It must not be forgotten that from the missionaries of France, who had at various times lived among the Indians for over a hundred years, and from the traders, gunsmiths, and friendly whites of various disposition and ability, supported by the British government, the Iroquois Indians had reached a comparatively high point of progress. Even when the white men first met them these federated warriors were the most advanced of all others within the limits of the United States. They had their own myths and legends. They met in council and had orators to argue both sides of a question or proposal. They sent embassies from one tribe to another, and these envoys were very ceremonious and careful in dress and etiquette. When they made a treaty of peace they solemnly buried the hatchet and smoked the calumet, or pipe of friendship. To dig up the same weapon meant war. Instead of our letters, seals, and documents of paper and parchment, they used wampum made of shells drilled and laced together, which in belts or strings served as money, as messages, as historical records. Some of the Indian orators, Logan, Red Jacket and others, were very famous. To become such these men practiced elocution and rhetoric very much the same as do our public speakers. As the Iroquois raised and stored corn and other vegetable foods, they were able to wage systematic war and go on long campaigns. Thus they excelled and conquered the other savages. When they left the stone age, by obtaining guns from Europeans, their lust of conquest was fired more than ever. When the white men of Pennsylvania and Virginia paid the Indians for lands, the avarice of the Iroquois was still further excited. Many tribes, even as far as Canada and the Mississippi Valley, were vassals of the confederacy. In the Iroquois we see the highest type of pagan man. Our debt to the Indian is very great. He taught our fathers the use of tobacco, maple sugar, corn, succotash and various methods of getting food, besides the use of the birch bark canoe, the moccasin, and the snow shoe. The Iroquois method of raising corn was very ingenious. On the lands in river valleys this was easy enough, yet they could win crops even in the forest. This they did by “girdling.” They cut round the tree trunk near the ground, and again about ten feet higher, and then stripped off the bark between the spaces girdled by the knife or hatchet. This caused the tree to wither and the leaves to fall, quickly letting in the sunshine on the ground. Thus, the Indian without the trouble of chopping down the trees and clearing the land got at once the benefit of the soil. In the autumn, by burning the underbrush and trees, the ground was enriched and the space easily cleared for next year’s crop. In almost every Iroquois village there were store houses made of bark or timber, in which the grain was saved.