Compiled from the Collection of Rev. Daniel Sabin Buttrick, Their
Missionary from 1817 to 1847; as presented in the Indian Chieftain, Published
at Vinita, Ind. Ter., during the year 1884. Edited
by Jeffrey Freeman-Fuller
Compiled from the
Collection of Rev. Daniel Sabin Buttrick, Their Missionary from 1817 to 1847;
as presented in the Indian Chieftain, Published at Vinita, Ind. Ter., during
the year 1884.
The source of the
following text is Antiquities of the Cherokee Indians. Compiled from the
Collection of Rev. Daniel Sabin Buttrick, Their Missionary from 1817 to 1847;
as presented in the INDIAN CHIEFTAIN, published at Vinita, Ind. Ter., during
the year 1884. Vinita: Indian Chieftain, Publishers, 1884.
I have followed this
text faithfully except for silent emendations to correct obvious printing
errors and to regularize the form of attributions. No attempt, however, has
been made to follow typographical idiosyncrasies or to produce a facsimile
edition. All footnotes are the editor’s.
The reader should be
aware that Buttrick, as well as the often quoted Boudinot, belonged to that
group of scholars who were attempting to prove that American Indians were
members of the so-called Lost Tribes of Israel. In this thesis, Indians are
believed to share with the Hebrews certain linguistic characteristics as well
as religious beliefs and a common history. Modern scholars discount these
arguments.
Jeffrey Fuller-Freeman
Little Rock, Arkansas
2003
The following letter
from Rev. Worcester Willy, who was a missionary for many years among the
Cherokees, gives a short but appropriate sketch of the life and services of
Rev. Daniel S. Buttrick, whose notes on Cherokee Antiquities have appeared from
time to time for several months, in the columns of the Indian Chieftain,
published at Vinita [1], Indian Territory. These notes were dedicated by Mr.
Buttrick to John Ross [2], who for so many years as the Principal Chief of the
Cherokee Nation, and for whom he cherished a very high regard, a regard which
was the result of an intimate acquaintance and friendship.
The notes published
comprise but a small portion of the writings of Mr. Buttrick on the Antiquities
and other subjects of Cherokee history, but includes all that has come into our
hands. Considering the fact that they were written more than sixty years ago
just as they were received by a particularly conscientious minister, who
devoted the whole of his mature life to the advancement of what he conceived to
be the highest interests, temporal and spiritual, of the Cherokee people, we
regard them as highly valuable. It may be that some of the views expressed by
the persons from whose lips they were penned, as they flowed, were colored or
tinged to some effect by their associations with the whites. But that
intercourse had been, even at that late period, comparatively limited, and was
doubtless more general than special, in the impressions made on the minds of
the Indians as the result.
There can be no doubt that
after conceding all reasonable allowance on that account, many, even most of
the statements made by the old persons from whom information was naturally
sought, had been received by them as the traditions of their ancestors handed
down from sire to son, from long periods of time anterior to their knowledge of
the Europeans. And in this view of their origin and character we regard the
antiquities preserved in the notes of Father Buttrick, meager as they may seem,
as of great curiosity and value. But if there are those among us who can
eliminate them from them the spurious from the genuine, the modern from the
ancient, it will add much to the few grains of golden wheat that remain. The
time for obtaining such information on the subjects to which the notes relate,
and kindred ones, among the Cherokees, if not already gone, is rapidly passing;
and the writer of this brief introduction to those which follow, will welcome
the pen that shall come forward and record them:
Andover, Mass, May
16th, 1884.
Hon. Wm. P. Ross [3]:
At your request I have obtained the following facts: Rev. Daniel Sabine
Buttrick, was born in Windsor, Mass., Aug. 25th 1789; removed to Richmond, New
York, where he made a profession of religion in 1803; educated at Cooperstown
Academy; ordained at Park street church, Boston, Mass., with Sereno Dwight its
Pastor, Levi Parsons, John Nichols, and Allen Graves, missionaries, Sept. 3d,
1817.
The record of the
journey of the company with which Mr. Buttrick went to the Cherokee mission is:
Dec. 18, 1817.--Arrived
at Athens, Ga. Being now near the Indian country, and finding our spiritual
life drooping, we thought it best to spend a day in fasting and prayer.
Accordingly, Friday, 19th, was set apart for this purpose, and we found it very
refreshing to our souls.
Tuesday, Dec.
23rd.--With great joy and elevation of spirits we entered the territory of the
native. Night coming on, we encamped by the roadside. We made a tent of our
blankets, and built a fire by a fallen tree. We prepared and took our tea, read
a chapter, sung a psalm entitled "The Travelers’ Psalm," and with
great joy and satisfaction bowed the knee around the family altar.
Arrived at Brainerd
Jan. 4, 1818. Mr. Buttrick labored at Brainerd, Carmel, Willstown, Hightown,
and elsewhere east of the Mississippi.
Removed to Fairfield,
west of the Mississippi, in 1839, then established a station near Beatty’s
Prairie and called it Mt. Zion. His health failing, he went to Dwight Mission,
where he spent some ten years, and died June 8, 1851. He married at Hightown,
April 29, 1827, to Miss Elizabeth Proctor, a mission teacher, formerly of
Hopkinton, N.H., who arrived at Hightown in February, 1823. Died at Dwight
Mission Aug. 3, 1847.
Mr. Buttrick was the
most enthusiastic and successful missionary the American Board sent to the
Cherokee mission. When he began his work he determined to learn the Cherokee
language, if possible. To do this he took his blanket and went among the
people, purposing to suffer for the necessaries of life til he could ask for
them in Cherokee. In this effort he so far failed that he was never able to
preach the Gospel in Cherokee. Yet he did succeed in learning the people, and
securing their confidence to an extent that no other man has ever reached. No
grown man has ever been able to learn the language so as to be able to preach
it.
In his later years the
Cherokees were accustomed to call him Father Buttrick. He was remarkably
spiritual-minded. It was a great privilege to be associated with him in
Christian work. When he became too feeble to sustain the care of a station
alone, he came to Dwight Mission and spent the last ten years of his life.
During those years, he spent most of his time in writing, with the purpose, as
he said, to show that the Indian is somebody. He wrote trunks full of
manuscripts on Indian antiquities and Indian languages. He spent much time in
comparing these languages with the Hebrew. He became convinced that they are
all of Hebrew origin. A large proportion of his writings were lost in the Civil
War.
He used to say:
"If I ever reach Heaven, it will be a great satisfaction to tell old
Father Abraham that I helped to bring some of his children there." When he
became too feeble to perform much labor, his friends at the North urged him to
come and spend the last of his days with them. But he replied: "I should
rather die than hear the great swearing I should be obliged to hear on the
great thoroughfares over which I should be obliged to pass in getting
there."
Mr. Buttrick gave
himself, and all he had, to the Cherokees in the service of Christ. In the
great resurrection day Father Buttrick will rise and go home with a great
company of Cherokees.
With regard to the
religious views of the Cherokees, it seems that, from time immemorial, they
have been divided in sentiment. While a great part have been idolatrous,
worshipping the sun, moon, stars, &c., &c., a small part have denied
that system, and taught the following: There are three beings above, who created
all things, are present everywhere, see everything, govern all things, and will
judge all men. When these beings call any person out of the world, they must
die; and what kind of death these three think anyone should die, that death is
certain. The names of these beings are U-ha-li-te-qua, great great, or the head
of all power, great beyond expression; A-ta-no-ti--united or the place of
uniting; and U-sqa-hu-la. These three beings are always one in sentiment and
action, and always will be, and, being the governors and proprietors of all
things, they sit on three white seats above, and are the only objects of
worship, to whom all prayers are to be addressed. The angels are their
messengers, and come down to this earth to attend to the affairs of men.
--Caty Vann.
Thomas Nutsawi
Ye-ho-wa was the name
of a king who lived a great while ago. He was a man, and yet a spirit, a god, a
very glorious being. His name was never to be spoken in common talk. This great
king commanded them to rest every seventh day, and told them that if they
should work on that day they should die, or some of their relatives. They were
to hold their hands still (the palms up) and their talk must be about God.
Ye-ho-wah [sic] was the most sacred name. None must speak it but persons appointed
for the purpose, and they only on the Sabbath. God created the world in seven
days.
--Nutsawi.
That the Cherokees were
acquainted with the Sabbath, and the nature of it, when their present language
was formed, is put beyond a doubt by the language itself. The name for Sabbath,
Unotataquaska," literally signifies the day, the whole of which is devoted
by the people to a rest from all common labor. But this rest is not opposed to
weariness, nor has it any reference to it, but simply to labor or action. To
rest on account of weariness or fatigue is another word altogether, thus:
Uniawesalaha--they are resting from weariness, unotataquaska--they are resting,
i.e., ceasing from labor a whole day, keeping Sabbath. So also in Hebrew:
"Shabath"--to cease, leave off, or rest from, work. It is opposed not
to weariness, but to work or action.
--Parkhurst [4]
The Cherokee names for
Saturday and Monday also equally indicate their knowledge of the Sabbath:
Renotataquitena (Saturday) literally signifies before the day wholly devoted to
rest or cessation from labor; and Unotataquanohi (Monday) signifies beyond or after
the day wholly set apart from labor. It is well to mention here that in the
names for Sabbath, Saturday, and Monday, the plural form is used. An individual
resting from labor a whole day, or keeping Sabbath, says,
"aquotataquaska"--I am resting or ceasing from labor during the day;
but "unotataquaska" signifies they, all the people rest, and thus
points out the day as a common day of rest or cessation from labor, to be
generally observed by all.
With regard to other
Indian nations having a knowledge of the Sabbath, the Hon. Elias Boudinot [5]
says: "The number and regular periods of the Indian public religious
feasts, is a good historical proof that they counted time, and observed a
weekly Sabbath, long after their arrival on the American Continent, as this is
applicable to all the Nations."
--Star in the West,
p.164-5.
The world was created
at the time of the first new moon in autumn, with the fruits all ripe. The
first new moon in autumn is therefore the great new moon, or Nu-ta-te-qua, and
with it the year commences, as regards the feasts of new moons, though the
first new moon in spring begins the year with regard to the feast of first
fruits, &c., because then the fruits begin to come forward. --Yu-wi-yoka.
The great new moon made
its appearance in autumn, when the leaves began to fall.
--Nutsawi.
God made man, red, of
red clay, and made the woman of one of his ribs.
--Nettle.
At first no snakes or
weeds were poisonous. Poison was afterwards communicated to them.
--Thomas Nutsawi
Soon after the creation
one of the family was bitten by a serpent and died. All possible means were
resorted to, to bring back life, but in vain. Being overcome in this first
instance, the whole race were doomed to follow, not only to death, but to
misery afterwards, as it was supposed that that person went to misery. Another
tradition says that soon after the creation a young woman was bitten by a
serpent and died, and her spirit went to a certain place, and the people were
told that if they would get her spirit back to her body, that the body would
live again, and they would prevent the general mortality of the body. Some
young men, therefore, started with a box to catch the spirit. They went to a
place and saw it dancing about, and at length caught it in the box and shut the
lid, so as to confine it, and started back. But the spirit kept pleading with
them to open the box, so as to afford a little light, but they hurried on until
they arrived near the place where the body was, and then, on account of her
particular urgency, they removed the lid a very little, and out flew the spirit
and was gone, and with it all their hopes of immortality.
All were Indians, or
red people, before the flood. They had also preachers and prophets before the
flood. Their preachers would sometimes continue their discourses nearly all the
day, teaching the people to obey God. They also taught the children to obey
their parents. They warned the people of the approaching flood, if they
continued to disobey God, but said the world should not be destroyed by water
but once; it would be afterwards destroyed by fire, when God would send first a
shower of pitch and then a shower of fire to set everything in a flame. They
also taught the people that after death the good and the bad would separate; the
good would take a path which would lead them to a place of happiness, where it
would be always light; but the bad would be urged along another path, which led
to a deep gulf, over which lay a pole with a dog at each end. They would be
urged onto this pole, and the dogs, by moving it, would throw them off into the
gulf of fire beneath. But if any got over it, they would be transfixed with
red-hot bars of iron, and be thus tormented forever.
The priest offered
sacrifice with new fire, having a rack two or three feet tall with an altar. A
little before the flood men grew worse and worse, and, like some of the
Cherokee young men now, worse by reproof and warning. Also, some infants were
born with whole sets of teeth.
--Nutsawi.
A venerable old man
approached Columbus with great reverence, and presented him with a basket of
fruit, and said: "You are come into these countries with a force which,
were we inclined to resist, resistance would be folly. We are all, therefore,
at your mercy. But if you are men subject to mortality, like ourselves, you
cannot be unapprised after this life there is another, wherein a very different
portion is allotted to good and bad men. If, therefore, you expect to die, and
believe with us that everyone is to be rewarded in a future state, according to
his conduct in the present, you will do no hurt to those who do none to
you."
-- Edwards’ West
Indies, Vol. I., p.72.[6]
Star of the West, p.
142.
At length God sent a
messenger from above to warn the people of the flood unless they turned from
their wickedness.
God then told a man to
make a house that would swim, and take his family and some of the different
kinds of animals into it.
--Raven.
The rain commenced, and
continued forty days and forty nights, while the water at the same time gushed
out of the ground so that as much came up as came down from the clouds.
--Nutsawi.
As also the Natcher.
The Natchez Indians
also affirm further, that not a log or anything whatever, swam, but everything
lay just as it was, so that he people could by no means save themselves from
drowning.
--Yuwi Yokh.
The house or boat was
raised up on the waters and borne away. At length the man sent out a raven,
and, after some time, sent a dove, which came back with a leaf in her mouth.
Soon after this, the man found the house (or boat) was resting on dry ground,
on the top of a mountain. This being in the spring of the year, the family and
all the animals left the boat, and the family descended to the bottom of the
mountain and commenced their farming operations.
--Nutsawi.
Some time after the
flood the people generally (the Indians excepted) determined to build a wall to
reach the clouds, and proceeded till the wall was very high. They built this
wall of stone (Nutsawi) or, according to others of wood (Shield Eater.) At length
the people became very much alarmed by seeing something black in the air above
them; and also God was angry with them, and spoiled their language, so that the
people could not understand each other, and got into quarrels, and separated.
--Nutsawi and Shield
Eater.
An old man, nearly a
hundred years old, by the name of Kotiski, says that, when a small boy, he used
to listen to the conversation of two very aged men, who would sometimes sit up
and talk nearly the whole night; and among other things they told the
following: There was a God, the father and the son; that they were always
present, and knew all we said and did, and that the father sent the son to
attend and manage the affairs of the world. Prayers were to be directed to
these two, and also to Aqua, Abraham, not, however, as to God, but as to their
great father, who, though a man like themselves, was greater or wiser than
themselves.
When God created the
world, he made a heaven or firmament about as high as the tops of the
mountains, but this was too warm. He then created a second, which was also too
warm. He thus proceeded until He had created seven heavens, and in the seventh
fixed His abode.
During some of their
prayers they raise their hands to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth,
sixth and seventh heaven, and then express their desires to God, who dwells
there. But when they sung that special prayer designed for the morning of every
seventh day, they commenced with the third heaven, ascending to the fourth,
fifth, sixth, seventh, and then uttered their prayer to the father and the son,
in substance as follows: "Oh, God, thou hast created us, and hast the
hearts of all in thy hands. We pray for thine aid, and for long life and
health. Aqua (Abraham) our father taught us to pray thus." Then they
prayed to Abraham to take them into his arms. This prayer was sung every
seventh morning, seven times, commencing a little before day, and about
daybreak they repaired to a stream of water and plunged entirely four or seven
times. The water washed away their heaviness, and God gave them comfort and joy
in their hearts. They then prayed to Him to continue this joy in their hearts.
On returning to the house they put on their hands the white ashes covering the
coals, and rubbed their faces and breasts.
The old men say that
God created all things in six days, and rested the seventh; and therefore all
must rest every seventh day, and meet at the town houses.
The principle men
called the people together at an early hour. No work was done, except by women,
who brought forward the food. The old men smoked, and the young men
occasionally danced before them.
At usual breakfast
time, the victuals were brought by fourteen women previously appointed, seven
of whom waited on the men and seven on the women. The priests sat on their
appropriate white seats; other old men on seats near the middle of the house;
other men and boys on seats to the right, and the women and the girls at the
left. The victuals were sat on the ground in dishes, before the several seats,
and then the waiting women took their seats with the other females. The priest
them arose and told the people that God, the creator, had given them food, and
that, by partaking of it, they would be refreshed, and then told them to eat.
The repast being ended, the fourteen women took away the dishes. The leader of
the dancers was called forward. He arranged the company in single file; the
leader followed by his wife, the next principle man and his wife, and so on, a
man and his wife; or if a man had no wife, he was followed by a single female
who was a near relative, or of the same clan. This arrangement might form a
number of circles in the house. Being thus arranged, while standing, the
congregation was addressed by four priests successively. They occupied the white
middle seat. The eldest arose and spoke, holding a white wing of a fowl by the
right side of his face. Together with various other instructions, he charged
the people to love and be kind to one another. On concluding, the first took
his seat, and handed the white wing to the one next him, and so on, till all
four had spoken. The white wing was then hung in a sacred place over their
heads. The dance then commenced. Toward evening, all being again seated, the
same women who had provided breakfast now brought forward the dinner (or
supper) which was served as in the morning; and the night wholly spent in
dancing. None must sleep but small children. On Monday morning breakfast was
brought, and after eating, all retired to their houses.
The first man and woman
were made of red earth, and therefore were red, and God told them when they
died they would turn to earth again, When God created the man and the woman, He
told them to multiply.
--Kotiski.
Big Pheasant relates
the history of the creation, received from his grandmother and handed down from
the old men before they had any knowledge from the whites. Beings from above
came down and created the world, and everything connected with it. Then they
called a council and created the man, and gave him life. The man then fell into
a sleep, and the Lord took a rib from his side and made a woman, and gave her
to the man. God instructed them about marriage, and told them to multiply. This
woman was the mother of all living people, i.e., of all nations. God directed them,
also, not to use vulgar language nor tell a lie, as these would be very wicked.
--Big Pheasant.
Another aged Cherokee,
the Otter, gives a brief account of the Creation, as handed down by the old
men, in substance as follows: Two great beings, the Father and the Son, created
all things. They took clay and fashioned two persons in their image, except
that one was a woman. They then gave them life. They also formed a garden in
which were all kinds of fruits, but forbade the man and woman taking any fruit
from that garden, or seed to plant. The newly created pair settled out in the
country and multiplied. At length the Son came down and found they had stolen
fruit from the garden, in violation of the command of their creator, and had it
growing through the country. He returned and told the Father what great
wickedness had been committed. But, notwithstanding this wickedness, it was
resolved not to destroy the people, but to give them further instruction and
warning. They still, however, increased in wickedness, till the Lord brought a
flood upon the Earth, and then left it. Before leaving it, he taught the people
how to pray to Him above, every morning about daybreak; so that all must pray
to the creator every morning.
The soul of the first
man was given by the breath of God. He blew into the man and the woman, and
this gave them breath, and soul, and heart, and inwards. The soul of the infant
comes with the first breath, which happens they suppose before birth, as soon
as the infant manifests life. The soul lives forever.
--Kotiski.
God gave the red man a
book and paper, and told him to write, but he merely made marks on the paper,
and as he could not read or write, the Lord gave him a bow and arrow, and gave
the book to the white man.
A great while ago a
part of the world was burned, though it is not known now how, or by whom, but
it is said the other land was formed by washing in from the mountains.
--Kotiski.
Mr. Boudinot, speaking
of the Indians, says: "It is said among their principal or ’beloved’ men,
that they have it handed down from their ancestors, that the book which the
white men have was once theirs; that, while they had it, they prospered
exceedingly; but that the white people bought it of them, and learned many
things from it; while the Indians lost credit, offended the Great Spirit and
suffered exceedingly from the neighboring nations; that the Great Spirit took
pity on them, and directed them to this country; that on their way they came to
a great river, which they could not pass. Where God dried up the waters, and
they passed over dry-shod.
"They also say
that their fathers were possessed of an extraordinary divine spirit, by which
they foretold future, and controlled the common course of nature, and this they
transmitted to their offspring, on condition of their obeying the same laws;
that they did, by these means, bring down showers of plenty on the beloved
people. But this power, for a long time past, has entirely ceased."
-- Star in the West.
Aqua-ha-ye (Abraham)
was the greatest among their ancestors, but this is all that can be told of
him.
When our scholars,
David Brown [7], John Tub, &c., first began to translate the scriptures,
they expressed Abraham in Cherokee by Aqua-ha-mi, though the letter
"m" is not congenial to the Cherokee language nor found at all in the
mountain dialect which is evidently most ancient. But the name Aquahaye, as
known only by the antiquarians, flows easily from every Cherokee tongue.
The next man of
greatest note among their early ancestors was by the name of Wasi (Moses). He
was the greatest prophet, and told them of things past, relative to the
creation of the world, the history of mankind, and also told them things to
come. He directed them how to consecrate their priests, how and when to
celebrate their feasts, and how to attend to all their religious ceremonies,
and charged them to observe all he had commanded them forever.
--Nutsawi.
God loved their
fathers, and told them that they should be the father of all nations; and He
gave them a country, though they had a great distance to travel to get to it.
At length they started for their country, but when they started they were
fleeing from their enemies. Who these enemies were, or where they lived, is not
now known. When they started they soon came to a great water, and because God
loved their fathers, He told their leader (his name they do not know) to strike
the water with a staff, and it should divide till they passed through, and then
come together, so that their enemies could not follow to injure them. Their
leader did this. He went forward, striking the water, and it parted so that all
went through safely, and then the waters came back and stopped their enemies.
They then entered a vast wilderness.
Some time after they
entered this wilderness, they came to a high mountain, and God came down upon
the mountain, and their leader went up and conversed with God, or, rather, as
their fathers said, with the Son of God. They supposed, therefore, that God had
a son, as it was said to be the son of God that came down on the mountain, and
the top of the mountain was bright like the sun. There God gave their leader a
law, written on a smooth stone. The reason of this being written on stone was
as follows, viz; God gave our first parents a law, to be handed down verbally
to posterity. But when the language was destroyed and men began to quarrel and
kill each other, they forgot this law, and therefore God wrote his law now on a
stone, a smooth slate stone, that it might not be lost. Their leader also
received other instructions from God, which he wrote on skins.
God also directed their
leader to erect a certain building, to be covered with a cloth made of deer’s
hair and turkey feathers. This was to be set up when they rested, and taken
down and carried when they journeyed.
God also directed them
to repeat or chant certain sentences every morning at or about daylight, and
before going to sleep at night.
In the wilderness God
gave them their holy fire from heaven. This they ever kept for burning
sacrifices, and Holy purposes, and, though, when they came to this continent
they left it behind, yet in a miraculous manner they had it brought over the
great water, and kept it till, on a certain occasion, their enemies came upon
them and destroyed the house in which it was kept. After that they were obliged
to make new fire for sacred purposes by rubbing two pieces of dry wood
together, with a certain weed called golden rod, dry, between them. After
constant rubbing for some time, this took fire, together with the wood, and
this fire was used for religious purposes.
[When their enemies
destroyed the house in which this holy fire was kept, it was said the fire settled
down in the earth, where it still lives, though unknown to the people. The
place where they lost this holy fire is somewhere in one of the
Carolinas.--Inata (Snake.)]
[This new fire, made by
friction, like the original holy fire, must not be used for any common purpose,
(except when made especially to supply the nation with new fire.) No torch must
be lighted by it, nor a coal taken from it for common use. After the sacrifice
was burned and the ceremonies ended for which the fire was made, it was delivered
to some one to keep.--Shield Eater or T. Smith.]
Originally they had
twelve tribes but on account of disobedience with regard to marriage, it was
resolved to have but seven.
In their journeys
through this wilderness, the tribes marched separately, and also the clans. The
clans were distinguished by having feathers of different colors fastened to
their ears. They had two great standards, one white and one red. The white
standard was under the control of the priests, and used for civil and religious
purposes; but the red standard was under the direction of the war priests, for
purposes of war, or alarm. These were carried when they journeyed, and the
white standard erected in front of the building above-mentioned, when they
rested. The priests had trumpets, also, for their own particular use.
In going through this
wilderness they had two waters to cross, between the first and the last river,
before getting to their country. These two their leader struck, as he had done
the first, and the water stopped, so that the children could wade through. But
their whole journey through this wilderness was attended with great distress
and danger. At one time they were beset by the most deadly kind of serpents,
which destroyed a great many of the people, but at length their leader shot one
with an arrow and drove them away.
Again, they were
walking along in single file, when the ground cracked open and a number of the
people sunk down and were destroyed by the earth closing upon them.
At another time they
came nigh perishing for water. Their headmen dug with staves in all the low
places, but could find no water. At length their leader found a most beautiful
spring coming out of a rock.
They were a great many
years in getting through this wilderness, and many of the people died. They
never could have got through, the dangers were so great, if God had not helped
them.
When they came to the
land which God had given to their fathers, they had a large river to cross.
This had been told them all along. But when they came to this river, their
leader struck it with his stick and the water above stopped, so that all the
children could wade through. After they had crossed they camped on the other
side and named the place Tahmitoo.
They had then to engage
in wars--and on one occasion their leader caused the sun to stand still and
thus lengthened the day, that they might destroy their enemies. And at another
time the Lord destroyed their enemies by sending a hailstorm upon them, some of
the hail stones being as large as hominy mortar.
--Shield Eater.
--Nutsawi.
Shield-Eater once
inquired if I had ever heard of houses with flat roofs, saying that his father’s
great grandfather used to say that once their people had a great town, with a
high wall about it. That, on a certain occasion, their enemies broke down a
part of this wall--that the houses in this town had flat roofs, though, he used
to say; this was so long ago it is not worth talking about now.
A great while ago the
Indians were afflicted with certain very awful complaints, which do not prevail
now. One especially, which occasioned dreadful sores, though different from the
smallpox, or yaws, or any complaint now known. When any one of a family was
taken with the disease, the affected person was sent off some distance from any
house, and there had a house prepared for him to live in ever after. Then the
priest was sent for, to cleanse the house from which the diseased person been
removed. The ceremonies were similar to those of cleansing a house defiled by
the dead. After this, should any touch the diseased person, he would be
unclean, as if he had touched a dead body.
--Corn Tassel.
--Old Will.
The Son of God, after
giving the law on the mountain, commanded them to sing the hymn or prayer which
they now sing at daybreak in the morning, and at night before going to sleep.
This hymn was always to be sung or repeated at those seasons everyday.
--Shield Eater.
When they had the
written law the people were better than they are now. They would not lie, nor
have any idle, foolish talk. The old people used to tell the boys it would be
bad to grow up in sin. In olden times the commandments were kept better than in
later times. All sin was forbidden. Those who grew up in sin, they said, would
be punished after death, but those who did right would be happy.
--Nutsawi.
Red Bird, an old
Cherokee, used to say the Cherokees had a white post set up near the council
house and on the top of it was fastened a white skin, or piece of white cloth
to remind them to keep their hearts as white as that was, and also to remind
them of the commandments which were once given to their fathers, and written on
white (something white). This was done when he was a boy, as he told his son
Situagi.
--Deer-in-the-water.
Anciently, when women
cooked breakfast, the cook put some of whatever she cooked into the fire; if
mush, some of that; if meat, some of that; if birds, some or one of them. But
the bird she sacrificed must be whole. The feathers were taken off and the
entrails taken out, and then the bird laid on the fire.
--Nutsawi.
Whenever a Cherokee
killed and brought home a deer, he sacrificed a piece of the tongue and the
neck. Also of all other four-footed clean beasts, that is, such as might be
eaten. But after this first sacrifice they offered no more of the same animal.
But if they obtained, or had given them, other meat, of which they had offered
none, then the women put a piece in the fire every time they cooked. When birds
were cooked, one was put into the fire. But on cooking any large fowls, as
turkeys, geese, etc., they always sacrificed the breast. They never forgot to
burn some of every kind of fresh meat.
Hunters also sacrificed
a piece of the tongue of every deer they killed during the first four days;
after that period they sacrificed the melt [8] of every deer they killed. They
did this to obtain success. So, also, of every four footed clean beast, and the
breast of every clean fowl. And on starting out in the morning they prayed to
the Great White Being above to give them success.
--Kotiski.
Mr. Boudinot, speaking
of other Indians, says: "The women always throw a small piece of the
fattest meat into the fire before they begin to eat. At times they view it with
pleasing attention, and pretend to draw omens from it. This they will do though
they are quite alone, and not seen by any one."
--Star in the West.
Anciently the Cherokees
gave thanks even before eating a common meal.
Witches were to be
killed. A poisoner, among the Indians, means a witch, or one who, by means of
certain ingredients, has power to bewitch or kill persons at a distance.
--Thomas Nutsawi.
In ancient times the
Indians always had their places of worship near a river or creek, or on the
bank of a lake, or on the seashore.
--Thomas Nutsawi,
--Deer-in-the-water.
God gave them
directions with regard to marriage, as also with regard to what animals they
might eat.
God commanded them not
to say "askini" (mean or cursed) to the deformed, nor laugh at them.
He said they must be kind to all people, especially to strangers. And if they
had any animals under their care, they must treat them kindly. The old people
used to speak the name "Jews," as in the Yowa [9] hymn, (Antisuri),
but nothing further is known of them.
--Nutsawi.
The Indians never used
to eat a certain sinew in the thigh. The name of this sinew in Cherokee is
"u-wa-sta-to." Some say that if they eat of the sinew, they will have
cramp in it on attempting to run. It is said that once a woman had a cramp in
that sinew, and therefore none must eat it.
--Nutsawi.
Anciently, during a
certain portion of the year, all the people used to fast every seventh day.
Little children fasted till noon.
--Caty Vann.
Fasting all day was
from sunset to sunset.
--Shield Eater,
And Other Antiquarians.
The seven clans are
seven families, each from its own original stock, and therefore too nearly
related to admit intermarriages. The names of these seven clans are as follows:
1. Ani-wa-ya, or Wolf clan; 2. Ani-ko-ta-ke-wi, or Blind Savannah clan; 3.
Ani-wo-ti, or Paint clan; 4. Ani-qui-lo-hi, or Longhair clan; 5. Ani-tsis-qua,
or Bird clan; 6. Ani-ka-wi, or Deer clan; 7. Ani-stasti, or Holly clan.
--Shield Eater.
Circumcision.--With
regard to this we can learn but little from the Cherokees. Nutsawi says he has
seen Indians of another tribe, or strangers to him, who had been circumcised,
though he had no conversation with them on the subject. Mr. Boudinot, however,
supposes that this rite has been practiced among the Indians. His remarks are
as follows: "The Indians to the eastward say that, previous to the white
people coming into their country, their ancestors were in the habit of using
circumcision, but latterly, not being able to assign any reason for so strange
a practice, their young people insisted on its being abolished."
McKenzie [10] says of
the Slave and Dogrib Indians, very far to the northwest: "Whether
circumcision be practiced among them, I cannot pretend to say, but the
appearance of it was general among those I saw."
Dr. Beatty [11] says,
in his journal of a visit he paid to the Indians on the Ohio, about 50 years
(now 80 or 90) ago, that an old Indian informed him that an old uncle of his
who died about the year 1728, related to him several customs and traditions of
former times, and among others, that circumcision was practiced among the
Indians long ago, but their young men making a mock at it, brought it into
disrepute, and so it came to be discontinued.
--Star in the West.,
p.113.
The Indians have had
two great kings, the greatest of these lived before the flood; but the second
after they came to the land which God gave to their fathers. This king was also
a preacher, and in his days the people were wise--much wiser than they have
been since. He taught them the use of all roots and herbs they use in medicine,
and also what to say or sing when administering them. He made the little
spirits called Anitawehi, which poison people, and he also made another kind to
cure the poison these infuse. Persons poisoned or killed by witchcraft first
were made crazy. He taught them how to cure such persons, as also how to cure
all diseases.
Crazy persons were
supposed to be possessed with the devil, or afflicted with the Nanehi.
--Nutsawi (of Pine
Log.)
Shield Eater had a
lengthy tradition relative to their decline, the substance of which is as
follows: God directed the Indians to ascend a certain mountain, that is, the
warriors, and He would there send them assistance. They started, and had
ascended far up the mountain, when one of the warriors began to talk about
women. His companion immediately reproved him, but instantly a voice like
thunder issued from the side of the mountain and God spoke and told them to
return, as He could not assist them on account of that sin. They put the man to
death, yet the man never returned to them afterwards. The antiquarians unite,
as far as I have discovered, in saying that they came to this continent from
beyond the sea, yet how they crossed the great water, or from what direction
their minds appear to be rather in the dark; only they say the Delawares, whom
they call grandfather, took the lead.
Some, however,
according to Kotiski, say the Cherokees, with all other tribes, came from the
northwest, that is, crossed the ocean in that direction. He says that when
young he saw a very aged Cherokee woman at Creek Path, who had been many years
a prisoner among the Delaware Indians. She said the Delawares gave the
following account of the red people, considering all the tribes as originally
one people. They said they were in great distress before they came to this
continent (island); that they had no land of their own, and the women had to go
out to work and wash for others to obtain a support, and the men, also, had to
get and chop wood for others to support themselves--but had no wood of their
own, and could get none, only as they dug up roots out of the ground. At
length, the red people reformed, and became a good people, and were treated
much worse than before. The people among whom they lived would take their
horses or other creatures, and put them to their own use, and could not help
themselves. They therefore concluded they could not stay there and came off and
crossed the sea beyond where the Shawnees lived. This would be from the Creek
Path north of west. The ancient Cherokees used to say that the Indians would be
driven to the west till they came to the ocean, and then be taken over.
--Kotiski
The Choctaw tradition
is that they, and all the red people, came from a country beyond the western
ocean; that they went on this way till they came to the seashore, and then
followed the shore north, till they came to a place where the sea was so narrow
they could cross it in one day. They all crossed and migrated eastward.
--Col. P. P. Pitchlynn
[12].
Though different
Cherokees assign different reasons for their decline, yet all, so far as I
know, ascribe it ultimately to the displeasure of God towards them. Thus some
say the reason why the Indians have not prospered as much as the whites is
because the women have sometimes taken measures to destroy their infants before
their birth, which God has forbidden; that some women sometimes died themselves
in consequence, but that such as did not went to the bad place when they did
die. For breaking the commandments of God in doing so, He prohibited their ever
coming to Him, and would have nothing to do with them.
--Kotiski.
Again, it is said that
before coming to this continent, while in their own country, they were in great
distress from their enemies, and God told them to march to the top of a certain
mountain, and He would come down and afford them relief. They ascended far up
the mountain, and thought they saw something coming down from above which they
supposed was their aid. But just then one of the warriors began to talk about
women. His companions reproved him, but instantly a sound like thunder struck
the mountain, and God told them to go back, as He would do nothing for them.
They killed the offending warrior, but, notwithstanding, God would not forgive,
and had not blessed them since, as He had before.
--Shield Eater.
The Cherokees commenced
their natural year with the first new moon of autumn. At that period, they said
the world was created, with the fruits ripe. The first autumnal new moon,
therefore, they called No-ta-te-qua, or the great new moon, from which the
other moons were reckoned. Many of the modern Cherokees differ from the ancient
in making the great new moon the last instead of the first of autumn; but in
this they differ, not only from their best antiquarians , but also from the
matter of fact, as the first, and not the third, nor any other, was honored by
a great national thanksgiving.
--Yo-Wi-Yo-Ka, Terrapin
Head, and Others.
But though the first
moon of autumn commenced the year, as related to the beginning of time, and the
succession of moons, yet the first vernal new moon began the year as related to
their feasts connected with the fruit of the earth, because then the fruits of
the earth, or vegetation, begins to spring up. From various writers and authors
quoted by Mr. Boudinot, it appears that other tribes, as well as the Cherokees,
observed this two-fold commencement of the year, that is at the time of the
autumnal and vernal equinoxes.
--Star in the West.
The year, time
immemorial, as far as is known, they denominated Sute-ti-yo-ta, and why it
should be stated by Mr. Boudinot and others that they had no name for year, we
cannot perceive.
The Cherokees divided
the year into twelve moons, which, according to all the aged antiquarians I
have conversed with were arranged in the following order: No-ta-te-qua,
Tulisti, Tuniquati, Uskiyi, Uquatotani, Kakali, Anoyi, Kuwoni, Anaskoti, Tehaluyi,
Kuyoquoni, Kaloni. How they supplied the place of Neadar of the Jews cannot,
perhaps, now be determined, but as the Choctaws had thirteen moons, and as they
and the Cherokees were ever, as far as known, on friendly terms, it is probable
that they had, anciently, something like the thirteenth interialiary [13] month
of the Jews.
Anoyi, strawberry moon,
commenced the year, as respected all their feasts of first fruits. And, as its
name indicates, the period of strawberries, or when strawberries began to get
ripe. It was doubtless the new moon of the vernal equinox, embracing a few days
of March and the month of April. Nota-te-qua, as before observed, commenced the
natural year, and made its appearance when the fruits were ripe and the leaves
began to decay and fall, which was evidently about the time of the autumnal
equinox, embracing the latter part of September and the most of October.
--Shield Eater,
Terrapin Head, and Yo-Wi-Yoka [sic].
The year was divided
into four seasons of three months each: 1. Ulukohisto, Autumn; 2. Kolah, or
Konah, winter; 3. Koge, spring; 4. Kogi, summer.
The year was again
divided into six seasons: Ulukohusti, embracing the two moons Notatequa and
Tulisti; Kolah or Konah, embracing Tuninoti and Uskiye; Nolatihi, including
Unolotani and Nagali; Koge, including Anoyi and Nuwoni, and Kogihi, including
Anaskoti and Tehaluyi; Kuyo, embracing Kuyoquoni and Kaloni.
The moons they divided
into weeks of seven days each. A week was called Unatotaquahi; and three days
of the week had different names, viz.: Unatotaquoski, Sabbath; Unatotaquona,
Monday, i.e., the day after Sabbath; and Unatotaquitena, the day before the
Sabbath. These three names, however, were not always familiar to all the
people. When the observance of the Sabbath was neglected, its appropriate name
seems to have been lost among many of the common people, who reckoned their
weeks by seven days, calling the seventh Uloquatiika (or Ulumlogwattika) the
glorious or excellent day. But that Unatotaquoski was the original name for the
Sabbath, appears from this, that the real antiquarians, in speaking of the
first appointment of the Sabbath by Yihowah, always expressed it by this name.
The other days (nights)
of the week, aside from Saturday, Sabbath, and Monday, they reckoned by the
ordinal numbers as third, fourth, &c., from the Sabbath, or three of the
week, four of the week, &c. The day, consisting of twenty-four hours,
extended from twilight to twilight and was called Susohito. Two such days were
called Talitsusohia (48). This day was divided between the light and the
darkness; that part including the light was called Unotaquatta, the whole
period of light. Two such days were Tutisutotaqutta. The other part, including
the whole of the darkness, was called Ulitsotoquotta. Two such nights were
called Tutitsulitsutaquotta. The 24 hours again divided into Ika, da, and
Sunoyi, night.
These were again
subdivided into 1. ----- [sic] sundown; 2.Ikaloke, between sundown and dusk; 3.
Alitoska, twilight; 4.Uwohitsita, from the commencement of darkness till 9 or
10 o’clock; 5. Sunoyitlustoti, from 9 or 10 o’clock till midnight; 6. Sunoyi,
midnight (the middle syllable strongly accented); 7 ----- [sic]; 8. Ukitsakeyi,
cock-crowing and thence till daybreak, i.e., white light springing or rising
up; 10. Ikaatiha, dawn; 11----- [sic]; 12. Tikalukga, sunrise; 13. Sunalestoti,
the time from sunrise till the middle of the forenoon; 14. Ulutsitiika, near
the middle of the day; 15. Ika, (strong accent on the first syllable), noon;
16. Itluistoti, shortly after noon, that is , a period from 12, or noon, till
probably about the middle of the afternoon; 17. Usohiyeyi, a period commencing
at the close of the above, and extending till near sunset; 18. Tsihnawia, or
Tsiunawo, a short period before sunset, when the rays of that planet have lost
their force, and the air has become cool.
Mr. Boudinot, speaking
of the Indians, says; They divide the year into spring, summer, autumn, or the
falling of the leaf, and winter. Kolah is their word for winter with the
Cherokee Indians. They subdivide these, and count the year by lunar months or
moons. They call the sun and moon by the same word, with the addition of day
and night, as the day sun or moon, and the night sun or moon. They count the
day by three sensible differences of the sun, as--the sun is coming out,
midday, and the sun is dead, or sunset. Midnight is halfway between the sun
going in and coming out of the water. Also by midnight and cock crowing.
They begin their
ecclesiastical year at the first appearance of the first new moon of the vernal
equinox. They pay great regard to the first appearance of every new moon. They
name the various seasons of the year from the planting and the ripening of the
fruits.
The civil year of the
Natchez Indians, according to Charlevoix [14], seems to have commenced about
the time of the autumn equinox, as did that of another tribe mentioned by Mr.
Bartram [15], that is, when the new crops had arrived at maturity.
--Star in the West.
Monsieur LePage du
Pratz [16], in his second volume History of Louisiana; page 120, informs us
that, being exceedingly desirous to be informed of the origin of the Indian
natives, made every inquiry in his power, especially of the nation of the
Natchez, one of the most intelligent among them. All he could learn from them
was that they came from between the north and the sun setting. Being no way
satisfied with this, he sought for one who bore the character of being one of
their wisest men, and was happy to discover one named Moneachtape, among the
Yazous [17], a nation about forty leagues from the Natchez. This man was
remarkable for his solid understanding and elevation of sentiments, and his
name was given to him by his nation as expressive of the man--meaning "the
killer of pain and fatigue." "His eager desire to see the country
whence his forefathers came," led him to obtain directions, and he set
off. He went up the Missouri, where he stayed a long time to learn the
different languages of the nations he was to pass through. After long
traveling, he came to the nation of the Otters [18], and by them was directed
on his way until he reached the southern ocean. After living some time with the
nations on the shores of the great sea, he proposed to proceed on his journey,
and joined himself to some people who inhabited more westwardly on the coast.
They traveled a great way, between the north and the sunsetting, when they
arrived at the village of his fellow travelers, where he found the days long
and the nights short. He was here advised to give over all thoughts of
continuing his journey. They told him that the land continued a long way in the
direction aforesaid, after which it ran directly west, and at length was cut by
the great water from north to south. One of them added that when he was young
he knew a very old man who had seen that distant land before it was cut away by
the great water; and when the great water was low many rocks still appeared in
those parts. Moncachtape took their advice and returned home after an absence
of five years.
--Star in the West.
Mr. Boudinot, in his
introduction to the Star in the West, says: This subject has occupied the
attention of the writer, at times, for more than forty years. He was led to the
consideration of it, in the first instance, by a conversation with a very
worthy reverend clergyman of his acquaintance, who, having an independent
fortune, undertook a journey (in company with a brother clergyman, who was
desirous of attending him) into the wilderness between the Allegheny and
Mississippi rivers, sometime in or about the years 1765 or 1766, before the
white people had settled beyond the Laurel mountains [19]. His desire was to
meet with native Indians who had never seen a white man, that he might satisfy
his curiosity by knowing from the best source, what traditions the Indians
preserved relative to their own history and origin. This these gentlemen
accomplished, with great danger, risk and fatigue. "On their return one of
them related to the writer that, far to the northwest of the Ohio, he attended
a party of Indians to a treaty with Indians from west of the Mississippi. There
he found the people he was in search of. He conversed with their beloved man,
who had never seen a white man before, by the assistance of three grades of
interpreters. The Indian informed him that one of their most ancient traditions
was, that a great while ago they had a common father, who lived towards the
rising of the sun, and governed the whole world; that all the white people’s
heads were under his feet; that he had twelve sons, by whom he administered his
government; that his authority was derived from the Great Spirit, by virtue of
some special gift from Him; that the twelve sons behaved very bad, and
tyrannized over the people, abusing their power to a great degree, so as to
offend the Great Spirit exceedingly, that He, being angry with them, suffered
the white people to introduce spirituous liquors among them, made them drunk,
stole the special gift of the Great Spirit from them, and by this means usurped
his power over them, and, ever since, the Indians’ heads were under the white
people’s feet. But that they also had a tradition that the time would come when
the Indians would regain the gift of the Great Spirit from the white people,
and with it their ancient power, when the white people’s heads would be again
under the Indians’ feet."
Mr. McKenzie [20], in
his History of the Fur Trade, says that "the Indians informed him that
they had a tradition among them that they originally came from another country,
inhabited by a wicked people, and had traversed a great lake, which was narrow,
shallow, and full of islands, where they had suffered great hardships and much
misery, it being always winter, with ice and deep snows. At a place they call
the Copper Mine River, where they made the first land, the ground was covered
with copper, over which a body of earth had since been collected to the depth
of a man’s height.
--Star in the West.
--The End--
[1] Vinita, Oklahoma, county seat of Craig County in N.E. Oklahoma.[2]
John Ross (1790-1866) was Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to
his death.[3] William Potter Ross (1820-1891), first editor of the Cherokee
Advocate and editor of the Indian Journal, Indian Arrow, and Indian
Chieftain.[4] Parkhurst, John. A Hebrew and English Lexicon without Points. In
which the Hebrew and Chaldee Words of the Old Testament are Explained in their
Leading and Derived Senses. 7th ed. London: Printed by T. Davison for F. C. and
J. Rivington [etc.], 1813.[5] Boudinot, Elias, (1740-1821.) A Star in the West,
or, A Humble Attempt to Discover the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, Preparatory to
Their Return to Their Beloved City, Jerusalem. Trenton, N.J.: D. Fenton, S. Hutchinson,
and J. Dunham, 1816.[6] Edwards, Bryan (1743-1800.) The History, Civil and
Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. Vol. 1. London: John
Stockdale, 1807.[7] David Brown was considered one of the bright young men in
the Cherokee Nation in the first decades of the nineteenth century. He was
educated at Brainerd Mission school and the Foreign Mission School at Cornwall,
Connecticut. With his father-in-law George Lowrey, Brown worked on publications
in the Cherokee language.[8] Spleen?[9] Uncertain. Yowa is the Cherokee word
for "Great Spirit."[10] Mackenzie, Alexander, Sir (1763- 1820).
Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of
North American, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans; in the years 1790 and 1793;
with a Preliminary Account of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the Fur
Trade of that Country; Illustrated with Maps. London: T. Cadell, Jr., and W.
Davies, 1801.[11] Beatty, Charles (1715?-1772.) The Journal of a Two Month
Tour, with a View of Promoting Religion among the Frontier Inhabitants of
Pennsylvania and of Introducing Christianity among the Indians to the Westward
of the Alegh-geny Mountains. Edinburgh: T Maccliesh and J. Ogle, 1798.[12] Col.
Peter Perkins Pitchlynn, (1806-1881.) Born in the Choctaw Nation in Mississippi
on Jan. 20, 1806, the son of John Pitchlynn, a white man, and Sophia Folsom
Pitchlynn, a Choctaw. Pitchlynn was educated at the Academy of Columbia,
Tennessee, and the University of Tennessee. After Graduation from the university,
he returned to the Choctaw Nation, where he married his cousin, Rhoda Folsom.
He was elected to the Choctaw National Council in 1825 and, in 1828, led an
exploring and peace-making mission to Osage country west of the Mississippi.
Pitchlynn was active in Choctaw politics throughout his life. He served as
Principle Chief from 1864 through 1866 and, after his term of office, stayed in
Washington pressing Choctaw claims against the government. He died in
Washington on January 17, 1881.[13] Between.[14] de Charlevoix,
Pierre-Francois-Xavier, (1682-1761.) A Voyage to North America: Undertaken by
Command of the present King of France; Containing the Geographical Description
and Natural History of Canada and Louisiana; With the Customs, Manners, Trade
and Religion of the Inhabitants; A description of the Lakes and Rivers, With
Their Navigation and Manner of Passing the Great Cataracts. Dublin: J. Exshaw
and J. Potts, 1766.[15] Bartram, John, (1699-1777.) Travels Through North and
South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the
Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country
of the Chactaws; Containing an Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of
Those Regions; Together with Observations on the Manner of the Indians. Dublin:
J. Moore, W. Jones, R. M’Allister, and J. Rice, 1793.[16] Le Page Du Pratz,
Antoine Simone (1695-1775.) The History of Louisiana, or the Western Parts of
Virginia and Carolina: Containing a Description of the Countries That Lie on
Both Sides of the River Mississippi: With an Account of the Settlements,
Inhabitants, Soil, Climate, and Products. London: T. Beckett, 1744.[17] Yazoo,
a southeastern tribe, later absorbed by the Choctaws and Chickasaws.[18] Not
identified.[19] In Pennsylvania.[20] Mackenzie, Alexander, Sir, (1763- 1820).
Voyages from Montreal.
When the
"Antiquities" of Buttrick were being published in 1884, Cherokee
intellectual Walter Adair Duncan, contested some of their basic premises.
Duncan pokes holes in Buttrick’s theory that the opinions expressed by his
informants were the same as those of Cherokees before white contact. He touches
upon critical issues such as influence, translation, and textual transmission,
notions ignored or unnoticed by Buttrick. These issues are, of course, crucial
to the argument that pre-contact peoples derived from or had beliefs similar to
Judaic or Christian groups.
W. A. Duncan was an
influential member of the Cherokee community in the nineteenth century. Born in
the Eastern Cherokee Nation in 1823, he removed with his family in 1838 to
Flint District. He attended school in nearby Arkansas, was licensed to preach
in 1847, and became a circuit rider. He became Principal Chief John Ross’s
secretary in 1850, later becoming a member of the National Council. From 1872
until 1884, he was superintendent of the Cherokee Orphan Asylum, a major unit
in the Nation’s educational system at the time. Duncan died in 1907.
Cherokee Advocate,
April 25, 1884
I have been reading
some of the Buttrick collection of Cherokee antiquities as recently published
in the pages of the Indian Chieftain. Ever since the death of Mr. Buttrick, I
have been waiting for those manuscripts to be placed before the public. I was
but a boy in those days. Mr. Buttrick always seemed to feel an interest in me,
and often, when we were thrown together, he would relate a great deal of what
he had written about the Cherokees, their manners, customs, religion and
traditions. He was decidedly of the opinion that they were descendants of the
old Hebrew stock.
The day before he died,
I called at his room at old Dwight Mission. He was all alone at that moment,
reposing quietly as if sleeping. The circumstances did not admit of many words.
The "silver cord" was being unloosed. It was very impressive, and my
feelings at that time were very impressible. I spoke only one sentence, and he
only one. Holding his shrunken fingers in my had, "How do you feel now,
Mr. Buttrick?" Languidly unclosing his eyes, he replied; "I
am--persuaded--that he is--able to keep that which--I have committed to
his--care--till that day." Quietly leaving, I went on to my appointments.
A few days after his
burial, I returned by way of Dwight Mission, Mr. Willey told me that Mr.
Buttrick had willed his manuscripts on the Cherokees to John B. Jones, [1] with
instruction that they should not be unsealed till twenty years. They were then
to be opened and published. So I had been hoping that Mr. Jones might so use
them in connection with his own researches, as to bring out a publication
which, from intrinsic worth, might be styled the great work on the Indians. But
the designs of Providence are inscrutable. Both Mr. Jones and Mr. Buttrick have
been called to their reward, and the work on the Cherokees remains unfinished.
But it is evident now
from what has been published, that there will be difference of opinion as to
the real merited of the "Buttrick Collection." It is quite likely
that he himself was aware of their imperfections. This may have been the reason
for leaving them under instruction as to their publication. He may have
supposed that Mr. Jones, by the aid of his superior attainments in the Cherokee
language, would be able to so sift and winnow them as to collect the wheat from
among the chaff.
It is a ground of
suspicion that, in recounting the history and stating the doctrines and beliefs
of the Cherokees, the collections are so minute and circumstantial. They
correspond too precisely with the old testament Scriptures to be received by
many as containing a representation of the pure notions of the Cherokee people.
As the blood of the Whites had become greatly intermixed with that of the
Cherokees at the time when Mr. Buttrick lived among them, so their notions of
religion, history, and to some extent, philosophy, had found their way among
those of the Indians. This presumption is rendered more credible, when it is
noticed that the collections represent the Cherokees as having many notions
interwoven with their sacred knowledge, which could have been derived from no
other source than the New Testament.
The case is very much
like the story about the three boxes. It is said to be a tradition among the
American Indians that, at the beginning, God made three men, one white, one
read, the other black, and placed before them three boxes, one containing books
and papers, one, bows and arrows, and the other, mattocks and hoes, and that
when the command was given for each man to make choice of a box, the white man
took the books and papers, the red man, the bows and arrows, thus leaving the
utensils of labor for the black man. As flimsy as this story is, it has been
considered, even by men who have presumed upon being sufficiently learned to enlighten
the world upon the origin of the races, as purely an Indian tradition. But only
think of it. Does it not contain within itself the proofs of its own fallacy?
What did the American Indians know about boxes, books, papers, and agricultural
implements made of iron and steel, before those articles were introduced from
Europe a few centuries ago? Is it not clear from the elements out of which the
story has been made that it is wholly an invention of modern times? And yet, as
above, intimated, even learned men have taken it to be of genuine Indian
origin.
So the internal
evidence of the Buttrick collections show very clearly that what he took to be
peculiar to the original Cherokees had been greatly intermixed with notions
which had been transmitted to them from modern sources. It was impossible when
he wrote to separate the exotic from the indigenous, and it was his mistake to
write down much that had been borrowed as originally Indian.
But a question here
presents itself. How came the Cherokees into the possession of those modern
notions, which were so extensively interwoven with their system in 1817, the
time when Buttrick came among them? An answer to this question shall close this
essay.
Along the Atlantic
shore for more than three hundred years, the Indians had been in contact with
the Europeans. Impelled by a spirit of traffic and adventure, and, in some
cases, a spirit of benevolence, the whites had cultivated an extensive and
intimate intercourse with them, which became a fruitful source of information
in regard to the religion of the Bible. Indeed a prime motive in establishing
some of the colonies was to extend the benefits of religious knowledge to the
Indians; and after the puritans came to the continent, about the middle of the
seventeenth century, there was special effort made to give the Gospel to the
"savages," as they called us in those days. In 1642, the Mayhews, [2]
the elder and the younger, at their "small plantation in the Lord,"
or the island of Martha’s Vineyard, entered upon an organized work "for
the conversion of the poor savages." The result was that in the course of
one hundred and fifty years, thousands embraced Christianity. Under the act
passed in 1646 by the "General Court of Massachusetts Colony," for
the propagation of the Gospel among the Indians, Mr. Elliot [3] became a
missionary among them. For a number of years he labored with remarkable zeal
and perseverance. The fruits that followed were immense. The Bible was
translated, churches were founded, natives were made preachers. Speaking of
this state of things in 1687, Dr. Mather [4] said; "There are six churches
of baptized Indians in New England, and eighteen assemblies of catechumens
professing the name of Christ. Of the Indians there are four and twenty who are
preachers of the word of God, and besides these, there are four English
ministers who preach the Gospel in the Indian tongue." For six years,
about the middle of the last century, the great President Edwards, [5] himself,
was missionary to those Northern Indians. All are familiar with the labors of
Brainard [6] and the successes which crowned those labors. Nor should the
labors performed by the Moravians be overlooked. With a smaller membership that
almost any of the churches, they have covered a wider field with their stations
and done more real Christian work for the conversion of the world, in
proportion to numbers, than any of the modern sects. Their work among the
Indians of the Atlantic soon grew up to such importance as to induce a visit
from the great count Zinsendorff [7] himself.
As the result of
intertribal communication among the Indians, it is easy to see how notions
derived from the Bible would be carried from those parts of the continent which
had been visited by the missionaries to the most remote tribes dwelling in the
in the interior.
But the Southern
tribes, Cherokees, Creeks and others, were not left to the fortuitous
opportunities of gaining knowledge of the Christian religion merely from
incidental intercourse with the tribes of a higher latitude. In addition to the
casual visits among them of Catholic Priests, there were several efforts made
for their conversions in those early days by some of the protestant churches,
which doubtless resulted in the dissemination among them of no small measure of
knowledge in regard to the teachings of the Bible. In 1735, the United Brethren
formed a settlement in Georgia, having for its object the Christian instruction
of the Indians. The same year Mr. John Wesley and his brother Charles, came
from England in company with General Oglethorpe, as missionaries to the
Indians, and to some extent, during the two years of his stay in America, John
Wesley preached to the Cherokees and some others.
Such are some of the
early opportunities which the Cherokees had for the acquisition of Scriptural
notions. But still later, and yet prior to the time when Mr. Buttrick came
among them the facilities for the acquisition of such notions were greatly
increased. In 1803, the General assembly of the Presbyterian Church appointed
Mr. Blackburn a missionary to the Cherokees. Entering upon his wok with great
fervency of spirit, he soon established two schools, comprising seventy-five
pupils; but after a few years labor, he was forced to abandon the field
"for want of support." But this lack of service was soon obviated. In
1810 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was formed, and
Mr. Kingsbury had preceded Mr. Buttrick to the Cherokee country, under the
auspices of that board.
NOTE: I had just
finished the above remarks, when the "Discourse Delivered at Vinita,"
by Dr. Hill on 16 March, at the dedication of the Presbyterian church, as
printed in Cherokee Advocate from St. Louis Evangelist, came to hand. I get my
information in regard to Mr. Blackburn’s connection with the mission to the
Cherokees from an old book with a preface dated, "Andover, Tho. Sem.
January 1819." The following is the sentence which I had in mind when I
wrote the above "But we are sorry to add, when this active missionary had
enlarged his plans to the magnitude of its object, he failed for want of
support," italicized as in this quotation.
Park Hill C. N. April
19th, 1884.
W. A. Duncan
[1] Baptist missionary to the Cherokees in the second half of the
nineteenth century, son of Evan Jones. Jones and his father were fluent in
Cherokee.[2] Thomas Mayhew (1593-1682) was the first governor of Martha’s
Vineyard and an early missionary to the Indians of New England. His son Thomas
(1621-1657) was likewise a missionary to the Indians.[3] John Eliot (1604-1690)
began preaching to the Indians in 1846. He translated the Bible into Algonquin
in 1661, the first Bible published in North America.[4] Increase Mather
(1639-1723), Massachusetts churchman who was Rector of Harvard in 1687.[5]
Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), Congregationalist clergyman, author, and
theologian. After serving as missionary to the Mohicans, he became President of
the College of New Jersey at Princeton.[6] David Brainerd (1718-1747),
missionary to the Indians in present-day New York state. His work was continued
by his son, John B. Brainerd (1720-1781).[7] Zinzendorf, Nicolaus Ludvig, Count
von (1700-1760), leader of the Moravian Church, which established a mission and
school in the Cherokee Nation in 1801.