Westward with the Prince of WalesNewton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
History
Westward with the Prince of Wales
Newton, W. Douglas (Wilfrid Douglas)
Canada -- Description and travel; Windsor, Edward, Duke of, 1894-1972
This is not to say that the welcome given him by Canadians was not a
great one. As a matter of fact, it was astonishing, and it was
difficult to imagine how a small town like this could pack its streets
with so many people. But Brantford is industrial and scientific also,
as well as being Indian. After a strenuous reception, for instance,
the Prince went along to the statue that shrines the town's claim to a
place in the history of science. This was the memorial to Dr. Bell,
who lived in Brantford and who invented the first telephone in
Brantford. They will even show you the trees from which the first line
over which the first spoken message sent, was strung.
But the colourful ceremonies of Brantford were those connected with the
Mohawks. The Prince was taken out to the small, old wooden chapel that
George III. erected for his loyal Mohawk allies. It is the oldest
Protestant chapel in the Dominion. On its walls are painted prayers in
Mohawk, and it contains an old register that King Edward had signed in
1861. The Prince added his own signature to this before going into the
churchyard to see the grave of Joseph Brant.
In the little enclosure before the church were the youngest descendants
of the loyal Joseph Brant: ranks of Mohawk boys in khaki, and small
Mohawk girls in red and grey. They sang to the Prince in their own
language, a singular guttural tongue rendered with an almost abnormal
stoicism. The children did not move a muscle of lips or face as they
chanted; it might have been a song rendered by graven images.
In the main square of Brantford the Prince was elected chief of the Six
Nations. This ceremony was carried out upon a raised and beflagged
platform about which a vast throng of pale-faces gathered. Becoming a
chief of the Six Nations is no light matter. It is a thing that must
be discussed in full with all ceremonies and accurate minutes. The
pow-wow on the platform was rather long. Chiefs rose up and debated at
leisure in the Iroquois tongue, while the pale-faces in the square, at
first quite patient, began to demand in loud voices:
"We want our Prince. We want our Prince."
And to be truthful, not merely the pale-faces found the ceremony
lengthy. Gathered on the platform were a number of Mohawk girls,
delicate and pretty maidens, with the warmth of their race's colour
glowing through the soft texture of their cheeks. They were there
because they had thrown flowers in the pathway of the Prince. At first
they were interested in this olden ceremony of their old race. Then
they began to talk of the wages they were drawing in extremely modern
Canadian stores and factories. Then they looked at the ceremony again,
at the clothes the Indians wore, at the romance and colour of it, and
they said, one to another:
"Say, why have those guys dressed up like that? What's it all about,
anyhow? What's the use of this funny old business?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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