APOLOGY TO THE IROQUOIS, Edmund Wilson, Vintage, New York, 1960
(1959)

This volume contains (pp. 3-36) Joseph Mitchell's 1949 article "The
Mohawks in High Steel," recounting the discovery in 1886 with the
building of the bridge near the reservation that the Caughnawagas
have a head for heights. They began working there and right after
that on the bridge joining the two Sault Ste. Maries. Previously,
this perilous work had drawn sea faring men. There was the tragedy
of August 29, 1907 when a span of the Quebec Bridge collapsed and
and thirty five Caughnawagas were among the ninety six who died.
After that, efforts were made to avoid such concentrations of
Caughnawaga steal workers.

The article includes a glimpse of the early history of Caughnawaga,
recipient of converts sent by Jesuits from the area of New York
state in the late Seventeenth Century. The settlement moved several
times, last in 1719. The Caughnawaga had resisted pressures to
become farmers. From c. 1700 CE many worked in the fur trade.

   They became canoemen in the great fleets of canoes that carried
   trading goods to remote depots on the St. Lawrence and its
   tributaries and brought back bales of furs. They liked this work
   -- it was hard but hazardous -- and they recruited others.
   Thereafter, for almost a century and a half, practically every
   youth in the band took a job in a freight canoe as soon as he got
   his strength, usually around the age of seventeen. In the
   eighteen-thirties, forties, and fifties, as the fur trade
   declined in Lower Canada, the Caughnawaga men were forced to find
   other things to do. p. 13

The article looks at the Caugnawagas in the US, especially the
community in North Gowanus in New York City. There's a several page
harvest of an interview with Orvis Diabo, grown too old to continue
workin up high and reluctant to return to the reservation, where the
old fellows seem more interested in street names and waterworks than
the fascinating Little Blue Books so enjoyable for Mavis Diabo. He
is also attracted to the Longhouse Faith. He recalls sneaking near a
festival. Someone comes up to him.

   So he said to me, 'You're not alone up here. Look over there.' I
   looked where he pointed, and I saw a white shirt in among the
   bushes. And he said, 'Look over there,' and I saw a cigarette
   gleaming in the dark. 'The bushes are full of Catholics and
   Protestants,' he said. 'Every night there's a longhouse festival,
   they creep up here and listen to the singing. It draws them like
   flies.' So I said, 'The longhouse music is beautiful to hear,
   isn't it?' And he remarked it ought to be, it was the old Indian
   music. p. 36

Chapter One, "Standing Arrow" (pp. 39-57), introduces the chief of
that name and his claim to land at Schoharie Creek. This leads to
the author meeting the chief in October 1957, discussions about land
rights and the 1924 statement of the Everett Commission. The Five
Nations Confederacy (Onandagas, Mohawks, Oneidas, Senecas and
Cayugas) was founded c. 1570. The Sixth Nation (Tuscaroras) migrated
north and joined later. The Confederacy impressed Europeans.
Ambassadors arrived from France, England and Holland. The US
Constitution is said to have been influenced by the example of the
Iroquois federal system. New York state in taking land acknowledged
by the US to belong to the Iroqois Six Nations had allegedly acted
against both federal governments.

Edmund Wilson met others. Steelworkers are mentioned, as well as the
early (even in 1709) noting of the Native head for heights. The clan
system is mentioned. One derives one's clan from one's mother. Her
brothers have responsibility for her children. The clanmother named,
and could depose, chiefs. Women cultivated the land and thus it
produced its harvest.

There is reference to feeding masks (with tobacco and sunflower oil)
and to items, including wampum belts, being held in museums.
Standing Arrow invited the author to a great gathering of chiefs at
Onondaga.

Chapter Two, "Onondaga" (pp. 58-71), begins with the reason for the
gathering, the inauguration of the Ta-do-da-ho, or ranking chief of
the Six Nations. Onondaga is the centre of the Confederacy, site of
the Peace Tree, and its people are the Firekeepers and Keepers of
the wampum belt. There the author met other nationalists and the
feeling that he should be allowed to attend for the favourable
publicity. However, one elderly individual especially opposed this
idea, so the writer waited outside.

There is reference to the distaste those following traditional ways
have to being called "pagans." There's mention of the normal use of
"chieves" as the plural of chief. There was the Condolence for the
departed chiefs, the arrival of clanmothers by car on a rainy day,
the legends of the original Ta-do-da-ho who had to have snakes
combed out of his hair, etc.

Chapter Three, "St Regis" (pp. 72-125), begins with the reserve
straddling both sides of the Canada/US border. Nationalist youths
are wearing scalplocks and the traditional religion is attracting
increasing interest. Handsome Lake (Gan-yo-die-yo, 1735-1815) is
introduced, his early life, trance, Good Message (Guy-wee-yo) and
its influence. This was a call to spirituality: sobriety, obedience
of parents, kindness to children, respect for spouse, hospitality,
refraining from boasting, avoiding backbiting, not provoking
contention between others, etc. Thusly, would one attain 'The New
World' where abode no White save George Washington called Destroyer
of Villages, a term said to be applied to all US presidents.
Handsome Lake opposed sending Native children to White schools and
he supported the execution of witches. In Quebec the Longhouse
religion is forbidden. In the US it is "frowned upon" (p. 89).
However, even the Wisconsin Oneidas, descendants of those moved by a
Christianized land agent, are feeling the call of tradition.

The St. Lawrence Seaway Project is only exacerbating normal
difficulties. There is the problem of White opposition to tradition,
from Catholic attempts to eliminate the concept of clans and nations
to the Canadian government refusing to accept traditional chiefs and
creating other ones, to New York state interference, a situation
made worse by the US Congress in 1949 and 1950 passing bills giving
states jurisdiction in Indian reservations. There is the issue of
taxation. There is the matter of Raquette Point, some eighty three
acres removed in the Seaway project and claims for compensation.
There is the related court case and the New York judge unwilling to
recognize traditional chiefs or Treaty rights. About three pages of
the court record are quoted, including:

   Mr. Papineau. If these treaties that are consummated between the
   two nations, the Iroquois Confederacy, an independent nation, and
   the United States -- Continental Congress of the United States --
   do these treaties in law become law, supreme law of the land when
   they are made?

   The Court. Well, I don't want to get into a rather deep
   discussion about that matter --

   Mr. Papineau. Well, that is what we are here for.

There is the case of Barnhart Island, apparently transferred from
Canada to the US after the War of 1812. The treaty (the one ending
the war) specified shifted borders wouldn't interfere with Native
rights, but that was disregarded in the case of Barnhart Island. In
1856 compensation to the Natives was authorized, but never seems to
have reached them. Suit was brought by the Natives in 1954 and the
effort was made all the way to the US Supreme Court, without
success.

The Seaway and increased industrialization in the area have some
residents of St. Regis apprehensive as to their being allowed to
retain the land of the reservation.

The chapter closes by looking at Philip Cook and his path, born
Catholic and deprived of knowing what clan he came from, an elective
chief who resigned with others when the majority in the 1948
referendum in the American portion of St. Regis voted for the
traditional chiefs; a spiritual seeker, checking out Protestants and
then Handsome Lake, but conservatives in the Longhouse religion
didn't accept him and the kindness and distinction of the Mormans
led him to respond. He became a Morman elder in 1951, one of one
hundred and ten Mormans at St. Regis.

Chapter Four, "The Tuscaroras" (pp. 126-168), begins with that
nation joining the other five. The Tuscaroras speak an Iroquoian
language. They came from North Carolina where Whites testify to
their hospitality and other virtues, but also oppressed them into
armed resistence, broke truces and drove the survivors north. They
were formally accepted in 1722 into the Iroqois Confederacy, and
Tuscarora immigrants continued to arrive for ninety years. Although
sponsored by the Oneidas, the Tuscaroras received land from the
Senecas who became patrons of the Tuscaroras.

The Tuscaroras became Protestants, destroying the longhouse in the
1840s. In modern times, they regretted their break from tradition.
However, they stood tall against the (New York) State Power
Authority's efforts to expropriate part of the reserve. The
dictatorial personality of the head of that corporation is well
conveyed in the account of his determination to take the land. He,
however, suffered here one of his two defeats, the other being when
some New York mothers, placing baby carriages in the path of
bulldozers, forced a playground, instead of a parking lot.

The chapter mentions Chief Clinton Rickard, founder of the Indian
Defense League.

   This league, which was founded in 1925, has had for its principal
   object to provide a defense fund for Indians who have got into
   trouble with white authorities and are too poor to be able to pay
   counsel. The first achievement of the Defense League, however,
   was to reestablish the right of the Indians -- included in the
   Jay Treaty of 1794 between England and the United States but
   eventually disregarded -- to pass freely back and forth between
   Canada and the United States. The Indians were at one time
   classed as "orientals" and forbidden to cross the border. p. 159

The impressive leader Mad Bear is described and pages 163-167 quote
the Serpent Prophecy, interpreted at the time to refer to US/Soviet
conflict among other things. Whatever the details, the significant
essence is the reinvigoration of the Natives.

Chapter Five, "The Seneca Republic" (pp. 169-197), begins with such
outstanding Seneca personalities as General Ely S. Parker and his
great nephew Arthur C. Parker. There is a look at earlier history,
Cornplanter, Sullivan's invasion in 1779, drink and the influence of
Handsome Lake. There were Ogden's efforts to take Seneca land, the
Six Nations principle of unanimity, the unethical behaviour of the
Ogden Land Company that obtained by deception signatures of Seneca
chiefs and of some the company declared chiefs to a sale of the four
Seneca reservations. Missionaries appealed to Daniel Webster. A 1842
compromise would take two reservations. Buffalo was lost, but the
Tonawandas refused to go and in 1868 were allowed to "buy back" (p.
177) ten per cent of their land.

A disastrous move west in 1846 innoculated most Senecas against both
such drives and Christianity. The revolutions in 1848 in Europe
resonated among the Seneca who that year in Allegany and Cattaraugus
formed a republic. Tonawanda chiefs had retained the trust of their
people. Here is introduced Nicodemus Bailey who went to Carlisle,
the Native school closed when it was seen by Whites to be enhancing
Native awareness, who has an elegant literary air, who has strong
views, but in support of claiming the privileges of US citizenship,
not in following the nationalist path.

Next is discussed the Allegheny Reservoir Project and the efforts to
take land. This reached right to the top with President Eisenhower
vetoing bills and Congress overturning his veto.

Chapter Six, "Seneca New Year's Ceremonies" (pp. 198-251), begins
with the author attending New Year's ceremonies with William Fenton,
"in the last week of January, 1958" (p. 198). An excursus looks back
at letters from a missionary in 1835. Then, there is the snow snake
game with javelins thrown along a groove, after which comes the Dark
Dance and the story of the Great Little People it honours and
invites. There are four sections, though the second section,
devoted to charms, may be omitted, if the host doesn't have a charm.
There is dancing, singing, strawberry syrup, speeches, etc.

The author describes a later visit where some details of the Dark
Dance are discussed, along with an account of a sixteen year old's
recent run in with a bear. This leads to the harmony in general
between Natives and natural entities, though bison owned by Whites
lack a Native connection and can only be shooed away.

At the New Year's ceremonies babies are named, something done twice
a year. They receive White and Indian names. The latter are clan
derived and no two in a clan may have the same name. Another name is
given at puberty. Doins, ceremonies, include Bear Dance, Buffalo
Dance and two Corn Dances. The author had asked about the
discontinued White Dog Sacrifice. The fourth day of ceremonies has
two main features, "the traditional peachpit game" (p. 227) and
dream guessing. Dream guessing was very important, as it was felt
dreams included advance notice of things that might go wrong if not
addressed, even if only symbolically. Material on dream guessing is
quoted from mid Seventeenth Century Jesuits.

There is the Bear Dance, the Fish Dance, Shaking the Bush, the
entrance of the Husk Faces, clowns, costumes, seriousness and fun,
followed the next morning by the impressive Feather Dance, though
it's clearly stated that traditional Iroquois wore an eagle feather
standing up and a couple of feathers hanging down.

The chapter concludes with reference to the claim at Schoherie
Creek, a guy offering a hundred and twenty acres of land to the
Natives for a dollar and Standing Arrow losing some support for
accepting this, and for, allegedly, asserting he was the return of
Deganawidah.

Chapter Seven, "The Six Nations Reserve" (pp. 252-269), begins with
proposals to amend the constitution of the League. There is a
description of the Six Nations Reserve, the largest (43,000 acres,
population 7,000 and four longhouses) and mention of the impressive
pageant there designed to stimulate Native awareness and to convey
to Whites, "the predicament of the Indian" (p. 256). The pageant
dates from 1924 when the Canadian government deposed the hereditary
chiefs.

On March 5, 1959 a popular uprising forced the appointed chiefs out,
restored the hereditary chiefs and raised native police to replace
the Mounties. On March 12, 1959 some sixty Mounties attacked. They
were resisted by the women who were bruised and battered.

   There were several cameramen present -- one of whom had got
   permission to cover the affair for the CBC; but when the riot got
   under weigh and one of the Mounted Police noticed that another
   photographer -- according to the Brantford Expositor -- was
   "filming a woman's injuries," he smashed the camera with his
   riot-stick. The stick descending on the camera was the last thing
   recorded in the film. this film, in an edited version, was shown
   in Toronto on television, and, I gathered -- since Canadians
   pride themselves on their orderly British procedure -- made
   rather a bad impression. pp. 263-264

Resistence ceased and action passed to the courts. The judge ruled
that Natives owe allegiance to the Queen.

Chapter Eight, "Growth and Causes of Iroquois Resurgence" (pp. 270
to 289), mentions increasing Native awareness, the Florida
Miccosukees, who unlike the Seminoles (incorporated, leasing land to
farmers and collaborating on a Disneyland project p. 271) face
flooding and dispossession, contacting Mad Bear. In May 1959 the
Hopi contacted the UN about a prophecy and the Hopi also contacted
Mad Bear.

The author points to Native consciousness of the global process of
decolonization and discusses the aristocratic nature of Natives, not
the concern for goods and tidy residences such as some Whites
associate with the word, but that deeper quality of character which
is more significant. A similarity is noted between the lifestyle of
teams of Native steelworkers and traditional hunting bands. Also
considered is the great theme of centralizing bureaucracies and the
rights of people, underlined by the heavy impact of vast engineering
projects on White Americans as well as on Natives with their ancient
treaties. He compares modern engineers and their dams to beavers,
sometimes requiring to be prevented from disturbing human
habitations.

Chapter Nine, "The Little Water Ceremony" (pp. 290-310), describes
this as the most sacred and secret ceremony, tells the associated
legend, quotes an invocation and describes the speed of the rattles
and the quality of the singing. It also states the past and present
importance of the medicine and of the ritual as, "an affirmation of
the will of the Iroquois people, of their vitality, their force to
persist." (p. 310)

From 1960, in a very readable style, the author has splendidly
conveyed the resurgence of this persisting Iroquois vitality.

Michael McKenny June 26-28, 2003 CE


Solarguard Amerindian



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