Chapter 11
THE IROQUOIS LANGUAGE.
As the mental faculties of a people are reflected in their speech, we should naturally expect that the language of a race manifesting such unusual powers as the Iroquois nations have displayed would be of a remarkable character. In this expectation we are not disappointed. The languages of the Huron-Iroquois family belong to what has been termed the polysynthetic class, and are distinguished, even in that class, by a more than ordinary endowment of that variety of forms and fullness of expression for which languages of that type are noted. The best-qualified judges have been the most struck with this peculiar excellence. "The variety of compounds," wrote the accomplished missionary, Brebeuf, concerning the Huron tongue, "is very great; it is the key to the secret of their language. They have as many genders as ourselves, as many numbers as the Greeks." Recurring to the same comparison, he remarks of the Huron verb that it has as many tenses and numbers as the Greek, with certain discriminations which the latter did not possess. [Footnote: _Relation_ of 1636, pp 99,100.] A great living authority has added the weight of his name to these opinions of the scholarly Jesuit. Professor Max Muller, who took the opportunity afforded by the presence of a Mohawk undergraduate at Oxford to study his language, writes of it in emphatic terms: "To my mind the structure of such a language as the Mohawk is quite sufficient evidence that those who worked out such a work of art were powerful reasoners and accurate classifiers." [Footnote: In a letter to the author, dated Feb. 14, 1882. In a subsequent letter Prof. Muller writes, in regard to the study of the aboriginal languages of this continent: "It has long been a puzzle to me why this most tempting and promising field of philological research has been allowed to lie almost fallow in America,--as if these languages could not tell us quite as much of the growth of the human mind as Chinese, or Hebrew, or Sanscrit." I have Prof. Max Miller's permission to publish these extracts, and gladly do so, in the hope that they may serve to stimulate that growing interest which the efforts of scholars like Trumbull, Shea, Cuoq, Brinton, and, more recently, Major Powell and his able collaborators of the Ethnological Bureau, are at length beginning to awaken among us, in the investigation of this important and almost unexplored province of linguistic science.]
It is a fact somewhat surprising, as well as unfortunate, that no complete grammar of any language of the Huron-Iroquois stock has ever been published. Many learned and zealous missionaries, Catholic and Protestant, have labored among the tribes of this stock for more than two centuries. Portions of the Scriptures, as well as some other works, have been translated into several of these languages. Some small books, including biographies and hymn-books, have been composed and printed in two of them; and the late devoted and indefatigable missionary among the Senecas, the Rev. Asher Wright, conducted for several years a periodical, the "Mental Elevator" (_Ne Jaguhnigoageswatha_), in their language. Several grammars are known to have been composed, but none have as yet been printed in a complete form. One reason of this unwillingness to publish was, undoubtedly, the sense which the compilers felt of the insufficiency of their work; Such is the extraordinary complexity of the language, such the multiplicity of its forms and the subtlety of its distinctions, that years of study are required to master it; and indeed it may be said that the abler the investigator and the more careful his study, the more likely he is to be dissatisfied with his success. This dissatisfaction was frankly expressed and practically exhibited by Mr. Wright himself, certainly one of the best endowed and most industrious of these inquirers. After residing for several years among the Senecas, forming an alphabet remarkable for its precise discrimination of sounds, and even publishing several translations in their language, he undertook to give some account of its grammatical forms. A little work printed in 1842, with the modest title of "_A Spelling-book of the Seneca Language_," comprises the variations of nouns, adjectives and pronouns, given with much minuteness. Those of the verbs are promised, but the book closes abruptly without them, for the reason--as the author afterwards explained to a correspondent--that he had not as yet been able to obtain such a complete knowledge of them as he desired. This difficulty is further exemplified by a work purporting to be a "_Grammar of the Huron Language, by a Missionary of the Village of Huron Indians, near Quebec, found amongst the papers of the Mission, and translated from the Latin, by the Rev. John Wilkie_." This translation is published in the "_Transactions of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec_," for 1831, and fills more than a hundred octavo pages. It is a work evidently of great labor, and is devoted chiefly to the variations of the verbs; yet its lack of completeness may be judged from the single fact that the "transitions," or in other words, the combinations of the double pronouns, nominative and objective, with the transitive verb, which form such an important feature of the language, are hardly noticed; and, it may be added, though the conjugations are mentioned, they are not explained. The work, indeed, would rather perplex than aid an investigator, and gives no proper idea of the character and richness of the language. The same may be said of the grammatical notices comprised in the Latin "Proemium" to Bruyas' Iroquois dictionary. These notices are apparently modeled to some extent on this anonymous grammar of the Huron language,--unless, indeed, the latter may have been copied from Bruyas; the rules which they give being in several instances couched in the same words.
Some useful grammatical explanations are found in the anonymous Onondaga dictionary of the seventeenth century, published by Dr. Shea in his "_Library of American Linguistics_." But by far the most valuable contribution to our knowledge of the structure of this remarkable group of languages is found in the works of a distinguished writer of our own day, the Rev. J. A. Cuoq, of Montreal, eminent both as a missionary and as a philologist. After twenty years of labor among the Iroquois and Algonkin tribes in the Province of Quebec, M. Cuoq was led to appear as an author by his desire to defend his charges against the injurious effect of a judgment which had been pronounced by a noted authority. M. Renan had put forth, among the many theories which distinguish his celebrated work on the Semitic languages, one which seemed to M. Cuoq as mischievous as it was unfounded. M. Renan held that no races were capable of civilization except such as have now attained it; and that these comprised only the Aryan, the Semitic, and the Chinese. This opinion was enforced by a reference to the languages spoken by the members of those races. "To imagine a barbarous race speaking a Semitic or an Indo-European language is," he declares, "an impossible supposition (_une fiction, conradictoire_), which no person can entertain who is familiar with the laws of comparative philology, and with the general theory of the human intellect." To one who remembers that every nation of the Indo-European race traces its descent from a barbarous ancestry, and especially that the Germans in the days of Tacitus were in precisely the same social stage as that of the Iroquois in the days of Champlain, this opinion of the brilliant French philologist and historian will seem erratic and unaccountable. M. Cuoq sought to refute it, not merely by argument, but by the logic of facts. In two works, published successively in 1864 and 1866, he showed, by many and various examples, that the Iroquois and Algonkin languages possessed all the excellences which M. Renan admired in the Indo-European languages, and surpassed in almost every respect the Semitic and Chinese tongues. [Footnote: See _Jugement Erroné de M. Ernest Renan sur les Langues Sauvages:_ (2d edit.) Dawson Brothers, Montreal: 1870; and _Etudes Philologiques sur quelques Langues Sauvages de r Amerique. Par N. O., Ancien Missionaire_. Ibid: 1866. Also _Lexique de la Langue Iroquoise, avec notes et appendices. Par J. A. Cuoq, Prétre de St. Sulpice_. J. Chapleau & Fils, Montreal: 1882. These are all works indispensable to the student of Indian languages.] The resemblances of these Indian languages to the Greek struck him, as it had struck his illustrious predecessor, the martyred Brebeuf, two hundred years before. M. Cuoq is also the author of a valuable Iroquois lexicon, with notes and appendices, in which he discusses some interesting points in the philology of the language. This lexicon is important, also, for comparison with that of the Jesuit missionary, Bruyas, as showing how little the language has varied in the course of two centuries. [Footnote: _Radices Verborum Iroquaeorum. Auctore R. P. Jacopo Bruyas, Societatis Jesu_. Published in Shea's "_Library of American Linguistics_" For the works in this invaluable Library, American scholars owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Shea's enlightened zeal in the cause of science and humanity.] The following particulars respecting the Iroquois tongues are mainly derived from the works of M. Cuoq, of Bruyas, and of Mr. Wright, supplemented by the researches of the author, pursued at intervals during several years, among the tribes of Western Canada and New York. Only a very brief sketch of the subject can here be given. It is not too much to say that a complete grammar of any Iroquois language would be at least as extensive as the best Greek or Sanscrit grammar. For such a work neither the writer, nor perhaps any other person now living, except M. Cuoq himself, would be competent.
The phonology of the language is at once simple and perplexing. According to M. Cuoq, twelve letters suffice to represent it: _a, c, f, h, i, k, n, o, r, s, t, w_. Mr. Wright employs for the Seneca seventeen, with diacritical marks, which raise the number to twenty-one. The English missionaries among the Mohawks found sixteen letters sufficient, _a, d, e, g, h, i, j, k, n, o, r, s, t, u, w, y._ There are no labial sounds, unless the _f_, which rarely occurs, and appears to be merely an aspirated _w_, may be considered one. No definite distinction is maintained between the vowel sounds _o_ and _u_, and one of these letters may be dispensed with. The distinction between hard and soft (or surd and sonant) mutes is not preserved. The sounds of _d_ and _t_, and those of _k_ and _g_, are interchangeable. So also are those of _l_ and _r_, the former sound being heard more frequently in the Oneida dialect and the latter in the Canienga. From the Western dialects,--the Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca,--this _l_ or _r_ sound has, in modern times, disappeared altogether. The Canienga _konoronkwa_, I esteem him (in Oneida usually sounded _konolonkwa_), has become _konoenkwa_ in Onondaga,--and in Cayuga and Seneca is contracted to _kononkwa_. Aspirates and aspirated gutturals abound, and have been variously represented by _h, hh, kh_, and _gh_, and sometimes (in the works of the early French missionaries) by the Greek [Greek: chi] and the _spiritus asper_. Yet no permanent distinction appears to be maintained among the sounds thus represented, and M. Cuoq reduces them all to the simple _h_. The French nasal sound abounds. M. Cuoq and the earlier English missionaries have expressed it, as in French, simply by the _n_ when terminating a syllable. When it does not close a syllable, a diaeresis above the n, or else the Spanish _tilde (n)_ indicates the sound. Mr. Wright denotes it by a line under the vowel. The later English missionaries express it by a diphthong: _ken_ becomes _kea; nonwa_ becomes _noewa_; _onghwentsya_ is written _oughweatsya_.
A strict analysis would probably reduce the sounds of the Canienga language to seven consonants, _h, k, n, r, s, t,_ and _w_, and four vowels, _a, e, i_, and _o_, of which three, _a, e, and o_, may receive a nasal sound. This nasalizing makes them, in fact, distinct elements; and the primary sounds of the language may therefore be reckoned at fourteen. [Footnote: A dental _t_, which the French missionaries represent sometimes by the Greek _theta_ and sometimes by _th_, and which the English have also occasionally expressed by the latter method, may possibly furnish an additional element. The Greek _theta_ of the former is simply the English _w_.] The absence of labials and the frequent aspirated gutturals give to the utterance of the best speakers a deep and sonorous character which reminds the hearer of the stately Castilian speech.
The "Book of Rites," or, rather, the Canienga portion of it, is written in the orthography first employed by the English missionaries. The _d_ is frequently used, and must be regarded merely as a variant of the _t_ sound. The _g_ is sometimes, though rarely, employed as a variant of the _k_. The digraph _gh_ is common and represents the guttural aspirate, which in German is indicated by _ch_ and in Spanish by _j_. The French missionaries write it now simply _h_, and consider it merely a harsh pronunciation of the aspirate. The _j_ is sounded as in English; it usually represents a complex sound, which might be analysed into _ts_ or _tsi_; _jathondek_ is properly _tsiatontek_. The _x_, which occasionally appears, is to be pronounced _ks_, as in English. _An, en, on_, when not followed by a vowel, have a nasal sound, as in French. This sound is heard even when those syllables are followed by another _n_. Thus _Kanonsionni_ is pronounced as if written _Kanonsionni_ and _yondennase_ as if written _yondennase_. The vowels have usually the same sound as in German and Italian; but in the nasal _en_ the vowel has an obscure sound, nearly like that of the short _u_ in _but_. Thus _yondennase_ sounds almost as if written _yondunnase_, and _kanienke_ is pronounced nearly like _kaniunke_.
The nouns in Iroquois are varied, but with accidence differing from the Aryan and Semitic variations, some of the distinctions being more subtle, and, so to speak, metaphysical. The dual is expressed by prefixing the particle _te_, and suffixing _ke_ to the noun; thus, from _kanonsa_, house, we have _tekanonsake_, two houses. These syllables, or at least the first, are supposed to be derived from _tekeni_, two. The plural, when it follows an adjective expressive of number, is indicated by the syllable _ni_ prefixed to the noun, and _ke_ suffixed; as, _eso nikanonsake_, many houses. In other cases the plural is sometimes expressed by one of the words _okon_ (or _hokon_) _okonha_, _son_ and _sonha_, following the noun. In general, however, the plural significance of nouns is left to be inferred from the context, the verb always and the adjective frequently indicating it.
All beings are divided into two classes, which do not correspond either with the Aryan genders or with the distinctions of animate and inanimate which prevail in the Algonkin tongues. These classes have been styled noble and common. To the noble belong male human beings and deities. The other class comprises women and all other objects. It seems probable, however, that the distinction in the first instance was merely that of sex,--that it was, in fact, a true gender. Deities, being regarded as male, were included in the masculine gender. There being no neuter form, the feminine gender was extended, and made to comprise all other beings. These classes, however, are not indicated by any change in the noun, but merely by the forms of the pronoun and the verb.
The local relations of nouns are expressed by affixed particles, such as _ke_, _ne_, _kon_, _akon_, _akta._ Thus, from _onónta_ mountain, we have _onontáke_, at (or to) the mountain; from _akéhrat_, dish, _akehrátne_, in (or on) the dish; from _kanónsa_, house, _kanonsákon_, or _kanónskon_, in the house, _kanonsókon_, under the house, and _kanonsákta_, near the house. These locative particles, it will be seen, usually, though not always, draw the accent towards them.
The most peculiar and perplexing variation is that made by what is termed the "crement," affixed to many (though not all) nouns. This crement in the Canienga takes various forms, _ta, sera, tsera, kwa._ _Onkwe_, man, becomes _onkwéta_; _otkon_, spirit, _otkónsera_; _akáwe_, oar, _akawétsera_; _ahta_, shoe, _ahhtákwa_. The crement is employed when the noun is used with numeral adjectives, when it has adjective or other affixes, and generally when it enters into composition with other words. Thus _onkwe_, man, combined with the adjective termination _iyo_ (from the obsolete _wiyo_, good) becomes _onkwetiyo_, good man. _Wenni_, day, becomes in the plural _niate_ _niwenniserake_, many days, etc. The change, however, is not grammatical merely, but conveys a peculiar shade of meaning difficult to define. The noun, according to M. Cuoq, passes from a general and determinate to a special and restricted sense. _Onkwe_ means man in general; _asen nionkwetake_, three men (in particular.) One interpreter rendered _akawétsera_, "the oar itself." The affix _sera_ or _tsera_ seems to be employed to form what we should term abstract nouns, though to the Iroquois mind they apparently present themselves as possessing a restricted or specialized sense. Thus from _iotarihen_, it is warm, we have _otarihénsera_, heat; from _wakeriat_, to be brave, _ateriatitsera_, courage. So _kakweniátsera_, authority; _kanaiésera_, pride; _kanakwénsera_, anger. Words of this class abound in the Iroquois; so little ground is there for the common opinion that the language is destitute of abstract nouns. [Footnote: See, on this point, the remarks of Dr Brinton to the same effect, in regard to the Aztec, Qquichua, and other languages, with interesting illustrations, in his _"American Hero Myths"_, p. 25]
The adjective, when employed in an isolated form, follows the substantive; as _kanonsa kowa_, large house; _onkwe honwe_ (or _onwe_) a real man. But, in general, the substantive and the adjective coalesce in one word. _Ase_ signifies new, and added to _kanonsa_ gives us _kanonsáse_, new house. Karonta, tree, and _kowa_, or _kowanen_, great, make together _karontowánen_, great tree. Frequently the affixed adjective is never employed as an isolated word. The termination _iyo_ (or _iio_) expresses good or beautiful, and _aksen_, bad or ugly; thus _kanonsiyo_, fine house, _kanonsasken_, ugly house. These compound forms frequently make their plural by adding _s_, as _kanonsiyos_, _kanonsaksens_.
The pronouns are more numerous than in any European language, and show clearer distinctions in meaning. Thus, in the singular, besides the ordinary pronouns, I, thou, he and she, the language possesses an indeterminate form, which answers very nearly to the French _on_. The first person of the dual has two forms, the one including, the other excluding, the person addressed, and signifying, therefore, respectively, "thou and I," and "he and I." The first person plural has the same twofold form. The third persons dual and plural have masculine and feminine forms. Thus the language has fifteen personal pronouns, all in common use, and all, it may be added, useful in expressing distinctions which the English can only indicate by circumlocutions. These pronouns are best shown in the form in which they are prefixed to a verb. The following are examples of the verb _katkahtos_, I see (root _atkahto_) and _kenonwes_, I love (root _nonwe_), as conjugated in the present tense:--
_katkahtos_, I see. _satkahtos_, thou seest. _ratkahtos_, he sees. _watkahtos_, she sees, _iontkahtos_, one sees. _tiatkahtos_, we two see (thou and I.) _iakiatkahtos_, we two see (he and I.) _tsiatkahtos_, ye two see. _hiatkahtos_, they two see (masc.) _kiatkahtos_, they two see (fem.) _tewatkahtos_, we see (ye and I.) _iakwatkahtos_, we see (they and I.) _sewatkahtos_, ye see. _rontkahtos_, they see (masc.) _kontkahtos_, they see (fem.)
_kenonwes_, I love. _senonwes_, thou lovest. _rononwes_, he loves. _kanonwes_, she loves. _icnonwes_, one loves. _teninonwes_, we two love (thou and I) _iakeninonwes_, we two love (he and I) _seninonwes_, ye two love. _hninonwes_, they two love (masc.) _keninonwes_, they two love (fem.) _tewanonwes_, we love (ye and I.) _iakwanonwes_, we love (they and I.) _sewanonwes_, ye love. _ratinonwes_, they love (masc.) _kontinonwes_, they love (fem.)
It will be observed that in these examples the prefixed pronouns differ considerably in some cases. These differences determine (or are determined by) the conjugation of the verbs. _Katkahtos_ belongs to the first conjugation, and _kenonwes_ to the second. There are three other conjugations, each of which shows some peculiarity in the prefixed pronouns, though, in the main, a general resemblance runs through them all. There are other variations of the pronouns, according to the "paradigm," as it is called, to which the verb belongs. Of these paradigms there are two, named in the modern Iroquois grammars paradigms K and A, from the first or characteristic letter of the first personal pronoun. The particular conjugation and paradigm to which any verb belongs can only be learned by practice, or from the dictionaries.
The same prefixed pronouns are used, with some slight variations, as possessives, when prefixed to a substantive; as, from _sita_, foot, we have (in Paradigm A) _akasita_, my foot, _sasita_, thy foot, _raosita_, his foot. Thus nouns, like verbs, have the five conjugations and the two paradigms.
Iroquois verbs have three moods, indicative, imperative, and subjunctive; and they have, in the indicative, seven tenses, the present, imperfect, perfect, pluperfect, aorist, future, and paulo-post future. These moods and tenses are indicated either by changes of termination, or by prefixed particles, or by both conjoined. One authority makes six other tenses, but M. Cuoq prefers to include them among the special forms of the verb, of which mention will presently be made.
To give examples of these tenses, and the rules for their formation, would require more space than can be devoted to the subject in the present volume. The reader who desires to pursue the study is referred to the works of M. Cuoq already mentioned.
The verb takes a passive form by inserting the syllable _at_ between the prefixed pronoun and the verb; and a reciprocal sense by inserting _atat_. Thus, _kiatatas_, I put in; _katiatatas_, I am put in; _katatiatatas_, I put myself in; _konnis_, I make; _katonnis_, I am made; _katatonnis_, I make myself. This syllable _at_ is probably derived from the word _oyala_, body, which is used in the sense of "self," like the corresponding word _hakty_ in the Delaware language.
The "transitions," or the pronominal forms which indicate the passage of the action of a transitive verb from the agent to the object, play an important part in the Iroquois language. In the Algonkin tongues these transitions are indicated partly by prefixed pronouns, and partly by terminal inflections. In the Iroquois the subjective and objective pronouns are both prefixed, as in French. In that language "_il me voit_" corresponds precisely with RAKAthatos, "he-me-sees." Here the pronouns, _ra_, of the third person, and _ka_ of the first, are evident enough. In other cases the two pronouns have been combined in a form which shows no clear trace of either of the simple pronouns; as in _helsenonwes_, thou lovest him, and _hianonwes_, he loves thee. These combined pronouns are very numerous, and vary, like the simple pronouns, in the five conjugations.
The peculiar forms of the verb, analogous to the Semitic conjugations are very numerous. Much of the force and richness of the language depends on them. M. Caoq enumerates--
1. The diminutive form, which affixes _ha_; as _knekirhaHA_, I drink a little; _konkweHA_ (from _onkwe_, man), I am a man, but hardly one (_i.e._, I am a little of a man).
2. The augmentative, of which _tsi_ is the affixed sign; as, _knekirhaTSI_, I drink much. This is sometimes lengthened to _tsihon_; as _wakatonteTSIHON_, I understand perfectly.
3 and 4. The cislocative, expressing motion towards the speaker, and the translocative, indicating motion tending from him. The former has _t_, the latter _ie_ or _ia_, before the verb, as _tasataweiat_, come in; _iasataweiat_, go in.
5. The duplicative, which prefixes _te_, expresses an action which affects two or more agents or objects, as in betting, marrying, joining, separating. Thus, from _ikiaks_, I cut, we have _tekiaks_, I cut in two, where the prefix _te_ corresponds to the Latin bi in "bisect". The same form is used in speaking of acts done by those organs of the body, such as the eyes and the hands, which nature has made double. Thus _tekasenthos_, I weep, is never used except in this form.
6 The reiterative is expressed by the sound of _s_ prefixed to the verb. It sometimes replaces the cislocative sign; thus, _tkahtenties_, I come from yonder; _skahtenties_, I come again.
7. The motional is a form which by some is considered a special future tense. Thus, from _khiatons_, I write, we have _khiatonnes_, I am going to write; from _katerios_, I fight, _katerioseres_, I am going to the war; from _kesaks_, I seek, _kesakhes_, I am going to seek. These forms are irregular, and can only be learned by practice.
8. The causative suffix is _tha_; as from _k'kowanen_, I am great, we have _k'kowanaTHA_, I make great, I aggrandize. With _at_ inserted we have a simulative or pretentious form, as _katkowanaTHA_, I make myself great, I pretend to be great. The same affix is used to give an instrumental sense; as from _keriios_, I kill, we have _keriiohTHA_, I kill him with such a weapon or instrument.
9. The progressive, which ends in _tie_ (sometimes taking the forms _atie_, _hatie_, _tatie_), is much used to give the sense of becoming, proceeding, continuing, and the like; as _wakhiatontie_, I go on writing; _wakatrorihatie_, I keep on talking; _wakeriwaientatie_, I am attending to the business. The addition of an _s_ to this form adds the idea of plurality or diversity of acts; thus, _wakhiatonties_, I go on writing at different times and places; _wakatrorihaties_, I keep on telling the thing, _i. e._, going from house to house.
10. The attributive has various forms, which can only be learned by practice or from the dictionaries. It expresses an action done for some other person; as, from _wakiote_, I work, we have _kiotense_, I work for some one; from _katatis_, I speak, _katatiase_, I speak in favor of some one.
11. The habitual ends in _kon_. From _katontats_, I hear, I consent, we have _wakatontatskon_, I am docile; from _katatis_, I speak, _wakatatiatskon_, I am talkative.
12. The frequentative has many forms, but usually ends in _on_, or _ons_. From _khiatons_, I write, we have in this form _khiatonnions_, I write many things; from _katkahtos_, I look, _katkahtonnions_, I look on all sides.
These are not all the forms of the Iroquois verb; but enough have been enumerated to give some idea of the wealth of the language in such derivatives, and the power of varied expression which it derives from this source.
The Iroquois has many particles which, like those of the Greek and French languages, help to give clearness to the style, though their precise meaning cannot always be gathered by one not perfectly familiar with the language. _Ne_ and _nene_ are frequently used as substitutes for the article and the relative pronouns. _Onenh_, now; _kati_, then, therefore; _ok_, _nok_, and _neok_, and; _oni_ and _neoni_, also; _toka_ and _tokat_, if, perhaps; _tsi_, when; _kento_, here; _akwah_, indeed, very; _etho_, thus, so; _are_, sometimes, again; _ken_, an interrogative particle, like the Latin _ne_--these and some others will be found in the Book of Rites, employed in the manner in which they are still used by the best speakers.
It must be understood that the foregoing sketch affords only the barest outline of the formation of the Iroquois language. As has been before remarked, a complete grammar of this speech, as full and minute as the best Sanscrit or Greek grammars, would probably equal and perhaps surpass those grammars in extent. The unconscious forces of memory and of discrimination required to maintain this complicated intellectual machine, and to preserve it constantly exact and in good working order, must be prodigious. Yet a comparison of Bruyas' work with the language of the present day shows that this purpose has been accomplished; and, what is still more remarkable, a comparison of the Iroquois with the Huron grammar shows that after a separation which must have exceeded five hundred years, and has probably covered twice that term, the two languages differ less from one another than the French of the twelfth century differed from the Italian, or than the Anglo-Saxon of King Alfred differed from the contemporary Low German speech. The forms of the Huron-Iroquois languages, numerous and complicated as they are, appear to be certainly not less persistent, and probably better maintained, than those of the written Aryan tongues.
ANCIENT RITES OF THE CONDOLING COUNCIL.
[Originally presented as one page Iroquois, followed by one page English translation. This is confusing in electronic texts, so have changed it here to be the complete Iroquois text followed by the complete English translation.]
OKAYONDONGHSERA YONDENNASE.
OGHENTONH KARIGHWATEGHKWENH:
DEYUGHNYOXKWARAKTA, RATIYATS.
1. Onenh weghniserade wakatyerenkowa desawennawenrate ne kenteyurhoton. Desahahishonne donwenghratstanyonne ne kentekaghronghwanyon. Tesatkaghtoghserontye ronatennossendonghkwe yonkwanikonghtaghkwenne, konyennetaghkwen. Ne katykcnh nayoyaneratye ne sanikonra? Daghsatkaghthoghseronne ratiyanarenyon onkwaghsotsherashonkenhha; neok detkanoron ne shekonh ayuyenkwaroghthake jiratighrotonghkwakwe. Ne katykenh nayuyaneratye ne sanikonra desakaghserentonyonne?
2. Niyawehkowa katy nonwa onenh skennenji thisayatirhehon. Onenh nonwa oghseronnih denighroghkwayen. Hasekenh thiwakwekonh deyunennyatenyon nene konnerhonyon, "Ie henskerighwaghfonte." Kenyutnyonkwaratonnyon, neony kenyotdakarahon, neony kenkontifaghsoton. Nedens aesayatyenenghdon, konyennedaghkwen, neony kenkaghnekdnyon nedens aesayatyenenghdon, konyennethaghkwen, neony kenwaseraketotanese kentewaghsatayenha kanonghsakdatye. Niyateweghniserakeh yonkwakaronny; onidatkon yaghdekakonghsonde oghsonteraghkowa nedens aesayatyenenghdon, konyennethaghkwen.
3. Niyawenhkowa kady nonwa onenh skennenjy thadesarhadiyakonh. Hasekenh kanoron jinayawenhon nene aesahhahiyenenhon, nene ayakotyerenhon ayakawen, "Issy tyeyadakeron, akwah deyakonakorondon!" Ayakaweron oghnonnekenh niyuiterenhhatye, ne konyennedaghkwen.
4. Rotirighwison onkwaghsotshera, ne ronenh, "Kenhenyondatsjistayenhaghse. Kendeyughnyonkwarakda eghtenyontatitenranyon orighokonha." Kensane yeshotiriwayen orighwakwekonh yatenkarighwentaseron, nene akwah denyontatyadoghseronko. Neony ne ronenh, "Ethononweh yenyontatenonshine, kanakdakwenniyukeh yenyontatideron."
5. Onenh kady iese seweryenghskwe sathaghyonnighshon:
Karhatyonni. Oghskawaserenhon. Gentiyo. Onenyute. Deserokenh. Deghhodijinharakwenh. Oghrekyonny. Deyuyewenton.
Etho ne niwa ne akotthaghyonnishon.
6. Onenh nene shehhawah deyakodarakeh ranyaghdenghshon:
Kaneghsadakeh. Onkwehieyede. Waghkerhon. Kahhendohhon. Dhogvvenyoh. Kayyhekwarakeh.
Etho ne niwa ne ranyaghdenshon.
7. Onenh nene jadadeken roskerewake:
Deyaokenh. Jonondese. Otskwirakeron. Onaweron.
8. Onenh nene onghwa kehaghshonha:
Karhawenghradongh. Karakenh. Deyuhhero. Deyughsweken. Oxdenkeh.
Etho ne niwa roghskerewake. Eghnikatarakeghne orighwakayongh.
9. Ne kaghyaton jinikawennakeh ne dewadadenonweronh, "ohhendonh karighwadeghkwenh" radiyats. Doka enyairon, "Konyennedaghkwen; onenh weghniserade yonkwatkennison. Rawenniyo raweghniseronnyh. Ne onwa konwende yonkwatkennison nene jiniyuneghrakwah jinisayadawen. Onenh oaghwenjakonh niyonsakahhawe jinonweh nadekakaghneronnyonghkwe. Akwah kady okaghserakonh thadetyatroghkwanekenh."
10. "Onenh kady yakwenronh, wakwennyonkoghde okaghsery, akwah kady ok skennen thadenseghsatkaghthonnyonhheke."
11. "Nok ony kanekhere deyughsihharaonh ne sahondakon. Onenh kady watyakwaghsiharako waahkwadeweyendonh tsisaronkatah, kady nayawenh ne skennen thensathondeke enhtyewenninekenneh."
12. "Nok ony kanekhere deyughsihharaonh desanyatokenh. Onenh kady hone yakwenronh watyakwaghsihharanko, akwah kady ok skennen deghsewenninekenne dendewadatenonghweradon."
13. Onenh are oya, konyennethaghkwen. Nene kadon yuneghrakwah jinesadawen. Niyadeweghniserakeh sanekherenhonh ratikowanenghskwe. Onghwenjakonh niyeskahhaghs; ken-ony rodighskenrakeghdethaghkwe, ken-ony sanheghtyensera, ken-ony saderesera. Akwagh kady ok onekwenghdarihengh thisennekwakenry.
14. Onenh kady yakwenronh wakwanekwenghdarokewanyon jisanakdade, ogh kady nenyawenne seweghniserathagh ne akwah ok skennen then kanakdiyuhake ji enghsitskodake denghsatkaghdonnyonheke.
15. Onenh nene Karenna,
Yondonghs "Aihaigh."
Kayanerenh dcskenonghweronne; Kheyadawenh deskenonghweronne; Oyenkondonh deskenonghweronne; Wakonnyh deskenonghweronne. Ronkeghsotah rotirighwane,-- Ronkeghsota jiyathondek.
16. Enskat ok enjerennokden nakwah oghnaken nyare enyonghdentyonko kanonghsakonghshon, enyairon.
17. "A-i Raxhottahyh! Onenh kajatthondek onenh enyontsdaren ne yetshiyadare! Ne ji onenh wakarighwakayonne ne sewarighwisahnonghkwe ne kayarenghkowah. Ayawenhenstokenghske daondayakotthondeke."
18. "Na-i Raxhottahyh! Ne kenne iesewenh enyakodenghthe nene noghnaken enyakaonkodaghkwe."
19. "Na-i Raxhottahyh! Onenh nonwa kathonghnonweh dhatkonkoghdaghkwanyon jidenghnonhon nitthatirighwayerathaghkwe."
20. "Na-i Raxbottahyh! Nene ji onenh wakarighwakayonne ne sewarighwisahnonghkwe, ne Kayarenghkowa. Yejisewatkonseraghkwanyon onghwenjakonshon yejisewayadakeron, sewarighwisahnhonkwe ne Kayanerenhkowah. Ne sanekenh ne seweghne aerengh niyenghhenwe enyurighwadatye Kayanerenghkowah."
* * * * *
21. Eghnikonh enyerighwawetharho kenthoh, are enjonderennoden enskat enjerenokden, onenh ethone enyakohetsde onenh are enjondentyonko kanonghsakonghshon, enyairon wahhy:
22. "A-i Raxhotthahyh! Onenh jatthondek kady nonwa jinihhotiyerenh,--orighwakwekonh natehaotiya-doreghtonh, nene roneronh ne enyononghsaghniratston. A-i Raxhotthahyh! nene ronenh: 'Onen nonwa wetewayennendane; wetewennakeraghdanyon; watidewenna-karondonnyon.'"
23. "Onenh are oya eghdeshotiyadoreghdonh, nene ronenh: 'Kenkisenh nenyawenne. Aghsonh thiyenjide-watyenghsaeke, onok enjonkwanckheren.' Nene ronenh: 'Kenkine nenyawenne. Aghsonh denyakokwanentonghsaeke, onok denjontadenakarondako. Nene doka ok yadayakonakarondatye onghwenjakonh niyaonsakahawe, A-i Raxhottahyh,' none ronenh, 'da-edewenhheye onghteh, neok yadayakonakarondatye onghwenjakonh niyaonsakahawe.'"
24. "Onenh are oya eghdeshodiyadoreghtonh, nai Raxhottahyh! Nene ronenh ne enyononghsaghniratston. Nene ronengh: 'Doka onwa kenenyondatyadawenghdate, ne kenkarenyakeghrondonhah ne nayakoghstonde ne nayeghnyasakenradake, ne kenh ne iesewenh, kenkine nenyawenne. Kendenyethirentyonnite kanhonghdakde dewaghsadayenhah."
25. "Onenh are oya eghdejisewayudoreghdonh, nene isewenh: 'Yahhonghdehdeyoyanere nene kenwedewayen, onwa enyeken nonkwaderesera; kadykenh niyakoghswathah, akwekonh nityakawenonhtonh ne kenyoteranentenyonhah. Enyonterenjiok kendonsayedane akwah enyakonewarontye, onok enyerighwanendon oghnikawenhonh ne kendeyerentyonny; katykenh nenyakorane nenyerighwanendon akare onenh enyakodokenghse. Onok na entkaghwadasehhon nakonikonra, onenh are ne eh enjonkwakaronny.'"
26. "Onenh are oya eghdeshotiyadoreghdonh, nene ronenh: 'Kenkine nenyawenne. Endewaghneghdotako skarenhhesekowah, enwadonghwenjadethare eghyendewasenghte tyoghnawatenghjihonh kathonghdeh thienkahhawe; onenh denghnon dentidewaghneghdoten, onenh denghnon yaghnonwendonh thiyaensayeken nonkwateresera.'"
27. "Onenh are oya eghdeshotiyadoreghdonh, nene roneronh ne enyononghsaghniratston. Nene ronenh: 'Onenh wedewaweyennendane; wedewennakeraghdanyon. Doka nonkenh onghwajok onok enjonkwanekheren. Ken kady ne nenyawenne. Kenhendewaghnatatsherodarho ken kanakaryonniha deyunhonghdoyenghdongh yendewanaghsenghde, kennikanaghseshah, ne enyehharako ne kaneka akonikonghkahdeh. Enwadon ok jiyudakenrokde thadenyedane doghkara nentyewenninekenne enjondatenikonghketsko ne enyenikonghkwenghdarake. Onokna enjeyewendane yenjonthahida ne kayanerenghkowa.'"
28. "Onenh kady ise jadakweniyu ken Kanonghsyonny, Dekanawidah, ne deghniwenniyu ne rohhawah Odadsheghte; onenh nene yeshodonnyh Wathadodarho; onenh nene yeshohowah akahenyonh; onare nene yeshodonnyh Kanyadariyu; onenh nene yeshonarase Shadekaronyes; onenh nene onghwa kehhaghsaonhah yejodenaghstahhere kanaghsdajikowah."
* * * * *
29. Onenh jatthondek sewarihwisaanonghkwe Kayarenhkowah. Onenh wakarighwakayonne. Onenh ne oknejoskawayendon. Yetsisewanenyadanyon ne sewariwisaanonghkweh. Yejisewahhawihtonh, yetsisewennitskarahgwanyon; agwah neok ne skaendayendon. Etho yetsisewanonwadaryon. Sewarihwisaanonghkwe yetsisewahhawitonh. Yetsisewatgonseraghkwanyon sewarihwisaanonghkwe, Kayanerenhkowah.
30. Onenh kady jatthondek jadakweniyosaon sewarihwisaanonghkwe:
DEKARIHAOKESH! Jatthontenyonk! Jatagweniyosaon,
AYONHWAHTHA! Jatthontenyonk! Jatagweniyosaon,
SHATEKARIWATE! Etho natejonhne! Sewaterihwakhaonghkwe, Sewarihwisaanonghkwe. Kayanerenhkowah.
31. Jatthontenyonk! Jatagweniyosaon,
SHARENHAOWANE! Jatthontenyonk! Jatagweniyosaon,
DEYONNHEHGONH! Jatthontenyonk! Jatagweniyosaon,
OGHRENREGOWAH! Etho natejonhne! Sewaterihwakhaonghkwe, Sewarihwisaanonghkwe, Kayanerenhkowah.
32. Jatthontenyonk! Jatagweniyosaon,
DEHENNAKARINE! Jatthontenyonk! Jatagweniyosaon,
AGHSTAWENSERONTHA! Jatthontenyonk! Jatagweniyosaon,
SHOSGOHAROWANE! Etho natejonhne, Sewatarihwakhaonghkwe, Sewarihwisaanonghkwe, Kayanerenhkowah.
33. Ise seniyatagweniyohkwe, Jatathawhak. Senirighwisaanonghkwe, Kayanerenghkowah. Ne deseniyenah; Seninonsyonnitonh. Onenh katy jatthontenyonk Jatakweniyosaon,
ODATSEGHTE! Jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon,
KANONHGWENYODON! Jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon,
DEYOHHAGWENTE! Etho natejonhne! Sewaterihwakhaonghkwe. Sewarihwisaanonghkwe, Kayanerenhkowah.
34. Jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon,
SHONONSESE! Jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon,
DAONAHROKENAGH! Jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon.
ATYATONNENHTHA! Etho natejonhne! Sewaterihwakhaonghkwe, Sewarihwisaanonghkwe, Kayanerenhkowah.
35. Jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon,
DEWATAHONHTENYONK! Jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon,
KANIYATAHSHAYONK! Jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon,
ONWATSATONHONH! Etho natejonhne! Sewaterihwakhaonghkwe, Sewarihwisaanonghkwe, Kayanerenhkowah.
36. Eghyesaotonnihsen: Onenh jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon,
THATOTARHO! Jatthontenyonk! Etho ronarasehsen: Jatakweniyosaon,
ENNESERARENH! Jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon,
DEHATKAHTHOS! Jatthontenyonk! Waghontenhnonterontye. Jatakweniyosaon,
ONYATAJIWAK! Jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon,
AWEKENYADE! Jatthontenyonk! Jatakweniyosaon,
DEHAYADKWARAYEN! Etho natejonhne!
37. Yeshohawak: Rokwahhokowah. Etho kakeghrondakwe Ne kanikonghrashon,
RONONGHWIREGHTONH! Etho natejonhne!
38. Etho yeshotonnyh, Tekadarakehne.
KAWENENSERONDON!
HAGHRIRON! Etho nadehhadihne!
39. Wahhondennonterontye,
RONYENNYENNIH!
SHODAKWARASHONH!
SHAKOKENGHNE! Etho nadejonhne!
40. Etho niyawenonh, Karihwakayonh. Shihonadewiraratye, Tehhodidarakeh. Rakowanenh,
RASERHAGHRHONK! Etho wahhoronghyaronnyon: Roghskenrakeghdekowah, Rakowanenh, Tehhotyatakarorenh,
SKANAWADYH! Etho natejonhne!
41. Yeshohhawak,
TEKAHENYONK: Yeshonadadekenah:
JINONTAWERAON! Etho natejonhne!
42. KADAKWARASONH!
SHOYONWESE!
ATYASERONNE! Etho natejonhneh!
43. Yeshondadekenah,
TEYORONGHYONKEH!
TEYODHOREGHKONH!
WATHYAWENHETHON! Etho natejonhne!
44. ATONTARAHERHA!
TESKAHE! Etho natejonhneh!
45. Yeshotonnyh,
SKANYADARIYO! Yeshonaraseshen,
SHADEKARONYES! Etho natejonhneh!
46. SATYENAWAT! Yeshonaraseshen,
SHAKENJOWANE! Etho natejonhneh!
47. KANOKARIH! Yeshonarase,--onwa
NISHARYENEN! Etho natejonhneh!
48. Onghwa keghaghshonah Yodenaghstahhere Kanaghstajikowah. Yatehhotihohhataghkwen. Etho ronaraseshen, Yadehninhohhanonghne:
KANONGHKERIDAWYH! Yeshonaraseshen,
TEYONINHOKARAWENH! Etho natejonhneh!
49. Onenh watyonkwentendane Kanikonrakeh.
ANCIENT RITES OF THE CONDOLING COUNCIL
[English Translation]
THE PRELIMINARY CEREMONY:
CALLED, "AT THE WOOD'S EDGE."
1. Now [Footnote: The paragraphs are not numbered in the original text. The numbers are prefixed in this work merely for convenience of reference.] to-day I have been greatly startled by your voice coming through the forest to this opening. You have come with troubled mind through all obstacles. You kept seeing the places where they met on whom we depended, my offspring. How then can your mind be at ease? You kept seeing the footmarks of our forefathers; and all but perceptible is the smoke where they used to smoke the pipe together. Can then your mind be at ease when you are weeping on your way?
2. Great thanks now, therefore, that you have safely arrived. Now, then, let us smoke the pipe together. Because all around are hostile agencies which are each thinking, "I will frustrate their purpose." Here thorny ways, and here falling trees, and here wild beasts lying in ambush. Either by these you might have perished, my offspring, or, here by floods you might have been destroyed, my offspring, or by the uplifted hatchet in the dark outside the house. Every day these are wasting us; or deadly invisible disease might have destroyed you, my offspring.
3. Great thanks now, therefore, that in safety you have come through the forest. Because lamentable would have been the consequences had you perished by the way, and the startling word had come, "Yonder are lying bodies, yea, and of chiefs!" And they would have thought in dismay, what had happened, my offspring.
4. Our forefathers made the rule, and said, "Here they are to kindle a fire; here, at the edge of the woods, they are to condole with each other in few words." But they have referred thither [Footnote: That is, to the Council House.] all business to be duly completed, as well as for the mutual embrace of condolence. And they said, "Thither shall they be led by the hand, and shall be placed on the principal seat."
5. Now, therefore, you who are our friends of the Wolf clan:
_In John Buck's MS._ _Supposed Meaning._ Ka rhe tyon ni. The broad woods. Ogh ska wa se ron hon. Grown up to bushes again. Gea di yo. Beautiful plain. O nen yo deh. Protruding stone. De se ro ken. Between two lines. Te ho di jen ha ra kwen. Two families in a long-house, Ogh re kyon ny. (Doubtful.) [one at each end.] Te yo we yen don. Drooping wings.
Such is the extent of the Wolf clan.
6. Now, then, thy children of the two clans of the Tortoise:
Ka ne sa da keh. On the hill side. Onkwi i ye de. A person standing there. Weg'h ke rhon. (Doubtful.) Kah ken doh hon. " Tho gwen yoh. " Kah he kwa ke. "
Such is the extent of the Tortoise clan.
7. Now these thy brothers of the Bear clan:
De ya oken. The Forks. Jo non de seh. It is a high hill. Ots kwe ra ke ron. Dry branches fallen to the ground. Ogh na we ron. The springs.
8. Now these have been added lately:
Ka rho wengh ra don. Taken over the woods. Ka ra ken. White. De yo he ro. The place of flags (rushes). De yo swe ken. Outlet of the river. Ox den ke. To the old place.
Such is the extent of the Bear clan.
These were the clans in ancient times.
9. Thus are written the words of mutual greeting, called "the opening ceremony." Then one will say, "My offspring, now this day we are met together. God has appointed this day. Now, to-day, we are met together, on account of the solemn event which has befallen you. Now into the earth he has been conveyed to whom we have been wont to look. Yea, therefore, in tears let us smoke together."
10. "Now, then, we say, we wipe away the tears, so that in peace you may look about you."
11. "And, further, we suppose there is an obstruction in your ears. Now, then, we remove the obstruction carefully from your hearing, so that we trust you will easily hear the words spoken."
12. "And also we imagine there is an obstruction in your throat. Now, therefore, we say, we remove the obstruction, so that you may speak freely in our mutual greetings."
13. "Now again another thing, my offspring. I have spoken of the solemn event which has befallen you. Every day you are losing your great men. They are being borne into the earth; also the warriors, and also your women, and also your grandchildren; so that in the midst of blood you are sitting."
14. "Now, therefore, we say, we wash off the bloodmarks from your seat, so that it may be for a time that happily the place will be clean where you are seated and looking around you."
* * * * *
15. Now the Hymn,
CALLED "HAIL."
I come again to greet and thank the League; I come again to greet and thank the kindred; I come again to greet and thank the warriors; I come again to greet and thank the women. My forefathers,--what they established,-- My forefathers,--hearken to them!
16. The last verse is sung yet again, while he walks to and fro in the house, and says:
17. "Hail, my grandsires! Now hearken while your grandchildren cry mournfully to you,--because the Great League which you established has grown old. We hope that they may hear."
18. "Hail, my grandsires! You have said that sad will be the fate of those who come in the latter times."
19. "Oh, my grandsires! Even now I may have failed to perform this ceremony in the order in which they were wont to perform it." "Oh, my grandsires! Even now that has become old which you established,--the Great League. You have it as a pillow under your heads in the ground where you are lying,--this Great League which you established; although you said that far away in the future the Great League would endure."
* * * * *
So much is to be said here, and the Hymn is to be sung again, and then he is to go on and walk about in the house again, saying as follows:
"Hail, my grandsires! Now hear, therefore, what they did--all the rules they decided on, which they thought would strengthen the House. Hail, my grandsires! this they said: 'Now we have finished; we have performed the rites; we have put on the horns.'
"Now again another thing they considered, and this they said: 'Perhaps this will happen. Scarcely shall we have arrived at home when a loss will occur again.' They said, 'This, then, shall be done. As soon as he is dead, even then the horns shall be taken off. For if invested with horns he should be borne into the grave,' oh, my grandsires, they said, 'we should perhaps all perish if invested with horns he is conveyed to the grave.'
"Then again another thing they determined, oh my grandsires! 'This,' they said, 'will strengthen the House.' They said, if any one should be murdered and [the body] be hidden away among fallen trees by reason of the neck being white, then you have said, this shall be done. We will place it by the wall in the shade."
25. "Now again you considered and you said: 'It is perhaps not well that we leave this here, lest it should be seen by our grandchildren; for they are troublesome, prying into every crevice. People will be startled at their returning in consternation, and will ask what has happened that this (corpse) is lying here; because they will keep on asking until they find it out. And they will at once be disturbed in mind, and that again will cause us trouble.'"
26. "Now again they decided, and said: 'This shall be done. We will pull up a pine tree--a lofty tree--and will make a hole through the earth-crust, and will drop this thing into a swift current which will carry it out of sight, and then never will our grandchildren see it again.'"
27. "Now again another thing they decided, and thought, this will strengthen the House. They said: 'Now we have finished; we have performed the rites. Perhaps presently it will happen that a loss will occur amongst us. Then this shall be done. We will suspend a pouch upon a pole, and will place in it some mourning wampum--some short strings--to be taken to the place where the loss was suffered. The bearer will enter, and will stand by the hearth, and will speak a few words to comfort those who will be mourning; and then they will be comforted, and will conform to the great law.'"
28. "Now, then, thou wert the principal of this Confederacy, Dekanawidah, with the joint principal, his son, Odadsheghte; and then again _his_ uncle, Wathadodarho; and also again _his_ son, Akahenyonh; and again _his_ uncle, Kanyadariyu; and then again _his_ cousin, Shadekaronyes; and then in later times additions were made to the great edifice."
* * * * *
29. Now listen, ye who established the Great League. Now it has become old. Now there is nothing but wilderness. Ye are in your graves who established it. Ye have taken it with you, and have placed it under you, and there is nothing left but a desert. There ye have taken your intellects with you. What ye established ye have taken with you. Ye have placed under your heads what ye established--the Great League.
30. Now, then, hearken, ye who were rulers and founders: [Footnote: The names in this version are in the orthography of John Buck's MS.]
TEHKARIHHOKEN! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
HAYENWATHA! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
SHADEKARIHWADE! That was the roll of you, You who were joined in the work, You who completed the work, The Great League.
31. Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
SHARENHHOWANE! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
TEHYONHEGHKWEN! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
OWENHEGHKOHNA! That was the roll of you, You who were joined in the work, You who completed the work, The Great League.
32. Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
TEHHENNAGHKARIHNE! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
AGHSTAWENSERONTTHA! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
SHAGHSKOHAROWANE! That was the roll of you, You who were joined in the work, You who completed the work, The Great League.
33. Ye two were principals, Father and son, Ye two completed the work, The Great League. Ye two aided each other, Ye two founded the House. Now, therefore, hearken! Thou who wert ruler,
ODATSEGHDEH! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
KAHNONKWENYAH! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
TEHYOHHAKWENDEH! That was the roll of you, You who were joined in the work, You who completed the work, The Great League.
34. Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
SHONONGHSESEH! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
THONAEGHKENAH! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
HAHTYADONNENTHA! That was the roll of you, You who were joined in the work, You who completed the work, The Great League.
35. Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
TEHWAHTAHONTENYONK! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler, KAHNYADAGHSHAYEN!
Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
HONWATSHADONNEH! That was the roll of you, You who were joined in the work, You who completed the work, The Great League.
36. These were his uncles: Now hearken! Thou who wert ruler, WATHADOTARHO: Continue to listen! These were the cousins: Thou who wert ruler,
ONEHSEAGHHEN! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
TEHHATKAHDONS! Continue to listen! These were as brothers thenceforth: Thou who wert ruler,
SKANIADAJIWAK: Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
AWEAKENYAT! Continue to listen! Thou who wert ruler,
TEHAYATKWAYEN! That was the roll of you!
37. Then his son: He is the great Wolf. There were combined The many minds!
HONONWIREHDONH! That was the roll of you.
38. These were his uncles, Of the two clans:
KAWENENSEAGHTONH!
HAHHIHHONH! That was the roll of them!
39. These were as brothers thenceforth:
HOHYUNHNYENNIH!
SHOTEHGWASEH!
SHAHKOHKENNEH! This was the roll of you.
40. This befell In ancient times. They had their children, Those the two clans. He the high chief,
SAHHAHWIH! This put away the clouds: He was a war chief; He was a high chief-- Acting in either office:
SKAHNAHWAHTIH! This was the roll of you!
41. Then his son,
TAHKAHENHYUNH! With his brother,
JIHNONTAHWEHHEH. This was the roll of you!
42. KAHTAHGWAHJIH!
SHONYUNHWESH!
HAHTYAHSENHNEH! This was the roll of you!
43. Then they who are brothers:
TEHYUHENHYUNHKOH!
TEHYUHTOHWEHGWIH!
TYAWENHHEHTHONH! This was the roll of you.
44. HAHTONHTAHHEHHAH! TESHKAHHEA! This was the roll of you!
45. Then his uncle,
SKAHNYAHTEIHYUH! With his cousin,
SHAHTEHKAHENHYESH. This was the roll of you!
46. SAHTYEHNAHWAHT! With his cousin, SHAKENHJOHNAH! This was the roll of you!
47. KAHNOHKAIH! With his cousin,--then
NISHAHYEHNENHHAH This was the roll of you!
48. Then, in later times, They made additions To the great mansion. These were at the doorway, They who were cousins, These two guarded the doorway:
KANONHKEHIHTAWIH! With his cousin,
TYUHNINHOHKAWENH This was the roll of you!
49. Now we are dejected In our minds.
THE BOOK OF THE YOUNGER NATIONS.
(ONONDAGA DIALECT.)
[Originally presented as one page Onandaga, followed by one page English translation. This is confusing in electronic texts, so have changed it here to be the complete Onandaga text followed by the complete English translation.]
[*** Original used ' ' for syllable breaks and ' ' (two spaces) for word breaks. Changed to '-' for syllable breaks and a single space for word breaks.]
1. a. Yo o-nen o-nen wen-ni-sr-te o-nen wa-ge-ho-gar-a-nyat ne-tha-non-ni-sr-son-tar-yen na-ya-ne o-shon-tar-gon-go-nar nen-tis-no-war-yen na-ye-ti-na gar-weear-har-tye ne swih-ar-gen-ahr ne-tho-se hen-ga-ho-gar-a-nyat nen-tha-o-ta-gen-he-tak ne-tho-har-ten-gar-ton-ji-yar-hon-on nar-ye-en-gwa-wen-ne-kentar ne-ten-gon-nen-tar-hen na-a-yen-tar.
1. b. Tar onon na-on-gen shis-gis-war-tha-en-ton-tye na on-gwr-non-sen-shen-tar-qua nar-te-har-yar-ar-qui-nar nan-gar-wen-ne-srh-ha-yo-ton-har-ye nen-gar-nen-ar-ta ho-ti-sgen-ar-ga-tar nen-o-ne gar-nen-ar-ti kon-hon-wi-sats nen-o-ni tar-ga-non-tye na on-quar-sat-har nen-o hon-tar-gen-hi-se-non-tye nen-o wen-gr-ge go-yar-da-nen-tar-hon nen-tho nr-ta-war ta-har-yar-ar-qui-nar nen-gar-wen-ne-sar han-yo-ton-hr-tye tar o-nen-ti tya-quar-wen-ne-gen-har nen-a-shen ne-yar-quar-tar-ta-gen.
1. c. O-nen-ti-a-wen-hen nar-ya-he-yr-genh thar-ne-ho-ti-e-quar-te nen-on-quar-noh-shen-ta-qua nen-o on-qua-jas-harn-ta-qua nar-ye-gen-na-ho-nen nar-ye-na te-was-hen nen-ne-gon-hi-war na-tho na-ho-te-yen-nen-tar-e tar-day-was-shen nen-ne-yo-e-wa na-ar-wen-ha-yo-dar-ge nen-on-quar-twen-non-ty o-nen en-hen-wa-yar-shon nen-nat-ho-on-ne-yar-quar-ya-ar nen-a-shen ne-yar-quar-tar-te-ken.
1. d. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-ta-yar-quar-wen-ni-ken-ar nar-ya-hi-yar-gen na-ar-quar-ton sis-jih-wa-tha-en-ton-tye o-yar-na son-quar-yo-ten-se-nar tar-nr-ye-ti-na hon-sar-ho-har-we-ti-har-tye nen-qr-nen-hr-te ho-ti-sken-ar-ga-tar nen-o-ne gar-nen-har-te gon-thon-we-sas on-sar-ho-na-tar-que-har-tye nar-ya-har-tes-gar-no-wen na o-nen na-en-gar-ya-tye-nen-har nen-war-thon-wi-sas ar-ques-sis-jit nar-te-yo-nen-ha-ase en-war-nten-har-wat-tha nen-on-quar-ta-shar o-nen o-yar-nen-eh-te-ge-non-tyes on-quar-te-shar nr-ya-o-ne sar-o-har-we-ti-har-tye o-nen o-yar nens-o-ni-ta-gen-hi-se-non-tyes o-wen-gar-ge ga-yr-tr-nen-tak-hon ne-tho nr-te-war on-sar-ho-har-we-ti-har-tye.
I. e. O-nen ty-a on-yar ta-ya-quar-wen-ne-ken-har nen-a-sen ne-yar-quar-tar-te-gen o-nen-ty ton-tar-wen-ten-eh nen-o-nen thon-tar-yar-tyar-ton-tye nen-wa-gon-yon-wenjar-nan-har tar-o-nen ha-o-yar nen-ta-yo-quar-wen-ne-ken-e-har-tye. O-nen-te-ar-wen-han o-nen war-quar-de-yen-non-nyar-hen na-shar-non-wa nr-o-tas-are-quar-hen-ten o-nen wa-tya-quar-ha-tar-wen-ya-hon nen-ar-o-ar-shon-ar nen-tar-yon-quar-ty ne-tho hon-ne-yar-quar-ya-ar nen-ar-shen ne-yar-quar-ta-te-kenh.
2. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-tar-yar-quar-wen-ne-ken-har nen-o-son-tar-gon-go-nar nen-ti-sno-war-gen. O-nen-ti ton-sar-gon-en-nya-eh-tha ar-guas hi-yar-ga-tha te-jo-ge-grar O-nen-ti sar-gon-ar-gwar-nen-tak-ten sken-nen-gink-ty then-skar-ar-tayk. O-nen en-gar-ar-qui-ken-nha ne-tho tens-shar-ar-tyen. O-nen yo-nen-tyon-ha-tye. Ar-ghwas ten-yo-ten-har-en-ton-nyon-ne. Ne-tho tens-gar-ar-tye a-ghwas sken-non-jis ten-yo-yar-neh ne onen en-gr-ar-gwen-har o-ty-nen-yar-wen-har hen-jo-har-ten-har sar-ne-gon-are. Ne-tho han-ne-yar-gwar-ya-ar nen-ar-sen ne-yar-quar-tr-ta-gen.
3. O-nen-ti-ch-o-yar nen-ton-ta-yar-quar-wen-ne-ken-har. O-nen-nen-ti war-tyar-war-see-har-an-qua te-shar-hon-tar-gar-en-tar nen-they-yon-tar-ge-har-te nen-te-sar-nar-ton-ken hon-ne-ty ar-war-na-gen-tar wen-jar-wa-gar ha-e nar-ya-har ten-skar-har-we-tar-han nen-o-ge-gwr-en-yone nen-tye-sar-nar-ton-ken o-ty-nen-yar-wen-har nen-en-jo-har-ten-ar sar-ne-gon-are ne-tho hon-ne-yar-war-ya-ar nen-a-sen ne-yar-quar-tar-te-kenh.
4. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-tar-yr-quar-wen-ne-ken-tye hon-nen ton-sar-war-kon-ha-jar-ha-jan nen-they-gar-kon-ha-shon-ton-har-tye hon-nen-ti nen-sar-kon-ge-ter-yen-has hon-nen-oni nen-ton-sar-gon-nen-ha-tieh o-nen o-tieh-nen-yar-wen-har nen-en-jo-har-tyen-har sar-ne-gon-are ne-tho hon-ne-yar-quar-yar-ar nen-a-sen ne-yar-qwr-tar-te-kenh.
5. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-tar-yar-qwar-wen-ne-ken-har nar-ya-ti-ar-wen-han nen-tar-ehe-tar-nen-jar-tar-ti-war-ten nen-ton-gar-ke-sen nen-na-hon-yar-na on-har-wen-ne-gen-tar nar-ya-na sar-hon-ta-je-wants as-kar-we ar-san-nen-sen-wen-hat ne-tho o-ni nis-nen-yar-wen-hon-sken-are-gen-tar hor-go-war-nen-nen-hon-yar-na an-har-wen-ne-gen-tar are-we ar-sen-nen-sun-sar-wen-hat ne-tho on-ne-yar-quar-ya-ar nen-ar-sen ne-yr-qwar-tr-ta-kenh.
6. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-tar-yar-quar-wen-ne-ken-hr nar-ye-ti-na-ar-wen-han nen-an-har-ya-tye-nen-har nen-na-hon-yar-na nr-ya-ti-nar nen-ne-yo-sar-tar ken-yar-tar nen-ji-gar-han nen-ta-hon-gren-tar wi-nar-na-ge-ne-yo-snon-wa nen-o-yar-en-sar-tyar-tar-nyar-ten a-ren ne-tho one-yar-qwar-yaar nen-ar-sen ne-yr-quar-tar-te-kenh.
7. O-nen-ti-eh-o-yar nen-ton-tr-yar-quar-wen-ne-ken-har nr-ya-ti-ar-wen-han sar-gon-nr-tar-eh-ya-tars nen-gr-nr-gar-yon-ne-ta-ar nen-jar-ne-qr-nar-sis-ah nen ne-tho war-ar-guar-sins-tar na-tho-ti-an-sar-wa nen-thon-gr-gey-san e-his-an-skas-gen-nen one-ha-yat nen-war-o-yan-quar-a-ton-on-tye nen-yar-gar-ker ta-gr-nr-squaw-ya-an-ne ne-tho on-ne-yar-quar-ya-ar nen-ar-sen ne-yar-quar-ta-te-kenh.
7. b. Tar-o-nen sar-gon-yan-nen-tar-ah tar-o-nen-ti ton-tar-ken-yar-tas.
THE BOOK OF THE YOUNGER NATIONS.
(TRANSLATION.)
I. a. Now--now this day--now I come to your door where you are mourning in great darkness, prostrate with grief. For this reason we have come here to mourn with you. I will enter your door, and come before the ashes, and mourn with you there; and I will speak these words to comfort you.
I. b. Now our uncle has passed away, he who used to work for all, that they might see the brighter days to come,--for the whole body of warriors and also for the whole body of women, and also the children that were running around, and also for the little ones creeping on the ground, and also those that are tied to the cradle-boards; for all these he used to work that they might see the bright days to come. This we say, we three brothers.
I. c. Now the ancient lawgivers have declared--our uncles that are gone, and also our elder brothers--they have said, it is worth twenty--it was valued at twenty--and this was the price of the one who is dead. And we put our words on it (_i.e._ the wampum), and they recall his name--the one that is dead. This we say and do, we three brothers.
I. d. Now there is another thing we say, we younger brothers. He who has worked for us has gone afar off; and he also will in time take with him all these--the whole body of warriors and also the whole body of women--they will go with him. Rut it is still harder when the woman shall die, because with her the line is lost. And also the grandchildren and the little ones who are running aruund--these he will take away; and also those that are creeping on the ground, and also those that are on the cradle-boards; all these he will takeaway with him.
1. e. Now then another thing we will say, we three brothers. Now you must feel for us; for we came here of our own good-will--came to your door that we might say this. And we will say that we will try to do you good. When the grave has been made, we will make it still better. We will adorn it, and cover it with moss. We will do this, we three brothers.
2. Now another thing we will say, we younger brothers. You are mourning in the deep darkness. I will make the sky clear for you, so that you will not see a cloud. And also I will give the sun to shine upon you, so that you can look upon it peacefully when it goes down: You shall see it when it is going. Yea! the sun shall seem to be hanging just over you, and you shall look upon it peacefully as it goes down. Now I have hope that you will yet see the pleasant days. This we say and do, we three brothers.
3. Now then another thing we say, we younger brothers. Now we will open your ears, and also your throat, for there is something that has been choking you and we will also give you the water that shall wash down all the troubles in your throat. We shall hope that after this your mind will recover its cheerfulness. This we say and do, we three brothers.
4. Now then there is another thing we say, we younger brothers. We will now remake the fire, and cause it to burn again. And now you can go out before the people, and go on with your duties and your labors for the people. This we say and do, we three brothers.
5. Now also another thing we say, we younger brothers. You must converse with your nephews; and if they say what is good, you must listen to it. Do not cast it aside. And also if the warriors should say anything that is good, do not reject it. This we say, we three brothers.
6. Now then another thing we say, we younger brothers. If any one should fall--it may be a principal chief will fall and descend into the grave--then the horns shall be left on the grave, and as soon as possible another shall be put in his place. This we say, we three brothers.
7. Now another thing we say, we younger brothers. We will gird the belt on you, with the pouch, and the next death will receive the pouch, whenever you shall know that there is death among us, when the fire is made and the smoke is rising. This we say and do, we three brothers.
7. b. Now I have finished. Now show me the man! [Footnote: _i. e._, "Point out to me the man whom I am to proclaim as chief, in place of the deceased."]
NOTES ON THE CANIENGA BOOK
The meaning of the general title, _Okayondonghsera Yondennase_, has been already explained (Introduction, p. 48). In the sub-title, the word _oghentonh_ is properly an adverb, meaning firstly, or foremost. This title might be literally rendered. "First the ceremony, 'At-the-wood's-edge' they call it."
1. The chiefs, in their journey to the place of meeting, are supposed to have passed the sites of many deserted towns, in which councils had formerly been held. Owing to the frequent removals of their villages, such deserted sites were common in the Iroquois country. The speaker who welcomes the arriving guests supposes that the view of these places had awakened in their minds mournful recollections.
_Desawennawenrate_, "thy voice coming over." This word is explained in the Glossary. It is in the singular number. According to the Indian custom, the speaker regards himself as representing the whole party for whom he speaks, and he addresses the leader of the other party as the representative and embodiment of all who come with him. Throughout the speeches "I" and "thou" are used in the well understood sense of "we" and "ye." In like manner, tribes and nations are, as it were, personified. A chief, speaking for the Onondagas, will say, "I (that is, my nation) am angry; thou (the Delaware people) hast done wrong." This style of bold personification is common in the scriptures. Moses warns the Israelites: "Thou art a stiff-necked people." "Oh my people!" exclaims Isaiah; "they which lead thee cause thee to err."
2. _Denighroghkwayen_, "let us two smoke." This word is in the dual number, the two parties, the hosts and the guests, being each regarded as one individual.
The difficulties and dangers which in the early days of the confederacy beset the traveler in threading his way through the forest, from one Indian nation to another, are vividly described in this section. The words are still employed by their speakers as an established form, though they have ceased to have any pertinence to their present circumstances.
3. _Alnuah deyakonakarondon_, "yea, of chiefs,"--literally, "yea, having horns." The custom of wearing horns as part of the head-dress of a chief has been long disused among the Iroquois; but the idiom remains in the language, and the horns, in common parlance, indicate the chief, as the coronet suggests the nobleman in England. Among the western Indians, as is well known, the usage still survives. "No one," says Catlin, "wears the head-dress surmounted with horns except the dignitaries who are very high in authority, and whose exceeding valor, worth, and power are admitted by all." These insignia of rank are, he adds, only worn on special and rare occasions, as in meeting embassies, or at warlike parades or other public festivals, or sometimes when a chief sees fit to lead a war-party to battle. [Footnote: _Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians._ By George Catlin; p. 172.] The origin of the custom is readily understood. The sight, frequent enough in former days, of an antlered stag leading a herd of deer would be quite sufficient to suggest to the quick apprehension of the Indian this emblem of authority and pre-eminence.
5. _Sathaghyortnighson_, "thou who art of the Wolf clan." The clan is addressed in the singular number, as one person. It is deserving of notice that the titles of clan-ship used in the language of ceremony are not derived from the ordinary names of the animals which give the clans their designations. _Okwatho_ is wolf, but a man of the Wolf clan is called _Tahionni_,--or, as written in the text, _Taghyonni_. In ordinary speech, however, the expression _rokwaho_, "he is a Wolf," might be used.
The English renderings of the names in the list of towns are those which the interpreters finally decided upon. In several instances they doubted about the meaning, and in some cases they could not suggest an explanation. Either the words are obsolete, or they have come down in such a corrupt form that their original elements and purport cannot be determined. As regards the sites of the towns, see the Appendix, Note E.
6. _Deyako-larakeh ranyaghdenghshon_,--"the two clans of the Tortoise." Respecting the two sub-gentes into which the Tortoise clan was divided, see _ante_, p. 53. _Anowara_ is the word for tortoise, but _raniahten_ (or, in the orthography of the text, _ranyaghdengh_) signifies, "he is of the Tortoise clan."
7. _Jadadeken roskerewake_, "thy brother of the Bear clan." _Okwari_ is bear, but _roskerewake_ signifies "he is of the Bear clan." _Rokwari_, "he is a Bear," might, however, be used with the same meaning.
8. _Onghwa kehaghshonha_, "now recently." It is possible that _onghwa_ is here written by mistake for _orighwa_. The word _orighwakayongh_, which immediately follows, signifies "in ancient times," and the corresponding word _orighwake-haghshonha_ would be "in younger times." The period in which these additions were made, though styled recent, was probably long past when the "Book of Rites" was committed to writing; otherwise many towns which are known to have existed at the latter date would have been added to the list. In fact, the words with which the catalogue of towns closes--"these were the clans in ancient times,"--seem to refer these later additions, along with the rest, back to a primitive era of the confederacy.
9. _Rawenniyo raweghniseronnyh_, "God has appointed this day," or, literally, "God makes this day." In these words are probably found the only trace of any modification of the Book of Rites caused by the influence of the white visitors and teachers of the modern Iroquois. As the very fact that the book was written in the alphabet introduced by the missionaries makes us certain that the person who reduced it to writing had been under missionary instruction, it might be deemed surprising that more evidences of this influence are not apparent. It is probable, however, that the conservative feeling of the Council would have rejected any serious alterations in their ancient forms. It seems not unlikely that David of Schoharie--or whoever was the penman on this occasion--may have submitted his work to his missionary teacher, and that in deference to his suggestion a single interpolation of a religious cast, to which no particular objection could be made, was allowed to pass.
The word _Rawenniyo_, as is well known, is the term for God which was adopted by the Catholic missionaries. It is, indeed, of Huron-Iroquois origin, and may doubtless have been occasionally employed from the earliest times as an epithet proper for a great divinity. Its origin and precise meaning are explained in the Appendix, Note B. The Catholic missionaries appropriated it as the special name of the Deity, and its use in later times is probably to be regarded as an evidence of Christian influence. That the sentence in which it occurs in the text is probably an interpolation, is shown by the fact that the words which precede this sentence are repeated, with a slight change, immediately after it. Having interjected this pious expression, the writer seems to have thought it necessary to resume the thread of the discourse by going back to the phrase which had preceded it. It will be observed that the religious sentiment proper to the Book of Rites appears to us confined to expressions of reverence for the great departed, the founders of the commonwealth. This circumstance, however should not be regarded as indicating that the people were devoid of devotional feeling of another kind. Their frequent "thanksgiving festivals" afford sufficient evidence of the strength of this sentiment; but they apparently considered its display out of place in their political acts.
15. _Nene karcnna_, "the song," or "hymn." The purport of this composition is explained in the Introduction (_ante_, p. 62). Before the Book of Rites came into my possession I had often heard the hymn repeated, or sung, by different individuals, in slightly varying forms. The Onondaga version, given me on the Syracuse Reservation, contains a line, "_Negwiyage teskenonhenhne_" which is not found in the Canienga MS. It is rendered "I come to greet the children." The affection of the Indians for their children, which is exhibited in various passages of the Book, is most apparent in the Onondaga portion.
_Kayanerenh_. This word is variously rendered,--"the peace," "the law," and "the league," (see _ante_, p. 33). Here it evidently stands for _Kayancrenhkowa_, "the Great Peace," which is the name usually given by the Kanonsionni to their league, or federal constitution.
_Deskenonghweronne_, or in the modern French orthography, _teskenonhweronne_, "we come to greet and thank," is a good example of the comprehensive force of the Iroquois tongue. Its root is _nonhwe_, or _nanwe_, which is found in _kenonhws_, I love, like, am pleased with--the initial syllable _ke_ being the first personal pronoun. In the frequentative form this becomes _kenonhweron_, which has the meaning of "I salute and thank," i.e., I manifest by repeated acts my liking or gratification. The _s_ prefixed to this word is the sign of the reiterative form: _skenonhweron_, "_again_ I greet and thank." The terminal syllable _ne_ and the prefixed _te_ are respectively the signs of the motional and the cislocative forms,--"I _come hither_ again to greet and thank." A word of six syllables, easily pronounced (and in the Onondaga dialect reduced to five) expresses fully and forcibly the meaning for which eight not very euphonious English words are required. The notion that the existence of these comprehensive words in an Indian language, or any other, is an evidence of deficiency in analytic power, is a fallacy which was long ago exposed by the clear and penetrative reasoning of Duponceau, the true father of American philology. [Footnote: See the admirable Preface to his translation of Zeisberger's Delaware Grammar, p. 94.] As he has well explained, analysis must precede synthesis. In fact, the power of what may be termed analytic synthesis,--the mental power which first resolves words or things into their elements, and then puts them together in new forms,--is a creative or co-ordinating force, indicative of a higher natural capacity than the act of mere analysis. The genius which framed the word _teskenonhweronne_ is the same that, working with other elements, produced the steam-engine and the telephone.
_Ronkeghsota jivathondek_. Two translations of this verse were given by different interpreters. One made it an address to the people: "My forefathers--hearken to them!" i.e., listen to the words of our forefathers, which I am about to repeat. The other considered the verse an invocation to the ancestors themselves. "My forefathers! hearken ye!" The words will bear either rendering, and either will be consonant with the speeches which follow.
The lines of this hymn have been thus cast into the metre of Longfellow's "Hiawatha:"--
"To the great Peace bring we greeting! To the dead chiefs kindred, greeting! To the warriors round him, greeting! To the mourning women, greeting! These our grandsires' words repeating, Graciously, O grandsires, hear us!"
16. _Enyonghdentyonko kanonghsakonghshen_,-"he will walk to and fro in the house." In councils and formal receptions it is customary for the orator to walk slowly to and fro during the intervals of his speech. Sometimes, before beginning his address, he makes a circuit of the assembly with a meditative aspect, as if collecting his thoughts. All public acts of the Indians are marked with some sign of deliberation.
21. _Eghnikonh enyerighwawetharho kenthoh_,--"thus they will close the ceremony here." The address to the forefathers, which is mainly an outburst of lamentation over the degeneracy of the times, is here concluded. It would seem, from what follows, that at this point the candidate for senatorial honors is presented to the council, and is formally received among them, with the usual ceremonies, which were too well known to need description. The hymn is then sung again, and the orator proceeds to recite the ancient laws which the founders of their confederacy established.
22. _Watidewennakarondonnyon_, "we have put on the horns;" in other words, "we have invested the new chief with the ensigns of office,"--or, more briefly, "we have installed him." The latter is the meaning as at present understood; but it is probable that, in earlier days, the panoply of horns was really placed on the head of the newly inducted councillor.
23. _Aghsonh denvakokwanentonghsacke_, etc., "as soon as he is dead" (or, according to another rendering, "when he is just dying") the horns shall be taken off. The purport and object of this law are set forth in the Introduction, p.67.
24. _Ne nayakoghstonde ne nayeghnyasakenradake,_ "by reason of the neck being white." The law prescribed in this section to govern the proceedings of the Council in the case of homicide has been explained in the Introduction, p. 68. The words now quoted, however, introduce a perplexity which cannot be satisfactorily cleared up. The aged chief, John S. Johnson, when asked their meaning, was only able to say that neither he nor his fellow councillors fully understood it. They repeated in council the words as they were written in the book, but in this case, as in some others, they were not sure of the precise significance or purpose of what they said. Some of them thought that their ancestors, the founders, had foreseen the coming of the white people, and wished to advise their successors against quarreling with their future neighbors. If this injunction was really implied in the words, we must suppose that they were an interpolation of the Christian chief, David of Schoharie, or possibly of his friend Brant. They do not, however, seem to be, by any means, well adapted to convey this meaning. The probability is that they are a modern corruption of some earlier phrase, whose meaning had become obsolete. They are repeated by the chiefs in council, as some antiquated words in the authorized version of the scriptures are read in our own churches, with no clear comprehension--perhaps with a total misconception--of their original sense.
27. _Enjonkwanekheren_, "we shall lose some one," or, more literally, we shall fail to know some person. This law, which is fully explained in the Introduction, p. 70, will be found aptly exemplified in the Onondaga portion of the text, where the speeches of the "younger brothers" are evidently framed in strict compliance with the injunctions here given.
28. _Jadakweniyu_. This word, usually rendered "ruler," appears to mean "principal person," or perhaps originally a "very powerful person." It is a compound word, formed apparently from _oyata_, body or person, _kakwennion_, to be able, and the adjective termination _iyu_ or _iyo_, in its original sense of "great." (See Appendix, Note B.) M. Cuoq, in his Iroquois Lexicon, defines the verb _kiatakwenniyo_ as meaning "to be the important personage, the first, the principal, the president." It corresponds very nearly to the Latin _princeps_, and, as applied in the following litany to the fifty great hereditary chiefs of the Iroquois, might fairly enough be rendered "prince."
_Kanonghsyonny_, in modern orthography, _Kanonsionni_. For the origin and meaning of this word, and an explanation of the following section, see the Introduction, p. 75.
_Yejodenaghstahhere kanaghsdajikowah_, lit., "they added frame-poles to the great framework." Each of these compounds comprises the word _kanaghsta_, which is spelt by Bruyas, _gannasta_, and defined by him, "poles for making a cabin,--the inner one, which is bent to form the frame of a cabin." The reference in these words is to the Tuscaroras, Tuteloes, Nanticokes, and other tribes, who were admitted into the confederacy after its first formation. From a manuscript book, written in the Onondaga dialect, which I found at "Onondaga Castle," in September, 1880, I copied a list of the fifty councillors, which closed with the words, "_shotinastasonta kanastajikona Ontaskaeken_"--literally, "they added a frame-pole to the great framework, the Tuscarora nation."
29. _Onenh jathondek, sewarihwisaanonghkwe Kayanerenghkowa,_--"now listen, ye who completed the work, the Great League." This section, though written continuously as prose, was probably always sung, like the list of chiefs which follows. It is, in fact, the commencement of a great historical chant, similar in character to the 78th Psalm, or to some passages of the Prophets, which in style it greatly resembles. In singing this portion, as also in the following litany to the chiefs, the long-drawn exclamation of _hai_, or _haihhaih_, is frequently introduced. In the MS. book referred to in the last note, the list of councillors was preceded by a paragraph, written like prose, but with many of these interjections interspersed through it. The interpreter, Albert Cusick, an intelligent and educated man, assured me that this was a song, and at my request he chanted a few staves of it, after the native fashion. The following are the words of this hymn, arranged as they are sung. It will be seen that it is a sort of cento or compilation, in the Onondaga dialect, of passages from various portions of the Canienga Book of Rites, and chiefly from the section (29) now under consideration:--
_ Haihhaih!_ Woe! Woe! _Jiyathonick!_ Hearken ye! _Xivonkliti!_ We are diminished! _ Haihhaih!_ Woe! Woe! _Tejoskawayenton._ The cleared land has become a thicket. _ Haihhaih! _ Woe! Woe! _Skakentahenyon._ The clear places are deserted. _ Hai!_ Woe! _Shatyherarta--_ They are in their graves-- _Hotyiwisahongwe--_ They who established it-- _ Hai!_ Woe! _Kayaneengoha._ The great League. _Netikenen honen_ Yet they declared _Nene kenyoiwatatye--_ It should endure-- _Kayaneengowane._ The great League. _ Hai!_ Woe! _Wakaiwakayonnheha._ Their work has grown old. _ Hai!_ Woe! _Netho watyongwententhe._ Thus we are become miserable.
The closing word is the same as the Canienga _watyonkwentendane_, which is found in the closing section of the Canienga book. The lines of the Onondaga hymn which immediately precede this concluding word will be found in Section 20 of that book, a section which is probably meant to be chanted. It will be noticed that the lines of this hymn fall naturally into a sort of parallelism, like that of the Hebrew chants.
30. _Dekarihaokenh_, or _Tehkarihhoken_. In John Buck's MS. the list of chiefs is preceded by the words "_Nene Tehadirihoken_," meaning the Caniengas, or, literally, "the Tekarihokens." For an explanation of this idiom and name, see _ante_, p. 77.
_Ayonhwahtha_, or _Hayeirwatha_. This name, which, as Hiawatha, is now familiar to us as a household word, is rendered "He who seeks the wampum belt." Chief George Johnson thought it was derived from _oyonwa_, wampum-belt, and _ratiehwatha_, to look for something, or, rather, to seem to seek something which we know where to find. M. Cuoq refe/s the latter part of the word to the verb _katha_, to make. [Footnote: Lexique de la Langue Iroquois, p. 161] The termination _atha_ is, in this sense, of frequent occurrence in Iroquois compounds. The name would then mean "He who makes the wampum-belt," and would account for the story which ascribes to Hiawatha the invention of wampum. The Senecas, in whose language the word _oyonwa_ has ceased to exist, have corrupted the name to _Hayowentha_, which they render "he who combs." This form of the name has also produced its legend, which is referred to elsewhere (p. 87). Hiawatha "combed the snakes out of Atotarho's head," when he brought that redoubted chief into the confederacy.
_Shatekariwalf_, "two equal statements," or "two things equal." This name is derived-from _sate_ or _shate_, equal, and _kariwa_, or _karihwa_, for which see the Glossary.
_Etho natejonhne_, "this was your number," or, this was the extent of your class. These words, or the similar form, _etho natehadinhne_, "this was their number," indicate apparently that the roll of chiefs belonging to a particular class or clan is completed. They are followed by three other words which have been already explained (_ante_, pages 33 and 80), _sewater-ihwakhaonghkwe, sewarihwisaanonghkwe, kayanerenhkowa_. In the written litany these three words are omitted toward the close,--probably to save the penman the labor of transcription; but in the actual ceremony it is understood that they are chanted wherever the formula _etho natejonhne_, or _etho natchadinhne_, occurs. In the modern Canienga speech this verb is thus conjugated in the plural,--_etho_ being contracted to _eh_:--
_ehnatetionhne_, we were that number; _ehnatejionhne_, ye were that number; _ehnatehadinhne_, they were that number.
The three Canienga councillors of the first class all belong to the Tortoise clan.
31. _Sharenhowane_; in Onondaga, _Showenhona_. This name was translated by the interpreters, "he is the loftiest tree." It seems properly to mean "he is a great tree-top," from _karenha_, or _garenha_, which Bruyas renders _cime d'arbre_, and _kowane_, great.
_Deyonnhehgonh_, or _Teyonhehkwen_, "double life," from _onnhe_, life. My friend, Chief George Johnson, who bears this titular appellation, tells me that it is properly the name of a certain shrub, which has a great tenacity of life.
_Ohrenregowah_; in Onondaga, _Owenhegona_. The interpreters differed much in opinion as to the meaning of this name. Some said "wide branches;" another, "a high hill." The root-word, _ohrenre_, is obsolete, and its meaning is apparently lost.
The three chiefs of the second class or division of the Caniengas belong to the Wolf clan.
32. _Dehennakarine_; in Onondaga, _Tehennakaihne_; "going with two horns." The root is _onakara_, horn; the termination _ine_, or _ihne_, gives the sense of going; _de_ or _te_ is the duplicative prefix.
_Aghstawenserontha_ (Onon. _Hastawensenwa_), "he puts on the rattles." Mr. Bearfoot writes, "_Ohstawensera_ seems to have been a general name for anything denuded of flesh, but is now confined to the rattles of the rattlesnake."
_Shosgoharowane_ (Onon. _Shosgohaehna_), "he is a great wood-drift." "_Yohskoharo_, writes Mr. Bearfoot, means an obstruction by driftwood in creeks or small rivers."
The councillors of the third Canienga class are of the Bear clan.
33. _Ise seniyatagweniyohkwe_, "ye two were the principals." _Atagweniyo_, or _adakweniyu_ (see _ante_, note to Sec. 28) here becomes a verb in the imperfect tense and the dual number. The reference is either to Dekanawidah and Odatsehte, the chiefs of the Caniengas and Oneidas, who worked together in founding the confederacy, or, rather, perhaps, to their two nations, each regarded as an individual, and, in a manner, personified.
_Jatatawhak_, or, more properly _jatatahwak_, means, literally, "son of each other." It is from the root-word _kaha-wak_ (or _gahawak_), which is defined by Bruyas, _avoir pour enfant_, and is in the reciprocal form. Here, however, it is understood to mean "father and son," in reference to the political relationship between the Canienga and Oneida nations.
_Odatsehte_ (Onon., Tatshehte), "bearing a quiver,"--or the pouch in which the arrows are carried. According to the tradition, when Dekanawidah's brother and ambassador formally adopted _Odatsehte_ as the political son of the Canienga chief, he took the quiver off his own shoulder, and hung it upon that of the Oneida chieftain.
_Kanonhgwenyodon_, "setting up ears of corn in a row." From _ononhkwenha_, an ear of corn.
_Deyohhagwente_ (Onon., _Tyohagwente_), "open voice" (?) This is another obsolete, or semi-obsolete word, about which the interpreters differ widely in opinion. "Hollow tube," "windpipe," "opening in the woods," "open voice," were the various renderings suggested. The latter would be derived from _ohakwa_ or _ohagwa_, voice, and the termination _wente_ or _gwente_, which gives the sense of "open."
The three chiefs of the first Oneida class belong to the Wolf clan.
34. _Shononhsese_ (Onon., Shononses), "his long house." or, "he has a long house." From _kanonsa_, house, with the adjective termination _es_, long.
_Daonahrokenagh_ (Onon., Tonaohgena), "two branches." This is another doubtful word. In modern Canienga, "two branches" would be _Tonenroken_.
_Atyatonentha_ (Onon., Hatyatonnentha), "he lowers himself," or, literally, "he slides himself down," from _oyata_, body, self, and _tonnenta_, to slide.
The councillors of the second Oneida class are of the Tortoise clan.
35. _Dewatahonhtenyonk_ (Onon., _Tehatahonhtenyonk_), "two hanging ears," from _ohonta_, ear.
_Kaniyatahshayonk_ (Onon., _Kanenyatakshayen_). This name was rendered "easy throat," as if derived from _oniata_, throat; but the Oneida form of the word seems to point to a derivation from _onenya_ (or _onenhia_), stone. This word must be regarded as another obsolete compound.
_Onwatsatonhonk_ (Onon., _Onwasjatenwi_), "he is buried."
The three chiefs of the third Oneida class are of the Bear clan.
36. _Eghyesaotonnihsen_, lit., "this was his uncle,"--or, as the words would be understood by the hearers, "the next are his uncles." The Onondaga nation, being the brother of the Canienga, was, of course, the uncle of the Oneida. In John Buck's MS. the Onondagas are introduced with more ceremony, in the following lines:
_Etho yeshodonnih_; These are the uncles; _Rodihsennakeghde_, They, the name-bearers-- _Tehhotiyena_, They took hold here; _Rodihnonsyonnihton_. They made the League.
That is, they helped, or joined, in making the League.
_Thatotarho, Wathatotarho_ (Onon., _Thatotarho_). _Thatotarho_ is the passive voice and cislocative form of _otarho_, which is defined "to grasp," or "catch" (_accrocher_) but in the passive signifies "entangled." This great chief, whose name is better known as Atotarho (without the cislocative prefix), is of the Bear clan.
_Etho ronaraschsen_, "these were cousins," or rather, "the next were cousins." This cousinhood, like all the relationships throughout the book, is political, and indicates some close relationship in public affairs. The announcement applies to the following chiefs, Enneserarenh and Dehatkahthos, who were the special aids and counselors of Atotarho.
_Enneserarenh_ (Onon. _Hanesehen_). One Onondata chief said that he knew no meaning for this word. Another thought it might mean "the best soil uppermost." It is apparently from some obsolete root.
_Dehatkahthos_ (Onon. _Tchatkahtons_), "he is two-sighted," or, "he looks both ways." Another rendering made it "on the watch." This and the preceding chief belong now to the Beaver clan. In one of the Onondaga lists which I received, these two, with their principal, Atotarho, formed a "class" by themselves, and were doubtless originally of the same clan.
_Waghontenhnonterontye_, "they were as brothers thenceforth;" or, more fully rendered, "the next continued to be brothers." This declaration refers to the three next following chiefs, who were connected by some special political tie. The first who bore the name were, probably, like the two preceding chiefs, leading partisans and favorites of the first Atotarho.
_Onyatajiwak_, or _Skanyadajiwak_ (Onon., _Oyatajiwak_). One authority makes this "a fowl's crop;" another, "the throat alone," from _oniata_, throat, and _jiwak_, alone; another defined it, "bitter throat." Mr. Morgan renders it "bitter body,"--his informant probably seeing in it the word _oyata_, body. This chief belongs now to the Snipe clan.
_Awekenyade_. "the end of its journey,"--from awe, going, and _akonhiate_(Can.) "at the end." This chief is of the Ball tribe, both in Canada, and at Onondaga Castle. In the list furnished to Mr. Morgan by the Senecas, he is of the Tortoise clan.
_Dehadkwarayen_ (Onon., _Tchatkwayen_). This word is obsolete. One interpreter guessed it to mean "on his body;" another made it "red wings." He is of the Tortoise clan.
In the Book of Rites the first six chiefs of the Onondagas make but one class, as is shown by the fact that their names are followed by the formula, _etho natejonhne_, "this was the number of you." It may be presumed that they were originally of one clan,--probably that of the Bear, to which their leader, Atotarho, belonged.
37. _Yeshohawak_, _rakwahhokowah_, "then his next son, he the great Wolf." The chief who follows, _Ronenghwireghtonh_, was evidently a personage of great importance,--probably the leading chief of the Wolf class. He forms a "clan" by himself,--the only instance of the kind in the list. The expression, "there (or, in him) were combined the minds," indicates--as Mr. Bearfoot suggests--his superior intellect. It may also refer to the fact that he was the hereditary keeper of the wampum records. The title was borne in Canada by the late chief George Buck, but the duties of record-keeper were usually performed by his more eminent brother, John (_Skanawati_).
_Rononghwireghtonh_ (Onon., _Honanwiehti_), "he is sunk out of sight." This chief, who, as has been stated, alone constitutes the second Onondaga class, is of the Wolf clan.
38. _Etho yeshotonnyh tekadarakehne_, "then his uncles of the two clans." The five chiefs who follow probably bore some peculiar political relation to Rononghwireghton. The first two in modern times are of the Deer clan; the last three are of the Eel clan. It is probable that they all belonged originally, with him, to one clan, that of the Wolf, and consequently to one class, which was afterwards divided into three. _Kawenenseronton_ (Onon., _Kawenensenton_). A word of doubtful meaning; one interpreter thought it meant "her voice suspended." _Haghriron_ (Onon., _Hahihon_), "spilled," or "scattered."
39. _Wahhondennonterontye_. This word has already occurred, with a different orthography, and is explained in the Note to Section 36. _Ronyennyennih_ (Onon., _Honyennyenni_). No satisfactory explanation could be obtained of this word. Chief John Buck did not know its meaning. _Shodakwarashonh_ (Onon., _Shotegwashen_), "he is bruised." _Shakokenghne_ (Onon. _Shahkohkenneh_), "he saw them." As stated above, the three chiefs in this class are of the Eel clan.
40. _Shihonadewiraralye_, "they had children," or, rather, "they continued to get children." Mr. Bearfoot writes in regard to this word: "Yodewirare, a fowl hatching, referring to the time when they were forming the league, when they were said to be hatching, or producing, the children mentioned--i.e., the other tribes who were taken into the confederacy." _Tehhodidarakeh_, "these the two clans." Taken in connection with the preceding lines of the chant, it seems probable that this expression refers to the introduction of other clans into the Council besides the original three, the Bear, Wolf and Tortoise, which existed when the confederacy was formed. _Raserhaghrhonh_ (Onon., _Sherhakwi_), "wearing a hatchet in his belt," from _asera_, hatchet. This chief is of the Tortoise clan. _Etho wahhoronghyaronnyon_, "this put away the clouds." These "clouds," it is said, were the clouds of war, which were dispelled by the great chief whose name is thus introduced, _Skanawadyh_, or as now spelt, _Skanawati_. He had the peculiar distinction of holding two offices, which were rarely combined. He was both a high chief, or "Lord of the Council," and a "Great Warrior." In former times the members of the Great Council seldom assumed executive duties. They were rarely sent out as ambassadors or as leaders of war-parties. These duties were usually entrusted to the ablest chiefs of the second rank, who were known as "Great Warriors," _rohskenrakehte-kowa_. Skanawati was an exception to this rule. It would seem that the chief who first bore this title had special aptitudes, which have come down in his family. A striking instance, given in the "_Relations_" of the Jesuit missionaries among the Hurons, has been admirably reproduced by Mr. Parkman in the twenty-third chapter of his "Jesuits in North America," and cannot be better told than in his words. In the year 1648, during the desperate war between the Kanonsionni and the Hurons, the Onondagas determined to respond to the pacific overtures which they had received from their northern foes.
"They chose for their envoy," continues the historian, "Scandawati, a man of renown, sixty years of age, joining with him two colleagues. [Footnote: _Scandawali_ is the Huron--and probably the original Onondaga--pronunciation of the name.] The old Onondaga entered on his mission with a troubled mind. His anxiety was not so much for his life as for his honor and dignity; for, while the Oneidas and the Cayugas were acting in concurrence with the Onondagas, the Senecas had refused any part in the embassy, and still breathed nothing but war. Would they, or still more, the Mohawks, so far forget the consideration due to one whose name had been great in the Councils of the League, as to assault the Hurons while he was among them in the character of an ambassador of his nation, whereby his honor would be compromised and his life endangered? 'I am not a dead dog,' he said, 'to be despised and forgotten. I am worthy that all men should turn their eyes on me while I am among enemies, and do nothing that may involve me in danger.' Soon there came dire tidings. The prophetic heart of the old chief had not deceived him. The Senecas and Mohawks, disregarding negotiations in which they had no part, and resolved to bring them to an end, were invading the country in force. It might be thought that the Hurons would take their revenge on the Onondaga envoys, now hostages among them; but they did not do so, for the character of an ambassador was, for the most part, held in respect. One morning, however, Scandawati had disappeared. They were full of excitement; for they thought that he had escaped to the enemy. They ranged the woods in search of him, and at length found him in a thicket near the town. He lay dead, on a bed of spruce boughs which he had made, his throat deeply gashed with a knife. He had died by his own hand, a victim of mortified pride. 'See,' writes Father Ragueneau, 'how much our Indians stand on the point of honor!'"
It is worthy of note that the same aptitude for affairs and the same keen sense of honor which distinguished this highspirited chief survives in the member of his family who, on the Canadian Reservation, now bears the same title,--Chief John Buck,--whom his white neighbors all admit to be both a capable ruler and an able and trustworthy negotiator.
In Canada _Skanawati_ is of the Tortoise clan. At Onondaga, where the original family has probably died out, the title now belongs to the Ball clan.
41. _Yeshohawak_, "then his next son,"--or rather, perhaps, "then, next, his son." The Cayuga nation was politically the son of the Onondaga nation. _Tekahenyonk_ (Onon., _Hakaenyonk_), "he looks both ways," or, "he examines warily." In section 28 (_ante_ p. 126) this name is spelt _Akahenyonh_. The prefixed _te_ is the duplicative particle, and gives the meaning of "spying on both sides." This and the following chief belong, in Canada, to the Deer clan, and constitute the first Cayuga class. _Jinontaweraon_ (Onon., _Jinontaweyon_), "coming on its knees."
42. _Katakwarasonh_ (Onon., _Ketagwajik_), "it was bruised." This name, it will be seen, is very similar to that of an Onondaga chief,--_ante_, Note to Section 39. The chief now named and the one who follows are of the Bear clan. _Shoyonwese_ (Onon., _Soyonwes_), "he has a long wampumbelt." The root-word of this name is _oyonwa_, wampum-belt, the same that appears in _Hayonwatha_. _Atyaseronne_ (Onon., _Halyasenne_), "he puts one on another," or "he piles on." This chief is of the Tortoise clan, and completes, with the two preceding councillors, the second Cayuga class.
43. _Yeshonadadekenah_, "then they who are brothers." The three chiefs who follow are all of the Wolf clan, and make the third class of the Cayuga councillors. _Teyoronghyonkeh_ (Onon., _Thowenyongo_), "it touches the sky." _Teyodhoreghkonh_ (Onon., _Tyotowegwi_), "doubly cold." _Wathyawenhehetken_ (Onon., _Thaowethon_), "mossy place."
44. The two following chiefs are of the Snipe clan, and constitute the fourth and last Cayuga class. _Atontaraheha_ (Onon., _Hatontaheha_) "crowding himself in." _Teskahe_ (Onon., _Heskahe_) "resting on it."
45. _Yeshotonnih_, "and then his uncle." The Seneca nation, being the brother of the Onondaga, is, of course, the uncle of the Cayuga nation. _Skanyadariyo_ (Onon., _Kanyataiyo_), "beautiful lake;" originally, perhaps, "great lake." (See Appendix, Note B.) This name is spelt in Section 28 (_ante_, p. 128) _Kanyadariyu_. The prefixed _s_ is the sign of the reiterative form, and when joined to proper names is regarded as a token of nobility,--like the French _de_, or the German _von_. [Footnote: See J. A. Cuoq: _Jugement Erroné_, etc., p. 57. "Le reiteratif est comme un signe de noblesse dans les noms propres."] _Kanyadariyo_, was one of the two leading chiefs of the Senecas at the formation of the confederacy. The title belongs to the Wolf clan. _Yeshonaraseshen_, lit., "they were cousins." In the present instance, and according to the Indian idiom, we must read "Skanyadariyo, with his cousin, Shadekaronyes." _Shadekaronyes_ (Onon., _Shatekaenyes_), "skies of equal length." This chief (whose successor now belongs to the Snipe clan) was in ancient times the head of the second great division of the Senecas. These two potentates were made a "class" in the Council by themselves, and were thus required to deliberate together and come to an agreement on any question that was brought up, before expressing an opinion in the council. This ingenious device for preventing differences between the two sections of the Seneca nation is one of the many evidences of statesmanship exhibited in the formation of the League.
46. _Satyenawat_, "withheld." This chief, in the Canadian list, is of the Snipe clan; in Mr. Morgan's Seneca list, he is of the Bear clan. His comrade in the class, Shakenjowane, is, in both lists, of the Hawk clan. _Shakenjowane_ (Onon., _Shakenjona_), "large forehead."
There has apparently been some derangement here in the order of the classes. In Mr. Morgan's list, and also in one furnished to me at Onondaga Castle, the two chiefs just named belong to different classes. The variance of the lists may be thus shown:--
_The Book of Rites_. _The Seneca and Onondaga Lists_.
Second Seneca Class.
_Satyenawat_ _Kanokarih_ _Shakenjowane_ _Shakenjowane_.
Third Seneca Class.
_Kanokarih_ _Satyenawat_ _Nisharyenen_ _Nisharyenen_.
Satyenawat and Kanokarih have changed places. As the Book of Rites is the earlier authority, it is probable that the change was made among the New York Senecas after a part of their nation had removed to Canada.
47. _Kanokarih_ (Onon., _Kanokaehe_), "threatened." _Nisharyenen_ (Onon., _Onishayenenha_), "the day fell down."
One of the interpreters rendered the latter name, "the handle drops." The meaning of the word must be considered doubtful. The first of these chiefs is of the Tortoise clan, and the second is, in Canada, of the Bear clan. In Mr. Morgan's list he is of the Snipe clan. The disruption of the Seneca nation, and the introduction of new clans, have thrown this part of the list into confusion.
48. _Onghwakeghaghshonah_, etc. The verses which follow are repeated here from the passage of the Book which precedes the chanted litany. (See _ante_, Section 28.) Their repetition is intended to introduce the names of the two chiefs who composed the fourth and last class of the Seneca councillors. _Yatehhotinhohhataghkwen_, "they were at the doorway," or, according to another version, "they made the doorway." The chiefs are represented as keeping the doorway of the "extended mansion," which imaged the confederacy. _Kanonghkeridawyh_, (Onon., _Kanonkeitawi_,) "entangled hair given." This chief, in Canada, is of the Bear clan; in New York, according to Morgan's list, he is of the Snipe clan. _Teyoninhokarawenh_, (Onon., _Teyoninhokawenh_,) "open door." In both lists he is of the Wolf clan.
Mr. Morgan (in his "League of the Iroquois," page 68,) states that to the last-named chief, or "sachem," the duty of watching the door was assigned, and that "they gave him a sub-sachem, or assistant, to enable him to execute this trust." In fact, however, every high chief, or _royaner_ (lord), had an assistant, or war chief (_roskenrakehte-kowa_, great warrior), to execute his instructions. The Book of Rites shows clearly that the two chiefs to whom the duty of "guarding the doorway" was assigned were both nobles of the first rank. Their office also appears not to have been warlike. From the words of the Book it would seem that when new tribes were received into the confederacy, these two councillors had the formal office of "opening the doorway" to the new-comers--that is (as we may suppose), of receiving and introducing their chiefs into the federal council.
In another sense the whole Seneca nation was deemed, and was styled in council, the Doorkeeper (_Ronhohonti_, pl., _Roninhohonti_) of the confederacy. The duty of guarding the common country against the invasions of the hostile tribes of the west was specially committed to them. Their leaders, or public representatives, in this duty would naturally be the two great chiefs of the nation, Kanyateriyo and Shadekaronyes. The rules of the League, however, seem to have forbidden the actual assumption by the councillors of any executive or warlike command. At least, if they undertook such duties, it must be as private men, and not in their capacity of nobles--just as an English peer might serve as an officer in the army or as an ambassador. The only exceptions recognized by the Iroquois constitution seem to have been in the cases of Tekarihoken and Skanawati, who were at once nobles and war-chiefs. (See _ante_, pages 78 and 159.) The two great Seneca chiefs would therefore find it necessary to make over their military functions to their assistants or war-chiefs. This may explain the statement made by Morgan ("League of the Iroquois," p. 74) that there were two special "war-chiefships" created among the Senecas, to which these commands were assigned.
49. _Onenh watyonkwentendane kanikonrakeh_. The condoling chant concludes abruptly with the doleful exclamation, "Now we are dejected in spirit." _Enkitenlane_, "I am becoming poor," or "wretched," is apparently a derivative of _kitenre_, to pity, and might be rendered, "I am in a pitiable state." "We are miserable in mind," would probably be a literal version of this closing ejaculation. Whether it is a lament for the past glories of the confederacy, or for the chief who is mourned, is a question which those who sing the words at the present day would probably have a difficulty in answering. It is likely, however, that the latter cause of grief was in the minds of those who first composed the chant.
It is an interesting fact, as showing the antiquity of the names of the chiefs in the foregoing list, that at least a fourth of them are of doubtful etymology. That their meaning was well understood when they were borne by the founders of the League cannot be questioned. The changes of language or the uncertainties of oral transmission, in the lapse of four centuries, have made this large proportion of them either obsolete or so corrupt as to be no longer intelligible. Of all the names it may probably be affirmed with truth that the Indians who hear them recited think of their primitive meaning as little as we ourselves think of the meaning of the family names or the English titles of nobility which we hear or read. To the Iroquois of the present day the hereditary titles of their councillors are--to use their own expression--"just names," and nothing more. It must not be supposed, however, that the language itself has altered in the same degree. Proper names, as is well known, when they become mere appellatives, discharged of significance, are much more likely to vary than the words of ordinary speech.
NOTES ON THE ONONDAGA BOOK
1 _a. Yo onen onen wen ni sr te,_ "oh now--now this day." It will be noticed that this address of the "younger brothers" commences in nearly the same words which begin the speeches of the Canienga book. This similarity of language exists in other parts of the two books, though disguised by the difference of dialect, and also by the very irregular and corrupt spelling of the Onondaga book. To give some idea of this irregularity, and of the manner in which the words of this book are to be pronounced, several of these words are subjoined, with the pronunciation of the interpreter, represented in the orthography of the Canienga book:
_Words as written._ _As pronounced by La Fort._
wen ni sr te wennisaate ho gar a nyat hogaenyat son tar yen sontahien na ya ne nayeneh o shon ta gon gonar osontagongona gar weear har tye gawehehatie on gwr non sen shen tar qua ongwanonsenshentakwa ga nen ar ta (or, ga nen ar ti) ganenhate kon hon wi sats konthonwitsas o wen gr ge ohwengage nar ya he yr genh nayehiyaken.
The letter _r,_ it will be seen, is not a consonant. In fact, it is never heard as such in the modern Onondaga dialect. As used by La Fort, its office is either to give to the preceding vowel _a_ the sound which it has in _father,_ or by itself to represent that sound. The _a,_ when not followed by _r,_ is usually sounded like _a_ in _fate_, but sometimes keeps the sound of _a_ in _far._ The _e_ usually represents the English _e_ in _be,_ or, when followed by _n,_ the _e_ in _pen._ The _i_ and _y_ are commonly sounded as in the word _city._ The _g_ is always hard, and is interchangeable with _k._ The _t_ and _d_ are also interchangeable.
While the syllables in the original are written separately, the words are not always distinguished; and it is doubtful if, in printing, they have in all cases been properly divided. The translation of the interpreter, though tolerably exact, was not always literal; and in the brief time at our command the precise meaning of some of the words was not ascertained. No attempt, therefore, has been made to form a glossary of this portion of the text.
In the original the addresses of the "younger brothers" are divided into sections, which are numbered from one to seven, and each of which, in the ceremony, is called to mind by its special wampum-string, which is produced when the section is recited. As the first of these sections is of much greater length than the others, it has been divided in this work, for the purpose of ready reference, into sub-sections, which are numbered 1_a_, 1_b_, and so on.
1 _b_. _Nenthaotagenhetak_, "by the ashes," or "near the hearth." The root-word is here _agenhe_, the Onondaga form of the Canienga word _akenra_, ashes, which is comprised in the compound form, _jiudakenrokde_, in Section 27 of the Canienga book. It will be seen that the spokesman of the younger nations is here complying strictly with the law laid down in that section. He "stands by the hearth and speaks a few words to comfort those who are mourning."
1 _c_. "_It was valued at twenty._" The interpreters explained that by "twenty" was understood the whole of their wampum, which constituted all their treasure. A human life was worth the whole of this, and they freely gave it, merely to recall the memory of the chief who was gone. Among the Hurons, when a man had been killed, and his kindred were willing to renounce their claim to vengeance on receiving due satisfaction, the number of presents of wampum and other valuables which were to be given was rigidly prescribed by their customary law. [Footnote: _Relation_ of 1648, p. 80.] From this custom would easily follow the usage of making similar gifts, in token of sympathy, to all persons who were mourning the loss of a near relative,
1 _d_. "_Because with her the line is lost._" The same sentiment prevailed among the Hurons. "For a Huron killed by a Huron," writes Father Ragueneau in the letter just quoted, "thirty gifts are commonly deemed a sufficient satisfaction. For a woman forty are required, because, as they say, the women are less able to defend themselves; and, moreover, they being the source whence the land is peopled, their lives should be deemed of more value to the commonwealth, and their weakness should have a stronger support in public justice." Such was the reasoning of these heathen barbarians. Enlightened Christendom has hardly yet advanced to the mark of these opinions.
I _e. "Where the grave has been made,"_ &c. The recital of Father Ragueneau also illustrates this passage. "Then followed," he writes, "nine other presents, for the purpose, as it were, of erecting a sepulchre for the deceased. Four of them were for the four pillars which should support this sepulchre, and four others for the four cross-pieces on which the bier of the dead was to rest. The ninth was to serve as his pillow."
2. "I will make the sky clear to you." In this paragraph the speaker reminds the mourners, in the style of bold imagery which the Iroquois orators affected, that continued grief for the dead would not be consonant with the course of nature. Though all might seem dark to them now, the sky would be as clear, and the sun would shine as brightly for them, as if their friend had not died. Their loss had been inevitable, and equally sure would be the return of the "pleasant days." This reminder, which may seem to us needless, was evidently designed as a reproof, at once gentle and forcible, of those customs of excessive and protracted mourning which were anciently common among the Huron-Iroquois tribes.
3. _"You must converse with your nephews,"_ &c. The "nephews" are, of course, the chiefs of the younger nations, who are here the condolers. The mourners are urged to seek for comfort in the sympathy of their friends, and not to reject the consolations offered by their visitors and by their own people.
4. _"And now you can go out before the people, and go on with your duties,"_ &c. This, it will be seen, corresponds with the injunctions of the Canienga book. (See Section 27, _ante,_ p. 127): "And then they will be comforted, and will conform to the great law."
6. _"Then the horns shall be left on the grave,"_ &c. The same figure is here used as in the Canienga book, Section 23 (_ante,_ p. 125). It is evident that the importance of keeping up the succession of their councillors was constantly impressed on the minds of the Iroquois people by the founders of their League.
7. _"And the next death will receive the pouch."_ The "mourning wampum," in modern days, is left, or supposed to be left, with the kindred of the late chief until another death shall occur among the members of the Council, when it is to be passed on to the family of the deceased. This economy is made necessary by the fact that only one store of such wampum now exists, as the article is no longer made. It is probable that in ancient times the wampum was left permanently with the family of the deceased, as a memorial of the departed chief.
_"Where the fire is made and the smoke is rising," i.e.,_ when you receive notice that a Condoling Council is to be held in a certain place. The kindled fire and the rising smoke were the well-understood images which represented the convocation of their councils. In the Onondaga book before referred to (_ante,_ p. 152) a few pages were occupied by what might be styled a pagan sermon, composed of exhortations addressed to the chiefs, urging them to do their duty to the community. The following is the commencement of this curious composition, which may serve to illustrate both the words now under consideration and the character of the people. The orthography is much better than that of La Fort's book, the vowels generally having the Italian sound, and the spelling being tolerably uniform. The translation was made by Albert Cusick, and is for the most part closely literal: The discourse commences with a "text," after the fashion which the pagan exhorter had probably learned from the missionaries:--
Naye ne iwaton ne gayanencher:
Onen wahagwatatjistagenhas ne Thatontarho. Onen wagayengwaeten, naye ne watkaenya, esta netho tina enyontkawaonk. Ne enagenyon nwatkaonwenjage shanonwe nwakayengwaeten netho titentyetongenta shanonwe nwakayengwaeten, ne tokat gishens enyagoiwayentaha ne oyatonwetti.
Netho hiya nigawennonten ne ongwanencher ne Ayakt Niyongyonwenjage ne Tyongwehonwe.
Ottinawahoten ne oyengwaetakwit? Nayehiya, ne agwegeh enhonatiwagwaisyonk ne hatigowanes,--tenhontatnonongwak gagweki,--oni enshagotino-ongwak ne honityogwa, engenk ne hotisgenrhergeta, oni ne genthonwisash, oni ne hongwagsata, oni ne ashonsthateyetigaher ne ongwagsata; netho niyoh tehatinya agweke sne sgennon enyonnontonnyonhet, ne hegentyogwagwegi. Naye ne hatigowanens neye gagwegi honatiiwayenni sha oni nenyotik honityogwa shanya yagonigonheten. Ne tokat gishen naye enyagotiwatentyeti, negaewane akwashen ne honiyatwa shanityawenih.
_Translation._
"The law says this:
"Now the council-fire was lighted by Atotarho. Now the smoke rises and ascends to the sky, that everybody may see it. The tribes of the different nations where the smoke appeared shall come directly where the smoke arises, if, perhaps, they have any business for the council to consider.
"These are the words of our law,--of the Six Nations of Indians.
"What is the purpose of the smoke? It is this--that the chiefs must all be honest; that they must all love one another; and that they must have regard for their people,--including the women, and also our children, and also those children whom we have not yet seen; so much they must care for, that all may be in peace, even the whole nation. It is the duty of the chiefs to do this, and they have the power to govern their people. If there is anything to be done for the good of the people, it is their duty to do it."
7 _b. "Now I have finished! Now show him to me!"_ With this laconic exclamation, which calls upon the nation of the late chief to bring forward his successor, the formal portion of the ceremony--the condolence which precedes the installation--is abruptly closed.
APPENDIX.
NOTE A.
THE NAMES OF THE IROQUOIS NATIONS.
The meaning of the term _Kanonsionni,_ and of the other names by which the several nations were known in their Council, are fully explained in the Introduction. But some account should be given of the names, often inappropriate and generally much corrupted, by which they were known to their white neighbors. The origin and proper meaning of the word _Iroquois_ are doubtful. All that can be said with certainty is that the explanation given by Charlevoix cannot possibly be correct. "The name of Iroquois," he says, "is purely French, and has been formed from the term _hiro,_ 'I have spoken,' a word by which these Indians close all their speeches, and _koue,_ which, when long drawn out, is a cry of sorrow, and when briefly uttered, is an exclamation of joy." [Footnote: _History of New France,_ Vol. i, p. 270.] It might be enough to say of this derivation that no other nation or tribe of which we have any knowledge has ever borne a name composed in this whimsical fashion. But what is decisive is the fact that Champlain had learned the name from his Indian allies before he or any other Frenchman, so far as is known, had ever seen an Iroquois. It is probable that the origin of the word is to be sought in the Huron language; yet, as this is similar to the Iroquois tongue, an attempt may be made to find a solution in the latter. According to Bruyas, the word _garokwa_ meant a pipe, and also a piece of tobacco,--and, in its verbal form, to smoke. This word is found, somewhat disguised by aspirates, in the Book of Rites--_denighroghkwayen,_--"let us two smoke together." (_Ante._ p. 114, Section 2). In the indeterminate form the verb becomes _ierokwa,_ which is certainly very near to "Iroquois." It might be rendered "they who smoke," or "they who use tobacco," or, briefly, "the Tobacco People." This name, the Tobacco Nation (_Nation du Petun_) was given by the French, and probably also by the Algonkins, to one of the Huron tribes, the Tionontates, noted for the excellent tobacco which they raised and sold. The Iroquois were equally well known for their cultivation of this plant, of which they had a choice variety. [Footnote: "The Senecas still cultivate tobacco. Its name signifies '_the only tobacco,'_ because they consider this variety superior to all others."--Morgan: _League of the Iroquois,_ p. 375.] It is possible that their northern neighbors may have given to them also a name derived from this industry. Another not improbable supposition might connect the name with that of a leading sept among them, the Bear clan. This clan, at least among the Caniengas, seems to have been better known than any other to their neighbors. The Algonkins knew that nation as the Maquas, or Bears. In the Canienga speech, bear is _ohkwari_; in Onondaga, the word becomes _ohkwai_, and in Cayuga, _iakwai_,--which also is not far from _Iroquois_. These conjectures--for they are nothing more--may both be wrong; but they will perhaps serve to show the direction in which the explanation of this perplexing word is to be sought.
The name of _Mingo_ or _Mengwe,_ by which the Iroquois were known to the Delawares and the other southern Algonkins, is said to be a contraction of the Lenape word _Mahongwi_, meaning the "People of the Springs." [Footnote: E. G. Squier: _"Traditions of the Algonquins,"_ in Beach's Indian Miscellany, p. 28.] The Iroquois possessed the headwaters of the rivers which flowed through the country of the Delawares, and this explanation of the name may therefore be accepted as a probable one.
The first of the Iroquois nations, the "oldest brother" of the confederacy, has been singularly unfortunate in the designations by which it has become generally known. The people have a fine, sonorous name of their own, said to be derived from that of one of their ancient towns. This name is _Kanienke_, "at the Flint." _Kansen_, in their language, signifies flint, and the final syllable is the same locative particle which we find in _Onontake,_ "at the mountain." In pronunciation and spelling, this, like other Indian words, is much varied, both by the natives themselves and by their white neighbors, becoming _Kanieke, Kanyenke, Canyangeh,_ and _Canienga._ The latter form, which accords with the sister names of Onondaga and Cayuga, has been adopted in the present volume.
The Huron frequently drops the initial _k,_ or changes it to _y._ The Canienga people are styled in that speech _Yanyenge,_ a word which is evidently the origin of the name of _Agnier,_ by which this nation is known to the French.
The Dutch learned from the Mohicans (whose name, signifying Wolves, is supposed to be derived from that of their leading clan) to call the Kanienke by the corresponding name of _Maqua_ (or _Makwa_), the Algonkin word for Bear. But as the Iroquois, and especially the Caniengas, became more and more a terror to the surrounding nations, the feelings of aversion and dread thus awakened found vent in an opprobrious epithet, which the southern and eastern Algonkins applied to their obnoxious neighbors. They were styled by these enemies _Mowak,_ or _Mowawak_ a word which has been corrupted to _Mohawk._ It is the third person plural, in the sixth "transition," of the Algonkin word _mowa_, which means "to eat," but which is only used of food that has had life. Literally it means "they eat them;" but the force of the verb and of the pronominal inflection suffices to give to the word, when used as an appellative, the meaning of "those who eat men," or, in other words, "the Cannibals." That the English, with whom the Caniengas were always fast friends, should have adopted this uncouth and spiteful nickname is somewhat surprising. It is time that science and history should combine to banish it, and to resume the correct designation. [Footnote: William Penn and his colonists, who probably understood the meaning of the word _Mohawk_ forbore to employ it. In the early records of the colony (published by the Pennsylvania Historical Society) the nation is described in treaties, laws, and other public acts, by its proper designation, a little distorted in the spelling,--_Canyingoes, Ganyingoes, Cayinkers, etc._]
The name _Oneida_, which in French became _Onneyoutk_ or _Onneyote_, is a corruption of a compound word, formed of _onenhia_, or _onenya_, stone, and _kaniote_, to be upright or elevated. _Onenniote_ is rendered "the projecting stone." It is applied to a large boulder of syennite, which thrusts its broad shoulder above the earth at the summit of an eminence near which, in early times, the Oneidas had planted their chief settlement.
As has been already stated, _Onondaga_ is a softened pronunciation of _Onontake_, "at the mountain,"--or, perhaps, more exactly, "at the hill." It is probable that this name was unknown when the confederacy was formed, as it is not comprised in the list of towns given in the Book of Rites. It may be supposed to have been first applied to this nation after their chief town was removed to the site which it occupied in the year 1654, when the first white visitors of whom we have any certain account, the Jesuit Father Le Moyne and his party, came among them,--and also in 1677, when the English explorer, Greenhalgh, passed through their country. This site was about seven miles east of their present Reservation. I visited it in September, 1880, in company with my friend, General John S. Clark, who has been singularly successful in identifying the positions of the ancient Iroquois towns. The locality is thus described in my journal: "The site is, for an Indian town, peculiarly striking and attractive. It stretches about three miles in length, with a width of half a mile, along the broad back and gently sloping sides of a great hill, which swells, like a vast oblong cushion, between two hollows made by branches of a small stream, known as Limehouse creek. These streams and many springs on the hillside yielded abundance of water, while the encircling ridges on every side afforded both firewood and game. In the neighborhood were rich valleys, where--as well as on the hill itself--the people raised their crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, and tobacco. There are signs of a large population." In the fields of stubble which occupied the site of this ancient capital, the position of the houses could still be traced by the dark patches of soil; and a search of an hour or two rewarded us with several wampum-beads, flint chips, and a copper coin of the last century. The owner of the land, an intelligent farmer, affirmed that "wagon-loads" of Indian wares,--pottery, hatchets, stone implements, and the like--had been carried off by curiosity seekers.
The name of the _Cayugas_ (in French _Goyogouin_) is variously pronounced by the Iroquois themselves. I wrote it as I heard it, at different times, from members of the various tribes. _Koyúkweñ, Koiúkwe, Kwaiúkweñ, Kayúkwe._ A Cayuga chief made it _Kayúkwa,_ which is very near the usual English pronunciation of the word. Of its purport no satisfactory account could be obtained. One interpreter rendered it "the fruit country," another "the place where canoes are drawn out." Cusick, the historian, translates it "a mountain rising from the water." Mr. Morgan was told that it meant "the mucky land." We can only infer that the interpreters were seeking, by vague resemblances, to recover a lost meaning.
The _Senecas_, who were called by the French _Tsonontouan_ or _Sonnontouan_, bore among the Iroquois various names, but all apparently derived from the words which appear in that appellation,--_ononta_, hill, and _kowa_ or _kowane,_ great. The Caniengas called them _Tsonontowane_; the Oneidas abridged the word to _Tsontowana_; the Cayugas corrupted it to _Onondewa_; and the Onondagas contracted it yet farther, to _Nontona_. The Senecas called themselves variously _Sonontowa, Onontewa,_ and _Nondewa._ _Sonontowane_ is probably the most correct form.
The word _Seneca_ is supposed to be of Algonkin origin, and like _Mohawk_, to have been given as an expression of dislike, or rather of hostility. _Sinako_, in the Delaware tongue, means properly "Stone Snakes;" but in this conjunction it is understood, according to the interpretation furnished to Mr. Squier, to signify "Mountain Snakes." [Footnote: _"Traditions of the Algonquins,"_ in Beach's _Indian Miscellany,_ p. 33.] The Delawares, it appears, were accustomed to term all their enemies "snakes." In this case they simply translated the native name of the Iroquois tribe (the "Mountain People"), and added this uncomplimentary epithet. As the name, unlike the word Mohawk, is readily pronounced by the people to whom it was given, and as they seem to have in some measure accepted it, there is not the same reason for objecting to its use as exists in the case of the latter word,--more especially as there is no absolute certainty that it is not really an Iroquois word. It bears, in its present form, a close resemblance to the honorable "Council name" of the Onondagas,--_Sennakehte,_ "the title-givers;" a fact which may perhaps have made the western nation more willing to adopt it.
NOTE B.
MEANING OF OHIO, ONTARIO, ONONTIO, RAWENNIIO.
The words _Ohio, Ontario_ and _Onontio_ (or _Yonnondio_)--which should properly be pronounced as if written _Oheeyo, Ontareeyo,_ and _Ononteeyo_--are commonly rendered "Beautiful River," "Beautiful Lake," "Beautiful Mountain." This, doubtless, is the meaning which each of the words conveys to an Iroquois of the present day, unless he belongs to the Tuscarora tribe. But there can be no doubt that the termination _io_ (otherwise written _iyo, iio, eeyo_, etc.) had originally the sense, not of "beautiful," but of "great." It is derived from the word _wiyo_ (or _wiio_) which signifies in the Seneca dialect _good,_ but in the Tuscarora, _great_. It is certain that the Tuscaroras have preserved the primitive meaning of the word, which the Hurons and the proper Iroquois have lost. When the French missionaries first studied the languages of these nations, traces of the original usage were apparent. Bruyas, in the "Proemium" to his _Radices Verborum Iroquaorum_, (p. 14), expressly states that _jo (io)_ in composition with verbs, "signifies magnitude." He gives as an example, _garihaioston_, "to make much of anything," from _garihea_, thing, and _io_, "great, important." The Jesuit missionaries, in their _Relation_ for 1641, (p. 22) render _Onontio_ "great mountain," and say that both Hurons and Iroquois gave this title to the Governor of that day as a translation of his name, Montmagny.
_Ontario_ is derived from the Huron _yontare_, or _ontare_, lake (Iroquois, _oniatare_), with this termination. It was not by any means the most beautiful of the lakes which they knew; but in the early times, when the Hurons dwelt on the north and east of it and the Iroquois on the south, it was to both of them emphatically "the great lake."
_Ohio,_ in like manner, is derived, as M. Cuoq in the valuable notes to his Lexicon (p. 159) informs us, from the obsolete _ohia,_ river, now only used in the compound form _ohionha_. _Ohia_, coalescing with this ancient affix, would become _ohiio,_ or _ohiyo,_ with the signification of "great river," or, as the historian Cusick renders it, "principal stream."
M. Cuoq. in his _"Etudes Philologiques"_ (p. 14) has well explained the interesting word _Rawenniio,_ used in various dialectical forms by both Hurons and Iroquois, as the name of the deity. It signifies, as he informs us, "he is master," or, used as a noun, "he who is master." This, of course, is the modern acceptation; but we can gather from the ancient Huron grammar, translated by Mr. Wilkie, (_ante_, p. 101) that the word had once, as might be supposed, a larger meaning. The phrase, "it is the great master," in that grammar (p. 108) is rendered _ondaieaat eOarontio or eOauendio_. The Huron _nd_ becomes in Iroquois _nn_. _EOauendio_ is undoubtedly a form of the same word which appears in the Iroquois _Rawenniio_. We thus learn that the latter word meant originally not merely "the master," but "the great master." Its root is probably to be found in the Iroquois _kawen_, or _gawen_ (Bruyas, p. 64), which signifies "to belong to any one," and yields, in combination with _oyata_, person, the derivatives _gaiatawen_, to have for subject, and _gaiatawenston_, to subject any one.
NOTE C.
THE ERA OF THE CONFEDERACY.
Mr. Morgan, in his work on "Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family" (p. 151), fixes the date of the formation of the Iroquois league at about the middle of the fifteenth ^ century. He says: "As near as can now be ascertained, the league had been established about one hundred and fifty years when Champlain, in 1609, first encountered the Mohawks within their own territories, on the west coast of Lake George. This would place the epoch of its formation about A. D. 1459." Mr. Morgan, as he informed me, deduced this conclusion from the testimony of the most intelligent Indians whom he had consulted on the subject. His informants belonged chiefly to the Seneca and Tuscarora nations. Their statements are entirely confirmed by those of the Onondaga record-keepers, both on the Syracuse Reservation and in Canada. When the chiefs at Onondaga Castle, who, in October, 1875, met to explain to me their wampum records, were asked how long it had been since their league was made, they replied (as I find the answer recorded in my notes) that "it was their belief that the confederacy was formed about six generations before the white people came to these parts." Hudson ascended the river to which he gave his name in September, 1609. A boat from his ship advanced beyond Albany, and consequently into the territories of the League. "Frequent intercourse," says Bancroft, in his account of this exploration, "was held with the astonished natives of the Algonquin race; and the strangers were welcomed by a deputation from the Mohawks." If we allow twenty-five years to a generation, the era of the confederacy is carried back to a period a hundred and fifty years before the date of Hudson's discovery,--or to the year 1459. This statement of the Onondaga chiefs harmonizes, therefore, closely with that which Mr. Morgan had heard among the other nations.
I afterwards (in 1882) put the same question to my friend, Chief John Buck, the keeper of the wampum-records of the Canadian Iroquois. He thought it was then "about four hundred years" since the League was formed. He was confident that it was before any white people had been heard of by his nation. This opinion accords sufficiently with the more definite statement of the New York Onondagas to be deemed a confirmation of that statement.
There are two authorities whose opinions differ widely, in opposite directions, from the information thus obtained by Mr. Morgan and myself. David Cusick, in his _"Sketches of Ancient History of the Six Nations,"_ supposes that the League was formed "perhaps 1000 years before Columbus discovered America." His reasons for this supposition, however, do not bear examination. He makes Atotarho the hereditary title of a monarch, like Pharaoh or Caesar, and states that thirteen potentates bearing that title had "reigned" between the formation of the confederacy and the discovery of America by Columbus. The duration of each of these reigns he computes, absurdly enough, at exactly fifty years, which, however, would give altogether a term of only six hundred and fifty years. He supposes the discovery of America to have taken place during the reign of the thirteenth Atotarho; and he adds that the conquest and dispersion of the Eries occurred "about this time." The latter event, as we know, took place in 1656. It is evident that Cusick's chronology is totally at fault. As an Iroquois chief was never succeeded by his son, but often by his brother, it is by no means improbable that thirteen persons may have held successively the title of Atotarho in the term of nearly two centuries, between the years 1459 and 1656.
On the other hand, Heckewelder, in his well-known work on the "History, Manners and Customs of the Indian Nations." cites a passage from a manuscript book of his predecessor, the Rev. C. Pyrlaeus, formerly missionary among the Mohawks, from which a comparatively recent date would be inferred for the confederation. The inference, however, is probably due to a mistake of Heckewelder himself. The passage, as it stands in his volume, [Footnote: P. 56 of the revised edition of 1875, published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.] is as follows:--
"The Rev. C. Pyrlaeus, in his manuscript book, p. 234, says: 'The alliance or confederacy of the Five Nations was established, as near as can be conjectured, one age (or the length of a man's life) before the white people (the Dutch) came into the country. Thannawage was the name of the aged Indian, a Mohawk, who first proposed such an alliance.'"
The words which Heckewelder has here included between parentheses arc apparently explanations which he himself added to the original statement of Pyrlaeus. The first of these glosses, by which an "age" is explained to be the length of a man's life, is doubtless correct; but the second, which identifies the "white people" of Pyrlaeus with the Dutch, is probably wrong. The white people who first "came into the country" of the Huron-Iroquois nations were the French, under Cartier. It was in the summer of 1535 that the bold Breton navigator, with three vessels commissioned to establish a colony in Canada, entered the St. Lawrence, and ascended the great river as far as the sites of Quebec and Montreal. He spent the subsequent winter at Quebec. The presence of this expedition, with its soldiers and sailors of strange complexion and armed with terrible weapons, must have been known to all the tribes dwelling along the river, and would naturally make an epoch in their chronology. Assuming the year 1535 as the time when the white people first "came into the country," and taking "the length of a man's life" at seventy-five years (or three generations) we should arrive at the year 1460 as the date of the formation of the Iroquois League. [Footnote: There is an evident difference between the expression used by my Onondaga informants and that which is quoted by Heckewelder from Pyrlaeus. The latter speaks of the time before the white people "came into the country;" the Onondagas referred to the time before they "came to these parts." The passage cited from Bancroft seems to indicate that the white men of Hudson's crew presented no novel or startling aspect to the Mohawks. The French had been "in the country" before them.]
The brief period allowed by Heckewelder's version is on many accounts inadmissible. If, when the Dutch first came among the Iroquois, the confederacy had existed for only about eighty years, there must have been many persons then living who had personally known some of its founders. It is quite inconceivable that the cloud of mythological legends which has gathered around the names of these founders--of which Clark, in his "Onondaga," gives only the smaller portion--should have arisen in so short a term. Nor is it probable that in so brief a period as has elapsed since the date suggested by Heckewelder, a fourth part of the names of the fifty chiefs who formed the first council would have become unintelligible, or at least doubtful in meaning. Schoolcraft, who was inclined to defer to Heckewelder's authority on this point, did so with evident doubt and perplexity. "We cannot," he says, "without rejecting many positive traditions of the Iroquois themselves, refuse to concede a much earlier period to the first attempts of these interesting tribes to form a general political association." [Footnote: "_Notes on the Iroquois_ p. 75,"]
In view of all the facts there seems no reason for withholding credence from the clear and positive statement of the Iroquois chroniclers, who place the commencement of their confederate government at about the middle of the fifteenth century.
NOTE D.
THE HIAWATHA MYTHS.
While many of the narratives of preternatural events recounted by Clark, Schoolcraft and others, in which the name of Hiawatha occurs, are merely adaptations of older myths relating to primitive Iroquois or Algonkin deities, there are a few which are actual traditions, though much confused and distorted, of incidents that really occurred. Among these is the story told by Clark, of the marvelous bird by which Hiawatha's only daughter was destroyed. Longfellow has avoided all reference to this preposterous tale; but to Mr. Clark, if we may judge from the fullness and solemnity with which he has recorded it, it appeared very impressive. [Footnote: _"Onondaga"_ Vol. I, p. 25.] According to his narrative, when the great convention assembled at the summons of Hiawatha, to form the league of the Five Nations, he came to it in company with his darling and only daughter, a girl of twelve. Suddenly a loud rushing sound was heard. A dark spot appeared in the sky. Hiawatha warned his daughter to be prepared for the coming doom from the Great Spirit, and she meekly bowed in resignation. The dark spot, rapidly descending, became an immense bird, which, with long and pointed beak and wide-extended wings, swept down upon the beautiful girl, and crushed her to atoms. Many other incidents are added, and we are told, what we might well believe, that the hero's grief for the loss so suddenly and frightfully inflicted upon him was intense and long protracted.
That a story related with so much particularity should be utterly without foundation did not appear probable. It seemed not unlikely that a daughter of Hiawatha might have been killed at some public meeting, either accidentally or purposely, and possibly by an Indian belonging to one of the bird clans, the Snipe, the Heron, or the Crane. But further inquiry showed that even this conjecture involved more of what may be styled mythology than the simple facts called for. The Onondaga chiefs on the Canadian Reserve, when asked if they had heard anything about a strange bird causing the death of Hiawatha's daughter, replied at once that the event was well known. As they related it, the occurrence became natural and intelligible. It formed, indeed, a not unimportant link in the chain of events which led to the establishment of the confederacy. The catastrophe, for such it truly was, took place not at the great assembly which met for the formation of the league, but at one of the Onondaga councils which were convened prior to that meeting, and before Hiawatha had fled to the Caniengas. The council was held in an open plain, encircled by a forest, near which temporary lodges had been erected for the Councillors and their attendants. Hiawatha was present, accompanied by his daughter, the last surviving member of his family. She was married, but still lived with her father, after the custom of the people; for the wife did not join her husband in his own home until she had borne him a child. The discussions had lasted through the day, and at nightfall the people retired to their lodges. Hiawatha's daughter had been out, probably with other women, into the adjacent woods, to gather their light fuel of dry sticks for cooking. She was great with child, and moved slowly, with her faggot, across the sward. An evil eye was upon her. Suddenly the loud voice of Atotarho was heard, shouting that a strange bird was in the air, and bidding one of his best archers shoot it. The archer shot, and the bird fell. A sudden rush took place from all quarters toward it, and in the rush Hiawatha's daughter was thrown down and trampled to death. No one could prove that Atotarho had planned this terrible blow at his great adversary, but no one doubted it. Hiawatha's grief was profound; but it was then, according to the tradition of the Canadian Onondagas,--when the last tie of kindred which bound him to his own people was broken,--that the idea occurred to him of seeking aid among the eastern nations. [Footnote: This account of the events which immediately preceded Hiawatha's flight differs somewhat from the narrative which I received from the New York Onondagas, as recorded in the Introduction (p. 22). The difference, however, is not important; and possibly, if it had occurred to me to inquire of these latter informants about the incident of the bird, I might have heard from them particulars which would have brought the two versions of the story still nearer to accord. The notable fact is that the reports of a tradition preserved for four hundred years, in two divisions of a broken tribe, which have been widely separated for more than a century, should agree so closely in all important particulars. Such concurrence of different chroniclers in the main narrative of an event, with some diversity in the details, is usually regarded as the best evidence of the truth of the history.]
Clark's informants also told him much about a snow-white canoe in which Hiawatha--or, rather, Ta-oun-ya-wa-tha--made his first appearance to human eyes. In this canoe the demigod was seen on Lake Ontario, approaching the shore at Oswego. In it he ascended the river and its various branches, removing all obstructions, and destroying all enemies, natural and preternatural. And when his work was completed by the establishment of the League, the hero, in his human form of Hiawatha, seated himself in this canoe, and ascended in it to heaven, amid "the sweetest melody of celestial music."
The nucleus and probable origin of this singular story is perhaps to be found in the simple fact that Hiawatha, after his flight from the Onondagas, made his appearance among the Caniengas a solitary voyager, in a canoe, in which he had floated down the Mohawk river. The canoes of the Caniengas were usually made of elm-bark, the birch not being common in their country. If Hiawatha, as is not unlikely, had found or constructed a small canoe of birch-bark on the upper waters of the stream, and used it for his voyage to the Canienga town, it might naturally attract some attention. The great celebrity and high position which he soon attained, and the important work which he accomplished, would cause the people who adopted him as a chief to look back upon all the circumstances of his first arrival among them with special interest. That the canoe was preserved till his death, and that he was buried in it, amid funeral wails and mournful songs from a vast multitude, such as had never before lamented a chief of the Kanonsioani, may be deemed probable enough; and in these or some similar events we may look for the origin of this beautiful myth, which reappears, with such striking effect, in the closing scene of Longfellow's poem.
NOTE E.
THE IROQUOIS TOWNS.
The list of towns comprised in the text contains twenty-three names. Of this number only eight or nine resemble names which have been in use since the Five Nations were known to the whites; and even of this small number it is not certain that all, or indeed any, were in these more recent times applied to their original localities. My friend, General John S. Clark, of Auburn, N. Y., who has made a special study of the positions of the Indian tribes and villages, and whose notes on this subject illustrate the excellent work of Dr. Hawley on the early history of the Cayuga nation, [Footnote: _Early Chapters of Cayuga History:_ By Charles Hawley, D.D., President of the Cayuga Historical Society.] has favored me, in a recent letter, with the following brief but valuable summary of what is known in regard to the Iroquois towns:--
"When the Mohawks were first known, they occupied three principal towns on the south side of the Mohawk river, between Ganajoharie and Schoharie creeks. The most eastern was that of the "Turtles" (or Tortoise clan), and was usually designated as such, and by the Dutch as the Lower or First Castle. The Middle or Second Castle was commonly termed the village of the "Bears;" while the Third or Upper Castle was generally called Teonnondoge or Tionnontogen, a name apparently having reference to the 'two mountains' near which the original town stood. After these towns were destroyed by the French, in 1666, their people removed to the north side of the river,--those of the lower town retreating a few miles up the stream to the rapids; and then for a hundred years this was generally known Caughnawaga (_Kahnawake_) "At the Rapids." The Middle or Second Castle was called Gandagaro in 1670, Kanagiro in 1744, etc. The third appears to have retained its old name in all positions."
"When the Oneidas were first known they occupied a position on the headwaters of the Oneida inlet, and afterward gradually drew northward toward the lake. Their great town was usually called by the name of the tribe, as Onneiot, Onoyut, etc. One site, occupied about 1700, was called and known generally as Kanowaroghare, said to signify 'a head on a pole.'"
"The Onondagas, first known in 1615, occupied several sites, from a point south of the east end of Oneida lake, where they were when first known, to the Onondaga valley; but in all cases the chief town, when named, was called Onondaga, from the name of the tribe. Their great village in the Onondaga valley, according to Zeisberger, was known in 1750 as Tagochsanagecht, but this was a form derived from the name of the Onondagas as used in council. In all ages this chief town, wherever located, had other minor towns within from two to five miles, but they are rarely named. The great town was also divided into districts, one for each clan, each of which must have been known by the clan name, but this is seldom referred to. This rule held good also in all the large towns. A 'Bear village' was not occupied exclusively by members of the Bear clan; but these predominated and exercised authority."
"The Cayugas in 1656 occupied three villages,--Onnontare, on a hill near the Canandaigua river,--Thiohero, near the foot of Cayuga lake ('By the Marsh,' or, 'Where the Rushes are'),--and a third, which generally took the name of the tribe, Cayuga, but was occasionally divided into three districts, like the other large towns."
"The Senecas, when visited by the Jesuits, occupied two great towns, and several minor villages. The eastern of the two towns, near Victor, was called Gandougarae. The western, on Honcoye creek, nearly always, in all localities, took the name of the stream, which signifies 'bending.' It is said that when the League was first formed, it was agreed that the two great Seneca towns should be called by the names of two principal sachems; but I am unable to find that this was carried out in practice. In La Hontan's narrative of the De Nonville expedition, the great western town was separated into two parts, Thegaronhies and Danoncaritowi, which were the names of two important chiefs; while De Nonville's and other accounts describe it as Totiakton, 'at the bend.' This discrepancy, however, is found in all cases where the several towns are mentioned, as it was quite common to speak of them by the name of the principal chief. Thus, Cayuga in 1750 was called Tagayu, from Togahayu, the well-known chief sachem; Onondaga was called Canasatago's town, etc."
The frequent changes in the positions and names of Indian towns, thus well explained and exemplified, will account; for the fact that so few of the ancient names in the list which the tenacious memories of the record-keepers retained have come down in actual use to modern times. The well-known landmark of the Oneida stone seems to have preserved the name of the town,--_Onenyute,_ "the projecting rock,"--from which the nation derived its usual designation. _Deserokenh_, or, as the Jesuit missionaries wrote it, _Techiroguen_, was situated near the outlet of the Oneida lake, at the point where the great northern trail crossed this outlet. A village of some importance is likely to have been always found at or near that locality. The same may be said of _Deyuhhero,_ or _Tiohero,_ where the main trail which united all the cantons crossed the river outlet of Lake Cayuga.
In other cases, though the identity of names is clear, that of the localities is more doubtful. The _Kaneghsadakeh_ of the list, the "Hill-side town," may be the _Kanasadaga_ of the Senecas; but, as General Clark remarks, the name might have been applied to any town on the side of a mountain. In like manner _Deyughsweken_ (or _Deyohsweken_), which is said to mean "flowing out," may have been the town from which the Oswego river took its name, or a town at the mouth of any other river; and _Deyaokenh,_ "the Forks," may have been Tioga, or any other village at the junction of two streams. _Fonondese_ ("it is a high hill") is perhaps the same name as Onontare, which in Charlevoix's map appears as Onnontatacet; [Footnote: See _"Early Chapters of Cayuga History,"_ p. 48.] but the name may well have been a common one. A few other apparent coincidences might be pointed out; but of most of the towns in the list we can only say that no trace remains in name or known locality, and that in some cases even the meaning of the names has ceased to be remembered. General Clark sums up his conclusions on this point in the following words: "They appear to belong to a remote--I may say a very remote--age, and not to be referred to any particular known localities; and this, as it appears to me, is more to the credit of the manuscript as an archaic work."
NOTE F.
THE PRE-ARYAN RACE IN EUROPE AND AMERICA.
[The following is the concluding portion of an essay on "Indian Migrations, as evidenced by Language," which was read at the Montreal meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in August, 1882, and published in the "American Antiquarian" for January and April, 1883. As the views set forth in this extract have a bearing on the subjects discussed in the present work, the author takes the opportunity of reproducing them here for the consideration of its readers.]
It will be noticed that the evidence of language, and to some extent that of tradition, leads to the conclusion that the course of migration of the Indian tribes has been from the Atlantic coast westward and southward. The Huron-Iroquois tribes had their pristine seat on the lower St. Lawrence. The traditions of the Algonkins seem to point to Hudson's Bay and the coast of Labrador. The Dakota stock had its oldest branch east of the Alleghenies, and possibly (if the Catawba nation shall be proved to be of that stock), on the Carolina coast. Philologists are well aware that there is nothing in the language of the American Indians to favor the conjecture (for it is nothing else) which derives the race from eastern Asia. But in western Europe one community is known to exist, speaking a language which in its general structure manifests a near likeness to the Indian tongues. Alone of all the races of the old continent the Basques or Euskarians of northern Spain and southwestern France have a speech of that highly complex and polysynthetic character which distinguishes the American languages. There is not, indeed, any such positive similarity, in words or grammar, as would prove a direct affiliation. The likeness is merely in the general cast and mould of speech; but this likeness is so marked as to have awakened much attention. If the scholars who have noticed it had been aware of the facts now adduced with regard to the course of migration on this continent, they would probably have been led to the conclusion that this similarity in the type of speech was an evidence of the unity of race. There seems reason to believe that Europe--at least in its southern and western portions--was occupied in early times by a race having many of the characteristics, physical and mental, of the American aborigines. The evidences which lead to this conclusion are well set forth in Dr. Dawson's recent work on "Fossil Man." Of this early European people, by some called the Iberian race, who were ultimately overwhelmed by the Aryan emigrants from central Asia, the Basques are the only survivors that have retained their original language; but all the nations of southern Europe, commencing with the Greeks, show in their physical and mental traits a large intermixture of this aboriginal race. As we advance westward, the evidence of this infusion becomes stronger, until in the Celts of France and of the British Islands it gives the predominant cast to the character of the people. [Footnote: "The Basque may then be the sole surviving relic and witness of an aboriginal western European population, dispossessed by the intrusive Indo-European tribes. It stands entirely alone, no kindred having yet been found for it in any part of the world. It is of an exaggeratedly agglutinative type, incorporating into its verb a variety of relations which are almost everywhere else expressed by an independent word."--"The Basque forms a suitable stepping-stone from which to enter the peculiar linguistic domain of the New World, since there is no other dialect of the Old World which so much resembles in structure the American languages."--Professor Whitney, in _"The Life and Growth of Language"_ p. 258.]
If the early population of Europe were really similar to that of America, then we may infer that it was composed of many tribes, scattered in loose bands over the country, and speaking languages widely and sometimes radically different, but all of a polysynthetic structure. They were a bold, proud, adventurous people, good hunters and good sailors. In the latter respect they were wholly unlike the primitive Aryans, who, as was natural in a pastoral people of inland origin, have always had in the east a terror of the ocean, and in Europe were, within historic times, the clumsiest and least venturous of navigators. If communities resembling the Iroquois and the Caribs once inhabited the British islands and the western coasts of the adjacent continent, we may be sure that their fleets of large canoes, such as have been exhumed from the peat-deposits and ancient river-beds of Ireland, Scotland, and France, swarmed along all the shores and estuaries of that region. Accident or adventure may easily have carried some of them across the Atlantic, not merely once, but in many successive emigrations from different parts of western Europe. The distance is less than that which the canoes of the Polynesians were accustomed to traverse. The derivation of the American population from this source presents no serious improbability whatever. [Footnote: The distance from Ireland to Newfoundland is only sixteen hundred miles. The distance from the Sandwich Islands to Tahiti (whence the natives of the former group affirm that their ancestors came) is twenty-two hundred miles. The distance from the former islands to the Marquesas group, the nearest inhabited land, is seventeen hundred miles. The canoes of the Sandwich Islands (as we are assured by Ellis, in his _"Polynesian Researches"_) "seldom exceed fifty feet in length." In the river-beds of France, ancient canoes have been found, exceeding forty feet in length. One was more than forty-five feet long, and nearly four feet deep. See the particulars in Figuier's _"Primitive Man,"_ Appleton's edit., p. 177. See also Prof. D. Wilson's _"Prehistoric Man,"_ 2d edit., p. 102, for a full discussion of this question, with instances of long canoe voyages.]
On the theory which seems thus rendered probable, that the early Europeans were of the same race as the Indians of America, we are able to account for certain characteristics of the modern nations of Europe, which would otherwise present to the student of anthropology a perplexing problem. The Aryans of Asia, ancient and modern, as we know them in the Hindoos, the Persians, and the Armenians, with the evidence afforded by their history, their literature and their present condition, have always been utterly devoid of the sentiment of political rights. The love of freedom is a feeling of which they seem incapable. To humble themselves before some superior power--deity, king, or brahmin--seems to be with them a natural and overpowering inclination. Next to this feeling is the love of contemplation and of abstract reasoning. A dreamy life of worship and thought is the highest felicity of the Asiatic Aryan. On the other hand, if the ancient Europeans were what the Basques and the American Indians are now, they were a people imbued with the strongest possible sense of personal independence, and, resulting from that, a passion for political freedom. They were also a shrewd, practical, observant people, with little taste for abstract reasoning.
It is easy to see that from a mingling of two races of such opposite dispositions, a people of mixed character would be formed, very similar to that which has existed in Europe since the advent of the Aryan emigrants. In eastern Europe, among the Greeks and Sclavonians, where the Iberian element would be weakest, the Aryan characteristics of reverence and contemplation would be most apparent. As we advance westward, among the Latin and Teutonic populations, the sense of political rights, the taste for adventure, and the observing, practical tendency, would be more and more manifest; until at length, among the western Celts, as among the American Indians, the love of freedom would become exalted to an almost morbid distrust of all governing authority.
If this theory is correct, the nations of modern Europe have derived those traits of character and those institutions which have given them their present headship of power and civilization among the peoples of the globe, not from their Aryan forefathers, but mainly from this other portion of their ancestry, belonging to the earlier population which the Aryans overcame and absorbed. That this primitive population was tolerably numerous is evident from the fact that the Aryans, particularly of the Latin, Teutonic, and Celtic nations lost in absorbing it many vocal elements and many grammatical inflections of their speech. They gained, at the same time, the self-respect, the love of liberty, and the capacity for selfgovernment, which were unknown to them in their Asiatic home. Knowing that these characteristics have always marked the American race, we need not be surprised when modern researches demonstrate the fact that many of our Indian communities have had political systems embodying some of the most valuable principles of popular government. We shall no longer feel inclined to question the truth of the conclusion which has been announced by Carli, Draper, and other philosophic investigators, who affirm that the Spaniards, in their conquest of Mexico, Yucatan, and Peru, destroyed a better form of society than that which they established in its place. The intellectual but servile Aryans will cease to attract the undue admiration which they have received for qualities not their own; and we shall look with a new interest on the remnant of the Indian race, as possibly representing this nobler type of man, whose inextinguishable love of freedom has evoked the idea of political rights, and has created those institutions of regulated self-government by which genuine civilization and progress are assured to the world.
CANIENGA GLOSSARY.
The following Glossary comprises all the words of the Canienga text. The meanings of these words are given as they were, received from the interpreters. For most of them these definitions are confirmed by the dictionaries of Bruyas and Cuoq. Some of the words, which are either archaic forms or peculiar to the Council ceremonies, are not found in those dictionaries; and in a few instances the precise purport of these words must be considered doubtful. In some cases, also, the force of a grammatical inflection or of an affix may not have been correctly ascertained; but it is believed that the vocabulary will be found, in general, sufficiently accurate to be of service to the student who may desire to acquire some knowledge of the Canienga speech.
When the words of John Buck's copy differ in orthography from those of the Johnson MS., the former are added in brackets. Words cited from the dictionary of Bruyas are distinguished by the letter B; those from the lexicon of M. Cuoq by C.
A.
Aerengh [orenh], far. _Heren, ahiren_, B., far; _heren, aheren_, C., far away.
Aesahhahiyenenhon [ahesahhahiyenennyonhon], if thou hadst fallen (or perished) by the way. _Aha, oha, ohaha_, road, path; _gaienneñon_, B., to fall.
Aesayatyenenghdon [ahesayatyenendon], thou mightest have been destroyed. _Gaienneñon_, B., to fall; _gaien_nenton_, to cause to fall. _Aesaiatienenton_ is in the perf. subj. passive.
Aghsonh, scarcely, hardly, while.
Ai (excl.), hail! oh!
Aihaigh (excl.), hail! ah! oh! More commonly pronounced _haihai_.
Akare, until.
Akayongh [akcayon], ancient. _Akaion_, C., old, ancient, antique.
Akonikonghkahdeh, they are suffering. _Onikonhra_, mind, and _oga'te_, B., raw., _i. e._, having a sore mind.
Akotthaghyonnighshon, one who belongs to the Wolf clan. See _Sathaghyonnighshon_.
Akwah, indeed, truly, very, yea.
Akwekon, all.
Are, again, sometimes.
Ayakawen, one would have said. _En_, B, to say (perf. subj.).
Ayakaweron, one would have thought. _Eron_, B., to think, to wish.
Ayakotyerenhon, one would be startled, surprised. From _katyeren_, to wonder, be startled.
Ayawenhenstokenghske [ayawenhensthokenske], may it be true. _Enon, iaweñnon_, B.,--_iawens_, C., to happen; _togenske_, B., _tokenske_, C., it is true. "May it happen to be true!"
Ayuyeukwaroghthake [ayoyenkwarodake], there might have been tobacco smoke (apparent)., _Oienkwa_, C., tobacco; _garst_, B., to smoke (ppf. subj.).
D.
Da-edewenhheye [dahedewenheyeh], we may all die. _Genheion, genheie_, B., to die (subj. mood).
Daghsatkaghthoghseronne [dasatkahthoseronne], thou mightest keep seeing. See _Tesatkaghthoghserontyc_. _Tasatkahthoseronne_ (as the word would be spelt in modern orthography) appears to be the aorist subjunctive of _atkahthos_, to see, in the cislocative and frequentative forms.
Daondayakottondeke, that they may hear. _Athonde_, to hear.
Deghniwenniyu, joint ruler; lit., they two are masters. See _Rawenniyo_.
Deghsewenninekenne, thou mayest speak. See _Entyewenninekenneh_.
Dendewatenonghweradon, in our mutual greetings. See _Dewadadononweronh_.
Denghsatkaghdonnyonheke [densatkatonhnyonsekeh], thou wilt be looking about thee. _Atkahthos_, to see.
Denighroghkwayen [dehnihrohkwayen], let us two smoke. _Garoksa_, B., _une pipe, touche de petun_. It is conjectured that the name Iroquois, _i. e._, "Tobacco-people," may have been derived from this word. See Appendix, Note A.
Dentidewaghneghdoten, we will replace the pine-tree. _Ohnehta_, pine. _Oten_, as a suffix (according to M. Cuoq), "serves to express the condition, the manner, the kind, the nature of a thing."
Denyakokwatonghsaeke [tenyakokwennhendonghsaeke], he will be dying. _Desakkèatouch_, Onon. Dict., I am dying; _kanonèenton_, B., sick.
Denyontadenakarondako, they shall take off his horns. _Onakara_, horn.
Desahahishonne, thou art coming troubled.
Desakaghsereutonyonne, thou comest weeping. _Gagasera_, B., tear.
Desanyatokenh, in thy throat. _Oniata,_ C., throat, neck.
Desawennawenrate, thy voice coming over. From _owenna,_ C., _gauenda_ or _gauenna,_ B., voice, speech, word, and _auenron,_ B., to pass over. The cislocative prefix _de (te)_ gives the sense of "hither."
Deskenonghweronne [deskenonweronne], I come again to greet and thank. _Kannonhueron,_ B., to salute any one; _kannonhueronton,_ to salute or thank by, or for, anything. See _ante,_ page 149, for an analysis of this word.
Detkanoron [detkanorons], all but, almost. From _kanoron,_ costly, important, difficult.
Dewadadenonweronh [dewadatenonweron], mutual greeting. _Kannonhueron,_ B., to salute any one.
Dewaghsadayenhah, in the shade. _Asatagon,_ B., in secret; _asatakon,_ C., in the dark.
Deyakodarakeh, the two clans. _Ohtara,_ C., tribe, band. (Dual or duplicative form.)
Deyakonakarondon, wearing horns, _i.e.,_ being chiefs. _Onnagara,_ B., horn; _kannagaront,_ having horns; _gannagaronni,_ B., _être considerable._
Deyughnyonkwarakda [deyohnyonkwaraktah], at the wood's edge; near the thicket. _Onnionguar,_ B., thorn-bush, bramble; _akta,_ C., beside, near to. The word applies to the line of bushes usually found on the border between the forest and a clearing. With the cislocative prefix _de_ it means "on this side of the thicket."
Deyughsihharaonh [deyohsiharaonh], there is a stoppage. _Gasiharon,_ B., to stop up, to close.
Deyunennyatenyon, hostile agencies, opposing; forces. _Gannenniani,_ B., to surprise or defeat a band; _gannennaton, ib.,_ to seek to destroy.
Deyunhonghdoyenghdonh [deyonhonghdoyendonh], mourning wampum. This word appears to be composed of three of Bruyas' radices, viz., _gaionni,_ wampum belt (_collier de porcelaine_),--_gannonton,_ to throw wampum for the dead,--and _gaienton,_ to strike, whence _skaienton,_ to return the like, to strike back, and _gaientatonton,_ to give satisfaction for any one wounded or killed; and the meaning will be "wampum given as a satisfaction or consolation for a death."
Dhatkonkoghdaghkwanyon. [thatkonkohdakwanyon], in going through. _Ongóon,_ B., to penetrate, to pass through; _atongotahkon,_ B., the place through which one passes.
Doghkara [dohkara], only a few. _Tohkara,_ C., only occasionally, a few, a small number of.
Doka, if, perhaps, either, or. _Toka,_ C., or, if; I don't know.
Donghwenghratstanyonne [donwenratstanyonne], coming over. _Asenron,_ B., to pass over.
E.
Eghdejisewayadoreghdonh [eghdetsisewayadorehdonh], this ye considered, ye deliberated about this. _Kaiatefreton,_ B., to examine, to think, to deliberate about anything.
Eghdeshotiyadoreghton, they again considered. (See the preceding word.)
Eghnikatarakeghne [eghnikadarakene], such were the clans. _Ehni--,_ C., for _ethoni,_ there are, so, it is thus that; _ohtara,_ clan, band.
Eghnikouh, thus, in this way.
Eghnonweh, thither, yonder.
Eghtenyontatitenranyon, they will condole with one another, or, there will be mutual condolence. _Gentenron,_ B., _kitenre,_ C., to pity any one. _Atatitenron,_ B., to deplore one's misery.
Eghyendewasenghte, we will let it fall. _Aseñon,_ B., to fall; _asenhton, ib.,_ to cause to fall.
Eghyesaotonnihsen, this was his uncle. See _yeshodonnyk._
Endewaghneghdotako, we will pull up a pine tree. From _onehta,_ pine, and _gataksan, gatako,_ to draw out, B., _sub voce At._
Enghsitskodake, thou wilt be resting, thou wilt remain. _Gentskote,_ B., to be in any place.
Entyewenninekenneh, the words which will be said. From _Kawenna,_ word (q. v.) and _en,_ B., to say.
Enjerennokden (or enyerennokden), they will finish the song; or, the hymn will be finished. _Karenna,_ song, hymn; _okte,_ B., the end; to finish.
Enjeyewendane [enjewendane], they will be comforted. _Ganeienthon,_ B, to be calm. (This word should probably be written _enjeyeweyendane._)
Enjondatenikonghketsko, they will comfort, lit., will raise the mind. _Onikonhra,_ mind, spirit, temper, and _gagetskuan,_ B., to raise up.
Enjondentyonko. See _Enyonghdentionko._
Enjonkwakaronny, it will cause us trouble. _Gagaronnion,_ B., to do harm to any one, to cause him some loss.
Enjonkwanekheren, we shall suffer a loss. _Wakenekheren,_ C., not to know, not to recognize (_i.e._, we shall cease to see some one).
Enskat, one, once.
Entkaghwadasehhon, will be vexed, excited. _Gahuatase,_ B., to twist, turn round.
Enwadon, it will be allowed. _Watons,_ fut. _enwaton,_ C., to be possible, feasible, allowed.
Enwadonghwenjadethare, will make a hole through the ground. See _Onwentsia._
Enyairon, they will say, one will say. From _en,_ B., fut. _egiron,_ to say.
Enyakaonkodaghkwe [enyakaonkohdakwe], they shall have passed. _Ongóon,_ B., to penetrate, pass through; _ongotanni,_ to cause to penetrate, etc.
Enyakodenghte, they (or one) will be miserable. _Genthenteon,_ B., to be deserving of pity.
Enyakodokenghse [enyakodokenseh], they (or one) will discover. _Gatogeñon, gatogens,_ B., to know.
Enyakohetsde [enyakohetste], he (or one) will go on. _Kohetstha,_ C., to pass beyond.
Enyakonewarontye, they (or one) will be surprised. _Gannesaron,_ B., to surprise.
Enyeharako, they will carry it. _Gaha,_ B., to carry off.
Enyeken, they will see. _Gagen,_ B., to see.
Enyenikonghkwendarake, they will be mourning. _Onikonhra._ (q. v.) and _gagsentaron,_ stretched on the ground (_i.e.,_ the mind dejected).
Enyerennokden. See _Enjerennokden._
Enyerighwanendon [enyerihwanondon], they will ask (or, will wonder). From _karihwa_ (q. v.) and _gannendon,_ B., to wonder, or _annonton,_ to seek. _Garihwanonton,_ B., to ask the news.
Enyerighwawetharho, the business will be closed. _Karihwa_ (q. v.) and _otarhon,_ B., to grasp; _kotarhos,_ C., to grasp, to stop by grasping.
Enyonderennoden, they will sing it thus. _Karenna,_ q. v. and--_oten,_ C., which "serves to express the condition, manner, kind, or nature of a thing."
Enyonghdentyonko, he will walk to and fro. _Atention,_ B., to go away.
Enyononghsaniratston, it will strengthen the house. _Kanonsa,_ house, and _ganniraton,_ B., to strengthen.
Enyontsdaren, they will weep. _Katstaha,_ C., to weep, to shed tears.
Enyontyerenjiok, they will be startled. From _katyeren,_ to wonder, to be surprised.
Enyurighwadatye [enyorihwadatye], it will continue: the affair will go on. From _kariwa_ (q. v.) as a verb, in the progressive form and future tense.
Etho, thus, so.
Ethone, then.
Ethononweh, thither.
H.
Hasekenh, because. _Aseken,_ C., for, because.
Henskerighwatoate [enskerighwatonte], I will frustrate their purposes. From _karihwa_ (q. v.) and _atoneton,_ B., to cause to lose, to mislead.
Henyondatsjistayenhaghse [henyondatstsistayenhase], they will hold a council, lit., they will make a council fire. From _katsista,_ fire; _gatsistaien,_ B., to hold council, to light the council fire.
Hone, also. See _Ony._
I.
Ie [iih], I.
Iese [ise], thou, ye.
Iesewengh, ye have said. _En,_ B., to say.
Issy [hissih], yonder, there, _Isi,_ C., there.
J.
Jadadeken, thy brother (or brothers). _Tsiatatekenha,_ C., ye two are brothers.
Jadakweniyosaon (or jatagweniyosaon), thou wert the ruler, or, ye were the rulers. See _Jadakweniyu._
Jadakweniyu, thou art the ruler, or, ye are the rulers. See note to sec. 28, _ante,_ p. 152.
Jatatawhak, father and son, lit., son of each other. _Gahawak,_ B., to have for child (reciprocal form).
Jathondek (or jatthontek), listen! hearken thou. Imperative sing. of _kathontats,_ C, _athantaton,_ B., to hear.
Jatthontenyonk, keep listening! continue to hear! The frequentative form of _jatthontek._
Ji [tsi], that, that which, wherein. See _Jini._
Jidenghnonhon [jidennon], as, like as. _Tennon,_ C., and also, but.
Jinayawenhon, the consequences, the results, lit. what would happen. _Eñon,_ B.,--_iawens,_ C, to happen.
Jinesadawen [tsinesadawen]. See _Jinisadawen._
Jini [_tsini_], that which, such, so, so much.
Jinihotiyerenh, what they did. From _Jini_ (q. v.) and --_kierha,--wakieren,_ C., to act, do, say. This verb is always preceded by some particle, such as _kenni_ (see how), _tsini_ (that which) and the like.
Jinikawennakeh, these the words. See _Jini_ and _kawenna._
Jinisayadawen [tsinesayadawenh], that which has befallen you. _Eñon,_ B., to happen; _gaiataseñon,_ to happen to some one.
Jiniyuneghrakwah [tsiniyohnerakwa], this solemn event. _Gonneragoon,_ B., to wonder; _jonneragsat,_ that is wonderful. See _yuneghrakwah._
Jinonweh [tsinonweh], thither, whereto.
Jiratighrotonghkwakwe [tsiradirohtonhkwakwe], where they used to smoke. _Garst,_ B., to smoke; _otonkwa,_ C., flame. "Where they lighted their pipes."
Jisanakdade [tsisanakdate], from thy seat. See _Kanakta._
Jiyudakenrokde [tsiodakenrokde], by the fireplace, near the ashes. _Akenra_, ashes; _okte_, end, edge.
Jiyathondek, listen! hearken! Imperative dual of _kathontats_, I hear. See _Jathondek_.
Jodenaghstahhere, they made additions to a house; they added a frame. _Gannasta_, B., poles for making a house; _onasta_, C., a framework; _kaheren_, B. to be upon.
Joskawayendon, there is again wilderness, waste ground. _Gaienthon_, B., to have fields.
K.
Kadon, I say, I speak. _Igatonk_ (_sub voce En_), B., I say; _katon_, C., to say.
Kady [kadi], therefore, then. _Kati_, C., then, consequently.
Kadykenh, because. See _Katykenh_.
Kaghnekonyon, floods. From _ohneka_, water, in the frequentative form. _Gannegonnion_, B., there is much water.
Kaghyaton, it is written. _Kiatons_, C., to write. M. Cuoq says: "the perfect participle takes an _h: kahiaton_, written, it is written." _Gaiatare_, B., to paint.
Kajatthondek, listen! See _Jathondek_.
Kakeghrondakwe, they were collected; were assembled. _Gageron_, B., to be together, or, to put things or persons somewhere.
Kanaghsdajikowah [kanastatsikowah], great framework, great building. From _kanasta_, frame, and _kowa_, great.
Kanakaryonniha, on a pole. _Gannagare_, B., pole, long stick.
Kanakdakwenniyukeh, on the principal seat. From _kanakta_ (q. v.) and _atakwenniio,_ C, principal.
Kanakdiyuhake, the place (or seat) may be good. From _kanakta,_ place, seat, and--_iyu,_ good (subjunctive mood).
Kanakta, mat,--hence couch, bed, seat, place.
Kaneka, where, somewhere.
Kanekhere, I believe, I suppose; surely, certainly. Probably from _eron, igere,_ B., to think, or suppose.
Kanhonghdakdeh [kanonhdakdeh], by the wall, or side of the house. _Onnhonta,_ wall of house, of a cabin; _akte,_ beside, athwart.
Kanikonrashon, the minds, a plural form of _Onikonhra_ (q.v.)
Kanikonrakeh, in mind. See _Onikonhra._
Kanonghsakdatye [kanonsakdatye], outside the house. _Kanonsakta,_ near the house; from _Kanonsa,_ house, and _akta,_ near, beside. The progressive affix _tye_ gives the meaning of "passing near the house."
Kanonghsakonshon [kanonsakonshon], in the house.
Kanonsa, house.
Kanoron, important, valuable, serious, difficult, painful, afflicting.
Karenna, song, hymn, chant.
Karighwakayonh, in ancient times. From _Karihwa_ (q. v.), and _akaion_, old. See _Orighwakayongh._
Karighwatchkwenh [karihwahtehkonh], this word, which the interpreters rendered simply ceremony, probably means "the fire-kindling act," from _Karihwa_ (q. v.), and _atchken,_ or _atekha_ (_ategen, ateza,_ B.), to burn.
Karihwa or karighwa (_garihsa,_ B., _kariwa, oriwa,_ C.), thing, affair, business, action, news, word. This word, in its root-form of _rihwa_ (_riwa_) or _rihow_ enters largely into compounds having reference to business, law, office, news, belief, and the like.
Karonta, tree, log, trunk, post.
Kathonghnonweh [kathonnonweh], I fail, I lose my way. _Atonon_, B., to lose one's self, to go astray.
Kathonghdeh, away, out of sight. _Atonhton_, B. (sub voce _atonon_), to cause to lose, to mislead.
Katykenh [kadikenh], how then? _Kati_, C., then (done); _ken_, interrogative particle.
Kawenna (_gauenda, gattenna_, B.; _owenna_, C.), word, voice, language, speech.
Kayanerenh, peace, goodness, justice, law, league. _Wakianere, ioianere_, C., to be good, right, proper (_i.e._, noble); _roianer_, he is a chief. _Kaianerensera_, law, government, rule, decree, ordinance. See _ante_, p. 33.
Kayanerenghkowa, great peace, great law, the great league. _Kayanerenh_ (q. v.) and _kowa_, great.
Kehaghshonha, kehhasaonhah, recent, lately.
Ken (for kento) here.
Kendenyethirentyonnite, here we will place them. See _Kenderentyonnih_.
Kenderentyonnih, this is lying here. Probably from _Garenton_, B., to hang down, and _ionni_, to be extended or laid out.
Kendonsayedane (?) returning here, (qu., pausing here). _Gasaien_, B., to be slow; _gasaiatanne_, to make slow.
Kenenyohdatyadawenghdate, one shall be murdered here. _Aaenthon_, B., to kill; _Katawenthos_, C, to kill many people, to massacre.
Kenhendewaghnatatsherodarho, we will attach a pouch. _Gannata_, B., little bag; _otarhon_, to grasp.
Kenkaghnekonyon, here floods. See _kaghnekonyon_.
Kenkarenyakehrondonhah, being hidden here among logs. _Gagarennion_, B., to remove away; _Karonta_, tree, log.
Kenkine [kenki], thus, in this way.
Kenkisenh [kenhkense], thus, in this way.
Kenkontifaghsoton, here things lying in ambush.
Kenne, thus.
Kennikanaghsesha, small strings of wampum. _Kenni--ha_, C., small, _kanahses_, (?) a string of wampum.
Kensane, but, however.
Kentekaghronghwanyon [kondekahronwanyon], here obstacles. _Garonhon_, B., to place (or to be) athwart.
Kentewaghsatayenha, here in the dark. _Asatagon_, C., in the darkness; _asatagon_, B., in secret.
Kenteyurhoton, here to this opening (or cleared space in a forest). _Karha_, forest.
Kenthoh (_kento_, C.), here.
Kenwaseraketotanese, here the uplifted hatchet, From _ken_, here, _wasera (asera, osera)_, hatchet, and _gagetut_, B., to be shown, to appear above.
Kenwedewayen, we place it here. From _ken_, here, and _gaien_, B., to put in any place.
Kenyoteranentenyonhah, there is a crevice here. From _ken_, here, and _ateronnonte_, B., having space, or showing light between two things not well joined.
Kenyutnyonkwaratonnyon, here many thorns. From _ken_, here, and _onniongar_, B., thorns, brambles. The word is in the frequentative form.
Konnerhonyon [konneronyon], they keep thinking. _Eron_, B., to think, to will. (Frequentative form.)
Konyennetaghkwen [konyennedaghkwen], my child, my offspring. From _ennet_, B., to hold an infant in one's bosom. "_Gonyennetakan_, says the Canienga to the Oneida," B. _Konyennetakkwen_ is properly a verb of the third conjugation, in the imperfect tense, and the 1:2 transition: "I nursed thee as a child." Here it is used idiomatically as a noun.
Kowa, kowane, great.
N.
Nadehhadihne, it was their number. See _Natejonhne_.
Nadekakaghneronnyonghkwe [nedekakanneronnyonkwe], it was commonly looked at. _Kagannere_, B., to see (frequentative form, imperfect tense).
Nai (exclam.), hail! oh! ah! (It is the exclamation _ai_ or _hai_, with the particle _ne_ prefixed.)
Nakonikonra, their mind. See _Onikonhra_.
Nakwah, (?) indeed. See _Akwah_.
Natehotiyadoreghtonh, they decided on. _Kajatoreton_, B., to examine, think, deliberate about anything.
Natejonhne, it was your number; this was the size of your class. _Teionihes_, C., large, wide; "_ken ok nateionhes_, not larger than that."
Nayakoghstonde [nayakostonde], by reason of, the pretext being. _Gastonton_, B., to make a pretext of anything.
Nayawenh, it may be. _Eñon, yaweñon_, B.,--_iawens_, C., to happen. See _Nenyawenne_.
Nayeghnyasakenradake,(?) having a white neck. _Onniasa_, B., neck; _gagenrat_, B., white.
Ne, the, this, that, who, which (rel.). A demonstrative and relative particle, variously used, but always giving a certain emphasis to the word which it precedes.
Nedens, either, or.
Nekenne (or _ne kenh ne_), thus.
Nene, the, this, that, these, those, etc. (an emphatic reduplication of _ne_).
Nenyakoranne, they will keep on, persist, go so far as. _Garaon, garannne_, B., to find any one; _keras, kerane_, C., to approach any one, to come to him.
Nenyawenne, it may be; it will happen; it shall be done. Future of _Nayawenh_, q. v.
Nenyerighwanendon, they will inquire. See _Enyerighwanendon_.
Neok, nok, and, also. (Contracted from _ne_ and _ok_.)
Neony [neoni], also. See _Ne_ and _Oni_.
Niateweghniserakeh, every day. From _niate_, each, every, and _wehnisera_, (or _wennisera_) day, with the locative participle _ke_.
Nitthatirighwayerathaghwe [nithariwayerathakwe], they used to do the work. From _karihwa_, business, and _gaieren_, B., to do. (Imperfect tense.)
Nityakwenontonh, they search, inquire, pry into. _Annonton, gannenton_, B., to seek, search, interrogate.
Niutercnhhatye (?) it was startling. From _katyeren_, to wonder, to be startled.
Niwa, extent, size, number.
Niyakoghswathah, they are mischievous, troublesome. _Gasaton_, B., _étre méchant_.
Niyawehkowa [niawenhkowa], great thanks. _Niawen_, C., thanks; _kowa_, great.
Niyawennonh, it happened. See _Nayawenh_.
Niyenhhenwe [niyenhhenwe], in the future.--_nenwe_ relates to the future, C.
Niyieskahhaghs, being borne. _Gaha_, B., to carry away.
Niyonsakahhawe, he is carried. _Gahawi_, B., to bring.
Noghnaken, hereafter, afterwards, in later times. See _Oghnaken_.
Nonkenh, it may be. _Enon_, B., to happen.
Nonkwaderesera, our grandchildren. See _Saderesera_.
Nonwa, now.
Nyare, while, previously. _Niare_, C., beforehand.
O.
Oghentonh, in the first place, foremost, firstly. _Gahenton_, B., to go first; _ohenton_, C, before, foremost, formerly.
Oghnaken [onaken], afterwards. _Ohnaken_, C., behind, backwards, afterwards.
Oghniyawenhonh, what has happened. From _ohni_, C., what? and _iawens_, to happen.
Oghnonekenh, dismayed (?) _Kannonhiannion_, B., to fear, to be alarmed.
Oghseronnih [onhseronni]; together. _Oseronni_, C., together.
Oghsonteraghkowa [aghsonderahkowah], disease, pestilence.
Ohhendonh; see _Oghentonh_.
Ok, and, also, indeed.
Okaghserakonh [okaserakonh], an tears. _Gagasera_, B., tears.
Okaghsery [okaseri], tears. _Okaseri_, C., tear, from _Okahra_, eye, and _keri_, liquid.
Onakara, horn.
Onekwenghdarihenh, in crimson (_i. e._, in blood). _Onigentara,_ B., red; onnigensa, blood.
Onenh [onen]. Now; at last; finally.
Onghteh [onhteh], perhaps, probably.
Onghwa, now, at present. _Onwa_, C., now. (Same as _Nonwa_.)
Onghwajok, presently.
Onghwenjakonh [onwenjakon], into the earth. See _Onwentsia._
Onidatkon, deadly.
Onikonhra, mind, character, disposition, thought, opinion, sentiment. _Gandigonra_, B., _esprit, pensée_.
Onkwaghsotshera [onkwasotsera], our forefathers. The root is _sot_, meaning grandparent. _Rak'sotha_, C., my grandfather; _ak'sotha_, my grandmother; _onkwa_, our; _sera_, the "crement," generalizing the word.
Onkwaghsotsherashonhkenha, our deceased forefathers. See _Onkwaghsotshera, Shon (son)_ is the plural suffix; _kenha_, deceased, "the late" (the French _feu_).
Onok, and, and then. See _Ony, Ok_ and _Neok_.
Onokna, and then.
Onwa, now. See _Onghwa_.
Onwentsia, earth, land, field, ground.
Ony [oni], also. See _Neony_.
Orighokonha, few words. From _karihwa_ (q. v.), and _okonha_, an affix indicating a restricted plural.
Orighwakayongh [oriwakayon], in ancient times. See _Karihwa_ and _Akayongh_.
Orighwakwekonh [oriwakwekon], all business, all matters, all the rules. See _Karihwa_ and _Akwekon_.
Owenna. See _Kawenna_.
Oya [oyah], another, another thing.
Oyata (or oyada), body, person, some one, self. _Oiata_, C., body, person; _gaiata_, B., living thing.
Oyenkondonh, men, warriors (obsolete).
R.
Radiyats. See _Ratiyats_.
Rakowanenh, he is chief (lit. he is a great one). From _kowanen_, to be great; root, _kowa_, great.
Ranyaghdenghshon [ranyadenhshon], he is of the Tortoise clan. _Keniahten, C., to be of the Tortoise band.
Ratikowanenghskwe, they were great. 3d person, plural, imperfect of _kowanen,_ to be great. See _Rakowanenh._
Ratiyanarenyon [radiyanaronnyon], their many footmarks, or traces. _Gaianna,_ B., _oiana,_ C, track, trace (frequentative form). _Gaiannaronyon,_ B., there are many tracks.
Ratiyats, they call it. 3d person, plural, of _Gaiason,_ B., to name, to call.
Raweghniseronnyh [rawenniseronni], he appoints (lit. makes) the day. From _weghnisera,_ day, and _konnis,_ C., to make.
Rawenniyo [rawenniyoh], God (lit. he is a master). _Keweniio,_ C., to be master. See Appendix, note B.
Raxhottahyh, my forefathers. _Rak sotha,_ C., my grandfather.
Roghskenrakeghdekowah, he is a war-chief. _Oskera,_ C., war; _roskenrakehte,_ warrior; _kowa,_ great.
Rodighskenrakeghdethaghkwe [rodiskenrakedetahkwe], they were warriors. 3d pers. pl. imperfect of _roskenrakehte,_ he is a warrior.
Rokhawah, his son. _Gahaak,_ B., to have for child; _nihaak,_ my child.
Rokwahhokowah, he is the great wolf. _Okwaho,_ wolf; _kowa,_ great.
Ronarasehsen, they are cousins. See _Yeshonarase._
Ronatennossendonghkwe [rondennoshentonhkwe], they used to meet (lit., to fraternize). 3d pers. pl. imperfect of _atennossen,_ to be brother and sister.
Ronenh, they said. _En,_ B. to say (used only in the preterite).
Roneronh, they thought. _Eron,_ B., to think.
Ronkeghsotah, my forefathers. See _Onkwaghsotshera_ and _Raxhottahyh._
Roskerewake, he is of the Bear clan. _Akskerewake_, C., to be of the band of the Bear.
Rotirighwison, they made the rule, they decided. See _Karihwa_. _Gariheison_; B., to finish a matter, to conclude.
S.
Saderesera, thy grandchildren. _Atere_, grandchild; _sera_, the crement, generalizing the word. See _Onkwaghsotshera_.
Sahondakon, in thy ears. _Ahonta_, B., ear.
Sanekenh, although, yet, nevertheless.
Sanekherenhonh, thou art losing.
Sanheghtyensera, thy women, thy womankind. _Gannhetien_, B., woman; _sera_, the generalizing affix. See _Saderesera_.
Sanikonra, thy mind. See _Onikonhra_.
Sathaghyonnishon, thou art of the Wolf clan. _Tahionni_, one of the Wolf clan.
Senirighwisaanonghkwe, ye two were the founders. See _Sewarighwisaanonghkwe_.
Seniyatagweniyohkwe, ye two were the principals. See _Jadakweniyu_; the affix _kwe_ indicates the past tense.
Sewarighwisaanonghkwe [sewarihwisahanonkwe], ye established, ye were the founders. From _karihwa_, q. v., and _gason_, B., to finish, to consummate. _Garihwisaani_, B., to accomplish a work, to complete a business.
Sewatarighwakhaonghkwe, ye were combined in the work, ye joined heartily in the business. From _karihwa_, (q. v.) and _gagaon_, B., to find good; _gariheagáon_, B., to like the affair.
Seweghne [sewenghne], ye said. _En_, B., to say.
Seweghniserathagh, for a time, lit, for a day. See _Weghniserade._
Seweryenghskwe, ye who were comrades. (?) Probably from _Oeri,_ C., friend, comrade,--here a verb in the imperfect tense.
Shehaweh [shehawa], thy child, or children. See _Rohhawah._
Shekonh, yet, still. _Sekon,_ C., still, moreover.
Shihonadewiraratye, they with their children (lit., they kept on producing young ones). From _yodewirare,_ a fowl hatching.
Skaendayendon, again a waste place. _Oyente,_ B., woods; _gaienthon,_ to have fields. (Reiterative form).
Skarenhesekowah, a lofty tree; lit., a great tree-top. From _garenha,_ B., tree-top, _ese_ (suffix) long, high, and _kowa,_ great.
Skennen, well, easily, peacefully, pleasantly.
Skennenji, quite well, very peacefully, safely. From _skennen_ and _tsi,_ C. an augmentative affix.
T.
Tehhodidarakeh, the two clans. See _Tekadarakehne._
Tehotyatakarorenh, acting in two capacities (lit., a person divided). From _oiata,_ person, and _tioren,_ B., to split.
Tekadarakehne, there were two clans, or, of the two clans. From _otara_ or _katara,_ clan or totem (in the reduplicate form and past tense).
Tesatkaghthoghserontye [tesatkahthohserontye], thou sawest in coming. _Katkathos,_ C., to see, look. The cislocative, frequentative, and progressive forms are all combined in this expressive word--"you kept seeing as you came."
Thadenyedane (?), he will stand. _Gataon,_ B., to raise himself upright.
Thadenseghsatkaghthonnyonheke [thadensehsatkatonnyonheke], thou mayest look about thee. _Katkathos,_ C., to look (frequentative form, subjunctive mood).
Thadetyatroghkwanekenh, let us two smoke together, From _garoksa,_ B., _kahrokwa,_ C, a pipe. Bruyas gives the derivative form _tsatrokoannegen,_ but does not explain it; it evidently means, "let us (pl.) smoke together."
Thensadondeke, thou wilt hear. _Athonte, athontaton,_ B., _kathontats,_ C., to hear, obey, consent.
Thienkahhawe, will carry. _Gahawi,_ B., to bring.
Thisayatatirhehon [thisayadadirhehon], thou arrivest.
Thisennekwakenry, thou art sitting in blood. _Gannegse,_ B., blood, and _gagenrion,_ to roll, to wallow.
Thiwakwekonh [ohtihwakwekonh], all around.
Thiyaensayeken, they will see it again. _Gagen,_ B., to see.
Thiyenjidewatyenghsaeke [thienjidewatyenseke], we shall have reached home; lit., we shall have taken a seat. _Atient, atien,_ B., to sit down.
Tsini; see _Jini._
Tsisaronkatah, thy hearing. _Arongen,_ B., to hear, to listen; _arongaton,_ B., to hear by anything.
Tyewenninekenne, he will speak some words. See _Entyewenninekenneh._
Tyeyadakeron, bodies are lying. _Oyata,_ body; _gageron,_ B., to be in any place.
Tyoghnawatenghjihonh [dyonawaghdehtsihonh], a swift current. _Ohnawa,_ C., current, swift stream of water; _gannasteton,_ B., swift river; _tsihon,_ an augmentative suffix,--"exceedingly swift."
W.
Waahkwadewayendonh, taking care, carefully. _Ateseyenton,_ B., to take care, to do well.
Waghontenhnonterontye, or Wahhondennonterontye, they were as brothers thenceforth. _Atennonteron_, to be brothers. The word is in the aorist indicative, 3d pers. pl., progressive form (indicated by the termination _tye_).
Wahhoronghyaronnon, he put away the clouds. From _aronhia_, sky, heaven, cloud.
Wakarighwakayone [wakarihwakayonne], it has become old. See _Karighwakayonh_.
Wakatyerenkowa, I was greatly surprised. From _katyeren_, to wonder, or be startled, and _kowa_, greatly.
Wakonnyh [wakonnikih], woman, womankind. (Obsolete.)
Wakwenekwenghdarokwanyon, we have washed off the bloodstains. _Garagsentara_, B., blood, and _garagsan_, to take away, or _garagsegan_, to efface.
Wakwennyonkoghde, I have stopped for you (as tears). Probably from _ganniong_, B., the nose; _kannionkon_, to bleed from the nose, _i.e._, flowing from the nose.
Watidewennakarondonyon, we have put the horns on him (_i.e._, made him a chief). _Onnagara_, B., horn; _gannagaronni_, B., _être considérable_.
Watyakwasiharako, we have removed the obstruction, we have unstopped. _Gasiharongsan_, B., to unstop (_desboucher_).
Watyonkwentendane, we have become wretched, or poor. _GenOenteon_, B., to be worthy of compassion.
Wedeweyennendane (see under Wete--).
Wedewennakeraghdanyon (see under Wete--).
Weghniserade [wenniserade], to-day. _Enniscra_, B., day; _nonwa wenniserate_, C., to-day.
Wetewayennendane, we have finished. _Gaweyennentáon_, B., to rest, to cease from working.
Wetewennakeraghdanyon [wedewennakeratanyon], we have made the signs, we have gone through the ceremonies. _Ganneraton_, B., "_se servir de règle_."
Y.
Yadayakonakarondatye, he may be going with horns. From _onakara_, horn (progressive form, subjunctive mood).
Yadehninhohhanonghne, they two guarded the door, they two were the doorkeepers. _Gannhoha_, B., door; _gannonna_, to guard.
Yaghdekakoghsonde [yaghdegagonhsonde], invisible, (lit., without face); from _yahte_, not, and _kakonhsa_ (_okonsa_) face.
Yaghnonwenh, never. _Iah-nonwenton_, C., never. From _Iah_ (_yah_) not, and _nonwa_ or _onwa_, now.
Yakwenronh, we say. _En_, B., to say.
Yatehhotinhohhataghkwen, they were together at the doorway (_i. e._, they were the doorkeepers). _Gannhoha_, B., door; _atakon_, B. (_sub voce At_), "_ce dans quoi il y a_."
Yatenkarighwentaseron, to finish the business. From _karihwa_ (q. v.) and _awentas_, to finish.
Yejisewahhawitonh, ye have taken it with you. _Gahal_, B., to bring; _gahalton_, to take away.
Yejisewatkonseraghkwanyon, ye have it as a pillow. _Esakonseraka_, B., thou wilt use as a pillow.
Yejisewayadkeron [yetsisewayatakeron], ye are laid together. _Gageron_, B., to be together, to place together.
Yejodenaghstahhere, they added a frame. See _Jodennaghstahhere._
Yendewanaghsende, we will drop (or let fall) into it. _Aseñon_ (?), B., to fall; _asenhton,_ to cause to fall.
Yenjontahidah, they will follow. _Gatazori, gatazi,_ B., to run.
Yenyontatenoutshine, they are to be led by the hand. Probably from _gannonna,_ B., to keep, and _atsi,_ comrade.
Yenyontatideron, they shall be placed. _Genteron,_ B., to put any animate thing in any place.
Yeshodonnyh, or Yeshotonnyh, his uncle (properly, "his father's younger brother"); also, as pl., his uncles. _'Atonni,_ C., a relative on the father's side. The prefix _yes,_ in which the signs of the translocative and reiterative forms are combined, gives the sense of "the next younger (uncle) but one."
Yeshohawah, or Yeshohawak, his next younger child but one. See _Rohhawah,_ and _Yeshodonnyh._
Yeshonadadekenah, or Yeshondadekenah, they are brothers. _Rontatekenha,_ C., they are brothers together. This word is made up of the prefix _ye,_ the sign of the translocative form; _s,_ of the reiterative form (see _Yeshodonnyh_); _ron_ or _rona,_ the plural pronoun (they); _tate,_ the sign of the reciprocal form; _ken,_ younger brother; and _ha,_ an affectionate diminutive affix, generally added to words expressing relationship.
Yeshonarase, his second cousin (lit., they are cousins). _Arase,_ cousin. See _Yeshodonnyh._
Yeshonaraseshen, he was their cousin. See _Yeshonarase._
Yeshotiriwayen, they have again referred the business. From _karihwa,_ q. v.
Yetsisewanenyadanyon, ye are in your graves. Perhaps from _onenya_, stone,--ye are under the stones.
Yetsisewanonwadaryon, ye have taken your intellects (lit., brains) with you. _Ononwara_, C., brain, head.
Yetsisewennitskagwanion, ye have placed it under you. _Ennitskare_, B., to be seated on anything.
Yondonghs, it is called; they call it. _Katon_, C., to say.
Yonkwakaronny, they are wasting, or injuring, us. _Gagaronnion_, B., to do harm to any one; to cause him some loss.
Yonkwanikonghtaghkwenne [yonkwennikondakwenne], we depended on them.
Yontkwatkennison, we are assembled. _Atkennison_, B., to be assembled.
Yotdakarahon [yotdarahon], things falling on one. _Ga'ráon_, B., to fall upon.
Yoyanere, it is good, it is well. From the root _yaner_, noble. See _Kayancrenh_.
Yuneghrakwah, solemn event. See _Jiniyuneghrakwah_.
INDEX.
(_Names of authors are printed in small capitals; of races and tribes in italic._)
Adoption of conquered Enemies
_Agnier,_ French for Canienga
Akahenyonk, Cayuga chief, Tekahenyonk in chant
_Algonkin_ stock
_Algonkins,_ a nomadic people, their war with the Alligewi, friendly to the Hurons, western (Ojibways), the Lenapes,
Allegheny mountains
Allegheny river
Alliances of Iroquois
_Alligewi,_ or Moundbuilders
_Andastes,_ or _Conestogas,_ among the Iroquois
_Aryans,_ their character, in Europe and Asia
Ataensic, a Huron divinity
Atotarho, Onondaga chief, meaning of name, his opposition to Hiawatha, joins the League, myths relating to, political kinship, legend of poisonous bird, story of Hiawatha's daughter, his name in the chant, his aids in council, succession of Atotarhos,
_Attiwandaronks,_ or _Neutrals,_ their country, their history, among the Hurons, their mortuary customs, cause of their overthrow,
Ball clan,
_Basques,_ their language, their character
Bear clan
Bearfoot, Rev. Isaac
Beaver clan
Book of Rites, its contents, its origin, its name, addresses of condolence, Canienga text, translation, Onandaga book, translation, notes on Canienga book, notes on Onondaga book
Brant, Joseph
BREBEUF, on the Huron character
BRINTOS, D. G.
BRUYAS, his Iroquois dictionary
Buck, George, Onondaga chief
Buck, Chief John
Canandaigua, Lake
Canasatego, Onondaga chief, rebukes the Delawares
_Canienga,_ meaning of
_Caniengas,_ or _Mokawks,_ their country, their language, the oldest Iroquois nation, war with Mohegans, their ancient chiefs
_Caniengas_, remove to Canada their clans their name in council their councillors their towns
Canoe voyages
Cartier, J.
CATLIN, G.
_Cayuga_, meaning not known
Cayuga Lake
_Cayugas_, their country their origin assailed by Atotarho join the League remove to Canada their clans a "younger nation" their name in council their councillors their towns
Champlain in the Huron country assails the Iroquois
Champlain, Lake
_Ckerokees_ their language reject the League
_Chicasas_
Chief, office of installation of succession of war-chief
Chief matron, her function
_Chippeways_, See _Ojibways_,
_Choctaws_
Clans, Iroquois origin of number of See _Ball, Bear, Beaver, Deer, Eel, Hawk, Heron, Snake, Snipe, Tortoise, Wolf_,
CLARK, J. S.
CLARKE, P. D.
CLARKE, J. V. H.
Classes in Council
Colden, C.
Condoling council proceedings in
Condoling song explanation of text of versified
_Conestogas_, See _Andastes_,
Confederacy, See _Iroquois_ and _League_,
Conquered tribes, treatment of
Convention of Founders
Council of League its formation number of members unanimity required classes in induction of members held at Onondaga in 1657 composing quarrels held in Philadelphia in 1742
Council Fire
Councillors number of how selected name of list of clans and classes of
COPWAY, G.
_Credit River Indians_
Cruelties of Indians of civilized nations
CUOQ, J. A. his philological works his Iroquois dictionary
Cusick, Albert
CUSICK, D.
DAWSON, J. W.
David of Schoharie
Deer clan
Dekanawidah, Canienga chief his origin joins Hiawatha has no successor his claims as founder
_Delawares_, or _Lenapes_ their clans their subjection a band received into the League
DE SCHWEINITZ, E.
_Doorkeepers_ (_Senecas_)
Eel clan
Elder nations
ELLIS, "Polynesian Researches"
Era of Iroquois confederacy
Erie, Lake
_Eries_, a Huron-Iroquois nation their origin their overthrow among the Iroquois
_Euskarians_, or _Basques_
Feast of the Dead
Female suffrage
Fidelity to allies
FIGUIER, L.
_Five Nations_, See _Iroquois_
Founders of League
Funeral usages
Genesee river
Georgian bay
Grand River Reserve
_Great-Tree People_ (_Oneidas_)
_Great-Pipe People_ (_Cayugas_)
Greenhalgh at Onondaga
Hawk clan
HAWLEY, C.
Hayonwatha, See _Hiawatha_
HECKEWELDER, J.
Heron clan
Hiawatha, his history meaning of name orthography of name his projected league his flight to the Caniengas reception by Dekanawidah made a Canienga chief myths relating to his reforms his motives his name in the chant his daughter his white canoe
Hill, Abram, Oneida chief
Historical chant
Historical traditions framers of the League Hiawatha's daughter
Hochelaga
Horns, as insignia origin of custom
Horse clan
Hudson, voyage of
Hudson river
_Huron-Iroquois nations_ their original country war with the Alligewi their dispersion
_Hurons_, or _Wyandots_ their history among the Iroquois their mortuary customs their deities their character their flight to the Ojibways cause of their overthrow their language
Hymn, national, See _Condoling Song_
_Iberians_
Indian character misconception of
Indian social system
Indians and whites
Installation of chiefs
Iroquois, their country when first known to whites [Footnote: The date as printed is an error. "Sixteenth century" should be "seventeenth."] their migrations conquer the Eries expel the Hurons conquer the Attiwandaronks their League formation of League date of the confederacy name of League League broken up
Iroquois, in Canada, their towns, See _Towns, Iroquois,_ their clans, See _Clans, Iroquois,_ their classes, See _Classes in Council,_ their national hymn, See _Condoling Song,_ their women, their chiefs, succession of, their chief divinity, their character, their love of peace, their foreign policy, object of their League, their alliances, causes of their wars, treatment of subject tribes, adoption of enemies, their language, See _Language, Iroquois,_ meaning of "Iroquois,"
Jesuit missionaries,
Jesuit "Relations,"
Johnson, Chief George,
Johnson, Chief J. Smoke, his office, preserves the Book of Rites,
Johnson, Sir William,
Jones, Chief Philip,
Juskeha, Huron divinity,
_Kanienke,_ See _Canienga,_
_Kanonsionni,_ meaning of, spelt Kanonghsyonny,
Kanyadanyo, Seneca chief, Skanyadariyo in chant,
Karenna, See _Condoling Song,_
Kayanerenh, meaning of,
LAFITAU,
La Fort, Daniel,
Lamentations,
Language, Iroquois, its origin and dialects, description of, Brebeuf and Max Mtiller on, works on phonology, grammar, abstract nouns, verbal forms, permanence of, analysis and synthesis,
Laws of the League, as to succession of chiefs, as to intertribal homicide, as to mortuary usages, a "Great Reformation,"
LAWSON, J.,
League, See _Iroquois_ and _Laws,_
Leagues common among Indians,
Le Mercier at Onondaga,
Le Moyne at Onondaga,
_Lenapes,_ See _Delawarts,_
LONGFELLOW, H. V.,
Long-house,
Manabozho, Ojibway divinity,
_Maqua,_ meaning of,
Matron, Chief, See _Chief Matron,_
MAX MÜLLER, F.,
_Mengwe,_ See _Mingo,_
Migrations, Iroquois, Indian,
_Mingo,_ meaning of,
Missionaries, English, Jesuit, See _Jesuit Missionaries,_
_Mississagas,_ received by Iroquois,
Mississippi river,
_Mohawk,_ meaning of,
Mohawk river,
_Mohawks,_ See _Caniengas,_
_Mohegans_, or _Mohicans,_ war with the Iroquois, protected by Iroquois,
Montreal,
Morgan, L.H.
Mortuary customs,
_Moundbuilders_, See _Alligewi,_ acquainted with wampum,
Mourning Council, See _Condoling Council,_
Mourning customs, See _Funeral usages,_
_Name-carriers_ (_Onondagas_),
_Nanticokes_, admitted into the League,
_Neutral Nation,_ See _Attewandaronks_,
_Nihatirontakowa_, See _Oneidas, name in council,_
Notes on the Canienga Book,
Notes on the Onondaga Book,
Odatshehte, Oneida chief,
Ohio, meaning of,
Ohio River,
_Ojibways_, allies of Iroquois, war with, treaty with,
_Oneida_, meaning of, _Oneidas_, their country their origin war with Mohegans join the League their clans a "younger nation" their name in Council their Councillors their towns,
_Onondaga_, meaning of, Onondaga castle,
_Onondogas_, their country, their origin, ruled by Atotarho, join the League, a part remove to Canada, Reservation near Syracuse, N.Y. their Book of Rites, orthography of Book,
_Onondagas_, their language, their clans, _et seq._ an "elder nation," their name in Council their councillors site of their former capital their towns,
Oswego river,
Oyander, title of
PARKMAN, F.
Peace, preservation of; how restored love of
Pennsylvania Historical Society,
Personification,
Pictures, Indian,
Political kinship,
POWELL, J. W.
Pre-Aryans in Europe and America,
Preliminary ceremony, the, Proper names, obsolete,
Protection of weak tribes by Iroquois, _Tuteloes_, _Delawares_, _Nanticokes_, _Mohegans_, _Mississagas_,
PYRLAEUS, C.,
Quebec,
Rawenniyo, name of deity, meaning of,
Record-keepers,
Relations, See _Jesuit Relations,_
Religious sentiment,
RENAN, E.,
Roanoke River,
_Ronaninhohonti_, Door-keepers, See _Senecas, name in council,_
_Rotisennakehte_, name-carriers, See _Onondagas, name in council,_
Royaner, title of,
Sachem, an Algonkin word,
Sakayengwaraton, See _Johnson, J. S._
_Saponies_, or _Saponas_
Scandawati, See _Skanawati_,
SCHOOLCRAFT, H. R.
_Seneca_, meaning of
Seneca, Lake
_Senecas_, their country their origin assailed by Atotarho their ancient chiefs join the League remain in New York their clans an "elder nation" their name in council their language their councillors their duty as door-keepers their towns
Sermon, a pagan
Shadekaronyes, Seneca chief
Six Nations, See _Iroquois_,
Six Nations' Reserve, See _Grand River_,
Skanawati, Onondaga chief Scandawati's suicide
Skeneateles Lake
SMITH, Mrs. E. A.
Smoking in council
Snake clan
_Sonontowane_, meaning of
_Sonontowans_, See _Senecas_,
_Sotinonnawentona_ See _Cayugas_, name in council,
Spanish clan
Speaker of council
SQUIER, E. G.
Stadaconé
STONE, W. L.
_Talligewi_, See _Alligewi_,
Taronhiawagon, Iroquois divinity
Ta-oun-ya-wat-ha
_Tehadirihoken_ See _Caniengas_, name in council,
Tekarihoken, Canienga chief meaning of
_Tionontates_, or _Tobacco Nation_
Tobacco, Indian
_Tobacco Nation_, See _Tionontates_,
Tortoise clan divided
Towns, Iroquois list of, in Book of Rites deserted sites
Treaty of Iroquois with the Dutch
Treaty of Iroquois with the English
Treaty of Iroquois with the Ojibways
TROMBULL, J. H.
Turkey clan
_Tuscaroras_, their origin their migrations join the Iroquois their clans a "younger nation"
_Tuteloes_ received by Iroquois
Wampum known to Moundbuilders mourning
Wampum-keepers
Wampum-records, reading of
Wampum-strings
War-chief
Wars of self-defence
Wars of extermination
WHITNEY, W. D.
WILKIE, J.
WILSON, D.
Wolf clan
Women, condition of as peacemakers regard for
_Wyandots_, See _Hurons_,
Yondennase, See _Condoling Council_,
Younger nations
Zeisberger
End of Project Gutenberg's The Iroquois Book of Rites, by Horatio Hale