A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians

by J. B. Mackenzie

A number of the chiefs have supplementary functions, conferred upon them by their brother dignitaries. There is, for example, one called the Forest-Ranger, whose place it is to interpose for the effectual prevention and checking of sales of timber to whites, by members of the different tribes; or removal by whites of timber from the Reserve, where a license, which suffers either to be done, has not been granted. In cases where an Indian meditates, in a spirit of lofty contempt for the license, any such illicit sale; or attempts to abet any such unlawful removal, this functionary has authority to frustrate both objects.

The chief who, at present, fulfils these duties has not been permitted to hold barren or dormant powers. In putting into effect that interference which his office exacts of him, he has been more than once terribly assaulted by whites, foiled in their plans, and exasperated by the agency that had stepped in for the baffling of their ill-formed designs. On one occasion, his death was all but brought about by a cruelly concerted attack upon him.

Certain other chiefs are called Fire-keepers, though their functions are not in any way suggested by their rather remarkable title. They are, however, very important persons, and I have already, in treating of the Indian's meetings of Council, touched upon their duty. I believe the name Fire-keeper is retained from the circumstance that, in by-gone days, when the council was an open-air affair, the lighting of the fire was the initiatory step, and, taken in this way, therefore, the most important step, in the proceedings.

Another chief is called Marshal, and it is incumbent upon him to co-operate with the officers of the law in effecting the capture of any suspected criminal or criminals, who may lie concealed, or be harbored, on the Reserve. He is a duly qualified county constable, though his services are not often in request, as the Chief of Police in Brantford, whose place it is to direct the way in which crimes (committed, of course, in the city) shall be ferreted out, or their authors tracked, usually confides in his own staff to promote these desirable purposes, from the fact of their accountability to him being well defined, whereas the county constable yields no obedience to him.

HIS CHARACTER, MORAL AND GENERAL.

It is often claimed for the Indian that, before the white man put him in the way of a freer indulgence of his unhappy craving for drink, he was as moral a being as one unrenewed by Divine grace could be expected to be. Unfortunately, this statement involves no definition of what might be considered moral, under the circumstances. Now, there will be disagreeing estimates of what a moral character, upon which there has been no descent of heavenly grace, or where grace has not supervened to essay its recreation, or its moulding anew, should be; and there will also, I think, be divergent views as to a code of morals to be practised which shall comport with the exhibition of a reasonably seemly morality. I cannot, at least, concur in that definition of a moral character, upon which no operation of Divine grace has been expended, for its raising or its beautifying, which accepts that of the pagan Indian as its highest expression; and, distinctly, hesitate to affirm that a high moral instinct inheres in the Indian, or that such is permitted to dominate his mind; and, when I find one of these very writers who claim for him a high inborn morality, discovering in him such indwelling monsters as revenge, mercilessness, implacability, the affirmation falters not the less upon my tongue. That very many of the graver crimes laid at the Indian's door, and the revolting heinousness of which the records of our courts reveal; may be traced to his prescribing for himself, and practising, a lax standard of morals, is a statement which it would be idle to dispute. That the marriage tie exacts from him not the most onerous of interpretations, and that the scriptural basis for a sound morality, involved in the declaration, "and they twain shall be one flesh," not seldom escapes, in his case, its full and due honoring, are, likewise, affirmations not susceptible of being refuted. That, for instance, is not a high notion of marital constancy (marital is scarcely the term, for I am speaking now of the pagan, who rejects the idea of marriage, though often, I confess, living happily and uninterruptedly with the woman of his choice) which permits the summary disruption of the bond between man and woman; nor is paternal responsibility rigorously defined by one, who causes to cease, at will, his labor and care for, and support of, his children, leaving the reassuring of these to those children contingent upon the mother finding some one else to give them and herself a home.

To follow a lighter vein for a moment. The Police Magistrate at Brantford, before whom many of these little domesticities come for their due appreciation (for they disclose, often, elements of really baffling complexity) not less than their ventilation and unravelling, is an eminently peace-loving man, and quite an adept at patching up such-like conjugal trifles. He will dispense from his tribunal sage advice, and prescribe remedial measures, which shall have untold efficacy, in dispelling mutual mistrust, restoring mutual confidence, and bringing about a lasting re-union. He will interpose, like some potent magician, to transform a discordant, recriminating, utterly unlovely couple, into a pair of harmless, peaceable, love-consumed doves. There rises before my mind a case for illustration. A couple lived on the Reserve, whose domestic life had become so completely embittered that every vestige of old-time happiness had fled. The agency of the Police Magistrate was sought to decree terms of separation, as there was an adamantine resolve on the part of each to no longer live with the other. Thus, in a frame of mind altogether repelling the notion of conversion to gentler views, or the idea of laudable endeavor, on the part of another, to instil milder counsels, being availingly expended, they repaired to the Police Magistrate's office. He, by invoking old recollections on either side, and judiciously inviting them to a retrospection of their former mutual courtesies, and early undimmed pleasures, gradually brought the would-be sundered people to a wiser mind. I believe there have only been two or three outbursts of domestic infelicity since.

Certain notions, bound up with the Indian's practice, in times now happily passed away, of polygamy, may be construed into an advocacy of the Deceased Wife's Sister's Bill, which engaged the attention of Parliament last session, and bids fair to take up the time and thought of our legislators, in sessions yet to come. The Indian usually sought to marry two sisters, holding that the children of the one would be loved and cared for more by the other than if the wives were not related. The concurrent existence of both mothers is, of course, presumed here. The question remains to be asked, would the children of the one sister, were their mother dead, be as well loved and cared for by the surviving sister, were she called upon to exercise the functions of a step-mother; and would the children of the dead sister love the children of the living sister, were they not viewed upon the same footing as those children?

That the Indian—the Christian Indian—frequently contemns the means unsparingly used, and the attempts and arguments put forth, by his spiritual overseers, to restrain his immoral propensities, to bridle his immoral instinct, and to ameliorate and elevate, generally, his moral tone, I fear, will not be gainsaid. That very many, on the other hand, practice a high morality, and set before themselves an exalted conception of conjugal duty, and strive, with a full-hearted earnestness, to fulfil that conception, none would-be so blind or so unjust as to deny.

There are some features in the Indian character to which unstinted praise is due, and shall be rendered.