who was a good farmer, housekeeper and mother, fulfilled her whole duty in life. Outside their own society none of these virtues was required. Treachery, murder, and theft in dealing with tribes not in alliance with their own, the Iroquois considered perfectly legitimate. This whole moral code is, as has been pointed out, directly traceable to the economic conditions under which the Iroquois carried on their struggle for existence.1

1Jes. Rel., VIII, 127; X, 175; XXXVIII, 267; LXIII, 201. Lafitau, I, 583. Schoolcraft, "Hist. Ind. Tribes," III, 190, 191. Chadwick, "People of the Longhouse," pp. 122, 123 sq. La Hontan, "Voyages,” II,

110.

CHAPTER V.

THE GENERAL CULTURE OF THE IROQUOIS.

Economic conditions, it has been demonstrated, explain the peculiarities of the family, the state and government, and the religion of the Iroquois. Finally, it is evident that to their life as hunters, or as agriculturists, or as both, may be traced the most striking features of their general culture.

Active life in the open air, the severe military training, and the temperance and self-control necessary in the life of the good hunter and warrior,-all contributed to make the Iroquois, physically, fine specimens of humanity. The men were tall, often six feet in height, well proportioned, with regular features and comparatively light complexions.1 The Hurons, too, were "all well made men of splendid figures, tall, powerful, good-natured, and ablebodied."2 "Their senses," the Jesuit says, "are most perfect,... they have exceedingly acute vision, excellent hearing, an ear for music, and a rare sense of smell. With this sense they frequently discover fire long before seeing it."3 Lafitau adds his testimony to that of the author just quoted. Their sense of orientation, he says, was remarkably strong. It was aided by observation of the trees, whose tops in that region generally lean toward the south, and whose bark is thicker on the north side than on the south.

The observation of the heavenly bodies for purposes of orientation on the hunt or on the war path had led to a certain amount of astronomical knowledge." The Iroquois distinguished between different constellations, and recognized that the stars had a fixed

5 Morgan, “League," pp. 441-442; Lafitau, II, 235 sq.

relation to each other as far as position was concerned. Runners of the Confederacy in autumn and winter directed their course by observation of the Pleiades. They called the group "Te Iiennonniakoua "; i. e. The Dancers. In spring and summer, they took as their guide another group-four stars at the angles of a rhombus, which they called the Loon. The Polar Star was, however, their main guide on their journeys. "They call the Polar Star 'Iateonattenties' (the star which never moves). . . . It is this polar star which directs them in their journeys," says Lafitau. Venus, or the Morning Star, they knew and called "Te Ouentenhaouitlia" (She brings the day). The Milky Way they called "The Road of Souls." The Great Bear was also recognized by the Iroquois, and called, curiously enough, the Bear—(Okonari). In short, the Iroquois may be said to have known just as much siderial astronomy as was useful to them as hunters and warriors: further knowledge they neither needed nor possessed.

The needs of their life as hunters and warriors, determined also the limits of the Iroquois medical learning. Since feeble members of the population were not likely to survive the period of infancy, and since there was but little opportunity to nurse and care for any one seriously ill; the Iroquois confined their attention to those suffering from simple and temporary maladies, or from injuries whose cause and cure were not difficult to ascertain. Hence a knowledge of the efficacy of certain roots and herbs in curing wounds and simple diseases was all that they possessed of the science of medicine.1 In the preparation and use of these simple natural remedies certain persons were more skilled than others, but as yet no special class of physicians had been formed. The Iroquois apothecary was, in fact, a hunter and warrior, or an agriculturist like any other clan member.

Some slight knowledge of certain great natural laws had been gained by the Iroquois as a result of agricultural experience.

1

Complicated diseases were handed over to the sorcerer to be cured by magic arts. Jes. Rel., XIII, 27, note 3; XVII, 211 sq.; XXXIII, 203. The principle of the Turkish bath; i. e. the sweat-lodge, was the remedy most frequently used for simple ailments. Lafitau, II, 371–372, 374.

Although not yet an exclusively maize-growing people, they nevertheless were dependent enough upon their crops not only to feel the effect of the law of diminishing returns of land, but also to make intelligent efforts to hinder its working. There is considerable evidence that they understood and put into practice the principle of the rotation of crops,—sowing beans, for instance, in a field where corn had been grown the previous year.1 Probably, like the New England Indians, they also recognized the necessity of letting worn out fields lie fallow for a year or two before resowing. To what extent the Iroquois understood the value of fertilizers does not seem clear. Most writers say nothing about the matter; which silence, together with the fact that the village had to move to new lands every dozen or so years, leads to the conclusion that very little was done in this direction. The practice of burning over the fields every autumn, preparatory to sowing in the spring, undoubtedly enriched the ground; but the farmers themselves probably thought of it chiefly as an easy way of clearing the ground of stubble, weeds, and brush, rather than as a means of fertilizing the soil. Lescarbot, however, in speaking generally of the Indians of the Atlantic Coast, says that they fertilize their fields with shells; and Hennepin says explicitly that the Iroquois were no exception to the rule. "The Iroquois," he says, "manure a great deal of ground for sowing their Indian

5

corn." It seems likely that the Iroquois had some idea of intensive methods of agriculture, though this was not yet sufficiently developed to allow them permanently to use the same fields. Such extended knowledge was, in fact, not yet necessary. Iroquois had plenty of room in which to move about; they used

'La Potherie, III, 18-19.

2

The

Champlain, p. 84-"Il y avait aussi plusieurs champs qui n'étaient point cultivés, d'autant qu'ils laissent reposer les terres; et quand il y veuleut semer, ils mettent le feu dans les herbes, et puis labourent avec leurs bêches de bois."

3 Beauchamp, N. Y. St. Mus. Bul., No. 16, p. 54.

'Lescarbot, II, 834.-"Tous ces peuples engraissent leurs champs de coquillages de poissons."

5 Hennepin, "A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America,” I, 18 (London, 1698).

a great deal of wood for fuel, and so found it convenient to go from place to place in order always to be near an abundant supply; and lastly, their hunting and fishing habits made them not averse to changing their location as game grew scarce near the old site.

The fact that they were partly a hunting and partly an agricultural people accounts for the double basis upon which the Iroquois formed their calendar. Much of the activity of the hunter and warrior is carried on at night, when the stars are the travellers' sign posts; furthermore, the hunting season is a comparatively elastic period, not compressed absolutely into a few months, but extended more or less throughout a large part of the year: therefore hunters adopt the simple and obvious method of computing time by nights rather than by days, and by lunar months rather than by the movement of the earth around the sun. Agriculturists, however, carry on their labors only by day, and during a fixed period of the year; to them the solstices and the succession of the seasons in which field operations go on or are intermitted, are facts of primary importance: hence, while the hunter divides the year into lunar months, the agriculturist divides it into seasons, reckoned according to a solar calendar. The Iroquois, as might be expected, used both the sun and the moon calendar. In ordinary affairs of hunting, fishing, and war, they computed time by nights and lunar months, twelve "moons" making up their year but for purposes of agriculture, they also reckoned by seasons, marking their recurrence by great festivals. According to Lafitau, they sometimes reckoned by solar months, for which

1

2

Schoolcraft, "Hist. Ind. Tribes," V, 171.

2 Lafitau, II, 225 sq. "Ils comptent ordinairement par les nuits. . . Plûtôt que par les jours; par les mois lunaires plûtôt que par ceux du soleil. . . . Cependant cette manière de compter est subordonnée au cours du soleil, qui sert a regler leurs années, les quelles sont partagées en quatre saisons comme les notres, et sont divisées en douze mois. La manière de compter par les lunes, n'est pas même si universelle, qu'ils ne comptent aussi par les années solaires. Je crois avoir remarqué que l'une et l'autre manière de compter est affectée à certaines choses, et qu'en d'autres occasions elles s'employent indifférement. . . . Les années solaires sont destinées à marquer l'âge des hommes. Ils comptent de la même façon pour toutes les choses éloignées, qui renferment une période de temps assez longue. . . . Ils comptent au contraire par les Lunes et par les nuits,