The First Inhabitants
The time of arrival of the first people in North
America has been calculated at anywhere between 15,000 and 50,000
years ago, depending on who you ask. There may have been multiple migrations. Some
may have come over a land bridge over what is now the Bering Strait between Alaska and Siberia, or other immigrants were perhaps
seafarers from the Pacific who migrated to South America. Regardless of which
theory represents the truth, there were people living in North America for
thousands of years before anyone came to what is now Central
New York.
People wandered in and out of New York State
as early as 9,000 years ago, but it was another 3,000 to 4,000 years before
there were groups of people who stayed in the area.
These earliest human inhabitants of upstate New York, nomadic
hunter-gatherers, have been called the Lamoka people.[1] They appear in the archaeological record about
4,500 to 5,000 years ago. They built few dwellings, since they were constantly
on the move, and did no farming. They left behind primitive tools, including fishhooks,
mortars and pestles, projectile points (although they did not have bows and
arrows), and sinkers for fishing nets. They buried their dead.
These Lamoka people do not appear to be the forbears of the
people who lived in Central New York by the 15th
century. Others, tribes speaking Algonquian languages[2],
were the predecessors of the Iroquois. There is a difference of opinion about
the origins of the Iroquois. Some experts think they were immigrants from the
Mississippi Valley, and others believe that they came from along the St.
Lawrence.
Wherever they came from, the people later called the Iroquois
were the people who lived in Central New York
when Europeans first arrived.
These people were divided into five groups. Today they are
known as the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida
and Mohawk tribes, or nations. The name “Iroquois” was given them by the
Mohicans and the French. The “ois” ending is French and has a mellifluous sound.
The first part, the Mohican word “Iroqu” was less kind. The Mohicans regarded
the Iroquois as “rattlesnakes.”
The Iroquois call themselves the Haudenosaunee, “people of the longhouse.” The names of the individual tribes were, from west to east, Seneca – Onondowahgah, “people of the great hill” or “people of the
western door;” Cayuga – Guyohkohnyoh, “people of the great swamp;”
Onondaga -- Onöñda'gega', “people of the hills;” Oneida – Onayotekaono,
“people of the standing stone;” and Mohawk -- Kanien'kehá:ka, “people
of the great flint.”
These five nations
joined together during the 12th Century under the Great Law of Peace
as the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.[3]
Agriculture began in the area by the year 1000. The Iroquois
planted as many as fifteen varieties of corn around their villages, and as the
corn sprouted, they planted pumpkins, squash and more than fifty kinds of beans
in between the corn plants. They also hunted for game and gathered wild plants,
including berries, nuts, and fruit, to supplement their diet. Throughout the
year, they celebrated many thanksgiving festivals, including a maple festival
in the spring, a strawberry festival in the summer, and a green corn festival later
in the year.
The previous inhabitants of Central New
York lived in small villages with a central longhouse (used for
councils and ceremonial gatherings) surrounded by individual huts for each
family. Corn was planted at the edge of the villages, which were surrounded by
forests. Often villages were surrounded by log palisades. The buildings and
land in each village were owned communally. When planting areas became less
fertile, the villagers moved their town to a new location.
As members of a matrilineal society, Iroquois children took
their mother’s name at birth and could inherit property only from their mother.
Women nominated the tribal rulers (except for warrior chiefs, who were elected
by the warriors who served under them), and women and their wisdom were
respected and followed. Women planted and harvested the crops, made most of the
decisions, and raised the children. Men hunted and went to war. The Iroquois
considered the value of the life of a woman to be twice that of a man.
It took the Europeans who later settled in the same region
much longer to establish the rights of women. It seems somehow fitting that the
women’s rights movement had its beginning in Central New
York (in nearby Seneca Falls), on the very land where women had
once had such a significant role in their society.
Clans were made up of multiple families, and several clans
made up each of the tribes, or nations. There were five clans, Bear, Heron,
Snipe, Turtle, and Wolf.[4] Marriage was always outside of the clan, and
women remained with their own clan after marriage, where their husbands joined
them.
The area of Meridian
is on the eastern edge of the lands settled by the Cayugas, but not all that
far from the Onondagas.[5]
Iroquois legends tell us that Hiawatha, the great leader who
united the Iroquois tribes into the Five Nations, lived on the southern banks
of Cross Lake,[6]
…he selected a handsome spot of ground on the
southern banks of Cross Lake, New York. Here he built
his cabin, and from the shores of this lake he went into the forest, like the
rest of his companions, in quest of game and fish. He took a wife of the
Onondagas, by whom he had an only daughter, who he tenderly loved, and most
kindly and carefully treated and instructed, so that she was known far and near
as his favorite child, and was regarded almost as a goddess.[7]
Evidence of Native American settlements on the southwestern
edge of Cross Lake, called “Tioto” [8] or
“Te-ung-to”[9] by
the Iroquois, has been documented.[10] Whether or not Hiawatha really lived there is
open to interpretation.
In 1919, Myron Cramer, who had been a student at Meridian
High School and who was then the Auburn city forester, was visiting the area
and was hunting for woodchucks on the Drew and DeGroff farms on the southeastern
edge of the village near Parker’s Pond. He followed a woodchuck into its
burrow, and while digging for the animal, discovered human finger bones and a
stone bead. Cramer, who fortunately happened to be a member of the New York
State Archaeological Society, continued to dig, and realized that he had
discovered the site of a previously unknown Indigenous settlement.
Arthur C. Parker, the State Archaeologist, got involved, as did
Messrs. Skinner and Cadzow, Indian experts from New York,
and relics from the site found their way into the collection of the New York State
Museum and to the Museum of the
American Indian, then located in New
York City.
Mr. Cramer found human skeletons, a bone awl, fishhooks,
notched sinkers, hammers, mortars, pestles, stone knives, a broken stone pick, substantial
numbers of arrow heads, and stone hammers. Evidence of occupation included
multiple fire pits and nearly a bushel of freshwater clam shells. Charcoal was
found near one skeleton, which the excavators thought was used to thaw the
ground enough to permit a winter burial of the body.
At the time, the site appeared to the experts to have been
occupied five hundred years previously, long before Europeans came to this part
of North America. They also believed that the relics recovered indicated that
both Iroquois Indians, and their predecessors occupied the same site, which the
experts found to be unusual. Cramer speculated that the inhabitants followed
Muskrat Creek north from the Seneca
River to the site. [11]
Since the original excavation, the opinion of archaeologists
agrees with the originally estimate settlement date of about 1400 A.D.[12],
contemporary with the Great Gully Fort settlement in Ledyard, and slightly
earlier than the Fort Hill site in Auburn.[13]
A later archaeological excavation, known as the O’Neil Site, was conducted nearby in 1961in the
southwestern part of the Town of Cato, near the Seneca River. Several of the
objects excavated there, especially pottery fragments, bear strong resemblance
to similar objects excavated near Parker’s Pond. The O’Neil site fragments have
been dated to 1150 A.D.[14]
It is apparent from these finds that the site of Meridian has long been a
desirable place to live, and it also tells us that the hunting and fishing habits
of current residents is part of a long tradition. The abundance of fishhooks
found tells us that Parker’s Pond, still a wonderful place to fish, has been
the destination of anglers for hundreds of years.
The New York State Historical society placed a marker (no
longer there) on the edge of the Short
Cut Road overlooking Otter Lake
that read:
CEREMONIAL FIRE
SITE OF PERMANENT VILLAGE
AND PERPETUAL
COUNCIL FIRE
OF CAYUGA BRANCH
OF THE
IROQUOIS. LAMOKAS,
SENECAS
TRAIL TO
ONONDAGA FOR SALT
As to the presence of a ceremonial fire or the permanence of
the village, this writer has not been able to uncover evidence of either. However,
since many of the early roads in New York State follow the paths long ago established
by its original inhabitants,[15]
it is not unreasonable to speculate that Route 370 through Meridian, with its
easternmost point at Onondaga Lake, was a well-traveled path for the Cayugas
and Senecas to the salt deposits there, as the historical marker indicated.
The Giant Mosquitoes
One Haudenosaunee legend tells of two giant mosquitoes that
lived on opposite banks of the Seneca River near Montezuma, “so large that they
darkened the sun like a cloud as they flew.” They attacked and killed native Americans
as they paddled their canoes through the area.
Finally, Cayuga and Onondaga warriors decided to attack the
monsters and make the river safe. They were successful in their efforts, and
killed them, leaving their bodies to rot on the riverbank. The monster
mosquitoes had their revenge, however. From their bodies arose swarms of the small
mosquitoes that still plague us today.[16]
[2] Haviland,
William and Power, Marjory W., The
Original Vermonters: Native Inhabitants, Past and Present, Burlington,
VT: University
of Vermont Press, 1994
[5] Thompson,
John E., Editor, Geography of New York State,
Syracuse, NY:
Syracuse University Press, 1966, 1977.
[6] Beauchamp,
William M., Iroquois Folklore, Gathered
from the Six Nations of Central New York, Selected and Arranged for the
Onondaga Historical Association, Syracuse,
NY: The Dehler Press, 1922.
[7] Johnson,
Elias (“A Native Tuscarora Chief”), Legends,
Traditions and Laws, of the Iroquois, or Six Nations and History of the
Tuscarora Indians, Washington: Privately Printed, 1881.
[8] Mabie, Hamilton Wright, Legends
That Every Child Should Know, New
York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1907.
[9] Beauchamp,
William M., “The Founders of the New York Iroquois League and Its Probable
Date,” Researches and Transactions of the
New York State Archeological Association, Lewis H. Morgan Chapter, Rochester,
N.Y., Rochester, NY: Lewis H. Morgan Chapter, 1921.
[10] Parker,
Arthur C., “Archaeological History of New York State, Part 2” New York State Museum Bulletin, The
University of the State of New York, Nos, 237, 238, September-October, 1920.
[11] “Discovery
Made of Buried Indian Village Near Cato During Hunt for Woodchuck,” Syracuse (NY) Journal, 7 June 1919
“Remains of Indian Village
Discovered.” Syracuse (NY) Herald, 7 June 1919
“Indian
Village Site Discovered in Cayuga County,”
The Binghamton
(NY) Press, 7 June 1919
“Digging for Woodchuck Reveals
the Site of Prehistoric Indian Village,” The Auburn (NY) Citizen, 7
June 1919
“A Pre-Historic Indian Village
West of this City,” Oswego (NY) Daily Times, 7 June 1919
“Buried Indian
Village in Finger Lakes Region,” Amsterdam (NY) Evening
Recorder, 7 June 1919
“Uncovers Buried Indian Village
500 Years Old,” New York Evening Telegram, 8 June 1919
“Woodchuck Chase Leads to
Buried Indian Village,”
The Illustrated Buffalo (NY) Express, 8 June 1919
“Buried Indian
Village Site Found at Cato,” Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle, 8 June
1919
“Indian
Village Found,” Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, 8 June 1919
“Unearths Indian Village
Site,” New York Times, 8 June 1919
“Watertown
Man Will Get Medal – Alvin H. Dewey Honored,” Watertown (NY), 9 June 1919
“Sie of Prehistoric Indian Village
Found in the Town of Cato,”
Weedsport (NY) Cayuga Chief, 13 June
1919
“In Central New York,” Cooperstown (NY) The Otsego Farmer, 20 June 1919
“Find Buried Indian Village,” Millbrook, (NY) Mirror & Round Table, 20 June 1919
“Relics of Red Men Recently Found,
“Utica (NY) Saturday Globe, 30 June
1919
“Before the White Man,” Utica (NY) Saturday Globe, 30 June 1919
“Western
New York,” Fairport (NY)
Herald, 16 July 1919
“Indian
Village Unearthed,” Oswego (NY) Daily Times, 25 September 1919
“Finger
Lake Relic Hunt Now Ended,” The Auburn
(NY) Citizen, 27 October 1919
“Relics of Indian Village,”
Millbrook, (NY) Mirror & Round Table, 9 January 1920
[12] “Notes
on Iroquois Archaeology,” Indian Notes
and Monographs Miscellaneous Series 18, New York: Museum of the American
Indian, Hey Foundation, 1921, pp. 46-47.
[13] Niemczycki,
Mary Ann Palmer, The Origin and
Development of the Seneca and Cayuga Tribes of New York
State, Research Records No. 17, Rochester, NY: Research Division, Rochester
Museum and Science Center,
1984., pp 23, 92, 117.
[14]
Ritchie, William A., Aboriginal
Settlement Patterns in the Northeast, Albany,
NY: New
York State Museum and Science Service, 1973.
[15] Cayuga
County Historical Society, History of
Cayuga County New York Compiled from papers in the archives of the Cayuga
County Historical Society, with special chapters by local authors from1775 to
1908, Auburn, NY: 1908.
[16] Yawger,
Rose M., The Indian and the Pioneer, an Historical Study, Volume I, C.W.
Barden Co., Syracuse (NY) 1783
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment