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AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 39 CHAPTER III THE INDIAN TRIBES Jefferson County and Neighboring Aborigines - Their Locations, Traditions and Mytholog - Indian Character Generally. It seems to be conceded by the generality of scientists that man in America is not autochthonous, but has migrated at some period, perhaps at various times, from the Asiatic Continent and perhaps from Europe, although little consideration is given to the latter. Even if it be conceded that man has descended (or ascended) from the Simian apes, no such apes have been found in America, and while South America has plenty of monkeys it is agreed that the gap as at present disclosed is too wide to be bridged on any theory of evolution. Hence science and tradition are in accord on this point. Nearly all the Indian tribes seem to have beliefs or traditions more or less vague that their ancestors came from the west, and the partially developed civilization of the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America bears some marked resemblances to similar work in the Eastern continent. That there are marked differences is true, but no greater than might have been expected in the divergence from a common stock through centuries of separation. That there could be a migration from the northeast coast of Asia to the northwest coast of America is apparent by a glance at the map. The Aleutian Islands extend from Alaska so far out into the Pacific that San Francisco is actually the central city of the United States on an east and west line. We know that in historic times numerous vessels have been driven by storms from the Japanese coast towards the west, some of them as far as America, and this has probably been going on from the time the first sea-going filching boat was constructed. It would be unprofitable to follow all the speculations on this subject, and we shall only refer to a late theory which has been advocated with considerable confidence by Prof. William E. Griffis, who, for a number of years, was a resident of Japan and member of the faculty of the University of Tokio His published works, The Mikado's Empire and Evolution of the Japanese People, are recognized as standards. He comes to the conclusion that the original settlers of Japan were the Ainos or Ainus, a miserable remnant of which still exists in the northern part of the empire, having been forced thither by the Mongol and Malay invasions. These Ainos he considered to be degenerate descendants of the Aryans, who, according to late authorities, did not make a migration westward, but eastward from their home in Central Europe, not Asia, until some of them, at least, reached the islands of the Pacific. From there, as we have already shown, the passage to America was comparatively easy. He does not claim that they were the progenitors of the pre-Glacialites or the Mound Builders, but of the red Indian, 40 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY and gives many facts to support his theories. For instance, when he took Indian photographs to Japan the residents there found a remarkable resemblance to themselves. Possibly the Indians, the Japanese and the white settlers of North America are more nearly related to each other than they have imagined. Passing by all this for what it may be worth, we come to the actual condition of things when the first Europeans reached these shores. There were many tribes occupying the country between the Atlantic and the Mississippi and between the lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, but two great combinations overshadowed all others, and to a great extent controlled many of the smaller tribes. These were called the Lenni Lenape, known later under the general name of Algonquins, and the Mengwe or Iroquois. It is proper to say that there was great confusion in designating these tribes by the early settlers, and there is often considerable difficulty in properly locating them. The Lenape were sometimes called Delawares by the English, from the name of ofie of the tribes. The Mengwe were also called Mingoes, this being at first a corruption by ignorant white men and afterwards adopted by the Delawares as a term of reproach, it literally meaning absentee, or one away from home. The Virginia Indians who, for a while, had a strong confederacy, spoke the Algonquin language. We have already referred to the tradition of the Lenape or Delawares, that they came from the west and had a bloody war with the dwellers on what' is now Detroit River, and from them we get the name Namoesi Sipu, or River of Fish, now the Mississippi, and Allegeni, from which we derive the name Allegheny. They united with the Mengwe after the Detroit River war, the latter keeping to the north along the Great Lakes, and the Lenape moving along the Ohio River and its tributaries, subsequently crossing the mountains and establishing themselves along the Potomac, the Susquehanna, the Delaware and the Hudson, and finally stretching up into the New England States. They left confederate tribes, as well as independents, in the Mississippi Valley, who had their own troubles with the Mengwe who stretched along the lakes and touched the Algonquins at almost every point. The Long Council House of the Mengwe, whom we shall hereafter call by their French name, Iroquois, was located in the Onondaga Valley, New York, which may be considered their capital. Here they organized the confederacy of the "Five Nations," composed of the Mohawks or fire striking people, Senecas or Mountaineers, Cayugas, from the name of a lake ; Onondagas, or hill-top dwellers, and Oneidas, or Pipe Makers. To these was added afterwards a sixth, the Tuscaroras, driven by whites from North Carolina in 1712. The original confederacy was organized at least two centuries before that time. Each nation was divided into eight tribes or families, called after the wolf, bear, beaver, turtle, deer, snipe, heron and hawk. The Mohawks guarded the home field in what are now the valleys of the Mohawk and the Hudson, and their chief was also chief of the confederacy. The Senecas, with whom the denizens of this valley were most familiar, were the most numerous and warlike, and to them was intrusted the task of guarding the western possessions. The Onondagas had the chief sachem, to whom was referred all disputes. The Cayugas watched the Delaware and Susquehanna Valleys, while the Oneidas were stationed along the lakes and St. Lawrence. When their parliament met in the grand council house at Onondaga, their deliberations were grave, and their military expeditions were carried out in a manner that would not have discredited Hannibal or Alexander, while they were as merciless as they were fearless. They have been called, not inappropriately, "The Romans of America." Their confederacy lasted about three hundred years. Before the English arrived at Jamestown, the Iroquois had completely subjugated the Delawares, who with other 'tribes in Pennsylvania were ruled by a chief sent AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 41 by the Iroquois for that purpose, very much after the manner of the Roman proconsuls. Among these was the Cayuga chief, Shikellimus, father of the famous Logan, who dwelt at Shamokin, on the Susquehanna. In 1742 the chiefs of the Delawares were summoned to Philadelphia to make a "treaty," but really to force them to give up their lands along that river. Connossatego, an Iroquois, made a speech calculated to humiliate the Delawares to the bitter dregs. He called them old women, told them they had no right to control these or any other lands, and ordered them and their whole tribe into the interior to Wyoming or Shamokin. Sadly, they left their homes for the Susquehanna, where the lands were already occupied by the Shawnees, who dared not protest ; so some of the Delawares stopped there, and others crossed the mountains. Subsequently, they moved to Ohio, where we will hear of them later. To go back a little, in 1650, the Iroquois invaded the territory of the Hurons on the eastern shore of that lake, almost exterminating them, the remnant finding a precarious home at the head waters of the Mississippi. The Eries living south of that lake were exterminated five years later, a few being incorporated with the victors or other tribes. The Andastes, in the Allegheny Valley, shared the same fate. In fact, the all-conquering confederacy carried its arms from New York to the Carolinas and from New England to the Mississippi. A certain writer says : "At the commencement of the eighteenth century, the territory now Ohio was derelict, except as the indomitable confederates of the north made it a trail for further hostilities, or roamed its hunting grounds." Hildreth, in his Pioneer History of the Ohio Valley, says : "Year after year the savage and warlike inhabitants of the north invaded the country of the more peaceable and quiet tribes of the south. Fleets of canoes built on the headwaters of the Ohio and manned with the fierce warriors of the Iroquois or Five Nations, an- nually floated down this quiet stream, carrying death and destruction to the inhabitants who lived along its borders. All the fatigue and trouble of marching long distances by land was thus avoided; while the river afforded them a constant magazine of food in the multitude of fishes which filled its waters. The canoe supplied to the Indian the place of the horse and wagon to the white man in transporting the munitions of war. These they could moor to the shore and leave under a guard, while the main body made incursions against the tribes and villages living at one or more days' march in the interior. If defeated, their canoes afforded a safe and ready mode of securing a retreat far more certain than it could be by land. When invading a country, they could travel by night as well as by day, and thus fall upon the inhabitants very unexpectedly; while, in approaching by land, they could hardly fail of being discovered by some of the young hunters in time to give at least some notice of their approach. The battles thus fought along the shores of the Ohio, could they have been recorded, would fill many volumes." This is not the place to discuss the now academic question as to the extent the Indians were wronged by the occupancy of their lands by the white settlers, or to consider whether loose roving tribes scattered over a continent and subsisting practically by the hunt and chase could acquire title to the lands over which their fleeting footsteps trod. It is sufficient to say that long before the advent of either the French or the English, might made right in the Ohio Valley, and the only way to hold land or even life itself was for the possessor to prove himself stronger than his opponent.' Certainly the Iroquois were not deserving of any special consideration, although, hay-. ing fallen out with the French, who were generally successful in cajoling the Indians, they served for a while the useful purpose of a barrier between the Canadian settlements on the north, and the Dutch and English on the south, giving the latter 42 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY time to acquire the numbers and strength which enabled them in time to vanquish their northern competitors in the struggle for the control of the continent. Although the Iroquois were able to extend their conquests over a territory broad enough to include a magnificent empire, its consolidation and retention were quite beyond them. Had their powers of construction been equal to those of destruction, the MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF INDIAN TRIBES. history of America would have been quite different. But force and cruelty were the only influences they brought to bear, and their treatment of the Delawares is only a sample of what every other tribe received or could expect, who acknowledged their sway. It would have taken a large standing army to keep their vassals in subjection and that the Iroquois did not have. They came as the wings of the wind and left almost as swiftly. Consequently, as soon as the pressure was removed, the old tribes or new combinations sprang up like a new set of vegetation after the soil has been devastated by a prairie fire. Their troubles with the French, against whom they had sworn eternal enmity, also gave. them occupation at this time, and gave them less leisure for their characteristic forays. So, before the end of the seventeenth century, we find located in Ohio several strong tribes, among them the Delawares, who have recovered their original power. In Vol. VII., of the Ohio Archaeological Society publications, is a valuable article on The Indian Tribes of Ohio, by William K. Moorehead, in which is printed the following map showing the location of the tribes as they stood in 1740. The rivers flowing southwardly into the Ohio. begin AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 43 with the Muskingum on the east, then the Scioto, Little Miami and Great Miami, in order. Those flowing into Lake Erie are the Cuyahoga on the east, then the Sandusky, and Maumee or Miami of the North. This arrangement could hardly be correct as regards the Delawares, for, as we have seen, they did not leave their old home until 1742, but it is certain that by 1750 they had become fully settled in Ohio and had recovered much, if not all, their pristine prestige. In fact, the Ohio country waS very favorable to the rapid development of a vigorous population, just as it has been since. There were openings in the great forests sufficient for the moderate amount of cultivation needed or desired by the Indians, furnishing desirable sites for their villages; wild fruits and game, as we have seen, were abundant, the location was a central one between the East and the West, climatic extremes were not too severe, and the attraction was as strong for the red as it afterwards was for the white men. Except when they were hindered by their own or hostile war parties, the Indians paid more attention to agriculture than is generally supposed, and white settlers at Jamestown and other points were dependent on them for supplies to avert a famine. One authority says that maize or Indian corn was prepared in more than thirty different ways, each of which had an individual name, a proceeding which would tax the ingenuity of the modern chef. The first settlers of Ohio found several different varieties, perhaps as many as we have today, although the Indians had no Burbank. Then they had beans, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes, and as for wild potatoes, different kinds of nuts, haws, pawpaws, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, maple sugar, plums, persimmons, grapes, wild honey, oil from walnuts and bears, they had in abundance. Their cultivation and love for tobacco has been more generally immortalized than any other sentiment or people known. A cigar store without the statue of an Indian would hardly be recognized. So, if the Ohio country was not the Garden of Eden, it was certainly the barbarians' paradise. The headquarters of the Delawares were on the Muskingum, from whence they claimed control over nearly half the state. West of them were the Shawanoes, who seem to have been driven from the south, working northward until they settled in the beautiful Scioto Valley. They have been traced to many different points far distant from each other, and some have placed their original home in Florida, on the Suwanee or Shawnee River. They appear to come to Ohio about the same time as the Delawares, possibly a few years earlier. Two of their tribes have been commemorated in the names of the cities of Piqua and Chillicothe. They numbered Cornstalk and Tecumtha among their chiefs, the former leading the Indians in the battle of Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Kanawha in 1774, and Tecumtha, true to the traditions of his race, meeting his death at the battle of the Thames, in Canada, fighting the Americans on October 5, 1813. He was born near Chillicothe, about the year 1770. The Miamis were a tribe of Algonquins whom the French first met near Green Bay, Wis., in 1658. About 8,000 of them were also found in 1670 at the head of the Fox River, Wisconsin, living in a palisaded village in houses of matting, and apparently more advanced in civilization than the surrounding tribes. In 1683 they were attacked by the Iroquois on the St. Joseph River, and at the same time were at war with the Sioux. In 1686 they fought the French, and, making some agreement with the English, they joined their former enemies, the Iroquois, against the Hurons, and threatening the Chippewas. They seem to have extended down into Illinois, Indiana and western Ohio, and do not seem to have had traditions of ever occupying any other territory, so they must have been here for many generations. Their principal villages were at the headwaters of the three Miami Rivers and along the Wabash as far south as Vincennes. 44 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY North of the Miamis were the Ottawas, extending along the Sandusky River to Lake Erie, with some of them in southern Michigan. The word Ottawa signifies trader, and was said to have been applied to the tribe from the fact that it occupied an island in what is now the Ottawa River, where they exacted toll from all the Indians and canoes going to .or coming from the country of the Hurons. A Jesuit priest, Father Le Jeune, states that though the Hurons were ten times as numerous as the Ottawas, they submitted to the tribute, which indicates that their sovereignty over the river was recognized. The Rhine Barons, who exacted tribute from traders and travelers along that river, seem to have had their counterpart on this side of the waters. But the Iroquois were no respecters of vested rights, and when the Hurons were driven from their homes the Ottawas suffered the same fate. Taking refuge among the Pottawatomies and Ojibwas, the fugitive Ottawas found a temporary refuge on the western shore of Lake Huron and the northern portion of the lower Michigan peninsula. From there they migrated to the islands at the western end of Lake Erie and the Sandusky peninsula, where they were found by the French in 1750. It is stated that only among the Ottawa Indians were the heavenly bodies worshiped, the sun being regarded as the Supreme Deity. Their mythology was more complicated than usual among the Indians, and they kept an annual festival to celebrate the beneficence of the sun ; on which occasion the luminary was told that this service was in return for the good hunting he had procured for his people, and as an encouragement to persevere in his friendly cares. They sometimes erected an idol in the middle of their 'towns and offered sacrifice to it, but this practice was not general. On first witnessing Christian worship, the only idea suggested by it was that of asking some temporal good, which was either granted or refused. This, however, was a characteristic of all heathen religions, and Christians to this day have not gotten entirely away from it, as instanced by vows made to perform some act of worship or make some contribution in return for assured safety from disaster or conferring of some temporal benefit. The whole subject of the Indian religion is an uncertain and complicated one. It is maintained that the supposed simple belief in a single Great Spirit has no foundation among the Indians, but was assimilated from the whites at an early date, for the Indian has an imitative nature second only to the Chinese. It would be going too far, however, to say they had no'" original religion, as hats been maintained in some quarters, for as we shall see, they were highly superstitious, which argues a conviction of an unseen world, and the elaborate and complicated mythology of the Aztecs and the Peruvians did not grow from nothing. The Ottawas deserve a place in history if they had done nothing else than produce the great chief Pontiac, whose combination of the western tribes into a simultaneous attack on the English, in 1763, the year the French rule ceased in the Canadas, gave, evidence of leadership that will not suffer by comparison with many whose names have been placed higher up on the roll of fame. Closely united with the Ottawas were the Wyandots, descendants of the Hurons, whom the Iroquois had driven from their northern home. Freed finally from the pursuit of their terrible enemies, they found a refuge in southern Michigan and northwest Ohio, and by the middle of the eighteenth century had again become a powerful tribe. Last, but far from least, were the outlying settlements of the Iroquois on the south shore of Lake Erie. As we have seen, they had driven away the Eries from all this country extending from Buffalo westward. The Senecas, as we indicated, were the most numerous and powerful of the Iroquois, and they were appointed to guard the western boundaries of the Six Nations. Their villages extended over into AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 45 northwestern Pennsylvania, along the Allegheny and, to a limited extent, down the Ohio, and they also held an important post or " capital " in the Tuscarawas Valley. As we shall see, they had three settlements on the Ohio. Were we writing a history of the Indian tribes, this portion of our work alone would easily expand to one or more volumes, but we aimed to give only an outline picture of the condition and character of the tribes who controlled the Ohio wilderness at the advent of the white men, which will give a better understanding of what follows. We have seen that the state was pretty well occupied by a number of powerful tribes, among which the Iroquois, although they had lost some of their former power, still stood preeminent. To this occupancy of the soil there was a very important exception, and that was the Ohio Valley. While villages were numerous elsewhere, there was a tract forty to sixty miles in width, from the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela to the mouth of the Big Miami, that was practically deserted. It seems to have been a general hunting ground for the various tribes, and doubtless the memories of the visits of the terrible Iroquois in former days had something to do with keeping settlements away from the river. In 1749, when the French commander, De Celoron, came down the river, the only village found, or at least mentioned was what has since been known as Logstown, seventeen miles below Pittsburgh, and a settlement near the mouth of the Scioto. In the former were found Iroquois, Delawares, Shawanoes, Ottawas and others, and in the latter the same, with Miamis and Indians from nearly all the northwestern tribes or "upper country." This would indicate a general, if only a temporary, peace among the different tribes. Four years later, Washington found Tana- charison, Half-King of the Iroquois, at Logstown, and some members of that nation settled on the terrace below Steubenville, which was designated as Mingo Town. These were probably Senecas, the name Mingo simply meaning a wanderer or an absentee from home, a name generally applied to the Iroquois in this section, which is sufficiently indicative of the temporary nature of their sojourn. Logan, who was a Cayuga, was said to have dwelt at Mingo for a while, but this is not authoritative, his title, "Chief of the Mingoes," simply meaning that he was the head one of his tribe away from home. He was located, in 1772, at the mouth of the Big Beaver, and some of his relatives had a hunting camp at the mouth of Yellow Creek, where they were massacred in the spring of 1774. So far we have treated of the aborigines of this section for the most part without regard to their contact with the whites, - with whom their subsequent history is inextricably mingled. Before leaving them as the possessors of the country it will be profitable to glance at their general character, their habits, domestic and social relations, native ability, religion (or the lack of it), superstitions, etc. For this we are largely indebted, as elsewhere in this work, for the excellent summary in Caldwell's history of Belmont and Jefferson counties, published in 1880, as well as to Parkman, Heckwelder and others. General Sherman is credited with the authorship of the saying that the only good Indian is a dead Indian, and from the degenerate descendants of the race still hovering around our western towns one is likely to come to that conclusion, and to regard all stories of noble character and trustworthy individuals among this race as pure romances like one of Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson's stories. No doubt there has been plenty of romancing in regard to the Indian, and it would be as unfair to take Mrs. Jackson's pictures as illustrative of the whole race as it would be to adopt the prejudices of the most inveterate Indian hater of the frontier. It must not be forgotten that, after all the Indians were savages, and savages are children of larger growth. A recent writer asserts that every child under twelve years of age is a natural savage, a liar and cruel, and only the environment which has surrounded him from 46 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY birth restrains him from carrying out his natural instincts. In the case of the Indian there was no such restraining environment, on the contrary his natural instincts were allowed free rein, save only as they were checked by individual or tribal interests. These instincts were freely indulged before the whites set foot on this continent, and had we a history of those days it would be almost a continuous recital of internecine conflicts, wholesale massacres and individual tortures. But was Europe, with all its boasted civilization much better than this in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? What is the history of the Netherlands for instance, but a record not only of sanguinary battles, but ruthless slaughter, exquisite tortures, broken faith, ruined cities and devastated countries? It was a horrible thing for Indians to burn their prisoners at the stake, but was it more horrible than a Spanish auto da fe? To take little babies by the feet and dash their brains out against a tree makes one's blood run cold, but we venture to say that during the very period that the American savages were accused of doing this thing for every child they thus murdered, there were ten, yes a hundred, slaughtered by Alva's troops. For several centuries past a portion of the old world has been under control of a government and set of people, compared with whom Indian savagery is mildness itself, and while these lines are being written there come reports of wholesale slaughter and barbarities, yet Christendom so-called, stands idly by without even offering a vigorous remonstance. Many relit of various kinds have been found in so-called Indian mounds and interesting objects in native villages, but none of the ingenious instruments of torture so common in the old world, or cells where prisoners were allowed to rot or starve to death. It was only among the more advanced communities that human sacrifices as a religious or propitiatory ceremony were practiced to any extent, and in these they might have pleaded the example of the much lauded Greeks ; and after all it is difficult to see wherein it is much worse to offer a life as a propitiatory sacrifice than to burn a person for difference of religious views. It is also well known that in the process of border warfare the worst savages were not always among the Indians, the settlers were not by any means lacking in ferocity and kept quite even at least with their dusky foemen. Then the Indians had what to them was a very real grievance. When the first settlers arrived they were few in numbers, and there seemed to be plenty of room for all, but as their numbers increased, the hunting grounds were occupied; the game was exterminated or driven away, and the Red Men began to realize that not only were their lands being absorbed but that their very existence was imperiled. We have already disclaimed any sentimentalism that would reserve a whole continent to roving bands of hunting parties or groups of savage warriors who in many cases at least had acquired title by exterminating or driving out the original occupants, but self preservation is the first law of nature, and when the Indians found themselves crowded out not only of their hunting grounds but of their villages, their homes and away from the graves of their ancestors, it would certainly be very remarkable that they should not resist with every means in their power. As for lack of good faith in connection with Indian character perhaps the less we say about that the better. When the settler returned home after perhaps a short absence and found his house in ashes, his wife and children slain or carried off into captivity, and the labor of years destroyed he was naturally filled with a burning desire to wreak vengeance, not alone on the direct perpetrator of the outrage, but upon the whole race whose position and actions made such outrages possible. When the Indian found his companions or family murdered, his village destroyed 'and himself an outlaw he had precisely the same feeling, and his rage was not alone against any particular indi- AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 47 vidual, but against every man, woman and child whose presence was a menace to everything that he held near and dear. Hence those interminable border feuds with the Wetzells and the Kentons on one side and a whole Indian tribe on the other which could only end in extermination. It is not certain that civilization always brings happiness. The naked Bushmen of Africa probably do not feel any better after having donned the clothes and trappings of their European superiors. Neither was the Indian any better off when he came in contact with the slowly moving mass of settlers as it crowded him towards the west. It was easier to absorb the vices than the virtues of the superior race, and if the white man could get drunk the Indian could get drunker. So with every disease and defect. Man in his natural state is apparently much less able to resist that which makes for his harm than when he has become more civilized. This may partly be ascribed to the environment and lack of proper treatment, but this will not account for all. A mild epidemic of small pox, chicken pox or measles communicated from the whites might sweep away a whole tribe of savages. While in their natural state their wants were few and easily supplied. The pleasures of the hunt furnished meat and clothing and their enclosures furnished their few simple vegetables. There were no rich and few poor, all were practically alike. A chief might possess a few extra trappings, a few extra furs for his wigwam but that was all. There was no "business" except a little trading of furs, weapons or trinkets, as property, such as it was, was largely held in common. Hospitality to the stranger was one of the cardinal virtues, and so long as there was food it was divided. To refuse to partake was an unpardonable breach of politeness even if the recipient were already surfeited. There were few great crimes in the villages, and theft was practically unknown, for there was little or nothing to steal. He had few moral laws but observed those he had. The whites had many and broke them all. Will iam Penn gives them the following character: "They excelled in liberality. Nothing is too good for their friends. Give them a fine gun, coat or other thing, it may pass twenty hands before it sticks. Light of heart, strong of affection, but soon spent. The most merry creatures that live, feast and dance perpetually. They never have much nor want much. Wealth circulated like the blood, all parts partake, and though none shall want what another hath, yet exact observers of property. They care for little because they want but little, and the reason is, a little contents them. In this they are sufficiently revenged on us ; if they are ignorant of our pleasure they are also free from our pains. They are not disquieted with bills of lading and exchange, nor perplexed with chancery suits and exchequer reckonings. We sweat and toil to live, their pleasures feed them—I mean their hunting, fishing and fowling, and this table is spread everywhere. They eat twice a day, their seats and table are the ground." Heckwelder says their principal food (in early times) consisted of game, fish, corn, potatoes, beans, pumpkins, cucumbers, squashes, melons, cabbages, turnips, roots of plants, fruits, nuts and berries, not a bad bill of fare, although we are not quite sure about the cooking. They made a pottage of corn, dry pumpkins, beans and chestnuts and fish and dried meats, meats pounded, all sweetened with maple sugar or molasses and well boiled. They also made a good ( l) dish of pounded corn and chestnuts, shell barks and hickory nut kernels, boiled, covering the pots with large pumpkin, cabbage or other leaves. They also made preserves from cranberries and crab-apples with maple sugar. Their bread was of two kinds, one made of green and the other of dry corn, the former sifted after pounding, kneaded, shaped into cakes six -inches in diameter, one inch thick, and baked on clean, dry ashes, of dry oak barks. If green it was mashed, put on 48 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY broad green corn blades, filled in with a ladle, well wrapped up and baked in ashes. They made warrior's bread by parching corn, sifting it, pounding into flour, and mixing sugar. A table spoonful with cold or boiling water was a meal, as it swelled in the stomach, and if more than two spoonfuls were taken it was dangerous. Its lightness enabled the warrior tu.go on long journeys and carry his bread With him. Their meat was boiled in pots, or roasted on wooden spits or coals. In making maple sugar the sap was gathered in large wooden troughs haggled out with tomahawks. Hot stones were then thrown into the sap which was made to boil, and the process continued until the required consistency was acquired. It is probable however, that later a more expeditious process was used. For clothing they had blankets made of beaver and raccoon skins, with frocks, shirts, petticoats, leggings and moccasins of deer, bear and other skiffs If cold the fur was placed next to the body, if. warm outside. Rib bones of the elk 'rat .buffalo were used to shave the hair off of skins they wished to dress, and the process was successful. The women also made blankets of turkey and goose feathers, interwoven with thread or twine made from the rind of the wild hemp and nettles. The men were clothed in blankets, plain or ruffled shirts, leggings and moccasins. The women had petticoats of cloth, red, blue, or black when they could get it from traders, and adorned themselves with trinkets from the same source, displacing the original ones of bone and shells. They painted themselves with vermillion and the loose women deeply scarlet. Is this from whence the term "scarlet woman" is derived? The men painted their thighs, legs, breasts and faces, and there were dandies who would spend all night decorating themselves. They plucked out their beards and hair on the head, except a tuft on the crown, with tweezers. Heckwelder says, "The Indians would all be bearded, like white men were it not for this custom." An Indian took his wife on trial. He built the house and provided the provisions. She agreed to cook, and raise corn and vegetables while he hunted or fished. If both performed their duties they remained together as man and wife. If either failed they separated. The household duties were not heavy. There was but one pot to clean, no scrubbing, and little washing, for cleanliness is not an Indian virtue. If on a. journey, the wife carried the baggage, for the husband must avoid hard labor and stiffening of the muscles if lie expects to be an expert hunter and warrior. The Indian loved to see his wife well clothed and hence gave her all his skins. This was be- Tore the advent of the fur traders. While the wives seemed to have the heavy end of the labor problem, yet their husbands were not without; affection for them. Heck- welder mentions a case where an Indian went forty or fifty miles after cranberries to satisfy his wife's longing. Another during a famine went a hundred miles on horseback (of course after whites had brought horses into the country) after some corn, traded his horse for what would fill the brown of his hat, and walked home. bringing his saddle back with him If a man's wife offended him, he seldom abused: her, but would go into the woods and re-. main a week or two, living on meat, leav. ing his wife uncertain whether he will come, ^ back, and exposing her to the report of being a quarrelsome woman. When lie re.-: turns she shows her repentance by attentions, although neither says a word of what has passed. The wife had her separate property, which included the contents of the wigwam except implements of the war or chase, and the councils and chiefs in the social government (not the military) were selected by a council of women from the male members of the tribe, a situation which would be considered quite advanced in these days. The highest science of the Indian Was war, and all his training was directed to that end. Each gens or tribe had a right to the services of all its available male mein hers in avenging wrongs, in times of war, AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 49 and as hunters in supplying game. In times of scarcity whatever game was brought to the camp or village was fairly divided among all present. The military council was composed of all the able bodied men of the tribe. The war dance was the usual preliminary to opening a campaign. It was really a dramatic representation of a battle. When the rhythmic movements to the beating of drums and singing of songs have roused the warriors to a pitch of enthusiasm, arrows fly, tomahawks are wielded, dead and dying are supposed to strew the field, false scalps are taken from bleeding (painted) heads, and the scene closes with shouts of victory and dirges for the slain. Then all becomes quiet. The party leaves the village with its chief at the head threading its way through the forest in single or "Indian" file until the unsuspecting enemy is found, when the dramatic scenes of the war dance become a reality. Petroleum, which was found on Yellow Creek in Jefferson County, was used in mixing war paint and from the Senecas using this same fluid it was long known as "Seneca oil." The oil is said to have given them "a hideous glistening, appearance as well as adding permanency to the paint and making it impervious to water." In this connection it may be mentioned that the common impression that the Indian was superior to his white competitor in woodcraft or even bravery is without foundation. Given sufficient experience, the white hunter and trapper has invariably proven the superior of the red man. The Indian will stand any sort of torture with stoicism and face inevitable death with the calmness of a Christian martyr, but never could be depended on for an assault in the open, unless in such overwhelming numbers as to make success certain. A check would disperse them even .though they outnumbered their opponents several to one. So long as he could fight from behind a screen or overcome his adversary by a sudden rush he was cunning and brave, but he had no notion of standing up in the open to be shot down. In simple fortitude, however, he was the equal if not the super- ior of die white man. Indian councils were noted for a gravity and decorum which might well afford an example to other deliberative bodies. An orator was never interrupted except by a gutteral sound "hoogh" expressive of satisfaction or agreement. Antagonists gave respectful attention to the speaker, and waited until he closed before rising to reply. The Iroquois were especially eloquent. and it is unfortunate that there is no record of their orations. The celebrated speech of Logan Will have later reference, but he was only one among many. Redjacket, Corn- planter, Cornstalk and Tecumstha were only leading examples in a large company. Concerning one of these an eyewitness and auditor of the interview between the chief and Lord Dunmore says : "When he arose he was in nowise confused or daunted, but spoke in a distinct and audible voice, without stammering or repetition" and with peculiar emphasis. His looks while addressing Dunmore were truly grand and majestic, yet graceful and attractive. have heard the first orators in Virginia, Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, but never have I heard one whose powers Of delivery surpassed those of Cornstalk.".. The Indian learned to talk English, perhaps quite as rapidly as the average foreigner, but his own vocabulary being united he naturally followed the same line in his acquired tongue. This, so far froth detracting, added to the dignity of his declarations as they were expressed in plain Anglo-Saxon. Here is an extract from an address delivered to President Washington in Philadelphia in 1790 on behalf of Cornplanter, Great Tree and Half- King "Father, when you kindled your thirteen fires separately the wise men assembled at them told us_ that you were all brothers: the children of one Great Father, who regarded the red people as his children. They called us brothers, and invited us to his protection. They told us he resided beyond the great waters where the sun first rises; and he was a King whose power no people could resist, and that his goodness was as bright as the sun. What they said went to 50 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY our hearts. We accepted the invitation, and promised to obey him. What the Seneca nation promises they faithfully perform. When you refused obedience to that King he commanded us to assist his beloved men in making you sober. In obeying him we did no more than yourselves had bid us to promise. We were deceived, but your people, teaching us to confide in that King, had helped to deceive us, and we now appeal to your heart. Is all the blame ours?" Could anything be more logical than the above l Pages of oration would have been no more convincing. Here is a bit of eloquence from Red Jacket. "We stand on a small island, in the bosom of the great waters. We are encircled, we are encompassed. The Evil Spirit rides upon the blast and the waters are disturbed. They rise, they pre '' upon us, and the waters once settled over us, we disappear forever. Who, then, lives to mourn us? None. What marks our extinction? Nothing. We are mingled with the common elements." Tecumstha in 1810 made a speech in regard to the red men's common occupancy of the land which would not be a bad argument at the present day, but je have not space to multiply examples. Jefferson County is interested in the account of the last fight between the Wyandots or Hurons, and their old enemies, the Iroquois. They had fought together at Braddock's defeat in 1755, and on the homeward route the Senecas followed the trail via Mingo and west to the Tuscarawas. The Wyandots kept to the north, striking the ridge between the heads of Elk Eye Creek (Muskingum) and the Seneca capital in Tuscarawas. They tried to steal a march on the town, but the Senecas were alert, and sent Ogista, an old chief, out to meet them. He went boldly into their camp, and made an agreement that in lieu of a general battle each tribe should pick twenty warriors, willing to suffer death by single combat. When all were slain they were to be covered, hatchet in hand, in one grave, and henceforth neither Seneca nor Wyandot were ever again to raise a bloody hand against the other. Forty braves were soon selected, the war dance enacted in all its details, and the carnage began. By nightfall but one warrior, a son of Ogista, was left, with none of the enemy to strike him down. His father took his weapon, and with it cleaved the head of his offspring. The dead were gathered into a heap wiR1 their tomahawks by their sides, and a mound of earth raised over them, (this reads like a performance of the Mound Builders) when all repaired to the Seneca capital and closed the proceedings with "a grand feast, as a memorial of the compact that the hatchet was to be buried forever between these two tribes. Fort Laurens was afterwards erected near here, in 1779, and was shortly after besieged by 184 Wyandots, Senecas and Mingoes. Supposing the Indians had left, a party of seventeen soldiers went out to catch horses acid gather wood. They were ambushed and all killed by the Indians, who were performing religious or funeral rites at the grave of their relatives. Indian respect for old age, in fact fiti any elderly person was carried to an- extreme. " The aged," they say, "have lived through the whole period of our lives, and long before we were born. They have pot only all the knowledge which we possess, but a great deal more. We, therefore, must submit our limited views to their experience." While traveling the eldest always took the lead, even in the case of children, and if accosted on the way nobody presumes -to reply except the eldest, whom they call the speaker. As an illustration of how far this rule was carried an incident is related of a party of Christian Indians near Philadelphia being permitted to return to their homes in the interior, peace having been concluded with some warring tribes. They had to cut a path through the wilderness which they did with great amount of labor and delay, and finally oame to a very steep mountain through which no passage could be found above or below. They had been following the lead of several old men who undertook to be their guides. There seemed to be no alternative but to go back and take another road, which would involve a journey of nearly one hundred miles. It occurred to the missionary PAGE - 61 - VARIOUS SECENSE PAGE - 52 - BLANK AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 53 that there was an Indian named David with them who was acquainted with that part of the country and might be able to pilot them out of their difficulty. The supposition proved correct. David knew a good road along which the party might easily pass, but not having been questioned on the subject, he had hitherto kept silent, and followed with the rest, although he knew all the time they were going wrong. He now led them back six miles where they found an easy way through the mountain and pursued their journey. There was also a strong filial affection it being considered the bounden duty of parents to care for their children until they were old enough to care for themselves, an obligation that was to be returned by the children when their parents grew old. In fact the old were treated very much as children, and even in' hunting parties the aged were placed where the game would pass by so they would be in at the death. Zeisberger says : "I am freed declare that among all the Indian nations that I have become acquainted with, if any one should kill an old man or woman, for no other cause than that of having become burdensome to society, it would be considered as an unpardonable crime ; the general indignation would be excited, and the Murderer instantly put to death. I cannot conceive any act that would produce such an universal horror and detestation. Such is the veneration which is everywhere felt for old age." To have one's children taken captive by the Indians was regarded as the most cruel fate possible, but unless children were killed in an attack on a settlement or put out of the way on the homeward march they were usually adopted into one of the tribes. The horrible tortures of children which are related as part of the history of the Orient especially had no counterpart among the earlier American savages. It is a well known fact that after living a few years with the Indians, white children were most loath to return to their former homes, and force was necessary to compel them to do so. And it must be remembered, not as a justification but an explanation, that it was a cardinal rule of the frontiersman to which of course there were notable exceptions, that an Indian had no rights which a white man was bound to respect. They reverenced the graves of their dead which the whites ruthlessly desecrated. Their women were regarded as the property of every dissolute white man whose basest passions were excited. No consideration was shown their homes or their families, and as for shooting an Indian, that attracted about as much attention as shooting a bear or a wolf. Is it surprising that under such provocations the untutored savage engaged in reprisals that make the blood run cold? Even a civilized Christian would hardly be expected to maintain git equable poise under such conditions. The Indians were not without a yude code of laws for the punishment of crime. Theft was punished by double restitution, treason, which consisted in revealing the secrets of the medicine preparations, '.agwell as giving information or assistance to the enemy, was punished by death. Witchcraft was punished by death by stabbing, burning, or with the tomahawk. Probably the latest instance of this punishment in Ohio was that of Leatherlips, a chief who was tomahawked in Franklin County on June 1, 1810. For adultery a woman had her hair cropped for first offense, and for persistency in the practice her left ear was cut off. Outlawry was •recognized, and it was not only permissible but the duty of any member of the tribe to kill any one who had been declared an outlaw. Reverence for the aged and care for The children was carried beyond the grave. It is hardly necessary to repeat what everybody knows that with the warrior were buried his weapons, with the hunter his instruments of the chase, his cooking utensils and food, with the women their kettles and cooking apparatus, and with all tobacco, as felicity in this world or the next without tobacco was unthinkable. Among the Iroquois and others the dead were 54 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY placed on scaffolds, and evidence of this practice is yet visible to the traveler on the Columbia River. Ten days were usually allowed for decomposition before final burial, so there was no danger of an Indian being buried alive. In presenting a brief review of the better side of the Indian character, it must be borne in mind that he was after all a savage with all the traits that might be expected from such. This is nowhere more markedly exhibited in his religion if his system of mythology can be called such. We have already mentioned that the monotheistic, spiritual idea of a Great Sprit, as betrayed in the later tribes and which has been extensively adopted in romance and poetry was an assimilation from the missionaries, a habit in which the Indian is particularly apt. Nobody has made a more thorough study of this subject than Parkman, and his conclusions are worthy of credence. To the Indian the material world was sentient and intelligent. Birds, beasts, and reptiles have ears for human prayers, and are endowed with an influence on human destiny. A mysterious and inexplicable power resides in inanimate things. They, too, can listen to the voice of man, and influence his life for evil or for good. Lakes, rivers, waterfalls are sometimes the dwelling-place of spirits ; but more frequently they are themselves living beings, to be propitiated by prayers and offerings. The lake has a soul ; and so has the river, and the cataract. Each can hear the words of men, and each can be pleased and offended. Through all the works of nature or of man, nothing exists, however ,seemingly trivial, that may not be endowed for blessing or for bane. A belief prevailed that men owed their first parentage to beasts, birds or ptiles, as bears, wolves, tortoises or cranes, and the names of the totemic clans, borrowed in nearly every case from animals, are the reflection of this idea. Were the Indians the first Darwinians? Consequently an Indian hunter was always anxious to propitiate the animals he sought to kill. He had often been known to address a wounded bear in a long harangue of apology. Bones of the beavers were treated with special tenderness, and carefully kept from the dogs, lest the spirit of the dead beaver, or his surviving brethren should take offense. This feeling extended to inanimate things. The Hurons in order to propitiate their fishing nets and ,persuade them to bring in good draughts, married them every year to two young girls with a more formal ceremony than was observed in human wedlock. So must the fin also be propitiated, and to this end they were addressed every evenino. from the fishing camps, the speaker exhorting then to take courage and allow themselves to be caught, assuring them that the utmost respect should be shown to their bones. --A rather slender consolation, one would think. The harangue took place after sup per, and during is delivery the remainder of the party were required to lie on their backs, silent and motionless, around the fire. Beyond the material world the Indian believed in supernatural existences known among the Algonquins as Manitous and among the Iroquois and Hurons as Okies or Otkons. In these were included all forms of supernatural beings, possibly excepting certain diminutive fairies or hobgoblins, and certain giants, and monsters which appeared under various figures, grotesque and horrible in the Indian legends: 'There was little stretch of the imagination here. In nearly every case, when they revealed themselves to mortal sight they bore the semblance of beasts, reptiles, birds 'Or shapes unusual or distorted. Other, mentions without local habitation, good- and evil, countless in number and indefinite in attributes, filled the world and controlled human destinies of men. These beings also appear in the shape of animals, sometimes of human beings, but more frequently of , stones, which when broken are found-full of living blood and flesh. Each Indian had his guardian manitou, to whom he looked for counsel, guidance, and protection, and these spiritual allies AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 55 are obtained by a process not unknown among more civilized communities. At the age of fourteen or fifteen, the Indian boy blackens his face, retires to some solitary place and remains for days without food. His sleep is haunted by visions, and the form which first or most often appears is that of his guardian manitou ; a beast, a bird, a fish, a serpent, or some other object, animate or inanimate. An eagle or a bear is the vision of a destined warrior ; a wolf, of a successful hunter, while a serpent foreshadows the future medicine man, or according to others, portends disaster. The youth henceforth wears about his person the object revealed in his dreams, or some portion of it-as a bone, a feather, a snake skin, or a tuft of hair. This in the modern language of the tribes is his "medicine." To it the wearer uses a sort of worship, propitiates it with offerings of tobacco, thanks it in prosperity, and upbraids it in disaster. If his medicine fails to bring the desired success he will sometimes discard it and adopt another. The superstition now becomes mere fetich worship, since the Indian regards the mysterious object which he carries about him rather as an embodiment than as a representative of a supernatural power. Besides the beings already mentioned there were others more or less shadowy. The Algonquins had what they called Manabozho, Messon, Michabou; Nanabush or Great Hare, who was king of all the animal kings. According to the most current belief his father was the West Wind, and his mother a great granddaughter of the Moon. Sometimes he is a wolf, a bird, or a gigantic hare, surrounded by a retinue of quadrupeds; sometimes he, appears in human shape, of majestic stature and of great endowments, a mighty magician, a destroyer of serpents and evil manitous ; sometimes he is a vain, and treacherous imp, full of childish whims and petty trickery, the butt and victim of men, beasts and spirits. Although it does not appear that he was an object of worship, yet tradition declared him to be the chief of the manitous, or the "Great Spirit." He was said to have restored the world, submerged by a deluge. He was hunting in company with his brother, a wolf, when the latter fell through the ice of a frozen lake and was devoured by serpents. Manabozho, intent on revenge, changed himself into the stump of a tree, and thus surprised and slew the king of the serpents as he basked with his followers in the sun. The other serpents, who were all manitous, in their rage caused the waters of the lake to deluge the earth. Manabozho climbed a tree, which in answer to his entreaties, grew as the flood rose around it, and thus saved him from destruction. Submerged to the neck he looked abroad over the waters and at length saw a loon or great northern diver, (which formerly was known on the Ohio) to whom he appealed for aid in the task of restoring the world. The loon dived in search of a little mud, as material for reconstruction, but could not reach the bottom. A musk-rat made the same attempt, Out soon reappeared floating on his back, apparently dead. Manabozho, however, on searching his paws, discovered in one of them a particle of the desired mud, and of this, together with the body of the loon, created the world anew. In some other traditions Manabozho appears, not as the restorer, but as the creator of the world, forming mankind from the carcases of beasts, birds and fishes (Darwinism again). Other accounts represent him as marrying a female musk-rat by whom he became the progenitor of the human race. The Algonquins had traces of a vague belief in a shadowy spirit under the name of Atahocan, others saw a supreme being in the Sun, while others believed in a personal devil, who, however, was not as bad as his wife who was the cause of death, and who was driven away from the sick by yelling, drumming, etc. The Iroquois and Hurons had a tradition that while the earth was a waste of waters there was, a heaven with lakes, streams, plains and forests inhabited by animals, spirits and human beings. Here a female 56 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY spirit was chasing a bear, which slipping through a hole fell down to earth. Her dog followed, when she herself, struck with despair, jumped after them. Others declare that she was thrown out of heaven by her husband for an amour with a man; while others believed that she fell in the attempt to gather for her husband the medicinal leaves of a certain tree. The animals swimming in the watery waste below, saw her falling, and hastily met in council to determine what should be done. The ease was referred to the beaver who turned it over to the tortoise, who thereupon called on the other animals to dive, bring up the mud and place it on his back. Thus was formed a floating island on which. Ataensic (the spirit) fell, and where she was delivered of a daughter who in turn bore two boys named Taouscaron and Jouskeha. They came to blows, and J ouskeha killed his brother with a staghorn. The back of the tortoise grew into a world full of verdure and life, ruled by Jouskeha and his grandmother. He was the Sun and she the Moon. He is beneficent and she is malignant. They had a bark house. at the end of the earth, and graced the Indian feasts and dances with their presence. The early writers call Jouskeha the Creator of the world. The Iroquois also had a Mars or god of war. The flesh of animals and of captive enemies was burned in his honor. Like Jouskeha, he was identified with the sun, and maybe regarded as the same being under different attributes. There was another superhuman personage, a deified hero. He was Taounyawatha, or Hiawatha, said to he a divinely appointed messenger, who made his abode on earth for the instructions of the race, and whose counterpart was found in the traditions of several primitive races. Parkman thinks that the primitive Indian's idea of a Supreme Being was no higher than could have been expected. The moment he began to clothe it with attributes, it became finite, and commonly ridiculous. In the primitive Indian's conception of a God the moral had no part. The good spirit is the spirit that gives good luck, and ministers to the necessities and desires of mankind; the evil spirit is simply a malicious agent of disease, death and mischances. In no Indian language could the early missionaries find a word to express the idea of God. Manitou and Oki meant anything endowed with supernatural powers, from a snake skin, or a greasy Indian conjurer, up to Manabozho and Jouskeha. The priests were forced to use a circumlocution, " The Great Chief of Men," or "He who lives in the Sky." Yet the idea that e h race of animals had its archetype or e f would easily suggest the existence of a supreme chief of the spirits or of the human race. The Jesuit missionaries seized this advantage. "If each sort of animal has its king," they urged, ," so, too, have men; and as man is above all the animals, so. is the spirit that rules over men the master of all the other spirits." The Indian mind readily accepted the idea, and tribes in no sense Christian, quickly rose to the belief in one controlling spirit. The Great Spirit became a distinct existence, a pervading power in the universe, and a dispenser of justice. Many tribes began to pray to him, though still clinging obstinately to their ancient superstitions ; and with some as the heathen portion of the Iroquois, he was clothed with the attributes of moral good. The primitive Indian believed in the future state, if not the immortality 4 the soul, but he did not always believe in a state of future reward and punishmelt. Nor, when such a belief existed, was the good to be rewarded a moral good, or the evil to be punished, a moral evil. Skilful hunters, brave warriors, etc., went after death to the happy hunting grounds, while the slothful, th6 cowardly and the weak were doomed to eat serpents and ashes in the dreary regions of mist and darkness. In the general belief, however, there was but one land of shades for all alike. The spirits, in form and feature as they had been in life, wended their way through dark AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS - 57 forests to the villages of the dead, subsisting on bark and rotten wood. On arriving they sat all day in the crouching posture of the sick, and, when night came, hunted the shades of animals, with the shades of bows and arrows, among the shades of trees and rocks ; for all things, animate and inanimate, were alike immortal, and all passed together to the gloomy country of the dead. Among the Hurons there were those who held that departed spirits pursued their journey through the sky, along the Milky Way, while the souls of dogs were consigned to another route, known as the Way of the Dogs." At intervals of ten years the Hurons and some other tribes collected the bones of their dead and deposited them with great ceremony in a common place of burial. The whole nation was sometimes assembled on such occasions, and hundreds of corpses were buried in one pit. From this time the immortality of the soul began. They took wing, as some affirmed, in the shape of pigeons, while others declared that they journeyed on foot and in their own likeness, to the land of shades, bearing with them ghosts of the wampum belts, beaver skins, bows, arrows, pipes, kettles, beads and rings, buried with them in the common ave. But the spirits of the old and of the children, too feeble for the march, were reed to stay behind, lingering near their arthly villages, where the living often earl the shutting of their invisible cabin doors, and the weak voices of disembodied children driving birds from their cornfields. The Indian land of souls was not always a region of shadows and gloom. The Hurons sometimes represented the souls of their dead—those of their dogs included— as dancing joyously in the presence of Ataentsic and Jouskeha. According to some Algonquin traditions, heaven was a scene of endless festivity, the ghosts dancing to the sound of the rattle and the drum, and greeting with hospitable welcome the occasional visitor from the living world ; for the spirit land was not far off, and roving hunters (alias AEneas) sometimes passed its confines unawares. Generally, however, the spirits on their journey heavenward were beset with difficulties and perils. There was a swift river which must be crossed on a log that shook beneath their feet, while a ferocious dog opposed their passage, and drove many into the abyss. The river was full of sturgeon and other fish, which the ghosts speared for their subsistence. Beyond, was a narrow path, with moving rocks, which, like those which threatened the Argonauts, each instant crashed together, grinding to atoms the less nimble of the pilgrims who tried the passage. A person named Oscotarach, or Head Piercer, dwelt in a bark house beside the path, and it was his office to remove the brains from the heads of all who went by, as a necessary preparation for immortality. According to some, the brain was afterwards restored to its owner. Dreams were a universal oracle. They revealed to the sleeper his guardian spirit, taught him the cure of his disease, warned him against sorcerers, guided him to his enemy or haunts of game, and unfolded the book of the future. Their behests must be obeyed to the letter—a source of endless misery and abomination. There were professional dreamers and professional interpreters of dreams. The Hurons and Iroquois had a dream feast, which was a scene of frenzy, where the actors counterfeited. madness and the town became worse than a lunatic asylum. Each person pretended to have dreamed of something necessary to his welfare, and rushed from place to place demanding of all he met to guess his secret requirement and satisfy it. Surrounded by such a cloud of demons and spirits, the Indian lived in perpetual fear. The turning of a leaf, the crawling of an insect, the cry of a bird, the creaking of a bough, was to him a signal of weal or woe. Every community swarmed with sorcerers, medicine men and diviners, whose functions were often united in the same person. The sorcerer, by charms, 58 - HISTORY OF JEFFERSON COUNTY magic songs, feasts, beating of drums, etc., had power over the spirits and could call to him the souls of his enemies. They came in the form of stones, and he chopped and bruised them with his hatchet ; blood and flesh issued forth, and the intended victim, however distant, languished and died Like his old world counterpart, he made images of those he wished to destroy, and, muttering incantations, punctured them with an awl, whereupon the persons represented sickened and pined away. The Indian doctor in place of natural remedies relied on dreams, beating of drums, songs, magic feasts and dances and howling to drive the female demon from hislutient. The prophet or divines through the flights of birds and movements of fire and water read the secrets of the future. Among the Algonquins, a small conical lodge was made by planting poles in a circle, lashing the tops together seven feet from the ground, and closely covering them with hides.: The prophet crawled in and closed the aperture after him. 'He then beat his drums and sang magic songs to summon the spirits, whose weak, shrill voices were heard mingled with his sonorous chanting, while at intervals the juggler paused to interpret their communications to the crowd. During the affair, the lodge swayed to and fro with a violence, to astonish the beholder, and the whole transaction was such as to give valuable pointers to modern spiritualistic demonstrators. The sorcerers, medicine men and diviners did not usually exercise the functions of priest, in fact the Indians, strictly speaking, had no priesthood. Each man sacrificed for himself to the powers he wished to propitiate. The most common offering was tobacco thrown into fire or water. Scraps of meat were sometimes burned to the miniatus, and, on a few rare occasions of public solemnity, a white dog, the mystic animal of many tribes, was tied to the end of an upright pole, as a sacrifice to some superior spirit, or to the Sun, with which the superior spirits were constantly confounded by the primitive Indian. Since Christianity has modilled his religious ideas, it has been, and still is, the practice to sacrifice dogs to the Great Spirit. Space prevents even a reference to the numerous mystic ceremonies, extravagant, disgusting, designed for the cure of the sick and the general weal. The details can be found in any Indian work. If children were seen in their play imitating any of these mysteries, they were rebuked and punished. Secret magical societies existed, and still exist in the West, which were greatly feared and respected. Indian tales must not be told in summer because the spirits are awake and, hearing what is said of them, may be offended ; but in winter they are fast sealed up in snow and ice. The Indian, although a child of nature, knew nothinc, of her laws. If the wind blew, it was because the water lizard, which makes the wind, had crawled out of his pond. If the lightning was sharp and frequent, it was because the young of the thunder bird were restless in their nests. If the corn failed, the corn spirit was angry, and if the beavers were shy, it was because they had taken offense at seeing the bones of one of their number thrown to a dog. As Parkman says, in summing up, the Indian's gods were no whit better than himself. Even when he borrows from Christianity the idea of a Supreme and Universal Spirit, his tendency is to reduce Him to a local habitation and bodily shape, and this tendency disappears only in tribes that have been long in contact with civilized white men. The primitive Indian, yielding his untutored homage to One All-pervading and Omnipotent Spirit, is a dream of poets, rhetoricians and sentimentalists.