The Iroquois Book of Rites by Horatio Hale

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The name by which their constitution or organic law is known among them
is _kayanerenh_, to which the epitaph _kowa_, "great," is
frequently added. This word, _kayanerenh_, is sometimes rendered
"law," or "league," but its proper meaning seems to be "peace." It is
used in this sense by the missionaries, in their translations of the
scriptures and the prayer-book. In such expressions as the "Prince of
Peace," "the author of peace," "give peace in our time," we find
_kayanerenh_ employed with this meaning. Its root is _yaner_,
signifying "noble," or "excellent," which yields, among many
derivatives, _kayanere_, "goodness," and _kayanerenh_,
"peace," or "peacefulness." The national hymn of the confederacy, sung
whenever their "Condoling Council" meets, commences with a verse
referring to their league, which is literally rendered, "We come to
greet and thank the PEACE" (_kayanerenh_). When the list of their
ancient chiefs, the fifty original councillors, is chanted in the
closing litany of the meeting, there is heard from time to time, as the
leaders of each clan are named, an outburst of praise, in the words--

"This was the roll of you--
You that combined in the work,
You that completed the work,
The GREAT PEACE." (_Kayanerenh-kowa_.)

The regard of Englishmen for their Magna Charta and Bill of Rights, and
that of Americans for their national Constitution, seem weak in
comparison with the intense gratitude and reverence of the Five Nations
for the "Great Peace," which Hiawatha and his colleagues established for
them. Of the subsequent life of Hiawatha, and of his death, we have no
sure information. The records of the Iroquois are historical, and not
biographical. As Hiawatha had been made a chief among the Caniengas, he
doubtless continued to reside with that nation. A tradition, which is in
itself highly probable, represents him as devoting himself to the
congenial work of clearing away the obstructions in the streams which
intersect the country then inhabited by the confederated nations, and
which formed the chief means of communication between them. That he
thus, in some measure, anticipated the plans of De Witt Clinton and his
associates, on a smaller scale, but perhaps with a larger statesmanship,
we may be willing enough to believe. A wild legend recorded by some
writers, but not told of him by the Canadian Iroquois, and apparently
belonging to their ancient mythology, gives him an apotheosis, and makes
him ascend to heaven in a white canoe. It may be proper to dwell for a
moment on the singular complication of mistakes which has converted this
Indian reformer and statesman into a mythological personage.

When by the events of the Revolutionary war the original confederacy was
broken up, the larger portion of the people followed Brant to
Canada. The refugees comprised nearly the whole of the Caniengas, and
the greater part of the Onondagas and Cayugas, with many members of the
other nations. In Canada their first proceeding was to reestablish, as
far as possible, their ancient league, with all its laws and
ceremonies. The Onondagas had brought with them most of their wampum
records, and the Caniengas jealously preserved the memories of the
federation, in whose formation they had borne a leading part. The
history of the league continued to be the topic of their orators
whenever a new chief was installed into office. Thus the remembrance of
the facts has been preserved among them with much clearness and
precision, and with little admixture of mythological elements. With the
fragments of the tribes which remained on the southern side of the Great
Lakes the case was very different. A feeble pretense was made, for a
time, of keeping up the semblance of the old confederacy; but except
among the Senecas, who, of all the Five Nations, had had least to do
with the formation of the league, the ancient families which had
furnished the members of their senate, and were the conservators of
their history, had mostly fled to Canada or the West. The result was
that among the interminable stories with which the common people beguile
their winter nights, the traditions of Atotarho and Hiawatha became
intermingled with the legends of their mythology. An accidental
similarity, in the Onondaga dialect, between the name of Hiawatha and
that of one of their ancient divinities, led to a confusion between the
two, which has misled some investigators. This deity bears, in the
sonorous Canienga tongue, the name of Taronhiawagon, meaning "the Holder
of the Heavens." The Jesuit missionaries style him "the great god of the
Iroquois." Among the Onondagas of the present day, the name is abridged
to Taonhiawagi, or Tahiawagi. The confusion between this name and that
of Hiawatha (which, in another form, is pronounced Tahionwatha) seems to
have begun more than a century ago; for Pyrteus, the Moravian
missionary, heard among the Iroquois (according to Heckewelder) that the
person who first proposed the league was an ancient Mohawk, named
Thannawege. Mr. J. V. H. Clarke, in his interesting History of Onondaga,
makes the name to have been originally Ta-oun-ya-wat-ha, and describes
the bearer as "the deity who presides over fisheries and
hunting-grounds." He came down from heaven in a white canoe, and after
sundry adventures, which remind one of the labors of Hercules, assumed
the name of Hiawatha (signifying, we are told, "a very wise man"), and
dwelt for a time as an ordinary mortal among men, occupied in works of
benevolence. Finally, after founding the confederacy and bestowing many
prudent counsels upon the people, he returned to the skies by the same
conveyance in which he had descended. This legend, or, rather, congeries
of intermingled legends, was communicated by Clark to Schoolcraft, when
the latter was compiling his "Notes on the Iroquois." Mr. Schoolcraft,
pleased with the poetical cast of the story, and the euphonious name,
made confusion worse confounded by transferring the hero to a distant
region and identifying him with Manabozho, a fantastic divinity of the
Ojibways. Schoolcraft's volume, which he chose to entitle "The Hiawatha
Legends," has not in it a single fact or fiction relating either to
Hiawatha himself or to the Iroquois deity Taronhiawagon. Wild Ojibway
stories concerning Manabozho and his comrades form the staple of its
contents. But it is to this collection that we owe the charming poem of
Longfellow; and thus, by an extraordinary fortune, a grave Iroquois
lawgiver of the fifteenth century has become, in modern literature, an
Ojibway demigod, son of the West Wind, and companion of the tricksy
Paupukkeewis, the boastful Iagoo, and the strong Kwasind. If a Chinese
traveler, during the middle ages, inquiring into the history and
religion of the western nations, had confounded King Alfred with King
Arthur, and both with Odin, he would not have made a more preposterous
confusion of names and characters than that which has hitherto disguised
the genuine personality of the great Onondaga reformer. [Footnote: This
subject is further discussed in the Appendix, Note D.]

About the main events of his history, and about his character and
purposes, there can be no reasonable doubt. We have the wampum belts
which he handled, and whose simple hieroglyphics preserve the memory of
the public acts in which he took part. We have, also, in the Iroquois
"Book of Rites," which in the present volume is given in its original
form, a still more clear and convincing testimony to the character both
of the legislator and of the people for whom his institutions were
designed. This book, sometimes called the "Book of the Condoling
Council," might properly enough be styled an Iroquois Veda. It comprises
the speeches, songs, and other ceremonies, which, from the earliest
period of the confederacy, have composed the proceedings of their
council when a deceased chief is lamented and his successor is installed
in office. The fundamental laws of the league, a list of their ancient
towns, and the names of the chiefs who constituted their first council,
chanted in a kind of litany, are also comprised in the collection. The
contents, after being preserved in memory, like the Vedas, for many
generations, were written down by desire of the chiefs, when their
language was first reduced to writing; and the book is therefore more
than a century old. Its language, archaic when written, is now partly
obsolete, and is fully understood by only a few of the oldest chiefs. It
is a genuine Indian composition, and must be accepted as disclosing the
true character of its authors. The result is remarkable enough. Instead
of a race of rude and ferocious warriors, we find in this book a kindly
and affectionate people, full of sympathy for their friends in distress,
considerate to their women, tender to their children, anxious for peace,
and imbued with a profound reverence for their constitution and its
authors. We become conscious of the fact that the aspect in which these
Indians have presented themselves to the outside world has been in a
large measure deceptive and factitious. The ferocity, craft and cruelty,
which have been deemed their leading traits, have been merely the
natural accompaniments of wars of self-preservation, and no more
indicated their genuine character than the war-paint, plume and tomahawk
of the warrior displayed the customary guise in which he appeared among
his own people. The cruelties of war, when war is a struggle for
national existence, are common to all races. The persistent desire for
peace, pursued for centuries in federal unions, and in alliances and
treaties with other nations, has been manifested by few as steadily as
by the countrymen of Hiawatha. The sentiment of universal brotherhood
which directed their policy has never been so fully developed in any
branch of the Aryan race, unless it may be found incorporated in the
religious quietism of Buddha and his followers.

CHAPTER III.

THE BOOK OF RITES.

For a proper appreciation of this peculiar composition, some further
particulars respecting its origin and character will be needed. During
my earlier visits to the Reserve of the Six Nations, near Brantford, I
had heard of an Indian book which was used at their "Condoling
Councils," the most important of their many public gatherings. But it
was not until the month of September, 1879, that I had an opportunity of
seeing the work. At that time two copies of the book were brought to me
by the official holders, two of the principal chiefs of the
confederacy. One of these was Chief John "Smoke" Johnson, who for many
years had held the high office of Speaker of the Great Council, though,
of late, yielding to age and infirmity, he has withdrawn from the public
performance of its duties. His second name is a rude rendering of his
truly poetical Indian appellation, Sakayen-gwaraton, or "Disappearing
Mist." It signifies properly, I was told, the haze which rises from the
ground in an autumn morning and vanishes as the day advances. His
English name, and, in part, his blood, Chief Johnson derives from no
less distinguished an ancestor than Sir William Johnson, who played so
notable a part in colonial history during the last century, and who
exercised, perhaps, a greater influence on the destiny of the Iroquois
than any other individual since the formation of their confederacy. To
him, indeed, may be ascribed the distinction, such as it is, of
destroying the work which Hiawatha and Dekanawidah had founded. But for
the influence over the Indians which he had acquired, and was able to
bequeath to others, it is probable that the Six Nations would have
remained neutral during the Revolutionary War, and the disruption of
their League would not have taken place. Yet there can be no doubt that
he was sincerely attached to them, and desired their good. Unfortunately
for them, they held, as was natural, only the second place in his
affections. He was, by adoption, an Iroquois chief, but his first
allegiance was due to his native country, to whose interests, both in
the war with France and in the separation which he foresaw between
England and her colonies, he did not hesitate to sacrifice the welfare
of his red brethren. Against his subtle arts and overmastering energy
the wisest of their statesmen, worthy successors of the great founders
of their constitution, strove in vain, on each occasion, to maintain
that neutrality which was evidently the true policy of their
people. [Footnote: For the confirmation of these statements see the
excellent biographies of Sir William Johnson and Joseph Brant, by
Wm. L. Stone, _passim_.]

Sakayengwaraton is not an elected chief, nor does he bear one of the
hereditary titles of the Great Council, in which he holds so
distinguished a station. Indeed, his office is one unknown to the
ancient constitution of the Kanonsionni. It is the creation of the
British Government, to which he owes, with the willing consent of his
own people, his rank and position in the Council. The Provincial
administrators saw the need of a native official who should be, like the
Speaker of the English House of Commons, the mouthpiece of the Council,
and the intermediary between it and the representative of the Crown. The
grandson of Sir William Johnson was known as a brave warrior, a capable
leader, and an eloquent speaker. In the war of 1812, at the early age of
twenty, he had succeeded an elder brother in the command of the Indian
contingent, and had led his dusky followers with so much skill and
intrepidity as to elicit high praise from the English commander. His
eloquence was noted, even among a race of orators. I can well believe
what I have heard of its effects, as even in his old age, when an
occasion has for a moment aroused his spirit, I have not known whether
most to admire the nobleness and force of his sentiments and reasoning,
or the grace and flowing ease with which he delivered the stately
periods of his sonorous language. He has been a worthy successor of the
distinguished statesmen, Garagontieh, Garangula, Decanasora, Canasatego,
Logan, and others, who in former years guided the destinies of his
people. He is considered to have a better knowledge of the traditions
and ancient usages of the Six Nations than any other member of the
tribes, and is the only man now living who can tell the meaning of every
word of the "Book of Rites."

The other chief to whom I have referred is the Onondaga Councillor who
is known to the whites as John Buck, but who bears in council the name
of Skanawati ("Beyond the River"), one of the fifty titular names which
have descended from the time of Hiawatha. He is the official keeper of
the "wampum records" of the confederacy, an important trust, which, to
his knowledge, has been in his family for at least four generations. His
rank, his character, and his eloquence make him now, virtually, the
Iroquois premier--an office which among the Six Nations, as among the
Athenians of old and the English of modern days, is both unknown to the
constitution and essential to its working. His knowledge of the legends
and customs of his people is only inferior to that of the more aged
Speaker of the Council.

The account which Chief J. S. Johnson gave me of the book may be briefly
told. The English missionaries reduced the Canienga language to writing
in the early part of the last century. The Jesuit fathers, indeed, had
learned and written the language--which they styled the Iroquois--fifty
years before; but it does not appear that they had instructed any of the
Indians in the art of writing it, as their successors in the Eastern
Province have since done. The English missionaries took pains to do
this. The liturgy of their church was printed in the Mohawk tongue, at
New York, as early as the year 1714. [Footnote: This date is given in
the preface to the Mohawk Prayer Book of 1787. This first version of the
liturgy was printed under the direction of the Rev. Wm. Andrews, the
missionary of the "New England Society."] By the middle of the century
there were many members of the tribe who could write in the well-devised
orthography of the missionaries--an orthography which anticipated in
most points the well known "Pickering alphabet," now generally' employed
in writing the Indian languages of North America. The chiefs of the
Great Council, at once conservative and quick to learn, saw the
advantages which would accrue from preserving, by this novel method, the
forms of their most important public duty--that of creating new
chiefs--and the traditions connected with their own body. They caused
the ceremonies, speeches and songs, which together made up the
proceedings of the Council when it met for the two purposes, always
combined, of condolence and induction, to be written down in the words
in which they had been preserved in memory for many generations. A
Canienga chief, named David, a friend of Brant, is said to have
accomplished the work. In Stone's Life of Sir William Johnson, mention
is made of a Mohawk chief, "David of Schoharie," who in May, 1757, led a
troop of Indians from his town to join the forces under Sir William, in
his expedition to Crown Point, to repel the French invaders. [Footnote:
_Life of Sir William Johnson_, Vol. II. p. 29] Brant appears to
have been in this expedition. [Footnote: Ibid., p. 174] It is highly
probable that in Chief David of Schoharie we have the compiler, or
rather the scribe, of this "Iroquois Veda."

The copy of this book which Chief J. S. Johnson possessed was made by
himself under the following circumstances: During the prevalence of the
Asiatic cholera, in 1832, the tribes on the Reserve suffered
severely. Chief Johnson, then a young man and not yet a leader in the
Great Council, was active in attending on the sick. He was called to
visit an aged chief, who was not expected to live. The old chief
informed him that he had this book in his possession, and advised him,
as he was one of the few who could write the language, to make a copy of
it, lest by any accident the original should be lost. Johnson followed
this advice, and copied the book on loose sheets of paper, from which he
afterwards transcribed it into a small unbound book, resembling a
schoolboy's copy-book. He states that the original book contained,
besides the ceremonies of the Condoling Council, an addition by a later
hand, comprising some account of the more recent history of the Six
Nations, and particularly of their removal from New York to Canada. This
portion of it he unfortunately omitted to copy, and shortly afterwards
the book itself was destroyed, when the house of the old chief was
accidentally burned.

The other copy which I transcribed was held by Chief John Buck, in his
official capacity of record-keeper. It is written in a somewhat
different orthography. The syllables are separated, as in the usual
style of Indian hymnbooks, and some of the words, particularly the
proper names, show by their forms that the person who copied the book
was an Onondaga. The copy was evidently not made from that of Chief
Johnson, as it supplies some omissions in that copy. On the other hand,
it omits some matters, and, in particular, nearly all the adjurations
and descriptive epithets which form the closing litany accompanying the
list of hereditary councillors. The copy appears, from a memorandum
written in it, to have been made by one "John Green," who, it seems, was
formerly a pupil of the Mohawk Institute at Brantford. It bears the
date of November, 1874. I could not learn where he found his original.

The translation has been made from the dictation of Chief J. S. Johnson,
who explained the meaning of the archaic words in the modern Canienga
speech. This was interpreted in English by his son, Chief George
H. M. Johnson, and afterwards more fully elucidated by my esteemed
friend, the Rev. Isaac Bearfoot, who kindly came from his parish, at
Point Edward (near Sarnia), to the Reserve, to assist me in this
work. Mr. Bearfoot is an Onondaga by birth, but a Canienga by adoption,
and has a thorough knowledge of the Canienga language. He prepared the
revised edition of the hymnbook in that language, which is now used on
the Reserve. He is a good English scholar, and, having been educated in
Toronto for the ministry, has filled for some years, with much
acceptance, the office of pastor to a white congregation of the Church
of England. I am greatly indebted to him for his judicious assistance,
and, finally, for a complete revision of the entire version of the
Canienga portion of the book.

To my friend Chief George Johnson I am under still greater
obligations. Mr. Johnson, as has been stated, is the son of Chief
J. S. Johnson, and is himself a high chief of the Canienga nation. He
bears in the Great Council the name of Teyonhehkwen (otherwise spelt
Deyonheghgonh), meaning "Double Life," one of the titular names which
were borne by the companions of Hiawatha and Atotarho in the first
council. He succeeded in this title, according to the rules of the
confederacy, his maternal uncle, on the nomination of his mother, as the
chief matron of the family. Mr. Johnson is an educated gentleman. In
early life he was a pupil of the English missionaries. He now holds the
position of Government Interpreter for the Six Nations, and is, in fact,
the chief executive officer of the Canadian government on the
Reserve. His duties have several times brought him into collision with
the white ruffians who formerly infested the Reserve, and from whom he
has on two occasions suffered severe injuries, endangering his life. His
courage and firmness, however, have been finally successful in subduing
this mischief, and the Reserve is now as secure and as free from
disorder as any part of Canada. To Chief, George Johnson's assistance
and encouragement I owe most of the information contained in these
pages, and I am glad to have an opportunity of paying him this tribute
of respect and gratitude.

The second or supplementary part of the Book, which is in the Onondaga
dialect, was found on the, small Reservation in the State of New York,
near Syracuse, where a feeble remnant of the great Onondaga nation still
cling to the home of their forefathers. In October, 1875, during my
first visit to Onondaga Castle, as this Reservation is called, I
obtained from the intelligent interpreter, Daniel La Fort--a son of the
distinguished chief Abram La Fort (Dehatkatons), who is commemorated in
Clark's "Onondaga"--a list of the original councillors in the Onondaga
dialect, and also a copy, in the same dialect, of the "Condoling Song,"
which I had heard sung on the Canadian Reserve, and which I afterwards
found in the Canienga Book of Rites. He read them to me from a small
manuscript book, in which, as I then supposed, he had noted them for his
own convenience. When I afterwards discovered the Canienga book, it
occurred to me that I might have been mistaken on this point, and that
the manuscript from which he read was possibly a copy of the Book of
Rites in the Onondaga dialect. To clear up this point, I again visited
Onondaga Castle, in September, 1880. I then found, to my great
gratification, that his book was not a copy, but a valuable addition, or
rather an essential complement, to the Canienga book. The last-named
book comprises the speeches which are addressed by the representatives
of the three elder nations to the younger members of the League,
whenever a chief who belonged to the latter is lamented. The Onondaga
book, on the other hand, gives us the exhortations which are addressed
by the younger nations to the elder when a chief of the latter is
mourned. The circumstance to which it owes its preservation on the
Onondaga Reserve is easily explained. Of late years, since the
chieftainships among the New York Senecas and Tuscaroras have been made
purely elective offices, the only body of Indians in that State among
whom the original system of mingled descent and appointment has been
retained is the remnant of the intensely conservative Onondagas. Among
these, in spite of missionary efforts continued for two centuries,
paganism still lingers, and chiefs are still "raised up" as nearly as
possible after the ancient fashion. When a chief dies, the members of
his family or clan select another, who is presented to the national
council for induction. The ceremonies of condolence, with which the
proceedings commence, are modeled after the primitive form. As the
Onondagas were one of the elder nations, the addresses of condolence
must proceed from a younger brother. Fortunately for this purpose, a few
Oneidas reside on the Reserve, among whom is a single chief, by name
Abram Hill. To him is committed the duty of representing the "younger
brothers" on this occasion, and with it the charge of the wampum
strings, which are produced occasionally as the ceremony proceeds, each
string representing one section or topic of the condoling address.

La Fort said that he had copied his book from a manuscript in his
father's handwriting. This manuscript, unfortunately, was lost, and he
could not say whether his rather had first written it down from memory,
or had merely transcribed it from an earlier composition. However this
may have been, the substance of the composition undoubtedly dates from a
period preceding the disruption of the confederacy. The language,
indeed, so far as can be judged from the very irregular orthography, is
modern. If, as there is reason to suppose, the composition is ancient,
it has evidently undergone a "revision" at the hands of the later
copyists. In former times, as we know from the Jesuit vocabularies, the
sound of _r_ existed in the Onondaga dialect. Since their day this
sound has disappeared from it entirely. In La Fort's manuscript the
letter frequently occurred, but always, as his pronunciation showed,
either as a diacritical sign following the vowel _a_, to give to
that vowel the sound of _a_ in "far," or else as representing
itself this vowel sound. Thus the syllable which should properly be
written _sa_ was written by La Fort either _sar_ or _sr_.
But, though the language is modern, the speeches themselves, as I am
assured by Chief John Buck, are precisely those which are still in use
among his people in Canada, and which are believed to have been
preserved in memory from the days of their forefathers. [Footnote: The
disappearance of a vocal element from a language is a phenomenon with
which etymologists are familiar. The loss of the Greek digamma is a
well-known instance. The harsh guttural, resembling the German ch.
which formerly existed in the English language, has vanished from it,
leaving its traces in the uncouth orthography of such words as
_plough_, _high_, _though_, and the like. Within the past
three centuries the sound of _I_ has been lost from many words,
such as _walk_, _talk_, _balm_ and _calm_. The sound
of _r_ is disappearing from a large portion of the language. In
ordinary speech, _arm_ rhymes with _calm_, _morning_ with
_fanning_, _higher_ with _Sophia_. Modern French, as is
well known, has attained its present euphony through the disappearance
of consonantal elements from many words in which they formerly existed.]

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