The Iroquois; or, the bright side of Indian character

by Anna C. Johnson

Among the Iroquois there were no particular ceremonies of purification; but among some of the Western tribes, there was a custom which resembled that of the Jews, when they used scarlet, and cedar, and hyssop.

Dogs were not sacrificed by the Jews; but these were the only domestic animals the Indians had. At the death [[63]]of his friend, Patroclus sacrificed two dogs of purest white, saying, “To the gods the purest things must be offered.” The Greeks and Romans each had a festival, which lasted nine days, the ceremonies of which were strikingly similar to those which attended the annual thank offerings which went up in the forest and on the prairie, by the lake and the streamlet in the American wilderness. But when we read that the Indian ornamented himself with the husks of his favorite zea-maize, and went from house to house with a basket to gather offerings from the people, we call it heathenish and barbarous, while the story of Ceres, the goddess of corn, whose head was ornamented with sheafs, and who held in her hand a hoe and basket, is picturesque and beautiful!

To make dancing a part of a religious festival, is, among Indians, irreverent and grovelling. While we are taught to read, with pious emotion, how Miriam and her maidens went out with timbrels and dances to celebrate the overthrow of the Egyptians, and the women of all the cities of Israel came forth singing and dancing, and exclaimed, “Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands,” and David, the man after God’s own heart, “danced before the Lord.”

The sacred fire in the temple of Vesta was kept ever burning, and the Romans looked upon the extinguishing of the vestal flame as a prognostication of the destruction of their city. In all this there is not so much of poetry or beauty or purity as dwelt in the bosom of those who kindled the mysterious council fire in the heart of the forest, to burn for ever as a symbol of the love and patriotism which glowed in the bosoms of those who rallied around it, and called themselves the UNITED PEOPLE.

The nymphs and naiads of the woods of Greece and Italy are the embellishments of every classic song, but [[64]]they are no more beautiful than the guardian-spirits of every tree and leaf and flower with which the imagination of the Indian peopled our own forest wilds.

The Christian orator goes back to those dark days of ignorance and superstition for the allusions which are to give point and brilliancy to his metaphors, and the poems which have for their framework the grossest of all heathen mythology are still the text-books, for years, of Christian students, whose mission is to preach the Gospel to all the nations of the earth.

We read of Indian women who were Keepers of the Faith, and revolt at their incantations and unintelligible mummeries, but our delicacy is thought in no danger from being initiated into the mysteries of the Priestess of Apollo, the oracles of Delhi and the feasts of Eleusinia.

The wealthy virgins of Greece and Rome were present with fruits in golden baskets at Bacchanalian revels, but they have never been held up as monsters, while our school-books have teemed with amours of gods and goddesses, such as find no place on the darkest pages of Indian lore.

We listen to the story of the woman in the moon, who is constantly employed in weaving a net, which a cat ravels whenever she sleeps, and that the world is to come to an end when the net is finished, and call it ridiculous. While the story of Penelope weaving her purple web by day to be unraveled by night, and thus prolong the absence of her husband Ulysses, who went to the siege of Troy, is a conception worthy of being expanded into a poem of a thousand lines, and translated into all languages.

The Indian had no Cupids, or their representatives, to attend the affairs of the heart, but he had charms which obtained the love of any fair maiden whom he desired, and charms which secured him the love of his wife during his [[65]]long absence on the war-path and hunting excursions, and made every thing that he could do bright and beautiful in her eyes. And they had no Bacchus to preside at drunken revels, for they “did not tarry long at the wine, or look upon it when it was red.” But they had spirits to preside at the pure fountain, where alone they went to slake their thirst.