Historical Traditions

Historical Traditions88. FIRST CONTACT WITH WHITESThere are a few stories concerning the first contact of the Cherokee with whites and negroes. They are very modern and have little value as myths, but throw some light upon the Indian estimate of the different races.One story relates how the first whites came from the east and tried to enter into friendly relations, but the Indians would have nothing to do with them for a long time. At last the whites left a jug of whisky and a dipper near a spring frequented by the Indians. The Indians came along, tasted the liquor, which they had never known before, and liked it so well that they ended by all getting comfortably drunk. While they were in this happy frame of mind some white men came up, and this time the Indians shook hands with them and they have been friends after a fashion ever since. This may possibly be a Cherokee adaptation of the story of Hudson’s first landing on the island of Manhattan.At the creation an ulûñsû′tĭ was given to the white man, and a piece of silver to the Indian. But the white man despised the stone and threw it away, while the Indian did the same with the silver. In going about the white man afterward found the silver piece and put itinto his pocket and has prized it ever since. The Indian, in like manner, found the ulûñsû′tĭ where the white man had thrown it. He picked it up and has kept it since as his talisman, as money is the talismanic power of the white man. This story is quite general and is probably older than others of its class.When Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was trying to introduce it among his people, about 1822, some of them opposed it upon the ground that Indians had no business with reading. They said that when the Indian and the white man were created, the Indian, being the elder, was given a book, while the white man received a bow and arrows. Each was instructed to take good care of his gift and make the best use of it, but the Indian was so neglectful of his book that the white man soon stole it from him, leaving the bow in its place, so that books and reading now belong of right to the white man, while the Indian ought to be satisfied to hunt for a living.—Cherokee Advocate, October 26, 1844.The negro made the first locomotive for a toy and put it on a wooden track and was having great fun with it when a white man came along, watched until he saw how to run it, and then killed the negro and took the locomotive for himself. This, also, although plainly of very recent origin, was heard from several informants.89. THE IROQUOIS WARSLong wars were waged between the Cherokee and their remote northern relatives, the Iroquois, with both of whom the recollection, now nearly faded, was a vivid tradition fifty years ago. The (Seneca) Iroquois know the Cherokee as Oyadaʼgeʻoñnoñ, a name rather freely rendered “cave people.” The latter call the Iroquois, or rather their largest and most aggressive tribe, the Seneca, Nûndăwe′gĭ, Ani′-Nûn-dăwe′gĭ, or Ani′-Sĕ′nikă, the first forms being derived from Nûndawa′ga or Nûndawa′-ono, “people of the great hills,” the name by which the Seneca know themselves. According to authorities quoted by Schoolcraft, the Seneca claim to have at one time had a settlement, from which they were afterward driven, at Seneca, South Carolina, known in history as one of the principal towns of the Lower Cherokee.The league of the Iroquois was probably founded about the middle of the sixteenth century. Before 1680 they had conquered or exterminated all the tribes upon their immediate borders and had turned their arms against the more distant Illinois, Catawba, and Cherokee. According to Iroquois tradition, the Cherokee were the aggressors, having attacked and plundered a Seneca hunting party somewhere in the west, while in another story they are represented as having violated a peace treaty by the murder of the Iroquois delegates.Whatever the cause, the war was taken up by all the tribes of the league.From the Iroquois country to the Cherokee frontier was considered a five days’ journey for a rapidly traveling war party. As the distance was too great for large expeditions, the war consisted chiefly of a series of individual exploits, a single Cherokee often going hundreds of miles to strike a blow, which was sure to be promptly retaliated by the warriors from the north, the great object of every Iroquois boy being to go against the Cherokee as soon as he was old enough to take the war path. Captives were made on both sides, and probably in about equal numbers, the two parties being too evenly matched for either to gain any permanent advantage, and a compromise was finally made by which the Tennessee river came to be regarded as the boundary between their rival claims, all south of that stream being claimed by the Cherokee, and being acknowledged by the Iroquois, as the limit of their own conquests in that direction. This Indian boundary was recognized by the British government up to the time of the Revolution.Morgan states that a curious agreement was once made between the two tribes, by which this river was also made the limit of pursuit. If a returning war party of the Cherokee could recross the Tennessee before they were overtaken by the pursuing Iroquois they were as safe from attack as though entrenched behind a stockade. The pursuers, if they chose, might still invade the territory of the enemy, but they passed by the camp of the retreating Cherokee without offering to attack them. A similar agreement existed for a time between the Seneca and the Erie.The Buffalo dance of the Iroquois is traditionally said to have had its origin in an expedition against the Cherokee. When the warriors on their way to the south reached the Kentucky salt lick they found there a herd of buffalo, and heard them, for the first time, “singing their favorite songs,” i. e., bellowing and snorting. From the bellowing and the movements of the animals were derived the music and action of the dance.According to Cherokee tradition, as given by the chief Stand Watie, the war was finally brought to an end by the Iroquois, who sent a delegation to the Cherokee to propose a general alliance of the southern and western tribes. The Cherokee accepted the proposition, and in turn sent out invitations to the other tribes, all of which entered into the peace excepting the Osage, of whom it was therefore said that they should be henceforth like a wild fruit on the prairie, at which every bird should pick, and so the Osage have remained ever a predatory tribe without friends or allies. This may be the same treaty described in the story of “The Seneca Peacemakers.” A formal and final peace between the two tribes was arranged through the efforts of the British agent, Sir William Johnson, in 1768.In 1847 there were still living among the Seneca the grandchildren of Cherokee captives taken in these wars. In 1794 the Seneca pointed out to Colonel Pickering a chief who was a native Cherokee, having been taken when a boy and adopted among the Seneca, who afterward made him chief. This was probably the same man of whom they told Schoolcraft fifty years later. He was a full-blood Cherokee, but had been captured when too young to have any memory of the event. Years afterward, when he had grown to manhood and had become a chief in the tribe, he learned of his foreign origin, and was filled at once with an overpowering longing to go back to the south to find his people and live and die among them. He journeyed to the Cherokee country, but on arriving there found to his great disappointment that the story of his capture had been forgotten in the tribe, and that his relatives, if any were left, failed to recognize him. Being unable to find his kindred, he made only a short visit and returned again to the Seneca.From James Wafford, of Indian Territory, the author obtained a detailed account of the Iroquois peace embassy referred to by Stand Watie, and of the wampum belt that accompanied it. Wafford’s information concerning the proceedings at Echota was obtained directly from two eyewitnesses—Sequoya, the inventor of the alphabet, and Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who afterward explained the belt at the great council near Tahlequah seventy years later. Sequoya, at the time of the Echota conference, was a boy living with his mother at Taskigi town a few miles away, while Gatûñ′waʻlĭ was already a young man.The treaty of peace between the Cherokee and Iroquois, made at Johnson Hall in New York in 1768, appears from the record to have been brought about by the Cherokee, who sent for the purpose a delegation of chiefs, headed by Âgănstâ′ta, “Groundhog-sausage,” of Echota, their great leader in the war of 1760–61 against the English. After the treaty had been concluded the Cherokee delegates invited some of the Iroquois chiefs to go home with them for a visit, but the latter declined on the ground that it was not yet safe, and in fact some of their warriors were at that very time out against the Cherokee, not yet being aware of the peace negotiations. It is probable, therefore, that the Iroquois delegates did not arrive at Echota until some considerable time, perhaps three years, after the formal preliminaries had been concluded in the north.According to Sequoya’s account, as given to Wafford, there had been a long war between the Cherokee and the northern Indians, who were never able to conquer the Cherokee or break their spirit, until at last the Iroquois were tired of fighting and sent a delegation to make peace. The messengers set out for the south with their wampum belts and peace emblems, but lost their way after passing Tennesseeriver, perhaps from the necessity of avoiding the main trail, and instead of arriving at Itsâ′tĭ or Echota, the ancient peace town and capital of the Cherokee Nation—situated on Little Tennessee river below Citico creek, in the present Monroe county, Tennessee—they found themselves on the outskirts of Tă′likwă′ or Tellico, on Tellico river, some 10 or 15 miles to the southward.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.“The Onondagas retain the custody of the wampums of the Five Nations, and the keeper of the wampums, Thomas Webster, of the Snipe tribe, a consistent, thorough pagan, is their interpreter. Notwithstanding the claims made that the wampums can be read as a governing code of law, it is evident that they are simply monumental reminders of preserved traditions, without any literal details whatever. “The first [of this] group from left to right, represents a convention of the Six Nations at the adoption of the Tuscaroras into the league; the second, the Five Nations, upon seven strands, illustrates a treaty with seven Canadian tribes before the year 1600; the third signifies the guarded approach of strangers to the councils of the Five Nations (a guarded gate, with a long, white path leading to the inner gate, where the Five Nations are grouped, with the Onondagas in the center and a safe council house behind all); the fourth represents a treaty when but four of the Six Nations were represented, and the fifth embodies the pledge of seven Canadian christianized nations to abandon their crooked ways and keep an honest peace (having a cross for each tribe, and with a zigzag line below, to indicate that their ways had been crooked but would ever after be as sacred as the cross). Above this group is another, claiming to bear date about 1608, when Champlain joined the Algonquins against the Iroquois.”—Carrington, in Six Nations of New York, Extra Bulletin, Eleventh Census, pp. 33–34, 1892.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.3Concealing themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened thechief and his family were at work in their cornfield, and his daughter had just gone up to the house for some reason when the Iroquois entered and asked for something to eat. Seeing that he was a stranger, she set out food for him according to the old custom of hospitality. While he was eating her father, the chief, came in to see what was delaying her, and was surprised to find there one of the hereditary enemies of his tribe. By this time the word had gone out that an Iroquois was in the chief’s house, and the men of the town had left their work and seized their guns to kill him, but the chief heard them coming and standing in the doorway kept them off, saying: “This man has come here on a peace mission, and before you kill him you must first kill me.” They finally listened to him, and allowed the messenger to go out and bring his companions to the chief’s house, where they were all taken care of.When they were well rested after their long journey the chief of Tă′likwă himself went with them to Itsâ′tĭ, the capital, where lived the great chief Âgănstâ′ta, who was now the civil ruler of the Nation. The chiefs of the various towns were summoned and a council was held, at which the speaker for the Iroquois delegation delivered his message and produced the wampum belts and pipes, which they brought as proofs of their mission and had carried all the way in packs upon their backs.He said that for three years his people had been wanting to make peace. There was a spring of dark, cloudy water in their country, and they had covered it over for one year and then looked, but the water was still cloudy. Again they had covered it over, but when they looked at the end of another year it was still dark and troubled. For another year they had covered the spring, and this time when they looked the water was clear and sparkling. Then they knew the time had come, and they left home with their wampum belts to make peace with their enemies.The friendly message was accepted by the Cherokee, and the belts and other symbolic peace tokens were delivered over to their keeping. Other belts in turn were probably given to the Iroquois, and after the usual round of feasting and dancing the messengers returned to their people in the north and the long war was at an end.For nearly a century these symbolic records of the peace with the Iroquois were preserved by the Cherokee, and were carried with them to the western territory when the tribe was finally driven from its old home in 1838. They were then in the keeping of John Ross, principal chief at the time of the removal, and were solemnly produced at a great intertribal council held near Tahlequah, in the Indian Territory, in June, 1843, when they were interpreted by the Cherokee speaker, Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who had seen them delivered to the chiefs of his tribe at old Itsâ′tĭ seventy years before. Wafford was present on this occasion and describes it.Holding the belts over his arm while speaking, Hard-mush told of the original treaty with the Iroquois, and explained the meaning of each belt in turn. According to the best of Wafford’s recollection, there was one large belt, to which the smaller belts were fitted. The beads did not seem to be of shell, and may have been of porcelain. There were also red pipes for the warriors, grayish-white pipes for the chiefs who were foremost in making the peace, and some fans or other ornaments of feathers. There were several of the red pipes, resembling the red-stone pipes of the Sioux, but only one, or perhaps two, of the white peace pipes, which may have been only painted, and were much larger than the others. The pipes were passed around the circle at the council, so that each delegate might take a whiff. The objects altogether made a considerable package, which was carefully guarded by the Cherokee keeper. It is thought that they were destroyed in the War of the Rebellion when the house of John Ross, a few miles south of Tahlequah, was burned by the Confederate Cherokee under their general, Stand Watie.90. HIADEONI, THE SENECA“Hiadeoni was the father of the late chief Young-king. He was a Seneca warrior, a man of great prowess, dexterity, and swiftness of foot, and had established his reputation for courage and skill on many occasions. He resolved while the Seneca were still living on the Genesee river to make an incursion alone into the country of the Cherokee. He plumed himself with the idea that he could distinguish himself in this daring adventure, and he prepared for it, according to the custom of warriors. They never encumber themselves with baggage. He took nothing but his arms and the meal of a little parched and pounded corn. The forest gave him his meat.Hiadeoni reached the confines of the Cherokee country in safety and alone. He waited for evening before he entered the precincts of a village. He found the people engaged in a dance. He watched his opportunity, and when one of the dancers went out from the ring into the bushes he dispatched him with his hatchet. In this way he killed two men that night in the skirts of the woods without exciting alarm, and took their scalps and retreated. It was late when he came to a lodge, standing remote from the rest, on his course homeward. Watching here, he saw a young man come out, and killed him as he had done the others, and took his scalp. Looking into the lodge cautiously he saw it empty, and ventured in with the hope of finding some tobacco and ammunition to serve him on his way home.While thus busied in searching the lodge he heard footsteps at the door, and immediately threw himself on the bed from which the young man had risen, and covered his face, feigning sleep. They proved to be the footsteps of his last victim’s mother. She, supposing him to be her son, whom she had a short time before left lying there, said,“My son, I am going to such a place, and will not be back till morning.” He made a suitable response, and the old woman went out. Insensibly he fell asleep, and knew nothing till morning, when the first thing he heard was the mother’s voice. She, careful for her son, was at the fireplace very early, pulling some roasted squashes out of the ashes, and after putting them out, and telling him she left them for him to eat, she went away. He sprang up instantly and fled; but the early dawn had revealed his inroad, and he was hotly pursued. Light of foot, and having the start, he succeeded in reaching and concealing himself in a remote piece of woods, where he laid till night, and then pursued his way toward the Genesee, which, in due time he reached, bringing his three Cherokee scalps as trophies of his victory and prowess.”—Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 253, 1847.91. THE TWO MOHAWKS“In the year 1747 a couple of the Mohawk Indians came against the lower towns of the Cheerake, and so cunningly ambuscaded them through most part of the spring and summer, as to kill above twenty in different attacks before they were discovered by any party of the enraged and dejected people. They had a thorough knowledge of the most convenient ground for their purpose, and were extremely swift and long-winded. Whenever they killed any and got the scalp they made off to the neighboring mountains, and ran over the broad ledges of rocks in contrary courses, as occasion offered, so as the pursuers could by no means trace them. Once, when a large company was in chase of them, they ran round a steep hill at the head of the main eastern branch of Savana river, intercepted, killed, and scalped the hindmost of the party, and then made off between them and Keeowhee. As this was the town to which the company belonged, they hastened home in a close body, as the proper place of security from such enemy wizards. In this manner did those two sprightly, gallant savages perplex and intimidate their foes for the space of four moons in the greatest security, though they often were forced to kill and barbecue what they chiefly lived upon, in the midst of their watchful enemies. Having sufficiently revenged their relations’ blood and gratified their own ambition with an uncommon number of scalps, they resolved to captivate one and run home with him as a proof of their having killed none but the enemies of their country. Accordingly, they approached very near to Keeowhee, about half a mile below the late Fort Prince George. Advancing with the usual caution on such an occasion, one crawled along under the best cover of the place about the distance of a hundred yards ahead, while the other shifted from tree to tree, looking sharply every way. In the evening, however, an old, beloved man discovered them from the top of an adjoining hill, and knew them to be enemies by the cut of their hair, light trim forrunning, and their postures. He returned to the town and called first at the house of one of our traders and informed him of the affair, enjoining him not to mention it to any, lest the people should set off against them without success before their tracks were to be discovered and he be charged with having deceived them. But, contrary to the true policy of traders among unforgiving savages, that thoughtless member of the Choktah Sphynx Company busied himself, as usual, out of his proper sphere, sent for the headmen, and told them the story. As the Mohawks were allies and not known to molest any of the traders in the paths and woods, he ought to have observed a strict neutrality. The youth of the town, by order of their headmen, carried on their noisy public diversions in their usual manner to prevent their foes from having any suspicion of their danger, while runners were sent from the town to their neighbors to come silently and assist them to secure the prey in its state of security. They came like silent ghosts, concerted their plan of operation, passed over the river at the old trading ford opposite to the late fort, which lay between two contiguous commanding hills, and, proceeding downward over a broad creek, formed a large semicircle from the river bank, while the town seemed to be taking its usual rest. They then closed into a narrower compass, and at last discovered the two brave, unfortunate men lying close under the tops of some fallen young pine trees. The company gave the war signal, and the Mohawks, bounding up, bravely repeated it; but, by their sudden spring from under thick cover, their arms were useless. They made desperate efforts, however, to kill or be killed, as their situation required. One of the Cheerake, the noted half-breed of Istanare [Ustăna′lĭ] town, which lay 2 miles from thence, was at the first onset knocked down and almost killed with his own cutlass, which was wrested from him, though he was the strongest of the whole nation. But they were overpowered by numbers, captivated, and put to the most exquisite tortures of fire, amidst a prodigious crowd of exulting foes.One of the present Choktah traders, who was on the spot, told me that when they were tied to the stake the younger of the two discovered our traders on a hill near, addressed them in English, and entreated them to redeem their lives. The elder immediately spoke to him, in his own language, to desist. On this, he recollected himself, and became composed like a stoic, manifesting an indifference to life or death, pleasure or pain, according to their standard of martial virtue, and their dying behaviour did not reflect the least dishonor on their former gallant actions. All the pangs of fiery torture served only to refine their manly spirits, and as it was out of the power of the traders to redeem them they, according to our usual custom, retired as soon as the Indians began the diabolical tragedy.”—Adair, American Indians, p. 383, 1775.BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYNINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVIIANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)PHOTOGRAPH BY AUTHOR, 1888ANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)92. ESCAPE OF THE SENECA BOYSSome Seneca warriors were hunting in the woods, and one morning, on starting out for the day, they left two boys behind to take care of the camp. Soon after they had gone, a war party of Cherokee came up, and finding the boys alone took them both and started back to the south, traveling at such a rate that when the hunters returned in the evening they decided that it was of no use to follow them. When the Cherokee reached their own country they gave the boys to an old man, whose sons had been killed by the Seneca. He took the boys and adopted them for his own, and they grew up with him until they were large and strong enough to go hunting for themselves.But all the time they remembered their own home, and one day the older one said to his brother, “Let’s kill the old man and run away.” “No,” said the other, “we might get lost if we ran away, we are so far from home.” “I remember the way,” said his brother, so they made a plan to escape. A few days later the old man took the boys with him and the three set out together for a hunt in the mountains. When they were well away from the settlement the boys killed the old man, took all the meat and parched corn meal they could easily carry, and started to make their way back to the north, keeping away from the main trail and following the ridge of the mountains. After many days they came to the end of the mountains and found a trail which the older brother knew as the one along which they had been taken when they were first captured. They went on bravely now until they came to a wide clearing with houses at the farther end, and the older brother said, “I believe there is where we used to live.” It was so long ago that they were not quite sure, and besides they were dressed now like Cherokee, so they thought it safer to wait until dark. They saw a river ahead and went down to it and sat behind a large tree to wait. Soon several women came down for water and passed close to the tree without noticing the boys. Said the older brother, “I know those women. One of them is our mother.” They waited until the women had filled their buckets and started to the village, when both ran out to meet them with the Seneca hailing-shout, “Gowe′! Gowe′!” At first the women were frightened and thought it a party of Cherokee, but when they heard their own language they came nearer. Then the mother recognized her two sons, and said, “Let us go back and dance for the dead come to life,” and they were all very glad and went into the village together.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.93. THE UNSEEN HELPERSGanogwioeoñ, a war chief of the Seneca, led a party against the Cherokee. When they came near the first town he left his men outsideand went in alone. At the first house he found an old woman and her granddaughter. They did not see him, and he went into the âsĭ and hid himself under some wood. When darkness came on he heard the old woman say, “Maybe Ganogwioeoñ is near; I’ll close the door.” After a while he heard them going to bed. When he thought they were asleep he went into the house. The fire had burned down low, but the girl was still awake and saw him. She was about to scream, when he said, “I am Ganogwioeoñ. If you scream I’ll kill you. If you keep quiet I’ll not hurt you.” They talked together, and he told her that in the morning she must bring the chief’s daughter to him. She promised to do it, and told him where he should wait. Just before daylight he left the house.In the morning the girl went to the chief’s house and said to his daughter, “Let’s go out together for wood.” The chief’s daughter got ready and went with her, and when they came to the place where Ganogwioeoñ was hiding he sprang out and killed her, but did not hurt the other girl. He pulled off the scalp and gave such a loud scalp yell that all the warriors in the town heard it and came running out after him. He shook the scalp at them and then turned and ran. He killed the first one that came up, but when he tried to shoot the next one the bow broke and the Cherokee got him.They tied him and carried him to the two women of the tribe who had the power to decide what should be done with him. Each of these women had two snakes tattooed on her lips, with their heads opposite each other, in such a way that when she opened her mouth the two snakes opened their mouths also. They decided to burn the soles of his feet until they were blistered, then to put grains of corn under the skin and to chase him with clubs until they had beaten him to death.They stripped him and burnt his feet. Then they tied a bark rope around his waist, with an old man to hold the other end, and made him run between two lines of people, and with clubs in their hands. When they gave the word to start Ganogwioeoñ pulled the rope away from the old man and broke through the line and ran until he had left them all out of sight. When night came he crawled into a hollow log. He was naked and unarmed, with his feet in a pitiful condition, and thought he could never get away.He heard footsteps on the leaves outside and thought his enemies were upon him. The footsteps came up to the log and some one said to another, “This is our friend.” Then the stranger said to Ganogwioeoñ, “You think you are the same as dead; but it is not so. We will take care of you. Stick out your feet.” He put out his feet from the log and felt something licking them. After a while the voice said, “I think we have licked his feet enough. Now we must crawl inside the log and lie on each side of him to keep him warm.” Theycrawled in beside him. In the morning they crawled out and told him to stick out his feet again. They licked them again and then said to him, “Now we have done all we can do this time. Go on until you come to the place where you made a bark shelter a long time ago, and under the bark you will find something to help you.” Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the log, but they were gone. His feet were better now and he could walk comfortably. He went on until about noon, when he came to the bark shelter, and under it he found a knife, an awl, and a flint, that his men had hidden there two years before. He took them and started on again.Toward evening he looked around until he found another hollow tree and crawled into it to sleep. At night he heard the footsteps and voices again. When he put out his feet again, as the strangers told him to do, they licked his feet as before and then crawled in and lay down on each side of him to keep him warm. Still he could not see them. In the morning after they went out they licked his feet again and said to him, “At noon you will find food.” Then they went away.Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the tree and went on. At noon he came to a burning log, and near it was a dead bear, which was still warm, as if it had been killed only a short time before. He skinned the bear and found it very fat. He cut up the meat and roasted as much as he could eat or carry. While it was roasting he scraped the skin and rubbed rotten wood dust on it to clean it until he was tired. When night came he lay down to sleep. He heard the steps and the voices again and one said, “Well, our friend is lying down. He has plenty to eat, and it does not seem as if he is going to die. Let us lick his feet again.” When they had finished they said to him, “You need not worry any more now. You will get home all right.” Before it was day they left him.When morning came he put the bearskin around him like a shirt, with the hair outside, and started on again, taking as much of the meat as he could carry. That night his friends came to him again. They said, “Your feet are well, but you will be cold,” so they lay again on each side of him. Before daylight they left, saying, “About noon you will find something to wear.” He went on and about midday he came to two young bears just killed. He skinned them and dressed the skins, then roasted as much meat as he wanted and lay down to sleep. In the morning he made leggings of the skins, took some of the meat, and started on.His friends came again the next night and told him that in the morning he would come upon something else to wear. As they said, about noon he found two fawns just killed. He turned the skins and made himself a pair of moccasins, then cut some of the meat, and traveled on until evening, when he made a fire and had supper.That night again he heard the steps and voices, and one said, “My friend, very soon now you will reach home safely and find your friends all well. Now we will tell you why we have helped you. Whenever you went hunting you always gave the best part of the meat to us and kept only the smallest part for yourself. For that we are thankful and help you. In the morning you will see us and know who we are.”In the morning when he woke up they were still there—two men as he thought—but after he had said the last words to them and started on, he turned again to look, and one was a white wolf and the other a black wolf. That day he reached home.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.94. HATCINOÑDOÑ’S ESCAPE FROM THE CHEROKEEHatcinoñdoñ was a great warrior, the greatest among the Seneca. Once he led a company against the Cherokee. They traveled until they came to the great ridge on the border of the Cherokee country, and then they knew their enemies were on the lookout on the other side. Hatcinoñdoñ told his men to halt where they were while he went ahead to see what was in front. The enemy discovered and chased him, and he ran into a canebrake, where the canes were in two great patches with a narrow strip of open ground between. They saw him go into the canes, so they set fire to the patch and watched at the open place for him to come out, but before they got around to it he had run across into the second patch and escaped. When the canes had burned down the Cherokee looked for his body in the ashes, but could not find any trace of it, so they went home.When Hatcinoñdoñ got into the second canebrake he was tired out, so he lay down and fell asleep. At night while he was asleep two men came and took him by the arm, saying: “We have come for you. Somebody has sent for you.” They took him a long way, above the sky vault, until they came to a house. Then they said: “This is where the man lives who sent for you.” He looked, but could see no door. Then a voice from the inside said “Come in,” and something like a door opened of itself. He went in and there sat Hawĕñni′o, the Thunder-god.Hawĕñni′o said, “I have sent for you and you are here. Are you hungry?” Hatcinoñdoñ thought: “That’s a strange way to talk; that’s not the way I do—I give food.” The Thunder knew his thoughts, so he laughed and said, “I said that only in fun.” He rose and brought half a cake of bread, half of a wild apple, and half a pigeon. Hatcinoñdoñ said, “This is very little to fill me,” but the Thunder replied, “If you eat that, there is more.” He began eating, but, as he ate, everything became whole again, so that he was not able to finish it.While he was sitting he heard some one running outside, and directlythe door was thrown open and the Sun came in, so bright that Hatcinoñdoñ had to hold his head down. The two beings talked together, but the Seneca could not understand a word, and soon the visitor went out again. Then the Thunder said: “That is the one you call the Sun, who watches in the world below. It is night down there now, and he is hurrying to the east. He says there has just been a battle. I love both the Seneca and the Cherokee, and when you get back to your warriors you must tell them to stop fighting and go home.” Again he brought food, half of each kind, and when Hatcinoñdoñ had eaten, the Thunder said, “Now my messengers will take you to your place.”The door opened again of itself, and Hatcinoñdoñ followed the two Sky People until they brought him to the place where he had slept, and there left him. He found his party and told the warriors what he had seen. They held a council over it and decided to strike the enemy once before going home. Hatcinoñdoñ led them. They met the Cherokee and went home with scalps.He led another party against the Cherokee, but this time he was taken and carried to the Cherokee town. It was the custom among the Cherokee to let two women say what should be done with captives. They decided that he should be tortured with fire, so he was tied to a tree, and the wood was piled around him. Hatcinoñdoñ gave himself up for lost, when a rain storm came up and the people concluded to wait until it was over. They went away and left him tied to the tree.Pretty soon an old woman came up to him, and said, “My grandson, you think you are going to die, but you are not. Try to stir your limbs.” He struggled and finally got his limbs free. Then she said, “Now you are free. I have come to repay your kindness. You remember that you once found a frog in the middle of a circle of fire and that you picked it up and put it into the water. I was that frog, and now I help you. I sent the rain storm, and now you must go down to the creek and follow the current.”When the rain was over the people came back, but Hatcinoñdoñ was gone. They trailed him down to the creek, but he had found a hollow tree lying in the water, with a hole on the upper side through which he could breathe, so he crawled into it and they could not find him. Once two of the Cherokee came and sat on the log and he could hear them talking about him, but they did not know that he was inside. When they were all gone, he came out and kept on down the stream. After dark he came to a place where three hunters had made a fire and gone to sleep for the night. Their hatchets and arms were hung up on a tree. Hatcinoñdoñ was naked. He listened until he was sure the men were asleep, then he took one of their hatchets and killed all three, one after another. He dressed himself in the clothes of one, and put on his belt, with the knife and hatchet. Then he washed himself at the creek and sat down by the fire and cooked his supper.After that he stretched and painted the three scalps and lay down by the fire to sleep. In the morning he took what provision he could carry and traveled in a great circle until he found the road by which he and his warriors had come. He found fresh tracks and followed them until he saw smoke ahead. He listened until he heard men speaking Seneca, and knew that it was his party. Then he gave the Seneca shout—Gowe′!—three times and his friends ran out to meet him. They had been afraid that he was killed, but were glad now that they had waited for him. They went home together. This is their story.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.95. HEMP-CARRIEROn the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are leveled now, but thirty years ago the stones were still heaped up into pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of the Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two Nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlements on Hiwassee and Cheowa a party was made underTâle′danigi′skĭ, “Hemp-carrier,” to follow and take vengeance on the enemy. Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief Tsunu′lăhûñ′skĭ, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died on Cheowa about 1855.For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky mountains, through forests and over rivers, until they finally tracked them to their very town in the far northern Seneca country. On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps. When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the townhouse, where the women were dancing over the fresh Cherokee scalps. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the townhouse never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, “We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the war whoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?” “Let them come, if they will,” said his men; and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokee. At once there was an answering shout from the townhouse, and the dance came to a sudden stop. The Seneca warriors swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and activerunners, and managed to get away with the loss of only a single man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-carrier’s bravery and success that they gave him seven wives.96. THE SENECA PEACEMAKERSIn the course of the long war with the Cherokee it happened once that eight Seneca determined to undertake a journey to the south to see if they could make a peace with their enemies. On coming near the border of the Cherokee country they met some hunters of that tribe to whom they told their purpose. The latter at once hurried ahead with the news, and when the peacemakers arrived they found themselves well received by the Cherokee chiefs, who called a council to consider the proposition. All but one of the chiefs favored the peace, but he demanded that the eight delegates should first join them in a war party which was just preparing to go against a tribe farther south, probably the Creeks. The Seneca agreed, and set out with the war party for the south; but in the fight which resulted, the Seneca leader, The Owl, was captured. The other seven escaped with the Cherokee.A council was held in the enemy’s camp, and it was decided that The Owl should be burned at the stake. The wood was gathered and everything made ready, but as they were about to tie him he claimed the warrior’s privilege to sing his death song and strike the post as he recited his warlike deeds. The request pleased his enemies, who put a tomahawk into his hands and told him to begin.He told first his exploits in the north, and then in the west, giving times and places and the number of scalps taken, until his enemies were so pleased and interested that they forgot the prisoner in the warrior. It was a long story, but at last he came to the battle in which he was taken. He told how many relatives he had killed of the very men around him, and then, striking the post with his tomahawk, “So many of your people have I killed, and so many will I yet kill;” and with that he struck down two men, sprang through the circle of warriors, and was away. It was all so sudden that it was some moments before his enemies could recover from their surprise. Then they seized their weapons and were after him through the woods, but he had had a good start and was running for his life, so that he outran the chase and finally reached the Cherokee camp in safety and rejoined his seven companions.On this proof of good will the Cherokee then concluded the treaty, and the peacemakers returned to their own country.—Arranged from Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 258.97. ORIGIN OF THE YONTOÑWISAS DANCETwo Seneca women who were sisters, with the baby boy of the older one, were in a sugar grove near their home when a war party ofCherokee came upon them and carried them off. When the people of the town learned what had happened, they decided not to go after the enemy for fear they would kill the women, so their made no pursuit.The Cherokee carried the women with them until they were within one day of the Cherokee towns. The elder sister learned this and made up her mind to try to escape. She had a knife without a handle hidden under her belt, and that night when all lay down to sleep by the fire she kept awake. When they were sleeping soundly, she looked around. She and her sister were tied together, and on each side of them was a Cherokee with the end of the rope under his body on the ground. Taking out her knife, she cut the rope without waking the men, and then rousing her sister quietly she whispered to her to come. They were going to leave the little boy, but he started to cry, so she said, “Let us die together,” and took him up on her back, and the two women hurried away. In a little while they heard an alarm behind them, and knew that their escape was discovered, and then they saw the blazing pine knots waving through the trees where the Cherokee were coming on looking for them. The women knew the Cherokee would hunt for them toward the north, along the trail to the Seneca country, so they made a circuit and went around to the south until they came in sight of a fire and saw a man sitting by a tree, shaking a rattle and singing in a low voice. They found they had come directly back to the enemy’s camp, so the older sister said, “This will never do; we must try again. Let us go straight ahead to that big tree in front, and from that straight on to the next, and the next.” In this way they kept on a straight course until morning. When the sun came up, they took another direction toward home, and at night they rested in the woods.They traveled all the next day, and at night rested again. In the night a voice spoke to the younger woman, “Is that where you are resting?” and she answered, “Yes.” The voice said again, “Keep on, and you will come out at the spot where you were captured. No harm will come to you. To-morrow you will find food.” She roused her sister and told her what the voice had said.In the morning they went on and at noon found a buck freshly killed. Near by they found a log on fire, so they roasted some of the meat, had a good meal, and carried away afterwards as much of the meat as they could. They kept on, camping every night, and when the meat was nearly gone they saved the rest for the little boy.At last one night the voice spoke again to the younger sister and said, “You are on the right road, and to-morrow you will be on the border of the Seneca country. You will find food. That is all.”In the morning she told her older sister. They started on again and walked until about noon, when they came to a patch of wild potatoes. They dug and found plenty, and as they looked around they saw smokewhere there had been a camp fire. They gathered wood, made up the fire, and roasted the potatoes. Then they ate as many as they wanted and carried the rest with them.They traveled on until the potatoes were almost gone. Then at night the voice came again to the younger woman, saying: “At noon tomorrow you will reach your home, and the first person you will meet will be your uncle. When you get to the town, you must call the people together and tell them all that has happened. You must go to the long house and take off your skirt and carry it on your shoulder. Then you must go inside and go around once, singing, ‘We have come home; we are here.’ This is theYontoñwisassong, and it shall be for women only. Know now that we are theHadionyageonoñ, the Sky People, who have watched over you all this time.”When the girl awoke, she told her sister, and they said, “We must do all this,” and they began to sing as they went along. About noon they heard the sound of chopping, and when they went to the place they found it was their uncle cutting blocks to make spoons. He did not see them until they spoke, and at first could hardly believe that they were living women, because he knew that they had been taken by the Cherokee. He was very glad to see them, and as they walked on to the town they told him all they had been commanded to do by the Sky People. When they arrived at the town, he called all the people together, and they went to the long house. There the two women sang their song and did everything exactly as they had been told to do, and when it was over they said, “This is all,” and sat down. This is the same Yontoñwisas song that is still sung by the women.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

Historical Traditions88. FIRST CONTACT WITH WHITESThere are a few stories concerning the first contact of the Cherokee with whites and negroes. They are very modern and have little value as myths, but throw some light upon the Indian estimate of the different races.One story relates how the first whites came from the east and tried to enter into friendly relations, but the Indians would have nothing to do with them for a long time. At last the whites left a jug of whisky and a dipper near a spring frequented by the Indians. The Indians came along, tasted the liquor, which they had never known before, and liked it so well that they ended by all getting comfortably drunk. While they were in this happy frame of mind some white men came up, and this time the Indians shook hands with them and they have been friends after a fashion ever since. This may possibly be a Cherokee adaptation of the story of Hudson’s first landing on the island of Manhattan.At the creation an ulûñsû′tĭ was given to the white man, and a piece of silver to the Indian. But the white man despised the stone and threw it away, while the Indian did the same with the silver. In going about the white man afterward found the silver piece and put itinto his pocket and has prized it ever since. The Indian, in like manner, found the ulûñsû′tĭ where the white man had thrown it. He picked it up and has kept it since as his talisman, as money is the talismanic power of the white man. This story is quite general and is probably older than others of its class.When Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was trying to introduce it among his people, about 1822, some of them opposed it upon the ground that Indians had no business with reading. They said that when the Indian and the white man were created, the Indian, being the elder, was given a book, while the white man received a bow and arrows. Each was instructed to take good care of his gift and make the best use of it, but the Indian was so neglectful of his book that the white man soon stole it from him, leaving the bow in its place, so that books and reading now belong of right to the white man, while the Indian ought to be satisfied to hunt for a living.—Cherokee Advocate, October 26, 1844.The negro made the first locomotive for a toy and put it on a wooden track and was having great fun with it when a white man came along, watched until he saw how to run it, and then killed the negro and took the locomotive for himself. This, also, although plainly of very recent origin, was heard from several informants.89. THE IROQUOIS WARSLong wars were waged between the Cherokee and their remote northern relatives, the Iroquois, with both of whom the recollection, now nearly faded, was a vivid tradition fifty years ago. The (Seneca) Iroquois know the Cherokee as Oyadaʼgeʻoñnoñ, a name rather freely rendered “cave people.” The latter call the Iroquois, or rather their largest and most aggressive tribe, the Seneca, Nûndăwe′gĭ, Ani′-Nûn-dăwe′gĭ, or Ani′-Sĕ′nikă, the first forms being derived from Nûndawa′ga or Nûndawa′-ono, “people of the great hills,” the name by which the Seneca know themselves. According to authorities quoted by Schoolcraft, the Seneca claim to have at one time had a settlement, from which they were afterward driven, at Seneca, South Carolina, known in history as one of the principal towns of the Lower Cherokee.The league of the Iroquois was probably founded about the middle of the sixteenth century. Before 1680 they had conquered or exterminated all the tribes upon their immediate borders and had turned their arms against the more distant Illinois, Catawba, and Cherokee. According to Iroquois tradition, the Cherokee were the aggressors, having attacked and plundered a Seneca hunting party somewhere in the west, while in another story they are represented as having violated a peace treaty by the murder of the Iroquois delegates.Whatever the cause, the war was taken up by all the tribes of the league.From the Iroquois country to the Cherokee frontier was considered a five days’ journey for a rapidly traveling war party. As the distance was too great for large expeditions, the war consisted chiefly of a series of individual exploits, a single Cherokee often going hundreds of miles to strike a blow, which was sure to be promptly retaliated by the warriors from the north, the great object of every Iroquois boy being to go against the Cherokee as soon as he was old enough to take the war path. Captives were made on both sides, and probably in about equal numbers, the two parties being too evenly matched for either to gain any permanent advantage, and a compromise was finally made by which the Tennessee river came to be regarded as the boundary between their rival claims, all south of that stream being claimed by the Cherokee, and being acknowledged by the Iroquois, as the limit of their own conquests in that direction. This Indian boundary was recognized by the British government up to the time of the Revolution.Morgan states that a curious agreement was once made between the two tribes, by which this river was also made the limit of pursuit. If a returning war party of the Cherokee could recross the Tennessee before they were overtaken by the pursuing Iroquois they were as safe from attack as though entrenched behind a stockade. The pursuers, if they chose, might still invade the territory of the enemy, but they passed by the camp of the retreating Cherokee without offering to attack them. A similar agreement existed for a time between the Seneca and the Erie.The Buffalo dance of the Iroquois is traditionally said to have had its origin in an expedition against the Cherokee. When the warriors on their way to the south reached the Kentucky salt lick they found there a herd of buffalo, and heard them, for the first time, “singing their favorite songs,” i. e., bellowing and snorting. From the bellowing and the movements of the animals were derived the music and action of the dance.According to Cherokee tradition, as given by the chief Stand Watie, the war was finally brought to an end by the Iroquois, who sent a delegation to the Cherokee to propose a general alliance of the southern and western tribes. The Cherokee accepted the proposition, and in turn sent out invitations to the other tribes, all of which entered into the peace excepting the Osage, of whom it was therefore said that they should be henceforth like a wild fruit on the prairie, at which every bird should pick, and so the Osage have remained ever a predatory tribe without friends or allies. This may be the same treaty described in the story of “The Seneca Peacemakers.” A formal and final peace between the two tribes was arranged through the efforts of the British agent, Sir William Johnson, in 1768.In 1847 there were still living among the Seneca the grandchildren of Cherokee captives taken in these wars. In 1794 the Seneca pointed out to Colonel Pickering a chief who was a native Cherokee, having been taken when a boy and adopted among the Seneca, who afterward made him chief. This was probably the same man of whom they told Schoolcraft fifty years later. He was a full-blood Cherokee, but had been captured when too young to have any memory of the event. Years afterward, when he had grown to manhood and had become a chief in the tribe, he learned of his foreign origin, and was filled at once with an overpowering longing to go back to the south to find his people and live and die among them. He journeyed to the Cherokee country, but on arriving there found to his great disappointment that the story of his capture had been forgotten in the tribe, and that his relatives, if any were left, failed to recognize him. Being unable to find his kindred, he made only a short visit and returned again to the Seneca.From James Wafford, of Indian Territory, the author obtained a detailed account of the Iroquois peace embassy referred to by Stand Watie, and of the wampum belt that accompanied it. Wafford’s information concerning the proceedings at Echota was obtained directly from two eyewitnesses—Sequoya, the inventor of the alphabet, and Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who afterward explained the belt at the great council near Tahlequah seventy years later. Sequoya, at the time of the Echota conference, was a boy living with his mother at Taskigi town a few miles away, while Gatûñ′waʻlĭ was already a young man.The treaty of peace between the Cherokee and Iroquois, made at Johnson Hall in New York in 1768, appears from the record to have been brought about by the Cherokee, who sent for the purpose a delegation of chiefs, headed by Âgănstâ′ta, “Groundhog-sausage,” of Echota, their great leader in the war of 1760–61 against the English. After the treaty had been concluded the Cherokee delegates invited some of the Iroquois chiefs to go home with them for a visit, but the latter declined on the ground that it was not yet safe, and in fact some of their warriors were at that very time out against the Cherokee, not yet being aware of the peace negotiations. It is probable, therefore, that the Iroquois delegates did not arrive at Echota until some considerable time, perhaps three years, after the formal preliminaries had been concluded in the north.According to Sequoya’s account, as given to Wafford, there had been a long war between the Cherokee and the northern Indians, who were never able to conquer the Cherokee or break their spirit, until at last the Iroquois were tired of fighting and sent a delegation to make peace. The messengers set out for the south with their wampum belts and peace emblems, but lost their way after passing Tennesseeriver, perhaps from the necessity of avoiding the main trail, and instead of arriving at Itsâ′tĭ or Echota, the ancient peace town and capital of the Cherokee Nation—situated on Little Tennessee river below Citico creek, in the present Monroe county, Tennessee—they found themselves on the outskirts of Tă′likwă′ or Tellico, on Tellico river, some 10 or 15 miles to the southward.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.“The Onondagas retain the custody of the wampums of the Five Nations, and the keeper of the wampums, Thomas Webster, of the Snipe tribe, a consistent, thorough pagan, is their interpreter. Notwithstanding the claims made that the wampums can be read as a governing code of law, it is evident that they are simply monumental reminders of preserved traditions, without any literal details whatever. “The first [of this] group from left to right, represents a convention of the Six Nations at the adoption of the Tuscaroras into the league; the second, the Five Nations, upon seven strands, illustrates a treaty with seven Canadian tribes before the year 1600; the third signifies the guarded approach of strangers to the councils of the Five Nations (a guarded gate, with a long, white path leading to the inner gate, where the Five Nations are grouped, with the Onondagas in the center and a safe council house behind all); the fourth represents a treaty when but four of the Six Nations were represented, and the fifth embodies the pledge of seven Canadian christianized nations to abandon their crooked ways and keep an honest peace (having a cross for each tribe, and with a zigzag line below, to indicate that their ways had been crooked but would ever after be as sacred as the cross). Above this group is another, claiming to bear date about 1608, when Champlain joined the Algonquins against the Iroquois.”—Carrington, in Six Nations of New York, Extra Bulletin, Eleventh Census, pp. 33–34, 1892.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.3Concealing themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened thechief and his family were at work in their cornfield, and his daughter had just gone up to the house for some reason when the Iroquois entered and asked for something to eat. Seeing that he was a stranger, she set out food for him according to the old custom of hospitality. While he was eating her father, the chief, came in to see what was delaying her, and was surprised to find there one of the hereditary enemies of his tribe. By this time the word had gone out that an Iroquois was in the chief’s house, and the men of the town had left their work and seized their guns to kill him, but the chief heard them coming and standing in the doorway kept them off, saying: “This man has come here on a peace mission, and before you kill him you must first kill me.” They finally listened to him, and allowed the messenger to go out and bring his companions to the chief’s house, where they were all taken care of.When they were well rested after their long journey the chief of Tă′likwă himself went with them to Itsâ′tĭ, the capital, where lived the great chief Âgănstâ′ta, who was now the civil ruler of the Nation. The chiefs of the various towns were summoned and a council was held, at which the speaker for the Iroquois delegation delivered his message and produced the wampum belts and pipes, which they brought as proofs of their mission and had carried all the way in packs upon their backs.He said that for three years his people had been wanting to make peace. There was a spring of dark, cloudy water in their country, and they had covered it over for one year and then looked, but the water was still cloudy. Again they had covered it over, but when they looked at the end of another year it was still dark and troubled. For another year they had covered the spring, and this time when they looked the water was clear and sparkling. Then they knew the time had come, and they left home with their wampum belts to make peace with their enemies.The friendly message was accepted by the Cherokee, and the belts and other symbolic peace tokens were delivered over to their keeping. Other belts in turn were probably given to the Iroquois, and after the usual round of feasting and dancing the messengers returned to their people in the north and the long war was at an end.For nearly a century these symbolic records of the peace with the Iroquois were preserved by the Cherokee, and were carried with them to the western territory when the tribe was finally driven from its old home in 1838. They were then in the keeping of John Ross, principal chief at the time of the removal, and were solemnly produced at a great intertribal council held near Tahlequah, in the Indian Territory, in June, 1843, when they were interpreted by the Cherokee speaker, Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who had seen them delivered to the chiefs of his tribe at old Itsâ′tĭ seventy years before. Wafford was present on this occasion and describes it.Holding the belts over his arm while speaking, Hard-mush told of the original treaty with the Iroquois, and explained the meaning of each belt in turn. According to the best of Wafford’s recollection, there was one large belt, to which the smaller belts were fitted. The beads did not seem to be of shell, and may have been of porcelain. There were also red pipes for the warriors, grayish-white pipes for the chiefs who were foremost in making the peace, and some fans or other ornaments of feathers. There were several of the red pipes, resembling the red-stone pipes of the Sioux, but only one, or perhaps two, of the white peace pipes, which may have been only painted, and were much larger than the others. The pipes were passed around the circle at the council, so that each delegate might take a whiff. The objects altogether made a considerable package, which was carefully guarded by the Cherokee keeper. It is thought that they were destroyed in the War of the Rebellion when the house of John Ross, a few miles south of Tahlequah, was burned by the Confederate Cherokee under their general, Stand Watie.90. HIADEONI, THE SENECA“Hiadeoni was the father of the late chief Young-king. He was a Seneca warrior, a man of great prowess, dexterity, and swiftness of foot, and had established his reputation for courage and skill on many occasions. He resolved while the Seneca were still living on the Genesee river to make an incursion alone into the country of the Cherokee. He plumed himself with the idea that he could distinguish himself in this daring adventure, and he prepared for it, according to the custom of warriors. They never encumber themselves with baggage. He took nothing but his arms and the meal of a little parched and pounded corn. The forest gave him his meat.Hiadeoni reached the confines of the Cherokee country in safety and alone. He waited for evening before he entered the precincts of a village. He found the people engaged in a dance. He watched his opportunity, and when one of the dancers went out from the ring into the bushes he dispatched him with his hatchet. In this way he killed two men that night in the skirts of the woods without exciting alarm, and took their scalps and retreated. It was late when he came to a lodge, standing remote from the rest, on his course homeward. Watching here, he saw a young man come out, and killed him as he had done the others, and took his scalp. Looking into the lodge cautiously he saw it empty, and ventured in with the hope of finding some tobacco and ammunition to serve him on his way home.While thus busied in searching the lodge he heard footsteps at the door, and immediately threw himself on the bed from which the young man had risen, and covered his face, feigning sleep. They proved to be the footsteps of his last victim’s mother. She, supposing him to be her son, whom she had a short time before left lying there, said,“My son, I am going to such a place, and will not be back till morning.” He made a suitable response, and the old woman went out. Insensibly he fell asleep, and knew nothing till morning, when the first thing he heard was the mother’s voice. She, careful for her son, was at the fireplace very early, pulling some roasted squashes out of the ashes, and after putting them out, and telling him she left them for him to eat, she went away. He sprang up instantly and fled; but the early dawn had revealed his inroad, and he was hotly pursued. Light of foot, and having the start, he succeeded in reaching and concealing himself in a remote piece of woods, where he laid till night, and then pursued his way toward the Genesee, which, in due time he reached, bringing his three Cherokee scalps as trophies of his victory and prowess.”—Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 253, 1847.91. THE TWO MOHAWKS“In the year 1747 a couple of the Mohawk Indians came against the lower towns of the Cheerake, and so cunningly ambuscaded them through most part of the spring and summer, as to kill above twenty in different attacks before they were discovered by any party of the enraged and dejected people. They had a thorough knowledge of the most convenient ground for their purpose, and were extremely swift and long-winded. Whenever they killed any and got the scalp they made off to the neighboring mountains, and ran over the broad ledges of rocks in contrary courses, as occasion offered, so as the pursuers could by no means trace them. Once, when a large company was in chase of them, they ran round a steep hill at the head of the main eastern branch of Savana river, intercepted, killed, and scalped the hindmost of the party, and then made off between them and Keeowhee. As this was the town to which the company belonged, they hastened home in a close body, as the proper place of security from such enemy wizards. In this manner did those two sprightly, gallant savages perplex and intimidate their foes for the space of four moons in the greatest security, though they often were forced to kill and barbecue what they chiefly lived upon, in the midst of their watchful enemies. Having sufficiently revenged their relations’ blood and gratified their own ambition with an uncommon number of scalps, they resolved to captivate one and run home with him as a proof of their having killed none but the enemies of their country. Accordingly, they approached very near to Keeowhee, about half a mile below the late Fort Prince George. Advancing with the usual caution on such an occasion, one crawled along under the best cover of the place about the distance of a hundred yards ahead, while the other shifted from tree to tree, looking sharply every way. In the evening, however, an old, beloved man discovered them from the top of an adjoining hill, and knew them to be enemies by the cut of their hair, light trim forrunning, and their postures. He returned to the town and called first at the house of one of our traders and informed him of the affair, enjoining him not to mention it to any, lest the people should set off against them without success before their tracks were to be discovered and he be charged with having deceived them. But, contrary to the true policy of traders among unforgiving savages, that thoughtless member of the Choktah Sphynx Company busied himself, as usual, out of his proper sphere, sent for the headmen, and told them the story. As the Mohawks were allies and not known to molest any of the traders in the paths and woods, he ought to have observed a strict neutrality. The youth of the town, by order of their headmen, carried on their noisy public diversions in their usual manner to prevent their foes from having any suspicion of their danger, while runners were sent from the town to their neighbors to come silently and assist them to secure the prey in its state of security. They came like silent ghosts, concerted their plan of operation, passed over the river at the old trading ford opposite to the late fort, which lay between two contiguous commanding hills, and, proceeding downward over a broad creek, formed a large semicircle from the river bank, while the town seemed to be taking its usual rest. They then closed into a narrower compass, and at last discovered the two brave, unfortunate men lying close under the tops of some fallen young pine trees. The company gave the war signal, and the Mohawks, bounding up, bravely repeated it; but, by their sudden spring from under thick cover, their arms were useless. They made desperate efforts, however, to kill or be killed, as their situation required. One of the Cheerake, the noted half-breed of Istanare [Ustăna′lĭ] town, which lay 2 miles from thence, was at the first onset knocked down and almost killed with his own cutlass, which was wrested from him, though he was the strongest of the whole nation. But they were overpowered by numbers, captivated, and put to the most exquisite tortures of fire, amidst a prodigious crowd of exulting foes.One of the present Choktah traders, who was on the spot, told me that when they were tied to the stake the younger of the two discovered our traders on a hill near, addressed them in English, and entreated them to redeem their lives. The elder immediately spoke to him, in his own language, to desist. On this, he recollected himself, and became composed like a stoic, manifesting an indifference to life or death, pleasure or pain, according to their standard of martial virtue, and their dying behaviour did not reflect the least dishonor on their former gallant actions. All the pangs of fiery torture served only to refine their manly spirits, and as it was out of the power of the traders to redeem them they, according to our usual custom, retired as soon as the Indians began the diabolical tragedy.”—Adair, American Indians, p. 383, 1775.BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYNINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVIIANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)PHOTOGRAPH BY AUTHOR, 1888ANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)92. ESCAPE OF THE SENECA BOYSSome Seneca warriors were hunting in the woods, and one morning, on starting out for the day, they left two boys behind to take care of the camp. Soon after they had gone, a war party of Cherokee came up, and finding the boys alone took them both and started back to the south, traveling at such a rate that when the hunters returned in the evening they decided that it was of no use to follow them. When the Cherokee reached their own country they gave the boys to an old man, whose sons had been killed by the Seneca. He took the boys and adopted them for his own, and they grew up with him until they were large and strong enough to go hunting for themselves.But all the time they remembered their own home, and one day the older one said to his brother, “Let’s kill the old man and run away.” “No,” said the other, “we might get lost if we ran away, we are so far from home.” “I remember the way,” said his brother, so they made a plan to escape. A few days later the old man took the boys with him and the three set out together for a hunt in the mountains. When they were well away from the settlement the boys killed the old man, took all the meat and parched corn meal they could easily carry, and started to make their way back to the north, keeping away from the main trail and following the ridge of the mountains. After many days they came to the end of the mountains and found a trail which the older brother knew as the one along which they had been taken when they were first captured. They went on bravely now until they came to a wide clearing with houses at the farther end, and the older brother said, “I believe there is where we used to live.” It was so long ago that they were not quite sure, and besides they were dressed now like Cherokee, so they thought it safer to wait until dark. They saw a river ahead and went down to it and sat behind a large tree to wait. Soon several women came down for water and passed close to the tree without noticing the boys. Said the older brother, “I know those women. One of them is our mother.” They waited until the women had filled their buckets and started to the village, when both ran out to meet them with the Seneca hailing-shout, “Gowe′! Gowe′!” At first the women were frightened and thought it a party of Cherokee, but when they heard their own language they came nearer. Then the mother recognized her two sons, and said, “Let us go back and dance for the dead come to life,” and they were all very glad and went into the village together.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.93. THE UNSEEN HELPERSGanogwioeoñ, a war chief of the Seneca, led a party against the Cherokee. When they came near the first town he left his men outsideand went in alone. At the first house he found an old woman and her granddaughter. They did not see him, and he went into the âsĭ and hid himself under some wood. When darkness came on he heard the old woman say, “Maybe Ganogwioeoñ is near; I’ll close the door.” After a while he heard them going to bed. When he thought they were asleep he went into the house. The fire had burned down low, but the girl was still awake and saw him. She was about to scream, when he said, “I am Ganogwioeoñ. If you scream I’ll kill you. If you keep quiet I’ll not hurt you.” They talked together, and he told her that in the morning she must bring the chief’s daughter to him. She promised to do it, and told him where he should wait. Just before daylight he left the house.In the morning the girl went to the chief’s house and said to his daughter, “Let’s go out together for wood.” The chief’s daughter got ready and went with her, and when they came to the place where Ganogwioeoñ was hiding he sprang out and killed her, but did not hurt the other girl. He pulled off the scalp and gave such a loud scalp yell that all the warriors in the town heard it and came running out after him. He shook the scalp at them and then turned and ran. He killed the first one that came up, but when he tried to shoot the next one the bow broke and the Cherokee got him.They tied him and carried him to the two women of the tribe who had the power to decide what should be done with him. Each of these women had two snakes tattooed on her lips, with their heads opposite each other, in such a way that when she opened her mouth the two snakes opened their mouths also. They decided to burn the soles of his feet until they were blistered, then to put grains of corn under the skin and to chase him with clubs until they had beaten him to death.They stripped him and burnt his feet. Then they tied a bark rope around his waist, with an old man to hold the other end, and made him run between two lines of people, and with clubs in their hands. When they gave the word to start Ganogwioeoñ pulled the rope away from the old man and broke through the line and ran until he had left them all out of sight. When night came he crawled into a hollow log. He was naked and unarmed, with his feet in a pitiful condition, and thought he could never get away.He heard footsteps on the leaves outside and thought his enemies were upon him. The footsteps came up to the log and some one said to another, “This is our friend.” Then the stranger said to Ganogwioeoñ, “You think you are the same as dead; but it is not so. We will take care of you. Stick out your feet.” He put out his feet from the log and felt something licking them. After a while the voice said, “I think we have licked his feet enough. Now we must crawl inside the log and lie on each side of him to keep him warm.” Theycrawled in beside him. In the morning they crawled out and told him to stick out his feet again. They licked them again and then said to him, “Now we have done all we can do this time. Go on until you come to the place where you made a bark shelter a long time ago, and under the bark you will find something to help you.” Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the log, but they were gone. His feet were better now and he could walk comfortably. He went on until about noon, when he came to the bark shelter, and under it he found a knife, an awl, and a flint, that his men had hidden there two years before. He took them and started on again.Toward evening he looked around until he found another hollow tree and crawled into it to sleep. At night he heard the footsteps and voices again. When he put out his feet again, as the strangers told him to do, they licked his feet as before and then crawled in and lay down on each side of him to keep him warm. Still he could not see them. In the morning after they went out they licked his feet again and said to him, “At noon you will find food.” Then they went away.Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the tree and went on. At noon he came to a burning log, and near it was a dead bear, which was still warm, as if it had been killed only a short time before. He skinned the bear and found it very fat. He cut up the meat and roasted as much as he could eat or carry. While it was roasting he scraped the skin and rubbed rotten wood dust on it to clean it until he was tired. When night came he lay down to sleep. He heard the steps and the voices again and one said, “Well, our friend is lying down. He has plenty to eat, and it does not seem as if he is going to die. Let us lick his feet again.” When they had finished they said to him, “You need not worry any more now. You will get home all right.” Before it was day they left him.When morning came he put the bearskin around him like a shirt, with the hair outside, and started on again, taking as much of the meat as he could carry. That night his friends came to him again. They said, “Your feet are well, but you will be cold,” so they lay again on each side of him. Before daylight they left, saying, “About noon you will find something to wear.” He went on and about midday he came to two young bears just killed. He skinned them and dressed the skins, then roasted as much meat as he wanted and lay down to sleep. In the morning he made leggings of the skins, took some of the meat, and started on.His friends came again the next night and told him that in the morning he would come upon something else to wear. As they said, about noon he found two fawns just killed. He turned the skins and made himself a pair of moccasins, then cut some of the meat, and traveled on until evening, when he made a fire and had supper.That night again he heard the steps and voices, and one said, “My friend, very soon now you will reach home safely and find your friends all well. Now we will tell you why we have helped you. Whenever you went hunting you always gave the best part of the meat to us and kept only the smallest part for yourself. For that we are thankful and help you. In the morning you will see us and know who we are.”In the morning when he woke up they were still there—two men as he thought—but after he had said the last words to them and started on, he turned again to look, and one was a white wolf and the other a black wolf. That day he reached home.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.94. HATCINOÑDOÑ’S ESCAPE FROM THE CHEROKEEHatcinoñdoñ was a great warrior, the greatest among the Seneca. Once he led a company against the Cherokee. They traveled until they came to the great ridge on the border of the Cherokee country, and then they knew their enemies were on the lookout on the other side. Hatcinoñdoñ told his men to halt where they were while he went ahead to see what was in front. The enemy discovered and chased him, and he ran into a canebrake, where the canes were in two great patches with a narrow strip of open ground between. They saw him go into the canes, so they set fire to the patch and watched at the open place for him to come out, but before they got around to it he had run across into the second patch and escaped. When the canes had burned down the Cherokee looked for his body in the ashes, but could not find any trace of it, so they went home.When Hatcinoñdoñ got into the second canebrake he was tired out, so he lay down and fell asleep. At night while he was asleep two men came and took him by the arm, saying: “We have come for you. Somebody has sent for you.” They took him a long way, above the sky vault, until they came to a house. Then they said: “This is where the man lives who sent for you.” He looked, but could see no door. Then a voice from the inside said “Come in,” and something like a door opened of itself. He went in and there sat Hawĕñni′o, the Thunder-god.Hawĕñni′o said, “I have sent for you and you are here. Are you hungry?” Hatcinoñdoñ thought: “That’s a strange way to talk; that’s not the way I do—I give food.” The Thunder knew his thoughts, so he laughed and said, “I said that only in fun.” He rose and brought half a cake of bread, half of a wild apple, and half a pigeon. Hatcinoñdoñ said, “This is very little to fill me,” but the Thunder replied, “If you eat that, there is more.” He began eating, but, as he ate, everything became whole again, so that he was not able to finish it.While he was sitting he heard some one running outside, and directlythe door was thrown open and the Sun came in, so bright that Hatcinoñdoñ had to hold his head down. The two beings talked together, but the Seneca could not understand a word, and soon the visitor went out again. Then the Thunder said: “That is the one you call the Sun, who watches in the world below. It is night down there now, and he is hurrying to the east. He says there has just been a battle. I love both the Seneca and the Cherokee, and when you get back to your warriors you must tell them to stop fighting and go home.” Again he brought food, half of each kind, and when Hatcinoñdoñ had eaten, the Thunder said, “Now my messengers will take you to your place.”The door opened again of itself, and Hatcinoñdoñ followed the two Sky People until they brought him to the place where he had slept, and there left him. He found his party and told the warriors what he had seen. They held a council over it and decided to strike the enemy once before going home. Hatcinoñdoñ led them. They met the Cherokee and went home with scalps.He led another party against the Cherokee, but this time he was taken and carried to the Cherokee town. It was the custom among the Cherokee to let two women say what should be done with captives. They decided that he should be tortured with fire, so he was tied to a tree, and the wood was piled around him. Hatcinoñdoñ gave himself up for lost, when a rain storm came up and the people concluded to wait until it was over. They went away and left him tied to the tree.Pretty soon an old woman came up to him, and said, “My grandson, you think you are going to die, but you are not. Try to stir your limbs.” He struggled and finally got his limbs free. Then she said, “Now you are free. I have come to repay your kindness. You remember that you once found a frog in the middle of a circle of fire and that you picked it up and put it into the water. I was that frog, and now I help you. I sent the rain storm, and now you must go down to the creek and follow the current.”When the rain was over the people came back, but Hatcinoñdoñ was gone. They trailed him down to the creek, but he had found a hollow tree lying in the water, with a hole on the upper side through which he could breathe, so he crawled into it and they could not find him. Once two of the Cherokee came and sat on the log and he could hear them talking about him, but they did not know that he was inside. When they were all gone, he came out and kept on down the stream. After dark he came to a place where three hunters had made a fire and gone to sleep for the night. Their hatchets and arms were hung up on a tree. Hatcinoñdoñ was naked. He listened until he was sure the men were asleep, then he took one of their hatchets and killed all three, one after another. He dressed himself in the clothes of one, and put on his belt, with the knife and hatchet. Then he washed himself at the creek and sat down by the fire and cooked his supper.After that he stretched and painted the three scalps and lay down by the fire to sleep. In the morning he took what provision he could carry and traveled in a great circle until he found the road by which he and his warriors had come. He found fresh tracks and followed them until he saw smoke ahead. He listened until he heard men speaking Seneca, and knew that it was his party. Then he gave the Seneca shout—Gowe′!—three times and his friends ran out to meet him. They had been afraid that he was killed, but were glad now that they had waited for him. They went home together. This is their story.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.95. HEMP-CARRIEROn the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are leveled now, but thirty years ago the stones were still heaped up into pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of the Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two Nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlements on Hiwassee and Cheowa a party was made underTâle′danigi′skĭ, “Hemp-carrier,” to follow and take vengeance on the enemy. Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief Tsunu′lăhûñ′skĭ, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died on Cheowa about 1855.For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky mountains, through forests and over rivers, until they finally tracked them to their very town in the far northern Seneca country. On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps. When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the townhouse, where the women were dancing over the fresh Cherokee scalps. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the townhouse never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, “We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the war whoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?” “Let them come, if they will,” said his men; and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokee. At once there was an answering shout from the townhouse, and the dance came to a sudden stop. The Seneca warriors swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and activerunners, and managed to get away with the loss of only a single man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-carrier’s bravery and success that they gave him seven wives.96. THE SENECA PEACEMAKERSIn the course of the long war with the Cherokee it happened once that eight Seneca determined to undertake a journey to the south to see if they could make a peace with their enemies. On coming near the border of the Cherokee country they met some hunters of that tribe to whom they told their purpose. The latter at once hurried ahead with the news, and when the peacemakers arrived they found themselves well received by the Cherokee chiefs, who called a council to consider the proposition. All but one of the chiefs favored the peace, but he demanded that the eight delegates should first join them in a war party which was just preparing to go against a tribe farther south, probably the Creeks. The Seneca agreed, and set out with the war party for the south; but in the fight which resulted, the Seneca leader, The Owl, was captured. The other seven escaped with the Cherokee.A council was held in the enemy’s camp, and it was decided that The Owl should be burned at the stake. The wood was gathered and everything made ready, but as they were about to tie him he claimed the warrior’s privilege to sing his death song and strike the post as he recited his warlike deeds. The request pleased his enemies, who put a tomahawk into his hands and told him to begin.He told first his exploits in the north, and then in the west, giving times and places and the number of scalps taken, until his enemies were so pleased and interested that they forgot the prisoner in the warrior. It was a long story, but at last he came to the battle in which he was taken. He told how many relatives he had killed of the very men around him, and then, striking the post with his tomahawk, “So many of your people have I killed, and so many will I yet kill;” and with that he struck down two men, sprang through the circle of warriors, and was away. It was all so sudden that it was some moments before his enemies could recover from their surprise. Then they seized their weapons and were after him through the woods, but he had had a good start and was running for his life, so that he outran the chase and finally reached the Cherokee camp in safety and rejoined his seven companions.On this proof of good will the Cherokee then concluded the treaty, and the peacemakers returned to their own country.—Arranged from Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 258.97. ORIGIN OF THE YONTOÑWISAS DANCETwo Seneca women who were sisters, with the baby boy of the older one, were in a sugar grove near their home when a war party ofCherokee came upon them and carried them off. When the people of the town learned what had happened, they decided not to go after the enemy for fear they would kill the women, so their made no pursuit.The Cherokee carried the women with them until they were within one day of the Cherokee towns. The elder sister learned this and made up her mind to try to escape. She had a knife without a handle hidden under her belt, and that night when all lay down to sleep by the fire she kept awake. When they were sleeping soundly, she looked around. She and her sister were tied together, and on each side of them was a Cherokee with the end of the rope under his body on the ground. Taking out her knife, she cut the rope without waking the men, and then rousing her sister quietly she whispered to her to come. They were going to leave the little boy, but he started to cry, so she said, “Let us die together,” and took him up on her back, and the two women hurried away. In a little while they heard an alarm behind them, and knew that their escape was discovered, and then they saw the blazing pine knots waving through the trees where the Cherokee were coming on looking for them. The women knew the Cherokee would hunt for them toward the north, along the trail to the Seneca country, so they made a circuit and went around to the south until they came in sight of a fire and saw a man sitting by a tree, shaking a rattle and singing in a low voice. They found they had come directly back to the enemy’s camp, so the older sister said, “This will never do; we must try again. Let us go straight ahead to that big tree in front, and from that straight on to the next, and the next.” In this way they kept on a straight course until morning. When the sun came up, they took another direction toward home, and at night they rested in the woods.They traveled all the next day, and at night rested again. In the night a voice spoke to the younger woman, “Is that where you are resting?” and she answered, “Yes.” The voice said again, “Keep on, and you will come out at the spot where you were captured. No harm will come to you. To-morrow you will find food.” She roused her sister and told her what the voice had said.In the morning they went on and at noon found a buck freshly killed. Near by they found a log on fire, so they roasted some of the meat, had a good meal, and carried away afterwards as much of the meat as they could. They kept on, camping every night, and when the meat was nearly gone they saved the rest for the little boy.At last one night the voice spoke again to the younger sister and said, “You are on the right road, and to-morrow you will be on the border of the Seneca country. You will find food. That is all.”In the morning she told her older sister. They started on again and walked until about noon, when they came to a patch of wild potatoes. They dug and found plenty, and as they looked around they saw smokewhere there had been a camp fire. They gathered wood, made up the fire, and roasted the potatoes. Then they ate as many as they wanted and carried the rest with them.They traveled on until the potatoes were almost gone. Then at night the voice came again to the younger woman, saying: “At noon tomorrow you will reach your home, and the first person you will meet will be your uncle. When you get to the town, you must call the people together and tell them all that has happened. You must go to the long house and take off your skirt and carry it on your shoulder. Then you must go inside and go around once, singing, ‘We have come home; we are here.’ This is theYontoñwisassong, and it shall be for women only. Know now that we are theHadionyageonoñ, the Sky People, who have watched over you all this time.”When the girl awoke, she told her sister, and they said, “We must do all this,” and they began to sing as they went along. About noon they heard the sound of chopping, and when they went to the place they found it was their uncle cutting blocks to make spoons. He did not see them until they spoke, and at first could hardly believe that they were living women, because he knew that they had been taken by the Cherokee. He was very glad to see them, and as they walked on to the town they told him all they had been commanded to do by the Sky People. When they arrived at the town, he called all the people together, and they went to the long house. There the two women sang their song and did everything exactly as they had been told to do, and when it was over they said, “This is all,” and sat down. This is the same Yontoñwisas song that is still sung by the women.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

Historical Traditions88. FIRST CONTACT WITH WHITESThere are a few stories concerning the first contact of the Cherokee with whites and negroes. They are very modern and have little value as myths, but throw some light upon the Indian estimate of the different races.One story relates how the first whites came from the east and tried to enter into friendly relations, but the Indians would have nothing to do with them for a long time. At last the whites left a jug of whisky and a dipper near a spring frequented by the Indians. The Indians came along, tasted the liquor, which they had never known before, and liked it so well that they ended by all getting comfortably drunk. While they were in this happy frame of mind some white men came up, and this time the Indians shook hands with them and they have been friends after a fashion ever since. This may possibly be a Cherokee adaptation of the story of Hudson’s first landing on the island of Manhattan.At the creation an ulûñsû′tĭ was given to the white man, and a piece of silver to the Indian. But the white man despised the stone and threw it away, while the Indian did the same with the silver. In going about the white man afterward found the silver piece and put itinto his pocket and has prized it ever since. The Indian, in like manner, found the ulûñsû′tĭ where the white man had thrown it. He picked it up and has kept it since as his talisman, as money is the talismanic power of the white man. This story is quite general and is probably older than others of its class.When Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was trying to introduce it among his people, about 1822, some of them opposed it upon the ground that Indians had no business with reading. They said that when the Indian and the white man were created, the Indian, being the elder, was given a book, while the white man received a bow and arrows. Each was instructed to take good care of his gift and make the best use of it, but the Indian was so neglectful of his book that the white man soon stole it from him, leaving the bow in its place, so that books and reading now belong of right to the white man, while the Indian ought to be satisfied to hunt for a living.—Cherokee Advocate, October 26, 1844.The negro made the first locomotive for a toy and put it on a wooden track and was having great fun with it when a white man came along, watched until he saw how to run it, and then killed the negro and took the locomotive for himself. This, also, although plainly of very recent origin, was heard from several informants.89. THE IROQUOIS WARSLong wars were waged between the Cherokee and their remote northern relatives, the Iroquois, with both of whom the recollection, now nearly faded, was a vivid tradition fifty years ago. The (Seneca) Iroquois know the Cherokee as Oyadaʼgeʻoñnoñ, a name rather freely rendered “cave people.” The latter call the Iroquois, or rather their largest and most aggressive tribe, the Seneca, Nûndăwe′gĭ, Ani′-Nûn-dăwe′gĭ, or Ani′-Sĕ′nikă, the first forms being derived from Nûndawa′ga or Nûndawa′-ono, “people of the great hills,” the name by which the Seneca know themselves. According to authorities quoted by Schoolcraft, the Seneca claim to have at one time had a settlement, from which they were afterward driven, at Seneca, South Carolina, known in history as one of the principal towns of the Lower Cherokee.The league of the Iroquois was probably founded about the middle of the sixteenth century. Before 1680 they had conquered or exterminated all the tribes upon their immediate borders and had turned their arms against the more distant Illinois, Catawba, and Cherokee. According to Iroquois tradition, the Cherokee were the aggressors, having attacked and plundered a Seneca hunting party somewhere in the west, while in another story they are represented as having violated a peace treaty by the murder of the Iroquois delegates.Whatever the cause, the war was taken up by all the tribes of the league.From the Iroquois country to the Cherokee frontier was considered a five days’ journey for a rapidly traveling war party. As the distance was too great for large expeditions, the war consisted chiefly of a series of individual exploits, a single Cherokee often going hundreds of miles to strike a blow, which was sure to be promptly retaliated by the warriors from the north, the great object of every Iroquois boy being to go against the Cherokee as soon as he was old enough to take the war path. Captives were made on both sides, and probably in about equal numbers, the two parties being too evenly matched for either to gain any permanent advantage, and a compromise was finally made by which the Tennessee river came to be regarded as the boundary between their rival claims, all south of that stream being claimed by the Cherokee, and being acknowledged by the Iroquois, as the limit of their own conquests in that direction. This Indian boundary was recognized by the British government up to the time of the Revolution.Morgan states that a curious agreement was once made between the two tribes, by which this river was also made the limit of pursuit. If a returning war party of the Cherokee could recross the Tennessee before they were overtaken by the pursuing Iroquois they were as safe from attack as though entrenched behind a stockade. The pursuers, if they chose, might still invade the territory of the enemy, but they passed by the camp of the retreating Cherokee without offering to attack them. A similar agreement existed for a time between the Seneca and the Erie.The Buffalo dance of the Iroquois is traditionally said to have had its origin in an expedition against the Cherokee. When the warriors on their way to the south reached the Kentucky salt lick they found there a herd of buffalo, and heard them, for the first time, “singing their favorite songs,” i. e., bellowing and snorting. From the bellowing and the movements of the animals were derived the music and action of the dance.According to Cherokee tradition, as given by the chief Stand Watie, the war was finally brought to an end by the Iroquois, who sent a delegation to the Cherokee to propose a general alliance of the southern and western tribes. The Cherokee accepted the proposition, and in turn sent out invitations to the other tribes, all of which entered into the peace excepting the Osage, of whom it was therefore said that they should be henceforth like a wild fruit on the prairie, at which every bird should pick, and so the Osage have remained ever a predatory tribe without friends or allies. This may be the same treaty described in the story of “The Seneca Peacemakers.” A formal and final peace between the two tribes was arranged through the efforts of the British agent, Sir William Johnson, in 1768.In 1847 there were still living among the Seneca the grandchildren of Cherokee captives taken in these wars. In 1794 the Seneca pointed out to Colonel Pickering a chief who was a native Cherokee, having been taken when a boy and adopted among the Seneca, who afterward made him chief. This was probably the same man of whom they told Schoolcraft fifty years later. He was a full-blood Cherokee, but had been captured when too young to have any memory of the event. Years afterward, when he had grown to manhood and had become a chief in the tribe, he learned of his foreign origin, and was filled at once with an overpowering longing to go back to the south to find his people and live and die among them. He journeyed to the Cherokee country, but on arriving there found to his great disappointment that the story of his capture had been forgotten in the tribe, and that his relatives, if any were left, failed to recognize him. Being unable to find his kindred, he made only a short visit and returned again to the Seneca.From James Wafford, of Indian Territory, the author obtained a detailed account of the Iroquois peace embassy referred to by Stand Watie, and of the wampum belt that accompanied it. Wafford’s information concerning the proceedings at Echota was obtained directly from two eyewitnesses—Sequoya, the inventor of the alphabet, and Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who afterward explained the belt at the great council near Tahlequah seventy years later. Sequoya, at the time of the Echota conference, was a boy living with his mother at Taskigi town a few miles away, while Gatûñ′waʻlĭ was already a young man.The treaty of peace between the Cherokee and Iroquois, made at Johnson Hall in New York in 1768, appears from the record to have been brought about by the Cherokee, who sent for the purpose a delegation of chiefs, headed by Âgănstâ′ta, “Groundhog-sausage,” of Echota, their great leader in the war of 1760–61 against the English. After the treaty had been concluded the Cherokee delegates invited some of the Iroquois chiefs to go home with them for a visit, but the latter declined on the ground that it was not yet safe, and in fact some of their warriors were at that very time out against the Cherokee, not yet being aware of the peace negotiations. It is probable, therefore, that the Iroquois delegates did not arrive at Echota until some considerable time, perhaps three years, after the formal preliminaries had been concluded in the north.According to Sequoya’s account, as given to Wafford, there had been a long war between the Cherokee and the northern Indians, who were never able to conquer the Cherokee or break their spirit, until at last the Iroquois were tired of fighting and sent a delegation to make peace. The messengers set out for the south with their wampum belts and peace emblems, but lost their way after passing Tennesseeriver, perhaps from the necessity of avoiding the main trail, and instead of arriving at Itsâ′tĭ or Echota, the ancient peace town and capital of the Cherokee Nation—situated on Little Tennessee river below Citico creek, in the present Monroe county, Tennessee—they found themselves on the outskirts of Tă′likwă′ or Tellico, on Tellico river, some 10 or 15 miles to the southward.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.“The Onondagas retain the custody of the wampums of the Five Nations, and the keeper of the wampums, Thomas Webster, of the Snipe tribe, a consistent, thorough pagan, is their interpreter. Notwithstanding the claims made that the wampums can be read as a governing code of law, it is evident that they are simply monumental reminders of preserved traditions, without any literal details whatever. “The first [of this] group from left to right, represents a convention of the Six Nations at the adoption of the Tuscaroras into the league; the second, the Five Nations, upon seven strands, illustrates a treaty with seven Canadian tribes before the year 1600; the third signifies the guarded approach of strangers to the councils of the Five Nations (a guarded gate, with a long, white path leading to the inner gate, where the Five Nations are grouped, with the Onondagas in the center and a safe council house behind all); the fourth represents a treaty when but four of the Six Nations were represented, and the fifth embodies the pledge of seven Canadian christianized nations to abandon their crooked ways and keep an honest peace (having a cross for each tribe, and with a zigzag line below, to indicate that their ways had been crooked but would ever after be as sacred as the cross). Above this group is another, claiming to bear date about 1608, when Champlain joined the Algonquins against the Iroquois.”—Carrington, in Six Nations of New York, Extra Bulletin, Eleventh Census, pp. 33–34, 1892.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.3Concealing themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened thechief and his family were at work in their cornfield, and his daughter had just gone up to the house for some reason when the Iroquois entered and asked for something to eat. Seeing that he was a stranger, she set out food for him according to the old custom of hospitality. While he was eating her father, the chief, came in to see what was delaying her, and was surprised to find there one of the hereditary enemies of his tribe. By this time the word had gone out that an Iroquois was in the chief’s house, and the men of the town had left their work and seized their guns to kill him, but the chief heard them coming and standing in the doorway kept them off, saying: “This man has come here on a peace mission, and before you kill him you must first kill me.” They finally listened to him, and allowed the messenger to go out and bring his companions to the chief’s house, where they were all taken care of.When they were well rested after their long journey the chief of Tă′likwă himself went with them to Itsâ′tĭ, the capital, where lived the great chief Âgănstâ′ta, who was now the civil ruler of the Nation. The chiefs of the various towns were summoned and a council was held, at which the speaker for the Iroquois delegation delivered his message and produced the wampum belts and pipes, which they brought as proofs of their mission and had carried all the way in packs upon their backs.He said that for three years his people had been wanting to make peace. There was a spring of dark, cloudy water in their country, and they had covered it over for one year and then looked, but the water was still cloudy. Again they had covered it over, but when they looked at the end of another year it was still dark and troubled. For another year they had covered the spring, and this time when they looked the water was clear and sparkling. Then they knew the time had come, and they left home with their wampum belts to make peace with their enemies.The friendly message was accepted by the Cherokee, and the belts and other symbolic peace tokens were delivered over to their keeping. Other belts in turn were probably given to the Iroquois, and after the usual round of feasting and dancing the messengers returned to their people in the north and the long war was at an end.For nearly a century these symbolic records of the peace with the Iroquois were preserved by the Cherokee, and were carried with them to the western territory when the tribe was finally driven from its old home in 1838. They were then in the keeping of John Ross, principal chief at the time of the removal, and were solemnly produced at a great intertribal council held near Tahlequah, in the Indian Territory, in June, 1843, when they were interpreted by the Cherokee speaker, Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who had seen them delivered to the chiefs of his tribe at old Itsâ′tĭ seventy years before. Wafford was present on this occasion and describes it.Holding the belts over his arm while speaking, Hard-mush told of the original treaty with the Iroquois, and explained the meaning of each belt in turn. According to the best of Wafford’s recollection, there was one large belt, to which the smaller belts were fitted. The beads did not seem to be of shell, and may have been of porcelain. There were also red pipes for the warriors, grayish-white pipes for the chiefs who were foremost in making the peace, and some fans or other ornaments of feathers. There were several of the red pipes, resembling the red-stone pipes of the Sioux, but only one, or perhaps two, of the white peace pipes, which may have been only painted, and were much larger than the others. The pipes were passed around the circle at the council, so that each delegate might take a whiff. The objects altogether made a considerable package, which was carefully guarded by the Cherokee keeper. It is thought that they were destroyed in the War of the Rebellion when the house of John Ross, a few miles south of Tahlequah, was burned by the Confederate Cherokee under their general, Stand Watie.90. HIADEONI, THE SENECA“Hiadeoni was the father of the late chief Young-king. He was a Seneca warrior, a man of great prowess, dexterity, and swiftness of foot, and had established his reputation for courage and skill on many occasions. He resolved while the Seneca were still living on the Genesee river to make an incursion alone into the country of the Cherokee. He plumed himself with the idea that he could distinguish himself in this daring adventure, and he prepared for it, according to the custom of warriors. They never encumber themselves with baggage. He took nothing but his arms and the meal of a little parched and pounded corn. The forest gave him his meat.Hiadeoni reached the confines of the Cherokee country in safety and alone. He waited for evening before he entered the precincts of a village. He found the people engaged in a dance. He watched his opportunity, and when one of the dancers went out from the ring into the bushes he dispatched him with his hatchet. In this way he killed two men that night in the skirts of the woods without exciting alarm, and took their scalps and retreated. It was late when he came to a lodge, standing remote from the rest, on his course homeward. Watching here, he saw a young man come out, and killed him as he had done the others, and took his scalp. Looking into the lodge cautiously he saw it empty, and ventured in with the hope of finding some tobacco and ammunition to serve him on his way home.While thus busied in searching the lodge he heard footsteps at the door, and immediately threw himself on the bed from which the young man had risen, and covered his face, feigning sleep. They proved to be the footsteps of his last victim’s mother. She, supposing him to be her son, whom she had a short time before left lying there, said,“My son, I am going to such a place, and will not be back till morning.” He made a suitable response, and the old woman went out. Insensibly he fell asleep, and knew nothing till morning, when the first thing he heard was the mother’s voice. She, careful for her son, was at the fireplace very early, pulling some roasted squashes out of the ashes, and after putting them out, and telling him she left them for him to eat, she went away. He sprang up instantly and fled; but the early dawn had revealed his inroad, and he was hotly pursued. Light of foot, and having the start, he succeeded in reaching and concealing himself in a remote piece of woods, where he laid till night, and then pursued his way toward the Genesee, which, in due time he reached, bringing his three Cherokee scalps as trophies of his victory and prowess.”—Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 253, 1847.91. THE TWO MOHAWKS“In the year 1747 a couple of the Mohawk Indians came against the lower towns of the Cheerake, and so cunningly ambuscaded them through most part of the spring and summer, as to kill above twenty in different attacks before they were discovered by any party of the enraged and dejected people. They had a thorough knowledge of the most convenient ground for their purpose, and were extremely swift and long-winded. Whenever they killed any and got the scalp they made off to the neighboring mountains, and ran over the broad ledges of rocks in contrary courses, as occasion offered, so as the pursuers could by no means trace them. Once, when a large company was in chase of them, they ran round a steep hill at the head of the main eastern branch of Savana river, intercepted, killed, and scalped the hindmost of the party, and then made off between them and Keeowhee. As this was the town to which the company belonged, they hastened home in a close body, as the proper place of security from such enemy wizards. In this manner did those two sprightly, gallant savages perplex and intimidate their foes for the space of four moons in the greatest security, though they often were forced to kill and barbecue what they chiefly lived upon, in the midst of their watchful enemies. Having sufficiently revenged their relations’ blood and gratified their own ambition with an uncommon number of scalps, they resolved to captivate one and run home with him as a proof of their having killed none but the enemies of their country. Accordingly, they approached very near to Keeowhee, about half a mile below the late Fort Prince George. Advancing with the usual caution on such an occasion, one crawled along under the best cover of the place about the distance of a hundred yards ahead, while the other shifted from tree to tree, looking sharply every way. In the evening, however, an old, beloved man discovered them from the top of an adjoining hill, and knew them to be enemies by the cut of their hair, light trim forrunning, and their postures. He returned to the town and called first at the house of one of our traders and informed him of the affair, enjoining him not to mention it to any, lest the people should set off against them without success before their tracks were to be discovered and he be charged with having deceived them. But, contrary to the true policy of traders among unforgiving savages, that thoughtless member of the Choktah Sphynx Company busied himself, as usual, out of his proper sphere, sent for the headmen, and told them the story. As the Mohawks were allies and not known to molest any of the traders in the paths and woods, he ought to have observed a strict neutrality. The youth of the town, by order of their headmen, carried on their noisy public diversions in their usual manner to prevent their foes from having any suspicion of their danger, while runners were sent from the town to their neighbors to come silently and assist them to secure the prey in its state of security. They came like silent ghosts, concerted their plan of operation, passed over the river at the old trading ford opposite to the late fort, which lay between two contiguous commanding hills, and, proceeding downward over a broad creek, formed a large semicircle from the river bank, while the town seemed to be taking its usual rest. They then closed into a narrower compass, and at last discovered the two brave, unfortunate men lying close under the tops of some fallen young pine trees. The company gave the war signal, and the Mohawks, bounding up, bravely repeated it; but, by their sudden spring from under thick cover, their arms were useless. They made desperate efforts, however, to kill or be killed, as their situation required. One of the Cheerake, the noted half-breed of Istanare [Ustăna′lĭ] town, which lay 2 miles from thence, was at the first onset knocked down and almost killed with his own cutlass, which was wrested from him, though he was the strongest of the whole nation. But they were overpowered by numbers, captivated, and put to the most exquisite tortures of fire, amidst a prodigious crowd of exulting foes.One of the present Choktah traders, who was on the spot, told me that when they were tied to the stake the younger of the two discovered our traders on a hill near, addressed them in English, and entreated them to redeem their lives. The elder immediately spoke to him, in his own language, to desist. On this, he recollected himself, and became composed like a stoic, manifesting an indifference to life or death, pleasure or pain, according to their standard of martial virtue, and their dying behaviour did not reflect the least dishonor on their former gallant actions. All the pangs of fiery torture served only to refine their manly spirits, and as it was out of the power of the traders to redeem them they, according to our usual custom, retired as soon as the Indians began the diabolical tragedy.”—Adair, American Indians, p. 383, 1775.BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYNINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVIIANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)PHOTOGRAPH BY AUTHOR, 1888ANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)92. ESCAPE OF THE SENECA BOYSSome Seneca warriors were hunting in the woods, and one morning, on starting out for the day, they left two boys behind to take care of the camp. Soon after they had gone, a war party of Cherokee came up, and finding the boys alone took them both and started back to the south, traveling at such a rate that when the hunters returned in the evening they decided that it was of no use to follow them. When the Cherokee reached their own country they gave the boys to an old man, whose sons had been killed by the Seneca. He took the boys and adopted them for his own, and they grew up with him until they were large and strong enough to go hunting for themselves.But all the time they remembered their own home, and one day the older one said to his brother, “Let’s kill the old man and run away.” “No,” said the other, “we might get lost if we ran away, we are so far from home.” “I remember the way,” said his brother, so they made a plan to escape. A few days later the old man took the boys with him and the three set out together for a hunt in the mountains. When they were well away from the settlement the boys killed the old man, took all the meat and parched corn meal they could easily carry, and started to make their way back to the north, keeping away from the main trail and following the ridge of the mountains. After many days they came to the end of the mountains and found a trail which the older brother knew as the one along which they had been taken when they were first captured. They went on bravely now until they came to a wide clearing with houses at the farther end, and the older brother said, “I believe there is where we used to live.” It was so long ago that they were not quite sure, and besides they were dressed now like Cherokee, so they thought it safer to wait until dark. They saw a river ahead and went down to it and sat behind a large tree to wait. Soon several women came down for water and passed close to the tree without noticing the boys. Said the older brother, “I know those women. One of them is our mother.” They waited until the women had filled their buckets and started to the village, when both ran out to meet them with the Seneca hailing-shout, “Gowe′! Gowe′!” At first the women were frightened and thought it a party of Cherokee, but when they heard their own language they came nearer. Then the mother recognized her two sons, and said, “Let us go back and dance for the dead come to life,” and they were all very glad and went into the village together.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.93. THE UNSEEN HELPERSGanogwioeoñ, a war chief of the Seneca, led a party against the Cherokee. When they came near the first town he left his men outsideand went in alone. At the first house he found an old woman and her granddaughter. They did not see him, and he went into the âsĭ and hid himself under some wood. When darkness came on he heard the old woman say, “Maybe Ganogwioeoñ is near; I’ll close the door.” After a while he heard them going to bed. When he thought they were asleep he went into the house. The fire had burned down low, but the girl was still awake and saw him. She was about to scream, when he said, “I am Ganogwioeoñ. If you scream I’ll kill you. If you keep quiet I’ll not hurt you.” They talked together, and he told her that in the morning she must bring the chief’s daughter to him. She promised to do it, and told him where he should wait. Just before daylight he left the house.In the morning the girl went to the chief’s house and said to his daughter, “Let’s go out together for wood.” The chief’s daughter got ready and went with her, and when they came to the place where Ganogwioeoñ was hiding he sprang out and killed her, but did not hurt the other girl. He pulled off the scalp and gave such a loud scalp yell that all the warriors in the town heard it and came running out after him. He shook the scalp at them and then turned and ran. He killed the first one that came up, but when he tried to shoot the next one the bow broke and the Cherokee got him.They tied him and carried him to the two women of the tribe who had the power to decide what should be done with him. Each of these women had two snakes tattooed on her lips, with their heads opposite each other, in such a way that when she opened her mouth the two snakes opened their mouths also. They decided to burn the soles of his feet until they were blistered, then to put grains of corn under the skin and to chase him with clubs until they had beaten him to death.They stripped him and burnt his feet. Then they tied a bark rope around his waist, with an old man to hold the other end, and made him run between two lines of people, and with clubs in their hands. When they gave the word to start Ganogwioeoñ pulled the rope away from the old man and broke through the line and ran until he had left them all out of sight. When night came he crawled into a hollow log. He was naked and unarmed, with his feet in a pitiful condition, and thought he could never get away.He heard footsteps on the leaves outside and thought his enemies were upon him. The footsteps came up to the log and some one said to another, “This is our friend.” Then the stranger said to Ganogwioeoñ, “You think you are the same as dead; but it is not so. We will take care of you. Stick out your feet.” He put out his feet from the log and felt something licking them. After a while the voice said, “I think we have licked his feet enough. Now we must crawl inside the log and lie on each side of him to keep him warm.” Theycrawled in beside him. In the morning they crawled out and told him to stick out his feet again. They licked them again and then said to him, “Now we have done all we can do this time. Go on until you come to the place where you made a bark shelter a long time ago, and under the bark you will find something to help you.” Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the log, but they were gone. His feet were better now and he could walk comfortably. He went on until about noon, when he came to the bark shelter, and under it he found a knife, an awl, and a flint, that his men had hidden there two years before. He took them and started on again.Toward evening he looked around until he found another hollow tree and crawled into it to sleep. At night he heard the footsteps and voices again. When he put out his feet again, as the strangers told him to do, they licked his feet as before and then crawled in and lay down on each side of him to keep him warm. Still he could not see them. In the morning after they went out they licked his feet again and said to him, “At noon you will find food.” Then they went away.Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the tree and went on. At noon he came to a burning log, and near it was a dead bear, which was still warm, as if it had been killed only a short time before. He skinned the bear and found it very fat. He cut up the meat and roasted as much as he could eat or carry. While it was roasting he scraped the skin and rubbed rotten wood dust on it to clean it until he was tired. When night came he lay down to sleep. He heard the steps and the voices again and one said, “Well, our friend is lying down. He has plenty to eat, and it does not seem as if he is going to die. Let us lick his feet again.” When they had finished they said to him, “You need not worry any more now. You will get home all right.” Before it was day they left him.When morning came he put the bearskin around him like a shirt, with the hair outside, and started on again, taking as much of the meat as he could carry. That night his friends came to him again. They said, “Your feet are well, but you will be cold,” so they lay again on each side of him. Before daylight they left, saying, “About noon you will find something to wear.” He went on and about midday he came to two young bears just killed. He skinned them and dressed the skins, then roasted as much meat as he wanted and lay down to sleep. In the morning he made leggings of the skins, took some of the meat, and started on.His friends came again the next night and told him that in the morning he would come upon something else to wear. As they said, about noon he found two fawns just killed. He turned the skins and made himself a pair of moccasins, then cut some of the meat, and traveled on until evening, when he made a fire and had supper.That night again he heard the steps and voices, and one said, “My friend, very soon now you will reach home safely and find your friends all well. Now we will tell you why we have helped you. Whenever you went hunting you always gave the best part of the meat to us and kept only the smallest part for yourself. For that we are thankful and help you. In the morning you will see us and know who we are.”In the morning when he woke up they were still there—two men as he thought—but after he had said the last words to them and started on, he turned again to look, and one was a white wolf and the other a black wolf. That day he reached home.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.94. HATCINOÑDOÑ’S ESCAPE FROM THE CHEROKEEHatcinoñdoñ was a great warrior, the greatest among the Seneca. Once he led a company against the Cherokee. They traveled until they came to the great ridge on the border of the Cherokee country, and then they knew their enemies were on the lookout on the other side. Hatcinoñdoñ told his men to halt where they were while he went ahead to see what was in front. The enemy discovered and chased him, and he ran into a canebrake, where the canes were in two great patches with a narrow strip of open ground between. They saw him go into the canes, so they set fire to the patch and watched at the open place for him to come out, but before they got around to it he had run across into the second patch and escaped. When the canes had burned down the Cherokee looked for his body in the ashes, but could not find any trace of it, so they went home.When Hatcinoñdoñ got into the second canebrake he was tired out, so he lay down and fell asleep. At night while he was asleep two men came and took him by the arm, saying: “We have come for you. Somebody has sent for you.” They took him a long way, above the sky vault, until they came to a house. Then they said: “This is where the man lives who sent for you.” He looked, but could see no door. Then a voice from the inside said “Come in,” and something like a door opened of itself. He went in and there sat Hawĕñni′o, the Thunder-god.Hawĕñni′o said, “I have sent for you and you are here. Are you hungry?” Hatcinoñdoñ thought: “That’s a strange way to talk; that’s not the way I do—I give food.” The Thunder knew his thoughts, so he laughed and said, “I said that only in fun.” He rose and brought half a cake of bread, half of a wild apple, and half a pigeon. Hatcinoñdoñ said, “This is very little to fill me,” but the Thunder replied, “If you eat that, there is more.” He began eating, but, as he ate, everything became whole again, so that he was not able to finish it.While he was sitting he heard some one running outside, and directlythe door was thrown open and the Sun came in, so bright that Hatcinoñdoñ had to hold his head down. The two beings talked together, but the Seneca could not understand a word, and soon the visitor went out again. Then the Thunder said: “That is the one you call the Sun, who watches in the world below. It is night down there now, and he is hurrying to the east. He says there has just been a battle. I love both the Seneca and the Cherokee, and when you get back to your warriors you must tell them to stop fighting and go home.” Again he brought food, half of each kind, and when Hatcinoñdoñ had eaten, the Thunder said, “Now my messengers will take you to your place.”The door opened again of itself, and Hatcinoñdoñ followed the two Sky People until they brought him to the place where he had slept, and there left him. He found his party and told the warriors what he had seen. They held a council over it and decided to strike the enemy once before going home. Hatcinoñdoñ led them. They met the Cherokee and went home with scalps.He led another party against the Cherokee, but this time he was taken and carried to the Cherokee town. It was the custom among the Cherokee to let two women say what should be done with captives. They decided that he should be tortured with fire, so he was tied to a tree, and the wood was piled around him. Hatcinoñdoñ gave himself up for lost, when a rain storm came up and the people concluded to wait until it was over. They went away and left him tied to the tree.Pretty soon an old woman came up to him, and said, “My grandson, you think you are going to die, but you are not. Try to stir your limbs.” He struggled and finally got his limbs free. Then she said, “Now you are free. I have come to repay your kindness. You remember that you once found a frog in the middle of a circle of fire and that you picked it up and put it into the water. I was that frog, and now I help you. I sent the rain storm, and now you must go down to the creek and follow the current.”When the rain was over the people came back, but Hatcinoñdoñ was gone. They trailed him down to the creek, but he had found a hollow tree lying in the water, with a hole on the upper side through which he could breathe, so he crawled into it and they could not find him. Once two of the Cherokee came and sat on the log and he could hear them talking about him, but they did not know that he was inside. When they were all gone, he came out and kept on down the stream. After dark he came to a place where three hunters had made a fire and gone to sleep for the night. Their hatchets and arms were hung up on a tree. Hatcinoñdoñ was naked. He listened until he was sure the men were asleep, then he took one of their hatchets and killed all three, one after another. He dressed himself in the clothes of one, and put on his belt, with the knife and hatchet. Then he washed himself at the creek and sat down by the fire and cooked his supper.After that he stretched and painted the three scalps and lay down by the fire to sleep. In the morning he took what provision he could carry and traveled in a great circle until he found the road by which he and his warriors had come. He found fresh tracks and followed them until he saw smoke ahead. He listened until he heard men speaking Seneca, and knew that it was his party. Then he gave the Seneca shout—Gowe′!—three times and his friends ran out to meet him. They had been afraid that he was killed, but were glad now that they had waited for him. They went home together. This is their story.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.95. HEMP-CARRIEROn the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are leveled now, but thirty years ago the stones were still heaped up into pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of the Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two Nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlements on Hiwassee and Cheowa a party was made underTâle′danigi′skĭ, “Hemp-carrier,” to follow and take vengeance on the enemy. Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief Tsunu′lăhûñ′skĭ, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died on Cheowa about 1855.For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky mountains, through forests and over rivers, until they finally tracked them to their very town in the far northern Seneca country. On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps. When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the townhouse, where the women were dancing over the fresh Cherokee scalps. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the townhouse never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, “We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the war whoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?” “Let them come, if they will,” said his men; and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokee. At once there was an answering shout from the townhouse, and the dance came to a sudden stop. The Seneca warriors swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and activerunners, and managed to get away with the loss of only a single man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-carrier’s bravery and success that they gave him seven wives.96. THE SENECA PEACEMAKERSIn the course of the long war with the Cherokee it happened once that eight Seneca determined to undertake a journey to the south to see if they could make a peace with their enemies. On coming near the border of the Cherokee country they met some hunters of that tribe to whom they told their purpose. The latter at once hurried ahead with the news, and when the peacemakers arrived they found themselves well received by the Cherokee chiefs, who called a council to consider the proposition. All but one of the chiefs favored the peace, but he demanded that the eight delegates should first join them in a war party which was just preparing to go against a tribe farther south, probably the Creeks. The Seneca agreed, and set out with the war party for the south; but in the fight which resulted, the Seneca leader, The Owl, was captured. The other seven escaped with the Cherokee.A council was held in the enemy’s camp, and it was decided that The Owl should be burned at the stake. The wood was gathered and everything made ready, but as they were about to tie him he claimed the warrior’s privilege to sing his death song and strike the post as he recited his warlike deeds. The request pleased his enemies, who put a tomahawk into his hands and told him to begin.He told first his exploits in the north, and then in the west, giving times and places and the number of scalps taken, until his enemies were so pleased and interested that they forgot the prisoner in the warrior. It was a long story, but at last he came to the battle in which he was taken. He told how many relatives he had killed of the very men around him, and then, striking the post with his tomahawk, “So many of your people have I killed, and so many will I yet kill;” and with that he struck down two men, sprang through the circle of warriors, and was away. It was all so sudden that it was some moments before his enemies could recover from their surprise. Then they seized their weapons and were after him through the woods, but he had had a good start and was running for his life, so that he outran the chase and finally reached the Cherokee camp in safety and rejoined his seven companions.On this proof of good will the Cherokee then concluded the treaty, and the peacemakers returned to their own country.—Arranged from Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 258.97. ORIGIN OF THE YONTOÑWISAS DANCETwo Seneca women who were sisters, with the baby boy of the older one, were in a sugar grove near their home when a war party ofCherokee came upon them and carried them off. When the people of the town learned what had happened, they decided not to go after the enemy for fear they would kill the women, so their made no pursuit.The Cherokee carried the women with them until they were within one day of the Cherokee towns. The elder sister learned this and made up her mind to try to escape. She had a knife without a handle hidden under her belt, and that night when all lay down to sleep by the fire she kept awake. When they were sleeping soundly, she looked around. She and her sister were tied together, and on each side of them was a Cherokee with the end of the rope under his body on the ground. Taking out her knife, she cut the rope without waking the men, and then rousing her sister quietly she whispered to her to come. They were going to leave the little boy, but he started to cry, so she said, “Let us die together,” and took him up on her back, and the two women hurried away. In a little while they heard an alarm behind them, and knew that their escape was discovered, and then they saw the blazing pine knots waving through the trees where the Cherokee were coming on looking for them. The women knew the Cherokee would hunt for them toward the north, along the trail to the Seneca country, so they made a circuit and went around to the south until they came in sight of a fire and saw a man sitting by a tree, shaking a rattle and singing in a low voice. They found they had come directly back to the enemy’s camp, so the older sister said, “This will never do; we must try again. Let us go straight ahead to that big tree in front, and from that straight on to the next, and the next.” In this way they kept on a straight course until morning. When the sun came up, they took another direction toward home, and at night they rested in the woods.They traveled all the next day, and at night rested again. In the night a voice spoke to the younger woman, “Is that where you are resting?” and she answered, “Yes.” The voice said again, “Keep on, and you will come out at the spot where you were captured. No harm will come to you. To-morrow you will find food.” She roused her sister and told her what the voice had said.In the morning they went on and at noon found a buck freshly killed. Near by they found a log on fire, so they roasted some of the meat, had a good meal, and carried away afterwards as much of the meat as they could. They kept on, camping every night, and when the meat was nearly gone they saved the rest for the little boy.At last one night the voice spoke again to the younger sister and said, “You are on the right road, and to-morrow you will be on the border of the Seneca country. You will find food. That is all.”In the morning she told her older sister. They started on again and walked until about noon, when they came to a patch of wild potatoes. They dug and found plenty, and as they looked around they saw smokewhere there had been a camp fire. They gathered wood, made up the fire, and roasted the potatoes. Then they ate as many as they wanted and carried the rest with them.They traveled on until the potatoes were almost gone. Then at night the voice came again to the younger woman, saying: “At noon tomorrow you will reach your home, and the first person you will meet will be your uncle. When you get to the town, you must call the people together and tell them all that has happened. You must go to the long house and take off your skirt and carry it on your shoulder. Then you must go inside and go around once, singing, ‘We have come home; we are here.’ This is theYontoñwisassong, and it shall be for women only. Know now that we are theHadionyageonoñ, the Sky People, who have watched over you all this time.”When the girl awoke, she told her sister, and they said, “We must do all this,” and they began to sing as they went along. About noon they heard the sound of chopping, and when they went to the place they found it was their uncle cutting blocks to make spoons. He did not see them until they spoke, and at first could hardly believe that they were living women, because he knew that they had been taken by the Cherokee. He was very glad to see them, and as they walked on to the town they told him all they had been commanded to do by the Sky People. When they arrived at the town, he called all the people together, and they went to the long house. There the two women sang their song and did everything exactly as they had been told to do, and when it was over they said, “This is all,” and sat down. This is the same Yontoñwisas song that is still sung by the women.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

Historical Traditions88. FIRST CONTACT WITH WHITESThere are a few stories concerning the first contact of the Cherokee with whites and negroes. They are very modern and have little value as myths, but throw some light upon the Indian estimate of the different races.One story relates how the first whites came from the east and tried to enter into friendly relations, but the Indians would have nothing to do with them for a long time. At last the whites left a jug of whisky and a dipper near a spring frequented by the Indians. The Indians came along, tasted the liquor, which they had never known before, and liked it so well that they ended by all getting comfortably drunk. While they were in this happy frame of mind some white men came up, and this time the Indians shook hands with them and they have been friends after a fashion ever since. This may possibly be a Cherokee adaptation of the story of Hudson’s first landing on the island of Manhattan.At the creation an ulûñsû′tĭ was given to the white man, and a piece of silver to the Indian. But the white man despised the stone and threw it away, while the Indian did the same with the silver. In going about the white man afterward found the silver piece and put itinto his pocket and has prized it ever since. The Indian, in like manner, found the ulûñsû′tĭ where the white man had thrown it. He picked it up and has kept it since as his talisman, as money is the talismanic power of the white man. This story is quite general and is probably older than others of its class.When Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was trying to introduce it among his people, about 1822, some of them opposed it upon the ground that Indians had no business with reading. They said that when the Indian and the white man were created, the Indian, being the elder, was given a book, while the white man received a bow and arrows. Each was instructed to take good care of his gift and make the best use of it, but the Indian was so neglectful of his book that the white man soon stole it from him, leaving the bow in its place, so that books and reading now belong of right to the white man, while the Indian ought to be satisfied to hunt for a living.—Cherokee Advocate, October 26, 1844.The negro made the first locomotive for a toy and put it on a wooden track and was having great fun with it when a white man came along, watched until he saw how to run it, and then killed the negro and took the locomotive for himself. This, also, although plainly of very recent origin, was heard from several informants.89. THE IROQUOIS WARSLong wars were waged between the Cherokee and their remote northern relatives, the Iroquois, with both of whom the recollection, now nearly faded, was a vivid tradition fifty years ago. The (Seneca) Iroquois know the Cherokee as Oyadaʼgeʻoñnoñ, a name rather freely rendered “cave people.” The latter call the Iroquois, or rather their largest and most aggressive tribe, the Seneca, Nûndăwe′gĭ, Ani′-Nûn-dăwe′gĭ, or Ani′-Sĕ′nikă, the first forms being derived from Nûndawa′ga or Nûndawa′-ono, “people of the great hills,” the name by which the Seneca know themselves. According to authorities quoted by Schoolcraft, the Seneca claim to have at one time had a settlement, from which they were afterward driven, at Seneca, South Carolina, known in history as one of the principal towns of the Lower Cherokee.The league of the Iroquois was probably founded about the middle of the sixteenth century. Before 1680 they had conquered or exterminated all the tribes upon their immediate borders and had turned their arms against the more distant Illinois, Catawba, and Cherokee. According to Iroquois tradition, the Cherokee were the aggressors, having attacked and plundered a Seneca hunting party somewhere in the west, while in another story they are represented as having violated a peace treaty by the murder of the Iroquois delegates.Whatever the cause, the war was taken up by all the tribes of the league.From the Iroquois country to the Cherokee frontier was considered a five days’ journey for a rapidly traveling war party. As the distance was too great for large expeditions, the war consisted chiefly of a series of individual exploits, a single Cherokee often going hundreds of miles to strike a blow, which was sure to be promptly retaliated by the warriors from the north, the great object of every Iroquois boy being to go against the Cherokee as soon as he was old enough to take the war path. Captives were made on both sides, and probably in about equal numbers, the two parties being too evenly matched for either to gain any permanent advantage, and a compromise was finally made by which the Tennessee river came to be regarded as the boundary between their rival claims, all south of that stream being claimed by the Cherokee, and being acknowledged by the Iroquois, as the limit of their own conquests in that direction. This Indian boundary was recognized by the British government up to the time of the Revolution.Morgan states that a curious agreement was once made between the two tribes, by which this river was also made the limit of pursuit. If a returning war party of the Cherokee could recross the Tennessee before they were overtaken by the pursuing Iroquois they were as safe from attack as though entrenched behind a stockade. The pursuers, if they chose, might still invade the territory of the enemy, but they passed by the camp of the retreating Cherokee without offering to attack them. A similar agreement existed for a time between the Seneca and the Erie.The Buffalo dance of the Iroquois is traditionally said to have had its origin in an expedition against the Cherokee. When the warriors on their way to the south reached the Kentucky salt lick they found there a herd of buffalo, and heard them, for the first time, “singing their favorite songs,” i. e., bellowing and snorting. From the bellowing and the movements of the animals were derived the music and action of the dance.According to Cherokee tradition, as given by the chief Stand Watie, the war was finally brought to an end by the Iroquois, who sent a delegation to the Cherokee to propose a general alliance of the southern and western tribes. The Cherokee accepted the proposition, and in turn sent out invitations to the other tribes, all of which entered into the peace excepting the Osage, of whom it was therefore said that they should be henceforth like a wild fruit on the prairie, at which every bird should pick, and so the Osage have remained ever a predatory tribe without friends or allies. This may be the same treaty described in the story of “The Seneca Peacemakers.” A formal and final peace between the two tribes was arranged through the efforts of the British agent, Sir William Johnson, in 1768.In 1847 there were still living among the Seneca the grandchildren of Cherokee captives taken in these wars. In 1794 the Seneca pointed out to Colonel Pickering a chief who was a native Cherokee, having been taken when a boy and adopted among the Seneca, who afterward made him chief. This was probably the same man of whom they told Schoolcraft fifty years later. He was a full-blood Cherokee, but had been captured when too young to have any memory of the event. Years afterward, when he had grown to manhood and had become a chief in the tribe, he learned of his foreign origin, and was filled at once with an overpowering longing to go back to the south to find his people and live and die among them. He journeyed to the Cherokee country, but on arriving there found to his great disappointment that the story of his capture had been forgotten in the tribe, and that his relatives, if any were left, failed to recognize him. Being unable to find his kindred, he made only a short visit and returned again to the Seneca.From James Wafford, of Indian Territory, the author obtained a detailed account of the Iroquois peace embassy referred to by Stand Watie, and of the wampum belt that accompanied it. Wafford’s information concerning the proceedings at Echota was obtained directly from two eyewitnesses—Sequoya, the inventor of the alphabet, and Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who afterward explained the belt at the great council near Tahlequah seventy years later. Sequoya, at the time of the Echota conference, was a boy living with his mother at Taskigi town a few miles away, while Gatûñ′waʻlĭ was already a young man.The treaty of peace between the Cherokee and Iroquois, made at Johnson Hall in New York in 1768, appears from the record to have been brought about by the Cherokee, who sent for the purpose a delegation of chiefs, headed by Âgănstâ′ta, “Groundhog-sausage,” of Echota, their great leader in the war of 1760–61 against the English. After the treaty had been concluded the Cherokee delegates invited some of the Iroquois chiefs to go home with them for a visit, but the latter declined on the ground that it was not yet safe, and in fact some of their warriors were at that very time out against the Cherokee, not yet being aware of the peace negotiations. It is probable, therefore, that the Iroquois delegates did not arrive at Echota until some considerable time, perhaps three years, after the formal preliminaries had been concluded in the north.According to Sequoya’s account, as given to Wafford, there had been a long war between the Cherokee and the northern Indians, who were never able to conquer the Cherokee or break their spirit, until at last the Iroquois were tired of fighting and sent a delegation to make peace. The messengers set out for the south with their wampum belts and peace emblems, but lost their way after passing Tennesseeriver, perhaps from the necessity of avoiding the main trail, and instead of arriving at Itsâ′tĭ or Echota, the ancient peace town and capital of the Cherokee Nation—situated on Little Tennessee river below Citico creek, in the present Monroe county, Tennessee—they found themselves on the outskirts of Tă′likwă′ or Tellico, on Tellico river, some 10 or 15 miles to the southward.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.“The Onondagas retain the custody of the wampums of the Five Nations, and the keeper of the wampums, Thomas Webster, of the Snipe tribe, a consistent, thorough pagan, is their interpreter. Notwithstanding the claims made that the wampums can be read as a governing code of law, it is evident that they are simply monumental reminders of preserved traditions, without any literal details whatever. “The first [of this] group from left to right, represents a convention of the Six Nations at the adoption of the Tuscaroras into the league; the second, the Five Nations, upon seven strands, illustrates a treaty with seven Canadian tribes before the year 1600; the third signifies the guarded approach of strangers to the councils of the Five Nations (a guarded gate, with a long, white path leading to the inner gate, where the Five Nations are grouped, with the Onondagas in the center and a safe council house behind all); the fourth represents a treaty when but four of the Six Nations were represented, and the fifth embodies the pledge of seven Canadian christianized nations to abandon their crooked ways and keep an honest peace (having a cross for each tribe, and with a zigzag line below, to indicate that their ways had been crooked but would ever after be as sacred as the cross). Above this group is another, claiming to bear date about 1608, when Champlain joined the Algonquins against the Iroquois.”—Carrington, in Six Nations of New York, Extra Bulletin, Eleventh Census, pp. 33–34, 1892.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.3Concealing themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened thechief and his family were at work in their cornfield, and his daughter had just gone up to the house for some reason when the Iroquois entered and asked for something to eat. Seeing that he was a stranger, she set out food for him according to the old custom of hospitality. While he was eating her father, the chief, came in to see what was delaying her, and was surprised to find there one of the hereditary enemies of his tribe. By this time the word had gone out that an Iroquois was in the chief’s house, and the men of the town had left their work and seized their guns to kill him, but the chief heard them coming and standing in the doorway kept them off, saying: “This man has come here on a peace mission, and before you kill him you must first kill me.” They finally listened to him, and allowed the messenger to go out and bring his companions to the chief’s house, where they were all taken care of.When they were well rested after their long journey the chief of Tă′likwă himself went with them to Itsâ′tĭ, the capital, where lived the great chief Âgănstâ′ta, who was now the civil ruler of the Nation. The chiefs of the various towns were summoned and a council was held, at which the speaker for the Iroquois delegation delivered his message and produced the wampum belts and pipes, which they brought as proofs of their mission and had carried all the way in packs upon their backs.He said that for three years his people had been wanting to make peace. There was a spring of dark, cloudy water in their country, and they had covered it over for one year and then looked, but the water was still cloudy. Again they had covered it over, but when they looked at the end of another year it was still dark and troubled. For another year they had covered the spring, and this time when they looked the water was clear and sparkling. Then they knew the time had come, and they left home with their wampum belts to make peace with their enemies.The friendly message was accepted by the Cherokee, and the belts and other symbolic peace tokens were delivered over to their keeping. Other belts in turn were probably given to the Iroquois, and after the usual round of feasting and dancing the messengers returned to their people in the north and the long war was at an end.For nearly a century these symbolic records of the peace with the Iroquois were preserved by the Cherokee, and were carried with them to the western territory when the tribe was finally driven from its old home in 1838. They were then in the keeping of John Ross, principal chief at the time of the removal, and were solemnly produced at a great intertribal council held near Tahlequah, in the Indian Territory, in June, 1843, when they were interpreted by the Cherokee speaker, Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who had seen them delivered to the chiefs of his tribe at old Itsâ′tĭ seventy years before. Wafford was present on this occasion and describes it.Holding the belts over his arm while speaking, Hard-mush told of the original treaty with the Iroquois, and explained the meaning of each belt in turn. According to the best of Wafford’s recollection, there was one large belt, to which the smaller belts were fitted. The beads did not seem to be of shell, and may have been of porcelain. There were also red pipes for the warriors, grayish-white pipes for the chiefs who were foremost in making the peace, and some fans or other ornaments of feathers. There were several of the red pipes, resembling the red-stone pipes of the Sioux, but only one, or perhaps two, of the white peace pipes, which may have been only painted, and were much larger than the others. The pipes were passed around the circle at the council, so that each delegate might take a whiff. The objects altogether made a considerable package, which was carefully guarded by the Cherokee keeper. It is thought that they were destroyed in the War of the Rebellion when the house of John Ross, a few miles south of Tahlequah, was burned by the Confederate Cherokee under their general, Stand Watie.90. HIADEONI, THE SENECA“Hiadeoni was the father of the late chief Young-king. He was a Seneca warrior, a man of great prowess, dexterity, and swiftness of foot, and had established his reputation for courage and skill on many occasions. He resolved while the Seneca were still living on the Genesee river to make an incursion alone into the country of the Cherokee. He plumed himself with the idea that he could distinguish himself in this daring adventure, and he prepared for it, according to the custom of warriors. They never encumber themselves with baggage. He took nothing but his arms and the meal of a little parched and pounded corn. The forest gave him his meat.Hiadeoni reached the confines of the Cherokee country in safety and alone. He waited for evening before he entered the precincts of a village. He found the people engaged in a dance. He watched his opportunity, and when one of the dancers went out from the ring into the bushes he dispatched him with his hatchet. In this way he killed two men that night in the skirts of the woods without exciting alarm, and took their scalps and retreated. It was late when he came to a lodge, standing remote from the rest, on his course homeward. Watching here, he saw a young man come out, and killed him as he had done the others, and took his scalp. Looking into the lodge cautiously he saw it empty, and ventured in with the hope of finding some tobacco and ammunition to serve him on his way home.While thus busied in searching the lodge he heard footsteps at the door, and immediately threw himself on the bed from which the young man had risen, and covered his face, feigning sleep. They proved to be the footsteps of his last victim’s mother. She, supposing him to be her son, whom she had a short time before left lying there, said,“My son, I am going to such a place, and will not be back till morning.” He made a suitable response, and the old woman went out. Insensibly he fell asleep, and knew nothing till morning, when the first thing he heard was the mother’s voice. She, careful for her son, was at the fireplace very early, pulling some roasted squashes out of the ashes, and after putting them out, and telling him she left them for him to eat, she went away. He sprang up instantly and fled; but the early dawn had revealed his inroad, and he was hotly pursued. Light of foot, and having the start, he succeeded in reaching and concealing himself in a remote piece of woods, where he laid till night, and then pursued his way toward the Genesee, which, in due time he reached, bringing his three Cherokee scalps as trophies of his victory and prowess.”—Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 253, 1847.91. THE TWO MOHAWKS“In the year 1747 a couple of the Mohawk Indians came against the lower towns of the Cheerake, and so cunningly ambuscaded them through most part of the spring and summer, as to kill above twenty in different attacks before they were discovered by any party of the enraged and dejected people. They had a thorough knowledge of the most convenient ground for their purpose, and were extremely swift and long-winded. Whenever they killed any and got the scalp they made off to the neighboring mountains, and ran over the broad ledges of rocks in contrary courses, as occasion offered, so as the pursuers could by no means trace them. Once, when a large company was in chase of them, they ran round a steep hill at the head of the main eastern branch of Savana river, intercepted, killed, and scalped the hindmost of the party, and then made off between them and Keeowhee. As this was the town to which the company belonged, they hastened home in a close body, as the proper place of security from such enemy wizards. In this manner did those two sprightly, gallant savages perplex and intimidate their foes for the space of four moons in the greatest security, though they often were forced to kill and barbecue what they chiefly lived upon, in the midst of their watchful enemies. Having sufficiently revenged their relations’ blood and gratified their own ambition with an uncommon number of scalps, they resolved to captivate one and run home with him as a proof of their having killed none but the enemies of their country. Accordingly, they approached very near to Keeowhee, about half a mile below the late Fort Prince George. Advancing with the usual caution on such an occasion, one crawled along under the best cover of the place about the distance of a hundred yards ahead, while the other shifted from tree to tree, looking sharply every way. In the evening, however, an old, beloved man discovered them from the top of an adjoining hill, and knew them to be enemies by the cut of their hair, light trim forrunning, and their postures. He returned to the town and called first at the house of one of our traders and informed him of the affair, enjoining him not to mention it to any, lest the people should set off against them without success before their tracks were to be discovered and he be charged with having deceived them. But, contrary to the true policy of traders among unforgiving savages, that thoughtless member of the Choktah Sphynx Company busied himself, as usual, out of his proper sphere, sent for the headmen, and told them the story. As the Mohawks were allies and not known to molest any of the traders in the paths and woods, he ought to have observed a strict neutrality. The youth of the town, by order of their headmen, carried on their noisy public diversions in their usual manner to prevent their foes from having any suspicion of their danger, while runners were sent from the town to their neighbors to come silently and assist them to secure the prey in its state of security. They came like silent ghosts, concerted their plan of operation, passed over the river at the old trading ford opposite to the late fort, which lay between two contiguous commanding hills, and, proceeding downward over a broad creek, formed a large semicircle from the river bank, while the town seemed to be taking its usual rest. They then closed into a narrower compass, and at last discovered the two brave, unfortunate men lying close under the tops of some fallen young pine trees. The company gave the war signal, and the Mohawks, bounding up, bravely repeated it; but, by their sudden spring from under thick cover, their arms were useless. They made desperate efforts, however, to kill or be killed, as their situation required. One of the Cheerake, the noted half-breed of Istanare [Ustăna′lĭ] town, which lay 2 miles from thence, was at the first onset knocked down and almost killed with his own cutlass, which was wrested from him, though he was the strongest of the whole nation. But they were overpowered by numbers, captivated, and put to the most exquisite tortures of fire, amidst a prodigious crowd of exulting foes.One of the present Choktah traders, who was on the spot, told me that when they were tied to the stake the younger of the two discovered our traders on a hill near, addressed them in English, and entreated them to redeem their lives. The elder immediately spoke to him, in his own language, to desist. On this, he recollected himself, and became composed like a stoic, manifesting an indifference to life or death, pleasure or pain, according to their standard of martial virtue, and their dying behaviour did not reflect the least dishonor on their former gallant actions. All the pangs of fiery torture served only to refine their manly spirits, and as it was out of the power of the traders to redeem them they, according to our usual custom, retired as soon as the Indians began the diabolical tragedy.”—Adair, American Indians, p. 383, 1775.BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYNINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVIIANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)PHOTOGRAPH BY AUTHOR, 1888ANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)92. ESCAPE OF THE SENECA BOYSSome Seneca warriors were hunting in the woods, and one morning, on starting out for the day, they left two boys behind to take care of the camp. Soon after they had gone, a war party of Cherokee came up, and finding the boys alone took them both and started back to the south, traveling at such a rate that when the hunters returned in the evening they decided that it was of no use to follow them. When the Cherokee reached their own country they gave the boys to an old man, whose sons had been killed by the Seneca. He took the boys and adopted them for his own, and they grew up with him until they were large and strong enough to go hunting for themselves.But all the time they remembered their own home, and one day the older one said to his brother, “Let’s kill the old man and run away.” “No,” said the other, “we might get lost if we ran away, we are so far from home.” “I remember the way,” said his brother, so they made a plan to escape. A few days later the old man took the boys with him and the three set out together for a hunt in the mountains. When they were well away from the settlement the boys killed the old man, took all the meat and parched corn meal they could easily carry, and started to make their way back to the north, keeping away from the main trail and following the ridge of the mountains. After many days they came to the end of the mountains and found a trail which the older brother knew as the one along which they had been taken when they were first captured. They went on bravely now until they came to a wide clearing with houses at the farther end, and the older brother said, “I believe there is where we used to live.” It was so long ago that they were not quite sure, and besides they were dressed now like Cherokee, so they thought it safer to wait until dark. They saw a river ahead and went down to it and sat behind a large tree to wait. Soon several women came down for water and passed close to the tree without noticing the boys. Said the older brother, “I know those women. One of them is our mother.” They waited until the women had filled their buckets and started to the village, when both ran out to meet them with the Seneca hailing-shout, “Gowe′! Gowe′!” At first the women were frightened and thought it a party of Cherokee, but when they heard their own language they came nearer. Then the mother recognized her two sons, and said, “Let us go back and dance for the dead come to life,” and they were all very glad and went into the village together.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.93. THE UNSEEN HELPERSGanogwioeoñ, a war chief of the Seneca, led a party against the Cherokee. When they came near the first town he left his men outsideand went in alone. At the first house he found an old woman and her granddaughter. They did not see him, and he went into the âsĭ and hid himself under some wood. When darkness came on he heard the old woman say, “Maybe Ganogwioeoñ is near; I’ll close the door.” After a while he heard them going to bed. When he thought they were asleep he went into the house. The fire had burned down low, but the girl was still awake and saw him. She was about to scream, when he said, “I am Ganogwioeoñ. If you scream I’ll kill you. If you keep quiet I’ll not hurt you.” They talked together, and he told her that in the morning she must bring the chief’s daughter to him. She promised to do it, and told him where he should wait. Just before daylight he left the house.In the morning the girl went to the chief’s house and said to his daughter, “Let’s go out together for wood.” The chief’s daughter got ready and went with her, and when they came to the place where Ganogwioeoñ was hiding he sprang out and killed her, but did not hurt the other girl. He pulled off the scalp and gave such a loud scalp yell that all the warriors in the town heard it and came running out after him. He shook the scalp at them and then turned and ran. He killed the first one that came up, but when he tried to shoot the next one the bow broke and the Cherokee got him.They tied him and carried him to the two women of the tribe who had the power to decide what should be done with him. Each of these women had two snakes tattooed on her lips, with their heads opposite each other, in such a way that when she opened her mouth the two snakes opened their mouths also. They decided to burn the soles of his feet until they were blistered, then to put grains of corn under the skin and to chase him with clubs until they had beaten him to death.They stripped him and burnt his feet. Then they tied a bark rope around his waist, with an old man to hold the other end, and made him run between two lines of people, and with clubs in their hands. When they gave the word to start Ganogwioeoñ pulled the rope away from the old man and broke through the line and ran until he had left them all out of sight. When night came he crawled into a hollow log. He was naked and unarmed, with his feet in a pitiful condition, and thought he could never get away.He heard footsteps on the leaves outside and thought his enemies were upon him. The footsteps came up to the log and some one said to another, “This is our friend.” Then the stranger said to Ganogwioeoñ, “You think you are the same as dead; but it is not so. We will take care of you. Stick out your feet.” He put out his feet from the log and felt something licking them. After a while the voice said, “I think we have licked his feet enough. Now we must crawl inside the log and lie on each side of him to keep him warm.” Theycrawled in beside him. In the morning they crawled out and told him to stick out his feet again. They licked them again and then said to him, “Now we have done all we can do this time. Go on until you come to the place where you made a bark shelter a long time ago, and under the bark you will find something to help you.” Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the log, but they were gone. His feet were better now and he could walk comfortably. He went on until about noon, when he came to the bark shelter, and under it he found a knife, an awl, and a flint, that his men had hidden there two years before. He took them and started on again.Toward evening he looked around until he found another hollow tree and crawled into it to sleep. At night he heard the footsteps and voices again. When he put out his feet again, as the strangers told him to do, they licked his feet as before and then crawled in and lay down on each side of him to keep him warm. Still he could not see them. In the morning after they went out they licked his feet again and said to him, “At noon you will find food.” Then they went away.Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the tree and went on. At noon he came to a burning log, and near it was a dead bear, which was still warm, as if it had been killed only a short time before. He skinned the bear and found it very fat. He cut up the meat and roasted as much as he could eat or carry. While it was roasting he scraped the skin and rubbed rotten wood dust on it to clean it until he was tired. When night came he lay down to sleep. He heard the steps and the voices again and one said, “Well, our friend is lying down. He has plenty to eat, and it does not seem as if he is going to die. Let us lick his feet again.” When they had finished they said to him, “You need not worry any more now. You will get home all right.” Before it was day they left him.When morning came he put the bearskin around him like a shirt, with the hair outside, and started on again, taking as much of the meat as he could carry. That night his friends came to him again. They said, “Your feet are well, but you will be cold,” so they lay again on each side of him. Before daylight they left, saying, “About noon you will find something to wear.” He went on and about midday he came to two young bears just killed. He skinned them and dressed the skins, then roasted as much meat as he wanted and lay down to sleep. In the morning he made leggings of the skins, took some of the meat, and started on.His friends came again the next night and told him that in the morning he would come upon something else to wear. As they said, about noon he found two fawns just killed. He turned the skins and made himself a pair of moccasins, then cut some of the meat, and traveled on until evening, when he made a fire and had supper.That night again he heard the steps and voices, and one said, “My friend, very soon now you will reach home safely and find your friends all well. Now we will tell you why we have helped you. Whenever you went hunting you always gave the best part of the meat to us and kept only the smallest part for yourself. For that we are thankful and help you. In the morning you will see us and know who we are.”In the morning when he woke up they were still there—two men as he thought—but after he had said the last words to them and started on, he turned again to look, and one was a white wolf and the other a black wolf. That day he reached home.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.94. HATCINOÑDOÑ’S ESCAPE FROM THE CHEROKEEHatcinoñdoñ was a great warrior, the greatest among the Seneca. Once he led a company against the Cherokee. They traveled until they came to the great ridge on the border of the Cherokee country, and then they knew their enemies were on the lookout on the other side. Hatcinoñdoñ told his men to halt where they were while he went ahead to see what was in front. The enemy discovered and chased him, and he ran into a canebrake, where the canes were in two great patches with a narrow strip of open ground between. They saw him go into the canes, so they set fire to the patch and watched at the open place for him to come out, but before they got around to it he had run across into the second patch and escaped. When the canes had burned down the Cherokee looked for his body in the ashes, but could not find any trace of it, so they went home.When Hatcinoñdoñ got into the second canebrake he was tired out, so he lay down and fell asleep. At night while he was asleep two men came and took him by the arm, saying: “We have come for you. Somebody has sent for you.” They took him a long way, above the sky vault, until they came to a house. Then they said: “This is where the man lives who sent for you.” He looked, but could see no door. Then a voice from the inside said “Come in,” and something like a door opened of itself. He went in and there sat Hawĕñni′o, the Thunder-god.Hawĕñni′o said, “I have sent for you and you are here. Are you hungry?” Hatcinoñdoñ thought: “That’s a strange way to talk; that’s not the way I do—I give food.” The Thunder knew his thoughts, so he laughed and said, “I said that only in fun.” He rose and brought half a cake of bread, half of a wild apple, and half a pigeon. Hatcinoñdoñ said, “This is very little to fill me,” but the Thunder replied, “If you eat that, there is more.” He began eating, but, as he ate, everything became whole again, so that he was not able to finish it.While he was sitting he heard some one running outside, and directlythe door was thrown open and the Sun came in, so bright that Hatcinoñdoñ had to hold his head down. The two beings talked together, but the Seneca could not understand a word, and soon the visitor went out again. Then the Thunder said: “That is the one you call the Sun, who watches in the world below. It is night down there now, and he is hurrying to the east. He says there has just been a battle. I love both the Seneca and the Cherokee, and when you get back to your warriors you must tell them to stop fighting and go home.” Again he brought food, half of each kind, and when Hatcinoñdoñ had eaten, the Thunder said, “Now my messengers will take you to your place.”The door opened again of itself, and Hatcinoñdoñ followed the two Sky People until they brought him to the place where he had slept, and there left him. He found his party and told the warriors what he had seen. They held a council over it and decided to strike the enemy once before going home. Hatcinoñdoñ led them. They met the Cherokee and went home with scalps.He led another party against the Cherokee, but this time he was taken and carried to the Cherokee town. It was the custom among the Cherokee to let two women say what should be done with captives. They decided that he should be tortured with fire, so he was tied to a tree, and the wood was piled around him. Hatcinoñdoñ gave himself up for lost, when a rain storm came up and the people concluded to wait until it was over. They went away and left him tied to the tree.Pretty soon an old woman came up to him, and said, “My grandson, you think you are going to die, but you are not. Try to stir your limbs.” He struggled and finally got his limbs free. Then she said, “Now you are free. I have come to repay your kindness. You remember that you once found a frog in the middle of a circle of fire and that you picked it up and put it into the water. I was that frog, and now I help you. I sent the rain storm, and now you must go down to the creek and follow the current.”When the rain was over the people came back, but Hatcinoñdoñ was gone. They trailed him down to the creek, but he had found a hollow tree lying in the water, with a hole on the upper side through which he could breathe, so he crawled into it and they could not find him. Once two of the Cherokee came and sat on the log and he could hear them talking about him, but they did not know that he was inside. When they were all gone, he came out and kept on down the stream. After dark he came to a place where three hunters had made a fire and gone to sleep for the night. Their hatchets and arms were hung up on a tree. Hatcinoñdoñ was naked. He listened until he was sure the men were asleep, then he took one of their hatchets and killed all three, one after another. He dressed himself in the clothes of one, and put on his belt, with the knife and hatchet. Then he washed himself at the creek and sat down by the fire and cooked his supper.After that he stretched and painted the three scalps and lay down by the fire to sleep. In the morning he took what provision he could carry and traveled in a great circle until he found the road by which he and his warriors had come. He found fresh tracks and followed them until he saw smoke ahead. He listened until he heard men speaking Seneca, and knew that it was his party. Then he gave the Seneca shout—Gowe′!—three times and his friends ran out to meet him. They had been afraid that he was killed, but were glad now that they had waited for him. They went home together. This is their story.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.95. HEMP-CARRIEROn the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are leveled now, but thirty years ago the stones were still heaped up into pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of the Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two Nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlements on Hiwassee and Cheowa a party was made underTâle′danigi′skĭ, “Hemp-carrier,” to follow and take vengeance on the enemy. Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief Tsunu′lăhûñ′skĭ, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died on Cheowa about 1855.For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky mountains, through forests and over rivers, until they finally tracked them to their very town in the far northern Seneca country. On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps. When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the townhouse, where the women were dancing over the fresh Cherokee scalps. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the townhouse never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, “We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the war whoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?” “Let them come, if they will,” said his men; and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokee. At once there was an answering shout from the townhouse, and the dance came to a sudden stop. The Seneca warriors swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and activerunners, and managed to get away with the loss of only a single man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-carrier’s bravery and success that they gave him seven wives.96. THE SENECA PEACEMAKERSIn the course of the long war with the Cherokee it happened once that eight Seneca determined to undertake a journey to the south to see if they could make a peace with their enemies. On coming near the border of the Cherokee country they met some hunters of that tribe to whom they told their purpose. The latter at once hurried ahead with the news, and when the peacemakers arrived they found themselves well received by the Cherokee chiefs, who called a council to consider the proposition. All but one of the chiefs favored the peace, but he demanded that the eight delegates should first join them in a war party which was just preparing to go against a tribe farther south, probably the Creeks. The Seneca agreed, and set out with the war party for the south; but in the fight which resulted, the Seneca leader, The Owl, was captured. The other seven escaped with the Cherokee.A council was held in the enemy’s camp, and it was decided that The Owl should be burned at the stake. The wood was gathered and everything made ready, but as they were about to tie him he claimed the warrior’s privilege to sing his death song and strike the post as he recited his warlike deeds. The request pleased his enemies, who put a tomahawk into his hands and told him to begin.He told first his exploits in the north, and then in the west, giving times and places and the number of scalps taken, until his enemies were so pleased and interested that they forgot the prisoner in the warrior. It was a long story, but at last he came to the battle in which he was taken. He told how many relatives he had killed of the very men around him, and then, striking the post with his tomahawk, “So many of your people have I killed, and so many will I yet kill;” and with that he struck down two men, sprang through the circle of warriors, and was away. It was all so sudden that it was some moments before his enemies could recover from their surprise. Then they seized their weapons and were after him through the woods, but he had had a good start and was running for his life, so that he outran the chase and finally reached the Cherokee camp in safety and rejoined his seven companions.On this proof of good will the Cherokee then concluded the treaty, and the peacemakers returned to their own country.—Arranged from Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 258.97. ORIGIN OF THE YONTOÑWISAS DANCETwo Seneca women who were sisters, with the baby boy of the older one, were in a sugar grove near their home when a war party ofCherokee came upon them and carried them off. When the people of the town learned what had happened, they decided not to go after the enemy for fear they would kill the women, so their made no pursuit.The Cherokee carried the women with them until they were within one day of the Cherokee towns. The elder sister learned this and made up her mind to try to escape. She had a knife without a handle hidden under her belt, and that night when all lay down to sleep by the fire she kept awake. When they were sleeping soundly, she looked around. She and her sister were tied together, and on each side of them was a Cherokee with the end of the rope under his body on the ground. Taking out her knife, she cut the rope without waking the men, and then rousing her sister quietly she whispered to her to come. They were going to leave the little boy, but he started to cry, so she said, “Let us die together,” and took him up on her back, and the two women hurried away. In a little while they heard an alarm behind them, and knew that their escape was discovered, and then they saw the blazing pine knots waving through the trees where the Cherokee were coming on looking for them. The women knew the Cherokee would hunt for them toward the north, along the trail to the Seneca country, so they made a circuit and went around to the south until they came in sight of a fire and saw a man sitting by a tree, shaking a rattle and singing in a low voice. They found they had come directly back to the enemy’s camp, so the older sister said, “This will never do; we must try again. Let us go straight ahead to that big tree in front, and from that straight on to the next, and the next.” In this way they kept on a straight course until morning. When the sun came up, they took another direction toward home, and at night they rested in the woods.They traveled all the next day, and at night rested again. In the night a voice spoke to the younger woman, “Is that where you are resting?” and she answered, “Yes.” The voice said again, “Keep on, and you will come out at the spot where you were captured. No harm will come to you. To-morrow you will find food.” She roused her sister and told her what the voice had said.In the morning they went on and at noon found a buck freshly killed. Near by they found a log on fire, so they roasted some of the meat, had a good meal, and carried away afterwards as much of the meat as they could. They kept on, camping every night, and when the meat was nearly gone they saved the rest for the little boy.At last one night the voice spoke again to the younger sister and said, “You are on the right road, and to-morrow you will be on the border of the Seneca country. You will find food. That is all.”In the morning she told her older sister. They started on again and walked until about noon, when they came to a patch of wild potatoes. They dug and found plenty, and as they looked around they saw smokewhere there had been a camp fire. They gathered wood, made up the fire, and roasted the potatoes. Then they ate as many as they wanted and carried the rest with them.They traveled on until the potatoes were almost gone. Then at night the voice came again to the younger woman, saying: “At noon tomorrow you will reach your home, and the first person you will meet will be your uncle. When you get to the town, you must call the people together and tell them all that has happened. You must go to the long house and take off your skirt and carry it on your shoulder. Then you must go inside and go around once, singing, ‘We have come home; we are here.’ This is theYontoñwisassong, and it shall be for women only. Know now that we are theHadionyageonoñ, the Sky People, who have watched over you all this time.”When the girl awoke, she told her sister, and they said, “We must do all this,” and they began to sing as they went along. About noon they heard the sound of chopping, and when they went to the place they found it was their uncle cutting blocks to make spoons. He did not see them until they spoke, and at first could hardly believe that they were living women, because he knew that they had been taken by the Cherokee. He was very glad to see them, and as they walked on to the town they told him all they had been commanded to do by the Sky People. When they arrived at the town, he called all the people together, and they went to the long house. There the two women sang their song and did everything exactly as they had been told to do, and when it was over they said, “This is all,” and sat down. This is the same Yontoñwisas song that is still sung by the women.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

Historical Traditions88. FIRST CONTACT WITH WHITESThere are a few stories concerning the first contact of the Cherokee with whites and negroes. They are very modern and have little value as myths, but throw some light upon the Indian estimate of the different races.One story relates how the first whites came from the east and tried to enter into friendly relations, but the Indians would have nothing to do with them for a long time. At last the whites left a jug of whisky and a dipper near a spring frequented by the Indians. The Indians came along, tasted the liquor, which they had never known before, and liked it so well that they ended by all getting comfortably drunk. While they were in this happy frame of mind some white men came up, and this time the Indians shook hands with them and they have been friends after a fashion ever since. This may possibly be a Cherokee adaptation of the story of Hudson’s first landing on the island of Manhattan.At the creation an ulûñsû′tĭ was given to the white man, and a piece of silver to the Indian. But the white man despised the stone and threw it away, while the Indian did the same with the silver. In going about the white man afterward found the silver piece and put itinto his pocket and has prized it ever since. The Indian, in like manner, found the ulûñsû′tĭ where the white man had thrown it. He picked it up and has kept it since as his talisman, as money is the talismanic power of the white man. This story is quite general and is probably older than others of its class.When Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was trying to introduce it among his people, about 1822, some of them opposed it upon the ground that Indians had no business with reading. They said that when the Indian and the white man were created, the Indian, being the elder, was given a book, while the white man received a bow and arrows. Each was instructed to take good care of his gift and make the best use of it, but the Indian was so neglectful of his book that the white man soon stole it from him, leaving the bow in its place, so that books and reading now belong of right to the white man, while the Indian ought to be satisfied to hunt for a living.—Cherokee Advocate, October 26, 1844.The negro made the first locomotive for a toy and put it on a wooden track and was having great fun with it when a white man came along, watched until he saw how to run it, and then killed the negro and took the locomotive for himself. This, also, although plainly of very recent origin, was heard from several informants.89. THE IROQUOIS WARSLong wars were waged between the Cherokee and their remote northern relatives, the Iroquois, with both of whom the recollection, now nearly faded, was a vivid tradition fifty years ago. The (Seneca) Iroquois know the Cherokee as Oyadaʼgeʻoñnoñ, a name rather freely rendered “cave people.” The latter call the Iroquois, or rather their largest and most aggressive tribe, the Seneca, Nûndăwe′gĭ, Ani′-Nûn-dăwe′gĭ, or Ani′-Sĕ′nikă, the first forms being derived from Nûndawa′ga or Nûndawa′-ono, “people of the great hills,” the name by which the Seneca know themselves. According to authorities quoted by Schoolcraft, the Seneca claim to have at one time had a settlement, from which they were afterward driven, at Seneca, South Carolina, known in history as one of the principal towns of the Lower Cherokee.The league of the Iroquois was probably founded about the middle of the sixteenth century. Before 1680 they had conquered or exterminated all the tribes upon their immediate borders and had turned their arms against the more distant Illinois, Catawba, and Cherokee. According to Iroquois tradition, the Cherokee were the aggressors, having attacked and plundered a Seneca hunting party somewhere in the west, while in another story they are represented as having violated a peace treaty by the murder of the Iroquois delegates.Whatever the cause, the war was taken up by all the tribes of the league.From the Iroquois country to the Cherokee frontier was considered a five days’ journey for a rapidly traveling war party. As the distance was too great for large expeditions, the war consisted chiefly of a series of individual exploits, a single Cherokee often going hundreds of miles to strike a blow, which was sure to be promptly retaliated by the warriors from the north, the great object of every Iroquois boy being to go against the Cherokee as soon as he was old enough to take the war path. Captives were made on both sides, and probably in about equal numbers, the two parties being too evenly matched for either to gain any permanent advantage, and a compromise was finally made by which the Tennessee river came to be regarded as the boundary between their rival claims, all south of that stream being claimed by the Cherokee, and being acknowledged by the Iroquois, as the limit of their own conquests in that direction. This Indian boundary was recognized by the British government up to the time of the Revolution.Morgan states that a curious agreement was once made between the two tribes, by which this river was also made the limit of pursuit. If a returning war party of the Cherokee could recross the Tennessee before they were overtaken by the pursuing Iroquois they were as safe from attack as though entrenched behind a stockade. The pursuers, if they chose, might still invade the territory of the enemy, but they passed by the camp of the retreating Cherokee without offering to attack them. A similar agreement existed for a time between the Seneca and the Erie.The Buffalo dance of the Iroquois is traditionally said to have had its origin in an expedition against the Cherokee. When the warriors on their way to the south reached the Kentucky salt lick they found there a herd of buffalo, and heard them, for the first time, “singing their favorite songs,” i. e., bellowing and snorting. From the bellowing and the movements of the animals were derived the music and action of the dance.According to Cherokee tradition, as given by the chief Stand Watie, the war was finally brought to an end by the Iroquois, who sent a delegation to the Cherokee to propose a general alliance of the southern and western tribes. The Cherokee accepted the proposition, and in turn sent out invitations to the other tribes, all of which entered into the peace excepting the Osage, of whom it was therefore said that they should be henceforth like a wild fruit on the prairie, at which every bird should pick, and so the Osage have remained ever a predatory tribe without friends or allies. This may be the same treaty described in the story of “The Seneca Peacemakers.” A formal and final peace between the two tribes was arranged through the efforts of the British agent, Sir William Johnson, in 1768.In 1847 there were still living among the Seneca the grandchildren of Cherokee captives taken in these wars. In 1794 the Seneca pointed out to Colonel Pickering a chief who was a native Cherokee, having been taken when a boy and adopted among the Seneca, who afterward made him chief. This was probably the same man of whom they told Schoolcraft fifty years later. He was a full-blood Cherokee, but had been captured when too young to have any memory of the event. Years afterward, when he had grown to manhood and had become a chief in the tribe, he learned of his foreign origin, and was filled at once with an overpowering longing to go back to the south to find his people and live and die among them. He journeyed to the Cherokee country, but on arriving there found to his great disappointment that the story of his capture had been forgotten in the tribe, and that his relatives, if any were left, failed to recognize him. Being unable to find his kindred, he made only a short visit and returned again to the Seneca.From James Wafford, of Indian Territory, the author obtained a detailed account of the Iroquois peace embassy referred to by Stand Watie, and of the wampum belt that accompanied it. Wafford’s information concerning the proceedings at Echota was obtained directly from two eyewitnesses—Sequoya, the inventor of the alphabet, and Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who afterward explained the belt at the great council near Tahlequah seventy years later. Sequoya, at the time of the Echota conference, was a boy living with his mother at Taskigi town a few miles away, while Gatûñ′waʻlĭ was already a young man.The treaty of peace between the Cherokee and Iroquois, made at Johnson Hall in New York in 1768, appears from the record to have been brought about by the Cherokee, who sent for the purpose a delegation of chiefs, headed by Âgănstâ′ta, “Groundhog-sausage,” of Echota, their great leader in the war of 1760–61 against the English. After the treaty had been concluded the Cherokee delegates invited some of the Iroquois chiefs to go home with them for a visit, but the latter declined on the ground that it was not yet safe, and in fact some of their warriors were at that very time out against the Cherokee, not yet being aware of the peace negotiations. It is probable, therefore, that the Iroquois delegates did not arrive at Echota until some considerable time, perhaps three years, after the formal preliminaries had been concluded in the north.According to Sequoya’s account, as given to Wafford, there had been a long war between the Cherokee and the northern Indians, who were never able to conquer the Cherokee or break their spirit, until at last the Iroquois were tired of fighting and sent a delegation to make peace. The messengers set out for the south with their wampum belts and peace emblems, but lost their way after passing Tennesseeriver, perhaps from the necessity of avoiding the main trail, and instead of arriving at Itsâ′tĭ or Echota, the ancient peace town and capital of the Cherokee Nation—situated on Little Tennessee river below Citico creek, in the present Monroe county, Tennessee—they found themselves on the outskirts of Tă′likwă′ or Tellico, on Tellico river, some 10 or 15 miles to the southward.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.“The Onondagas retain the custody of the wampums of the Five Nations, and the keeper of the wampums, Thomas Webster, of the Snipe tribe, a consistent, thorough pagan, is their interpreter. Notwithstanding the claims made that the wampums can be read as a governing code of law, it is evident that they are simply monumental reminders of preserved traditions, without any literal details whatever. “The first [of this] group from left to right, represents a convention of the Six Nations at the adoption of the Tuscaroras into the league; the second, the Five Nations, upon seven strands, illustrates a treaty with seven Canadian tribes before the year 1600; the third signifies the guarded approach of strangers to the councils of the Five Nations (a guarded gate, with a long, white path leading to the inner gate, where the Five Nations are grouped, with the Onondagas in the center and a safe council house behind all); the fourth represents a treaty when but four of the Six Nations were represented, and the fifth embodies the pledge of seven Canadian christianized nations to abandon their crooked ways and keep an honest peace (having a cross for each tribe, and with a zigzag line below, to indicate that their ways had been crooked but would ever after be as sacred as the cross). Above this group is another, claiming to bear date about 1608, when Champlain joined the Algonquins against the Iroquois.”—Carrington, in Six Nations of New York, Extra Bulletin, Eleventh Census, pp. 33–34, 1892.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.3Concealing themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened thechief and his family were at work in their cornfield, and his daughter had just gone up to the house for some reason when the Iroquois entered and asked for something to eat. Seeing that he was a stranger, she set out food for him according to the old custom of hospitality. While he was eating her father, the chief, came in to see what was delaying her, and was surprised to find there one of the hereditary enemies of his tribe. By this time the word had gone out that an Iroquois was in the chief’s house, and the men of the town had left their work and seized their guns to kill him, but the chief heard them coming and standing in the doorway kept them off, saying: “This man has come here on a peace mission, and before you kill him you must first kill me.” They finally listened to him, and allowed the messenger to go out and bring his companions to the chief’s house, where they were all taken care of.When they were well rested after their long journey the chief of Tă′likwă himself went with them to Itsâ′tĭ, the capital, where lived the great chief Âgănstâ′ta, who was now the civil ruler of the Nation. The chiefs of the various towns were summoned and a council was held, at which the speaker for the Iroquois delegation delivered his message and produced the wampum belts and pipes, which they brought as proofs of their mission and had carried all the way in packs upon their backs.He said that for three years his people had been wanting to make peace. There was a spring of dark, cloudy water in their country, and they had covered it over for one year and then looked, but the water was still cloudy. Again they had covered it over, but when they looked at the end of another year it was still dark and troubled. For another year they had covered the spring, and this time when they looked the water was clear and sparkling. Then they knew the time had come, and they left home with their wampum belts to make peace with their enemies.The friendly message was accepted by the Cherokee, and the belts and other symbolic peace tokens were delivered over to their keeping. Other belts in turn were probably given to the Iroquois, and after the usual round of feasting and dancing the messengers returned to their people in the north and the long war was at an end.For nearly a century these symbolic records of the peace with the Iroquois were preserved by the Cherokee, and were carried with them to the western territory when the tribe was finally driven from its old home in 1838. They were then in the keeping of John Ross, principal chief at the time of the removal, and were solemnly produced at a great intertribal council held near Tahlequah, in the Indian Territory, in June, 1843, when they were interpreted by the Cherokee speaker, Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who had seen them delivered to the chiefs of his tribe at old Itsâ′tĭ seventy years before. Wafford was present on this occasion and describes it.Holding the belts over his arm while speaking, Hard-mush told of the original treaty with the Iroquois, and explained the meaning of each belt in turn. According to the best of Wafford’s recollection, there was one large belt, to which the smaller belts were fitted. The beads did not seem to be of shell, and may have been of porcelain. There were also red pipes for the warriors, grayish-white pipes for the chiefs who were foremost in making the peace, and some fans or other ornaments of feathers. There were several of the red pipes, resembling the red-stone pipes of the Sioux, but only one, or perhaps two, of the white peace pipes, which may have been only painted, and were much larger than the others. The pipes were passed around the circle at the council, so that each delegate might take a whiff. The objects altogether made a considerable package, which was carefully guarded by the Cherokee keeper. It is thought that they were destroyed in the War of the Rebellion when the house of John Ross, a few miles south of Tahlequah, was burned by the Confederate Cherokee under their general, Stand Watie.90. HIADEONI, THE SENECA“Hiadeoni was the father of the late chief Young-king. He was a Seneca warrior, a man of great prowess, dexterity, and swiftness of foot, and had established his reputation for courage and skill on many occasions. He resolved while the Seneca were still living on the Genesee river to make an incursion alone into the country of the Cherokee. He plumed himself with the idea that he could distinguish himself in this daring adventure, and he prepared for it, according to the custom of warriors. They never encumber themselves with baggage. He took nothing but his arms and the meal of a little parched and pounded corn. The forest gave him his meat.Hiadeoni reached the confines of the Cherokee country in safety and alone. He waited for evening before he entered the precincts of a village. He found the people engaged in a dance. He watched his opportunity, and when one of the dancers went out from the ring into the bushes he dispatched him with his hatchet. In this way he killed two men that night in the skirts of the woods without exciting alarm, and took their scalps and retreated. It was late when he came to a lodge, standing remote from the rest, on his course homeward. Watching here, he saw a young man come out, and killed him as he had done the others, and took his scalp. Looking into the lodge cautiously he saw it empty, and ventured in with the hope of finding some tobacco and ammunition to serve him on his way home.While thus busied in searching the lodge he heard footsteps at the door, and immediately threw himself on the bed from which the young man had risen, and covered his face, feigning sleep. They proved to be the footsteps of his last victim’s mother. She, supposing him to be her son, whom she had a short time before left lying there, said,“My son, I am going to such a place, and will not be back till morning.” He made a suitable response, and the old woman went out. Insensibly he fell asleep, and knew nothing till morning, when the first thing he heard was the mother’s voice. She, careful for her son, was at the fireplace very early, pulling some roasted squashes out of the ashes, and after putting them out, and telling him she left them for him to eat, she went away. He sprang up instantly and fled; but the early dawn had revealed his inroad, and he was hotly pursued. Light of foot, and having the start, he succeeded in reaching and concealing himself in a remote piece of woods, where he laid till night, and then pursued his way toward the Genesee, which, in due time he reached, bringing his three Cherokee scalps as trophies of his victory and prowess.”—Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 253, 1847.91. THE TWO MOHAWKS“In the year 1747 a couple of the Mohawk Indians came against the lower towns of the Cheerake, and so cunningly ambuscaded them through most part of the spring and summer, as to kill above twenty in different attacks before they were discovered by any party of the enraged and dejected people. They had a thorough knowledge of the most convenient ground for their purpose, and were extremely swift and long-winded. Whenever they killed any and got the scalp they made off to the neighboring mountains, and ran over the broad ledges of rocks in contrary courses, as occasion offered, so as the pursuers could by no means trace them. Once, when a large company was in chase of them, they ran round a steep hill at the head of the main eastern branch of Savana river, intercepted, killed, and scalped the hindmost of the party, and then made off between them and Keeowhee. As this was the town to which the company belonged, they hastened home in a close body, as the proper place of security from such enemy wizards. In this manner did those two sprightly, gallant savages perplex and intimidate their foes for the space of four moons in the greatest security, though they often were forced to kill and barbecue what they chiefly lived upon, in the midst of their watchful enemies. Having sufficiently revenged their relations’ blood and gratified their own ambition with an uncommon number of scalps, they resolved to captivate one and run home with him as a proof of their having killed none but the enemies of their country. Accordingly, they approached very near to Keeowhee, about half a mile below the late Fort Prince George. Advancing with the usual caution on such an occasion, one crawled along under the best cover of the place about the distance of a hundred yards ahead, while the other shifted from tree to tree, looking sharply every way. In the evening, however, an old, beloved man discovered them from the top of an adjoining hill, and knew them to be enemies by the cut of their hair, light trim forrunning, and their postures. He returned to the town and called first at the house of one of our traders and informed him of the affair, enjoining him not to mention it to any, lest the people should set off against them without success before their tracks were to be discovered and he be charged with having deceived them. But, contrary to the true policy of traders among unforgiving savages, that thoughtless member of the Choktah Sphynx Company busied himself, as usual, out of his proper sphere, sent for the headmen, and told them the story. As the Mohawks were allies and not known to molest any of the traders in the paths and woods, he ought to have observed a strict neutrality. The youth of the town, by order of their headmen, carried on their noisy public diversions in their usual manner to prevent their foes from having any suspicion of their danger, while runners were sent from the town to their neighbors to come silently and assist them to secure the prey in its state of security. They came like silent ghosts, concerted their plan of operation, passed over the river at the old trading ford opposite to the late fort, which lay between two contiguous commanding hills, and, proceeding downward over a broad creek, formed a large semicircle from the river bank, while the town seemed to be taking its usual rest. They then closed into a narrower compass, and at last discovered the two brave, unfortunate men lying close under the tops of some fallen young pine trees. The company gave the war signal, and the Mohawks, bounding up, bravely repeated it; but, by their sudden spring from under thick cover, their arms were useless. They made desperate efforts, however, to kill or be killed, as their situation required. One of the Cheerake, the noted half-breed of Istanare [Ustăna′lĭ] town, which lay 2 miles from thence, was at the first onset knocked down and almost killed with his own cutlass, which was wrested from him, though he was the strongest of the whole nation. But they were overpowered by numbers, captivated, and put to the most exquisite tortures of fire, amidst a prodigious crowd of exulting foes.One of the present Choktah traders, who was on the spot, told me that when they were tied to the stake the younger of the two discovered our traders on a hill near, addressed them in English, and entreated them to redeem their lives. The elder immediately spoke to him, in his own language, to desist. On this, he recollected himself, and became composed like a stoic, manifesting an indifference to life or death, pleasure or pain, according to their standard of martial virtue, and their dying behaviour did not reflect the least dishonor on their former gallant actions. All the pangs of fiery torture served only to refine their manly spirits, and as it was out of the power of the traders to redeem them they, according to our usual custom, retired as soon as the Indians began the diabolical tragedy.”—Adair, American Indians, p. 383, 1775.BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYNINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVIIANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)PHOTOGRAPH BY AUTHOR, 1888ANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)92. ESCAPE OF THE SENECA BOYSSome Seneca warriors were hunting in the woods, and one morning, on starting out for the day, they left two boys behind to take care of the camp. Soon after they had gone, a war party of Cherokee came up, and finding the boys alone took them both and started back to the south, traveling at such a rate that when the hunters returned in the evening they decided that it was of no use to follow them. When the Cherokee reached their own country they gave the boys to an old man, whose sons had been killed by the Seneca. He took the boys and adopted them for his own, and they grew up with him until they were large and strong enough to go hunting for themselves.But all the time they remembered their own home, and one day the older one said to his brother, “Let’s kill the old man and run away.” “No,” said the other, “we might get lost if we ran away, we are so far from home.” “I remember the way,” said his brother, so they made a plan to escape. A few days later the old man took the boys with him and the three set out together for a hunt in the mountains. When they were well away from the settlement the boys killed the old man, took all the meat and parched corn meal they could easily carry, and started to make their way back to the north, keeping away from the main trail and following the ridge of the mountains. After many days they came to the end of the mountains and found a trail which the older brother knew as the one along which they had been taken when they were first captured. They went on bravely now until they came to a wide clearing with houses at the farther end, and the older brother said, “I believe there is where we used to live.” It was so long ago that they were not quite sure, and besides they were dressed now like Cherokee, so they thought it safer to wait until dark. They saw a river ahead and went down to it and sat behind a large tree to wait. Soon several women came down for water and passed close to the tree without noticing the boys. Said the older brother, “I know those women. One of them is our mother.” They waited until the women had filled their buckets and started to the village, when both ran out to meet them with the Seneca hailing-shout, “Gowe′! Gowe′!” At first the women were frightened and thought it a party of Cherokee, but when they heard their own language they came nearer. Then the mother recognized her two sons, and said, “Let us go back and dance for the dead come to life,” and they were all very glad and went into the village together.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.93. THE UNSEEN HELPERSGanogwioeoñ, a war chief of the Seneca, led a party against the Cherokee. When they came near the first town he left his men outsideand went in alone. At the first house he found an old woman and her granddaughter. They did not see him, and he went into the âsĭ and hid himself under some wood. When darkness came on he heard the old woman say, “Maybe Ganogwioeoñ is near; I’ll close the door.” After a while he heard them going to bed. When he thought they were asleep he went into the house. The fire had burned down low, but the girl was still awake and saw him. She was about to scream, when he said, “I am Ganogwioeoñ. If you scream I’ll kill you. If you keep quiet I’ll not hurt you.” They talked together, and he told her that in the morning she must bring the chief’s daughter to him. She promised to do it, and told him where he should wait. Just before daylight he left the house.In the morning the girl went to the chief’s house and said to his daughter, “Let’s go out together for wood.” The chief’s daughter got ready and went with her, and when they came to the place where Ganogwioeoñ was hiding he sprang out and killed her, but did not hurt the other girl. He pulled off the scalp and gave such a loud scalp yell that all the warriors in the town heard it and came running out after him. He shook the scalp at them and then turned and ran. He killed the first one that came up, but when he tried to shoot the next one the bow broke and the Cherokee got him.They tied him and carried him to the two women of the tribe who had the power to decide what should be done with him. Each of these women had two snakes tattooed on her lips, with their heads opposite each other, in such a way that when she opened her mouth the two snakes opened their mouths also. They decided to burn the soles of his feet until they were blistered, then to put grains of corn under the skin and to chase him with clubs until they had beaten him to death.They stripped him and burnt his feet. Then they tied a bark rope around his waist, with an old man to hold the other end, and made him run between two lines of people, and with clubs in their hands. When they gave the word to start Ganogwioeoñ pulled the rope away from the old man and broke through the line and ran until he had left them all out of sight. When night came he crawled into a hollow log. He was naked and unarmed, with his feet in a pitiful condition, and thought he could never get away.He heard footsteps on the leaves outside and thought his enemies were upon him. The footsteps came up to the log and some one said to another, “This is our friend.” Then the stranger said to Ganogwioeoñ, “You think you are the same as dead; but it is not so. We will take care of you. Stick out your feet.” He put out his feet from the log and felt something licking them. After a while the voice said, “I think we have licked his feet enough. Now we must crawl inside the log and lie on each side of him to keep him warm.” Theycrawled in beside him. In the morning they crawled out and told him to stick out his feet again. They licked them again and then said to him, “Now we have done all we can do this time. Go on until you come to the place where you made a bark shelter a long time ago, and under the bark you will find something to help you.” Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the log, but they were gone. His feet were better now and he could walk comfortably. He went on until about noon, when he came to the bark shelter, and under it he found a knife, an awl, and a flint, that his men had hidden there two years before. He took them and started on again.Toward evening he looked around until he found another hollow tree and crawled into it to sleep. At night he heard the footsteps and voices again. When he put out his feet again, as the strangers told him to do, they licked his feet as before and then crawled in and lay down on each side of him to keep him warm. Still he could not see them. In the morning after they went out they licked his feet again and said to him, “At noon you will find food.” Then they went away.Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the tree and went on. At noon he came to a burning log, and near it was a dead bear, which was still warm, as if it had been killed only a short time before. He skinned the bear and found it very fat. He cut up the meat and roasted as much as he could eat or carry. While it was roasting he scraped the skin and rubbed rotten wood dust on it to clean it until he was tired. When night came he lay down to sleep. He heard the steps and the voices again and one said, “Well, our friend is lying down. He has plenty to eat, and it does not seem as if he is going to die. Let us lick his feet again.” When they had finished they said to him, “You need not worry any more now. You will get home all right.” Before it was day they left him.When morning came he put the bearskin around him like a shirt, with the hair outside, and started on again, taking as much of the meat as he could carry. That night his friends came to him again. They said, “Your feet are well, but you will be cold,” so they lay again on each side of him. Before daylight they left, saying, “About noon you will find something to wear.” He went on and about midday he came to two young bears just killed. He skinned them and dressed the skins, then roasted as much meat as he wanted and lay down to sleep. In the morning he made leggings of the skins, took some of the meat, and started on.His friends came again the next night and told him that in the morning he would come upon something else to wear. As they said, about noon he found two fawns just killed. He turned the skins and made himself a pair of moccasins, then cut some of the meat, and traveled on until evening, when he made a fire and had supper.That night again he heard the steps and voices, and one said, “My friend, very soon now you will reach home safely and find your friends all well. Now we will tell you why we have helped you. Whenever you went hunting you always gave the best part of the meat to us and kept only the smallest part for yourself. For that we are thankful and help you. In the morning you will see us and know who we are.”In the morning when he woke up they were still there—two men as he thought—but after he had said the last words to them and started on, he turned again to look, and one was a white wolf and the other a black wolf. That day he reached home.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.94. HATCINOÑDOÑ’S ESCAPE FROM THE CHEROKEEHatcinoñdoñ was a great warrior, the greatest among the Seneca. Once he led a company against the Cherokee. They traveled until they came to the great ridge on the border of the Cherokee country, and then they knew their enemies were on the lookout on the other side. Hatcinoñdoñ told his men to halt where they were while he went ahead to see what was in front. The enemy discovered and chased him, and he ran into a canebrake, where the canes were in two great patches with a narrow strip of open ground between. They saw him go into the canes, so they set fire to the patch and watched at the open place for him to come out, but before they got around to it he had run across into the second patch and escaped. When the canes had burned down the Cherokee looked for his body in the ashes, but could not find any trace of it, so they went home.When Hatcinoñdoñ got into the second canebrake he was tired out, so he lay down and fell asleep. At night while he was asleep two men came and took him by the arm, saying: “We have come for you. Somebody has sent for you.” They took him a long way, above the sky vault, until they came to a house. Then they said: “This is where the man lives who sent for you.” He looked, but could see no door. Then a voice from the inside said “Come in,” and something like a door opened of itself. He went in and there sat Hawĕñni′o, the Thunder-god.Hawĕñni′o said, “I have sent for you and you are here. Are you hungry?” Hatcinoñdoñ thought: “That’s a strange way to talk; that’s not the way I do—I give food.” The Thunder knew his thoughts, so he laughed and said, “I said that only in fun.” He rose and brought half a cake of bread, half of a wild apple, and half a pigeon. Hatcinoñdoñ said, “This is very little to fill me,” but the Thunder replied, “If you eat that, there is more.” He began eating, but, as he ate, everything became whole again, so that he was not able to finish it.While he was sitting he heard some one running outside, and directlythe door was thrown open and the Sun came in, so bright that Hatcinoñdoñ had to hold his head down. The two beings talked together, but the Seneca could not understand a word, and soon the visitor went out again. Then the Thunder said: “That is the one you call the Sun, who watches in the world below. It is night down there now, and he is hurrying to the east. He says there has just been a battle. I love both the Seneca and the Cherokee, and when you get back to your warriors you must tell them to stop fighting and go home.” Again he brought food, half of each kind, and when Hatcinoñdoñ had eaten, the Thunder said, “Now my messengers will take you to your place.”The door opened again of itself, and Hatcinoñdoñ followed the two Sky People until they brought him to the place where he had slept, and there left him. He found his party and told the warriors what he had seen. They held a council over it and decided to strike the enemy once before going home. Hatcinoñdoñ led them. They met the Cherokee and went home with scalps.He led another party against the Cherokee, but this time he was taken and carried to the Cherokee town. It was the custom among the Cherokee to let two women say what should be done with captives. They decided that he should be tortured with fire, so he was tied to a tree, and the wood was piled around him. Hatcinoñdoñ gave himself up for lost, when a rain storm came up and the people concluded to wait until it was over. They went away and left him tied to the tree.Pretty soon an old woman came up to him, and said, “My grandson, you think you are going to die, but you are not. Try to stir your limbs.” He struggled and finally got his limbs free. Then she said, “Now you are free. I have come to repay your kindness. You remember that you once found a frog in the middle of a circle of fire and that you picked it up and put it into the water. I was that frog, and now I help you. I sent the rain storm, and now you must go down to the creek and follow the current.”When the rain was over the people came back, but Hatcinoñdoñ was gone. They trailed him down to the creek, but he had found a hollow tree lying in the water, with a hole on the upper side through which he could breathe, so he crawled into it and they could not find him. Once two of the Cherokee came and sat on the log and he could hear them talking about him, but they did not know that he was inside. When they were all gone, he came out and kept on down the stream. After dark he came to a place where three hunters had made a fire and gone to sleep for the night. Their hatchets and arms were hung up on a tree. Hatcinoñdoñ was naked. He listened until he was sure the men were asleep, then he took one of their hatchets and killed all three, one after another. He dressed himself in the clothes of one, and put on his belt, with the knife and hatchet. Then he washed himself at the creek and sat down by the fire and cooked his supper.After that he stretched and painted the three scalps and lay down by the fire to sleep. In the morning he took what provision he could carry and traveled in a great circle until he found the road by which he and his warriors had come. He found fresh tracks and followed them until he saw smoke ahead. He listened until he heard men speaking Seneca, and knew that it was his party. Then he gave the Seneca shout—Gowe′!—three times and his friends ran out to meet him. They had been afraid that he was killed, but were glad now that they had waited for him. They went home together. This is their story.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.95. HEMP-CARRIEROn the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are leveled now, but thirty years ago the stones were still heaped up into pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of the Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two Nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlements on Hiwassee and Cheowa a party was made underTâle′danigi′skĭ, “Hemp-carrier,” to follow and take vengeance on the enemy. Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief Tsunu′lăhûñ′skĭ, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died on Cheowa about 1855.For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky mountains, through forests and over rivers, until they finally tracked them to their very town in the far northern Seneca country. On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps. When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the townhouse, where the women were dancing over the fresh Cherokee scalps. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the townhouse never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, “We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the war whoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?” “Let them come, if they will,” said his men; and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokee. At once there was an answering shout from the townhouse, and the dance came to a sudden stop. The Seneca warriors swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and activerunners, and managed to get away with the loss of only a single man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-carrier’s bravery and success that they gave him seven wives.96. THE SENECA PEACEMAKERSIn the course of the long war with the Cherokee it happened once that eight Seneca determined to undertake a journey to the south to see if they could make a peace with their enemies. On coming near the border of the Cherokee country they met some hunters of that tribe to whom they told their purpose. The latter at once hurried ahead with the news, and when the peacemakers arrived they found themselves well received by the Cherokee chiefs, who called a council to consider the proposition. All but one of the chiefs favored the peace, but he demanded that the eight delegates should first join them in a war party which was just preparing to go against a tribe farther south, probably the Creeks. The Seneca agreed, and set out with the war party for the south; but in the fight which resulted, the Seneca leader, The Owl, was captured. The other seven escaped with the Cherokee.A council was held in the enemy’s camp, and it was decided that The Owl should be burned at the stake. The wood was gathered and everything made ready, but as they were about to tie him he claimed the warrior’s privilege to sing his death song and strike the post as he recited his warlike deeds. The request pleased his enemies, who put a tomahawk into his hands and told him to begin.He told first his exploits in the north, and then in the west, giving times and places and the number of scalps taken, until his enemies were so pleased and interested that they forgot the prisoner in the warrior. It was a long story, but at last he came to the battle in which he was taken. He told how many relatives he had killed of the very men around him, and then, striking the post with his tomahawk, “So many of your people have I killed, and so many will I yet kill;” and with that he struck down two men, sprang through the circle of warriors, and was away. It was all so sudden that it was some moments before his enemies could recover from their surprise. Then they seized their weapons and were after him through the woods, but he had had a good start and was running for his life, so that he outran the chase and finally reached the Cherokee camp in safety and rejoined his seven companions.On this proof of good will the Cherokee then concluded the treaty, and the peacemakers returned to their own country.—Arranged from Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 258.97. ORIGIN OF THE YONTOÑWISAS DANCETwo Seneca women who were sisters, with the baby boy of the older one, were in a sugar grove near their home when a war party ofCherokee came upon them and carried them off. When the people of the town learned what had happened, they decided not to go after the enemy for fear they would kill the women, so their made no pursuit.The Cherokee carried the women with them until they were within one day of the Cherokee towns. The elder sister learned this and made up her mind to try to escape. She had a knife without a handle hidden under her belt, and that night when all lay down to sleep by the fire she kept awake. When they were sleeping soundly, she looked around. She and her sister were tied together, and on each side of them was a Cherokee with the end of the rope under his body on the ground. Taking out her knife, she cut the rope without waking the men, and then rousing her sister quietly she whispered to her to come. They were going to leave the little boy, but he started to cry, so she said, “Let us die together,” and took him up on her back, and the two women hurried away. In a little while they heard an alarm behind them, and knew that their escape was discovered, and then they saw the blazing pine knots waving through the trees where the Cherokee were coming on looking for them. The women knew the Cherokee would hunt for them toward the north, along the trail to the Seneca country, so they made a circuit and went around to the south until they came in sight of a fire and saw a man sitting by a tree, shaking a rattle and singing in a low voice. They found they had come directly back to the enemy’s camp, so the older sister said, “This will never do; we must try again. Let us go straight ahead to that big tree in front, and from that straight on to the next, and the next.” In this way they kept on a straight course until morning. When the sun came up, they took another direction toward home, and at night they rested in the woods.They traveled all the next day, and at night rested again. In the night a voice spoke to the younger woman, “Is that where you are resting?” and she answered, “Yes.” The voice said again, “Keep on, and you will come out at the spot where you were captured. No harm will come to you. To-morrow you will find food.” She roused her sister and told her what the voice had said.In the morning they went on and at noon found a buck freshly killed. Near by they found a log on fire, so they roasted some of the meat, had a good meal, and carried away afterwards as much of the meat as they could. They kept on, camping every night, and when the meat was nearly gone they saved the rest for the little boy.At last one night the voice spoke again to the younger sister and said, “You are on the right road, and to-morrow you will be on the border of the Seneca country. You will find food. That is all.”In the morning she told her older sister. They started on again and walked until about noon, when they came to a patch of wild potatoes. They dug and found plenty, and as they looked around they saw smokewhere there had been a camp fire. They gathered wood, made up the fire, and roasted the potatoes. Then they ate as many as they wanted and carried the rest with them.They traveled on until the potatoes were almost gone. Then at night the voice came again to the younger woman, saying: “At noon tomorrow you will reach your home, and the first person you will meet will be your uncle. When you get to the town, you must call the people together and tell them all that has happened. You must go to the long house and take off your skirt and carry it on your shoulder. Then you must go inside and go around once, singing, ‘We have come home; we are here.’ This is theYontoñwisassong, and it shall be for women only. Know now that we are theHadionyageonoñ, the Sky People, who have watched over you all this time.”When the girl awoke, she told her sister, and they said, “We must do all this,” and they began to sing as they went along. About noon they heard the sound of chopping, and when they went to the place they found it was their uncle cutting blocks to make spoons. He did not see them until they spoke, and at first could hardly believe that they were living women, because he knew that they had been taken by the Cherokee. He was very glad to see them, and as they walked on to the town they told him all they had been commanded to do by the Sky People. When they arrived at the town, he called all the people together, and they went to the long house. There the two women sang their song and did everything exactly as they had been told to do, and when it was over they said, “This is all,” and sat down. This is the same Yontoñwisas song that is still sung by the women.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

88. FIRST CONTACT WITH WHITESThere are a few stories concerning the first contact of the Cherokee with whites and negroes. They are very modern and have little value as myths, but throw some light upon the Indian estimate of the different races.One story relates how the first whites came from the east and tried to enter into friendly relations, but the Indians would have nothing to do with them for a long time. At last the whites left a jug of whisky and a dipper near a spring frequented by the Indians. The Indians came along, tasted the liquor, which they had never known before, and liked it so well that they ended by all getting comfortably drunk. While they were in this happy frame of mind some white men came up, and this time the Indians shook hands with them and they have been friends after a fashion ever since. This may possibly be a Cherokee adaptation of the story of Hudson’s first landing on the island of Manhattan.At the creation an ulûñsû′tĭ was given to the white man, and a piece of silver to the Indian. But the white man despised the stone and threw it away, while the Indian did the same with the silver. In going about the white man afterward found the silver piece and put itinto his pocket and has prized it ever since. The Indian, in like manner, found the ulûñsû′tĭ where the white man had thrown it. He picked it up and has kept it since as his talisman, as money is the talismanic power of the white man. This story is quite general and is probably older than others of its class.When Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was trying to introduce it among his people, about 1822, some of them opposed it upon the ground that Indians had no business with reading. They said that when the Indian and the white man were created, the Indian, being the elder, was given a book, while the white man received a bow and arrows. Each was instructed to take good care of his gift and make the best use of it, but the Indian was so neglectful of his book that the white man soon stole it from him, leaving the bow in its place, so that books and reading now belong of right to the white man, while the Indian ought to be satisfied to hunt for a living.—Cherokee Advocate, October 26, 1844.The negro made the first locomotive for a toy and put it on a wooden track and was having great fun with it when a white man came along, watched until he saw how to run it, and then killed the negro and took the locomotive for himself. This, also, although plainly of very recent origin, was heard from several informants.

88. FIRST CONTACT WITH WHITES

There are a few stories concerning the first contact of the Cherokee with whites and negroes. They are very modern and have little value as myths, but throw some light upon the Indian estimate of the different races.One story relates how the first whites came from the east and tried to enter into friendly relations, but the Indians would have nothing to do with them for a long time. At last the whites left a jug of whisky and a dipper near a spring frequented by the Indians. The Indians came along, tasted the liquor, which they had never known before, and liked it so well that they ended by all getting comfortably drunk. While they were in this happy frame of mind some white men came up, and this time the Indians shook hands with them and they have been friends after a fashion ever since. This may possibly be a Cherokee adaptation of the story of Hudson’s first landing on the island of Manhattan.At the creation an ulûñsû′tĭ was given to the white man, and a piece of silver to the Indian. But the white man despised the stone and threw it away, while the Indian did the same with the silver. In going about the white man afterward found the silver piece and put itinto his pocket and has prized it ever since. The Indian, in like manner, found the ulûñsû′tĭ where the white man had thrown it. He picked it up and has kept it since as his talisman, as money is the talismanic power of the white man. This story is quite general and is probably older than others of its class.When Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was trying to introduce it among his people, about 1822, some of them opposed it upon the ground that Indians had no business with reading. They said that when the Indian and the white man were created, the Indian, being the elder, was given a book, while the white man received a bow and arrows. Each was instructed to take good care of his gift and make the best use of it, but the Indian was so neglectful of his book that the white man soon stole it from him, leaving the bow in its place, so that books and reading now belong of right to the white man, while the Indian ought to be satisfied to hunt for a living.—Cherokee Advocate, October 26, 1844.The negro made the first locomotive for a toy and put it on a wooden track and was having great fun with it when a white man came along, watched until he saw how to run it, and then killed the negro and took the locomotive for himself. This, also, although plainly of very recent origin, was heard from several informants.

There are a few stories concerning the first contact of the Cherokee with whites and negroes. They are very modern and have little value as myths, but throw some light upon the Indian estimate of the different races.

One story relates how the first whites came from the east and tried to enter into friendly relations, but the Indians would have nothing to do with them for a long time. At last the whites left a jug of whisky and a dipper near a spring frequented by the Indians. The Indians came along, tasted the liquor, which they had never known before, and liked it so well that they ended by all getting comfortably drunk. While they were in this happy frame of mind some white men came up, and this time the Indians shook hands with them and they have been friends after a fashion ever since. This may possibly be a Cherokee adaptation of the story of Hudson’s first landing on the island of Manhattan.

At the creation an ulûñsû′tĭ was given to the white man, and a piece of silver to the Indian. But the white man despised the stone and threw it away, while the Indian did the same with the silver. In going about the white man afterward found the silver piece and put itinto his pocket and has prized it ever since. The Indian, in like manner, found the ulûñsû′tĭ where the white man had thrown it. He picked it up and has kept it since as his talisman, as money is the talismanic power of the white man. This story is quite general and is probably older than others of its class.

When Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was trying to introduce it among his people, about 1822, some of them opposed it upon the ground that Indians had no business with reading. They said that when the Indian and the white man were created, the Indian, being the elder, was given a book, while the white man received a bow and arrows. Each was instructed to take good care of his gift and make the best use of it, but the Indian was so neglectful of his book that the white man soon stole it from him, leaving the bow in its place, so that books and reading now belong of right to the white man, while the Indian ought to be satisfied to hunt for a living.—Cherokee Advocate, October 26, 1844.

The negro made the first locomotive for a toy and put it on a wooden track and was having great fun with it when a white man came along, watched until he saw how to run it, and then killed the negro and took the locomotive for himself. This, also, although plainly of very recent origin, was heard from several informants.

89. THE IROQUOIS WARSLong wars were waged between the Cherokee and their remote northern relatives, the Iroquois, with both of whom the recollection, now nearly faded, was a vivid tradition fifty years ago. The (Seneca) Iroquois know the Cherokee as Oyadaʼgeʻoñnoñ, a name rather freely rendered “cave people.” The latter call the Iroquois, or rather their largest and most aggressive tribe, the Seneca, Nûndăwe′gĭ, Ani′-Nûn-dăwe′gĭ, or Ani′-Sĕ′nikă, the first forms being derived from Nûndawa′ga or Nûndawa′-ono, “people of the great hills,” the name by which the Seneca know themselves. According to authorities quoted by Schoolcraft, the Seneca claim to have at one time had a settlement, from which they were afterward driven, at Seneca, South Carolina, known in history as one of the principal towns of the Lower Cherokee.The league of the Iroquois was probably founded about the middle of the sixteenth century. Before 1680 they had conquered or exterminated all the tribes upon their immediate borders and had turned their arms against the more distant Illinois, Catawba, and Cherokee. According to Iroquois tradition, the Cherokee were the aggressors, having attacked and plundered a Seneca hunting party somewhere in the west, while in another story they are represented as having violated a peace treaty by the murder of the Iroquois delegates.Whatever the cause, the war was taken up by all the tribes of the league.From the Iroquois country to the Cherokee frontier was considered a five days’ journey for a rapidly traveling war party. As the distance was too great for large expeditions, the war consisted chiefly of a series of individual exploits, a single Cherokee often going hundreds of miles to strike a blow, which was sure to be promptly retaliated by the warriors from the north, the great object of every Iroquois boy being to go against the Cherokee as soon as he was old enough to take the war path. Captives were made on both sides, and probably in about equal numbers, the two parties being too evenly matched for either to gain any permanent advantage, and a compromise was finally made by which the Tennessee river came to be regarded as the boundary between their rival claims, all south of that stream being claimed by the Cherokee, and being acknowledged by the Iroquois, as the limit of their own conquests in that direction. This Indian boundary was recognized by the British government up to the time of the Revolution.Morgan states that a curious agreement was once made between the two tribes, by which this river was also made the limit of pursuit. If a returning war party of the Cherokee could recross the Tennessee before they were overtaken by the pursuing Iroquois they were as safe from attack as though entrenched behind a stockade. The pursuers, if they chose, might still invade the territory of the enemy, but they passed by the camp of the retreating Cherokee without offering to attack them. A similar agreement existed for a time between the Seneca and the Erie.The Buffalo dance of the Iroquois is traditionally said to have had its origin in an expedition against the Cherokee. When the warriors on their way to the south reached the Kentucky salt lick they found there a herd of buffalo, and heard them, for the first time, “singing their favorite songs,” i. e., bellowing and snorting. From the bellowing and the movements of the animals were derived the music and action of the dance.According to Cherokee tradition, as given by the chief Stand Watie, the war was finally brought to an end by the Iroquois, who sent a delegation to the Cherokee to propose a general alliance of the southern and western tribes. The Cherokee accepted the proposition, and in turn sent out invitations to the other tribes, all of which entered into the peace excepting the Osage, of whom it was therefore said that they should be henceforth like a wild fruit on the prairie, at which every bird should pick, and so the Osage have remained ever a predatory tribe without friends or allies. This may be the same treaty described in the story of “The Seneca Peacemakers.” A formal and final peace between the two tribes was arranged through the efforts of the British agent, Sir William Johnson, in 1768.In 1847 there were still living among the Seneca the grandchildren of Cherokee captives taken in these wars. In 1794 the Seneca pointed out to Colonel Pickering a chief who was a native Cherokee, having been taken when a boy and adopted among the Seneca, who afterward made him chief. This was probably the same man of whom they told Schoolcraft fifty years later. He was a full-blood Cherokee, but had been captured when too young to have any memory of the event. Years afterward, when he had grown to manhood and had become a chief in the tribe, he learned of his foreign origin, and was filled at once with an overpowering longing to go back to the south to find his people and live and die among them. He journeyed to the Cherokee country, but on arriving there found to his great disappointment that the story of his capture had been forgotten in the tribe, and that his relatives, if any were left, failed to recognize him. Being unable to find his kindred, he made only a short visit and returned again to the Seneca.From James Wafford, of Indian Territory, the author obtained a detailed account of the Iroquois peace embassy referred to by Stand Watie, and of the wampum belt that accompanied it. Wafford’s information concerning the proceedings at Echota was obtained directly from two eyewitnesses—Sequoya, the inventor of the alphabet, and Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who afterward explained the belt at the great council near Tahlequah seventy years later. Sequoya, at the time of the Echota conference, was a boy living with his mother at Taskigi town a few miles away, while Gatûñ′waʻlĭ was already a young man.The treaty of peace between the Cherokee and Iroquois, made at Johnson Hall in New York in 1768, appears from the record to have been brought about by the Cherokee, who sent for the purpose a delegation of chiefs, headed by Âgănstâ′ta, “Groundhog-sausage,” of Echota, their great leader in the war of 1760–61 against the English. After the treaty had been concluded the Cherokee delegates invited some of the Iroquois chiefs to go home with them for a visit, but the latter declined on the ground that it was not yet safe, and in fact some of their warriors were at that very time out against the Cherokee, not yet being aware of the peace negotiations. It is probable, therefore, that the Iroquois delegates did not arrive at Echota until some considerable time, perhaps three years, after the formal preliminaries had been concluded in the north.According to Sequoya’s account, as given to Wafford, there had been a long war between the Cherokee and the northern Indians, who were never able to conquer the Cherokee or break their spirit, until at last the Iroquois were tired of fighting and sent a delegation to make peace. The messengers set out for the south with their wampum belts and peace emblems, but lost their way after passing Tennesseeriver, perhaps from the necessity of avoiding the main trail, and instead of arriving at Itsâ′tĭ or Echota, the ancient peace town and capital of the Cherokee Nation—situated on Little Tennessee river below Citico creek, in the present Monroe county, Tennessee—they found themselves on the outskirts of Tă′likwă′ or Tellico, on Tellico river, some 10 or 15 miles to the southward.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.“The Onondagas retain the custody of the wampums of the Five Nations, and the keeper of the wampums, Thomas Webster, of the Snipe tribe, a consistent, thorough pagan, is their interpreter. Notwithstanding the claims made that the wampums can be read as a governing code of law, it is evident that they are simply monumental reminders of preserved traditions, without any literal details whatever. “The first [of this] group from left to right, represents a convention of the Six Nations at the adoption of the Tuscaroras into the league; the second, the Five Nations, upon seven strands, illustrates a treaty with seven Canadian tribes before the year 1600; the third signifies the guarded approach of strangers to the councils of the Five Nations (a guarded gate, with a long, white path leading to the inner gate, where the Five Nations are grouped, with the Onondagas in the center and a safe council house behind all); the fourth represents a treaty when but four of the Six Nations were represented, and the fifth embodies the pledge of seven Canadian christianized nations to abandon their crooked ways and keep an honest peace (having a cross for each tribe, and with a zigzag line below, to indicate that their ways had been crooked but would ever after be as sacred as the cross). Above this group is another, claiming to bear date about 1608, when Champlain joined the Algonquins against the Iroquois.”—Carrington, in Six Nations of New York, Extra Bulletin, Eleventh Census, pp. 33–34, 1892.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.3Concealing themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened thechief and his family were at work in their cornfield, and his daughter had just gone up to the house for some reason when the Iroquois entered and asked for something to eat. Seeing that he was a stranger, she set out food for him according to the old custom of hospitality. While he was eating her father, the chief, came in to see what was delaying her, and was surprised to find there one of the hereditary enemies of his tribe. By this time the word had gone out that an Iroquois was in the chief’s house, and the men of the town had left their work and seized their guns to kill him, but the chief heard them coming and standing in the doorway kept them off, saying: “This man has come here on a peace mission, and before you kill him you must first kill me.” They finally listened to him, and allowed the messenger to go out and bring his companions to the chief’s house, where they were all taken care of.When they were well rested after their long journey the chief of Tă′likwă himself went with them to Itsâ′tĭ, the capital, where lived the great chief Âgănstâ′ta, who was now the civil ruler of the Nation. The chiefs of the various towns were summoned and a council was held, at which the speaker for the Iroquois delegation delivered his message and produced the wampum belts and pipes, which they brought as proofs of their mission and had carried all the way in packs upon their backs.He said that for three years his people had been wanting to make peace. There was a spring of dark, cloudy water in their country, and they had covered it over for one year and then looked, but the water was still cloudy. Again they had covered it over, but when they looked at the end of another year it was still dark and troubled. For another year they had covered the spring, and this time when they looked the water was clear and sparkling. Then they knew the time had come, and they left home with their wampum belts to make peace with their enemies.The friendly message was accepted by the Cherokee, and the belts and other symbolic peace tokens were delivered over to their keeping. Other belts in turn were probably given to the Iroquois, and after the usual round of feasting and dancing the messengers returned to their people in the north and the long war was at an end.For nearly a century these symbolic records of the peace with the Iroquois were preserved by the Cherokee, and were carried with them to the western territory when the tribe was finally driven from its old home in 1838. They were then in the keeping of John Ross, principal chief at the time of the removal, and were solemnly produced at a great intertribal council held near Tahlequah, in the Indian Territory, in June, 1843, when they were interpreted by the Cherokee speaker, Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who had seen them delivered to the chiefs of his tribe at old Itsâ′tĭ seventy years before. Wafford was present on this occasion and describes it.Holding the belts over his arm while speaking, Hard-mush told of the original treaty with the Iroquois, and explained the meaning of each belt in turn. According to the best of Wafford’s recollection, there was one large belt, to which the smaller belts were fitted. The beads did not seem to be of shell, and may have been of porcelain. There were also red pipes for the warriors, grayish-white pipes for the chiefs who were foremost in making the peace, and some fans or other ornaments of feathers. There were several of the red pipes, resembling the red-stone pipes of the Sioux, but only one, or perhaps two, of the white peace pipes, which may have been only painted, and were much larger than the others. The pipes were passed around the circle at the council, so that each delegate might take a whiff. The objects altogether made a considerable package, which was carefully guarded by the Cherokee keeper. It is thought that they were destroyed in the War of the Rebellion when the house of John Ross, a few miles south of Tahlequah, was burned by the Confederate Cherokee under their general, Stand Watie.

89. THE IROQUOIS WARS

Long wars were waged between the Cherokee and their remote northern relatives, the Iroquois, with both of whom the recollection, now nearly faded, was a vivid tradition fifty years ago. The (Seneca) Iroquois know the Cherokee as Oyadaʼgeʻoñnoñ, a name rather freely rendered “cave people.” The latter call the Iroquois, or rather their largest and most aggressive tribe, the Seneca, Nûndăwe′gĭ, Ani′-Nûn-dăwe′gĭ, or Ani′-Sĕ′nikă, the first forms being derived from Nûndawa′ga or Nûndawa′-ono, “people of the great hills,” the name by which the Seneca know themselves. According to authorities quoted by Schoolcraft, the Seneca claim to have at one time had a settlement, from which they were afterward driven, at Seneca, South Carolina, known in history as one of the principal towns of the Lower Cherokee.The league of the Iroquois was probably founded about the middle of the sixteenth century. Before 1680 they had conquered or exterminated all the tribes upon their immediate borders and had turned their arms against the more distant Illinois, Catawba, and Cherokee. According to Iroquois tradition, the Cherokee were the aggressors, having attacked and plundered a Seneca hunting party somewhere in the west, while in another story they are represented as having violated a peace treaty by the murder of the Iroquois delegates.Whatever the cause, the war was taken up by all the tribes of the league.From the Iroquois country to the Cherokee frontier was considered a five days’ journey for a rapidly traveling war party. As the distance was too great for large expeditions, the war consisted chiefly of a series of individual exploits, a single Cherokee often going hundreds of miles to strike a blow, which was sure to be promptly retaliated by the warriors from the north, the great object of every Iroquois boy being to go against the Cherokee as soon as he was old enough to take the war path. Captives were made on both sides, and probably in about equal numbers, the two parties being too evenly matched for either to gain any permanent advantage, and a compromise was finally made by which the Tennessee river came to be regarded as the boundary between their rival claims, all south of that stream being claimed by the Cherokee, and being acknowledged by the Iroquois, as the limit of their own conquests in that direction. This Indian boundary was recognized by the British government up to the time of the Revolution.Morgan states that a curious agreement was once made between the two tribes, by which this river was also made the limit of pursuit. If a returning war party of the Cherokee could recross the Tennessee before they were overtaken by the pursuing Iroquois they were as safe from attack as though entrenched behind a stockade. The pursuers, if they chose, might still invade the territory of the enemy, but they passed by the camp of the retreating Cherokee without offering to attack them. A similar agreement existed for a time between the Seneca and the Erie.The Buffalo dance of the Iroquois is traditionally said to have had its origin in an expedition against the Cherokee. When the warriors on their way to the south reached the Kentucky salt lick they found there a herd of buffalo, and heard them, for the first time, “singing their favorite songs,” i. e., bellowing and snorting. From the bellowing and the movements of the animals were derived the music and action of the dance.According to Cherokee tradition, as given by the chief Stand Watie, the war was finally brought to an end by the Iroquois, who sent a delegation to the Cherokee to propose a general alliance of the southern and western tribes. The Cherokee accepted the proposition, and in turn sent out invitations to the other tribes, all of which entered into the peace excepting the Osage, of whom it was therefore said that they should be henceforth like a wild fruit on the prairie, at which every bird should pick, and so the Osage have remained ever a predatory tribe without friends or allies. This may be the same treaty described in the story of “The Seneca Peacemakers.” A formal and final peace between the two tribes was arranged through the efforts of the British agent, Sir William Johnson, in 1768.In 1847 there were still living among the Seneca the grandchildren of Cherokee captives taken in these wars. In 1794 the Seneca pointed out to Colonel Pickering a chief who was a native Cherokee, having been taken when a boy and adopted among the Seneca, who afterward made him chief. This was probably the same man of whom they told Schoolcraft fifty years later. He was a full-blood Cherokee, but had been captured when too young to have any memory of the event. Years afterward, when he had grown to manhood and had become a chief in the tribe, he learned of his foreign origin, and was filled at once with an overpowering longing to go back to the south to find his people and live and die among them. He journeyed to the Cherokee country, but on arriving there found to his great disappointment that the story of his capture had been forgotten in the tribe, and that his relatives, if any were left, failed to recognize him. Being unable to find his kindred, he made only a short visit and returned again to the Seneca.From James Wafford, of Indian Territory, the author obtained a detailed account of the Iroquois peace embassy referred to by Stand Watie, and of the wampum belt that accompanied it. Wafford’s information concerning the proceedings at Echota was obtained directly from two eyewitnesses—Sequoya, the inventor of the alphabet, and Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who afterward explained the belt at the great council near Tahlequah seventy years later. Sequoya, at the time of the Echota conference, was a boy living with his mother at Taskigi town a few miles away, while Gatûñ′waʻlĭ was already a young man.The treaty of peace between the Cherokee and Iroquois, made at Johnson Hall in New York in 1768, appears from the record to have been brought about by the Cherokee, who sent for the purpose a delegation of chiefs, headed by Âgănstâ′ta, “Groundhog-sausage,” of Echota, their great leader in the war of 1760–61 against the English. After the treaty had been concluded the Cherokee delegates invited some of the Iroquois chiefs to go home with them for a visit, but the latter declined on the ground that it was not yet safe, and in fact some of their warriors were at that very time out against the Cherokee, not yet being aware of the peace negotiations. It is probable, therefore, that the Iroquois delegates did not arrive at Echota until some considerable time, perhaps three years, after the formal preliminaries had been concluded in the north.According to Sequoya’s account, as given to Wafford, there had been a long war between the Cherokee and the northern Indians, who were never able to conquer the Cherokee or break their spirit, until at last the Iroquois were tired of fighting and sent a delegation to make peace. The messengers set out for the south with their wampum belts and peace emblems, but lost their way after passing Tennesseeriver, perhaps from the necessity of avoiding the main trail, and instead of arriving at Itsâ′tĭ or Echota, the ancient peace town and capital of the Cherokee Nation—situated on Little Tennessee river below Citico creek, in the present Monroe county, Tennessee—they found themselves on the outskirts of Tă′likwă′ or Tellico, on Tellico river, some 10 or 15 miles to the southward.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.“The Onondagas retain the custody of the wampums of the Five Nations, and the keeper of the wampums, Thomas Webster, of the Snipe tribe, a consistent, thorough pagan, is their interpreter. Notwithstanding the claims made that the wampums can be read as a governing code of law, it is evident that they are simply monumental reminders of preserved traditions, without any literal details whatever. “The first [of this] group from left to right, represents a convention of the Six Nations at the adoption of the Tuscaroras into the league; the second, the Five Nations, upon seven strands, illustrates a treaty with seven Canadian tribes before the year 1600; the third signifies the guarded approach of strangers to the councils of the Five Nations (a guarded gate, with a long, white path leading to the inner gate, where the Five Nations are grouped, with the Onondagas in the center and a safe council house behind all); the fourth represents a treaty when but four of the Six Nations were represented, and the fifth embodies the pledge of seven Canadian christianized nations to abandon their crooked ways and keep an honest peace (having a cross for each tribe, and with a zigzag line below, to indicate that their ways had been crooked but would ever after be as sacred as the cross). Above this group is another, claiming to bear date about 1608, when Champlain joined the Algonquins against the Iroquois.”—Carrington, in Six Nations of New York, Extra Bulletin, Eleventh Census, pp. 33–34, 1892.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.3Concealing themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened thechief and his family were at work in their cornfield, and his daughter had just gone up to the house for some reason when the Iroquois entered and asked for something to eat. Seeing that he was a stranger, she set out food for him according to the old custom of hospitality. While he was eating her father, the chief, came in to see what was delaying her, and was surprised to find there one of the hereditary enemies of his tribe. By this time the word had gone out that an Iroquois was in the chief’s house, and the men of the town had left their work and seized their guns to kill him, but the chief heard them coming and standing in the doorway kept them off, saying: “This man has come here on a peace mission, and before you kill him you must first kill me.” They finally listened to him, and allowed the messenger to go out and bring his companions to the chief’s house, where they were all taken care of.When they were well rested after their long journey the chief of Tă′likwă himself went with them to Itsâ′tĭ, the capital, where lived the great chief Âgănstâ′ta, who was now the civil ruler of the Nation. The chiefs of the various towns were summoned and a council was held, at which the speaker for the Iroquois delegation delivered his message and produced the wampum belts and pipes, which they brought as proofs of their mission and had carried all the way in packs upon their backs.He said that for three years his people had been wanting to make peace. There was a spring of dark, cloudy water in their country, and they had covered it over for one year and then looked, but the water was still cloudy. Again they had covered it over, but when they looked at the end of another year it was still dark and troubled. For another year they had covered the spring, and this time when they looked the water was clear and sparkling. Then they knew the time had come, and they left home with their wampum belts to make peace with their enemies.The friendly message was accepted by the Cherokee, and the belts and other symbolic peace tokens were delivered over to their keeping. Other belts in turn were probably given to the Iroquois, and after the usual round of feasting and dancing the messengers returned to their people in the north and the long war was at an end.For nearly a century these symbolic records of the peace with the Iroquois were preserved by the Cherokee, and were carried with them to the western territory when the tribe was finally driven from its old home in 1838. They were then in the keeping of John Ross, principal chief at the time of the removal, and were solemnly produced at a great intertribal council held near Tahlequah, in the Indian Territory, in June, 1843, when they were interpreted by the Cherokee speaker, Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who had seen them delivered to the chiefs of his tribe at old Itsâ′tĭ seventy years before. Wafford was present on this occasion and describes it.Holding the belts over his arm while speaking, Hard-mush told of the original treaty with the Iroquois, and explained the meaning of each belt in turn. According to the best of Wafford’s recollection, there was one large belt, to which the smaller belts were fitted. The beads did not seem to be of shell, and may have been of porcelain. There were also red pipes for the warriors, grayish-white pipes for the chiefs who were foremost in making the peace, and some fans or other ornaments of feathers. There were several of the red pipes, resembling the red-stone pipes of the Sioux, but only one, or perhaps two, of the white peace pipes, which may have been only painted, and were much larger than the others. The pipes were passed around the circle at the council, so that each delegate might take a whiff. The objects altogether made a considerable package, which was carefully guarded by the Cherokee keeper. It is thought that they were destroyed in the War of the Rebellion when the house of John Ross, a few miles south of Tahlequah, was burned by the Confederate Cherokee under their general, Stand Watie.

Long wars were waged between the Cherokee and their remote northern relatives, the Iroquois, with both of whom the recollection, now nearly faded, was a vivid tradition fifty years ago. The (Seneca) Iroquois know the Cherokee as Oyadaʼgeʻoñnoñ, a name rather freely rendered “cave people.” The latter call the Iroquois, or rather their largest and most aggressive tribe, the Seneca, Nûndăwe′gĭ, Ani′-Nûn-dăwe′gĭ, or Ani′-Sĕ′nikă, the first forms being derived from Nûndawa′ga or Nûndawa′-ono, “people of the great hills,” the name by which the Seneca know themselves. According to authorities quoted by Schoolcraft, the Seneca claim to have at one time had a settlement, from which they were afterward driven, at Seneca, South Carolina, known in history as one of the principal towns of the Lower Cherokee.

The league of the Iroquois was probably founded about the middle of the sixteenth century. Before 1680 they had conquered or exterminated all the tribes upon their immediate borders and had turned their arms against the more distant Illinois, Catawba, and Cherokee. According to Iroquois tradition, the Cherokee were the aggressors, having attacked and plundered a Seneca hunting party somewhere in the west, while in another story they are represented as having violated a peace treaty by the murder of the Iroquois delegates.Whatever the cause, the war was taken up by all the tribes of the league.

From the Iroquois country to the Cherokee frontier was considered a five days’ journey for a rapidly traveling war party. As the distance was too great for large expeditions, the war consisted chiefly of a series of individual exploits, a single Cherokee often going hundreds of miles to strike a blow, which was sure to be promptly retaliated by the warriors from the north, the great object of every Iroquois boy being to go against the Cherokee as soon as he was old enough to take the war path. Captives were made on both sides, and probably in about equal numbers, the two parties being too evenly matched for either to gain any permanent advantage, and a compromise was finally made by which the Tennessee river came to be regarded as the boundary between their rival claims, all south of that stream being claimed by the Cherokee, and being acknowledged by the Iroquois, as the limit of their own conquests in that direction. This Indian boundary was recognized by the British government up to the time of the Revolution.

Morgan states that a curious agreement was once made between the two tribes, by which this river was also made the limit of pursuit. If a returning war party of the Cherokee could recross the Tennessee before they were overtaken by the pursuing Iroquois they were as safe from attack as though entrenched behind a stockade. The pursuers, if they chose, might still invade the territory of the enemy, but they passed by the camp of the retreating Cherokee without offering to attack them. A similar agreement existed for a time between the Seneca and the Erie.

The Buffalo dance of the Iroquois is traditionally said to have had its origin in an expedition against the Cherokee. When the warriors on their way to the south reached the Kentucky salt lick they found there a herd of buffalo, and heard them, for the first time, “singing their favorite songs,” i. e., bellowing and snorting. From the bellowing and the movements of the animals were derived the music and action of the dance.

According to Cherokee tradition, as given by the chief Stand Watie, the war was finally brought to an end by the Iroquois, who sent a delegation to the Cherokee to propose a general alliance of the southern and western tribes. The Cherokee accepted the proposition, and in turn sent out invitations to the other tribes, all of which entered into the peace excepting the Osage, of whom it was therefore said that they should be henceforth like a wild fruit on the prairie, at which every bird should pick, and so the Osage have remained ever a predatory tribe without friends or allies. This may be the same treaty described in the story of “The Seneca Peacemakers.” A formal and final peace between the two tribes was arranged through the efforts of the British agent, Sir William Johnson, in 1768.

In 1847 there were still living among the Seneca the grandchildren of Cherokee captives taken in these wars. In 1794 the Seneca pointed out to Colonel Pickering a chief who was a native Cherokee, having been taken when a boy and adopted among the Seneca, who afterward made him chief. This was probably the same man of whom they told Schoolcraft fifty years later. He was a full-blood Cherokee, but had been captured when too young to have any memory of the event. Years afterward, when he had grown to manhood and had become a chief in the tribe, he learned of his foreign origin, and was filled at once with an overpowering longing to go back to the south to find his people and live and die among them. He journeyed to the Cherokee country, but on arriving there found to his great disappointment that the story of his capture had been forgotten in the tribe, and that his relatives, if any were left, failed to recognize him. Being unable to find his kindred, he made only a short visit and returned again to the Seneca.

From James Wafford, of Indian Territory, the author obtained a detailed account of the Iroquois peace embassy referred to by Stand Watie, and of the wampum belt that accompanied it. Wafford’s information concerning the proceedings at Echota was obtained directly from two eyewitnesses—Sequoya, the inventor of the alphabet, and Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who afterward explained the belt at the great council near Tahlequah seventy years later. Sequoya, at the time of the Echota conference, was a boy living with his mother at Taskigi town a few miles away, while Gatûñ′waʻlĭ was already a young man.

The treaty of peace between the Cherokee and Iroquois, made at Johnson Hall in New York in 1768, appears from the record to have been brought about by the Cherokee, who sent for the purpose a delegation of chiefs, headed by Âgănstâ′ta, “Groundhog-sausage,” of Echota, their great leader in the war of 1760–61 against the English. After the treaty had been concluded the Cherokee delegates invited some of the Iroquois chiefs to go home with them for a visit, but the latter declined on the ground that it was not yet safe, and in fact some of their warriors were at that very time out against the Cherokee, not yet being aware of the peace negotiations. It is probable, therefore, that the Iroquois delegates did not arrive at Echota until some considerable time, perhaps three years, after the formal preliminaries had been concluded in the north.

According to Sequoya’s account, as given to Wafford, there had been a long war between the Cherokee and the northern Indians, who were never able to conquer the Cherokee or break their spirit, until at last the Iroquois were tired of fighting and sent a delegation to make peace. The messengers set out for the south with their wampum belts and peace emblems, but lost their way after passing Tennesseeriver, perhaps from the necessity of avoiding the main trail, and instead of arriving at Itsâ′tĭ or Echota, the ancient peace town and capital of the Cherokee Nation—situated on Little Tennessee river below Citico creek, in the present Monroe county, Tennessee—they found themselves on the outskirts of Tă′likwă′ or Tellico, on Tellico river, some 10 or 15 miles to the southward.

Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.“The Onondagas retain the custody of the wampums of the Five Nations, and the keeper of the wampums, Thomas Webster, of the Snipe tribe, a consistent, thorough pagan, is their interpreter. Notwithstanding the claims made that the wampums can be read as a governing code of law, it is evident that they are simply monumental reminders of preserved traditions, without any literal details whatever. “The first [of this] group from left to right, represents a convention of the Six Nations at the adoption of the Tuscaroras into the league; the second, the Five Nations, upon seven strands, illustrates a treaty with seven Canadian tribes before the year 1600; the third signifies the guarded approach of strangers to the councils of the Five Nations (a guarded gate, with a long, white path leading to the inner gate, where the Five Nations are grouped, with the Onondagas in the center and a safe council house behind all); the fourth represents a treaty when but four of the Six Nations were represented, and the fifth embodies the pledge of seven Canadian christianized nations to abandon their crooked ways and keep an honest peace (having a cross for each tribe, and with a zigzag line below, to indicate that their ways had been crooked but would ever after be as sacred as the cross). Above this group is another, claiming to bear date about 1608, when Champlain joined the Algonquins against the Iroquois.”—Carrington, in Six Nations of New York, Extra Bulletin, Eleventh Census, pp. 33–34, 1892.Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.3

Fig. 2—Ancient Iroquois wampum belts.3

Concealing themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened thechief and his family were at work in their cornfield, and his daughter had just gone up to the house for some reason when the Iroquois entered and asked for something to eat. Seeing that he was a stranger, she set out food for him according to the old custom of hospitality. While he was eating her father, the chief, came in to see what was delaying her, and was surprised to find there one of the hereditary enemies of his tribe. By this time the word had gone out that an Iroquois was in the chief’s house, and the men of the town had left their work and seized their guns to kill him, but the chief heard them coming and standing in the doorway kept them off, saying: “This man has come here on a peace mission, and before you kill him you must first kill me.” They finally listened to him, and allowed the messenger to go out and bring his companions to the chief’s house, where they were all taken care of.

When they were well rested after their long journey the chief of Tă′likwă himself went with them to Itsâ′tĭ, the capital, where lived the great chief Âgănstâ′ta, who was now the civil ruler of the Nation. The chiefs of the various towns were summoned and a council was held, at which the speaker for the Iroquois delegation delivered his message and produced the wampum belts and pipes, which they brought as proofs of their mission and had carried all the way in packs upon their backs.

He said that for three years his people had been wanting to make peace. There was a spring of dark, cloudy water in their country, and they had covered it over for one year and then looked, but the water was still cloudy. Again they had covered it over, but when they looked at the end of another year it was still dark and troubled. For another year they had covered the spring, and this time when they looked the water was clear and sparkling. Then they knew the time had come, and they left home with their wampum belts to make peace with their enemies.

The friendly message was accepted by the Cherokee, and the belts and other symbolic peace tokens were delivered over to their keeping. Other belts in turn were probably given to the Iroquois, and after the usual round of feasting and dancing the messengers returned to their people in the north and the long war was at an end.

For nearly a century these symbolic records of the peace with the Iroquois were preserved by the Cherokee, and were carried with them to the western territory when the tribe was finally driven from its old home in 1838. They were then in the keeping of John Ross, principal chief at the time of the removal, and were solemnly produced at a great intertribal council held near Tahlequah, in the Indian Territory, in June, 1843, when they were interpreted by the Cherokee speaker, Gatûñ′waʻlĭ, “Hard-mush,” who had seen them delivered to the chiefs of his tribe at old Itsâ′tĭ seventy years before. Wafford was present on this occasion and describes it.

Holding the belts over his arm while speaking, Hard-mush told of the original treaty with the Iroquois, and explained the meaning of each belt in turn. According to the best of Wafford’s recollection, there was one large belt, to which the smaller belts were fitted. The beads did not seem to be of shell, and may have been of porcelain. There were also red pipes for the warriors, grayish-white pipes for the chiefs who were foremost in making the peace, and some fans or other ornaments of feathers. There were several of the red pipes, resembling the red-stone pipes of the Sioux, but only one, or perhaps two, of the white peace pipes, which may have been only painted, and were much larger than the others. The pipes were passed around the circle at the council, so that each delegate might take a whiff. The objects altogether made a considerable package, which was carefully guarded by the Cherokee keeper. It is thought that they were destroyed in the War of the Rebellion when the house of John Ross, a few miles south of Tahlequah, was burned by the Confederate Cherokee under their general, Stand Watie.

90. HIADEONI, THE SENECA“Hiadeoni was the father of the late chief Young-king. He was a Seneca warrior, a man of great prowess, dexterity, and swiftness of foot, and had established his reputation for courage and skill on many occasions. He resolved while the Seneca were still living on the Genesee river to make an incursion alone into the country of the Cherokee. He plumed himself with the idea that he could distinguish himself in this daring adventure, and he prepared for it, according to the custom of warriors. They never encumber themselves with baggage. He took nothing but his arms and the meal of a little parched and pounded corn. The forest gave him his meat.Hiadeoni reached the confines of the Cherokee country in safety and alone. He waited for evening before he entered the precincts of a village. He found the people engaged in a dance. He watched his opportunity, and when one of the dancers went out from the ring into the bushes he dispatched him with his hatchet. In this way he killed two men that night in the skirts of the woods without exciting alarm, and took their scalps and retreated. It was late when he came to a lodge, standing remote from the rest, on his course homeward. Watching here, he saw a young man come out, and killed him as he had done the others, and took his scalp. Looking into the lodge cautiously he saw it empty, and ventured in with the hope of finding some tobacco and ammunition to serve him on his way home.While thus busied in searching the lodge he heard footsteps at the door, and immediately threw himself on the bed from which the young man had risen, and covered his face, feigning sleep. They proved to be the footsteps of his last victim’s mother. She, supposing him to be her son, whom she had a short time before left lying there, said,“My son, I am going to such a place, and will not be back till morning.” He made a suitable response, and the old woman went out. Insensibly he fell asleep, and knew nothing till morning, when the first thing he heard was the mother’s voice. She, careful for her son, was at the fireplace very early, pulling some roasted squashes out of the ashes, and after putting them out, and telling him she left them for him to eat, she went away. He sprang up instantly and fled; but the early dawn had revealed his inroad, and he was hotly pursued. Light of foot, and having the start, he succeeded in reaching and concealing himself in a remote piece of woods, where he laid till night, and then pursued his way toward the Genesee, which, in due time he reached, bringing his three Cherokee scalps as trophies of his victory and prowess.”—Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 253, 1847.

90. HIADEONI, THE SENECA

“Hiadeoni was the father of the late chief Young-king. He was a Seneca warrior, a man of great prowess, dexterity, and swiftness of foot, and had established his reputation for courage and skill on many occasions. He resolved while the Seneca were still living on the Genesee river to make an incursion alone into the country of the Cherokee. He plumed himself with the idea that he could distinguish himself in this daring adventure, and he prepared for it, according to the custom of warriors. They never encumber themselves with baggage. He took nothing but his arms and the meal of a little parched and pounded corn. The forest gave him his meat.Hiadeoni reached the confines of the Cherokee country in safety and alone. He waited for evening before he entered the precincts of a village. He found the people engaged in a dance. He watched his opportunity, and when one of the dancers went out from the ring into the bushes he dispatched him with his hatchet. In this way he killed two men that night in the skirts of the woods without exciting alarm, and took their scalps and retreated. It was late when he came to a lodge, standing remote from the rest, on his course homeward. Watching here, he saw a young man come out, and killed him as he had done the others, and took his scalp. Looking into the lodge cautiously he saw it empty, and ventured in with the hope of finding some tobacco and ammunition to serve him on his way home.While thus busied in searching the lodge he heard footsteps at the door, and immediately threw himself on the bed from which the young man had risen, and covered his face, feigning sleep. They proved to be the footsteps of his last victim’s mother. She, supposing him to be her son, whom she had a short time before left lying there, said,“My son, I am going to such a place, and will not be back till morning.” He made a suitable response, and the old woman went out. Insensibly he fell asleep, and knew nothing till morning, when the first thing he heard was the mother’s voice. She, careful for her son, was at the fireplace very early, pulling some roasted squashes out of the ashes, and after putting them out, and telling him she left them for him to eat, she went away. He sprang up instantly and fled; but the early dawn had revealed his inroad, and he was hotly pursued. Light of foot, and having the start, he succeeded in reaching and concealing himself in a remote piece of woods, where he laid till night, and then pursued his way toward the Genesee, which, in due time he reached, bringing his three Cherokee scalps as trophies of his victory and prowess.”—Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 253, 1847.

“Hiadeoni was the father of the late chief Young-king. He was a Seneca warrior, a man of great prowess, dexterity, and swiftness of foot, and had established his reputation for courage and skill on many occasions. He resolved while the Seneca were still living on the Genesee river to make an incursion alone into the country of the Cherokee. He plumed himself with the idea that he could distinguish himself in this daring adventure, and he prepared for it, according to the custom of warriors. They never encumber themselves with baggage. He took nothing but his arms and the meal of a little parched and pounded corn. The forest gave him his meat.

Hiadeoni reached the confines of the Cherokee country in safety and alone. He waited for evening before he entered the precincts of a village. He found the people engaged in a dance. He watched his opportunity, and when one of the dancers went out from the ring into the bushes he dispatched him with his hatchet. In this way he killed two men that night in the skirts of the woods without exciting alarm, and took their scalps and retreated. It was late when he came to a lodge, standing remote from the rest, on his course homeward. Watching here, he saw a young man come out, and killed him as he had done the others, and took his scalp. Looking into the lodge cautiously he saw it empty, and ventured in with the hope of finding some tobacco and ammunition to serve him on his way home.

While thus busied in searching the lodge he heard footsteps at the door, and immediately threw himself on the bed from which the young man had risen, and covered his face, feigning sleep. They proved to be the footsteps of his last victim’s mother. She, supposing him to be her son, whom she had a short time before left lying there, said,“My son, I am going to such a place, and will not be back till morning.” He made a suitable response, and the old woman went out. Insensibly he fell asleep, and knew nothing till morning, when the first thing he heard was the mother’s voice. She, careful for her son, was at the fireplace very early, pulling some roasted squashes out of the ashes, and after putting them out, and telling him she left them for him to eat, she went away. He sprang up instantly and fled; but the early dawn had revealed his inroad, and he was hotly pursued. Light of foot, and having the start, he succeeded in reaching and concealing himself in a remote piece of woods, where he laid till night, and then pursued his way toward the Genesee, which, in due time he reached, bringing his three Cherokee scalps as trophies of his victory and prowess.”—Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 253, 1847.

91. THE TWO MOHAWKS“In the year 1747 a couple of the Mohawk Indians came against the lower towns of the Cheerake, and so cunningly ambuscaded them through most part of the spring and summer, as to kill above twenty in different attacks before they were discovered by any party of the enraged and dejected people. They had a thorough knowledge of the most convenient ground for their purpose, and were extremely swift and long-winded. Whenever they killed any and got the scalp they made off to the neighboring mountains, and ran over the broad ledges of rocks in contrary courses, as occasion offered, so as the pursuers could by no means trace them. Once, when a large company was in chase of them, they ran round a steep hill at the head of the main eastern branch of Savana river, intercepted, killed, and scalped the hindmost of the party, and then made off between them and Keeowhee. As this was the town to which the company belonged, they hastened home in a close body, as the proper place of security from such enemy wizards. In this manner did those two sprightly, gallant savages perplex and intimidate their foes for the space of four moons in the greatest security, though they often were forced to kill and barbecue what they chiefly lived upon, in the midst of their watchful enemies. Having sufficiently revenged their relations’ blood and gratified their own ambition with an uncommon number of scalps, they resolved to captivate one and run home with him as a proof of their having killed none but the enemies of their country. Accordingly, they approached very near to Keeowhee, about half a mile below the late Fort Prince George. Advancing with the usual caution on such an occasion, one crawled along under the best cover of the place about the distance of a hundred yards ahead, while the other shifted from tree to tree, looking sharply every way. In the evening, however, an old, beloved man discovered them from the top of an adjoining hill, and knew them to be enemies by the cut of their hair, light trim forrunning, and their postures. He returned to the town and called first at the house of one of our traders and informed him of the affair, enjoining him not to mention it to any, lest the people should set off against them without success before their tracks were to be discovered and he be charged with having deceived them. But, contrary to the true policy of traders among unforgiving savages, that thoughtless member of the Choktah Sphynx Company busied himself, as usual, out of his proper sphere, sent for the headmen, and told them the story. As the Mohawks were allies and not known to molest any of the traders in the paths and woods, he ought to have observed a strict neutrality. The youth of the town, by order of their headmen, carried on their noisy public diversions in their usual manner to prevent their foes from having any suspicion of their danger, while runners were sent from the town to their neighbors to come silently and assist them to secure the prey in its state of security. They came like silent ghosts, concerted their plan of operation, passed over the river at the old trading ford opposite to the late fort, which lay between two contiguous commanding hills, and, proceeding downward over a broad creek, formed a large semicircle from the river bank, while the town seemed to be taking its usual rest. They then closed into a narrower compass, and at last discovered the two brave, unfortunate men lying close under the tops of some fallen young pine trees. The company gave the war signal, and the Mohawks, bounding up, bravely repeated it; but, by their sudden spring from under thick cover, their arms were useless. They made desperate efforts, however, to kill or be killed, as their situation required. One of the Cheerake, the noted half-breed of Istanare [Ustăna′lĭ] town, which lay 2 miles from thence, was at the first onset knocked down and almost killed with his own cutlass, which was wrested from him, though he was the strongest of the whole nation. But they were overpowered by numbers, captivated, and put to the most exquisite tortures of fire, amidst a prodigious crowd of exulting foes.One of the present Choktah traders, who was on the spot, told me that when they were tied to the stake the younger of the two discovered our traders on a hill near, addressed them in English, and entreated them to redeem their lives. The elder immediately spoke to him, in his own language, to desist. On this, he recollected himself, and became composed like a stoic, manifesting an indifference to life or death, pleasure or pain, according to their standard of martial virtue, and their dying behaviour did not reflect the least dishonor on their former gallant actions. All the pangs of fiery torture served only to refine their manly spirits, and as it was out of the power of the traders to redeem them they, according to our usual custom, retired as soon as the Indians began the diabolical tragedy.”—Adair, American Indians, p. 383, 1775.BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYNINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVIIANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)PHOTOGRAPH BY AUTHOR, 1888ANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)

91. THE TWO MOHAWKS

“In the year 1747 a couple of the Mohawk Indians came against the lower towns of the Cheerake, and so cunningly ambuscaded them through most part of the spring and summer, as to kill above twenty in different attacks before they were discovered by any party of the enraged and dejected people. They had a thorough knowledge of the most convenient ground for their purpose, and were extremely swift and long-winded. Whenever they killed any and got the scalp they made off to the neighboring mountains, and ran over the broad ledges of rocks in contrary courses, as occasion offered, so as the pursuers could by no means trace them. Once, when a large company was in chase of them, they ran round a steep hill at the head of the main eastern branch of Savana river, intercepted, killed, and scalped the hindmost of the party, and then made off between them and Keeowhee. As this was the town to which the company belonged, they hastened home in a close body, as the proper place of security from such enemy wizards. In this manner did those two sprightly, gallant savages perplex and intimidate their foes for the space of four moons in the greatest security, though they often were forced to kill and barbecue what they chiefly lived upon, in the midst of their watchful enemies. Having sufficiently revenged their relations’ blood and gratified their own ambition with an uncommon number of scalps, they resolved to captivate one and run home with him as a proof of their having killed none but the enemies of their country. Accordingly, they approached very near to Keeowhee, about half a mile below the late Fort Prince George. Advancing with the usual caution on such an occasion, one crawled along under the best cover of the place about the distance of a hundred yards ahead, while the other shifted from tree to tree, looking sharply every way. In the evening, however, an old, beloved man discovered them from the top of an adjoining hill, and knew them to be enemies by the cut of their hair, light trim forrunning, and their postures. He returned to the town and called first at the house of one of our traders and informed him of the affair, enjoining him not to mention it to any, lest the people should set off against them without success before their tracks were to be discovered and he be charged with having deceived them. But, contrary to the true policy of traders among unforgiving savages, that thoughtless member of the Choktah Sphynx Company busied himself, as usual, out of his proper sphere, sent for the headmen, and told them the story. As the Mohawks were allies and not known to molest any of the traders in the paths and woods, he ought to have observed a strict neutrality. The youth of the town, by order of their headmen, carried on their noisy public diversions in their usual manner to prevent their foes from having any suspicion of their danger, while runners were sent from the town to their neighbors to come silently and assist them to secure the prey in its state of security. They came like silent ghosts, concerted their plan of operation, passed over the river at the old trading ford opposite to the late fort, which lay between two contiguous commanding hills, and, proceeding downward over a broad creek, formed a large semicircle from the river bank, while the town seemed to be taking its usual rest. They then closed into a narrower compass, and at last discovered the two brave, unfortunate men lying close under the tops of some fallen young pine trees. The company gave the war signal, and the Mohawks, bounding up, bravely repeated it; but, by their sudden spring from under thick cover, their arms were useless. They made desperate efforts, however, to kill or be killed, as their situation required. One of the Cheerake, the noted half-breed of Istanare [Ustăna′lĭ] town, which lay 2 miles from thence, was at the first onset knocked down and almost killed with his own cutlass, which was wrested from him, though he was the strongest of the whole nation. But they were overpowered by numbers, captivated, and put to the most exquisite tortures of fire, amidst a prodigious crowd of exulting foes.One of the present Choktah traders, who was on the spot, told me that when they were tied to the stake the younger of the two discovered our traders on a hill near, addressed them in English, and entreated them to redeem their lives. The elder immediately spoke to him, in his own language, to desist. On this, he recollected himself, and became composed like a stoic, manifesting an indifference to life or death, pleasure or pain, according to their standard of martial virtue, and their dying behaviour did not reflect the least dishonor on their former gallant actions. All the pangs of fiery torture served only to refine their manly spirits, and as it was out of the power of the traders to redeem them they, according to our usual custom, retired as soon as the Indians began the diabolical tragedy.”—Adair, American Indians, p. 383, 1775.BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYNINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVIIANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)PHOTOGRAPH BY AUTHOR, 1888ANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)

“In the year 1747 a couple of the Mohawk Indians came against the lower towns of the Cheerake, and so cunningly ambuscaded them through most part of the spring and summer, as to kill above twenty in different attacks before they were discovered by any party of the enraged and dejected people. They had a thorough knowledge of the most convenient ground for their purpose, and were extremely swift and long-winded. Whenever they killed any and got the scalp they made off to the neighboring mountains, and ran over the broad ledges of rocks in contrary courses, as occasion offered, so as the pursuers could by no means trace them. Once, when a large company was in chase of them, they ran round a steep hill at the head of the main eastern branch of Savana river, intercepted, killed, and scalped the hindmost of the party, and then made off between them and Keeowhee. As this was the town to which the company belonged, they hastened home in a close body, as the proper place of security from such enemy wizards. In this manner did those two sprightly, gallant savages perplex and intimidate their foes for the space of four moons in the greatest security, though they often were forced to kill and barbecue what they chiefly lived upon, in the midst of their watchful enemies. Having sufficiently revenged their relations’ blood and gratified their own ambition with an uncommon number of scalps, they resolved to captivate one and run home with him as a proof of their having killed none but the enemies of their country. Accordingly, they approached very near to Keeowhee, about half a mile below the late Fort Prince George. Advancing with the usual caution on such an occasion, one crawled along under the best cover of the place about the distance of a hundred yards ahead, while the other shifted from tree to tree, looking sharply every way. In the evening, however, an old, beloved man discovered them from the top of an adjoining hill, and knew them to be enemies by the cut of their hair, light trim forrunning, and their postures. He returned to the town and called first at the house of one of our traders and informed him of the affair, enjoining him not to mention it to any, lest the people should set off against them without success before their tracks were to be discovered and he be charged with having deceived them. But, contrary to the true policy of traders among unforgiving savages, that thoughtless member of the Choktah Sphynx Company busied himself, as usual, out of his proper sphere, sent for the headmen, and told them the story. As the Mohawks were allies and not known to molest any of the traders in the paths and woods, he ought to have observed a strict neutrality. The youth of the town, by order of their headmen, carried on their noisy public diversions in their usual manner to prevent their foes from having any suspicion of their danger, while runners were sent from the town to their neighbors to come silently and assist them to secure the prey in its state of security. They came like silent ghosts, concerted their plan of operation, passed over the river at the old trading ford opposite to the late fort, which lay between two contiguous commanding hills, and, proceeding downward over a broad creek, formed a large semicircle from the river bank, while the town seemed to be taking its usual rest. They then closed into a narrower compass, and at last discovered the two brave, unfortunate men lying close under the tops of some fallen young pine trees. The company gave the war signal, and the Mohawks, bounding up, bravely repeated it; but, by their sudden spring from under thick cover, their arms were useless. They made desperate efforts, however, to kill or be killed, as their situation required. One of the Cheerake, the noted half-breed of Istanare [Ustăna′lĭ] town, which lay 2 miles from thence, was at the first onset knocked down and almost killed with his own cutlass, which was wrested from him, though he was the strongest of the whole nation. But they were overpowered by numbers, captivated, and put to the most exquisite tortures of fire, amidst a prodigious crowd of exulting foes.

One of the present Choktah traders, who was on the spot, told me that when they were tied to the stake the younger of the two discovered our traders on a hill near, addressed them in English, and entreated them to redeem their lives. The elder immediately spoke to him, in his own language, to desist. On this, he recollected himself, and became composed like a stoic, manifesting an indifference to life or death, pleasure or pain, according to their standard of martial virtue, and their dying behaviour did not reflect the least dishonor on their former gallant actions. All the pangs of fiery torture served only to refine their manly spirits, and as it was out of the power of the traders to redeem them they, according to our usual custom, retired as soon as the Indians began the diabolical tragedy.”—Adair, American Indians, p. 383, 1775.

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYNINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVIIANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)PHOTOGRAPH BY AUTHOR, 1888ANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)

BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGYNINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. XVII

PHOTOGRAPH BY AUTHOR, 1888

ANNIE AX (SADAYĬ)

92. ESCAPE OF THE SENECA BOYSSome Seneca warriors were hunting in the woods, and one morning, on starting out for the day, they left two boys behind to take care of the camp. Soon after they had gone, a war party of Cherokee came up, and finding the boys alone took them both and started back to the south, traveling at such a rate that when the hunters returned in the evening they decided that it was of no use to follow them. When the Cherokee reached their own country they gave the boys to an old man, whose sons had been killed by the Seneca. He took the boys and adopted them for his own, and they grew up with him until they were large and strong enough to go hunting for themselves.But all the time they remembered their own home, and one day the older one said to his brother, “Let’s kill the old man and run away.” “No,” said the other, “we might get lost if we ran away, we are so far from home.” “I remember the way,” said his brother, so they made a plan to escape. A few days later the old man took the boys with him and the three set out together for a hunt in the mountains. When they were well away from the settlement the boys killed the old man, took all the meat and parched corn meal they could easily carry, and started to make their way back to the north, keeping away from the main trail and following the ridge of the mountains. After many days they came to the end of the mountains and found a trail which the older brother knew as the one along which they had been taken when they were first captured. They went on bravely now until they came to a wide clearing with houses at the farther end, and the older brother said, “I believe there is where we used to live.” It was so long ago that they were not quite sure, and besides they were dressed now like Cherokee, so they thought it safer to wait until dark. They saw a river ahead and went down to it and sat behind a large tree to wait. Soon several women came down for water and passed close to the tree without noticing the boys. Said the older brother, “I know those women. One of them is our mother.” They waited until the women had filled their buckets and started to the village, when both ran out to meet them with the Seneca hailing-shout, “Gowe′! Gowe′!” At first the women were frightened and thought it a party of Cherokee, but when they heard their own language they came nearer. Then the mother recognized her two sons, and said, “Let us go back and dance for the dead come to life,” and they were all very glad and went into the village together.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

92. ESCAPE OF THE SENECA BOYS

Some Seneca warriors were hunting in the woods, and one morning, on starting out for the day, they left two boys behind to take care of the camp. Soon after they had gone, a war party of Cherokee came up, and finding the boys alone took them both and started back to the south, traveling at such a rate that when the hunters returned in the evening they decided that it was of no use to follow them. When the Cherokee reached their own country they gave the boys to an old man, whose sons had been killed by the Seneca. He took the boys and adopted them for his own, and they grew up with him until they were large and strong enough to go hunting for themselves.But all the time they remembered their own home, and one day the older one said to his brother, “Let’s kill the old man and run away.” “No,” said the other, “we might get lost if we ran away, we are so far from home.” “I remember the way,” said his brother, so they made a plan to escape. A few days later the old man took the boys with him and the three set out together for a hunt in the mountains. When they were well away from the settlement the boys killed the old man, took all the meat and parched corn meal they could easily carry, and started to make their way back to the north, keeping away from the main trail and following the ridge of the mountains. After many days they came to the end of the mountains and found a trail which the older brother knew as the one along which they had been taken when they were first captured. They went on bravely now until they came to a wide clearing with houses at the farther end, and the older brother said, “I believe there is where we used to live.” It was so long ago that they were not quite sure, and besides they were dressed now like Cherokee, so they thought it safer to wait until dark. They saw a river ahead and went down to it and sat behind a large tree to wait. Soon several women came down for water and passed close to the tree without noticing the boys. Said the older brother, “I know those women. One of them is our mother.” They waited until the women had filled their buckets and started to the village, when both ran out to meet them with the Seneca hailing-shout, “Gowe′! Gowe′!” At first the women were frightened and thought it a party of Cherokee, but when they heard their own language they came nearer. Then the mother recognized her two sons, and said, “Let us go back and dance for the dead come to life,” and they were all very glad and went into the village together.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

Some Seneca warriors were hunting in the woods, and one morning, on starting out for the day, they left two boys behind to take care of the camp. Soon after they had gone, a war party of Cherokee came up, and finding the boys alone took them both and started back to the south, traveling at such a rate that when the hunters returned in the evening they decided that it was of no use to follow them. When the Cherokee reached their own country they gave the boys to an old man, whose sons had been killed by the Seneca. He took the boys and adopted them for his own, and they grew up with him until they were large and strong enough to go hunting for themselves.

But all the time they remembered their own home, and one day the older one said to his brother, “Let’s kill the old man and run away.” “No,” said the other, “we might get lost if we ran away, we are so far from home.” “I remember the way,” said his brother, so they made a plan to escape. A few days later the old man took the boys with him and the three set out together for a hunt in the mountains. When they were well away from the settlement the boys killed the old man, took all the meat and parched corn meal they could easily carry, and started to make their way back to the north, keeping away from the main trail and following the ridge of the mountains. After many days they came to the end of the mountains and found a trail which the older brother knew as the one along which they had been taken when they were first captured. They went on bravely now until they came to a wide clearing with houses at the farther end, and the older brother said, “I believe there is where we used to live.” It was so long ago that they were not quite sure, and besides they were dressed now like Cherokee, so they thought it safer to wait until dark. They saw a river ahead and went down to it and sat behind a large tree to wait. Soon several women came down for water and passed close to the tree without noticing the boys. Said the older brother, “I know those women. One of them is our mother.” They waited until the women had filled their buckets and started to the village, when both ran out to meet them with the Seneca hailing-shout, “Gowe′! Gowe′!” At first the women were frightened and thought it a party of Cherokee, but when they heard their own language they came nearer. Then the mother recognized her two sons, and said, “Let us go back and dance for the dead come to life,” and they were all very glad and went into the village together.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

93. THE UNSEEN HELPERSGanogwioeoñ, a war chief of the Seneca, led a party against the Cherokee. When they came near the first town he left his men outsideand went in alone. At the first house he found an old woman and her granddaughter. They did not see him, and he went into the âsĭ and hid himself under some wood. When darkness came on he heard the old woman say, “Maybe Ganogwioeoñ is near; I’ll close the door.” After a while he heard them going to bed. When he thought they were asleep he went into the house. The fire had burned down low, but the girl was still awake and saw him. She was about to scream, when he said, “I am Ganogwioeoñ. If you scream I’ll kill you. If you keep quiet I’ll not hurt you.” They talked together, and he told her that in the morning she must bring the chief’s daughter to him. She promised to do it, and told him where he should wait. Just before daylight he left the house.In the morning the girl went to the chief’s house and said to his daughter, “Let’s go out together for wood.” The chief’s daughter got ready and went with her, and when they came to the place where Ganogwioeoñ was hiding he sprang out and killed her, but did not hurt the other girl. He pulled off the scalp and gave such a loud scalp yell that all the warriors in the town heard it and came running out after him. He shook the scalp at them and then turned and ran. He killed the first one that came up, but when he tried to shoot the next one the bow broke and the Cherokee got him.They tied him and carried him to the two women of the tribe who had the power to decide what should be done with him. Each of these women had two snakes tattooed on her lips, with their heads opposite each other, in such a way that when she opened her mouth the two snakes opened their mouths also. They decided to burn the soles of his feet until they were blistered, then to put grains of corn under the skin and to chase him with clubs until they had beaten him to death.They stripped him and burnt his feet. Then they tied a bark rope around his waist, with an old man to hold the other end, and made him run between two lines of people, and with clubs in their hands. When they gave the word to start Ganogwioeoñ pulled the rope away from the old man and broke through the line and ran until he had left them all out of sight. When night came he crawled into a hollow log. He was naked and unarmed, with his feet in a pitiful condition, and thought he could never get away.He heard footsteps on the leaves outside and thought his enemies were upon him. The footsteps came up to the log and some one said to another, “This is our friend.” Then the stranger said to Ganogwioeoñ, “You think you are the same as dead; but it is not so. We will take care of you. Stick out your feet.” He put out his feet from the log and felt something licking them. After a while the voice said, “I think we have licked his feet enough. Now we must crawl inside the log and lie on each side of him to keep him warm.” Theycrawled in beside him. In the morning they crawled out and told him to stick out his feet again. They licked them again and then said to him, “Now we have done all we can do this time. Go on until you come to the place where you made a bark shelter a long time ago, and under the bark you will find something to help you.” Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the log, but they were gone. His feet were better now and he could walk comfortably. He went on until about noon, when he came to the bark shelter, and under it he found a knife, an awl, and a flint, that his men had hidden there two years before. He took them and started on again.Toward evening he looked around until he found another hollow tree and crawled into it to sleep. At night he heard the footsteps and voices again. When he put out his feet again, as the strangers told him to do, they licked his feet as before and then crawled in and lay down on each side of him to keep him warm. Still he could not see them. In the morning after they went out they licked his feet again and said to him, “At noon you will find food.” Then they went away.Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the tree and went on. At noon he came to a burning log, and near it was a dead bear, which was still warm, as if it had been killed only a short time before. He skinned the bear and found it very fat. He cut up the meat and roasted as much as he could eat or carry. While it was roasting he scraped the skin and rubbed rotten wood dust on it to clean it until he was tired. When night came he lay down to sleep. He heard the steps and the voices again and one said, “Well, our friend is lying down. He has plenty to eat, and it does not seem as if he is going to die. Let us lick his feet again.” When they had finished they said to him, “You need not worry any more now. You will get home all right.” Before it was day they left him.When morning came he put the bearskin around him like a shirt, with the hair outside, and started on again, taking as much of the meat as he could carry. That night his friends came to him again. They said, “Your feet are well, but you will be cold,” so they lay again on each side of him. Before daylight they left, saying, “About noon you will find something to wear.” He went on and about midday he came to two young bears just killed. He skinned them and dressed the skins, then roasted as much meat as he wanted and lay down to sleep. In the morning he made leggings of the skins, took some of the meat, and started on.His friends came again the next night and told him that in the morning he would come upon something else to wear. As they said, about noon he found two fawns just killed. He turned the skins and made himself a pair of moccasins, then cut some of the meat, and traveled on until evening, when he made a fire and had supper.That night again he heard the steps and voices, and one said, “My friend, very soon now you will reach home safely and find your friends all well. Now we will tell you why we have helped you. Whenever you went hunting you always gave the best part of the meat to us and kept only the smallest part for yourself. For that we are thankful and help you. In the morning you will see us and know who we are.”In the morning when he woke up they were still there—two men as he thought—but after he had said the last words to them and started on, he turned again to look, and one was a white wolf and the other a black wolf. That day he reached home.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

93. THE UNSEEN HELPERS

Ganogwioeoñ, a war chief of the Seneca, led a party against the Cherokee. When they came near the first town he left his men outsideand went in alone. At the first house he found an old woman and her granddaughter. They did not see him, and he went into the âsĭ and hid himself under some wood. When darkness came on he heard the old woman say, “Maybe Ganogwioeoñ is near; I’ll close the door.” After a while he heard them going to bed. When he thought they were asleep he went into the house. The fire had burned down low, but the girl was still awake and saw him. She was about to scream, when he said, “I am Ganogwioeoñ. If you scream I’ll kill you. If you keep quiet I’ll not hurt you.” They talked together, and he told her that in the morning she must bring the chief’s daughter to him. She promised to do it, and told him where he should wait. Just before daylight he left the house.In the morning the girl went to the chief’s house and said to his daughter, “Let’s go out together for wood.” The chief’s daughter got ready and went with her, and when they came to the place where Ganogwioeoñ was hiding he sprang out and killed her, but did not hurt the other girl. He pulled off the scalp and gave such a loud scalp yell that all the warriors in the town heard it and came running out after him. He shook the scalp at them and then turned and ran. He killed the first one that came up, but when he tried to shoot the next one the bow broke and the Cherokee got him.They tied him and carried him to the two women of the tribe who had the power to decide what should be done with him. Each of these women had two snakes tattooed on her lips, with their heads opposite each other, in such a way that when she opened her mouth the two snakes opened their mouths also. They decided to burn the soles of his feet until they were blistered, then to put grains of corn under the skin and to chase him with clubs until they had beaten him to death.They stripped him and burnt his feet. Then they tied a bark rope around his waist, with an old man to hold the other end, and made him run between two lines of people, and with clubs in their hands. When they gave the word to start Ganogwioeoñ pulled the rope away from the old man and broke through the line and ran until he had left them all out of sight. When night came he crawled into a hollow log. He was naked and unarmed, with his feet in a pitiful condition, and thought he could never get away.He heard footsteps on the leaves outside and thought his enemies were upon him. The footsteps came up to the log and some one said to another, “This is our friend.” Then the stranger said to Ganogwioeoñ, “You think you are the same as dead; but it is not so. We will take care of you. Stick out your feet.” He put out his feet from the log and felt something licking them. After a while the voice said, “I think we have licked his feet enough. Now we must crawl inside the log and lie on each side of him to keep him warm.” Theycrawled in beside him. In the morning they crawled out and told him to stick out his feet again. They licked them again and then said to him, “Now we have done all we can do this time. Go on until you come to the place where you made a bark shelter a long time ago, and under the bark you will find something to help you.” Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the log, but they were gone. His feet were better now and he could walk comfortably. He went on until about noon, when he came to the bark shelter, and under it he found a knife, an awl, and a flint, that his men had hidden there two years before. He took them and started on again.Toward evening he looked around until he found another hollow tree and crawled into it to sleep. At night he heard the footsteps and voices again. When he put out his feet again, as the strangers told him to do, they licked his feet as before and then crawled in and lay down on each side of him to keep him warm. Still he could not see them. In the morning after they went out they licked his feet again and said to him, “At noon you will find food.” Then they went away.Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the tree and went on. At noon he came to a burning log, and near it was a dead bear, which was still warm, as if it had been killed only a short time before. He skinned the bear and found it very fat. He cut up the meat and roasted as much as he could eat or carry. While it was roasting he scraped the skin and rubbed rotten wood dust on it to clean it until he was tired. When night came he lay down to sleep. He heard the steps and the voices again and one said, “Well, our friend is lying down. He has plenty to eat, and it does not seem as if he is going to die. Let us lick his feet again.” When they had finished they said to him, “You need not worry any more now. You will get home all right.” Before it was day they left him.When morning came he put the bearskin around him like a shirt, with the hair outside, and started on again, taking as much of the meat as he could carry. That night his friends came to him again. They said, “Your feet are well, but you will be cold,” so they lay again on each side of him. Before daylight they left, saying, “About noon you will find something to wear.” He went on and about midday he came to two young bears just killed. He skinned them and dressed the skins, then roasted as much meat as he wanted and lay down to sleep. In the morning he made leggings of the skins, took some of the meat, and started on.His friends came again the next night and told him that in the morning he would come upon something else to wear. As they said, about noon he found two fawns just killed. He turned the skins and made himself a pair of moccasins, then cut some of the meat, and traveled on until evening, when he made a fire and had supper.That night again he heard the steps and voices, and one said, “My friend, very soon now you will reach home safely and find your friends all well. Now we will tell you why we have helped you. Whenever you went hunting you always gave the best part of the meat to us and kept only the smallest part for yourself. For that we are thankful and help you. In the morning you will see us and know who we are.”In the morning when he woke up they were still there—two men as he thought—but after he had said the last words to them and started on, he turned again to look, and one was a white wolf and the other a black wolf. That day he reached home.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

Ganogwioeoñ, a war chief of the Seneca, led a party against the Cherokee. When they came near the first town he left his men outsideand went in alone. At the first house he found an old woman and her granddaughter. They did not see him, and he went into the âsĭ and hid himself under some wood. When darkness came on he heard the old woman say, “Maybe Ganogwioeoñ is near; I’ll close the door.” After a while he heard them going to bed. When he thought they were asleep he went into the house. The fire had burned down low, but the girl was still awake and saw him. She was about to scream, when he said, “I am Ganogwioeoñ. If you scream I’ll kill you. If you keep quiet I’ll not hurt you.” They talked together, and he told her that in the morning she must bring the chief’s daughter to him. She promised to do it, and told him where he should wait. Just before daylight he left the house.

In the morning the girl went to the chief’s house and said to his daughter, “Let’s go out together for wood.” The chief’s daughter got ready and went with her, and when they came to the place where Ganogwioeoñ was hiding he sprang out and killed her, but did not hurt the other girl. He pulled off the scalp and gave such a loud scalp yell that all the warriors in the town heard it and came running out after him. He shook the scalp at them and then turned and ran. He killed the first one that came up, but when he tried to shoot the next one the bow broke and the Cherokee got him.

They tied him and carried him to the two women of the tribe who had the power to decide what should be done with him. Each of these women had two snakes tattooed on her lips, with their heads opposite each other, in such a way that when she opened her mouth the two snakes opened their mouths also. They decided to burn the soles of his feet until they were blistered, then to put grains of corn under the skin and to chase him with clubs until they had beaten him to death.

They stripped him and burnt his feet. Then they tied a bark rope around his waist, with an old man to hold the other end, and made him run between two lines of people, and with clubs in their hands. When they gave the word to start Ganogwioeoñ pulled the rope away from the old man and broke through the line and ran until he had left them all out of sight. When night came he crawled into a hollow log. He was naked and unarmed, with his feet in a pitiful condition, and thought he could never get away.

He heard footsteps on the leaves outside and thought his enemies were upon him. The footsteps came up to the log and some one said to another, “This is our friend.” Then the stranger said to Ganogwioeoñ, “You think you are the same as dead; but it is not so. We will take care of you. Stick out your feet.” He put out his feet from the log and felt something licking them. After a while the voice said, “I think we have licked his feet enough. Now we must crawl inside the log and lie on each side of him to keep him warm.” Theycrawled in beside him. In the morning they crawled out and told him to stick out his feet again. They licked them again and then said to him, “Now we have done all we can do this time. Go on until you come to the place where you made a bark shelter a long time ago, and under the bark you will find something to help you.” Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the log, but they were gone. His feet were better now and he could walk comfortably. He went on until about noon, when he came to the bark shelter, and under it he found a knife, an awl, and a flint, that his men had hidden there two years before. He took them and started on again.

Toward evening he looked around until he found another hollow tree and crawled into it to sleep. At night he heard the footsteps and voices again. When he put out his feet again, as the strangers told him to do, they licked his feet as before and then crawled in and lay down on each side of him to keep him warm. Still he could not see them. In the morning after they went out they licked his feet again and said to him, “At noon you will find food.” Then they went away.

Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the tree and went on. At noon he came to a burning log, and near it was a dead bear, which was still warm, as if it had been killed only a short time before. He skinned the bear and found it very fat. He cut up the meat and roasted as much as he could eat or carry. While it was roasting he scraped the skin and rubbed rotten wood dust on it to clean it until he was tired. When night came he lay down to sleep. He heard the steps and the voices again and one said, “Well, our friend is lying down. He has plenty to eat, and it does not seem as if he is going to die. Let us lick his feet again.” When they had finished they said to him, “You need not worry any more now. You will get home all right.” Before it was day they left him.

When morning came he put the bearskin around him like a shirt, with the hair outside, and started on again, taking as much of the meat as he could carry. That night his friends came to him again. They said, “Your feet are well, but you will be cold,” so they lay again on each side of him. Before daylight they left, saying, “About noon you will find something to wear.” He went on and about midday he came to two young bears just killed. He skinned them and dressed the skins, then roasted as much meat as he wanted and lay down to sleep. In the morning he made leggings of the skins, took some of the meat, and started on.

His friends came again the next night and told him that in the morning he would come upon something else to wear. As they said, about noon he found two fawns just killed. He turned the skins and made himself a pair of moccasins, then cut some of the meat, and traveled on until evening, when he made a fire and had supper.

That night again he heard the steps and voices, and one said, “My friend, very soon now you will reach home safely and find your friends all well. Now we will tell you why we have helped you. Whenever you went hunting you always gave the best part of the meat to us and kept only the smallest part for yourself. For that we are thankful and help you. In the morning you will see us and know who we are.”

In the morning when he woke up they were still there—two men as he thought—but after he had said the last words to them and started on, he turned again to look, and one was a white wolf and the other a black wolf. That day he reached home.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

94. HATCINOÑDOÑ’S ESCAPE FROM THE CHEROKEEHatcinoñdoñ was a great warrior, the greatest among the Seneca. Once he led a company against the Cherokee. They traveled until they came to the great ridge on the border of the Cherokee country, and then they knew their enemies were on the lookout on the other side. Hatcinoñdoñ told his men to halt where they were while he went ahead to see what was in front. The enemy discovered and chased him, and he ran into a canebrake, where the canes were in two great patches with a narrow strip of open ground between. They saw him go into the canes, so they set fire to the patch and watched at the open place for him to come out, but before they got around to it he had run across into the second patch and escaped. When the canes had burned down the Cherokee looked for his body in the ashes, but could not find any trace of it, so they went home.When Hatcinoñdoñ got into the second canebrake he was tired out, so he lay down and fell asleep. At night while he was asleep two men came and took him by the arm, saying: “We have come for you. Somebody has sent for you.” They took him a long way, above the sky vault, until they came to a house. Then they said: “This is where the man lives who sent for you.” He looked, but could see no door. Then a voice from the inside said “Come in,” and something like a door opened of itself. He went in and there sat Hawĕñni′o, the Thunder-god.Hawĕñni′o said, “I have sent for you and you are here. Are you hungry?” Hatcinoñdoñ thought: “That’s a strange way to talk; that’s not the way I do—I give food.” The Thunder knew his thoughts, so he laughed and said, “I said that only in fun.” He rose and brought half a cake of bread, half of a wild apple, and half a pigeon. Hatcinoñdoñ said, “This is very little to fill me,” but the Thunder replied, “If you eat that, there is more.” He began eating, but, as he ate, everything became whole again, so that he was not able to finish it.While he was sitting he heard some one running outside, and directlythe door was thrown open and the Sun came in, so bright that Hatcinoñdoñ had to hold his head down. The two beings talked together, but the Seneca could not understand a word, and soon the visitor went out again. Then the Thunder said: “That is the one you call the Sun, who watches in the world below. It is night down there now, and he is hurrying to the east. He says there has just been a battle. I love both the Seneca and the Cherokee, and when you get back to your warriors you must tell them to stop fighting and go home.” Again he brought food, half of each kind, and when Hatcinoñdoñ had eaten, the Thunder said, “Now my messengers will take you to your place.”The door opened again of itself, and Hatcinoñdoñ followed the two Sky People until they brought him to the place where he had slept, and there left him. He found his party and told the warriors what he had seen. They held a council over it and decided to strike the enemy once before going home. Hatcinoñdoñ led them. They met the Cherokee and went home with scalps.He led another party against the Cherokee, but this time he was taken and carried to the Cherokee town. It was the custom among the Cherokee to let two women say what should be done with captives. They decided that he should be tortured with fire, so he was tied to a tree, and the wood was piled around him. Hatcinoñdoñ gave himself up for lost, when a rain storm came up and the people concluded to wait until it was over. They went away and left him tied to the tree.Pretty soon an old woman came up to him, and said, “My grandson, you think you are going to die, but you are not. Try to stir your limbs.” He struggled and finally got his limbs free. Then she said, “Now you are free. I have come to repay your kindness. You remember that you once found a frog in the middle of a circle of fire and that you picked it up and put it into the water. I was that frog, and now I help you. I sent the rain storm, and now you must go down to the creek and follow the current.”When the rain was over the people came back, but Hatcinoñdoñ was gone. They trailed him down to the creek, but he had found a hollow tree lying in the water, with a hole on the upper side through which he could breathe, so he crawled into it and they could not find him. Once two of the Cherokee came and sat on the log and he could hear them talking about him, but they did not know that he was inside. When they were all gone, he came out and kept on down the stream. After dark he came to a place where three hunters had made a fire and gone to sleep for the night. Their hatchets and arms were hung up on a tree. Hatcinoñdoñ was naked. He listened until he was sure the men were asleep, then he took one of their hatchets and killed all three, one after another. He dressed himself in the clothes of one, and put on his belt, with the knife and hatchet. Then he washed himself at the creek and sat down by the fire and cooked his supper.After that he stretched and painted the three scalps and lay down by the fire to sleep. In the morning he took what provision he could carry and traveled in a great circle until he found the road by which he and his warriors had come. He found fresh tracks and followed them until he saw smoke ahead. He listened until he heard men speaking Seneca, and knew that it was his party. Then he gave the Seneca shout—Gowe′!—three times and his friends ran out to meet him. They had been afraid that he was killed, but were glad now that they had waited for him. They went home together. This is their story.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

94. HATCINOÑDOÑ’S ESCAPE FROM THE CHEROKEE

Hatcinoñdoñ was a great warrior, the greatest among the Seneca. Once he led a company against the Cherokee. They traveled until they came to the great ridge on the border of the Cherokee country, and then they knew their enemies were on the lookout on the other side. Hatcinoñdoñ told his men to halt where they were while he went ahead to see what was in front. The enemy discovered and chased him, and he ran into a canebrake, where the canes were in two great patches with a narrow strip of open ground between. They saw him go into the canes, so they set fire to the patch and watched at the open place for him to come out, but before they got around to it he had run across into the second patch and escaped. When the canes had burned down the Cherokee looked for his body in the ashes, but could not find any trace of it, so they went home.When Hatcinoñdoñ got into the second canebrake he was tired out, so he lay down and fell asleep. At night while he was asleep two men came and took him by the arm, saying: “We have come for you. Somebody has sent for you.” They took him a long way, above the sky vault, until they came to a house. Then they said: “This is where the man lives who sent for you.” He looked, but could see no door. Then a voice from the inside said “Come in,” and something like a door opened of itself. He went in and there sat Hawĕñni′o, the Thunder-god.Hawĕñni′o said, “I have sent for you and you are here. Are you hungry?” Hatcinoñdoñ thought: “That’s a strange way to talk; that’s not the way I do—I give food.” The Thunder knew his thoughts, so he laughed and said, “I said that only in fun.” He rose and brought half a cake of bread, half of a wild apple, and half a pigeon. Hatcinoñdoñ said, “This is very little to fill me,” but the Thunder replied, “If you eat that, there is more.” He began eating, but, as he ate, everything became whole again, so that he was not able to finish it.While he was sitting he heard some one running outside, and directlythe door was thrown open and the Sun came in, so bright that Hatcinoñdoñ had to hold his head down. The two beings talked together, but the Seneca could not understand a word, and soon the visitor went out again. Then the Thunder said: “That is the one you call the Sun, who watches in the world below. It is night down there now, and he is hurrying to the east. He says there has just been a battle. I love both the Seneca and the Cherokee, and when you get back to your warriors you must tell them to stop fighting and go home.” Again he brought food, half of each kind, and when Hatcinoñdoñ had eaten, the Thunder said, “Now my messengers will take you to your place.”The door opened again of itself, and Hatcinoñdoñ followed the two Sky People until they brought him to the place where he had slept, and there left him. He found his party and told the warriors what he had seen. They held a council over it and decided to strike the enemy once before going home. Hatcinoñdoñ led them. They met the Cherokee and went home with scalps.He led another party against the Cherokee, but this time he was taken and carried to the Cherokee town. It was the custom among the Cherokee to let two women say what should be done with captives. They decided that he should be tortured with fire, so he was tied to a tree, and the wood was piled around him. Hatcinoñdoñ gave himself up for lost, when a rain storm came up and the people concluded to wait until it was over. They went away and left him tied to the tree.Pretty soon an old woman came up to him, and said, “My grandson, you think you are going to die, but you are not. Try to stir your limbs.” He struggled and finally got his limbs free. Then she said, “Now you are free. I have come to repay your kindness. You remember that you once found a frog in the middle of a circle of fire and that you picked it up and put it into the water. I was that frog, and now I help you. I sent the rain storm, and now you must go down to the creek and follow the current.”When the rain was over the people came back, but Hatcinoñdoñ was gone. They trailed him down to the creek, but he had found a hollow tree lying in the water, with a hole on the upper side through which he could breathe, so he crawled into it and they could not find him. Once two of the Cherokee came and sat on the log and he could hear them talking about him, but they did not know that he was inside. When they were all gone, he came out and kept on down the stream. After dark he came to a place where three hunters had made a fire and gone to sleep for the night. Their hatchets and arms were hung up on a tree. Hatcinoñdoñ was naked. He listened until he was sure the men were asleep, then he took one of their hatchets and killed all three, one after another. He dressed himself in the clothes of one, and put on his belt, with the knife and hatchet. Then he washed himself at the creek and sat down by the fire and cooked his supper.After that he stretched and painted the three scalps and lay down by the fire to sleep. In the morning he took what provision he could carry and traveled in a great circle until he found the road by which he and his warriors had come. He found fresh tracks and followed them until he saw smoke ahead. He listened until he heard men speaking Seneca, and knew that it was his party. Then he gave the Seneca shout—Gowe′!—three times and his friends ran out to meet him. They had been afraid that he was killed, but were glad now that they had waited for him. They went home together. This is their story.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

Hatcinoñdoñ was a great warrior, the greatest among the Seneca. Once he led a company against the Cherokee. They traveled until they came to the great ridge on the border of the Cherokee country, and then they knew their enemies were on the lookout on the other side. Hatcinoñdoñ told his men to halt where they were while he went ahead to see what was in front. The enemy discovered and chased him, and he ran into a canebrake, where the canes were in two great patches with a narrow strip of open ground between. They saw him go into the canes, so they set fire to the patch and watched at the open place for him to come out, but before they got around to it he had run across into the second patch and escaped. When the canes had burned down the Cherokee looked for his body in the ashes, but could not find any trace of it, so they went home.

When Hatcinoñdoñ got into the second canebrake he was tired out, so he lay down and fell asleep. At night while he was asleep two men came and took him by the arm, saying: “We have come for you. Somebody has sent for you.” They took him a long way, above the sky vault, until they came to a house. Then they said: “This is where the man lives who sent for you.” He looked, but could see no door. Then a voice from the inside said “Come in,” and something like a door opened of itself. He went in and there sat Hawĕñni′o, the Thunder-god.

Hawĕñni′o said, “I have sent for you and you are here. Are you hungry?” Hatcinoñdoñ thought: “That’s a strange way to talk; that’s not the way I do—I give food.” The Thunder knew his thoughts, so he laughed and said, “I said that only in fun.” He rose and brought half a cake of bread, half of a wild apple, and half a pigeon. Hatcinoñdoñ said, “This is very little to fill me,” but the Thunder replied, “If you eat that, there is more.” He began eating, but, as he ate, everything became whole again, so that he was not able to finish it.

While he was sitting he heard some one running outside, and directlythe door was thrown open and the Sun came in, so bright that Hatcinoñdoñ had to hold his head down. The two beings talked together, but the Seneca could not understand a word, and soon the visitor went out again. Then the Thunder said: “That is the one you call the Sun, who watches in the world below. It is night down there now, and he is hurrying to the east. He says there has just been a battle. I love both the Seneca and the Cherokee, and when you get back to your warriors you must tell them to stop fighting and go home.” Again he brought food, half of each kind, and when Hatcinoñdoñ had eaten, the Thunder said, “Now my messengers will take you to your place.”

The door opened again of itself, and Hatcinoñdoñ followed the two Sky People until they brought him to the place where he had slept, and there left him. He found his party and told the warriors what he had seen. They held a council over it and decided to strike the enemy once before going home. Hatcinoñdoñ led them. They met the Cherokee and went home with scalps.

He led another party against the Cherokee, but this time he was taken and carried to the Cherokee town. It was the custom among the Cherokee to let two women say what should be done with captives. They decided that he should be tortured with fire, so he was tied to a tree, and the wood was piled around him. Hatcinoñdoñ gave himself up for lost, when a rain storm came up and the people concluded to wait until it was over. They went away and left him tied to the tree.

Pretty soon an old woman came up to him, and said, “My grandson, you think you are going to die, but you are not. Try to stir your limbs.” He struggled and finally got his limbs free. Then she said, “Now you are free. I have come to repay your kindness. You remember that you once found a frog in the middle of a circle of fire and that you picked it up and put it into the water. I was that frog, and now I help you. I sent the rain storm, and now you must go down to the creek and follow the current.”

When the rain was over the people came back, but Hatcinoñdoñ was gone. They trailed him down to the creek, but he had found a hollow tree lying in the water, with a hole on the upper side through which he could breathe, so he crawled into it and they could not find him. Once two of the Cherokee came and sat on the log and he could hear them talking about him, but they did not know that he was inside. When they were all gone, he came out and kept on down the stream. After dark he came to a place where three hunters had made a fire and gone to sleep for the night. Their hatchets and arms were hung up on a tree. Hatcinoñdoñ was naked. He listened until he was sure the men were asleep, then he took one of their hatchets and killed all three, one after another. He dressed himself in the clothes of one, and put on his belt, with the knife and hatchet. Then he washed himself at the creek and sat down by the fire and cooked his supper.After that he stretched and painted the three scalps and lay down by the fire to sleep. In the morning he took what provision he could carry and traveled in a great circle until he found the road by which he and his warriors had come. He found fresh tracks and followed them until he saw smoke ahead. He listened until he heard men speaking Seneca, and knew that it was his party. Then he gave the Seneca shout—Gowe′!—three times and his friends ran out to meet him. They had been afraid that he was killed, but were glad now that they had waited for him. They went home together. This is their story.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

95. HEMP-CARRIEROn the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are leveled now, but thirty years ago the stones were still heaped up into pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of the Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two Nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlements on Hiwassee and Cheowa a party was made underTâle′danigi′skĭ, “Hemp-carrier,” to follow and take vengeance on the enemy. Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief Tsunu′lăhûñ′skĭ, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died on Cheowa about 1855.For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky mountains, through forests and over rivers, until they finally tracked them to their very town in the far northern Seneca country. On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps. When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the townhouse, where the women were dancing over the fresh Cherokee scalps. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the townhouse never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, “We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the war whoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?” “Let them come, if they will,” said his men; and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokee. At once there was an answering shout from the townhouse, and the dance came to a sudden stop. The Seneca warriors swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and activerunners, and managed to get away with the loss of only a single man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-carrier’s bravery and success that they gave him seven wives.

95. HEMP-CARRIER

On the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are leveled now, but thirty years ago the stones were still heaped up into pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of the Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two Nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlements on Hiwassee and Cheowa a party was made underTâle′danigi′skĭ, “Hemp-carrier,” to follow and take vengeance on the enemy. Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief Tsunu′lăhûñ′skĭ, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died on Cheowa about 1855.For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky mountains, through forests and over rivers, until they finally tracked them to their very town in the far northern Seneca country. On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps. When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the townhouse, where the women were dancing over the fresh Cherokee scalps. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the townhouse never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, “We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the war whoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?” “Let them come, if they will,” said his men; and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokee. At once there was an answering shout from the townhouse, and the dance came to a sudden stop. The Seneca warriors swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and activerunners, and managed to get away with the loss of only a single man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-carrier’s bravery and success that they gave him seven wives.

On the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are leveled now, but thirty years ago the stones were still heaped up into pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of the Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two Nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlements on Hiwassee and Cheowa a party was made underTâle′danigi′skĭ, “Hemp-carrier,” to follow and take vengeance on the enemy. Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief Tsunu′lăhûñ′skĭ, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died on Cheowa about 1855.

For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky mountains, through forests and over rivers, until they finally tracked them to their very town in the far northern Seneca country. On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps. When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the townhouse, where the women were dancing over the fresh Cherokee scalps. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the townhouse never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, “We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the war whoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?” “Let them come, if they will,” said his men; and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokee. At once there was an answering shout from the townhouse, and the dance came to a sudden stop. The Seneca warriors swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and activerunners, and managed to get away with the loss of only a single man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-carrier’s bravery and success that they gave him seven wives.

96. THE SENECA PEACEMAKERSIn the course of the long war with the Cherokee it happened once that eight Seneca determined to undertake a journey to the south to see if they could make a peace with their enemies. On coming near the border of the Cherokee country they met some hunters of that tribe to whom they told their purpose. The latter at once hurried ahead with the news, and when the peacemakers arrived they found themselves well received by the Cherokee chiefs, who called a council to consider the proposition. All but one of the chiefs favored the peace, but he demanded that the eight delegates should first join them in a war party which was just preparing to go against a tribe farther south, probably the Creeks. The Seneca agreed, and set out with the war party for the south; but in the fight which resulted, the Seneca leader, The Owl, was captured. The other seven escaped with the Cherokee.A council was held in the enemy’s camp, and it was decided that The Owl should be burned at the stake. The wood was gathered and everything made ready, but as they were about to tie him he claimed the warrior’s privilege to sing his death song and strike the post as he recited his warlike deeds. The request pleased his enemies, who put a tomahawk into his hands and told him to begin.He told first his exploits in the north, and then in the west, giving times and places and the number of scalps taken, until his enemies were so pleased and interested that they forgot the prisoner in the warrior. It was a long story, but at last he came to the battle in which he was taken. He told how many relatives he had killed of the very men around him, and then, striking the post with his tomahawk, “So many of your people have I killed, and so many will I yet kill;” and with that he struck down two men, sprang through the circle of warriors, and was away. It was all so sudden that it was some moments before his enemies could recover from their surprise. Then they seized their weapons and were after him through the woods, but he had had a good start and was running for his life, so that he outran the chase and finally reached the Cherokee camp in safety and rejoined his seven companions.On this proof of good will the Cherokee then concluded the treaty, and the peacemakers returned to their own country.—Arranged from Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 258.

96. THE SENECA PEACEMAKERS

In the course of the long war with the Cherokee it happened once that eight Seneca determined to undertake a journey to the south to see if they could make a peace with their enemies. On coming near the border of the Cherokee country they met some hunters of that tribe to whom they told their purpose. The latter at once hurried ahead with the news, and when the peacemakers arrived they found themselves well received by the Cherokee chiefs, who called a council to consider the proposition. All but one of the chiefs favored the peace, but he demanded that the eight delegates should first join them in a war party which was just preparing to go against a tribe farther south, probably the Creeks. The Seneca agreed, and set out with the war party for the south; but in the fight which resulted, the Seneca leader, The Owl, was captured. The other seven escaped with the Cherokee.A council was held in the enemy’s camp, and it was decided that The Owl should be burned at the stake. The wood was gathered and everything made ready, but as they were about to tie him he claimed the warrior’s privilege to sing his death song and strike the post as he recited his warlike deeds. The request pleased his enemies, who put a tomahawk into his hands and told him to begin.He told first his exploits in the north, and then in the west, giving times and places and the number of scalps taken, until his enemies were so pleased and interested that they forgot the prisoner in the warrior. It was a long story, but at last he came to the battle in which he was taken. He told how many relatives he had killed of the very men around him, and then, striking the post with his tomahawk, “So many of your people have I killed, and so many will I yet kill;” and with that he struck down two men, sprang through the circle of warriors, and was away. It was all so sudden that it was some moments before his enemies could recover from their surprise. Then they seized their weapons and were after him through the woods, but he had had a good start and was running for his life, so that he outran the chase and finally reached the Cherokee camp in safety and rejoined his seven companions.On this proof of good will the Cherokee then concluded the treaty, and the peacemakers returned to their own country.—Arranged from Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 258.

In the course of the long war with the Cherokee it happened once that eight Seneca determined to undertake a journey to the south to see if they could make a peace with their enemies. On coming near the border of the Cherokee country they met some hunters of that tribe to whom they told their purpose. The latter at once hurried ahead with the news, and when the peacemakers arrived they found themselves well received by the Cherokee chiefs, who called a council to consider the proposition. All but one of the chiefs favored the peace, but he demanded that the eight delegates should first join them in a war party which was just preparing to go against a tribe farther south, probably the Creeks. The Seneca agreed, and set out with the war party for the south; but in the fight which resulted, the Seneca leader, The Owl, was captured. The other seven escaped with the Cherokee.

A council was held in the enemy’s camp, and it was decided that The Owl should be burned at the stake. The wood was gathered and everything made ready, but as they were about to tie him he claimed the warrior’s privilege to sing his death song and strike the post as he recited his warlike deeds. The request pleased his enemies, who put a tomahawk into his hands and told him to begin.

He told first his exploits in the north, and then in the west, giving times and places and the number of scalps taken, until his enemies were so pleased and interested that they forgot the prisoner in the warrior. It was a long story, but at last he came to the battle in which he was taken. He told how many relatives he had killed of the very men around him, and then, striking the post with his tomahawk, “So many of your people have I killed, and so many will I yet kill;” and with that he struck down two men, sprang through the circle of warriors, and was away. It was all so sudden that it was some moments before his enemies could recover from their surprise. Then they seized their weapons and were after him through the woods, but he had had a good start and was running for his life, so that he outran the chase and finally reached the Cherokee camp in safety and rejoined his seven companions.

On this proof of good will the Cherokee then concluded the treaty, and the peacemakers returned to their own country.—Arranged from Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 258.

97. ORIGIN OF THE YONTOÑWISAS DANCETwo Seneca women who were sisters, with the baby boy of the older one, were in a sugar grove near their home when a war party ofCherokee came upon them and carried them off. When the people of the town learned what had happened, they decided not to go after the enemy for fear they would kill the women, so their made no pursuit.The Cherokee carried the women with them until they were within one day of the Cherokee towns. The elder sister learned this and made up her mind to try to escape. She had a knife without a handle hidden under her belt, and that night when all lay down to sleep by the fire she kept awake. When they were sleeping soundly, she looked around. She and her sister were tied together, and on each side of them was a Cherokee with the end of the rope under his body on the ground. Taking out her knife, she cut the rope without waking the men, and then rousing her sister quietly she whispered to her to come. They were going to leave the little boy, but he started to cry, so she said, “Let us die together,” and took him up on her back, and the two women hurried away. In a little while they heard an alarm behind them, and knew that their escape was discovered, and then they saw the blazing pine knots waving through the trees where the Cherokee were coming on looking for them. The women knew the Cherokee would hunt for them toward the north, along the trail to the Seneca country, so they made a circuit and went around to the south until they came in sight of a fire and saw a man sitting by a tree, shaking a rattle and singing in a low voice. They found they had come directly back to the enemy’s camp, so the older sister said, “This will never do; we must try again. Let us go straight ahead to that big tree in front, and from that straight on to the next, and the next.” In this way they kept on a straight course until morning. When the sun came up, they took another direction toward home, and at night they rested in the woods.They traveled all the next day, and at night rested again. In the night a voice spoke to the younger woman, “Is that where you are resting?” and she answered, “Yes.” The voice said again, “Keep on, and you will come out at the spot where you were captured. No harm will come to you. To-morrow you will find food.” She roused her sister and told her what the voice had said.In the morning they went on and at noon found a buck freshly killed. Near by they found a log on fire, so they roasted some of the meat, had a good meal, and carried away afterwards as much of the meat as they could. They kept on, camping every night, and when the meat was nearly gone they saved the rest for the little boy.At last one night the voice spoke again to the younger sister and said, “You are on the right road, and to-morrow you will be on the border of the Seneca country. You will find food. That is all.”In the morning she told her older sister. They started on again and walked until about noon, when they came to a patch of wild potatoes. They dug and found plenty, and as they looked around they saw smokewhere there had been a camp fire. They gathered wood, made up the fire, and roasted the potatoes. Then they ate as many as they wanted and carried the rest with them.They traveled on until the potatoes were almost gone. Then at night the voice came again to the younger woman, saying: “At noon tomorrow you will reach your home, and the first person you will meet will be your uncle. When you get to the town, you must call the people together and tell them all that has happened. You must go to the long house and take off your skirt and carry it on your shoulder. Then you must go inside and go around once, singing, ‘We have come home; we are here.’ This is theYontoñwisassong, and it shall be for women only. Know now that we are theHadionyageonoñ, the Sky People, who have watched over you all this time.”When the girl awoke, she told her sister, and they said, “We must do all this,” and they began to sing as they went along. About noon they heard the sound of chopping, and when they went to the place they found it was their uncle cutting blocks to make spoons. He did not see them until they spoke, and at first could hardly believe that they were living women, because he knew that they had been taken by the Cherokee. He was very glad to see them, and as they walked on to the town they told him all they had been commanded to do by the Sky People. When they arrived at the town, he called all the people together, and they went to the long house. There the two women sang their song and did everything exactly as they had been told to do, and when it was over they said, “This is all,” and sat down. This is the same Yontoñwisas song that is still sung by the women.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

97. ORIGIN OF THE YONTOÑWISAS DANCE

Two Seneca women who were sisters, with the baby boy of the older one, were in a sugar grove near their home when a war party ofCherokee came upon them and carried them off. When the people of the town learned what had happened, they decided not to go after the enemy for fear they would kill the women, so their made no pursuit.The Cherokee carried the women with them until they were within one day of the Cherokee towns. The elder sister learned this and made up her mind to try to escape. She had a knife without a handle hidden under her belt, and that night when all lay down to sleep by the fire she kept awake. When they were sleeping soundly, she looked around. She and her sister were tied together, and on each side of them was a Cherokee with the end of the rope under his body on the ground. Taking out her knife, she cut the rope without waking the men, and then rousing her sister quietly she whispered to her to come. They were going to leave the little boy, but he started to cry, so she said, “Let us die together,” and took him up on her back, and the two women hurried away. In a little while they heard an alarm behind them, and knew that their escape was discovered, and then they saw the blazing pine knots waving through the trees where the Cherokee were coming on looking for them. The women knew the Cherokee would hunt for them toward the north, along the trail to the Seneca country, so they made a circuit and went around to the south until they came in sight of a fire and saw a man sitting by a tree, shaking a rattle and singing in a low voice. They found they had come directly back to the enemy’s camp, so the older sister said, “This will never do; we must try again. Let us go straight ahead to that big tree in front, and from that straight on to the next, and the next.” In this way they kept on a straight course until morning. When the sun came up, they took another direction toward home, and at night they rested in the woods.They traveled all the next day, and at night rested again. In the night a voice spoke to the younger woman, “Is that where you are resting?” and she answered, “Yes.” The voice said again, “Keep on, and you will come out at the spot where you were captured. No harm will come to you. To-morrow you will find food.” She roused her sister and told her what the voice had said.In the morning they went on and at noon found a buck freshly killed. Near by they found a log on fire, so they roasted some of the meat, had a good meal, and carried away afterwards as much of the meat as they could. They kept on, camping every night, and when the meat was nearly gone they saved the rest for the little boy.At last one night the voice spoke again to the younger sister and said, “You are on the right road, and to-morrow you will be on the border of the Seneca country. You will find food. That is all.”In the morning she told her older sister. They started on again and walked until about noon, when they came to a patch of wild potatoes. They dug and found plenty, and as they looked around they saw smokewhere there had been a camp fire. They gathered wood, made up the fire, and roasted the potatoes. Then they ate as many as they wanted and carried the rest with them.They traveled on until the potatoes were almost gone. Then at night the voice came again to the younger woman, saying: “At noon tomorrow you will reach your home, and the first person you will meet will be your uncle. When you get to the town, you must call the people together and tell them all that has happened. You must go to the long house and take off your skirt and carry it on your shoulder. Then you must go inside and go around once, singing, ‘We have come home; we are here.’ This is theYontoñwisassong, and it shall be for women only. Know now that we are theHadionyageonoñ, the Sky People, who have watched over you all this time.”When the girl awoke, she told her sister, and they said, “We must do all this,” and they began to sing as they went along. About noon they heard the sound of chopping, and when they went to the place they found it was their uncle cutting blocks to make spoons. He did not see them until they spoke, and at first could hardly believe that they were living women, because he knew that they had been taken by the Cherokee. He was very glad to see them, and as they walked on to the town they told him all they had been commanded to do by the Sky People. When they arrived at the town, he called all the people together, and they went to the long house. There the two women sang their song and did everything exactly as they had been told to do, and when it was over they said, “This is all,” and sat down. This is the same Yontoñwisas song that is still sung by the women.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

Two Seneca women who were sisters, with the baby boy of the older one, were in a sugar grove near their home when a war party ofCherokee came upon them and carried them off. When the people of the town learned what had happened, they decided not to go after the enemy for fear they would kill the women, so their made no pursuit.

The Cherokee carried the women with them until they were within one day of the Cherokee towns. The elder sister learned this and made up her mind to try to escape. She had a knife without a handle hidden under her belt, and that night when all lay down to sleep by the fire she kept awake. When they were sleeping soundly, she looked around. She and her sister were tied together, and on each side of them was a Cherokee with the end of the rope under his body on the ground. Taking out her knife, she cut the rope without waking the men, and then rousing her sister quietly she whispered to her to come. They were going to leave the little boy, but he started to cry, so she said, “Let us die together,” and took him up on her back, and the two women hurried away. In a little while they heard an alarm behind them, and knew that their escape was discovered, and then they saw the blazing pine knots waving through the trees where the Cherokee were coming on looking for them. The women knew the Cherokee would hunt for them toward the north, along the trail to the Seneca country, so they made a circuit and went around to the south until they came in sight of a fire and saw a man sitting by a tree, shaking a rattle and singing in a low voice. They found they had come directly back to the enemy’s camp, so the older sister said, “This will never do; we must try again. Let us go straight ahead to that big tree in front, and from that straight on to the next, and the next.” In this way they kept on a straight course until morning. When the sun came up, they took another direction toward home, and at night they rested in the woods.

They traveled all the next day, and at night rested again. In the night a voice spoke to the younger woman, “Is that where you are resting?” and she answered, “Yes.” The voice said again, “Keep on, and you will come out at the spot where you were captured. No harm will come to you. To-morrow you will find food.” She roused her sister and told her what the voice had said.

In the morning they went on and at noon found a buck freshly killed. Near by they found a log on fire, so they roasted some of the meat, had a good meal, and carried away afterwards as much of the meat as they could. They kept on, camping every night, and when the meat was nearly gone they saved the rest for the little boy.

At last one night the voice spoke again to the younger sister and said, “You are on the right road, and to-morrow you will be on the border of the Seneca country. You will find food. That is all.”

In the morning she told her older sister. They started on again and walked until about noon, when they came to a patch of wild potatoes. They dug and found plenty, and as they looked around they saw smokewhere there had been a camp fire. They gathered wood, made up the fire, and roasted the potatoes. Then they ate as many as they wanted and carried the rest with them.

They traveled on until the potatoes were almost gone. Then at night the voice came again to the younger woman, saying: “At noon tomorrow you will reach your home, and the first person you will meet will be your uncle. When you get to the town, you must call the people together and tell them all that has happened. You must go to the long house and take off your skirt and carry it on your shoulder. Then you must go inside and go around once, singing, ‘We have come home; we are here.’ This is theYontoñwisassong, and it shall be for women only. Know now that we are theHadionyageonoñ, the Sky People, who have watched over you all this time.”

When the girl awoke, she told her sister, and they said, “We must do all this,” and they began to sing as they went along. About noon they heard the sound of chopping, and when they went to the place they found it was their uncle cutting blocks to make spoons. He did not see them until they spoke, and at first could hardly believe that they were living women, because he knew that they had been taken by the Cherokee. He was very glad to see them, and as they walked on to the town they told him all they had been commanded to do by the Sky People. When they arrived at the town, he called all the people together, and they went to the long house. There the two women sang their song and did everything exactly as they had been told to do, and when it was over they said, “This is all,” and sat down. This is the same Yontoñwisas song that is still sung by the women.—Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript.

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