96 



[Senate 



who reside among ourselves. They have passed through all the inter- 

 mediate stages, from extreme rudeness to comparative civilization. If 

 we wished to connect the fabrics of the former with those of our own 

 primitive inhabitants, we may find that connection in the fact, that 

 similar implements and similar fabrics, at no remote period, were in 

 the hands, and of the manufacture, of the Iroquois themselves. Many 

 of the relics disentombed from the soil of New-York, relate back to the 

 period of the Mound builders of the west ; and belong to a race of men 

 and an age which have passed beyond the ken of even Indian tradition. 

 Our first Indian epoch is thus connected with that of the Mound builders. 

 In the same manner, the fabrics of the Iroquois are intimately connected 

 with those of all the tribes now resident within the republic. One sys- 

 tem of trails belted the whole face of the territory, from the Atlantic to 

 the Pacific ; and the intercourse between the multitude of nations who 

 dwelt within these boundless domains was constant, and much more 

 extensive than has ever been supposed. If any one, therefore, desired 

 a picture of Iroquois life before Hendrick Hudson sailed up the river 

 upon whose banks rested the eastern end of their *' Long House,"^ he 

 should look for it in Catlin's Scenes at the skirts of the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. There are diversities, it is true, but Indian life is essentially the 

 same. 



A collection, therefore, which embraced within its range the utensils, 

 implements, and miscellaneous fabrics of the whole Indian family, 

 would best illustrate the era of Indian occupation within our own State. 

 Such a collection can, and ought to be made. It would be doing, in 

 our republic, what European nations have taken unwearied pains to ac- 

 complish within their own territories. They have treasured up, with 

 watchful care, the memorials of their own territorial history. These 

 memorials unlock the social history of the past ; and although silent, 

 they speak more eloquently than all human description. Our own are 

 essentially Indian. An Indian collection is all that we can offer to the 

 European, in acknowledgment of the gratification and instruction we 

 have derived from theirs. While every petty State abroad has its His- 

 torical Cabinet, the visitation of which furnishes the chief pleasure of 

 the traveler, our own States, one of which numbers three millions of 

 people, have nothing of the kind for the entertainment of the foreign 

 traveler. The custom among all civilized nations, of making such col- 



• Ho-de-no-sau-ne, the name of the Iroquois as one people, signifies The 

 People of the Long House." They symbolized the League by a house, which 

 reached from the Hudson to the Genesee; and afterwards to Niagara, on the ex- 

 pulsion of the Eries and Neuter Nation, about the year 1650. 



