Page 319 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

SPEECH OF JOHN W. QUINNEY. 315
suming decline of my tribe, admonishes me, that their extinc-
tion is inevitable - they know it themselves, and the reflection
teaches them humility and resignation, directing their attention
to the existence of those happy hunting-grounds which the
Great Father has prepared for all his red children.
In this spirit, my friends, (being invited to come here,) as a
Muh-he-con-new, and now standing upon the soil which once
was, and now ought to be, the property of this tribe, I havo
thought for once, and certainly the last time, I would shake you
by the hand, and ask you to listen, for a little while, to what I
have to say.
In the documcntary papers of this State, and in the various
histories of early events in the settlement of this part of the
country by the whites, the many t1,aditions of my tribe, which
are as firmly believed a.s vritten annals by you, inform me that
there are many errors. Without, however, intending to refer
to, and correct those histories, I will give you what thoso tra-
ditions are.
About the year 1645, and when KING BEN (the last of the
hereditary chiefs of the Muh.he-con-new Nation) mas in his
prime, a Grand Council was convened of the Muh-he-con new
tribe, hlr thc purpose of conveying from the old to the young
men, a knowledge of the past. Councils, for this object espe-
pecially, had ever, at sl;ated periods, been held. Ilcre, for the
space of two moons, the stores of memory were dispensed; cor-
rections and comparisons made, and the results committed to
faithful breasts, to be transmitted again to succeeding posterity.
Many years after, another, and the last, Council of this kind
was held ; and the traditions reduced to writing, by two of our
young men, who had been taught to read and write, in the
school of the Rev. JOIIN SARGEANT, of Stockbridge, Massa-
chusetts. Thcy were obtained, in some may, by a white man,
for publication, who soon after dying, all trace of them became
lost. The traditions of the tribe, however, have mainly been
preserved ; of which I give you substantially, the following :