he greeted and entertained the chance stranger who entered his domain. Everything which hospitality could prompt was done to promote his pleasure and contribute to his comfort, while to offer renumeration for these services was considered an affront which the pride of the Indian could scarcely brook. The Indian did not understand the custom of the white man in this respect, so different was it from the timehonored usages of his people.

When Canassatego made that famous speech, objecting to the sale of certain of their lands to the white men, he touched upon various differences and said, reproaching the white man bitterly for his want of courtesy: "If a white man travels through our country, enters one of our cabins, we all treat him as I do you. We dry him if he is wet, we warm him if he is cold, and we give him meat and drink that he may allay his hunger and thirst. We spread soft furs that he may rest and sleep upon. We demand nothing in return, but if I go into a white man's house in Albany, and ask food and drink, he says, 'Where is your money?' and if I say, 'I have none,' he says, 'Get out, you Indian dog!""

The Indians were fully as generous among themselves as toward strangers. They had no regular meals in the day after the first, but whenever one Indian called on another, no matter how often or what the occasion, the host was obliged by custom to

place a meal before him, and, if the guest refused to partake, the host was insulted. The corn bread or cakes, already referred to, doubtless formed part of this repast, and hence the offering was called the "cake of custom."

When a bride first entered her mother-in-law's house, she always carried a loaf of corn-bread as a sample of her housewifely skill, and as an earnest of her good intentions to contribute to the happiness of the household.

The liberality of the Indian toward the white man was destroyed by the greed of the latter, which prompted him finally to abuse the hospitality extended, and thus undermined the confidence and goodwill of the friendly red man. The untutored savage himself was not more treacherous or cunning than the wily adventurer, who to accomplish his own chosen ends, planted the seeds of suspicion and distrust, alike in the heart of the credulous native and of the determined settler, and to whom more than to any other are due the long, dark years of cruel Indian warfare, in which finally the hand of one tribe was raised against another, and the extinction of the Six Nations was complete.

CHAPTER IV.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ASPECT.

"Let us for a moment conceive that this continent had been left to work out its life and progress by the elements which were found here among the original inhabitants.... Can we find anywhere else among people styled uncivilized, any who exhibited so many qualities of which civilization boasts itself, and so many of the conditions to which free nations trace their greatness?"

Hon. Ellis H. Roberts.

The farther back we go among the barbaric peoples of the earth for evidence of social customs and usages, the more independent do we find the individual of his fellow-man. The savage in his rudest state covers poles with hemlock boughs, and calls it a house. He kills an animal, the flesh serves as food and the skin for apparel. He seeks a living spring for water and wild fruits provide him with refreshment. Thus Nature makes physical existence possible with comparatively little effort from the individual himself, and without necessary intercourse with his fellow

men.

When, however, the mental powers begin to develop, the need of companionship becomes greater, and the higher a nation advances in civilization, the greater is the dependence of one individual upon each and all of the others, until in the advancement attained by the highest civilization of to-day we find such a complex combination of forces contributing their numerous influences to our welfare, that it is hard to believe such a state of things has been evolved through a development of the mental powers of what was at first a merely physical being.

of the Iroquois.

The Iroquois nation, as has already been stated, Civilization had a civilization which exceeded anything found elsewhere on the continent. Here on virgin soil, with no historic examples of fallen empires to emulate or shun, they established a confederacy which called forth the wisest statesmanship and keenest manoeuvering of France and England to overthrow. As one writer has said, "They ran in conquest farther than Greek arms were ever carried, and to distances which Rome surpassed only in the days of her culminating glory."

They had evolved also a social system, sufficient for and well adapted to their mode of life. This system combined in some respects the advantages of a republic with those of a monarchy, while it guarded with jealous care the freedom and liberty which are

as deeply inherent in American soil as the springs of living water or the granite rocks from which they rise. Jefferson once said in behalf of the colonists during the struggle with England, "These Americans are perfectly convinced that man is born free, and that no power on earth has any right to restrict his liberty, while nothing can make up for its loss." When the British were urging Garangula to yield to them on behalf of the Six Nations, he replied, "We are born free; we depend neither on Yonondio nor on Corlear,-neither on France or on England." La Hontau, a Frenchman writes, "They look on themselves as sovereigns accountable to none save God, whom they call the Great Spirit."

The land was held in common, and the positions of Chief, Queen, etc., were hereditary; but each individual character was allowed to develop to its fullest extent, and the humblest brave among them might in his old age be the most trusted in war or honored as the wisest in council-the compeer of his chief.

The pleasant work of hunting and fishing were common to all. We find nothing to indi- Occupations. cate that the ordinary occupations, such as farming, curing of skins, braiding mats, moulding rude pottery, etc., were not shared alike, but when the task called for superior skill, then there are repeated instances where the work was assigned to him whose