A MODERN PAGANISM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19833, 31 December 1927, Page 6

A MODERN PAGANISM.

SIX NATIONS INDIANS. ~ REVIVAL OF ANCB-S.NT SITES. SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS. ••A DENATURED BARBAFISM." fSKOM OTTR OWH COBEESI?ON3OENT-1 TORONTO. Nov. 28. The reported reversion topaganism of the Six Nations Indians living on the Caughnawaga reservation near Montreal, .with their formal abandonment of the Christian religion, marks an anti-climax in tliree centuries of heroic endeavour by messengers of the Cross. A good-sued library might be stocked exclusively with volumes recording the sublime adventures of Christian missions to the North American Indians. The lives of the earliest evangels, often drawn from families of wealth and gentle breeding in old France, were epics of selfsacrifice, ending in torture and martyrdom. History records few examples of higher asceticism, a circumstance now receiving recognition from the Vatican,which has beatified and may presently canonize as the first saints of America some halfdozen of the Jesuit fathers who 'fr>t their lives before the crude altars they raised s,midst the Huron tribes on Georgian Bay. Chronicles of the missions record a ready, if not enthusiastic, reception of the new faith. As early as 1640 it is related that in a single year a tfionsand Hurons were baptised—a goodly number even if most were infants and children. But a few years later the Hurons were all but exterminated by the Iroquois or Six Nations, vengeiul invaders from what is now New. York State. The fleeing remnant of the Hurons found refuge only at far of* Quebec where in the nearby community of Lorette their christianised descendants may be found to-day. The Implacable Six Nations. Undaunted by the fate of the Huron mission and or the Huron race other missionaries attached themselves to the implacable Six Nations. motive was not entirely spiritual. While, the French had been able to establish friendly relations with the Hurons and Algonqu.ns, the English colonists and Dutch trailers were making allies of the more powerful Iroquois. Tho French seeking the conversion of their souls hoped to secure the protection of their tomahawks. The effort bore a limited fruit. A few Iroquois accepted tho new religion, and were either induced by the priests or forced by their compatriots to depart from the main body. They were established in a community near Montreal, and were described in derision as the "French praying Indians" or the "French Mohawks." Here was the origin of the present Six Nations Caughnawaga reservation. Nominally Christian since 1668 they celebrate to-day with weird dance and inexplicable ceremony their return to paganism. Two hundred and fifty years of"Christian usage has been to submerge the natural paganism of the Iroquois' mentality. " Among all the barbarous nations of the Continent," writes Farkman, "the Iroquois of New York stand paramount. The Iroquois was the Indian "of Indians. A thorough savage, yet a finished and developed savage." He was licentious, turbulent and ferocious, and his language contained no name for God. The Great Spirit, the Gitcbe Manitou of Hiawatha, was merely a vague something that ministered to the necessities and desires of mankind and brought good luck. Tradition o! the Old Religion. Whence has departed the good luck of the Indians since the white man came, wits the challenge hurled at the Caughnawaga Iroquois by Chief 'Dominique Two Axe and Chief American Horse, leaders of the " Reformation," picturesque in ancient beads and feathers. Privileges, rights, liberties, all gone; only the tradition of the old religion remains. That can never be taken away. And so in a " long house," in plain English a dark and in a little secluded wood surrounded by barbed wire, about « mils from the village of Caughnawaga, powwows morning and afternoon herald the return of the ancient religion. The "Reformation" of the Caughnawagas may not be as permanent and as • complete aa appears from the recent demonstration. Christian Indians denounce as impostors Chief Two Axe and Chief American Horse with their tale that Tonawanda, New York, i 3 to be the new Iroquois capital Caughnawaga has had no appointed chiefs for or 40 years and thorp can be no official renunciation of Christianity without " consent of the braves " a formality that is still lacking. But the tenacity of paganism in the blood of the Iroquois cannot be doubted, It is strikingly evident on another Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ontario, where four thousand Indians bereft of hunting and tribal wars follow the seasons from seed time to harvest in mach the same fashion as their Anglo-Saxon neighbours. Faith of Forefathers. No effort has been spared to keep these Indians Christian and civilised. The reserve boasts, 12 churches, six Anglican, four Methodist, two Baptist, to sav nothing of Russellites, Holy Rollei-s, Seventh Day Adventists, Orange Lodges" and eleven schools. Even the trees are Slacarded with evangelistic exhortations. »ne turns a corner and bumps into a sign in red letters. " Seek ye first the Kingdom of God." But of the 4000 Indians on the reserve at least 1000 are frankly pagan. H&re it is explained that of the Six Nations, three, the Mohawks, Tuscaroras, and Oneidas, have acquiesced in Christianity for generations; the other three, the Senecas, Cayugas and Onondagas, persist in the faith of their forefathers. There are on the reserve side by side with Christian churches and schools four " long houses," places of pagan worship, those of the Senecas, the Onondagas, tbo Upper and Lower Cayugas. Here are made invocations to the Manitou, the oranda, the vague spirits of tradition. Here persist sacrifices and burnt offerings to make the day to come, and the night to go, to cause the crops to grow, the herds to increase, the body to keep its strength. Every season has its festival, on© for the strawberry, one for the green coin, and at New Year's, the ceremony of the ancient sacrifice of the white dog. Only there is no longer a white dog in the ceremony. The ceremonies and dances proceed for two, perhaps three, hours. The • men retire to doff their costumes. When ithey return thera is a feast.

There is nothing very terrible in this modern Six Nations' paganism, nothing degrading, nothing awesome. It is just a little 'pathetic. Unless tradition lies, Christianity, if it has not overthrown the ancient barbarism, has at least denatured its .