THE IROQUOIS, OR FIVE NATIONS. 



191 



History affords ample evidence of the intellectual superiority of the Iroquois 

 over the surrounding nations. They were passionately devoted to war, and were 

 every where formidable and victorious. "The Five Nations," observes Mr. 

 Gallatin, "had already acquired a decided superiority over the other Indians 

 before the arrival of the Europeans. They were at that epoch at war with all 

 the surrounding tribes, with perhaps the single exception of the Andastes on the 

 west. That in which they were engaged on the north, with the Hurons and 

 Algonquins, was still attended with alternate success on each side. But south- 

 wardly they had already carried their arms as far as the mouth of the Susquehanna, 

 and the vicinity of New Castle on the Delaware."* In fact they loved war for 

 itself, and all other employments and pastimes were held to be contemptible in 

 comparison ; and they gloried most in their assumed appellation of Ongive Honwe^ 

 The Greatest of Men. Their language is both energetic and melodious, destitute 

 of labials, but having the guttural aspirate.f 



They possessed all the other Indian characteristics in strong relief. They 

 forced their women to work in the field and to carry burthens ; they paid little 

 respect to old age ,• they were not much affected by the passion of love, and 

 singularly regardless of connubial obligations ; and they unhesitatingly resorted to 

 suicide as a remedy for domestic and other evils. They were proud, audacious, 

 and vindictive, untiring in the pursuit of an enemy, and remorseless in the 

 gratification of their revenge. In matters of religion their ideas appear to have 

 been extremely vague; and their national observance consisted chiefly in the 

 annual sacrifice of a dog, which they subsequently ate. Their cautiousness and 

 cunning were proverbial even among the Indian nations: thus Golden observes 

 that if they be sent with any message, though it demand the greatest despatch 

 and portend imminent danger, they never tell it at once, but sit down a minute 

 or two in silence, lest they should betray themselves by a hasty expression.t 

 Hence they assumed a vacant and even stupid expression of countenance, when 

 they were most awake to what was passing around them.^ It is but justice to 

 add to these traits of the Iroquois, that in their long intercourse with the English 

 colonies before the revolution, they were remarkable for their regard to treaties, 

 and their good faith on all occasions wherein their pledge was once given. Early 

 in the American Revolution they attached themselves strongly to the English 

 interest, and committed horrible ravages in their incursions into the neighboring 



* Archseolog. Amer. 11, p. 75. 



X Hist, of the Five Nations, I, p. 20. 



tD WIGHT, Trav. IV, p. 209. 

 § D WIGHT, Trav. IV, p. 210. 



