Traditions of the North American Indians (Vol. 1-3). James Athearn Jones

quarrels and disturbances, which in the end might lead to wars between the Lenape and the distant tribes who were friendly to them, for which purpose they privately murdered people on one or the other side, seeking to make the injured party believe that some particular nation or individual had been the aggressor. They left a war-club painted as the Lenape paints his²⁷ in the country of the Cherokees, where they purposely committed a murder, and that people, deceived by appearances, fell suddenly on the Lenape, and a bloody and devastating war ensued between the two nations. They frequently stole into the country of the Lenape and their associates, committing murders and making off with plunder. Their treachery having at length been discovered, the Lenape marched with a powerful force into their country to destroy them. Finding that they were no match for the brave Delawares, Thannawage, an aged and wise Mohawk, called the different tribes of the Mengwe to the great council-fire. "You see," said he, "how easily the sons of our grandfather overcome us in battle. Their pole is strung full of the scalps of our nation, while ours has but here one and there one. This must not be; the last man of the Mengwe is not yet prepared to die. We must become united, the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagos, the Cayugas, and the Senecas, must become one people; they must move together in the conflict, they must smoke in one pipe, and eat their meat in one lodge." The people listened to the words of Thannawage, and the five nations became one people.

      Still, though united they did not prevail over the Lenape and their connexions; the latter were most usually victorious. While these wars were at their greatest height, and when neither could decidedly pronounce themselves conquerors, the Bigknives arrived in Canada, and a war commenced between them and the confederated Iroquois. Thus placed between two fires, and in danger of being exterminated, they resorted to their old cunning and knavery. They sent a deputation of their principal warriors, with the sacred calumet (1) and the belt of peace, to the sons of their grandfather. But they appeared not to wish for peace, but to be guided by wisdom and compassion alone, and to be fearful only of being considered as cowards. "A warrior," said they, "with the bloody weapon in his hand should never intimate, a desire for peace, or hold pacific language to his enemies. He should shew throughout a determined courage, and appear as ready and willing to fight as at the beginning of the contest. Will a man who would not be thought a liar threaten and sue in the same breath; will he hold the peace-belt in one hand, and smoke the unpainted calumet, while his other hand grasps a tomahawk? Will he strike his breast, and say 'I am brave and fearless,' yet shew that he is a mocking-bird? No, men's actions should be of a piece with their words, whether good or bad; good cannot come out of evil, neither can the brave man feel faint-hearted, or the fawn become a tiger. The Mengwe were brave: they would not abase themselves in the eyes of the Lenape by admitting that they were vanquished, or proposing peace. They made use of their women to soften the hearts of our nation. They said to their wives and the wives of the Lenape, Are you tired of the fathers of your children?—to the mothers, Does the Lenape hate her sons?—to our young women, Do the eyes of the maidens turn with aversion from the youths of your nation? if the wife is tired of her husband, if the mother hate her sons, if the dark-eyed maiden feels no grief when the Lenape youth goes forth to battle and certain death, nor sheds a tear when he paints his face, and dresses his hair, and fills his quiver with arrows, then let them remain silent, and the messengers of the Mengwe will return to their nation."

      The women to whom they spoke were moved by the eloquence of the treacherous Iroquois, and they persuaded the enraged combatants to bury their hatchets, and make the tree of peace grow tall and firm-rooted. They lamented, with great feeling and many tears, the loss which their country had sustained in these wars: there was not a woman among them who had not lost a son, or a brother, or a father, or a husband. They described the sorrows of bereaved mothers and widowed wives; the pains mothers endured ere they were permitted to behold their offspring; the anxieties attending the progress of their sons from infancy to manhood, from the cradle to the hour when they chewed the bitter root, and put on new mocassins; these unavoidable evils they had borne: but, after all these trials, how cruel it was, they said, to see those promising youths reared with so much care, and so tenderly beloved, fall victims to the insatiable rage of war, and a prey to the relentless cruelty of their enemies. "See them slaughtered," cried they, with tears and groans, "on the field of battle. See them put to death as prisoners by a protracted torture, and in the midst of lingering torments. Hark, the death-cries! 'Tis the Iroquois, 'tis the Delawares, 'tis the Delawares returning from battle! I see the beautiful young warriors among them, crowned with flowers, their faces painted black, and their arms tied with cords. Hark! they are singing their death-song. 'I am brave and intrepid, I do not fear death, I care not for tortures. Those who fear them are less than women. I was bred a warrior; my father never knew fear, and I am his son.' Then we behold them surrounded with flames, their flesh torn from their bones, the skin of their head peeled off, coals heaped thereon, and sharp thorns driven into their flesh. The thought of such scenes makes us curse our own existence, and shudder at the thought of bringing children into the world."

      Again they gave utterance to loud lamentation and wailing for the unavoidable separation they were doomed to experience from their husbands. The men they had selected for their partners, who were to protect and feed them, to cherish and make them happy, left them exposed to hunger and a thousand enemies, while they courted dangers in distant regions. Or, if they followed their husbands, they were exposed in a greater degree than those husbands themselves to the risks attending the perilous warfare.

      Then the young maidens took up the song, and painted the share of sorrows which fell to them. Often, when beloved by a youthful hunter, their hearts were doomed to wither in the pang of an eternal separation. The eyes they so loved to look upon were soon to be deprived of their lustre—the step so noble, fearless, and commanding led them but to death. They called passionately upon their countrymen and upon the Iroquois to put a stop to war. They conjured them, by every thing that was dear to them, to take pity on the sufferings of their wives and helpless infants, their weeping mothers, and beloved maidens; to turn their faces once more towards their homes, families, and friends; to forgive the wrongs each nation had suffered from the other, lay aside their weapons, and smoke together in the pipe of peace and amity. They had each given sufficient proofs of courage; the contending nations were alike high-minded and brave: why should they not embrace as friends who had been respected as enemies?

      Thus spoke the women, at the prompting of the artful Mengwe; it is not necessary to say that they were listened to. The Delawares at length came to believe that it would be an honour to a powerful nation, who could not be suspected of wanting either courage or strength, with arms in their hands and recent victory perched on the staff of their nation, to assume that station by which they would be the means, and the only means, of saving the Indian race from utter extirpation.

      To the voice of the women the artful Mengwe added many arguments, which were of weight with the unsuspecting Delawares, and many pleas addressed to their generosity. There remained, they said, no resource for them but that some magnanimous nation should assume the part and situation of the woman(2).

      It could not be given to a weak and contemptible tribe; such would not be listened to: it must be given to a valiant and honoured tribe, and such were the Delawares—one who should command influence and respect. As men, they had been justly dreaded; as women, they would be respected and honoured; none would be so daring or base as to attack or insult them; as women, they would have a right to interfere in all the quarrels of other nations, and to stop or prevent the effusion of Indian blood. They entreated them, therefore, to become the woman in name and in fact; to lay down their arms and all the insignia of warriors; to devote themselves to planting corn and other pacific pursuits, and thus become the means of preserving peace and harmony among the nations.

      Unhappily, our nation listened to this croaking of a raven; and forgot how many times it had been heard before disturbing their slumbers and ringing its echoes in the hollow night. They knew it was true that the Indian nations, excited by their own wild passions, were in the way of total extirpation by each other's hand. And, foolish men! they believed, notwithstanding all past experience, that the Mengwe were sincere, and only wished the preservation of the Indian race. As if the panther could forget its nature, or the rattlesnake cease to remember its means of defence; as if the Mengwe had forgotten the blood of their race, which had been shed by the sons of the Lenape, and could think of forgiveness while their defeats were the