He very often entertained his people also, by recounting his interviews with distinguished persons, or by describing what he had seen in great places.
One conversant with him thus speaks of the manner in which he represented to his people, what he had seen during his visit at the seat of government. "I remember having seen him on one of those occasions, when, after having seated the Indians around him in a semi-circle, taking the cocked hat that had been presented to him by General Knox, then Secretary of War, in his hand, he went round bowing to the Indians, as though they were the company at the president's house, and himself the president. He would then repeat to one and another all the compliments which he chose to suppose the president had bestowed upon him, and which his auditors and admiring people, supposed had been thus bestowed." [Footnote: Thomas Morris to Col. Stone.]
Red Jacket had a very tenacious memory. The Indians were noted for the care they bestowed on this faculty of the mind. In the absence of written records, they formed a device, which was quite ingenious, and indicated a high degree of intelligence, by which they perpetuated the knowledge of important events, in their history. They used belts, and strings of wampum.
For instance, they are assembled to form some important treaty. This treaty would be represented by the belt. Each string in that belt would represent a distinct article, or provision in that treaty. As they fixed their eye upon the belt, they knew it as well as though it had been labelled. As they took hold of each string, they could as it were, read each article of the treaty. For the preservation of these belts they had what were termed their council-houses, where they were hung up in order, and preserved with great care. At times they were reviewed. The father would go over them, and tell the meaning of each belt and of each string in the belt to the son, and thus the knowledge of all their important events, was transmitted from one generation to another.
Red Jacket, without any doubt excelled all of his race, in the perfection to which he had brought this faculty of his mind. Nothing escaped the tenacious grasp of his memory.
The following is an instance in point. At a council held with the Indians by Gov. Tompkins of New York, a contest arose between him and Red Jacket in regard to a fact connected with a treaty of many years' standing. Mr. Tompkins stated one thing, and the Indian chief corrected him, insisting that the reverse of his assertion was true. "But" it was rejoined: "you have forgotten." We have it written down on paper. "The paper then tells a lie," was the confident answer; "I have it written down here;" he added, placing his hand with great dignity on his brow. "You Yankees are born with a feather between your fingers, but your paper does not speak the truth. The Indian keeps his knowledge here. This is the book the Great Spirit gave them; it does not lie." A reference was immediately made to the treaty in question, when to the astonishment of all present, and the triumph of the unlettered statesman, the document confirmed every word he had uttered. [Footnote: McKenney's Indian Biography.]
He held in utter contempt pretensions without merit. "On one occasion not many years before his death, a gentleman from Albany, on a visit at Buffalo, being desirous of seeing the chief, sent a message to that effect. The gentleman was affluent in money and in words, the latter flowing forth with great rapidity, and in an inverse ratio to his ideas. He had also a habit of approaching very near to any person with whom he was conversing, and chattering with almost unapproachable volubility. On receiving the message, Red Jacket dressed himself with the utmost care, designing, as he ever did when sober, to make the most imposing impression, and came over to the village.
"Being introduced to the stranger, he soon measured his intellectual capacity, and made no effort to suppress his disappointment, which was indeed sufficiently disclosed in his features. After listening, for a few moments to the chatter of the gentleman, Red Jacket with a look of mingled chagrin and contempt, approached close to him and exclaimed, 'cha, cha, cha,' as rapidly as utterance would allow. Then drawing himself to his full height, he turned proudly upon his heel, and walked away in the direction of his own domicil, as straight as an Indian, nor deigned to look behind while in sight of the tavern. The gentleman with more money than brains, was for once lost in astonishment, and longer motionless and silent than he had ever been before." [Footnote: Col. Stone.]
He held the mere sensualist in equal contempt. "Many years ago, before the Indian towns were broken up along the valley of the Genesee, a clan of the Senecas resided at Canawangus, in the vicinity of the present town of Avon. The chief of the clan was a good, easy man, named Hot Bread. He was a hereditary sachem, not having risen by merit, was weak and inefficient, and of gluttonous habits. On a certain occasion, when Mr. George Hosmer was accompanying Red Jacket to an Indian council, in the course of general conversation he inquired the chief's opinion of Hot Bread. 'Waugh!' exclaimed Red Jacket: 'He has a little place at Canawangus, big enough for him. Big man here,' laying his left hand on his abdomen, 'But very small here,' bringing the palm of his right hand with significant emphasis to his forehead." [Footnote: Ib.]
He loved to hold communion with the sublime and grand in nature. He never wearied when viewing the falls of Niagara, and their roar, the baritone of nature's anthem, stirred within, depths that other harmonies failed to reach. When Mr. Catlin, the celebrated Indian portrait painter, desired to obtain the orator's picture, his consent was given, but he must be represented as standing on Table Rock, "for," said he, "when I pass to the other world, my spirit will come back, and that is the place around which it will linger." [Footnote: Catim's North American Indians.]