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Ashur Wright, DD., for many years a missionary among the Senecas, and familiar with their language and customs, wrote to the author in 1873 on the subject of these households, as follows: "As to their family system, when occupying the old long-houses, it is probable that some one clan predominated, the women taking in husbands, however, from the other clans; and sometimes, for a novelty, some of their sons bringing in their young wives until they felt brave enough to leave their mothers.
"That clan does not exist among the Eastern nations?" "Clans die out, clans are born, clans are altered with the years, Loskiel." "I never heard of the Hawk Clan at Guy Park," said I. He said, with elaborate carelessness: "It exists among the Senecas." "And apparently among the Wyandottes." "Apparently." I said in a low voice: "Yonder Huron differs from any Indian I ever knew.
Further, the French were leaving a rearguard of four hundred men in a hastily built stockade at La Famine, and the more loose-tongued warriors were already talking of an attack on this force, cutting the Governor's communications, and then turning on him from the rear, leaving it to the Senecas to engage him in front.
The Indians thus enlisted and banded together against the British comprised, "with few unimportant exceptions, the whole Algonquin stock." Especially were the Ohio tribes solicited and secured; the Shawanoes, the Miamis, the Wyandots, and the Delawares. The Senecas were the only members of the Iroquois confederacy that joined the league.
In the ball game, for example, among the Senecas, they play by phratries, one against the other, and they bet against each other upon the result of the game. Each phratry puts forward its best players, usually from six to ten on a side, and the members of each phratry assemble together, but upon opposite sides of the field in which the game is played.
The Cayugas and Senecas followed on the same side; but the Onondagas, in the centre of the confederacy, remained neutral, and the Oneidas and Tuscaroras, under the influence of Samuel Kirkland and other missionaries, showed active sympathy with the Americans. It turned out, too, that the Whigs were much stronger in the valley than had been supposed. After St.
"It's no secret," I said, soberly; "the Senecas and Cayugas are harrying the Oneidas; the renegades are riding the forest, murdering women and infants. St. Leger is firing bombs at Stanwix, and Visscher is holding German Flatts with some Caughnawaga militia." "And Herkimer?" asked Drummond, gravely. "Dead," I replied, in a low voice. "Good gad, sir! I had not heard that!" he exclaimed.
Among these were the Iroquois, and if Red Jacket was distinguished among his own people, his own people were not less conspicuous among the North American Indians. He sprang from the Senecas, and was accustomed to speak of his origin with feelings of conscious pride. For the Senecas were the most numerous and powerful of the six nations, of whom they were a part.
When we bivouacked, some of Du Luth's boys scouted ahead. They got in by sunrise. They'd been to the main village of the Senecas on the hill beyond the marsh, you know it, don't you?" "Yes." "And they saw nothing but a few women and a pack of dogs.
This certainly was your thought; and it could be nothing else but the curiosity of seeing a burnt or drowned country that moved you to undertake a journey hither. But now you have an opportunity of being undeceived, for I and my warriors come to assure you that the Senecas, Cayugas, Onondagas, Oneidas, and Mohawks are not yet destroyed.
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