22
THE CHEMAWA AMERICAN
course of the common law, and estimate and maintain our right ac
cording to the principles of English freedom.
"One of these was the great inferiority of the Indian allies of the
French, and the great superiority of the Indian allies of the English;
the effective and enduring organization, the warlike powers; of the Iro
guois, and their fidelity to the "covenant chain" which bound them to
our fathers. The other cause lies deeper: It is that peoples, not
monarchs, settlers, not soldiers, build empires; that the spirit of abso
lutism in a royal court is a less vital principle than the spirit of liberty
in a nation.
"In these memorable days let there be honor to Champlain and the
chivalry of France; honor to the strong free hearts of the common
people of England; and honor also to the savage virtues, the courage
and loyal friendship of the Long House of the Iroquois." Senator
Root.
IROQUOIS FOLKLORE
"The North American Indians possessed a vast oral literature of
mythology legendary lore and tradition. The field of American folklore
has scarcely been touched by anthropologists, and even tribes that have
been known the longest have received comparatively little attention.
True, much has been recorded, but this much is but a small portion of
the total. That this should be the case is not due to the lack of energy
on the part of students but to the inaccessibility of the greater part of
the material.
"Much is known of the material culture of the Iroquois and much also
of their governmental system and their social laws. That not all is
known is conceded, but enough to place them conspicuously before
historians and ethnographers as the Indians of Indians, as the most
splendid of barbaric men. It will be found of interest, therefore, to
bring before students for correlation the small portion of their literature
contained in this volume.
"The mythology of the Iroquois differs in form from that of many
other of the American races. Iroquois tales were of strengh, of great
deeds, of nature and the forces of nature, 'standing out in striking
contrast to the flimsy conceptions of the Algonquins,' as someone has
remarked. They are the classics of all the unwritten literature of the
American aborigines.
' 'The Iroquois were a people who loved to weave language in fine met
aphor and delicate allusion and possessed a language singularly adapted