SPIRIT OF IHE CONFEDERACY. Ixv 



had no fulcrum and no hold. The constant aim of 

 sachems and chiefs was to exercise- it without seeming to 

 do so. They had no insignia of office. They were no 

 richer than others ; indeed, they were often poorer, spend- 

 ing their substance in largesses and bribes to strengthen 

 their influence. They hunted and fished for subsistence; 

 they were as foul, greasy, and unsavory as the rest ; yet 

 in them, withal, was often seen a native dignity of bear- 

 i]ig, which ochre and bear's grease could not hide, and 

 which comported well with their strong, symmetrical, 

 and sometimes majestic proportions. 



To the institutions, traditions, rites, usages, and festi- 

 vals of the league the Iroquois was inseparably wedded. 

 He clung to them with Indian tenacity ; and he clings to 

 them still. His political fabric was one of ancient ideas 

 and practices, crystallized into regular and enduring 

 forms. In its component parts it has nothing peculiar 

 to itself. All its elements are found in other tribes : 

 most of them belong to the whole Indian race. Un 

 doubtedly there was a distinct and definite effort of 

 legislation ; but Iroquois legislation invented nothing. 

 Like all sound legislation, it built of materials already 

 prepared. It organized the chaotic past, and gave con- 

 crete forms to Indian nature itself. The people have 

 dwindled and decayed ; but, banded by its ties of clan 

 and kin, the league, in feeble miniature, still subsists, 

 and the degenerate Iroquois looks back with a mournful 

 pride t:) the glory of the past. 



Would the Iroquois, left undisturbed to work out 

 their owu destiny, ever have emerged from the savage 

 state ? Advanced as they were beyond most other Amer- 

 ican tribes, there is no indication whatever of a tendency 

 to overpass the confines of a wild hunter and warrior 

 life. They were inveterately attached to it, impracticable 



