Cayuga people

“ These are friends come to join in a great celebration. It is your uncle and his people from the north. Be not afraid, for they are friends.”
Little Beaver looked at his father. He smiled and taking his father’s hand they walked toward the lakeside. Stepping from the canoes were a number of Cayuga warriors and they came with many bundles. ”

“ The name of the Cayugas (in French Goyogouin) is variously pronounced by the Iroquois themselves. I wrote it as I heard it, at different times, from members of the various tribes. Koyúkweñ, Koiúkwe, Kwaiúkweñ, Kayúkwe. A Cayuga chief made it Kayúkwa, which is very near the usual English pronunciation of the word. Of its purport no satisfactory account could be obtained. One interpreter rendered it "the fruit country," another "the place where canoes are drawn out." Cusick, the historian, translates it "a mountain rising from the water." Mr. Morgan was told that it meant "the mucky land." ”

“ Dignified, chary of gesture, clean, yet somewhat sad and over-grave of speech, the Cayuga, facing the Baronet, related briefly his name, Quider, which in Iroquois means Peter; his tribe, which was the tribe of the Wolf, the totem being plain on his breast. He spoke of his journey from the 51 Ohio, the loss of the eight who had started with him; all dying from the small-pox within a week. He spoke respectfully of Sir William as the one man who had protected the Six Nations from unjust laws, from incursions, from white men's violence and deception. ”

“ They intermingled freely in their hunting parties, and even in their villages. The inhabitants still point to a large tree near Canoga, on the banks of Cayuga lake, where the celebrated orator Red Jacket was born.
In investigating the Indian population of New-York, under the provisions of the census act, I found 114 Cayugas residing in twenty families, on the Cattaragus reservation. These families cultivate 316 acres of land, and during the year 1845, they raised 1,970 bushels of corn, 1,622 of oats, 210 of wheat, 955 of potatoes, and 277 of buckwheat, besides esculents and small articles. ”

“ The Cayugas were, before that expedition, a powerful tribe, about whom little or nothing had ever been written or known. In their customs and manners of living they resemble in every way the Club Indians of the Colorado, who were destroyed by the small-pox. They led a wandering prairie life, but generally were too cowardly to fight well, and too inexpert in hunting to surround themselves with comforts, even in the midst of plenty. Like the Clubs, they are cannibals, though, I suspect, they would not eat a white man. ”

“ Cayuba often came to see me. He spoke a little Spanish, and was so anxious to know all about my country, we became great friends. I asked him whether the people were happy. He said, "Yes; but we are all slaves to the white man; we used to have plenty of cattle and fine horses. The white man comes from Santa Cruz and drives them all away."
By the laws of the land, Indians are punished by whipping on the bare back with a raw-hide rope—twelve stripes for insubordination, drunkenness, or idleness. ”

“ It was found by the priests, that the chief obstacle in enabling the savages to comprehend the meaning of their teaching, was the want of capacity in the minds of the Indians to understand the nature of a Power who controlled all movements of the heavens and earth. It was consequently interesting to meet an Indian who could intelligently explain this unusual peculiarity of the Iroquois belief.
This Cayuga, in reply to my questions, said, “We all believe in the Great Spirit whom we call How-wan-ni-yu, and we have four feasts in every year made to him. ”

“ The village of Cayuga is small, but pleasant and lively. It is in the township of Marcellus, on the eastern bank of the Cayuga Lake, within one or two miles of its northern extremity. This lake is about two miles wide in general, and almost forty miles long. Nearly north and south from the village, there are about fifteen miles of the lake in sight. The shores are mostly of hard land, except at the northern extremity, where there is a great deal of marsh, which is an unfavorable circumstance for the village, as it is not only disagreeable to the sight, but, I think, also to the smell. ”

“ To and fro strode the Cayuga, heavy head bent; to and fro, pacing the circle like a stupefied panther. Once his luminous eyes gleamed on mine, shifted blankly to the Oneida, and thence along the motionless circle of painted faces. Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga were there, forming half the circle; Oneida, Cayuga, and Tuscarora welded it to a ring. I glanced fearfully from ensign to ensign, but saw no Delaware present; and my heart leaped with hope. Walter Butler had lied to me; the Lenni-Lenape had never sat at this rite; his mongrel clan had no voice here. He had lied. ”

“ They were considered an offshoot of the Onondagas, to whom they bore the same filial relation which the Oneidas bore to the Caniengas. The journey of the advocates of peace through the forest to the Cayuga capital, and their reception, are minutely detailed in the traditionary narrative. The Cayugas, who had suffered from the prowess and cruelty of the Onondaga chief, needed little persuasion. They readily consented to come into the league, and their chief, Akahenyonk ("The Wary Spy") , joined the Canienga and Oneida representatives in a new embassy to the Onondagas. ”

“ The correspondence of the Cayuse war is one of its peculiar features. Governor Abernethy had prepared a communication to be presented to the Nez Percés and other tribes to prevent a coalition with the Cayuses. In it he had begun with their first intercourse with white people, reminding them that they had invited and encouraged them to reside in their country, and that their white friends had earnestly labored to do them good, but had been rewarded with death. ”

“ The Cayugas know 239 the hearts of the Five Nations. When the Mohawks have risen to defend their homes, the hearts of the Cayugas have been warm, and they have taken up the hatchet with their brothers. When the Onondagas have gone on the war-path, Senecas and Cayugas have gone with them, and the trouble of one has been the trouble of all.”
“The good White Father is no longer the war chief of the white men. The Great Mountain, who knew the voice of the forest, who spoke with the tongue of the redman, has been called back to his Great-Chief-Across-the-Water. ”

“ The Mexican women refused to fly; they were afraid of being captured and tortured; they thought they would be spared, and taken to the wigwams of the savages, who, we then learned, belonged to the tribe of the Cayugas. They told us that thirteen Indian prisoners had already been eaten, but no white people. The Comanche prisoners armed themselves with the lances, bows, and arrows left in the camp, and in an hour after the passage of the buffaloes, but two of the twelve Indians were alive; these, giving the war-whoop to recall their party, at last discovered that their comrades had been killed. ”

“ It was in this naked and gloomy hall, damp and rank with the penetrating odour of mortar and dropping, mouldy plaster, that my Lord Dunmore consented to receive the old Cayuga chief, Logan, of the clan of the Wolf, and by right of birth—which 237 counts not with chiefs unless they be sachems, too—the chief also of the Oquacho of the Oneida nation. ”

“ Supposing that the Mohawks and Cayugas who fled to Canada at and after the revolutionary war, and who are now settled at Brantford on Grand river, Canada West, have merely held their own, in point of numbers, and deducting the number of Cayugas, namely, 144, found among the Senecas of Cattaraugus, and herewith separately returned, and taking Dalton’s estimate of the Mohawks and Cayugas in 1776, namely, 300 warriors for each tribe, there is to be added, to the census, to accomplish the same comparative view, two thousand eight hundred and fifty souls. ”

“ The nine were sachems of the great Iroquois tribes who in combination held the north of the continent: the Cayugas, Oneidas, Mohawks, Onondagas, and Senacas. The smoker was Shuswap, headman of the Cayugas, father of Onawa and Tuschota, and the chief doctor, one who professed to understand the language of the beasts, and knew how to hold communion with the dead. He looked up, drawing the stem of his pipe from his thin lips, and spoke:
"Do the white men, who come to us from the world where the sun never shines, speak to us now words of peace or of war?" ”

“ When the arrieros reach the foot of the mountains, they point to the tops of the Andes, and describe the difficulties of gaining the summit with the cacao, by saying "mucha questa"—much up-hill. Cayuba used the same expression to explain to me in Spanish how difficult English sounded to his ear. He looked intently at me and said—"Another language? Where is your country?" I pointed to the north. "Ah," said he; "have any women there?" The Indians think strangers travel about alone because they have no women at home to take care of them. ”

“ The garrison rushed to the stockade and watched them as they approached the shore. In front was a flag of truce. The savage warriors, in paint and feathers, stepped out as if assured of a friendly reception. The gate was thrown open and, followed by four French captives, the Iroquois advanced into the town. The spokesman was the redoubtable Cayuga chief, named Saonchiowaga. Solemnly he broke the bonds of the French prisoners and promised the liberation of others still in the Onondaga country. ”

“ SPECIAL PROVISIONS FOR THE CAYUGAS. "Article 11 The United States will not set apart for Cayugas, on their removing to their new homes at the west, two thousand dollars, and will invest the same in some safe stocks, the income of which shall be paid them annually at their new homes. The United States further agree to the said nation on their removal west, two thousand five hundred dollars, to be disposed of as the chiefs shall deem just and equitable." ”

“ He reports to Cayuba the state of commerce; how much cacao goes up the country, and how much salt comes down — in fact he is the old salt of the tribe.
Under this system of regulations the city is kept in order; no quarrelling or fighting is ever seen in the street. As soon as a person is taken sick, those whose duty it is to attend to that department give aid and assistance to the family; people are sent to the hospital as nurses, and a doctor of medicine is furnished by government. ”

“ There was once upon a time, she began, in the tribe of the Maquas, the foes of my nation, a young warrior whose name was Cayenguirago. He was the bravest and most fearless of men—his deeds were the theme of every tongue, from the stormy shores of the wild Abenakis to the mountain clime of the fierce Naudowessies. While he was yet a boy his deeds were the deeds of a man—ere the suns of fifteen summers had beamed on his head, he had followed in the war-path of the full-grown Braves to the haunts of the Mohicans on the borders of the Great Salt Lake. ”

“ The Cayuses, weary of wandering, with the prospect before them of another war with white men, had prevailed upon those who among themselves had done most to bring so much wretchedness upon them, to risk their lives in restoring them to their former peace and prosperity. ”

“ After he had finished, Stechus, an old Cayuse Chief, made a short speech, and then Governor Stevens adjourned them until to-morrow.
There is evidently a more hostile feeling towards the whites getting up among some of the tribes, of which we had to-night a very unmistakable proof. The Cayuses, we have known, have never been friendly, but hitherto they have disguised their feelings. To-night, as Lieutenant Gracie and I attempted, as usual, to enter their camp, they showed a decided opposition: we were motioned back, and the young warriors threw themselves in our way to obstruct our advance. ”

“ Nothing save that the war is a fierce one. An express came in yesterday with news that the Cayugas had been terribly whipped by the backwoodsmen under Andy Lewis, somewhere near the Great Kanawha. The express rider got it from some of Cresap's men, but it may not be true. ”

“ They constituted a phratry of tribes and of sachems, by an extension of the principle which united gentes in a phratry. On the opposite side of the fire were the Oneida and Cayuga and at a later day the Tuscarora sachems. The tribes they represented were brother tribes to each other and son tribes to the opposite three. Their sachems also were brothers to each other, and sons of those in the opposite division. They formed a second tribal phratry. As the Oneidas were a subdivision of the Mohawks, and the Cayugas a subdivision of the Onondagas or Senecas, they were in reality junior tribes ”

“ Oh, I know them, Michael, I know them. A painted war-belt flung between that Cayuga and the sachems of my Mohawks would have set the whole Six Nations—save, perhaps, the Oneidas—a-shining up rifle and hatchet for Cresap and his men!"
Sir William struck the mahogany table with clinched fist.
"Damn Cresap!" he bawled, in one of his familiar fits of fury—fits which were never witnessed outside his family circle. "Damn the fatuous fool to go a-meddling with the 55 Cayugas in their own lands, held by them in solemn covenant forever inviolate! What does the sorry ass want? ”

“ Suddenly my men who were employed in cooking informed me that a cayuco was passing near the distant southern shore. I attentively looked in that direction, and just as the cayuco passed in front of the waterfall, I distinctly saw its black silhouette with two men standing erect thrown into bold relief against the white background. Soon after the cayuco vanished into one of the coves in that vicinity, the position of which we impressed upon our memories. This was our first sight of human beings, but the Indians on their part had not noticed us. ”