Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/209

 IROQUOIS

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IROQUOIS

ginia and Carolina. Of these only the Wyandot and Cherokee survive. Wherever found, the tribes of this stock showed a marked and recognized intellectual superiority.

No other native Indian government north of Mexico has been the subject of so much study as the confederacy or league of the Iroquois, and prob- ably no other was so complex and exact in detail and so wisely adapted to permit the fullest measure of freedom to each component tribe, while securing uni- ted action in all that concerned the whole. In general plan, it might be compared to our own system of inde- pendent state and federal jurisdiction, and in fact the Iroquois themselves, nt (ho outbreak of the Revolu- tion, recommeii'Ied their system as a model for imita- tion by the Anierieaii |i:it riots. As in most of the east- ern tribes, it was based U]5on the clan system (see Indians, American), with descent in the female line, the number of clans varying from three with the Mohawk and Oneida to eight in the others of the orig- inal five, the dominant clans being the Bear, Wolf and Turtle. Each tribe had its women's council, chosen from the mothers of the tribe, and taking the initiative in all matters of public importance, including the nomination of members of the chief's council, made up in each tribe, of a certain number of hereditary chiefs (i. e. hereditary to the clan), the same number of alternates, and an additional number chosen for special fitness but w-ithout heredity in office. The hereditary chiefs of the first class, fifty in all for the five tribes, acting together, constituted the league council.

As in civilized aristocracies and religious orders, each league councillor at his formal installation, as- sumed an official hereditary name, by which he was henceforth known in his official capacity, in preference to his ordinary personal name, the official name being that borne by his direct predecessor at the original formation of the league. All nominations to heredit- ary chiefships, while originating with the women's council, had to be ratified by the tribal and league councils. Elaborate installation or condolence cere- monies signalized the inauguration or the death of a member of the league council, but no official notice was taken of the passing of a lesser chief. No alien could become a member of the tribe except by formal adoption into a clan, and as the right of adoption rested solely with the women as mothers of the clan, the fate of captives for life or death depended upon the will of the women. As the cultivators of the ground, the women also held jurisdiction of the territorial do- main, and again, as mothers of the warriors, they de- cided questions of war and peace. Except for the veto power of the league council, it might be said that the mothers of the confederated tribes constituted the legislative body while the warriors were the execu- tive.

The Iroquois dwelling was the so-called "long house ", from 50 to 100 feet in length and from 15 to 20 feet in width, the frame of stout posts set upright in the ground, kept in place with cross-pieces, and covered and roofed with laark. The interior was divided into compartments of equal size along each side, opening upon a central passageway along the whole length of the building. Each compartment, excepting those at the end for storage or guest purposes, sheltered one family, so that as many as twenty families might live under one roof. Fire-places were arranged along the passageway, so disposed that one fire accommodated four families. All the occupants of a house were usually closely related by clan kinship, thus constitut- ing a larger family. In the principal towns, fre- quently designated as "castles", the houses were compactly and regularly arranged, and inclosed within strong palisades. In less important settle- ments the houses were scattered about in a straggling fashion. Surrounding the villages were cornfields and

orchards so extensive as to be a constant theme of wonder to both French and later American invaders. Besides corn they cultivated squashes, beans, and to- bacco, in addition to which their woods and waters furnished abundant supplies of game and fish. Fam- ine, so common in some tribes, was unknown among the Iroquois. They dressed in smoke-tanned buck- skin, and their women were potters and basket makers, but not weavers. Their ordinary weapons were the bow, knife, and stone or wooden club, afterward su- perseded by the steel hatchet or tomahawk of civilized manufacture, but they sometimes in ancient times used also the stone-headed lance, the shield of rawhide or wicker work, and a rude form of body armour. Learning to their sorrow the power of firearms, in their first encounter with Champlain they made eager efforts to buy guns from contraband Dutch traders with such success that by 1640 a large proportion of their warriors were well equipped and expert gunmen, enabhng them to start upon a career of conquest which made the Iroquois name a terror for a thousand miles. Even among savages they were noted for their cruelty, cannibal feasts and sickening torture of captives being the sequel of every successful war e.x- pedition, while time after time the fullest measure of their awful savagery was visited upon the devoted missionary.

In Iroquois cosmogony, the central figure is Thar- onyawagon, the "Sky Holder", dwelling above the firmament, whose pregnant wife, cast down to the earth in a fit of jealousy, bears a daughter, who, mar- rying a turtle in human form — the turtle being sym- bolic of power over earth and water — becomes in turn the mother of twin boys. These, as they grow up, are thenceforth in perpetual conflict, the one, the god of winter and death, forever destroying what his brother, the god of springtime and life, as constantly restores. Their mythology and ceremonial are rich and well- preserved, almost the whole of their ancient ritual forms being still kept up on the Ontario reserve. Among the principal ceremonies may be noted the Green Corn Dance, a thanksgiving for the new crops, and the " Burning of the White Dog ", a solemn sacri- fice. Another, in ancient times, was the Feast of the Dead, when the bones of all who had been dead for a term of years were gathered from their temporary resting places and deposited in a common sepulchre. The temporary disposal was by scaffold burial. The athletic ball play, lacrosse, was their principal cere- monial game. Unlike most eastern Indians, the Iro- quois were monogamists, but divorce was easy and frequent, the children remaining always with the mother.

The Iroquois languages have been the subject of much study by missionaries and others, and have an abundant fiterature, philologic, religious, and general. Principal in the first class are Bruyas's " Radices ver- borum Iroquieorum", and Cuoq's "Lexique de la langue Iroquoise", besides an extensive Iroquois- French grammar and dictionary, still in manuscript, by Father Marcoux.

According to Iroquois tradition, as interpreted by Hewitt, our best living authority, the league was established through the effort of Hiawatha (River Maker), probably of the Mohawk tribe, about the year 1570, or about forty years before the appear- ance of the French and Dutch in their country. At this time they numbered altogether probably less than 6000 souls, with powerful and aggressive enemies all around them, chief among these being the Algon- quin of Canada. The unfortunate mistake of Cham- plain in 1609. in alljdng himself with this tribe in an invasion of the Iroquois country and winning the vic- tory for the .\lgonquins by the help of the French firearms, was never forgotten or forgiven by the Iro- quois, who became from that day the constant and unrelenting enemy of the French, and to this fact was