CHAPTER XXIII
TWO DAYS IN A MOHAWK VILLAGE
A very voluminous writer, and an explorer of no small repute in Germany—Johann Georg Kohl—has drawn up, from personal experience, as exhaustive an account of the Mohawk section of the Iroquois Indians as Surgeon Bigsby gave of the Huron and Cherokee branches of that once powerful family. Herr Kohl spent the years 1859-60 in travelling about the north-eastern portion of the United States and Southern Canada, and thus was able to gather some interesting and valuable information concerning the tribe, which the writers of story-books seem to have maligned very much. He shows us the Mohawks of Quebec as hard-working farmers, respectable traders in fur, bold hunters, and pious Christians; and he reminds us that there is nothing extraordinary in all this if we take into account a century and a half of French influence at its best, together with the splendid labours of the Jesuit missionary heroes.
From Lake Champlain, Herr Kohl travelled across the boundary in a Canadian farmer’s waggon, which eventually set him down at an Indian village that 290 stood on the verge of an immense pine-forest. To be “dumped” down suddenly in a place where there is not a single white person would be disconcerting enough to any but a man of inquiring and adventurous disposition; but Kohl, on learning from his companion that here was a purely native population, eagerly jumped out of the cart with his gun and his luggage and bade the farmer drive on. Of course, he was stared at; but so he would have been in an English or German village; with this difference: that these Mohawk women and children possessed a native politeness and readiness to oblige that few English and fewer Germans can muster up. Kohl spoke encouragingly to the starers; was there an inn in the place? he asked in French. No; there was not. Where could he get a night’s lodging then? Anywhere in the village; perhaps the gentleman would like to see the chief’s house, as being the largest and most fitting for his reception. A neat little old woman called a youth who was repairing a timber-trolley.
“Go, my son; carry the gentleman’s paquet and show him the chief’s house.”
The idlers drew back, and though they continued to stare, made no attempt to follow the stranger. He began to ask questions. Where were all the men? The men were at work, a few in the fields, but most of them in the forest—hunting, wood-lumbering, or clearing the traps set for foxes, squirrels, etc.; many of them would be home by sundown.
The German looked curiously up the little street; nearly all the houses were on one side of it; on the other 291 there were but four buildings; the church, which—said the lad—was visited three times a week by a French curé from a neighbouring town; the school, the chief’s dwelling, and the “assembly house”—a long wooden shed where public functions took place; e.g. certain games and sports, the entertaining of chiefs from a distance, tribal discussions, etc.
“This is where the chief lives, Monsieur,” said the Indian lad, pointing to a wooden hut about thirty feet square, painted a dull red, with a bright yellow door. The place was not architecturally beautiful, to be sure; but it was the residence of the ruler of the place; and, as the lad tapped at the door, the traveller began to experience the same diffidence that a stranger in London might feel in asking for a night’s lodging at Buckingham Palace.
A buxom serving-woman opened the door, and, on the boy’s explaining the visit, bade him bring the luggage in and courteously asked the German to follow her into the chief’s presence. Kohl gave the lad about a shilling’s-worth of coppers, whereat both he and the servant exclaimed. The man must be a prince! A halfpenny would have been thought a more than sufficient tip for such a task as the Indian boy had performed.
The woman led the way through the house—which was so ill-lighted, that anyone coming in from the bright sunshine could at first see nothing—and out by another small door to a huge space which seemed to be cornfield, garden, meadow, and orchard all in one. The back of the house was as tasteful as the front was grotesque; the porch was covered with honeysuckle, 292 now in full bloom, and all kinds of creepers ran over the blank wall. In the middle of the garden a man was digging early potatoes. He looked round as the two walked up the path, and, to Kohl’s surprise, the woman introduced the potato-digger as the Mohawk chief. When she had gone, the intruder entered into explanations to which the chief—a bright-eyed, gentle-looking old man—listened with polite attention.
“You are very welcome,” he said. “We country people are always glad to see visitors and learn all their news; strangers seldom come this way now; they go over there instead—they travel by the chemin de fer”; he pointed westwards, where, fifteen miles away, ran a line of railroad. “But—it must be an awful thing to go about the country like that, sir. I myself have never been in a train, thank God.” He spoke the ordinary Canadian patois, though he evidently understood Kohl’s Parisian French quite well.
“You do not travel far, I suppose?” said the white man gently.
“No; I am over eighty years of age. But in my time I have been far, very far. I have traded and fought with the Inwi” (Eskimos); “I have guided white hunters through Ungava; I have seen steamboats and railway trains.”
While he was speaking the old gentleman shouldered his fork, picked up his potato-basket, and turned towards the house.
“You will like some refreshment. We do not dine till my sons return.”
They entered the house again, and, as soon as Kohl’s eyes were accustomed to the gloom, he saw that it was simply one large room. The floor was of planks, beautifully clean; and the walls were almost entirely hidden by the skins of various animals; these certainly made for snugness in winter, stopping the draught that otherwise would have come through the chinks; but the effect was more startling than artistic, for some ambitious soul had dyed or painted most of them, a magnificent elk-hide being daubed with alternate stripes of green, red, and yellow, while a black bear-skin had little yellow crosses painted all over it. Two of the walls were partitioned off into a sort of loose-boxes, each six feet wide; these were the bedrooms; the light came through a hole in the roof (which was also the chimney) and from two small windows, where a clumsy attempt had been made at fitting ready-made sashes into openings that were anything but “true.” Near the door hung a crucifix and holy-water stoup, not ill-carved in wood; but this was the only attempt at civilised wall-decoration.
The woman whom Kohl had imagined to be a servant came bustling forward with a platter of cakes and a basin of cider, which she pressed on the visitor.
“This is my youngest son’s wife,” said the chief. “I have three sons, and they and their wives live with me.”
“And their children?” asked Kohl.
“Only one girl; all the others are married; and she is to be betrothed to-morrow. To-morrow we keep holiday; there will be much dancing and ball-play and feasting.”
Then they fell to talking of the old man’s early days. He could remember the time when it was still quite a new thing for the English to be regarded by the French colonists as anything but tyrants; he had heard his father talk of seeing the white soldiers of General Wolfe; he himself had fought against the Sioux many times. Bah! the Sioux were bad men; cruel men, who would not keep faith.
His reminiscences were so engrossing, that Kohl lost all count of the time, till the sound of footsteps, voices, and horses’ hoofs past the house told him that the men were returning from their day’s work. The eldest son, the future chief of the tribe, now entered. He was a very tall, lithe man, between fifty and sixty, less formal in his manner than his father, but quite as modest and agreeable. He had been superintending the carting of the hay from some distant meadows which he owned; and Kohl could not refrain from smiling at the talk that went on between father and son. He had come out here prepared to see bloodthirsty robbers and torturers and bear-slayers; and behold, the chief dug potatoes, and the chief’s son performed his ablutions in a bucket of water, and talked of the hay-harvest and the amount of cider consumed by the mowers that day, as if he were in Kohl’s native Bavaria. He was now almost ready to see a telegram or a Munich newspaper brought to the door.
As soon as the other sons returned from their hunting, two of the women dragged a deal table from one side of the room, and all sat down to supper. This was the first time that Herr Kohl had seen the 295 women sit down with the men; here it seemed a recognised thing. The unmarried granddaughter—a pretty girl of seventeen—did most of the waiting, and that by helping an enormous stew of onions, beef, chickens and hare from the pot on to wooden platters, and handing them round. Forks were not used.
After supper they all adjourned to the benches outside the house. The visitor had brandy and cigars in his portmanteau; and, while he handed these delicacies round, another surprise greeted him; the chief was a teetotaller! and even the sons partook very sparingly of the brandy, though they appreciated the cigars as having a flavour of town life. He was beginning to understand now why there was no inn in the place. The street was the village public-house. Men sat and smoked outside the huts, or strolled up and down in twos and threes; some even squatted in the middle of the road. To-night, as there was a stranger in the place, a knot of Indians stood looking on from a respectful distance at the chief’s party; and presently, most of the elders of the tribe came and sat or lounged near the chief. Each of these greeted the stranger with a guttural “Bon soir, M’sieu’” (one or two of them promoted him to “Monseigneur”). Had they forgotten their own language even? For a while the talk was of the morrow’s festivity, and a tall young brave, whose face was indistinguishable in the twilight, was introduced to Kohl as the future bridegroom; but this topic soon flagged, and the traveller guessed, from the general turning of faces towards him, that it was “news” that everybody wanted. 296 Before he had talked many minutes he had become a personage; for he had read and travelled widely, and had the rare knack of being able to suit himself to whatever company he happened to be in. He could tell the redskins nothing of Quebec City, for he had not been there; but what pleased them more than anything else was his talk of England; he had once stayed in London; had even seen their White Queen. They wanted no fresher news than that, though it was more than three years old; and they let him talk till his head was nodding with sleep.
After a night passed in one of the loose-boxes and between two bear-skins, he rose early and started off to the woods with the three sons of the house, who had to clear some traps a few miles away. For some time their talk mystified him, for they continually spoke of the animal for which the snares were set as le chat. He knew that wild cats were almost unknown so far north, and the tame ones could scarcely be so plentiful in a pine-forest as to need trapping. He asked for an explanation, which his companions laughingly gave.
“We call him that because it is easier to say than le loup cervier; many of the French trappers call him le lynx. It is only lately that we have taken the trouble to catch him.”
“How is that?”
“We must catch what the fur-dealers ask us for, sir. Just now, they tell us, the white people in the towns are very fond of wearing lynx-skin as part of their dress.”
When they arrived at the line of traps the Bavarian perceived that the Mohawks’ progressive notions extended 297 even to these, for they were steel gins bearing the trade-mark of a Montreal hardware firm. In all, ten well-grown lynxes were taken from the traps, which were reset and baited with fresh meat. Then the four hungry men sat down to their breakfast of cold meat, barley bread, and cider, and chatted gaily over it, finding far more rational matter that they could discuss in common than the average English gentleman would often find in conversation with three average English peasant-farmers. Yet Kohl, who had a healthy admiration for the fighting-animal in man, was becoming conscious of a certain melancholy as he looked at his companions. Of course, a Mohawk who went to church, paid his taxes, and sent his children to school was a more desirable neighbour than one whose merits were reckoned according to the number of human scalps in his possession; still, one could almost have wished——
He got no farther with these reflections, for, just then, something happened that upset all his fine theorising, and proved conclusively that there is something in the old saying about scratching a Russian and finding a Tartar. All in a moment the Indians dropped their cider-horns and sprang to their feet, shouting:
“Musquaw! Musquaw!”
It was almost the first native word he had heard, and it meant a black bear. Peering among the trees, he at length caught sight of a large animal hastily turning his back on them and preparing to beat a retreat. The Mohawks ran in pursuit like deerhounds, though all of them were over fifty years of age. Their 298 rifles—modern breech-loaders—lay to hand ready charged, but they left them behind; those were all very well for money-getting, but just now it was sport that they wanted. Kohl picked up his own gun and hastened after them. They were shouting at the top of their voices—and in Iroquoian; reviling the bear, daring him to turn on them, and taunting him with his cowardice; in a word, hunting as their fathers and grandfathers had done before them. Each had slipped a formidable-looking hatchet from his belt, and now, as they came up with the fugitive, the youngest brother dealt him a blow across the haunches that made him stop and bellow with pain.
As a rule, the musquaw is a perfectly harmless beast if left alone; but, when he turns to bay, he is as ferocious and almost as strong as a grisly. Maddened and almost maimed, the great brute now reared, and so suddenly, that the eldest Indian, who had been aiming a similar blow to his brother’s, lost his balance and fell with his head actually touching the beast’s back as he rose on his hind feet. But this was only matter for laughing; he was up again in a second, and striking for the back of the bear’s head, while his brothers sprang backwards or sidewards with terrier-like activity, dodging his outspread claws and awaiting an opportunity to bring him down with a blow across his snout.
Kohl had now reached the scene of the combat, and took up a position whence he could easily cover the enemy with his rifle, which he had just loaded with ball. But the Mohawks wanted no such help as that.
“No; don’t fire, we would kill fifty like him,” screamed André, the second brother; and, as he spoke, his hatchet fell, cleaving the forepart of the great creature’s skull. The blade stuck fast, and it was only by letting go of the haft and taking a tremendous backward spring, that he saved himself from the paw that struck out at him almost automatically. The bear was tottering now, and another blow on the back of the head from the Indian behind brought him down, stone-dead. Other redskins, attracted by the shouting, had now left their traps and come up, and to these was given the task of flaying the carcase and bringing home the skin; while the chief’s sons, happy as a boy who has killed his first rabbit, went back for their guns.
When they reached the village again, they found it en fête. On the wide space between the chief’s house and the church, all the inhabitants had collected to do honour to the hero and heroine of the day; and, coming out from the house, were the chief, a French priest, and all the womenfolk of the family.
“Come along,” cried the old man gaily to his youngest son; “we are only waiting for you.”
Then ensued a quaint mingling of ancient and modern Mohawk custom. Much of the success of Catholic missions probably lies in the fact that the clergy have never opposed those traditions and customs of savages which were in themselves innocent; here was an instance. A girl was about to become engaged to her future husband, and there was no difficulty in grafting on to the Indian ceremony the mediæval religious rite of betrothal.
The chief’s youngest son, the girl’s father, approached the lover, carrying a bow and four arrows.
“My brother,” he said solemnly; “you have asked to have my daughter for your wife. But, before you can take the bird to your own nest, you must catch her.”
He fitted an arrow to his bow and shot it so that it stuck in the ground about a hundred yards away. Then, amid dead silence, he stuck a second arrow in the turf at the young man’s feet, and, taking his daughter’s hand, led her to where the first arrow had dropped. He shot a third arrow, this time high in the air, and it fell about twenty yards away from where the girl was standing.
“Will you try to catch my bird?” he shouted to the bridegroom-elect; and of course received “yes” for an answer.
“Then fly,” and he shot his fourth arrow as a signal for the start.
It was queer handicapping—a hundred yards start out of a hundred and twenty—but the girl had doubtless made up her mind beforehand. After hurrying off at full speed, in coquettish pretence of wishing to escape, she contrived to stumble, fell on her face, lay there till the happy man was within a yard or two of her, and allowed herself to be caught before she reached the goal. Of course, the ceremony was a survival from a time when an Indian girl received no other intimation of the wishes of the man who wanted her for his wife, and might reasonably wish to bestow her hand on some other suitor—in which case here was an escape for her; but the result of the race 301 was received with as much applause as though everything had been real earnest.
Immediately afterwards, everyone went into the church; the lovers stood at the altar, and the priest read the short betrothal office (Fiançailles) which had been introduced by the early French settlers. Games and dancing followed; not the genuine Indian dancing which Kohl had hoped to see, but a rough imitation of the French peasants’ dance; and the day ended with a great feast in the assembly house.
Kohl was obliged to proceed on his way in the morning, but he made many subsequent visits to this queer little community, and always found himself treated like an old friend.
A Novel Bridal Ceremony
Among the Mohawks a suitor must pursue and capture his bride. She is given a start, and if her lover captures her before she reaches a certain point she becomes his wife, and to bring about this happy result she coquettishly trips, or gets exhausted.