SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONSVOLUME 111, NUMBER 15THE ROLL CALL OF THE IROQUOISCHIEFSA STUDY OF A MNEMONIC CANE FROM THESIX NATIONS RESERVE(With 12 Plates)BYWILLIAM N. FENTONBureau of American EthnologySmithsonian Institution
(Publication 3995)
CITY OF WASHINGTONPUBLISHED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIONFEBRUARY 16, 1950

SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONSVOLUME 111, NUMBER 15THE ROLL CALL OF THE IROQUOISCHIEFSA STUDY OF A MNEMONIC CANE FROM THESIX NATIONS RESERVE(With 12 Plates)BYWILLIAM N. FENTONBureau of American EthnologySmithsonian Institution
(Publication 3995)
CITY OF WASHINGTONPUBLISHED BY THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIONFEBRUARY 16, 1950
BALTIMORE, MD., U. S. A.
CONTENTS PageIntroduction iThe cane of Andrew Spragg iThe man 1
1
A museum specimen i8Material description 22Shape and general appearance 22Material and dimensions 23Panels or sections of pegs 23Pictographs 23Reverse side 25General symbolism 26Recognition by the Iroquois and by anthropologists 26Opinions of ritualists at Six Nations 28Canes in Iroquois ceremonialism 29Old men and supernatural 29The implement of a chief 30Other Condolence canes 30Cane for Moccasin game at chief's wake 35Vision stick of Seneca prophet 37Roll calls of other forms 38Roll-call wampum 38List of chiefs by Seth Newhouse 40Mnemonic pictographs of Chief Abram Charles 41Pattern for laying down corn at rehearsals 41Function : a reminder to the Eulogy singer 42Rehearsals 42Use confined to the Lower Cayuga bandUse in the Condolence Council 47Journeying on the road to the woods' edge 47Inside the longhouse 49Specific interpretation 49Back : Introduction to the Eulogy 49Front : The roll call of the founders 53Title and pictograph 58The Mohawk pictographs 59The Oneida pictographs 60The Onondaga pictographs 61The Cayuga pictographs 64The Seneca pictographs 66Evidence of age 68Conclusion 69Bibliography 70
ILLUSTRATIONSPLATES(All plates at end of book.)1. I. Grave of Patterson Sprague in lower Cayuga cemetery, Six NationsReserve.2. A log house at Sandy's Corners, Six Nations Reserve, once occupiedby Andrew Spragg.2. The roll call of the Iroquois chiefs.3. Chief's canes from the Six Nations Reserve.4. Chief's canes from Canada.5. Canes with clan effigies, and a False-face.6. Detail of clan effigies on plate 5.7. Cane used at a chief's wake, Six Nations Reserve.8. Pictorial record stick of the Seneca prophet's revelation.9. Seth Newhouse's roll of the chiefs. The Mohawk and Oneida rosters, withmnemonic.ID. Seth Newhouse's roll of the chiefs. The Onondaga roster.11. Seth Newhouse's roll of the chiefs. The Cayuga roster.12. Seth Newhouse's roll call of the chiefs. The Seneca roster.TEXT FIGURES Page1. The mnemonic systems of the Condolence cane, and for laying downcorn at rehearsals 242. Back of the Condolence cane 543. Front of the Condolence cane 68
THE ROLL CALL OF THE IROQUOIS CHIEFSA STUDY OF A MNEMONIC CANE FROM THESIX NATIONS RESERVE 1By WILLIAM N. FENTONBureau of American EthnologySmithsonian Institution(With 12 Plates)INTRODUCTIONCanes from American Indian tribes are not uncommon in museumcollections. Frequently the sticks are carved or ornamented in diverseways but, unfortunately, in most instances the specimens are accom-panied by but meager data concerning their general significance anduse apart from their obvious utilitarian purpose. ConsequentlyIndian canes constitute somewhat of a problem to curators of eth-nological collections. It may be inferred that decorated canes sum-moned the best talents of tribal artists who carved in the round orengraved designs reflecting the characteristic style of tribe and region,but lacking collectors' field notes, the symbolic intent of the adorn-ments, if any, cannot be known. Such was the case with Iroquoischiefs' canes and with one, in particular, which is the subject of thepresent study.Americanists will recall that in the Southwest a staff, now anAmerican cane, is a symbol of authority for Pueblo governors, asit was in Spain, and that staffs also serve as fetishes (White, 1932,p. 60; Parsons, 1932, pp. 251-252; Bunzel, 1932; Aberle, 1948, p. 25).The widespread use of notched or marked sticks for mere numera-tion is abundantly documented in the literature (Mallery, 1893, p.227). Dakota, Hidatsa, and Shoshoni noted the number of daystraveled by notching a stick; lowas visiting Paris in 1843 manifestedamazement and wonder at outlandish European custom, countingthe number of French women they saw leading dogs on the streets1 This report is published with the partial aid of a grant from the CranbrookInstitute of Science. The field work was supported by grants from the Ameri-can Council of Learned Societies, Cranbrook Institute of Science, and the VikingFund of New York City.SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS, VOL. Ill, NO. 15
2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illand making a list with pencil and paper that specified the numberof dogs seen, size, whether leashed, carried, or perambulated (Catlin,1848, vol. 2, p. 221). Early travelers going from the British coloniesto various southern and western tribes remarked the custom ofkeeping the date of an appointment by using notched sticks, a bundleof sticks, or a knotted string—one unit being discarded each dayuntil the date of the meeting (Brinton, 1885, pp. 59-62; Swanton,1928, p. 704; 1946, pp. 610-613). Even now the Iroquois send outnotched invitation sticks summoning delegates to religious councils.One notch is destroyed each day, until the holder arrives on the ap-pointed day of the council and returns the stripped stick and theshort string of attached wampum. From Virginia north to NewEngland, the distribution of the notched-stick memorandum ex-tended westward through the Iroquoian tribes toward the Plains(Flannery, 1939, p. 81).The literature on American aboriginal chronological records hasexpanded considerably since the discovery of the Walam Olum or"red score" of the Delawares by Rafinesque in 1820 and its publica-tion by D. G. Brinton in 1885. In the Walam Olum the Delawaresreduced a genesis myth, a migration legend, and a genealogy of chiefsto a series of symbols for remembering the text of a chant. Fivesections of the chant were segregated, the characters were burned orcarved and then painted red on as many wooden boards, and pre-sumably these were of a covenient size for bundling. Later therecord was reduced to writing, but the manuscript as well as theoriginal slabs have disappeared. Similar records from the Plainswere painted on skins or drawn in notebooks and came into promi-nence when Mallery discovered and published the Dakota WinterCounts. James Mooney monographed the Kiowa calendars (1898).In the Southwest, Russell (1908, pp. 35, 104-105) reported nofewer than five notched-stick calendars among the Pima, and thenearby Maricopa of the Gila River had identical calendar sticks,bearing notches for each year, but "all the sticks of both peoples werederived from a single prototype made after 1833." (Spier, 1933,pp. 138 ff.)Throughout the eastern forests in the eighteenth century warmemorials emblazoned on the peeled trunks of great trees stoodon eminences or at important river crossings to recall to whomevermight read them the achievements of great war captains. "Thesedrawings in red by the warriors . . ." were sometimes ". . , legiblefor fifty years after a hero" had died, preserving the memory ofhis deeds for many years (Zeisberger, 1910, p. 145). A character-
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 3istic notice proclaimed a war party, their number, town, tribe, howmany of each tribe, tribal affiliation of the leader, their mission, andhow many days they were out ; returning, the party marked the num-ber of scalps taken, the number of captives, and their own losses. Thecharacters were highly conventionalized so as to be readily intelligibleto neighboring tribes. Heckewelder (1876, p. 130) remarks that allnations can do this, but they do not all have the same marks; "yetI have seen the Delawares read with ease the drawings of the Chip-peways, Mingoes, Shawanoes, and Wyandots on similar objects."The warriors of the Iroquois Longhouse advertised military su-premacy over neighboring tribes in a similar way. Seneca warheraldry was first described and illustrated in 1666 in a Paris Docu-ment that was attributed to Father Francois, the RecoUet by theauthor of a later document, dated 1736, which O'Callaghan hasascribed to Joncaire (O'Callaghan, 1849, vol. i, p. 23). "The NineIroquois Tribes. 1666 (Paris Doc, I.)" (pp. 1-8, 9, lo-ii) is thebest early account of Seneca clan organization ; it says
:
When they go to war, and wish to inform those of the party who may passtheir path, they make a representation of the animal of their tribe, with a hatchetin his dexter paw ; sometimes a sabre or club ; and if there be a number oftribes together of the same party, each draws the animal of his tribe, and theirnumber, all on a tree from which Ihey remove the bark. The animal of thetribe which heads the expedition is always the foremost.* * *On their return, if they have prisoners or scalps, they paint the animal of thetribe to which they belong, rampant (debout) with a staff on the shoulder alongwhich are strung the scalps they may have, and in the same number. After theanimal are the prisoners they have made, with a chichicois (or gourd filled withbeans which rattle), in the right hand. If they be women, they represent themwith a Cadenette or queue and a waistcloth.If there be several tribes in the war party, each paints the animal of histribe with the scalps and prisoners it has made, as before, but always afterthat which is head of the party. [Pp. 4-5.]When they have lost any men on the field of battle they paint them withthe legs in the air, and without heads and in the same number as they havelost; and to denote the tribe [clan] to which they belonged, they paint theanimal of the tribe [clan] of the deceased on its back, the paws in the air,and if it be the chief of the party that is dead, the animal is without the head.If there be only wounded, they paint a broken gun which however is con-nected with the stock, or even an arrow, and to denote where they have beenwounded, they paint the animal of the tribe [clan] to which the woundedbelonged with an arrow piercing the part in which the wound is located ; and ifit be a gunshot they make the mark of the ball on the body of a different color.If they have sick and are obliged to carry them, they paint litters (boyards)of the same number as the sick, because they carry only one in each litter. [P. 6.]
4 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IllWhereupon the author proceeds to illustrate the same in twoplates, which have been reproduced frequently; and besides theprinted explanations, the legend on the second plate is translated tosay : "The Portrait of a Savage on a board in their cabin on whichthey ordinarily paint, how often he has been to war, how many menhe has taken and killed."If such were Seneca war records, they were probably typical of allthe Five Nations because Lafitau (1724, vol, 2, p. 164 apud) andColden (1922, vol. i, p. xxv) speak with familiarity of the paintedrecords of the Mohawk, the eastern member of the Confederacy.Says Colden:
. . . they always peel a large Piece of the Bark from some great Tree; theycommonly chuse an Oak, as most lasting; upon the smooth side of this Woodthey, with their red Paint, draw one or more Canoes, going from Home, withthe Number of Men in them padling [sic], which go upon the Expedition; andsome Animal, as a Deer or Fox, an Emblem of the Nation against which theExpedition is designed, is painted at the Head of the Canoes; for they alwaystravel in Canoes along the Rivers ... as far as they can.After the Expedition is over, they stop at the same Place in their Return . . .they represent on the same, or some Tree near it, the Event of the Enterprize,and now the Canoes are painted with their Heads turned towards the Castle;the Number of the Enemy killed, is represented by Scalps painted black, andthe Number of Prisoners by as / many Withs, (in their Painting not unlikePot-hooks) 2 with which they usually pinion their Captives. These Trees arethe Annals, or rather Trophies of the Five Nations : / have seen many ofthem; ^ and by them, and their War Songs, they preserve the History of theirgreat Achievements. [Pp. xxv-xxvi.]War posts bearing the painted achievements of war leaders arereported from the Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca cantons duringthe eighteenth century, and they are recalled quaintly by the placenamed "Painted Post" at the junction of the Cohocton and ChemungRivers near Corning, N. Y. (Beauchamp, 1905, pp. 135-138). ASeneca war chief named Hiokatoo (Hagido-wa, great spear point)who is described by Mary Jemison as her second husband, had sucha post on which he recorded his military exploits and other mattershe thought worthy of note.In order to commemorate great events, and preserve the chronology of them,the war Chief in each tribe keeps a war post. This post is a peeled stick of tim-ber, ID or 12 feet high, that is erected in the town. For a campaign they make,or rather the Chief makes, a perpendicular red mark, about three inches long2 Colden here refers to prisoner ties (Willoughby, 1938) which bespeaks acertain familiarity with the Mohawk, not credited to him by later historians.See Hunt, 1940, p. 185.8 Italics added.
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 5and half an inch wide ; on the opposite side of this, for a scalp, they make a redcross, thus, + ; on another side, for a prisoner taken alive, they make a redcross in this manner, X. with a head or dot, and by placing such significanthieroglyphics in so conspicuous a situation, they / are enabled to ascertain withgreat certainty the time and circumstances of past events. [Seaver, 1932,pp. 176-177.]Pictorial and war records in red paint were quite familiar to SirWilliam Johnson, who on occasion was not above marching at thehead of a procession of chiefs singing on the path to a CondolenceCouncil (Beauchamp, 1907, p. 393) ; although no mnemonic caneis mentioned in either description, in his celebrated letter of Febru-ary 28, 1 771, to Dr. Arthur Lee, who had requested identification ofsignatures to a deed of 1726, Johnson, then at the height of his powerand operating knowledge on Indian customs, manners, and languages,is at some pains to explain their want of writing. He says
:
... the Mohocks ... in things of much Consequence . . . usually ddineatea Steel, such as is used to strike Fire out of Flint, which being the Symbol oftheir Nation, This Steel they call Canniah—& themselves Cannimtgaes, . . .[But he is at a loss to derive this from "flint" itself.]The Tuscaroras I omit as they are a south" people not long introduced intothe Alliance making the 6 nat°.The Oneidas . . . have in use [as] Symbols, a Tree, by which they w**Express Stability. But their true Symbol is a Stone Onoya, and they call them-selves Onoyiits a particular Inst"' of wch I can give from an Expedit* I wenton to Lake St. Sacrament in 1746, when to shew the Enemy the strength of ourInd" Alliances I desired Each Nation to affix their Symbol to a Tree [to alarm]the French: the Oneydas put up a stone wch they painted Red.* [P. 432.]The Onondagas ... are somewhat better versed in the Customs of theirancestors, they call themselves people of the Great Mountain. [P. 432.]The Cayugas . . . have for their Symbol a pipe.The Senecas are the most numerous & most distant of the six Nat° have sev'Towns & Symbols from wch however little can be understood ... [P. 433-1* * *But tho it does not appear that they had the use of Letters yet the traces ofGovernment may still be seen, and there is reason to believe that they made useof Hieroglyphics Tho they Neglect them at present, ... But theirs are drawnto the utmost of their skill to represent the thing intended, for Instance, whenthey go to War, they paint some trees with the figures of men, often the exactnumber of their party, and if they go by Water, they delineate a Canoe, whenthey make an atchievement, they mark the Handle of their Tomahawks withhuman figures to signify prisoners, bodies without heads to express scalps. Thefigures which they affix to/ Deeds, have led some to imagine that they hadCharacters or an Alphabet. The case is this, every Nation is divided into aCertain number of Tribes [clans], of which some have 3. as the Turtle, Bear4 Although the stone was the Oneida national symbol, in the League a treetrunk denominated that tribe.
6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill& Wolf, to well others add the Snake [eel?], Deer, &ca, each of These Tribes[clans] form a little Community within the Nation, and as the Nation has itspeculiar Symbol so each Tribe [clan] has the peculiar Badge from whence it isdenominated, and a Sachem of each Tribe [clan] being a necessary party to afair Conveyance such Sachim affixes the mark of the Tribe [clan] thereto, wchis not that of a particular family (unless the whole Tribe [clan] is so deemed)but rather as the publick Seal of a Corporation. [Pp. 436-437.] ^* * *As to the information wch ... I formerly Transmitted to the Gov'' ofN. York concerning the belt & 15 Bloody Sticks sent by the Mississagaes, Thelike is very Comon and the Ind' use Sticks as well to Express the alliance ofCastles as the number of Individuals in a party, These Sticks are generally ab*6 Inches in length & very slender & painted Red if the Subject is War but with-out any peculiarity as to Shape. Their belts are mostly black Wampum, paintedred when they denote War they describe Castles sometimes upon them as squarefigures of White Wampum, & in Alliances Human figures holding a Chain offriendship, each figure represent^ a nation, an axe is also sometimes describedwch is always an Emblem of War, the Taking it up is a Declaration . . . andthe burying it a token of Peace, . . . [O'Callaghan, 1851, vol. 4, pp. 430-437-]Thus Jolmson equated the Chippewa use of red-painted messagesticks with Iroquois practice, more commonly expressed in wampumbelts, on which the red ceremonial war paint likewise had a sinistersignificance. It might be reasoned that the more widespread messagesticks are an older and more basic idea underlying the Iroquois wam-pums which attained prominence in colonial treaties. It is clear thatthe Iroquois understood and on occasion used sticks for more com-mon purposes than they employed wampums, but in either case themnemonic pictographs were essentially the same.Our previous reference to the notched message stick among themodern Iroquois is confirmed by Beauchamp (1905, p. 169) whofound that Father Bruyas (1862, p. 56) had noted a Mohawk radical(Gahwengare) for the custom of issuing invitation sticks to feastsin the seventeenth century. An Onondaga woman of Beauchamp'sacquaintance kept a day count by notching a long stick and using across for Sunday after the death of a son. When visitors were wel-comed at Onondaga in his day a solemn occasion was observed bysending out a runner to meet and record their numbers on a stickwhich he turned in to the council. The Tuscaroras of Lewiston, N. Y.,have a similar manner of recording votes when the matrons reporttheir selection of a chief to the council.We can sustain what Johnson wrote by modern usage or by ap-pealing to early writers. It was the Huron custom, for example, to
s Possibly Johnson saw the distinction between clan and lineage.
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 7hand an ambassador whom they desired to hear "... a Httle bundleof straws, a foot long, which serve as counters, to supply the place ofnumbers and to aid the memory of the assistants, distributing in differ-ent lots these straws, according to the diversity of things which theyrecount." (Jesuit Relation, 1646, in Beauchamp, 1905, p. 170.)DeVries (1857, p. 118) noted a similar use of sticks among the In-dians of Manhattan and Long Island, 1643. And Father Louis Hen-nepin was present at a council held January 1-2, 1679, ""^ the greatvillage of the Senecas, meeting in the cabin of the principal chiefTagarondies for whom the village was named. He writes
:
The Next Day the Iroquese answered our Discourse and Presents Articleby Article, having laid upon the Ground several little peices of Wood, to putthem in mind of what had been said the Day before in the Council; theirSpeaker, or President, held in his hand one of the Pieces of Wood, and whenhe had answered one Article of our Proposal, he laid it down with some Presentsof black and white Porcelain, which they use to string upon the smallest Sinewsof Beasts; and then took up another Piece of Wood; and so of all the rest,till he had fully answer'd our Speech, of which those Pieces of Wood, andour Presents put them in mind. When his Discourse was ended, the oldestman of the Assembly cry'd aloud for three times, Niaoua [Niya-wenh'] ; that isto say, It is well, I thank thee; which was repeated with full voice and in atuneful manner by all the other Senators. [Thwaites, 1903, vol. i, pp. 85-86.]On arrival at the last great treaty which the Six Nations held withthe United States at Canandaigua, N. Y., during the autumn of 1794,the Senecas registered the size of their delegation by having eachchief deliver "... a bundle of sticks, answerable to the number ofpersons, men, women, and children under his command. . . ."(Savery, 1844, p. 64.)Other than the frequent mention of sticks, belts, and strings ofwampum, none of the early writers on the Iroquois reports mnemonicpictographs for the Condolence Council. The painted war records,however, suggest pictographs painted on bark which were in generaluse among the Central Algonquians. The Ojibwa pictorialized onbirch-bark scrolls the traditional history of the Medicine Society,the order of ritual, and mnemonics for individual songs (Hoffman,1891). On the Plains the medium became the buffalo robe. But John-son's reference to "... 15 Bloody Sticks sent by the Mississagaes
. . ." brings us back to pictographs painted or engraved on sticksof hardwood. Hoffman illustrated one of these so-called "medicinesticks" (p. 289, pi. 21) but thought that their form was copied fromobjects of European origin. Erminie Voegelin, in discussing certainparallels to Delaware Walam Olum (1939, p. 29), found these sticks
8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill
only among Chippewa, Kickapoo, and Delaware. To this list we cannow add Montagnais, Shawnee, and Cayuga.In commenting on how Algonquians generally preserved myths,chronicles, memory of events, and speeches by means of markedSticks, Brinton (1885, p.' 59) noted that the Jesuits in Canada as earlyas 1646 used them for teaching prayers to converts and for remember-ing sermons. The Relation of 1645-46 of the Holy Cross Mission atTadoussac (Jesuit Relations, vol. 29, pp. 123 ff.), which served threebands of the Montagnais and possibly the Eastern Cree, makes itclear that such were devised by the missionaries after the Indianmanner. It reads:Some carried little sticks, in order to remember their sins; others markedthem on the beads of their Rosaries ; others wrote them, after their fashion, onsmall pieces of the bark of trees; . . . [Pp. 131-133.]* * *The Father, . . . , left them five books or five chapters of a book, composedafter their manner; these books were . . . five sticks variously fashioned, inwhich they are to read what the Father . . . inculcated upon them. [P. 139.]The Relation continues : "The first is a black stick, which is to re-mind them of horror . . . former superstitions . . ." ; a second bore
*'. , . white . . . marks . . . [for daily] devotions and prayers . . .";a third was red for Sunday and feasts ; the fourth was the book ofpunishment ; and the fifth carried ". . . various marks . . . [remind-ing them] how to behave in dearth and plenty . . ." (P. 141.)Such was the basis of the famous "talking books" of the Cree andChippewa, since these tally sticks were called ntassinahigan,^ "apiece of wood marked with fire." Their early use by the Jesuits,nevertheless, may account for the catechistic approach of Indianprophets later on. We are not concerned with how the Chippewa usedfire-marked wooden tablets, the details being accessible (Kohl, i860,p. 143; Schoolcraft, 1845, pp. 27-33; Hoffman, 1891, p. 289), butwill repeat certain other accounts for the Delaware, Kickapoo, andShawnee, which bear a certain relationship to the Cayuga specimenthat is before us.It is alleged in the "Pontiac manuscript" (Parkman, 185 1, p. 183)that a prophet appeared among the Delaware then living on theMuskingum in 1762. The prophet, on the authority of Pontiac, thegreat Ottawa war leader, had received from the Great Spirit "Aprayer, embodying the substance of all that he heard. ... It was
^ malackhickan (Delaware) (Brinton). For a discussion of Ojibwa-Ottawapictography and etymology of the word, see Voegelin, 1942.
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 9cut in hieroglyphics upon a wooden stick, after the custom of hispeople, and he was directed to send copies of it to all the Indianvillages." None of the Delaware prophet's prayer sticks has beenpreserved to our knowledge.The United States National Museum, however, has an engravedprayer stick that has been ascribed to the Kickapoo prophet, Kanakuk,and Catlin made a portrait of Onsawkie holding a similar stick ; bothof these have been published by Mooney (1896, pp. 670, 698), andthey are discussed by Voegelin. On the use of these sticks whichthe Kickapoo prophet carved and sold to his followers, 1827-34, thereis an eyewitness account by the Rev. Isaac McCoy, which appearedin his scarce "History of Baptist Indian Missions" (New York,1840), made when the prophet was living on the Illinois River
:
Kenekuk, the Prophet, claimed the honor of being the founder of his ownsect . . . His adherents were about four hundred souls, about half of whom werePotawatomies. He professed to receive all that he taught immediately from theGreat Spirit . . . Congregational worship was performed among them, and theexercises lasted from one to three hours. They heard speeches from the Prophet,and all united in articulating a kind of prayer, expressed in broken sentencesoften repeated, in a monotonous sing-song tune, equalling in length about twomeasures of a common psalm tune. All in unison engaged in this ; and, in orderto preserve harmony in words, each held in his or her hand a small board, aboutan inch and a half broad and about ten inches long, upon which was engravedarbitrary characters, which they followed up with their finger until the lastcharacter . . . These characters were 5 in number. The first represented theheart ; the second, the heart, affections, and flesh ; the third, the life ; the fourth,names; the fifth, kindred.Considerable detail follows on how the characters were gone overseveral times (Foreman, 1946, pp. 213-214). Other accounts indi-cate that Kanakuk's prayer sticks were followed with the index fingerfrom top to bottom.Another sacred slab attributed to the Shawnee prophet, Tenskwa-tawa, who flourished somewhat earlier, and whom Catlin paintedholding his "medicine fire" in 1831, was collected among the Winne-bago about 1922 by Milford G. Chandler and now reposes at theCranbrook Institute of Science; it has been described (Galloway,1943). Identical sticks of the Shawnee prophet are in the MilwaukeePublic Museum and in the Blackhawk Museum (R. T. Hatt, per-sonal communication).In general, these engraved and painted sticks that we have beendiscussing are mnemonic devices to aid in recounting tribal history,or they carry formulae for some sequence of phenomena that must bepreserved unaltered: lists of dates, events, names, places, significant
10 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IllStations in prayers, songs, order of ceremony, mythology, or treaties.There is a considerable literature on Iroquois wampum belts withattendant explanation of mnemonic pictographs that they preserve.But the bark records and the painted posts on which war leadersdelineated their achievements have vanished. Only the colonial docu-ments bear the signatures of Iroquois chiefs, which usually take theform of outline drawings of clan eponyms—wolf, bear, turtle, snipe,beaver, eel; sometimes objects—war club, tree, circles connected bya line to signify ground nut (Apios tuberosa Moench,), the mark ofthe Potato, or possibly, the Ball clan. The living descendants of theFive Nations can contribute little to our understanding of ancientpictographs (Hewitt and Fenton, 1945), although the followingdescription of the Condolence cane sheds some light on how theancient law-givers kept a record of their councils.THE CANE OF ANDREW SPRAGGA document out of the leaves of a primitive council record comesdown to us in the form of a cane bearing pegs and correspondingpictographs to denominate the founders of the Iroquois League. Thisis a primitive roster of the chiefs of the Five Nations—Mohawk,Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes—such as were thevillage chiefs whom Deganawi'dah and Hiawatha persuaded to acceptthe Great Peace. The beginnings of the Confederacy are related inthe Deganawi'dah legend which states unequivocally that the rollcall of the founders, the proportional number of representatives foreach tribe, how the chiefships are related to each other as individualoffices in tribal councils, and the relation of tribes to each other in thecouncil of the League must be maintained in the original order asit was decreed by the founders. In all likelihood the number of titleshas increased and the order of enumeration has changed during thecenturies that have elapsed since the village chiefs of the Mohawk,Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes formed the League,which they likened to an extended house, Ganonh'syoni, before theclose of the sixteenth century. Whatever new titles were added tothe original roster and however succeeding chanters of the roll callhave changed the order of reciting the names, the cane of AndrewSpragg, the famed Cayuga ritual singer, is a true tally of the namesof the Five Nations chiefs who, following the American Revolution,as Empire Loyalists, reconstituted the League from its shattered rem-nants after coming to Canada and settling on the Grand River. Atleast the cane, as we shall see, agrees substantially with Morgan's
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON II1849 list of titles from the Tonawanda Seneca reservation east ofBuffalo, a manuscript roster in the orthography of the Anglican mis-sionaries at Grand River, the Canienga Book of the Condoling Coun-cil (Hale, 1883), and various lists of League chiefs collected at SixNations Reserve by Hewitt, Goldenweiser, and the writer.THE MANNot much is known about Andrew Spragg, or "Sprag," as it isspelled on the cane; "Spragge" on the Agency rolls. He is picturedamong a group of chiefs and warriors who visited Toronto, June1897, 01^ the occasion of a visit by the Governor General. He appearsto be middle-aged, he wears his hair long, and has a moustache. Hemust have been active because in another picture he is postured inWar dance. Like several of his colleagues he wears a circlet of turkeyfeathers, and Spragg alone has a shoulder sash. Quite unmistakablythey are having a good time. (Chadwick, 1897, frontispiece and op-posite page 80.) He was an informant to several ethnologists beforeWorld War 1. Frachtenberg (1913) employed "Andrew Sprague, aCayuga, who in his early youth had been adopted by the Tutelo tribe,"as an interpreter, and obtained from him some information on Tutelohistory and ritualism. Sapir (1913) credits Sprague with havingheard Tutelo spoken during his childhood, in reporting on a smallTutelo vocabulary collected from him in August 191 1. But neitherF. W. Waugh, A. A. Goldenweiser, nor J. N. B. Hewitt seem to haveworked with him.'' Visiting Tutelo descendants on the Six NationsReserve in later years, Speck (1942) found the memory of him quiteclear.But it was Yankee Spring, a Tonawanda Seneca, who first toldme about Andrew Spragg. Yankee had served a term of 5 or 6 yearsas secretary of the council of the Tonawanda band of Senecas, andduring his office he pondered : Why was he not a chief, why wereothers of no apparent ability installed in office? He had been caughtin the dilemma of changing customs. The new elective system wastheoretically based on achievement and opposed the old system oflife chiefs appointed by the matrons of certain clans, so that the bandwas torn between the new method of election and the old way basedon family lines.Yankee inquired of the old men of Tonawanda, the quandary tookhim to Onondaga (Syracuse, N. Y.), and ultimately to Canada. On
^ Waugh, F. W. (1916), Mss. on Folk-lore, medicines, and material culture;Goldenweiser, A. A., Reports to Anthropological Division, Dep. Mines, Geol.Surv., Ottawa, and Mss. ; Hewitt, J. N. B., Ann. Reps, to the Chief, Bur. Amer.Ethnol., and Mss.
12 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illhis Canadian visit Yankee lived a winter in the home of AndrewSpragg, a member of the Lower Cayuga band on the Six NationsReserve. During the long winter nights, Andrew, who was by thena famed Cayuga ritualist, coached the Seneca student on matters re-lating to the League : its beginning, how chiefs were apportioned bytribes, ranking and position of the Five Nations in council, the orderof business, and how the founders proceeded to make laws. Whileinstructing his student Spragg made continual reference to a cane,which Yankee remembered and described to me in detail during in-terviews in 1934. Among other things, Yankee recalled vividly thespacing of the Five Nations on the cane, from Mohawks at its headto Senecas at its tip, segregation of the chiefs by classes, and the useof pegs to denominate individual titles. Yankee asserted, however,that the cane was surmounted by an eagle carved of wood, whichsymbolized the totemite of the Five Nations, and served as a handlefor the singer who carried it when reciting the roll call of chiefs inthe ritual of Condolence.A year elapsed. We spent a day, August 3, 1935, at the Six NationsReserve searching for the cane. Andrew Spragg was dead, and theCondolence cane which Yankee Spring had seen in his possession, wewere told, was in the custody of Chief John Davey (Onondaga), fire-keeper of the Six Nations council. Cayuga Chief Jim Crawford, sincedeceased, promised to write when the cane could be seen. NeitherYankee Spring nor I ever heard from him. Spragg's son had movedto the city. Chief Davey was not at home, and none of the chiefswhom we interviewed could affirm that he had seen the cane sinceSpragg had gone the long trail.Andrew Spragg spent his life with the Lower Cayuga band ofthe Six Nations of Grand River. We do not know when he was born.According to the records of the Six Nations Indian Office in Brant-ford, Canada, Andrew Spragge, as his name appears on the roll of theLower Cayuga band, was aged 38 in 1902 (therefore born 1864) ;and the same entry is marked "D 1921," but the year 1921 is crossedout (Census Record of Lower Cayuga Tribe, p. 164, from "OldBook," p. 337). Andrew Spragge is credited with a son, "A. AversonSpraggie, B. 1888/D. 1937." The latter is Patterson Spragge, whoseson Raymond was born June 23, 1937, presumably to his wife, LouisaWilliams. The so-called Old Book (p. 337) contains a contradictoryentry, as follows: 1893 Andrew Sprag 26 (B. 1867)Betsy 17 (His wife, p. 177)MarthaAverson 1894.
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON I3According to the latter record Andrew Spragg was born in 1867,and there is a discrepancy of 6 years in Averson's birth date.The Current Census of the Cayuga Tribe (p. 487) bears entry"No. 146 B. 1888/ Spraggie, A. Averson/ D. June 8, 1937/ w. LavinaWilliams." These are substantially the same dates as given on hisgrave slab in the cemetery at Lower Cayuga Longhouse. At theIndian Office A. Averson is believed to be the same person asPatterson.^To cross-check we looked up Andrew's wife Betsy (Old Book,p. 177)- Betsy 29 1503 To self 177MarthaAversonRosa V. BillLavina WilliamsThe last, at least, appears above as wife of Averson.From this we may conclude that Andrew Spragg was born about1865 and died about 1921. He married a woman named Betsy, some-what younger than himself, and they had a daughter Martha and ason Averson. The latter, who is also known as Patterson, was bornbetween 1888 and 1894, depending on who kept the book, and hehad a son Raymond born in 1927; the father died in 1937. Averson'srelation to Rosa V. Bill and Lavina (or Louisa) Williams is notclear, but one was his wife or both were.Andrew Spragg is remembered by his neighbors. Elliott Closes(Delaware) as a lad of 18 worked out on the same farm with Spragg,whom he remembers asa typical raw-boned Indian of about six feet. He was said to be the last full-blood on the reserve. One day at table Andrew remarked that he had taken hisson out of Mohawk Institute (a boarding school for Six Nations Indians atBrantford) because, as Andrew alleged, the boy was only learning to swear.Andrew's English became somewhat inverted in the telling, whichamused those present and caused Mr. Moses to remember the incident.That Spragg spoke English imperfectly assumes importance becauseit therefore appears unlikely that he read with sufficient facility tohave been influenced by what he had read about Iroquois ceremonials.Yankee Spring had said that Andrew Spragg owned a copy ofMorgan's "League."8 I am very much indebted to Hilton M. Hill, for many years Clerk of theIndian Office and Interpreter, to whose friendship I was fortunate to succeedafter the late J. N. B. Hewitt, for identifying the vital records on his Iroquoisbrethren; and Miss Henderson of the Indian Office recalled to mind Spragg'sliving descendants.
14 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IllPatterson Spragg, the only son of Andrew, met an untimely endwhen he was trampled by a horse. He was buried at Lower Cayugacemetery just west of the Longhouse, where we found a headboardstill legible in October 1943: "Patterson Sprague, died June 9th,50 year old 1937" (pi. i, fig. i). The headboards of a nearby groupof graves are no longer decipherable, and we did not succeed inlocating the grave of Andrew Spragg, although it was thought to benearby.A log house that Andrew Spragg occupied for many years stillstands at the crossroad known as Sandy's Corners, which is the firstintersection in the road leading from Willow Grove on HighwayNo. 6 across the east boundary line of the reserve toward Ohsweken,the seat of the Six Nations Council (pi. i, fig. 2).Councilor George Buck now occupies the house of the late Cayugachief, Abram Charles, having married Chief Charles' daughter, andthey live but a short distance from Sandy's Corners and the houseof Andrew Spragg whom they remember. George Buck said
:
His house at Sandy's Corners formerly stood near the bush, but later it wasmoved to its present position near the road.Andrew was a great one to sing all kinds of songs. There was almost nothingthat he could not sing. Unfortunately, no one learned his songs. Once heurged me to come spend the winter with him, saying that he would teach mehis songs. I didn't go. But I remember the cane clearly. I saw it often at thehouse where I now live when my wife's father, Chief Abram Charles, was alive.I never learned the words to Hai Hai atahing'geh (the eulogy for marching onthe road). The song is easy but the words are hard.Andrew died in 1921 or 1922 in the house of Fanny Bill (wife of Jake Fish-carrier). I know that because that is the house where I was brought up.It seems that in his later years Andrew Spragg abandoned thehouse at Sandy's Corners and moved north to the next concessionroad to reside in the house now occupied by Fanny Bill (Mrs. JakeFishcarrier), who was his wife's granddaughter; Fanny Bill's is thefirst house east of Lower Cayuga Longhouse; he was living therewhen he died. It was presumably during his residence at the latterplace, a short step from Peter Atkins' Corners, now called SixNations', that he relinquished the cane.Neighbors along the road to Willow Grove where he resided formany years recall that Andrew Spragg was an enterprising characterof considerable mechanical ingenuity. According to C. W. Monture,Andrew was a great one to fix things. He had a steam thresher, in the daysbefore separators with blowers, and it was driven by an upright engine. Thewhole rig was pulled by a heavy team. With this outfit he went from farm tofarm threshing grain. Come fall, he pressed hay with a team. He was the firstman here to attempt to devise a power press for his engine before the advent oftractors on the reserve.
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 1$Such anecdotes serve to illustrate that the man had an inventive turnof mind and some mechanical aptitude. Nevertheless, v^e do not thinkthat he made the cane. Before taking up this matter, however, anotheranecdote relates to his threshing machine, and his prowess as arunner, which was remarkable even among the nation that producedTom Longboat, famed Canadian marathoner. One rainy spring after-noon in 1945 the conversation in the village store at Ohsweken turnedto track and field sports, a perennial interest among the Six Nations.Without my making any suggestion of an interest in the man, oneof the villagers, a stalwart farmer who had been rained in fromdrilling grain, related the following tale about Andrew Spragg
:
The Lower Cayugas had a great runner before Tom Longboat's time. Hewas a fellow named Andrew Spragg who lived down at Sandy's Corner, thefirst one this side of Willow Grove. He used to run a steam thresher, andone day they were threshing out oats down at Monture's when the separatorbroke down. The crew thought they were through for the day, but Andrewsaid to stand by while he ran to Caledonia (not less than 5 miles) for a part.When he reached the implement dealer's in Caledonia he was told that thepart was not in stock and that one could not be had this side of Hamilton.Andrew asked them to call the dealer in Hamilton, the part was there, andthe dealer was informed that Andrew would come after it afoot. There wasno transportation then from Caledonia to the city. To the Massey Harris agent'samazement, in scarcely more than an hour an Indian who said he was AndrewSpragg presented himself at the counter, the broken part in his hand. "Howdid you get here so fast?" said the agent. "On the road," was all that the Cayugavolunteered. "Why, it's at least 12 miles from Caledonia to the rim of theMountain!" (the high escarpment behind Hamilton which lies at the level ofLake Ontario). They collected a bet of 10 dollars in the store, to say that hecould not run back to Caledonia in an hour. He was to telephone when hereached Caledonia. They had lost a lot of time threshing, Andrew thought, andhe would have to pay for the men, as well as the part. Andrew needed that 10dollars. He passed through the village of Caledonia in less than the allottedtime. They were watching for him in Caledonia because Hamilton had tele-phoned. The Caledonia dealer called the Hamilton agent who agreed toforward the money. Andrew kept on running until he arrived back where theyfixed the thresher and went back to work, having lost less than 3 hours.That's a world's record in any man's country!It is when one considers that lo miles per hour is excellent timeon the road, and the great Nurmi ran 11.94 miles in an hour.Because the above seemed wholly incredible, and in hopes oflearning how the tale might be elaborated in a second telling, I wroteto Mrs. Sadie Jamieson in whose Ohsweken store the liar's benchflourishes as a going institution. Sadie put the question to severalcustomers, and finally wrote on April 10, 1947, that she had a secondversion from Jerome Duncan, who had told it to my first informant.
l6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill
"It sure is a liar's bench problem," she comments, ". . . whoevertold that one would get the chairman's seat."Andrew Sprague was a thresher and when threshing for a certain farmer nearPeter Atkin's corner, some small part of the machine was broken. He toldhis men that he had to go to Hamilton to get it, and since there was no trans-portation, he said he would run.So he started out. Going through Caledonia, he stopped at a machinedealer's, called Holsteins, and there he found the part he wanted. He ranall the way back and was back in i hour and inside of an hour they werethreshing again. He never told the men that he never went to Hamilton at all.Some man said to him "I'll just bet you $10.00 that you can't run to Hamil-ton and back in the same time." So he took him up on it.They told him they would wait at Atkin's store and he was to phone whenhe got to Hamilton.He started out running the second time and only went as far as Caledoniaagain and got the same part again. Just before he left Caledonia he phonedAtkin's store and made them believe he called from Hamilton. He ran all theway back and made it in | hour. Andrew Sprague won the $10.00.The distance from Caledonia to Hamilton is 14 miles, and 5 miles from Cale-donia to where he was working.Although it is apparent that Andrew Spragg was a man of no littleaccomplishment he was never a Cayuga chief. He belonged to theLower Cayuga Longhouse, where he faithfully attended the religiousexercises of the Handsome Lake Religion, and he mastered severalof the rituals. His fame as a singer is equally confirmed by leadersof the Onondaga Longhouse. "Andrew was smart (agile) and theLower Cayugas always had him to sing Hai Hai on the road becausehe knew the words (of the eulogy) and he was a good walker."(S. Gibson.)This statement was corroborated by Hilton M. Hill (Seneca-Tus-carora) who was for many years Chief Clerk of the Indian Officein Brantford. The Cayuga chiefs depended upon Andrew Spragg'smemory, his voice, and his legs to carry the roll call over the roadfrom Lower Cayuga Longhouse to Onondaga, a distance of 2 miles.Some of the Cayuga chiefs were too advanced in years to lead theprocession ; the late Abram Charles was a noted ritualist, but he wasdeaf and never sang on the road. "Andrew Spragg was the only onewho always used the cane."The Onondaga chiefs of the Six Nations Reserve regarded AndrewSpragg as an independent fellow. He not only carried a unique canethat came to be associated with the Lower Cayugas (the Onondagasmanage to perform the ritual when installing Cayuga chiefs without
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 1
7
reference to such mnemonic aids) ; but he had his own ideas aboutthe ritual, Spragg had a book.®The last time he came up to our [Onondaga] longhouse to install a chief,he had altered the roll call. There are names for 50 chiefs in the council of theLeague. There are also 50 pegs on the Condolence cane. Andrew had cut oflf apeg, the last one on the Onondaga roll, leaving but 49. Andrew claimed, as theyhave recently claimed at Syracuse [Onondaga Reservation], that the last chiefserves double duty, having both the titles Ho's'dhha-'hwih and Sganawa-'dih,that the last chief is of opposite sides (moieties) to himself, holding two offices.We claim there are 50 chiefs. (D. Thomas.) ^oUnless Spragg had changed his mind about the number of federalchief titles, he would not have made the cane with 50 pegs in the firstplace. The fact that he is alleged to have cut off a peg points to anearlier maker. And there is some opinion in the community bearingon earlier holders. Cayuga Chief Alex General could not recollectin 1945 whom in the generation before Andrew Spragg he had heardmentioned by Indian name as having made the cane. Chief Generaldoes not think the cane is old. Some years previously at a CondolenceCouncil rehearsal the late Oneida Chief Jacob Isaac of Sour Springs(Upper Cayuga) talked of the cane that Andrew Spragg had andspoke the name of the man who made it before Andrew Spragg gothold of it. My informant had forgotten the name since hearing it.To Chief General it seems likely that the cane came to AndrewSpragg in a Ten Days' Feast, which the mourners and their brotherclans give to the cousin clans who conducted the funeral. "That isthe rule." 1 l I IMany times since the coming of the Cayugas to settle here on the GrandRiver the Condolence ceremony was nearly lost. Only a few in a generation
» Chief Crawford had told Yankee Spring and the writer in 1935 that Spragghad a copy of Morgan's "League of the Iroquois," a fact confirmed by YankeeSpring and by Milford G. Chandler who collected the cane. We do not knowthat Spragg was literate.10 J. N. B. Hewitt had come to the same opinion as Andrew Spragg. I havenot discovered that Hewitt had employed Spragg as an informant. In a con-versation held in his office in October 1934, Hewitt stated that originally whenthe League was established, one recalcitrant Onondaga war chief refused torelinquish the privilege of going on the war path, but in order that he mightcontinue to go to war he took both a federal chief's title and retained a war-rior's name. Acoordingly, he is represented as having his body divided intwain: in his right hand he holds the war club, and his left side stands forpeace; he is at once ho'skg'egeh'de', "warrior," and hoyaa'neh, "law giver."Hewitt has documented this statement in a number of reports (37th Ann. Rep.Bur. Amer. Ethnol., p. 12, 1923; 41st Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., p. 10, 1928;Introduction to Iroquoian Cosmology—part II, 43d Ann. Rep. Bur, Amer.Ethnol., p. 463, 1928).
l8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill
would know it. Then it revived. That is why they made something like thecane to remind them. Also, the songs may be sung only at stated times, inspring and fall, which are the only times when it may be rehearsed . . .A MUSEUM SPECIMENThe mystery attending the fate of the Condolence cane of AndrewSpragg solved itself suddenly and unexpectedly in early 1943, whenDr. Robert T. Hatt, Director of the Cranbrook Institute of Science,asked the writer to describe a unique specimen of a cane or stick intheir collections, which Dr. F. G. Speck (University of Pennsylvania)and Dr. Arthur C. Parker (Rochester Museum) independently hadidentified as a roll-call tally of chiefs in the Iroquois Confederacy.The stick had come to the museum in a collection obtained fromMilford G. Chandler, a noted collector of ethnological materialsamong the Indian tribes of the Great Lakes area.Mr, Chandler first heard of the cane on a collecting trip to theGrand River in about 1917 or 1918. It was then in the possessionof Andrew Spragg who, at that time, refused to sell. About 2 yearslater, however, after the midwinter ceremony in February, the stickwas acquired. With the stick was a manuscript which, according toSpragg, contained a list of chiefs' titles very similar to the list foundin Morgan's "League of the Iroquois" (1851). The manuscript con-tained a sentence about each peg on the cane; it was formerly keptbound to the stick but was subsequently lost.Sprague assured me that this was the original roll call stick of the Leagueof the Iroquois and had been handed down to him. He said that he was theone at that time to check the roll call. He would press his thumb against thepeg representing a particular chief and call his name. There were two pegs cutoff level representing men who were not true officers but who were doorkeepers.* *Sprague was a man of medium height, angular and slender in build. He livedin a dilapidated house within walking distance of Six Nations Post Office andnear the Cayuga Longhouse. Atkins, at that time Postmaster at Six Nations,acted as guide and interpreter for meMIn recalling these circumstances Mr. Chandler remembered thathe stayed with Peter Atkins, Postmaster at Six Nations Post Office,and that Andrew Spragg lived nearby, next to Lower Cayuga Long-house, as George Buck and others have confirmed. It was his im-pression that the cane was used in the council meetings to call the11 From a statement dictated by Milford G. Chandler regarding the Iro-quois Condolence cane now owned by the Cranbrook Institute of Science, datedMay 7, 1945. Personal interview, October 1944.
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON I9
roll of chiefs present, one for each of the pegs opposite which isa representation of some characteristic in the chief's title. He doesnot seem to have understood its use in the Condolence Council ritual.To enrich the collector's understanding of the ceremonial setting,nevertheless, the old Cayuga singer referred him to a copy ofMorgan's "League . . ." with its list of chiefs. Clearly this was thecane that we were seeking.Observe that Spragg thought the cane coeval with the League, thatit had been handed down to him, and it is implied that two pegs cutoff reflect some controversy on relative status of doorkeepers toother federal chiefs.The name "A SPRAG" is rudely carved on the back of the sticknear the handle in a somewhat different style from the drawings.The question that this poses is not who had title to the cane. Rather,our interest is to illustrate how an item of Indian personal property,through long association with public ritual, came to be regarded astribal property, or, conversely, how public property may becomepersonalized. To be sure, certain properties such as wampum beltsbelonged to the confederate council and they were entrusted toappointed keepers among the chiefs. Such properties "belong to theNation." They are state properties, not exactly in the public domain.Similarly each longhouse or ceremonial center has entrusted amongits membership certain paraphernalia which is used at stated festivals
;
this is band or tribal property ; it too belongs to the Nation. Never-theless, one cannot readily distinguish between property that thecommunity owns and other similar things which individuals possess,and sometimes own outright. Thus, a longhouse community willharbor a bag of Husk Faces, corn-husk masks for the MidwinterFestival and for family feasts to honor certain agricultural spiritsthat have curing powers, but also members of that community willpersonally own such items that they have inherited or that have beenmade for them in response to dreams, thereby becoming personalguardians ; and these they may lend or convey, within certain limita-tions, as they will.The Iroquois draw the property line around the person in a waythat does not circumscribe as many kinds of property as among us.Rather the individual participates in a wider sphere of propertysharing than we can conceive. He participates in tribal property, inband property, that of his maternal family, his fireside household,besides his own personal property. As an individual he owns outrightthe tools and implements that he employs in his daily life, his weapons,but physical belongings apart from these, such as a boat, he will lend
20 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill
readily to friends and neighbors ; his rights to certain kinds of knowl-edge including medicinal formulae and prayers associated with talismenor personal guardians are private and inviolate. Membership in amaternal family confers upon the individual copyright privileges dur-ing his lifetime to certain songs, a personal name, and possibly achiefship title which also belongs to the clan, to the tribe, and tothe League. Knowledge of a public ritual, however, is neither per-sonal nor family property, although but few individuals acquire sucherudition. Likewise the mnemonic aids that an individual employsto remind himself how the ritual proceeds belong to the group asthey have a public function ; and other members of his band and tribecome to regard these properties as belonging with the group's ritualparaphernalia. But the individual to whom the particular piece ofparaphernalia is entrusted and who employs it in the public ceremonymay come to feel a proprietary right to it that others do not shareor acknowledge. This, I think, is the case of Andrew Spragg andthe mnemonic cane that he had carried during innumerable journeyson the road from Lower Cayuga to Onondaga Longhouse whilechanting the Eulogy to the Founders of the League. Andrew feltentitled to carve his name on the stick, which his contemporariespossibly and his survivors certainly considered as belonging to theCayuga Nation.The immediate reaction of an Upper Cayuga chief, to whom weshowed a diagram of the cane, was: "It never should have left thereserve because it was [Cayuga] Nation property." The same chiefthought that the cane antedated Andrew Spragg and that it hadbeen entrusted to Spragg by some former keeper to use in the Con-dolence Council. The late Simeon Gibson,^^ himself heir to a Cayugachiefship, was less positive that the cane belonged to the tribe. Heknew that the Lower Cayugas had had this cane, and that only thatband had one. That the Onondagas of the Three Brothers side(Mohawk-Onondaga-Seneca) never used this cane all informantsagreed; its use was confined to the Four Brothers (Oneida-Cayuga-Tuscarora-Tutelo). The Three Brothers manage without one. More-over, Gibson, whose family was of the Lower Cayuga band, dis-credited the statement of the Upper Cayuga chief by saying:The Lower Cayugas have been for years the only Cayugas who could singat the installation of chiefs on the Three Brothers side, for until recentlythere have been no singers of the ritual at the Sour Springs (Upper) CayugaLonghouse.12 For an account of the man and the writer's field work on the Six NationsReserve to that date, see "Simeon Gibson : Iroquois Informant, 1889-1943"(Fenton, 1944).
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 21Until my spring field trip of 1945," only Andrew Spragg hadbeen identified with the cane. No one could say who had made andinscribed the cane, only that it had been among the Lower Cayugaband for a long time. Andrew Spragg was the last singer seen tocarry it "on the road" to install chiefs at Onondaga. The hereditarychiefs had been under attack by the Indian Department, and we arereminded that in the Indian Act of 1924 Canada abolished the con-federate council on the Grand River. It was during this time oftrouble that Spragg was growing old, and since the old way wasfailing, he let the cane go.But despite the Indian Act, the system of life chiefs goes on, albeitunofiicially, to provide the leadership for the longhouse communitieson the Six Nations Reserve. In order that the men to whom thepeople now look in confidence might benefit from knowing how theirpredecessors remembered the roll call of the founders of the Leaguethe writer carried an enlarged line drawing of both sides of thecane to show to informants. The present ritual holders desired somany copies that the Cranbrook Institute had the original drawingsblueprinted. Two of my Iroquois friends have since reproduced theoriginal.According to John Smoke (Cayuga), an old man of the LowerCayuga band whom Howard Skye (Cayuga) consults on Leaguematters, and who is known by the Indian name T'awene'n'drg', orproperly, T'awe'ne's, "Word sinking in deep snow, or mud," the caneof Andrew Spragg was made by Ganawado, "Lime floating" (fromonawada, "lime"-, and -o, "floating on water"- as in a lime pit).Ganawado had the English name of Styres and was the grandfatherof Edward Styres, a Cayuga man of between 30 and 40 years inthis generation ; the latter's father, Joe Styres, died at about 65 yearsin 1939 or 1940. Ganawado was father of Joe, who was born about1880.From Ganawado, the maker, the cane passed to Billy Wage, anOnondaga who lived among the Cayuga. From Billy Wage it wentto A. Spragg. No one knew what became of it after that.Ganawado was a Hai Hai singer and used the cane in the Con-dolence ceremony.Billy Wage was also a Hai Hai singer. He is the same ". . .Cayuga chief Wage (Hadwennine, 'His words are moving'), the highconstable of the Reserve who is commonly known as Sheriff Wage
. . .," of whom Hale (1895, p. 51) wrote in his journal of July13 62d Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pp. 3-4, 1946.
22 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, III1883 and observed leading the delegation of the younger nations tothe woods-edge fire at Onondaga. He had a suitable name for aHai Hai singer who carries the ritual on the road. "While we wereconversing, the sound of a measured chant was heard in the distance.All eyes were turned on the neighboring woods, from which waspresently seen to issue the portly form of the Cayuga chief Wage
. . .," etc.—Howard Skye equated the two from Hale's description.While this gives us a base line for dating Billy Wage's perform-ance of the role of Hai Hai singer, Hale did not mention a cane atthis point in the ceremony observed, but when they got inside theOnondaga Longhouse, he noted that the Eulogy singer, the "elderly"Cayuga Chief Jacob Silversmith (Teyotherehkonh, "Doubly Cold")was ". . . bearing in his hand a staff, with which he seemed to timehis steady walk." (P. 54.) We are without further details.Our information states further thab the cane did not belong toAndrew Spragg; "it belonged to the Cayugas. Ganawado made itfor the Cayugas only. According to John Smoke, when AndrewSpragg got hold of the cane, he claimed it."Such is the history of the specimen.MATERIAL DESCRIPTIONShape and general appearance.—With its bent handle attached, theCondolence cane bears a superficial resemblance to a dress sword(pi. 2). This was how one of my informants described it to me.The handle, at a second glance, might be mistaken for a discardedumbrella handle that, as a substitute for some earlier handle, hadbeen attached from its side to the stick, like the hand guard of asword, instead of by its axis, like the handle of an umbrella. In allprobability, this is the original handle despite Yankee Spring's theorythat an eagle perched on the staff. Viewed sideways, the handle con-forms to the shape of the bows or crooks on hickory canes by Iroquoiscraftsmen. In fact, the handle could be reproduced by cutting thecrook from the shaft of an Iroquois old man's cane. The handleappears to be made of white hickory.When the cane was accessioned at the Cranbrook Institute, thehandle was at first removed, since it was thought to be a later additionor substitute for some earher handle. The handle has since beenrestored. Three informants who saw the profile drawing of the stickwithout the handle asserted that it was once provided with a handlelike a sword guard. All these informants had seen the stick usedin the ceremony at Six Nations Reserve but none mentioned thatthe handle was formerly an eagle head, as Yankee Spring had said.
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 23Material and dimensions.—The stick itself is of sugar maple.^*It has an over-all length of 890 nim. Its greatest breadth midwayis 37 mm.; its greatest thickness 15 mm. Tapering at the ends to anoval and flatter at the midsection, the general appearance of the sticksuggests an Iroquois bow stave.Panels or sections of pegs.—The lateral edges of one side aresectioned off into alternate panels in nice proportion to over-all length,three on the right, and two between them on the left. The panels arecut into the edge of the cane on a slant to form a standing bevel withthe edge ; the width of each bevel face is 10 mm., and the bevel makesa 45-degree angle with the top and sides. From the top of the canethe beveled panels measure no, 118, 165, 125, and no mm., re-spectively. The panels have been drilled for seating wooden pegswith flat heads. The number of pegs per panel is apportioned un-equally. From the top, the sequence of drill holes for pegs is
:
9-9- 1 4- 1 0-8, totaling 50.Some of the pegs are missing; one is cut off. Peg No. 32, being14 in the third panel, has been cut off flush with the bevel. This isimportant, recalling the testimony of David Thomas (Onondaga)that Andrew Spragg insisted there were 13 Onondaga chiefs and hadcut off a peg, because deleting the last Onondaga title would disposeof No. 14 in the third tribal panel.^^ The following pegs are lost:10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 29, 31, 44, 46, 47, 48.Besides being grouped into five alternate panels, the pegs segregatethemselves spatially within each panel in the following rhythmic pat-terns: 3-3-3, 3-3-3, 6(2-2-2)1-2-3-2, 2-3-3-2, 2-2-2-2. (Fig. I.)Pictographs.—Each peg, moreover, is illustrated by a pictograph.The pictograph stands opposite the peg so that when the cane is heldalternately sideways the representations for each panel stand abovethe pegs, and the symbols can be read sequentially, first from rightto left, then from left to right for the second panel, right to left againin the third, over to left to right in the fourth, until reaching the lastpanel when the stick is held away from the singer so that the char-acters may be read from near to far. Note that the first, third, andfifth panels, which are on the same edge, read from right to left, andthe second and fourth panels, on the opposite edge, read from left toright. In all cases the sequence is from top to bottom of the stick.14 Dr. Hatt submitted the specimen to Prof. Dow V. Baxter, School ofForestry, University of Michigan. Hatt, R. T., personal communication, June16, 1945.15 Another peg was cut off, according to the collector, Mr. Chandler, but, iftrue, that peg has been lost. (Hatt, R. T., personal communication, April 14,1945).
24 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS
CMNBROOK CAYUGA CAN£(S.&) 1940 J.H.G.CAYUGA AND I940CANE CHARLES NOTEBOOK,1916 (ADJUSTED)a b c NEUVHOUSEIB8Sd ONONDAGAREHEARSAL/94Se1I 23
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 25Less than half of the pictographs are representative designs ; mostof the characters are abstractions. A number of the representationsrelate to plants : a stalk and branches, branch and leaves, trunk andbranch, a corn cob. Number 6 is a bird, 7 is an antler, a wolf appearsat 25. Anthropomorphic designs, however, predominate; they areeither of whole men, heads accentuating such parts as an eye, adouble profile, an ear, profiles face to face, a flat head, a scalpedhead, etc. Over 25 are pure abstractions, or at least appear so untilone learns what is intended. Therefore, pure symbols carry over halfthe burden, and together with the arrangement of pegs and panelscomprise a true mnemonic.The figures appear to have been drawn with a nail or hard pencil,with the sole exception of the tree opposite peg No. 4, which isdefinitely incised. Evidently the maker, or some keeper, never carriedout an idea of carving all the figures after attempting the first four.Reverse side.—The reverse side of the stick bears the nameA SPRAG (fig. 2), followed by a series of symbols, which appearmore clearly; and the cipher-shaped symbols are followed by repre-sentations of what may be intended for grass, brush overgrowingsupine bodies lying over other matters that are represented by roundobjects, a dotted circle ; and then come a parade of five human headswith horns (perhaps chiefs with antlers of office, evidently followingthe path to) a longhouse with two smokes, after which stands theerect bust of a man facing left toward what has preceded. Thepreceding symbols or characters are circles in units of one, three,five, and these are ranged from high (a single circle), middle (threeciphers on the level), to low (five ciphers with an appendage slantingdownward to lower left on the last). Above the last are a line offive inverted c's, followed by three hache marks. Next come twoparallel sets of linked ciphers and dots which slant from lower leftto upper right. The first is surmounted by a dotted circle. The lastis a line connecting two circles, passing between five smaller ciphersspaced three to the left and two to the right like the panels on theobverse of the stick. The last connected circle at the upper rightof the second set has a pupil like an eye directed left.Part of the next figure, possibly intended for a human heart orface, projects beneath the surface of a horizontal line into a triangleof three tiny circles ; within the area of the figure above the line orsurface are an open circle (possibly an eye) and another whichappears to be directed along parallel rising broken lines to succeedingunits.
26 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IllThe broken lines lead to a horizontal line on top of which areengraved short sets of vertical lines in all probability representingsod. Beneath the sod line is a supine figure lying on round objects,obviously in a grave. The succeeding unit is in character, but herethe surface of the earth is overgrown with brush, and this time thebody lying in its grave has a round object or cipher beneath its headas a pillow, and five short vertical marks support the body. Theremaining figures require no further elaboration.GENERAL SYMBOLISMRECOGNITION BY THE IROQUOIS AND BY ANTHROPOLOGISTSThe specimen was submitted to several specialists on the Indiansof northeastern North America. These anthropologists in turn sup-ported their opinions by consulting native authorities among thesurviving Iroquois. They are of one mind : the specimen is a roll-callstick, a cane to prop up the memory of the song leader who is ap-pointed to chant the Eulogy to the Founders of the Iroquois Leagueduring the Condolence Council. The Iroquois know this rite as HaiHai, a specific name for this feature that has become a generaleuphemism for the whole Condolence Council. Specifically in Onon-daga of Six Nations Reserve it is atahiuQ^ge hai hai ne' gae-na', forwhich the word order is reversed in translation to read, "The songof eulogy for journeying on the path." In modern parlance thisbecomes "Hai hai for going on the road."The stick was submitted first to the noted Iroquoianist, Dr. ArthurC. Parker, then Director of the Rochester Museum of Arts andSciences, who examined the stick, made some tracings of it, andshowed photographs of it to some Seneca chiefs at Tonawanda. Sincethe incorporation of the Seneca Nation on the Allegany and Cat-taraugus reservations a century ago, Tonawanda is the last place inwestern New York where the system of life chiefs is preserved, andhere are concentrated the eight titles that the Seneca tribe held inthe council of the League. The present incumbents are the descendantsof Morgan's informants. The present chiefs to whom Parker showedthe photographs were able to interpret some of the names, but itpuzzled them why some titles are represented as they are by thepictographs found on the stick.^^ We would expect them to followthe enumeration of chiefs as given by Morgan, and they would be
"Arthur C. Parker to Robert T. Hatt, February 3, 1943; Hatt, R. T., per-sonal communication, February 5, 1943.
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 2/mainly concerned with the enumeration of their own number. Ifthese were out of sequence by local standards, their wonderment doesnot amaze me since Iroquois personal names are subject to varyinginterpretation, and different versions gain acceptance in separatedlocalities and in succeeding periods. The Seneca chiefs of Tonawandado not exchange condolences with the Cayuga chiefs of Six NationsReserve in Canada, but rather with the Onondaga chiefs of Syracuse,N. Y. Thus different variants of the ritual of condolence have de-veloped on the American side and in Canada, and to some extent theinterpretations of the titles have been localized, and the order of rollcall near its end differs as certain pairs of titles are interpolated inNew York and Canada.The specimen was also submitted to Dr. Frank G. Speck, Professorof Anthropology in the University of Pennsylvania, whose wide fieldexperience among eastern Indians includes a study of Cayuga cere-monialism. Speck recognized the cane immediately as a tally ofnames of Iroquois League chiefs, proportioned by number of repre-sentatives for each of the Five Nations, and suggested that the writerundertake its study.Accordingly, the Cranbrook Institute of Science invited me todescribe the specimen. Between wartime assignments, I took theopportunity afforded by the Cranbrook Institute to visit the SixNations Reserve from September 15 to October 15, 1943, to makeinquiries about the cane and to investigate its history and use inthe Condolence Council. This search was coupled with the work oftranslating texts of the rituals that were collected by my predecessor,the late J. N. B. Hewitt, and by Alexander Goldenweiser for theNational Museum of Canada. Both of these ethnologists had workedat the Six Nations Reserve with Chief John A. Gibson, father ofmy interpreter Simeon, and Hewitt had retained Joshua Buck andChief Abram Charles. To advance the translation of these manu-scripts relating to the Iroquois League, the American Council ofLearned Societies in 1941 had awarded me a grant-in-aid of research.A renewal made in 1942 had not been used, but the Council madeit available for this study in the fall of 1943. Study of the CondolenceCouncil constituted the central problem of field work in the springand fall of 1945, supported by the Viking Fund of New York City,and the present study is written with that background material inmind (Fenton, 1946; and 62d and 63d Annual Reports of the Bureauof American Ethnology).
28 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IllOPINIONS OF EITUALISTS AT SIX NATIONSWhile in the field and between trips during this study I couldcount on the interest of Chief Alex General of the Upper Cayugaband, present holder of the title Deska'heh. On seeing a drawingof the Stick, Chief General confirmed the fact that the front is atally of the 50 chiefs in the League. In this he received the supportof Simeon Gibson in 1943 and the latter's brother Chief John HardyGibson who was installed in 1945 ; the Gibson brothers in 1939 and1940 had mentioned the existence of such a cane. On the ThreeBrothers side, David Thomas sustained the identification, and al-though he is an Onondaga warrior, nevertheless he commands therespect of the chiefs in such matters and they rely on him to speakfor them and to perform principal roles in the Condolence Council,including Eulogy Singer and Speaker of the Requickening Address(Hewitt (Fenton, ed.), 1944).What we have designated the "back" of the stick, because it wasleast obvious in the field, presented more of a problem to informants.When Simeon Gibson looked at it, he was obviously puzzled as toits meaning, save the symbol of the "longhouse with two smokes"which is clear to any Iroquois. He remarked
:
It is too bad that all the Cayuga chiefs are now dead, such as Robert Daveyand Abram Charles, who were living at the time Andrew Spragg used the canewhen singing on the road. It is hard to know [from the characters] just whathe meant; he put down just his own idea.At the time (1943) Simeon doubted that the present singer forthe Cayugas, Charlie Van Every, ever saw the cane, but up until thepresent it has not been possible to question him.To Chief General, however, it is clear that the back of the stickdepicts the beginning of the Hai Hai or Eulogy chant, when thecondoling chiefs of the Four Brothers side first assemble at LowerCayuga Longhouse before starting out on the road to Onondaga.When first they gather at Lower Cayuga, the condoling chiefs appointa man as leading singer to start the Eulogy. Pacing to and fro inthe longhouse, the singer carries the Eulogy through its long intro-duction all the way to the end, as far as it is depicted on the backside of the Condolence cane, before turning the stick to call the nameof the first Mohawk title at the moment that he steps out of thelonghouse door to lead the procession over the road to Onondaga.Recalling the forepart of the Eulogy chant. Chief General was ableto adjust his version to the circular symbols or ciphers (O, and 000),by equating each repetition of the recurrent phrase Hai hai-ih to a
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 29
circle. In other words, it would seem that the symbol O or ooo, thecircles or ciphers, are as notes in a musical scale, indicating high,middle, and low tonal position to the singer. This theory did notwork out entirely, however, particularly after reaching the two parallelsets of linked circles that slant from lower left to upper right (fig. 2,2). Although the next several characters present enigmas, the char-acters depicting a prostrate man illustrate that part of the intro-duction to the Eulogy which sings of the founding chiefs lying intheir graves on the laws that they legislated.One further note on the question of missing pegs, noted in thedescription. John Smoke further told Howard Skye, who recognizedthe cane which he had seen as a child and heard about all his life.One other thing. Whenever a chief dies a peg is pulled out. There is no pegthere when a chief dies. The peg is put back in place whenever they install anew chief.Howard Sl^ye took me to meet old John Smoke in November of1945. When we found him at home, the old Cayuga had contractedto help a white neighbor press hay. With this obligation in mind hewould not discuss the Condolence cane, although he acknowledgedthat the blueprints I showed him were of the cane he had discussedwith my younger interpreter. Copies have since been supplied toseveral of the chiefs at Six Nations. But to postpone this reportuntil after another field trip does not seem warranted, although onecan always get new information.With these leads, we shall proceed presently to a specific analysis.But first let us take up related mnemonic devices and the use of canesin Iroquois ceremonialism before discussing the function and compo-sition of this cane in particular.CANES IN IROQUOIS CEREMONIALISMOld men and supernaturals.—Among the Iroquois, old men andsupernaturals carry canes or stafifs. A stick is a mark of distinctionthat cannot be entirely credited to the Iroquois of Grand River livingamong carriers of British culture in Canada. Essentially the Iroquoisare landsmen, and they are continually traveling on the road. Asyouths and young men they maintain a tradition that Iroquois war-riors are renowned runners; their fathers point to Tom Longboat,who they say in his youth trained by running around the concessionsof Six Nations Reserve wearing rubber boots and later becameCanada's greatest distance runner. Andrew Spragg belonged to thistradition. As middle age approaches men begin to feel knee injuries
30 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illthat have been sustained during lacrosse matches in their twentiesand thirties, and sooner or later they affect a staff when traveling theroads and woodland paths. Simeon Gibson in his fifties always carrieda stick, one of several that he picked up from beside the gate, anotherthat he left at the store where he traded, or that he cut along a fencerow, or retrieved from the roadside where he had cast it for a passingride. This is hardly an individual trait.Rather the staff is deeply rooted in the Iroquois conception of theideal older man. "Old man" has a connotation of affection andrespect. Certain classes of supernaturals are called "Our grand-fathers." This is how the people address, in prayers, both classes ofmaskers, the wooden faces whom the people impersonate by wearingmasks of wood and the Husk-faces; both carry wooden staves. Themasked members of the False-face Society and the Husk-faces com-mand great respect. In praying to the tutelaries whom they represent,the priest says: "And now your cane receives tobacco, which is agreat hickory with its limbs stripped off to the top."All the actors in the ceremony carry peeled staves of hickory ofabout their own height. Likewise, the Husk-faces individually carrystaffs or shorter canes which they dance around. It is presumed thatsuch impersonations of the grandfathers, these masked shamans,project stereotypes of statuses and roles that obtained in former times.The implement of a chief.—Likewise a cane is the implement ofthe chief. Chiefship is the highest status in Iroquois society. Inbecoming a federal chief, one who is destined to serve as an officerof the League, a man gives up the right to follow the war path andputs behind him the glory of individual achievement ; henceforth hislife is tied up with the affairs of the council and his business is peace.This honor seldom befalls a man before his middle years, when itis natural that he should lay aside the war club and take up a staff.The symbolism is fortified, moreover, by the fact that each federalchief has a subchief or deputy who acts as his messenger and some-times his speaker, and this functionary is sometimes referred to as"The Cane" or "The Ear, who sits on the roots of the Tree," thechieftain whose subchief he is (Hewitt, 1920, p. 535). A cane figuresas a status symbol of chiefship in that section of the Deganawi'dahlegend that treats of condoling and installing federal chiefs inoffice. Therefore, the so-called Chief's canes that occur in ethno-logical collections from the Iroquois do not represent necessarily arecent development in woodcarving which followed new tools. Thecane idea is old ; the specimens are of the recent historic period.Other Condolence canes.—The carved cane is a new idea which
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 3
1
came in with the jacknife. So John Echo, an Onondaga of SixNations Reserve, told F. W. Waugh in 1912. Canes were formerlymade of a wood called dnsishaa' ; shafts were cut, dried a little, andbent. Bent-wood canes became a ready source of cash income in thedecades preceding and following 1900. Waugh describes a form forbending round-handled canes which he saw at William Poudry's atTonawanda Reservation. N. Y,, during the same year. After themanner of logs for scraping and working skins, one end rested onthe ground, the high end on two or three legs. The high end wasflattened around a vertical cylinder which was mortised into the log,and a vertical pin placed next to it made a vise and shaping blockfor bending canes, lacrosse sticks, and snowshoe frames. The Iroquoisbend hickory when it is green, and John Echo averred that steamingwas not an old method of wood bending among the Iroquois. Sticksfor snowshoes and so on were generally used round, after dryingjust a little, and then roasted or warmed up beside the fire, whichwas sufficient for bending (Waugh, 1912, Note Book B (Ms.), p. 2'j').In the collections of the National Museum of Canada are fourso-called Chief's canes, which Waugh collected at Six Nations Re-serve in 191 5. Waugh got two of these from Cayuga Chief DavidJack, his principal informant on material culture; he purchased thethird from George Davis (Onondaga), and the fourth came fromhis interpreter, John Jamieson, Jr. (Cayuga) who found it along theroad. (PI. 3, left to right.) The first is a plain, curved-headed caneof hickory which belonged to David Jack's grandmother's husband(Cat. No. III. I. 1035) ; modern canes of this type have the barkstripped from the wood. David Jack gave for cane: da'ditra'^'na'(Cayuga) ; da'ditsha (Onondaga).The second specimen has its handle carved to represent some water-fowl and the shaft is scored in intersecting lateral diamond grids;it belonged to David Jack's grandfather, who was also a chief, andit is said to have passed through the hands of four generationscovering possibly a century, which is roughly the span that the SixNations have occupied the Grand River. (Waugh, 191 2, NotebookNo. 4, front cover (Ms.), and Accession Records, National Museumof Canada, Cat. No. III. I. 1034-)The third specimen is ascribed to the ceremony of installing newchiefs and therefore belongs to this discussion. It was a natural,unworked stick with a knot at the head which was carved readilyinto the effigy of a bear or wolf, and may have suggested its purposeto the maker, although Waugh (191 5, Notebook No. 7, back cover(Ms.)) says that neither corresponds to George Davis' clan which
32 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL, IIIwas deer. Attached to the cane is a single string of wampum : "Thenumber of beads is said to have signified the number of chiefs, thewhite beads indicating the leading chiefs, the blue the Pine Treechiefs. . . . The cane is said to have been used for many generationsfor the purpose described" (Collectors Notes, Accession Records,National Museum of Canada, Cat. No. III. I. 1068 a & b). Thisdatum to the contrary, as we shall see, neither the number of beadsnor the pattern of their arrangement agrees with the grouping ofchiefs by tribes in the Iroquois Confederacy. There are 10 whitebeads, which is precisely the number of Cayuga federal chiefs, butwe are unable to account by this reckoning for the rest (the numberof blue beads) as Pine Tree chiefs. Assuming that the 10 white beadsstand for leading chiefs of committees in the Council of the Leaguewe get nowhere because "Pine Tree" chiefs did not belong to theLeague Council.As we read them, the total number of beads is 38: 10 white and28 blue. Starting at the top of the loop and proceeding counter-clockwise, the arrangement is : 6b, iw, 2b, iw, ib, iw, 2b, iw, 2b, iw,2b, iw, 4b, iw, 2b, iw, 2b, iw, 2b, IW, 3b. Grouping these in pairs,the following rhythmic patterns emerge
:
6-(l), 2-(l), i-(i),2-(l), 2-(l), 2-(l),4-(i).2-(l), 2-(l), 2-(l),3-(o).Whichever way it is read, a similar pattern comes out. But takingit as it stands above, the second and fourth lines of repeated units of3 could refer to the three committees of each of the Mohawk andOneida committees of chiefs in the Bear, Wolf, and Turtle clans,of which the bracketed figure, standing for the white bead, wouldbe the leading chief. The rest of the combinations do not work outsince the total number of beads does not correspond to the rosterof federal chiefs, which is 49 or 50. If the string were intended tosymbolize the federal chiefs in either tribal phratry, the number iswrong, since the chiefs of the Three Brothers side (Mohawk, Onon-daga, Seneca) comprise 31 titles, arranged 3-3-3, 6-1-2-3-2, 2-2-2-2;and the chiefs of the Younger Nations or Four Brothers side (beingonly Oneida and Cayuga in Five Nations) are 19 titles, arranged3-3-3, and 2-3-3-2.The fourth cane (Cat. No. III. I. 1037) is one of those freaks ofnature, a spiral produced by climbing bittersweet, that the Iroquois
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 33love to get for a walking stick. Evidently its owner did not prizeit highly, since he left it by the road.Another carved Chief's cane was seen in the Royal Ontario Museumof Archaeology (Toronto), it being part of the Chiefswood collectionof Miss Evelyn H. C. Johnson (Cat. No. HD 12622). It once be-longed to Daniel Springer of Six Nations Reserve, Brantford. Itis Janus-faced and measures 31.5 inches. (PI. 4, a and b.)There are two such canes from the Huron or Iroquois of easternCanada in the ethnological collections of the Provincial Museumof Quebec. No information is available on their provenience, exceptthat they belonged to the Government before the establishment of theQuebec Provincial Archives Office and were transferred to theArchives without accession records, if such existed. One bears thehead of a dog or wolf, and the rope motif of the stick appears torepresent grass snakes, according to Dr. Antoine Roy, Quebec Pro-vincial Archivist, to whom I am indebted for the photograph and foran intensive search.^^ (PI. 4, c and d.)Four fine examples of carved canes were collected in 1918 byS. A. Barrett in western New York and Ontario for the MilwaukeePublic Museum. These specimens were seen and examined brieflyduring a visit to the museum August 27, 1947, thanks to the courtesyof the curator, Robert Ritzenthaler, and since then both he andDr. W. C. McKern have supplied data from Barrett's field notes,which did not accompany the specimens or were not evident in thecatalog. The two finest specimens of Chief's canes bear animal-effigyhandles, bear and wolf. (PI. 5, a and b, and pi. 6, fig, i.) The bear-effigy cane (Cat. No. 54,962/16,425) was found in the Museumwithout data. The wolf-effigy (Cat. No. 24,598/6158) ingeniouslyswallows the shaft of the cane which measures 37.5 inches. (PI. 6,fig. I, b.) Collected in Ontario in 1918, it obviously comes from SixNations Reserve. A third, obviously quite modern, is crudely done;it also has the wolf effigy; and on it is carved the title S'agogen'he'and the year 1918. (PI. 5, d, and pi. 6, fig. 2, b.) The title is thatof the twelfth chief on the Onondaga list in the League Council, andmeans "he saw them" or "he saw the people." The main interest thatattaches to the specimen is the proof that individual chiefs had carvedcanes, and here is one bearing his title, a clan effigy, and the probabledate of his installation. Unfortunately, the legend does not appearin the illustration, and the catalog number is not at hand.Greater interest attaches to the fourth cane in another connection.
^7 Roy, Antoine, personal communication, April 16, May 5, 1947.
34 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IllWhile not a Chief's cane, it is in character. On the head of a vine-spiraled stick has been carved a miniature False-face. (PI. 6, fig. 2, a.)The specimen (Cat. No. 24,103/6084) is recorded as collected amongthe Senecas of Cattaraugus Reservation in western New York byBarrett in 1918, but according to his field notes it was carried by theman who is annually elected to lead the march of the False-faces fromone council house to the other at the Midwinter Festival. The latternotes about the cane are in a section marked Onondaga and mayrefer to the Six Nations Reserve.^*Parker collected and published (1916, p. 112) a record staff forthe Condolence and Installation ceremony of a League chief ; it isa round staff with one flattened surface on which are drawn picto-graphs (illustrated, p. iii), 18 in number, which refer to stations inthe Requickening Address, but not to the roll call of chiefs. Thespecimen is in the New York State Museum (Cat. No. 36907). Thepictographs, nevertheless, show affinity to the drawings on the caneof Andrew Spragg, which are in the same style.In the winter of 1941 Chief Joe Williams of Seneca Longhouseat Six Nations on Grand River, showed me a Chief's cane of a typethat resembles the stick of George Davis, already described, in theNational Museum of Canada. None of the above specimens, however,is like the specimen under discussion.The brothers Simeon and Hardy Gibson came the closest to de-scribing a cane that they had seen in use among the Lower Cayugaand which had the precise arrangement of pegs for denominatingthe chiefs, although it was a simple mnemonic and lacked accompany-ing pictographs. In fact, Simeon volunteered to reproduce such a caneand he was more accurate in describing it than his brother. We madea drawing at the time of the interview but no such cane ever material-ized (fig. i,b). Starting at the top, which he gave a swordlike handle,Simeon said that it would have three groups of three pegs for thethree committees of Mohawk chiefs, with the same repeated for theOneida chiefs, followed by groups six, one, two, three, and two in aline for the Onondaga chiefs, an arrangement of two, three, three, andtwo for the Cayuga chiefs, and four groups of two for the Senecas.Except that they were spaced in groups or committees, the pegs ex-tended in a continuous line from the top to the end of the roster, nearthe foot of the cane. Groups of chiefs were separated by a line, andtwo lines segregated tribal councils.In another interview Hardy Gibson arranged the tribes in phratries18 McKern, W. C, personal communication, October 2, 1947.
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OP IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 35and grouped the chiefs in committees across the cane (fig. i, c). Hisarrangement called for Mohawk at the top, Seneca and Onondaganear the center; then a double line to separate this moiety of tribesfrom the Cayuga and Oneida toward the foot. Such arrangement,of course, resembles the seating of the tribal councils at the SixNations Court House in Ohsweken. (Hewitt, 1944, p. 85; Hewittand Fenton, 1945, p. 306.) Hardy's arrangement of pegs on thecane entailed three horizontal rows of three dots for the Mohawk,two rows of three and a row of two, or three rows of two—Hardywas uncertain—for the Seneca; he was not sure of the Onondagaarrangement ; but the Cayuga he knew was a row of two, two rowsof three, and another row of two, and Oneida simply repeats Mohawk.Lacking the cane at rehearsals, they use white corn, Hardy recalled,so the arrangement of pegs on the stick is the pattern for laying downcorn at rehearsals for the Condolence Council.Cane for Moccasin game at chiefs wake.—Collateral support forthe roll-call stick comes from two other wooden records from theIroquois of Six Nations Reserve. In June of 1916 J. N. B. Hewittcollected a rather nice example of a cane with a crook for use inthe Moccasin game at a chief's wake (37th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer.Ethnol., p. 14, 1923) (pi. 7 of this paper). This unusual specimen(U.S.N.M. No. 384288) had not been described at Mr. Hewitt'spassing (1937), and his notes on it are scanty indeed, being limitedto a single page (B.A.E. Ms. No. 3506). Thirty years is a long timefor a people to do without a bit of ritual paraphernalia, so that smalllikelihood remains that diligent inquiry will discover how the canefunctions in the Moccasin game or how its symbolism serves toprompt condolence speakers. Nevertheless, among specimens seenin the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology in November 1945,Howard Skye identified No. 19,836 as a bundle of stick countersused in the Moccasin game, of which 50 is the number used for achild, the full 100 being for an adult. The counters are of whitepine, as is the drum beater which accompanies them. At the wake,clans divide into phratries and sit on opposite benches. Four moc-casins are placed on the floor between them, the pile of counters atone side. The singers have the drum, and one of their number hidesa bullet or stone in one of the moccasins before him; the seekershave the wooden pointer or cane. The man who has the cane picksone moccasin. If he finds the loaded one on the first try, that endsthe singing; but if he fails, the pointer goes to the man next to himand the singers continue. At each miss the singers (hiders) get onepoint. When the opposing side finds the object, they receive a
36 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illpoint (?) and the drum. At the last song, along about daybreak, themaster of ceremony burns the counters one at a time—each counterrepresents a spirit, a ghost—and he also burns the drum stick, andhe breaks and burns the pointer. He removes the head of the drum.How, then, these specimens survived for museum collections isremarkable.Possibly the photographs of the stick published here to illustrateMr. Hewitt's brief notes that follow will promote a favorable oppor-tunity for someone to observe the Moccasin game at Grand Riverand augment our meager data on the relation of the symbols to thecontent of speeches. Brantford, June 30, 1916.Notes on cane with crook used in Moccasin game:
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 37PI. 7,fig.rf4th design represents "his lodge" (a typical log 4cabin on Six NationsReserve)5th design '" "the world" (paths) 5[Cf. 6 and 7 on back of cane, which this and the following reverse andcombine.] 76th design represents "winding path of the dead" 8For some obscure reason Hewitt and his informant failed toenumerate and interpret tv^o units, of vi^hich there are eight, on thisside of the cane. Following the house (No. 4) are two square units,the first of which resembles No. 7 on the back, "hall of ineeting,"with addition of diagonal lines, indicating that death has altered thisassembly in some way; and the next or sixth unit, which is quitesimilar to No. 6 on the back, "all are notified." Then would followthe winding paths of "the world," and the "winding path of thedead," with its dentate margins like the string of black wampumsymbolized in the third unit on the back.The cane measures 38 inches over-all (pi. 7, fig. a), including thecrook which has the effigy of a bear, possibly the clan eponym of itsmaker, at its head. The material is of white hickory (Carya glabra(Mill.)).Vision stick of Seneca prophet.—The second wooden record fromthe Six Nations Reserve pertains to the revelation of Handsome Lake,the Seneca prophet; it is a pine stave some 31 1 inches in length, amaximum width of i^f inches, and a maximum thickness of 9/16inch. It is soiled with long use, and broken with a longitudinal diag-onal break that has been repaired ; and it is fitted with an eye at thetop of proper dimension to admit the speaker's index finger. Dr. S. A.Barrett collected the specimen in 191 8 on the Grand River for theMilwaukee Public Museum (Cat. No. 24601/61 58), but from whomwe do not know, and efforts to reach Dr. Barrett by letter have failedto elicit further information. While no data accompany the specimen,the incised pictographs are so clear that one may compare the legendwith Parker's "Code of Handsome Lake" (1913) and recognize thebeginning at Dyononh'sadegen, "Burnt-house" (Cornplanter Reserva-tion) , when the Four Messengers appeared to the prophet in the monthof May, 1799. (PI. 8.) Rather than attempt a description of thisspecimen now and an analysis of its pictographs, suffice it to say thatthe drawings of houses, plants, and the human figures are in the samestyle as the figures on the roll-call stick of A. Spragg. The HandsomeLake stick, which is in character with the message and prayer sticksof the Shawnee and Kickapoo prophets, deserves a separate paper.
38 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IllIt is now established how the cane features in Iroquois ceremonial-ism and social life. Sometimes the cane is combined with themnemonic record stick, but the latter has a separate form more nearlyresembling the prayer and record sticks of Central Algonquianprophets and may refer to the same time level. Iroquois pictographshave a consistent style, the figures of humans maintaining a broad-shouldered narrow-hipped consistency found in war memorials of theeighteenth century. ROLL CALLS OF OTHER FORMSRoll-call zvampum.—One of the most interesting records that hasbeen ascribed to the period of the founding of the League is a roll-callwampum from the Mohawk of Six Nations Reserve that is now inthe safekeeping of the National Museum of Canada. In describing thespecimen. Diamond Jenness (1933, pp. 25-26) calls it the ". . .covenant or Magna Charta of the League . . ., the record of itsfoundation and organization, made by the Iroquois women at thecommand of Dekanawida and his associates. . . ." The late MohawkChief William Loft related the tradition that
. . . Dekanaivida appointed fifty sachems from the five nations, . . . , madethem join hands in a circle, and ordained that they should be of equal rank andbear individual titles. That they might remember their titles and position in thecouncil house, he then devised this wampum record, which he entrusted to thekeeping of an outstanding warrior, . . . who bore the title Sharenhhonwaneh,"Majestic Tree," . . . first sachem of the wolf clan in the Mohawk nation.The successors to this title . . . remained the official keepers of the recorddown to . . . Chief Loft himself . . .Loft told how during the Revolutionary War it was buried by itskeeper inside a brass kettle where it remained 8 years, to be dug upat the instance of Joseph Brant who obtained it for the ceremony ofrekindling the council fire of the Five Nations on the banks of theGrand River in Canada.The record contains upward of 1,800 white wampum beads towhich Jenness attributes considerable antiquity, since X-rays showthat they are drilled from both ends. The record is formed into alarge circle by two entwined strings which symbolize "respectivelythe Great Peace and the Great Law" that were established with thebeginnings of the League; and from the entwined circle depend 50pendant strings to represent the 50 chiefs of the confederacy. "Thatrepresenting the seventh Onondaga sachem, Hononwiyendeh, . . .keeper of all the records of the League, is slightly longer . . .", serv-ing as a guide in reading the record and in laying it out. Jenness says(p. 26) that the circle was laid down with all the pendants turned in
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 39toward the center and with the long pendant representing the Onon-daga wampum keeper to the left of the join in the circle. (Themuseum photographer in laying out the specimen inadvertently re-versed it, or the negative was printed in reverse, to contradict thedescription in the text, because in the plate (p. 29) the long stringappears at the right. The wampum circle is also illustrated in Jenness,"Indians of Canada" (p. 136, 1932), in a different orientation withthe long string at the upper left, as his text states.) Beginning at thejoin and reading counterclockwise (clockwise in the published plate),there are 14 strings for the Onondaga federal chiefs, of which thelong string is number 7 reading counterclockwise in the Onondagagroup, then returning to the join and reading clockwise, 8 for theSeneca, 9 for the Mohawk, 9 for the Oneida, and finally 10 for theCayuga. This left the Cayuga at the right of the Onondaga. Jenness'information goes on to state that it was in this order that thecouncil sat.There the Mohawk, if they were introducing a question, referred it first tothe sachems of the Seneca nation, who sat on their right. When the Senecagave their judgment the Mohawk referred it to the sachems of the Oneida andCayuga. Lastly, the Mohawk laid it before the sachems of the Onondaga, whocould express an independent opinion only if the other nations had disagreed.
... if the nations failed to reach a unanimous agreement the matter was to bereferred to the council of matrons for decision. [P. 26.]The wampum circle groups the Onondaga chiefs at the right, theSenecas and Mohawks on their left, and the Cayugas and Oneidason their right ; we note first that the chiefs are grouped into two greatmoieties of 31 and 19 chiefs respectively, the first comprising theMohawk, Seneca, and Onondaga, the other the Cayuga and Oneida,Second, the arrangement of tribal councils and sequence around thecircle, or fire, is not the order of the roll call in the Condolence Councilritual which proceeds the length of the Longhouse of the League, fromits east door, the Mohawk, to the western door of the Seneca. Third,if the Onondaga were seated north of the fire as they sat at Ohswekenon Grand River, the wampum circle would place the Seneca andMohawk on their left, and the Cayuga and Oneida on the right ; whichwas their relative orientation, but it is my impression that in theOhsweken council house the Mohawk chiefs sat immediately nextto the Onondaga with Seneca chiefs at one remove, and likewise theOneida on the right (west) and Cayuga and chiefs of other nationsnear the door. Finally, the ring of chiefs around the council fire morenearly symbolizes the order of business around the council fire ofthe League than it does the seating of chiefs (unless this changed in
40 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illlater times) or the roll call of the League. This argument, nonetheless,does not deny that one who understood it could employ the mnemoniccircle of wampum for enumerating the chiefs of the confederacy.List of chiefs by Seth Newhouse.—Toward the end of the nine-teenth century the Iroquois record keepers had ceased to rely entirelyupon wampum strings and other devices for remembering the roll callof chiefs. From a list of chiefs in the missionary orthography thatwas instituted by the Anglicans and the S. P, C. G. (Society for thePropagation of the Christian Gospel) for writing Mohawk and print-ing hymnals and prayer books it is clear how the ancient mnemonicswere combined and labeled with the new writing. The manuscript,which was among Mr. Hewitt's papers in the Bureau of AmericanEthnology, was evidently written by some Iroquois scribe, who wasfamiliar with both systems, on a piece of folded letter stationerybearing in the upper left corner of page i the circular seal of whatappears to be "C. R. Chisholm & Co." around a wood-burning loco-motive. Informants on the Six Nations Reserve recognized the name,which is hardly legible, as Chisholm, a firm of Toronto lawyers whohad been retained by the Six Nations chiefs ; and Hilton M, Hill knewan A. G. Chisholm, barrister, who was solicitor for the Six Nationsin the Grand River Navigation Claim and who had died about 1942.A. G. Chisholm, barrister, had offices in London, Ontario, accordingto Charles Cooke, retired member of the Indian Department, Ottawa.Mr. Hill declared that the document is not in the hand of Josiah Hill,for many years secretary of the Six Nations council, but suggestedtwo other possibilities. Chief William Loft spoke Mohawk, and hewas a great penman and natural artist, as witness the memorial inburnt leather which hangs in the council house at Ohsweken; he wasthe only man who could speak the Mohawk of the League ritual andwho could write well, and he died about 1939 or 1940. But it is morethan likely that Seth Newhouse was the scribe. Newhouse manu-scripts in the archive of the Bureau of American Ethnology are inthe same hand, which suggests that this Mohawk chronicler andcodifier of custom law printed the list on a borrowed sheet of lawyers'stationery. The identification both supports and is confirmed by theanalysis of a recently discovered Iroquois Constitution which is thework of Newhouse (Fenton, 1949, p. 144).Apart from the list of chiefs, on the margin of the first page appearsthe mnemonic system for remembering how many titles belong to thefive tribes, how the tribal councils are spaced to signify intertribal re-lations, and what are the classes of chiefs in each tribal council—allnicely labeled by tribe, and enumerated into 16 classes (pi. 9, and
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 4I
fig. I, d). Why Newhouse stopped at i6, the first Seneca class, remainsa mystery, for 19 classes or committees may be distinguished (fig.I, a). The mnemonic is almost the same as the one on the cane, andit is identical to the pattern f01 laying out kernels of corn at rehearsals.It would seem that Newhouse had started with an old system andthen proceeded to his list. The same names appear as headings forthe tribal rosters, and the numbered classes of chiefs are transferredfrom the mnemonic to the list itself where the titles are carefullyspelled out (pis. 9 and 10). Newhouse recorded the same mnemonicas well as the titles, also in his great work on the Constitution (Fenton,1949).Numbers in parentheses are written in bold ink. They are followedby penciled capitals, U.M. and L.M., in some cases, denoting UpperMohawk band and Lower Mohawk band, respectively.In the same hand at the very top of the sheet is written "(U.M.are cousins)"; beneath the first tribal name in parentheses appears:"One totem of another family of the same totem are brothers."(PI. 9-)The second page has been altered less than the first. Penciled ad-dition upper right. The notes on the Ball and Eel clans at 23 and 29are in longhand purple ink. A suffix has been added in pencil to 25,making the name correspond to modern usage ; the enumerator whoadded numbers changed the prefix on 29. (PI. 10.)Penciled notes link the 8 Seneca chiefs together in pairs : "i and 2are cousins"; 45 and 46 are cousins; 47 and 48; 49 and 50. (Pis. 11and 12.)Mnemonic pictographs of Chief Abram Charles.—Based on thesame mnemonic but of a different character from the list just de-scribed are the mnemonic pictographs of Cayuga chief Abram Charleswhich Hewitt collected and partly described and which the writerbrought out as a footnote to the present study (Hewitt and Fenton,1945). Chief Charles could not write or read such a list as his con-temporary prepared, so he reverted to an older method for illustratingthe spatial arrangement of tribes and tribal rosters. He recorded aseries of grouped dots in the arrangement that he followed in layingdown kernels of corn when instructing Eulogy singers in the roll callof chiefs, and the identical pattern is found in the arrangement ofpegs on the Cayuga Condolence cane (fig. i, a and h). Moreover,he composed pictographic representations of the titles, which againhave a general resemblance to the pictographs on the cane.Pattern for laying down corn at rehearsals.—There seem to be two
42 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill
slightly different arrangements for putting down kernels of corn atrehearsals. The first arrangement is a straight-line sequence, stag-gering the tribal rosters and grouping chiefs of a class closely together.It appears in Charles' notebook (Hewitt and Fenton, 1945, pp. 304-305), in the cane diagram by S. Gibson, and on the Cranbrook cane(fig. I, a and b). Possibly this is the method of the Cayugas. Thesecond arrangement retains the straight-line sequence for groups ofchiefs that are related as brothers to express phratric alignment, butdiffers from the first in putting down pairs of kernels laterally tosymbolize a cousin or intermoiety relationship that obtains betweenleading chiefs who share the roles of firekeepers, doorkeepers, andmay be noted in the arrangements of the Onondaga, Cayuga, andparticularly the Seneca tribal rosters (fig. i, c, d, e). The second isan Onondaga pattern ; it is employed in the manuscript lists of SethNewhouse; and I observed the mnemonic in operation among theOnondaga at a rehearsal which I attended on the Six Nations Reserve,Canada, on November 18, 1945. The several mnemonics are con-trasted in the accompanying illustration (fig. i). A possible thirdentirely lateral arrangement was recalled by Chief John Hardy Gibson(Cayuga) in 1940 which has already been described (p. 34) ; sincehe had participated with his Seneca father on the Three Brothersside of Condolence Councils, his is probably not a Cayuga arrange-ment (fig. I, c).FUNCTION: A REMINDER TO THE EULOGY SINGERREHEARSALSThe cane served to remind the Eulogy singer during rehearsalsand in the actual ceremony of the Condolence Council. When, forexample, the Three Brothers (Mohawk-Onondaga-Seneca) receivethe short white string of wampum notifying them that one matronof the Four Brothers (Oneida, Cayuga, etc.), whom the Cayugaspeaker represents, is ready to install a chief, they confer to set adate for the installation which usually is held 30 days afterward. Thedate of the Condolence Council may not be set for summer, but itmust be held in the fall after the crops are in and the plants arefrosted, or it may be held in early spring before the buds are on, butlate enough so that the paths are not muddy, for which reason theautumn is far preferable.^" The chiefs on both sides meet nearly every19 The tabu on singing the Condolence ritual rests harder on modern ritualiststhan it did on their grandfathers. At present the chiefs will not consider thequestion of a Condolence between spring and fall. It is considered too sacred
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 43other night to rehearse the songs during the weeks preceding theinstallation.At rehearsals of the Four Brothers (Oneida, Cayuga, and depen-dent tribes) the cane was present, but when it was not they used whitecorn, setting out a kernel for each of the Six Songs and for each ofthe 50 chiefs denominated in the roll call. The Three Brothers, lack-ing the cane, merely use corn.Only the Cayugas had a cane. Spragg was its keeper, and ChiefAlex General remembers that the usual way at rehearsals in thelifetime of Chief Abram Charles (mother's brother of my informantChief John Hardy Gibson who was installed as his successor in 1945)was that they made a kettle of corn soup for a midnight feast. Kernelsof com were employed for teaching neophytes the order of the rollcall. Chief Charles used to lay down a kernel of corn for each man(chiefship title), telling the relationship of that status to other chiefsin the same group, the groupings in the tribal council, and the relation-ships between the tribes of the League. Chief Charles called thename for each kernel of corn as he put it down. All watched. Whenhe got through he would say, "Now, who is going to try it?" Someindividual would volunteer and take the cane to aid his memory.The learning process extended to other members of the household,including daughters. A daughter of Chief Charles, the late Mrs.George Buck, recalled how her sister, then a little girl, could gothrough the whole Condolence ritual, and that after a rehearsal shewould take a cane and pace back and forth inside the house chantingthe Eulogy and calling the names of the founders, which she hadlearned by hearing her father instruct the men. No woman, however,to our knowledge undertook this role at a public ceremony. Never-theless, we can understand how matrons carry the ceremonial cultureand critically audit the ceremonies of the chiefs whom they install.The Three Brothers side who do not have the cane use the corn.They used to rehearse at the home of my interpreter, Howard Skye,himself a Cayuga as were both his parents, because it was centralto the Onondaga neighborhood. Skye is treasurer of the OnondagaLonghouse; his father was deputy chief to Abram Charles. In re-hearsing, the Onondaga chiefs and their colleagues used six kernelsto sing or discuss between condolences—"too sacred to play with." In 1883 aCondolence was held at Onondaga Longhouse on Grand River in July, aftermany postponements (Hale, 1895, p. 48), which is much later in the seasonthan accepted native theory will allow or the present chiefs will admit. AndDavid Boyle attended one in early May of 1905 at the same place (Boyle, 1906,p. 56).
44 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illof corn for the Six Songs, and one for each of the 50 chiefs. Of hisearly education in the ceremony, Howard said
:
It is a strange thing, but when I was a small boy, I could name all of the50 chiefs in the League. An old man came and stayed at our house one winter.He drew a set of pictures like those of Abram Charles [Hewitt and Fenton,1945] and taught me from them. I learned all of the roll call. When I wasabout 12, I left the Reserve, my father having died, and I went out among thewhites to work, staying until about 1930, when I came home some 15 years ago.How the Iroquois learn a ceremony was brought home to me whenI attended a rehearsal at the Onondaga Longhouse with Howard Skyeon the afternoon of November 18, 1945. It was strictly a men's affair,only chiefs and warriors being present, and the atmosphere was in-formal but restrained. Opposite the single door, two parallel bencheshad been placed where the chiefs hold council at the men's fire.Onondaga Chief Joseph Logan ( Dehadoda' • ho' ) was in charge. Heopened the meeting with the regular prayer of thanksgiving, andannounced why they were met. At the far end of the bench nearesthim he laid out the 15 strings of Requickening wampums, from leftto right, starting with the first three, then a space and the rest, inorder toward the women's fire, so that the fifteenth string lay acrossthe end of the bench and the first about 18 inches away. He merelynamed the strings as he put them down, and discussed them with hiscolleague David Thomas who later made the Requickening Addressin the ceremony. During most of the rehearsal "Dawit" concentratedon the strings, apparently going over the "words" in his mind.The order of ceremony is always reversed in rehearsal, accordingto Howard Skye, which bothered me as I had thought that Requicken-ing came last. Secondly, they alternate singers by condolences ; DavidThomas having sung the previous fall, the role this time fell to RoyBuck, a relatively young man in his thirties. In this way the rolesare shifted among individuals and a knowledge of the ceremony isshared and preserved.Chief Logan having laid out the wampum strings, Roy Buck putdown the corn. Starting near the end of the bench by the firstwampum string and proceeding in the opposite direction, right to left,he first laid out 6 kernels for the Six Songs. Then toward themidline of the bench, 8 kernels in 4 lateral pairs for the Seneca chiefs
;
then over the midline and to the left, 10 kernels for the Cayugas, alateral pair of doorkeepers, a line of 2 groups of 3, and anotherlateral pair for the firekeepers. One of the latter kernels, I was told,which represented the vacancy to be filled at the installation, shouldhave been placed to one side, but Roy Buck as a learner neglected this
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 45bit of ritual, and Chief Logan who ordinarily lays out the corn atrehearsals overlooked the omission. The other chiefs present, if anyone of them noticed the lapse, failed to mention it. The purpose isobviously to remind the Eulogy singer when he reaches the vacanttitle to insert appropriate phrases of tribute (Fenton, 1946, p. 116).Going back over the midline to the side of the Seneca, kernels wereput down for the 14 Onondaga lords, as illustrated (fig. i, e) ; nextcame the 9 Oneidas in a line of 3 three's ; and likewise the Mohawks,but over the line on the side of the Three Brothers. When he hadfinished the League was laid out in moieties.^"The ritual of the Six Songs was led by Roy Buck, the last songbeing reserved to sing after the first part of the following chant, justas in the ceremony. Over the Forest was entrusted to Peter John,a Mohawk of about 60, who had the words written out in a notebookinto which I suspect he had copied them from Hale. He stood up,adjusted his spectacles, and paced to and fro with a cane, holdingthe notebook in one hand. Over the Forest (first part) was followedby the sixth song.As in the ceremony, each song of the six is raised by a leader whotraverses the whole length of the song before it is picked up by thechoir of chiefs and repeated. All who desire to learn sit in with thechiefs or behind them. Among them I noted William (Billy) Buck,the accomplished Seneca singer, who had recorded for me in 1941.He was mastering these six songs to add to his already considerablerepertoire.Over the Forest (part 2) followed, and here Peter John madefrequent reference to his notes. No one else seems to know this chant.Since he later performed this role in the ceremony, it appears thatno one else is learning it.Not so with the roll call or Eulogy, which also devolved on RoyBuck. From his place near the bench where the corn lay, young Buckstood with a cane and paced the length of the house to the far wall,where he turned abruptly each time and came back slowly chanting.I mention this cane because the Onondagas do not have a specialCondolence cane, but nevertheless a stout, bent-wood cane is used.Each time a title is sung out in the roll call, the chiefs of that nation
.
20 Since I was unable to make notes at the time, no objection was taken tomy reproducing the diagram on the flat sides of one lead pencil with the pointof another. The chiefs present, if they noticed my industry, seemed to thinkit quite appropriate for me to reproduce the mnemonic. Notes were writtenafterward.
46 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illcry : Yo he ; hi and the others answer : 3;^ /(The first is high, the second low, rising, and the last abrupt.)While this was going on, Chief Logan and David Thomas, theprincipal professors of the rites, sat back and let the younger manperform. Chief Peter Buck, father of the tyro, sat by as his sonrehearsed. Chief Buck himself later performed this role inside thelonghouse, after his son had carried the Eulogy over the road, onthe day of the installation. Chief William Sandy and others of theelder chiefs studiously watched the corn on the singers bench as theyoung man went through the roll call. As the singer completed theroster of each nation, the chiefs present raised the yo hefor each group denominated. The rehearsal thus is a session ofeducation in ritual.USE CONFINED TO THE LOWER CAYUGA BANDThat a cane was an indispensable symbol of officialdom on bothsides of the League should be evident from the way singers of theCondolence rites were trained at Six Nations to pace the length ofthe house, cane in hand. Hale ( 1895, pp. 53-54) noted this, while Boyle(1906) failed to mention it; and Boyle is especially disappointingsince he accompanied the party of the clear-minded from LowerCayuga Longhouse to Onondaga Longhouse on an occasion whenA. Spragg should have been at his prime. Neither the man nor hiscane receive notice.Although both sides used canes, the specimen in question was con-fined to the Cayugas. All informants agree. Simeon Gibson assertedthat while the Onondagas (Three Brothers) did not use the cane, hesupposed that conceivably they could use it because it had the namesof the chiefs on it in pictures. David Thomas agreed with my observa-tions that the Onondagas manage to get through the ceremony withoutsuch a cane. During the many occasions when Simeon Gibson ac-companied his blind father. Chief John Arthur Gibson, and his father'sbrother. Chief George Gibson (Senecas), to condolence and installa-tion ceremonies, the latter always sang on the road for the ThreeBrothers, and he never used the cane with pegs and pictographs. "Hecarried an ordinary bent-wood cane, for the singer on the road alwayscarries a cane."If a singer on the road always had a cane, and if the specimen inquestion is the cane which Andrew Spragg carried when singing forthe Four Brothers side, we can understand how that particular onecame to be associated with the Lower Cayuga band and that phratry
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 47of the League called the Four Brothers side of which the Cayugastake the leading roles among the Six Nations of Grand River. Anduntil recently reproduced from drawings supplied by Cranbrook In-stitute, no other such decorated specimen was known to informants.USE IN THE CONDOLENCE COUNCILJourneying on the road to the woods' edge.—On the day of theCondolence Council, when the Four Brothers install a new chief onthe Three Brothers side, chiefs and warriors of the Four Brothersmeet at Lower Cayuga Longhouse at about ii o'clock and rehearse.The one who was appointed to sing on the road formerly carried thecane while chanting the Eulogy or roll call. Meanwhile, the ThreeBrothers are cooking at Onondaga and they send down their warriorswith a portion of food for the rehearsing chiefs at Lower Cayuga.When ready to set out on the road for Onondaga, the Four Brothersdispatch a messenger, a warrior who is supposed to run the distance.As the runner enters Onondaga Longhouse to deliver the message,the mourning chiefs present stand and listen.The Eulogy to the Founders of the League, or the roll call, com-mences at the fire of the clear-minded. This chant has four names : (i)it is called simply Hai Hai, a general name for the entire CondolenceCouncil ; (2) Hai Hai at'ahino''ge, "the chant for going on the road"
;
(3) hodihwisa''g hodinohsyoni • di, "they founded the League of theLonghouse" ; and (4) ijdathhnuhse'dedakhkwa', "calHng at anotherhouse," or "what a nation uses for calling at another nation's house."And the singer of this chant carries the cane, mentioning all thechiefs by name who were founders, by classes and nations to whichthey yet belong. This was the role at which Andrew Spragg distin-guished himself.The introductory part of the Eulogy, of 18 phrases covered bysymbols on the back of the cane, is chanted inside the longhouse ofthe clear-minded, and when the singer reaches the first title of theroll call, he goes out the door to take up the path to the fire of themourners. On the road the condoling chiefs march to the place ofinstallation in twos, forming a procession behind the singer with thecane. The Hai Hai has ancient cultural roots ; it is mentioned in theliterature on the Huron Feast of the Dead as the cry of the soulsmarching from the burial platforms to an ossuary in another village
;
Bruyas ( 1862, p. 23) noted the root "to take up the path" ; its openingstanzas refer to the long-dead founders lying in their graves nowovergrown with grass and brush having put the League as a pillow
48 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illto their heads; and the procession of condoling chiefs symbolicallycarries the bones of the dead chief whose place they are about to fill byraising up another. Hai Hai was a peace chant too. It is said that inthe year 1661 "Atreouati . . . entered Montreal, crying 'Hay Hay,'which is a sign of peace. He was immediately received. They madehim presents and good cheer, but as he went out he killed two menwho were roofing a house" (Shea, 1880, p. 310). The French knewfull well that the Iroquois were not above treachery on occasion.None of my informants claims to have followed Spragg on theroad, so I have no first-hand account of his behavior in this role.Simeon Gibson, who was always on the Three Brothers side with hisfather, remembered meeting the column of Cayuga condolers at thesmall fire beside the woods, or Onondaga common, where they greetone another with a speech of welcome, called At the Woodside, orat the edge of the brush. This is the place where the mourners shalltake the condolers by the arm and lead them to the longhouse wherethe main part of the ceremony is completed. Simeon remembered thatAndrew Spragg was always carrying the cane as leading singer com-ing over the road. The singer calls out the names of the chiefs onthe road, and if he comes to the end of the roll call before arriving atthe fire, which is always kindled within sight of the longhouse, he mustrepeat from the beginning until he gets there. He stops singing atonce on arriving at the fire, and the procession following him drawsnear to the fire and forms a line, opposite the Three Brothers acrossthe fire.During the ceremonies which ensue at the woods' edge, the leaderon the road stands by, others making the speeches, until the marchis resumed to the council house (cf. Fenton, 1946, p. 112). In theprotocol that is observed beside the little fire, which is kindled at theside of the road at the border between the village common and theline of thorny brush which once marked the wilderness, we have avestige of an ancient custom that was invariably observed by friendor foe in approaching another town. The messenger going ahead ofthe party, the cries that were shouted over the forest, and messagesticks all notified the receiving chiefs that the visitors would put downtheir packs at the edge of the clearing and wait until they werereceived.After the reception, the condoling singer resumes his song, follow-ing two warriors who have been appointed to take the leaders by thearm and lead the party to the principal bench inside the longhouse. Onreaching the longhouse he stops singing at the door and goes back to
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 49the beginning of the chant. At this point usually his place is takenby another who has been appointed to sing inside the house.Inside the longhouse.—"The singer picks up the cane used on theroad" to repeat the Eulogy to the Founders from its very beginningto its end, walking up and down inside the longhouse. When he com-pletes the roster, the singer who has carried the ceremony to the othernation's house picks up his cane, which ends his role and the use of thecane in the ceremony. It was the latter use of the cane (already noted,p. 22) in the ceremony of July 17, 1883, at Onondaga Longhousewhich Hale (1895, pp. 53-54) observed. Since Hale does not mentionthat the staff carried was enhanced with pegs and pictographs we shallnever know whether it was the present specimen.SPECIFIC INTERPRETATIONThe Eulogy to the Founders of the League, which is the proces-sional hymn of the Condolence Council, holds the key to interpretingthe symbols on the cane. Like the two sides of the cane, it is dividedinto an introductory Eulogy to the dead founders and a long rollcall. Having now described and identified the stick, and showed thefunctional relationship of the pictographs and the mnemonic com-prised of pegs to the performance of the Eulogy chant, it remains toanalyze the text of the chant itself in order that we may interpret thespecific symbolism involved. Although Hewitt had abundant evidencefor making such an identification, it was not until I had discussed thespecimen at great length with Cayuga Chief Alex General that I wasable to make headway with the problem and utilize Hewitt's materialsand the manuscripts of Seth Newhouse. Likewise the program of theritual of which the Eulogy is a part became clear only on observinga Condolence Council in 1945.BACK : INTRODUCTION TO THE EULOGYNotes for the Introduction to the Eulogy follow the nameA. SPRAG on the back of the stick. By holding a blueprint of thestick before him as he chanted the Eulogy, Deskaheh (Chief General)was able to adjust his Mohawk version to the drawings. Mohawkis the original language of the chant ; Onondaga, which is now muchused and was frequently dictated by Hewitt's informants, soundsdifferent. We have checked Chief General's version against texts ofthe late Cayuga Chief Abram Charles (B.A.E. Ms. No. 1281-a) andHale (1883) and find that, although he may not be letter perfect, hisversion is in character and fits. Other manuscripts of the version in
50 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illuse by the Three Brothers side from Seneca Chief John A. Gibson(B.A.E. Ms. No. 890, 1907) (and Gibson to Goldenweiser, 1916—Ms.in my possession) and Onondaga Chief Joshua Buck (B.A.E. Ms.No. 1281-b, 1917 and 1920) were dictated in Onondaga primarily anddo not fit the cane as nicely. Similar recordings were made for me byDavid Thomas in 1945. The order of the introduction in no twoof these versions is precisely the same, for the "words" come indifferent order, tenses vary, and some variation appears in versionsgiven Hewitt by the same informant at later sittings. My suspicionis that no two performers are ever precisely alike. Rather than re-produce here any one of the texts completely, it is the sequence ofthe pictographs and their possible meaning which concerns us.Eighteen words or phrases are supposed to preface the roll call.It comes out to about 18 sentences or lines of poetry in the chantbefore the singer turns over the stick to commence the roll call,stepping out of the door to take up the path when he announces thefirst founder. Accordingly, having written the translation of severalversions on separate sheets and compared them, it became possibleto divide the recurrent phrases or elements and assign them to ap-propriate symbols. More than this, the exercise enabled me to runa blueprint of the back of the cane through the typewriter and write inthe margins the appropriate lines beside the pictographs (fig. 2). Someidea of the poetry is found in the version of Chief General (1943).Hai Hai (repeat four times; eight in all; and after each line below) :Now to commence at the beginning,Your grandchildren rightNow take up the path;May you excuse themIf here and there in the ritualThey shall not perform it in orderThe way that you used to do itWhen all the words were togetherAs you established it.
Now only abandoned fields overlieThe places where your bones rest,Where buried beneath your heads,Where you lie on it as a mat,Where you rest on it as a pillow.Where you have taken it (into your graves),What you established (the League).
ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON
Scattered places overgrown with brushWhere your heads rest in your graves,Where you have it under your heads,What indeed you established (the League).
Patches of soft lawn cover the placesWhere you met to legislate,When still you employed all the words,Ye founders of the Great Peace.5You did erect a great tree (elevate a chief).You have reinforced the house (the League).Here the singer turns over the cane, calls upon the founders to listen,and steps out of the longhouse and sets out on the road as he calls thefirst title Tekariho'kenh.The version of Cayuga Chief (Tharles, although in Onondaga, cor-responds closely. Recall that he and Spragg were neighbors and thatCharles also had made a set of mnemonic pictographs. His openingverse is longer, and the second begs the pardon of the founders forerrors of sequence. The third adds a metaphor, "There the overspread-ing trees ; all is covered with forest" to preface "abandoned fields . . .overgrown with brush."The Gibson version, though shorter, opens differently.
Hear us then ye proprietors.You did complete it,The Great Peace,Hail Grandsires.Now it has grown old.There indeed it is overgrown with brush.Where your bones lie buried.Are also the words (laws) as laid down, (etc.) . . .Seth Newhouse in his manuscript of 1885 speaks of the Eulogyas "Pacification" or the Confederating Hymn (Ron-wa-di-nonh-senh-deh-thah), attributing it to Dekanawidah, author of the League(Fenton, 1949, p. 145). He succeeded in dividing it into 30 verses
52 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illand inserted the roster of founders obtained from Hale's informant,Old Smoke Johnson (i793?-i887), who used the orthography whichAnglican missionaries had devised for Mohawk. Let us see howNewhouse, who wrote in both Indian English and in his native Mo-hawk, framed his lines.
I am glad, I am glad, Now hear ye. I am glad,I am glad. The Rules of the Great Peace. I am glad,I am glad, Which have been established by you. I am glad,I am glad. Now it has become an ancient rule. I am glad.
I am glad, Nothing now remains. I am glad,I am glad. But bushes here and there. I am glad,I am glad. Your bones are now in the graves. I am glad,I am glad, Ye who have made the Rules.—I am glad.
I am glad, Ye have taken there with you. I am glad,I am glad. There you have them under you. I am glad,I am glad. Really there are only deserted fields. I am glad,I am glad. There your brains are buried. I am glad.
I am glad, There ye have them under your heads. I am glad,I am glad. Ye who have made the Rules. I am glad,I am glad. You have taken them with you. I am glad,I am glad, Ye have the rules under you as a mat. I am glad.
I am glad. You did establish the rules. I am glad,I am glad, Of the Great Peace. I am glad,I am glad. Now indeed, I am glad. Hear ye, I am glad.I am glad. Ye who were rulers (founders). I am glad,I am glad, Teh-ka-rih-ho-kenl I am glad (etc.).Now as to the cane (fig. 2), Beneath the name A SPRAG comeapproximately eight circles, which, I judge, may stand for the repeti-tion of Hai Hai, that many times (i, a). I am at a loss to interpretthe five tracks beside the circles (i, h), unless, possibly, they standfor the Five Nations which are denominated by the titles of their fiveleading chiefs
—
Tekarihoken, Odatchehdeh, Adodarhonh, Deka'en-yonh, and Skanyadariyoh—in the preface to the version of JoshuaBuck. (Cf. pi. 7, b.)
NO, 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 53Accepting as a second design unit circles connected by lines and adot within a circle. Chief General thought that the dot and circlemeant the "completed League" as orignally established (2, a) ; thepath through the villages of the Five Nations, which the condolersfollow, is represented by a line from a circle through four dots(2, b) ; and the next figure, a line connecting two circles, but passingbetween five dots (2, c), I have assigned to the phrases which begthe founders to excuse errors of sequence and ommission in theceremony as they anciently performed it when all the words weretogether.The next figure obviously refers to heads in graves, where thefounders have taken with them what they decreed (3). Certain itemsappear beneath the surface, and the broken lines toward the sod inthe next figure express movement.The sod line (4, a) represents : "Now only abandoned fields overliethe places where your bones rest upon the things which you estab-lished" (4, b).So with the next unit : ". . . overgrown with brush (overspreadingtrees, forests) (5, a), where you are lying on the mat of the law(5. b), where you have put it under your head as a pillow . . .(5, c), what indeed you established (the League)" (6, a). On thecontrary. Chief General thought this figure (dot and circle) refersto grassy plots where they anciently met to legislate.Next come a procession of leading chiefs of the Five Nationswearing horns of office going on the path (6, b) toward the longhousewith two smokes (7), which goes with the line: "You have reinforced(strengthened) the house (the League)" (via the Condolence Coun-cil). It also stands for their destination where the main part of theceremony is performed, and, finally, where the new chief is to beraised (8). The last figure of the man is also a reminder to insertspecial praise to the Dead Chief when the singer reaches the vacanttitle (on the obverse side of the cane). "You did erect a great tree"is the line that applies here, since the chief is likened to a pine treebeneath which the people sit.FRONT : THE ROLL CALL OF THE FOUNDERSThe Roll Call of the Founders of the League occupies the frontof the stick (fig. 3). Here laid out, after the manner of kernels atrehearsal, may be seen at a glance the space relationship of the fivetribes, how they are grouped in phratries and divided into moieties.Closer examination reveals the number of chiefs in each tribe, the
54 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illcomposition of committees or classes, and for each peg the title issuggested by a mnemonic pictograph. Clearly the space mnemonicby which the pegs are arranged is fundamental; the pictographs aresecondary.Thus we see the League of 50 chiefs laid out in two halves: onthe right, one moiety comprises the phratry of the Mohawk-Onon-daga-Seneca, the Three Brothers side, who are known as Sires(Uncles), Elder Brothers; and, on the left, the other moiety of theOffspring (Nephews), Cousins, Younger Brothers comprises but thephratry of the Oneida-Cayuga, which is now known as the FourBrothers side, since the younger brothers of the League on the GrandRiver had under their wing dependent nations including Tuscaroraand Delaware, not to mention Saponi, Tutelo, and Nanticoke. Sincenone of the latter was involved in the founding of the League, theylack the right of condolence.The rosters of member tribes are, moreover, grouped accordingto classes or committees of chiefs in accordance with their numberand function as follows
:
1. Mohawk 3-3-3.2. Oneida 3-3-3.3. Onondaga (2-2-2) 6-1-2-3-2.4. Cayuga 2-3-3-2.5. Seneca 2-2-2-2.Note at once that the tribal phratries are composed of a moiety of3 nations and another of 2, and that precisely 2 and 3 are the pre-dominate units of grouping chiefs in tribal councils. Note also thatthe Mohawk and Oneida each had three clans of three maternalfamilies each. The other nations, who group their chiefs in mul-tiples of two and three, favor the moiety system.The arrangement of the pegs on the cane agrees exactly with thespace relation charts which Hewitt had from Chief Abram Charles(Hewitt and Fenton, 1945, pp. 304-305). Chief Charles and A.Spragg were neighbors.The mnemonic can be made to yield something else which it meansto Iroquois ritualists. With the help of Chief Charles, Hewitt madea chart which shows how the chiefs variously grouped relate to eachother as siblings and cousins. The cousin relation is not apparent inthe arrangement of pegs on the cane, although it shows up when laidout in corn. Further field work will clarify the kinship terms as theycrop up in the Eulogy. It is not self-evident how, for example, Onon-daga 25 is an "uncle" both ways ; and the Cayuga have self-recipro-cating terms for 33-34 who are "sons to each other."
A. Sprag
JL
(singer of the ^Eulogy and "" t -]Roll Call) ^>^n



NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 55The chart can be arranged two ways—in order of tribes, as Hewitthad it, or by tribal phratries. In either case, siblings appear vertically
;
cousins across.
-Relationships and groupings of the federal chiefs by tribes {after Hewitt).Siblings read vertically; cousins across, within columns.I II III IV VM Oe Oa C S
1 10 19-20 33-34 43-442 T II W 213 12 22 35 45-4623 364 13 24 Z7 47-485 W 14 T6 15 25 38 49-50397 16 26-27 40SB 17 B9 18 28 41-42
31-32T—Turtle clan, W—Wolf clan, B—Bear clan.
B.—Relationships and groupings of the federal chiefs into tiuo moieties of tribalphratries as on the cane. Read siblings vertically; cousins across.Four Brothers (younger) Three Brothers (elder)Nephews UnclesOffspring Sires
I M23456
56 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IllFour Brothers (younger) Three Brothers (elder)Nephews UnclesOffspring SiresII Oe10II12131415 i617i8 III Oa19-20212223242526-2728293031-32IV C33-343536zi38394041-42 V s43-4445-4647-4849-50
NO, 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 57In attempting to relate the roll call to the pictographs, earlier listsof chiefs were examined and tabulated and several manuscript ver-sions of the Eulogy were analyzed. Morgan published repeatedly alist of federal chiefships in Seneca, which he had from Ely S. Parker(Morgan, 1851 (1901, vol. i, p. 60); 1878, p. 130; 1881, p. 30).The list is divided into classes, approximately the same number asin the above tables, which Morgan thought comprised the chiefs ofthe original confederating towns. Eighteen classes would mean thatmany towns. There were 12 such towns in the seventeenth century(Fenton, 1940). The cane calls for 19 groupings, and so do all otherlists taken from the Grand River Iroquois. So we are faced withthe possibility that Morgan's Seneca informant was mistaken, or thata different tradition had grown up since the division of the Leaguetribes after the American Revolution into an American faction atOnondaga, Tonawanda, Buffalo Creek, Cattaraugus, and AlleghenyReservations on the American side, and the Six Nations on GrandRiver, Ontario.Morgan's list does not agree with the order of pictographs on thecane. Such agreement as first appeared seemed to warrant placingthe pictographs from the cane alongside Morgan's list in the sametable. Results were disappointing and frustrating. Correspondenceswere fairly close for the Onondaga roster, precise for the Cayugaroster, and the Seneca roster which Morgan's informant knew bestbegins and ends like the Grand River lists, but the third to sixthSeneca titles are completely inverted. Lloyd, editor of later editionsof Morgan's League (vol. 2, p. 212), notes the discrepancies betweenMorgan's list and that of Hale (1883), and adds remarks and dif-ferences based on the list of Chadwick (1897, p. 86).Hale had his information from Old Smoke Johnson, and theChadwick list came from Chief Josiah Hill in the orthography whichwas then in use for the official list at Ohsweken (Chadwick, p. 97).Both lists are the then official Grand River version. There is a stillearlier list dated 1847 from Peter Green, about which we have nosupporting information. None of these lists quite fits the cane in themiddle of the Seneca roster. Even the list of Seneca Chief John A.Gibson (A. A. Goldenweiser, Ms. 1912, pp. 450-462), which other-wise agrees, inverts 45 and 46 in the Seneca roster. So it is likelythat the inversions in the official Grand River lists represent theversion used by the Three Brothers, whereas the cane was a Cayugadocument.Our problem here is not to find out who was right and who waswrong, but to find a list which fits the cane exactly. For such a list
^8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IllI turned to the contemporaries and neighbors of A. Spragg amongthe Lower Cayugas. As is so often the case, the problem solved itselfwhile attempting to solve two others.In 1945, while editing a paper of Hewitt's on Iroquois mnemonicpictographs which involved identifying a set of similar pictographswhich Cayuga Chief Charles had inscribed in a notebook, I founda list that would fit the cane. Hewitt obtained from Chief Charlesin 191 7 a complete text in Onondaga for the Eulogy, together withan independent list of chiefs whose clan eponyms are differentiated(B.A.E. Mss. Nos. 1281-a, 3558). Like many of his contemporarieson the Six Nations Reserve, Chief Charles used another dialect thanthe language of his tribe—in this case Onondaga, although he was aCayuga. In early 1948 a similar identification was made of a listin Mohawk by Seth Newhouse (Fenton, 1949). By typing both listson opposite sides of a blueprint of the cane, the titles opposite thepegs in sequence, I reached a precise correspondence for the picto-graphs in Mohawk of 1885 and in Onondaga of 191 7.Title and pictograph.—The meaning of the pictographs dependson how the titles of the 50 founders are interpreted. This was theproblem of the lists and how to get correspondence. The interpreta-tion of the titles is subject to the vagaries that attend the meaningsof all Iroquois personal names. Names descend in the maternalfamily, usually skipping a generation, and such names as have becomeattached to offices, which also descend with the name in the maternalfamily, acquire special qualities. Many of these titles are descriptiveof activities in which the original holder was found engaged whenthe League was formed. Others were maternal family and clan namesthen in use. As such they may be shared by the same clan in anothertribe, where perhaps the name is not attached to an office. Dialectand folklore have altered the names. They are also subject to con-tinual reinterpretation by native theorists. The roll call of the 50founders is supposed to be chanted in Mohawk ; but it also enumeratesrosters of Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca chiefs whose titlesmust have originated in the several tribal dialects before the Leaguewas formed. Onondaga, Seneca, and Cayuga ritualists render thetitles differently. With the titles has descended a body of lore tellingwhat the founders were up to when discovered by Deganawi'dah andHiawatha. Dialect slowly alters the titles and their meanings, andfolklore shifts more rapidly, engendering controversy among tribalritualists as to just what the titles do mean. Hale quite honestly heldthat the meanings of many of the names were lost, and that they hadin fact become titles. For purposes of describing the Cayuga Con-
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 59dolence cane, it is important first to know how A. Spragg read thepictographs, and next how Chief Charles, the principal whom herepresented in singing on the road, interpreted the titles. We aredependent upon Hewitt's notes, and what the writer has learned fromcontemporary informants.The Molmzvk pictographs.— i. Dekarihokenh (Newhouse, 1885),Dega • iho • 'gen' (Charles, 1917), "It separates or divides the matter,of two opinions, offices" (S. Gibson) ; "Between two statements"(Hale, 1883, pp. 77-78); "Double speech" (Chadwick). The fork,between parallel lines in this pictograph, appears in the Charleslists (Hewitt and Fenton, 1945, p. 307). "Of two opinions" be-cause he opposed the League, but was divided in thought, andwas finally appeased by accepting the leading chiefship of the Mohawk(A. General).2. Ayonhwathah; Hayen'wen''tha', "He who combs" (Morgan);"Seeks the wampum" (Hale) ; "He sifts with a bark sieve" (Hewitt) ;"Early riser" (S. Gibson). This culture hero is said to have combedthe snakes from the hair of the Onondaga shaman, Thadoda-'ho',straightening his mind. The first approached by Deganawi'dah, firstto cooperate, he could not sleep, and rose early and related his ex-perience. They named him "Early riser" or "He who is awake"(General). The pictograph suggests a comb.3. Sha'dekariwadeh, Sha'dega-ihwa-'de', "Matters of equal height,level words." Five vertical marks, topped by a horizontal, expressthe idea.These three Turtle clan chiefs formed the first phratry of founders.4. Sharenhowaneh, Shaenho • 'na', "He the great tree trunk";"Great tree top" (Hale); "Loftiest tree" (Chadwick). The loftytree with great branches and bifed roots is depicted.5. Deyoenhegwenh, Deyon'heh'gwi", "It lives by two life givers"(Hewitt) ; "Double Hfe" (Hale) ; "Tenacious of Hfe." This isproperly the name of a certain shrub, which has great tenacity of Hfe,according to Chief George Johnson (Hale 1883, p. 155), and pos-sibly this is the plant so carefully illustrated. One of the ferns(Polystichum acrostichoides (Michx.) Schott.) has this name. Thename is also associated with the cultivated plants, corn particularly.6. Orenregowah, Oenhe"go-na", "Great white eagle" (Hewitt).Such a bird is depicted. Hale's theory does not apply.This was the number of the Wolf clan chiefs.7. Dehennakarineh, Dehenna'ga-i'ne*, Tehenna'kariine', "His twohorns are moving along, dragging antlers." The pictograph is of anantler, the symbolic horn of office.
6o SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill8. Rastawenseronthah, Ha'stawen'serontha*, Ha'stawen'sen'tha',"He attaches rattles to it" (Hewitt) ; "Hanging up rattles" (Mor-gan) ; "Puts on the rattles" (Hale) ; "Holding the rattles" (Chad-wick) ; "Enters with rattle" (S, Gibson). What may be intended fora series of three gourd rattles, one above another, is shown in thepictograph.9. Shoskoarowaneh, Shosgoharo • 'waneh, Shosgoha-i'nan, "He thegreat branch." "Great wood drift" was an interpretation favored byHale and Hewitt. But the outline of a tree branch appears clearlyon all lists of pictographs by Chief Charles, and on the cane.The latter three founders were of the Bear clan, and complete theroster of Mohawk chiefs.The Oneida pictographs.—The following chiefs are considered"Offspring" of the first. The reciprocal form "son of each other"(Hale, 1883, p. 156), which would be the case with two intermarryingmoieties, appears in some versions, but generally the Oneida arethought to be "Son" and the Mohawk "Father."ID. Odatshedeh, Ho'datche''de', "He bears a quiver" (by a foreheadstrap), "He carries a fawn skin pouch" (Hewitt) ; "Bearing a quiver"(Hale). "Carries a quiver" is the usual meaning. The pictograph isa crude representation of the leading Oneida chief who has behindhis shoulder what may be interpreted as a quiver with two arrows.Without knowing what was intended the drawing would be of littlehelp. The quiver idea is more prominent in Chief Charles' drawing.11. Kanongweniyah, Kanon'kwen'yo'don', "Standing ears of corn(corncobs)," "One has set upright several ears of corn" (Hewitt) ;"Setting up ears of corn in a row" (Hale). Such was the mannerof roasting corn (Morgan, 1901, vol. 2, p. 30). The pictograph isan upright ear of corn.12. Deyohagwendeh, Deyo'ha'gwen'de', "Through the opening"(?). The meaning is uncertain and interpretations vary. Hewittthought the aperture favored "It has a gullet," or "Difficult swal-lower," ideas supported by the Charles drawings. "Between theopenings (of the forest)," said Simeon Gibson, on the authority ofthe Deganawi'dah legend which describes this chief as passing withouttrace through the forest. Morgan supports him. All these versionswere discussed in a note by Hale who favored "Open voice." Somesort of aperture is intended by the drawing.These three were the Wolf clan chiefs, and were the presidinggroup in the Oneida council.13. Shononses, Shonon'"ses, Shonon'hsese', "His house is verylong" (Hewitt); "His long house" (Hale). The gable of a house
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 61is prominent in all sets of drawings, sometimes the doorway is shown,and the cane pictograph appears to indicate a type of log house whichwas formerly constructed on the Grand River with the logs set invertical position.14. Dehonareken, Daona'roken'ah, Tehone'oken'ah, De'na-egen"a',"He the small forked root" (Hewitt); "Two branches" (Hale)."Two words (voices) meet" dwenaigen'a (Oa.), dodwennaigen'ah(C.)) (S.Gibson).15. Adyadonneatha, Hadya'tonnen'tha*, "He swallows an object(body)" (Hewitt) (Morgan); "He slides himself down" (Hale),or "His body is swaying" (Gibson). A body is prominent in all thedrawings and on the cane; Chief Charles favored "swallowing" asthe root idea ; but the pictograph on the cane stresses a massive body,elbows and knees flexed, faceless, withal like the seventeenth-centurywar records, illustrated in the Paris Document of 1666 (O'Callaghan,1849, vol. I, p. 23).The second group of Oneida chiefs numbers the last three of theTurtle clan.16. Adahoneayenh, Dewada-hon'den'yonk, "Two ears hanging,""Pendulous vibrating ears" (as if slit) (S. Gibson). The latter, citingthe Deganawi'dah legend, stated that this chief when first seen hadenormous ears that had probably been slit for the insertion of feathers,leaves, etc., which on removal left the helix and lobe to hang vibrating."Moving his ears" is the current interpretation (H. Skye). A largeear is figured.17. Ronyadashayouh, Ronya'dasha-'yonk (M.), Ganiya'dasha-'yen'(Oa.), "A pouch (of fawn skin) resting" (Hewitt), "Swallowsslowly" (S. Gibson), "Easy throat" (Hale). At best obscure, aswitness Hale (1883, p. 157). The pouch theory is favored by thedrawing on the cane and the Charles drawings.18. Ronwatshadonhonh, Honwatsaton'honh (M.), Honwatca'don''-hwi' (Oa.), "One has covered him with fog" (Hewitt), "He iscovered with mist" (S. Gibson), Hale's "He is buried" is not sup-ported by the drawings, which show a man enshrouded with vapor.The pictograph on the cane shows a face and head having some sortof covering protruding above which does not appear to be mist.The latter three were the Bear clan chiefs of the Oneida, and assuch were cousins to the other six.This was the roster of the Oneida chiefs.The Onondaga pictographs.—The next are the "uncles, the namebearers."
S2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill19. Adodarhonh, Dehadoda-'ho', Thadoda-'"ho*, "Ensnarled." Leg-end gave the Onondaga shaman a head of snakes, which Hayowenthaand Deganawi'dah combed free. The pictograph is Medusa-like. Thisoffice was formerly in the Bear clan, now Deer.20. Awennisera, One'sa''hen', Gane'sa''hen', meaning uncertain.Hale's informant favored "Best soil uppermost" ; current Onondagaopinion leans to gane'sa • 'hen, "On the middle of a field" (Skye). "Atied bundle" (S. Gibson) ; "In the center of a coil, circle, or stretchedhide" (Skye). A circle with a dot in the center was drawn by ChiefCharles, but the symbol on the cane suggested a hide (or scalp)stretched on a hoop, with a mark at its center.The Eulogy text makes this chief "cousin" of 19; Beaver clanclaims the office.21. Dehatkadons, Dehatga''don's, Tha • tga''dons, "He looks bothways (or around), On watch." "Two-sighted" (vigilant) (Chad-wick). The pictograph and the name offer a theory for interpretingJanus-faced tobacco pipes from the area (Wardle, 1949). It seemslikely that a chief of this name would favor such a pipe, and thetheory has ethnological validity, since it is also supported by a Janus-faced cane (pi. 4). Also Beaver clan. Twenty and twenty-one arecousins of nineteen.22. Yadajiwakenh, Honya'dadji-'wak, Hoya'daji-'wak, "His throatis sour (or black)," or "His sour body" (Skye). "Bitter body"(Morgan), "Bitter throat" (Hale). The pictograph is of no helpin deciding the meaning. Small Plover or Snipe clan. This chiefand the next two form a phratry.23. Awekenyat, Awe*gen''hyat, "On the surface of the water.""The end of its journey" (Hale). A water plant grows in stringsof vegetation in the creeks at midsummer, its ends trailing on thesurface (H. Skye). The figure with knob at top perhaps representsthis plant. The office is ascribed to Sharp-shinned Hawk clan ("Ball"by error) (Hewitt).24. Dehayatgwareh, Dehaya'tgwa-'e', Thayatgwa-'e', "On one sideof his leaning body" (?) (Gibson) (Hale), "Both his wings areoutspread" (Skye). Hale got both interpretations. The pictographleans, but more nearly resembles a wing. "Red wings" (Chadwick).Turtle clan.The first six Onondaga chiefs are "firekeepers," the executive com-mittee of the Confederacy. Hale suggests that they may have beenoriginally of one clan, the Bear, that of their leader.25. Ononwireh(-tonh), Honowie''di', "He conceals, covers it"(Gibson); "He causes it to sink" (H. Skye). Hale supports the
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 63latter. "When they saw him first he was seated by the river castingchips into the water, presumably of beech which would sink to thebottom" (Smoke-Skye). A very important chief constituting a classby himself, he has special responsibilities as keeper of the wampumsfor the Confederacy. As archivist he was called upon to settle dis-putes. The Eulogy says of him, "Then he alone was son (offspringof the preceding), He the Great Wolf, on whom their minds de-pend. . . ." Note that his was the only office in the entire roll callwhich constituted a class by itself. Naturally the Wolf clan claimsthe title, and the eponymous animal appears next to the ideographfor the name.26. Oewenniseroni, Gowennen'shen'donk, Gawenne'sen'donh, "Hervoice is hanging," or "Hanging strings" (S. Gibson) ; "Her voicesuspended" (Hale) . The meaning is obscure and it has become indeeda title. It is impossible to know what about one-quarter of the titlesmeant four centuries ago. The inscriber of the cane engraved astepped character inclined to the right, which also occurs on theCharles drawings. With reference to 25, the Eulogy speaks of thistitle (26) and (27), "And these were his uncles, the two fireplaces"(clans). Hale (1883, p. 159) says: "The five chiefs who followprobably bore some peculiar political relation to . . . [25]." Deerclan still claims 26 and 27 ; Eel clan 28-30.27. Arirhonh, Ha"hi''hon', "He spills, tips it" (Gibson) ; "Spilled"or "Scattered" (Hale). I am unable to reconcile either interpretationwith the foolish-looking character on the cane, unless some idea ofmental derangement is intended.28. Oewayonhnyeanih, Hoyonnyen'ni', "He was made to do it"(H. Skye) ; "Somebody made it for him" (S. Gibson). The meaningis not clear ; Hale found no satisfactory explanation. The ideographis not self-evident. This office and the next two belong to Eel clan,forming a phratry.29. (Tho)Sadegwaseh, Shodegwa-'sen', or Shodegwa-'shon', "Hethe bruiser," or "He smashes it again" (Gibson) ; "Bruised repeatedly"(Skye). Cf. 35. "He is bruised" (Hale). The pictograph is a clawhammer of a square-ended type made in the nineteenth century. Aball-headed war club would have been more appropriate and probablywould have been illustrated a century earlier. Eel clan.30. Sakokeaeh, S'hagogen"'he', or Shagogen''he • ', "He saw thepeople" (Gibson), "He sees her (them) occasionally" (Skye). "Hesaw them" (Hale). The Iroquois use the third person singularnonmasculine, or "feminine," form to stand for society. "He sawher" is what the illustrator of the cane had in mind, for the pictograph
64 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Illshows a man facing a woman. This was the number of the Eel danchiefs.31. Se'a wi, Ho'sa'ha-'hwi", "He bears aloft a torch" (Gibson) ;possibly just a title, although the Onondagas sometimes discuss thepossibility of Hoda'skwisha'hwi', "He bears a tomahawk in his belt"(H. SI<ye). Hale (1883, p. 159) agrees. The pictograph is probablyintended for a hatchet. Turtle clan had this office in Hale's day. Thisis the title which determines whether the roll call comprises 49 or 50founders of the League. The name appears in the first writing of theAbram Charles Eulogy text (p. 16), but at the bottom of the samepage occurs, "1923 He says again Ho'sa'ha''hwi' is not a title of afederal chief." Nevertheless, this name is recounted in the roll call,an Onondaga chief has been installed in this title, and in recent timesa controversy arose between Onondaga partisans of a full council andCayuga conservatives or ritual sticklers as to whether this title be-longed to a separate individual, or whether, as the Cayugas maintain,the roles of this and the following status were fulfilled by the sameperson. Andrew Spragg is said to have removed this peg from thecane. Hale seems to have appreciated the situation. The Eulogy textstates that in ancient times the two clans had offspring, as if the lasttwo names were additions to the roster. The first was a peace chief,the second a war chief.32. Skanaawadi, Sganawa-'di', "Across the swamp" (Gibson),"Over the creek" (Hale, Morgan), or "Across the rapid." BothTurtle and Deer clan claim this office. The pictograph favors theinterpretation "Across the creek," since the same ideograph is usedto represent water as will be found at 43. The text says that thisfellow was a great war chief who dispelled the clouds, whose bodywas riven in twain, being both warrior and councilor ; hence the argu-ment that one man occupied both offices. The concept of the splitpersonality is not uncommon in Iroquois culture: the Creator is agood and evil twin, there is a masked spirit with a divided face, 21was Janus-faced, and 32 is sometimes conceived as a man withtomahawk in one hand and peace belt in the other. One holder of thetitle went as a peace ambassador to the Huron in 1648 where hecommitted suicide when his Mohawk allies killed the Huron ambas-sadors returning from Onondaga (Fenton, 1941, p. 116).The Cayuga pictographs.—The Eulogy says that the following are
"offspring" (of the Mohawk, Onondaga, and Seneca), that they inturn had "laid the brush down" for other tribes—Tuscarora, Tutelo,etc.—who came to them—"several clans combined"—and wereadopted. Henceforth their moiety with the Oneida became Four
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 65Brothers. The Cayuga nation was poHtically the son of the Onondaganation (Hale, 1883, p. 161).33. Dekaeayough, Dega'en'yon', Haga'en'yonh, "Wonderer" (S.Gibson) ; "Man frightened" (Morgan), "Looks both ways" (Hale),"When discovered, he was listening on the ground, and they askedhim what he was doing, and he replied, 'I am puzzled, I was listening,and I could hear the weeds growing.'" (H. Skye). This founderseems to have had a touch of natural science curiosity. The ideographis of no help, unless its author, not knowing English, confused"wonder" and "wander," drawing a meander along a straight line.Bear clan claims the title, which Hale ascribed to Deer. The Eulogysays that this founder and the next were as "sons to each other."The matter of these self-reciprocating kinship terms requires furtherinvestigation.34. Tsinondawerhon, Gedji'nondawe''he', Gadjinon'dawe''he', orDji'nondawe-'ya'. The interpretation of this name is uncertain. "Com-ing on its knees" (Hale), "Calls a summons" (?) (Gibson), "Ma-nipulating bugs" (Skye). "Old Da'hon, brother of John Smoke(Cayuga), said, 'Gadji'nonda'weheh was the silliest one of the Chiefs.He was fooling with various bugs when they found him.' " (H. Skye).The ideograph is similar to 33. "Ball" or Hawk clan claims it. Thetwo—33 and 34—as "sons to each other" preside as flrekeepers overthe Cayuga tribal council. As members of clans in opposite moieties,which spatial arrangement is indicated laterally when the relationshippattern is expressed in kernels of corn at rehearsals, they should be
"cousins."35. Kadagwarasonh, Gadagwa-'dji', or Gadagwa-'se', "Bruised,mashed, or softened" (S. Gibson). Hale also noted the similarity ofthis name to 29 (Onondaga). The pictograph may represent a ball-headed war club. Bear clan claims this and the following title; 35through 37 form a phratry.36. Soyouwes, Shoyon'we-s (Oa.), Shoyon'wes (C), "His gutsare long" (S. Gibson) ; "He has a long wampum belt" (Hale, 1883,p. 161). The pictograph favors intestines.37. Watyaseronneh, Hadya'sen'ne' (Oa.), Hagya"t"rone', orHaja"t'rone' (C), "He repeats (rehearses) it" (Gibson); "Heputs one on another, piles it on" (Hale). The pictograph suggestsstacked dishes of elm bark. Turtle clan. This was the number ofthe phratry, the second Cayuga class.The next phratry of three chiefs, of the opposite moiety, are calledyounger brothers. The preceding was known as the Turtle moiety,the next as the Wolf.
66 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill38. Deyohronyonkoh, Deyoen'hyon'go' (Oa.j, or Thowen'hyon'go',Deyoron'hyon'go" (C), "Reaches the sky." A line is drawn to thecelestial dome. Heron clan now has this title, although Charles andHale assign it to Wolf.39. Deyothorehgwen, Deyot"howe''gwi" (Oa.), Deyot'oweh'gwen'(C), "Doubly cold." Duality is again expressed in a double-lensedideograph. Wolf clan.40. Dawenhethon, Diyawen'het''hon' (Oa.), Deyonhwe • 't'on (C),"Two things happen" (double event) (Gibson) ; Thaowethon, "Mossyplace" (Hale). The pictograph remains obscure. The title has beentransferred from Wolf to Snipe clan, since Hale's day.Three is the number of colleagues in the third Cayuga group, butthe next, 41, belongs to the same phratry. He and his colleague, 42,who controls the second group, are of opposite moieties and therefore
"cousins." They two are the "doorkeepers" of the Cayuga council.41. Wadondaherha, Hadonda'he''ha' (Oa.), Hadonda'he • ha (C),"He commences it" (Gibson), "He shoulders a log" (H. Skye), aninterpretation which is sustained by the pictograph of a man support-ing a round object on one shoulder. "Crowding himself in" (Hale).Snipe clan.42. Deskae, Desga''he-', Desga-''he', "He does something" (?);Heskahe, "Resting on it" (Hale). It is not clear what this title meansor what the founder did. The present holder of the title, Chief AlexGeneral of the Upper Cayuga band at Sour Springs, holds that thename means "More than eleven." He is of the Bear clan. The picto-graph remains obscure.This ends the Cayuga roster.From here on the singer looks toward the end of the cane.The Seneca pictographs.—"And then his father's clansmen," saysthe Eulogy. The Seneca as brothers of the Mohawk and Onondagaare uncles to the Cayuga, their offspring.43. Skanyadariyoh, Skanyadai'iyo' (Oa.), Ganioda-'yo' (S.),"Handsome lake," literally, "It is a very large lake." The pictographstands for water. Turtle clan.The Seneca councilors are linked in pairs of opposite moieties. Eachmember of the four pairs calls his colleague by the reciprocal, cousin.44. Shadekaronyes, Sha'degaen"hyes (Oa.), Tca'dage'onye • s (S.),"Skies of equal length," "Level heavens" (Morgan). The pictographis two curved lines of corresponding length and arc, representing thecelestial dome. This founder was leader of the second great divisionof the Senecas, and Snipe clan has consistently held the title both in
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON (yjCanada and in New York. The Senecas have preserved a moietysystem from early times.45. Shakenjohwaneh, Shagen'djo-'wane' (Oa.), S"hagen'djo-na*(Oa.), S'agen''dzo-wa-' (S.), "Great forehead," "He of the largeforehead." A full face with large brow is depicted. This is the Hawkclan chief. Hale (1883, pp. 162-163) remarked the confusion whichhas arisen between Morgan's and his own lists as to the roll call for thesecond and third classes. We follow Chief Charles because his listfits the cane,46. Kanokareh, Ga'no • 'gai' (Oa.), ga''nogai' (S.). No satisfactorytranslation. The pictograph suggests the homophonic word ga'non(S.), "arrow." Tonawanda Seneca lore gives "chewer, biter, killer"(Y. Spring) ; Hale (1883, p. 163) "threatened." Turtle clan.47. Deshanyenah, Nis'hanye'nen't, Nis'hanyenen''nha' (Oa.), Ni'-shanye-nen't (S.), "Falling day" (Morgan), "The day fell down"(Hale). "Falling day" to the Tonawanda Senecas. Snipe clan. I seeno resemblance to this idea in the pictograph.48. Shodyenawat, Sadye'nawat, "He grasps it" (S. Gibson),"Withheld" (Hale) ; Sadjen'nowa's (S.), "Helper" (Spring), "As-sistant" (Morgan). The pictograph supports the Grand River version,
"grasper," showing a hand, bear paw, or turtle foot having five clawsor fingers. Bear clan.The League was gradually extended, and the last two Seneca chiefsheld out for some time. The Eulogy pays them special attention : "Soit befell in ancient times that they considered extending the framework(of the League) by adding great dark roof poles, and selecting twoguardians of the great dark doorway . . ." (which stood to the west)the following:49. Kanonkeridawih (M.), Ganon'gei'da-'wi' (Oa.), Ganonhgi"-dawi' (S.), "Hair singed off," "It broils." Snipe clan; Hale foundBear, but noted Morgan gave Snipe. The pictograph shows the opendoorway, but nothing stands for the title, except possibly a spot torepresent fire.50. Deyohninhohhakarawenh (M.), Deyonin'hoga-"wen' (Oa.),Donihoga-''wen' (S.), "It keeps the doorway open"; literally, "Itholds up the door-flap," referring to the ancient bark or skin doorhinged at its top in the longhouse of the League (Hewitt). "Opendoor" is the simple rendering of Morgan, Hale, and H. Skye. Wolfclan. The symbol is a doorway and house gable.
"This is the roll call of the founders of the Great Peace; HailGrandsires. . . .!"
68 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IllThe Eulogy ends on a note of humility, of regret that the presentgeneration is losing the old ways, and is no longer able to performthe ritual in the manner of the founders. Hale thought that thisdejection of mind was over the loss of a chief whose successor theywere about to install (Hale, 1833, p. 165).EVIDENCE OF AGEEthnological investigation has developed that the age of the speci-men does not carry it back to pre-Columbian times. This does notmean, however, that the specimen may not be an important one orthat the ideas which it memorializes may not have ancient culturalroots. The first fact that struck us about the Cranbrook Condolencecane, the subject of this study, was the apparent disfigurement at oneend and the information that this was ". . . owing to an umbrellahandle having once been fitted to the stick by a former owner, A.Spragge, Grand River Reserve" (Chandler and Hatt to Fenton, per-sonal communication). Although Yankee Spring, my Seneca in-formant, had asserted that the cane was surmounted by an eagle head,Cayuga chiefs who had seen it more often held out for the curvedhandle which they likened to a sword guard. Recent reconstructionsat Grand River have such a handle. Surely if there was any analogydrawn between a sword and the appearance of this record stick inthe minds of Iroquois Indians there was something modern about it.The absence of the Sixth Nation, the Tuscarora, from the recordcan be interpreted two ways. The Tuscarora became part of theLeague in the second decade of the eighteenth century, but they re-mained second-class citizens, never enjoying the rite of Hai Hai, and,although represented, never voted in the council of the League. Onthe basis that they are not listed on the cane, we might say that thecane antedates 1710; but since we know the above, this argumentis irrelevant to dating the specimen. It simply does not have to bethat old.Had the cane dated from the beginnings of the League, as someethnologists at first thought, it would have shown a good deal ofhandling and it would have acquired some patina. While the relationof patina to age is difficult to establish, it is worth while noting thatearly nineteenth-century specimens of known date show more or lesspatina. They look older than the Iroquois cane. On subjectivegrounds the Iroquois stick may not be older than 1850, but patinaremains an unsatisfactory criterion.The mnemonic which the cane carries is probably older than thepictographs. There were canes with pegs only, and the same mnemonic
FOUR BROTHERS SIDE0FF5PRINS (NEPHEWS)
Dawenhethon ko (^Wadondaherha UlDee ka © U2 y
SkanyadariyohShadekaronyesShakenjolnraaehKanokarsh
DeshajreoahShodyenavat
Kanonkerlhdawlh
THREE BROTHERS SIDE5IRES (UNCLES)MOHAWK
-i»^vjj^!!kjgg
Diyawen^het'^hon''
Hadonda' he' ha'Desga'^'he''
SENECAU3 Skanyadal'lyo'kk Sha' degaen' 'hyes
^5 Shagen'djo'wano'k6 Ga? no'gai''
U? Nifl'hanye'nenHhQ Sadye'mvat
(ri k9 Ganon*gei'da-wi'V 50 D«yonln*hogB''wen'"
Fig. 3.—Front of the Condolence cane. The roll call of the Founders of theLeague.

THREE BROTHERS SIDE
Fic. 3.—Front of the Condolence c
I
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 69is laid out in kernels of corn. The pictographs, with certain exceptionswhich resemble early treaty signatures and some war records of theseventeenth century, appear modern and give evidence of having beenworked over and embellished in later times. Certain of them representobjects of recent historic introduction, a type of log house builtat Grand River formerly (13), the nineteenth-century claw hammer(29). They are in character with the drawings of Chief AbramCharles and could almost have been made under his direction.Chief Charles was an advocate for the position that there wereonly 49 chiefs, that the Onondagas had 14 offices held by 13 persons.So was Andrew Spragg. The cane appears to have been equippedwith 50 pegs, including 14 for the Onondagas. The last of these hasbeen cut off, which means that the specimen antedates this controversy,for which we may take the year 1923, when it is first mentioned inHewitt's notes.Besides the alteration of the pegs, the cane shows the marks ofsuccessive owners. The possibility has been indicated that the picto-graphs were added to and altered or worked over by several personswho must have had the specimen in their possession for some time,probably as keepers. A. Spragg went so far as to inscribe his name,and we know that he was its last custodian. John Smoke knew ofthree holders—Ganawado who made it. Sheriff Billy Wage, andSpragg. This takes it back to about 1850, with but one weak linkin the chain. Hale, who saw Billy Wage in action in the summer of1883, does not say that he carried a cane, nor does he describe thestaff carried by Silversmith who took over the role inside the long-house. Allowing 20 years apiece for each of the holders (and thisis generous) we reach the year i860 as the probable date of its manu-facture. This would be in the second or third generation on GrandRiver.Other evidence from related specimens shows that it combinedseveral ancient ideas. Counting with kernels of corn in diagramspermeates Iroquois ceremonialism. The use of canes as symbols ofage status has also been remarked. And we have shown that similartallies and pictographs had earlier cultural beginnings. What wehave then in the present specimen is a synthesis of several culturaltraits which have long historic roots in the past.CONCLUSIONIn this study of the Condolence cane in the Cranbrook Institute wehave tried to show its provenience, to date it within reasonableprobability, to uncover its cultural roots, to explain its function
70 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. Ill
within the Condolence Council, and to interpret its symbolism. It iscertain that Andrew Spragg was a late holder of the ritual and keeperof the cane, which belonged in a way to all the Cayugas. Made some-time after the middle of the nineteenth century, probably about i860,its use was confined to the Lower Cayuga band on the Grand River.Alterations in the specimen reflect local opinion on the Six NationsReserve as to how many federal chiefs founded the League, howthey were arranged, and the order of the roll call. Unquestionablyit was devised on an ancient mnemonic design in order to preservethe memory of the Eulogy chant and roll call and to support theperformance of the Condolence Council for installing new chiefsafter settlement on the Grand River. Although it is now a sacredrelic, and it has been reproduced once more by the Cayugas, theCranbrook specimen does not antedate the American Revolution andthe dissolution of the League in New York. It cannot be referred,therefore, to the period of the founding of the League.The investigation has forced us to study the institution of theCondolence Council. It has succeeded in unraveling the meaning ofthe pictographs and it has demonstrated how they relate to two localversions of the Eulogy chant—Newhouse (1885) and Charles (1917).It poses certain problems of kinship for future field work, since wenow have before us the complete organization chart of the governmentof the Iroquois Confederacy, which was, perhaps, the classic exampleof the kinship state. BIBLIOGRAPHYAberle, S. D.1948. The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico: their land, economy and civilorganization. Amer. Anthrop. Assoc, Mem. No. 70.Beauchamp, William M.1905. Aboriginal use of wood in New York. New York State Mus. Bull.89. Albany.1907. Civil, religious and mourning councils. . . . New York State Mus.Bull. 113. Albany.Boyle, David.1906. The making of a Cayuga chief. Ann. Arch. Rep. Ontario, 1905,pp. 56-58- Toronto.Brinton, Daniel G.1885. The Lenape and their legends, with the complete text and symbolsof the Walam Olum. Philadelphia.Bruvas, R. p. James.1862. Radices verborum Iroquaeorum (Radical words of the Mohawk lan-guage). Shea's Library of American Linguistics, No. 10. CramoisyPress, New York.
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS FENTON 7IBuNZEL, Ruth L,1932. Introduction to Zuni ceremonialism. 47th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer.Ethnol., pp. 467-544.Catlin, George.1848. Notes of eight years' travel and residence in Europe. ... 2 vols.New York.Chadwick, E. M.1897. The people of the Longhouse. Toronto.Clarke, Noah T.1931. The wampum belt collections of the New York State Museum. NewYork State Mus. Bull. 288, pp. 85-121. Albany.Colden, C.1922. The history of the Five Indian Nations of Canada. ... 2 vols.Allerton Book Co., New York.DeVries, David Peter.1857. Voyages from Holland to America, 1632-1644. New York Hist. Soc.Coll. (2), vol. 3, pt. I, pp. 9-136.Fenton, William N.1940. Problems arising from the historic northeastern position of theIroquois. Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 100, pp. 159-251.1941. Iroquois suicide: a study in the stability of a culture pattern. Bur.Amer. Ethnol. Bull. 128, Anthrop. Pap., No. 14, pp. 79-137.1944. Simeon Gibson: Iroquois informant, 1889-1943. Amer. Anthropolo-gist, vol. 46, pp. 231-234.1946. An Iroquois Condolence Council for installing Cayuga chiefs in1945. Journ. Washington Acad. Sci., vol. ZT, No. 4, pp. 110-127.1949. Seth Newhouse's traditional history and constitution of the Iro-quois Confederacy. Proc. Amer. Philos. Soc, vol. 93, No. 2,pp. 141-158. Philadelphia.Flannery, Regina.1939. An analysis of coastal Algonquian culture. Catholic Univ. Amer.,Anthrop. Ser., No. 7. Washington.Foreman, Grant.1946. The last trek of the Indians. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Frachtenberg, Leo J.1913. Contributions to a Tutelo vocabulary. Amer. Anthropologist, n.s.,vol. 15, pp. 477-479-Galloway, William Albert.1943. A sacred slab of the Shawnee prophet. Cranbrook Inst. Sci., NewsLetter, vol. 13, No. i, pp. d-J. Bloomfield Hills, Mich.Hale, Horatio.1883. The Iroquois book of rites. Brinton's Library of Aboriginal Ameri-can Literature, No. 2. Philadelphia.1895. An Iroquois Condolence Council: a study of aboriginal Americansociety and government. Trans. Roy. Soc. Canada, 2d ser.,1895-96, vol. 1, sect. 2, pp. 45-65-Heckewelder, Rev. John.1876. History, manners, and customs of the Indian nations. . . . Mem.Hist. Soc. Pennsylvania, vol. 12. Philadelphia.
72 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IllHewitt, J. N. B.1920. A constitutional league of peace in the stone age of North America.
. . . Ann. Rep. Smithsonian Inst, for 1918, pp. 527-545-1944. The Requickening address of the Iroquois Condolence Council.(W. N. Fenton, ed.) Journ. Washington Acad. Sci., vol. 34, No. 3,pp. 65-85.Hewitt, J. N. B., and Fenton, William N.1945. Some mnemonic pictographs relating to the Iroquois CondolenceCouncil. Journ. Washington Acad. Sci., vol. 35, No. 10, pp. 301-315.Hoffman, W. J.1891. The Mide'wiwin or grand medicine society of the Ojibwa. 7th Ann.Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pp. 143-300.Hunt, George T,1940. The wars of the Iroquois. . . . Madison, Wis.Jenness, D.1932. Indians of Canada. Nat. Mus. Canada, Bull. 65, Ottawa.1933- Three Iroquois wampum records. Nat. Mus, Canada, Ann. Rep.,193 1, PP- 25-29. Ottawa.Jesuit Relations. See Thwaites, Reuben G. (Editor).Kohl, J. G.i860. Kitchi-Gami. Wanderings around Lake Superior. London.Lafitau, J. F.1724. Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains. 2 vols. Paris.Mallery, Garrick.1893. Picture-writing of the American Indians. loth Ann. Rep. Bur.Amer. Ethnol.Mooney, James.1896. The Ghost-dance religion and the Sioux outbreak of 1890. 14thAnn. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pt. 2, pp. 641-1110.1898. Calendar history of the Kiowa Indians. 17th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer.Ethnol., pt. I, pp. 129-444.Morgan, L. H.1878. Ancient society. Henry Holt, New York.1881. Houses and house-life of the American aborigines. Contr. NorthAmer. Ethnol., vol. 4.1901. The League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois. (Rochester, 1851).(H. M. Lloyd, ed.) 2 vols. Dodd, Mead Co., New York.O'Callaghan, E. B.1849-185 1. The documentary history of the State of New York. 4 vols.Vol. 4, 185 1. Albany.Parker, A. C.1916. The constitution of the Five Nations. New York State Mus. Bull.184. Albany.Parkman, F.1851. History of the conspiracy of Pontiac. . . . Boston.Parsons, E. C.1932. Isleta, New Mexico. 47th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pp. 193-466.Russell, Frank.1908. The Pima Indians. 26th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pp. 3-390.
NO. 15 ROLL CALL OF IROQUOIS CHIEFS—FENTON 73Sapir, Edward.1913. A Tutelo vocabulary. Amer. Anthropologist, n.s., vol. 15, pp. 295-297.Sax'ery, William.1844. A journal of the life, travels, and religious labours of. . . . London.Schoolcraft, H. R.1845. Oneota, or characteristics of the red race of America. New Yorkand London.Seaver, James Everett.1932. A narrative of the life of Mary Jemison, the white woman of theGenesee. (C. D. Vail, ed.) Amer. Scenic and Hist. PreservationSoc. New York.Shea, J. G. (Editor).1880. A description of Louisiana ... by Louis Hennepin. New York.Speck, F. G.1942. The Tutelo spirit adoption ceremony. . . . Pennsylvania Hist. Comm.Harrisburg.Spier, Leslie.1933. Yuman tribes of the Gila River. Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago.SwANTON, John R.1928. Aboriginal culture of the southeast. 42d Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer.Ethnol., pp. 673-726.1946. The Indians of the southeastern United States. Bur. Amer. Ethnol.Bull. 137.Thwaites, Reuben G. (Editor).1896-1901. The Jesuit Relations and allied documents, yz vols. Qeveland.1903. Father Louis Hennepin, a new discovery of a vast country in America.2 vols. Chicago.Voegelin, Erminie W.1939- Culture parallels to the Delaware Walam Olum. Proc. Indiana Acad.Sci., vol. 49, pp. 29-31.1942. Notes on Ojibwa-Ottawa pictography. Proc. Indiana Acad. Sci.,vol. 51, pp. 44-47.Wardle, H. Newell.1949. Janus-faced pipes. Pennsylvania Archaeologist, vol. 19, pp. 27-29.Waugh, F. W.1916. Iroquois foods and food preparation. Canada Dep. Mines, Geol.Surv., Mem. 86, Anthrop. Ser., No. 12. Ottawa.White, Leslie A,1932. The Acoma Indians. 47th Ann. Rep. Bur. Amer. Ethnol., pp. 17-192.WiLLOUGHBY, C. C.1938. A Mohawk (Caughnawaga) halter for leading captives. Amer.Anthropologist, n.s., vol. 40, pp. 49-50-Zeisberger, David.1910. History of the northern American Indians. . . . (1779-80). (ArcherButler Hulbert and William Nathaniel Schwarze, eds.) OhioArcheol. and Hist. Soc. Quart., vol. 19, pp. 1-189. Columbus, Ohio.

PLATES

SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS
^SS
1. Grave of Patterson Sprague in lower CayugaCemetery. Six Nations Reserve(R. T. Hatt photograpli.
)
2. A Log House at Sandys Corners. Six NationsReserve, once occupied by Andrew Spragg
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS Vol. Ill, No. 15, PI. 2
THE ROLL Call of the Iroquois chiefsThe Cayuga Condolence cane of Andrew Spragg.
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS Vol. Ill, No. 15, PI. 3
CHIEF'S Canes from the Six nations reserve(National Museum of Canada photograph.)
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VoL 111, No. 15, PL 4
Chief's Canes from Canadaa and /;, Janus-faced cane from Chiefswood collection (Royal Ontario Museumof Archaeology) ; two sides showing face, c and d. Canes from the Huron orIroquois of eastern Canada (Quebec Provincial Museum).
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS Vol 111, No. 15, PI. 5
cfCanes with Clan Effigies, and a False-facea, Bear effigy; h, Wolf effigy; c, False-face or masker; d, the cane of the 12thOnondaga chief S'agogen'he' (No. 30 on the cane). (Milwaukee Public Museumphotographs.)
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VoL 111, No. 15, PI. 6
1. DETAIL OF Clan Effigies on Plate 5a, Bear; l>. Wolf.(Milwaukee Public Aluseum photographs.)
2. DETAIL OF CLAN EFFIGIES ON PLATE 5a. False-face; b. Wolf.(Milwaukee Public Museum photographs.)
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS Vol. Ill, No. 15, PL 7r
a b c ^Cane Used at a Chiefs Wake, Six Nations Reserve
rt. Over-all view of cane (collected by J. N. B. Hewitt. 1916; U.S.N.M No.384288. Division of Ethnologv) : h, front view detail: notice of death and thefuneral ; c, right side detail : wampum belts of notification ; d. lett side detail
:
passage of the soul to the hereafter.
SMITHSOIMIAIM MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS Vol. Ill, No. 15, PI.
Pictorial Record Stick of the Seneca Prophet's Revelation(Milwaukee Public Museum photograph.)
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VoL 111, No. 15, PL 9
/ \ 'i , f ,ji It hi /t>\ nu .
- /v.//// n it //all . X ^^
A //<A n /u (fir i >}/r\ y'O h -. fe go iviili ' r <K:!
~.» •
-J.
.^ • ?
• ••'2.
// A U nun jjf/n )i i ifuh,
r^lto no I veo,IH T)i /to na rtJsC7tff^ I diijiL don /tea dtu. ^Seth newhouse's Roll of the CHrEFs (Ca. 1885)The Mohawk and Oneida rosters with mnemonic.
SMITHSONIAN WIISCELLAMEOUS COLLECTIONS Vol. Ill, No. 15, PI. IC
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VoL 111, No. 15, PL 1]
\ . ^ ( A u,^ ^ifouk (^on /i (t J, J^a . )
^^ \> T^ai non da tv^r /wn , J^TT ^ kv-'^-w-V >: /5^ j/ou i^iy, ^Ific^^yliHy"^ fVu /?/a St /on /u/i.O/ ^/¥Jit J[»n }'0/L ^Oll lo/if ^jo . *Da yic-eofJie^Jt09i^f^
'Waaondaherha, ^/ '-0'-
(^ Jo no7i cU vra ?i(i^)
Seth Newhouses roll of the Chiefs (Ca. 1885)The Cayuga roster.
SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VoL 111 No 15 PI 12
/i// Ska ?iya dari ^jofi, ffS
' S/ia c/c Aa Ton 'jcs, 4^
> ; S'ka /,£ n Joh W-a iieh, ^S^
^ > ;V <. :^kix no kit riliyJ^if Ka noil ke rl/, dan lli,'^ Jf.^(J}l yoh nirt /lak ha ka ra iv* nh ,) SO
x^
SETH NEWHOUSE-S ROLL OF THE CHIEFS (CA. 1885)The Seneca roster.