8vo. 4 wood engraved plates (within pagination but un-numbered), one woodcut tailpiece, 35pp. Original blue printed paper wrappers, lower wrapper illustrated. A few spots within otherwise a fine copy.

Writer, artist and physician David Cusick was a member of the Tuscarora Nation. He fought in the war of 1812 on the side of the Americans and lived in the Tuscarora Village in New York State. His father Nicholas Cusick had also fought for the Americans in the Revolutionary War, at on point acting as bodyguard for Lafayette.

The narrative is accompanied by four distinctive wood-cut illustrations, not present in the first edition of 1827, and all printed on one folding sheet for the second edition of 1828. These woodcuts, though unsigned are almost certainly also the work of David Cusick:

“Thomas Kenny, director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, bought works of art from Cusick when he visited him in 1826. His narrative and woodcuts were not only locally known, but also nationally influential. They provided source material for many nineteenth-century accounts of the Iroquois, including Elias Johnson’s Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois (1881) and - sometimes with substantial modification - Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s Historical Statistical Information (1851-57)” (Round).

Pilling 976; Sabin 18142; Howes C979; Field 393; Susan Kalter, Finding a Place for David Cusick in Native American Literary History. Melus Vol 27, No. 3, Native American Literature, Autumn 2002. pp. 9-42.