Bury the hatchet

SEELEY LAKE – The phrase “bury the hatchet” means to cease hostilities and make amends. Not surprisingly, the origin of the phrase comes from Native Americans, who literally did bury hatchets.

Doubtless such ceremonies were performed before Europeans landed on the North American continent but the earliest recorded account, dated 1680, comes from Samuel Sewell a judge, businessman and printer in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. He documents how trouble between the colonials and the Native American tribes was settled by Major Pynchon and the chieftains of the Iroquois Confederacy.

Sewall repor...