190 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



The Iroquois appreciated the worth of woman and gave her a high place in their 

 counsels. In 1789, at Albany, Good Peter, in his speech for the Cayugas and Senecas 

 to the governor and the commissioners of Indian affairs, said: %t Our ancestors con- 

 sidered it a great transgression to reject the counsel of their women, particularly 

 of the governesses. Our ancestors considered them mistresses of the soil. Our 

 ancestors said, ' Who bring us forth ? Who cultivate our lands ? Who kindle our 

 fires and boil our pots but the women. * * * The women say, let not the tradi- 

 tions of the fathers with respect to women be disregarded ; let them not be despised ; 

 God is their maker.' * * * The female governesses beg leave to speak with that 

 freedom allowable to women and agreeable to the spirit of our ancestors. They 

 exhort the great chief to put forth his strength and preserve their peace, for they 

 are the life of the nation." And when the Senecas at Big Tree, in 1797, refused 

 to negotiate with Thomas Morris, and Red Jacket, with undue haste, had declared 

 the council fire covered up, the women and the warriors interposed and consum- 

 mated a treaty. Its women are, indeed, the life of every aggregation of mankind, 

 and the true gauge of the worth and dignity of every tribe and nation of the earth 

 is the standing and influence of its women. Maltreatment and contempt may de- 

 grade their women ; women grow pure and loving through reasonable reverence, 

 and so strengthen and elevate the men. 



In general, the men of the Five Nations were, and still are, noble in person, and 

 the young men especially were and are classical in form and feature. Hence it 

 was that when West, the great American painter, first saw the Apollo Belvidere he 

 exclaimed: "How like a young Mohawk warrior ! " lean readily accept the tra- 

 dition that their women, like the women of all peoples, by far excelled the men in 

 grace and beauty, because in the present I perceive its truth. Certainly, a young 

 Iroquois maiden of uncontaminated blood, just entered upon womanhood, unworn by 

 harsh and unbefitting labor, pure as unclouded heaven, and with the words of her 

 nation dropping from her tongue like the low tinklingsof a harp, is beautiful exceed- 

 ingly. 



Very many of the Iroquois, women as well as men, had exhibited intellectual power 

 and broad philanthropy, but, if legends be true, the name of none of them was held 

 in reverence by all the Indians as was that of Tamanund. But all aboriginal America, 

 in my humble judgment, does not furnish to us a name so worthy of undying rever- 

 ence as that of Hiawatha, the statesman and lover of peace, who framed the League 

 of the Five Nations, secured its adoption and started the confederacy on its glorious 

 career. 



But I must cease my vain attempts to paint these nations as they were in the olden 

 time, and turn abruptly to the present. We are your brothers, O Iroquois, and it is 

 in sorrow and not in exultation, and solely with a hope of arousing you to righteous 

 and effectual effort to regain the prosperity of the past, that I ask you to look your 

 present condition and prospects in the face. And now, Iroquois brothers of Canada, 

 I beg you to take notice that this statement and all the remarks that may follow it 

 are addressed to the Iroquois within this State. You are under a different govern- 

 ment, and I am glad in the belief that your condition is much happier than theirs. 

 But you and they are one, and we Americans are brothers and friends of both. 



The Iroquois can no longer arrogate to themselves the title of Ongwe Hon wee. In 

 1811 Do Witt Clinton wrote thus : " The SixNations have lost their high character and 

 standing. * * * Their old men who witnessed the former glory and prosperity of 

 their country, and who have heard from the mouths of their ancestors the heroic 

 achievements of their countrymen, weep like infants when they speak of the fallen 

 condition of the nation. They, however, derive some consolation from a prophecy of 

 ancient origin and universal currency among them, that the man of America will, at 

 some future time, regain his ancient ascendency and expel the man of Europe from 

 this western hemisphere." At this day such a hope is futile. Even the Seneca has 

 lost, I trust, his insane appetite for war. The man of Europe covers the continent. 



