WHAT IS the meaning and origin of "to bury the hatchet"?
(Ruby Theodore, Tirunelveli)
A "hatchet" is an axe; the kind of axe that American Indians (Native Americans as they are called now) always carried with them. When you bury the hatchet what you are doing is resolving your differences with another individual. You are making peace with him/her. Here is an examples.
*After twenty years of being at war, the two countries decided to bury the hatchet.
Burying the hatchet was something that the Native Americans used to do when they wanted to make peace with someone. Unfortunately for them, they made a similar gesture to the white men who had settled down in New England. Writing in 1680, Samuel Sewell said: "Meeting with the Sachem (Indian chiefs), they came to an agreement and buried two axes in the ground, which ceremony to them is more significant and binding than all the Articles of Peace, the hatchet being the principal weapon." Unfortunately for the Indians, the white man didn't think much of this gesture because years later he slaughtered the Indians by the thousands, and herded those that were alive into what are now called "reservations". What is interesting is that today this country (the U.S.) is busy preaching to the rest of the world the virtues of democracy!
S. Upendran
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