Notes on the Iroquois / or, Contributions to the Statistics, Aboriginal History, Antiquities and General Ethnology of Western New-York

by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

Had this law of descent prevailed among the Jews, whose customs have been so often appealed to, in connection with our red race, neither David nor Solomon would ever have sat on the throne. It would be easy, did the purposes of this paper require it, to show by other references the futility of the proofs, derived from the supposed coincidence of customs, which have been brought forward with so much learning, and so little of the true spirit of research, to prove the descent of the American aborigines from that ancient and peculiar people. But if theorists have failed on this ground, what shall we say of that course of reasoning which lays much stress on the most slender evidences of nativity, in the instance of the great Mohawk sachem, to prove the superior chances of recurring talent in the line of hereditary descent, and the legitimacy of his actual claims to the chieftainship, on the score of paternal right?[50] Vide Appendix C., notes at Oneida Castle.

[50] This remark is not made to depreciate the literary merits of the esteemed and lamented author of the Life of Brant, but as being simply due to the cause of truth. Few men have better earned the respect and remembrance of the public than William L. Stone, whose whole life was an example of what energy and talents can achieve. It was not, indeed, to be expected that the incessant duties of the diurnal press should permit historical scrutiny into a matter, very obscure in itself, and of which the details are only to be gleaned after laborious search at remote points.

What was true of the totemic organization of the Senecas, was equally so of the Mohawks, and of each of the other cantons. Each canton consisted, like the Senecas, of the clans of the wolf, bear, turtle, beaver, deer, falcon, plover and crane. But each of these clans were increments of re-organizations of one of the eight original clans. They were brothers, and appealed to their respective totems as a proof of original consanguinity. They were entitled to the same rites of hospitality, in the lodges of their affiliated totems abroad, that they were entitled to at home. The affiliated mark on the lodge was a sufficient welcome of entrance and temporary abode. It results, therefore, that there were but eight original family clans, estimating at the maximum number existing in six cantonal departments, or tribes, and that the entire six tribes were bound together politically by these eight family ties. As a matter of course, each clan was not equally numerous in each tribe. This would depend on accidental circumstances and natural laws; but it is an argument in favor of the antiquity of the people, or the confederacy, that each of the tribes had organized in each of the respective clans. For we cannot suppose that at first there was a systematic, far less, an equal division of the clans, or that their original separation into separate tribes, or cantons, was the result of a considerate formal public act. This would be to reverse the ordinary progress of tribes and nations who, in early ages, separate from circumstances and causes wholly casual, such as the ambition or feuds of chiefs, the desire of finding better places to live, easier means of subsistence, &c.

In the condition of a people, living in a government so purely patriarchal, following game for a subsistence, and making wars to enlarge or defend their hunting grounds, the oldest and most respected man of his clan or totem, would necessarily be its sachem or political head. We must assume that to be a fixed and settled principle of their simple constitution and verbal laws, which appears, from all we know, to have been so. Letters, they had none, and their traditions on this head are to be gleaned from scattered and broken sources which do not always coincide.

If each clan had its leading sachem or chief, there were eight principal chiefs in each canton. Consequently, when the confederacy consisted of five cantons, there were forty Rakowanas,[51] or head chiefs. These were the recognized leaders and magistrates in the villages; but in effect, in a community thus constituted, each Rakowana or ruling chief of a clan, has a number of aids, Mishinawas[52] and minor officials, who were also regarded as semi-sachems, or chiefs. This number is always indefinite and fluctuating, but may be supposed to be, in relation to the ruling Rakowana, as at least five to one.

[51] Mohawk.

[52] Algonquin.

This would give to each canton forty inferior chiefs, and to the five cantons, two hundred, denoting a distribution of power and civil organization, which acting in union must have been very efficacious; and the more so, when we consider that all their political movements were entirely of a popular cast, and carried with them the voice of every man in the canton.

This appears to have been the standing civil organization; but it was entirely independent of the military system. War chiefs appear ever to have derived their authority from courage and capacity in war, and to have risen up as they were required in each canton. The Tekarahogea, or war captain, founded his rights and powers in the Indian camp, on former triumphs and present capacity; but the office does not appear to have been a general one recognized by their constitution. All males were bound to render military service by custom and opinion, but by nothing else. Disgrace and cowardice were the penalties, but they were penalties more binding than oaths or bonds among civilized communities, and always kept their ranks full. All war parties were, of course, volunteers. It seems that all able-bodied males over fourteen were esteemed capable of taking the war path; the early development of martial power being considered of all traits the most honorable. No title was more honored than that of Roskeahragehte,[53] or Warrior.

[53] Mohawk.