The league of the Iroquois and other legends : from the Indian muse

310 NOTES.
Note 40. "Of Kne-ha Father, fare-thee-well." Page 121.
" The corpse is laid in public, where all can gather around it, when an address
is made, partly to the spectators, describing the character of the deceased, and
partly to the deceased himself, speaking to him as though the Och^ich-ag or soul
was still present, and giving directions as to the path he is supposed to be about
to tread in a future state."
Ibid-
" My son, listen once more to the words of thy mother. Thou wert brought
into life with her pains. Thou wert nourished with her life. She has attempted
to be faithful in raising thee up. When thou wert young she loved thee as her
life. * * Thy friends and relations have gathered about thy body to look upon
thee for the last time. * * We part now, and you are conveyed from my sight
But we shall soon meet again.
* * Then we shall part no more. Our Maker
has called you to his home. Thither we follow. Na-ho!" Speech of a Mother
over her dead son. League of the Iroquois, p. 175.
Note 41. "Endurance in the mother-breast Page 122.
Wrought courage in the newly born."
While it is true that it was held a weakness for a mother to give way to an/
signs of pain during the trying ordeal of child-birth, it must also be remembered
that women in the savage state are comparatively free from the danger and suffering
incident to civilized life.
" Parturition, with the Indian female, is seldom attended with severe or longcontinued
* * suffering. A wife has been known to sally into the adjoining
forest in quest of dry limbs for fire-wood, and to return to the wigwam with her
new-born child, placed carefully on the back-load. * * Their exemption from
the iisual sufferings of child-birth may be said to be the general condition of the
hunter state, and one of the few advantages of it which the woman enjoys over
her civilized sister." H. K. SCHOOLCHAFT, Vol. II. p. 65.
Note 42.
" What is there more than home and love?" Page 123.
" I have witnessed scenes of conjugal and parental love in the Indian's wigwam
from which I have often, often, thought the educated white man, proud of his
superior civilization, might learn a useful lesson. When he returns from hunting,
worn out with fatigue, having tasted nothing since dawn, his wife, if she be
a good wife, will take off his moccasins and replace them with dry ones, and will
prepare his game for their repast ; while his children will climb upon him, and
he will caress them with all the tenderness of a woman.
"And in the evening the Indian's wigwam is the scene of the purest domestic
pleasures. The father will relate for the amusement of the wife, and for the instruction
of his children, the events of the day's hunt, while they will treasure up
every word that falls, and which furnishes them with the theory of the art, tho
practice of which is to become the occupation of their lives."
MKS. SCHOOLCRAFT, From Unpublished Notes.