among nearly all the tribes, the rank of a chief was personal. It was
gained by the character and achievements of the individual, and it died
with him. Hence their government and policy, so far as they can be said
to have had any, were always uncertain and fluctuating. No person
understood the Indian usages better than Zeisberger. His biographer has
well described the difference which existed in this respect between the
Iroquois and their neighbors. "The Algonkins," he writes, "knew nothing
of regular government. They had no system of polity; there was no unity
of action among them. The affairs even of a single tribe were managed in
the loosest manner." After briefly, but accurately, delineating the
Iroquois system of councils, he adds: "Thus they became both a political
and a military power among the aborigines; the influence of their league
was felt everywhere, and their conquests extended in every direction."
[Footnote: De Schweinitz: _Life of Zeisberger_, p. 39.] The principle
that "the chief dies but the office survives,"--the regular transmission
of rank, title and authority, by a method partly hereditary and partly
elective,--was the principle on which the life and strength of the
Iroquois constitution depended.

Next followed a provision of hardly less importance. The wars among the
Indian tribes arise almost always from individual murders. The killing
of a tribesman by the members of another community concerns his whole
people. If satisfaction is not promptly made, war follows, as a matter
of course. [Footnote: _Relation, of_ 1636, p. 119. "C'est de la
que naissent les guerres, et c'est un sujet plus que suffisant de
prendre les armes contre quelque Village quand il refuse de satisfaire
par les presents ordonnez, pour celuy qui vous aurait tue quelq'un des
vostres."--_Brebeuf, on the Hurons_.] The founders of the Iroquois
commonwealth decreed that wars for this cause should not be allowed to
rise between any of their cantons. On this point a special charge was