Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Thomas Hutchinson and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team
The aboriginal composition now presented to the public has some peculiarclaims on the attention of scholars. As a record, if we accept thechronology of its custodians,—which there is no reason to question,—itcarries back the authentic history of Northern America to a dateanterior by fifty years to the arrival of Columbus. Further than this,the plain and credible tradition of the Iroquois, confirmed by muchother evidence, links them with the still earlier Alligewi, or"Moundbuilders," as conquerors with the conquered. Thus the annals ofthis portion of the continent need no longer begin with the landing ofthe first colonists, but can go back, like those of Mexico, Yucatan andPeru, to a storied past of singular interest.
The chief value of the Book of Rites, however, is ethnological, and isfound in the light which it casts on the political and social life, aswell as on the character and capacity of the people to whom it belongs.We see in them many of the traits which Tacitus discerned in ourancestors of the German forests, along with some qualities of a highercast than any that he has delineated. The love of peace, the sentimentof human brotherhood, the strong social and domestic affections, therespect for law, and the reverence for ancestral greatness, which areapparent in this Indian record and in the historical events whichillustrate it, will strike most readers as new and unexpecteddevelopments.
The circumstances attending the composition of this record and itsrecent discovery are fully detailed in the introductory chapters. Therealso, and in the Notes and Appendix, such further explanations are givenas the various allusions and occasional obscurities of the Indian workhave seemed to require. It is proper to state that the particularscomprised in the following pages respecting the traditions, the usages,and the language of the Iroquois (except such as are expressly stated tohave been derived from books), have been gathered by the writer in thecourse of many visits made, during several years past, to theirReservations in Canada and New York. As a matter of justice, and also asan evidence of the authenticity of these particulars, the names of theinformants to whom he has been principally indebted are given in theproper places, with suitable acknowledgment of the assistance receivedfrom each. He ventures to hope that in the information thus obtained, aswell as in the Book of Rite's itself, the students of history and of thescience of man will find some new material of permanent interest andvalue.