Notes on the Iroquois: or, Contributions to the Statistics, Aboriginal History, Antiquities and General Ethnology of Western New-YorkSchoolcraft, Henry Rowe
History
Notes on the Iroquois: or, Contributions to the Statistics, Aboriginal History, Antiquities and General Ethnology of Western New-York
Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe
Indians of North America -- New York (State); Iroquois Indians
It cannot be said that the Iroquois cantons of New-York have as yet,
any productive commerce, arts and manufactures. They are, to some
extent, producers; furnish a few mechanics, and give employment to,
and own a few lumber mills; but it is believed, while some of the
bands, and at least one of the entire cantons, namely, the Tuscaroras,
raise more grain and stock, than is sufficient for their own full
subsistence, the average of the agricultural products of the whole
people is not more, at the most favorable view, than is necessary for
their annual subsistence. If so, they add nothing to the productive
industry of the State. But it is gratifying to know that they are
at least able to live upon their own means; and their condition and
improvement is (certainly within the era of the temperance movement
among them,) decidedly progressive and encouraging. They have reached
the point in industrial progress, where it is only necessary to go
forward. Numbers of families are eminently entitled to the epithet of
good practical farmers, and are living, year in and year out, in the
midst of agricultural affluence. That the proportion of individuals,
thus advanced, is as considerable as the census columns denote it
to be, is among the favorable features of the enquiry. There would
appear to be no inaptitude for mechanical ingenuity, but hitherto,
the proportion of their actual number who have embraced the arts, is,
comparatively, very limited, not exceeding, at most, two or three to a
tribe, and the effort has hitherto been confined to silversmiths,[4]
blacksmiths, carpenters and coopers. A single instance of a wheelwright
and fancy wagon maker occurs.
[4] The Iroquois, in adopting our costume, have transferred their
ancient love of silver amulets, frontlets, and other barbaric
ornaments, to their guns and tomahawks, which are frequently richly
inlaid with the shining metal, worked with great skill into the richest
devices. They also fashion beautiful ear rings of silver for their
women.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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