for five days. It is at this time that legend credits him with devising wampum-shell strings, each shell holding a word of the message. In the land of the Oneidas he sends two birds (i.e., runners) to the principal village with the peace message, which is rejected. He appears in the principal towns of the Mohawks with his white shell strings, into which he has talked the words of the Great Peace. In every town his message is re-

^ The Iroquois Book of Rites, pages 21-23.

The Historical Hiawatha xxi

jected. Last of all he meets Daganoweda at Gahoose, a small Mohawk village located at Cohoes Falls. Daganoweda at once accepts the Great Peace Message and becomes its most efficient champion.

The mystery that lies in the founding of the Iroquois League rests in Daganoweda and his relation to the work. Horatio Hale makes him a Mohawk chieftain. Arthur C. Parker, New York State Archaeologist, believes that he was by birth a Huron and a man of extraordinary power and wisdom who had been adopted by the Mohawks and made a chieftain. All authorities agree that without Daganoweda, Hiawatha could not have accomplished his great work.

Another personality that appears at this time, working with Hiawatha and Daganoweda for the Great Peace, is Jigonsasa, the Queen of the Neutrals. This line of Peace Queens is spoken of in the Jesuit Relations. The Peace Queens kept their tribe from war and were held in reverence by neighboring tribes. The Peace Home, or dwelling of the Queen of the Neutrals, was a place of refuge as well as a court of arbitration. The last of the line of Jigonsasa lived in the Tonawanda (Seneca) Reservation in New York State as late as 1892. Her English name was Carrie Mount Pleasant. There is traditional evidence that the Peace Queen of the Neutrals was present at all the councils with Hiawatha xxii The Historical Hiawatha

and Daganoweda when the acceptance of the Great Peace was in question.

The Peace Confederation was accepted first by the Mohawks after a year's dehberation. A year later the Oneidas accepted it. At this time it was again rejected by the Onondagas. The Cayugas after a year of dehberation entered the Peace League. Again a delegation approached Atotarho, this time made up of representatives from the Mohawks, Oneidas, and Cayugas. Atotarho now offered to accept their invitation to enter the League on condition that he be made its Great Sachem. Hiawatha, to whom this office would naturally fall, yielded him the honor at once. The Four United Tribes then approached the Senecas, who after a year's deliberation came into the Great Peace Alliance.

Hiawatha is credited with having labored successfully in changing the heart of Atotarho. In the picturesque language of the Iroquois he "combed the snakes from the hair of Atotarho."

The Iroquois did not make canoes of wliite birch bark, but white birch bark canoes could have been easily obtained through trade with the Chippewas. The White Canoe holds so persistent a place in the legendary history of Hiawatha that there can be no doubt that it was intimately associated with him in the minds of his contemporaries and that it featured in some way in his death. The Iroquois, in his figurative mode of speech, said that Hiawatha went to Heaven in

The Historical Hiawatha xxiii

his White Canoe. Horatio Hale believes that he was buried in the White Canoe as one of his valued possessions.

"The Iroquois were always eager to receive new members into their League," says Horatio Hale. "The Tuscaroras, Nanticokes, the Tuteloes, and a band of Delawares, were thus successfully admitted, and all of them still retain representatives in the council of the Canadian branch of the confederacy. When this political union could not be achieved, the Iroquois sought to accomplish the same end, as far as possible, by treatj^ of alliance. When a neighboring people would neither join the confederacy nor enter into a treaty of alliance with it, the almost inevitable result would be, sooner or later, a deadly war. . . . But they made a magnanimous use of their superiority. An enemy who submitted was at once spared."

Of the closing years of Hiawatha's life there is no further record than that he spent his time in clearing away entanglements in the great waterways of the Iroquois. This is probably a figurative way of saying that he spent his last years cementing the union between the Five Tribes by getting rid of ancient feuds and inter-tribal jealousies, and as far as possible making the clan bond a power for union.

The literature that has grown out of the story of Hiawatha has been varied. "Mr. J. V. H. Clark, in his interesting History of Onondaga^ xxiv The Historical Hiawatha

makes the name of Hiawatha to have been originally Ta-oun-ya-wat-ha, and describes the bearer as 'the deity who presides over fisheries and hunting grounds.' He came down from Heaven in a white canoe, and after sundry adventures, which remind one of the labors of Hercules, assumed the name of Hiawatha and dwelt for the time as an ordinary mortal among men, occupied in works of benevolence. Finally, after founding the confederacy and bestowing many prudent councils upon the people, he returned to the skies in the same conveyance in which he had descended. This legend, or rather, congeries of intermingled legends, was communicated by Clark to Schoolcraft, when the latter was compiling his Notes on the Iroquois. Mr. Schoolcraft, says Horatio Hale, pleased with the poetical cast of the story and the euphonious name, made confusion worse confounded by transferring the hero to a distant region and identifying him with Manabozho, a fantastic divinity of the Ojibways. Schoolcraft's volume, which he chose to entitle The Hiawatha Legends, has not in it a single fact or fiction relating either to Hiawatha himself or to the Iroquois deity. . . . Wild O jib way stories concerning Manabozho and his comrades form the staple of its contents. But it is to this collection that we owe the charming poem of Longfellow; and thus, by an extraordinary fortune, a grave Iroquois lawgiver of the fifteenth century has become, in modern literature, an

The Historical Hiawatha xxv

Ojibway demigod, son of the West Wind, and companion of the tricksy Paupukkeewis, the boastful lagoo, and the strong Kwasind. If a Chinese traveler, during the middle ages, inquiring into the history and religion of the western nations, had confounded King Alfred with King Arthur, and both with Odin, he would not have made a more preposterous confusion of names and characters than that which has hitherto disguised the genuine personality of the great Onondaga reformer." ^

Thanks to the work of Morgan, Beauchamp, Parker, Hewett, the Jesuit Fathers, and many other writers in the Iroquois field, a considerable literature has grown up that bears indisputable witness of the gifted race that once possessed most of the country that is now New York State.

^ The Iroquois Book of Rites, page 36.

1 N w a

"V^o

5^-^^

PART ONE The Childhood and Youth of White Eagle t'

THE

HERO OF THE LONGHOUSE

Chapter One The Birth Of White Eagle

Nearly five hundred years ago in Ka-na-ta-go-wa, the chief village of the Onondagas, a child was born to Wa-un-da-na of the Turtle Clan and the young Wolf Chieftain, On-di-ya-ka. The little one opened his eyes to the light on a March day that was mixed with sunshine and blustering storm.

He was the first child of his parents. When seven suns had passed, the wise Hu-na-dan-lu, keeper of the faith, came to bless the child and to ask Ha-wen-ni-yu, the Great Ruler, to give the little one long life and strength and wisdom.

In the door of the longhouse stood Waundana holding the babe in her arms. By her side was her mother, Sha-we-nis. Both were dressed in new garments. Standing before the doorway Hunadanlu raised his right hand toward the sky and in a loud, clear voice said :

"Ye sun, moon, stars, all ye that move in the heavens, I bid you hear me. Into your midst has come a new life. Consent ye, I implore ! Make its path smooth that it may reach the brow of the first hill.

"Ye winds, clouds, rain, mist, all ye that move in the air, I bid you hear me. Into your midst has come a new life. Consent ye, I implore! Make its path smooth that it may reach the brow of the second hill.

"Ye hills, valleys, rivers, lakes, trees, grasses, all ye of the earth, I bid you hear me. Into your midst has come a new life. Consent ye, I implore! JNIake its path smooth that it may reach the brow of the third hill.

"Ye birds, great and small, that dwell in the forest, ye insects that creep among the grasses and burrow in the ground, I bid you hear me. Into your midst has come a new life. Consent ye, I implore! ]\Iake its path smooth, that it may reach the brow of the fourth hill.

"All ye of the heavens, all ye of the air, all ye of the earth, I bid you all to hear me. Into your midst has come a new life. Consent ye, consent ye all, I implore! Make its path smooth, — then shall it travel beyond the four hills. "^

Always Hunadanlu prayed for a blessing on the little children born into the clan of the Turtle. But today he lingered after the prayer and looked long and earnestly into the clear eyes of the little child before him. Suddenly he spoke to Waundana, the mother, and told her of a dream that had been sent him.

He said: "Ky-e-a-ha, my Daughter, seven suns ago at the dawn hour, Hunadanlu dreamed that

^ From the rite of cliild blessing of the Omaha Indians. Fletcher, Report of Bureau of Ethnology, No. XXVII. The four hills signify childhood, youth, manhood, and old age.

"The wise Himadanlu, keeper of the faith, came to bless the child"

he sat within the longhouse of the Turtles, looking on a young eagle that stood there. The eagle was as white as the snows of winter, and his eyes held the fire of Ka-ga-gwa, the sun.

"As Hunadanlu looked, the white eagle grew large. Then it lifted itself upon its wings and flew out through the door of the lodge. Long it circled above the forest and lake, and thrice it alighted. But each time that it alighted a huge bird as black as night darted down and drove it forth. Hunadanlu could not tell whence this bird of night came, but where it alighted, the darkness settled.

"At last the white eagle flew towards the sun's rising. But soon he returned bringing with him a strange bird of wondrous swiftness. The two birds called aloud as they flew, and immediately from west and south and east, a great company of eagles gathered. The air resounded with their cries, and the noise of their wings was like the sound of O-ah, the wind, passing over a forest of pine trees.

"Listen, my Daughter. That company of eagles sat down together in council and in their midst was the great white bird with eyes of light. Straightway the smoke of the peace pipe began to ascend from the council fire. Never was there seen such a peace smoke. At first it arose in billowing clouds toward the Great Ruler; then, as if the sacred smoke had received a breath from the sky world, it began to drift eastward and

The Birth of White Eagle 5

southward and westward. Hunadanlu said in his dream, 'At last the smoke of Ah-so-qua-ta, the peace pipe, covers the earth.'

"My Daughter, continue to hsten. Hunadanlu awoke in the joy of that dream and straightway lighted the pipe that its smoke might arise in sign of thanksgiving to the Master of Life. Even as the smoke from his pipe ascended toward the Great Ruler, Shawenis came to say that a son was born to thee, my Daughter. Now as Hunadanlu looks on the child, his heart tells him that this is the white eagle of his dream."

Then Waundana answered: "I-han-i, my Father, his name shall be White Eagle, and may his life fulfill the dream-promise."

There was uilwonted stir about the little White Eagle, for the chieftains and wise men had decided to move the village to a new site on the west side of the Ga-sun-to.' They had chosen a place on high ground that could be easily defended and where the soil was light and fertile. Here would be a stronghold against the enemy, plenty of water, and an abundance of maize.

Every longhouse of the village was filled with the noise of moving. The mother of AVhite Eagle was packing for the journey to the new village. She had fur coverings and robes to carry, well-woven mats to roll, jars of earthenware to protect, and many implements of stone and bone to take. Some of these things were

^ Jamesville Creek.

packed in large hulling baskets or barrels of elm bark, and everything was fastened securely in a strong burden frame.

As she passed the fireside of Waundana, the busy Shawenis stopped to speak to her daughter. Like many of the older people she was heavyhearted, for the walls of the longhouse were filled with memories and spoke to her with eloquent voice. She said: "It is hard to turn away from the council fire and know that it will never burn again in the old, sacred place."

But the hearts of the young in the longhouse of the Turtle were full of expectation, and all were eager to set forth to the new village.

Just before the people left the old town. White Eagle from his cradle-board looked on at a feast that was given to the youth of the village. When the feast was ended, the young peoj^le went to the new clearing and began the work of building the new town. They took strong saplings forked at one end and set them firmly in the ground. Upon the forks they placed cross-poles and fastened them with withes. They covered this frame with bark boards, lapping them over each other like shingles. Then they set up an external frame of poles along the sides and across the rafters and fastened it to the inner frame so as to hold the bark boards in their places.