APPENDIX.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE IROQUOIS.
If the Indian should be entirely banished from our borders, the memory of him cannot die. For, as I have elsewhere quoted,
“Their names are on our waters,
We cannot wash them out.”
The dialects of the Six Nations bore a strong resemblance to each other, though there were still differences which marked them as distinct. Those who understood one were able to converse in each of the others, and in council the representatives of each nation had no difficulty in interpreting what was said by all. The Mohawk and Oneida strongly resembled each other, and the Seneca and Cayuga were the same. The Onondaga “was considered by the Iroquois as the most finished and majestic,” while to our ears it is the most harsh, and the Oneida the most musical.
They used nineteen letters, having no labials or liquids, except occasionally is heard among the Mohawks the sound of L and among the Tuscaroras the sound of F. The Senecas and Cayugas talk all day without shutting their lips, and there are no oaths in their language. Before an Indian can be profane he must learn French or English, and his language is so constructed too, that evasion is almost impossible. Metaphors are in constant requisition in Indian speeches and conversation. If one comes in when the weather is very cold, he says, “It is [[299]]a nose-cutting morning.” If he wishes to reflect upon a proposition before deciding, he says, “I will put the matter under my pillow, and let you know.” He says of an emaciated person, “He has dry bones.” A steamboat is called “The ship impelled by fire.” A horse is a “log carrier,” a cow a “cud chewer,” and a goat a “scented animal.”
In ancient times when the hunters encamped in the woods, they kept warm by covering themselves with boughs of hemlock, and now if an Indian is about to repair his cabin, he says, “I will surround it with hemlock boughs,” meaning I will make it warm and comfortable. When a chief has made a speech at the opening of a Council, he finishes with saying, “the doors are now open, you can proceed.” The messenger of the Six Nations to the Senecas was called “the man who carries the fire or smoke,” meaning that he had charge of the Council-fire and kept it bright.
The Iroquois call themselves the real people; and in speeches or conversation, if allusion is made to white people, they say invariably “our younger brethren.” The President of the United States is called “the city-eater,” and Washington, “the residence of the city-eater.”
The Iroquois had the masculine, and feminine, and neuter genders. The masculine and feminine were denoted, sometimes by giving the same animal different names, in the way we say buck and doe, and sometimes by prefixing words which signify male and female. All inanimate objects were placed in the neuter gender. They had not the indefinite article a or an, but used the, and the usual varieties of adjective and adverb. They abounded in interjections, but had no participles. As a substitute for the infinitive mood they used the word that. Instead of saying, “Direct He-mo to come and give us rain,” they said, “Direct that He-mo come and give us rain.”