To the majority of English speaking people, an Indian is an Indian, an inadequate sort of person possessing a red brown skin, nomadic habits, and an inability for public affairs. That the various tribes and nations of the great Red population of America, differ as much one from another, as do the white races of Europe, is a thought that seldom occurs to those disinterested in the native of the western continent. Now, the average Englishman would take some offence if any one were unable to discriminate between him and a Turk—though both are “white;” and yet the ordinary individual seems surprised that a Sioux would turn up his nose if mistaken for a Sarcee, or an Iroquois be eternally offended if you confounded him with a Micmac.
Francis Parkman, that ablest and most delightful historian of the age, that accurate and truthful chronicler of North American Indian tribes, customs, legends and histories, concedes readily to the Iroquois all the glories of race, bravery and lineage that this most arrogant and haughty nation lay claim to even in the present day. In his phylogenetic and unbiassed treatment of the various tribes of red men, Parkman declares the undeniable fact, which has been for many decades asserted by historians, explorers, voyagers and traders, that for physical strength, intelligence, mental acquirement, morality and bloodthirstiness, the Iroquois stand far in advance of any Indian tribe in America. The constitutional government of this race has since the time of its founder, Hiawatha, (a period of about four centuries), had an uninterrupted existence, without hindrance from internal political strife; has stood the test of ages, and wars and invasions and subjection from mightier foreign powers. This people stand undemolished and undemoralized to-day, right in the heart of Canada, where the lands granted a century ago in recognition of their loyal services to the Imperial Government, are still known as the “Six Nations Indian reserve on the Grand River.”
That the women of this Iroquois race are superior in many ways to their less fortunate sisters throughout Canada, is hardly necessary to state. Women who have had in the yesterdays a noble and pure-blooded ancestry, who look out on the to-morrows with minds open to educational acquirement; women whose grandmothers were the mothers of fighting men, whose daughters will be the mothers of men elbowing their way to the front ranks in the great professional and political arena in Canada; women whose thrift and care and morality will count for their nation, when that nation is just at its turn of tide toward civilization and advancement, are not the women to sit with idle hands and brains, caring not for the glories of yesterday, nor the conquests of to-morrow.
The Iroquois woman of to-day is one who recognizes the responsibilities of her position, and who makes serious and earnest efforts to possess and master whatever advantages may drift her way. She has already acquired the arts of cookery, of needlework, of house-wifeliness, and one has but to attend the annual Industrial exhibition on the Indian reserve, an institution that is open to all Indians in Canada, who desire to compete for prizes, to convince themselves by very material arguments that the Iroquois woman is behind her white sister in nothing pertaining to the larder, the dairy or the linen press. She bakes the loveliest, lightest wheaten bread, of which, by the way, her men folk complain loudly, declaring that she forces them to eat this new-fangled food to the absolute exclusion of their time-honored corn bread, to which the national palate ever clings; her rolls of yellow butter are faultlessly sweet and firm, her sealed fruits are a pleasure to see as well as taste, in fact, in this latter industry she excels herself, outdoing frequently her white competitors at the neighboring city of Brantford, where the “southern fair” of Ontario is held annually. Her patch-work quilts, her baby garments, her underwear, her knitted mittens and stockings, her embroidery and fancy work are features of the exhibition that call for even much masculine attention, and yet while you gaze, and admire, and marvel at her accomplishments, she is probably standing beside you, her placid, brown face apparently quite unintelligent, her brown, deft hands devoid of gloves, her slight but sturdy figure clad in the regulation Iroquois fashion, a short broadcloth petticoat, bordered with its own vari-coloured self-edge, over this a bright calico “short-dress” and plain round waist, her neatly braided black hair tied under a red bandanna handkerchief, her feet encased in coarse leather shoes, her only ornaments a necklace of green or yellow glass beads and a pair of gilt earrings.
Beside her is her daughter, who has long since discarded the broadcloth petticoat, the ill-shapen short dress, the picturesque head gear. Miss Iroquois has most likely arrayed herself in a very becoming stuff gown, made in modern style. She wears gloves and a straw hat, decorated with bright ribbon and a few pretty flowers. She is altogether like the daughter of one of Canada's prosperous farmers, save for her dark colourless skin, her extremely retiring manner and her pretty, tripping accent when she condescends to address you in English. Then, too, she has not been idly reared, for although the elder woman may have made the patchwork, and the butter rolls, the girl is probably “out at service,” or teaches one of the district schools. Then, too, if she is a member of one of the fifty-two noble families, who compose the Iroquois Government, she has this divine right in addition to woman's great right of motherhood—the divine right of transmitting the title, if she is in the direct line of lineage, for the Chief's title is inherited through the mother, not the father, which fact is a powerful contradiction to the widespread error, that Indian men look down upon and belittle their women. Add to this the privilege, which titled Iroquois women possess, of speaking in the great council of their nation, and note the deference with which the old chiefs listen to these speeches, when some one woman, more daring than her sisters, sees the necessity of stepping into public affairs—then I think the reader will admit that not all civilized races honour their women as highly as do the stern old chiefs, warriors and braves of the Six Nations Indians.