The orator seldom speaks without careful premeditation of what he is about to say; and his memory is refreshed by the belts of wampum, which he delivers after every clause in his harangue, as a pledge of the sincerity and truth of his words. These belts are carefully preserved by the bearers, as a substitute for written records; a use for which they are the better adapted, as they are often worked with hieroglyphics expressing the meaning they are designed to preserve. Thus, at a treaty of peace, the principal belt often bears the figures of an Indian and a white man holding a chain between them.
For the nature and uses of wampum, see note, ante, p. [141], note.
Though a good memory is an essential qualification of an Indian orator, it would be unjust not to observe that striking outbursts of spontaneous eloquence have sometimes proceeded from their lips.
[440] The Shawanoe speaker, in expressing his intention of disarming his enemy by laying aside his own designs of war, makes use of an unusual metaphor. To bury the hatchet is the figure in common use on such occasions, but he adopts a form of speech which he regards as more significant and emphatic,—that of throwing it up to the Great Spirit. Unwilling to confess that he yields through fear of the enemy, he professes to wish for peace merely for the sake of his women and children.
At the great council at Lancaster, in 1762, a chief of the Oneidas, anxious to express, in the strongest terms, the firmness of the peace which had been concluded, had recourse to the following singular figure: “In the country of the Oneidas there is a great pine-tree, so huge and old that half its branches are dead with time. I tear it up by the roots, and, looking down into the hole, I see a dark stream of water, flowing with a strong current, deep under ground. Into this stream I fling the hatchet, and the current sweeps it away, no man knows whither. Then I plant the tree again where it stood before, and thus this war will be ended for ever.”
[441] A party of the Virginia volunteers had been allowed by Bouquet to go to the remoter Shawanoe towns, in the hope of rescuing captive relatives. They returned to Fort Pitt at midwinter, bringing nine prisoners, all children or old women. The whole party was frost-bitten, and had endured the extremity of suffering on the way. They must have perished but for a Shawanoe chief, named Benewisica, to whose care Bouquet had confided them, and who remained with them both going and returning, hunting for them to keep them from famishing.—Capt. Murray to Bouquet, 31 Jan. 1765.
Besides the authorities before mentioned in relation to these transactions, the correspondence of Bouquet with the commander-in-chief, throughout the expedition, together with letters from some of the officers who accompanied him, have been examined. For General Gage’s summary of the results of the campaign, see Appendix, F.
[442] Penn. Hist. Coll. 267. Haz. Pa. Reg. IV. 390. M’Culloch, Narrative. M’Culloch was one of the prisoners surrendered to Bouquet. His narrative first appeared in a pamphlet form, and has since been republished in the Incidents of Border Warfare, and other similar collections. The autobiography of Mary Jemison, a woman captured by the Senecas during the French war, and twice married among them, contains an instance of attachment to Indian life similar to those mentioned above. After the conclusion of hostilities, learning that she was to be given up to the whites in accordance with a treaty, she escaped into the woods with her half-breed children, and remained hidden, in great dismay and agitation, until the search was over. She lived to an advanced age, but never lost her attachment to the Indian life.
[443] Ordinances of the Borough of Carlisle, Appendix. Penn. Hist. Coll. 267.
[444] The author of The Expedition against the Ohio Indians speaks of the Indians “shedding torrents of tears.” This is either a flourish of rhetoric, or is meant to apply solely to the squaws. A warrior, who, under the circumstances, should have displayed such emotion, would have been disgraced for ever.