While I feel a delight in offering to the relatives and friends of the deceased, as also to the public, this true and faithful picture of Indian fidelity—I regret that, on necessarily having had to recur to the names ‘Anthony’ and ‘Luke Holland,’ I am drawn from scenes of pleasure, to crimes of the blackest hue. The very Indian just named, who at that time joyfully reported to me his having conducted his friend out of danger, to a place of safety, some years after approached me with the doleful news that every one of his children, (all minors) together with his hoary headed parents, had been murdered by the white people, at Gradenhutten, on the Muskingum.
JOHN HECKELWELDER.
INDIAN HOSPITALITY.
I can give, says Colden, in his history of the five Indian Nations, two strong instances of the hospitality of the Mohawks, which fell under my own observation; and which will show, that they have the very same notion of hospitality which we find in the ancient poets. When I was last in the Mohawk’s country, the sachems told me that they had an Englishman among their people, a servant who had run away from his master in New York. I immediately told them they must deliver him up. ‘No,’ they answered, ‘we never serve any man so, who puts himself under our protection.’ On this I insisted on the injury they did thereby to his master: they allowed it might be an injury, and replied, ‘Though we will never deliver him up, we are willing to pay the value of the servant to the master.’ Another man made his escape from the jail in Albany, where he was in prison on an execution of debt: the Mohawks received him, and, as they protected him against the sheriff and officers they not only paid the debt for him, but gave him land over and above, sufficient for a good farm, whereon he lived when I was last there.
KINDNESS OF AN INDIAN HUSBAND.
There was a famine in the land, and a sick Indian woman expressed a great desire for a mess of Indian corn. Her husband having heard that a trader at Lower Sandusky had a little, set off on horseback for that place, one hundred miles distant, and returned with as much corn as filled the crown of his hat, for which he gave his horse in exchange, and came home on foot, bringing his saddle back with him.
INDIAN RECORDS.
At certain seasons the Indians meet to study the meaning, and renew their ideas of their strings and belts of wampum. On such occasions, they sit down around the place in which they are deposited, and taking out a string or belt, one after another, hand them to every person present; and in order that they may all comprehend its meaning, repeat the words pronounced on the delivery, in their whole connexion. By these means they are enabled to remember the promises reciprocally made; and, as they admit young boys who are related to the chiefs, they become early acquainted with all their national concerns; and thus the contents of their wampum documents are transmitted to their posterity. The following instance may serve to show how well this mode of communication answers the purpose of refreshing the memory:—A gentleman in Philadelphia, once gave an Indian a string of wampum, saying, ‘I am your friend, and will serve you to the utmost of my power.’ Forty years after, the Indian returned the string, adding, ‘Brother, you gave me this string of wampum, saying, I am your friend, and will serve you to the utmost of my power.’ ‘I am now aged, infirm, and poor; do now as you promised.’ The gentleman honourably redeemed his promise, and generously assisted the old Indian.