The Iroquois; or, the bright side of Indian character

by Anna C. Johnson

All the ceremonies upon these festival days were not strictly religious, but consisted of various sports and pastimes for amusement. On one day all the people went about making calls, in little parties. One of each group carried a wooden shovel, and immediately after entering the house, began to stir the ashes, and then to scatter a little upon the hearth, invoking the blessing of the Great Spirit upon the household.

Another amusement was to form little parties to go about and collect materials for a feast. Each family was expected to contribute something. If the messengers entered a house and nothing was bestowed, they were justified in taking whatever they could, without, at the time, being discovered. If undetected, they were allowed to bear away their treasures; but if detected, they were obliged immediately to give them up and try again. A feast was made with the avails of their begging and purloining, and a dance followed.

Another diversion was the guessing of dreams. Some person went about from house to house telling a wonderful dream he had had, and requesting any one who pleased to relate it. Whether those who attempted, guessed rightly or not, the dreamer after a while acknowledged that the true interpretation had been given, and then he was obliged [[60]]to pay a forfeit, and whatever was required, he cheerfully performed, however great the sacrifice.

There was a great variety of games, and the design and effect of all their festivities was, in addition to their spiritual improvement, to promote friendly feeling and healthy exhilaration; and, in this, the children of darkness were certainly wiser in their generation than some of the children of light! Those who thought it necessary to the honor of religion that all merriment should be banished from the domestic and social circle, might have learned something from the forest heathen, whom they were in the habit of pronouncing utterly benighted. The Catholics adopted the policy of baptizing paganism, wherever they went. Instead of requiring the heathen to give up their national or religious ceremonies, they engrafted them upon their own, and thus removed all obstacles to their becoming, or being called Christians. The Puritans went to the other extreme, and would allow little that bore the name pleasure. The pagan must renounce not only his religion but his health, in order to became a faithful servant of the Lord. Every thing that was natural was “carnal,” and thus religion became repulsive, and, in the eyes of many, synonymous with every thing disagreeable. In a system which differed from this they could see no good thing, and were sadly deficient in a knowledge of human nature, and the facility of becoming all things to all men, thereby to save some. In throwing off the fetters of superstition they were scarcely in advance of the red men of the wilderness. The beliefs of the Christian and pagan in witches almost entirely coincided, and the manner of punishing them was nearly the same. The stories of ghosts and hobgoblins to which I listened in childhood, and which were related in perfect good faith are not less [[61]]ridiculous or more indicative of heathen blindness than those which I hear in the wigwam.

The fables, fairy tales, and rural sports of our Saxon ancestors have never been recorded as evidence of their inferiority, or as very heinous misdemeanors. Their descendants have felt it to be a duty to honor them, and have clothed their customs in the garb of fascination; neither their ferocity, their barbarism, nor their superstitions have been held up to scorn. The dark side of the picture has been kept entirely out of view. Pages and volumes have been devoted also by historians to the Olympic and Pythian games, and the “crowns of the victors;” yet they involved no more light, or knowledge, or skill, and far less moral purity than the national games of the sons of the forest. The Indian had no laurel wreaths, believing that to excel was sufficient; but his code of honor was as nice as that of feudal lords in the days of chivalry, and no Indian ventured to incur censure by transgressing the rules of courtesy. In their dances it was the custom for women to choose their partners, and no warrior thought of offering his hand to a maiden till she had signified that it would be agreeable to her!

The Aztecs were more advanced in many respects than the Iroquois; but their worship was a continued series of bloody sacrifices, without any of that beautiful spirituality which we see in those who drew near to the Great Spirit, not only with their lips but with their hearts, and recognized his fostering care in all the events of their lives.

The sacrifice of dogs was universal among all the North American Indians; but for a long time it was alluded to as a heathenish custom, without any attempt to understand its import. Cotton Mather speaks of it by saying, “That the Indians, in their wars with us, finding a sore inconvenience by our dogs, sacrificed a dog to the devil, after [[62]]which no English dog would bark at an Indian for divers months ensuing.” This would imply that the devil had an interpreter, in order to understand the nature of the sacrifice, and the manner of influencing the dog; for the author does not give him the credit of being so thorough a linguist as to understand himself, as appears by the following affirmation.—“Once finding that the dæmons in a possessed young woman understood the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, my curiosity induced me to make trial of this Indian language, and the dæmons did seem as if they did not understand it.”[4] And as the Indians were considered little less than demons themselves, a learned divine was excusable for not attempting to acquaint himself with their language or their character.

But there are those rising up among themselves who will wipe out this stain upon their national honor, and vindicate the faith and the customs of their fathers.

Since wars and rumors of wars have ceased, there has been some attempt to understand Indian character and habits, and they have been found to be no worse, at least, than those of other heathen nations, who were the inhabitants of classic Greece and Rome.

The Jews held three yearly festivals, and several monthly festivals; and one was in commemoration of the first fruits, and another at the in-gathering of harvest, and another at the commencement of the year.