THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 517 
Canada were in the habit of doing. Colden* and otherst assert this 
positively, and Gen. Ely 8, Parker, himself an educated Iroquois, con- 
firms the statement in an interesting letter which I take the liberty of 
publishing entire: “I do not think that the Iroquois men, at the time 
to which you refer, ever aided in any agricultural operations whatever. 
Among all the Indian tribes, especially the more powerful ones, the 
principle that a man should not demean himself or mar his dignity by 
cultivating the soil or gathering its product was most strongly inecul- 
cated and enforced. It was taught that a man’s province was war, 
hunting, and fishing. While the pursuit of agriculture, in any of its 
branches, was by no means prohibited, yet, when any man, excepting 
the cripples, old men, and those disabled in war or hunting, chose to till 
the earth, he was at once ostracised from men’s society, classed as a 
woman or squaw, and was disqualified from sitting or speaking in the 
councils of his people until he had redeemed himself by becoming a 
skillful warrior or a successful hunter. At the present day even, some 
of the western tribes require that one shall also prove himself an ex- 
pert thief or robber to entitle him to respect and consideration. It is 
within my recollection that a very large proportion of the Iroquois men 
did no manual labor whatsoever, because as they argued it was menial 
and beneath their dignity. It is only quite recently that agricultural 
work by men has become general among this people, and not yet are 
women driven altogether from the field. 
“Tt was an Iroquois custom to use captives to assist their women in 
the labors of the field, in carrying burdens, and in doing general menial 
labor; but when a captive proved himself possessed of what, in their 
judgment, constituted manly qualities, then he was fully adopted and 
admitted to all the privileges of an Iroquois. 
‘You may possibly eall to mind that Brant, the elder, a great Iro- 
quois warrior, and Red Jacket, the Iroquois orator, were not good 
friends. One was renowned both in war and council, and his voice 
was ever for war; while the other was famous only in council; his 
voice was always for peace, and in no sense was he a warrior. Ina 
general council of the magnates of the Six Nations, held at the time of 
the Miami difficulties in the Northwest, Brant, in a controversy with 
Red Jacket, in which, perhaps, he was being worsted, taunted him 
with being a coward and a squaw, showing how strong had been his 
early education respecting the qualities essential to a representative 
Iroquois. 
“JT think you will also find accounts in Colden’s History of the Five 
*«The Indian women perform all the drudgery about their houses; they plant 
the corn and labor it in every respect till it is brought to the table.” History of the 
Five Nations, p. 13: London, 1747. 
t “Women never plant corn among us as they do among the Iroquois:” Lawson, 
Carolina, p. 188: London, 1718. “The wife must do all the work in the house and 
field:” Loskiel, Mission in America, p. 60: London, 1794. See also League of the 
Troquois, p. 329: Rochester, 1851. 
