A BARK COMMUNAL HOUSE
From a drawing by Jesse Cornplanter, son of Chief Edward Cornplanter. There were houses similar to this along Buffalo Creek as late as 1838.
The house is full of men, women and children. To each child there is a dog,—and a mighty well-behaved dog. Though they sit on their haunches looking hungry indeed, not one ventures near the mat or bench where the food is placed. Patiently they await a scrap of meat or a bone as it is thrown to them.
One is impressed with the various costumes of the throng. Some are dressed in military coats, some wear red flannel shirts made in coat style, with the flaps worn outside, some wear leather leggings, and some have cloth or buckskin trousers. Some of the women, as well as the men, wear tall beaver hats with silver bands around them. Everybody wears a blanket. Some are red, some are green or yellow, but nearly all wear gray or blue blankets. The women have especially fine blankets of blue broadcloth, beautifully beaded in floral patterns at the corners, and having geometrical designs around the borders. Only a few of the men wear boots, the majority wearing the ancestral moccasin. The skirts of the women are of broadcloth, beaded like the blankets, though several of the matrons have skirts of buckskin. The women wear pantalets, with beaded or quilled bottoms. They also wear small head shawls, and their hair is neatly braided. The maidens wear two braids, but the married women wear one, looped up behind and tied with a ribbon or a quilled strip of soft doeskin.
The house looks gloomy inside, for it is rather smoky, but the liveliness of the children and the puppies makes up for the darkened interior. If one does not wish to be walked over he had better crawl up on his bed and make himself comfortable in a buffalo robe. At best the lodge only shuts out the wind, and the fires add but little warmth. With the abundance of fresh air one does not feel oppressed by the numerous people on every hand. No one in this dwelling has that unhappy disease that infects the dwellers in the tight and warm log houses,—the disease that eats the lungs and makes people fade away like ghosts of their real selves. The abundance of fresh air and the creosote from the smoke, together with exercise out of doors in the sunshine, makes these dwellers in the long bark house lively and healthy.
Again the men fall into groups about the fire, and again they talk of the events about them. One tells of a British agent who wants the Indians to come over to Canada and dwell with their brethren who followed Chief Brant to the Grand River after the war. A Mohawk Sachem had been with the British agent and had confirmed his description of the beautiful land on the other side of the Niagara, where the Iroquois Confederacy might once more rise from its ashes and become a great power. They had found but few followers, however, for the Buffalo Seneca were loyal to the memory of Washington, the great White Father, who just a month ago had died. “We are now the children of Town Destroyer,” the British agent had been told. “We shall abide here where our fathers fought. This is their land and though we have been hurt in this conflict we will not run away, like dogs whipped, and who scamper whimpering to a hollow log. We shall stay here and be men.” It was in vain that the agent had appealed to their natural desire for revenge.
As the night grows darker, a shout is heard outside and all the children run to the door. “Dajoh, dajoh!” they exclaim, and rushing out surround a tall man of middle age, one taking his hand and leading him in. We can hear the shout of “Hoskwisäonh, the story teller,—the story teller has come!”
He is a jovial-looking fellow, this story teller, and his entrance to the lodge puts the young people in a state of suppressed excitement. Even the older people are pleasantly disposed toward him, and one matron draws forth a bench which she sets before the central fire. Several cornhusk mats are then placed around on the floor and the company draws into a circle, at least such a circle as the building will permit.
The story teller wears a long white flannel toga, or overshirt bound with blue ribbon. It is embroidered richly with colored moose hair. His gustoweh or cap is of soft doeskin quilled in herringbone patterns, and the feathers that droop from the crest spindle are the white down feathers of the heron. The spinning feather at the tip is from the tail of a young eagle and from its tip rises a little tassel of red moose hair held on by a bit of fish glue. He has two bags, one containing his pipe and tobacco, and the other filled with mysterious lumps. Just what these are everyone waits patiently to see, for they are the trophies that “remind” him of his stories,—bear teeth, shells, bark dolls, strings of wampum, bunches of feathers, bits of bark with hieroglyphs upon them, and the claws of animals.
He takes his seat and after smoking a pipeful of sacred tobacco throws some of this fragrant herb upon the fire, at the same time saying a ritualistic prayer to the unseen powers, about whom he is soon to discourse. Finally he exclaims, “Hauh, oneh djadaondyus,” and all the people respond, “Hauh oneh!” He plunges his hand into his mystery bag and draws forth a bear’s tusk. “Hoh!” he says. “The bear! This is a tale of nyagwai‘´. Do you all now listen!” And then comes the story of the orphaned boy who lived with his wicked uncle and how he was rescued from burial in a fox hole and cared for by a mother bear. Another trinket comes forth, and again another, as a new tale unfolds. When the night has grown old, and the youngsters show signs of weariness by falling asleep, the story teller closes his bag, carefully ties it and then starts to smoke again.
The listeners have been thrilled by his dramatic recitation, they have been moved to uproarious laughter or made to shudder with awe. They have been profoundly stirred and their eyes glisten with pleasurable excitement. Everyone files past the story teller with a small gift,—a brooch, a carved nut, a small bag of tobacco or a strand of sinew for thread. No gift is large and most gifts are pinches of native tobacco. The story teller then finds a comfortable bed.