America, when it became known to Europeans, was, as it had long been, a scene of wide-spread revolution. North and South, tribe was giving place to tribe, language to language; for the Indian, hopelessly unchanging in respect to individual and social development, was, as regarded tribal4 relations and local haunts, mutable as the wind. In Canada and the northern section of the United States, the elements of change were especially active. The Indian population which, in 1535, Cartier found at Montreal and Quebec, had disappeared at the opening of the next century, and another race had succeeded, in language and customs widely different; while, in the region now forming the State of New York, a power was rising to a ferocious5 vitality6, which, but for the presence of Europeans, would probably have subjected, absorbed, or exterminated8 every other Indian xx community east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio.
The vast tract9 of wilderness10 from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, and from the Carolinas to Hudson's Bay, was divided between two great families of tribes, distinguished11 by a radical12 difference of language. A part of Virginia and of Pennsylvania, New Jersey15, Southeastern New York, New England, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Lower Canada were occupied, so far as occupied at all, by tribes speaking various Algonquin languages and dialects. They extended, moreover, along the shores of the Upper Lakes, and into the dreary18 Northern wastes beyond. They held Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana, and detached bands ranged the lonely hunting-ground of Kentucky. [1]
[1] The word Algonquin is here used in its broadest signification. It was originally applied20 to a group of tribes north of the River St. Lawrence. The difference of language between the original Algonquins and the Abenaquis of New England, the Ojibwas of the Great Lakes, or the Illinois of the West, corresponded to the difference between French and Italian, or Italian and Spanish. Each of these languages, again, had its dialects, like those of different provinces of France.
Like a great island in the midst of the Algonquins lay the country of tribes speaking the generic21 tongue of the Iroquois. The true Iroquois, or Five Nations, extended through Central New York, from the Hudson to the Genesee. Southward lay the Andastes, on and near the Susquehanna; westward22, the Eries, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, and the Neutral Nation, along its northern shore from Niagara towards the Detroit; while the towns of the Hurons lay near the lake to which they have left their name. [2]
[2] To the above general statements there was, in the first half of the seventeenth century, but one exception worth notice. A detached branch of the Dahcotah stock, the Winnebago, was established south of Green Bay, on Lake Michigan, in the midst of Algonquins; and small Dahcotah bands had also planted themselves on the eastern side of the Mississippi, nearly in the same latitude23.
There was another branch of the Iroquois in the Carolinas, consisting of the Tuscaroras and kindred bands. In 1715 they were joined to the Five Nations.
xxi Of the Algonquin populations, the densest24, despite a recent epidemic25 which had swept them off by thousands, was in New England. Here were Mohicans, Pequots, Narragansetts, Wampanoags, Massachusetts, Penacooks, thorns in the side of the Puritan. On the whole, these savages27 were favorable specimens28 of the Algonquin stock, belonging to that section of it which tilled the soil, and was thus in some measure spared the extremes of misery29 and degradation30 to which the wandering hunter tribes were often reduced. They owed much, also, to the bounty31 of the sea, and hence they tended towards the coast; which, before the epidemic, Champlain and Smith had seen at many points studded with wigwams and waving with harvests of maize32. Fear, too, drove them eastward33; for the Iroquois pursued them with an inveterate34 enmity. Some paid yearly tribute to their tyrants35, while others were still subject to their inroads, flying in terror at the sound of the Mohawk war-cry. Westward, the population thinned rapidly; northward37, it soon disappeared. Northern New Hampshire, the whole of Vermont, and Western Massachusetts had no human tenants38 but the roving hunter or prowling warrior39.
We have said that this group of tribes was relatively40 very populous41; yet it is more than doubtful whether all of them united, had union been possible, could have mustered42 eight thousand fighting men. To speak further of them is needless, for they were not within the scope of the Jesuit labors43. The heresy44 of heresies45 had planted itself among them; and it was for the apostle Eliot, not the Jesuit, to essay their conversion46. [3]
[3] These Indians, the Armouchiquois of the old French writers, were in a state of chronic48 war with the tribes of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. Champlain, on his voyage of 1603, heard strange accounts of them. The following is literally49 rendered from the first narrative50 of that heroic, but credulous51 explorer.
"They are savages of shape altogether monstrous53: for their heads are small, their bodies short, and their arms thin as a skeleton, as are also their thighs54; but their legs are stout55 and long, and all of one size, and, when they are seated on their heels, their knees rise more than half a foot above their heads, which seems a thing strange and against Nature. Nevertheless, they are active and bold, and they have the best country on all the coast towards Acadia."—Des Sauvages, f. 34.
This story may match that of the great city of Norembega, on the Penobscot, with its population of dwarfs57, as related by Jean Alphonse.
xxii Landing at Boston, three years before a solitude59, let the traveller push northward, pass the River Piscataqua and the Penacooks, and cross the River Saco. Here, a change of dialect would indicate a different tribe, or group of tribes. These were the Abenaquis, found chiefly along the course of the Kennebec and other rivers, on whose banks they raised their rude harvests, and whose streams they ascended60 to hunt the moose and bear in the forest desert of Northern Maine, or descended61 to fish in the neighboring sea. [4]
[4] The Tarratines of New-England writers were the Abenaquis, or a portion of them.
Crossing the Penobscot, one found a visible descent in the scale of humanity. Eastern Maine and the whole of New Brunswick were occupied by a race called Etchemins, to whom agriculture was unknown, though the sea, prolific62 of fish, lobsters63, and seals, greatly lightened their miseries64. The Souriquois, or Micmacs, of Nova Scotia, closely resembled them in habits and condition. From Nova Scotia to the St. Lawrence, there was no population worthy65 of the name. From the Gulf66 of St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, the southern border of the great river had no tenants but hunters. Northward, between the St. Lawrence and Hudson's Bay, roamed the scattered67 hordes68 of the Papinachois, Bersiamites, xxiii and others, included by the French under the general name of Montagnais. When, in spring, the French trading-ships arrived and anchored in the port of Tadoussac, they gathered from far and near, toiling70 painfully through the desolation of forests, mustering71 by hundreds at the point of traffic, and setting up their bark wigwams along the strand72 of that wild harbor. They were of the lowest Algonquin type. Their ordinary sustenance74 was derived75 from the chase; though often, goaded76 by deadly famine, they would subsist77 on roots, the bark and buds of trees, or the foulest79 offal; and in extremity80, even cannibalism81 was not rare among them.
Ascending82 the St. Lawrence, it was seldom that the sight of a human form gave relief to the loneliness, until, at Quebec, the roar of Champlain's cannon83 from the verge84 of the cliff announced that the savage26 prologue85 of the American drama was drawing to a close, and that the civilization of Europe was advancing on the scene. Ascending farther, all was solitude, except at Three Rivers, a noted86 place of trade, where a few Algonquins of the tribe called Atticamegues might possibly be seen. The fear of the Iroquois was everywhere; and as the voyager passed some wooded point, or thicket-covered island, the whistling of a stone-headed arrow proclaimed, perhaps, the presence of these fierce marauders. At Montreal there was no human life, save during a brief space in early summer, when the shore swarmed87 with savages, who had come to the yearly trade from the great communities of the interior. To-day there were dances, songs, and feastings; to-morrow all again was solitude, and the Ottawa was covered with the canoes of the returning warriors88.
Along this stream, a main route of traffic, the silence xxiv of the wilderness was broken only by the splash of the passing paddle. To the north of the river there was indeed a small Algonquin band, called La Petite Nation, together with one or two other feeble communities; but they dwelt far from the banks, through fear of the ubiquitous Iroquois. It was nearly three hundred miles, by the windings89 of the stream, before one reached that Algonquin tribe, La Nation de l'Isle, who occupied the great island of the Allumettes. Then, after many a day of lonely travel, the voyager found a savage welcome among the Nipissings, on the lake which bears their name; and then circling west and south for a hundred and fifty miles of solitude, he reached for the first time a people speaking a dialect of the Iroquois tongue. Here all was changed. Populous towns, rude fortifications, and an extensive, though barbarous tillage, indicated a people far in advance of the famished90 wanderers of the Saguenay, or their less abject91 kindred of New England. These were the Hurons, of whom the modern Wyandots are a remnant. Both in themselves and as a type of their generic stock they demand more than a passing notice. [5]
[5] The usual confusion of Indian tribal names prevails in the case of the Hurons. The following are their synonymes:—
Hurons (of French origin); Ochateguins (Champlain); Attigouantans (the name of one of their tribes, used by Champlain for the whole nation); Ouendat (their true name, according to Lalemant); Yendat, Wyandot, Guyandot (corruptions of the preceding); Ouaouakecinatouek (Potier), Quatogies (Colden).
THE HURONS.
More than two centuries have elapsed since the Hurons vanished from their ancient seats, and the settlers of this rude solitude stand perplexed94 and wondering over the relics95 of a lost people. In the damp shadow of what xxv seems a virgin14 forest, the axe96 and plough bring strange secrets to light: huge pits, close packed with skeletons and disjointed bones, mixed with weapons, copper97 kettles, beads98, and trinkets. Not even the straggling Algonquins, who linger about the scene of Huron prosperity, can tell their origin. Yet, on ancient worm-eaten pages, between covers of begrimed parchment, the daily life of this ruined community, its firesides, its festivals, its funeral rites100, are painted with a minute and vivid fidelity101.
The ancient country of the Hurons is now the northern and eastern portion of Simcoe County, Canada West, and is embraced within the peninsula formed by the Nottawassaga and Matchedash Bays of Lake Huron, the River Severn, and Lake Simcoe. Its area was small,—its population comparatively large. In the year 1639 the Jesuits made an enumeration102 of all its villages, dwellings104, and families. The result showed thirty-two villages and hamlets, with seven hundred dwellings, about four thousand families, and twelve thousand adult persons, or a total population of at least twenty thousand. [6]
[6] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 38 (Cramoisy). His words are, "de feux enuiron deux mille, et enuiron douze mille personnes." There were two families to every fire. That by "personnes" adults only are meant cannot be doubted, as the Relations abound105 in incidental evidence of a total population far exceeding twelve thousand. A Huron family usually numbered from five to eight persons. The number of the Huron towns changed from year to year. Champlain and Le Caron, in 1615, reckoned them at seventeen or eighteen, with a population of about ten thousand, meaning, no doubt, adults. Brébeuf, in 1635, found twenty villages, and, as he thinks, thirty thousand souls. Both Le Mercier and De Quen, as well as Dollier de Casson and the anonymous106 author of the Relation of 1660, state the population at from thirty to thirty-five thousand. Since the time of Champlain's visit, various kindred tribes or fragments of tribes had been incorporated with the Hurons, thus more than balancing the ravages107 of a pestilence108 which had decimated them.
The region whose boundaries we have given was an alternation of meadows and deep forests, interlaced with xxvi footpaths109 leading from town to town. Of these towns, some were fortified110, but the greater number were open and defenceless. They were of a construction common to all tribes of Iroquois lineage, and peculiar111 to them. Nothing similar exists at the present day. [7] They covered a space of from one to ten acres, the dwellings clustering together with little or no pretension112 to order. In general, these singular structures were about thirty or thirty-five feet in length, breadth, and height; but many were much larger, and a few were of prodigious113 length. In some of the villages there were dwellings two hundred and forty feet long, though in breadth and height they did not much exceed the others. [8] In shape they were much like an arbor73 overarching a garden-walk. Their frame was of tall and strong saplings, planted in a double row to form the two sides of the house, bent114 till they met, and lashed115 together at the top. To these other poles were bound transversely, and the whole was covered with large sheets of the bark of the oak, elm, spruce, or white cedar117, overlapping118 like the shingles119 of a roof, upon which, for their better security, split poles were made fast with cords of linden bark. At the crown of the arch, along the entire length of the house, an opening a foot wide was left for the admission of light and the escape of smoke. At each end was a close porch of similar xxvii construction; and here were stowed casks of bark, filled with smoked fish, Indian corn, and other stores not liable to injury from frost. Within, on both sides, were wide scaffolds, four feet from the floor, and extending the entire length of the house, like the seats of a colossal120 omnibus. [9] These were formed of thick sheets of bark, supported by posts and transverse poles, and covered with mats and skins. Here, in summer, was the sleeping-place of the inmates121, and the space beneath served for storage of their firewood. The fires were on the ground, in a line down the middle of the house. Each sufficed for two families, who, in winter, slept closely packed around them. Above, just under the vaulted122 roof, were a great number of poles, like the perches123 of a hen-roost, and here were suspended weapons, clothing, skins, and ornaments125. Here, too, in harvest time, the squaws hung the ears of unshelled corn, till the rude abode126, through all its length, seemed decked with a golden tapestry127. In general, however, its only lining128 was a thick coating of soot129 from the smoke of fires with neither draught130, chimney, nor window. So pungent131 was the smoke, that it produced inflammation of the eyes, attended in old age with frequent blindness. Another annoyance132 was the fleas133; and a third, the unbridled and unruly children. Privacy there was none. The house was one chamber134, sometimes lodging135 more than twenty families. [10]
[7] The permanent bark villages of the Dahcotah of the St. Peter's are the nearest modern approach to the Huron towns. The whole Huron country abounds136 with evidences of having been occupied by a numerous population. "On a close inspection137 of the forest," Dr. Taché writes to me, "the greatest part of it seems to have been cleared at former periods, and almost the only places bearing the character of the primitive138 forest are the low grounds."
[8] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 31. Champlain says that he saw them, in 1615, more than thirty fathoms139 long; while Vanderdonck reports the length, from actual measurement, of an Iroquois house, at a hundred and eighty yards, or five hundred and forty feet!
[9] Often, especially among the Iroquois, the internal arrangement was different. The scaffolds or platforms were raised only a foot from the earthen floor, and were only twelve or thirteen feet long, with intervening spaces, where the occupants stored their family provisions and other articles. Five or six feet above was another platform, often occupied by children. One pair of platforms sufficed for a family, and here during summer they slept pellmell, in the clothes they wore by day, and without pillows.
[10] One of the best descriptions of the Huron and Iroquois houses is that of Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, 118. See also Champlain (1627), 78; Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, 31; Vanderdonck, New Netherlands, in N. Y. Hist. Coll., Second Ser., I. 196; Lafitau, M?urs des Sauvages, II. 10. The account given by Cartier of the houses he saw at Montreal corresponds with the above. He describes them as about fifty yards long. In this case, there were partial partitions for the several families, and a sort of loft140 above. Many of the Iroquois and Huron houses were of similar construction, the partitions being at the sides only, leaving a wide passage down the middle of the house. Bartram, Observations on a Journey from Pennsylvania to Canada, gives a description and plan of the Iroquois Council-House in 1751, which was of this construction. Indeed, the Iroquois preserved this mode of building, in all essential points, down to a recent period. They usually framed the sides of their houses on rows of upright posts, arched with separate poles for the roof. The Hurons, no doubt, did the same in their larger structures. For a door, there was a sheet of bark hung on wooden hinges, or suspended by cords from above.
On the site of Huron towns which were destroyed by fire, the size, shape, and arrangement of the houses can still, in some instances, be traced by remains141 in the form of charcoal142, as well as by the charred143 bones and fragments of pottery144 found among the ashes.
Dr. Taché, after a zealous146 and minute examination of the Huron country, extended through five years, writes to me as follows. "From the remains I have found, I can vouch148 for the scrupulous149 correctness of our ancient writers. With the aid of their indications and descriptions, I have been able to detect the sites of villages in the midst of the forest, and by time study, in situ, of arch?ological monuments, small as they are, to understand and confirm their many interesting details of the habits, and especially the funeral rites, of these extraordinary tribes."
xxviii He who entered on a winter night beheld150 a strange spectacle: the vista151 of fires lighting152 the smoky concave; the bronzed groups encircling each,—cooking, eating, gambling153, or amusing themselves with idle badinage154; shrivelled squaws, hideous155 with threescore years of hardship; grisly old warriors, scarred with Iroquois war-clubs; young aspirants156, whose honors were yet to be won; damsels gay with ochre and wampum; restless children pellmell with restless dogs. Now a tongue of resinous157 flame painted each wild feature in vivid light; now the fitful gleam expired, and the group vanished from sight, as their nation has vanished from history.
The fortified towns of the Hurons were all on the side xxix exposed to Iroquois incursions. The fortifications of all this family of tribes were, like their dwellings, in essential points alike. A situation was chosen favorable to defence,—the bank of a lake, the crown of a difficult hill, or a high point of land in the fork of confluent rivers. A ditch, several feet deep, was dug around the village, and the earth thrown up on the inside. Trees were then felled by an alternate process of burning and hacking159 the burnt part with stone hatchets160, and by similar means were cut into lengths to form palisades. These were planted on the embankment, in one, two, three, or four concentric rows,—those of each row inclining towards those of the other rows until they intersected. The whole was lined within, to the height of a man, with heavy sheets of bark; and at the top, where the palisades crossed, was a gallery of timber for the defenders162, together with wooden gutters163, by which streams of water could be poured down on fires kindled164 by the enemy. Magazines of stones, and rude ladders for mounting the rampart, completed the provision for defence. The forts of the Iroquois were stronger and more elaborate than those of the Hurons; and to this day large districts in New York are marked with frequent remains of their ditches and embankments. [11]
[11] There is no mathematical regularity165 in these works. In their form, the builders were guided merely by the nature of the ground. Frequently a precipice167 or river sufficed for partial defence, and the line of embankment occurs only on one or two sides. In one instance, distinct traces of a double line of palisades are visible along the embankment. (See Squier, Aboriginal168 Monuments of New York, 38.) It is probable that the palisade was planted first, and the earth heaped around it. Indeed, this is stated by the Tuscarora Indian, Cusick, in his curious History of the Six Nations (Iroquois). Brébeuf says, that as early as 1636 the Jesuits taught the Hurons to build rectangular palisaded works, with bastions. The Iroquois adopted the same practice at an early period, omitting the ditch and embankment; and it is probable, that, even in their primitive defences, the palisades, where the ground was of a nature to yield easily to their rude implements170, were planted simply in holes dug for the purpose. Such seems to have been the Iroquois fortress171 attacked by Champlain in 1615.
The Muscogees, with other Southern tribes, and occasionally the Algonquins, had palisaded towns; but the palisades were usually but a single row, planted upright. The tribes of Virginia occasionally surrounded their dwellings with a triple palisade.—Beverly, History of Virginia, 149.
Among these tribes there was no individual ownership of land, but each family had for the time exclusive right xxx to as much as it saw fit to cultivate. The clearing process—a most toilsome one—consisted in hacking off branches, piling them together with brushwood around the foot of the standing172 trunks, and setting fire to the whole. The squaws, working with their hoes of wood and bone among the charred stumps173, sowed their corn, beans, pumpkins175, tobacco, sunflowers, and Huron hemp176. No manure177 was used; but, at intervals178 of from ten to thirty years, when the soil was exhausted179, and firewood distant, the village was abandoned and a new one built.
There was little game in the Huron country; and here, as among the Iroquois, the staple180 of food was Indian corn, cooked without salt in a variety of forms, each more odious181 than the last. Venison was a luxury found only at feasts; dog-flesh was in high esteem182; and, in some of the towns captive bears were fattened183 for festive184 occasions. These tribes were far less improvident185 than the roving Algonquins, and stores of provision were laid up against a season of want. Their main stock of corn was buried in caches, or deep holes in the earth, either within or without the houses.
In respect to the arts of life, all these stationary186 tribes were in advance of the wandering hunters of the North. The women made a species of earthen pot for cooking, but these were supplanted187 by the copper kettles of the French traders. They wove rush mats with no little xxxi skill. They spun188 twine189 from hemp, by the primitive process of rolling it on their thighs; and of this twine they made nets. They extracted oil from fish and from the seeds of the sunflower,—the latter, apparently190, only for the purposes of the toilet. They pounded their maize in huge mortars191 of wood, hollowed by alternate burnings and scrapings. Their stone axes, spear and arrow heads, and bone fish-hooks, were fast giving place to the iron of the French; but they had not laid aside their shields of raw bison-hide, or of wood overlaid with plaited and twisted thongs192 of skin. They still used, too, their primitive breastplates and greaves of twigs193 interwoven with cordage. [12] The masterpiece of Huron handiwork, however, was the birch canoe, in the construction of which the Algonquins were no less skilful194. The Iroquois, in the absence of the birch, were forced to use the bark of the elm, which was greatly inferior both in lightness and strength. Of pipes, than which nothing was more important in their eyes, the Hurons made a great variety, some of baked clay, others of various kinds of stone, carved by the men, during their long periods of monotonous195 leisure, often with great skill and ingenuity196. But their most mysterious fabric197 was wampum. This was at once their currency, their ornament124, their pen, ink, and parchment; and its use was by no means confined to tribes of the Iroquois stock. It consisted of elongated198 beads, white and purple, made from the inner part of certain shells. It is not easy to conceive how, with their rude implements, the Indians contrived199 to shape and perforate this intractable material. The art soon fell into disuse, however; for wampum better than their own xxxii was brought them by the traders, besides abundant imitations in glass and porcelain200. Strung into necklaces, or wrought201 into collars, belts, and bracelets202, it was the favorite decoration of the Indian girls at festivals and dances. It served also a graver purpose. No compact, no speech, or clause of a speech, to the representative of another nation, had any force, unless confirmed by the delivery of a string or belt of wampum. [13] The belts, on occasions of importance, were wrought into significant devices, suggestive of the substance of the compact or speech, and designed as aids to memory. To one or more old men of the nation was assigned the honorable, but very onerous203, charge of keepers of the wampum,—in other words, of the national records; and it was for them to remember and interpret the meaning of the belts. The figures on wampum-belts were, for the most part, simply mnemonic. So also were those carved on wooden tablets, or painted on bark and skin, to preserve in memory the songs of war, hunting, or magic. [14] The Hurons had, however, in common with other tribes, a system of rude pictures and arbitrary signs, by which they could convey to each other, with tolerable precision, information touching204 the ordinary subjects of Indian interest.
[12] Some of the northern tribes of California, at the present day, wear a sort of breastplate "composed of thin parallel battens of very tough wood, woven together with a small cord."
[13] Beaver205-skins and other valuable furs were sometimes, on such occasions, used as a substitute.
[14] Engravings of many specimens of these figured songs are given in the voluminous reports on the condition of the Indians, published by Government, under the editorship of Mr. Schoolcraft. The specimens are chiefly Algonquin.
Their dress was chiefly of skins, cured with smoke after the well-known Indian mode. That of the women, according to the Jesuits, was more modest than that "of our most pious207 ladies of France." The young girls on festal occasions must be excepted from this commendation, as they wore merely a kilt from the waist to the xxxiii knee, besides the wampum decorations of the breast and arms. Their long black hair, gathered behind the neck, was decorated with disks of native copper, or gay pendants made in France, and now occasionally unearthed208 in numbers from their graves. The men, in summer, were nearly naked,—those of a kindred tribe wholly so, with the sole exception of their moccasins. In winter they were clad in tunics209 and leggins of skin, and at all seasons, on occasions of ceremony, were wrapped from head to foot in robes of beaver or otter145 furs, sometimes of the greatest value. On the inner side, these robes were decorated with painted figures and devices, or embroidered210 with the dyed quills211 of the Canada hedgehog. In this art of embroidery212, however, the Hurons were equalled or surpassed by some of the Algonquin tribes. They wore their hair after a variety of grotesque213 and startling fashions. With some, it was loose on one side, and tight braided on the other; with others, close shaved, leaving one or more long and cherished locks; while, with others again, it bristled214 in a ridge215 across the crown, like the back of a hyena216. [15] When in full dress, they were painted with ochre, white clay, soot, and the red juice of certain berries. They practised tattooing217, sometimes covering the whole body with indelible devices. [16] When of such extent, the process was very severe; and though no murmur218 escaped the sufferer, he sometimes died from its effects.
[15] See Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 35.—"Quelles hures!" exclaimed some astonished Frenchman. Hence the name, Hurons.
Female life among the Hurons had no bright side. It was a youth of license220, an age of drudgery221. Despite an organization which, while it perhaps made them less sensible xxxiv of pain, certainly made them less susceptible223 of passion, than the higher races of men, the Hurons were notoriously dissolute, far exceeding in this respect the wandering and starving Algonquins. [17] Marriage existed among them, and polygamy was exceptional; but divorce took place at the will or caprice of either party. A practice also prevailed of temporary or experimental marriage, lasting224 a day, a week, or more. The seal of the compact was merely the acceptance of a gift of wampum made by the suitor to the object of his desire or his whim225. These gifts were never returned on the dissolution of the connection; and as an attractive and enterprising damsel might, and often did, make twenty such marriages before her final establishment, she thus collected a wealth xxxv of wampum with which to adorn226 herself for the village dances. [18] This provisional matrimony was no bar to a license boundless227 and apparently universal, unattended with loss of reputation on either side. Every instinct of native delicacy228 quickly vanished under the influence of Huron domestic life; eight or ten families, and often more, crowded into one undivided house, where privacy was impossible, and where strangers were free to enter at all hours of the day or night.
[17] Among the Iroquois there were more favorable features in the condition of women. The matrons had often a considerable influence on the decisions of the councils. Lafitau, whose book appeared in 1724, says that the nation was corrupt92 in his time, but that this was a degeneracy from their ancient manners. La Potherie and Charlevoix make a similar statement. Megapolensis, however, in 1644, says that they were then exceedingly debauched; and Greenhalgh, in 1677, gives ample evidence of a shameless license. One of their most earnest advocates of the present day admits that the passion of love among them had no other than an animal existence. (Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 322.) There is clear proof that the tribes of the South were equally corrupt. (See Lawson, Carolina, 34, and other early writers.) On the other hand, chastity in women was recognized as a virtue229 by many tribes. This was peculiarly the case among the Algonquins of Gaspé, where a lapse93 in this regard was counted a disgrace. (See Le Clerc, Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspésie, 417, where a contrast is drawn230 between the modesty231 of the girls of this region and the open prostitution practised among those of other tribes.) Among the Sioux, adultery on the part of a woman is punished by mutilation.
The remarkable232 forbearance observed by Eastern and Northern tribes towards female captives was probably the result of a superstition2. Notwithstanding the prevailing233 license, the Iroquois and other tribes had among themselves certain conventional rules which excited the admiration234 of the Jesuit celibates235. Some of these had a superstitious236 origin; others were in accordance with the iron requirements of their savage etiquette237. To make the Indian a hero of romance is mere166 nonsense.
[18] "Il s'en trouue telle qui passe ainsi sa ieunesse, qui aura en plus de vingt maris, lesquels vingt maris ne sont pas seuls en la jouyssance de la beste, quelques mariez qu'ils soient: car la nuict venu?, les ieunes femmes courent d'une cabane en une autre, come font les ieunes hommes de leur costé, qui en prennent par13 ou bon leur semble, toutesfois sans violence aucune, et n'en re?oiuent aucune infamie, ny injure, la coustume du pays estant telle."—Champlain (1627), 90. Compare Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, 176. Both were personal observers.
The ceremony, even of the most serious marriage, consisted merely in the bride's bringing a dish of boiled maize to the bridegroom, together with an armful of fuel. There was often a feast of the relatives, or of the whole village.
Once a mother, and married with a reasonable permanency, the Huron woman from a wanton became a drudge222. In March and April she gathered the year's supply of firewood. Then came sowing, tilling, and harvesting, smoking fish, dressing238 skins, making cordage and clothing, preparing food. On the march it was she who bore the burden; for, in the words of Champlain, "their women were their mules239." The natural effect followed. In every Huron town were shrivelled hags, hideous and despised, who, in vindictiveness241, ferocity, and cruelty, far exceeded the men.
To the men fell the task of building the houses, and making weapons, pipes, and canoes. For the rest, their home-life was a life of leisure and amusement. The summer and autumn were their seasons of serious employment,—of xxxvi war, hunting, fishing, and trade. There was an established system of traffic between the Hurons and the Algonquins of the Ottawa and Lake Nipissing: the Hurons exchanging wampum, fishing-nets, and corn for fish and furs. [19] From various relics found in their graves, it may be inferred that they also traded with tribes of the Upper Lakes, as well as with tribes far southward, towards the Gulf of Mexico. Each branch of traffic was the monopoly of the family or clan242 by whom it was opened. They might, if they could, punish interlopers, by stripping them of all they possessed243, unless the latter had succeeded in reaching home with the fruits of their trade,—in which case the outraged244 monopolists had no further right of redress245, and could not attempt it without a breaking of the public peace, and exposure to the authorized246 vengeance247 of the other party. [20] Their fisheries, too, were regulated by customs having the force of laws. These pursuits, with their hunting,—in which they were aided by a wolfish breed of dogs unable to bark,—consumed the autumn and early winter; but before the new year the greater part of the men were gathered in their villages.
[19] Champlain (1627), 84.
[20] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 156 (Cramoisy).
Now followed their festal season; for it was the season of idleness for the men, and of leisure for the women. Feasts, gambling, smoking, and dancing filled the vacant hours. Like other Indians, the Hurons were desperate gamblers, staking their all,—ornaments, clothing, canoes, pipes, weapons, and wives. One of their principal games was played with plum-stones, or wooden lozenges, black on one side and white on the other. These were tossed up in a wooden bowl, by striking it sharply upon the ground, and the players betted on the black or white. xxxvii Sometimes a village challenged a neighboring village. The game was played in one of the houses. Strong poles were extended from side to side, and on these sat or perched the company, party facing party, while two players struck the bowl on the ground between. Bets ran high; and Brébeuf relates, that once, in midwinter, with the snow nearly three feet deep, the men of his village returned from a gambling visit, bereft248 of their leggins, and barefoot, yet in excellent humor. [21] Ludicrous as it may appear, these games were often medical prescriptions250, and designed as a cure of the sick.
[21] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 113.—This game is still a favorite among the Iroquois, some of whom hold to the belief that they will play it after death in the realms of bliss251. In all their important games of chance, they employed charms, incantations, and all the resources of their magical art, to gain good luck.
Their feasts and dances were of various character, social, medical, and mystical or religious. Some of their feasts were on a scale of extravagant252 profusion253. A vain or ambitious host threw all his substance into one entertainment, inviting254 the whole village, and perhaps several neighboring villages also. In the winter of 1635 there was a feast at the village of Contarrea, where thirty kettles were on the fires, and twenty deer and four bears were served up. [22] The invitation was simple. The messenger addressed the desired guest with the concise255 summons, "Come and eat"; and to refuse was a grave offence. He took his dish and spoon, and repaired to the scene of festivity. Each, as he entered, greeted his host with the guttural ejaculation, Ho! and ranged himself with the rest, squatted256 on the earthen floor or on the platform along the sides of the house. The kettles were slung257 over the fires in the midst. First, there was a long prelude258 of lugubrious259 singing. Then the host, who xxxviii took no share in the feast, proclaimed in a loud voice the contents of each kettle in turn, and at each announcement the company responded in unison260, Ho! The attendant squaws filled with their ladles the bowls of all the guests. There was talking, laughing, jesting, singing, and smoking; and at times the entertainment was protracted261 through the day.
[22] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 111.
When the feast had a medical or mystic character, it was indispensable that each guest should devour262 the whole of the portion given him, however enormous. Should he fail, the host would be outraged, the community shocked, and the spirits roused to vengeance. Disaster would befall the nation,—death, perhaps, the individual. In some cases, the imagined efficacy of the feast was proportioned to the rapidity with which the viands263 were despatched. Prizes of tobacco were offered to the most rapid feeder; and the spectacle then became truly porcine. [23] These festins à manger tout56 were much dreaded265 by many of the Hurons, who, however, were never known to decline them.
[23] This superstition was not confined to the Hurons, but extended to many other tribes, including, probably, all the Algonquins, with some of which it holds in full force to this day. A feaster, unable to do his full part, might, if he could, hire another to aid him; otherwise, he must remain in his place till the work was done.
Invitation to a dance was no less concise than to a feast. Sometimes a crier proclaimed the approaching festivity through the village. The house was crowded. Old men, old women, and children thronged266 the platforms, or clung to the poles which supported the sides and roof. Fires were raked out, and the earthen floor cleared. Two chiefs sang at the top of their voices, keeping time to their song with tortoise-shell rattles269. [24] xxxix The men danced with great violence and gesticulation; the women, with a much more measured action. The former were nearly divested270 of clothing,—in mystical dances, sometimes wholly so; and, from a superstitious motive271, this was now and then the case with the women. Both, however, were abundantly decorated with paint, oil, beads, wampum, trinkets, and feathers.
[24] Sagard gives specimens of their songs. In both dances and feasts there was no little variety. These were sometimes combined. It is impossible, in brief space, to indicate more than their general features. In the famous "war-dance,"—which was frequently danced, as it still is, for amusement,—speeches, exhortations272, jests, personal satire273, and repartee274 were commonly introduced as a part of the performance, sometimes by way of patriotic275 stimulus276, sometimes for amusement. The music in this case was the drum and the war-song. Some of the other dances were also interspersed277 with speeches and sharp witticisms278, always taken in good part, though Lafitau says that he has seen the victim so pitilessly bantered279 that he was forced to hide his head in his blanket.
Religious festivals, councils, the entertainment of an envoy280, the inauguration281 of a chief, were all occasions of festivity, in which social pleasure was joined with matter of grave import, and which at times gathered nearly all the nation into one great and harmonious282 concourse. Warlike expeditions, too, were always preceded by feasting, at which the warriors vaunted the fame of their ancestors, and their own past and prospective283 exploits. A hideous scene of feasting followed the torture of a prisoner. Like the torture itself, it was, among the Hurons, partly an act of vengeance, and partly a religious rite47. If the victim had shown courage, the heart was first roasted, cut into small pieces, and given to the young men and boys, who devoured284 it to increase their own courage. The body was then divided, thrown into the kettles, and eaten by the assembly, the head being the portion of the chief. Many of the Hurons joined in the feast with reluctance285 and horror, while others took pleasure in it. [25] This was the only form of cannibalism xl among them, since, unlike the wandering Algonquins, they were rarely under the desperation of extreme famine.
[25] "Il y en a qui en mangent auec plaisir."—Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 121.—Le Mercier gives a description of one of these scenes, at which he was present. (Ibid., 1637, 118.) The same horrible practice prevailed to a greater extent among the Iroquois. One of the most remarkable instances of Indian cannibalism is that furnished by a Western tribe, the Miamis, among whom there was a clan, or family, whose hereditary286 duty and privilege it was to devour the bodies of prisoners burned to death. The act had somewhat of a religious character, was attended with ceremonial observances, and was restricted to the family in question.—See Hon. Lewis Cass, in the appendix to Colonel Whiting's poem, "Ontwa."
A great knowledge of simples for the cure of disease is popularly ascribed to the Indian. Here, however, as elsewhere, his knowledge is in fact scanty287. He rarely reasons from cause to effect, or from effect to cause. Disease, in his belief, is the result of sorcery, the agency of spirits or supernatural influences, undefined and indefinable. The Indian doctor was a conjurer, and his remedies were to the last degree preposterous288, ridiculous, or revolting. The well-known Indian sweating-bath is the most prominent of the few means of cure based on agencies simply physical; and this, with all the other natural remedies, was applied, not by the professed289 doctor, but by the sufferer himself, or his friends. [26]
[26] The Indians had many simple applications for wounds, said to have been very efficacious; but the purity of their blood, owing to the absence from their diet of condiments290 and stimulants291, as well as to their active habits, aided the remedy. In general, they were remarkably292 exempt293 from disease or deformity, though often seriously injured by alternations of hunger and excess. The Hurons sometimes died from the effects of their festins à manger tout.
The Indian doctor beat, shook, and pinched his patient, howled, whooped294, rattled295 a tortoise-shell at his ear to expel the evil spirit, bit him till blood flowed, and then displayed in triumph a small piece of wood, bone, or iron, which he had hidden in his mouth, and which he affirmed xli was the source of the disease, now happily removed. [27] Sometimes he prescribed a dance, feast, or game; and the whole village bestirred themselves to fulfil the injunction to the letter. They gambled away their all; they gorged296 themselves like vultures; they danced or played ball naked among the snow-drifts from morning till night. At a medical feast, some strange or unusual act was commonly enjoined297 as vital to the patient's cure: as, for example, the departing guest, in place of the customary monosyllable of thanks, was required to greet his host with an ugly grimace298. Sometimes, by prescription249, half the village would throng267 into the house where the patient lay, led by old women disguised with the heads and skins of bears, and beating with sticks on sheets of dry bark. Here the assembly danced and whooped for hours together, with a din58 to which a civilized299 patient would promptly300 have succumbed301. Sometimes the doctor wrought himself into a prophetic fury, raving206 through the length and breadth of the dwelling103, snatching firebrands and flinging them about him, to the terror of the squaws, with whom, in their combustible302 tenements303, fire was a constant bugbear.
[27] The Hurons believed that the chief cause of disease and death was a monstrous serpent, that lived under the earth. By touching a tuft of hair, a feather, or a fragment of bone, with a portion of his flesh or fat, the sorcerer imparted power to it of entering the body of his victim, and gradually killing304 him. It was an important part of the doctor's function to extract these charms from the vitals of his patient.—Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 75.
Among the Hurons and kindred tribes, disease was frequently ascribed to some hidden wish ungratified. Hence the patient was overwhelmed with gifts, in the hope, that, in their multiplicity, the desideratum might be supplied. Kettles, skins, awls, pipes, wampum, fish-hooks, weapons, objects of every conceivable variety, were xlii piled before him by a host of charitable contributors; and if, as often happened, a dream, the Indian oracle306, had revealed to the sick man the secret of his cure, his demands were never refused, however extravagant, idle, nauseous, or abominable307. [28] Hence it is no matter of wonder that sudden illness and sudden cures were frequent among the Hurons. The patient reaped profit, and the doctor both profit and honor.
[28] "Dans le pays de nos Hurons, il se faict aussi des assemblées de toutes les filles d'vn bourg auprés d'vne malade, tant à sa priere, suyuant la resuerie ou le songe qu'elle en aura eu?, que par l'ordonnance de Loki (the doctor), pour sa santé et guerison. Les filles ainsi assemblées, on leur demande à toutes, les vnes apres les autres, celuy qu'elles veulent des ieunes hommes du bourg pour dormir auec elles la nuict prochaine: elles en nomment chacune vn, qui sont aussi-tost aduertis par les Maistres de la ceremonie, lesquels viennent tous au soir en la presence de la malade dormir chacun auec celle qui l'a choysi, d'vn bout99 à l'autre de la Cabane, et passent ainsi toute la nuict, pendant que deux Capitaines aux deux bouts308 du logis chantent et sonnent de leur Tortu? du soir au lendemain matin, que la ceremonie cesse. Dieu vueille abolir vne si damnable et malheureuse ceremonie."—Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, 158.—This unique mode of cure, which was called Andacwandet, is also described by Lalemant, who saw it. (Relation des Hurons, 1639, 84.) It was one of the recognized remedies.
For the medical practices of the Hurons, see also Champlain, Brébeuf, Lafitau, Charlevoix, and other early writers. Those of the Algonquins were in some points different. The doctor often consulted the spirits, to learn the cause and cure of the disease, by a method peculiar to that family of tribes. He shut himself in a small conical lodge309, and the spirits here visited him, manifesting their presence by a violent shaking of the whole structure. This superstition will be described in another connection.
THE HURON-IROQUOIS FAMILY.
And now, before entering upon the very curious subject of Indian social and tribal organization, it may be well briefly310 to observe the position and prominent distinctive311 features of the various communities speaking dialects of the generic tongue of the Iroquois. In this remarkable xliii family of tribes occur the fullest developments of Indian character, and the most conspicuous312 examples of Indian intelligence. If the higher traits popularly ascribed to the race are not to be found here, they are to be found nowhere. A palpable proof of the superiority of this stock is afforded in the size of the Iroquois and Huron brains. In average internal capacity of the cranium, they surpass, with few and doubtful exceptions, all other aborigines of North and South America, not excepting the civilized races of Mexico and Peru. [29]
[29] "On comparing five Iroquois heads, I find that they give an average internal capacity of eighty-eight cubic inches, which is within two inches of the Caucasian mean."—Morton, Crania Americana, 195.—It is remarkable that the internal capacity of the skulls313 of the barbarous American tribes is greater than that of either the Mexicans or the Peruvians. "The difference in volume is chiefly confined to the occipital and basal portions,"—in other words, to the region of the animal propensities314; and hence, it is argued, the ferocious, brutal315, and uncivilizable character of the wild tribes.—See J. S. Phillips, Admeasurements of Crania of the Principal Groups of Indians in the United States.
In the woody valleys of the Blue Mountains, south of the Nottawassaga Bay of Lake Huron, and two days' journey west of the frontier Huron towns, lay the nine villages of the Tobacco Nation, or Tionnontates. [30] In manners, as in language, they closely resembled the Hurons. Of old they were their enemies, but were now at peace with them, and about the year 1640 became their close confederates. Indeed, in the ruin which befell that hapless people, the Tionnontates alone retained a tribal organization; and their descendants, with a trifling316 exception, are to this day the sole inheritors of the Huron or Wyandot name. Expatriated and wandering, they held for generations a paramount317 influence among the xliv Western tribes. [31] In their original seats among the Blue Mountains, they offered an example extremely rare among Indians, of a tribe raising a crop for the market; for they traded in tobacco largely with other tribes. Their Huron confederates, keen traders, would not suffer them to pass through their country to traffic with the French, preferring to secure for themselves the advantage of bartering318 with them in French goods at an enormous profit. [32]
[30] Synonymes: Tionnontates, Etionontates, Tuinontatek, Dionondadies, Khionontaterrhonons, Petuneux or Nation du Petun (Tobacco).
[31] "L'ame de tous les Conseils."—Charlevoix, Voyage, 199.—In 1763 they were Pontiac's best warriors.
[32] On the Tionnontates, see Le Mercier, Relation, 1637, 163; Lalemant, Relation, 1641, 69; Ragueneau, Relation, 1648, 61. An excellent summary of their character and history, by Mr. Shea, will be found in Hist. Mag., V. 262.
Journeying southward five days from the Tionnontate towns, the forest traveller reached the border villages of the Attiwandarons, or Neutral Nation. [33] As early as 1626, they were visited by the Franciscan friar, La Roche Dallion, who reports a numerous population in twenty-eight towns, besides many small hamlets. Their country, about forty leagues in extent, embraced wide and fertile districts on the north shore of Lake Erie, and their frontier extended eastward across the Niagara, where they had three or four outlying towns. [34] Their name of Neutrals was due to their neutrality in the war between the Hurons and the Iroquois proper. The hostile warriors, meeting in a Neutral cabin, were forced to keep the peace, though, once in the open air, the truce319 was at an end. Yet this people were abundantly ferocious, and, while xlv holding a pacific attitude betwixt their warring kindred, waged deadly strife320 with the Mascoutins, an Algonquin horde69 beyond Lake Michigan. Indeed, it was but recently that they had been at blows with seventeen Algonquin tribes. [35] They burned female prisoners, a practice unknown to the Hurons. [36] Their country was full of game, and they were bold and active hunters. In form and stature321 they surpassed even the Hurons, whom they resembled in their mode of life, and from whose language their own, though radically322 similar, was dialectically distinct. Their licentiousness323 was even more open and shameless; and they stood alone in the extravagance of some of their usages. They kept their dead in their houses till they became insupportable; then scraped the flesh from the bones, and displayed them in rows along the walls, there to remain till the periodical Feast of the Dead, or general burial. In summer, the men wore no clothing whatever, but were usually tattooed from head to foot with powdered charcoal.
[33] Attiwandarons, Attiwendaronk, Atirhagenrenrets, Rhagenratka (Jesuit Relations), Attionidarons (Sagard). They, and not the Eries, were the Kahkwas of Seneca tradition.
[34] Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1641, 71.—The Niagara was then called the River of the Neutrals, or the Onguiaahra. Lalemant estimates the Neutral population, in 1640, at twelve thousand, in forty villages.
[35] Lettre du Père La Roche Dallion, 8 Juillet, 1627, in Le Clerc, établissement de la Foy, I. 346.
[36] Women were often burned by the Iroquois: witness the case of Catherine Mercier in 1651, and many cases of Indian women mentioned by the early writers.
The sagacious Hurons refused them a passage through their country to the French; and the Neutrals apparently had not sense or reflection enough to take the easy and direct route of Lake Ontario, which was probably open to them, though closed against the Hurons by Iroquois enmity. Thus the former made excellent profit by exchanging French goods at high rates for the valuable furs of the Neutrals. [37]
[37] The Hurons became very jealous, when La Roche Dallion visited the Neutrals, lest a direct trade should be opened between the latter and the French, against whom they at once put in circulation a variety of slanders325: that they were a people who lived on snakes and venom326; that they were furnished with tails; and that French women, though having but one breast, bore six children at a birth. The missionary327 nearly lost his life in consequence, the Neutrals conceiving the idea that he would infect their country with a pestilence.—La Roche Dallion, in Le Clerc, I. 346.
xlvi Southward and eastward of Lake Erie dwelt a kindred people, the Eries, or Nation of the Cat. Little besides their existence is known of them. They seem to have occupied Southwestern New York, as far east as the Genesee, the frontier of the Senecas, and in habits and language to have resembled the Hurons. [38] They were noted warriors, fought with poisoned arrows, and were long a terror to the neighboring Iroquois. [39]
[38] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 46.
[39] Le Mercier, Relation, 1654, 10.—"Nous les appellons la Nation Chat, à cause qu'il y a dans leur pais vne quantité prodigieuse de Chats sauuages."—Ibid.—The Iroquois are said to have given the same name, Jegosasa, Cat Nation, to the Neutrals.—Morgan, League of the Iroquois, 41.
Synonymes: Eriés, Erigas, Eriehronon, Riguehronon. The Jesuits never had a mission among them, though they seem to have been visited by Champlain's adventurous328 interpreter, étienne Brulé, in the summer of 1615.—They are probably the Carantoüans of Champlain.
On the Lower Susquehanna dwelt the formidable tribe called by the French Andastes. Little is known of them, beyond their general resemblance to their kindred, in language, habits, and character. Fierce and resolute330 warriors, they long made head against the Iroquois of New York, and were vanquished331 at last more by disease than by the tomahawk. [40]
[40] Gallatin erroneously places the Andastes on the Alleghany, Bancroft and others adopting the error. The research of Mr. Shea has shown their identity with the Susquehannocks of the English, and the Minquas of the Dutch.—See Hist. Mag., II. 294.
Synonymes: Andastes, Andastracronnons, Andastaeronnons, Andastaguez, Antastoui (French), Susquehannocks (English), Mengwe, Minquas (Dutch), Conestogas, Conessetagoes (English).
In Central New York, stretching east and west from the Hudson to the Genesee, lay that redoubted people xlvii who have lent their name to the tribal family of the Iroquois, and stamped it indelibly on the early pages of American history. Among all the barbarous nations of the continent, the Iroquois of New York stand paramount. Elements which among other tribes were crude, confused, and embryotic, were among them systematized and concreted into an established polity. The Iroquois was the Indian of Indians. A thorough savage, yet a finished and developed savage, he is perhaps an example of the highest elevation332 which man can reach without emerging from his primitive condition of the hunter. A geographical333 position, commanding on one hand the portal of the Great Lakes, and on the other the sources of the streams flowing both to the Atlantic and the Mississippi, gave the ambitious and aggressive confederates advantages which they perfectly334 understood, and by which they profited to the utmost. Patient and politic1 as they were ferocious, they were not only conquerors335 of their own race, but the powerful allies and the dreaded foes337 of the French and English colonies, flattered and caressed338 by both, yet too sagacious to give themselves without reserve to either. Their organization and their history evince their intrinsic superiority. Even their traditionary lore52, amid its wild puerilities, shows at times the stamp of an energy and force in striking contrast with the flimsy creations of Algonquin fancy. That the Iroquois, left under their institutions to work out their destiny undisturbed, would ever have developed a civilization of their own, I do not believe. These institutions, however, are sufficiently339 characteristic and curious, and we shall soon have occasion to observe them. [41]
[41] The name Iroquois is French. Charlevoix says: "Il a été formé du terme Hiro, ou Hero, qui signifie J'ai dit, et par lequel ces sauvages finissent tous leur discours, comme les Latins faisoient autrefois par leur Dixi; et de Koué, qui est un cri tant?t de tristesse, lorsqu'on le prononce en tra?nant, et tant?t de joye, quand on le prononce plus court."—Hist. de la N. F., I. 271.—Their true name is Hodenosaunee, or People of the Long House, because their confederacy of five distinct nations, ranged in a line along Central New York, was likened to one of the long bark houses already described, with five fires and five families. The name Agonnonsionni, or Aquanuscioni, ascribed to them by Lafitau and Charlevoix, who translated it "House-Makers," Faiseurs de Cabannes, may be a conversion of the true name with an erroneous rendering341. The following are the true names of the five nations severally, with their French and English synonymes. For other synonymes, see "History of the Conspiracy342 of Pontiac," 8, note.
English French
Ganeagaono, Mohawk, Agnier.
Onayotekaono, Oneida, Onneyut.
Onundagaono, Onondaga, Onnontagué.
Gweugwehono, Cayuga, Goyogouin.
Nundawaono, Seneca, Tsonnontouans.
The Iroquois termination in ono—or onon, as the French write it—simply means people.
xlviii
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ORGANIZATION.
In Indian social organization, a problem at once suggests itself. In these communities, comparatively populous, how could spirits so fierce, and in many respects so ungoverned, live together in peace, without law and without enforced authority? Yet there were towns where savages lived together in thousands with a harmony which civilization might envy. This was in good measure due to peculiarities343 of Indian character and habits. This intractable race were, in certain external respects, the most pliant344 and complaisant345 of mankind. The early missionaries346 were charmed by the docile347 acquiescence348 with which their dogmas were received; but they soon discovered that their facile auditors349 neither believed nor understood that to which they had so promptly assented350. They assented from a kind of courtesy, which, while it vexed351 the priests, tended greatly to keep the Indians in mutual352 xlix accord. That well-known self-control, which, originating in a form of pride, covered the savage nature of the man with a veil, opaque353, though thin, contributed not a little to the same end. Though vain, arrogant354, boastful, and vindictive240, the Indian bore abuse and sarcasm355 with an astonishing patience. Though greedy and grasping, he was lavish356 without stint357, and would give away his all to soothe358 the manes of a departed relative, gain influence and applause, or ingratiate himself with his neighbors. In his dread264 of public opinion, he rivalled some of his civilized successors.
All Indians, and especially these populous and stationary tribes, had their code of courtesy, whose requirements were rigid359 and exact; nor might any infringe360 it without the ban of public censure361. Indian nature, inflexible362 and unmalleable, was peculiarly under the control of custom. Established usage took the place of law,—was, in fact, a sort of common law, with no tribunal to expound363 or enforce it. In these wild democracies,—democracies in spirit, though not in form,—a respect for native superiority, and a willingness to yield to it, were always conspicuous. All were prompt to aid each other in distress364, and a neighborly spirit was often exhibited among them. When a young woman was permanently365 married, the other women of the village supplied her with firewood for the year, each contributing an armful. When one or more families were without shelter, the men of the village joined in building them a house. In return, the recipients366 of the favor gave a feast, if they could; if not, their thanks were sufficient. [42] l Among the Iroquois and Hurons—and doubtless among the kindred tribes—there were marked distinctions of noble and base, prosperous and poor; yet, while there was food in the village, the meanest and the poorest need not suffer want. He had but to enter the nearest house, and seat himself by the fire, when, without a word on either side, food was placed before him by the women. [43]
[42] The following testimony367 concerning Indian charity and hospitality is from Ragueneau: "As often as we have seen tribes broken up, towns destroyed, and their people driven to flight, we have seen them, to the number of seven or eight hundred persons, received with open arms by charitable hosts, who gladly gave them aid, and even distributed among them a part of the lands already planted, that they might have the means of living."—Relation, 1650, 28.
[43] The Jesuit Brébeuf, than whom no one knew the Hurons better, is very emphatic368 in praise of their harmony and social spirit. Speaking of one of the four nations of which the Hurons were composed, he says: "Ils ont vne douceur et vne affabilité quasi incroyable pour des Sauuages; ils ne se picquent pas aisément.… Ils se maintiennent dans cette si parfaite intelligence par les frequentes visites, les secours qu'ils se donnent mutuellement dans leurs maladies, par les festins et les alliances.… Ils sont moins en leurs Cabanes que chez leurs amis.… S'ils ont vn bon morceau, ils en font festin à leurs amis, et ne le mangent quasi iamais en leur particulier," etc.—Relation des Hurons, 1636, 118.
Contrary to the received opinion, these Indians, like others of their race, when living in communities, were of a very social disposition369. Besides their incessant370 dances and feasts, great and small, they were continually visiting, spending most of their time in their neighbors' houses, chatting, joking, bantering371 one another with witticisms, sharp, broad, and in no sense delicate, yet always taken in good part. Every village had its adepts372 in these wordy tournaments, while the shrill373 laugh of young squaws, untaught to blush, echoed each hardy374 jest or rough sarcasm.
In the organization of the savage communities of the continent, one feature, more or less conspicuous, continually appears. Each nation or tribe—to adopt the names by which these communities are usually known—is subdivided375 into several clans376. These clans are not li locally separate, but are mingled377 throughout the nation. All the members of each clan are, or are assumed to be, intimately joined in consanguinity378. Hence it is held an abomination for two persons of the same clan to intermarry; and hence, again, it follows that every family must contain members of at least two clans. Each clan has its name, as the clan of the Hawk36, of the Wolf, or of the Tortoise; and each has for its emblem379 the figure of the beast, bird, reptile380, plant, or other object, from which its name is derived. This emblem, called totem by the Algonquins, is often tattooed on the clansman's body, or rudely painted over the entrance of his lodge. The child belongs to the clan, not of the father, but of the mother. In other words, descent, not of the totem alone, but of all rank, titles, and possessions, is through the female. The son of a chief can never be a chief by hereditary title, though he may become so by force of personal influence or achievement. Neither can he inherit from his father so much as a tobacco-pipe. All possessions alike pass of right to the brothers of the chief, or to the sons of his sisters, since these are all sprung from a common mother. This rule of descent was noticed by Champlain among the Hurons in 1615. That excellent observer refers it to an origin which is doubtless its true one. The child may not be the son of his reputed father, but must be the son of his mother,—a consideration of more than ordinary force in an Indian community. [44]
[44] "Les enfans ne succedent iamais aux biens et dignitez de leurs peres, doubtant comme i'ay dit de leur geniteur, mais bien font-ils leurs successeurs et heritiers, les enfans de leurs s?urs, et desquels ils sont asseurez d'estre yssus et sortis."—Champlain (1627), 91.
Captain John Smith had observed the same, several years before, among the tribes of Virginia: "For the Crowne, their heyres inherite not, but the first heyres of the Sisters."—True Relation, 43 (ed. Deane).
lii This system of clanship, with the rule of descent inseparable from it, was of very wide prevalence. Indeed, it is more than probable that close observation would have detected it in every tribe east of the Mississippi; while there is positive evidence of its existence in by far the greater number. It is found also among the Dahcotah and other tribes west of the Mississippi; and there is reason to believe it universally prevalent as far as the Rocky Mountains, and even beyond them. The fact that with most of these hordes there is little property worth transmission, and that the most influential381 becomes chief, with little regard to inheritance, has blinded casual observers to the existence of this curious system.
It was found in full development among the Creeks382, Choctaws, Cherokees, and other Southern tribes, including that remarkable people, the Natchez, who, judged by their religious and political institutions, seem a detached offshoot of the Toltec family. It is no less conspicuous among the roving Algonquins of the extreme North, where the number of totems is almost countless383. Everywhere it formed the foundation of the polity of all the tribes, where a polity could be said to exist.
The Franciscans and Jesuits, close students of the languages and superstitions of the Indians, were by no means so zealous to analyze384 their organization and government. In the middle of the seventeenth century the Hurons as a nation had ceased to exist, and their political portraiture385, as handed down to us, is careless and unfinished. Yet some decisive features are plainly shown. The Huron nation was a confederacy of four distinct contiguous nations, afterwards increased to five by the addition of the Tionnontates;—it was divided into clans;—it was governed by chiefs, whose office was hereditary through the female;—the power of these chiefs, though liii great, was wholly of a persuasive386 or advisory387 character;—there were two principal chiefs, one for peace, the other for war;—there were chiefs assigned to special national functions, as the charge of the great Feast of the Dead, the direction of trading voyages to other nations, etc.;—there were numerous other chiefs, equal in rank, but very unequal in influence, since the measure of their influence depended on the measure of their personal ability;—each nation of the confederacy had a separate organization, but at certain periods grand councils of the united nations were held, at which were present, not chiefs only, but also a great concourse of the people; and at these and other councils the chiefs and principal men voted on proposed measures by means of small sticks or reeds, the opinion of the plurality ruling. [45]
[45] These facts are gathered here and there from Champlain, Sagard, Bressani, and the Jesuit Relations prior to 1650. Of the Jesuits, Brébeuf is the most full and satisfactory. Lafitau and Charlevoix knew the Huron institutions only through others.
The names of the four confederate Huron nations were the Ataronchronons, Attignenonghac, Attignaouentans, and Ahrendarrhonons. There was also a subordinate "nation" called Tohotaenrat, which had but one town. (See the map of the Huron Country.) They all bore the name of some animal or other object: thus the Attignaouentans were the Nation of the Bear. As the clans are usually named after animals, this makes confusion, and may easily lead to error. The Bear Nation was the principal member of the league.
THE IROQUOIS.
The Iroquois were a people far more conspicuous in history, and their institutions are not yet extinct. In early and recent times, they have been closely studied, and no little light has been cast upon a subject as difficult and obscure as it is curious. By comparing the liv statements of observers, old and new, the character of their singular organization becomes sufficiently clear. [46]
[46] Among modern students of Iroquois institutions, a place far in advance of all others is due to Lewis H. Morgan, himself an Iroquois by adoption388, and intimate with the race from boyhood. His work, The League of the Iroquois, is a production of most thorough and able research, conducted under peculiar advantages, and with the aid of an efficient co-laborer, Hasanoanda (Ely S. Parker), an educated and highly intelligent Iroquois of the Seneca nation. Though often differing widely from Mr. Morgan's conclusions, I cannot bear a too emphatic testimony to the value of his researches. The Notes on the Iroquois of Mr. H. R. Schoolcraft also contain some interesting facts; but here, as in all Mr. Schoolcraft's productions, the reader must scrupulously389 reserve his right of private judgment390. None of the old writers are so satisfactory as Lafitau. His work, M?urs des Sauvages Ameriquains comparées aux M?urs des Premiers391 Temps, relates chiefly to the Iroquois and Hurons: the basis for his account of the former being his own observations and those of Father Julien Garnier, who was a missionary among them more than sixty years, from his novitiate to his death.
Both reason and tradition point to the conclusion, that the Iroquois formed originally one undivided people. Sundered393, like countless other tribes, by dissension, caprice, or the necessities of the hunter life, they separated into five distinct nations, cantoned from east to west along the centre of New York, in the following order: Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas. There was discord394 among them; wars followed, and they lived in mutual fear, each ensconced in its palisaded villages. At length, says tradition, a celestial395 being, incarnate396 on earth, counselled them to compose their strife and unite in a league of defence and aggression397. Another personage, wholly mortal, yet wonderfully endowed, a renowned398 warrior and a mighty399 magician, stands, with his hair of writhing400 snakes, grotesquely401 conspicuous through the dim light of tradition at this birth of Iroquois nationality. This was Atotarho, a chief of the Onondagas; and from this honored source has sprung a lv long line of chieftains, heirs not to the blood alone, but to the name of their great predecessor402. A few years since, there lived in Onondaga Hollow a handsome Indian boy on whom the dwindled403 remnant of the nation looked with pride as their destined404 Atotarho. With earthly and celestial aid the league was consummated405, and through all the land the forests trembled at the name of the Iroquois.
The Iroquois people was divided into eight clans. When the original stock was sundered into five parts, each of these clans was also sundered into five parts; and as, by the principle already indicated, the clans were intimately mingled in every village, hamlet, and cabin, each one of the five nations had its portion of each of the eight clans. [47] When the league was formed, these separate portions readily resumed their ancient tie of fraternity. Thus, of the Turtle clan, all the members became brothers again, nominal406 members of one family, whether Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, or Senecas; and so, too, of the remaining clans. All the Iroquois, irrespective of nationality, were therefore divided into eight families, each tracing its descent to a common mother, and each designated by its distinctive lvi emblem or totem. This connection of clan or family was exceedingly strong, and by it the five nations of the league were linked together as by an eightfold chain.
[47] With a view to clearness, the above statement is made categorical. It requires, however, to be qualified407. It is not quite certain, that, at the formation of the confederacy, there were eight clans, though there is positive proof of the existence of seven. Neither is it certain, that, at the separation, every clan was represented in every nation. Among the Mohawks and Oneidas there is no positive proof of the existence of more than three clans,—the Wolf, Bear, and Tortoise; though there is presumptive evidence of the existence of several others.—See Morgan, 81, note.
The eight clans of the Iroquois were as follows: Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Tortoise, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk. (Morgan, 79.) The clans of the Snipe and the Heron are the same designated in an early French document as La famille du Petit Pluvier and La famille du Grand Pluvier. (New York Colonial Documents, IX. 47.) The anonymous author of this document adds a ninth clan, that of the Potato, meaning the wild Indian potato, Glycine apios. This clan, if it existed, was very inconspicuous, and of little importance.
Remarkable analogies exist between Iroquois clanship and that of other tribes. The eight clans of the Iroquois were separated into two divisions, four in each. Originally, marriage was interdicted408 between all the members of the same division, but in time the interdict409 was limited to the members of the individual clans. Another tribe, the Choctaws, remote from the Iroquois, and radically different in language, had also eight clans, similarly divided, with a similar interdict of marriage.—Gallatin, Synopsis410, 109.
The Creeks, according to the account given by their old chief, Sekopechi, to Mr. D. W. Eakins, were divided into nine clans, named in most cases from animals: clanship being transmitted, as usual, through the female.
The clans were by no means equal in numbers, influence, or honor. So marked were the distinctions among them, that some of the early writers recognize only the three most conspicuous,—those of the Tortoise, the Bear, and the Wolf. To some of the clans, in each nation, belonged the right of giving a chief to the nation and to the league. Others had the right of giving three, or, in one case, four chiefs; while others could give none. As Indian clanship was but an extension of the family relation, these chiefs were, in a certain sense, hereditary; but the law of inheritance, though binding411, was extremely elastic412, and capable of stretching to the farthest limits of the clan. The chief was almost invariably succeeded by a near relative, always through the female, as a brother by the same mother, or a nephew by the sister's side. But if these were manifestly unfit, they were passed over, and a chief was chosen at a council of the clan from among remoter kindred. In these cases, the successor is said to have been nominated by the matron of the late chief's household. [48] Be this as it may, the choice was lvii never adverse413 to the popular inclination414. The new chief was "raised up," or installed, by a formal council of the sachems of the league; and on entering upon his office, he dropped his own name, and assumed that which, since the formation of the league, had belonged to this especial chieftainship.
[48] Lafitau, I. 471.
The number of these principal chiefs, or, as they have been called by way of distinction, sachems, varied415 in the several nations from eight to fourteen. The sachems of the five nations, fifty in all, assembled in council, formed the government of the confederacy. All met as equals, but a peculiar dignity was ever attached to the Atotarho of the Onondagas.
There was a class of subordinate chiefs, in no sense hereditary, but rising to office by address, ability, or valor416. Yet the rank was clearly defined, and the new chief installed at a formal council. This class embodied417, as might be supposed, the best talent of the nation, and the most prominent warriors and orators418 of the Iroquois have belonged to it. In its character and functions, however, it was purely419 civil. Like the sachems, these chiefs held their councils, and exercised an influence proportionate to their number and abilities.
There was another council, between which and that of the subordinate chiefs the line of demarcation seems not to have been very definite. The Jesuit Lafitau calls it "the senate." Familiar with the Iroquois at the height of their prosperity, he describes it as the central and controlling power, so far, at least, as the separate nations were concerned. In its character it was essentially420 popular, but popular in the best sense, and one which can find its application only in a small community. Any man took part in it whose age and experience qualified him to do so. It was merely the gathered wisdom of the nation. lviii Lafitau compares it to the Roman Senate, in the early and rude age of the Republic, and affirms that it loses nothing by the comparison. He thus describes it: "It is a greasy421 assemblage, sitting sur leur derrière, crouched422 like apes, their knees as high as their ears, or lying, some on their bellies423, some on their backs, each with a pipe in his mouth, discussing affairs of state with as much coolness and gravity as the Spanish Junta424 or the Grand Council of Venice." [49]
[49] Lafitau, I. 478.
The young warriors had also their councils; so, too, had the women; and the opinions and wishes of each were represented by means of deputies before the "senate," or council of the old men, as well as before the grand confederate council of the sachems.
The government of this unique republic resided wholly in councils. By councils all questions were settled, all regulations established,—social, political, military, and religious. The war-path, the chase, the council-fire,—in these was the life of the Iroquois; and it is hard to say to which of the three he was most devoted425.
The great council of the fifty sachems formed, as we have seen, the government of the league. Whenever a subject arose before any of the nations, of importance enough to demand its assembling, the sachems of that nation might summon their colleagues by means of runners, bearing messages and belts of wampum. The usual place of meeting was the valley of Onondaga, the political as well as geographical centre of the confederacy. Thither426, if the matter were one of deep and general interest, not the sachems alone, but the greater part of the population, gathered from east and west, swarming427 in the hospitable428 lodges429 of the town, or bivouacked by thousands in the surrounding fields and forests. lix While the sachems deliberated in the council-house, the chiefs and old men, the warriors, and often the women, were holding their respective councils apart; and their opinions, laid by their deputies before the council of sachems, were never without influence on its decisions.
The utmost order and deliberation reigned430 in the council, with rigorous adherence431 to the Indian notions of parliamentary propriety432. The conference opened with an address to the spirits, or the chief of all the spirits. There was no heat in debate. No speaker interrupted another. Each gave his opinion in turn, supporting it with what reason or rhetoric433 he could command,—but not until he had stated the subject of discussion in full, to prove that he understood it, repeating also the arguments, pro7 and con19, of previous speakers. Thus their debates were excessively prolix434; and the consumption of tobacco was immoderate. The result, however, was a thorough sifting435 of the matter in hand; while the practised astuteness437 of these savage politicians was a marvel438 to their civilized contemporaries. "It is by a most subtle policy," says Lafitau, "that they have taken the ascendant over the other nations, divided and overcome the most warlike, made themselves a terror to the most remote, and now hold a peaceful neutrality between the French and English, courted and feared by both." [50]
[50] Lafitau, I. 480.—Many other French writers speak to the same effect. The following are the words of the soldier historian, La Potherie, after describing the organization of the league: "C'est donc là cette politique qui les unit si bien, à peu près comme tous les ressorts d'une horloge, qui par une liaison439 admirable de toutes les parties qui les composent, contribuent toutes unanimement au merveilleux effet qui en resulte."—Hist. de l'Amérique Septentrionale, III. 32.—He adds: "Les Fran?ois ont avoüé eux-mêmes qu'ils étoient nez pour la guerre, & quelques maux qu'ils nous ayent faits nous les avons toujours estimez."—Ibid., 2.—La Potherie's book was published in 1722.
Unlike the Hurons, they required an entire unanimity440 lx in their decisions. The ease and frequency with which a requisition seemingly so difficult was fulfilled afford a striking illustration of Indian nature,—on one side, so stubborn, tenacious441, and impracticable; on the other, so pliant and acquiescent442. An explanation of this harmony is to be found also in an intense spirit of nationality: for never since the days of Sparta were individual life and national life more completely fused into one.
The sachems of the league were likewise, as we have seen, sachems of their respective nations; yet they rarely spoke443 in the councils of the subordinate chiefs and old men, except to present subjects of discussion. [51] Their influence in these councils was, however, great, and even paramount; for they commonly succeeded in securing to their interest some of the most dexterous444 and influential of the conclave445, through whom, while they themselves remained in the background, they managed the debates. [52]
[51] Lafitau, I. 479.
[52] The following from Lafitau is very characteristic: "Ce que je dis de leur zèle pour le bien public n'est cependant pas si universel, que plusieurs ne pensent à leur interêts particuliers, & que les Chefs (sachems) principalement ne fassent joüer plusieurs ressorts secrets pour venir à bout de leurs intrigues446. Il y en a tel, dont l'adresse jou? si bien à coup447 s?r, qu'il fait déliberer le Conseil plusieurs jours de suite448, sur une matière dont la détermination est arrêtée entre lui & les principales têtes avant d'avoir été mise sur le tapis. Cependant comme les Chefs s'entre-regardent, & qu'aucun ne veut paro?tre se donner une superiorité qui puisse piquer la jalousie, ils se ménagent dans les Conseils plus que les autres; & quoiqu'ils en soient l'ame, leur politique les oblige à y parler peu, & à écouter pl?t?t le sentiment d'autrui, qu'à y dire324 le leur; mais chacun a un homme à sa main, qui est comme une espèce de Br?lot, & qui étant sans consequence pour sa personne hazarde en pleine liberté tout ce qu'il juge à propos, selon qu'il l'a concerté avec le Chef même pour qui il agit."—M?urs des Sauvages, I. 481.
There was a class of men among the Iroquois always put forward on public occasions to speak the mind of the nation or defend its interests. Nearly all of them were of the number of the subordinate chiefs. Nature and training lxi had fitted them for public speaking, and they were deeply versed449 in the history and traditions of the league. They were in fact professed orators, high in honor and influence among the people. To a huge stock of conventional metaphors450, the use of which required nothing but practice, they often added an astute436 intellect, an astonishing memory, and an eloquence451 which deserved the name.
In one particular, the training of these savage politicians was never surpassed. They had no art of writing to record events, or preserve the stipulations of treaties. Memory, therefore, was tasked to the utmost, and developed to an extraordinary degree. They had various devices for aiding it, such as bundles of sticks, and that system of signs, emblems452, and rude pictures, which they shared with other tribes. Their famous wampum-belts were so many mnemonic signs, each standing for some act, speech, treaty, or clause of a treaty. These represented the public archives, and were divided among various custodians453, each charged with the memory and interpretation454 of those assigned to him. The meaning of the belts was from time to time expounded455 in their councils. In conferences with them, nothing more astonished the French, Dutch, and English officials than the precision with which, before replying to their addresses, the Indian orators repeated them point by point.
It was only in rare cases that crime among the Iroquois or Hurons was punished by public authority. Murder, the most heinous456 offence, except witchcraft457, recognized among them, was rare. If the slayer458 and the slain459 were of the same household or clan, the affair was regarded as a family quarrel, to be settled by the immediate460 kin17 on both sides. This, under the pressure of lxii public opinion, was commonly effected without bloodshed, by presents given in atonement. But if the murderer and his victim were of different clans or different nations, still more, if the slain was a foreigner, the whole community became interested to prevent the discord or the war which might arise. All directed their efforts, not to bring the murderer to punishment, but to satisfy the injured parties by a vicarious atonement. [53] To this end, contributions were made and presents collected. Their number and value were determined462 by established usage. Among the Hurons, thirty presents of very considerable value were the price of a man's life. That of a woman's was fixed463 at forty, by reason of her weakness, and because on her depended the continuance and increase of the population. This was when the slain belonged to the nation. If of a foreign tribe, his death demanded a higher compensation, since it involved the danger of war. [54] These presents were offered in solemn council, with prescribed formalities. The relatives of the slain might refuse them, if they chose, and in this case the murderer was given them as a slave; but they might by no means kill him, since, in so doing, they would incur158 public censure, and be compelled in their turn to make atonement. Besides the principal gifts, there was a great number of less value, all symbolical464, and each delivered with a set form of words: as, "By this we wash out the blood of the slain: By this we cleanse465 his wound: By this we clothe his corpse466 with a new shirt: By this we place food on his grave": and lxiii so, in endless prolixity467, through particulars without number. [55]
[53] Lalemant, while inveighing468 against a practice which made the public, and not the criminal, answerable for an offence, admits that heinous crimes were more rare than in France, where the guilty party himself was punished.—Lettre au P. Provincial469, 15 May, 1645.
[54] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, 80.
[55] Ragueneau, Relation des Hurons, 1648, gives a description of one of these ceremonies at length. Those of the Iroquois on such occasions were similar. Many other tribes had the same custom, but attended with much less form and ceremony. Compare Perrot, 73-76.
The Hurons were notorious thieves; and perhaps the Iroquois were not much better, though the contrary has been asserted. Among both, the robbed was permitted not only to retake his property by force, if he could, but to strip the robber of all he had. This apparently acted as a restraint in favor only of the strong, leaving the weak a prey470 to the plunderer471; but here the tie of family and clan intervened to aid him. Relatives and clansmen espoused472 the quarrel of him who could not right himself. [56]
[56] The proceedings473 for detecting thieves were regular and methodical, after established customs. According to Bressani, no thief ever inculpated474 the innocent.
Witches, with whom the Hurons and Iroquois were grievously infested475, were objects of utter abomination to both, and any one might kill them at any time. If any person was guilty of treason, or by his character and conduct made himself dangerous or obnoxious476 to the public, the council of chiefs and old men held a secret session on his case, condemned477 him to death, and appointed some young man to kill him. The executioner, watching his opportunity, brained or stabbed him unawares, usually in the dark porch of one of the houses. Acting478 by authority, he could not be held answerable; and the relatives of the slain had no redress, even if they desired it. The council, however, commonly obviated479 all difficulty in advance, by charging the culprit with witchcraft, thus alienating480 his best friends.
The military organization of the Iroquois was exceedingly lxiv imperfect and derived all its efficiency from their civil union and their personal prowess. There were two hereditary war-chiefs, both belonging to the Senecas; but, except on occasions of unusual importance, it does not appear that they took a very active part in the conduct of wars. The Iroquois lived in a state of chronic warfare481 with nearly all the surrounding tribes, except a few from whom they exacted tribute. Any man of sufficient personal credit might raise a war-party when he chose. He proclaimed his purpose through the village, sang his war-songs, struck his hatchet161 into the war-post, and danced the war-dance. Any who chose joined him; and the party usually took up their march at once, with a little parched482-corn-meal and maple-sugar as their sole provision. On great occasions, there was concert of action,—the various parties meeting at a rendezvous483, and pursuing the march together. The leaders of war-parties, like the orators, belonged, in nearly all cases, to the class of subordinate chiefs. The Iroquois had a discipline suited to the dark and tangled484 forests where they fought. Here they were a terrible foe336: in an open country, against a trained European force, they were, despite their ferocious valor, far less formidable.
In observing this singular organization, one is struck by the incongruity485 of its spirit and its form. A body of hereditary oligarchs was the head of the nation, yet the nation was essentially democratic. Not that the Iroquois were levellers. None were more prompt to acknowledge superiority and defer486 to it, whether established by usage and prescription, or the result of personal endowment. Yet each man, whether of high or low degree, had a voice in the conduct of affairs, and was never for a moment divorced from his wild spirit of independence. Where there was no property worthy the name, authority lxv had no fulcrum487 and no hold. The constant aim of sachems and chiefs was to exercise it without seeming to do so. They had no insignia of office. They were no richer than others; indeed, they were often poorer, spending their substance in largesses and bribes488 to strengthen their influence. They hunted and fished for subsistence; they were as foul78, greasy, and unsavory as the rest; yet in them, withal, was often seen a native dignity of bearing, which ochre and bear's grease could not hide, and which comported490 well with their strong, symmetrical, and sometimes majestic491 proportions.
To the institutions, traditions, rites, usages, and festivals of the league the Iroquois was inseparably wedded492. He clung to them with Indian tenacity493; and he clings to them still. His political fabric was one of ancient ideas and practices, crystallized into regular and enduring forms. In its component494 parts it has nothing peculiar to itself. All its elements are found in other tribes: most of them belong to the whole Indian race. Undoubtedly495 there was a distinct and definite effort of legislation; but Iroquois legislation invented nothing. Like all sound legislation, it built of materials already prepared. It organized the chaotic496 past, and gave concrete forms to Indian nature itself. The people have dwindled and decayed; but, banded by its ties of clan and kin, the league, in feeble miniature, still subsists497, and the degenerate498 Iroquois looks back with a mournful pride to the glory of the past.
Would the Iroquois, left undisturbed to work out their own destiny, ever have emerged from the savage state? Advanced as they were beyond most other American tribes, there is no indication whatever of a tendency to overpass499 the confines of a wild hunter and warrior life. They were inveterately500 attached to it, impracticable lxvi conservatists of barbarism, and in ferocity and cruelty they matched the worst of their race. Nor did the power of expansion apparently belonging to their system ever produce much result. Between the years 1712 and 1715, the Tuscaroras, a kindred people, were admitted into the league as a sixth nation; but they were never admitted on equal terms. Long after, in the period of their decline, several other tribes were announced as new members of the league; but these admissions never took effect. The Iroquois were always reluctant to receive other tribes, or parts of tribes, collectively, into the precincts of the "Long House." Yet they constantly practised a system of adoptions501, from which, though cruel and savage, they drew great advantages. Their prisoners of war, when they had burned and butchered as many of them as would serve to sate502 their own ire and that of their women, were divided, man by man, woman by woman, and child by child, adopted into different families and clans, and thus incorporated into the nation. It was by this means, and this alone, that they could offset503 the losses of their incessant wars. Early in the eighteenth century, and even long before, a vast proportion of their population consisted of adopted prisoners. [57]
[57] Relation, 1660, 7 (anonymous). The Iroquois were at the height of their prosperity about the year 1650. Morgan reckons their number at this time at 25,000 souls; but this is far too high an estimate. The author of the Relation of 1660 makes their whole number of warriors 2,200. Le Mercier, in the Relation of 1665, says 2,350. In the Journal of Greenhalgh, an Englishman who visited them in 1677, their warriors are set down at 2,150. Du Chesneau, in 1681, estimates them at 2,000; De la Barre, in 1684, at 2,600, they having been strengthened by adoptions. A memoir504 addressed to the Marquis de Seignelay, in 1687, again makes them 2,000. (See N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 162, 196, 321.) These estimates imply a total population of ten or twelve thousand.
The anonymous writer of the Relation of 1660 may well remark: "It is marvellous that so few should make so great a havoc505, and strike such terror into so many tribes."
lxvii It remains to speak of the religious and superstitious ideas which so deeply influenced Indian life.
RELIGION AND SUPERSTITIONS.
The religious belief of the North-American Indians seems, on a first view, anomalous506 and contradictory507. It certainly is so, if we adopt the popular impression. Romance, Poetry, and Rhetoric point, on the one hand, to the august conception of a one all-ruling Deity508, a Great Spirit, omniscient509 and omnipresent; and we are called to admire the untutored intellect which could conceive a thought too vast for Socrates and Plato. On the other hand, we find a chaos510 of degrading, ridiculous, and incoherent superstitions. A closer examination will show that the contradiction is more apparent than real. We will begin with the lowest forms of Indian belief, and thence trace it upward to the highest conceptions to which the unassisted mind of the savage attained511.
To the Indian, the material world is sentient513 and intelligent. Birds, beasts, and reptiles514 have ears for human prayers, and are endowed with an influence on human destiny. A mysterious and inexplicable515 power resides in inanimate things. They, too, can listen to the voice of man, and influence his life for evil or for good. Lakes, rivers, and waterfalls are sometimes the dwelling-place of spirits; but more frequently they are themselves living beings, to be propitiated518 by prayers and offerings. The lake has a soul; and so has the river, and the cataract519. Each can hear the words of men, and each can be pleased or offended. In the silence of a forest, the gloom of a deep ravine, resides a living mystery, indefinite, but redoubtable520. Through all the works of lxviii Nature or of man, nothing exists, however seemingly trivial, that may not be endowed with a secret power for blessing521 or for bane.
Men and animals are closely akin16. Each species of animal has its great archetype, its progenitor522 or king, who is supposed to exist somewhere, prodigious in size, though in shape and nature like his subjects. A belief prevails, vague, but perfectly apparent, that men themselves owe their first parentage to beasts, birds, or reptiles, as bears, wolves, tortoises, or cranes; and the names of the totemic clans, borrowed in nearly every case from animals, are the reflection of this idea. [58]
[58] This belief occasionally takes a perfectly definite shape. There was a tradition among Northern and Western tribes, that men were created from the carcasses of beasts, birds, and fishes, by Manabozho, a mythical523 personage, to be described hereafter. The Amikouas, or People of the Beaver, an Algonquin tribe of Lake Huron, claimed descent from the carcass of the great original beaver, or father of the beavers524. They believed that the rapids and cataracts525 on the French River and the Upper Ottawa were caused by dams made by their amphibious ancestor. (See the tradition in Perrot, Mémoire sur les M?urs, Coustumes et Relligion des Sauvages de l'Amérique Septentrionale, p. 20.) Charlevoix tells the same story. Each Indian was supposed to inherit something of the nature of the animal whence he sprung.
An Indian hunter was always anxious to propitiate517 the animals he sought to kill. He has often been known to address a wounded bear in a long harangue526 of apology. [59] The bones of the beaver were treated with especial tenderness, and carefully kept from the dogs, lest the spirit of the dead beaver, or his surviving brethren, should take offence. [60] This solicitude527 was not confined to animals, lxix but extended to inanimate things. A remarkable example occurred among the Hurons, a people comparatively advanced, who, to propitiate their fishing-nets, and persuade them to do their office with effect, married them every year to two young girls of the tribe, with a ceremony more formal than that observed in the case of mere human wedlock528. [61] The fish, too, no less than the nets, must be propitiated; and to this end they were addressed every evening from the fishing-camp by one of the party chosen for that function, who exhorted529 them to take courage and be caught, assuring them that the utmost respect should be shown to their bones. The harangue, which took place after the evening meal, was made in solemn form; and while it lasted, the whole party, except the speaker, were required to lie on their backs, silent and motionless, around the fire. [62]
[59] McKinney, Tour to the Lakes, 284, mentions the discomposure of a party of Indians when shown a stuffed moose. Thinking that its spirit would be offended at the indignity530 shown to its remains, they surrounded it, making apologetic speeches, and blowing tobacco-smoke at it as a propitiatory531 offering.
[60] This superstition was very prevalent, and numerous examples of it occur in old and recent writers, from Father Le Jeune to Captain Carver.
[61] There are frequent allusions532 to this ceremony in the early writers. The Algonquins of the Ottawa practised it, as well as the Hurons. Lalemant, in his chapter "Du Regne de Satan en ces Contrées" (Relation des Hurons, 1639), says that it took place yearly, in the middle of March. As it was indispensable that the brides should be virgins533, mere children were chosen. The net was held between them; and its spirit, or oki, was harangued534 by one of the chiefs, who exhorted him to do his part in furnishing the tribe with food. Lalemant was told that the spirit of the net had once appeared in human form to the Algonquins, complaining that he had lost his wife, and warning them, that, unless they could find him another equally immaculate, they would catch no more fish.
[62] Sagard, Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, 257. Other old writers make a similar statement.
Besides ascribing life and intelligence to the material world, animate516 and inanimate, the Indian believes in supernatural existences, known among the Algonquins as Manitous, and among the Iroquois and Hurons as Okies or Otkons. These words comprehend all forms of supernatural being, from the highest to the lowest, with the exception, possibly, of certain diminutive535 fairies or hobgoblins, and certain giants and anomalous monsters, lxx which appear under various forms, grotesque and horrible, in the Indian fireside legends. [63] There are local manitous of streams, rocks, mountains, cataracts, and forests. The conception of these beings betrays, for the most part, a striking poverty of imagination. In nearly every case, when they reveal themselves to mortal sight, they bear the semblance329 of beasts, reptiles, or birds, in shapes unusual or distorted. [64] There are other manitous without local habitation, some good, some evil, countless in number and indefinite in attributes. They fill the world, and control the destinies of men,—that is to say, of Indians: for the primitive Indian holds that the white man lives under a spiritual rule distinct from that which governs his own fate. These beings, also, appear for the most part in the shape of animals. Sometimes, however, they assume human proportions; but more frequently they take the form of stones, which, being broken, are found full of living blood and flesh.
[63] Many tribes have tales of diminutive beings, which, in the absence of a better word, may be called fairies. In the Travels of Lewis and Clarke, there is mention of a hill on the Missouri, supposed to be haunted by them. These Western fairies correspond to the Puck Wudj Ininee of Ojibwa tradition. As an example of the monsters alluded536 to, see the Saginaw story of the Weendigoes, in Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, II. 105.
[64] The figure of a large bird is perhaps the most common,—as, for example, the good spirit of Rock Island: "He was white, with wings like a swan, but ten times larger."—Autobiography of Blackhawk, 70.
Each primitive Indian has his guardian538 manitou, to whom he looks for counsel, guidance, and protection. These spiritual allies are gained by the following process. At the age of fourteen or fifteen, the Indian boy blackens his face, retires to some solitary539 place, and remains for days without food. Superstitious expectancy540 and the exhaustion541 of abstinence rarely fail of their results. His sleep is haunted by visions, and the form which first or most often appears is that of his guardian lxxi manitou,—a beast, a bird, a fish, a serpent, or some other object, animate or inanimate. An eagle or a bear is the vision of a destined warrior; a wolf, of a successful hunter; while a serpent foreshadows the future medicine-man, or, according to others, portends542 disaster. [65] The young Indian thenceforth wears about his person the object revealed in his dream, or some portion of it,—as a bone, a feather, a snake-skin, or a tuft of hair. This, in the modern language of the forest and prairie, is known as his "medicine." The Indian yields to it a sort of worship, propitiates544 it with offerings of tobacco, thanks it in prosperity, and upbraids545 it in disaster. [66] If his medicine fails to bring the desired success, he will sometimes discard it and adopt another. The superstition now becomes mere fetich-worship, since the Indian regards the mysterious object which he carries about him rather as an embodiment than as a representative of a supernatural power.
[65] Compare Cass, in North-American Review, Second Series, XIII. 100. A turkey-buzzard, according to him, is the vision of a medicine-man. I once knew an old Dahcotah chief, who was greatly respected, but had never been to war, though belonging to a family of peculiarly warlike propensities. The reason was, that, in his initiatory546 fast, he had dreamed of an antelope,—the peace-spirit of his people.
Women fast, as well as men,—always at the time of transition from childhood to maturity547. In the Narrative of John Tanner, there is an account of an old woman who had fasted, in her youth, for ten days, and throughout her life placed the firmest faith in the visions which had appeared to her at that time. Among the Northern Algonquins, the practice, down to a recent day, was almost universal.
[66] The author has seen a Dahcotah warrior open his medicine-bag, talk with an air of affectionate respect to the bone, feather, or horn within, and blow tobacco-smoke upon it as an offering. "Medicines" are acquired not only by fasting, but by casual dreams, and otherwise. They are sometimes even bought and sold. For a curious account of medicine-bags and fetich-worship among the Algonquins of Gaspé, see Le Clerc, Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspésie, Chap. XIII.
Indian belief recognizes also another and very different lxxii class of beings. Besides the giants and monsters of legendary549 lore, other conceptions may be discerned, more or less distinct, and of a character partly mythical. Of these the most conspicuous is that remarkable personage of Algonquin tradition, called Manabozho, Messou, Michabou, Nanabush, or the Great Hare. As each species of animal has its archetype or king, so, among the Algonquins, Manabozho is king of all these animal kings. Tradition is diverse as to his origin. According to the most current belief, his father was the West-Wind, and his mother a great-granddaughter of the Moon. His character is worthy of such a parentage. Sometimes he is a wolf, a bird, or a gigantic hare, surrounded by a court of quadrupeds; sometimes he appears in human shape, majestic in stature and wondrous551 in endowment, a mighty magician, a destroyer of serpents and evil manitous; sometimes he is a vain and treacherous552 imp169, full of childish whims553 and petty trickery, the butt554 and victim of men, beasts, and spirits. His powers of transformation555 are without limit; his curiosity and malice556 are insatiable; and of the numberless legends of which he is the hero, the greater part are as trivial as they are incoherent. [67] It does not appear that Manabozho was ever an object of worship; yet, despite his absurdity557, tradition declares him to be chief among the manitous, in short, the "Great Spirit." [68] It was he who restored lxxiii the world, submerged by a deluge558. He was hunting in company with a certain wolf, who was his brother, or, by other accounts, his grandson, when his quadruped relative fell through the ice of a frozen lake, and was at once devoured by certain serpents lurking559 in the depths of the waters. Manabozho, intent on revenge, transformed himself into the stump174 of a tree, and by this artifice560 surprised and slew561 the king of the serpents, as he basked562 with his followers563 in the noontide sun. The serpents, who were all manitous, caused, in their rage, the waters of the lake to deluge the earth. Manabozho climbed a tree, which, in answer to his entreaties564, grew as the flood rose around it, and thus saved him from the vengeance of the evil spirits. Submerged to the neck, he looked abroad on the waste of waters, and at length descried565 the bird known as the loon566, to whom he appealed for aid in the task of restoring the world. The loon dived in search of a little mud, as material for reconstruction567, but could not reach the bottom. A musk-rat made the same attempt, but soon reappeared floating on his back, and apparently dead. Manabozho, however, on searching his paws, discovered in one of them a particle of the desired mud, and of this, together with the body of the loon, created the world anew. [69]
[67] Mr. Schoolcraft has collected many of these tales. See his Algic Researches, Vol. I. Compare the stories of Messou, given by Le Jeune (Relations, 1633, 1634), and the account of Nanabush, by Edwin James, in his notes to Tanner's Narrative of Captivity568 and Adventures during a Thirty-Years' Residence among the Indians; also the account of the Great Hare, in the Mémoire of Nicolas Perrot, Chaps. I., II.
[68] "Presque toutes les Nations Algonquines ont donné le nom de Grand Lièvre au Premier392 Esprit, quelques-uns l'appellent Michabou (Manabozho)."—Charlevoix, Journal Historique, 344.
[69] This is a form of the story still current among the remoter Algonquins. Compare the story of Messou, in Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 16. It is substantially the same.
There are various forms of this tradition, in some of which Manabozho appears, not as the restorer, but as the creator of the world, forming mankind from the carcasses of beasts, birds, and fishes. [70] Other stories represent lxxiv him as marrying a female musk-rat, by whom he became the progenitor of the human race. [71]
[70] In the beginning of all things, Manabozho, in the form of the Great Hare, was on a raft, surrounded by animals who acknowledged him as their chief. No land could be seen. Anxious to create the world, the Great Hare persuaded the beaver to dive for mud; but the adventurous diver floated to the surface senseless. The otter next tried, and failed like his predecessor. The musk-rat now offered himself for the desperate task. He plunged569, and, after remaining a day and night beneath the surface, reappeared, floating on his back beside the raft, apparently dead, and with all his paws fast closed. On opening them, the other animals found in one of them a grain of sand, and of this the Great Hare created the world.—Perrot, Mémoire, Chap. I.
[71] Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 16.—The musk-rat is always a conspicuous figure in Algonquin cosmogony.
It is said that Messou, or Manabozho, once gave to an Indian the gift of immortality571, tied in a bundle, enjoining572 him never to open it. The Indian's wife, however, impelled573 by curiosity, one day cut the string, the precious gift flew out, and Indians have ever since been subject to death. Le Jeune, Relation, 1634, 13.
Searching for some higher conception of supernatural existence, we find, among a portion of the primitive Algonquins, traces of a vague belief in a spirit dimly shadowed forth543 under the name of Atahocan, to whom it does not appear that any attributes were ascribed or any worship offered, and of whom the Indians professed to know nothing whatever; [72] but there is no evidence that this belief extended beyond certain tribes of the Lower St. Lawrence. Others saw a supreme574 manitou in the Sun. [73] The Algonquins believed also in a malignant575 manitou, in whom the early missionaries failed not to recognize the Devil, but who was far less dreaded than his wife. She wore a robe made of the hair of her victims, for she was the cause of death; and she it was lxxv whom, by yelling, drumming, and stamping, they sought to drive away from the sick. Sometimes, at night, she was seen by some terrified squaw in the forest, in shape like a flame of fire; and when the vision was announced to the circle crouched around the lodge-fire, they burned a fragment of meat to appease576 the female fiend.
[72] Le Jeune, Relation, 1633, 16; Relation, 1634, 13.
[73] Biard, Relation, 1611, Chap. VIII.—This belief was very prevalent. The Ottawas, according to Ragueneau (Relation des Hurons, 1648, 77), were accustomed to invoke577 the "Maker340 of Heaven" at their feasts; but they recognized as distinct persons the Maker of the Earth, the Maker of Winter, the God of the Waters, and the Seven Spirits of the Wind. He says, at the same time, "The people of these countries have received from their ancestors no knowledge of a God"; and he adds, that there is no sentiment of religion in this invocation.
The East, the West, the North, and the South were vaguely578 personified as spirits or manitous. Some of the winds, too, were personal existences. The West-Wind, as we have seen, was father of Manabozho. There was a Summer-Maker and a Winter-Maker; and the Indians tried to keep the latter at bay by throwing firebrands into the air.
When we turn from the Algonquin family of tribes to that of the Iroquois, we find another cosmogony, and other conceptions of spiritual existence. While the earth was as yet a waste of waters, there was, according to Iroquois and Huron traditions, a heaven with lakes, streams, plains, and forests, inhabited by animals, by spirits, and, as some affirm, by human beings. Here a certain female spirit, named Ataentsic, was once chasing a bear, which, slipping through a hole, fell down to the earth. Ataentsic's dog followed, when she herself, struck with despair, jumped after them. Others declare that she was kicked out of heaven by the spirit, her husband, for an amour with a man; while others, again, hold the belief that she fell in the attempt to gather for her husband the medicinal leaves of a certain tree. Be this as it may, the animals swimming in the watery579 waste below saw her falling, and hastily met in council to determine what should be done. The case was referred to the beaver. The beaver commended it to the judgment of the tortoise, who thereupon called on the other animals to dive, bring up mud, and place it on his back. Thus lxxvi was formed a floating island, on which Ataentsic fell; and here, being pregnant, she was soon delivered of a daughter, who in turn bore two boys, whose paternity is unexplained. They were called Taouscaron and Jouskeha, and presently fell to blows, Jouskeha killing his brother with the horn of a stag. The back of the tortoise grew into a world full of verdure and life; and Jouskeha, with his grandmother, Ataentsic, ruled over its destinies. [74]
[74] The above is the version of the story given by Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 86 (Cramoisy). No two Indians told it precisely580 alike, though nearly all the Hurons and Iroquois agreed as to its essential points. Compare Vanderdonck, Cusick, Sagard, and other writers. According to Vanderdonck, Ataentsic became mother of a deer, a bear, and a wolf, by whom she afterwards bore all the other animals, mankind included. Brébeuf found also among the Hurons a tradition inconsistent with that of Ataentsic, and bearing a trace of Algonquin origin. It declares, that, in the beginning, a man, a fox, and a skunk581 found themselves together on an island, and that the man made the world out of mud brought him by the skunk.
The Delawares, an Algonquin tribe, seem to have borrowed somewhat of the Iroquois cosmogony, since they believed that the earth was formed on the back of a tortoise.
According to some, Jouskeha became the father of the human race; but, in the third generation, a deluge destroyed his posterity582, so that it was necessary to transform animals into men.—Charlevoix, III. 345.
He is the Sun; she is the Moon. He is beneficent; but she is malignant, like the female demon583 of the Algonquins. They have a bark house, made like those of the Iroquois, at the end of the earth, and they often come to feasts and dances in the Indian villages. Jouskeha raises corn for himself, and makes plentiful584 harvests for mankind. Sometimes he is seen, thin as a skeleton, with a spike585 of shrivelled corn in his hand, or greedily gnawing586 a human limb; and then the Indians know that a grievous famine awaits them. He constantly interposes between mankind and the malice of his wicked grandmother, whom, at times, he soundly cudgels. It was he lxxvii who made lakes and streams: for once the earth was parched and barren, all the water being gathered under the armpit of a colossal frog; but Jouskeha pierced the armpit, and let out the water. No prayers were offered to him, his benevolent587 nature rendering them superfluous588. [75]
[75] Compare Brébeuf, as before cited, and Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, p. 228.
The early writers call Jouskeha the creator of the world, and speak of him as corresponding to the vague Algonquin deity, Atahocan. Another deity appears in Iroquois mythology589, with equal claims to be regarded as supreme. He is called Areskoui, or Agreskoui, and his most prominent attributes are those of a god of war. He was often invoked590, and the flesh of animals and of captive enemies was burned in his honor. [76] Like Jouskeha, he was identified with the sun; and he is perhaps to be regarded as the same being, under different attributes. Among the Iroquois proper, or Five Nations, there was also a divinity called Tarenyowagon, or Teharonhiawagon, [77] whose place and character it is very difficult to determine. In some traditions he appears as the son of Jouskeha. He had a prodigious influence; for it was he who spoke to men in dreams. The Five Nations recognized still another superhuman personage,—plainly a deified chief or hero. This was Taounyawatha, or Hiawatha, said to be a divinely appointed messenger, who made his abode on earth for the political and social instruction of the chosen race, and whose lxxviii counterpart is to be found in the traditions of the Peruvians, Mexicans, and other primitive nations. [78]
[76] Father Jogues saw a female prisoner burned to Areskoui, and two bears offered to him to atone461 for the sin of not burning more captives.—Lettre de Jogues, 5 Aug., 1643.
[77] Le Mercier, Relation, 1670, 66; Dablon, Relation, 1671, 17. Compare Cusick, Megapolensis, and Vanderdonck. Some writers identify Tarenyowagon and Hiawatha. Vanderdonck assumes that Areskoui is the Devil, and Tarenyowagon is God. Thus Indian notions are often interpreted by the light of preconceived ideas.
[78] For the tradition of Hiawatha, see Clark, History of Onondaga, I. 21. It will also be found in Schoolcraft's Notes on the Iroquois, and in his History, Condition, and Prospects591 of Indian Tribes.
The Iroquois name for God is Hawenniio, sometimes written Owayneo; but this use of the word is wholly due to the missionaries. Hawenniio is an Iroquois verb, and means, he rules, he is master. There is no Iroquois word which, in its primitive meaning, can be interpreted, the Great Spirit, or God. On this subject, see études Philologiques sur quelques Langues Sauvages (Montreal, 1866), where will also be found a curious exposure of a few of Schoolcraft's ridiculous blunders in this connection.
Close examination makes it evident that the primitive Indian's idea of a Supreme Being was a conception no higher than might have been expected. The moment he began to contemplate592 this object of his faith, and sought to clothe it with attributes, it became finite, and commonly ridiculous. The Creator of the World stood on the level of a barbarous and degraded humanity, while a natural tendency became apparent to look beyond him to other powers sharing his dominion593. The Indian belief, if developed, would have developed into a system of polytheism. [79]
[79] Some of the early writers could discover no trace of belief in a supreme spirit of any kind. Perrot, after a life spent among the Indians, ignores such an idea. Allouez emphatically denies that it existed among the tribes of Lake Superior. (Relation, 1667, 11.) He adds, however, that the Sacs and Foxes believed in a great génie, who lived not far from the French settlements.—Ibid., 21.
In the primitive Indian's conception of a God the idea of moral good has no part. His deity does not dispense594 justice for this world or the next, but leaves mankind under the power of subordinate spirits, who fill and control the universe. Nor is the good and evil of these inferior beings a moral good and evil. The good spirit is the spirit that gives good luck, and ministers to the necessities and desires of mankind: the evil spirit is lxxix simply a malicious595 agent of disease, death, and mischance.
In no Indian language could the early missionaries find a word to express the idea of God. Manitou and Oki meant anything endowed with supernatural powers, from a snake-skin, or a greasy Indian conjurer, up to Manabozho and Jouskeha. The priests were forced to use a circumlocution,—"The Great Chief of Men," or "He who lives in the Sky." [80] Yet it should seem that the idea of a supreme controlling spirit might naturally arise from the peculiar character of Indian belief. The idea that each race of animals has its archetype or chief would easily suggest the existence of a supreme chief of the spirits or of the human race,—a conception imperfectly shadowed forth in Manabozho. The Jesuit missionaries seized this advantage. "If each sort of animal has its king," they urged, "so, too, have men; and as man is above all the animals, so is the spirit that rules over men the master of all the other spirits." The Indian mind readily accepted the idea, and tribes in no sense Christian596 quickly rose to the belief in one controlling spirit. The Great Spirit became a distinct existence, a pervading597 power in the universe, and a dispenser of justice. Many tribes now pray to him, though still clinging obstinately598 to their ancient superstitions; and with some, as the heathen portion of the modern Iroquois, he is clothed with attributes of moral good. [81]
[80] See "Divers550 Sentimens," appended to the Relation of 1635, § 27; and also many other passages of early missionaries.
[81] In studying the writers of the last and of the present century, it is to be remembered that their observations were made upon savages who had been for generations in contact, immediate or otherwise, with the doctrines599 of Christianity. Many observers have interpreted the religious ideas of the Indians after preconceived ideas of their own; and it may safely be affirmed that an Indian will respond with a grunt600 of acquiescence to any question whatever touching his spiritual state. Loskiel and the simple-minded Heckewelder write from a missionary point of view; Adair, to support a theory of descent from the Jews; the worthy theologian, Jarvis, to maintain his dogma, that all religious ideas of the heathen world are perversions601 of revelation; and so, in a greater or less degree, of many others. By far the most close and accurate observers of Indian superstition were the French and Italian Jesuits of the first half of the seventeenth century. Their opportunities were unrivalled; and they used them in a spirit of faithful inquiry602, accumulating facts, and leaving theory to their successors. Of recent American writers, no one has given so much attention to the subject as Mr. Schoolcraft; but, in view of his opportunities and his zeal147, his results are most unsatisfactory. The work in six large quarto volumes, History, Condition, and Prospects of Indian Tribes, published by Government under his editorship, includes the substance of most of his previous writings. It is a singularly crude and illiterate603 production, stuffed with blunders and contradictions, giving evidence on every page of a striking unfitness either for historical or philosophical604 inquiry, and taxing to the utmost the patience of those who would extract what is valuable in it from its oceans of pedantic605 verbiage606.
lxxx The primitive Indian believed in the immortality of the soul, [82] but he did not always believe in a state of future reward and punishment. Nor, when such a belief existed, was the good to be rewarded a moral good, or the evil to be punished a moral evil. Skilful hunters, brave warriors, men of influence and consideration, went, after death, to the happy hunting-ground; while the slothful, the cowardly, and the weak were doomed607 to eat serpents and ashes in dreary regions of mist and darkness. In the general belief, however, there was but one land of shades for all alike. The spirits, in form and feature as they had been in life, wended their way through dark forests to the villages of the dead, subsisting608 on bark and rotten wood. On arriving, they sat all day in the crouching609 posture610 of the sick, and, when night came, hunted lxxxi the shades of animals, with the shades of bows and arrows, among the shades of trees and rocks: for all things, animate and inanimate, were alike immortal570, and all passed together to the gloomy country of the dead.
[82] The exceptions are exceedingly rare. Father Gravier says that a Peoria Indian once told him that there was no future life. It would be difficult to find another instance of the kind.
The belief respecting the land of souls varied greatly in different tribes and different individuals. Among the Hurons there were those who held that departed spirits pursued their journey through the sky, along the Milky611 Way, while the souls of dogs took another route, by certain constellations612, known as the "Way of the Dogs." [83]
[83] Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, 233.
At intervals of ten or twelve years, the Hurons, the Neutrals, and other kindred tribes, were accustomed to collect the bones of their dead, and deposit them, with great ceremony, in a common place of burial. The whole nation was sometimes assembled at this solemnity; and hundreds of corpses613, brought from their temporary resting-places, were inhumed in one capacious pit. From this hour the immortality of their souls began. They took wing, as some affirmed, in the shape of pigeons; while the greater number declared that they journeyed on foot, and in their own likeness614, to the land of shades, bearing with them the ghosts of the wampum-belts, beaver-skins, bows, arrows, pipes, kettles, beads, and rings buried with them in the common grave. [84] But as the spirits of the old and of children are too feeble for the march, they are forced to stay behind, lingering near their earthly villages, where the living often hear the shutting of their invisible cabin-doors, and the weak lxxxii voices of the disembodied children driving birds from their corn-fields. [85] An endless variety of incoherent fancies is connected with the Indian idea of a future life. They commonly owe their origin to dreams, often to the dreams of those in extreme sickness, who, on awaking, supposed that they had visited the other world, and related to the wondering bystanders what they had seen.
[84] The practice of burying treasures with the dead is not peculiar to the North American aborigines. Thus, the London Times of Oct. 28, 1865, describing the funeral rites of Lord Palmerston, says: "And as the words, 'Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,' were pronounced, the chief mourner, as a last precious offering to the dead, threw into the grave several diamond and gold rings."
[85] Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 99 (Cramoisy).
The Indian land of souls is not always a region of shadows and gloom. The Hurons sometimes represented the souls of their dead—those of their dogs included—as dancing joyously615 in the presence of Ataentsic and Jouskeha. According to some Algonquin traditions, heaven was a scene of endless festivity, the ghosts dancing to the sound of the rattle268 and the drum, and greeting with hospitable welcome the occasional visitor from the living world: for the spirit-land was not far off, and roving hunters sometimes passed its confines unawares.
Most of the traditions agree, however, that the spirits, on their journey heavenward, were beset616 with difficulties and perils617. There was a swift river which must be crossed on a log that shook beneath their feet, while a ferocious dog opposed their passage, and drove many into the abyss. This river was full of sturgeon and other fish, which the ghosts speared for their subsistence. Beyond was a narrow path between moving rocks, which each instant crashed together, grinding to atoms the less nimble of the pilgrims who essayed to pass. The Hurons believed that a personage named Oscotarach, or the Head-Piercer, dwelt in a bark house beside the path, and that it was his office to remove the brains from the heads of all who went by, as a necessary preparation for immortality. lxxxiii This singular idea is found also in some Algonquin traditions, according to which, however, the brain is afterwards restored to its owner. [86]
[86] On Indian ideas of another life, compare Sagard, the Jesuit Relations, Perrot, Charlevoix, and Lafitau, with Tanner, James, Schoolcraft, and the Appendix to Morse's Indian Report.
Le Clerc recounts a singular story, current in his time among the Algonquins of Gaspé and Northern New Brunswick. The favorite son of an old Indian died; whereupon the father, with a party of friends, set out for the land of souls to recover him. It was only necessary to wade618 through a shallow lake, several days' journey in extent. This they did, sleeping at night on platforms of poles which supported them above the water. At length they arrived, and were met by Papkootparout, the Indian Pluto619, who rushed on them in a rage, with his war-club upraised; but, presently relenting, changed his mind, and challenged them to a game of ball. They proved the victors, and won the stakes, consisting of corn, tobacco, and certain fruits, which thus became known to mankind. The bereaved620 father now begged hard for his son's soul, and Papkootparout at last gave it to him, in the form and size of a nut, which, by pressing it hard between his hands, he forced into a small leather bag. The delighted parent carried it back to earth, with instructions to insert it in the body of his son, who would thereupon return to life. When the adventurers reached home, and reported the happy issue of their journey, there was a dance of rejoicing; and the father, wishing to take part in it, gave his son's soul to the keeping of a squaw who stood by. Being curious to see it, she opened the bag; on which it escaped at once, and took flight for the realms of Papkootparout, preferring them to the abodes621 of the living.—Le Clerc, Nouvelle Relation de la Gaspésie, 310-328.
Dreams were to the Indian a universal oracle. They revealed to him his guardian spirit, taught him the cure of his diseases, warned him of the devices of sorcerers, guided him to the lurking-places of his enemy or the haunts of game, and unfolded the secrets of good and evil destiny. The dream was a mysterious and inexorable power, whose least behests must be obeyed to the letter,—a source, in every Indian town, of endless mischief622 and abomination. There were professed dreamers, and professed interpreters of dreams. One of the most noted festivals among the Hurons and Iroquois was the Dream Feast, a scene of frenzy623, where the actors counterfeited624 lxxxiv madness, and the town was like a bedlam625 turned loose. Each pretended to have dreamed of something necessary to his welfare, and rushed from house to house, demanding of all he met to guess his secret requirement and satisfy it.
Believing that the whole material world was instinct with powers to influence and control his fate, that good and evil spirits, and existences nameless and indefinable, filled all Nature, that a pervading sorcery was above, below, and around him, and that issues of life and death might be controlled by instruments the most unnoticeable and seemingly the most feeble, the Indian lived in perpetual fear. The turning of a leaf, the crawling of an insect, the cry of a bird, the creaking of a bough548, might be to him the mystic signal of weal or woe626.
An Indian community swarmed with sorcerers, medicine-men, and diviners, whose functions were often united in the same person. The sorcerer, by charms, magic songs, magic feasts, and the beating of his drum, had power over the spirits and those occult influences inherent in animals and inanimate things. He could call to him the souls of his enemies. They appeared before him in the form of stones. He chopped and bruised627 them with his hatchet; blood and flesh issued forth; and the intended victim, however distant, languished628 and died. Like the sorcerer of the Middle Ages, he made images of those he wished to destroy, and, muttering incantations, punctured629 them with an awl305, whereupon the persons represented sickened and pined away.
The Indian doctor relied far more on magic than on natural remedies. Dreams, beating of the drum, songs, magic feasts and dances, and howling to frighten the female demon from his patient, were his ordinary methods of cure.
lxxxv The prophet, or diviner, had various means of reading the secrets of futurity, such as the flight of birds, and the movements of water and fire. There was a peculiar practice of divination630 very general in the Algonquin family of tribes, among some of whom it still subsists. A small, conical lodge was made by planting poles in a circle, lashing631 the tops together at the height of about seven feet from the ground, and closely covering them with hides. The prophet crawled in, and closed the aperture632 after him. He then beat his drum and sang his magic songs to summon the spirits, whose weak, shrill voices were soon heard, mingled with his lugubrious chanting, while at intervals the juggler633 paused to interpret their communications to the attentive634 crowd seated on the ground without. During the whole scene, the lodge swayed to and fro with a violence which has astonished many a civilized beholder635, and which some of the Jesuits explain by the ready solution of a genuine diabolic intervention636. [87]
[87] This practice was first observed by Champlain. (See "Pioneers of France in the New World." ) From his time to the present, numerous writers have remarked upon it. Le Jeune, in the Relation of 1637, treats it at some length. The lodge was sometimes of a cylindrical637, instead of a conical form.
The sorcerers, medicine-men, and diviners did not usually exercise the function of priests. Each man sacrificed for himself to the powers he wished to propitiate, whether his guardian spirit, the spirits of animals, or the other beings of his belief. The most common offering was tobacco, thrown into the fire or water; scraps638 of meat were sometimes burned to the manitous; and, on a few rare occasions of public solemnity, a white dog, the mystic animal of many tribes, was tied to the end of an upright pole, as a sacrifice to some superior spirit, or to lxxxvi the sun, with which the superior spirits were constantly confounded by the primitive Indian. In recent times, when Judaism and Christianity have modified his religious ideas, it has been, and still is, the practice to sacrifice dogs to the Great Spirit. On these public occasions, the sacrificial function is discharged by chiefs, or by warriors appointed for the purpose. [88]
[88] Many of the Indian feasts were feasts of sacrifice,—sometimes to the guardian spirit of the host, sometimes to an animal of which he has dreamed, sometimes to a local or other spirit. The food was first offered in a loud voice to the being to be propitiated, after which the guests proceeded to devour it for him. This unique method of sacrifice was practised at war-feasts and similar solemnities. For an excellent account of Indian religious feasts, see Perrot, Chap. V.
One of the most remarkable of Indian sacrifices was that practised by the Hurons in the case of a person drowned or frozen to death. The flesh of the deceased was cut off, and thrown into a fire made for the purpose, as an offering of propitiation to the spirits of the air or water. What remained of the body was then buried near the fire.—Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1636, 108.
The tribes of Virginia, as described by Beverly and others, not only had priests who offered sacrifice, but idols639 and houses of worship.
Among the Hurons and Iroquois, and indeed all the stationary tribes, there was an incredible number of mystic ceremonies, extravagant, puerile640, and often disgusting, designed for the cure of the sick or for the general weal of the community. Most of their observances seem originally to have been dictated641 by dreams, and transmitted as a sacred heritage from generation to generation. They consisted in an endless variety of dances, masqueradings, and nondescript orgies; and a scrupulous adherence to all the traditional forms was held to be of the last moment, as the slightest failure in this respect might entail642 serious calamities643. If children were seen in their play imitating any of these mysteries, they were grimly rebuked644 and punished. In many tribes secret magical societies existed, and still exist, into which lxxxvii members are initiated645 with peculiar ceremonies. These associations are greatly respected and feared. They have charms for love, war, and private revenge, and exert a great, and often a very mischievous646 influence. The societies of the Metai and the Wabeno, among the Northern Algonquins, are conspicuous examples; while other societies of similar character have, for a century, been known to exist among the Dahcotah. [89]
[89] The Friendly Society of the Spirit, of which the initiatory ceremonies were seen and described by Carver (Travels, 271), preserves to this day its existence and its rites.
A notice of the superstitious ideas of the Indians would be imperfect without a reference to the traditionary tales through which these ideas are handed down from father to son. Some of these tales can be traced back to the period of the earliest intercourse647 with Europeans. One at least of those recorded by the first missionaries, on the Lower St. Lawrence, is still current among the tribes of the Upper Lakes. Many of them are curious combinations of beliefs seriously entertained with strokes intended for humor and drollery648, which never fail to awaken649 peals650 of laughter in the lodge-circle. Giants, dwarfs, cannibals, spirits, beasts, birds, and anomalous monsters, transformations651, tricks, and sorcery, form the staple of the story. Some of the Iroquois tales embody652 conceptions which, however preposterous, are of a bold and striking character; but those of the Algonquins are, to an incredible degree, flimsy, silly, and meaningless; nor are those of the Dahcotah tribes much better. In respect to this wigwam lore, there is a curious superstition of very wide prevalence. The tales must not be told in summer; since at that season, when all Nature is full of life, the spirits are awake, and, hearing what is said of them, may take offence; whereas in winter they lxxxviii are fast sealed up in snow and ice, and no longer capable of listening. [90]
[90] The prevalence of this fancy among the Algonquins in the remote parts of Canada is well established. The writer found it also among the extreme western bands of the Dahcotah. He tried, in the month of July, to persuade an old chief, a noted story-teller, to tell him some of the tales; but, though abundantly loquacious653 in respect to his own adventures, and even his dreams, the Indian obstinately refused, saying that winter was the time for the tales, and that it was bad to tell them in summer.
Mr. Schoolcraft has published a collection of Algonquin tales, under the title of Algic Researches. Most of them were translated by his wife, an educated Ojibwa half-breed. This book is perhaps the best of Mr. Schoolcraft's works, though its value is much impaired654 by the want of a literal rendering, and the introduction of decorations which savor489 more of a popular monthly magazine than of an Indian wigwam. Mrs. Eastman's interesting Legends of the Sioux (Dahcotah) is not free from the same defect. Other tales are scattered throughout the works of Mr. Schoolcraft and various modern writers. Some are to be found in the works of Lafitau and the other Jesuits. But few of the Iroquois legends have been printed, though a considerable number have been written down. The singular History of the Five Nations, by the old Tuscarora Indian, Cusick, gives the substance of some of them. Others will be found in Clark's History of Onondaga.
It is obvious that the Indian mind has never seriously occupied itself with any of the higher themes of thought. The beings of its belief are not impersonations of the forces of Nature, the courses of human destiny, or the movements of human intellect, will, and passion. In the midst of Nature, the Indian knew nothing of her laws. His perpetual reference of her phenomena655 to occult agencies forestalled656 inquiry and precluded657 inductive reasoning. If the wind blew with violence, it was because the water-lizard, which makes the wind, had crawled out of his pool; if the lightning was sharp and frequent, it was because the young of the thunder-bird were restless in their nest; if a blight658 fell upon the corn, it was because the Corn Spirit was angry; and if the beavers were shy and difficult to catch, it was because lxxxix they had taken offence at seeing the bones of one of their race thrown to a dog. Well, and even highly developed, in a few instances,—I allude537 especially to the Iroquois,—with respect to certain points of material concernment, the mind of the Indian in other respects was and is almost hopelessly stagnant659. The very traits that raise him above the servile races are hostile to the kind and degree of civilization which those races so easily attain512. His intractable spirit of independence, and the pride which forbids him to be an imitator, reinforce but too strongly that savage lethargy of mind from which it is so hard to rouse him. No race, perhaps, ever offered greater difficulties to those laboring660 for its improvement.
To sum up the results of this examination, the primitive Indian was as savage in his religion as in his life. He was divided between fetich-worship and that next degree of religious development which consists in the worship of deities661 embodied in the human form. His conception of their attributes was such as might have been expected. His gods were no whit116 better than himself. Even when he borrows from Christianity the idea of a Supreme and Universal Spirit, his tendency is to reduce Him to a local habitation and a bodily shape; and this tendency disappears only in tribes that have been long in contact with civilized white men. The primitive Indian, yielding his untutored homage662 to One All-pervading and Omnipotent663 Spirit, is a dream of poets, rhetoricians, and sentimentalists.
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politic
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| adj.有智虑的；精明的；v.从政 | |
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superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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superstitions
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| 迷信，迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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tribal
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| adj.部族的，种族的 | |
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ferocious
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| adj.凶猛的，残暴的，极度的，十分强烈的 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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pro
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| n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者 | |
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exterminated
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| v.消灭，根绝( exterminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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radical
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| n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的 | |
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par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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jersey
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| n.运动衫 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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dreary
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| adj.令人沮丧的，沉闷的，单调乏味的 | |
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con
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| n.反对的观点，反对者，反对票，肺病；vt.精读，学习，默记；adv.反对地，从反面；adj.欺诈的 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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generic
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| adj.一般的，普通的，共有的 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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latitude
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| n.纬度，行动或言论的自由(范围)，(pl.)地区 | |
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densest
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| 密集的( dense的最高级 )； 密度大的； 愚笨的； （信息量大得）难理解的 | |
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epidemic
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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savages
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| 未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 ) | |
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specimens
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| n.样品( specimen的名词复数 )；范例；（化验的）抽样；某种类型的人 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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bounty
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| n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与 | |
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maize
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| n.玉米 | |
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eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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inveterate
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| adj.积习已深的，根深蒂固的 | |
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tyrants
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| 专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 )； 暴君似的人； （古希腊的）僭主； 严酷的事物 | |
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hawk
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| n.鹰，骗子；鹰派成员 | |
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northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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tenants
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| n.房客( tenant的名词复数 )；佃户；占用者；占有者 | |
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warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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mustered
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| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的过去式和过去分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
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labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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heresy
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| n.异端邪说；异教 | |
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heresies
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| n.异端邪说，异教( heresy的名词复数 ) | |
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conversion
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| n.转化，转换，转变 | |
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rite
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| n.典礼，惯例，习俗 | |
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chronic
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| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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credulous
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| adj.轻信的，易信的 | |
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lore
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| n.传说；学问，经验，知识 | |
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monstrous
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| adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的 | |
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thighs
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| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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tout
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| v.推销，招徕；兜售；吹捧，劝诱 | |
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dwarfs
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| n.侏儒，矮子（dwarf的复数形式）vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的第三人称单数形式） | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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prolific
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| adj.丰富的，大量的；多产的，富有创造力的 | |
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lobsters
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| 龙虾( lobster的名词复数 )； 龙虾肉 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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hordes
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| n.移动着的一大群( horde的名词复数 )；部落 | |
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horde
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| n.群众，一大群 | |
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toiling
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| 长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 )； 艰难缓慢地移动，跋涉 | |
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mustering
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| v.集合，召集，集结（尤指部队）( muster的现在分词 )；（自他人处）搜集某事物；聚集；激发 | |
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strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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arbor
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| n.凉亭；树木 | |
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sustenance
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| n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计 | |
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75
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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76
goaded
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| v.刺激( goad的过去式和过去分词 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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77
subsist
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| vi.生存，存在，供养 | |
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78
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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79
foulest
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| adj.恶劣的( foul的最高级 )；邪恶的；难闻的；下流的 | |
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80
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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81
cannibalism
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| n.同类相食；吃人肉 | |
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82
ascending
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| adj.上升的，向上的 | |
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83
cannon
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| n.大炮，火炮；飞机上的机关炮 | |
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84
verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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85
prologue
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| n.开场白，序言；开端，序幕 | |
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86
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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87
swarmed
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| 密集( swarm的过去式和过去分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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88
warriors
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| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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89
windings
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| （道路、河流等）蜿蜒的，弯曲的( winding的名词复数 )； 缠绕( wind的现在分词 )； 卷绕； 转动（把手） | |
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90
famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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91
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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92
corrupt
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| v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的 | |
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93
lapse
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| n.过失，流逝，失效，抛弃信仰，间隔；vi.堕落，停止，失效，流逝；vt.使失效 | |
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94
perplexed
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| adj.不知所措的 | |
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95
relics
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| [pl.］n.遗物，遗迹，遗产；遗体，尸骸 | |
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96
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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97
copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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98
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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99
bout
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| n.侵袭，发作；一次(阵，回)；拳击等比赛 | |
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100
rites
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| 仪式，典礼( rite的名词复数 ) | |
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101
fidelity
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| n.忠诚，忠实；精确 | |
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102
enumeration
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| n.计数，列举；细目；详表；点查 | |
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103
dwelling
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| n.住宅，住所，寓所 | |
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104
dwellings
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| n.住处，处所( dwelling的名词复数 ) | |
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105
abound
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| vi.大量存在；(in，with)充满，富于 | |
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106
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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107
ravages
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| 劫掠后的残迹，破坏的结果，毁坏后的残迹 | |
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108
pestilence
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| n.瘟疫 | |
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109
footpaths
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| 人行小径，人行道( footpath的名词复数 ) | |
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110
fortified
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| adj. 加强的 | |
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111
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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112
pretension
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| n.要求；自命，自称；自负 | |
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113
prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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114
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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115
lashed
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| adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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116
whit
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| n.一点，丝毫 | |
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117
cedar
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| n.雪松，香柏(木) | |
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118
overlapping
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| adj./n.交迭（的） | |
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119
shingles
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| n.带状疱疹；（布满海边的）小圆石( shingle的名词复数 )；屋顶板；木瓦（板）；墙面板 | |
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120
colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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121
inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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122
vaulted
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| adj.拱状的 | |
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123
perches
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| 栖息处( perch的名词复数 )； 栖枝； 高处； 鲈鱼 | |
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124
ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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125
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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126
abode
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| n.住处，住所 | |
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127
tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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128
lining
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| n.衬里，衬料 | |
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129
soot
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| n.煤烟，烟尘；vt.熏以煤烟 | |
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130
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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131
pungent
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| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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132
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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133
fleas
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| n.跳蚤( flea的名词复数 )；爱财如命；没好气地（拒绝某人的要求） | |
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134
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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135
lodging
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| n.寄宿，住所；(大学生的)校外宿舍 | |
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136
abounds
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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137
inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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138
primitive
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| adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物 | |
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139
fathoms
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| 英寻( fathom的名词复数 ) | |
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140
loft
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| n.阁楼，顶楼 | |
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141
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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142
charcoal
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| n.炭，木炭，生物炭 | |
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143
charred
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| v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦 | |
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144
pottery
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| n.陶器，陶器场 | |
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145
otter
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| n.水獭 | |
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146
zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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147
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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148
vouch
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| v.担保；断定；n.被担保者 | |
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149
scrupulous
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| adj.审慎的，小心翼翼的，完全的，纯粹的 | |
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150
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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151
vista
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| n.远景，深景，展望，回想 | |
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152
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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153
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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154
badinage
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| n.开玩笑，打趣 | |
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155
hideous
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| adj.丑陋的，可憎的，可怕的，恐怖的 | |
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156
aspirants
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| n.有志向或渴望获得…的人( aspirant的名词复数 )v.渴望的，有抱负的，追求名誉或地位的( aspirant的第三人称单数 )；有志向或渴望获得…的人 | |
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157
resinous
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| adj.树脂的，树脂质的，树脂制的 | |
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158
incur
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| vt.招致，蒙受，遭遇 | |
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159
hacking
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| n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动 | |
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160
hatchets
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| n.短柄小斧( hatchet的名词复数 )；恶毒攻击；诽谤；休战 | |
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161
hatchet
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| n.短柄小斧；v.扼杀 | |
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162
defenders
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| n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者 | |
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163
gutters
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| （路边）排水沟( gutter的名词复数 )； 阴沟； （屋顶的）天沟； 贫贱的境地 | |
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164
kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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165
regularity
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| n.规律性，规则性；匀称，整齐 | |
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166
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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167
precipice
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| n.悬崖，危急的处境 | |
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168
aboriginal
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| adj.（指动植物）土生的，原产地的，土著的 | |
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169
imp
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| n.顽童 | |
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170
implements
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| n.工具( implement的名词复数 )；家具；手段；[法律]履行（契约等）v.实现( implement的第三人称单数 )；执行；贯彻；使生效 | |
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171
fortress
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| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
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172
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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173
stumps
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| （被砍下的树的）树桩( stump的名词复数 )； 残肢； （板球三柱门的）柱； 残余部分 | |
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174
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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175
pumpkins
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| n.南瓜( pumpkin的名词复数 )；南瓜的果肉，南瓜囊 | |
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176
hemp
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| n.大麻；纤维 | |
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177
manure
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| n.粪，肥，肥粒；vt.施肥 | |
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178
intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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179
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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180
staple
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| n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类 | |
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181
odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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182
esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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183
fattened
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| v.喂肥( fatten的过去式和过去分词 )；养肥（牲畜）；使（钱）增多；使（公司）升值 | |
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184
festive
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| adj.欢宴的，节日的 | |
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185
improvident
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| adj.不顾将来的，不节俭的，无远见的 | |
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186
stationary
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| adj.固定的，静止不动的 | |
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187
supplanted
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| 把…排挤掉，取代( supplant的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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188
spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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189
twine
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| v.搓，织，编饰；（使）缠绕 | |
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190
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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191
mortars
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| n.迫击炮( mortar的名词复数 )；砂浆；房产；研钵 | |
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192
thongs
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| 的东西 | |
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193
twigs
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| 细枝，嫩枝( twig的名词复数 ) | |
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194
skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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195
monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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196
ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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197
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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198
elongated
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| v.延长，加长( elongate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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199
contrived
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| adj.不自然的，做作的；虚构的 | |
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200
porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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201
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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202
bracelets
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| n.手镯，臂镯( bracelet的名词复数 ) | |
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203
onerous
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| adj.繁重的 | |
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204
touching
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| adj.动人的，使人感伤的 | |
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205
beaver
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| n.海狸，河狸 | |
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206
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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207
pious
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| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
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208
unearthed
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| 出土的（考古） | |
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209
tunics
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| n.（动植物的）膜皮( tunic的名词复数 )；束腰宽松外衣；一套制服的短上衣；（天主教主教等穿的）短祭袍 | |
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210
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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211
quills
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| n.（刺猬或豪猪的）刺( quill的名词复数 )；羽毛管；翮；纡管 | |
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212
embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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213
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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214
bristled
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| adj. 直立的，多刺毛的 动词bristle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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215
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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216
hyena
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| n.土狼，鬣狗 | |
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217
tattooing
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| n.刺字，文身v.刺青，文身( tattoo的现在分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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218
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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219
tattooed
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| v.刺青，文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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220
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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221
drudgery
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| n.苦工，重活，单调乏味的工作 | |
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222
drudge
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| n.劳碌的人；v.做苦工，操劳 | |
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223
susceptible
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| adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的 | |
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224
lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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225
whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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226
adorn
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| vt.使美化，装饰 | |
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227
boundless
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| adj.无限的；无边无际的；巨大的 | |
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228
delicacy
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| n.精致，细微，微妙，精良；美味，佳肴 | |
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229
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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230
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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231
modesty
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| n.谦逊，虚心，端庄，稳重，羞怯，朴素 | |
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232
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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233
prevailing
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| adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的 | |
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234
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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235
celibates
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| n.独身者( celibate的名词复数 ) | |
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236
superstitious
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|
| adj.迷信的 | |
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237
etiquette
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| n.礼仪，礼节；规矩 | |
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238
dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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239
mules
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| 骡( mule的名词复数 )； 拖鞋； 顽固的人； 越境运毒者 | |
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240
vindictive
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|
| adj.有报仇心的，怀恨的，惩罚的 | |
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241
vindictiveness
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| 恶毒；怀恨在心 | |
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242
clan
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| n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派 | |
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243
possessed
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|
| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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244
outraged
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|
| a.震惊的，义愤填膺的 | |
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245
redress
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| n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除 | |
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246
authorized
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| a.委任的，许可的 | |
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247
vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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248
bereft
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| adj.被剥夺的 | |
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249
prescription
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| n.处方，开药；指示，规定 | |
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250
prescriptions
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| 药( prescription的名词复数 )； 处方； 开处方； 计划 | |
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251
bliss
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| n.狂喜，福佑，天赐的福 | |
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252
extravagant
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|
| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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253
profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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254
inviting
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|
| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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255
concise
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|
| adj.简洁的，简明的 | |
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256
squatted
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|
| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的过去式和过去分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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257
slung
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| 抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 )； 吊挂； 遣送； 押往 | |
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258
prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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259
lugubrious
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|
| adj.悲哀的，忧郁的 | |
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260
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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261
protracted
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|
| adj.拖延的；延长的v.拖延“protract”的过去式和过去分词 | |
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262
devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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263
viands
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| n.食品，食物 | |
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264
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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265
dreaded
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|
| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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266
thronged
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| v.成群，挤满( throng的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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267
throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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268
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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269
rattles
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|
| （使）发出格格的响声， （使）作嘎嘎声( rattle的第三人称单数 )； 喋喋不休地说话； 迅速而嘎嘎作响地移动，堕下或走动； 使紧张，使恐惧 | |
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270
divested
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| v.剥夺( divest的过去式和过去分词 )；脱去（衣服）；2。从…取去…；1。（给某人）脱衣服 | |
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271
motive
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|
| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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272
exhortations
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| n.敦促( exhortation的名词复数 )；极力推荐；（正式的）演讲；（宗教仪式中的）劝诫 | |
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273
satire
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| n.讽刺，讽刺文学，讽刺作品 | |
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274
repartee
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| n.机敏的应答 | |
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275
patriotic
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|
| adj.爱国的，有爱国心的 | |
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276
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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277
interspersed
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|
| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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278
witticisms
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|
| n.妙语，俏皮话( witticism的名词复数 ) | |
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279
bantered
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|
| v.开玩笑，说笑，逗乐( banter的过去式和过去分词 )；（善意地）取笑，逗弄 | |
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280
envoy
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| n.使节，使者，代表，公使 | |
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281
inauguration
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| n.开幕、就职典礼 | |
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282
harmonious
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|
| adj.和睦的，调和的，和谐的，协调的 | |
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283
prospective
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|
| adj.预期的，未来的，前瞻性的 | |
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284
devoured
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|
| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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285
reluctance
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|
| n.厌恶，讨厌，勉强，不情愿 | |
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286
hereditary
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|
| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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287
scanty
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|
| adj.缺乏的，仅有的，节省的，狭小的，不够的 | |
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288
preposterous
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|
| adj.荒谬的，可笑的 | |
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289
professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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290
condiments
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| n.调味品 | |
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291
stimulants
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|
| n.兴奋剂( stimulant的名词复数 )；含兴奋剂的饮料；刺激物；激励物 | |
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292
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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293
exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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294
whooped
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| 叫喊( whoop的过去式和过去分词 )； 高声说； 唤起 | |
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295
rattled
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| 慌乱的，恼火的 | |
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296
gorged
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|
| v.（用食物把自己）塞饱，填饱( gorge的过去式和过去分词 )；作呕 | |
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297
enjoined
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| v.命令( enjoin的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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298
grimace
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| v.做鬼脸，面部歪扭 | |
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299
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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300
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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301
succumbed
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|
| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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302
combustible
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| a. 易燃的,可燃的; n. 易燃物,可燃物 | |
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303
tenements
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| n.房屋，住户，租房子( tenement的名词复数 ) | |
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304
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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305
awl
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| n.尖钻 | |
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306
oracle
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| n.神谕，神谕处，预言 | |
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307
abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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308
bouts
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|
| n.拳击（或摔跤）比赛( bout的名词复数 )；一段（工作）；（尤指坏事的）一通；（疾病的）发作 | |
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309
lodge
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| v.临时住宿，寄宿，寄存，容纳；n.传达室，小旅馆 | |
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310
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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311
distinctive
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|
| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
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312
conspicuous
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| adj.明眼的，惹人注目的；炫耀的，摆阔气的 | |
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313
skulls
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| 颅骨( skull的名词复数 )； 脑袋； 脑子； 脑瓜 | |
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314
propensities
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| n.倾向，习性( propensity的名词复数 ) | |
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315
brutal
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|
| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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316
trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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317
paramount
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| a.最重要的，最高权力的 | |
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318
bartering
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| v.作物物交换，以货换货( barter的现在分词 ) | |
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319
truce
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| n.休战，(争执，烦恼等的)缓和；v.以停战结束 | |
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320
strife
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|
| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
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321
stature
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| n.（高度）水平，（高度）境界，身高，身材 | |
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322
radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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323
licentiousness
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| n.放肆，无法无天 | |
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324
dire
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| adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的 | |
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325
slanders
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| 诽谤，诋毁( slander的名词复数 ) | |
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326
venom
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| n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨 | |
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327
missionary
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|
| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
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328
adventurous
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|
| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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329
semblance
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|
| n.外貌，外表 | |
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330
resolute
|
|
| adj.坚决的，果敢的 | |
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331
vanquished
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|
| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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332
elevation
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|
| n.高度；海拔；高地；上升；提高 | |
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333
geographical
|
|
| adj.地理的；地区(性)的 | |
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334
perfectly
|
|
| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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335
conquerors
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|
| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
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336
foe
|
|
| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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337
foes
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|
| 敌人，仇敌( foe的名词复数 ) | |
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338
caressed
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|
| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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339
sufficiently
|
|
| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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340
maker
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|
| n.制造者，制造商 | |
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341
rendering
|
|
| n.表现，描写 | |
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342
conspiracy
|
|
| n.阴谋，密谋，共谋 | |
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343
peculiarities
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|
| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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344
pliant
|
|
| adj.顺从的；可弯曲的 | |
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345
complaisant
|
|
| adj.顺从的，讨好的 | |
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346
missionaries
|
|
| n.传教士( missionary的名词复数 ) | |
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347
docile
|
|
| adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的 | |
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348
acquiescence
|
|
| n.默许；顺从 | |
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349
auditors
|
|
| n.审计员，稽核员( auditor的名词复数 )；（大学课程的）旁听生 | |
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350
assented
|
|
| 同意，赞成( assent的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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351
vexed
|
|
| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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352
mutual
|
|
| adj.相互的，彼此的；共同的，共有的 | |
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353
opaque
|
|
| adj.不透光的；不反光的，不传导的；晦涩的 | |
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354
arrogant
|
|
| adj.傲慢的，自大的 | |
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355
sarcasm
|
|
| n.讥讽，讽刺，嘲弄，反话 （adj.sarcastic） | |
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356
lavish
|
|
| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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357
stint
|
|
| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
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358
soothe
|
|
| v.安慰；使平静；使减轻；缓和；奉承 | |
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359
rigid
|
|
| adj.严格的，死板的；刚硬的，僵硬的 | |
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360
infringe
|
|
| v.违反，触犯，侵害 | |
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361
censure
|
|
| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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362
inflexible
|
|
| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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363
expound
|
|
| v.详述；解释；阐述 | |
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364
distress
|
|
| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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365
permanently
|
|
| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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366
recipients
|
|
| adj.接受的；受领的；容纳的；愿意接受的n.收件人；接受者；受领者；接受器 | |
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367
testimony
|
|
| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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368
emphatic
|
|
| adj.强调的，着重的；无可置疑的，明显的 | |
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369
disposition
|
|
| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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370
incessant
|
|
| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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371
bantering
|
|
| adj.嘲弄的v.开玩笑，说笑，逗乐( banter的现在分词 )；（善意地）取笑，逗弄 | |
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372
adepts
|
|
| n.专家，能手( adept的名词复数 ) | |
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373
shrill
|
|
| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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374
hardy
|
|
| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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375
subdivided
|
|
| 再分，细分( subdivide的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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376
clans
|
|
| 宗族( clan的名词复数 )； 氏族； 庞大的家族； 宗派 | |
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377
mingled
|
|
| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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378
consanguinity
|
|
| n.血缘；亲族 | |
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379
emblem
|
|
| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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380
reptile
|
|
| n.爬行动物；两栖动物 | |
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381
influential
|
|
| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
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382
creeks
|
|
| n.小湾( creek的名词复数 )；小港；小河；小溪 | |
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383
countless
|
|
| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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|
384
analyze
|
|
| vt.分析，解析 (=analyse) | |
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|
385
portraiture
|
|
| n.肖像画法 | |
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386
persuasive
|
|
| adj.有说服力的，能说得使人相信的 | |
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387
advisory
|
|
| adj.劝告的，忠告的，顾问的，提供咨询 | |
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388
adoption
|
|
| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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389
scrupulously
|
|
| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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390
judgment
|
|
| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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391
premiers
|
|
| n.总理，首相( premier的名词复数 )；首席官员， | |
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392
premier
|
|
| adj.首要的；n.总理，首相 | |
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393
sundered
|
|
| v.隔开，分开( sunder的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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394
discord
|
|
| n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐 | |
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395
celestial
|
|
| adj.天体的；天上的 | |
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396
incarnate
|
|
| adj.化身的，人体化的，肉色的 | |
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397
aggression
|
|
| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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398
renowned
|
|
| adj.著名的，有名望的，声誉鹊起的 | |
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399
mighty
|
|
| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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400
writhing
|
|
| （因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 ) | |
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401
grotesquely
|
|
| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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402
predecessor
|
|
| n.前辈，前任 | |
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403
dwindled
|
|
| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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404
destined
|
|
| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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405
consummated
|
|
| v.使结束( consummate的过去式和过去分词 )；使完美；完婚；（婚礼后的）圆房 | |
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406
nominal
|
|
| adj.名义上的；(金额、租金)微不足道的 | |
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407
qualified
|
|
| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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408
interdicted
|
|
| v.禁止（行动）( interdict的过去式和过去分词 )；禁用；限制 | |
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409
interdict
|
|
| v.限制；禁止；n.正式禁止；禁令 | |
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410
synopsis
|
|
| n.提要，梗概 | |
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411
binding
|
|
| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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412
elastic
|
|
| n.橡皮圈，松紧带；adj.有弹性的；灵活的 | |
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413
adverse
|
|
| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
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414
inclination
|
|
| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
参考例句： |
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|
415
varied
|
|
| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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416
valor
|
|
| n.勇气，英勇 | |
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417
embodied
|
|
| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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418
orators
|
|
| n.演说者，演讲家( orator的名词复数 ) | |
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419
purely
|
|
| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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420
essentially
|
|
| adv.本质上，实质上，基本上 | |
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421
greasy
|
|
| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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422
crouched
|
|
| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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423
bellies
|
|
| n.肚子( belly的名词复数 )；腹部；（物体的）圆形或凸起部份；腹部…形的 | |
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424
junta
|
|
| n.团体；政务审议会 | |
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425
devoted
|
|
| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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426
thither
|
|
| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
参考例句： |
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427
swarming
|
|
| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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428
hospitable
|
|
| adj.好客的；宽容的；有利的，适宜的 | |
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429
lodges
|
|
| v.存放( lodge的第三人称单数 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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430
reigned
|
|
| vi.当政，统治（reign的过去式形式） | |
参考例句： |
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431
adherence
|
|
| n.信奉，依附，坚持，固着 | |
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432
propriety
|
|
| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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433
rhetoric
|
|
| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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|
434
prolix
|
|
| adj.罗嗦的；冗长的 | |
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435
sifting
|
|
| n.筛，过滤v.筛( sift的现在分词 )；筛滤；细查；详审 | |
参考例句： |
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|
436
astute
|
|
| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
参考例句： |
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437
astuteness
|
|
| n.敏锐；精明；机敏 | |
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438
marvel
|
|
| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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439
liaison
|
|
| n.联系，（未婚男女间的）暖昧关系，私通 | |
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440
unanimity
|
|
| n.全体一致，一致同意 | |
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441
tenacious
|
|
| adj.顽强的，固执的，记忆力强的，粘的 | |
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442
acquiescent
|
|
| adj.默许的，默认的 | |
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443
spoke
|
|
| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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444
dexterous
|
|
| adj.灵敏的；灵巧的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
445
conclave
|
|
| n.秘密会议，红衣主教团 | |
参考例句： |
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446
intrigues
|
|
| n.密谋策划( intrigue的名词复数 )；神秘气氛；引人入胜的复杂情节v.搞阴谋诡计( intrigue的第三人称单数 )；激起…的好奇心 | |
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447
coup
|
|
| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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448
suite
|
|
| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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|
449
versed
|
|
| adj. 精通，熟练 | |
参考例句： |
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|
450
metaphors
|
|
| 隐喻( metaphor的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
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451
eloquence
|
|
| n.雄辩；口才，修辞 | |
参考例句： |
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452
emblems
|
|
| n.象征，标记( emblem的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
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|
453
custodians
|
|
| n.看守人，保管人( custodian的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
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|
454
interpretation
|
|
| n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理 | |
参考例句： |
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455
expounded
|
|
| 论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
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|
456
heinous
|
|
| adj.可憎的，十恶不赦的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
457
witchcraft
|
|
| n.魔法，巫术 | |
参考例句： |
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458
slayer
|
|
| n. 杀人者，凶手 | |
参考例句： |
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459
slain
|
|
| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
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460
immediate
|
|
| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
参考例句： |
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461
atone
|
|
| v.赎罪，补偿 | |
参考例句： |
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|
462
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
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463
fixed
|
|
| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
464
symbolical
|
|
| a.象征性的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
465
cleanse
|
|
| vt.使清洁，使纯洁，清洗 | |
参考例句： |
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466
corpse
|
|
| n.尸体，死尸 | |
参考例句： |
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|
467
prolixity
|
|
| n.冗长，罗嗦 | |
参考例句： |
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|
468
inveighing
|
|
| v.猛烈抨击，痛骂，谩骂( inveigh的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
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469
provincial
|
|
| adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人 | |
参考例句： |
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|
470
prey
|
|
| n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨 | |
参考例句： |
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|
471
plunderer
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|
| 掠夺者 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
472
espoused
|
|
| v.（决定）支持，拥护（目标、主张等）( espouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
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473
proceedings
|
|
| n.进程，过程，议程；诉讼(程序)；公报 | |
参考例句： |
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474
inculpated
|
|
| v.显示（某人）有罪，使负罪( inculpate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
475
infested
|
|
| adj.为患的，大批滋生的（常与with搭配）v.害虫、野兽大批出没于( infest的过去式和过去分词 )；遍布于 | |
参考例句： |
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476
obnoxious
|
|
| adj.极恼人的，讨人厌的，可憎的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
477
condemned
|
|
| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
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|
478
acting
|
|
| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
479
obviated
|
|
| v.避免，消除（贫困、不方便等）( obviate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
480
alienating
|
|
| v.使疏远( alienate的现在分词 )；使不友好；转让；让渡（财产等） | |
参考例句： |
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481
warfare
|
|
| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
482
parched
|
|
| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
参考例句： |
|
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|
|
483
rendezvous
|
|
| n.约会，约会地点，汇合点；vi.汇合，集合；vt.使汇合，使在汇合地点相遇 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
484
tangled
|
|
| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
485
incongruity
|
|
| n.不协调，不一致 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
486
defer
|
|
| vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从 | |
参考例句： |
|
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|
|
487
fulcrum
|
|
| n.杠杆支点 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
488
bribes
|
|
| n.贿赂( bribe的名词复数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂v.贿赂( bribe的第三人称单数 )；向（某人）行贿，贿赂 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
489
savor
|
|
| vt.品尝，欣赏；n.味道，风味；情趣，趣味 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
490
comported
|
|
| v.表现( comport的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
491
majestic
|
|
| adj.雄伟的，壮丽的，庄严的，威严的，崇高的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
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|
492
wedded
|
|
| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
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|
493
tenacity
|
|
| n.坚韧 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
494
component
|
|
| n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
495
undoubtedly
|
|
| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
496
chaotic
|
|
| adj.混沌的，一片混乱的，一团糟的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
497
subsists
|
|
| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
498
degenerate
|
|
| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
499
overpass
|
|
| n.天桥，立交桥 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
500
inveterately
|
|
| adv.根深蒂固地，积习地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
501
adoptions
|
|
| n.采用，收养( adoption的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
502
sate
|
|
| v.使充分满足 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
503
offset
|
|
| n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
504
memoir
|
|
| n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
505
havoc
|
|
| n.大破坏，浩劫，大混乱，大杂乱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
506
anomalous
|
|
| adj.反常的；不规则的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
507
contradictory
|
|
| adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
508
deity
|
|
| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
509
omniscient
|
|
| adj.无所不知的；博识的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
510
chaos
|
|
| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
511
attained
|
|
| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
512
attain
|
|
| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
513
sentient
|
|
| adj.有知觉的，知悉的；adv.有感觉能力地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
514
reptiles
|
|
| n.爬行动物，爬虫( reptile的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
515
inexplicable
|
|
| adj.无法解释的，难理解的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
516
animate
|
|
| v.赋于生命，鼓励；adj.有生命的，有生气的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
517
propitiate
|
|
| v.慰解，劝解 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
518
propitiated
|
|
| v.劝解，抚慰，使息怒( propitiate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
519
cataract
|
|
| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
520
redoubtable
|
|
| adj.可敬的；可怕的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
521
blessing
|
|
| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
522
progenitor
|
|
| n.祖先，先驱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
523
mythical
|
|
| adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
524
beavers
|
|
| 海狸( beaver的名词复数 )； 海狸皮毛； 棕灰色； 拼命工作的人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
525
cataracts
|
|
| n.大瀑布( cataract的名词复数 )；白内障 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
526
harangue
|
|
| n.慷慨冗长的训话，言辞激烈的讲话 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
527
solicitude
|
|
| n.焦虑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
528
wedlock
|
|
| n.婚姻，已婚状态 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
529
exhorted
|
|
| v.劝告，劝说( exhort的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
530
indignity
|
|
| n.侮辱，伤害尊严，轻蔑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
531
propitiatory
|
|
| adj.劝解的；抚慰的；谋求好感的；哄人息怒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
532
allusions
|
|
| 暗指，间接提到( allusion的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
533
virgins
|
|
| 处女，童男( virgin的名词复数 )； 童贞玛利亚（耶稣之母） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
534
harangued
|
|
| v.高谈阔论( harangue的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
535
diminutive
|
|
| adj.小巧可爱的，小的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
536
alluded
|
|
| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
537
allude
|
|
| v.提及，暗指 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
538
guardian
|
|
| n.监护人；守卫者，保护者 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
539
solitary
|
|
| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
540
expectancy
|
|
| n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
541
exhaustion
|
|
| n.耗尽枯竭，疲惫，筋疲力尽，竭尽，详尽无遗的论述 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
542
portends
|
|
| v.预示( portend的第三人称单数 )；预兆；给…以警告；预告 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
543
forth
|
|
| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
544
propitiates
|
|
| v.劝解，抚慰，使息怒( propitiate的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
545
upbraids
|
|
| v.责备，申斥，谴责( upbraid的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
546
initiatory
|
|
| adj.开始的；创始的；入会的；入社的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
547
maturity
|
|
| n.成熟；完成；(支票、债券等)到期 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
548
bough
|
|
| n.大树枝，主枝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
549
legendary
|
|
| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
550
divers
|
|
| adj.不同的；种种的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
551
wondrous
|
|
| adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
552
treacherous
|
|
| adj.不可靠的，有暗藏的危险的；adj.背叛的，背信弃义的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
553
WHIMS
|
|
| 虚妄，禅病 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
554
butt
|
|
| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
555
transformation
|
|
| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
556
malice
|
|
| n.恶意，怨恨，蓄意；[律]预谋 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
557
absurdity
|
|
| n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
558
deluge
|
|
| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
559
lurking
|
|
| 潜在 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
560
artifice
|
|
| n.妙计，高明的手段；狡诈，诡计 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
561
slew
|
|
| v.（使）旋转；n.大量，许多 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
562
basked
|
|
| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的过去式和过去分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
563
followers
|
|
| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
564
entreaties
|
|
| n.恳求，乞求( entreaty的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
565
descried
|
|
| adj.被注意到的，被发现的，被看到的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
566
loon
|
|
| n.狂人 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
567
reconstruction
|
|
| n.重建，再现，复原 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
568
captivity
|
|
| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
569
plunged
|
|
| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
570
immortal
|
|
| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
571
immortality
|
|
| n.不死，不朽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
572
enjoining
|
|
| v.命令( enjoin的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
573
impelled
|
|
| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
574
supreme
|
|
| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
575
malignant
|
|
| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
576
appease
|
|
| v.安抚，缓和，平息，满足 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
577
invoke
|
|
| v.求助于(神、法律)；恳求，乞求 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
578
vaguely
|
|
| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
579
watery
|
|
| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
580
precisely
|
|
| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
581
skunk
|
|
| n.臭鼬，黄鼠狼；v.使惨败，使得零分；烂醉如泥 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
582
posterity
|
|
| n.后裔，子孙，后代 | |
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583
demon
|
|
| n.魔鬼，恶魔 | |
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584
plentiful
|
|
| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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585
spike
|
|
| n.长钉，钉鞋；v.以大钉钉牢，使...失效 | |
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586
gnawing
|
|
| a.痛苦的，折磨人的 | |
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587
benevolent
|
|
| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
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588
superfluous
|
|
| adj.过多的，过剩的，多余的 | |
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589
mythology
|
|
| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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590
invoked
|
|
| v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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591
prospects
|
|
| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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592
contemplate
|
|
| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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593
dominion
|
|
| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
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594
dispense
|
|
| vt.分配，分发；配(药)，发(药)；实施 | |
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595
malicious
|
|
| adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的 | |
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596
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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597
pervading
|
|
| v.遍及，弥漫( pervade的现在分词 ) | |
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598
obstinately
|
|
| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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599
doctrines
|
|
| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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600
grunt
|
|
| v.嘟哝；作呼噜声；n.呼噜声，嘟哝 | |
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601
perversions
|
|
| n.歪曲( perversion的名词复数 )；变坏；变态心理 | |
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602
inquiry
|
|
| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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603
illiterate
|
|
| adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲 | |
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604
philosophical
|
|
| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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605
pedantic
|
|
| adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的 | |
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606
verbiage
|
|
| n.冗词；冗长 | |
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607
doomed
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|
| 命定的 | |
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608
subsisting
|
|
| v.（靠很少的钱或食物）维持生活，生存下去( subsist的现在分词 ) | |
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609
crouching
|
|
| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 ) | |
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610
posture
|
|
| n.姿势，姿态，心态，态度；v.作出某种姿势 | |
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611
milky
|
|
| adj.牛奶的，多奶的；乳白色的 | |
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612
constellations
|
|
| n.星座( constellation的名词复数 )；一群杰出人物；一系列（相关的想法、事物）；一群（相关的人） | |
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613
corpses
|
|
| n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 ) | |
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614
likeness
|
|
| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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615
joyously
|
|
| ad.快乐地, 高兴地 | |
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616
beset
|
|
| v.镶嵌；困扰，包围 | |
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617
perils
|
|
| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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618
wade
|
|
| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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619
Pluto
|
|
| n.冥王星 | |
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620
bereaved
|
|
| adj.刚刚丧失亲人的v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的过去式和过去分词)；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物） | |
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621
abodes
|
|
| 住所( abode的名词复数 )； 公寓； （在某地的）暂住； 逗留 | |
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622
mischief
|
|
| n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹 | |
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623
frenzy
|
|
| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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624
counterfeited
|
|
| v.仿制，造假( counterfeit的过去分词 ) | |
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625
bedlam
|
|
| n.混乱，骚乱；疯人院 | |
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626
woe
|
|
| n.悲哀，苦痛，不幸，困难；int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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627
bruised
|
|
| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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628
languished
|
|
| 长期受苦( languish的过去式和过去分词 )； 受折磨； 变得（越来越）衰弱； 因渴望而变得憔悴或闷闷不乐 | |
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629
punctured
|
|
| v.在（某物）上穿孔( puncture的过去式和过去分词 )；刺穿（某物）；削弱（某人的傲气、信心等）；泄某人的气 | |
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630
divination
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|
| n.占卜，预测 | |
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631
lashing
|
|
| n.鞭打；痛斥；大量；许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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632
aperture
|
|
| n.孔，隙，窄的缺口 | |
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633
juggler
|
|
| n. 变戏法者, 行骗者 | |
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634
attentive
|
|
| adj.注意的，专心的；关心(别人)的，殷勤的 | |
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635
beholder
|
|
| n.观看者，旁观者 | |
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636
intervention
|
|
| n.介入，干涉，干预 | |
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|
637
cylindrical
|
|
| adj.圆筒形的 | |
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638
scraps
|
|
| 油渣 | |
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639
idols
|
|
| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
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640
puerile
|
|
| adj.幼稚的，儿童的 | |
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641
dictated
|
|
| v.大声讲或读( dictate的过去式和过去分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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642
entail
|
|
| vt.使承担，使成为必要，需要 | |
参考例句： |
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643
calamities
|
|
| n.灾祸，灾难( calamity的名词复数 )；不幸之事 | |
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644
rebuked
|
|
| 责难或指责( rebuke的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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645
initiated
|
|
| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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646
mischievous
|
|
| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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647
intercourse
|
|
| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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648
drollery
|
|
| n.开玩笑，说笑话；滑稽可笑的图画（或故事、小戏等） | |
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649
awaken
|
|
| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
参考例句： |
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650
peals
|
|
| n.（声音大而持续或重复的）洪亮的响声( peal的名词复数 )；隆隆声；洪亮的钟声；钟乐v.（使）（钟等）鸣响，（雷等）发出隆隆声( peal的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句： |
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651
transformations
|
|
| n.变化( transformation的名词复数 )；转换；转换；变换 | |
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652
embody
|
|
| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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653
loquacious
|
|
| adj.多嘴的，饶舌的 | |
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654
impaired
|
|
| adj.受损的；出毛病的；有（身体或智力）缺陷的v.损害，削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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655
phenomena
|
|
| n.现象 | |
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656
forestalled
|
|
| v.先发制人，预先阻止( forestall的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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657
precluded
|
|
| v.阻止( preclude的过去式和过去分词 )；排除；妨碍；使…行不通 | |
参考例句： |
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658
blight
|
|
| n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残 | |
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659
stagnant
|
|
| adj.不流动的，停滞的，不景气的 | |
参考例句： |
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660
laboring
|
|
| n.劳动，操劳v.努力争取(for)( labor的现在分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
参考例句： |
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661
deities
|
|
| n.神，女神( deity的名词复数 )；神祗；神灵；神明 | |
参考例句： |
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662
homage
|
|
| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
参考例句： |
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|
663
omnipotent
|
|
| adj.全能的，万能的 | |
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