Book Description

Excerpt from Legends, Customs and Social Life of the Seneca Indians, of Western New York That picturesque region - watered by the swiftly flowing Cattaraugus, and broken by precipitous hills; for hundreds of years the favorite hunting and reclining ground of the Red man; where, long, long ago, the deadly arrow pursued its last flight; where instruments of rude warfare, the tomahawk and the poisoned barb, are now supplanted by implements of peace and civilization, the plow, the drag, the flail; where the scalping knife is for these years unknown, and the snow-snake and the target, the game of cricket and of ball occupy the thought of these Indians now civilized - furnishes a charming theme for leisure hour contemplation. Though the rudeness of by-gone days is no where discernible among these civilized and somewhat Christianized Indians, they have a nationality peculiarly their own, and customs, legends and social life, wholly different from those of every other people. Their legends, if written, would fill a hundred tomes; transmitted as they are, by word of mouth, crooned out at social councils by the aged to the youth, these legends lose nothing, but gain much; for Indian minds, like ponderous ships, though hard to start, sweep on, when moved, along the river of deep thoughts. They tell creation's story to the youth, and all these weird tales, just as Mother Goose is retailed to admiring infancy; so that the Indian, who never learned these tales, no matter what his prowess in the field of letters, or in fields of wheat, is only half-developed, just as the child of ours, that has never passed a course in Mother Goose, has not a finished education. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.