French Pathfinders in North America | Page 7

the English. The
Indian name for it was "The Long House," so called because the wide
strip of territory occupied by it was in the shape of one of those oblong
structures in which the people dwelt.
When the five tribes laid aside their strife, the fragments of the
common clans in each re-united in heartiest brotherhood and formed an
eightfold bond of union. On the other hand, the Iroquois waged fierce
and relentless war upon the Hurons and Eries, because, though they
belonged to the same stock, they refused to join the League. This denial
of the sacred tie of blood was regarded by the Iroquois as rank treason,
and they punished it with relentless ferocity, harrying and hounding the
offending tribes to destruction.
Indian government, like Indian society, was just such as had grown up
naturally out of the {29} conditions. It was not at all like government
among civilized peoples. In the first place, there were no written laws
to be administered. The place of these was taken by public opinion and
tradition, that is, by the ideas handed down from one generation to
another and constantly discussed around the camp-fire and the
council-fire. Every decent Indian was singularly obedient to this
unwritten code. He wanted always to do what he was told his fathers
had been accustomed to do, and what was expected of him. Thus there
was a certain general standard of conduct.
Again, the men who ruled, though they were formally elected to office,
had not any authority such as is possessed by our judges and
magistrates, who can say to a man, "Do thus," and compel him to obey

or take the consequences. The influence of Indian rulers was more like
that of leading men in a civilized community: it was chiefly personal
and persuasive, and it was exerted in various indirect ways. If, for
example, it became a question how to deal with a man who had done
something violently opposed to Indian usage or to the interest of the
tribe, there was not anything like an open trial, but the chiefs held a
secret council and discussed the case. If they {30} decided favorably to
the man, that was an end of the matter. On the other hand, if they
agreed that he ought to die, there was not any formal sentence and
public execution. The chiefs simply charged some young warrior with
the task of putting the offender out of the way. The chosen executioner
watched his opportunity, fell upon his victim unawares, perhaps as he
passed through the dark porch of a lodge, and brained him with his
tomahawk. The victim's family or clan made no demand for reparation,
as they would have done if he had been murdered in a private feud,
because public opinion approved the deed, and the whole power of the
tribe would have been exerted to sustain the judgment of the chiefs.
According to our ideas, which demand a fair and open trial for every
accused person, this was most abhorrent despotism. Yet it had one very
important safeguard: it was not like the arbitrary will of a single tyrant
doing things on the impulse of the moment. Indians are eminently
deliberative. They are much given to discussing things and endlessly
powwowing about them. They take no important step without talking it
over for days. Thus, in such a case as has been supposed, there was
general concurrence in the {31} judgment of the chiefs, because they
were understood to have canvassed the matter carefully, and their
decision was practically that of the tribe.
This singular sort of authority was vested in two kinds of men; sachems,
who were concerned with the administration of the tribal affairs at all
times, and war-chiefs, whose duty was limited to leadership in the field.
The sachems, therefore, constituted the real, permanent government. Of
these there were ten chosen in each of the five tribes. Their council was
the governing body of the tribe. In these councils all were nominally
equals. But, naturally, men of strong personality exercised peculiar
power. The fifty sachems of the five tribes composed the Grand

Council which was the governing body of the League. In its
deliberations each tribe had equal representation through its ten
sachems. But the Onondaga nation, being situated in the middle of the
five, and the grand council-fire being held in its chief town, exercised a
preponderating influence in these meetings.
Besides the Grand Council and the tribal council, there were councils
of the minor chiefs, and councils of the younger warriors, and even
councils of the women, for a large part of an Indian's {32} time was
taken up with powwowing. Besides these formal deliberative bodies,
there were gatherings that were a sort of rude mass-meeting. If a
question of