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
Her second husband, Hiokatoo, she never learned to love. He was a chief
and a warrior, brave and fearless, but though he was always kind to
her, he was a man of blood. He delighted in deeds of cruelty and
delighted to relate them, and now the fire-water had become common, and
the good were made bad and the bad worse, so that dissensions arose in
families and in neighborhoods, and the happiness which had been almost
without alloy, was no longer known among these simple people.
She adds her testimony to that of all travellers and historians
concerning the purity of their lives, having never herself received the
slightest insult from an Indian, and scarcely knowing an instance of
infidelity or immorality. But when they had once tasted of the
maddening draught, the thirst was insatiable, and all they had would be
given for a glass of something to destroy their reason. Now they were
indeed converted into fiends and furies, and sold themselves to swift
destruction. Hiokatoo hesitated at no crime, and took pleasure in every
thing that was dark and terrible, but this was a small trial compared
to those which Mrs. Jewison was called upon to endure from the
intoxication and recklessness of her sons.
Her oldest, the son of Sheninjee, was murdered by John, the son of
Hiokatoo, who afterwards murdered his own brother Jessee, and came to
the same violent death himself by the hands of others. When they came
to be in the midst of temptation there was no restraining principle,
and even after they grew up, her house was the scene of quarrels and
confusion in consequence of their intemperance, and she knew no rest,
from fear of some calamity from the indulgence of their unbridled
passions.
The chiefs of the Seneca nation, to which her second husband belonged,
gave her a large tract of land, and when it became necessary that it
should be secured to her by treaty, she attended the council and plead
her own case. The commissioners, without inquiring particularly
concerning the dimensions of her lots, allowed her to make the
boundaries, and when the document was signed, and she was in firm
possession, it was found that she was the owner of nearly four thousand
acres, of which only a deed in her own handwriting could deprive her.
But though she was rich, she toiled not the less diligently, and
forsook not the sphere of woman in attending to the ways of her
household; and also true to her Indian education, she planted, and
hoed, and harvested, retaining her Indian dress and habits, till the
day of her death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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