When the Iroquois first settled in Canada after their long and stormy battles for Britain and loyal adherence to her flag through the American War of Independence, they were a wealthy people as far as real estate was concerned. At that time the Imperial grant to the Six Nations comprised the territory lying within six miles on either side of the Grand River from its source to its mouth, a tract that included the larger portion of the present counties of Wellington, Waterloo, Brant and Haldimand. That was a hundred years ago. To-day all the land that these Indians can call their own is the little corner situated along the boundary of the two last named counties, and known as the Grand River Reserve, embracing fifty-three thousand acres of uninteresting, timberless and in many places marshy land, which, however, is yearly improving under the industry of farming and the statute labor law, which is most urgently enforced by the local (native) pathmasters.
Notwithstanding the diminution of their red brethren in the North-West, statistics show that the Six Nations are on the increase, numbering as they do three thousand five hundred against three thousand three hundred ten years ago. Their numbers are augmented by a small band of Delawares and Chippawas, the total being nearly four thousand Indians, and almost without exception a self-supporting, law-abiding people. The majority are Christians, but in their very midst are five hundred pagans, clinging with all the force of a tested conviction and herculean character to the old rites, the old myths, the old customs, whose origin is too remote for the most studious Indianologist to discover. Most of these pagans are Onondagas, that splendid tribe whose aristocracy was exclusive and ancient even in the middle of the fifteenth century, when its world-famous chief, Hiawatha, framed that wonderful confederacy, that invincible constitution known as the Iroquois League, and the descendants of the “fifty noble chiefs” who were his compeers at that time, are counted among not only the Onondagas but among the remnants of all the five great nations living to-day in peace and comparative plenty along the beautiful shores of the Grand River.
It is to the pagans particularly that one's heart goes out in admiration, respect and affection. The Mohawks, despite all their ancient records of war and blood and revenge, that struck terror into the hearts of settlers, and less blood-thirsty tribes, have been more ready to adopt the white man's God-worship than have these haughty, doctrinal Onondagas. The Mohawks were Christian more than a century ago, but last January the Onondagas performed as zealously as ever that highest rite of their old time faith, the solemn sacrifice of the Burning of the White Dog. I doubt if in all America there is a more simple, yet imposing and sacred sight, than this annual ceremony. This is no harrowing heathen formula to appease an angry deity. The God of the Onondagas is “the Great Spirit,” who nurses his people in the hollow of his hand, and to whom they offer sacrifice as a tribute, not as a mediation.
With marvelous beauty of belief, they congregate at their place of worship, the “Longhouse,” to dance, sing and chant their praises and supplication upon every important occasion in their simple lives. At seed-time the blessings of the Great Spirit must be invoked to promote a rapid and successful yield of corn; at strawberry season their thanks must be offered for the wild, red fruit that is such an evidence of the all-caring Good One; at blackberry time this thanksgiving must be repeated; at harvest time days and days must be spent at the Thanksgiving Dance, and feasts must be held and the Giver of all Good glorified in these crude manners of adoration; and then in midwinter (the exact time is always decided by certain relations to the moon) the great sacrificial rite is performed. The officiator bears but little similitude to anything like a High Priest; I have never heard of anything resembling either hereditary or conferred priesthood among the Iroquois, but he must be a scion of the very venerable house wherein runs the hereditary chieftainship, and whose ancestors have for centuries been the Fire Keepers of the Council, himself the Fire Keeper or the keeper presumptive. This family has without doubt the bluest blood in their veins that America boasts. This is no imported nobility but a native American aristocracy that counted itself ancient at Hiawatha's time, and the same birthright that gives them the title of Fire Keeper gives also the right to officiate at the White Dog Sacrifice.
There is an unwritten, but not unchronicled, ritual in everything pertaining to their religion, counseling the healing arts wherever an Indian is concerned, and the conservative ceremonials in connection with the White Dog Sacrifice would fill a book. The people dance and make speeches for days and nights beforehand. Each clan or gens has its appointed place in the Longhouse, its appointed precedence, and time, and occupation, and none but the Fire Keeper and his male relatives may touch the offering, which must be a dog, spotless, and absolutely without blemish. If none such can be obtained, no sacrifice is burnt that year, but they are generally bred for the purpose in that section of the reserve.
The animal is always strangled in solitude, and no blood must be shed. It is then decorated with ribbons, strings of wampum, and brilliant dyes. Its forefeet are fastened together with ribbons, which are looped in similar fashion around the hind feet, the ribbon slung over the chief's shoulder, and the animal carried thus, warm with recent life, into the Longhouse, where, to the jingle of turtle shell, rattles the beat of the strange, wild drum, never heard except among the Redmen. The procession moves slowly, with odd, irregular step, round and round the old log building, the head chief leading; the officiator next, and after him the lesser participators. It is a weird sound; the monotonous shuffle of dancing feet, the rattle of beads and anklets and bracelets, the occasional click of a knife or tomahawk against the silver of brooches decorating the fantastic costumes, and the eerie, uncanny drum-beats, drowned at times by the wild, hollow chant sung by the men with painted faces and turtle rattles.
And after a time the procession files outside, where a log fire is blazing. The animal is held for a few seconds in the hands of the Fire Keeper, who, while he repeats in a high-pitched voice, and hollow, Indianlike tone (no other phrase can express the sound), the formula of this time-honored ritual, drops the lifeless dog into the coals, with three indescribable calls, sprinkling upon the burning offering an incense contained in a little bark basket, which must also be burned that nothing sacred may be carried away.
The blue smoke curls upwards, carrying, they say, all their prayers, all their thanksgivings on its rolling, billowy clouds. I know of nothing lovelier, nothing purer, ay, nothing grander than to watch that azure smoke ascend until it mingles with the far-off clouds; ascend, laden with the trustful prayers. The childlike faith of this handful of a once mighty race ascends until it sweeps beyond the stars to the far, far Happy Hunting Grounds, and I doubt not unburdens its message at the feet of the everlasting Manitou who lights his peace pipe evermore between his lodge and his faithful children, congregated to do him honor in some far off Pagan settlement, in the heart of the Grand River Reserve.
And this is but a passing glimpse at one tribe of that most conservative people living—the Iroquois. Reform is an unknown thing where a nation is steeped in romance of legend and lineage, and where the old time customs and folk lore are adhered to with the pertinacity of the Redman. There are few races that will not cling to their arts and politics as jealously as to their religion, and this very tenacity is the one distinguishable characteristic that cements individuals into a nation. There is little left wherewith to gauge the possibilities to which a people may attain by means of educational advancement, when they are shorn beforehand of all that is best in their mental and moral condition, and this is almost the first step that most individuals wish to take when working to civilize what they are pleased to call the savage. They strip the tree of all its beauty of foliage, they would not have one little leaf of inborn superstition or destructive nationality left if it were possible to destroy such; then they take the bare unlovely trunk, transplant it into artificial soil, and marvel that it thrives not. The people who do this always conclude their efforts by saying resignedly that nothing can be “made” out of the Redman. Strip the Indian nation of its heredity, its romance, its legendary lore, its faith, and indeed all its mental and sentimental acquirements, and what is there left of man and manhood to work upon? The mere physical humanity of restless nomads, whose lives and modes of living there differ too widely from the majority of human kind to excite even the simplest fellow feeling that ought to exist between man and man.
Much has been said and written in the present day about civilizing the Indians of North America, but it has mainly been theoretical matter from pens wet in political ink, or from the lips of would-be philanthropists who endeavor to revolutionize Indians, emigrants and Esquimaux all on the same plan. The real enthusiast, the genuine Indianologist says: “Leave the Redman as he is mentally and morally. In such respects he is equal to his pale brethren. Leave him at least ‘the ashes of his fathers, the temple of his gods,’ but don't leave him to starvation—physical care is the first step on the road that leads to Indian citizenship. He is no better, no stronger than his fellow kind.”
A starving man is necessarily a degraded man; hunger will slay principle and virtue more effectually than anything else in the world, and one grows very indifferent to honor and nobility when absolute starvation gnaws out his body and he sees the food he rightfully owns being swallowed by another, who like the man in Holy Writ possessed flocks of his own but took his poor neighbor's one ewe lamb and served it for his guest.
One has but to look into the beauties of the Pagan faith, Pagan honor and Pagan poetry to realize the boundless possibilities to which the Redman may gravitate if he is once placed upon the right road that leads to high civilization.