[HALE] AN IROQUOIS CONDOLING COUNCIL 61 
Since the “Condoling Song” or rather Hymn, as it should perhaps 
be more properly styled, which has been frequently referred to in the 
foregoing narrative, may help to cast light upon the character and insti- 
tutions of the [roquois people, a fuller account of it will not be deemed 
out of place. The frequent recurrence of this hymn in the solemn rites 
of the Condoling Council may, without irreverence, be compared to the 
frequent repetition of the Lord’s Prayer in the services of most of our 
Christian churches. And as the Prayer may be said to indicate the reli- 
gious and moral traits to which Christians are expected to aspire, so the 
Condoling Hymn may be deemed to show the qualities which the Iroquois 
people most esteem in their social and political life. These qualities are 
in reality widely different from those commonly ascribed to them in our 
ordinary histories. In these the Indians in general, and the Huron- 
[roquois in particular, are represented as a race of fierce and cruel 
ravagers and murderers. But, as I have said in another place, “the cir- 
cumstances under which the red and white races have encountered in 
North America have been such as necessarily to give rise to a wholly 
false impression in regard to the character of the aborigines. The Euro- 
pean colonists, superior in civilization and in the arts of war, landed on 
the coast with the deliberate intention of taking possession of the country 
and displacing the natives. The Indians were at once thrown on the 
defensive. From the very beginning they fought not merely for their 
land, but for their lives ; for it was from their land that they drew the 
means of living. The Indians must be judged, like every other people, not 
by the traits which they display in the fury of a desperate warfare, but by 
their ordinary demeanour in times of peace, and especially by the charac- 
ter of their social and domestic life. On this point, so far as regards the 
Huron-Iroquois tribes, the testimony of missionaries and of other com- 
petent observers who have lived among them, is uniform. At home 
these Indians are among the most kindly and generous of men. Constant 
good humour, unfailing courtesy, ready sympathy with distress, and a 
truly lavish liberality, mark their intercourse with one another. The 
Jesuit missionaries among the Hurons knew them before intercourse 
with the whites and the use of ardent spirits had embittered and debased 
them. The testimony which they have left on record is very remark- 
able. The missionary Brébeuf, protesting against the ignorant preju- 
dice whicn would place the Indians on a level with the brutes, gives the 
result of his observations in emphatic terms. ‘In my opinion,’ he 
writes, “it is no small matter to say of them that they live united in 
towns, sometimes of fifty, sixty, or a hundred dwellings—that is, of 
three or four hundred households; that they cultivate the fields from 
which they derive their food for the whole year; and that they main- 
tain peace and friendship with one another.” He doubts “if there is 
another nation under heaven more commendable in this respect” than 
