IROQUOIS MYTHS AND LEGENDS 



in their council houses or private residences. Among the Iroquois 

 various trades are represented. 1 Of the full number of the census 

 there are 185 basketmakers, 528 farmers, 696 laborers and various 

 others who are independent farmers and mechanics. 



The Tuscaroras who entered the league about 17 13 are included 

 in the census enumeration. As this nation was not of the original 

 Five Nations, they have not been recognized by title right to sachem- 

 ship. 



After three centuries of conflict with an invading race which in 

 its greed for lands and wealth had but little sympathy for the ab- 

 original owners of the soil, we find the Iroquois still with us success- 

 ful in their struggle to retain their ancients seats. Every other 

 native nation, tribe or band of Indians in the east has been ex- 

 terminated or driven toward the west where small acres in a broad 

 land remain to them. 



The Iroquois by his unconquerable tenacity, his dogged determina- 

 tion to remain, his wonderful national vitality has earned the 

 admiration and respect of the world and ethnologists acclaim him 

 the master type of the American Indian. By their wondrous con- 

 ception of the Confederacy of the Five Nations, in the union of the 

 Mohawks, Cayugas, Oneidas, Onondagas and Senecas, they formed 

 one political confederation of civil and war power unequaled by 

 any other primitive people. This confederated league was absorbing 

 all adjacent nations when disturbed by the advent of the white 

 people. Their war cry to the enemy being absorption or extermina- 

 tion they were continually augmenting their numbers. Their 

 government was a structure of durability in its filial principles of 

 equality, fraternity and inflexible loyalty, a sort of socialism free 

 from any humility or pernicious dissensions of political bondage. 

 Their religious conceptions were far above those of the ancient 

 philosophers or the tendencies of the ancient myth god worshipers. 

 The student who intelligently translates the Indian religion opens 

 the wider door for good will and humanity, in fact, as a distinguished 

 bishop of the Episcopalian church has said, " The American Indian 

 is the most magnificent heathen on the face of the earth, he has but 

 one God and believes in the immortality of soul." As this is 



1 Iroquois Indians at present are engaged in many different trades and professions. Some 

 are masons, molders, carpenters, bakers, painters, engineers, railroad trainmen, conductors, 

 clerks in business and banking houses, cooks, shopkeepers, blacksmiths etc.; in pro- 

 fessional lines they will be found engaged in the practice of law and medicine, in music, 

 in teaching, both in primary and higher branches, and some are engaged professionally 

 in scientific pursuits. Others will be found as laborers drifting about among the whites, 

 as teamsters and farm hands and the like. 



