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
The aged woman sat pillowed up in bed with her children and children’s
children of three generations around her, and lifting her withered
hands and sunken eyes to heaven, once more repeated, “Our Father, who
art in heaven,” while a new light, like a halo, overspread her face,
tears flowed in floods down her cheeks, and in the dark eye of every
listener there glistened the tear of sympathy in her new-found
happiness.
For many years she remembered her mother’s injunction, and repeated the
words of the prayer and the catechism; but as she became more
thoroughly familiar with the language, and could join in the
thanksgivings of her new people, she ceased to care for the faith of
her fathers. Yet it was the connecting link between her and those who
were called Christians, and the sole means of enabling her to revive
and easily acquire the knowledge of her native tongue. Without this the
missionaries could not have communicated with her, as they had not then
learned the Seneca, and those around her who understood both, cared
very little, and knew scarcely more than she, of the Redeemer of whom
she wished to hear.
When asked if she regretted that she had not consented to be exchanged,
and returned to her mother’s friends, she still said, no. She loved the
Indians—she loved them better than white people. They had been kind to
her, and provided generously for her youth and her old age, and her
children would inherit an abundance from the avails of the lands and
herds and flocks which were her sole possessions. Alas! she did not
know that the money she had deposited in the hands of the agent to be
invested for the benefit of her family, was wickedly squandered by him,
so that not a single cent ever reached their hands. [8] She was rich,
but they were miserably poor, and he who thus defrauded her was of the
same blood, and hesitated not to take advantage of her because she had
grown up among an unsuspicious people, who knew not how to redress
their wrongs. Her adopted brethren had honored her above the women of
their own nations—she had received good, and not evil, all the days of
her life; she belonged to a race they had every reason to hate—a race
who had trampled them as their legend said the mammoth buffaloes
trampled the forests in their march, and yet they had respected her,
and loved her, and honored her. And hers was not the only instance of
such kindness; it is not she alone who bears testimony to their
virtues, to their magnanimity, their truly Christian spirit of
forgiveness, their purity, their meekness, their long-suffering, and
their brotherly love, ere they were wronged and contaminated by the
vices of their enemies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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