IROQUOIS MYTHS AND LEGENDS 



135 



religion. He may be stimulated by observing the various moral 

 laws of the white man but he will not incorporate within his own 

 religion anything that is not consistent with his old faith. There- 

 fore comes the term " Christian pagan," which signifies that the 

 " converted " Indian has " adopted " the moral teachings of the 

 " new " religion as a graft upon his inherited faith. 



He can not understand why 1 K s Christian religionists should be 

 divided into so many " societies : while he has but one. He does 

 not comprehend the efficacy of prayer for material things. 



In fact the entire social life of the Indian is imbued with religious 

 sentiment. He despises a liar and distrusts the man who offers too 

 much to him. A truer friend does not live than the Indian who 

 will give his own bed and the largest end of his loaf as long as a 

 friend tarries with him. A betrayal of confidence he never for- 

 gives. Long years of dishonorable persecution have made him 

 distrustful of every white man. Divested of his aboriginal do- 

 mains he has been hunted into little corners and considered a 

 tenant by privilege until extermination. In the name of humanity 

 and history why are there not more of earnest workers who will 

 investigate the Indian as he was? If he has constructed his own 

 theology he has discovered the greatest truth of nature, the knowl- 

 edge of a Supreme Ruler. By his conceptions of tribal fraternity 

 he has become thoroughly indoctrinated with true humanity 

 thus rivaling many of the highest virtues of civilized man. It has 

 required the processes of centuries of evolution to transform the 

 painted savage whom Caesar met in Britain into the Englishman 

 of today. What is the history of the four centuries of the evolution 

 of the American Indian ? Save the few who have been defended and 

 befriended and educated, the story is near its finale of a Christless 

 not a Christian civilization. In this unequal and mournful struggle 

 to preserve his inheritances and nationality the Indian is nearing 

 the inexorable destiny to which he is doomed. 



WOMAN'S RIGHTS AMONG THE IROQUOIS 



Generations before the coming of the palefaces to this country, 

 the Iroquois Indians had declared in the constitution of the 

 Ho-de-no-sau-ne, the Confederacy of the Long House, that the 

 " mother " or woman's rights should be included in the laws and be 

 forever protected. 



While the primitive red man looked upon woman as subordinate 

 rather than equal, by his law, through her he preserved his ties of 

 consanguinity and tribal denomination. While he enforced obedi- 



