File:The magazine of American history with notes and queries (1877) (14596327558).jpg

Identifier: magazineofamericv13stev (find matches)
Title: The magazine of American history with notes and queries
Year: 1877 (1870s)
Authors: Stevens, John Austin, 1827-1910. ed. cn DeCosta, B. F. (Benjamin Franklin), 1831-1904. ed. cn Johnston, Henry Phelps, 1842-1923, ed. cn Lamb, Martha J. (Martha Joanna), 1829-1893. ed. cn Pond, Nathan Gillett, 1832-1894 ed Abbatt, William, 1851-1935, comp
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Publisher: New York : A.S. Barnes
Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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the confederacy. The Indians of the UnitedStates and Canada, as is well known, had in general no idols; but theDelawares had advanced, as some ethnologists would say, to the status ofidolaters. They had carved a post into a rude image of the human form,and around it performed their religious dances. When the young Mohawkneophyte heard of these awful rites, he mused until the fire burned in hisheart. Seizing an axe, he made his solitary way through the forest to thedistant outskirt which had been allotted to the Delawares. Here he sud-denly appeared before them, and after haranguing them, to the best of hisability, on the monstrous nature of their religion and its ceremonies,demanded to be allowed to destroy the image. The people listened sul-lenly, ready at a word to rush upon the intruder and fell him to the earth.But their chief was a well-informed and prudent man, possibly half aconvert in his heart. He knew that the youth belonged to an influential CHIEF GEORGE II. M. JOHNSON 135
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THE OLD MOHAWK CHURCH ERECTED IN 1784. family in the dominant Mohawk tribe, and that any injury done to himwould meet with condign punishment. He gave a seemingly reluctantconsent, and at the word the axe descended, and the obnoxious image soonlay in fragments. The triumphant iconoclast carried off the head asa trophy, which is still preserved. Not long afterwards the conversion ofall the Delawares was announced ; and at this day they are among the moststeady attendants upon the mission services on the Reserve. The proceeding which has just been related will doubtless elicit a smilefrom some readers, who may be reminded by it of the wholesale militaryconversions of the Middle Ages. Chief Johnson himself, in after days, wouldhave cared little for a convert who had been gained otherwise than by 136 CHIEF GEORGE H. M. JOHNSON reasoning and the influence of religion. By nature he was one of the mostreasonable and tolerant of men. In later life he counted among his mostvalued friends many

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