The pagan, though not so alive to the serene beauties of the Christian life, and not so attracted by the power, the promises, and the assurances of the Christian religion, as to evince the one, and embrace the other, or to make trial of the moral safeguards that its armoury supplies, would yet so honour, one would think, the persuasive Christian influences, operating around him and about him in so many benign and kindly ways, as to abandon many of the practices that savour of the superstition of a by-gone age. Though there has been a decline, if not a positive discontinuance, of his traditionary worship of idols; though his adoration of the sun, of certain of the birds of the air, and of the animal creation, is not now blindly followed, and the invocation of these, for the supposed assuring of success to various enterprises, is rarely put in effect, there is yet preserved a relic of his old traditions, in the designs with which he embellishes certain specimens of the handiwork, with which he oft vexes the public eye. (I must really, though, pay my tribute of admiration for the skilled workmanship many of these specimens disclose.) It is common for him, when at work upon the elaborate carving in wood that he practises, to engrave some hideous human figure, intended, obviously, to represent an idol. Does it not excite wonder with us that such refinements upon hideousness and repulsiveness could ever have provoked the worship or adoration of any one?
One almost insuperable difficulty that the missionary experiences in his attempts to instil religious principles into the Indian mind, is to get him to entertain the theory that the human race sprang originally from one pair. The pagan believes in the existence of a Supreme Being, though, his idea of that Being's benignity and consideration relates solely to an earthly oversight of him, and a concern for his daily wants. His conception of future bliss is almost wholly sensual, and wrapped up with the notion of an unrestrained indulgence of animal appetite, and a whole-souled abandonment to feasting and dancing. His supreme view of happiness is that he shall be, assigned happy hunting-grounds, which shall be stocked with innumerable game, and where, equipped in perfection for the chase, he shall ever be incited to its ceaseless pursuit.
Of course, such impressions, clogged and clouded as they are with earthliness, have been dispelled in the cases of those, who have opened their minds to the more desirable promises of the Gospel.
The Indian's expectation of attaining and enjoying a future state of bliss, which shall transcend his mundane experience, is often present to his mind. I remember once walking with rather measured gait along one of the roads of the Reserve, bearing about me, itmaybe, the idea of supreme reflection, when an Indian stopped me, and asked (though, as my eyes sought the ground at the time, I cannot conceive how his attributing to me thoughts of celestial concernment could have been suggested) if I were thinking of heaven. I should have been pleased to own to my mind's being occupied at the time with heavenly meditations, a confession not only worthy, if true, to have been indulged in, but one having in it possibly force for him, as helping, perhaps, to confirm the course of his thoughts in the only true and high and ennobling channel, which his question would suggest as being their frequent, if not their habitual, direction.
Truth, however, compelled me to admit the subserviency of my mind, at the moment, to earthly thought.
The pagan Indian celebrates what he calls dances, which frequently, if liquor can only be had, degenerate into mere drunken orgies. Here the war-whoop, with its direful music, greets the ear, carrying terror and dismay to the breasts of the uninitiated; and here the war-dance, with all the accessories of paint and feathers, gets free indulgence.
A mode of life will be suggested by the individual's estate and surroundings, and will, naturally, be accommodated to the exactions merely of the society in which he moves. With the Indian, poverty shapes his habits of life, and he bends to compulsion's decree in the matter. If we consider his hypothetical translation to a higher sphere, the Indian might develop and maintain a course of living which should not, in those altered circumstances, discredit him.
As our notions of early Indian life are so associated with the wigwam, a description of the manner and stages of its construction may be interesting. Poles, twelve or fourteen feet long, are placed in the ground, these meeting at the top, and leaving an opening through which the smoke may escape. Over the poles are placed nets, made of flags, or birch bark, and, sometimes, the skins of animals.
The Indian, in defining comfort, evidently does not mean soft beds and generous covering. His couch, as often as not, is the bare floor, without mattrass, or, indeed, aught that might be conceded to a weak impulse; and his coveringnil, as a rule, in summer, and a buffalo robe, or some kindred substitute, in winter. He adopts very frugal fare, doing high honour to maize, or Indian corn. Indeed, to the growth and cultivation of this order of grain he appropriates the greater part of his land.
In walking, the man usually goes before the woman, as he thinks it undignified to walk alongside. Nothing like social intercourse ever goes on between man and wife; and in their domestic experience they have no little pursuits in common, such as cheer and brighten life with us.
The hut (for, in the majority of cases, it is really little better) that, with excess of boldness, commingles its cramped, unpleasing outlines with the forest's wealth of foliage; and has reared its unshapely structure on the site of the historic wigwam, obliterating, in its ruthless, intrusive, advent, that lingering relic of the picturesque aspect of Indian life—a relic that, with its emblems and inner garniture of war, bids a scion of the race indulge a prideful retrospect of his sometime grandeur, and pristine might; that has power to invoke stirring recollections of a momentous and a thrilling past; to re-animate and summon before him the shadowy figures of his redoubtable sires, and re-enact their lofty deeds: in view of which, there is wafted to him a breath, laden with moving memories of that glorious age, when aught but pre-eminence was foreign to his soul; when, though a rude and savage, he was yet a lordly, being; when he owned the supremacy, brooked the dictation, of none; when his existence was a round of joysome light-heartedness, and he, a stranger to constraint—this habitation of the Indian, to my mind, emphasizes his melancholy, and, perhaps, inevitable decadence, rather than symbolizes his partnership with the white in the more palpable pursuits of a practical, enlightened, and energetic age, or co-activity with him on a theatre of enlarged and more vigorous action. It is in some respects more comfortless than even was his experience under his primitive style of living, and is usually composed of one room, answering all the purposes of life—eating-room, bed-room, reception-room, principally, however, for the snow and mud, which have been persuaded here to relax their hold, after antecedent demonstration of their adhering qualities.
The Indian very frequently has the crime of perjury alleged against him, though what is assumed to be perjury is usually demonstrated to have nothing whatever of that element in it.
These imputations come about in this way: If the Indian, about to give evidence, be declared to have a reasonable mastery of English, the Court, sometimes rather hastily, I think, dispenses with the interpreter, in order to save time. A question is put to a witness, who, though not understanding it sufficiently to appreciate its full import and bearing, yet protesting, in a self-sufficient spirit, that he does (for the Indian likes to have imputed to him extensive knowledge of English) returns an answer apart from the truth, and one which he really never intended to give, and becomes, through the interpreter, committed to it on the records.
Or, the allegation may arise after this fashion:—The interpreter, having to master several different languages, will almost insensibly, in the confusion of idioms, misinterpret what has been said. The outrageous prevalence of this supposed perjury would of itself point to an explanation of this kind, since, we cannot believe that the Indian wishes to canonize untruthfulness.
The Indian's musical taste is conceded on all hands. He is a proficient in the use of brass instruments, the Mohawk Brass Band always taking high rank at band competitions. He has usually fine vocal power, and is in great request as a chorister. He has a full repertory of plaintive airs, the singing of which he generally reserves for occasions, resembling much the "wakes" that obtain with Roman Catholics, where he watches over night the body of some departed member of the tribe.
As an artist in wood-carving, the Indian, I should say, stands almost without a rival. He will elaborate the most beautiful specimens in this kind of work; though he generally directs his skill to the embellishing of walking sticks and the like articles, which (their ornate appearance alone precluding their practical use) the white only buys with the view of preserving as ornaments. The Indian, therefore, would do well to allow his skill in this line to take a wider range, since, by so doing, he would not only bring about larger sales to enrich his not over-filled money-chest, but he would also extend his fame as an artist. The pencil, in the hand of the Indian, is often made to limn exquisite figures, and to trace delightful landscape-work. I am confident that he would, with appropriate training, cause his fame to be known in this line also. The Indian woman is a marvellous adept at bead-work, though her specimens disclose, usually, finer execution, than they do a tasteful or faultless associating of colours.
The New England Company, an English Corporation have established, and maintain, in addition to the Mohawk Institute, which is on unreserved lands, a large number of schools for the education of the Indian youth. It is a question whether these schools really secure the patronage that the philanthropic spirit of their founders hoped for. The shyness of the girls is so marked (a trait I have observed even among the adult women) as to lead to a small attendance, of this element, at least, where the teacher is a white young man—in truth, a very ultra-manifestation of the peculiarity.
The Mohawk Institute contemplates the receiving of pupils who have reached a certain standard of proficiency, their boarding, and their education. It is an institution the aim of which is truly a noble one, the throwing back upon the Reserve of educated young men and women, who shall be qualified to go about life's work, fortified with knowledge, to pave the way to success in any walk of life that may be chosen. The Mohawk Institute has secured, in the person of its principal and directing power, one who is imbued with the desire so to use its powerful agency as to compass the maximum of good among the Indians.
The missionary demands notice as he, above all others, has left his impress on the life and character of the Indian.
The Ven. Archdeacon Nelles may be regarded as the pioneer missionary to the Indian. His work covers half a century, and, though, for some years, he has not been an active worker amongst the Indians, a solicitude for their welfare still actuates him. His province has been rather that of general superintendence of the New England Company's servants, than one involving much active mingling with the Indians. The association of his name with that time-honoured and revered structure, the old Mohawk Church, is his, grandest testimonial to his fruitful labour on the Reserve.
The Rev. Adam Eliot, whose widow still lives in the old missionary home, was a man of a singularly gentle and lovable disposition. In his contact with the Indian, the influence, if haply any could be exerted, was certain to be on the side of the good. He was one who moved about the Reserve with the savor of a quiet and godly life ever cleaving to him, a life, radiating forth, as it were, to circle and embrace others in the folds of its benign influence. He was tender, and unaffected in his piety. His life and work have left their abiding mark on the Indian character.
The Rev. R. J. Roberts was the first missionary who was really a constant resident on the Reserve, and this circumstance, no doubt, assured in larger measure his usefulness. I believe him to have been filled strongly with the missionary spirit, and with ardent zeal for the furthering of his Master's cause. His poor health always handicapped him, but I feel confident he leaves behind him, in the kind memories of many of his charges, a monument of his work not to be despised.
The Rev. James Chance was one of the old English type of clergyman, cheery, genial, and whole-souled. Had he planned nothing higher than the infusing of some of his own geniality into the Indian nature; and, had his missionary work effected nothing greater than this, his would have been no unworthy part. As the spiritual husbandman, he strove so to break up the fallow ground, that the harvest of souls might be the more bountiful.
I have not referred to the later or present occupants of the mission-field amongst the Indians, as they were, or have been identified for so short a time with them. I would also say, that it is from no denial to them of the achieving of solid, lasting work, that I have not alluded to missionaries outside of the Episcopal body. I have merely made such allusions here as personal contact with the missionaries has enabled me to record.
It may be thought that any work which contemplates the chronicling of the Indian's history, will be incomplete, which should fail to trace the career of Thayandanagea, or Chief Joseph Brant; or which should, at least, withhold reference to that mighty chieftain. Lest my making no mention of Brant here might be taken as denying to him the possession of those sublime qualities, which have formed the theme for so much of laudatory writing, I make a passing allusion to his life, passing, because his acts and career have engaged the ability and eloquence of so many writers of repute for their due commemoration, that I cannot hope to say anything that should cause further honour or glory to attach to his name.
Brant, above all others of his race, deserves an abiding place in the memories of his countrymen, and he is entitled to be held in enduring remembrance by us also.
In the war waged by Britain against the United States in 1812-15, he allied himself, it is well known, with the British. He bridled license and excess among his people, and strove to add lustre to the British arms, by dissuading them from giving rein to any of those practices, nay, by putting his stern interdict on all those practices, into which Indian tribes are so prone to be betrayed, and to which they are frequently incited by merciless chiefs. He posed, indeed, during the war as the apostle of clemency, not as the upholder of the traditional cruelty of the Indian.
He always displayed conspicuous bravery, and was the exponent, in his own person, of that intense and unflinching loyalty, which I verily believe to be bound up with the life of every Indian.
His loyalty was untainted with the slightest suspicion of treachery, another vile characteristic from which he redeemed the Indian nature.
The position of Brant and of Sir Walter Scott, so far as each has left living descendant to uphold his name, is almost analogous, and marks a rather interesting coincidence. The male line in both families is extinct. Sir Walter's blood runs now only in the daughter of his grand-daughter: two daughters alone of a grand-daughter are living, who own the blood of Brant.
Brant is buried in the graveyard of the old Mohawk Church, a building instinct with memories of the departed might and prowess of the Indian.
Is it a wise or a politic thing in the Government to seek to brand the Indian, in perpetuity, as a minor in the eye of the law? Repressing in him anything like self-assertion, is not, to hold him such, fatal to his self-respect? Does it not make him doubt his manhood entirely? Does it really, save in the single respect of the restraining of his drinking, conserve his true interests?
Is that a judicious law, which, while decreeing the Indian's disability for making a contract with a white man, yet visits upon him no penalty when he evades and contemns such law; which, guaranteeing to him immunity for violating or dishonouring his engagement, prompts him to cast about for some new and, haply, more admired expedient, whereby he may circumvent and defraud his creditor? Is that an enviable position for one to be placed in, who, ignorant of the disability I have mentioned, and guileless enough to suppose, that an Indian, who has fair worldly substance, when he gives a promissory note, means to pay it, and who, in that belief, surrenders to him valuable property, only to find afterwards that the debt is irrecoverable by legal process, and the chattels are likewise, by moral, or any other effectual, process?
It will be said that the white should not be a party to a contract with an Indian. Well, man is often trustful, and he does not always foresee the disaster that his trustfulness shall incur. He frequently credits his white fellow with an honourable instinct: why may he not, sometimes, impute it to the Indian?
The law, so far as it involves the restraining of the Indian's drinking, cannot be impeached: and in the application to the white of a similar law lies the only solution of the temperance problem.
We cannot estimate the transforming power that his enfranchisement might exert over the Indian character.
The Indian youth, who is now either a listless wanderer over the confines of his Reserve; or who finds his highest occupation in putting in, now and then, desultory work for some neighbouring farmer at harvest-time; who looks even upon elementary education as useless, and as something to be gone through, perforce, as a concession to his parents' wish, or at those parents' bid, would, if enfranchisement were assured to him, esteem it in its true light, as the first step to a higher training, which should qualify him for enjoying offices or taking up callings, from which he is now debarred, and in which, mayhap, he might achieve a degree of honour and success which should operate, in an incalculable way, as a stimulus to others of his race, to strive after and attain the like station and dignity.
There can, I think, be no gainsaying of the view that the Indian, if he were enfranchised, would avail much more generally than he does now, of the excellent educational facilities which surround him. The very consciousness, which would then be at work within him, of his eligibility for filling any office of honour in the country, which enfranchisement would confer, would minister to a worthy ambition, and would spur him on to develop his powers of mind, and, viewing education as the one grand mean for subserving this end, he would so use it and honour it, as that he should not discredit his office, if, haply, he should be chosen to fill one.
The present Indian legislation, in my judgment, operates in every way to blight, to grind, and to oppress; blasts each roseate hope of an ameliorated, a less abject, estate: quenches each swelling aspiration after a higher and more tolerable destiny; withers each ennobling aim, cancels each creditable effort that would assure its eventuation; opposes each soul-stirring resolve to no longer rest under the galling, gangrenous imputation of a partial manhood.
Though not authorised to speak for the Indian, I believe I express his views, when I say that he cherishes an ardent wish for enfranchisement, a right which should be conceded to him by the Legislature, though it should be urged only by the silent, though not, therefore, the less weighty and potent, appeal, of the unswerving devotion of his forefathers to England's crown.
He desires, nay, fervently longs, to break free from his condition of tutelage; to bring to the general Government the aid of his counsels, feeble though such may seem, if we measure him by his present status; aid, which, erstwhile, was not despised, but was, rather, a mighty bulwark of the British crown; and pants for the occasion to assert, it may be on the honour-scroll of the nation's fame, his descent from a vaunted ancestry.
It will be said, perhaps, that to harbor the idea of the Indian's elevation, following, in any way, upon his closer assimilation with the white; his divestiture of the badge of political serfdom, and deliverance from even the suggestion of thraldom—all of which his enfranchisement contemplates; or that these would assure, in greater degree, his national weal, would be to indulge a wild chimera, which could but superinduce the purest visionary picture of his condition under the operation of the gift. Some might be found, as well, to discredit the notion that there would supervene, on the consigning to the limbo of inutile political systems of the disabling regime that now governs, an epoch, which would witness the shaking off, by the heavy, phlegmatic red man of the present, of his dull lethargy, with the casting behind him of former inaction and unproductiveness; and his being moved to assert a healthy, genuine, wholesome activity, to be directed to lofty or soulful purpose, or expressed in high and honourable endeavour. And it might be set down as a reasoning from the standpoint of an illusory optimism, to look for, through any change in the Indian's political condition, the incoming of an age, which should be distinguished by a hopeful and helpful accession to his character of honesty, uprightness, and self-respect, or by their conservation; or which should be the natal time for the benign rule over him of contentment, charity, and sobriety, or for the dominance of a seemly morality. That, likewise, might be deemed idle expectancy, which would foresee, as a result of the changed order of things, now being prospectively considered, a season in the Indian's experience, when should be illustrated the greater sacredness of the marriage relation, and the happy prevalence of full domestic inter-communion, harmony, and order; or should be honored a more gracious definition of the woman's province, with the license to her to embrace a kindlier lot than one decreeing for her mere slavish labour; or project a mission, to see its fruit in the softening and refining, and in the reviving of the slumbrous chivalry, of the man, or to leave, mayhap, some beauteous impress on the race.
It may be maintained, indeed, that the withdrawal from the Indian of the Government's protecting arm, and the recognition of his position, as no longer that of a needy, grovelling annuitant, but as one of equal footing with the white before the law, would—far from bringing blessings in their train—promote, with other evils, a pernicious development, with calamitous reaction upon him, of the aggrandizing instinct of the white, who would lure and entrap him into every kind of disastrous negotiation—its outcome, in truth, a very maelstrom of artful intrigue and shameless rapacity, looking to the absorption of the Indian's land, and of the few worldly possessions he now has. Nay, many would foresee for the Indian, through the consummation of his enfranchisement, naught but gloom and sorest plight. These would invest their picture with the sombrest hues; and, making this assume, under their pessimist delineation, blackest Tartarean aspect, would crown it with the exhibition of the Indian, as one sunken, at the instance of the white, in extremest depths of human sorrow; as plunged, engulphed, and detained in a horrible slough of degradation and misery. Such would, in short, have an era opened up, which should mark, at once, the exaltation of the white to a revolting height of infamy, proclaiming the high carnival of unblushing trickery and chicane; and should signalize the whelming of the Indian in the noxious flood of the high-handed, unrighteous, and unprincipled practice of the white, who would project for him, and through whose unholy machinations he would be consigned to, a state of existence which should be the hideous climax of physical and moral debasement.
Now I contend that the claim to ascendancy of the Indian over the white, in respect of sagacity and cunning and craft, which this condition of things presupposes, is not satisfactorily made out. And I can readily conceive of the application of that astuteness, that distinguishes the Indian in his present trading relations with the white, to the wider field for its display, which would arise from the extended intercourse and more frequent contact with the white, that would ensue upon the Indian's enfranchisement; and of this astuteness operating as his efficient shield against evil hap or worsting by the white in any coping of the kind with him.
I do not deny, however, that there might be realization, in part, of such painful spectacle, as has just been imagined, were enfranchisement,pure and simple,conferred upon the Indian; and I would distinctly demur to being taken as an advocate of enfranchisement for him without certain safeguards. Yet I honor a somewhat wide use of the term, and discredit the system of individual election for the right (if I may so call it)—which, I believe, obtains—with its vexatious exactions as to mental and moral fitness, and the very objectionable feature, to my mind, of laying upon the band, as a collective organization, the obligation of assigning to the individual member seeking enfranchisement so much land, thus imposing upon it, in effect, the onus of conferring the land qualification. Let its consummation be approached gradually, and with caution; and let a modified form of it, designed to meet the Indian's peculiar situation, be recognized and enforced. Let the enfranchisement be made a tentative thing; and let there be a provision for the divestiture of the Indian of the right, in case disaster to him should supervene upon its application.
I have spoken elsewhere of thefactof the Indian's enfranchisement prompting him, in view of the prospect of occupying various stations of dignity in the country, which, through the extension to him of the franchise, would be thrown open to him, to set a greater value upon education, as qualifying him for enjoying and filling with credit these stations. Perhaps, it would be the stricter view, and more apropos, to regard the Indian's more thorough education as that which would lead him to more readily perceive and better appreciate the full import and. significance of enfranchisement; which would bring home to his mind a clear apprehension of the duties and obligations it exacts, and enable him, as well, to exercise the rights thereto pertaining with a wiser foresight and greater intelligence.
Let a higher order of mental attainment than he now displays be insured, by all means, and if possible, to the Indian; and, to this end, let the authorities concerned invite, through the inducement of something better than a mere bread-and-butter salary, the accession to the Reserve of teachers, no one of whom it shall be possible for an Indian youth of tender years to outstrip in knowledge; or shall be reduced to parrying, as best as he can, the questionings of a pupil on points bearing upon merely elementary education.
I would mention a prospective result of the Indian's enfranchisement, which would suggest, forcibly, the desirability of, and the need for his anticipatory instruction in the English language. He, unlike the German or Frenchman, has never been able to maintain, indeed, has never had, a literature; and I can scarcely conceive of histongueeven surviving the more general mingling with the white, which would be the certain concomitant of enfranchisement, which, indeed, with its other subverting tendencies, would seem to me to ordain its utter effacement.