6. Where is the great council fire of all the nations or tribes connected with yours?
7. How do you address the chiefs and council of such a nation or tribe?
8. What is the badge of your tribe?
From these and other similar questions, much valuable information will probably result. The nation whom another tribe calls grandfather, is certainly the head of the family to which they both belong. At his door burns the “great national council fire,” or, in other words, at the place where he resides with his counsellors, as the great or supreme chief of the national family, the heads of the tribes in the connexion occasionally assemble to deliberate on their common interests; any tribe may have a council fire of its own, but cannot dictate to the other tribes, nor compel any of them to take up the hatchet against an enemy; neither can they conclude a peace for the whole; this power entirely rests with the great national chief, who presides at the council fire of their grandfather.
Indian nations or tribes connected with each other are not always connected by blood or descended from the same original stock. Some are admitted into the connexion by adoption. Such are the Tuscaroras among the Six Nations; such the Cherokees among the Lenni Lenape. Thus, in the year 1779, a deputation of fourteen men came from the Cherokee nation to the council fire of the Delawares, to condole with their grandfather on the loss of their head chief.[247] There are tribes, on the other hand, who have wandered far from the habitations of those connected with them by blood or relationship. It is certain that they can no longer be benefited by the general council fire. They, therefore, become a people by themselves, and pass with us for a separate nation, if they only have a name; nevertheless, (if I am rightly informed) they well know to what stock or nation they originally belonged, and if questioned on that subject, will give correct answers. It is therefore very important to make these enquiries of any tribe or nation that a traveller may find himself among. The analogy of languages is the best and most unequivocal sign of connexion between Indian tribes; yet the absence of that indication should not always be relied upon.
It may not be improper also to mention in this place that the purity or correctness with which a language is spoken, will greatly help to discover who is the head of the national family. For no where is the language so much cultivated as in the vicinity of the great national council fire, where the orators have the best opportunity of displaying their talents. Thus the purest and most elegant dialect of the Lenape language, is that of the Unami or Turtle tribe.
