The calumet of peace is another mysterious symbol among the Indians, and not less respected than the sceptre of a king. It is a species of pipe of stone, with the head finely polished, and the quill two feet and a half long, made of a strong reed. The red calumets are most esteemed, and often trimmed with white, yellow, and green feathers.
“Whilst high he lifted in his hand
The sign of peace, the calumet;
So sacred to the Indian soul,
With its stem of reed, and its dark red bowl,
Flaunting with feathers—white, yellow, and green.”
It is the flag of truce among Indian nations, and a violation of it as disgraceful among them as an insult to the waving stars and stripes of the United States, or the Lion and the Unicorn, when these national emblems are borne to the enemy’s camp as a signal that strife may cease.
Smoking the calumet together was a pledge of amity, [[42]]and was often used as a figure of speech, in the expression of friendship. Their language is a language of metaphors, and very difficult to be translated or interpreted into any other, and is to them full of classical allusions, as every important event is transmitted by transferring it to some person as a name, or baptizing with it some mountain, lake, or stream.
No son or daughter of any tribe was allowed to marry a person belonging to a tribe of the same name in his own or any other nation. A Deer of the Seneca nation could marry a Turtle of his own, or of the Mohawk or Cayuga nation, and so of each of the others. But a Wolf could not marry a Wolf, or a Heron a Heron.
The children belonged to the tribe of the mother. If she was of the Deer tribe all her children were of the Deer tribe. They called her mother, and also called her sisters mother, and her sister’s children, brothers and sisters; and hence arose the impossibility of marrying in their own clan. They looked upon all belonging to it as one family, and a marriage within those degrees of consanguinity was as disgraceful and revolting in their eyes as a marriage with us between real brothers and sisters.