The little village of Ohsweken is of much interest to the visitor, being as it is the seat of
the Six Nations’ government, where the local “parliament” is held, and the affairs of the
nation discussed and disposed of by the lineal descendants of Hiawatha’s “Fifty-two Noble
families,” who comprised the first great council of the confederation.

The present council house was erected in 1863 and since that time has been in constant
usage. Prior to that year various buildings were used in various localities. At one time the
council house was at the now village of Middleport, and in yet earlier times some assert it
was one of the ancient, and now-desolated buildings on Tutela Heights. In addition to the
Ohsweken council house, there are two others devoted to the exclusive use of the Pagan
indians, one for the Cayugas, the other for the Onondagas. These latter buildings are
called “Long Houses,” and are in reality the places of worship of these two conservative
old tribes, where they hold their various religious dances and festivals throughout the year,
worshipping in the exquisite beauty of “Pagan” faith, and simple belief in the “Great
Spirit,” that wondrous, peacefiil, large-hearted God of the unchristianized indian, that God
that they believe no sin can really estrange them from, whose love and favor is theirs, it
matters not how unworthy they may be, that God that is pleased with the simple dances
and feasts of his red children, who harbors no il1—thought[sic] or feeling towards them, and
who has for souls and bodies after death, whether they be bad or good, limitless reaches of
Happy Hunting grounds, and through all eternity the happy atmosphere known only where
an everlasting “Peace-Pipe” is in daily use between God and man.

But in early times the dances of the domesticated Iroquois were not always the outcome
of religious zeal and good-fellowship with the Great Spirit; for America knew no greater
terror than when a band of eight or ten thousand Iroquois warriors chose to don their war
paint, and set forth conquering and to conquer; their fierce visages, and half-naked bodies,
decorated with the ominous streaks of black and red, meaning “Blood and Death,” always
the war colors of the Mohawks. For miles across the country could their terrible war cries
be heard, and the hated Huron crouched fearfiilly in his Wigwam beside the Georgian bay,
and the faithfiil Jesuit father crossed himself to no purpose, when the Iroquois roused with
a just ire, impassioned by a taunt, marched north ward[sic], and in one fell battle
exterminated Jesuit and Huron, leaving the little christian hamlet a desolation, and dancing
a triumphant war dance on the hills that overlook Penetanguishene. No, it is not a fiction.
The ancestors of those calm-eyed Indian men, of those low-voiced, gentle-faced women,
who on market days throng our busy little streets, were some of the bravest, most intrepid
and valiant warriors known to the history of the world; men who defended their country
and the “ashes of their fathers,” against the inroads of a great all-conquering race; men
who fought, and bled, and died to hold the western continent against an incoming eastern
power, as England’s sons would battle and fall to-day[sic], were their own mother country
threatened with a power that would eventually annihilate, subject--then alas! absorb their
blood, their traditions, their nation, until naught promises to remain save a memory. The
Iroquois got a bad name for ferocity and blood thirstiness in the early days of American
history, but I can tell you, reader, that those Indian warriors were savage with a righteous
patriotism, and that they won the respect of the whole world by the way they contended