Cayuga.

(M.)
Letter from Mr. Richard U. Shearman to Henry R. Schoolcraft.

Vernon, October 4th, 1845.

Sir: I completed the enumeration of the Oneida Indians some days ago, but delayed sending a return to you to ascertain the Indian names. It doubtless contains all the information you require at this particular time. Several families are included in the marshal’s enumeration of the inhabitants of the town of Vernon. The remainder reside in Madison county.

The houses of these Indians are generally much better than the log houses of the whites, being constructed of hewn, even jointed logs, with shingle roofs and good windows. There are three good frame houses belonging to them;—one of these is a very handsome one, belonging to Skenado. I noticed in it some tasty fringed window curtains and good carpets. The Indians whom you met at Oneida were the flower of the tribe, being mostly farmers, who raise a sufficiency of produce for their comfortable support. There are several heads of families in my list, who cultivate no land of their own, but gain a subsistence by chopping wood and performing farm labor for others.

The whole number of families, I make, as you will perceive, 31. The whole number of houses I believe is but 28, but in each of these houses I found two families. The number of persons is 157. The count of last winter, which made 180 souls, was made with reference to retaining a certain amount of missionary funds, and Mr. Stafford, the Indian attorney, tells me it was made too high. Skenado says the tribe in this State numbers just 200 souls, of whom 40 are with the Onondagas.

Vernon, December 16th, 1845.

“I have filled up your Indian vocabulary to-day. I wrote down the words as they were given to me by one Johnson, a pretty intelligent man, who sometimes acts as interpreter. My orthography may be somewhat at fault, owing to my limited knowledge of the Indian manner of sounding the letters of the English alphabet. In general, I have endeavored to spell the words according to their sound in English, though the letter a is used often as in the English, and often to express the sound of ah! With this exception, and the use of hon, han and hun, to express a sound of which nothing in the English can convey an accurate impression, the spelling accords with the pronunciation. The Indian from whom I obtained the information informs me he knows of no words in his language to express such large numbers as thousands and millions. I have, therefore, in the cases of those numbers, filled the blanks with the Indian for ten hundred and ten hundred thousand; that is, in the latter case, ten hundred ten hundreds.

“I hope the table will be satisfactory, and that it may be of aid to you in making the comparison between the languages which you desire.

“Believe me, your friend, &c.
“RICHARD U. SHEARMAN.”

Oneida.

The preceding part of this vocabulary, taken by myself, together with the entire vocabularies of the Onondaga and the Seneca, which are necessary to render the comparison complete, are omitted.

(N.)
Letter from Mr. D. E. Walker to Henry R. Schoolcraft.

Batavia, July 26th, 1845.

Mr. Schoolcraft: I have visited the mound on Dr. Noltan’s farm. Nothing of great importance can be learned from it. I should think it about fifty rods from the creek, and elevated, perhaps, some eight feet above the general level of the ground.

A similar one is also found about two miles south of this, and, as is this, it is on high ground, of circular form, and with a radius of about one rod. They were discovered about thirty or thirty-five years since. Nothing has been found in them, save human bones. The first, some nine or ten years since, was nearly all ploughed up and scraped into the road.

It is said that “sculls, arms and legs were seen on fences, stumps and the high-way for a long time after they were drawn into the road.”

On, some two miles beyond the second was discovered a burial-ground. At that place were ploughed up shell, bone, or quill-beads. Near this place was found a brown earthen pot, standing between the roots of a large tree, (maple, they think) and with a small sapling grown in it, to some six inches in diameter. Beads of shell, bone or porcupine quills have often been found. I would have remarked, that on the first mound stood a hickory-tree some two feet through. There is also a ridge at the termination of high ground; I say a ridge, it appeared to me to be a regular fortification. It is, I should judge from thirty to forty feet in length. It would appear that the ground was dug down from some distance back, and wheeled to the termination of high ground, until a bank is thrown up to a height of some fifteen or twenty feet. This ridge, some think to be natural; others, from the fact that a smooth stone, about the size and shape of a pestle, was found in it, think it to be artificial. Perhaps other relics may have been found in it that would show it to be an artificial formation. All I could learn (and I rode about seven miles out of my way to converse with an old inhabitant) was, that this pestle was found in the ridge, and within three or four feet of its surface.

We may, perhaps, infer something from the size of an underjaw found here, which is said to have been so large as to much more than equal that of the largest face in the country.

Respectfully.
D. E. WALKER.

(O.)
Letter from H. C. Van Schaack, Esq. to Henry R. Schoolcraft.

Manlius, July 18th, 1845.

Dear Sir: Yours of yesterday from Jamesville is received. Its enclosure is the first intimation I have of having been chosen a corresponding member of the N. Y. Historical Society. I shall be happy to advance the objects of the Society.

I regret that you have not found it convenient to call, I hope you will still conclude to come. In the interim, I am convinced that Mr. C. can advance your objects better than I can; he has read several addresses on these subjects before the Literary Associations here and at Syracuse within two years past.

I have a collection of interesting papers (found among my father’s papers at Kinderhook) relating chiefly to Indian affairs during the first half of the last century in the colony of New-York. These I am arranging, at my leisure, for the purpose of presentation to the N. Y. H. Society. I hope also to be able to send some papers of my father’s which will advance the object of the society in rescuing the Indian names on the east banks of the Hudson from oblivion, and which last I had intended to forward to the Society through you. But I must take my time to effect those objects.

Excuse the haste with which this letter is written, as I have only this moment received your letter, and I do not wish to lose a mail.

Respectfully yours.

Manlius, Nov. 22nd, 1845.

Dear Sir: I forwarded to Mr. Gibbs, the librarian, a few days ago a volume containing various MSS. selected from my father’s papers, relating chiefly to our aboriginal history, and about which I wrote you some time ago. You will find among them the journal of Conrad Weiser, Indian interpreter, giving an account of a visit to the Six Nations in 1745, at which time he accompanied the Senecas to Oswego, on their way to pay a visit to the Governor of Canada. You will also find among the papers, the original minutes of the Grand Council at Albany, in 1745, at which were present commissioners from Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New-York, with Governors from several of those States and the Sachems of the Six Nations. I think you will be interested in some of the papers. When I visit Kinderhook again, I hope to be able to make some additions to the contribution I have made to the Society. Many of the old papers relating to land trials, contain matter throwing light upon Indian names of objects and places. I, however, despair of ever seeing anything like a completeness of that description.

Respectfully yours,
H. C. VAN SCHAACK.

(P.)
Letter from L. T. Morgan, Esq., to H. R. Schoolcraft.

Rochester, October 7, 1845.

Sir—You have doubtless seen a notice of the great council of the Six Nations, recently held at Tonawanda. We call it great, because we never saw any thing of the kind before, and perhaps never will again. Three of us started in season, and spent the whole of last week in attendance, and were also joined by Mr. Hurd, a delegate from Cayuga. We were there before the council opened, and left after the fire was raked up. Our budget of information is large, and overthrows some of our past knowledge, and on the whole, enlarges our ideas of the vastness and complexity of this Indian fabric. We are a great way from the bottom yet; we may never reach it, but what we do bring up to the surface, remunerates richly for the search.

We learn that at the establishment of the confederacy, fifty sachemships were founded, and a name assigned to each, which they are still known by, and which names every sachem of the several sachemdoms, from the beginning to the present time, has borne. There were also fifty sub-sachems, or aids; that is, to every sachem was given a sub-sachem to stand behind him—in a word, to do his bidding. These sachemships are still confined to the five nations; the Tuscaroras were never permitted to have any. They are unequally divided among the five nations, the Onondagas having as many as fourteen. The eight original tribes or families still hold to be correct, as we had it, but each tribe did not have a sachem. In some of the tribes were two or three, in others none. As the English would say the Howard family had a peerage in it, so would the Indians say that a certain tribe or clan had one or two or no sachemships running in it. The idea seems to be that the sachem did not preside over a tribe, as that would leave some tribes destitute; but the nine Oneida sachems, for instance, ruled the Oneida nation conjointly, and when the nations met in council, would represent it. The fifty sachems were the only official characters known at the councils of the confederacy. The sub-sachems and chiefs had nothing to say. And unanimity, as in the Polish diet, was always necessary. Over this council, the Tha-do-da-hoh, or great sachem of the confederacy, presided. He was always taken from the Onondagas, as we heretofore supposed; but what is very important, it is denied that there was any such officer as a Tokarihogea, or military chieftain over the confederacy. They recognize no such office, and deny that Brant was any thing but a chief, or an officer of the third and lowest class. I sifted this matter thoroughly, in conversations with Blacksmith, La Fort, Capt. Frost, and Dr. Wilson, a Cayuga, and am satisfied that the Tha-do-da-hoh115 was the chief ruler of the Iroquois, and that they had no other. We fell into this error by following Stone, who in the Life of Brant, pretends to establish in him the title of war chieftain or Tokarihogea of the confederacy. In relation to the head warriors or military leaders of the nations, there is still some obscurity. The Seneca nation has two, but the other nations none. The truth is, the learning, if we may so call it, of the Iroquois is in the hands of a few, and it is very difficult to reach it, as those who are the most learned are the most inveterate Indians, and the least communicative.

Their laws of descent are quite intricate. They follow the female line, and as the children always follow the tribe of the mother, and the man never is allowed to marry in his own tribe, it follows that the father and son are never of the same tribe, and hence the son can never succeed the father, because the sachemship runs in the tribe of the father. It really is quite surprising to find such permanent original institutions among the Iroquois, and still more surprising that these institutions have never seen the light. If I can construct a table of descents with any approach to accuracy, I will send it down to the Historical Society. The idea at the foundation of their law of descent, is quite a comment upon human nature. The child must be the son of the mother, though he may not be of his mother’s husband—quite and absolutely an original code.

The object of this council was to “raise up sachems” in the place of those who had died. It would require more room than twenty letters would furnish to explain what we saw and heard—the mode of election and deposition—the lament for the dead—the wampum—the two sides of the council fire, &c. &c., and the other ceremonies connected with raising up sachems; also the dances, the preaching, the feast.

We were well received by the Indians, and they seemed disposed to give us whatever information we desired on the religious system of the Iroquois, their marriage and burial rites, &c. Faithfully,

L. T. MORGAN.

NOTE.

In Mr. Cusick’s statement of his labors, he states that he has been instrumental in forming three churches, consisting of two hundred members; but he omits noticing the locality and separate number of these churches. The church over which he presides, at Tuscarora, constitutes a part, but I am not able to say what part of the number. He probably includes the Tonewanda church in the estimate; but, from this uncertainty, it was impossible to bring either definitely into the column of “church members.” A reference in the appropriate column of the returns from Buffalo, denotes this church also to be “incomplete,” as no return from the missionary, Mr. Wright, has been received, and the interpreter, Mr. Pierce, who filled up the returns for that station, dropped this column, after inserting five names, under the belief that the information would be given, and better given, by the missionary himself.

Mr. Hall, of Alleghany, returns one more school than appears in the column of schools, an error which was not detected till the proof sheets had been returned; nor is it known whether this includes the schools kept by the Society of Friends on that reservation, no information having been received from their local teacher, who was, however, verbally requested to state the number of his pupils.

In the pamphlet of this Society, on Seneca affairs, issued at Baltimore, in 1845, the number of pupils under their charge, on the Cattaraugus reservation, is stated at 107, and it is added, that an incipient boarding school for girls had been attempted.

It is not known whether, in the four schools reported by Mr. Bliss, at this reservation, the teachers and labors of the Society of Friends are included.

Mr. Rockwood, of Tuscarora, states that there is but one school on that reservation.

In the column of octogenarians, a typographical error gives the Tonewandas twenty-five instead of ten persons who had reached that age.

In filling up the column headed “persons who adhere to the native religion,” the rule was to deduct from the total population, all who were reported as members of any Christian denomination.

Errata in the text, typographical and critical, which it was impossible to avoid, in the haste of a legislative publication, made in due course, there has been no opportunity to notice here, and it is hoped the proper consideration will be made.