John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder

“ Great and powerful as the Indian concieves himself to be, firm and undaunted as he really is, braving all seasons and weathers, careless of dangers, patient of hunger, thirst and cold, and fond of displaying the native energy of his character even in the midst of tortures, at the very thought of which our own puny nature revolts and shudders ”

“ It is incredible to what a degree the Indians’ superstitious belief in witchcraft operates upon their minds; the moment that their imagination is struck with the idea that they are bewitched, they are no longer themselves; their fancy is constantly at work in creating the most horrid and distressing images. They see themselves falling a sacrifice to the wicked arts of a vile unknown hand, of one who would not have dared to face them in fair combat ”

“ As you are a man already in years, and much older than myself, you must have seen many things that I have not seen, and heard much that I have not heard. Now I should like to hear the history of your life; where you was born, at what age you shot your first deer, what things you heard of your father and your grandfather relative to old times; where they supposed the Indians to have come from, and what traditions they had respecting them. I should like also to know how many children you have had; how far you have travelled in your lifetime, and what you have seen and heard in your travels. ”

“ It is a pity, indeed, that the Delawares, the Wyandots and the Potowatamies, with languages formed on a construction which had not been before thought of, come to destroy their beautiful theories. What then? are we to suppress the languages of our good Indians, or to misrepresent them, that the existing systems on Universal Grammar and the origin of language may be preserved? No, my friend, we shall on the contrary, I hope, labour with all our might to make them known, and provide, at least, additional facts for future theorists. ”

“ Well! how does Indian do?—Indian when he see industrious Squaw, which he like, he go to him, place his two forefingers close aside each other, make two look like one—look Squaw in the face—see him smile—which is all one he say, Yes! so he take him home—no danger he be cross! no! no! Squaw know too well what Indian do if he cross!—throw him away and take another! Squaw love to eat meat! no husband! no meat! Squaw do every thing to please husband! he do the same to please Squaw! live happy! ”

“ The eloquence of the Indians is natural and simple; they speak what their feelings dictate without art and without rule; their speeches are forcible and impressive, their arguments few and pointed, and when they mean to persuade as well as convince, they take the shortest way to reach the heart. I know that their oratorical powers have been strongly controverted, and this is not astonishing, when we consider the prejudice that exists against their languages, which are in general believed to be poor, and inadequate to the expression of any but the most common ideas. ”

“ Therefore, they prefer in all cases to let their actions speak for themselves. The skins and peltry which the hunter brings home, the deer’s horns on the roof of his cabin, the horses, furniture and other property that he possesses, his apparel and that of his family, the visits with which he is honored by the first and best men among his nation; all these things show what he is and what he has done, and with this he rests satisfied.
So with the warrior; it is enough for him that he is known to be a man of spirit and courage by the scalps and prisoners that he brings home ”

“ He obeyed the orders of his superiors in employing the Indians to fight against us, but he did it with reluctance and softened as much as was in his power the horrors of that abominable warfare. He esteemed Captain Pipe, and I have no doubt, was well pleased with the humane conduct of this Indian chief, whose sagacity in this instance is no less deserving of praise than his eloquence. It is thus that great minds understand each other, and even in the most difficult and trying situations, find the means of making the cause of humanity triumph. ”

“ Indeed, it is certain, that all the weapons which the Indians make use of in war are intended for offence, they have no breast-plates, helmets, nor any arms or accoutrements of the defensive kind, and it is not the least remarkable trait in their warlike character, that they make it even a point of honour to offer a hold of their persons to their enemy, by which if he should be possessed of greater skill or courage than themselves, he may not only the more easily destroy them, but is enabled to carry home their bloody spoils as trophies of his victory. ”

“ Thus has been maintained for ages, without convulsions and without civil discords, this traditional government, of which the world, perhaps, does not offer another example; a government in which there are no positive laws, but only long established habits and customs, no code of jurisprudence, but the experience of former times, no magistrates, but advisers, to whom the people, nevertheless, pay a willing and implicit obedience, in which age confers rank, wisdom gives power, and moral goodness secures a title to universal respect. ”

“ I am free to declare, that among all the Indian nations that I have become acquainted with, if any one should kill an old man or woman for no other cause than that of having become useless or burdensome to society, it would be considered as an unpardonable crime, the general indignation would be excited, and the murderer instantly put to death. ”

“ Those who believe that no faith is to be placed in the friendship of an Indian are egregiously mistaken, and know very little of the true character of those men of nature. They are, it is true, revengeful to their enemies, to those who wilfully do them an injury, who insult, abuse, or treat them with contempt. It may be said, indeed, that the passion of revenge is so strong in them that it knows no bounds. ”

“ Can there be a more brutal act than, after furnishing those savages, as they are called, with implements of war and destruction, to give them an ox to kill and to roast whole, to dance the war dance with them round the slaughtered animal, strike at him, stab him, telling the Indians at the same time: “Strike, stab! Thus you must do to your enemy!” Then taking a piece of the meat, and tearing it with their teeth: “So you must eat his flesh!” ”

“ SHORT NOTICE OF THE INDIAN CHEIFS, TAMANEND AND TADEUSKUND.
The name of Tamanend is held in the highest veneration among the Indians. Of all the chiefs and great men which the Lenape nation ever had, he stands foremost on the list. But although many fabulous stories are circulated about him among the whites, but little of his real history is known. The misfortunes which have befallen some of the most beloved and esteemed personages among the Indians since the Europeans came among them, prevent the survivors from indulging in the pleasure of recalling to mind the memory of their virtues. ”

“ Such, nevertheless, is the spectacle which an Indian nation exhibits to the eye of a stranger. I have been a witness to it for a long series of years, and after much observation and reflection to discover the cause of this phenomenon, I think I have reason to be satisfied that it is in a great degree to be ascribed to the pains which the Indians take to instill at an early age honest and virtuous principles upon the minds of their children, and to the method which they pursue in educating them. ”

“ I am much pleased with your metaphysical disquisitions, as you call them, and I beg you will indulge in them with perfect freedom, whenever you shall feel so disposed. I agree with you that a proper classification of human languages would be a very desirable object; but I fear the task is too hard ever to be accomplished with the limited knowledge of man. There are, no doubt, many varieties in language yet to be discovered.
As you wish to be acquainted with the manner in which our North American Indians compound their words, I shall endeavour to satisfy you as well as I am able. ”

“ We know that all Indians have the custom of transmitting to posterity, by a regular chain of tradition, the remarkable events which have taken place with them at any time, even often events of a trivial nature, of which I could mention a number. Ought we then, when such a source of information is at hand, to believe the story told by the Six Nations, of their having conquered the Lenape, (a powerful nation with a very large train of connexions and allies) and forcibly made them women? Ought we not, before we believe this, to look for a tradition of the circumstances of so important an event ”

“ How then, say they, can there be any sincerity in such councils? how can a treaty of this kind be binding on men thus forced to agree to what is dictated to them in a strong prison and at the cannon’s mouth; where all the stipulations are on one side, where all is concession on the one part and no friendship appears on the other? From these considerations, which they urge and constantly dwell upon, the treaties which they make with the white men have lost all their force, and they think themselves no longer bound by them than they are compelled by superior power. ”

“ These elegant shades of expression shew in a very forcible manner the beauty and copiousness of the Indian languages, and the extent and the force of that natural logic, of those powers of feeling and discrimination, and of that innate sense of order, regularity and method which is possessed even by savage nations, and has produced such an admirable variety of modes of conveying human thoughts by means of the different organs and senses with which the Almighty has provided us. ”

“ I could fill many pages with examples of Indian friendship and fidelity, not only to each other, but to men of other nations and of a different colour than themselves. How often, when wars were impending between them and the whites, have they not forewarned those among our frontier settlers whom they thought well disposed towards them, that dangerous times were at hand, and advised them to provide for their own safety, regardless of the jealousy which such conduct might excite among their own people? ”

“ At last there came an Indian, who was conversant with the English and German, and was much my friend. I hastened to lay before him my learned collection of Indian words, and was very much astonished when he advised me immediately to burn the whole, and write no more. “The first thing,” said he, “that you are to do to learn our language is to get an Indian ear; when that is obtained, no sound, no syllable will ever escape your hearing it, and you will at the same time learn the true pronunciation and how to accent your words properly; the rest will come of itself.” ”

“ Imagination is immediately at work to paint them as a species of monsters, to whom cruelty is an appetite; a sort of human-shaped tigers and panthers, strangers to the finer feelings, and who commit acts of barbarity without any excitement but that of their depraved inclination, and without even suspecting that 329 there are such things in nature as virtue on the one hand and crime on the other. ”

“ Before that strange metamorphosis took place, of a great and powerful nation being transformed into a band of defenceless women, the Iroquois had never been permitted to visit the Lenape, even when they were at peace with each other. Whenever a Mengwe appeared in their country, he was hunted down as a beast of prey, and it was lawful for every one to destroy him. But now, the woman could not, consistently with her new station and her engagements, make use of destructive weapons, and she was bound to abstain from all violence against the human species. ”

“ See what we have lost by neglect and disobedience; by being remiss in the expression of our gratitude to the great Spirit, for what he has bestowed upon us; by neglecting to make to him sufficient sacrifices; by looking upon a people of a different colour from our own, who had come across a great lake, as if they were a part of ourselves ”

“ When an Indian believes that he has reason to suspect a man of evil designs against his friend, he has only to say emphatically: “This is my friend, and if any one tries to hurt him, I will do to him what is in my mind.” It is as much as to say that he will stand in his defence at the hazard of his own life. This language is well understood by the Indians, who know that they would have to combat with a spirited warrior, were they to attempt any thing against his friend. ”

“ This Indian, satisfied that his nation was incapable of committing such a foul murder in a time of profound peace, told the enraged settlers, that he was sure that the Delawares were not in any manner concerned in it, and that it was the act of some wicked Mingoes or Iroquois, whose custom it was to involve other nations in wars with each other, by clandestinely committing murders, so that they might be laid to the charge of others than themselves. But all his representations were vain; he could not convince exasperated men whose minds were fully bent upon revenge. ”

“ When this fee is well secured, and not before, the Doctor prepares for the hard task that he has undertaken, with as much apparent labour as if he was about to remove a mountain. He casts his eyes all round him to attract notice, puts on grave and important looks, appears wrapt in thought and meditation and enjoys for a while the admiration of the spectators. ”

“ Thus, the Indians, while they deeply resent the wrongs and injuries which they have suffered, yet pay due homage to worth, bravery, and military skill, even in an enemy. Strong as their feelings are, they do not extinguish their sense of justice, and they are still generously disposed to allow that there are great and good individuals among a race of men, who, they believe, have doomed them to utter destruction. ”

“ I have frequently questioned Indians who had been educated at our schools, and could understand, read, write, and speak both English and German, whether they could express their ideas better in either of those languages than in their own, and they have always and uniformly answered that they could express themselves with far the greatest ease in their own Indian, and that they never were at a loss for words or phrases in which to clothe every idea that occurred to them, without being in any case obliged to gesticulate or make motions with their hands or otherwise. ”

“ It is true that the Indians have a language of signs, by which they communicate with each other on occasions when speaking is not prudent or proper, as, for instance, when they are about to meet an enemy, and by speaking they would run the risk of being discovered. By this means they also make themselves understood to those nations of Indians whose languages they are not acquainted with, for all the Indian nations understand each other in this way. It is also, in many cases, a saving of words, which the Indians are much intent on, believing that too much talking disgraces a man. ”

“ The Indians are proud but not vain; they consider vanity as degrading and unworthy the character of a man. The hunter never boasts of his skill or strength, nor the warrior of his prowess. It is not right, they say, that one should value himself too much for an action which another may perform as well as himself, and when a man extols his own deeds, it seems as if he doubted his own capability to do the like again when he pleased. ”

“ But we live in the age of paradoxes, and there is no opinion, however extraordinary, that does not find supporters. To me it would appear that the perfection of language consists in being able to express much in a few words; to raise at once in the mind by a few magic sounds, whole masses of thoughts which strike by a kind of instantaneous intuition. ”

“ The thought of such scenes made them curse their own existence, and shudder at the idea of bearing children. Then they would conjure the warriors by every thing that was dear to them, to take pity on the sufferings of their wives and helpless infants, to turn their faces once more towards their homes, families, and friends, to forgive the wrongs suffered from each other, to lay aside their deadly weapons, and smoke together the pipe of amity and peace. ”

“ I agree with you that lenni, lenno, illenoh, illenou, illinois, appear to have all the same derivation, and to be connected with the idea of man, nation, or people. Lenno, in the Delaware language, signifies man, and so does Lenape, in a more extended sense. In the name of the Lenni Lenape, it signifies people; but the word lenni, which precedes it, has a different signification and means original, and sometimes common, plain, pure, unmixed. Under this general description the Indians comprehend all that they believe to have been first created in the origin of things. ”

“ Such a man, they say, loves them. From a proud haughty man they do not expect friendship; whatever may be his professions, they think him incapable of loving anybody but himself, or perhaps, at most, his equal, and that, they think, an Indian can, in his opinion, never be.
They sometimes amuse themselves by passing in review those customs of the white people which appear to them most striking. They observe, amongst other things, that when the whites meet together, many of them, and sometimes all, speak at the same time, and they wonder how they can thus hear and understand each other. ”

“ For instance, seeing a bad hunter going out into the woods with his gun, they will ask him if he is going out for meat? or say to one another: “now we shall have meat, for such a one is gone a hunting,” (not believing any such thing.) If they see a coward joining a war party, they will ask him ironically at what time he intends to come back again? (knowing that he will return before he has met the enemy,) or they will say to one another: “will he return this way with his scalps?”
Genuine wit, which one would hardly expect to find in a savage people, is not unfrequent among them. ”

“ The Indians consider the earth as their universal mother. They believe that they were created within its bosom, where for a long time they had their abode, before they came to live on its surface. They say that the great, good, and all powerful Spirit, when he created them, undoubtedly meant at a proper time to put them in the enjoyment of all the good things which he had prepared for them upon the earth, but he wisely ordained that their first stage of existence should be within it, as the infant is formed and takes its first growth in the womb of its natural mother. ”

“ I am not prepared to enter into a discussion with you on the comparative merits or demerits of the Indians and whites; for I am unskilled in argument, and profess only to be a plain matter of fact man. To facts therefore I will appeal. I admit that the Indians have sometimes revenged, cruelly revenged, the accumulated wrongs which they have suffered from unprincipled white men; the love of revenge is a strong passion which their imperfect religious notions have not taught them to subdue. ”

“ The sweat oven is the first thing that an Indian has recourse to when he feels the least indisposed; it is the place to which the wearied traveller, hunter, or warrior looks for relief from the fatigues he has endured, the cold he has caught, or the restoration of his lost appetite. ”