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Updated: June 1, 2025
The next morning, after the council had been opened in the usual manner, Johnson thus continued. "Relatives, uncover now your heads and listen. The day has thus far advanced, and again gathered around the council-fire I see around me the several nations of the long house. This gives me great joy. Greetings have been exchanged with each other. Thanks have been returned to Handsomelake.
"I shall wisely do to sit here on the step over the council-fire of my pipe. Besides, when there are not markets and flowers, and only a straight-down, early-afternoon sun, I shall find it a more noble usage of time to see of my drama another scene. The actors are good;" and he pointed with his pipe-stem down to the garden.
A warrior of no renown, a hunter so indifferent as to compel his squaw and pappooses often to beg for food in strange lodges, of mean presence, and a drunkard, it may seem extraordinary that the Weasel should possess any influence amid so many chiefs renowned for courage, wisdom, deeds in arms, on the hunt, and for services around the council-fire. It was all due to his tongue.
Brant bounded to his feet and caught Butler's rigid, outstretched arm. "Are you mad, to violate a council-fire?" he said, furiously. Magdalen Brant looked calmly at Butler, then deliberately faced the sachems. "Mohawks!" she called, steadily. There was a silence; Butler's black eyes were almost starting from his bloodless visage; the hag, Montour, clawed the air in helpless fury.
It is true that white cunning has managed to throw the tribes into great confusion as respects friends and enemies; so that the Hurons and the Oneidas, who speak the same tongue, or what may be called the same, take each other's scalps, and the Delawares are divided among themselves; a few hanging about their great council-fire on their own river, and fighting on the same side with the Mingos, while the greater part are in the Canadas, out of natural enmity to the Maquas thus throwing everything into disorder, and destroying all the harmony of warfare.
We took wives who bore us children; we worshipped the Great Spirit; and we kept the Maquas beyond the sound of our songs of triumph." "Know you anything of your own family at that time?" demanded the white. "But you are just a man, for an Indian; and as I suppose you hold their gifts, your fathers must have been brave warriors, and wise men at the council-fire."
All but two of the Onondaga delegation left the council-fire. Amid a profound silence the Lenape followed, and in their wake stalked three tall Mohicans. Walter Butler sprang up from the base of the tree where he had been sitting and pointed a shaking finger at Magdalen Brant: "Damn you!" he shouted; "if you call on my Mohawks, I'll cut your throat, you witch!"
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 devoted. The great council of the fifty sachems formed, as we have seen, the government of the league.
Many seasons ago there lived within the limits of the great council-fire of the Mahas a chief who was renowned for his valour and victories in the field, his wisdom in the council, his dexterity and success in the chase. His name was Mahtoree, or the White Crane.
"I will talk with you no more. You may go in safety, protected by the council-fire, but I want you to leave this place at once." Other councils were held. Tecumseh stood as firm as a rock, for what he considered to be the rights of the Indians. He was very frank. He said that if it were not for the dispute about the land, he would continue to be the friend of the Seventeen Fires.
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