Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

By this method of gaining assent the equality and independence of the several tribes were recognized and preserved. If any sachem was obdurate or unreasonable, influences were brought to bear upon him, through the preponderating sentiment, which he could not well resist; so that it seldom happened that inconvenience or detriment resulted from their adherence to the rule. Whenever all efforts to procure unanimity had failed, the whole matter was laid aside because further action had become impossible.

The induction of new sachems into office was an event of great interest to the people, and not less to the sachems who retained thereby some control over the introduction of new members into their body. To perform the ceremony of raising up sachems the general council was primarily instituted. It was named at the time, or came afterwards to be called, the Mourning Council (Hen-nun-do-nuh′-seh), because it embraced the twofold object of lamenting the death of the departed sachems and of installing his successor. Upon the death of a sachem, the tribe in which the loss had occurred had power to summon a general council, and to name the time and place of its meeting. A herald was sent out with a belt of wampum, usually the official belt of the deceased sachem given to him at his installation, which conveyed this laconic message;—“the name” (mentioning that of the late ruler) “calls for a council.” It also announced the day and place of convocation. In some cases the official belt of the sachem was sent to the central council-fire at Onondaga immediately after his burial, as a notification of his demise, and the time for holding the council was determined afterwards.

The Mourning Council, with the festivities which followed the investiture of sachems, possessed remarkable attractions for the Iroquois. They flocked to its attendance from the most distant localities with zeal and enthusiasm. It was opened and conducted with many forms and ceremonies, and usually lasted five days. The first was devoted to the prescribed ceremony of lamentations for the deceased sachem, which, as a religious act, commenced at the rising of the sun. At this time the sachems of the tribe, with whom the council was held, marched out followed by their tribesmen, to receive formally the sachems and people of the other tribes, who had arrived before and remained encamped at some distance waiting for the appointed day. After exchanging greetings, a procession was formed and the lament was chanted in verse, with responses, by the united tribes, as they marched from the place of reception to the place of council. The lament, with the responses in chorus, was a tribute of respect to the memory of the departed sachem, in which not only his gens, but his tribe, and the confederacy itself participated. It was certainly a more delicate testimonial of respect and affection than would have been expected from a barbarous people. This ceremonial, with the opening of the council, concluded the first day’s proceedings. On the second day, the installation ceremony commenced, and it usually lasted into the fourth. The sachems of the several tribes seated themselves in two divisions, as at the civil council. When the sachem to be raised up belonged to either of the three senior tribes the ceremony was performed by the sachems of the junior tribes, and the new sachem was installed as a father. In like manner, if he belonged to either of the three junior tribes the ceremony was performed by the sachems of the senior tribes, and the new sachem was installed as a son. These special circumstances are mentioned to show the peculiar character of their social and governmental life. To the Iroquois these forms and figures of speech were full of significance.

Among other things, the ancient wampum belts, into which the structure and principles of the confederacy “had been talked,” to use their expression, were produced and read or interpreted for the instruction of the newly inducted sachem. A wise-man, not necessarily one of the sachems, took these belts one after the other and walking to and fro between the two divisions of sachems, read from them the facts which they recorded. According to the Indian conception, these belts can tell, by means of an interpreter, the exact rule, provision or transaction talked into them at the time, and of which they were the exclusive record. A strand of wampum consisting of strings of purple and white shell beads, or a belt woven with figures formed by beads of different colors, operated on the principle of associating a particular fact with a particular string or figure; thus giving a serial arrangement to the facts as well as fidelity to the memory. These strands and belts of wampum were the only visible records of the Iroquois; but they required those trained interpreters who could draw from their strings and figures the records locked up in their remembrance. One of the Onondaga sachems (Ho-no-we-nă′-to) was made “Keeper of the Wampum,” and two aids were raised up with him who were required to be versed in its interpretation as well as the sachem. The interpretation of these several belts and strings brought out, in the address of the wise-man, a connected account of the occurrences at the formation of the confederacy. The tradition was repeated in full, and fortified in its essential parts by reference to the record contained in these belts. Thus the council to raise up sachems became a teaching council, which maintained in perpetual freshness in the minds of the Iroquois the structure and principles of the confederacy, as well as the history of its formation. These proceedings occupied the council until noon each day; the afternoon being devoted to games and amusements. At twilight each day a dinner in common was served to the entire body in attendance. It consisted of soup and boiled meat cooked near the council-house, and served directly from the kettle in wooden bowls, trays and ladles. Grace was said before the feast commenced. It was a prolonged exclamation by a single person on a high shrill note, falling down in cadences into stillness, followed by a response in chorus by the people. The evenings were devoted to the dance. With these ceremonies, continued for several days, and with the festivities that followed, their sachems were inducted into office.

By investing their sachems with office through a general council, the framers of the confederacy had in view the threefold object of a perpetual succession in the gens, the benefits of a free election among its members, and a final supervision of the choice through the ceremony of investiture. To render the latter effective it should carry with it the power to reject the nominee. Whether the right to invest was purely functional, or carried with it the right to exclude, I am unable to state. No case of rejection is mentioned. The scheme adopted by the Iroquois to maintain a ruling body of sachems may claim, in several respects, the merit of originality, as well as of adaptation to their condition. In form an oligarchy, taking this term in its best sense, it was yet a representative democracy of the archaic type. A powerful popular element pervaded the whole organism and influenced its action. It is seen in the right of the gentes to elect and depose their sachems and chiefs, in the right of the people to be heard in council through orators of their own selection, and in the voluntary system in the military service. In this and the next succeeding ethnical period democratic principles were the vital element of gentile society.

The Iroquois name for a sachem (Ho-yar-na-go′-war), which signifies “a counselor of the people,” was singularly appropriate to a ruler in a species of free democracy. It not only defines the office well, but it also suggests the analogous designation of the members of the Grecian council of chiefs. The Grecian chiefs were styled “councilors of the people.”[140] From the nature and tenure of the office among the Iroquois the sachems were not masters ruling by independent right, but representatives holding from the gentes by free election. It is worthy of notice that an office which originated in savagery, and continued through the three sub-periods of barbarism, should reveal so much of its archaic character among the Greeks after the gentile organization had carried this portion of the human family to the confines of civilization. It shows further how deeply inwrought in the human mind the principle of democracy had become under gentilism.

The designation for a chief of the second grade, Ha-sa-no-wä′-na, “an elevated name,” indicates an appreciation by barbarians of the ordinary motives for personal ambition. It also reveals the sameness of the nature of man, whether high up or low down upon the rounds of the ladder of progress. The celebrated orators, wise-men, and war-chiefs of the Iroquois were chiefs of the second grade almost without exception. One reason for this may be found in the organic provision which confined the duties of the sachem to the affairs of peace. Another may have been to exclude from the ruling body their ablest men, lest their ambitious aims should disturb its action. As the office of chief was bestowed in reward of merit, it fell necessarily upon their ablest men. Red-Jacket, Brandt, Garangula, Cornplanter, Farmer’s Brother, Frost, Johnson, and other well known Iroquois, were chiefs as distinguished from sachems. None of the long lines of sachems have become distinguished in American annals, with the exception of Logan,[141] Handsome Lake,[142] and at a recent day, Ely S. Parker.[143] The remainder have left no remembrance behind them extending beyond the Iroquois.

At the time the confederacy was formed To-do-dä′-ho was the most prominent and influential of the Onondaga chiefs. His accession to the plan of a confederacy, in which he would experience a diminution of power, was regarded as highly meritorious. He was raised up as one of the Onondaga sachems and his name placed first in the list. Two assistant sachems were raised up with him to act as his aids and to stand behind him on public occasions. Thus dignified, this sachemship has since been regarded by the Iroquois as the most illustrious of the forty-eight, from the services rendered by the first To-do-dä′-ho. The circumstance was early seized upon by the inquisitive colonists to advance the person who held this office to the position of king of the Iroquois; but the misconception was refuted, and the institutions of the Iroquois were relieved of the burden of an impossible feature. In the general council he sat among his equals. The confederacy had no chief executive magistrate.

Under a confederacy of tribes the office of general, (Hos-gä-ä-geh′-da-go-wä) “Great War Soldier,” makes its first appearance. Cases would now arise when the several tribes in their confederate capacity would be engaged in war; and the necessity for a general commander to direct the movements of the united bands would be felt. The introduction of this office as a permanent feature in the government was a great event in the history of human progress. It was the beginning of a differentiation of the military from the civil power, which, when completed, changed essentially the external manifestation of the government. But even in later stages of progress, when the military spirit predominated, the essential character of the government was not changed. Gentilism arrested usurpation. With the rise of the office of general, the government was gradually changed from a government of one power, into a government of two powers. The functions of government became, in course of time, co-ordinated between the two. This new office was the germ of that of a chief executive magistrate; for out of the general came the king, the emperor, and the president, as elsewhere suggested. The office sprang from the military necessities of society, and had a logical development. For this reason its first appearance and subsequent growth have an important place in this discussion. In the course of this volume I shall attempt to trace the progressive development of this office, from the Great War Soldier of the Iroquois through the Teuctli of the Aztecs, to the Basileus of the Grecian, and the Rex of the Roman tribes; among all of whom, through three successive ethnical periods, the office was the same, namely, that of a general in a military democracy. Among the Iroquois, the Aztecs, and the Romans the office was elective, or confirmative, by a constituency. Presumptively, it was the same among the Greeks of the traditionary period. It is claimed that the office of basileus among the Grecian tribes in the Homeric period was hereditary from father to son. This is at least doubtful. It is such a wide and total departure from the original tenure of the office as to require positive evidence to establish the fact. An election, or confirmation by a constituency, would still be necessary under gentile institutions. If in numerous instances it were known that the office had passed from father to son this might have suggested the inference of hereditary succession, now adopted as historically true, while succession in this form did not exist. Unfortunately, an intimate knowledge of the organization and usages of society in the traditionary period is altogether wanting. Great principles of human action furnish the safest guide when their operation must have been necessary. It is far more probable that hereditary succession, when it first came in, was established by force, than by the free consent of the people; and that it did not exist among the Grecian tribes in the Homeric period.