The Iroquois; or, the bright side of Indian characterJohnson, Anna C. (Anna Cummings)
History
The Iroquois; or, the bright side of Indian character
Johnson, Anna C. (Anna Cummings)
Iroquois Indians -- Social life and customs
At one time, when three young men were to suffer death by hanging, and
multitudes were rushing towards the spot, he was met hurrying in an
opposite direction. When asked why he did not go to witness the
execution, he answered, “Fools enough there already; the battle-field
is the place to see men die.” One would certainly think, to witness the
throngs which crowd around the gallows, that neither Christian nor
human feeling filled the breasts of civilized beings.
The efforts were for a long time fruitless to induce Red Jacket to sit
for his portrait. “When Red Jacket dies,” he would say, “all that
belongs to him shall die too.” But at length, an appeal to his vanity
availed, and on being assured that his picture was wanted to hang with
those of Washington and Jefferson, and other great men in the National
Galleries, he consented; and having once broken his resolution, no
longer resisted, and was painted by several artists. The one by Weir is
considered best, and was taken during a visit of the Chief to New York,
in 1828, at the request of Dr. Francis. He dressed himself with great
care in the costume he thought the most becoming and appropriate,
decorated with his brilliant war-dress, his tomahawk, and Washington
medal. He then seated himself in a large arm-chair while around him
groups of Indians were reclining upon the floor. He was more than
seventy years of age at the time, but tall, erect and firm, though with
many of the traces of time and dissipation upon his form and
countenance. He manifested great pleasure as the outlines of the
picture were filled up, and especially when his favorite medal came out
in full relief; and when the picture was finished, started to his feet
and clasped the hand of the artist, exclaiming, “Good! good!”
One who knew him remarks, “That his characteristics are preserved to
admiration, and his majestic front exhibits an altitude surpassing
every other I have ever seen of the human skull.”
His early youth was spent in the beautiful valley of the Genesee; there
were his favorite hunting-grounds, and there his memory loved to
linger. During the strife of wars, and the more bitter strife of
treaties, he had indulged very little in his favorite pastime; and when
a day of comparative quiet came, he, in company with a friend, took his
gun and went forth, in hopes to find a deer for the sport of his rifle.
They had gone but a little distance, when a clearing opened before
them. With a contemptuous sneer, the old man turned aside and wandered
in another direction. In a little while he came to another, and looking
over a fence, he saw a white man holding a plough, which was turning up
the earth in dark furrows over a large field. Again he turned sadly
away, and plunged deeper in the forest, but soon another open field
presented itself; and though he had been all his life oppressed with
the woes of his people, he now for the first time sat down and wept.
There was no longer any hope,—they had wasted away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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