Notes on the Iroquois / or, Contributions to the Statistics, Aboriginal History, Antiquities and General Ethnology of Western New-York

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

VII. ORAL TRADITIONS OF THE IROQUOIS—HISTORICAL AND SYMBOLICAL.

This department of the inquiry constitutes one of deep and varied interest. It is found, however, that no little time is required to study, compare and arrange such parts of the matter as have claims to be considered historical, whilst those which are symbolical or fictitious, take so wide a range as hardly to justify, in this report, the space which they would occupy. Specimens drawn from both classes of matter are introduced in the following papers, which, together with those inserted under the first head of “Minutes,” will serve to convey a proper idea of this species of lore.

[a.] Ancient Shipwreck of a vessel from the old world on the coast.

Whilst the northern tribes lived under the ancient confederacy before named, on the banks of the St. Lawrence and its waters, and before they had yet known white men, it is affirmed that a foreign ship came on the northern coasts, but being driven by stress of weather, passed southward, and was wrecked in that quarter. Most of the crew perished, but a few of them, dressed in leather, reached the shore, and were saved with some of their implements. They were received by a people called the Falcons,[79] who conducted them to a mountain, where, however, they remained but a short time, for their allies, the Falcons, disclosed an unfriendly and jealous spirit, and threatened them. In consequence they immediately selected another location, which they fortified. Here they lived many years, became numerous and extended their settlements, but in the end, they were destroyed by furious nations.

[79] One of the totems and clans of the Iroquois, is the hawk, or falcon.

This tradition is divested of some of the symbolic traits which it possesses in the original, and by which the narrators may be supposed to have concealed their own acts of hostility or cruelty, in the extirpation of the descendants of the Europeans thus cast on their shores. To this end, they represent in the original, the saving of the crew to have been done through the instrumentality of carnivorous birds, and attribute the final destruction of the colony to fierce animals. It is one of the well known facts of history that none of the vessels of Columbus, Cabot, Verrizani, Sir Walter Raleigh, or Hudson, were wrecked on the American coasts: and there is hence a bare presumption that some earlier voyage or adventure from the old world is alluded to.

Can we suppose that in this dim tradition there is light cast on the lost colony of Virginia, which was first left on the island of Roanoke? The Tuscaroras,[80] who preserve the tradition, came to western New-York from that quarter. They were a fierce, powerful and warlike nation, having in 1712 resolved on the massacre, on a certain day, of all the whites in the Carolinas. What is once done by natives, barbarous or civilized, is often the reproduction of some prior national act, and especially if that act had been attended with success; and it is by no means improbable that in this desperate and bloody resolve of 1712, the Tuscaroras meant to repeat the prior tragedy of “Croatan.”[81] Whether, however, the incident be of ante-Columbian or post-Columbian date, it is worthy preservation, and may be assigned its place and proper importance when we have gleaned more facts from the dark abyss of American antiquity.

[80] This tribe have also the clan of the hawk or falcon.

[81] Vide Hackluit.

[b.] Forays into the country of the Cherokees and Catawbas.

Nothing is more distinct or better settled in the existing traditions of the Iroquois, than their wars with some of the southern tribes, particularly the Cherokees. I found this subject first alluded to among the Oneidas, who were hotly engaged in this southern war; afterwards among the Onondagas, the Senecas of Tonawanda, the Tuscaroras, and with still increasing particularity, among the Senecas of Buffalo, Cattaraugus, and Teonigono. But I was never able to fix the era of its commencement, or to find an adequate cause for it. It seems almost incredible that a war of this kind should have been carried on, at such a great distance from their central council fire at Onondaga, yet nothing is better established in their reminiscences.

They first came into contact, as Tetoyoah told me was his opinion, in the western prairies. The Iroquois are known to have hunted and warred far and wide in that quarter. The two nations seem to have been deeply and mutually exasperated. Tetoyoah spoke of an act of horrid treachery, the breaking of a peace pledge, and the murder of a peace deputation.

The war, however, instead of calling out the banded energies of the confederacy, appears to have been almost entirely one of a partizan character. It is memorable rather for partial enterprizes and personal exploits, than for exhibiting the grander features of the military policy of the Iroquois. Warriors tested their bravery and heroism by going against the Cherokees. There were, it seems, no great armies, no grand battles. All was left to individual energy and courage. The great object of every young Iroquois, as soon as he was old enough to take the war path, was to go against the Cherokees. A march from the Oneida stone, the Kasonda creek, or the Genesee valley, to the southern Alleghanies, was regarded as a mere excursion or scouting trip. This long journey was performed without provisions, or any other preparation than bows, arrows and clubs. The fewer there were in one of these partizan enterprizes, the greater was their chance of concealment and success. They relied on the forest for food. Thousands of miles were not sufficient to dampen their ardor, and no time could blot out their hatred. They called the Cherokees, by way of derision, We yau dah, and O yau dah, meaning a people who live in caves. These are the terms I found to be in use for the Cherokee nation, in 1845.